A few minutes later they were walking silently down Heinestrasse, arm in arm like a pair of lovers. After a while they turned left into Taborstrasse. It was chilly, but with the chill of the first evenings of spring, whose sting has already been blunted and through which you imagine that you can already smell the violets and the bursting lilac buds. Gurdweill was tingling with a quiet, buoyant expectation of something that was undefined but was wonderful beyond measure. He believed that it was the general expectation of spring, pervading all of nature now and welling up secretly in his own soul too, despite the barrier of the city and its agitations. And the fact that in spite of everything he still preserved the ability to sense the upheavals in nature filled him with joy. The inner connection between himself and nature, which had been so strong before, in the small town of his birth, and even when he first came to the city, and which had grown weaker and weaker during the course of the years, especially the past year — this connection was still there, it had not been broken off completely, which meant that his instincts were still healthy and had not yet degenerated because of the influence of city life. And this meant that he must still possess the youth and freshness that made it possible to create. At this moment Gurdweill felt instinctively that he was destined to write something tremendous and extraordinary, original from beginning to end, unlike anything the human spirit had ever conceived before. A great need came over him to tell someone about this feeling, a feeling that was the fullest expression of his true self, but he could not tell Thea. He knew only too well that she would greet any such confession with mocking laughter. From the moment he had become aware of her frivolous, contemptuous attitude towards this essential side of his nature, he had set aside a special compartment in his soul where Thea could not intrude. He kept her out. It would have been easier for him to reveal this corner to Lotte, for instance, than to his wife.

On the corner of Obere Augartenstrasse they were suddenly accosted by Franzl Heidelberger, who greeted them with a hearty laugh as usual, and barred their way.