orderly, and this was very much not so, this looked like a gigantic stomach, like a huge gut that had somehow, due to its weight, plopped out onto the sidewalk and sprawled there, it sickened him, indeed: now that he looked more closely at the colossal weighty façade, it somehow began to enervate him, to oppress him, he found it in every sense of the word repugnant, and he could not understand why someone had been deliberately allowed to build something like this, in this loathsomely beautiful and rich city; it could have been half-past five and it was still completely light, only he called it evening, as for him half-past five was still evening, he couldn’t help it, the multitudes desirous of entertainment or shopping just undulated on and on, turned, whirled at the corner, and wouldn’t let him go any further so he could get away from here unimpeded, on the contrary when he noticed that the entire thing seemed to be growing, even swelling, and not only here in the intersection but in both directions along the Passeig de Gràcia, he then decided that he would leave the neighborhood, go into the Carrer de Provença, and try to find some much, much cheaper neighborhood, one suitable for him, which on the one hand would be along the way to his new free accommodations, and where also he could finally eat something; and he went along the wall for a bit — to be completely accurate, the distance of a few steps — to an open entranceway, clearly the entrance of that La Pedrera itself, or whatever they called it; he looked in, but saw inside there not a single living soul, only a kind of ornamental staircase decorated with morbid ivy-tendrils that somehow curled, morbidly, upward in the slightly darkened entrance hall, they curled between five dreadfully hideous columns and some kind of painted marble-like wall; there must be some kind of event taking place inside, a wedding or something like that, he thought, but he didn’t move from the entrance, he just waited, waited for a guard to appear, or a valet, or someone like that, he was positive that this would happen, because he nearly wanted them to throw him out, but no one appeared so that, led on by a quick and foolish idea, he made a step toward the inside, and loitered there for a minute, looking around in the entrance hall that was obviously carved and painted in the most insane way possible, he loitered and. . no one came, there was such silence as if this Saturday evening rabble, heaving and straining, were not clamoring right outside the entrance a few meters from here — silence, this was really strange, the door was open, he set off along the five columns up the ornamented staircase, he knew how insolent he was being, for surely if anyone had no business being there it was he; just out of curiosity, a voice said within, I’ll go a bit further up out of curiosity, and so he reached the first floor, where he again found a wide-open door, but the strangest thing was that there was no one even here, he was certain that he wouldn’t be able to go any farther, but no, inside, past the wide-open door a longish corridor opened up, in the corridor, there was only an empty table and an empty chair standing orphaned on the side there, he stepped into the corridor, and he noticed that to the left of the table there was a similarly opened, narrower door, then he saw eight steps leading upward, and still beyond that, looking from down here, another space opened up, or a room — he stood on his tiptoes, the better to see, very cautiously, what was up inside there, but up inside, in that raised room, only a dim obscurity appeared to him, from which further dimly obscure rooms opened up, and in the rooms there was not, as far as he could judge from here by the entrance in front of the eight steps, a single living soul; on the walls in these rooms were some kind of old-fashioned religious pictures, old-fashioned and beautiful and not right for this place, they all shone with gold, oh no, he thought, now he really had to leave, and he turned around uncertainly, like someone wishing to return to the main corridor and from here down the stairs and out into the street, he would run and, uninhibitedly, he would breathe the air deeply in at last, for here he was completely holding his breath; but even then he didn’t leave, he just took a few steps toward the opened door next to the table, he looked at the eight upward steps that led into the first room and looked again into that first room; suddenly these gilded pictures had begun to attract him; he didn’t want to steal them, no such thought arose in him — more precisely it did arise but he immediately chased it away — he wanted to see how they shone, really just to look a little bit more, at least until they threw him out, since he didn’t have anything to do anyway, when suddenly, from behind his back, there came from outside, from the ornamented staircase, with such faint steps that he didn’t even hear them, a middle-aged, well-dressed couple, arm in arm, they separated behind him, walked around him, and then returned to each other’s side, and in the meantime the person they had walked around trembled barely perceptibly with his entire body, the woman slipped her arm through the man’s again and they headed up the eight steps and stepped into the room, disappearing from view there, which decided the question of whether he should go in or not, as he immediately started after them, whatever happens will happen, at the very most they would throw him out, whatever, even then he would see a little more of what had shone in his eyes so much from below, so that he too, his legs still slightly trembling, went up the eight steps, and stepping across the threshold, he ventured in after the middle-aged couple — it was dark, moreover there were only lights above the individual pictures; he didn’t stop right away but went in further to create the impression that he was already inside, indeed, maybe even more inside than those who had come up from behind him, so that it was not the first picture, not the second, and he didn’t even know how many pictures it was, and suddenly Jesus Christ was looking at him, sitting on a kind of throne in the middle of a triptych, in one hand he held a book, namely the Scripture, which was open, and in the other he was ominously signaling something to him who was looking, signaling outward from the picture, and really, everything around him shone — they made it with gold leaf, he determined, as earlier he had been in restorers’ workshops, even if now he was only on building sites; with gold leaf — he leaned closer, but almost immediately stepped quickly back — the gold leaf almost adheres to the base by itself, clearly this had been prepared with it — he looked at Christ, but strongly avoided looking into his eyes even once, for this Christ, although he knew it was only a painting, stared at him so sternly that the gaze could hardly be borne — it was, moreover, beautiful — that was the only word for it, beautiful — and a bit as if the painter had painted it in a time when people didn’t yet know how to paint properly, or at least it seemed so to him, for there was something elementary in the formation of the head and in the entire picture, in the background there was no landscape at all or any buildings as he was used to seeing in church paintings, there were only angels with bent heads, and saints with bent heads, and everywhere the illumination of this gold, and in a surprising way this showed Christ from completely close-up, so close that after a while he had to step back, because it’s too close, he thought, and he also blamed it on the painter; he suspected that these primitive pictures had been exhibited here on purpose, as well as in the subsequent rooms, in every space he could glimpse from here, as he also immediately perceived that there were some people in the farther rooms, and then he thought right away that it would be better to sidle backward; yet a long moment followed, and they didn’t come to usher him out, moreover, one of the people dispersed in the farther rooms came here, into the room where he was, and took no notice of him, then he thought, he’s just a visitor,