There he lay a long time. The bolt that struck him down had lighted the past with cruel distinctness: he had seen them both innocent whom he persecuted. And there was no guilt but his. He alone had built up the misery that lay crushingly upon him, load on load, guilt on guilt. But after all it was not yet too late! He heard his wife's quiet step in the hall coming toward the door of the room. He heard the door open. If little Annie had been standing in the door of the bedroom then, she would have smiled. He meant to be kind, he meant to be again as he had been before little Annie had been taken sick. He held out his hand to the woman as she entered. She saw him and started. She was as white as little Annie's body, even her lips, usually so crimson, were white. Her neck, her beautiful arms, her soft hands were white, her eyes that were always so shining, were dull. All the life in her had withdrawn to the deepest recesses of her heart and there wept for her dead child. When she saw him her whole body began to tremble. In two steps she stood between him and the body; as if she still wanted to protect the child from him. And yet it was not that. Neither fear nor dread quivered about her little mouth; it was firmly closed. It was a different feeling that drew her beautifully arched eyebrows together and flamed in her usually so gentle eyes. He saw: this was no longer the woman who had spoken melting words of peace; she had died with her child in the terrible night just past. The woman who stood before him was no longer the mother who looked at him with hope, whose child he could save; it was the mother whose child he had killed. It was a mother who drove the murderer away from the holy place where her child lay. He spoke—Oh, if he had but spoken yesterday! Yesterday she had yearned for the words; today she did not hear them.

"Give me your hand, Christiane," he said. She drew her hand back convulsively, as if he had already touched her. "I have been mistaken," he continued; "I will believe you, I see myself; I will not do it again! You are better than I."

"The child is dead," she said, and even her voice sounded pale. "Don't leave me without comfort in my terrible fear. If I can become different I can only do so now, and if you give me your hand and raise me up," said the man. She looked at the child, not at him.

"The child is dead," she repeated. Did that mean it was indifferent to her what became of him now that his improvement could no longer save the child? The man half raised himself; he gripped her hand with a strength full of fear and held it fast.

"Christiane," he sobbed wildly, "Here I lie like a worm. Don't tread on me! Don't tread on me! For God's sake, have mercy. I could never forget it, if I had lain here like a worm in vain. Think of it! For God's sake, think of it; you have me in your hand now. You can make of me what you will. I hold you responsible. You will be to blame for anything that may come after this."—She had finally succeeded in withdrawing her hand from his grasp; she held it away from herself as if she looked at it with loathing because he had touched it.

"The child is dead," she said. He understood that she said: "Between me and the murderer of my child there can never be anything more in common, neither on earth nor in heaven."

He rose. A word of forgiveness might perhaps have saved him! Perhaps! Who knows! He staggered back into the bedroom. Christiane did not see him go, but she felt that his presence no longer profaned the place in which lay the sacred image of her maternal sorrow. Weeping softly, she sank down over her dead child.

In the meantime Apollonius had begun the decorating of the tower-roof of St. George's. He had built a scaffold, fastened his ladder to the broach-post, put a hempen ring on it, attached his tackle to the ring and hung his swinging-seat on the pulley. The tin ornamentation, which consisted of single long pieces, was intended to represent two garlands festooned around the spire.

Apollonius was industrious at his work. The mastertinsmith, who was anxious to see his decorations completed as soon as possible, had less ground to complain of Apollonius than the latter had to be dissatisfied with him. At first the master urged Apollonius; soon Apollonius had to drive the master on. A part of the top garland which was to hang in a festoon over the door in the roof was lacking. Apollonius could not finish his work until he had the material for it. A neighboring village required his services for minor repairs. Leaving his tackle hanging from the tower of St. George's he went to Brambach.

The next day old Valentine knocked at the living-room door. He had already been there several times and gone away again. His entire being expressed uneasiness. He was so preoccupied with something that he had on his mind that he thought he must have failed to hear the answer to his knock and laid his ear to the key-hole as if he assumed that it must still be there to hear if he only listened hard enough. His anxiety aroused him from his absent-mindedness. He knocked a second and a third time and, still receiving no answer, plucked up courage to open the door and go in. The young wife had avoided him for some time. She did so now, too, but today he had to speak to her. She intentionally sat at some distance from the windows, near the bedroom door. The old man did not perceive that she was as uneasy as he, and that his presence made her even more so. He apologized for his intrusion. When she made a movement to leave the room, he assured her that he would not remain long and that he would not have forced himself upon her had he not been impelled to do so by something which was perhaps very important. He hoped that it was not so, but still, it might be. She listened and looked more and more anxiously now at the windows, now at the door. Her demeanor showed plainly that she hoped if he had anything to say to her he would say it as quickly as he could.

Valentine began: "Master Fritz is on the roof of St. George's. I saw him just now in the church-yard."

"And did he look this way? Did he see you coming into the house?" asked Christiane breathlessly.

"God forbid!" replied the old man. "He is working like the devil today, not even thinking of anything to eat and drink. When a man works like that—" Valentine stopped and completed the sentence to himself—"he has some end in view." Christiane was silent. She was struggling with the desire to confide her whole anxiety to the faithful old soul. He saw nothing of this. "Our neighbor, over there," he continued, "has times, you know, when he cannot sleep at all. The night before Master Apollonius went to Brambach he was at his kitchen window and saw somebody sneaking from the back of our house into the shed." He did not say whom the neighbor had seen, he probably expected the young wife to ask. But she had not even heard his story. "The previous evening," he went on, "before Master Apollonius left for Brambach, he tried to get together the things he wanted to take with him; he examined everything, as he always does, but he could not make up his mind what to take. And it is so strange that Master Fritz has become so industrious all of a sudden."

Apollonius' name roused Christiane; she listened as the old man continued: "It occurred to me for the first time, just now, when our neighbor told me that somebody had crept into the shed. I wondered what he could be wanting there, and at night too. And when I looked up and saw Master Fritz working so hard, an uneasy feeling came over me and drove me into the shed as if I were being chased with a stick. There, I imagined what any one who had sneaked in there might have done. First I saw the ax that belongs with the other tools lying near the door. I thought to myself: did he do anything with the ax? And again I imagined what any one who had crept in there at night might have done with it. It occurred to me that he might have done something to the ladders. But I found nothing wrong there. Nor was there anything wrong with the swinging-seat that still lay there. Then I began to look at the pulleys and last of all at the tackle. It seemed as if one of the ropes had been worn a little by rubbing against something hard. I thought to myself: 'that often happens,' and was about to lay it down again, but then I thought: 'there is nothing else wrong, and if somebody crept in here at night he meant to do something, and if he had the ax then he did something with that.' I looked a little closer and—merciful Heavens!—the rope had been cut into in several different places. I threw it over the beam and hung on it; the cuts gaped open. I believe if the seat were hung on it the rope would break." The old man had become quite pale. Christiane hung breathlessly on his every word; she had fallen back in her chair and could scarcely speak.

"It was not so the evening before," he continued. "Master Apollonius has an eye for every detail. He would have discovered it. I think the person who cut the rope watched Master Apollonius as he examined everything, and thought he would not look them over again before he used them. That is the reason why he crept in at night."

"Valentine!" cried the young wife, seizing him by the shoulders, half as if she wanted to compel him to tell the truth, half as if to support herself, "he did not take it with him? Valentine, tell me!"

"No, not that one," said Valentine. "But the other seat that was there, and the tackle belonging to it."

"And was that cut too?" she asked with ever increasing fear. He replied: "I do not know. But the man who did it had no idea which one Master Apollonius would take with him."

The woman trembled so violently that the old man forgot his fears concerning Apollonius in his fear concerning her. He had to support her to prevent her from falling. She pushed him away and half imploringly, half threateningly, cried: "Oh, save him, Valentine, save him. Oh God, it is I who have done it!" She prayed to God to save him, and then moaned that he was dead and that it was her fault. She called Apollonius by the tenderest names and entreated him not to die. Valentine, in his distress, sought for words to comfort her and in so doing found comfort for himself; or if there were no real comfort, at least there was the hope that Apollonius was already on his way home. He had certainly examined the tackle again. If he had met with an accident they would have heard of it by now. He had to repeat this a dozen times before she understood what he meant. And now she began to expect the bearer of the terrible tidings, and started at every sound. She even imagined her own sobbing to be his voice. Finally Valentine, infected by her desperate terror and not knowing what else to do, ran to fetch the old gentleman, thinking that he might know how to save Apollonius, if it were still possible.

The old gentleman sat in his little room. As he withdrew deeper and deeper into the clouds that separated him from the outer world, even his little garden finally became strange to him. Especially the eternal question: "How are you, Herr Nettenmair?" had driven him to the house. He felt that people no longer believed his: "I am somewhat troubled with my eyes, but it is a matter of no consequence," and in every question he heard only a mockery. Much as Apollonius suffered with him, his father's isolation and increasing unsociability were not altogether unwelcome to him; for the deeper his brother sank, the more difficult it had become to conceal from the old gentleman the condition of the house; and to exclude busybodies from the garden was impossible. Apollonius did not know that his father suffered tortures in his room equal to those from which he wanted to protect him. Here the old gentleman sat the livelong day, crouched down in his leather chair behind the table, and brooded over all the possibilities of dishonor that might come to his house; or he strode up and down with hasty step, the flush in his sunken cheeks and the vehement gestures of his arms betraying all too plainly how in his thoughts he did his utmost to avert impending calamity. His was a condition which would eventually lead to complete insanity, if the external world did not throw a bridge across to him and force him to leave his isolation.

