Perlefter: The Story of A Bourgeois

V

Unfortunately Fredy’s engagement could not be officially celebrated. You see, one had to consider his sister, who was older than he. And, as far as anyone knew there was not a suitor in sight.

It was a shame. The eldest had already dispensed with men. She was, unfortunately, named Karoline, and that troubled her and paralysed her courage before men. Although known as Line in the family that also irritated her. She had once been pretty; to me she’d once been very pretty. Oh, as I arrived at Perlefter’s she still wore her hair in a ponytail and swayed her hips when she walked. Her hair was brown, hard, crackling and unruly. She was very arrogant, little Karoline. She was a character. She didn’t cry; or, more accurately, at least not when anyone could hear her, for her small grey malevolent eyes were often red. She was the wisest and most taciturn member of the family. She was always sitting with books and always achieved the best grades and was rarely sick. Back when I still played with the children she tormented me the least. She isolated herself from me, and there was always some invisible fence around her. She read the most books and always placed one on her lap when she came to the table and hastily gulped down each bite so she could return to reading. At night it was her light that burned the longest.

But it seems that the education of a young girl can damage her charms. For, although Karoline had reached that age when she was not yet quite marriageable but at the point when an interest in men should have awoken within her, it proved that she had absolutely no interest either in her own appearance or in men. Indeed Karoline wore her crackling, unruly, provocative hair smooth and brushed back, and as a result one saw that she had a high, pale, arched mathematical brow and small, pretty earlobes whose delicacy was lost in consideration of this significant forehead. Every young man grew afraid of this head. Every man had to take this girl seriously and consequently could not fall in love with her.

Karoline studied mathematics and physics and was an assistant in some scientific institute. There she put on her heelless sandals, a blue work uniform, took a manly umbrella in her hand and in her wide breast pocket were jingling keys and a glasses case of black cardboard. Karoline was converted into a doctor.

The family praised her delicate ears and her hair, which to them and others were more consoling than the scientific standing of their daughter. But soon even the family succumbed to the allure that seems to surround laboratories and assistants, and everyone admired the achievements of such a young child.

‘She should have a husband,’ said Frau Perlefter.

Karoline became angry when one spoke of her. She rushed out of the room and slammed the door shut; the walls shook, and from behind the door one could hear sobbing.

It was customary in the Perlefter family that everyone kissed one another. Only Karoline kissed nobody. At great celebrations, at farewells and birthdays, she blew cool fleeting kisses from indifferent cheeks.

She had cold dry hands with pale, flat fingers. Her fingers looked like rules.

A husband was sought for her.

Sometimes Tante Kempen came; she had already dealt with many girls in the family. Tante Kempen had large brown shining eyes that seemed to absorb everything but in reality were practically blind. Glasses had been prescribed which, out of vanity, she spurned.

She knew all the suitable families, this Tante Kempen. Every week she was invited to a different house. She was like a wandering spider, spinning her web from one corner of the city to another or like a wind distributing fruit seeds around the world.

Tante Kempen had identified a man for Karoline. He was a lecturer who needed money in order to become a professor without worries, a scholar, a pleasant, forgetful young man. But Karoline was terrified of scholars.

The Perlefter family didn’t know what to do. Frau Kempen began to consider the other daughters. In any case, Karoline went her own way, and I will get to this later when the occasion arises.

Frau Kempen focused on the second child, who was called Julie. She was gentle, pale, anaemic, and she drank Chinese wine and swallowed iron pills that caused chronic constipation. The doctor ordered her to take walks, but to do so Julie would need comfortable sandals of the type her sister Karoline wore.

Julie wore vain high heels and small patent-leather boots that caused her pain. She liked to buy fabric, colourful scraps of lace which she stored in the drawer of her chest. What she liked most was to lie on a cold bed and sort remnants of silk. She had four seamstresses, for new and old clothes, for both alterations and ‘modernization’. All the men liked Julie, and she left the selection up to Tante Kempen.

Herr Perlefter, who was ever practical, wanted to have an engineer in the family but not the type who could design bridges. Herr Perlefter wanted a practical building engineer who could appraise a house. During this time there were many inexpensive homes being constructed, but each appraisal cost ‘a fortune’. And yet engineers earned so little. Perlefter wanted to have a handyman in the house.

Frau Kempen searched frantically and could find only an architect with artistic ambitions.

