ing
Hebrew.

"You are going back?" he thundered. "But you won't go back! Don't
shame yourself!"

The Hebrew gazed at him stupidly.

"I live in Rottenbiller Street," he stammered. "My name is Joseph
Braun."

He bit his nails in his nervous agitation. Tears filled his eyes. "Ich
muss zu meine Kinder," he said in German again. (I must go to my
children.)

"No!" exclaimed the professor. "You'll never go back!"

"But why?"

"I will not permit it!"

The Hebrew looked around. He felt that something was wrong here. His
startled manner seemed to ask: "Am I in a lunatic asylum?" He dropped
his head and said to the professor simply:

"I am tired."

The professor pointed to the straw mattress.

"Go to sleep. We will speak further in the morning."

Fever blazed in the professor's face. On the other straw mattress
General Gardener now slept with his face to the wall.

The Hebrew staggered to the straw mattress, threw himself down, and
wept. The weeping shook him terribly. The professor sat at the table
and smiled.

Finally the Hebrew fell asleep. Hours passed in silence. I stood
motionless looking at the professor, who gazed into the candlelight.
There was not much left of it. Presently he sighed and blew it out.
For a little while there was dark, and then I saw the dawn penetrating
the yellow curtain at the window. The professor leaned back in his
chair, stretched out his feet, and closed his eyes.

All at once the Hebrew got up silently and went to the window. He
believed the professor was asleep. He opened the window carefully and
started to creep out. The professor leaped from his chair, shouting:

"No!"

He caught the Hebrew by his shroud and held him back. There was a long
knife in his hand. Without another word, the professor pierced the
Hebrew through the heart.

He put the limp body on the straw mattress, then went out of the
chamber toward the studio. In a few minutes he came back with father.
Father was pale and did not speak. They covered the dead Hebrew with a
rug, and then, one after the other, crept out through the window,
lifted the corpse out, and carried it away. In a quarter of an hour
they came back. They exchanged a few words, from which I learned that
they had succeeded in putting the dead Hebrew back on his bier without
having been observed.

They shut the window. The professor drank a glass of wine and again
stretched out his legs on the chair.

"It is impossible to go back," he s