Grand Hotel

by Vicki Baum

  Grusinskaya paused a moment between the double doors of her room. “Well, good night, my dear,” she said to Witte. She spoke German to him whenever she was in a good humor. “Thank you again for this evening. It really went well, don’t you think? Eight curtains. Tell me, by the way. Who was that young man? Haven’t we seen him before somewhere? In Nice, was it?”

  “Yes, in Nice, Lisa. He introduced himself to me one day. We played bridge together once or twice. He appears to have a great admiration for Elisaveta.”

  “Ah,” Grusinskaya replied briefly. She put out her hand under her cloak and absentmindedly stroked Witte’s sleeve. “We are tired out. Good night, my dear. He’s the handsomest man I’ve ever seen in my life—this Baron,” she added in Russian. Her voice as she said it sounded as cold as if she were speaking of some object displayed for sale at an auction.

  Kringelein, lingering at his door and thirsting for Life, listened eagerly to the foreign speech. He had a confused notion that the world was larger and more exciting and quite different from anything he had ever imagined in Fredersdorf.

  Then the doors closed throughout the hotel. Everyone locked himself in behind double doors and each was left alone with himself and his secrets.

  THERE is not the faintest sign of any fashionable life on the ground floor of the big hotel between eight and ten in the morning. No lights, no music, not a single woman to be seen—unless a charwoman in a blue apron, sweeping out the Lobby with damp sawdust, were to be taken to represent her sex. This, however, did not occur to Count Rohna, who was already at his post, efficient, diligent, and calm as ever. He was freshly shaved and a corner of his silk pocket-handkerchief made an unobtrusive triangle above the pocket of his jacket. It was not at all the right thing in his opinion that the daily cleaning of the hotel should go on under the eyes of the guests. Not proper in the best of hotels. Unfortunately, however, it was out of his province. It was the concern of the head housekeeper. In any case the guests paid no attention, for such as are to be seen in a big hotel during the morning are all solid and industrious businessmen. They sit in the Lobby and conduct their business in all languages, selling stocks and shares, cotton, lubricating oil, patents, films, and real estate—and also plans, ideas, their minds, their energy, and even their lives. They eat a heavy breakfast and leave the breakfast room full of cigar smoke in spite of a modest notice on the yellow damask wallpaper requesting those who wish to smoke to do so in the gray salon next door. Newspapers are strewn on every table, every telephone booth is not only occupied but beleaguered. The hall porter, Senf, has not the slightest hope of getting any news from the hospital before one o’clock. On the fifth floor in the corridor just behind the laundry, the pageboys are subjected to a kind of review before going on duty. And the entrance hall of the Grand Hotel is not very different from a stock exchange.

  Take, for example, General Manager Preysing of the Saxonia Cotton Company. Let us take this excellent and thoroughly average businessman as an example, and then we shall see what men of his class do between eight and ten in the morning at the Grand Hotel.

  General Manager Preysing, a large heavy man, rather too stout, arrived at the hotel at the impossible hour of 6:20 a.m.; this was because only local passenger trains stopped at the hapless Fredersdorf. In spite of his utmost endeavors he had not so far succeeded in getting express train service for the town, though the factory had been granted a siding for loading its goods. This, however, only as an aside. Preysing, then, arrived in a somewhat exhausted and shaken state, and he grumbled to himself when he found that the room reserved for him was one of the most expensive. First floor, with sitting room and bath, No. 71, price 75 marks. Preysing was a careful man. For example, the real reason why he had not come to Berlin in his car was that he wished to save the expense of putting up his chauffeur. However, as he had an expensive room with a bath to pay for, the first thing he did was to enjoy a long and luxurious immersion in hot water. (In this he closely resembled the other gentleman from Fredersdorf, Mr. Kringelein.) After that he lay in bed for a while, but he could not shake off the fatigue and discomfort of the cold nighttime journey. So he got up again and dressed. Then he unpacked his bag with meticulous care and hung his suits up on the hangers he had brought with him. Each shoe, each set of underwear, everything, indeed, was enclosed in a clean linen bag, and on each bag the initials K. P. were neatly marked in red cross-stitch.

