Mechenmal gradually calmed down.  He thought:  They can’t prove it was me.  I’ll deny everything.  Ha!  Who can prove anything about me...  Even if they notice anything!—­He threw the cigar away.  He felt safer.  He whistled with the thought that Kohn could no longer bother him.  That he, Max Mechenmal, had overcome the difficulty with Kohn so completely.  He thought that he tackled life correctly.  That everything went well for him.  He had great trust in himself.  He thought:  No sentimentality now.  To lead a decent life, one must be a bastard.

He went home happily.

The Café Klösschen

Lisel Liblichlein had come from the country to the city because she wanted to become an actress.  At home she found everything stuffy, narrow, stultifying.  The gentlemen were stupid.  The sky, the kisses, the girl friends, the Sunday afternoons became unbearable.  The most she could do was cry.  To her, becoming an actress would mean:  to be clever, free, and happy.  What that meant, she did not know.  She had no way to determine whether she had talent.

She adored her cousin Schulz, because he lived in the city and wrote poems.  When the cousin wrote once that he was tired of law and would live in accordance with his inclination to be a writer, she informed her shocked parents that she was fed up with the restricted life; she would pursue her ideals as an actress.  They tried in every way to dissuade her from this plan, to no avail.  She became more determined, and even made threats.  They yielded reluctantly, went with her to the city, rented a small room in a large pension, enrolled her in an inexpensive acting school.  Cousin Schulz was asked to look after her.

Mr. Schulz frequently was in the company of Cousin Liblichlein.  He took her to cabarets, read poetry, showed here his Bohemian digs, introduced her to the literary cafe Kloesschen, went with her hand-in-hand for hours through the streets at night, touched her, kissed her.  Miss Liblichlein was pleasantly dazed by all the new things; soon it occurred to her that most of what she saw was not as beautiful as she had once imagined.  Right from the start she was irritated that the director of the theater, the collegues, the literati of the Cafe Kloesschen—­all the people with whom she often came in contact, found pleasure in touching her, caressing her hands, pressing their knees against hers, looking directly at her without shame.  Even being touched by Schulz became burdensome to her.

To avoid hurting his feelings, as well as to avoid seeming provincial, she seldom showed her discomfort.  But once she struck him vigorously on the face.  They were in his room; he had just explained the last lines of his poem, “Weariness.”  They were