They drank the aromatic coffee, and Gurdweill became acquainted with the details of the little family’s life: that Franzi’s husband worked in a large textile firm, that the old woman was a widow and Franzi was her only child, but that she was not strong, as Herr Gurdweill had seen for himself, especially since giving birth to Fritzi, etc …

Gurdweill stood up to leave. He pinched Fritzi on his smooth, fat cheek; the baby cupped Gurdweill’s nose in his clumsy hand; and an alliance was cemented between the two of them. The women thanked Gurdweill again and very warmly invited him to visit them, and he said goodbye and left.

It was already almost four o’clock. When Gurdweill stepped outside, the sky was grey and overcast. Through an open window on the ground floor he saw an old woman ironing sheets with her spectacles pushed up onto her forehead and her naked eyes red and suppurating. A little boy stood on the kerb, peeing into the street. From somewhere nearby a voice crowed hoarsely and ironically: ‘Rags and bones, pots and pans!’ Gurdweill looked about him in surprise without finding the source of the voice, until he discovered a parrot in a cage on the sill of a ground-floor window, repeating the lesson he had learned from the rag-and-bone men in the morning. Gurdweill smiled to himself and continued on his way. He wondered whether to take a tram home or go on walking through the streets. A car sped past, leaving a trail of suffocating stench in its wake. Tired, dragging notes from a piano somewhere above him dropped into the quiet alley, with a somnolent effect. No — Gurdweill concluded the thought that had been simmering beneath the threshold of his consciousness — no, he would not go home now. What would he do there? He had no desire to work today. From tomorrow a long line of dreary days would begin. Ah! — he flapped his hand as if to chase away a troublesome fly. He came out into the other end of Gumpendorfer Strasse, far from the centre of the city, a very long, narrow street, full of traffic. The laughing face of the baby he had just seen flashed before his eyes, and he was overwhelmed with happiness. It had been years since he had been with a baby. None of his friends had babies. He had had to content himself with looking from afar at the babies in the streets and parks of the city. And now he had a new friend: little Fritzi! Yes, he would drop in on them again. And who knows, perhaps in a year’s time, one year’s time, or even less, he too … Gurdweill did not dare take this happy thought to its conclusion. Without thinking he found himself standing and waiting for a tram and then riding towards the city centre. And half an hour later, as if in spite of himself, he was home.