It was three weeks since he had first ventured out into the street. Life had returned to its usual routine. Gurdweill lived, on the face of things, as before: he visited friends, wandered the streets, chatted briefly to this person or that — but nevertheless, there was a change in him, invisible to a stranger, and even more so to himself. He was even quieter than before, spent much of his time deep in thought, as if there were some very important decision that he had to make, and often replied absent-mindedly and irrelevantly when spoken to. The obscure oppression that had weighed on his soul ever since he had grown to know Thea, and that he carefully avoided scrutinising in the clear light of consciousness, now began to exert an intense and unendurable pressure and to demand a logical analysis of its cause, and even some kind of remedy. All his thoughts now came up against Thea — wherever they turned they always ended up with her; she was the obstacle, the barrier, the source of all evil. In vain he sometimes tried, even now, to struggle against his feelings. Everything inside him was in revolt; all his thoughts accused her. And at the same time he knew that he would never find the strength to free himself of her. If only she would leave him! Although it was clear to him that he would be sorry, he would accept it as out of his hands and resign himself to his fate. But it never occurred to Thea to leave him. His constant submission provoked and goaded her baser instincts, and her sadistic appetite, which had grown even greater in the course of their life together, found in him an unlimited source of satisfaction. As soon as she saw how profoundly the baby’s death had affected him, she found a new way of hurting him. In contradiction to her previous avowals, she now took every opportunity to assure him that the baby had been his. And the further he withdrew into silence, the more vehement she became.

Nowadays he spent hardly any time at home. The room became repugnant to him: it was empty and desolate and gave rise to unhappy thoughts. He hardly worked either. He was up to his neck in debt and always short of money. But this, it must be said, did not trouble him unduly. The crux of the matter lay elsewhere. He also felt obscurely that some end was approaching, that something was about to change soon — what and how he did not know.