It was
only seven windows wide, and had consisted originally of one story
only, but a low second story had been added, recognizable instantly
as a piece of patchwork. A great key hanging over the entrance
announced the fact that there was a locksmith's workshop inside. The
courtyard was very low and narrow, and roughly paved with
cobblestones, between which the grass sprouted luxuriantly. At the
further end of this court stood the "Hinterhaus," likewise two-
storied, on the ground floor of which the locksmith carried on his
resounding trade.
Accompanied by Stubbe, Wilhelm mounted the worn wooden staircase
leading to the second floor. The flat consisted of a kitchen and a
room with one window. Even when the sun was most lavish of his rays,
it was none too light there; now, in the early-falling dusk of a
dull late autumn day, Wilhelm found himself in a dim half-light as
he opened the door. There was no fire in the stove, no lamp upon the
table. In the cold and darkness he could just distinguish among the
sparse furniture a slim, wretched-looking woman sitting on a chair
by the table, nursing a baby wrapped in an old blanket; a tall,
large-boned man in workman's clothes, with a bushy beard and gloomy
eyes, leaning against the wall beside the window, and some fair-
haired children, unnaturally silent and motionless for their age,
crouching side by side on the bed, only swinging their legs a little
from time to time.
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