Read King, Queen, Knave for Free Online Page A

know better—somebody one has been in the same room with for five hours or somebody one has seen for ten minutes every day during a whole month.”
    “ Bitte ?” said Franz.
    “I suppose,” she went on, “the real factor here is not the amount of time but that of communication—the exchange of ideas on life and living conditions. Tell me, how are yourelated to my husband exactly? Second cousin, isn’t it? You’re going to work here, that’s nice, boys like you should be made to work a lot. His business is enormous—I mean, my husband’s firm. But then I’m sure you’ve already heard about his celebrated emporium. Perhaps emporium is too strong a word, it carries men’s things only, but there is everything, everything—neckties, hats, sporting goods. Then there’s his office in another part of the town and various banking operations.”
    “It will be hard to begin,” said Franz, drumming with his fingers. “I’m a little scared. But I know your husband is a wonderful man, a very kind good man. My mother worships him.”
    At this moment there appeared from somewhere, as if in token of sympathy, the specter of a dog which turned out upon closer examination to be an Alsatian. Lowering its head, the dog placed something at Franz’s feet. Then it retreated a little, dissolved momentarily, and waited expectantly.
    “That’s Tom,” said Martha. “Tom won a prize at the show. Didn’t you, Tom” (she spoke to Tom only in the presence of guests).
    Out of respect for his hostess, Franz picked up the object the dog was offering him. It proved to be a wet wooden ball covered with tangible tooth marks. As soon as he took up the ball, raising it up to his face, the specter of the dog emerged with a bound from the sunny haze, becoming alive, warm, active, and nearly knocking him off his chair. He quickly got rid of the ball. Tom vanished.
    The ball landed right among the dahlias but of course Franz did not see this.
    “Fine animal,” he observed with revulsion as he wiped his wet hand against the chintzed chair arm. Martha waslooking away, worried by the storm in the flowerbed which Tom was trampling in frantic search of his plaything. She clapped her hands. Franz politely clapped too, mistaking admonishment for applause. Fortunately at that moment a boy rode by on a bicycle, and Tom, instantly forgetting the ball, lunged headlong toward the garden fence and dashed along its entire length barking furiously. Then he immediately calmed down, trotted back and lay down by the porch steps under Martha’s cold eye, lolling his tongue and folding back one front paw like a lion.
    As Franz listened to what Martha was telling him, in the vibrant petulant tones he was getting used to, about the Tyrol, he felt that the dog had not gone too far away, and might bring back any moment that slimy object. Nostalgically he remembered a nasty old lady’s nasty old pug (a relative and great enemy of his mother’s pet) that he had managed to kick smartly on several occasions.
    “But somehow, you know,” Martha was saying, “one felt hemmed in. One imagined those mountains might crash down on the hotel, in the middle of the night, right on our bed, burying me under them and my husband, killing everybody. We were thinking of going on to Italy but somehow I lost the lust. He’s pretty stupid, our Tom. Dogs that play with balls are always stupid. A strange gentleman arrives but for him it’s a brand-new member of the family. This is your first visit, isn’t it, to our great city? How do you like it here?”
    Franz indicated his eyes with a polite pinkie: “I’m quite blind,” he said. “Until I get some new glasses, I cannot appreciate anything. All I see are just colors, which after all is not very interesting. But in general I like it. And it’s so quiet here, under this yellow tree.”
    For some reason the thought crossed his mind—a streak offugitive fancy—that at that very moment his mother was returning from church