He laughed in a tone that was both condescending and benign. “Charming,” he said, “that’s absolutely charming! What would you do if you were in my place? Imagine you were Jewish, and that you still had a bit of wealth, but were trying to escape. What would you do?”

“Honestly I would enjoy myself enormously,” she asserted, beaming. “I would simply start living as though each day were my last, and I would get more out of a single day than everyone else gets out of a whole year. I would—but you’re laughing at me. Why are you laughing?” She wrinkled her brow, annoyed.

“How do you picture that exactly?” he asked, once again serious. “Do you think you could enjoy yourself if they’d stormed into your apartment three days earlier? If you knew where your relatives were staying but couldn’t visit them? If you had to be afraid of every SA man because he could arrest you on a whim?”

“Are you married?” she asked, without countering his objections.

“I am…” He was silent. Perhaps that’s no longer true, he thought. Perhaps I only used to be married. Certainly I’m on my own right now. Now I am completely alone!

“And your wife?”

“She escaped to her brother’s. He’s Aryan,” he answered mechanically.

“That’s terrible,” she said, taking a small bar of chocolate from her purse. She peeled off the silver paper, studied the chocolate thoughtfully, offered him some, then broke off a little piece, which she put in her mouth and began to chew slowly.

“But isn’t there any way to defend yourself?” she asked again, after chewing awhile in silence.

“Yes, I could throw myself in front of the train. Then it would stop for two minutes while they shoved my corpse off to the side. Do you really think that I, Otto Silbermann, could intervene in world history? You really are a romantic.”

Now the conversation really was beginning to tire her.

“You ought to look at the humorous side of the matter,” she suggested.

He looked at her bewildered. “No,” he then said decisively. “That’s too deep for me. Which humorous side? Who could expect me to laugh at my own misfortune? Do you laugh when you break a leg? Is your own sense of humor that big?”

“Maybe,” she replied, and his excitement made a greater impression on her than his words.

“I don’t believe that entirely,” he contradicted. “In any case, I can’t imagine that you’d think being spit on is a good practical joke.”

“No, I would not!” She sounded indignant. “What kind of preposterous idea is that?”

“It’s not my idea, but let’s leave it be.”

They looked at each other in silence. “I see that there is a certain resemblance,” she then said quietly. “He also has this dry earnestness.”

“Who? Ah … your lawyer?”