Weights and Measures

by Joseph Roth

  20

  Jadlowker had taken out several mortgages on the border tavern. This now emerged. Immediately after he had been sentenced the question was raised in the town of Zlotogrod, and in the district as a whole, as to who should take over the border tavern at Szwaby – only temporarily, of course, according to the official version, but in reality for good. For the border tavern was a good business and the fact that Leibusch Jadlowker owned it had long been a matter for envy. That evening, without a previous appointment, the five mortgagees met together in the border tavern at Szwaby. All five arrived at almost the same time, all five were startled to meet each other there. The richest among them was Kapturak.

  It was he who brought the deserters here; he really traded in them. He alone knew exactly what the dealings of the tavern brought in, for he himself owned a similar inn on the other side of the border, on Russian territory. The other mortgagees, however, were amateurs: a coral dealer named Piczenik; a fishmonger named Balaban; a cab-driver named Manes; and a seller of dairy products named Ostersetzer.

  All four were far less shrewd than little Kapturak. Fräulein Euphemia Nikitsch sat at the table, she belonged to the inn, the mortgages were taken out on her too. All five mortgagees did not in fact look at her while they were negotiating, but all five were aware that she was there, that she was present and that she was listening. None of the five pleased her: not the exceedingly skinny Piczenik; not the exceedingly fat Balaban; not the driver Manes, the boor; and not Ostersetzer, because he was pockmarked and his beard was sparse and meagre like the beard of a billygoat. The one she, Euphemia, liked best was the tiny Kapturak. Though he was small and repulsive, he was more cunning and richer than the others. She sat down beside him. They drank the health of the condemned Jadlowker. All clinked their glasses.

  At that moment the bell of a carriage was heard and Euphemia knew at once that it was the Inspector’s carriage. She got up. In truth, she loved him. She also loved money, security, the inn, the shop that was part of it, as well as poor Jadlowker who was now sitting in the penitentiary, but the last named only in remembrance of the good times she had enjoyed with him. For she had a grateful disposition, like so many frivolous persons. Memories generally made her melancholy and affectionate. She jumped up when she heard the Inspector’s carriage.

  At the same moment he entered; tall and imposing as he was, he almost seemed to obliterate all the others. His bushy, fair, vigorous moustache gleamed brighter than the three oil-lamps in the centre of the room. All five mortgagees jumped up as well. He barely greeted them. He simply sat down, conscious of his authority, and as if he sensed behind him the invisible pressure of the sergeant of gendarmerie Slama, standing with fixed bayonet and wearing the gleaming spiked helmet.

  The conversation died away. Soon the mortgagees got up and left. They looked as if they had been thrashed, they put one in mind of dogs.

  21

  It must be said that the border tavern at Szwaby was no ordinary tavern. Even the government took an interest in it. It was obviously important for the government to know how many and which deserters arrived from Russia every day.

  One day the government took an interest in one thing and the next in another. It even took an interest in Frau Czaczkes’ poultry; in Balaban’s weights; in Nissen Piczenik’s school-age children; the government took an interest in vaccinations, in taxes, in marriages and in divorces, in wills and estates, in smuggling and in forgers. Why should it not take an interest in Jadlowker’s border tavern, in which all the deserters congregated? The district authority had a political interest in seeing that the border tavern was under proper surveillance. With this in mind it turned to the municipality of Zlotogrod. And the municipality of Zlotogrod appointed Inspector Eibenschütz as provisional manager of the border tavern.

  The consequence of this was that Eibenschütz experienced great pleasure and, at the same time, great embarrassment. He was pleased and did not know why. He was afraid and did not know what he feared. When he received the document marked ‘Strictly confidential’, in which he was charged by the municipality, at the instance of the government authorities ‘to take over the supervision of the inn and related interests of the landlord and grocer Leibusch Jadlowker during his absence’, he believed that fortune and misfortune had befallen him at the same time and he felt like a man who dreams that he is standing on a broad open plain, buffeted by two different kinds of wind at once, a north wind and a south wind. Bitter grief and sweet joy breathed on him simultaneously and furiously. He could of course decline the request of the municipality acting in the name of the district authority. In the letter it stated: ‘It is left to you to render a report accepting or rejecting the proposal.’ This made the Inspector’s position even more difficult. He was not used to making decisions. He had served for twelve years. He was accustomed to obey. If only he were still in the barracks, had stayed in the army!