But he had a studio. He gave parties. One spoke of his reckless life, and a report from the Argus Detective Agency revealed that he had considerable debt. The worst was that his family was unknown, that he was ‘alone in the world’. Argus could not discover the profession of his father.

‘Perhaps’, said Herr Perlefter, ‘his father was a bartender or a pimp or a brothel owner. Who knows? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!’

It was quite hopeless. Frau Kempen could not even get the Perlefters to invite this young man over ‘without obligation’. She thus turned her attention to the third daughter without the second being completely removed from her thoughts.

The third daughter was the most prettily named, Margarete, and she deserved this apellation. She was lovely. Yes, I liked her. Had custom not demanded that an errand boy not fall in love with his employer’s daughter I would certainly have fallen in love with Margarete, but back then I was still a messenger for Perlefter. Later I saw that it was a good thing I did not give my heart to Margarete. You see, she was an unhappy person.

She was unlike the rest of her family; light and cheerful in disposition, she let nothing come to confrontation. One took her for an obedient and authority-respecting child. She kissed everyone who offered a cheek for her to kiss. Generally speaking, it was believed that she could tolerate anyone.

By the time she was fourteen years old many young men were in love with her. But around then she loved her history teacher. At that time she also had the best grades in history. The next year she loved her literature teacher and forgot everything about history. She learned to play the piano but was quite unmusical. She trilled melodies loudly and tunelessly all morning long.

Later she met a young socialist and gave herself with ardour to the party secretary. Every Sunday she went in wooden sandals into the forest with the workers’ children. She taught the children to sing, and all of them sang off-key, too.

Under the influence of another young man, who gave lectures at the community college, she immersed herself in Steiner and Nietzsche. She understood not a word of either. But she was proud that she was so cultivated.

When someone told her that it was abominable for a woman to be idle she applied for a job as a stenographer in a bank. Over ten poor candidates who needed the job Margarete was victorious. For she was Perlefter’s daughter. She even received bonuses while the other girls were dismissed.

Margarete was pale and thin, and she could not stand the air in the office or the typewriter. Thus she gave the position up and became a kindergarten teacher without pay. But she understood nothing about kindergarten, and they dispensed with her assistance.

After that she arranged charity balls, surrendering herself to the duties of a committee member.

Next she dreamed of having a salon with poets, artists and scholars. Her husband should not play a role in this venture but should have money.

Frau Kempen went in search of such a man.

Eventually she found one.

In the meantime, however, something important happened in the Perlefter household. All other things of importance faded into the background before one particular event: Henriette got married. Henriette was thirty years old and had been with the household for twelve years. I remember how she looked when she arrived. She came direct from the country, eighteen years old with red crackling hair, and she smelled of laundry soap bars. One could hear her stiff undergarments rustling.

I loved her.

She was the product of a random adventure when the police sergeant connected with her mother eighteen years earlier as he patrolled his route alone. Her mother brought hens, eggs, bread and radishes into the city.

I went once with Henriette to her village. She wore a hat with glass cherries and held her shoes and stockings in her hand, since the road was muddy. We walked through the fields, the crickets chirping and the glass cherries clinking. Henriette told me all sorts of things that Perlefter’s wife and the porter’s wife said — for example, that Henriette would be better off in a position with a childless couple. But Henriette feared her mother. Under another employer she might perhaps go astray. It seemed to me it was Henriette herself who was most afraid she would go astray.

She was red and flushed, and we were both hot. Then Henriette took off her hat, and it seemed to me that her hair was fragrant. Yes, it smelled very much like hay, meadows and dew. We stood still, and the wind caressed us. It was late spring, and one could already hear summer’s gallop.

Then Henriette told me that a new constable had arrived in the village when she was fourteen years old. He had been a handsome officer, fearless and with shiny buttons. So, I thought, Henriette loves a policeman.

But in the course of the conversation it turned out that this constable was a pretty despicable fellow. He had seduced three fourteen-year-old girls, taken their cash and disappeared.

I don’t know whether Henriette was one of those fourteen-year-olds. But I am practically convinced of it.

In the woods a solitary bird was warbling, and we argued about its type. I was two years younger than Henriette, yet she debated with me as if I had been the same age as she. She was the only person who had respect for me. I was a man.

I said it was a goldfinch. Henriette suggested an oriole.

I began to quarrel with her. But even though it really was an oriole and Henriette was right, I did not yield.

Finally she hit me, and I pushed her back, but I bumped into her soft breast, and my anger dissipated. I protested no longer and smiled as Henriette threw me to the ground and pounced on me.