This was what happened on that day. Force of habit compelled old Valentine, without his being conscious of the fact, to open the door gently, and gently to step in; but the old gentleman, with his morbidly acute perception, discerned at once the unusual. His anticipation naturally took the same course which all his thoughts pursued. Some disgrace must be threatening the house so to alter Valentine's usual manner; and it must be a terrible one indeed thus to upset the old fellow and break through his assumed composure. The old gentleman trembled as he arose from his chair. He struggled with himself as to whether he should ask. It was not necessary. The old fellow confessed, unasked. With nervous haste he related his fears and his reasons for them. The old gentleman was startled, in spite of the fact that his imagination had prepared him for the truth; but Valentine observed none of this in his exterior, he listened to him as always, as if he were relating matters of the utmost indifference. When Valentine had finished, the sharpest eye could no longer have perceived the slightest tremor in the tall, stately figure. The old gentleman had the firm ground of reality under his feet once more; he was again the old gentleman in the blue coat. He stood as austere as of yore before his servant; so austere and so quiet was he that his bearing inspired Valentine with courage. "Imagination!" he exclaimed in his old grim manner. "Are none of the journeymen around?" Valentine called one who was just about to fetch slate. The old gentleman despatched him to Brambach to bid Apollonius return home at once. "If you think he won't go quickly enough for you, you fussy old woman, tell him to hurry so that you may soon learn that you've worked yourself into a state about nothing. But no word of this to anybody and lock up the wife so that she can't do anything silly." Valentine obeyed. The old gentleman's assurance, and the fact that something had really been done, had a more powerful effect upon him than a hundred good arguments. He imparted his encouragement to Christiane. He was in too great haste to tell her upon what grounds it was based. If he had had time for that he would probably have left her less reassured. Nothing was further from himself than the suspicion that the old gentleman, while characterizing his fears as idle fancies, and pretending to send the messenger only to reassure him and the young wife, was inwardly convinced of the guilt of his elder son and of the danger, if not actual death, of his younger son.

"Now," said Herr Nettenmair, when Valentine had returned to him, "the old fool has of course told our neighbor the fairy-tale that he spun out of thin air, and the young wife has confided it to all the gossips in town!"

Valentine noticed nothing of the feverish suspense with which the old gentleman awaited an answer to the question which he had disguised as an exclamation. "I've done nothing of the kind," he replied earnestly. The old gentleman's supposition had wounded him. "In the first place I didn't really think myself that anything was very wrong yet; and Frau Nettenmair has not spoken to a soul since then."

The old gentleman took hope anew. During Valentine's absence he had given way for a moment to all the anguish that a father cannot but feel under such circumstances; but then he reasoned with himself that there was no use in wasting time in idle complaint as long as something might still be done. Even if Valentine and Christiane had told nobody what they knew, other things of the same sort might have become known. Such a criminal thought does not originate by chance; it is the blossom of a poisonous tree with trunk and branches. Valentine had to tell him all that had happened since Apollonius' return home. It was the story of a wanton, inordinate, pleasure-seeking spendthrift who in spite of the efforts of his better brother had sunk to the level of an ordinary libertine and drunkard; of a faithful brother who, compelled by the necessity of rescuing the honor of business and home, had shouldered the care of everything and as a reward was being persecuted unto death by the degraded prodigal.

The old gentleman sat motionless. Only the blush that burned ever warmer on his thin cheeks betrayed what he suffered for the honor of his house. Otherwise he seemed to know it all, already. That was his old manner, which he perhaps made use of now because he thought that Valentine would then be less likely to conceal or alter facts against his better knowledge. His inward agitation prevented him from perceiving in what strong contradiction this semblance of calm stood to his morbid sense of honor. Valentine did not endeavor to deepen the shadows which fell upon Fritz Nettenmair's conduct, but, knowing the old gentleman as he thought he did, he deemed it necessary to place Apollonius' actions in the brightest possible light. But he only half knew the old gentleman after all. He miscalculated the effect that he would produce when he praised the filial tenderness with which Apollonius had withheld all news of danger from his father's ears. Thus he undid what a simple tale, describing the son's efforts to save that which the old gentleman held most dear, had accomplished. The father saw only a realization of the fear which Apollonius' diligence had awakened in him. In unfilial fashion Apollonius had concealed the danger from him in order to be able to take the whole credit for the rescue to himself. Or he looked upon his father as a helpless, blind old man who was not, and could not be anything but an incumbrance. This latter feeling the old gentleman could forgive him less than the former, even in face of his grief over his son's death, which he now deemed a certainty. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he became that things would never have come to such a pass if he had known about it and taken the matter in hand, and that Apollonius in fact had only his own ambitious desires to thank for his death. These thoughts, however, had to give way before immediate necessity. What he knew concerning Fritz was enough to strengthen suspicion once it was aroused, but not to create it in the first place unless there were some additional reason of which he knew nothing. He must learn from his guilty son himself if such existed. He had made up his mind what to do in any case. He called for his hat and cane. At any other time Valentine would have been astonished at this command, perhaps even frightened. But when one is wrought up over something unusual, only the usual seems unexpected, only that which calls to mind the old quiet state of affairs. As the old gentleman made ready to depart, he pointed out to Valentine once more how foolish and groundless his fears were. "Who knows," he said grimly, "what our neighbor saw? How could he recognize anybody at night, so far off? And you with your ax story! If the rope should break by chance or any other accident happen to the boy in Brambach, of course you would be sure and certain that it was your imaginary ax-slashes that had done it, and that the man whom our neighbor pretends to have seen sneaking into the shed, had made them. And if you say a word or make mysterious hints about all that you imagine in your silly pate, the whole town will be full of it in no time. Not because what you have invented is probable enough for any sensible man to believe, but just because people are glad to speak ill of anybody. God will take care that nothing happens to the boy. But of course it might happen, and maybe it has already happened. How easy it is for an accident to happen to anybody, specially to a slater who hovers between heaven and earth like a bird, and yet has not the wings of a bird. That is why the slater's calling is such a noble calling; the slater is the most manifest picture of how Providence holds the man who works at an honest profession safe in its hands. But if Providence lets him fall, there is a reason for it, and nobody has a right to go around spinning yarns which will bring unhappiness and even disgrace on somebody else. I am sure this affair will soon show itself as it really is and not as your fears have led you to imagine. For—"

The old gentleman had reached this point in his speech when some one was heard outside setting down a load. He stood for a moment dumb, petrified. Valentine looked through the window and saw that it was the journeyman tinner unloading.

"It's Joerg," said he, "who is bringing the tin garlands."

"And you get frightened and think they are bringing, goodness knows whom. Where is Fritz?"

"On the church roof," replied Valentine.

"Good," said Herr Nettenmair. "Tell the tinner to come in when he has done—." Valentine did so. Until he came Herr Nettenmair continued his lecture in a somewhat lower tone. Then he turned to where the workman's respect made itself audible in a quiet clearing of the throat and asked him if he had time to accompany him to the church roof of St. George's where his elder son was at work. The tinner assented. Valentine ventured the suggestion that it would be better to send for Fritz. The old gentleman said grimly: "I must speak to him up there. It is about the repairs." He turned again to the tinner and said with condescending grimness: "I shall take your arm. I am having a little trouble with my eyes, but it is a matter of no consequence."

The appearance of the old gentleman on the street was calculated to create a sensation. He would certainly have been stopped by a hundred hand-shakers and interrogators if something had not diverted public attention. A hurried, whispered rumor ran through the streets. Two or three stood together in little groups awaiting the approach of a third or fourth, who would give them to understand that he knew what it was that was responsible for the formation of the ten or twelve similar groups standing around. Then somebody would whisper it as he passed rapidly by, beginning always with a: "Haven't you heard?" which was generally brought forth by a: "What has happened?" Herr Nettenmair did not need to ask; he knew without being told what had happened, but he did not dare to appear as if he knew. The journeyman thought Herr Nettenmair was going to sink down beside him, but the old gentleman had only struck his foot: "it was of no consequence." The journeyman questioned a hurrying passer-by. "A slater has been killed in Brambach." "How?" asked the journeyman. "A rope broke; nothing further is known." Herr Nettenmair felt that the journeyman was frightened, and that he was frightened at the thought that it was the son of the man he was leading who had been killed. He said: "It was probably in Tambach. They have made a mistake. It is of no consequence." The journeyman did not know what to think of Herr Nettenmair's indifference. The latter kept repeating to himself, as a burning flush came into his cheeks: "Yes, it must be. It must be." He thought of a way in which one can escape all courts, all investigations. It must have been a hard way of which he thought, for he clenched his teeth, as he shook his head and said: "It must be, now it must be." As if in a dream the journeyman led the old gentleman up the tower steps of St. George's. The people were right, Herr Nettenmair was certainly a queer man!

