died of consumption. She is sure to snuff out herself pretty soon.
"I should think she would, the way her husband worries her all the time about the son.
The landlord had come in without being noticed by any one, through the kitchen door. His loud voice now broke in: "I don't like gossip in here about other people's private affairs." Then he turned to the boys, and asked them if they did not want to say good-night to their travelling companion, who was going to bed?
They answered sulkily that they did not, but in a moment Gerold began to feel ashamed of his rudeness. His regrets became so keen that he got up and ran out to find Gesima, just as she was going upstairs, with two maids carrying candles behind her. He ran up after her, and without any definite purpose he seized her hair from behind with both hands and pulled her head back. She reached her hands out forward, stretching them as a cat does its paws when you lift it up by the neck, and her jaw dropped as she looked up and back at him, rolling her eyes so that he saw only the whites. If he had given her a jerk she would have fallen over. But he didn't in the least want to hurt her, so he let go at once, and she fled upstairs as fast as she could. Immediately he began to be sorry again, this time because he had caught her by the hair instead of saying good-night politely as he had originally intended to do. So he ran up after her, and as she had turned down a wrong corridor in her flight, and had come up against the end of it with no way out, he barred her way. He thought he would like to offer some present to her to show her how sorry he was, but he couldn't find anything in his pockets worth
44
