Why should I take out the sheet of paper inside the envelope and read what it says overleaf? Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow the bushes will bear a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand leaves, and this is no more to me than any of them. What does that word ‘Official’ mean? Does that say I have to read it? I hold no office anywhere, and no one holds office over me. What’s my name there for—is that really me? Who can compel me to say it means me, who can force me to read what’s written on the paper? If I just tear it up unread, the scraps will flutter down to the lake, I won’t know anything about it and nor will the world; it will be gone as fast as a drop of water falling from a tree to the ground, as fast as every breath that passes my lips! Why should this piece of paper make me uneasy? I won’t know anything about it unless I want to. And I don’t want to. All I want is my freedom.

His fingers tensed, ready to tear the stout envelope into small scraps. But oddly enough, his muscles would not do it. Something or other had taken over his own hands against his own will, for they did not obey him. And as he wished with all his heart that they would tear up the envelope, they very carefully opened it and, trembling, unfolded the white sheet of paper. It said what he already knew.

‘No 34.729F. On the orders of District Headquarters at M, your honour is hereby requested hereby to present yourself in Room Number 8, District Headquarters at M, by 22nd March at the latest for a further medical examination with a view to establishing your fitness for service in the army. You will be issued with the military papers by the Consulate in Zürich, where you are to go for that purpose.’

When he went back indoors an hour later his wife came to meet him, smiling, a bunch of spring flowers loosely held in her hand. She was radiant with carefree delight. “Look,” she said, “look what I’ve found! They’re already flowering in the meadow behind the house, even though the snow still lies in the shade among the trees.” He took the flowers to please her, bent over them so as not to catch his beloved wife’s untroubled gaze, and was quick to take refuge in the little attic room that he had made into a studio.

But his work did not go well. No sooner did he face his blank canvas than the typewritten words of the letter suddenly stood there as if hammered out on it. The colours on his palette seemed to him like mud and blood. He kept thinking of pus and wounds. His self-portrait, painted in half-shade, showed him a military collar under his chin. “Madness! Madness!” he said out loud, stamping his foot to dispel these deranged images. But his hands trembled and the floor shook beneath his feet. He had to sit down, and he went on sitting there on his small stool, overwhelmed by his thoughts, until his wife called him to luncheon.

Every morsel choked him. Something bitter was stuck high up in his throat, it had to be swallowed with every mouthful, and it always came up again. Hunched there in silence, he realized that his wife was watching him. Suddenly he felt her hand softly placed on his own.

“What’s the matter, Ferdinand?” He did not reply. “Have you had bad news?”

He just nodded, and gulped.

“From the army?”

He nodded again. She said no more, and nor did he. The looming, oppressive idea of it was suddenly there in the room, pushing everything else aside. It weighed down, broad and sticky, on the food they had begun to eat. It crawled, a damp slug, over the backs of their necks and made them shudder. They dared not look at each other, but just sat there in silence with their shoulders bent, and the intolerable burden of that thought pressing down on them.

There was a faltering note in her voice when at last she asked, “Have they told you to go to the Consulate?”

“Yes.”

“And will you go?”

He was trembling.