The Sleepwalkers (38 page)

When Esch walked into the manager’s office Gernerth was sitting with a glass of beer before him and lamenting: “A fine life this, a fine life!… ” Oppenheimer was toddling up and down wagging his head, indeed his whole body wagged: “Can’t see what there is to upset you so much.” Gernerth’s notebook was lying before him: “The taxes simply eat everything up. Why are we toiling and slaving here? To pay the taxes!” They could hear the resounding smack of sweating women’s bodies coming to grips on the stage, and Esch felt indignant that this man sitting here should talk of toiling and slaving, merely because he was making calculations in a notebook. Gernerth went on with his lament: “The children must go away for a holiday; that costs money … where am I to get it?” Herr Oppenheimer evinced sympathy: “Children are a blessing and children are a trial; don’t you worry too much, it’ll come all right.” Esch felt sorry for Gernerth, a good fellow, Gernerth; all the same the affairs of the world became confused again when you reflected that out there on the stage a pair of tights must presently burst so that Gernerth’s children might go away for a holiday. Somewhere or other there was cause for Mother Hentjen’s disgust at the whole business, though not where she imagined it to be. Esch himself could not tell where it lay; perhaps it was simply the muddle and confusion that filled him with disgust and rage. He went out; in the wings some of the wrestlers were standing about, their bodies smelling of sweat; to clear a passage for himself Esch seized them from behind by the thick arms or by the breasts, hugging them tightly, until one or two began to laugh wantonly. Then he stepped on to the stage and took his place as clerk at the so-called jury bench. Teltscher, the referee’s whistle between his teeth, was lying on the floor peering sharply under the arched body of one girl, who was resisting the efforts of another to flatten her out, efforts ostensibly great, but only ostensibly, of course, for the girl underneath was the German representative who was bound to free herself forthwith by a patriotic upward heave from ignominious captivity. And although Esch knew by heart this prearranged farce he experienced a feeling of relief when the almost beaten wrestler got on to her feet again: and yet he was filled with indignant pity for her opponent when Irmentraud Kroff now sprang upon her and, amid the
patriotic acclamations of the audience, pressed the shoulders of the enemy against the mat.

When Frau Hentjen got up the dawn was just breaking. She opened the window to see how the day promised. The sky arched clear and cloudless over the dark, grey yard, which lay below her in motionless silence, a little rectangle within dark walls. The clean washtubs from last washing day were still standing down there. A cool wind, imprisoned between the walls, smelt of the city. She trailed up to the kitchenmaid’s room and knocked at the door; she didn’t intend to leave without her breakfast; on the top of everything else that would be the last straw. Then she carefully began her toilet and drew on the brown-silk dress. When Esch called for her she was sitting morosely at her morning coffee in the restaurant. She said morosely: “Let’s go,” but at the house door it occurred to her that Esch too might want some coffee; it was got for him hastily in the kitchen, and he drank it standing. The sun was already up, but the bright strips of sunshine that lay on the cobbles between the long shadows of the house walls did not improve the temper of either. Esch merely announced curtly and abruptly: “I’ll get the tickets,” and then: “Platform five.” In the carriage they sat side by side in silence; but when they reached Bonn he leaned out, inquired whether there were any fresh rolls to be had, and bought her one. She ate it morosely and resentfully. After Coblenz, when the passengers as usual crowded to the window to admire the Rhineland scenery, Frau Hentjen too felt moved to follow their example. But Esch did not budge from his place; he knew the neighbourhood so well that he was sick of it, and besides he had not proposed to indicate the beauties of nature to Frau Hentjen until they were on the steamer. Now he felt annoyed at her for anticipating this pleasure and for listening to the edifying explanations of the other people in the compartment. So every tunnel that interrupted the view was a salve to his ill humour, and his irritation mounted so high that at Ober-Wesel he peremptorily called her away from the window: “I had a job myself once in Ober-Wesel.” Frau Hentjen looked out; there was nothing of interest to be seen in the station. She replied politely: “Yes, you’ve been in lots of places.” Esch was not yet finished: “A wretched job it was, I stuck it out all the same for a few months on account of a girl in the place … Hulda, her name was.” Then he could just get out and look for her, was Frau
Hentjen’s furious rejoinder, he needn’t trouble himself on her account. But presently they arrived at Bacharach, and for the first time in his life Esch experienced the helpless feeling which descends on the pleasure-tripper who, standing in a railway station, has a vacant hour in front of him. According to his programme they should have had a lunch on the boat, but simply to cover his embarrassment he now suggested that they should go to a restaurant that he knew. But as they were walking through the narrow streets of the town which lay so quiet and peaceful in the clear morning light, suddenly in front of one of the timbered houses Mother Hentjen exclaimed: “That’s where I would like to live, that would be my ideal.” Perhaps it was the flowers in the window-boxes that touched her, perhaps it was simply the feeling of release that often comes over people when they are on unfamiliar ground, or perhaps her bad temper had simply exhausted itself—in any case the world had become brighter; at peace with each other they gazed at everything, climbed up as far as the ruins of the church, of which they could not make very much, hurried too soon to the landing-stage for fear of missing the boat, and did not mind in the least when they found that they must wait for half-an-hour.

