Library
Dieter Schwarz
Sometimes,
studying gets boring,
and my mind wanders.
Dieter sat at a long table in the library of the London Business School where he was taking coursework for his Master’s of Business Administration, surrounded by books.
History and strategy books were piled three deep in places as he took notes on loose paper and added to the outline on his computer screen. The argument he was constructing was an important pillar in his thesis, so he was working hard on it.
Yet he couldn’t quite keep his mind on the books.
Flicka’s pale skin under his tanned fingers, her lips parted when she drew in a gasp, the curve of her hips that dipped to her narrow waist that he liked to encircle with his hands when he was going down on her.
He still could not reconcile that the woman Flicka, whom he was obsessed with, had been the child Flicka, Wulfram’s younger sister. She hadn’t been around much when she was a child, just a weekend visitor to Wulfram’s house because she lived at her boarding school for three-quarters of the year, every year, until she graduated when she was eighteen. When she was fifteen, she started spending more weekends at the boarding school with her friends, too.
And then, suddenly, a woman had walked in the door to Wulfram’s apartment, an adult unconnected to the child he had known.
And she was an alluring, beautiful woman with a sharp sense of humor and strong work ethic. Dieter respected both.
Dieter shook his head. He needed to keep his attention on the common translation errors in Carl von Clausewitz’s book,Vom Kriege,which meantOn War,one of the most influential treatises on war and military strategy, written by the Prussian general and military strategist Carl von Clausewitz.
Dieter had the three volumes ofVom Kriegestacked among the other books on the library table, though they were over to one side. He didn’t want to have a brain fart and throw them in the reshelving bin with the rest of his research books. A librarian would probably recognize the three rare books were worth about as much as a Lamborghini.
His military history class had readOn Warthat semester.
Dieter had been sitting in class, taking notes and debating, when one of the students quoted the book, saying that the book defines war as “the continuation of policybyother means.”
“No, no,” Dieter said, dismissing the other student. “Notbyother means. The quote is, ‘War is the continuation of policywithother means.’ It’s not exclusionary.”
“That’s the quote,” the guy said.
Dieter shook his head. “The word ‘by’ suggests that, once war begins, all other political means stop, such as diplomatic, sanctions, and all that. Clausewitz never said that. He would never have said that.”
The professor and other students were staring at him as if he had grown a few more blond heads on his shoulders.
Dieter asked, “What?”
The professor tugged down her suit jacket sleeves. “No, the quote is that war is ‘the continuation of policybyother means.’ It’s one of Clausewitz’s most famous quotes. Everyone knows it. It’s even one of the chapter titles.”
“It’s got to be ‘with,’ not ‘by.’” Dieter dug inside his rucksack and pulled out his leather-bound copy ofVom Kriegethat Flicka had given him for Christmas that year. He opened the cotton sack he’d used to protect the three antique volumes and flipped the first one open. The aged paper felt like onion skin under his fingertips. “Yes, here it is. War is ‘the continuation of policymit Einmischung anderer Mitteln.’Mitmeanswith,notby. ‘Continuation of policywithother means,’ andmitmeans something like,‘with and in addition tointerference and other means.’”
The professor stared at him. “You’re reading it in German?”
Dieter shrugged. “It was written in German.”
Swiss children learn German early because it has many words and syntax in common with Alemannic. Most people who speak Alemannic easily understand and speak German, though the reverse is not true.
“Couldmitmeanby,as well aswith?”the professor asked.
“No,” Dieter said, his head ringing with another one of Wulfram’s drunken diatribes on languages. They had been drunk together a lot while in the military. “German is a very precise language. Just ask any German.”
That got a round of laughter from the British class.
“Well,” the professor said, “it must be a misprint.”
