Utterly debilitated, too weak to move, he had been obliged to stay in bed for an additional week after his fever had gone down. He did not mention the baby once during this period of recuperation, as if he had forgotten all about him. But sometimes, when his glance fell on the empty space between the bed and the window (Thea had sold the carriage to a second-hand furniture shop while he was ill), it seemed to him that the whole room was empty, that the whole world was empty. However, the vital forces gradually returning to his body would not allow him to dwell on anything that might upset his equilibrium. He was in that state of happy, animal calm that comes to every dangerously ill person when the danger has passed and he is on the road to recovery. Lying supported on pillows, still too weak to speak, he would often smile, sometimes for no reason at all, at Lotte, who came to see him twice a day, or take her hand and stroke it in wordless gratitude, as an angry, stormy autumn raged outside and rattled the dirty windowpanes.