“You shouldn’t tell me these things, Fräulein. You shouldn’t tell anybody,” he said to her, unhappy to be the owner of more dangerous information. Hunger and cold had driven Fräulein Stieglitz to lose her love for her books and her things—and to lose her good sense, it appeared—but those things would drive others to lose all decency, to steal, to kill. Even Karl felt tiny tendrils of envy and temptation: what he could do with a few of those tasteless knickknacks . . . His breath caught in his throat. He didn’t recognize himself: How had such thoughts invaded him? He’d always lived by the
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