And with all that, there was a holy zeal animating them all and inducing them to turn over the leaves long before their turn came again, and thus to produce a continuous rustling; and with all that, an unvarnished enthusiasm which rewarded the performances of some, as those of Doctor Winimer; and with all that an unselfish modesty with which less gifted members, like Marie Kubel, submitted to correction on the part of Rector Clemens, who enjoyed, by the regulations of the club, the privilege of interrupting the reader and of pointing out to him or to her the mistakes made in reciting. Oswald enjoyed this Babylonian confusion, this nibbling of mice at the club of Hercules, until gradually disgust overcame him, and even the sight of Mr. and Mrs. Jager was no longer able to cause him to laugh heartily. The professor sat, lost in his large easy-chair, immovable, the corners of his mouth drawn down so low that its outline presented the form of a horse-shoe, while he looked with his small, green eyes over the frame of his large, round spectacles at his wife, his fellow-sufferer, his companion in his disgrace. The conduct of the poetess was, of course, far more striking, as might have been expected from so eccentric a character. Now she would throw herself back in her chair with crossed arms and fix her eyes on the ceiling, and now she would lean forward and support her head, with the golden hair and the wreath of blue cornflowers, in her hands. Then again she smiled a smile of supreme contempt, or she yawned as if overcome by intolerable ennui. Oswald was very curious to see what she would do when her turn came, for she had whispered to him at the beginning, in feverish excitement, "I will not read; rely upon it, I will not read!" However, his curiosity was not to be so easily satisfied, for after Mr. Winimer had declared himself at the end of the third act, with a final effort of all his voice, "ready to die," Mrs. Clemens once more began to ring with all her might, and gave thus the signal for a long pause, which, according to § 25 of the statutes, occurred in a drama of five acts invariably after the third act, and in a piece of four acts after the second, and during which, according to § 26, wine and cake were handed round.