She wasn't dead yet--she was suddenly sure, too, that she'd have "time to repent." She quite brightened up, and as she never did anything by halves was apparently entirely herself by the time they got to the cemetery. Fanny in the bosom of her family, for once taking charge of things in person, not just paying from a distance, was really worth seeing. Fanny at last visibly the source of whatever mercies they received. Fanny, as Pauli so truly called her, the family Doxology ... according to the mysterious permissions of God the source of their only blessings. Fanny weeping and praying by the little grave, supporting the stricken mother--her sister, and laying on it the big wreath. Fanny taking them to the café near the cemetery and giving them hot coffee after their cold grief.... It was Fanny, too, who, when some extraordinarily stubbly semmels were served with it, bearing not the slightest resemblance to the anciently far-famed Viennese rolls, scolded the shambling, flat-footed waiter and said loudly it was a "shame" and "disgusting," and ended by going over to the desk and saying something in a lower tone to the gaunt woman who sat there. The woman had promptly produced some coffee cake and some crescents kept only for rich grief. She was used to pale, tear-washed faces. Every day, every day, they came in and went out. She had seen many a strange alteration in their looks after that hot coffee, even after ersatz coffee. People kept on living for all they had that momentary feeling that they couldn't. She had sat at that desk for twenty years. Grief, she knew it, all kinds, ... and they kept on living. Even Kaethe, though her throat was stiff and dry with mother-grief, even Kaethe had taken her coffee. But Tante Ilde made no pretense at drinking hers, not even a sip. Those little shivers had changed into a continuous trembling. She felt both hot and cold. Her eyes were filmy. The only thing she wanted to do really was to lie down, never to move again, to give way to that over-powering lassitude that she could no longer struggle against. She was only vaguely worried because she'd lost the new bag; dropped it at the grave probably, though when Eberhardt went back to get it, immediately when she noticed its loss, on coming out of the cemetery, it had already vanished from the earth. After her first dismay, she had strangely not cared, and now she was murmuring something about the alcove, not at all what any of the others were thinking or talking of. Suddenly Kaethe, startled out of her own grief at a trembling motion of her aunt's shoulders, had looked at her in alarm. "But what is the matter, Tante Ilde?" she asked. "Why, she's really ill!" cried Fanny sharply, "we've got to get her home." Her aunt hearing the word home muttered once more something about the alcove. Her face was ashen, but her pale, wide eyes shone strangely through the film that again threatened to veil them.