‘What’s this, rabbit, won’t you take a cigarette from me?’ And she added: ‘They’re the best! Take it from me! I’ve just been given them as a gift.’

The cigarette made Gurdweill’s gorge rise in nausea, and he spat it out onto the bed.

‘I don’t feel like smoking now. What do you want of me? I’ll smoke later …’

‘Not later, but right now!’ insisted Thea. ‘So my cigarettes disgust you, do they? Things have come to a pretty pass, I must say! Come along, let’s sit down and smoke together.’

He was obliged to submit to her will and overcome his nausea. He could not begin a quarrel now, at midnight, and he gave in again, as usual. Thea sat him on her knees, and watched to see that he smoked properly. The fact that he was smoking a cigarette that she had just received from her lover filled her with an extraordinary, perverse delight, especially since she knew that he, her husband, knew very well where it came from, and was smoking it against his will.

‘Well, and how does it taste to you? Good, eh? I knew you’d like it!’

Gurdweill sat on her lap and stared at the wall. He was suddenly overcome with great sadness and infinite despair, squeezing his heart as in a vice. He wished he were a thousand miles away, in a different country, among strange people, with Martin, of course; a place where everything was clear and simple, and where nobody forced you to smoke such awful cigarettes; a place where there was no need to smoke at all … But at the same time he knew that there was no escape, and that he would never be able to free himself from Thea’s clutches. Because he loved her … yes, he loved her in spite of everything! His eyes fell on the spider, which was still in the same place, just under the ceiling, huge and black. ‘It’s sleeping now,’ concluded Gurdweill, and realised that he himself was very tired. He threw away the cigarette end, and was about to jump off his wife’s knees. But she stopped him.

‘What, don’t you want to be nice to me?’

‘I … not now … some other time … I’m tired …’ mumbled Gurdweill.

‘So! You don’t love me anymore!’

‘I do, but …’

Suddenly he clutched her neck with both hands and pressed his lips to her mouth, as if he were casting himself into a deep abyss. Thea picked him up at once and carried him to the couch.

Afterwards Gurdweill was ashamed. Over there the baby was lying sick, perhaps at this very moment screaming in pain — and here he was making love!

‘You’ll be able to go and feed him tomorrow, won’t you, dearest?’