Joseph Roth - The Emperor's Tomb

Herr von Stettenheim called regularly on my mother, rarely announcing himself in advance. My mother received him warmly, sometimes even rapturously. With grief and astonishment I watched as the old, stern and pampered lady indulged his coarse witticisms, his tawdry expressions, his catchpenny gestures, and approved, praised and relished them. Herr von Stettenheim was in the habit of bringing his left wrist up to his eye to look at his watch, with a terrifying abrupt movement of his elbow. Each time he did it, I imagined him poking a neighbour in the eye. His way of extending the pinkie of his right hand when he picked up his coffee cup — that finger on which he wore his great lunk of a seal ring, with a seal that resembled some sort of insect — reminded me of a governess. He spoke in that guttural Prussian that sounds as though it’s coming out of a chimney instead of someone’s throat, and seems to hollow out even the occasional words of importance that he said.

And that was the man my dear old Mama had fallen for. “Charming!” she called him.

He gradually made an impression on me too, though to begin with I failed to notice. I needed him; if only for my mother’s sake I needed him. He represented a connection between our house and Elisabeth. In the long run, I couldn’t stand between two women, or even three if one included Professor Szatmary. Ever since Herr von Stettenheim had so surprisingly found favour with my mother, Elisabeth sometimes came to our house. My mother had merely intimated that she didn’t want to see Jolanth. Who, incidentally, was slowly distancing herself from Elisabeth. That too was partly to the credit of Herr von Stettenheim, and was another reason for me to be impressed with him. I got used to his unexpected manners (I found them less alarming, over time), his speech which was always two or three shades noisier than the room required. It was as though he didn’t understand that rooms came in different shapes and sizes, a sitting room and a station hall, for instance. In my mother’s drawing room, he spoke with that rather too hasty voice that simple people fall into on the telephone. On the street he frankly shouted. And since everything he said was invariably vapid, it sounded twice as loud. For a long time I was surprised that my mother, who could be caused physical pain by a loud voice, a needless sound, any display of street music or parades, was able to tolerate and even take enjoyment in the voice of Herr von Stettenheim. It was only a couple of months later that by chance I was able to find out why this was.

One evening, I returned home unexpectedly. I wanted to say hello to my mother, and let her know I was back. The maid said she was in the library. The door of our library, which opened off the drawing room, was ajar so that I didn’t have to knock. Evidently the old lady didn’t hear my initial greeting. I supposed at first she had fallen asleep over her book. She was sitting facing the window, with her back to me. I came nearer, she wasn’t asleep, she was reading and even turned a page just as I approached. “Good evening, Mama!” I said. She didn’t look up. I touched her. She jumped. “Where have you sprung from?” she asked. “Just passing by, Mama. I wanted to get Stiasny’s address.” “I haven’t heard from him for a long time, I think he must have died.” Dr Stiasny was a police surgeon, the same age as me; my mother must have misunderstood. “I mean that Stiasny,” I said. “Yes, of course. I think he’s been dead for two years now. He was over eighty.” “Dead. I see,” I repeated, and I was forced to realise that my mother was deaf. It was only thanks to her discipline, that unusual discipline that we, her juniors, had been excused from birth, that she achieved the extraordinary strength to suppress her infirmity during those hours when she was expecting me back, me and others. During her long hours of waiting, she was readying herself to hear. She must certainly know that age had struck her one of the blows it likes to deal out. Soon — so I thought — she will be quite deaf, like the piano without strings! Yes, perhaps even that occasion, when in a fit of confusion she had asked for the strings to be taken out, even that had been a sense of her approaching deafness alive in her, and a vague fear that before long she wouldn’t be able to hear notes any more! Of all the blows that old age has to give, this for my mother, a true child of music, must have been the worst. At that instant she attained for me an almost preternatural grandeur, moved into a different century, the epoch of a long-gone heroical nobility. Because to conceal and to deny frailty can only be heroic.

And so it was that she came to appreciate Herr von Stettenheim. Obviously she found it easy to understand him, and so she was grateful to him. His banalities didn’t exhaust her. I said goodbye; I wanted to go to my room to find Stiasny’s address. “Can I come at eight, Mama?” I called out, raising my voice a little. It was a little too much. “No need to shout!” she said. “Do come. We’re having cherry dumplings, even though the flour is maize.”

I tried desperately to dismiss the thought of a boarding house. My mother running a B&B! What a truly absurd idea! Her deafness added to her dignity. Now perhaps she couldn’t even hear the knocking of her own stick or her own footfall. I understood what made her so kind to our blond, heavy-set, rather slow-witted maid, who was apt to crash about, a good dull child from the suburbs. My mother and house-guests! Our house with innumerable bells, dinning into my ears already, the more my mother was unable to hear their impertinence. I had (so to speak) to hear for both of us, and feel offence for both of us too. But what other solution was there? Dr Kiniower was right. The arts and crafts swallowed one mortgage after another.

My mother didn’t pay any attention to it. So I was left, as they say, with the responsibility. I and — responsible! Not that I was a coward, you understand. No, I was just not up to it. I wasn’t afraid of death, but such things as offices, notaries and bureaucracy alarmed me. I couldn’t count, it was all I could do to add. Multiplication made my head reel. So — yes. Me and responsibility!

In the meantime, Herr von Stettenheim was living his happy-go-lucky life, a ponderous bird. He always had money, he never had to borrow; on the contrary he treated all my friends. Of course we disliked him just the same. We suddenly fell silent when he wandered into the café. Moreover, he was in the habit of turning up with a different woman every week. He picked them up all over the place: dancers, checkout girls, seamstresses, milliners, cooks. He went on jaunts, he bought suits, he played tennis, he rode out in the Prater. One night I ran into him in our gateway on my way home. He seemed to be in a hurry, the car was waiting for him. “I have to go!” he said, and threw himself into the car.

Elisabeth was sitting with my mother. She must have come with Herr von Stettenheim. I sensed something different in our rooms, like an unusual, strange smell. Something unexpected must have taken place while I was gone. The two women were talking together when I walked in, but it was a sort of forced conversation, and I could tell its only purpose was to mislead me.

“I ran into Herr von Stettenheim in our gateway just now,” I began. “Yes,” said Elisabeth, “he gave me a lift. He was just here for ten minutes.” “He’s worried, poor fellow!” said my mother. “Does he need money?” I asked. “That’s just it!” replied Elisabeth. “There was a scene in the workshop today! Not to beat about the bush: Jolanth asked for money. We had to give her some. It’s the first time she’s asked for money. She’s getting a divorce, you see. Stettenheim needs money urgently. My father has some bills due in the next few days, he says. I came here with Stettenheim.” “Did my mother give him money?” “Yes!” “Cash?” “A cheque!” “What amount?” “Ten thousand!”