On a chair near the dressing-table lay an open jewel case. Johanna stood before it, smiled timidly, and took out of it a beautifully cut cameo, which she playfully fastened to her bosom; she looked admiringly at a diadem and put it in her hair; she slipped on a few rings and a pearl bracelet over her sleeve. Thus adorned she went, half hesitatingly, half with an air of self-mockery, up to Eva. Slowly Eva lifted her eyes from the book, looked at Johanna, and asked: “Is it true?” She let a few seconds pass, and then with wider open eyes she asked once more: “Is it true?” Johanna drew back, and the colour left her cheeks. She suspected and knew and began to tremble. Then Eva arose and went close up to her and stripped the cameo from the girl’s bosom, the diadem from her hair, the rings from her fingers, the bracelet from her arm, and threw the things back into the case. Then she sat down again, took up her book, and said: “Hurry, Susan! I want to rest a little.” Johanna’s breath failed her. She looked like one who has been struck. A tender blossom in her heart was crushed forever, and from its sudden withering arose a subtle miasma. Almost on the point of fainting she left the room. As though to seal the end of a period in her life and warn her of evil things to come, she received within two hours a telegram from her mother which informed her of a catastrophe and urgently summoned her home. Fräulein Grabmeier began packing at once. They were to catch the train at five o’clock in the morning. From midnight on Johanna sat waiting in Christian’s room. She lit no light. In the darkness she sat beside a table, resting her head in her hands. She did not move, and her eyes were fixed on vacancy. XX In the course of their talk Christian and Crammon had wandered farther and farther into the tangled alleys around the harbour. “Let us turn back and seek a way out,” Crammon suggested. “It isn’t very nice here. A damnable neighbourhood, in fact.” He peered about, and Christian too looked around. When they had gone a few steps farther, they came upon a man lying flat on his belly on the pavement. He struggled convulsively, croaked obscene curses, and shook his fist threateningly toward a red-curtained, brightly lit door. Suddenly the door opened, and a second man flew out. A paper box, an umbrella, and a derby hat were pitched out after him. He stumbled down the steps with outstretched arms, fell beside the first man, and remained sitting there with heavy eyes. Christian and Crammon looked in through the open door. In the smoky light twenty or thirty people were crouching. The monotonous crying of a woman became audible. At times it became shriller. The glass door was flung shut. “I shall see what goes on in there,” said Christian, and mounted the steps to the door. Crammon had only time to utter a horrified warning. But he followed. The reek of cheap whiskey struck him as he entered the room behind Christian.