33

After a sleepless night full of nightmarish visions, Gurdweill spent the whole of the next day in a frantic search for Lotte, popping in and out of the Café Herrenhof and even going twice to her house, where something prevented him on both occasions from going upstairs. The whole day long he did not meet a single acquaintance, as if they had all entered into some conspiracy against him. And the day after that — a Thursday, stabbed by sharp needles of rain — he went into the café in the afternoon, and was just about to leave again when he bumped into Ulrich in the vestibule.

‘Arsenic!’ he blurted out in a choking voice that sounded more like the bellow of a slaughtered bull than a human voice. ‘The night before last!’

Gurdweill felt an icy coldness sliding down his spine. He knew the answer to his question before he asked it. ‘Who? Who?’

‘Lotte … It was too late to save her …’

Gurdweill leaned against the wall to stop himself from falling. Ulrich, who was standing in front of him with his head bowed, was suddenly transformed into a dark, shapeless clod; he grew huge, immense, blotting out the daylight. All at once it was black as night. The darkness lasted — who could tell how long it lasted! When daylight returned, Ulrich was still standing with his head bowed, as before. And only now did something hit Gurdweill in the face like a bullet from a gun. The heart was torn from his body and fell into a deep pit, leaving him an empty husk. He saw Lotte lying on her back with her eyes on the ceiling. She was lying right there, between him and Ulrich, and they could not make her get up. People going in and out stole curious glances at the two men standing motionless in the vestibule. Nothing made any difference, since Lotte did not want to get up. Gurdweill wanted to scream, but his voice was inaudible. Later, Ulrich woke up, seized him by the arm, and dragged him into the street. Shoulder to shoulder they walked, lost and silent, for half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half. The darkness advancing along the streets was forced to submit to the lamps, which went on just in time. Afterwards Gurdweill found himself alone in one of the ancient winding alleys in the city centre. Ulrich was no longer with him. And Gurdweill remembered that Ulrich had informed him on parting that she would be buried tomorrow, at ten o’clock in the morning, in the Central Cemetery. It was very strange. Who on earth were they going to bury? That Ulrich sometimes came out with the most outlandish ideas! Ah, now he had no one! — the dreadful certainty struck him like a lightning bolt. He was alone, all alone in the world! He stood still and looked fearfully around him. The alley was ill lit and there were no shops in it. It was a short, deserted side alley with very old buildings, into which people seldom strayed. Suddenly alarmed by the desolation, Gurdweill began to hurry, almost to run, to the end of the alley, and turned into another, just as desolate, where he slowed down, as if the danger had passed. About twenty paces ahead of him, there was a man with an open umbrella. So it was raining! Gurdweill lifted his eyes to the misty sky, and a few drops fell onto his upturned face, giving him a rather pleasant feeling. On a sign shrouded in darkness he made out the letter ‘M’ at the beginning of a name engraved in big gold letters. And suddenly the picture of a brightly lit room flashed before his eyes, with a big mirror hanging on the wall, and in it, at the side, a black silhouette. He heard Lotte’s voice: ‘All is lost! He’s staying with her!’ … But it simply wasn’t true … He couldn’t stay with her! To Lotte he could bare his heart: he hated her! He was ready to leave right away! Italy — what a wonderful idea! There was no need to make any preparations! As long as she stopped lying there like that with her eyes fixed on the ceiling! Because he simply couldn’t bear it …

The rain began to come down a little harder, and Gurdweill mechanically turned his coat collar up. He came out now into the Schottenring, crossed the road and began walking along the iron fence of the Rathauspark. A tram rang its bell and stopped; people crowded onto it; the tram started again, hooting hoarsely and vigorously ringing its bell — Gurdweill neither saw nor heard any of this. The pavements gleamed wetly, dark orange in the light of the streetlamps. Next to the railing of the bridge, under which the tracks of the metropolitan railway line shone in the darkness, he stopped for a moment, glanced down unseeingly, and immediately resumed walking. Without thinking, he turned into the Hauptstrasse of the Landstrasse district, which was rather steep at this point, and walked past large warehouses, some of which were still open. But the bright lights of this main street seemed to bother him, for he immediately turned into the first side alley.

