The first arrivals were relatives of my mother’s whom I hardly knew. I had to introduce myself, as they did not remember me; I had seen them once before, in Munich, where they lived, though I had forgotten the occasion. They were dressed all in black and gazed around the entrance hall rather arrogantly, it seemed to me. They at once asked where the chapel was and whether the dead were lying in state in the chapel. No, I said, in the Orangery. They wanted to go there right away to see the dead. These people weren’t at Caecilia’s wedding, I thought; if they had been I’d have noticed them. I had no intention of escorting them to the Orangery, and my brother-in-law had disappeared into the kitchen as soon as he saw them. I looked around for my sisters, who had unaccountably deserted me, and suggested to the guests that they make their own way to the Orangery. I would have taken them across, I said, but I was urgently needed upstairs. This was an excuse, but these guests had made such a bad impression on me from the moment I set eyes on them that I did not want to devote any more time to them. One after another they had held out their hands to me and I had had to shake them. I tried to hide my distaste for these people, but I may not have succeeded. I do not always succeed, especially when the people concerned are so patently distasteful. I was repelled by their ostentation, by their expensive clothes, which they had clearly bought specially for the funeral and now flaunted, as at a dress rehearsal, with such disgusting arrogance and assurance. I told them how to find the Orangery. There were five of them in all, a couple with three children in their late teens, already utterly spoiled, I thought, superficial, stupid, and insolent. They lacked any reserve and talked in loud voices, as if they owned the place. I do not know whether they had visited us before, but they probably had, as my mother had a penchant for people of this kind, I thought, her own kind. The Orangery is over there, I said, leaving them to find their way. My brother-in-law, having withdrawn to the kitchen, was joking with the kitchen maids, who were busy preparing a buffet that my sisters had ordered that morning. Big trays with every possible kind of open sandwich and big dishes with every possible kind of salad were carried in from all directions. Bowls full of sauces and creams and trays piled high with sandwiches were even brought from the chapel, which is always cool and hence particularly suitable for storing food. For the guests had to be fed. They naturally did not expect a cooked dinner, but at least they were entitled to a cold buffet, and my sisters are experts at cold buffets, even though they cannot cook. Their cold buffets have always found favor. I do not know who is the greater expert, Caecilia or Amalia; both are famous for their cold buffets. I have always been rather indifferent to cold buffets, and to food in general, but one thing I know is that Austrian food is not the world’s best and of course cannot be compared with Roman food. The smell of the cold buffet now filled the entrance hall. While my relatives from Munich made their way to the Orangery, the next arrivals were coming across from the Farm, and the stream of guests continued to flow uninterrupted from about five o’clock until late in the evening. All kinds of people arrived from every part of the country and from abroad, far more than had attended Caecilia’s wedding, and this was only the eve of the funeral. There were well over a hundred, probably a hundred twenty or a hundred thirty. I gave up counting them, and I also stopped attending to individual guests, leaving this task, which I found extremely unpleasant, indeed repugnant, to my sisters, who had taken up their position by the gate in order to receive the guests and had copies of the accommodations list. Only a few were put up in the main house, most being accommodated in the Huntsmen’s Lodge, a few in the Gardeners’ House, and a large number at various inns in the village. Most of them arrived wearing black, which made for a fine austere picture. Spadolini, of all people, did not turn up in black; he was wearing a green-and-gray all-weather coat, which I recognized as one that he had bought in Rome with my mother — in the Via Condotti, of course. But I will return to Spadolini presently. The wine cork manufacturer quickly melted into the background; Caecilia was constantly looking for him and calling out his name, rather too loudly, I felt, given the occasion, and the guests were amused to hear her repeatedly calling his name. As the weather was fine, most of the guests stood outside in the park, enjoying the opportunity to get to know one another, for many of them, as I discovered, had not met before. Others, especially the old and the elderly, stayed in the hall, where they appreciated the proximity of the kitchen and the chapel. Many of the guests, expecting the bodies to be lying in state in the chapel, went straight through the hall to the chapel and were surprised to find no bodies there. It had been so long since the last funeral, my paternal grandfather’s, that few were familiar with the Wolfsegg custom of using the Orangery for lyings in state. Most of them therefore went straight through the hall to the chapel, and only then to the Orangery, where there were now so many wreaths and bouquets in front of the entrance that the gardeners had difficulty finding room for them all. From my window on the second floor, the company conversing quietly in the park presented a beautiful and elegant picture. I had retired to my room to avoid constant exposure to the guests. Finding it unendurable to have to say the same thing over and over again and hear the same replies, I had seized the first opportunity to withdraw to my room, from which I could survey more or less the whole scene. My sisters had meanwhile posted my brother-in-law at the gateway, instructing him to tell the new arrivals where they were to be put up for the night. I have always been more attracted to funerals than to weddings, and I was now enjoying everything much more than I had at the wedding a week earlier, even though, as I looked down at the park, I saw largely the same people. Except that now they were quite different, restrained by the logic of the occasion, as it were. They stood around in groups and chatted, as if at a midsummer night’s celebration, I thought, their black attire disguising their otherwise unbearable tastelessness. It’s a pity, I thought, that the occasion for such a beautiful and elegant picture should be a sad one. Every so often we should give a party like this, I thought, just for the sake of the beautiful and elegant picture it presents, which has such aesthetic appeal. But heaven forbid that we should understand what they’re all saying, I thought. Standing at the window, I imagined all the time that they were asking about me, about the son, that is to say the brother, the heir, the new master, or whatever, who was not to be seen among them and had not put in an appearance, although of course he was known to be present. I had not switched on the light in my room, wishing to remain completely unnoticed and avoid discovery as I gazed down at the company below. Spadolini had not yet arrived. I expected him at any moment, but he arrived much later, causing quite a stir, as may be imagined. The time began to drag, and so I went from my own room to my father’s and sat down at the card table he had always used as a dressing table. His dressing gown still hung on the door. I got up and slipped it on, as I suddenly felt cold. I tied the belt and stood in front of the wall mirror. The tiredness that I had at first ignored when sitting in the kitchen with my brother-in-law had now worn off. Though no longer tired, I did not feel inclined to show myself in public, so I sat in my father’s chair and stretched out my legs. As I did so I noticed that the room had been cleaned since I last saw it. In no time everything had become neat and tidy, and on the table in front of the window stood a vase of flowers, though it was too dark to see what kind of flowers they were. It immediately occurred to me that this was the room that had been prepared for Spadolini. I recalled what I had said to Gambetti on the telephone: that it was not only likely but quite certain that Spadolini would come to the funeral and spend the night in my father’s room. I wasn’t mistaken, I thought. By the bedside were the English slippers that my mother had bought my father in Vienna. He had never worn them because he thought them