6

THE ROBINSON EPISODE

Just then, someone tapped him on the shoulder. Karl, thinking of course it was a guest at the hotel, quickly stuffed the apple into his pocket and hurried off back to his lift, not bothering to give the man behind him a glance. ‘Good evening, Mr Rossmann,’ said the man, ‘it’s me, Robinson.’ ‘You have changed,’ said Karl, shaking his head. ‘Yes, I’m doing fine,’ said Robinson, and looked down at his clothes, which although individually they might have been choice items, made a positively shabby impression together. The most striking part of the ensemble was a white waistcoat he was obviously wearing for the first time, which had four small black-rimmed pockets, to which Robinson tried to draw attention by puffing out his chest. ‘You are expensively dressed,’ said Karl, and thought briefly of his beautiful dark suit in which he could have stood comparison with Renell, and which his two bad companions had sold. ‘Yes,’ said Robinson, ‘almost every day I buy myself something new. How do you like the waistcoat?’ ‘It’s very nice,’ said Karl. ‘The pockets aren’t real, mind, they just look like pockets,’ said Robinson, and took Karl’s hand so that he might convince himself of this. Karl, though, shrank back, because an intolerable brandy smell wafted out of Robinson’s mouth. ‘You’re drinking again,’ said Karl, standing by the railing now. ‘No,’ said Robinson, ‘not much,’ and contradicted his previous self-satisfaction by saying: ‘What else can a man do in this world.’ A ride on the lift interrupted their conversation, and no sooner had Karl come down again than he was summoned by telephone to fetch the hotel doctor, as a lady had fainted on the seventh floor. On his way, he secretly hoped that Robinson might have left before he got back, because he didn’t want to be seen with him, and, mindful of Therese’s warning, he wanted to hear nothing from Delamarche either. But Robinson was still there, standing in the stiff attitude of one completely drunk, just as a senior hotel employee in black tails and top hat passed by, fortunately without apparently taking any notice of Robinson. ‘Wouldn’t you like to visit us some day, Rossmann, we’re doing very well now,’ said Robinson, and looked invitingly at Karl. ‘Are you asking, or is it Delamarche?’ Karl asked. ‘Delamarche and I. We are of one mind in this,’ said Robinson. ‘Then let me tell you, and please pass it on to Delamarche: our parting, while it may not have seemed so at the time, was final. I have suffered more at the hands of the two of you than from anyone else. Will you not finally leave me in peace?’ ‘But we are your companions,’ said Robinson, and repulsive drunken tears welled up in his eyes. ‘Delamarche says to say that he wants to make up for everything that’s happened in the past. We’re living with Brunelda now, she’s a wonderful singer.’ And he was on the point of delivering a tune in a high falsetto when Karl hissed at him: ‘Shut up, don’t you realize where you are.’ ‘Rossmann,’ said Robinson, deterred from singing but nothing else, ‘I’m your companion, whatever you say. And here you are with such a fine job, couldn’t you spare me a bit of money.’ ‘You’ll only spend it on drink,’ said Karl, ‘in your pocket I can see you’ve got a bottle of some brandy, from which I’m sure you had a drink while I was gone, because to begin with you were still relatively sober.’ ‘It’s just to give me strength on my mission,’ said Robinson apologetically. ‘I’ve given up trying to better you,’ said Karl. ‘Then what about some money!’ said Robinson with staring eyes. ‘I suppose you’ve been instructed by Delamarche to get some money. Very well, I’ll give you money, but only on condition that you leave the premises right away and never try to see me here again. If you have anything to say to me, you may write. Karl Rossmann, lift-boy, Hotel Occidental, that should get there. But you mustn’t, I repeat, mustn’t, try and find me here again. I work here, and have no time for visits. Will you accept the money, under those conditions?’ asked Karl, and reached into his waistcoat pocket, having decided to sacrifice whatever tips he had received that night. Robinson merely nodded in answer, and breathed noisily. Karl was unable to interpret this, and he said again: ‘Yes or No?’

Then Robinson beckoned him nearer and whispered with unmistakable heaving movements: ‘Rossmann, I feel sick.’ ‘Goddamnit!’ Karl exclaimed, and with both hands he dragged him to the railing.

And already vomit spewed forth from Robinson’s mouth into the deep. Helplessly, in the intervals allowed him by his nausea he blindly felt for Karl. ‘You’re really a good chap,’ he would say or ‘it’s almost over,’ which then turned out not to be the case at all, or ‘those bastards have poisoned me!’ Karl couldn’t stand to be near him he felt such apprehension and disgust, and he began pacing up and down. Robinson was slightly concealed in the corner by the lift, but what if someone were to notice him, one of those rich highly strung hotel guests, who were only waiting to voice a complaint to a passing hotel employee, who would then take it out on the whole staff, or if one of the continually changing hotel detectives happened to pass, incognito to all but the management, but whom one suspected in every man who screws up his eyes, even when it’s out of short-sightedness. While, down below, some member of the round-the-clock catering staff needed only to go into the foodstores, remark on the foulness in the light-shaft and telephone Karl to ask what the Hell was going on up there. Could Karl deny all knowledge of Robinson? And if he did, wouldn’t Robinson in his stupidity and desperation, instead of apologizing, appeal to Karl for help? And wouldn’t Karl then be faced with instant dismissal, in view of the shocking fact that a lift-boy, from the lowest and most expendable rank in the enormous hotel hierarchy, had, through the agency of a friend, sullied the hotel and alarmed or even driven away its guests? Was a lift-boy to be tolerated who had such friends, and from whom he received visits even while on duty? Wouldn’t it seem likely that such a lift-boy was himself a drinker or worse, for what could be more logical than to suspect that he supplied his friends from the hotel’s stores to the point where they did such things in random places in the scrupulously clean hotel, as Robinson had just done? And why should such a lad content himself with stealing victuals, since the possibility for thieving was almost limitless, what with the notorious negligence of the guests, the wardrobes standing open, valuables left lying on tables, gaping coffers and keys thoughtlessly thrown around?

Just then Karl saw some guests emerging from a basement bar, where a variety performance had just ended. He took up his position by his lift and didn’t dare even look at Robinson, afraid of what might meet his eyes. It was of little comfort to him that there was not a sound, not so much as a sigh that could be heard from that direction. He attended to his guests, ferried them up and down, but he was unable to disguise his absent-mindedness, and every time he rode down, he expected to find an embarrassing surprise awaiting him.

Finally he got a chance to see to Robinson, who was crouching in his corner, with his face pressed against his knees, making himself as small as possible. His round hard hat had been pushed right back on his head. ‘You must leave now,’ said Karl quietly and decisively, ‘here’s some money. If you’re quick about it, I’ll show you the short cut myself’ ‘I can’t move,’ said Robinson, mopping his brow with a tiny handkerchief, ‘I just want to die. You have no idea of how awful I feel. Delamarche always takes me along to smart bars, but I can’t stomach the fancy stuff they serve, I tell Delamarche so every day.’ ‘Well, you certainly can’t stay here,’ said Karl, ‘consider where you are. If you’re found, you’ll be punished, and I’ll lose my job. Where will that get us?’ ‘I can’t go,’ said Robinson, ‘I’d sooner jump down there,’ and he pointed between the bars of the railing, down the light-shaft. ‘So long as I sit here like this I can just about take it, but I can’t get up, I tried it once while you were gone.’ ‘Then I’ll get a car, and you can go to hospital,’ said Karl, pulling a little at the legs of Robinson, who threatened to lapse into complete stupor at any moment. No sooner did Robinson hear the word hospital though, which seemed to awaken terrible associations for him, than he started crying out loud, and thrust out his hands to Karl for pity.

‘Quiet,’ said Karl, and smacked his hands aside, ran to the lift-boy he had stood in for earlier in the night, asked him to return the favour for a little while, hurried back to Robinson, pulled him, still sobbing, to a standing position (which took all of his strength) and whispered to him: ‘Robinson, if you want me to look after you, make an effort to walk upright for a little way. I’ll take you to my bed, you’ll be able to stay there until you feel better. You’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll recover. But now act sensibly, because there are a lot of people in the corridors, and my bed is in a common dormitory. If you attract any attention to yourself at all, I will be unable to do anything more for you. And you must keep your eyes open, I can’t carry you around as though you were at death’s door.’ ‘I’ll do all you say,’ said Robinson, ‘but you won’t be able to move me by yourself. Couldn’t you get Renell to help you?’ ‘Renell isn’t here,’ said Karl. ‘Oh, yes,’ said Robinson, ‘Renell is with Delamarche. It was them that sent me to you. I’m getting everything mixed up.’ Karl took advantage of this and other incomprehensible burblings of Robinson’s to push him along, and succeeded in getting to a corner from where a rather dimly lit corridor led to the lift-boys’ dormitory. Just then a lift-boy came running towards them full pelt, and continued past. Otherwise they had only harmless encounters; things were at their quietest between four and five o’clock, and Karl knew that if he couldn’t manage to remove Robinson now, there was no hope of being able to do so later on when it grew light and the morning rush began.

At the far end of the dormitory there was a big fight in progress or something similar, you could hear rhythmic clapping, excited drumming of feet and partisan cries. Near the door there were only a few resolute sleepers in their beds, most were lying on their backs staring into space, while now and then, dressed or undressed as he might be, someone would leap out of bed to check how things were progressing at the far end of the room. So Karl was able to take Robinson, who was by now a little used to walking, relatively unobserved to Renell’s bed, which was very near the door and fortunately unoccupied, whereas in his own bed, which he saw from a distance, there was some boy he didn’t know at all quietly asleep. No sooner did Robinson feel the bed under him than – one leg still dangling out of it – he fell into a deep sleep. Karl pulled the blanket right up over his face, and thought he wouldn’t have to worry about him for the immediate future, as Robinson would certainly not wake up before six o’clock in the morning, and by then he would be back here and would find some means, perhaps in concert with Renell, of removing Robinson from the hotel. Inspections of the dormitory by the authorities only took place in extraordinary circumstances, they had been routine once in the past, but the lift-boys had secured their abolition, and so there was nothing to fear in that way.

When Karl was back downstairs by his lift, he noticed that both it and that of his neighbour were at that moment on their way up. Anxiously he waited for the reason for this to become clear. His lift came down first, and out of it came the boy who had run down the corridor a minute ago. ‘Hey, Rossmann, where have you been?’ he asked. ‘Why did you go away? Why didn’t you report it?’ ‘But I asked him to stand in for me for a while,’ replied Karl and pointed to the boy from the next lift who was now approaching. ‘I’ve just stood in for him for two hours at peak time.’ ‘That’s all very well,’ said the boy thus referred to, ‘but it’s not enough. Don’t you know that the least absence from your post must be reported to the Head Waiter’s office. That’s what you’ve got a telephone for. I would have been happy to deputize for you, but it’s not that easy, you know. Just now there were guests off the 4.30 express standing in front of both lifts. I couldn’t go to your lift, and leave my passengers waiting, so I took my own lift up first.’ ‘Well?’ asked Karl tensely, as both boys were silent. ‘Well,’ said the boy from the other lift, ‘the Head Waiter is going past, he sees the people queuing in front of your lift, which is unattended, he is furious, he asks me as I come running up where you are, I haven’t a clue, you never told me where you were going, and so he telephones up to the dormitory for another boy right away.’ ‘I passed you in the corridor,’ said Karl’s replacement. Karl nodded. ‘Of course,’ insisted the other boy, ‘I said right away that you’d asked me to stand in for you, but you can be certain he doesn’t listen to excuses like that. You probably don’t know him yet. And we’re to tell you to go and see him in his office right away. So get a move on and don’t hang around. Maybe he’ll forgive you, you really were only gone for two minutes. It’s best not to say that you stood in for me earlier, nothing will happen to me, I had permission to go, but it isn’t good to bring up something like that, still less to mix it up with this affair which has got nothing to do with it.’ ‘But I’ve never left my post before,’ said Karl. ‘That’s always the way, only no one ever believes it,’ said the boy, and ran to his lift, as people were approaching. Karl’s stand-in, a boy of about fourteen, obviously feeling sorry for Karl, said: ‘There have been many instances of similar incidents being forgiven. Usually you are just assigned to other duties. So far as I know, only one person has actually been dismissed for such a thing. You just have to think up a good excuse. On no account say you suddenly felt sick, he’ll just laugh at you. You’d be better off saying a guest sent you on an urgent errand to another guest, and you can’t remember who the first guest was, and you were unable to find the second.’ ‘Oh well,’ said Karl, ‘it won’t be that bad,’ after what he had heard, he no longer believed things might take a good turn. And even if he should be forgiven for his breach of duty, there was still Robinson lying in the dormitory, as living proof of his guilt, and considering the splenetic character of the Head Waiter it was all too likely that he wouldn’t be content with any superficial investigation, and Robinson would be discovered. There was probably no actual rule that said strangers were not to be taken up to the dormitory, but that was only because the unimaginable was not expressly forbidden.

As Karl stepped into the Head Waiter’s office, he was drinking his morning coffee, from which he had just taken a sip, and was looking at an inventory that the Head Porter, who was also present, had given him to examine. This was a big man, made even broader in the shoulders than he was already by his lavish and richly decorated uniform which had gold chains and ribbons twining all over his shoulders and down his arms. His shiny black moustache, teased into long points in the Hungarian style, didn’t move, however quickly he turned his head. In actual fact, because of the weight of his apparel, the man could only move with difficulty, and accordingly stood with his feet apart, to keep the weight evenly distributed.

Karl had made a swift and easy entrance, as he had become accustomed to doing in the hotel, because the slowness and circumspection that in other walks of life signify politeness are taken for laziness in lift-boys. Besides, he didn’t want his guilty conscience to be immediately apparent. The Head Waiter had glanced at the door, but immediately went back to his coffee and his reading, without taking any more notice of Karl. The porter, though, seemed to feel bothered by Karl’s presence, perhaps he had some confidential piece of news or favour to ask, at any rate he kept turning stiffly to send angry looks in Karl’s direction, and when these looks duly met Karl’s, he would look back at the Head Waiter again. But Karl thought it would make a bad impression if, having got here, he left the office again without being ordered to do so by the Head Waiter. He, though, carried on studying the inventory and eating a piece of cake from which he occasionally shook the sugar without stopping reading. Once a page of the inventory fell to the ground, the porter didn’t even make a move to pick it up, he knew that was entirely beyond him, nor was it necessary either as Karl had already done it, and passed the page back to the Head Waiter who took it from him with a motion of his hand that suggested it had flown back to him from the floor all by itself. The little service achieved nothing whatsoever, because the porter still carried on with his angry glances.

Even so, Karl felt calmer than before. Even the fact that his affair seemed to have so little importance for the Head Waiter might be a good sign. One could see why it should be so. Of course a lift-boy is utterly insignificant and therefore may not step out of line, but by virtue of his insignificance what could he do anyway. And then the Head Waiter was a former lift-boy himself – which made him the pride of the present generation of lift-boys – he was the one who had organized the lift-boys for the first time, and he must certainly have left his post without permission on the odd occasion, even if no one could compel him to remember it now, and one shouldn’t forget either that, as an erstwhile lift-boy, he saw that his duty lay specifically in keeping that rank in order, even by occasionally draconian means. Karl also pinned some hope on the advancing time. By the office clock it was already a quarter past five, Renell might be back at any time, perhaps he was back already, because it must have struck him that Robinson had failed to return, and, it further occurred to Karl, Delamarche and Renell must have been in the proximity of the Hotel Occidental, because otherwise Robinson in his wretched state would not have got there. Now, if Renell found Robinson in his bed, as must surely happen, then all would be well. For Renell was a practical character, particularly when his own interests were at stake, and he would find a way of speedily getting Robinson out of the hotel, which would be easier as Robinson would have got his strength back by now, and besides Delamarche would probably be waiting for him outside the hotel as well. Once Robinson was gone, Karl would be much more comfortable with the Head Waiter, and might get away with a severe reprimand this time. Then he and Therese might discuss whether he could tell the Head Cook the truth – he for his part couldn’t see why not – and if that was possible, the whole affair would have passed without doing him any particular damage.

Having soothed himself a little by such reflections, Karl was just discreetly counting the tips he’d taken that night, because he had the feeling it had been a particularly good one when the Head Waiter put the inventory down on the table with the words ‘Would you just wait a moment longer please, Feodor,’ sprang lithely to his feet, and screamed at Karl so loudly that he could only stare in terror at his large, black, cavernous mouth.

‘You left your post without permission. Do you know what that means? It means dismissal. I want no excuses, you can keep your lying excuses to yourself, for me the mere fact that you weren’t there is quite enough. If I condone that even just once, all forty lift-boys will be running off when on duty, and I’ll be left to carry five thousand guests up the stairs by myself.’

Karl said nothing. The porter had come closer and tweaked at Karl’s little jacket which was a bit creased, no doubt to draw the Head Waiter’s attention to this minor flaw in Karl’s appearance.

‘Did you suddenly feel sick?’ the Head Waiter asked cunningly. Karl looked at him searchingly and replied ‘No.’ ‘So you didn’t even feel sick?’ screamed the Head Waiter even more loudly. ‘Then you must have some truly wonderful excuse. All right, let’s hear it. What’s your story?’ ‘I didn’t know you had to ask for permission by telephone,’ said Karl. ‘Now that is priceless,’ said the Head Waiter, and grabbed Karl by the lapels and lifted him bodily up to a copy of the lift regulations which was pinned on the wall. The porter also followed them across to the wall. ‘There! Read that!’ said the Head Waiter, indicating one of the paragraphs. Karl thought he was meant to read it to himself. ‘Out loud!’ ordered the Head Waiter. But instead of reading it aloud, hoping it would calm the Head Waiter more effectively, Karl said: ‘I know the paragraph, I was given a copy of the rules myself and read them carefully. But that sort of rule, which you never use, is most easily forgotten. I’ve been serving for two months, and never once left my post.’ ‘But you’re about to leave it now,’ said the Head Waiter, and walked over to the table, picked up the inventory as though to go on reading from it, but instead smacked it down on the table like a useless piece of bumf and, with scarlet cheek and brow, began criss-crossing the room. ‘That a rascal like you should be the cause of such commotion on night duty!’ he exclaimed from time to time. ‘Do you know who was waiting to take the lift up at the time when this fellow walked off?’ he asked the porter. And he gave a name that caused the porter (who must have a pretty shrewd idea of all the guests) to shudder violently, and cast a quick look at Karl, as if his mere presence was proof that the man who bore that name had had to wait in vain for the lift the boy had forsaken. ‘But that’s terrible!’ said the porter, and slowly, in infinite disquiet, shook his head at Karl, who looked at him sorrowfully and thought he would now have to pay for the man’s slow-wittedness on top of everything else. ‘I know you too,’ said the porter, jabbing out a big fat stiff index finger. ‘You are the only boy not in the habit of greeting me. Who do you think you are! Everyone who goes past the porter’s lodge has to greet me. You can do what you like with the other porters, but I insist on being greeted. I may sometimes behave as though I weren’t paying attention, but rest assured, I know all too well who greets me and who doesn’t, you rapscallion.’ And he turned away from Karl and strode loftily over to the Head Waiter, who, instead of commenting on the porter’s case, was finishing his breakfast and perusing a morning newspaper which a servant had just delivered into the room.

‘Head Porter, sir,’ said Karl, who wanted, at least while the Head Waiter’s attention was elsewhere, to settle the dispute with the porter, because he realized that while the porter’s complaint might not damage him, the man’s enmity certainly could, ‘of course I greet you. I haven’t been in America long, and I come from Europe where people are known for greeting one another far more than is necessary. Of course I haven’t been completely able to shake off the habit yet, and just two months ago in New York, where I happened to be moving in rather elevated circles, I was continually being admonished to give up my excessive politeness. And yet you say I failed to greet you. I greeted you several times a day. But of course not every time I saw you, because I must pass you hundreds of times a day.’ ‘You’re supposed to greet me every time without exception, while you’re speaking to me I want you to hold your cap in your hands, and you must always address me as “Sir” and not “you”. And all of that every time, you hear, every time!’ ‘Every time?’ Karl repeated quietly and questioningly, he remembered now how the whole time he had been here he had always been looked at sternly and reproachfully by the porter, from the very first morning, when, not yet used to his servile role, he had been a little too bold in asking the porter urgently and insistently whether two men hadn’t come looking for him, or perhaps left a photograph for him. ‘Now you see where such behaviour gets you,’ said the porter, who had once more walked right up to Karl and pointed to the Head Waiter who was still reading, as though he was merely the person who was delegated to execute his revenge. ‘In your next job you’ll learn to greet the porter, even if it’s just in a wretched doss-house.’

Karl realized that to all intents and purposes he had already lost his job, because the Head Waiter had said as much, the Head Porter had referred to it as a foregone conclusion, and in the case of a mere lift-boy the approval of the management would hardly be necessary. It had all happened rather faster than he had expected, because he had served for two months as well as he could, and certainly better than one or two other boys he could think of. But such things, when it came down to it, were obviously of no importance, neither in Europe nor in America, rather matters are decided by whatever impetuous judgement the initial rage of one’s superiors might dictate. Perhaps it would have been best now if he had said goodbye and left right away, the Head Cook and Therese were perhaps both still asleep, he could take his leave of them in writing, to save them the upset and disappointment of a farewell in person, could quickly pack his things and slink away. Whereas if he stayed for one more day – and he could use a little sleep – all he had to look forward to would be the mushrooming of his affair into a full-blown scandal, reproaches from all sides, the insufferable sight of Therese in tears, and perhaps the Head Cook as well, and maybe on top of everything else some further punishment. On the other hand, it confused him to be confronting two enemies at once, either of whom might object to and misinterpret any words he might use on his own behalf. He therefore said nothing, and enjoyed the quiet in the room while he could, because the Head Waiter was still reading the newspaper and the Head Porter was putting the papers from his inventory, that had been scattered all over the table, back in numerical order, which with his evident short-sightedness was obviously proving rather difficult.

