He heard billiard balls colliding on the green tables and dishes rattling in the buffet. When the door opened the insipid smell of morning soup emerged. It was a cold winter, and Severin pushed the aching joints of his hands into his pockets. Sometimes he went in to hear the music. He ordered a burning punch and held his fingers over the blue flame. The torpid cigarette smoke stung his eyes, but the warmth did him good.

He usually went to the same bars when he was trying to escape the cold: The White Garland by the Obstmarkt, where the guests rested their heads on folded arms and slept at the tables; The Fold in the Kleine Karlsgasse, where he was often the only customer for hours at a time; the Russian café on the border of Prague and Weinberge, where the Southern Slavic students met. He knew all of these places from earlier times, when he had gone out at night in search of adventures. Now, alienated and bereft of expectations, he sat in this world, which seemed automated and unreal, in small dives where the shabby remains of happiness expired in the face of their own dullness, in cafés where the benches were upholstered with red velvet and the customers looked like journeyman waiters and the waiters looked like playboys. He had to laugh at himself for having once thought that he could appease the hunger of his soul in these places. Years had passed since then and within him nothing had changed. In the meantime he had only become more bitter, more stubborn, and more callous. His fatigued agitation had nothing in common with the slack delirium that surrounded him, and the numbness that paralyzed him was different from the numbness on the faces of the coquettes who lounged around the marble tables or approached him and started asking for glasses of tea. He did not know how long he had been wandering around at night and loitering in the bars that stayed open until morning. But he felt he had been moving in circles around a point, like a tethered animal on a chain. With helpless dread he ran his hand over his coat, where he kept the flask of poison. Once, after he had stayed awake all night and the winter morning was beginning to shine into the streets, he went to see Nikolaus.

It was still quite early in the morning when the doorbell rang harshly through the corridor. Nikolaus was still lying in bed, and greeted his visitor with unconcealed astonishment. But when he saw Severin’s wasted and furrowed face, he held out his hand to him.

Nikolaus slept in a boudoir. His sophisticated taste had assembled a hundred objects of artistic refinement in this room, which was more like the sumptuous nest of a courtesan than the sleeping chamber of a bachelor. From the ceiling hung a silver lamp in which light glowed behind honey-colored panes. The heavy colors of silk and brocade shone from the chairs and low tables. Dark bronze statuettes, sandalwood boxes and Japanese lacquer paintings stood next to elegant glasses and jewel cases, next to chalices, Asiatic figurines and a large candelabra, blackened by age, with seven thick ceremonial candles in its arms. The first bleak shimmer of the winter day came through the Gothic pattern of the curtains. Severin’s eyes passed through the room, over the lusterless lines of the tapestries and to the place where Nikolaus sat half-raised in his golden bed. There was an expression in Severin’s eyes that suggested they could not find their way in these surroundings, in the sultry, carefully wrought beauty that set them off. He seized the hand Nikolaus offered to him with a cry. All the torment and suffering revealed itself in his voice. He lay before the young man’s bed and buried his face in the pillows.

Nikolaus — he cried — what was it like, — — the time you killed your friend — — — — — — —

Nikolaus looked down at him and saw his body stretched out in unspeakable agony. Terror rose with the blood in his face. He lifted up his arm and spread his fingers.