He had already wondered about the possibility of acquiring a little dog. Such an animal is diverting and, above all, loyal and grateful; one of Blumfeld’s colleagues had such an animal, he refuses to go with anyone but his master, and if he hasn’t seen him for a few moments, he welcomes him with loud barking, clearly an expression of joy at having re-found his extraordinary benefactor and master. Admittedly, a dog has his drawbacks too. However tidy you try and keep him, he’ll dirty your room. It’s impossible to avoid, you can hardly give him a bath in hot water before letting him in each time, that would undermine his constitution. But a dirty room is something Blumfeld can’t abide, the cleanliness of his room is indispensable to him, several times a week he has it out with the unfortunately not so scrupulous cleaner. Since she’s hard of hearing, he conducts her to those parts of the room whose cleanliness leaves something to be desired. Through such severity, he has secured a state of affairs where the condition of the room more or less accords with his wishes. Introducing a dog into it would be tantamount to inviting the dirt, so effortfully excluded, back into his room. Fleas, the constant companions of dogs, would appear. Then, once there were fleas, could the moment be far off when Blumfeld would have to leave his cosy room to the dog and go and live somewhere else? And dirt was only one drawback. Dogs get sick and who really understands animal diseases? Then you would have the animal crouched in a corner or limping around, whimpering, coughing or choking on some pain or other, you wrap him up in a blanket, whistle a tune to him, push a saucer of milk in front of him; in short, you look after him in the hope that, as is indeed possible, it’s a passing sickness, but it may turn out instead to be something seriously disgusting and infectious. And even if the dog stays healthy, he will one day grow old; you might not be able to decide in time to give the faithful animal away and so the moment comes when it’s your own life that’s looking back at you from those weeping dog’s eyes. Then you’re saddled with a half-blind, wheezing animal, so corpulent it can hardly move, and then the pleasures the dog afforded you back in the day are dearly bought indeed. However much Blumfeld would like a dog just at the moment, he would rather trudge up the stairs alone for another thirty years than be discommoded by an old dog like that later, who, groaning even louder than his master, drags himself from step to step.

So Blumfeld will remain alone. He doesn’t have the physical yearnings of an old spinster, who craves some inferior being around her, for her to protect, on which she can exercise her tenderness, which she will constantly pamper, for which purposes a cat or a canary or even a few goldfish might do. And if she can’t have any of those, then she’ll make do with a flowerbox outside the window. Blumfeld, however, is out for a companion, an animal that doesn’t require much in the way of maintenance, that won’t mind the occasional kick, that will survive a night on the street, but that, should Blumfeld require it, will be on the spot with barking, leaping and licking of hands. That’s what Blumfeld is in the market for, but since, as he concedes, he can’t have it without considerable drawbacks, then he declines; though, in accordance with his methodical nature, he can’t but return to the idea from time to time, as for instance, this evening.

Standing outside the door, and reaching into his pocket for his key, he is struck by a sound coming from inside. A strange clattering sound, but lively and above all regular. Since Blumfeld has just been thinking about dogs, he is put in mind of the sound of paws on parquet floors. But paws don’t clatter, so these aren’t paws. He hurriedly unlocks the door and turns on the electric light. He isn’t prepared for what meets his eye. As if by magic, two little blue and white striped rubber balls are bouncing side by side on the floor; when the one hits the ground, the other is in mid-air, and they play tirelessly together. At school once, Blumfeld saw little balls bouncing like this in the course of an experiment with electricity, but these balls are pretty large, and are jumping freely around the room, and of course there is no electrical experiment. Blumfeld bends down to get a closer look at them. There is no doubt about it, they are ordinary balls, probably they contain some smaller balls within them, and they are what is producing the clattering sound. Blumfeld waves his hands to check that they aren’t secured to some sort of string or something, but no, their movement is perfectly independent. Too bad that Blumfeld isn’t a small boy, two balls like that would have been a wonderful surprise, whereas now the whole thing makes a faintly disagreeable impression on him.