The old gentleman had said he had to speak to his son on the church-roof—about some repairs. He had spoken unconsciously in his diplomatic way.

It had to be on the church-roof, and it was about some repairs—but not about those of the church-roof.

Between heaven and earth is the slater's realm. Between heaven and earth, high up on the roof of St. George's Fritz Nettenmair was at work when the old gentleman was led up the steps to him. He had fled here to escape the eyes of men which he imagined riveted upon him; he had fled here to escape his own thoughts in a fury of diligence. But he had brought with him all the demons of hell, and, industriously as he toiled, the moisture that stood on his brow was not the warm sweat of honest labor, but the cold sweat born of a guilty conscience. In agonized haste he hammered and nailed slate together as if he were nailing fast the universe which otherwise would crumble to pieces in a quarter of an hour. But his soul was not where he hammered; it was where ropes were constantly breaking and luckless slaters plunging headlong to certain death. Now he heard voices, and the sound of one of them struck like the blow of a hammer on his tortured heart. It was the only voice which he did not expect to hear. Would he to whom it belonged ask, "Where is thy brother Abel?" No. He wanted to tell his son that his brother had met with disaster, that it was a day of misfortune and that he must not work any more. And if he should ask, the answer was almost as old as the human race; "Am I my brother's keeper?" It seemed like a relief to him when he remembered that his father was blind. For he knew that he could not endure his father's seeing eyes. He hammered and nailed more and more hurriedly. He would elude his father if he could, but the roof-truss was small, and the old gentleman's voice was already at the roof door. He would not notice him until he was compelled. He heard him say: "This is far enough. My compliments to your master, and here is something for you. Drink my health with it." Fritz Nettenmair, listening, heard his father sit down on the empty board in the dormer window and knew that his tall figure filled the entire opening. He heard the journeyman's thanks and his footsteps as they gradually receded.

"Beautiful weather," said Herr Nettenmair. The son realized that the father wanted to know if anybody else were near by. There came no answer, the words died in Fritz Nettenmair's breast, he hammered always louder and more vehemently. He wished the hour, the day, his life were at an end. "Fritz!" called the old gentleman. He called again and yet again. At last Fritz Nettenmair was compelled to answer. He thought of the call, "Cain, where art thou?" and responded "Here, father," and hammered on.

"The slate is solid," said the old man, indifferently; "I can tell by the sound; it does not split."

"Yes," replied Fritz with chattering teeth, "it will let no water through."

"It is better than it used to be," continued his father, "they have got deeper into the quarry. You seem to be alone." A "Yes" died on the son's lips. "The deeper it lies, the stronger the slate is. Is there no other scaffold near?"

"None."

"Good. Come here. Here in front of me!"—

"What do you want me to do?"

"To come here. What has to be said must be said softly."

Fritz Nettenmair went and stood before his father, shaking all over. He knew that he was blind and yet he sought to avoid his glance. The old man struggled for composure but not a line of his withered face betrayed the struggle, only the length of his silence and his breathing, which sounded like the tired echo of the creaking swing of the pendulum on the tower clock near-by, might have suggested it. These preparations awoke in Fritz Nettenmair a premonition of what was to come. He strove for defiance. "If he in his distrust has surmised it, who can prove it? And if he could prove it, he would never tell, of that I am sure. Otherwise why does he speak so softly? He may say what he will—I know nothing, it was not I. I have done nothing." The muscles of his face quivered; an expression of wild defiance played upon his features. The old gentleman said no word. The sound of traffic in the streets rose muffled to the heights, violet shadows lay on all below, about Apollonius' swinging seat trembled the sun's last ray.

"Where is your brother?" came at last from between the father's teeth.

"I do not know. How should I know?" answered the son defiantly.

"You do not know?" It was only a whisper but every word struck like thunder in the soul of the son. "I will tell you. Yonder in Brambach he lies dead. The rope broke with him, and you had made slits in it with the ax. Our neighbor saw you sneaking into the shed. You threatened before your wife that you would do it. The whole town knows it, they are carrying it now to the courts. The first person who comes up these steps will be the bailiff to lead you before the judge."

Fritz Nettenmair broke down completely; the scaffolding creaked beneath him. The old gentleman listened. If the miserable wretch should fall over the edge of the scaffolding, he would be plunged into the depths and all would be over. All that had to be, would be! A lark soared above them scattering its merry Tirili over trees and houses. Happier mortals heard the song from afar; workmen let their spades rest, children their whips and tops; with eyes turned heavenward all sought the soaring, singing bird and hearkened with bated breath. Herr Nettenmair did not hear the lark; he also held his breath, but he was listening to what was happening below, not above. It was nothing that sounded like the song of a lark which he wanted to hear. There was a rumbling, and a broken cry of anguish. At first he listened full of hope, then filled with despair. On the boards of the scaffolding before him he heard the rattle of heavy breathing. Fate, which might have stretched out a sympathizing, helping hand, had not done so. He must do it, for it must be done. If he did not, people would point their finger at the children and say: "It was their father who slew his brother and died on the gallows" or "in the penitentiary." And when it was long forgotten the children would only need to appear and it would be called into life again; people would point with their fingers and turn from them in horror. The confidence of the world which one inherits from one's parents is the capital with which one begins life. Confidence must be placed in man before he deserves it, in order that he may learn to deserve it. Who would place confidence in children branded with a father's guilt? The flush on his thin cheeks burned brighter, his sunken breast panted heavily. Involuntarily he pointed forward with his arm. Fritz Nettenmair divined his meaning, tried to pull himself together, and would have sunk helplessly down again if he had not supported himself with both hands. Lying thus on his hands and knees before the old gentleman he cried out in an agony of fear, "What do you want, father? What have you in mind?"

"I want to see," said the old gentleman in a shrill whisper, "whether I must do it or whether you will do what must be done. For it must be done. Nobody knows anything as yet which could lead to an investigation before the courts except me, your wife and Valentine. For myself I can answer, but not for them; they may betray what they know. If you should fall now from the scaffolding, so that people could think it was an accident, the great disgrace would be prevented. The slater who meets his death through accident stands before the world as an honest man—honest as the soldier who dies on the battle-field. You are not worthy of such a death, you bankrupt soul. The hangman should drag you on a cowhide to the gallows, you villain, who have murdered your brother and have tried to poison the future of your innocent children and my past life which has been always full of honor. You have brought down disgrace enough on your house, you shall not bring more. They shall never say of me, that my son, or of my grandchildren, that their father, died on the gallows or in the penitentiary. Say the Lord's Prayer, now, if you can still pray. Then turn as if you were going back to your work and step with your right foot over the scaffolding. If I say the shock of your brother's death made you dizzy, the courts and the town will believe me. That is the return for a life that has been different from yours. If you will not do it of your own accord, I shall go with you and you will have me too on your conscience. People know that I have trouble with my eyes; they will say that I stumbled and tried to hold on to you and dragged you down with me. My life is of no value after what I have heard today, but your children's is just beginning. And no disgrace shall be attached to them, as truly as my name is Nettenmair. Make up your mind now what is to be done. I shall count thirty—by the pendulum there."

Fritz Nettenmair had listened to his father's words with growing horror. That his deed had not yet become generally known, gave him hope. Fear of impending death aroused his energies. He took refuge again in defiance. Vehemently he declared: "I do not know what you want. I am innocent. I do not know what you mean by an ax." He expected his father to enter into his protest, even if sceptically at first. But the old gentleman began calmly to count—"one—two—"

"Father!" he cried with increasing fear, and his mocking defiance broke into a wail. "Only listen to me. The courts would listen and you will not. I will throw myself over because you want me to be dead; I will die, though I am innocent. But at least listen to me." The old gentleman gave no answer; he counted on. The miserable man saw that sentence had been pronounced. His father would not believe him no matter what he said, and he knew that what the stubborn old man undertook, he always carried out, unrelentingly. First he decided to acquiesce in his fate; then the thought came to him that he would plead again; and then it occurred to him that he could push the old man aside and make his escape; then that he could hang on to something in some way when the old man caught hold of him and not fall with him. Nobody could blame him for this. Through all these thoughts he saw shudderingly what awaited him if he escaped and the courts should seize him. It was better to die now. But on the other side of death something still more terrible awaited him. He looked back and lived his whole life through in a moment to see if the eternal Judge would find pardon for him. His thoughts became confused, he was now here, now there, and had forgotten why. He saw the mist gathering in which the workman had disappeared and at the same time he looked into the bright windows of the Red Eagle inn where he heard voices: "There he comes—now the fun will begin." He stood on the street corners and counted, and the boards beneath Apollonius would not break, nor the ropes above him; he stood before his wife and, leaning over little Annie's dying bedside, said, "Do you know why you are frightened?" and reached out his hand to give the fatal blow; also he lay as if in a fever dream before his father and brooded in anxious, terrible fear. Then it was as if he had come to himself again and unending time had elapsed between the moment when his father began to count and the present. Everything must be all right by now, only he must try to recall whether he had pushed his father aside and thus made his escape or whether he had held back when his father attempted to drag him down with him. But there he still lay, and there his father still sat. He heard him count "nine" and stop. Consciousness forsook him completely. The old gentleman had in truth ceased to count. His sharp ear heard a hurrying footstep on the stairs. He seized hold of his son and held fast as if to be sure that he did not escape him. So cold and lifeless was the son's body that the father knew it was not necessary to hold him; he must be unconscious. A new uneasiness awoke in him. If the son had lost consciousness, he must be hidden from strange eyes, for this unconsciousness might in some way arouse suspicion. He arose and turned away from the window in the direction of the newcomer. He was undecided whether he would stand before the window covering it with his body or go forward to meet the intruder.



