BOOK ONE: YESTERDAY 81 written papers that lay before hirn. Much as he loved every other task connected with his activities, he hated this room, the office work, his administrative duties. Senior Nurse Helene, who stood near the door, with determination in every line of her stout person, appraised hirn anew each morning, as though he were an interesting case whicb had just been brought in. She knew that the two faces which Edgar Oppermann most frequently showed to the world, one serious, austere, calm, and the other brisk and confident, were masks. Yes, he was, by nature, an indomitable and cheerful worker, he was by nature confident. But it was astrain for hirn to show that confidence, that energy, all day long, to hundreds of people, one after an- other. She knew that his brisk air was often artificial, put on. Nurse Helene generally got on well with her Professor. But when he was at his desk, he was difficult to deal with. She ob- served, above his nose, those vertical furrows which were so familiar to her. Not a good sign. It was just after eleven o'clock in the morning. Professor Oppermann had finished his con- sultations, made two or three visits to private patients, but a strenuous day's work stilllay before him, However, she knew that his first energy had already been used up, and that he would have to crank himself up again. He was overworked. Her Professor was always overworked. If only Frau Gina Op- perrnann were not quite such a ninny, thought Nurse Helene. Here, at the hospital, she could protect hirn. People were al- ways on his trail. They had even begun telephoning the Pro- fessor at his horne, and Frau Gina, the poor cluck, could never say "no" to anyone. Edgar Oppermann looked at his mail today with particu- lar reluctance. Things got more and more tangled up every year. Details which used to settle themselves automatically now required tedious and vexatious consideration. Sternly, as though they were poorly prepared examination papers, he glared at the letters.

THE OPPERMANNS Nurse Helene stepped resolutely to the desk. She pointed to a piece of paper upon which sornething was written, under- lined three times, heavily, in red. She asked hirn hluntly: "Have you seen that, Professor?" Professor Opperrnann, in his doctor's smock, not altering the position of his head and propped elbows, squinted at the note and said crossly: "Yes," On the paper was written: "Privy Councillor Lorenz will stop 'hy at twelve. He requests Professor Oppermann to be in, if at a11 possible." Edgar Oppermann snorted. "Of course it's about Iacoby," "What else should it be about?" Nurse Helene asked sternly. "The Jacoby case has heen dragging on quite long enough." "The Jacoby case," Edgar Oppermann reßected. Was there, in fact, a Jacoby case at all? The whole affair was really so simple. Dr, Müller, second of the name, hitherto chief phys- ician at the throat hospital, had accepted the professorship at Kiel. Edgar Oppermann would very much have liked to see Dr. Jacoby, his favourite assistant, appointed to the vacancy. Six months ago the appointment would have heen made, within a fortnight, in accordance with Oppermann's wishes. Dr. Jacoby was scientifically particularly weIl qualified to hold the position, he was a splendid diagnostician and indispen- sable to Oppermann in the laboratory. Buthe was a clumsy fellow, born of a poor family in the Berlin ghetto. He was in- significant-looking, ugIy, inhibited. Formerly such things would not have mattered. Edgar Oppermann knew that, as soon as Dr, Jacoby, who had endured the hardships of starvation in order to compiete his studies, was free of the more pressing of his financial anxieties, as soon as he could set to work without hindrance, he would go very far indeed. It had to be admitted that Dr. Jacoby reminded one of the caricatures of [ews in the comic papers. But what was, after all, more important to a patient, the fact that the doctor had a pleasant face, or that he diagnosed his disease correctly?