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which were lit up, including one right at the top, where the coffee was being made. His own window was the one just below that. He saw it in perspective, quite dark. Against this dark background he sought for the white patch of the handkerchief, found it, ghostly but visible, as his face too, every night was visible.
    Facing him was a door, that of B staircase, which led up to the girl's room. Mr. Hire stared at it, hesitating, and fled back to his own staircase, breathing hard.
    There had been time for a change to take place in the ground-floor passage. It was lit up. Someone had pressed the button. Yet the doorbell had not rung. No footsteps had been heard.
    Mr. Hire walked on tiptoe, his body leaning forward. He had reached the glass-panelled door of the lodge, when he stopped short.
    In the shadows on the other side of the pane, a man was standing, watching him placidly, smoking a pipe. His face did not bear a tragic, nor threatening nor ironical expression. No expression at all! He was smoking his pipe as though it were perfectly natural to be smoking at this hour, standing in the concierge's lodge, in complete darkness except for the glow of the lamps in the passage.
    He showed no surprise at sight of Mr. Hire, who was staring at him with round eyes. He moved. He raised his hand, took the pipe from his mouth, and puffed out a cloud of smoke which, hovering against the glass pane, hid his face for a moment as though it had been rubbed out.
    Mr. Hire stretched his hand towards the door-handle, let it fall again, and, tearing himself from the spot, made rapidly for the stairs and went up, holding closely to the banisters.
    Back in his room, he sat down, but he could see the window opposite, the girl bolting her door again, letting down her hair with a furious gesture, crushing out her cigarette on the enamel surface of her washbasin.
    Finally, turning towards the courtyard, towards his window, she put out her tongue and switched off the light.
    IV
     
    I T was from the wireless, at five minutes to eight, that Mr. Hire discovered this was Sunday, for every Sunday morning it played, talked and whistled in some unlocated corner of the house. Looking out of his window he saw that the girl's room had not been tidied, and this, too, was a feature of Sundays. At one o'clock the girl would come rushing in, pull up the sheets and blankets just anyhow, and change her dress with frantic speed.
    There was still no wood in his room. The water in the jug was covered with a thin layer of ice, and Mr. Hire, collarless and in bedroom slippers, set off down the staircase.
    Out of doors it seemed colder than the previous day, but that might be because there were not so many people about. The wide road was almost empty. One could see from the attitude of the tram that it had no intention of leaving for at least a quarter of an hour. The people walking along in the pale, sharp air, were mostly dressed in mourning, bending forwards, with flowers in their hands, on their way to the new cemetery. This was their time of day.
    As he went past the concierge's lodge, Mr. Hire saw only the little girl, dressed in her white knickers, washing herself. But from the front door he noticed the inspector, at the cross-roads, stamping his feet as he chatted with the policeman on point duty. The inspector saw him too, made no move, and Mr. Hire turned left, into the grocer's shop.
    Though he was only wearing his overcoat, with upturned collar, over his nightshirt, he still looked over-dressed for the time of day, almost ceremonious. He waited patiently, with dignity, for his turn, then pointed to the things he wanted.
    'A dozen . . . Half a pound . . . How much is that?'
    The people in the place had known him for a long time, and yet they looked at him with embarrassment and curiosity. He wanted kindling for his fire, cheese, butter and cooked vegetables. At the delicatessen shop he bought a cold cutlet and some pickled gherkins. His arms were full of little