Thea jumped off the couch and went up to the mirror hanging over the washstand. With both hands she lifted her breasts up and weighed them for a moment, as if she wanted to know exactly how much they weighed. Then she got dressed.

On Sundays, as on other holidays from work, when they weren’t invited to Thea’s parents for lunch, they usually prepared themselves a simple meal at home. Their salaries were insufficient for their needs, and they were always short of money. Especially Gurdweill. For Thea spent almost all their earnings, his and hers, on herself. She never denied herself anything she fancied. And then she would always come and ask Gurdweill for money. For their daily needs there was nothing left. Even though he was now earning two hundred and twenty-five schillings a month at Dr Kreindel’s, which was quite enough for one person to live on, especially a person whose needs were as modest as Gurdweill’s, he never had a penny in his pocket and was always begging for loans of nonsensical sums of money, as before, in order to buy himself bad tobacco or a slice of bread. He was actually even hungrier and more debt-ridden than before.