He says that if he didn’t beat me he’d have to believe I was a man, and then he couldn’t be so soft and gentle with me. But that way I belong to him, and he’s not embarrassed.’

‘And Beineberg?’

‘Oh, Beineberg’s frightful. Don’t you think he has bad breath?’

‘Shut up! It’s no concern of yours what I think! Tell me what Beineberg does to you!’

‘Well, the same as Reiting, but ... But you’re not to shout at me again — ’

‘Get on with it.’

‘Just ... in a different way. First he spends ages talking to me about my soul. He tells me I’ve sullied it, but only its outermost forecourt. Compared to the innermost soul it’s something meaningless and external. But it has to be killed off. Many sinners have become saints by doing that. So in a higher respect sin isn’t all that terrible; but you have to take it to its limit so that it breaks off. He makes me sit and stare at a piece of cut glass ...’

‘He hypnotizes you?’

‘No, he says he just has to make all the things swimming around on the surface of my soul fall asleep and lose their power. Only then can he commune with my soul.’

‘And how does he commune with it?’

‘That experiment has never yet been successful. He sits there, and I have to lie down on the ground so that he can put his feet on my body. The glass must have made me very lethargic and sleepy. Then, all of a sudden, he orders me to bark. He describes it to me in detail: quietly, more of a whine, the way a dog barks in its sleep.’

‘What’s the point of that?’

‘No idea. He also makes me grunt like a pig and tells me over and over again that there’s something of the pig in me. But not as though he’s insulting me; he repeats it to me quite quietly and kindly, to imprint it - that’s what he says - firmly on to my nerves. Because he claims one of my former lives might have been a pig’s, and that we have to entice it out to render it harmless.’

‘And you believe all that?’

‘Good God no; I don’t think he believes it himself. And afterwards he’s always quite different. How could I believe things of that kind? Who believes in the soul nowadays? Let alone the transmigration of souls? I know I’ve slipped up; but I’ve always hoped I’d be able to make amends. You don’t need any hocus-pocus for that. I’m not going to rack my brains about why it was that I slipped up. Something like that happens so quickly, almost of its own accord. It’s only afterwards that you realize you’ve done something stupid. But if he enjoys trying to find something supernatural in it, then I’m not going to stop him. But for the time being I must be at his beck and call. If only he’d stop pricking me ...’

‘What?’

‘Yes, with a pin - not violently, just to see how I react ... to see whether any part of my body reacts in a special way.