The Case of Robinson Amerika

Then someone tapped him on the shoulder. Karl, who naturally thought it was a guest, hastily stuck the apple in his pocket and hurried to the lift almost without glancing at the man.

‘Good evening, Mr Rossmann,' said the man, ‘it’s me, Robinson.'

‘But you look quite different,' said Karl, shaking his head.

‘Yes, I’m doing well,' said Robinson, contemplating his clothes, which consisted of garments that might have been fine enough separately but were so ill-assorted that they looked positively shabby. What struck the eye most was a white waistcoat, obviously worn for the first time, with four little black-bordered pockets, to which Robinson tried to draw attention by expanding his chest.

‘These things of yours are expensive,' said Karl, and he thought in passing of his good simple suit, in which he could have held his own even with Rennell, but which his two bad friends had sold.

‘Yes,’ said Robinson ‘I buy myself something nearly every day. How do you like the waistcoat ? '

‘Quite well,' said Karl.

‘But these aren’t real pockets, they’re just made to look like pockets,’ said Robinson, taking Karl’s hand so that he might prove it for himself. But Karl recoiled, for an unendurable reek of brandy came from Robinson’s mouth.

‘You’ve started drinking again,’ Said Karl, going back to the balustrade.

‘No,’ said Robinson, ‘not very much,’ and he added,

contradicting his first complacency : "What else can a man do in this world?’ A lift journey interrupted their talk, and scarcely had Karl reached the bottom again when a telephone message came asking him to fetch the hotel doctor, for a lady on the seventh floor had fainted. During this errand Karl secretly hoped that Robinson would have disappeared before he returned, for he did not want to be seen with him and, thinking of Therese’s warning, did not want to hear about Delamarche either. But Robinson was still waiting with the wooden gravity of a very drunk man just as a high hotel official in frock-coat and top-hat went past, fortunately, as it seemed, without paying any attention to the intruder.

‘Wouldn’t you like to come and see us, Rossmann? We’re living in great style now,' said Robinson, leering seductively at Karl.

‘Does the invitation come from you or from Delamarche?' asked Karl.

‘From me and Delamarche. Both of us together,' said Robinson.

‘Then let me tell you, and you can pass it on to Delamarche: that break between us, if it wasn’t obvious enough to you at the time, was final. You two have done me more harm than anyone else has ever done. Can you have taken it into your heads not to leave me in peace even now ? ’

‘But we’re your friends,' said Robinson disgustingly, maudlin tears rising* to his eyes. ‘Delamarche asked me to tell you that he’ll make it all up to you. We’re living now with Brunelda, a lovely singer.’ And at the name he started to sing in a high quavering voice, but Karl silenced him in time, hissing at him : ‘Shut your mouth this minute; don’t you know where you are ? ’

‘Rossmann,' said Robinson, intimidated as far as singing was concerned, ‘I’m a friend of yours, I am; say what you like. And now you’ve got such a fine job here, couldn’t you lend me something ? ’

‘You would only drink it,' said Karl. ‘Why, I can see a

brandy bottle in your pocket, and you must have been drinking out of it while I was away, for you were fairly sober at the start/

That’s only to strengthen me when I’m out on a journey,' said Robinson apologetically.

‘Well, I’m not going to bother about you any more,' said Karl. jj

‘But what about the money?’ said Robinson, opening his eyes wide.

‘I suppose Delamarche told you to bring jnoney back. All right, I’ll give you some money, but only on condition that you go away at once and never come here again. If you want to get in touch with me, you can write me a letter; Karl Rossmann, Lift Boy, Hotel Occidental, will always find me. But I tell you again, you must never come looking for me here. I’m in service here and I have no time for visitors. Well, will you have the money on these conditions?’ asked Karl, puting his hand into his waistcoat pocket, for he had made up his mind to sacrifice the tips he had received that night. Robinson merely nodded in answer to the question, breathing heavily. Karl interpreted this wrongly and asked again: ‘Yes or no?’

Then Robinson beckoned him nearer and with writhings which told their own story whispered: ‘Rossmann, I feel awfully rick.’

‘What the devil!’ cried Karl, and with both hands he dragged him to the stair railings. And a stream poured from Robinson’s mouth into the deep. In the pauses of his sickness he felt helplessly and blindly for Karl.

‘You’re a good lad,’ he would say then, or: ‘It’s stopped now,’ which however was far short of being the case, or: ‘The swine, what sort of stuff is this they have poured into me!’ In his agitation and loathing Karl could not bear to stay beside him any longer and began to walk up and down. Here, in this corner beside the lift, Robinson was not likely to be seen, but what if someone should notice him, one of

these rich and fussy guests who were always waiting to complain to the first hotel official they saw, who would revenge himself for it on the whole staff in his fury; or what if he were seen by one of these hotel detectives, who were always being changed and consequently were known only to the hotel management, so that one suspected a detective in every man who peered at things, though he might be merely shortsighted? And some waiter down below only needed to go to the store-rooms to fetch something - for the restaurant buffet went on all night - to be shocked at the sight of the disgusting mess at the foot of the shaft and telephone to Karl asking in God’s name what was wrong up there. Could Karl refuse to acknowledge Robinson in that case? And if he did refuse, was not Robinson stupid and desperate enough simply to cling to Karl instead of apologizing ? And would not Karl be dismissed at once, since it was unheard of for a lift-boy, the lowest and most easily replaced member of the stupendous hierarchy of the hotel staff, to allow a friend of his to defile the hotel and perhaps even drive away guests ? Could a liftboy be tolerated who had such friends, and who allowed them actually to visit him during working hours ? Did it not look as if such a lift-boy must himself be a drunkard or even worse, for what assumption was more natural than that he stuffed his friends with food from the hotel stores until they could not help defiling, as Robinson had done, any part of this scrupulously clean hotel they happened to be in ? And why should such a boy restrict himself to stealing food and drink, since he had literally innumerable opportunities for theft because of the notorious negligence of the guests, the j wardrobes standing open everywhere, the valuables lying about on tables, the caskets flung wide open, the keys thrown down at random ?

Just then Karl spied in the distance a number of guests coming upstairs from a beer-cellar, in which a variety performance had newly finished. He stationed himself beside his lift and did not dare even to look round at Robinson for

fear of what he might see. It gave him little comfort that no sound, not even a groan, was to be heard from that direction. He attended to his guests and kept going up and down with them, but he could not quite conceal his distraction and on every downward journey was prepared to encounter some catastrophic surprise.

At last he had time to look after Robinson, who was cowering abjectly in his corner with his face pressed against his knees. He had pushed his hard round hat far back off his brow.

‘You must really go now,' said Karl softly but firmly. ‘Here is the money. If you're quick I can find time to show you the shortest way/

Til never be able to move,' said Robinson, wiping his forehead with a minute handkerchief, ‘I’ll just die here. You can’t imagine how bad I feel. Delamarche takes me into all his expensive drinking-dens; but I can’t stand the silly stuff you get here; I tell him that every day/

‘Well, you simply can’t stay here,' said Karl. ‘Remember where you are. If you’re discovered here you’ll get into trouble and I’ll lose my job. Do you want that?’

‘I can’t get up,’ said Robinson. ‘I’d rather jump down there/ and he pointed between the stair railings down into the air-shaft. ‘As long as I sit here like this, I can bear it, but I can’t get up; I tried it once while you were away.’

‘Then I’ll fetch a taxi to take you to the hospital,' said Karl, tugging a little at Robinson’s legs, for he seemed in danger of subsiding into complete lethargy at any moment. But as soon as he heard the word hospital, which seemed to rouse horrible associations, he began to weep loudly and held out his hands to Karl, as if begging for mercy.

‘Be quiet,’ said Karl, and he struck down Robinson’s hands, ran across to. the lift-boy whose work* he had taken on that night, begged him to oblige him in return for a little while, hurried back to Robinson, who was still sobbing, jerked him

violently to his feet and whispered to him : Tobinson, if you want me to help you, you must pull yourself together and try. to hold yourself straight for a short distance. I'm going to take you to my bed, where you can stay till you feel better again. You’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll recover. But now you must really behave sensibly, for there are all sorts of people in the passages and my bed is in a big dormitory. If you attract even the slightest attention, I can do nothing more for you. And you must keep your eyes open; I can’t cart you about if you look as if you were on the point of death.’

