I really was not afraid. I knew what I was getting into was criminal, and that I’d be finished as a lawyer if I were caught. I didn’t care. Irene and I would find a different life, a better life. We could go to America, I would wait tables at night and study during the day, and soon I’d be on top of things again, as a lawyer or doctor, or engineer. If the Americans did not want a convicted lawyer – why not to Mexico? I had found it easy to learn English and French at school; I could learn Spanish easily too.

But before I fell asleep I was shaking; my teeth chattered. I shivered, even after I’d covered my bed with all the blankets I had. Finally, I fell asleep. In the morning I woke up drenched, in a bed soaked with sweat.

And then I felt fine again. I felt light, and at the same time I felt a wild, irresistible power. It was a wonderful, unique feeling. I do not remember having felt that way before or since.

It was Sunday. I ate breakfast on the balcony, the sun was shining, the birds in the trees were singing, and from the church, the bells rang out. I thought about marriage, whether Irene had got married in church, and would want to get married in church, and whether church meant something to her. I dreamed of our shared life in Frankfurt, first on this balcony, then on the balcony of a larger apartment next to the Palm Garden, then in a garden under the old trees on the other side of the river. Then I dreamed of us leaning on the railing of a ship taking us across the Atlantic. I bid farewell to everything: to the firm, to this city, to its people. It was a painless goodbye. For my old life I felt only a friendly indifference.

I left early but I didn’t arrive too early. There was a village fête; the square and main road were blocked off and the side streets were clogged with traffic. I parked at the cemetery and found a path through the vineyards which I thought was a shortcut but turned out not to be. In the woods I came across the road that led to Gundlach’s neighbourhood. When the first car passed me it occurred to me that Schwind would also take this road, and I could not let myself be seen by him; from then on I followed the road under trees, and through the brush.