Gurdweill turned over on his side and began repeating the words ‘to sleep’ over and over to himself. His thoughts began to slip away, as if they were gradually evaporating from his mind. He became lighter and lighter; he floated up and glided through the air, to the other side, the other side … Only the words ‘to sleep’ went on smouldering in his mind, like a dull, exhausted ember. Suddenly the silence was broken by the explosive sound of dry wood cracking. Gurdweill started violently and sat up in bed. He imagined that he had fallen from a great height. He listened to the silence through every pore of his body and heard nothing. After a moment he realised that it had only been some dry piece of furniture snapping. He even remembered that he had definitely heard the explosion at the moment of its occurrence, which calmed him somewhat. But on the other hand he was filled with rage against the landlady and her ‘horrible furniture’. ‘We’ll have to look for another room,’ he said to himself, ‘it’s impossible to sleep here!’ He lay down again and was obliged to begin everything again, since by now he was wide awake. ‘Now I’ll have to count to a thousand,’ he thought, ‘sometimes that helps too.’ Somewhere in the distance a clock struck three. But there was no knowing if it was three quarters of an hour or three o’clock. No, he would not look at his watch! It made no difference one way or the other.

Gurdweill began to count. When he reached ten, he was suddenly seized by a wish to know whether the snow had stopped falling outside or not. If it froze over a little, it would be a fine winter day tomorrow … twelve, thirteen, nonsense! Everything was perfectly all right! How could he have bothered his head over such nonsense? When was it, today or a long time ago? … Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, Zushka … If his parents had known then! A nice bit of jam, there was no denying … Perhaps he should change the end of the story he’d finished yesterday … She didn’t only leave her husband, but her lover too — the pair of them together … especially the lover … He would have to think about it … Fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight … ‘Do you think about me, Herr Gurdweill? I think about you a lot, aie, aie, aie!’ he heard the old landlady saying. And right afterwards: ‘You’ve got a fine wife, Herr Gurdweill! A very fine wife, pssss!’

‘Hee-hee! Very fine indeed … Exemplary, no less! Ho-ho! Time will tell just how exemplary she is!’

‘No, no! I can’t stand any more, eighty-five, eighty-six …’