Finally with a yawn the Head Waiter laid the newspaper aside, looked to see that Karl was still present, and wound up the telephone on the table. He said ‘Hallo’ into it a few times, but no one answered. ‘No one’s answering,’ he said to the Head Porter. He, who, it seemed to Karl, was following the telephoning with particular interest, said, ‘It’s already a quarter to six. She’s bound to be awake. Ring louder.’ At that moment, without further prompting, the reply signal came. ‘Head Waiter Isbary speaking,’ said the Head Waiter. ‘Good morning, Head Cook. I haven’t woken you up, have I. I’m so sorry. Yes, yes, it’s a quarter to six already. Oh, I’m so sorry to give you a start. You ought to disconnect the telephone while you’re asleep. No, no, absolutely, it’s quite unpardonable, especially in view of the trifling matter I’m calling about. Yes, of course I have time, by all means, I’ll hold the line if that’s all right.’ ‘She must have run over to the telephone in her nightgown,’ said the Head Waiter with a smile to the Head Porter, who was crouching over the telephone box with an anxious expression on his face. ‘I really did wake her up, usually the little girl who does her typing wakes her, and she must have overslept today. It’s a shame I woke her, she’s nervous enough as it is.’ ‘Why isn’t she back yet?’ ‘She’s gone to see what’s the matter with the girl,’ replied the Head Waiter, with the earpiece pressed against his ear, as it was ringing again. ‘She’ll turn up,’ he said into the mouthpiece. ‘You mustn’t be so put out by everything, you need a good holiday. Now, what I wanted to discuss with you. There’s a lift-boy by the name of’ – he turned inquiringly to Karl, who, having been following closely, said his name – ‘by the name of Karl Rossmann, if I remember rightly, you took him under your wing a bit; I’m sorry to say he’s given you a poor reward for your kindness, he’s gone and left his post without permission, thereby causing me serious even incalculable consequences, and I have just fired him. I hope you won’t take it amiss. What’s that? Fired, yes, fired. But I told you, he left his post. No, I really can’t give in to you over this, my dear Head Cook. It’s a question of my authority, there’s a lot at stake, one rotten apple will spoil the whole barrelful. You need eyes in the back of your head, especially with those lift-boys. No, no, I’m afraid I can’t do you such a favour in this instance, anxious though I am always to be of service to you. And if I did let him stay in spite of everything, simply to keep my spleen functioning, it’s for your sake, yes yours, that he can’t stay. You look out for him in a way he certainly doesn’t deserve, and knowing both him and yourself as I do, I know that could only lead to your being gravely disappointed, which is something I want to spare you at any price. I say so quite openly, though the fellow’s buttoned his lip and is standing just a few feet away. He will be fired, no, no, Head Cook, dismissed, no no, he will be transferred to no other line of work, he is completely useless. Complaints are being voiced against him all the time. For example, the Head Porter, what’s that, Feodor, is incensed at the boy’s rudeness and impertinence. What, that’s not enough? My dear Head Cook, you’re denying your true nature on account of this boy. No please don’t give me such a hard time over this.’

At that moment the porter leaned forward and whispered something into the Head Waiter’s ear. At first the Head Waiter looked at him in amazement, and then spoke into the telephone at such a rate that to begin with Karl was unable to follow him quite, and advanced a couple of paces on tiptoe.

‘My dear Head Cook,’ he was saying, ‘in all candour I would never have thought you such a poor judge of character. I have just now heard something about your paragon that will completely change your view of him, and I’m sorry to have to be the one who must break it to you. This excellent boy, then, whom you call a model of rectitude, spends every one of his free evenings running off into the city, and never returns till the following morning. Yes, yes, Head Cook, I have it on good authority, yes, quite unimpeachable authority. Now could you tell me perhaps from where he has the money for such pursuits? How he is supposed to remain alert while on duty? And would you perhaps like me to describe to you the kind of things he gets up to in the city? I really can’t get rid of this boy too fast. And I should like you to be warned by his example to be more circumspect about boys who turn up on your doorstep.’

‘But sir, Head Waiter,’ cried Karl, quite relieved by the gross error that had evidently been perpetrated, and that might best lead to an unexpected improvement in his situation, ‘there seems to be some confusion here. I believe the Head Porter told you that I go out every night. That’s not the case at all, I spend every night in the dormitory, as all the boys will confirm. Whenever I’m not asleep, I’m studying business correspondence, but in any case I never set foot outside the dormitory at night. It’s easily proved. The Head Porter is evidently confusing me with someone else, now I understand too why he thinks I don’t greet him.’

‘Will you shut up,’ shouted the Head Porter and waved his fist – where others might have contented themselves with wagging a finger – ‘So I’m confusing you with someone else. If that were so, then I couldn’t go on being Head Porter, if I get people mixed up. Listen, Mr Isbary, I can’t go on being Head Porter, can I, if I get people mixed up. In my thirty years of duty I have never once mixed anyone up, as hundreds of head waiters who’ve been here in that time will be happy to confirm, but now, with you, wretched boy, I’ve suddenly started getting confused. With you, and your strikingly smooth features. How could I possibly be confused, you could have slunk off into the city every night while my back was turned, but I’m telling you that your face is that of a no-good scoundrel.’

‘That’s enough, Feodor!’ said the Head Waiter, whose telephone conversation with the Head Cook seemed to have come to an abrupt end. ‘It’s a very straightforward matter. It’s not primarily a question of his nocturnal amusements. Perhaps before he leaves us he’d like to get some elaborate investigation started into his nocturnal habits. That would just suit him down to the ground. He would have all forty lift-boys summoned to give evidence, and of course all of them would have got him mixed up too, so by and by the entire hotel staff would be subpoenaed, the business of the hotel would grind to a halt for the duration, and at the end of it all when he was finally thrown out, he would have had a good laugh at our expense. So let’s not fall for that. He’s already made a monkey of that good woman, the Head Cook, so let that be enough. I won’t hear any more, you are dismissed with immediate effect for dereliction of duty. I’ll give you a slip for the cashier, so that your wages will be paid up to today. And between you and me, when I think of how you’ve behaved, that’s pure generosity on my part, and I only do it out of regard for the Head Cook.’

The Head Waiter was about to put his name to the slip, when the telephone rang again. ‘The lift-boys are playing up today!’ he exclaimed after hearing a few words. ‘That’s outrageous!’ he called, a while later. And he turned to the hotel porter and said: ‘Feodor, will you keep hold of this fellow for a minute, we need to have further words with him.’ And into the telephone he gave the order. ‘Come up right away!’

Now at least the Head Porter could get something out of his system that his words hadn’t succeeded in doing. He gripped Karl’s upper arm, but not with a steady grip, which could have been borne, but periodically loosening it and then gradually making it tighter and tighter, which, with his great strength, seemed to have no limit, and made Karl see stars. Nor was he content to hold him, but, as though he had been ordered to stretch him at the same time, he lifted him up in the air from time to time and shook him, and half-inquired of the Head Waiter: ‘I’m not mistaking him for someone else now, am I, I’m not mistaking him.’

Karl was relieved when the head lift-boy, one Bess, a forever panting fat boy, entered and distracted the attention of the Head Porter. Karl was so exhausted that he could barely manage a greeting, when, to his amazement, he saw a ghostly pale Therese slip into the room after the boy, untidily dressed and with loose, piled-up hair. In an instant she was at his side, whispering: ‘Does the Head Cook know?’ ‘The Head Waiter told her on the telephone,’ replied Karl. ‘Then everything’s all right, everything’s all right,’ she said quickly, with shining eyes. ‘No,’ said Karl, ‘you don’t know what it is they are accusing me of. I’ll have to leave, the Head Cook is persuaded of that as well. Please don’t stay here, go back upstairs, I’ll come and say goodbye to you later.’ ‘Rossmann, honestly, what are you saying. You’ll stay here with us as long as you like. The Head Waiter will do anything the Head Cook wants, he’s in love with her, I discovered quite by chance recently. So set your mind at rest.’ ‘Please, Therese, leave me now. I can’t speak so well in my defence when you’re here with me. And I must defend myself carefully, because false accusations are being brought against me. But the more I keep my wits about me and defend myself, the more hope I have of being allowed to stay. So, Therese –’ Unfortunately, in a sudden spasm of pain, he couldn’t stop himself quietly adding: ‘If only the Head Porter would let go of me! I didn’t know he was my enemy. But he keeps squeezing me and lifting me up.’ ‘Why am I saying that!’ he asked himself at the same time, ‘no woman can stand to hear that,’ and indeed Therese turned round and, undeterred by the waving of his free hand, said to the Head Porter: ‘Head Porter, sir, will you please let go of Rossmann. You’re hurting him. The Head Cook will be here any minute, and then we’ll see that he’s been unfairly treated. Let him go, how can you take pleasure in tormenting him.’ And she even reached out for the Head Porter’s hand. ‘Orders, missy, orders,’ said the Head Porter, and with his free hand he pulled Therese affectionately to himself, while with the other he squeezed Karl particularly hard, as though not only intending to cause him pain, but as though he had some design on the arm in his possession which was still far from being achieved.

It took Therese a while to twist away from the embrace of the Head Porter, and she was just about to intervene on Karl’s behalf with the Head Waiter, who was listening to some rather elaborate account of Bess’s, when the Head Cook strode into the room. ‘Thank God,’ cried Therese, and for a moment those were the only words that were heard in the room. Then the Head Waiter leapt up and thrust Bess aside: ‘So you’ve come in person, Madam. Over this trifling business? Following our telephone conversation I guessed it, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe it. And all the time the situation of your protégé is getting worse and worse. It looks as though I won’t be dismissing him, but will have to have him locked up instead. Hear for yourself!’ And he motioned Bess to come forward. ‘I want to have a few words with Rossmann first,’ said the Head Cook, taking a seat offered by the Head Waiter. ‘Karl, please come closer,’ she said. Karl did so, or rather was dragged there by the Head Porter. ‘Let go of him,’ the Head Cook said crossly, ‘he’s not a murderer.’ The Head Porter released him, but not before giving him one final squeeze, so hard that tears came to his own eyes from the effort.

‘Karl,’ said the Head Cook, folding her hands calmly in her lap, and looking at him with her head slightly tilted – this wasn’t like a cross-examination at all – ‘first of all let me say that I still have complete trust in you. Also the Head Waiter is a just man, I can vouch for that. Both of us would dearly like to keep you here.’ She glanced across at the Head Waiter, as though begging not to be contradicted. Nor was she – ‘So forget whatever may have been said to you so far. In particular you mustn’t take too hard what the Head Porter may have said to you. He is an excitable man, which is no wonder when you think about his job, but he has a wife and children, and he knows that it’s not necessary to torment a boy who’s all on his own, because the rest of the world will see to that anyway.’

It was very quiet in the room. The Head Porter looked to the Head Waiter for some explanation, but he went on looking at the Head Cook, and shook his head. The lift-boy Bess was grinning fatuously behind the Head Waiter’s back. Therese was sobbing quietly with joy and worry, trying hard to keep the others from noticing.

Karl was looking – although this might be taken to be a bad sign – not at the Head Cook, who was certainly trying to catch his eye, but at the floor in front of him. His arm was throbbing wildly with pain, his sleeve was sticking to it, and he would have liked to take off his jacket and inspect the place. What the Head Cook was saying was of course very well intentioned, but unfortunately it seemed to him that her manner would make it even clearer that he didn’t deserve any such kindness, that he had for the past two months enjoyed quite unmerited benevolence from the Head Cook, and actually the fittest thing for him was to be given into the Head Porter’s hands.

‘I say as much,’ continued the Head Cook, ‘so that you may be quite candid in your replies, which as I know you, you would probably have been anyway.’

‘Can I go and get the doctor, the man might bleed to death in the meantime,’ the lift-boy Bess piped up suddenly, very politely, but also very disruptively.

‘Go on,’ said the Head Waiter to Bess, who scurried off. And then, to the Head Cook: ‘The thing is this. The Head Porter hasn’t been detaining the boy for the fun of it. A stranger has been found down in the lift-boys’ dormitory, heavily intoxicated, and carefully wrapped up in one of the beds. He was of course woken up and an attempt was made to remove him. But then the fellow started to make a great racket, and kept shouting that the dormitory belonged to Karl Rossmann, whose guest he was, who had brought him there and would punish anyone who dared to lay a finger on him. He had to wait for Karl Rossmann now because he had promised him money, and had just gone to get it. Mark this, Head Cook: Promised him money and had just gone to get it. You pay attention too, Rossmann,’ said the Head Waiter in an aside to Karl, who had just turned to Therese, who was staring spellbound at the Head Waiter, and kept brushing some hair off her brow, or was at least making as if to do so. ‘But perhaps I can remind you of some further commitments of yours. The man downstairs went on to say that, following your return, the two of you would be going on to pay a night visit to some singer or other, whose name unfortunately no one could make out, as the man would insist on singing it.’

At this point the Head Waiter broke off, because the Head Cook, now visibly pale, had risen from her chair, pushing it back a little. ‘I’ll spare you the rest,’ said the Head Waiter. ‘No, no, please,’ said the Head Cook, taking his hand, ‘go on, I want to hear everything, that’s what I’m here for.’ The Head Porter, who stepped forward, and, in indication of the fact that he had seen it all coming, beat his breast loudly, was simultaneously rebuked and pacified by the Head Waiter’s words: ‘Yes, Feodor, you were absolutely right!’

‘There’s not much more to report,’ said the Head Waiter. ‘The way the lads are, they first laughed at the man, then they got into an argument with him, and, as there are always some good boxers among them, they just punched him out, and I didn’t dare ask how many places he’s bleeding from, because the lads are tremendous boxers, and they would make short work of a drunk.’

‘Well,’ said the Head Cook, holding the back of the chair, and looking at the place where she had been sitting. ‘Well, won’t you say something please, Rossmann!’ she said. Therese had left her original place and run across to the Head Cook, and, something Karl had never seen her do before, linked arms with her. The Head Waiter was standing just behind the Head Cook, and was slowly smoothing down a modest little lace collar of hers that had turned up slightly. The Head Porter, standing next to Karl said: ‘Well get on with it,’ but only to mask a jab in the back he gave him at the same time.

‘It is true’, said Karl, sounding more uncertain than he meant to as a result of the jab, ‘that I brought the man into the dormitory.’

‘That’s all we want to know,’ said the porter in the name of everyone there. The Head Cook turned silently to the Head Waiter and then to Therese.

‘I had no other option,’ Karl went on. ‘The man used to be my companion, he came here after we hadn’t seen each other for two months, to visit me, but he was so drunk he was unable to leave unaided.’

Standing beside the Head Cook, the Head Waiter said softly under his breath: ‘He means to say he visited him, and then got so drunk he couldn’t leave.’ The Head Cook whispered something back over her shoulder to the Head Waiter, who, with a smile on his face that obviously had nothing to do with the present business, seemed to be making some demurral. Therese – Karl was looking now only to her – had seen enough, and pressed her face in complete helplessness against the Head Cook. The only person who was completely satisfied with Karl’s explanation was the Head Porter, who repeated several times: ‘Quite right, you have to help your drinking buddy,’ and sought to impress this explanation on each of those present by looks and gestures.

‘So it’s my fault,’ said Karl, and paused, as though waiting for a kind word from his judges, that might encourage him to further defence, but none came, ‘but I’m only to blame for bringing the man, Robinson is his name, he’s Irish, into the dormitory. Everything else he said because he was drunk, and it isn’t true.’

‘So you didn’t promise him any money?’ asked the Head Waiter.

‘Yes, I did,’ said Karl, and he was sorry he’d forgotten to mention that, and out of thoughtlessness or vagueness he had stated his innocence in too decisive terms. ‘I did promise him money, because he asked me for some. But I wasn’t going to get him any, I was only going to give him whatever tips I’d earned in the night.’ And, as proof, he pulled the money out of his pocket and pointed to a few small coins in the palm of his hand.

‘That’s a tangled web you’re weaving,’ said the Head Waiter. ‘In order to believe anything you say, one would have to forget whatever else you had said before. First of all you took the fellow – I don’t believe he’s called Robinson, no Irishman in that country’s history has ever been called Robinson – first of all, you only took him to the dormitory, which is enough in itself to have you out on your ear – but without promising him money, then another question catches you out, and you say you did promise him money. But this isn’t a question and answer session, we’re here to let you justify yourself. Now first you didn’t want to get the money, but give him your tips, but then it appears that you still have them on your person, so you obviously had need of other money, for which your long absence argues too. For me there’d be nothing out of the ordinary if you’d wanted to get him some money out of your box, but the vehemence with which you deny that is quite extraordinary. As is the way you kept seeking to deny that you made the man drunk here in the hotel, of which there isn’t the slightest doubt, because you yourself conceded that he arrived on his own, but couldn’t leave on his own, and he himself was shouting in the dormitory that he was your guest. So two things remain at issue, which, if you want to simplify matters, you can answer yourself, but which can also be determined without any assistance from you: first, how did you gain access to the storerooms, and second, how did you come by money to give away?’

‘It’s impossible to mount a defence of oneself without a certain amount of good will,’ said Karl to himself, and didn’t reply to the Head Waiter, however much Therese might suffer as a result. He knew that whatever he said would look quite different in retrospect from the way he had meant it to sound, and that whether it was good or bad depended solely on the way it was judged.

‘He’s not answering,’ said the Head Cook.

‘It’s the most sensible thing he can do,’ said the Head Waiter.

‘He’ll think of something,’ said the Head Porter, and with his lately violent hand, gently stroked his beard.

‘Stop it,’ said the Head Cook to Therese, who had started sobbing beside her. ‘You can see he’s not answering, so how can I do anything for him. Remember I’m the one who’s been proved wrong by the Head Waiter. Tell me, Therese, is there anything, do you think, that I haven’t tried on his behalf?’ How was Therese to know that, and what did it help, openly asking such a question of the little girl and thereby surely losing face in front of the two men?

‘Madam,’ said Karl, making one last effort, but for the sole purpose of saving Therese from having to make some reply, ‘I don’t think I have disgraced you in any way, and on closer inspection I don’t think anyone would claim that I had.’

‘Anyone,’ said the Head Porter, and pointed at the Head Waiter, ‘that’s a dig at you, Mr Isbary.’

‘Well now, Head Cook,’ said the latter, ‘it’s half past six, time to move on. I think you’d better leave me the last word in this affair on which we have expended too much patience already.’

Little Giacomo had come in and wanted to go over to Karl, but was frightened off by the general silence, so he stood back and waited.

Since Karl’s last words, the Head Cook had not taken her eyes off him, and there was nothing to suggest that she had heard the Head Waiter’s words. She levelled her eyes at him, they were large and blue, if a little dimmed by age and so much work. To see her standing there, feebly rocking the chair in front of her, one might have expected her to go on to say: ‘Well, Karl, the thing isn’t quite clear to me yet; on reflection, and as you quite rightly said, it calls for closer investigation. So let’s set that in motion now, whether we all agree to it or not, because that’s what justice demands.’

Instead of which, after a short silence which no one dared to break – only the clock supplied confirmation of the Head Waiter’s words by striking the half hour, and at the same time, as everyone knew, all the other clocks in the whole hotel also struck, an audible and an imagined chime, like the twofold twitching of a single great impatience, the Head Cook said: ‘No, Karl, no, no! Don’t let’s get involved in all that. Just causes have a certain distinctive aspect, and yours, I must confess, doesn’t. I say so and I am bound to say so as I came here most predisposed in your favour. You see, even Therese is silent.’ (But she wasn’t silent at all, she was crying.)

Taken by a sudden impulse, the Head Cook stopped and said: ‘Karl, will you come here a minute,’ and when he had gone to her – straight away the Head Waiter and Head Porter conferred animatedly behind his back – she put her left arm round him, and followed quite helplessly by Therese, went with him to the other end of the room, and walked to and fro for a while with both of them, and said: ‘It is possible, Karl, and this is what you have put your trust in, otherwise I couldn’t understand you at all, that an investigation may show you to be right in one or two details. And why not? Perhaps you did greet the Head Porter. I even believe you did, I have my own opinion of the Head Porter, you see, I’m even now being quite open with you. But these vindications are no use to you really. The Head Waiter, whose judgement I have learned to respect in the course of many years, and who is the most reliable man I know anywhere, has clearly found you culpable, and that seems to me irrefutably the case. Perhaps you merely acted rashly, but then again, perhaps I was deceived in you. And yet,’ she said, virtually contradicting herself, and glancing across at the two men, ‘I can’t help thinking you’re still a good boy at heart.’

‘Head Cook! Head Cook! Come along now,’ called the Head Waiter, who had caught her glance.

