"Shall we sit down? shall we have another turn? shall we have a drink? shall we make up two sets?" It was especially to the maiden with the collar-bones that Klaus Heinrich made remarks with a "We" in them. He had quite forgotten his left hand, it hung down, he felt so happy that it did not worry him and he never thought of hiding it. Many saw now for the first time what really was the matter with it, and looked curiously on with an unconscious grimace at the thin, short arm in the sleeve, the little, by now rather dirty white kid glove which covered the hand. But as Klaus Heinrich was so careless about it, the others plucked up courage, the result being that everybody took hold of the malformed hand quite unconcernedly in the round or square dances.
He did not keep it back. He felt himself borne along, nay rather whirled around by a feeling, a strong, wild feeling of contentment, that grew, gathered heat from itself, possessed itself of him more and more recklessly, overpowered him even more vehemently and breathlessly, seemed to lift him triumphantly from the floor. What was happening? It was difficult to say, difficult to be quite sure. The air was full of words, detached cries, not spoken but expressed on the dancers' faces, in their attitudes, in all they were doing and saying. "He must just once! Bring him along, bring him along …! Caught, caught!" A young damsel with a turned-up nose, who asked him for a galop when the "leap-year" dance came, said quite clearly without any obvious connexion, "Chucker up!" as she got ready to start off with him.
He saw pleasure in every eye, and saw that their pleasure lay in drawing him out, in having him amongst them. In his happiness, his dream, to be with them, amongst them, one of them, there obtruded itself from time to time a cold, uncomfortable feeling that he was deluding himself, that the warm, glorious "We" was deceiving him, that he did