We lay together in the woods, the wind was warm and fresh, and the oriole warbled. And we got carried away.

I was determined to marry her, but she cheated on me with a chimney-sweep, yet loved me still. The older I got the more she loved me. When I took leave of Perlefter she kissed me, and sometimes she came to me ‘just for a quick hello’.

Henriette could not marry the chimney-sweep, for she could not let go of the Perlefter family. She had announced her intentions and was already making preparations for the wedding. Then Frau Perlefter became sick. She had a weak heart. So Henriette stayed.

After that she chased after a man from the gas works. He even came into the kitchen on Sundays. But the reason for this was a suddenly flaring love for the two maids.

After that a policeman, a tailor and a mason came on to the scene. All of them wanted to marry Henriette. But she hesitated for quite a while, for she could not leave Perlefter’s house. The policeman died of pleurisy, the tailor disappeared from the picture and the mason fell off a table in his house and broke a leg. It was quite remarkable that the mason fell off a table despite having the chance to plunge from respectably high scaffolding on a daily basis. He made a fool of himself and fell off a table. Perhaps he had, at that moment, been thinking of Henriette. Henriette visited him once in the hospital, but she could not tolerate the smell of iodoform. She fainted and never returned.

Yet I knew she would come to me if I were bandaged and reeking of iodoform in the hospital. For Henriette had not forgotten me. She loved me more maternally, and the older I got the younger I appeared in her eyes.

I accompanied her more often to her native village. I carried her hat and, when it was wet, also her shoes and stockings. Once when her mother was sick, a second time when her stepfather died and a third when her uncle married his third wife. But we argued no more over the species of twittering birds. We consistently agreed about all things. We spoke about all our concerns, and sometimes I even related something from books I had read. Henriette was very proud of me and prophesized a great future.

We abstained but loved each other none the less.

I would have done anything for Henriette. But we didn’t use the familiar form of ‘you’ in front of others.

She suggested that I should turn my attention to Margarete.

I then had much money. Surely I was worth much more than those young men who came to the house.

‘I don’t need money,’ I said.

‘You’re a foolish boy!’ said Henriette.

So we walked peaceably next to each other and arrived at the village. I ate cheese and sour milk and porridge that Henriette cooked for me. Porridge was usually eaten only by the sick and by new mothers. Before I went to sleep Henriette squeezed my hand.

It was just around that time, when Fredy’s engagement party was to take place and when Perlefter had returned home from his bold flight, that a rich and widowed farmer courted Henriette.

When Perlefter heard about it, he said, ‘We cannot and must not stand in the way of their happiness!’ Frau Perlefter began to cry. She even began to feel ill and took bromide. But this time Henriette stuck by her decision to marry. She was attracted by the large farm and the role she would play in her village.

It was ambition.

The Perlefter family decided that Henriette could go off immediately after Fredy’s official engagement.

But Fredy’s official engagement depended on the engagement of his sister. Henriette, meanwhile, worked on sewing her trousseau. Every Sunday she went to the village. She brought back milk, butter, radishes, sauer-kraut and country bread.

She looked almost like her mother did many years before. One had to look at Henriette’s face for a long time to realize that she was once pretty.

By this time Henriette had a pale yellow face. Neither the joy of surprise, nor heat from the kitchen, nor a winter’s storm and wind could turn her cheeks red. They were emaciated cheeks. Her forehead jutted out and shaded her face, and deep within, like bay windows, lay her triangular-shaped blue, pale and hard-looking eyes.

And yet I still loved Henriette, and every day I was ready to marry her just as she was with her strong bony hands and skin that was like leather.

When Perlefter found out about my love he took me for crazy. He was speechless.

Perlefter was already two weeks at home. But he was still recounting stories of his travels. If one should believe him he had journeyed across the entire world. Yes, he was even rich in new artistic impressions. He had visited museums and studied paintings.

He appreciated only the dimensions of a painting. Perlefter liked to say, ‘Colossal! Such a painting!’ He was actually only describing its size. His highest praise was ‘As large as the wall!’

He sought to discover how long the painter of such a work had worked on it. Since returning home from his travels he read the art news for two hours a day. One time he went to an auction. He brought back to the house a painting of a dark-green sea on which a boat with two sailors rocked. He hung the painting in the salon and showed it to all his guests. ‘When I’m weary,’ he said, ‘I place a chair in front of the painting, sit myself down and study it. I could look at it for hours. This is art!’