When he said to her then, that woven shoes were not practical, and that you could easily catch cold in them in the rain, she didn’t listen … and now — could anyone really blame him? He would have to write her a letter, since he couldn’t go and visit her, and have it all out with her in detail. But she was dead, dead! The knowledge hit him with such force that for a moment it stopped his breath. He pressed his hand to his chest. He had to exert the remnants of his strength to keep his body upright, for the earth was pulling him down with all its strength. And tomorrow at ten o’clock, tomorrow at ten o’clock, she would be buried! Ah, what had he done, what had he done? If only he could put it right! He would have done anything now; he would have given his life to take it back, to wipe it out! A blind, bestial rage against Thea suddenly surged up in him, and his hands clenched into fists at his sides. It was all her fault! All her fault! Gurdweill thought he would go mad with helpless fury. He groaned aloud. And Lotte — why had she done it, why? She should have waited a while! In the course of time they could have worked things out! Didn’t he himself want to be free? All he needed was a little time: he couldn’t detach himself so suddenly, from one day to the next! And now it was all for nothing!

The rain kept coming down, and Gurdweill went on wandering from street to street, standing still from time to time as if trying to make up his mind about something, and immediately setting off again. He walked down streets in which he had never set foot before, without noticing their strangeness. On the corner of one of these streets he was accosted by a young girl making an early start. He stared at her in blank incomprehension for a moment, and then turned his back on her. Only after walking about a hundred yards did he realise what she wanted, and he was amazed that anyone could still regard him as a living human being when everything, as far as he was concerned, was over. He was tired but he took no notice of it: from now on there was no rest for him. Impelled by some secret wish to survive, he pressed on relentlessly: he had to increase the distance between himself and what had happened — so that he would not collapse beneath the burden of the ghastly tragedy, so that he would be able to go on breathing a little longer — but the distance did not increase by a single jot. Even the extremity of his physical fatigue did not dull the sharpness of the pain.

It must have been about half past eight. It had stopped raining. The air was unseasonably warm. The network of suburban alleys brought to mind some dead provincial town. Gurdweill walked on. Suddenly, without knowing how he got there, he found himself in a large hall, apparently a restaurant, where a few people were sitting and eating. Blinded by the bright lights, he peered around the room for a moment as if looking for someone, and then sank onto a chair next to a table near the entrance, without taking off his hat or coat. The waitress came to take his order.

What would he like to eat? Gurdweill stared at her stupidly. He didn’t want anything to eat! He wasn’t hungry at the moment.

‘Something to drink, then?’

‘Certainly not! That least of all.’

‘But this is a restaurant, sir; you have to eat something!’

‘And if I’m not in the least hungry?’

‘Then you’ve come to the wrong place! Nobody comes here unless they want to eat.’

‘Yes, you’re quite right! I must have come to the wrong place by mistake.’ And he rose to his feet and walked out of the restaurant, to the astonishment of the waitress.

He began wandering the streets again in a daze, as if his senses had been stupefied by a shot of morphine. He had nowhere to go. The anguish of his feelings reached his conscious mind dimly, as if through a fog. From time to time he became aware of a need to go to Lotte and speak to her frankly — she had to be made to understand that it wasn’t his fault … How could she blame him for even a fraction of a second? He wasn’t to know how far things had gone … But now that he realised the seriousness of the situation — obviously, it went without saying — he was completely free to do whatever he felt like … And he had plenty of spare time too: he didn’t have to look after Martin anymore … He could go to Italy, or anywhere else; it was up to Lotte to choose. It was only a question of getting a passport and so on … He would leave Thea a note … Or perhaps he wouldn’t leave anything … As long as she, Lotte, agreed to wait a few more days … only a few more days … And also: not to go on lying there like that; he begged her to stop lying there like that. She couldn’t travel anywhere lying down — surely she could understand that for herself … Besides, she must have all kinds of things to do, to prepare herself for the trip … And Thea — ah, how sorry she would be when she saw that the bird had flown the cage, ha-ha-ha! Gurdweill stopped his distracted wandering for a moment and laughed aloud. He was standing on Radetzkyplatz, a fact of which he was quite unaware. Then he hurried off again, talking to himself and gesticulating as she walked. What an idiot that Ulrich was! Thinking he could pull the wool over his, Gurdweill’s, eyes — that would be the day! — when he was the only one who knew how matters really stood. How astonished everyone would be: all of a sudden he would be gone! ‘Where’s Gurdweill? He’s gone to Italy! Turned up trumps in the end, that Gurdweill! We always knew he had something in him!’ …

