and today it’s practically free of debt. The further consequence, I admit, was that I ruined my health, got heart’s disease, and am now an old woman. Probably you think that I’m much older than Hans, but the fact is that he’s only two or three years younger than me and will never grow any older either, for at his work—smoking his pipe, listening to the customers, knocking out his pipe again and fetching an occasional pot of beer—at that sort of work one doesn’t grow old.”
“What you’ve done has been splendid,” said K. “I don’t doubt that for a moment, but we were speaking of the time before your marriage, and it must have been an extraordinary thing at that stage for Hans’ family to press on the marriage—at a money sacrifice, or at least at such a great risk as the handing over of the inn must have been—and without trusting in anything but your powers of work, which besides nobody knew of then, and Hans’ powers of work, which everybody must have known beforehand were nil.”