Dr Kreindel sat comfortably in an upholstered armchair in front of the large desk in the middle of the office. He was smoking a thick chocolate-brown cigar, from which he had not removed the gold-and-red band. Rudolf Gurdweill, his secretary and ‘right-hand man’, who was sitting at another desk next to the wall, was smoking too; but he was smoking a thin cigarette of an inferior brand — which seemed to sum up the difference between their respective situations. Dr Kreindel could afford other luxuries too, such as giving vent to a bad mood due to the gloomy autumn day on the one hand, and on the other, the loss of the two thousand schillings he had been obliged to give his wife that morning to buy a new, modern fur coat, although she already had a perfectly good one, which had cost him ten thousand only two years before.

Dr Kreindel removed the cigar from his mouth and gazed for a moment at the column of ash on its tip. Then he turned it around to the tip of his sharp nose and avidly sniffed the warm, aromatic ash. As he did so he reflected, with a note of resignation in his voice: ‘They’re all incorrigibly extravagant … you won’t find a sensible person among them … They’ve got nothing in their heads but rags and tatters!’ As if he had come to a sudden decision, he flicked the ash into the large conch shell that served as an ashtray, stuck the cigar back into his mouth, and cast a glance at Gurdweill, who was sitting bowed over his desk, writing.

‘Have you written to Rowohlt Publishers yet, Herr Gurdwein?’ When he was in a bad mood he always got Gurdweill’s name wrong, by one letter at least. Gurdweill had grown accustomed to it in the course of time and no longer took any notice. ‘The letter must be sent this morning. Without delay!’

‘It’s already written,’ replied Gurdweill without turning his head.

‘Good!’ And after a short pause: ‘How is your wife, by the way? I met her in the street the other day, about two weeks ago, to be exact. She didn’t look bad at all, hee-hee, in fact she was positively radiant …’

Since Gurdweill said nothing, he continued, ‘Yes indeed, my friend, this world was created for them and them alone. Women, I mean … They really get the best of it. What does Heine say? Noble creature, over all flesh placed by God to reign … et cetera. Do they have spiritual conflicts like we do? What have they got to worry about except enjoying themselves? And while we wear out our brains and dry them up with philosophical questions and so on, they run after worldly pleasures.’

‘Who wears out his brain with philosophical questions?’ enquired Gurdweill, turning his head around. ‘No one that I know.’