Til do everything you tell me,' said Robinson, "but you won’t manage to hold me up by yourself. Can’t you get Rennell too?’

‘Rennell isn’t here,’ said Karl.

‘Oh, of course,’ said Robinson, ‘Rennell’s with Delamarche The two of them sent me to see you. I’ve got all mixed up. Karl took advantage of these and other incomprehensible monologues of Robinson to push him along, and withou accident managed to get him as far as a corner, from whicl a more dimly lit passage led to the lift-boys’ dormitory. A lift-boy came running towards them and passed them at ful speed just at that moment. Until now they had had only harmless encounters; between four and five was the quietes^ time; and Karl was well aware that if he could noit get ric of Robinson now, there was no hope of doing so in the early morning, after the day’s work had begun.

At the far end of the dormitory a big fight or an entertain ment of some kind was going on; he could hear the rhyth j mical clapping of hands, the agitated stamping of feet, anc shouts of encouragement. In the part of the dormitory neaa the door a very few sound sleepers were to be seen in the beds; the majority lay on their backs staring at the roofl|j while here and there a boy, clothed or unclothed as he chancec to be, sprang out of bed to see how things were going at thel other end of the room. So Karl managed to guide Robinsod

who had now become somewhat used to walking, as far as RennelTs bed without rousing much attention, for the bed was quite near the door and luckily unoccupied; in his own bed, as he could see from the distance, a strange boy whom he did not know was quietly sleeping. As soon as Robinson felt the bed under him he went to sleep at once, with one leg hanging outside.

Karl drew the blankets quite over Robinson's face and thought there was no need to worry for the time being, as the man was not likely to waken before sb^ at the earliest, and by then he would be here himself and perhaps with RennelTs help would find some means of smuggling him out of the hotel. The dormitory was never inspected by the higher authorities of the hotel, except on extraordinary occasions; several' years previously the lift-boys had succeeded in abolishing the routine inspections which had been customary before then; so from that side there was nothing to be feared either.

When Karl got back to his lift again, he saw that both his own lift and its neighbour were vanishing upwards. He waited in some trepidation for this to explain itself. His own lift came down first, and out of it stepped the boy who had run past him in the passage a little while before.

‘Here, where have you been, Rossmann?’ he asked. ‘Why did you £o away? Wky didn’t you report your absence?'

‘But I asked him to attend to my lift for a minute,' said Karl, indicating the boy in the next lift, which had just arrived. ‘I did as much for him for two whole hours when the traffic was at its worst.'

‘That’s all very well,’ said the boy in question, ‘but it won’t do. Don’t you know that you must report even the shortest absence from duty to the Head Waiter’s office? That’s what the telephone’s there for. I’d have been glad to do your work,, but you know yourself* that it isn’t so easy. There was a crowd of new arrivals off the 4.30 express standing at both the lifts. I couldn’t take your lift first and

leave my own guests waiting could I, so I just went up first in my own lift !’

'Well?' asked Karl tensely, as both boys fell silent.

‘Well,' said the boy from the next lift, ‘that was the very moment the Head Waiter came along and saw the people waiting before your lift and no one attending to it; he flew into a rage and asked me, for I was on the spot in no time, where you were; of course I had no idea, for you didn’t even tell me where you were going; and so he telephoned straight off to the dormitory for another boy to come at once.’

‘I met you in the passage, didn’t I?’ asked the new boy, Karl nodded.

‘Of course,’ the other boy assured him, ‘I told him at once that you had asked me to take your place, but would he listen to excuses? You don’t seem to know him yet. And we were to tell you that you’re to go to the office at once. Sc you’d better not wait any longer, but just leg it. Perhaps he’ll let you off after all; you weren’t away for more than two minutes really. You just stick to it that you asked me to tak& your place. Better not mention that you took mine though that’s my advice; nothing can happen to me, for I had leavt of absence; but there isn’t any good in mentioning that anci mixing it up with this business, since it has nothing to dt with it.’

‘It’s the first time I have ever left my post,’ said Karl.

‘It always happens like that, but nobody believes it,’ sai* the boy, running to his lift, for there were people coming.

Karl’s deputy, a boy of about fourteen, who obviously fel I sorry for Karl, said : ‘They’ve let boys off this kind of thin_* often enough already. Usually they shift you to a differen job. As far as I know, they’ve only once made it the sacH You must think up a good excuse. But don’t try to tell hir that you suddenly felt sick; that’ll only make him laugl Much better say that a guest sent you on an urgent erran to another guest, but you can’t remember who the first guejwas and you weren’t able to find the other one,’

'Well,' said Karl, 'it won't be so very bad/ After all he had heard, he could not believe that the affair would end well. Even if this act of negligence were condoned, Robinson was lying there in the dormitory as a living offence, and it was only too probable that the Head Waiter, vindictive as he was, w'ould not be content with a superficial investigation and would light on Robinson at last. It was true that there was no express prohibition against taking strangers into the dormitory, but that prohibition did not exist simply because there was no point in mentioning what was unthinkable.

When Karl entered the office the Head Waiter was sitting over his morning coffee, taking an occasional sip and studying a list which had apparently been brought him by the Head Porter, who was also there. The latter was a tall bulky man, whose splendid and richly-ornamented uniform - even its shoulders and sleeves were heavy with gold chains and braid - made him look still more broad-shouldered than he actually was. His gleaming black moustache drawn out to two points in the Hungarian fashion never stirred even at the most abrupt movement of his head. Also, because of his stiff, heavy clothing, the man could move only with difficulty and always stood with his legs planted wide apart, so that his weight might be evenly distributed.

Karl entered boldly and quickly, as he was used to do in the hotel; for that slowness and circumstance which passes for politeness among private persons is looked upon as laziness in lift-boys. Besides, he must not appear to be conscious of guilt on his very entrance. The Head Waiter glanced up fleetingly when the. door opened, but then immediately returned to his coffee and his reading without paying any further attention to Karl. But the porter seemed to be annoyed at Karl’s presence; perhaps he had some secret information or .request to impart; at any rate he glared angrily at Karl every few minutes with his head stiffly inclined, and whenever his eyes met Karl’s, which was clearly what he wanted, he turned away at once to the Head Waiter again. Yet Karl

thought he would be ill-advised to quit the office, now that he was here, without an express order to do so from the Head Waiter. But the Head Waiter was still studying his list and meanwhile eating a piece of cake, from which he now and then shook the sugar, without interrupting his reading. Once a sheet of the list fell to the floor; the porter did not! even make any attempt to pick it up, for he knew he could not, nor was it at all necessary, since Karl pounced on the paper and reached it to the Head Waiter, who accepted itl with a casual movement of his hand, as if it had flown of its own accord from the floor. The little service had availed 1 nothing, for the porter went on darting his angry looks at; Karl.

In spite of that, Karl now felt more composed. The very fact that his offence seemed to have so little importance for the Head Waiter might be taken as a good sign. After all, it" was perfectly understandable. A lift-boy was of no importance and so could not take any liberties, but just because he wasi of no importance, any offence he committed could not be taken very seriously. After all, the Head Waiter himself hadl begun as a lift-boy - indeed his career was the boast of the present generation of lift-boys - it was he who had first! organized the lift-boys, and certainly he too must have left! his post occasionally without permission, though nobody could force him now to remember that, and though it must not be forgotten that his having been a lift-boy made him all the more severe and unrelenting in keeping the lift-boys: in order. But Karl also drew hope from the steadily passing;: minutes. According to the office clock it was now more than a quarter-past five; Rennell might come back at any moment, perhaps he was back already, for he must have noticed that Robinson did not return, and in any case Delamarche and Rennell could not have been very far from the Hotel Occidental, it occurred to Karl, for otherwise Robinson, in his wretched condition, would never have reached it. Now, if Rennell found Robinson in his bed, which was bound tc

happen, then everything would be all right. For practical as Rennell was, especially where his own interests were concerned, he would soon get Robinson out of the hotel in some way or other, which would be all the easier as Robinson must have recovered somewhat by now, and Delamarche was probably waiting outside the hotel to take charge of him. But once Robinson was got rid of, Karl could encounter the Head Waiter with a much quieter mind and for this time perhaps escape with a reprimand, though a severe one. Then he would consult with Therese whether he should tell the Manageress the whole truth - for his part he could see nothing against it - and if that could be done, then the matter could be finally disposed of without much harm done.

