the town towards the country, leaving clouds of dust behind them. Bertha
stopped mechanically and gazed after them until they had almost
disappeared from view.

In the meantime Fritz had clambered up onto the bench beside the road.

"Look, mamma! See what I can do!"

He made ready to jump, but his mother took hold of him by the arms and
lifted him carefully to the ground. Then she sat down on the bench.

"Are you tired?" asked Fritz.

"Yes," she answered, surprised to find that she was indeed feeling
fatigued.

It was only then that she realized that the sultry air had wearied her to
the point of sleepiness. She could not, moreover, remember having
experienced such warm weather in the middle of May.

From the bench on which she was sitting she could trace back the course
of the path down which she had come. In the sunlight it ran between the
vine-trellises, up and up, until it reached the brightly gleaming wall of
the cemetery. She was in the habit of taking a walk along that path two
or three times a week. She had long since ceased to regard such visits to
the cemetery as anything other than a mere walk. When she wandered about
the well-kept gravel paths amongst the crosses and the tombstones, or
stood offering up a silent prayer beside her husband's grave, or, maybe,
laying upon it a few wild flowers which she had plucked on her way up,
her heart was scarcely any longer stirred by the slightest throb of pain.