The journeyman whom he had sent to Brambach, for it was he who was approaching in such haste, coughed as he came up the stairs. He could keep him back from the scaffolding and most likely prevent him from seeing that somebody was lying there if he went to meet him; if he stood in front of the window it was probable that he would not be able to cover the whole space. The old gentleman felt now for the first time how his strength had been broken by what he had gone through that day. The journeyman, however, observed nothing unusual as Herr Nettenmair, leaning on the rafters of the stairs, barred the way.

"Shall I tell him to come to you here, Herr Nettenmair?" asked the journeyman.

"Tell whom?" Herr Nettenmair had difficulty in retaining his artificial composure.

"He will be home by this time," responded the journeyman. The old gentleman did not repeat his question; he held fast to the rafter on which he was leaning. "He was already on his way home," continued the journeyman. "I came with him as far as the gate. Then he sent me to the tinner's to see if the tin was ready at last. Joerg told me that he had already brought it to the house and had just come from the roof of St. George's where he had led you and I thought because you were in such a hurry to see Herr Apollonius, I would ask you if I must tell him to come up here."

Herr Nettenmair ran his hand up and down the rafter as if he had only taken hold of it to examine it. But, feeling that his hands trembled, he gave up the examination. As grimly as he could, he replied, "I shall come down myself." Wait at the landing until I call you. The journeyman obeyed. Herr Nettenmair drew a deep breath when he knew he was no longer observed. This breath became a sob. The terrible strain which he had undergone was beginning to find an end, and the agony of the father which had been swallowed up till now in passionate fear for the honor of the house, asserted itself. But he knew that his good son's life would hang in the same danger as long as the wicked son lived near him. He had foreseen this contingency and had mapped out a plan of action. He felt his way back to the window. Fritz Nettenmair in the meanwhile had recovered consciousness and been able to rise. The old gentleman bade him come in from the scaffolding and said: "Tomorrow before sunrise you will no longer be here. See if you can become another man in America. Here you are in disgrace, and can only bring disgrace. You will follow me home. I will give you money, you will make ready for the trip. You have done nothing for your wife and children for years. I will take care of them. Do you hear?"

Fritz Nettenmair reeled. He had just looked inevitable death in the face and now he might live! Live where nobody knew what he done, where every chance sound would not frighten him with the vision of the bailiff.

"Apollonius did not fall," continued the old gentleman, and Fritz Nettenmair's bright, new heaven sank into nothingness. The old spectre held him again in its grasp. He loved again the woman from whom he had just wanted to flee. The old gentleman had awaited his son's assent. "You will go," he said, when the son remained silent. "You will go. Tomorrow before day-break you will be on your way to America, or I shall be on my way to the court. If disgrace must be, it is better to have disgrace alone and not disgrace combined with murder. Remember, I have sworn it. Take your choice."

The old gentleman called to the journeyman to come up to him and lead him home.

* * * * *

The rumor which the old gentleman had heard on his way to St. George's, had penetrated to the street where the house with the green shutters stands. One passer-by said to another: "Have you heard the news? A slater has been killed in Brambach." The young wife sprang from her chair but sank fainting to the floor. A second time Valentine forgot his fears for Apollonius in his anxiety about her. He sat near her as she lay on the floor and held her head in his trembling hands. At last she made a slight movement. He helped her raise the upper part of her body and supported her. She brushed her disheveled hair from her face and looked about her. Her gaze was such a strange tense one that Valentine's fear increased. She nodded her head and said in a low voice, "Yes!" Valentine knew that she was saying to herself that she had really heard the terrible news and had not dreamed it. She sat for a long time motionless, hearing no word of all that Valentine spoke to her—not even when he tried to prove that Apollonius could not be dead, that he was too careful and too good for an accident to happen to him. He would have given his life to help her, but he knew not how. So he talked on and on, hoping by ceaseless chatter to help her and himself over the anguish of the moment.

At last she found tears. Valentine lived again; he saw that she was saved. He read it in her face, which, open as she herself, could conceal nothing. He sat and listened with joyful attention to her weeping, as if it were a beautiful song she was singing him. He listened to the pure melody of her voice as she wept, the melody which she had not lost when, leaning over little Anne's dying bed, she had uttered the twofold cry of pain and horror. She wept her heart out and arose without help from Valentine. Then she prepared to go out. There was something solemn and resolute in her bearing. Valentine perceived it with astonishment and dread. He asked anxiously if she were going anywhere. She nodded her head. "But I must not let you," he said. "The old gentleman made me solemnly vow."

"I must," she replied. "I must go to the court. I must say that I am guilty. I must suffer my punishment. Their grandfather will take care of my children. I would like to tell them to lay him by little Anne's side, he loved her so. I should like to lie there too, but they won't allow that. No, I won't say anything to them about that."

"Won't you stay until the old gentleman comes back? Then I shall be free of my responsibility." He hoped that Herr Nettenmair would find some way to dissuade her from her purpose.

The young wife nodded assent. "I will wait that long," she said.

Anxiety and hope drove Valentine out of the house to see if Herr Nettenmair were anywhere in sight. Christine took her hymn-book from the desk and sat down at the table.

When Valentine returned he was no longer the same man who had gone out. He was confused and embarrassed, but in a very different way from what he had been before. He appeared constantly on the point of doing or saying something, became suddenly frightened and did and said something entirely different, and then seemed uncertain whether he should not be frightened at that too. At first the young wife did not notice the change in him, but soon she began to watch him curiously and with increasing apprehension. Gradually she became infected by his behavior. When he laughed involuntarily she glowed with hope, and when he put on a long face she clasped her hands convulsively together and turned pale; sometimes she pressed her hands to her beating heart, sometimes to her burning, hammering temples. At last Valentine considered her sufficiently prepared, to abandon the weather topic. "It is a day," said he, "when men might rise from the dead, and who knows—but please, for my sake, don't be frightened." She became frightened, however. She said to herself, "But it isn't possible." And she was all the more frightened because it was not only possible but certain. "Look toward the back of the house," sobbed Valentine, attempting to laugh. She had looked before he told her to do so. She held fast to the door post as she heard footsteps in the shed. But even the door post no longer stood firmly, she herself stood no longer on firm ground; she rocked dizzily between heaven and earth. When she saw him coming, there was nothing in the world for her except the man for whom she had suffered weeks of death-agony; everything whirled about her in a circle, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the trees, the sky and the green earth; it was as if the whole world would sink from under her and drag her into its vortex if she did not hold fast to him. She felt herself fall to the ground, and then she knew nothing more.

Apollonius caught her as she fell. He stood and held in his arms the beautiful woman whom he loved, who loved him. She was pale and seemed dead. He did not carry her into the room, he did not let her fall to the ground, he did nothing to revive her. He stood bewildered; he did not know what had happened to him, he had to collect himself. Valentine had not yet spoken with him, he had only heard from the journeyman who was hastening to St. George's that Apollonius was following him and would soon be there. Apollonius had been detained at the gate for a moment by the nail-smith. He had then made haste to obey his father's command which he, however, found surprising, as he could discover no reason for it. He had heard of the slater's death in Tambach; but he did not know that rumor had confused the names of the two places, and that it was possible for anybody to believe that the accident had occurred to him. Absolutely unprepared for that which was to happen in the next moment, he came through the shed. He had meant to go straight to his father in his room, when, seeing Christiane fall fainting to the ground, he hastened toward her. Now he held her in his arms. Slowly her deep blue eyes opened. She looked at him and recognized him. She did not know how she had come into his arms, she did not know that she lay there, she knew only that he lived. She wept and laughed at the same time, and put both arms around him to be sure that he was there. She asked in yearning, anxious eagerness: "Is it you? Are you really here? Are you still alive? You didn't fall? I didn't kill you? You are you, and I am I? But he—he may come." She gazed about wildly. "He will kill you. He will not rest till he has killed you." She clasped him to her as if she wanted to cover him with her body from the enemy, then she forgot all fears in the certainty that he still lived, and she laughed and wept and asked him again if it were really he, and if he were alive. But she must warn him. She must tell him everything that the other had done—and what he had threatened to do to him. She must do it quickly; any minute he might come. Warning, sweet unconscious love-words, weeping, laughter, blessed gladness, fear, anguish over lost happiness, bride-like embarrassment, forgetfulness of the world in the one moment which was life to her—all this trembled through each quivering word she uttered. "He lied to you and to me. He told me that you jeered at me and that you had offered my flower to the highest bidder. You know, at the Whitsun feast, the little blue-bell that I laid there. And you sent it to him. I saw it. I did not know why I was sorry for you. Then he told me during the dance that you had laughed at me. You went away, and he told me you made fun of me in your letters. That hurt me. You don't know how it hurt, even though I did not know why. Father wanted me to marry him. And when you came I was afraid of you, but I was still sorry for you and I loved you though I did not know it. It was he who first told me so. Then I avoided you—I didn't want to become a bad woman—and I still don't want to. Then he compelled me to lie. And he made threats of what he would do to you. He would see to it that you fell and were killed. It was only a joke, he said, but if I told you, then he would do it in earnest. Since then I have not slept a night, I have sat up in my bed and been full of deadly fear. I saw you in danger and could not tell you and could not help you. And he made slits in the rope with the ax the night before you went to Brambach. Valentine told me that our neighbor had seen him creeping into the shed. I thought you were dead, and I wanted to die too. For I was the cause of your death, when I would die a thousand times to save you. And now you are alive and I cannot grasp it. Everything is just as it was, the trees, the shed, the sky, and you are not dead. And I wanted to die because you were dead. And now you are alive, and I don't know whether it is true or whether I am dreaming. Is it true? Tell me, is it true? I will believe anything you say. And if you tell me that I must die, I will die. But he may be coming! Perhaps he has been listening! Tell Valentine to go to the court and have him taken away, so that he can do you no more harm."

