The Opposite House: A Novel — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Lhe Opposite House. 15 dark-blue eyes looked grave and earnest beneath their arched brows, the lips closed firmly over the white teeth, and a deep, almost melancholy line ap- peared on his brow. Traugott Gerrald had matured to manhood. Only afew days before his features had been characterless, boyish and yet d/as¢—a hand- some profile, behind whose open brow there lived only an unbridled love of pleasure. And now had come the crisis when fate, for the first time, strips the smile from the lips, when with rude hand it cuts deep lines and imprints upon the face the sacred signet whose device is— Experience.” A broad band of black crepe was wound around his arm. Before him still lay a fresh flower, which he had taken from his mother’s coffin as a last memento. He pressed it to his lips almost timidly ; the white blossom seemed to him a sacred legacy. “My talisman! My sacred relic!” He opened his elegant note-book to conceal it among the leaves. But all the pages were filled. Here laya pomegranate-blossom. ‘From Heloise’s curls!’ was written beneath, and the beginning of a stu- dent’s drinking song. No, that was no place forthe white flower of death ! A deep flush mounted slowly to his pale brow. Here were figures; big, black figures, hastily scrawled—at the gaming-table ! cComicloo KS