The city without Jews : $b A novel of our timeBettauer, Hugo
General
The city without Jews : $b A novel of our time
Bettauer, Hugo
Antisemitism -- Austria -- Fiction; Jews -- Austria -- Fiction
The next few days were marked by another event that caused great
consternation in uncompromisingly Christian-Socialist circles. The
Mayor of Vienna, after Schwertfeger the most influential man of the
country--Herr Karl Maria Laberl fell over, figuratively speaking. Not
voluntarily, however, but because he was tripped up by the President
of the Municipal Council, Herr Kallop. City Hall had long known that
Herr Kallop’s name should really be read from right to left, that is,
“Pollak,” as this had been his grandfather’s name. When the Jews were
still in Vienna the story was told among them that the old Pollak had
been an immigrant grain-dealer from Galicia, who became converted
on his marriage to a Christian. The name Kallop had been adopted by
his son, who was a lawyer highly respected in Christian circles; he
married a Christian also, so that, according to the Schwertfeger law,
the grandchildren of the old Pollak were full-blooded Aryans. Josef
Kallop, the lawyer’s son, was a ne’er-do-well in his youth, unable to
complete the studies required for admission to the bar; but he became
a successful Municipal Councillor. Infinitely more shrewd than most of
his colleagues, he soon became the Presiding Officer, and for quite
some time had been the right hand of Mayor Laberl.
It was Herr Kallop, therefore, who brought about the fall of the Mayor.
He began by explaining that a great change was impending.
“As you can clearly see, Herr Laberl, things can’t go on this way. The
near future will bring disturbances that will be quite serious; and one
of these days the government will go up in thin smoke, so to speak. If
you don’t want to go up with it you’d better change your course before
it’s too late. Don’t stick too closely to Schwertfeger; admit that
expulsion of all the Jews was going a little too far. And then, in the
midst of the rumpus that is inevitable, all Vienna will suddenly stop
and say to itself: ‘Our Mayor is a smart fellow--he knows when we’ve
had enough of a good thing, and he’ll be able to help us out of this
fix.’”
Herr Karl Maria Laberl nodded, stroked his fine white beard, and seemed
entirely convinced by this superior reasoning; yet he asked, a little
timorously:
“That’s quite right, what you say there, my dear Kallop; it’s just what
I’ve been thinking for a long time. But how am I to go about it?”
“Very simple, Your Honor. We call a meeting of the Christian-Socialist
citizens’ league of, say, the First District, for there the business
men are actually in a panic. And then you’ll make a speech which we’ll
work out together.”
This was done; it must be noted, however, that the “working out
together” of the speech consisted in Herr Laberl’s memorizing the
oration composed by the President of the Municipal Council. At the
meeting of the citizens’ league Herr Laberl greeted the assembly
with the utmost solemnity, spoke of the grave times and unbearable
conditions, and finally said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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