Herr Carovius had waited in vain for the news the Baroness had promised him. His anger got the best of him: he decided to make an example of the Auffenberg family, and, with this end in view, entered their house as the personal embodiment of punitive justice. When he was told that he could not be admitted, he began once more to start trouble; he raged and stormed like a madman. The servants came running out from all quarters; finally a policeman appeared on the scene and questioned him. The porter then dragged him from the house and out through the big gate at the entrance to the grounds, where he stood surrounded by a crowd of curious but not entirely disinterested people, bare-headed, waving his arms and striking an imaginary adversary with his fists—a picture, all told, of anger intensified to the point of insanity. His backers at once got wind of his fruitless attempts to collect. They became uneasy, gave Herr Carovius himself a deal of trouble, and finally appointed a lawyer to take charge of the case. In the meantime Herr Carovius had learned through a spy that it had come to a complete break between the Baron and the Baroness, that the latter had left within two days with bag and baggage, and that great consternation prevailed among the servants and friends of the family. A voluptuous light crept across Herr Carovius’s face: here was defeat and despair, weeping and gnashing of teeth; what more could he wish? He felt that he was personally the annihilator of the collective aristocracy. And if it is possible to take a fiendish delight in witnessing the destruction of what one after all despises, how much greater may this joy be when the thing destroyed is something one loves and admires! It was while in this mood that the Baroness and her daughter came to see him. The sight of the two women left him momentarily speechless. He forgot to say good-day to them; to ask them in never once occurred to him. The Baroness wanted to know where Eberhard was: she was determined to see him. When Herr Carovius stuttered out the astounding information to her that he was living hardly more than three hundred paces from where she was then standing, she began to tremble and leaned against the wall. She was not prepared for this: she had always imagined that he was staying at some mysterious place in some mysterious distance. Herr Carovius at once insisted that he accompany the ladies to the Baron’s diminutive residence. But the Baroness felt that she was not capable of this: she feared it would mean her death. “Take me home with you, Emilia,” she said to her daughter, “and you go over and have a talk with Eberhard first.”