The Sleepwalkers (43 page)

So in the evening Esch opened the door of the manager’s office, locked it behind him, grinning widely, pocketed the key, and with another wide grin presented to the trapped Gernerth a neatly ruled account of the profits to date due to Herr Fritz Lohberg and Fräulein Erna Korn on their invested capital of 2000 marks, amounting to 1123 marks, which with the capital made a sum-total of 3123 marks to be repaid, and under it was written “settled in full in the name of the said parties, August Esch.” Besides that he demanded his own money. Gernerth shrieked murder and robbery. In the first place Esch had no legal power to sign a settlement, and in the second place the wrestling matches were still going on, and money couldn’t be withdrawn from a going concern. They wrangled for some time, until at length with many lamentations Gernerth agreed to pay out the half of the sum due to Lohberg and Erna, while the other half was to remain invested and share in any further profits that arose. But for himself Esch could extract nothing save an advance of fifty marks for travelling expenses. Perhaps he had been too complaisant. In any case that was enough for the journey to Baden.

Frau Hentjen in her brown silk came to the station and peered round cautiously for any sign of an acquaintance who might see her and gossip about her. For although it was early there were swarms of people. At the other platform there stood a train going in the opposite direction, and several carriages for emigrants, Czechs or Hungarians, were being shunted on to it, and Salvation Army officials were running up and down. Now, Mother Hentjen’s presence at the station was but right and proper: it was high time she gave up her stupid affectation of secrecy. All the same, Esch had a bad conscience when he saw the emigrants and the Salvation Army people. “Silly sheep!” he grumbled. He could not tell why he was so provoked. Apparently he had caught the absurd disease of secrecy from Mother Hentjen, for when one of the Salvation girls passed by he looked the other way. Frau Hentjen remarked it: “I suppose you’re ashamed of my being here? Perhaps you’ve got another woman travelling with you?” Esch with some rudeness told her not to be a fool. But that was the last straw: “That’s all one gets for compromising oneself … one can’t touch pitch without being defiled.” Once more Esch could not understand what bound him to this woman. As she stood there facing him in the daylight the remembrance of her sexual submission and of the dim alcove, the images that haunted him as soon as he was away from her, sank into oblivion
as if they had never existed. With this same train he and she had travelled together to Bacharach; that was the beginning of the affair—perhaps to-day would see its end. Evidently she felt his detachment, for she said suddenly: “If you’re unfaithful to me, I’ll soon let you see.…” He was flattered and wanted her to go on; at the same time he wanted to hurt her: “All right, I’m going to do it this very day … what’ll I see?” She stiffened and made no answer. That softened him, and he took her hand, which lay heavy and awkward in his. “Well, well, what’ll happen then?” She said with a vacant eye: “I’ll do you in.” It was like a promise and a hope of redemption; yet he forced himself to laugh. She was not to be diverted, however, from her thoughts. “What else could I do?” After a pause: “You’re probably going as far as Ober-Wesel? … to that woman?” Esch grew impatient: “Nonsense, I’ve told you a hundred times that I must settle up my affairs with Lohberg in Mannheim … aren’t we going to America?” Frau Hentjen was not convinced: “Be honest about it.” Esch impatiently waited for the signal to be given for the train’s departure; he must on no account betray his intention to visit Bertrand: “Haven’t I invited you to come with me?” “You didn’t really mean it.” But now that the signal was just going to be given it seemed to Esch that he really had meant the invitation to be taken seriously, and as he stood holding her plump arm he wanted to give her a kiss; she fended him off: “What, here before all these people!” And at that moment he had to climb into the train.

