first, and when her
trembling hands stuck it into the lock, she could not turn it. She was
so awkward in her haste, so beside herself in her fear. Something
terrible must have happened. An accident. She felt it.

At last, at last! At last she was able to turn the key. And now she
rushed through the front garden to the gate; a chilling icy wind like
the breath of winter met her. She opened the gate: "Wolfgang!"

He did not answer. She could not quite see his face; he stood there
without moving.

She took hold of his hand: "Good gracious, what's the matter with
you?"

He did not move.

"Wolfgang! Wolfgang!" She shook him in the greatest terror. Then he
fell against her so heavily that he almost knocked her down, and
faltered, lisped like an idiot whose heavy tongue has been taught to
say a few words: "Beg--par--don."

She had to lead him. His breath, which smelt strongly of spirits,
blew across her face. A great disgust, more terrible than the fear she
had had before, took possession of her. This was the awful thing she
had been expecting no, this was still more awful, more intolerable. He
was drunk, drunk! This was what a drunken man must look like.

A drunken man had never been near her before; now she had one close
to her. The horror she felt shook her so that her teeth chattered. Oh
for shame, for shame, how disgusting, how vulgar! How degraded he
seemed to her, and she felt degraded, too, through him. This was not
her Wolfgang any more, the child whom she had adopted as her son. This
was quite an ordinary, quite a common man from the street, with whom
she had nothing, nothing whatever to do any more.

She wanted to push him away from her quickly, to hurry into the
house and close the door behind her--let him find out for himself what
to do. But he held her fast. He had laid his arm heavily round her
neck, he almost weighed her down; thus he forced her to lead him.

And she led him reluctantly, revolting desperately in her heart, but
still conquered. She could not leave him, exposed to the servants'
scorn, the laughter of the street. If anybody should see him in that
condition? It would not be long before the first people came past, the
milk-boys, the girls with the bread, the men working in the street,
those who drank Carlsbad water early in the morning. Oh, how terrible
if anybody should guess how deeply he had sunk.

"Lean on me, lean heavily," she said in a trembling voice. "Pull
yourself together--t