  While he tied his tie, Preysing looked absentmindedly out onto the street. A morning mist hung over it. It was still early. Street-sweeping machines were brushing the asphalt, and yellow buses moved like ships through the half-light of morning. Preysing looked down, but he saw nothing of all this. He had a difficult day before him. He must collect himself and have everything well thought out. He rang for the valet and gave him his shoes to clean. He had even brought his own polish along, a brown one and a white. The room was full already of the indefinable smell of a hurried business journey—trunk leather, toothpaste, eau de cologne, turpentine, cigar smoke. Preysing took out his wallet with the deliberate and fastidious movements that were characteristic of him and counted his money. In the inner pocket was a thick packet of one-thousand-mark notes. You could never say in business matters when cash might not come in handy. Preysing wet his thumb and forefinger as he counted the bills—the sign of a small man who has made his own way. He put the wallet back in the inner breast pocket of his gray worsted suit and fastened up the pocket with a safety pin. For a while he strolled back and forth in red leather bedroom slippers, conducting mute dialogues with the people from the Chemnitz Manufacturing Company. He looked in vain for an ashtray; he disliked having to knock off his cigar ash on the inkstand. Here too, there was a bronze eagle, like the one that had enchanted Kringelein in Room No. 70. The general manager drummed with his fingers for a moment or two upon its outspread wings. Then the valet brought back his shoes, and at ten minutes to eight Preysing was able to leave his room and arrive in time to be second at the hotel barber’s. In spite of his cares, he looked plump and prosperous and in excellent humor as, freshly shaved, he sat down to breakfast. And there Herr Rothenburger found him when he arrived as per appointment at 8:30. Herr Rothenburger was entirely bald. He did not even have eyebrows or eyelashes, and this gave him an air of perpetual astonishment that did not suit his cynical pursuits. He was an intermediary between brokers and bankers; now and then he acted as agent besides; and he also sat as a director on the boards of some small enterprises. He knew everything, repeated everything, and had a finger in everything. It was he who was the first to retail the latest stockbrokers’ joke and to start the ugly rumors that bring down the price of shares. Taken all in all, Herr Rothenburger was a comical, dangerous, and useful man.

  “Morning, Rothenburger,” said Preysing and stuck out two fingers with a cigar between them.

  “Morning, Preysing,” said Rothenburger, and shoved his hat back off his head. Then he sat down and put his briefcase on the table. “Back in Berlin again?”

  “Yes,” said Preysing. “Glad to see you. What’ll you have? Tea, cognac, ham and eggs?”

  “Cognac for me. All’s well at home? Your wife and daughters? Quite well, I hope?”

  “Thanks, quite well. Good of you to send congratulations on our silver wedding anniversary.”

  “Well, of course. And how did the firm mark the event?”

  “Good heavens! What’s the firm got to do with it? I stuck them with my old car and took a new one for it.”

  “Yes, of course. L’état c’est moi. I am the firm, a Preysing may say. And how is your father-in-law?”

  “Thanks, he’s fine. Still enjoys his cigar.”

  “Lord, the years I’ve known him now. When I think how he began with six Jacquard looms, in a little bit of a place—and now! Marvelous!”

  “Yes, the firm is doing well,” said Preysing, meaningfully.

  “Everyone talks of it. I hear you’ve built yourself a magnificent country house, regular palace, park and
all.”

  “Well, yes. It’s come to be quite a nice place. My wife’s mad about it. She is a wonderful manager, you know. Quite taken up with her house. Yes, we have a charming place now at Fredersdorf. You must come and see us.”

  “Thanks. Thanks. Very good of you. Perhaps I may be able to arrange a business trip—with expenses paid.”

  After disposing thus of the conventional amiabilities, they got down to the matter in hand.

  “A bit unsteady on the Stock Exchange yesterday, wasn’t it?” Preysing asked.

