Lazarus remembered the evenings when the medical students used to gather here and dance with the midwives. Occasionally he had also stopped to visit, and had watched the festivities from a corner. Now the tavern had changed owners and the pub was completely abandoned except for a few Czech youths who played ninepins in the neglected garden, and a sullen waitress who served the guests cheerless beer in cracked glasses.

He often sat in the small Pilsner bar across from Stephanskirche. It was not very lively here either on the summer mornings when he visited. The priests from the nearby deanery waited until later to come and have their lunches. Lazarus sat by the window, behind the green draperies, and admired the fine ankles of the girls who hurried past. He already had nearly half a century behind him, but women were still his greatest passion. At home, on the high shelves of his bookshop, he kept many costly volumes for connoisseurs and his best customers. Dangerous and shameless novels, French and German private editions, copperplate engravings, rare translations from the time of Réstif de la Bretonne. He clung to these treasures with an infatuated tenderness, often taking them out to amuse himself and stroking their pages with his fingers. He sold them only unhappily and for high prices, and felt genuine sorrow when he saw them in the hands of buyers; it was as though they took part of a beloved estate with them when they left the building. He loved only two things more than these books: the raven Anton, an old and disheveled beast that had kept him company in the bookshop for years, and his daughter Susanna.

It was in the small pub across from the church that Severin first met Lazarus Kain. Outside the bells in the tower began striking for Sunday mass, and both of them watched the thoughtful young women who walked past the tavern window, prayer books in hand. Then Lazarus moved his glass closer to Severin’s and began to speak. His withered face became animated when he talked, and his cheeks burned beneath his short side-whiskers. He talked about the cold and unimaginative temperament of the modern age, in which the pursuit of money had killed the joy of desire. And with twinkling eyes, in which a secret delight glittered, he spoke about his favorite world, on which he had hung his aging heart, the France of the eighteenth century. His stories of the Hunting Park period of Louis XV had color and charm, and an envious longing made his voice tremble when he told Severin — who was listening closely — about Madame Janus, the brilliant procuress who had astounded even the Paris of that time with new and inventive pleasures.

That will never come again — he said, and his words contained a sincere lament. For a while they both sat quietly in the half-dark of the pub and brooded over the amorous marvels of past ages, while across the street the church-bells fell silent and only a golden humming remained in the air, constantly becoming softer and more delicate, and finally inaudible. Lazarus had turned his face back to the window, and Severin looked furtively at his bald skull and Jewish profile, which was torn by countless wrinkles. He was overcome by the suspicion that this man experienced a similar malady to his own, that he suffered from an unappeased passion which had fled from a narrow and senseless life into old books. He was seized by compassion for the old man, who had wasted years of his life looking at dead pictures. They conversed for a while longer, and Lazarus told him about his daughter and the raven. As he was leaving, he invited Severin to visit him in his shop.

Severin responded to the invitation within the next few days. Susanna was sitting on a low upholstered chair next to the oven. The days were still fine and the book dealer had no fire burning. Nevertheless a drizzling chill entered the houses on that street after sunset. Susanna had thrown a black shawl over her shoulders, and the gaslight danced on the pages of the open book in her lap. Lazarus stood behind the counter and greeted Severin without surprise. His naked head shone in the light as he bent over a few valuable curios and examined them with a magnifying glass.