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By Root 286 0

to his attire; his lean, veined hands stood out vividly in their light-yellow gloves. His frock coat, neck-tie and waistcoat were always black in color. Young men nicknamed him Mephistopheles. He acted as though he was angry at such a nickname but in actual fact, it gratified his vanity. We quickly understood each other and became friendly, because I am not capable of true friendship: one friend is always slave to the other, though often neither of them will admit it. I cannot be a slave, and to dominate in such a situation is an exhausting labor, because you must also lie at the same time. And besides I have a lackey and money! This is how we became friendly: I met Werner at S—in a crowded and noisy circle of young men; the conversation toward the end of the evening took a philosophical and metaphysical direction; we were talking about convictions. Each one of us was convinced of this or that.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m convinced of only one thing . . .” said the doctor.

“And what is that?” I asked, wanting to know the opinion of this person who had not yet spoken.

“Of the fact,” he replied, “that sooner or later, one fine day, I will die.”

“I am richer than you,” I said, “as I have, apart from that, another conviction, which is that one very nasty evening I had the misfortune of being born.”

Everyone found that we were talking nonsense, but, really, not one of them said anything any cleverer than that. From that minute, we had singled each other out in the crowd. The two of us often met and discussed abstract subjects that were very serious, neither of us noticing that we were but pulling the wool over each other’s eyes. Then, having looked meaningfully into each other’s eyes, as did the Roman augurs according to Cicero, we started guffawing and having laughed ourselves out, went our separate ways, satisfied with our evening.

I lay on the divan, aiming my eyes at the ceiling with my hand behind my head, when Werner came into my room. He sat in the armchair, put his walking stick in the corner, yawned and announced that it was becoming hot in the courtyard. I replied that the flies were bothering me, and we both fell silent.

“Note, dear doctor,” I said, “that, without fools, the world would be very boring . . . See, here we are, two intelligent people. We know in advance that we are each capable of debating to eternity, and so we don’t debate. We know nearly all of each other’s innermost thoughts. One word tells a whole story. We could see the kernel of each of our feelings through a three-layered shell. Sad things are funny to us. Funny things are sad to us. And in general, to tell the truth, we are indifferent to everything apart from our selves. And thus, there cannot be an exchange of feelings and thoughts between us. We know everything we wish to know about each other, and don’t wish to know more. One solution remains: to discuss the news. Can you give me any news?”

Tired from my long speech, I closed my eyes and yawned . . .

He thought for a while and replied:

“Well, there is an idea in that nonsense of yours.”

“Two of them!” I replied.

“Tell me one of them and I’ll tell you the other.”

“Good, let’s begin!” I said, continuing to examine the ceiling and smiling inwardly.

“You want details about one of the spa visitors, and I can guess which one you are bothering about, because there have been questions already about you, too.”

“Doctor! We must absolutely not converse: we are reading each other’s souls.”

“And for the second . . . ?”

“The other idea is this: I wanted to make you recount something. Firstly, because listening is less tiring; and secondly, one mustn’t be indiscreet; and thirdly, to learn the secrets of others; and fourthly, because intelligent people such as you like listeners more than they like storytellers. So then, to the matter at hand: what did old Princess Ligovsky say about me?”

“You are very sure that it was the older one . . . and not the young one?”

“Absolutely certain.”

“Why?”

“Because the young one was asking about Grushnitsky.”

“You have a great gift of understanding.