  He went home very slowly, hat in hand and with lowered head. He had plenty of time, he imagined that the way was longer than usual. Strange to say, he felt no aversion towards his home and what it sheltered: his wife and the bastard. He had not seen the child since the evening when the midwife had brought it to him. Nor did his wife show herself in the hours when he was at home. Only occasionally he heard the child screaming behind the closed door. This gave him a certain pleasure, strange to say it did not annoy him in the least. He even smiled to himself when he heard the little one cry. If it cried, the little one, it was a sign that it was out of temper. Its mother too was out of temper, and so was the servant girl, Jadwiga. Let them all be out of temper!

  This evening no sound penetrated the closed door. The servant girl Jadwiga entered without speaking, she brought in the soup and the meat at the same time – for Eibenschütz had forbidden her to come into the room twice in the course of an evening. He ate hastily and left half on his plate. He missed the child’s crying and his wife’s lulling song.

  During the meal he drew the strictly confidential letter from his pocket and read it through once more. For a while he believed that new possibilities, new interpretations, might arise from the words, from the letters even. But after he had read the letter a couple of times he had to admit to himself that it contained nothing mysterious and no hidden meaning.

  He had to make a decision, there was no doubt about it. The plates still stood before him, half-empty, pushed back and rejected. In a moment he was on his feet. He went into the shed and trundled the gig into the yard, then into the stable so that he might untie the grey horse Jacob.

  He harnessed up, he drove off. He sat calmly on his seat, his hands in his lap. The reins lay loosely over the back of the old horse, the ends were twisted round the brake handle. On the left the whip leaned in its leather holder.

  Without reins, without whip, without orders of any kind, the grey in due course deposited him at Szwaby, right in front of the door of the border tavern.

  Eibenschütz at once asked for Frau Euphemia.

  He did not sit down, he considered it necessary to adopt a kind of official attitude, as if he had come here with the firm resolve to take over the management of the hostelry. Official attitude – he said to himself – and he remained standing at the foot of the stairs with his hat on his head. It was some time before she came down. After a long while he heard her heel on the stair. He did not look up but he thought he could clearly picture her foot, a long narrow foot in a long narrow shoe. All at once there was the rustling sound of her many-pleated wine-red dress. Her hard, firm, even step resounded on the hard, wooden, bare treads. Eibenschütz did not want to look up. He would much rather imagine the way she walked and the way the many, many tiny pleats of her dress were moving. He would have liked the stair to have many more treads. Now she had descended, was already standing before him. He took off his hat.

  He said, without exactly looking at her, speaking across her head but so that he perceived very distinctly the blue-black sheen of her hair: ‘I have something special to say to
you!’

  ‘Say it then!’

  ‘No, something very special! Not here!’

  ‘Then let’s go outside,’ she said, and stepped ahead to the door.

  The moon stood large and mellow over the courtyard.

  The dog barked ceaselessly. The grey horse stood tied to the yard-gate, its head drooping as if deep in thought. The sweet and heady smell of acacias filled the air, and it seemed to Eibenschütz that all the scents of this spring night emanated from the woman, that she alone was able to bestow on the night the fragrance and the glitter and the moon and all the acacias in the world.

  ‘I am here on official business today,’ he said. ‘I trust you, that’s why I am telling you this, Euphemia,’ he added after a while. ‘None of the mortgagees is to be allowed into this house. I have been ordered to take charge and to supervise things. If you agree, we shall get on well together.’

  ‘Of course,’ she replied, ‘why should we not get on splendidly?’

