While the poet Kohn was thinking these thoughts, the poet Schulz at last was stabbing himself with a salad knife.  He had observed Kuno Kohn and Lisel Liblichlein in their confidential conversation in the hidden recess.  He had seen how they had gone off together.  He tried to drink and eat away his grief, to no avail.  After he had eaten and drunk for some time, he was insane.  He sang:  “Death is a serious matter...  Death has no time for jokes...  Death is an urgent need...”  Then he timidly and hesitantly stuck the first knife that he could get his hands on into his left breast.  Blood and the bloody remains of salad spurted around him.  This time the attempt to kill himself was crowned with success.

IV

Lisel Liblichlein appeared the next evening earlier than the agreed upon hour.  Kuno Kohn opened the door, holding flowers in his hand.  He was visibly happy; he said that he had scarcely hoped that she would come.  She placed her arms around his bony body, sucked him to her body, and said:  “You dear humped little dummy...  I love you so much—­”

The ate a simple evening meal.  She stroked him when something tasted good to her.  She said that she wanted to remain with him until early morning.  Then she could celebrate the beginning of her eighteenth birthday with him...

A church bell announced the new day..  The first loud breaths were like groaned prayers in Kohn’s dusky room.  There Lisel Liblichlein’s young soul-body had become a temple; she had endured pain with touching matter of factness, to sacrifice herself to the hunch-backed priest.  She had said:  ``Are you happy now”—­She lay dissolved in dream and emotion.  The thin skin of her eyelids enveloped her.

Suddenly fright ran through her body.  She had fear like claws in her face.  Her eyes, torn open and screaming, were on the hunchback.

Lisel Liblichlein said, without expression, “This—­was—­happiness—­” Kuno Kohn wept.

She said:  “Kuno, Kuno, Kuno, Kuno, Kuno, Kuno...  What shall I do with the rest of my life?” Kuno Kohn sighed.  He looked seriously and with kindness into her sorrowful eyes.  He said:  “Poor Lisel!  The feeling of complete helplessness that has come over you I have often felt.  The only consolation is:  to be sad.  When sadness degenerates into doubt, then one should become grotesque.  One should live on for the sake of fun.  One should try to rise above things, by realizing that existence consists of nothing but brutal, shabby jokes.”  He wiped sweat from his hump and from his forehead.

Lisel Liblichlein said:  “I don’t know why you are going on like this.  I don’t understand what you have said.  It was unkind of you to take away my happiness.”  The words fell like paper.

She said that she wanted to go.  He should get dressed.  The naked hump was embarrassing to her...

Kuno Kohn and Lisel Liblichen said nothing more until they parted forever at the door of the house in which the boarding school was located.  He looked into her face, held her hand, and said:  “Farewell—­” She said quietly:  “Farewell.”