‘And guess what, dearest, I’ve got a little money of my own as well! Yesterday my sister sent me something from America, and I’m expecting a cheque from my publisher as well. We can leave tomorrow! The money will be enough for our travelling expenses, and after that we’ll see … It’s a pity Martin can’t come with us, though! Dr Ostwald won’t allow it, I’m sure … But it doesn’t matter a bit: we’ll be able to come and visit him from time to time. It’s not so far, after all!’

Unthinkingly he entered a little café. He came back to reality with a jolt. Ah, what would he do, what would he do! He groaned in despair. He sat down at a table and supported his aching head in his hands, just as Lotte had done on that last afternoon.

‘It’s all one to me!’ he replied to the waiter who asked him for his order.

‘Coffee, beer?’

He nodded without looking at him.

The waiter went off and returned with a cup of coffee. For a long time he sat with his head in his hands without touching the coffee. The hour of midnight approached, closing time for cafés of this kind, and the waiter came to settle the bill.

Gurdweill went out into the night again. The streets were deserted. It was not raining, but the paving stones were still wet from the previous rain. Gurdweill crossed the Sophia Bridge. Suddenly it came home to him that what had happened was irreversible. He sensed something around him and inside him rushing with terrifying speed into a deep pit. No force in the world could stop it. And even if he had been able to stop it, he might not have wanted to. Dimly he saw something coming to an end in front of his eyes, but he did not know how or what. Only now he realised how much he needed Lotte, how attached he was to her. Without his being aware of it, she had been his last support; unconsciously he had been nourished by her, by the mere fact of her presence — and now the end had come. Lotte was no longer on earth and nothing had any value anymore, and he himself had no value anymore. He wanted to shout at the top of his voice to all the world that Lotte was gone forever.

He walked slowly past the Praterstern, his head hunched between his shoulders. By force of habit his feet carried him home. In front of the door he paused for a moment, as if deliberating with himself. In the end he rang the bell. Thea was already asleep; the room was in darkness. Gurdweill did not light the lamp. He pushed the bedclothes piled on the couch to the wall and sat down. For a long time he sat still in the dark. Then he lay down without taking off his clothes or making his bed, and fell into a heavy sleep.

At eight o’clock Gurdweill woke and sat up with a start. The knowledge that Lotte was dead pierced him like lightning. In an instant he was wide awake, but at the same time he felt exhausted, as if he had not slept all night. A grey day streamed through the windows. Gurdweill cast a glance at the bed, and the sight of Thea lying open-eyed with her hands clasped behind her head renewed all his furious rage of the day before at this woman lying there so calmly, as if nothing had changed. She called out to him to get breakfast, and jumped out of bed herself and went to wash.

‘Why are you sitting there like a dummy?’ she scolded when he did not move. ‘Go and make the coffee!’

He stood up and went into the kitchen. When he returned with the coffee, Thea was already dressed. He put the coffeepot on the table and went to wash.

‘Well, why don’t you pour it out?’

She sat down at the table and waited for Gurdweill to take out the dishes, spread the butter, pour the coffee, and serve her breakfast. He did all this like a machine, without saying a word or looking at his wife. He himself took a gulp of coffee while standing up, and put his cup down again.

