The Days of the King Read Free Page B

to his eyes, Siegfried seemed very ill. The dentist blinked, lit his pipe, blew smoke rings toward the ceiling, and sipped a blackcurrant liqueur. Then they spent their first night and morning on the train, amid the rumbling of the wheels, the puffing and the whistling of the locomotive, the vernal southern landscapes, the imperturbable amiability of the conductor, and the chattering of a lowly bank agent, who was visiting his sister at a sanatorium in Graubünden. It wasnot until Zurich, in the attic room of a cheap hotel, that Joseph took his friend in his arms—he stroked him on the crown of his head and under his chin, he clutched him to his breast and spoke to him volubly, he explained to him things that the tomcat surely did not want to hear, for example, why they had not elected to take the railway from the outset but had instead crawled along for a hundred miles in the coach, why they had not headed directly southeast but instead set off southwest, ending up in Switzerland, why a false passport had been necessary, because the drums of two armies were rumbling, the flags of battle were waving, and the troops were on the march, why the landlady of the boarding house in Berlin, his friends, and the girls from the Eleven Titties brothel had had to think he was moving to Stuttgart and not setting out on the trail of an adventurer prince, why a king is a king whatever the state of his teeth, what it means to count out and hold gold coins in your palm, why clocks chime the world over, and, finally, how people grow old. Here, at the words about time and ageing, Siegfried gave a start, pricked up his black ear (the white one remained limp), and lifted the tip of his tail. His master's voice had softened, his caresses had slowed, and the air in the room was growing warmer. Herr Strauss, who in the middle of the previous winter, in January on the eighth day of the month, had turned thirty, was saying all kinds of things, he was not telling a story, he was no longer chirring away meaninglessly, he was merely saying that he wanted to get out of a rut, that there was a whole host of titties in the world, in any case many more than eleven, that everything was numbingly monotonous, that beer and schnapps were good, but wine is not to be sniffed at, that every town is full to bursting with stripy, spotted, black and white, gray, yellow, plump or lean, squint-eyed, and lame cats, cats of every shape and size, that a fire that robs you of a mother and a sister goes on roasting your heart forever, it dries you and smokes you like pastrami, that there comes an hour, all of a sudden, when nothing binds you to anyone anymore, that beyond an empire, three mountain ranges, and boundless plains it is possible to be born again, that to be dentist to a king is not the same as draining the pus from the mouth of a captain of dragoons, that a wife means children, that a new country is a new place, and a new place is a new opportunity, that games of whist can be played anywhere at all, that the present looks like a lump of shit and that the future might, with the mercy of God, look better, that a wife means a mother, that a young tomcat has seed enough to fill the earth with kittens, that beyond an empire, three mountain ranges, and a boundless plain there might not be heaven, but nor can it be hell, that geese saved Rome, that the land where they are headed is called Romania and that there will likely be plenty of goose liver there to fry with slices of apple, black pepper, and onion, that a wife is a sister, that no road is without return, and that a wife means a woman, not just any woman, but one who comes out of an angel's or a devil's egg. And so on and so forth. These were the things that Joseph Strauss said in the garret of a hotel in Zurich, while the room grew blazing hot, and at last he begged the tomcat's forgiveness and fell silent. Siegfried, after sprawling for a while on the chest of that lean, chestnut-haired man, his muzzle