Wolf and Gerda were left alone, seated side by side in uncomfortable silence. He moved his chair back a little and glanced toward the scullery-door. The voice of the woman and her son reached him in an obscure murmur. His eye caught the devastated piece of meat at the end of the table and it brought to his mind the terrifying story of how the flesh of the Oxen of the Sun uttered articulate murmurs as the companions of Odysseus roasted it at their impious campfire.

“I must say something,” he thought. “This silence is beginning to grow comic.”

He began to search his pockets for cigarettes. It seemed absurd to ask leave of this young girl, and yet it was likely enough that her shrewish mother detested tobacco.

“You don’t mind if I smoke?” he said.

Gerda smilingly shook her head.