The Radetzky March (Translated by Joachim Neugroschel 1995) by Joseph Roth

Author:Joseph Roth [Roth, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical
ISBN: 9780141185279
Publisher: Penguin Books; Penguin Group
Published: 2000-06-29T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

IN THOSE DAYS there were a lot of men like Kapturak on the borders of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. They began to circle around the old empire like those black cowardly birds that ogle a dying man from infinitely far away. Dark and impatient, beating their wings, they wait for his end. Their slanting beaks jab into their prey. No one knows where they come from or where they fly off to. They are the feathered brethren of enigmatic Death; they are his harbingers, his escorts, and his successors.

Kapturak is a short man with a nondescript face. Rumors flit around him, fly ahead of him on his twisty paths, and follow the barely perceptible footprints he leaves behind. He lives at the border inn. He associates with the agents of the South American shipping companies whose steamers carry thousands of Russian deserters to a new and cruel homeland year after year. He gambles a lot and drinks little. Nor does he lack a certain careworn affability. He says that for years he used to do his smuggling of Russian deserters on the other side of the border and that he left a home, a wife, and children there for fear of being packed off to Siberia after several officials and officers had been caught and sentenced. And when asked what he plans to do here, Kapturak tersely replies with a smile, “Business.”

The hotel where the officers resided was owned by a certain Herr Brodnitzer, of a Silesian background; no one knew how he had ended up in the borderland. It was he who opened the casino. He hung a large notice in the window of the café. It announced that he had all sorts of games of chance, that a band would be “concertizing” every evening until morning, and that he had hired “renowned chanteuses.” The renewal of the premises began with concerts by the band—eight musicians hastily scraped together. Later on, the so-called Mariahilf Nightingale arrived, a blond girl from Bogumin. She sang waltzes by Lehár, plus the naughty ditty “When I wander through the gray dawn of a night of love,” as well as the encore: “Underneath my frock I wear pink and pleated undies.” Thus did Brodnitzer heighten the expectations of his clientele.

It turned out that along with the countless short and long card tables Brodnitzer had also set up a small roulette table in a shadowy curtained alcove. Captain Wagner told everyone about it, stoking enthusiasm. To these men, who had been serving on the border for many years (and many had never seen a roulette wheel), the tiny ball was one of those magical objects of the great world, something that helped a man to suddenly win beautiful women, expensive horses, splendid castles. Who could not be helped by the ball? They had all spent a wretched boyhood in parochial school, a harsh adolescence in military school, and cruel years in borderland service. They were waiting for the war. But instead, the army had partially mobilized against Serbia, then returned ingloriously to the usual expectation of routine promotions.

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