‘What are you talking about, Herr Gurdweill?’ the old woman protested. ‘How can you imagine such a thing? That weak, delicate baby — violent! Nothing of the sort! She didn’t lay a finger on a soul. I was busy in the kitchen and she was still in bed. It was about ten o’clock in the morning. My son-in-law was out of town on business for a couple of days. I was just about to take her some breakfast when she walked through the kitchen and into the passage in her nightgown. You have to go through the kitchen from the bedroom, you know. I imagined that she was going to the lavatory, which is on the landing, and that she would put on a shawl or a coat, and I didn’t try to stop her. After a few minutes I suddenly became uneasy. I ran to the landing and she wasn’t there, and I knew right away that a catastrophe had happened. I ran down the stairs and rushed outside and saw a little crowd of people on the corner of Gumpendorfer Strasse. My heart told me immediately that I would find her there. And there she was, dressed in nothing but her nightgown, standing pale and silent in the middle of the crowd. A policeman had already arrived on the scene, and there was nothing I could do. He took her straight to the closest police station and she never came home again.’

The old woman burst into tears again.