Georg, by Siegfried Kracauer. Translated by Carl Skoggard.

C AT S K I L L N Y.

Translated by CA R L S KO G G A R D

P R I N T E D B Y P U B L I C AT I O N S T U D I O H U D S O N

SI EGF RI E D K R ACAU E R

SI EGF RI E D K R ACAU E R

Best remembered today for his exploration of early German cinema (From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological Study of the German Film), Siegfried Kracauer (1889-1966) was the editor for cultural affairs at Germany’s leading liberal newspaper during the Weimar Republic until its disastrous end. His Georg is a panorama of those years as seen through the eyes of a rookie reporter working for the fictional Morgenbote (“Morning Herald”).

In a defeated nation seething with extremism right and left, young Georg is looking for something to believe in. For him, the past has become unusable; for nearly everyone he meets, paradise seems just around the corner. But which paradise?

Kracauer’s grimly funny novel takes on a confused and dangerous time which can remind us of our own. The style is briskly cinematic.

GEORG

ABOUT THIS BOOK

GEORG

Translated by CARL SKOGGARD 1

Kracauer’s Novels—An Introduction On the morning of February 28, 1933, Siegfried Kracauer (b.

1889) submitted his final bit of reporting to the Berlin bureau of the Frankfurter Zeitung. A fire of the night before had gutted the Reichstag, much-derided symbol of the Weimar Republic. “The splendid gold lantern, having been spared, remains aloft,” he wrote in his dispatch, “and now resembles a Roman triumphator abandoned by his followers.” An unending procession of citizens arrived to inspect the destruction, their lines snaking around the smoking hulk and stretching back as far as the Brandenburg Gate. Few spoke.1 The same afternoon Kracauer— by then he had been the FZ bureau chief in Berlin for nearly three years—boarded a train for Paris. Also on the same day, the 84-year-old President Hindenburg declared a national emergency, and on the day following the police began rounding up thousands of Communists, including some who were members of the Reichstag itself. Wild rumors made the rounds of utterly ruthless Communist plans to seize power.2

Kracauer had been well-advised to flee.3 The Frankfurter Zeitung was Germany’s most prestigious liberal newspaper, and Kracauer himself a leading spokesman for the political and cultural left. He publically sympathized with Marxism (though not Stalinism). And he was a Jew. Now, overnight, a vociferous right-wing anti-Semitism that had always flourished in the Weimar Republic was receiving official sanction. In his most recent letters to Benno Reifenberg, the FZ’s editor for political

affairs, Kracauer had warned of the imminent threat of a “Hitler dictatorship,” and he was explicit concerning the consequences he foresaw for Jewish journalists like himself.4 The Nazi grip on power was solidified with Federal elections held six days after the fire, on March 5. Leading up to and following these elections, terror-actions by Nazi paramilitaries surged against a broad range of targets. On the very day of the elections, for example, elements of the so-called Sturm Abteilung (the “Storm Division,” the SA) occupied the Institut für Sozialforschung in Kracauer’s home town of Frankfurt. This “Institute for Social Research” had been notorious among rightwing reactionaries all through the Weimar years as a redoubt of “Jewish Marxists.” On March 15, police officials sealed the premises. Days later its academic sponsor, the Johann von Goethe-Universität, severed ties with the Institut and, citing right-wing student agitation, summarily dismissed a third of its own faculty for being Marxist, Jewish, or both. Things were certainly moving fast, in Frankfurt and everywhere else.5

The culmination came on March 23, when the Nazi-dominated Reichstag granted Adolf Hitler plenary powers, putting itself out of business in the process. From now on, Hitler would govern without any parliamentary input—a permanent emergency in the making. Yet here is Kracauer’s bosom friend, T.W. Adorno, himself a docent at the Johann von Goethe-Universität and closely associated with the Institut für Sozialforschung, writing to the new refugee on April 15:

Generally speaking, my instinct where you are concerned is this: you ought to return to Germany. Here, complete peace and order reigns; it is my belief that conditions will stabilize; your publishers are here, here you can reach an agreement with them and at the same time earn something on the side; which should not be so difficult, seeing as there are so few film experts; besides which, a precipitous and costly move seems rather questionable to me. [. . .] Perhaps it really is important for you to hear my assessment, as I am in the midst of events here.6 Adorno suffered from the same disqualifications plaguing his older friend. He, too, was a leftist intellectual and Jewish—or more precisely, half Jewish (“Mischling, first degree” as the Nuremberg Laws would soon qualify his condition).

Evidently Adorno did not fear for his own safety. And in fact he was only a promising young academic with little or no public exposure (Adorno’s Habilitationsschrift on Kierkegaard had appeared three weeks earlier, also on March 23). He seems to have been pleased with the restoration of “peace and order.”

Perhaps he expected the Nazis, so impossibly barbaric and vile, to overreach, lose support, and either moderate themselves or be ousted from power. Or perhaps, like many German academics, he simply felt removed from the day-to-day of politics. Years later he would admit to having been naïve. The passage quoted above has been underscored several times, presumably by its recipient—who possessed a significantly better nose for the Nazis and how far they were likely to go.

Kracauer would not set foot again in Germany for more than two decades.7 After spending eight extremely precarious years in France, he and his wife succeeded in emigrating to the United States. In New York he was able to resurrect his career, consolidating his reputation as one of the foremost writers on cinema and participating in the vibrant intellectual life of the city up to his death, in 1966.8 Once settled in the New World, Kracauer resolved to publish only in English. It was a brave decision for someone who had wielded his native language with such exceptional flair.9

Arguably, Siegfried Kracauer’s most significant achievement from his European years, from his career as a writer in German, lies not in his journalism or his innovative sociological investigations, but in a pair of novels. Most of the rest of his output from that era has been available in English for several decades or more. Ginster and Georg, however, are virtually unknown in the anglophone world, having been translated only recently.10 They are brilliant testimony to Kracauer’s distinctive gifts. Ginster, the earlier one, met with critical acclaim when it was published late in 1928, but sold few copies.11 It conveys the solipsistic experiences of a very peculiar, self-absorbed young German during World War 1. Being of draft age, the title character feels obliged to pay attention to what is going on in the outside world. He would much prefer to be left alone and to merely take notes on his immediate surroundings—as a kind of amateur phenomenologist-cum-sociologist. The opening scene of the novel introduces its fundamental dynamic, pitting this solipsist and his mental life against the doings of an organized

collective. The Second German Empire is declaring war on the Third French Republic: The mass of people in the square stood motionless. The bright afternoon made a person yearn to take a walk on their heads, which shone like asphalt. Ginster was frightened at the idea that the head-pavement could suddenly break apart [. . .] A roaring arose, the pavement dissolved, telegram texts circulated. Ginster admired technology, these days everything gets communicated so quickly. War had been declared, the faces dripped with sweat. Huzzahs went up; drums sounded. In the afternoon sun the façade of the church, a house front, and a green roof were gleaming. Ginster found people’s lack of interest in the light exasperating.

First they’re thrilled with the lovely weather, the next thing you know they’re onto something else.12 Ginster indulges his whimsical fancies on even the most momentous occasions. An antagonistic counterpoint between himself and the collective will persist for as long as the war lasts. But there is already another kind of counterpoint operating, too, as we shall soon discover: that between Siegfried Kracauer’s own wartime experience and the fictional representation of it through his protagonist.

Kracauer’s second novel, Georg, traces the personal and professional vicissitudes of a journalist during the formative and middle years of the troubled Weimar Republic. It was begun in 1928, shortly before the appearance of Ginster and like its predecessor draws largely on the author’s experiences. When

first we meet him, “Georg” is a young man adrift amid the political and economic disorders of a defeated Germany. Even so, he wants to make his mark. But successive attempts to engage with the world will all fail, leaving him embittered and without hope. An epilogue to Ginster hinted at a better future, a way out, whereas Georg finally slips into the nightmarish cityscape of late-1920s Berlin and vanishes, or is made to vanish, right before our eyes. Georg itself would vanish, too, a casualty of Nazi-induced turmoil. Kracauer wrote half the novel while still in Germany and half in French exile. It found no takers among German-language publishers of the mid-1930s and was first issued by Peter Suhrkamp in 1963.

At the core of Kracauer’s fictional venture is his deliberate exploration of subjectivity, and how private experience relates to the external world, to other persons and to society. The two novels gain peculiar resonance from an odd use of the thirdperson voice to divulge what their protagonists, Ginster and Georg, are thinking and feeling in the moment. The effect is of quicksilver first-person narration at a remove. (No access to the minds of other characters is given.) The absent first person echoes more loudly perhaps in Ginster, where Kracauer’s focus is on an elaborately self-preoccupied subject experiencing things just for himself. And if the mode of discourse remains the same, Kracauer’s handling of that discourse changes radically from Ginster to Georg. It is even tempting to think of the latter as a programmatic antithesis of the former.13

The original edition of Ginster arrived without any attribution to an author. There was only the enigmatic title and its blind alley

of a subtitle: Written by himself. Nevertheless, regular readers of the Frankfurter Zeitung would have known to credit the book to Kracauer, inasmuch as “Ginster” had been the byline for certain of his popular feuilleton pieces appearing there. The undeclared author takes us into his confidence at once—in a strictly negative sense—with the disclosure that his character’s name is “not actually Ginster,” only a nickname which has “stuck to him since his schooldays.” Such jugglery, for those in the know, draws attention to an author purposefully hiding in plain sight.

Indeed, Ginster is simultaneously a hiding-place for its author and a pedestal for showing off. 14 That impression is reinforced by the transparent disguises lent to certain cities associated with Ginster. Most conspicuous in this respect is Frankfurt am Main, where Kracauer was born and grew up, and where he wrote Ginster in the mid-to-late 1920s while advancing in his journalistic career. It is introduced with some fanfare at the beginning of Chapter 2 (devoted to Ginster’s backstory):

Originally Ginster was from F., a large city with ancient roots, on a river, between gentle mountains. Like other cities, F. takes advantage of its past to stimulate tourism.

Imperial coronations, international congresses, and a national target-shooting festival were held inside its walls—which have long since been converted into public gardens. There is a monument to the landscaper.

Certain Christian and Jewish families trace their beginnings back to “founders,” but families with no pedigree have succeeded in creating banking firms that maintain commercial ties with Paris, London, and New York. Houses of worship and the bourse are separated

from each other by physical space alone. The climate is mild; those of its inhabitants who do not dwell in the Westend—Ginster had been among them—scarcely count. Since he also grew up in F., Ginster knew less of this city than of others where he had never set foot.15 As it goes along the paragraph becomes overtly Ginsteroriented, and it concludes with what sounds like a paradox.

Does the last sentence reveal something singular about Ginster—with Ginster engaging in a mini-confession—or do we hear instead the author behind him, proposing a general truth, i.e., that over-familiarity with a native place deadens one’s perceptions of it? Such doubleness is intrinsic to Kracauer’s displaced first-person narrative and will only persist and deepen.

Outwardly, Ginster’s wartime career resembles that of the author. As did Kracauer, Ginster acquires professional training as an architect and for two years postpones military service through a string of artful deferments, working for an older architect in “F.” Then, still in Kracauer’s wake, he has a brief stint in the army—several months of feckless basic training (in “K.”, an hour distant from F. by rail)—followed by another spell of dreary civilian employment in another architect’s office (in “Q.”). Ginster’s is an anti-career spent entirely in Germany, as far away as possible from the fighting, nearly all of which happens to take place on foreign soil. With the war offstage, he experiences its seamy backside. And so we get generous helpings of civilian chest-thumping and armchair strategizing, home-front military officials slyly soliciting bribes, and war

profiteering—wheels within wheels of it. Ginster feels no enthusiasm for the war, nor does he ever express principled opposition to it; he merely regards the general enthusiasm as foolish. When his own conscription looms, he realizes he will do anything to save his skin. And that to avoid the army, whom he singles out as the real enemy, he will “go about his business patiently and tenaciously. An ant escaping through a crack.”16 While he is still in the architect’s employ in F., Ginster is assigned the task of designing a military cemetery. The general situation that has led to demands for an architectural competition is sketched at the start of Chapter 6:

The competition had been publicly advertised by the city; for the benefit of the dead soldiers and the indigent architects. A military cemetery. There were a great many soldiers who had lived in the city formerly and were prevented once and for all from returning home. Their families wanted to have them back again; if not alive, then the corpses would have to do. And surely the soldiers themselves would ‘feel better in beautiful graves at home’ than ‘out there.’ In their lifetimes, many had been housed along with their wives and children in miserable holes; now, in death, it was only right that they should enjoy better quarters. True, the blond lady from Ginster’s domestic circle, she who had ‘offered up’ her son, was of the opinion that “in keeping with the idea of a hero’s death, the hero should be buried at the exact spot where he has fallen”; yet the general feeling was in favor of laying out the graves in the vicinity of

the families. That way one might visit the final resting place on a Sunday afternoon.17 Ginster finds the task unappetizing. A fine instance of how his mind makes subversive mental leaps occurs while he is conferring about it with his superior, Herr Valentin: “And the memorial?” he [Ginster] continued. “Do you think it has to be visible from level ground? Or only from within the cemetery itself, from beneath the trees?

The first would be more modern.” Ginster had been reminded of the memorial by a little wart on Valentin’s neck.18 Gradually he warms to his work and comes up with a conception that gives the lie to the usual rhetorical glossing-over of battlefield butchery. It is a conception offering short shrift to sentiment, even the trees lining the avenues are “clipped into cubes”; the grave markers themselves are disposed “in rank and file, small flat stones without embellishment.”19 That uncompromising cemetery design is among the very few honest statements Ginster will ever allow himself. To his surprise, a jury names it the winning entry. Subsequently we learn that despite the hardships and privations all around, plans are afoot to realize the cemetery while the war is still on. An interested party explains to Ginster that the city is expecting “a lot of incoming traffic.”20

It should be no surprise to us that Kracauer had already designed his own military cemetery for an architectural competition

organized by the city of Frankfurt in the middle of the war. It, too, was chosen to be built.21 Nor it is surprising that the cemetery episode in Ginster should draw heavily on identifiable persons and events in Kracauer’s life. In the novel, though, the persons appear ridiculous, leaving one to wonder how they were understood by their real-life counterparts. “Herr Valentin,” the figure corresponding to Kracauer’s Frankfurt employer, is an officious, incompetent architect who always reminds Ginster of a bumblebee, droning everywhere he goes. “Berta,” his wife, is a frustrated hausfrau and the glib exponent of an exceedingly vaporous and self-satisfied spiritualism, and crass in the bargain (it is she who speaks of “incoming traffic”). Kracauer’s humor harbors tremendous aggression.22 When Ginster is finally conscripted, he resolves to waste away, discreetly (“an ant escaping through a crack”). And sure enough, the self-dwindling eventually gets him out of the line of fire. Yet before this is accomplished, readers must keep on the qui vive.

For in these army chapters (nos. 7-9), which he spends inside a reserve artillery unit stationed at “K.,” Ginster’s observations proliferate more lustily than ever, both obscuring his machinations and bequeathing us a rich if skewed sociology of German military culture. Any references to the machinations remain oblique—it is as though the subterfuge itself wants to duck its head. But Kracauer had been drafted, the same as Ginster, early in the autumn of 1917. Did he resort to Ginster’s stratagem?

Quite likely; we cannot know for sure. What we do know is that the author—unlike Ginster—fell in with the so-called “August-

Erlebnis,” that patriotic euphoria which swept over Germany during the early weeks of war. And that he was not altogether disillusioned with the war before 1917. Retrospective discomfort with his behavior would supply a concrete motive for the ambiguity Kracauer builds into his relationship to Ginster: Insofar as he is that character, he is allowed to rewrite his own initial response to the war, but insofar as Ginster is a fictional creation, he, Kracauer, can deny any such intention. And by the opposite token, he can let Ginster take the fall for his efforts to escape military service and still get to brag a little about how he pulled it off.23 As soon as Ginster confronts military discipline, the antagonism between his self-absorption and the claims of the collective intensifies. New collisions occur daily. Some of his experiences expand as though they were being enlarged under a microscope.

Take for example what happens during roll call on his first day as a recruit:

A sergeant or corporal stood beside a small table that had appeared before the building in the meantime, and was reading off the names of those present from a list.

Whoever had his name called was to answer with “here”; always first the name, then “here.” Although the procedure did not demand more than ordinary intelligence, Ginster got worked up nonetheless. Since he did not know the order in which the names would sound, he had to be ready to produce the required echo at any time. It was not that confirming his presence would be difficult for him; he feared being late with his

confirmation. The response was only allotted a single infinitesimal second; it had to be on one’s own tongue before the name had altogether departed from the mouth of the officer. The name had to be guessed. While Ginster focused his attention and braced for the decisive impact, the names sauntered past him, a long ribbon that the “heres” were continually slicing through without being able to destroy. Actually, the ribbon was not made up of whole names but of individual syllables, or at least Ginster in his anxiety was only apprehending syllables which joined together to form a senseless pattern—one that with proper handling might possibly have yielded fresh names in turn. Schus — ler — mag — heid — dolf — se — lupp —: a motley procession of patchedtogether remnants that expired in the open air. And between them, over and over, the “heres.” These were almost richer in their variety. They arrived from above and from below, from the left and the right, relieved each other like relay runners, passed through the syllable-formation, which was advancing at a right angle to them, and even after that kept their ranks intact. A few seemed to have covered a considerable distance already, so out of breath did they come flying in. If they were linked together in the order of their appearance, the result was a fever curve that plunged repeatedly from the greatest heights into the depths and then shot up again to the mountain top. Here — here — here —: Ginster, who could not help chasing after the “heres,” was dragged through holes by way of flights of stairs; yet even with the dizziness that was overcoming him, he did

not lose track of the syllable-ribbon. Which broke.

Suddenly ruptured in the middle, and no more “heres” either. A void. And in the void, just a single isolated name. It reached Ginster as an unfamiliar name but stirred a memory in him; as though he had met with it rather often in the past. Some time had to go by before he realized that it was his own. Helpless, he stared at the name, which took up the whole courtyard and was making demands on him which he—Ginster—could not possibly fulfill, for in truth he was nothing and therefore could scarcely put himself forward as the only person in the courtyard so powerfully named. For a long while he hesitated, wondering if he had not better repudiate the name instead of answering to it. At last he realized that, outwardly, he belonged to the name and might expose himself to punishment if he fled from it. And besides, any escape would be thwarted by the walls. Hemmed in on every side, he answered with a tentative “here,” which of course did not mean much when weighed against the name but even so was better than absolutely no answer. Perhaps he would be able to give a more precise account of himself sometime later on. Ginster felt as if a theatrical performance had just finished, all around him the men, the ribbon continued to unroll, the “heres” leapt in.24

The passage amounts to a luxuriant exercise in hot-house phenomenology, with Kracauer devoting more than six hundred words to a single islet of time and its interior. That experience gapes open, leaving a chasm for the human subject (a.k.a.

Ginster) to stumble into and lose itself. Once Ginster hears his own name issue from the mouth of the collective, for him to respond is tantamount to ceding his solipsistic sovereignty to a foe.25 The army Ginster experiences during basic training is devoid of patriotic exhortation. There is never talk by anyone of a larger purpose. Yet the army is quick to instill the idea that everyday discipline and military decorum undergird its fighting potential.

At first, the thought appeals to Ginster, who is exasperated by the sloppiness displayed by troops returning from the Front. It has been drilled into him that “the smallest action” will “guarantee the flourishing of the whole enterprise.”26 Later on, though, suffering through yet another seemingly senseless training exercise, he inverts the orthodox view; apparently the war is there to gratify petty vanity. The obnoxious exercises are held only so the staff sergeant can “trail his saber over the ground.”27 Ginster overturns the usual view of war as something exceptional, seeing it instead as an extrapolation of everyday behavior. Indeed, the Great War is more at home in Ginster’s domestic circle than anywhere else. The most strident voices in favor of the German cause belong to his aunt and mother.

Returning to his family on leave, Ginster feels he is abandoning a military hinterland for the Front.28

Inside the artillery company, selfish maneuvering like his is quickly recognized and regarded as nothing special.

Building on the clandestine hungering, Ginster eventually manages to bribe his way out of the army. We are not privy to the back channel through which the drunken supper he lays on

for a medical officer in a civilian eating establishment changes into the staff doctor’s pronouncement on the morrow that he is unfit for regular soldiering. But the military is rife with venality: “This is the man . . .,” said the medical officer.

“I know.” The staff doctor eyed Ginster with such care he might as well have carried the label: “Keep upright.”

Ginster made himself light, as when on the scale, the glances being sent him were nearly enough to tip him over by themselves.

“D. a. v. H.,” declared the staff physician, “to be employed only for inside work.”

Luckily Ginster managed to suppress a “thanks very much” in the nick of time.29

The end of Ginster’s anti-career is anticlimactic, even for him.

Shunted off to Q. to work in a municipal building authority (Chapter 10), he encounters a backwater the likes of which he has never known, and where he ends up submerged in office gossip that truly stinks (all of his dirt comes from a disgruntled colleague responsible for the local sewer system).30 It will turn out to be the last year of the war, despite the German public’s being fed anodyne, never-varying army bulletins one after another (“nothing new in the West”).31 A weird synergy develops between Ginster’s pointlessness and Q.’s:

A bit more war would not have done the town any harm, and occasionally Ginster yearned for an enemy airman who might stir things up; after the long hiatus, he wanted to finally experience something for himself. So many persons raved about their “experiences” and hitherto his had been threadbare [. . .] The bells of the cathedral were infiltrated by the ding-a-lings of the tram, which, supposing it even ran, had to wait at a certain spot for a car from the opposite direction; which was usually late. Frequently the tram shrank back in dismay from the timbered facades; but then the townsfolk were in no hurry themselves [. . .] If they conversed with each other, they seemed to meet on a single set of rails, like the tram.32

That long anti-climax is shattered when the organized collective which has always been Ginster’s bête noire takes a pratfall: German lines along the Western Front sag and give way. More astonishing still, sailors in the North Sea ports mutiny rather than engage in a last-ditch mission against the British fleet out on the open sea. These developments reach Ginster in the form of rumors, yet within days imperial Germany begins to unravel before his eyes. Through Ginster, Kracauer conveys his own first-hand recollections of that November collapse of the Wilhelmine order amid shouts of revolution. For a short while, his fictional stand-in is caught up in the general excitement.

Encountering a respectable fellow citizen, Ginster proposes he vandalize the ancient stone knights who have stood guard in the façade of the town hall for centuries:

“This very minute, someone could actually blow the knights to bits,” he urged a well-dressed gentleman.

“Yes, yes,” replied the gentleman, “these display-pieces should have gone into the museum long ago.”33 Q. is hardly serious about having a revolution. Neither is Ginster, who blows nothing up on his own. With events calling his bluff, he packs up and returns home to his mother and aunt.

Kracauer himself would languish in the building authority at Osnabrück for nearly two years longer.

The sentences rounding off Chapter 10 have a ring of finality: “What sort of war comes now, he brooded in bed.

Out of weariness he wept for his dead uncle, for himself, for countries and human beings.”34 At one time Kracauer must have thought to end his novel there. Had he, Ginster would have kept its outer integrity, wedded to the four years and three months of the war, its beginning and ending synchronized with the start and finish of hostilities.

Psychologically as well, these ten chapters present a coherent picture: Ginster as initially presented stays the same; he does not undergo development. What holds the novel together, what sustains the reader’s interest, is the ebb and flow of his exceptionally subtle mental life, and the negative contest between it and outer reality. Ginster performs no action other than to keep away from the fighting. Yet in a sense he is uncompromising: thoroughly disaffected, he desires no part of society as constituted.

This is what endeared Kracauer’s protagonist to Adorno, who late in life referred to Ginster as his friend’s finest

achievement.35 Among the other early admirers of the novel was Alban Berg, the composer of Wozzeck. Berg’s doomed soldier-antihero also faces a world that is mobilized against him.36 The final chapter of the novel changes everything. Chapter 11 is set in Marseille and narrates a visit by Ginster some years after the war. Evidently Kracauer was tempted by the idea of grafting at least the promise of ordinary happiness onto his protagonist’s bleak existence. Ginster is dedicated to his future wife, Lili Ehrenreich, with whom he made two trips to the French seaport: “For L., in memory of Marseille / 1926 and 1927.” However, when Ginster was ultimately reissued, in 1963, the chapter was excised. Both Suhrkamp Verlag and Adorno urged this abridgement on a plainly reluctant Kracauer. Then, when the book was reissued again, some six years after the author’s death, it was put back.37 What troubled people about the Marseille episode is not hard to see. It clearly feels like an afterthought, but more than that, it functions as a corrective to what has come before.

Until now, Ginster’s only emotional connection outside his family was with Otto, a friend who dies on the Western Front and whose last letter to Ginster makes for poignant reading.

Later on, one might be forgiven for thinking that he is headed down a homoerotic cul-de-sac when he starts to speculate about a fellow soldier’s muscles (“Knötchen looked a single color again, a reedy figure, perhaps with hidden muscles, impossible to tell.”).38 Now, suddenly, love blossoms between Ginster and “Frau van C.”, a self-possessed, bustling, thoroughly modern

woman who informs him that she is about to visit the new Soviet Russia. Curiously enough, Ginster thinks to compare her to his elderly female relatives back home, rather than to some other plausible candidate for his affections, and he dreads being abandoned by her: On the way to the hotel he was envying Russia. Why didn’t he break loose and follow her to Russia? To have beliefs like she did, to make a difference. Back home his mother and his aunt were living in their rooms. She was going to set out, set out and leave him behind, alone.

Marseille would be empty tomorrow, pitiless.39 Apparently, when the two chanced to meet earlier (Chapters 2 and 6), this lady’s married state had been an impediment (she has since divorced her husband). On the first occasion, she was stunned by something very odd Ginster said, and during the second, he had impressed her with the forthright admission that he was miserable, personally and professionally. Whereupon she had unbuttoned a glove and allowed him to plant a kiss on the palm of her hand. Meeting Frau van C. once more in Marseille —again by chance—Ginster blurts out another confession: that an experience with a prostitute some time after the war —his first such—taught him what the war did not, that he is mortal and will die, that he is alone:

I can’t explain it any better, but every anxiety fell away from me then, I was freed of every dependency and judged things correctly—I had learned about death.40

Readers may find it embarrassing that the experience can be reckoned to Ginster’s early thirties, not his adolescence. And while his account follows the literary conventions for tales of youths who discover themselves with the help of a prostitute, Ginster insists on making really heavy weather out of it.41 Still in confessional mode, he goes on to explain his attraction to the seedy Mediterranean port city he and Frau van C. are taking in together: [I]n this squalid waterfront I’m finally encountering a world that corresponds to the state in which I found myself, after the girl. I almost feel at home here [. . .]

Here in the quarter of the port nothing is encapsulated, here the naked earth lies exposed [. . .] But this waterfront will outlive all the palaces which think themselves so grand and glorious. They do not know death. They are doomed to disintegrate, they will be forced to go on crumbling until they become dirt themselves. I won’t be satisfied any sooner.42

Such an impassioned pronouncement makes explicit Kracauer’s own rejection of modern European civilization, the German variant in particular. For him, the whole point of Marseille is its poverty and decay, its letting go in the face of death. Which, as a dialectical matter, imbues that crumbling place with a vitality lacking elsewhere. But the passage is preachy.

All in all, the final chapter undoes that truly intimate symbiosis, Kracauer-Ginster, the life of the novel thus far, in favor of what feels like a terribly hurried romance. When Ginster and Frau van C. part, Kracauer’s writing grows breathless, magazine-like: The hotel seemed to lie near the stairs of the railroad station. He squeezed her hand, she quickly took her purse in the other hand. The street in the darkness. He embraced her, embraced her with his whole body. “Sie . . . du,” intimate.43 In the last pages, with his love-interest off and away, Ginster begins following a phantom figure up and down the Canebière: [He] had time to contemplate her face: a mask powdered snow-white which looked as though it had been recovered from the grave. Touching the cheeks would surely had turned them to dust. He paid up, came closer.

He reached her just as she was offering herself to a sailor. Not that she propositioned him in so many words, but she leered at him. The one thing her wide-open, toothless mouth could ever signify was a leer. A mighty crater in that white landscape of the dead which was her face.44

A war phantom; moments later Ginster will spot a row of medals on her breast. They must be from her fallen husband, or perhaps her son, he thinks. The phantom may strike us as stagey; again, nothing like it has been introduced earlier in the novel. Its mask, “powdered snow-white,” could be clown make-up or, better yet,

worn by a silent-film actor. The figure remains enigmatic, although it obviously wants to lure men and boys to their destruction.

II Ginster is the story of an individual who is pitted against the world. His story emerges out a chrysalis of intense selfpreoccupation, his sole bulwark for fending off dangers from outside. In Kracauer’s next novel, the main character is squarely if unsatisfactorily in the world; Georg is ostensibly a novel about what happened to Weimar society, as recorded by its protagonist. The fate of Georg himself would seem secondary.

In a précis written in 1934, not long after Germany had given itself to Adolf Hitler, Kracauer insisted with gloomy hindsight that it had been a society certain “to fall into ruin.”

[Georg] offers the picture of a society which seems to open itself subsequent to the shocks of the war, but then falls pitifully short. Instead of following through with the (political and social) innovations which are talked about interminably, it grows visibly harder. The novel shows how this society is cut off from those nourishing roots which every people needs to have in order to live.

It bandies about phrases, it dresses up its selfish interests with sheer ideology; it fails on the human level.45

From Kracauer’s tone, no one would know that Georg is a very funny book. In it, the German scene of the early and mid-1920s is vividly caricatured by means of a series of one-on-one encounters between Georg, generally in his role as a newspaperman, and advocates for a variety of intellectual and social projects. That sequence is anchored by elaborate accounts of bourgeois social gatherings, strategically placed at the beginning, middle, and end of the novel. These set-pieces allow readers to take the temperature of Kracauer’s societal invalid as it sickens. Ultimately Georg—an unwanted white-collar employee with Marxist leanings—is discarded in the midst of an apocalyptic vision (one that is no longer his own).

Not only does Kracauer erase Georg in the end, he is scarcely granted a past to start from. True, readers are provided with a foreshortened backstory for him, covering the preceding two years (Chapter 2), but his remoter past is dispatched in less than a paragraph:

[Georg] had studied mathematics and knew that sooner or later he would have to make use of what he had learned in some insurance company. His need for permanent employment was already sorely felt, for the modest sum left him by his father had dwindled away to almost nothing. Up until now, however, Georg had disdained any effort to find a steady position, the years of war having only increased his dislike of every regular activity. He preferred to keep on the lookout for hours of private teaching and other occasional work.46

With Georg, there will never be any mention of early formative experiences, of parents or other family, or of what he may or may not have done in the war recently ended. And unlike Ginster, he will not “make use of” his training (had he been educated in a different direction, it would have been same). Tellingly, all of Kracauer’s hocuspocus around his own identity as the author of Ginster appears beside the point now; there no longer seems to be a preexisting someone to conceal or reveal. Elsewhere in the novel, we find just one retrospective passage concerning Georg, when we are filled in on his limited past experience with members of the opposite sex—information that is provided in the context of his spontaneous present feelings for a younger male friend.47

The fundamental medium of Georg is social satire, not individual experience. Its sightlines may still radiate from a single character; however, that character’s gaze never turns inward, being trained instead on the external world. As a result, Kracauer’s former preoccupation with the phenomenology of consciousness is much attenuated. In fact, there are no episodes comparable to, say, the roll-call passage in Ginster. Georg’s reveries are marginalized or remain incidental. Nor are there parallels in Georg for the acutely observed scenes in the earlier novel featuring characters whose real counterparts were dear to Kracauer, i.e., the members of his family as well as his close friend Otto Hainebach (the “Otto” of the letter), who was killed at Verdun in September, 1916.48 On the other hand, caricature, intermittently active in Ginster, is now so insistent that its few uncaricatured personages come across as insipid stereotypes

(e.g., Georg’s landlady, a typical victim of the inflation years).

Only Fred, the young man in whom Georg is interested for a time, seems real and rounded, and Georg’s feelings for him are nearly overpowering on occasion. But that branch of Kracauer’s narrative is disowned before the novel is halfway done.

The main storyline accompanies Georg as he goes about learning the journalistic ropes at a major liberal-leaning German newspaper. Feverish ruminations in the opening chapter leave no doubt as to his ambition, up to now unfocussed: Where have I been the whole time? There is a revolution happening and I’ve been off in a corner dreaming.

Books, sitting rooms, the indifferent leavings, and me always so preoccupied with myself. If only I could put myself forward like these people who are out doing things . . . [I]t will pass me by if I don’t make a try for it.

I must get myself into public life.49

For a while, Georg’s professional experiences dovetail with those Kracauer himself passed through. Siegfried Kracauer began writing for the Frankfurter Zeitung starting in 1920, found regular employment in Frankfurt at that newspaper the following year, and rapidly ascended to a position of influence as an editor for its feuilleton section; Georg is hired as a reporter by a fictional equivalent, the Morgenbote (“Morning Herald”), at approximately the same time. He, too, climbs the journalism ladder. Eventually their fortunes diverge, inasmuch as Georg has a falling-out with the management of the Morgenbote over

politics that costs him his job, whereas Kracauer remained secure in his role until 1933.50 Apart from the business with Fred, Georg’s inner life is circumscribed, in keeping with the outward orientation of Kracauer’s new, socially-conscious novel. Information about it arrives in the interstices of the larger narrative. One thing we learn is that Georg occasionally suffers from an anguished loneliness in his gentleman’s rented room—which must signify that he dreads facing himself. This passage (Chapter 7) is representative: On the following afternoon Georg reached home after a wearisome eight-hour train journey. It had been raining without stop since early morning. In his room was a note in the housemaid’s awkward handwriting which informed him that a Frau Heinisch had telephoned him the day before. There was no other mail. Georg, still full of the din of men and train stations, found his silent cage of a room in which he was once again trapped so repulsive that, like a transient, he put aside his untouched suitcase and called Frau Heinisch right away [. . .]51

During the 1920s, Kracauer, too, lived in furnished rooms that he fled for the office. When Georg retreats to his cubby-hole of an office—as he tends to do on Sundays especially—the author is thinking of his own solitary hours at the Frankfurter Zeitung: “[H]ere he escaped the furnished desolation of his room as well as the bright streets with their will to destruction. He lived here

in a sort of glassy solitude, available to all and yet secure from all, too.

No steps echoed in the corridors and only the surf of the empty lifeless building, with his island of a desk in its midst, beat monotonously on the ear. It was an old structure and sent a great deal of muddled nonsense murmuring into the day. Twilight, during which Georg’s dreamy little room forfeited its power and feebly sank away, always came on with surprising speed. He would flee through the dark corridors of the building and disappear into the streets which had meanwhile returned to life.52 With that lyrical reminiscence, Kracauer demonstrates how he could turn the dross of loneliness into the gold of solitude—a few hours at a time.

Georg differs from the author in being a naïve Everyman, though one equipped with superior common sense. Kracauer in his précis described him as “a divining rod” to whom “all figures expose their hidden inadequacies or their value” when they come into contact with him.53 Working for the Morgenbote, Georg meets enthusiasts of every stripe—a German nationalist theater director, a Jesuit intellectual, a visionary feminist, a dogmatic Marxist, a fervent believer in the young as the source of societal rejuvenation—as well as wily practitioners of pure self-interest. Puzzled by the latter, skeptical of the former, he is pulled leftward as the novel progresses. His politicization mirrors Kracauer’s own intellectual trajectory during the

mid-1920s, which led him towards Marxism and is traceable in his journalism for the Frankfurter Zeitung.

The rogue’s gallery of Weimar characters has much in common with a contemporary trend in art and literature known as Neue Sachlichkeit (in English, the New Objectivity). The tendency is most familiar today from Weimar artists like Otto Dix and George Grosz.54 It called for painters, illustrators, and writers to view the bourgeois world in a detached, mocking light: criticism, not affirmation, was needed. Under its influence, persons and things from that world were seen through a distorting lens and appear cooler and odder than before, when not altogether grotesque. In Georg, Kracauer assembles phantasmagorical images of persons from disparate elements both visual and verbal, inanimate as well as animate.

Here is how Georg first sees Herr Krug, a fixture at the Morgenbote: His face spread the mild glow of a hanging lamp over the family dining table, a harmonious evening peace in which cheeks shone like little gardens. The entire homestead was sheltered by the two roundish lenses of his glasses.55

In the same paragraph Krug’s behavior seems to grow out of the chair he habitually sits in, and perhaps his manner of speaking does, too:

Herr Krug’s desk chair was designed to be tilted and rotated, and as he spoke he was continually turning this way and that. His sentences, too, appeared as circles which gradually grew narrower, as if they traveled round and round a certain goal; they resembled a bird of prey who describes arcs in the sky before swooping down on its victim with hairline precision.

Especially in the later chapters, lengthy specimens of Krug’s actual speech are provided. They illustrate his mastery of equivocation: Herr Krug turns out to be a “bird of prey” who does not want to land, ever. So much is obvious from his effusive backtracking once he realizes that a hard-edged anticommunism is the new order of the day at the Morgenbote (Chapter 12):

“As much as I am able to acknowledge your standpoint,” exclaims Herr Krug, “so little would I care to let myself be carried away and wrongly condemn the Communists lock, stock, and barrel. My colleague [Georg] will confirm that I am not afraid to acknowledge that some of the demands of the Communists are thoroughly just. Our chief danger is— as well in politics, precisely in politics—one-sidedness.

And for this reason I speak of some demands; others, where they are not unjustified, are at best utopian.

Indeed, weighing the pros and cons I even begin to think that, taken altogether, communism is a dubious adventure to be repudiated by all reasonable people.

‘Dubious’ I say, and herein I find myself fortified by your appalling news. And so you see that we do more or less agree in essentials; though it is true I do not go so far as you in every one of the inessential points, and here I will not presume to decide what may be essential, or as the case may be, inessential.”

Herr Grün raises himself up on tiptoe. “You hit the nail on the head.”56 Precedents for both the visual and verbal aspects of Kracauer’s image-making technique of assemblage can be found in Ginster, yet there the two remain unintegrated, as for example in the case of Ginster’s landlady, known to us only as “Ella,” a mindless yakker whose face he suddenly perceives to be an entire landscape (Chapter 1). As for Kompaniefeldwebel Künzelmann (Chapter 8), the company sergeant major is an absurd composite to look at, but his optics exert no influence on his way of speaking, which stays unremarkable. In Georg, where truly complex images are synthesized for a number of characters, Kracauer normally draws on both domains at once. Significant parallels to his literary constructivism can be discovered in the cinema, then new itself and the product of an assembly in every one of its aspects. Still, Kracauer creates visual-verbal amalgams not readily achievable in any fundamentally visual medium.

Attuned to the left half of the sociopolitical spectrum, Kracauer is quick to acquaint readers with persons professing liberal or radical-left opinions. At the Morgenbote, those views are more likely to be expressed by younger men. For instance, by Herr Sommer, the starry-eyed idealist who is intoxicated by the

notion of a youth-culture. Georg both likes and pities him. Or by the calculating Herr Albrecht, who only mouths radicalism. A political economist, he will forsake the newspaper for a leading post at a Berlin bank. When the man shows his true colors to Georg, Kracauer reduces him to naked ambition, turning him into nothing but lines—a line drawing in fact, the essence of caricature: Albrecht’s leanness was accentuated by the creases in his suit. They were cut so fine they could have easily served as a weapon. Creases ran all the way up without interruption to the top of his head, terminating in two furious little hairs which aimed to climb even higher . . .

“It’s a question of Power!” Albrecht’s voice had been unsheathed: a cold and menacing instrument.

“It’s a question of Power.” The creases roared ruthlessly towards Power and tore the handkerchief corner along with them—which made itself taut and also began to strain forward. It was followed by the pencils sticking out of Albrecht’s vest pocket, which had been mechanically sharpened so they would press forward mindful only of their goal. All mere lines; striving had long since consumed Albrecht’s body.57

The older newspaper hands are dealt with less savagely. Relics of a bygone pre-era, they are ill-equipped to survive, let alone thrive, in the unforgiving economic climate of the 1920s. To them, its demands for efficiency and ceaseless innovation feel hopelessly alien. Kracauer caricatures them, too, but with obvious affection. Actually, his compassion for old-timers

stranded in the present endows this satirical book with a countervailing humanity. Kracauer, having deprived Georg of a past, smuggles that dimension back into the novel with persons like Herr Kummer—especially Herr Kummer, proofreader for the Morgenbote. The victim of a bizarre tic, Kummer responds to whatever is said only after a long delay. Speaking with him, Georg usually goes on with their conversation and is then caught off-guard when the strange fellow replies to an earlier remark.

Kummer is as well inexplicably slow in all his movements.

Simply put, the “Herr Korrektor” appears out of sync with time, and at the newspaper he is a butt of ridicule.

Eventually, nearing death, Kummer provokes an epiphany in Georg, who suddenly realizes that the old man believes himself in possession of extraordinary powers. “Let me tell you something in confidence,” Herr Kummer says to his younger colleague. “Though it is not at all necessary for me to do so,

usually I read the articles I am proofing, and as a result I come to meditate upon the actions of statesmen and politicians. Thanks to these eyes of mine sharpened in the course of catching errors, I have now reached the conclusion that it is almost a rule that their actions diverge from the original text they were supposed to faithfully reproduce. Especially in recent times the mutilations have accumulated to such an extent that the text threatens to become completely illegible. A catastrophe is in the making . . . ”58

Kummer strikes Georg as someone “fully transformed.” Unless he is mistaken, rather than lagging behind, now Kummer’s comments anticipate what Georg is about to say. Even more, as Georg watches the invalid make his way forward with halting steps that take “an eternity,” it seems to him that “this eternity will be bridged in the shortest space of time.”

Instead of dawdling behind words as he always used to do, now he gallops before them, leaving them in the past. One can no longer catch up with him. Like the wind he springs forward [. . .] so that having reached his goal at last, he will be able to exercise his office as proofreader of History and correct each and every faulty action with his giant red pencil . . .

With Kummer, Kracauer invented a sophisticated means for sheltering utopian longings inside the grimmest reality. It is a pity his Georg had no early readers: Many who lived through the Weimar era and despaired of events would surely have been grateful for Kracauer’s vision, which brings together fantasy, pathos, and humor to hint at what may yet be possible.

Sometime after Kummer’s death, during a late-night visit to Herr Lawatsch, another ancient denizen at the Morgenbote, Georg learns of the reason for the Korrektor’s speech disorder (Chapter 12):

The truth of the matter was, in genuine erudition this modest Kummer surpassed all the rest of the gentlemen in the house [. . .] He was familiar with the books and

the lexicons, and if any one of you had gone to him in your perplexity, he, Kummer, would have been equipped to answer any query. Admittedly there was little chance he would ever have answered; because from his earliest childhood he was subject to an unspeakable anxiety— the anxiety that he would not be able to provide the right information in the moment when it counted . . . 59 Kummer’s personal history, revealed by Herr Lawatsch, functions as a pendant to his urge to rewrite history at large. Yet Kracauer is not merely supplying a compassionate account of Herr Kummer’s formative years. Indeed, none other than the author himself lies hidden there. A childhood diary-entry makes it clear that the young Kracauer suffered miseries from a stammer.60 (Looking back, too, we can see something more in the roll-call experience which was so anxiety-provoking for Ginster.)

Both Georg and Ginster treat human beings as things. Ginster is very disturbed when his friend, Otto, undergoes basic training.

In Ginster’s view, if Otto salutes (as he must) German officers whenever and wherever they are met with, it means that he is now a cog in a giant mechanism, one which Ginster proceeds to picture to himself in detail; effectively, his friend is being turned into a thing that relates primarily to other things and only in passing to Ginster. The war as a whole is a complex machine which processes humans and prepares them to slaughter and be slaughtered. Although Kracauer’s second novel lacks a similar organizing concept, it compensates by introducing a far greater quantity of mechanical imagery with light-hearted abandon. One

very elaborate example brings together Doktor Petri, Georg’s boss at the Morgenbote, Doktor Petri’s secretary, Fraülein Peppel, Herr Kummer, and Georg himself as the components of a railway network:

“A good thing too, because I’m off on a trip this very second. [ . . .] Come, accompany me as far as the bottom of the stairs.”

Doktor Petri’s paletot was very roomy. The last thing he did was grab his attaché case, a heavy yellow object wrapped round with plain leather straps, and rush like an express train through his leather door. Georg, who shut the door behind him, had the feeling he was a caboose.

There was a stop already in the outer office. “You should go through the wastepaper basket again,” said Doktor Petri to Fraülein Peppel, who greeted him on the station platform. “We simply must find the manuscript.”

Fraülein Peppel responded to this commission with a “Good!” that not only delivered a forceful rebuke to Petri’s carelessness but also made it unmistakable that under no circumstances did she mean to find the manuscript in the wastepaper basket. She did not fetch things out of wastepaper baskets.

The window was shut; Fraülein Peppel glowed, inwardly on fire. There was a jolt and off the train rushed again. Georg absentmindedly watched the yellow case, which peered out like a first-class passenger at the receding corridors from one of the openings in the paletot.

[. . .] “Look, it’s Herr Kummer,” said Doktor Petri.

And lo and behold, beyond the bend in the stairs was a dark, shapeless mass rearing up in the center of the landing. [. . .] The Korrektor must have been uncoupled while underway and now he was waiting to be sent on ahead. And so he stood helpless in this unpeopled region of the stairs, immobilized yet more by the heavy scarf in which he was wrapped. He might have been planning to spend the winter here. [. . .] His eyes wandered about in a troubled expression.

“Yes, yes, the steep stairs.” Petri was kindly as he bypassed the traffic obstacle without stopping. “But do buck up, Kummer, you’re almost there.” [. . .]

Kummer did not move, he remained behind, utterly isolated. “Poor devil,” whispered Petri to Georg. The latter was scarcely in the mood for an exchange of personal observations. He would have much preferred to find out if his words had penetrated Petri’s hide. They were already nearing the vestibule. [. . .] The one-armed porter gestured a greeting with his one hand and opened the door with the hand that wasn’t there, and Petri hurried away. After he had vanished, his yellow attaché case [. . .] continued for a time to send its gleams into the building from outside.61

Perhaps the most delightful touch in the scene comes when Kracauer enlists Doktor Petri’s attaché case as a passenger on the train. Within a scheme requiring the living beings to behave like objects, this object turns into a person. Largely omitted from the passage as given is a sustained interaction between Georg

and his boss; in the integral text, their push-and-pull is ingeniously interwoven with the rushing of the train, making for dynamic counterpoint. The intricacy of Kracauer’s prose can pose insurmountable quotational problems.

