‘It’s all up!’ said Gurdweill to himself. ‘This is the swine’s way of giving me the sack!’ A torrent of conflicting feelings engulfed him and sent the blood rushing to his head. He even felt a sense of satisfaction, which struggled to push all his other feelings aside and rule in their stead. Suddenly he realised that his cigar had gone out. With a vigorous flick of his finger he knocked off the ash and lit it again. One more month — and then … But what would Thea say? Something thick and hard rose up inside him and stuck in his gorge. He tried to swallow it down again and swallowed a mouthful of bitter cigar smoke, which made him want to retch. Mechanically he took out his handkerchief and spat into it, hawking noisily two or three times.

Dr Kreindel continued in a portentous tone: ‘With people of our calibre, of course, one can never be sure. There are always surprises. Something that may seem unpleasant from the vulgar, material point of view may give rise in us, for some mysterious reason, to precisely the opposite of the expected reaction. Precisely the opposite. As the Persian saying goes, It’s an ill wind, et cetera … Aren’t I right, my dear Herr Gurdweill? In the above circumstances one of us might well say to himself: “What, from such and such a day we’ll be unemployed? Exactly what we were hoping for! From now on we’ll be free to work unimpeded at our true vocation, which is the only thing that counts … Isn’t that so? As for eating and drinking and so on — what do people like us care about such things?” You see, my friend, I know this line of thought inside out — at first hand, you might say, since my nature is exactly the same. I’ve already told you, I think, that you and I are almost twins — twins in the spiritual, intellectual sense, of course, which is the only sense that matters to people like us!’

‘In short,’ said Gurdweill, making a strenuous effort to speak in a normal tone of voice, ‘I take it that you’re giving me a month’s notice from today?’