The Collected Stories

courtly. On the rare occasion when he reproached me, he always managed to save my feelings with some elegant compliment. More than anything else, I admired Jacques Kohn’s way with women. I was shy with girls—blushed, became embarrassed in their presence—but Jacques Kohn had the assurance of a count. He had something nice to say to the most unattractive woman. He flattered them all, but always in a tone of good-natured irony, affecting the blasé attitude of a hedonist who has already tasted everything.
    He spoke frankly to me. “My young friend, I’m as good as impotent. It always starts with the development of an overrefined taste—when one is hungry, one does not need marzipan and caviar. I’ve reached the point where I consider no woman really attractive. No defect can be hidden from me. That is impotence. Dresses, corsets are transparent for me. I can no longer be fooled by paint and perfume. I have lost my own teeth, but a woman has only to open her mouth and I spot her fillings. That, by the way, was Kafka’s problem when it came to writing: he saw all the defects—his own and everyone else’s. Most of literature is produced by such plebeians and bunglers as Zola and D’Annunzio. In the theater, I saw the same defects that Kafka found in literature, and that brought us together. But, oddly enough, when it came to judging the theater Kafka was completely blind. He praised our cheap Yiddish plays to heaven. He fell madly in love with a ham actress—Madam Tschissik. When I think that Kafka loved this creature, dreamed about her, I am ashamed for man and his illusions. Well, immortality is not choosy. Anyone who happens to come in contact with a great man marches with him into immortality, often in clumsy boots.
    “Didn’t you once ask what makes me go on, or do I imagine that you did? What gives me the strength to bear poverty, sickness, and, worst of all, hopelessness? That’s a good question, my young friend. I asked the same question when I first read the Book of Job. Why did Job continue to live and suffer? So that in the end he would have more daughters, more donkeys, more camels? No. The answer is that it was for the game itself. We all play chess with Fate as partner. He makes a move; we make a move. He tries to checkmate us in three moves; we try to prevent it. We know we can’t win, but we’re driven to give him a good fight. My opponent is a tough angel. He fights Jacques Kohn with every trick in his bag. It’s winter now; it’s cold even with the stove on, but my stove hasn’t worked for months and the landlord refuses to fix it. Besides, I wouldn’t have the money to buy coal. It’s as cold inside my room as it is outdoors. If you haven’t lived in an attic, you don’t know the strength of the wind. My windowpanes rattle even in the summer-time. Sometimes a tomcat climbs up on the roof near my window and wails all night like a woman in labor. I lie there freezing under my blankets and he yowls for a cat, though it may be he’s merely hungry. I might give him a morsel of food to quiet him, or chase him away, but in order not to freeze to death I wrap myself in all the rags I possess, even old newspapers—the slightest move and the whole works comes apart.
    “Still, if you play chess, my dear friend, it’s better to play with a worthy adversary than with a botcher. I admire my opponent. Sometimes I’m enchanted with his ingenuity. He sits up there in an office in the third or seventh heaven, in that department of Providence that rules our little planet, and has just one job—to trap Jacques Kohn. His orders are ‘Break the keg, but don’t let the wine run out.’ He’s done exactly that. How he manages to keep me alive is a miracle. I’m ashamed to tell you how much medicine I take, how many pills I swallow. I have a friend who is a druggist, or I could never afford it. Before I go to bed, I gulp down one after another—dry. If I drink, I have to urinate. I have prostate trouble, and as it is I must get up several times during the night. In the dark, Kant’s categories no longer apply. Time ceases to be time and space is no space. You hold something in your hand and suddenly it isn’t there. To light my gas lamp is not a simple matter. My matches are always vanishing. My attic teems with demons. Occasionally, I address one of them: ‘Hey, you, Vinegar, son of Wine, how about stopping your nasty tricks!’
    “Some time ago, in the middle of the night, I heard a