FullReads

He was a supernumerary at the Board of Trade and drew a salary of twelve hundred crowns. He had married a young girl without a penny; for love, as he himself said, to be no longer compelled to go to dances and run about the streets, as his friends maintained. But be that as it may, the life of the newly-wedded couple was happy enough to begin with.

“How cheaply married people can live,” he said one day, after the wedding was a thing of the past. The same sum which had been barely enough to cover the wants of the bachelor now sufficed for husband and wife. Really, marriage was an excellent institution. One had all one’s requirements within one’s four walls: club, cafe, everything; no more bills of fare, no tips, no inquisitive porter watching one as one went out with one’s wife in the morning.

Life smiled at him, his strength increased and he worked for two. Never in all his life had he felt so full of overflowing energy; he jumped out of bed as soon as he woke up in the morning, buoyantly, and in the highest spirits, he was rejuvenated.

When two months had elapsed, long before his new circumstances had begun to pall, his wife whispered a certain piece of information into his ear. New joys! New cares! But cares so pleasant to bear! It was necessary, however, to increase their income at once, so as to receive the unknown world-citizen in a manner befitting his dignity. He managed to obtain an order for a translation.

Baby-clothes lay scattered about all over the furniture, a cradle stood waiting in the hall, and at last a splendid boy arrived in this world of sorrows.

The father was delighted. And yet he could not help a vague feeling of uneasiness whenever he thought of the future. Income and expenditure did not balance. Nothing remained but to reduce his dress allowance.

His frock coat began to look threadbare at the seams; his shirt front was hidden underneath a large tie, his trousers were frayed. It was an undeniable fact that the porters at the office looked down on him on account of his shabbiness.

In addition to this he was compelled to lengthen his working day.

“It must be the first and last,” he said. But how was it to be done?

He was at a loss to know.

Three months later his wife prepared him in carefully chosen words that his paternal joys would soon be doubled. It would not be true to say that he rejoiced greatly at the news. But there was no alternative now; he must travel along the road he had chosen, even if married life should prove to be anything but cheap.

“It’s true,” he thought, his face brightening, “the younger one will inherit the baby-clothes of his elder brother. This will save a good deal of expense, and there will be food enough for them–I shall be able to feed them just as well as others.”

And the second baby was born.

“You are going it,” said a friend of his, who was a married man himself, but father of one child only.

“What is a man to do?”

“Use his common-sense.”

“Use his common-sense? But, my dear fellow, a man gets married in order to … I mean to say, not only in order to … but yet in order to…. Well, anyhow, we are married and that settles the matter.”

“Not at all. Let me tell you something, my dear boy; if you are at all hoping for promotion it is absolutely necessary that you should wear clean linen, trousers which are not frayed at the bottom, and a hat which is not of a rusty brown.”

And the sensible man whispered sensible words into his ear. As the result, the poor husband was put on short commons in the midst of plenty.

But now his troubles began.

To start with his nerves went to pieces, he suffered from insomnia and did his work badly. He consulted a doctor. The prescription cost him three crowns; and such a prescription! He was to stop working; he had worked too hard, his brain was overtaxed. To stop work would mean starvation for all of them, and to work spelt death, too!