Free The Black Obelisk by Erich Maria Remarque

him. "How would it be if we poured some brandy into his wine to make him tight quicker?" I ask Georg. "The boy is drinking like a spotted wild ass! This is our fifth bottle! In two hours we'll be bankrupt if it goes on like this. I estimate we've already drunk up a couple of imitation marble tombstones. Here's hoping he doesn't bring that white ghost to our table so that we'll have to quench her thirst too." Georg shakes his head. "That's a bar girl. She'll have to go back."
    Riesenfeld returns. He is red in the face and sweating. "What does all this amount to compared to the magic of fantasy!" he roars at us through the confusion. "Tangible reality, well and good! But where's the poetry? That window tonight against the dark sky—that was something to dream about! A woman like that, even if you never see her again, is something you'll never forget. Understand what I mean?"
    "Sure," Georg shouts. "What you can't get always seems better than what you have. That's the origin of all human romanticism and idiocy. Prost , Riesenfeld!"
    "I don't mean it so coarsely," Riesenfeld roars against the fox trot "Oh, if St. Peter Knew That." "I mean it more delicately."
    "So do I," Georg roars back. "I mean it even more delicately!" "All right! As delicately as you like!" The music rises to a mighty crescendo. The dance floor is a variegated sardine box. Suddenly I stiffen. Laced into the trappings of a monkey in fancy dress, my sweetheart Erna is pushing her way through the swaying mob to my right. She does not see me, but I recognize her red hair from afar. She is hanging shamelessly on the shoulder of a typical young profiteer. I sit there motionless, but I feel as though I had swallowed a hand grenade. There she is dancing, the little beast to whom ten of the poems in my unpublished collection "Dust and Starlight" are dedicated, the girl who has been pretending for a week that she is not allowed out of the house because of a mild case of concussion. She says she fell in the dark. Fell indeed, but into the arms of this young man in the double-breasted tuxedo, with a seal ring on the paw with which he is supporting the small of Erna's back. A fine case of concussion! And I, imbecile that I am, sent her just this afternoon a bunch of rose-colored tulips from our garden with a poem in three stanzas entitled "Pan's May Devotions." Suppose she read it aloud to this profiteer! I can see the two doubled up with laughter.
    "What's the matter with you?" Riesenfeld roars. "Are you sick?"
    "Hot!" I roar back and feel sweat running down my back. I am furious; if Erna turns around she will see me perspiring and red in the face—when more than anything I should like to appear superior and cool and at my ease like a man of the world. Quickly I wipe my face with my handkerchief. Riesenfeld grims unsympathetically. Georg notices this. "You're sweating quite a bit yourself, Riesenfeld," he says.
    "That's different! This sweat comes from the joy of life!" Riesenfeld roars.
    "It's the sweat of fleeting time," I snarl maliciously and feel the salt water trickling into the corners of my mouth.
    Erna is near us now. She is staring out over the orchestra in vacant happiness. I give my face a mildly reproachful, superior, and smiling expression while the sweat wilts my collar. "What's the matter with you anyway?" Riesenfeld shouts. "You look like a moon-struck kangaroo!"
    I ignore him. Erna has finally turned around. I look toward the dancers, examining them coolly until at last, with an expression of surprise, I pretend accidentally to recognize her. Casually I lift two fingers in greeting. "He is meschugge ," Riesenfeld howls through the syncopation of the fox trot " Himmelsvater ."
    I do not reply. I am literally speechless. Erna has not seen me at all.
    Finally the music stops. Slowly the dance floor empties. Erna disappears into a booth. "Were you seventeen or seventy just now?" Riesenfeld howls.
    Since at this moment the orchestra is silent, his question