Later on she sat down on a bench and watched Fritz playing with some other children, all the time making an effort to keep her attention fixed on him so that she would not have to think of anything else.
In the evening she went to her relatives. She had a sensation as though she had had a presentiment of everything long before, for otherwise how could she have failed to have been struck before this by the kind of relations which existed between her brother-in-law and his wife? The former again made jocular remarks about Bertha's visit to Vienna. He asked when she was going there again, and whether they would not soon be hearing of her engagement. Bertha entered into the joke, and told how at least a dozen men had proposed to her, amongst others, a Government official; but she felt that her lips alone were speaking and smiling, while her soul remained serious and silent.
Richard sat beside her, and his knee touched hers, by chance. And as he was pouring out a glass of wine for her and she seized his hand to stop him, she felt a comforting glow steal up her arm as far as her shoulder. It made her feel happy. It seemed to her that she was being unfaithful to Emil. And that was quite as she wished; she wanted Emil to know that her senses were on the alert, that she was just the same as other women, and that she could accept the embraces of her nephew in just the same way as she did his…. Ah, yes, if he only knew it! That was what she ought to have written in her letter, not that humble, longing letter!…
But even while these thoughts were surging through her mind, she remained serious in the depths of her soul, and a feeling of solitude actually came over her, for she knew that no one could imagine what was taking place within her.
Afterwards, when she was walking homewards through the deserted streets, she met an officer whom she knew by sight. With him he had a pretty woman whom she had never seen before.
"Evidently a woman from Vienna!" she thought, for she knew that the officers often had such visitors.
She had a feeling of envy towards the woman; she wished that she was also being accompanied by a handsome young officer at that moment…. And why not?… After all, everybody was like that…. And now she herself had ceased to be a respectable woman. Emil, of course, did not believe that, any more than anybody else, and, anyhow, it was all just the same!
She reached home, undressed and went to bed. But the air was too sultry. She got up again, went to the window and opened it. Outside, all was dark. Perhaps somebody could see her standing there at the window, could see her skin gleaming through the darkness…. Indeed, she would not mind at all if anybody did see her like that!… Then she lay down on the bed again…. Ah, yes, she was no better than any of the others! And there was no good reason either why she should be….
Her thoughts grew indistinct…. Yes, he was the cause of it all, he had brought her to this, he had just taken her like a woman of the street—and then cast her off!… Ah, it was shameful, shameful!—-how base men were! And yet … it was delightful….
She fell asleep.