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But the summer passed and no one entered the room.

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Fru Adelheid stood on the balcony. She plucked the red flowers and threw them into the square below. She wore a long, white gown; her gloves and her white boa lay on the ground. She had just come from the theatre and had been bored.

Now she turned towards the room.

Cordt sat huddled together before the fireplace and stared in front of him. She wanted to see his face and called to him. He pushed back his chair and looked up:

“I was thinking of the play we have been to see,” he said.

“Yes, it was stupid.”

She drew the other chair over the floor, so that she could look at the jar with the naked man writhing through thorns.

“There was a time when I was tired of law,” said Cordt. “I was glad when the poet showed me a marriage that was broken for love. I used to think that people grew greater through it and that Heaven seemed higher and earth more green.”

She shuddered again and wrapped her skirt closer about her feet.

“Now I am so tired of lawlessness. I loathe these women and their lovers.”