He ordered wine, cake, cigarettes, and asked me if he could wait on me - out of “gratitude” for all my patience. The only thing I didn’t like was that he seemed so terribly innocuous. As if never a hurtful word had ever passed between us. I pointed this out; he only became all the heartier. It was as though he was trying to get out of my clutches, to put himself on an equal footing with me again. He told me nothing more about himself, with every second word he reassured me of our friendship; only something in his eyes clung on to me, as though he was afraid he might be in danger of losing that artificially created sense of intimacy. In the end I found him repellent. I thought, “Does he think I have to put up with this?” and reflected on how I might take the wind out of his sails. I was trying to come up with something really hurtful. I remembered that Beineberg had told me just that morning that he had had some money stolen. It only occurred to me in passing. But it kept coming back. And it really seized me by the throat. “It would be just the right moment,” I thought, and casually asked him how much money he had left. I did a quick sum and it added up. “So who was stupid enough to lend you money in spite of everything?” I asked with a laugh. “Hofmeier.”

‘I must have trembled with joy. Hofmeier had come to me two hours previously to borrow some money for himself. So the idea that had just passed through my head a few minutes before suddenly became a reality. Like when you think to yourself, as a joke: I’d like that house to go on fire right this minute, and a moment later flames shoot yards into the air ...

‘I quickly ran through all the possibilities again; of course I couldn’t be sure, but my feeling was enough for me. So I leaned towards him and said in the kindliest way you can imagine, as though I was gently driving a slender, pointed skewer into this brain, “Look here, my dear Basini, why are you lying to me?” As I said that, his eyes seemed to swim in his head with fear, but I went on: “Perhaps you’ll be able to pull the wool over somebody’s eyes, but not mine. You see, Beineberg ...’ He turned neither red nor white, it was as though he was waiting for a misunderstanding to be cleared up. ”Well, to put it briefly,” I said, “the money you’ve used to pay my debt is the money you took last night from Beineberg’s drawer!”

‘I leaned back to survey the impression. He had turned cherry-red; he choked on his words, his lips flecked with spittle; finally he managed to speak. He came out with a whole torrent of accusations against me: how could I dare to claim any such thing; what could even remotely justify such a fantastical assumption; he said I only wanted a fight with him because he was weaker than I was; that I was only doing it because I was annoyed that he had freed himself from me by paying off his debts; but that he would tell the class ... the prefects ... the headmaster; that God could testify to his innocence, and so on ad infinitum. I really began to worry that I had done him an injustice and hurt him unnecessarily, he looked so sweet with his red face ... he looked like a tormented, defenceless little animal. But I couldn’t just let it go. So I kept a fixed, mocking smile on my face - almost out of embarrassment - as I listened to everything he was coming out with.