opened it. Ilka Leipke quickly came in. She said: "Good evening
Herr Kohn. Excuse me for disturbing you." She screamed at Mechenmal:
"So, I catch you here. So, for this you have abandoned me. You're
only using my body. You have never grasped my soul." She wept. She
sobbed. Mechenmal tried to calm her down. That irritated her even
more. She shouted: "To betray me with a crippled Kohn... I'll
report you to the police, Mr. Kohn. You should be ashamed of
yourselves, you swine..." She had a crying fit. Kuno Kohn was
incapable of responding. Mechenmal pulled her up from the floor upon
which she had thrown herself screaming. He said with a changed,
stern voice, that her behavior was unseemly, that she had no grounds
for jealousy, for after all, he had no obligations. Then Ilka Leipke
looked at the hunch-backed Kohn humbly, like a beaten little dog.
She was very quiet. She followed the angry Mechenmal out the door.

When Kohn was alone, he gradually became enraged. He thought: such a
rude person... and at intervals: How upset the cow had become. How
jealous she is of me. One of the few women who please me... and she
goes and chooses the little animal Mechenmal. That is atrocious.

Early the next morning Kuno Kohn stood in Miss Leipke's drawing-room,
trembling like an actor with stage fright, When the maid brought Kuno
Kohn's card, Miss Leipke was reading the forbidden pamphlet, "The
suicide of a fashionable lady. Or how a fashionable lady committed

suicide." Her eyes were filled with tears. When she had finished
reading the entire pamphlet, she freshened her make-up. Finally,
covered only by a silk morning-coat, she appeared in the drawing-room.
Kuno Kohn was red up to his ears. Groaning, he said that he had
come to apologize for yesterday's scene, that Miss Leipke did him