Now, when he touched her arm, she cried out in terror.

You — you — she stammered, and her beautiful voice, marred by weeping, trembled. Then she took his hand and led him off to the side, out of the commotion and into a quiet street. By the light of a lantern he looked into her face, and noticed how meager and pitiful it had become. Her nose was pointed and narrow, as though she were ill, and her mouth was thin. But the sweetness remained in the tormented shadows and wrinkles of her eyes, which she turned to him with an unfamiliar gaze. She wanted to speak, but could not. She stood before him, helpless and bewildered, stupefied by love, and, next to his sympathy for her, there stirred a self-satisfied joy at her pain. He compared her in memory to the girl from the play, whom he always had to think of when he was with her. He thought to himself that now the play was over and the curtain must fall. And some of the tenderness of the past summer was in the motion with which he caressed her cheek and stroked the hair that fell over her brow. Then she fell at his feet with a pained cry and clasped his knees with her hands.

Severin —

A few people on their way home from the annual market stopped in the distance and looked at the girl who cowered on the earth crying. Severin removed her hands from his knees and walked away without looking back.


A small cabinet, inlaid with jewels and marquetry, was embedded in the wall of Nikolaus’s room. One day Severin asked what it contained, and Nikolaus took a slender key from his pocket and opened it. Inside, carefully packaged and stacked, were spherical red opium pills, poison powders in small glass tubes, and Indian temple hashish in flat apothecaries’ boxes.

An enthusiast’s collection — said Nikolaus.

Severin stood in front of the open cabinet for a long time, held by a sudden fascination. His eyes felt searchingly into the elegant compartments, where the secrets of foreign cultures were collected; substances that brought dreams and visions and let sultry ecstasies trickle into the blood; poisons that could kill. A tender perfume rose toward him. Nikolaus regarded the tension in his face with a smile, and pulled a small blue flask with a glass stopper from the corner.

It never fails — he said — But you must be careful —

Through the engraved neck Severin saw dried pieces of a clay-like substance.

What is it? — he asked.

Chinese poison.

And you want to give it to me?

Slowly Nikolaus pushed the cabinet door into the lock.

I have more of it — And he turned the key.


Severin collided with Karla as he walked down the stairs. She had been waiting for him all day, and was going to Nikolaus’s, where she thought she might find him. Her black velvet dress dragged over the steps. For a few moments she stood before him. Then, as though confronted with a decision, she turned her rigid white face to his.

Where were you? —

Severin lifted his eyes to hers, which were dark and vacant as they passed over him. In them he read her fear of losing him. He scrutinized her tall regal form, which had risen from the stone steps like a strange yearning flower, and realized that in this instant she was beautiful. On her lips he thought he saw traces of the kisses he had drunk from a short time before. But it seemed like an experience from a long time ago, which he had discarded and was no longer worthy of his soul. Slowly, like someone who searches for words in his sleep and cannot find them, he said:

Go home, Karla — I don’t love you anymore.

Her hand detached itself from the banister. A gust of wind came through the open door downstairs, making both of them shudder.

Go home — he said once more, and walked past her the same way he had left Zdenka, without turning his head.

In his room Severin remained in the darkness for a while. He felt into his pocket for the flask, which drew the warmth from his body, and noticed how cold his hands were. Then he lit the candle.

A letter lay on the table, and on the envelope his name had been written in the slanting and lascivious hand of a woman. A courier must have brought it while he was at Nikolaus’s.