Of course it struck Ulrich as an outrageous presumption to assume that everything had amounted to nothing. And yet it was nothing. As existence, immeasurable; as meaning, a muddle. Measured by its result, at least, it was no more than that from which the soul of the present day had evolved—in other words, little enough. But even as Ulrich thought this, he was abandoning himself to this “little” with relish, as if it were the last meal at the table of life that his intentions permitted him. He had left the streetcar and taken a route that would lead him quickly to the center of town. He felt as if he were emerging from a cellar. The streets shrieked with gaiety, prematurely filled with the warmth of a summer day. The sweet, toxic taste of soliloquy faded from his mouth; everything was frank and outgoing and glad to be in the sun. Ulrich stopped at almost every shopwindow. These little flasks in so many colors, these bottled fragrances and countless variants of the nail scissor: what a sum of genius there was even in a hairdresser’s salon. A glove shop: what connections and inventions are needed before a goatskin is drawn over a lady’s hand and the animal’s hide has become more refined than her own! He marveled at the matter-of-course assemblage of countless accoutrements and dainty belongings that make up the carefree life, as though he were seeing them for the first time. What a delightful word, he felt: be-longing. And what happiness, this tremendous concord of living together! There was nothing here to remind one of the earth crust of life, the unpaved roads of passion, the—he was actually feeling this: uncivilized aspects of the soul! The attention, a bright and narrow thing, glided across a flower garden of fruits, gems, fabrics, shapes, and enticements that opened their gently penetrating eyes in every color. Since at that time whiteness of skin was prized and protected from the sun, a few gaily colored parasols were already floating above the crowd and laying silky shadows on the pale faces of women. Ulrich’s gaze was even enchanted by the matte golden beer he saw in passing through the plate-glass windows of a restaurant, standing on tablecloths that were so white that they formed blue planes at the boundary of shadow and light. Then the archbishop drove past him; a smooth-rolling, heavy barouche, with red and purple in its darkness: it had to be the archbishop’s carriage, for this horse-drawn vehicle Ulrich was following with his eyes looked quite ecclesiastical, and two policemen stood at attention and saluted the follower of Christ without thinking of their predecessors who had run a lance into his predecessor’s side.