Joseph Roth: Perlefter: The Story of A Bourgeois

Day and night he mused about taking revenge on his wife. He owned the house in which they lived and in which the laundry was located. He kept a few hundred gold coins in a secret compartment. It was the last bastion that he successfully defended against his wife. He spoke often, happily and almost frivolously, about his death. For he did not fear death in the first place; rather, he was looking forward to the hereafter, a subject in which he was very well versed, and to his existence as a spirit which he believed he had secured. Secondly, he knew that he had nothing more to expect from life and that the iron-clad health of his wife would continue for a long time. He could enjoy actual pleasure only when dead. This joy was in part based on his the confidence that Frida would not find the gold coins. But he did not even begrudge her the house. By law it would go to her at his death if he did not give away it during his lifetime. But he had no friends and no sympathetic acquaintances. Then Leo Bidak appeared.

He arrived just on that fateful day on which Frau Frida Sammet had put her left arm through a windowpane and severed an artery. Herr Sammet, who had mastered the art of healing, knew that it was of critical importance to stop the bleeding and to bring the arm into an extended vertical position. Because he was creative he laid his wife out on a table, constricted the arm above the wrist with a handkerchief, took down the lamp hanging from the ceiling and connected, by means of a rope, the extended arm to the hook on the ceiling. Thus, helplessly bound, lay Frau Frida in the middle of the room when her nephew Bidak arrived. In this position she could not offer him a warm reception.

Bidak entered the business. He helped the girls by ironing and starching the laundry; he sorted the shirt collars and the stiff shirt breasts and freed white curtains of their yellow rust stains. He brought the clean clothes to the homes of the better customers and invoices and warning letters to the defaulting debtors. Frau Frida Sammet had reason to be pleased with him had dissatisfaction not been her nature. She was thus unhappy with her nephew. She complained about him to Herr Sammet. But he took Bidak’s side. Frau Sammet complained about her husband to Bidak. Then she learned, to her horror, that her nephew and her husband were friends.

Yes, they were friends.

Herr Sammet spoke with Bidak about all profound questions that weigh upon mankind. They went for walks together, watched sunsets, noted wind direction and stargazed on clear nights. They also talked politics. Leo Bidak was just as dissatisfied with the world order as was Herr Sammet. They were both unhappy.

They were determined to reform the world. Frau Sammet forbade her husband from attending socialist meetings. She could not forbid her nephew. To irritate her he wore a red tie, and he even came to work with a red carnation in his buttonhole, and on May Day he let the pressers have the day off. Frau Sammet would have fired him long ago, but she could not. The older she became the greater the number of clients who were in arrears. Perhaps Leo Bidak was a revolutionary spirit, but he could not be called unreliable. He had great strength, and on busy Saturdays he mastered over a thousand stiff dickeys. At six o’clock he put the work down. For sorting the laundry he demanded a premium. He was, without question, a radical socialist.

After a year, he knew Herr Sammet’s secret hiding place for the gold coins. Then he asked for a raise. Frau Frida hoped to learn the secret from him. She increased Bidak’s salary, but she learned nothing.

‘The money lies behind the painting with the black ship,’ said Leo Bidak. But it was not there. ‘He’s hidden it again,’ said Bidak.

At one point Herr Sammet fell ill. He had a notary come and gave Leo Bidak half of the house.

Herr Sammet regained his health. But he was not sorry that he had given Leo Bidak half of his house.

Now Bidak had a half of a house. He was already twenty-three years old. At this age men normally begin to look for a wife. Bidak fell in love with a girl named Ellen who had learned shorthand and was a socialist.

Leo Bidak and Ellen met often, they read books, and Herr Sammet was pleased about these young lovers.

One day Leo told his girlfriend that he had killed a wrestler. He told her only because he loved her ardently and trusted her.

But Fräulein Ellen could not bear the thought that she should kiss a man who was a murderer.

For three weeks Ellen avoided her beloved, and Leo fell into depression.

Then he went to see Ellen and received her forgiveness.

I have always believed that Ellen was not actually upset about the murder. On the contrary, it pleased her to have such a unique man.

One day they got married. And it was the only day on which I saw Frau Frida Sammet smile. She wore a grey silk dress with black veil, and she babbled like a waterfall. The Perlefter family’s gift was a silver centrepiece for fruit.

It was unpleasant for the Perlefter family to have relatives with no virtues; neither fortune, nor talent, nor good manners. I believe that Herr Perlefter suffered much on account of these relatives. For they could not prevent Herr Sammet or his wife from inviting themselves to visit on special occasions. One could not break off relations with this distant part of the family. I have already mentioned a few times that Herr Perlefter did not like severing ties. He had even developed a strong sense of family. If it were up to him he would have been quite happy to chat with Frau Sammet who had known him when he was still an apprentice at a flour concern. Only that no longer depended solely on him. He had many more things to consider than just his family, and one knows how seldom the interests of the world coincide with those of the family.

It was by no means in the interest of the world that Leo Bidak should come together with Perlefter. Nevertheless they came together. Perlefter was not unfriendly. Leo Bidak appeared one afternoon with his young wife. He did not allow her to get a word out. He told stories of Odessa. The young wife was red. He was offered a shot of kümmel, and he drank three. Then he requested some bread and butter, for he ate no sweets. His wife was quite embarrassed.

She had brown skin. When her face was flushed she was pretty. She had narrow shoulders and very wide hips. I already could see that she would bear many children.

And she did have many children. First came twins after only six months. A year later she bore a girl. After four years there were six children, girls and boys, and the whole family lived in the Sammet house.

Old Herr Sammet suffered a stroke. The right half of his body became paralysed. He was in a wheelchair and murmured curses against his wife. The cries of the children stormed through all the rooms, through the corridors and the hall. Leo Bidak’s six children seemed like thirty. They broke the banister. They brought stolen cats into the house that gave birth to many litters. Frau Sammet called the children ‘bastards’. She suspected the paralysed Herr Sammet was the father. For she was the jealous type.

The young Frau Bidak grew enormously. She always had a round belly, even when she was not pregnant. Her clothes didn’t fit her any more, her breasts hung low to the waist, and her brown skin became yellow. She called her husband ‘murderer’ when she was in a bad mood. And she was often in a bad mood.

One day Herr Sammet suffered his second heart attack and could not be revived. He was buried without tears. I was there, and I saw that the Bidak children were happy. For the first time they wore dark coats and drove in a carriage. The mood was festive as the dead Herr Sammet was buried. Leo Bidak invited the gravedigger to the wake. All the survivors went to the nearest pub and ate and drank until darkness fell. It was summer, and the sun set quite late, and Leo Bidak was drunk and boarded with the whole family into a great Landau. Along the way he bought Chinese lanterns from a street vendor, lit them and caused quite a stir in all the streets through which they drove.