Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: The Early Years

  Now observe this youth in ragged clothes, alone, friendless, and lost in the crowd, wandering through this bright and alien world. He has no money with which to take any real part in the joys of civilization. He sees them proclaimed and touted on the placards stuck on advertising pillars, so excitingly that they would arouse curiosity and desire in even the dullest (whereas he is especially impressionable) — and he must content himself with reading their names and being aware of their existence. He sees the portals of the theatres festively open and dares not join the crowd that goes streaming in; stands dazzled in the unearthly light that spills across the pavement from music halls and vaudeville houses, in front of which, perhaps, some gigantic Negro, his countenance and purple costume blanched by the white brilliance, towers fabulously in tricorn hat, waving his staff — and he cannot accept the flashing-toothed invitation and the enticements of the spiel. But his senses are lively, his mind attentive and alert; he sees, he enjoys, he assimilates; and if at first the rush of noise and faces confuses this son of a sleepy country town, bewilders him, frightens him indeed, nevertheless he possesses mother wit and strength of mind enough slowly to become master of his inner turmoil and turn it to good purpose for his education, his enthusiastic researches.

  And what a happy institution the shop window is! How lucky that stores, bazaars, salons, that market places and emporia of luxury do not stingily hide their treasures indoors, but shower them forth in glittering profusion, in inexhaustible variety, spreading them out like a splendid offering behind shining plate glass. Brighter than day on a winter's afternoon is the illumination of these displays; rows of little gas flames at the bottoms of the windows keep the panes from frosting over. And there stood I, protected from the cold only by a woollen scarf wrapped around my neck (for my overcoat, inherited from my poor father, had long since gone to the pawnshop for a paltry sum), devouring with my eyes these wares, these precious and splendid wares, and paying no attention to the cold and damp that worked their way up from my feet to my thighs.

  Whole suites were arranged in the windows of the furniture shops: drawing-rooms of stately luxury, bed-chambers that acquainted one with every intimate refinement of cultivated life; inviting little dining-rooms, where the damask-covered, flower-bedecked tables, surrounded by comfortable chairs, shimmered enchantingly with silver, fine porcelain, and fragile glassware; princely salons in formal style with candelabra, fireplaces, and brocaded armchairs; and I never tired of observing how firmly and splendidly the legs of this noble furniture rested on the colourful, softly glowing Persian carpets. Farther on, the windows of a haberdasher and a fashion shop drew my attention. Here I saw the wardrobes of the rich and great, from satin dressing-gowns and silk-lined smoking-jackets to the evening severity of the tail-coat, from the alabaster collar in the latest, most favoured style to the delicate spat and the mirror-bright patent-leather shoe, from the pin-striped or dotted shirt with French cuffs to the costly fur jacket; here their hand luggage was displayed before me, those knapsacks of luxury, of pliant calfskin or expensive alligator, which looks as though it were made out of little squares; and I learned to know the appurtenances of a high and discriminating way of life, the bottles, the hairbrushes, the dressing-cases, the boxes with plates and cutlery and collapsible spirit stoves of finest nickel; fancy waistcoats, magnificent ties, sybaritic underclothes, morocco slippers, silk-lined hats, deerskin gloves, and socks of gauzy silk were strewn in seductive display; the youth could fix in his memory the wardrobe requirements of a man of fashion down to the last, sturdy, convenient button. But perhaps I needed only to slip across the street, carefully and adroitly dodging between carriages and honking buses, to arrive at the windows of an art gallery. There I saw the treasures of the decorative industry, such objects of a high and cultivated visual lust as oil paintings by the hands of masters, gleaming porcelain figures of animals of various sorts, beautifully shaped earthenware vessels, small bronze statues, and dearly would I have liked to pick up and fondle those poised and noble bodies.

