him. He looked upon them as mad, he looked upon himself as sensible. When, last night, he tried to go out in his nightshirt, because the souls pressed upon him until he felt as if he were suffocating in the throng, he had simply wanted air, nothing but air, had wanted to breathe without the discomfort of clothes, coat or waistcoat, upon his chest; and he had thought it quite natural that he should go downstairs with a candle and try to open the door with his key. Then the fat landlady and her lout of a brother had heard him and had come upon him, making a great to-do with their silly hands and their loud voices; and the two, the fat landlady and her lout of a brother, had stood there shouting and gesticulating like a pair of lunatics while he had already loosened the chain from the front-door and felt the draught doing him so much good, because it blew upon his bare flesh under his flapping shirt. Then Ernst had become angry, because the fat landlady and her lout of a brother did not listen to what he said: he had a soft voice, which could not cope with the rough, loud, vulgar voices of people without feeling, of people without soul, knowledge or understanding. He had become angry, because the brother, the coarse brute, had locked the door again, dragged him away, hauled him up the stairs; and he had struck the brother. But the brother, who was stronger than he was, had hit him, hit him on the chest, which had been
