noon
Poor , disappointed man , sitting on the divan in a dark corner of the spacious room ! In his soul hitherto the intellect had alone made itself heard , the voice of the heart had never been listened to . How he had found his way home he never knew . All he remembered was that , in the course of duty , he had gone into the house of a man whose wife -- the mother of several children -- he had left at noon in a dying state ; that he had seen her a corpse , surrounded by loud but sincere mourners ; that he had gone on his way , weighed down by their grief and his own , and that he had entered his friend 's rooms rather than his own , to feel safe from himself . Life had no charm , no value for him now ; still , he felt ashamed to think that a woman could thus divert him from the fairest aims of life , that he could allow her to destroy the peace of mind he needed to enable him to carry out his calling in the spirit of his friend Rufinus . He knew his house-mate well and felt that he would only pour vitriol into his wounds , but it was best so . The old man had already often tried to bring down Paula 's image from its high pedestal in his soul , but always in vain ; and even now he should not succeed .