Karl had just reassured himself somewhat by these reflections and was beginning unobtrusively to count over the tips he had taken that night, since he had a feeling that they were heavier than usual, when the Head Waiter laid the list on the table, saying : ‘Just wait a minute longer, will you, Feodor/ sprang at one bound to his feet and yelled so loudly at Karl that the boy could only stare terror-stricken into the black cavern of his mouth.

‘You were absent from duty without leave. Do you know what that means? It means dismissal. I’ll listen to no excuses, you can keep your lying apologies to yourself; the fact that you were not there is quite enough for me. If I once pass that over and let you off, all my forty lift-boys will soon be taking to their heels during working hours, and I'll be left to carry my five thousand guests up the stairs on my own shoulders/

Karl said nothing. The porter came nearer and gave a downward tug to Karl’s jacket, which was slightly creased, doubtless intending in this way to draw the Head Waiter’s special attention to the slight disorder of the uniform.

•'Perhaps you were suddenly taken sick?’ asked the Head Waiter craftily.

Karl gave him a scrutinizing look and answered : 'No/

‘So you weren’t even sick?’ shouted the Head Waiter all

the more loudly. 'Then you must have hit on some remarkable new lie. What excuse are you going to offer? Out with

I didn't know that I had to telephone for permission to leave/

That’s really priceless,' said the Head Waiter, and he seized Karl by the collar and almost slung him across the room till they were both facing the lift regulations, which were pinned to the wall. The porter came on their heels. 'There ! Read it !’ said the Head Waiter, pointing at one of the paragraphs. Karl thought that he was to read it to himself. But the Head Waiter shouted : 'Aloud !’

Instead of reading the paragraph aloud, Karl said to the Head Waiter, hoping that this would appease him : ‘I knowthe paragraphs, for I got a copy of the regulations and read them carefully. But it’s just the regulation one never need* that one forgets about. I have been working for two month* now and I’ve never left my post once,' 'Well, you’ll leave it now,' said the Head Waiter, and he went over to the table, took up the list again, as if to go oc reading it, but instead smacked it down on the table again as if it were of no account, and with a deep flush on his brow and cheeks began to stride up and down the room. 'All thk trouble over a silly fool of a boy ! All this disturbance on night duty !’ he exclaimed several times. ‘Do you know whcl was left stranded down below when this fellow here ran away from his lift?’ he asked, turning to the porter. And h« mentioned a name at which the porter, who certainly knew all the hotel clients and their standing, was so horror-strickerl that he had to give a fleeting look at Karl to assure himsel I that the boy did exist who had deserted a lift and left th« bearer of that name to wait a while unattended.

'That’s awful!’ said the porter, slowly shaking his hea« in stupefaction over Karl, who watched him gloomily an* reflected that this man’s shocked stupidity was another iten for which he would have to pay. 'Besides, I know yo*

i already,' said the porter, stretching out his great, thick, rigid | first finger. 'You’re the only boy who simply refuses to give me a greeting. Who do you think you are ? Every boy that passes the porter’s office has to give me a greeting. With the other porters you can do as you like, but I insist on manners. Sometimes I pretend not to notice, but you can take it from me that I know perfectly well who says good day to me and who doesn’t, you lout !’ And he turned away from Karl and stalked grandly up to the Head Waiter, who, however, instead of commenting on this new accusation, sat down to finish his breakfast, glancing over the morning paper which an attendant had just brought him.

'Sir,' said Karl, thinking that at least he had better put himself right with the Head Porter while the Head Waiter was ignoring him, since he realized that though the porter’s reproaches could not do him any harm, his enmity could, 'I most certainly do not pass you without a greeting. I haven’t been long in America yet and I have just come from Europe, where people are in the habit of greeting each other excessively, as is well known. And, of course, I haven’t been quite able to get over the habit yet; why, only two months ago in New York, where I happened to be taken into good society, I was always being told that I was too profuse in my salutations. And now you say that I don’t greet you of all people ! I have greeted you every day several times a day. But, of course, not every time I saw you, for I pass you hundreds of times daily.’

'You have to greet me every time, every single time, without exception ; you have to stand with your cap in your hand all the time you’re speaking to me; and you must always say “sir” when you are speaking to me, and not simply “you”* And you must do all that every time, every single time,' 'Every time?’ repeated Karl softly, in a questioning tone, for he remembered now that during the whole of his stay in the hotel the Head Porter had seemed to regard him with a severe and reproachful expression, from the very first momfit 161

ing when, being still new to his work and somewhat too free and easy, he had gone up to the man without thinking and had inquired of him insistently and in detail whether two men had not asked for him or maybe left a photograph for him.

‘Now you see what such behaviour brings you to,' said the porter, again coming quite close to Karl and pointing at the Head Waiter, still deep in his papers, as if that gentleman were the instrument of his vengeance. ‘In your next job you’ll remember to be polite to the porter, even if it’s only in some stinking tavern/

Karl understood now that he had really lost his post, foi the Head Waiter had already told him so and here was the Head Porter repeating it as an accomplished fact, and in the case of a lift-boy there was probably no need for the hote management to confirm a dismissal. Yet it had happenee with a rapidity he had not expected, for after all he hae worked here for two months as well as he could, and certainly better than many of the other boys. But obviously such considerations were taken into account at the decisive moment in no part of the world, neither in Europe, nor irJ America; the verdict was determined by the first words tha happened to fall from the judge’s lips in an impulse of fury Perhaps it would be best to take his leave at once and gc away; the Manageress and Therese were probably still aslee and he could say good-bye to them by letter, so as to spar* them at least the disappointment and sorrow which the]* would feel if he said good-bye to them in person; he coulc hastily pack his box and quietly steal away. If he were t« stay even a day longer — and he could certainly have don with a little sleep - all he could expect was the magnifying of the incident into a scandal, reproaches from every side the unendurable sight of Therese and perhaps the Manageress herself in tears, and possibly on top of all that some punish ment as well. But it also confused him to be confronted b^ two enemies, to have every word that he said quibbled at, s

not by the one then by the other, and misconstrued. So he remained silent and for the time being enjoyed the quietness of the room, for the Head Waiter was still reading the newspaper and the Head Porter stood at the table arranging the scattered pages of his list according to their numbers, a task which he found very difficult, being obviously short-sighted.

At last the Head Waiter laid the newspaper aside with a yawn, assured himself with a glance that Karl was still there, and turned the indicator of his table telephone. He shouted: 'Hello’ several times, but nobody answered. ‘There’s no answer,’ he said to .the Head Porter. The Head Porter who, it seemed to Karl, was following the telephoning with great interest, said: ‘It’s a quarter to six already. She must be awake by now. Ring harder.’ But at that moment, without further summons, the telephone rang in answer. ‘This is Isbary speaking,’ the Head Waiter began. ‘Good morning. I hope I haven’t wakened you? I’m so sorry. Yes, yes, it’s a quarter to six. But I’m really very sorry if I gave you a shock. You should take the telephone off the hook while you’re asleep. No, no, there’s really no excuse for me, especially as it’s only a trivial matter I want to discuss with you. But, of course, I have plenty of time, of course; I’ll wait and hold on if you want me to.'

‘She must have rushed to the telephone in her night-dress/ the Head. Waiter said smilingly to the Head Porter, who all the time had been bending over the instrument with an intent expression. ‘I must really have disturbed her, for she’s usually wakened by the girl who does her typewriting, but this morning she must have missed doing it for some reason or other. I’m sorry if I startled her; she’s nervous enough as it is.’

‘Why has she gone away from the telephone?’

To see what has happened to the girl,’ replied the Head Waiter, lifting the receiver again, for it had started to ring. ‘She’ll turn lip all right,’ he went on, speaking into the telephone. ‘You mustn’t be so easily alarmed by everything.

