I Want to Keep Smashing Myself Until I Am Whole by Elias Canetti

Author:Elias Canetti
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Picador

Chapter II: The Hump

A few hours after he had started on his new job Fischerle was fully enlightened as to the desires and peculiarities of his master. On taking up their quarters for the night he was presented to the hotel porter as “my friend and colleague.” Fortunately the porter recognized the openhanded Owner of a Library who had already spent a night in that hotel; otherwise both the gentleman and his colleague would have been thrown out. Fischerle took pains to follow what Kien was writing on the registration form. He was too small, he couldn’t contrive to poke his nose into these matters. His fears were on account of the second registration form which the porter had ready for him. But Kien, who was making up in one night for the lack of delicacy of a lifetime, considered how difficult the little fellow would find it to write and included him on his own form under the heading “accompanied by …” He handed the second form back to the porter with the words, “This is unnecessary.” Thus he spared Fischerle not only the difficulty of writing, but, more important still in his eyes, the humiliating admission of his status as a servant.

As soon as they reached their rooms upstairs, Kien took out the brown paper and began to smooth it out. “True, it’s all crumpled,” he said, “but we have no other.” Fischerle seized the occasion to make himself indispensable, and worked carefully over each sheet which his master regarded as already perfected. “I was to blame, with that slapping,” he declared. His success was the measure of the enviable nimbleness of his fingers. Next the paper was spread out over the floor in both rooms. Fischerle gamboled from side to side, lay flat down and crawled—a peculiar, squat, hump-backed reptile—from corner to corner. “We’ll soon have it all shipshape, that’s nothing!” he panted again and again. Kien smiled, he was not accustomed to this cringing nor to the hump and rejoiced at the personal honor which the dwarf was showing him. The impending explanation however filled him with a certain anxiety. Possibly he overestimated the intelligence of the manikin, almost as old as he, who had lived countless years in exile without books. He might well misunderstand the task which was intended for him. Perhaps he would ask: “Where are the books?” even before he had grasped where they were safely kept during the day. It would be best to leave him crawling about on the floor a little longer. Meanwhile some popular simile might occur to Kien with which he could enlighten this uneducated brain. Even the little fellow’s fingers disquieted him. They were in constant motion; they kept on smoothing out the paper far too long. They were hungry, hungry fingers want food. They might demand the books, which Kien was determined no one should touch, no one at all. Also he feared to come into collision with the little fellow’s thirst for education. He might reproach him, with some appearance of justice, for letting his books lie fallow.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.