Another train animates the image of Doktor Rosin, a dizzy motor-mouth academic who specializes in sociology, a field of particular interest to Kracauer himself: “Think of the contrast with Romanticism”—here Rosin set himself in motion like a train while winking from it at the same time—“these outpourings of the soul, these confessions, this urge to expand the ego into a world. Of course the familiar prejudice that the Romantics were politically reactionary is based exclusively on their own writings. Setting those aside it becomes apparent that the most intimate connections are to be found between Romantic inwardness and modern advertising. The blue flower shines resplendent in the propaganda chef’s button-hole. The late Schelling, yes, I know—but I’ve discovered sources which yield astonishing interrelationships . . . And today? The New Objectivity, man as machine, the age of functionalism. Truly remarkable. Geist has been dismantled, and the Soul is useless ballast. What’s happened there, I ask you . . .”62

Rosin needs Georg to hear himself talk. As he picks up speed, he forgets his personal troubles. This frizzy-haired docent is the opposite of the bullet-headed Herr Kummer, and of course of Kracauer as well, for whom speaking in front of others was the

source of vast trouble. Kracauer devalues Rosin’s capacity for tireless talk by equating it with super-heated ideation. Inside that verbal steam, the specific ideas cancel each other out. But, subtle writer that he is, Kracauer causes sparks of sense to shine forth from it at the same time. In places, Rosin may even speak for him: Just as Kracauer sought deniability for his actions in Ginster, in Georg he could be hiding behind Rosin to float remedies for the societal invalid that are no longer liberal.

The monologue continues, now offset with counterpoint supplied by Georg’s observations of an adjacent café table:

The two men at the neighboring table had been relieved by a quiet romantic couple. He could have been in the employ of a merchant and she a stenotypist. “ . . . the problem is how to regain control over the masses. Just take a glance at Soviet Russia or Italy, without resorting to superficial formulas such as ‘Bolshevism’ or ‘Fascism.’’

The lovers became so absorbed in each other’s respiration that the faintest breath was faithfully registered. “ . . . basically they want the very same thing in Rome and in Moscow: to renew the mythic forces from below and to create a faith which places all people under an obligation to itself. In disputing with Christ, Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor is right to champion the binding authority of the Church. If the masses are to cease being the masses, there is a need for the Sacraments . . .”

The little stenotypist let a delicate finger glide so tenderly over the neck of her boyfriend it was as if she typed a love-letter on it with a heavenly typewriter, and while he was answering her line for line by return mail, the two of them went soaring off, corresponding more and more energetically, and leaving behind the café, their offices, and the world.63 While Rosin offers a giddy, broad-brush analysis of mass politics and its pitfalls, Georg, his attention wandering, catches sight of utopia once again.

Kracauer’s contrapuntal weave grows more complex in those set-pieces devoted to the social mechanics of bourgeois gatherings. Superficially, his technique in these scenes recalls Flaubert (L’Éducation sentimentale) or Zola (most any novel).

Yet for a German writer, the genuinely social novel represents an alien tradition, and its literary precipitate in Georg remains very much tied to the protagonist’s peculiar angle of vision. As Georg is observing his social surroundings, there are even moments when we find it impossible to tell if what he sees is shared reality or a private hallucination. The tension in Siegfried Kracauer’s effort to face outward in Georg, rather than inward, is uppermost in the group portraits. At a fancy dinner party (Chapter 7), for example, Georg watches a troop of starving men and women fall upon one another in desperation as they hover over the richly-appointed table where the invited guests are assembled. It would seem a figment of his own imagination until another guest, a Frau Guth, remarks on the upsetting sight: “My,

how they can eat.” And yet in no time she begins “silently to fade away.” Is she, too, a figment of his imagination?64 The third and last of such scenes (Chapter 13) takes place in the stately residence belonging to Herr Heydenreich, a bank director. Who, to go by his name, is Jewish.65 The choreography that Kracauer creates for that evening party, which extends over many hours, is meant to reveal how Weimar society (its increasingly wealthy bourgeois element) has—to echo his précis —visibly hardened. Sampling the partygoers’ conversation is not unlike scooping cupfuls of water from the Ganges. Georg himself picks up only a few of the many currents eddying around the Heydenreichs’ sprawling salon:

“The main thing is really money” sounded its way to him. “Whoever has enough money has it much easier in life.”

“This point of view,” said Herr Elster, “seems to me —please forgive me!—a prejudice of your youth.” He examined his seal ring. “The older one gets the clearer it becomes that money just does not rank with the most important goods, let alone with the highest.”

“Very true,” the guests nodded.

“Well now!” Robby went on the offensive against Elster. “Take the relatively innocent case where someone has suffered a severe romantic disappointment.

If they are rich, they can always decide to board a train and seek oblivion amidst an exotic landscape . . . That’s got nothing to do with youth or age.”

Before Robby had even finished, there was a rustling and fluttering about Frau Gilbert, who could scarcely contain herself. “Nothing could be more false!” she rushed to declare. “One’s fortune is not decisive— temperament is. People with the right sort of temperament, who understand how to take hold of life, do not have the slightest need of money to overcome their disappointment . . . Otherwise, you see, the rich would be happy, every one of them!” She turned questioningly to Herr Elster; it was a though she wished to discover if she were defending the rich entirely to his satisfaction. Over her troubled face shadows were forever flitting—they almost seemed intermediaries between the curls and ruffles.

“In my opinion, best and dearest,” said Frau Heydenreich, whose annoyance might have been encouraged by the look on Elster’s face, “you go further than is necessary. With all due respect to the right temperament, I agree with Robby that money does have its great advantages.”66

Georg, who supposes he was invited to the gathering solely for the good journalistic turn he might do its hostess, is unfamiliar with most of the other guests. And indeed, for this plutocratic evening Kracauer introduces no less than seven new named characters (while recycling three more already known to us, besides Georg). Over the course of the party, the characters spar with one another in shifting combinations. In addition, allusions are made to several others who do not actually reappear here.

Kracauer’s combinatorial art seems effortless; though it really

comes down to orchestration. Frau Gilbert for one resembles a piercing woodwind who must be handled with special care.

What we know of her, before she leaps into the conversation just quoted, is the following: “The English edition,” proclaimed a woman of middle age, “promises to be a bestseller.” Robby whispered to Georg that the lady was a Frau Gilbert who fought her way through life for better or worse by translating from British and American English. Her hair was done up in innumerable little curls and she was hidden in a cloud of ruffles and pleats and ribbons whose indiscriminate mélange surely reflected the many inspirations which she owed to her association with literature.67

Minor characters like Frau Gilbert are brought on and made vivid in the space of a few words. (Her description manages to include a snotty dig at translators for hire.) The debate the wellheeled are having about money soon leads several to claim that the poor are much better off without any, and culminates in Frau Gilbert’s shrill and heartless defense of factory conditions for the laboring poor. The idea that a young mother who has just lost an infant child might not be made to return to work gets her goat: “‘No, oh no,’ cried Frau Gilbert, indignant over such lack of understanding. ‘It is the factory which constitutes the mother’s blessing. The mother is glad she can go into the factory. And there is no more effective medicine for her sorrow than her work in the factory.’”68 After that outburst Kracauer retires her, save for two brief sightings when she is not permitted to speak. At the tail end of the evening, the intrepid translator is

among the last guests to depart. Her face is still troubled: “Frau Gilbert tried to drive away the shadows which swarmed over her face. Like flies.” By now, Georg has stood up for fundamental economic justice and has denounced the evils of capitalism to Herr Heydenreich himself. Which causes him to be fired from the Morgenbote.

Kracauer is more effective in ending Georg than he was Ginster.

Its final scene (Chapter 14) is laid in Berlin, where Georg has gone in search of a new job. On the terrace of a swanky metropolitan café he meets up again with Fred, now a young businessman back from several years in New York. Georg no longer finds the lad so attractive: “He was handsome like before, only much more manly, or whatever the word might be for the reserve which now adhered to him. So complete: as though coated with the thinnest layer of something.”69 Besides, Fred has become Americanized and does not share Georg’s social conscience. After Fred goes, Georg decides to saunter forth into the depths of the great city—and disappears:

With a light heart he strolled down the Kurfürstendamm.

Here in the upper its upper reaches it resembled the promenade at a resort. Shaded faces, narrow shops full of perfumes, purses, and confitures, marble staircases in back of the entrances, the even purring of the motorcars. [. . .] Far away shone a reddish glimmer. From the other side of the allée a café was sending bright hard beams in Georg’s direction; it must have just opened. After a few months perhaps no one would remember it any more.

Businesses were always coming and going, each new

one behaving as if the present moment would last forever. Newspaper hawkers praised their newspapers, the stream of pedestrians increased, and now an empty space gaped where a number of streets ran together.

High overhead neon advertisements glittered, illuminating a jumble of rooflines, turrets, and caryatids.

Their words and embellishments in every color accompanied the Kurfürstendamm from now on, and together with the plethora of other lights produced that reddish glare. It trickled through the foliage of the trees, it bathed the surging mass of people. “Matches, matches —please, help me.” The wind blew. In an opening that unexpectedly revealed itself, finely attired ladies, smiling children, and the heads of men fought against the darkness—a silent procession of photographs sliding along a wall and into an interior. People bumped into one another, paying no attention [. . .] At the next street corner the masses condensed into tightly-packed throngs which continually disintegrated and re-recreated themselves in the same instant. Many people spoke in loud voices to blunt their weariness and their hunger.

Salesladies who had made themselves up quickly after their places of business closed, young gents from the readymade clothing outlets, stenotypists, shop girls, striplings: white-collar employees swarmed over the lower Kurfürstendamm at this hour of the day—an army of ants, falling upon automobiles and trams, sweeping through the holes and the cracks.70

An uncanny shift from Georg’s point of view to that of an omniscient narrator is underway: The text is forgetting him. The extended passage will end (and the novel conclude) with Berlin itself threatened by a suddenly ominous storm and enveloping darkness.

Presumably Georg is erased for being useless, for no longer having any place in society. Expelled from the middle class, he has failed to find a home on the left, for all his pronounced leftist sympathies (in Chapter 11, he went so far as to visit a Communist cell). Once a member of the white-collar world, Georg now faces long-term unemployment.71 Yet there is more at work here than dire economic and political contingency.

Something personal must be at stake to produce the haunting aura around this character as he bleeds into nothingness. Indeed, Georg’s disappearance makes the reader focus on him in a fresh way. We realize that he was always there, a latent “I” in the coils and recesses of Kracauer’s outer-directed scheme and thirdperson narrative. Through his erasure Georg is actually rehabilitated as a human subject. He becomes the person we will miss.

Kracauer’s two novels leave their protagonists with dilemmas he would further explore in the major work of his French exile: Pariser Leben: Jacques Offenbach und seiner Zeit. Eine Gesellschaftsbiographie (1937).72 A self-proclaimed “societal biography,” it makes explicit the reciprocal relationship existing between a particular person and his milieu. Though here, too, in a historical study, Kracauer was destined to continue his devious intermingling fiction and fact, self and other. Indeed, anyone

already acquainted with Ginster and Georg, and through them with Siegfried Kracauer, will discover that very self once again in the figure of Jacques Offenbach, German-Jewish émigré composer in the Paris of Napoleon III.

ENDNOTES

Frankfurter Zeitung (February 28, 1933).

Tinder for the rumors was furnished by Martinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch Communist who was discovered at the scene of the Reichstag fire and confessed to setting the blaze.

He was tried, convicted, and—beheaded (January 10, 1934).

The modern-day consensus among historians is that van der Lubbe was guilty of the arson. However, this appears to have been an isolated act undertaken on his own.

3.

In fact, that same morning he had been advised, or rather, warned—to leave for Paris forthwith, by a telegram sent him

1.

2.

from the Frankfurt headquarters of the newspaper. See Jörg Später’s Siegfried Kracauer: Eine Biographie, 277-278.

4. They were sure to be “cleared out.” The relevant letters to Reifenberg are dated February 18 and 25, 1933. Privately despairing, Kracauer remained circumspect in his public reporting on the Nazis, but this was because the FZ kept to a policy of discretion when dealing with them. Kracauer did not hesitate to criticize such “gentleness” to Reifenberg. Später 276-277.

5.

Später 349. The situation in Frankfurt—its university was the most heavily Jewish in all of Germany—had already turned ominous during 1932. The atmosphere there of increasing intimidation and political violence in the final months of the Weimar Republic is well conveyed in The Dragon in the Forest, a novel by Richard Plant—himself a student witness and participant.

6. Wolfgang Schopf, ed.: Theodor W. Adorno / Siegfried Kracauer, Briefwechsel, “Der Riss der Welt geht auch durch mich” 1923-1966, 308-309.

7.

Kracauer’s first postwar visit would be made in the summer of 1956, when over the course of ten days he met with several prospective publishers.

Adorno hedged his own bets for a time by writing a couple of regime-friendly articles on musical topics (a negative one on jazz, a positive one on male choruses). But he was dismissed from his teaching position that same autumn and departed for Oxford. He returned to Germany for good in 1949. When considering Adorno’s stance in 1933, we might recall that no majority of Germans had ever demonstrated enthusiasm for the parliamentary government of the Weimar Republic (“das

System”). A conviction that “the System” had failed spread across the political spectrum with the ravages of the Depression, left-right polarization, and growing public disorder fomented by Nazi and Communist paramilitary organizations. The Reichstag fire was but confirmation.

8.

Kracauer’s rebooted career has been thoroughly explored

by Johannes von Moltke; see especially The curious humanist: Siegfried Kracauer in America (2017).

9.

During the late 1950s Adorno observed to Kracauer on at least three occasions that ceasing to write in one’s mother tongue amounted to a severe intellectual privation. He aired those sentiments in public when commemorating his old friend’s 75th birthday. See Theodor W. Adorno, “Der wunderliche Realist” [The curious realist], Noten zur Literatur III (1965) 402.

10.Both novels are translated by Carl Skoggard. Ginster has been scheduled for publication by the New York Review of Books in 2022, with an afterword by Johannes von Moltke and extensive commentary by the translator. Georg appeared in 2016, issued by Publication Studio Hudson, Troy, New York, with an afterword and extensive commentary by the translator.

11.In a letter dated September 10, 1929, Bermann Fischer informed Kracauer that 2666 copies of his novel had been sold in the first ten months (from of a run of 4000). “Your book is a literary success,” he added, meaning to console. “It won’t and can’t become a success with the general public [. . .] largely because of its superior literary quality.” A French translation by Clara Malraux was issued in 1934 under the title Genêt: Par lui-même. See Inka Mülder-Bach, ed.,

Erzählungen und Romane, Siegfried Kracauer Werke 7, 656 [fn.18], and Später 221-222.

12.Ginster xxx.

13.In neither novel is the apparent narrative displacement to the third person stable. Again and again the official third-person voice is undermined by intrusions which seem like firstperson utterances. One example: “Ginster admired technology, these days everything gets communicated so quickly.” The second part of that sentence, which sounds like something Ginster is saying directly, has been spliced onto the preceding “Ginster admired technology.” Such momentary derailments are followed by an immediate resumption of the third-person voice.

14.All of this happens on the first page of the novel. It is an excellent example of insider coding. But how did Kracauer come by his nickname? In German, the word normally refers to a common roadside plant, the Scotch broom (cytisus scoparius), which produces masses of bright yellow flowers.

Adorno in his homage mentions that Kracauer suffered from anti-Semitic bullying as a child (“something unusual in the commercial city of Frankfurt”) at the hands of schoolmates at the Klinger-Oberrealschule (Realist 390). In the novel there are passing references to Ginster’s having been bullied, in school and on the street, without mention of an anti-Semitic motive. With his strikingly dark complexion and unusual features (obvious from surviving photographs), Kracauer would have stood out from his fellows (whether gentile or Jewish). His nickname must have represented a teasing inversion of his looks. Kracauer for his part never disavowed it.

15.Ginster xxx.

16.ditto xxx 17.ditto xxx 18.ditto xxx 19.ditto xxx 20.ditto xxx 21.The plans for an exclusive burial place for Frankfurt’s military dead were never realized.

22.Max Seckbach (1866-1922) and his wife, Amalie (Buch) Seckbach (1870-1944), were the starting-point for the Valentins. The architect-husband specialized in Jugendstil synagogues, most of which were destroyed by the Nazis (an example survives in Lucerne, in Switzerland). Amalie Seckbach became an expert in Chinese and Japanese woodcuts in her later years and developed into a sculptor (miniature pieces). Her works were included in several international exhibitions (Brussels, Paris, Chicago). She died at Theresienstadt. Like the fictional Valentins, the Seckbachs remained childless.

23.The trickiness has not gone unremarked. See Mülder-Bach 652, and Lorenz Jäger, “Kracauer und Ginster im Krieg,” April 19, 2013 [www.faz.net]. Ironically, scholars like Jörg Später must rely on Ginster when they try to reconstruct Kracauer’s formative history; unfortunately for them, in 1939 the exile wrote his mother and his aunt, then still in Frankfurt, commanding that all correspondence of his to hand be destroyed (Später 19).

24.Ginster xxx.

25.Kracauer’s experiences that expand endlessly are startlingly congruent with Walter Benjamin’s discussion of Proust and

his exploration of memory: “What Proust so playfully began would turn into terrifying seriousness. Whoever has begun to unfold the fan of memory finds ever new elements, new ribs; no image satisfies him, because he has realized that it can be unfolded and that only within the folds is to be discovered whatever is real [. . .] And now memory proceeds from what is small into the smallest, from the smallest into the infinitesimal, and ever mightier does the thing confronting it become.” See “The Berlin Chronicle” notices, ed. and trans. by Carl Skoggard, 7.

26.Ginster xxx 27.ditto xxx 28.ditto xxx. In his review of Ginster (Nov. 25, 1928, Frankfurter Zeitung), Joseph Roth praised the protagonist’s refusal to see anything extraordinary in war.

29.ditto xxx 30. “Q.” is modeled on Osnabrück, where Kracauer began working in the Stadtbauamt in 1918, shortly after New Year’s.

The reason for a “Q.” in place of the expected “O.” has been debated (but Kracauer also chose “K.” to represent Mainz, the town where his infantry artillery company was stationed).

31.Erich Maria Remarque’s novel Im Westen nichts Neues [All Quiet on the Western Front] was first issued in book form on January 29, 1929, some three months after Ginster. In the first eighteen months it was in print, it sold two-and-a-half million copies in 22 languages.

32.Ginster xxx. By the fall of 1918 the great influenza pandemic would presumably have been raging in Osnabrück, but we hear nothing about it in the novel.

33.ditto xxx

34.ditto xxx 35.Adorno 401-402.

36.From Berg’s letter to Kracauer, dated December 31, 1928: “[F]or here we not only have a literary masterwork but also a document humain in the truest sense of the word, and along with that, the two in flawless combination. Something which always seems to me the ideal state for a work of art, but which I encounter only very rarely.” Mülder-Bach 655.

37.Mülder-Bach 644 and fn. 44 38.Ginster xxx.

39.ditto xxx 40.ditto xxx 41.But not as heavy as in Kracauer’s early novella, Die Gnade [Grace] (1913), which leads up to a similar revelatory experience (Chapter 5). Kracauer’s early short fiction is shot through with a late-Romantic pathos very unlike the controlled irony and insistent doubleness ruling Ginster (all but its last chapter). To go by a remark that Ginster makes to Frau van C. during his first confession to her (Chapter 6), he is precisely the same age as Kracauer.

42.Ginster xxx. Ginster’s nighttime stopover in “W.” (Chapter 3) let him experience of a piece of frightening palace architecture firsthand.

43.ditto xxx 44.ditto xxx 45.Mülder-Bach 603.

46.Georg 21.

47.ditto 72-75.

48.Ginster’s mother and a double aunt and uncle are all major figures handled with comic sympathy; his father, a traveling

fabrics salesman, has already died but remains an oppressive memory for Ginster. Kracauer’s actual salesman father, Adolf, survived until 1918. Isidor Kracauer, his uncle, had a distinguished career as a teacher at the leading Jewish elementary and secondary school in Frankfurt, the Philanthropin, and made a name for himself as the scholarly chronicler of the long history of the Jews in Frankfurt. He died in 1923, not in 1918 as his stand-in does in Ginster.

Kracauer’s mother, Rosette, and his aunt Hedwig remained as widows in Frankfurt and during World War II were deported to a concentration camp and murdered. For Kracauer’s friend Otto Hainebach, see Später 46ff.

49.Georg 12. The italics here were added by the translator to indicate an internal monologue.

50.A chronology for Georg can be established on the basis of the numerous historical events that are mentioned. The period covered would seem to be 1921-1926 (possibly 1921-1928).

Kracauer began thinking about the novel sometime in 1928; the earliest known reference to it is contained in a letter from Joseph Roth to him, dated July 10, 1928.

51.Georg 151.

52.ditto 199.

53.Mülder-Bach 604 54.The term was coined for an exhibition of paintings by 32 artists at the Kunsthalle Mannheim in 1925: Die Neue Sachlichkeit: Deutsche Malerei seit dem Expressionismus [The New Objectivity: German Painting since Expressionism]. Among the artists shown were Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, and Georg Grosz. The exhibition proved

popular and traveled to several other German cities (Dresden, Chemnitz, Erfurt, Dessau).

55.Georg 42 56.ditto 296.

57.ditto 185 58.ditto 211-212.

59.ditto 263.

60.A diary entry from 1903: “Oh God, do help me please and give me the strength to overcome my defect. Because when I don’t stutter, then I feel I have the strength inside me to accomplish something.” Siegfried Kracauer 1889-1966 (Marbacher Magazin [1994]), 5 61.Georg 177-180.

62.ditto 244 63.ditto 245-246 64.ditto 159.

65.Georg himself may be Jewish; during his evening at a Carnival party (Chapter 10), he alludes to Russia as his original homeland: “The woman [. . .] gave him the idea she was a Russian. What great serious eyes she had. He dove into them, and forgotten prehistoric Time, a token of his homeland, hummed in his blood.” Many of the other characters besides Herr Heydenreich have common Jewish surnames. In Ginster, Jewishness is hinted at in connection with the protagonist’s family, yet Ginster distances himself from the traditional Eastern European Jews he notices in Berlin and especially in Frankfurt. Again, a number of significant characters in that novel bear Jewish names (and are based on secular Jewish originals).

66.Georg 310.

67.ditto 308.

68.ditto 312.

69.ditto 332-333. In both Georg and Ginster, close attention is paid to the physical qualities of young males who are attractive to the protagonist (another example, from when Ginster is first checking out Otto: “[His] figure possessed the amiability of a rectangle. Yet if the first semester of university and classical philology were stripped away, delicate wrists and an attractive boy-face came into view.”). Kracauer does not show the same curiosity about any of his female characters, who are more likely to be perceived in terms of their costumes and are sometimes even arrayed in fancydress. Then, too, in the accounts of their (sporadic) sexual liaisons with women, neither Ginster nor Georg stop to picture the women physically.

70.Georg 340-342.

71.See Kracauer’s valuable study: Die Angestellten. Aus dem neuesten Deutschland (Frankfurter Societäts-Druckerei, Frankfurt am Main, 1930). In English as: The salaried masses. Duty and distraction in Weimar Germany, trans. by Quintin Hoare (Verso, London and New York, 1992).

Kracauer rightly feared that this social layer would prove a reservoir of fascist support.

72.The work was originally issued in simultaneous French, German, and English editions. In English as: Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of his time, trans. by Gwenda David and Eric Mosbacher. Reprinted in 1992 by Zone Books, New York, with a new foreword by Gertrud Koch. An exhaustive inventory of its faults was compiled by Adorno in a lengthy letter to the author dated May 27, 1937 (Schopf 365-367).

S I EGF RI E D K R AC AU E R

GEORG

“Things that were past – where had they gone?

And what had readied itself in the meantime, inaudible in the stillness, and was now drawing near?”

Translated and with an Essay by Carl Skoggard

Translation and Essay © Carl Skoggard 2016.

Based on Siegfried Kracauer, Georg, Werke, VII, ed.

by Inka Mülder-Bach with the assistance of Sabine Biebl, © Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2004.

All rights reserved by and controlled through Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin. © Suhrkamp Verlag FRANKFURT AM MAIN 1973.

ISBN: 978-1-62462-140-6 This work is an original translation of Siegfried Kracauer’s text, together with original research and commentary on the text by Carl Skoggard.

Book design by Tom Beckham Printed and bound in Canada Publication Studio Hudson: Troy, New York www.publicationstudio.biz pshudson@publicationstudio.biz

Cover: All in civilian dress, the former German princes are on their way to meet with the President of the Republic, who has promised to restore to them their ceremonial prerogatives. Simplicissimus Jg. 30/Heft 25 (September 21, 1925) p. 352.

Contents

Georg: Chapters I-XIV ...................................................... 7 Georg: Trials and Tribulations of an Everyman in Weimar Germany .....................................343 Essay Notes ....................................................................363 Explanatory Notes..........................................................366 A Note on the Translation .............................................381

I. It was exactly nine o’clock when Georg found himself standing in front of the door. “Let’s make it nine,” Frau Heinisch had said the day before over the phone; “I’m so delighted.” Georg, fearing too punctual an arrival might be regarded as gauche, pivoted on his heel and proceeded around the block rather than ring her bell. The weather was already chilly and he would have preferred on the whole to spend the evening with Fred. But he really could not refuse Frau Heinisch’s invitation after he had left her his card. It occurred to him now that the stillness in the streets was only because no trams were running. According to a special edition of the news, that morning it had come to bloody clashes between strikers and police. There had been strikes during the summer too, but Georg always automatically thought of them in connection with the cold. Incidentally, street battles normally took place in his absence even though he never deliberately tried to avoid them.

“How marvelous I’m to have the pleasure of your company at last!” Frau Heinisch welcomed him. Despite the extent of the block Georg had circled at a rather leisurely pace, no one was yet here. She smiled; Georg smiled politely back.

“What do you say to the strike?” The voice of his hostess was gentle. “The Revolution has entered a difficult phase, and we must all bend our backs unstintingly to the wheel. You’ve picked a most promising night to stop by.

We are expecting a Herr Berg, you see, only that’s not his real name. He’s sure to tell us some interesting things . . .”

7

Georg gathered that the man was a well-known personality passing through, and that a warrant had been issued for his arrest because of his participation in the Soviet revolution in Munich.1 Frau Heinisch declined to say who he was. In the depths of the room a glass vitrine glittered, and a red book lay on the table.

All the visitors who gradually filled the salon alluded to the strike as soon as they entered; as if they came in from driving snow and were obliged to shake off the flakes without delay. Georg did not know any of them, while they all knew one another. “He’ll be arriving soon” was Frau Heinisch’s way of greeting each new guest. “He” was Herr Berg. Sometimes she merely called him “Berg,” which suggested that besides the larger group there was a more intimate circle of initiates.

The latter obviously centered on Frau Bonnet, a lady lavishly attired in black. Her presence caused Georg to feel shy since he remembered seeing her name quite often on the kiosks. She gave series of lectures on the Revolution and the New Age. Her blackness emanated less from her dress than from her eyebrows, which advanced above her nose like a primeval forest without clearings. When Frau Bonnet began speaking, the entire forest seemed to burst into flame, such was the brightness which streamed from her. Her black hull disappeared and a radiant interior opened up from which beautiful melodies rose. Nevertheless she only did as the others, defending the workers and condemning the methods of the police. These were no longer ordinary workers, however, but human beings whose inner selves were radiant just like her own and even the police were brothers and sisters who had been led astray.

Everyone agreed with this as though it were the plainest thing in the world, and outwardly Georg followed 8

their example. He felt ashamed because it had never entered his head that deep down men could be good. As hard as he tried now to believe in their goodness, belief would not come and he only felt sadder and sadder. A girl next to him gazed fixedly at Frau Bonnet, over whom the primeval forest had grown together once more.

She wore a gay dress and her big staring eyes glowed with emotion; she seemed inwardly on fire, her face was so pale. “That business with Tschudi is getting to be a scandal,” said a gentleman standing behind the back of a chair. Suddenly Frau Heinisch was next to Georg whispering that the gentleman was Frau Bonnet’s husband and that he had long neglected his artist’s vocation in order to join her in the struggle for socialism: “People today are marvelously open to everything.” So as not to reveal any ignorance, Georg remained shut up in himself and avoided asking Frau Heinisch about the business with Tschudi, and she got up again.

It was not at all easy to tell if Herr Bonnet was indignant over Tschudi. His bored tone suggested rather that he was completely indifferent to him, and when he said “Schweinerei” 2 it sounded like a perfect yawn.

“Thank you so much,” Georg answered, pleased to be allowed to speak at last, and he requested two lumps of sugar with his tea.

Clearly so much yawning over the years had stretched out Herr Bonnet more and more. Like a fine shock of hair he waved one way and then the other, and his wife could quite easily have wrapped him up in her black scarves and carried him off. Unfortunately only a few cookies were handed around, not enough to distract from Tschudi. The entire party was gratified to hear that he had been skewered in that day’s Morgenbote.3 Referendar Doktor Wolff,4 who referred to the article, 9

knew it practically by heart and Georg decided that he would take another look at the paper first thing in the morning.

Frau Heinisch glanced impatiently at the clock: Here they were chattering away about the Morgenbote, but would Herr Berg ever arrive? The paper had developed from a small local sheet, having been acquired by a radical-left bourgeois element immediately after the war. In scarcely two years it had won extraordinary political influence. Its viewpoint was said to be socialist, but not altogether so—the guests disputed over its stance.

Several of them, apparently friends with Doktor Petri, owner of the Morgenbote, praised his convictions. At the word “convictions,” flames erupted from Frau Bonnet.

“Let’s hope Berg has not forgotten us,” exclaimed someone named Fräulein Samuel. “I wanted to enlist him for our protest tomorrow. We’re coming up with a powerful resolution and Berg simply must speak.”

The suggestion was provoking to Frau Heinisch: “Impossible. Only this morning he made it clear to me that for the time being he will not let himself be seen in public under any circumstances . . .” She behaved as if Berg were a secret treasure whom she had been appointed to protect personally. No one would be allowed to see him. Georg had the feeling of floating on a rudderless skiff propelled first in one direction then another. Fräulein Samuel was on the waves in front of him, close enough to grasp. She was a worn-looking individual with a somewhat bent back and steely glasses that sat on her nose like paragraphs before a text. When she removed her glasses to wipe them, the text swam into view in all its naked matter-of-factness.

Her vocal organ, which she took good care to modulate, was actually designed to be heard throughout a giant assembly hall where concerts are never held.

10

Georg had long since been discharged unceremoniously from the skiff, and he now remained on shore to observe from a distance the way Doktor Wolff took up the red book from the table, leafed though it, and laid it down again. Behind the mist which ascended from the talk and enveloped them, the face of the lawyer blended so thoroughly with the salon that the two were indistinguishable.

He was still a young man and his wife looked to be far older. “Egon,� she called to him once, but he paid her no attention. The real question was: Had the salon conformed itself to him first, or was it the other way around?

So as not to be infected by Herr Bonnet, who was again speaking out of his sleep, Georg got up and went wandering about, hoping he would not be noticed. But he need not have been so cautious, for no one looked at him. Everyone surged away. The curtains billowed too, and in that moment precisely a ring of smoke floated past a painting. It began slowly to tremble and then dissolved. A number of paintings both small and large were hanging on the walls. Georg looked up at them but did not pay them any mind, though of course he knew they were worth a great deal of money. Together with their gold frames, whose scrolls and volutes spilled into the room, the paintings had survived the war and now went on waiting. Perhaps no one would ever give them a second glance again.

Georg had been told Frau Heinisch was divorced.

Her former husband, a manufacturer, was said to be a serious collector of art on the side. She must have been left with not only the paintings but the rest of the furnishings, too. Her possessions betrayed a pampered taste, and against this comfortable backdrop the scantiness of her fare, which moreover had been barely passed around, was striking. She seemed to want to disguise her comfort with the thinness of her hospitality, and it was all narrowly 11

calculated—her guests might still feel at ease but there would be no foiling of their revolutionary aims.

The salon was pleasantly warm, unlike the groundfloor room Georg inhabited. But considering the apartment shortage, he knew he was lucky to have his room; apartments everywhere were crammed with people. The room, whose height really made it fit for summer living and nothing more, was situated above the cellar and right next to the stairwell, from which cold air incessantly flowed. The housemaid shouted curses at the oven, and to escape such torments Georg would often simply go to bed. Every now and then, in the midst of his weariness, the sound came of uncertain footsteps mounting the stairs, which were endless stairs. The sound was always the same, like the path to one’s office.

On top of the opera house was a bronze woman behind four steeds.5 Morning after morning they seemed ready to soar up and away. If he didn’t have Fred . . . But Fred was no help here either. It cannot go on this way. The sentence raged about Georg; he was himself the sentence.

Where have I been the whole time? There is a revolution happening and I’ve been off in a corner dreaming. Books, sitting rooms, the indifferent leavings, and me always so preoccupied with myself. If only I could put myself forward like all these people who are out doing things. The lawyer can’t be any older than I am and already he’s working for the unions. And Frau Bonnet, Fräulein Samuel, they have real convictions and act on them.

“Brothers and sisters”: it will pass me by if I don’t make a try for it. I must get myself into public life.

Georg had turned his back on the gathering and lost himself in the vitrine. To the right of the vitrine the folds of a portière swayed, letting him see into a room considerably larger than the salon. As though on a visit, a little light made its way into the room, and then the deep 12

folds of the portière came completely together again.

Behind the glass pane of the vitrine lived vases, each one a little figure.

“You’re looking at these things? There’s no place left for art nowadays.” Georg turned around, startled; standing right behind him was Herr Bonnet. They say he’s an artist thought Georg and here he passes this sort of judgment over art. Rustlings were approaching again. “. . . Dostoevsky,” said Frau Bonnet. The girl with the pale face devoured the name. With an air of triumph Frau Heinisch held up the red book: “The Idiot.6 I find him marvelously human . . .”

She broke off so abruptly she might have crashed into the walls of a cliff and turned into a mountain of stone herself. A man had entered who could only be the expected Herr Berg, yet he was not alone but in the company of a lady. “Do excuse us,” said the latter, who was greeted as Frau Heydenreich. “Unfortunately he lost track of time, talking with me,” she said. Her pitying tone did not entirely hide her pleasure in the defeat she had administered to Frau Heinisch with that bout of talking. The two women confronted each other and Frau Heinisch smiled back at the victor with the mien of a poisoned apple. Herr Berg bowed in silence; there was no need for him to say anything since Frau Heydenreich, who did not appear to be immediately aware of the poison, went on explaining him without embarrassment.

There was a shifting of chairs as people rearranged themselves. Frau Bonnet alone did nothing but sit in her fauteuil like the envoy of a great power who has no intention of yielding to anyone. For now care was taken not to direct conversation to Herr Berg, who was being given time to gather his forces. Georg observed him on the sly, how he drank his tea and showed off his profile. Truly, the man’s face consisted of nothing but 13

profile. It possessed the deliberate simplicity of a woodcut that is disseminated among the revolutionary masses for propaganda purposes. Doktor Wolff sat next to Frau Heinisch, quietly comforting her without pause. She hid in her shawl to convey the fact that she had fled a world in which people insulted her.

Georg was struck more and more by this Doktor Wolff. Although there was nothing very distinguished about his dress or anything remarkable in what he said, still he succeeded in steadily drawing attention to himself.

Indeed, attention wandered to him without his making the slightest effort. It was inexplicable how someone who had scarcely set himself off from the salon could make such an indelible impression on those around him.

Could it be that he was not present at all but was a vacuum, sucking objects into himself? The emptiness exercised its powers of attraction chiefly on female persons: Georg had just witnessed him describe his influence over the workers to a woman he did not know in a way that must have caused her to believe that she was being entrusted, under the cloak of a factual report, with some secret intended for her ears alone, and which she would have to share with him from then on.

Frau Doktor Wolff glanced over fleetingly to her husband and Frau Heinisch, who was making lively movements again, and then turned away from the pair without expression. This time she did not say “Egon.” Her cheeks were dried out and were not really about to regain their bloom.

There was a sudden silence. And in the silence the words reverberated: “We must raise our youth to abhor war.”

At last. The spell had been broken, Herr Berg had spoken. But had he actually spoken? His profile remained so motionless it was as though his lips, pressed together 14

for the sake of the contour, had never opened and only through a miracle had the statement sprung from them.

Georg found the statement in no way exceptional and was therefore that much less able to account for its having the effect of a monumental proclamation fallen straight from heaven. The monument could be espied even from afar.

I want into public life thought Georg once more, and he pictured to himself how little he would say when he had achieved the fame of Herr Berg.

So as to begin his brilliant career at once, he tried to conquer a place for himself in the hubbub Berg’s proclamation unleashed, but Frau Heinisch was ahead of him.

Georg would never have supposed her capable of the ferocity with which she inveighed against toy soldiers, the true source of the war-evil. “I have always forbidden my boy that sort of play,” she declared to Frau Bonnet, who promptly ladled out the desired praise to her. When Frau Heinisch demanded that every single toy soldier be done away with, the Profile gave a nod of approval.

Covered with so much glory, Frau Heinisch dispatched a smile against Frau Heydenreich in which was lurking the force of a full battle-ready company of those toy soldiers she had just exterminated. The punitive expedition was crowned with visible success.

While the guests were still trampling toy soldiers without mercy—even Frau Heydenreich, whether she wished to or not, had to call for their destruction — Georg found himself sympathizing with the tiny troops.

Now and again his grandmother had set them up on a plate of glass and then tapped the surface of the glass from underneath with her finger, sowing confusion among the ranks. When everything was said and done he had been a child the same as the rest, and in spite of that he had never transferred his pleasure in the early vitreous 15

battlefields to genuine war. Georg wanted to stand up for the soldiers but he did not manage to reach the front, being pushed back instead to the pale girl, in whom a blaze had been accumulating sufficient to melt down all the lead armies of the world. She held the enormous heat inside herself like a blast oven. No longer was she absorbed in Frau Bonnet; her eyes were now firmly fastened on Herr Berg, whose profile withstood their scorching rays unharmed.

After the toy soldier wars were suppressed the guests seemed rather exhausted, and yet the Profile, which hovered gloomily before a gold picture frame, egged them on to new feats with its mere presence.

“Our great authors . . . ,” shouted Fräulein Samuel, and she shot up at a crazy angle. No longer was Georg able to say what “dove of peace” might signify; the Battle-Ax of Love had been excavated and Fräulein Samuel swung it through the air, delivering fiery blows to the Great Authors. And so one learned: There are passages in their dramas glorifying the elimination of whole peoples. That through them our youth is ruined while still in the bud. That future school editions of their books will have to be thoroughly cleansed of wars. Her vocal organ did not so much scream as whistle. Thousands, a mass rally, filled the venue for which she whistled apart the walls of Frau Heinisch’s salon, and she was content.

For the first time Georg noticed that the room was an oval. Though he would have been happy to be among Fräulein Samuel’s multitude, at the same time he was forced to admit that he had been no more harmed by Egmont 7 and other works than by toy soldiers. Really, were wars wrong because of such influences? He almost preferred genuine wars to the butcheries the people here were serving up. The glass vitrine was blazing in his face.

16

The whole time Georg had been feeling uneasy and now he explained it to himself: In one blink of an eye these people wanted to alter everything which had always seemed inviolable to him. But the world could not be transformed into a paradise so easily. Besides, Georg did not even want into the paradise. Mutilating the great authors — there he had to admit he was no longer altogether confident of resisting. Could he perhaps be too rigidly set in his ways and wrongly struggling against a better reality . . . ?

“Will the Bible have to go, too—I mean, doesn’t the Old Testament contain so many battles which under certain circumstances don’t belong in school? Because of pacifism — —” Georg had leapt into the debate like lightning and addressed Herr Berg directly. Sooner or later it would have to come to this.

But was there a malfunction? There were no nods of agreement. During the pause Frau Heinisch shook her head with a peculiar intensity as if to deplore what had just happened while warning herself at the same time to show the questioner some consideration.

“Oh yes, the Bible is full of barbarism too,” Herr Berg thundered at one and all. “Away with that batch of criminal writings!”

The entire company was blown sky-high with elemental force by this unexpected anathema. Never war again! They drove away the capitalist entrepreneurs, socialized the mines, and internationalized themselves.

Georg had been prey to uncertainty ever since they had cast away even the Bible, and it disturbed him more and more. How often had he not come across these dreams and schemes in pamphlets and newspapers! They had always seemed printed frauds and now — now they drew breath around him and were present bodily. On 17

the other hand, he felt a modest satisfaction in having lured the Profile out of its silence with his very first sally into public life. Yet the Profile had not looked at him. It continued to stare through the dark curtains into the other room where there was no one.

Abruptly the electric lights flickered and went out.

“What if the electrical workers decide to strike, too?” quavered Frau Heydenreich.

“Dear me,” said Frau Heinisch in a superior tone which relied on her sure knowledge that Frau Heydenreich with her fretting was no match for the greatness of the occasion. Presumably the lights had already grown dim a little while since; the vitrine would not have been glowing so fiercely otherwise. In fact, everything was growing bright — much brighter than before. A strange disembodied brightness was spreading which could not be from electric bulbs. It welled out of Frau Bonnet, whose interior had opened up unaided. Each one of her portals had sprung open and the Holy of Holies glowed before every eye with an unearthly shining.

“A remarkably welcome change,” Georg heard Doktor Wolff say. Even as the lawyer spoke, a blinding shimmer fell on him and he was seen bending forward to the pale girl, who sat bolt upright. The light in which he emerged came from the bulbs burning at their old strength. Wolff jerked away with his chair and fanned himself with such nonchalance he might have just been traveling through a tunnel.

The Profile had not shifted position and always kept stiffly turned in the direction of the neighboring room. Inspired by its expression of high seriousness, the assembled followed its gaze and no one would have been surprised if they had been able to conjure a wondrous apparition out of the adjoining darkness 18

through their combined effort. “Messiah can be dwelling with us any hour.” A singing rose which seemed to start behind the portières. It was Frau Bonnet who sang, black and dreaming.

The party broke up. Fräulein Samuel issued a reminder about next day’s protest. “Impossible,” Herr Berg declared, “I’ll be traveling.”

Georg had to struggle to reach Frau Heinisch among the coats. “Isn’t he marvelous?” she asked. “I’m at home every Wednesday.” Then she and Doktor Wolff took themselves to one side and it seemed to Georg, who happened to get shoved in their direction, that unless he was mistaken the two addressed each other familiarly, with “Du.” 8 “I’m leaving, Egon,” came a cry from the hallway. It had been built out as a foyer, a beautiful square filling with people.

Frau Heinisch was forced to draw on all her pacifism to smile as Frau Heydenreich and Herr Berg bid her goodnight together. “Berg has taken up his quarters at my house today,” said Frau Heydenreich, and she smiled at Doktor Wolff, who was standing next to Frau Heinisch.

“Because of the police it’s better for him to change his whereabouts often.”

Georg accompanied Herr and Frau Bonnet some distance through the deserted streets. Frau Bonnet was so muffled up she may have been imagining Georg was far away from her when he chanced to graze the outermost of her shrouds.

“The fellow is famous,” breathed Herr Bonnet from beyond the shrouds. He had produced the name of a celebrated revolutionary writer and now, finally, Georg knew who Herr Berg really was.

“But Dolf, you shouldn’t have,” said Frau Bonnet, administering a correction which her husband meekly 19

accepted. Georg was not the least familiar with the writer’s works.

I want to get out Georg said to himself for the hundredth time that evening, and he took advantage of the opportunity to bear down on Frau Bonnet with his worries and wishes: That he lacked her faith. That he thought the radical revolutionary demands were unrealizable. That he desired a public role for himself.

“One must desire the Unconditional” was Frau Bonnet’s reply. Georg felt himself to be a truly sorrowful case.

Herr Bonnet yawned. In the darkness it was not possible to tell if his yawning was the result of weariness or a signal for revolution. “The business with Tschudi is unbelievable,” he murmured to himself.

One day grass will grow in the pavement cracks of our great cities. After they parted the statement took root in Georg. Where had he read that, it sounded so prophetic.

Head tucked down, he made his way to his ground-floor room.

20

II. Georg had gotten to know Fred through a notice in the paper, right after the end of the war.9 It was for someone to help a boy with his lessons. “For details contact Frau Anders, Pension Isolde.” At the time Georg was newly arrived in the city. He had studied mathematics and knew that sooner or later he would have to make use of what he had learned in some insurance company. His need for permanent employment was already sorely felt, for the modest sum left him by his father had dwindled away almost to nothing. Up until now, however, Georg had disdained any effort to find a steady position, the years of war having only increased his dislike of every regular activity. He preferred to keep on the lookout for hours of private teaching and other occasional work.

Later, thinking back on his first visit to Pension Isolde, Georg saw a large bed, a wide-open coffer, drawers spilling out, and clothes inside an armoire. The whole room had been overflowing with things which never left Frau Anders a moment’s peace. As she spoke with Georg she could barely hold herself back from jumping up to arrange this or that. The door to the armoire squeaked, there was no suitable spot for the coffer.

“When a person doesn’t have rooms of her own . . . ,” Frau Anders sighed, indicating a layer of dust which had thus far escaped Georg’s attention. He was amazed at the woman’s ability to discover so many imperfections and to rattle on endlessly at the same time. During what must have been a half hour at most, she let him know that she had come from the occupied Rhineland,10 had resettled 21

here in the city because of some distant relations, and had lost her husband two years previously. If only she had given him her whole life story! But like her possessions in the room, different thoughts, objections, and observations she could not avoid were always crowding in between. For Frau Anders the world was an overstuffed storage room in whose darkness she was always bumping into things.

She was just ringing for her maid when Fred entered. For the length of a second the boy hesitated in the doorway with a look: here was someone new. Slim and blond, Fred wore a sort of sports costume. He seemed so light on his feet the air might have brought him in.

“Your belt is crooked,” said Frau Anders. Fred tightened the belt and gave his hand to Georg. Inside the coarse outer envelope created by his green loden jacket with the help of a scarlet tie, Fred was a prince in disguise. Leaning against the back of his mother’s chair, he proceeded to respond to the inquiries directed at him, his subdued tone contradicted by his great melancholy eyes and the way he would glance from beneath his long lashes. An expression in those eyes made one suspect that he held some secret, just as he was himself concealed in rough fabrics.

“You’ll have to make him stick to his studies,” proclaimed Frau Anders in a loud voice. “He loves to daydream and is always veering off the subject.” Knowing that he would be permitted to be with the boy frequently from then on put Georg in a joyous mood.

It felt to Georg as though he were undergoing a transformation, one he had long yearned for without ever having the faintest idea that such a thing could be. He had remained frozen from the war and now, to his surprise, a wonderful warmth streamed into him. The boy-figure was alluring; the melancholy in the eyes came out of a distant place that one would have to reach. “Fourteen,” replied 22

Frau Anders in answer to Georg’s question. Which meant that Georg was ten years older than Fred — already so old. But the difference between them was there only as a number. In reality there was no difference, thought Georg, and least of all because of years or of knowledge.

“May I go with you into town today?” Fred asked his mother, but she admonished him to stay home instead.

Fred made a sulky face in dark contrast with his red tie. A word from Georg caused Frau Anders to change her mind. The maid entered to see about the door of the armoire. For his intervention Georg was rewarded with a look of gratitude from Fred, and the hastiness of it made him happy. The two of them had an unspoken little something to share — they had joined together against the mother. When Fred left the room, his lithe figure traversed the space as though it were space itself, green-red space.

For a long time after that Georg gave lessons to Fred in the dining room of the Pension Isolde. Always in the mornings after the breakfast had been cleared away.

