Georg Kroll comes out of his room. The smoke from a streaked Havana wreathes his face and he is the picture of satisfaction. “Herr Fuchs,” he says, “is it true you can weep at will, or is that just a piece of dirty propaganda on the part of our competitors to scare us?”
Instead of answering Oskar stares at him. “Well?” Georg Kroll asks. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you feeling well?”
“Just a minute! I must get into the right mood.”
Oskar closes his eyes. When he opens them again they already look rather watery. He continues to stare at Georg and after a while there are actually heavy tears in his blue eyes. A moment later they roll down his cheeks. Oskar gets out his handkerchief and dabs at them. “How was that?” he asks, drawing out his watch. “Exactly two minutes. Sometimes I can manage it in one when there is a corpse in the house.”
“Magnificent.”
Georg pours out some of the cognac he keeps for customers. “You should have been an actor, Herr Fuchs.”
“I have thought about that; but there are two few roles in which many tears are required. Othello, to be sure, but aside from him—”
“How do you do it? Is there a trick?”
“Imagination,” Fuchs replies simply. “Strong pictorial imagination.”
“What were you picturing just now?”
Oskar empties his glass. “To speak candidly, you, Herr Krolclass="underline" with splintered arms and legs, and a swarm of rats slowly gnawing your face while you were still alive but unable to keep the creatures away because of your broken arms. I beg your pardon, but for such a quick performance I needed a very strong image.”
Georg runs his hand over his face. It is still there. “Do you imagine the same sort of pictures of Hollmann and Klotz when you’re working for them?” I ask.
Fuchs shakes his head. “I picture them reaching the age of a hundred, still rich and healthy, and finally being carried off painlessly in their sleep by a heart attack—then tears of rage stream down my cheeks.”
Georg pays him the commission for the last two betrayals. “I have recently developed an artificial hiccup too,” Oskar says. “Very effective. It speeds up the agreement. The people feel guilty because they think it is a result of my sympathy.”
“Herr Fuchs, join us!” I say again impulsively. “You belong in an establishment that is run along artistic lines—not with mere money grubbers.”
Weeping Oskar smiles good-naturedly, shakes his head, and prepares to depart. “I can’t just now. Without a little betrayal I would be nothing but a dripping washrag. Betrayal gives me poise. Do you understand?”
“We understand,” Georg says. “We are crushed by regret but we respect personality above everything.”
I note the addresses for the tombstones on a piece of paper and give it to Heinrich Kroll, who is in the courtyard, pumping up the tires of his bicycle. He looks at the slip contemptuously. To an old Nibelung like him, Oskar is a common scoundrel, though he is happy, also like an old Nibelung, to profit from him. “We never used to need this sort of thing,” he exclaims. “Lucky my father didn’t live to see it.”
“According to what I’ve heard about that pioneer of the gravestone business, your father would have been beside himself with joy to play such a trick on the competition,” I reply. “He was a fighter by nature—not like you, on the field of honor, but in the trenches of uncompromising business warfare. By the way, are we going to get the rest of the payment for that war memorial you sold in April? There are two hundred thousand marks still due. You know what that’s worth now? Not so much as a socle!”
Heinrich mutters something and puts the slip of paper in his pocket. I go back, pleased to have taken him down a bit. In front of the house stands the piece of gutter pipe that broke off during the last rainstorm. The workmen have just finished; they have replaced the broken section. “What about the old pipe?” the foreman asks. “You don’t need it Shall we take it along?”
“Sure,” Georg says.
The pipe is leaning against the obelisk, Knopfs open-air pissoir. It is several yards long and has a right angle at one end. Suddenly I have an inspiration. “Leave it here,” I say. “We can use it.”
“What for?” Georg asks.
“For this evening. You’ll see. It will be an interesting performance.”
Heinrich Kroll pedals off. Georg and I stand in front of the door, drinking glasses of beer that Frau Kroll has handed out through the kitchen window. The weather is very hot. Wilke, the coffinmaker, steals by, carrying bottled beer. He is on his way to take a siesta in a coffin upholstered with shavings. Butterflies play around the memorial crosses. The Knopf family’s pied cat is pregnant. “Where does the dollar stand?” I ask. “Have you phoned?”
“Fifteen thousand marks higher than this morning. If it goes on like this we’ll be able to pay Riesenfeld’s promissory note with the price of a small headstone.”
“Marvelous. Only it’s too bad we haven’t kept any of it That takes away some of the necessary zest, doesn’t it?”
Georg laughs. “Some of the seriousness of the business too. Except for Heinrich, of course. What are you doing this evening?”
“I’m going up the hill to see Wernicke. There, at least, they know nothing about the seriousness and silliness of business. Up there the only stake is existence—always the whole of being, life and nothing short of life. There’s no smaller wager. If you lived up there for a while, our absurd haggling over trivialities would seem insane.”
“Bravo,” Georg replies. “For this nonsense you deserve a second glass of ice-cold beer.” He takes our glasses and hands from in through the kitchen window.” Gnädige Frau, the same thing again, please.”
Frau Kroll sticks her gray head out. “Would you like a fresh herring and a pickle with it?”
“Absolutely! And a slice of bread. The proper petit déjeuner for any kind of Weltschmerz,” Georg replies, handing me my glass. “Do you suffer from it?”
“A respectable man of my age always suffers from Weltschmerz,” I reply firmly. “It’s the prerogative of youth.”
“I thought they’d stolen your youth in the army?”
“That’s right. I’m still searching for it and I can’t find it. That’s why I have double Weltschmerz. The way an amputated foot hurts twice as much.”
The beer is wonderfully cold. The sun burns the tops of our heads, and suddenly, despite all the Weltschmerz, there occurs another of those instants when you look at very close range into the green-gold eyes of life. I finish my beer thoughtfully. It seems all at once as though my veins had had a sunbath. “We keep forgetting that we only live on this planet for a short time,” I say. “And so we have a completely crazy attitude toward the world. Like men who would live forever. Have you noticed that?”
“And how! It’s humanity’s cardinal mistake. That’s why otherwise entirely sensible people leave millions of dollars to horrible relations instead of spending it on themselves.”
“Good! What would you do if you knew you were going to die tomorrow?”
“No notion.”
“No? All right, perhaps, one day is too short. What would you do if you knew you’d be gone in a week?”