Gurdweill retraced his steps, passed under the bridge, where a single lamp cast a dim light, and ascended the stairs. It was pitch dark. He came out at a big, empty lot; about a hundred paces from the railway tracks stood a single building, large and white, and four storeys high, illuminated by four lamps. ‘There it is!’ said Gurdweill to himself, and made straight for the building.

He found himself outside the women’s wing. On a dark porch stretching the length of the wall, a crowd of women of all ages stood or kneeled on the floor — a hundred women or more. A deathly silence reigned, as if they were waiting with bated breath for some significant event to happen. There was something mysterious about the scene, and Gurdweill felt as if he had accidentally stumbled upon a cabal of conspirators.

He walked round to the other side of the building. Here he found men standing all along the wall, rank after rank, like an army. A legion of benighted souls, sullen, ragged, unshaven, young and old, the likes of whom you never saw there in the city, or only rarely, and one by one. Three and four to a row they stood, in silence or exchanging whispers with their neighbours, most of them stooping in an ape-like posture. Some were smoking cigarette stubs. It was dark. The light cast by the two lamps at the corners of the long building was insufficient to illuminate the entire area.

Gurdweill approached and stood at the rear, without anyone taking any notice of him. His heart quailed, as if weighed down by the burden of these masses. The heavy, dreadful silence was immediately transmitted to his soul, and he had the feeling that he had been standing there in this same silence for many years, ever since the day he was born. Unconsciously, he too began to stoop until his posture resembled that of his neighbours in every detail. From time to time a figure separated itself from the darkness of the night and joined the line. They made no sound as they approached, for they trod softly, with an animal stealth. Gurdweill felt as if they had been lurking here in the dark for a very long time, right under his nose, and now, with a single step, they came up and stood behind him. With exaggerated caution, as if afraid of rousing someone, he fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette. The flame of the gas light flickered in the distance. And suddenly the heavy silence was broken by the shrill whistle of a train, sending a shudder through Gurdweill’s flesh, as if this reckless whistle might bring some harm to himself and all these creatures. The man standing next to him, tall and haggard and sparsely bearded, muttered to nobody in particular: ‘Five. The whistle blows at five. They’ll open up in a minute.’