PAUL. I think we shall let that suffice. Broad daylight is already peering through the shutters. (He points to the background where broad daylight comes in through the heart-shaped apertures of the shutters, then slowly puts out the candles, one by one.) Now then, let us put them out! AUNT CLARA (goes to the background and unscrews the shutters, opens them, letting the daylight stream in, and puts out the lamp on the commode). Praise the Lord! After all it has become daylight once more. PAUL (has put out the candles and looks over at her). What do you mean by that. Aunt Clara? AUNT CLARA (having opened the shutters, comes forward again and whispers). I was forced to think so much, because it was the first night that your father has been dead and has been lying there in the corner room. PAUL (with suppressed feeling, after a short struggle). Will you not tell me how father died? AUNT CLARA. Oh, Paul what is there to tell about that? Didn't I telegraph to you? Heart failure, is what Doctor Bodenstein said. He went to bed at ten o'clock that night, as always; it was night before last, the first holiday. PAUL. Didn't he call at all? Did he not succeed in making himself heard at all? AUNT CLARA. Not a word! From that time on, no mortal heard another sound from him. PAUL (covers his face with his hands, then hesitatingly). Do you think he still thought of me? AUNT CLARA. The departed thought of you very often especially lately when thoughts of death were coming to him, I am certain of that. PAUL. And did he not want to see me once more? AUNT CLARA. He said nothing about that. PAUL. Nothing, Aunt Clara? Nothing? Think! AUNT CLARA. He _said_ nothing. PAUL (excited). But he _thought_ it. And did not have time to do it! Now he is taking it down into his grave with him. [Pause.] AUNT CLARA. I was going to ask you, Paul ...? PAUL. Well? (He stands before her at the fireplace.) AUNT CLARA. What kind of a man can that be who came with you? PAUL. Glyszinski? AUNT CLARA. Why yes, the one I took up stairs, the young man? PAUL. Heavens, he is a friend of ours. Particularly of Hella. AUNT CLARA. Of your wife? Why, Paul! PAUL (smiling). Oh, Auntie! There is no danger in him. You need not have any scruples about that. Hella indeed crams her head with thoughts quite distinct from love. She never did suffer from that. AUNT CLARA. But to think that he just came along? Did you invite him? PAUL (shrugging his shoulders). Well, what is a man to do? He lives with us. AUNT CLARA (more and more astonished). He lives with you? PAUL. We keep house together, yes. And so he wanted to come with us, and Hella was also of the opinion that we could not exactly desert him. He is likely to do some fool thing. You know he is always doing fool things ... It _wasn't_ very agreeable to me, I must confess. But it _would_ not do to leave him at home. When Hella takes a thing like that into her head ...