hich turning would
Schilsky take? Would he go to the right, where lay the BRUDERSTRASSE,
or would he take the lower street to the left? Until this question was
answered, it was impossible to decide what should be done next. But
first, there came a lengthy pause: Schilsky entered a musicshop, and
remained inside, leaning over the counter, for a quarter of an hour.
Finally, however, the corner was reached. He appeared to hesitate: for
a moment it seemed as if he were going straight on, which would mean
fresh uncertainty. Then, with a sudden outward fling of the hands, he
went off to the left, in the direction of the Gewandhaus.

Maurice did not follow him any further. He stood and watched, until he
could no longer see the swaying head. After that he had a kind of
collapse. He leaned up against the wall of a house, and wiped the
perspiration from his forehead. Passers by believed him to be drunk,
and were either amused, or horrified, or saddened. He discovered, in
truth, that his legs were shaking as if with an ague, and, stumbling
into a neighbouring wine-shop, he drank brandy--not enough to stupefy
him, only to give back to his legs their missing strength.

To postpone her knowing! To hinder her from knowing at any cost!--his
blurred thoughts got no further than this. He covered the ground at a
mad pace, clinging fast to the belief that he would find her, as he had
left her, in bed. But his first glimpse of her turned him cold. She was
standing before the glass, dressed to go out. This in itself was bad
enough. Worse, far worse, was it that she had put on, to-day, one of
the light, thin dresses she had worn the previous spring, and never
since. It was impossible to see her tricked out in this fashion, and
doubt her knowledge of the damning fact. He held it for proved that she
was dressed to leave him; and the sight of her, refreshed and
rejuvenated, gave the last thrust to his tottering sense. He demanded
with such savageness the meaning of her adornment, that the indignant
amazement with which she turned on him was real, and not feigned.

"Take off that dress! You shan't go out of the house in it!--Take it
off!"

He raved, threatened, implored, always with icy fingers at his heart.
He knew that she knew; he would have taken his oath on it; and he only
had room in his brain for one thought: to prevent her knowing. His rage
spent itself on the light, flowery dress. As nothing he said moved her,
he set his foot on the