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Queen’s Hotel. Engelhardt furiously loosened his hair tie and threw it on the floor. He had revealed everything to a complete stranger, to a passing acquaintance, in the belief that frugivorism created an invisible bond of solidarity between men. But perhaps the Tamil had simply fabricated everything? Maybe he hadn’t been a vegetarian at all, but had merely said what he, Engelhardt, had wanted to hear.
    Later, at the hotel—Engelhardt had been able to free himself, groping his way slowly out of the absurd captivity of the oppressively dank temple, which looked amicably innocuous and inviting as soon as he saw it again from without—he examined his travel bag, and in fact the sum of money he had sewn into one of its side pockets was missing. Otherwise, as far as he could tell, everything else was still there. Clutching his bag under his arm, he strode haltingly and almost on tiptoes down the stairs to the reception hall, informing the hotel employee in a whisper to please send the bill for his room to the consul of the German Reich in Colombo since he was unable to settle accounts. The hotelier cracked a crooked smile and replied that such an action was really unnecessary. No bill had accrued since there had been no overnight stay, the fruit breakfast was on the house, and furthermore he would advise a visit to the local police to report the Tamil, whom he had, incidentally, questioned ten or twenty minutes ago as to the whereabouts of his German travel companion while he beat a hasty retreat from the hotel, to which he had received no reply, though he couldn’t shake the feeling that the Tamil had perpetrated some act of malice, so guilty did he look.
    The hotelier, who, by the way, was a splendid fellow, escorted poor Engelhardt to the train station, sprang for his third-class ticket down into the capital, and then, under minimal protests, steered the spindly young man, to whom a visit to the local constabulary seemed the most disagreeable thing imaginable, into the last car of the slowly departing train. And there, as he sits in the compartment (the afternoon, Prussian blue and cloyingly fragrant, was now slipping into early evening), his shoulder leaned against a fellow traveler, his back pressed against the wooden seat, his eyes shut tight, his shaggy long hair worn loose, his travel bag squeezed to his belly, the cinematograph suddenly begins to rattle: a cog loses its grip, the moving pictures projected up front on the white canvas accelerate chaotically. Indeed, for a brief moment, they no longer run forward as prescribed ad aeternitatem by the Creator, but jolt, jerk, speed backward; Govindarajan and Engelhardt are stepping into the air, feet poised—gay to watch—and hastening backward down temple steps, crossing the street backward, too, the projector beam flickering more and more severely, snapping and crackling, and now, at an instant, everything loses shape (since for a short while we are granted insight into the bhavantarabhava , the moment of reincarnation), and then there appears, the right way up, of course, and in exact coloration and frame rate, August Engelhardt, sitting in Herbertsh ö he (New Pomerania), in the reception room of the Hotel F ü rst Bismarck, there on a rattan sofa (of Australian manufacture) that might indeed be called snug, in conversation with Hotel Director Hellwig (Franz Emil), while balancing a cup of herbal tea on his knees, leaving the Ceylonese analepsis behind him. Hellwig is smoking.

 
    III
    This Hotel Director Hellwig, whose left ear, incidentally, was missing entirely, was known in Herbertsh ö he not only as a broker for various and sundry, but also as the direct gateway to Mrs. Emma Forsayth, who had been recommended to Engelhardt by the incumbent Governor Hahl after he had made known by letter from Nuremberg his interest in the speedy acquisition of a coconut plantation. Do come, come to our merry colony, Hahl had written, but Engelhardt ought not expect too much