at ...?" That was all.

He sat down in silence on the edge of her bed. Gertrude looked at him in
the same tense, anxious way in which she had studied him a few moments
earlier. He sank down beside her, and fell asleep with his head on her
breast.

She kept on holding his hand. She looked into his pale, narrow face and
at his angular brow, the skin of which could be seen to twitch every now
and then under the loose flowing hair that hung over it. The oil in the
lamp was getting low, the wick had begun to smell. She was afraid
however to put it out lest she might waken Daniel. She looked on in
silence as the light became dimmer and dimmer and finally went out,
leaving only the red glow of the wick. This too died away in time, and
it became dark.

XII

For some time Eleanore had noticed that the baker's boy, instead of
carefully putting the rolls in the sack each morning as had always been
his custom, threw them through the lattice on to the ground.

The newspaper boy stopped speaking to her; the postman smiled
scornfully; and even the beggar, at least she thought so, asked for his
alms in a tone of impudence.

One day she was passing through Schmausen Street; a woman was leaning
out of the window. Seeing Eleanore coming, she called back into the
room, whereupon a young man and three half-grown girls rushed to the
window, began making remarks to each other, and gaped at her with looks
that made her turn deathly pale.

Another time Daniel brought her a free ticket to a concert. She went,
and as soon as she reached the hall she was struck by the discourteous
and indecent manner in which the bystanders looked at her. A
well-dressed woman moved away from her. Some men kept walking around
her, grinning at her. She found it intolerable, and went home.

Exercise in the open had often driven away the cares that chanced to be
weighing upon her: she went skating. As soon as the people saw her, they
began to whisper among themselves. She did not bother about them or
their remarks; she cut her beautiful figures on the ice as if she were
quite alone. A group of young girls pointed at her with their fingers.
She went up to them with pride glistening in her eyes, and they all ran
away. Those who had formerly paid homage to her avoided her now. Her
soul rebelled within her; meeting with so much unexpected and cowardly
vulgarity enflamed her sensibilities and ennobled her self-respect.

One da