Perlefter by Joseph Roth Page A

said there was something demonic about him. Herr Sedan spoke with him about electricity. Occasionally the engineer switched to business. He had dealings with the film industry, and he sold equipment on commission. He rejected nothing. He acceptedeverything that came across his path. For a time he ran the publicity for a Russian cabaret. In the winter he accompanied the Sedan family to Switzerland. In the winter’s calm of a health resort, in the face of the majestic mountains, something must have happened that induced Herr Sedan to decide to divorce Margarete. The engineer found other students. Margarete returned to Perlefter’s house.
    So there she was. Frau Perlefter cried for three weeks. Margarete came to the divorce proceedings in chaste high-necked clothes. Her lawyer said, ‘Lovely.’ In the evening Tante Kempen arrived with a new suggestion. Herr Perlefter was going to a sanatorium in an effort to recover. He would give some thought to a new son-in-law later. But scarcely a day before his departure Margarete brought a bank official to the house whom everyone liked because he was so modest. Perlefter postponed his travels. Two weeks later Margarete married her bank official. Herr Perlefter took him into business. Suddenly Dr Feld was back. He began to opine from within the pages of
The Blue Margin.
Margarete promised to provide the means. He bought her jewellery, and a week later the whole world could see her picture in
The Blue Margin.
The Wednesday afternoon gatherings lived once more.
    Margarete was fat again. As soon as she married she grew, and nothing could help her. Every morning she did gymnastics. A masseur was recommended, a noted masseur who served the most distinguished houses in the city and commanded the highest prices. He was ahandsome muscular man in leather leggings with a wide mouth and white healthy teeth. The bank official was jealous, but it was no use. He played no role at all in the household. When Margarete was in a good mood she stretched out her hand to him. He had to kiss it. When he wanted to speak she interrupted him. Eventually he began to brew tea, tend to the hearth, fetch water and run to the pharmacy. He wanted to be useful. He recounted to patient listeners school stories and anecdotes about life on the stock exchange. He was, unfortunately, a bad storyteller, and from his first sentence one could already predict the end of his story. Dr Feld despised him. Dr Feld was practically as revered as the masseur. Margarete confessed her sorrows to him. The bank official was dumb enough to defend the accuracy of the scales. He wanted to prove that the masseur was superfluous, but he demonstrated only his own expendability.
    So passed the months. Perlefter was in the sanatorium. His wife lived with Fredy, whose wife was going to have a child. Karoline also bore a girl. The chemist took her out for a walk. He was a good father and no longer felt a need to invent gunpowder. He pushed the pram, lived outside in the austerity of the countryside and demonstrated a genuine interest in leatherwear.

VIII
    While Herr Perlefter was in the sanatorium, recovering from the calamities that had afflicted his house, there landed on one of the European coasts Leo Bidak with his wife and six children along with his entire fortune, which one could fit in a straw basket and still have room to spare. I knew Leo Bidak from my childhood and from my home town. He was related to Alexander Perlefter, who granted no special significance to this family link. Leo Bidak came from San Francisco. He had survived several earthquakes and had missed the European world war. He left to earn money, but he returned as a beggar, and he once again sought ‘a reason for existence’ after having had to give up several existences on both sides of the ocean.
    He was forty-two years old, a family man, and he had experienced much and learned nothing. He’d had a few different jobs, and not one of them had he