You really do need a thorough rest. Well now, to come tc my little affair. There’s a lift-boy here called' - he tumec round with a questioning look at Karl who, listening witl close attention, at once provided his name - ‘called Kar Rossmann. If I remember rightly, you have shown som« interest in him; I am sorry to say that he has ill repaid you: kindness, he left his work without permission and ha brought me into serious difficulties; I can’t even tell yet wha the consequences may be; and so I have just dismissed him I hope you won’t take it too badly. What did you say? Dis missed, yes, dismissed. But I’ve just told you that he desertec his lift. No, there I really cannot agree with you, my dea lady. It’s a matter of authority, there’s too much at stake, boy like this might corrupt the whole lot of them. Witt lift-boys particularly you must be devilish strict. No, no, ii this case I can’t oblige you, much as I like to stand in you good graces. And even if I were to let him stay in spite o everything, simply to keep my temper in exercise, it wouldri be fair for your sake, yes, for your sake, to have him hero You take an interest in him which he doesn’t at all deservei and I know him, and I know you too, and I'm certain tha; he’ll bring you nothing but severe disappointment whicl you must be saved from at all costs. I say this quite openH in the boy’s own hearing for he’s standing only a step away as bold as brass. He is to be dismissed; no, no, he is to b dismissed once and for all; no, no, he’s not to be given som other kind of work, I have no use for him at all. Besides there are other people complaining about him. The Hea Porter, for instance, yes, Feodor, of course, yes, Feodor ha been complaining about his impoliteness and insolence What, that shouldn’t be enough? My dear lady, you g;i against your own character in supporting this boy. No, yo 1 really shouldn’t press me like this.’

At that moment the porter bent down and whispere 3 something into the Head Waiter’s ear. The Head Waite first looked at him in astonishment and then spoke so rapidl

into the telephone that for a moment Karl could not quite make him out and came a little nearer on tiptoe.

'My dear Manageress,' he said, ‘to be quite frank, I wouldn’t have believed that you were such a bad judge of character. I’ve just learned something about your angel boy which will radically alter your opinion of him, and I almost feel sorry that it is from me it has to come to your ears. This fine pet of yours, this pattern of all the virtues, rushes off to the town on every single free night he has and never comes back till morning. Yes, yes, I have evidence of it, unimpeachable evidence, yes. Now can you tell me, perhaps, where he gets hold of the money for these nocturnal adventures? Or how he can be expected to attend properly to his work? And do you want me to go the length of telling you what he does in the town? A boy like that is to be got rid of as quickly as possible. And please let this be a warning to you how careful you should be with boys who turn up from nowhere/

‘But sir/ cried Karl, actually relieved by the gross mistake which seemed to have occurred, for it might well bring about an unlooked-for improvement of the whole situation, ‘there must certainly be some mistake. I understand the Head Porter has told you that I am out every night. But that simply isn’t true; I spend every night in the dormitory; all the other boys can confirm that. When I’m not sleeping I study commercial correspondence; but I have never left the dormitory a single night. That’s quite easy to prove. The Head Porter has evidently mistaken me for someone else, and I see now, too, why he thinks I pass him without a greeting/

‘Will you hold your tongue?’ shouted the Head Porter, shaking his fist, where anyone else would have shaken his finger. ‘So I’ve mistaken you for someone else, have I? How could I go on being the Head Porter here if I mistook one person for another? I ask you, Mr Isbary, how could I be the Head Porter here if I 'mistook people? In all my thirty years’ service I’ve never mistaken anyone yet, as hundreds

of waiters who have been here in my time could tell you, and is it likely that I would make a beginning with you, you wretched boy? With that smooth face of yours that nobody \ could mistake? What have mistakes got to do with it, anyway; you could sneak off to the town every night behind I my back, and it only needs one look at your face to see that you’re a good-for-nothing lout/

Enough, Feodor,' said the Head Waiter, whose conversation with the Manageress seemed suddenly to have broken off. ‘It’s quite a simple matter. We’re not particularly concerned about how he spends his nights. No doubt he would like us to undertake a full-dress inquiry into his night-life before he leaves us. I can well imagine that that would delight his heart. Every one of our forty lift-boys would have to be trotted out, if he had his will, to give evidence; they would naturally have mistaken him for someone else too, and so bit by bit the whole staff would have to be dragged in as witnesses; the hotel, of course, would stop working altogether for a time; and though he would be flung out in i the end he would at least have had his fun. So we’ll leave ! that out of account. He has already made a fool of the ! Manageress, that kind-hearted woman, and we’ll let it stop ^ there. I won’t listen to another word; you’re dismissed on the spot for neglecting your duties. I’ll give you a note to the ! cashier, and your wages will be paid up till today. And let me tell you that after the way you have behaved, it’s sheer ! charity to give you wages, and I'm only doing it out of consideration for the Manageress/

Another ring of the telephone interrupted the Head Waiter before he could sign the note. After listening to the first few words he exclaimed: ‘There’s nothing but trouble I from these lift-boys today ! ’ Then after a while he cried : This I is unheard-of!’ And turning from the telephone, he said toi the Head Porter: ‘Please, Feodor, hold that boy for a while;; we’ll have more to say to him yet’ Then he shouted into the! telephone : ‘Come at once I.’

Now the Head Porter could at last vent his rage, which he had not succeeded in doing verbally. He grabbed Karl firmly by the upper arm, yet not with a steady grip which could have been borne; every now and then he loosened his hold and then bit by bit tightened it so cruelly, for he was immensely strong and the pressure seemed as if it would never stop, that everything went dark before Karl’s eyes. Moreover, he not merely held Karl, but as if he had been ordered to stretch him as well, jerked him now and then almost off his feet and shook him, saying all the time half interrogatively to the Head Waiter: ‘Maybe I’m mistaking him for someone else now, maybe I’m mistaking him for someone else now.’ .

It was a great relief for Karl when the head lift-boy, a fat, panting lad called Best, appeared and distracted the Head Porter’s attention for a while. Karl was so exhausted that when to his astonishment Therese came slipping in behind the boy, pale as death, her clothes in disorder, her hair loosely put up, he could hardly summon a smile for her. In a moment she was beside him and had whispered : ‘Does the Manageress know ? ’

‘The Head Waiter has told her over the telephone,’ replied Karl.

‘Then it’s all right, then it's all right,’ she said quickly, her eyes Jigh tin gup.

‘No,’ said Karl. ‘You don’t know what they have against me. I must go away, the Manageress is already convinced of that herself. Please don’t stay here; go upstairs again; I’ll come to say good-bye to you later.’

‘But, Rossmann, what are you thinking of? You can stay with us as long as you like. The Head Waiter does anything the Manageress asks him; he’s in love with her; I found that out a little time ago. So don’t worry.’

‘Please, Therese, do go away now. J can’t defend myself so well if you are here. AndT must defend myself thoroughly, for they’re telling lies about me. And the better I can pin

them down and defend myself, the more chance I have of staying here. So, Therese -’ But then unluckily, in a sudden spasm of pain, he added these words, though in a low tone : ‘If only the Head Porter would let me go ! I had no idea he was j my enemy. But he keeps on crushing and twisting me/ - Why did I say that?’ he thought simultaneously. ‘Noi woman could listen to it unmoved/ and actually, before he \ could prevent her with his free arm, Therese had turned to i the Head Porter and said: ‘Please, sir, let Rossmann go at once. You’re hurting him. The Manageress will be here herself in a minute, and then you’ll see that this is all a mistake. Let him go; what pleasure can it give you to torture him !’ And she actually tugged at the Head Porter’s arm. ‘Orders, little girl, orders,’ said the Head Porter, affectionately pulling j Therese to him with his free hand, while with the other he squeezed Karl with all his might, as if he not merely wished to hurt him, but had some particular and, so far, unfulfilled design upon the arm he was holding.

It took Therese some time to disengage herself from the Head Porter’s embrace, and she was just about to make an appeal to the Head Waiter, who was still listening to the slow and circumstantial Best, when the Manageress hastily ( entered.

‘Thank God!' cried Therese, and for a moment nothing j could be heard in the room but that loud exclamation. The l Head Waiter jumped up at once and pushed Best aside.

‘So you have come yourself , my dear madam ? Because of this trifling matter? After our talk on the telephone I half feared it, but I couldn’t actually believe it. And since then I your protege's case had grown worse and worse. I’m afraid I won’t merely have to dismiss him, but send him to prison as l well. Hear for yourself.’ And he gave a sign to Best.

‘I would like to have a few words with Rossmann first,' said the Manageress, sitting down on a chair which the Head Waiter insisted on setting out for her.

‘Please, Karl, come nearer,' she said. Karl obeyed, or rather1

was dragged nearer by the Head Porter. ‘Let him go, can’t you?’ said the Manageress in exasperation. ‘He isn’t a murderer ! ' The Head Porter actually let him go, but before doing so crushed his arm in a final grip so violently that tears came to his own eyes with the effort.

