" And he embraced her
with a fierce tenderness, and so strong was he in the moment that
Gretchen gave a cry. He kissed her, not on the lips, but on the fine
white forehead, reverently.
They proceeded, Gretchen subdued and the vintner silent, until they came
to the end of their journey at number forty in the Krumerweg. It was a
house of hanging gables, almost as old as the town itself, solid and
grim and taciturn. There are some houses which talk like gossips, noisy,
obtrusive and provocative. Number forty was like an old warrior, gone to
his chair by the fireside, who listens to the small-talk of his
neighbors saturninely. What was it all about? Had he not seen battles
and storms, revolutions and bloodshed? The prattle of children was
preferable.
Gretchen's grandmother, Fraeu Schwarz, owned the house; it was all that
barricaded her from poverty's wolves, and, what with sundry taxes and
repairs and tenants who paid infrequently, it was little enough.
Whatever luxuries entered at number forty were procured by Gretchen
herself. At present the two stories were occupied; the second by a
malter and his brood of children, the third by a woman who was partially
bedridden. The lower or ground floor of four rooms she reserved for
herself. As a matter of fact the forward room, with its huge middle-age
fireplace and the great square of beamed and plastered walls and stone
flooring, was sizable for all domestic purposes.
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