Kaputt (3 page)

We were sitting in the little neoclassical temple at the end of the park, where the rock drops steeply to the sea, and I watched the white Doric columns etched against the background of the blue autumnal landscape. By degrees, something bitter was arising in me, something like a sad anger; bitter words came to my lips, and my effort to choke them back was useless. Thus I began almost unwittingly, to talk about Russian prisoners in the Smolensk camp who fed on the corpses of their mates under the impassive gaze of German officers and soldiers. I felt horror and shame at my own words. I would have liked to apologize to Prince Eugene for that cruelty of mine; and Prince Eugene kept silent, wrapped in his gray cloak, his head bent down over his chest. Suddenly he lifted his face, his lips moved as if in speech, but he kept silent, and I read a pained reproach in his eyes.

I would have liked to read the same cold cruelty in his eyes and on his brow that had hardened the countenance of Obergruppenführer Dietrich when I told him about the Russian prisoners in the Smolensk camp who fed on the corpses of their comrades. Dietrich had burst out laughing. I had met Obergruppenführer Dietrich, the commander of Hitler's bodyguard, in the villa of the Italian Embassy on the shores of the Wannsee near Berlin: I had felt strangely attracted by his pale face, his unbelievably cold eyes, his huge ears and his small fish-mouth. Dietrich burst out laughing:
"Haben sie ihnen geschmecktt
—Did they enjoy eating them?" he laughed opening wide his small pink-roofed fish-mouth, showing his crowded sharp fishlike teeth. I would have liked to see Prince Eugene's face harden with the same cruel expression that disfigured Dietrich and to hear him also ask me in his tired mellow voice, "Did they enjoy eating them?" But Prince Eugene raised his eyes and gazed at me with a look of pained reproach.

His face was covered with a mask of deep suffering. He knew that I also was suffering and he gazed silently at me with loving pity. I felt that if he had spoken, if he had said one single word, if he had touched my hand, I might have burst into tears. But Prince Eugene gazed silently at me and cruel words rose to my lips; I became suddenly aware that I was telling him about a day when I had gone to the Leningrad front. I motored through a deep forest, near Oranienbaum, with a German officer—a Lieutenant Schultz of Stuttgart, to be exact—he hailed from the valley of the Neckar, Schultz called it "the poet's valley," and he talked to me about Hölderlin, and Hölderlin's madness.

"He was not mad, he was an angel," said Schultz, moving his hand in a slow vague gesture, as if he were drawing invisible wings in the frosty air, and he looked upward as if he followed an angel's flight with his eyes. The forest was deep and thick; the blinding reflection of the snow was mirrored with a slight blue tinge by the tree trunks; the car glided on the frozen track with a mellow rustle, and Schultz said, "Among the trees of the Black Forest Hölderlin flew like a large bird," and I kept silent staring at the deep forest, listening to the rustle of the wheels on the icebound track. Schultz recited Hölderlin's lines:

On the Rhine where the Neckar's lawns grow
they think that to abide
there is no better spot in the world.
But let me to the Caucasus go.

"Hölderlin was a German angel," I said smiling.

"He was a German angel," said Schultz, and he recited:

But let me to the Caucasus go.

"Hölderlin also wanted to go to the Caucasus, didn't he?" I said.

"Ach, so!
" said Schultz.

Just then, where the forest was thickest and deepest, and another track crossed our way, I perceived suddenly in front of us looming out of the mist a soldier sunk to his belly in the snow; he stood motionless, his right arm outstretched, pointing the way. When we passed him, Schultz raised his hand to his cap as if to salute him and thank him. Then he said: "There's another one who would like to go to the Caucasus," and he began to laugh throwing himself against the back of the seat.

Farther on, at another crossing of tracks, another soldier loomed in the distance; he also was sunk into the snow, his right arm outstretched.

"They'll die of cold, these poor devils," I said.

Schultz turned to look at me. "There's no danger that they will die of cold," said he and laughed. I asked him why he thought that these poor devils ran no risk of being frozen. "Because, by now, they are used to the cold," replied Schultz, laughing and patting my shoulder. And having stopped the car, he turned to me smiling: "Do you wish to see him close by? You'll be able to ask him whether he is cold."

