I realized I had taken a step nearer Kromer and his world, that I was slipping gradually downwards—and I adopted an attitude of defiance.
The devil could run away with me if he liked, there was no way out.
I anxiously counted the money, it had sounded so much in the box, now in my hand it was miserably little.
There were sixty-five pfennigs. I hid the box in the basement, held the money in my closed fist and went out of the house,
with a feeling different from any with which I had ever left the portal before.
Someone called to me from above, I thought, but I went quickly on my way.
There was still plenty of time. I sneaked by a roundabout way through the streets of a changed town,
beneath clouds I had never seen before, by houses which seemed to spy on me, and people who suspected me.
On the way I recollected that one of my school friends had once found a thaler in the cattle market.
I would have liked to pray to God to work a miracle and allow me to make such a treasure-trove.
But I had no longer the right to pray. And even then the box would not be made whole again.
Frank Kromer saw me in the distance. However, he came along very slowly and seemed not to be looking out for me.
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