Other trains shot past. A distant, piercing whistle came blaring inside and unfamiliar voices laughed in the neighboring compartment. But the wheels kept grinding the same song over the tracks: utility poles look exactly alike, utility poles look exactly alike, when one is in flight … when one is in flight.

Am I traveling? No! I’m stuck in the same place, like a person who takes refuge in a cinema where he sits in his seat without moving as the films flicker away—and all the while his worries are lurking just outside the exit.

There was more travel in the express train game we used to play as children, when we placed three chairs one behind the other, closed our eyes, and pretended to go racing across the country at a furious speed. Back then we traveled in our minds. We were everywhere and nowhere—and still inside our room. Now I’m not really traveling, I’m merely moving.

He gave a start.

I’m sinking back into melancholy, letting myself drift off into fantasies, he thought, annoyed at himself. Meanwhile what I need to do is cling to reality, which is what it is, unreal though it may be.

“Will we be in Aachen soon?” he asked.

This time the young girl answered. “There’s still time,” she said, looking at him thoughtfully with serious brown eyes.

Silbermann thanked her. Then he asked whether she, too, was traveling there.

She nodded.

“I’m meeting my fiancé,” she volunteered, since Silbermann had evidently made a trustworthy impression. “I actually live in Dortmund, but the couple Franz works for, he’s a chauffeur, they’ve been in Aachen for three days.”

“I see,” said Silbermann.

“It’s so rare we get to see each other. He works for the director of a company from Berlin, and I work in Dortmund.”

“Why don’t you move to Berlin?” Silbermann asked sympathetically.

“I’d like to, but that won’t work. And it’ll be some time before we can get married, too.”

“And why is that?” asked the stout man, curious, setting the paper on his knee.

“Franz doesn’t earn enough for two, and on top of that we’d need to furnish a whole apartment, which would cost at least a thousand marks. And where are we supposed to come up with that?”

“But you could get a marriage loan.” Silbermann rejoined the conversation.

She shook her head vigorously.

“No,” she said, “we don’t want to start by borrowing.”

“But that’s better than nothing,” the other man said, shaking his head at such an irrational attitude.

“Besides, it’s not that simple,” she explained. “I’m not sure we’d even qualify.”

Silbermann leaned forward, interested, but before he could say anything, the other man asked, “And why wouldn’t you?” He peered inquisitively at the girl.

“Franz isn’t in the party.”

“That has nothing to do with it,” the man declared. “He would still get the loan. Just give it a try.”

The girl shook her head. “It’s no use,” she said.