Death in Rome by Wolfgang Koeppen

Author:Wolfgang Koeppen [Koeppen, Wolfgang]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2011-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

He sat at the bottom end of the dining-room table in the hostel for travelling priests, bathed in a dirty brown penumbra, because the window opened on to a small courtyard, and the curtains were drawn too, so that there was gloom, gloom barely lightened by a few weak electric bulbs, which gave the daylight its tinge of brown. All of them, they looked tired, as though they'd been travelling all night or making a rough crossing, but they'd all spent the night in the hostel, sleeping or waking, lying in their beds, sleeping or waking, and, sleeping or waking, they were proud to be in Rome, the capital of Christendom. Some had already been to early-morning Mass, and now returned to breakfast, which was included in the price, and lacked savour, like breakfast in all seminaries, hospitals and educational establishments everywhere, coffee like dishwater, jam that was without colour and without fruit, an old dry loaf, and they choked it down and pored over their travel guides and wrote out lists of addresses of places they wanted to visit or to which they had introductions, and the head of the hostel asked Adolf whether he would like to take part in a tour of the city, all places of worship would be included, the graves of the martyrs, the places of illumination, the paths of visitations, and the Holy Father was to meet the participants, but Adolf declined, thank you, he preferred to be alone. They were priests, they had been ordained, the bishop had called out their names, they had replied, 'Adsum,' and the bishop had then asked the archdeacon, 'Do you know whether they are worthy?' and the archdeacon had replied, 'Inasmuch as human frailty may be sure, I know and affirm that they are worthy of the burden of office.' Whereupon the bishop had called out, 'Deo gratias,' and they had become priests; they were anointed, they swore obedience to the bishop and his successors, they acquired the power of absolution: 'Accipe Spiritum Sanctum, quorum remiseris peccata, remittuntur eis, et quorum retinueris, retenta sunt.' He himself was not yet a priest, he was just a deacon, he was one step below them, they were his superiors, he watched them as they ate their bread, as they made their plans for the day, how they might spend it usefully in Rome, and he asked himself whether God had chosen them, whether God had sent them, ambitious ravens and shy scarecrows, and he doubted it, because then why hadn't God done more, why didn't his servants do more to oppose the world's unhappy course? Adolf had come to them out of great unhappiness, and since it seemed to him that even as a priest he would hardly be able to prevent fresh misery, and he doubted that a pharisee's smug indifference was for him, he asked himself whether he really felt a vocation, if that was what the others felt. He could find no reply, just as he

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