Then Kuno Kohn said:  “Death is an unbearable thought.  For those of us who are without God.  We are damned to live through it in advance hundreds of nights.  And to find no way past it.”  He became very quiet.  Mechenmal wanted to show his friend Kohn that he too could express himself about perverse problems.  He thought it over, and said:  I have different version, little Kuno, little Kohn.  However, it is an emotional matter.  I also tell myself thank God for those who have no God.  God is nonsense.  To waste a word on the topic is unworthy of a thinking man.  But listen, I have no need of God—­not in life, not in death.  Death without God is very beautiful.  It is my wish.  I think it’s wonderful simply to be dead.  Without heaven.  Without rebirth.  Utterly dead.  I’m can’t wait.  Life for me is too hard.  Too stimulating..”

He wanted to speak further.  There was a knocking at the door; Kohn opened it.  Ilka Leipke quickly came in.  She said:  “Good evening Herr Kohn.  Excuse me for disturbing you.”  She screamed at Mechenmal:  “So, I catch you here.  So, for this you have abandoned me.  You’re only using my body.  You have never grasped my soul.”  She wept.  She sobbed.  Mechenmal tried to calm her down.  That irritated her even more.  She shouted:  “To betray me with a crippled Kohn...  I’ll report you to the police, Mr. Kohn.  You should be ashamed of yourselves, you swine...”  She had a crying fit.  Kuno Kohn was incapable of responding.  Mechenmal pulled her up from the floor upon which she had thrown herself screaming.  He said with a changed, stern voice, that her behavior was unseemly, that she had no grounds for jealousy, for after all, he had no obligations.  Then Ilka Leipke looked at the hunch-backed Kohn humbly, like a beaten little dog.  She was very quiet.  She followed the angry Mechenmal out the door.

When Kohn was alone, he gradually became enraged.  He thought:  such a rude person... and at intervals:  How upset the cow had become.  How jealous she is of me.  One of the few women who please me... and she goes and chooses the little animal Mechenmal.  That is atrocious.

Early the next morning Kuno Kohn stood in Miss Leipke’s drawing-room, trembling like an actor with stage fright, When the maid brought Kuno Kohn’s card, Miss Leipke was reading the forbidden pamphlet, “The suicide of a fashionable lady.  Or how a fashionable lady committed

suicide.”  Her eyes were filled with tears.  When she had finished reading the entire pamphlet, she freshened her make-up.  Finally, covered only by a silk morning-coat, she appeared in the drawing-room.  Kuno Kohn was red up to his ears.  Groaning, he said that he had come to apologize for yesterday’s scene, that Miss Leipke did him wrong, that she knew him too briefly.  He had, after all, inner worth.  Then he spoke in praise of his friend, the worthy Mechenmal; but he did not disguise the man’s lack of a