Now she shakes them all out, as many as there are, twelve or fourteen, into the hollow of her hand, goes over to the washstand, and washes them all down with a glass of water… Now she will be able to speak to the judge in the evening, and learn what she must do. She lies down on the bed, fully clothed, the blanket pulled up halfway. Still lying on her back, her eyes turned up to the ceiling, she waits for sleep to come to her.

And it seems to be coming. The tormenting thoughts, the recurring visions of terror born from the fear in her brain, fade. She shuts her eyes, her limbs relax, grow heavy, she has almost found safety in sleep…

But then, on the edge of sleep, it’s as though a hand jolts her back into wakefulness. She starts, she feels such a powerful shock. Her body shudders as in a sudden cramp…

And again she’s lying on her back, staring at the ceiling, the same mill churning out the same tormenting thoughts and images. Then—gradually—it slows, her eyes fall shut, sleep is at hand. Then once again, on the threshold, the jolt, the shock, the cramp that comes over her whole body. Once again, she is expelled from peace, quiet, oblivion…

After the third or fourth time, she no longer expects sleep to come. She gets up, walks slowly, a little unsteadily, to the table, and sits down. She stares into space. She knows that the white thing in front of her is the letter to Siegfried that she began three days ago; she has only written a few lines. She sees more: she sees the banknotes, the jewels. At the back of the table is the tray with her food for today. Normally, she would throw herself at it ravenously, but now she just eyes it indifferently. She doesn’t feel like eating…

While she sits here like this, she has a dim sense that it’s the sleeping pills that have wrought this change in her: they weren’t able to put her to sleep, but they have at least taken away the desperate panic of the morning. She sits there like that, and sometimes she almost nods off in her chair, but then she jumps again. Time has passed, she doesn’t know if it’s a lot or a little, but some of this terrible day must have passed…

Then, later, she hears footfall on the stairs. She collapses—in an instant of self-scrutiny, she tries to ascertain whether it’s even possible for her to hear sounds on the stairs from this room. But the critical minute is already over, and she merely listens tensely to the sound of the person dragging himself slowly up the steps, continually stopping, coughing lightly, and then dragging himself further along by the banister.

Now she doesn’t just hear Siegfried, she sees him, too. She sees him very clearly, as he makes his way up the still quiet staircase to their apartment. Of course they’ve abused him again, he has a couple of bandages carelessly thrown around his head, already bled through, and his face is bruised and splotchy from their blows. Siegfried is struggling to climb the stairs. His chest is whistling and wheezing, his chest hurt by their kicks. She sees Siegfried turn the corner of the staircase…

For a while she continues to sit. Most probably she has nothing on her mind, certainly not the judge and her agreement with him. She needs to get up to the apartment—what will Siegfried think if he finds it empty?—but she is so terribly tired, it’s almost impossible to lever herself up out of the chair!

Finally she’s on her feet. She takes the bunch of keys out of her handbag, reaches for the sapphire bracelet as if it were a talisman that could protect her—and slowly and uncertainly she makes her way out of the apartment. The door shuts behind her.

The judge, woken after long hesitation on the part of his cleaning woman, comes too late to keep his guest from this excursion into a too dangerous world.

He softly opens the outer door, stands for a while in the open doorway, listens above, listens below.