Autumn came, Victoria had gone home and the little out-of-the-way street and its houses was as quiet as before. At night there was a light in Johannes' room. It made its appearance with the stars at evening and was extinguished when day dawned. He was working with all his might, writing his great book. Weeks and months passed; he was alone and visited nobody, he no longer went to the Seiers'. Often his imagination played him tricks and slipped irrelevant fancies into his book which he afterwards had to strike out and throw away. This put him back a great deal. A sudden noise in the stillness of the night, the rumbling of a cart in the street, might give his thoughts a jolt and throw them off the line: Out of the way of this cart in the street, look out there! Why? Why should one look out for this cart anyway? It was rolling past, perhaps it had now reached the corner. Perhaps there's a man standing there with no overcoat, no cap, he stoops down and meets the cart with his head, he will be run over, hopelessly mangled, killed. The man wants to die, that is his affair. He won't button his shirt any more and he has given up tying his shoes in the morning, he wears everything open, his chest is bare and skinny; he is to die.... A man was lying at the point of death, he wrote a letter to a friend, a note, a little request. The man died and left this letter. It had a date and signature, it was written with capitals and small letters although he who wrote it was to die in an hour. That was so strange. He had even put the usual flourish under his name. And an hour later he was dead.... There was another man. He was lying alone in a little room which was wood-panelled and painted blue. What then? Nothing. In the whole wide world he is the one who has got to die. That fills his mind; he thinks about it till he is worn out. He sees that it is evening, that it is eight by the clock on the wall, and he can't make out why it doesn't strike. Poor man, his brain is already falling asleep; the clock _has_ struck and he didn't notice it. Then he makes a hole through his mother's portrait on the wall--what does he want with this picture now, and why should it be left whole when he is gone? His tired eyes fall upon the flower-pot on the table and he reaches out his hand and pulls the big flower-pot slowly and deliberately so that it falls on the floor and is smashed to pieces. Why should it be left unbroken? Then he throws his amber cigarette-holder out of the window. What does he want with it any more? It seems so obvious to him that he need not leave it behind. And in a week the man was dead....