Read Online Billiards at Half-Past Nine by Heinrich Böll, Patrick Bowles, Jessa Crispin - Free Book Online

back in time. The echo of the past had been in Faehmel’s voice when he was leaning against the billiard table and looking down into the square in front of St. Severin’s. Hugo took a firm grip on the banister, drew in a deep breath like someone coming up for air, then opened his eyes and promptly ducked behind the great pillar.
    The sheep-lady was coming down the stairs, barefoot and dressed like a shepherdess, the hip-length, capelike garment she had on exuding the odor of sheep dung. She was on her way to eat her millet gruel, with it black bread, a few nuts and sheep’s milk kept fresh for her in the refrigerator. She brought the milk with her in thermos bottles and her sheep turds in little boxes. The turds she used to perfume her coarsely woven underwear of unbleached wool. After breakfast she sat for hours down there in the public room, knitting, knitting, going to the bar now and then to get a glass of water, smoking her short-stemmed pipe, sitting on the couch with her bare legs crossed and showing the dirty callouses on her feet. Mean-while sheheld audience for disciples of both sexes, dressed like her, legs crossed, knitting, every now and then opening the little boxes of sheep dung supplied them by their mistress to sniff, as if the contents were expensive scent. At regular intervals the sheep-lady cleared her throat and from her perch asked in a girlish voice, “How shall we redeem the world?” To this all her followers, men and women, responded, “Through sheep’s wool, sheep’s leather, sheep’s milk—and through knitting.” Needles clicked away. Then silence. A youthful acolyte leaped up, went to the bar, brought the sheep-lady a glass of water and again the girlish voice threw out a question from the couch: “Where does the world’s salvation lie concealed?” “In the sheep.” Little boxes were opened, turds rapturously sniffed, while flash bulbs exploded and reporters’ pencils raced over pages of stenographic notebooks.
    Slowly Hugo moved farther back as she passed the pillar to the dining room. He was afraid of her. Only too often he had seen her soft eyes go hard, when she was alone with him, or when she caught him on the stairs and had him bring milk to her room, where he would come upon her with a cigarette stuck in her mouth. She would snatch the glass from him, laugh, drain it in a draft, serve herself a cognac, and move, glass in hand, toward him as he slowly retreated backwards to the door. “Has no one ever told you your face is worth a fortune, pure gold, you stupid boy? Why won’t you be the Lamb of God in my new religion? I’ll make you famous, rich. They’ll get down on their knees to you in a lot finer hotels than this. Haven’t you been around long enough to know that only a new religion can cure their boredom? And the more stupid it is, the better. Oh, go away, you’re too stupid.”
    He stared after her as she waited, her face a mask, for the waiter to open the dining room door. His heart was still pounding when he came out from behind the pillar, and went slowly down to the restaurant.
    “A cognac for the Doctor upstairs, a double.”
    “Your doctor’s just caused a hell of a stink.”
    “What do you mean, stink?”
    “I don’t know. I think someone wants to see him on the double—your doctor. Here, take your cognac and get lost. There must be seventeen women of all ages on your trail. Come on, scram, there’s another one coming down the stairs.”
    She
looked as if she had drunk pure gall for breakfast, the one in the golden gown and golden shoes with lion-skin hat and muff. She evoked aversion whenever she appeared. Some superstitious guests screened their faces when they saw her coming in. Chambermaids gave notice because of her, waiters refused to serve her. But he, when she caught him, had to play canasta with her for hours on end. Her fingers were like chicken claws, the only human thing about her was the cigarette in her mouth. “Love, my boy, never