She wanted to push him away from her quickly, to hurry into the house and close the door behind her--let him find out for himself what to do. But he held her fast. He had laid his arm heavily round her neck, he almost weighed her down; thus he forced her to lead him. And she led him reluctantly, revolting desperately in her heart, but still conquered. She could not leave him, exposed to the servants' scorn, the laughter of the street. If anybody should see him in that condition? It would not be long before the first people came past, the milk-boys, the girls with the bread, the men working in the street, those who drank Carlsbad water early in the morning. Oh, how terrible if anybody should guess how deeply he had sunk. "Lean on me, lean heavily," she said in a trembling voice. "Pull yourself together--that's right." She almost broke down under his weight but she kept him on his feet. He was so drunk that he did not know what he was doing, he actually wanted to lie down in front of the door, at full length on the stone steps. But she snatched him up. "You must--you must," she said, and he followed her like a child. Like a dog, she thought. Now she had got him into the hall--the front door was again locked--but now came the fear that the servants would see him. They were not up yet, but it would not be long before Friedrich would walk over from the gardener's lodge in his leather slippers, and the girls come down from their attics, and then the sweeping and tidying up would commence, the opening of the windows, the drawing up of the blinds, so that the bright light--the cruel light--might force its way into every crevice. She must get him up the stairs, into his room without anybody guessing anything, without asking anyone for help. She had thought of her husband for one moment--but no, not him either, nobody must see him like that. She helped him upstairs with a strength for which she had never given herself credit; she positively carried him. And all the time she kept on entreating him to go quietly, whispering the words softly but persistently. She had to coax him, or he would not go on: "Quietly, Woelfchen. Go on, go on, Woelfchen--that's splendid, Woelfchen." She suffered the torments of hell. He stumbled and was noisy; she gave a start every time he knocked his foot against the stairs, every time the banisters creaked when he fell against them helplessly, and a terrible fear almost paralysed her. If anybody should hear it, oh, if anybody should hear it. But let them get on, on. "Quietly, Woelfchen, quite quietly." It sounded like an entreaty, and still it was a command. As he had conquered her before by means of his heavy arm, so she conquered him now by means of her will.