he said. ‘The understanding of a flea, a hopping flea with a proboscis. Why should you crawl abject before the understanding of a flea?’

There passed through Gudrun’s mind Blake’s representation of the soul of a flea. She wanted to fit it to Loerke. Blake was a clown too. But it was necessary to answer Gerald.

‘Don’t you think the understanding of a flea is more interesting than the understanding of a fool?’ she asked.

‘A fool!’ he repeated.

‘A fool, a conceited fool — a Dummkopf,’ she replied, adding the German word.

‘Do you call me a fool?’ he replied. ‘Well, wouldn’t I rather be the fool I am, than that flea downstairs?’