Joseph Roth - The Emperor's Tomb

And what help did he want, Manes Reisiger from Zlotogrod?

Nothing more and nothing less than a free place at the conservatory for his gifted son, Ephraim. He was not to become a coachman like his father, and not to go to seed in the Eastern marches of the monarchy. According to his father, Ephraim was a prodigy.

I promised. I set off to visit my friend, Count Chojnicki, first because he was the only Galician among my friends, and second because he was the only one who was capable of breaking the ancient, traditional, invariable and insidiously effective resistance of Austrian officialdom: by threats, by force, by subtlety and deception, the weapons of an old culture: the weapons of our world.

That evening, I saw Count Chojnicki in our café, which was the Café Wimmerl.

I knew that one could hardly please him more than by turning to him for a favour for one of his countrymen. Chojnicki had neither job nor occupation. He, who could have made a so-called brilliant career in the army, in the government, in the diplomatic service, and who had disdained such a thing for contempt of the fools, the imbeciles, the eejits who ran the state, took a keen delight in making Court Councillors aware of his power, which was a real power, conferred upon him by standing outside all hierarchies. And he, who was so kindly and so gracious to waiters, coachmen, constables and postmen, who never forgot to doff his hat when asking a policeman or porter for directions, was barely recognizable when he undertook one of his protection errands to the Ballhausplatz, the Statthalterei or the Ministry of Culture and Education: an icy loftiness lay over his features like a transparent visor. If he had shown himself to be agreeable, even affable, to the liveried doorman at the gate, then his aversion to officialdom seemed to grow with every step he climbed, until by the time he had reached the top floor, he looked every inch a man who had come to hold some fearsome inquest. In the ministries he was a well-known figure. And when, in his dangerously quiet voice, he told the aide in the corridor: Announce me to the Court Councillor! it rarely happened that he was asked for his name, and if he was, then he merely said again, if anything more quietly still: Kindly announce me right away! Perhaps the word “kindly” was spoken a little louder.

Moreover, he adored music, and for that reason too it seemed appropriate to try and enlist his support for young Reisiger. With typical impulsiveness, he promised to go the very next day. His alacrity was such that I felt a little conscience-stricken, and asked him if he didn’t require some proof of young Reisiger’s talent before going to do battle on his behalf. That merely irritated him. “You may know your Slovenes,” he said, “but I know my Galician Jews. The father’s name is Manes, you tell me, and he’s a coachman. The son’s name is Ephraim, and that’s all I need to know. I am utterly convinced of the gifts of the young man. I trust my instincts. My Galician Jews can do anything. Only ten years ago I didn’t much care for them. Now I love them dearly because all those eejits are anti-Semites now. I need only inquire who is serving in the relevant department, and who among them is the most outspoken anti-Semite. Then I will flaunt my little Ephraim at him, and I will go in the company of his father as well. I hope he looks thoroughly Jewish.”

“He wears a kaftan,” I began. “Perfect,” exclaimed Count Chojnicki, “then he’s my man. You know, I’m no patriot, but I love my countrymen. A country, a fatherland, there’s something abstract about that. But a countryman is something concrete. I can’t possibly love every wheat and maize field, every pine forest, every swamp, every Polish lady and gentleman, but show me one field, one copse, one swamp, one individual, well, à la bonheur ! That’s something I can see and understand, that speaks to me in a language I am familiar with, that — because of its singularity — can be dear to me. And beyond that, there are persons I term my countrymen, even if they happen to have been born in China or Persia or Africa. Some are dear to me from the moment I first clap eyes on them. A true ‘countryman’ is immediately identifiable. And if he happens to be someone from my own patch as well, then, as I say, à la bonheur ! But there’s an element of chance there, the other is simple providence.” He raised his glass, and called out: “Here’s to my countrymen, wherever they happen to hail from!”

Two days later, I brought along the coachman Manes Reisiger to see him in the Hotel Kremser. Manes perched on the edge of his chair, not moving, a dark colossus. He appeared not to have sat down himself, but to have been placed there rather approximately by some agency, and as though he wouldn’t allow himself to occupy the whole of a chair. Aside from a couple of sentences he repeated at intervals for no very good reason — namely, “Please, gentlemen!” and “Thank you, kind sirs!” — he said nothing, nor did he seem to follow the proceedings very closely. It was Chojnicki who was giving the coachman Manes from Zlotogrod a lecture on all things Zlotogrod; for Chojnicki was very well acquainted with all parts of Galicia.

“Well then, tomorrow at eleven, we’ll go and sort out your affair,” he said.

“Thank you, kind sirs!” said Manes. In one hand he waved his peaked corduroy cap, and with the other he doffed his kippah. He bowed once more at the door that the porter held open for him, and to whom he shot a grateful and happy smile.

A couple of weeks later, young Ephraim Reisiger had his place in the conservatory. The boy came to Chojnicki to thank him. I happened to be present in Chojnicki’s hotel. Young Ephraim Reisiger almost scowled, and all the while he was expressing his gratitude, he looked more like a youth who is bringing a complaint. He spoke Polish, of which, thanks to my Slovene, I understood roughly every third word. But the mien of Count Chojnicki gave me to understand that the surly and basically ungrateful attitude of the boy pleased him.

“Isn’t that something!” he said, once the boy had left. “Our people don’t say thank you — more the opposite. They are proud people, the Galician Jews — my Galician Jews! They live in the belief that distinctions are theirs as of right. They respond to grace and favour with the same wonderful equanimity with which they receive abuse and stones. All other people wax indignant when they are abused, and bow and scrape when they receive a favour. My Polish Jews are equally immune to abuse and to kindness. In their own way, they are aristocrats. For the mark of an aristocrat above all is equanimity; and never have I seen greater equanimity than in my Polish Jews!”

My Polish Jews, he said, in the same tone as he had so often spoken to me of “my estates,” “my Impressionists,” “my musical instrument collection.” I had a distinct sense that part of the reason he so admired the Jews was that he saw them as his property. It was as though they hadn’t seen the light of the world in Galicia because of God’s will, but because he personally had ordered them from the Almighty, just as he ordered Persian carpets from the noted seller Pollitzer, and parrots from the Italian birdseller Scapini, and rare old musical instruments from the violin maker Grossauer. And with the same attention to detail, the same circumspect nobility with which he treated his carpets and birds and instruments, so he encountered his Jews, so that he took it for his self-evident duty to write the good coachman Manes, the father of that arrogant boy, a letter congratulating him on Ephraim’s acceptance in the conservatory. Chojnicki was afraid the coachman Manes might thank him first.

But the coachman Manes Reisiger, far from writing a letter of thanks, and wholly unable to see the smile of fortune that had brought him and his son into the proximity of Count Chojnicki and myself, rather assuming that his son Ephraim was so inordinately talented that a Viennese conservatory must count itself lucky to have someone like his son, visited me two days later, and began as follows: “If anyone can do anything in this world, then it is my son Ephraim. I always said so to him. And so it came to pass. He is my only son. His violin playing is extraordinary. You should ask him to play for you one day. But he is proud. Who knows if he will!” It was as though it was for me to thank the coachman Manes for giving me the opportunity to procure his son a place in the conservatory. “I have no more business in Vienna,” so he continued, “I am going home tomorrow.”