During the whole afternoon I have been in an insolent, combative mood;
I have spoken roughly to the waiter and the cabman, I hope without
hurting their feelings; now all kinds of bold and revolutionary
thoughts come into my head, of a kind suited to the words of Figaro
and the comedy of Beaumarchais, which I had seen at the Comédie
Française. The speech about great men who had taken the trouble to be
born; the aristocratic prerogative, which Count Almaviva wants to
apply in the case of Susan; the jokes which our malicious journalists
of the Opposition make upon the name of Count Thun (German, _thun_ =
doing) by calling him Count Do-Nothing. I really do not envy him; he
has now a difficult mission with the Emperor, and I am the real Count
Do-Nothing, for I am taking a vacation. With this, all kinds of
cheerful plans for the vacation. A gentleman now arrives who is known
to me as a representative of the Government at the medical
examinations, and who has won the flattering nickname of “Governmental
bed-fellow” by his activities in this capacity. By insisting on his
official station he secures half of a first-class compartment, and I
hear one guard say to the other: “Where are we going to put the
gentleman with the first-class half-compartment?” A pretty
favouritism; I am paying for a whole first-class compartment. Now I
get a whole compartment for myself, but not in a through coach, so
that there is no toilet at my disposal during the night. My complaints
to the guard are without result; I get even by proposing that at least
there be a hole made in the floor of this compartment for the possible
needs of the travellers. I really awake at a quarter of three in the
morning with a desire to urinate, having had the following dream:
Crowd of people, meeting of students.... _A certain Count (Thun or
Taafe) is making a speech. Upon being asked to say something about the
Germans, he declares with contemptuous mien that their favourite flower
is Colt’s-foot, and then puts something like a torn leaf, really the
crumpled skeleton of a leaf, into his buttonhole. I make a start, I make
a start then,[BJ] but I am surprised at this idea of mine._ Then more
indistinctly: _It seems as though it were the vestibule (Aula), the
exits are jammed, as though it were necessary to flee. I make my way
through a suite of handsomely furnished rooms, apparently governmental
chambers, with furniture of a colour which is between brown and violet,
and at last I come to a passage where a housekeeper, an elderly, fat
woman (Frauenzimmer), is seated. I try to avoid talking to her, but
apparently she thinks I have a right to pass because she asks whether
she shall accompany me with the lamp. I signify to her to tell her that
she is to remain standing on the stairs, and in this I appear to myself
very clever, for avoiding being watched at last. I am downstairs now,
and I find a narrow, steep way along which I go._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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