Again Frau Binzer nodded.
“Oh yes, I know. She says, is your cold better, and there’s a warm undervest for you in the left-hand corner of the big drawer.”
Quite automatically Andreas cleared his throat twice.
“Yes,” he answered. “Tell her my throat certainly feels looser. I suppose I’d better not disturb her?”
“No, and besides, time, Andreas.”
“I’ll be ready in five minutes.”
They went into the passage. As Frau Binzer opened the door of the front bedroom, a long wail came from the room.
That shocked and terrified Andreas. He dashed into the bathroom, turned on both taps as far as they would go, cleaned his teeth and pared his nails while the water was running.
“Frightful business, frightful business,” he heard himself whispering. “And I can’t understand it. It isn’t as though it were her first—it’s her third. Old Schäfer told me, yesterday, his wife simply ‘dropped’ her fourth. Anna ought to have had a qualified nurse. Mother gives way to her. Mother spoils her. I wonder what she meant by saying I’d worried Anna yesterday. Nice remark to make to a husband at a time like this. Unstrung, I suppose—and my sensitiveness again.”
When he went into the kitchen for his boots, the servant girl was bent over the stove, cooking breakfast. “Breathing into that, now, I suppose,” thought Andreas, and was very short with the servant girl. She did not notice. She was full of terrified joy and importance in the goings on upstairs. She felt she was learning the secrets of life with every breath she drew. Had laid the table that morning saying, “Boy,” as she put down the first dish, “Girl,” as she placed the second—it had worked out with the saltspoon to “Boy.” “For two pins I’d tell the master that, to comfort him, like,” she decided. But the master gave her no opening.