‘Why don’t you drink?’ said Thea, provoked by his silence and his strange behaviour. ‘Sit down and drink your coffee like a human being!’

‘I don’t feel like it. Nobody can force me to. I don’t feel like it.’

‘Idiot!’

She finished eating and went out. Soon afterwards Gurdweill left too, got on a tram, and reached the cemetery a quarter of an hour early. None of his friends had yet arrived in the spacious and slightly chilly hall whose windows overlooked a forest of tombstones. There was another funeral first, and a few people were gathered in a corner. An old woman suddenly let out a shrill, piercing wail, and a young man with mourning bands around his hat and sleeve supported her as if she were ill. She was the only one who cried, and her wail merged into the singing of the cantor and the choir. In his dazed, almost demented state, Gurdweill suddenly wondered what he was doing here, in this vast, strange hall. He leaned one shoulder against the wall and listened to the voice of the cantor, which sounded hoarse and discordant to him and irritated him beyond measure. But he soon stopped singing, and the coffin bearers, in their uniforms and caps like upside-down boats, lifted the coffin and carried it outside, dragging the mourners behind them like a train.

Ulrich arrived, followed immediately by Dr Astel, and they both joined Gurdweill and stood beside him without saying a word. The tall Dr Astel seemed to have shrunk, and his face looked very worn and old. Gurdweill saw through a mist that the latter was unshaven, a fact that made a great impression on him, since he had never seen Dr Astel in such a state before. Something terrible must have happened, he reflected, otherwise he would have shaved his beard … And he felt great pity for Dr Astel.

Then Lotte’s parents came — Gurdweill recognised her mother — with a few other men and women carrying wreaths of white flowers. They stood not far from the three friends, keeping their eyes on the ground as if they were ashamed to look at each other. No one spoke. Her mother kept wiping her eyes, and from time to time her body was convulsed with silent sobs, while a middle-aged man with a grey moustache speechlessly stroked her arm, which was linked in his. ‘That’s her father!’ said Gurdweill matter-of-factly to himself. ‘There’s a certain resemblance in the features …’ But only a small part of him was occupied with these trivialities, while the rest of him was not there at all. ‘It’s going on for a long time’ — he went on with his reflections — ‘they should hurry it up a little.’ When the coffin was brought in, the poor mother fell on it with a strangled cry of ‘Lotte! Lotte!’ which sounded more like a plea than a lament. Dr Astel and Ulrich, too, approached the coffin. Only Gurdweill did not move. ‘There must be a special room here where they preserve them’ — someone inside him reflected — ‘the question is whether it’s really necessary to preserve them at all … that’s the question! … In my opinion there’s no need to preserve them at all …’ Suddenly he turned to face the wall, leaned his head against it. He went on standing there, and from time to time a shudder ran down his back, as if he were feeling cold. The cantor raised his voice in song again and the choir responded. The singing reached his ears from a vast distance. He did not turn his head. This singing had some kind of connection to Gurdweill, but he could not say what it was. Some time ago a cantor had been singing too — but where? Oh, yes! It was in Seitenstettengasse, when he got married and his collar was as stiff as armour. And now, why was he singing now? Lotte’s mother was crying — how strange. Women always liked crying when the cantor sang … He himself didn’t find it sad in the least. And why didn’t Lotte introduce him to her father? He wasn’t wearing that funny shirt now, and there was no reason to be ashamed of him … It was only thoughtlessness on her part, not nastiness; Lotte wasn’t nasty … But the cantor had suddenly stopped singing — what was wrong with him now?

