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Her father’s voice warns her to take care when she’s going down the stairs: You’re fat, Ursula, with all that extra weight you shouldn’t exert yourself, your heart could give out. Don’t tell me that now, Daddy, I’m in a hurry, I’ve got lots to do. Look at yourself, Ursula, you need to do another slimming treatment, for the good of your health. I told you to shut up, I’m in a hurry. And remember I’m not that little girl any more, Daddy.

She shakes her head in annoyance and carries on down the stairs, carefully, one foot after the other; he knows, Daddy knows when to talk to her and what to say to make her soul shrink to the size of a lentil.

We observe her pausing on the second floor, stopping as if to rest or to get her breath back, but then Ursula turns sharply and walks quickly over to the apartment closest to the stairway, number 201. The residents are a couple – students or bank clerks, she’s not sure. Silently, she touches the door, presses her face against the wood, first her cheek, then her mouth, then her ear. It seems she wants to listen to something. She stands quite still for a few moments, and we don’t think she’s heard anything: at this time of day, the couple in number 201 must have gone out a while ago. But she doesn’t give up; she tries again with her right ear and then again with her left, and only after a while does she 33let up. A little put out, she continues her descent, step by step. She reaches the final stretch, the entrance hall and, against all her own predictions, makes it to the main door safe and sound.