ger." And that was such terrible
agony to me! My brother told me to wait in my room, and not to move from
it until he had ordered the carriage which was to take us away.

"Whither?" I asked.

"Away to the country. Remain here and don't go anywhere else." And to
keep me secure he locked the door upon me.

Then I fell a-thinking. Why should we go to the country now that our
father was lying dead? Why must I remain meanwhile in that room? Why do
none of our acquaintances come to see us? Why do those who go about the
house whisper so quietly? Why do they not toll the bell when so great a
one lies dead in the house?

All this distracted my brain entirely. To nothing could I give myself an
answer, and no one came to me from whom I could have demanded the truth.

Once, not long after (to me it seemed an age, though, if the truth be
known, it was probably only a half-hour or so), I heard the old
serving-maid, who had been watching in yonder chamber, tripping past the
corridor window. Evidently some one else had taken her place.

Her face was now as indifferent as it always was. Her eyes were cried
out; but I am sure I had seen her weep every day, whether in good or in
bad humor; it was all one with her. I addressed her through the window:

"Aunt Susie, come here."

"What do you want, dear little Desi?"

"Susie, tell me truly, why am I not allowed to kiss my father's face?"

The old servant shrugged her shoulders, and with cynical indifference
replied:

"Poor little fool. Why, because--because he has no head, poor fellow."

I did not dare to tell my brother on his return what I had heard from
old Susie.

I told him it was the cold air, when he asked why I trembled so.

Thereupon he merely put my overcoat on, and said, "Let us go to the
carriage."

I asked him if our grandmother was not coming with us. He replied that
she would remain behind. We two took our seats in one carriage; a second
was waiting before the door.

To me the whole incident seemed as a dream. The rainy, gloomy weather,
the houses that flew past us, the people who looked wonderingly out of
the windows, the one or two familiar faces that passed us by, and in
their astonished gaze upon us forgot to greet us. It was as if each one
of them asked himself: "Why has the father of these boys no head?" Then
the long poplar-trees at the end of the town, so bent by the wind as if
they were bowing their heads under the weight of some heavy thought; and