friend Toni has found a home from home! I hear they really live it up at the old Manichaean’s place! Five courses every evening, so the pharmacist says, caviar and capons, genuine Bols and the bestof cigars—unlike our pigswill at the Red Lion. I tell you what, we’ve all underestimated our Toni, he knows which side his bread is buttered!”
Joszi joins in at once. “A little short on good comradeship, though, our Toni. Yes, Toni, I suppose you don’t think of telling the old boy up there, ‘Hey, old fellow, I have a couple of good friends, smartly turned out, splendid chaps, they don’t eat with their knives, why don’t I bring them along?’ No, not he, let the rest of ’em drink sour Pilsner and eat the same old beef goulash! A fine sort of friend he is, I must say! All for him, nothing for the rest of us! Did you at least bring back a nice fat Upmann cigar? If so you’re forgiven, for now.”
They all three roar with laughter. My blood suddenly rises from my collar to my ears. How the devil could Jozsi guess that Kekesfalva really did put one of his excellent cigars in my pocket as I was leaving—he always does! Is it sticking out between the two buttons on the breast of my coat? I just hope they don’t notice anything! Embarrassed, I force a smile.
“Oh, of course, an Upmann! Won’t you be happy with anything less? I can offer you one of our ordinary cigarettes.” And I open my cigarette case and hold it out to him. At the same moment my hand suddenly jerks back—the day before yesterday happened to be my twenty-fifth birthday, and somehow or other the two girls had worked that out. When I took the napkin off my plate at dinner, I felt something heavy folded into it—a birthday present of a cigarette case. But Ferencz has already noticed my new acquisition—the least little thing is a great event in our closed circle.
“Hello, what’s that?” he growls. “Something new!” He simply takes the cigarette case from my hand (what can I do to stophim?), feels it, examines it, and finally weighs it up in the palm of his hand. “Hey, seems to me,” he says, leaning over the table to the regimental doctor, “seems to me this is the genuine article. Take a look, will you? Your worthy papa deals in such items, right? You’ll know more about them than I do.”
Dr Goldbaum, who is indeed the son of a goldsmith in Drohobycz, puts his pince-nez on his rather fleshy nose, picks up the cigarette case, weighs it in his own hand, examines it from all angles and taps it expertly with a knuckle.
“Yes, the genuine article,” is his final diagnosis. “Pure gold, hallmarked and damn heavy. We could fill the entire regiment’s teeth with this. Price range around seven to eight hundred crowns.”
After delivering this verdict, which startles me, too (I had honestly thought it was just gilt), he hands the case on to Jozsi, who treats it with much more respect than the other two (how highly we young men think of anything valuable!). He looks at it, inspects his reflection in it, feels it, finally opens the clasp and says in surprise, “Hello—there’s an inscription! Hey, listen to this! ‘To our dear friend Anton Hofmiller on his birthday. Ilona and Edith.’”
All three are now staring at me. “Good heavens,” says Ferencsz at last, “you choose your friends well these days. My respects! You’d have got a brass matchbox from me at the most.”
My throat feels tight. Tomorrow the whole regiment will hear the embarrassing news of the gold cigarette case, my birthday present from the Kekesfalvas, and everyone will know the inscription by heart. “Let’s have a look at that showy cigarette case of yours,” Ferencz will say in the officers’ mess, to show off, and I shall have to show it to the riding master, the Major, maybe even the Colonel. They’ll all weigh it up in their hands,estimate its value, grin knowingly at the inscription, and then, inevitably, there’ll be questions and jokes, and
Joszi joins in at once. “A little short on good comradeship, though, our Toni. Yes, Toni, I suppose you don’t think of telling the old boy up there, ‘Hey, old fellow, I have a couple of good friends, smartly turned out, splendid chaps, they don’t eat with their knives, why don’t I bring them along?’ No, not he, let the rest of ’em drink sour Pilsner and eat the same old beef goulash! A fine sort of friend he is, I must say! All for him, nothing for the rest of us! Did you at least bring back a nice fat Upmann cigar? If so you’re forgiven, for now.”
They all three roar with laughter. My blood suddenly rises from my collar to my ears. How the devil could Jozsi guess that Kekesfalva really did put one of his excellent cigars in my pocket as I was leaving—he always does! Is it sticking out between the two buttons on the breast of my coat? I just hope they don’t notice anything! Embarrassed, I force a smile.
“Oh, of course, an Upmann! Won’t you be happy with anything less? I can offer you one of our ordinary cigarettes.” And I open my cigarette case and hold it out to him. At the same moment my hand suddenly jerks back—the day before yesterday happened to be my twenty-fifth birthday, and somehow or other the two girls had worked that out. When I took the napkin off my plate at dinner, I felt something heavy folded into it—a birthday present of a cigarette case. But Ferencz has already noticed my new acquisition—the least little thing is a great event in our closed circle.
“Hello, what’s that?” he growls. “Something new!” He simply takes the cigarette case from my hand (what can I do to stophim?), feels it, examines it, and finally weighs it up in the palm of his hand. “Hey, seems to me,” he says, leaning over the table to the regimental doctor, “seems to me this is the genuine article. Take a look, will you? Your worthy papa deals in such items, right? You’ll know more about them than I do.”
Dr Goldbaum, who is indeed the son of a goldsmith in Drohobycz, puts his pince-nez on his rather fleshy nose, picks up the cigarette case, weighs it in his own hand, examines it from all angles and taps it expertly with a knuckle.
“Yes, the genuine article,” is his final diagnosis. “Pure gold, hallmarked and damn heavy. We could fill the entire regiment’s teeth with this. Price range around seven to eight hundred crowns.”
After delivering this verdict, which startles me, too (I had honestly thought it was just gilt), he hands the case on to Jozsi, who treats it with much more respect than the other two (how highly we young men think of anything valuable!). He looks at it, inspects his reflection in it, feels it, finally opens the clasp and says in surprise, “Hello—there’s an inscription! Hey, listen to this! ‘To our dear friend Anton Hofmiller on his birthday. Ilona and Edith.’”
All three are now staring at me. “Good heavens,” says Ferencsz at last, “you choose your friends well these days. My respects! You’d have got a brass matchbox from me at the most.”
My throat feels tight. Tomorrow the whole regiment will hear the embarrassing news of the gold cigarette case, my birthday present from the Kekesfalvas, and everyone will know the inscription by heart. “Let’s have a look at that showy cigarette case of yours,” Ferencz will say in the officers’ mess, to show off, and I shall have to show it to the riding master, the Major, maybe even the Colonel. They’ll all weigh it up in their hands,estimate its value, grin knowingly at the inscription, and then, inevitably, there’ll be questions and jokes, and
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