He was a known quantity there: When the housemaid opened the door to let him ascend the few stairs without further explanation, Georg had the humiliating sensation of being taken for a delivery man. He found special pleasure in hanging up his jacket next to a fur coat which occupied the wardrobe day after day. Only once was the coat missing. That morning it was draped about a white-haired lady who came swinging her black cane after she had collided with some unseen person in the side corridor, and who strode imperiously right through Georg while making for the exit. Apparently such savagely behaved women lived in every pension. Perhaps this one had been a famous singer earlier; in any case her manner fit with the pension name,11 which hovered above the other inmates like a sound from some vanished world of 23

fashion and elegance. Here one heard Russian spoken, there were men who ran their hands up and down their beards and women who made no effort to leave the toilet unremarked. Its name aside, only the rather faded carpet runners and a palm tree in the stairwell still testified to Isolde’s glories. The palm occupied a niche which really ought to have been filled by a statue.

The loveliest days were when Fred came as far as the iron gate before the pension to meet Georg, laid an arm over him, and pulled him inside. Oftentimes he would not show himself right away, but shot down the balustrade to ambush him. During morning hours Georg never entered the Anders’ quarters. In the dining room he sat next to Fred at a great hulking table which extended ever so far away and when cleared of plates resembled one of those blank, unexplored regions in atlases. The books and exercise pads covered only a tiny area along the edge of this region, yet Georg always imagined that he had been driven into an inhospitable land where he and Fred were left utterly alone and would have to rely on each other. The climate of the land had been conditioned by the eating smells of innumerable generations. From time to time, out of the distance, a noise came which was possibly the door to the sitting room closing, and in the background vague figures drifted like clouds across the horizon. These were serving ladies who brought in the tableware and found things to do in the vicinity of the empty dining table. Georg was careful to keep Fred from being distracted by them. He built walls out of algebra assignments so as to deny the boy a view, and imprisoned him behind the facts and figures of history.

Hunched over, Fred wrote, calculated, and reflected. Georg would observe him inconspicuously from the side. Every once in a while Fred stared into space as though mentally 24

absent and gave no answer. Then his eyes grew especially big and sad. Attempts to reach him were in vain; “oh, nothing” would be all Georg got out of him.

Frequently Fred was transformed as by witchcraft into an immature and scattered youth who bore no resemblance to the dreamy Fred. One day—it was not long after they met — he was so fully taken over by the alien boy-spirit that he disregarded every warning.

Georg could only hiss at him under his breath because a serving woman was liable to enter any moment.

Meanwhile Fred threw Georg a cajoling look which he obviously counted on for its calming powers. He stretched his hands under the table while bending his head over it; what he was secretly occupied with was a little juggling toy which required one to guide two minuscule white balls into the eye sockets of a negro’s head. He went on turning and turning the disc even though he must have sensed that Georg was watching him.

“Put the toy away for heaven’s sake.”

“A few more seconds,” Fred pleaded, and he went on eagerly shaking it.

“Come, this is enough —” —— “I’m going to have a word with your mother!”

“Well just you go ahead and try it.”

Silently Georg yielded. He felt it to be an error but could not bring himself to display the needed severity.

Leaning into each other, the two of them took turns letting a tiny ball roll over the black face. From time to time they looked up to see if anyone was spying on them. Their support came from four pants legs, which arched big and round and vanished, closely entwined, in half-darkness. With their folds and inlets the pants brought to mind a small shadowy forest recess which becomes a 25

hiding place for persons on the run. Fred seemed aware of his power over his older friend from then on.

After some nine months passed, Frau Anders finally found an apartment of her own, and around the same time Fred got accepted into Gymnasium. It was to the Obertertia;12 according to his age he belonged a semester higher. Strictly speaking the Anders’ apartment was nothing of the kind but a portion of one, a fragment carved from a bourgeois residence and meant to go on living on its own — a worm cut in half. It lay at the back of an inner courtyard. And though the tract of land was considerable, the high walls blotted out nearly the whole of the sky. The rear façades weighed down on all the rooms, their pressure intensified further by an unnatural quiet which spread noisily through the courtyard. Startled, innumerable windows would throng together like a host of small children, and behind all the curtains occupants were sitting.

Ein, zwei, drei, vier 13 — the rooms of the Anders’ apartment followed each other in goosestep. They opened onto a dark hallway which stretched from one end of the apartment to the other. Since there was no direct communication between any of the rooms, to exchange one for another always meant passing through the hallway, and it whetted desires for a long-distance run. Still, whoever passed through the apartment door to see it rush straight to the horizon like an allée lined with poplars would be seized with a fear of distances.

This undiluted side-by-sideness of her rooms suited Frau Anders to perfection. She had permitted her old maid from the Rhineland to join her, a person of indeterminate age named Marie who had already lived under Frau Anders’s roof before the war. Marie was considered family.

Frau Anders saw to her clothing, got her a theater ticket 26

occasionally to jolly her along, and gossiped with her about what was going on. But Frau Anders’s news was no proof of trust, seeing that it came pouring out of her on its own. At times she would treat Marie as though she were hostile part-time help, skirting her in silence or even weeping. Sudden catastrophes unloaded themselves onto Fred, too. “He’s done it on purpose,” she would shriek to Georg. “I’m pulling him out of school, why should he go to high school? He’ll be my death . . . !” As a rule, Frau Anders mingled the reproaches and threats she hurled at Fred with extravagant laments over her own fate: Over her uncertain financial future, over the winter fur coat which Frau Eisenmann, an acquaintance, already possessed, and generally speaking, over the way things were going brilliantly for everyone else. Georg would keep still as a mouse, afraid of exciting her further, and did not dare look at Fred. The very next moment she might jump without any warning to the opposite mental state. It was as if she had been tossed precipitously out of one room and into another without putting her foot in the dark hallway. Now she was happily chattering away and being sympathetic and generous and singing the praises of the entire human race. As for Frau Eisenmann, she insisted that the new coat suited her wonderfully, and winter too.

Once when Georg appeared before her in his threadbare overcoat, Frau Anders had practically forced him into accepting the coat of her deceased husband. It was scarcely worn and needed almost no altering. She had been deeply touched that Georg and the dead man were cut so much from the same pattern. In the beginning Georg resisted the coat because he could not help worrying that this article might contaminate him with the previous owner.

Since Fred had begun school, Georg met him mostly during the late afternoons, on Saturdays, and on Sunday 27

mornings. Sunday afternoons the boy was expected to go for walks with his mother or sit through visits at home. According to Frau Anders it was the least her son could do. Georg never knew how to fill up the time alone on Sunday afternoons. He would have preferred to have Fred constantly at his side; school, sports, and everyone to whom he was forced to yield him periodically were personal adversaries. He felt all the more satisfied whenever Fred would insist, as he frequently did, that he had not made a single friend at school.

In the boy’s room was a lounging chair into which Georg would ease down as into a sagging old jalopy.

He stretched out horizontally to fuse with Fred and the ceiling. They read poems, the room became their Indian tent. One of their chief entertainments was spinning out the speech tics and habitual opinions of persons they both knew until neither could stand it anymore. Fred proved a capable mimic; mainly he had an eye for certain externals and he was usually a better judge of purely practical things than Georg. If they tired of sitting, they took a couple of pillows and spread themselves on the floor. Once Frau Anders surprised them between the table legs and bedposts. “How silly you two are,” she cried.

“What do you have comfortable chairs for?” To which Fred had replied: “But it’s ever so much nicer here, mother.” Now and then the exhausted lounging chair collapsed on its own.

Fred was taking up so much of his time that increasingly Georg lost the urge to do anything without him. Everywhere people were looking for company and they had no clue how other companionship was as nothing compared with a relationship like his. They complained about food, their enemies, apartment troubles, and money — but if they could have known how blissful 28

conversation could be, having little to eat and little money would have become a matter of indifference. Uprisings, what was happening in the streets, trains, rainy weather, offices — such things were far off in the outside world and of no concern to Georg. And since Fred did not yet have a real share in any of these goings-on, it was not difficult to sequester him completely.

However, the pair were housed next to each other as in a cell. Each lay in wait for the other. Being constantly together they grew extremely irritable. Every tiny change of expression appeared to them in manyfold magnification; small movements traveled through the air as giant scratches. They argued because of provocations which were conjured out of nothing so that they could fight.

One evening their talk suddenly ceased and would not be rekindled. Now they brooded in silence; it was as though they sat in front of empty plates, waiting for another dish.

But no one served them. It was only nine o’clock and Georg might have stayed a good hour longer.

“I’m going now,” he said softly, as if to himself, and he rose from the lounging chair.

“Why do you want to go so soon? . . .” Fred is standing far away by the window. He is using the subdued tone Georg finds charming.

“You’re tired,” says Georg. “Just now you yawned.”

“So what, yawning doesn’t mean anything.”

The window is open. Sultry air, roofs, stars. Fred has on his tennis shoes and makes his melancholy eyes. Georg begins again from the beginning; there is no way Fred will escape from him into the night sky. “What exactly did you do this afternoon to get yourself so tired? You knew we were supposed to spend the evening together.”

“Nothing that special, and I’m not tired.”

“But you did yawn. You must be bored.”

29

“I am not bored.”

“And that yawning just now — ” Georg hates himself for the interrogation. He has sat down on the bed, the coverlet is already drawn back for the night. Without glancing up he knows Fred is coming towards him from the window. They look at each other, their faces grow larger and larger, are big as the sky, and disappear, each in the other’s.

“See, Georg, I don’t understand what it is, I’m so young after all . . .”

“That doesn’t matter . . .”

“I want to spend my whole life with you, Georg.”

Again and again they kiss each other. The shaved cheeks feel so funny. Each speaks without waiting for what the other is going to say. They say the silliest things in complete seriousness.

“Now I am going,” Georg says.

That there would be an end to their being together each day became clear to Georg through a casual remark from Frau Anders. “In a few years,” she had said, “after Fred’s gone . . .”

“But where’s he going?” Georg had never given thought to “later.” He was merely living on a small caress while waiting for their next talk. From then on Georg heard those words — “after Fred’s gone” — rustle past him very distinctly, like a mouse in the parlor.

“When Fred’s gone . . .” Sometimes Georg tried to obliterate Fred mentally and only discovered a couple of casual acquaintances around him. He would feel far more orphaned being left behind than would Fred’s mother. She seemed to be connected to her son by an elastic cord. She had no unconditional need for his presence; she could tug on her cord. Perhaps he had been wrong to hang on the boy. Left alone, one sank.

30

“Can you imagine, the water’s been shut off! I was just in the kitchen to pour myself a glass. Naturally I have to get everything for myself since, once again, Marie has been gone for hours without my permission. She forgets her place more and more. Perhaps it’s a burst pipe, one never knows these days. Our handymen laze away the whole time, but we need water after all . . .”

“Where is Fred?” Georg asked.

They were still standing next to the door to the apartment. Fred was taking a course but Frau Anders did not know much about it. Georg followed her irresolutely into the kitchen. Why had Fred left no word for him. Having turned the tap without any result, Frau Anders pulled out a pail from underneath the kitchen table. In the corridor Georg began telling her about yesterday’s invitation and about Herr Berg and the various ladies—Frau Bonnet being the one who had impressed him most. Frau Anders came to a halt several times while they were underway, as if she were on her afternoon walk. The door to Fred’s room was furnished with a glass transom and even from the corridor one noticed that outside, twilight was setting in. It was as if a sack were slowly being drawn tight. Actually Georg had wanted to talk only to Fred about the party, but Fred was not here. Now, for Frau Anders, he gave out the views he had heard the evening before as his own. He had grown ever more convinced that they were stirring his own opposition, and he secretly hoped Frau Anders would deny them her approval. And she was quite willing to oblige: “Giving such pacifist speeches, that’s the rage today in society. Let them rob me of the whole revolution, things used to be much better.”

More than from Society, Frau Anders’s bitterness resulted from her water being cut off. The last few steps in the corridor lay in pitch blackness even when the sun was 31

shining.

“I want to change my calling,” said Georg after they had entered the sitting room. “Politics and all the ideas that are being proclaimed nowadays . . . Every one of us should speak out, and it’s really awful to be as removed from things as I am. If I only knew a way into the public sphere —” Georg spoke out loud to no one in particular. Always the same thought.

“What counts is being able to feed yourself,” Frau Anders counseled.

The chairs in her sitting room wore modern slipcovers; nothing but severe stripes running straight down, unbroken, over a yellow ground. But they did not get very far, these stripes, being stopped in their tracks by the wooden curves. A flower pattern would have suited the curves better. The legs of the table curved, too; one just barely noticed them beneath the cloth hanging down from it. A smaller fabric lay over the first; it bore in turn a stand, out of which a vase grew. Each layer protected the next, so that only the uppermost one was exposed to the elements. If the nucleus of these furnishings stemmed from Frau Anders’s early married life, over the years she had added various enrichments which answered to her desire for beauty and social validation. The desire usually stirred in her when, visiting another family, she discovered some item she did not possess. In one corner was a black pedestal column made of wood and next to the buffet painted fishing boats stood forth delicately from the sea . . .

“In the evening I always have a somewhat elevated temperature.” An unfamiliar voice. A gentleman was seated on the sofa in the depths of the room.

“Oh Herr Kummer —” Frau Anders sounded utterly discombobulated. Her water troubles had caused her to forget her visitor. “Do you know Herr Korrektor 32

Kummer? Herr Kummer, the friend of my son. Herr Korrektor Kummer has a big position with the Morgenbote, Georg. Oh goodness me . . .”

Later it came out that the “elevated temperature” was in reply to an inquiry Frau Anders had made regarding Herr Kummer’s health before she had left the sitting room to open the door for Georg. In the meantime, Kummer had been brooding over the question and gradually readying his reply. The stripes ran down over the sofa as well, like locally contained showers of hail upon fields of wheat. “He is always complaining, but in reality he’s absolutely healthy,” said Frau Anders. Herr Kummer smiled at the flattery, only it was not clear if his smile was in direct reference to his good health. Frau Anders was in the habit of commenting on the people in front of her, out of a kind of conversational exuberance. The bell rang, and she scurried out to answer. Georg hoped it would be Fred.

Since the conversation at Frau Heinisch’s, Georg had cherished a rather different idea of the Morgenbote. Needless to say, the bloated body of the Korrektor did not match his expectations for a radical newspaper. Georg glanced helplessly over at Kummer, who was stretched out motionless on the sofa and did not seem even to have registered his presence. Probably he was still turning over the business of his temperature. A teeny-weeny black tie hanging from his collar left the impression that his cuffs would be loose. The excited voice of Frau Anders could be heard outside; Herr Kummer snorted at regular intervals, his mouth half open. Where did Frau Anders ever find these people? Her visitors were mere hangers-on, dross cut out of their families like hopelessly knotted strings.

“Newspaper people,” said Herr Kummer suddenly, “are in the public eye. If you want a public role, why not try writing articles for the Morgenbote?”

33

Georg’s previous wish must have found its way to Kummer in the meantime. Writing for a newspaper: the idea would not have occurred to him. He remembered his school essays. Just think of it! The future went burning through him.

“What should I write then, please give me your advice. How would one manage it? People know nothing of me, and with no recommendation . . .”

“It was only Marie,” said Frau Anders in the door.

“For the umpteenth time she forgot the keys. Did I ever give her what for! Now she’s in the kitchen muttering.”

No sooner had Georg informed Frau Anders of her visitor’s suggestion than her annoyance with Marie turned into instant delight: “How happy I am for you, Georg!

Fred will be, too. You can depend on Herr Kummer.

With his pull . . .” But she was inclined to regard a thing as assured which was a weak prospect at best. She was equally capable of arming herself mistrustfully against any hope. Frau Anders was like a mountain peak exposed to every unpredictable whim of the weather — and yet she herself dwelt in the valley far below.

Georg tried to steer conversation back to the Morgenbote but his efforts went for naught; the Korrektor did not respond. His body passed without any articulation into his face, which itself was of such an appearance that it seemed no more than a piece of his torso. It left only two small slits for the eyes; there was a time when they must have been blue. Georg wore himself out against the soft mute massif. He was most unhappy that the newspaper was already eluding him again. Nor would Fred come.

Georg loved him so, that boy, and love at least should be dependable. Where was Fred keeping himself?

“I should be going,” he said to Frau Anders. In a whisper she begged him to spur Herr Kummer to leave, 34

too, since otherwise he could not be expected to vacate the sofa in any foreseeable future.

“Must you go so soon?” asked Frau Anders with an exaggerated show of disappointment when Kummer finally got up. Although perhaps his decision did truly grieve her now.

“You do me an injustice,” he said. “I am sicker than you imagine, and it will not be long before you find yourself in my funeral procession.”

In the hallway Frau Anders informed Georg that the following week a niece of hers was coming who thought to enroll in the local school for applied arts. “Fred was still a real child the last time he saw Margot,” she mused. “I’m curious to see if he remembers her.” The kitchen door stood open; water was pouring from both taps. Probably Frau Anders had been regretting her fury against Marie for some time by then because she took the trouble to propitiate her with a hymn of praise for the stream of water — while nevertheless observing that actually the kitchen door should not have been allowed to stand open.

With an eye on the peace talks yet to come, Marie went on grumbling even more heartily.

Georg had never descended stairs so slowly. On each step Herr Kummer recovered himself from the preceding one before placing his foot on the next. “These awful stairs,” he said upon reaching the bottom, and he felt for his pulse. The Korrektor’s petite little tie had also slid down somewhat. The entire man belonged in a dye-works.

Everything about him was so forlorn.

“You seem very spry to me” — Georg cobbled together a few words of comfort—“the stairs here are nothing if not steep. How high does your temperature go during the evenings?”

“This past year,” answered Herr Kummer before 35

the outer door, “the Morgenbote has grown considerably.

Two new composing machines were acquired and in addition we have hired our own reporters in a number of cities. And in the near future our section for local news, which used to be neglected, will also be solidly bolstered.

Each of our reporters has his own identifying mark: a letter, a wavy line, a double line . . .”

“So there might really be a chance for me after all —” Georg had only caught that the paper was to expand and then looked around for Fred. The question intervened too abruptly for Herr Kummer.

“The punctual appearance of an edition of the paper depends on the speed and adroitness of the Korrektor.

Often he will be given important proof sheets at the last minute which need thorough amending. Luckily the newspaper-reading public is so superficial that it merely takes in the content of an article and overlooks practically every printing error. I myself am disturbed by each missing comma.”

Fred was not showing himself. Georg gave one final try.

“Based on your experience, Herr Kummer, would you say I ought simply to submit a trial essay?”

“Sometimes my temperature reaches one hundred degrees,” said Herr Kummer, after a silence. And so they parted.

36

III. “Do kindly watch where you’re going!�

A man had run into Georg as he was walking and attempting to read an article in the Morgenbote he had just purchased. Nothing would stop him from reading the article right away even though his paper could not be properly folded with so many people crowding the midday street. The sheets blew about, they were too large. The man continued to curse but Georg had long since stopped paying him any attention. He was relentlessly following the lines of newsprint.

The fact was, his own name stood beneath the article, which led him to conclude that he was its author.

Without this clue Georg would have been inclined to disbelief, so alien did the text appear in print. It was like encountering a familiar household acquaintance at a party and seeing her in the formal brilliance of evening wear for the first time. Georg proceeded hesitantly, he stood still.

Only yesterday he had sent his draft to Herr Kummer and today here it was in the newspaper. A miracle seemed to have occurred, an incomprehensible miracle.

Georg had not expected the lethargic Korrektor to so much as examine those few pages, let alone give them to an editor. And he could scarcely conceive of a purely private piece of writing being transformed into official newsprint without further ado. So those sheets of paper with his writing on them had been a real manuscript!

At first Georg had merely meant to undertake the exercise of fixing on paper whatever thoughts had ricocheted off Herr Berg at the gathering: His mistrust 37

of the peculiar love for peace shown by people who had never played with toy soldiers; his inability to believe in the revolutionary promises he was hearing. Men were not so easily changed, and perhaps wars might still be necessary in the future.

But “peace,” “war,” and all the words which can be uttered with such ease — Georg trembles in the act of writing, for they are growing larger and larger. They turn against him, menace him. Once on paper, “peace” completely overflows its banks, and Georg flees before the look of “war” when written. Powerless, he gives up the dangerous pursuit. He starts over, this time seeking to overcome the obstacles by scribbling quickly over them. His anxiety before the blank white space gradually diminishes. But he is oppressed more and more by the feeling that he does not wield the intended words themselves but their imitations. And he sees himself as one of those fairground athletes whose iron weights are really made of cardboard. His bad conscience distorts the letters, the lines go awry. At last he is propelled forward only by the despairing desire to somehow still reach a goal which at first had beckoned very close by. His hopes are dashed. The counterfeit words are like erroneous road markers which always lead him further off the track, and he does not know where he came from or where he should be heading. “Peace” and war” are monoliths, hard as stone . . .

Now, of course, in the face of the exceedingly regular filled-out newspaper page, the tortures he had suffered were a riddle to Georg. All the once-feared phrases made their appearance with an aplomb that removed every doubt; and his sentences followed each another so seamlessly that their manuscript origin would never be suspected. The same as any obscure reader, Georg 38

let himself be persuaded after the fact by the printed argument. Occasionally he stopped his reading for a moment and mentally distanced himself to gain needed perspective, after which he ran an astonished eye over the well-wrought whole. Up it rose before him, a fairy-tale palace floating out of the void.

Suddenly wind was sweeping through the palace, threatening its collapse: A sentence was missing — precisely the one Georg had grown so fond of on account of its ingenious length. His fingers were freezing, and once again he became aware of the cold. People held his newspaper in their hands. For sure, those who were unaware of the deletion would not miss his sentence in the least.

Georg was happy; the others all appeared to be in such miserable moods. If only they had realized that the author was standing among them! He vowed to visit the Morgenbote that same afternoon.

Since he passed the offices of the newspaper every day, Georg had never yet taken any notice of the building.

It was a strip of façade which lost itself in a blur overhead, an accessory to the latest telegrams: the situation in Thuringia, Spartacus, the government troops, 8000 of them, a diplomatic note from the Allied powers.14 Some of the posted telegrams dealt with purely local events whose importance was meant to seem greater because of the rapid mode in which the news of them was being transmitted; as if the city were unreachably remote. In a display case were photographs, but generally the case was so thickly surrounded by the curious that one could never catch a glimpse of them. The public had plenty of time on its hands. The rotary presses, left seemingly to themselves behind basement windows, made one think of the ingenious things which are displayed at trade fairs . . .

“Herr Korrektor Kummer,” Georg replied to the 39

porter who held him up right after the entrance. Georg knew the man from sight; he was a war invalid got up in a sort of livery, one arm of which hung down unfilled. He had been left his head. Usually he would stand outside the door, but now the wind was too icy. Stairs with runners, two gentlemen before an open door, an errand-boy, please, it’s the top floor. Herr Kummer, who did not respond to his knocking, wore a small, darkish velvet jacket.

“I couldn’t wait to thank you,” Georg blurted. “Were you pleased with my essay? How did it come to be published so quickly? I’m so happy. Can I possibly write more things now and then?” The room was overheated, like an aquarium.

“The storm laid waste to a number of localities,” said Herr Kummer, pointing to a long printed strip of paper.

Impatiently Georg repeated his questions, but Herr Kummer, staring into empty space, said nothing. It was palpable that in the meantime he had approached the questions and wrestled with them. The answer seemed to encounter an insuperable impediment. Too late Georg realized that he had committed the error of posing him different queries one after another instead of distributing them over greater intervals.

“How is your health?” Georg inserted, hoping to untangle the snarl.

Herr Kummer was visibly relieved. “Two typos were not caught in your article.” Intending to take immediate advantage of the fortunate reception of his article, Georg began to speak of the windstorm. “In the city, too, it’s something terrible. Newspapers fly right out of your hands.

Incidentally, tonight I’m invited to Frau Anders’.” He was not about to mention Fred.

All at once the Korrektor got up and, after switching coats, left the room without a word. Georg began 40

stamping his foot alone in the heat; he was annoyed.

It was already after five. Should he go? The worn velvet jacket shone on its hook. Someone had to open the window.

Pure cold. Way below a delivery van with rolls of paper drove into the courtyard. There was a rustling behind him. Strips of paper flew through the stuffy air. Georg shut the window again and placed the strips back on the desk. Quiet. “Now I’ll just look for an editor,” he said to himself. “Any one will do.” The paper strips drew him; some felt damp, the rest, having dried, were curled up. He shivered like a child peeping beforetime into the Christmas room. Georg ran a stealthy hand through the essays, news reports, and tables, causing it to become black.

“Herr Krug is free at the moment,” said Herr Kummer from the doorway. “Come along.”

They passed through an unfamiliar part of the building where corridors and flights of stairs went whirling through one another as though they were the strips of paper. “Who is Herr Krug?” Georg asked. The bulk of the Korrektor ahead of him gave no response.

“If you want to know, that’s the fellow who writes our highly political articles,” said Herr Krug. He had spun himself around on the chair behind his desk. Georg beamed.

“I’m happy my essay met with your approval.”

“Article” was not good enough.

“Oh well, yes, your article does contain a few apt turns of phrase. That it pleased us through and through I would not venture to say outright . . .”

“Then my thoughts aren’t clearly expressed?”

“That’s not what I meant in the least. The opposite in fact. You’ve altogether succeeded in making yourself understood. At any rate to the extent that — — you’re a beginner, are you not? Usually they find it especially difficult to express themselves in an unambiguous manner.

41

With you, too, one has a bit of a hard time deciding where you really stand. Which does not mean, naturally, that your attempt dispensed with a point of view.”

“All right, then why . . . why did you publish my article so fast if you didn’t like it?” “Article” was good enough.

“Just a moment, dear fellow. I’m about to continue.”

An errand-boy had entered who handed Herr Krug a slip of paper. Georg was far too disappointed to move at all; once again his words were rising from the deceptive shine of print and transforming themselves into monsters.

Gray stuffing material was pouring from a place in the arm of the padded chair in which Herr Kummer sat, giving an occasional nod with his blunt head. Herr Krug’s desk chair was designed to be tilted and rotated, and as he spoke he was continually turning this way and that. His sentences, too, appeared as circles which gradually grew narrower, as if they traveled round and round a certain goal; they resembled a bird of prey who describes arcs in the sky before swooping down on its victim with hairline precision. Only Georg was not sure what the prey was which these sentences had set their sights on. Did his essay have a point of view, or did it not? No matter how keenly Herr Krug sought to close in on his goal, clearly he was unable to reach it. Yet he left the impression that he was complacently consuming the spoils which were not in hand. His face spread the mild glow of a hanging lamp over the family dining table — a harmonious evening peace in which his cheeks shone like little gardens. The entire homestead was sheltered by the two roundish lenses of his glasses.

Herr Kummer got up from his chair as if rising up out of the Past. “Go to the composing room,” said Herr Krug to the messenger boy. No doubt about it, Krug was 42

one of the most important editors. “I’ve got to get back to my storm,” said Herr Kummer, shuffling his way out of the room. And he winked, but the wink was in reality a smile of satisfaction which had less to do with his joke about the storm than with the fact that for once he had caught up with himself and was immediately doing what he said he was going to do. He turned around in the door because in the race with himself he had forgotten to tell Georg that Doktor Petri, the publisher, wished to have a word with him.

Suddenly Georg was capable of movement again.

What he most yearned to do was jump up, but then he remained in his chair since he did not dare interrupt Herr Krug, who was starting to circle again: “To come back to your article, the simple reason we accepted it was because it helped us out of an embarrassment. You know that among our radical demands we also call for unconditional disarmament. We are pacifists, active adherents of the peace movement . . .”

“Fräulein Samuel,” Georg said to himself dreamily.

He had pictured the coming conversation with the publisher and did not understand the connection between his essay and these explanations.

“I’m glad you mention Fräulein Samuel. Because the day before yesterday the support we recently agreed to lend to a peace demonstration organized by this energetic lady earned us the reproaches of a respected bourgeois sheet — reproaches, namely, of having made common cause with traitors. It seems there is a regular campaign being waged against us. Not that we should have to fear those sorts of malicious allegations; still, just now the attack was unwelcome indeed. As you know, there are elections scheduled and we have to consider the mass of voters — ” 43

The telephone rang. “No, the truth is I oppose all pure pacifists,” Georg threw in while Herr Krug stared at him so vacantly that he might have been on the other end of the line.

“And that, dear fellow, is precisely why we printed your article. Don’t you understand? We could easily have discredited the foolish claim one always hears: that our pacifists are in the pay of the Allied powers. But it seemed advisable on tactical grounds for us to draw away from the movement a bit. Of course, we are committed to the pacifist concept, but for all that we haven’t pledged ourselves life and limb. We are an independent journal and on occasion it is good to stress the independence. Only a few days separate us from the elections.

If we wished to render the enemy maneuver harmless, there was no delaying. Unfortunately, we lacked the proper article which would effectively parry the blow, nor was it to be procured in such haste. And then chance saw to it that your article fell into our laps. It picks a bone with our friends on the left without, if I may be allowed the expression, bringing the house down around their ears.

It fit with our intentions, and therefore we put aside our concerns regarding its defects.”

“Chance?”

Out came the story: By an oversight Georg’s manuscript had arrived in the editorial offices along with some other proof sheets, and it had cost Herr Kummer a considerable effort to recall the article he had apparently mislaid.

“Good old Kummer,” said Herr Krug. He lifted his lenses up against the electric light and then, paying his visitor no further attention, began to rummage industriously in his mountainous pile of papers. Georg was surrounded by the noise. He saw himself as Krug’s prey, in 44

his clutches at last. Krug rotated through the office with him and the desk, throwing off as much light as the entire peace movement.

Chance. He was a nothing — the word, the awful word. Georg got up.

“Herr Doktor Petri wished to speak with me, but I can’t see what good it would do . . .”

“Why such discouragement, my dear fellow? True enough, it’s hard not to become discouraged these days.

But you shouldn’t let the opportunity slip to speak with the chief—though one can scarcely make out in advance if in fact it is an opportunity.” !

The old Baroque portal15 shone beautifully in the light of the street-lamps; tonight it seemed to spring up for the first time, as if through a miracle, with its acanthus capitals, the ornamental flourishes of its attic lights, and the pair of boy-angels who hovered over the dark street and never stopped smiling. The wind was blowing beautifully, having lost its vehemence; it gently lapped one’s limbs.

Beautiful were the faded military uniforms which many men still continued to wear into peacetime, men exactly the same in their same gray. They might have been angels, too—street-angels in disguise.

Beautiful was the shimmer from the small bright point of light towards which Georg made his way after entering the Anders’ apartment. It was a tiny brightness at the other end of the corridor and meant that the door to the sitting room must have stayed open. Although Frau Anders often forgot and left the door open herself, she swore every time Marie or Fred failed to close it behind themselves immediately. Georg felt as if he were journey45

ing through a long tunnel towards the South. The brightness emanated from the white blouse of a girl who would surely be Margot, and possibly from her face too. She was sitting on the striped sofa, but through her presence the stripes forfeited their former power and one was scarcely any longer aware of them.

“Later I have to speak to you in private,” Fred whispered to Georg. The top half of Fred’s face was already lost in the shadow of higher regions while the lower portion remained lit from underneath. He had just inclined partway over Margot from where he stood next to the sofa, and after Georg’s arrival it was as though he were making a violent effort to free himself from a group photograph. He breathed audibly while looking from Georg to Margot and back to Georg — to whom he seemed to want to say something which he did not say.

He hung motionless in space. Georg, too, kept upright without bending forward, for Margot offered no sign which might have been able to draw him closer to her.

Now the group consisted of three unyielding figures. Far away in the corner the black wooden column, which might in the past have supported a porcelain vase, reared up without a sound. The room was still as a pond.

“Tea’s on its way,” cried Frau Anders from the corridor, and she knocked the three figures about. Once upon a time that was how she could have shattered the porcelain vase. Shadows came to life, startled by the noises in her retinue, and the whole pond broke into ripples.

“We’ve read your article, Georg, it’s wonderfully well written. It’s directed against that social evening you recently were telling me about, isn’t it? Before Marie goes to bed she’ll bring us more hot water for the tea. Soon you’ll be famous, that’s definite, one feels such things, you can trust me. And the way you’ve given it to this Frau Bonnet, 46

who doesn’t herself believe in what she says . . . Of course I’d be glad too if we had a genuine peace.” Frau Anders grew excited because she was speaking in so educated a way about pacifism, and fell into the cultivated tone because she was so excited.

“What’s unpleasant for me,” Georg began, “is that none other than Frau Bonnet . . .” He was interrupted

by Margot. Launching into empty space, she inquired as to just which article they were talking about. Her voice was very bright, like the little patch of light at the end of the corridor. Wheeling around, Fred reminded Margot reproachfully that he had shown her Georg in the Morgenbote moments earlier. The boy was pressing himself against Georg, sticking with Georg in defiance of the whole world. So slim, his eyes lined with mourning borders. Everything full of significance.

“Really now Freddie, I didn’t know your ‘friend’ is with the newspaper.” Absolutely remote, back behind the tunnel.

Georg rushed through the tunnel so as to reach the voice, taking the opportunity meanwhile to announce his news without delay. “I’d never even been to the newspaper before but since this afternoon I am employed there,” he said, directly to Margot. How beautiful the world was, and now Margot too!

“Water’s boiling,” cried Marie, bringing the kettle.

Frau Anders was herself on the boil with enthusiasm. And then Georg realized why he was a little depressed.

“Freddie”: Margot had called Fred “Freddie.” Whereas he, Georg, had never thought of “Freddie”; it had always been “Fred.”

“Why did it come so fast? Good old Herr Kummer!” Fred crept into his teacup to save himself from his raucous mother. The lamp is hanging down much too low 47

thought Georg, who went on to describe the meeting with Herr Krug with an exactitude forced upon him by great events. He wanted to pull Margot, who was sitting in the light, over to himself. She should really follow him out of the room, nothing was impossible today. Georg was altogether happy in his happiness. “. . . and then I went to Doktor Petri, the publisher, meaning I was first made to wait for a long time in the anteroom, where the furnishings are so grand I grew smaller and smaller. Besides I was still depressed because of Herr Krug. I might have felt less shy if the secretary hadn’t been constantly typing away over me. I found out later that her name’s Fräulein Peppel. It was especially humiliating when she made a purely private appointment right in front of me, as if I were some sort of thing before which one removes every stitch of clothing with impunity. Twice she telephoned the chief without sending me in to him — that only made me worry more that I had been forgotten. Fräulein Peppel is fitted out with a bun which makes her unapproachable from the rear as well. All of a sudden, and there was no bell or telephone ring, so that even now I don’t understand how she knew — all of a sudden she declared that the chief was free. But she didn’t direct this news say to me, she hung it out for general consumption like an air-drop package.

Luckily no one else was there in the room, and so I went and knocked loudly on the leather-upholstered door. Herr Doktor Petri . . .”

“What does he look like?” broke in Frau Anders.

“You have such an interesting way with a story.”

Only now Georg realized to his astonishment that he had been too excited to take any notice of Doktor Petri. “I don’t know,” he replied. “Maybe he’s large. The main thing is, he called my article ‘politically gifted.’ He 48

said that I had really gotten the idea that in our difficult situation one must tack in order to reach the desired goal. He spoke of ‘necessary detours’ and often said ‘we radicals’ and in general took me into his confidence like an equal. Since he was the only one who said anything the whole time we were together, I had no chance to let him know that my article had been written without any political motivation whatsoever. And how about this: later Doktor Petri even let me know that Frau Bonnet has already spoken very favorably about me . . . Anyway, I could not have written it differently.”

“So what,” Frau Anders rushed in, “everyone has to say what he really thinks. We’re all in it together.”

In a quaking voice Georg announced that henceforth he was to be paid a regular salary to work in local news at the Morgenbote. He was not able to control the quaking and now he was also thoroughly disconcerted by Margot’s expression. She wore a green stone over her blouse. And her motionless eyes had been shedding their rays on him, the same as the stone, from the first words of his report.

Indeed, the light from the stone ended by fusing with the light from her eyes, filling the entire room with a unique green brightness. Georg had scarcely remained aware of himself, so far did he lose himself in it. Gradually Margot receded and reconstituted herself; something must have happened between them, only Georg did not know what it was.

“I’ve a friend who works at a newspaper,” said Margot, “and he’s a pacifist. Naturally I am for pacifism.”

She charmed him, she vexed him, she was a special provocation, and Georg felt more and more on edge, being unable to decide whether she wanted to repel him or to attract him. Uncertainty tossed him back and forth. It was a stormy back and forth which proved that she was 49

not indifferent to him in any case; he either attracted her or simply repelled her. He would have dearly loved to address her as “Margot,” and perhaps she would have been pleased, too, but then Fred’s face was between them — the face of memory. The green stone was hanging from a fine gold chain. Georg, detached from himself, sensed an aura of youth enveloping him and Fred and Margot, the three of them hot and glowing together, they were blazing like a column of fire, and before them lay the darkness. The sweet blushing of cheeks, nothing settled and done.

“How lovely Laura was as a girl,” remarked Frau Anders from far, far away on the sofa. “Aunt Laura, Margot, I suppose you know she died during the war.”

Amid stripes and doilies in pride of place lay the family album, a sumptuous leather portfolio whose pages turned on their hinges with the unwieldiness of ancient city gates.

Frau Anders drew attention to a photo of two young girls with chignons and wearing what looked to be Carnival costumes.16 “The smaller one is me,” she explained. “We were going to a ball and I still remember as though it were yesterday how jealous we were of each other afterwards. There was a boy wouldn’t you know . . .” The two faded misses Frau Anders was unsuccessfully attempting to freshen up leaned on a balustrade made of birch wood, behind which a park landscape lost itself artfully in haze.

“I would like Georg to come with me to my bedroom for a moment.” Fred had gotten to his feet and was stretching; the sitting room contracted. “But Fred,” his mother scolded, “just now when Margot is here?”

“Let the boys go. I prefer looking at photos with you,” said Margot. She bent over the album and carefully directed her gaze away from Fred and Georg.

“Those new sketches, have you brought them with you?” Frau Anders asked. Evidently she meant to make it 50

up to the girl: “Margot does wonderful drawings and has such modern taste.” Margot repudiated both her taste and the drawings.

Georg was wanting to stay, wanting to go but Fred drew him forcefully away, and they were swallowed up in his room. As so often on earlier occasions, the room was an Indian tent pitched on the lonely prairies, remote from mankind.

“What did you want to say to me,” Georg asked from his private cave, the lounging chair, which was a tent within a tent.

“What do you think of her? She’s really very pretty.”

“Ah, so you wanted to talk to me about Margot.”

With a silent shake of his head Fred made it very plain that he hadn’t wished to speak to him about Margot.

Georg looked quickly past him and fixed on one of the many little flowers in the wallpaper. Isolated from its brothers and sisters, the little flower seemed pitiful, whereas together all the blooms made such a rich and varied effect they could have been ornamenting a meadow. Above the one little flower Fred’s eyes shone, mysterious. Georg had tried to escape the eyes but they had followed him, driving off the little flowers.

Of course: Fred was in love with Margot. Most likely the windy day had tired Georg out, and the endless business with the Morgenbote, because he was no longer able to find his way out of the dark tunnel and was stumbling over “Freddie.” The tunnel was the apartment corridor on which the room lay, and the corridor led to Margot.

If only I were with Margot thought Georg: spatially it’s all perfectly clear— “Why don’t you say anything?” Fred asked.

“It seems to me,” Georg heard himself say, “as if Margot’s taken a sudden shine to me. She was constantly 51

staring at me with an odd look. I had the strangest feeling that she might even . . .”

An “I don’t think so” from Fred set itself in opposition to this possibility. Whatever the truth, a peculiar smile briefly took possession of Fred’s mouth and made that part of his face unrecognizable before it vanished. “If I could only explain . . . ,” he stuttered. Conceding nothing, Georg insisted on Margot’s interest in him. And tormented by that shaming insecurity which came over him from time to time in relation to the boy, he went as far as to claim that just now Margot had been annoyed only because he, Georg, had left the room.

“Leave off with Margot,” Fred exclaimed angrily. He stood next to the lounging chair; he trembled. “Georg, I’m so anxious you’ll slip away from me. You’re going to get to know so many people at the newspaper. Maybe you won’t want to be with me the same as before. Please stay.

I can’t be without you. I’m so afraid when I’m alone.”

“But I’m here with you.” Spreading right before him were Fred’s hips. Georg allowed his eyes to rest on the slender boyish outline, on the curves which excited him.

Exactly like before falling sleep, it raced through his mind that one really loves face to face and not only the hips. A hot hand stroked him, and his own hand groped blindly, exploring and clutching, but at last the hands, checked by shyness, fell back. Feverishly Georg crept out of his chair, out into the open, and went to Fred. And in the dark night of the prairie they embraced. The world was so beautiful! What did Margot matter to him, the threat of the newspaper was far off.

The old Baroque portal, the history teacher who was stuck in the past, the miraculous wanderings of Georg’s manuscript, how a fellow pupil of Fred’s had been punished by the principal, that long talk with Herr 52

Krug—the pair poured out the last few days and shook the contents together until their two existences turned into one — which did not want to cease its gentle flowing.

In the midst of this Fred’s washstand emerged with its vessels patterned in blue, and also the big jug next to the basin which was filled with clear water, and behind them the toothbrush and the sponge. Georg, struck with the innocence of the porcelain objects, enviously thought of how they were always with Fred: They were next to him when he washed and dried himself off, they breathed the air of his room.

“Do you know how late it is? Already past eleven.”

Some while back the hour had struck in the nearby church tower. They roused themselves; the “moment” had lasted more than an hour. Fred and Georg scarcely looked at each other. In the sitting room next door Frau Anders was putting things away. ...

“I was just about to call you two . . .”

“Sorry, mother.”

“It’s off to bed with you right away. Margot left ten minutes ago. She was angry with you, Fred.” There was nothing more of happiness, only a room reeling with sleepiness. The boy was at a loss and did not say anything.

The black wooden pedestal had come on duty as the night watch. The darkness was like an endless ill-humored day.

53

IV. Upon a modest eminence where the field command has taken up its position, King Wilhelm stands in the midst of his high-ranking officers and observes the troops who battle at Sedan or Gravelotte. Riders spring about at a gallop, dead men in their blue-and-red uniforms form painterly ensembles of the fallen,17 and from one end of the victorious fray to the other cannon smoke is billowing. To the left of this is the crowning of the Kaiser in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles,18 a gala fest whose splendid tints have faded and under which none other than the municipal deputies, clad in their usual civilian street dress and without orders and epaulettes, stream in through the door. They take their places, and from his seat in the press tribune Georg looks past the murals to the men and women in the half-round below; with their bald heads and their hairdos they seem diminutive against the many-hued motley of soldiers, generals, and princes. Directly in front of the king at Gravelotte or Sedan — a king who is looking so kingly he might as well have never lived — the chairman moves his lips unceasingly but his address is drowned out by the silent uproar of the battle surrounding him.

“This may go on for quite some while today,” Herr Mössinger of the Catholic Center organ is saying in an audible voice to the representative of the Social Democratic press. Georg is seated between the two reporters, who continually talk over him, trading confidences with each other despite the fact that they belong to political parties as unlike as can be. They have been coming here nearly every week for years at the same late hour in 54

the afternoon. Like carvers who can find the right scale for their figures with the first stroke, these two find the right phrases immediately, phrases ready to be printed, and at the beginning of the session they know already how it will end.

“What is it exactly that’s up for discussion?” asks Georg, who tries but is unable to follow the proceedings.

He receives no answer, which makes him feel as though he is a prisoner in exile with two guards who ignore him. The press tribune resembles a wooden bird’s nest, and from here one enjoys a view all round of the branches of chandeliers. While Georg traces their darkly glittering spirals and tendrils — they were originally meant to support gas jets rather than electric light bulbs — it occurs to him that down there in the assembly they are negotiating an increase in the price of tram tickets and that he was not sent here to take refuge in iron fixtures but to take notes, just as his two guards on either side are doing.

The municipal deputies are seated by faction and precisely because the representative of the People’s Party is seconding the council’s proposed sliding scale for tram tickets, without question the Social Democrat will reject it later on: “My friends are of the opinion that the tram lines . . .”

Usually the Morgenbote sides with the left, yet it likes to stress its independence and lack of party ties. Georg generally discusses the agenda for the day beforehand with Herr Lawatsch, the local news editor, who has pointedly advised him to give preference in his reports to the couple of municipal deputies who are friendly with Doktor Petri. Then too, there are certain municipal matters which Georg regards as being of no importance, but which are of special interest to the political editors at the paper.

The mayor has made a sudden entrance through 55

the wainscoting. “The Oberbürgermeister 19 has the floor,” Georg writes, drawing on the routine phrase. The pencil of every reporter is busy while the mayor speaks; otherwise their pencils travel across the paper at different times.

Should it happen that Georg’s neighbor on the right is fully occupied, the one to his left will be yawning; and so a complete account of a session of the municipal assembly never sees the light of day.

The mayor parts his hair exactly down the middle, and this part is sustained yet some distance further by his nose and then runs down through his entire figure, dissecting it into two equal halves. These, however, it does not split apart; instead it welds them together. The whole of the mayor is oriented on a bisecting line, and because he would like to unite the warring factions along that line, he urges that the cost of tram tickets be increased — but not so much as to exceed the amount of increase envisioned by the Social Democrats. Just when the parties seem about to achieve peace an uproar breaks out in the hall.

“We could have done without that one,” fumes Herr Mössinger, who claps his notepad shut and withdraws a package of food from his pants pocket as from a knapsack.

Down below at the speaker’s podium a thin redheaded man is gesticulating — Herr Fritz, the Communist deputy.

It is as if an invisible hand were pulling on a length of twine, causing his reddish person to swivel back and forth. “Gentlemen, if you believe you can get away with skinning working folk alive . . .” The bell sounds. Georg makes a note to this effect in brackets. Nearly all the deputies leave their places, turning a collective back on the Communist, and begin to converse amongst themselves in voices that are intentionally loud. Herr Mössinger eats his bread and folds the wax-paper wrapping; it crackles at 56

the least touch. The gigantic knife blade with which he dismembers his buttered bread would serve to butcher Hansel and Gretel.

Fritz is called to order. “I think I’ll go down and have a word with the old man,” Herr Mössinger declares to the Social Democrat after finishing his meal. “Tonight once again the card game’s not going to amount to a hill of beans.” He gets up in wrinkled pants which still float about his rear strictly from a sense of duty. After a little while the Social Democrat follows, silently shoving Georg’s knee as he passes. Municipal Deputy Fritz balls his fist at the mayor, who is leafing through his documents so quietly that he might as well be some scholar sitting in the depths of his study.

Georg notices that he is practically the only one left in the bird’s nest. Why does the Communist rage on he wonders like an entire mob halting trams that should be running anyway, no one is even listening. Outside winter is still going on, the ponds are all frozen and the nights endless. If it weren’t for Herr Fritz the session would have concluded long since and besides, Georg does not relish being parted from Fred so frequently for the sake of clumsy official business. Behind the black-lacquered network of branches suspended in space, cannon vapor is spreading over Gravelotte and Sedan, and from out of a cloud of smoke the voice is thundering: “I’m warning you, gentlemen! You’ve learned nothing from the war.

You have been exploiting the workers for a long time, gentlemen, for far too long a time. Soon the worm will turn and then the oppressed masses shall march against their exploiters . . .”

An eruption of laughter and jeers. Georg has to laugh, too: How worked up the little reddish figure is, swinging back and forth on its thread and always bouncing 57

off the number-wall of the tram ticket rates! Then, beneath the gaze of their dazzling princely highnesses in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, Municipal Deputy Fritz is banned for the rest of the session — Georg notes it down without emotion. A light shadow falls in front of him and the smell of beer reaches his nostrils. “That fellow should never be allowed to speak,” says Herr Mössinger. The Social Democrat, too, has already regained his seat.

