Gurdweill stood and watched her. His mind was suddenly quite clear, as if the slap had sobered him up after many days of drunkenness. At this moment he felt no rage. But for the first time since he had met her he saw now, as if in the light of some inner illumination, that she was ugly, and what she had said about going to bed with as many men as she liked seemed ridiculous to him, impossible, an empty boast. He remembered the child. His child, who was going to be born in five months’ time, if the doctors were right, and a pulse of happiness began to throb inside him. He went and sat down on the couch, just as he was, with his coat still on and his hat in his hand. But then he remembered that he wanted to go for a walk, and he straightened up again. Thea was washing her hands at the basin. And suddenly Gurdweill said quietly, as if nothing had happened between them: ‘Listen, Thea, Dr Kreindel gave me the sack today. With one month’s notice.’

Thea turned her head and looked at him for a moment in silence.

‘It’s true. Business is bad, he says, and he has no choice but to let me go.’

‘You sound as if you were pleased about it,’ said Thea, and to his astonishment there was not a trace of the former rage in her voice. ‘I don’t care where you get the money from — as long as you bring it home!’ And she went back to scrubbing her hands. ‘Or perhaps you imagine that I’m going to work to support you?’

‘I don’t imagine anything. What am I supposed to do? It’s not my fault. I’ll try to find money. I can give you five schillings now — I took it in advance.’

‘Good. Put it on the table. And the rest doesn’t interest me! You know that I have to eat properly now because of the baby. Just don’t forget it!’

‘Of course I won’t — how could I forget it?’

The fact that she had mentioned the baby now, and in connection with him too, made him blissfully happy. It meant that what she had said yesterday in so many words and all the other hints she had been dropping lately were nothing but a joke to tease and torment him. Only what she had just come out with, in all innocence, only that was true … and there was no more room for fruitless speculation! At once all desire to go for a walk left him. He began taking off his coat, but changed his mind halfway.

‘Perhaps you’d like to go with me to the café?’ he said, and added humorously: ‘Once a year it might be interesting to go with your husband for a change …’