“May I then ask why you thought I might be one?”

“Isn’t that unimportant?”

“I’d be interested to learn the reason, but of course I don’t want to insist.”

“You reminded me of someone,” she explained.

“Hopefully to my advantage,” he joked.

She laughed, and once again scrutinized him freely. “Comparisons are difficult,” she said, finally.

“I guess I don’t come out so well in the balance?”

They both laughed.

There’s something about the woman that might be called easy, Silbermann thought. Perhaps I’m only imagining it, since I know more about her than I ought to. In any case I’ve met people dead set on showing how proper they are whom I found less pleasant. He looked at her. A beautiful fever, he thought, without knowing exactly why that image had occurred to him.

“May I permit myself a question?” he inquired.

“Why not?” she said. “After all, it’s up to me if I choose to answer.”

“I wanted to ask you who it is I resemble.”

“That’s unimportant,” she said, now cooler.

“But it’s somehow on my mind.”

“Let’s just leave it at that,” she said, and went back to her magazine.

At what? he asked himself.

Silbermann noticed she was holding the magazine close to her face. She’s nearsighted but too vain to wear glasses. He found this minor double foible very endearing, almost touching. He pretended to be deep in thought, while in reality he continued to study her face, which relaxed as she read. Her forehead wasn’t very high, he decided. In fact, it might almost be called low. He concluded that she couldn’t be a very difficult or overly complicated person. On the other hand … In any case I’ll never find out, he thought, with regret, and let out another sigh.

“Are things that bad?” she asked him, part ironically, part sympathetically. Silbermann sensed kindness in her voice: a genuine, womanly kindness.

“Things are even worse,” he answered. That was supposed to sound self-ironic, but his smile seemed forced.

“Worries?” she asked, in a tone that was both interested and accommodating, but not without distance. “No doubt to do with your business.”

She shook her head gracefully, to indicate how little she understood about the world of transactions, meetings, company foundings, and bankruptcies.

“No,” was all he said.

This clearly piqued her interest. She was probably more familiar with personal worries, and now undoubtedly relegated his to the realm of emotions. While the merger of two firms might be foreign to her, she clearly knew something about disagreements between two people.

“What kind of worries can a businessman possibly have if not about business?” she asked.

Her question wasn’t crude curiosity. All Silbermann heard was interest, pure human interest.

“Not everything is always about money,” he replied, “although I’m the last man in the world who would deny its importance.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said.

He was silent. Finally he made a visible effort and asked, “Madam, would you say that I resemble a human being?”