Metamorphosis and Other Stories
Page 27
Everything passes off safely. The signal mast indicates that the wind has become more favourable, and Curtiss is now to fly for the Grand Prix of Brescia. Really? Is it to be? No sooner is the word passed around than Curtiss’s engine is droning, he is hardly visible, already he is flying away from us, flying over the plain, as it runs away from him, towards the distant forests that only now begin to rise towards him. From behind some houses, God knows where, he reappears, at the same height as before, racing towards us; when he climbs, then we see the underside of the biplane darkening, when he sinks lower, then its upper surfaces shine in the sun. He rounds the signal mast, and returns, indifferent to the noise of the cheering, to exactly where he started, only to become once more small and isolated. He performs five circuits, flies 50 kilometres in 49 minutes 24 seconds, and for that he wins the Grand Prix of Brescia, some 30,000 lire. It is a faultless performance, but faultless performances cannot be celebrated, in the end everyone thinks themselves capable of faultless performances, no courage seems to be required for a faultless performance. While Curtiss is working his way over the forest all alone, while his wife, familiar to everyone, is worrying about him, the crowd has almost forgotten about him. Everywhere the talk is about Calderara not flying (his aeroplane is broken), that Rougier has spent the past two days fiddling with his Voisin aeroplane, without letting it go, that Zodiac, the Italian dirigible, has failed to come. Calderara’s mishap is the subject of such anguished rumours that one would think the love of the nation would transport him up into the air more dependably than his Wright plane.
Curtiss has not yet ended his flight, and already the engines in three more hangars have sprung into life, as though from sheer contagious enthusiasm. Wind and dust collide from two opposite directions. One pair of eyes is not enough. We spin round in our seats, sway, hold on to someone’s jacket, beg pardon, someone else sways, grabs hold of us, we are thanked. The early autumn haze of an Italian evening descends, not everything on the field can be clearly made out any more.
Just as Curtiss walks past after his triumphant flight, without looking takes off his cap with a half-smile, Blériot embarks on the little circuit that everyone looked to him for earlier! We don’t know whether we are still applauding Curtiss or Blériot or Rougier already, whose big heavy plane is now hurling itself into the air. Rougier sits at the levers like a man at a desk, approachable from behind by means of a small ladder. He climbs higher in a small spiral, flies over Blériot, relegates him to a spectator, and will not stop climbing.
If we are to catch a cab, then it is already high time to go; plenty of people are already pressing past us. We know this latest is purely a practice flight, and as it is approaching 7 o’clock, will not be officially registered. In the motor-car park at the entrance to the aerodrome, chauffeurs and servants are standing on their seats, pointing at Rougier; outside the aerodrome, coachmen are standing on sundry scattered vehicles, pointing at Rougier; three trains full to the buffers are immobilized on account of Rougier. We are lucky enough to find a carriage, the coachman hunkers down in front of us (this carriage doesn’t have a box), and, at last becoming self-sufficient beings, we set off. Max observes perfectly correctly that one could, and should, put on something like this in Prague. It wouldn’t have to be a competition, though that would be worthwhile too, but surely it would be a straightforward matter to invite an aviator, and none of those involved would have to regret it. It would be such an easy matter; just now Wright is flying in Berlin, soon Blériot will be flying in Vienna, then Latham in Berlin. We would just have to persuade them to undertake a small detour. We two don’t reply, as firstly we’re tired, and secondly have no objection. The road turns, and Rougier comes into view again, so high one would think his position can only be determined by the stars that are about to appear in the now darkening sky. We don’t stop craning round; Rougier is still climbing, but we meanwhile are finally subsiding into the campagna.
Great Noise
I am sitting in my room in the headquarters of the noise of the whole apartment. I hear all the doors slamming, their noise only relieves me from hearing the footfall of those running from room to room; I even hear the sound of the oven door being clapped shut in the kitchen. My father bursts through the door and swishes through my room with dressing-gown waving, the ashes are scraped out of the stove next door, Valli calls to ask whether father’s hat has been brushed yet — her words from the hall are shouted one at a time for improved audibility — a replying shout seeks to ingratiate itself with me in the form of a hiss. The front door of the apartment opens with a rasp like a catarrhal throat being cleared, then opens further on the voice of a female in song, and finally shuts with a dull masculine thump that sounds like the most ruthless noise of all. Father is gone, now begins the more delicate, scattered, hopeless variety of noise, headed by the voices of the two canaries. Not for the first time — the canaries remind me now — I think of opening my door a crack, crawling next door like a snake, and from a position prone on my belly begging my sister and her maid for a little quiet.