Like a full moon pasted together in the middle, the mayor rises above the horizon of the battle imagery, and the tram ticket rates are gently rocked in the cradle of his light: “The session is over after ten o’clock.” Steps echo on the lonely winding staircase; the square in front of city hall lies empty in the night. !

Anyone wishing to enter the newspaper building in the late evening hours was obliged to use a side entrance — the main one being closed after eight o’clock—and in the empty vestibule would pass the night porter, his heavy slumping form deposited on his chair like a lump of wax. Apparently the candle from which he had dripped was already burned all the way down.

Rather than watching the building at night, the porter was being watched by it, and if one did not pay close attention he would blend in with the pillars and the walls.

Staircase steps, more numerous than in daytime, rose and opened onto darkened corridors that resembled rooms, rooms drawn out into the distance. Often Georg had to hand in a report around this time and he never passed through the corridors without a shiver as he sensed the row of editorial offices alongside him, now more deserted than the hallways. Should he land at last in the office belonging 58

to the local news editor, he would always feel that he reached his goal after perilous wandering. It was the sole room still illuminated in the building-labyrinth; for Georg the light and his arrival flowed together.

The light was softened by the green shade of a desk lamp next to which Herr Lawatsch would be bending over his desk. His tired old back made one think of the scoured spine of a much-used book, and the unkempt gray hair spreading over it was like a lawn long abandoned by its owner. Just as neglected was his desk, a superannuated prewar piece snowed under with innumerable papers, magazines, and pamphlets. They towered over the edge of the desktop, having already taken full possession of a large drawer. Knowing one’s way around it all would not seem possible, and yet Herr Lawatsch was able to extract every desired item with a single motion, it could be any old inconspicuous scrap bearing his small, bone-dry handwriting.

From a distance these symbols gave the impression of a typographical secret plan whose instructions enabled a person in that rustling primeval forest to find a way to one or another piece of writing. The manuscripts which Georg brought in also filled up with scribbles when Herr Lawatsch went over them to make them fit to print. Most of his improvements consisted of deletions. Georg sat close by while Herr Lawatsch worked, remembering his own sentences as he had written them. And no matter how concise he thought he kept himself, the moment Georg handed over his copy he would notice that it was far too long-winded. It almost seemed to begin stretching itself in the presence of the local news editor, and Georg, too, had the feeling of abruptly shooting out in length. It was astonishing how every manuscript diminished so much in Lawatsch’s editorial hands without growing the least bit 59

poorer in content—from a castle it shrank to a cabin; but really the castle had been a mirage. Georg always mourned the phantom, yet he acknowledged the corrections made

by Lawatsch. “If the gentlemen in politics knew how to edit themselves properly,” Lawatsch would happily growl from inside the cabin, “there would not be half so much idiocy in the newspaper.”

Georg often furnished Herr Lawatsch with his company until close to midnight. The office lulled him towards sleep and the face of Lawatsch would float off in green fog; it was a face as full of ridges and valleys as the red corduroy sofa against the wall opposite. The similarity stemmed not only from the local news editor having spent decades with the sofa, but from the use made of that article as well. In times gone by it had supposedly ministered to pleasures which were simply not to be brought in line with the usual reasons for visiting editorial offices. Now it was dawdling its days away in this stale atmosphere, and the impressions which had been made in it by bodies were as vague as clouds.

If he spoke of his modest escapades—something he was quite prepared to do — Lawatsch would automatically face the honorably retired divan. It was as though the two of them were old war comrades and had gone into many battles together. The witticisms he got off on these occasions were coarse, too, like those heard among veterans.

When Herr Lawatsch fell into such joking, his little eyes crept forth and sparkled, and Georg would fancy he was watching a lizard glide over stones in the warm sun. But alas, soon it would disappear again into some crevice or other, not to be pursued.

The only thing Georg knew for sure was that Lawatsch had started out as a classical philologist. He did not even manage to discover the reason for his move to 60

the newspaper.

“Every good journalist first worked at some other trade,” Herr Lawatsch once said as their conversation threatened to turn to his change of profession. The joy Georg felt on hearing this unexpected endorsement of his own new existence gave way immediately to very low spirits, because Herr Lawatsch continued: “Most of the time journalists are ruined men. They have been thrown off course and are never able to thrive again.” The entire newspaper knew that Lawatsch’s wife lived with another man, and now he seemed so alone no one would imagine him ever to have had a wife in the first place.

Lawatsch had not always been the local news editor.

When the paper was still just another small sheet, he had held a leading position. Only with its purchase by Doktor Petri and its remaking as the politically influential Morgenbote had his sphere been reduced to the goings-on around town. Here he had been shut up for good, a prisoner.

Over and over Georg sought out the cozy room behind the dark passages, hoping to learn more about the newspaper. Which was no less standoffish towards him than on his first day, and yet he would have liked to be on an intimate footing with it — a family relative. How depressing that the important editors never took him into their confidence regarding their plans; he remained shut out of all their discussions and was compelled to read the finished pieces the same as any ordinary subscriber.

The newspaper pursued him as far as his dreams. He saw himself going in and out by the back stairs, or found himself to the rear of a mighty beast which thundered away and which he could never overtake. It arched up as high as a house and would not show him its face. The only person who gave Georg the time of day was Herr 61

Lawatsch, and that was only because he himself had turned his back on the newspaper. Whenever Georg tried to sound him about things which were happening right then and there in the building, Lawatsch either evaded him or gave vent to his own displeasure over the new orientation.

It was “too radical” for him.

The change in direction undertaken by Doktor Petri was most fully embodied in two young men: Doktor Albrecht and Herr Sommer. Both had come on board following the shift. Sommer wrote about the New Youth, which was altogether new since the Revolution. Youth with him was an article of faith. Sommer wore his shirt collar open in the Schiller manner,20 did not smoke, had his own special way of greeting people, and was vivacious.

If Georg chanced to mention Herr Sommer, the local news editor would smile in scorn and shrug his shoulders, as if the New Youth was hardly worth its salt. His mouth revealed a couple of bad yellowish teeth. With mention of Doktor Albrecht, the smile disappeared.

“We’ll end up a communist paper if they let that fellow go on writing the way he does,” Herr Lawatsch would grumble. A political economist, Albrecht was avowedly socialist and the attacks he unleashed against industry were truly harrowing. And what about Krug? Georg knew only that the man produced chatty pieces for every section of the paper: on exhibitions, criminal proceedings, trips in summer, regulations governing childbirth, and spiritual life. Lawatsch and Krug knew each other from the old days and perhaps this longstanding tie explained the local news editor’s reluctance to say anything about him. “He’s not what people here think he is” was the most Lawatsch would offer by way of an opinion.

There was no mistaking that Herr Lawatsch himself kept faith with the past. It was not as though he 62

had been dazzled by the erstwhile glamor of Empire and Kaiser;21 still the hatred which continually drove him to speeches laden with curses against modern-day enthusiasts, phrase-mongers, and revolutionaries sprang from a yearning for his own youth before the war, and for its secret rulers. “Do you love Eichendorff?” he asked Georg one day while plucking out a volume of Jean-Paul 22 from the heap of papers on his desk. Every evening after the night shift Lawatsch went to his regular bar and drank alone.

Sometimes Georg accompanied him part way there, but he never accepted his offer to share a glass. It was already so late and he would not learn anything; beer always only brought on more fatigue. Lawatsch’s gray hair flowed out from beneath his hat as he strode through the dark streets, and they absorbed him as would a sea of shadows.

He seemed absolutely a night-spirit in any case, for he was never spotted in his office before dark.

Georg on the other hand visited the newspaper at every conceivable time of day and under the most varied of pretexts. Or else he would skirt the place as though it were a girl whom one loves but is too shy to address.

In the public thoroughfare of its corridors he felt himself at home. The editors generally left him to his own devices — which at least was a sign they had grown used to him. One day perhaps they would let him sit in his own office. Georg felt especially superfluous when Doktor Albrecht, head held high, would pass without returning his polite greeting. It was like a razor-sharp blade slicing the air, a blade that was never returned to its sheath.

Fräulein Peppel, too, neglected to give him her hand when he held out his in the hope of ingratiating her.

Some time or other she had lived a short while in Argentina and ever since had been very little impressed with Europe. It could be that the men hereabouts were 63

not passionate enough for her; her arrogant manner of encountering him made Georg feel that much less Argentinian. Doktor Petri was frequently en route to Berlin, so Georg had learned, and Herr Kummer almost never strayed into the editorial offices. It was the latter’s custom to take the elevator straight up to the top floor and avoid the many stairs. Though of course the elevator frequently went out of service and then he would be found resting on each landing as though it were a reception room. Every so often Georg would have a word with him there, and would marvel at the way he had come to the newspaper through none other than the insignificant Korrektor. The man resembled a magic entrance which opens itself one time only and then is never found again.

An inconspicuous door provided access to the composing rooms, which Georg was fond of visiting. His favorite pastime was to witness how the type was set up, a warlike affair he could enjoy the same way idlers used to go out as spectators to watch battles. Great empty trays to be filled with type lay on iron-clad tables; the type itself was in rows next to these, and in drawers. As soon as the setting up began, the editors on duty appeared and would bark their commands like officers. Upon their order, the stalwart leaden masses would advance from various sides and gradually occupy the plates. Usually, however, the maneuver was accomplished only with considerable difficulty. Either some important article was late to arrive, or else so many news items came flooding in that there was competition among them for space.

If Doktor Albrecht happened to write an essay, he would storm ahead of his war-thirsty lines with his dagger drawn to conquer the room needed for them. Once he got into a dispute with the feuilleton editor,23 who was 64

trying to get some report from his area, “art and science,” into the paper at the last minute. Albrecht was not about to have his own article shortened on account of a bagatelle: these days the economy had it all over art.

Ohly, the feuilleton editor, was a handsome fellow who sported a neat little tie which sat boldly and a tad askew upon the endless whiteness of his shirt. “That’s how the artists ride,” thought Georg, and the real editors, too, admired Ohly as a blithe phenomenon of the air. While he was in the composing rooms — it might be to see to some correction in the proof for his theater review—he would tell his colleagues about yesterday’s premiere or explain Expressionism to them through the din of the machines.

Here was something they were less able to keep up with than with the Allied demands for reparations,24 and they were of the opinion that Literature dwelt as it were on the highest floor where a perpetual party was underway and all the chandeliers were blazing. Sometimes Ohly would turn to Georg, too, who was always glad to let him smoke one of his cigarettes. (Herr Sommer for his part assigned every poet under thirty to the New Youth.)

During the setting up Ohly usually got more excited than the on-duty editors, because secretly he feared that their deadline could not be met. The fact that the plates always went under the presses on time, even with the shouting and general confusion, was due chiefly to the hand compositors who silently gathered the heavy type together and then removed it. Like peasants, they sowed fields with their lead and would never let themselves be disturbed by the weather and its whims. When he was with them Georg felt free and contented, and it was evident that they were also happy to have him around.

They were fortunate in being able to decipher mirror writing in lead, and even more fortunate in that each 65

article was completely the same for them; at most they distinguished one from another by how long the lines were. And how magnificently were the typesetting machines contrived, whose letters always returned home to their storage compartment without so much as the loss of a comma. Among the machine compositors was a boxer who always greeted Georg with a laugh and would show him his muscles at any opportunity. Even though they swelled to fearsome size, still they seemed to be helpful comrades because the gigantic fellow himself looked so friendly. During winter months, the lights would already be burning in the composing rooms by early afternoon. !

Cautiously Georg follows the head stage technician through the piles of rubble covering the stage. Above them hang the twisted iron ribs, now as helpless and fragile as if crumpled by the hands of children. The naked walls surrounding the stage resemble the walls of chimneys and open directly onto blue sky. While Georg is still peering up into the sky from his pile of rubble, the stage technician points out to him the iron curtain which is shredded in one place like a handkerchief. Georg looks through the hole into blackness.

It is very difficult indeed to find something to say in the case of accidents, especially to those persons with expert knowledge. As does the rest of his kind, the head technician wears a moustache. Sitting on the stands in the orchestra pit are scores for Rienzi.25 Survivors — a touching sight. “We were lucky,” Georg’s guide declares. “The fire broke out after the end of the performance, and we have been spared any tragic loss of life. What’s more, our costumes and props are unharmed.” Georg, who has sat 66

down momentarily in one of the front-row seats, is able to distinguish bit by bit the gilding of the railings, the swerve of corridors, and the crimson backdrops. He hears violins playing, sees fairy-tale sprites in their white gowns fluttering through the air — in reality the stage up above him is filled with ordinary daylight and the seats around him in the orchestra are empty. The stage is now actually the house while the house has become stage dÊcor. Its historical splendor is one of the things people come to see in the former princely seat to which Georg was dispatched after the first news of the fire.

The extent of the catastrophe was much exaggerated in that urgent report, and quite possibly the newspaper would not have bothered to send anyone. But because the town where it occurred lies in the Allied zone,26 the event has won in importance: Could the French be responsible for the fire? How have they conducted themselves? On the way in the train yesterday Georg had been basking in his status as a special news reporter, even though his journey took scarcely three hours. That passport check, the bad little hotel . . .

The light is blinding as Georg stands with the head stage technician next to a side exit. On the grass ahead are drenched costumes and theatrical gee-gaws sunning themselves. Giant primeval creatures stand guard who, upon closer inspection, turn out to be panels of stage scenery. A couple of Senegalese blacks are watching this green idyll; in the distance bugles blazon, bright as a day in spring.27 All at once Georg is glad for the fire he will have to deplore in his report. If only the curved gilt railings and the red velvet hangings, too, had been reduced to ashes. The war is over and human beings are still being tormented without end. All secret, hidden things should have 67

been yanked into the light of day. Then the blue heavens would have shone without pity over the ruins. We go hungry, we freeze, there is no electricity. The war will never end, and I will never be able to sit happily in a theater again, there are no longer any fairies to console us, the fairies in their white gowns are also buried beneath the mounds of rubble. I hate the mild shining of crystal. It’s all burning, yes, burning . . .

“If you’d care to speak with the general manager,” says the head technician, “here he comes right now.”

“What splendid weather!” The general manager, a Herr von Hagen, invites Georg to a little promenade so they can finish their talk. The manager already wears a large-check spring suit and seems too immune to everything ever to be burned up himself. Were he sporting lilies of the valley in his buttonhole, their little bells would be chiming away, full of confidence. Georg is informed without having to ask that not only are the French innocent of the mysterious fire, they even made their own fire brigade available.

“A terrible shame.” Before such destruction, the words fight free of Georg against his will. The general manager makes no reply from behind his check pattern but walks alongside Georg with a dreamy-victorious air.

“I suppose,” Georg begins once more, “that the house, too, with its golden loges . . .”

“You’re entirely right, it is practically a miracle that our glorious house did not also fall victim to the flames. And yet: the damage is great. We’ve shut down in the midst of preparations for our summer festival — Mozart and Wagner, you know — which we had been planning despite our unfavorable circumstances. Rehearsals were nearly at an end, and outside ticket sales had more than met our highest expectations. Now it’s all over with.”

“So you believe that even today the theater continues 68

to be a place of refuge?” “‘Place of refuge’: The right words. Here we are, holding an advance position in the occupied zone, bringing our oppressed folk comfort and strength. As a spiritual and intellectual bastion — one of the few left to us—we assert ourselves against the enemy who would deprive us of the ultimate possession — our identity as a people. Mourning is endemic in every walk of German life.”

Georg makes a last desperate attempt to force his way past the spring checks. “I can’t help it,” he says, his tone deliberately disrespectful. “For me the tragedy is really not so great.”

“You’ve figured things out,” the manager replies from on high, looking him full in the face for the first time.

“We have in fact had good luck with ill luck. Our stage was entirely obsolete and in no way equal to contemporary theatrical requirements. Now, finally, we’ll be able to modernize it from the ground up. I’m erecting . . .”

At the word “erecting” the manager stretches and grows into a Festspielhaus 28 with columns and flights of outer steps Georg would never be capable of mounting.

“A new roof has already been ordered. The government regards our matter as being of national importance and will support us financially. The business here is really only a trifle.”

With a nationalist hand gesture the theater manager strides through a group of black soldiers. Actual models of theaters are sprouting up on the squares of his suit and a faint chiming of lilies of the valley drowns out the bugles. “Do please give my greetings to Doktor Petri,” says Herr von Hagen at a side entrance. Georg has begun to feel insecure: Afterwards he will realize that he forgot to ask for figures about the amount of the damage.

69

!

They proceeded up the low hill, making their way between tilled fields and vegetable beds. Tall bushes hemmed in the footpath, which Georg loved because it was as narrow as a secret trail that leads one far from the main road to a castle which shows itself only at the last moment. The city with its towers and bridges lay beneath them, while in front of them several farmers could be seen moving through the hazy air. Above a group of trees shone the snow-white peak of a house without its roof.

Then came the woods, and rippling foliage filled with sunlight enveloped them.

“It’s beautiful going this way,” said Fred.

Georg marveled at how casually Fred found it “beautiful going this way.” After all, yesterday had been Saturday evening.

“Why have you been quiet the whole time,” asked Fred. “Are you mad at me because for once I couldn’t make it yesterday evening?”

“No.” Georg tried to smile; a Saturday, and he had run through the streets by himself. “What did you do, tell me, yesterday evening?” The question erupted in spite of himself.

“I was with Lorey. You know — the one who left school in April . . . If only you hadn’t told me on Friday you wouldn’t be available on Saturday — otherwise I always keep Saturday free. And then Lorey called me and yesterday I couldn’t any longer refuse him. Things seem to be going well for him at the bank. He’s having the time of his life and he told me a lot.”

“I’d like to be introduced to Lorey some time.”

“He’ll be sure to bore you — — How much I would have preferred being with you yesterday evening, Georg, 70

please believe me.”

“Unfortunately I couldn’t get out of the event I was to go to until it was too late.” Fred let his head drop.

“Well, was it pleasant at least being with Lorey?”

“Ah, the paper . . . Since you’ve been there, something’s always getting in the way.”

“No, yesterday evening would really have suited me fine for instance.” Georg sensed that Fred wanted to shift the blame onto him; he was becoming unfair. Their Saturday evening — Fred absolutely should have left it free. Next Saturday thought Georg maybe I’ll look up someone I know . . .

Georg balanced himself on one of the tree trunks which had been bundled together and ran along the side of the road. Foliage spilled over them. Fred followed, stumbled, and then walked end to end along a trunk that was thinner than Georg’s. Three boys and a girl passed them in the opposite direction; after glancing at Georg and Fred, the boys made loud remarks. One of them had fastened his arm about the girl’s hips. They wore kerchiefs and swung their arms, and were flinging aside the branches as they went. Wrapping paper lay on the ground.

“The girl was pretty,” said Fred.

“I didn’t look — — By the way, how’s Margot?”

“Fine, thank you. She’s working hard and has many friends.”

“Recently I met her on the street and even wanted to stop with her there for a moment, but she seemed in a rush. She looked at me so oddly — the same as the other time. I still believe Margot has feelings for me, really I’d like to get to know her better. Have you seen much of her?”

“She rarely visits us these days.”

“Perhaps we should get together once, the three of us?”

“How about let’s sit down.”

71

As usual it was Fred who decided what they would do. And why shouldn’t they sit now? Fred expressed his wishes simply, whereas Georg, who was always a little depressed by these forthright suggestions, tended to shrink back from his own ideas, fearing he might end up imposing on his friend. They spread themselves out next to the small pond which often supplied the goal for their Sunday walks. A lone man sat behind his newspaper on the bench nearby. Most of the time the public benches were occupied; if they remained empty, there was something the matter with them that one could not see.

“The political murders,29 how horrible,” Fred said.

Georg looked at him, wanted to be as close to him as possible, and said nothing.

“You’ve never really told me about your Elli,” Fred began again.

“Oh, now, let’s not talk about that . . . My Elli — you know full well she’s not ‘my Elli.’” Annoyed, Georg sat up straight and discovered that there were actual ants crawling around. At first only a few could be seen, then more and ever more came into view. It was like looking at stars. A little further off there were no longer any ants but here the ground was uncomfortably hard.

Quite some time before, Georg had become acquainted with Elli on an excursion and then gotten together with her several times here and there; soon he was visiting her in her own apartment, which consisted of a tiny unheated sleeping alcove and a sitting room.

These visits, which took place once a week at the most, never lasted long. During the tea that regularly preceded their lovemaking, Georg felt a boredom one might experience waiting in a depot for a seriously delayed train. He would make every effort to speed up the arrival and was only content when they could board and the 72

journey begin at last. Afterwards he would leave quickly, and then he thought so little about the girl that he would have been astonished if someone had called her his sweetheart. And Elli, as far as he was able to judge, was quite pretty. She worked as an executive secretary in a factory, read a novel now and then—they were kept in a special protective cover, had cute ways of deforming her words, and possessed not only photos of a previous boyfriend but a real female friend. Elli always gave an account of the friend and of the other minor events of the week, but her allusions left Georg completely in the dark. Even so he did not let himself ask for more details; he was afraid of insulting her or even — God forbid — finding himself more deeply involved with her.

The ceaseless humming, Georg now realized, came from insects that buzzed without number over the pond — the entire water surface was shrouded in a mist of live moving specks. Before Elli, he had never had any girl at all, and even she was scarcely one for him.

Recently she had been crying a great deal, but when he cautiously asked what was the matter she only shook her head, shunning every caress. The previous Wednesday she had announced that she was unavailable because of an appointment with her friend for the evening. It seemed that the relationship was over. Georg suffered a bad conscience and at the same time was glad that there might be a rupture — which he did not feel.

A powerful impulse he was unable to resist drove him to the boy who lay next to him and was yet so distant. Fred cuddled against him, taking his hand. “How do the two of you do it, Georg,” he asked, eyes half-shut.

“Now Fred . . .”

“I mean . . . do you get fully undressed every time?”

“I’d rather talk about something else.”

73

“And in bed?”

—— “Listen, Georg. I’m really not so dumb anymore the way you think — — always in bed?”

“That’s enough.”

“If you want to keep things from me . . . well it’s fine I guess.”

“Fiend! Sometimes it’s also on the couch.” Georg was forced to laugh, thinking of the coverlet which always slid off. “It’s terribly cold in her bedroom.”

“And what do you do so that . . . you know, there won’t be children.”

“There are things you use to protect against that.”

“But they’re not reliable.”

“You seem to have gathered some experience—— We should be going.”

“On the couch, I find it’s not very . . . The girl suffers.”

“Is that so — ” “Hear the pond hum, Georg. Ah my friend . . .”

Fred had crossed his arms underneath his head and was only gazing upward. The foliage swelled towards them, sending certain leaves forward which separated themselves from the mass and quivered larger than life. Fred disappeared in the foliage that sucked him into its sultry warmth. Georg’s irritation at his absence was heightened by his sense that the boy had plainly wanted to teach him something.

“What do you know about women,” said Fred to the trees.

Georg stretched. “Once, not with Elli by the way, I did it this way . . .” And he described the raptures of shocking scenes he had never staged in reality. Chairs, pillows, stairways, lips, candles, hair — the soft and the hard, 74

swellings and rippings apart were blended together in ever bolder debauches. Georg found particular joy in uttering the shameless expressions which were rising between the two of them for the first time in a tone so sober they might have been part of everyday language. The discrepancy between the meaning of the words and their offhandedness only increased the lewdness.

Georg had long dispensed with Fred for inspiration.

All on his own he roamed gloomy boy-forests where the foliage hung low, keeping himself close to the ground, and then swung vaingloriously to the treetops—a magnificent wastrel nonchalantly dealing out his love-acts like so many playing cards. Blushing, Fred kept still but could not conceal his excitement.

On the way home the two of them trembled along with the leaves. “I want to leave school,” said Fred. “It’s also because of my mother —” The white house-peak was lost in midday brightness.

“Do you have time tomorrow evening?” asked Fred. !

“This is a tiresome murderer,” the reporter dispatched from a large Berlin paper says to Georg. It is the first pause in the Ackermann trial and Georg is attempting to draw out his famous colleague in conversation, but he does not succeed in getting any worthwhile information from him. The reporter’s name is Benario, and his articles are always signed “Rio.” And in fact Ackermann seems so thoroughly unmemorable that one would forget him an instant after, for example, encountering him on the street and asking him for a light. What is more, the case has been fully explained: A little branch manager in a bad way financially 75

finishes off his ailing wife and his mother-in-law one day with an axe and a double-bladed hunting knife. Both of which are lying unconcernedly on the table where such evidence is displayed. Herr Ackermann has tried to make excuses for the murders anyway — yet he is overwhelmed by them and admits to his acts in a low voice which itself seems to have been dealt a mortal blow by the axe. Is he going to throw up obstacles before his inevitable death sentence? No indeed, he has already expressed a desire for his execution. “A tiresome murderer,” repeats Herr Benario as he returns to the courtroom. He wears the expression of a celebrated tenor who has been asked to sing in a beer cellar.

The longer the proceedings go on — they are being held at the scene of the crime, a little community outside the city—the less Georg is able to imitate Benario’s indifference, which he would certainly need to display to prove to the other that he is his equal. Georg would have understood if a verdict had been announced right after the confession — the criminal acts having been established and the punishment being a fixed one—but he cannot see why the motives for the crime should be investigated as well. Why do the hearings bore deeper and deeper? The courtroom is green and covered with crude circles that might be made of ashes. Gradually the circles fade and a mist spreads, so that the walls of the courtroom and the faces are lost: Georg is alone by himself in an infinite void, in the grip of terrifying anxiety. Names, indistinct babbling, and cries rage about him. He waits, paralyzed.

There is testimony of Ackermann’s love for his wife.

Like a liquid chemical, it colors the void red.

There is testimony concerning the sickness of Ackermann’s wife, as well as Ackermann’s empty purse.

Because of her illness Frau Ackermann has not been a real 76

wife to him for years, and Ackermann draws too slender a salary to afford the expensive medicines and the many cures. Having begun to embezzle, he has quaked at the thought that his thefts could be exposed with the next review of the books.

There is testimony of a yearning for death: Being in such distress, for a long time husband and wife have wanted to find a way to end their lives together, but when they are already in the middle of the river a song sounds from the other shore and back they go into the evening.

On several subsequent occasions the wife has implored her husband to simply release her from her sufferings once and for all. She is pious and sees the Beyond open and ready to receive her.

There is testimony about the oatmeal porridge: One day before the murders, the mother-in-law let the wife’s oatmeal porridge burn. The wife could not touch the ruined dish. Ackermann, who for a moment seems like a puppet, howls “the burned oatmeal porridge” into the void.

Testimony . . . testimony . . . bed, cash register, doctor, river, porridge, world—the deed emerges from them as a red bloom of love, and no one has the right to punish it.

But then the walls shove themselves back in between; it is as if they have been shoved together for good. Judge and jury sit in a row, perfect rectangles one after another.

They stare at Ackermann, who no longer howls but is merely an exhibit. “And how is Doktor Petri?” inquires Herr Benario. On the table lie axe and hunting knife.

They are fashioned of iron and wood, offer resistance when handled, and burrow into human skulls. The two psychiatrists, who consist of chin and beard, begin rattling away. The walls are green and covered with circles. Why have the motives been shown when they don’t even 77

count, when the murder will inevitably get free of them again and the rectangles sit there and confront it as something alien? They will impose the death penalty as if they had not seen anything at all. Ah, if only nothing had been asked. Really, it’s wrong to question and then to behead the questions . . .

A few days later Georg chances to read a feuilleton in one of the large Berlin newspapers titled: “A tiresome murderer.” It is so engrossing that he forgets while reading that he had been there too. It is signed “Rio.” !

Before the open door to the house a woman was standing, broom in hand. She must have just swept the front hallway. Georg realized it was Frau Bonnet only after he had reached the last steps. Startled by the unaccustomed sight of her apron, he nearly tripped over her pail.

“I’m finished now,” she greeted him. “Won’t you please step inside for the time being?”

Georg had never been upstairs to Frau Bonnet’s bel étage, and now he sauntered alone through the spacious and beautiful room to which she directed him. The long bookcases sailing along in the afternoon and the securely established furniture which had obviously been brought up in a prosperous home—none of it went with the cleaning pail on the steps. Frau Bonnet in an apron: Whenever Georg had encountered her at the home of Frau Heinisch, she had seemed to him like a creature without any sort of origin, despite her rich attire; a being who did not belong to some grand apartment but floated in an unearthly fashion among the members of a community made up purely of brothers and sisters. Georg, it should be said, had been invited to Frau Heinisch’s only 78

a handful of times over the whole year and a half and had not entered into a closer relationship with her, to say nothing of Fräulein Samuel or Doktor Wolff.

It was apparent that their circle mistrusted him; he had not espoused the social revolution or pacifism. Yet because of his position at the Morgenbote, they were loath to drop him. Always they would first inquire about the paper and ask after Doktor Albrecht and the rest of the editors. Their tone suggested that Georg was expected to immediately divulge certain facts reserved for those in the know. But time and again he discovered that they were far better informed about what went on inside the newspaper than he was. As a result, Georg was constantly shrugging his shoulders or smiling aloofly, to give the impression that he was a fellow conspirator who knew many secrets and held his tongue.

Still, in the long run he could only disappoint their little society. He really came up short whenever conversation turned from the Morgenbote to the political assemblies, disarmament, or the aims of the labor movement. One of them would tell of a meeting with French pacifists; someone else had special information about Russia. In the midst of these foreign intrigues, Georg felt heavy at heart.

He scarcely knew so much of Germany, which he never ever left. If there were times when he still risked giving his opinion, he would take it back right away.

Kierkegaard, Goethe, Marx — Georg reproached himself as he strolled past the spines of Frau Bonnet’s books. He had pushed his way into the public sphere through a crack, but he had not managed to get himself out into the world. “I might as well be trapped in a cave,” he thought. “I’m not able to really make myself understood —” “You must pardon my husband,” said Frau Bonnet as 79

she pushed the tea cart into the room. “He had to go into town.”

Georg, happy to be alone with her, resolved to dispense with his shyness on the spot and to become nothing less than an entirely different person.

“Unfortunately a visitor has announced himself for this afternoon, someone I could not put off. A young scholar named Doktor Rosin, recommended by my old friend Professor Hessdorf in Freiburg . . . But there’s still time left for us to chat.” Frau Bonnet smiled.

Mechanically, Georg took a swallow of his tea.

“You’re far too good,” he said.

“Oh yes, it’s too awful how I get overrun with people . . . But why didn’t you just bring your young friend along with you?”

Georg could sense how she was resisting him. True, she had not taken his article on pacifism amiss back then; still she hesitated to count him as one of her own. Her mention of another visitor caused him to feel twice as pressured to hurry.

“The evening before last,” he began, “I attended a lecture by Father Quirin on Catholic thought which affected me very deeply. How I would have liked to tell you about it, but that would take so long and we’ll soon be interrupted . . . Do you perhaps have some more time for me next week?”

“Oh, then you don’t know we’re moving from here in several days?”

The books were already half submerged in twilight, and the room transformed itself into a feather pillow.

Georg’s eyes ached, Frau Bonnet turned on the light. It was the same as in a theater piece when someone on stage lights a candle and the scene instantly becomes much brighter than would ever be possible with the help 80

of the weak illumination from a candle; now her living room shone with a radiance which far exceeded what was produced by the few bulbs. Sitting in the midst of her own things, Frau Bonnet was black and alien, no different than she had been at Frau Heinisch’s, and those articles did not seem to belong to her at all. A unique spiritual mass from which an influence was continuously emanating.

Moreover, her bosom seemed to be weightless— it was as if there were already peace on earth.

“You look so disappointed,” she said. “Tell me about Father Quirin anyway.”

“Why are you leaving here?” Georg shivered slightly, as from an intimate touch that is not expected: Frau Bonnet had possessed resources which had now dwindled and which the sinking mark was always depreciating further. For the last three months she had kept house without the help of maids. “Down in Württemberg 30 we’ve rented a cottage, through friends. People say it’s much cheaper to live there. You must be sure to visit us soon.”

That apron a little while ago . . . “And your husband?”

Frau Bonnet explained that since art didn’t bring in anything these days, her husband would plant a garden.

Georg could hear him yawning between the apples and the pears. As for herself, Frau Bonnet would work up a series of lectures that had been commissioned by the local women’s league, from which she would get a really nice income, lectures on great female figures in history up to the present, seen from within; it was all for the sake of Peace and Revolution.

“This cursed age!” exploded Georg. “If only someone would just come at last and bring order.”

“But see here — I don’t understand you. Do you actually want an order like the old one, which hardened every 81

human being? This wretched order—there’s nothing for it but to be swept away by the storm breaking from revolutionary hearts . . .”

Georg looked around him; dust lay on the chairbacks.

Surely it had been spared on pacifist grounds; Frau Bonnet could not bring herself to pick up her broom and take violent measures against it. “Paradise is a dusty place” was Georg’s troubled private thought.

He defended himself: “I did not express myself clearly . . . I don’t say any old political order, but one which springs from a belief, Catholicism for example.

That’s exactly what made such a deep impression on me in Father Quirin’s lecture. You wish to revolutionize our hearts, but then how many of us are all heart?

Take the newspaper for example . . . No, I don’t trust your revolution and this ‘never war again.’ Mere attitudes dissipate so easily, and then absolutely nothing remains. We really require some rule that is binding for every human being, a fixed teaching which embraces us completely.

Such certainty was streaming from him, from Father Quirin—such knowledge of what we depend on. I’d love to be a revolutionary, only I doubt . . . I don’t know what stand I ought to take . . . I’ve so been looking forward to our talk.”

Before Frau Bonnet could reply there was a ringing outside. Why did they have to be interrupted precisely now, and it seemed to Georg besides that inwardly Frau Bonnet was shaking her head. He had not so to speak felt truly at home in his words, they had simply flown away with him; and now, freed from them, he was falling to earth again, like a suspect scrap of paper tumbling through the air. The black bosom — it was most unlikely that Frau Bonnet’s “cottage” reached up further than her skirts. Why didn’t the wealthy Frau Heinisch come to her aid?

82

Frau Bonnet re-entered the room in her usual dimensions, followed by Doktor Rosin, a dark-gleaming gentleman who was of such an interesting appearance that he instantly intimidated the whole room from end to end. The moment he heard that Georg worked at the Morgenbote, Rosin announced that he had once been in correspondence with Doktor Petri. The most interesting thing about him was his sideburns, which resembled little fenced-in garden plots on his cheeks. Even as he was praising the extraordinary gifts of Doktor Petri he was also reporting to Frau Bonnet on her Freiburg friend Professor Hessdorf, whose favorite student he claimed to be. It was as if no single person spoke, but a considerable number. Perhaps Rosin wished to be in perpetual training and for this reason multiplied himself into a social body.

He had studied the social sciences, and he had in mind to habilitate 31 at the local university under Fischer.

Plainly “Fischer” did not possess a first name. To hear Rosin tell it, the man was an out-and-out expert; of course he upheld a standpoint different from that of Professor Hessdorf, really a thoroughly incorrect one, but it would not do to be scared away by that, for there were many other defensible points of view, too, and in the end it came down less to these than to knowledge. In fact there was not a thing to keep him, Rosin, from becoming Fischer’s favorite student in the bargain. “Between you and me,” he abruptly added, “sociology is still a thoroughly unexplored field.” And he ran his hand over his interesting forehead and prowled energetically about the room a couple of times like a researcher. Although neither Georg nor Frau Bonnet had said as much as a word, Rosin went on replying to their objections; so that the impression arose of a half-dreamed conversation such as one hears in hair salons, where mirror reflections and 83

scent mix with the rasping of a ventilator. A comb could have stood upright in Rosin’s shock. Georg sat quietly in his chair and would have been happy to be leafing through picture magazines.

“When you arrived, we were speaking of today’s anarchy,” said Frau Bonnet gently, “and my young friend here was saying . . .”

“What I mean,” said Georg excitedly, “is that people . . .” And he repeated his exchange with Frau Bonnet and asked Doktor Rosin what he thought about it, from the standpoint of the social sciences. My young friend Frau Bonnet had said.

“I do understand,” began Doktor Rosin, “that we want everything right away.” He rubbed his hands without noticing that Frau Bonnet was suddenly radiating from within. It annoyed Georg that he rolled right over her so heedlessly and was not even aware of her rays. “Now here’s the main thing,” Rosin went on. “Namely: how is the reigning chaos to be overcome? Through the revolutionary concept or through some other kind of order? As far as the Church goes . . .”

A raging fire thought Georg and he leaned forward as far as he could. In the meantime Rosin had multiplied himself further into a giant social organism which spoke at cross purposes from then on. Consumed with the desire for truth, Georg pushed his way into the wild throng of voices, searching for “the main thing.” He wished to grasp it once and for all, but it did not show itself. As he was straining to listen, Georg could not help but recognize that he was being repulsed over and over in the very moment he hoped to reach his goal. Disillusioned he sank back in his chair. Frau Bonnet sat there shut up in herself like a model holding a pose. The rasping noise grew louder, and Georg remembered a certain salon assistant with sideburns 84

who regularly assured him while he was having his hair cut that it was too dry. He had known exactly where the assistant was heading, but nevertheless played along to pass the time, waiting until, after many detours, the man would finally grab a bottle of lotion from the glass cabinet and press Georg to purchase it. Only then would Georg speak up as if surprised and innocently reply that never in his dreams had he considered lotion. Of course sometimes he prolonged the game even further and ended up buying a bottle nonetheless.

“Already in the time of the Counter-Reformation” was heard from the vicinity of Doktor Rosin, whose conduct was precisely the opposite of the salon assistant’s — he did not end with hair lotion but began with it, and removed himself to the rear. And when Georg was still able to see the lotion sparkling in front of him and thought to seize it, it was long since back in the glass cabinet, having been returned there by Doktor Rosin.

Georg’s hair was just as long and as dry as before.

“So that’s clear.” Rosin concluded his retreat on a note of triumph.

As Georg was about to retort that nothing but nothing was clear any longer, Frau Bonnet sighed gratefully: “You know an incredible amount. If you’d only be willing to name me a few books that I can use for my lectures.”

Like a field commander Doktor Rosin took down his companies of books from their shelves for a parade review.

Strindberg, Buber, Nietzsche . . . the volumes followed each other so unexpectedly and incoherently that any ordinary person would have fallen into a chasm trying to move from one to the next in a straight line. But for Rosin it was precisely because there were no bridges between them and one was always made to leap to reach the next title that they seemed to be in their right order, and 85

he crossed this chain of mountains with such ease he might have been down below on the level highway. Probably he could have traversed Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon 32 from A to Z much more rapidly still.

Georg felt ashamed — he enjoyed reading crime novels.

“Perhaps you know Sir Philippe de la Rochelle?” inquired Doktor Rosin. “A completely unknown writer of the 18th century, but of the greatest importance. No one knows anything about him and just between you and me, I’ve only been on his trail recently. You absolutely must read him for your lectures.”33 Frau Bonnet wrote down all the names. Without warning Rosin declared it was time for him to go, noted down Georg’s address, left him a visiting card: “Doktor Max Rosin, Pappelallee 13,” and hied away into the social sciences to Fischer.

“A dreadful person,” Georg said out loud, hurt that Frau Bonnet had not been more attentive to him. She had asked after new recipes like an efficient housewife when she ought to have bloomed to no purpose in a sacred grove.

“You’re too severe. Perhaps he’s a little confused, but then he knows so very much.” Her smile was of a benevolence which took in the whole of mankind. Only he — Georg — was omitted. Georg despised peace. In the hall he forced himself to adopt a suitable farewell tone. In truth she pained him, what with her pail and the lectures, and because she had been made to go down to the apples and the pears of Württemberg. !

The evenings are locked up for far too long in the hall where speakers speak. This is what Georg usually 86

thinks, and apart from that he fails to understand why people attend lectures of their own free will. Really, the evening is outside, in the open air. Yet they are forever filling the halls and listening to speeches which fuse indistinguishably as the evening moves towards its conclusion. Like a cleaning lady on the night shift—that’s how he comes across to himself while he is taking down the speeches. Sentences are always falling out of them which no one pays attention to, and he must pick them up from the floor again anyway so that people will be able to read one more time what was already said to them the evening before. Often there are discussions during which speakers who could not be more different speak one after another, in purest isolation. What they say has utterly no connection with the main speech of the evening; each one who speaks has already prepared his own speech and only listens to himself. Georg, however, must attend to them all and, filled with anxiety that one might escape him, races now here and now there over the endless fields of talk from which speeches suddenly sprout up.

This is the public sphere thinks Georg: these masses of people, these speeches, these brightly illuminated halls over whose windows thick curtains are swaying, cutting him off from the evenings in which humans may freely wander. Yes indeed, now he’s at the heart of the public sphere he has hankered after so, and he will be gradually ground to pieces by it. The anthroposophists aim to awaken transcendental longings in him, whereas the school reformers are materialists even on their best days and want to have everything develop out of the child himself, who then will perhaps never find his way to Dostoevsky, over whom frequent lectures are held which leave Georg no choice but to let himself be melted down to a Russian and wait for Salvation, but only for a short time 87

of course, because right after that comes “the downfall of the West,”34 during which he will have to re-steel himself until at last Graf Keyserling appears,35 who will tenderize him yet again because he reconciles each and every opposite harmonically, making a unique harmony, which lasts only for one hour—and thus does Georg go hopelessly tossing and pitching across the sea of Public Life.

“Surely we need something to hold onto . . .”

Herr Krug smiles at these words of Georg’s and rotates himself halfway out from his manuscripts. Evening is already advanced and the two of them are alone, the only ones left in the newspaper building. Often Krug stays late, running a hand over his lofty paper heaps and becoming absorbed in the cut-out newspaper items, sheets of typing paper, and letters, a singular mass filling the entire room that he cannot break loose from. His cheeks gleam benevolently in the darkness — a refuge.

“If only I had something to hold onto,” repeats Georg. He looks so expectantly at Herr Krug it is as if he has lost his way in the woods and now at last has found a little house with people in it.

Herr Krug rotates, shoves aside two manuscripts, and then rotates himself again. He looks particularly homey.

“You oughtn’t to indulge such thoughts, dear fellow. Do like me: Here I sit among my papers from early morning until late in the evening. As you see, I also sit here long after the secretary has left and keep finishing up work. In these turbulent times, work is our only pillar. Naturally, not work only, a good little drop is also worth something.

How often do I seek out a modest wine bar — I seldom leave here before eight—and consent to a bottle, it goes without saying a good label, and forget our wretchedness over it, until bedtime comes along. Or I accept some invitation; you must realize that I am often in society and chat 88

for a few hours with people to whom I repair from my lonely papers. A great many untrue things are said of the newspaper. And then the ladies, my friend — I ask myself how it is with you in that department. A sweet little woman helps one surmount many a grave doubt —” “But still we’ve got to believe in something! Just tell me once and for all, what do you believe in?” Georg is shouting and is even pleased with his shouts. However, the lenses of Herr Krug’s eyeglasses grow larger and larger, and at last they conceal the friendly cheeks. The turbulent times come tumbling down like hail showers, the chair describes whole circles, the refuge has vanished. The corridors outside are noisy.

“I work a tremendous amount,” Georg throws in.

The noise is coming from the machines which are printing at this hour. The telephone rings. “Wait a moment,” says Herr Krug into the receiver, “yes, it’s gotten colder.” His tone does not encourage conversation. He seems to read in a manuscript that rivets his attention for an eternity, notes something down for himself, and turns back to Georg as from out of a dream.

“You are posing remarkable questions, my dear, but I shall not begrudge you an answer. What I believe is easily expressed. I believe . . .”

A sharp noise; one of the tall piles of papers has fallen to the floor. Herr Krug must have made some clumsy move, it could be that his arm has swung too wide through the air and left its orbit. He lets his hand wander senselessly across the desktop, bends over to seize a couple of papers at his feet, and angrily murmurs something unintelligible to himself.

Georg feels anxious because he can no longer recognize Herr Krug. He is in the room completely alone with a stranger. Awkwardly Georg moves around on his knees 89

gathering the manuscripts, some of which have managed to slip far underneath the desk. It would be better with the ceiling light on he thinks. The papers continue to hide themselves as successfully as ever.

“Don’t trouble yourself,” says Herr Krug in his usual tone of voice. “So what were we speaking of just now, my dear fellow — oh, about belief, now I remember.

I should say that naturally every person has to believe in something, because if we didn’t believe in anything, in these turbulent times we could utterly despair. Not a few have already committed suicide, being in that condition, and once again I caution you not to lose yourself. It is dangerous to let yourself go, one simply falls, one falls.

Often I sit here evenings, long after the secretary has left, and if you really must know what I believe in my heart of hearts, so I’ll tell you . . . It is my view that . . . my view that . . . Oh, here’s Kummer! It’s excellent of you to come and fetch me. I find it hot —” “You’re right about that,” Kummer says after a pause, during which Herr Krug drums on the desktop. “It has actually gotten colder.” He is wrapped in a thick scarf and blinks into the light, and is so motionless that Georg cannot conceive how this great mass could have covered such distance by way of so many corridors in the short time which has elapsed since the telephone call. To be sure, the papers have fallen in the meantime. We’re falling thinks Georg, and the dollar is rising.36 Herr Krug is once again fully serene. He puts some of the unordered manuscripts in his attaché case and chats with the Korrektor. On and on he chats: “Our good friend Kummer is healthy down to the bone and looks exceedingly well but at his age, no age really, he does have to take care of himself nevertheless. A shame he’s come too late to share in our conversation, which was broken 90

off too soon. We have been discussing, if you will allow the expression, last things,37 and I have declared to my young colleague that I believe in human reason which, in spite of all errors, shall prevail in the end. The main thing is not to let yourself be infected with depressing thoughts, I always say. Isn’t it so, Kummer—but now it’s time we were off.”

“I’m anything but healthy.”

Krug is tossing on his overcoat with deliberately youthful verve and does not catch Kummer’s remark. At the door Krug gives Kummer a confiding wink and turns to Georg as if to a far-off attendant: “You do know that tomorrow evening you’re expected at the big demonstration. I don’t envy you that reporting, which hopefully will turn out to be of interest.”

“People are not reasonable,” Herr Kummer answers with a sorrowing smile. A tiny light bulb burns at the end of the corridor.

91

V. A sort of housekeeper opened the door and ascended the hall stairs. A pallid youth who was skimpily dressed came down the steps and left the house. The stairway railings consisted of little turned balusters. The housekeeper beckoned to Georg to come upstairs. He entered an elongated room that reeked of cleanliness and gave the impression of being fully cleared of objects even though it was filled with furniture. Against one wall a lectern reared, perpetually busy with reading. Obviously its bare bones had driven off the furniture; like a house on stakes38 it rose from the linoleum which stretched in all directions and looked so blank that one might have thought there was no floor whatsoever. Had a rug been lying over it, the chairs would doubtless have manifested themselves again. Father Quirin appeared in a door which lay behind and to the right. He approached as something long and black, one did not hear him as he went floating over the linoleum. His face was a wall before the face, his fine lips let nothing pass. He and Georg sat down and Georg knew that now he would have to speak; still he hesitated to say anything because suddenly he felt there was no reason for him to be here. The priest asked after Doktor Petri. The tablecloth had tassels, little balls hanging on tiny threads.

