The houses in the Frauengasse were barricaded like others—many of the lower windows were built up. The door of No. 36 was bolted, and through the shutters of the upper windows no glimmer of light penetrated to the outer darkness of the street. Barlasch knocked and waited. He thought he could hear surreptitious movements within the house. Again he knocked.
“Who is that?” asked Lisa just within, on the mat. She must have been there all the time.
“Barlasch,” he replied. And the bolts which he, in his knowledge of such matters, himself had oiled, were quickly drawn.
Inside he found Lisa, and behind her Mathilde and Desiree.
“Where is the patron?” he asked, turning to bolt the door again.
“He is out, in the town,” answered Desiree, in a strained voice. “Where are you from?”
“From Kowno.”
Barlasch looked from one face to the other. His own was burnt red, and the light of the lamp hanging over his head gleamed on the icicles suspended to his eyebrows and ragged whiskers. In the warmth of the house his frozen garments began to melt, and from his limbs the water dripped to the floor with a sound like rain. Then he caught sight of Desiree's face.
“He is alive, I tell you that,” he said abruptly. “And well, so far as we know. It was at Kowno that we got news of him. I have a letter.”
He opened his cloak, which was stiff like cardboard and creaked when he bent the rough cloth. Under his cloak he wore a Russian peasant's sheepskin coat, and beneath that the remains of his uniform.