The Eternal Philistine Read Online Free PDF Page B

explained to her rather pointedly that she had completely misunderstood the count. “Sometimes you’ve just got to tell him that he’s impossible, or else he doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore. Sure, at the moment he’s hurt, but he’ll thank you for it later. —All right, now bring me some hot water!” he said, and seemed unwilling to tolerate any dissent.
    She brought him some, sat down on the smallest chair, and watched him attentively. She always found herselfforgiving men for a great many things while they were shaving. It was just in her nature.
    He, however, barely took any notice of her. He did not like it one bit that she was always nosing around in his private affairs with her big snout.
    “Well, I never even had a great-uncle,” she uttered sheepishly, “but when my stepbrother died—”
    Kobler cut her off impatiently. “That stuff about the dying great-uncle was just to soften me up so that I’d be quicker to lend him something. The count is quite cunning, you see. But he’s also quite forgetful. Keep in mind, he was briefly buried alive during the war. He really is no spring chicken. Nowadays you’ve got to sell your own grandmother just to get anywhere, only I wouldn’t sell mine because I just couldn’t. All right, now bring me some cold water!”
    She brought him the cold water and then gazed innocently at his back. “May I be perfectly frank with you, Herr Kobler?”
    Kobler stopped short and stared at himself in the mirror. “Frank,” he wondered. “Frank? In that case I’ll give her notice on the first of October!” Slowly he turned toward her. “Please do,” he said officially.
    “You now know how highly I esteem the gentleman count, but he was, nevertheless, right about one thing, namely about taking that trip. If I had all of your money right now, I’d drop everything as it stands and get out into the world.”
    “So that’s her being perfectly frank,” thought Kobler, reassured. At that point he grew conspicuously domineering. “Tell me, Frau Perzl, why do you always eavesdrop on me when I’m attending to guests?”
    “But I didn’t eavesdrop,” objected Perzl, gesticulatingwildly. “I was just listening to the radio, but I couldn’t hear a peep of the classical quartette because the gentlemen were speaking their minds so loudly. Believe me, I’d rather have edified myself with the music than overheard your vulgar ranting and raving.”
    “It’s okay, Frau Perzl, I didn’t mean it like that,” said Kobler, initiating his retreat while she was reveling in her wronged innocence.
    “When I think about all those foreign countries,” she said, “I get all dreamy—that’s how much I yearn for Abbazia!”
    Kobler paced up and down.
    “I find all of that talk about the wide world,” said Kobler, “really very interesting. That is, I’ve often thought one should get acquainted with the world abroad in order to expand one’s own horizon. For me, as a young businessman, it’d be especially crummy if I didn’t get out of here, because you’ve got to acquaint yourself with the foreign sales methods. Like, for example, a convertible with a jump seat—how do people sell them in Poland and Greece? Of course, it’ll mostly be just nuances, but often it comes down to such nuances. Customer service keeps getting harder and harder. People keep getting more and more demanding and—” He paused because a spine-chilling thought had suddenly seized him: “What guarantee do I have that I’ll find another Portschinger?”
    “Nobody is going to give you one, Alfons Kobler, no god and no hog,” he thought to himself. He stared sorrowfully into space. “Nothing is ever good or cheap enough for these customers,” he thought sadly, and gave a weary smile.
    “You’ll surely learn many things abroad that you’ll be able to exploit magnificently,” Perzl consoled him. “The art treasures alone that you’re going to see! The Louvre inParis, and in the