He stayed awake the whole night, together with the inhabitants of the town. In the morning, when he returned home and the cracking of the ice had already abated, he felt sad and lonely once more. For the first time he experienced with a shudder a sense of what was to come. He felt that here in Zlotogrod his destiny would be fulfilled. And, for the first time in his entire brave life he was afraid. For the first time, as he arrived home in the greying dawn and lay down on the bed, he was unable to sleep. He woke his wife, Regina. Strange thoughts came to him, he had to express them. He had really wanted to ask why man was so alone. But he was ashamed and merely said: ‘Regina, now we are quite alone!’

The woman sat upright against the pillows, in a lilac nightgown. The dawn filtered sparsely through the chinks in the shutters. The woman reminded Eibenschütz of a tulip which had begun to fade during this first spring night in Zlotogrod. ‘Regina,’ said Eibenschütz, ‘I am afraid I should never have left the barracks!’

‘Three years of barracks are quite enough for me,’ said the woman, ‘now let me sleep!’

And immediately she sank back into the pillows. Eibenschütz pushed open a shutter and looked out at the street. But the dawn too looked faded. Quite faded. Even the dawn looked faded.

4

All around there were children. There were children all around. The sergeant of gendarmerie Wenzel Slama had even had twins twice in succession within twenty months. The place swarmed with children. Wherever Eibenschütz turned he saw children. They played in the gutters with the dirty water. They played marbles in the dry. They played on the old benches of Zlotogrod’s miserable park, a consumptive park, a moribund park. They played in rain and storm. They played ball and hoops and skittles. Wherever Inspector Eibenschütz turned he saw children, nothing but children. The district was fruitful, there was no doubt.

If only Inspector Eibenschütz had had children! Everything would have been different: at least so it seemed to him.