“But was he a deserter?”

“Ach! was!  But he had a deserter’s papers in his pockets ... his own had vanished.  Ach! it’s a bad thing to quarrel with Haase!”

I made a point of keeping on the right side of the landlord after that.  By my unfailing diligence I even managed to secure his grudging approval, though he was always ready to fly into a passion at the least opportunity.

One evening about six o’clock a young man, whom I had never seen among our regular customers, came down the stairs from the street and asked for Haase, who was asleep on the sofa in the inner room.  At the sight of the youth, Frau Hedwig jumped off her perch behind the bar and vanished.  She came back directly and, ignoring me, conducted the young man into the inner room, where he remained for about half an hour.  Then he reappeared again, accompanied by Frau Hedwig, and went off.

I was shocked by the change in the appearance of the woman.  Her face was pale, her eyes red with weeping, and her eyes kept wandering towards the door.  It was a slack time of the day within and the cellar was free of customers.

“You look poorly, Frau Hedwig,” I said.  “Trouble with Haase again?”

She looked up at me and shook her head, her eyes brimming over.  A tear ran down the rouge on her cheek.

“I must speak,” she said.  “I can’t bear this suspense alone.  You are a kind young man.  You are discreet.  Julius, there is trouble brewing for us!”

“What do you mean?” I asked.  A foreboding of evil rose within me.

“Kore!” she whispered.

“Kore?” I echoed.  “What of him?”

She looked fearfully about her.

“He was taken yesterday morning,” she said.

“Do you mean arrested?” I exclaimed, unwilling to believe the staggering news.

“They entered his apartment early in the morning and seized him in bed.  Ach! it is dreadful!” And she buried her face in her hands.

“But surely,” I added soothingly, though with an icy fear at my heart, “there is no need to despair.  What is an arrest to-day with all these regulations....”

The woman raised her face, pallid beneath its paint, to mine.

“Kore was shot at Moabit Prison this morning,” she said in a low voice.  “That young man brought the news just now.”  Then she added breathlessly, her words pouring out in a torrent: 

“You don’t know what this means to us.  Haase had dealings with this Jew.  If they have shot him, it is because they have found out from him all they want to know.  That means our ruin, that means that Haase will go the same way as the Jew.

“But Haase is stubborn, foolhardy.  The messenger warned him that a raid might be expected here at any moment.  I have pleaded with him in vain.  He believes that Kore has split; he believes the police may come, but he says they daren’t touch him:  he has been too useful to them:  he knows too much.  Ach, I am afraid!  I am afraid!”