The Coal-Scuttle Rider
Coal all gone; coal-scuttle empty; coal-shovel meaningless; the stove breathes out chill; the room is puffed full of frost; the trees outside the window stiff with ice; the heavens, a silver shield against those who would seek their help. I must have coal, otherwise I shall freeze; behind me the pitiless stove, ahead of me the heavens, ditto; nothing for it but to steer my course narrowly between the two, and throw myself upon the mercy of the coal-merchant in the middle. He has already steeled himself to my usual pleas; I must prove to him that I have not a speck of coal-dust left, that he is as important to me as the sun in the sky. I must turn up on his doorstep like the beggar almost extinct with hunger, so that the cook decides to give him the last of the coffee dregs; in just such a spirit I need the merchant, furious, but illuminated by the legend ‘Thou shalt not kill!’, to sling a shovelful into my scuttle.
The manner of my arrival will decide everything; therefore I will ride up on my coal-scuttle. Mounted on my scuttle, my hand gripping the handle, the simplest kind of bridle, I turn laboriously down the stairs; but once at ground-level, my scuttle rises splendidly, splendidly; camels lying close to the ground do not rise more elegantly swaying under the stick of the camel-drover than my scuttle. Along the frozen lane at an even trot; often I am carried along level with the first-storey windows, never do I sink as low as the doors. And I float up at an exceptional height in front of the coal-merchant’s basement, where he huddles way down at his desk, writing; to let some heat escape, he keeps the door open.
‘Coal merchant!’ I call down, my voice seared hollow with cold, swathed in clouds of steamy breath: ‘Coal merchant, please, give me some coal. My coal-scuttle is already so empty I can ride on it. Out of the kindness of your heart. I’ll pay you when I can.’
The coal-merchant cups his hand to his ear. ‘Did I hear something?’ he calls out to his wife over his shoulder. ‘Did I hear something? Could it be a customer?’
‘I never heard anything,’ says his wife, breathing placidly in and out over her knitting, her back beautifully warmed.
‘Yes,’ I call out, ‘it’s me, an old customer, a loyal customer, but down on my luck just now.’
‘Wife,’ says the merchant, ‘there is, there is someone there; I surely can’t be imagining things; an old, a very old customer, who knows how to stir my heart.’
‘What’s the matter with you, husband?’ says the wife, and, resting for a moment, clasps her knitting to her bosom. ‘There isn’t anyone; the street is deserted; our customers are all supplied; we could shut down the business for a few days and rest.’
‘But I’m sitting up here on my coal-scuttle,’ I call out, and freezing tears blur my vision, ‘please look up; you’ll find me; I’m begging you for a shovelful; if you give me two, I’ll be overjoyed. All your other customers have got what they need. Oh, if only I could hear it clattering into my scuttle at this moment!’
> ‘I’m coming,’ says the merchant, and he sets off to climb the cellar steps on his bandy legs, but his wife stops him, puts her hand on his arm and says: ‘Stay here. If you will insist on being so obstinate, I’ll go up there myself. Remember your terrible coughing last night. But the moment you think there’s a customer, even if it’s just your imagination, you’re prepared to quit wife and child and sacrifice your lungs. I’ll go.’ ‘Remember to tell him all the different sorts we have; I’ll shout the prices up to you.’ ‘All right,’ says the wife and she climbs up to the street. Of course she sees me straightaway.
‘Madam coal-merchant,’ I call out, ‘my humble greetings to you; just one shovelful of coal, please; straight into my coal-scuttle; I’ll walk it home myself; one shovelful of the cheapest sort. Of course I’ll pay you what it costs, only not right away, not right away.’ What a knell is produced by those words, ‘not right away’, and how confusingly they blend with the sound of the evening chimes from the church tower nearby.
‘What does he want?’ calls the merchant. ‘Nothing,’ his wife calls back, ‘it’s nothing; I can’t see anything; I can’t hear anything; it’s just striking six o’clock and we should shut up shop. It’s awfully cold; we will probably have a lot of custom tomorrow.’
She doesn’t see anything, doesn’t hear anything; but nevertheless she unties her apron, and tries to flap me away with it. Unfortunately she is successful. My scuttle has all the good points of a good riding horse; but not much resistance; it’s too light; a woman’s apron will sweep it off its feet.
‘You evil woman!’ I call back, while she, returning to her shop, waves her hand in the air, half in contempt, half in satisfaction. ‘You evil woman! I begged you for a shovelful of the cheapest sort, and you wouldn’t give it to me.’ And with that, I ascend into the region of the glaciers, and am never seen again.