The Road Back (25 page)

Adolf plays nervously with his fingers on the arm of his chair. "Have some coffee, Ernst; and there's butter too."

I fill the cups and we drink.

"You see, Ernst," he says gently, "it's so much easier 
for you.—You've your books and your education and all the
rest of it. But I—I have nothing else, only my wife——"

I say nothing to that, I could not explain it to him. He is no longer the man he was at the Front—nor am I.

"And what does she say about it?" I ask after a pause.

Adolf lets his hands fall. "She says very little, and one can't get much out of her either—she just sits there and looks at you. At most she only cries. She hardly ever speaks."

He pushes his cup aside. "Once she said it was just to have somebody here. And then again, she says she did not realise—she didn't know she was doing me any harm by it; it was as if I were there—But one can't believe that— Surely it must be possible to discriminate in things of that sort—She's quite all right otherwise."

I think a while. "Perhaps she means she wasn't quite sure what she was doing at the time—as if she dreamed it, you know. One does dream queer things sometimes, Adolf."  

"Maybe," he replies, "but I don't understand it.—It certainly did not go on for long."

"And she doesn't want to have anything more to do with the other fellow?" I ask.

"She belongs here, that's what she says."

I think it over awhile. What else should one ask?

"And are things any better with you now, Adolf?"

He looks at me. "Not much, Ernst—but then that's not to be wondered at—not as yet. That will all come in time, don't you think so, too?"

He doesn't look as if he quite believes it himself.

"Sure, it'll all come right again some day," I say, and put a few more cigars on the table. We continue to talk a while still, then I go. In the passage I encounter his wife, who makes to pass by me hastily. "Good-bye, Frau Bethke," I say offering to shake hands. "Good-bye," she answers, turning her face away as she gives me her hand.

Adolf comes with me to the station. The wind is blustering. I steal sidelong glances at him as we walk, and remember how he would smile wistfully to himself whenever we would speak of peace out in the trenches there. Now what has come of it all?

The train starts. "Adolf," I say quickly from the window, "I understand you all right—you don't know how well I do understand."

He is going back alone over the fields to his house.

The bell sounds for the ten o'clock play interval. I have just given an hour's lesson to the upper form. The fourteen-year-olds are now charging past me out into the open. I watch them from the window. Within a few seconds they have altered completely; they have stripped off the discipline of the schoolroom and put on again the freshness and untamedness of their youth.

Seated here on their forms in front of me they are not true to themselves; there is something either of sneaks and suckers about them, or of shammers and rebels. Seven years of teaching it has needed to bring them to this. Unspoiled by education, frank and unsuspecting as young animals, they came up to school from their meadows, their games and their dreams. The simple law of life was alone valid for them; the most vital, the most forceful among them was leader, the rest followed him. But little by little with the weekly portions of tuition another, artificial set of values was foisted upon them—he who knew his lesson best was termed excellent and ranked foremost, and the rest must emulate him. Little wonder indeed, if the more vital of them resist it! But they have to knuckle under, for the ideal of the school is the good scholar. But what an ideal I What ever came of the good scholars in the world? In the hot-house of the school they do enjoy a short semblance of life, but only the more surely to sink back afterwards into mediocrity and insignificance. The world has been bettered only by the bad scholars.

I watch them at their games. With vigorous, supple movements they are led on by the curly-headed Dammholt, ruling the whole playground with his energy. His eyes are flashing with courage and eagerness for the assault, all his muscles, his sinews tense, his glance keen, and the rest follow him unhesitatingly. Yet in ten minutes' time, when he is sitting here on the form again, from this same boy will emerge an obdurate, pig-headed little devil who never can do his tasks, and who will surely be left behind again at the next Easter promotions. He will put on a pious face when I look at him, and as soon as my back is turned he will be making grimaces. He will he like a knave when I ask him if he did his own homework; and if he gets half a chance he will spit on my breeches or put a drawing-pin on my chair. But the Top Boy, who now cuts such a sorry figure out there on the playground, will swell visibly here in the classroom. Full of conceit and knowledgeableness he will shoot up his hand at every question, while Dammholt sits there and knows nothing, hopeless and furious, awaiting his plucking. The Top Boy knows everything, and even knows that. Yet Dammholt, whom I really should punish, is a thousand times more to my liking than this pale-faced, model boy.

I shrug my shoulders. Haven't I seen something like it before? At that regimental reunion at Konersmann's? There also did not the man suddenly count for nothing and his occupation for everything, though before, out at the Front, it had been the other way? I shake my head. What a world to come back to!

Dammholt's voice goes yelling through the playground. I wonder to myself whether a more comradely attitude on the part of the teacher towards the pupil might not help matters. It might possibly improve the relationship a little and get over a few of the difficulties—but at bottom it would merely be an illusion. Youth is sharp-sighted and incorruptible. It hangs together, and presents an impenetrable front against the grown-ups. It is not sentimental; one may approach to it, but one cannot enter in to it. Who has once been evicted from that paradise can never get back. There is a law of the years. Dammholt with his sharp eyes would cold-bloodedly turn any such cameraderie to his own advantage. He might show even a certain affection, yet that would not prevent him looking to his own interest. Educationalists who think they can understand the young are enthusiasts. Youth does not want to be understood; it wants only to be let alone. It preserves itself immune against the insidious bacillus of being understood. The grown-up who would approach it too importunately, is as ridiculous in its eyes as if he had put on children's clothes. We may feel with youth, but youth does not feel with us. That is its salvation.

The bell rings. The break is over. Reluctantly Dammholt falls into line before the, door.

