What was he to do against the masterly manner in which Mahlmann accepted his loans? On Sunday the Mecklenburger had brought a bouquet for Agnes, though Diederich, who came with empty hands, might have said: "That is really from me." Instead of that he was silent, and was more incensed against Agnes than against Mahlmann. The latter commanded his admiration when he ran at night after some passer-by and knocked in his hat—although Diederich was by no means blind to the warning which this procedure contained for himself.
At the end of the month he received for his birthday an unexpected sum of money which his mother had saved up for him, and he arrived at Göppel's with a bouquet, not so large as to give himself away, or to challenge Mahlmann. As she took it the girl's face wore an embarrassed expression, and Diederich's smile was both shy and condescending. That Sunday seemed to him unusually gay and the proposal that they should go to the Zoological Gardens did not surprise him.
The company set out, after Mahlmann had counted them: Eleven persons. Like Göppel's sisters, all the women they met were dressed quite differently than on week-days, as if they belonged to-day to a higher class, or had come into a legacy. The men wore frock coats, only a few with dark trousers like Diederich, but many had straw hats. The side streets were broad, uniform and empty, not a soul was to be seen, nor any of the usual refuse. In one, however, a group of little girls in white dresses, and black stockings, bedecked with ribbons were singing shrilly and dancing in a ring. Immediately afterwards, in the main thoroughfare, they came on perspiring matrons storming a bus, and the faces of the shop assistants, who struggled ruthlessly with them for seats, looked so pale beside their strong red cheeks that one would have thought they were going to faint. Every one pushed forward, every one rushed to the one goal where pleasure would begin. On every face was plainly written: "Come on, we have worked enough!"
