He lay on his back. The muscles of his face had snapped under an inhuman tension. Between his reddish eyebrows vibrated three dark furrows. His skin was the tint of cheese. On his neck and forehead were beads of sweat. His lids looked like two black holes. The slim, red little beard on his chin moved as he breathed--moved like a separate and living thing, a watchful, hairy insect. He snored loudly. A bubble of saliva rose now and then from the horrible opening of his lips that showed his decayed teeth. The widow Engelschall had had plans which had seemed easy to execute outside. Now she dared do nothing. Last night she had stood above him as she stood now. He had begun to murmur in his sleep, and she had hurried out in terror. It buzzed in her head: What had he done with the two thousand marks which he had embezzled from the builder? She distrusted his assertion that he had spent it all on the cashier of the Metropolitan Moving Picture Theatre. To make up a part of the money and prevent his arrest, she had had to pawn all her linen, two chests of drawers, the furnishings of her waiting-room, and also to mortgage a life insurance policy. Her letter to Privy Councillor Wahnschaffe had not even been answered. She didn’t believe that he had wasted so much good money on that slut. He must have a few hundreds lying about somewhere. The thought gave her no rest. It was dangerous to let him notice her suspicion; but she could risk entering the room while he slept, burrowing in his clothes, and slipping her hand under his pillow. But she stood perfectly still. In his presence she was always prepared for the unexpected. If he but opened his mouth, she trembled within. If people came to speak of him, she grew cold all over. If she stopped to think, she knew that it had always been so. When the village schoolmaster had caught the ten-year-old boy in disgusting practices with a girl of eight, he had said: “He’ll end on the gallows.” When he was an apprentice, he had quarrelled over wages with his employer and threatened to strike him. The man had said: “He’ll end on the gallows.” When he had stolen a silver chain from the desk of the minister’s wife at Friesoythe, and his mother had gone to return it, the lady had said: “He’ll end on the gallows.”