Free Panorama by H. G. Adler Page A

doesn’t have to have a lot in his head. But Angela was such a clever child that she astounded people with how gifted she was as a little girl.”
    Bubi always says that all girls are dumb, only Kitti is smart and will marry a prince who will carry her off in his carriage, but she’s still a little girl, younger than Angela was, and she knows very little, though Tata is very proud of her, since Kitti can already count to ten, as Tata says, “What a little scamp! No one even taught her. She learned it all by herself.” But Kitti certainly didn’t learn it all by herself, for it was Bubi who showed her again and again, showing her on the adding machine in order to teach Kitti, for she couldn’t do it on her own. Bubi also thinks that Tata is not too smart, otherwise she wouldn’t work so much, though whoever is clever is paid a lot, like his father, who is a director, everyone having to call him Herr Director, though he’s not the same as the director of a school. Bubi thinks that if hedoesn’t become a general he’ll be a director, though general is much better, at which Bubi asks Josef what he wants to be. Josef, however, doesn’t want to say that he’d really like to be a streetcar conductor, that it’s the best job, because you ride through the city all day and see so many people, as he’s embarrassed and worried that Bubi will laugh at him, so he says that he doesn’t know.
    Fräulein Jedlitschka knows hardly anything, and everyone agrees that she’s so dumb that she can only play games and nothing more, for she is so bad at darning socks that the grandmother says she has to redo them herself, because the Fräulein mends the holes with thread in such a way that they all rip open again and are worse yet. Now the girl has to go away because she has taken something, and there’s nothing worse than taking things without asking permission, though Josef doesn’t know what the girl has taken, and Anna has not told him. “That’s none of my business. That’s your mother’s business. I’ve never taken anything. I worked for eight years for Angela’s parents.” On Sunday the family sits together and talks about the nanny, and the mother says, “There’s a saying in English that one should never take as much as a needle. Josef, there’s nothing worse in the world than to take something that doesn’t belong to you.” The father then says, “The child doesn’t understand at all, Mella. We shouldn’t involve him in this business. Josef, run along and play.” The mother replies, “You’re right, Papa.” And then the grandmother, “Get rid of her, I say, get rid of her! No one wants to be looking over your shoulder all the time.” But Aunt Betti says, “That will cause bad blood. You should give the nanny a letter tomorrow morning in which you suggest that she should look for a new position, since, unfortunately, you have to dispense with her services.” Yet Aunt Gusti says, “Excessive kindness is also wrong. You just have to say to her without insulting her, ‘We’re sorry, Fräulein Jedlitschka, but we’ve decided to let you go at the end of the month. Please make the necessary arrangements.’ ” The father, however, disagrees. “I like a clean slate. I will give the nanny her last pay tomorrow and say that she doesn’t need to come back.” And then everyone says, “That’s much too good a deal. You’d have to say so yourself, Oskar!” The grandmother then says, “If you’re going to pay her what she has coming, then she should work for it as well. Everything needs to come to a good end,and then nothing more will come of it.” The mother agrees, and no one else is against it, all of them agreed, all of them saying that there will not be another nanny, for they are done with nannies.
    Now Fräulein Jedlitschka has to play somewhere else, with another child, so Josef wants to make sure to hide his toys so that she doesn’t take any away with her, but in reality he is sad, though