The Silent Prophet by Joseph Roth Page B

exceeds our powers. We are like a man who is unable to swim, but who jumps in after a drowning man and goes under himself. But we have to jump. Sometimes we help the other, but usually both of us go under. And no one knows whether, at the last moment, one feels happiness or a kind of bitter anger." '
    'When I was fourteen years old,' began Berzejev, 'my father took me on a journey. I saw foreign railway stations for the first time, and that was really the best part. Do you still remember railway stations?'
    They both thought of the station they had last seen.
    'Did you see that girl?' asked Friedrich.
    And Berzejev knew at once which girl he meant.
    'Yes,' he said, 'she was standing behind the buffet and gave me a glass of tea. She had her plaits braided in two round coils over her ears.'
    'And red cheeks.'
    They spoke of the strange girl as of a lost loved one.
    'But there was something else besides railway stations when I was fourteen,' resumed Berzejev, 'and that was that there was a woman in our compartment with whom my father got into conversation. He treated her to chocolate bonbons, lifted her heavy cases down from the luggage-rack and put them back again, took the lady to the dining-car and said to the waiter: "A table for three, the fourth seat's empty, understood?" "Yes, your Honour," said the waiter. For my father was a high official, a landowner and a gentleman. You could see that at once. I spent much of the time in the corridor, which I enjoyed. You really feel that you are travelling there. When you stand the train goes faster, and then you fancy yourself freer and closer to the attendant. When a station arrives you climb out quickly. And even the lavatory is fine. I often used to go in there and if anyone rattled the door vigorously I stayed in all the longer. Once, when I went back to the compartment, the lady gave a start, screamed out, and my father was looking through the window at the landscape. I sat down in my corner, covered myself with my overcoat and pretended to be asleep. Then my father went out, I noticed how he stepped over my legs. The next moment the lady pulled the coat off my face and kissed me quickly on the mouth and sat down again. So I thought: "She kisses me so that I shouldn't be naughty or tell tales at home." But we met her again at Nice. She had arranged it with my father, and once, in the afternoon, she took me into her room. We were staying at the same hotel. It was already evening and the dinner-gong was sounding when I came out of her room. My father was waiting for me in the corridor. I tried to run past him, he grabbed me and gave me a box on the ear.'
    'And then?'
    'Just think, after that I never spoke another word to my father until his death, which I only heard of two days later, not a word! I began to hate him. I saw his fleshy mouth under the worthy mottled moustache. As soon as we got back he sent me to the military academy. He wrote to me twice a year and I wrote to him. They were like the letters of a professional letter-writer. But when I went home, for Easter, we kissed and did not speak and the whole year I used to dread the kiss that awaited me.'
    'He should have spoken,' said Friedrich.
    'Then I would probably not be here,' said Berzejev.

6
    Sometimes Colonel Lelewicz came himself. Sometimes he would send one of his friends. He brought bread, tinned food, newspapers. At irregular intervals there was a visit from Len-Min-Tsin, the Chinese trader, with newspapers, books and cheap pornography. This consisted of packets of postcards like those offered to foreigners in the dazzling nights of great cities by timid little dealers with encouraging whispers. The Chinaman purveyed the postcards in series through the lost townships of Siberia and lent them out like books. He would then collect them again from his subscribers and exchange them for new ones. The pictures were worn like old playing-cards by the covetous fingers of many hundreds. Efrejnov, Lion and Berzejev