When Frau Doerr, heard from some little distance the distressed cry of the old woman, she turned pale and called back "I am coming, Mother Nimptsch, I am coming," and throwing down whatever she had in her hands, she ran at once to the little house, saying to herself that something must be wrong there. "Yes, just as I thought ... Lena." And she vigorously shook the young girl, who still sat lifeless as before, while the old woman slowly shuffled in from the passageway. "We must put her to bed," said Frau Doerr, and Frau Nimptsch started to take hold with her. But that was not what the stronger woman meant by "we". "I can manage alone, Mother Nimptsch," and taking Lena in her arms, she carried her into the next room and covered her over. "There, Mother Nimptsch. Now a hot cover. I know what is the trouble, it comes from the blood. First a cover and then a hot brick to the soles of her feet; but put it right under the instep, that is where the life is.... But what brought it on? It must have been some shock." "I don't know. She didn't say anything. But I think that perhaps she saw him." "That is so. That's it. I know about that.... But now shut the window and draw down the blinds.... Some people believe in camphor and Hoffmann's drops, but camphor is so weakening and is really only fit for moths. No, dear Frau Nimptsch, nature must help itself, and especially when one is so young, and so I believe in sweating. But thoroughly. And what makes all the trouble? The men. And yet we need them and must have them.... There, her color is coming back." "Hadn't we better send for a doctor?" "Heaven forbid! They are all out going their rounds now and before one of them would get here she might die and come to life again three times over." CHAPTER XVII Two and a half years had passed since this meeting, during which time many things had changed in our circle of friends and acquaintances, but not among those of the Landgrafenstrasse. The same good humor continued there, the gayety of the honeymoon still remained, and Katherine continued to laugh as of old. What might perhaps have troubled other young women, that they had no children, did not disturb Katherine for a moment. She enjoyed life so much and found such complete satisfaction in dressing and small-talk, in riding and driving, that she shrank from any change in her way of life rather than desired it. The feeling for family life, to say nothing of any real longing for it, had not yet awakened in her and when her mother made some remark in a letter about such matters, Katherine answered somewhat heretically: "Don't trouble yourself, mamma. Botho's brother has just become engaged, and in six months he will be married and I shall gladly leave to my future sister-in-law the care of providing for the continuance of the house of Rienaecker."