They want to believe in something again—in what, it doesn't matter.
That's why they are so fanatical, too, of course."
We entered the second courtyard, near the place of the third meeting.
All windows were lighted.
Suddenly we heard a row from inside. The same moment, as at an agreed signal, several young people in wind-jackets dashed out of a dark side-entrance, across the yard, along close under the windows, to the door of the meeting place.
The foremost tore it open and they charged in.
"A stormtroop," said Koster. "Come here against the wall behind the beer barrels."
A raging and yelling began in the hall.
The next second a window splintered and someone came flying through.
Immediately the door burst open, a heap of human beings came hurtling out, those in front stumbled and the rest fell over them.
A woman screamed, yelling for help, and ran out through the archway.
A second thrust followed, with chair legs and beer glasses, an inextricable fury.
One gigantic carpenter sprang out, took up a position more or less on the outskirts; whenever he saw in front of him the head of an opponent, his long arm would swing and knock him back into the melee.
He did it perfectly calmly, as if he were chopping wood.
A fresh scrum burst out and suddenly, not three yards in front of us, we saw Gottfried's yellow thatch in the hands of an old regular.
Koster took one dive and disappeared into the heap.
A few seconds later the regular let Gottfried go, and with an air of utter astonishment flung up his arm and like an uprooted tree fell back into the crowd.
Immediately after I discovered KSster dragging Lenz behind him by the collar.
Lenz was resisting.
"Let me go, Otto, just a moment," he choked.
"Nonsense," called Koster, "the cops'll be here in a minute.
Quick, out, at the back there."
We ran across the courtyard to the dark side-entrance.
It was not a moment too soon.
Immediately a sudden whistle shrilled through the yard, the black helmets of the police flashed up, a cordon was thrown round the courtyard.
We ran up the staircase in order not to be caught by the patrol.
From a landing window we watched how it went below.
The police worked superbly.
They cut off the retreat, drove a wedge into the scrum, tore the heaps asunder, arrested and immediately began transporting them—first the indignant carpenter, who tried in vain to explain something.
Behind us a door clicked.
A woman in a nightshirt, with white, thin legs, a candle in her hand, poked her head out.
"Is that you?" she asked ill-humouredly.
"No," said Lenz, who had recovered himself.
The woman banged the door to.
Lenz examined the door with his pocket torch.
It was Gerhard Peschke, head bricklayer who was being waited for here.
Below it became quiet.
The police retired and the courtyard emptied.
We waited a while longer, then went down the stairs again.
Behind one door a child was crying, crying softly and plaintively in the dark. "He's right too," said Gottfried. "He's crying beforehand."
We walked through the outer courtyard.
The astrologer was standing deserted before his star charts.
"A horoscope, gentlemen?" he called. "Or the future from the hand?"
"Fire away," said Gottfried, offering him his hand.
The fellow studied it.
"You have a weak heart," said he then, categorically. "Your emotions are well developed, your headline very short; to make up for it you are gifted musically.
You dream a lot, but you will be no good as a husband.
Still I see here three children.
You. have a diplomatic disposition, are inclined to be taciturn, and will live to be eighty."
"That's right," declared Gottfried. "Just what my mother used to tell me before she was married—the bad live to be old.