Auto-Da-Fé

by Elias Canetti

  While he was thinking of the little room and his much too big wife, he decided to forget his diary. He might run into his wife if he went home. She loved him dearly. Maybe she wouldn't let him go. If she said no, she screamed and threw herself in front of the door. There'd be no creeping under her, there'd be no pushing her aside, she was fatter than die door. Even her head was fat; when she took something into it she forgot business and stayed at home all night. Then he'd miss his train and get to America too late. He'd be able to find out Capablanca's address just as well in Paris. If no one knew it there, he'd ask in America. Millonaires knew everything. Fischerle would not go back to the little room. He'd have liked to creep under the bed once more in farewell; that was the cradle of his future career. There he used to lay traps and defeat champions storming like lightning from one square to another; he'd found in it a peace unknown in any café, his opponents played worthily for he was himself his own opponent. In Baboon Palace he would build a little room just like it with another bed for thinking up clever moves, and he alone would be allowed to creep under it. But he'd forego the farewell visit. Too much feeling was superfluous. A bed was only a bed. He could remember it perfectly well without. Instead he d buy eleven more shirts, all blue. Anyone who could tell them apart would win a prize. The tailor knew something about character; but he could shut up about draughts. Only duds played that.

  Complete with his parcel he returned to die station, opened his smart suitcase and placed the shirts one by one inside it. The contempt of the cloakroom man changed into respect. 'One more dozen,' thought their proprietor, 'and he'll go right out of his mind.' Once he held his packed case in his hand/it nearly pushed him into a train which was standing ready. But the cloakroom attendant removed the temptation. At a special counter where an office had been opened for foreigners Fischerle asked in broken German for a first class ticket to Paris. They chased him away. He clenched his fist and croaked: 'Just to teach you I'll travel 2nd and your railway will have to stand the difference! You wait till I come in my new suit!' But he was not really angry. He didn't really look in the least like a foreigner. In front of the station-he ate quickly a couple of hot sausages. 'I could go to a restaurant with separate tables,' he told the sausage man, 'and put down a king's ransom on the white tablecloth, I've got it in my note case,' he heldit out under the nose of the unbeliever. 'But I'm not one for my stomach, I've got an intellect!' 'With a head like yours, I believe you! answered the other. He had a little child's head on a lumpish body, and was jealous of everyone who had a larger one. "What do you think I've got in it!' said Fischerle, and paid. 'All my years of study and languages, approximately six!'

  In the afternoon he sat himself down to learn American. At the booksellers' they tried to palm off English Grammars on him. 'Gentlemen,' he coquetted, 'I'm not so dumb. You have your interests at heart and I have mine.' Assistants and proprietors alike deplored the fact, but in America they do speak English. 'I know English, I want something special.' After he had assured himself that it was the same story everywhere, he bought a book of the most usual English phrases. He got it half-price, because this bookseller lived exclusively on Westerns, only stocked other things as a sideline, and enthusiastically forgot his own interests in the dangers of the desert of Takla Makan, which a dwarf like this wanted to cross, instead of taking the Trans-Siberian railway or going by ship to Singapore.

  Seated on a park bench, the daring investigator stuck his nose into the first lesson. It contained nothing but novelties, like 'The sun shines', or 'Life is short'. Unfortunately it was really shining. It was the end of March, and it had no bite. Otherwise Fischerle would have taken care not to get too near to it. He had had bad experiences with the sun. It was as hot as fever. In Heaven it never shone. It made you stupid for chess.

  'I know English too!' called a little goose beside him. She had pigtails and was about fourteen. He did not allow himself to be disturbed and went on-reading the novelties aloud. She waited. After two hours he closed his lesson book. Then she took it as if she'd known him twenty years and heard his lessons, a task for which the Capitalist lacked the genius. He remembered every word. 'How many years have you been learning?' asked the school girl. 'We haven't got so far, I'm only in my second year.' Fischerle got up, asked for his property back, threw her an ugly, annihilating look and protested in a scream: 'I don't care for your acquaintance! Do you know when I started? Exactly two hours ago!' With these words he left the mental deficient.

