The Silent Prophet by Joseph Roth Read Free Book Online

returned in the end to the question: 'What do you think of an anonymous letter to the man I told you about?'
    He didn't want Friedrich's advice, he was thinking of writing an unusual sort of letter, by two hands, each word written alternately. He already knew the attested experts. In any complicated case they were at a loss. A second person must be involved, and not just on account of the handwriting. It might be necessary to arrange a rendezvous. Still, in Grünhut's opinion two would so confuse anonymity that no one would know what was going on.
    Friedrich's opposition pained him. His unshakable belief in the young man's criminal nature was transformed into an injured respect for the youth who, in Grünhut's opinion, was probably planning far more important and profitable crimes.
    Various noises emerged from the midwife's room. Water, words murmured in a woman's deep voice, a chair pushed back, a metal object in contact with glass and wood.
    'Do you hear that?' said the little man. 'On a spring evening, in a private room in a hotel, you hear very different things. Nightingales sing, a gipsy plays the violin, champagne corks pop. Where are they now, the nightingales? Frau Tarka hinted to me who it is in there. The wife of a professor, because of an affair with a sculptor. What's more, a good friend of mine. Put some business my way. An extremely productive man, thinks himself as irresistible as any blackguard. Frau Tarka has to thank sculptors and painters for most of her little jobs.
    'People have their portraits painted so much nowadays. They live it up in the studios. Do you think a woman can resist a studio? Such lovely disorder under the blue sky, high up on the top floor where only God peers in through the glass roof. You lie there and look up. You see the white clouds passing, interspersed by flocks of birds, and you yearn and yearn again. A canvas in the corner, a witness that another woman was once naked here. And the painter goes on talking. Everything he knows he has acquired from pornographic works and erotic books. His eye lusts after contour and sticks to the surface. "What a line, dear lady," he says, "connects your neck with the swell of your breast!" Believe me, if a lieutenant said that it would be an insult and the husband would shoot it out with him in the woods at dawn. When a painter says it, it's an artistic judgment. These so-called connoisseurs aren't paying compliments, they're merely making technical appraisals. They apply these to the entire body. "What a provocative thigh!" they say, palette in hand. Some talk about the Renaissance. The sculptor B., for instance, who comes to visit Madame here from time to time, I often have a little chat with him. That is, he does the chatting. Nothing but false rubbish from the erotic books. Gives me an order once. Pornographic engravings; because I happen to know a bookseller, I have to go and make the purchase. He still owes me my commission and the bookseller his money. The bookseller goes along, makes a fuss. "Come tomorrow," says the Master. Next day, he smilingly gives him the book back. Then he tells me, a few weeks later, he only wanted the pictures for just that one afternoon, for a girl from a good family. And all I did was to undo a blouse. Because I'm no artist. Plain as a pikestaff, the way things have changed. We've already had the question of art. The emancipation of women, too. Notice how the two connect? So-called family ties are loosening. The daughters of the privy councillors have their portraits painted and study German philology. And, as for what I did—of course it was many years ago—nowadays you get respect for that kind of thing. My public prosecutor is still alive. He'll never see another such indictment. My defence counsel even in those days supported the theory of demonic possession. He talked nonsense about irresistible urges, heredity and so on. Fair is fair. My father was an inoffensive man, he ran an exchange-office, had