‘Ho-ho, what an unexpected meeting! Very glad to see you! You’re avoiding us, Herr Doktor, and the gnädige Frau has not honoured us at all! No, your lady wife must pay us a visit — I insist. I won’t take no for an answer! It would be an insult to our hospitality, isn’t that so? And Herr Doktor himself! I always say to Gustl: “Gustl,” I say, “what’s happened to our Herr Doktor; where has he disappeared to? Perhaps we didn’t treat him with the proper respect? Or perhaps you offended him in some way? What did you do to him, to make him avoid our humble home?” “Me?” says Gustl, “I know nothing about it! I never did any harm to the Herr Doktor!” So there you are!’

Since that Sunday at the end of last summer, Gurdweill had not visited their home. Uneasily, he remembered what had happened between himself and Gustl on that occasion. He felt embarrassed and somewhat ashamed and wanted to get away from Heidelberger as quickly as possible.

‘I was busy, my dear Herr Heidelberger,’ said Gurdweill, and immediately regretted ‘my dear’, which seemed to him obsequious and also a kind of payment for services rendered, ‘so many troubles and cares.’

‘Who isn’t busy? But where there’s a will there’s a way, I say — isn’t that so, Frau Gurdweill? This very minute, for example, while we’re standing here and chatting, we could just as well go up to my place. On condition, of course, that you have nothing more pressing to do! We jump onto a tram and we’re there in ten minutes, believe me. What do you say?’

‘It’s late. Some other time — with pleasure. But why don’t you come with us? We’re going to sit in a café for a while.’

‘With the greatest pleasure! If I can’t make you change your minds!’

When they started walking, Heidelberger said, ‘What an evening: a true spring evening! In the daytime a man is worse than a beast. Work and more work! Cows and pigs are better off than men. They get their food for nothing, at least, but we have to kill ourselves with work for a measly bit of bread. It isn’t fair, I tell you. Not that I’m a Bolshevik — no sir, Franzl Heidelberger isn’t such a fool! A Social Democrat and proud of it, yes indeed, a registered party member! But a Bolshevik — no siree! I don’t need it! What for? Don’t they work there under the Bolsheviks eight hours a day? So there you are: man is worse off than a beast — here, in Russia, and in America — all over the world! There’s no difference!’