The Sleepwalkers (30 page)

Here, at any rate, Korn met with a disappointment. For the Salvation Army people were not to be prevailed upon to sit down at the same table; they said good-bye and gathered at one end of the room to distribute the
War Cry.
Esch too would have preferred not to be left alone with Korn; some remnant of hope still fluttered in his soul that these people might be able to bring back to him what he had felt under the darkening trees and yet had not been able to grasp. But it was a good thing, on the other hand, that they were now beyond the reach of Korn’s raillery, and it would have been still better if they had taken Lohberg with them, for Korn was now anxious to get his own back and was beginning his joke at Lohberg’s expense by trying to make the helpless fellow violate his principles with the aid of a portion of steak and onions and a great jug of beer. But the ninny stood his ground, merely saying in a quiet voice: “You shouldn’t joke with a fellow’s convictions,” and touched neither the meat nor the beer, and Korn, once more disappointed, had to be content with morosely devouring them himself, so that they might not be wasted. Esch contemplated the dark residue of beer at the bottom of his jug; absurd to think that one’s salvation could depend on whether one drank that up or not. All the same he felt almost grateful to the mild and obstinate fool. Lohberg sat there smiling meekly, and sometimes one almost expected tears to start to his great eyes with the exposed whites. Yet when the Salvation Army people in their round of the tables drew near again he stood up and it looked as though he were about to shout something to them. Against Esch’s expectations he did not do so, but simply remained standing where he was. Then suddenly he uttered without warning or reason a single word, a word quite incomprehensible to everyone who heard it; he uttered loudly and distinctly the word “Redemption,” and then sat down again. Korn looked at Esch and Esch looked at Korn. But when Korn put his finger to his brow and twirled it to indicate that Lohberg was weak in the head, the whole situation changed in the most extraordinary and terrifying manner, for it was as though the word of redemption, now set free, hovered over the table maintained in its detachment by an invisibly revolving mechanism, detached even from the mouth that had uttered it. And although Esch’s contempt for Lohberg remained undiminished, yet it seemed now that the kingdom of salvation did exist, could exist,
must exist, if only because Korn, that dead lump of flesh, was sitting on his broad hindquarters in the Thomasbräu cellar, quite incapable of sending his thoughts even as far as the next street corner, far less of losing them in the infinite spaces of freedom. And although, in spite of these ideas, Esch refused to act the prig, but instead rapped with his jug on the table and ordered another beer, yet he too became silent like Lohberg; and when on rising to leave Korn proposed that they should take the pure Joseph to visit the girls, Esch refused to second him, left a completely disappointed Balthasar Korn standing on the pavement, and escorted the tobacconist home, quite pleased that Korn should shout insults after them. It had stopped snowing, and in the warm wind that had risen Korn’s rude words fluttered past like light spring blossoms.

Driven by that extraordinary oppression which falls on every human being when, childhood over, he begins to divine that he is fated to go on in isolation and unaided towards his own death; driven by this extraordinary oppression, which may with justice be called a fear of God, man looks round him for a companion hand in hand with whom he may tread the road to the dark portal, and if he has learned by experience how pleasurable it undoubtedly is to lie with another fellow-creature in bed, then he is ready to believe that this extremely intimate association of two bodies may last until these bodies are coffined: and even if at the same time it has its disgusting aspects, because it takes place under coarse and badly aired sheets, or because he is convinced that all a girl cares for is to get a husband who will support her in later life, yet it must not be forgotten that every fellow-creature, even if she has a sallow complexion, sharp, thin features and an obviously missing tooth in her left upper jaw, yearns, in spite of her missing tooth, for that love which she thinks will for ever shield her from death, from that fear of death which sinks with the falling of every night upon the human being who sleeps alone, a fear that already licks her as with a tongue of flame when she begins to take off her clothes, as Fräulein Erna was doing now; she laid aside her faded red-velvet blouse and took off her dark-green skirt and her petticoat. Then she drew off her shoes; but her stockings, on the other hand, as well as her white, starched under-petticoat, she kept on; indeed she could not even summon the resolution to undo her corsets. She was afraid, but she concealed her fear behind a knowing
smile, and by the light of the flickering candle-flame on the bedside-table she slipped, without undressing further, into bed.