Thus the feverish woman went on raving, laughing and weeping in his arms. Forgetting everything, like a child playing on the edge of an abyss of which it knows nothing, she unconsciously called into life a danger more deadly than the one which had just been averted, more threatening than the one from which she wanted to guard the man with her body. She did not realize what her passionate movements, the sweetness of her reckless abandon, her caresses, her warm, throbbing embraces must arouse in the man who loved her; that she was doing everything that could make the man whose uprightness and honor she trusted so blindly, forget uprightness and honor in the tumult of his blood. She had no idea what a conflict she was kindling in him, and how hard, if not impossible she was making the victory. Now he knew that the woman in his arms was his, that his brother had defrauded him of her and her of him. Now he knew it, while the woman in his arms revealed to him the greatness of the happiness of which his brother had robbed him. The brother had stolen her and had ill-treated her; and for all that he had suffered and done for his brother's sake, he now persecuted him and sought his life. Did the woman belong to him who had stolen and ill-treated her, to him whom she hated—or to him from whom she had been infamously stolen, who loved her and whom she loved? These were not clearly defined thoughts, but countless detached sensations which, borne along in a stream of deep, wild feeling, rushed through his veins and made taut the muscles in his arms—to clasp to his heart that which was his! But a vague, dark fear rose counter to this current and stiffened his muscles in a convulsive cramp—the feeling that he wanted to do something and did not know what it was or where it might lead him, a far-off recollection that he had made a vow and would break it if he now let himself be carried away. He struggled for a long time beneath the flow of intoxicating sounds before he realized that he was struggling and that the thing for which he struggled was clearness, the fundamental requirement of his nature. At last this clearness came to him and said: "The vow that you have made is to uphold the honor of your house, and what you want to do now will destroy it forever." He was the man, and must answer for himself and for her. The treachery of which he with a touch, with a glance, might be guilty toward this woman whose trust in him was so unbounded, stood before him in all its blackness. There still stood, protectingly, a holy reserve between him and her, which a single touch, a single glance might dispel forever. He looked anxiously about for a helper. If only Valentine would come! Then he would have to let her go from his arms. Valentine did not come. But shame at his weakness that sought help from without, became his helper. He gently laid the defenseless woman down. Not until he felt the soft limbs slip from his grasp did he lose her. He had to turn away and could not choke back a loud sob. Just then the youngest boy peeped curiously into the yard. He hastened to him, took him in his arms, pressed him to his heart and placed him between him and her. It was strange; the pressure with which he clasped the child to his heart relieved his wild yearning and his tense muscles relaxed. In the child he had clasped her to his heart in the only way he dared hold her close to him.

She saw him place the child between him and her and understood him. A burning flush rose to the roots of her brown, unruly locks. She knew now for the first time that she had lain in his arms, had embraced him, had talked to him as only unforbidden love may talk. She saw now for the first time the abyssmal danger in which she had placed him and herself. She raised herself up on her knees, as if she wanted to beseech him not to despise her. Then it occurred to her that her husband might have been listening and might still carry out his threat. Through her joy over his escape she might still be his destruction. He saw all this and suffered with her. He had gained the conflict with himself not to show her what was going on within him, but he had not yet fought the inward struggle to its end. He leaned toward her and said "Above us and your husband is God. Go in now, sister, my dear, good sister." She dared not look up but through her closed lids she saw the benevolence, the deep, inexhaustible kindliness, the indelible respect for man which shone in his eyes and played about his gentle mouth. And as he was her conscious and unconscious standard, so now she knew that she was not bad, could not become so, he would carry her in his strong arms, protected, as a mother carries her child. Herr Nettenmair came from the shed toward them accompanied by the journey-man. Fritz Nettenmair who followed them saw Apollonius lead Christiane to the house door.

When Herr Nettenmair came home, nothing was to be read in his crusty face of all that he had suffered and planned that day. The young wife and Valentine had to listen to a sermon on unfounded imaginings, for the story had proved to be as it was, not as Valentine had imagined it in his fear. He spoke of Fritz Nettenmair's trip as one which his son had had in contemplation for a long time but to which he had not consented until today. Apollonius was told to bring the account books into the old gentleman's room at once.

He had to read them aloud to the old gentleman; a curiously purposeless task, for neither of them had his mind on the figures. And moreover the old gentleman behaved as if he knew all about everything already. Valentine came and received various instructions relative to the departure of the elder son. An hour later he returned, having performed his duties. He told how Fritz Nettenmair was looking forward to his new life in America. They would be astonished when they saw him again. He could hardly await the time. The old gentleman's courage revived. Grimly he commanded Apollonius to go to bed; the work they had begun could be continued another time.

Disquieted, like a tortured spirit, now wringing his hands, now clenching his fists, Fritz Nettenmair wandered from the shed to the house and from the house again to the shed. With each round he made, his soul rose up in the wildest defiance and sank again into despairing helplessness. His heart cried out for a word of love. His arms stretched out convulsively to press something to his heart which was his, that he might know he was not lost. For nobody is lost who has somebody in the world to love. Endowed of a sudden with renewed strength, he hastened through the house door into the room where his children lay. A night-light protected by a shade shone brightly enough for the father to see his children. He sank on his knees before the nearest little bed. A long forgotten sound rose to his lips and he whispered it, yearningly as never before. "Fritz!" He only wanted to clasp his children to his heart once, to see their love and then to go; to go and become another man, a better one, a happier one. The little fellow awakened: he thought his mother had called. Smilingly he opened his eyes and—shivered with fright. He feared the man standing at his bedside; one he knew so well, and yet more strange than a stranger to him. It was the man who had given him such angry glances, the man from whom his mother had locked him in his room that he might not see what the man did to her. But he had got up trembling and listened at the door; and clenched his little fists in powerless rage.

"Fritz," said the father anxiously, "I am going away and I shall not come back. But I will send you beautiful apples and picture-books, and think of you a thousand times a minute."

"I don't want them," replied the boy, frightened but defiant. "Uncle 'Lonius gives me apples. I don't want yours."

"Don't you love me either?" asked the father in a breaking voice at the second little bed. George took flight into his brother's bed. There the children clung to each other in fright. Scorn and repugnance were reflected in George's face. "I love mother and I love Uncle 'Lonius, but I don't like you. Let me alone; I'll tell Uncle 'Lonius."

Fritz Nettenmair laughed in wild mockery, and at the same time sobbed in impotent pain. The children were no longer his. He was no longer their father. Yet they were his children! And he had to go away and leave them; and those whom he hated, who had ruined everything for him, would be happy through his going. He became even more miserable than he had already been. He saw his wife lying before him in her beauty, and the desire entered his mind to destroy this beauty. But his recollection of the moment when he lay stretched before his father, prepared for death, was mightier than the desire and banished it. The picture of that moment lived strong within him, only there was an exchange of persons. He painted it with more and more vivid colors. And now it was a fierce joy that drove him again from the house to the shed and from the shed to the house. His arms moved in violent gesticulation. The moon rose. The house with the green shutters lay there so peaceful in its shimmer. No passer-by would have divined the unrest concealed behind its walls; none would have suspected the thought that hell was brewing there in a ruined vessel.

