The rain kept coming down, and Gurdweill went on wandering from street to street, standing still from time to time as if trying to make up his mind about something, and immediately setting off again. He walked down streets in which he had never set foot before, without noticing their strangeness. On the corner of one of these streets he was accosted by a young girl making an early start. He stared at her in blank incomprehension for a moment, and then turned his back on her. Only after walking about a hundred yards did he realise what she wanted, and he was amazed that anyone could still regard him as a living human being when everything, as far as he was concerned, was over. He was tired but he took no notice of it: from now on there was no rest for him. Impelled by some secret wish to survive, he pressed on relentlessly: he had to increase the distance between himself and what had happened — so that he would not collapse beneath the burden of the ghastly tragedy, so that he would be able to go on breathing a little longer — but the distance did not increase by a single jot. Even the extremity of his physical fatigue did not dull the sharpness of the pain.

It must have been about half past eight. It had stopped raining. The air was unseasonably warm. The network of suburban alleys brought to mind some dead provincial town. Gurdweill walked on. Suddenly, without knowing how he got there, he found himself in a large hall, apparently a restaurant, where a few people were sitting and eating. Blinded by the bright lights, he peered around the room for a moment as if looking for someone, and then sank onto a chair next to a table near the entrance, without taking off his hat or coat. The waitress came to take his order.

What would he like to eat? Gurdweill stared at her stupidly. He didn’t want anything to eat! He wasn’t hungry at the moment.

‘Something to drink, then?’

‘Certainly not! That least of all.’

‘But this is a restaurant, sir; you have to eat something!’

‘And if I’m not in the least hungry?’

‘Then you’ve come to the wrong place! Nobody comes here unless they want to eat.’

‘Yes, you’re quite right! I must have come to the wrong place by mistake.’ And he rose to his feet and walked out of the restaurant, to the astonishment of the waitress.