"even while faithfully discharging my duty I might have made a wrong move, and then, my dears, I don't mind telling you, it would have been all up with me and with Magda's marriage, too!" As Magda turned pale he touched her arm. "Now we have come through very nicely," he said, raising his glass in manly joy. "How things have turned out under God's guidance!" He ordered the two girls to make themselves pretty and come along with him. Frau Hessling begged them to be careful, she was very much afraid of the excitement. On this occasion Diederich could afford to wait and his sisters could take as long to dress as they liked. By the time they arrived every one was in court, but they were not the same people. All the Buck family was missing, and also Guste Daimchen, Heuteufel, Cohn, the whole masonic lodge and the Independent Voters' Association. They admitted their defeat! The whole town knew it and crowded there to witness their annihilation. The poorer people were thrust forward into the front seats. Those of the erstwhile clique who were still visible, Kühnchen and Kunze, took care that every one should read their unimpeachable sentiments in their faces. There were a few suspicious looking figures scattered about: young men with a tired, soulful air, together with several loud young women, with unnaturally radiant complexions, and they all exchanged greetings with Wolfgang Buck. The State Theatre! Buck had actually dared to invite them to hear his oration.
Every time any one entered Lauer turned his head anxiously. He was expecting his wife! "If he imagines that she will come again!" thought Diederich. But there she came, even paler than in the morning, greeted her husband with an imploring look, and sat down quietly at the end of a seat, her eyes staring fixedly in front of her at the Bench, proud and silent, as if awaiting Destiny. … The judges had entered the courtroom, the presiding justice opened the session and called upon counsel for the prosecution to speak.
Jadassohn launched forth at once with extreme vehemence;
