The common man has a child's keen eye for the strong points and weaknesses of his superior. This endeavor, which they saw through, lost Fritz Nettenmair the last vestige of the men's respect; it taught them, if they did not already know it, in whose bad books they might safely come, in whose they might not. And if they had been uncertain, the inspector's different behavior toward the two brothers might have determined them. And as they were not so finely organized, and also had not the same reasons as Fritz Nettenmair, their opinion made itself undisguisedly plain. They took liberties with him which showed him that the success of his condescension was entirely different from what he had intended. Then he drew the cloud of the blue coat once more wrathfully about him, whistled more shrilly than ever, so that the big bell on the other side resounded, was doubly bombastic and raised his shoulders as high again toward his black head. The wrath and decision of his former coughing and spitting was child's play to those he displayed now. But the workmen soon knew that this went on only in Apollonius' absence; and his chance appearance, like the rising full moon, disconcerted the heaviest thunder-storms.

Fritz Nettenmair was obliged to despair of reestablishing his lost importance on the scene of the repairs. Naturally he added also the result of his mistaken measures to Apollonius' ever-growing account. The feeling that he was superfluous seized him as it had his father, but not with quite the same effect. What the little garden was to the old gentleman the slate-shed now became to the elder son; at least as long as he saw Apollonius on the hanging-seat or on the church roof. But now he also brought the blue coat with him into the living room. His children—and this was easy as he himself did not trouble himself about them—had also been won over by his brother, by reprehensible means, of course. The reprehensible means were just those which he himself never applied: unintentional kindness and love that was wise in its severity. But even in his wife he began to see more and more one who was to some extent his brother's ally in the latter's conspiracy against him. He saw this long before he had the slightest real cause to do so, and that was the shadow that his guilt threw across the future of his imagination. Its old law was to compel him, by reason of the wrongness of his means of defense, to make of this shadow a real, living form and to place it in his life as a retributive force.

Vague, premonitory fear that fluttered by in momentary clear intervals, seemed to tell him that his changed behavior toward his wife must hasten this change. At such times he suddenly became doubly pleasant and jovial with her; but even this joviality bore something of the nature of the sultry soil from which it grew.

One cure for such a disease is highly praised; that is diversion, self-forgetfulness. As if the navigator should forget himself at sight of the threatening reef, as if every one should forget himself wherever double foresight is necessary! Fritz Nettenmair took the cure.

From now on he was never missing at a ball or any public amusement; he felt himself to have fled the danger forever if he were absent only for an hour from the place where he saw it threatening. He was more out of his house than in it—and not he alone. He thought the cure still more necessary for his wife than for himself. His vengeful self-consciousness assumed what lay as a mere possibility in the future to be a reality of the present. And his wife was still so much on his side that she was now angry with his brother to whose influence she attributed the change in her husband's behavior—only not in the way in which it really was responsible.

Apollonius, who was oppressed by all this as by a heavy cloud, an uncomprehended intuitive feeling, understood only this: his brother and his sister-in-law avoided him. He kept away from the places to which they went. The inmost need of his nature, the tendency to gather together rather than to dissipate, in itself, would have led him to do so. Solitude became a better cure for him than diversion proved to be for the other two. He saw how different his sister-in-law was from what she had seemed to him to be before. He was obliged to congratulate himself that his dearest hopes had not been fulfilled. His work gave him enough sense of himself; whatever gaps remained the children filled.

And the old man in the blue coat? Has he in his blindness no suspicion of the clouds that are piling up all about his house? Or is it such a suspicion that grips him at times when, meeting Apollonius, he exchanges indifferent words with him? Then two powers strive on his brow which his son, confronted by the shield over his father's eyes, does not see. He wants to ask something but he does not ask. So thick is the cloud that the old man has spun about him like a cocoon that there is no longer any way through it from him out into the world nor any, leading from outside in to him. He behaves as if he knew about everything. If he did not do so, he would show the world his helplessness and himself challenge it to abuse this helplessness. And if he should ask would people tell him the truth? No! He believes the world to be as obdurate toward him as he is toward it. He does not ask. He listens where he knows he is not seen listening, straining feverishly to catch every sound. And in every sound he hears something that is not there; his strained imagination builds boulders of it that crush his breast, but he does not ask. He dreams of nothing but of things that bring disgrace on him and his house.

It is the nature of guilt that it entangles not alone its author in new guilt. It has the magic power of drawing into its fermenting circle all who surround him and of ripening in him whatever is bad to fresh guilt. Well for him who successfully defends his unblemished heart against this magic power! Even if he cannot save the guilty one himself, he may be an angel to the others. Here are these four human beings with all their differences of individuality, held together in one knot of life which is being consumed by the guilt of one! What destiny will they spin for themselves, the people in the house with the green shutters?

Weeks had now passed since Apollonius' return and still he had not realized his sister-in-law's fears. During the first few days Fritz Nettenmair read in her demeanor a convulsive effort to pull herself together, a desperate endeavor to be prepared; now this gave way to something that appeared to be amazement. He, and he alone, saw how she began to observe his brother more and more courageously when he did not suspect that her gaze rested upon him. She seemed to be comparing his personality, his behavior with her expectation. Fritz Nettenmair felt in her soul how little the two agreed. He took pains to nurse his young wife's dislike of her brother-in-law back to its old strength. He did so, feeling all the time how vain his effort was; for a single glance at his brother's gentle, upright countenance must tear down what it had taken him days laboriously to build up. He felt how delicately he ought to go to work and how roughly he really did so; for the same power that sharpened his feeling for the degree carried him beyond it as soon as he came to act. He knew that what he had begun must complete its course to his ruin. He sought forgetfulness and drew his wife ever deeper with him into the whirlpool of diversion.

Medicines taken in too large doses are said to have the opposite of the desired effect. Thus it was with Fritz Nettenmair's medicine; at least as regarded his young wife. In the midst of every-day domestic work she had formerly longed for the festival of pleasure; now that this had become her every-day atmosphere her longing was for the quiet life of her home. Satiated with the marks of honor bestowed upon her husband by the important people, she now began for the first time to notice that there were other people who measured him according to a different standard. She began to compare, and the important people fell lower and lower in her eyes beside the every-day people. She thought of the dull ball on the evening of Apollonius' arrival.

She was sitting in the garden sewing while the old gentleman dreamt his heavy midday dreams. She felt so peculiarly happy at home. Her boys were playing at her feet, as quietly as if the old gentleman had been present, or no, not like that, for if he had been in the little garden they would not have dared to go in there at all. The little girl had thrown her arms round her mother, who seemed herself to be still a girl, so chaste did she appear. Now the child raised her little head with old-fashioned earnestness, looked meditatively at her mother and said: "Whatever can be the reason?"



"Reason of what?" asked her mother.

"Whenever you have been with us and then go away, he looks after you so sadly."

"Who?" asked her mother.

"Why, Uncle Apollonius. Who else could it be? Did you scold him, or slap him as you do me when I take sugar without asking? You must have done something to him, or he wouldn't be so sorry."

The little girl went on chattering and soon forgot her uncle over a butterfly. Not so her mother. She no longer heard what the child said. What a queer feeling was this that had come over her, happy and unhappy at the same time! She had let her needle fall without noticing it. Was she startled? It seemed to her that she was startled, much as she would have been if she had been speaking to some one and suddenly realized that it was not the person she thought. She had thought that Apollonius wanted to insult her, and now the child told her that she had insulted him. She looked up and saw Apollonius coming from the shed toward the house. At the same moment another man stood between her and him as if he had grown up out of the earth. It was Fritz Nettenmair. She had not heard him approaching.

After putting an indifferent question he went on with strange haste to speak of the "dull ball." He repeated what people had said about it, told her how offended every one felt that Apollonius had not asked her for a dance, not even for the first one. It was curious that when he reminded her of it now she felt it more keenly than ever; but not with anger, only with sad pain. She did not say so; she did not need to. Fritz Nettenmair was like a man in a magnetic sleep; from the leaf of a tree, from a picket in the fence, from a white wall he read, with closed eyes, what his wife felt.

"We shall soon get rid of him, I think," he went on as if he had not been reading from the stable-wall. "There is no room here for two households. And Anne is accustomed to plenty of space."

That was the name of the girl with whom Apollonius had been obliged to dance at the dull ball and see home afterward. Since then she had often been at the house on pretexts which her crimson cheek branded as lies. Her father too, a much-respected citizen, had sought Apollonius' acquaintance, and Fritz Nettenmair had furthered the matter in every way he could.

"Anne?" cried his wife as if shocked.

"It's good that she can't lie," thought Fritz Nettenmair with relief. But it occurred to him that her inability to disguise her feelings would also promote his brother's evil plan. He had sought to make her jealous as a last resort. That had been foolish of him, and he already regretted it. She could not pretend; and even if he were still the dreamer of old, her excitement could not but betray to him what was going on in her breast, could not but betray it to herself. And then—once more he had reached the point to which every conclusion led him; he saw her awakening to an understanding of herself. "And then"—he forced the words out so that every syllable tore itself on his teeth—"and then—she'll learn to know what it means!"

