These thoughts flickered through his mind, mixed up together and, as it were, simultaneously. And suddenly a girl turned into Myrthengasse who resembled Lotte in both her figure and her gait, or so, at least, it seemed to Gurdweill, whose heart stopped at the sight. And strange to say, at that moment he felt a sudden terror, in case the girl really was Lotte … When she came closer, he recoiled instinctively, and with such force that she turned to look at him. Then he saw that she was definitely not Lotte, and he began walking back to Lerchenfelder Strasse, in disappointment and despair. It was now raining steadily, a light, dreary rain. Suddenly Gurdweill was seized by a feeling of desperate urgency; he wanted to get home as quickly as possible, as if he were afraid of missing something. He hurried to the nearest tram stop and waited impatiently for the tram to come. Throughout the journey he racked his brain in vain to remember something that he had meant to buy when he left the house. In the end he gave up in despair.