you tackle my tale? Delight? Envy? Or even … who knows? … you may use my termless removal to give out my stuff for your own … for the fruit of your own crafty … yes, I grant you that … crafty and experienced imagination; leaving me out in the cold. It would not be hard for me to take in advance proper measures against such impudence. Whether I
shall
take them, that is another question. What if I find it rather flattering that you should steal my property? Theft is the best compliment one can possibly pay a thing. And do you know the most amusing part? I assume that, having made up your mind to effect that pleasant robbery, you will suppress the compromising lines, the very lines I am writing now, and, moreover, fashion certain bits to your liking (which is a less pleasant thought) just as a motorcar thief repaints the car he has stolen. And, in this respect, I shall allow myself to relate a little story, which is certainly the funniest little story I know.
Some ten days ago, that is, about the tenth of March 1931 (half a year has suddenly gone—a fall in a dream, a run in time’s stocking), a person, or persons, passing along the highway or through the wood (that, I think, will be settled in due course) espied, on its edge, and unlawfully took possession of, a small blue car of such and such a make and power (I leave out the technical details). And, as a matter of fact, that is all.
I do not claim that this story has universal appeal: its point is none too obvious. It made
me
scream with laughter only because I was in the know. I may add that nobody told it me, nor have I read it anywhere; what I did was, really, to deduce it by means of some close reasoning from the bare fact of thecar’s disappearance, a fact quite wrongly interpreted by the papers. Back again, time!
“Can you drive?” was, I remember, the question I suddenly put to Felix, when the waiter, failing to notice anything particular about us, placed before me a lemonade and before Felix a tankard of beer, into the profuse froth of which my blurred double eagerly dipped his upper lip.
“What?” he uttered, with a beatific grunt.
“I was asking if you can drive a car.”
“Can’t I just! I once chummed up with a chauffeur who worked at a castle near my village. One fine day we ran over a sow. Lord, how she squealed!”
The waiter brought us some sort of gravy-logged hash, a great deal of it, and mashed potatoes, also drowned in sauce. Where the deuce had I already seen a pince-nez on a waiter’s nose? Ah—it comes back to me (only now, while writing this!)—at a rotten little Russian restaurant in Berlin; and that other waiter was very like this one—the same sort of sullen straw-haired little man, but of gentler birth.
“So that’s that, Felix. We have eaten and drunk; now, let us talk. You have made certain suppositions concerning me and these have proved correct. Now, before going deeper into the business on hand, I want to sketch out for your benefit a general picture of my personality and life; you won’t be long in understanding why it is urgent. To begin with …”
I took a sip and resumed:
“To begin with, I was born of a rich family. We had a house and a garden—ah, what a garden, Felix! Imagine, not merely rose trees but rose thickets, roses of all kinds, each variety bearing a framed label: roses, you know, receive names as resounding as those given to racehorses. Besides roses, there grew in our garden a quantity of other flowers,and when, of a morning, the whole place was brilliant with dew, the sight, Felix, was a dream. When still a child, I loved to look after our garden and well did I know my job: I had a small watering can, Felix, and a small mattock, and my parents would sit in the shade of an old cherry tree, planted by my grandfather, and look on, with tender emotion, at me, the small busybody (just imagine, imagine the picture!) engaged in removing from the roses, and squelching, caterpillars
shall
take them, that is another question. What if I find it rather flattering that you should steal my property? Theft is the best compliment one can possibly pay a thing. And do you know the most amusing part? I assume that, having made up your mind to effect that pleasant robbery, you will suppress the compromising lines, the very lines I am writing now, and, moreover, fashion certain bits to your liking (which is a less pleasant thought) just as a motorcar thief repaints the car he has stolen. And, in this respect, I shall allow myself to relate a little story, which is certainly the funniest little story I know.
Some ten days ago, that is, about the tenth of March 1931 (half a year has suddenly gone—a fall in a dream, a run in time’s stocking), a person, or persons, passing along the highway or through the wood (that, I think, will be settled in due course) espied, on its edge, and unlawfully took possession of, a small blue car of such and such a make and power (I leave out the technical details). And, as a matter of fact, that is all.
I do not claim that this story has universal appeal: its point is none too obvious. It made
me
scream with laughter only because I was in the know. I may add that nobody told it me, nor have I read it anywhere; what I did was, really, to deduce it by means of some close reasoning from the bare fact of thecar’s disappearance, a fact quite wrongly interpreted by the papers. Back again, time!
“Can you drive?” was, I remember, the question I suddenly put to Felix, when the waiter, failing to notice anything particular about us, placed before me a lemonade and before Felix a tankard of beer, into the profuse froth of which my blurred double eagerly dipped his upper lip.
“What?” he uttered, with a beatific grunt.
“I was asking if you can drive a car.”
“Can’t I just! I once chummed up with a chauffeur who worked at a castle near my village. One fine day we ran over a sow. Lord, how she squealed!”
The waiter brought us some sort of gravy-logged hash, a great deal of it, and mashed potatoes, also drowned in sauce. Where the deuce had I already seen a pince-nez on a waiter’s nose? Ah—it comes back to me (only now, while writing this!)—at a rotten little Russian restaurant in Berlin; and that other waiter was very like this one—the same sort of sullen straw-haired little man, but of gentler birth.
“So that’s that, Felix. We have eaten and drunk; now, let us talk. You have made certain suppositions concerning me and these have proved correct. Now, before going deeper into the business on hand, I want to sketch out for your benefit a general picture of my personality and life; you won’t be long in understanding why it is urgent. To begin with …”
I took a sip and resumed:
“To begin with, I was born of a rich family. We had a house and a garden—ah, what a garden, Felix! Imagine, not merely rose trees but rose thickets, roses of all kinds, each variety bearing a framed label: roses, you know, receive names as resounding as those given to racehorses. Besides roses, there grew in our garden a quantity of other flowers,and when, of a morning, the whole place was brilliant with dew, the sight, Felix, was a dream. When still a child, I loved to look after our garden and well did I know my job: I had a small watering can, Felix, and a small mattock, and my parents would sit in the shade of an old cherry tree, planted by my grandfather, and look on, with tender emotion, at me, the small busybody (just imagine, imagine the picture!) engaged in removing from the roses, and squelching, caterpillars
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