But this was only a pale echo of his former rage, which had faded in the meantime to a painful kind of bitterness. The whole thing suddenly seemed unimportant, as if it had nothing to do with him. He bowed his head in resignation. He no longer heard what was said to him, except as a muffled sound coming from another room. A sudden pallor covered his face and he felt like crying. At the same time a scene from another time and place flashed into his mind. His mother was standing next to him and placing a cold compress on his brow. He was ill in bed. His mother bent over him, and for some reason he placed his hand on her back. The first touch of the compress was icy cold and made his teeth chatter, but gradually he felt its soothing effect: his headache was a little better. His mother straightened up and remained standing beside him. She smiled at him very lovingly. Then she asked: ‘Is it a little better, baby? Soon you’ll be fine again!’ But Gurdweill said nothing. He lay looking at his mother’s delicate face, its pure, transparent skin, and he did not want to open his mouth to speak. He was glad that she was there next to him, looking after him and loving him. Gurdweill saw all this as if he were split in two: one observing and one lying sick in bed. And the strangest thing of all was that Gurdweill’s appearance as an infant was no different from his appearance today. It seemed to him too that the sick Gurdweill was unshaven, and he felt a quick pang of regret. The whole scene was over in half a minute. He did not see the events taking place one after the other, but all at once, one next to the other, as it were. And suddenly everything disappeared. His hand was playing absent-mindedly with the empty glass on the table, and his head was hanging on his chest. Suddenly he felt a tremendous heaviness in his head and a dull pain. He raised his head and fixed his eyes on Thea with a puzzled, glassy look. ‘We’re not such heroes … When it comes to a little headache we’re not such heroes, are we?’

And a moment later: ‘Ah, Th-Thea, pour me a little wine! M-Mother’s gone …’

‘What are you mumbling about, rabbit?’ Thea laughed. ‘What mother?’ (‘Rabbit’ was her pet name for Gurdweill, on account of his shortness and quick movements.)

‘Oh, never mind!’ Gurdweill collected himself. ‘Let’s go soon, eh?’

‘Just a little longer!’ replied Thea. And in a whisper: ‘The two of us will go and enjoy ourselves afterwards, won’t we?’

And she looked deliberately at Lotte, as if she wanted her to understand.

‘Yes, yes,’ answered Gurdweill mechanically without taking in a single word.