This state of affairs had continued until two months before.  Then, at Schaffhausen, her darling had suddenly been attacked with violent convulsions, and the feeble intellect, which her love had so toilsomely and faithfully waked from its slumber, only too soon attained eternal peace.  In all Kuni’s sorrowful life she had scarcely experienced any grief so bitter.  When she closed the little eyes which had gazed into her pale face so often and so tenderly, it seemed as if the sun, moon, and stars had lost their light, and henceforth she was condemned to live in dreary gloom.

What terrible days had followed the child’s death!  Cyriax raved as if he had really been seized with the lunacy whose pretence helped him to beg his bread.  Besides, he gave himself up to unbridled indulgence in brandy, and, when drunk, he was capable of the most brutal acts.  The dead Juli’s mother, who, spite of an evil youth and a lenient conscience, was by no means one of the worst of women, had to endure the harshest treatment from her profligate companion.

The blow which had fallen upon him filled him with savage rage, and he longed to inflict some pain upon all who came in his way that they, too, might feel what it was to suffer.

The death of his “sweet little Juli” appeared to have hardened the last tender spot in his brutal soul.

Kuni was the only person toward whom at first he imposed some restraint upon himself.  True, without any consideration for the girl’s presence, he sometimes asked Gitta why they still burdened themselves with the useless hobbler and did not sell the cart and the donkey.  But though there was no lack of good offers for the excellent Spanish beast of burden, he allowed matters to remain as before.  If the rage seething in his heart led him, in his drunken frenzy, to make Kuni feel its effects, too, the pleading glance of the blue eyes, still large and expressive, with which she had so often hushed the wailing child, sufficed to soothe him.

Yesterday, for the first time, he had seriously threatened to drive the ropedancer away, and she knew that Cyriax was capable of anything.  True, his wife was attached to Kuni, but she had little influence over her vicious husband.  So the sick cripple might only too easily find herself left on the highway.

Still, she had given Cyriax cause for the threat.  All day and during the night she had been busy with the unfortunate mother and her twins, and therefore had frequently neglected to fill his brandy bottle.  But this could not be helped, and she was not accustomed to think of the future.  Whatever her heart urged she did, no matter what might happen.  If Cyriax left her in the lurch, she must beg or starve unless chance, which so often mingled in her existence, willed otherwise.

With the child’s life the modest happiness which Kuni had enjoyed during the last few months had vanished, not only because the tongueless blasphemer had become a different person, and she sorely missed the delicate little creature who had filled and cheered her heart, but she had also lost the peace of mind which she enjoyed during the existence of her charge.