His brother expected him in the living-room. "Of course, now that he knows I saw him, he must make some excuse for having passed by here when he thought she was alone." Thus thought Fritz, and followed his brother.

Apollonius was really waiting for him in the living-room. He wanted to see his brother in order to warn him against the evil-looking workman. He had heard much that was suspicious about him, and knew that his brother trusted him implicitly. "And so you order me to send him away?" asked Fritz; and this time he could not help allowing his spite to gleam through his disguise. From the tone in which he spoke Apollonius could not fail to read his real feeling. It was: "So you want to force your way even into the shed too, and drive me out of it. Try it, if you dare!"

Apollonius looked into his brother's eyes with unconcealed pain. He brushed the lapel of his brother's coat as if he would wipe away whatever clouded the relations between them, and said: "Have I done anything to hurt you?"

"Me?" laughed his brother. His laughter was intended to mean: "I'm sure I don't know what!" But it really meant: "Do you ever do anything else, do you ever want to do anything else, but just what you know will hurt me?"

"For a long time I have wanted to say something to you," went on Apollonius, "I will tomorrow; you are not in the right humor today. You had to know what I have told you about the workman, and it wasn't meant as you have taken it."

"Of course! Of course!" laughed Fritz. "I'm convinced that it wasn't so meant."

Apollonius went and Fritz supplemented his speech with, "it was not meant as you would have me believe, old fox. And wasn't it meant as I took it? You think—The workman is a bad fellow; but you would never have warned me if you hadn't needed an excuse." He turned on his heel with a movement that suggested his feeling of superiority. In his desolate state of mind it had pleased him to make successful use of his father's diplomatic method of concealing his thoughts by half expressing them.

His pleasure was short-lived; his old worry fastened him again to the rack. And a newer one had been added to it. He had neglected the business. In his master's absence from the shed the workman had had opportunity enough to steal, and had certainly made use of it. It was long since Fritz had done any work at the church; Apollonius had been obliged to engage another workman and put him in his brother's place. He had earned nothing now for a long time and yet never missed any public amusement. The esteem of the important people showed a growing inclination to fall, and could only be kept up by increasing quantities of champagne. He had plunged himself into debt, and continued to add to his obligations daily. And yet the moment was bound to come when the appearance of prosperity which he had been at such pains to sustain would disappear.

Anne Wohlig had often been at the house since Apollonius' arrival; and Christiane, with the credulity which in simple souls is the natural consequence of their own truthfulness, had seen nothing suspicious in her most far-fetched pretexts. This was not so today. She had suddenly grown so keen-sighted that what she recognized to be an excuse assumed in her eyes the proportions of an unpardonable crime. She disliked any girl that could be so double-faced, and she herself was too honest to hide her opinion. Anne sought the reason for Christiane's treatment of her in the latter's dislike of her brother-in-law. It was well known that she begrudged the poor fellow his brother's affection. She herself had said that she would turn him down if he should dare to ask her for a dance. And Apollonius' appearance showed that she made it impossible for him to enjoy his stay in his father's house. Vexation made Anne honest, too, and she expressed her thoughts as far as she could without touching on the delicate point of her own feeling for Apollonius. Christiane was now obliged to hear the same reproach from a stranger's mouth that she had already heard from her own child.

The girl went. Apollonius, on his way back from his brother, passed by again. He was still in time to see Anne leaving. But nothing showed in his face to confirm Christiane's only half understood fear.

The child had said: "You have done something to him." Anne had said: "You hate him, you won't let him enjoy himself." And the sad glance that he sent after her—she herself caught him now and then unnoticed—said the same thing. Like a flash of joyous light it came into her mind that he did not look sadly after Anne—nor joyfully either. His gaze was as indifferent as it was with every one else. She had been told: "You hate him, you have offended him and you want to hurt him." And she had believed that he hated her, that he wanted to hurt her. And had he not done so? She looks back into the time long past when he insulted her. It is long now since she had felt angry with him for it; she had only feared a fresh insult. Could she still be angry, when he had become such a different man, when she herself knew that he would not offend her, when people said, and his own sad glance confirmed it, that she offended him? And she let her thoughts run back eagerly, so eagerly that the music sounded again about her and she sat again among her girl friends, in her white dress with the pink sash, in the shooting-house, on the bench in front of the windows; and she got up again, driven by a vague impulse and, dreaming, made her way among the dancers to the door—there she saw outside, was it not the same face that looked after her now when she passed, so honest, so gentle in its sadness? Was it not the same peculiar sympathy now as then, that followed her every step and never left her? Then, she had avoided him and looked at him no more, for he was false. False? Is he false again? Is he still false?

* * * * *

All day long Fritz Nettenmair thought of what it could be that Apollonius wanted to say to him tomorrow: "Tomorrow, because I am not in the humor for it today? In the humor? I've let the fox see my hand. If I hadn't, he would have blurted it out; now I have warned him and made him cautious. I am too honest with a player who cheats so; I am bound to lose. Good; I will be 'in the humor' tomorrow, I'll act as though I were blind and deaf, as if I didn't see what it is he is trying to do, even if it were still clearer. A cobweb on the lapel of my coat so that he may have something to brush off! I can't bear to have a fellow like that look into my face—the hypocrite!"

Thus prepared and resolved to outdo the fox in cunning, even though it should put his self-control to the severest test, Apollonius found his brother waiting for him the following day. Apollonius too had resolved on his course. He was determined not to let himself be confused today by any mood of his brother's; everything depended on shutting off the source of all these moods. Fritz wished him the most unembarrassed, jovial good morning that he could command.

"If you will listen to me calmly and in a spirit of brotherliness," said Apollonius, "I hope that this will be the best kind of a morning for you and me and all of us."

"And all of us," repeated Fritz and put nothing of his explanation of the three words into his tone. "I know that you always think of us all, so speak out merrily from your heart; I'll do the same."

Apollonius omitted his intended introduction. He had learnt to be wise and cautious; but to be wise and cautious toward a brother would have seemed to him to be duplicity. Even if he had known of his brother's duplicity he, unlike the latter, would never have thought of meeting him with the same weapons. Even in the face of his experience he would have persuaded himself that he was mistaken.

"I think, Fritz," he, began cordially, "we should have been different toward each other from what we have been." He good-naturedly took half the blame on himself. In his own mind his brother put the whole of it on him, and was about to assure him jovially of the contrary when Apollonius continued. "Things have not been the same as they used to be between us, nor as they should be. The reason for this, as far as I know, is only your wife's dislike of me. Or do you know of any other?"

"I know of none," said his brother shrugging his shoulders regretfully; but he thought of Apollonius' return against his advice, of the ball, of the conference in the church loft, of his being pushed aside in the matter of the repairs, of his brother's whole plan, of that part of it that had been and of that part which was still to be carried out. He thought that Apollonius was occupied only in trying to put it into execution, and of how much depended on his guessing Apollonius' next intention and bringing it to naught.

While he was thinking this, Apollonius went on speaking, with no idea of what was passing in his brother's mind. "I do not know what it can be that has made your wife dislike me. I only know that it cannot be anything that I have done intentionally. Can you tell me what it is? I do not want to accuse her; it is possible that there is something about me that displeases her. And if so, then it is certainly nothing that should be praised or spared. And I should be the very last to spare myself if I only knew what it is. If you know, please tell me. If it is anything bad you must not spare me, even if it should cause you pain to tell me. If you know it and don't tell me, that can be the only reason. But you would not offend me by telling me, really, Fritz."—

Fritz Nettenmair did what Apollonius had just done; in his own mind he measured his brother by himself. The result was bound to be to Apollonius' disadvantage. Apollonius took his thoughtful silence for an answer.

"If you do not know," he went on, "let us go to her together and ask her. I must know what I ought to do. Our life cannot go on like this. What would father say if he knew? I reproach myself day and night that he does not know. It is better for us all, Fritz. Come, let us not put it off."

Fritz Nettenmair heard only his brother's presumptuous demand that he should take him to her! That he should take him to her now! Did Apollonius already know of her state and want to take advantage of it? The question was superfluous; if they saw each other now they could not fail to understand each other. And then it would be there, the thing that for weeks he had not allowed himself an hour's rest in trying to prevent. Then it would come to pass, the thing of which he knew that it must come and the coming of which he had yet made desperate efforts to hinder. They must not see each other face to face now; they must not see each other now until he had built a new dividing wall between them. Of what? He had no leisure to think of that now. He must have some pretext on which to prevent the meeting, must have time to find an excuse. And merely to gain time he said laughingly:

"Of course! Ask her freely and cheerfully. Whoever asks is told. But how do you come to think of that just now? Just now?" A thought that flashed overwhelmingly into his mind involuntarily expressed itself in this question. Apollonius was already at the door. He turned back to his brother, and answered with a gladness that seemed fiendish to the latter because he did not look into the other's honest face. If he had, Apollonius would have caught something of the devilish fear that disfigured his brother's countenance. And still, perhaps he would not. He might have thought his brother ill, so entirely was he without the slightest suspicion of anything in his proposal that could inspire his brother with fear. In fact he thought that what pleased him must please his brother also.