“It is uncertainty that brings me to you,” said Georg.

“Please excuse me if I don’t express myself as clearly as I would like.”

Unnerved by the priest’s mute presence, Georg talked incoherently: of Herr Krug, to whom he did not refer by name; of those evenings in the assembly halls; of the fact 92

that he could not go on living as he had been. He was sitting on a sofa such as one finds in every home. Father Quirin leaned slightly forward as he listened; his smooth face gave no sign whether or not he was truly attending to what was being said. It seemed as though he smiled, but he did not smile and although his hand rested on the table, still he was far away. I’m alone thought Georg, and he strove mightily to find his way to the priest. He confessed that he longed to have a belief. He said that he admired the teachings of the Church. He said that he understood the reason why there were dogmas. “I stand outside,” he assured him, “I’m only coming from outside.”

He had the sensation of clambering up an outside wall and forever falling back down.

The priest replied: “It’s clear that you judge the situation correctly. Men live in anarchy and give no thought to their salvation.”

Georg felt fleeting pride in having his view confirmed by a Jesuit; having faith was easy. Father Quirin also taught at the university. His extremely beautiful hands never moved, and his simple phrases slipped over one, attracting no more attention to themselves than he himself did when slipping over the linoleum. In his lectures, which had been meant for those holding other beliefs, he had spoken in very much the same way. Now his voice was softer than during those evening lectures, a drawing-room voice, and yet it had a public character because it was being directed to no one personally. Georg was no one.

For the last lecture Georg had taken Fred along, but he had not succeeded in transferring his own hunger to the boy. Quite the contrary: Fred had been bored and made fun of a couple of harmless women in the back of the room who clustered about the priest, who stood out from them. Never would Fred have spoken against 93

Georg’s religious inclinations; he just refused to follow him. A restive mildness — that was it. Whenever Georg bore into him with arguments for the necessity of fixed religious faith, Fred obligingly admitted to the necessity, made his melancholy eyes, and was quiet. At the same time Fred was very alert and often developed opinions of his own. The two of them read together and discussed the events of the day, or themselves, or other people. But a tiny something was missing: After a serious talk Fred would ride off on his bicycle, or he would trot into his room with his tennis racket far too abruptly. Fred’s offhand manner was upsetting to Georg, who sensed something behind it but was unable to fathom what it might be. At times Georg feared that he was himself losing touch with everyday existence: Moments ago he had wanted to hint to Father Quirin about his relationship with Fred and then had not done so. He was keeping this friendship a secret from everybody else as well, which for that matter could no longer be considered a friendship. He was not going to show the outside world his beloved.

Soon Fred would leave school. Georg was consumed with longing for the Indian tent, for their greetings, for his face, the laughter, for the whole everlasting torment.

Here it was empty — nothing but linoleum all around, shining linoleum, a sea without a shore. “Many persons will destroy themselves,” intoned the priest, “and yet already the birth pangs of the Spirit are being felt.” His glasses were in thin gold frames; the tassels were getting twisted in one another. Most of all Georg would have liked to creep away.

“How is it, for example, with the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope?” asked Georg. “I really cannot believe that unconditionally.”

“Dogmas,” the priest replied, “do not present them94

selves to a person all at the same time. Each has its own hour in which it reveals itself to the believer.”

If Georg had been hoping for an answer that would repel him, to his disappointment an obstacle was now being removed from his path instead. On the linoleum traces of a faded pattern were emerging. He followed the wavy lines, which slowly came to an end only to resume. He thought out loud: “But are we able then to go back . . .”

“The Church abides in the truth.”

Father Quirin smiled. His lips were only a crack, nothing more. The housekeeper passed through the room and disappeared through the door in the rear to the right. The lectern had moved closer. It looked used up and worn, an old instrument which perhaps had once emitted beautiful sounds. Georg fancied he was hearing a melody, Fred sank into darkness, the streets were forgotten.

Father Quirin’s words had opened other rooms to him, new ones; yet he was in doubt whether or not to venture further into them. “. . . the Holy Communion . . .” Just as his indecisiveness was lifting, the words reached him. They were strange words rising from a world Georg did not know, barging in front of him and growing larger and larger. Holy Communion — believing was hard. One had to remain where one was — the railroad workers’ strike was still not over.

The face of the priest ran together with the linoleum to create a single interminable wall. Georg stared down at the floor and strayed about its bleak surface as though he were roaming by himself over a frozen lake, heading toward the evening. Then he noticed chipped edges and cracks—the linoleum covering was liable to rupture at any moment. He kept still; only after a while could he gradually become sure once more that he sat on a sofa. In the distance the lectern reared up black 95

against the horizon, an archaic signal. Where was it pointing?

“I still feel very uncertain.” Georg stood up. “Forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” said Father Quirin, adding: “The paths are many, one only need let oneself be found.” The hand which the priest held out in farewell felt cool. On the stairs the housekeeper was dusting the turned uprights of the railings. For a second in the entrance hall, Georg imagined that he was the thinly clad youth who had preceded him in leaving. Outside it was blindingly bright. The priest’s room had not been at all large and yet to Georg looking back it seemed like an ocean which had swallowed the furniture. !

“It’s true, my dear fellow” — Herr Krug tilted cautiously — “with this article you’ll not find any favor with us.” He handed Georg back his manuscript, which required his approval in order to be published.

“And why not—” “You know perfectly well why. Without the least reservation you declare yourself in agreement with the speaker’s criticism of radical youth groups, while approving only of the Young Catholics.39 I don’t understand you — the youth groups you are disparaging constantly pledge their allegiance to revolutionary aims similar to our own. Of course they lack maturity . . . But where would the newspaper be if we were to support this Catholic schoolman to the hilt — — Heed my advice, withdraw your article.”

“But you yourself entrusted me with this report and expressly commanded me to have it ready for tomorrow’s paper.”

“Yes, yes . . . Just write the thing over.”

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“But how could I, against my convictions—” Georg jumped to his feet. As he marched around the room he could sense Herr Krug wheeling about to follow him with his eyes. Ever since the evening when he had tried to pry a confession of faith from him, being desirous of faith himself, Krug had become more unapproachable than ever. Perhaps he only imagined the change; Krug’s cheeks shone as before and his chattiness was the same — yet at this moment Georg could not shake the feeling that he was lying in wait for him, as if he were prey. Krug sat behind his desk, secure and well-fed, blinking sleepily and tapping his pencil at regular intervals on the desktop.

One — one — one — As if drops of water were falling. If only they would stop. Georg was excited and walked over to the desk, which hovered alone in space, and attempted to talk over the pencil. He justified himself, swearing by Father Quirin’s very words: “Unlike the other youth organizations, the Young Catholics are not overflowing with enthusiasm for personal freedom; they submit to supra-personal obligations.” One — one — one — Fundamentally Georg only knew the youth move40 ment from what he could see of it and felt no friendlier than Fred did towards the Wandervögel 41 with their plinky-plonk guitars and ribbons and eternal trekking through nature and starting fires and behaving so youthfully one would suppose no one had ever lived prior to themselves. “Herr Sommer expects a whole new age from them.” One — one — one — “I’d rather be a child than ‘young’.” Georg was inspired . . . No more tapping . . . Herr Krug is about to eat me alive.

“Fine, hand in your article,” said Krug.

Georg thought he must have misheard. “But . . .”

“Hand it in, I say. After all, it was commissioned.”

“I’m so glad you . . .”

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Herr Krug said nothing and fixed Georg with a strikingly hostile stare. Then all of a sudden he could not have looked more benevolent; it was as though he were the host of a party and nothing less than Chinese lanterns were swinging back and forth in his garden.

“Perhaps I should make some changes . . . ,” offered Georg. He himself harbored reservations about a few passages in his report.

But Herr Krug had quite evidently not only accepted the arguments which Georg put forward, he had even been embellishing and expanding them in the meantime. Like a zealot he stormed against the excessive indulging of emotion in the youth movement — which would never result in a community, and he lectured Georg about the advantages of Catholic life. The latter was listening hard as he could and out of politeness forgot that he had said the same things himself a little before.

“I declare to you: Community is Form,” said Herr Krug, stressing his words, and his hands outlined an invisible vessel of perfect roundness.

“I’m taking my article right now to the compositors.” To prevent the manuscript from being exposed to some new danger, Georg turned quickly toward the door.

“And many thanks for your permission.”

“Stop, my dear fellow,” shouted Herr Krug. “Stop! It’s clear you’re still young and that you rush every decision.

I sit in my room racking my brains, and here you come and extort a permission from me. As if I had bestowed one on you . . . no, hold on a moment. You’re surely aware of the editorial stance taken by the Morgenbote, and when you occupy different ground you must simply keep quiet or — — But wait, I’ll not just fear the worst. You will have noticed how well I understand you, and I’m almost prepared to believe that by and large you are 98

right . . . Many things may be said against the newspaper; the least of its faults is narrowness of spirit. And so rest easy, do as your conscience bids you . . . I’ve still got work to do, excellent friend.”

Feeling undecided, Georg went to the composing rooms. It was early evening and there was nowhere a hand compositor to be seen; they would only start working later. Georg interpreted the desolateness as a prophetic sign which spoke against his article and was about to depart when from the linotype room a man emerged: the boxer with the gigantic muscles.

“So, you’ve written something again?” he asked Georg. The milk of human kindness from top to bottom.

“Yes . . . no . . . it can wait until later.”

“Hand me the thing. I’ll see to it right now.”

The willingness of the linotypist—who actually was not required to take in manuscripts — seemed to Georg to augur favorably for his report. “Herr Krug has given his approval,” he added so as to make himself feel better.

The linotypist failed to hear the remark which did not concern him. He was in the habit of dressing in a blue smock, swung his hips, and besides boxing loved travel descriptions. Georg and he smoked a cigarette together. The great plates already lay on the table, waiting to receive their type; the letter type rested on its shelves.

Several months ago the boxer had asked Georg’s advice about a book on geography he might give to his son as a Christmas present. Georg had been very pleased by this sign of the man’s trust in him, for he could as easily have asked Ohly or someone else. Now, during a pause in the work, the two spoke in comradely fashion, letting the ashes of their cigarettes fall to the floor.

Alas, the boxer never read his articles, preferring sports reporting, murder trials, and the pieces by Krug.

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“Things on the Ruhr42 are going to turn out badly,” he said, using a tone which suggested he waited for more precise information. Georg nodded meaningfully in order not to destroy the impression that he was well up on political events. In truth he no longer bothered himself with grand politics, having mistrusted them ever since the war.

The apprentice entered, a blond youth with a forelock who carried an oil can in his hand; like a gardener’s helper he watered the machines. “The elimination matches are coming up again in the sports arena,” said the boxer. “You really must come with me to see them. Herr Ohly already has. Everyone should practice a sport, so much sitting is bad in the long run.” A couple of typesetters said hello and went to their machines and chests of type. Although Georg only knew a few of them by name, they all knew him and sometimes when he would ask something about how they operated their equipment, or even tried to lift up the tray containing type, they would tease him and swear that he was a real editor.

Various lamps went on and the glass roof overhead disappeared. The boxer, that good-natured monster, went trotting off with Georg’s manuscript in his hands. Perhaps he’ll forget about it was Georg’s wish, though he did not expect any such thing. Before the inconspicuous door to the composing rooms a cleaning lady was busying herself with some filthy wipe-rags.

!

Seeing that his report appeared unaltered in the Morgenbote the very next morning, Georg, feeling a certain uneasiness, betook himself to the newspaper towards 100

midday. In the corridor he was detained by a messenger: “You are to go to Herr Doktor Albrecht at once.” What business does he have with me just like that. Albrecht had never bothered with Georg up to now.

But for the anxiety squeezing him, Georg would undoubtedly have soared like a balloon in Albrecht’s office, so large and bright was the space. The only thriving organisms in its uniformly arid climate were an enormous wall map of the world and strictly scientific, bound volumes that had fused together to form a sort of box. The dryness of the vegetation paralyzed Georg and woke in him a longing for the dark, humid corridors from which he had come. Suddenly, as he was listlessly sitting there and even fearing he might die of thirst alone, he was surrounded by a cage of fine wires which reared up around him. Its latticework was a mirage caused by the graph table behind which Doktor Albrecht had been hiding himself the whole time.

“You’ve stirred up a fine mess,” he said, snapping open like a knife. The blade looked as if it had been newly whetted, and glinted in the light.

“Are you referring to my modest report on the youth movement —” Purely from the instinct of self-preservation, Georg was biding for time.

Doktor Albrecht looked up astonished, as if to question the sanity of his questioner. He really had no eyes at all; at the very least they were completely abstract and were employed less for seeing than for stinging. Now he convulsively threw back his head, on which — everything else not being enough — a few furious hairs stood up on end, and with a slashing tone began to exact vengeance.

Georg’s little article on youth lay on the floor, defenseless.

Was Georg not aware that the Center party43 stood in the way of social progress? Had he never sensed behind the 101

formlessness of Youth its revolutionary urge to demolish rotten conventions . . .

Albrecht’s accusations whizzed through the air one after another. “Flying Arrow,” Georg recalled, was the name of a particularly cruel minor chieftain in his Indian books.44 He held his breath in and waited for death. Still there was one moment when he couldn’t help smiling, when Doktor Albrecht in his rage misspoke and called freedom “our washboard for youth.” In pronouncing the isolated word “freedom” Albrecht tried to mime enthusiasm with his eyes—which made them sting even more frightfully. The minor chieftain had lured two hundred of his enemy into a rocky gorge and let them be gruesomely dispatched; of course he was no light blond like this one here.

“I will not allow such overstepping of bounds in the future. Once and for all: Political articles are to be submitted to me.”

“If you please,” Georg threw in, “the article was authorized by Herr Krug.”

“That I would like to hear from Krug himself.”

Doktor Albrecht, having grown dangerously red, spoke into the house telephone and then withdrew into his statistical table once more. It was as if he were retreating into a shadowy bush. The scientific books crept across the grasslands like a huge worm. On the map of the world, which was curling from age, almost no use seemed to have been made yet of Africa; the entire continent was tidy and bare. In the midst of the bareness Krug’s face emerged. “So here we are,” he said, smiling like a missionary. The conciliatory spirit which radiated from him was meant only for Doktor Albrecht, who shone so pacifically in its reflection that he appeared to be sitting of an evening in front of his own hut. The two men 102

greeted each other like friendly powers who negotiate over a conquered adversary. Where is that clock Georg wondered. The ticking was incessant.

“And I’m supposed to have authorized your article,” said Herr Krug, holding fire. For the first time he turned altogether to Georg, but with a dull and expressionless countenance. The ticking was coming from a yellow wall clock high above Africa; in its housing the statistical tables had found a new shelter, only up there their lines came together as severe Roman numerals.

Following a pause that he tasted with the delight of a connoisseur — redoubled by Albrecht’s presence — Herr Krug went on in a tone of wounded superiority: “‘Authorized,’ you say — but how could I have ever come up with such a hare-brained idea? Here in the presence of Doktor Albrecht I shall rehearse the facts for you: That yesterday evening, quite to the contrary, I declared to you that I could not give my approval to your article. And that at the conclusion of our indeed very interesting conversation, I was even compelled to remind you of the danger you were running with your divergent views. And since I may not assume that you are suffering from a sudden clouding of the faculty of recollection . . . Oh yes, my dear fellow, you’ll have to see how you extricate yourself from this affair . . . When Doktor Petri, who is due back this afternoon, learns the details it is my belief he’ll . . .”

“Keep to the subject,” roared Doktor Albrecht. Even though he remained seated, he had jumped up and was twitching in his readiness to attack.

“May I for a moment—it’s not correct that yesterday evening Herr Krug — in fact you pronounced Catholicism to be good when the outcome of our discussion was still in doubt . . .” Georg had been carried away by his own 103

words. Herr Krug tried unsuccessfully to direct Doktor Albrecht’s looks to himself. Just then they fastened on the wall clock, which had transformed itself into a target, and began bringing down the Roman numerals one by one. A fly buzzed across Africa. Herr Krug gave the impression of someone painfully disappointed: “I am sincerely aggrieved, excellent friend, that you would bend my well-intended effort to empathize with the Catholic outlook into an avowal of it. Naturally there can be no question of this last, and you only make your own situation more difficult with such a misguided explanation; notwithstanding which I am personally quite ready to admit to a genuine sympathy for Catholicism.”

“I no longer understand anything,” cried Georg. He would have suffocated had he not spoken. “I wrote what I was inwardly compelled to write, and in the end you yourself left it to me to take the article — ” “It’s still a scandal.” Doktor Albrecht cut Georg off.

“And I am not tolerating the emergence of reactionary tendencies.”

Having begun cutting, Doktor Albrecht immediately proceeded to cut up a brochure with his paperknife.

Plainly the groans of its pages were soothing to Herr Krug, who now observed that it was nevertheless conceivable that Georg might have misunderstood him—which was of course not to justify his report. “Our young friend”: Krug spoke the words as though he were attending a religious conversion.

At length, when the sufferings of the brochure had run their course, a stillness set in during which Georg would have liked to crawl into a hole. The rows of books remained exactly where they were. Doktor Albrecht looked over to Herr Krug, although he wasn’t actually 104

looking at him but drawing lines with his eyes as with a ruler.

“Listen, Albrecht,” said Herr Krug. “I wouldn’t mind at all learning a bit more about our position on the Ruhr fighting.”

“You’re not familiar with my analysis? I’ll fill you in with a couple of interesting details right now.”

Wounded by the “right now,” Georg left the room with a “guten Tag” that was not to be heard despite its distinctness. !

What if Doktor Petri’s back he thought to himself while on the stairs. As late as that same morning Georg had taken pleasure in the porter’s greeting and now—even though it was time to eat he was not going for lunch. The porter was so skillful in raising high his filled sleeve that the hollow one went unnoticed.

I cannot put up with this, I cannot, no really I cannot . . . A polluted rivulet ran across the street and then lost itself in a light well. The coffee-house that Georg sought out was empty; everyone was still at lunch.

It was not the first time he had retreated to this out-ofthe-way establishment in order to feel himself a stranger in the city. Innumerable stools were scattered over the floor and whenever one was shifted there was a light creaking sound. After considerable hesitation Georg ordered something sweet to go with his coffee. His pastry was not so much intended to reward him for the meal he was missing as to increase the feeling of happiness that his misery was procuring him. So far down in the depths: what a beautiful feeling.

The waitress wore an apron stained like the wall 105

—over which wave-patterns raced and before which lighting globes the size of full-grown human heads puffed themselves up. Below, too, only heads bobbed; by now the wooden stools had disappeared and yet the creaking was endless. “When can they be delivered?” someone at the next table asked, with a show of wrinkles in his forehead that ran uniformly like lines in a notepad. His companion, a baldpate, entered rows of figures on them, and then the two men whispered. Short gray jackets, fingers with rings on them, neckties — a male member reared up as rigidly as Father Quirin’s lectern. To glide on one leg over the linoleum, always further out — “It’s him, what’s-his-name.” A new gentleman approached the pair.

Wages were being counted out at short intervals, for which believe it or not cigarettes had to be laid out, taken from a little hoard. This afternoon I’ll go straight to Doktor Petri. Georg paid up, it was still too early. In a knife shop a pocket model was gleaming with more than the usual number of blades; inwardly he named it “Albrecht.”

Beautifully clad wax effigies stood over the crowd like fine ladies, rugs spilled down whose spirals were not to be deciphered, and between broomsticks and cloths were mounds of unrecognizable objects of humble origin.

As Georg climbed the familiar stairs, the insatiable afternoon finally released him from its grip. “He just comes waltzing in,” exclaimed Marie from above. As he made his way down the hall, Georg forgot what had been preoccupying him. He was enveloped by half-sleep and in the middle of the tunnel, where Fred’s room bordered, he began to drift away from himself. Frau Anders sat darning in the twilight next to the window. “It’s only me,” said Georg. The courtyard windows opposite had moved very near to Frau Anders, but she did not sense anything.

“What in the world’s to become of me,” she sighed.

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“My income is shrinking all the time—you know, Georg, that I have nothing other than what little I get from my savings — goodness, I can’t even think about it, I would go completely mad. Frau Eisenmann has it much better. A good thing my husband’s dead already, he would never have survived how the money he saved up by the sweat of his brow is melting away. What are they saying over at the newspaper? You’d have to be the first ones to realize that things can’t go on like this and finally take some action. But no one dares open his mouth, and for a while now I’ve even stopped reading the paper. Still I do read your articles religiously and always marvel at how much you’re writing and how you always manage to hit the bull’s-eye. You’re a big shot now Georg, and it makes me so very happy. Only today there was another piece of yours, on the youth movement or maybe was it something else . . .” Framed by a few strands of gray, her face appeared to have been expelled from the flighty herd of courtyard windows and left behind in the sitting room. Now it sank, a gloomy orb seemingly on the way to fading out bit by bit; meanwhile the black wooden pedestal column was emerging from indistinct depths. Soon it would be the only remaining witness and dominate the rooms like a memorial.

“Would you please tell me what the modern young people really want, I’m not up on the subject. A good thing Fred knows he’ll have to earn his own money as soon as possible. Do you hear footsteps out there? Herr Kummer hasn’t turned up in a long time, I hope nothing’s seriously the matter, he makes himself so sick with his complaining and of course he’s healthier than I am. Why Marie goes creeping around in the hall I would love to know, she grows more unbearable by the day, please by all means stay for the half an hour until Fred gets home, I’ll 107

turn on the light right now, one has to watch every penny these days.”

Down below, the streets had gotten dark and the bells of the trams were clanging. People crowded together in them, people and more people; they waited, met one another, trickled away to nothing, and shone like a sea of paper flowers whenever a gleam of red or yellow light fell on them from the shops. I’m going to complain to Doktor Petri about the unfair treatment. A war cripple, now only a trunk lashed to a board, went rolling between the legs of the crowd as if it were an ancient forest and the heads above him rustling treetops. !

“Please . . . I’m at your disposal.”

“It’s about my article — ” “I know it. The one against the youth movement . . .”

Feeling far too oppressed to look Doktor Petri in the eye, Georg could only accept what he heard immediately. The precise way the words characterized his report and at the same time stripped it bare let him know that they were the outcome of some thought and even perhaps of lengthy discussions, against which no one would any longer be able to do anything. Before the finality of these words, any attempt to clarify the situation, already confused in itself, was bound to fail. And so at the last moment Georg gave up his plan to lodge a complaint.

“After what has happened,” he said fixedly, “I am ready to accept all the consequences.”

“But hold on, for me you’re a really queer case—” Doktor Petri laughed as if over a good joke; truly, Georg heard an encouraging laugh which instantly proved that his fears were groundless. While he was stretching in relief 108

over his rescue and still basking in the laughter—the best would have been just going straight to sleep — he was surprised to hear Doktor Petri heap praises on him. Georg, it seems, had developed extraordinary political cunning, and now was surely the time — as he, Georg, had correctly divined—to conciliate the Center. “Let’s be clear,” Doktor Petri was saying. “I see in the Church now and always an irreconcilable adversary who must forever fight against the realization of our social ideas, for reasons of philosophy if nothing else. But we cannot go headfirst through a wall, and the internal political situation in any case requires us to avoid giving unnecessary offense to Catholic circles with petty attacks. It’s a matter of tact . . .”

In the midst of this speech Doktor Petri grabbed Georg and went with him arm in arm up and down the room. Georg felt as if he were a dolly who might be allowed to fall to the floor any second by a bounding child; yet he was touched by the almost physical trust being offered him, and in order not to disappoint it he suppressed his urge to disagree with the misconceptions which had begotten Doktor Petri’s pronouncements. Moreover, it occurred to him in the knick of time how unwise it would be to explain precisely now that his report had nothing to do with the aims being imputed to it.

Still, concerning one point Georg was in need of immediate clarification, never mind their lovely traipsing about in the office meadows — clarification namely of the tormenting discrepancy between his experiences earlier in the day and now this conversation. “You do realize,” he carefully asked, “that Doktor Albrecht did not concur with my report?”

Doktor Petri assured him that the matter had already been satisfactorily put to rest: “Every once in a while Albrecht gets very worked up but he doesn’t really mean 109

it that way . . . A matter of tact, as I was saying, tact . . .”

He released Georg as unexpectedly as he had seized him, made a clicking noise with his tongue as if to intimidate an invisible enemy, and fell silent.

The pause aroused an irresistible wish in Georg to make his own contribution to their conversation, and forced exactly those things to the surface which he had not wanted to expose. Incapable of defending himself forever against the powerful suction of silence, he began to speak of his attraction to Catholicism and conveyed the greetings of Father Quirin.

“Oh yes indeed, the Jesuits know their business,” replied Doktor Petri, bored, and he glanced at the clock.

Failing to notice his distractedness, Georg weighed a bold plan which he was ready to put into action without delay.

“Herr Sommer is waiting in the outer room.”

— Fräulein Peppel’s head shoved itself through the crack of the door like a wedge.

“I would like to request a raise.” Georg had scarcely finished speaking when he regretted his rash proposal.

A renewed clicking told him that Doktor Petri was disappointed with this clever exploitation of their harmonious time together, meant purely for things of the mind, and now Georg took himself to task for being an extortionist. Tact he thought to himself. Tact. Yet it was true. He was too poorly paid for his political discernment, which had just been confirmed, and he needed the money badly.

Doktor Petri absentmindedly promised to give the matter sincere consideration; with a face that clearly showed he knew a thing or two about the ingratitude of men and despised them from the bottom of his soul.

The incident was apparently forgotten, however, by the time they were saying their good-byes. With casual 110

friendliness Petri remarked to Georg: “Sommer has been doing excellent work recently. Have you read his latest article?”

So as not to cause any congestion, Georg hastened straight towards the outer office door, but he was detained by a powerful “hello” from Herr Sommer, the last person he wished to run into at that moment.

“Albrecht has been angry with you then?” inquired Sommer.

“Yes.” “Naturally the way you treat the Youth Movement so harshly seems perverse to me, too. Though I’m quite in agreement with your religious attitude. Unfortunately, Albrecht lacks all feeling for the urgency of Youth, and nevertheless they must be won over. Perhaps some of the objections from the Catholic side do have a point . . . Let’s talk things over some time.”

“Gladly.”

Sommer shook Georg’s hand up and down with unmistakable enthusiasm and then vanished impetuously like a “hello” behind the leather-upholstered door. He was certainly already past thirty, and yet a breeze was always blowing through his wavy locks, his forehead was a “brow,” and his neck was freshly tanned. Doubtless Sommer was in possession of a rowboat on Sundays.

“How now, still not content?” Georg, who was plagued with a retrospective fear that he had asked for too small a raise, felt himself at a loss before such unforeseen affability on the part of Fräulein Peppel and gave the secretary a mute smile. She smiled back like a powerfully defended fortress from which a drawbridge is let down.

Of course she did not offer him her hand.

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!

Late in the evening that very same day Georg returned to the newspaper to speak with Herr Lawatsch.

Opening the door, he was as eager as a bride who wishes to share her happiness with her old nurse right away. But he did not find the one he was seeking.

Georg decided to remain anyway and seated himself on the red corduroy sofa. Across from him were a few papers hanging from the stuffed upper compartments of Lawatsch’s desktop tray. Georg, who had never actually examined this upper story, was surprised to discover how the entire edifice of the tray suddenly appeared so complete. As his glance fell upon the desk lamp, which barely lifted its head above the manuscripts, he understood the source of the change: the lamp was dead. Usually it lit up the small encampment which Herr Lawatsch had organized amid his forest of papers; now, together with its green shade, it belonged to the desk like any other object and was itself illumined by the ceiling fixture. The light overhead was burning so dismally it looked ready to go out any time.

Stretched out on the divan, Georg reflected that he could be observed by the entire room unimpeded.

His consciousness of being stared at like a stranger was deeply disturbing and produced in him the desire to dwindle down to nothing. It was a desire which, having no sooner arisen, mixed itself with a slightly sour smell that was at home in the sofa. Like a stranger — where was he, anyhow? This sofa where he was resting had participated in erotic games, some of which had perhaps ceased to be even memories, and the desk over there had emerged from events which no person could any longer conjure up. It was clear to Georg that by all rights he 112

ought to follow the clues being revealed to him back to their source, and he shrank more than ever before the immense tide of occurrences which surged after him as though he were wearing a train. They would always pursue him, and one day they would catch up with him and bring him to justice. Don’t lie down on the couch in your coat his mother had warned him. Unable to move, he continued waiting beneath the ceiling light. He had been locked up in a cabin, and the ship was rapidly gliding away; it was solely a matter of time before he would be handed over. He already heard a chuckling coming closer.

How strange that it was able to press towards him; for although the walls of the cave where he was staying at the moment could only be made of paper, they were unyielding as stone.

“A late visitor—” Herr Lawatsch was grinning over Georg with a face that looked as if it were from inside the earth, thoroughly wrinkled and crumbling and full of tangled roots. He was shrouded in vapor and took bizarre steps. The room receded before the desk lamp, in whose light Lawatsch’s back hunched, and became its old self again.

As his pen moved without stopping over one page of manuscript and then another, Herr Lawatsch as it were surrounded himself with his own humming. Evidently the sound, which could not be dispelled, kept him from offering an opinion on Georg’s report over the defeats and triumphs of the day. Some time passed before the local news editor turned from his manuscripts — he did not fully emerge from them — and chased off the humming. His vest stood half open and his coat was spotted with ashes.

“Have I ever told you about Annie . . . She was a waitress in the wine restaurant beyond out back. — One time she came to me here . . . the breasts on that woman . . .” Lawatsch pressed the bell button and leaned 113

back in his chair, caressing absent breasts. The messenger entered and disappeared silently with the manuscripts that were lying ready.

“An unpleasant person.” Herr Lawatsch growled into his papers.

“And yet,” suggested Georg, “for me it is important to know that Doktor Petri went against Albrecht for the sake of my article.”

“An unpleasant person . . .”

“You weren’t even listening to me. The messenger?”

“Albrecht.” Lawatsch lifted his head, annoyed. “Do you really think Doktor Petri praised you for your pretty blue eyes? He’s merely making use of an opportunity to give Albrecht a slap. That one has an edge which Petri doesn’t care for, and even though he doesn’t tell him what line to take on the economy, still he’d like to throw cold water on his ambitions. Also there are some social things in the background . . .”

With a crafty look Lawatsch added: “Recently even that youth craziness is in favor with him, each of them is being played off against the other.”

“Ah, so that’s why —” Now Georg understood the significance of the praise Doktor Petri had bestowed on Herr Sommer at the conclusion of their talk. The actual course which events had taken depressed him, without his being able to say why he was sad. Angrily he accused Krug of hostility towards him.

“But what do you expect — ” Lawatsch drew back perceptibly. “Krug was just here to see me and spoke very warmly about you. Among other things he said there was no question of your political tact, even if you hadn’t yet got the hang of how to go about using it.”

Lawatsch blinked as he peered over at Georg; his hair was wild as though blown down from the trees. Above 114

them everything was dark; perhaps the ceiling had been opened to the night.

Krug had been forced to fight his way up from a subordinate position, Lawatsch hinted, and had not had much luck with women. “When one’s still young like you . . . Gradually the paper uses us up.” Like lightning Georg saw the old man back then: how he had been tossed aside like some manuscript and like it had lost his original smoothness. To turn into this: rumpled, babbling, lost in drink. For my pretty blue eyes — “I’ve been a plaything,” said Georg, who at last grasped the source of his misery. “I wrote my little article believing in its rightness, and it has been rejected or acknowledged for reasons that have nothing to do with what it says . . .”

“It’s plain nonsense,” croaked Herr Lawatsch.

“Your world-saviors these days have lost all respect for human freedom. But don’t any of you come to me with Catholicism. The one thing which suits me about it is that we’re allowed to sin.”

He smirked and it seemed as if the dried-out surfaces of his face were being irrigated after a stubborn drought. His eyes, too, shone moistly and twinkled in the middle of the humming which began to grow loud once more. A veil of sound, the humming wove itself about the bent-over figure of Lawatsch and caused the corduroy divan to flower. Fiery red as in its youthful days, it bore up Annie, the proud waitress with the breasts.

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VI. Against his expectations, Georg found himself asking the way several times in order to find Frau Bonnet’s cottage.

It did not lie in the locality itself, he had only just been informed, but a bit further behind it, and the street which led there seemed intent on hiding itself. Perhaps the village wished to compensate for its smallness by confusing strangers. Georg had not let his hosts know precisely when he would arrive. Wishing to be considerate, however, he had already gotten there by early afternoon, and he set out on the high road in the most sweltering heat of the day. He was even more bothered by the heat since the road leading out into the countryside was not hemmed by greenery. In the city one did not notice the climate to nearly the same extent. As for Frau Bonnet’s cottage, he had been picturing something rural; it would be surmounted by a gable and belong to its surroundings as much as the trees did, and now to his disappointment he found himself face to face with an insignificant single dwelling which would have done as well for a suburb.

It was whitewashed and rose up along the street as if next to a railroad track. There were a pair of window openings which took little account of each other. Behind one of these he caught sight of Frau Bonnet.

As she came up to Georg, the cottage evaporated and he imagined that he was encountering her in Nowhere, the place where faces and familiar features alone manifest themselves. Frau Bonnet first won back her full spatial aspect in the room which lay off the entrance hall and which was unchanged from what it had been; 116

obviously it had not transplanted itself to Württemberg at all. Goethe, Kierkegaard, Hegel — the books were arrayed one after another the same as before; they lived only behind their covers. When it was time for tea Herr Bonnet entered wearing a wide-brimmed garden hat like a planter. The glittering of dust motes in the sunlight, continually drifting down like a mist on his words and gently covering them, the smells of nature, and the rare might of late summer, physically present in the room, separated Georg from the higher speech-world where Frau Bonnet reigned in black.

“I meet him the day after tomorrow,” Georg replied in answer to a question about Fred, and he strained to give consideration to other questions. The manuscripts on the desk were feminist lectures which Frau Bonnet still had not finished writing. Later Georg was obliged to go out into the garden, to the fruit bushes, the vegetable beds, the flowers. Herr Bonnet, who was his guide, gave out the names of everything with such indifference he might as well have been introducing him to a group of inferior acquaintances, and he was taken aback when Georg expressly admired the plants. Not until later did it occur to Georg that with his admiration he had completely failed to show Herr Bonnet the intended courtesy.

The two of them must have stayed out of doors too long, for when they reentered the house, Georg felt drowned in air — an air-corpse that was washed far away during the evening meal. If only he had actually been permitted to leave the table, to take care of the promptings of nature if nothing else. But they held him fast — and making Frau Bonnet aware of certain needs was out of the question. Finally a yawning sound brought Georg encouragement. Of course Herr Bonnet had already yawned previously, but then he had been wanting to allude to the 117

Revolution more than hint at his sleepiness. Even with relief in sight, Georg was heavy of heart as he mounted the stairs with him. Along the stairs the walls came near each other; and the room where he was to spend the night lay right next to Frau Bonnet’s bedchamber, which contained but one bed. Georg’s yearning for a strange hotel was heightened by the threatening prospect of private noises. Although he made an effort not to produce any himself, he was unable to prevent the water in the toilet from rushing much too loudly. His dusty shoes caused him scarcely less pain; after brooding on the matter he kept them with him because there had been no sign of a maid anywhere. Then there were more noises, clothes rustled somewhere close by, where did Herr Bonnet sleep. The two of them had to be incredibly poor, the house was a dreadful little matchbox— — Frau Bonnet beat eggs with a whisk while Georg, a bowl between his legs, carefully stirred dough. His sleep had been uneasy but he no longer recalled even a single dream — which he would have gladly shared. His forgetting, doubtless aggravated by the radiantly beautiful morning, upset him that much more since he knew Frau Bonnet had the gift of dreaming miraculous things which she loved to relate. Her dreams were indivisible wholes and seemed to compose themselves unaided while she slept.

Georg had been with Frau Bonnet in the kitchen ever since breakfast. Oddly enough, it lay on the street front, but perhaps this was a northern exposure; Georg was not yet sure of his cardinal directions. He had never seen Frau Bonnet in the morning and he was effortlessly aware now of her presence, which had remained closed to him the day before. Of course she belonged far more to the evening, when everything around her would dissolve, than to this tiled morning-world which overemphasized 118

its own usefulness just before mealtime. Still the kitchen was not able to humble Frau Bonnet and turn her into a cook. Quite the contrary! Instead of becoming the familiar of her implements, she endowed these things with a soul and drew them up to herself, so that Georg felt himself translated to a celestial kitchen whose pots and pans fulfilled their higher purposes with no help from human beings.

Why did he not helplessly succumb to the power of love which moved the whisk to whisk, as one might say, of its own free will? The accomplishments of that power were beyond doubt. How little did Frau Bonnet allow herself to feel downcast because of her shrinking wealth, and how magnificently did she assert herself in this meager cottage. In her black dress, which was always the same, she towered above the inflation, safe as a gold bar; moreover, it was her conviction that around her she had only persons of stable value. And so when Georg ventured a few criticisms of Frau Heinisch, she mildly turned them back.

Her reproof, making its way out of a cloud of foam, caught up with him in the middle of the dough where his spoon traced endless circular furrows that very quickly closed themselves up again. He could hear noises made

by Frau Bonnet’s hourly help somewhere; the walls were too thin. What if the world was like the dough and always smoothed itself out spontaneously—Georg remembered the conversation he had begun with Frau Bonnet before she went away.

“Can love really achieve its ends everywhere without resorting to force?” he asked. It appeared to him as if he were picking up the thread of conversation exactly where it had been broken off the other time. Before him lay the kitchen, soundless; a wagon rattled through its brightness.

“There you are . . .” Herr Bonnet had manifested 119

himself abruptly; the wind might have blown him in from the garden. He glanced at the whipped egg whites. “A cake that makes for such work was truly uncalled for. You were definitely planning to write this morning . . . I looked for you in the sitting room.” The words dripped reproachfully from the watering can he carried.

“We’ve been having a good talk, Dolf, and our guest would enjoy something sweet.”

“But not for me —” Georg did not want to let suspicion rest on him as the innocent cause of the cake. The watering can stopped its dripping; Herr Bonnet fluttered in kitchen wind. Someone should have been watering him, for he was going to wither away otherwise.

“With my housework I find so little time to write,” explained Frau Bonnet after he had vanished, “and the poor man suffers dreadfully.” She sighed: “Important things are given such short shrift these days.”

“Is there no solution? It’s touching the way he worries about you.”

“As for me, I know I’ll be able to adjust. The worst of it is, he consumes himself with thinking, having to look on while earning nothing himself. He feels humiliated. He’d really like to get himself hired in an office or a factory, but he lacks training and experience, and who would take him . . .”

“That would be crazy.”

“I say the same to him. On the other hand, he’s not altogether wrong in not wanting to go back to his art. Nowadays there’s no place for the exquisite things he makes. No one wants them and besides, they burden his conscience. For he believes as I do that our most urgent duty is to work for political enlightenment and to exert a direct influence on people . . . That’s how it is, everyone must sacrifice himself.”

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In his mind’s eye Georg saw Herr Bonnet and how he was politically influencing the plants outside without their realizing it. The cleaning woman was polishing the sink tap. This love the two had — it pervaded the cottage and let sadness dissolve — it was to be held onto like house keys.

“If every community resembled yours, there would be no need for force,” said Georg. Frau Bonnet smiled reverently into the egg foam, behind which she at last disappeared. Now only froth was to be seen: a sweet white flurry which stiffened as it fell, filling the air with flake after flake. Far below spread the yellow dough plain, and in the distance one heard murmuring water — Every so often the brook which Georg was following for part of its length with Herr Bonnet softly gurgled. Apparently the sound came from fish, for there were trout here. “You two ought to go to the castle in the woods,” Frau Bonnet had suggested; she would remain at home to write about women. Georg himself would greatly have preferred to stay down below in the cool depths of his room rather than be eternally climbing. Next to him flopped the straw garden hat of Herr Bonnet. Because of the afternoon heat the man continually undid articles of clothing, so that eventually one had the impression that he had been robbed and expelled from his garden. His hat hung on him as on a gallows and was also the plaything of his vest flaps; Georg chose to leave his vest buttoned. Undoubtedly a straight steep path would have cost them less effort than this gradual serpentine one.

“We should lie down,” said Herr Bonnet when they were as far as the edge of the woods, and he stretched himself out in the grass. They had hardly been gone an hour.

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“Hadn’t we better be getting on to the castle—” Georg’s question was left unanswered, since Herr Bonnet had been swallowed up by shadows. The one thing left behind was a pair of worn pants legs which were gray in the shining grass. To be sure, the “castle in the woods” would be nothing more than another “cottage.” Far below in the valley stretched the white high road by which Georg had arrived yesterday as a stranger. Today he already belonged to the scene; it was all happening very rapidly.

“How is Petri . . . It’s a long time since he’s written us.”

“He’s busy as can be and always traveling here and there.”

“My wife tells me that recently you’re terribly Catholic.”

“Have you read my articles?”

There was a lull. Contrary to what Georg assumed, this was not owing to Herr Bonnet having already worn himself out with talking; rather it only served him as preparation. “What would you say,” he asked as though it did not concern him, “if occasionally I wrote articles for the Morgenbote . . . As a kind of regular contributor. Because of the money, you know . . . My situation is abominable.”

“Splendid,” replied Georg, who hastened to lend support to these good intentions. “Soon as I return I’ll speak with Doktor Petri and the gentlemen in the editorial department, you can depend on me . . . And then if you’d ever like me just to look around for you — ” “That’s too nice of you. But what would I write, exactly?” Herr Bonnet seemed seriously unsettled at the thought that his plan might possibly come to fruition so soon.

“No doubt the best thing would be politics.”

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“Not a chance, not in the Morgenbote. You people often have frightfully reactionary views.”

“Art, then.”

“I’ve given that some thought, too, except Ohly doesn’t much care for me . . . It’s so stupid.”

Georg lost patience. “Then you should contact Doktor Petri yourself. Seeing as you’re on such good terms with him.”

“I don’t want to be pushy. And anyway there would be no point.” Having repelled every attack, Herr Bonnet took to his ease like a victor. The heavens were a deep blue and entirely free of inflation.

“It’s lovely here,” said Georg.

“You think so? For a couple of days perhaps — ” Thin, worn-down sandals issued from his pants legs; a pitiful sight amid the grasses. And then this love—unquestionably Herr Bonnet was something of a riddle.

“Your wife is wonderful,” said Georg into the blue.

“All the trouble slides off her without a trace, as if it weren’t there. And always these conversations of hers, so relevant for our situation—forgive me if I say it, but I think you’d have to be very happy with her.”

“To the castle?”

The questioner, an unusually heavyset man, had neared them without attracting notice; and having gotten an answer, he sweated and waddled on further. His powerfully swelling buttocks together with his back were enough to block the view.

“The man has a bad character,” said Herr Bonnet so animatedly that Georg turned around, greatly surprised. He had never heard him speak in such a tone.

“Why?” With a whinny, Herr Bonnet came out with a pun that turned on the man’s enormous hindquarters.

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The suppressed neigh which accompanied his joke was infectious, but Georg laughed more heartily over the whinnying than over the joke. Herr Bonnet was no longer to be recognized.

“Don’t you know any jokes?” inquired Herr Bonnet.

“One gets simple-minded in this wretched hole.”

Such a confession . . . Georg was scarcely able to answer. “Perhaps I’ll think of something after a while . . . ‘The Lord gives to his own in sleep.’”45 “In sleeping together.” While Herr Bonnet was disposing of this new witticism with the finesse of a professional card player, he raised himself up so that his face now shone in the sun; it also shone from within.

He got to his feet, ready for adventure, and winked at Georg as if he were a comrade with whom one plays hooky from school. On the homeward path he did not flutter forward as usual, but went gaily marching down the serpentine turnings. “You should stay a few more days,” he entreated Georg as they were underway. “Or do you really have to leave as soon as tomorrow?”

“I do, unfortunately. My friend and I are to meet along the way and then we travel together to Sulzbach.46 I’ve been rejoicing at the thought of two weeks’ vacation for a long time already . . . And right after that he’s moving to Hamburg.”

“A shame—” Georg’s mind was on Fred; twilight was coming on.

Herr Bonnet had fallen asleep beneath his garden hat. The little house swung into view once again. !

Having met at the agreed-upon station stop, they now sat opposite each other in the local line. Sulzbach 124

lay quite high up in the Black Forest and had come strongly recommended for its landscape. Fred wore a new sports suit which had fused with his cap into a single, wonderfully speckled article of clothing, from which his face peered out as far up as his eyelashes. “Naturally my mother sends her most cordial greetings,” he said with a formality that could only stem from a feeling that he was still an accessory of his new sports outfit. He had been so to speak freshly delivered from the tailor and did not dare to rumple himself. Perhaps he was trying as well to guard against the overly insistent closeness of fellow travelers, something he was unused to; indeed, until now Fred — to take but one example — had always anxiously avoided entering a pissoir in the company of others.

Georg for his part was imagining with intense excitement the various scenes that awaited them—their evening walks, how they would lock the hotel room door, get undressed, talk in bed — lingering over images of intimacy and sensing possibilities which he did not, however, mentally pursue. It was incomparably more enjoyable to sense them precisely as possibilities and to push any realization of them into the most remote future.

And for this reason he took pleasure in Fred’s shyness, too, and was careful to keep himself from breaking through it. The clangor of the train bells, people waiting at the stations, church towers, dark woods, a herd of sheep — they accepted the things which found their way in to them, leisurely playing with them and losing themselves in time that stretched out endlessly. Fred’s sports suit also came with a pair of long pants. Upon their arrival in Sulzbach, Georg felt as miserable as if the reprieve before his execution had run out.

Two reserved rooms stood at the ready in Elisabethanhof; the resort had appeared an excellent choice 125

with its reasonable rates and good food, to which was added the general benefit of Black Forest air. Of course back home Georg had been of the opinion that a single room would do for the two of them; but Fred, supported by his mother, had demanded a room of his own, claiming he could not fall asleep in a shared one. At least there was the connecting door between the two rooms that Georg had wanted.

The rooms exhaled an odor which involuntarily caused one to imagine a landscape with washtub ponds, dresser-drawer fruit, hair-pin trees, and a forest-floor of ordinary wood. Fred yanked the window up immediately and looked out idly. The shining cuffs of his shirt were crisp; presumably his luggage would empty itself out unassisted. Georg, who had retained the smaller room without saying anything, was peeved to find himself being treated so negligently by the young gentleman. And though he was deliberately slow with unpacking, still he was long done when Fred was just starting. Things always went like that — and Fred never even once noticed. The washcloth fell off the towel rack, the table tottered out of position by itself, and no sooner had the doors to the armoire been closed than they would regularly swing open again. Fred’s pajamas bloomed in shades of pink in the midst of his sump of a room.