We climbed out of the car and approached the soldier. He stood there motionless, his right arm outstretched to point the way. He was dead. His eyes were wide open, his mouth half closed. He was a Russian soldier, dead.

"That's our traffic police," said Schultz. "We call them the 'Silent Police.'"

"Are you sure they won't talk?"

"That they won't talk?
Ach, so!
Try to ask him."

"I'd better not. I feel sure he would answer me," I said.

"Ach,
very amusing!" exclaimed Schultz laughing.

"Yes, very amusing,
nicht wahr
?" Then I added, feigning indifference, "Are they dead or alive when you place them on their posts?"

"Alive, of course!" replied Schultz.

"And then they freeze to death, of course," said I.

"Nein, nein
. They do not die of the cold! Look here!" and Schultz pointed to a clot of blood, a clot of red ice on the temple of the corpse.

"Ach, so.
Very amusing."

"Very amusing, isn't it?" said Schultz, and he added still laughing: "Russian prisoners must be put to some use."

... "Stop, please," said Prince Eugene softly. He said only: "Stop, please." And I wanted to hear him also tell me in his mellow, tired, rather distant voice, "Of course, Russian prisoners must be put to some use." But he kept silent and I felt a horror and a shame at my own words. Perhaps I was expecting Prince Eugene to place his hand on my arm. I felt humbled, a sad and cruel rancor gnawed at my heart.

The noise of restless hooves beating the damp soil, and of soft neighing reached us from the deeps of the wood of Oakhill. Prince Eugene raised his brow and stood listening for a moment. Then he got up and moved in silence toward the villa. I followed him. We went silently to his study and sat at a small table on which tea was served in the fine Russian transparent, slightly bluish china of Catherine's days; the teapot and the sugar bowl were of old Swedish silver, not as shiny as the Fabergé Russian silver, but slightly dull, with the dark luster that old
tenn
{1}
has in the Baltic countries. The neighing of the horses reached us dimly, mingled with the rustle of the wind through the leaves.

I had gone to Upsala the previous day to visit the famous garden of Linnaeus and the tombs of the old Swedish kings, those large earthen graves similar to the tombs of the Horatii and Curiatii on the Appian way. I asked Prince Eugene whether it was true that the old Swedes sacrificed horses on the tombs of their sovereigns.

"Occasionally they sacrificed the sovereigns on the tombs of the horses," replied Prince Eugene, and he laughed mischievously as if pleased to see me composed once again, without a hint of cruelty in my voice or in my eyes. The wind was blowing through the trees in the park, and I was thinking of the heads of horses hanging from the branches of the Upsala oaks around the graves of their sovereigns. I was thinking of the large equine eyes filled with that same damp light that women's eyes have when pleasure or pity shines in them.

"Did it ever occur to you," I said, "that the Swedish landscape is equine in character?"

Prince Eugene smiled and asked. "Do you know Carl Hill's drawings of horses, Carl Hill's
häster?"
And he added, "Carl Hill was mad; he thought trees were green horses."

"Carl Hill," I replied, "painted horses as if they were landscapes. There is something strange in Swedish nature, the same sort of madness that is in the nature of horses. There is also the same gentleness, the same morbid sensitiveness, the same free and abstract fancy. The equine character, the equine madness of the Swedish landscape is revealed not only in the great, solemn, incomparably green trees of the forests but also in the silky gloss of the vistas of water, woods, islands and clouds, in the light and deep airy vistas in which a transparent white lead, warm vermilion, cold blue, damp green and shiny turquoise compose a clear and elusive harmony, as if the colors never rested long on the woods, meadows and waters, but flitted instantly away like butterflies. (If you touch the Swedish landscape it tinges your fingertips just like a butterfly's wing.) It is a landscape as smooth to the touch as a horse's coat. And it possesses the same elusive tones, the same airy lightness and shine, the same changing gloss that is seen on the coat of a horse fleetly prancing along stretches of grass and leaves in the turmoil of the hunt, beneath a gray and pink sky.

"Look at the sun," I said, "when it rises above the blue pine woods, on the light birch groves, on the old silver of the water, on the greeny blue of the meadows,- look at the sun," I said, "when it rises on the horizon lighting up the landscape with the liquid splendor of a large, staring equine eye. There is something unreal in Swedish nature, full of fancies and whims, of that tender and lyrical madness that shines from the eye of a horse. The Swedish landscape is a galloping horse. Listen," I said, "to the neighing of the wind through the trees. Listen to the neighing of the wind among the leaves and the grass."

