Soon afterwards Dr Kreindel appeared and greeted him with a hearty ‘Good morning!’

‘A lovely day, eh?’ he said as he took off his coat. ‘A day for poets! On a day like this you would prefer to wander round the streets, or take a trip out of town, wouldn’t you, my dear Herr Gurdweill? Don’t deny it! I understand you only too well! Don’t I belong to that exalted family of poets and artists myself? Ha-ha, you know I do …’

Gurdweill went on typing and pretended not to hear. ‘What? Did you say something?’ he asked.

‘And if I did? Of course I said something, something worth its weight in gold! But great men never listen to anyone but themselves … In the words of Gottfried Keller: The word of genius is spoken by one individual to an entire generation … et cetera.’

He settled himself into his chair behind his desk and began reading the morning’s mail. ‘He disfigures everything,’ reflected Gurdweill as he went on typing. On the wall opposite, in the courtyard, there was a vivid triangle of sunlight, which lay there for some time without changing its shape. For about an hour and a half the rapid clattering of the typewriter and the rustle of paper filled the office. Then Gurdweill collected the pile of letters and took them over to his employer for his signature. Dr Kreindel handed him the morning’s correspondence, told him how to reply, and asked him to examine the accounts from the beginning of March as well, since it seemed to him that there was a mistake somewhere. Gurdweill took the letters and the ledger and returned to his desk.

‘How would you like a good cigar?’ Dr Kreindel suddenly asked.

‘A bad sign!’ thought Gurdweill and went up to take the cigar. At the same time he took the opportunity of asking for the ten-schilling advance.

‘Of course I’ll let you have it, my dear sir! With pleasure! Remind me to give it to you later.’

As Gurdweill turned away, Dr Kreindel struck a match and offered it to him to light his cigar. ‘Yes,’ he added, ‘I wanted to ask you how your work was getting on. It’s a long time since we discussed it … I mean your real work, of course, the work that will make you immortal, not the work you do here, which is quite irrelevant as far as intellectuals like us are concerned …’ He bared his gold teeth in a twisted smile. ‘You see, sir, great minds think alike: when I say “work” you may be sure that I mean the work you do at home, your literary work, which is done in the dark and spreads its light from one end of the world to the other — in the words of the great Goethe himself!’

‘If it’s “done in the dark”, it can hardly be discussed in public,’ said Gurdweill, laughing.