It was the end of September. Every day Thea went to Dr Ostwald’s office while Gurdweill looked after Martin, who was now three months old. He weighed eleven pounds, his development was satisfactory, his skin was slightly tanned, and he had his mother’s flaxen hair. Gurdweill would bathe him and dry him, change his diapers, soothe him when he cried, put him to sleep, and take him out for walks in his carriage — all with tender love and devotion. He even washed the diapers himself and performed all the other necessary chores. Thea hardly helped at all, apart from breastfeeding Martin, which obliged her, to her resentment, to hurry home during her lunch break. Towards evening, when she came home from work, after feeding the baby and having something to eat, she would usually go out again, without Gurdweill knowing where she was going, and return at midnight, or even later. Gurdweill had his hands full. His face was drawn and hollow, but he did not care. He would have given his life for Martin. Every now and then he would transfer the baby, at his wife’s command, to his in-laws’ house, pushing the carriage through a fair section of the city to Schulgasse. Martin would remain there for a few days, and Thea would sleep there too. (The old Baron adored his grandson, although he was still inconsolable about the mysterious disappearance of his cat. And Freddy, who was busy preparing for his trip abroad, would twist the knife by saying, with his cynical smile, ‘Why worry, the cat will come back in the end — it must have gone to the country for a rest …’) Although Gurdweill had more time to himself when the baby was at the Baron’s house, the vague fear that some harm would come to his son there in his absence poisoned his mind and gave him no peace. Sitting with friends in the café, he was liable to jump up abruptly and rush out to take the first tram to Schulgasse, only to find Martin sleeping peacefully in his carriage. He could not bear the child to be out of his sight. During this whole period he did hardly any work on his writing, apart from an occasional evening when Thea was out and Martin was sleeping.

What he liked best was sitting on a bench in the Prater Hauptallee on a fine afternoon, with Martin in his carriage beside him, among all the nursemaids and young mothers, who already knew him and often offered him a helping hand. Among themselves they referred to him jokingly as ‘the young mother’, but they pitied him too, and were glad to help him.

‘The poor, pathetic creature!’ they said. ‘What does a man know about such a little baby? A baby needs a woman — that’s obvious! It’s a law of nature!’

‘And where’s the mother?’

‘She must have died giving birth.’

‘Ah, the poor little chick!’