"The Tivoli horses are returning from the sea," said Prince Eugene listening.

"Some time ago," I said, "I went to the steeplechase near the Royal Hussar barracks, to the Stockholm Fatrittklubb, on the last day of the horse show when the best horses of the finest royal regiments were competing. The horses, the trees, the grass of the field, the dead gray walls of the large indoor tennis court, the light dresses of the feminine spectators, the pale blue uniforms of the officers made up a delicate and tender picture by Degas shaded in light gray, pink and green tones in the silvery air.

"It was on that last day of the horse show that the horse Führer, ridden by Lieutenant Eriksson of the Norrland Royal Artillery in the
löktaren
race, knocked down at the start bars, fences and every kind of hurdle, and the onlookers kept silent in order that the Führer's Germany across the sea might not find a pretext to invade Sweden. It was on that day that, owing to a highly sensitive spirit of neutrality the horse Molotov, ridden by an officer with an English name, and thus an awkward name at the time—Captain Hamilton of the Göta Royal Artillery—had withdrawn from the race at the very last moment, as much because of the dangerous tension that just then existed between Sweden and the U.S.S.R. after the sinking of some Swedish ships in the Baltic, as to avoid a public competition between Führer and Molotov.

"Two or three hundred people seated informally on rough benches that took the place of the customary stands belonged to the select circle of Stockholm and were gathered around the Crown Prince, who sat in the center of a long backless bench; the foreign diplomatie corps cut a gray rent through the green, red, yellow and blue skirts and the pale blue uniforms.

"After a time, all the horses on the field answered to the loud, sweet, mellow and almost amorous whinnying of Rockaway, ridden by H.R.H. Prince Gustavus Adolphus. It seemed a love challenge and Bäckahästen ridden by Rittmaster Ankarcrona, Royal Hussars; Miss Kiddy ridden by Lieutenant Nyholm, Norrland Royal Dragoons, and Babian ridden by Lieutenant Nihlen, Svea Royal Artillery, began frisking on the meadow under the stern eyes of the Crown Prince, while from behind the screen of trees, from the end of the field, and from the stables of the Royal Hussars across the road came the neighing of invisible horses. The horses of the gala royal carriages also began neighing, and for a time only voices of horses could be heard; little by little, the voice of the wind, the hooting of the steamboats, the raucous lament of the seagulls, the rustling of the branches of the trees and the dripping of the invisible soft rain recovered strength and daring, and the neighing abated. But during those few moments, I believed I really heard the voice of Swedish nature in its purity; it was an equine voice, an amorous neighing, a profoundly feminine voice."

Prince Eugene placed his hand on my arm, and smiling said: "I am glad that you—" and he added in an affectionate tone, "don't go back to Italy yet. Stay a little longer in Sweden. You will recover from all your suffering."

Little by little daylight was fading, the color of violets at night slowly filled the room. And little by little an indefinable feeling of shame was taking possession of me. I felt shame and horror for all I had endured in those years of war. Then as always in my journeys to and from Finland, I was stopping for a short time in Sweden—that happy island in the midst of a Europe humiliated and defiled by hunger, by hate and by despair, where I recovered the sense of a serene life, the sense of human dignity. I felt free again, but it was a painful, cruel feeling. I was to start for Italy in a few days. The thought that I would have to leave Sweden, to travel through Germany, to look again at those German faces distorted by hatred and fear and bathed in morbid sweat, filled me with disgust and humiliation. In a few days I was to see Italian faces again—my Italian faces, cowed, white with hunger. I was to see myself in the secret anguish of those faces, in the eyes of the crowd, in the trolleys, in the buses, in the cafés and the streets, beneath the large portraits of Mussolini stuck on the walls and on the shop windows, beneath that swollen and whitish head with its cowardly eyes and lying mouth. And little by little I was overcome by a sensation of pity and revulsion.

Prince Eugene stared at me in silence. He understood what was happening within me, what anguish was obsessing me, and he began to talk gently of Italy, of Rome, of Florence, of Italian friends whom he had not seen for many years,- and after a while, he asked me what the Prince of Piedmont was doing.