[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]





HOMO SUM

By Georg Ebers

Volume 3.



CHAPTER X.

Within a few minutes after Hermas had flung himself out of window into
the roadway, Phoebicius walked into his sleeping-room. Sirona had had
time to throw herself on to her couch; she was terribly frightened, and
had turned her face to the wall. Did he actually know that some one had
been with her? And who could have betrayed her, and have called him
home? Or could he have come home by accident sooner than usual?

It was dark in the room, and he could not see her face, and yet she kept
her eyes shut as if asleep, for every fraction of a minute in which she
could still escape seeing him in his fury seemed a reprieve; and yet her
heart beat so violently that it seemed to her that he must hear it, when
he approached the bed with a soft step that was peculiar to him. She