Read Online A Curable Romantic by Joseph Skibell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Joseph Skibell
Tags: Literary, Historical fiction, Historical, Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Jewish, Literary Fiction, World Literature
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you, Fräulein?”
“To my ads. In the newspaper,” she explained. “In the personal advertisement section. I’ve been leaving you ads in the Neue Freie Presse for well over a month now!”
I continued to stare at her as though I were a village idiot who hadnever dreamt that men might communicate with each other by printing words in a newspaper.
“Of course,” I said, shaking my head in an attempt to uncloud it. “I’ll look for your notice there.”
“The next one’s scheduled for tomorrow morning.”
“So soon, Fräulein?”
“And you’ll read it?”
“Certainly.”
“And if I’ve asked you to meet me somewhere, you’ll meet me?”
I hesitated.
“I must speak with you,” she insisted. “It’s absolutely urgent. Not here.” She glanced at her mother. “But in private.”
Before I could respond, Dr. Freud called for me again. The Fräulein released my hand, and my fingers ached where she had gripped them. I saw that the other men had already left the apartment and were presumably descending the stairs to Dr. Freud’s consulting rooms. I glanced again at Fräulein Eckstein. She seemed to have disappeared inside herself. It was as though the light of her face had darkened its flame. Dr. Freud and Madame Eckstein witnessed this strange phenomenon as well, and their eyes met in an unspoken moment of concern. A naïf, I imagined that they were congratulating themselves on the match they’d arranged between us. (With equal naïveté, I’d interpreted Madame Eckstein’s flirtatiousness as nothing more sinister than motherly affection. Didn’t all women fall in love with their daughter’s suitors and, later on, with their husbands?) But I might as well have been blind. Indeed, of all that was occurring about me, I saw little; and of the little I saw, I understood even less.
With a bow to the women, I hurried down the yellow staircase after Dr. Freud.
“Come on, come on then!” he called up, seconds ahead of me but already at the bottom of the stairs. “The time until you meet again will pass slowly, so you might as well fill it with cigars and good company. Dr. Königstein has returned, as you know, and there’s no telling when we’ll next spend a sociable hour together. With your losses at cards tonight,you will handsomely repay me for whatever services I, in my capacity as Cupid, have rendered you. Although how could it be otherwise? Where there is Psyche, Eros must naturally appear!”
He addressed me from the doorway of his consulting rooms, a hard, mad glint in his eye. It was a look I recalled receiving before only from my father, a glance so lacerating I feared neither of us would avoid being cut to shreds by it.
CHAPTER 7
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I was too nervous about what I’d find in tomorrow’s paper. Abandoning my bed, I fished the Neue Freie Presse from the trash bin, where it lay beneath a moist hash of coffee grounds and apple cores. I’d never concerned myself with these sorts of things, these personal advertisements, but I understood the city was mad for them, and now I saw why: who could resist the most private of correspondences carried out in this most public of places, clandestine meetings arranged before the entire world, the particulars of one’s secret assignations announced via the public press?
To the exquisite lady sipping coffee in the Café Griensteidl yesterday with a young child I took to be her niece; she so sympathetically shared her cream pitcher with a gentleman at the neighboring table and would do this gentleman an even greater kindness by indicating to Box 721, this newspaper, when and at what café he might return the favor.
Things were not yet as notorious in Vienna as they would later become, with everyone and his sister crawling into bed (sometimes with each other), but an air of promiscuity had already descended upon the city, sending its inhabitants scurrying for warmth; and where better to find that warmth than in the arms of a
“To my ads. In the newspaper,” she explained. “In the personal advertisement section. I’ve been leaving you ads in the Neue Freie Presse for well over a month now!”
I continued to stare at her as though I were a village idiot who hadnever dreamt that men might communicate with each other by printing words in a newspaper.
“Of course,” I said, shaking my head in an attempt to uncloud it. “I’ll look for your notice there.”
“The next one’s scheduled for tomorrow morning.”
“So soon, Fräulein?”
“And you’ll read it?”
“Certainly.”
“And if I’ve asked you to meet me somewhere, you’ll meet me?”
I hesitated.
“I must speak with you,” she insisted. “It’s absolutely urgent. Not here.” She glanced at her mother. “But in private.”
Before I could respond, Dr. Freud called for me again. The Fräulein released my hand, and my fingers ached where she had gripped them. I saw that the other men had already left the apartment and were presumably descending the stairs to Dr. Freud’s consulting rooms. I glanced again at Fräulein Eckstein. She seemed to have disappeared inside herself. It was as though the light of her face had darkened its flame. Dr. Freud and Madame Eckstein witnessed this strange phenomenon as well, and their eyes met in an unspoken moment of concern. A naïf, I imagined that they were congratulating themselves on the match they’d arranged between us. (With equal naïveté, I’d interpreted Madame Eckstein’s flirtatiousness as nothing more sinister than motherly affection. Didn’t all women fall in love with their daughter’s suitors and, later on, with their husbands?) But I might as well have been blind. Indeed, of all that was occurring about me, I saw little; and of the little I saw, I understood even less.
With a bow to the women, I hurried down the yellow staircase after Dr. Freud.
“Come on, come on then!” he called up, seconds ahead of me but already at the bottom of the stairs. “The time until you meet again will pass slowly, so you might as well fill it with cigars and good company. Dr. Königstein has returned, as you know, and there’s no telling when we’ll next spend a sociable hour together. With your losses at cards tonight,you will handsomely repay me for whatever services I, in my capacity as Cupid, have rendered you. Although how could it be otherwise? Where there is Psyche, Eros must naturally appear!”
He addressed me from the doorway of his consulting rooms, a hard, mad glint in his eye. It was a look I recalled receiving before only from my father, a glance so lacerating I feared neither of us would avoid being cut to shreds by it.
CHAPTER 7
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I was too nervous about what I’d find in tomorrow’s paper. Abandoning my bed, I fished the Neue Freie Presse from the trash bin, where it lay beneath a moist hash of coffee grounds and apple cores. I’d never concerned myself with these sorts of things, these personal advertisements, but I understood the city was mad for them, and now I saw why: who could resist the most private of correspondences carried out in this most public of places, clandestine meetings arranged before the entire world, the particulars of one’s secret assignations announced via the public press?
To the exquisite lady sipping coffee in the Café Griensteidl yesterday with a young child I took to be her niece; she so sympathetically shared her cream pitcher with a gentleman at the neighboring table and would do this gentleman an even greater kindness by indicating to Box 721, this newspaper, when and at what café he might return the favor.
Things were not yet as notorious in Vienna as they would later become, with everyone and his sister crawling into bed (sometimes with each other), but an air of promiscuity had already descended upon the city, sending its inhabitants scurrying for warmth; and where better to find that warmth than in the arms of a