"Before," replied Apollonius, "I was obliged to fear that I should make her still more angry. And that would have been even more disagreeable for you than for me."

His brother laughed and nodded in his jovial way with his head and shoulders merely for the sake of doing something. And his: "And now?" sounded as if it were half stifled with laughter, not with anything else.

"Your wife has been different for some time," went on Apollonius confidingly.

"She is"—answered Fritz Nettenmair's start against his will and wanted to say what he considered her to be. It was an evil word. But would he himself who had made her that tell him so? No, it has not yet come to pass, what he fears. And even if it is bound to come; he can still delay it. He forces himself not to give utterance to his excitement. He would like to ask: "And how do you know that she—is different?" But he knows that his voice would tremble and betray him. He must know who has told his brother. Has he already spoken to her? Has he read it in her eyes at a distance? Or is there a third person involved—an enemy whom he already hates before he knows whether he exists?

Apollonius seems to have caught something of his brother's unfortunate gift of reading another's thoughts. His brother does not ask; his face is turned away; he is seeking like a desperate man and cannot find; and yet Apollonius answers him. "Your little Annie told me," he said, and laughed as he thought of the child. "'Uncle,' said the odd little thing, 'mother is not so cross with you any more; go to her and say you won't do it any more; then she'll be kind again and will give you sugar.' That's how she put the idea into my head. It's wonderful how it sometimes seems as if an angel were speaking out of a child's mouth. Your little Annie may have been an angel to us all."

Fritz Nettenmair laughed so boisterously at the child that Apollonius' laughter caught fire again from his. But Fritz knew that it was a devil that had spoken out of the child's mouth. Yet he laughed—so hard that it did not strike Apollonius how forced and disconnected his reply was. "Well then, tomorrow, as far as I'm concerned, or even this afternoon; now I can't possibly spare the time. Now I'll go down with you to St. George's. I have a necessary errand to do tomorrow! Oh, the confounded child!"

Apollonius had no suspicion how seriously the laughing "confounded" was meant. He said, still laughing at the child himself, "Good. We'll ask tomorrow then. And then everything will be different. I am looking forward to it as gladly as the child, and you are too, I know, Fritz. We'll make it a very different life from what we have been leading." Kindhearted Apollonius rejoiced so heartily at his brother's joy! He continued to do so even after he was up again on his swinging seat, flying round the church roof.

Just as restlessly hovered about his brother's fear the sinister something that hung above him and threatened to engulf him; still more industriously did his heart hammer away at the crumbling plans to hinder the fall: but the ship of his thoughts did not hang between heaven and earth, held by the light of heaven. It pitched deeper and ever deeper between earth and hell, and hell branded him ever darker with its fire.

Toward evening Christiane was suddenly aroused from her dreaming by two men's voices. She was sitting in the grass not far from the closed door of the shed. Fritz and his brother had just entered the shed from the street at the back. She heard him teasing his brother about Anne Wohlig. Anne was the best match in the whole town—and Apollonius was a rascal who knew the world and the species that wore long hair and aprons. Anne was already sewing away at her outfit, and her cousins were carrying the news of her approaching marriage to Apollonius from house to house. Christiane heard her husband ask when the wedding was to be. She had been about to move away; now she forgot to go, she forgot to breathe. And then she almost gave a jubilant shout: Apollonius had said that he was not going to marry at all, either Anne or any one else.

His brother laughed. "Then that's why the evening you came back you didn't dance with any one but Anne and took her home afterward?"

"I would have danced with your wife," replied Apollonius. "You warned me that she would turn me down because she was so set against me. Then I didn't want to dance at all. You brought Anne up to me, and when you went you asked her if I might see her home. I couldn't do anything else under the circumstances. I have never thought of Anne in connection with—"

"Marriage?" interrupted his brother laughing. "Well, she's pretty enough to—amuse yourself with too, and it's worth the trouble to make her perfectly mad about you.

"Fritz!" exclaimed Apollonius, displeased. "But you're not in earnest," he added to soothe himself. "I know you know me better; but even in fun it isn't right to jest lightly about a respectable girl."

"Pshaw," said his brother, "if she behaves like that herself! What does she come to the house for and throw herself at your head?"

"She hasn't done that," answered Apollonius hotly. "She is a good girl, and comes here without any thought of wrong."

"Yes, or you would have put her right," laughed Fritz, and there was mockery in his voice.

"Did I know what she thought?" said Apollonius. "You've teased her about me and me about her. I have done nothing that could have awakened any such thoughts in her. I should have thought it a sin."

The men went back the way they had come. It did not occur to Christiane that they might have come along the path where she stood. All that was open and true in her rose in indignation against her husband. It was not other people who had lied to him; he himself was false. He had lied to her and to Apollonius and she had erred and had hurt Apollonius, Apollonius who was so good that he could not bear to hear Anne made fun of, who had certainly never made fun of her. Everything had been a lie from the beginning. Her husband was persecuting Apollonius because he was false and Apollonius was good. Her inmost heart turned away from the persecutor and toward the persecuted. Out of the rebellion of all her emotions a new and sacred feeling rose triumphant, and she gave herself up to it with the complete abandon of innocence. She did not know it. Oh, that she might never learn to know it! As soon as she learnt to know it would become a sin.—And already the steps were rustling through the grass that were to bring her the bitter knowledge.

Fritz Nettenmair had to erect a new dividing wall before he could bring his brother to his wife. He came for this purpose. His gait was uneven. He was still choosing and could not decide. He became even more uncertain when he stood before her. He read what she felt in her face; it was too honest to conceal anything; it knew too little of what it spoke to think it must hide this feeling. He felt that he could do nothing more with her by repeating the old slanders. He knew that petty absurdities are better fitted to destroy a growing interest than are gross faults. He imitated Apollonius going back along a way along which he had already passed with a light, for fear that he might have let a spark fall; he showed how his brother could not rest at night for thinking that perhaps a workman had not deserved the harsh word that he had spoken to him in the heat of the moment, how he sprang up out of bed to straighten the position of a ruler that he had left lying crooked on the table. At the same time Fritz kept on blowing imaginary fluff from his sleeves. He saw indeed that his efforts were having an opposite effect to what he wished. Irritated by this he went on to stronger measures. He pitied poor Anne whom Apollonius had made fall in love with him by hypocrisy, and told how coarsely he made fun of her in public.

A dark red had come into his young wife's cheeks. Frank, simple natures have a deep hatred of all duplicity, perhaps because they feel instinctively how defenseless they stand before such an enemy. She was trembling with emotion as she rose and said: "You might do that; he could not."

Fritz Nettenmair was startled. In the sight of the figure that stood before him full of contempt there was something that disarmed him. It was the power of truth, the loftiness of innocence confronting the sinner. He pulled himself together with an effort. "Did he tell you so? Have you got so far already?" he said, forcing the words out between his teeth. Christiane wanted to go into the house; he stopped her. She wanted to tear herself away.

"You have lied about everything," she said. "You have lied to him. You have lied to me. I heard what you said to him just now in the shed."

Fritz Nettenmair drew a breath of relief. So she did not know everything. "Was I not obliged to?" he said, his eye scarcely able to stand the purity of her gaze. "Was I not obliged to in order to prevent your disgrace? Do you want the fluff-picker to despise you?" Now her eyes made him drop his. "Do you know what you are? Ask him what a woman is who forgets her honor and her duty. Of whom do you think as you should think only of your husband? When you creep about like a wench in love wherever you think you will see him? And you think that people are blind. Ask him what he calls that kind of a woman? Oh, people have fine names for a woman of that sort."

He saw how she started, shocked. Her arm quivered in his hand. He saw she was beginning to understand him, was beginning to understand herself. He had feared her obstinacy—and behold, she was breaking down! The angry red faded in her cheek and a blush of shame flushed wildly over its pallor. He saw her eyes seek the ground as if she felt the gaze of all men fixed upon her, as if the shed, the fence, the trees all had eyes and they were all staring into hers. He saw how in the suddenness of her perception she called herself one of the women for whom people have such fine names.

The pain poured its rain over her burning cheeks that bled with shame and her tears were like oil; the fire grew when a voice sounded from the shed and his tread was heard. She tried to tear herself violently away and looked up with a half wild, half imploring glance that, dying, sank again to the ground before the thousand eyes that were fixed upon her. He saw that the eye of the man who was coming through the shed was the most terrible of all to her. He was again in possession of all his courage.

"Tell him,"—he forced the words out softly—"what you want of him. If he is as you think he is he must despise you."

Fritz Nettenmair held the struggling woman fast with the strength of the victor until he had beckoned to Apollonius, who stepped questioningly out of the shed, to come over to him. He let her go and she fled into the house. Apollonius, shocked, stopped halfway up to him.

