H. Adler - Panorama

Sometimes Josef also goes to the dentist, where he sits on a strange chair, like the one at the barbershop, and has to open his mouth as the dentist looks inside with his mirror, sometimes saying “Good,” and sometimes saying that a tooth needs to be filled, which is bad. Josef doesn’t know why Aunt Gusti always says, “The dentist has such soft hands. His touch is wonderful. One hardly feels a thing.” Josef doesn’t believe her, because the dentist sticks a drill inside his mouth which makes such a noise, the only funny thing being how he has to work the pedal with his feet like on a spinning wheel, as he sits there and pushes with his feet, the dentist standing, his mother having shown him in a book how it’s like pedaling a bicycle. But the dentist’s spinning wheel is noisy and rattles and scrapes like a thunderstorm inside the mouth, though eventually he stops and soon it feels better after he places a thick silver drop of quicksilver, just like in a thermometer, on the tooth. Once, Josef broke a thermometer, a shiny little ball of quicksilver showing up in his bed, the mother beside herself as she said that quicksilver is very poisonous, and that you shouldn’t put it into your mouth. Since the thermometer was broken, Josef had to get out of bed and move to the couch, as the little balls of quicksilver were gathered up, and he said, “Won’t the dentist be pleased when we bring him the quicksilver.” At first this made the mother angry, but then she laughed and said that it couldn’t be used, even though the dentist used it for the tooth and then said, “Nothing to eat for two hours!”

The best is the eye doctor, where you sit for a long time in the waiting room, because everyone is in with the doctor for a long time, and there are many more waiting. This is why the mother always brings along something to read, as well as some needlework, though Josef is impatient and beats time with his legs, which his mother doesn’t like at all. But finally they are called, and then it’s wonderful as the doctor takes Josef into a dark chamber, no one else allowed to come along, not even the mother, as the doctor sits him on a stool just like at home in front of the piano, though here the doctor sits on the other side of a machine that he turns this way and that as he covers one of Josef’s eyes and Josef looks in one direction and sees a red light and a green light. Then the doctor sits even closer to Josef in the darkness and holds a tiny glittering light that is like a star and which Josef has to look up at, but which then goes out as the doctor places a heavy set of glasses on him that have no lenses, then opens a chest with lots of lenses, as he takes out one and drops it into the frame, one after another, turning the lenses around in the frames. Josef is given an “E” made of metal and has to show where the same “E” appears on a board, one after another, and in rows above and below, right and left, the “E” getting ever smaller until it is so small that it can no longer be seen. When the doctor has finally found the best lenses, he is satisfied and says to the mother that the eyes are better, after which he marks down the prescription and says, “Well, then, let’s see him in another six months!” Meanwhile everyone thinks the doctor is too expensive, the father saying, “I’d like to be able to pick people’s pockets like that!” Once Aunt Gusti got angry at that and said, “Sight is our most precious gift. Better deaf than blind.”

Josef doesn’t want to become a doctor, but he pretends that he is Uncle Doctor with Bubi. That’s his best friend, who is a brash kid with a little sister named Kitti. Whenever the house is being cleaned from top to bottom Josef spends almost the entire day with Bubi, though when the painter is there he stays overnight, Bubi also coming to him when something is going on at his house, though Josef prefers to go to Bubi’s because his mother is not as strict. There is also a young aunt there named Tata, who tells wonderful stories and is very pretty, and Bubi’s father always tells jokes, for he is much more at ease than Josef’s father. Josef plays with Bubi for hours at a time, the two of them making up their own games that no one would understand, while before they know it Kitti is hauled out of her little chair because they need it for their game, since it works well for playing doctor, one of them sitting on it, the other acting as a dentist who takes care of teeth, the sewing machine serving as the operating table after Tata has loosened the belt so that the machine doesn’t get broken as the patient is placed on the iron grate that serves as a pedal but now is where the operation is carried out. The mother never allows such a thing to happen at home, but one can do it at Bubi’s, even though he tends to boss others around a lot, yet Josef doesn’t mind, for though normally he wouldn’t put up with it, he does take it from Bubi because he’s so fond of him.

