Joseph Roth - The Emperor's Tomb

They fell silent. Never in my life had I heard such silence. It was as though I had spoiled their foolish fun in the war; I was a spoilsport; I had rained on their jolly war.

I distinctly felt I had to go. I rose, and shook hands with everyone. I can still feel the cold, disappointed hands of my Twenty-First. It pained me deeply. But I preferred to die with Joseph Branco, with Joseph Branco my cousin, the chestnut-roaster, and with Manes Reisiger, the cabbie in Zlotogrod, than with these Viennese waltzers.

So I lost my first home, which was with the Twenty-First, in our beloved “water-meadows” in the Prater.

Now I had to call on Chojnicki’s friend, Lieutenant Colonel Stellmacher in the War Ministry. My transfer to the Thirty-Fifth Yeomanry mustn’t take any longer than the preparations for my wedding. It suited me to have the two bewildering processes going on in parallel. Perhaps each could put pressure on the other, accelerate it. But both left me stunned, prevented me from finding reasons to justify my haste. At that time all I could think of to say was that “time was of the essence.” I didn’t really want to know why I was in such a hurry. But deep in me, like a sleeper’s sense of rain, there was the consciousness that my friends, Joseph Branco and Reisiger, were moving westward along the muddy roads of East Galicia, pursued by Cossacks. Who knows, perhaps they were already wounded or dead? All right, then the most I could do would be to honour their memory by serving in their regiment. How young I was and how little idea we had of war! How easily I fell for the notion that it was my job to tell the good fellows of the Thirty-Fifth part true and part invented stories about their fallen comrades Trotta and Reisiger, so that their names might be remembered. Poor loyal peasants served in the Thirty-Fifth, sergeant-majors with army German grafted over their Slavic mother-tongues like badges sewn on a lapel, or golden yellow seams on tiny dark green fields; and the officers were not the pampered children of our lackadaisical Viennese society, but the sons of craftsmen, postmen, policemen, tenant-farmers and tobacco dealers. To be taken up by them meant as much to me as it would for the likes of them to be transferred to Chojnicki’s Ninth Dragoons. It was one of those ideas that people like to dismiss as “romantic.” Well, far from feeling embarrassed about such a thing, I would today insist that this “romantic” turn in my life brought me closer to reality than any of the rare occasions when I forced myself to adopt “realistic” views: how foolish all these dated terms are anyway! And if you insist on them, well, it has always been my experience that the so-called realist stands there rather defensively in the world like a high protective wall of cement, while the so-called romantic is like an open garden, in which truth wanders in and out at will. .

So I paid my call on Lieutenant Colonel Stellmacher. In the old Monarchy a transfer from the army to the Yeomanry, or even from the Jägers to the infantry was a bureaucratic procedure just as complicated and certainly more arcane than filling the command of a division. Even so, in that bygone world of mine, of the old Monarchy, there existed certain delicate, exquisite, unwritten, unknown, ungraspable laws familiar only to insiders that were more inviolable and lasting than the written ones that proclaimed that of every hundred petitions, just seven would be answered swiftly, easily and silently in the affirmative. I know that the barbarians of absolute justice are still up in arms about this today. They scold us for aristocrats and aesthetes, even now; and all the time I can see how they, the egalitarians and anti-aesthetes, have prepared the way for their brothers, the barbarians of a stupid and plebeian in justice. Absolute justice is a sowing of dragon’s teeth.

But just then I had no inclination or leisure to reflect. I went straight to Stellmacher, down the corridor stuffed with patiently waiting Captains, Majors and Colonels, straight through the door that had “Private. No Entry” on it — me, a wretched little Jäger Ensign. “Servus!” Sitting hunched over his papers, Stellmacher greeted me, before raising his eyes to see who it was. He knew how familiarly one had to greet people who enter through prohibited doors. I took in his bristly grey hair, the yellowish forehead with its thousand creases, the tiny, deeply buried lidless eyes, the thin bony cheeks and the great drooping, dyed, almost Saracen moustache in which was vested the entire vanity of the man, so that it didn’t disturb him otherwise (either in private life or at work). The last time I had seen him was in the Konditorei Demel at five in the afternoon, with Court Councillor Sorgsam from the Ballhausplatz. We hadn’t the least intimation of war, and May, the urbane May of Vienna, swam in the little silver-rimmed coffee cups, floated over the place settings, the narrow, stuffed chocolate eclairs, the pink and green pastries that suggested edible jewels, and Count Councillor Sorgsam gave it as his opinion, smack into the middle of May: “I tell you, gentlemen, there won’t be any war!” And now a harassed looking Stellmacher was looking up from his papers; he didn’t see my face to begin with, just uniform, sword knot, sabre, enough to repeat his opening “Servus!” and thereupon, “Have a seat, I’ll be with you in a moment!” Finally he looked at me closely: “You’re smart!” and “I almost didn’t recognize you! The uniform’s made a man of you!” But it wasn’t the usual, low sonorous voice of Stellmacher’s I’d known for years — even his little joke seemed forced. Never before had a flip word emerged from Stellmacher’s mouth. It would have been caught in the glossy hedge of the dyed moustaches, and there silently perished.

Quickly I told him what I’d come for. I also tried to explain why I wanted to join the Thirty-Fifth in particular. “I only hope you can still find them!” said Stellmacher. “The news isn’t good! Two regiments cut to ribbons, in full retreat. Our idiots of generals had us in such a beautiful state of readiness. But very well. Go, and see if you can find your Thirty-Fifth! Pick up a couple of stars. You’ll be transferred as a lieutenant. Servus! Dismiss!” He extended his hand to me across his desk. His light, almost lidless eyes — of which one refused to believe they were ever victim to sleep, drowsiness or even fatigue — fixed me, distantly, strangely, from a glassy distance — by no means sad, no, sadder than sad, in other words hopelessly. He attempted a smile. His big false teeth shimmered in two white rows under the Saracen moustache. “Send me a postcard!” he said, and bent over his papers again.

The priests in those days worked as quickly as the bakers, gunsmiths, railway company directors, cap-makers and military outfitters. We were to get married in the church in Döbling; the man who had christened my bride was still alive, and my father-in-law, like most army contractors, was a sentimental johnnie. My bridal present was strictly speaking my mother’s. It hadn’t occurred to me that presents for the bride were called for. When I arrived for lunch — I’d also forgotten about there being dumplings — my mother was already sitting at table. As ever, I kissed her hand, and she kissed my forehead. I told the man to pick up my dark green cuffs and stars at Urban’s in the Tuchlauben. “Are you being transferred?” asked my mother. “Yes, Mama, to the Thirty-Fifth!” “Where are they stationed?” “In Galicia.” — “Are you going tomorrow?” “The day after!” “The wedding is tomorrow?” “That’s right, Mama!”

In our house the custom at mealtimes was to praise the food, even if it was badly cooked, and not to talk about anything else. Nor should the praise be perfunctory or banal, a certain extravagance was de rigueur . So I would say for instance that the meat reminded me of an occasion some six or eight years ago, also a Tuesday, and the cabbage with dill, today as then, was a match made in heaven for the boiled beef. When faced with the plum dumplings I was affected by utter speechlessness. “Please, more of the same, just like these, the moment I’m back!” I said to Jacques. “As you say, sir!” replied the old fellow. My mother rose, even before coffee, which was most unusual. She took out of her armoire two dark red morocco leather boxes which I had often had occasion to see and admire and puzzle over, but never dared to ask her about. I had always been curious, but at the same time delighted that there were two sealed mysteries in my proximity.