Read Online A Curable Romantic by Joseph Skibell - Free Book Online Page A

appreciative laughter fell from Fräulein Rosa’s painted mouth. She reached across me to caress Herr Graf’s hand, and the two retreated into the privacy of each other’s gaze.
    I’d never felt lonelier in my life.
    What further disaster could befall me that evening?
    “A H , D R . S AMMELSOHN , may I touch it?” Amalia Eckstein had sneaked up behind me when I’d stopped in the hallway to admire the Freuds’ new telephone. A wooden box with a phallic-looking tube above two silver bells that resembled naked breasts — or so, in my current state of mind, the apparatus appeared to me — it was the first I’d seen in a private home.
    “What in Heaven’s name are you talking about?” I cried, turning in alarm. I had thought, of course, she had meant my nose.
    “Why, your hair, you silly-billy,” she said. “Because it’s so extraordinarily thick and marvelous!” She lifted her hand and let it hover in the now-electric air between us. What could I say to her? That I’d prefer she didn’t touch me? Of course, I did the only thing a gentleman could, which was to bow my head and offer it to her. “Oh! But oh — oh my! It’s so much softer than it looks! So soft and so curly and so full! Oh — but it’s an absolute delight!”
    I felt as though I were being examined by a careless phrenologist. Her nails nicked the skin behind my ears. As strands of my hair became entangled in her rings, she simply plucked them out. Worse: she’d pushed the shelf of her bosom so near my face that my breath had steamed up my glasses, and when I heard Fräulein Eckstein’s strangled cry — alas, the Fräulein had stumbled upon our unfortunate tableau — I had no choice but to read through the steamy lenses the horror etching itself upon her face.
    “Mother!” she cried.
    “Darling, you must come here and caress this young man’s hair immediately! It’s une expérience sensuelle.”
    “I will do no such thing! My God, Mother” — Fräulein Eckstein dropped her voice — “there are people in the other room!” Unable to force herself from the passageway, she covered her face with her hands, blocking out the image, and I feared she might at any moment faint.
    “Madame, if you will excuse me,” I said, stepping away from themother. “Fräulein.” I nodded to the daughter. As I approached her, however, she jumped away from me, as though I were a moral leper, and for the final time that evening, I gave up all hope of wooing her.
    Dr. Freud beckoned me from the open doorway of his apartment. “Dr. Sammelsohn!” he cried, with Drs. Rie and Rosenberg standing on either side of him, like two thieves flanking the savior whose birthday they, in their strange way, had been honoring that night.
    “I’ve invited the men and the women to separate,” he explained to the Ecksteins and to me, “the women to remain above, nearer the Heavens, the men to descend into the nether regions, where each may partake of the activities biology has assigned them: the women to their chattering; the men to their brandy and cigars!”
    Happy for an opportunity to escape, I offered Fräulein Eckstein an embarrassed bow and attempted to edge past her. However, she pulled me to her and held me so closely that when she spoke, I could feel her breath palpating my lips.
    “Help me!” she whispered, as though it were a request I had too often refused her.
    “Help you, Fräulein? Of course, I will, but how?”
    “Lower you voice,” she commanded me. “The others mustn’t hear us.”
    I looked at her mother and at Dr. Freud.
    “I’ve been trying to speak to you all evening.”
    I peered into her face. “Frankly I’m astonished to hear this, Fräulein.”
    “You’re the only one who can help me.”
    I didn’t know what to say to her.
    “Will you?” she demanded.
    “Of course, I will, Fräulein.”
    “Then why haven’t you responded to me?”
    I searched her face, understanding nothing of what she was saying to me. “Responded to