Joseph Roth - The Hundred Days

But she was wrong. His name was no more difficult to pronounce — for the cobbler was named Jan Wokurka, and his name was painted in clear red letters on a black board upon the front door — than his character was grim, not to mention menacing or sinister. Everything about him was quiet and gentle, except his clattering wooden leg. He was a volunteer Legionnaire, had participated in the Emperor’s losing campaign, and after being injured had journeyed to Paris, where he felt he could count upon his pension and where, in addition, he would be able to work at his profession with a better prospect of earning a living than in his native village. He succeeded in obtaining both pension and profit. Still, he longed for his homeland. He was quite lonely. For although he enjoyed talking at length and in detail to all his neighbors, most of them could not understand him. He understood everything that was said to him, so he thought that the people understood him also. But as soon as the neighbors left his company, he was always struck with the bitter certainty that they found him incomprehensible. Thus it was that after each conversation all was silent and his loneliness and homesickness grew, while his left hip hurt more than before and even his leg, which was probably buried somewhere on the Oder, ached.

He was therefore determined to save money and return to Poland. He was just waiting for a “round sum,” as he put it. But as soon as he secured that amount, he felt sorry and delayed his departure. In addition, despite his disability, he wished to find a wife to love him — and since he had been shy even as an unscathed man, he was now completely disheartened. His longing for a woman grew even stronger. He brushed his bold mustache, attempted to cultivate a military gleam within his light, good-humored eyes, and fell in love quickly and sincerely.

He liked Angelina because of her shy face and demeanor. But he only inspired fear in her. Even when she was standing lost and lonely, looking up at the window, she feared the cobbler more than the night that was relentlessly falling. There was still no light in the midwife Pocci’s room. She went over anyway and entered the house. The cobbler was hammering away happily as usual. He soon spotted her. When he noticed her crate, he got up, his wooden leg taking astonishingly long strides, and with amazing speed he was at her side and had taken hold of the box. The full light of his three-candled lantern flashed through the large dangling cobbler’s globe, casting illumination into the shadowy passageway and onto his own face. He hobbled down the three steps leading to his room, laid the box down, and was back in the hall with admirable speed. Angelina had tried to get a hold of the box but he was too quick. Wokurka took her hand and spoke rapidly and therefore with even less clarity than usual: “They’re all gone! Madame Pocci this morning. Madame Casimir was here until yesterday evening. All quite afraid. Not me. Come, Mademoiselle!” He let go of her hand but grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her toward the steps. Angelina went down. She needed to be with her box.

She sank immediately into the only armchair, next to the table. The cobbler Wokurka steered her left, right, and forward, as if he thought he could thus make her seat more comfortable. When he felt he had achieved that goal, he went to the hearth, blew on the glimmering coals, and began to heat some red wine with water. Now and again he glanced over at Angelina. When it looked as if her eyes were shut, joy swiftly filled him and he blew happily upon the glowing coals.

But Angelina’s eyes were not actually closed. She was watching the cobbler’s actions and taking note of all the objects in the little room. The large glass ball was swaying very gently in front of the strange lantern, whose copper decorations made it look like a glass bird cage. It was like a cage in which three flickering candle flames were imprisoned. A dark-green curtain that must have hidden Wokurka’s bed awakened in Angelina a remote memory of that dream-like night ten years earlier — although it seemed more like a hundred years ago — and the heavy creases of the mighty Imperial portière. Yes, and at the moment when the cobbler placed a cup of hot fragrant red wine in front of her, she thought of the crystal decanter from long ago. The cup bore an image of the Emperor framed with a green laurel wreath, the well-known, familiar, and proud picture that reminded her of the large portrait on the wall of that mysterious room. Everything now seemed to her just as unreal as it had been then. All that she saw here, the miserable imprisoned candles, the wretched curtain, the cheap wine, the gaudy mini-portrait of the Emperor: everything seemed to be somehow connected with the expensive and exalted objects that she had found in the Imperial chamber. Perhaps they were the same objects, dilapidated and deteriorated over the course of the many, many years and through the misfortune that had befallen their lord and master.

The cobbler Wokurka stood opposite her. He was supporting himself with one hand on the edge of the table and looking at her silently. His head, with its full combed-back gray-blond hair, almost touched the dangling globe and was given a surreal glow by its odd light. “Drink!” said Wokurka finally. The gentle urging of his voice, along with the warm and seductive scent that wafted from the cup, led her to lean forward and take a gulp. It warmed her heart and she was able to look up into the cobbler’s large gray eyes. They were completely different eyes from the ones she thought she had known for so long. There was no hungry lust in them after all, only a smiling light. And his prodigious mustache was no longer terrifying, but hung over the man’s unseen mouth like a hairy, protective apron.

“Drink up,” said the hidden mouth. “It’ll do you good.” She drank with delighted zeal and leaned back again.

The cobbler Wokurka turned around and pulled back the green curtain. His bed was in fact there. He sat down so that his wooden leg stuck out and almost touched the edge of the table, but even the wooden leg no longer frightened Angelina.

“Yes,” began Wokurka, “they’ve all fled from the King as from a plague. I don’t understand what they’re so scared of, but I’m well aware of what terror can do. It can even confuse the minds of the normally sensible. Madame Pocci, for example, was a sensible woman. God only knows where she’s gone. Mademoiselle Casimir, your aunt, whom I know well, even read the cards for some of the biggest names. She knew the future, but apparently not the present. And so you’ve been left alone, dear Mademoiselle.”

He waited a while. As Angelina did not offer a response, he continued: “I fear that you don’t understand me so well. I know I don’t speak completely clearly.”

This time, however, Angelina understood him perfectly. She said: “Oh yes, I do understand you completely.”

“Since you’re all alone now, dear Mademoiselle,” he continued, “please do stay here for the time being. I won’t be in your way. Don’t worry about what tomorrow brings, Mademoiselle. The world changes quickly these days. A half year ago, who would have predicted this? The Emperor was mighty and I was his soldier. I too loved him. But, as you see, we small ones pay dearly for our love of the great ones.” As he spoke, a quite opportune comparison came to him, and he said: “I’ve lost my leg, for example, and you’ve lost your job. And they were futile sacrifices. We lowly ones should not allow our lives to be dictated by the great ones. When they win we suffer and when they lose we suffer still more. Right, Mademoiselle?”

“Yes,” she said, “you’re right.”

He grabbed the wine bottle, which was on a little shelf above the head of his bed, took a generous swig, replaced the bottle, and waited a few moments. He seemed to be waiting for the courage that the gulp would arouse within his chest. As soon as he felt it, he spoke almost playfully, his bushy mustache wiggling peculiarly and divulging that his unseen mouth was bearing a smile.