She takes her wifely duties so seriously that even now, where every minute matters that will set her mind at rest, she doesn’t take the tram. No, she walks—saving their pennies, as he does.

From the gatekeeper at the furniture factory she learns that foreman Quangel had come in to work as punctually as ever. She has someone take him the bread and butter he “forgot,” and she waits for the person to return. “Well, what did he say?”

“What do you mean, what did he say? He never says anything!”

Now she can go home with her mind at rest. Nothing has happened yet, despite all the chaos this morning. And tonight she will speak to him…

He comes home. She can see from his face how tired he is.

“Otto,” she beseeches him, “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just somehing that slipped out during my immediate reaction. Please don’t be cross any more!”

“Me—cross with you? On account of something like that? Never!”

“But there’s something you want to do, I can sense it! Otto, don’t do it, don’t plunge yourself into misfortune over something like that! I could never forgive myself.”

He looks at her for a moment, nearly smiling. Then he quickly lays both his hands on her shoulders. Quickly he takes them away again, as though ashamed of his spontaneous tenderness.

“What I want to do now is sleep! Tomorrow I’ll tell you what we are going to do.”

And now it’s tomorrow, and Quangel is still asleep. But another half hour or so doesn’t matter so much now. He is here with her, he can’t do anything that would get him into trouble, he is asleep.

She turns away from his bed and does a few little chores around the house.

By now Frau Rosenthal has reached her front door, in spite of her slow progress. She is not surprised to find the door locked—she unlocks it. She pays no attention to the wild disorder of the place, nor does she spend a lot of time in the flat looking for Siegfried, or calling to him; she has already forgotten that she came upstairs to follow her husband.

Her numbness is growing, growing all the time. You couldn’t say she was asleep, but she’s not awake either. Just as she can only move her heavy limbs slowly and clumsily, so, too, her mind feels heavy and numb. Pictures come up like snowflakes and dissolve before she can see what they are. She is sitting on the sofa, her feet resting on scattered linen, looking about her slowly and muzzily. In her hand she still has the keys and the sapphire bracelet Siegfried gave her at Eva’s birth. The takings of an entire week… She smiles faintly to herself.

Then she hears the front door being carefully opened, and she knows: That’s Siegfried. Here he is. That’s why I came up here. I’ll step out to meet him.

But she remains sitting where she is, a smile spread over the whole of her gray face. She will receive him here, sitting down, as though she had never been away, had always been sitting here to welcome him.

The door opens, but instead of the expected Siegfried, there are three men in the doorway. As soon as she sees a detested brown uniform among them, she knows: This isn’t Siegfried. Siegfried won’t be here. A slight fear stirs in her, but really only very slight. Now it’s time!

Slowly the smile disappears from her face, which changes color from gray to a greeny yellow.

The three men are directly in front of her. She hears a big, heavy man in a black cloak say, “Not drunk, my boy.