  It seemed to the Inspector that her voice sounded quite different in the silvery blue of the night than in the inn parlour. The voice was loud, clear and gentle, it had, as it were, arches and curves; Eibenschütz believed he could see the voice and almost catch hold of it. Soon after, he had the sensation that it made an arch over his head and that he was standing directly beneath it.

  It was only after it had died away that he grasped what the voice had said. They would get on well together. And why not?

  ‘It’s strictly confidential,’ he said. ‘You understand that? You won’t say a word to anyone?’

  ‘Not a word to anyone,’ she said and held out her hand to him, a gleaming white hand. It looked as if it was swimming through the silver-blue night.

  He waited a while, he looked at the gleaming hand for a long time before he took it. It was cold and warm at the same time, it seemed to him that the palm was hot and the back cold. He held onto the white gleaming thing for some time. When he let it go Euphemia was smiling. Her sparkling teeth showed clearly in the blue of the night.

  She turned round quickly and her many-pleated skirt rustled, very softly. The dress had a life of its own, it was a kind of living, magic tent. It whispered, it rustled.

  When the Inspector returned to the inn Sergeant Slama and the rogue Kapturak were sitting at a table playing tarock. Eibenschütz joined them.

  ‘Poor fellow, that Jadlowker,’ said Kapturak, ‘eh, Herr Inspector?’

  Eibenschütz did not answer but Sergeant Slama said impatiently: ‘We’ll catch you too one day, Herr Kapturak! Do you feel like another game?’

  22

  Most people depart this world without having acquired so much as a grain of truth about themselves. Possibly they acquire it in the next world. Some, however, are granted self-knowledge while they are still in this world. It usually comes to them quite suddenly and alarms them mightily. Inspector Eibenschütz belonged to this category of men.

  Summer came suddenly, without any transition. It was hot and dry, and if now and again it brought a storm in its train, this passed quickly and left behind it a still more intense heat. Water was scarce, the springs ran dry. The grass in the meadows soon turned yellow and withered and even the birds seemed to die of thirst. They were numerous in this neighbourhood. Each summer that Eibenschütz had spent here had been filled with their fervent, clamorous singing. This summer, however, they did not show themselves much and the Inspector noticed to his astonishment that he missed their song. When had he ever cared about the song of the birds? Why, all of a sudden, was he aware of all the changes in nature? What had nature meant to him, the artilleryman Eibenschütz, in the past? Good or poor visibility. A parade ground. Whether to wear one’s overcoat or carry it. Whether to move on or stay put. Whether to clean one’s rifle twice a day or only once. Why did Inspector Eibenschütz suddenly feel all the changes in nature? Why was he now enjoying the deep summery green of the large, broad, rich chestnut leaves and why did the scent of the chestnuts so powerfully overwhelm his senses?

  His child, that is the clerk Nowak’s child, was now taken for outings in a perambulator. He sometimes encountered his wife in the small municipal park when he traversed it on his way from the office to his home. It was too hot to march over the paving-stones. When he met his wife Eibenschütz walked along with her for a while, behind the perambulator, and they did not utter a word. For a long time he had felt no hate, either towards his wife or towards the child; he was indifferent to both of them, at times he even felt compassion for both. He walked along behind the baby carriage, beside his wife, simply because he was concerned that the people in the little town should believe that all was well. Suddenly he would turn round, without a word, without a salutation, and go home. The servant girl brought him his meal. He ate hastily and absentmindedly. He was already thinking of the grey, of the gig, of the drive to Szwaby, of the border tavern.

  He went outside into shed and stable, he harnessed up and drove off. He drove along in golden clouds of dust and sand, his throat was dry, the relentless sun stabbed with a thousand lances at his head through the broad-brimmed straw hat, but his heart was light. He could have stopped at many a hostelry, there were hostelries in plenty along his route. He stopped nowhere. Thirsty and hungry as his soul was, so he too wanted to arrive at Szwaby, at the border tavern.

