On the stairs Ruth bethought herself, and knocked at Karen’s door. If Christian were there, she could say a few words to him; but no one opened. She thought that Karen was asleep, and did not ring. As she descended the stairs behind the girl and the naked dog the new responsibilities and problems of her life came into her mind. But in Ruth’s young and intrepid heart, confusions grew clear and difficult things lost their terror. In the lower hall she hesitated for a last time. She wanted to stop at Gisevius’s to see if Christian were there. But two old women were reviling each other loudly and filthily in the yard, and she went on. It was raining. It was Sunday afternoon, a time of ghastly dreariness in Stolpische Street. There was quiet under the grey November sky, save for a hum from the public houses. The pale street-lamps flickered in the twilight. “Let us go, then,” Ruth said to the girl. The naked dog trotted between them on the wet pavement. XVII Crammon had written as follows to the Countess Brainitz: “Since I have pledged my word, of course I shall come. But I beg you to have the kindness to prepare Letitia in some appropriate way. As the fatal moment approaches I feel more and more uncomfortable. It is a very difficult act of expiation that you demand of me. I would rather make a pilgrimage to Mount Ararat and become a hermit there for a few years and seek for the remains of Noah’s ark. I grant you that I have always enjoyed the delights that came to me without scruple; but it does not seem to me that I have deserved this. It is too much.” The countess replied that she would do her utmost to mitigate the painfulness of the meeting. She had no objection to the dear child’s weeping on her bosom, before facing a father who admitted his fatherhood with so many hesitations and fears. “And so, Herr von Crammon,” she wrote at the end of her letter, “we are expecting you. Letitia has returned from Paris more enchanting than ever. All the world is at her feet. I trust you will not be an exception.” “The devil take her!” Crammon growled, as he packed his bags.