CHAPTER I
When Herr Hugo Weinschenk—in his buttoned-up frockcoat, with his drooping lower lip and his narrow black moustaches, which grew, in the most masculine way imaginable, right into the corners of his mouth; with both his fists held out in front of him, and making little motions with his elbows at about the height of his waist—when Herr Hugo Weinschenk, now for some time Director of the City Fire Insurance Company, crossed the great entry in Meng Street and passed, with a swinging, pompous stride, from his front to his back office, he gave an impressive impersonation of an energetic and prosperous man.
And Erica Grünlich, on the other hand, was now twenty years old: a tall, blooming girl, fresh-coloured and pretty, full of health and strength. If chance took her up or down the stairs just as Herr Weinschenk passed that way—and chance did this not seldom—the Director took off his top-hat, displaying his short black hair, which was already greying at the temples, minced rather more than ever at the waist of his frockcoat, and greeted the young girl with an admiring glance from his bold and roving brown eye. Whereat Erica ran away, sat down somewhere in a window, and wept for hours out of sheer helpless confusion.
Fräulein Grünlich had grown up under Therese Weichbrodt’s care and correction: her thoughts did not fly far afield. She wept over Herr Weinschenk’s top-hat, the way he raised his eyebrows at sight of her and let them fall; over his regal bearing and his balancing fists. Her mother, Frau Permaneder, saw further.
Her daughter’s future had troubled her for years; for
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