Or better: “I have no intention of shirking my responsibility to answer the call of the Fatherland.” Yes, that was an improvement. But he still didn’t like this part of the scene; it was too servile. He was bowing just a little too low. He thought yet again. He had better keep it perfectly simple. “I know my duty”—yes, that was it, you could turn the phrase this way and that, understand or misunderstand it. And it sounded clear and brief. You could say it in a masterful tone—“I know my duty”—almost like a threat. Now it was all perfect. Yet he glanced nervously at his watch nervously again. Time refused to go forward. It was only eight o’clock.

People jostled him in the street, he didn’t know which way to turn. He went into a café and tried to read the papers. But he felt the words disturbing him; they were all about duty and the Fatherland here too, and the phrases left him confused. He drank a cognac and then another, to get rid of the bitter taste in his throat. Frantically, he wondered how he could get the better of time, and kept reassembling the pieces of his imaginary conversation in his head. Suddenly he put a hand to his cheek—“Unshaved! I haven’t shaved!” He hurried to a barber’s, where he also had his hair cut and washed. That disposed of half-an-hour of waiting. And then, it occurred to him, he ought to look elegant. That was important in such offices. They took an arrogant tone only with the riffraff, they’d snap at people like that, but if you appeared looking elegant, a man of the world, at ease, they’d soon change their tune. The idea went to his head. He had his coat brushed and went to buy a pair of gloves, taking a long time over his choice. Yellow gloves somehow seemed too striking, something a gigolo might wear; a discreet pearl-grey pair would be better. Then he went up and down the street again, looked at himself in a tailor’s mirror, adjusted his tie. His hand felt too empty—a walking-stick, it occurred to him, a walking-stick would impart a sense of occasion, a touch of worldliness to his visit. He quickly went into the shop and bought one. When he came out again the clock in the tower was striking quarter-to-ten. He recited his lines to himself once more. The new version, with the words, “I know my duty,” was now the strongest part of it.