d the first and last kick from him as they all
together had conveyed the heavy man to the door. "Throw him out, that
slanderer!" This [Pg 66] time they had all made common cause, all
except the gendarme, who had retired at the very last moment. He always
did so when there was any quarrelling going on in the private room at
the inn, otherwise he would have been obliged to write down the names
of these disturbers of the peace.

The stars shone down on the schoolmaster as he walked home all alone;
the cold wintry sky looked like a huge glass bell that had been put
over the flat country. The stars gave light; he could easily discern
the empty village street, which was as wide as the widest street in a
big town--so wide that it made the low cottages on either side look
twice as low as they really were. Boehnke stumbled along as though he
were intoxicated. But that was not the case, for he never drank too
much, whatever the others might do. He was tormented with an ambitious
longing to win this woman. Mrs. Tiralla was always very kind to him; he
thought he had noticed that she also looked upon him as a kindred
spirit. To-morrow he would see little Rosa--that dreamy child who would
sit with a vacant stare on her face and not know what the others had
been talking about--and he would tell her to remember him very kindly
to her mother, and to ask her if she wanted anything to read during
these long winter days. She could take her choice among his books. He
would gladly lend her them all, in spite of the many hardships he had
had to undergo in order to procure them. She had certainly borrowed a
volume from him almost three years ago; she had had it almost the whole
time he had been in the neighbourhood, and he would probably never see
it again. But he did not mind that. To-morrow he would again place his
library at her disposal. The best thing would be to write her a note
and give it to [Pg 67] the child. He wrote a most beautiful hand, it
looked like print. How the other people in this neighbourhood did
scrawl!

The Gradewitz ball would cost him a lot of money, and he had hardly
any. But what did that matter? He would go there, even if he had to
borrow from the Jew. Happily there was always one thing he could do; if
Isidor Prochownik dunned him, his daughter Rebecca should lose her
place in the class--she should go down to the very bottom; but if the
old man left him in peace Rebecca should have a very high place. He
laughed to