Josef also has another friend named Ludwig, whom he also really likes, though he isn’t as rambunctious and playful, which is why they play different games. Ludwig is terribly shy and serious, but he seems to know everything, and he has many toys and loads of books, and he loves plants and little animals and stones, which he collects while always keeping a lookout for something new. He shows Josef how to press flowers, the best way to catch flies, and Josef never feels disgusted by the earthworms that he holds softly in his hands and carries around, capturing caterpillars as well, though he knows there are some that should not be picked up, having long hairs like stinging nettles, Ludwig finding a leaf on which to carry them home. Yet he’s not afraid of stinging nettles, for Ludwig says that you just have to take them firmly in hand and then they won’t sting, while you can sting others with them if you just tickle someone’s leg with a leaf.

Bubi can’t stand Ludwig, and they always get into a fight in the park, Josef upset, because he wants to be good friends with both, Bubi once having said to Josef in front of Ludwig, “I can’t stand Ludwig. It’s up to you, Josef. It’s either Ludwig or me.” This makes Josef very unhappy, Bubi should either get along with Ludwig or let Josef stay friends with him, but Bubi will have none of it and says, “Either Ludwig or me, you can’t have both!” This makes Josef incredibly upset and he nearly cries, but he holds it back and says that he wants to be Bubi’s friend. But Bubi is really mean and wants Josef to help beat up Ludwig, at which Bubi tackles Ludwig, who, though strong and agile, is quite small, nor does it matter that he’s so small, and even though Josef helps by blocking Ludwig’s way, he also sticks out a leg and trips Bubi, so that Ludwig scrambles loose and darts away and is gone. Bubi, meanwhile, can’t catch him and is too late. The next day the mother goes to Ludwig’s mother, though Josef says that he won’t go with her. “Why?” asks the mother, but he won’t give any reason, though the mother is like iron and will stand for no secrets. Josef has to say why, and then he has to go to Ludwig’s, both mothers talking for a long while before the two boys reconcile and everything is all right once again. But the mother is not entirely satisfied, and she also talks to Bubi’s mother, such that Bubi and Ludwig must make up, though they don’t really do so and don’t want to, Bubi looking away whenever he sees Ludwig.

Once Bubi was really bad and didn’t want to do what his mother said and screamed, “I’ll shoot myself if you keep bothering me!” Then he picked up a cork gun from among his toys and pointed it toward himself as his mother went pale and yelled, “Bubi, you can’t die! My poor child, Bubi! Bubi!” But Bubi is stubborn and just looks away as his mother comforts him, which pleases Josef a great deal, and he thinks that he’d like to try the same rather than always just making someone angry. So when Josef once again doesn’t want to wash his hands and the mother scolds him as always, he says to her, “I’m tired of you always getting angry with me. I don’t want to live anymore, I’m going to poison myself!” At this the mother quietly walks away and returns with a spoon, then opens the little medicine cabinet full of many bottles, jars, tins, and little boxes, after which she grabs a bottle and slowly removes its cork and pours something from it into the spoon that looks like water and has no color, and then steps toward Josef, who at first is curious and looks on, but now is afraid as she calmly says, “Take the spoon, my child. This will poison you and then you’ll be dead.” And so she holds the spoon up to his mouth, which he doesn’t open, and he realizes that he doesn’t really want to die, but nonetheless he grows terribly afraid and thinks how lucky Bubi is that his mother was so afraid, while Josef’s mother will just let him die quietly because she doesn’t love him at all. “I’m not taking the spoon! I don’t want to!”—“You said you wanted to poison yourself. This is poison, my child. You won’t have to be bothered by your mother anymore.”—“I’m not taking that spoon!” And then he begins to weep horribly and cannot stop, and he never thinks about poisoning himself again.