Joseph Roth - Flight Without End

She did not finish the sentence. Possibly she had intended to say: ‘As if you were dead.’ But one does not say that to the face of the living.

Franz was astonished by these stories his brother had told.

In any case, the only thing to say to a woman who talks about such things is ‘Let’s sit down!’ So they sat down. The conductor’s house offered many facilities for sitting down; and it was a particular quality of these facilities that one no sooner sat down than one lay back, a usage which seemed to be linked with feminine fashions. The clothes that were worn called for recumbency or, at any rate, they called recumbency to mind. Moreover, a certain renunciation of European customs was evident.

So Tunda sat down with the lady behind the broad brown back of a Buddha, almost as in an arbour, behind wild vines. The lady’s smoothly shaved legs lay side by side like two similarly clad sisters, both in silk sheaths. Tunda laid a hand on one leg, but the lady seemed quite unaware of it. Whenever steps approached she endeavoured to draw away.

Ah, what will one not do for a missing person?

If Tunda had exploited to the full the possibilities afforded by his Siberian glamour and by the solid city of the religious setting, his fate might possibly have been postponed but in no way averted. Whether he turned them to advantage later I do not know.

After the guests had departed, the brothers remained alone in one of the rooms; alone, if one takes no account of pictures, gods and saints. Tunda was unaccustomed to these silent witnesses; and, for my part, I have no use for lackeys who stand behind my chair counting the hairs on my head. There would certainly have been lackeys in the conductor’s house, had it not been for Frau Klara’s social conscience. It was manifestly repugnant to her to degrade men so.

However, this was not the case with the gods.

Furthermore, there was in the room where they sat, installed by Frau Klara, one of those practical inventions which has been called the housewife’s delight.

It was a remarkable lamp, a soft standard lamp whose light emerged through numerous small apertures of equal circumference perforating its fragile transparent body. But the object of this lamp was not so much to illuminate as to devour the smoke which had collected in the room during the course of the evening. This lamp obviated the need for open windows, draughts, chills — and ultimately the doctor. Excellent inventions of this kind are made in Germany and America every year. The conductor, too, was making use of one; that is, he smoked nicotine-free cigarettes. And even their smoke was gobbled up by the magic lamp.

It was a hygienic home without parallel.

‘Good night!’ said Klara, after she had installed the lamp, coming over to give her husband a hearty kiss on the forehead. It was a sex-free kiss, devoid of eroticism. Franz received a similar one, but nevertheless found himself somewhat aroused. He pushed back his chair and endeavoured to stand up, but his sister-in-law pressed him down by his shoulders.

So now the two brothers were left alone and had to converse for the first time.

The conductor, who was well-known for his skill in glossing over difficult overtures, was the first to utter and sensibly chose a neutral topic:

‘How does our town strike you?’

Nothing is so contagious as polite sociability. Franz suppressed the most important and major part of his opinion and replied:

‘I had pictured it as gayer, more lively, more Rhenish in fact.’

It has a pleasant and peaceable population. The working class is not so radicalized here as elsewhere. The Lord Mayor is a member of the German People’s Party, the Burgomaster and his deputy are Social Democrats. The are even five members of the Social Democratic Party in my orchestra. The bass-player is very good, in fact.’

‘What’s so surprising about that?’ asked Franz. ‘Why should the Party prevent anyone from being a good bass-player?’

‘Certainly!’ said the conductor. ‘Political activity is unfavourable to art. Art is something sacred, something separate from daily life. Whoever serves it practises an almost priestly vocation. Can you conceive of anyone delivering a political speech and then conducting Parsifal?’

‘I can conceive,’ said Franz, ‘that under certain circumstances a political speech may be just as important as Parsifal. A good politician can be as important as a good musician. A priest he certainly is not. A concert-hall is no more a temple of art than a meeting-house is a temple of politics.’

‘You have lost your European outlook,’ said the conductor softly and soothingly, like a nerve specialist. ‘Unfortunately, similar views have already affected a large part of Germany. They emanate from Berlin. But here, on the Rhine, there are still a few old bastions of the established bourgeois culture. Our traditions extend from antiquity through the Middle Ages, the Humanistic period, the Renaissance, German Romanticism …’

‘Is this European culture?’ asked Franz, pointing to the Buddhas, the cushions, the deep wide sofas, the oriental carpets.

‘It seems to me that you’ve borrowed from other sources as well. Tonight, your guests danced some negro dances which are probably not to be found in Parsifal. I can’t understand how you can still speak of German culture. Where is it? In the way the women dress? The manufacturer you had here today, has he got European culture? As a matter of fact, I liked him better than the others because he despises all of you. This ancient culture of yours has developed a thousand holes. You plug the holes by borrowing from Asia, Africa, America. But, the holes go on growing. You retain the European uniform, the dinner-jacket and pale complexion, but you dwell in mosques and Indian temples. If I were you, I should wear a burnous.’

‘We make a few concessions,’ said the conductor, ‘nothing more. The world has grown smaller; Africa, Asia and America are nearer to us. Foreign customs have been adopted in all ages and become a part of culture.’

‘But where is the culture of which you would have them become a part? You have only the trappings of an ancient culture. Are the students with their ill-fitting coloured caps ancient German culture? Or your station, whose greatest miracle is that trains arrive there and depart again? Are you looking for culture in your wine-cellars, where they sing “A Rhenish Maiden” when they’re tight and dance the Charleston when they’re sober? Or do you find ancient culture in the cosy gabled roofs that house your workers — not artisans or goldsmiths or watch-makers, not master-singers but proletarians, who live in the pits and are at home in electric lifts but not among your unreadable Gothic script? That’s just a masquerade, not reality! You never get out of your fancy-dress! Today I saw a fireman in his glittering uniform pushing a pram. There was no fire anywhere, all was peaceful. Was it a children’s nurse who had dressed up as a fireman, or a fireman who wanted to play at being a children’s nurse? There were students wearing cloth caps and townsfolk wearing students’ paper caps. Was it the students or the townsfolk who were in disguise? Then I saw a few young people in velvet caps, with sailors’ trousers; I asked a waiter, who informed me that this was an old form of carpenters’ dress. Is that correct? Do they make coffins and cradles with velvet caps on their heads? Do people still roam the high-roads with bundles when there are hardly any high-roads left, only motor-cars and aeroplanes?’

‘You’ve seen a lot in one day,’ said the complaisant conductor. ‘I never walk in the streets.’

‘Why not? Doesn’t it interest you? Because you’re a high priest of art, doesn’t it suit you to mingle with the people? Are you satisfied among your fonts and pictures and among your ancient culture? Do you learn everything from the newspapers?’