The appearance of the old gentleman on the street was calculated to create a sensation.  He would certainly have been stopped by a hundred hand-shakers and interrogators if something had not diverted public attention.  A hurried, whispered rumor ran through the streets.  Two or three stood together in little groups awaiting the approach of a third or fourth, who would give them to understand that he knew what it was that was responsible for the formation of the ten or twelve similar groups standing around.  Then somebody would whisper it as he passed rapidly by, beginning always with a:  “Haven’t you heard?” which was generally brought forth by a:  “What has happened?” Herr Nettenmair did not need to ask; he knew without being told what had happened, but he did not dare to appear as if he knew.  The journeyman thought Herr Nettenmair was going to sink down beside him, but the old gentleman had only struck his foot:  “it was of no consequence.”  The journeyman questioned a hurrying passer-by.  “A slater has been killed in Brambach.”  “How?” asked the journeyman.  “A rope broke; nothing further is known.”  Herr Nettenmair felt that the journeyman was frightened, and that he was frightened at the thought that it was the son of the man he was leading who had been killed.  He said:  “It was probably in Tambach.  They have made a mistake.  It is of no consequence.”  The journeyman did not know what to think of Herr Nettenmair’s indifference.  The latter kept repeating to himself, as a burning flush came into his cheeks:  “Yes, it must be.  It must be.”  He thought of a way in which one can escape all courts, all investigations.  It must have been a hard way of which he thought, for he clenched his teeth, as he shook his head and said:  “It must be, now it must be.”  As if in a dream the journeyman led the old gentleman up the tower steps of St. George’s.  The people were right, Herr Nettenmair was certainly a queer man!

The old gentleman had said he had to speak to his son on the church-roof—­about some repairs.  He had spoken unconsciously in his diplomatic way.

It had to be on the church-roof, and it was about some repairs—­but not about those of the church-roof.

Between heaven and earth is the slater’s realm.  Between heaven and earth, high up on the roof of St. George’s Fritz Nettenmair was at work when the old gentleman was led up the steps to him.  He had fled here to escape the eyes of men which he imagined riveted upon him; he had fled here to escape his own thoughts in a fury of diligence.  But he had brought with him all the demons of hell, and, industriously as he toiled, the moisture that stood on his brow was not the warm sweat of honest labor, but the cold sweat born of a guilty conscience.  In agonized haste he hammered and nailed slate together as if he were nailing fast the universe which otherwise would crumble to pieces in a quarter of an hour.  But his soul was not where he hammered; it was where ropes