A young woman lived in Mostackerstrasse, who had lost her husband to an accident soon after the wedding, and now she sat poor and abandoned in her little room and waited for her child, who was not to have a father. And because she was so completely alone, all her thoughts always lingered on the expected child, and there was nothing beautiful and splendid and enviable that she had not thought out and wished for and dreamed of for this child. A stone house with mirrored windows and a fountain in the garden seemed just good enough for the little one, and for his future he had to be at least a professor or a king.