32
PARTISAN REVIEW
peasant fairy tales to the chef and the chef sometimes translated.
There was a Ka!>elmeist'.!r from Wi•:n and the Kapelmeister met a
devil who said to him, "Come tomorrow night to my wedding and play
for me." And the Kapelmeister went to the wedding of the devil and
played for him. And the dancers and the beautiful women and the noble
lords threw heaps of gold coins into the Kapelmeister's hat. And soon,
sweating and hot, the Kapelmeister had to go out into the garden. When
he was in the garden he saw the bridegroom enter and dip his finger in
a basin of water that stood{ under a tall tree and rub the water on his
eyes. And when the bridegroom went away the Kapelmeister did likewise
but he only dipped in his little finger and rubbed it only on his left eye.
And behold! no sooner had he done this than he could see the Truth!
That the beautiful house of the nobleman was made of human blood and
dung! And in the ballroom, not beautiful ladies and lords were dancing,
but devils! And not gold was thr,>wn mto his hat, but brass and worth·
less junk! But the Kapelmeister played out the evening and said nothing
and went away and thereafter he could see the Truth- but ·with only
one eye, only half-the-lt uth.
It is so with all men, said Johnny. But he himself did not know
what the other half of the Truth was that the Kapelmeister had not seen.
He smiled, his teeth stained with tobacco, and his long peasant's
moustache drooping over his mouth, and the yellow sole of his fout that
ached and burned him clasped in his hand as he cut the hard lump of
flesh with an old razor blade.
Nor did his thumb heal. It grew worse, it turned green, 1t swelled
as thick as a cucumber, he could not sleep at night from the flow and
ebb of pain in his arm. And yet he continued to crawl
in~o
his wet stifi
shoes every morning when the mountains were heavy with mist to fix
the furnace for the hot showers. There was a glaze over his eyes,
as
though he could not see through a mist of pain, and he took to working
with only his left hand.
The little bowlegged chef told Johnny to stop working, to go down
and rest. In the heat of the afternoon the thermometer over the big
black stove stood at 105 degrees. Sweat ran in rivers down the kitchen·
men's faces. But Johnny shook his head obstinately. No, no, he could
work. The thumb was three times its thickness. He carried 1t wrapped
in the same dirty bandage. "You one goddam fool," the chef said. The
German baker shook his head. "What can you do with a man like thatl
