All of a sudden the tumult began outside. Revolution had arrived under the windows of the Sitting. The excited exchange of opinions inside ceased simultaneously. Every man, dumb with the shock, folded his hands upon his stomach and looked at his fellows or at the windows, where fists were being shaken in the air and the crowd was giving vent to deafening and frantic yelling. But then, most astonishingly, as though the offenders themselves had suddenly grown aghast at their own behaviour, it became just as still outside as in the hall; and in that deep hush, one word from the neighbourhood of the lowest benches, where Lebrecht Kröger was sitting, was distinctly audible. It rang through the hall, cold, emphatic, and deliberate--the word “Canaille!” And, like an echo, came the word “Infamous,” in a fat, outraged voice from the other corner of the hall. Then the hurried, trembling, whispering utterance of the draper Benthien: “Gentlemen, gentlemen! Listen! I know the house. There is a trap-door on to the roof from the attic. I used to shoot cats through it when I was a lad. We can climb on to the next roof and get down safely.” “Cowardice,” hissed Gosch the broker between his teeth. He leaned against the table with his arms folded and head bent, directing a blood-curdling glance through the window. “Cowardice, do you say? How cowardice? In God’s name, sir, aren’t they throwing bricks? I’ve had enough of that.” The noise outside had begun again, but without reaching its former stormy height. It sounded quieter and more continuous, a prolonged, patient, almost comfortable hum, rising and falling; now and then one heard whistles, and sometimes single words like “principle” and “rights of citizens.” The assembly listened respectfully. After a while the chairman, Herr Dr. Langhals, spoke in a subdued tone: “Gentlemen, I think we could come to some agreement if we opened the meeting.” But this humble suggestion did not meet with the slightest support from anybody. “No good in that,” somebody said, with a simple decisiveness that permitted no appeal. It was a peasant sort of man, named Pfahl, from the Ritzerau district, deputy for the village of Little Schretstaken. Nobody remembered ever to have heard his voice raised before in a meeting, but its very simplicity made it weighty at the present crisis. Unafraid and with sure political insight, Herr Pfahl had voiced the feeling of the entire assemblage. “God keep us,” Herr Benthien said despondently. “If we sit on the benches we can be seen from outside. They’re throwing stones--I’ve had enough of that.” “And the cursed door is so narrow,” burst out Köppen the wine-merchant, in despair. “If we start to go out, we’ll probably get crushed.” “Infamous, un-heard-of,” Herr Stuht intoned.