‘Karl,’ said the Manageress, folding her hands calmly in her lap and looking at Karl with her head bent - it was not in the least like an interrogation - ‘first of all I want to tell you that I still have complete confidence in you. Also the Head Waiter is a just man; I can vouch for that. Both of us at bottom would be glad to keep you here’ - here she glanced briefly at the Head Waiter, as if begging him not to interrupt. Nor did he do so. ‘So forget everything that may have been said to you here till now. Above all, you mustn’t take too seriously anything the Head Porter may have said. He’s an irritable man, which is no wonder considering his work; but he has a wife and children too, and he knows that a boy who has to fend for himself needs no extra torments, since the rest of the world will see that he gets his fair share of them.’

It was quite still in the room. The Head Porter looked at the Head Waiter as if expecting support, the Head Waiter looked at the Manageress and shook his head. Best, the liftboy, grinned idiotically behind the Head Waiter’s back. Therese .was quietly sobbing with grief and joy and doing her best to keep the others from remarking it.

Yet, although it could only be construed as a bad sign, Karl did not look at the Manageress, who- certainly wished him to do so, but in front of him at the floor. The pain in his arm was still shooting in all directions, his shirt-sleeve was sticking to the bruises, and he should really have taken off his jacket to attend to them. What the Manageress said was of-course very kindly meant, yet it seemed to him that simply because of the way in which she was%acting, the others must think that her kindness was foolish, that he had been enjoying her friendship on false pretences for two months, and

that he actually deserved nothing better than to fall into the Head Porter’s hands. ‘I say this/ went on the Manageress, 4so that you can give me a straight answer, which it’s likely you would have done in any case, if I know you.’

‘Please, may I go for the doctor in the meantime; the man may be bleeding to death,’ the lift-boy Best suddenly put in, very politely, but very disconcertingly.

‘Go,’ the Head Waiter said to Best, who at once rushed off. And then to the Manageress : ‘The case is this. The Head Porter wasn’t holding the boy as a joke. Down in the lift-boys* dormitory an utter stranger, completely drunk, was discovered carefully tucked up in one of the beds. The boys naturally wakened him and tried to get rid of him. But then the fellow began to make a great row, shouting that this was Karl Rossmann’s bedroom and that he was Rossmann’s guest, that Rossmann had brought him there, and would thrash anyone who dared to touch him. Besides, he simply had to wait until Karl Rossmann came back, for Rossmann had promised him money and had gone to fetch it. Please note that, my dear madam : had promised him money and gone to fetch it. You note that too, Rossmann/ the Head Waiter said over his shoulder to Karl, who had just glanced round at Therese, who in turn was staring at the Head Waiter as if spell-bound and continually pushing a strand of hair from her forehead or else mechanically lifting her hand to her brow for the sake of something to do. ‘Perhaps you need reminding of your engagements. For the man below also said that on your return you were going to spend the night with some female singer, whose name nobody could make out, I grant you, since the fellow always burst into song whenever he came to it/

Here the Head Waiter paused, for the Manageress, grown visibly paler, rose from her chair, pushing it back a little.

‘I’ll spare you the rest,' said the Head Waiter.

‘No, please, no,' said the Manageress, seizing his arm. Tlease go on; I must know everything; that’s why I’m here.*

The Head Porter, who now stepped forward and struck himself loudly on the chest to advertise that he had seen through everything from the very beginning, was simultaneously appeased and put in his place by the Head Waiter with the words: ‘Yes, you were quite right, Feodor.’

There isn’t much more to tell,’ went on the Head Waiter. The boys, being what they are, laughed at the man first, then got into a fight with him, and as there are plenty of good boxers among them, he was simply knocked out; and I haven’t dared to ask even where he is bleeding and in how many places, for these boys are punishing boxers and a drunk man is of course easy game to them.'

‘I see,’ said the Manageress, laying her hand on the arm of the chair and looking down at the seat which she had just left. ’Please do say something, Rossmann ! ’ she said then. Therese had rushed across the room and was clinging to her mistress, a thing which Karl had never seen her do before. The Head Waiter was standing close behind the Manageress, slowly smoothing her modest little lace collar, which had slipped somewhat awry. The Head Porter standing beside Karl said : ‘Speak up !’ but merely used the words to cover the punch which he gave him in the back.

‘It’s true,’ said Karl, more uncertainly than he intended, because of the blow, ‘that I put the man in the dormitory/

‘That’s all we need to know,’ said the porter, speaking for everyone present. The Manageress turned dumbly to the Head Waiter and then to Therese.

‘I couldn’t help myself,’ Karl went on. ‘The man is someone I used to know; he came here to pay me a visit after not seeing me for two months; but he was so drunk that he couldn’t go away again by himself.'

The Head Waiter, standing beside the Manageress, said softly as if to himself : ‘So he came to pay you a visit and later got so drunk that he couldn’t Jeave.’ The Manageress whispered something over 'her shoulder to the Head Waiter, who seemed to raise objections but smiled at her in a way that

obviously had nothing to do with Karl. Therese - Karl kept his eyes fixed on her - pressed her face in complete despair against the Manageress and refused to look at anything. The only one who was completely satisfied with Karl’s explanation was the Head Porter, who repeated several times : ‘That’s quite right, you must stand by a pal when he’s drunk/ and tried to emphasize this explanation by looking at the others and waving his hands.

‘I am to blame, therefore,' said Karl, and paused as if waiting for a kind word from his judges to give him courage for continuing his defence, but none came. ‘I am to blame, therefore, only for taking the man to the dormitory - he’s called Robinson and he’s an Irishman. Everything else he said because he was drunk, and it isn’t true/

‘So you didn’t promise him money?’ asked the Head Waiter.

‘Yes,' said Karl, and he felt sorry at having forgotten that; in his haste and confusion he had been too peremptory in declaring himself innocent. ‘I did promise him money because he begged me for it. But I had no intention of fetching it, but merely of giving him the tips I got tonight.’ And in proof he pulled the money out of his pocket and held out his hand with the few small coins.

Tou’re tying yourself up more and more,' said the Head Waiter. ‘If we’re to believe you, we’ve got to keep forgetting what you said before. First you only took the man to the dormitory - and I don’t even believe that his name is Robinson, for no Irishman was ever called that since Ireland was I Ireland - first you only took him to the dormitory - and for that alone you could be flung out on your neck, I may tell you - but you didn’t promise him money, yet when the question is sprung on you, it seems you did promise him money. This isn’t a game of question and answer, let me remind you; you’re supposed to be giving an explanation of yourself. And at first you had no intention of fetching the money, you merely meant to give him the tips you got

1JZ

tonight, and now it turns out that you still have this money on you, and so you must have intended to get some more money, a supposition which is strengthened by your long absence. After all, it wouldn’t be strange if you wanted to get some money from your box for him; but it certainly is strange that you deny it so violently, and that you keep on hiding the fact that you made the man drunk here in the hotel, of which there can be no possible doubt, for you yourself admit that he came here by himself but could not leave by himself, and he has told everybody in the dormitory that he is your guest. So now only two things remain in doubt, which you can tell us yourself if you wish to save trouble, but which can be perfectly well established without your help: first, how you managed to get into the storerooms, and second, how- you got your hands on enough money to giveaway?’

'It’s impossible to defend oneself where there is no goodwill,’ Karl told himself, and he made no further answer to the Head Waiter, deeply as that seemed to afflict Therese. He knew that all he could say would appear quite different to the others, and that whether a good or a bad construction was to be put on his actions depended alone on the spirit in which he was judged. •

'He makes no answer,’ said the Manageress.

‘It is the best thing he can do,’ said the Head Waiter.

'He’ll soon think out something else,’ said the Head Porter, caressing his whiskers with a hand now gentle, though lately so terrible.

'Be quiet,’ said the Manageress to Therese, who had begun to sob, standing beside her, ‘you see that he has no answer to make, so how can I do anything for him? After all, it is I who am put in the wrong in the Head Waiter’s eyes. Tell me, Therese, in your opinion have I omitted anything I could have done for him?’ How could Therese know that, and what point was there in giving away so much before these two men by this public question and appeal to the girl?

'Madam,' said Karl, once more pulling himself together for no other purpose than simply to spare Therese the effort of answering, ‘I think that I haven't brought any discredit! on you, and if a proper investigation were made, everyone] else would have to agree with me,' 'Everyone else,' said the Head Porter, pointing his finger! at the Head Waiter, 'that's meant for you, Mr Isbary.'

