in normal life. He has no friends, because his nature is a sad and lonely one. He has no ambition: he doesn’t want to do better than other people. He seldom says anything much, so what are people supposed to make of him? And he always concentrates on one thing at a time, which tends to make other people nervous. If he picks a glass up, then he will be concentrating entirely on the holding of that glass, unable to think or feel anything else. When he looks at a stone, he’s entirely caught up in the sight of that stone, and can’t talk or listen at the same time. When he eats, he eats. And when he loves, he loves.
Sometimes he seems to be living wrapped in thick veils. When you speak to him, he wakes up without actually having been asleep. Nobody knows what he is thinking or dreaming of inside those veils. He may know himself, but he doesn’t talk about it. He just lives, and that’s all there is to say. When you merge into life you can’t describe the feeling.
But perhaps he sometimes thinks how he killed a baby. The baby was his little brother.
There is a photograph of this baby hanging over the sofa where Aunt Adelheid sits at mealtimes. The upholstery of the sofa is threadbare. It was once green, and then went yellow with time and the sunlight that filters into the room grudgingly, but constantly.
The place always smells of rancid fat and rank cabbage, because there is no door between it and the kitchen, which consists of nothing but a small gas stove and a sink. The kitchen lies on one side of the room and the stationery shop on the other. There are some crackers lying on a small table next to the counter. I could always see those crackers from my chair at the dining table. They looked creased and purple, like withered lilac. Old as the hills they were, made ofweary, crumpled crepe paper. You weren’t allowed to clear them away, because Aunt Adelheid thought perhaps she’d sell them yet. And then perhaps she hoped she wouldn’t. A blond commercial traveler from Cologne had left her this consignment of crackers years ago. She once told me about him. Naturally it’s a sad thing for a woman when a man sleeps with her and then makes off, leaving nothing behind but crackers. And when instead of a love letter, all she gets is an invoice for the crackers from the man’s firm.
The dead baby’s photograph hangs over the sofa, opposite Franz’s place at the table. Its frame is made of silver, twisted so that it’s supposed to look like a wreath of flowers. The picture itself shows Aunt Adelheid sitting holding a baby with a bald head and a long lacy dress. The infant in baby’s evening dress was burnt to death.
Franz was three years old at the time, a resident of Lappesheim, though you can’t say such a little boy is actually residing anywhere, he just exists. Aunt Adelheid’s ramshackle little house stood in Ufer Street, jammed in between two larger houses which almost crushed it. Its roof was made of slate the silvery-grey colour of a raven in flight. The roof was defective and the windows cracked, for Aunt Adelheid’s husband was not a builder or a glazier but a tailor, and if people along the Mosel can’t do a thing for themselves they don’t employ other folk to do it for them.
He was a good tailor, and always very cheerful. First Aunt Adelheid did for his cheerfulness, and then he died of TB. He left two children, Franz, aged three, and little Sebastian, aged six months.
Aunt Adelheid was down by the ferry, talking to the woman there, moaning about her late husband’s death. She never had a good word to say for him when he was alive,wouldn’t let him go to the pub, wouldn’t so much as let him smile. But once he was good and dead she wept and wailed over him. Suddenly the ferry woman saw people running about in Ufer Street in agitation, shouting and waving. There was smoke coming out of Aunt Adelheid’s house, pouring out of the windows. And there was a bright and flickering glow in the street.
Sometimes he seems to be living wrapped in thick veils. When you speak to him, he wakes up without actually having been asleep. Nobody knows what he is thinking or dreaming of inside those veils. He may know himself, but he doesn’t talk about it. He just lives, and that’s all there is to say. When you merge into life you can’t describe the feeling.
But perhaps he sometimes thinks how he killed a baby. The baby was his little brother.
There is a photograph of this baby hanging over the sofa where Aunt Adelheid sits at mealtimes. The upholstery of the sofa is threadbare. It was once green, and then went yellow with time and the sunlight that filters into the room grudgingly, but constantly.
The place always smells of rancid fat and rank cabbage, because there is no door between it and the kitchen, which consists of nothing but a small gas stove and a sink. The kitchen lies on one side of the room and the stationery shop on the other. There are some crackers lying on a small table next to the counter. I could always see those crackers from my chair at the dining table. They looked creased and purple, like withered lilac. Old as the hills they were, made ofweary, crumpled crepe paper. You weren’t allowed to clear them away, because Aunt Adelheid thought perhaps she’d sell them yet. And then perhaps she hoped she wouldn’t. A blond commercial traveler from Cologne had left her this consignment of crackers years ago. She once told me about him. Naturally it’s a sad thing for a woman when a man sleeps with her and then makes off, leaving nothing behind but crackers. And when instead of a love letter, all she gets is an invoice for the crackers from the man’s firm.
The dead baby’s photograph hangs over the sofa, opposite Franz’s place at the table. Its frame is made of silver, twisted so that it’s supposed to look like a wreath of flowers. The picture itself shows Aunt Adelheid sitting holding a baby with a bald head and a long lacy dress. The infant in baby’s evening dress was burnt to death.
Franz was three years old at the time, a resident of Lappesheim, though you can’t say such a little boy is actually residing anywhere, he just exists. Aunt Adelheid’s ramshackle little house stood in Ufer Street, jammed in between two larger houses which almost crushed it. Its roof was made of slate the silvery-grey colour of a raven in flight. The roof was defective and the windows cracked, for Aunt Adelheid’s husband was not a builder or a glazier but a tailor, and if people along the Mosel can’t do a thing for themselves they don’t employ other folk to do it for them.
He was a good tailor, and always very cheerful. First Aunt Adelheid did for his cheerfulness, and then he died of TB. He left two children, Franz, aged three, and little Sebastian, aged six months.
Aunt Adelheid was down by the ferry, talking to the woman there, moaning about her late husband’s death. She never had a good word to say for him when he was alive,wouldn’t let him go to the pub, wouldn’t so much as let him smile. But once he was good and dead she wept and wailed over him. Suddenly the ferry woman saw people running about in Ufer Street in agitation, shouting and waving. There was smoke coming out of Aunt Adelheid’s house, pouring out of the windows. And there was a bright and flickering glow in the street.
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