‘We’re just finishing,’ said the Head Cook, and addressed Karl with greater urgency now: ‘Listen, Karl, as I see it, I’m glad the Head Waiter isn’t going to launch an investigation, because if he did, I’d have to try and stop him for your sake. No one must learn how and with what you entertained the man, who, incidentally, can’t have been one of your former companions as you claim, because you had such a falling out with them when you broke up, so you would hardly have been looking after him now. So it can only be some acquaintance you foolishly made in some bar in the city. How could you keep all these things from me, Karl? If you found the dormitory so unbearable, and for that innocent reason you took to your nightlife, you had only to tell me, you know I wanted to get you a room of your own, and only desisted at your request. It now appears that you preferred the general dormitory because you could feel less constrained there. And you kept your money in my chest, and brought me your tips every week, where in God’s name did you get the money to pay for your amusements, and where were you going to get the money for your friend from? All these are of course things I daren’t even suggest to the Head Waiter, for the moment, because then an investigation might become unavoidable. So you must leave the hotel, and as quickly as possible. Go straight to the Pension Brenner – you’ve been there several times with Therese – they’ll take you in for free on my recommendation’ – and taking a golden crayon from her blouse, the Head Cook scribbled a few lines on a visiting card, but carried on speaking at the same time – ‘I’ll have your suitcase sent on after you, Therese, go to the lift-boys’ cloakroom and pack his suitcase’ (but Therese still refused to move, having endured so much misery, she now wanted to witness this sudden turn for the better in Karl’s affairs, thanks to the kindness of the Head Cook).

Someone opened the door a crack, without showing himself, and then shut it again. It must have been for Giacomo, because he now stepped forward and said: ‘Rossmann, I have something for you.’ ‘In a minute,’ said the Head Cook, and pushed the visiting card into Karl’s pocket as he stood and listened with bowed head, ‘I’ll keep your money for the moment, you know it’s safe with me. Stay in today and think about everything, and tomorrow – I’ve no time today, I’ve spent far too long here already – I’ll visit you at the Brenner, and we’ll see what we can do for you then. I’m not abandoning you, I’m telling you right now. You’re not to worry about the future, just about the recent past.’ Thereupon she patted him on the back and went over to the Head Waiter, Karl raised his head and watched the large stately woman walking calmly and easily away from him.

‘Aren’t you even a bit pleased’, said Therese, who had stayed behind with him, ‘that everything has turned out so well?’ ‘Oh yes,’ said Karl, and smiled at her, but he didn’t know why he should be pleased to be called a thief and be sent packing. But joy gleamed in Therese’s eyes, it was as though she was completely indifferent as to whether Karl had done wrong or not, whether he had been correctly judged or not, so long as he was allowed to get away somehow, with honour or in disgrace. And this was Therese, who was so scrupulous in her own affairs, turning over and inspecting some just slightly unclear sentence of the Head Cook’s in her head for weeks. He asked her deliberately: ‘Will you pack my suitcase and send it on promptly?’ He had to shake his head in disbelief at the way Therese grasped the question and how her conviction that there were items in the suitcase that needed to be kept concealed from view meant that she didn’t even look at Karl or shake hands, but merely whispered: ‘Of course, Karl, right away, I’ll pack it right now.’ And she was gone.

Now there was no more stopping Giacomo, and excited after his long wait he called out: ‘Rossmann, the man is rolling about in the corridor downstairs and refuses to be taken away. They wanted to have him taken to hospital but he wouldn’t go and says you’d never let him be sent to a hospital. He wants to be driven home in a car, and says you’ll pay for the car. Will you?’

‘There’s a trusting fellow,’ said the Head Waiter. Karl shrugged his shoulders and handed his money over to Giacomo: ‘It’s all I’ve got,’ he said.

‘And I’m to ask you if you want to go in the car with him,’ Giacomo asked, jingling the money.

‘He won’t be going in the car with him,’ said the Head Cook.

‘Now Rossmann,’ said the Head Waiter quickly, without even waiting for Giacomo to leave the room, ‘you’re dismissed with immediate effect.’

The Head Porter nodded several times, as though these were his words, which the Head Waiter was merely repeating.

‘I am not able to state the grounds for your dismissal, because if I did I would have to have you locked up.’

The Head Porter looked across at the Head Cook with notable severity, because it had not escaped him that she was the cause of this unduly mild treatment.

‘Go to Bess now, get changed, give Bess your livery, and leave the premises at once, and I mean at once.’

The Head Cook closed her eyes, she did it to soothe Karl. As he bowed in farewell, he just caught a glimpse of the Head Waiter’s hand discreetly taking the Head Cook’s hand and playing with it. The Head Porter, with heavy tread, accompanied Karl to the door, which he wouldn’t let him close, but kept open in order to be able to call after him: ‘In a quarter of a minute I want to see you going past my office at the main gate, just remember that.’

Karl hurried as much as he could, to avoid a scene at the main entrance, but everything took much longer than he meant it to. To begin with, Bess couldn’t be met with right away, and as it was now breakfast time there were people everywhere, and then it turned out that another boy had borrowed Karl’s old trousers, and Karl was forced to look through most of the clothes stands next to the beds before he could find them, so that five minutes must have elapsed before Karl reached the main entrance. In front of him was a lady, accompanied by four gentlemen. They all went up to a large automobile which was waiting for them, and whose rear doors were being held open by a lackey who had his left arm extended stiffly behind him, which looked terribly impressive. But Karl’s hope to slip out unobserved with this posh group was a vain one. The Head Porter had him by the hand and pulled him out between two of the gentlemen, begging their pardon as he did. ‘That was never a quarter of a minute,’ he said and looked askance at Karl, like a man inspecting a faulty watch. ‘Come in here will you,’ he said, and led him into the large porter’s lodge, which Karl had been longing to see for ages, but which he now entered, propelled by the porter, full only of suspicion. He was already in the doorway when he turned round and tried to push the porter aside and get away. ‘Oh no you don’t, this is the way in,’ said the Head Porter, spinning Karl round again. ‘But I’ve already been dismissed,’ said Karl, implying that no one in the hotel could order him about any longer. ‘As long as I’ve got you in my grip, you’re not dismissed,’ said the porter, which was indeed the case.

Karl finally could think of no reason why he should defend himself against the porter. What worse thing could befall him? Besides, the walls of the porter’s lodge were entirely made up of enormous glass panels, through which you could see the crowds of people flowing into one another in the lobby, just as clearly as if one were in their midst. Yes, there seemed to be no corner in the whole porter’s lodge where one could be concealed from the eyes of those outside. And in however much of a hurry they all seemed to be as they made their way in or out, with outstretched arms, lowered heads and darting eyes, and luggage held aloft, yet hardly one of them failed to throw a glance into the porter’s lodge, for behind its glass panels there were always announcements and messages hanging that were of importance to the guests as well as the hotel staff. In addition, there was direct commerce between the porter’s lodge and the lobby, because of the two sliding windows which were manned by two under-porters, who were uninterruptedly engaged in giving out information on all kinds of subjects. These men were really overburdened, and Karl could have sworn that the Head Porter, as he knew him, must have got around doing this job in his past career. These two information dispensers had – you really couldn’t get a sense of it from outside – at least ten inquiring faces at the windows in front of them. These ten questioners, who were continually changing, spoke in a babel of different languages, as though each one of them had been sent from a different country. There were always some asking their questions at the same time, while some others were talking amongst themselves. For the most part, they wanted to collect something from the porter’s lodge or leave something there, and so you could always see hands waving impatiently out of the mass of people. Now someone wanted some newspaper, which was abruptly unfolded from above and briefly covered everyone’s faces. And the two under-porters had to stand up to all this. Mere speaking would not have been enough, they had to babble, and one of them especially, a gloomy man with a beard that surrounded his whole face, gave information without the slightest break. He looked neither at the desk in front of him, where he had various things to do too, nor at the faces of any of his inquisitors, but just in front of him, obviously to save his strength. His beard must have impeded the clarity of his speech, and in the few moments Karl stood beside him, he could understand very little of what he said, although perhaps, for all that it still sounded like English, he might just have been replying in some foreign language. Besides, it was confusing, the way one piece of information followed on the heels of another, and merged with it, so that a questioner was often listening with a tense expression on his face in the belief that he was still hearing something intended for himself, only to realize a while later that he had been taken care of already. You also had to get used to the fact that the under-porter never asked for a question to be repeated, even if it was generally comprehensible and only asked in some slightly unclear way, a barely perceptible shake of the head would indicate that he didn’t intend to reply to the question, and it was up to the questioner to realize his own shortcoming and reformulate his question in some better way. This kept some people at the counter for a very long time. To assist the under-porters, they each had an errand-boy, who had to run and get whatever the under-porter happened to need from a bookshelf and various files. These were the best-paid, if also the most exhausting, jobs for young people in the hotel, in a certain sense they were even worse off than the under-porters, who merely had to think and speak, whereas these young people had to think and run. If they happened to bring something inappropriate, the under-porter in his haste of course couldn’t take the time to give them a long lecture, he would just sweep. what they had laid in front of him on to the floor. Very interesting was the change-over of under-porters, which took place just after Karl’s entry. Such change-overs must take place fairly frequently during the day at least, because the person probably didn’t exist who could stand behind the counter for more than an hour. At the change-over time a bell sounded, and from two side doors the two under-porters whose turn it now was, emerged, each followed by his errand-boy. They stood for a while impassively by the counter to determine the current state of the answering process. When the right moment seemed to them to have come, they tapped on the shoulder of the under-porter they were relieving, who, though he had paid no attention to what had been going on behind his back, straightaway understood, and vacated his place. The whole thing happened so quickly that the people outside were often taken by surprise and almost shrank back from the new face that had so suddenly appeared in front of them. The men who had been relieved stretched, and from two basins that stood ready they poured water over their hot heads, the relieved errand-boys though were not yet permitted to stretch, they were still busy a while longer with picking up items that had been thrown on the floor during their hours of duty, and putting them back in their rightful places.

Karl had taken in all this in a few moments of the raptest attention, and he felt a slight headache as he quietly followed the Head Porter onward. Evidently the Head Porter had noticed how greatly impressed Karl was by this style of information-giving, and he suddenly tugged at Karl’s hand, and said: ‘You see, that’s how people work here.’ Karl himself hadn’t actually been idle in the hotel, but he had had no notion of work such as this, and almost forgetting that the Head Porter was his sworn enemy, he looked up at him, and nodded in silent recognition. But that in turn struck the Head Porter as an overestimation of the under-porters and an implicit slight against his own person, because, as though he had been kidding Karl, he called out, without worrying about being overheard: ‘Of course this is the most stupid work in the whole hotel; if you listen for an hour, you know pretty well all the questions that are asked, and the rest you don’t need to answer. If you hadn’t been so cheeky and impertinent, if you hadn’t lied and tricked and boozed and stolen, I might have put you at one of these windows, because it’s only numbskulls I can use there.’ Karl quite failed to hear the abuse directed at himself, such was his indignation at the way the honest and difficult work of the under-porters, far from being recognized, was mocked, and mocked at that by a man who if he had dared to sit at one of those counters would surely have been forced to quit within a matter of minutes, to the derision of all the questioners. ‘Let me go,’ said Karl, his curiosity about the porter’s lodge now more than satisfied, ‘I don’t want anything more to do with you.’ ‘That’s not going to get you out of here,’ said the Head Porter, and pinned Karl’s arms so that he couldn’t even move them, and carried him bodily up to the other end of the porter’s lodge. Could the people outside not see this violence by the Head Porter? And if they saw it, how on earth did they interpret it, because no one seemed at all exercised by it, no one so much as knocked on the window to let the Head Porter know he was under observation, and couldn’t treat Karl as he pleased.

Soon, though, Karl had no more hope of getting help from the lobby, for the Head Porter pulled a string and instantly half the porter’s lodge was screened right to the very top by black curtains. There were people in this part of the porter’s lodge too, but they were all hard at work, and had no eyes or ears for anything that wasn’t to do with their work. Besides, they were completely dependent upon the Head Porter, and, sooner than helping Karl, they would rather have helped to conceal whatever it was the Head Porter might have it in mind to do to him. For instance there were six under-porters manning six telephones. The principle, you could see at a glance, was that one would jot down conversations, while from his notes, the man next to him would pass on the orders by telephone. They were the very latest type of telephone that needed no telephone cubicles, for the ringing was no louder than a cheep, you could whisper into the mouthpiece, and, thanks to special electrical amplification, your words would boom out at the other end. And so one could barely hear the three speakers on their telephones, and might have supposed they were murmuringly observing some process in the telephone mouthpiece, while the other three drooped their heads over the paper it was their job to cover, as though stunned by the deafening volume in their ears that was inaudible to everyone else in the room. Once again there was a boy standing by each of the three speakers; these three boys did nothing but crane their necks to listen to their masters, and then hurriedly, as though stung, look up telephone numbers in enormous yellow books – the rustling of the volumes of paper easily drowning out all the noise of the telephones.

Karl simply couldn’t resist observing it all closely, even though the Head Porter had sat down, holding him in front of him in a kind of embrace. ‘It is my duty,’ said the Head Porter, and shook Karl, as though to get him to face him, ‘in the name of hotel management, at least to some extent, to catch up on what the Head Waiter, for whatever reason, has failed to do. We always stand in for each other here. Otherwise such a great enterprise would be impossible. You may say that I’m not your immediate superior, but that only makes it more creditable of me to interest myself in this otherwise neglected business. Besides, as Head Porter, I am in a certain sense put in charge of everything, because I am in charge of all the hotel entrances, this main entrance here, the three central and ten side entrances, not to mention the innumerable little doors and other exits. Of course all the service teams concerned have a duty of unconditional obedience to me. In return for these signal honours, I am charged by the management not to let anyone out who is in the slightest degree suspicious to me. You, I would say, are strongly suspicious.’ And delighted with that he lifted his hands off Karl and let them fall again, which made a smacking noise and hurt. ‘It is possible’, he went on, enjoying himself hugely, ‘that you might have managed to slip out unobserved at one of the other gates, because it’s not worth my while issuing special instructions just for you. But seeing as you’re here now, I’d like to make the most of you. In fact I never had any doubt in my mind that you would keep our appointment at the main entrance, because it is a rule that a cheeky and insubordinate party will only forsake his vices where it will do him the most damage. You will be able to observe this in yourself many times yet.’

‘Don’t imagine,’ said Karl, and breathed in the strangely musty smell that emanated from the Head Porter, and only noticed for the first time now that he had been standing so close to him for so long, ‘don’t imagine’, he said, ‘that I am completely in your power, I can scream.’ ‘And I can gag you,’ said the Head Porter, as calmly and quietly as he would gag him, if it ever came to that. ‘And do you really think, if anyone should come in on your account, that he would back your version against the Head Porter’s. You must concede your hopes are nonsensical. You know, when you were still in uniform, you had something vaguely impressive about you, but in this suit, which has Europe written all over it.’ And he tugged at various bits of the suit, which indeed, although it had been almost new five months ago, was now worn, creased, and above all stained, which was largely to be attributed to the ruthlessness of the lift-boys, who every day, under instruction to keep the floor of the dormitory clean and free of dust, undertook no proper cleaning out of laziness, but merely squirted a kind of oil over the floor, which did terrible damage to all the clothes in the clothes stands. You could keep your clothes wherever you liked, there would always be someone who happened not to have his own to hand, but was easily able to find those that someone else had hidden, and borrow them for himself. And he might be one of the very ones who had to clean the room that day, and so the clothes wouldn’t just get the odd squirt of oil on them, but a veritable dunking from top to bottom. Only Renell had managed to keep his exquisite wardrobe in some secret place where hardly anyone had managed to find them, especially as it appeared people didn’t borrow out of malice or greed, but just helped themselves from haste and negligence. But even Renell’s jacket had a perfectly round reddish oil stain in the middle of the back, by which an expert in the town might have identified even that elegant young man as a lift-boy.

Remembering all this, Karl told himself he had suffered enough as a lift-boy, and it had still all been in vain, because his lift-boy work hadn’t, as he’d hoped, turned out to be a prelude to some higher position, rather he had been pushed out of it into something still lower, and was even very close to going to prison. On top of that he was in the grip of the Head Porter, who was probably thinking how he might further humiliate Karl. And completely forgetting that the Head Porter was certainly not a man who was open to persuasion, Karl shouted, hitting his brow with his momentarily relinquished hand as he did: ‘And if I really did forget to greet you, how can a grown man get so vengeful over an omitted greeting!’

‘I’m not vengeful,’ said the Head Porter. ‘I just want to look through your pockets. Of course I won’t find anything in them, because I am sure you will have taken the precaution of letting your friend remove a little every day. But searched you must be.’ And he reached into Karl’s jacket pocket with such force that the stitching split at the side. ‘Well, nothing there,’ he said, as he picked over the contents of the pocket in his hand, a calendar advertising the hotel, a sheet of paper with an exercise in business correspondence on it, a few jacket and trouser buttons, the Head Cook’s visiting card, a nail-file that a guest had tossed him while packing his suitcase, an old pocket mirror that Renell had given him in return for the dozen or so times he’d stood in for him, and a few more bits and pieces besides. ‘Nothing there,’ repeated the Head Porter, and threw everything under the seat, as though it were self-evident that any property of Karl’s that hadn’t been stolen belonged there. ‘I’ve had enough,’ said Karl to himself – his face must be scarlet – and when the Head Porter, incautious in his greed, started digging around in Karl’s other pocket, Karl quickly slid out of his sleeves, leaped aside, knocking an under-porter quite hard against his telephone, ran rather more slowly through the humid air than he’d meant to, to the door, but was happily outside before the Head Porter had even been able to pick himself up in his heavy coat. The organization of the hotel security couldn’t have been that exemplary after all, he heard bells ringing from several quarters, but God knows what they were ringing for, hotel employees were swarming around the entrance in such numbers that one could almost imagine they were unobtrusively making it impassable, because he really couldn’t see much purpose in all their toing and froing – anyway, Karl quickly got outside, but was then forced to walk along the pavement in front of the hotel, he couldn’t get to the public street, as an unbroken line of cars was driving haltingly past the entrance. These cars, trying to get as quickly as possible to their passengers waiting for them, had practically driven into one another, each one was being pushed along by the one behind. Pedestrians who were in a particular hurry to get to the street did occasionally walk through an individual car here and there, as though it were some public thoroughfare, and they were quite indifferent as to whether the car contained just chauffeur and servants or the most distinguished people. Such behaviour seemed overdone to Karl, and you probably had to be familiar with the conditions to try it, it would be very easy to try it with a car whose occupants might object, throw him out and cause a scandal, and there was nothing he had to fear more than that as a runaway, suspicious hotel employee in shirtsleeves. After all, this line of cars couldn’t go on for ever, and for as long as he stuck close to the hotel it was actually the least obtrusive place for him. Finally Karl came to a place where the line of cars, though not actually broken, did loosen a little as it converged with the street. He was just about to slip into the traffic, which contained far more suspicious-looking persons than himself, running around without a care in the world, when he heard his name being called. He turned round and saw two lift-boys he knew well, at a low doorway that looked like the entrance to a tomb, with immense effort pulling out a litter, on which, as Karl could now determine, lay Robinson, indeed, head, face and arms all swathed in bandages. It was horrid to see him rubbing at his eyes bringing his arms up to his face in order to wipe away with the bandage the tears he was shedding out of pain or some other suffering, or even possibly joy at seeing Karl once more. ‘Rossmann,’ he called out reproachfully, ‘why have you kept me waiting so long. I’ve spent the last hour trying to keep them from shipping me off before you arrived. These fellows’ – and he nodded in the direction of one of the lift-boys, as though guaranteed immunity by his bandages from further blows – ‘are devils incarnate. Oh Rossmann, how my visit to you has cost me.’ ‘What happened to you?’ asked Karl, and stepped up to the litter which the lift boys laughingly put down for a rest. ‘How can you ask,’ sighed Robinson, ‘just look at me. Consider! In all probability I’ve been crippled for life. I’m in excruciating pain from here to here’ – and he indicated first his head then his toes – ‘I only wish you could have seen my nose bleed. My waistcoat is completely ruined, I had to leave it behind, my trousers are ripped, I’m in my underpants’ – and he raised the blanket a little so that Karl could take a look. ‘What’s going to become of me? I’ll have to spend several months recuperating minimum, and I can tell you this right now, I have no one but you who can look after me, Delamarche is far too impatient. Rossmann, little Rossmann!’ And Robinson stretched out his hand to Karl, who had stepped back a little, to win him over by stroking him. ‘Why did I have to go and visit you!’ he said repeatedly, lest Karl forget his part in his misfortune. Karl recognized at once that Robinson’s lamentations stemmed not from his wounds, but from the incredible hangover he must be suffering, as one who had barely dropped off, heavily drunk, had been awoken straight afterwards, to his amazement beaten to a pulp, and was now completely disorientated in the waking world. The trivial nature of his injuries was already evident from his unsightly bandages of old rags which the lift-boys had completely swaddled him in, evidently for a lark. The two lift-boys at either end of the litter burst out giggling from time to time too. But this wasn’t the place to bring Robinson round, pedestrians rushed past without paying any attention to the little group around the litter, people regularly hurdled athletically over Robinson’s body, the driver paid with Karl’s money was calling: ‘Come on, come on,’ the lift-boys, at the end of their strength, hoisted up the litter once more, Robinson took Karl’s hand and said wheedlingly, ‘Oh come on, come on,’ and wasn’t the darkness of an automobile the best place for Karl in his present predicament? And so he sat down next to Robinson, who rested his head against him, the lift-boys staying behind, heartily shook his hand through the window, as their former colleague, and the car turned sharply into the road, it seemed as though an accident were bound to happen, but then the all-encompassing traffic calmly accommodated the arrowy thrust of their car into itself.

