ithout being told what had happened, but he
did not dare to appear as if he knew. The journeyman thought Herr
Nettenmair was going to sink down beside him, but the old gentleman
had only struck his foot: "it was of no consequence." The journeyman
questioned a hurrying passer-by. "A slater has been killed in
Brambach." "How?" asked the journeyman. "A rope broke; nothing further
is known." Herr Nettenmair felt that the journeyman was frightened,
and that he was frightened at the thought that it was the son of the
man he was leading who had been killed. He said: "It was probably in
Tambach. They have made a mistake. It is of no consequence." The
journeyman did not know what to think of Herr Nettenmair's
indifference. The latter kept repeating to himself, as a burning flush
came into his cheeks: "Yes, it must be. It must be." He thought of a
way in which one can escape all courts, all investigations. It must
have been a hard way of which he thought, for he clenched his teeth,
as he shook his head and said: "It must be, now it must be." As if in
a dream the journeyman led the old gentleman up the tower steps of St.
George's. The people were right, Herr Nettenmair was certainly a queer
man!

The old gentleman had said he had to speak to his son on the
church-roof--about some repairs. He had spoken unconsciously in his
diplomatic way.

It had to be on the church-roof, and it was about some repairs--but
not about those of the church-roof.

Between heaven and earth is the slater's realm. Between heaven and
earth, high up on the roof of St. George's Fritz Nettenmair was at
work when the old gentleman was led up the steps to him. He had fled
here to escape the eyes of men which he imagined riveted upon him; he
had fled here to escape his own thoughts in a fury of diligence. But
he had brought with him all the demons of hell, and, industriously as
he toiled, the moisture that stood on his brow was not the warm sweat
of honest labor, but the cold sweat born of a guilty conscience. In
agonized haste he hammered and nailed slate together as if he were
nailing fast the universe which otherwise would crumble to pieces in a
quarter of an hour. But his soul was not where he hammered; it was
where ropes were constantly breaking and luckless slaters plunging
headlong to certain death. Now he heard voices, and the sound of one
of them struck like the blow of a hammer on his tortured heart. It was
the only voice which he did not expect to