Running, I passed through familiar, half-dark, echoing rooms, and for some reason I ran straight to the bedroom. When I had reached the door, a thought flashed: "And if she is there ... not alone?" I stopped and listened. But all I heard was the tick-tock of my heart, not within me, but somewhere near, outside me. I entered. The large bed,--untouched. A mirror ... another mirror in the door of the cupboard, and in the keyhole an ancient key upon an ancient ring. No one was there. I called softly: "I-330, are you here?"--and then in a still lower voice with closed eyes, holding my breath,--in a voice as though I were kneeling before her, "I-, dear." Silence. Only the water was dripping fast into the white basin of the washstand. I cannot now explain why, but I disliked that sound. I turned the faucet hard and went out. She was not there, so much was clear. She must be in another "apartment." I ran down a wide, sombre stairway, pulled one door, another, a third,--locked. Every room was locked save that of "our" apartment. And she was not there. I went back again to the same apartment without knowing why. I walked slowly, with difficulty; my shoe-soles suddenly became as heavy as cast-iron. I remember distinctly my thought, "It is a mistake that the force of gravity is a constant; consequently all my formulae...." Suddenly--an explosion! A door slammed down below; some one stamped quickly over the flagstones. I again became lightfooted, extremely light! I dashed to the railing to bend over, and in one word, one exclamation, expressed everything: "You!" I became cold. Below in the square shadow of the window-frame, flapping its pink wing-ears, the head of S- passed by! Like lightning I saw only the naked conclusion. Without any premises (I don't recall any premises even now) the conclusion: he must not see me here! And on the tips of my toes, pressing myself against the wall, I sneaked upstairs into the unlocked apartment. I stopped for a second at the door. He was stamping upward, here. If only the door.... I prayed to the door but it was a wooden one,--It squeaked, it squealed. Like a wind something red passed my eyes, something green, and the yellow Buddha. In front of the mirror-door of the cupboard, my pale face; my ears still following those steps, my lips.... Now _he_ was already passing the green and yellow, now he was passing Buddha, now at the doorsill of the bedroom.... I grasped the key of the cupboard; the ring oscillated. This oscillation reminded me of something. Again a conclusion, a naked conclusion without premises; a conclusion, or to be more exact, a fragment of one: "Now I-330 is...." I brusquely opened the cupboard and when inside in the darkness shut the door firmly. One step! The floor shook under my feet. Slowly and softly I floated somewhere downward; my eyes were dimmed,--I died!