When he opened his eyes it was still night. His body was bathed in sweat, his heart pounded, and his breath came in short, heavy pants. For a moment he did not know if he was awake or dead — the dividing line between his dreaming and waking state was so flimsy and transparent. Nor did he remember when he had sat up, for he was now sitting on the couch. He felt his chest with his hand and came to the conclusion that he was alive, and awake. To make doubly sure, he tried to peer into the darkness, and after straining his eyes for a moment he was able to make out the outlines of the bed and the two rectangles of the windows opposite. Now there was no longer any doubt: it was only a nightmare. But he could still see the dream in all its details, and he felt a certain regret at having woken up. It was possible, after all, for a man to die in his sleep … But he was awake, that was clear. And where was Martin? Only a moment ago he had held him in his arms! He jumped out of bed and ran to the carriage. It was still empty, with the white blanket spread over it. So Thea hadn’t really sold the carriage to Dr Ostwald! Despite this happy thought, however, he was still as furious with her as if everything she had said in the dream were true. He felt the blanket with his hand and found, to his distress, that there was nothing underneath it. But he soon remembered that Martin was in the hospital, and went back to bed, where he fell straight into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

29

29

The next day Gurdweill was already waiting in front of the hospital at half past nine in the morning. It was a fine, clear autumn day. The sun was shining, and the trams clattered to and fro. Gurdweill paced back and forth in front of the gate to the hospital grounds and smoked. He was barely aware of the fatigue resulting from the morbid, nervous sleep of the night before, and even felt a glimmering of hope that everything would be all right in the end. But the waiting was hard to endure. How slow time could be; how it could crawl and congeal! Whereas sometimes it could be swift and elusive as an arrow! When you watched it, when you followed its course, it stood stubbornly still; half an hour could stretch to an infinity. The preliminaries, reflected Gurdweill, were usually longer than the main event … The whole of life was composed of these preliminaries, and the rest lasted no longer than a few short moments …