The room was steeped in an atmosphere of profound, oppressive boredom, which immediately seized hold of Gurdweill in all its intensity. He felt as if he had been lying ill in that room for days on end, and that its walls and furniture exuded the smell unique to sickrooms. He had an impulse to hurry over to the windows and fling them open. He looked around the room as if he were seeing it for the first time, wondering at the mix of furniture, some of which was old, dark, and heavy, presumably family heirlooms, and some of which was new, cheap, and mass produced. A feeling of general and absolute futility suddenly descended on Gurdweill, hitting him in the face like something tangible and making his heart contract. But he immediately recovered. ‘Nonsense!’ he said to himself. ‘All you need is a good night’s sleep.’ He went up to examine the portrait of the Baron, as he had already done many times before. It was an oil painting, not very large, hanging between four other ancestral portraits. The Baron was shown in a major’s uniform, a middle-aged man with a beard trimmed in the style of Emperor Franz-Josef. Gurdweill found his expression silly. Those tiny, watery-blue eyes, staring fixedly ahead, said absolutely nothing. They could have been rubbed out without affecting the rest of the face. The nose was well developed, strong, full of energy; and the chin between the two prongs of the forked beard, prominent and athletic. There was no resemblance between this face and Thea’s, and no one would have imagined that she was his daughter. Both sons, on the other hand, resembled their father. Especially the elder, Poldy.

Thea pulled up a chair to the head of the sofa and glanced at Poldy’s newspaper. He was reading the continuation of a serialised adventure story.

‘Phoo, Poldy!’ she exclaimed. ‘How can you read such rubbish?’

And she snatched the paper from his hands. The abruptness of the movement made the cat on his lap wake up, raise its head, and stare with round, dazed eyes.

‘Give it back, Thea!’ But he went on lying down without moving.

‘Leave that nonsense now!’ said Thea, and she threw the paper into a corner. ‘Will you be seeing Richard today?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. Why?’

‘If you see him, tell him that I couldn’t make it to the café then. He’ll know. And to phone me at the office after the holiday. You won’t forget?’

‘I won’t forget.’