Back by the side of the stove he gave himself up to enjoying the flames that came out of that round iron hole. “Jason was certainly right when he said that to have a roof over you, and a fire to get warm by, and three meals a day, was enough to be grateful for in this world.” And what about the straight, sweet, flexible body of Gerda? Wouldn’t he be a fool if he let his craving for Christie kill every element of natural pleasure? And after all, he had Christie. Had her, at any rate, in a sense that was as important to his imagination as Gerda’s body was to his senses!

He covered up the iron hole with the bigger of their two kettles. This extra-large kettle was a recent present from Gerda’s mother; and Wolf suspected, perhaps unfairly, that the gift was an insult to their hand-to-mouth household! He ran upstairs after adjusting this kettle, and with his back to Gerda, who still lay supine, with the blankets tight under her throat, he began his slow process of shaving, while a thin inrush of bitter cold through an inch of open window kept alive the taut stoicism of his mood.