‘You know, Herr Vrubiczek,’ Gurdweill suddenly said in a whisper, without raising his head, which had drooped right down, ‘once, more than a year ago, I had a strange dream. I dreamed that my left leg was amputated. At first I didn’t know why, but it immediately became clear to me that I owed this leg to my sister in America, and the whole thing seemed perfectly natural to me. And I didn’t feel the lack of this leg at all when I was walking, because I immediately found a way around it: I remembered the way children hop on one leg with the other one tucked up when they play, and I did exactly the same, to everybody’s astonishment. But on the other hand, one of my arms suddenly grew very long, several yards long, so that when I stood on one side of the street I could take something out of a shop on the other. And when I lay down to sleep, I had to fold this arm ten or fifteen times, like you fold a timber merchant’s measuring rod, and in the end it really turned into a kind of measuring rod and I was very sorry about it.’

Vrubiczek gave him a quick glance as he worked, scratched his shorn grey head with the handle of his hammer, and said nothing. For some reason it occurred to him that Gurdweill was not happy at all, and he pitied him.

In the meantime the singing in the courtyard had died down. Without thinking, Gurdweill took a mended woman’s shoe down from the shelf, turned it this way and that, examined it closely, and returned it to its place. Vrubiczek finished attaching the heel to the shoe and began smoothing and trimming it with his knife, making a curious faint squeaking sound, like a mouse. From time to time he glanced at his guest, who went on sitting slumped on his stool, as if sunk in heavy thoughts. But to Gurdweill it suddenly seemed that Vrubiczek’s silence had lasted too long, and that there was some hidden intention behind it, perhaps some resentment against himself. At the same time he decided not to go to visit Thea’s father that day, as he had intended doing in the morning. It would certainly be too late now. He took out his watch and glanced at it, immediately forgot what it said, and looked again: a quarter past six already! And Vrubiczek was still not finished.

‘How late do you work, Herr Vrubiczek?’

‘As late as I have to, of course! But usually till about six o’clock.’