“Not anymore. I’ve given it up. I begin sometime after my tenth year, at the point where I stopped praying. The rest doesn’t belong to me.”

“Then how did it come about that you remembered me?”

“That’s why I’ve come to you. You are the only witness of that time. I thought I could find again in you what I can’t find in myself. Some gesture, a word, a name with something connected with it, an awakening.” The doctor lowered his head into his cold, restless hands.

Klara pondered. “I remember so little from my childhood, as though a thousand lifetimes lay between me and it. But now that you remind me of it, something occurs to me. One evening. You came to our place unexpectedly. Your parents had gone out, to the theater or something like that. It was all lit up at our house. My father was expecting a guest, a relative, a distant, rich relative, if I remember correctly. He was supposed to be coming from . . . from . . . I don’t remember anymore where, some place far away. We had already been waiting for him for two hours. The doors were open, the lamps were burning, my mother was going to the sofa every so often to smooth out an antimacassar, my father was standing at the window. No one dared to sit down for fear of moving a chair out of its place. Since you came at this moment, you waited with us. We children listened at the door. And the later it got, the more wonderful the guest we were waiting for seemed to become. Yes, we were even trembling lest he come before he had attained the final degree of glory, which he was getting closer to with every minute he still had not arrived. We were not afraid that he might not show up at all. We knew for sure: he’s coming; but we wanted to give him all the time he needed to become great and mighty.”

Suddenly the doctor lifted his head and said sadly, “That’s something else we both know, that he didn’t come. I also haven’t forgotten.”

“No,” Klara confirmed, “he didn’t come.” And then after a pause, “But it was still wonderful!”

“What?”

“Well, the waiting, all the lamps, the stillness, the holiday feeling.” There was a movement in the next room. Klara excused herself for a moment, and then she came back, bright and cheerful, and said, “We can go in. He’s awake now and smiling. But what were you about to say?”

“I was just wondering what could have helped you to reach yourself, to get to this quiet self-possession. Life didn’t make it easy for you. But obviously something has helped you that I have missed.”

“What could that be, Georg?” Klara sat down next to him.