  But what sort of splendour was it a few steps farther on that held me rooted to the spot in amazement? It was the window display of a big jeweller and goldsmith — and here nothing but a fragile pane of glass divided the covetousness of a freezing boy from all the treasures of fairyland. Here, more than anywhere else, my first dazzled enchantment was combined with the eagerest desire to learn. Pearl necklaces, palely shimmering on lace runners, arranged one above another, big as cherries in the middle and decreasing symmetrically toward the sides, ending in diamond clasps, and worth whole fortunes; diamond jewelry bedded on satin, sharply glittering with all the colours of the rainbow and worthy to adorn the neck, the bosom, the head of queens; smooth golden cigarette cases and cane heads, seductively displayed on glass shelves; and everywhere, carelessly strewn, polished precious stones of magnificent colour: blood-red rubies; grass-green, glossy emeralds; transparent blue sapphires that held a star-shaped light; amethysts whose precious violet shade is said to be due to organic content; mother-of-pearl opals whose colour changed as I shifted my position; single topazes; fanciful arrangements of gems in all the shadings of the spectrum — all this was not only a joy to the senses, I studied it, I immersed myself completely in it, I tried to decipher the few price tags that were visible, I compared, I weighed by eye, for the first time I became aware of my love for the precious stones of the earth, those essentially quite worthless crystals whose elements through a playful whim of nature have combined to form these precious structures. It was at this time that I laid the groundwork for my later reliable connoisseurship in this magical domain.

  Shall I speak too of the flower shops out of whose doors, when they were opened, gushed the moist, warm perfumes of paradise, and behind whose windows I saw those sumptuous flower baskets, adorned with gigantic silk bows, that one sends to women as evidence of one's attention? Or of the stationery stores whose displays taught me what sort of note-paper a cavalier uses for his correspondence, and how the initials of one's name are engraved on it with crest and coat of arms? Or the windows of the perfumers and hairdressers, where in glittering elegant rows shone the many different scents and essences that come from France, and the delicate instruments used for the manicure and the care of the face were displayed in richly lined cases? The gift of seeing had been granted me and it was my be-all and end-all at this time — an instructive gift, to be sure, when material things, the enticing, educational aspects of the world, are its object. But how much more profoundly does the gift of perception engage one's feelings! Perception, that visual feasting on the human spectacle as it unfolds in the fashionable districts of a great city — whither I went by preference — how very different from the attraction of inanimate objects must be the pull it exerts on the longings and curiosity of a passionately ambitious youth!

  O scenes of the beautiful world! Never have you presented yourselves to more appreciative eyes. Heavens knows why one in particular among the nostalgic pictures I stored up at that time has sunk so deeply into me and clings so persistently in my memory that despite its unimportance, its insignificance indeed, it fills me with delight even today. I shall not resist the temptation to record it here, though I know very well that a story-teller — and it is as a story-teller that I present myself in these pages — ought not to encumber the reader with incidents of which 'nothing comes', to put the matter bluntly, since they in no way advance what is called 'the action'. But perhaps it is in some measure permissible, in the description of one's own life, to follow not the laws of art but the dictates of one's heart.

  Once more, it was nothing, it was only charming. The stage was above my head — an open balcony of the bel étage of the great Hotel Zum Frankfurter Hof. Onto it stepped one afternoon — it was so simple that I apologize — two young people, as young as myself, obviously a brother and sister, possibly twins — they looked very much alike — a young man and a young woman moving out together into the wintry weather. They did so out of pure high spirits,
hatless, without protection of any kind. Slightly foreign in appearance, dark-haired, they might have been Spanish, Portuguese, South American, Argentinian, Brazilian — I am simply guessing — but perhaps, on the other hand, they were Jews — I could not swear they were not and I would not on that account be shaken in my enthusiasm, for gently reared children of that race can be most attractive. Both were pretty as pictures — the youth not a whit less than the girl. In evening dress, both of them, the youth with a pearl in his shirt front, the girl wearing one diamond clip in her rich, dark, attractively dressed hair and another at her breast, where the flesh-coloured silk of her princess gown met the transparent lace of the yoke and sleeves.

