Severin thought of the fantastically beautiful terror, mixed with fear and devotion, that had clutched him then. He listened closely to the sound of the wheels.

It was almost dark when he got out in front of the cemetery gate. He stood next to Karla as the frozen earth rolled into the grave and thudded hollowly against the coffin. Now that he was close to her he noticed for the first time how yellow and worn her face looked. The rouge lay in circles on her face and her beautiful brow was sad and furrowed. And here in the cemetery, next to the open grave, he recognized her destiny: how she went from one pain to the next, from one love to another. She started when he turned his eyes to the large man she had come here with. Softly and gently, as one speaks to a child, he asked her:

Is he the one?

Yes — she said simply, and nodded.


Severin returned to the city on foot. He had paid the driver and was the last person to leave the cemetery, after everyone had gone. The pale violet of late afternoon lay over the fields. From the distance came the muffled roar of a railroad train. Here and there a tree stood by the side of the street and stretched its naked boughs against the bleak sky. The rising evening spread lengthening shadows, and mist rose from the turnip fields. Sparrows flew over the road and fluttered like great black birds in the twilight. The electric tram drove past with yellow eyes. Lights were going on in the city. Severin thought about Konrad’s death. A lame, ridiculous idea was hunched in his brain. It would not let him alone, and he was forced to reflect on it. He imagined the face of the man who had just been buried as it lay in the ground, beneath the coffin lid. A horror brushed over his skin, chilling like the clouds on the horizon. He felt his wrist for his pulse; he was not afraid. White forms rolled together in the distance, but he knew it was only winter mist. The first houses of Weinberge emerged from the gray. He looked back in the direction from which he had come. The air hung from the sky, still and sluggish, and the cold had become more intense. The lamplight from the shopwindows was already falling on the sidewalks of the suburban streets.

Severin stopped in front of a horse-butcher’s door. He was struck by the warm smell of blood, and shuddered with loathing. Two men with rolled-up coatsleeves carried past a basin from which a damp steam rose and mixed sickeningly with the cold. Severin carefully buttoned up his gloves before putting his fingers on the filthy doorknob.