wretched
condition; everything is in disorder. And that cigar smoke out in the
living room! I opened a window. And your child! It has no mother. Look
at its little face, and see how pale and sickly it looks!"

"Well, I can't help it; Philippina puts poppy in the milk so that it
will sleep longer," Dorothea answered, after the fashion of guilty
women: of the various reproaches Daniel had cast at her, she seized upon
the one of which she felt the least guilty. But after this, Daniel had
no more to say.

"I am so tired and sleepy," said Dorothea, and again blinked at him out
of one corner of her eye with that mocking, sensual look. As he showed
no inclination to leave, she yawned, and continued in an angry tone:
"Why do you wake a person up in the middle of the night, if all you want
is to scold them? Get out of here, you loathsome thing!"

She turned her back on him, and rested her head on her hand. Opposite
her bed was a mirror in a gold frame. She saw herself in it; she was
pleased with herself lying there in that offended mood, and she smiled.

Daniel, who had been so cruel to noble women now become shades, saw how
she smiled at herself, infatuated with herself: he took pity on such
child-like vanity.

"There is a Chinese fairy tale about a Princess," he said, and bent down
over Dorothea, "who received from her mother as a wedding present a set
of jewel boxes. There was a costly present in each box, but the last,
smallest, innermost one was locked, and the Princess had to promise
that she would never open it. She kept her promise for a while, but
curiosity at last got the better of her, she forgot her vow, and opened
the last little box by force. There was a mirror in it; and when she
looked into it and saw how beautiful she was, she began to abuse her
husband. She tortured him so that he killed her one day."

Dorothea looked at him terrified. Then she laughed and said: "What a
stupid story! Such a tale of horror!" She laid her cheek on the pillow,
and again looked in the mirror.

The following morning Daniel received an anonymous letter. It read as
follows: "You will be guarding your own honour if you keep a sharp
lookout on your wife. A Well-wisher."

A cold fever came over him. For a few days he dragged his body from room
to room as if poisoned. He avoided every one in the house. One night he
again felt a desire to go down to Dorothea. When he reached the door to
her room, he found it bolted. He knocked, b