Like the others, she was lying upon the board platform which surrounded
the four walls of the room, interrupted only by the door through which
she had just passed. It rose in a slanting direction towards the wall,
that the sufferers' heads might be higher than their feet. Instead of
cushions, it was covered with a thick layer of straw, the beds of the
patients who were nursed here. It seemed to be changed very rarely, for
especially near the door at which the two women were still standing a
damp, unpleasant odour emanated from the straw. It belonged here,
however, as feathers are a part of birds, and the people who were nursed
within its walls were accustomed to nothing better. When, fifteen years
before, the oversight of the hospital was entrusted to Frau Christine,
she had found the condition of affairs still worse, and the idea of
procuring beds for the injured persons to be cured here was as far from
her thoughts, or those of the rest of the world, as cushioning the
stable.

That was the way things were at Schweinau. Straw of all sorts might be
expected to be found here, not only on the wooden platform but on the
floor, in the yard, and everywhere else, as surely as leaves upon the
ground of a wood in the autumn. To leave the house without taking stalks
in the hair and garments was as impossible as for any person accustomed
to better conditions, who did not wish to faint from discomfort, to do
without a scent bottle.

Formerly Frau Christine had endeavoured to obtain better air, but even
her kind-hearted husband had laughed at the foolish idea, because such
things would benefit only herself and some of the nurses. In the taverns
usually frequented by the inmates of the hospital they learned to endure
a different atmosphere, which was stifling to him.