Prater Violet Read Online Free Page B

it?”
    â€œI found it grandiose.”
    â€œIt ought to have been much better. I’m afraid I…”
    â€œYou are wrong,” Bergmann told me, quite severely. He began to turn the pages. “This scene—he tries to make a suicide. It is genial.” He frowned solemnly, as if daring me to contradict him. “This I find clearly genial.”
    I laughed and blushed. Bergmann watched me, smiling, like a proud parent who listens to his son being praised by the headmaster. Then he patted me on the shoulder.
    â€œLook, if you do not believe me. I will show you. This I wrote this morning, after reading your book.” He began to fumble in his pockets. As there were only seven of them, it didn’t take him long. He pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper. “My first poem in English. To an English poet.”
    I took it and read:
    When I am a boy, my mother tells to me
    It is lucky to wake up when the morning is bright
    And first of all hear a lark sing.
    Now I am not longer a boy, and I wake. The morning is dark.
    I hear a bird singing with unknown name
    In a strange country language, but it is luck, I think.
    Who is he, this singer, who does not fear the gray city?
    Will they drown him soon, the poor Shelley?
    Will Byron’s hangmen teach him how one limps?
    I hope they will not, because he makes me happy.
    â€œWhy,” I said, “it’s beautiful!”
    â€œYou like it?” Bergmann was so delighted that he began rubbing his hands. “But you must correct the English, please.”
    â€œCertainly not. I like it the way it is.”
    â€œAlready I think I have a feeling for the language,” said Bergmann, with modest satisfaction. “I shall write many English poems.”
    â€œMay I keep this one?”
    â€œReally? You want it?” he beamed. “Then I shall inscribe it for you.”
    He took out his fountain pen and wrote: “For Christopher, from Friedrich, his fellow prisoner.”
    I laid the poem carefully on the mantelpiece. It seemed to be the only safe place in the room. “Is this your wife?” I asked, looking at the photographs.
    â€œYes. And that is Inge, my daughter. You like her?”
    â€œShe has beautiful eyes.”
    â€œShe is a pianist. Very talented.”
    â€œAre they in Vienna?”
    â€œUnfortunately. Yes. I am most anxious for them. Austria is no longer safe. The plague is spreading. I wished them to come with me, but my wife has to look after her mother. It’s not so easy.” Bergmann sighed deeply. Then, with a sharp glance at me, “You are not married.” It sounded like an accusation.
    â€œHow did you know?”
    â€œI know these things.… You live with your parents?”
    â€œWith my mother and brother. My father’s dead.”
    Bergmann grunted and nodded. He was like a doctor who finds his most pessimistic diagnosis is confirmed. “You are a typical mother’s son. It is the English tragedy.”
    I laughed. “Quite a lot of Englishmen do get married, you know.”
    â€œThey marry their mothers. It is a disaster. It will lead to the destruction of Europe.”
    â€œI must say, I don’t quite see…”
    â€œIt will lead definitely to the destruction of Europe. I have written the first chapters of a novel about this. It is called The Diary of an Etonian Oedipus. ” Bergmann suddenly gave me a charming smile. “But do not worry. We shall change all that.”
    â€œAll right,” I grinned. “I won’t worry.”
    Bergmann lit a cigarette, and blew a cloud of smoke into which he almost disappeared.
    â€œAnd now,” he announced, “the horrible but unavoidable moment has come when we have to talk about this crime we are about to commit: this public outrage, this enormous nuisance, this scandal, this blasphemy.… You have read the original script?”
    â€œThey sent a messenger round with it, last