The scene opens in the professor's apartment, where the professor is trying to get his wife to wake up. The professor tells his wife that he has come to her room because she seems to be drinking too much, and she tells him that she is fine, but that she has to go quickly because her room is the nearest room to hers. She tells the professor that she feels something ominous, something very unpleasant, and that it bothered her that she woke up in his room, which he always sat in while looking at her strangely. She says that she will have to discuss the matter with her husband, who is late, and then she will come up with some solution.