‘Have a bite, my dear, it’s good!’ she said with her mouth full. ‘Wouldn’t you like to be my sweetheart? Whose husband are you?’ She addressed him with familiarity, in a common accent, and seemed very pleased with herself. The smile never left her grey, flabby, unattractive face. Gurdweill now became aware of the peculiar smell — a strong, sour, disagreeable smell — that permeated the corridor and rose overpoweringly from the hospital uniform of the woman next to him. It was an absolutely distinctive smell — a combination of odours that he had never smelled before. A key grated in a lock and the woman darted off, saying, ‘Servus, sweetheart! I can’t stay now, but I’ll always be happy to give you an apple. See you later!’

Diagonally opposite, a door opened. A nurse appeared with Franzi Mitteldorfer behind her. A hotch-potch of female voices spilled into the corridor; prominent among them were a weeping voice and a laughing one. He caught a glimpse of a spacious room with a row of white iron beds, part of a barred window, and a group of half-naked women clustered round one of the beds.

Franzi Mitteldorfer hurried up to Gurdweill. She had evidently dressed quickly and carelessly. One of her clumsy white woollen stockings had slipped over her felt slipper, exposing a pale, skinny calf. Without greeting him, in a kind of speechless bustle, she seized his hand and pulled him into the visitors’ room, where one of the patients was already sitting with an elderly woman. There were three small round tables in the room and a number of upholstered chairs and benches. Franzi led him to a table in the corner, at a distance from the two women, and they sat down. Her face immediately crumpled in soundless weeping, and she whispered without looking at him: ‘Well, what’s going to happen now? Perhaps you can save me? Nobody in the whole world wants to save me! Not even my own mother. See what I look like, see how I suffer here,’ she looked fearfully around her, ‘and nobody wants to save me!’

Her large brown eyes strayed hither and thither with a vague, terrified stare, and her fingers played ceaselessly with the edge of her coarse striped gown.

Gurdweill could not utter a word. His heart constricted with pain. He did not even know if she recognised him or not. One after the other he took the bar of chocolate and the oranges out of his pockets and placed them on the table. He began peeling one of the oranges and offering her segment after segment. She nibbled them unwillingly and immediately put the pieces down on the table. Then she began her dry-eyed weeping again.

Gurdweill pulled himself together and said, ‘Please eat, it will do you good.’