and all the while, I also love John. I measure myself against John; I compare myself with him. I know that of all the countless lovers of my mother, he was the only one whom she loved passionately. I would like to be like him. He is more plain: his profile and his hands are finer, more cultivated, his eyes are brighter, larger, more sincere, less shifty than mine—yes, it is that shiftiness which reveals Subicz’s lineage from a tribe of mountain Dalmatians. John has smoother, less unruly hair, which lies more naturally on his head—the hair of a model child, the kind of hair Miss Fern tried to make mine be with furious strokes of the brush. John must have been an exemplary child from a splendid home, un ragazzino molto fine, elegante, intelligente, perbenino (I am grateful to Lieutenant Colonel Subicz that I am not such a brat).

John has the best manners a person could possibly have. I am fascinated with the way he takes me for granted; that is, the way he, almost thirty years my senior, treats me as a perfect equal in every respect (in contrast to Uncle Helmuth’s Fafnir-like, menacing demand that we respect our elders). I was delighted with the way John took me for granted from the very beginning—or new beginning—when I met him again after twelve years: no longer Miss Fern’s spick-and-span, combed-and-brushed, piss-elegant little boy, the bastard of sweet little Maud; now a scrawny, towering youngster, wretchedly dressed, aureoled with the odor of a tenement apartment, dissipated because of certain back-courtyard experiences, with a dreamy and unreliable lurking in his eyes. I am enchanted by the way John took me for granted then, welcoming me as though not a single day had waned since last he saw me with my hand in Miss Fern’s; “Hello, dear boy, awfully glad to see you. Let’s have some booze.” (Two years before Uncle Ferdinand’s “Ah, te voilà, finalement. Il était grand temps qu’on te voie”: chips off the same block.)

John’s cordiality toward me has not diminished for an instant. I know that he is too rich to worry about the tailor bills that Stella pays for me (especially since he can tell himself that Stella, who is even richer than he, probably pays them out of her own pocket). Not the slightest shadow of a smile, not even a millimeter-high twitch of his eyebrows, an involuntarily accelerated blink, ever betrays his thoughts when he suddenly sees me all spruced up as if I had stepped forth from the latest issue of Adam. I virtually live in his home. Although my official place of residence since I left my relatives is the garconnière in the middle of Vienna (my rent paid by Stella), I am at John and Stella’s house in the Rennweg from dawn to dusk. I drive his car, drink his whiskey, screw his wife; his chambermaid washes my shirts, his valet presses my trousers—and John treats me as politely as if I were His Britannic Majesty’s ambassador. His savoir faire is enthralling; he is indefatigably attentive, obliging, friendly—and completely invulnerable to intimacy. I am in awe of his tact (and almost incapable of looking him in the eye ever since Stella told me that he is delighted with my tact). We are such an exemplary, civilized trio that I often cramp up and hold my breath to keep from throwing up.