  I trembled for the safety of their attire, for a few damp snowflakes were falling and some of them came to rest on their wavy black hair. But they carried on their childish family prank for only two minutes at most, only long enough to point out to each other, as they leaned laughing over the railing, some incident in the street. Then they pretended to shiver with cold, knocked one or two snowflakes from their clothes, and withdrew into their room, where the light was at once turned on. They were gone, the enchanting phantasmagoria of an instant, vanished never to be seen again. But for a long time I continued to lean against the lamp-post, staring up at their balcony, while I tried in imagination to force my way into their existence; and not on that night only but on many following nights, when I lay down on my kitchen bench exhausted from wandering and watching, my dreams were of them.

  Dreams of love, dreams of delight, and a longing for union — I cannot name them otherwise, though they concerned not a single image but a double creature, a pair fleetingly but profoundly glimpsed, a brother and sister — a representative of my own sex and of the other, the fair one. But the beauty lay here in the duality, in the charming doubleness, and if it seems more than doubtful that the appearance of the youth alone on the balcony would have inflamed me in the slightest, apart perhaps from the pearl in his shirt, I am almost equally sure that the image of the girl alone, without her fraternal complement, would never have lapped my spirit in such sweet dreams. Dreams of love, dreams that I loved precisely because — I firmly believe — they were of primal indivisibility and indeterminateness, double; and that really means only then a significant whole blessedly embracing what is beguilingly human in both sexes.

  Dreamer and idler! I hear the reader addressing me. Where are your adventures? Do your propose to entertain me throughout your whole book with such fine-spun quiddities, the so-called experiences of your covetous idleness? No doubt, until the policeman drove you away, you pressed your forehead and nose against the big glass panes and peered into the interior of elegant restaurants through the openings in the cream-coloured curtains — stood in the mixed, spicy odours that drifted up from the kitchen through cellar gratings and saw Frankfurt's high society, served by attentive waiters, dining at little tables on which stood shaded candles and candelabra and crystal vases with rare flowers? So I did — and I am astounded at how accurately the reader is able to report the visual joys I purloined from the beau monde, just exactly as though he had had his own nose pressed against that pane. So far as 'idleness' is concerned, he will very soon see the inaccuracy of any such description and will, like a gentleman, withdraw it and apologize. Let it be said now, however, that, divorcing myself from the spectator's role, I sought and found a personal relationship with that world to which I was drawn by nature. I would, to wit, linger around the entrances of the theatres at closing-time and, like an active and obliging lad, make myself useful to the exalted public that streamed chattering out of the lobbies, stimulated by the delights of art. I would do this by bailing droshkies and summoning waiting carriages. I would rush out in front of a droshky to stop it in front of the marquee for my patron, or I would run some distance up the street to catch one and then drive back, sitting beside the coachman. Swinging down like a lackey, I would open the door for the people who were waiting, with a bow so perfect as to startle them. To summon the private coupés and coaches, I would inquire in flattering fashion the names of their fortunate owners and I took no small delight in shouting those names and titles down the street in a clear, strong voice — Privy Councillor Streisand! Consul General Ackerbloom! Lieutenant-Colonel von Stralenheim or Adelsleben! And then the horses would drive up. Many names were quite difficult and their owners hesitated to tell them to me, doubtful of my ability to pronounce them. A dignified married couple, for example, with an obviously unmarried daughter, was named Crequis de Mont-en-fleur, and what pleased surprise all three showed at the correctness and elegance with which that name rang out when they finally entrusted it to me, that name compounded, as it were, of sneezes and giggles terminating in a nasal but flowery poesy! It came to the ears of their fairly far-off and aged family coachman like the clarion morning call of chanticleer, so that there was no delay in bringing up the old-fashioned but well-washed carriage and the plump, dun-coloured pair.

  Many a welcome coin, often enough a silver one, was slipped into my hand for these services tendered to Society. But more precious to my heart, a dearer, more reassuring reward was mine as well — an intercepted look of astonishment, of attentive kindliness on the part of the world, a glance that measured me with pleased surprise; a smile that dwelt on my person with amazement and curiosity; and so carefully did I treasure up these secret triumphs that I could today report them more easily than almost anything else, however significant and profound.

