Madame Raschke's troubles could not be concealed; the whole town knew them. It was notorious that one market day her husband had gone to the university in his dressing-gown--in a brilliant dressing-gown, blue and orange, with a Turkish pattern. His students, who loved him dearly and were well aware of his habits, could not succeed in suppressing a loud laugh; and Raschke had calmly hung the dressing-gown over his pulpit, held his lecture in his shirt-sleeves, and returned home in one of the students' overcoats. Since that time Madame Raschke never let her husband go out without herself inspecting him. It also appeared that all these ten years he had not been able to learn his way about the town, and she dared not change her residence, because she was quite sure that her professor would never remember it, and always return to his old home. Struvelius also occasioned much anxiety. Ilse knew about the last and greatest cause; but it also came to light that he expected his wife to read Latin proof-sheets, as she knew something of that language. Besides, he was quite incapable of refusing commissions to amiable wine merchants. At her marriage Madame Struvelius had found a whole cellar full of large and small wine casks, none of which had been drawn off, while he complained bitterly that no wine was ever brought into his cellar. Even little Madame Guenther related that her husband could not give up night work; and that once, when he wandered with a lamp among his books, he came too near the curtain, which caught fire. He tore it off, and in so doing burnt his hands, and burst into the bedroom with blackened fingers in great alarm, and resembling Othello more than a mineralogist.... Raschke was wandering about in the ante-room. Here too was confusion. Gabriel had not yet returned from his distant errand; the cook had left the remains of the meal standing on a side-table till his return; and Raschke had to find his greatcoat by himself. He rummaged among the clothes, and seized hold of a coat and a hat. As he was not so absent-minded as usual to-day, a glance at the despised supper reminded him just in time that he was to eat a fowl; so he seized hold of the newspaper which Gabriel had laid ready for his master, hastily took one of the chickens out of the dish, wrapped it in the journal, and thrust it in his pocket, agreeably surprised at the depth and capaciousness it revealed. Then he rushed past the astonished cook, and out of the house. When he opened the door of the _etage_ he stumbled against something that was crouching on the threshold. He heard a horrible growling behind him, and stormed down the stairs and out of doors.