It seemed to have leaned over him, and to be looking at him in silence. From time to time a trickling sound descended, and a weird life awoke in the wall.

He had often listened to it like that in the hiding place, as Beineberg and Retting unfurled their fantastic world, and he had enjoyed it as one might enjoy the strange background music to some grotesque drama.

But now the bright daylight itself seemed to have become an inexplicable hiding place, and vivid silence surrounded Törless on all sides.

He couldn’t turn his head away. Beside him, in a damp, dark corner, coltsfoot flourished, its broad leaves spreading into fantastic hiding places for snails and worms.

Törless heard the beating of his heart. Then, again, there came a quiet trickling, a whispering, a seeping away ... And those sounds were the only living things in a timeless and silent world ...

 

The next day Beineberg was standing with Reiting when Törless walked over to them.

‘I’ve had a word with Reiting,’ said Beineberg, ‘and sorted everything out. You won’t really be interested in anything like this.’

Törless felt something like anger and jealousy welling up in him about this sudden turn of events, but he didn’t know whether he should mention the night-time conversation in front of Reiting. ‘Well, you could at least have called me about it, since I’m just as involved as you are,’ he said.

‘And we would have done, my dear Törless,’ Reiting hastened to say, now clearly concerned to avoid any unnecessary difficulties, ‘but we couldn’t find you and we assumed you would agree. What’s your own opinion of Basini, by the way?’ (Not a word of apology, as though his own behaviour was self-explanatory.)

‘Basini? Well, he’s just a rotten swine,’ Törless said, embarrassed.

‘He is, isn’t he? Rotten indeed.’

‘But you’re getting yourself into a bit of a mess!’ And Törless forced a smile, ashamed not to be angrier with Reiting.

‘Me?’ Reiting shrugged his shoulders. ‘So what? You should try everything in life, and if he’s so stupid and so pitiful -’

‘Have you had another word with him?’ Beineberg interrupted.

‘Yes; he was in my room last night asking for money, because he has debts he can’t pay again.’

‘Did you let him have it?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘That’s terrific,’ said Beineberg, ‘it means we have the opportunity we’ve been waiting for to grab him. You could arrange to meet him somewhere tonight.’

‘Where? The storeroom?’

‘I don’t think so, I’d rather he didn’t know anything about it for the time being. But tell him to come up to the attic, where you were with him before.’

‘For what time?’

‘Let’s say ... eleven.’

‘Fine. - Do you want to go for a walk?’

‘Yes. I expect Törless still has some homework to do, doesn’t he?’

Törless had no more work to do, but he felt that the two of them were sharing something that they wanted to hide from him. He was annoyed at his formality, which kept him from getting involved.

So he looked jealously after them and imagined all the things that they might have secretly arranged between them.

And it struck him that there was an innocuous charm in Reiting’s upright, fluent walk - just as there was in his words. And against that he tried to imagine him as he must have been that evening; inwardly, mentally. It must have been like a long, slow sinking of two particular souls, and then the depth of a subterranean kingdom - and in between a moment in which the sounds of the world, above, far above, fell silent and were extinguished.

Can a person ever be so content and light again after something of that kind? Clearly it didn’t mean that much to him. Törless would so much have liked to ask him. And instead he had, with childlike timidity, handed him over to that spidery character Beineberg!

 

At a quarter to eleven Törless saw Beineberg and Reiting slipping from their beds and getting dressed straight away.

‘Psst! - just wait a minute. People will notice if we all go off at the same time.’

Törless hid back under his covers.

Then they met up in the corridor and climbed towards the attic with their usual caution.

‘Where’s Basini?’ asked Törless.

‘He’s coming up from the other direction; Reiting gave him the key.’

All the way up they stayed in darkness. Only once they were upstairs, by the big iron door, did Beineberg light his little signalling lantern.

The lock was resistant. It had been unused for years, and refused to obey the copied key. Finally it fell back with a hard sound; the heavy door rubbed reluctantly in the rust of the hinges, and hesitantly yielded.

A warm, stale air rushed from the attic, like the air that comes from small greenhouses.

Beineberg closed the door again.

They descended the little wooden steps and crouched down next to a massive crossbeam.

Beside them were huge bottles of water that were supposed to act as extinguishers if a fire broke out. The water in them had clearly not been replaced for ages, and gave off a sweetish smell.

The whole environment was extremely oppressive: the heat under the roof, the bad air and the creaking of the massive beams, some of them disappearing upwards to lose themselves in the dark, some of them creeping down to the floor in a ghostly criss-cross.

Beineberg turned the lamp down, and they sat, not saying a word, motionless in the darkness — for many minutes.

Then, at the other end, the door creaked in the dark. Quiet and hesitant. It was a sound that made the heart leap into the throat, like the first sound of approaching prey.

Other, uncertain steps followed, the sound of a foot against groaning wood; a dull sound, as though of a body striking something ... Silence ... Then, again, tentative steps ... Waiting ... A quiet, human sound ...