nocturnal serenades at the
windows of the otherwise peaceful houses.

As the hilarious laughter and vocal rowdyism reached Daniel's ear, he
detected from out of the hubbub a gentle voice in E-flat minor,
accompanied by the inexorable eighth-notes sung with impressive vigour.
Then the voice died away in a solemn E-flat major chord, and everything
was as if sunk in the bottom of the sea.

V

Toward the end of the summer, Philippina, Jason Philip's daughter, shot
out the eye of her seven-year-old brother with a so-called bean-shooter.

The children were playing in the yard. Willibald, the older boy, wanted
the shooter. Philippina, who had not the slightest sense of humour,
snatched it from his hands, placed the stone on the elastic band and let
it fly with all her might. Little Marcus ran in front of it. It was all
over in a jiffy. A heart-rending scream caused the frightened mother to
leave the shop and run out into the yard. She found the child lying on
the ground convulsed with pain. While Theresa carried the boy into the
house, Jason Philip ran for the doctor. But it was too late; the eye was
lost.

Philippina hid. After considerable search her father found her under the
cellar steps. He beat her so mercilessly that the neighbours had to come
up and take him away.

Little Marcus was Theresa's favourite child. She could not get over the
accident. The obsession that had slumbered in her soul for years now
became more persistent than ever: she began to brood over guilt in
general and this case in particular.

At times she would get up in the night, light a candle, and walk about
the house in her stocking feet. She would look behind the stove and
under the table, and then crouch down with her ear against the maid's
door. She would examine the mouse-trap and if a mouse had been caught in
it, she could not, try as she might, completely detach her own unrest
from the mental disturbance of the little beast.

One day Jason Philip was stopped on the street by a well-known
cabinet-maker and asked whether he had any old furniture for sale. Jason
Philip replied that he was not at all familiar with the contents of the
attic and sent him to Theresa. Theresa recalled that there was an old
desk up in the attic that had been standing there for years. She
suggested that they might be willing to dispose of this for a few taler,
and accompanied the man to the room where the worn-out furniture w