“There, gentlemen warriors, that is how to settle differences! Pass this on up high to your generals!” and Ugo planted a smooch on each of Kurt’s perplexed cheeks while winking slyly at the sergeants. “You, Mr. Kurt, are as brave and ungrateful as Cinna, let me shake your hand, let us be friends!”
Kurt was taking it all in good spirits, with nobility. Like a man he took Ugo’s hand and shook it vigorously, as one hero to another.
“Right, gentlemen, peace is signed. Now all that’s left is to drink to it …” Ugo winked at the sergeants, who took it up with the wile of drunkards: “That’s right, this calls for a drink.” And Kurt indeed signaled Else to bring a bottle of wine, on the house.
After Mother retired there appeared a second bottle, a third, several bottles, and the glass-clinking brought Kurt’s drunken declaration that he would go out of the Cozy Corner and into the street on all fours if they would not believe that he was sincere and that he genuinely loved all of them, his friends. Twice he went down on the floor and started to crawl toward the door; they had to force him up and pledge their trust. Four Eyes alone (pulling his leg) “disbelieved” him and Kurt started crawling again to reassure him. Kurt kept hugging and kissing Ugo, while Ugo, in full abandon as he was, kissed back brother and sister — particularly the sister, who made no effort to conceal her pleasure. Aroused by the wine and the kisses, Else danced with Ugo to a tune played by Four Eyes on his grimy pocket comb. And the sergeant who aspired to Else’s love twice grabbed Ugo by the ears and shook him jealously. — Are you a man? — Yes I am, Ugo grinned his fillings bare. — All right then, carry on, selflessly shouted the sergeant, at great pains to conceal his feeling of being ignored.
“You imbecile!” objected the other sergeants. “You nearly spoiled the fun. Why, he’s not a man, he’s a man and a half. A he-man!” and they clapped in time to the music Ugo was dancing to. The sergeants were ready to give him their hearts’ blood.
“Gentlemen centurions!” exclaimed Ugo in his abandon.
Nobody paid any attention to Melkior. Not even servile Kurt, who had in his drunken bliss totally devoted himself to Ugo. Melkior, too, had had several glasses and his stomach was now clenching in pain: that roast heart wouldn’t come amiss, whinged the stomach.
“Hey, Kurt, we’ll settle up tomorrow,” he whispered into the man’s red-hot ear.
“But Herr Professor!” Kurt turned his greasy diluted face to him, “it’s my treat, you will allow me, won’t you? I’ll walk on all fours all the way out to the street corner … and I won’t have any of …” Kurt was ranting, demented, trying to get down on his knees, but he fell over and stayed there lying on the floor, muttering helplessly, “on-on-on all fours, giddyup …”
Melkior availed himself of this to sneak undetected out of Cozy Corner.
Autumn rain was drizzling down and the air was clean and fragrant. That’s right, Melkior approved of the long-awaited rain and the restorative air. Like a rooster slipping out of a chicken coop he spread his wings easily and felt like crowing.
He sidled quickly into his room, without turning the light on so as not to wake up his guest. The door was not locked. Oh-oh? wondered Melkior.
“Turn it on if you like,” said a voice from the dark, “I’m not asleep.”
Melkior did so and stammered a hesitant good evening; who knows, perhaps this is frowned on as well. The Stranger muttered something in reply. He had chosen the sofa to sleep on, leaving the bed to his host. On the floor by the sofa lay a huge pile of domestic and foreign newspapers, thrown down in disarray. A thorough briefing … before sleep, thought Melkior.
“The bed was meant for you,” he said, locking the door with careful precaution full of a certain awe. (At which the guest gave a superior smile.) “You won’t sleep well on that.”
“I never sleep well … anywhere,” said the guest with a cautious hesitation, as if revealing a secret. He gave a cordial smile and added: “like a rabbit … I see you have many fine books. While I have to read this trash,” and he pointed at the papers. “I manage to crack a book now and then on a train. But that’s not reading really … it’s cinematographic, flickering, broken,” and he heaved a sigh of resignation. “If you want to work or anything … the light doesn’t bother me.”
Melkior was touched by the consideration. He felt like making a gesture, showing his goodwill, his respect. …
“I’m sorry, here we are sharing a room and I haven’t even told you who I am,” and he made to approach his guest with his hand out, to introduce himself.
“No,” his guest stopped him very energetically, “don’t tell me your name! No names, please … The people I know,” he went on with a calm smile, “I generally know by assumed names. I don’t know what my own is anymore,” laughed the guest cheerfully. “That business this morning … when we met on the street …” he shrugged helplessly: “there’s nothing for it — that’s our life. I’m sorry.”
Melkior was moved by this: there, it’s not as if he were …! He remembered ATMAN in a flash and the worm inside got on with its business: I’m duty bound, he thought romantically.
“I was looking for you all over today, on the off chance.”
“Did something happen?” the guest asked rather incuriously. “I’m not easy to find … especially by those who look for me,” he joked. “Why?”
“This man downstairs, the palmist …”
“The palmist?” laughed the guest. “That’s right, there was some magician who greeted me on the staircase this morning, on the landing below.”
“That’s him, that’s ATMAN,” said Melkior apprehensively. “ATMAN is his ‘stage’ name. I suggested it to him …” he couldn’t help boasting, derisively.
“ATMAN?” laughed the guest. “Yes, he greeted me in a very distinguished way, asked me if I was staying ‘upstairs,’ and pointed upward, without mentioning you. ‘He’s a most honest man. An absolutely great soul, the pride of the house, you can trust him completely,’ that’s what he blurted out in your honor, quick as a flash.”
“There, you see?” shivered Melkior in horror.
“See what? Oh, that,” he understood Melkior’s fear. “No, no; nothing to worry about, I know them,” said the guest confidently.
“You don’t know ATMAN,” Melkior insisted on being suspicious, “he’s a mysterious rascal.”
“Well, he would be — being mysterious is his stock in trade,” the guest was enjoying himself. “What’s ATMAN mean, by the way?”
“A great spirit in ancient Brahmin philosophy. But it’s also what Schopenhauer called his dog.”
“Ah-ha, a point for you. So this ‘great spirit’ tells the future, does he?”
“You can well imagine his clients. But he’s got loftier ambitions: he works out horoscopes. Historical forecasts, too … Has them published in a newspaper. He is predicting the sinking of the Bismarck.”
“Hah, that is an easy one. The English will sink it.”
“But he says their George V will go down, too.”
“Of course it will — the Germans will take it down. You don’t have to be ATMAN to see that. Much more valuable things are going to be destroyed in this stupid war along with it,” said the guest with a nervous yawn.