The automobile came to a stop in what appeared to be a remote suburban street, because all around there was silence, children squatted on the edge of the pavement playing, a man with a lot of old clothes over his shoulders called up watchfully to the windows of the houses, Karl felt uncomfortably tired as he climbed out of the car on to the asphalt, on which the morning sun was shining warmly and brightly. ‘Do you really live here?’ he called into the car. Robinson, having slept peacefully for the whole drive, grunted unclearly in the affirmative, and seemed to be waiting for Karl to lift him out of the car. ‘Well, I’ve done all I need to do here. Goodbye,’ said Karl, and he set off down the street which sloped gently downhill. ‘Karl, what are you doing?’ cried Robinson, and in his alarm practically stood straight up in the car, although his knees were still a little trembly. ‘I have to go,’ said Karl, witnessing the sudden improvement in Robinson’s condition. ‘In your shirtsleeves?’ he asked. ‘I should think I’ll earn enough for a jacket,’ replied Karl, nodded confidently at Robinson, waved goodbye and would really have left him, if the driver hadn’t called: ‘One moment please, sir.’ Unpleasantly, it turned out that the driver was claiming some further payment, because the wait in front of the hotel hadn’t been included. ‘That’s right,’ called Robinson from the car, in corroboration, ‘you kept me waiting for such a long time. You’ll have to give him a bit extra.’ ‘Quite so,’ said the driver. ‘If I had anything,’ said Karl, reaching into his trouser pockets, even though he knew it was pointless. ‘I’m going to have to stick by you,’ said the driver and stood up, feet apart, ‘I can’t expect anything from the invalid in the back.’ A young fellow with a chewed-up nose came over from the doorway and stopped to listen a few feet away. A policeman who was just doing his rounds in the street, took in the shirtsleeved man with lowered gaze, and stopped. Robinson, also spotting the policeman, was foolish enough to call to him out of the other window: ‘It’s nothing, nothing at all,’ as though it were possible to shoo away a policeman like a fly. The children, observing the policeman and seeing him stop, transferred their attention to Karl and the driver, and trotted over to have a look. In the gate opposite stood an old woman, watching stiffly.

Then a voice from above called out: ‘Rossmann.’ It was Delamarche, calling down from the top-floor balcony. He was hard to make out against the blueish-white sky, but was evidently wearing a dressing-gown, and surveying the street with opera glasses. Next to him was a red parasol under which a woman appeared to be seated. ‘Hallo,’ he cried at the top of his voice, in order to make himself heard, ‘have you brought Robinson?’ ‘Yes,’ replied Karl, powerfully seconded by another, far louder ‘Yes,’ from Robinson in the car. ‘Hallo,’ came the reply, ‘I’m coming down.’ Robinson leaned out of the car. ‘What a man,’ he said, and his praise for Delamarche was directed at Karl, at the driver, at the policeman, and at anyone else who cared to hear it. Up on the balcony, which everyone was still looking up at in distrait fashion, even though Delamarche had already left it, there was indeed a strongly built woman in a red dress under the parasol, who now got up, took the opera glasses off the parapet, and looked through them at the people below, who gradually turned their attention away. In expectation of Delamarche, Karl looked at the gateway and beyond it the yard, which was being crossed by an almost uninterrupted stream of commercial porters, each of whom was carrying on his shoulder a small, but evidently very heavy chest. The chauffeur had gone back to his car, and, making the most of the delay was polishing his lamps with a rag. Robinson palped his limbs, seemingly astonished at the small degree of discomfort he felt, in spite of paying very close attention, and gingerly bending down began to undo one of the thick bandages round his leg. The policeman held his black truncheon horizontally in front of him, and with the great patience required of policemen, whether on normal duty or undercover, waited quietly. The fellow with the chewed-up nose sat down on a bollard by the gate and stretched his legs. The children gradually tiptoed up to Karl, because even though he was paying them no attention, he seemed to them to be the most important of everyone on account of his blue shirtsleeves.

One gained a sense of the enormous height of the building from the length of time it took for Delamarche to appear. And when he did come, it was at a great pace, with his dressing-gown barely done up. ‘So there you are!’ he cried, at once pleased and severe. At each of his long strides, there was a flash of colourful underclothing. Karl didn’t quite understand how Delamarche could walk around here in the city, in the enormous tenement block and on the public street, as comfortably clad as though he were in his private villa. Like Robinson, Delamarche too was greatly changed. His dark, clean-shaven, scrupulously clean face with its raw musculature looked proud and respectable. The harsh glint of his rather narrowed eyes was surprising. His violet dressing-gown was old and stained and rather too big for him, but out of that ugly garment sprouted a mighty dark cravat of heavy silk. ‘Well?’ he inquired, looking round. The policeman advanced a little, and leaned against the car bonnet. Karl gave a little explanation. ‘Robinson is a little decrepit, but if he makes an effort he’ll be able to walk up the stairs all right; the driver here wants a supplement to the fare which I’ve already paid him. And now I’m going. Good day.’ ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ said Delamarche. ‘That’s what I told him too,’ piped up Robinson from the car. ‘Oh yes I am going,’ said Karl, and began to walk off. But Delamarche was after him already, and held him back forcibly. ‘And I say you’re staying,’ he cried. ‘Leave me alone,’ said Karl, and got ready to fight his way out with his fists if need be, however little prospect of success that might have against a man of Delamarche’s stamp. But there stood the policeman, there was the driver, here and there groups of workers passed through the otherwise peaceful street, would they permit him to be treated unfairly by Delamarche? He wouldn’t like to have been shut up in a room with him, but what about here? Delamarche was now calmly paying off the driver, who, with many bows, pocketed the undeservedly large sum, and out of gratitude went over to Robinson, obviously to advise him on how best to get out of the car. Karl felt unobserved, perhaps Delamarche would be more disposed to accept a quiet departure, if a quarrel could be avoided that would of course be better, and so Karl simply walked out on to the road in order to get away as quickly as he could. The children flocked over to Delamarche to draw his attention to Karl’s flight, but he didn’t even have to intervene in person, because the policeman extended his truncheon and said: ‘Stop!’

‘What’s your name,’ he asked, tucking his truncheon under his arm, and slowly pulling out a notepad. Karl looked closely at him for the first time, he was a powerful man, but his hair was almost completely white. ‘Karl Rossmann,’ he said. ‘Rossmann,’ repeated the policeman, no doubt purely because he was a calm and conscientious officer, but Karl, for whom this was actually his first dealing with American officialdom, saw in that mere repetition the voicing of a certain suspicion. And his affair was probably looking bad, because even Robinson, who had so many worries of his own, leaned out of the car and gesticulated mutely and animatedly to Delamarche, to help Karl. But Delamarche refused with a hasty shake of the head and looked on impassively, his hands in his over-large pockets. The fellow on the bollard explained the whole affair from the beginning to a woman who had just come out of the gate. The children stood in a semicircle behind Karl and looked silently up at the policeman.

‘Let me see your papers,’ said the policeman. It was probably just a matter of form, because if you don’t have a jacket, you won’t have much in the way of papers either. Karl therefore made no reply, in order to answer the next question the more fully, and thereby perhaps gloss over the lack of documents. But the next question was: ‘So you have no papers?’ and Karl could only reply: ‘Not on me.’ ‘That’s not good,’ said the policeman, and looked at everyone thoughtfully, and tapped the cover of his notebook with two fingers. ‘Have you some kind of work?’ he finally asked. ‘I was a lift-boy,’ said Karl. ‘You were a lift-boy, but you aren’t one any more, and so what do you live off now?’ ‘I’m going to look for a new job now.’ ‘So you were sacked from your job?’ ‘Yes, an hour ago.’ ‘Suddenly?’ ‘Yes,’ said Karl, and raised his hand apologetically. He couldn’t tell the whole story here, and even if it had been possible, it still seemed hopeless to try and avert a threatened injustice by telling of one already suffered. And if he hadn’t received justice from the kindly Head Cook and the perspicacious Head Waiter, he certainly couldn’t expect it from this group of people here on the street.

‘And you were dismissed without your jacket?’ asked the policeman. ‘Well, yes,’ said Karl, apparently even in America the authorities liked to ask about things they could perfectly well see with their own eyes. (How his father in obtaining his passport had been annoyed by the pointless questioning of the authorities.) Karl was sorely tempted to run away somewhere and not have to endure any more questions. But then the policeman asked the one question that Karl had most been afraid of, and in fearful anticipation of which he had probably behaved more thoughtlessly than he would have done otherwise: ‘In what hotel were you employed?’ He lowered his head and didn’t answer, he really didn’t want to answer that question. He must at all costs avoid being taken back to the Hotel Occidental under police escort, facing further inquiries to which his friends and enemies would be summoned to appear, the Head Cook completely abandoning her already somewhat qualified good opinion of Karl, seeing him, whom she had supposed to be at the Pension Brenner, picked up by a policeman, in shirtsleeves, returned without her visiting card; the Head Waiter might perhaps merely nod sagely, the Head Porter though speak of the hand of god that had finally nabbed the scoundrel.

‘He was working at the Hotel Occidental,’ said Delamarche, repositioning himself next to the policeman. ‘No,’ cried Karl and stamped his foot, ‘that’s not true.’ Delamarche looked at him with a sardonic twist of his lips, as though he could if he liked make other, far more damaging revelations about him. Karl’s unexpected agitation caused a great commotion among the children, who all moved across to Delamarche, in order to have a better view of Karl. Robinson had stuck his head right out of the window by now, and, in his nervousness, was behaving very quietly; the occasional blink of an eye, nothing more. The fellow in the gateway clapped his hands with glee, the woman next to him jabbed him with her elbow to quieten him down. The porters were just having their breakfast-break, and they all trooped out with large mugs of black coffee, which they were stirring with breadsticks. A few sat down on the edge of the pavement, they all drank their coffee very noisily.

‘You appear to know this boy,’ the policeman asked Delamarche. ‘Better than I should like to,’ he replied. ‘I once showed him a lot of kindness, but he paid me back very ill, which won’t surprise you, even after the short interview you’ve had with him.’ ‘Yes,’ said the policeman, ‘he seems to be a surly fellow all right.’ ‘That he is,’ said Delamarche, ‘but that’s not even the worst thing about him.’ ‘Oh?’ said the policeman. ‘Yes,’ said Delamarche, who was now in full flight and with his hands in his pockets, swinging his dressing-gown this way and that, ‘he’s a nasty piece of work. Me and my friend over in the car took him in when he was in a very bad way, at the time he had no idea about things in America, he had just arrived here from Europe, where they had no use for him either, so we took him along with us, let him live with us, explained everything to him, tried to get him a job, for all the indications to the contrary thought we’d be able to turn him into a useful member of society, and then one night he simply disappeared, he just went, and that under circumstances I’d sooner not have to go into. Is that right or not?’ Delamarche asked finally, tweaking at Karl’s sleeve. ‘Step back please, children,’ called the policeman, because they had pressed forward so much that Delamarche almost tripped over one of them. And the porters too, who had previously underestimated the interest of the interview, had pricked up their ears, and assembled in a tight circle behind Karl, so that he couldn’t take a backward step and moreover now had the babel of their voices in his ears, they were speaking or rather barking a quite incomprehensible English possibly mixed with words of Slavic.

‘Thank you for that information,’ said the policeman, saluting Delamarche. ‘I’m certainly taking him in now, and I’ll have him returned to the Hotel Occidental.’ But Delamarche said: ‘Might I ask you to leave the boy with me for the time being, I’ve got a couple of things to settle with him. I’ll undertake to deliver him to the hotel myself afterwards.’ ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ said the policeman. ‘Here is my visiting card,’ said Delamarche, giving him a little card. The policeman looked at it appreciatively, but said, with a pleasant smile: ‘No, nothing doing.’

Though Karl had shown the utmost wariness of Delamarche hitherto, he now saw in him his only possible salvation. It was admittedly rather suspicious, the way he was pleading with the policeman to be given Karl, but it should finally prove easier to persuade Delamarche than the policeman not to take him back to the hotel. And even if Karl were delivered back to the hotel by Delamarche, that was still infinitely preferable to it happening under police escort. For now, Karl mustn’t let on that he preferred to be with Delamarche, that would ruin everything. And he looked nervously at the hand of the policeman which might be raised at any moment to apprehend him.

‘I should at least find out why he was so suddenly dismissed,’ the policeman said at last, while Delamarche was looking dispiritedly off to the side, crushing his visiting card between his fingertips. ‘But he wasn’t dismissed at all,’ Robinson called out suddenly and to the general astonishment, and leaning on the driver, he thrust himself as far out of the window as he could. ‘On the contrary, he’s got a good job there. He’s in charge of the dormitory, and can bring in anyone he likes. Only he is incredibly busy, and if you want something from him, you have to wait for ages. He’s forever closeted with the Head Waiter and the Head Cook and enjoys their confidence. He’s certainly not been dismissed. I’ve no idea why he said he had been. How can he have been dismissed? I was seriously injured in the hotel, and he was instructed to get me home, and as he happened to be in his shirtsleeves he just came along in his shirtsleeves. I couldn’t possibly have waited while he got his jacket.’ ‘Now then,’ said Delamarche, with arms outspread, as though accusing the policeman of being a poor judge of character, and these two words of his seemed to bring the vague declaration of Robinson’s into undeniable focus.

‘But is that really the case?’ asked the policeman, weakening already. ‘And if it is, why is the boy claiming he was dismissed?’ ‘You say,’ said Delamarche. Karl looked at the policeman, who was supposed to bring order among strangers who had only their own interests in mind, and a little of his general concerns affected Karl too. He didn’t want to lie, and he kept his hands firmly clasped behind his back.

A supervisor appeared in the gateway and clapped his hands to indicate to the porters that it was time to get back to work. They tipped the coffee grounds out of their mugs, and with rolling strides and abating noise went back inside. ‘We’re not really getting anywhere like this,’ said the policeman, and reached out to take Karl’s arm. Karl instinctively drew back, sensed the space behind him that had been vacated by the porters, turned round, and with a few initial bounds, started running. The children all called out as one, and ran after him, for a few steps, stretching out their little hands. ‘Stop that man!’ the policeman shouted down the long, almost deserted road, and regularly repeating his cry, set off in pursuit of Karl, in a silent running style that indicated excellent condition and practice. It was as well for Karl that the chase took place in a working-class district The workers don’t side with the authorities. Karl ran down the middle of the road, where he had the fewest obstacles in his path, and from time to time he saw workers stopping on the edge of the pavement coolly watching him, while the policeman called out his ‘Stop that man!’ and stretched out his truncheon in Karl’s direction as he ran, wisely choosing the smooth pavement for his terrain. Karl had little hope, and almost abandoned that when the policeman, as they were approaching some cross-streets, that almost certainly had some police patrols in them, began emitting a piercing whistle. Karl’s only advantage was his light clothing, he flew or rather plunged down the middle of the street – the slope was getting steeper all the time – only, because of his sleepiness, he wasted his energy in very high, wasteful bounds that cost him time. But besides that, the policeman had his objective right in front of him, and didn’t need to think about it, whereas for Karl, the running was actually a secondary concern, he had to think, to choose between various possibilities, to keep making decisions. His rather desperate plan was to avoid the cross-streets for now, as he couldn’t know what they might contain, perhaps he might run straight into the purlieus of a police station; for as long as possible he wanted to stick to this street where he could see a long way down, until right at the bottom it debouched on to a bridge which had barely begun before disappearing into a haze of sun and water. In accordance with this decision, he was just gathering up his strength to pass the first cross-street at a sprint, when, not far ahead of him, he spied a policeman lurking, pressed flat against the dark wall of a house in shadow, all set to leap out at Karl at the right moment. Now there was nothing for it but the side-street, and when he heard his name being called out from there too, quite innocently – he thought at first it must be an illusion, because he had had a rushing in his ears for some time now, he didn’t hesitate and, trying to catch the police out if possible, he leaped off one foot and jinked at a right angle into the little street.

No sooner had he taken a couple of bounds down this street – already he had forgotten that his name had been called, because now the second policeman was blowing his whistle as well, you could sense he was new to the chase, and far-off pedestrians in the street seemed to walk at a brisker pace – than a hand came out of a little doorway and with the words ‘Keep shtum,’ pulled Karl into a dark passageway. It was Delamarche, quite out of breath, with flushed cheeks, and hair plastered to his head. He was carrying his dressing-gown under his arm, and was dressed only in shirt and underpants. The door, which wasn’t the front door of the house, but an unobtrusive side-entrance, he immediately shut and locked behind them. ‘Just a second,’ he said, leaned his head back against the wall, and panted. Karl, virtually in his arms, and half insensate, pressed his face against his chest. ‘There they go,’ said Delamarche, and pointed to the door as he listened. And indeed the two policemen were running past, their footfall echoed in the empty street, ringing like steel on stone. ‘You’re all in, aren’t you,’ said Delamarche to Karl, who was still choking on his breath and unable to get a word out. Delamarche put him down carefully on the floor, knelt down beside him, stroked his brow a few times and watched. ‘That’s better,’ said Karl at last, and struggled to his feet. ‘Let’s go then,’ said Delamarche, putting his dressing-gown on again, and pushing Karl, still too weak to raise his head, in front of him. From time to time he gave him a little shake to freshen him up. ‘How come you’re so tired?’ he said. ‘You were able to gallop about like a horse in the open, while I had to crawl through the goddamned yards and passages. Luckily I’m a good runner too.’ In his satisfaction he gave Karl a terrific thump on the back. ‘The occasional race against the police is good practice.’ ‘I was already tired when I started running,’ said Karl. ‘There’s no excuse for bad running,’ said Delamarche. ‘If it hadn’t been for me, they’d have nabbed you long ago.’ ‘I think so too,’ said Karl, ‘I’m very indebted to you.’ ‘No doubt about it,’ said Delamarche.

They were going down a long, narrow passage which was paved with smooth, dark stones. Occasionally, to right or left, there was a flight of stairs or you could see another, larger passage. There were hardly any grown-ups to be seen, only children playing on the empty stairs. On one balustrade there was a little girl crying so hard that her face was quite shiny with tears. No sooner had she spotted Delamarche than she ran up the stairs, gasping open-mouthed for breath, and only calmed herself when she had climbed several flights, looking round frequently to make sure no one was following her or was about to follow her. ‘I ran her down just a moment ago,’ said Delamarche laughing, and waved his fist at her, whereupon she screamed and ran up some more steps.

The yards they crossed were almost deserted as well. Only from time to time an errand-man came pushing a handcart, a woman filled a can with water at a pump, a postman crossed the yard with calm strides, an old man with a white moustache sat cross-legged in front of a glass door, smoking a pipe, boxes were being unloaded outside a removal firm, the idle horses turned their heads indifferently, a man in a work coat, with a piece of paper in his hand supervised all the work, there was an open window in an office and an employee sitting at a desk had turned away from it and looked thoughtfully out at Karl and Delamarche as they passed.

‘One really couldn’t wish for a quieter neighbourhood than this,’ said Delamarche. ‘It’s very noisy for a couple of hours in the evening but during the daytime it’s exemplary.’ Karl nodded, the quiet seemed a little excessive to him. ‘I couldn’t live anywhere else,’ said Delamarche, ‘because Brunelda is terribly sensitive to the slightest noise. Have you met Brunelda? Well, you will soon. I would urge you to be as quiet as possible when you’re with her.’

When they reached the staircase that led up to Delamarche’s apartment, the automobile had already driven off, and the fellow with the chewed-up nose – without remarking at Karl’s reappearance – reported that he had carried Robinson up the stairs. Delamarche merely nodded to him, as though the man were his servant, who had performed a self-evident task, and pulled Karl, who was gazing out at the sunny street with some longing, up the stairs with him. ‘We’ll be up in a jiffy,’ Delamarche said several times as they climbed, but his assurances refused to become true, at the end of each flight of stairs, another would begin in a slightly different direction. Once Karl even came to a stop, not really out of exhaustion, but sheer helplessness in the face of all these stairs. ‘The apartment is very high up,’ said Delamarche as they went on, ‘but that has its advantages too. We very rarely go out, I go around in my dressing-gown all day, it’s all very cosy. Of course we’re too high to be troubled by visitors.’ ‘Where would they get visitors from,’ Karl wondered.

Finally Robinson appeared on a landing in front of a closed front door, and they had arrived; the staircase wasn’t even at an end, but led on into the penumbra, without any suggestion that it might soon be over. ‘I knew it,’ said Robinson quietly, as though still in pain, ‘Delamarche is bringing him! Rossmann, where would you be without Delamarche!’ Robinson stood there in his undergarments, trying to wrap himself up in the small blanket that he had been given at the Hotel Occidental, it was not clear why he hadn’t gone into the apartment, instead of running the risk of making himself a laughing stock to possible passers-by on the stairs. ‘Is she asleep?’ asked Delamarche. ‘I don’t think so,’ said Robinson, ‘but I thought I’d better wait for you to come.’ ‘First we’ll have to see whether she’s sleeping or not,’ said Delamarche, and bent down to the keyhole. After spending a long time looking, twisting his head this way and that, he got up and said: ‘I can’t quite make her out, the blinds are down. She’s sitting on the sofa, maybe she’s asleep.’ ‘Is she ill or something?’ asked Karl, because Delamarche stood there, as though in need of advice. But he retorted sharply: ‘Ill?’ ‘He doesn’t know her,’ said Robinson, in extenuation.

