Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

THE BUILDING 59

member enrolled, he was taken aside for a moment and, seated at a table he had to tell the librarian which kind of books he was interested in. Then a list was made up and the librarian saw to it that the young man undertook the great voyage of discovery through the world of the book in a more or less systematic manner.

The library catalogue functioned as a literary guide. By reading these instructive books, the working people sometimes discovered that they themselves had hidden talents, so some of them became actors, musicians, poets, scientists. Others plugged passionately into new arts and crafts and became innovative interior decorators or ceramists.

The craving for beauty and knowledge ran like a torrent over the city. Corporate life started to flourish for people who, until then, had lived in small, closed circles. Self assurance grew, although sometimes this assumed grotesque forms. There were union members who, when they discovered themselves, believed they had made the biggest discovery of the century. Sometimes this led to rather ridiculous incidents.

For instance, our first floor neighbor enjoyed a certain fame for overrating his own importance. He was always running around with bundles of socialist pamphlets, books and newspapers under his arm but he never read one word in them. He only pretended to be a learned man.

Mark Uienkruier (literally "Onionbarrowman") was his name, but everybody called him "Aiarx" Uienkruier. Mark exhibited a morbid preference for alien words. He also had an obstinate inclination to pronounce them incorrectly or to use them in the wrong way. Most stories told about him were probably made up, but the following one is certainly