Yet, he acknowledged to himself as he drained his coffee cup, he had no intention of leaving. Although the Schloss was a place of night cries, where shadows grew large on the walls, it held out possibilities for change. There was something in the air that had seduced him.

The shock of reading Jacques’s letters home from America had begun to lessen. Europeans at the last frontier would always wonder at their own insignificance, like Cortez when from his mountaintop he first saw not the end of the world, as they had expected, but a boundless new ocean. In Panama, Anton had been one of a handful of people to see the subjection of nature to man’s will. He should feel blessed, not disappointed because others had felt alone and overawed before him.

Going downstairs, he went into the main house and waited in the hall till he saw Martha’s door open.

‘Have you got a moment?’

Martha looked at the watch she kept pinned to her blouse. ‘Ten minutes?’

Sitting in her office, he said, ‘I wonder if it would be possible for me to stay on here. As a patient.’

‘Why?’ Martha stifled a laugh. ‘What exactly is the matter?’

‘I was hoping you’d tell me.’

‘All right. Let me try again. What are your symptoms, Herr Heideck?’

Anton looked out of the window, over the sloping lawns. ‘Fear.’

‘Can you tell me more?’

‘Of time passing. Before I can understand. The need to stare at something. At experience. Only to discover that it’s meaningless. Living with that emptiness. And with the knowledge of what I’ve seen. Of what men are.’

‘Perhaps you should be consulting a philosopher,’ said Martha. ‘Or a religious teacher.’

‘I think not. I think that my … intellectual difficulties are caused by an emotional impasse. Something I need help to clear. Like a Panamanian mudslide.’

‘Well, it sounds interesting enough. A challenge, you could say.’

‘So will you take me on?’

‘We’d have to charge you, like any other patient. And in fact we charge a little more to well-dressed Viennese than to people from the villages who … who have what we might call more medical symptoms.’

‘I understand. I may need to buy some more clothes. Shirts and so on.’

‘There are plenty of shops in town. Joseph can take you in.’

‘I wonder if it would be possible for me to stay in the same room. I can pay whatever seems right. It’s just that I find it conducive to work. And I sleep well there. Now that I’ve got used to that wretched bell clanging every ten minutes.’

‘I’ll speak to Daisy,’ said Martha. ‘And I’ll have a word with Dr Bernthaler and see if we can find you someone to talk to.’

‘I rather thought it might be you.’

‘I don’t have much spare time at the moment.’

‘I’ve been impressed by our conversations.’

‘Leave it to me for the time being.’

‘Thank you.’

‘We’ll see you at dinner. It’s Wiener schnitzel tonight, I believe. That should make you feel at home.’