  “Unsteady? I should say so. Bedlam is nothing in comparison. But since the bull market in Bega the whole world has gone crazy. Everybody thinks he can do business without security, but yesterday it crashed. A thirty percent. drop, I tell you—forty percent. There are lots who are dead and don’t know it yet. Whoever is holding on to Bega—do you have any Bega?”

  “Had. Sold it at the right moment,” said Preysing—lying of course in the usual and traditional style customary in business; and Rothenburger knew it.

  “Well, don’t worry. They’ll recover again,” he said consolingly, exactly as if Preysing’s no had been yes. “What on earth can you rely on when a bank like Küsel in Düsseldorf closes its doors? A house like that! The Saxonia Company is among the sufferers, isn’t it?”

  “We? Not a penny. What put that into your head?”

  “No? I thought it was. One hears all sorts of rumors—but if the Küsel bankruptcy hasn’t touched you, I can’t understand why Saxonia shares have fallen as they have.”

  “Nor I. I don’t understand it either. Twenty-eight percent is no laughing matter. Other textile firms that are far worse than ours have held steady.”

  “Yes. Chemnitz Manufacturing Company shares are steady enough,” replied Rothenburger to this, without beating about the bush. Preysing looked at him. Eddies of blue smoke curled up between their two faces.

  “Let’s have it in plain words,” said Preysing after a short pause.

  “It’s for you to put it in plain words. I have no secrets, Preysing. You commissioned me to buy Saxonia Cotton on the market. And so I did—Saxonia shares for the Saxonia Company. Good. We drove the price up to a very respectable figure. One hundred eighty-four was really a very respectable figure. They said you were bringing off a big deal with England. The price went up. They said you were amalgamating with the Chemnitz Manufacturing Company. The price went up. Suddenly the Chemnitz people threw all their Saxonia shares on the market. Naturally the price fell. It fell out of all reason. The Exchange is always irrational. The Exchange is a hysterical woman. I can tell you that, Preysing, after being married to her for forty years. You lost money in the Küsel bankruptcy. Bon! The English deal has come to nothing. Good again—but all the same a drop of twenty-eight percent in one day is too much. There’s something more behind it.”

  “To be sure! But what is behind it?” asked Preysing, and a long ash from his cigar fell into his cold coffee. Preysing was no diplomat. His question was foolish and clumsy.

  “You know as well as I do. The Chemnitz Knitwear people are calling the deal off. You’ve come here by forced marches to rescue what can still be rescued. But what advice can I possibly give you? You can’t force the Chemnitz people to love you. When they throw all the shares they hold in your company on the market, it’s as good as saying: ‘No, thank you. We have no further interest in the Saxonia Company.’ The question remains—how to make the best of an unpleasant situation. Do you want to buy up any more of your own shares? You can get ’em cheap enough now.”

  Preysing didn’t reply immediately. He tried to think and that wasn’t easy for him. General Manager Preysing was an excellent fellow, correct, straightforward, of irreproachable character. But he was no business genius. He lacked imagination, persuasiveness and push. Whenever he was asked to come to any important decision, he floundered as if on slippery ice. He couldn’t even tell a convincing lie. He could only produce little feeble abortions of business lies. He would begin to stammer and beads of sweat would appear on his upper lip under his mustache.

  “If the Chemnitz people don’t want the amalgamation, it’s their business after all. They have more need of us than we of them. If it weren’t for this new dyeing process they’ve got hold of, we’d take no interest in the matter whatever,” he said finally, and thought he had got out of it very cleverly. Rothenburger raised his ten thick fingers in the air and let them fall again onto the breakfast table just beside the dish of honey. “But they have got the dyeing process, and therefore Saxonia does have an interest in the matter,” he said amiably.

  Preysing had ten answers at once on the tip of his tongue. “We lost nothing in the Küsel affair,” he wanted to say, and “the English deal has by no means fallen through,” and “the Chemnitz people have brought our shares down precisely because they do want to amalgamate—they’ll make a better deal that way.” But finally, he said none of these things, but only blurted out: “Well, we shall see. I’m having a talk with the Chemnitz people the day after tomorrow.”

