THE JEWISH CHRONICLE

M MEEMEIME

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In Quest of Lodgings

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By SAMUEL ROTH

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The lady I lodge with now is a
pale, sickly person who coughs
through the nights and rises eleven
o'clock mornings. However, I
have set intentions of leaving her
as soon as something likely turns
up.' It's the lady on the floor above
I want you to know, the lady be-
cause of whose existence on this
sphere so much misery and discon-
tentment have entered my soul. I
say lady from a good mannered
habit I have of distributing this ap-
pellation of honor amongst the .fam-
fly of Eve indiscriminately. Yet,
even if I were that vicious, I could
not find a reasonable slander against
her. Flawlessly well behaved, she
is ; punctuates her Yiddish with the
German "kb," wears a spotless
white apron, and smiles humbly
through silver spectacles perched on
the roof of her nose. Really, there
is so much in her appearance that is
learned and respectable, though I
myself have seen her digging her
fingers into the anatomy of a fowl.
It's absurd.
My friend Maurice, the rascal,
began the matter by singing her
praise. "Such an intellectual
Missus," he argued. (My friend is
an Englishman and, naturally prides
himself on his sense of humor.)
"So motherly and painstaking; in
every sense an ideal of a landlady."
It eventually became imperative for
me to know her. I was haunted
by a foreboding sense of her exist-
ence. I began seeing her image on
the surface of my tea, and her in-
timacy with me became such that I
had the ghastly sensation of seeing
her bob up out of the heart of my
knishes. One fine evening, as my
friend was going through the daily
routine of enumerating her virtues
and kindnesses, and I was in the
midst of a light repast of coffee and
momuliga, I sprang up excitedly,
and brandishing a lump of momul-
iga, shouted : "Enough, villian!
Take me to your infernal Missus ;
take me to her at once !"
She was splashing her hands and
face in the hydrant when we en-
tered. My friend observed her (I

noticed) with animated admiration.
"See, that is how the Vestal Vir-
gins purified themselves at the
Great Altar in Holy Rome," he
whispered in my ear. She contin-
ued her washing so long I almost
suspected her of being self con-
scious. At last she shut off the
water, waved her hands in the air
to rid them of some superficial
drops and picked up a snow-white
towel in which she began basking
her features tenderly. All this
time she did not even glance at me
or my friend Maurice. She mod-
estly_completed her toilet, replaced
the discarded spectacles on her nose,
and discovered us suddenly as
though at the recollection of a huge
joke Which was still tickling at the
lower regions of her chin,
"Awhaw, Mr. Samuel !" she ex-
claimed. "I didn't even see you
come in. Dass iss der yunger
mann, wass zie haben fun cim
geschmust ?"
I found this,great Missus a regu-
lar bear on German. She told me
she had once lived in Germany,
where her house had been the re-
ceptacle of the residential matter of
various university students, some of
whom she recalled by name and
others by habit, in a charming little
conversation of sonic two hours'
duration, during which my English
friend (lie of the sense of humor)
gazed upon her with spellbound ad-
miration, whilst I kept myself in
spirits by the simple device of
counting and recounting the buttons
on my coat. I was just beginning
to start off in desperation when she
asked me :
"Und woo wont eir ?"
I indicated the hall room below.
She manifested genuine astonish-
ment. "There, in that pig-hole ?"
she demanded, clasping her hands.
I nodded mournfully.
"I can't understand," she said,
half in a mixture of Yiddish and
German and expressive and refined
gesture. "I can't understand. A
young man like you, an intelligent

MOINEMMEM

(Continued on page 23)

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Compliments of

Belle Isle Bridge

David E. Heineman

FM.

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