Both of the sisters looked at him out of Agnes’s big childish eyes; in her they were both melted and moulded into a single being. A presageful horror crept over him. Sisters! The word had a solemn sound in his ears; it seemed full of mysterious meaning; it took on mythical greatness. “Sleep, baby, sleep, outside are two sheep, a black one and a white one ...” sang Philippina in her imbecile way. It was astonishing the amount of malevolence there was in her sing-song. Daniel could not stand it in the house; he went out on the street, and wandered around until midnight. If he made up his mind to go home, the thought occurred to him at once that Frau Hadebusch would prevent him from going into Eleanore’s room. He felt like lying down on the pavement and waiting until some one came and told him how Eleanore was getting along. XVIII It struck one just as he came home. The maid from the first floor and the maid from the second were standing on the stairs. They had not been able to sleep; they had heard the cries of the young woman from their rooms, had come out, joined each other, listened, trembled, and whispered. Daniel heard one of them say: “The Kapellmeister should send for the doctor.” The other sobbed and replied: “Yes, but a doctor can’t work miracles.” “Lord, Lord,” they cried, as a nerve-racking cry from Eleanore rang through the bleak house. Daniel sprang up the steps. “Run for Dr. Müller just as fast as your feet can carry you,” said Daniel to Philippina, who was then standing in the kitchen in her bare feet with her hair hanging down her back. Daniel was breathing heavily; Philippina was making some tea. Daniel then hastened into Eleanore’s room; Frau Hadebusch tried to keep him out, but he pushed her to one side, gritted his teeth, and threw himself on the floor by Eleanore’s bed. She raised her head; she was a pale as death; the perspiration was pouring down over her face. “You shouldn’t be here, Daniel, you shouldn’t see me,” she said with much effort, but her tone was so commanding and final that Daniel got up and slowly left the room. He was seized with a strange, violent anger. He went out into the kitchen and drank a glass of water, and then hurled the glass on the floor: it broke into a hundred pieces. Frau Hadebusch had followed him; she looked very much discouraged. When he noticed the frame of mind she was in, he became dizzy; he had to sit down in order to keep from falling. “Ah, the doctor will come,” he said in a brusque tone. “My God, it makes you sick at the stomach to see how women suffer to-day,” said the old lady in her shrillest, one-tooth voice; it was quite plain that she was pleased to know that the doctor was coming. The present case had got her into serious trouble, and she wanted to get out of it. “The devil to these women who are so delicately built,” she had said about an hour ago to the grinning Philippina.