516
PARTISAN REVIEW
had made the remarkable discovery that the mechanical piano roared
forth
Annchen von Tharau
when he firmly pressed the blade of
his
pocket knife into the slot instead of inserting a penny-a fact which
stimulated his patois to monstrous obscenities, most of them intelligible
to himself alone.
In the meantime the room grew warmer, the curtains were
drawn and the meals served. The young girl, it seemed, had slipped
away unobserved, as her duties were now performed by deaf
JUUI,
an old bottle-washer, who timidly lifted the trays and set them down
with a clatter. Soon all the men were occupied with their dinner, and
when one or the other ventured to start a conversation or to propose
a toast, they showed themselves too busy with the tender chicken
meat and the nibbling and sucking of bones to let any mood but one
of animal pleasure arise. The Vicomte's wolfhound appeared among
the banqueters, slinking about with hungry guts; they pushed him
away with their knees, but occasionally threw him a bone, which he
cracked instantly. The smell of roasted meat, open wine bottles and
men's bodies sweating under their unfastened uniforms, spread over
the little room and thickened into that feeling of sadness which settles
upon the satiated after a victoriously waged meal. Lazily picking up
discarded morsels and examining them for last shreds of meat, some
felt surfeited and asked for schnapps. They ordered Cura<;ao, cigars,
demi-tasses; slowly they revived and began to flutter like fowl and
to click their tongues. . . .
The host's brow and hands were beaded. He opened a window,
and at once the white-bellied curtains bulged shamelessly into the
room. Air, tasting of smoke, fog and tar, streamed in. A boat whistle
shrieked long like a pierced sow; it wailed, thinned and died, leaving
in its wake the faint tinkle of the evensong bell which had been
drowned out by it. The host crossed himself unobserved, lightly plac–
ing his left hand over his vest at the spot under which he wore his
scapular; his mind turned away from the ribald stories that rose like
air bubbles from the loaded stomachs.
Jean-Baptiste, a handsome tanned Alsatian boy, began half in
French, half in German: "Saint Marie, said my true love, qui a con–
<;ue sans pecher, grant that I sin- sans con<;evoir." They all laughed,
and nut-brown Jean continued: "A fox went to the vineyard-" "Ta–
ta ta-ta, La Fontaine," interrupted the Vicomte. "Ah, non, there was
