Within him grew an angry longing to free himself of the curse and transform it.

He often believed he had to despair in the face of his own wretchedness. There was a bitterness in him that clung to feeble imprecations, and a lethargy that longed for accursed hours. Zdenka knew nothing about any of this. Unhappily, with his lips pressed together and the collar of his coat upturned, he walked through the city along streets that led indirectly to the Moldau, where she was waiting for him.

For years he had made his way to school along the long bustling street where he was now walking. Here, on his way home, he had smoked his first cigarette and discussed the great battles that were fought against the Czech boys in the old fortifications of Weinberge. He had never distinguished himself as a great hero or leader in these conflicts, but neither had he betrayed his cowardice. For him, offering his brow to the stones hurled by the enemy had a voluptuous and puzzling allure. Here the stories of knights and adventures of sailors that he read at home became a small but genuine reality that brought heat to his face and hands and stifled his breath in mute agitation. Since that time his youth had contained no experience of equal worth. But the blind compulsion that had driven him to the skirmishes in the abandoned fortifications had grown beyond all proportion over the years and began to press at his throat. Sometimes he was overcome by a senseless fear and a horror that his life would amount to nothing. Since he had become an adult and started earning his own bread, bleak and vapid walls had risen around him and blocked his view. All around, everywhere he looked, he saw dull and mundane convention. He went to the office early in the morning and went home at noon; the rest of the day he spent sleeping. He felt like someone standing in a pit with a shovel. He digs and digs, but the fine, pliable sand keeps running back and filling the hole.

As a child he had owned a book that had never completely left his thoughts. It was the first volume of a novel about the Hussite wars. The second volume was missing, but Severin did not bother to look for it. The way the book ended, in the middle of the course of great events, seemed perfect to him. There were gypsies who had a robbers’ den in the crevices of the Devil’s Wall near Hohenfurt, savage warriors who threw dice for their girls in taverns, moonlit nights when people dug in forests for the mandrake root. There was a magic garden where malformed dwarves mocked those who had lost their way, where marvelous grottoes opened and clanging metal lions sank into the depths when someone approached. And the comet shone blood red in the sky and there was war in Bohemia. Severin thought of this book as he went to meet Zdenka.

On Karlsplatz it was silent except for a few pairs of lovers whispering behind the bushes. Severin pushed his foot through the dead leaves on the path. The electric lamps were already burning and hung over the trees like moons. Severin looked for the first stars between the lights. An unpleasant restlessness held him captive and drove him back to the park, although Zdenka was already waiting for him. He took his hat in his hand and the wind dampened his hair. The clock on the tower of the Ministry of Justice struck, and the chimes echoed slowly through the boughs. Severin listened to them with a bitter heart.