They decided to make a tour of inspection even before the evening meal. The dining room, which to judge from an enticing illustration in the hotel brochure should have been located in the midst of things and conducive to social gatherings, turned out to be only a biggish guest room. To the right it bordered on a sitting room which was padded with sunken red cushions that staked their appeal on many years of devoted service to families. A sliding glass door closed off the left wall 126

of the dining room. Fred opened it and they abandoned themselves to a cavernous ballroom which seemed to lie far from any human habitation. With echoing steps they advanced over the barren floor, whose margins were heaped high with tables and chairs, one on top of another. The air was stale and redolent of beer. In their aimless meandering they came across a scrap of silver paper which told them this portion of the room had once been animated. Then suddenly they were face-to-face with a blackboard that rose up against the backdrop of a blooming meadow. It stood by itself on a podium and the meadow was only painted — a solitary empty blackboard with thin lines, like in school. “For calculation artists,” Georg explained. When the exit was before them, they observed a boy in one of the window bays who must have been sitting there in silence the entire time. He wore a blue sailor’s suit over which the late afternoon light fell, and was riffling through an illustrated magazine. The garden proved to be an extensive tract of land so dismal it might still be lying in the past. Encouraged by the dampness, luxuriant vegetation had sprung up out of the ground; in the depths of the garden one layer of it spread over another, and ever more foliage sank down upon the iron benches and café tables, the litter baskets, the see-saw, and the bandstand — a tiny temple. “It’s suffocating here,” remarked Fred. “And where are the guests?”

Georg assured him that the next day everything would be different. When they entered the dining room people were already seated at their tables. The lights went on and several waitresses handed around plates of cold cuts.

In keeping with a plan made long ago, the two ordered wine, which they actually never drank otherwise. Right behind the glass sliding door, darkness commenced. It did not occur to anyone that the ballroom was brooding right 127

there in darkness, but it was everlastingly present. Luckily the boy with the sailor’s outfit had been able to rescue himself from his seclusion in time, as part of a large family group whose members were continually placing meat on one another’s plates. The group was partially obscured by a full beard which was attached to a delicate pair of spectacles and went fluttering down and down to the serviette valleys. Two friends, female, were having their fun by calling for “Bürschle” at short intervals. That was the name of a dog who glided along the floor like a ball of yarn which did not wish to be unrolled.47 Everyone liked it when the dog’s mistress managed to hold him up in the air one time at least. She was as colorless as window glass through which one saw nothing except the dog, and only the tip of its nose peered upward.

“Those two are flirting with you,” said Georg. “They find you mightily attractive.” It was a secret triumph for him when Fred did not even look up. He was speaking about a theater piece he had seen one day before his departure and meanwhile made eyes which seemed to promise so much that it was easy to understand the girls.

“Tomorrow we should explore the father/son complex further.” Their imaginations feverish, Georg and Fred spurred each other on with plain silliness. Georg had the vague feeling that they were on a brightly lit stage, performing a sort of play for the public. No sooner had they gotten up from the table than the noise in their audience ceased. The awareness of being the goal of looks that pursued them like the beam of a searchlight put them in such high spirits they decided to leave the stage arm in arm.

“How could you ever think those dopey girls interest me?” Fred asked on the stairs. “They look like stenotypists . . . 48 And anyway, the people here . . .” He yawned.

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Now their rooms were homey, like trunks where one felt oneself safely stored.

“It’s so nice us being together like this, Georg.”

“It’s truly wonderful.”

They sat side by side on the bed without touching. Fred struggled to stay awake but his senses had been thoroughly dulled by too much unaccustomed wine.

Not to have to part ever again thought Georg, and he stared at the floor. Reluctantly he removed himself; they had all the time in the world. There was a parting caress, nothing more. The door was left ajar, half open, half closed.

The next day when they found their way to the dining room they encountered the blackboard. Its surface was covered with a number in the billions, to which was appended the explanation that room rates were being raised in keeping with the momentary value of the dollar. After that the blackboard never returned to its first home in the ballroom. Like a menacing cloud it stood immobile on the horizon of the dining room, and not satisfied with this, proceeded to increase its billions from day to day. Soon it had become a sinister blue-black shape which outgrew the four walls of the room and, visible from every direction, weighed heavily on the entire landscape. It blotted out the sun and filled the guests with terror. Fresh masses of paper bills were always falling from it, sticky masses in every color. They could no more be done away with than the vegetation advancing across the garden. Which was still full and green, and yet whenever the day grew dark, autumn seemed to be making its first inroads.

Georg and Fred requested money from home; each day they calculated how long they could stay. Under the circumstances they had been obliged to give up their original idea of journeying on to a better resort, and to 129

make matters worse, the fare at Sulzbach was deteriorating noticeably. Lured from afar by the blackboard, dishes of ground meat made an especially frequent appearance, jealously guarding their questionable origins. Of indifferent flavor, they arrived on the dining table in suspiciously large quantities and were invariably tinted a prison gray.

All Sulzbach was in any case a unique dungeon of fresh summer air. It was sequestered in the midst of a ring of densely forested hills which completely enclosed it, and whoever imagined himself able to escape through the woods on one of the many footpaths would always be forced to recognize after hours of wandering that he had come back to his starting point. In reality, every single path merely circled the tiny village. And because there was not so much as one proper café in Sulzbach, rainy weather and evenings usually saw the guests assemble in the family sitting room.

The name of Bürschle’s owner was Fräulein Rauch, who along with her friend was an office worker from Stuttgart. Her efforts to attach Fred to herself with the help of her dog and its woolen threads were of no avail.

Neither Fred nor Georg had any desire to mingle in resort society; they chose to parade an arrogant exclusivity instead. Even so, the understanding with Fred for which Georg yearned did not materialize; on the contrary, his disappointment at how their days were going increased with the billions-cloud. Rather than being filled with tenderness, they passed amid petty, seemingly insignificant squabbles. All of which suggested that Fred’s heart was not altogether in their vacation. At times he showed a strange absentmindedness, which he would then furiously deny; and he attempted to abbreviate those talks in the room before going to sleep as much as possible, or even to avoid them.

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They had already spent more than a week in Sulzbach when, one day at lunch, noises were heard coming from the ballroom next door. It was their second and last Sunday; until now the ballroom had never yet made so much as a peep. “There’s going to be a dance in there tonight,” said the waitress. “The people from here also come, and strangers from the countryside.” Fred expressed the wish to observe the festivities but Georg sensed behind the wish a defection from their usual evening walk and gave an evasive answer.

Later, in the woods, Fred declared abruptly that he would be glad when he was finally in Hamburg and could take up his position as a clerk.

“Oh yes,” Georg replied, “the independence, the harbor, and what have you.”

They were making their way along one of the circuitous paths which took approximately an hour and a half to traverse: nothing but woods, with every so often a squirrel or a brook. Fred had lowered his eyes.

“The main thing for me is that for the first time I’ll be free to live. I’ve never been away from home by myself.

My mother never stops complaining, and always hanging around the house becomes hard to put up with in the end.”

“Then am I becoming hard to put up with, too?”

“How can you say such a thing . . . You’re often tremendously unfair.”

“You think so?”

No one else out and about. Sunday peace, the silence of the woods. The usual kitschy picture. Bells were ringing: “one billion, two billion . . .”

“Look, Georg, a squirrel!”

“You haven’t told me anything about Margot yet.”

“She’s left the city. I saw her briefly before.”

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“I see.”

“Please don’t be so weird.”

“What do you mean, ‘weird?’”

“Listen, this is what I want to do: Earn money as fast as I can. I want to become rich, Georg.” His eyes no longer held a trace of melancholy. Thoroughly flat and ordinary eyes.

“A remarkable ambition . . . I had always thought it was only for the sake of your mother . . .”

“Of course, that too.” “ ‘Become rich . . . ’ Really, I can’t make you out.

We’ve been discussing and reading things together, and just recently you assured me once again how much you wanted to study.”

“You haven’t a clue about me, Georg. If I want to earn money, it’s only so that later on I will be able to follow my inclinations without any outer constraints. Today money comes quickly to one, and perhaps in five or ten years I’ll already have made it that far. Then I’ll certainly still go to the university . . . You’ll see—” “That’s utter nonsense. ‘Whoever gives the devil his little finger’ — and also, one changes in the meantime and then he can’t go back again.”

“You’re very wrong about that. And besides, I do have to become a businessman.”

“Moments ago you were saying something else.”

“Look up there. Be quiet, or it’ll run off right away.”

“Don’t always be getting off the subject. I don’t care a blessed thing about squirrels.”

“I’m not getting off the subject.”

“Yes you are.”

“Listen here, Georg, I’m sick of this interrogation.

Ever since we’ve been here you’ve been subjecting me to 132

your moods. I’m simply not about to take it.”

“So then I am becoming hard to bear.”

“If you really must know: yes. In all honesty I have to say that your picture of me is completely false. I’m different from you and yet you’re always trying to push me in your direction. Naturally you mean well and I’ll always be grateful to you, but I simply don’t have your drive, believe me. Maybe I’m just not as worthy as you. Anyway, I don’t long to raise myself up above the average, or to stand on the sidelines. I want to get into the middle of things . . . Sometimes it strikes me how unworldly you are, despite your being a journalist.”

“That gratitude of yours, you should have made a present of it to yourself.”

“You’re insulting me, Georg.”

The path had come full circle. They returned to the hotel along its radius. During supper, too, Georg confined himself to the bare minimum of conversation. Light shone through the glass sliding door and the guests were talking louder than usual. The blackboard stood in the corner.

Fräulein Rauch was swathed in white; she smiled over at them. Her wool-dog was flaunting a blue ribbon which crept under the table and now and then appeared in the open. When the sailor lad spotted it, he shouted “Bürschle” so joyously he might have been sighting land from the top of his mast. But it was not easy for the boy to catch sight of the ribbon, because right in front of him flowed the beard, offering concealment to more than a squirrel.

“I’m only going to get something,” said Georg during the cheese course, “you can wait for me outside.”

Back in the room he opened a book; there was nothing he wanted to get. Then before the hotel entrance, the place they were to meet, Fred failed to show himself.

Georg waited for five minutes — nothing. He took a stroll 133

through the small reception hall into the sitting room, which for once lay in darkness. Music was sounding from a distance yet it would have to be very close by. As he pushed through the door, the music multiplied itself tenfold; it was coming from the ballroom, whose doors were wide open, causing the stained tablecloths in the dining room to begin shining in the bright light.

Dancing pairs, beer glasses, strange faces, waiters, drunken shouts, Fred.

Georg cannot retreat. Fred takes a few steps and points to the table: Fräulein Rauch, Bürschle, the friend.

“This isn’t my fault,” Fred whispers. “She spoke to me while I was waiting for you and if I didn’t want to be impolite, I had to go with them into the ballroom. And why didn’t you come? I’ve saved a chair for you.”

The two of them are standing next to the table.

Fräulein Rauch: “Please don’t be mad that we abducted your friend, but he thought that in any event you had no appetite for a walk tonight. Aren’t I right?

This is my friend Fräulein Zippelius.”

“You’re with the Morgenbote? I read that paper sometimes in the office and find it very stimulatingly written. I knew I recognized your name right away.”

Georg avoids looking at Fred. “You’ll have to excuse me, it’s that I . . . I have an important letter to write and would like to get a little air beforehand. I hope you’ll be satisfied with my friend.”

“Please do stay.”

“Down, Bürschle.”

“You don’t want to be a spoilsport, just look at your friend, how sad he is.”

“I’m positively angry with you, Georg.”

“Please excuse me.”

“Adieu.”

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Fred seats himself with a decided motion and turns to the girls, forcing a laugh.

The night outside — the foliage always tossing and heaving. Mixing with everything, filling up everything. How deserted the ballroom was Georg thinks and now tonight this party. I don’t know what to do. Up in his room he bolts the connecting door, shuts the window, and lies down in bed. The din of the ballroom makes its way to him, he is beside himself. He forgets everything around him. Fred’s not coming back — — The first thing Georg saw after waking was a note which had been pushed through the crack in the door. It read: “I knocked on your door several times, no answer. Absolutely must speak to you first thing in the morning. Fred.”

Georg felt so repelled, physically repelled, imagining the caresses which Fred might have exchanged with Fräulein Rauch during the night that he did not comply with the request contained in the note but left the hotel alone as fast as he could. When he came back to eat, he could only remember that he had been gone three or four hours. Fred was already at the table and stared at him pleadingly, with his old eyes.

“I got away last night as soon as I was able. But let’s be fair: Fräulein Rauch is a truly sweet little thing.”

“I’m glad she made such an impression on you.”

“You aren’t thinking, well, that she and I . . .”

“I really don’t wish to know and it’s of no importance anyhow.”

“Maybe you don’t believe me — ” “But of course I believe you.”

“I’m terribly unhappy, Georg.”

The girls’ table was still unoccupied. “It was getting too expensive for them,” Fred explained. “They left a little 135

while ago.” The beard was missing, too, and the family group was half packed up: the blackboard was driving away every single guest. Soon there would not be enough room on it for the endless strings of figures, and the dining room would be as desolate as the ballroom — which lay somewhere beyond the sliding door.

Its remoteness was only heightened when Georg and Fred erected linguistic barricades that afternoon as if by prior agreement, hoping to defend themselves against the assault of the previous day. “Recently I observed,” said Georg, “how the doctors were lined up at an office in a rear courtyard, waiting hours to be paid their salaries, which of course were being calculated according to a very out-of-date schedule.” “Sometimes I envy you your interesting work,” Fred replied. “It’s better to go abroad.

Lorey, the one from my class, he’s managed it you know.”

They were still hesitating to acknowledge a reconciliation which was already underway. Georg knew very well, however, that it would have to be acknowledged that evening. Now, for the first time during their vacation, he was gripped again by the tension he had felt before their arrival in Sulzbach. And it was focused on a nearer and more precise goal than the other time.

In their rooms, which they regained at the usual hour, the pair went back with a persistent “do you still remember” to the beginnings of their friendship. The lessons in Pension Isolde, Marie, Fred’s lounging chair as part of the Indian tent, Fred’s mother and the lethargic Herr Kummer — they hid themselves from the present in their recollections, which they made into a golden present.

After a while Georg announced that he would lie down in bed, and gradually took off his clothes.

“But we can still go on talking,” said Fred as he disappeared into his room, only to reemerge in his white 136

nightshirt, which reached down nearly to the floor. And he sat down near Georg on his bed.

“You’ll catch cold.”

“I’ll creep next to you under the blanket.”

The bed was narrow, and they had difficulty avoiding physical contact. It was especially difficult with the arms, which claimed too much space for themselves. And since they could not just saw off the offending limbs, they continually touched each other in spite of everything.

A lively chatter that appeared senseless even to them was meant to lessen the dangerousness of these collisions. But the warmth of the bed soon dampened the artificially kindled talk. Words were falling asleep even as they were exchanged, and then the two kissed. Like once before — “Freddie,” Georg said to himself. Like once before — the name which had been lost in some unknown place came up, unbidden.

Fred sat halfway up. “I have a confession to make to you. I’ve been wanting to speak of it the whole time but never had quite enough courage. It’s this: Margot was my lover.”

Georg did not say anything.

“Say something.”

“Since when?”

“Do you remember that evening when you met her at our apartment and told us about your getting hired at the newspaper? It was very soon after that . . . She loved me and immediately invited me to her place. — We were also together at a hotel —” “And you hid that from me.”

“How I would have liked to confide everything in you. But Margot made me swear I would never tell anyone, especially you, about our relationship.”

“And why me especially?”

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“She was jealous of you from the first moment and hated you. She has a good instinct, that much I have to give her.”

“Now I remember: during one of our walks, it’s already a long time ago, you were burning to be shall we say sexually enlightened by me. You made me describe the sexual act to you down to the smallest detail. And this at a time when by your own admission you had long — when in a word you already knew your way around the business . . . So you deliberately misled me.”

“But no, Georg. I only asked you to find out if I was doing it right. It was the first time I was with a woman, and I did not want to embarrass myself. That’s the only reason I asked.”

“Yet on the evening you were speaking of, it was my impression that your friend took far more interest in me.”

Fred smiled faintly. “Then for sure you mistook her irritation for interest . . . So you never noticed anything?”

Georg shook his head vacantly.

“There were furious arguments with Margot on your account. One time near the beginning of our relationship, when she was railing against you, I gave her to understand that I would break off with her then and there unless she agreed unconditionally to your being in the picture. It was hard for her. I suppose she realized I was closer to you than to her.”

Fred nestled himself against Georg and laid one leg over him. “Really and truly, it’s only you I love.”

Georg freed himself from Fred’s clasp, which had become unbearable to him. What a fool I’ve been.

“Get yourself to bed, Fred.”

“But don’t be put out with me. If you only knew how little this relationship meant to me . . . And besides I’m not going to see her any time soon.”

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“Go to bed.”

“If you say so.”

Georg could scarcely wait to be by himself. Soon he heard regular breaths which told him that Fred was asleep.

It’s over for good, everything is over. He would have liked to cry, but his eyes remained dry. Just don’t think about it.

After two days of inclement weather, during which Georg did not let his feelings show, they went home.

Dry leaves were rustling in the garden, Fred’s sports suit had spots. Things past were covered over with talk of the future, Hamburg, the Morgenbote, inflation. The familiar city enveloped them, and at the entrance to the station they separated from each other.

“I’ll call you first thing in the morning,” promised Fred. “Hopefully we can meet tomorrow evening.”

The steeds were as always atop the opera house, Georg’s room was cold, his housemates trudged up the stairs over him during the night. When Georg arrived at the newspaper early the next morning, Fräulein Peppel informed him on behalf of Doktor Petri that if possible he was to travel to K. with the noon express for an important congress on community ethics. Herr Sommer, really the appropriate man for the assignment, was still on vacation.

Georg departed without seeing Fred again.

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VII. In K., where he arrived late in the evening, Georg put up at a first-class hotel that had been recommended to him by a fellow passenger. After what had happened, he felt pleasure in being able to live so well and openly without having to justify himself before anyone. The next morning, on the way to the Congress building, he passed a store for umbrellas and walking sticks whose window displayed wonderful specimens of the latter. He was especially taken with a slim brown cane which terminated in a round ivory knob and sported a little leather carrying strap. The edifice housing the Congress, a magnificent administrative container, could not possibly inspire any kind of community formation, yet its present use was apparent even from afar. Congress placards multiplied in its vicinity, and numerous persons who could only be participants were streaming towards it in groups. Before the entrance a sign made abundantly clear once more that the Congress really was meeting here. From the vestibule a set of broad and intimidating stairs led upwards. Their everyday purpose must have been to frighten away ordinary citizens, and it was a blessing that underway they divided in two.

Professors and their wives, religious of every stripe, women answering Fräulein Samuel’s description, university students with their girlfriends, young men who were surely teachers—decidedly unossified ones—all stood about the great hall brandishing official Congress brochures, shaking hands with one another, and wearing expressions of joyful excitement. Perhaps they were glad that 140

yet again a congress was taking place which had need of them. Some were running up and down the length of the hall, stopping each step of the way for an old acquaintance, who then hurried off in turn. Obviously most were acquainted with one another from previous congresses.

Combatants tried and true, covered with congressional scars, they traded memories and forged plans for the next congress. Georg felt himself doubly isolated in the midst of this host. All of a sudden he caught sight of Father Quirin, who gave him a friendly wink. But just as he was about to go up to the priest the bell sounded, and so he remained separated from him.

In the stillness that ensued, the chairman first recognized the Minister, who had not allowed pressing official duties to keep him from personally attending the Congress. And from the Minister’s presence the chairman went on to deduce the special importance of this congress, and after further welcomes, opened it by announcing that it was now officially open. Scarcely had he stepped aside when the Minister personally mounted the podium.

Georg, having never seen a minister, decided to pay close attention to what he said.

“Despite pressing official duties,” said the Minister, “I have not allowed myself to be kept from personally attending your opening session. Each one of you here in this hall is aware how dark is the night of social misery besetting our unfortunate people at this hour. Millions of our despairing fellow citizens struggle against unrelenting impoverishment and are threatened with ever deeper distress. And while they are starving, some feast, exploiting the same debasement of the currency which seals the fate of these others. There is a chasm dividing our people and I say to you, ladies and gentlemen, that the fault for this chasm lies with the unbounded egoism flaunting itself 141

among us, with the greed for profits which is piling up riches at the expense of the masses . . .”

The Minister painted his night in such dark colors that it was useless for Georg to ask how things could ever be made bright again.

“This fundamental evil of egoism,” the Minister went on, “must be utterly uprooted if our people are not to suffer total ruin, if we are not to tear one another to pieces. But how shall we gain the upper hand over this disintegration? Not through a violent overthrow of the system—the panacea according to many—and indeed not by means of economic and social measures — important as these undoubtedly are — but solely and uniquely through becoming conscious of the virtue of social harmony — through a reawakening of the will to a national community.49 Community: in speaking this noble word I know that I touch upon the inmost essence of every question agitating our people so profoundly today, and what is more — of simultaneously pointing the way to our liberation. For as surely as we suffer from the excesses of a selfishness which mocks every tie and forgets the general good for the sake of its own interests, so is it equally certain that we shall we heal ourselves when we realize the ideal of community. The conquest of egoism, of the murderous struggle of each against all, I shall say it once again, is bound up with the advent of community.

Do not object to me that it is a distant ideal — ideals exist to be made real. And do we not in fact already see a new beginning? Precisely in the present moment, in the time of our worst degradation, the notion of community is stirring amongst us and exerting its appeal in ever wider circles. I know that heavy sacrifices must still be made by every sector of our population in order to breathe life into this idea. But the darkness is starting to lift and if we but 142

will it, the day is nearing when a national community shall arise, which will come because it must come; when a united Germany, no longer defenseless and prostrate, shall tower in all its strength and demand justice from the victors . . .”

Against every expectation, then, things were getting bright again, thought Georg in the midst of the applause.

“In the name of the government,” the Minister concluded, “I hereby extend a welcome to the Congress. And in discharging this honorable duty, ladies and gentlemen, I should like in particular to assure you of the keen interest taken by the government in your proceedings.

We shall follow this session with utmost attention, convinced that it will yield solutions that bring their blessings to the Fatherland.”

Georg hoped that now, finally, the promised solutions themselves would come. But for the time being the Congress made no effort to find them. No, it let itself be showered like a birthday child with ever more greetings. The Oberbürgermeister, whom pressing official duties had hindered from appearing, conveyed the greetings of the city, which found it a great distinction to have the Congress convening in itself. The rector of the university expressed the hope, in the name of that venerable alma mater, that the Congress would be full of endeavor.

Delegates of several associations declared that said associations had dispatched them to the Congress. Although none of these speeches contained any more content than postcards with their many salutations and some sort of signature, they managed nonetheless to stretch themselves out to four-page letters.

Georg had long since put away his pencil and let himself drift back to Sulzbach. Just when he chanced to reappear at the Congress for a moment, the Minister 143

was making an exit so inconspicuous that the entire hall turned around to follow him. It was plain that the government watched these doings from afar only. While the Minister was leaving, the chairman read aloud congratulatory telegrams from various congresses taking place at the same time elsewhere. He assured the assembled that he would convey his congratulations in the name of the Congress to these other congresses for taking place; was pleased to confirm that several associations were in attendance; described the venerableness of the alma mater; emphasized how proud the Congress was to be allowed to convene in this city (in so doing turning to the absent Oberbürgermeister); thanked the government for its keen interest; and at last opened the Congress yet again.

The reports began. Georg, however, was not able to follow them, because the end was always pursuing him — the end of his friendship with Fred. Only now did he realize what had befallen him, only now did words, looks, and incidents haunt him which had never stirred in him before. Fred’s coming too late in April, his embarrassment at accidentally running into Georg near the train station: all the forgotten things came back to him, unsought, and formed a pattern. And that had been their friendship . . . The Congress reports were noise and he did not heed the noise. Though occasionally fragments and bits of sentences, having broken free of their context and not to be banished, shot their way to him. They were disturbing. For Fred had deceived him, deliberately deceived him, and their “community” had been his life. “. . . in this ‘night of social misery,’ as the Minister so trenchantly observed . . .”

Their “community” — was community even possi144

ble when people acted the way Fred had? In one of the brief intervals meted out between speakers, Georg leaned over a railing to survey the throng of attendees amusing themselves in the entrance hall below. They smoked, discussed the reports in loud voices, and made appointments for the evening, when a public rally was to take place in the town hall. Presumably they would have enjoyed attending yet more lectures at night. Many of the youths wore hiking outfits with knee stockings, through which they left the impression of being always underway. Even when they sat they still wandered, and the sun was always coming up over those regions they wandered across.

Rather than join the others, Georg preferred to remain alone with the empty stairs which intruded rudely into the hall. That morning he had been drawn into a discussion group by an education advisor whom he knew slightly through the newspaper; the group had praised the success of the new community training. He did not understand the credulousness of all these people doing cartwheels over the community miracle without troubling themselves in the least over the nature of the human beings out of whom every community was made. Then suddenly the entire herd was milling up the staircase, and the auditorium quickly filled. “Really splendid, no?” cried the education advisor to Georg in passing. “Now we get to hear Huebner.” 50 Noise generated by the reports differed from the noise of the intervals only through its greater sameness.

And had I been dirt poor thought Georg my friendship would have let me forget all my misery. What was so important about outer ties? Everything came down to individuals, and there was no night like the one which lay between Fred and himself.

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“The Community must have its basis in voluntarism and in trust . . .”

This night was even more frightful since, in the end, Fred was as little responsible for the bankruptcy of their relationship as he himself was. Georg admitted to himself that he could not blame his friend for his silence about Margot or reproach him for any deception. It was true: Fred’s whole conduct had been determined by his own, and from the boy’s standpoint was easy enough to understand. No matter how hard it was, one needed to be just.

In flight from the Congress, which he had left in the middle of the afternoon session, Georg went strolling through city streets. They were filled exclusively with sullen poor people, and did not broaden out into friendly squares but led past innumerable dark empty lots. The population — one ill-suited for squares — seemed to have been bred in such places. In between were apartment blocks assembled from the leavings of every conceivable town great and small and now forming an inconceivable city of their own. Fortunately the people had no idea where they were living. The walking stick from early that morning was still standing in the bright shop window as though in a sanctuary. Drawn by its ivory knob, Georg decided to purchase it and carry it by its leather strap. The next morning, swinging his cane, he made his way into the noise of the lectures, passing between groups of young instructors and wander-faces who sang the praises of his new acquisition in chorus. Georg hated them, and for the first time he knew why: because they denied the existence of the night, because they imagined that a little good will would be enough to make community angels out of human beings.

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“. . . our sole recourse is to return to the divinely ordained plan, to once again strengthen authority . . .”

It was worth noting that Frau Bonnet, with all her overflowing love for mankind in general, had not even been able to guarantee her own husband’s affections. Georg doubted whether the man deserved her love, although perhaps the high-altitude climate in which Frau Bonnet thrived was unbearable and her husband was only defending himself. It did not work; even under the most favorable circumstances, the business never truly functioned.

“Well now, how did you like Huebner,” a smiling Father Quirin inquired. After lunch Georg had happened to glance into the garden restaurant where the priest was sitting and then, at the request of the latter, had taken a seat at his table. Most people were already keeping themselves inside. All at once Georg found himself in a private gathering of persons unknown to him; he no longer had any thought for Huebner. Some here were Father Quirin’s brother priests whereas others, in ordinary dress, looked to be secret police for the Church. They observed him on the sly and did not drop their inquisition until Georg, who was still immersed in his own private musings, bitterly inveighed against the fuss being made over “community”—in his opinion a worthless idea. They smiled benevolently at the frankness of this attack and only wondered that he did not as well order beer instead of coffee. “Drinking before thinking” said one, and he drank Georg’s health as if to show that despite the coffee no one was any longer suspicious of him. Then he praised the local beer. It was perfectly understandable that the beer glasses fairly sparkled with self-assurance. The black-skirted priests behind him sat motionless in the 147

glassy air and chatted away about church matters. “Will without Form is undisciplined,� said Father Quirin. A crumpled sheet of paper went whirling through the discussion, but Georg did not even notice that he was following its path, so caught up was he in the discovery he now made: The self-confidence of this circle, to whom he risked feeling inferior even a moment ago, had lost its power over him, and at the table he was a stranger. Even supposing the faithful here were in the right with their each and every objection to the errors of the Congress, and even if they enjoyed lives of marvelous security as members of the Church, which encompassed their existence from beginning to end — he, Georg, did not belong among them and what is more, never would belong. For were they able to assess the splendor of his friendship, his many hurts, the turmoil inside him? They were not, and if he had only been uninhibited enough to speak, to shout, they would have disparaged his bliss and devalued his sufferings and finally have emptied him out completely, making him like the linoleum-room from whose depths Father Quirin had emerged.

Belated lunchtime guests at the neighboring table were taking leave but this circle did not disperse as they did; it drew itself ever more tightly together, becoming as impenetrable as a wall and exuding fumes of religion, beer, wisecracks, and confidence which blackened the heavens. In his distress Georg saw to his walking stick for defense. Discreetly he swung it before the front of faces and voices surrounding him. Like a man of the world he laid it over his crossed legs, and he caressed its shimmering ivory knob. The cane was not his property but a companion whom he openly acknowledged. The self-assured gentlemen, their mistrust reawakened above all by its little leather strap, followed the heretical movements 148

that Georg undertook with narrowed eyes. But before they could convict him of thoroughgoing apostasy, it occurred to Georg that he was actually here to represent the Morgenbote.

“I must return to the lectures,” he said, and the religious produced remote smiles. When Georg turned around at the gate, the circle appeared to be a small clump of darkness which lost itself in the brightness of the restaurant garden. By this time the mass of lecture materials, still raining down with undiminished violence, had submerged the entire Congress. Innumerable smudgy sheets of paper, pamphlets, and resolutions swept through the hot-off-the-press hall like debris washing up on a beach; and a portion of the public had been rinsed away. Georg, unmoved by the tide of survivors, resolved never to let himself be lured into any kind of community, but to keep to himself. “. . . morally to purify and to lead to that unity which the Minister alluded to the day before yesterday in such deeply felt words . . .”

Always the Minister — The relationship with Fred had been bound to end, too; the half-hearted hither and thither sufficed nowhere and brought far too many torments with it. And was being alone really so awful?

It was pure and inviolable, like the evening through which, wrapped in his own thoughts, Georg made his way. Afterwards, sheltered by a palm, he sat in the beautiful hotel lobby at a small round table, his cane resting next to him on a chair. Here at last he was safe from every persecution. Whether it was because of the unapproachableness of the room, or the thick carpet which muffled every sound, or the leather club chairs which kept 149

their occupants so thoroughly separate from one another that they might have been inhabiting different worlds — for whatever reason, not a single Congress participant dared to venture into this refuge. Only travelers came and went, isolated men and women who appeared without luggage and did not impress one as being strangers, since the lobby was alien like themselves. As they were passing, scarcely perceived, like landscapes seen from the window of a railroad car, a thin music sounded in the distance.

Georg, enchanted, followed the melody, which, although he did not recognize it, seemed familiar, a dear friend.

Hardly had it vanished when he remembered with horror the obligation weighing on him. The report on the Congress could not be put off any longer; the newspaper required it. But no matter how much Georg struggled to recall the sequence of events at the Congress, he got no further than the Minister’s address — which to be sure he had down by heart, word for word. After that he had dwelt in some other place, far from such rubbish . . . The hotel melodies stubbornly mixed themselves with the reproaches he was making against himself. But now they oppressed him, and in despair Georg plonked down on paper over and over the few snatches of Congress talk he happened to recall, hoping to drown them out: “. . . as the Minister so trenchantly observed . . . ,” “. . . to which the Minister made mention the day before yesterday in such deeply felt words . . .”

There it was — the solution took him by surprise: If the Minister had already felt everything so profoundly, then his address held so to speak the entire Congress, and it followed that Georg had to do nothing more than reproduce it faithfully. He revived as though rescued from certain death. They would get their Minister in full, with the night of social distress, egoism and overcoming, 150

and to conclude the whole thing, that triumphant blather about unity — with the added observation that outside of this address, the Congress had produced nothing deserving of mention, and then his report was done. Having had it stamped for expedited delivery, Georg, fully satisfied, brought his letter to the train station himself. The talks given at the Congress, wandering youth, the town — he was sick of them all. Although the Congress was not going to end before the next afternoon, he decided to return home the first thing in the morning. The staircase had been so appalling. He could just as well have delivered his report in person, but the express train heightened the importance of his manuscript. !

On the following afternoon Georg reached home after a wearisome eight-hour train journey. It had been raining without stop since early morning. In his room was a note in the housemaid’s awkward handwriting which informed him that a Frau Heinisch had telephoned him the day before. There was no other mail. Georg, still full of the din of men and of train stations, found his silent cage of a room in which he was once again trapped so repulsive that, like a transient, he put aside his untouched suitcase and called Frau Heinisch right away; who invited him to come dine with her that evening, with fair warning that the offerings would be less than sumptuous, what with the wretched times. His room was not so awful after all. “How marvelous if you managed to arrive a bit early, you’ve got so much to tell me about your visit to Frau Bonnet.”

Georg promised to comply, glad to be able to return so soon to the outer world. And, thanks to his 151

having mailed in the Congress report ahead, it was his luck not to have to go to the newspaper until the next day. He could ruminate for now on a certain matter in peace — something he had tried not to worry about ever since reentering his room. Or should he perhaps not take it to heart that Fred had left no word for him? As he slowly changed his clothes, Georg whistled the melody from the hotel without quite getting the tune right; he whistled right over Fred, who remained underground.

Georg rang punctually at Frau Heinisch’s. The maid opened the door for him. Although the lady of the house was standing in the entrance hall, he failed to attract her attention. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” she shouted with her back to the door. The shouts were directed into a bellowing which Georg had already heard from outside. Frau Heinisch was heated as if after battle, and her voice was savage. The bellows were being emitted by a young man who could only be her son.

Georg, who saw him for the first time, was shocked.

Frau Heinisch never tired of proudly assuring one and all that, in the interest of world peace, she would not allow her Willi to play with toy soldiers, and Georg had always imagined him as a model little fellow, especially inward and thoughtful. Instead Willi was a fat, red-faced lump who held world peace in such low regard that he was raising a threatening fist against his own mother. The upbringing of this warlike scamp — who had been overstuffed with pastries — did not seem to restrain him; indeed, he appeared even more belligerent for it. Perhaps the immoderate partaking of pacifism did not agree with him and he suffered from having to live while yet a child in that golden age of no more toy soldiers. Were he denied them any longer he would end up a general for certain sure.

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The moment Frau Heinisch saw Georg her voice regained its habitual gentleness. “Otherwise he’s such a dear,” she said and with a smile that would have reconciled all the peoples of the earth promised her dear one the leftover dinner sweets. Willi was the more readily appeased by this promise since he hoped he had found a new antagonist in the person of Georg. Malignantly he stared at him while maintaining a fearful silence, then whispered something in his mother’s ear. Disconcerted, Georg inspected his suit from top to bottom. “If you’re naughty,” declared Frau Heinisch with that mildness she always exhibited in society, “I won’t save anything for you from the desserts table — now march yourself straight off to bed.”

However, she really should not have said “march.”

The boy’s room was crammed with toys strewn everywhere and was covered in pink wallpaper on which—what else? — little lambs grazed in utmost harmony. In the corner lay a mutilated teddy bear. “I firmly believe in the influence of the environment,” remarked Frau Heinisch on her way to the salon. “Children’s psyches are marvelously moldable.” There was no doubting Willi had once been a perfect lamb and had then been gradually refashioned, owing to external influences.

For once the great dark room which usually stood open to the salon was closed with portières. “But I promised to tell you about Frau Bonnet,” said Georg. It was as if Frau Heinisch were emerging from unfathomable depths.

“Ah of course,” she sighed. But then the guests arrived.

They came at nearly the same time: the Wolffs, a couple named Guth, and Fräulein Samuel. She for her part wore a dress which looked as though it consisted purely of knots — a mass of knots and over them, those glasses of hers. Georg had not had any idea that Doktor Rosin also frequented Frau Heinisch’s salon. He was in the 153

company of a young lady, Beate Walter, a student in art history at the local university. No sooner had he entered than the conversation took on new life, meaning that Doktor Rosin was doing the talking. Still nobody realized he was the only one speaking, for his brand of eloquence made one think there were whole series of him present, all dark-gleaming gentlemen with little circular plots for sideburns who gave themselves over to completely different conversational topics even though they were as like one another as mirror images in a hair salon. Fräulein Samuel, vexed not to be able to get a word in edgewise, knotted herself up more and more. Georg, who fancied himself in the rattling train carriage again, could if nothing else contemplate Beate undisturbed. She had her hair parted in the middle, bent her head a little forward, and was genuinely pretty.

“Therefore theories are every one of them false,” wound up Doktor Rosin, and he sparkled as if he were the entire gathering before turning to Georg, who sat near him. “Listen, we simply have to talk. Just between you and me: my affairs are coming along nicely, and it looks as though I shall soon be habilitating. It’s already gotten to the point that Fischer — of course you know Fischer — does absolutely nothing without me anymore.

He’s made me his assistant and pushes off a mountain of work onto me. Fischer is really fabulous. Naturally you are familiar with his great theory of social relations, for socialism a standard work even though it is violently opposed by the ultra-leftists. At the moment I’m helping him amass material for the second volume — ” “Didn’t you once judge Fischer differently? That time when you came from Freiburg?”

“Listen, my friend, judgments are claptrap and are made by those people who are not masters of the subject.

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The deeper one goes into the material, the less need one feels to have a so-called standpoint. ‘Facts, gentlemen,’ that’s what I always preach in my seminar. The main thing is, Fischer has been ninety-nine per cent won over. But what was I going to say . . . oh yes, my work — ” “What exactly is it about, then?”

“It brings in everything: apartment living, mysticism, the connections between province and capital, natural law, belief in miracles. Most probably I shall name it: “Revolution and Politics” — there’s a compelling title. I’ve also turned up a long-lost collection of letters neglected up to now, the one by Fleury you know, ten thick volumes which absolutely transform the whole picture.51 You can see it’s high time we got together. The standpoint which I adopt is, by the way, extremely revolutionary . . .”

“But Fischer will not be in agreement—” “Quite the contrary, he’s completely on fire! Just between you and me: the Revolution . . .”

“Congratulations!” exclaimed Fräulein Samuel. At the word “Revolution” she had made a little jump and a few of her knots had come undone. However, the congratulations were not meant for Rosin but for Doktor Wolff, who had passed his qualifying exam for assistant judge.

It was his intention to begin practicing law now and to bring political lawsuits on behalf of the Left. His wife attempted to beam happily, but the happiness did not break through. All the more did Frau Heinisch beam.

“Who’s still missing?” Doktor Wolff confidingly asked Frau Heinisch.

“Frau Heydenreich, wouldn’t you know.” Frau Heinisch was careful to conceal from every eye how grievously she suffered at the hands of Frau Heydenreich. On the table lay the Communist Manifesto.52 It was humid as a tent in the salon, and the armchairs were welling up 155

from a political underground.

“My dear, I trust I’m not too late — ” Every face looked up. With a triumphant air, Frau Heydenreich went to Frau Heinisch, who also said “my dear,” and uttered several apologies for her husband, who had been obliged to set off on a journey early in the morning. As the two “my dears” crossed paths there was a light jingling sound. A jingling could also be issuing from Frau Heydenreich’s toilette — its elegance having been subdued only to the extent demanded by the inflation and her participation in the overthrow of society. Beate lifted up her head like an exotic animal and inhaled the air. Georg was cast down by the condescending way Frau Heydenreich had greeted him and asked himself how he differed from the rest, whom she treated as her equals.

Between himself and such people there was a chasm, and say what he liked, he would never reach them.

All at once the portières separated. Liberated, the party made its way into the neighboring room where a long table decorated with flowers floated in the light like a blessed isle. While the guests found their places, a sepulchral voice rumbled, casting shadows over the table: “Have you read about today’s hunger demonstrations? There are hunger demonstrations everywhere.” Herr Guth — he had been the speaker — sat dismally silent; it was as if he had been deafened by the power of his own vocal organ. Though perhaps he was not always in possession of his voice, and the organ took him over only during evening hours when, so Georg was informed, he busied himself as a radical pacifist. By day he was a merchant and Frau Heinisch’s relative.

Hunger demonstrations. The words echoed through the dining room, which was as large as a room for formal receptions, then made their way back to the table and settled 156

down among the guests. A bouillon soup with marrow dumplings accompanied by toasts in different shades — pale gray and red — made the beginning of the supper.

“They turned on the crowd beating them with rubber truncheons, my God, just think of it.”

Georg passed the salt, forced a smile, and went blank in the midst of the voices and the clattering spoons.

“They fired, they did, taking good aim, can you imagine, on defenseless starving women and children.”

Who was the young lady in green next to him?

Georg wanted to attach her to himself, but she continued to direct her talk away from him.

“Three dead, you say? No five, I’m not mistaken, she’s not mistaken, every one of us read about it.”

Wine being drunk, gulp after gulp. Time itself was making murmuring noises in the background. “And so, to make a long story short, where hunger is concerned we have a function of modern society,” Doktor Rosin wound up, addressing himself to Frau Heinisch. He chortled because he could see through Society. “How perfectly dreadful,” she replied, instead of exhaling her usual “marvelous,” and she wrinkled her forehead like a child. After the empty bowls had been removed there was still scarcely any sign of the tablecloth. Beate, borne aloft on a wave, appeared above the glasses, nodded inwardly to herself, and vanished.

Next two huge platters with fowl surrounded by pommes frites and many different kinds of vegetables went around the table. Not the tiniest bit of acknowledgment was granted these artfully constructed dishes and yet they did summon a reverent silence—which was hiding behind animated conversation that fooled no one. Whether it was the choiceness of the vegetables or the exquisite way they were mingled: the unanalyzable intricacy gave rise to joyful 157

feelings comparable to a sequence of glorious harmonies.

Which were deepened by the gravy flowing beneath them, and at last achieved unsurpassable intensification whenever the crispy brown skin of the fowl mixed in and, as was only too understandable, took the musical lead. Wine allowed the richness of the vegetables to be fully savored and immersed the feasting in such heavenly radiance that bodies were freed of their fetters and went soaring up and down, weightless as feathers. The wrinkled brow was smooth again, the hot aromas lifting skyward . . .

“Hunger demonstrations . . .” Once again Herr Guth’s organ was rumbling. And just as when a storm ceases it will sometimes erupt with twice the fury, so was this invocation the signal for an ever more deafening uproar.

Flooding in through the portières and through the walls were endless processions of the hungry who approached with an exaggerated speed. They did not look at the overladen bowls and plates but crossed back and forth over the table, never stopping. Pale faces swayed to a regular beat while placards hovered motionless above the faces.

Suddenly the processions ground to a halt: The leading rows, long since dissolved, were pushed back and collided with those masses which were moving up behind them and were unwilling to relinquish their advance. The clash occurred precisely at that spot where Frau Heinisch’s little party were seated and led to a desperate skirmish. The starving wheeled about senselessly, striking out with their placards and making a great hiffariffous — which evidently was meant to substitute for their not having any food — and wrenched the table back and forth, the same table which through some miracle they still did not discover. But of course that was not for long. Eventually a change came about, difficult to account for, which ripped away the veil of secrecy. Innumerable eyes stared greedily 158

at the spread and in less than no time everyone fell upon the pieces of meat, the bones, the glasses — “My, how they can eat,” the young lady in green remarked softly. Georg, who recognized her as Frau Guth, was making an observation: the people at his table ate with gusto. The sympathy they felt for those who hungered seemed to make them only hungrier themselves, and the more shrilly they expressed outrage over the bloody course taken by the demonstrations, the more their own appetites raged. Had there been even more victims to bewail, it was a sure thing they would have devoured the cutlery. The only exception was Frau Guth, who scarcely ate a mouthful even though to judge from her transparent features she must have been perishing from hunger herself.

On the other hand it might also be that she was being consumed by her husband’s insatiable voice, which knew no mercy.

Georg, rejoicing that Frau Guth had taken him into her confidence, discreetly eyed her delicate figure and her ruddy locks. She was beginning silently to fade away.

“We’ll issue a declaration of solidarity in the name of the League,” Fräulein Samuel shouted, “no holds barred.”

She was in a thoroughly unknotted condition and swung her knife about like a banner. Georg was seated to her right and, just to be on the safe side, begged her pardon.

Sensing the mistrust with which she met him, he went on to inform her that he had only returned from K. hours ago and inquired whether she, too, had attended the Congress. Important meetings had kept her from traveling there. “Friend Huebner they say was the shining light of the Congress,” Fräulein Samuel commented to the others.

“I always did put my money on him.”

The entire table went into ecstasies over Huebner.

The name, didn’t that education advisor also mention it?

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Georg was seized by acute unease; and in order to rescue his report after the fact — there being no mention of Huebner anywhere in it — he lost no time trying to win his fellow guests’ approval of the Minister whose words he had so generously reproduced. The attempt failed miserably. “Come now, him? An absolute idiot,” burst from Frau Heinisch, who was determined to outdo Fräulein Samuel this time at all costs. The worst thing was, Georg felt he had to agree with Frau Heinisch. Then the Minister was definitively disposed of amid general merriment. Fräulein Samuel satisfied herself with pushing back a strand of hair that had flown over her pince-nez, as if though to dismiss an opponent’s objection.

Now the Minister continued to exist in the Congress report and nowhere else.

No doubt their high spirits were also encouraged by the dessert; like the happy ending to a tale, it promised everything. Shining ice cream-bergs embellished with nuts bobbed about in the dark waves of a warm chocolate sea — irreconcilable opposites contrived by an inspired culinary imagination and melting on the tongue into an unexpected unity. Georg had never let himself so much as dream of a mixture like this. Alas, he was not able to properly enjoy it, since every second he was being pulled back to his report on the Congress. And to think, he had even sent it off by express mail! Now the article would appear in the paper perhaps as early as next morning and in any case, the wretched Minister could no longer be penciled out. In his anxiety over the consequences of his rash act, Georg crossed over the chocolate sea like a haunted creature, fleeing ever deeper into the ice creambergs. Chancing to look about him, he saw that the others had been left far back in his wake. Of course they felt no twinges of conscience and therefore had no need to keep 160

spooning feverishly the way he did.

“How fortunate you are,” said Frau Heydenreich to Frau Heinisch, “being able to set such delicacies before us nowadays. As for me, I have conformed to the times and will no longer risk inviting you . . . And besides I must confess I find plain fare wonderfully satisfying.”

“I’m delighted they met with your approval,” replied Frau Heinisch, “and your flattery is forgiven all the more willingly since, once again, we find ourselves in such marvelous agreement. I, too, regard the return to simplicity as an imperative duty. And so I deplore among other things the senseless luxury in dress to which an isolated few in society stubbornly cling. For me it’s not the least trouble to dress as simply as possible.” The two ladies, who sat at opposing ends of the long table, withdrew into their defensive positions and displayed such contented expressions you would have thought each had routed the other.

Where were the ice cream-massifs? No trace was left; only the dried black crusts covering every plate testified to the sweet, hot-cold wonder. With a certain satisfaction Georg pictured to himself the difficulties in which Frau Heinisch would find herself the next morning when her fat red Willi discovered that nothing from the dessert table had been left for him. Now she brought the meal to an end — and good for her, too, the boy should have behaved far more atrociously to deserve such terrible punishment. Then it was back again to the salon, with all the forms swaying into an upholstered semi-darkness. Animals who had eaten their fill, searching out their dens. Only Beate was airy like before. She held her arms extended in front of her; her entire person seemed to want to overcome obstacles which were not there.

