And even if this is the last bit of strength I have, it’s enough for you, more than enough. Of course I know your friend. He would have been a son after my own heart. That’s why you’ve been betraying him all these years. Why else? Do you think I haven’t wept for him? And that’s why you’ve had to lock yourself up in the office—the boss is busy, mustn’t be disturbed—just so that you could write your lying little letters to Russia. But fortunately a father doesn’t need to be taught how to see through his own son. And now that you thought you’d pinned him down, so far down that you could plant your rear end on him so he couldn’t move, then my fine son decides to up and get married!”

Georg looked up at the terrifying image of his father. His friend in St. Petersburg, whom his father suddenly knew so well, seized hold of his imagination as never before. He saw him lost in the vastness of Russia; at the door of his empty, plundered warehouse he saw him. Amid the wreckage of his storage shelves, the slashed remnants of his wares, the falling gas brackets, he barely stood upright. Why did he have to go so far away!

“Pay attention to me!” cried his father, and Georg, almost absentmindedly, ran toward the bed to take everything in, but froze halfway there.

“Because she lifted up her skirts,” his father began to flute, “because she lifted her skirts like this, the revolting creature”—and mimicking her, he lifted his shirt so high that one could see the scar on his thigh from his war wound—“because she lifted her skirts like this and this and this you went after her, and in order to have your way with her undisturbed you have disgraced our mother’s memory, betrayed your friend, and stuck your father into bed so that he can’t move. But can he move, or can’t he?”

And he stood up quite unsupported and kicked his legs about. He shone with insight.

Georg shrank into a corner, as far away from his father as possible. A long time ago he had firmly made up his mind to watch everything with the greatest attention so that he would not be surprised by any indirect attack, a pounce from behind or above. At this moment he recalled this long-forgotten resolve and then forgot it again, like someone drawing a short thread through the eye of a needle.

“But your friend hasn’t been betrayed after all!” cried his father, emphasizing the point with stabs of his forefinger. “I’ve been representing him here on the spot.”

“You comedian!” Georg could not resist shouting, realized at once the harm done, and, his eyes bulging in his head, bit his tongue—though too late—until the pain made his knees buckle.

“Yes, of course I’ve been playing a comedy! A comedy! That’s the perfect word for it! What other consolation was left for your poor old widowed father? Tell me—and while you’re answering me may you still be my loving son—what else was left to me, in my back room, plagued by a disloyal staff, old to the very marrow of my bones? And my son strutting through the world, closing deals that I had prepared for him, turning somersaults in his glee, and striding away from his father with the composed face of a man of honor! Do you think I didn’t love you, I, from whose loins you sprang?”

Now he’s going to lean forward, thought Georg; if only he would topple over and smash to pieces! These words went hissing through his brain.

His father leaned forward but did not topple. Since Georg didn’t come any closer, as he had expected, he straightened himself up again.

“Stay where you are, then, I don’t need you! You think you have the strength to get yourself over here and that you’re only hanging back because you want to? Don’t be too sure! I am still much the stronger. All by myself I might have had to give in, but your mother has given me her strength, I have established a fine connection with your friend, and I have your customers in my pocket!”

“He has pockets even in his undershirt!” said Georg to himself, and thought that with this observation he could expose him for a fool for all the world to see. He was able to cling to that thought for no more than a moment, for in his distraction he kept on forgetting everything.

“Just try linking arms with your bride and getting in my way! I’ll sweep her from your side, you don’t know how!”

Georg grimaced in disbelief. His father only nodded in the direction of Georg’s corner, affirming the truth of his words.

“How you amused me today, coming in here to ask if you should tell your friend about your engagement. He knows all about it already, you stupid boy, he knows it all! I’ve been writing to him, for you forgot to take my writing things from me. That’s why he hasn’t been here for years, he knows everything a hundred times better than you do yourself, with his left hand he crumples up your letters unopened while with his right he holds mine and reads them through!”

In his exhilaration he waved his arm over his head. “He knows everything a thousand times better!” he cried.

“Ten thousand times!” said Georg, to make fun of his father, but in his very mouth the words turned deadly earnest.

“For years I’ve been waiting for you to come with this question! Do you think I’ve concerned myself with anything else? Do you think I’ve been reading my newspapers? Look!” and he threw Georg a page from a newspaper that had somehow found its way into the bed with him. An old newspaper, with a name entirely unknown to Georg.

“How long it’s taken you to grow up! Your mother had to die—she couldn’t live to see the happy day—your friend is going to pieces in Russia, even three years ago he was yellow enough to be thrown away, and as for me, you can see what condition I’m in. You have eyes in your head for that!”

“So you’ve been lying in wait for me!” cried Georg.

His father said pityingly, in an offhand manner: “I suppose you wanted to say that earlier. But now it is no longer appropriate.”

And in a louder voice: “So now you know there is more in the world than just you. Till now you’ve known only about yourself! An innocent child, yes, that you were, truly, but still more truly have you been a devilish human being!—And therefore take note: I sentence you now to death by drowning!”

Georg felt himself driven from the room, the crash with which his father collapsed onto the bed behind him still rang in his ears as he fled. On the staircase, which he rushed down as if its steps were an inclined plane, he ran into the cleaning woman on her way up to do the morning tidying of the apartment. “Jesus!” she cried, and covered her face with her apron, but he was already gone.