Then it feels good, and sitting on the stone I fall asleep. I wake up shivering, icy. I have fallen from my seat, I walk on. The faster I walk, the longer the road seems to become. The fruit trees along the roadside positively fly past me, yet I seem to be no further on. I don’t know where I am, only that I’m a long way from home. I don’t know what time it is, only that it’s still night. The moon is some two handsbreadths above the horizon. And I walk on. I walk through a sleeping village. Not a light anywhere, everyone asleep, I am the only one abroad. Erwin Sommer, proprietor of a wholesale market produce business. Not now, not now, that was before. The one who is walking through this moonlit night, who is he? Once he was someone—long ago he was. Down and out now, finished, almost forgotten.… At my shuffling step, a dog wakes up in his kennel and starts to bark. Other dogs awaken and now the whole village is barking and I shuffle through it on sore feet, a tramp, and yesterday I was still … oh, shut up! And I stop in the shadow of the wooden church spire and raise the bottle to my mouth again and drink. That stills the questions, soothes the pain, that is a whip for the next half hour on the road. But there is not much left in the bottle. I’ll have to go easy with the precious stuff. I’ll swallow the last mouthful—and it must be a big one—on my own doorstep, before I face Magda. But Magda is asleep. I shall lie down very quietly on the sofa, there won’t be any argument tonight. And tomorrow? Tomorrow is a long way off. By tomorrow I shall have had a deep, deep sleep, I shall have forgotten everything that happened today, I shall be the head of the firm again, who had committed a small blunder, it’s true, but who is perfectly capable of making amends.…

I have hidden the empty bottle in the garden bushes, and now, very quietly, on my bare feet, I mount the steps to the front door. I manage to unlock the door without a sound. I am not a bit drunk now, though I have only just taken one or two long swigs of brandy—there was more left in the bottle than I had thought. So much the better. I am all the more clear-headed and certain. I shan’t make any mistake, I shan’t wake anyone up. How cunning I am.