"You see how she is," Fritz said to him. "I told her you wanted to ask her. If you like we will go after her, and she must confess to us. I'll see whether my wife can safely insult my brother, who is so good."

Apollonius had to restrain him. Fritz would not consent at first. Finally he said: "Well, now you see, at least, that it is not my fault. Oh, I am so sorry!"

There was an involuntary dismay in the last words which Apollonius connected with the failure at a reconciliation. Fritz Nettenmair repeated them softly, and this time they sounded like a mockery of Apollonius, like mocking regret at the failure of a sly trick.

Christiane had rushed into the living-room and bolted the door behind her. She was not thinking of Fritz; but Apollonius might come in. She turned over and over the feverish thought of fleeing out into the world. But wherever she thought of herself, on the steepest mountain, in the deepest valley, he met her and saw what it was that she wanted and he had to despise her. Little Annie was in the room; she had not noticed the child. All the mother's life was engaged in her inward struggle; Annie could not tell from her mother's look what was going on within her. She drew her mother onto a chair, threw her arms round her in her usual fashion and looked up into her face. Her gaze struck her mother as if it came from Apollonius' eyes. Little Annie said:

"Do you know, Mother, Uncle 'Lonius"—the mother jumped up and pushed the child away from her as if it had been he himself. "Don't tell me anything more about—don't tell me anything more about him!" she said with such angry fear that the little girl stopped speaking and began to cry. Little Annie did not see the fear, she saw only the anger in her mother's action. It was anger at herself. The little girl lied when she told her uncle of her mother's anger at him. He did not need to be told. Had he not seen her red cheek himself, when she fled from his and his brother's question; the same red of angry dislike with which she had received him when he came home? Oh, from then on life was curiously sultry in the house with the green shutters for days and weeks.

Fritz Nettenmair was very little at home. From early in the morning till late at night he sat in a public house from which the door in the church roof and the hanging seat on the tower could be seen. He was more jovial than ever, and treated everybody in order to forget himself in their insincere admiration.

In the shed and in the slate quarry the disagreeable-looking workman took his place. Until he came home late at night, the workman wandered back and forth in the passage leading from the living-room to the shed. There had been some cases of theft in the neighborhood, and the workman stood watch; Fritz Nettenmair had become a very anxious man about his home. Other people wondered at Fritz Nettenmair's confidence in the workman. Apollonius warned him repeatedly. Of course! He had good reason not to desire any watch kept, least of all by this workman who did not like him. And that was just why Fritz Nettenmair trusted the workman and would not listen to warnings. When Fritz Nettenmair said to his brother: "I am so sorry," he had just caught sight of the workman. The latter's grin showed him that the workman saw through him and knew what it was that he feared. He ground his teeth; half an hour later he intrusted him with the watch and his place in the shed and the quarry. It needed but few words. The workman understood what Fritz told him that he must do; he also understood what Fritz did not tell him and what he must do nevertheless. Fritz Nettenmair had as little confidence in the fellow's honesty in the business as had Apollonius; but the man's dishonesty there secured him his honesty where he needed it more.

The old gentleman in the blue coat had worse dreams than ever; he listened more anxiously than ever to every fleeting sound, heard more in it, and added ever greater loads to what lay on his breast. But he did not ask.

It was late one evening. From the tavern window Fritz Nettenmair had seen Apollonius leave his hanging seat and tie it to the scaffold. According to his custom, he hurried out of the restaurant so as to get home before Apollonius. He found his wife in the living-room, busy about her household work. The workman came in and made his customary report. Then he whispered something to his master and went.

Fritz Nettenmair sat down at the table with his wife. He usually sat there until the sound of the workman's shuffling tread in the hall told him that Apollonius had gone to bed. Then he went back again to his tavern; he knew that the house was safe from thieves, the workman was on the watch.

The feeling that he had his wife in his hand and that she resigned herself to the situation with suffering had until now aided the wine to cast over him a faint reflection of the jovial condescension which formerly had shone like the sun from every button of his clothes. Today the reflection was unusually faint—perhaps because her eye had not sought the ground when it met his glance. He put a few indifferent questions, and then said: "You have been merry today." He wanted her to feel that he knew everything that went on in the house even when he was not there. "You were singing."

She looked at him calmly and said: "Yes, and tomorrow I'll sing again. I don't know why I shouldn't."

He got up noisily from his chair and walked up and down with heavy steps. He wanted to intimidate her. She rose quietly, and stood there as if expecting an attack that she did not fear. He stepped close to her, laughed hoarsely and made a gesture which he intended to frighten her into stepping back. She did not do so. But the crimson of hurt feelings spread over her cheeks. She had grown keen-sighted, distrustful of her husband. She knew that he had her and Apollonius watched.

"And did he tell you nothing more?" she asked. "Who?" shouted Fritz. He raised his shoulders and thought he looked like the old man in the blue coat. His wife did not answer.

Presently she said softly, "I have come to be at peace with myself," and this was written so brightly in her eyes that the man began to walk up and down again in order not to have to look at them. "I am at peace with myself. The thoughts came to me; I was not to blame for that, and I did not call them into my mind. I did not know they were evil. Then I fought with them and I will not tire as long as I live. In my soul I went to my dear mother's bed where she died, and I saw her lying there and laid three fingers on her heart. I promised her that I will do and suffer nothing dishonorable and I begged her with tears to help me not to do or suffer anything dishonorable. I promised and begged until all my fear had gone away, and I knew that I was an honorable woman and would remain an honorable woman. And no one may despise me. Whatever you may do to me, I am not afraid and will not defend myself. But you shall not do anything to the child. You do not know how strong I am and what I can do. I will not have it; that I tell you."

His glance passed fearfully by the slender figure without touching her pale, beautiful countenance; he knew that an angel stood there and threatened him. Oh, he realized, he felt how strong she was; he felt how powerfully the resolution of an honest heart protects. But only against him! His weakness made him feel that. He felt that no one who had the power of belief could fail to believe her. He had gambled away this right in the crooked game. He would have had to believe her, if he had not known that what must come, would come. Not she nor any one could prevent it. He had fallen into the hands of the spirit of his guilt, the thought of retribution, which drove him irresistibly to bring about what he wished to prevent; the long steady habit of thinking this thought had buried him too deep. Hope and trust were alien to the thought; hate was more akin to it. And it was hate that he called to his aid.—Outside the workman's feet shuffled on the sanded floor of the hall. The house was safe from thieves: he could leave it again.

Fritz Nettenmair was as jovial in the tavern that night as he could possibly be. His flatterers were thirsty, and pleased with his condescension. He drank, pushed the guests' hats down over their ears, performed many another tender caress with his stick and his hand, and laughed admiringly at them as brilliant jokes. He did everything to forget himself; but he did not succeed.

If he could only have changed with his wife, who during this time was sitting solitary at home! The thing for which he longed—to forget himself—was the very thing against which she must be on her guard. What he must do, what he could not avert by any effort, was the thing for which she strove unavailingly—to remember herself. All her thoughts spoke to her of Apollonius. She thought she was avoiding him, and now she saw that he had fled from her. She ought to be glad, and it hurt her. Her cheeks burned again. It was peculiar that she herself regarded her position more sternly or more mildly according to whether Apollonius in her thoughts judged it more sternly or more mildly. He had become to her the involuntary standard by which to measure things. Did he know what she was, and despise her? He was so gentle and indulgent; he did not ridicule Anne, did not despise her. Even before he came, did she already have thoughts that she should not have had and did he guess them? And he was sorry for her, and that was why he looked after her with such a sad glance when she went? Yes! Of course! And now he fled from her in order to spare her: the sight of him should not arouse thoughts in her that had better sleep till she herself slept in her coffin. Perhaps he himself had said so to her husband, or written; and the latter had chosen dislike as a means of curing her.

Was it chance that at this moment she glanced at her husband's desk? She saw that he had forgotten to take the key out of the lock. She remembered that he had never been so careless before. Usually she would have taken no notice of it; now she remembered that if he knew her to be there he had never left the room even for a moment without locking the desk and taking the key with him. Apollonius' letters lay in the top right-hand drawer; usually her glance avoided the spot. Now she opened the desk and drew out the drawer. Her hands trembled, her whole form quivered—not for fear that her husband might surprise her in what she was doing. She must know how it stood between her, Apollonius, and her husband; she would have asked the latter, she would not have come to her own aid if she could have trusted him. She trembled in expectation of what she should find. Had she any premonition of what it would be?

There were many letters in the drawer; all of them lay open and unfolded. She touched them all, one after another, before she read them. With each one that she touched a fresh flush spread over her cheeks, as if she touched Apollonius himself, and involuntarily she drew back her hand. Now a little metal box fell from one of the letters back into the drawer; the box flew open and out of it fell a small, dry blossom—a little bluebell. It was just such a one that she had once laid on the bench that he might find it. She was startled. That one, Apollonius had auctioned off the same evening with ridicule and mockery among his comrades, asking them what they would give and finally, amid the general laughter, solemnly knocked it down to his brother. He had brought it to her and told her about it while they were dancing and Apollonius had looked in at the hall window, mockingly, as his brother had said. That one she had pulled to pieces; all the young people had danced over the ruins. The blossom in the box was another one. The letter must tell from whom it was or to whom Apollonius sent it.

