Herr Dremmel chose these flustered moments to expand conversationally, and raising his voice above the tumult explained in shouts that the three sacks in front were not so much sacks as mysterious stomachs filled with the future. She strained to catch what he said, but only heard a word now and then when she bumped against him--"divine maws--richly furnished banquet--potential energy--" She found it difficult to answer with any sort of connected intelligence, more especially because he kept on breaking off to lean forward and hit the horse-flies that alighted on the back of Johann's neck. When he did this Johann started and the horses kicked. "Faithful servant"--he shouted in her ear--"nearly a year--must not be stung--" It was a disorganized and breathless Ingeborg trying to rub things out of her eyes who found herself finally in the passage of the elder Frau Dremmel's house. The door stood ajar, and her husband pushed it open and called loudly on his mother to appear. "She lurks, she lurks," he said, impatiently looking at his watch; and redoubled his cries. "Does she expect us?" asked Ingeborg at last, who was trying to pin up her loosened hair. "She is a simple woman," he said, "consequently she never expects anything." And he pulled open a door out of which came nothing but darkness and a great cold smell. "That is not my mother," he said, shutting it again. "Does she know we're coming home to-day?" asked Ingeborg, a doubt beginning to take hold of her. "She is a simple woman. Consequently she never knows anything. Mother! Mother!" "Does she know you're married?" asked Ingeborg, the doubt growing bigger. "She is a simple woman. Consequently--" He broke off and stared down at her, reflecting. "Is it possible that I forgot to tell her?" he said. It evidently was possible, for at that moment Frau Dremmel came slowly up some steps at the end of the passage from a lower region, and perceiving her son and a strange young woman stood still and said nothing whatever. "Mother, this is my wife," said Herr Dremmel, taking Ingeborg's hand and leading her to the motionless figure. "_Ach_," said Frau Dremmel, without moving. "Kiss her, Little One," directed Herr Dremmel. "Yes, yes," said Ingeborg, blushing a vivid red and going a convulsive step nearer. Frau Dremmel was regarding her with sombre, unblinking eyes, eyes that had the blankness of pebbles. From her waist downwards she wore a big dark-blue apron. She was entirely undecorated. Her black dress ended at the neck abruptly in its own binding and a hook and eye. Her hair was drawn back into the smallest of knobs. Ingeborg felt suddenly that she herself was a thing of fal-lals--a showy thing, bedizened with a white collar and a hat she had till then considered neat, but that she now knew for a monstrous piece of frippery crushed on to insufficiently pinned-up hair. "You are married to her?" asked the elder Frau Dremmel, turning her pebble eyes slowly from one to the other.