She wrapped up the letters and the other things, and threw them, all crumpled as they were, into the case. Then she closed it and went over to the window. Evening was at hand. A gentle breeze was blowing over from the direction of the vine-trellises. Her eyes swam with unwept tears, not of grief, but of exasperation. What was she to do? She, who had, without fear and without hope, seen the days, nights, months, years extending into the future, shuddered at the prospect of the emptiness of the evening which lay before her. It was the hour at which she usually returned home from her walk. On that day she had sent the nursemaid out with Fritz--not so much as once did she yearn for her boy. Indeed, for one moment there even fell on her child a ray of the anger which she felt against all mankind and against her fate. And, in her vast discontent, she was seized with a feeling of envy against many people who, at ordinary times, seemed to her anything but enviable. She envied Frau Martin because of the tender affection of her husband; the tobacconist's wife because she was loved by Herr Klingemann and the captain; her sister-in-law, because she was already old; Elly, because she was still young; she envied the servant, who was sitting on a plank over there with a soldier, and whom she heard laughing. She could not endure being at home any longer; She took up her straw hat and sunshade and hurried into the street. There she felt somewhat better. In her room she had been unhappy; in the street she was no more than out of humour. In the main thoroughfare she met Herr and Frau Mahlmann, to whose children she gave music lessons. Frau Mahlmann was already aware that Bertha had ordered a costume from a dressmaker in Vienna on the previous day, and she began to discuss the matter with great weightiness. Later on, Bertha met her brother-in-law, who came towards her from the chestnut avenue. "Well," he said, "so you were in Vienna yesterday! Tell me, what did you do with yourself there? Did you have any adventures?" "What do you mean?" asked Bertha, looking at him in great alarm, as though she had done something she ought not, and had been found out. "What? You had no adventures? But you were with Frau Rupius; all the men must surely have run after you?" "What on earth has come into your head? Frau Rupius' conduct is irreproachable! She is one of the most well-bred ladies I know." "Quite so, quite so! I am not saying a word against Frau Rupius or you." She looked him in the face. His eyes were gleaming, as they often did when he had had a little too much to drink. She could not help recalling that somebody had once foretold that Herr Garlan would die of an apoplectic stroke. "I must pay another visit to Vienna myself one of these days," he said. "Why, I haven't been there since Ash Wednesday. I should like to see some of my acquaintances once again. The next time you and Frau Rupius go, you might just take me with you."