And yet it was the same flower. She read it. What feelings took possession of her as she read that it was the same one. Tear after tear fell on the paper and out of them mounted a rosy haze and veiled the narrow walls of the little room. Oh, it was a world of happiness, of laughing and crying with happiness that rose from the tears; every one shone more like a rainbow, every one cried: "She was yours!" And the last one lamented: "And she has been stolen from you!" The flower was from her; he carried it on his breast in yearning, hope, and fear, until she of whom he thought when he touched it had become his brother's. He was so good that he had thought it a sin to keep the poor blossom away from the man who had stolen the giver from him. And she might have clung to such a man, might have enfolded him in the arms of her yearning and never let him go! She could have done it, might have done it, should have done it! It would not have been a sin; it would have been a sin if she had not done so. And now it was a sin because the other had defrauded him and her, the other who now tormented her about what he himself had made sinful, who forced her to sin—for be forced her to hate him, and that too was a sin and his fault. With terribly sweet fear she thought of the nearness of the man who should be a stranger to her, who was not a stranger to her, from whom in the dread of her weakness she saw no escape. She fled from him, from herself, into the room where her children slept, where her mother had died. There, where such peace had come to her, she heard the slight movement of the innocent little slumberers whose guardian God had made her, heard their quiet breathing whispering into the still, dark night. She went from bed to bed, sank motionless on her knees before each, and pressed her forehead against the sharp edges of the bedsteads.

From the tower of St. George's the bells rang as the step of time passed over her; and he did not cease his march. She lay, her hot hands clasped, a long, long time. Then from the gentle web of her feelings there rose, silvery as the sound of Easter morning bells, the thought: why are you afraid of him? And she saw all her angels kneeling About her and he was one of her angels, the most beautiful and the strongest and the gentlest. And she might look up to him as one looks up to his angels. She rose and went back into the other room. She spread the letters out on the table and then laid herself to rest. She meant their possessor to know, when he came home and found the letters, that she had read them. It was hard for her to part with them; but they did not belong to her. She took away only the little box with the withered flower, and meant to tell him in the morning that she had done so.

Fritz Nettenmair still sat on all alone in the wine-tavern. His head hung wearily down on his breast. He justified to himself his hatred and his course of action. His brother and she were false; his brother and she were guilty, not he who sat here squandering what belonged to his children. He who had stolen her heart away from him might look after them. Just at the moment when he had succeeded in convincing himself, the door of the bedroom at home opened. His wife had got up out of bed again and put back the box containing the flower with the letters. Apollonius had not kept it, neither might she. Her husband had not yet thought of going home when she once more pulled the covers over her chaste limbs. In the thought that thence-forward Apollonius should be her lode-star, and that if she acted as he did she would remain pure and safe from evil, she fell asleep and smiled in her slumber like a carefree child.

Apollonius knew little of his brother's mode of life. Fritz Nettenmair hid it from him through the involuntary restraint that Apollonius' efficient personality laid upon him, though he would not have acknowledged it to any one, least of all to himself. And the workmen knew that they might not go to Apollonius with anything that looked like tale-bearing, least of all where his brother was concerned, whom he would have liked to see respected by them all more than himself. But he had noticed that Fritz looked on him as an intruder on his rights who robbed him of all pleasure in his business and occupation. From the day of his return Apollonius had not felt happy at home. He was a burden to those whom he loved most; he often thought of Cologne, where he knew himself to be welcome. Until now the moral obligation had held him which he had taken upon himself in respect to the repairs. These were nearing completion with rapid strides. Thus his thought was at liberty to demand realization; and he imparted it to his brother.

It was difficult for Apollonius at first to convince his brother that he was in earnest in his intention to return to Cologne. Fritz took it for a sly pretext meant to reassure him. Man gives up a fear with as much difficulty as he does a hope. And he would have had to confess to himself that he had done wrong to the two whom he had become so accustomed to accusing of having done wrong to him that he felt a kind of satisfaction in so doing. He would have had to forgive his brother for a second wrong which the latter had suffered from him. He did not become reconciled until he had succeeded in seeing again in his brother the dreamer of old and in his intention a piece of foolishness, until he saw in it an involuntary confession that his brother had recognized in him a superior opponent and was leaving in despair of ever being able to carry out his evil plan. Then at once all his old jovial condescension waked as from a winter sleep. His boots creaked again: "There he is!" and his dangling seal once more voiced the triumphant shout: "Now the fun will begin!" His boots drowned what his head said to him of the unavoidable consequences of his extravagance, of his descent in the general esteem. It seemed to him that everything would be just as it had been, once his brother was away. Looking ahead, he even believed in his extraordinary magnanimity in forgiving his brother for having been there. He stood before his brother in all his old greatness, in which he confronted the intruder as the sole head of the business; with his most condescending laugh he waved to his brother the assurance that he would manage to get the old man in the blue coat to consent; he himself must send Apollonius away.

The young wife felt as if her angel were about to leave her. She felt that she was safer from him when near him than when he was at a distance; for all the charm that forbade her desires to be sinful fell upon her from his honest eyes.

Apollonius had also told the councilman of his decision. It hurt him that the good man—who usually approved of everything that Apollonius wanted to do, in advance, as if the latter could not do anything that he would not be obliged to approve—received his news with odd, wondering, monosyllabic coldness. He pressed him to tell him the reason for this change. The two good men understood each other easily. After recovering from his surprise at finding Apollonius in ignorance of it, the councilman told him what he knew of his brother's mode of life and expressed the opinion that his father's house and business could not exist without Apollonius' aid. He promised to make further inquiries about the matter, and was soon able to enlighten Apollonius as to the details. Here and there in the town his brother owed not inconsiderable sums; the slate business, particularly of late, had been so carelessly and unconscientiously carried on that some customers of many years' standing had already withdrawn their patronage, and others were about to do so. Apollonius was frightened. He thought of his father, of his sister-in-law and of her children. He thought of himself too, but it was just his own strong sense of honor that made him first imagine what the proud, upright, blind old man would have to suffer under the disgrace of a possible bankruptcy. He would be able to earn his bread; but his brother's wife and children? And they were not accustomed to hardship. He had heard that Christiane's inheritance from her parents had been considerable. He took heart. Perhaps the situation could still be saved. And he wanted to save it. He would not stop at any sacrifice of time and strength and property. If he could not hinder the decline, at least those who were dear to him should not want.

The staunch councilman rejoiced at his favorite's view of the matter, on which indeed he had reckoned; he had thought it odd that Apollonius had not shown it before. He offered him his aid, saying that he had neither wife nor child and that God had permitted him to acquire something so that he might help a friend with it. Apollonius did not as yet accept his offer. He wanted first to see how matters stood and to feel sure that he could remain an honest man if he took his friend at his word.

Hard days came for Apollonius. His old father must as yet know nothing, and, if it were possible to uphold his honor, should never learn that it had tottered. In his treatment of his brother Apollonius required all his firmness and all his gentleness.

After having found out who the creditors were and what the various sums amounted to, Apollonius examined the condition of the business and found it even more confused than he had feared. The books were in disorder; for some time no more entries had been made at all. Letters from customers were found complaining of the poor quality of the material delivered and of carelessness in the execution of their orders; others, with bills inclosed, were from the owner of the quarry who did not want to take any new orders on credit until the old ones were paid. The greater part of Christiane's fortune was gone; Apollonius had to force his brother to produce the remains of it. He was obliged to threaten him with court proceedings. What did not Apollonius, with his punctilious love of order, suffer in the midst of such confusion! What did he not go through, with his intense love of his family, in having to act thus toward his brother! And yet the latter saw in every utterance, every act of this man who was suffering so, only badly concealed triumph. After infinite pains Apollonius succeeded in getting a comprehensive survey of the state of affairs. If the creditors could be persuaded to have patience and the customers who had transferred their business could be won back again, it would be possible, with strict economy, industry and conscientiousness, to save the honor of the house; and, by untiring effort, he might succeed in assuring to his brother's children at least an unincumbered business as their inheritance.

Apollonius wrote at once to the customers and then went to his brother's creditors. The former agreed to give the house another trial. Among the latter he had the pleasure of learning what confidence he had already won in his home town. In every case if he would stand security the creditor was willing to allow the sum owing to remain as a loan, at low interest, to be gradually paid off. Some of them even wanted to intrust him with cash in addition. He did not attempt to test the sincerity of these offers by accepting them, and thus only added to the confidence that those who made them felt in him. Then he modestly and gently explained to his brother what he had done and still wanted to do. Reproaches could not do any good, and he thought that admonitions were superfluous where the necessity was so plain. If from now on Apollonius, acting alone and independently, took over the management of the whole, of the business and of the household, his brother surely could not see in his conduct any voluntary derogation. In a matter in which he had staked his honor he must have a free hand.