He had really intended to go straight through to Badenweiler, and it was only when he saw the name of Saint-Goar station that he definitely decided to get off at Mannheim. Yes, and from Mannheim he would write to her; that would soothe her down—and Esch smiled tenderly as he thought of her desire to kill him; he might really give her the chance. In any case his visit to Badenweiler was a bit of a venture, a risk that might lose him everything, and it was only decent to hand over other people’s money first. The sentence “Human life isn’t to be lightly taken” occurred to him, and wove itself into the rhythm of the rolling wheels. He saw Mother Hentjen lifting a dainty revolver, and then he heard Harry saying again: “You’re not to do anything to him.” Then Lohberg too, and Ilona and Fräulein Erna and Balthasar Korn appeared in a row before him, and he was amazed to think he had not seen them for so long; perhaps they hadn’t been alive at all in the interval. They raised their arms in rhythmical measure to greet him, and it was
as if an invisible and elegant showman were jerking them like marionettes on wires that suddenly revealed themselves. A third-class compartment is like a prison-cell, and up on the stage, high up on the left side where that tooth was missing, a grey screen from the side-wings suddenly came forward, a pasteboard screen behind which there was nothing save the dusty grey wall of the stage. But on the screen the word “Prison” appeared clearly, and although he knew that there was nothing behind it he knew all the same that there was Somebody in that prison, Somebody who did not exist and yet was the chief character in the play. But the stage, on which the pasteboard prison projected like a tooth, was cut off by an enormous back-drop on which a beautiful park was painted. Deer were grazing beneath mighty trees, and a girl dressed in shimmering spangles was plucking flowers. The gardener, in a wide-brimmed straw hat, his shining shears in his hand and a little dog beside him, was standing beside a dark lake whose fountain sent a crystal jet into the air like a glittering whip and spread coolness around. Far in the distance could be seen the lights and the ornamental outline of a magnificent castle with a black-white-and-red banner waving from the battlements. And that brought back all the uncertainty.

Now that Esch was approaching Mannheim it came into his head that Erna had certainly been sleeping with Lohberg, that pure Joseph. There was really no question about it, it was to be taken for granted and was hardly worth thinking over, it was to be taken for granted as much as the nose on one’s face or the feet one walked on. Nothing and nobody could have shaken Esch’s conviction that this was so; what else could the couple have found to do together? And yet he was mistaken. For even though life does not offer much variety, and though very little is necessary to bring two people of opposite sexes to an understanding, there are many things that are less to be taken for granted than one would think. A man like Esch who is still entangled in the earthly life of day after day, or has risen only a very little way above it, can easily forget that there is a Kingdom of Heaven whose stability throws all that is earthly into uncertainty, so that it can suddenly become doubtful whether one does actually walk on one’s feet. In this case the fact was that Lohberg was restrained from crossing the boundary of idealistic and noble friendship partly by his shyness and partly by his unsleeping mistrust of the female sex, especially since sordid experience
had taught him to dread the poison of sordid disease, and since he could not help remembering that Erna had been exposed to the attentions of a professed rake, living cheek by jowl with her. Lohberg was that kind of man. He merely went walking with Fräulein Erna Korn, drank coffee with her, and regarded his acquaintance with her as a time of probation and penance that would find its consummation only when a sign from on high was given him, the sign, so to speak, of true redeeming grace.

Esch, of course, knew that the idiot was virtuous, but was incapable of conceiving the extent of his virtue, and even more incapable of realizing that he himself was still a cause of disquietude to Fräulein Erna, that he still disturbed her blood, if not her heart, and that it was probably on his account that she was in no hurry to give Lohberg the sign of redeeming grace, nay, even deliberately delayed it, regarding such delay as a proper preparation for the married state. These things Esch was incapable of divining, and still less that the pair of them found much pleasure in discovering grave defects in his character, and with their usual enthusiasm even believed that their common interest in his failings was a good foundation for a life-partnership.

Innocent of these developments, Esch had reckoned on a ceremonious and joyous welcome. Instead of that, Fräulein Erna actually shrank when he appeared in the doorway. Oh, she said, quickly pulling herself together, it was indeed kind of Herr Esch to let his friends see him again, oh, it was really kind of Herr Esch to condescend to remember them after not having even taken the trouble to send them a line. And then she said: “Who pays the piper calls the tune,” with many other scathing remarks, so that Esch didn’t even get as far as the lobby. Korn, however, who had heard their voices, came out of the living-room in his shirt-sleeves, and since he was of coarser fibre than his sister and had never bestowed a thought on Esch for the past two months, and thus was not offended by his silence, but would rather have been blankly astonished had it ever occurred to Esch to write to him, Korn was quite overjoyed to see him, for not only did he remain attached to all that he had once known, he also saw in the newly arrived Esch a source of entertainment and a welcome provider of money for the use of the empty room. And Korn shook his guest’s hand with exclamations of delight, and was inviting him simply to walk into his old room again, which was waiting exclusively for him, when Fräulein Erna detained
him and half turning to her brother said: she didn’t know if that arrangement would do. This roused Korn’s anger: “Why shouldn’t it do as it did before? If I say it does, it does.” Undoubtedly Esch, as a tactful man, should then have taken his leave with expressions of regret, but even if he had been tactful, which he was not, he was too intimate with the family to prevent curiosity from getting the upper hand of tact; what had been happening in his absence? And he simply stood rooted in astonishment. Meanwhile Fräulein Erna, who was also accustomed to plain speaking, satisfied his curiosity very quickly, for she hissed at her brother that a woman who was about to make a respectable marriage couldn’t be expected to take a strange man under her roof; as it was, she had enough disgrace to put up with in that house, and if her future husband wasn’t so magnanimous he would have made himself scarce already. Korn, in his vulgar way, retorted: “Papperlapap, shut your mouth. Esch is going to stay.” But Fräulein Erna’s hints drove all else out of Esch’s head, and he cried: “Well, what a surprise; my heartiest congratulations, Fräulein Erna, who’s the lucky man?” Fräulein Erna could do no less than accept his congratulations and intimate that she was on the point of coming to an agreement with Herr Lohberg. She took Esch’s arm and led him into the living-room. Yes, and her fiancé, too, would be with them in a moment or so. And as they stood talking of Lohberg Korn had the brilliant idea of hiding Esch in a dark corner so that the unsuspecting Lohberg might get a shock when Esch suddenly took part in the conversation like a ghost.

