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The impresario bowed frigidly, and said coldly: "I can't do anything. You must see M. Roussin." "What has it got to do with M. Roussin? I don't want to bother him with this business," said Christophe. "That won't bother him," said Sylvain Kohn ironically. And he pointed to Roussin, who had just come in. Christophe went up to him. Roussin was in high good humor, and cried: "What! Finished already?
He listened while Sylvain Kohn told him the story of the Sainte-Ygraine: a music-hall singer, who, after various successes in the little vaudeville theaters, had, like so many of her kind, been fired with the ambition to be heard on a stage more worthy of her talent.
The publishing house was in the neighborhood of the Madeleine. Christophe went up to a room on the second floor, and asked for Sylvain Kohn. A man in livery told him that "Kohn was not known." Christophe was taken aback, and thought his pronunciation must be at fault, and he repeated his question: but the man listened attentively, and repeated that no one of that name was known in the place.
"Do be careful. You must rest. I'm so sorry to have been a bother to you. You should have told me. What is the matter with you, really?" He took Kohn's sham excuses so seriously that the little Jew was hard put to it to hide his amusement, and disarmed by his funny simplicity. Besides, Kohn was touched by Christophe's interest in himself. He felt inclined to help him. "I've got an idea," he said.
The impresario looked cunningly at Sylvain Kohn, and replied: "But she has so much talent!" "Not a spark," said Christophe. "What!... She has a fine voice!" "Not a bit of it." "And she is beautiful." "I don't care a damn." "That won't hurt the part," said Sylvain Kohn, laughing. "I want a David, a David who can sing: I don't want Helen of Troy," said Christophe.
The city sky of dark blue silk, upon which the white moon and many small stars lay, enveloped it. At the rear of the cafe, alone, a long time before he suddenly died, smoking at a tiny table, on which something stood, sat the hunch-backed poet Kuno Kohn. People crouched around other tables. Among them moved people with yellow and red skulls: women; writers; actors.
Sometimes a poisonous, searing wind arose. Like thick, glowing oil, the sun lay on the houses and on the streets and on the people, Small, sexless little people with bent legs hopped senselessly around the front garden, enclosed by an iron fence, of the Cafe Kloesschen. Inside, Kuno Kohn and Gottschalk Schulz were fighting. Others happened to be watching.
The people at the next table were casting ironic glances in their direction. Kohn made some excuse on the score of pressing business, and got up. Christophe clung to him: he wanted to know when he could have a letter of introduction, and go and see some one, and begin giving lessons. "I'll see about it. To-day this evening," said Kohn. "I'll talk about you at once. You can be easy on that score."
A publisher had made an unexpected, favorable offer, and paid an advance. Mechenmal happened to find a poem that Kohn sent from the shore to Ilka Leipke. He read: Song of Longing The folds of the sea crack like whips on my skin. And the stars of the sea tear me open. The ocean's evening is lonely from screaming wounds. But the lovers find the good death of which they dreamed.
Those who say that in Paris ridicule kills do not know Paris: so far from dying of it, there are people who live on it: in Paris ridicule leads to everything, even to fame and fortune. Sylvain Kohn was far beyond any need to reckon the good-will that every day accumulated to him through his Frankfortian affectations. He spoke with a thick accent through his nose. "Ah!
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