I felt miserable and shut myself up in my room as often as I could. It was during one of those times that he died.”

“He probably did it to prove that you were in the wrong,” Ulrich said bitterly. “Come on!” He drew her toward the door. “But maybe he wanted you to stroke his forehead? Or kneel by his bedside? Even if it was only because he had always read that it’s the proper way to take leave of a father for the last time. Only he couldn’t bring himself to ask you.”

“Maybe,” she said.

They had stopped for another look at him.

“How horrible it is, all of it!” Agathe said.

“Yes,” Ulrich said. “And we know so little about it.”

As they were leaving the room Agathe stopped again and said to Ulrich: “I’m springing something on you that can’t be of any concern to you, of course, but it was during Father’s illness that I decided not to go back to my husband under any circumstances.”

Her brother could not help smiling at the stubbornness with which she said this, for Agathe had a vertical furrow between her brows and spoke vehemently; she seemed to fear that he would not be on her side, and reminded him of a terrified cat whose fright makes it leap bravely to the attack.

“Does he consent?” Ulrich asked.

“He knows nothing about it yet,” Agathe said. “But he won’t consent!”

Her brother gave her a questioning look. She shook her head impatiently. “Oh no, it’s not what you think. There’s no third person involved,” she said.

With this, their conversation came to an end for the time being. Agathe apologized for having been so unmindful of Ulrich’s hunger and fatigue, led him to a room where tea had been laid out, then went herself to fetch something that was missing from the tray. Left to himself, Ulrich used the opportunity to concentrate on whatever he could recollect about her husband, the better to understand her. Professor Hagauer was a man of medium height with a ramrod bearing and plump legs in baggy trousers, rather fleshy lips under a bristly mustache, and a fondness for florid neckties, probably as a sign that he was no common schoolmaster but one who was future-oriented. Ulrich felt his cold misgivings about Agathe’s choice reawaken, but that Gottlieb Hagauer, with candor shining from his brow and eyes, would harbor secret vices was entirely out of the question. “He’s the very model of the industrious, capable person, doing his best for humanity in his own field without meddling in matters beyond his scope,” Ulrich decided, remembering Hagauer’s writings, as well, and falling into not entirely agreeable thoughts.

Such people can first be recognized for what they are even in their school days. They study not so much conscientiously—as it is called, confusing the effect with the cause—as in an orderly and practical fashion. They lay out every task beforehand, just as one has to lay out every piece of tomorrow’s clothing, down to the last collar button, the night before if one wants to dress quickly and without a hitch in the morning. There is no chain of thought they cannot fix in their minds by using half a dozen such laid-out studs, and there is no denying that the results do them credit and stand up to scrutiny. This takes them to the head of the class without their being perceived as prigs by their classmates, while people like Ulrich, who may be far more gifted but are given to overdoing a bit here and falling a bit short there, get gradually left behind in some imperceptibly fated way. It occurred to him that he was secretly somewhat in awe of these favored types, because the precision with which their minds worked made his own romantic enthusiasm for precision seem a bit windy. “They haven’t a trace of soul,” he thought, “and they’re good-natured fellows. After the age of sixteen, when adolescents get worked up about intellectual problems, they seem to fall behind a little, not quite able to catch on to new ideas and feelings, but here, too, they work with their ten studs, and the day comes when they’re able to prove that they have always understood everything, of course without going to any untenable extremes, and in the end they are the ones who introduce the new ideas into practical life when for everyone else those ideas have faded away with their long-past adolescence, or have become lonely eccentricities.” And so, by the time Agathe came back into the room, Ulrich could still not imagine what had actually happened to her, but he felt that entering the lists against her husband, even if it was unfair, was likely to offer him a most reprehensible pleasure.

Agathe seemed to see no point in trying to explain her decision rationally. Outwardly her marriage was in the most perfect order, as was only to be expected in the case of a man of Hagauer’s character. No quarrels, hardly any differences of opinion; if only because Agathe, as she told Ulrich, never confided her opinion to him on any subject. Of course no vices: no drink, no gambling, not even bachelor habits. Income fairly apportioned. Orderly household. Smooth social life as well as unsocial life, when they were alone.

“So if you simply leave him for no reason at all,” Ulrich said, “the divorce will be decided in his favor, provided he sues.”

“Let him sue!” Agathe said defiantly.

“Wouldn’t it be a good idea to offer him a small financial compensation if he’ll agree to a friendly settlement?”

“All I took away with me,” she replied, “was what I would need during an absence of three weeks, except for a few childish things and mementos from the time before Hagauer. He can keep all the rest; I don’t want it. But for the future he’s to get nothing more out of me—absolutely nothing!”

Again she had spoken with surprising vehemence.