Christian reflected for several seconds before he answered with a strange smile: “We must wait for him.”
“For him? For whom?”
“For him.”
And again their eyes met.
It was late at night, but they did not think of sleeping.
XV
In addition to the room which his mother gave him, Niels Heinrich had another lodging at a tinsmith’s in Rheinsberger Street on the fourth floor. On the day after his conversation with Christian he moved away from there. He did it because too many people knew that he lodged here. Also he couldn’t sleep there any more. He slept half an hour, at most; then he lay awake smoking cigarettes, tossing from side to side. From time to time he laughed a dry, rattling laugh, whenever the recollection of something which that man Wahnschaffe had said became particularly vivid.
Who was that man, anyhow? You could think till your brain cracked. That man!
Curiosity was like a conflagration in Niels Heinrich.
He took a room in Demminer Street with a grocer named Kahle. The room was immediately over the shop. The big sign saying “Eggs, Butter, Cheese” almost covered the low window; consequently there was little light in that hole. In addition the flooring and the walls were so thin that one could hear the ringing of the shop bell, the talk of the customers, and all other sounds. There he lay again and smoked cigarettes and thought of that man.