Above all things the selling end of the business must once more be brought up to its former standing. The quality of the material delivered by the owner of the quarry had steadily deteriorated, and his brother had been obliged to accept it in order to get any material at all. The other creditors' offers, to let the money owing them stand as loans, he accepted, in order to settle the quarry owner's old account with what could at once be liquidated of the remnant of Christiane's fortune, and to pay cash at once for a new order. Thus it was possible to obtain good material again at a reasonable price and to satisfy his purchasers. The owner of the quarry, who on this occasion made Apollonius' acquaintance and saw something of his knowledge of the material and of its treatment, made him an offer, as he himself was old and tired of work, to lease him the quarry. The conditions under which he was willing to do this would have allowed Apollonius to reckon on large profits; but as long as he had only himself to depend upon in his difficult situation, he could not divide his strength among several enterprises.

Apollonius made his plan for the first year and fixed a certain sum which his brother was to receive from him weekly for his household expenses. He dismissed as many of the hands as he could possibly spare. He put the faithful Valentine in charge during the time that he himself was obliged to be busy about affairs outside. There was a well-founded suspicion that the disagreeable-looking workman had been guilty of various dishonest acts. Fritz Nettenmair, who clung to the guardian of his honor as to its last bulwark, did everything he could to justify him and thus to keep him in the house. He explained that he had given the man express orders to do all the things of which he was accused. Apollonius would have liked to have made a legal complaint against the fellow, but he was obliged to be content with paying him off and forbidding him the house. Apollonius was inexorable, gentle though he was in putting his reasons before his brother. Any unprejudiced person would have to admit that he could not do otherwise, that the fellow must go. And with a savage laugh Fritz Nettenmair, too, thought, when he was alone, "Of course he must go!" Whatever Apollonius showed him, strictness and gentleness merely strengthened him in the belief that relaxed its hold upon him the less the longer he nourished it and that grew the thirstier for his heart's blood the longer he fed it from that fount. He saw no further obstacle to prevent his brother's criminal intention from succeeding.

From now on his state of mind alternated between despairing resignation to what could no longer be prevented, what had already probably taken place, and feverish endeavors to prevent it notwithstanding. In accordance with these two moods his behavior toward Apollonius took the form of unconcealed obstinacy or of cringing and vigilant dissimulation. When the first mood governed him he sought forgetfulness day and night. Unfortunately the discharged workman had found employment in a quarry near by and was his companion on many a night. The important people turned away from him, and revenged themselves on him with unconcealed contempt for the desire that he had awakened in them and could no longer satisfy. He avoided them, and followed the workman into places where the latter was at home. There he sounded his jovial condescension an octave lower. The gin-shops now rang with his jokes; and they took on more and more the character of the surroundings.

Roofs that are covered with metal or tiles usually require repairing only after a number of years have elapsed; it is different with slate roofs. While the roof is being covered damage to the slates from the scaffolds and the workmen's feet cannot be avoided. And such damage often does not become apparent until afterward. Often more considerable repairs are required during the three years immediately following the covering of the roof than for fifty years afterward. The roof of St. George's added its testimony to the truth of this old experience. The slate roof of the tower, on the contrary, which Apollonius had attended to alone, bore gratifying witness to its maker's obstinate conscientiousness. The jackdaws who inhabited it would have been left in peace by his swinging seat for a long time if an old master-tinsmith had not chosen to show his ecclesiastical leanings by donating a tin ornament. This wreath of tin flowers which Apollonius was to lay around the tower roof was now the cause of his once more fastening his ladder to the broach-post. A little more than six months had elapsed since he had taken it down.

In the meantime his strenuous efforts had not been without success. He had kept his old customers and won new ones in addition. His creditors had their interest and a small payment on the principal for the first year; confidence in Apollonius and respect for him grew from day to day and with them grew his hope and his strength, for which he paid by redoubled exertions. If only the same thing could have been said of his brother, of the understanding between him and his wife!

It was fortunate for Apollonius that he had to put his whole soul into his purpose, that he had no time to follow his brother with his eye and heart, to see how the man whom he was trying to save sank deeper and deeper. When he rejoiced in his success, he did so from a feeling of loyalty to his brother and his brother's family; Fritz saw something quite different in his rejoicing and thought of nothing but of how to destroy it.

In the beginning he had given his wife the greater part of the money that he received weekly for his household expenses. Then he began to keep back more and more and finally he carried the whole of it into the places where the need of buying flatterers by treating them had followed him more faithfully than had the respect of the town. The experience he had had with the "important" people had not converted him. His wife had been obliged to get on with less and less. Old Valentine saw her distress, and from now on the house money went through his, instead of her husband's, hands. Finally Valentine became her treasurer, and never gave her more than she needed at the moment because money was no longer safe from her husband in her hands.

She used what time she had from her housekeeping and her children in doing different pieces of work which Valentine, as her agent, sold for her. The money that she thus received she used partly—she herself would rather go hungry even though she could not see her children do so—to adorn the living-room with all kinds of things that she knew that Apollonius loved. And yet she knew that Apollonius never came in there, that he never saw it. But then, she would not have done it if she had known that he would see it. Her husband saw it as often as he came into the room. Nothing escaped his eyes that might act as an excuse for his anger and his hatred. Then he began to abuse Apollonius, and in such terms as if he too must now show how much it is possible to acquire of another person's manner.

If the children were present it was his wife's first care to send them away. They must not witness his roughness and learn to despise their father—not for his sake but for their own. He did not betray how glad he was to be rid of the "spies." He feared that the children would complain of him to Apollonius. He did not think that his wife would complain herself, although he assumed that she and Apollonius met each other. Everything that he saw in the room was to him a fresh proof of his shame. How could he believe that it was for any other purpose than to be noticed by Apollonius? Then, when she told him that he might abuse her, only not Apollonius, the keen eye of jealousy showed him what pleasure she took in suffering for Apollonius. He reproached her with it, and she did not deny it. She said to him: "Because he suffers for me and for my children. He gives what he has been at great pains to save to take the place of the weekly sum of which the father has robbed his children."

"And he tells you that? He tells you that!" said the man, laughing with savage joy at having trapped her into a confession that she met him.

"Not he," returned his wife angrily, because the man she despised was judging Apollonius by himself. "Old Valentine told me." She went on to tell him that Valentine had sold as his own the watch that Apollonius had brought with him from Cologne. Apollonius had forbidden him to tell her.

"And also to tell you that he forbade him?" laughed her husband. And there was something of contempt in his laugh. Such things might indeed be believed of the dreamer; but now he would not believe it of him. "Of course!" he laughed still more wildly. "Even a stupider fellow than that dreamer knows that no woman will do it for nothing. The worst of them thinks herself worth something. One with such hair and such eyes and such a body!" He seized her by the hair and gazed into her eyes with a glance before which purity must blush; only depravity could meet it and laugh. He took her blush for a confession and laughed still more wildly. "You want to say that I am worse than he. Ha, Ha! You're right; I married such a woman. He wouldn't have done that. He isn't bad enough for that!"

Old Valentine must have failed to keep his word, or else Apollonius passed the door by chance when his brother believed him far away. He heard his brother's savage outbreak of anger, he heard the clear tone of the wife's voice, still clear and melodious in spite of her excitement. He heard them both without understanding what they were saying. He was shocked. He had not imagined that the breach between them had gone so far. And he was the cause of this breach. He must do what he could to improve matters.

His brother stood in his threatening attitude as if turned to stone when he caught sight of Apollonius entering. He had the feeling of a man suddenly surprised while doing a wrong. If Apollonius had turned on him as he deserved he would have groveled before him. But Apollonius wanted to reconcile them, and said so calmly and from his heart. He might indeed have known, for he had experienced it often enough, that his gentleness only gave his brother the courage to be sneeringly obstinate. It was the same this time. Fritz sneered at him, laughing savagely, and said that he was making an excuse where he was master. Was that the reason he had made himself master of the house? He knew that in Apollonius' place he would have behaved quite differently. He would have let the woman feel it whom he knew to be in his power. He was an honest fellow, and did not need to pretend to be so sweet. It occurred to him, moreover, how often he had sneaked about the door in vain, hoping to surprise Apollonius in the room. Now he was in the room. He had come in because he had not expected to find him. It was Apollonius who must be startled, Apollonius was the person caught, not he. The reconciliation was merely the first excuse on which Apollonius had seized. That was why he was so meek. That was why his wife was frightened—she had been trying to make him believe that Apollonius never came into the room. That was why she looked up at him so pleadingly. The contemptuous gaze with which she had just measured him had suddenly been torn from her consciously guilty face with the mask of pretended innocence. Now he knew with certainty: there was no longer anything to prevent; nothing remained to him but retribution. Now he could show his brother that he knew him, had always known him.

He pointed to his wife. "She's begging me to go. Why should I? I'll look out of the window. That will do just as well. I shan't see what you are doing."

