As he spoke, he looked in the glass and set his tie straight with just such a movement of his naturally spreading fingers as the senior assistant employed. He was unwearying in his demonstrations of his seniority and power over me, scolding me in a bass voice, and ordering me about with threatening gestures. I was taller than he, but bony and clumsy, while he was compact, flexible, and fleshy. In his frock-coat and long trousers he seemed an important and substantial figure in my eyes, and yet there was something ludicrous and unpleasing about him. He hated the cook, a curious woman, of whom it was impossible to decide whether she was good or bad.
"What I love most in the world is a fight," she said, opening wide her burning black eyes. "I don't care what sort of fight it is, cock-fights, dog-fights, or fights between men. It is all the same to me."
And if she saw cocks or pigeons fighting in the yard, she would throw aside her work and watch the fight to the end, standing dumb and motionless at the window. In the evenings she would say to me and Sascha:
"Why do you sit there doing nothing, children? You had far better be fighting."
This used to make Sascha angry.
"I am not a child, you fool; I am junior assistant."
"That does not concern me. In my eyes, while you remain unmarried, you are a child."
"Fool! Blockhead!"
"The devil is clever, but God does not love him."
Her talk was a special source of irritation to Sascha, and he used to tease her; but she would look at him contemptuously, askance, and say: