“Am I well covered now?” his father asked, as if he could not check to see whether his feet were covered or not.
“So you’re already quite snug in bed,” remarked Georg, and he tucked the blankets more closely around him.
“Am I well covered?” his father repeated, and seemed to be keenly interested in the answer.
“Don’t worry, you’re all covered up.”
“No!” shouted his father, so loudly that the answer slammed back into the question, throwing off the blankets with such force that they unfurled completely for a moment in the air, and then springing to his feet in bed. He had only one hand on the ceiling to steady himself. “You wanted to cover me up, I know it, you little cretin, but I’m not covered up yet. And even if I’m at the end of my strength, it’s still enough for you, more than enough for you. Yes, I know your friend. He would have been the son after my own heart. That’s why you’ve been cheating him all these years. Why else? Do you think I haven’t wept for him? And that’s why you lock yourself up in your office, the chief is busy, mustn’t be disturbed—so you can write your deceitful little letters to Russia. But fortunately no one has to teach a father to see through his son. And just when you thought you had him down, all the way down, so far down you can sit your backside on him and he won’t move, then my fine son decides to get himself married!”
Georg stared up at the monstrous specter of his father. His friend in St. Petersburg, whom his father suddenly knew so well, wrenched his heart as never before. He imagined him lost in the vastness of Russia. He pictured him standing in the doorway of his empty, plundered warehouse. He could barely stand amid the wreck of his showcases, his ruined wares, and the falling gas brackets. Why did he have to move so far away?
“Now listen to me!” his father cried, and Georg, nearly half frantic, ran to the bed to absorb everything, but stopped midway there.
“Because she lifted her skirts,” his father started simpering, “because she pulled up her skirts like this, the nasty little goose,” and demonstrated by hiking his shirt high enough to reveal the scar on his thigh from his war days, “because she lifted her skirts like this and like that, you threw yourself on her, and in order to have your way with her undisturbed, you disgraced your mother’s memory, betrayed your friend, and shoved your father into bed so that he can’t move. But can he move, or can’t he?”
And he stood up, independent of any support, and kicked out his legs. He was radiant with insight.
Georg stood in a corner, as far from his father as possible. He had already made up his mind years ago to guard his every move so as to be on the lookout for a surprise attack from above, behind, or below. He recalled this long-forgotten resolve just now and as quickly forgot it, like a short length of thread drawn through the eye of a needle.
“But your friend has not been betrayed after all!” cried his father, punctuating his words with a pointed finger. “I’ve been representing him locally.”
“What a comedian!” burst from Georg, but he realized just as soon the damage that had been done, and only too late bit down—his eyes bulging—so hard on his tongue that he recoiled in pain.
“Yes, I have been acting out a play! A play! Great word! What other comfort was left for an old widowed father? Tell me—and when you answer, still be my living son—what was left for me, in my back room, plagued by a disloyal staff, and old to the very marrow? And my son saunters exultantly through the world, closing deals I had prepared, falling all over himself with joy, and slinking away from his father with the stiff mug of an honorable man! Do you think I didn’t love you, I who fathered you?”
“Now he’s going to lean forward,” thought Georg; “what if he fell and shattered to pieces!” These words buzzed through his brain.