Other people were smarter. Other people are always smarter! If I’d realized in time what was going on, I could have saved my money. But everyone was constantly reassuring me, Becker more than anybody. And fool that I am, I let myself be reassured. Which is why I’m stranded here. The devil take the hindmost. An old but true saying. And this time I happen to be the hindmost. But aren’t there still six hundred thousand Jews living in Greater Germany? How do they manage? Oh, they’ll know how to take care of themselves. Other people always know better. Just not me, even though I wasn’t born yesterday, either!

Maybe things aren’t half so bad, and the whole business is one big psychosis. But no, I should finally acknowledge the reality of the situation: things are going to get worse—much, much worse! Moreover, the fact that it takes someone like Becker to disabuse me shouldn’t come as a surprise. The scoundrel. But what good does it do to get worked up? I have to get out of Germany! Only there’s no place to go! To make it out of here you have to leave your money behind, and to be let in elsewhere you have to show you still have it. It’s enough to drive a person mad! If you dare do anything, you risk getting punished, and if you do nothing you’ll be punished all the more. It’s just like in school. If you did the math problems completely on your own you’d get an “unsatisfactory,” while if you copied off a better student you’d get a “good”—unless you were caught, and then you’d get a “fail.” Which is what you would have gotten in the first place if you’d been entirely honest and hadn’t even attempted to solve the problem: one way or the other, you always wind up with the same result.

He smiled sadly and lit a cigarette.

Nevertheless I have to try to make it out, he thought, and sighed. Except I know I’ll wind up right inside the barbed wire. I see it coming.

He reached for his briefcase and placed it behind him, against the back of his chair, just to feel secure.

Forty-one thousand marks, he thought, that’s still something! Even in the Third Reich. I count myself lucky that I recovered that much. If I’d been a little more sensible when I spoke with Becker, I probably could have salvaged even more. But when faced with such despicable behavior, who could avoid getting riled up, let alone be able to coolly assess the situation?

Silbermann only now realized that for some time he’d been looking a few tables away at an attractive woman of about thirty who was wearing a green dress. The woman smiled faintly—just enough to encourage him.