Beneath the Wheel (8 page)

A striking though less complicated person was a Hermann Heilner, a Black Forest boy from a good home. It became apparent the first day that he was a poet and esthete and it was rumored that he had written his German exam composition in hexameters. His talk was abundant and vivacious; he owned a good violin and seemed to be exactly what he was on the surface: a youthful combination of sentimentality and lightheadedness. Less obvious was a certain depth of character. He was precocious in body and soul and even now made tentative sallies in directions that were entirely his own.

However, Hellas' most unusual occupant was Emil Lucius, a secretive, wan, flaxen-haired little fellow as tough, industrious and ascetic as an old peasant. Despite his slight and immature build and features, he did not give the impression of being a boy but had something altogether grown-up about him, as though he were completed and nothing could any longer be changed. The very first day, while the others were bored, or gabbed, Lucius sat calm and relaxed over a grammar, his thumbs plugged in his ears, and studied away as if he had lost years to make up for.

This sly and reticent fellow's tricks were not discovered for some time, but then he was unmasked as such a crafty cheapskate and egoist that his perfection in these vices gained him a kind of respect, or at least acceptance by the boys. He had evolved a cunning system of usury whose fine points were revealed only by degrees and aroused genuine astonishment. The first step in this program occurred every morning, when Lucius appeared as either the first or last person in the washroom so as to be able to use someone else's soap or towel, or both, in order to conserve his own. In that way he contrived to make his own towel last from two to three weeks. However, the students were supposed to change their towels once a week, and each Monday the head proctor personally oversaw this transaction. Therefore Lucius hung a clean towel on his nail on Monday morning only to take it away again at noon, fold it neatly, replace it in his closet and hang the clean old towel back on the nail. His soap was an especially hard brand and it was difficult to use much of it at any one time. Thus one bar would last him months. Lucius' appearance, however, suffered no neglect. He always looked well groomed, his hair neatly combed and parted, and he took exemplary care of his linen and clothes.

Once the boys were done in the washroom, they went to breakfast, which consisted of a cup of coffee, a lump of sugar and a roll. Most of them did not consider this very rich fare, for young people tend to have a considerable appetite after eight hours of sleep. Lucius was perfectly satisfied, saved his daily lump of sugar and always found takers: two lumps for a penny, or a writing-pad for twenty-five. It follows that he preferred to work in the light of his roommates' lamps in order to conserve his own supply of expensive kerosene. Not that he was the child of poor parents. On the contrary, they were really quite well off. For as a rule it is the case that the children of impoverished parents don't know how to save and economize, but always need exactly as much as they happen to have and don't know what it means to put something aside.

However, Lucius' system not only extended to the realm of tangible goods and personal ownership; in intellectual matters too he sought to gain an advantage whenever he could. Yet he was clever enough never to forget that intellectual property has only relative value. Therefore he concentrated his efforts on those subjects whose assiduous cultivation might bear fruit in a future examination while he was satisfied with middling grades in the rest of his subjects. Whatever he learned and accomplished he would evaluate only as it compared with the achievements of his fellow students; if he had had the choice, he would have preferred to come in first in class with half as much knowledge than come in second with double the amount. Therefore you could see him working in the evening undisturbed by the noise his roommates made while they played, and the occasional glance he threw in their direction was without envy, even cheerful, for if all the others were as industrious as he, his efforts would not have proved worthwhile.

No one held these tricks and dodges against the sly little grind. But like all who exaggerate and seek excessive profit, it was not long before he made a fool of himself. As all instruction in the academy was free of charge, it occurred to Lucius to take advantage of the situation by taking violin lessons. Not that he had had previous instruction or an ear or aptitude or even enjoyed music! But he decided it would be possible to learn to play the violin the way you could learn to master arithmetic and Latin. He had heard music might be of use to his career and that it made you popular, and in any case, it cost nothing, for the academy even provided a practice violin.

Herr Haas, the music instructor, was ready to throw a fit when Lucius came and asked to take violin lessons. For Haas knew him only too well from the singing class, where Lucius' efforts proved highly amusing to the rest of the students but brought him, the instructor, close to despair. He sought to dissuade Lucius from this project; yet Lucius was not someone easily dissuaded. He put on a delicate and modest smile, invoked his rights and declared his passion for music to be overpowering. Thus Lucius was given the worst practice violin, received two lessons a week, and practiced each day for one half-hour. However, after he had practiced once, his roommates informed him it was the last time, and forthwith forbade him his merciless scraping in their presence. From that day on Lucius and his violin moved restlessly about the monastery in search of quiet nooks to practice, and strange squeaking and whining noises would emanate to frighten anyone in the vicinity. Heilner, the poet, said it sounded as though the tortured old violin were screaming out of all its wormholes for mercy. Because Lucius made no progress, the instructor became distraught and impolite, and as a consequence Lucius practiced even more frantically, his self-satisfied shopkeeper's countenance beginning to show signs of distress. It was truly tragic: when the teacher declared him completely incompetent and refused to continue the lessons, the mad pupil next chose the piano and spent further agonizing months until he was worn out and quietly gave up struggling with this instrument. In later years, however, when the conversation turned to music he quietly hinted that he himself had learned to play the violin and the piano at one time but, due to circumstances beyond his control, had become alienated slowly but surely from these beautiful arts.

Hellas therefore was often in a position to be amused by its comical occupants, for Heilner, the esthete, also was the instigator of many ridiculous scenes. Karl Hamel played the role of the ironical and witty observer. He was one year older than the others—which gave him a certain advantage. Yet he was not really respected. He was moody and about once a week he felt the need to test his physical prowess in a fight and then he became wild and almost cruel.