Now it came to pass that she heard Esch walking several times through the lobby, in doing which he made a greater noise than the necessary arrangements he was engaged in should have required. Perhaps these arrangements themselves were not indeed altogether necessary, for what need could there be to fetch water to his room twice? And the water-jug was surely not so heavy that he had to set it down with a bang in the passage immediately outside Erna’s door. But every time that Fräulein Erna heard anything she resolved not to be outdone and made a noise too; stretched herself till the bed creaked, even pushed deliberately with her toes against the foot of it and sighed an audible “This is nice,” as if she were sleepy; also she coughed and cleared her throat in pursuit of her purpose. Now Esch was an impetuous man, and after they had telegraphed to each other in this way for a little while he walked resolutely into her room.

There lay Fräulein Erna in bed and smiled knowingly and slyly and yet a little invitingly at him with her missing tooth, and really she did not attract him very much. All the same he paid no attention to her protest: “But Herr Esch, you mustn’t stay here,” but remained calmly where he was; and he did this not merely because he was a man of coarse appetites, like most men, he did it not merely because two people of different sexes living on intimate terms in the same house can scarcely escape the automatic functioning of physical attraction, and with the reflection “Why not, after all,” will eventually yield casually to it, he did it not only because he divined that her feelings were much the same as his and so discounted her words, he did it therefore not simply in obedience to a low impulse, even if we add jealousy to it, the jealousy which any man might feel on seeing a woman flirting with Herr Gernerth; no, Esch did it because he was a man for whom it was essential that this pleasure, which people imagine one seeks for its own sake, should serve also a higher purpose, a purpose which he could scarcely name and yet felt bound to obey, but which nevertheless was nothing but the compulsion to put an end to a tremendous fear that extended far beyond himself, even if sometimes it might seem to be merely the fear that befalls the commercial traveller when, far from his wife and children, he lies down in his lonely hotel bed; the fear and desire of the traveller who resorts to the plain and elderly chambermaid, sometimes heart-broken
by the squalor of the affair, and generally filled with remorse of conscience. Of course when Esch banged down his water-jug hard on the floor he was no longer thinking of the loneliness which had descended upon him since he had left Cologne, nor was he thinking of the isolation that had lain on the stage before Teltscher let fly the whistling, glittering daggers. Yet now that he sat on the edge of Fräulein Erna’s bed and bent over her in desire, he wanted more from her than is currently construed as the satisfaction of an average sensual man’s lust, for behind the very palpable, indeed banal, immediate object of desire, yearning was hidden, the yearning of the captive soul for redemption from its loneliness, for a salvation which should embrace himself and her, yes, perhaps all mankind, and most certainly Ilona, a salvation which Erna could not vouchsafe him, because neither she nor he knew what he wanted. So the rage which seized him when she refused him the final favour and gently said: “When we’re man and wife,” was neither merely the rage of the thwarted male, nor simple fury at the discovery of the trick she had played him in only half-undressing; it was more, it was despair, even if the words with which, sobered now, he rudely replied, were by no means high-sounding: “Well, it’s all off, then.” And although her refusal seemed to him a sign from God warning him to be chaste, he left the house immediately and went to a more willing lady. And that deeply wounded Erna.

From that evening there was open war between Esch and Fräulein Erna. She let no opportunity pass of provoking his desire, and he no less eagerly seized every pretext to renew his attempt and to lure the recalcitrant one into his bed without promise of marriage. The battle began in the morning when she brought his breakfast into his room before he was properly dressed, a lascivious kind of mothering that maddened him; and it ended in the evening in indifference, whether she had barred her door or let him in. Neither of them ever mentioned the word love, and the fact that open hatred did not break out between them, but was dissembled in spiteful jests, was due simply to the other fact that they had not yet possessed each other.

