Swift, violent knocks at the door resounded. She started and then hastened to open it. A boy stood before her. His condition made her shudder. His clothes were spattered over and over with mud. Here and there, about his knees and on his chest, the mud had caked and formed a thick crust. His head was bare. His coal-black hair, which was also muddy, hung down. His face had an utter bleached whiteness, such as Johanna had never seen upon a human face. No drop of blood seemed left beneath his skin. Limping a little, he passed by Johanna and entered the room. His movements were mechanical and trance-like. The volitional impulse always far antedated the action it produced. “I am Michael Hofmann,” he said, and his teeth chattered. Johanna did not know him and had not heard of him. She thought she must be dealing with a madman. In her fear she did not leave the door. She expected him to attack her at any moment, and listened for some chance step in the hall or yard. She wanted to flee, but she was afraid to move. When the boy came into the circle of the lamplight, a sigh which ended in a broken cry escaped her, so terrible was the expression in his eyes. He stopped, and looked about him. He was obviously seeking Christian Wahnschaffe; but in the act of gazing he forgot to look, and his glance became a stare. He grasped the back of a chair. Exhaustion seemed to overtake him. When he was about to sit down, he reeled and half-whirled about, and would have fallen but for the support of the back of the chair. Now Johanna saw clearly that he was neither mad nor drunk. He was a human being who had been robbed of strength and speech and almost vision and consciousness by an experience of the supremest horror. Not only his shaking limbs, not only the whiteness of his face betrayed the fact, but the atmosphere that surrounded him. Gently she closed the door. Hesitatingly she approached the chair upon which he seemed now wedged fast. She dared to ask no question. Gnawing her lip, she suppressed a feeling that welled up hotly within her. She felt herself shrink and become thin and shadowy. She seemed suddenly to have lost the very right to breathe.