‘Dr Kreindel is busy at the moment. If you would be good enough to wait a few minutes, over here,’ and he indicated a chair.

This delay was not at all to Gurdweill’s liking. He hated waiting more than anything. But he was eager to get the whole thing behind him, and so he sat down on the chair, firmly resolved not to wait for more than fifteen minutes.

There were no customers in the bookshop. From time to time the red-headed assistant climbed a ladder and rummaged busily among the rows of volumes on the shelves, bringing down a pile of books and placing them on the tables below. Next to the entrance, in the cashier’s booth, a young woman sat reading. She paid no attention at all to Gurdweill, who was sitting not far from her. In order to pass the time, he tried to read the names of the volumes on the shelves opposite him, on the other side of the long table stacked with books, straining his eyes in the effort. From outside, the muffled roar of the city reached his ears. Without any obvious connection, he suddenly remembered the wet ground on the banks of the Danube after they had lifted the body of the dead girl, and his heart contracted. Sitting here and waiting suddenly seemed completely superfluous and pointless. He placed his squashed brown hat on his knees and began rummaging through his pockets for a cigarette, but found nothing. Unthinkingly he turned to look at the young cashier. ‘She seems completely absorbed in her book,’ he said to himself. ‘I wonder if I can distract her by staring hard enough.’ He fixed his eyes in a concentrated stare on a certain point on her cheek, close to the ear. After a moment the cashier really did become distracted: she passed her hand over her dark-gold hair, cut like a boy’s, rubbed her ear, and in the end she turned to Gurdweill and looked at him absent-mindedly. From the expression on her face, it looked as if she were trying to remember something she had forgotten. Then she began reading again. Pleased with his experiment, Gurdweill stood up, as if inspired by a new courage, and informed the assistant that he had no time to wait any longer.

The assistant led him through a narrow passageway, lit by an electric bulb and stacked with boxes reaching to the ceiling on both sides, and, after knocking briefly, ushered him into the owner’s office. Dr Kreindel, who was sitting behind a large desk facing the door, jumped up at their entrance as if bitten by a snake.

‘How many times have I told you not to disturb me while I’m working!’

‘The gentleman has already been waiting for some time,’ the assistant said apologetically, indicating Gurdweill.