On the boat, it is true, they quarrelled more than once, for Frau Hentjen’s pride could not endure for long that Esch alone should know the neighbourhood. She racked her memory for names of well-known places, began in her turn to make conjectures and to provide information, and was deeply insulted when he scrupulously refused to let any error pass. Yet even this could not cloud their good humour, and, arrived at Saint-Goar, they were sorry they had to leave the boat, indeed for a moment they could not think why they were landing at all. The business aspect of their journey had become in some way indifferent, and when at the auction-rooms they learned that the sale of the cheap wines was already finished it did not disturb them, but was almost like a deliverance from an obligation, for it seemed far more important to them that they should be in time for the next journey of the ferry-boat, which with outstretched sail was making for the sunny and alluring shores of Goarshausen on the other bank. And when Esch, aping the precision of a methodical business man, noted the prices the wines had reached at the auction “for future reference,” as he said, this affectation of commercial zeal was a sham and gave him a queer kind of bad conscience which made him diligently ignore the more favourable prices, and yet
on the other hand depressed him so acutely that when he was sitting in the ferry-boat he suddenly entered the missing prices in his list from memory, meanwhile regarding Frau Hentjen with a hostile glare.

Frau Hentjen sat on the sun-steeped wooden seat of the ferry-boat and contentedly dipped one finger into the water, very carefully, however, so as not to wet her cream-coloured lace mittens, and if she could have had her will she would simply have gone on sailing from one bank of the Rhine to the other, for the curiously light feeling of dizziness induced by the sight of water obliquely streaming past her was a pleasant one. But the day was already too far advanced, and it was pleasant enough under the trees in the inn garden on the bank of the river. They ate fish and drank wine, and smoking his cigar Esch revolved the question of establishing closer relations, earnestly considering whether Mother Hentjen, who sat there stout and magnificent, might not even expect it. Certainly she wasn’t like other women, and so he began very cautiously to speak about Lohberg, who had really moved him to take this lovely trip, and he began to praise Lohberg, so that from this exordium he might in decorous terms lead up to an exposition of the vegetarian view of true love; but Frau Hentjen, who saw with anxiety where he was heading, broke off the conversation, and although she herself felt tired, and would rather have rested in peace, she referred him to his programme, according to which they must now climb up to the Lorelei. Esch felt indignant; he had done his best to speak like Lohberg and without effect. Evidently he was not yet refined enough for her.

He got up and paid the bill. While they were passing through the inn garden he noticed the summer visitors; among them were pretty young women and girls; and suddenly Esch could not understand why he was attached to this elderly woman, stately as was her appearance in the brown-silk dress. The girls were in light, gay, summer dresses, and Mother Hentjen’s brown silk had become somewhat dusty and draggled on the roads. Nevertheless there seemed to be a certain amount of justice in it; one had a conscience, after all, and if one thought of Martin pining for the sun in his cell, after sacrificing himself for a base, ungrateful crowd, then one’s own lot, all things considered, was still a long way too fortunate! And while he ploughed through the dust of the main road with Frau Hentjen, instead of lying in the grass with one of those pretty girls, it actually seemed to him quite fair that this woman
should not feel any gratitude for his sacrifice. A man who sacrificed himself must be decent. He considered whether he could inform her with propriety that it was a sacrifice, but then he remembered Lohberg and refrained: a man of refinement suffered in silence. Some time or other, perhaps when it was too late, she would be bound to realize it. A painful agitation overcame him, and walking in front he took off first his coat and then his waistcoat. Mother Hentjen regarded with repulsion the two large wet patches where his shirt stuck to his shoulder-blades, and when after turning into a wood-path he remained standing and she caught up on him, she suddenly smelt the warm odour of his body and started back in alarm. Esch said good-humouredly: “Well, what is it, Mother Hentjen?” “Put on your jacket,” she said severely, but she added in a maternal tone: “It’s cold here, quite cold, you’ll get a chill.” “It’s quite warm when you’re walking,” he replied, “you should let out a hook or two at the neck of your dress.” She shook her head with the old-fashioned little hat perched on it; no, she wouldn’t think of doing that, a fine sight she would be! “Well, there’s nobody to see us here,” said Esch, and this sudden open declaration that they were alone and together, in a seclusion in which they need not be ashamed before each other because nobody could see them, confused her. All at once she found it understandable that, as if in confidence, he should reveal his sweat to her; and if she still felt disgust she felt it no longer on the surface; it was dulled and muffled, as it were, hidden away; and even her fear of his strong white teeth now left her, and she accepted it as part of this strangely permitted and shameless freedom when he bared them laughingly again: “Forward, Mother Hentjen; it’s no use saying you’re tired.” She felt offended that he should openly doubt whether she could keep up with him, and, a little short of breath, and supported on her fragile pink parasol, she again set herself in motion. Esch now remained by her side and at the steeper places attempted to assist her. She regarded him suspiciously at first, fearing a brazen approach to familiarity, and only after some hesitation finally took his arm, to relinquish this support immediately, however, indeed to push it away, as soon as she saw another traveller, or even a child, approaching.

