A smell of burned coffee beans wafted out of one of the houses, and as Gurdweill entered its ambience something black and shapeless flashed into his mind, trailing behind it, beyond his reach, another blackness, that of the previous night, with the exchange between himself and Thea that had begun in the light of the oil lamp and continued after it had been extinguished, from bed to bed. Money, money, money! — Gurdweill groaned — but where to get it? True, she needed extra nourishment now for the unborn baby, but what more could he give her? He was already living on a subsistence diet, and sometimes he went without even that! And what she had said … no! It simply wasn’t true! A slip of the tongue, that was all, to provoke him. If it had been true, would she have said it — even in a rage? Inconceivable! And she hadn’t said whose it was either … ‘The child isn’t even yours!’ Out of the blue! No! She was angry, that was all, and she lashed out with whatever came into her head. She always liked teasing him. Like the way she had kept on threatening to ‘get rid’ of it — and look what happened in the end! And now she had invented this new lie for him. And if it were really true? Unconsciously he stopped walking. Well, then … A baby was a baby … Since it was hers it would be his anyway … It was his child and nothing else mattered a damn! If it came to that — there wasn’t a father in the world who could swear that his child was really his! Who could be sure? And why should he, Rudolf Gurdweill, be an exception to the rule? No, he had to stop bothering himself with idle speculation. The child was his, and that was that!

But Gurdweill’s good mood was spoiled nevertheless. The spring morning already seemed alien, not for him. The thought of all the days to come, which he would have to spend with Dr Kreindel or some other Dr Kreindel, weighed heavily on him. Suddenly he felt old and tired. He huddled deep down into his coat, like a man locking his doors and drawing his blinds in the middle of the day, and bowed his head in submission to necessity.

In the bookshop he greeted his colleagues curtly and immediately retired to the back room. Dr Kreindel had not yet arrived. He took off his coat and sat down at his desk. He found a few cigarette stubs and rolling paper in his jacket pocket, and began rolling a new cigarette with the used tobacco. Should he ask Dr Kreindel for a few schillings in advance? Yes. Only a small sum — ten schillings! Somewhat reassured by this idea, he removed the black oilcloth cover from his typewriter and began typing a letter, the cigarette stuck to his lower lip.