said that indifferent words,” the prince said, “but in any case it was a projection. Zehetmayer did
not
say: A film suddenly flashed through my brain, its sequences all related to the newspaper notice, translated into excitement. Instead, he said, in keeping with his nature: I could
think
of nothing else but that notice in the newspaper. And he said: My wife discouraged me from coming here; she wants me to apply for a position but she thought this one a bad idea. She said he wasn’t fitted for this post, that he was a teacher. She said to him: You’re a teacher; and she said, as she invariably did: A bad teacher. Zehetmayer said: I dressed and came here. After Zehetmayer said the words
came here,”
the prince said, “after Zehetmayer had spoken the words and left them hanging in the air, I repeated them, I had to take them out of the air, bring them down to earth again, clear the atmosphere for what followed. Zehetmayer said,” the prince said, “that at this moment it was a mystery to him why he was applying for the position. But we do so many things which remain a mystery, he said. You see, my dear Doctor, he said: I don’t know why. He reads the newspaper every day and he always reads all the ads; Zehetmayer reads them under pressure from his wife. His wife works and earns money. He finds reading employment ads a bore and he had never before reacted to any of them as he reacted to my notice. I wondered,” the prince said, “whether my notice might not have been written in a remarkable way. But I didn’t think so. (Steward for large forestry enterprise wanted … Saurau … and so on.…) My ad is composed in a wholly uninteresting tone. There’s nothing stimulating or enticing about it or in it. I wrote it quickly and sent it to the newspaper, and I was surprised myself at how impersonally, how unattractively, it iswritten, although originally, of course, I’d intended to compose an individualized, attractive advertisement, or at least an interesting one, not an uninteresting one.… I sent it in and thought: Your advertisement is pointless, not a soul will respond to it. And so on.… And then,” the prince said, “Zehetmayer called on me early this morning, and right after him these two other applicants appeared, Henzig and Huber, and I think still more applicants will be coming up here to see me, for it is hardly likely that these will be the first and the last. After all, I think, my advertisement must be fascinating, to judge by the effect. I have a very definite notion of a fascinating ad, I think, but suppose this one happens to be particularly fascinating just because it’s not fascinating.… To think that things have come to such a pass, Doctor, that a Saurau has to insert an advertisement,” the prince said. And then: “I said: Herr Zehetmayer, can it be that you sincerely think that you know anything about forestry? To that he replied: No, I don’t know anything about it, really, I don’t know the slightest thing about it, for the fact that I grew up in the country, he said, doesn’t mean that I know anything about forestry. Naturally not. I poured him a glass of whisky (I myself haven’t drunk anything for weeks, Doctor, since you’ve told me I mustn’t) and asked the man, for the question seemed perfectly natural, why he was no longer a teacher. It was after all unusual, I said, no longer to be a teacher at forty-two for a man who
is
a teacher. My thoughts, Doctor, the language itself, Doctor, have suddenly become all strange to me again! He said that he had been discharged from the educational system ten years ago. His pension rights canceled, he said. He said he had been accused of a crime (rape?) that he hadn’t committed and for whichhe had spent two years in prison and three years in the Garsten Reformatory. It was impossible for him to tell me the nature of the crime, he said. (Rape?) He said he had enjoyed teaching, had above all appreciated the freedom that the
not
say: A film suddenly flashed through my brain, its sequences all related to the newspaper notice, translated into excitement. Instead, he said, in keeping with his nature: I could
think
of nothing else but that notice in the newspaper. And he said: My wife discouraged me from coming here; she wants me to apply for a position but she thought this one a bad idea. She said he wasn’t fitted for this post, that he was a teacher. She said to him: You’re a teacher; and she said, as she invariably did: A bad teacher. Zehetmayer said: I dressed and came here. After Zehetmayer said the words
came here,”
the prince said, “after Zehetmayer had spoken the words and left them hanging in the air, I repeated them, I had to take them out of the air, bring them down to earth again, clear the atmosphere for what followed. Zehetmayer said,” the prince said, “that at this moment it was a mystery to him why he was applying for the position. But we do so many things which remain a mystery, he said. You see, my dear Doctor, he said: I don’t know why. He reads the newspaper every day and he always reads all the ads; Zehetmayer reads them under pressure from his wife. His wife works and earns money. He finds reading employment ads a bore and he had never before reacted to any of them as he reacted to my notice. I wondered,” the prince said, “whether my notice might not have been written in a remarkable way. But I didn’t think so. (Steward for large forestry enterprise wanted … Saurau … and so on.…) My ad is composed in a wholly uninteresting tone. There’s nothing stimulating or enticing about it or in it. I wrote it quickly and sent it to the newspaper, and I was surprised myself at how impersonally, how unattractively, it iswritten, although originally, of course, I’d intended to compose an individualized, attractive advertisement, or at least an interesting one, not an uninteresting one.… I sent it in and thought: Your advertisement is pointless, not a soul will respond to it. And so on.… And then,” the prince said, “Zehetmayer called on me early this morning, and right after him these two other applicants appeared, Henzig and Huber, and I think still more applicants will be coming up here to see me, for it is hardly likely that these will be the first and the last. After all, I think, my advertisement must be fascinating, to judge by the effect. I have a very definite notion of a fascinating ad, I think, but suppose this one happens to be particularly fascinating just because it’s not fascinating.… To think that things have come to such a pass, Doctor, that a Saurau has to insert an advertisement,” the prince said. And then: “I said: Herr Zehetmayer, can it be that you sincerely think that you know anything about forestry? To that he replied: No, I don’t know anything about it, really, I don’t know the slightest thing about it, for the fact that I grew up in the country, he said, doesn’t mean that I know anything about forestry. Naturally not. I poured him a glass of whisky (I myself haven’t drunk anything for weeks, Doctor, since you’ve told me I mustn’t) and asked the man, for the question seemed perfectly natural, why he was no longer a teacher. It was after all unusual, I said, no longer to be a teacher at forty-two for a man who
is
a teacher. My thoughts, Doctor, the language itself, Doctor, have suddenly become all strange to me again! He said that he had been discharged from the educational system ten years ago. His pension rights canceled, he said. He said he had been accused of a crime (rape?) that he hadn’t committed and for whichhe had spent two years in prison and three years in the Garsten Reformatory. It was impossible for him to tell me the nature of the crime, he said. (Rape?) He said he had enjoyed teaching, had above all appreciated the freedom that the
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