Today it was far away. No human being had ever been hers, no word from her had ever found its answer in another’s smile, no one had ever stood behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder when the last note of the piano died away, no one had extinguished the little candle in its brass candlestick with a soft yet masculine hand, no man had ever stroked her hair or taken her still quivering hands in his. Yesterday she wouldn’t have wanted such things, but today, among these tall, massively weighty grey walls, present and looking more than real in the colourless dusk of this factory-lined street, the magic of the human closeness she longed for shone with a soft glow. Here and now she would have liked to press her own tormented and trembling breast to another’s; here and now she hated the loftiness of her day’s labour. Her fanatical obsession came up against the bleak world. She wished fervently for the modest, happy fulfilment of an everyday life, a life that in the evening gets what it had wanted in the morning and no more.

It was raining quietly everywhere. The gas lamps were lit, their yellow flames burning calmly between four glass walls protected by a little roof of galvanized metal. Factory sirens began sounding. But the mighty shadows of the flywheels still chased across the windows, the pounding of flashing pistons droned on unmoved. Here and there workers in blue overalls appeared, children running ahead of them, all taking their familiar way home to some distant light, some distant roof, some distant hearth, until they disappeared in the darkness.

Franzi retraced her steps, and when she saw the bronze statue again it seemed like an old friend. It was as if she had only just left it shining there in the gleam of dark bronze, yet transformed by the mist into something out of a fairy tale.

Minna was waiting. She quietly led her sister through a wooden door into a dark attic room, and Franzi felt glad, grateful for the touch of the rough, warm hand that had been put to work for her sake. Something in her felt humbled by her sister now, and she would have kissed Minna’s hands but for the light falling in through the wooden laths of the door.

The tiny, brightly lit room had a sloping ceiling. Franzi had to bend when she went over to the window, brushing past an old stoup for holy water that Minna had brought from home. A rosary of black beads hung around it, clinking softly when it was touched. Down below the window she saw a small, circular garden with trees that looked black by night. Silent buildings with many lighted windows stood around it. But far in the distance Franziska, rejoicing at an undeserved gift, saw in the silver light of two rows of arc lamps the barely moving water of the Vltava, the dreamlike arch of the old bridge, the railway lines passing between two tall towers, thin as gaunt old men—and then, enveloped in mist on the other bank, as if in another world, the lifeless, grey Hradčany palaces. Flickering red lights rose in the air there, a row of wanderers carrying torches, and the ancient cathedral of St Vitus was enthroned above it all, reaching a great height as it raised its pointed turrets into the night air.

Minna had spread four paper napkins on a little table, and laid out bread and cake, cold meat and sweets on them. Black-handled horn cutlery nestled modestly among the napkins. Minna herself ate nothing, but watched and smiled. There was a tiny suitcase in the corner with her name on it in white letters. Franzi had bought it for her sister; at the time it had seemed to her big enough, almost as large as the cases army recruits were given when they joined up, but now she felt as if it had shrunk, and even the name had something pathetic about it, like a beggar’s.

“You mustn’t be sorry for me,” said Minna. “I’ve really fallen on my feet here, you’ve no idea. The two old people downstairs are so good to me. I don’t go out on a Sunday, so I’ve saved all my wages. On Sundays I don’t get dressed until three in the afternoon. I wash, comb my hair and make myself pretty, and when I’ve done all that and it’s seven or seven-thirty I go down to the dining room, and the General’s old wife asks, ‘Well, Minna, did you have a nice outing, did you dance at the Klamovka? And why are you back so soon?’” Minna was kneeling now and had taken a book out of the very bottom of her black suitcase, an old prayer book with pictures of saints between its worn pages, sky-blue and pink, and one was saffron yellow. They all had gold or silver rims with fine, lacy ornamentation round them. Some crumpled old banknotes, carefully smoothed out again, lay between two of these little pictures.

How different it is from my money, thought Franzi.

Minna looked at her sister.