  Towards evening he could repeat the whole of the skimpy book. He changed benches frequently, for people always seemed to get interested in him. Was it his quondam hump, or his loud learning? As his hump was on its last legs, he decided for the latter. Whenever anyone approached his bench, he called out, even from a distance: 'Don't interrupt me, I entreat you, or I'll be ploughed in my exam to-morrow, what use'll that be to you, have a heart.' No one could resist that. Whatever bench he sat on filled up; the others stayed empty. They eavesdropped on his English and promised to hold all available thumbs up for his exam. A school teacher fell in love with his industriousness and followed him, from bench to bench, to the end of the park. She could take a dwarf to heart, she loved dogs, but only griffins, in spite of her thirty-six years she was still single, she taught French fluently, she was willing to exchange lessons for his English, she thought nothing of love. For some time Fischerle kept his opinion to himself. Suddenly she told him her landlady was a mercenary creature, then she abused rouged lips — powder was another matter. Then he'd had enough of her, a woman without rouge, what kind of business did she think she could do? 'You're only 46, and you talk that way,' he fumed, 'what'll you say when you're 56?' The school teacher went. She found him ill-bred. Not everyone let themselves be insulted. Most people were glad to have his lessons for nothing. An envious old man corrected his pronunciation and repeated obstinately: 'They don't say it like that in England, they say it like this. 'I'm talking American!' said Fischerlc and turned his hump on him. Everyone agreed. They despised the old man, who couldn't tell English from American. When the shameless old thing, who was at least eighty, threatened to call the police, Fischerle sprang up and said: 'Yes I'll call them!' The old man hobbled, trembling, away.

  As the sun went down, the people went home, little by little. A few boys herded themselves together and waited until the last grown-up had gone. Suddenly they surrounded Fischerle's bench and burst into an English chorus. They yelled 'Yes' but they meant 'Jew'. Before he had decided on his journey, Fischerle had feared boys like the plague.

  To-day he threw down his book, climbed on to the bench and, with his long arms, conducted the choir. He joined in the singing too, singing what he had just learnt. The boys yelled, he yelled louder, his new hat danced frcnziedly on his head. 'Faster, gendemen!' he croaked in between times; the boys stormed round him, feeling suddenly grown up. They raised him shoulder high. 'Gentlemen, what are you doing!' Two more of these 'gentlemen' and they would stay grown-up. They lifted up his shoes, they supported his hump, three quarrelled for his lesson book, simply because it was his, one carried his hat. Both were borne in triumph before him, he came wavering after, on obsequious shoulders-, he was neither a Jew nor a cripple, he was a fine fellow and knew all about wigwams. As far as the park gate the gallant hero belonged to them. He let them shake him, and made himself heavy. Outside, unhappily, they set him down. They asked him if he would be there again next day. He would not disappoint them. 'Gentlemen, he said, 'if I'm not in America I'll be with you!' In excitement and haste, off they trotted. There was a thrashing already in store for most of them when they got home.

  Fischerle strolled slowly in the direction of the street where suit and coat awaited him. Since he had learnt that the train went at eleven sharp, he had set much store on punctuality and promises. It seemed too early for the tailor: he turned into a side street, entered a strange cafe, on the threshold of which gaily coloured women made him feel at home, and drank, in admiration of his wonderful English, a d
ouble whisky. He said: 'Thank you!' threw the money on the tray, turned round only at the door as he went out, called 'Good-bye!' until every one had heard him, and, as a result of this delay, ran straight into the arms of Passport Joe, whom he would otherwise have missed. "Well, where'd you get the new hat?' he asked, no less astonished at the dwarf than at the new hat; this was the third client he had met in the neighbourhood. 'Sh!' whispered Fischerle, put his finger on his lip and pointed backwards into the café. So as to forestall further questions, he held his left shoe out to him and said: 'I've got myself ready for the journey.' Passport Joe understood and said no more. Light fingers by daylight and just before a journey round the world impressed him. He was sorry for the little fellow, because he had to get to Japan with no money. For a fraction of a second he thought of providing him with a couple of banknotes; business was doing well. But passport and banknotes were too much. "When you don t know what else to do in a town,' he said, rather to himself than to the dwarf, 'you go straight to the chess champion. You'll find something there. You've got the addresses of course? Without the addresses an artist is lost. Don't forget the addresses!'

  This piece of advice cast at him was quite enough to remind Fischerle of his pocket diary. It would be ungrateful to evaporate without even saying good-bye. His bed was after all not to blame for his stupid wife. An artist like him could not be parted from his pocket diary. The train at 1.5 ran just as punctually. Sharp at eight he reached the tailor. His new suit fitted him like the most splendid of combinations. Whatever trace was left of his hump disappeared under the coat. The two champions congratulated each other, each one on the other's skill.

  'Wonderful!' said Fischerle and added: 'and to think there are people who don't even know English. I know a chap like that. He wants to say thank you and he says danke!'

  The tailor said he liked hamandeggs best of all. The day before esterday he came to a restaurant where the waiter didn't understand him.

  'Yes and ox is ochs and milk is milch,' his customer took the words out of his mouth. 'Now I ask you, did anyone ever hear of an easier language? Japanese is a great deal harder!'

