You said this could go on as long as I want, and now I don’t want. That’s what Katharina will say when he finally gets through to her when she’s back in Berlin, he’s almost certain of it now. Can you help me?, the damned cork broke off. No, he can’t help Ingrid with her cork just now, he needs all his concentration to keep the inaudible sentence in check, the one that goes: and now I don’t want. You’ll manage, he says, and stays in his seat by the window. He senses the silence suddenly thickening in the room, but he doesn’t care, his desire hasn’t sounded like Mozart for days now either. Why are you in such a bad mood? And now I don’t want. Or the phone rings, and no one picks it up. Sorry, what? Why are you in such a bad mood. I’m not in a bad mood. And now I don’t want it. He can think of three to five reasons why it should be that way. Why would she even bother picking up his letter from the post office? Well, as long as you’re sitting pretty. He needs to get through one more week on the Baltic, while the girl readjusts to a life in Berlin in which he no longer figures. Would you stop quarreling please, says Ludwig. We’re not quarreling, says Hans.