Crammon seemed to expand, and told his tale with breadth and unction: “Certainly I have. I have even had dealings with the police and saved you annoyance. The woman was to have been arrested and the money confiscated. Luckily I was able to prevent that. I believe that the State should keep order, but I don’t think it desirable that the government should interfere in our private affairs. Its duty is to safeguard us; there its function ends. So much for that! Concerning your protégée I have nothing pleasant to report. The rain of gold simply distracted the crowd in that house. They stuck to her and begged, and several of them stole. Naturally there was a fight, and some one plunged a knife into some one else’s bowels, and the maddened woman beat them both with a coal shovel. The police had to interfere. Then the woman moved into other quarters, and bought all sorts of trash--furniture, beds, clothing, kitchen utensils, and even a cuckoo clock. You have seen those little horrors. A cuckoo comes out of the clock and screams. I was once staying with people who had three of them. Whenever I went to sleep another cuckoo screeched; it was enough to drive one mad. In other respects my friends were charming. “As for the Kroll woman--your gift robbed her of every vestige of common sense. She keeps the money in a little box, which she carries about and won’t let out of her sight by night or day. She buys lottery tickets, penny dreadfuls; the children are as dirty as ever and the household as demoralized. Only that dreadful cuckoo clock roars. So what have you accomplished? Where is the blessing? Common people cannot endure sudden accessions of fortune. You do not know their nature in the slightest degree, and the best thing you can do is to leave them in peace.” Christian’s eyes wandered out to the cloudy sky. Then he turned to Crammon. He saw, as though he had never seen it before, that Crammon’s cheeks were rather fat, and that his chin was bedded in soft flesh and had a dimple. He could not make up his mind to answer. He smiled, and crossed his legs! What shapely legs, Crammon thought and sighed, what superb legs! III A few days later Crammon appeared again with the intention of testing Christian. “I don’t like your condition, my dear boy,” he began, “and I won’t pretend to you that I do. It’s just a week to-day that we’ve been perishing of boredom here. I grant you it’s a delightful place in spring and summer with agreeable companions, when one can have picnics in the open and think of the dull and seething cities. But now in the midst of winter, without orgies or movement or women--what is the use of it? Why do you hide yourself? Why do you act depressed? What are you waiting for? What have you in mind?” “You ask so many questions, Bernard,” Christian replied. “You should not do that. It is as well here as elsewhere. Can you tell me any place where it is better?”