The Man Who Conquered Death (Paperback)

1927. Translated by Clifton P. Fadiman and William A. Drake. Werfel, Czech-born poet, playwright, and novelist, whose central themes were religious faith, heroism, and human brotherhood. One of his short-stories, The Man Who Conquered Death begins: The flat consists of a living room, a kitchen, and a small bedroom on the fourth floor of a house in the Josefstadterstrasse, near the avenue that circles the ward. Herr Fiala and his wife sleep in the bedroom; Klara, Frau Fiala's sister, makes use of a mattress in the kitchen, where there certainly is not room for another bed, and Franzl has to sleep on the oilcloth-covered sofa in the living room. This room does not open on the street, but on a large courtyard. It is true that the courtyard doesn't afford a great deal of light, but the more indulgent lodgers are wont to assert that an acacia tree flourishes in its legendary depths, and that, while the rooms are dark, to be sure, they are all the more quiet for that.