They climbed slowly, and when with panting lungs they made a halt, gradually they became aware of the things round about them: the whitish clay of the wood-path cracked with the heat, the faded green plants sticking out of the dry soil, the roots which with their dusty fibres
wandered over the narrow footpath, the dry, withered odour of the woods almost breathless under the heat, the shrubs among whose foliage hung black, lifeless berries, ready to shrivel at the touch of autumn. They took all this in, yet could not have described it, but presently they reached the first seat commanding a view and beheld the valley outspread before them, and although they were still a long way from the top of the Lorelei Rock it seemed to them, as they sank upon the seat, that they were already at their goal, from which they could drink in the scenery; and Frau Hentjen carefully smoothed out her dress so that her weight might not crease it. The air was so still that the sound of voices at the landing-stage and in the beer-gardens of Saint-Goar came over to them, as well as the drowsy, dull thud of the ferry-boat against the pier; and the unusualness of these impressions made them both a little uncomfortable. Frau Hentjen regarded the hearts and initials cut all over the bench and in a strained voice asked Esch whether he too had immortalized himself here with his Hulda from Ober-Wesel. When he jestingly began to look for his initials she told him he needn’t bother: for whether in visible form or not, a man would always find his filthy past wherever he went. But Esch, who did not want to give up his jest, replied that maybe he might find her name too enclosed within a heart, and this made her really angry; what would he read next into people’s words? thank God her past was pure and she could stand her ground with any young girl. Of course a man who all his life had been constantly running after loose women wouldn’t understand that. And Esch, stricken to the heart by this accusation, felt common and despicable at having prized her less highly than the young girls in the inn garden, most of whom were probably unworthy to lace Mother Hentjen’s shoes. And it did him good to know that here was a human being whose character was decided and unequivocal, a human being who knew her right hand from her left, who knew virtue from vice. For a moment he had the feeling that here was the longed-for rock, rising clear and steadfast out of the universal confusion, to which one might cling in security; but then the memory of Herr Hentjen and his portrait in the restaurant came to disturb him, and he could not get rid of the thought that somewhere a heart must be engraved that contained her initials and Herr Hentjen’s lovingly interlaced. He did not trust himself to touch on this, however, but merely asked where her home had been originally. She replied curtly that she came from Westphalia; besides, that was nobody’s business but her own. And as she could not
reach her coiffure she patted her hat instead. No, and she couldn’t stand people who stuck their noses into other people’s affairs either, and it was only men like Esch, who were incapable of imagining that some people mightn’t have a shady past, who would do that kind of thing. Wastrels, who when they couldn’t have a woman for themselves did their best to fasten a past love affair on to her. In her indignation she shifted a little farther away from him, and Esch, whose thoughts were still circling round Herr Hentjen, was now certain that she must have been very unhappy. His face took on an expression of bitter sorrow. Quite possible that she had been driven into her marriage with kicks and blows. So he said that he hadn’t intended his question to be offensive. And, accustomed to comfort by physical caresses women who cried or otherwise gave signs of being unhappy, he took her hand and fondled it. Perhaps it was the extraordinary stillness of everything round her, perhaps however it was only her exhaustion, but she offered no resistance. She had expressed her point of view, but her last words had fallen from her lips like a succession of meaningless sounds which she herself scarcely recognized, and now she felt quite empty, incapable even of feeling repulsion or disgust. She looked at the outspread valley without seeing it, and knew no longer where she was. All those mechanical years in which her life had been passed between the buffet in the restaurant and a few familiar streets shrank to a tiny point, and it seemed to her that she had sat here for ever in this unfamiliar place. The world was so unfamiliar that it was impossible to grasp it, and nothing now connected her with it, nothing but the thin twig with the pointed leaves which hung over the back of the seat and which the fingers of her left hand occasionally touched. Esch asked himself whether he should kiss her, but he felt no desire to do so, and he reflected also that it would not be refined.