As I remained silent and only an involuntary twitching passed over my face, he asked: "So you don't believe this happens to other people? You really don't? Just listen, then. When as a child I opened my eyes after a brief afternoon nap, still not quite sure I was alive, I heard my mother up on the balcony asking in a natural tone of voice: 'What are you doing, my dear? Goodness, isn't it hot?' From the garden a woman answered: 'Me, I'm having my tea on the lawn.' They spoke casually and not very distinctly, as though this woman had expected the question, my mother the answer."

Feeling that this required an answer, I put my hand in the hip pocket of my trousers as though I were looking for something. Actually, I wasn't looking for anything, I just wished to change my appearance in order to show interest in the conversation. Finally I said I thought this a most remarkable incident and that I couldn't make head or tail of it. I also added that I didn't believe it was true and that it must have been invented for a special reason whose purpose wasn't clear to me just now. Then I closed my eyes so as to shut out the bad light.

"Well, isn't that encouraging! For once you agree with me, and you accosted me to tell me that out of sheer unselfishness. I lose one hope and acquire another.

"Why, after all, should I feel ashamed of not walking upright and taking normal steps, of not tapping the pavement with my stick, and not touching the clothes of the people who pass noisily by? Am I not rather entitled to complain bitterly at having to skip along the houses like a shadow without a clear outline, sometimes disappearing in the panes of the shopwindows?

"Oh, what dreadful days I have to live through! Why is everything so badly built that high houses collapse every now and again for no apparent reason? On these occasions I clamber over the rubble, asking everyone I meet: 'How could this have happened? In our town — a new house — how many does that make today? — Just think of it!' And no one can give me an answer.

"Frequently people fall in the street and lie there dead. Whereupon all the shop people open their doors laden with wares, hurry busily out, cart the dead into a house, come out again all smiles, then the chatter begins: 'Good morning — it's a dull day — I'm selling any amount of kerchiefs — ah yes, the war.' I rush into the house, and after raising my hand several times timidly with my finger crooked, I finally knock on the janitor's little window: 'Good morning,' I say, 'I understand a dead man was carried in here just now. Would you be kind enough to let me see him?' And when he shakes his head as though unable to make up his mind, I add: 'Take care, I'm a member of the secret police and insist on seeing the dead man at once!' Now he is no longer undecided. 'Out with you!' he shouts. 'This riffraff is getting in the habit of snooping about here every day. There's no dead man here. Maybe next door.' I raise my hat and go.

"But then, on having to cross a large square, I forget everything. If people must build such huge squares from sheer wantonness, why don't they build a balustrade across them as well? Today there's a southwest wind blowing. The spire of the Town Hall is moving in little circles. All the windowpanes are rattling, and the lampposts are bending like bamboos. The Virgin Mary's cloak is coiling around her pillar and the wind is tugging at it. Does no one notice this? The ladies and gentlemen who should be walking on the pavement are floating. When the wind falls they stand still, say a few words, and bow to one another, but when the wind rises again they are helpless, and all their feet leave the ground at the same time. Although obliged to hold on to their hats, their eyes twinkle gaily enough and no one has the slightest fault to find with the weather. I'm the only one who's afraid."

To which I was able to say: "That story you told me earlier about your mother and the woman in the garden I really don't find so remarkable. Not only have I heard and experienced many stories of this kind, I have even taken part in some. The whole thing is perfectly natural. Do you really mean to suggest that had I been on that balcony in the summer, I could not have asked the same question and given the same answer from the garden? Quite an ordinary occurrence!"

After I had said this, he seemed relieved at last. He told me I was well dressed and that he very much liked my tie. And what a fine complexion I had. And that confessions became most comprehensible when they were retracted.

cThe Supplicant's Story

Then he sat down beside me, for I had grown timid and, bending my head to one side, had made room for him. Nevertheless, it didn't escape my notice that he too was sitting there rather embarrassed, trying to keep some distance from me and speaking with difficulty:

"Oh, what dreadful days I have to live through! Last night I was at a party. I was just bowing to a young lady in the gaslight and saying: 'I'm so glad winter's approaching' — I was just bowing with these words when to my annoyance I noticed that my right thigh had slipped out of joint. The kneecap had also become a little loose.

"So I sat down, and as I always try to keep control over my sentences, I said: 'for winter's much less of an effort; it's easier to comport oneself, one doesn't have to take so much trouble with one's words. Don't you agree, Fräulein? I do hope I'm right about this.' My right leg was now giving me a lot of trouble. At first it seemed to have fallen apart completely, and only gradually did I manage to get it more or less back into shape by manipulation and careful rearrangement.

"Then I heard the girl, who, out of sympathy, had also sat down, say in a low voice: 'No, you don't impress me at all because —'

" 'Just a moment,' I said, pleased and full of expectation, 'you mustn't waste so much as five minutes talking to me, dear Fräulein. Please eat something while you're talking, I implore you.'

"And stretching out my arm I took a large bunch of grapes hanging heavily from a bowl held up by a bronze winged cupid, dangled it for a moment in the air, and then laid it on a small blue plate which I handed to the girl, not without a certain elegance, I trust.

" 'You don't impress me at all,' she said, 'Everything you say is boring and incomprehensible, but that alone doesn't make it true. What I really think, sir — why do you always call me dear Fräulein? — is that you can't be bothered with the truth simply because it's too tiring.'

"God, how good that made me feel! 'Yes, Fräulein, Fräulein!' I almost shouted, 'how right you are! Dear Fräulein, if you only knew what a wild joy it is to find oneself so well understood — and without having made any effort!'

" 'There's no doubt, sir, that for you the truth is too tiring. Just look at yourself! The entire length of you is cut out of tissue paper, yellow tissue paper, like a silhouette, and when you walk one ought to hear you rustle. So one shouldn't get annoyed at your attitude or opinion, for you can't help bending to whatever draft happens to be in the room.'

"'I don't understand that. True, several people are standing about here in this room. They lay their arms on the backs of chairs or they lean against the piano or they raise a glass tentatively to their mouths or they walk timidly into the next room, and having knocked their right shoulders against a cupboard in the dark, they stand breathing by the open window and think: There's Venus, the evening star. Yet here I am, among them. If there is a connection, I don't understand it. But I don't even know if there is a connection. — And you see, dear Fräulein, of all these people who behave so irresolutely, so absurdly as a result of their confusion, I alone seem worthy of hearing the truth about myself. And to make this truth more palatable you put it in a mocking way so that something concrete remains, like the outer walls of a house whose interior has been gutted. The eye is hardly obstructed; by day the clouds and sky can be seen through the great window holes, and by night the stars. But the clouds are often hewn out of gray stones, and the stars form unnatural constellations. — How would it be if in return I were to tell you that one day everyone wanting to live will look like me — cut out of tissue paper, like silhouettes, as you pointed out — and when they walk they will be heard to rustle? Not that they will be any different from what they are now, but that is what they will look like. Even you, dear Fräulein —'