She had crowded their furniture, but uncosily, into the restricted space. There were three sofas in the living room and various tables besides the one they used for their meals. No books in Anna's home any more than in Liesel's. A similar glass compartment above a somewhat similar desk held an accumulation of bric-à-brac of purely family interest. Two white and gilt cups bearing the words "dem lieben Vater," "der lieben Mutter" that had been Hermine's first gifts to her parents for their morning coffee; several solemn vases that on various occasions the women had presented to each other, and in whose narrow necks outraged flowers always wilted; a slab of wood with the Castle of Salzburg painted on it against a blue background; a group of carved wooden bears from Innsbruck and other souvenirs of the days when they travelled. Some gay Dresden china figures in minuet postures immediately struck the eye, that Pauli had given Anna when they were first married, now extraordinarily out of keeping with the paralysis of their conjugal life. The sofa cushions were in dull linen, worked in dull colors and bore the usual mottoes: "Nur ein viertel Stuendchen," "Traeume suess" and the like. The once too-bright pattern of the Brussels rug had faded into browns and greys. The various chairs carried on their backs and arms their ugly, witless, crocheted doilies. Even over Tante Ilde's gay little brass-bound chest, containing dear but unsalable odds and ends, Anna had thrown a brown cloth cover worked sparsely in white and yellow daisies. There was something dead about it all and about the two dull women the expression of whose being it was. To Pauli, gay, sparkling, eager, passionate Pauli, it was as pleasant to visit his home as it would have been to visit the cemetery. In one corner was the table on which, wrapped in a scarlet cloth, was Pauli's zimbalon. It was the only thing in the dwelling that spoke of its master. It was the bright flower on the grave, and too, he visited his home not much oftener than he would have visited Anna had she been lying in the Central Cemetery. One of those stupid, fatal marriages. Anna had never understood anything about it, either the making or the unmaking of it. But she continued to love him with all the force of her poor being, and accepted, because she had to, his now habitual absence. Pauli's mother had been a Hungarian and in his bright Magyar way he had long since put the dots on the "ies" of the conjugal situation: "Anna? Dead since years. She ought to wear a bead wreath." That sombre flame in her eyes that from time to time he was unpleasantly aware of was, indeed, no more attractive to him than the phosphorescence shining about something decayed.