* * * * * Apollonius was exhausted from watching and struggling. He needed rest. The next morning he had to complete the garlanding of the tower-roof, and then take down his swinging-seat, block and pulley, iron ring and ladder. His step must be firm, his eye clear. For the single hour that remained before work was to begin, he did not wish to undress and go to bed. He sat down in his wooden chair. There sleep came to him sooner than he expected—but it was not the kind of sleep he needed; it was an uninterrupted disturbing dream. Christiane lay in his arms as she had lain the day before; he struggled again, but this time he did not conquer, he clasped her to him. When he opened his eyes, it was day and time to go to work. He was in a more excited state of mind than when he had left his father. He hoped that the visions of his dream which had intensified his old desires and his pangs of conscience concerning them would retreat before the fresh morning air and the sobering effect of a cold water rub. But this did not happen; they stayed with him and would not let go of him, not even during his work. The breath of her warm lips lingered on his cheek, he felt himself always in her throbbing embrace; passionate upbraidings of his brother rose again and again in his heart. He did not know himself any longer. In addition to the reproaches he made himself for his evil thoughts, came dissatisfaction because he knew he was not putting his whole mind on his work. Usually he worked his cheerful, industrious self into each task he performed, and it was bound to be good and lasting. But today it seemed to him that he was hammering unrighteous thoughts into his work, that he was forging out of them an evil charm, and that the result could not be good nor enduring.

The slater must work thoughtfully. The man who undertakes repairs today must rely upon the faithfulness of him who stood decades, perhaps centuries ago where he stands now. The lack of conscientiousness that rivets a roof-hook slovenly today may be the cause of a good man's death fifty years hence when he hangs his ladder on that hook. Behind the struggle of his conscience against the visions of his sinful dream lurked, like a dark cloud, the fear that in his distraction he might be forging a future disaster for somebody.

His work was done. The new tin decoration gleamed in the sun around the dark surface of the slate roof. Ring, tackle, swinging-seat and ladder had been removed; the workmen who had assisted at the removal had gone again. Apollonius had taken down the "flying" scaffold and the poles on which it rested; he stood alone on the narrow board which formed the path from the cross-beam to the roof-door. He stood thinking. He felt as if he had forgotten to drive in nails somewhere. He looked in the slate and nail boxes of his swinging-seat which hung near him on a beam. The sound of a mysterious hurrying step came to his ears from the tower stairs. He paid no attention to it, for just then he found a sheet of lead lying among his things. He had brought with him the exact number of sheets that he needed. So this was evidently one that he had forgotten; in his distracted state of mind he had overlooked one of the riveting points. From the door he looked up and down the surface of the roof. If the mistake had happened on this side of the tower he could perhaps rectify it without his seat. Perhaps the ladder would suffice to reach the required point. And so it proved to be. About six feet above him, near the roof-hook he had taken out a slate and had neglected to replace it with a sheet of lead and to fasten the garland to it. In the meantime the mysterious steps were coming ever nearer; the man in such haste had now reached the end of the stone stairs and was climbing the ladder to the roof. The clock below rumbled. It was almost two. Apollonius had not yet had dinner, but when there was a flaw of any kind in his work he could not rest until he had rectified it. He had gone back to fetch the ladder. It lay on the beam near the swinging-seat. As he stooped to get it he felt himself seized and pushed with wild violence toward the door. Instinctively he caught hold of the lower edge of a beam with his right hand while with his left he sought in vain for support. This movement brought him face to face with his assailant. Horrified he saw the distorted, wild features of his brother.

"You shall have her all to yourself, or down you go with me."

"Away!" cried Apollonius. In his angry pain all his reproaches against his brother mounted into his face. Exerting all his strength he pushed him back with his free hand.

"So you show your true face, at last?" mocked Fritz Nettenmair in still greater rage. "You have dislodged me from every place that I possessed; now it is my turn. You shall have me on your conscience, you fluff-picker. Throw me over, or down you go with me!"

Apollonius saw no deliverance. The hand with which he held desperately to the sharp edge of the beam was well-nigh exhausted. With all his strength he would have to seize his brother by the arms, turn him round and push him over if he did not want to be dragged down with him. And yet he cried: "I will not!"

"Very well," groaned Fritz. "You want to put the blame of this too on me; you want to make me do this too. Your sanctimoniousness shall now have an end." Apollonius would have sought a new hold, but he knew that his brother would take advantage of the instant when he let go his present one. Fritz was already just on the point of making a violent dash at him. Apollonius' hand was slipping from the edge of the beam. He would be lost if he did not find some new hold. He could perhaps make a jump and catch the beam with both hands; but then his brother, by the force of his own onset, would certainly fall through the door. A vision of his honest, proud, old father, of the young wife and her children, rose before him, and he remembered the vow that he had made to himself; he was their only support—he must live. One spring and he had caught the beam in his arms; at the same moment his brother rushed headlong past him. The weights below rattled, and the clock struck two. The jackdaws, disturbed in their rest by the struggle, swooped wildly down to the roof-door and fluttered about in a croaking cloud. There was the sound of a heavy body striking on the street pavement far below. A cry went up from all sides. Pale living faces looked on a paler dead one which lay all bloody on the pavement. Ghastly haste, screams, a clasping of hands, a running hither and thither, spread like a whirlwind from the church-yard to the farthest corner of the town. But the clouds high above in the sky heeded it not and continued on their vast course unmoved. They see so much self-created misery below them that a single instance cannot touch them.

Everything in the world has its use, if not in itself or for him who does it or who has it, then at least for others. So that which had brought disgrace on the house of Nettenmair was now a guard against greater disgrace. Fritz Nettenmair's love of drink was known everywhere; everybody had seen him drunk; it was no wonder that all who learned of his death attributed it to this vice. It was well that nobody outside of the Nettenmair household knew that he had intended to go to America; it was also well that, to avoid attracting attention upon his return, he had worn his ordinary workman's clothes in the mail coach with only his overcoat thrown over them. The coat had got lost on the way and those who had a right to its restitution naturally put in no claim for it. It did not occur to anybody to attach much importance to this scarcely-noticed incident, as it was not necessary to piece a story together when a complete one was already at hand. Moreover, before the deed he had gone to his usual place of recreation, had drunk heavily, and, after boasting in his foolhardy way that he would now perform his master-piece, had left the tavern for St. George's much intoxicated. All these outward circumstances served to confirm the generally accepted opinion. By a fortunate chance there had been no workmen at St. George's; of the struggle that had taken place before the fall nobody knew anything except Apollonius and the jackdaws who lived there. As soon as the inspector learned of Fritz's death he looked up Apollonius, whom he found sitting exhausted at the foot of the tower, and told him the story that was going the rounds. It entered nobody's head to question Apollonius. They all told him about it instead of letting him tell. He therefore kept silence about that which nobody questioned. The courts found no reason to make an investigation, and the danger which had menaced the honor of the family passed quietly over.

One evening a black bier was seen before the house with the green shutters. At a distance stood groups of women and children, now whispering softly to one another, now peering eagerly in one direction with a curiosity that at times became impatient. Here and there a long black coat and a three-cornered hat came down the street in solemn gloom and vanished behind the bier into the house. At last the door opened. The coffin stood on the bier, the pall covered both; gently, in rhythmical motion, there appeared a black moving mass; now they were in their places; the pall-bearers adjusted their hats. The procession moved, rippling, wavering. On top gleamed bright the hammer which Valentine had polished, and told that what they were now surrendering to earth had worked honestly between heaven and earth. The sweet tears of the old women washed away whatever stains clung to his memory. Inwardly they made a vow that none who belonged to them should ever become a slater. The slater's calling is a dangerous one, between heaven and earth; the man who lay beneath the black pall, between the boards, silent as he was, preached that with poignant eloquence. They turned their eyes toward the old gentleman who was led by two mourners. He seemed to embody the very spirit of honest burial. But when their gaze fell upon Apollonius they forgot the mildness with which they had just judged; they unburied the dead man from the cool funeral flowers that covered his human nakedness. The hammer lying above him would have been covered with the dark rust of shame had it not been for Apollonius. Then they looked at the young wife, and, according to the way of their sex, the mourners became match-makers. And indeed they had right on their side; a bonnier couple or one better suited could scarce have been found in the whole town. The procession passed by the Red Eagle, where a ball was in progress at which Fritz Nettenmair was missing—surely a dull affair! The procession went the same way that Fritz Nettenmair had gone after he had talked with the workman. He had then seen in spirit his brother lying beneath the black fluttering pall and himself following as a mourner. The procession went on, still keeping to the streets that Fritz Nettenmair had trodden on that occasion. Outside the town-gate the willows melted again into mist or the mist into willows. Here and there mist-men carried mist-coffins near the real one. At the cross-ways, where Fritz Nettenmair had seen the journeyman disappear in the mist, he himself disappeared. In Tambach they were bearing the journeyman to burial. The two must have had much to say to each other. Fritz Nettenmair could have told the workman how carefully he had carried out the thought sown by him, even to the cutting of the rope; and the workman could have told his former master how he became a victim to the cuts thus made. The pastor who preached the sermon over Fritz Nettenmair's grave, who was buried with all the honors due to his standing or to be bought with money, did not know what an awe-inspiring theme had eluded him.