Gurdweill turned his head and saw that the hall was now empty, with the two last people going through the door. He moved mechanically and went out after them. At a distance of twenty paces he trailed the funeral procession, between the rows of tombstones on either side, on the gravel crunching drearily beneath his feet. He kept the same distance all the time, as if separated from the others by some invisible barrier. ‘Someone must have died’ — it suddenly occurred to him — ‘they say it’s Lotte.’ Perhaps it really was Lotte, since he hadn’t seen her for some days now. But still, it was very strange that Lotte should be dead! People didn’t die just like that, simply to surprise their friends …

The funeral procession stopped and Gurdweill stopped with it, keeping the same distance as before. From time to time he stole a quick look at the group of people, and carefully averted his eyes. The sky covered the cemetery like a blanket, downy and silent. It was going on too long, he thought, and he had no time to waste … He had things to do first … before setting out on such a long journey! He felt an overpowering desire to get away, but something held him back. He sank onto the gravestone next to him, but he did not remain seated long: the touch of the cold stone, which he could feel through his clothes, brought him to his senses for a moment, and he leaped up in sudden horror. Lotte, the Lotte who had been so close to him and who not so long ago had wept before him for some reason or other — perhaps she really was dead! And with whom would he go to Italy now? No, it wasn’t settled yet! He would have to think about it later, whether she was dead or not — at the moment his head wasn’t sufficiently clear, because of the cold … Yes, without a doubt, it was because of the cold. He pulled his coat tightly around him and even raised the collar. How quiet it was here: a good place for intellectual work, if not for the cold … The tombstones wouldn’t get in the way … He glanced at the tombstone next to him and read the inscription in gold letters: Michael Schramek, born in 1881 and cut off in the flower of his youth, in 1921, etc. So he was really dead, this Schramek! Of this you could be certain, at least! It was written in so many words. But you couldn’t always be certain …

When the mourners turned back, Gurdweill, for some reason, sprang behind the tombstone and hid until they had all gone past. Then he ran to the fresh grave, looked quickly at the mound of earth covered with flowers and the two spades plastered with chocolate-like mud at its side, and hurried to catch up with the receding mourners. He walked behind them, keeping his distance, his shoulders sagging, his eyes dull, staring fixedly in their sockets like those of a blind man.

Outside the vestibule he found his two friends waiting for him, and as he approached them Dr Astel looked at him blankly for a moment, as if trying to remember something, and suddenly fell round his neck like an axed tree and began howling horribly, his shoulders heaving as the animal-like sounds burst out of him in a series of shuddering sobs that seemed to come straight from the pit of his stomach. His hat slipped off and fell to the ground, but nobody noticed, for Ulrich had averted his eyes from the scene. Gurdweill for some reason found Dr Astel’s sobbing offensive, and he wished that he would stop. But his hand kept patting his friend’s back, with strange, quick pats, as if he were straightening out a crease or brushing the dust from his overcoat. In the end Dr Astel stopped crying. His shoulders heaved once or twice in a final, weak convulsion. He picked up his hat, and the three of them walked together to the number 71 tram stop, without saying a word or looking at one another. After travelling in silence to Schwarzenbergplatz, the last stop, Gurdweill parted from his friends.

The city was suddenly empty and desolate. There was nothing in it to which he could momentarily attach his thoughts. A gnawing emptiness, as if he had been fasting for days on end, riled his stomach. Instead of taking another tram, he walked slowly along the Ring, putting his feet down with a peculiar caution, as if he were in danger of falling into some hidden hole. A sharp cold pricked the tips of his fingers, like needles. A few, isolated snowflakes drifted aimlessly through the air, at about the height of a man. An enigmatic smile froze on Gurdweill’s lips. If it transpired that he was guilty of something, and if anyone accused him — but how could anyone blame him? Wasn’t he ready to go to Italy? And then again, who could prove that he was afraid of … of Thea? He had never been afraid of her, and he certainly wasn’t afraid of her now! No, the only difficulty was because of Lotte, because she was dead. This last word, which had stolen up on him and taken him, as it were, by surprise, suddenly crashed like a thunderbolt into his mind, and the pain was so terrible that he thought he would go mad. He began to run, with someone inside him shouting at the top of his voice: ‘Dead, dead, dead!’ He saw nothing in front of him; he took no notice of the passers-by who stopped to look at the strange man running with his open coat flapping at his sides; he did not feel it when he bumped into someone and was pushed violently aside, so that he almost fell to the ground — he saw and felt nothing but Lotte, his dearly beloved Lotte, who had been lying on the sofa a little while ago and who was now dead, dead and gone forever! He had seen her being buried with his own eyes. He had seen it, and so had Ulrich and Dr Astel. And other people too! They could all bear witness! And she had died because he — of this, too, there could be no doubt — because he had refused to go with her to Italy! And now no one could bring her back! Because he had seen her being buried with his own eyes, in the Central Cemetery, not far from Schramek!

