On the 28th of June came the news of the assassinations at Sarajevo. Unbelievable news; the Dual Monarchy shaken to its foundations. Its heir, its keystone gone like that, in a foul moment. Still everybody talked of the Emperor's grief, not dreaming that each, in one way or another, would partake of that grief. They counted his many sorrows, scarce one save poverty was missing; the Emperor's sorrows had always been an absorbing theme; it had got so that there weren't enough fingers on both hands to record them. This, and this, and this and still this, had he suffered. Had not his son miserably perished by his own hand--or another's? Had not his lovely Empress been assassinated? Had not his brother been put to death in far off Mexico? Had not his sister-in-law been burned to death in a Charity Bazaar? Had he not been obliged to exile another brother from his court for nameless sins? Had not another heir died of a dread disease? And other, other griefs. Now this last, this fatal blow in his old age, personal, dynastic. Those catastrophic griefs, heaped high with the years, in a way had become a matter of pride to happy Austrians, and the unhappy ones because of them, had a feeling of kinship with their beloved "Franzerl." Who could have foretold that in five years they would seem remoter, less interesting than those of some Roman Emperor?... For a few weeks things seemingly went on just the same. Suddenly Europe was in flames and from the conflagration no one could flee.... The first two years hadn't been so bad for the Eberhardts. The Professor had been detailed for laboratory work in Vienna, and things went on somewhat as they had been going. Two more children were born. Then unexpectedly, through some tragedy of errors, Eberhardt found himself in a delousing station on the Eastern front. By that time, everybody was talking about hygiene as well as victory. But he was only gone a few months, returning gaunt and white, a startled look in his once thoughtful eye, and evidently quite unfit for further service. He had been side-tracked for days with a dozen others, suffering from dysentery, heaped together in a luggage van. No food, and worst of all, no water. The whole first week after he had tottered in over the threshold of his home he had said nothing, except repeat the word "schrechlich"--terrible. Then, strangely, he got better, even well, and went to the nearly empty University every day, trying to knot the torn threads of learning. Then the terrible peace broke out. The war had been bad enough, but it was war and unless one was killed one knew how to take it. The peace was quite another matter, a starving, freezing matter for women and children in city streets. The civilian population was suddenly plunged into it, up to the neck in it.... That collapse of the winter of 1919, ... that terrible food-blockade over half Europe.... There was nothing to hope for, nothing to fight for except bread, bread, bread, in ever-diminishing quantities.