The judge’s wife on the first floor complained that Gertrude did not speak to her. “Be kind to your neighbours,” he remarked with the air of a professional scold. The next Sunday they took a walk, on which they met the judge’s wife. Gertrude spoke to her: “Well, you don’t need to fall on her neck,” he mumbled. She thought for a long while of how she might speak to people without offending them and without annoying Daniel. She was embarrassed; she was afraid of Daniel’s criticism. On such days she would put too much salt in the soup, everything went wrong, and in her diligent attempt to be punctual she lost much time. She was fearfully worried when he got up from the table and went to his room without saying a word. She would sit perfectly still and listen; she was frightened when he went to the piano to try a motif. When he again entered her room, she looked into his face with the tenseness of a soul in utter anguish. Then it suddenly came about that he would sit down by her side and caress her. He told her all about his life, his home, his father, his mother. If she could only have heard each of his words twice! If she could only have drunk in the expression in his eyes! They were filled with peace; his nervous hands lay in quiet on his knees when he spoke to her in this way on these subjects. His twitching, angular face, weather-beaten by the storms of life, took on an expression of sorrow that was most becoming to it. When she had a headache or was tired, he expressed his anxiety for her in touching tones. He would go about the house on tiptoes, and close the doors with infinite care. If a dog barked on the street, he rushed to the window and looked out, enraged at the beast. When she retired, he would help her undress, and bring her whatever she needed. It was also strange that he disliked the idea of leaving her alone. There was something child-like in his restlessness when he was at home and she was out. He pictured her surrounded by grievous dangers; he would have liked to lock her up and hold her a captive, so as to be sure that she was quite safe. This made her all the weaker and more dependent upon him, while he was like a man who presses what he has to his heart, plagued with the thought that by some mischance it might escape, and yet clings to it also lest he be disturbed by the thought of another more precious possession he loved long since and lost a while. Once he came to Gertrude while she was playing the harp, threw his arms about her, looked into her face with a wild, gloomy expression, and stammered: “I love you, I love you, I do.” It was the first time he had spoken these eternal words. She grew pale, first from joy and then from fear; for there was more of hatred than of love in his voice. VIII He felt that association with congenial men would help him over many a dark hour. But when he set out to look for these men, the city became a desert and a waste place.