The snow was falling faster now, in fragile flakes. The wind, which had been raging in the streets before, had disappeared around a corner. On either side of his running feet, carpets of snow lay like scattered flour on the pavement, with a wet, black path running down the middle. Opposite the Urania building he crossed the road without looking right or left, and was almost run over by a tram, whose warning bell he did not hear, and whose driver only managed by a miracle to stop at the last minute. A crowd instantly collected round him. Someone cursed. Without understanding why these people were blocking his way, Gurdweill gazed dumbly around him. A policeman, who popped up in front of him with a little notebook, asked him for his name.

‘It’s not my fault,’ muttered Gurdweill. ‘Really, it’s not my fault … I’m ready to leave …’ His eyes begged the onlookers for help.

‘Your name, please, sir!’ the law repeated sternly.

‘Me? Gurdweill, of course. Rudolf Gurdweill.’

‘And your address?’

After writing everything down in his notebook, he offered him a piece of good advice: ‘You must be careful when you cross the road!’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Gurdweill, as if to himself, and continued on his way.

It was two o’clock in the afternoon when he entered his room. He collapsed onto the couch and held his head in his hands. For a long time he sat there in his hat and coat without moving. He looked as if he might have been asleep. But he was far from asleep. It was uncomfortably cold in the room. Their breakfast dishes were still on the table, Thea’s cup empty and his full of the undrunk coffee of the morning, which had collected a brown skin on its surface from the milk. Gurdweill raised his head and gazed around the room with a puzzled look in his eyes: everything in it seemed strange and unconnected to him. The couch on which he was sitting, the bed opposite him, the other furniture in the room — none of it felt close to him. He wondered why he had only become aware of this feeling now, after two years and more. It seemed to him that he had only remained here, among this shabby furniture, for such a long time, because he was unconsciously hoping for something. Somewhere outside this room, there was something for the sake of which it had been worthwhile to go on suffering until the right opportunity presented itself. But now, when … No! He was overcome by a feeling of irrepressible loathing for everything surrounding him. Unthinkingly he rose to his feet and went over to the table. At the sight of Thea’s empty cup he was suddenly flooded by a host of miserable memories, of embarrassing situations that she had brought about, of humiliations and insults without number. And for these things he had ruined his life and perhaps been guilty of the death of another human being! As on a number of other occasions in the past few months, he was suddenly overcome by a fit of blind rage against Thea, a rage that was capable of anything, the kind of rage that perhaps only a woman could arouse. He took the empty cup and hurled it to the floor with all his strength. ‘Good!’ he said aloud, looking with a certain satisfaction at the fragments scattered in all directions. Then he bent down, gathered up the broken pieces, and placed them one by one on the table. The sound of the shattering china still echoed in his ears. Absent-mindedly he took a sip of the cold coffee, and spat it out again immediately into the chamber pot. Then he stationed himself by the window and stood there for a long time watching the falling snowflakes. Inside him, everything was as desolate as an abandoned ruin in a bleak mountain wilderness. There was nothing in the whole world that had any value or was capable of providing a morsel of comfort. All around and everywhere was despairing grief and loss and the proximity of death, and it was strange to see someone hurrying by in the street below, as if there were still anything left worth hurrying for.

