As soon as he entered the apartment he rolled up the drawing-room blinds, which had been down all day to protect the furniture from the sun, and went into his bedroom to change. Gurdweill sprawled out on the soft sofa, which was covered with green velvet whose touch made him think of hair that had been cut with a barber’s clippers. Suddenly he felt free of his previous distressing thoughts, as if he had shed them like a skin in the street outside. His fears now seemed bizarre, the product of a morbid, hyperactive imagination. The pleasant coolness of the room revived him; he puffed on the cigarette he had taken from Dr Astel and listened to the splashing of the water in the kitchen, where his friend was washing, with the joy of a blind man whose sight has been restored by a successful operation. How could such an idea have entered his head? A baby wasn’t a cat, after all! And who said he had actually killed the cat in the first place? Maybe he was only boasting … It was perfectly possible that the cat had really run away, as cats sometimes did — through that very same kitchen window, which somebody had forgotten to close. And perhaps it would come home again; perhaps it had already come home in the meantime! And if it didn’t come home, there were all kinds of other possibilities — it might have been run over by a car, or a cart, or a tram … He himself had seen a dog run over by a tram, and killed instantly. And if it hadn’t been run over, it might have been stolen. There were people who stole cats. It was a handsome cat, you had to admit; why shouldn’t somebody steal it? And anyway, what on earth did his father-in-law’s cat have to do with his, Gurdweill’s, son? To hell with the cat! He was suddenly filled with such rage against this cat, which kept intruding on his thoughts without so much as a by-your-leave, that if it had been within his reach he might easily have strangled it himself! As for Freddy — from this day forth he refused to listen to his nonsense anymore; he wasn’t interested, and that was the end of it! Angrily he threw the fag end of his cigarette onto the floor, but immediately came to his senses and picked it up again and put it out in the ashtray on the smoking table in the corner. Then he lay down on the sofa again. Without noticing the hidden association between his thoughts, he suddenly remembered Franzi Mitteldorfer, whom he had gone to visit more than six months ago at Steinhof, and whose mother, whom he had met by chance in the street in the spring, had told him that she was feeling better and would soon be sent home. She must be cured and home by now. Gurdweill decided to go and visit her that very evening, since Dr Astel was engaged. In a few days’ time, when Thea came out of the hospital, he would be far too busy to go and see her.