“We can discuss that better in your room,” said the student. “It is something that can’t be disposed of on the stairs.”
“I didn’t know that I was to receive any such message,” said Messner, and looked out of the corner of his eye at the door.
“That may be,” said the student.
“Besides,” said Messner, “it is past eleven o’clock now, no one will overhear us here.”
“No,” the student replied, “it is impossible for me to say it here.”
“And I,” said Messner, “do not receive guests at night,” and he stuck the key into the lock so violently that the other keys in the bunch continued to jingle for a while.
“Now look, I’ve been waiting here since eight o’clock, three hours,” said the student.
“That only proves that the message is important to you. But I don’t want to receive any messages. Every message that I am spared is a gain, I am not curious, only go,
go.” He took the student by his thin overcoat and pushed him away a little. Then he partly opened the door and tremendous heat flowed from the room into the cold
hall. “Besides, is it a business message?” he asked further, when he was already standing in the open doorway.
“That too I cannot say here,” said the student.
“Then I wish you good night,” said Messner, went into his room, locked the door with the key, turned on the light of the electric bed lamp, filled a small glass at a little
wall cabinet in which were several bottles of liquor, emptied it with a smack of his lips, and began to undress. Leaning back against the high pillows, he was on the point
of beginning to read a newspaper when it seemed to him that someone was knocking softly on the door. He laid the newspaper back on the bed cover, crossed his
arms, and listened. And in fact the knock was repeated, very softly and as though down very low on the door. “A really impertinent puppy,” laughed Messner. When
the knocking stopped, he again picked up the newspaper. But now the knocking came more strongly, there was a real banging on the door. The knocking came the way
children at play scatter their knocks over the whole door, now down low, dull against the wood, now up high, clear against the glass. “I shall have to get up,” Messner
thought, shaking his head. “I can’t telephone the housekeeper because the instrument is over there in the anteroom and I should have to wake the landlady to get to it.
There’s nothing else I can do except to throw the boy down the stairs myself.” He pulled a felt cap over his head, threw back the cover, pulled himself to the edge of
the bed with his weight on his hands, slowly put his feet on the floor, and pulled on high, quilted slippers. “Well now,” he thought, and, chewing his upper lip, stared at the
door; “now it is quiet again. But I must have peace once and for all,” he then said to himself, pulled a stick with a horn knob out of a stand, held it by the middle, and
went to the door.
“Is anyone still out there?” he asked through the closed door.
“Yes,” came the answer. “Please open the door for me.”
“I’ll open it,” said Messner, opened the door and stepped out holding the stick.
“Don’t hit me,” said the student threateningly, and took a step backward.
“Then go!” said Messner, and pointed his index finger in the direction of the stairs.
“But I can’t,” said the student, and ran up to Messner so surprisingly—
27 November. I must stop without actually being shaken off. Nor do I feel any danger that I might get lost, still, I feel helpless and an outsider. The firmness, however,
which the most insignificant writing brings about in me is beyond doubt and wonderful. The comprehensive view I had of everything on my walk yesterday!
The child of the housekeeper who opened the gate. Bundled up in a woman’s old shawl, pale, numb, fleshy little face. At night is carried to the gate like that by the