by Joseph Roth
Ever since I had returned from the World War to my reduced fatherland, I had not mustered a belief in any form of government; much less a people’s government. Even now — shortly before what will in all probability be my final hour, I, a human being, dare to speak the truth — I belong to an evidently lost world, in which it was only to be expected that a people would be ruled in some form, and that, unless it were to cease being a people, it would not rule itself. To my deaf ears — which I have often heard described as “reactionary” — it sounded as though a beloved woman had said to me she no longer needed me; she could sleep with herself, and was even obliged to, purely in order to contract a child.
I was therefore surprised by the shock that came over my friends at the sight of this jackbooted gentleman and his exotic announcement. Between the lot of us, we took up three tables. A moment later, I was all alone. I was all alone, it was as though I had been looking for myself and to my surprise suddenly found myself, alone. All my friends had got up from their chairs, and instead of bidding me “Good night!” first, as had been their way for years, they called: “Waiter, bill please!” But since our waiter Franz didn’t appear, they called out to the Jewish café owner Adolf Feldmann: “We’ll pay tomorrow!” and they walked out, without looking at me.
I thought they meant it, that they really would return tomorrow to pay, and that Franz was just detained in the kitchen or somewhere, and hence unable to come promptly when called. But after ten minutes, the café owner Adolf Feldmann came out from behind the bar, in his hat and coat, and said: “Baron, this is goodbye. If we should meet anywhere in the world, we will recognize each other. Tomorrow you surely will not come here. Not with the new German people’s government. Will you go home, or do you think you will stay here?”
“I’ll stay here, like every other night,” I replied.
“Then farewell, Baron! I’m turning out the lights. Here are two candles!”
And with that he lit a couple of pallid candles, and before I could account for my impression that he had left me two funeral candles, all the lights in the café went out, and pale, with a black top hat on his head, looking more like an undertaker than the jovial, silver-bearded Jew Adolf Feldmann, he handed me a massy lead swastika, and said: “Just in case, Baron! Enjoy your schnapps in quiet! I’ll let the shutters down. When you’re ready to go, you can open them from inside. The pole is on the right of the door.”
“I’d like to pay,” I said.
“There’s no time for that today!” he said.
And he was gone, and I heard the shutter clatter down outside the door.
So I was alone at the table, with the two candles. They stuck to the imitation marble tabletop and reminded me of white, upright, burning worms. At any instant I expected them to start to writhe in the manner of worms.
As I began to feel a little spooked, I called out: “Franz, the bill!” as I did every other evening.
But in came not Franz the waiter, but the guard dog who was also called “Franz,” and whom I had never liked. He was a sandy yellow colour, and had rheumy eyes and a slimy muzzle. I don’t care for animals, and I care even less for people who love animals. All my life it seemed to me that people who love animals withhold some of that love from people, and that view seemed particularly justified when I happened to hear that the Germans of the Third Reich love those German sheepdogs called Alsatians. “Poor sheep!” I said to myself when I heard that.
And now the dog Franz came over to me. Although I was his enemy, he rubbed his face against my knee, as though to beg my forgiveness. And the candles burned, the funeral candles, my own funeral candles! No bells sounded from St Peter’s church. As I never carry a watch on my person, I did not know how late it was.
“Franz, the bill please!” I said to the dog, and he climbed on to my lap.
I picked up a sugar lump and held it out to him.
He didn’t take it. He just whimpered. And thereupon he licked my hand, the hand from which he had refused the gift of a piece of sugar.
Now I blew out one candle. I removed the other from the imitation marble tabletop, and went to the door, and with the pole pushed up the shutter from inside.
I wanted to escape the dog and his affection.
When I stepped out on to the pavement with the pole in my hand to lower the shutter, I saw that the dog Franz had not abandoned me. He was following me. He refused to stay. He was an old dog. He had worked for at least ten years in the Café Lindhammer, just as I had for the Emperor Franz Joseph; and now he could work no more. Now both of us could work no more. “The bill, Franz!” I said to the dog. He whimpered in reply.
Day was breaking over the alien, occupying crosses. A dawn breeze shook the ancient lights which, in this street at least, had not yet been extinguished. I walked along the deserted streets with a strange dog. He was set on following me. Where would we go? I had as little idea as he did.
The Kapuzinergruft, where my Emperors lie buried in stone sarcophagi, was locked. The Capuchin brother came up to me, and asked me: “What do you want?”
“I want to visit the tomb of my Emperor Franz Joseph,” I replied.
“May God bless you!” replied the monk, and he made the sign of the cross over me.
“Long live the Emperor!” I called.
“Ssh!” said the monk.
Where can I go now, I, a Trotta? . . .
Translator’s Acknowledgements
Some thanks are in order: to the founders and organizers of the Spycherpreis, the commune of Leuk and the canton of Wallis (especially Alex Hagen, Thomas Hettche, Carlo Schmidt and Hans Schnyder) for generously establishing me in a place where I have worked so happily for so many years; to Will Hobson — who improved my translation of The Radetzky March a decade ago (then it was synchronized page-turning over milky coffee, now — alas! — it is electronic ping-pong) — for kindly finding the time to help me with this sequel: it is a pleasure to be indebted again to his ear and resourcefulness and attention to detail; and to Philip Gwyn Jones, Bella Lacey, Aidan O’Neill and others at Granta for their noble commitment to this project; and to my friends Jana Marko and Peter Sokol for help and support.
Also by Joseph Roth
FICTION
The Collected Shorter Fiction of Joseph Roth
Rebellion
The String of Pearls (The Tale of the 1002nd Night)
Right and Left
The Legend of the Holy Drinker
Job: The Story of a Simple Man
Confession of a Murderer
The Radetzky March
Flight Without End
The Silent Prophet
Hotel Savoy
Tarabas
The Antichrist
Weights and Measures
Zipper and His Father
The Spider’s Web
The Leviathan
The Hundred Days
NON-FICTION
Report from a Parisian Paradise: Essays from France, 1925–1939
The Wandering Jews
What I Saw: Reports from Berlin, 1920–1933
Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters
Translation copyright © 2013 by Michael Hofmann
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
First published as a New Directions Paperbook in 2013
Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited
Design by Erik Rieselbach
Roth, Joseph, 1894-1939.
[Kapuzinergruft. English]
The emperor's tomb / Joseph Roth ; Translated by Michael Hofmann.
pages cm
"Originally published in German in 1938 as Die Kapuzinergruft."
ISBN 978-0-8112-2128-3 (e-book)
/> I. Title.
PT2635.O84K313 2013
833'.912--dc23
2013005426
New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation
80 Eighth Avenue. New York 10011
