As was usual on such occasions, a commotion stirred all the neighbours, and they assembled in the hall. There was a yellow-haired woman in her shift; there was one in a scarlet dressing gown; there was a cripple without legs, an old man with a long beard, children who were fighting one another, a painted woman with a hat as large as a cart-wheel, another with a burning candle in her hand, while a man who had just come in from the street in her company sought to hide in the darkness near the roof. What one heard was the wailing of the Kroll children, and the hard beseeching voice of the woman, who looked on with desperate eyes as the agent and his men heaped up her poor possessions. The vagabond cursed, the hurdy-gurdy man dragged his straw sack toward the door, the agent snapped his fingers and said: “Hurry, good people, hurry! Let’s have no tender scenes! My supper is getting cold!” XXI Christian and Ivan Becker entered. They forced their way through the staring crowd. Christian had on his costly fur-coat. The agent stood still and his jaw dropped. His men instinctively touched their caps. Ivan Michailovitch wanted to close the door, but the woman in the big hat stood on the threshold and would not stir. “The door should be closed,” he said to the agent, who went forward and closed it, simply thrusting the woman roughly back. Ivan asked whether the woman and her children were to be evicted. The agent declared that she was unable to pay her rent, that one extension of time after another had been granted her, but that to continue would be to create disorder and institute a bad example. Ivan Michailovitch answered that he understood the situation. Then he turned to Christian, and repeated the words as though he needed to translate them into another tongue: “She cannot pay her rent.” A whistle sounded from without, and a woman screeched. The agent opened the door, cried out a command, and slammed it again. Silence ensued. Frau Kroll was crouching among her children, her elbows dug into her lap. She had a robust figure, and a bony face that was pale as dough and deeply furrowed. It looked like the head of a corpse. The children looked at her in terror: two were mother naked, and one of these had the itch. The agent, assuming a benevolent tone, asked Ivan Becker whether something was to be done for these people; he evidently did not dare to address Christian. “I think we shall be able to do something for them,” Ivan answered, and turned to Christian. Christian heard and saw. He nodded rapidly, and gave an impression of timidity and passionate zeal.