it were some lifeless thing. He went hither and thither.
his greedy eyes shone like black glassy beads; finally he crossed the
threshold to the corridor, and remained sitting hard by, but invisible;
only the naked tail lay like a piece of string across the threshold. I
did not move. I looked away, and forgot the rat.

I stared at the moonlight on the floor, and my thought was always one
and the same. I have never been so at my wits' end, so tortured with
yearning, so wretched as at this time.

When I looked up again, Mara stood in the doorway, and fastened the
splendor of her eyes upon me. I thought that all human discontent was
purged out of me. I felt no further desire, so liberating was her
appearance. If she had stayed there throughout the night, I should have
remained steadfast in her sight.

Soon she glided on, stopped in the corner opposite to me, and
contemplated me with her head strangely bowed. I did not understand
her, and kept still. She came along the wall the whole length of the
room; only the hem of her garment and the tips of her red shoes
glistened in the moonlight. Now she stood before me, and looked down
upon me. My eye avoided hers; for my will was trembling heavily as a
rain drop that is about to fall to earth from the tip of a leaf. "O
speak a word!" I thought fervently; "give me a sign, help me!" She
remained silent. Then I plucked up courage, looked up at her, and
endured her glance, and did not yield. Finally, she turned her eye away
in sadness, shook her head, slowly turned around, and walked past the
windows, now shrouded in the sheen of blue light, now gleaming out of
the shade, and left the room.

For a considerable time I sat there in horror, stared vacantly into the
air, and thought, "This is the end--the end!"

Then suddenly I felt my heart beat as hard and painfully as when a fist
desperately beats upon a gate, and covers itself with bloody wounds
thereby; I jumped up, and rushed after her. Like a shade she was
already gliding through the street far in advance of me. I meant to
follow her at a certain distance; for at once the will to solve her
riddle came back to me.

With no apparent end in view she walked through several streets, which
were filled with the smoke of the nightly rubbish fires; then she
turned out of the city in the direction of the park. I thought to
myself, "She knows that you are following her, and will not give
herself away." And that pleased me with a new sen