They were staring out at the yard. There was an unusual feeling of bated breath in the room.

Wenk inquired: ‘Is it time for breakfast? What’s going on?’

A little reluctantly the cluster of people by the window broke up. The maker-up, with a stricken expression on his creased face, said: ‘She’s lying outside.’

The other three pushed through the group in front of the window, took a look outside, and then they too didn’t know what to say.

It’s only a small courtyard, ringed by other buildings, paved with tiles, and with a small patch of green at the centre. Round the thin grass runs a low balustrade, one of those low wrought-iron balustrades that offer no protection. The sort of thing you trip over when it’s dark.

It was broad daylight now, and she had still managed to trip over it. She lay there sprawled out on the grass as she had fallen, her black skirt rucked up, exposing black stockings and white undergarments.

‘She will have been crossing the yard to get schnapps from Krüger.’

‘Fritz took her a bottle at eight o’clock.’

‘She’s out cold.’

‘No, she knows what she’s doing, lying there in front of all those windows.’

‘Ever since her boy drank himself to death.’

Suddenly everyone is speaking at once. They’re all staring out at the black patch of shadow.

Stuff squares his shoulders, puts on his pince-nez. ‘This isn’t on. Come along, Tredup, we’re going to bring her in.’

Wenk watches them go. He asks worriedly: ‘I wonder if this is right. The proprietor can see everything from his window.’

The old maker-up hisses: ‘There’s something you don’t understand, Herr Wenk. If he sees his wife in that condition, he’s not seeing her.’

Wenk goes off after the other two. Once in the yard, he senses heads being pulled back quickly from windows, wanting not to be caught indulging their curiosity.

Tomorrow the whole town will know. All that money, and the woman’s grubbing around in the dirt. Now, if I had that sort of money . . .

That’s life, thinks the advertising manager. The usual nonsense . . . It’s not the son drinking himself to death so much as the fact of everybody knowing he drank himself to death . . . Small town.

‘Come on, madam. Let’s get you sitting up.’

A ravaged face—bloodless, yellow-grey, with hanging jowls—looks stubbornly up at the sun. ‘Turn the light off,’ she mutters. ‘Stuff, turn it out. ’S’night-time.’

‘Come along, Frau Schabbelt. We’ll have a grog together in the editors’ room, and I’ll tell some jokes.’

‘Swine,’ the drunk woman says. ‘Do you think I want to listen to jokes?’ Then, with sudden animation: ‘Yes, go on, tell me jokes.