He had received quite a few beatings for this and won great victories, too, but no matter how it turned out, he felt cheated of satisfaction. Nor would his feelings consider the obvious possibility that the little girls he actually knew were the same kind of creatures as the one he went into battle for, because like all boys his age he became rigid and awkward in the presence of girls; until one day something happened that was an exception to the rule. And now Ulrich remembered it as clearly as if he were looking at the image in the circle of a telescope trained across the years on an evening when Agathe was dressed up for a children’s party. She was wearing a velvet dress, and her hair flowed over it like waves of lighter velvet, so that suddenly, in much the same way he had yearned for the animals in the posters, he felt an unspeakable longing to be a girl. At that time he knew so little about men and women that he did not regard it as entirely impossible, but he knew enough not to try to enforce the fulfillment of his wishes, as children often will; rather it was a combination of the two, an ambiguous state which if he were to describe it now was as if he were groping in the dark for a door, meeting with a blood-warm or warmly sweet resistance, pressing against it again and again as it tenderly yielded to his urge to push through without actually ever giving way. Maybe it also resembled a harmless kind of vampire passion that sucks the object of its longing into itself, except this little man did not want to draw that little woman into himself but wanted to be entirely in her place; and this happened with that dazzling tenderness that accompanies only the earliest intimations of sex.

Ulrich stood up and stretched his arms, marveling at his reverie. No more than ten steps away, on the other side of the wall, lay his father’s body, and only now did he notice that, around them both, the house, which had been dead and desolate, was bustling with people, who seemed to have suddenly risen from the earth. Old women were laying carpets and lighting new candles, there was hammering on the staircase, flowers were delivered, floors were being waxed, and now it appeared that he too was about to be drawn into this bustle, for visitors were announced who were up and about at this hour because there was something they wanted to have or to know, and from that time on the flow of people was unending. The university needed information about the funeral, a peddler came and shyly asked for clothing, a local antiquarian-book dealer announced himself with profuse apologies to present an offer, on behalf of a German firm, for a rare legal tome that was presumed to be in the deceased’s library, a chaplain asked to speak with Ulrich regarding some point that was not clear in the parish registry, a man from the insurance company came with a lengthy contestation, someone was looking for a cheap piano, a real estate agent left his card in the eventuality that the family might wish to sell the house, a retired government clerk offered to address envelopes, and so the coming, going, asking, and wanting went on without cease in these favorable early morning hours, each caller making matter-of-fact reference to the death in the family and staking his claim to existence, in speech and in writing, at the front door, where the old servant turned away as many as he could, and upstairs, where Ulrich nonetheless had to receive everyone who slipped through. He had never imagined how many people politely wait for the death of others and how many hearts are quickened the moment one’s own heart stops. He was somewhat astonished, and saw: A beetle lies in the forest, and other beetles, ants, birds, and swaying butterflies gather around.