Mann's Little Herr Friedemann

At a table immediately to the right of the door a small circle had formed around the student, who was discoursing volubly. He had asserted that more than one parallel to a given straight line could be drawn through one and the same point; Dr. Hagenström’s wife had exclaimed: “But that’s impossible!” and he was now proving his proposition so cogently that everyone was pretending to have understood it.