Now she stood naked in front of the washstand, while Gurdweill lay sprawled on the couch next to the opposite wall, with only her back visible to him. Her head turbaned in a towel to keep her hair from getting wet, she scrubbed her back with a rust-coloured rubber sponge, and her buttocks quivered lewdly. Gurdweill puffed on his short pipe — lately he had taken to smoking a pipe — his face pale and tired. In the past six months he had aged: the lines at the sides of his mouth had deepened, and a few faint wrinkles had appeared on his fine, white forehead. He stood up and went over to his wife and stroked her affectionately on her wet back. She said in a tone of command, without turning her head, ‘Go and make coffee, Rudolfus! I’m famished. Is there any butter left?’

‘N-no.’

‘Then go down and buy some!’

‘But the shop’s shut. You know yourself … it’s Sunday …’

‘What? The shop’s shut?’ She turned round abruptly, an ominous expression on her face. ‘Why didn’t you go before?’

Gurdweill stood facing her, small and skinny, his eyes on a level with her full, white breasts, which had a faint tracery of bluish veins under their delicate skin. He was silent. ‘Naked people are a little ridiculous when they’re angry …’ The idea popped into his head. ‘Ridiculous, definitely ridiculous, and not very imposing at all …’

But Thea screamed: ‘I must have butter — even if you have to search the whole of Vienna! There must be a shop open in Praterstrasse!’

And she pushed him towards the door.

Gurdweill, naturally, went to look for butter. He searched for a long time until he found some in Novaragasse, in a little Jewish shop, which he entered furtively through a courtyard. After about half an hour he was back at home. Thea was still naked.

‘Did you get it?’ she asked as soon as he opened the door. ‘What took you so long?’

Her anger subsided slightly at the sight of the butter.

‘Well, what are you waiting for? Go and put the water on for coffee.’

Gurdweill poured the coffee for himself and Thea, spread the butter, and they sat down to eat. He ate in silence, since he knew that Thea was already irritated, and anything he said would only provoke her further. Thea chewed her food with a hearty appetite. A silence settled on the house, broken from time to time by the distant rattle of a tram in Heinestrasse or Nordbahnstrasse.

After appeasing her initial hunger, Thea inclined her head towards the breasts exposed between the gaping lapels of her dressing-gown and said, ‘I’ve decided to have an operation, rabbit. I don’t want such big breasts. They get on my nerves.’