And on such evenings it's my habit to pull up my legs and put my arms around them. I had leaned my head against the wooden back of the bench, and from there I watched the cloudlike mountains on the other shore. A violin was playing softly in the hotel by the river. Now and again on both shores trains chuffed by amid shining smoke."

Turning suddenly around, my acquaintance interrupted me; he almost looked as though he were surprised to see me still here. "Oh, I could tell you much more," I said, nothing else.

"Just imagine," he began, "and it always happens like this. Today, as I was going downstairs to take a short walk before the evening party, I couldn't help being surprised by the way my hands were dangling about in my cuffs, and they were doing it so gaily. Which promptly made me think: Just wait, something's going to happen today. And it did, too." He said this while turning to go and looked at me smiling out of his big eyes.

So I had already got as far as that. He could tell me things like that and at the same time smile and look at me with big eyes. And I — I had to restrain myself from putting my arm around his shoulders and kissing him on the eyes as a reward for having absolutely no use for me. But the worst was that even that could no longer do any harm because it couldn't change anything, for now I had to go away, away at any price.

While I was still trying urgently to think of some means by which I could stay at least a little while longer with my acquaintance, it occurred to me that perhaps my long body displeased him by making him feel too small. And this thought — although it was late at night and we had hardly met a soul — tormented me so much that while walking I bent my back until my hands reached my knees. But in order to prevent my acquaintance from noticing my intentions I changed my position only very gradually, tried to divert his attention from myself, once even turning him toward the river, pointing out to him with outstretched hands the trees on the Schutzeninsel and the way the bridge lamps were reflected in the river.

But wheeling suddenly around, he looked at me — I hadn't quite finished yet — and said: "What's this? You're all crooked! What on earth are you up to?"

"Quite right. You're very observant," said I, my head on the seam of his trousers, which was why I couldn't look up properly.

"Enough of that! Stand up straight! What nonsense!"

"No," I said, my face close to the ground, "I'll stay as I am."

"You really can annoy a person, I must say. Such a waste of time! Come on, put an end to it."

"The way you shout! In the quiet of the night!" I said.

"Oh well, just as you like," he added, and after a while: "It's a quarter to one." He had evidently seen the time on the clock of the Mühlenturm.

I promptly stood up straight as though I'd been pulled up by the hair. For a while I kept my mouth open, to let my agitation escape. I understood: he was sending me away. There was no place for me near him, or if there were one, at least it could not be found. Why, by the way, was I so intent on staying with him? No, I ought to go away — and this at once — to my relatives and friends who were waiting for me. But if I didn't have any relatives and friends then I must fend for myself (what was the good of complaining!), but I must leave here no less quickly. For in his eyes nothing could redeem me any longer, neither my length, my appetite, nor my cold hand. But if I were of the opinion that I had to remain with him, it was a dangerous opinion.

"I wasn't in need of your information," I said, which happened to be true.

"Thank God you're standing up straight again. All I said was that it's a quarter to one."

"That's all right," said I, and stuck two fingernails in the gaps between my chattering teeth. "If I didn't need your information, how much less do I need an explanation. The fact is, I need nothing but your mercy. Please, take back what you said just now!"

"That it's a quarter to one? But with pleasure, especially since a quarter to one passed long ago."

He lifted his right arm, flicked his hand, and listened to the castanetlike sound of his cuff links.

Obviously, this is the time for the murder. I'll stay with him and slowly he'll draw the dagger — the handle of which he is already holding in his pocket — along his coat, and then plunge it into me. It's unlikely that he'll be surprised at the simplicity of it all — yet maybe he will, who knows? I won't scream, I'll just stare at him as long as my eyes can stand it.

"Well?" he said.

In front of a distant coffeehouse with black windowpanes a policeman let himself glide over the pavement like a skater. His sword hampering him, he took it in his hand, and now he glided along for quite a while, finally ending up by almost describing a circle. At last he yodeled weakly and, melodies in his head, began once more to skate.

It wasn't until the arrival of this policeman — who, two hundred feet from an imminent murder, saw and heard only himself — that I began to feel a certain fear.