In his mind Georg attempted to exchange Fred for Beate. “As far as I know,” Frau Heinisch next to 161

him was saying to Doktor Rosin, “Frau Heydenreich is friends with Professor Fischer.” Rosin rubbed his hands, giving off electric sparks. When he was standing alone for a moment, Georg asked him about Beate. “A charming girl,” Rosin answered, “but between you and me, she’s not exactly my type. I prefer the dark, fiery ones . . . Her father is a respected legal counsel in Freiburg with a very decent practice. Listen, when I was in Italy I was with a woman . . . Well then, toodaloo!” Winking over his shoulder, Rosin left so quickly one would have imagined he was being kept from something important by the conversation.

Each person knew where he or she belonged. Fred had to be replaced, and if this fellow had a girl, then he, Georg, would have one too. Georg resolved to approach Beate, but halfway over he turned around, because Doktor Wolff was already sitting with her. Wolff listened obligingly and spoke quietly, like an adviser — and with his arms crossed and one leg thrown across the other, he made a pleasing impression. Not meaning to, Georg imitated Wolff ’s manner for himself. Now and then Frau Heinisch, who was sharing out liqueurs, cast a disappointed glance at Wolff but he took no notice at all. Alas there was not enough mocha, not even with the tiny cups.

Conversation turned once more to the Morgenbote; Frau Heydenreich praised Doktor Albrecht as the only one among his colleagues who had seen passive resistance 53 for the nonsense it was from the very beginning. But he had not managed to prevail with his view and therefore had been condemned to silence. “He’s fabulously clever,” she said, “and sure to have a big career yet.” So the two of them knew each other. Everyone had some connection with everyone else, there was no question about that. The whole room looked at Georg as if he were himself the 162

Morgenbote. And Beate, too—she had been closely following the panegyric for Albrecht — appeared to have a sudden interest in him.

“So you write the drama reviews?” she asked.

“No. Nothing but boring stuff.”

“A shame. I like the theater.”

“I’m sorry, but . . .”

“It’s fine. You must love your profession. I find myself envying anyone who manages to work at a newspaper.”

Beate had addressed him shyly, with her head inclined forward and her eyes lowered. Doktor Wolff drew her back to himself; his wife was nowhere to be seen.

Georg for his part did not feel that he was to be envied the tiniest bit. Talk of the newspaper made him remember his report on the Congress again, and he was already fearing tomorrow morning. The way he had thrown out that Huebner, that was how they would expel him now from the newspaper. Beate . . . the Minister — Fred was still lurking deep down. And yet even with the best will in the world he could not have written about the Congress more seriously and at greater length. Georg was repelled by the talk of community and really did believe that unless individuals transformed themselves first, there could be no such thing.

“Naturally, everything depends on the transformation of our institutions in the direction of socialism,” Georg heard Doktor Wolff say. Wolff was there without a sound, like an apparition in a magic play, and Fräulein Samuel was a witch who never stopped with her nodding.

To prevent his secret thoughts from being annihilated, Georg mounted a defense against the attackers. “And people,” he asked Wolff, “if people are unchanged, what use is transforming institutions?”

“But surely — surely we agree that people are a 163

product of their circumstances. And so when these are bettered, of course people change along with them.”

“Very logical,” Frau Heinisch threw in. She was eager to ingratiate herself with Wolff once again, and it would not have been surprising had she gone on to call him “marvelously human.” Doktor Wolff brushed a thread from his pants as if he were pained that something as little in need of explaining as “people” had even been mentioned. Human beings were institutional accessories.

“I cannot believe,” Georg began again, “that human beings are nothing more than items designed by architects to go along with institutions, like wardrobes and tables . . . Individuals must design themselves.”

“But you seem to underestimate the influence of conditions considerably. In point of fact people are never able to conduct themselves according to what they think. The reverse is the case: Their behavior is dictated to them by external factors. Would you, for example, deny that the Russian Revolution has also reshaped notions of morality and penetrated deeply into every relationship between human beings? Indeed, our capitalists do not behave just as it suits them. Rather they fall in line with the pressures of the capitalistic economic system; they are left behind in the race when they ignore them. Let us first do away with this fatal system, and then everything else will come of its own accord.”

“No!” Georg was vehement. “First comes the individual and only then the system . . . Turning the system upside down first makes no sense at all.” In his haste he was not able to deal with Wolff ’s objections and merely asserted the exact opposite without being entirely able to follow his own words.

“But for that we’ll have to wait a long time.”

“A typical reactionary view.”

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This last interjection came from Fräulein Samuel, who once again found herself in a knotted-up condition.

The day was sure to come when her tangles would no longer be able to be undone. Now the guests gathered around Georg and Wolff to savor their altercation like a boxing match which might end in a catastrophe. However Frau Heydenreich remained outside the circle. She could not have gotten much closer even had she truly wanted to, since Doktor Rosin was whizzing around her with furious energy, producing a humming noise that sounded like “Fischer.”

All of Georg’s efforts to collect himself and continue speaking were foiled by the humming. During the break in conversation caused by the sound, the tip of a vastly enlarged foot intruded itself, moving up and down to a uniform rhythm. As if anything more were needed.

It belonged to Wolff, who was stubbornly keeping himself in the very back of the room and displaying a composure that was supposed to let his audience know he would not have to make any effort whatsoever to dispatch such a puny opponent.

When the silence went on, Wolff posed a question for himself and the general gathering in politely astonished tones: “I should really like to know what is to be understood by ‘human beings’ as such.” Whether it was the assured calm with which he dismissed human beings as such, or the way that practiced negotiator’s voice slid over him, refusing to address him directly — whatever the reason, Georg became so irritated at Wolff ’s behavior that he was no longer able to contain himself. Forgotten were the crowd of onlookers who had just now caused him to feel shy, forgotten the oppressive feeling that he simply could not communicate his thoughts.

He was speaking, without rhyme or reason he 165

began speaking: It was necessary to help people, to make them see how insignificant all these institutions were that bewitched them and made them overlook the most important thing. Growing more and more excited, Georg suddenly recalled his school days, which struck him as a good example. His French teacher, the anxiety . . . “I myself was never influenced by school, and even my French teacher for instance, who actually did hate me, never upset me. For this reason I have never understood the passionate protest against the old school system . . . Which indeed we shed like a snake sheds its skin.” I’m not getting through to them; they listen and do not believe me. Georg could sense their faces, bright blank specks blending into one another. Again as so often in the past he was overwhelmed by the feeling that what he urged held no meaning for the others. Was no one in this circle aware of the dreadful inertia existing between human beings?

As Georg strove to make clear the consequences of this inertia — here it was very difficult to avoid Fred — he discovered himself making unaccustomed gestures with his arms. I’m plowing furrows in the air, he thought. But the furrows instantly disappeared and his words perished one and all. How really isolated he was!

Packed with an irresistible desire to reach his audience no matter what, Georg resorted to insult.

“Some people,” he asserted, generalizing, “transfer their own responsibility for the state of things onto the state of things itself and then proclaim a new society with the greatest enthusiasm — so that they can continue living in the old way unmolested.” Humming resumed in the background. That music in the hotel yesterday evening—like someone banished Georg yearned for the brightness which only yesterday had surrounded him in the hotel lobby. There were people who radiated brightness, and 166

now all at once he remembered that back in the hotel he had produced a dream out of the brightness and the people to the music from behind the palms. Barely was he touched by this already vanished world when he realized how dull and threadbare the people here were.

Doktor Wolff raised a hand to his mouth while Frau Heinisch gazed up at the distant ceiling with a look of suffering. Following the direction in which she absentmindedly lost herself, Georg, too, took leave of the gathering and floated towards his dream of splendor, which revealed itself to him in greater richness than yesterday.

“There are such people,” Georg declared. But he could not describe them. “And everything depends on the fact that they exist. They don’t worry about bad institutions and they leave the good ones behind.

They are themselves more than all the institutions put together. They really are here, they’re not abstractions. And a radiance streams from them which must be sensed by everyone . . . Or perhaps it’s a fragrance.”

Silence.

Georg still felt he was floating when the organ of Herr Guth tore him down from his make-believe heights.

“Millions go hungry,” he thundered. “Millions have no idea how to satisfy their most primitive needs, and you — you preach perfume and shining light? Don’t take it amiss, but the misery of the proletariat 54 is nothing to joke about. And those of us who feel the misery and fight to abolish it have other things to do besides indulging such idle worries.” The good dinner had so inflated his voice that it rang out yet more powerfully than before.

Doktor Wolff lit a cigarette. “I’m with you there,” he said to Herr Guth.

Everyone got up. From the midst of the throng blotting out the walls of the salon, Fräulein Samuel uttered 167

a loud snorting sound which could have been either an expression of anger or a laugh; Georg had little doubt that it was directed against him, and in both senses. “As if I did not feel the misery,” he insisted to those standing around him. “But then misery was not what it was about.”

The guests were going separate ways, there was a confusion of coats and dresses. Georg was ashamed and reproached himself because he had not in fact “felt the misery.” He had taken refuge in a brightness which did not shine in the outside world. Yes, the others were right, they were living and surging tall as giants while his own light was going out. “You spoke what was in my heart,” said Frau Guth, “only I am not able to express it that way.” Then she was swept off again; the attempt of her heart to flee had failed. A wrist watch flashed. “I found the discussion really quite marvelous, and you—?”

Frau Heinisch congratulated herself on the discussion in her salon. She seemed to be of the opinion that it could hardly have been held in any old place but had been brought forth solely by the salon; the salon produced such discussions all by itself. Doktor Rosin herded the guests together and made a circle around them which no one could break through. “So in truth there are no individuals,” he wound up. “The ‘individual’ as a concept has outlived its usefulness for modern social science.”

Millions go hungry. The door stood open. Beate emerged out of the haze of footsteps, exclamations, and faces. She opened her eyes wide and it was like a curtain going up; her head remained lowered.

“It’s good this way,” she said.

“What?”

“That you gave your opinion.”

“Do you agree with it?”

“We must get together soon.”

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“Your address?”

“I’ll be in touch. You can be reached through the newspaper?”

“Yes . . . no — ” She turned to one side to let herself be helped into her coat. Frau Doktor Wolff called out for her husband: “Egon.” We thank you, I thank you, good-bye, wonderful, the session, the food, good-bye, Egon, the dollar, good-bye, wonderful, good night.

The night was cold. In Georg’s room a postcard from Fred lay on the table: old houses of Hamburg along a canal filled with the masts of ships. Like in Venice. A locomotive whistled. Since when has a railroad run through the city? Tomorrow —

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VIII. When Georg arrived at the newspaper the next morning, he immediately tried to make his way to Doktor Petri. There was no brooking the catastrophe, seeing that his report on the Congress had actually appeared. But at least he wanted to discover what his fate was right away instead of first finding out indirectly what they might be planning to do to him. Apparently some lower-ranking employee had merely handed in the report to be set, and since Sommer was on vacation it had not been reviewed before it was printed. Georg did not think himself entitled to suspect that Krug knew of the matter.

Recently the man had seemed so favorably disposed towards him that he would doubtless have held the article back. Though admittedly Krug’s real intentions were never wholly transparent.

“May I—” inquired Georg in the outer office, motioning towards the leather-upholstered door.

“Busy.” Fräulein Peppel did not even look up. It was as if a sign placed on the door inscribed with “Busy” dispensed the information.

“I’ll try to wait.”

No answer — except for Fräulein Peppel’s bun menacing him from afar like the bastion of a fortress.

Georg hesitated for a while between the various seating options which offered themselves. In view of his desperate situation he would unquestionably have done better to take one of the usual chairs, yet ultimately he chose nothing less than the club chair, reasoning that it could not very well add to his injuries. Most likely this piece of 170

furniture was intended for outside visitors. Before settling down in it, Georg pulled off his overcoat to make himself somewhat more comfortable. Then, slouched between the arms of the chair, he proceeded to read his report on the Congress. In the newspaper he no longer recognized it at all. He was crestfallen; the Minister in his printed state cut an even more ridiculous figure than he did in manuscript.

Usually one did not notice stupidity so much once it had been printed.

On the diminutive visitors’ table lay some attractive brochures, which proved upon closer inspection to be nothing but advertising prospectuses for the Morgenbote. Typesetting machines, the shipping department, columns of statistics — the Morgenbote seemed ready to tolerate only itself even in one of its outlying regions.

Georg was bored, and shoved the brochures aside—doctors at any rate tried to draw attention away from themselves in their waiting rooms. As he strolled from one mental association to another which such prospectuses caused him to make in spite of himself, the bun behind which Fräulein Peppel was barricaded retreated in the direction of the window. There was a jerk, and the window stood open. Outside was a gray autumn day, wet and cold, which filled the room immediately. Fräulein Peppel turned back silently without giving Georg a glance. Nevertheless he was unable to rid himself of the feeling that she was observing him through a peephole in her hair-wall to assure herself of the success of the punishment she had inflicted on him: This was not some apartment where clothes were shed one two three and whoever made himself at home in the club chair without her leave would have to pay the piper. The chilly air made for an unpleasant tingling and penetrated the skin; and although Georg let it appear 171

as if the entire affair meant nothing to him, inwardly he swore he would not put on his coat again. Both parties carried on their wordless contest with similar perseverance.

Just what was Petri doing in there? One never knew if he were even present, for his office was equipped with a separate entrance. In order to numb the icy sensation which was laming him more and more, Georg concentrated his attention on Fräulein Peppel, who did not appear to suffer in the slightest from the cold streaming in. Quite the opposite: with her bright red little cheeks she was like an overheated oven that could have withstood any temperature no matter how freezing. The fierce fires hidden inside the oven must have remained stored up there from Fräulein Peppel’s days in Argentina. And since she preferred to retain her tropical heat rather than emit it, everything around her already seemed to be in winter’s grip — the human race was unworthy of her Argentinian interior.

The better to defend herself, along with her bun-construction Fräulein Peppel possessed a sharply projecting nose from which any enemy could be spotted at a distance. No one would have been wise to come near this defense system without her say so. Fräulein Peppel kept on full alert, and when for example the telephone rang as it so often did, she would take to the offensive without warning and repulse her opponent on the other end of the line. There were many who hung up at once to secure their safety in good time. Especially irritating parties were simply hurled clattering down against her typewriter, causing a mass of business letters to come shooting out—a sheer by-product.

On the other hand, Fräulein Peppel lavished such care on her flowers during rare lulls in the battle that there was no mistaking her powerful need for tenderness. She would 172

glance toward the vase, on which yet more blooms were rioting, and lean forward to enjoy their fragrance — her nose at such moments transforming itself into an organ of peace. However, these flowers did not appear to be anxious to win anyone over with an endearing demeanor.

Their toothy petals put one in mind of cogwheels, their leaves shone with a poisonous green lacquer, and their stalks shot rudely up into the heights. It was impossible to picture them swaying dreamily in the breeze. And if they really came from a garden, then it was a garden enclosed in barbed wire . . .

“So you’re here to bear away your congratulations in person?”

Georg was startled. “‘Congratulations’ — I don’t understand — ” “As you like.”

Fräulein Peppel fell abruptly silent. Georg had begun to fear he was annoying her by not understanding when suddenly he realized that it was exactly the reverse: He had been insulted by her. For even if the congratulations she thought to hand out were a shy attempt at conversation, still they were scornful. To talk to him of “congratulations” — though perhaps she wished to avenge herself for his staring. But was waiting by an open window this time of year a pleasure?

Georg, afraid of catching cold, decided he had better put on his coat again after all. His decision was made easier since stubbornly keeping to his original intention to stick it out coatless had not shown the least effect on Fräulein Peppel. It was good that just now the secretary was caressing her flowers. The purple-red of her cheeks and the poisonous green of the foliage flowed together to create a unique frost-painting which acquired yet more beauty from the way the flower stalks razored through 173

her face and the cogwheel-blossoms made a perfect wind-storm of her hair. Alas, Fräulein Peppel emerged unscathed.

Now loud voices rose behind the leather-upholstered door. The voices seemed to be arguing and awakened an understandable curiosity in Georg. His intention to listen was frustrated by chattering from Fräulein Peppel, which broke forth with unprecedented violence as soon as the voices erupted. Probably it was no mere attempt on her part to interfere, but also stemmed from a delight in senseless uproar. What Georg wanted most was to flee, for if a storm were already developing next door without him, the “congratulations” would rage far more frightfully in his presence. Wasn’t that — “I thought Herr Sommer was on vacation . . .”

No one heard him. A second later there was an appalling crash, like a bolt of lightning striking extremely close by. The door flew open; Herr Sommer appeared on the threshold. The man’s “brow” blazed towards freedom out of his Schiller collar, which he left far behind him, and his gaze bored into an infinitely far-off place.

As he flowed towards the exit without tarrying in the lowlands where Georg and Fräulein Peppel dwelt, the man resembled one of the torches over which he himself leapt on the summer solstice. They were ignited on mountain peaks, way up high at night. Before anyone realized it, the youthful blaze was gone. It had shed no warmth.

Georg got up; he was so aroused that now he thought to push his way into Doktor Petri uninvited.

It was only as he marched up to the door that he saw that there was nothing to prevent him—in obedience to a twitch of Fräulein Peppel’s head the sign inscribed with “Busy” had taken itself down. The door stood half-open.

“Oh it’s you,” said Doktor Petri, who at that 174

moment was leafing through the papers on his desk. He smiled: “Herr Sommer is very angry with you.”

“And I must admit before anything else,” began Georg, who had not seen the smile, “that my report on the Congress — ” “What’s to admit? I’m not admitting anything. On the contrary: Just now I told Sommer that he must leave me in peace once and for all . . . It can drive a man crazy the way he loses himself in the clouds sometimes.”

Not understanding anything, Georg stared at Petri, who continued to rummage through his papers even though he was obviously still too preoccupied with Sommer to so much as look at them. Thus it was left purely to chance whether something flew into the wastebasket or was laid aside.

“May I assist you,” inquired Georg, troubled by this fit of distraction.

“The unfortunate fellow comes to me,” Petri went on, “and starts complaining, wouldn’t you know, that you gave the Minister too much space. That you should have acknowledged the speech of what’s his name instead, I’ve forgotten who he’s actually talking about . . .”

“Huebner,” put in Georg. “. . . and that in any case there was absolutely nothing to the Minister. And this when today every child knows that the reactionaries are gunning for him and that right now nothing is more important than to hold onto him any way we can. He is one of the last bulwarks we have. And naturally the report on the Congress was also to help with this. Huebner — who is Huebner? When push comes to shove, we’re still in the business of politics, and assuredly we’re not called to wallow in mindless sentimentality. Then, too, the Minister’s speech was so far from being trivial that it may well find 175

an enormous echo. Not only did he profess his social conscience in the most impressive manner imaginable, he also disposed of all the opposing arguments as if he were plucking the petals from a flower. But why I am telling you this . . . Believe me, my friend, if our ideologues had their way the Left would already have had its goose cooked long ago.”

Petri angrily tore up a thick manuscript; the manuscript fought back mightily against the mistreatment.

Perhaps it had been written by an ideologue. Georg would have been happier still had he been able to find confirmation for Petri’s claim that the Minister had settled the score with reactionaries. Particularly since he had been the one to write down the Minister’s speech.

Hopelessly he went wandering through that night of social misery the Minister had conjured up, and at last he no longer knew if he had begun to dream or was only waking from one.

If nothing else he wanted to understand the reason for the unexpected success of his report, and so he put his question directly: “Do you mean that I discussed the Congress as you would have liked?”

Petri looked up: “You’re thinking to carry off my congratulations?” Like Fräulein Peppel. And he, Georg, had taken her congratulations for scorn. But they were real—real without a doubt. While he was still marveling over this incredible turn of events and attempting to thoroughly understand it, Doktor Petri began to make various preparations which clearly showed that he wished to end their discussion. He got up, threw the papers he had just finished sorting into another heap, and went over to his wardrobe. Now of all times, when it could have been so beautiful — Georg stood there, forgotten. Only after his coat was on did Petri seem to recollect him.

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“What was the real reason you came?”

“It can wait,” answered Georg, dodging the question.

And he added: “I never meant to stir up a storm of congratulations . . .”

“A good thing too, because I’m off on a trip this very second. I’ll be back the day after tomorrow. – Come, accompany me as far as the bottom of the stairs.”

Doktor Petri’s paletot was very roomy. The last thing he did was grab his attaché case, a heavy yellow object wrapped round with plain leather straps, and rush like an express train through his leather door. Georg, who shut the door behind him, had the feeling he was a caboose. There was a stop already in the outer office.

“You should go through the wastepaper basket again,” said Doktor Petri to Fräulein Peppel, who greeted him on the station platform. “We simply must find the manuscript.”

Fräulein Peppel responded to this commission with a “Good!” that not only delivered a forceful rebuke to Petri’s carelessness but also made it unmistakable that under no circumstances did she mean to find the manuscript in the wastepaper basket. She did not fetch things out of wastepaper baskets.

The window was shut; Fräulein Peppel glowed, inwardly on fire. There was a jolt and off the train rushed again. Georg absentmindedly watched the yellow case, which peered out like a first-class passenger at the receding corridors from one of the openings in the paletot. How could he have so completely misunderstood the content of the Minister’s speech? Or had he, in the last analysis, not been wrong at all?

Georg was unable to hide his convictions any longer. They had not reached the landing when he declared that for him the speech was trite as could be: “To be honest, nowhere do I find in it those attacks and 177

avowals which you mentioned just now. When did the Minister confront his enemies? And that talk about “social misery” — people have “hunger” on their tongues and heartily eat at the same time! It’s really nothing more than phrases . . . Though perhaps I fail to understand . . .” A person couldn’t stay mute forever, and Georg was unable to think of what else to say.

“Look, it’s Herr Kummer,” said Doktor Petri. And lo and behold, beyond the bend in the stairs was a dark, shapeless mass rearing up in the center of the landing. As they approached, it did not budge and in fact only an incessant wheezing showed that it contained life. Georg inwardly cursed the encounter for interrupting their conversation at the decisive moment. The Korrektor must have been uncoupled while underway and now he was waiting to be sent on ahead. But there was no one in any direction. And so he stood helpless in this unpeopled region of the stairs, immobilized yet more by the heavy scarf in which he was wrapped. He might have been planning to spend winter here. Of course he would not have been able to turn around his head in any case since it was too firmly a part of his trunk. His eyes alone wandered about with a troubled expression.

“Yes, yes, the steep stairs.” Petri was kindly as he bypassed the traffic obstacle without stopping. “But do buck up, Kummer, you’re almost there.” And he turned around once more: “By the way, have you read that odd report out of Paris?”

Kummer did not move; he remained behind, utterly isolated. “Poor devil,” whispered Petri to Georg. The latter was scarcely in the mood for an exchange of personal observations. He would have much preferred to find out if his words had penetrated Petri’s hide. They were already nearing the vestibule.

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“We weren’t finished,” said Georg at last, after his most studied silence produced no effect whatsoever.

Petri fixed him with an absent look, made an annoyed clicking sound, and then laughed. “Oh yes, the speech . . . Let’s hope you’re not about to demand that I defend your own report against you. We have other fish to fry at the moment . . .” He came to a halt: “Heavens, what’s wrong with you! Surely I don’t have to tell you that those seemingly inconsequential phrases of the Minister are of the highest programmatic importance.

‘Phrases,’ you say. Well yes, ‘phrases.’ But such phrases are the instrument of the politician speaking before the great public, and his art consists precisely in setting the stock figures of reality in motion, like a puppeteer. It’s as though he were pulling on the wires: fine nuances point up differences in weltanschauung,55 innocuous-sounding words foreshadow effective actions . . . Let me recommend most urgently that you read through your outstanding report once again very carefully and you’ll recognize immediately that the reference to social misery did not come out of thin air. It draws a clear line and provides the guarantee for a tendency which we must certainly welcome. And what objection can there be to his language? ‘Night of social misery’ — such an image leaves its impress, and I for one find that on the whole the speech is full of happy formulations . . . Don’t be a splitter of hairs, my friend! Whoever anxiously clings to the words will never find his way to their meaning.

One must rely more on feeling. And indeed you’ve done so . . .” At their parting all was intimacy again: “Before I forget: do me a favor and calm Sommer down a bit.

He is forever getting so frightfully worked up, and yet we’ve got to avoid conflicts as much as we can. You understand me . . . Until Thursday . . .”

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The one-armed porter gestured a greeting with his one hand and opened the door with the hand which wasn’t there, and Petri hurried away. After he had vanished, his yellow attaché case, which would have done for the Minister, continued for a time to send its gleams into the building from outside.

The elevator hung motionless in the air, the stairs were soled in rubber. Don’t be a splitter of hairs thought Georg as he climbed. He tried to let himself float away from his emotions, yet he was plunging into dark bitter waves which always hurled him back to Petri’s words. After a period of time during which he was continually dashed about here and there, he collided with them so violently that he nearly lost his balance.

Bewildered, Georg ascertained that the word-mass he thought he had crashed into was in reality Herr Korrektor Kummer. In very truth Kummer was still standing there on the stairs and had at most come only three steps further: nothing but rubber strips one above the next, an endless road. Georg begged his pardon for being careless.

“Dreadful thing, the broken elevator,” he offered when Kummer said nothing. There was another pause.

Georg started in again. “If only we didn’t have such weather. I find every step hard, too.” It was important to try and cheer the fellow up a little.

“To err is human,” replied Kummer. “But it’s not always the Korrektor who errs. As it happened the Paris report arrived only after editing time, so no revised version could be proofed. That is the sole reason for its mutilation . . . Important events should always be submitted by an early afternoon hour. Otherwise printing errors are bound to occur.”

His voice was just as colorless as his eyes, which blinked into the void. They sat somewhere in the upper 180

regions and were not to be pinpointed right away. There was an inner trembling of the entire mass. Clearly Georg’s blow had not yet penetrated as far as Kummer himself.

Light rays, too, required time . . . “To be sure, interesting events as a rule do not occur before evening.”

“How’s that?” Georg did not immediately understand what Kummer was driving at, who for his part attempted to produce a smile that was up to his remark. But the smile did not have the strength to establish itself in his face, on which the features ran sluggishly together. They would have liked to evaporate into a mist most of all. In an instant the smile was gone.

“The elevator will be my coffin yet,” said Herr Kummer. In the same moment, without any sort of advance warning, he took a couple more steps up the stairs. The movement he fell into so unexpectedly was evidently the result of the recent impact, which was finally communicating itself to him. The man seemed absolutely shocked at his own accomplishment. Georg, who had been infected by the proofreader’s immobility, used this good opportunity to bid him farewell. It was high time; once again Kummer stood stock still. At least he had recognized Georg by now and, surprised to discover him, lapsed into deep brooding. The pack of cigarettes was still lying there.

“Unfortunately I have to go upstairs,” Georg exclaimed somewhat impatiently.

“Fate decides everything,” replied the Korrektor, who took no notice of the hand that was held out to him. Then he gave a lonesome nod: “The weather affects us only outwardly. My sickness lies within.” In the space where he had his actual being every word was swallowed up and only the echo was allowed to enter; the echo, however, always reached him so late that nobody could 181

remember its origin. Kummer himself did not suffer from the delay because, luckily enough, the fact that the echo had any origin at all escaped him.

En route to Sommer Georg had to cross corridors out of whose gloom Doktor Albrecht might come blazing towards him. A most rare sight these days: Albrecht had achieved such prominence as a political economist that he scarcely ever had face-to-face encounters with the unauthorized. It was as if the building possessed, in addition to its public passageways, other secret ones through which he reached his office or betook himself to the site of important conferences. Mostly he could be found in some conference and nowhere else. And when he really did show himself, it was by streaking straight towards his goal and not — as was the case now—sauntering this way and that in leisurely fashion like someone out for a stroll over the meadows.

Though it was not surprising that having drawn near, he more resembled a scythe traveling through the air just for fun. The meadows had already been mowed and little dust devils were swirling up and down before the hallway window. The most innocent explanation possible for Albrecht’s suspicious indolence was that he was taking a break from his work. The dollar had long since been going for more than one hundred billion German marks, and it would have to be stressful, always following its course.

“So, back again from K.?” After the reproof he had handed Georg the other time, Albrecht had never again deemed him worthy of being addressed. He spoke in a nasal tone that was obviously meant to be encouraging.

As if his voice, usually razor sharp, had been concealed in a sheath it could not quite cut through.

“I’m just coming from Doktor Petri,” said Georg.

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“Of course your report must have sent him into raptures . . . Naturally you were aware that he’s friends with the Minister and is glad when the gentleman receives good treatment from us . . . Isn’t that so?

“But — ” Albrecht examined Georg from the side. Georg was incensed to think that he, Albrecht, would immediately assume that his report, for want of a better word, had been written out of calculation. The things that went on . . . Yet he understood Petri better and even regretted too late his failure to exploit a favorable situation to his own advantage. He had been wishing for a room of his own at the newspaper for the longest while; then again, Petri had been in a tremendous hurry. And now the haste itself struck him as extremely odd. Ought he to confess to Albrecht what the story was with the Minister’s speech?

His instinct counseled him to keep silent. At the same time he almost had the impression that he had come up in Albrecht’s estimation because the latter thought himself entitled to assume a sly compliance on Georg’s part in exchange for Petri’s favor.

“Petri’s right, by the way,” Albrecht resumed. “The only way utter ruin can be can forestalled is for a certain calm to take hold in our domestic politics immediately.

We cannot dash with our heads through a wall. We must first see that the economy emerges from this ghastly mess halfway intact . . .” From the altitude of Albrecht’s breast pocket a handkerchief corner waved down — a tiny flag of victory. “It goes without saying the Minister is a know-nothing. But still he’s on the right path, trying to secure a truce between the parties. That Congress speech in particular showed yet again how useful he is.”

All of which was spoken faintly, through the nose. They continued to amble along, meaning that Georg 183

trotted alongside his companion. How strange of Albrecht suddenly to defend the Minister on objective grounds when he had just represented him as Petri’s friend, and thus to some extent disparaged him! In all likelihood Georg’s surprise had let him infer in the meantime that he, Georg, was far too unskilled to maintain a special understanding with Petri. And now Albrecht wanted to protect himself from any suspicion that he could somehow or other approve of such pliable behavior. Or else he really did have confidence in the Minister. Whatever the truth, he was not to be fathomed.

Albrecht’s leanness was accentuated by the creases in his suit. They were cut so fine they could have easily served as a weapon. Creases ran all the way up without interruption to the top of his head, terminating in two furious little hairs which aimed to climb even higher. Albrecht is scarcely older than I thought Georg and already he knows his way around in the world wonderfully well. But then he remembered how Albrecht had once acted the part of such a radical and how zealously he had acknowledged the revolutionary powers of youth in his presence. In those days he would not have justified the Minister but attacked him and expressed contempt for such delicate compromises.

What had happened to all that? One was never able to touch bottom, and when you thought you grasped someone, that person was already on a different path, which then usually turned out to be the real one.

There was no end to corridors; they went on planting themselves along the walls of one building after another. A dizziness took hold of Georg, who had to seize Albrecht in spite of everything and cling to him; and so he told him of the gathering the previous evening, how the Minister had been laughed at and how everyone in attendance had lavished praise on Albrecht for his socialism.

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“When Frau Heinisch reads me in today’s paper,” Georg added for himself, “she’ll be most unhappy with me.” He was hoping that all those praises would make Albrecht feel he had to clearly state his own position.

Albrecht smiled without smiling, as though at a tribute which was only to be expected.

“Those nonentities naturally want the best, yet they haven’t one single clue about politics. Frau Heinisch in particular is an absolute cow, and the stuff the rest of them babble on about doesn’t exactly arise from an intimate knowledge of things.” Albrecht seemed to ponder whether he ought to share his inside knowledge.

But since surrendering it would have felt like a desecration, he confined himself to generalities: “Genuine radicalism, my esteemed friend, does not revel in tirades and resolutions while otherwise looking idly on, but seeks to near the final goal of socialism by every available means. Partly through our own doing we find ourselves in a vicious tactical struggle — there is no way around it. So much the more necessary then that we maneuver.

Every existing factor in the power equation must be taken into account, the influence of leading individuals thoroughly grasped, and each connection made clever use of . . . No more quixotic quests, no more rigid principles!

It’s a question of Power!” Albrecht’s voice had been unsheathed: a cold and menacing instrument.

“It’s a question of Power.” The creases roared ruthlessly towards Power and tore the handkerchief corner along with them — which made itself taut and also began to strain forward. It was followed by the pencils sticking out of Albrecht’s vest pocket, which had been mechanically sharpened so they would press forward mindful only of their goal. All mere lines; striving had long since consumed Albrecht’s body.

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It’s a question of Power—Georg failed to understand what it was a question of. He only saw that nothing solid existed, nothing one could rely on, and that Albrecht would always wriggle free of him. With head lifted high, the man turned back to his office. As he withdrew, his steps slightly swaying, one could not help but feel that he was beheading the little hall flowers shining on their Lincrusta56 ground with confident strokes of his scythe.

Oh, to lie in a meadow, sheltered by the grass! But here only the corridors were left, naked processions of lines emerging from the autumn rain and striving to reach some point which could not be seen. The main thing was to strive . . .

Georg composed himself and knocked on Sommer’s door. What a painful visit this was for him. Not only because he was unable ever to truly see eye to eye with Sommer; as he knew from Petri, with his report on the Congress he had deeply offended him.

“Doktor Petri has asked me to speak with you.” Real editors never knocked before entering each other’s offices.

Sommer sat next to his desk, entirely sunk in thought and seemingly deeply disturbed — not at all his usual self.

If only recently he had sailed through Fräulein Peppel’s office in the splendor of his Youth-regalia, he now resembled a blossom which has lost its petals to the storm before its time. His head hung over his knees, his hair was disheveled. The storm that had caused this calamity had apparently broken forth from Sommer’s interior, which in fact was too small for the great quantity of soul foaming and bubbling up in it. Surely he could have calmed his soul; however, since he took the opposite tack of doing everything to foment its restlessness — a quality he regarded as especially youthful — his interior was forever threatening to foam over. Here immense quantities of emotion 186

were brewing to which he blindly relinquished himself; here fearsome contests were enacted into which he passionately plunged. Usually Sommer emerged the winner of such contests. Then he would exhibit the triumphant behavior of a boy-hero returning from battle. Yet he failed to realize that very few who saw him like this were able to guess wherein he had triumphed.

Admittedly, just now Sommer appeared to have suffered a crushing defeat. It was with great effort that he raised himself out of the depths into which he had been hounded by his soul’s commandos, and rather than seek the outside world, his pair of morose and lusterless eyes waited to be discovered. At last they grazed Georg.

“So you too are with them,” he brought forth.

“Because I didn’t write anything about Huebner?”

Sommer was still wandering, lost, in his interior. What does “them” really mean? wondered Georg.

“It is only now,” Georg went on, “that I find out from Albrecht that Doktor Petri is friends with the Minister.”

“Ah, clueless one,” Sommer groaned. He smiled gloomily and lapsed into a stammer which sounded so despairing he was doubtless being called on to defend himself against ever new storms of emotion. And in truth he would have been altogether overwhelmed by the storms had he not exhaled a ferocious “Ha!” every few seconds, through which he helped himself make regular advances, little by little. The “Ha!” served no other purpose.

From the morass of his words Georg gathered that the Minister cultivated close relationships with important individuals in industry and high finance, who in turn used him as a sort of middleman to Petri. And as for Petri, it was either that he let himself be easily influenced by social considerations or had reasons of his own for not wanting to get completely on the wrong 187

side of the large capitalists. However it was, the result of the fateful friendship between Petri and the Minister was this: Sommer was always being prevented from scourging certain evils brought into being by these same circles with the clarity that the editorial position of the Morgenbote demanded.

“All right, so Albrecht is part of it,” Georg managed to get in. It came to him that the favor which Albrecht enjoyed with Petri had formerly been Sommer’s. Favor never stood still, but wandered like the sunlight from one person to another.

“Ha!” cried Sommer. Was Georg unaware that in leading managerial circles Albrecht was regarded as a talent to reckon with? Only a few weeks ago he had been approached by a big Berlin bank which was so little misled by his socialist convictions that it had been planning to name him to a leading post. Albrecht had declined the offer even though it promised him a rapid rise. And why, in view of his ambitiousness, had he practiced such renunciation? Naturally Albrecht himself would say it was out of idealistic considerations. But one should not forget that through this renunciation he had strengthened his position at the newspaper to an extraordinary degree. And that possibly he only continued to play the editor longer to save himself for still more advantageous offers. With Albrecht it was always the same: Each of his actions appeared to follow from the radical convictions he espoused, and at the same time they lined up as it were by chance with whatever favorable circumstances ruled the moment. No, Sommer put no stock in the notion that chance was shuffling the cards here, and he was not about to deceive himself for example over the remarkable harmony which had reigned recently between Albrecht and Petri . . .

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Georg did not know how to reply. Sommer’s office was the perfect youth-retreat: very narrow, unsystematic, and with everything smacking of a temporary quarters. Above his desk fluttered a nosegay of brightly colored ribbons, next to which were hanging a great many photographs in which girls and young men made their way through the woods in Sommer’s company, swam together, and rowed into the sunset. Most of all, they rowed. And always they were hoisting their guitars, from which hung ribbons like the ones decorating this office. An eternal springtime—the photographs were affixed with thumb tacks to make them look even more frolicsome. To be completely free of frames — “How wonderful,” said Georg, filled with yearning.

“To row, to wander that way.” Though in actual fact he would hardly have relished being of the party.

Sommer’s head emerged from between his hands.

“These lies and half-lies that continue to spread . . . I ask you: have you felt nothing of the magnificent tenacity with which Huebner, led by the Geist of the New Youth,57 struggles against the old society and its rot?

He is the noblest and most upright human being I know.

One of the few who not only criticize but are able to build . . . And yet wherever the flames of genuine enthusiasm blaze up, here come the know-it-alls right on cue. Their superior attitude is the death of enthusiasm.

How they diminish Huebner, and how here at the newspaper they fancy themselves so sublimely above him! And you, too — your weakness is not wanting to let yourself be carried away. Child of man, free yourself once and for all. Don’t bar yourself any longer from the Life that is coursing through you!”

“Is Huebner a socialist?” asked Georg, remembering that Fräulein Samuel had referred to him as a friend and had 189

sung his praises. “Child of man” was a bit much for Georg.

“Ha!” Another storm was brewing. If before, Sommer had been the helpless prey of his soul, now he succeeded in putting its unleashed powers to use. Like a tempest he swept about his office railing against the socialists, who deluded themselves into imagining they were ushering in a paradise by replacing one social class with another. They were cold rationalists who had completely forgotten that a human being was not merely the member of a social class.

He was more. And precisely insofar as he was a human being, it was his lot to suffer bitterly in these times.

“Renewal must come from within,” Sommer stammered, diffusing warmth as though he were the foehn.58 This time his stammer did not arise from despair but was a matchless shout of joy — a shout of joy for the power to feel and to believe that was stirring in Youth, no matter what its party, and which was pressing ever more irresistibly towards deliverance. This was a power that scorned reason — in vain did reason strive to hold it back, and one day it would generate a Community out of itself.

Ha. On Sommer’s desk lay several manuscript pages over whose surface the characters roved in casual bands; they, too, shouted for joy.

“What I don’t understand,” said Georg, “is why reason is supposed to be so bad. We really can’t live by feelings alone . . .” The manuscript bore the title: “Youth’s Mission.”

“There you go, always wanting to categorize everything right away —” Sommer gazed at Georg in silence, like someone scrutinizing a soulless creature for which there are no words. Pity mixed in the silence. Then he was suddenly taken over by feelings which had re-formed themselves in the meantime. “Next Sunday you must come out with us,” he pleaded. “Until you’ve experienced our shared excursions, you’ll never understand it.”

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What the “it” was that he would never understand was still a closed book to Georg. Moreover, he had no way of asking further; every query would have ricocheted off the ruling mood of the place instantly. The sun at its highest in the sky, outdoor cooking, moonlight rowing, talks by the fire, dreams beneath the tent—Sommer was entranced and raved on and on about the inner bond between the young generation and the universe.

Which meant that he did not actually say anything but sank blissfully back in his chair, letting his feelings speak. By degrees they swelled to such cosmic proportions that they set the entire room vibrating. The brightly colored ribbons rustled above the desk, the guitars in the photographs plucked their songs all by themselves. At last Sommer’s surging soul condensed itself into a veil of vapor through which only his Schiller collar was still visible.

It shone like a road marker in fog, pointing to the future.

“Heil,” said Georg, intent on taking his leave; under the circumstances no other salutation was thinkable.59 In the corridors he already felt better just because they were so dark. Still he reproached himself after the fact, seeing that once again this meeting had not led anywhere.

Instead of making Sommer talk things out with him so that he, Georg, would be able to show himself in the right light, he had dodged every difficulty and had not undertaken anything that would really bring him closer to the other man. And yet Sommer was sincere and worth taking trouble over. I’ve fallen very short thought Georg as he made his way down the stairs. But he also knew infallibly that every subsequent conversation with Sommer would turn out exactly the same, and that he would always be left owing Sommer something. They might even have a great deal in common; however, the tiny something which intruded itself between them ended up sabotaging a 191

meeting of minds. To reveal oneself, to be unsealed . . .

“No hat today?” asked the porter by the swinging door. Alarmed, Georg felt for his head. Up the stairs once again . . .

“Here it is.” Indeed, his hat was still hanging in Fräulein Peppel’s domain. As usual she kept herself hidden behind her fortifications, but owing to her excellent spy service she must have been accurately informed over every movement of the enemy. Afraid she might not leave his happy exclamation at seeing his hat again unavenged, Georg tried to be as unobtrusive as possible heading out.

Too late. His hand was already on the door latch when Fräulein Peppel bade him stop. “So.” Georg wheeled around as though caught in the act.

“So,” said Fräulein Peppel. “I was right after all when I offered you my congratulations earlier . . . Don’t be so modest. The chief holds you in high regard.” She turned to him and her face, too, showed that strangely enough, she harbored peaceful intentions. Georg, who had been waiting for a fierce attack, was even more disconcerted by this surprising spirit of conciliation.

“Oh yes, thank you, really you were right,” he said from the doorway, and once more he prepared to leave the office.

“Won’t you give me your hand?”

Plagued by vague mistrust, Georg approached Fräulein Peppel. What was she hiding, now that she was offering the hand which had always been denied him? But wonder of wonders: her surprising change of mood held.

She smiled, or better, made a strenuous effort to smile, an effort that only came to grief from the resistance put up by her nose, whose pointed outcropping still maintained a sharp watch. Georg was thoroughly touched by this smile.

It appeared so unexercised, as if it had been deprived of 192

a proper development through lack of nourishment. It was so alone in this world where one froze on the way towards old age. To keep it from perishing immediately, Georg also smiled once more, and secretly he congratulated himself on the handshake, which felt like being knighted. For the first time he was fully acknowledged, an equal member of the group. The smile persisted and finally threw its beams over the flowers in the vase, yet next to the hard-won graciousness of their mistress they seemed twice as ill-tempered.

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IX The last months of the year were filled with separatist unrest, strikes, protests against price increases, and bartering.60 The more people spoke of these things, the more indifferent they became. There was lukewarm rain, then it would clear, then freeze, then rain again. Sometimes the skies disappeared and were replaced by a gray void in which houses shivered and crept out of sight. Anyone underway at such times felt the sullen silence of the streets. Not until nightfall, when the lights came on and music sounded from bars and dance halls, did they turn a bit friendlier. Severe food riots were now a regular occurrence everywhere. At long last Georg had been given his own room at the newspaper, a rectangular hole like a blind appendix hanging onto one of the wormlike corridors and boasting a view of the inner courtyard. Even though his desk was larger than the entire rest of his room, viewed from within the room did not seem so very small. Troops had been deployed in Saxony; the Bavarian government was resisting the Reich.61 “This room strikes me as really very good,� said Beate, who sat next to Georg’s desk. She would often come to the newspaper from the university, knock timidly on his door, lift up downcast eyes to look at him, and wait to be reassured again and again that she was not a nuisance. Her shyness was such that she did not trust herself to take hold of speech firmly; and so she chose strained circumlocutions in place of the appropriate words. Most likely she was wanting to say that his room was really pretty, but she shrank back from this 194

and called it “good” instead. Each time she made use of such an evasion, she followed it up with an embarrassed laugh. On the other hand, she made up for her shyness by showing an impassioned yen for publicity — which by all rights should have filled her with fear. Through its proof sheets, its news reporting, and its editors, the Morgenbote exercised an irresistible fascination on her, and the more famous an artist was, the more she burned to come into personal contact with him or her. In Georg’s office Beate was especially happy to make the acquaintance of the drama critic Ohly, for he was connected with her adored theater — which she doubtless idolized because it would have suited her to stand on stage all by her lonesome little self and receive the adulation of the public. After that first encounter, Ohly barged into Georg’s office a few times more when he knew Beate was there.

“Thought I’d skip over for a moment,” he would say to excuse himself, and yet during this skip he kept hovering in the air and was not to be driven off. In Beate’s presence Ohly displayed such a sweet manner that one was continually tempted to stroke his silky hair or tug on his tie, which went bouncing over his shirt like some mischievous little cap that always goes askew: a spoiled child in the bosom of the family. Ohly regarded an opening night as more important than any political event and was on very friendly footing with Ottilie Bürgel, the new young actress who sent Beate over the moon.

She could never hear enough about the famous Bürgel.

And with his mellow vocal apparatus, everything Ohly said was enfolded in purest beauty. Beate for her part often broke out in unnaturally loud tones, which clearly stemmed from a need to conquer her inner inhibitions. A champagne cork was exploding, and yet there no question she would have preferred to open the bottle softly.

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Georg saw perfectly well that when Ohly was around, Beate immediately grew animated, and he did not understand how she could take any pleasure in charm behind which there was nothing. Her behavior made him feel neglected, and so he took little share in the conversation of the others; he only followed their talk from his desk chair in gloomy silence. After a while Ohly stopped his visits, and from then on Beate acted as though the man simply no longer existed. She neither brought conversation around to the fact that she went to plays with him and saw him here and there besides, nor did she tolerate questions as to the nature of these appointments. “Perhaps you just don’t care for him,” she would answer every time Georg wanted to bring up Ohly, and she became absolutely impenetrable. Her obdurateness was like that of a schoolgirl who has been caught making a chalk drawing and hastily tries to erase it.

The drawing might not be half bad, and yet why she had even bothered to make it would have led to embarrassing exchanges. Georg had only to leave these mysteries alone and then Beate cavorted about without any shyness, and he could almost persuade himself that she had become attached exclusively to him. One moment she was a docile child pulling books out from his attaché case and demanding to have them explained; in the next she had raised her voice as though she spoke to a deaf person and was uttering senseless things which tore their way out of some thicket and reached the surface as mutilated scraps. The scenes shifted rapidly, with headstrong caprices giving way to stage turns during which she was obliging as could be and of her own free will revealed a high opinion of Georg; only he was never sure if she truly meant him or was actually performing a solo act that had nothing to do with him. Perhaps she was trying out 196

various effects, and it might be that her intention was to build up her courage for future occasions.

He went with her along the river in the twilight and felt the helplessness a spectator feels before a plot which is rushing past, one in which he cannot intervene.

Usually her eyes disappeared behind the mass of her hair, but now they were big as they shone out from the shadows; he thought they opened wide for him and yet he was no closer to Beate than the bridge was to the river flowing from one town to the next. Beneath them lay a coal barge with the appearance of a bolted-up house.

