I did not stay long with Georg.
In a quarter of an hour I was back again.
I discussed with myself whether or not to have a drink.
I did not feel like it.
I sat in the window and surveyed the street.
Dusk flitted on bat's wings over the graveyard.
The sky behind the Trades Hall was green as unripe apples.
The street lamps were already lighted, though it was hardly dark yet—they looked as if they were freezing.
I rummaged under my books for the slip of paper with the telephone number.
At last. . . . It could do no harm to ring up.
After all, I did more or less promise to.
Probably the girl wouldn't be at home anyway.
I went into the passage where the telephone was, took up the receiver and asked for a number.
While I awaited an answer I felt a pleasant expectancy welling up out of the black earpiece.
The girl was in.
Then when the deep, slightly husky voice spoke out suddenly like a ghost into the smell of fat and clatter of dishes from Frau Zalewski's parlour—a soft voice speaking slowly, as if it pondered each word—all my discontent vanished.
I hung up the receiver after making an appointment for the day after to-morrow.
Life suddenly seemed no longer pointless.
"Crazy," thought I and shook my head.
Then I took up the receiver once more and spoke to Koster.
"Have you got the tickets still, Otto?"
"Yes."
"Good.
I'm coming to the fight then."
Afterwards we wandered a long time through the city.
The streets, though lit, were deserted.
Electric signs glowed; lights burned in the shop windows to no purpose.
In one were naked wax dummies with painted heads.
They looked ghostly and perverted.
Next door was a sparkle of jewellery.
Then a department store, floodlit, standing out white like a cathedral, its show windows foaming with gay-coloured silks.
Pale, half-starved figure's were crouched outside a picture house; and alongside, a ham-and-beef shop spread its splendours: canned fruits piled high into tin towers, peaches bedded in wadding, fat geese strung on a line like so much washing, loaves of brown bread among highly seasoned ham sausages, and, central in it all, gleaming pink and pale yellow, liver patties and sliced salmon.
We sat down on a seat near the park.
The night was cool and the moon stood like an arc lamp over the roofs of the houses.
It was already past midnight.
Workmen repairing the tram lines had pitched a tent on the pavement hard by.
The bellows hissed and showers of sparks rained down upon the solemn, bowed figures.
Alongside stood cauldrons of tar smoking like field-kitchens.
We sank into a brown study.
"Queer sort of day, Sunday, Otto."
Koster nodded.
"One is glad when it's over," said I meditatively.
Koster shrugged his shoulders.
"Perhaps it is that one is so used to the routine that one finds the little bit of freedom disturbing."
I turned up my coat collar.
"Doesn't say much for the life we lead, Otto."
He looked at me and smiled.
"There was less to be said for it a few years ago, Bob."
"True," I agreed. "Still . . ."
The acid light of the pneumatic drill squirted green over the asphalt.