Standing around him were the physician, Frau Hadebusch, and Philippina. The doctor said something at which Daniel shook his head. It sounded like: “Unfortunately I cannot keep the sad news from you.” Daniel did not understand him; he drew his lips apart, and thought: “The idea of dreaming such disordered stuff!”
“Mother and child are both dead,” said the old physician, with tears in his eyes. “Both dead. It was a boy. Science was powerless; nature was hostile and the stronger of the two.”
“So delicately built,” murmured Frau Hadebusch, in a tone of disapproval, “as delicate as the stem of a plant.”
When Daniel at last realised that he was not dreaming, that these were in bitter truth Philippina’s glistening eyes and Frau Hadebusch’s goatish tooth and Dr. Dingolfinger’s silvery beard, and that these were actual words that were being spoken to him, he fell over and became unconscious.
XX
Pain, grief, despair, such terms do not describe his condition.
He knew nothing about himself; he had no thoughts; he lay on the sofa in the living room day and night, ate nothing, said nothing, and never moved.
When they carried the empty coffin into the death chamber, he burrowed his face into the corner of the sofa. Old Jordan tottered through the room to take a last look at his dead daughter. “He has sinned,” Jordan sobbed, “sinned against God in Heaven.”
In the hall some people were whispering. Martha Rübsam and her husband had come in. Martha was crying. Her slender figure with her pale face appeared in the doorway; she looked around for Daniel.