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themselves also had rank and character and were repeatedly confirmed in the position they held in the world by the response they received. The beautiful women seemed to see no one; nevertheless they scanned all those present with the alert and unobtrusive gaze with which commanders inspect regiments ready to march one last time before the General arrives. None of those present escaped these beautiful women. They did not overlook even the doorman or the policeman. Their eyes scattered rapid questions and received slow and languishing answers. Officers in every shade of blue and brown, all in gleaming patent leather boots and narrow black trousers, spread an amiable cadence of sound and a harmless motley of colour. For the first time Friedrich felt no hatred toward them and even a certain solidarity with the policeman, who was to be thanked because the harmony of this elegant turmoil was undisturbed by drunkards or criminals. 'No one here suspects what I am,' he thought. 'They take me for a little student.' When a woman's gaze rested on him, he felt gratitude towards the entire sex. 'These creatures have instinct,' he told himself. 'The men are coarse.' Suddenly he pitied these society ladies. They mourned away their lives, their beauty wilted, at the side of boorish lieutenants and brutish moneylenders. They needed quite different men. Naturally, he thought of himself.
    A shrill bell rang through the house like a joyous alarm. People's movements quickened, the hubbub grew louder. The doors flew open and three minutes later the foyer was empty. The policeman sat down on an empty chair in the corner. The box-office window was slammed to from within by an invisible hand. The silvery arc-lights in front of the entrance went out. The performance had ended in the foyer, another was just beginning on the stage. The coachmen came inside, little men who looked like postmen out of uniform. They gathered round the doorman and parleyed with him. They were sub-agents and fly-by-night ticket touts. The policeman turned away so as not to have to see them. In the foyer there was no longer any fragrance of women's perfume. These poor folk diffused an aroma of goulash, old clothes and rain. It was as if the poor now gathered in the foyer stood, like the figures in a weather-house, at the opposite end of the same gang-plank to which the rich too were nailed, and as if fixed rules governed the appearance, now of the fortunate, and now of the wretched.
    Friedrich left the theatre. It was time to seek out his friends in the café. But on this particular day he would rather not have seen them. He felt embarrassed before them. 'They are bound to see,' he told himself, 'that I am in love. R. will immediately unmask me as a "romantic", a description which, in his mouth, sounds like the word "parricide".' No, he could not meet the comrades. Savelli, for instance, did not fall in love, Comrade T. loved only the Revolution. The Ukrainian had subjected his entire colossal bulk to the Idea as one subjects a race to a master. And as for R., he obviously denied the possibilities of love. Only he, Friedrich, had room in his breast for renunciation and ambition, revolution and infatuation.
    There was nothing left for him to do but to climb the poorly-lit stairs to Grünhut, for he could not remain alone. He smelled the stink of the cats which rushed helter-skelter away from him in inexplicable panic, heard the voices from behind the doors ranked closely in the corridors, numbered as in hotels. The midwife's door bore the notice: 'Knock loudly, bell out of order.' He heard Grünhut's light step.
    'Long time no see,' said Grünhut. And immediately after: 'Psst, there's clients inside.'
    He was writing his addresses. He could now easily manage up to 400 a day. Was Friedrich writing still? No, he was working now, still had enough money for two months, and intended to find something else soon.
    Grünhut now resumed his old complaints against the world. As always he