Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum

Author:Vicki Baum
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781590179680
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2016-05-13T04:00:00+00:00

WITH THE treachery common to alarm clocks, General Manager Preysing’s failed to rouse him from sleep with the thoroughness and punctuality expected of it. At half-past seven it emitted a brief, raucous rattle, and that was all. Preysing, whose mouth was open and parched, moved a little in his sleep and the springs of his bed murmured in response. A gleam of sunlight showed behind the yellow curtains. Then at eight o’clock the hall porter duly roused him by telephone, but by that time it was far too late. Preysing held his drowsy head under the shower, cursing his forgotten razor. It needed no more than that to deprive such a slave to routine of all joy in life. In spite of being late, he wasted several minutes selecting a suit to wear. And when he had decided on his cutaway, he took it off again in a fit of impatience. He calculated—and perhaps with reason— that a morning coat would put him at a disadvantage. His gray suit, on the other hand, would show the Chemnitz people at once that the whole affair meant very little to him. He made unusual haste, but by the time he had put away all his cases and oddments, searched for, discovered, and pocketed all his keys, looked once more through his papers and once more counted his money, it was after nine. He shot out of his room and at once collided with a man in the passage.

“Sorry,” said Preysing and came to a stop in front of his door, partly to let the other pass and partly to get his second arm into his jacket.

“Not at all,” the man replied and walked on along the passage. It seemed to Preysing that he had seen that back before. When Preysing reached the elevator, the man was just descending in it. He now presented his front and this too, Preysing thought, he had seen before, though he could not remember where. It was fairly clear, though, that he had grinned at him as he went off with the elevator under his very nose. Preysing, in nervous impatience, ran down the stairs and along the corridor and down into the tiled basement where the hotel barber plied his trade in an odor of damp cellar and peau d’espagne. There, enveloped in white sheets like babies, sat several gentlemen waiting hopefully for the manipulations of the white-jacketed barbers. Preysing began to dance with impatience in his thick rubber-soled shoes.

“Will I have long to wait?” he asked, rubbing his unshaven chin with his hand.

“Ten minutes at the most. There is only this gentleman ahead of you,” was the reply.

The gentleman who was ahead of him was the gentleman from the elevator, and Preysing looked at him with disfavor. He was a rather insignificant creature, thin and diffident, and he sat squinting into a newspaper with his pince-nez almost falling off his sharp nose. Preysing was distinctly aware that he had come across the man in the course of his work, but he could not recall the occasion.

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