For two of those three days he suffered from a feeling as if someone had struck him a blow to the heart. “A bad dream!” he plaintively said to himself several times, and whenever he did not take himself very firmly in hand, he forgot to believe in the reality of what was being demanded of him. During these days he felt a deep discomfort in his breast that was very much like injured love, and in addition an indefinable jealousy that was directed, certainly not against a lover whom he suspected of being the cause of Agathe’s behavior, but against an intangible Something that had in effect demoted him. It was a kind of humiliation, similar to that of a very orderly man who has shattered or forgotten something: as if something that has had its fixed place in the mind since time immemorial, that one no longer notices but upon which a great deal depends, was suddenly broken. Pale and distraught, in a genuine torment that must not be underestimated because it lacked beauty, Hagauer walked about avoiding people, shrinking from the explanations he would have to give, the humiliations he would have to endure. It was not until the third day that his condition arrived at some stability. Hagauer had a natural aversion to Ulrich that was as great as Ulrich’s dislike of him, and though this had never quite shown itself before, it did so now when with a sudden leap of intuition he imputed all the blame for Agathe’s behavior to that footloose gypsy brother of hers, who must have completely turned her head; he sat down at his desk and with a few sparse words demanded the immediate return of his wife, declaring with iron resolve that as her husband he would discuss all further matters only with her.

Ulrich sent a refusal, equally brief and equally iron in its resolution.

Now Hagauer decided to work on Agathe directly; he made copies of his correspondence with Ulrich and added a long, carefully reasoned letter, and it was all of this that Agathe saw before her when she opened the large envelope with the official seal.