A few doors along, two women had stepped out on to the corridor, they wiped their hands on their aprons, looked at Delamarche and Robinson, and appeared to be discussing them. From another door, a very young girl with shiny blond hair jumped out, linked arms with the two women, and pressed herself against them.

‘Those women are disgusting,’ said Delamarche quietly, but evidently only out of respect for the sleeping Brunelda. ‘I mean to report them to the police soon, and then we’ll have some peace for a couple of years. Don’t look,’ he hissed at Karl, who saw nothing wrong with looking at the women, if they were forced to wait in the corridor for Brunelda to wake up. And he shook his head crossly, as though he didn’t need to take any instructions from Delamarche, and, to make it even clearer, he moved in the direction of the women, but Robinson said: ‘Rossmann, I wouldn’t,’ and held on to his sleeve, and Delamarche, already irritated by Karl, was so furious when the girl laughed aloud, that he rushed up to the women in a whirlwind of arms and legs, at which they disappeared behind their respective doors as though blown away. ‘The corridor needs sweeping from time to time,’ explained Delamarche; then he remembered Karl’s opposition and said: ‘I expect rather different behaviour from you, otherwise you’ll have a hard time of it with me.’

Just then a tired voice in mild and gentle tones inquired from within: ‘Delamarche?’ ‘Yes,’ answered Delamarche, and smiled at the door, ‘may we come in?’ ‘Oh yes,’ came the reply, and after briefly glaring at the other two waiting behind him, Delamarche slowly opened the door.

Inside it was pitch black. The curtain over the balcony door – there were no windows – hung down to the floor and was barely translucent, but in addition the way the room was cluttered with furniture and had clothes hanging everywhere contributed much to its darkening. The air was musty and you could actually smell the dust that had collected in all the corners, where it was obviously safe from any human hand. The first things Karl noticed on entering were three chests set up one just behind the other.

On the sofa lay the woman who had been looking down from the balcony earlier. Her red dress had become a little rucked, and a great twist of it hung down to the floor, you could see her legs almost to the knee, she was wearing thick white woollen stockings and no shoes. ‘It’s so hot, Delamarche,’ she said, turned her face from the wall, dangled her hand casually in the general direction of Delamarche, who took it and kissed it. Karl had eyes only for her double chin, which rolled along with the turn of her head. ‘Should I have the curtain pulled up a little?’ asked Delamarche. ‘Anything but that,’ she said with eyes shut, and as though in despair, ‘that would only make it worse.’ Karl had gone up to the foot of the sofa to have a closer look at the woman, he was astonished by her complaining, because the heat wasn’t that excessive at all. ‘Wait, I’ll make you a bit more comfortable,’ said Delamarche anxiously, undid a couple of buttons, and opened her dress out, so that her throat and some of her bosom were revealed, and the fine yellowish lace trim of her undergarment. ‘Who’s that,’ the woman said suddenly, pointing a finger at Karl, ‘why is he staring at me like that?’ ‘You’d better start making yourself useful soon,’ said Delamarche, and shoved Karl out of the way, while reassuring the woman with the words: ‘He’s just the boy I brought along to attend on you.’ ‘But I don’t want anyone,’ she said, ‘why are you bringing strangers into my apartment?’ ‘But you’ve been wishing you could have an attendant the whole time,’ said Delamarche, falling to his knees; in spite of its great breadth, there was no room left on the sofa at all when Brunelda was on it. ‘Oh Delamarche,’ she said, ‘you don’t understand me, you don’t understand me at all.’ ‘In that case I don’t understand you,’ said Delamarche, taking her face in his hands. ‘But nothing’s settled, if you like, I can throw him out on the spot.’ ‘Oh seeing as he’s here, let him stay,’ she said, and Karl, in his exhaustion, was so grateful for these words, even though they might not have been meant well, that, with the endless stairs that he might have had to go down again now always vaguely at the back of his mind, he stepped over the body of Robinson peacefully asleep in his blanket, and, ignoring Delamarche’s irritated hand-flapping, said: ‘I’d like to thank you for letting me stay here for a little. I haven’t slept for twenty-four hours, but worked hard, and had a lot of other excitements too. I am dreadfully tired. I barely know where I am. But once I’ve had a couple of hours’ sleep, you can send me packing just like that, and I’ll be glad to go.’ ‘It’s all right, you can stay,’ said the woman, and she added, ironically: ‘As you can see, we’ve more than enough room.’ ‘You’d better go then,’ said Delamarche, ‘we’ve no use for you here.’ ‘No, let him stay,’ said the woman, this time seriously. And Delamarche said to Karl, as though enacting her wish: ‘All right, go and lie down somewhere.’ ‘He can lie down on the curtains, but he has to take his boots off first, so he doesn’t make any tears in them.’ Delamarche showed Karl the place she meant. Between the door and the three chests many different sorts of curtains had been thrown on to one great heap. If you had folded them all up properly, put the heavy ones at the bottom and the lighter ones on top, and remembered to pull out all the various wooden planks and curtain-rings that were buried in the pile, then it might have made a passable bed, but as it was, it was just a swaying, sliding mass, on which Karl nevertheless straightaway lay down, because he was far too tired for any preliminaries, and, mindful of his hosts, he had to avoid making any sort of fuss.

He was already almost asleep when he heard a loud scream, got up and saw Brunelda sitting up on the sofa, her arms spread to embrace Delamarche who was kneeling in front of her. Embarrassed by the sight, Karl lay back and bedded down on the curtains to go back to sleep. It seemed obvious to him that he would not last so much as two days here, which made it all the more essential that he get some proper sleep, in order to be able to take future decisions quickly, rationally and correctly.

But Brunelda had seen Karl’s staring eyes, which had alarmed her once already, and she cried: ‘Delamarche, I can’t stand this heat, I’m on fire, I must take my clothes off, I must bathe, send those two others away, anywhere you like, the corridor, the balcony, just out of my sight. We’re in our own home, and yet we’re continually being disturbed. If only I could be alone with you, Delamarche. Oh God, there they are still! How that brazen Robinson can stretch out in his underwear in the presence of a lady. And that stranger boy, who looked at me with wild eyes only a moment ago, and has lain down again in an attempt to trick me. Send them packing, Delamarche, they are a burden to me, they weigh on my mind. If I perish now, it will be on account of them.’

‘I’ll have them out right away, you go ahead and undress,’ said Delamarche, and went over to Robinson, set his foot on his chest and shook it. At the same time he called over to Karl: ‘Rossmann, get up! You’re both to go out on the balcony! And woe betide either one of you that tries to come back in before you’re sent for! Get a move on, Robinson’ – and he shook him a bit harder – ‘and you too, Rossmann, unless you want me to pay you a call as well’ – and he clapped his hands loudly twice. ‘It’s taking so long!’ cried Brunelda from the sofa, as she sat, she had her legs wide apart to give her excessive bulk a little more room, only with the utmost effort, with much panting and frequent rests could she bend down to reach the top of her stockings and roll them down a little, she was incapable of taking them off herself, that had to be done by Delamarche, for whom she was impatiently waiting.

Numb with exhaustion, Karl crawled off his pile, and slowly went over to the French window, a bit of curtain material had wrapped itself round his foot, and apathetically he dragged it along with him. In his absent-mindedness he even said: ‘I bid you good night,’ as he passed Brunelda, and then drifted past Delamarche, who was holding the curtain of the French window open a little, and then out on to the balcony. Immediately behind Karl came Robinson, in all probability just as tired, as he was muttering to himself. ‘I’m fed up with the continual maltreatment here! I’m not going out on the balcony unless Brunelda’s coming too.’ But in spite of his protestation, he went out without any resistance at all, and, Karl having already collapsed on to the deck-chair, he curled up on the stone floor.

When Karl awoke it was already evening, the stars were out in the sky, and the radiance of the rising moon was visible behind the tall buildings opposite. Karl looked around at the unfamiliar sights, breathed in the cool refreshing air for some time before it came to him where he was. How careless he had been, disregarding all the advice of the Head Cook, the warnings of Therese, his own anxieties, now quietly sitting out on Delamarche’s balcony, having slept through half the day here, as though the other side of the curtain there wasn’t his arch-enemy, Delamarche. On the floor that lazy Robinson was just stretching and pulling at Karl’s foot, that must have been what had woken him up, because he said: ‘Rossmann, you sleep like a baby! That’s carefree youth for you. How long are you proposing to sleep for? I could have let you sleep even longer, but in the first place it was getting a bit boring for me down on the floor, and in the second place I’m famished. Will you get up a moment, I’ve kept something to eat in the bottom of the chair, I’d just like to get it out. You can have a bit too.’ And Karl, getting up, watched as Robinson, without getting up, crept over on his belly, and reaching out his hands, from under the chair pulled out a silver-gilt dish of the sort that, say, visiting cards are usually kept in. This dish, however, contained one half of a very black sausage, a few thin cigarettes, an already opened but still rather full sardine tin spilling oil, and a mess of mainly squashed and caked together sweets. Then he produced a large piece of bread and a sort of perfume bottle, which seemed to contain something other than perfume because Robinson pointed it out with particular gusto, and smacked his lips, to Karl. ‘You see, Rossmann,’ said Robinson, consuming one sardine after another, and from time to time wiping his hands on a woollen cloth that must have been left out on the balcony by Brunelda: ‘You see, Rossmann, you need to put some food aside like me, if you’re not to starve. You know, I’m an outcast. And if you’re treated like a dog the whole time, you end up thinking that’s what you are. I’m glad you’re here, Rossmann, at least I’ve someone to talk to now. No one in the building talks to me. We’re pariahs. And all because of Brunelda. Of course she’s a splendid woman. You know’ – and he beckoned Karl down, to whisper in his ear – ‘I once saw her without any clothes on. Oh!’ – and in recollection of his delight, he began to squeeze and pat Karl’s legs, till Karl cried: ‘Robinson, you’re mad,’ took his hands and pushed them away.

‘You’re still just a baby, Rossmann,’ said Robinson, pulled out a dagger he wore on a string round his neck, uncapped it and cut up the hard sausage. ‘You’ve got a lot to learn still. You’ve come to the right place for that, though. Sit down. Don’t you want anything to eat? Well, maybe watching me will give you an appetite. Or to drink either? Well, what do you want? You’re not exactly chatty either. But I don’t mind who’s out on the balcony with me, so long as I’ve got someone. I spend a lot of time out here. Brunelda gets a kick out of that. Any excuse is good enough, either she’s cold or she’s hot or she wants to sleep or comb her hair, or she wants to take off her corset or put it on, and each time I get put out on the balcony. Sometimes she does what she says, but usually she just stays lying on the sofa just as before, and doesn’t move a muscle. I used to pull the curtain open a crack and take a peep inside, but ever since Delamarche caught me like that once – I know for a fact he didn’t want to do it, he just did it because Brunelda asked him – and hit me in the face a few times with his whip – do you see the welt? – I haven’t dared do it any more. And so I lie out here on the balcony, and my only pleasure is eating. The day before yesterday as I was lying out here alone of an evening – then I still had my elegant clothes, which I unfortunately lost in your hotel – those bastards! ripping the expensive gear off your back! – so, as I was lying there alone, looking down through the railing, I felt so sad I started to cry. Then, without my noticing it at first, Brunelda came out in her red dress – that’s the one that suits her best if you ask me – watched me a while, and finally said: “Little Robinson, why are you crying?” Then she picked up her skirts and dried my eyes on the hem. Who knows what more she might have done if Delamarche hadn’t shouted for her, and she didn’t have to go back inside at once. Of course I thought it’s my turn now, and I called through the curtain to ask if I could go back in the room. And what do you suppose she said? She said “No!” and “Who do you think you are?”’

‘Why do you stay here then, if you’re treated like that?’ asked Karl.

‘I’m sorry, Rossmann, that’s not a very sensible question,’ replied Robinson. ‘You’ll be staying here yourself, even if you get far worse treatment. Anyway, my treatment’s not as bad as all that.’

‘No,’ said Karl, ‘I’m definitely leaving, tonight if possible. I’m not staying with you.’

‘Now how do you propose going about that, leaving tonight?’ asked Robinson, who had chiselled out the soft part of the bread, and was carefully dunking it in the oil in the sardine can. ‘How are you going to leave, if you’re not even allowed in the room.’

‘Why aren’t we allowed in the room?’

‘As long as they haven’t rung, we aren’t allowed in,’ said Robinson, keeping his mouth as wide open as he could while eating the oily bread, and catching the oil that dripped from the bread in his other hand, and using it as a reservoir, dunked the rest of the bread in it from time to time. ‘Everything’s been tightened up here. At first there was just a thin curtain, you couldn’t quite see through it, but you could at least make out the shadows in the evening. That was disagreeable to Brunelda, and I had to alter one of her old theatre coats into a curtain and hang it up here in place of the old curtain. Now you can’t see anything at all. Then I used to be allowed to ask if I might go back inside yet and they replied “yes” or “no” according to the circumstances, but I expect I took advantage of that and asked once too often. Brunelda couldn’t stand that, in spite of her fatness she has a frail constitution, she often suffers headaches and has gout in her legs the whole time – and so it was decided that I can’t ask any more, but when I can go in, they’ll ring the bell on the table. That has such a loud ring that it even wakes me out of my sleep – I used to keep a cat here for company, and the ringing gave her such a scare that she ran off and never came back. So it hasn’t rung yet today – because if it rings it doesn’t just mean I’m allowed to go in, I have to go in – and if it hasn’t rung for a long time, then it could be a long time yet before it does.’

‘Yes,’ said Karl, ‘but what applies to you doesn’t have to apply to me as well. Besides these sort of things only hold good if you agree to be bound by them.’

‘But’, exclaimed Robinson, ‘why shouldn’t it apply to you too? Of course it applies to you as well. Stay here quietly with me, until it rings. Then you can see if you can get away.’

‘Why don’t you get out of here yourself? Just because Delamarche is your friend, or rather used to be? What kind of life is this? Wouldn’t you be better off in Butterford, where you were headed for originally? Or in California, where you have some friends.’

‘Yes,’ said Robinson, ‘who could have predicted it.’ And before he resumed his tale, he said: ‘Your health, my dear Rossmann,’ and he took a long pull from the perfume bottle. ‘Back then when you ditched us so meanly, we were in a bad way. In the first few days we couldn’t find any work, that is Delamarche didn’t want to work, he would have found something I’m sure, but he just sent me off to look, and I’m unlucky like that. He just hung around, but when it was almost dark he brought back a ladies’ purse, it was very pretty, beads, he’s given it to Brunelda now, but there wasn’t much in it. Then he said we ought to go and beg in people’s apartments, that way we might come across a few useful items, so we went begging, and to make a better impression, I sang on people’s doorsteps. And, Delamarche is such a lucky devil, we were on our second doorstep, a wealthy ground-floor apartment, singing to a cook and a butler, and then who should come up the stairs but the lady the flat belongs to, Brunelda in fact. Maybe her corset was too tight, and she couldn’t manage the few steps. But she was so beautiful, Rossmann! She had a white dress and a red parasol. I could have licked her all over. I could have gobbled her up. God, God she was beautiful. What a woman! No, tell me how can such a woman be allowed to exist? Of course the butler and the girl ran up to her and all but carried her up the stairs. We stood either side of the door and saluted, that’s what they do here. She stopped awhile, she still hadn’t got her breath, and I can’t remember how it happened exactly, maybe I’d had so little to eat that it was starting to affect my judgement, and close up she was still more beautiful and enormous and wide and, because of a special corset she had on, I can show you in the chest, she was so firm all over – well, I just brushed against her behind, you know, ever so gently. Of course that’s not permissible, a beggar touching a rich lady. It almost wasn’t a touch at all, but I suppose in the end it sort of was. Who knows what consequences it might have had, if Delamarche hadn’t slapped me right away, and slapped me so hard that both my hands flew up to my cheek.’

‘Such goings on,’ said Karl, quite captivated by the story, and sat down on the ground. ‘So that was Brunelda?’

‘That’s right,’ said Robinson, ‘that was Brunelda.’

‘Didn’t you once say she was a singer?’ asked Karl.

‘Of course she’s a singer, and a great singer too,’ replied Robinson, revolving a huge mass of sweets on his tongue and now and then pushing a bit that was falling out of his mouth back in with his fingers. ‘But of course we didn’t know that then, we only saw that she was a rich and very distinguished lady. She acted as though nothing had happened, because I really only just tapped her with my fingertips. But she kept staring at Delamarche, who looked her – how does he manage it – straight in the eye. Then she said: “Come in for a bit,” and with her parasol she ushered Delamarche into the apartment ahead of her. Then they both went inside and the servants shut the door after them. They just left me outside, and I thought it won’t take all that long, and I sat down on the steps to wait for Delamarche. Then instead of Delamarche the butler came out and he brought me a whole bowl of soup, “compliments of Delamarche!” I thought to myself. The butler hung around for a while as I ate, and told me a few things about Brunelda, and then I saw what importance the visit to Brunelda could have for us. Because Brunelda was a divorcee, she had a large fortune, and she was completely independent. Her ex-husband, a chocolate manufacturer, still loved her, but she didn’t want anything more to do with him. He visited the apartment frequently, always dressed terribly smartly, as if for a wedding – that’s literally true, I saw him myself – but in spite of all kinds of bribes, the butler didn’t dare ask Brunelda whether she would receive him, because he had already asked a few times, and each time she had thrown in his face whatever she had to hand. Once it was even her large full hot-water bottle, and that knocked out one of his front teeth. Yes, Rossmann, you’re amazed.’

‘How do you know the man?’ asked Karl.

‘He still comes up here sometimes,’ said Robinson.

‘Up here?’ in his astonishment, Karl patted the floor with his hand.

‘You might well be amazed,’ Robinson continued, ‘I was amazed too, when the servant told me that at the time. Imagine, when Brunelda was out of the house, the man had himself admitted into her room by the butler, and he always took away some little nick-nack as a memento, and left something very fine and expensive in its place for Brunelda, with strict instructions to the butler not to say who it was from. But on one occasion – I have it from the butler, and I believe him – he left some absolutely priceless piece of porcelain, and Brunelda must have recognized it somehow, and she threw it on the floor and trod on it and spat on it, and did a few other things besides, so that the man was almost too disgusted to carry it outside.’

‘What had her husband done to her?’ asked Karl.

‘I don’t really know,’ said Robinson. ‘I don’t think it was anything too terrible, he doesn’t really know himself. I’ve spoken to him about it a few times. He waits for me down on the corner every day, if I come, I have to give him some bit of news, and if I can’t, he waits for half an hour, and then goes away again. It was a good source of income for me, because he pays handsomely for any news, but since Delamarche got wind of it, I have to hand everything over to him, and so I don’t go so often any more.’

‘But what does the man want?’ asked Karl, ‘what does he want? He must know she won’t have him back.’

‘Yes,’ sighed Robinson, lit a cigarette, and, waving his arms expansively, blew the smoke into the sky. Then something else seemed to occur to him, and he said: ‘What do I care? All I know is he’d give a lot of money to lie here on the balcony, like us.’

Karl stood up, leaned against the railing and looked down on the street. The moon was now visible, but its light didn’t yet reach into the depths of the street. The street, so empty by day, was now crammed full of people, especially the entrances to the buildings, everyone was in slow cumbersome movement, the shirtsleeves of the men and the light dresses of the women stood out a little from the darkness, all were bareheaded. The many balconies round about were all occupied now, there by the light of an electric lamp sat families, either round a small table or on a row of chairs, whatever suited the size of their particular balcony, or at the very least, they stuck their heads out of windows. The men sat there, legs apart, feet pushed through the railings, reading newspapers that reached down almost to the floor, or they played cards, apparently wordlessly, but smacking the cards down powerfully on the table, the women had their laps full of mending, and only occasionally allowed themselves a quick glance at their surroundings or at the street below, a frail blonde woman on the next door balcony kept yawning, rolling her eyes as she did, and covering her mouth with a garment she was just patching, even on the smallest balconies children seemed able to chase one another, which was tremendously irritating to the parents. Gramophones had been put on inside many of the rooms, and pumped out vocal or orchestral music, people weren’t particularly bothered about the music, only from time to time the head of the family would gesture, and someone would run into the room to put on a new record. At some of the windows you could see completely motionless lovers, one such couple stood at a window facing Karl, the young man had his arm round the girl and was squeezing her breast with his hand.

‘Do you know any of the neighbours,’ Karl asked Robinson, who had got up now, and because he was cold had wrapped himself up in Brunelda’s blanket in addition to his own.

‘Almost no one. That’s the drawback to my position,’ said Robinson, and pulled Karl closer to whisper in his ear, ‘otherwise I wouldn’t have so much to complain about just now. Brunelda sold everything she had on account of Delamarche, and with all her wealth she moved into this apartment in the suburbs with him, so that she could devote herself entirely to him without anyone to bother her, which is what Delamarche wanted as well.’

‘So she dismissed her servants?’ Karl asked.

