Joseph Roth - Perlefter - The Story of A Bourgeois

Already on the following day there was a dispute. Leo Bidak didn’t want to get up. He was now not only the owner of half the house but also the master of the whole house, and he accepted no more orders from the widow Sammet. He took the dead man’s gold coins from their hiding place, showed his aunt and filled his pockets with gold pieces and jingled them around.

The widow replied to this music with fury and grief. She threw a hot flat-iron at her nephew, didn’t hit him but instead a bundle of curtains, which caught fire.

Consequently, Leo Bidak went to a factory. He was determined to expand the operations into something ‘really big and American’. To this aim, he wanted to purchase large pressing machines. He despised tedious manual labour. He wanted to establish a proper laundry.

He inspected amazing machines. There were some with double tumblers between which the wet laundry was dried, starched and pressed; machines with great wheels that moved independently but which required a great deal of electrical power.

Leo Bidak bought the largest machines of modern design. In the yard of the house he erected a machine room. It took three months to get the machines set up and working. But no good came of it. For the wash came out of the machines half wet, not starched and dully ironed, and the customers were dissatisfied. Leo Bidak’s girls had to iron everything again, and it was actually double the work.

At this point, Bidak took out an advertisement in the newspaper and offered the machines for sale. He got rid of them at a huge loss. A technician who had invented a new laundry machine made contact with Bidak who bought the new machine.

Meanwhile many new washerwomen settled in the area and attracted the customers themselves. The meagre assets of Herr Sammet’s estate had long since been consumed. Bidak began to take out mortgages on his half of the house.

This steep mortgage, in addition to his other smaller debts, would have embittered him about life had he not possessed such a cheerful nature.

Indeed he had a cheerful nature. His body was ever wider, his belly rounder, his face fuller, his eyes and nose almost entirely disappeared between his cheeks, he gobbled up everything in sight, ate and drank and delighted over every new concern. He did not neglect the upbringing of his children. On the contrary, he gave himself to them quite zealously, and if the results corresponded with his efforts this alone was reward enough.

Leo Bidak had not hit anyone in a long time, and anyone who knows something about wrestlers and athletic nature understands that this talent cannot lie dormant for too long. Bidak would have liked to hit his Tante Sammet. But, for one, he perceived that her withered body offered none of that resistance which provides a joyful inspiration to strike enthusiastic blows; and, second, this Tante Sammet was the only person he began to fear more and more the older and fatter he became.

It was as if the death of her husband had turned on all the sources of venom within Frau Sammet. From a thousand chasms of her soul burst forth this wickedness and thrust itself into the world. It was probably the love that lives longer than one thinks and continues to act when one believes it to be dead and buried — the last remains of her husband’s love — which had prevented Frau Sammet from giving vent to the anger and pain housed inside. Now it was unleashed. It was a weary yet unremitting working rage, a woeful doggedness, it was a malice of grief, the distemper of a widow. She went through the house, silent yet audible; she made accusations against no one, but she herself was an accusation; she suffered, she ailed, she looked like a shadow, but she was as only a shadow can be, ever present, frightful and yet not corporeal enough to frighten; she was no longer alive, not of flesh and blood, and therefore eternal, inviolate and immortal. What harm could she do to Bidak’s massive body? Her malice gave her a thousand weapons against which health and vigour were defenceless. She muttered curses that one could scarcely hear but that one could feel and therefore began to take effect immediately. She was ever present. She appeared when the children exulted and suffocated their joy, and whenever someone laughed he had to stop suddenly, his laughter broke in the middle like a sparkling glass that suddenly shatters for no apparent reason.

Only Leo Bidak retained his cheerful disposition, as I said before. The bitter, silent fury of his aunt was directed at him, but neither could harm the other. Her terrible wickedness was like a thin steel foil against the heavy armour of cheerfulness that surrounded Bidak. They were two eternal enemies that according to the laws of nature could not counteract one another; they were like day and night, summer and winter, life and death.

Nevertheless Leo Bidak was afraid. He shuddered before the spectre. He did everything possible to annoy his aunt. Actually, he wanted to prove that she was not dead, that she yet lived. He now managed the laundry alone. But on Saturday evenings his aunt came to do the books. He kept her waiting until nine o’clock. Then he went out. At eleven o’clock he returned, and the accounting began. But sometimes Tante Sammet had, one knew not from where, a skeleton key. She figured without Bidak. She could calculate better, and she cheated him out of ridiculous amounts of money. As a rule Bidak came back too late. Then he sought revenge.

His aunt lived on the first floor in a small room. Bidak locked the door and tied a cat’s tail to the handle. The animal cried the whole night through. Nobody in the house could sleep. Only Leo Bidak slept, as he had drunk a great deal. His aunt rattled the door. She broke everything in sight. She shrieked. But Bidak did not hear her. He slept and smiled contentedly in his sleep. Under his pillow lay the key to the door. If his wife attempted to steal the key Bidak awoke; even in his sleep he could detect danger, like an animal.

He soon began to come home early only on Thursdays and Fridays to take stock of the clothing. Half was missing. Customers demanded compensation. Every morning Bidak had to go to court. He hired a number of lawyers. They cost more money than the missing laundry.

And yet Bidak was happy with his life.

I was his truest customer. I had no valuable laundry. It could also have been lost. But my collars and shirts were personally washed and ironed by Bidak. I was not only his truest, I was also the only customer with whom he dealt himself.

We were, one might say, friends. For friendship is a passion like love, it attacks people’s hearts and binds two together who march to a different beat, even though they march to a different beat. I must confess at this point that we drank together, went for walks and spoke of various things.

We spoke about sad things, and Leo Bidak understood their full sadness. Yet he smiled. Yes, he even submerged himself completely in the sorrows of the world, and still his mood was cheerful. He was like a sprightly river that rushed through the gloomy deep of a forest, shimmering and alive, yet dark green and dead. He bored himself a loud, joyous path through all terrors.

He not only drank; he also read books but with a preference for the historical. Of all the eras in world history he loved the French Revolution the most. He was a rebel.

If only he were a contemporary of the Revolution! He would have achieved historical glory. For he was not without talent, only without occasion. Nature had not created him to become a laundry owner. He was a noble bandit.

‘In the year ‘48’, he said, ‘the people of Vienna stood on the city plaza and cried, “Give us Latour!” And they were given Latour. They hung a noose from a streetlamp and strung him up. Why else are there streetlamps in the world? Ha-ha-ha!’