[The Disagreeable Young Man is silent.]
Grandmother [shaking with excitement]. And—what else?
[The Disagreeable Young Man is silent.]
Grandmother [she shakes with fear as to what will follow, but forces herself to face it]. Well, say on ... what else?...
The Disagreeable Young Man. At six on the following morning you reached your home and.... [He pauses.]
Grandmother [if her loud-speaking could be called an outcry, then she cries out]. Yes ... what else?... What happened then?... Go on ... say it ... what else?
The Disagreeable Young Man. [He makes a new attempt to tell everything bravely at once, but hesitates.] In the morning at six you arrived at home. The others had no idea as to the distance between Schwanhausen and Friederichsrode. But I wanted to see it myself, so last year with a friend I made a walking trip through that country. I tried this distance. In a half hour of slow walking I reached from one place to the other, and the horses in the Count's stables and the state roads were then in as good condition as to-day. Well, then you started from the castle at half-past five in the morning; but you reached there at half-past eleven the preceding night.... You spent six entire hours in the castle.... Then, another point—they all speak of the count, the "benefactor of us all," as the "old count."... When he died five years ago he was, of course, an old count—an old man of seventy.... But thirty-five years ago he was a young count of thirty years of age.
[The Grandmother stares blindly at The Disagreeable Young Man. Alarmed over Grandma's fright, he rises. He would very much like to make up to her, but he lacks words. The Grandmother rises. She is trembling. With a shaking hand she is nervously setting her dress to rights. Twice she turns to the young man to speak to him, but is unable to utter a word. Then she turns; she is about to return into the house, but remains near the doorstep. Again she turns; then she is about to go in, but turns again and remains standing.]
The Disagreeable Young Man [frightened]. Grandma, you gave me your word that you would not be angry.
Grandmother [she stumbles forward a few steps. She is disturbed, shivering, beside herself, complaining, almost sobbing]. You are an evil child! You are a bad, bad and evil child! For fifty years I have told the same story ... always the same, same way ... and that it happened differently never, never even came into my mind.