The last word of the funeral sermon had died away, the last spadeful of earth had fallen on the coffin, the mourners had gone home; it became night, and again day, and again night, and again and again day and night; other things drove Fritz Nettenmair's unfortunate death from the minds of the townsmen—and still other things these things. A stone was erected over his grave, and his honest death was vouched for by a sculptor and impressed with chisel-strokes upon forgetful posterity. One might think that the dark cloud that had hovered over the house with the green shutters would have burst in the storm that dashed the older son from the tower-roof of St. George's to the pavement below, and that life would now be bright there, as its outer aspect promised. One might indeed think so if one saw only the young widow and her children. The three strong young beings raised their drooping heads as soon as the burden which had oppressed them was lifted. The young widow did not look as if she had been a wife, still less an unhappy wife; from day to day she seemed more like a bridal maiden or a maidenly bride. And why should she not? Did she not know that he loved her? Did she not love him? Did not the teasing words of others, even if she did not think of it herself, remind her that her love was no longer a forbidden one? The marriage was so natural, so necessary according to traditional ideas that those who were too old or too dignified to jest took it as a matter of course without mentioning it, and did not mention it merely because they took it as a matter of course.

In his diplomatic fashion the old gentleman made various intimations that if he had remained at the head of things all would have happened differently. What Apollonius had spoiled, he would now carry out to the best possible end. Necessity had placed him at the helm again, and he would remain there. He forgot that he had twice been forced to the acknowledgment that when one becomes old, control in the business is only possible when one need not see through strange eyes. He was to experience this now for a third time. Since the night before his older son met a violent death, Herr Nettenmair had resumed his position as manager of the business. Apollonius reported to him daily concerning the progress of current work and received orders. When a piece of work has once been fairly started it can go on by itself and requires from the superintendent nothing but inspection and an occasional stimulus. If, however, something new is to be undertaken, a groove must be sought in which it can run, and the groove must be the shortest, surest, and most profitable. Clear-seeing eyes are needed, with a quick power to grasp. That Apollonius possessed these the old gentleman perceived on the first occasion. It pertained to a particularly difficult piece of work. Apollonius put it before him with such clearness that the old gentleman believed he saw it with his bodily eyes. It was a case, however, in which his experience failed him. To Apollonius it presented no difficulties. He pointed out three or four different ways in which it could be done and reduced the old gentleman to such a state of confusion that he could scarcely conceal it. A curious, wild train of contradictory sensations rushed through his brain—joy and pride in his son, then pain that he was nothing and never could be any more, then shame and wrath that his son knew this and triumphed over him; the desire to curb him and show him that he still was lord and master. But even if he wanted to carry his point, would his son obey? There was no way to preserve even the appearance of leadership save through his diplomatic art. In a grim voice he gave commands which were utterly unnecessary, because they pertained to things which would have been done as a matter of course without command. In new matters he angrily disapproved of all suggestions made by Apollonius; but the commands which he finally gave were always in general accordance with that which Apollonius had suggested as most expedient. Afterward he made excuses to himself and found something that would have been much better than Apollonius' suggestion. He was convinced that if he only had his eyesight everything would be different. Sometimes he gave himself up unreservedly to his joy and pride in his son's efficiency; but this feeling was soon replaced by the wrathful necessity to exert his diplomatic art. Apollonius realized the restraint that he was imposing upon his father quite as little as he did his father's pride in him. He was glad that he had nothing more to conceal from the old gentleman concerning the business, and that obedience to him did not interfere with the fulfilment of his vow. The sky above the house with the green shutters took on a brighter, bluer hue. But the spirit of the house still wandered about wringing its hands. When the clock struck two in the morning it stood in the arbor before the door to Apollonius' room and raised its pallid arms pleadingly toward heaven.

The business increased under Apollonius' diligent hand; the orders were twice as many as they had formerly been. The postman brought great piles of letters into the house. Apollonius accepted an advantageous offer made by the owner and leased the slate quarry. He understood the management of the works from his stay in Cologne, and he employed a former acquaintance from that city whom he knew to be an expert in the business and reliable in his dealings. His choice was a good one; the man was energetic, but in spite of this fact much additional work fell on Apollonius. The councilman shook his head sometimes doubtfully, fearing that Apollonius had over-estimated his strength. It did not strike the young widow how seldom Apollonius came into the living-room. The children, whom he often called to him to perform little services whereby they might learn, kept up the intercourse. They could testify that Apollonius had very little time. She went to his room frequently, but always when he was not at home. She adorned the doors and walls with everything she had which she knew he loved, and she spent many hours there at work. She noticed the pallor of his face, which seemed to become greater each time she saw him. As she was but a mirror of his feelings, his pallor reflected itself in her. She would have liked to cheer him up, but she did not seek to be near him; her presence seemed to have the opposite effect upon him from what she desired. He was always friendly and full of chivalrous respect toward her. This at least comforted her to a certain extent. She had endowed him with all the virtues that she knew; among these she had not forgotten truthfulness, the first of them all to her. Therefore she knew that he would not compel himself to show respect to her if he did not feel it. He made merry sometimes, especially when he saw her eyes fixed anxiously upon his pale face, but she noticed that her society did not make him healthier or more cheerful. She would have liked to ask him what was the matter. When he stood before her she did not dare. When she was alone she asked him. Many nights through she thought of ways to entice the confession from him and talked with him. Surely if he had heard her weep, had heard how sweetly and tenderly she cajoled and pleaded, had heard the dear names she gave him, he would have told her what ailed him. Her whole life was between heart and mouth; and when her heart whispered in her ear what she had said, she flushed rosily and hid her blushes deep beneath the covers from herself and the listening night.

She confided her fears to the old inspector. "Is it a wonder?" he asked, "when a person sits all day long for a year and a half over his business and all night long over books and letters? And then all the anxiety he had about his—God forgive him, he is dead and one should not speak ill of the dead—about his brother; and then the fright, which made me ill for three days, over—and when his widow is there too—I never did like him much, least of all toward the end. But youth is so! I warned him a hundred times, the brave fellow! And now the confounded quarry! Such conscientiousness! He is one who would never consider his own health." The councilman gave the young widow a long lecture which was not in the least meant for her. Then they agreed that Apollonius ought to have a doctor whether he wanted him or not; and the councilman immediately went to the best physician in town. The physician promised to do all that was possible. He called on Apollonius, who put up with him because those whom he loved desired it. The doctor felt his pulse, came again and again, prescribed and re-prescribed; Apollonius became ever paler and gloomier. At last the good man declared that here was a malady against which all art was useless. So deep-seated was the trouble that no remedy of his could reach it.

Apollonius knew that no physician could cure his illness. The councilman had only partly divined the cause. Overwork had merely watered the soil for the parasite growth which was gnawing at Apollonius' inmost being. The first symptoms seemed of a physical nature. As his brother had plunged to death before him, the clock below had struck the hour of two. Since then every sound of a bell frightened him. What aroused more serious apprehension was an attack of dizziness. All the horrors of that day did not obliterate the feeling of uneasiness which had taken possession of him when he discovered the inexactitude in his work. Every time a bell sounded it seemed to him a warning. Early the next morning he went to the roof-door with his ladder in his hand. He had already noticed how insecure his step was as he climbed the tower stairs; now, when through the open door the distant mountains began to nod so curiously to him and the firm tower to rock beneath him, he became frightened. That was dizziness, the slater's worst, most malicious enemy when it takes sudden hold of him on a swaying ladder between heaven and earth. In vain Apollonius strove to overcome it; he had to give up his purpose for the day. No way had ever been so hard for Apollonius as the tower stairs down from St. George's. What would happen? How could he fulfil his vow if this dizziness did not leave him? On the same day he had some work to do on the tower of St. Nicholas. There he had to venture into more dangerous places than at St. George's; the bells rang at the most critical instant; he felt no trace of dizziness. Joyfully he hastened back to St. George's, but again the ladder trembled under his feet, the mountains nodded, the tower rocked. He was on the lowest rung of the ladder when the clock began to strike the hour. The sound penetrated every nerve of his body; he had to hold fast to the railing until the last echo had died away. He made attempt after attempt, and climbed all ladders and towers with his old sureness of foot; only at St. George's did dizziness return. There he had hammered his sinful thoughts into his work; he had felt at the time that he was forging an evil charm, a coming disaster. Day and night the picture followed him of the place where he had forgotten to insert the sheet of lead and to rivet the decoration. The flaw was like an evil spot, a spot where a crime had been begun or completed and where no grass grows, no shadow falls; like an open wound which does not heal until it has been avenged, like an empty grave which does not close until it has received its denizen. If only the gap were closed the charm would lose its potency. He might authorize a workman to do the job, but the thought of leaving his neglected work to another brought a flush of shame to his pale cheeks. The sheet of lead nailed by another would be certain to fall; the gap cried out for him, and he alone could close it. Or the destruction which he had forged there would seize hold of the workman, dizziness would overtake him and he would plunge into the depths.

