I’ll simply show up too late, he decided. Then everything will be over before anything ever began, and there won’t even be the bad feeling of having missed out on something. Besides, it’s perfectly possible that she won’t have come. This way I won’t know if she did or didn’t.

Anyway, what can this Ursula Angelhof mean for me? An affair? As if I needed that. I have plenty of problems already.

He slowed his pace even more, and stopped when he caught sight of the Gedächtniskirche.

I have to gather my wits, he resolved, and focus on the circumstances. Surely that will convince me to stop and turn around.

He kept going.

This woman really doesn’t mean anything to me at all, he thought. I already know her better than I ought to.

He picked up his pace. It was already 3:50.

She’s bound to have left by now, he thought, and didn’t know whether he was bothered or reassured by the idea. I’m actually counting on her not being there!

He stopped once again.

Even I realize how ridiculous I’m being, he decided. She’s nothing but a little sensation seeker. And is that what I really want? A chance to be her sensation? Does a man risk the fate of his family for a pair of will-o’-the-wisp eyes?

He stepped into the café.

“Hopefully,” he mumbled to himself, not knowing exactly what he meant. He strolled through the large room, scanning the tables, but there was no sign of her. She won’t even have come, he told himself. An insignificant incident on the express train, that’s all it was. But that notion didn’t suit him, either, nor did he want to have come in vain. I could have spared myself the trip, he thought, annoyed, then sat down at a table and ordered a coffee.

He found the orchestra very irritating.

When all is said and done I feel like such a clown, he mused. On the one hand, I’m hoping she’ll come and at the same time I’m persuading myself I no longer expect her, and the truth is I believe both things at once.

He placed a coin on the table and stood up.

Adieu, Ursula Angelhof, he thought, taking his leave in silence. It’s fine with me that it all turned out this way. That you didn’t come. Besides, he consoled himself as he left the café, if I absolutely want to see her again I can always look up her address in the telephone book. But it’s really not that important to me.

He headed to the train station. On the way he faulted himself for having thought too little about his wife during the past few days.