Joseph Roth - Flight Without End

Franz particularly remembered holiday mealtimes in the parental household, and sometimes talked about them. There he sat, to the left of his father, opposite his mother; George sat next to his mother, opposite cousin Klara who went to a high-school in Linz and was in love with George. One might well have imagined that, in the eyes of a young girl, a crippled musician would be less important than a healthy stout-hearted cadet. But this was not so. Girls, especially those who attend high-schools with their particular emphasis on gymnastics and excursions, are captivated more by those who limp than by those who ride horses, and more by the musical than by the martial. This situation changed only during the four years of the World War, when music, gymnastics and nature, together with their male and female devotees, were drawn into the service of the Fatherland. But at the period of the silent mealtimes in Tunda’s home the world was still far from war. Franz had reason enough to envy George.

It sometimes happened that they woke at the same time in the room they shared. Their eyes would meet, nothing would have been easier than for one to say ‘Good morning’ to the other. For so declared was their enmity that it had become almost remote, capable of being forgotten overnight — and, if not forgotten, by no means increased. But then one or other would remember — usually Franz, who would at once turn his back and go back to sleep until his brother had dressed and left the room.

After the war George married his cousin.

He married his cousin from lack of imagination, because it was convenient, because it was expected of him, out of good manners and friendly conciliation, and also for practical reasons — for she was the rich daughter of a rich landed proprietor. Only a man lacking in imagination could have married her, for she was one of those women who are labelled ‘good friends’, who give a man support rather than love. They can be turned to good use by anyone who happens to be a mountaineer or a cyclist or a circus acrobat or even a cripple in a wheelchair. But what a normal man is to make of them I have always failed to understand.

Klara — I find the very name revealing — was a good friend. Her hand resembled her name; it was so simple, so healthy, so trustworthy, so dependable, so honest, that it lacked only calluses; it was the hand of a gymnastics instructor. Whenever she had to greet a man, Klara feared that he might kiss her hand. So she developed the habit of giving a quite special handshake, a stout and resolute handshake which depressed a man’s entire forearm — the handshake in itself was a gymnastic exercise from which one emerged invigorated. In Germany and England, in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, in many Protestant countries, there are women who clasp a man’s hand in this fashion. It is a demonstration in favour of equal rights for the sexes and of hygiene, it is an important aspect of humanity’s battle against germs and gallantry.

Klara’s legs were matter-of-fact straight legs, legs for hiking, in no sense instruments of love — rather of sport, without calves. It seemed an indefensible luxury that they were sheathed in silk stockings. Somewhere she must have had knees — I always used to imagine that somewhere they must merge into thighs; it would hardly be possible for stockings to grow into panties just like that. But so it was, and Klara was no creature of love. True, she had something resembling a bosom, but it served only as a container for her practical goodness; whether it held a heart, who can tell?

My conscience is not very clear over this description of Klara. For it seems to me sinful to judge one of the most virtuous persons I have ever met principally on the grounds of her secondary sexual characteristics. It goes without saying that she was virtuous; what else could she be? She had a child, naturally by her own husband, the conductor — and although it is in no way a sin but, on the contrary, a virtue to have children by one’s own husband, Klara’s legitimate honourable pregnancy seemed like an escapade, and when she suckled the child it was like the eighth wonder, anomalous and sinful at the same time.

Moreover, the child — it was a girl — could ride a bicycle in her fourth year.

Klara had acquired and inherited her social sense from her father, the rich landed proprietor. Social sense is a luxury which the rich allow themselves and which has the further practical advantage of serving, to some extent, to maintain property. Her father loved to drink a little glass of wine with his head forester, to take a brandy with the forester, and to exchange a word with the assistant forester. Even social sense is able to make subtle distinctions. He would never allow any of his servants to pull on his boots, he used a bootjack out of common decency. His children had to wash in snow in the winter, travel the long road to school alone, climb up to their pitch-dark rooms at eight o’clock and make their own beds. Nowhere in the neighbourhood were domestic servants better treated. Klara had to iron her vests with her own hands. In short, the old man was a man of principle and fibre, a virtuous landowner, a living defence against socialism, respected far and wide and elected to the Reichstag, where he demonstrated as a member of a conservative party that reaction and humanity are not irreconcilable opposites.

He attended Klara’s wedding, behaved well to the conductor, and died some weeks later without ever having allowed his expression to betray that he would have preferred a landowner: humanity to the grave.

George was complaisant. There are some qualities which can only be designated by a foreign word. A complaisant man has a more difficult life than one might think; the difficulties he has to cope with can close in on him in such a way that behind his smile, he becomes a tragic figure. George, who only knew success, who was much in demand with the ladies, who directed not only the orchestra of the opera theatre but also part of the citizenry — George was unhappy. He was very much alone in the midst of a well-disposed world of personal and general goodwill. He would have preferred to live in a hostile or a neutral world. His affability did not oppress his conscience but his intellect, which was about as great as the intellect of disagreeable men with many enemies. Every lie he told choked him. He would rather have told the truth. And so, at the last moment, his tongue would upset the resolve of his brain and instead of the truth there would ring out — often to George’s own surprise — some polite, rounded remark of an enigmatic, pleasant, melodious nature. Such men are often to be found by the Danube and the Rhine, the two legendary German rivers; few of the rough Nibelungs remain.

George did not love his brother; he suspected him of being the only one to see through his lies. He was glad when no more was heard of Franz. Missing! What a word! What an excuse for being sad, pleasantly sad, a new, hitherto unpractised complaisance. All the same, George was the only one who could help Franz for the time being.

Therefore I informed Herr George Tunda that his brother had returned.

Klara was overjoyed. For now her goodness, for so long undeployed and lying fallow, found a new object. Franz received two invitations, one cordially sincere and one cordially formal. The second, naturally, originated from George. Franz, however, who had not seen his brother for fifteen years and therefore had little means of knowing — although George imagined that Franz would see through him directly — Franz, who had hated his brother solely on account of the music, Franz travelled to the Rhine, to the city where they had a good opera, and some of the better reputed poets.