The Trap

Оглавление

Ludovic Bruckstein. The Trap

THE TRAP

Отрывок из книги

Imprint

Foreword

.....

It was almost midnight when Ernst Blumenthal emerged through the wrought iron gates of the Palace of Culture, in the secession style à la Franz Josef. As soon as his elderly father, with his grizzled side whiskers, also à la Franz Josef, espied him, trembling with emotion, he breathed a sigh of relief, as did his mother, tall and thin as a plank, his two elder brothers, and the two docile daughters-in-law. Praise be to God! Praise be to Him, that he had got off so lightly!

But Ernst did not breathe a sigh of relief for having got off so lightly. In the first place because ‘so lightly’ was not very lightly at all, and in the second place because he did not believe he had ‘got off’… In the days and nights that followed, he had no peace of mind. He kept thinking about what had happened, he went over it all in his mind, striving to find a meaning to it.

.....