Explore "The Hostile Brothers" by Berthold Auerbach on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In the little cold alley called the "Knee-Cap" is a little house, with a stable, a shed, and three windows glazed with paper. At the dormer-window a shutter dangles by one hinge, threatening every moment to fall. The patch of garden, small as it is, has a division-line of leafless thorns to cut it into two equal halves. The premises were inhabited by two brothers, who had been in constant warfare for fourteen years. As in the garden, so in the house, all things were partitioned into halves, from the attic down to the kennel of a cellar. The trap-door was open, but underneath the domain of each was enclosed in lattice-work and padlocked. All the other doors were likewise hung with locks, as if an attack of burglars was looked for every moment. The stable was the property of one brother, and the shed of another. Not a word was ever spoken in the house, unless when one of them cursed or swore for his own edification.
Mike and Conrad -- such were their names -- were both past the prime of life and alone in the world. Conrad's wife had died early, and now he lived by himself; and Mike had never been married.