When the bell rang in the lobby and Erna went to open the door, Esch obediently betook himself into a dark corner of the room. Korn, who remained sitting at the table, made imperious signs that he was to tuck himself still further in. For Korn was a man who set great store by technical perfection and was apt to grow angry if a hitch occurred in his arrangements. But it was not a fear of Korn’s anger that made Esch hold himself so still in his corner, no, he was not at all the man to be scared into a corner, nor was it a place of humiliation and punishment for him; of his own free will he flattened himself closer to the wall, heeding little whether his sleeve grazed the distemper or not, for in that shadowy retreat he became strangely and unexpectedly aware of a desire to increase the distance between himself and the others at the table. The few minutes that elapsed before Lohberg entered did not suffice for him to think it out clearly, but it came into his head that he was slipping once more into
that curious isolation which was somehow connected with Mannheim, and which forbade him to make common cause with the others, an insistent isolation that was, however, so pleasant to him that it could not be too solitary, and if he could only have got far enough into his corner, would have made him a redeemed and noble hermit withdrawn from the world, a spirit commanding the company at the table, who were bound to the flesh. It was a state that could not have lasted long, for such reflections are indulged in only when time does not allow of their being thought out to a conclusion, not to say acted upon, and Esch had already forgotten them by the time that Lohberg came in according to programme and was so thoroughly confounded that he was even glad to see the newcomer. Esch certainly did not quite belong to the company, no more than Ilona did, but when they were all sitting round the table they were as one family and cross-questioned each other about many things. And since these questions soon reached money matters, Esch proudly drew out his note-case and laid 1561 marks and 50 pfennigs on the table. Fräulein Erna stretched out her hand delightedly to gather in, as she thought, her investment plus the profits, but when Esch explained that she would get as much in the end, but meanwhile had to share that sum with Lohberg since half of her money was still invested, she cried that that was a loss instead of a profit. And even when he tried to make it clear to her, she would not listen to reason, but swore she was not to be taken in, she could count as well as anybody: if you please—she got out paper and pencil—219 marks, 25 pfennigs, she made it, there it was in black and white, and raging, she thrust the paper under Esch’s troubled nose. Lohberg kept his mouth shut, although as a business man he must have understood the situation well enough. Unwilling to get into trouble with his lady-love, the cowardly idiot. Esch said rudely: “I have my own sense of decency—apparently more than can be said of some people that are holding their tongues.” And he grabbed Erna’s arm, but not out of love; it was with most unloving anger and force that he banged her arm, paper and all, back on the table. Perhaps she had really understood the matter all along, or it might have been the firmness of Esch’s grip; in short Fräulein Erna fell silent. Korn, hitherto a detached spectator, merely remarked that Teltscher, the Jew, must be a rogue. Well, then, retorted Esch, he should tell that to the police, for every rogue should be reported instead of having innocent men locked up. And since Lohberg’s cowardly
and disingenuous behaviour required punishment, he humiliated the fellow with the words: “As for innocent men, they’re forgotten. Has Herr Lohberg, for instance, ever paid a visit to poor Martin?” Erna, who was still cowed but filled with healthy resentment, replied that she knew of other people who forgot their friends, yes, even ruined them, and that it was Herr Esch’s business to bother about Martin. “That’s what I’ve come here for,” said Esch. “Aha,” said Fräulein Erna, “if it hadn’t been for that we should never have seen you again,” and hesitatingly, almost timidly, as if only because she was bound not to abandon a good quarrel, she added: “nor our money either.” Korn, however, who was a slow thinker, said: “You must have the Jew locked up.”