The longer she
was married the more nervous she became. At times she felt irritated
with her husband for no reason. She persistently turned her eyes away
from the announcement of births in the newspapers with a certain
shrinking, and, if her glance happened once in a way to fall on one in
which happy parents notified the birth of a son, she put the paper
aside hastily.

In former years Kate Schlieben had knitted, crocheted, embroidered
and sewn all sorts of pretty little children's garments--she used to be
quite famous for the daintiness of her little baby jackets trimmed with
blue and pink ribbons, all her newly married acquaintances would ask
her for the wonderful little things--but now she had finally given up
that sort of work. She had given up hope. What good did it do her to
put her forefingers into the tiny sleeves of a baby's first jacket,
and, holding it out in front of her, gaze at it a long, long time with
dreamy eyes? It only tortured her.

And she felt the torture twice as much in those grey days that
suddenly put in an appearance without any reason, that creep in
silently even in the midst of sunshine. On those occasions she would
lie on the couch in her room that was furnished with such exquisite
taste--really artistically--and close her eyes tightly. And then all at
once a shout, clear, shrill, triumphant, like the cry of a swallow on
the wing, would ascend from the street, from the promenade under the
chestnut-trees. She stopped her ears when she heard that cry, which
penetrated further than any other tone, which soared up into the ether
as swiftly as an arrow, and cradled itself up there blissfully. She
could not bear to hear anything like that--she was becoming morbid.

Alas, when she and her husband grew old, with minds no longer so
receptive and too weary to seek incitement in the world, who would
bring it to them in their home? Who would bring them anything of what
was going on outside? What youth with his freshness, with the
joyousness that envelops those of twenty like a dainty garment,
that beams from smooth brows like warmth and sunshine, would give them
back a breath of their youth, which had already disappeared in
accordance with the laws of Time? Who would wax enthusiastic at the
things that had once made them enthusiastic, and which they would enjoy
once more as though they were new for them too? Who would fill the
house and garden with his laughter, with that careless laughter that is