Perlefter by Joseph Roth

Author:Joseph Roth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers
Published: 2013-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

V

Unfortunately Fredy’s engagement could not be officially celebrated. You see, one had to consider his sister, who was older than he. And, as far as anyone knew there was not a suitor in sight.

It was a shame. The eldest had already dispensed with men. She was, unfortunately, named Karoline, and that troubled her and paralysed her courage before men. Although known as Line in the family that also irritated her. She had once been pretty; to me she’d once been very pretty. Oh, as I arrived at Perlefter’s she still wore her hair in a ponytail and swayed her hips when she walked. Her hair was brown, hard, crackling and unruly. She was very arrogant, little Karoline. She was a character. She didn’t cry; or, more accurately, at least not when anyone could hear her, for her small grey malevolent eyes were often red. She was the wisest and most taciturn member of the family. She was always sitting with books and always achieved the best grades and was rarely sick. Back when I still played with the children she tormented me the least. She isolated herself from me, and there was always some invisible fence around her. She read the most books and always placed one on her lap when she came to the table and hastily gulped down each bite so she could return to reading. At night it was her light that burned the longest.

But it seems that the education of a young girl can damage her charms. For, although Karoline had reached that age when she was not yet quite marriageable but at the point when an interest in men should have awoken within her, it proved that she had absolutely no interest either in her own appearance or in men. Indeed Karoline wore her crackling, unruly, provocative hair smooth and brushed back, and as a result one saw that she had a high, pale, arched mathematical brow and small, pretty earlobes whose delicacy was lost in consideration of this significant forehead. Every young man grew afraid of this head. Every man had to take this girl seriously and consequently could not fall in love with her.

Karoline studied mathematics and physics and was an assistant in some scientific institute. There she put on her heelless sandals, a blue work uniform, took a manly umbrella in her hand and in her wide breast pocket were jingling keys and a glasses case of black cardboard. Karoline was converted into a doctor.

The family praised her delicate ears and her hair, which to them and others were more consoling than the scientific standing of their daughter. But soon even the family succumbed to the allure that seems to surround laboratories and assistants, and everyone admired the achievements of such a young child.

‘She should have a husband,’ said Frau Perlefter.

Karoline became angry when one spoke of her. She rushed out of the room and slammed the door shut; the walls shook, and from behind the door one could hear sobbing.

It was customary in the Perlefter family that everyone kissed one another.

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