In his room he lit the lamp and began by force of habit to tend the fire in the stove. It was about seven o’clock. The rain drummed on the windowpane like a swarm of flies. Apart from a small slice of bread, there was nothing in the house to satisfy the hunger that suddenly attacked Gurdweill. He went into the kitchen and put the kettle on, and a few minutes later he was sitting in front of the open stove, dipping the bread in a cup of black coffee and chewing it without tasting anything. When he was finished, he added coals to the fire, shut the stove door, and went over to the window. The rain, perceptible now only in the jumping of the puddles in the street, increased his feeling of utter bereavement. Turning away, he glanced casually into the mirror above the washstand. He saw the upper half of the room shrouded in shadows, due to the shade of the oil lamp, and his own face, sharp, hollow, and unshaven, which looked to him like the face of a stranger, and which he found so disagreeable that he had to avert his eyes. He lay down on the couch, and waited tensely for something that he was unconsciously anticipating. At the same time he felt a distinct aversion to being with Thea. He could not bear to be in the same room with her now. Something inside him had revolted against her since Lotte’s death, something had exploded, even if it did not show on the surface and he was barely aware of it himself. Incapable of reflection in his present stupor, he did not think of her at all, but whenever her image crossed his mind an elemental, animal fury flared up in him, burning his breath and making his heart beat erratically. His whole being rose up in rebellion against her. And although he did not pass judgement on her in lucid, rational terms, he knew — with an intuitive certainty that needed no proof — that she was to blame for all his misfortunes, she was to blame for the death of the baby, she was to blame for Lotte’s death and for everything else. And suddenly Gurdweill felt in his bones that something was going to happen between them in the immediate future; there was no force in the world capable of stopping what was about to happen — and he waited. Without knowing what he was waiting for, he waited.