Gurdweill searched for cigarettes in his pockets but found none. ‘Cunning fellows, these cigarettes’ — he smiled to himself — ‘sometimes they like to play hide-and-seek with you.’ On the other hand, he found in one of his jacket pockets a schilling about whose existence he had completely forgotten. He went into a little tavern in Währinger Strasse and bought five cigarettes from the waiter. But his palate was so dry with thirst that it made the cigarette smoke taste bitter. He sat down and ordered a tankard of beer.

At this late hour, there were only a few customers in the bar. A man and a woman were sitting in a corner. On their backs were grey haversacks, which they had not bothered to remove. They were taking turns to drink from the same glass, very seriously, without exchanging a word. A worn-out married couple, Gurdweill decided, with nothing left to say to each other. Next to his table in the middle of the smallish room, two men were sitting by themselves, each with a gigantic glass of beer in front of him. One of them, opposite Gurdweill, was sitting like a stone, with his head lowered, completely absorbed in the drink in front of him. When Gurdweill sat down, the latter stole a quick glance at him, and immediately went back to staring at his glass, as if he could see some marvellous sight inside it. With long pauses in between, he took big, angry gulps, and lowered his head again, without wiping the foam off his unkempt moustache.

‘Poor devil,’ thought Gurdweill compassionately, ‘he’s probably drinking in despair.’ He felt an urge to strike up a conversation with the stranger, to speak to him coaxingly and lighten his heavy heart. As for his own great joy — he was hoarding it up in his heart for later, when he was alone, like a child saving sweets and enjoying the pleasure of simply knowing that they were there. Suddenly he wished that the man would rouse himself, become excited, get up, and begin abusing him as if he were some inferior creature. He was ready to pay for the favour that had been bestowed upon him, a favour of which he was certainly unworthy. He picked up his glass and set it down with a deliberate bang. The man opposite him did not move. A few minutes ticked slowly by on the clock hanging on the wall. It was forty minutes past midnight. The man and the woman with the haversacks got up and left. Gurdweill finished his beer and was about to leave too. And all of a sudden the man opposite him said in an apathetic, slightly hoarse voice, without raising his head: ‘You, young man, are you married? No? Well, I could have told you that myself. I can tell with one look.’