man, and showed him the door.

Benjamin Dorn rose to his feet, stuttered something unintelligible,
moved backwards toward the door, reached it, and left the place with
such pronounced speed that Philippina once again broke out in a shrill,
piercing laughter. "Come here, Agnes," she said, sat down on the step in
the corner, and took the child on her lap.

She was silent for a long while; the child was afraid to speak. Both
looked at the lights on the Christmas tree. "Let us sing something,"
said Philippina. She began with a hoarse, bass voice, "Stille Nacht,
heilige Nacht," and Agnes joined in with her high, spiritless notes.

Another pause followed after they had finished singing.

"Where is my father?" asked Agnes suddenly, without looking at
Philippina. It sounded as if she had waited for years for an opportunity
to ask this question.

Philippina's face turned ashen pale; she gritted her teeth. "Your
father, he's loafing around somewhere in the country," replied
Philippina, and blew out one of the candles that had burned down and was
ready to set the twig on fire. "He's done with women, it seems, but you
can't tell. He strums the music box and smears good white paper full of
crow-feet and pot-hooks. A person can rot, and little does he worry."
Whereat she set the child on the floor, hastened over to the window,
opened it, and put her head out as if she were on the point of choking
with the heat.

She leaned out over the snow-covered window sill.

"I'm getting cold," said Agnes; but Philippina never heard her.

VIII

Daniel wrote to Eberhard and Sylvia asking them if he might visit them.
He thought: "There are friends; perhaps I need friends again."

He received a note in a strange, secretarial hand informing him that the
Baroness was indeed very sorry but she could not receive him at
Siegmundshof: she was in child-bed. She sent her best greetings, and
told him that the newest born was getting along splendidly, as well as
his brother who was now three years old.

"Everywhere I turn, children are growing up," thought Daniel, and packed
his trunk and started south as slowly as he could go, so slowly indeed
that it seemed as if he were approaching a goal he was afraid to reach
and yet had to.

He arrived in Nuremberg one evening in April. As he entered the room,
Philippina struck her hands together with a loud bang, and stood as if
rooted to the floor.

Agnes looked at he