Gurdweill was afraid that she was about to say something even more terrible than what she had already said, something that would in some way involve him too, and he prepared himself inwardly. But Lotte said no more. She stood where she was for a moment longer, then stood up and turned to leave the room. In a state of shock Gurdweill watched her feet in their silken slippers, step after step being swallowed up in the soft Persian rug. The whole house suddenly seemed to him to be full of dread, as if a murdered body were hidden there. He too stood up and began walking round the room, full of pity for Lotte, who seemed to him a desperately ill woman. He went over to the window and drew the curtain aside. The asphalt on the short, deserted street gleamed blackly and wetly. It seemed that no one would ever stray into this desolate street, and that the lamps cast their dim light into it in vain. Gurdweill’s heart contracted, as if squeezed by an invisible hand. The gnawing sadness of the empty street settled into his soul and made him forget everything else. It seemed to him that he had been standing there for many years, and that he was tasting the very essence of life. And it occurred to him that he had once stood like this before, next to a window overlooking a short, empty street on a rainy evening, wrapped in the same mood as now, but he could not remember where and when it had been. Perhaps it had only been in a dream or in his imagination, something once fleetingly perceived and now superimposed on the present scene, together with the traumatic feelings associated with it, as sometimes happens to sensitive people … Gurdweill went on standing there, unconscious of the passing of time or the fact that Lotte had entered the room, until her clear voice broke into his reverie. He started violently, as if waking from a deep sleep, and stared blankly at Lotte, who was standing next to him wearing a hat and wrapped in a black fur, ready to go out. He suddenly remembered what she had told him before, and he shuddered.

‘I didn’t know that you could dress so quickly,’ he said, taking his coat from the sofa, where he had left it when he came in.

And as if deliberating with himself he suddenly said: ‘The best thing to do, it seems to me, is to consult a doctor, and without delay … There are drugs for insomnia …’

In a sudden, incomprehensible burst of anger, Lotte exclaimed, her face flushed: ‘What are you talking about, a doctor? You really are an imbecile!’