“What a melancholy dream I’ve just had,” he thought as he rose from the bed. Meanwhile evening had come. He went to the window and for the first time looked down into the alleyway that lay far beneath him. Two men were just walking by, there was just barely room for the two of them to walk comfortably side by side between the high walls. They were speaking, and the sound of their words rose to his ears with a strange clarity up the walls which then carried the sound even further. The sky was a golden, deeply saturated blue that awoke an indeterminate longing. Directly opposite Simon in the house across the way, two female figures appeared and prodded him with their rather impertinent, laughing glances. He felt as if he were being touched with unclean hands. One of the figures addressed him across the alleyway without even raising her voice — it was as if the three of them were sitting together in a single room that just happened to contain a narrow band of sky: “You must be very lonely!”