Irish Journal by Heinrich Böll Read Free Book Online Page A

sure to come, for I’ll be sure to be in pain.”
    “Still,” I said, “it’s a good thing it’s out.”
    Padraic was silent. “Shall we have another?” he asked sadly.
    “Yes, let’s,” I said. “Hitler was.…”
    “Stop,” said Padraic, “please stop, the nerve’s all exposed.”
    “Good,” I said, “then it’ll soon be dead, so let’s have another.”
    “Aren’t you ever sad when you have a tooth out?” asked Padraic wearily.
    “For a moment, yes,” I said, “but afterwards I’m glad when it doesn’t fester any more.”
    “The stupid thing is,” said Padraic, “that now I can’t imagine why I like the Germans so much.”
    “You must like them,” I said gently, “not because of but in spite of Hitler. There’s nothing more embarrassing than when someone likes you for the wrong reasons. If your grandfather was a burglar, and you meet someone who likes you a lot because your grandfather was a burglar, that’s embarrassing; other people like you because you’re not a burglar, but you would like it if they thought you were nice even if you were a burglar.” The eighth glass of beer arrived: Henry had ordered it, an Englishman who came here every year for his vacation.
    He sat down with us and shook his head resignedly. “I don’t know,” he said, “why I come back to Ireland every year; I don’t know how often I’ve told them I never liked either Pembroke or Cromwell, and that I’m not related to them, that I’m nothing but a London office worker who has a fortnight’s holiday and wants to go to the seaside. I don’t know why I come all this way from London every year to be told how nice I am but how terrible the English are; it’s so exhausting. About Hitler …” said Henry.
    “Please,” said Padraic, “don’t talk about him; I can’t stand the sound of his name any more. Not now, anyway, perhaps later on.…”
    “Good work,” Henry said to me; “you seem to have done a thorough job.”
    “One does one’s best,” I said modestly, “and I’ve got into the habit now of pulling a certain tooth for someone every evening. I know exactly which one it is; by this time I’ve become quite expert in political dentistry, and I do it thoroughly and with no anesthetic.”
    “I’ll say you do,” said Padraic, “but aren’t we charming people in spite of everything?”
    “Of course you are,” we all three said, in one voice: my wife, Henry, and I. “You’re really charming,” I went on, “and what’s more, you’re fully aware of it.”
    “Let’s have another,” said Padraic, “a nightcap!”
    “And one for the road!”
    “And one for the cat,” I said.
    “And one for the dog!”
    We drank, and the clock hands still stood as they had stood for three weeks: at ten-thirty. And they would stay at ten-thirty for the next four months. Ten-thirty is closing time for country pubs during the summer, but the tourists, the visitors, liberalize hard-and-fast time. When summer comes, the landlords look for their screwdrivers, a few screws, and fix the two hands; some of them buy toy clocks with wooden hands that can be nailed down. So time stands still, and rivers of dark beer flow through the whole summer, day and night, while the police sleep the sleep of the just.

7
PORTRAIT OF AN IRISH TOWN
    Limerick in the Morning
    Because Limerick had given its name to the familiar little verses, I pictured it as being a cheerful place: humorous ditties, laughing girls, lots of bagpipe music, the streets resounding with merriment. We had seen a good deal of merriment on the roads between Dublin and Limerick: schoolchildren of all ages trotted gaily—many of them barefoot—through the October rain; they came out of lanes, you could see them approaching between hedges along muddy paths; children without number forming like drops into a rivulet, the rivulets forming streams, the streams little rivers—and sometimes the car drove through them as if through a river that parted