Dusk descended, and the snowflakes grew increasingly invisible. Inside the room, the darkness gathered and turned into a thick mass, swallowing up the couch and everything around it. Only on the table did the empty cup and the little pile of broken china still gleam palely. Mechanically Gurdweill turned away from the window and went back to sit on the couch. His hat was still on his head. He had not eaten anything all day, and although he did not actually feel hungry, something gnawed at him incessantly, as though his insides were being squeezed by an invisible hand. It crossed his mind that he should eat something, but he immediately forgot about it again. And once more he was overcome by the same catatonic stupor as before, and he sat without moving in the dark, his head hanging and his chin resting on his chest. Perhaps Thea would come and want something to eat, he thought hazily, she would be angry and scold him, but he didn’t care anymore. He would go away … There was nothing for him to do here any longer. He would go tomorrow, or the day after, or some other day. If only he knew where to go! There was no one in the world to whom he could go. But what difference did it make? There was one thing he had to do first — that was clear. A pity he had forgotten what he had to do before he left. His head was so heavy, he couldn’t get half a thought out of it. How awful Dr Astel’s scream had been … bursting out of him so unexpectedly and for no reason — No! That wasn’t true! There may have been a reason after all! He himself had once known the reason clearly; how strange that he had been so quick to forget it … His memory had begun to fail him lately … Once he had had a good memory, just like … like who again? Oh, yes! Like Dr Kreindel, who knew all those quotations by heart … Gurdweill smiled to himself in the dark. It was a good thing that he didn’t have to work for that Dr Kreindel any longer! For him a man had to have a memory like a gramophone record, otherwise he didn’t count … Well, thank God, he was going to Italy soon and he didn’t need Dr Kreindel anymore. It was strange, though, that Lotte was taking so long; it was hard waiting all this time … Well, never mind! He could pack his things in the meantime!

He stood up and lit the lamp. Then he took down the suitcase, which was covered with a thick layer of dust, from the top of the wardrobe, and wiped it with a dirty shirt. He opened it, thrust to one side his manuscripts in their yellowing newspaper parcel, and began pulling his underwear and collars out of the wardrobe and throwing them higgledy-piggledy into the suitcase. Suddenly he stopped and let the shirt he was holding fall to the floor. He straightened up and clutched his head in his hands. ‘What are you doing?’ he groaned. ‘This is insanity!’

At that moment the door opened noiselessly and the old landlady came in. She shuffled up to Gurdweill and stood looking first at him, and then at the suitcase open on the floor.

‘Are you thinking of going abroad, Herr Gurdweill?’

He looked at her uncomprehendingly. After a moment he whispered, as if to himself: ‘Yes, yes, I’m going away somewhere … Not right away, that is … I can put it off … Certainly I can put it off … In fact, I have to put it off …’

And as if to confirm his words, he bent down and shut the suitcase with his clothes inside it, stood on a chair, and put it back on top of the wardrobe.

‘Going abroad in this cold, Herr Gurdweill!’ said the old lady.

Gurdweill did not seem to hear. He sank wearily onto the chair.

‘You’re unhappy, Herr Gurdweill. Anyone can see it. I think about you a lot. I’m always thinking about you, pssss! It’s so cold, I thought, and I just happen to have a bit of hot coffee ready — what do you say to a cup of hot coffee, Herr Gurdweill?’

Gurdweill did not hear a word she said. But as if in response to some inner question, he nodded his head, which Frau Fischer took for assent. She went and returned immediately with a steaming cup of coffee. Gurdweill sipped it mechanically, stopped, and sipped again, with the old lady standing beside him and watching him, as if she were supervising a small child or an invalid, until he had drunk it all up. Then she left the room, taking the shards of the broken cup from the table with her. For a while he went on sitting there in his hat and overcoat, and in the end he stood up, put out the lamp, and went down to the street.