Apollonius did not understand him. Christiane knew that he did not, without looking at him. She tried to leave the room. She could not endure to be humiliated in Apollonius' presence till she was nothing but dirt under his feet. Her husband held her with a savage grip. He seized her with the swoop of a bird of prey. She would have had to scream aloud if her mental torture had not deadened her physical pain.

"Don't mind her wanting to go away," gasped Fritz Nettenmair, stifled with unnatural laughter, and held his brother with his eye as he held his wife with his hand. "You needn't be afraid. Just as soon as I turn my back she will be here again. Go on, talk to each other. Go on, tell him that you can't bear him; I believe it of course; what won't a man believe if a woman like you tells him so? And you, give her some of your teachings from Cologne, where you learnt everything, how to drive your brother out of his house and business so as to—hm—well—Ha, ha! Why don't you tell her? A woman ought to be willing. Oh, such a willing woman is—go on, tell her what that kind of a woman is. She doesn't know it yet, innocent as she is! Ha, ha!"

Apollonius understood nothing of what he heard and saw; but the abuse of a man's strength on a helpless woman filled him with indignation. Involuntarily this feeling carried him away. It doubled his strength, which was far superior to his brother's at all times, when he gripped him by the arm that held his wife so that it let go its prey and dropped as if paralyzed. Christiane tried to leave the room, but she collapsed helplessly. Apollonius caught her and laid her on the sofa, supported against its back. Then he stood before his brother like a wrathful angel.

"I have tried to win you by gentleness, but you are not worthy of it. I have endured much at your hands and will continue to endure," said Apollonius; "you are my brother. You blame me for having driven you into misfortune; God is my witness that I have done everything that I knew to hold you back. For whom have I done what you reproach me with doing, if not for you, and for the sake of your honor and to save your wife and your children? Who compelled me to be hard on you? For whom do I work? For whom am I doing all that I do? If you knew how it hurts me to have you force me to tell you what I am doing for you! God knows, you force me to it; I have never done it yet, not with others, nor with myself. You know that you are only seeking an excuse to be unbrotherly toward me. I know it, and will continue to endure you as I have done till now. But that you should make an excuse of your wife's dislike of me to torture her too, and to treat her as no good man treats a good woman, that I will not stand."

Fritz Nettenmair burst into a horrible laugh. His brother had put him to shame in every way, and now still wanted to play the virtuous hero to him, the innocently offended, the chivalrous protector of the innocently offended woman. "A good woman! Such a good woman! Oh yes indeed! Is she not? You say so—and you are a good man. Ha, ha! Who should know better whether a woman is good or not than such a good man? You have not robbed me of everything? You have still to rob me of my reason so that I shall believe your fairy-tale. She dislikes you? She can't bear you? Oh, you don't know yet how much she dislikes you. I need only be away, then she will tell you. Then it will be bad for you! She will strangle you to make you believe her. When I am present she won't tell you. A woman won't tell a thing like that when her husband is there—a good woman, as she is. Why don't you say that you can't bear her either? Oh, I have no longer any sense! I'll believe anything that you two tell me!"

Forgetting everything but his passion, Fritz Nettenmair was convinced that Christiane and Apollonius had invented the fairy-tale of her dislike.

Apollonius stood shocked. He was obliged to say to himself what he did not want to believe. His brother read in his face terror at the light that was breaking in on him, dismay and pain at the misconstruction put upon his conduct. And everything that he saw was so genuine that even he was obliged to believe it. He was silenced by the thoughts that pierced his brain like strokes of lightning. So it might still have been prevented after all; what must come might still have been hindered! And again it was he, himself—But Apollonius—he saw that in spite of his confusion—still doubted and could not believe. So he might still destroy the effects of his madness, might still perhaps prevent, still hinder what must come, even if it were only for today and tomorrow. But how? Should he make a wild joke out of the whole scene? Such jokes were not unusual with him, and in his mind Apollonius once more became the dreamer of old who believed everything that was told him. He broke into a laugh, a fearful caricature of the jovial laugh with which he had formerly been accustomed to reward his own sallies. That was a confounded joke, that Apollonius could be made to believe that Fritz Nettenmair was jealous! Jovial Fritz Nettenmair jealous! Jovial Fritz Nettenmair! And, better still, of him. He had never heard a more confounded joke than that! He read in his wife's face how relieved she was at the turn he had given to the scene. He dared to appeal to her to confirm the fact that it was a confounded joke. Her "yes" made him still bolder. Now he laughed at his wife who could be "confounded" enough to reproach him angrily with having made her dependent on the favor of the man she hated, and explained laughingly that it was such things that gave rise to little quarrels in married life. He laughed at Apollonius for taking such a little dispute so seriously. He asked to be shown the married people who didn't have such disagreements now and then. It was easy to see that Apollonius was still a bachelor!

Apollonius heard the councilman's voice in the hall, asking for him; he went out quickly so that the councilman should not come in and be a witness to the scene. His brother heard them going away together. He was far from being reassured yet. When he went out Apollonius' face had shown that he was still struggling with the thought that had dawned on him.

Two passions were fighting against each other in Fritz Nettenmair's soul. The dissolute habit of forgetting himself in drink drew him out of the house by a hundred chains; jealous fear held him at home with a thousand talons. If his brother had not yet thought of what he might have if he liked, he himself had now introduced the thought into his mind. All day long he turned his fear over and over and did not let his wife out of his sight. Not until it had all grown quiet around him, till his wife had put the children to bed and laid herself to rest, till he no longer saw any light in Apollonius' windows, did the talons relax their hold and the chains draw the stronger. He locked the back door which separated Apollonius from the rest of the house, he even bolted it as well, and locked the door of the stairs leading to the piazza and finally the door at which he went out. He had cause for haste without knowing it. The disagreeable-looking workman could not stay much longer. Fritz Nettenmair did not yet know that Apollonius had been to the quarry owner and succeeded in having the workman dismissed, had talked to the police and brought it about that the workman might no longer let himself be seen in the neighborhood on the morrow. The workman was ready for his departure; from the public house he was going straight out into the wide world. He only wanted to take leave of his former master and tell him something more before he went.

There was little left in the world to which Fritz Nettenmair was attached. The road that he had been traveling led farther and farther down from what he loved most; it was irretrievably lost to him. He would never again be the centre of admiration and flattery. All that still bound him to his wife was the searing chain of jealousy. He never had been fond of his father; he hated his brother. He knew himself to be hated or, in his madness, believed himself to be hated. Little Annie would have clung to him with all the strength of a child's heart longing to be loved, but he drove her away from him with hatred; to him she was "the spy." To one man alone did his heart cling, to the one who least deserved it. He knew that the man had cheated him, had helped to ruin him, and still he clung to him. The man hated Apollonius, he was the only person besides himself who hated Apollonius and therefore Apollonius' brother clung to him!

Fritz Nettenmair accompanied the workman a part of his way. The workman wanted to walk faster, so he thanked him for his company, intending to proceed alone. When others part their last words are of what they both love; Fritz Nettenmair's and the workman's last words were of their hatred. The workman knew that Apollonius would have liked to have put him in the penitentiary, if he could. As the two now stood facing each other at parting, the workman measured the other with his eye. It was an evil, lurking glance, a grimly surreptitious glance that asked Fritz Nettenmair, without intending to be heard, whether he was ready for something which the workman did not name. Then he said, in a hoarse voice which would have struck the other but that Fritz Nettenmair was accustomed to it: "What was it I wanted to say? Oh, yes, you will soon be in mourning. I saw him the other day." He did not need to mention any name, Fritz Nettenmair knew whom he meant. "There are people who see more than others," the workman continued, "there are people who can see in a slater's face if he is doomed to fall that year, who see him being carried home, and see him lying there, only he is not there any more. An old slater told me the secret of how to see with the 'second sight.' I have it. And now farewell. Meet it with resignation when they carry him home."

The workman had left him; his steps were already growing faint in the distance. Fritz Nettenmair still stood and gazed into the white-gray fog into which the workman had disappeared. The layers of fog hung horizontally above the meadows by the street spread out like a cloth. They rose and melted together, forming strange shapes, they curled, floated apart and sank down again only to rear themselves once more. They hung on the branches of the willows by the way, now veiling them, now leaving them free, till it seemed uncertain whether the fog was dissolving into trees or the trees into fog. It was a dreamlike activity, untiring movement without aim or purpose. It was a picture of what was going on in Fritz Nettenmair's soul, such a true picture that he did not know whether he was looking at something outside or something within himself. There came a hazy bending down and wringing of hands about a pale figure on the ground, then a slowly moving funeral procession, and now it was his enemy, his brother who lay there, whom they carried. Now malicious joy flamed up sharply, died down and pity took its place, now both were mixed and one tried to hide the other. The figure lying there, whom they carried, Fritz forgave everything. He wept over him; for in the intervals of the funeral song the merry dance-tune sounded softly which the future struck up: "There he comes! Now the fun will begin!" And beside the dead lay a second corpse, invisible, his fear of what must come if his poor brother did not lie dead. And in the coffin, Fritz Nettenmair's old jovial happiness put forth new buds. Fritz Nettenmair felt himself to be an angel; he wished that his brother need not die, because—he knew that his brother must die.

