d first at her son and then at Daniel. Then her eyes fell on
the atlas and remained fixed upon it, filled with an expression of
horror and anxiety.

Daniel did not know what to say. Benda, still smiling to himself, began
to talk about other things.

XIII

At the death of her mother, Gertrude Jordan was nine years old. She had
crept into the death chamber and sat by the bier for three hours.
Perhaps her seclusion from the world and association with people dated
from that hour. As she was leaving the death room, the clock on the
wall struck, and a cock crowed in the distance.

"Why do you tick, clock?" she asked in a loud voice, "why do you crow,
cock?" And again: "Who makes you tick, clock, who makes you crow, cock?"

She had grown up, and no one knew anything about her. It was even
difficult for her own father to approach her; how she was constituted,
mentally and spiritually, he did not know. She never associated with
girls of her own age. Her dark eyes glowed with wrath when she heard the
senseless, sensuous laughter of other girls.

The first time she partook of the holy communion she swooned and had to
be carried out. Jordan then took her to Pommersfelden to his sister, the
widow of the district physician Kupferschmied. At the end of one week
she returned alone, completely broken in spirit. She had seen a calf
slaughtered; the sight had made her almost insane.

From the time she was fifteen years old she had insisted on having her
own bed room. When she was sixteen she demanded that the maid be
discharged; she herself did all the cooking and kept house. As soon as
she had finished her work, she would take her seat by the quilting
frame.

Through her father, Benjamin Dorn had come into the family. Gertrude
liked him because Eleanore made fun of him. He did not seem to her like
a man; he reminded her rather of the languishing angels she embroidered.
He brought her all his religious tracts and edifying pamphlets, but she
could not grasp the language. He took her to the Methodist revivals, but
the noisy gnashing of teeth at these meetings terrified her, and after a
few times it was impossible to persuade her to go back. He also
recommended that she read the Bible, but she could find nothing in it
that brought her peace of mind. It seemed that she had a wound in her
soul that would not heal. Long after she had abandoned Benjamin Dorn and
his cheap sanctimoniousness, he imagined