And Herr Spinell put this letter in a stamped envelope, provided it with a neatly written address, and mailed it.
XI
Herr Klöterjahn knocked on the door of Herr Spinell’s room. He was holding a large, neatly written sheet of paper in his hand, and looked like a man who had decided to proceed with energy. The mail had done its duty; the letter had taken its journey; it had made the remarkable trip from Einfried to Einfried, and arrived in the proper hands. The time was now four o’clock in the afternoon.
As Herr Klöterjahn entered, Herr Spinell was sitting on the sofa, reading his own novel with the bewildering cover designs. He arose and looked at his visitor with a surprised interrogation, although he plainly reddened.
“Good day,” said Herr Klöterjahn. “I hope you will pardon my disturbing you. But may I ask whether you wrote this?” He held out the large, neatly written sheet of paper in his left hand, and beat on it with the back of his right until it crackled. Then he stuck his right hand in the pocket of his wide, comfortable trousers, turned his head to one side, and, as with a good many people, opened his mouth to listen.
Herr Spinell was smiling peculiarly. He was smiling amiably; somewhat puzzled and half apologetic, he drew his hand across his head as though he were thinking, and said: “Why, to be sure … yes … I took the liberty …”
The point was that he had been too indulgent this morning, and slept until nearly noon. Consequently, he was suffering from a bad conscience and a stuffy head, felt a bit nervous and very ill-fit to defend himself. In addition, a spring breeze had set in, causing him to relax and making him a bit despondent. All this must be mentioned as an explanation of how it happened that he conducted himself so poorly in the following scene.
“So! Aha! Fine!” said Herr Klöterjahn, pressing his chin against his breast, raising his eyebrows, stretching his arms, and making countless other little gestures, to plunge heartlessly into the matter once this question of form had been settled. Out of delight in his person, he went a bit too far in these gestures; what finally followed could not completely correspond to the threatening punctiliousness of his preparations. But Herr Spinell was quite pale.
“Very fine!” Herr Klöterjahn repeated, and shook his head vigorously to show how impregnably sure he was of his case. “I wouldn’t waste a word on this scribble, frankly, it would simply be too cheap for attention, if it didn’t clear up for me certain things I didn’t understand before, certain changes. … However, that doesn’t concern you, and doesn’t belong here. I am a busy man; I have better things to think about than your unutterable visions …”
“I wrote ‘inextinguishable vision,’ ” Herr Spinell said, pulling himself up. This was the one time he made any show of dignity.
“Inextinguishable … unutterable …” Herr Klöterjahn answered, and glanced at the manuscript. “You write a very miserable hand, my friend; I shouldn’t like to have you working in my office. At first glance it seems good enough, but held up to the light it is full of all sorts of gaps and wobbles. But that is your affair, and has nothing to do with me. I came to tell you that, in the first place, you are an ass. … Now, let us hope that has been made known to you. Besides that, you are a thorough coward, and I don’t need to spend much time making that clear to you. My wife wrote me once that you never look into the faces of the women you meet, but just barely graze them that you might carry away a lovely impression, out of fear of the truth. Unfortunately, later on she quit telling me of you in her letters; otherwise, I should have some other stories about you. But there you are. You say ‘beauty’ every third word, but it is nothing but shooting off, and sham and envy, and that’s where your shameless reference to ‘lonely corridors’ comes from; it was supposed to knock me over, and instead it was funny, just plain funny! Do you get all that straight now? Have I ‘illuminated your life and actions,’ you poor devil? Although it is not my ‘infallible calling,’ ha, ha!”
“I wrote ‘inevitable calling,’ ” Herr Spinell interposed, but he gave up the field again immediately. He stood there helpless and rebuked, like a big, whimpering, grey-haired schoolboy.
“Inevitable … infallible … You are a low-down coward, I tell you. You see me at table every day. You speak to me and smile, you pass things to me and smile, you wish me a pleasant day and smile. And then all of a sudden you sling all this muck of stupid calumnies at me. Ha, yes, you have courage on paper! If it comes down to a ridiculous letter like this. But you have been doing underhanded things against me, acting behind my back; I see that now plainly enough. Although you don’t need to get the idea that it has done you any good! In case you entertain the hope that you have put any nonsense into my wife’s head, then you’re all wrong, my dear sir, for she’s too intelligent a person for that! Or finally, if you think that she received me, the child and me, any differently from usual when we arrived, then you’ve put the last touch to your crudeness! If she didn’t kiss the little fellow, it
