The
Grand House Opposite
By Joseph Roth
Translated, from the German, by Michael Hoffman
At the time the following events took place, I
was neither rich nor poor. I wasn't doing so badly as to be struck with
envy�the consolation of the poor, they say�at the sight of grand houses or rich
people. Then again, I wasn't doing so well that I could keep my equanimity at
the sight of wealth. Rather, I found myself in the sort of situation where a
man is impelled to seek out the proximity of wealth in a sort of secret and
carefully unacknowledged hope that it might somehow rub off on him. I found
myself in a situation where I thought of my poor surroundings with revulsion,
the bad area, the wretched, narrow streets. I decided to move into an area
whose very name was as magnificent as the power of its inhabitants. As soon as
that name was pronounced or perused, it seemed to designate not a part of town,
but an entire, remote empire, where it was impossible to find a person in
distress. One easily forgot that the quarter also housed civil servants,
domestics, shopkeepers and craftsmen. The name of the quarter eclipsed the
poverty of its poor, and if I had happened to run into one of them, it would
never have occurred to me that he might also live there, where the great newspaper
editors, the bankers and the manufacturers had their proud mansions.
I found a small hotel that was only different from any
of those I had patronized hitherto by virtue of the fact that it was in a
wealthy suburb. My neighbors were rich people fallen on hard times. Unwilling
to leave the proximity of money, because they evidently believed that that way,
when their fortunes finally changed, they would have less time and trouble. In
the same way a dog one has put out will stay close to the door by which it was
made to leave. Opposite my small, narrow window was a large, broad house. Its
brown gate was shut, and in the middle of it was a golden knob that caught and
intensified and reflected the light, giving the illusion that it wasn't there
in place of a humble handle, but to play a spotlight. Sending its light
directly to my window, so that by its kindly agency I was made acquainted with
the sun, which neglected my hotel and was lavishing itself on the grand house
opposite.
In the windows of the house were discreet blinds�drawn
at all times. Sometimes I would spend two hours or more watching the big,
yellow-brown gates, in the hope of catching someone going in or out. It seemed
to me something of the first importance to get to know my rich neighbors. I
couldn't spend all day�much less, day after day�in the knowledge that there,
staring me in the face, was a secret that seemed to have been put there
deliberately to disquiet me. But the gate didn't open. Darkness fell, and I
went to bed.
In the morning I was awoken by joyful, bustling
sounds. I looked out of my window. The grand house opposite had thrown open all
its windows, and its gate as well. Men and women dressed in livery and white
aprons were cleaning the windows and the furniture, beating rugs, airing
bedding, and waxing and polishing floors. I saw windows, tall and wide as
double doorways, sensed the silent depths of rich suites of rooms, the silent
and reserved sheen of precious objects, I even thought I could smell the scent
of wood from the furniture, and hear the brassy voice of a maid going about her
work, belting out an old ballad. An hour later, the windows and the gate were
all shut up again and the house once more abandoned. The servants must have
left by some separate exit, somewhere at the back. The blinds hung in the
windows, taciturn and proud.
The same thing happened every morning. For two months.
The winter passed. The sun blazed ever more fiercely in the golden knob on the
gate, at midday it was as if it were going to melt, I even thought I heard
drops off it splash down on the paving stones, like sealing wax on an envelope.
But the gate remained locked.
I asked my landlady. That house, she told me, is where
an old gentleman lives, who spends just two months there every year. He was due
to arrive soon.
One day, there he was. Slowly he glided through the
open gate in a large black car. In the afternoon he appeared on the verandah.
He was propped on a stick, wearing a white waistcoat and a brown jacket,
accompanied by a dog with an admirable sense of ceremony. The old gentleman's
features were fine, gray, clean shaven. His nose was as hard and sharp as the
edge of a peculiar weapon. His eyes were narrow and gray, and they were looking
straight across at me, without admitting it. It was as though they weren't
there to transmit images of the outside world to the old gentleman's
consciousness, but to project the images they had been hoarding within on to
his retina. Every afternoon the old gentleman appeared on the verandah. A
servant came out and brought him his coat. And so the gentleman stood, looking
across at me.
One day, perhaps a week after his arrival, I greeted
the old gentleman. He replied, hesitantly, but clearly enough. We looked at one
another. Before leaving the verandah, he nodded to me, briskly. And every day,
for a week, the same scene was replayed. Ten days later the old gentleman died.
Suddenly. Overnight. My landlady told me. In the quiet street, the little
people�a cobbler, a coal merchant, servants�talked about his passing. I watched
the funeral from my window. For an instant, I wondered whether I shouldn't
accompany it to the cemetery. But the formality and splendor of the cool, proud
mourners put me off.
The house remained silent and locked. I was just
thinking about the cruelty of the old man, who had come home so coolly, almost
inhumanly, because his death had been waiting for him already, and who had
probably lived without love, merely as the administrator of his wealth, when
the famous notary M.�whom I had heard of�had himself announced to me. The
notary handed me a letter and told me it was from my neighbor, whose will had
been opened yesterday. In his will the old gentleman had stipulated that the
notary was to hand me the letter. "That'll be another one of his eccentricities!"
said the notary, and he set off. The letter read:
Dear Sir,
As you see, I have learned your name. To what end! Because I have grown
fond of you. You were the only one who might have become a friend to me.
Because, even though you liked me, you kept your distance, and even though you
were curious, you remained discreet. I leave only debts. Otherwise, you would
have been my heir. Think of me with kindness.
Your I.B.
The next day I moved to a different street.
Joseph Roth was born in 1894 in a small Galician
town on the eastern borders of the Habsburg Empire, After serving in the Austro-Hungarian
army from 1916 to 1918, he worked as a journalist in Vienna and Berlin. He died
in Paris in 1939, leaving behind thirteen novels as well as many stories and
essays. His masterpiece is �The Radetsky March�.
