The Exiles Return Read Online Free PDF

the acid essences used in the dressing and preserving of skins.
    S Kantorowicz needed no shop window. His wares were not for show. The quality and workmanship of his furs, imported mainly from Russia, were such that he dealt only with customers who understood, who expected and appreciated, perfection. The purchase of a fur coat or coat-lining of sable or sealskin, of a collar, stole or muff of beaver, ermine or astrakhan, was an important transaction involving absolute trust on both sides, vendor and buyer. No one knew better than Kantorowicz that the appearance of a fur can be most cunningly deceptive. But the quality of anything he sold was never questioned, nor was the solvency of his customer. Complaints were practically unknown. It was unusual to enquire about price when ordering. Such a question could cause eyebrows to be raised in surprise and probably go unanswered, as so much depended on the number of skins required in the making and the state of the market at the particular time; and the price eventually charged, possibly a year after delivery, would always be found very reasonable. Such were the standards and the self-respect of S Kantorowicz, and the respect accorded to him in all his dealings. And if it so happened – as it would from time to time, though very rarely – that some gentleman, or lady, though highly-titled, did not comply with his standards, they would find on a subsequent occasion that S Kantorowicz, to his great regret, found himself unable to supply the particular skin required, or indeed unable to accept any order at the present time, being booked up with orders for months ahead. The old man had even been known to advise a newly-arrived financial luminary, who wished to show off his mistress in a splendid ermine cape, to go elsewhere because he was too busy to take the order; in fact he had regarded the connection as undesirable.
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    Professor Adler slept. Gently rocked by the rhythmic movements of the train, he slept deeply and peacefully, as if he were lying on his boyhood bed in the little room next to his parents. When he awoke, daylight was filtering round the edges of the stiff cloth blind covering the window of his compartment. He pulled it up by the metal rod that held it stretched across the thick glass pane, sat himself on the edge of the bunk and looked out. The train had left the mountains behind. The countryside was flat, green and wooded. A road ran next to the railway track, a narrow road. Beyond it: fields, a copse of fir trees, then, in the distance, a cluster of houses and a church with a steeple crowned with a bulbous top like a Turkish turban. Adler smiled as he saw it: he was sorry he had missed the more spectacular sights in darkness and sleep, but there would be plenty of time for those – when? Next year, perhaps, or the year after? He would spend his holidays walking in the mountains, at an inn in a remote valley. It was years since he had walked. The prospect gave him a thrill of pleasure. He was coming home …
    Now the houses were closer together, they grew taller and squarer, grey and drab, showing flat, featureless faces of ennui with the suburban way of life – neither town nor country. But here was a town. The train ran into a station: several platforms, a long low building opposite the window, and people on the platform, men in grey loden and green felt hats, women, too, in loden or other nondescript clothes. A sign hanging from the station roof read ‘St Pölten’. He hurriedly started to dress; he had not realised he was so close to his journey’s end. Only an hour to Vienna. It was when they stopped at St Pölten, on their return journey from the summer holidays, that his father always began to fidget, to urge his mother to pack up what was left of their picnic, to fold the papers and put away her book and whatever he himself had been playing with. Then he had to put on his coat and gloves and sit still, for ages it seemed, while his