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Johanna had once been cheerful in spirit, this state, long eroded, revived at the sight of Alois. He had been her darling when he first came to the house. She used to fondle the five-year-old whenever she brought him to sleep in her bed. Through the years until he left, she would pull his hair and kiss his cheek, until once when he was eight and she was fifteen, they had begun to roll to-
    gether in the hay of the barn, pretending to wrestle. But he was only eight and nothing had taken place.
    This time, no question. At the first opportunity, which proved to be the only one, Alois continued his father’s tradition of apocalyptic intercourse in barn straw, and Klara Poelzl was conceived. There was no question in Johanna’s mind. Each time, she had known the moment when Johann Poelzl, her husband, had put a child in her. But this occasion was superior. No small event took place in her body. “You have made me feel as I have not felt before,” she said when they were done, and when Klara was born, Johanna sent him a letter that he received in the midst of rigorous training for an examination to bring him up to Finanzwache Respizient, the highest position available to the lower ranks of the Customs service. His attention, therefore, was not on Spital. Still, her letter lived with him through the years. It was only three words long (three words that Johanna had been certain of spelling correctly) and he read it over many times. “ Sie ist hier, ” wrote Johanna in the pride of a momentous event (although she did not sign her name), and “She is here” took its place in the guardroom of his heart, even if Alois’ mind was on his career. In truth, he might not even have made love to Johanna on that visit if he had not already been with Walpurga all those years ago, and a year before that with the youngest, Josefa, his favorite back when he was twelve (his first), and so he felt he owed it to himself now to have the remaining sister—how many men could boast of knowing three sisters so closely?
    If he could measure himself by such deeds, it was in relation to the accomplishments of other low-ranking officers in the Finance-Watch. His rise was remarkable for a young man with so sparse an education. Nonetheless, in four more years, he had another promotion, and still another by 1870, when at the age of thirty-three he had worked himself up to Customs Collector. By 1875, he was Full Inspector and would write below his signature, on any government paper, the full weight and address of the title: “Official of the First Class Imperial Customs Post in the Railroad Terminal, Simbach, Bavaria. Residence, Braunau, Linzergasse.”
    All through his rise toward the highest official rank that was open for a man of his beginnings, he never relinquished any of his good appetite for women. The first principle of Austrian bureaucracy was to do your job, but the more effective you became at such tasks, the less you had to fear for the little indulgences of your private life. This understanding he obeyed to the letter. In those years, no matter where he was assigned, he would stay at an inn. Before long, given his confidence, he would proceed to conquer the loosely defended bastions of the cooks and chambermaids in the hostelry. When he had gone through all of the available women, he would usually move to another large inn. Through the forty years of his career, his change of residence was frequent. In Braunau, for example, he moved twelve times. Nor did it bother him that his women were not elegant enough to walk with cavalry officers. Not at all! Elegant women, he had come to decide, were too difficult—no doubt of that—whereas maids and cooks were grateful for his attention and would raise no ruckus when he moved on.
    In 1873, he married a widow. Having developed an eye for the social stature attached to any woman presuming to pass for a lady—his occupation demanded, after all, some ability in that direction—he was not dissatisfied