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and got in Erna's way. She kept the house badly now, because Heinrich was always there and she could not move, and besides what was the use? No matter how often she tidied up the living-room, it was a mess again in no time. Heinrich left papers lying on the floor, spilled cigar ash, rumpled the pillows, pulled the curtains open to look out the window, and left them crooked and parted. She had nothing to say to him, and it infuriated her whenever he talked. Always talking about stamps, as if anybody cared about stamps, as if people - in fact — didn't hate stamps.
    Luther came home later and left usually right after supper, saying there was an Odd Fellows' meeting or he had to do extra work at the store or he was going over to Charlie's and talk with the boys. Their friends had stopped coming in, evenings, to play a little game of poker, or just drink a highball or two and gossip and listen to the radio, because Heinrich was there - and he made them sad and uneasy. An accusation had grown up in silence between Erna and Luther. Luther had thought of himself as giving shelter (briefly) to a hero, and all he had on his hands was an old fool, a lazy old fool who wouldn't work, and splashed so much water around the bathroom you had to wade in and mop up after him, and ate his food slowly, slowly (oh, God, why won't he swallow it?), making awful, slow, crunching sounds. And when he talked — stamps. ...
    Heinrich went to the movies, in the afternoons, by himself, wanting darkness and wanting to be alone. But the air worried him, it was too hot and not real air, and his legs got cramped. The figures moving over the screen hurt his eyes, and the music was agony to him. He used to go and sit in the art museum, not looking at the pictures much, but just sitting in a large room where he could be quiet. He counted his money in his mind, and saw that it was melting away. And he could not work on his book, and the days were longer than all the winters he had spent in Tübingen.
    Then one evening Luther came home drunk. It was not very serious; it was a cold, cloudy day, and he had been bored at the store and the thought of Heinrich, at home, bored him more, so he went out with two friends and drank gin quickly and got drunk. It was more than Erna could bear and she screamed at him, in fury and in terror, thinking: Is he going to come home every day now like 'this? Heinrich appeared from the bedroom and wondered what it was all about. When he saw that Luther was drunk, he said, in disgust, 'Shame.' Erna turned from her husband, stood with her hands on her hips, white in the face and beyond caring, and told Heinrich; that Luther had never been drunk before Heinrich left Germany on account of a fool poet, and Heinrich's stamps were enough to drive anybody to drink, and they couldn't live like decent people because Heinrich was there all the time, in the way, messy and tiresome and ... and ...
    Heinrich said nothing. He got his hat, wrapped the skinny scarf about his neck, tugged on the great black coat, and went out into the street. He walked by himself for hours, and ate somewhere, not I noticing what food he had asked for. He came back, when the house: was quiet, and went quietly to bed. The next morning, with dignity, he said that he was leaving: he would find a room for himself. He thanked them.
    Luther and Erna made polite if somewhat muted sounds but they let him go, only asking that he leave his address. He would not have done this, but it was necessary to get his trunks from Erna's basement to his new home, and he needed help. So Erna arranged for the trunks to be sent and she went to see him. It was an ugly room in a boarding-house which smelled of shoe polish and escaping gas; and cabbage. The wallpaper in Heinrich's room was blotched and swollen in places with damp, and the fixtures on his washbowl were rusty. The bed had heavy lumps in it, and the upholstery of the chairs was without colour or design, grey from use. It was