Since his brother's wife had lain in his arms he had lived a double life. During the day he worked outside and at night he sat in his room among his books, all that went on mechanically; in spite of his efforts his heart was only half in his work; the other half lived its own life, hovering with the jackdaws about the flaw in the tower-roof and brooding over the coming disaster which he had forged that morning. His soul fought ever anew the battle with his brother. Was it his brother's fall that he had forged? Perhaps it would have been possible to save the madman. Anxiously he sought for possibilities, and shrank with horror from the thought that he might find one. All his good qualities became overwrought—his loyalty, his conscientiousness, his scrupulousness. He did not try to put his shortcomings upon his brother; with loving hand he took his brother's guilt and placed it on his own shoulders. It became ever clearer in his mind that he might have saved his brother. He could have found some way if his heart and head had not been full of wild, forbidden desires, if he had not been full of wrath against the madman instead of feeling pity for him. With his evil thoughts he had forged disaster for his brother. Without those thoughts his work would have been finished and his brother would not have found him in the tower, would have come too late and would have repented of his resolve. Or, if he had still been there, he was the stronger, cooler headed, and he should have found a way to prevent the calamity.

It was natural that people should chaff him about the marriage that seemed a necessity to them. He had to confess to himself that they were right and that his desires were no longer forbidden ones. But the fact that they had once been so cast its shadow over the blameless present. His love seemed sullied to him. Reason and love might say what they would, he felt that there would be guilt in the marriage. And so it came that Christiane's presence brought him no cheer. There were moments when his gloom struck him as a sort of illness and he hoped that it would pass over. But even then he drew no nearer to Christiane, much as his heart yearned for her. He continued the same as on that day when he placed the child between him and her. She remained pure and holy to him.

To the old gentleman with his external sense of honor, a life like Apollonius' and Christiane's, without the consecration of the church, was a grave offense. Only under the name of her husband could Apollonius, without disgrace, be the protector and supporter of the beautiful young widow and her children. According to his way he pronounced the ultimatum. He fixed the time for the wedding. The indispensable half-year of mourning was over; in a week the betrothal should be announced, three weeks later the marriage should take place.

Life in the house with the green shutters grew more and more sultry. The new clouds which had gathered invisibly about it threatened a storm severer than that in which the old ones had been dispelled. The young widow had no choice but to play the part of the affianced; she was rallied about her wedding garment, and, adjusting herself to the situation, she began preparations. Tears fell upon her work, and joy had an ever smaller and smaller part in it. She saw the condition of the man she loved become hourly worse; and she could not fail to know that the approaching marriage was to blame. The paler and more fragile he became, the gentler and more full of respect was his conduct toward her. There was something in it that seemed like pitying pain and an unexpressed prayer for forgiveness of a wrong, an insult of which he felt himself guilty toward her.

Apollonius was compelled to come to a decision. He could not. The yawning discord in his soul became ever greater. If he resolved to renounce happiness, the phantom of guilt disappeared and happiness stretched out alluring arms toward him. She loved him and had always loved him, only him; all the world approved, in fact demanded it of him. He saw her before she had been stolen from him, how she had laid the little blue-bell down for him, all rosy beneath the brown curling locks which struggled to be free; then, pale under the ill-treatment of the brother who had stolen her from him, pale for him; then trembling before his brother's threats, trembling for him; then laughing, weeping, full of anguish and full of happiness in his arms. His brother's fall had made this woman free. He had known that when he let his brother fall. If he should wed his brother's wife, who had become free through the fall, he would make himself guilty of this fall. If he received the reward of the deed, the deed was also his. If he took her, the feeling would never leave him; he would be unhappy and would make her unhappy with him. For her sake and for his he must refrain. When he came to this decision, he realized how unsubstantial his conclusions were, viewed with the clear eye of the spirit; and yet, if he tried to reach out for happiness, the dark feeling of guilt hovered over him like an icy frost about a flower, and his soul could do nothing against its annihilating power. And the bells of St. George's continued to ring their warning. What made Apollonius' agitation even more feverish was the knowledge that the flaw in his work had not been corrected. It rained incessantly, the gap yawned wide, the boarding greedily drank in the water, the wood was bound to rot. If the winter cold increased, the water would freeze in the wood and injure the slate. The town, which trusted to his sense of duty, would suffer harm through him. Each night the stroke of two awakened him from sleep. Shadows mingled with his fever-dreams. The reproaches of his inward and outward yearning for purity blended. The open wound cried aloud for justice, the open grave for him who would close it. And it was he whom the bells called to justice, he who must close the grave before the disaster he had forged should descend upon an innocent head. He must climb to the tower and correct the flaw. But when he got there, it struck two, dizziness seized hold of him and dragged him down after his brother. From day to day, from hour to hour, the beautiful young widow saw him grow paler and became pale with him. Only the old gentleman in his blindness did not see the cloud which was lowering so threateningly. The air was very sultry in the house with the green shutters. No one who looks at the little house now would suspect how sultry it once was there.

It was on the night before the appointed betrothal day. Snow had fallen, and then great cold had suddenly set in. For several nights the so-called St. Elmo's fire had been seen darting tongues of flame from the tops of the towers to the gleaming stars of heaven. In spite of the dry cold, the inhabitants of the district felt a curious heaviness in their limbs. There was no air stirring. The people looked at one another as if each were asking the other if he too felt the same uneasiness. Odd prophecies of war, sickness and famine went from mouth to mouth. The more intelligent smiled, but were themselves unable to refrain from clothing their inward gloom in corresponding pictures of some impending disaster. All day long dark clouds, of different form and color from what the wintry sky is accustomed to display, had been gathering. Their blackness would have been in unbearably glaring contrast to the snow which covered mountains and valley and hung like candied sugar on the leafless boughs, if their dark reflection had not somewhat deadened the dazzling splendor. Here and there the firm outline of the cloud-castles softened and seemed to hang down over earth like drooping breasts. These bore more nearly the aspect of ordinary snow-clouds, and their dull reddish gray served to unite the leaden blackness of the higher plane with earth's drab whiteness and dingy appearance. The whole mass hung motionless over the town. The blackness increased. Two hours after midday it was already night in the streets. Dwellers on the ground floor drew down their blinds; in the windows of the upper stories appeared one light after another. In the public squares of the town, where a greater portion of the sky could be seen, groups of people stood, looking now upward into the heavens, now into the long, doubtful faces around them. They told of the ravens that had come in great flocks into the suburbs, they pointed to the deep, restless, uneven fluttering of the jackdaws around St. George's and St. Nicholas', they spoke of earthquakes, of land-slides and even of the Judgment Day. The more courageous thought it was only a violent thunder-storm. But even that seemed serious enough. The river and the so-called fire-pond, the waters of which could, at a moment's notice, be let into any part of the town by means of subterranean channels, were both frozen. Some hoped the danger would pass by. But each time they looked up at the sky they saw that the dark cloud-mass had not changed its position. Two hours after midday it had stood there; toward midnight it still stood there unmoved. Only it seemed to have become heavier and had sunk lower. How could it move when there was not a breath of air in motion, and to scatter and dispel such a mass as this a hurricane would have been required!

It struck twelve from St. George's tower. The last stroke seemed unable to die away. But the deep trembling murmur that hung on so long was no longer the dying tone of the bell. For now it began to grow; as if on a thousand wings it came rushing and surging and pushed angrily against the houses that would retard it; whistling and shrieking, it drove through every crevice that it met, and blustered about the house until it found another rift to drive out of again; it tore shutters open and slammed them furiously, it squeezed its way groaningly between adjacent walls, whistled madly round street corners, lost itself in a thousand currents, found itself again and rushed headlong into a raging stream, careered up and down with savage joy, jolted everything that stood fast, trilled with wild-playing fingers on the rusty vanes and weather-cocks and laughed shrilly at their groans; it blew the snow from one roof to another, swept it from the street, chased it onto steep walls where it crouched with fear in all the window chinks, and whirled great, dancing fir-trees of snow before it in its mad course.

Seeing that a storm was imminent, no one had taken off his clothes. The town and county storm night-watch, as well as the fire company, had been gathered together for hours. Herr Nettenmair had sent his son to the main guard-room in the town hall to represent him there as the master-slater of the town. The two journeymen sat with the tower watchman, one at St. George's, one at St. Nicholas'. The other municipal workmen entertained one another in the guard-room as well as they could. The building inspector looked anxiously at Apollonius, who, feeling his friend's eye fixed upon him, rose, to conceal from him if possible his brooding state of mind. At this very moment the storm broke forth with renewed violence. From the town-hall tower it struck one. The sound of the bell whimpered in the grip of the storm which dragged it along in its wild chase. Apollonius stepped to the window as if to see what was happening outside. A gigantic, sulphur-blue tongue leaped into the room, sprang twice trembling upon stove, wall and people, and then, leaving no trace, was swallowed up in itself again. The tempest raged on: but, even as the storm had seemed born out of the last sound of St. George's bell, there now arose a something out of the raging which exceeded it in force as far as the raging had exceeded the sound of the bell. An invisible world seemed to tear it to pieces in the air. The storm raged and panted with the fury of the tiger which cannot destroy what it holds in its grasp; the deep, majestic rolling that outsounded it was the roar of the lion which has his foot on the enemy—the triumphant expression of struggle satisfied by action.