Peter Altenberg

 

FROM PRODROMOS

 

I Drink Tea

 

Six o'clock in the evening approaches. I feel it approaching. Not as in­tensively as children feel Christmas Eve approaching. But still. At six on the dot I drink tea, a festive enjoyment 'without disappointments in this woe-burdened existence. Something that makes you feel sure you have your own peaceful happiness in your own power. It is completely indepen­dent of fate. I begin to feel happy as soon as I pour the good spring water into my pretty white half-liter nickel pot. Then I wait for the boiling, the song of the water. I have a large hemispherical bowl of brick-red Wedgewood. The tea comes from the Cafe' Central; it smells like Alpine meadows, like brussels sprouts and grass burnt by the sun.

 

The tea is golden-yellow-straw-yellow-never brownish, light and un­pressed. Along 'with it I smoke a cigarette, "Chelmis, Hyskos." I drink very, very slowly. The tea is an internal stimulating nerve bath. It enables you to take things easier. You think that a woman ought to have such an effect. But she never does. She still lacks the culture of harmonious gentleness to have the effect of a fine, warm, golden-yellow tea. She believes that to be that way, she would perhaps lose her power. But at six o'clock in the evening my tea never loses its power over me. I long for it daily the same way and lovingly wed it to my organism.

 

The Mouse

 

I moved into the quiet small room, fifth floor, of the good, old hotel, with two pairs of socks and two huge bottles of slivovitz for unseen eventualities.

 

''Shall I have your baggage fetched?!?" asked the bellboy. ''I don't have any" I said simply.

 

Then he said: "Do you wish electrical lighting?!"

 

'Yes."

 

"It costs fifty hellers a night. But you can also have plain candles if you like." he said, in view of the prevailing circumstances.

 

"No, I prefer electrical lighting."

 

Around midnight, I heard the sounds of wallpaper being torn and scratched. Then a mouse came in, climbed up onto my washstand and entered the washbasin, executed various well-mannered maneuvers, and immediately thereafter returned to the floor, since porcelain was incom­patible. Generally, though, he had no firm, far-reaching plans and finally regarded the darkness beneath the stand as rather advantageous under the circumstances.

 

In the morning, I said to the chambermaid: "There was a mouse in my room last night. Lovely housekeeping!"

"We have no mice here. Where would a mouse come from here? Nobody can accuse us of anything like that!"

 

I then said to the bellboy: 'Your chambermaid is a saucy creature. Last night there was a mouse in the room.

 

"We have no mice here. Where would a mouse come from here? Nobody can accuse us of anything like that!"

 

When I entered the hotel lobby, the porter, the bootblack, the other two chamber maids, and the manager of the establishment all regarded me the way one regards somebody who checks in with two pairs of socks, two slivovitz bottles, and already sees mice that aren't there.

 

My book What the Day Tells Me lay open on my table, and I once surprised the chambermaid reading it.

 

In these unpleasant circumstances, my credibility with respect to mice was somewhat undermined. Because of it I had, after all, acquired a certain aura, and people no longer argued 'with me, took no notice of my little weaknesses, closed an eye to them, and conducted themselves exception­ally obligingly, the way one does with an invalid or, on the other hand, as one does toward those whom one respects.

 

Be that as it mav, the mouse appeared every night, scratched the wallpaper, and climbed frequently onto the washtable.

 

One night, I bought a mousetrap along with some ham, walked ostentatiouslv with the instrument in hand past the porter, the boot­black, the manager of the establishment, the bellboy, and the three cham­bermaids, and set the trap in the room. The next morning, the mouse was in it.

 

I then thought of carrying the mousetrap down quite nonchalantly. Let the matter speak for itself!

 

THE KIDNEY

 

But on the staircase it occurred to me how upset people become when you find them guilty of something, like a mouse being discovered in a guestroom of a hotel in which there simply "are no mice!" Moreover, my aura of a person without baggage, with two pairs of socks, two bottles of slivovitz, a book called What the Day Tells Me, and who sees mice at night, would be considerably shaken, and I would at once be relegated to the embarrassing category of a tiresome and highly ordinary guest. As a result of these considerations, I deposited the mouse in one of those rather appropriate places for such purposes and placed my mousetrap on the floor of my room, again empty.

 

From then on I was treated all the more considerately, nobody showed the slightest wish in such circumstances to annoy me, and all indulged me like a sick child. When I finally took my leave, it was in the friendliest of atmospheres, although I took 'with me as baggage just two pairs of socks, two empty bottles of slivovitz, and a mousetrap!

 

Prodromos, 1906. Original texts in Prodromos,  4th and 5th eds. (Berlin: S. Fischer Verlag, 1919), 18-19, 28, 43, 43-44, 65-66, 70, 71, 106, 153-54,162-65.

 

 

THE KIDNEY

 

I always count it among the truest and, to me, sincerely touching sacrifices that a man can make to a beloved woman, when with roast kidney he lets her have the kidney, assuming, of course, that he himself likes eating it. But who doesn't like eating kidney?! Kidney is, after all, such an accurate thermometer in matters of love. For example: "Otto, why aren't you eating the kidney?!" - "I am going to eat it, and 'with the greatest pleasure, which is why I leave it for last!" - "Oh, I see," replies Hermine, disappointed. Or: "But Max, you're not eating the kidney!" and already has stuck it in her little mouth, while in Max's mouth the only thing sticking are the words: "Not at all!" Or: 'There's love for you, he's devouring the kidney himself, just have a look!" However, those gentlemen who make the "sac­rifice of the kidney" do it for the most part rather tastelessIy, in that they imagine they now have a claim to gratitude and loyalty for the rest of their lives! No, that isn't so. The ladies accept the dainty morsels given them, but they have the right idea that such sacrifices are richly rewarded through the feeling of a higher dignity that a person receives from himself! Why overvalue the matter?!

 

"Die Niere," 1913. Original text in Semmering 1912, 5th and 6th enlarged ed. (Berlin: S. Fischer Verlag, 1919), 147.