Free The Eternal Philistine by Odon Von Horvath

delusion of possessing a keen eye for the architectural design of lines. From his mother, he had inherited—despite inflation—a bunch of money and the collected classical works. He was forty-six years old.
    “I am a Renaissance man,” he explained to Kobler. He used very literary speech. “My ideal is the southern Italian who suns himself day and night on the beach, never doing anything, and is exceedingly undemanding. Believe me, our German workers would be happier too if they were just less demanding. Waiter! Bring me another steak tartare!”
    Naturally this Renaissance man had never worked a day in his life, and thus suffered from an almost pathologicalform of hypochondria. He had nothing to do but worry about dying. And to top it all off, he was recklessly stupid.
    He would often claim that as long as his dividends accrued, he could not care less about the fate of the German Reich. “You can’t say a thing like that!” exclaimed his cousin, an extreme right-wing political realist. He wanted to have him put under guardianship, but that eventually fell through. “He is quite normal and can reason soundly,” said the court doctor.
    “So you’re heading to Barcelona,” this absolutely normal guy said to Kobler, and then added a sample of his sound reasoning: “Primo is a capable man, a cavalier. When you get to Barcelona, please give my regards to the bullfights. You’re going to experience something splendidly traditional there. And then this whole Spanish conservative spirit—it’s always the same there! As I’ve always said, the conservative element has got to join forces internationally in order to conserve itself more efficiently. We German conservatives have got to bring the French conservatives into the country so that they can whip this republic into shape—France has got the military might to put every German worker up against the wall—and
après
we should import coolies from China who wouldn’t need more than a handful of rice a day.” And then he added laughingly, “Of course I’m only joking!”

CHAPTER 13
    IN VERONA, KOBLER HAD TO TRANSFER TRAINS for a second time and board the express headed for Milan, which usually arrived from Venice around this time. But hesadly only had ten minutes at his disposal to do this, which basically meant that he could not see anything of Verona, just the train station, which, sadly, looked a lot like other train stations. By then it was already nightfall, this being a new-moon night.
    Verona was an ancient city that somehow had something to do with Dietrich von Bern, the Renaissance man explained to him. And on top of that, Romeo and Juliet, the world’s most famous lovers, were supposedly buried here. Sure, Verona’s brothels weren’t famous, but, well, all the same.
    On the platform, there was a gentleman in a brown uniform walking up and down. He was wearing an armband on his right upper arm. On it was written in four languages that he was an official interpreter and therefore not permitted to accept any tips. He was most accommodating and provided Kobler with information in fluent German.
    “The
diretto
from Venezia to Milano arrives,” he said, “on track three and departs from track three. It is over there, right where that ridiculous woman is standing.”
    The ridiculous woman was the interpreter’s wife. He had just had another fight with her. You see, she had never wanted him to become an official interpreter, hanging around night after night with all sorts of foreign ladies. But the interpreter would merely say, “The more languages somebody speaks, by so much the more is that somebody a person.”
    He said the same thing to her again this evening, whereupon she really went wild. “I don’t want anything to do with so many people!” she said, out in the street. “I just want you! Oh Giovanni, if only you were deaf and dumb! Well, then, I’m going to my brother’s in Brescia!”
    This was the same Brescia where Frau Perzl of