Ferdinand’s dispute with Lola over a loan is a coercive encounter in which money, illness, and intimacy become weapons. Lola’s disclosure that her mother has cancer briefly makes her appeal to Ferdinand for comfort; he instead declares the disease incurable and turns her fear into leverage. She pays him one hundred dollars to leave, but his additional demand for a kiss brings the quarrel to its limit: Lola produces a revolver, Ferdinand takes the stairs, and the next day he departs for Detroit.

Background and the Demand

The confrontation follows a cold car ride through rain-darkened streets. Lola has been determined to put Ferdinand out as soon as possible, while he privately tells himself that being repeatedly thrown out may eventually carry him to whatever frightens people at the end of the night. The two arrive at Lola’s living room, where Ferdinand wonders what sum she will pay to be rid of him.

Lola takes banknotes from a small handbag left on the table. Their loud rustling fills the room, and Ferdinand, embarrassed by the transaction, abruptly asks after her mother, whom he had forgotten. The question changes the direction of the scene: instead of settling the debt, it opens a private subject that will expose Lola’s anxiety and give Ferdinand a new means of pressure.

Illness and the Reversal of Power

Lola says her mother is in Chicago and has cancer of the liver. She has entrusted her to the finest specialists in town, who cost a fortune and have promised that they will save her. As Lola supplies more details, her concern for her mother makes her appeal to Ferdinand for reassurance. She asks whether he believes the doctors can cure her.

Ferdinand answers no, stating that liver cancer is absolutely incurable. Lola turns deathly pale, and the doctors’ confidence—backed, she says, by a written guarantee—fails to settle her fear. Ferdinand counters that there will always be great doctors for cash, and says he would act as they do if he were in their place; Lola, he adds, would do the same. His bluntness is not presented as a disinterested medical judgment: he recognizes that her distress has weakened her resistance and that he has gained the advantage in their dispute.

Money as Leverage

Lola insults Ferdinand, but he takes satisfaction in feeling increasingly indifferent, even joyful, as the abuse continues. He calculates that she will have to give him at least twenty dollars to make him go, perhaps more. He then threatens to remain and repeat everything he knows about cancer, its complications, and its hereditary character unless she lends him the money he says she promised.

The threat makes Lola blanch and crumple as Ferdinand elaborates on her mother’s case. His knowledge, whether medically sound or strategically deployed, becomes an instrument of coercion: he keeps her attention fixed on the illness she fears most and presses the advantage instead of offering comfort. The original financial disagreement has become a struggle over who can control the meaning of the diagnosis and the terms of the encounter.

Payment, Threat, and Departure

Lola finally screams at Ferdinand to take the hundred dollars, leave, and never come back. The payment is larger than the amount he had privately anticipated, but it does not end his attempt to dominate the exchange. He asks her to kiss him all the same and suggests that they remain friends, explicitly testing how far he can disgust her.

Lola answers the provocation by taking a revolver from a drawer; the threat is real, not a bluff. Ferdinand does not ring for the elevator but escapes by the stairs. The next day, the encounter has restored his taste for work and raised his morale. He takes the train to Detroit, having been told that jobs there are easy to get, plentiful, well paid, and not too exhausting. His departure gives the quarrel an immediate practical consequence, while its violence and humiliation remain unresolved.