  He arrived and it took a good two hours. The grey, Jacob, was already fretting; he let his tongue hang out, he longed for water and his flanks quivered in heated agitation. The groom came to unharness him. Since Jadlowker had been locked up the groom regarded Inspector Eibenschütz as the legitimate owner of the border tavern. He was an old groom, a Ruthenian peasant. Onufrij was his name, and he was deaf to boot. One might have thought that he understood nothing but he grasped everything, possibly because he was so deaf and so old. Many who hear little are capable of noticing quite a lot.

  The Inspector sat down at the table by the window. He drank mead and ate salted peas. Kapturak approached him in humble friendliness, for no other purpose than to pass the time of day. The Inspector hated this humble familiarity. Strange to say, he himself was beginning to realize that his growing sensitivity to the processes of nature also made him more sensitive to the wickedness of men. It seemed unjust to the Inspector that Jadlowker had been condemned while Kapturak was running around free. What a pity that Kapturak gave no grounds for conviction by transgression of the law. He had no open shop, no scales, no weights. One day however they would catch him nevertheless.

  Eibenschütz drank for a while, then rose and ordered the barmaid to call Euphemia. He posted himself at the foot of the stairs to await the woman.

  Kapturak was still bringing Russian deserters to the border tavern every day, that is to say every night. They were very profitable for they were desperate and without hope, and people who are desperate and without hope spend money. But there were also spies among them who denounced their companions in misfortune and gave all kinds of information about matters concerning conditions at the frontier. Now, to practise police surveillance in no way formed part of the duties of an Inspector of Weights and Measures, nor was it in the nature of Anselm Eibenschütz to do so. However, he paid attention and endeavoured to listen to conversations and remember faces. It was repugnant to him and yet he did it.

  Euphemia was not upstairs in her room but next door in the open shop, where she sold the peasants turpentine, groats, tobacco, herrings, sprats, grease proof and silver paper and blue dye for lime-wash. The shop was open only on two days a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. Today was Thursday. Eibenschütz waited in vain at the foot of the stairs. Euphemia took him unawares.

  She gave him her hand and he remembered how this hand had come towards him, had swum towards him, through the silver-blue night in the spring a few weeks earlier. He took hold of the hand and held it for a long time, longer than he felt proper, but what was he to do?

  ‘What do you want of me?’ asked Euphemia.

  He wanted to say that he had come here in
the course of his official duty but instead he said: ‘I wanted to see you again!’

  ‘Come into the shop,’ she replied. ‘I have no time, the customers are waiting.’

  He went into the shop.

  The golden summer evening was already under way.

  The deserters were singing in the tavern. They drank tea and schnapps and wiped the sweat from their faces after each swallow. Each of them had a towel hanging round his neck. They broke off their singing for a moment as Euphemia and the Inspector went out.

  Many peasants and Jews were waiting in the little shop. They wanted turpentine, wax, Sabbath candles, emery paper, tobacco, herrings, sprats and blue distemper. Inspector Eibenschütz, who had so often come here in the course of official duty, as the executor of inflexible laws, in order to check scales and measures and weights, found himself unexpectedly behind the counter beside Euphemia. And, as if he were her apprentice, she ordered him to fetch this and that, to weigh this and that, to serve this one and that one.

  The Inspector obeyed. What was he to do? He was not even aware that he obeyed.

  The customers left. Euphemia and the Inspector left the shop. They had barely three steps to cover to the inn. But to Eibenschütz it felt as if they needed a long, long time to do so. The good cool summer night had already begun.

  23

  That night he stayed very late in the border tavern, until the first light of day, until the hour when the municipal constable Arbisch came to round up the deserters. This morning, for the first time for many weeks, the sky was cloudy. The sun, red and small like an orange, rose in the sky as Eibenschütz drove out of the inn gate. The air already smelled sweet and bright and humid after the long-awaited rain. A gentle breeze wafted towards Eibenschütz. Although he had been drinking all night long, he felt fresh and almost weightless. He felt very young and it seemed to him that he had not really experienced anything until this hour, nothing at all. His life was just about to begin.