As he began, slowly, to come round, Hans Steckrübe was overcome by an absurd, utterly adoxal belief that he was in a saprogenic state, decaying and crumbling like mouldy cheese and was suffering from vermiculation, he could actually feel the worms or larvae eating through his body, but it was the aggress of the man Dieter that brought him, hurting, to his senses, especially the kick to his gut, for that produced a fit of vomiting which made him almost prefer the horrors which had felt so real to this hard awareness: he was bound to a wooden chair and the two men being urgently sought by the Gestapo were facing him, in the very room above that used by Himmler for his escapades with Elisabeth! if he screamed, and they were there, would the Reichsfuhrer-SS himself come running up the stairs to rescue him? not on your wienerschnitzel!