From "My Father Joins the Fire Brigade", out of Sanitorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass :
...
"Alas, Adela," my father was saying, "you have never been able to understand matters of a higher order. Over and over again you have frustrated my activities with outbursts of senseless anger. But encased in armor, I am now impervious to the tickling with which you had driven me to despair when I was bedridden and helpless. An impotent rage has now taken hold of your tongue, and the vulgarity and grossness of your language is only matched by its stupidity. Believe me, I am full of sorrow and pity for you. Unable to experience noble flights of fancy, you bear an unconscious grudge against everything that rises above the commonplace."
Adele directed at my father a look of utter contempt and, turning to my mother, said in an angry voice, while shedding tears of irritation:
"He pinches all our raspberry syrup! He has already taken away from the larder all the bottles of syrup we made last summer! He wants to give it all to these good-for-nothing firemen. And, what is more, he is being rude to me!" Adele sobbed.
"Captain of the fire brigade, captain of some crowd of lay-abouts!" she continued, looking at Father with loathing. "The house is full of them. In the morning, when I want to fetch the rolls, I cannot open the front door. Two of them are lying asleep in the hallway barring it. On the staircase a few more are spread on the steps, asleep in their brass helmets. They force their way into my kitchen; they push in their rabbit faces, lift up two fingers like schoolboys in class, and beg plaintively: 'Sugar, sugar, please . . .' They snatch the bucket from my hands and run to the pump to get water for me; they dance around me, smile at me, very nearly wag their tails. And all the time they leer at me and odiously lick their lips. If I glance at any one of them, he immediately becomes red in the face like an obscene turkey. And to that horrible lot I am supposed to give our raspberry syrup?"
...
"Alas, Adela," my father was saying, "you have never been able to understand matters of a higher order. Over and over again you have frustrated my activities with outbursts of senseless anger. But encased in armor, I am now impervious to the tickling with which you had driven me to despair when I was bedridden and helpless. An impotent rage has now taken hold of your tongue, and the vulgarity and grossness of your language is only matched by its stupidity. Believe me, I am full of sorrow and pity for you. Unable to experience noble flights of fancy, you bear an unconscious grudge against everything that rises above the commonplace."
Adele directed at my father a look of utter contempt and, turning to my mother, said in an angry voice, while shedding tears of irritation:
"He pinches all our raspberry syrup! He has already taken away from the larder all the bottles of syrup we made last summer! He wants to give it all to these good-for-nothing firemen. And, what is more, he is being rude to me!" Adele sobbed.
"Captain of the fire brigade, captain of some crowd of lay-abouts!" she continued, looking at Father with loathing. "The house is full of them. In the morning, when I want to fetch the rolls, I cannot open the front door. Two of them are lying asleep in the hallway barring it. On the staircase a few more are spread on the steps, asleep in their brass helmets. They force their way into my kitchen; they push in their rabbit faces, lift up two fingers like schoolboys in class, and beg plaintively: 'Sugar, sugar, please . . .' They snatch the bucket from my hands and run to the pump to get water for me; they dance around me, smile at me, very nearly wag their tails. And all the time they leer at me and odiously lick their lips. If I glance at any one of them, he immediately becomes red in the face like an obscene turkey. And to that horrible lot I am supposed to give our raspberry syrup?"
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