‘That’s right,’ said Robinson. ‘Where was there for them to stay here anyway? These servants are a very pampered lot. Once at Brunelda’s, Delamarche drove one of them out of the room with a succession of slaps, left and right, until the fellow was out of the door. Then of course all the other servants got together with him and made a noise outside the door, and then Delamarche came out (in those days I wasn’t a servant, I was a friend of the family’s, though I mostly hung around with the servants), and asked: “What d’you want?” The oldest servant, a fellow by the name of Isidor, said: “You have nothing to say to us, madam is our mistress.” As you probably noticed, they worshipped Brunelda. But Brunelda ran over to Delamarche without bothering about them, she wasn’t so heavy then as she is now, and hugged and kissed him in front of them all, and called him “darling Delamarche”. “And get rid of those jackanapes” she finally said. Jackanapes – she was referring to the servants, you should have seen their expression. Then Brunelda pulled Delamarche’s hand down to the purse that she wore round her waist, and Delamarche reached into it and started paying off the servants, Brunelda played no part in it, other than standing there with an open purse at her waist. Delamarche had to reach into it a lot, because he handed out the money without counting it and without checking the claims they made. Finally he said: “Since you don’t want to talk to me, I’d just like to tell you in Brunelda’s name: Get out of here, and make it fast.” And that was how they were dismissed, there was some wrangling after that, Delamarche even had to go to court once, but I don’t really know what happened there. But immediately the servants were all gone, Delamarche said to Brunelda: “So now you’ve got no servants?” She said: “But what about Robinson.” And Delamarche gave me a slap on the back and said: “All right, you can be our servant.” And Brunelda gave me a pat on the cheek, if you ever get a chance, Rossmann, get her to pat you on the cheek, there’s nothing like it.’

‘So you became Delamarche’s servant?’ asked Karl, summing up.

Robinson heard the note of pity in the question, and replied: ‘I’m the servant, but very few people realize that. Remember, you didn’t notice it yourself, even though you’ve been with us a while. You saw the way I was dressed that night in the hotel with you. Nothing but the best, and do servants go around like that? Only, the thing is this: I’m rarely allowed to go out, I always have to be around, there’s always something needs doing in the house. One person just isn’t enough for so much work. Perhaps you noticed, we’ve got lots of things standing around in the room, whatever we weren’t able to sell when we moved out we had to take with us. Of course we could have given it away, but that’s not how Brunelda operates. Just imagine the labour of carrying those things up the stairs.’

‘Do you mean to say you carried all that up the stairs, Robinson?’ Karl exclaimed.

‘Who else?’ said Robinson. ‘There was a man to help me, a lazy beggar, I had to do most of it by myself. Brunelda stayed downstairs by the car, Delamarche gave the instructions upstairs, where to put things, and I kept going back and forth. It took two days, a long time, isn’t it? but you’ve no idea how many things are up here in the room, all the boxes are full and behind the boxes everything’s stacked up to the ceiling. If we’d taken on a couple of people to do the removal, it could all have been done very quickly, but Brunelda didn’t want to entrust it to anyone else but me. That’s very nice, but I ruined my health for the rest of my days doing it, and what else have I got but my health. If I exert myself even a tiny bit, I feel it here and here and here. Do you imagine those boys in the hotel, those bullfrogs – what else can you call them? – could ever have beaten me, if I’d been fit. But whatever’s the matter with me, I’ll never breathe a word to Delamarche and Brunelda, I’ll go on working for as long as I can until I’m completely incapacitated, and then I’ll lay myself down and die, and only then, too late, they’ll see I was sick and in spite of that went on and on working, and finally worked myself to death in their service. Oh Rossmann,’ he said finally, drying his eyes on Karl’s sleeve. After a little while he said: ‘Aren’t you cold, standing there in your shirt.’

‘Come on, Robinson,’ said Karl, ‘you’re forever crying. I don’t think you’re that sick. You look pretty healthy to me, but because you always lie out on the balcony, you’ve been having thoughts. Maybe you do have an occasional pain in your chest, so do I, so does everyone. If everyone in the world would cry like that over every trifling thing, they’d all be crying on all the balconies.’

‘No, I know better,’ said Robinson, now wiping his eyes on the corner of his blanket. ‘The student who lives with our landlady next door, who also used to cook for us, he said to me as I was taking back the plates recently: “I say, Robinson, you do look unwell.” I’m not allowed to talk to those people, so I just put the plates down and turned to leave. Then he went up to me and said: “Listen, man, don’t overdo it, you’re sick.” “Very well, then tell me what to do about it,” I asked. “That’s your affair,” he said, and turned away. The others sitting at the table laughed, we have enemies all over, and so I preferred just to leave.’

‘And so you believe people who are making a fool of you, and not those who mean well by you.’

‘But I’m the one who knows how I feel,’ Robinson exploded, but straightaway burst into tears again.

‘That’s just it, you don’t know what the matter is with you, you should look for some proper job for yourself, instead of being Delamarche’s servant here. As far as I can tell from what you’ve told me, and from what I’ve seen for myself, this isn’t service, it’s slavery. No one can stand that, I’m sure you’re right there. But you think that because you’re Delamarche’s friend, you can’t leave him. That’s wrong, if he refuses to see what a miserable life you’ve got, then you’ve no obligation to him whatever.’

‘So Rossmann, you really believe I’ll get better if I stop serving here?’

‘I’m convinced of it,’ said Karl.

‘Convinced?’ Robinson repeated.

‘Utterly,’ said Karl, with a smile.

‘Then I could start feeling better very soon,’ said Robinson, looking at Karl.

‘How’s that?’ he asked.

‘Well, because you’re due to take over from me here,’ replied Robinson.

‘Who told you that?’ asked Karl.

‘That’s a well-established plan. We’ve been talking about that for several days now. It began with Brunelda ticking me off for not keeping the apartment clean enough. Of course I promised to fix it all right away. But that’s far from easy. For example, in my condition, I can’t crawl around everywhere to wipe up the dust, you can’t even move freely in the middle of the room, so how could you amongst all the furniture and supplies. And if you want to clean anything really properly, that means moving the furniture and how can I do that by myself? And then it would all have to be done very quietly, because Brunelda hardly ever leaves the room, and she mustn’t be disturbed. So I promised I would clean everything, but in fact I didn’t. When Brunelda noticed, she told Delamarche that it couldn’t go on like that, and they’d have to take on some more help. “Delamarche” she said, “I don’t want you to reproach me for my running of the household. I’m not allowed to strain myself, you understand that, and Robinson isn’t enough on his own, at first he was willing and looked around everywhere, but now he’s tired the whole time, and just mopes in a corner. But a room with as many things in it as ours doesn’t just look after itself.” Then Delamarche went and had a think about what to do, because of course you can’t just take anyone into a household like ours, not even for a trial period, because people are always gossiping about us. But because I’m a good friend of yours, and heard from Renell how they were making you sweat in the hotel, I thought of you. Delamarche agreed to it right away, even though you were so cheeky to him before, and of course I was very happy to be able to do you such a service. Because this job might have been made for you, you’re young, strong and adroit, while I’m not up to anything any more. Only I just have to warn you that it’s not quite a foregone conclusion yet, if Brunelda doesn’t like you, we couldn’t keep you. So try and make an effort to please her, and I’ll see to the rest myself.’

‘And what will you do once I’m the servant here?’ Karl took the liberty of asking, once the initial shock of Robinson’s news had worn off. So Delamarche had nothing worse in store for him than making him into his servant – if he’d had any worse intentions, that blabbermouthed Robinson would certainly have revealed them – but if this was how things stood, then Karl thought he might go through with his departure this very night. And while it had been Karl’s concern previously, following his dismissal from the hotel, to find another job in short order so he didn’t go hungry, a proper job, if possible, as respectable as his last, now, in comparison to this job proposed here, which was repulsive to him, any other job would be welcome, and even a period of hunger and unemployment would be preferable to this. He made no attempt to explain as much to Robinson, though, not least as Robinson’s views would be coloured by his hopes of being relieved by Karl.

‘So,’ said Robinson, accompanying his speech with complacent hand movements – he had his elbows propped on the railing – ‘so I’ll explain everything to you and show you the supplies. You’re educated, and I’m sure you write a clear hand, so you could draw up an inventory of all the things we have here. Brunelda has been wanting that for ages. If it’s fine tomorrow morning, we’ll ask Brunelda to sit out on the balcony, and then we’ll be able to work quietly inside without disturbing her. Because one thing you have to bear in mind, Rossmann, above all. Don’t disturb Brunelda. She hears everything, it’s probably because she’s a singer that she has such terribly sensitive ears. For instance if you roll out the brandy barrel behind the chests, that makes a noise just because it’s so heavy, and then there are various things lying in its path, so you can’t roll it away at one fell swoop. Say Brunelda is lying quietly on the sofa, catching flies, which are a terrific nuisance for her. You think she’s not paying any attention, and carry on rolling the barrel. She’s still lying peacefully. But in a moment, and when you’re least expecting it, and when you’re making the least amount of noise, she suddenly sits bolt upright, bangs the sofa with both hands, so that she disappears in a cloud of dust – I haven’t been able to beat the sofa in all the time we’ve been here, after all how can I, she’s always lying on it – and starts this terrible shouting like a man, and goes on for hours. The neighbours have stopped her from singing, but no one can stop her from shouting, she has to shout, it only happens quite rarely nowadays by the way, Delamarche and I are very careful. It did her a lot of harm as well. Once she became unconscious, so – Delamarche was away at the time – I had to fetch the student from next door, who sprayed her with some liquid from a big bottle, and it helped too, but the liquid had an insufferable smell, even now if you stick your nose in the sofa, you can still smell it. That student is definitely an enemy of ours, like everyone here, you should be wary of everyone and not get involved with any of them.’

‘I say, Robinson,’ said Karl, ‘that all sounds like hard work. This is some job you’ve put me up for.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Robinson, and shook his head with serenely closed eyes, to dispel all possible worries of Karl’s, ‘the job also brings advantages with it like no other. You’re in continual close proximity with a lady like Brunelda, sometimes you sleep in the same room as her, that, as you can imagine, has various amenities associated with it. You will be generously paid, money is there in copious amounts, as a friend of Delamarche’s I wasn’t actually given any, except when I went out Brunelda gave me some, but of course you will be paid just like a regular servant. Because that’s all you’ll be. The most important thing for you, though, is that I will be able to make it a great deal easier for you. To begin with, of course, I won’t do anything so I can recuperate, but as soon as I feel a little better, you’ll be able to count on me. The actual attendance on Brunelda I’m going to keep as my preserve, which is to say dressing her and doing her hair, inasmuch as that isn’t done by Delamarche. You’ll only have to deal with the tidying of the room, the shopping and the heavy housework.’

‘No, Robinson,’ said Karl, ‘I’m really not tempted.’

‘Don’t be an idiot, Rossmann,’ said Robinson, very close to Karl’s face, ‘don’t pass up this fine opportunity. Where else will you get a job right away? Who knows you? Whom do you know?’ We, two men who have knocked around a lot and have a lot of experience, went around for weeks without finding any work. It’s not easy, in fact it’s desperately hard.’

Karl nodded, surprised how sensible Robinson could be at times. Admittedly, these tips didn’t apply to himself, he mustn’t stay here, in the big city there would surely be some little thing he could do, all night, he knew, the inns were overflowing, they needed men to serve the customers, he already had some practice in that, he would slot quickly and unobtrusively into some business. In fact, on the ground floor of the building opposite, there was a little bar, from which rhythmic music came. The main entrance was covered by a large yellow curtain, which would sometimes be seized by a draught, and blow right out into the street. Apart from that, it had grown a lot quieter in the street. The majority of the balconies were now in darkness, only here and there in the distance was there still the odd light, but no sooner did you look at it than the people over there got up, and while they filed back into the apartment, a man reached up to the lamp and, as the last person out on the balcony, he had a final look down at the street, and turned off the lamp.

‘It’s getting to be night,’ Karl told himself, ‘if I stay here much longer, I’ll be one of them.’ He turned round to draw the curtain away from the apartment door. ‘What are you doing?’ said Robinson, and got between Karl and the curtain. ‘I’m leaving,’ said Karl, ‘let me go, let me go!’ ‘You’re going to disturb them,’ cried Robinson, ‘what do you think you’re doing.’ And he put his arms round Karl’s neck and hung on to him with all his weight, twined his legs round Karl’s legs and in an instant had him down on the ground. But Karl had learned how to look after himself from being among the lift-boys, and he brought his fist up against Robinson’s chin, but only gently and with forbearance. His opponent, though, quickly and violently drove his knee hard into Karl’s belly, and then, clutching his chin with both hands, started howling so loud that on the next door balcony a man clapped his hands frenziedly and called out ‘Quiet’. Karl lay there a while, to get over the pain from Robinson’s blow. He only turned his face to the curtain, which hung quiet and heavy in front of the evidently darkened room. There seemed to be no one in the room any more, maybe Delamarche and Brunelda had gone out, and Karl was already completely at liberty. Robinson, who really was behaving like a guard dog, had been completely shaken off.

Then from the far end of the street there came bursts of trumpets and drums. A few isolated shouts from people gradually amalgamated into a general hubbub. Karl turned his head and saw life returning to the balconies. He slowly rose, he couldn’t quite stand upright yet, and had to lean hard against the railing. Down on the pavements were young fellows marching with great strides, arms out, caps in their raised hands, heads thrown far back. The actual road was still clear. Some individuals were swinging lanterns on long poles, which were swathed in yellowish smoke. Just then the drummers and trumpeters emerged into the light in broad ranks, and Karl was amazed at the numbers, then behind him he heard voices, and turned to see Delamarche raising the heavy curtain and Brunelda stepping out of the darkened room in her red dress, with a lace shawl over her shoulders, a dark bonnet over her probably unkempt hair that was merely piled up on her head, and tendrils of which peeped out here and there. In her hand she held a little open fan, but rather than using it, she kept it pressed against her face.

Karl moved along the railing a little to make room for the two of them. Surely no one would compel him to remain here, and if Delamarche tried to, then Brunelda would let him go, he had only to ask. After all she didn’t like him, she was frightened of his eyes. But when he made a move in the direction of the door, she noticed and said: ‘Where are you off to, little man?’ Karl froze at Delamarche’s stern expression, and Brunelda pulled him to herself. ‘Don’t you want to watch the procession down there?’ she said, and pushed him against the railing in front of her. ‘Do you know what it’s about?’ Karl heard her saying behind him, and he made an involuntary attempt to get away from her pressure, which failed. He looked sadly down at the street, as though it were his own bottomless sadness.

At first Delamarche stood behind Brunelda with arms crossed, then he ran into the room and fetched Brunelda the opera glasses. Down on the street, the main part of the procession had appeared behind the musicians. On the shoulders of one colossal man sat a gentleman, of whom nothing more could be seen from that height than his dully gleaming pate, over which he held his top hat aloft in perpetual greeting. Round about him some wooden placards were clearly being carried, they looked completely white from up on the balcony; their disposition was such that these placards seemed to lean against the gentleman on every side, and he soared up from their midst. As everything was continually on the move, the wall of placards was continually loosening and then re-forming itself. In a wider radius, the whole breadth of the street, though, so far as one could tell in the darkness, not much of its depth, was filled with supporters of the gentleman, all of them clapping their hands and calling out what was in all probability his name, which was short and unfortunately incomprehensible, in a long-drawn-out chanting. Individuals, cleverly distributed in the crowd, held car headlamps with extremely powerful light, which they ran slowly up and down the buildings on either side. At Karl’s elevation, the light was no longer bothersome, but on the lower balconies you could see the people whom it brushed hurriedly shielding their eyes with their hands.

At Brunelda’s plea, Delamarche asked the people on the neighbouring balcony what the procession was for. Karl was a little curious as to whether he would receive an answer, and what it would be. And indeed Delamarche had to ask three times, without getting a reply. Already he was leaning dangerously out over the edge. Brunelda was stamping her feet a little in irritation at the neighbours, Karl could feel her knees moving. Finally there was some reply, but at the same time everyone on that balcony, which was full of people, exploded with laughter. Delamarche shouted something at them, so loud, that if at that moment there hadn’t been a lot of noise on the whole street, everyone would have turned to look in astonishment. At least it had the effect that the laughter did die down rather prematurely.

‘They are electing a new judge in our district tomorrow, and the man they’re carrying down there is one of the candidates,’ Delamarche reported, perfectly calmly returning to Brunelda. ‘Honestly!’ he said, tapping Brunelda’s back affectionately. ‘We’re quite out of touch with what’s going on in the world.’

‘Delamarche,’ said Brunelda, going back to the neighbours’ behaviour, ‘I should so like to move, if only it weren’t such a strain. Unfortunately, I daren’t risk it’ And sighing deeply, distracted and agitated, she fiddled about with Karl’s shirt, who tried as unobtrusively as he could to push away those plump little hands of hers, which turned out to be easy, because Brunelda wasn’t thinking about him, she was preoccupied with quite different thoughts.

Then Karl in turn quite forgot Brunelda, and suffered the weight of her arms on his shoulders, because he was quite absorbed by the goings-on down in the street. On the instruction of a small group of gesticulating men who were walking just in front of the candidate, and whose discussions seemed to have particular importance, because all around one could see listening faces bending towards them, a halt was suddenly called in front of the bar. One of these crucial figures raised his hand in a signal that was meant both for the crowd and the candidate. The multitude fell silent, and the candidate, trying repeatedly to get up on the shoulders of his bearer and repeatedly falling back, held a little address, in the course of which he waved his hat about at great speed, this way and that. That was very clearly visible, because while he spoke, all the car headlamps had been turned on to him, so that he found himself at the centre of a bright star.

Now too you could see the interest the whole street took in the occasion. On balconies that were occupied by partisans of the candidate, they began chanting his name and clapping their hands mechanically, leaning far over their railings. On the other balconies, which were actually the greater number, there was a strong counter-chant, which admittedly had no united effect, as these were supporters of several different candidates. On the other hand, all the opponents of the present candidate went on to unite in a general whistling, and even gramophones were turned on in many places. Between individual balconies political arguments were carried on with a vehemence that was accentuated by the late hour. The majority were already dressed for bed and had coats thrown over their shoulders, the women draped themselves in large dark cloths, the unattended children clambered alarmingly on the outside of the balconies, and emerged in ever-growing numbers from the darkened rooms, in which they had already been sleeping. Occasionally, odd unidentifiable items were thrown by particularly irate parties in the direction of their enemies, sometimes these hit, but for the most part they fell into the street below, often provoking cries of rage. If it got too noisy down below for the leading men, then the drummers and trumpeters were ordered to strike up, and their seemingly never-ending brassy fanfare, executed with all their strength, suppressed all human voices right up to the rooftops. And then, when all of a sudden – you could hardly believe it – they stopped, the obviously well-drilled crowd on the street roared out their party song into the momentary silence – in the light of the headlamps you could see the mouths of everyone wide open – until their opponents, recovering themselves, roared back ten times as loud as before from all the balconies and windows, and brought the party below, after their brief triumph, to complete silence, at least from what you could tell up there.

‘Well, how do you like it, little fellow?’ asked Brunelda, who was swivelling this way and that at Karl’s back, to see all she could with her binoculars. Karl merely gave a nod back. He noticed out of the corner of his eyes how Robinson was eagerly giving Delamarche various reports evidently to do with Karl’s behaviour, but Delamarche obviously seemed to think them completely unimportant, because with his left hand – he was embracing Brunelda with the right – he kept trying to push him away. ‘Wouldn’t you like to try looking through the glasses?’ asked Brunelda, and tapped Karl on the chest, to show that she meant him.

‘I can see well enough,’ said Karl.

‘Try it,’ she said, ‘you’ll have a better view.’

‘My eyesight is very good,’ replied Karl, ‘I can see it all.’ He didn’t find it a kindness, more a nuisance when she put the glasses up to his eyes and said just the one word ‘You!’ melodiously, but also with menace. And then Karl had the glasses in front of him, and could see nothing at all.

‘I can’t see a thing,’ he said, and tried to remove the glasses, but she held them in place, while his head, was so cushioned on her breast he could move it neither sideways nor back.

‘But now you can see,’ she said, and turned the screw on the glasses.

‘No, I still can’t see anything,’ said Karl, and thought that, even without wanting to, he had indeed relieved Robinson, because Brunelda’s insufferable moods were now being taken out on him.

‘When are you going to be able to see?’ she said, and went on – Karl now had his whole face in her heavy breathing – turning at the screw. ‘Now?’ she asked.

‘No, no, no!’ cried Karl, even though in fact, he could, still dimly, begin to make out the scene. But just then Brunelda had some business with Delamarche, she held the glasses more loosely in front of Karl’s face, and Karl could, without her particularly minding it, look out from under the glasses down on to the street. After that she no longer insisted on having her way, and used the glasses for herself.

Down below a waiter had stepped out of the bar and rushing from side to side on the doorstep, was taking the orders of the leaders. You could see him straining to look back in the direction of the bar, and call over as much assistance as he could muster. In the course of what were obviously preparations for a great round of free drinks the candidate never stopped speaking for a moment. His bearer, the colossal man who seemed to be subordinate exclusively to him, kept making little turns after every few sentences, to distribute the speech equally to all parts of the crowd. The candidate’s position was generally hunched over and he tried with jerky movements of his free hand, and with his top hat in the other, to lend emphasis to what he was saying. Sometimes, almost at regular intervals, he went into a kind of convulsion, he rose up with outspread arms, he no longer addressed a group but the generality, he spoke to the dwellers of the houses right up to the topmost storeys, and yet it was perfectly obvious that even in the lowest floors no one could hear him, yes, and that even had the possibility existed, no one wanted to hear him, because every window and every balcony was tenanted by at least one shouting speaker of its own. By now a few waiters had emerged from the bar with a board the size of a billiard table, weighed down with filled and shining glasses. The leaders organized their distribution, which took place in the form of a march past the door of the bar. But even though the glasses on the board kept being refilled, they weren’t enough for the crowd, and two lines of barmen had to slip out to either side of the board to serve the crowd. The candidate had of course stopped speaking by now, and was using the pause to get his strength back. His bearer was carrying him slowly back and forth away from the crowd and the bright lights, and only a few of his closest associates accompanied him and spoke up to him.