  What a wonderful phenomenon it is, carefully considered, when the human eye, that jewel of organic structures, concentrates its moist brilliance on another human creature! This precious jelly, made up of just as ordinary elements as the rest of creation, affirming, like a precious stone, that the elements count for nothing, but their imaginative and happy combination counts for everything — this bit of slime embedded in a bony hole, destined some day to moulder lifeless in the grave, to dissolve back into watery refuse, is able, so long as the spark of life remains alert there, to throw such beautiful, airy bridges across all the chasms of strangeness that lie between man and man!

  Of delicate and subtle matters one should speak delicately and subtly, and so a supplementary observation will be cautiously inserted here. Only at the two opposite poles of human contact, where there are no words or at least no more words, in the glance and in the embrace, is happiness really to be found, for there alone are unconditional freedom, secrecy, and profound ruthlessness. Everything by way of human contact and exchange that lies between is lukewarm and insipid; it is determined, conditioned, and limited by manners and social convention. Here the word is master — that cool, prosaic device, that first begetter of tame, mediocre morality, so essentially alien to the hot, inarticulate realm of nature that one might say every word exists in and for itself and is therefore no better than claptrap. I say this, I, who am engaged in the labour of describing my life and am exerting every conceivable effort to give it a belletristic form. And yet verbal communication is not my element; my truest interest does not lie there. It lies rather in the extreme, silent regions of human intercourse — that one, first of all, where strangeness and social rootlessness still create a free, primordial condition and glances meet and marry irresponsibly in dreamlike wantonness; but then, too, the other in which the greatest possible closeness, intimacy, and commingling reestablish completely that wordless primordial condition.

  CHAPTER 5

  BUT I am conscious of a look of concern on the reader's face lest as a result of all these tokens of kindliness I may have forgotten, frivolously and completely, the matter of my military obligations, and so I hasten to assure him that this was by no means the case; I had instead kept my eyes fixed constantly and uneasily on that fatal question. It is true that after I had reached a decision about handling this unpleasant problem, my uneasiness turned, to a certain extent, into the kind of happy nervousness we feel when we are about to test our abilities in a great, indeed excessive, enterprise and — here I must curb
my pen and, out of calculation, resist in some measure the temptation to blurt out everything in advance. For since my intention has steadily strengthened to give this little composition to the press, if I ever get to the end of it, and thus present it to the public, I should be much in the wrong if I did not obey those general rules and maxims professional writers use to maintain interest and tension, against which I should be sinning grossly if I yielded to my inclination to blurt out the best at once and, so to speak, burn up all my powder in advance.

  Let just this much be said: I went to work with great thoroughness, with scientific precision in fact, and took good care not to underestimate the difficulties in my path, for plunging ahead was never my way of undertaking a serious enterprise; instead I have always felt that precisely those actions of extreme daring which are almost incredible to the common crowd require the coolest consideration and the most delicate foresight, if their result is not to be defeat, shame, and ridicule and I have not fared badly. Not content with informing myself exactly as to the methods and practices of the recruiting office and the nature of the regulations on which it acted (which I accomplished partly through conversations with our machinist boarder who had seen military service, and partly with the help of a general reference work in several volumes which another boarder, hopeful of improving himself, had installed in his room), once my plan was sketched in general outline, I saved up one and a half marks from my tips for fetching carriages to buy a publication I had discovered in a bookshop window, a publication of clinical character in the reading of which I immersed myself with both enthusiasm and profit.

  Just as a ship requires ballast, so talent requires knowledge, but it is equally certain that we can really assimilate, indeed have a real right to, only just so much knowledge as our talent demands and hungrily draws to itself in each urgent, individual instance, in order to acquire the requisite substance and solidity. I devoured with the greatest joy the instructive content of that little book, and translated what I had acquired into certain practical exercises carried out by candlelight in front of a mirror in the nightly privacy of my kitchen, exercises that would have looked foolish to a secret observer but with which I was pursuing a clear and reasoned goal. Not a word more about it here! The reader will be compensated shortly for this momentary deprivation.