Read "Gloria Victis!" by Ossip Schubin online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Among the lodgers at the widow Schmitt's, as Charlotte's mother was called, was a sallow-faced old woman, whose room was a small, dark, comfortless hole, and who wore the same shabby, green gown, summer and winter, year in and year out. She was known as Frau Pick, and she was a professional beggar.
One day, on returning from some humiliating errand, Fritz heard one of his sisters-in-law call to his wife: "Pick is waiting. " -- "I am ready," was the reply, and Charlotte came out into the passage with a letter in her hand. Fritz sprang to meet her, snatched the letter from her, forced her back into the room and, entering, closed the door behind them.