I stroll out through the village on my way to the moors. Wolf is running ahead of me. A bulldog suddenly rushes out from a neighbouring farm-yard and goes for him. Wolf has not seen it, so that in the first onset the dog manages to get him down. The next instant all is lost in a wild mêlée of dust, threshing bodies and fearsome growls.

The farmer, armed with a cudgel, comes running out of the house. "For God's sake, teacher," he shouts out of the distance, "call your dog off! Pluto will tear him to pieces."

I take no notice. "Pluto! Pluto! You butcher, damn you! come here!" he yells excitedly and dashes up all out of breath to beat them apart. But the whirlwind now sweeps off with wild yelpings for another hundred yards, and there the coil begins again.

"He's lost," gasps the farmer lowering his cudgel. "But I tell you right now, I don't pay a farthing. You ought to have called him off!"

"Who is lost?" I ask.

"Your dog," returns the farmer respectfully. "That rapscallion of a bulldog has already made cold meat of a dozen of them."

"Well, I don't think we need worry about Wolf," I say. "That's no ordinary sheep dog, I tell you, old timer. He's a war-dog, an old soldier, you know!"

The dust clears. The dogs have shifted to a grassy patch. I see the bulldog trying to drag Wolf down, so as to get its teeth into the nape of his neck. If he succeeds Wolf is certainly lost, for then it will be a simple matter for the bulldog to break his neck. But now like an eel the sheep dog glides swiftly over the ground, clears the fangs by half an inch, whips round and immediately attacks again. The bulldog is growling and yelping—but Wolf fights without a sound.

"Damn!" exclaims the farmer.

The bulldog shakes itself, makes a spring, but snaps the empty air—it turns again furiously, springs again, and again shoots by, wide of the mark—one might almost think it was alone, so little is the sheep dog visible. He flies like a cat close over the ground—he learned that as a messenger dog—he slips between the bulldog's legs and goes for It from below. He encircles it, spins round; then suddenly has his teeth into its belly and holds fast.

The bulldog howls like mad and throws itself on the ground to get him that way. But quick as lightning, with a sudden jerk Wolf lets go and takes his chance to go for its throat. Now for the first time I hear him growl, muffled and dangerous. Now he has his opponent, and holds fast, indifferent to the way the bulldog struggles and rolls about on the ground.

"For God's sake, teacher," shouts the farmer, "call your dog off! He will tear Pluto to pieces!"

"I might call till the cows came home, but he wouldn't listen now," I tell him. "And a good thing too! It's high time your bloody Pluto was shown something."

The bulldog yelps and howls. The farmer raises his cudgel to go to his help. I wrench the thing from him, seize him by the front of his jacket, and shout angrily: "What the hell! Your damned mongrel started it!" It would not need much and I should be going for the farmer myself.

But from where I stand I see that Wolf has suddenly let go the bulldog and is rushing toward us, imagining that I am being attacked. So I am luckily able to intercept him, else the farmer would soon be needing a new coat, to say the least of it.

Pluto in the meantime has made off. I pat Wolf on the neck and soothe him down. "He's a devil, no mistake!" stammers the farmer, quite crestfallen.

"Too right he is," I say with pride, "that's the old soldier in him. It doesn't do to make trouble with that breed."

We go on our way. Beyond the village are a few meadows, then begins the moor with its junipers and ancient burial mounds. Near the birch wood a flock of sheep is grazing, and their woolly backs glow golden under the light of the descending sun.

Suddenly I see Wolf make off at full tilt toward the flock. Imagining that the fight with the bulldog has made him wild, I dash after him to prevent a massacre among the sheep. "Hey! Look out for the dog!" I shout to the shepherd.

He laughs. "He's only a sheep dog, he won't do anything!"

"Won't he though!" I shout back. "You don't know him. He's a war-dog!"

"What's it matter?" says the shepherd. "War-dog or no war-dog, he's all right."

"There, see!—just look at him! Good! good dog! go for 'em. Fetch 'em in!"

I can hardly believe my eyes. Wolf—Wolf, who has never seen a sheep in his life before, is now driving the flock as if he had never done anything else! With long bounds he sweeps off barking after two straggling lambs and drives them back. Every time they want to stand still or to go off at a tangent, he bars their way and snaps at their heels so that they run on again straight ahead.

"Tip top!" says the shepherd, "he's only nipping them, couldn't be better!"

The dog seems transfigured. His eyes sparkle, his tattered ear flaps as he circles watchfully round the flock, and I can see he is immensely excited.

"I'll buy him from you right now," says the shepherd. "My own can't do it better than that. Just look now, how he is heading them home to the village! He hasn't a thing to learn."

I am quite beside myself. "Wolf," I cry, "Wolf," and could shout for joy to see him. He grew up out there, among the shells and yet now, without anyone ever having shown him a thing, he knows what his job is!

"I'll give you five pounds down for him, and a sheep ready killed into the bargain," says the shepherd.

I shake my head. "You couldn't have him for a million, man," I retort.

Now it is the shepherd who is shaking his head.

The harsh spikes of the heather tickle my face. I bend them aside and rest my head on my arm. The dog is breathing quietly beside me and out of the distance sounds faintly the tinkle of sheep bells. Otherwise all is still.

Clouds float slowly over the evening sky. The sun goes down. The dark green of the juniper bushes turns to a deep brown and I perceive the night wind rise up lightly out of the distant woods. Within the hour it will be playing here among the birches. Soldiers are as famliar with the country as farmers and foresters; they have not lived in rooms. They know the times of the wind and the yellow-brown, cinnamon haze, of the gathering evening; they know the shadows that ride over the ground when clouds hide the sun, and the ways of the moon.