‘Look at the little chap,’ said Branelda. ‘He’s forgotten where he is for looking.’ And she took Karl by surprise, and with both hands turned his face towards her, so that she was looking straight into his eyes. It lasted only for a second, though, because Karl quickly shook off her hands, and annoyed not to be left in peace even for a little while, and at the same time longing to go down to the street and see everything up close, he tried with all his might to free himself from Brunelda’s pressure, and said:

‘Please let me go.’

‘You’re saying with us,’ said Delamarche, without taking his eye off the street, merely extending a hand to prevent Karl from going.

‘It’s all right,’ said Branelda, and pushed Delamarche’s hand away, ‘he wants to stay.’ And she pressed Karl even harder against the railing, he would have had to fight her to get free of her. And even if he’d succeeded in that, what would he have accomplished. To his left was Delamarche, Robinson was to his right, he was well and truly imprisoned.

‘You should be thankful we’re not throwing you out,’ said Robinson, and tapped at Karl with the hand he had pushed through under Brunelda’s arm.

‘Throwing you out?’ said Delamarche. ‘A runaway thief isn’t thrown out. He’s handed over to the police. And that can happen as early as tomorrow morning, unless he keeps absolutely quiet.’

From that moment on, Karl could take no more pleasure in the spectacle down below. He leaned over the railing a bit but only because he was forced to, unable to stand upright because of Brunelda. Full of his own worries, with a distracted gaze, he watched the people down there as they went up to the bar door in groups of twenty or so, took their glasses, turned and raised them in the direction of the now preoccupied candidate, called out a party greeting, emptied their glasses and set them down on the board, surely with a crash, but inaudibly at this height, and then made way for a new, rowdy and impatient, group. At the instruction of the leaders, the band, who had been playing inside the bar, now stepped out on to the street, their large brass instruments glittered in the midst of the dark crowd, but their playing was all but drowned by the general hubbub. The street, at least the opposite side of it where the bar was, was filled with people almost as far as you could see. They were streaming down from the heights, where Karl had driven along in the car that morning, and they were coming up the hill from the bridge, and even the people in the buildings had been unable to resist the temptation to take a hand in the proceedings themselves, the balconies and windows were now occupied almost exclusively by women and children, while the men were swarming out through the entrances. But now the music and the hospitality had achieved their objective, the crowd was big enough, a leader flanked by two car headlights motioned to the music to stop, emitted a piercing whistle, and you could now see the somewhat errant bearer with the candidate hurrying down through a space cleared for him by his supporters.

The moment he reached the door of the bar, the candidate, in the beam of a tight circle of headlamps, embarked on his next speech. But now everything was much harder than before, the bearer no longer had the slightest freedom of movement, the crush was too great. The closest supporters, who previously had tried everything to contribute to the effectiveness of the candidate’s speech, were now struggling to remain in his proximity, some twenty of them were desperately clinging on to the bearer. But strong as he was, he couldn’t take a single step as he pleased, there was no possibility of influencing the crowd by revolving or advancing or retreating at given moments. The crowd was in chaotic flux, each man was leaning against his neighbour, none was standing upright any more, the opponents seemed to have gained strength greatly from the new arrivals, the bearer had stood long in the vicinity of the bar door, but now, apparently unresistingly, he allowed himself to drift up and down the street, the candidate was speaking all the time, but it wasn’t quite clear any more whether he was laying out his programme or asking for help, and there was every indication that a rival candidate had appeared, or even several, because from time to time in a sudden blaze of light you could see a man raised aloft in the crowd, speaking with pale face and clenched fists to loud cheers of approval.

‘What’s going on now?’ asked Karl, turning in breathless confusion to his guards.

‘The little one’s all excited,’ said Brunelda to Delamarche, and took Karl by the chin to pull his head over to her. But Karl wasn’t willing, and, with a ruthlessness inspired by the goings-on below, he shook himself so hard that Brunelda not only let go of him, but shrank back and set him free. ‘You’ve seen enough now,’ she said, obviously angered by Karl’s behaviour, ‘go inside, make the beds and get everything ready for the night.’ She pointed to the room. That was the direction Karl had wanted to go in for several hours now, and he did not demur. Then was heard from the street the crunch of breaking glass. Unable to resist, Karl leapt back to the railing for a last quick look down. The opponents had mounted an attack, perhaps even a decisive attack, and the car headlamps of the supporters, whose powerful beams had ensured that at least the principal actions took place in full view of the public, and thus kept everything within bounds, had all been smashed at once, the candidate and his bearer were now caught in the same general, uncertain illumination, whose sudden expansion had the same effect as utter darkness. You couldn’t have said, even approximately, where the candidate was, and the deceptiveness of the dark was actually heightened by a swelling, universal chant that was moving up from the area of the bridge.

‘Didn’t I tell you what you had to do,’ said Brunelda, ‘hurry up. I’m tired,’ she added, and stretched her arms up in the air, so that her breasts arced even more pronouncedly than they did otherwise. Delamarche, who was still holding her in his embrace, pulled her across to a corner of the balcony. Robinson went after them, to remove the last traces of his meal, which he had left there.

Karl had to make the most of this favourable opportunity, this was not the time to go on looking down, he would see enough of the goings-on in the street when he got there himself, far more than from up here. In a couple of bounds he hurried through the reddish illuminated room, but the door was locked and the key had been removed. That had to be found now, but how could anyone find a key in all this mess, still less in whatever precious little time Karl had at his disposal. He should have been on the stairs by now, running for all he was worth. But instead he was looking for the key! He looked in all the drawers he could find, rummaged around on the table where various items of cutlery, napkins and a half-completed piece of embroidery were all lying around, was attracted by an easy chair on which was a balled-up pile of old clothes, where the key might perhaps be lurking, but could never be found, finally throwing himself on the sofa – which did indeed have an awful smell – to grope in all its corners and crannies for the key. Then he stopped his search and stood still in the middle of the room. Brunelda must have the key attached to her belt, he told himself, she had so many things hanging there, all his searching was in vain.

And blindly Karl grabbed a couple of knives and pushed them in between the two wings of the door, one at the top, one at the bottom, so that he might have two separate points of attack. No sooner had he begun to lever on the knives, than of course their blades snapped off. He could have wished for nothing better, their stumps, which he would be able to drive in deeper, would hold more securely. And then with all his strength he pulled, arms and legs wide apart, groaning and watching the door like a hawk. It wouldn’t be able to withstand him forever, he realized that with delight from the audible loosening of the lock, but the more slowly it happened, the better for him, the lock mustn’t burst open, because then they would hear it from the balcony, rather he had to loosen the lock very slowly, and Karl was working towards that end with immense care, his eyes closer and closer to the lock.

‘Will you look at that,’ he heard the voice of Delamarche saying. All three of them were in the room, the curtains had been drawn behind them already, Karl must have failed to hear them come in, and at the sight his hands let go of the knives. He had no time to offer a word of explanation or apology, because in a fit of rage that went far beyond the immediate situation, Delamarche – his loose dressing-gown cord describing a great arc in the air – flew at Karl. Karl was able to get out of the way of the attack at the last moment, he might have pulled the knives out of the door, but he didn’t, instead crouching and leaping up in the air, he snatched the broad collar of Delamarche’s dressing-gown, pulled it up and then pulled it higher – the dressing-gown was far too big for Delamarche after all – and now happily he had Delamarche’s head in his grip, who, completely taken by surprise, first groped about blindly with his hands, and after a little while but still not very effectively began to batter Karl’s back with his fists, who, to protect his face, had thrown himself at Delamarche’s chest. Karl could stand the buffeting, though he was squirming with pain, and the blows were getting stronger all the time, but then how could he not have done, he had victory in his sights. With his hands on Delamarche’s head, his thumbs probably directly over his eyes, he pulled him along in front of him into the worst of the furniture chaos, at the same time trying with his feet to loop the dressing cord round Delamarche’s ankles, and so bring him to a fall.

Thus entirely preoccupied with Delamarche, especially as he could feel his resistance growing stronger by the minute, felt his sinewy enemy body pressing against his more powerfully all the time, he quite forgot he wasn’t alone with Delamarche. But all too soon he was reminded of the fact, because all at once he felt his feet going from under him, Robinson, throwing himself to the ground behind him, was pushing them apart and shouting. With a sigh, Karl let go of Delamarche, who took a further step back, Brunelda was standing there, feet apart, knees bent, in all her breadth in the middle of the room, observing the goings-on with shining eyes. As though participating in the fight herself, she was panting, moving her fists and glowering. Delamarche folded his collar down, now he could see again, and now the fight as such was over, and what followed was merely punishment. He grabbed Karl by his shirt front, almost lifted him off his feet, and hurled him, not even deigning to look at him as he did, with such force against a cupboard just a couple of paces away, that at first Karl thought that the piercing pains in his head and back from his impact against the closet were caused directly by Delamarche’s hand. ‘You rotter!’ he heard Delamarche call out as it grew dark in front of his eyes. And collapsing in exhaustion in front of the closet he heard the words ‘just you wait’ like a distant echo in his ears.

When he regained consciousness, everything was in darkness, it was probably deep in the night, from the balcony a pale glimmer of moonlight crept into the room under the curtain. You could hear the calm breathing of the three sleepers, the loudest of whom by far was Brunelda, she snorted in her sleep, as she did occasionally while speaking; but it wasn’t easy to tell where each of the three was, as the whole room was filled with the sounds of their breathing. Only after examining his surroundings a little did Karl think of himself, and then he got a great shock, because though he felt quite crooked and stiff with pain, it hadn’t occurred to him that he might have sustained a serious and bloody injury. But now he had the feeling of a weight on his head, and his whole face, his throat, his chest under his shirt felt moist with blood. He had to get to the light, to find out the extent of his injuries, perhaps he had been crippled for life, then Delamarche would probably let him go, but what would he do, there were really no prospects for him then. The fellow in the gateway with the chewed-up nose came to mind, and for a moment he buried his face in his hands.

Automatically he first turned towards the door, and groped his way there on all fours. Before long, he came upon a boot with his fingertips, and then a leg. That had to be Robinson, who else would sleep in his boots? He had been ordered to lie across the doorway to prevent Karl from escaping. But did they not know what condition he was in? What he wanted now wasn’t to escape, but to get at the light. If he couldn’t get out by the door, he would have to go out on the balcony.

The dining-table was obviously somewhere completely different from where it had been in the evening, the sofa, which Karl of course approached with extreme caution was surprisingly enough unoccupied, but instead, in the middle of the room he encountered a high pile of albeit crushed clothes, blankets, curtains, pillows and rugs. To begin with he thought it was just a little pile like the one he had found on the sofa in the evening, and that had maybe rolled down on to the floor, but to his amazement, as he crept on, he realized it was a whole cartload of such stuff that had probably been taken out of the boxes for the night, where it was kept in the daytime. He crawled round the pile and soon recognized that the whole thing was a kind of bed, high on top of which, as his most cautious probing told him, Delamarche and Brunelda were resting.

So now he knew where everyone was sleeping, and he made haste to get out on the balcony. It was a completely different world in which, once past the curtain, he quickly got to his feet. In the cool night air, by the full light of the moon, he paced up and down the balcony a few times. He looked down at the street, it was completely quiet, music still sounded from the bar, but only quietly, outside the door a man was sweeping the pavement, in the street where in the evening amidst the confused general babble the shouting of an election candidate couldn’t be told from a thousand other voices, you could now hear the scratching of a broom on the paving stones.

The sound of a table being moved on the neighbouring balcony alerted Karl to the fact that there was someone sitting there, studying. It was a young man with a goatee beard which he kept twirling as he read, with rapid lip movements. He sat, facing Karl, at a small table covered with books, he had taken the lamp off the wall, and jammed it between two large books, and was bathed in its harsh light.

‘Good evening,’ said Karl, thinking he had seen the young man looking across at him.

But he must have been mistaken, because the young man seemed not to have noticed him at all, shielded his eyes with his hand to avoid the glare of the light and see who had suddenly greeted him, and then, still not seeing anything, picked the lamp up to shed a little of its light on the balcony next door.

At length he replied ‘Good evening,’ glowered for an instant, and added: ‘Will that be all?’

‘Am I disturbing you?’ asked Karl.

‘Absolutely, absolutely,’ said the man, returning the lamp to its former spot.

With those words any attempt at contact had been rejected, but still Karl didn’t leave the corner of the balcony nearest to the man. He looked silently across as the man read his book, turned the pages, occasionally looked something up in another book which he always took down with lightning speed, and several times jotted something down in a notebook, bending surprisingly low over it as he did.

Could this man be a student? He gave every appearance of studying. In much the same way – a long time ago now – Karl had sat at the table in his parents’ home, doing his homework, while his father read the paper or did the bookkeeping and correspondence for a club, and his mother busied herself with some sewing, pulling the thread high up into the air. In order not to impede his father, Karl kept only his notebook and his pens on the table, and his other books on chairs to either side of him. How quiet it had been there! How rarely strangers had set foot in that room! Even as a little boy, Karl had always liked it in the evening when his mother locked the front door with her key. What would she say if she knew that her Karl was now reduced to trying to prise open strange doors with knives.

And what had been the point of all his studying! He had forgotten everything; if he’d had to take up his studies again here, he would have found it very hard. He remembered how once he had been ill at home for a month – and how hard it had been then to make up for the lost time. And now, apart from his English business correspondence textbook, it was such a long time since he’d read a book.

‘You, young man,’ Karl suddenly heard himself being addressed, ‘couldn’t you go somewhere else? You’re bothering me no end, the way you’re standing and staring at me. It’s two in the morning: surely it’s not too much to ask, to be allowed to study in peace on my own balcony. Is there something you want from me?’

‘You’re studying?’ asked Karl.

‘Yes, yes,’ said the man, and used these few moments that were lost for studying to rearrange his books.

‘Then I won’t trouble you,’ said Karl. ‘I was going to go back inside anyway. Good night.’

The man didn’t even reply, with a sudden resolve after the removal of the distraction, he had returned to his studies, and propped his forehead on his right hand.

Then, just by the curtain, Karl remembered why he had come outside in the first place, he didn’t even know yet about his state of health. What was it pressing down on his head? He put up his hand, and was surprised, there was no bloody wound as he had feared in the dark room, it was nothing more than a still damp turban-like bandage. To judge from the odd scraps of lace still dangling from it, it must have been torn from some old undergarment of Brunelda’s, that Robinson had quickly wound round Karl’s head. Only he’d forgotten to wring it dry, and so, while Karl had lain unconscious, all the water had run down his face and under his shirt, and so given Karl such a fright.

‘You’re not still there?’ asked the man, blinking at him.

‘I’m just on my way,’ said Karl, ‘I just wanted to look at something, it’s pitch dark in the room.’

‘Who are you anyway?’ said the man, and laid his pen down on his open book, and walked up to the railing. ‘What’s your name? How did you come to be with those people? Have you been here long? What did you want to look at? Turn your lamp on, so that I can have a look at you.’

Karl did so, but before he replied, he pulled the curtain across a little more, so that they wouldn’t notice anything indoors. ‘Excuse me,’ he said in a whisper, ‘for talking so quietly. If they hear me in there, I’ll be in trouble again.’

‘Again?’ asked the man.

‘Yes,’ said Karl, ‘earlier this evening I had a great fight with them. I must have a terrible bump there.’ And he felt the back of his head.

‘What kind of argument?’ asked the man, and, as Karl didn’t answer immediately he added, ‘It’s all right, you can tell me everything you have against those people. I hate all three of them, and especially your Señora. I would be surprised if they hadn’t already tried to poison you against me. My name’s Josef Mendel, and I’m a student.’

‘Yes,’ said Karl, ‘they did talk about you, but nothing bad. It was you who treated Miss Brunelda once, isn’t that so?’

‘That’s right,’ said the student, with a laugh, ‘does the sofa still smell of it?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Karl.

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said the student, and ran his hand through his hair. ‘And why are they taking lumps out of you?’

‘There was an argument,’ said Karl, thinking about how he could explain it to the student. But then he interrupted himself, and said: ‘Are you sure I’m not bothering you?’

‘In the first place,’ said the student, ‘you’ve already bothered me, and unfortunately I’m so nervous that it takes me a long time to get back into it. I haven’t done a stroke of work since you’ve started strolling about on your balcony. Secondly, I always have a break at about three o’clock. So go on, tell me about it. I’m interested.’

‘It’s very straightforward,’ said Karl, ‘Delamarche wants me to be his servant. But I don’t want to. I wanted to leave right away last night. But he didn’t want to let me go, and locked the door, I tried to break it open, and then we had our fight. I’m sorry I’m still here.’

‘Have you another job to go to?’ asked the student.

‘No,’ said Karl, ‘but I don’t care about that, so long as I can get away from here.’

‘Well now,’ said the student, ‘you don’t care about that?’ And they were both silent for a while.

‘Why don’t you want to stay with those people?’ the student finally asked.

‘Delamarche is a bad lot,’ said Karl, ‘I’ve had dealings with him before. Once I walked with him for a day, and I was glad when we parted company. And now I’m to be his servant?’

‘If all servants were as pernickety as you are when it comes to choosing a master!’ said the student, seemingly amused. ‘You see, in the daytime, I’m a salesman, the lowest grade of salesman, more of an errand-boy really, in Monthly’s department store. That Monthly is most certainly a crook, but I’m not bothered about that, I’m just furious I’m paid so badly. So take an example from me.’

‘What?’ said Karl, ‘you’re a salesman in the daytime, and you study at night?’

‘Yes,’ said the student, ‘it’s the only way. I’ve tried everything, but this way is still the best. Years ago I was only a student, day and night you know, and I almost starved doing it, I slept in a pigsty, and I didn’t dare enter the lecture halls in the suit I was wearing. But that’s over.’

‘So when do you sleep?’ asked Karl, and looked at the student in astonishment.

‘Aye, aye, sleep!’ said the student, ‘I’ll sleep when I’ve finished my studies. For now I drink black coffee.’ And he turned round, pulled out a large flask from under his studying table, poured some black coffee from it into a little cup, and knocked it back, as you swallow medicine as quickly as possible, to get the least taste of it.

‘Wonderful stuff, black coffee,’ said the student, ‘I’m sorry you’re so far away that I can’t give you some to try.’

‘I don’t like black coffee,’ said Karl.

‘Nor do I,’ said the student and laughed. ‘But where would I be without it. Without black coffee, I wouldn’t last five minutes with Monthly. I keep saying Monthly, even though he wouldn’t know me from Adam. I can’t positively say how I would fare at work if I didn’t keep a flask of coffee just as big as this one ready prepared at my desk, because I’ve never yet dared to stop drinking coffee, but believe me, I’d soon be curled up on my desk, asleep. Unfortunately they half suspect that anyway, they call me “Black coffee”, which is a stupid joke, and has I’m sure already damaged my career prospects there.’

‘And when will you be finished with studying?’ asked Karl.

‘It’s going very slowly,’ said the student with lowered head. He left the railing and sat down at the table again; with his elbows resting on his open book, running his hands through his hair he said: ‘It could take another year or two.’

‘I wanted to study too,’ said Karl, as though that fact entitled him to more confidence than the now more taciturn student had already shown him.

‘I see,’ said the student, and it wasn’t quite clear whether he’d started reading his book again, or was merely staring at it absent-mindedly, ‘you should be glad you’ve given it up. For some years now I’ve only been studying out of bloody-mindedness. It brings me little satisfaction, and even less in the way of future prospects. What prospects am I supposed to have! America is full of quack doctors.’

‘I wanted to be an engineer,’ said Karl quickly to the student who now seemed wholly indifferent.

‘And now you’re going to be a servant for those people,’ said the student looking up quickly, ‘that must hurt.’

This conclusion on the part of the student was a misunderstanding, but Karl thought it might help him with the student. And so he asked: ‘Is there any chance I might get a job at the department store?’

The question tore the student away from his book; it didn’t even occur to him that he might help Karl to apply for a job. ‘Try it,’ he said, ‘or rather don’t. Getting my job at Montly’s has been the greatest success of my life to date. If I had to choose between my studies and my job, I would choose my job every time. Although of course I’m doing my best to see that I never have to make the choice.’

‘So that’s how hard it is to get a job there,’ said Karl, musingly.

‘You have no idea,’ said the student, ‘it’s easier to become the district judge here than the doorman at Montly’s.’

Karl didn’t say anything. That student, who was so much more experienced than himself, and who hated Delamarche for reasons Karl had yet to learn, and who certainly wished no ill upon Karl, didn’t offer so much as a word of encouragement to Karl to walk out on Delamarche. And he didn’t even know about the threat that was posed by the police, and from which Delamarche offered the only possible source of protection.

‘You watched the demonstration down there earlier in the evening, didn’t you? If you didn’t know the circumstances, you might think that candidate, Lobter’s his name, might have some prospects, or at least was a possibility, no?’

