Free Memoirs of an Anti-Semite by Gregor Von Rezzori Page B

The treasures he had to show me there did not have the desired effect on me, either. He acted sulky for the first time. He was disappointed. But try as I might, I could not find anything homey in those dark, disorderly rooms filled with papers up to the ceilings. For all the grand bourgeois airs—the heavy black furniture, the plush upholstery, and the artfully draped and betasseled curtains of ribbed silk—there was something of the dubious and unventilated confinement of petit bourgeois homes. The furniture might have appealed to me (like all normal children, I tended toward bad taste), for these ornately carved wardrobes and sideboards, tables, and armchairs were in the old German style of the turn of the century, which did, after all, fit in with my leanings. Yet not only was the quality low, the wood stained, and the carving poor, but the pieces had been neglected, moldings were chipped, locks missing, and books, newspapers, and magazines were heaped upon every horizontal surface.
    Wolf did tell me that extraordinarily valuable collector’s items could be found in these piles. His grandfather’s library, he said, had contained many first editions with personal dedications by the authors, some of which were now hard to come by. And his father had a priceless collection of documents on Jewish persecutions from the early Middle Ages to the most recent times. If anyone had the courage to take up this theme and write about it, said Wolf, he would find an inexhaustible and scientifically pure source here.
    I did not like Dr. Goldmann. He had the same freckled flame-lit ram-head as his son, he was curt with me, and I was a bit afraid of his tremendous hands, which were spotted like salamander bellies and covered with lion-red hair. As for the memory of Grandfather Goldmann, I was biased. Uncle Hubi’s gentle irony had had its effect.
    It was owing to Stiassny that the grandfather had been mentioned at all. One day, I was surprised to run into Stiassny at the home of my friend Wolf Goldmann. Strangely enough, he acted as though he did not notice me. We—that is, Wolf and I—were about to cross the room leading to Dr. Goldmann’s office. Since the doctor had usually been in the house when I was there, I had not yet viewed the skeleton that Wolf Goldmann had bragged to me about. We were going to see whether we could inspect it while Dr. Goldmann was out paying house calls. Stiassny stood in the room that led to the office. The room was a kind of library, if one could use that word in a house where every room was bursting with books. Stiassny was leaning over a couple of volumes on a table. He held a pencil in his teeth, his beautifully curved red lips curling into a smile I had never seen on him before—an utterly relaxed, slightly reflective, blissful smile. For the first time, I saw his face undisguised, and even his eyes did not have that veil of feigned blindness or at least sightlessness which they normally assumed when he lapsed into his repulsive role of “Who-am-I.” And he really did not appear to see us now. He was totally absorbed in what he was reading and what he thought about it—or rather, was thinking—for his lips moved slightly as though repeating or framing a sentence; then he leaned again over the works on the table in front of him.
    We automatically wheeled around and tiptoed out. “Is he here a lot?” I asked. He had been coming regularly for many years; he was practically more at home in Dr. Goldmann’s than in my relatives’ house. But I was certain that Aunt Sophie and Uncle Hubi scarcely knew about this or would not admit it. I did not expect that he would mention our encounter, especially since he had scarcely been aware of it.
    I was all the more surprised when at the next meal he quite demonstratively turned to me and said, again with the old blind gaze and ashen smile, “The development of our heir apparent is taking a delightful