Free The Drinker by Hans Fallada Page A

come down!” cried the landlady. She once again assured me that I would be served, and disappeared into the kitchen. So her name was Elinor. I hadn’t been so far out with Elsabe. But Elinor was very good, rather better really. Elinor suited her, Elinor la reine d’alcool . Very nice too!
    And then I heard her coming down the stairs, not at all gazelle-footed by the way; the door banged open, and in she came. She must have been asleep, her hair was not so neat and carefully pinned as usual, and her light dress was rather rumpled and untidy. She stood for a moment and looked across to me. She did not recognise me at once, she was looking into the sun. Then she cried quite cheerfully: “Oh, it’s only old pop who likes schnaps so much!”, and ran upstairs again. I didn’t really mind this novel and rather painful greeting. I was only pleased at such an unaffected reception. I had been a bit doubtful how she would receive me after my departure over the shed roof that night. But now everything was all right, and I waited patiently for five minutes until she appeared again, spick-and-span. She came straight over to my table, gave me her hand like an old friend, and said amiably, “I thought you were never coming back! What have you been doing all this time? Are you bankrupt now?”
    “Not yet, ma reine,” I said, smiling too, “but for the time being I’ve handed the business over to my wife, from whom, by the way, I’m getting a divorce. What do you think of that, my pretty one? Perhaps in eight weeks I’ll be on the market. Quite well-preserved, aren’t I?”
    She looked at me for a moment, and then the smile vanished from her face, and she said rather coolly and in a businesslike tone, “One schaps, was it? Or a whole bottle again?”
    “Quite right, my golden one,” I cried, “a whole bottle again! And another bottle of champagne for yourself!”
    “Not in the daytime,” she answered shortly, and went away. A moment later I had plenty to drink, of this coarse watery-coloured stuff that I already liked better than cognac. But except for that, I didn’t get much for my money that afternoon. Elinor was constantly busy, in and out of the barroom, and we could only exchange a few words from time to time.
    Upset by this, I drank more than usual, and after about an hour and a half, Elinor had to bring me another bottle, and I realised myself that I was very drunk. Then a few young fellows came in, among them that bricklayer with whom Elinor had been talking so intimately; and just to attract the girl to my table (which only succeeded for a few minutes) I let them all sit with me and ordered for each one whatever he wanted. In a short time my table offered a wild spectacle. Beer and schnaps glasses, wine and champagne bottles stood on it in wild confusion, and around it were grouped a horde of wildly talking, shouting, laughing, gesticulating figures, and I was the wildest and drunkest of the lot. I felt myself absolutely liberated, I really was a stone hurtling into the abyss—I absolutely ceased to think.
    In all our uproar we did not hear the car pull up, and when two gentlemen came in we hardly noticed them. I was just shouting some protestation or other to the man opposite me—he wasn’t even listening—when suddenly I stopped as if a hand had been clapped over my mouth, for one of these gentlemen, who had sat down at the next table, greeted me with a friendly “Good evening,” and this gentleman was Dr Mansfeld. I didn’t know the other gentleman. Even my drinking companions fell silent; and though they saw that nothing further was happening, that the gentlemen at the next table were quietly drinking their beer, deep in conversation, even then the old jollity did not return. One after the other, they faded away, and at last I was left alone in this wilderness of glasses and bottles, and I looked in vain for Elinor; she did not come to restore order to the chaos. Probably she was outside the door