  'Whereupon I take the liberty to confess that your line, the very first moment, as soon as you entered the door, made me feel the faultless connoisseur in languages; I entirely share your conviction of the inextricable difficulties of the Japanese vocabulary. The unenviable reputation resounds, that it has 10,000 different characters. Imagine the hair-raising paraphernalia of a mere local Japanese paper. Their methods of advertising are still in their cradle. Their language incubates the unsuspected germ which infects the business life of commerce. We suffer to-day from an all embracing enthusiasm for the welfare of a friendly nation. We are taking a substantial part in these fruitless endeavours, since the scar of an inevitable war in the Far East is on its way to a total cure.'

  'You're perfectly right,' said Fischerle, 'and I won't forget you. As my train goes almost at once let us part as lifelong friends.'

  'To the cold grave of my forefathers,' the tailor completed his sentence and embraced the future world champion. As the grave of his forefathers crossed his lips — he was the father of several children — he was deeply moved and filled suddenly with anxiety. In his struggle with death he pressed the doctor close to him. A button on the new coat caught itself up and was pulled off. Fischerle had a spasm of laughter; his quondam employee, the blind man, occurred to him. The tailor, injured in his tenderest feelings, demanded a comprehensive explanation.

  'I know a man,' hustled the dwarf, 'I know a man who couldn't stand buttons. He'd like to eat all buttons, so that there would be no more. I just couldn't help thinking what tailors would do then. Don't you see? '

  At this the injured party forgot his future in the grave of his forefathers and laughed hoarsely. While he sewed on the button with his own hands, he promised over and over again to send this fabulous joke to a comic paper for their kind consideration. He sewed slowly, so as to laugh in company. He did everything in company; even tears, when he was alone, gave him no real pleasure. He regretted from his heart the departure of the doctor. He would lose his best friend in him. For he would surely have become that, just as sure as two plus two will make four for all eternity. They parted on Christian name terms. The tailor stationed himself in the door and looked long, long, after Fischerle. Soon the figure of the well-bred dwarf— his heart was well-bred and the education of the heart is all — was lost in the proud oudine of the striking new coat, beneath which the trouser legs of a distinguished suit made a welcome appearance.

  Fischerle carried his own suit, well wrapped up, to the station. For the third time he popped up in the entrance hall, a smartly dressed person, rejuvenated and well born. With regal nonchalance he held his cloakroom ticket between forefinger and middle finger towards the attendant and requested his 'New leather suitcase'. The repect of the attendant became veneration. It was possible that the shirts which the deformity had had that afternoon were simply part of his stock-in-trade. Now he carried elegance on his very person. He laid his parcel in the suitcase with both arms and declared: 'It's nicely packed up, it would be silly to unpack it.' At the counter for foreign travellers he asked curtly, and, in German: 'Can I get a first class ticket to Paris here?' 'Yes sir, naturally sir!' assured him the very man who had hunted him away only a few hours before. From this Fischerle assumed rightly and with pride that he was no longer recognizable. 'You take your time over it gentlemen!' he complained with an English accent. His lesson book was still under his arm. 'I hope your trains move a little faster!' Did he wish for a sleeping car, there were still some places obtainable. 'Yes please. On the 1.5 train. Is your time-table reliable?' 'Yes sir, naturally sir. This is, after all, an ancient centre of civilization.'

  'I know that. That has nothing to do with whether your trains go fast. Now in the States, business comes first. If you know as much English as that.' The ostentatious way in which the undergrown little gendeman held out a check note-case, and quite full, confirmed the official in his belief that he had an American before him and in the boundless reverence which was due to an American. 'I'm through with this country!' said Fischerle after he had paid and hidden away his ticket in the check leather note-case. 'I've been cheated. I've been treated like a deformity, not like an American. My profound knowledge of languages enabled me to counteract the designs of my enemies. Tell you what, they lured me into dens of vice. You've got some good chess players and that's about all I can give you. The world-famous Paris psychiatrist, Professor Kien, a good friend of mine, shares my opinion. I've been kept prisoner under a bed and a huge ransom has been blackmailed out of me by fearful threats of murder. I paid, but your police will have to pay me three times as much. Diplomatic steps have been initiated. Ancient centre of civilization — that's a good one!' Without further greeting he turned away. With a determined tread he left the hall. About his mouth there played a contemptuous quivering. Centre of civilization indeed! They told him that, he who'd been born here and had never left the town; he who knew all the chess papers by heart, read every illustrated weekly under Heaven before anyone else, and could learn English in an afternoon! Since his success he was certain that all languages were easy to learn and decided in the leisure weeks which his profession as world champion in America would permit him, to learn two languages a week. That would be sixty-six in a year, no one could possibly want more languages dian that, what for, he could do without dialects. They came natural.