very top line. I know my handwriting: it is worse than catching sight of oneself in a mirror, much clearer, and there was not the slightest possibility of doubting the identity of my handwriting. All the rest hadn’t proved a thing, neither
Medea
nor Nietzsche, neither the Alpine profile nor the banana from Togoland, not even the outline of the cross over the door: all that was the same in every school, but I don’t believe they write on blackboards in other schools in my handwriting. It was still there, the Thermopylae inscription we had had to write, in that life of despair I had known only three months ago: “Stranger, bear word to the Spartans we …”
Oh, I know, the board had been too short, and the art teacher had bawled me out for not spacing properly, for starting off with letters that were too big, and shaking his head he had written underneath, in letters the same size, “Stranger, bear word to the Spartans we …”
Seven times I had had to write it: in Antique, Gothic, Cursive, Roman, Italic, Script, and Round. Seven times, plain for all to see: “Stranger, bear word to the Spartans we …”
The fireman, responding to a whispered summons from the doctor, had stepped aside, so now I saw the whole quotation, only slightly truncated because I had started off too big, had used up too many dots.
A prick in my left thigh made me jerk up, I tried to prop myself on my elbows, but couldn’t. I looked down at my body, and then I saw: they had undone my bandages and I had no arms, no right leg, and I fell back instantly because I had no elbows to lean on. I screamed; the doctor and fireman looked at me in alarm, but the doctor merely shrugged his shoulders, keeping his thumb on the plunger of his hypo as he pressed it slowly and gently down. I tried to look at the blackboard again, but the fireman was standing right beside me now, obscuring it. He was holding down my shoulders, and I was conscious only of the scorched, grimy smell of his stained uniform, saw only his tired, sad face, and then I recognized him: it was Birgeler.
“Milk,” I whispered …
DRINKING IN PETÖCKI
The soldier felt he was getting drunk at last. At the same moment it crossed his mind again, very clearly, that he hadn’t a single pfennig in his pocket to pay the bill. His thoughts were as crystal-clear as his perception, he saw everything with the utmost clarity: the fat, shortsighted woman sitting in the shadows behind the bar, intent on her crocheting as she chatted quietly to a man with an unmistakably Magyar mustache—a true operetta face, straight from the
puszta
, while the woman looked stolid and rather German, somewhat too respectable and sedate for the soldier’s image of a Hungarian woman. The language they were chatting in was as unintelligible as it was throaty, as passionate as it was strange and beautiful. The room was filled with a dense green twilight from the many close-planted chestnut trees along the avenue leading to the station: a wonderful dense twilight that reminded him of absinthe and made the room exquisitely intimate and cozy. The man with the fabulous mustache, half perched on a chair, looked relaxed and comfortable as he sprawled across the counter.
The soldier observed all this in great detail, at the same time aware that he would not have been able to walk to the counter without falling down. It’ll have to settle a bit, he thought, then with a loud laugh shouted “Hey there!,” raised his glass toward the woman, and said in German,
“Bitte schön!”
The woman slowly got up from her chair, put aside her crochet work equally slowly, and, carrying the carafe, came over to him with a smile, while the Hungarian also turned round and eyed the medals on the soldier’s chest. The woman waddling toward him was as broad as she was tall, her face was kind, and she looked as if she had heart trouble; clumsy pince-nez, attached to a worn black string, balanced on her nose. Her feet seemed to hurt too;
Medea
nor Nietzsche, neither the Alpine profile nor the banana from Togoland, not even the outline of the cross over the door: all that was the same in every school, but I don’t believe they write on blackboards in other schools in my handwriting. It was still there, the Thermopylae inscription we had had to write, in that life of despair I had known only three months ago: “Stranger, bear word to the Spartans we …”
Oh, I know, the board had been too short, and the art teacher had bawled me out for not spacing properly, for starting off with letters that were too big, and shaking his head he had written underneath, in letters the same size, “Stranger, bear word to the Spartans we …”
Seven times I had had to write it: in Antique, Gothic, Cursive, Roman, Italic, Script, and Round. Seven times, plain for all to see: “Stranger, bear word to the Spartans we …”
The fireman, responding to a whispered summons from the doctor, had stepped aside, so now I saw the whole quotation, only slightly truncated because I had started off too big, had used up too many dots.
A prick in my left thigh made me jerk up, I tried to prop myself on my elbows, but couldn’t. I looked down at my body, and then I saw: they had undone my bandages and I had no arms, no right leg, and I fell back instantly because I had no elbows to lean on. I screamed; the doctor and fireman looked at me in alarm, but the doctor merely shrugged his shoulders, keeping his thumb on the plunger of his hypo as he pressed it slowly and gently down. I tried to look at the blackboard again, but the fireman was standing right beside me now, obscuring it. He was holding down my shoulders, and I was conscious only of the scorched, grimy smell of his stained uniform, saw only his tired, sad face, and then I recognized him: it was Birgeler.
“Milk,” I whispered …
DRINKING IN PETÖCKI
The soldier felt he was getting drunk at last. At the same moment it crossed his mind again, very clearly, that he hadn’t a single pfennig in his pocket to pay the bill. His thoughts were as crystal-clear as his perception, he saw everything with the utmost clarity: the fat, shortsighted woman sitting in the shadows behind the bar, intent on her crocheting as she chatted quietly to a man with an unmistakably Magyar mustache—a true operetta face, straight from the
puszta
, while the woman looked stolid and rather German, somewhat too respectable and sedate for the soldier’s image of a Hungarian woman. The language they were chatting in was as unintelligible as it was throaty, as passionate as it was strange and beautiful. The room was filled with a dense green twilight from the many close-planted chestnut trees along the avenue leading to the station: a wonderful dense twilight that reminded him of absinthe and made the room exquisitely intimate and cozy. The man with the fabulous mustache, half perched on a chair, looked relaxed and comfortable as he sprawled across the counter.
The soldier observed all this in great detail, at the same time aware that he would not have been able to walk to the counter without falling down. It’ll have to settle a bit, he thought, then with a loud laugh shouted “Hey there!,” raised his glass toward the woman, and said in German,
“Bitte schön!”
The woman slowly got up from her chair, put aside her crochet work equally slowly, and, carrying the carafe, came over to him with a smile, while the Hungarian also turned round and eyed the medals on the soldier’s chest. The woman waddling toward him was as broad as she was tall, her face was kind, and she looked as if she had heart trouble; clumsy pince-nez, attached to a worn black string, balanced on her nose. Her feet seemed to hurt too;
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