Beneath the Wheel (21 page)

When she placed the new bottle in front of Hans, the journeyman who was sitting next to him instantly showered her with elegant compliments, but she paid him no mind. Perhaps because she wanted to show him her indifference or perhaps because she had taken a liking to the boy's finely shaped face, she turned to Hans and quickly ran her hand through his hair; then she wert back behind the counter.

The journeyman, who was on his third bottle, followed her and went to great lengths to engage her in conversation but without success. The big girl looked at him evenly, made no reply and turned her back on him. Then he came back, drummed his empty bottle on the table and called out with sudden enthusiasm: “Come, fellows, let's be happy, clink glasses.”

And then he launched into a good dirty story.

All that Hans could make out at this point was a murky hubbub of voices, and when he had almost finished his second bottle, he found he had difficulty speaking and even laughing. He felt the urge to go over to the cage and tease the birds but after several steps he became dizzy, nearly fell down and carefully retraced his steps.

From that point on his mood of abandon and gaiety began to wane. When he knew he was drunk the whole business of drinking lost its appeal. And as if at a great distance he saw all sorts of misfortunes await him: the way home, trouble with his father and next morning back at the shop. Gradually his head began to ache.

The others had had their fill too. In a lucid moment August decided to pay up and received only meager change for his bill. Gabbing and laughing loudly, they emerged into the street, blinded by the bright evening light. Hans was barely able to walk upright; he leaned unsteadily against August who dragged him along.

The colleague had now become sentimental. He was singing: “Tomorrow I must leave this place,” with tears in his eyes.

Actually they wanted to head home but when they passed the Swan the journeyman insisted on stopping by briefly. Hans tore free at the entrance.

“I've got to go home,” he uttered.

“But you can hardly walk straight by yourself,” laughed the journeyman.

“I can. I can. I—must—go—home.”

“Well, at least have one schnapps with us. That'll put you back on your feet and settle your stomach. You'll see.”

Hans felt a glass in his hand. He spilled a good deal of it and the rest coursed down his gullet like a firebrand. He was shaken by a strong feeling of nausea. Alone he stumbled down the front steps and came—he hardly knew how—out of the village. Houses, fences, gardens wheeled crookedly and confusedly past him. He lay down in a wet meadow under an apple tree. Hideous sensations, agonizing fears and half-finished thoughts kept him from falling asleep. He felt filthy and defiled. How was he to get home? What was he to say to his father? And what was to become of him tomorrow? He felt shattered and wretched as though he would have to rest and sleep and be ashamed of himself for the rest of his life. His head and eyes ached and he did not even feel strong enough to get up and go on.

Suddenly a touch of his former gaiety returned fleetingly; he made a grimace and sang:

“
O du lieber Augustin,

Augustin, Augustin,

O du lieber Augustin,

Alles ist hin.
”

And he had barely finished singing when something in his innermost being flashed with pain, and a murky flood of unclear images and memories, of shame and self-reproach rushed at him. He groaned loudly and sank sobbing into the grass.

An hour later when it was getting dark he got up and walked unsteadily and with great effort down the hill.

*   *   *

Herr Giebenrath delivered a set of loud curses when his boy did not appear for supper. When nine o'clock struck and he still hadn't come he took out the cane. The fellow seemed to think he'd outgrown his father's rod, did he? Well, he had a little surprise waiting for him at home!

At ten he locked the front door. If his son wanted to carouse all night, he could find himself another bed to sleep in.

Still, he himself could not fall asleep but waited hour after hour with growing anger for Hans to try the door and then timidly pull the bell. He could picture the scene—that night owl had it coming to him. He'd probably be drunk but he'd sober up fast, the louse, the dirty little sneak. And if he had to break every bone in his body …

Finally sleep overcame him and his fury.

