This way please,' said a voice. In the door stood Dr Sesame, the famous Dr Sesame, whose reputation as a sympathetic and, according to some, also a kind-hearted man had spread throughout the town and beyond. He had also written a popular pamphlet on sexual problems, which had given Pinneberg the courage to write making an appointment for Emma and himself.
This, then, was the Dr Sesame at present standing in the doorway, and saying 'This way, please.'
Dr Sesame searched on his desk for the letter. 'You wrote to me, Mr Pinneberg... saying you couldn't have any children just yet because you couldn't afford it?'
'Yes,' said Pinneberg, dreadfully embarrassed.
'You can start undressing,' said the doctor to Emma, and carried on: 'And you want to know an entirely reliable means of prevention. Hm, an entirely reliable means...' He smiled sceptically behind his gold-rimmed spectacles.
'I read about it in your book... These pessoirs...'
'Pessaries,' said the doctor. 'Yes, but they don't suit every woman. And it's always a bit of a business. It depends on whether your wife would be nimble-fingered enough...'
He looked up at her. She had already taken off her blouse and skirt. Her slim legs made her look very tall.
'Well, let's go next door,' said the doctor. 'You needn't have taken your blouse off for this, young lady.'
Emma went a deep red.
'Oh well, leave it off now. Come this way. One moment, Mr Pinneberg.'
The two of them went into the next room. Pinneberg watched them go. The top of the doctor's head reached no farther than the 'young lady's' shoulders. How beautiful she was! thought Pinneberg yet again; she was the greatest girl in the world, the only one for him. He worked in Ducherow, and she worked here in Platz, and he never saw her more than once a fortnight, so his joy in her was always fresh, and his desire for her absolutely inexpressible.
Next door he heard the doctor asking questions on and off in a low voice, and an instrument clinking on the side of a bowl. He knew that sound from the dentist's; it wasn't a pleasant one.
Then he winced violently. Never had he heard that tone from Emma. She was saying in a high, clear voice that was almost a shriek - 'No, no, no!' And once again, 'No!' And then, very softly, but he still heard it: 'Oh God.'
Pinneberg took three steps to the door - What was that? What could it be? What about these rumours that those kind of doctors were terrible lechers? But then Dr Sesame spoke again - impossible to hear what he said - and the instrument clinked again.
There was a long silence.