■ 'Now, madam,' said Mr Isbary, ‘it's half-past six, and it's] high time this was settled. I think you had better leave me the last word in this matter, which we have handled far tool patiently/

Little Giacomo came in and made to go up to Karl, but, daunted by the general silence, checked himself and: waited.

Since the last words he had said, the Manageress had neven taken her eyes off Karl, nor was there any indication thati she had heard the Head Waiter's remark. Her eyes looked straight at Karl; they were large and blue, but a little dimmed by age and many troubles. As she stood there gently tilting the chair before her, she looked as if she would say nexti minute : 'Well, Karl, when I think it over, this business isn'ti at all clear yet and needs, as you rightly say, a thorough investigation. And we’ll proceed to make that now, whether anyone agrees or not, for justice must be done.'

But instead of this, the Manageress said after a short pause which no one dared to interrupt - except that the clock struck half-past six in confirmation of the Head Waiter's^ words and with it, as everyone knew, all the other clocks in the whole hotel; it rang forebodingly in the ear, like the double beat of a universal great impatience : TNk), Karl, no, no ! We won't listen to any more of this. When things are right they look right, and I must confess that your actions don't. I am entitled to say so and I am bound to say so; I am bound to admit it, for it was I who came here with every, prepossession in your favour. You see that Therese is silent too.’ (But she was not silent, she was crying.)

The Manageress stopped as if suddenly coming to a decision and said: ‘Karl, come over here/ and when he went over to her - the Head Waiter and the Head Porter immediately began an animated conversation behind his back - she put her left arm round him and led him, followed by the passive Therese, to the other end of the room, where she began to walk up and down with the two of them, and said : ‘It’s possible, Karl, and you seem to put faith in it, otherwise I really wouldn't know what to make of you, that an investigation might justify you on separate small points. Why shouldn’t it? .Maybe you did give a greeting to the Head Porter. I feel certain you did, and I have my own opinion of the Head Porter; you see I am still quite frank with you. But such small justifications won’t help you in the least. The Head Waiter, whose knowledge of people I have learned to prize in the course of many years, and who is the most trustworthy man I know, has clearly pronounced your guilt, and I must say it seems undeniable to me. Perhaps you merely acted without thinking, but perhaps too you aren’t the boy I thought you were. And yet/ with that she interrupted herself and cast a fleeting glance over her shoulder at the two men, ‘I can’t help still thinking of you as a fundamentally decent lad/

‘Madam ! Madam !’ said the Head Waiter, warningly, for he had caught her glance.

‘We’ll be finished in a minute,' said the Manageress, beginning to admonish Karl more hurriedly: ‘Listen, Karl, from what I can make out of this business, I am actually glad that the Head Waiter doesn’t want to start an inquiry; for if he were to do it, I should have to prevent it in your own interest. No one must know how or where you got drink for that man, who couldn’t have been one of your former friends, as you give out, for you quarrelled violently with them when you left them, so that you wouldn’t be so jriendly with either of them now. Therefore it must have been an acquaintance you just picked up one night in some drinking-den in the town.

How could you hide all these things from me, Karl? If yo» really couldn't bear the dormitory and began to rake abou at night for an innocent reason like that, why did you neve say a word about it? You know that I wanted to get you . room of your own and only gave up the idea at your owi request. It looks now as if you preferred the general dormitor because you felt that you had more liberty there. And yoi always put by your money in my safe and brought me thJ tips you got every week; where in heaven’s name, boy, di« you get the money for these excursions and where did yoi intend to find the money for your friend? Of course, thes are things that I can’t mention to the Head Waiter, for the moment at least, or else perhaps an inquiry might be un avoidable. So you must simply leave the hotel, and as soon possible too. Go straight to the Pension Brenner - you’v been there several times with Therese already - they’ll tak you in for nothing if you show them this and she wrote few lines on a card with a gold pencil which she pulled oui of her blouse, but without interrupting what she was sayin - Til- send your box after you at once. Therese, run up t< the lift-boys’ cloakroom and pack his box ! ’ (But Therese di 4 not stir, for as she had endured all the grief, she wanted als { to share to the full this turn for the better which Karl’ fortunes had taken, thanks to the kindness of the i Manageress.)

Someone opened the door a little without showing himsel and shut it again at once. It must have been a reminder M Giacomo, for he stepped forward and said : ‘Rossmann, I mus speak to you/

‘In a minute,' said the Manageress, sticking the card ii Karl’s pocket as he stood listening with drooping head, TI keep your money for the time being; you know that it’s saf in my hands. Stay in your room today and consider you position; tomorrow - I have no time today, and I’ve beei kept far too long here too - I’ll come to the Brenner and we’l see what more can be done for you. I won’t forsake you, yoi

must know that quite well already. You needn't worry about your future, but rather about these last few weeks/ She patted him on the shoulder and then went over to the Head Waiter. Karl raised his head and gazed after the tall stately woman, as she walked away from him with her light step and easy bearing.

‘Well, aren’t you glad,' said Therese, who had stayed beside him, ‘that everything has turned out so well?’

‘Oh yes,' said Karl, and he smiled at her, yet could not see why he should be glad because he had been dismissed as a thief. Therese’s eyes shone with the purest joy, as if it were a matter of complete indifference to her whether Karl had committed a crime or not, whether he had been justly sentenced or not, if he were only permitted to escape, in shame or in honour. And it was Therese who behaved like this, Therese who was so scrupulous in everything relating to herself that she would turn over in her mind and examine for weeks any half-doubtful word of the Manageress. With deliberate design he said: ‘Will you pack my box for me and send it off at once?’ In spite of himself he had to shake his head in astonishment, so quickly did Therese catch the implications of the question, and in her conviction that there were things in the box which no one must see, she did not take time even to glance at Karl, even to shake his hand, but merely whispered : ‘Certainly, Karl, at once, I’ll pack the box this minute.’ And she was gone.

But now Giacomo could not restrain himself any longer and, agitated by his long wait, cried : ‘Rosslnann, the man is kicking up a. row in the passage and won’t go away. They want to take him to hospital, but he’s objecting and saying that you’ll never let him be taken to a hospital. He says we must call a taxi and drive him home and that you’ll pay the fare. Will you?'

The man seems to rely on you,' said the Head Waiter. Karl shrugged his shoulders and counted his money into Giacomo’s hand. ‘That’s all I have,' he said.

A. — 9

177.

T was to ask too if you’re going in the taxi with him/ added Giacomo, jingling the money.

'No, he isn’t going,’ said the Manageress.

Well, Rossmann,’ said the Head Waiter quickly, without even waiting until Giacomo was out of the room, 'you are dismissed here and now.’ The Head Porter nodded several times, as if these were his own words and the Head Waiter merely his mouthpiece. The reasons for your dismissal I simply can’t mention publicly, for in that case I would have! to send you to gaol.’ The Head Porter looked very severely at the Manageress, for he knew perfectly well that she was the ! cause of such excessively mild treatment. 'Now go to Best, change your clothes, hand over your uniform to Best and leave the hotel at once, but at once.’

The Manageress closed her eyes, wishing by this to reassure Karl. As he bowed himself out, he saw the Head Waiter* surreptitiously seizing her hand and fondling it. With heavy' steps the Head Porter escorted Karl to the door, which hei would not let him shut but held open with his own hands so as to shout after him : 'In a quarter of a minute you will pass my office and leave by the main door. See to that !’

Karl made what haste he could, so as to avoid any molestation on leaving, but everything went much more slowly than i he wanted. First of all. Best could not be found immediately^ and at this time during the breakfast hour a great many people were about; then it appeared that another boy had borrowed Karl’s old trousers, and Karl had to search the clothes-pegs beside almost all the beds before he found them; so that five minutes at least had elapsed before he reached the main door, fust in front of him a lady was walking: accompanied by four gentlemen. They all went over to a big car which was waiting for them; a lackey was holding open the door while he stretched out his free arm sideways at: shoulder level, very stiffly, which looked highly impressive. But Karl’s hope of getting away unobserved behind this fashionable group was a vain one. For the Head Porter caughti

him by the hand and dragged him back between two of the gentlemen, with a word of excuse to them.

