WH 3

WH 3 is defined here by the gap between what he longs for and what he can bring himself to do. He hopes that his relationship with Petra will become something more, yet fears rejection too deeply to take the initiative. His first solo visit to the Zum Goldenen Handschuh briefly makes him feel transformed; later, while imagining a meeting with Petra, he remains caught in uncertainty. When she is no longer there, his distress turns outward into anger at the people around him.

Identity and Introduction

WH 3’s attachment to Petra has lasted for some time, but the relationship appears to have moved neither forward nor backward. She is consistently friendly, attentive, and understanding, at times seeming almost like a sister or nurse. He wonders whether he is missing signs of a different kind of interest, but cannot act on that possibility. The prospect of being rejected is more than he feels able to bear, so he waits for the relationship to change without risking the step that might change it.

That waiting establishes a pattern that recurs in his other encounters: he observes closely, imagines what might happen, and hesitates when action would expose him to judgment. His interest in Petra is real, but it does not make him confident. Instead, the intensity of his feelings raises the stakes of approaching her and strengthens his reluctance.

First Visit to the Zum Goldenen Handschuh

On a Tuesday evening shortly after ten, WH 3 slips out of the house. His previous visits to St. Pauli had both been with his parents to see performances at the Operettenhaus; after each show, they had gone straight home. He remembers those outings as dull. Going out alone therefore marks a break from an excursion governed by his parents, although the passage does not describe it as a deliberate plan to find Petra.

Outside the tavern, he watches a man who seems at first to be heading back inside, then changes direction and walks toward him. WH 3 studies the man’s behavior and wonders what kind of place this is. He learns its name, the Zum Goldenen Handschuh, and then frames entering as a test. The moment is small but decisive: rather than retreating from the unfamiliar scene, he crosses its threshold.

Inside, a man identified as Soldaten-Norbert chooses WH 3 as the person to approach and sits down beside him. WH 3 is frightened by the encounter and feels physically overwhelmed. The narration presents the scene through his alarm, making the stranger’s attention feel like an ordeal rather than an ordinary introduction. It gives WH 3 no evidence that he has mastered the tavern; it shows him enduring an encounter that he experiences as threatening.

Afterward, however, he interprets the visit as a personal turning point. He feels like a new and different person, hardened by what has happened, and imagines that Petra will be impressed. The confidence is real as a feeling, but the scene leaves its basis uncertain: he has passed through an intimidating experience, not demonstrated that his fears of rejection or his difficulties with intimacy have disappeared.

Desire and Anticipation

WH 3’s intense feelings for Petra coexist with attraction to other girls. At an evening gathering, he is preoccupied with Helene and Martina as well as with Petra. Helene greets him with an embrace, though she regards him as boring and repellent; he, in turn, considers her boring while also feeling attracted to her. Their opposing judgments make the embrace an awkward point of contact, not proof of mutual affection. Seated across from her, he is so self-conscious that he struggles to take part comfortably in the gathering.

This episode distinguishes his emotional devotion from exclusive desire. His attachment to Petra does not cancel his interest in other girls, and his attraction does not make him adept at relating to them. The contrast between what he feels and what he can express is especially sharp with Helene: he is intensely conscious of her presence but inhibited in her company. His hopes for intimacy are therefore accompanied by embarrassment and uncertainty rather than a clear ability to act.

Later, WH 3 rides his bicycle in a state balanced between anticipation and fear. He has considered the possible arrangements repeatedly: Petra cannot come back to his home, they might stay at a hotel, or she might take him to her own home if her mother is away. He has 170 marks with him, a concrete resource around which he builds these possibilities, but none is confirmed. His planning is expansive precisely because the outcome remains unknown.

He leaves his bicycle beneath the structure of a bridge under construction and continues on foot. As he walks, the sole of his left shoe begins to come loose, its edge striking the shoe with each step. The detail interrupts his imagined romantic scenarios with a practical sign of uncertainty and discomfort. The passage does not say that the plans come to fruition; it leaves him still on his way, carrying both his hopes and the small inconvenience of the failing shoe.

Fear, Absence, and Narrative Role

In another threatening moment, WH 3 hears heavy steps coming down a staircase and shifts aside so as not to obstruct whoever is approaching. The narration connects this deferential gesture to what his parents taught him. When he turns and sees the person or people directly behind him, he tries to smile in a way meant to communicate that he is weaker and wants no trouble. The gesture reveals how quickly he responds to danger by making himself nonthreatening. It does not establish what the approaching figures intend, but his fear is unmistakable.

The later account of Petra’s absence shows a different kind of crisis. WH 3 had known she would not be there, yet the knowledge does not prevent his distress. He leaves the Zum Goldenen Handschuh and moves through the surrounding streets without a clear destination, driven by the need to keep moving. The passage describes his agitation and his growing anger at the intoxicated, battered, and desperate people around him. Their condition becomes the focus of his disgust, but it does not resolve the loss that has unsettled him.

Across these scenes, WH 3’s movement between inhibition and brief surges of confidence never becomes a settled transformation. Entering the tavern allows him to imagine himself as newly hardened; anticipation lets him rehearse possible futures with Petra; her absence leaves him unable to quiet his agitation. His story in this evidence is therefore not a completed romance or a straightforward coming-of-age triumph. It is a portrait of someone who can imagine intimacy and change more easily than he can secure either, with each encounter exposing the distance between expectation and experience.