Joseph Roth - The Silent Prophet

‘A week ago I took the place of the correspondent of a Danish radical newspaper. My duties are to take an interest in society, politics, the theatre; and I believe that I do my work well. “You have,” says R., who secured me this job as a correspondent, “the first quality of a journalist: you are curious.”

‘The deserters who live here are not to be distinguished from the pacifists. None of those fortunate enough to have crossed the frontier admits that he fled from a private love for life. As if love for life needed any excuse! It is an attribute of the middle classes to conceal the simple necessities of nature behind complicated ideals. The men of past times might lose their life in a stupid duel. But they died for their personal honour and did not deny for a moment that life was dear to them. The men of today, at least most of the men now to be found in neutral countries, allege that they are the victims of their convictions.

‘I am interested above all in those who have come to Switzerland with the permission of their own countries. In fact, one can learn most from them. They come here to spy on the pacifists of their own countries and to make official propaganda for their ideals. There are two living in our boarding-house, a German and a Frenchman. The German’s name, ostensibly, is Dr Schleicher, the Frenchman’s Bernardin. That they sit at my table for breakfast is due to the naïvety of our landlady. The landlady believes that the two have something in common because of their pacifist ideas, and find pleasure in eating at the same table, two poor victims of their fatherlands. Instead of which, each is the paid spy of his country. Dr Schleicher is a decent, easygoing man. He gets up late, goes to the toilet in slippers and dressing-gown, and stays there a very long time. He wears glasses, which make his eyes friendly, his broad face even broader, and which lie like a second gold-rimmed glassy smile over the permanent natural smile of his cheeks. Whenever I go by his door I hear a machine clattering. He is a naïve spy, who believes one to be convinced that he is not writing reports for his superiors, but typing love-letters. Bernardin is a man in his forties. He has the solemn sombre elegance of a provincial Frenchman who looks every day as if he were going to a funeral; only the cheerful expression with which he awaits his meals softens his solemnity. His shoes are always shiny and often covered by dark-grey spats, his trousers are always creased, his jacket looks as if it had just come from the tailor, his high stiff collar is always white and glossy. He continually strokes his small black moustache, which emphasizes the brownish-red of his cheeks, with two thoughtful fingers. He wears small bow-ties, as if in a conscious demonstration against the heavy silk knitted neckties of Dr Schleicher. Neither says a word to the other. They acknowledge each other smilingly and silently when they sit down and when they get up. They know about each other. Only the Frenchman writes his reports by hand, and it is quiet when one passes his door.

‘Yesterday the German and the Frenchman conversed for the first time. They very nearly did not come to eat at all. They remained together for a long time after everyone was ready, they drank coffee and smoked. I was curious as usual. I know Dr Schleicher from the café, we have a mutual acquaintance, Dr Gold. This Dr Gold has not yet decided which side to take among the warring countries. He has lived a long time in Germany and in France and, from fear that one of the two countries might possibly win and that he might learn of it too late, he remains neutral. He sometimes sits at Dr Schleicher’s table, sometimes at Bernardin’s. He is on good terms with both. He reports on the one to the other. From fear that one day both might turn on him, he has been trying for months to bring them together. Yesterday he finally succeeded. He told me the course of events as follows: “Unfortunately, it occurred to me yesterday,” said Dr Gold, “to say to Dr Schleicher that Bernardin had been wanting for a long time to make his acquaintance. And then I discovered that they sit together at table every day. I was in despair. If I were not as adept as I am, I should have blamed myself. But with my innate aplomb, I replied coolly: ‘Then he cannot know with whom he has the honour of sitting at table.’ And Dr Schleicher believed it. Only he happens to find Bernardin extremely uncongenial, and not only on grounds of nationality. And now I made my second mistake. ‘He is, after all, a man of the law,’ I said to Schleicher, ‘a pleasant man in civilian life. But the war goes to the heads of these people.’ ‘What? A lawyer?’ asks Schleicher. ‘But I too am a lawyer.’ At that moment in came Bernardin and Schleicher was the first to greet him, all smiles. At last I’ve brought them together. And what do you know! In half an hour the two were as thick as thieves. They talked only of pupils and teachers!”

‘So much for Dr Gold. He soon left me, as busy as ever. He talks breathlessly, almost panting, and always on the go. What’s more, he whispers. And he takes care that everyone around sees how diligent he is in retailing secrets. He is continually being greeted and continually responding. He knows all the pacifists. He is a regular contributor to European Peace . Berzejev calls him the “freemason” in the jaunty manner in which he confuses freemasons with pacifists. The great extent of his stupidity is astonishing, combined as it is with a knowledge of literature, languages and countries, insignificant people and so-called personalities. He is credulous and takes every piece of information seriously, and considers everything he is told important. Obviously, he must be credulous to be able to tell another person anything with conviction.

‘What is extraordinary and incomprehensible is the readiness of everyone to listen to him. But that seems to be a feature of most gregarious natures; they accept information from people as if from newspapers, as if the sound of a voice, the expression of a face and the character of the narrator were not much more important than what they have to say, as if his look might never have given the lie to his lips.

‘Dr Schleicher and Bernardin are now always seen together. They evidently do not suspect that, in such proximity, they constitute a striking phenomenon, even for wartime Zürich. Beside Bernardin’s ceremonial black, which gives him a resemblance to the manager of a large department store, Dr Schleicher’s blond brightness suggests a sunny carefree holiday. The gold frame of his spectacles, the glittering glass, the sand-coloured overcoat, his tan shoes, his light-brown trousers, his brown bowler-hat and his pale face diffuse a lustre visible at a distance, and when he walks towards one he is like a stray piece of the sun, whereas the dark Bernardin at his side appears like a sort of long and narrow ray of darkness. They have gradually become the object of joking remarks even among the pacifists, whose surveillance has brought them here. But both the German and the Frenchman seem to feel the common nature of their calling more strongly than their difference of nationality. I have heard that the German teaches French and the Frenchman German. The governments of the belligerent states seem to regard a knowledge of the enemy’s language as an adequate qualification for espionage and diplomacy. R. tells me that there is a shortage of spies, as there is of guns and bread and sugar, and that the employment of a legal official in secret diplomacy and in the press corps roughly corresponds to the employment of a Home Guard unit at the front.

‘Every day one sees new faces. Again and again new refugees. The longer the war lasts, the stronger becomes the army of convinced or chance pacifists. Switzerland could deploy an immense foreign legion to defend its neutrality.