Often he thought that with Ilona things must be different and better, but strangely enough his thoughts did not dare to rise to her. She was something better, much in the same way as the Chairman of the company, Bertrand, was something better. And Esch did not even
mind very much that one of Erna’s tricks was to frustrate any chance of his meeting Ilona, indeed he was even glad of this, bitterly as he resented all her silly fuss and her tittering facetiousness. Meanwhile Ilona was about the place almost every day, and between her and Erna a sort of friendship had grown up, yet what they could find in each other was incomprehensible to Esch; if when he got home he smelt the cheap and powerful scent which Ilona used, and which always excited him, he was sure to find the two ladies in an extraordinary dumb dialogue; for Ilona knew scarcely a word of German and Fräulein Erna was forced to fall back on fondling her friend, stationing her before the mirror and admiringly patting and rearranging her coiffure and her dress. But generally Esch found himself excluded. For Erna now set herself to conceal from him even the presence of her friend in the house. So one evening he happened to be sitting quite innocently in his room when the door-bell rang. He heard Erna opening the door and would not have thought anything further about the matter if he had not suddenly heard the key of his door being turned. Esch made a spring for the door; he was locked in! The trollop had locked him in! And although he should simply have ignored the stupid joke, it was too much for him, and he began to bawl and bang on the door, until at last Fräulein Erna opened it and slipped into the room with a giggle. “Well,” she said, “now I can attend to you … we have a visitor, I may say, but Balthasar is looking after her all right.” Esch rushed out of the house in a rage.

When he returned late at night the lobby again reeked of Ilona’s perfume. So she must have come back again, or rather she must still be here, for now he saw her hat hanging on the hat-rack. But where could she be? The parlour was dark. Korn was snoring next door. She simply couldn’t have gone away without her hat! Esch listened at Erna’s door; the agitating and oppressive thought came into his mind that the two women were lying in there side by side. He cautiously tried the door-handle; the door did not yield, it was barred as always when Fräulein Erna really wanted to sleep. Esch shrugged his shoulders and walked noisily to his room. But he could not rest in bed; he peered out into the passage; the perfume still hung in the air and the hat was still there. Something wasn’t in order, one could feel that, and Esch stole through the house. It seemed to him that he could hear whispering in Korn’s room; Korn wasn’t the man to speak in a whisper, and Esch listened more intently: then suddenly Korn groaned, unmistakably he
groaned, and Esch, a fellow who had no occasion to fear a man like Korn, fled back to his room in his bare feet as though something dreadful were pursuing him. He even felt he wanted to put his hands to his ears.

Next morning Erna awakened him out of a leaden sleep, and before he could bring out his question she said: “Hsh! I’ve a surprise for you. Get up at once!” He hastily put on his clothes, and when he walked into the kitchen, where Erna was busy, she took him by the hand and led him on tiptoe to her room, opened the door slightly and asked him to look in. There he saw Ilona; her round white arm, which still did not show any dagger wounds, was hanging over the edge of the bed, the heavy pouches under her eyes showed distinctly on her somewhat puffy face, and she was asleep.

Now Ilona frequently arrived at a late hour at the flat, and this lasted for a comparatively long time before Esch grasped the fact that she spent the night with Balthasar Korn and that Erna was shielding her brother’s love affair, in a sense, with her own body.

Martin called on him at his work. It was extraordinary, the ease with which this pariah, whom every gate-keeper had orders to keep out, always managed to get himself admitted everywhere quite openly and swung at his ease on his crutches through places of business, nobody stopping him, many saluting him affectionately, partly no doubt because one was shy of appearing unkind to a cripple. Esch was not particularly pleased to receive a visit from a trade-union secretary at his work; Martin could just as well have waited for him outside, but on the other hand one could rely on his discretion; he knew the right time to come and the right time to go; he was a decent fellow. “ ’Morning, August,” he said. “I just wanted to see how you were getting on. You’ve a nice job here, made a good exchange.” Did the cripple want to remind him that he had him to thank for being in this accursed Mannheim? All the same Martin could not be held responsible for the affair between Ilona and Korn, and so Esch simply replied in a morose voice: “Yes, a good exchange.” And somehow it rang true. For now that Martin reminded him of his former job and Nentwig, Esch was jolly glad that he had nothing more to do with Cologne. Like a thief he still kept Nentwig’s misdemeanour concealed, and the fact that one might come across the man’s ugly mug at any street corner in Cologne took away
all pleasure at the thought of returning there. Cologne or Mannheim, there was nothing to choose between them. Was there really any place where one could be rid of all this rottenness? Nevertheless he asked how things were in Cologne. “Later,” said Martin, “I haven’t time just now; where are you having your dinner?” And as soon as Esch told him he swung himself hastily away.