He was still walking in the fog when the pavement of the town sounded again under his feet. He had forgotten a past, he forgot the present, for the future was his again. And he was one who—as he turned into his street the old words rang as jovially as they ever did.

It gave him a curious feeling to think that through the door which he had just opened a coffin was going to be carried out. Involuntarily he stood aside as if to let the procession pass him. "We must submit," he said softly, as if repeating to himself what he would have to answer some one offering him consolation when once the time had come, "We must submit to what is unalterable." And as he raised his shoulders in accompaniment to the words, he perceived a faint glimmer of light. He looked up; the light came through the crack between the lower part of the shutter and the window ledge. There was a light in there, in the living-room. "So late?" He gasped; the load lies again on his breast. His brother was still alive; and what must come if he were not to die, might still come before he died, or—it was already here! How swiftly his hands moved—and yet the door was locked again quietly in an instant! Just as softly and just as quickly he went to the back door. It was not open, but the key was only turned once in the lock, and Fritz Nettenmair could swear to it that he turned it twice before he went. He felt his way to the door of the room; he found the latch and gently pressed it; the door opened; a faint glimmer shone out into the hall. It came from a covered light on the table; beside the table a small bed stood in the shadow. It was little Annie's bed, and her mother was sitting beside it.

Christiane did not notice the opening of the door. Her head was bent low down over the bed; she was singing softly and did not know what she was singing; she was listening full of fear, but not to her song; she would cry if the tears did not dim her eyes. But now the color might come back to the child's cheek again, the strange expression about the child's eyes and mouth might disappear, and she might fail to see it and might fear in vain. It seemed to her as if the color must come and the expression change if she only tried hard enough to notice this coming and going. And at the same time she was able to think how suddenly this thing had come that had made her so afraid; how little Annie in the bed beside her own, suddenly cried out in a strange voice and then could not speak any more; how she jumped up and dressed; how she waked Valentine in her distress, and he, without her knowledge, waked Apollonius. The old fellow had tried all the keys in the house until he found that the key of the shed opened the back door; she did not know that. So much the more vividly did she picture how Apollonius came in, how she felt at his unexpected appearance, full of terror and shame and yet wonderfully tranquillized. Apollonius had fetched the doctor at once and medicines. He had stood by the bed and bent over little Annie as she did now. He had looked at her full of pain and said that little Annie's illness was owing to the discord between herself and her husband, and that she would not get well unless this ceased. He had told her of the miracles that are possible to a mother and of how men and women can and must conquer themselves. Then he had given Valentine a few more orders relating to little Annie and had left, fearing that his brother, in his error, might otherwise believe that he wanted to drive him away from the sick-bed of his children. Apollonius had said that little Annie would not get well again if the discord did not cease. He had said that people can and must conquer themselves; Christiane determined to conquer herself because he had said so. A mother could do miracles for her child; if she thought of Apollonius' face when he spoke thus, the greatest miracle must become possible to her.

Fritz Nettenmair entered. He thought of nothing but that Apollonius must have been there, even if he were not there any longer. Everything danced before his eyes he was in such a fury. He would have flown at his wife if he had not seen old Valentine sitting at the door of the bedroom. He meant to wait till the old man had left the room, and crept to the chair at the window where he had always sat formerly, when he was such a different man. His wife heard his soft tread; she could not see his face. It seemed to her that he knew of little Annie's condition and walked so softly on that account. She looked at little Annie with a glance that said, that what she was about to do now she would do for the sake of her sick child; a glance at the door by which he had gone out added: "And because he said I should."

"Here is father, Annie," she said. In reality she was talking to her husband who sat at the window, but she could not turn her face toward him, could not address her words directly to him. "You always asked for him, you know. You thought that when he came he would be as he used to be before you were sick. Mother wants him to be like that too—for your sake."

Her voice came from so deep down in her chest that the man had to force himself to control his rage. He thought: "She is speaking so sweetly so as to deceive me. They planned that when he was here." And the soft tones in which she continued only caused his anger to swell more wrathfully.

"And you won't go to Heaven yet, will you Annie? You're such a good little girl and you'll stay with father and mother. If only—you mustn't be afraid of father, you silly little Annie, because he speaks so loud. He doesn't mean to be cross."

She stopped; she expected an answer from the father, not from the child. She expected that he would come to the bed and speak to the child as she had done, and through the child with her. Whatever she might think of him, the child was his child, after all, and it was ill.

The man remained silent and sat on quietly in his chair. For the length of time that it takes to say half the Lord's Prayer there was no sound but the ticking of the clock; and that grew faster and faster like the beating of a human heart that feels misfortune approaching. The flame of the light flickered as with fear.

Valentine rose from his chair to attend to the light.

There was a sound of wheezing in the child's chest; she wanted to speak and could not. She wanted to stretch out her hands toward her father, and she could not. She could do nothing but hold out the arms of her soul to her father. But her father's soul did not see the beseeching arms; it held its wrath convulsively in its hands and had no hand free for the child. Valentine stepped away from the light and went out to give vent to his feelings in tears. The man rose and approached his wife softly without her noticing him. He wanted to surprise her, and he succeeded. She started, frightened, as she suddenly saw facing her across the bed a distorted human countenance. She started, and he said through his teeth: "You are frightened? Do you know why?"

She meant to tell him herself that Apollonius had been there, but she had not yet had an opportunity; she did not dare to do so at the sick child's bedside, because she knew that he would fly into a rage; whenever she could she had spared the child the sight of his roughness while she was still well; now it might frighten the little girl to death. She did not answer him, but looked at him beseechingly, indicating the child by a glance.

"He was here! Wasn't he here?" he asked, not for information but to show that he did not need any. He raised his clenched fist; little Annie struggled to sit up. He did not see it; but his wife saw it, and her terror grew. She clasped her hands, she looked at him with a glance in which there was everything that a woman can promise, that a woman can threaten. He saw only her terror at his knowing what had happened—and his fist descended on her forehead.

There was a shriek. The child writhed in convulsions; the mother, who had fallen upon her, wept loudly. Valentine hurried in, Fritz Nettenmair went into the bedroom. He did not know which was uppermost in him, gratified revenge or fright at what he had done. He sank down on the bed as if the blow that he struck had stunned himself. He only half heard Valentine running for the doctor. In the same state he heard the latter come and go, and in the same state he listened to see if he could hear Apollonius' voice whispering and his soft tread. He did not dare to show himself; shame restrained him. He justified his behavior and called little Annie's illness just a desire to be coddled. "Children think they're dying one day, and the next they're more lively than ever," he said to himself.

His feverish listening and efforts to reassure himself turned into feverish dreaming. Between waking and sleeping he heard quiet steps in the next room, quiet voices, quiet weeping, and at intervals silence.

The quiet weeping that grows loud and is controlled again as if a sleeper were near whom it will not wake, that breaks out again as if it could not wake the sleeper, and again grows soft as if it were frightened at itself for being so loud when every one is quiet: who does not know such weeping? Who does not guess what it means, even if he does not know it?

Fritz Nettenmair knew it, half asleep; there was a dead person in the next room. They had brought him home. "We must submit to what is unalterable."

For the first time for many months he slept quietly again.

And why should he not? The quiet weeping turned into a merry waltz. "There he is! Now the fun will begin"—the words rang triumphantly from the "Red Eagle Tavern" in the distance, into his sleep.

But the quiet steps and the quiet voices were real, and they continued; and there was a dead body in the next room, the beautiful, dead body of a child. The breach between the parents had made the child ill; pain at her father's savage attack on her mother had broken her little heart.

When the new day sent its first glimmer of light through his window, Apollonius rose from the chair on which he had sat ever since his return to his room. There was something solemn in the manner in which he stood upright. He seemed to say to himself: "If it is as I fear, I must act for us both; it is for that that I am a man. I have sworn to uphold my father's house and his honor, and I will do what I have sworn to do, in every sense."

Fritz Nettenmair woke at last. He knew nothing more of the dream-scenes of the night. He only knew that his wife had magnified the "spy's" desire to be coddled into an illness so that she might have an excuse for being together with "him." He began to think of how he should put an end to this coddling. With this idea in his mind he stepped through the door and stood—before a dead body. A shudder ran over him. The dead child lay there before him like a sign to warn him: "You shall not go farther on the way that you have taken!" There the child lay, his child, and she was dead. The child stood before him, an accuser and a witness. She bore witness for her mother. The mother had known that she was dying; and at the deathbed of her child not even the lowest creature would do what he had thought her capable of doing. The child accused him. He had struck a mother at the side of her child's deathbed. No man can do that, not even if the woman were guilty. And she was not; the child testified to that. Now he knew that the pale, dumb countenance of the mother had cried: "You will kill the child; don't strike!" And he had struck nevertheless. He had killed the child. That thought fell on him like a thunder-bolt, so that he collapsed before the child's bed, across which he had struck her mother, before the bed in which his child had died because he struck her mother.