Frau Brohl made a fresh sacrifice, giving Marker his position in business again after six months.  He had hardly the courage to come home with new plans, but used to steal in quietly like a shadow on the wall, sit down at table with a heart-breaking sigh, sulked with the women, and often was heard talking to himself in this fashion:  “This is no sort of life.  If women hold the cards, stupidity is trumps.  The woman in the kitchen, the man in business,” and so on.  Finally the thing happened which Frau Brohl had foreseen with anxiety—­Marker came with a new project, for which he wanted fifty thousand thalers.  It was an entirely new idea, unheard of before; it couldn’t miscarry, it must bring in a hundred thousand; with one stroke all the former losses would be retrieved.  Then he stopped talking, and showed yards of figures, read aloud letters of advice, and went on reading and talking and crackling papers for an hour to Frau Brohl, following her from the drawing-room into the kitchen, from the kitchen back to the drawing-room; and when she took refuge in her bedroom, he read to her through the door.  However, it was no good, and Frau Brohl stood firm.  Then Marker tried a new method.  He was argumentative before, now he became tragic; he threatened to throw himself out of the window, to become dangerously ill, to go away and never be heard of again.  He left half-finished letters on his writing-table, in which he announced his death to his acquaintances, laying the blame on his wife and mother-in-law; in short, poor Frau Brohl, whose existence had become a veritable hell, with a heavy heart put her hand once more into her pocket, and gave Marker what he wanted.

Everything now went on as smoothly and merrily as before.  After a few weeks Marker again lost everything, and seemed so upset that he stayed away all day without coming home.  At last he appeared again, and hesitatingly, with a timid expression, begged for forgiveness.  “Very well,” said Frau Brohl, “only I hope you will not begin all over again.”  Her hopes were not realized.  The spirit of speculation had too strong a hold over Marker to be kept back.  After he had remained quiet for about a year, he actually had the effrontery to ask his mother-in-law for more capital.  But this time she was like a rock.  “Not a penny,” said Frau Brohl, and kept her word.  Marker wept, and she let him weep; he talked of suicide, and she advised him to use a rope, as he did not understand the use of firearms.  He had run through half her money, and the other half she meant to defend like a lioness.  The specter of poverty rose up before her, she reflected that rich people would cast her out of their society, and look upon her as a weak woman without any self-respect, conquered by Marker’s tenacity.