Joseph Roth - Perlefter - The Story of A Bourgeois

But it seems that the education of a young girl can damage her charms. For, although Karoline had reached that age when she was not yet quite marriageable but at the point when an interest in men should have awoken within her, it proved that she had absolutely no interest either in her own appearance or in men. Indeed Karoline wore her crackling, unruly, provocative hair smooth and brushed back, and as a result one saw that she had a high, pale, arched mathematical brow and small, pretty earlobes whose delicacy was lost in consideration of this significant forehead. Every young man grew afraid of this head. Every man had to take this girl seriously and consequently could not fall in love with her.

Karoline studied mathematics and physics and was an assistant in some scientific institute. There she put on her heelless sandals, a blue work uniform, took a manly umbrella in her hand and in her wide breast pocket were jingling keys and a glasses case of black cardboard. Karoline was converted into a doctor.

The family praised her delicate ears and her hair, which to them and others were more consoling than the scientific standing of their daughter. But soon even the family succumbed to the allure that seems to surround laboratories and assistants, and everyone admired the achievements of such a young child.

‘She should have a husband,’ said Frau Perlefter.

Karoline became angry when one spoke of her. She rushed out of the room and slammed the door shut; the walls shook, and from behind the door one could hear sobbing.

It was customary in the Perlefter family that everyone kissed one another. Only Karoline kissed nobody. At great celebrations, at farewells and birthdays, she blew cool fleeting kisses from indifferent cheeks.

She had cold dry hands with pale, flat fingers. Her fingers looked like rules.

A husband was sought for her.

Sometimes Tante Kempen came; she had already dealt with many girls in the family. Tante Kempen had large brown shining eyes that seemed to absorb everything but in reality were practically blind. Glasses had been prescribed which, out of vanity, she spurned.

She knew all the suitable families, this Tante Kempen. Every week she was invited to a different house. She was like a wandering spider, spinning her web from one corner of the city to another or like a wind distributing fruit seeds around the world.

Tante Kempen had identified a man for Karoline. He was a lecturer who needed money in order to become a professor without worries, a scholar, a pleasant, forgetful young man. But Karoline was terrified of scholars.

The Perlefter family didn’t know what to do. Frau Kempen began to consider the other daughters. In any case, Karoline went her own way, and I will get to this later when the occasion arises.

Frau Kempen focused on the second child, who was called Julie. She was gentle, pale, anaemic, and she drank Chinese wine and swallowed iron pills that caused chronic constipation. The doctor ordered her to take walks, but to do so Julie would need comfortable sandals of the type her sister Karoline wore.

Julie wore vain high heels and small patent-leather boots that caused her pain. She liked to buy fabric, colourful scraps of lace which she stored in the drawer of her chest. What she liked most was to lie on a cold bed and sort remnants of silk. She had four seamstresses, for new and old clothes, for both alterations and ‘modernization’. All the men liked Julie, and she left the selection up to Tante Kempen.

Herr Perlefter, who was ever practical, wanted to have an engineer in the family but not the type who could design bridges. Herr Perlefter wanted a practical building engineer who could appraise a house. During this time there were many inexpensive homes being constructed, but each appraisal cost ‘a fortune’. And yet engineers earned so little. Perlefter wanted to have a handyman in the house.

Frau Kempen searched frantically and could find only an architect with artistic ambitions.

But he had a studio. He gave parties. One spoke of his reckless life, and a report from the Argus Detective Agency revealed that he had considerable debt. The worst was that his family was unknown, that he was ‘alone in the world’. Argus could not discover the profession of his father.

‘Perhaps’, said Herr Perlefter, ‘his father was a bartender or a pimp or a brothel owner. Who knows? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!’

It was quite hopeless. Frau Kempen could not even get the Perlefters to invite this young man over ‘without obligation’. She thus turned her attention to the third daughter without the second being completely removed from her thoughts.

The third daughter was the most prettily named, Margarete, and she deserved this apellation. She was lovely. Yes, I liked her. Had custom not demanded that an errand boy not fall in love with his employer’s daughter I would certainly have fallen in love with Margarete, but back then I was still a messenger for Perlefter. Later I saw that it was a good thing I did not give my heart to Margarete. You see, she was an unhappy person.

She was unlike the rest of her family; light and cheerful in disposition, she let nothing come to confrontation. One took her for an obedient and authority-respecting child. She kissed everyone who offered a cheek for her to kiss. Generally speaking, it was believed that she could tolerate anyone.

By the time she was fourteen years old many young men were in love with her. But around then she loved her history teacher. At that time she also had the best grades in history. The next year she loved her literature teacher and forgot everything about history. She learned to play the piano but was quite unmusical. She trilled melodies loudly and tunelessly all morning long.

Later she met a young socialist and gave herself with ardour to the party secretary. Every Sunday she went in wooden sandals into the forest with the workers’ children. She taught the children to sing, and all of them sang off-key, too.

Under the influence of another young man, who gave lectures at the community college, she immersed herself in Steiner and Nietzsche. She understood not a word of either. But she was proud that she was so cultivated.

When someone told her that it was abominable for a woman to be idle she applied for a job as a stenographer in a bank. Over ten poor candidates who needed the job Margarete was victorious. For she was Perlefter’s daughter. She even received bonuses while the other girls were dismissed.

Margarete was pale and thin, and she could not stand the air in the office or the typewriter. Thus she gave the position up and became a kindergarten teacher without pay. But she understood nothing about kindergarten, and they dispensed with her assistance.

After that she arranged charity balls, surrendering herself to the duties of a committee member.

Next she dreamed of having a salon with poets, artists and scholars. Her husband should not play a role in this venture but should have money.

Frau Kempen went in search of such a man.

Eventually she found one.

In the meantime, however, something important happened in the Perlefter household. All other things of importance faded into the background before one particular event: Henriette got married. Henriette was thirty years old and had been with the household for twelve years. I remember how she looked when she arrived. She came direct from the country, eighteen years old with red crackling hair, and she smelled of laundry soap bars. One could hear her stiff undergarments rustling.

I loved her.

She was the product of a random adventure when the police sergeant connected with her mother eighteen years earlier as he patrolled his route alone. Her mother brought hens, eggs, bread and radishes into the city.