‘Do you call this a quarter of a minute?' he asked, looking askance at Karl, as if he were examining a clock that did not keep time. ‘Come in here,' he went on, propelling him into the huge porter’s office, which Karl had once been eager enough to inspect but now that he was thrust into it viewed with suspicion. Just inside the door he squirmed round and tried to push the Head Porter away and escape.

‘No, no, this way in,’ said the Head Porter, turning him round again...

‘But I’ve been thrown out,' said Karl, meaning that nobody in the hotel had a right to give him orders now.

‘As long as I keep hold of you, you’re not thrown out,' said the porter, which was also true enough.

Besides, Karl could see no actual reason for resisting the porter. After all, what more could happen to him now? Also, the walls of the office consisted entirely of enormous panes of glass, through which you could see the incoming and outgoing streams of guests in the vestibule as clearly as if you were among them. Yes, there seemed to be no nook or corner in the whole office where you could be hidden from their eyes. No matter in how great a hurry the people outside seemed to be, as with outstretched arms, bent heads and peering eyes, holding their luggage high, they sought their way, hardly one of them omitted to cast a glance into the porter’s office, for behind the panes announcements and news were always hanging which were intended both for the guests and the hotel staff. Moreover, the porter’s office and the vestibule were in direct communication with each other, for at two great sliding windows sat two under-porters perpetually occupied in giving information on the most diverse subjects. These men were indeed over-burdened, and Karl had a shrewd guess that the Head Porter, for what he knew of him, had circumvented this stage in the course of his advancement. These two providers of information - from outside you

could not really imagine what it looked like - had always at least ten inquiring faces before them in the window opening. Among these ten, who were continually changing, there was I often a perfect babel of tongues, as if each were an emissary from a different country. There were always several making inquiries at the same time, while others again carried on a conversation with each other. The majority wanted to deposit something in the porter’s office or take something away, so i that wildly gesticulating hands could also be seen rising from the crowd. Or a man was impatient to look at a newspaper, which suddenly unfolded in the air for a moment blotting out all the faces. All this the two under-porters had to deal with. Mere talking would not have sufficed for their work; they gabbled, and one in particular, a gloomy man with a dark beard almost hiding his whole face, poured out information without even taking breath. He neither looked at the counter, where he was perpetually handing things out, nor at the face of this or that questioner, but straight in front of him, obviously to economize and conserve his strength. His beard too must have somewhat interfered with the clearness of his enunciation, and in the short time that he was standing there Karl could make out very little of what was said, though possibly, in spite of the English intonation, it was in some foreign language which was required at the moment. Additionally confusing was the fact that one answer came i so quickly on the heels of another as to be indistinguishable j from it, so that often an inquirer went on listening intently, j in the belief that his question was still being answered, j without noticing for some time that his turn was past. You I had also to get used to the under-porter’s habit of never asking a question to be repeated; even if it was vague only in wording and quite sensible on the whole, he merely gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head to indicate that he did not intend to answer that question and it was the questioner’s: business to recognize his own error and formulate the question more correctly. This in particular kept many people fon

a long time in front of the counter. To help the under-porters, each of them was allotted a messenger boy, who had to rush to and fro bringing from a bookcase and various cupboards whatever the under-porter might need. These were the bestpaid if also the hardest posts that young boys could get in the hotel; in a sense these boys were still harder put to it than the under-porters, who had merely to think and speak, while the boys had to think and run about at the same time. If they ever brought the wrong thing, the under-porter was too pressed, of course, to give them a long lecture; with one flip of the hand he simply knocked to the floor whatever they had laid on the counter. Very interesting was the changing of the under-porters> which took place shortly after Karl came in. These changes had of course to happen frequently, at least during the day, for probably no man alive could have held out for more than an hour at the counter. At the relief hour a bell rang, and simultaneously there emerged from a side door the two under-porters whose turn had now come, each followed by his messenger boy. For the time being they posted themselves idly by the window and contemplated for a while the people outside, so as to discover exactly what questions were being dealt with. When the moment seemed suitable for intervention, the new-corner would tap on the shoulder the under-porter he was to relieve, who, although until now he had paid no attention to what was going on behind his back, at once responded and left his place. It all happened so quickly that it often surprised the people standing outside, and they almost jumped in alarm when a strange face popped up before them. The two men who were relieved stretched themselves and then poured water over their hot heads at two wash-basins standing ready for them. But the messenger boys could not stretch themselves so soon, being kept busy for a little longer picking up and returning to their places the various objects which had been flung on the floor during their shift.

All this Karl had taken in with the closest attention in a

few minutes, and then with a slight headache he quietly followed the Head Porter, who led him farther on. The Head Porter had obviously noticed the deep impression which this method of answering inquiries had made on Karl, for he gave his arm a sudden jerk and said : ‘You see that’s the way we work here.’ Karl had certainly not been idle in the hotel, but he had had no conception of such work as this and he looked up, forgetting almost completely that the Head Porter was his mortal enemy, and nodded with silent appreciation* But this again seemed to the Head Porter an over-valuation of the under-porters and perhaps a piece of presumption; towards himself, for he exclaimed, without caring that everyone heard him, and quite as if he had just been making ai fool of Karl: ‘Of course this work here is the stupidest in the whole hotel; you need only listen for an hour to know pretty well all the questions that will be asked, and the rest] you don’t have to answer at all. If you weren’t so impudent] and ill-mannered, if you hadn’t lied, lazed, boozed and thieved, j perhaps I might have managed to put you at one of these! windows, since it’s only a job for dunderheads.’ Karl ignored I the insult to himself, so indignant was he that the hard and ! honourable work of the under-porters should be jeered at instead of being recognized, and jeered at moreover by a man who, if he ever ventured to sit down at one of these windows, would certainly cover himself with ridicule in a few minutes and have to abandon the job.

‘Let me go,’ said Karl, his curiosity concerning the porter’s office more than satiated, ‘I don’t want to have anything more to do with you.’

‘That’s no reason for letting you go,’ said the Head Porter, j crushing Karl’s arm until it was numb and literally dragging him to the other end of the office. Couldn’t the people outside see this bullying? Or, if they saw it, what did they think it meant, since none of them objected to it or even tapped on the glass to show the Head Porter that he was being watched and could not deal with Karl just as he liked?

But Karl soon gave up all hope of getting help from the vestibule, for the Head Porter seized a cord, and over the glass panes of one half of the office black curtains reaching from the roof to the floor were drawn in a twinkling. In this part of the office, too, there were people, but all working at top speed and .without an ear or an eye for anything unconnected with their work. Also they were completely dependent on the Head Porter, and instead of helping Karl would rather have helped to conceal anything that the Head Porter took it into his head to do. For instance, there were six under-porters attending to six telephones. Their method of working was obvious at a glance; out of each couple one did nothing but note down conversations, passing on these notes to his neighbour, who despatched the messages by another telephone. The instruments were of the new-fashioned kind which do not need a telephone box, for the ringing of the bell was no louder than a twitter, and a mere whisper into the mouthpiece was electrically amplified until it reached its destination in a voice of thunder. For this reason the three men who were speaking into the telephones were scarcely audible, and one might have thought they were muttering to themselves about something happening in the mouthpiece, while the other three, as if deadened by the thunder coming from their ear-pieces, although no one else could hear a sound, drooped their heads over the sheets of paper on which they had to make their notes. Here too a boy assistant stood beside each of the three whisperers; these three boys did nothing but alternately lean their heads towards their masters in a listening posture and then hastily, as if stung, search for telephone numbers in huge, yellow books: the rustling of so many massed pages easily drowned any noise from the telephones.

Karl simply could not keep himself from watching all this, although the Head Porter, who had sat down, clutched him in a sort of hug.

Tt is my duty,' said the Head Porter, shaking Karl as if he only wanted to make him turn his face towards him, ‘it is

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my duty, if the Head Waiter has left anything undone, for whatever reason, to repair his omission in the name of the hotel management, as best I can. We always do our best here to help one another out. If it weren't for that, such a great organization would be unthinkable. You may say that I'm not your immediate superior; well, it's all the more to my credit if I attend to things that other people neglect. Besides, as Head Porter I am in a sense placed over everyone, for I’m in charge of all the doors of the hotel, this main door, the three noddle and the ten side doors, not to mention innumerable little doors and doorless exits. Naturally all the service staff who come in contact with me have to obey me absolutely. In return for this great honour, of course, I have myself an obligation to the hotel management to let no one out of the hotel who is in the slightest degree suspicious. And you are just the person who strikes my fancy as being a highly suspicious character.’ He was so pleased with himself that he lifted his hands and brought them down again with a heavy smack that hurt. It is possible,' he added, enjoying himself royally, ‘that you could have slipped out of the hotel by some other door; of course I shouldn’t trouble to give out special instructions on your account. But since you're here, I'm going to make the most of you. Besides, I never really doubted that you would keep our rendezvous by the front door, for it is a general rule that impudent and disobedient creatures take to being virtuous just when they’re likely to suffer from the consequences. You’ll certainly be able to notice that often enough from your own experience.'

