Gurdweill raised her to her feet and seated her on the chair. He was deathly pale and his whole body was trembling. He was prepared to do anything for her, but he didn’t know what he could do. His mind was a blank and he didn’t have the ghost of an idea. In a hoarse voice he said, ‘I’ll try to do something. I’ll do whatever I can. But now calm down. Please calm down.’

‘You must go and talk to Dr von Eichendorf right away — our head doctor, the director of the hospital. You’ll find him in the administration building now. He isn’t here every day, but today he has his reception hour. Three times a week he has a reception hour, and you can talk to him. Press him. He’ll do anything if you press him … One of the patients was released a few days ago. Her family put pressure on him and it helped … and she was really very sick. She was always screaming and crying. But her relations pleaded with the head doctor and he let her go home. Everything depends on Dr von Eichendorf, our director. But in the name of God, don’t say that I sent you! You mustn’t say that on any account! Because if you do you’ll spoil everything.’ And she looked over her shoulder to see if anyone had heard.

At that moment Gurdweill believed her. Perhaps she really would be better off at home. Perhaps she would recover sooner.

‘I’ll talk to the director. I’ll do whatever I can.’

‘Then you must go now!’ she urged. ‘I want to know what he says right away. Come back and tell me what he says.’

Gurdweill glanced at his watch. ‘There are only five minutes left. I won’t be able to come back. I’ll go and see Dr von Eichendorf as soon as the visiting hour is over.’

He offered her another orange segment, as if it were some kind of panacea. Franzi put it mechanically into her mouth and chewed pensively for a moment, before beginning to wail again.

‘Now you see, it is already too late … If you’d gone right away, I could have gone home today; you would have taken me home like last time … And now it’s too late … Now I’ll have to wait again — God only knows how long I’ll have to wait! And I’m getting worse every day … Now I’ll get really sick and then I’ll never go home. The really sick people never get out of here! Up to now I kept my head above water, I struggled; I thought they would take pity on me and send me home. But now I can’t stand it anymore … Now I’ll have to get really sick …’