Laura half-closed her eyes and smiled a wan smile. Her hand dropped out of his and lay like a tired little bird on the window-sill:
“My dear Herman, we have been there too much already.”
“What nonsense!”
Laura was vexed at his clumsiness in not noticing her haggard appearance:
“Besides, I don’t feel very well, you know, Herman.”
That was too much, even for Herman. He could not help laughing.
“You ill, Laura! don’t talk such rubbish!”
What unfeeling, hard-hearted laughter. After all her efforts. At that moment she thoroughly detested him. But she did not answer sharply, she only looked deeply grieved and pained:
“Good-bye,” she murmured, “I am too tired to talk to you any longer. I must lie down for a while.”
Thereupon she closed the window in Herman’s face and pulled down the blind. Then she lay down on her bed and thought how unseeing and cold-hearted people were. Did they want to make her drink more vinegar? Well she was not frightened, although she had heard that it might make her really ill.