He searched the background for the picture and, with a rigid and tormented smile, recognized the tree he had dreamt of the night before.

Someone laid a hand on his shoulder, and when he turned around Susanna stood before him.

What are you doing here? — she asked, threatening him with her lightless eyes. Her form grew large and imperious in the twilight, and Severin noticed with horror that she was expecting a child.

Susanna! — he whispered.

For the first time in weeks a light fell into his barren soul. The darkness in him scattered, and he was terrified.

Why did I come here? — he thought to himself. It was quiet and lonely in the faded street, and the face of the Jewess frightened him. The hand that was clenched around the rock began to tremble, and his blood froze.

I am not a murderer — he said aloud, and in the same instant he saw himself in an invisible mirror, deformed by suffocating vices, covered with sores in which curses grew rankly.

Jesus! — he cried, and his voice revealed to him that he had come here to kill the old man.

Jesus!

The scream was so fearsome that Susanna turned pale. A swoon darkened her thoughts and she saw only unclearly, with a faltering heart, how Severin ran down the street into the darkness.


It was already late and the white moon hung silently over the towers. The clouds had dispersed and it was clear and cool. Severin walked beneath the trees at Belvedere and breathed the damp air, in which he could already detect the smell of the coming spring. Below him the city lay in the valley. A few scattered lights were still burning in the distance, like the eyes of a sleepy animal. He was seized with horror. He thought of the thousands down below who, exactly like him, were helplessly entombed in joyless lives. He was overwhelmed by the memory of the people he had met and who, one after another, had gone astray. Karla, who desperately threw herself away for insidious pains; Konrad, over whose grave the earth was still settling; and Susanna, who would bear his child out of hatred for her father. A sorrow without equal tormented him. He looked into the shadows of the houses down below and saw his own form, wrapped in the riddles of death and love, restless in streets where thoughts of murder rose from the stony pavement and blinded his heart. He cried and his tears were pungent and corrosive like vinegar. He rammed his head against a tree-trunk and bit into the bark. The horrors of loneliness came to him and he longed for a face against which he could rest his own.

Suddenly it was as though two long-forgotten eyes looked at him in the darkness. A voice, fantastically beautiful and good, awoke in his memory and comforted him. He turned around and walked down the street that led to the bridge.


The light was still burning in the window of the small room on Old Town Square. It was always the last one in the house, and went out long after the others. While sleep cowered at the threshold and bats flew past the town hall clock, Zdenka was still awake. She went to bed only when she had become tired of thinking and the lamp began to flicker.

Severin had climbed the stairs and was waiting in front of the door. He knocked, and wanted to call out, but his voice would not obey him.

Severin!

She had pulled back the latch and now stood before him in the light, radiant and bewildered. Her blond hair fell over her dress and she pressed her hands against her bosom. Her small face was lovely as she offered him her mouth to kiss.

I knew you would come back, and I waited for you —

He knelt before her and caressed her hands. He felt like a child that had run away and was now finally at home again.

I love you — he said, and knew that now it was finally the truth. And then he called her name, more tenderly and joyously than ever before:

Zdenka! Zdenka!

Hand in hand they walked to the window and looked outside.