It was no use to hope. The trouble was, he needed bread, just bread.
V
It was often difficult for him to find the peace and quiet necessary for effective work. May brought cold weather; they had to make a fire; the stove smoked; the potter came in and removed the tiles; the room looked like an inferno.
Gertrude was pounding sugar: “Don’t be angry at me, Daniel; I must pound the sugar to-day.” And she pounded away until the hammer penetrated the paralysed brain of the listener by force of circumstances.
The hinges of the door screeched. “You ought to oil them, Gertrude.” Gertrude looked high and low for the oil can, and when she finally found it, she had no feather to use in smearing the oil on. She went over to the chancellor’s, and borrowed one from her maid. While she was gone, the milk boiled over and filled the house with a disagreeable stench.
The door bell rang. It was the cobbler; he had come to get the money for the patent leather shoes. The wives of Herr Kirschner and Herr Rübsam had both said that Daniel must not think of appearing at the coming recital at the Baroness’s without patent leather shoes.
“I haven’t the money, Gertrude; have you got that much?”
Gertrude went through her chests, and scraped up five marks which she gave the cobbler as a first instalment. The man went away growling; Daniel hid from him.
Gertrude was sitting in the living room making clothes for her baby-to-come. There was a happy expression on her face. Daniel knew that it was a display of maternal joy and expectation, but since he could not share this joy, since indeed he felt a sense of fear at the appearance of the child, her happiness embittered him.