There was a certain protocol observed even at those bread-lines. No one with impunity was caught taking another's place, that is unless there was a stampede by those behind if the news got out that there was very little left. Then what a pushing and hurtling! Something terrible, hard, relentless would suddenly come up out of the crowd that had seemed composed of pale, exhausted men and women and underfed, listless children. That precious loaf that Lilli generally managed to bring home, would, with some of the equally precious cocoa that was in the heavenly package they got from the "Friends" in the Franzensplatz be the backbone, somewhat weak, it is true, of their day. The package and the wonders it contained,--the little tin of lard, the little box of sugar, the little bag of flour, the coffee, though it could not fatten a family of nine people, dulled noticeably the sharpest edge of their hunger and helped to get them through the week. It was really equal to several meals if you counted that way. Then sometimes a raven in the shape of old Maria, tapping, flew in at the door. As for the other meals, the Eberhardts went without them. It was a mystery to the Professor, surpassing any he had ever before tried to solve, that he could no longer make a living out of his grey matter. Being a "genius" was plainly a misfortune. It was the working classes, fortunate possessors of muscle, that frequented butcher and delicatessen shops, while the intellectuals and their families starved. It made science look like something seen through the big end of a telescope. Biology? Eberhardt got so that he hated the very word. The only science of life that was of any use was knowing how to get something to put into your family's stomach and your own. Naturally mild as summer dew, Eberhardt had been getting bitter. Those radiant years lay far behind, when a word, a thought would set his brain on fire, startling into instant action those secret springs of his talent; when the imponderable why and whence of man's being was the paramount interest of life. The ponderable things necessary to sustain that life came naturally, undisturbingly in the train of work. Now his gifts were useless; the world in which they had once functioned so easily, so shiningly, was in some chill, shadowy abeyance. Again and again came from his lips nostalgically: "Süsses Leben! Schöne, freundliche Gewohnheit des Daseins und Wirkens! von dir soll ich scheiden!" "Sweet life, sweet, pleasant habit of being and activity! Must I part from thee?"