Joseph Roth - Flight Without End

More honest, but more ignorant, too, was the lady with the connections. Apart from a friendly face and a statuesque figure, she possessed only as much intellect as was required for a newspaper article or a discussion with a German Minister.

At solemn moments they all spoke of a community of European culture. Once Tunda asked:

‘Do you think you could manage to tell me precisely what constitutes this culture which you claim to defend, even though it is in no way threatened from outside?’

‘Religion!’ said the President, who never went to church.

‘Morality,’ said the lady, whose irregular associations were common knowledge.

‘Art,’ said the diplomat, who had never looked at a picture since his schooldays.

‘The European idea,’ said someone by the name of Rappaport — diplomatically, because he was in every way a gentleman.

The aristocrat, however, contented himself with the remark: ‘Just read my magazine!’

‘You want,’ said Tunda, ‘to uphold a European community, but you must first establish it. For this community does not exist, otherwise it would already know how to maintain itself. All in all, it seems to me very doubtful whether anyone can establish anything at all. And who would attack this culture anyway, even if it did exist? Official Bolshevism, perhaps? Even though Russia wants it, too?’

‘But may want to destroy it here — especially here — in order to be the sole possessor,’ exclaimed M. Rappaport.

‘Before that happens, it will probably have succumbed to another war.’

‘That is exactly what we are seeking to prevent,’ several persons said simultaneously.

‘And wasn’t that what you wanted in 1914, too? But when war broke out, you went to Switzerland and published journals, while here they were shooting conscientious objectors. You certainly have the means to buy a ticket to Zurich at the right moment, and the right contacts to obtain a valid passport. But do the people? A workman, even in peacetime, must wait three days for a visa. It’s only the call-up papers that arrive on time.’

‘You are a pessimist,’ said the benevolent President.

At that moment a gentleman, already known to Tunda, entered the room. It was M. de V., who had just returned from an American tour. He was still a secretary, though no longer with the lawyer but with an eminent politician.

He had never expected, he said, that Tunda would really ever come to Paris. And what a happy chance that brought them together at his old and dear friend’s — as he felt he could well call the President!

Then the secretary began to talk about America.

He was a ‘born raconteur’. He took as his starting point some vivid and exaggerated situation, and proceeded from personal experiences to conditions in general. He raised and lowered his voice, he related the essentials very softly so that he might drown non-essentials with a loud voice. He gave detailed descriptions of the traffic in the streets and the efficient hotels. He ridiculed the Americans. He described stage productions with malice. He made intimate innuendoes about the women. Each time he tugged at the trouser creases at his knees; from a distance it looked like a young girl shyly pulling at her apron. The secretary was unquestionably a sympathetic person. But the effect of his sudden return from America was that the benevolent old President no longer invited Tunda so frequently, and no longer addressed him as ‘Dear Sir’ but as ‘Sir’.

At Madame G.’s Tunda was able to meet the intimate friend of a great poet, together with other individuals.

The ladies sat with their hats on; an older lady did not remove her gloves. She accepted a small pastry with her leather fingers, inserted it between carmined lips, chewed it with porcelain teeth; whether her palate was real remained dubious. But it was not she, but the friend of the great poet, who attracted attention.

The poet’s friend, a Hungarian, had acclimatized himself in Paris as he once had in Budapest. The Hungarian accent with which he sang in French would have offended the sensitive ears of the French, had he not portrayed in these melodies episodes from the life of his great literary friend. Also, the Hungarian was a cultural peddler and polyglot from birth. He could even make his living at it; for he translated Molnar, Anatole France, Proust and Wells — each into the language required for the occasion, and fashionable comedies into all languages alike. He was known in the press gallery of the League of Nations at Geneva, as well as in the offices of the Berlin Revuetheater , theatrical agents and the editorial staffs of all the literary supplements of the great continental newspapers.

He spoke like a flute. It was wonderful how his delicate throat was able to further the interests of his Hungarian friends at the League for Human Rights. He did, in fact, accomplish a lot of good, not from any innate helpfulness but because he was compelled by his connections to be obliging.

It happened that he and Tunda left Madame G.’s house at the same time. He was one of those Middle European men who take the person they are conversing with by the arm and stand still or stop talking at every street-corner. They fall silent if the other withdraws his arm, just as an electric light goes out if the plug is pulled out of the wall.

‘Do you know M. de V.?’ he asked.

‘Not very well,’ replied Tunda.

‘What a capable man! Imagine, he has just got back from America. A trip round the world is nothing to him. He’s seen half the world already anyway. And it doesn’t cost him a penny. He’s always employed by some rich or at least influential man. As a secretary or —’

He waited a long minute, then said: ‘It’s all over with Madame G.’

He released Tunda’s arm and stood facing him as if expecting something extraordinary.

Instead Tunda said nothing.

‘But I dare say you knew that?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Then you’re not interested in the gentleman?’

‘Not especially.’

‘Then let’s go and have some coffee.’

And they went to have some coffee.

About this time Tunda’s money began to run out.

He wrote to his brother. George replied that unfortunately he was unable to help with ready cash. Of course, his house was always open.

The boldness of the beautiful hotelière , which had so impressed Tunda, turned into derision. For beautiful, young bold hotel manageresses do not spend their lives behind gloomy, cheap, floral curtains for nothing. They expect some payment in return.

They regard the poverty of a tenant as malicious cunning, aimed at them personally by the tenant.

The conception the lower middle class has of poverty is that the poor man diligently courts it in order to inflict injury on his neighbour.

But it is precisely the lower middle class on whom the man who has nothing depends. High up behind the clouds lives God, whose infinite bounty has become proverbial. A little lower live those pampered individuals who are comfortably off, and who are so immune to any contagion from poverty that they develop those powerful virtues: sympathy for the needy, compassion, benevolence, and even freedom from prejudice. But squeezed between these noble folk and the others who need generosity most urgently, acting as insulators as it were, are the middle classes who trade in bread and provide food and lodging. The entire ‘social problem’ would be solved if only the rich, who are in a position to give away a loaf, were also the world’s bakers. There would be far less injustice if the jurists of the highest tribunals were to sit in the small criminal courts, and if police commissioners had personally to arrest petty thieves.