Such was the girl's present
belief.
Now, however, he had suddenly declared that his father and his brother
were dead. With a woman's keenness she took alarm at this new development.
She really loved the poor man with all her heart. If this new addition to
his story were a mere invention, it was a sign that his madness was
growing upon him, and she had heard her companions discuss their comrade
often enough to know that, in their opinion, if he began to grow worse, he
would very soon be in the madhouse. It was bad enough to go through what
she suffered so often, to see the inward struggle expressed on his face,
whenever he chanced to be alone with her on a Tuesday afternoon, to hear
from his lips the same assurance of love, the same offer of marriage, and
to know that all would be forgotten and that his manner to her would
change again, by Thursday, to that of a uniform, considerate kindness. It
was bad enough, for the girl loved him and was sensitive. But it would be
worse--how much worse, she dared not think--to see him go mad before her
very eyes, to see him taken away at last from the midst of them all to the
huge brick house in the outskirts of the city beyond the Isar.
One more hypothesis remained. This time the story might turn out true. She
believed in his birth and in his misfortunes, and in the existence of his
father and his brother. They might indeed be dead, as he had told her, and
he would then, perhaps, be sole master in their stead--she did not know
how that would be, in Russia.
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