  Rothenburger puffed smoke from his throat. “A talk? Which of them is coming? Schweimann? Gerstenkorn? Shrewd fellows. You’ll need your wits about you. That’s a job for your father-in-law, if you don’t mind my saying so. Well, while there’s life there’s hope. I must let that be known on the Exchange. Even if it does no good, it can’t do any harm. Well, and how do we stand? Are you commissioning me to go on buying cotton shares? If there’s no one there today to hold the market, we shall see a regular collapse. You can take it from me. Well?” And Herr Rothenburger snapped open his briefcase and took out an order form.

  A flush had appeared between Preysing’s eyebrows when Rothenburger made that tactless allusion to his father-in-law, and a fleck of red appeared and disappeared over the bridge of his nose. He took his fountain pen from his pocket and after no more than a momentary hesitation he signed the paper. “Up to forty thousand with a limit of 170,” he said coolly. To soothe his vanity he made a thick stroke under his signature. He showed thereby that he would stand no nonsense from his father-in-law, or from Herr Rothenburger either.

  Preysing stayed behind in the breakfast room; he felt depressed. There was a faint singing in his ears, for his blood pressure was not quite right, and an oppressive sensation in the back of his head often bothered him just when he had important interviews coming up. During the last year he’d had more than one reversal, and now again things were not looking exactly pleasant. It was not an enviable task to make the Chemnitz people stick to their original intentions if they now wanted to back out of the amalgamation. And at home his father-in-law would be sitting in his wheelchair, feeling the sly, malicious pleasure of an old man at seeing his son-in-law in a tight corner. The negotiations with the state railways about the express train service had led to nothing. That new dyeing process by which cheap fabrics could be given tints that hitherto only better-quality goods would take, had been snapped up under his nose by the Chemnitz Manufacturing Company. That important deal with England had been hanging fire for months. Preysing had been to Manchester twice, and each time the negotiations had gone worse after his return, almost broken off. And now the old man had started interfering in the affair with the Chemnitz Company. He had conducted crafty preliminary negotiations, and old Gerstenkorn had come to Fredersdorf to look into matters and they had argued about it all back and forth. The well-known commercial lawyer, Doctor Zinnowitz, had drawn up a draft contract, which, indeed, had not yet been signed: two Chemnitz shares for one Saxonia. It was good business for the Saxonia—and, when all was said and done, not bad for Chemnitz either. The Exchange knew all about it; so did the whole world (the world of the textile industry). Then suddenly the Chemnitz people took it into their heads to change their tune. And now, if you please, when the fat was in the fire the old man sent him, poor old Preysing, to set things straight again. Inadvertently, he took a sip of the cold coffee with the cigar ash in it and got up with an exclamation of disgust. His b
ack ached after his journey in that slow train; he yawned spasmodically and his eyes watered. He felt weary and in need of comfort; so he went to the telephone room and asked for an urgent call to be put through to Fredersdorf 48.

  Fredersdorf 48 was not the factory but his home. It was not long before the call came through, and Preysing settled his elbows on the ledge for a soothing talk with his wife.

  “Morning, Mulle,” he said. “Yes, it’s me. Still sleeping, Mulle? Still in bed?”

  “What do you think?” the telephone answered in a distant but amiable voice—a voice that was very dear to the faithful and devoted general manager. “It is half-past nine. I’ve had breakfast and watered my flowers. And you?”

  “Très bien!” Preysing said a little too brightly. “I’m having a talk with Zinnowitz presently. Is it sunny there?”

  “Yes,” said the telephone; it prattled on faintly in an intimate and homely way. “It is a beautiful day. Just think, all the blue crocuses have come out since yesterday.”

  Preysing could see the crocuses through the telephone, and the breakfast room with its wicker chairs, the bast-covered coffeepot, the table set and the knitted cozies over the eggcups. He saw Mulle too. She was wearing her blue dressing gown and her bedroom slippers, and in her hand was a watering can with a thin spout for the cactuses.

  “You know, Mulle, I don’t like it here,” he said. “You should have come with me. You really should have.”

  “Oh, nonsense,” the telephone said in flattered tones and laughed Mulle’s kindly laugh.