It was about six o’clock. A delicate film of snow covered the pavement. It was cold, but the snow had stopped. Gurdweill stepped out briskly, as if in a hurry to get to some appointment in time. When he reached the Praterstern, he waited at the tram stop. Driven by some hidden force, he was impelled to go somewhere, he knew not where, and he got onto the first tram that arrived. He sat huddled in a corner, his head hunched between his shoulders and his coat collar raised. Under the hat pulled down over his forehead, his face was shrivelled, hollow, and covered with the stubble of a two-day-old beard; his glassy eyes stared fixedly at the legs of the passenger opposite him. With every nerve strained, he listened to the tram wheels skipping over the rails, to the slightest jar and jolt, to the staccato blasts of the conductor on his whistle. And as he did so he counted the stations: seven, up to now. Then he raised his eyes and with a great effort recognised Schwarzenbergplatz. He got off and walked automatically to the number 71 tram stop. He did not have to wait long, but there was a long way to go. One by one the passengers descended: the suburb came to an end and nobody needed to go any further. Now the coach sped deafeningly over the rails, swaying and jolting violently, and Gurdweill was the only passenger left, a fact of which he was quite unconscious. In the end the tram shuddered to a halt, rattling its windowpanes. ‘Last stop!’ cried the conductor, and Gurdweill jumped up and alighted in a deserted parking lot, fitfully illuminated by a few widely spaced streetlamps. For a moment he stood still, as if trying to make up his mind which way to turn, and then continued walking straight ahead, in the direction of the tram. There was not a soul to be seen anywhere. An icy wind blew here unimpeded, churning up flimsy columns of snow. The city roar reached his ears from the distance, insubstantial as the driven snow, and nearer at hand the tram creaked once or twice before setting off on its way. And then there was the silence, which seemed to have a sound of its own. Gurdweill walked straight down the middle of the lot, swaying from time to time, just like the empty tram before. After about two hundred steps, he found himself in front of the entrance to the Central Cemetery. The gate was closed, and a stone wall, higher than a man, surrounded the graveyard: a vast, quiet city, inhabited by many sleeping generations. A single lamp cast a weak light over the semi-circular porch. Gurdweill tried to open the gate and the low wicket beside it, and found them locked. Then he began pacing to and fro in front of the porch, in the vague hope that the gate might accidentally open. In the distance a dog began to howl, stopping and starting again at intervals. After walking up and down for about twenty minutes, he thought the better of it and set out to circle the walls, in case he might find another opening. But the wall was interminable, and he soon realised that he would never have the strength to walk all the way round it. He retraced his steps and stood in front of the main entrance again. If anyone had asked him what he was waiting for, he would surely not have known how to reply. It seemed that he did not even really know where he was. He had made the journey unconsciously, in a state verging on a hypnotic trance. He only knew that something terrible had happened to him in this place, and that the shadow it had cast on his soul burned and cut him without stopping. Here, at the scene of the event, perhaps it might still be possible to mend matters, to erase, change, restore something to its previous state. And he waited for something that was about to happen, that was sure to happen in the next few minutes. But nothing happened. For an hour he waited and nothing happened. And suddenly, as if for the first time, he was pierced by the devastating certainty that it was no longer possible to mend anything, neither now nor in the future; that Lotte was really dead and that she had been buried here, that morning; and that from now on all was lost, hopelessly and irretrievably. An inhuman fear seized him and cut off his breath. For a moment he stood rooted to the spot, and then he began to run, to flee for his life towards the city. He stumbled and fell, got up, and went on running, without noticing that he had already passed the first tram stop. He did not stop until he was in the suburban streets, among the first rows of houses and the occasional cheap café or tavern. He stood and glanced rapidly around him, as if to make sure that he was not being followed. All of a sudden he realised the insanity and senselessness of his flight, and once more he felt a tremor of fear, but a different fear this time, not of anyone outside him, but of himself — at the mercy of every passing wind to buffet him as it would, without his being able to offer the least resistance. He felt a dull pain in his head, which was as heavy as a lump of lead. He picked up a handful of snow and pressed it to his forehead. ‘Ah, I’m mad, mad!’ he groaned, walking on, but calmly now, like someone out for an evening stroll. He went mechanically into a small restaurant, had something to eat, and then walked to the nearest tram stop and rode home.