‘Don't imagine,’ said Karl, inhaling the curiously depressing odour given out by the Head Porter, which he had not noticed until he had stood so close to him for so long, ‘don’t imagine,' he said, ‘that I am completely in your power, for I can scream.'

‘And I can stop your mouth,' said the Head Porter as calmly and quickly as he probably would have done it in case of need. ‘And do you really think, if you brought anyone in,

that you could find a single person who would take your word against mine, the word of the Head Porter? So you can see how foolish your hopes are. Let me tell you, when you were still in uniform you actually looked a fairly respectable character, but in that suit of yours, which could only have been made in Europe - ! ’ And he tugged at the most diverse parts of the suit, which, now, although it had been almost new five months ago, was certainly shabby, creased, and above all spotty, chiefly because of the heedlessness of the lift-boys, who were supposed to keep the dormitory floor polished and free from dust according to the general regulation, but in their laziness, instead of giving it a real cleaning, sprinkled the floor every day with some oil or other and at the same time spattered all the clothes on the cloth es-stands. One could stow one’s clothes where one liked, there was always someone who could not lay his hands on his own clothes, but never failed to find his neighbour’s hidden garments and promptly borrow them. And almost invariably it was the boy who had to clean the dormitory that day, so that one’s clothes were not only spattered with oil but dripping with it from head to foot. Rennell was the only boy who had found a secret place to hide his expensive clothes in; they were hardly ever discovered, since it was not malice or stinginess that prompted the boys to borrow clothes, but sheer haste and carelessness; they simply picked up garments wherever they found them. Yet even Rennell’s suit had a round, reddish splash of oil in the middle of the back, and in the town an expert might have detected, from the evidence of that splash, that the stylish young dandy was a lift-boy after all.

Remembering these things, Karl told himself that he had suffered enough as a lift-boy and yet it had all been in vain, for his job had not proved, as he had hoped, a step to something higher, but had rather pushed him farther down, and even brought him very near prison. On top of this, he was still in the clutches of the Head Porter, who was no doubt

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considering ways and means of putting him to greater shame. And quite forgetting that the Head Porter was the last man to listen to reason, Karl exclaimed, striking his brow several times with the hand that happened to be free: ‘Even if ] actually did pass you without a greeting, how can a grown man be so vindictive about such an omission ! ’

‘I am not vindictive,' said the Head Porter, ‘I only want to search your pockets. I am convinced, to be sure, that Ill find nothing, for you’ve probably been careful and slipped everything to your friend bit by bit, a little every day. Bui searched you must be.’ And he thrust his hand into one ol Karl’s coat pockets with such violence that the side-stitche* burst. ‘So there’s nothing here,' he said, turning over in hi* hand the contents of the pocket, a calendar issued by the hotel, a sheet of paper containing an exercise in commercia correspondence, a few coat and trouser buttons, the ManaH geress’s card, a nail-file which a guest had once tossed to him as he was packing his trunk, an old pocket mirror which Rennell had once given him as a reward for taking over hiwork ten times or so, and a few more trifles. ‘So there’?’ nothing here,' said the Head Porter again, flinging every thing under the bench, as if that were the proper place fo any of Karl’s possessions which happened not to be stoler property.

‘But this is the last straw,' said Karl to himself - his fact must have been flaming red - and as the Head Porter, ren dered incautious by greed, was rummaging in his seconc pocket, Karl slipped out of the sleeves with a jerk, cannoned into an under-porter with his first blind spring, knocking tht man violently against his telephone, ran through the stuff} room to the door, actually not so fast as he had intended but fast enough to get outside before the Head Porter in hi heavy coat was able even to rise up. The organization of th* hotel could not be so perfect after all; some bells were ringing it was true, but heaven only knew to what purpose ! Member of the hotel staff were careering about the entrance this wa}

and that, in such numbers that one might almost have thought they wanted unobtrusively to make it impossible for anyone to get out, since it was hard to find much sense in all the coming and going; however, Karl was soon in the open air, but had still to keep along the front of the hotel, for an unbroken line of cars was slowly moving past the entrance and'he could not reach the road. These cars, in their eagerness to get to their owners as quickly as possible, were actually touching each other, nosing each other forward. A pedestrian here and there, in a particular hurry to cross the road, would climb through the nearest car as if it were a public passage, not caring at all whether there was only a chauffeur in it and a couple of servants, or the most fashionable company. But that kind of behaviour seemed rather high-handed to Karl, and he reflected that one must be very sure of oneself to venture on it; he might easily hit upon a car whose occupants resented it, threw him out and raised a row, and as a runaway suspect lift-boy in his shirt-sleeves there was nothing that he could fear more. After all, the line of cars could not go on for ever, and so long as he stuck close to the hotel there was the less reason to suspect him. Actually he reached a point at last where the line of cars was not exactly broken, but curved away towards the street and loosened out a little. He was just on the point of slipping through into the traffic of the street, where far more suspicious-looking people than himself were probably at large, when he heard his name being called near by. He turned round and saw in a small, low doorway, which looked like the entrance to a vault, a couple of lift-boys whom he knew well, straining and tugging at a stretcher on which, as he now perceived, Robinson was actually lying, his head, face and arms swathed in manifold bandages. It was horrible to see him lift his arms to his eyes to wipe away his tears with the bandages, tears of pain or grief or perhaps even of joy at seeing Karl again.

‘Rossmann,' he cried reproachfully, 'why have you kept

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me waiting so long? For a whole hour I've been struggling to keep myself from being carted away before you came. These fellows’ - and he gave one of the lift-boys a clout on the head, as if his bandages secured him from retaliation - 'are absolute devils. Ah, Rossmann, I’ve had to pay dearly for this visit to you.'

'Why, what have they been doing to you?' said Karl, stepping over to the stretcher, which the lift-boys laughingly set down so as to have a rest.

‘You ask that,' groaned Robinson, 'and yet you can see what I look like. Just think of it, they’ve very likely made me a cripple for life. I have frightful pains from here right down to here’ - and he pointed first to his head and then to his toes - T only wish you had seen how much my nose bled. My waistcoat is completely ruined, and I had to leave it behind me too; my trousers are in tatters, I’m in my drawers’ - and he lifted the blanket a little and invited Karl to look under it. 'What on earth is to become of me? I’ll have to lie in bed for months at least, and I may tell you at once there’s nobody but you to nurse me; Delamarche is far too impatient Rossmann, don’t leave me !’ And Robinson stretched out one hand towards the reluctant Karl, seeking to win him over by caresses. ‘Why had I to come and call on you !’ he repeated several times, to keep Karl from forgetting that he was partly responsible for his misfortunes. Now it did not take Karl a minute to see that Robinson’s lamentations were caused not by his wounds but by the colossal hangover he was suffering from, since just after falling asleep dead-drunk he had been wakened up and to his surprise violently assaulted until he had lost all sense of reality. The trivial nature of his wounds could be seen from the old rags of bandages with which the lift-boys, obviously in jest, had swathed him round and round. And the two boys at either end of the stretcher kept going into fits of laughter. But this was hardly the place to bring Robinson to his senses, for people were streaming past without paying any attention to the group beside the

stretcher, often enough taking a flying leap clean over Robinson, while the taxi-driver who had been paid with Karl's money kept crying : ‘Come on ! Come on ! ' The lift-boys put out all their strength and raised the stretcher, and Robinson seized Karl’s hand, saying coaxingly : ‘Come along, do come/ Considering the figure he cut, would not Karl be best provided for in the sheltering darkness of the taxi? And so he settled himself beside Robinson, who leaned his head against him. The two lift-boys heartily shook hands with him through the window, taking leave of their one-time colleague, and the taxi made a sharp turn into the thoroughfare. It looked as if an accident were inevitable, but the all-embracing stream of traffic quietly swept into itself even the arrowy thrust of their vehicle.