"It's the tears and the fatigue, and perhaps a bit of a cold coming on," thought Corinne as she, too, partook gratefully of her soup, quite ready for it after her three hours at the bank, working at those interminable billions that threatened to run into trillions. Life at the bank was now composed of seemingly countless zeros, orgies of zeros, and often a fine headache after. As they took their soup, with what remained of their rolls, they ceased to mourn for Carli, ... something bright and beautiful that had been and was no more.... They didn't try either, to look into the wherefores and whys of Fanny's existence, neither its splendors nor its miseries, though as Tante Ilde was taking her last spoonful of soup, she leaned across the table and said, a confidential note in her voice, something deprecatory too: "Last night the boys didn't wake up, but Lilli and Resl kept peeping in at the door while Fanny was there. They followed me into the kitchen when I was making coffee and asked about 'Tante Fanny;' if I'd noticed how sweet her furs smelt and if I'd heard how her bracelets tinkled, she wears a lot of bracelets, broad bands of jewels that jingle and glitter. Lilli wanted to know who her husband was and Resl said, 'Ssh, she hasn't any,'" ended Tante Ilde with a sigh. But Corinne had ceased to listen, inherently fascinating as the theme of Fanny's bracelets was, for behind that pale waiting she was in a turmoil. Suddenly she flushed and then as suddenly grew white. Pauli was standing at the door looking about. In a moment he was beside them and as he sat down in that eager way of his, life seemed to stream from him, more than he needed for himself, something overflowing, always something to give. He was just as kind to Tante Ilde as to Corinne. She didn't feel a bit in the way ... for once ... like that. She was again in a world where given enough to eat and a warm place to eat it in, human beings still loved and longed for each other, not simply for food and shelter. A whole cityful of human beings with hearts and brains as well as stomachs thinking solely about what they were going to eat! It suddenly seemed a terrible waste to her ... in a world where there was love, beauty, wisdom, hidden, lost though they might be. The waiter was standing by them with his pad in his hand waiting for the ladies to decide or for the gentleman to decide for them. Nothing like that had happened to Frau Stacher since the winter before she lost her income. The soup had put new life into her, and if it hadn't been for that vaguely evil thing she felt in her veins, she would have been almost her own gentle, pleasing, easy self again. "Don't look only at the prices, Tanterl," Pauli was saying with his smile that so easily became a laugh. "How about half a young chicken with rice for each?" he suggested lavishly, surprised to find it there on the otherwise meagre list.