But I’ll have you know that I don’t intend to get drunk, nor go to bed with you just for a bottle of champagne.”

Now she looked at me again, accompanying her immodest words with a bold insolent look. I had to go on playing my part. “Whoever would think of such a thing, my sweet,” I said lightly. “Go and get your champagne. You’ll be allowed to drink it quite unmolested. To me,” I added, more firmly after I had had another drink, “you’re like an angel from another planet, a bad angel whom fate has set in my path. It’s enough for me just to look at you.”

“It costs nothing to look,” she said with a short evil-sounding laugh. “You’re a pretty queer saint, but before the night’s out I think I’m going to find out what you’re so excited about.”

With that, she poured me another drink, and got up to fetch the champagne. This time she was away longer. She drew the curtains, then went outside, and I heard her close the shutters, and lock the door. As she went through the barroom again, she said “I’ve locked up, nobody else will be coming. The landlady’s in bed already.” She said this in passing, then stopped, and added in an ironic tone, “But don’t build your hopes on that.” Before I could answer, she had gone again. I used her absence to pour myself out two or three drinks straight off. Then she came back with a gold-topped bottle in her hand.

She put a champagne glass on the table before her, skilfully unbent the wire and twisted the cork out of the bottle without letting it pop. The white foam rushed up. She poured, waited a moment, poured again, and lifted the glass to her mouth.

“I’m not going to drink your health,” she said, “because you would want to drink with me, and for the time being, you’ve had enough.”

I didn’t contradict her. My whole body was so full of drunkenness, it seemed to hum like a swarm of bees. She put down her glass, looked at me with narrowed eyes and asked mockingly, “Now then, how many schnapses did you have while I was away? Five? Six?”

“Only three,” I answered, laughing. It never occurred to me to feel ashamed. With this girl, all such feelings disappeared completely.

“Incidentally, what’s your name?”

“Do you intend to come here often?” she countered.

“Perhaps,” I answered, rather confused. “Why?”

“Why do you want to know my name? For the half hour we sit here, ‘my sweet’ or whatever else you like to call me, will do.”

“All right, don’t tell me your name,” I said, suddenly irritable. “I don’t care.”

I took the bottle and poured another drink. Already it was quite clear to me that I was completely drunk and that I should not take any more. Even so, the urge to go on drinking was stronger. The coloured web in my brain enticed me, the dark untrodden jungles of my inner self tempted me; from afar, a soft seductive voice was calling.

“I don’t know whether I shall often come here,” I said rapidly. “I can’t stand you, I hate you, and yet I’ve come back to you this evening. This morning I drank the first schnaps in my life. You poured it out for me, you stole into my blood with it, you’ve poisoned me. You’re like the spirit of schnaps: hovering, intoxicating, cheap and.…”

I looked at her, breathless, myself the more astonished at these words which hurtled out of me, goodness knows where from. She sat opposite me.