H. Adler - Panorama

Josef knows enough to express deep gratitude for Frau Director’s advice, and then asks if she would be good enough to consider a suggestion. “Yes, of course, my young friend, let’s hear it!” Josef puts forth the question of whether she would support his taking the boys on a short hike sometime soon, it would provide a good opportunity to get to know them better, and he’d be happy to set aside this Sunday or next to spend with the two of them or separately with each alone. Frau Director asks if Josef will be wanting to use the car for this. No, we will hike on foot, maybe needing to start a little ways by train. Frau Director needs to think about it for a while and speak with her husband, there is no real rush, though it’s an exciting idea, and maybe even Frau Director could tag along, she’s a good hiker, or they could organize a larger group and invite others, though this makes Josef immediately want to raise some concerns. However, there’s a knock at the door and Lutz enters, standing by the door and waiting until the mother asks, “Well, Lutz?”—“I just wanted to see if Josef is coming back to us. We’ve finished our homework.”—“But Lutz, come here first. You may kiss my hand.” He kisses his mother’s hand. “Lutzi, do you love your mother?” Lutz nods as she says, “I’ve been speaking to Josef about you boys. He likes you very much. Do you like him as well?” Lutz nods again, and Frau Director dismisses them with a wave of her hand. “Thank you, Josef. Take care, my sweet child, goodbye!”

Josef feels a bit dazed and wants to be alone for a little while, but he senses that Lutz would be disappointed, so he follows him to his room, which is somewhat messy, Irwin not there, and he asking Lutz where he could be. Lutz doesn’t know, Irwin was just here when Lutz went to get Josef. Josef speculates that Irwin wanted to go to the movies, though Lutz doesn’t know anything about it, or maybe he just doesn’t want to tell on him, Josef deciding not to press him any further, but rather just to ask if Irwin is allowed to leave when he wants and without saying anything. Lutz can’t say exactly, sometimes Mother gets upset, while at other times she’s pleased about how independent Irwin is, praising him in comparison with Lutz and asking why he can’t be as independent, although he doesn’t dare to, for Mother would go crazy if he ever went off on his own, though Irwin never asks and just leaves, and as long as he shows up on time for dinner everything is all right. Only once did he arrive late, no one knowing where he was, everyone in the house upset as they interrogated Lutz, though he knew nothing and said only that Irwin had simply left, at which Father asked again in anger, Lutz, where is Irwin? He must have said something when he left, but Irwin really hadn’t said anything, Mother wanting Father to calm down as she observed that Lutz never knew anything when asked, since he only daydreams, though Father had said to Mother that he never commented on how to raise the children, but he did expect them to be at the table each evening, to which Mother answered that it is too bad that Father doesn’t worry more, for they are his children just as much as they are hers, adding in English that this should not be talked about in front of the children or the servants, but Father said he wouldn’t hold back. And then there was even greater concern, for Irwin was still not there, everyone having asked around for him, including the tutor, which was Anselm then, who said he wouldn’t know, he had no control over Irwin whatsoever, though that didn’t sit well with Mother, who said that it was part of the tutor’s job to take care of his students, and Anselm wasn’t helping anything by just letting Irwin wander off. But the tutor argued that he couldn’t just tether Irwin. Then they asked Sophie and Anton, though they also knew nothing, after which they called the cook and the chauffeur, the cook saying that she was stuck in the kitchen and didn’t know who left or entered the house, the chauffeur also saying there was no way for him to know if the young master left. Later they observed that they had forgotten to ask Madame or Robert, but they knew nothing at all, and now everyone was worried about Irwin and couldn’t eat a thing, only Madame having fed Robert and put him to bed, Anselm also having had his evening meal, though just a small one before leaving the room. Mother, meanwhile, had complained that she was worried, there are so many bad men about, and Irwin was such a hothead, Father having telephoned the police, who told him he shouldn’t get so upset, the boy will turn up, Father then screaming into the phone that he paid his taxes, but when he needed the help of the police they are useless, to which the police said that he needed to calm down, they would look for Irwin. The parents had still not eaten a thing, but Lutz was so hungry that he wanted something, at which Mother asked if he was so heartless as to think about dinner when his brother was perhaps lost forever, at which Lutz then left the room and headed into the kitchen, where the cook gave him something to eat, it already being almost nine o’clock. Then suddenly Irwin turned up happy as a lark and behaving as if everything was normal, though Father never once asked him where he had been and why he was so late, but instead grabbed him and hit him and then gave him a couple of hard slaps left and right that turned Irwin’s face completely red, Father then dragging him into the boys’ bedroom and yelling that he didn’t want to see the sight of him again that night, and if the same thing should happen again he could expect even worse. Mother stood there frozen, Father had for once done something, she wanting to talk to Irwin, since he had not yet eaten, but Father held strong, at which Mother cried, because she’s opposed to beating children, it leads to complexes and can destroy the nerves, but Irwin was never that late again and nothing more was said of it.

Josef asks whether Lutz would like to be able to wander off on his own. Sometimes he wants to, and Irwin should take him along now and then, but he never wants to and maybe has friends whom he meets up with. Lutz would sometime like to go into the city on his own, he knows of a big store there that sells natural-science supplies, there being stuffed birds on display, including the butterfly bird of Brazil, which is called the hummingbird, Lutz having a book in which he could show it to Josef, though much lovelier than any picture would be a preserved bird, with its soft colorful feathers and the long, pointed beak. Lutz also wants an aquarium with bright-colored fish that can be completely red or completely transparent, and which move through the water so gracefully, though the chance to own such treasures is denied him because it makes a mess in the house, which is not a museum and not a garden. If Josef happens to know the zoo, he’d love to visit it with him, it not being true that the animals suffer there, Irwin having lied about that. When Josef says he would be happy to go with him, Lutz wants to shout for joy, though Josef says it will have to be another day because of the late hour, while today they can look at a book together, and Lutz should get one that he likes. Lutz then hurries happily to get a book about butterflies and begins to initiate Josef into the mysteries of these insects, these being the larvae, these the cocoons, these the butterflies, Josef also having to look at Lutz’s butterfly collection, it all taking an hour as they soon become friends.

Suddenly the door opens without anyone knocking, as a man walks in, the Director himself, Josef standing up, though the Director first greets his son and glances at the opened book and the many display boards where the butterflies are spread out, carefully pierced by thin needles, at which he then turns to Josef and says to him that he must be the new tutor. The two men appear to check each other out more than to actually greet each other, though the Director is affable and seems to be pleased, saying that Lutz can entertain himself for a while so that Josef and the Director can get to know each other. They head down to the conservatory, Josef told that he can sit down, which allows him to study the Director more closely, his face golden brown and his hands somewhat hairy, he having a broad fleshy nose, almost a snout, with some distance between the nostrils, a repulsive face, certainly. As they sit silently across from each other, Josef is ashamed of considering whether the Director looks more like an ape or a man, the two of them observing each other without a word, nothing occurring to either of them to say, the Director finally asking stiffly if Josef is pleased with the house, Josef saying that he thinks it is lovely and huge, though of course he didn’t yet know it that well, after which there is another pause that has to be painfully overcome with a question about how much longer Josef plans to study, he hearing himself answer as if from a distance that he thought two or three more years.