At this very instant the boy who was the object of all these threats was drifting slowly down the cool river. All nausea, shame and suffering had passed from him; the cold bluish autumn night looked down on the dark shape of his drifting body and the dark water played with his hands and hair and bloodless lips. No one saw him floating downstream, except perhaps an otter setting out even before daybreak for the hunt, eying him cagily as he glided past without a sound. No one knew how he came to be in the water. Perhaps he had lost his way and slipped at some steep spot by the river bank; perhaps he had been thirsty and had lost his balance; perhaps the sight of the beautiful water had attracted him and when he bent over the water the night and the pale moon had seemed so peaceful and restful that weariness and fear drove him with quiet inevitability into the shadow of death.

His body was found some time during the day and was carried home. The startled father had to put aside his cane and relinquish his pent-up fury. Although he did not weep and made little show of his feelings, he remained awake all that night and occasionally he glanced through a crack in the door at his silent child stretched out on clean sheets: the delicate forehead and pale, intelligent face still made him look like someone special, whose inalienable right is to have a fate different from other people's. The skin on Hans' forehead and hands had been scraped and looked blue and red, the handsome features slumbered, the white lids covered the eyes and the half-open lips looked contented, almost cheerful. It seemed as if the boy's life had been nipped in the bud, as if a spectacular destiny had been thwarted, and his father in his fatigue and solitary grief succumbed to this happy delusion.

The funeral attracted a great number of curious onlookers. Hans Giebenrath had become a celebrity once again. The principal, the teachers and the pastor once more were involved in his fate. All of them were dressed in their best suits and solemn top hats. They accompanied the funeral procession and stopped for a moment at the graveside to whisper among themselves. The Latin teacher looked especially sad and the pastor said to him softly:

“Yes, Professor, he could have really become someone. Isn't it a shame that one has so much bad luck with the best of them?”

Along with the father and old Anna, who wept without stopping, Master Flaig remained standing at the grave.

“Yes, something like that is rough, Herr Giebenrath,” he said. “I was fond of the boy too.”

“There's no understanding it,” sighed Herr Giebenrath. “He was so talented and everything was going so well, the school, the examination—and then suddenly one misfortune after the other.”

The shoemaker pointed after the frock coats disappearing through the churchyard gate.

“There you see a couple of gentlemen,” he said softly, “who helped to put him where he is now.”

“What?” Giebenrath exclaimed and gave the shoemaker a dubious, frightened look. “But, my God, how?”

“Take it easy, neighbor. I just meant the schoolmasters.”

“But how? What do you mean?”

“Oh nothing. Perhaps you and I failed the boy in a number of ways too, don't you think?”

A serene blue sky stretched over the little town. The river glistened in the valley, the spruce-covered mountains yearned blue and soft into the distance. The shoemaker smiled sadly and took Herr Giebenrath's arm, the arm of a man who now walked with embarrassed, tentative steps out of this calm hour full of oddly painful thoughts down into the lowlands of his accustomed existence.

Books by Hermann Hesse

Peter Camenzind

Beneath the Wheel

Gertrude

Rosshalde

Knulp

Demian

Strange News from Another Star

Klingsor's Last Summer

Wandering

Siddhartha

Steppenwolf

Narcissus and Goldmund

The Journey to the East

The Glass Bead Game

If the War Goes On …

Poems

Autobiographical Writings

Stories of Five Decades

My Belief

Reflections

Crisis

Tales of Student Life

Hours in the Garden

Pictor's Metamorphoses

Soul of the Age: Selected Letters of Hermann Hesse

BENEATH THE WHEEL
. From
Gesammelte Schriften,
Copyright © 1953 by Hermann Hesse, Montagnola. Translation copyright © 1968 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. All rights reserved. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hesse, Hermann, 1877–1962.

[Unterm Rad. English]

Beneath the wheel / Hermann Hesse ; translated by Michael Roloff.—1st Picador ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-312-42230-X

I. Roloff, Michael. II. Title.

PT2617.E85U613 2003

833'.912—dc21

2003041621

First published in Germany by S. Fischer Verlag, Germany under the title
Unterm Rad.

eISBN 9781466835047

First eBook edition: November 2012