thinks in centuries. We must accept that. After all, one works for God and not for money. Don't you agree?"
"One can work for both," I reply. "That's a particularly happy situation."
She sighs. "We are bound by the decisions of the Church authorities. They are taken once a year, no oftener."
"For the salaries of the pastors, the cathedral chaplains, and the bishop too?" I ask.
"I don't know about that," she says, flushing a little. "But I think so."
Meanwhile, I have made up my mind. "This evening I haven't time," I explain. "We have an important business meeting."
"But today is still April. Now, next Sunday—or if you can't do it on Sundays perhaps some day of the week. After all, it would be nice to have proper May devotions. The Divine Mother will certainly reward you."
"Unquestionably. Then there is only the problem of supper. Eight o'clock is just in between. Afterward is too late and beforehand it would be a scramble."
"Oh, as far as that is concerned, of course you could eat here if you liked. His Reverence always eats here too. Perhaps that's a solution."
It is exactly the solution I wanted. The food here is almost as good as at Eduard's, and if I eat in company with the priest there is certain to be a bottle of wine as well. Since Eduard refuses to accept tickets on Sunday, this is indeed a splendid solution.
"All right," I say. "I'll try to do it. We don't need to say any more about the money."
The Mother Superior sighs with relief. "God will reward you."
I walk back. The garden paths are empty. For a time I wait for the yellow sail of shantung silk. Then the bells of the city ring for midday, and I know it's time for Isabelle's nap and after that the doctor; there is nothing more to be done until four o'clock. I walk through the big gate and down the hill.
Beneath me lies the city with its steeples green with verdigris and its smoking chimneys. On both sides of the allée , beyond the horse chestnut trees, stretch the fields where on weekdays the nondangerous inmates work. The institution is part public, part private. The private patients, of course, do not have to work. Beyond the fields are woods, streams, ponds, and clearings. When I was a boy I used to fish there and catch salamanders and butterflies. That was only ten years ago, but it seems to belong to a different life—to a vanished time in which existence proceeded in orderly organic sequence and everything belonged together, from childhood on. The war changed that; since 1914 we live scraps of one life and then scraps of a second and a third; they do not belong together and we are not able to put them together. For this reason it is really not so hard for me to understand Isabelle and her different lives. Only she is almost better off in this respect than we are; when she is in one, she forgets all the others. With us they are hopelessly confused —childhood, cut short by the war, the time of hunger and fraud, of trenches and lust for life—something of all these has been left over and remains with us even now, making us restless. You cannot simply push it away. It keeps bobbing back disconcertingly, and then you are confronted by irreconcilable contrast: the skies of childhood and the science of killing, lost youth and the cynicism of knowledge gained too young.
Chapter Four
4.
We are sitting in the office waiting for Riesenfeld. For supper we had pea soup so thick a spoon would stand up in it; in addition, we ate the meat cooked in the soup—pigs' feet, pigs' ears, and a very fat piece of side meat for each of us. We need the fat to coat our stomachs against alcohol; we must not on any account get drunk before Riesenfeld does. And so Frau Kroll has done the cooking for us herself and as dessert has forced on us a helping of fat Dutch cheese. The future of the firm is at stake. We must wring a shipment of granite out of Riesenfeld even if we have to crawl home in front of him on our hands and knees to do it. Marble, shell lime, and
"One can work for both," I reply. "That's a particularly happy situation."
She sighs. "We are bound by the decisions of the Church authorities. They are taken once a year, no oftener."
"For the salaries of the pastors, the cathedral chaplains, and the bishop too?" I ask.
"I don't know about that," she says, flushing a little. "But I think so."
Meanwhile, I have made up my mind. "This evening I haven't time," I explain. "We have an important business meeting."
"But today is still April. Now, next Sunday—or if you can't do it on Sundays perhaps some day of the week. After all, it would be nice to have proper May devotions. The Divine Mother will certainly reward you."
"Unquestionably. Then there is only the problem of supper. Eight o'clock is just in between. Afterward is too late and beforehand it would be a scramble."
"Oh, as far as that is concerned, of course you could eat here if you liked. His Reverence always eats here too. Perhaps that's a solution."
It is exactly the solution I wanted. The food here is almost as good as at Eduard's, and if I eat in company with the priest there is certain to be a bottle of wine as well. Since Eduard refuses to accept tickets on Sunday, this is indeed a splendid solution.
"All right," I say. "I'll try to do it. We don't need to say any more about the money."
The Mother Superior sighs with relief. "God will reward you."
I walk back. The garden paths are empty. For a time I wait for the yellow sail of shantung silk. Then the bells of the city ring for midday, and I know it's time for Isabelle's nap and after that the doctor; there is nothing more to be done until four o'clock. I walk through the big gate and down the hill.
Beneath me lies the city with its steeples green with verdigris and its smoking chimneys. On both sides of the allée , beyond the horse chestnut trees, stretch the fields where on weekdays the nondangerous inmates work. The institution is part public, part private. The private patients, of course, do not have to work. Beyond the fields are woods, streams, ponds, and clearings. When I was a boy I used to fish there and catch salamanders and butterflies. That was only ten years ago, but it seems to belong to a different life—to a vanished time in which existence proceeded in orderly organic sequence and everything belonged together, from childhood on. The war changed that; since 1914 we live scraps of one life and then scraps of a second and a third; they do not belong together and we are not able to put them together. For this reason it is really not so hard for me to understand Isabelle and her different lives. Only she is almost better off in this respect than we are; when she is in one, she forgets all the others. With us they are hopelessly confused —childhood, cut short by the war, the time of hunger and fraud, of trenches and lust for life—something of all these has been left over and remains with us even now, making us restless. You cannot simply push it away. It keeps bobbing back disconcertingly, and then you are confronted by irreconcilable contrast: the skies of childhood and the science of killing, lost youth and the cynicism of knowledge gained too young.
Chapter Four
4.
We are sitting in the office waiting for Riesenfeld. For supper we had pea soup so thick a spoon would stand up in it; in addition, we ate the meat cooked in the soup—pigs' feet, pigs' ears, and a very fat piece of side meat for each of us. We need the fat to coat our stomachs against alcohol; we must not on any account get drunk before Riesenfeld does. And so Frau Kroll has done the cooking for us herself and as dessert has forced on us a helping of fat Dutch cheese. The future of the firm is at stake. We must wring a shipment of granite out of Riesenfeld even if we have to crawl home in front of him on our hands and knees to do it. Marble, shell lime, and
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