It was about six o’clock. A delicate film of snow covered the pavement. It was cold, but the snow had stopped. Gurdweill stepped out briskly, as if in a hurry to get to some appointment in time. When he reached the Praterstern, he waited at the tram stop. Driven by some hidden force, he was impelled to go somewhere, he knew not where, and he got onto the first tram that arrived. He sat huddled in a corner, his head hunched between his shoulders and his coat collar raised. Under the hat pulled down over his forehead, his face was shrivelled, hollow, and covered with the stubble of a two-day-old beard; his glassy eyes stared fixedly at the legs of the passenger opposite him. With every nerve strained, he listened to the tram wheels skipping over the rails, to the slightest jar and jolt, to the staccato blasts of the conductor on his whistle. And as he did so he counted the stations: seven, up to now. Then he raised his eyes and with a great effort recognised Schwarzenbergplatz. He got off and walked automatically to the number 71 tram stop. He did not have to wait long, but there was a long way to go. One by one the passengers descended: the suburb came to an end and nobody needed to go any further. Now the coach sped deafeningly over the rails, swaying and jolting violently, and Gurdweill was the only passenger left, a fact of which he was quite unconscious. In the end the tram shuddered to a halt, rattling its windowpanes. ‘Last stop!’ cried the conductor, and Gurdweill jumped up and alighted in a deserted parking lot, fitfully illuminated by a few widely spaced streetlamps. For a moment he stood still, as if trying to make up his mind which way to turn, and then continued walking straight ahead, in the direction of the tram. There was not a soul to be seen anywhere. An icy wind blew here unimpeded, churning up flimsy columns of snow. The city roar reached his ears from the distance, insubstantial as the driven snow, and nearer at hand the tram creaked once or twice before setting off on its way. And then there was the silence, which seemed to have a sound of its own. Gurdweill walked straight down the middle of the lot, swaying from time to time, just like the empty tram before. After about two hundred steps, he found himself in front of the entrance to the Central Cemetery. The gate was closed, and a stone wall, higher than a man, surrounded the graveyard: a vast, quiet city, inhabited by many sleeping generations. A single lamp cast a weak light over the semi-circular porch. Gurdweill tried to open the gate and the low wicket beside it, and found them locked. Then he began pacing to and fro in front of the porch, in the vague hope that the gate might accidentally open. In the distance a dog began to howl, stopping and starting again at intervals. After walking up and down for about twenty minutes, he thought the better of it and set out to circle the walls, in case he might find another opening. But the wall was interminable, and he soon realised that he would never have the strength to walk all the way round it. He retraced his steps and stood in front of the main entrance again. If anyone had asked him what he was waiting for, he would surely not have known how to reply. It seemed that he did not even really know where he was. He had made the journey unconsciously, in a state verging on a hypnotic trance. He only knew that something terrible had happened to him in this place, and that the shadow it had cast on his soul burned and cut him without stopping. Here, at the scene of the event, perhaps it might still be possible to mend matters, to erase, change, restore something to its previous state. And he waited for something that was about to happen, that was sure to happen in the next few minutes. But nothing happened. For an hour he waited and nothing happened. And suddenly, as if for the first time, he was pierced by the devastating certainty that it was no longer possible to mend anything, neither now nor in the future; that Lotte was really dead and that she had been buried here, that morning; and that from now on all was lost, hopelessly and irretrievably. An inhuman fear seized him and cut off his breath. For a moment he stood rooted to the spot, and then he began to run, to flee for his life towards the city. He stumbled and fell, got up, and went on running, without noticing that he had already passed the first tram stop. He did not stop until he was in the suburban streets, among the first rows of houses and the occasional cheap café or tavern. He stood and glanced rapidly around him, as if to make sure that he was not being followed. All of a sudden he realised the insanity and senselessness of his flight, and once more he felt a tremor of fear, but a different fear this time, not of anyone outside him, but of himself — at the mercy of every passing wind to buffet him as it would, without his being able to offer the least resistance. He felt a dull pain in his head, which was as heavy as a lump of lead. He picked up a handful of snow and pressed it to his forehead. ‘Ah, I’m mad, mad!’ he groaned, walking on, but calmly now, like someone out for an evening stroll. He went mechanically into a small restaurant, had something to eat, and then walked to the nearest tram stop and rode home.