Meanwhile, his daughter Karoline, the one they called Line, was annoyed. Yes, she was bold and said, ‘You don’t understand anything, Father!’ Then Frau Perlefter began to weep. She could not tolerate it when someone was offended.

But Perlefter didn’t concern himself with his daughter’s criticism. He regarded her as the least worthy of his children. ‘If someone has studied,’ said Perlefter, quite correctly, ‘one knows what one wants. God knows what will come of this Line! Frau Kempen hasn’t been around?’

Exactly! Frau Kempen came after a few days. As a precaution she had a list with her, but with her glassy and blind eyes she could not decipher a single name and refused to wear glasses. Herr Perlefter took the list from her hand and read, ‘Albert Koch, officer of Goldlust and Co., thirty-five years old; John Mitterwald, born in America, very rich; Alex Warjuschin, from Moscow, fled from the Bolsheviks.’

Perlefter interrupted the list and said reproachfully, ‘Nothing but strangers! Nobody knows who their parents are! If I’m going to give my child to someone I must know who, what and how he is!’

‘First we should hear more!’ urged Frau Perlefter, for she was afraid that Frau Kempen would be offended.

But Frau Kempen once again knew nothing of the parents.

‘Come with very precise information,’ said Herr Perlefter. ‘You need to treat this like a business. If someone offers me something …’ At this point Perlefter broke off. He was embarrassed to admit that he looked at his sons-in-law from a business perspective.

However, Karoline had proceeded with a significant change. She dressed herself carefully, she wore flowers on her chest and flowers stood ever in her room in various drinking glasses that had disappeared from their normal place in the household. I watched as Line blossomed and was young again, and once I ran into her on the outskirts of the city where there was a decent railway station but also pretty meadows. She sat on a bench with a young man. She rose and asked me not to mention this.

‘Naturally!’ I said.

Then something surprising happened. Karoline gave me a kiss. Oh! If only she had given me this kiss when she still wore a braid and swayed her hips.

The young man was a poor chemist. He had one arm in a sling and had shoddy boots and a battered hat. He was certain he wanted to be an inventor. So Karoline went her own way. I later learned that they had a small apartment, Karoline and the young man. One day I was invited over to celebrate the birthday of the young man (his name was Rudolf). We sat, the three of us, and drank and ate moderate but festive things. A purple silk tie lay on the table wrapped in thin paper. Karoline had purchased it. Karoline and Rudolf kissed constantly. Rudolf had injuries on all his fingers — he was quite diligent in his experiments. He wanted to marry as soon as he succeeded with his invention.

But, after three months passed and still no success, Karoline took the household by surprise one peaceful evening, while everyone was shelling nuts and said, ‘I’m engaged to be married!’

A great confusion arose. Herr Perlefter pulled himself together first and said, ‘One shouldn’t make bad jokes about serious matters.’ Then Karoline started to cry, and it was the first time in her life that she wept like that, such that everyone could see and hear her.

Perlefter let a long time of pleading pass before he consented. For a few days there was a mournful air in the Perlefter house, as if someone had suddenly been snatched away from them.

Perlefter took the occasion of this mood to eat at the club. After a few days he said to Karoline, ‘Bring the young man!’ It was as if he had ordered her to bring him a nutcracker.

Ultimately, a poor chemist was better than nothing. Now Fredy’s engagement could also be officially announced. The young chemist was very depressed when in the family circles. He bowed to everyone and sat stiffly at the table like a schoolboy at his desk.

Nobody knew who his parents were either. Perlefter said to all his friends, ‘A quiet young man! He will certainly be a great inventor. One can also earn a lot with inventions.’

Thus Fredy’s engagement was celebrated, and the young chemist got a couple of new suits. The wounds on his fingers finally healed and did not reappear. Had he decided not to invent any more?

One party chased the other.

After some weeks it was Henriette’s turn. I accompanied her once again and this time had a heavy suitcase to carry. Henriette sobbed the whole way. I attended her wedding. I gave her a gramophone and was held in high esteem.

‘He’s like my own son!’ said Henriette.

I danced with her, and then we went outside to cool off. Henriette said, ‘When the old man dies, you’ll be my heir!’

The old man, however, will live until Judgement Day. He is hardy, taciturn, and his face looks like it was hewn from the brown earth. He is never angry, never friendly, always alert; his tiny little eyes are forever wide open as if they have no lids and never require sleep.

Henriette is a brave wife, and she waits in vain for his death.