She had put on her oldest suit, with the black and white stripes without once thinking that it had always been a failure. Business--pleasant business was engaging her attention. But she stood at the door a moment too long, holding in one hand her umbrella, in the other a large, brown, string bag. In her worn pocket-book was money to buy wherewith to fill it. Her eyes were bright; in her cheeks was the faintest pink. Irma was irritated in spite of herself at the sight of that brisk fervor. She knew perfectly well the chronically desperate situation of the Eberhardts, yet to see her sister-in-law stepping lightly over the threshold with that bag in her hand, going out to buy food that she, Irma, could well have used for her own children, provoked an unreasoning envy. Frau Stacher had not dallied in face of that sombre look, that terrible look, born of the brooding solicitude about food, food, that seemed to hold but slightly in leash unnamable things. She fled hastily before it. Only Irma's nerves. But she had come to know a lot about Irma's nerves in those few days. Irma was a beast of prey for her children. No one and nothing that came into conflict with their interests had the slightest chance with her. Ferry's cough seemed suddenly from one day to the other to get worse. She had taken him to his Uncle Hermann, and his Uncle Hermann had said to Irma in the back office, while Ferry turned over a sport journal of eight years before in the front room: "What's the use, Irma, he needs milk, eggs, high air." Had he said pearls, diamonds, rubies, it would have been the same to Irma. How not to sink to irrecoverable depths with that sinking population of which they were a part, was Irma's one thought. The rent was a small matter. For a long time she hadn't paid anything. At least the "crazy government" prohibited turning families into the streets, even if they didn't pay. All the government really wanted to know was that every room of every apartment was filled to overflowing with samples of the Viennese populace. In that back office Hermann had further said, tentatively: "Perhaps ... Fanny would send him away for a while." Irma had tartly answered: "Fanny, it's always Fanny."