Read The Tanners for Free Online Page A

noticing, sometimes don’t know
     what to do with all their money. Although I’m still young, I believe myself in
     possession of a certain knowledge of human nature—besides which, I love people,
     of every variety, so I would never employ my insight into their characters in
     the service of swindling—and I am equally determined never to harm your esteemed
     business through any exaggerated solicitousness toward certain underfinanced
     poor devils. In a word: My love of humankind will be agreeably balanced with
     mercantile rationality on the scales of salesmanship, a rationality which in
     fact bears equal weight and appears to me just as necessary for life as a soul
     filled with love: I shall practice a most lovely moderation, please be assured
     of this in advance—”
    The bookseller was looking at the young man attentively and with
     astonishment. He appeared to be having trouble deciding whether or not his
     interlocutor, with this pretty speech, was making a good impression on him. He
     wasn’t quite sure how to judge and, finding this circumstance rather confusing,
     he gently inquired in his self-consciousness: “Is it possible, young
     man, to make inquiries about your person in suitable places?” The one so
     addressed responded: “Suitable places? I’m not sure what you mean by suitable.
     To me, the most appropriate thing would be if you didn’t make inquiries at all!
     Whom would you ask, and what purpose could it serve? You’d find yourself regaled
     with all sorts of information regarding my person, but would any of it succeed
     in reassuring you? What would you know about me if, for example, someone were
     to
     tell you that I came from a very good family, that my father was a man worthy
     of
     respect, that my brothers were industrious hopeful individuals, and that I
     myself was quite serviceable, if a bit flighty, but certainly not without
     grounds for hope, in fact that it was clearly all right to trust me a little,
     and so forth? You still wouldn’t know me at all, and most certainly wouldn’t
     have the slightest reason to hire me now as a salesclerk in your shop with any
     greater peace of mind. No, sir, as a rule, inquiries aren’t worth a fig, and
     if
     I might make so bold as to venture to offer you, as an esteemed older gentleman,
     a piece of advice, I would heartily advise against making any at all—for I know
     that if I were suited to deceive you and inclined to cheat the hopes you place
     in me on the basis of the information you’d gather, I would be doing so in even
     greater measure the more favorably the aforementioned inquiries turned out,
     inquiries that would then prove to be mendacious, if they spoke well of me. No,
     esteemed sir, if you think you might have a use for me, I ask that you display
     a
     bit more courage than most of the other business owners I’ve previously
     encountered and simply engage me on the basis of the impression I am making on
     you now. Besides, to be perfectly truthful, any inquiries concerning my person
     you might make will only result in your hearing bad reports.”
    “Indeed? And why is that?”
    “I didn’t last long,” the young man continued, “in any of the places
     I’ve worked at thus far, for I found it disagreeable to let my young powers go
     stale in the narrow stuffy confines of copyists’ offices, even if these offices
     were considered by all to be the most elegant in the world—those found in banks
     for example. To this day, I haven’t yet been sent packing by anyone at all but
     rather have always left on the strength of my own desire to leave, abandoning
     jobs and positions that no doubt carried promises of careers and the devil knows
     what else, but which would have been the death of me had I remained in them.
     No
     matter where it was I’d been working, my departure was, as a rule, lamented,
     but
     nonetheless after my decision was found regrettable and a dire future was
     prophesied for me, my