Here a yawn interrupts the speaker. The fat woman is thoroughly good and kind, but she is by no means intellectual, and hates having to listen to what she does not understand.
Meanwhile Frau Kasimira continues as follows:
"So Graf Géza soon succeeded in gaining complete influence over her. And when he left this to be stationed at Marburg, she followed him there. One Friday evening--just like to-day--when Moses came home, he found the nest empty. There was a great uproar down-stairs. They called her, sought her everywhere with tears--no words can describe the scene. My husband went down-stairs--Moses raged like a madman. It all happened five years ago, but I shall never forget that night....
"The next few days were very uncomfortable and queer. They all went on as if Esther were dead. The shop and bar were both closed; the pictures were hung with black; the mirrors were turned with their faces to the wall. A small lamp was burnt in a corner of her room for seven days and seven nights, and during the whole of that time Moses sat on the floor of the room barefoot and with his clothes torn. I don't know whether it is true, but I heard that the Jews took an empty coffin to the cemetery on the Sunday following, and then filled in an empty grave. I have been told that they even went so far as to put up a gravestone to Esther! On the eighth day Moses rose up and went quietly about his business again. These Jews are such strange creatures! Only fancy! he came to us that very day to ask for his rent. I scarcely recognized him--his hair had turned quite gray in the course of a week. His manner was quiet and composed, and he seems to have forgotten all about his daughter now. But as everybody knows, the Jews are fonder of their money than of their children!"
"Has no one heard anything more about Esther?" asks the fat woman.
"Yes--once. But what we heard wasn't much to be relied on. Little Lieutenant Szilagy--you remember what fibs he used to tell--went to spend his leave in Hungary on one occasion, and when he came back, he declared that he had seen Graf Géza and Esther in a box in the National Theatre at Pesth. But the little man tells so many lies that one never knows how much to believe. It may quite well have been some other pretty girl."