The Antichrist by Joseph Roth, Richard Panchyk Page A

the kind of work to which he was best suited.
    I went every morning to stand in front of one of the mightiest buildings, one in which newspapers are produced, those thousand-tongued messengers on the backs of which each day are printed enquiries both from men seeking work and employers seeking men under the title ‘Employment Market’; that is to say, where work is offered for sale.
    As I couldn’t find any employment, my vanity led me to enter the great building and not to leave as did the others. In my foolishness, I thought that a building whose doors and walls were a market for work must likewise have work for sale within, and that the exterior alone of such a building would not reveal to me what it knew within its depths.
    So I went to the master of this great house and asked him if he had any work for me.
    At first glance I thought that I knew him. But I couldn’t remember where I had seen him before. He was a gentle master, without a beard, and I thought that I had met him when he had worn a beard, but I couldn’t recall the occasion.
    He had a pleasant voice and a kindly glance. When he lookedat me I immediately believed that he wished me well, and as his face seemed so familiar to me I felt that he must have also been well acquainted with me.
    When he asked whether I would be willing to serve him, I said: ‘Yes, I will, with pleasure.’
    Thus I began to serve him and so became one of the thousand tongues with which the newspapers meddle in the world every morning. I soon saw, however, that what my own tongue said was not only different from what the other tongues said but that all our thousand tongues were contradicting one another and that even this contradiction was no immutable law, as at one moment our tongues agreed, while at another they accused one another of lying, and this changed from moment to moment.
    Many tongues repeated what mine had said but repeated it differently and in such a way that we were both wrong. I no longer knew if I had spoken truth or falsehood or whether the others were right or wrong, and when I realized that the world hears all our thousand tongues at the same time then I understood that it is entirely impossible for the world to recognize the voice of truth even if it should one day be heard.
    But if I was one of the thousand confusing tongues that made the voice of truth unrecognizable then I was also guilty of confusing the world. And I realized that I had entered into the service of the Antichrist, who sat in this great publishing house as a gentle Master of a Thousand Tongues and smiled with kind eyes. And sometimes, so that his very gentleness might not betray him, he pretended to be furious. This, too, brought him profit, for when he let his anger subside and began to smile again, so that those who were under his command could once more exhale, their fears quieted, he appeared to them to be even more gentle, agreeable, good and honourable than before – and so they praised andesteemed him beyond measure, regarding themselves lucky that they came to be in his service and not in anyone else’s.
    When I grew to suspect that I was serving the Antichrist I decided one day to leave his employment. I went to him and told him that I’d had enough of his job and that he must likewise have had enough of my services.
    He smiled and took from his pocket a gold cigarette case, asked me to take a seat and told me to have a smoke.
    Then I remembered him – I did know him. How often he had already given me cigarettes!
    And to make sure that I was not mistaken, I said to him: ‘Sir, I’ve often thought that we’ve met before, and it seems to me that this isn’t the first time that you’ve offered me a cigarette!’
    â€˜I wish,’ he replied, ‘that we really had known each other for a long time, because I like you. I have no intention of releasing you from my service. I have chosen you for a number of important