H. Adler - Panorama

But only Robert gets cocoa with an egg and three lumps of sugar mixed in. The father drinks two cups of coffee, but in reality it’s just a couple of drops, most of it is milk, no one else liking it that way, though the mother makes it for the father. The mother just drinks a cup of tea without milk or anything else, she doesn’t want to get fat. Madame drinks coffee, but just the opposite of the father, meaning lots of coffee and hardly any milk, though she does take four lumps of sugar, but she drinks only one cup. Lutz drinks cocoa or coffee, he preferring that much more, for it forms no skin on the top as cocoa does, which disgusts him, though the mother says that the skin is the healthiest part, it’s the fat from the milk, but he always fishes out the skin, liking best to do it with two fingers when the mother isn’t looking, though sometimes she keeps an eye on him, and then he uses a spoon, some part of the skin remaining in the cocoa and swimming horribly around on its surface. Irwin, meanwhile, prefers tea, for he likes to drink it all down like the mother, she making sure that he takes some milk with it and enough sugar, which is two lumps, but instead of milk he asks for lemon, which the mother allows because at least there are some vitamins in tea, which is important and healthy.

When everyone has gathered and settled on a breakfast drink, the father having put away the paper and everyone ready to begin, quite often Irwin has still not arrived, which means Anton or sometimes Lutz has to go see if he’s still in bed or in the toilet, for though Lutz calls out Irwin! Irwin! most of the time he is still in bed, which can often lead to a huge fight, since Irwin doesn’t like taking orders from Lutz, telling him, “To hell with you and shut your trap!” Lutz then cannot return to breakfast, Irwin won’t allow it, he doesn’t want Lutz to tell on him, as that would be a violation of brotherly love, and if he does Irwin will thrash him and not play Ping-Pong with him for a week, so all Lutz can do is wait and keep pestering his brother as to whether or not he’s going to get up. Eventually the moment comes when the mother shows up with Madame, who has to be there in order for Irwin to finally stir, though at first the women yell in both German and French that he should get out of bed, to which Irwin answers that he won’t get up in front of Madame, he never rises in a room with women in it except for his mother, so Madame must leave, as he slowly begins to lift himself, testing his mother’s patience, though she nonetheless waits until he’s in the bath, Anton keeping watch at the door to make sure that he doesn’t disappear again, and when he finally appears at the breakfast table the father is almost pale with anger, and hardly says a word, which then upsets the mother, she maintaining that the father doesn’t concern himself with anything and leaves everything to her.

Josef asks if Irwin then ends up late for school, but the latter says that hardly ever happens, as the father takes him in the car with him on the way to work, the chauffeur having to make only a brief detour. Josef then asks the boys to show him their other room, where they talk some more. They lead Josef into a large room, which is much too richly decorated, the floor covered with a thick carpet, paintings hung on the walls, as they sit down, and Lutz states when asked that he quite likes going to school, though he likes vacations even better, while Irwin cannot stand school, most of the boys are stupid, all the teachers are stupid, and he’ll be happy when he can finally leave school for good. As for what Irwin wants to be when he grows up? A lawyer, of course, that’s a fantastic profession, the mother wanting him to do it as well, while the father says that a good law firm is a gold mine, Irwin wanting to head one someday, he loves court cases, since they are exciting, and you can earn a lot and quickly, without having to slave from morning till night. Josef wants to know how Irwin knows all this. He has heard it from a number of people, all you need is a good head, and it’s nowhere near as risky as the market, which would have caused the father to collapse more than once if he didn’t have nerves of steel, though he always manages to succeed somehow, having invested in many different areas so that he always has something left when some other segment collapses.

And what does Lutz want to become? He doesn’t yet know for sure, though his mother would love for him to become a doctor, since he’s interested in nature. He wants to show Josef his butterfly collection, in which there are not only butterflies he has bought from a catalog, but also many he has caught himself, he having also raised caterpillars down in the conservatory, though once Anton wasn’t paying attention and threw out an entire case of specimens. Lutz would like to become a natural scientist, for he wants to go on an expedition, like Sven Hedin to Tibet or Nansen aboard the Fram , where he could take part in such an adventure and collect animals. But Irwin says that Lutz is very childish — a natural scientist, that’s a romantic occupation, you can’t make much money at that, and Lutz will end up a stupid teacher like old Wentzel at school, whom they call Papa Wutzl, he talking very slowly as he says that he can’t ever let himself get excited, he has a heart condition, and whenever someone gives him trouble he never yells, but says, just you wait boy, I’ll deal with you when your parents come in for a conference, and then he makes the test as hard as possible. Lutz protests that Papa Wutzl gives the best lectures, if only you paid attention to them, everything is immediately understandable, and he is especially good at zoology, as when he talked about antelopes and giraffes, the class right now studying ruminants. Yet Irwin makes fun of Lutz for being impressed by stupid Papa Wutzl, as Irwin is bored to death by zoology, though luckily he doesn’t have to study it this year, for as far as he was concerned all those critters could just as well disappear, especially if they’re of no use at all, while Lutz with his dumb love of animals will let a mosquito sit on his hand so that he can observe how the beast drills and drills in order to drink his fill, or most likely bring home a bedbug in order to see how it bites, what nonsense! Lutz, however, says that mosquitoes don’t bite, but rather they press a liquid out of their suction tube, and the liquid and blood mix together, and then the mosquito sucks that down, though only the female does so, the male nourishing itself on plants, all of it wonderfully arranged by nature, which is why no one should kill mosquitoes, but if they should bite all you need do is press out the poisonous liquid and then it won’t itch as much.

Irwin says that now Josef can see what a foolish romantic Lutz is. Josef, however, doesn’t find anything foolish at all, for if that’s what interests Lutz, then it’s fine. Irwin doesn’t agree and finds it childish, though perhaps Darwin was a great natural scientist who once said a few smart things about man being descended from the apes, and if you looked at most people and how stupid they were, then it was easy to believe Darwin. Lutz replies spiritedly, no, that’s only what dumb people say, Darwin said something completely different. Josef stands up for Lutz, reminding Irwin that it would be unfortunate if everyone wanted to become a lawyer. Irwin counters that he wasn’t saying that Lutz should study the same thing as him, medicine is indeed a useful subject, or he could even become a veterinarian, even though he wouldn’t necessarily like to have a veterinarian for a brother, but if Lutz can’t keep his hands off those critters, then at least be a veterinarian, though what is that compared with a real doctor, or a specialist, such as an eye doctor or a neurologist? Mother says that through new research you can see that everything has to do with nerves, the only exceptions being contagious disease such as strep throat, measles, or venereal disease, where disease is carried from one to another if you are not careful enough. But Lutz responds that there is a slew of doctors, but good natural scientists are rare, and that’s what he wants to be and nothing else.