‘I don’t know anything about politics,’ said Karl.

‘You’re making a mistake,’ said the student. But be that as it may, you’ve still got eyes and ears in your head. The man certainly had his friends and his enemies, that can’t have escaped your attention. Well, in my opinion the man hasn’t the faintest chance of being returned. I happen to know all about him, someone who lives here with us knows him. He’s not an untalented man, and his political opinions and his political career to date would seem to qualify him as a suitable judge for this district. But no one gives him the slightest chance, he’ll fail just as comprehensively as it’s possible to fail, he’ll have blown his few dollars on his election campaign, and that’s all.’

Karl and the student looked at one another in silence for a while. The student nodded with a smile, and rubbed his tired eyes with one hand.

‘Well, aren’t you going to bed yet?’ he asked, ‘I have to get back to my studies. You see how much I still have to do.’ And he riffled through half a volume, to give Karl some idea of how much work was still waiting for him.

‘Well, good night then,’ said Karl, and bowed.

‘Come over and see us some time,’ said the student, seated at his table again by now, ‘of course only if you’d like to. There are always a lot of people here. Between nine and ten in the evening I’d have some time for you myself.’

‘So you advise me to stay with Delamarche?’ asked Karl.

‘Definitely,’ said the student, and already his head was bent over his books. It was as though he hadn’t said the word at all; it echoed in Karl’s ears, as though it had come from a far deeper voice than the student’s. Slowly he made his way to the curtain, took a final look at the student, now sitting immobile in his pool of light, surrounded by all the darkness, and slipped into the room. The combined breathing of the three sleepers met him. He felt along the wall for the sofa, and when he had found it, he stretched out on it quietly, as though it was his regular bed. As the student, who knew Delamarche and circumstances here well, and was moreover a cultivated man, had counselled him to stay, he had no qualms for the moment. He didn’t have such lofty aims as the student, who could say if he would have managed to complete his studies if he’d stayed at home, and what barely seemed possible at home no one could demand that he did in a foreign land. But the hope of finding a job where he could do something and find recognition for it was certainly greater if he took the servant’s job with Delamarche, and from the security that offered, waited for a favourable opening. This street seemed to contain many small and medium-sized offices that might not be all that choosy when it came to filling a vacancy. He was happy to be a porter, if need be, but really it wasn’t out of the question that he might be chosen for actual office work and might one day sit as an office worker at his desk and look out of his open window with no worries for a while, just like that official he had seen in the morning while walking through the courtyards. It comforted him, even as he shut his eyes that he was still young, and that Delamarche would at some stage let him go: this household really didn’t give the impression of being made to last. But once Karl had got a job in an office, then he would occupy himself with nothing but his office work, and not fritter away his strength the way the student did. If need be, he would do night work at the office too, which would be asked of him anyway, in view of his limited business experience. He would think exclusively of the interest of the business where he was employed, and accept all manner of work, even what other employees saw as demeaning to them. Good resolutions crowded into his mind, as though his future boss were standing by his sofa, and could read them in his face.

Thinking such thoughts, Karl fell asleep and as he was drifting off, he was disturbed once more by a vast sigh from Brunelda who, evidently plagued by troubling dreams, tossed and turned on her bed.

‘Up! Up!’ cried Robinson, the moment Karl opened his eyes in the morning. The curtain in the doorway had not yet been drawn, but you could see from the even way the sun poured through the cracks that the morning was already well advanced. Robinson was bustling about here and there, with a worried expression on his face, now he was carrying a towel, now a bucket of water, now sundry items of clothing and underwear, and every time he passed Karl, he would nod in his direction to induce him to get up, and show him, by holding up whatever he happened to be carrying, how he was exerting himself on Karl’s behalf, today and for the last time, seeing as he couldn’t of course grasp the intricacies of serving on his very first morning.

After a time Karl saw whom Robinson was in the process of waiting on. In an alcove which Karl had failed to notice before, separated from the rest of the room by a couple of chests of drawers, great ablutions were in progress. You could see Brunelda’s head, her bare throat – the hair had just been pushed into her face – and the nape of her neck, over the chests of drawers, and Delamarche’s raised hand waving in and out of view, holding a liberally dripping bath sponge, with which Brunelda was being scrubbed and washed. You could hear the short commands Delamarche gave Robinson, who didn’t pass things through the now blocked-off entrance to the alcove, but was restricted to a little gap between one of the chests of drawers and a screen, and was made to hold out each new item with extended arms and averted face. ‘The towel! The towel,’ shouted Delamarche. And just as Robinson, who had been looking for something else under the table, started at this call and withdrew his head from under the table, there was already a different command: ‘Water, I want the water goddammit,’ and the enraged face of Delamarche loomed over the chest of drawers. All those things that Karl thought were needed only once in the course of washing and dressing were here called for and brought repeatedly, and in every possible order. A large pan full of water was always kept to heat up on a little electric stove, and time and again, with legs wide apart, Robinson lugged it into the washroom. In view of the amount of work it was understandable that he didn’t always follow his orders to the letter, and once, when another towel was called for, he simply pulled a shirt off the great sleeping platform in the middle of the room, and tossed it in a tangled mass over the chest of drawers.

But Delamarche had his hands full as well, and perhaps was only so irritated with Robinson – and far too irritated even to notice Karl – because he was unable to satisfy Brunelda himself. ‘Oh!’ she cried, and even the otherwise uninvolved Karl shrank at that. ‘You’re hurting me! Go away! I’d sooner wash myself than go on suffering like this! I won’t be able to lift my arm again because of you. You’re squeezing me so hard, it’s making me ill. I just know my back is covered with bruises. Of course, you’ll never tell me if it is. Just you wait, I’ll get Robinson to look at me, or the little new chap. All right, I won’t but just be a bit more careful. Just show a little sensitivity, Delamarche, but that’s what I say every morning, and it makes no difference. Robinson,’ she cried suddenly, waving some frilly knickers in the air, ‘come to my rescue, see how I’m suffering, he calls this torment washing, that Delamarche. Robinson, Robinson, what’s keeping you, have you no pity either?’ Karl silently motioned to Robinson with one finger to go to her, but Robinson lowered his eyes and shook his head in a superior fashion, he knew better than that. ‘Are you crazy?’ he whispered into Karl’s ear. ‘She doesn’t mean it literally. One time I did go in, and never again. Both of them grabbed hold of me and held me down in the bath, I almost drowned. And for days afterwards Brunelda taunted me for being dirty-minded, she kept saying: “You haven’t been to see me in my bath for a while now,” or “When will you come and inspect me in my bath?” I had to get down on my knees and beg before she agreed to stop. I’ll never forget that.’ And all the time Robinson was talking, Brunelda kept calling: ‘Robinson! Robinson! What’s keeping that Robinson!’

In spite of the fact that no one came to her assistance, and there wasn’t even a reply – Robinson had sat down next to Karl, and the two of them looked silently across at the chests of drawers, above which the heads of Brunelda and Delamarche were visible from time to time – in spite of that, Brunelda didn’t stop her loud complaining about Delamarche. ‘Come on, Delamarche,’ she cried, ‘you’re not washing me at all. What have you done with the sponge? Get a grip! If only I could bend down, if only I could move! I’d soon show you what washing is. Where are the days of my girlhood when I used to swim in the Colorado every morning on my parents’ estate, the supplest of all my girlfriends. And now! When will you learn to wash me, Delamarche, you’re just waving the sponge around, you’re trying as hard as you can, but still I can’t feel anything at all. When I told you not to scrub me raw, I didn’t mean to say that I just wanted to stand around and catch cold. I feel like hopping out of the bath and running off, just as I am.’

But then she didn’t carry out her threat – which she wasn’t actually in a position to do anyway – because Delamarche, worried that she might catch cold, seemed to have seized her and pushed her down into the tub, because there was an almighty splash.

‘That’s typical of you, Delamarche,’ said Brunelda, a little more quietly, ‘you make a bad job of something, and then try and get out of it by flattering me unmercifully.’ Then there was silence for a while. ‘They’re kissing now,’ said Robinson, and raised his eyebrows.

‘What work is there to do now?’ asked Karl. Now that he had decided to stay here, he wanted to get to work. He left Robinson, who didn’t reply, behind on the sofa, and started to pull apart the great bed, still compacted by the weight of the sleepers who had lain on it all night, in order to fold each single item of it neatly, as probably hadn’t been done for weeks.

‘Do go and see what’s happening, Delamarche,’ said Brunelda, ‘I think they’re attacking our bed. You need to be on your guard the whole time, there’s never a moment’s peace. You’ll have to be stricter with those two, or they’ll just do as they please.’ ‘It’s bound to be the little fellow with his bloody industriousness,’ said Delamarche, and it sounded as though he was about to erupt out of the washroom, Karl hurriedly dropped everything, but fortunately Brunelda said: ‘Don’t leave me, Delamarche, don’t leave me. Oh, the water’s so hot, it’s making me so tired. Stay here with me, Delamarche.’ Only then did Karl really notice how there were swathes of steam rising incessantly behind the dressers.

Robinson’s hand flew to his cheek, as though Karl had done something terrible. ‘I want everything left just exactly as it was before,’ came Delamarche’s voice, ‘don’t you know Brunelda likes to lie down for an hour after her bath? What a wretched household! You wait, you’ll catch it from me. Robinson, are you daydreaming again. I’m making you responsible for everything that happens. It’s up to you to keep that boy in check, we’re not going to change the way we do things here to suit him. Whenever we want anything done, you’re useless, and if nothing needs doing, you’re as busy as bees. Go and skulk in a corner somewhere and wait until you’re needed.’

But all that was straightaway forgotten, because Brunelda whispered very feebly, as though overcome by the hot water‘My perfume! I want my perfume!’ ‘Her perfume!’ shouted Delamarche. ‘Get to it.’ Yes, but where was the perfume? Karl looked at Robinson, Robinson looked at Karl. Karl saw that he would have to take the responsibility on his own shoulders, Robinson evidently had no idea where the perfume was, he just lay down on the floor and kept waving both his arms about under the sofa, bringing to light nothing more than tangles of dust and woman’s hair. Karl first hurried to the washstand that was right by the door, but its drawers contained nothing but old English novels, journals and sheet music, and all of them so crammed full that it was impossible to shut them again, once they’d been opened. ‘The perfume!’ groaned Brunelda in the meantime. ‘How long it’s taking! I wonder if I’ll get my perfume today!’ In view of her impatience, Karl of course couldn’t possibly look thoroughly anywhere, he had to rely on cursory impressions. The bottle wasn’t in the washstand, and on top of it were only old jars of medicine and ointments, everything else must have already been taken into the washroom. Maybe the bottle was in the drawer of the dining-table. But, on the way to the table – Karl had only the perfume in his thoughts, nothing else – he collided violently with Robinson, who had finally given up looking under the sofa, and following some dim notion where the perfume might be, had walked blindly into Karl. The clash of heads was clearly audible. Karl remained mute, Robinson carried on on his way, but to relieve his pain, let out a long and exaggeratedly loud howl.

‘Instead of trying to find my perfume, they’re ragging,’ said Brunelda. ‘This household is making me ill, Delamarche, I can just tell I’m going to die in your arms. I must have the perfume,’ she then cried, pulling herself together, ‘I simply must have it. I’m not leaving the bath until they bring it, even if I have to stay here all day.’ And she petulantly brought her fist down into the water, so that it splashed.

But the perfume wasn’t in the dining-table drawer either, though that was full of Brunelda’s toiletries, such things as old powder puffs, jars of cream, hairbrushes, curls and lots of tangled and stuck-together things, but not the perfume. And Robinson, still wailing, in a corner where there were about a hundred stacked-up boxes and cartons, opening and rummaging through them all one after another, each time causing half the contents, sewing things and letters for the most part, to fall to the floor where they remained, could find nothing either as he occasionally signified to Karl by shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders.

Then Delamarche in his underwear leapt out of the washroom, while Brunelda could be heard crying hysterically. Karl and Robinson stopped their search and looked at Delamarche, who, soaked to the skin, and with water pouring off his face and hair as well, exclaimed: ‘Now will you kindly start looking.’ ‘Here!’ he commanded Karl, and ‘You there!’ Robinson. Karl really did look, and even checked places that had already been assigned to Robinson, but he was no more able to find the perfume than Robinson, who devoted most of his energy to keeping an eye out for Delamarche, who was stamping up and down the room as far as it went, undoubtedly longing to give both Karl and Robinson a good thrashing.

‘Delamarche!’ cried Brunelda, ‘come and dry me at least. Those two won’t manage to find the perfume, and will only make a mess. Tell them to stop looking. Right away! And put everything down! And not touch anything! They’ll turn our apartment into a pigsty. Grab hold of them Delamarche, if they don’t stop! But they’re still at it, I heard a box falling. They’re not to pick it up, leave everything where it is, and just get out of the room! Bolt the door behind them, and come back to me. I’ve been lying in the water far too long already, my legs are getting quite cold.’

‘All right, Brunelda, all right,’ cried Delamarche, and hurried to the door with Karl and Robinson. Before he let them go, though, he instructed them to get some breakfast and if possible to borrow a good perfume for Brunelda.

‘It’s so dirty and messy in your flat,’ said Karl once they were in the corridor, ‘as soon as we’re back with the breakfast, we’ll have to start tidying up.’

‘If only I wasn’t in such pain,’ said Robinson. ‘The way I’m treated!’ Robinson was certainly offended that Brunelda didn’t draw the slightest distinction between himself, who had been serving her for months, and Karl, who had only been recruited yesterday. But that was really all he deserved, and Karl said: ‘You must pull yourself together.’ But in order not to consign him to complete despair, he said: ‘It’s a job that just needs doing once, and then it’ll be done. I’ll make a bed for you behind the chests, and once everything’s a bit neater, you’ll be able to lie there all day and not have to bother about anything, and then you’ll have your health back soon enough.’

‘So you’ve seen for yourself what my condition is like,’ said Robinson, and turned away from Karl, to be alone with his suffering self. ‘But will they ever let me lie in peace?’

‘If you like, I’ll mention it to Delamarche and Brunelda myself.’

‘When has Brunelda ever shown any compassion?’ cried Robinson, and with his fist – for which Karl was quite unprepared – he banged open the door they were just passing.

They found themselves in a kitchen, from whose stove, which seemed in need of repair, little black clouds were rising. Kneeling by the oven door was one of the women Karl had seen in the corridor yesterday, putting large lumps of coal into the fire with her bare hands, while inspecting it from all angles. All the while she was groaning with the discomfort of having to kneel at her age.

‘It had to be, didn’t it, this pestilence,’ she said, on seeing Robinson, got to her feet with some difficulty, resting her hand on the coal box, and shut the oven door, around whose handle she wrapped her apron. ‘It’s four in the afternoon’ – Karl looked in astonishment at the kitchen clock – ‘and you want your breakfast? What a bunch!’

‘Sit down,’ she said, ‘and wait till I can see to you.’

Robinson made Karl sit down next to him on a little bench by the door, and whispered to him: ‘We have to do whatever she says. We depend on her, you see. We rent our room from her, so she can evict us any time she likes. Whereas we can’t possibly change apartments, we could never manage to move all our things out, and above all Brunelda isn’t transportable.’

‘And isn’t there any other room to be had on the passage?’ Karl asked.

‘No one would have us,’ replied Robinson, ‘no one will have us in the whole building.’

So they sat quietly and waited on their little bench. The woman kept running between a pair of tables, a washtub and the stove. From her exclamations it could be gleaned that her daughter was poorly, and that as a result she had to do all the work by herself, which meant the serving and catering for thirty tenants. As if that weren’t enough on its own, the oven had something wrong with it, the food refused to cook, a thick soup was being prepared in two enormous saucepans, and however many times the woman inspected it with her ladles and poured it out from a height, the soup wasn’t ready, it was certainly the fault of the poor fire, and so she almost squatted down on the floor by the door of the oven, and with a poker prodded around in the glowing coals. The smoke that filled the kitchen made her cough so much that sometimes she had to reach for a chair and for minutes on end, do nothing but cough. She quite regularly remarked that she would not supply any more breakfasts today, because she had neither the time nor the inclination. As Karl and Robinson had been detailed on the one hand to get the breakfast, and on the other had no possibility of compelling her, they simply ignored such remarks of hers, and just sat quietly as before.

All around on chairs and footstools and on and underneath the tables, yes, even stacked in a corner of the floor, were the dirty breakfast dishes of the tenants. There were jugs which probably still contained a little coffee or milk, some of the little plates had scraps of butter on them, there was a large tin can that had fallen over, and some biscuits had rolled a long way across the floor. It was quite feasible to make all that into a breakfast that even Brunelda, as long as she was kept ignorant of its origins, wouldn’t have been able to turn her nose up at. When that occurred to Karl, and a glance at the clock told him that they had been waiting for half an hour already, and Brunelda might be raging and turning Delamarche against the servants, the woman was just calling out, in the midst of a fit of coughing – in the course of which she stared at Karl – ‘You can sit here as long as you like, you’re not getting any breakfast. But if you want, you can have supper in a couple of hours.’

‘Come on, Robinson,’ said Karl, ‘we’ll put our own breakfast together.’ ‘What?’ cried the woman tilting her head. ‘Be reasonable,’ said Karl, ‘why won’t you give us our breakfast? We’ve been waiting for half an hour, that’s long enough. It’s all included in what we pay, and I’m sure we pay more than some of your other tenants. The fact that we breakfast so late may be burdensome for you, but we are your tenants, we’re in the habit of breakfasting late, so you should cater for us a little bit as well. Of course it’s particularly difficult for you today, what with your daughter’s sickness, but then again we’re prepared to make our own breakfast from the leftovers, if that’s all there is and you won’t make us any fresh.’

But the woman wouldn’t let herself in for a friendly discussion with anyone, for these particular tenants even the general leftovers were too good; but on the other hand she was quite fed up with the intrusiveness of these two servants, so she grabbed a cup, thrust it at Robinson’s midriff, who, after sitting for some time with an injured expression, realized that he was supposed to hold on to it, to collect whatever food the woman could get together. She then loaded the cup in a great hurry with an assortment of things, but the overall appearance was that of a lot of dirty crockery, not like a presentable breakfast. Even as the woman pushed them outside, and they hurried towards the door, shoulders hunched as though expecting blows or abuse, Karl took the cup out of Robinson’s hands, because it didn’t seem to him that Robinson would look after it well enough.

Once they were in the corridor, sufficiently far away from the landlady’s door, Karl sat down on the floor with the cup, first of all to give it a good clean, then to gather together what belonged together, to pour all the milk into one container, to scrape the various pats of butter on to one plate, and then to remove every appearance of use, thus cleaning the knives and spoons, trimming the half-eaten bread rolls, and so put a better complexion on the whole thing. To Robinson this work seemed superfluous, and he insisted that breakfast had often looked much worse, but Karl wouldn’t be talked out of it, and was even glad that Robinson with his dirty fingers wasn’t interested in helping. To keep him quiet, Karl had right away, but, as he told him, in final settlement, given him a few biscuits and the thick sediment of a jug once containing cocoa.

When they reached their apartment, and Robinson casually grasped the door handle, Karl held him back, since he wasn’t yet sure whether it was all right to go in. ‘Oh yes,’ said Robinson, ‘he’s just doing her hair.’ And indeed, in the still unaired and darkened room there sat Brunelda in the armchair with her legs apart, while Delamarche stood behind her, bending low over her, combing her short and probably very tangled hair. Brunelda was wearing another of her very loose dresses, this time a pale pink one, if anything it was a little shorter than yesterday’s, at any rate you could see the coarse woven white stockings up to the knee. Impatient with the time it was taking to comb her hair, Brunelda pushed her thick red tongue between her lips this way and that, sometimes, with the exclamation ‘Oh Delamarche!’, she even completely broke away from Delamarche, who waited with raised comb for her to lay her head back again.

‘That took a long time,’ said Brunelda in a general way, and to Karl in particular she said: ‘You’ll have to speed up a bit if you want to give satisfaction. That lazy guzzling Robinson is not a good example for you. I expect you’ve already breakfasted on the way somewhere, well, I tell you, I won’t stand for that on another occasion.’

This was most unfair, and Robinson too shook his head and his lips moved although they didn’t make any sound, but Karl for his part could see that the only way of impressing his masters was by showing clear evidence of work. He therefore pulled a low Japanese table out of a corner, laid a cloth over it, and put out the things he had brought. Anyone who had seen the origins of this breakfast could not fail to be impressed with it, but for those others who hadn’t, as Karl had to admit, there were some grounds for criticism.

Luckily, Brunelda was hungry. She nodded graciously at Karl, as he set everything out, and often got in his way by filching little morsels for herself before he was ready, with her soft, fat, potentially all-flattening hand. ‘He’s done well,’ she said, smacking her lips, and pulled Delamarche, who left the comb in her hair for a later resumption, down next to her on a chair. Delamarche too was mollified by the sight of the meal, both of them were very hungry, their hands hurried this way and that across the little table. Karl saw that to give satisfaction he should be sure to bring as much as possible, and, remembering he had left various eatables on the floor of the kitchen, he said: ‘For this first time, I wasn’t sure how to go about it, next time I’ll do better.’ But even as he spoke, he remembered whom he was addressing, he had concentrated too much on the thing itself. Brunelda nodded contentedly at Delamarche, and fed Karl a handful of crumbs by way of reward.