At eleven o’clock the next morning, he woke up, feeling drowsy but refreshed. From the top of the window a slanting shaft of golden, dancing dust penetrated the room, making a pool of sunlight underneath the table. A woman in a dressing-gown leaned out of the hotel window opposite, and for a moment she seemed about to throw herself into the street. Gurdweill wanted to see her face, but she was in no hurry to lift her head and he soon gave up. Down below, carts rumbled, a tram bell rang in the distance, cars hooted, a whip cracked, a loud, shrill voice called: ‘Frau Voi-tik!’ and a rag-and-bone man cried in a hollow, monotonous voice: ‘Rags and bones, rags and bones!’ Gurdweill found himself thrust into the middle of the hustle and bustle of the day, which did not lack a touch of poetry. He examined his soul and found it full of joy and contentment. Only one little corner sounded a discordant note. He wanted to ignore it, but it refused to be ignored and demanded his attention. He began to seek the reason, reviewing all his personal affairs in his mind; everything seemed in order. A sleepless night, tormented by bedbugs — no, that was all in the past now, a nightmare that was over and done with! That wasn’t the reason! So what was? On no account could he locate the source of his uneasiness, and in the end he dismissed it from his mind.

The woman opposite had disappeared from the window, to Gurdweill’s regret. Thinking that she had taken something of the morning’s charm away with her, he jumped out of bed, pulled on his trousers, and began to shave. From the corridor he heard the landlady’s endless shuffle. The afternoon post arrived, and Gurdweill’s name was called with the loud confidence peculiar to postmen, who seem to think that every house they enter in the course of their work belongs to them. Gurdweill quickly finished shaving and hurried into the corridor to seize his letter before the landlady could begin pawing it all over to take the edge off her curiosity. It was not an important letter. The editor asked him to send the story he had promised them for their next issue as quickly as possible, etc.

The landlady followed him into his room, eager to hear the latest news. Gurdweill, the letter still in his hands, nodded towards the couch and cried: ‘Bedbugs! Bedbugs! You have to clean! I can’t sleep!’ He realised that he had spoken in her tone and exclamatory style, and a smile crossed his face. He was obliged to repeat himself several times until she understood.