Hans Giebenrath watched all these doings with astonishment and went his own quiet way as a good but unexciting companion. He was industrious, almost as industrious as Lucius, and he enjoyed the respect of all his roommates with the exception of Heilner, who had hoisted a banner proclaiming himself a “lighthearted genius” and would occasionally mock Hans for being a grind. These rapidly growing boys got along very well, on the whole, even if the nightly roughhouse in the dormitory led to occasional excesses. For everyone was eager to feel mature and to justify the unaccustomed “Mister” with which the teachers honored them for their good behavior and scholarly seriousness. They all looked back on their grammar-school days with as much disdain as university students on their high-school days. But every so often unadulterated boyishness would break through the dignified façade and assert its rights. At those times the dormitory would resound with the uproar of rushing feet and boyish oaths.

For a teacher at such an institution it ought to be an instructive and delicious experience to observe how such a horde of boys, after it has lived together for several weeks, begins to resemble a chemical mixture in which drifting clouds and flakes compact, dissolve again and re-form until a number of firm configurations result. After the first shyness has been overcome and after they have all become sufficiently acquainted, there begins a mingling and searching; groups form and friendships and antipathies become evident. Boys who had been schoolmates before or who came from the same region would link up only rarely. Most boys were on the lookout for new acquaintances—town boys for farm boys, mountain boys for lowlanders—all in accordance with a secret longing for variety and completion. The young beings groped around indecisively for what suited them best, and out of the awareness of sameness grew the desire for differentiation, and in some cases awakened for the first time the growing germ of a personality out of its childhood slumber. Indescribable little scenes of affection and jealousy took place, grew into pacts of friendship or into declared and stubborn animosities and ended, as the case might be, in a tender relationship with long walks or in wrestling and boxing matches.

Hans did not engage outwardly in any of these activities. Karl Hamel had made him an explicit and stormy offer of his friendship—Hans had shied back, startled. Thereupon Hamel at once became friends with a boy from Sparta. Hans remained alone. A powerful longing made the land of friendship glow with alluring colors on the horizon and drew him quietly in that direction. Only his shyness held him back. The gift for entering into an affectionate relationship had withered during his motherless childhood and any demonstration of feelings filled him with horror. Then there was his boyish pride and last but not least his merciless ambition. He was not like Lucius, he was genuinely interested in knowledge, but he resembled Lucius in that he sought to disassociate himself from everything that might keep him from his work.

So he remained anchored to his desk but pined with jealousy when he watched how happy their friendship made the others. Karl Hamel had not been the right one, but if someone else were to approach him and vigorously seek to win his friendship, he would respond gladly. Like a wallflower he stayed in the background waiting for someone to fetch him, someone more courageous and stronger than himself to tear him away and force him into happiness.

Because their schoolwork, especially Hebrew, kept everyone busy, the first weeks passed in a great rush. The many small lakes and ponds that abound in the Maulbronn region reflected the late autumn sky, discolored ash trees, birches and oaks and long twilit evenings. Fall storms romped through beautiful forests cleaning the dried leaves off the branches, and a light hoarfrost had fallen several times.

The poetic Hermann Heilner had vainly sought to find a congenial friend, and now he roamed every day during free hour through the forests by himself, showing a particular liking for a melancholy brown pond surrounded by reeds and overhung with dried tree crowns. This sad and beautiful forest nook proved immensely attractive to his lyrical temperament. Here he dreamily traced circles in the water with a sprig, read Lenau's
Reed Songs,
and reclining on the reeds themselves, contemplated the autumnal theme of dying and the transience of all living matter while the falling leaves and the wind sighing through the stark trees added gloomy chords. Frequently he pulled out his small black notebook to write a verse or two.

He was doing precisely that one overcast afternoon in late October when Hans Giebenrath, also by himself, happened on the same locale. He saw the fledgling poet sitting on the narrow boardwalk of the small sluice gate, notebook in lap, a sharpened pencil stuck pensively in his mouth. An open book lay by his side. Slowly Hans stepped closer.

“Hello, Heilner. What are you doing there?”

“Reading Homer. And you, Giebenrath, my boy?”

“Do you think I don't know what you're up to?”

“Well?”

“You're writing a poem, of course.”

“You think so?”

“Certainly.”

“Have a seat.”

Giebenrath sat down next to Heilner on the board, let his legs dangle over the water, and watched one brown leaf and then another spiral down through the cool stillness and settle inaudibly on the water's brownish mirror.

“I must say it's sad here,” Hans blurted out.

“Yes, yes.”

Both of them had lain down on their backs. They saw little else of their autumnal surroundings but a few slanting treetops and the light blue sky with its drifting cloud islands.

“What beautiful clouds!” Hans said, gazing on high.

“Yes, Giebenrath,” Heilner sighed. “If only we could be clouds like that.”

“What then?”

“Then we would sail along up there, over woods, villages, entire provinces and countries like beautiful ships. Haven't you ever seen a ship?”

“No, Heilner, have you?”

“Oh yes. My God, you don't understand any of this if all you can do is study and be a drudge.”

“So you think I'm a grind?”

“I didn't say that.”

“I'm not as silly as you think by a long shot. But go ahead, tell me about your ships.”

Heilner turned around on his stomach, almost falling in the water in the process. Now he looked at Hans, his hands propping up his chin.

“I saw ships like that,” he went on, “on the Rhine during vacation. One Sunday there was music on the ship, at night, and colored lanterns. The lights were reflected in the water and we sailed downstream with the music. Everyone was drinking Rhine wine and the girls wore white dresses.”

Hans listened without replying but he had closed his eyes and saw the ship sail through the night with music and red lights and girls in white dresses.

Heilner went on: “Yes, things were certainly different then. Who knows anything about things like that around here? All these bores and cowards who grind away and work their fingers to the bone and don't realize that there's something higher than the Hebrew alphabet. You're no different.”