BLUMFELD, AN ELDERLY BACHELOR
65
the cellar stairs and shout
his
entreaties into the charwoman's ear,
begging
her in ·God's mercy to let her boy help free
him
from the
balls.
He has already disciplined
~If
enough by trusting this
family with the key to
his
clothes closet for a whole day. So as not
to indulge himself, he gives the boy the key immediately, instead
of himself leading him upstairs and giving the balls to
him
there.
But he can not first give away the balls, and then at once, as would
probably have to happen, take them away from the boy again by
attracting them after him like a retinue. "Then you still don't under–
stand me?"-asks Blumfeld almost sadly, after trying a new explanation
which has likewise fallen to pieces under the boy's empty stare.
An
empty stare like that leaves one defenceless. It would seduce one
into saying more than one intends, if one could only thereby
fill
that
emptiness with understanding. "We'll get the balls for him," cry
the little girls. They have realized that they can get the balls only
by
acting as agents for the boy, and furthermore, that they must bring
about this agency by themselves.
A
clock strikes in the caretaker's
room, warning Blumfeld to hurry. ''Then take the key," he
says,
not
10
much delivering the key, as having it snatched out of his hand.
The confidence with which he would have given it to the boy would
have been infinitely greater. "Get the key to the room from the
lady downstairs," he adds, "and as soon as as you come back with
the balls, you must give the lady both keys."
"All
right!" cry the
little
girls,
and run off down the steps to the basement. They know
everything, absolutely everything; and now Blumfeld himself, as
if
infected by the boy's incomprehension, can hardly understand how
they
could have taken in
his
explanations so quickly.
At the moment they are tugging at the charwoman's skirt, but
tanpting though it is, Blumfeld can no longer watch to see how they
will
go about executing their task; not only, indeed, because it is al–
ready late, but also because he does not want to be present when the
balls
are set free. In fact, he would rather be already several streets
away when the girls first open the door of
his
room upstairs. He has
10
idea of what more to expect of the balls. So for the second time
lie
goes out into the open. He has just seen the charwoman defending
lmelf,
as it were, against the little girls and the boy bestirring his
aooked legs to hurry to his mother's help. Blumfeld can not imagine
why
such people as the charwoman thrive and multiply in the world.
(To be concluded in the WINTER issue)
