He stood up and lit the lamp. Then he took down the suitcase, which was covered with a thick layer of dust, from the top of the wardrobe, and wiped it with a dirty shirt. He opened it, thrust to one side his manuscripts in their yellowing newspaper parcel, and began pulling his underwear and collars out of the wardrobe and throwing them higgledy-piggledy into the suitcase. Suddenly he stopped and let the shirt he was holding fall to the floor. He straightened up and clutched his head in his hands. ‘What are you doing?’ he groaned. ‘This is insanity!’

At that moment the door opened noiselessly and the old landlady came in. She shuffled up to Gurdweill and stood looking first at him, and then at the suitcase open on the floor.

‘Are you thinking of going abroad, Herr Gurdweill?’

He looked at her uncomprehendingly. After a moment he whispered, as if to himself: ‘Yes, yes, I’m going away somewhere … Not right away, that is … I can put it off … Certainly I can put it off … In fact, I have to put it off …’

And as if to confirm his words, he bent down and shut the suitcase with his clothes inside it, stood on a chair, and put it back on top of the wardrobe.

‘Going abroad in this cold, Herr Gurdweill!’ said the old lady.

Gurdweill did not seem to hear. He sank wearily onto the chair.

‘You’re unhappy, Herr Gurdweill. Anyone can see it. I think about you a lot. I’m always thinking about you, pssss! It’s so cold, I thought, and I just happen to have a bit of hot coffee ready — what do you say to a cup of hot coffee, Herr Gurdweill?’

Gurdweill did not hear a word she said. But as if in response to some inner question, he nodded his head, which Frau Fischer took for assent. She went and returned immediately with a steaming cup of coffee. Gurdweill sipped it mechanically, stopped, and sipped again, with the old lady standing beside him and watching him, as if she were supervising a small child or an invalid, until he had drunk it all up. Then she left the room, taking the shards of the broken cup from the table with her. For a while he went on sitting there in his hat and overcoat, and in the end he stood up, put out the lamp, and went down to the street.