Two black cranes stood by the wharf, their motionless arms outstretched. These days every town issued its own emergency currency62 with special portraits, coats of arms, and mottoes. The arms did not meet; at intervals isolated human beings wandered by and disappeared . . .

“Nice girl that,” Albrecht remarked in the corridor of the news building. His looks followed Beate, who had just said goodbye to Georg, and putting on a patronizing expression for the latter he became practically familiar: two men trading comments behind a woman. Albrecht’s smile was of a sweetness which made one think of a spicy dish sprinkled with cinnamon. It would no doubt leave a peculiar taste.

Shortly after this Albrecht happened to enter a pastry shop where Georg and Beate were sitting. Introductions having been made, he took a place at their table. Alas, there was no way an introduction could have been avoided. With provoking confidence, the very same he displayed in the editorial offices, Albrecht took Beate over. Though he did not stay absorbed in her for very long at all; instead he spirited her off to those higher social circles he was forever frequenting. Next to him, Ohly was a little boy, a lamb at pasture in the valleys 197

below. The minute Albrecht had made out to his satisfaction what he seemingly already knew, namely, that Beate or rather “the young lady” had an entrée at Frau Heydenreich’s, he bent himself to the task of uncovering other social connections they had in common — playing with mere names like the gold coins one carries loose in a vest pocket. While he was casually bringing them forth, Beate’s explosive Ja’s provided ever more frequent punctuation. There was no mistaking that for her, being a properly timed young lady was not easy. Albrecht smiled at the girl uninterruptedly to sweeten her up and cultivated a soft speaking which was intended to distract from his cutting nature. It was as if a knife had been smothered in padding . . .

The confiding manner was seconded by a corner of Albrecht’s pocket handkerchief, which trailed down delicately and gave off a hint of scent. Solely those angry little hairs to the rear refused to enter into his tender coquetries and stood up on end like always. Since Georg was not acquainted with most of the people who were being named or else barely knew them, he soon found himself left behind. But this did not disturb him much since at bottom he considered such social maneuvering to be without the slightest interest. He failed to see the point of outward grandeur, of influential connections, and being brilliant in salons. Ohly was absolutely a far greater cause for misgiving; if nothing else he was an aficionado of the theater.

“So, mademoiselle,” said Georg when Albrecht had at last said his goodbyes. “Couldn’t have been more comical,” declared Beate in a loud voice. And anxiously in the same breath: “Was my behavior all that bad?” Then the two of them laughed as if over a ghost. About this time Hitler attempted a putsch in Munich,63 but it failed 198

miserably. Often a week went by before Beate would reappear. Moreover, as a rule she was missing on Sundays when Georg could really have used her. And so he grew accustomed to seek out his tiny office at the newspaper every Sunday; here he escaped the furnished desolation of his own room as well as the bright streets with their will to destruction. He lived here in a sort of glassy solitude, available to all and yet secure from all, too. No steps echoed in the corridors and only the surf of the empty lifeless building, with his island of a desk in its midst, beat monotonously on the ear. It was an old structure and sent a great deal of muddled nonsense murmuring into the day. Twilight, during which Georg’s dreamy little room forfeited its power and feebly sank away, always came on with surprising speed. He would flee through the dark corridors of the building and disappear into the streets that had meanwhile returned to life. Music sounded from bars, lights twinkled, and extra editions were announcing the latest armed robberies. The dollar was climbing, the distress great. At the end of the year the mark was stabilized.64 !

“Of course I’ll go with you,” said Fred over the telephone. “And then after we’ll have more time together.”

“If it’s really no sacrifice for you . . . In any case I cannot afford to miss the lecture.”

“All right, so 7:30 at your place.”

“At 7:30. I’ll already be outside.”

Georg was in despair. Frau Bonnet’s lecture, which he had no choice but to review, coincided exactly with Fred’s visit. The lecture was to inaugurate her new series, so long planned: “Revolutionary Women.” Happily the 199

series had been put off until March.65 It was true, Frau Bonnet lived from lectures. But on the other hand, one’s most important private engagements were forever being thwarted by some lecture or other — by a lecture which did not need to be held in the first place and which usually lasted a good two hours, and was followed by an equally useless discussion. Quite aside from that, Fred could only stay for two days and the next evening belonged irrevocably to Frau Anders, as she had already made clear to Georg the day before.

With how many exciting pieces of news had his mother not showered Georg! That Fred had succeeded in finding a good starting position in a large New York house; that the Hamburg firm where he had been employed up to now was thank God letting him leave without giving notice; that he would board ship at the end of the week, since the New York firm had been most emphatic that he should begin right away; that the position over there promised to turn into lifelong employment . . . “Let him tell you everything himself,” she had said proudly. Frau Anders had already become the Statue of Liberty, nothing more nothing less, watching over the harbor into which her son was to make his entry. To be sure, her joy was clouded by the long separation which would be necessary, by the ocean storms, and by the many skyscrapers which in view of Fred’s youth seemed altogether too mighty . . .

“Georg — ” “Fred . . . You American you —” Georg glided quickly over the first moment, which he did not dare measure even though he had been living in it every minute since yesterday. One had to admit Fred was on time. Arriving in his traveling suit with the knickerbockers, he could have been any passing voyager about 200

to sail, and Georg thought he could safely predict that this unfamiliar young man would not threaten him with more unrest. However, no sooner had they exchanged greetings than Fred ceased trying to live up to the suit in which he was encased. His worldly manner fell away and he became the old Fred all over again. And as if to make that familiar manner altogether familiar, he coaxed back the past with unfeigned tenderness. As though he and not Georg were the one always missing the past, as though there had never been anything between them.

“Just think, Georg,” said Fred as they sauntered along a well-known route to the lecture hall, “we’ve been apart from each other longer than half a year.”

“Which ship do you sail with?” More than anything Georg wanted to hang on to the feeling of independence he hoped he had recently won.

“With the Columbia. Second class, what else. But a friend of mine who is going first class will see to it that I can transfer to first, too. He’s practiced in such things and right now the liners are not very full.”

The way he said “friend.” The way he slipped into his future at the first opportunity. So empty — “And besides that . . . ?” Georg was offhand.

“What do you mean?” Fred took Georg by the arm.

“I mean in Hamburg. You didn’t write much.”

“Ah, with girls—” Feeling found out, Georg shook his head as if to ward something off.

“If you only knew how superficial my experiences were . . .”

Fred puckered his lips, which made his face recall a plate whose contents have been consumed. The sad remains were seductively appealing. — “My trouble is, girls run after me and I simply cannot keep physically abstinent.

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So I’ve had many adventures without by the way ever going with a whore — I have nothing to do with whores.

But the so-called decent girls are really no better. You can easily have any of them and what does that leave you with. Usually I found the business nauseating, especially afterwards when they lose their inhibitions completely and all their shallowness comes out . . . Naturally there were some nice relationships, too — one even stayed fully platonic because I could not bring myself to undeceive the child. The best was with a divorced woman; she is a serious person and always wanted to hear about you. I know the two of you would like each other . . . The case is truly tragic since I am almost convinced that someday Ellen will take her own life.”

Georg was aghast. Even without heeding Fred, he registered every word with a surfeit of clarity; the security he had won at such cost was beginning to waver.

No; it was already gone. Once again he was seized by senseless longing for the boy beside him; once again he was consumed by that old addiction which devoured the world leaving only the beloved, in whom he possessed the world. Possessed? Georg was on the verge of forgetting the enormous danger he was in: namely, to let himself be dragged into the abyss by the very one he had lost forever. Yet he was so infatuated with Fred next to him that he could not move an inch. Sweat ran down his face, the evening breeze blew cool; he was forced to conceal a trembling . . .

“I was often anxious being alone, Georg . . . Say, can’t you just skip the stupid lecture?”

As if one still wished for that! Far more did Georg feel himself driven to that tomb of a lecture hall where he could sit quietly for a long time. The Revolutionary Women promised him consolation and when they had 202

made their way past, he would immediately go and speak with Frau Bonnet; in her note she had expressly requested him to look for her afterwards.

“You can just come for me later.”

“But Georg.” — It was always the same game, these insincere proposals, these refusals. And yet he had to smile secretly at the way Fred gave in, following him like a lamb to the slaughter.

The hall was still empty; nothing but rows of yellow wooden chairs standing idly about, and in the wall niches above, busts of composers. So excessive was the number of chairs that most of all one would have loved to flee them.

“Let’s stay in back,” Georg suggested.

Beside the open door to the hall sat an aging maiden guarding the tickets as a treasure and welcoming one and all with a gentle expression of superiority. Having experienced innumerable pacifist and revolutionary lectures, she knew without a doubt that the time would eventually come when human beings no longer required tickets.

Of course, since no more than a handful of listeners ever showed up, many years might elapse before then. And so she was sad. The backs of the chairs bore little numberplates, but no attention was paid them when lectures were held. Georg peered up at the composers’ heads: “I find it a bit demeaning to have to listen to lectures in a hall designed for concerts.” He said this to Fred so as to distract him. “It’s like being stuck on the slow train.”

Fred laughed: “Who’s that up front?”

Fräulein Samuel. Busying herself in the vicinity of the podium with an unconcerned air which made it clear that here she moved about inside her own four walls. She eyed the attendant who was carrying a bottle of water, inspected the rows of chairs, and occasionally disappeared through a special emergency exit for the unauthorized — 203

behind which surely lay the kitchen where lectures were concocted — only to officiously reappear. A hausfrau visible from afar, quickly seeing to a few last-minute arrangements even as auditors were streaming in. Among other things she was not about to forego the distinction of a personal exchange with Frau Heinisch, who as the guest of honor was suddenly rustling up to the stage. Fräulein Samuel’s home was the public sphere. Everything pointed to the fact that she really had no habitation of her own; that later, after the rest had left, she slept on several chairs near the lectern, from which eloquent dreams would then be certain to arise . . .

“On the Reeperbahn in Hamburg,”66 remarked Fred, “there are a number of spots where the girls gallop about on horseback . . . It’s awfully amusing.”

Georg checked the time. The hall had filled up halfway and one could have begun even earlier, for in the meantime Frau Heydenreich herself had arrived. But revolutionary evenings never started on schedule. All at once Beate occurred to him. Why, helpless as he was, had he not thought of her sooner?

“Please remind me later that I have something to tell you concerning myself,” he said to Fred.

“Tell me now — ” “Quiet.”

Frau Bonnet was already speaking. She had risen above the podium without attracting attention, and now she stood on the horizon — a big black heavenly phenomenon. Georg, who was hearing her in public for the first time, marveled at how her voice sounded the same as it did at home. Of course at home, too, she had always been removed from everyday realities; she had even beaten the egg whites for her dessert only in the midst of the most sublime discourses.

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“Please, not now,” he whispered to Fred, who was giving him long looks to signal that this business was a trifle ridiculous.

Girls on horseback on the Reeperbahn — in the last half year could Fred really have gotten so completely away from him, Georg, that he no longer felt any respect for an occasion such as this? Fred’s indifference was the more shocking since a spectacle was unfolding on the platform which should have touched even the most hardened. Frau Bonnet’s interior had opened wide, and her soul was gushing forth freely and without end.

What she spoke was all soul. Soul like delicate fog filled the hall. The Revolutionary Women, too, melted into the fog and were transformed from real persons who possessed families and who were connected to other persons in particular ways into unearthly, indeed more than earthly, beings who went wafting off somewhere, as it were bodiless. When they despaired, the entire world was instantly immersed in blackest night; when they loved, the very cosmos flamed and burned; if they fought for freedom, they waved a banner and led the charge at the head of unseen hosts on behalf of all mankind. Beyond that, whether they ever reached their goal or how their lives turned out was left fully obscure, for Frau Bonnet ignored outer events altogether in favor of inner ones, which for her were the only ones of any value. What is more, she knew how to mingle these inner events and to transfigure them in such a way that the Revolutionary Women invariably found salvation. For example, if they were not able to break their chains, only then were they truly free of them; say they grieved deeply, then their grief became their greatest triumph. In short, love, despair, and freedom were always changing into one another, and it seemed only natural that freedom always won out in the end.

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But was Frau Bonnet even still speaking? Her sonorous soul fused with sister-souls, and the fog it spread about sparkled in the light emanating from her interior . . . Then there was a crackling and popping, whereupon the mists dissolved, the chandeliers dimmed, and the musicians’ heads projected from their niches anew.

Fred had torn a page from his notebook. Among those present was Doktor Petri, who yawned and held a hand up in front of his mouth. Through it all Frau Bonnet stayed behind the lectern, orating on and on. Georg felt embarrassment rising in him: Frau Bonnet had no idea how she was exposing herself so nakedly. Fred was writing on his knees.

“Perfectly dreadful,” it said on the sheet he pushed over to Georg. “Someone just has to sleep with the woman.”

Georg laughed against his will. They laughed together. “Don’t be so coarse,” he wrote back. “The woman means well from the bottom of her heart.”

Then they shared a merry laugh over her “deliverance.” To think of her husband with his watering can, in the garden. Naturally that would mean the deliverance of all mankind. Then the sheet of paper again: “We should scram, Georg, I can’t stand this any longer.”

Fred’s hand had begun to flow more freely, as if it had been oiled.

Georg scribbled: “After the deliverance the conclusion will come more or less right away. And then I want to quickly say hello to Frau Bonnet.”

“If you prefer Frau Bonnet to me,” Fred hissed, “I’m going to leave now by myself.” It was one of his old flashes of anger, which always led to his wishes being satisfied.

They crept out of the hall on tiptoe. Upon reaching the door they could barely still hear that once again the 206

subject was the sufferings of the Revolutionary Women; evidently the lecture ran a wave-like course. The elderly fräulein with the tickets was gone.

Georg was annoyed that he had put himself in a position where he had been made to give way. There had been no need for him to mention his plan, which he had scarcely meant seriously anyway. He walked alongside Fred without saying a word. When is Fred going to remind me that I want to tell him something about myself. In the café he grabbed onto Frau Bonnet so as not to sink, and heatedly justified the overflow of her soul. It sounded like a reproach of Fred; as if Fred did not possess any soul at all.

Fred shrugged his shoulders. “Really, how much you ask of others,” he said, and went on to explain that for his part he took people purely and simply the way they were, without asking himself what lurked behind. The red shine of the little table lamp fell on his face, which swam, light as a flower, in the café pond even though it was freighted with the heavy sorrowing eyes, a plantlike sorrow.

Georg still knew the face through and through; but as he observed it, the shimmering features underwent a change, and in their place there appeared, so it seemed to him, an entirely new and unfamiliar face: the face which would emerge from the old one with the passage of years. And while he listened to Fred sketch droll descriptions of his colleagues, it also came to him that the young man had remained unsympathetic at the lecture not because he had grown narrower during the time they had been apart.

Rather, he had acquired a goodly store of experiences, to which Georg now lent an ear. He had gotten mixed up with life, and it was not his fault if Georg only saw the back side of the weaving which had begun knotting itself. “. . . I’ve gone to the opera and heard a lot of good music besides . . .” The musicians’ heads. When will he remind 207

me about myself thought Georg. The smoke was forming figures, isolated words shot up out of the noise.

“Why don’t we stroll a bit more,” suggested Fred.

On the street Georg began speaking out of the blue: “I want to tell you something about myself.”

“Ah, right—you don’t imagine I would have forgotten? The whole time I’ve been about to remind you.”

“Actually it’s only that I’ve gotten to know a girl.

Her name’s Beate, she studies at the university, and she’s terribly nice.”

That was the way everyone talked. Fred stopped in his tracks: “And you wait to tell me this until now? He was far from dismayed by the news; instead he was honestly glad. Enthusiastic almost to the point of selflessness. “Why didn’t you just bring her along, I must see her. Tell me, my friend, is she pretty?”

“Very pretty even,” said Georg.

“And — you’re happy?”

“What you seem to be thinking of is not the case.”

“But Georg, you’re not going to try and make me believe she’s not your lover . . . Or are you turning over marriage plans?”

He asks like an expert who’s expected to render a professional opinion. Georg felt himself driven into a corner. Don’t admit for anything that — “Well then, if you absolutely have to hear it, yes, I am happy.”

“How wonderful!”

Fred laid an arm over Georg’s shoulders and looked him full in the face. “Georg, you know it’s good that certain things have been laid to rest. You know what I mean.”

Georg nodded as if under orders. “You understand that naturally marrying doesn’t enter into it,” he added for precision’s sake. They stopped before the Opera with 208

its bronze steeds high overhead; the building was already completely dark.

“Will you come with me a bit farther?” asked Fred.

“Tonight we can’t be so late, you understand, because of my mother. She really does suffer from our separation . . .

I would be grateful if sometimes you looked in on her.”

The Statue of Liberty went hovering before them in the quiet streets. “Let’s speak on the telephone tomorrow,” said Fred at the door. “And give my greetings to your Beate.” !

The summer is hot. The city has opened its pores, the people are bodies, events are slowing down. By chance one afternoon Georg has been crossing over the municipal gardens and is delighted to encounter Herr Kummer, absent from the newspaper for several weeks already.

Rumor has him so ill that his recovery must be regarded as a remote possibility at best. And now here he is, having crept out of his burrow once again! He sits beneath the shelter of tall green trees alongside the rondelle, which swarms with children of every sort. A dark shapeless mass which has been thoroughly paralyzed by illness, make no mistake. Georg draws near to it. How astonished he is not to have to take any great pains to be noticed by the Korrektor, who addresses him of his own accord.

“For a long time I’ve known,” says Kummer, “that today I would see you again. — Please, have a seat.” He blinks and stares bleakly ahead, without showing any sign of life otherwise.

“How could you know —” Georg asks, disturbed.

“Oh thank you, I’m feeling better than ever. The fever’s gone, my pulse is normal, and my breath goes in 209

and out with wonderful ease . . . Now, finally, I’m freed of every complaint.”

An answer that is the more unexpected since no question preceded it. Georg yields to confusion. Of course he had meant to ask about Kummer’s health right off the bat, but if he remembers rightly he had gotten no further than the mere intention. Or did he say something out loud in dreaming? All this while he has been staring into the shining green which is sprouting up out of Time and following the zigzag paths made by the children’s cries.

Ringing shouts, whispers, laughter . . . “I’m so glad,” he says. “We were very worried about you.”

A small boy slides under the bench to look for his ball, gets caught on his way out between Kummer’s legs, and crawls up them without thinking. With his little red blouse he gleams like a beetle. And as for Herr Kummer — amazingly he not only tolerates the boy being near him, he even dandles him on his knees and hums along: “Hop, hop, hop little horsey, run, run at a gallop.”

Then he lets his burden slide to the ground and flings the child’s ball far, far away. Or it seems so at any rate; in reality the little sphere rolls weakly before his feet.

“Run,” he commands the boy. And having turned to Georg: “My parents lived out in the country, and in my youth I often rode my horse into the watering hole.”

It is as if someone else were speaking. His skull emerges an icy gray from his velvet jacket; his crooked little tie struggles to cling to his shirt collar with all its strength. Soon it will fall off the pitiful horse. In his youth — the little red blouse has disappeared.

“What was it you studied at university then?” asks Georg, who wishes to know how Herr Kummer gradually emerged from the child who rode a horse.

“Let me tell you something in confidence,” replies 210

the old man. “Though it is not at all necessary for me to do so, usually I read the articles I am proofing, and as a result I come to meditate upon the actions of statesmen and politicians. Thanks to these eyes of mine sharpened in the course of catching printing errors, I have now reached the conclusion that it is almost a rule that their actions diverge from the original text they were supposed to faithfully reproduce. History is nothing more than a garbled text. Especially in recent times the mutilations have accumulated to such an extent that the text threatens to become completely illegible.

A catastrophe is in the making . . . And in view of its approach I shall henceforth artificially multiply the errors rather than remove them, contrary to the duties of my profession. Through such warning signs I hope to draw people’s attention all the more forcefully to the erroneousness of history. To be sure, almost no one knows the original text. Naturally it would therefore be best if one were to correct it himself right away. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll . . .”

Kummer gets up, placing his broad straw hat atop his head — it thoroughly shades him — and begins making his way towards a couple of stairs which lie just beyond the rondelle. Because he comes to a halt after each step, the journey there takes an eternity. But Georg finds himself so in the grip of something which is happening and which is inexplicable that he has the feeling that even this eternity will be bridged in the shortest space of time: Herr Kummer is fully transformed. Instead of dawdling behind words as he always used to do, now he gallops before them, leaving them in the past. One can no longer catch up with him. Like the wind he springs forward through the green air so that, having reached his goal at last, he will be able to exercise his office as proofreader of History 211

and correct each and every faulty action with his giant red pencil . . .

The stairs. The rondelle has emptied itself of children, and groups of workers are crossing the place.

“Let me accompany you home,” Georg offers.

Herr Kummer gives him a sly smile. His eyes have become blue once more, as if freshly rinsed. “You’ll really have to step on it,” he says. “The most important thing is movement.” Then he turns away and begins to mount the stairs alone.

For a long time Georg stares after him . . . Nothing will stop him — — — Two days after this the Morgenbote announces the sudden demise of the Korrektor, noting that he was an especially meritorious and faithful reader of proofs. Herr Kummer has caught up with his lateness. Georg knows. Like the boy he was he has ridden into the watering hole. !

“Would you like your eggs soft-boiled or scrambled?”

“Whichever is easier,” Georg said.

“No, just tell me.”

“Then soft-boiled.”

“Fine — I’ll be right back.”

What did he care about the kind of eggs. Tonight Beate was receiving him in her room for the first time, and he was exclusively interested in making good use of being alone with her. Up to now, unfortunately, he had not been very successful. And especially when he thought of everything he had tried . . . Since Fred’s departure the business had begun to become more serious, meaning in the strict sense that it was only this departure which had made him decide to transform himself into a lover and so 212

to speak pay court to Beate. One had to prove to Fred how wonderful things were without him. With the passing of time, however, the young man’s image faded considerably. And by the time Beate had come back from an extended summer vacation, feelings had already taken root in Georg which no longer served to expel Fred but were due to Beate herself. In any case this was how it looked to him at the moment.

The room which she occupied was doubtless preferable to other furnished rooms on account of its size and pleasantness, and yet it contained some object or other which disturbed him. Back then, after she had come back — viewed from outside, everything was as before.

The walks, her visits to the newspaper, their conversations in cafés: everything was like before. It was only that no longer had he been able to think or do anything which lacked some connection with her; and that in every affectionate word from her he had seen a surety of her love and in every refusal which she handed him, confirmation of his failure. And his letters! Over and over he had written Beate letters—such incoherent little notes — in which he studiously avoided the formal mode of address67 and disclosed all those emotions in veiled fashion which he did not dare to speak of directly. With the aid of innumerable periods, dashes, and other elements of punctuation he framed a mass of obscure allusions which a child would have found easy to decipher. Beate, however, always left the references in darkness and was satisfied to take this scribal pastime as an homage which did not call for her to say one word about its content.

By now she was so used to receiving his notes that only a short while ago she had branded their fortuitous omission a sign of his indifference.

Was he now about to succeed in conquering her 213

completely, or however one called it? Sometimes Georg came close to admitting to himself that possibly the passion with which he had whipped up his passion was greater than the passion itself. Whatever the truth, it was especially important just now not to admit defeat.

Unquestionably, being here in Beate’s room was promising. And if he only handled matters with a modicum of skill, already in the next few hours that promise might be fulfilled . . .

He drew himself up.

From where he was standing Georg saw himself again from head to foot, standing in the middle of the room; there had been no warning. And now he realized what was disturbing him all along: this tall, narrow mirror over in the corner which produced his doppelgänger.68 Who certainly had been secretly listening to him.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting too long,” said Beate, entering with a tray.

Georg shut the door behind her. In her apron she looked more than ever like a university student.

“Your flowers should have had a better vase,” she explained, “but my landlady is annoyed over how much work she says I cause her. Terribly annoyed. Let’s not make any noise, if you don’t mind.”

She spoke so loudly it was as if she had not been understood the first time and was being made to repeat her wishes. Georg was requested to begin with his eggs right away. It turned out they were hard — something he accepted gladly since these required less attention than soft-boiled ones. And anyway, he really would have preferred to devour the entire spread in one gulp and push ahead to the moment of decision with maximum speed. But his plans met with unshakable opposition from Beate, who kept close watch to see that he lingered 214

endlessly over each and every item. It soon became clear to him that such dogged insistence was not only for the sake of meeting her duties as a hostess but in the main was intended to accomplish something else: Evidently she viewed him as a rapacious beast and let herself hope he could be rendered harmless through the dishes she loaded on the table. When he tried to look deep into her eyes, instead of her eyes she proffered the butter dish; if he insisted on bringing the conversation around to their relationship, she would shove a plate of sandwiches in front of him. Little by little she robbed Georg of his freedom of maneuver, until at last she had erected a cage around him where he no longer posed any danger to her. Some of the firmest bars of the cage were furnished by the cucumber and vinegar salad, the pralines, and the English tart. And to guarantee that the prisoner would not even realize he was locked up — which would have immediately roused his native wildness — she also strove to keep him continually off balance. She laughed pointlessly, made a fuss with formalities and, pacing back and forth before the bars of his cage, pleased herself with odd gestures obviously meant as a kind of magic incantation. Fortunately, the more the food in front of him diminished, the weaker the magic became; its power depended on how much food there was. When the only thing left was the tea in their cups, Georg decided to risk a break-out. By means of this undertaking, so long contemplated, he hoped to carry off one little word: Du. 69 “I have something to say to you, Beate — ” “Feel free to say whatever you like. Any and everything’s perfectly fine. — Really.” Despite these assurances, Georg sat himself down on the arm of the sofa so as to be very close to her.

“It doesn’t seem to me that ‘everything’s fine.’ For 215

example, when you consider how long you’ve already known me, Beate” — the first “you” still polite, the second familiar — “you yourself must admit” — polite — “that you really oughtn’t” — familiar — “still be speaking to me as if I were a stranger to you” — polite — “when it would be more correct to use that familiar mode of address which corresponds to my feelings for you” — familiar. “Yes, my feelings for you” — familiar. “I consider that — ” “But this is nonsense . . . We want to be sensible.

Isn’t that so?” Beate’s cheeks reddened; she let her teaspoon fall. As for Georg, he dropped into embarrassed silence.

Everything utterly sensible.

“It’s cold outside,” she said in her resonant voice, at a loss.

“Yes, well, it’s December.”

—— “The article yesterday was very fine.”

— “Oh.” Probably Beate had wanted to say “your article” but was too cowardly to address Georg directly with Sie. The article had been an indifferent report. After venturing several more astonishingly bold observations which were also answered with monosyllables, Beate gathered up the plates and silverware in silence and took them away.

During her absence a seductive nymph appeared in the mirror, her hair cascading luxuriantly down her body.

The nymph decorated the landlady’s flower vase, upon which a whole water-landscape was to be seen besides.

Having come back into the room, Beate whispered something unintelligible to herself without paying heed to Georg—something perhaps about the spoiled evening.

She seated herself, then immediately got up again and went to the armoire, where she became absorbed in its contents: A lonely child passing the time with her toys.

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Whether she felt insulted in point of fact or was only employing warrior cunning, Beate was able to tear the weapon of feeling insulted from Georg’s hands and turn it against him. He was still vacillating, unsure if he should accommodate himself to the new unfavorable state of affairs or just break off his visit when Beate, arms outstretched, held up a remarkable red and black garment to the light. She stroked the garment and plucked at it here and there — obviously measures through which she hoped to quicken Georg’s curiosity.

“What’s that?” he asked in spite of himself. If one chose to stay, persisting in the role of the aggrieved party would not work.

“A Carnival costume . . . Carnival’s only a few weeks away.”

“Aha. You plan to amuse yourself.” (A return to the polite form.)

She peered from behind the dress, her head tilted to one side. Georg was forced to smile. “It’s not exactly pretty,” she said coyly.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“So shall I put it on — ?”

Georg looked the room over with a hasty glance.

Change clothes here? That would have to mean — “Maybe one could do a little reading in the meantime,” said Beate. And before he could object, she made him pick up the book nearest to hand and then slipped behind a portable screen in the vicinity of the washstand; until now its panels must have been closed. Georg stared obediently at the book, which loomed before him like a new screen, but he was unable to make out a single word. While he struggled to pull himself together, a gentle singsong began behind the two-fold barrier; apparently Beate had begun to sing to 217

cover the sound of rustling underthings. But that was not all: out of the vague background up the nymph rose again, lured by the noises; twisting her body she bent herself over his page. A tormenting uncertainty combined itself with the excitement of the singing and the nymph: Was he ultimately working against Beate’s true wishes by falling in so conscientiously with her instructions, instead of brusquely tearing down whatever obstacles she placed in his path? But then if one considered how she had just behaved — “An interesting book. Very.”

A costumed Beate stood in the middle of the room with her arms held out, waiting to be admired. She was emerging from a pair of red trouser legs, sticking out of them like a funnel, over which she wore a black smock with a couple of much-too-large shiny buttons. These were the same red as her trousers and were so dazzling to the eye that each one seemed to say nothing but “Ja!” The neck ruffle which terminated her outfit above was likewise a gleaming red. If Georg had been determined to defend himself against the allegedly deceptive allure of the costume, he no longer remembered anything more about that. What charmed him most was: it presented an indescribably sweet mixture of boy and girl. The boy expressed himself chiefly through the buttons and the trousers which, taken for themselves, made an abundant impression of boldness. Their audacity, however, was offset by a girlish shrinking back which came from the tall neck ruffle. And so whereas the masculine components of the costume betrayed outspoken aggressiveness, its collar resembled a safehold where one could retreat from dangerous attackers.

“Now, good sir.”

Beate had finished a slow axial rotation and, aware of 218

the security afforded by her safehold, now felt she could one-sidedly play the boy. Without saying a thing Georg approached so as to kiss and embrace her; it was an overpowering urge. “Du,� he breathed as though sleepwalking. Before his dream was realized, however, Beate disappeared into the neck ruffle. It closed immediately behind her, leaving no opening. Georg was shut out. Disoriented, he looked around for the fugitive; at last he saw that she had escaped into the mirror where she was now inaccessible.

Actually, Beate had moved the tall narrow looking glass into the light and was so busy regarding her person that she became utterly unreal. It was as if every bit of life in her had poured itself into her double while she herself faded to the glassy reflection of the costumed apparition in the mirror. Nourished by the powers of the original, her mirror likeness was scarcely inactive but performed a series of miming scenes which were highly entertaining. It did dance steps, twisted its body as had the nymph, and with its arms described artistic figures that hung in the air like melodies. Georg followed the spectacle with fascination but he was puzzled to watch the narrow mirror frame continue receding as these movements projected themselves more and more. In the end the entire room went into the mirror, and although the self-absorbed apparition continued to shimmer most intangibly, it seemed to have stepped forth from the surface of the mirror and was now disporting itself freely in space. All of a sudden it melted away to nothing. At the same time its original, which Georg had almost ceased to notice, pushed forward again and began to demonstrate its independence by shoving the mirror, which was standing around like an old bachelor, into the washstand corner. Where had the folded 219

screen ended up? Beate sat on the sofa, her arms and legs limp. She hid herself in shadow and kept her eyes closed as if she were giving way to ecstasy or else fully lost in some expectation.

“I’m afraid,” she said to herself.

Georg now felt it his duty to go to Beate and soothe her, yet he did not stir from his chair. Because of the mirror, she had become an image for him. A reflected image which paralyzed him.

“Why are you afraid?” he asked, using the polite mode. How stupid to ask that way.

Beate was standing next to him. “Oh, just because.”

He took her hand, which she gave up without any resistance. More could not be demanded of an image.

Georg found it such a satisfaction to be allowed to grasp her hand that after a little while he let it go again of his own free will, without pursuing further possibilities. To all appearances, Beate had not even noticed the proceedings. Her arms hung down motionless, her glance slid past him.

“Why I’m afraid,” she spoke up out of nowhere.

“Because tomorrow it’s my turn in the seminar.” — “That couldn’t be more obvious,” she added defiantly.

The red buttons celebrated a mighty triumph. What was there to say? The costume was a beautiful costume.

“You look marvelous,” he said—politely. It was the fault of his paralysis. He wanted to repossess her hand but this time it avoided every contact with a gentle tenacity, and in so doing ran over his hair as if by accident.

“Really, I’m very tired,” she declared.

Georg realized too late that he had readily been saying Sie to her . . . It was now definitely time for him to leave.

“Well,” he said, “our engagement stands for the day 220

after tomorrow, 9 in the evening.” As Georg pulled on his coat he was confident that their affair was coming along quite nicely, even with the difficulties. His disappointment was all the greater when Beate refused him. Evening the day after tomorrow was out of the question, unfortunately.

Rather than give reasons she embarked on a long story which became more and more muddled.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” she assured Georg, as though to hypnotize him.

In return he was angry: “And why precisely is the day after tomorrow impossible for you, if I may ask.”

There was a pause. “You are being unkind, Georg.

— Ja!” Right after that “Ja!,” which detonated louder than ever, Beate beat a panicky retreat to her neck ruffle.

Doubtless she was expecting a catastrophe. When absolutely nothing else happened, however, she emerged on the surface once again, made sure of the disaster she had caused, and then sought to comfort the victim of the explosion. It seemed that she could be a mystery to herself and in any event would definitely pay Georg a visit at the newspaper some afternoon very soon. Her pleading tone — one had to be deeply touched by the tone — so completely belied the boyish presumption of those trouser legs that for a moment the costume appeared to detach itself from Beate and she herself might have been in some other place.

“Here are the keys,” she said. “And please don’t forget: the second letterbox from the left.” It did not sound as if she referred to the letterbox and the keys, but was instead beseeching Georg to be patient with her a bit longer. As he descended the stairs he was halfway consoled; if Beate couldn’t make it for the evening the day after tomorrow, surely fulfillment beckoned in the second year from the left. — — 221

The evening day after tomorrow—by a strange coincidence, Georg received a theater ticket from Frau Heinisch for that same evening. The ticket arrived together with a line in which she deplored being kept from the theater by an imperative social engagement.

During the season, duty must come before pleasure.

Though it was likely she would encounter Frau Heydenreich at her party and probably the prospect of gaining a victory over the lady in open combat appealed to her more than did the theater altogether.

It should be said that this was no ordinary theater evening but a premiere. The piece was named Die große Nacht and was the work of a certain Karl Grohmann,70 presumably the very same whose gifts had been extolled by Ohly in a recent feuilleton — which, thanks to its title: “The Young Ones,” had attracted general notice. Still that didn’t mean much since nowadays people regarded every young author — of course there was no other kind — as being gifted for being young. (What would become of them later, when with encroaching age they would inevitably be cast aside?)

Caught up in his thoughts, Georg entered the brightly-lit theater vestibule where for the present only a few persons were making an appearance. He could not remember his last time in a theater and was almost persuaded that the institution was obsolete. Then too he had never been one to sit for hours in front of firmly planted stage décor and let feigned tragedies distract him from real events. Yet scarcely had he taken his place — a splendid, well-upholstered seat in the first tier — when a feeling of happiness possessed him; it was as if he had found his way back to a good childhood friend who was receiving him in his home like a prodigal son. And weren’t the riches of bygone days always available even 222

now? The railings went swelling harmoniously towards the front of the house, putti stood guard over the reddish depths of the loges, and in the higher regions chandeliers were on the best of terms with the baldachin. Georg leafed contentedly through the program booklet and to his joy discovered that Ottilie Bürgel was in the principal role. At long last he would see Beate’s beloved Bürgel! The excitement which this caused him further heightened the tingling charm of having to wait. With a connoisseur’s eye he witnessed — oh wonderful spectacle before the beginning of the spectacle!—how all parts of the great room imperceptibly filled with newcomers.

He strayed along the sight-lines, traceable with the help of his opera glasses, and lost himself in the whispering which gradually grew to a roar. The first bell sounded: two seats in the middle of the parquet were still empty. Then, as the ringing of the bell continued, the entire row of people stood up as far as the gap, and behind the wall of those standing a pair of latecomers squeezed through amidst a noisy clattering of seats. When they had reached their goal, the pair turned out to be: Ohly and Beate.

Every bit of life departed from Georg. Unable to move a single limb, he stared down rigidly on the two below who, with their backs to him, had no idea of his presence. The greed with which he took in their image caused something to happen which otherwise would have been possible only with the opera glasses: These two remote little figures stepped out of their surroundings and moved into glaring light and so greatly enlarged themselves that they seemed to be pushed right into Georg’s vicinity. They were before him as though in a peep box. Ohly’s hair was crimped up into little curls.

Once they were finally settled, Beate took out a dainty 223

package from her purse and held it out to Ohly, who leaned towards her and whispered something in her ear. They put their heads together and smiled at each other. Both were giving off such a delicious fragrance . . .

So that was the reason she turned me down — don’t look anymore, just don’t look.

There was a ringing, shrill like a fire alarm, and now Georg recalled another scene. When had that been: In broad daylight he had stood in a burned-out theater, and over the ruins a cold blue sky had been shining.

The mental picture of the devastated theater interior laid a violent hand on him. And he made no attempt whatsoever to resist, but yielded to the picture with near abandon. Because the flames had yanked whatever was hidden out into the open, all those hideous furtive doings which suffocated him— It had grown dark; the curtain rose.

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X. A tremendous din made itself heard, colors rocked in the din, lanterns in between glowed in every color, and in the midst of this roaring, glowing, swaying confusion a tangled throng danced to the sounds of jazz, tearing lanterns, colors, and noise along with it so impetuously that in the end the whole room went circling interminably about itself.

Georg lingered at the door so as not to lose himself in the vortex. He had an appointment to meet outside at the coat check with an acquaintance who had promised to introduce him to the Münzers. But it was quite apparent that the young man—an illustrator who supplied the drawings for the weekly supplement of the Morgenbote — had completely forgotten about their rendezvous. Everybody was clapping feverishly to the music; Georg would really have preferred to leave right then and there. If he made up his mind to stay, it was only on the spur of the moment as he remembered the considerable labor Frau Anders had put into his costume. All by herself she had sewn his black satin pants, worked up scraps of material that didn’t look like anything into a picturesque cummerbund, and draped his orange shirt with one of her scarves. “The louder the better,” she had explained while reminiscing about a costume ball she had attended decades earlier. From the splendors of that occasion Frau Anders jumped abruptly to Herr Neubert, her tenant and for several months the occupant of Fred’s room. Herr Neubert was the source of her joy insofar as he provided her day in and day out with excuses to complain about him. And indeed, she not only suspected him of every 225

bad habit which a gentleman furnished with his room could ever have; she even gave vent to the dark fear that he was a communist or something similar — the word “communist” always being uttered in a whisper. I should definitely talk with this Neubert thought Georg, passing a hand over his cheek to see if his brown makeup was holding up. The confused human mass disintegrated, and out of the swarm a tall sailor came sauntering in his direction. It was the illustrator.

“Hi, Toni,” a girl called after him. “Man,” the illustrator said to Georg. “Here you are, and it’s about time. I thought you’d deserted us . . . nice costume. You’re meant to be some sort of American farmer, eh? Come on, let’s find Münzer.” He used “Du” as nonchalantly as he manipulated his pencil. His sketches for the newspaper always looked very fast and easy.

“Hi, Toni,” said Münzer. A youngish man with a southern-looking face, swathed in a magnificent shawl. After they had been introduced Münzer gave Georg a melancholy smile. Only the glittering shawl showed through the cloud of melancholy which surrounded him.

“Where’s your wife?” asked the illustrator.

Münzer shrugged his shoulders. The illustrator took Georg by the arm. “Well then, fare thee well . . . I have an unbearable thirst.”

With the confidence of a seasoned sailor he steered towards the bar and simply shoved someone who was making himself comfortable there out of the way. The fellow grinned as if it were a joke. They drank peach punch, the music struck up again, and everyone streamed back to the dance. Georg, feeling wonderfully secure in the company of the illustrator, tried to prolong his hold over him by means of various inquiries. What was the 226

story with these people, he wanted to know, what about the party.

“Münzer works in a bank,” replied the illustrator, “but other than that he’s a decent guy who has been part of our circle for years already . . . see you . . . pardon.”

Let him show you his erotic library sometime, man. It’ll leave you speechless.” Looking Georg deep in the eyes, he reached for another glass of punch: “Do you have any clue where you are now? In a former hospital. Syphilitics and women lying in used to bed down here. A lot of people have croaked for you here . . .”

In the course of additional explaining it came out that the Carnival festivities were being held at the Münzers for the simple reason that with their hospital-apartment they were in possession of the biggest rooms. The evening had been gotten up by the entire “circle,” meaning by a pack of young artists who of course scorned the bourgeois world but nevertheless knew how to exploit their excellent connections with it for the cause. They had seen to all the decorations; the burghers had taken care of the financial part and had also been good for the lion’s share of the material part, from the champagne down to the beef sandwiches.

“The long and short of it is, they have to be glad to be plucked by us. Because their own company does nothing but bore them, and for a little bit of dough they’re getting a fabulous wild time . . . I’m telling you man, this so-called elegant society . . . But no, sweetheart . . . See the one there in green, dancing with the Spaniard.

She’s the wife of Münzer, and the hidalgo’s her current inamorato . . . Well, enough of that . . . Now I want to quickly show you the whole deal, and we can’t forget the darkroom. This time we’ve done things up as a sailors’ night on the town . . .”

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“Hi, Toni. Hi, Toni.”

A small band whose members were hand-in-hand went hooting about the illustrator, who let out a warrior’s yelp and then, storming forward, slung the human chain back and forth for as long as it took to begin breaking up into its components. Georg’s looks followed him with something amounting to envy — how lovely to be a Toni and get carried along by nothing more than tender Hi’s.

Georg decided to set out on his own. So as to create the impression he was in no need of being tended to, he simulated as deep interest in the paintings which covered every wall. A giant ship was resting alongside the quay, a woman thrust out her tattooed abdomen, and a naked pair made complacent love. In the neighboring room, which was somewhat smaller, a large African drum hung between racy caricatures. Apparently other rooms lay behind this one, for a door situated at its far end was being used rather frequently. Since only couples came and went through the door, however, Georg tamed his investigative zeal and drifted back again. Many dancers had wrapped themselves in the same bright fabrics which hid the ceiling and so it, too, seemed to surge downward.

Suddenly Frau Heydenreich was there in the midst of the surging; with her sequins and spangles she resembled an illuminated pleasure yacht sailing by. The yacht was manned by a blond youth who would surely have steered better if he had not been distracted by the pair of breasts which were continually spilling overboard.

What are you doing with that knee, dear Hans — 71 “Wait, I know you,” a girl said.

“You don’t say — so who am I,” answered Georg, frantic to behave as casually as possible. Like Toni.

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“Morgenbote”?

Lacking a witty comeback, Georg was content to nod, at which the girl began to beam. First they costumed themselves so they would be unrecognizable, he thought, then they were happy when they recognized other costumed people.

— with that knee, dear Hans — The hit song pleased him. The girl wanted to come across as a prostitute with her curly hair, loud red blouse, and tight little skirt, but in reality she reeked of family. The prostitute was only bait.

“Goodbye then,” said Georg, having made an abrupt decision. “I have to meet someone.”

He had scarcely turned away from her—she remained solitary as though left behind on a railway platform — when he was overcome by an unfamiliar lightness of heart. It was not that he used force to propel himself to the surface; rather it was so to speak as if he sank from himself, and someone else whom he did not know took over the directing in his place. This other strange Georg — into whom he was by no means absorbed — went around with Apache maidens, pimps, and negresses, letting out admiring “ahs” and omitting no mischief whatsoever. He was everywhere at the same time. And it was all automatic.

— so where’d you get those beautiful blue eyes — “Hi, Toni.” — “Hi . . . man, are you ever going crazy.” For firing Georg up no praise could equal this.

Exhilarated, he followed after the voice of the saxophone which penetrated heights and depths like a human voice 229

and lured him into a ruby-red region. When the voice broke off he wanted to rush on immediately ahead, but it seemed to him that he was held in place by an external force. The force resided in a pair of eyes which trained themselves on him from the background. There a young woman stood who was always being obscured by the dancers; she was buttoned up to the neck in a blue, close-fitting smock. The woman — or was it a girl — gave him the idea she was a Russian. What great serious eyes she had. He dove into them, and forgotten prehistoric Time, a token of his homeland, hummed in his blood. And yet the homeland beckoned from a star.

Because in spite of the look she was sending Georg, the Russian girl stayed so rooted to the spot it was as though she would never let herself be influenced by any earthly power of attraction. And before he as much as thought of approaching this vision, it had disappeared behind clouds which sealed themselves up in front of her.

Taramtaramtaramtaram. Taramtaramtaramtaram — Did the entire party vanish along with the eyes?

Had it not been for the heavyset man madly pounding the African drum, everything would actually have seemed at an end. The man wore a derby hat shoved down over his head and a red and white jersey whose stripes drew even more attention to his imposing upper body: A character out of a ship’s belly. His pants were tethered with a leather strap. It was apparent that he felt a need to replace the jazz ensemble, which seemed to have gone silent once and for all. But his drumming drew only two couples and soon they, too, lost the urge to dance. Then things grew unnaturally quiet. The ceiling drapery hung limply into the room, the brightness was shot through 230

with shadows, and people stood around isolated and useless, or else camped along the perimeter. Many were missing, meaning that at least some must have crept off into the bush. It was like a solar eclipse.

Georg eased himself down to the floor somewhere in the vicinity of a group who were whispering excitedly.

“In my opinion,” he heard one of them say, “psychoanalysis is a parlor game for bourgeois layabouts who make it a pastime to sniff out their psychological dreck. As if a psyche were of the slightest relevance anymore today . . .” — “Obviously,” came the reply, “you’ve not been analyzed. Otherwise you’d realize that behind objections such as yours utterly primitive defense mechanisms lurk which should be done away with before anything else.” The speaker was a black-haired young man whose golden pince-nez emitted fiery sparkles of self-satisfaction. As well, a constant oily smile was playing on his lips and with it he greased his clever remarks so that they were able not only to penetrate all minds but also slip out of them again unscathed. “In a sense you’re both right,” declared a girl who, stretched out between the combatants, tried to secure a superior intellectual position for herself through this peacemaking. She exhibited no defense mechanisms.

To avoid being done away with by the black-haired man, Georg turned away and resumed his observations of the man in the jersey, who was scattering confetti one moment and startling unsuspecting girls with deep growls the next. These pranks were intended less for his long-suffering audience than for his own entertainment, and he made his own body into a means of communication by continually sweeping his derby from his forehead onto his neck and then shoving it back over his face again. Finally he removed the hat from his head 231

altogether and danced with it, showing more grace than could ever be expected from a broad-beamed seaman.

Incidentally, he had no idea of performing a solo number; on the contrary, he turned the hat into his partner only because he wished to flee his loneliness for good.

Perhaps it was the force of his desire which allowed him to awaken the impression that the battered old hat which he grasped in his hands was nothing less than a ravishing young princess who snuggled against him to yield herself completely.

And yet the illusion lasted for no more than an instant. If Georg had felt himself uplifted seeing this girl conjured out of nothingness, now he succumbed to the dead hour, which denied brightness even to what was bright. Stretched out his full length he began to doze, following the example of others who were resting nearby. The princess who was only a derby. — He thought about Beate uninterruptedly, recalling the meagerness of their relationship with a sore heart. Since that frightful theater evening, already many weeks past, he had seen her only a few times and then but briefly. She had returned from Christmas vacation with plans to spend the coming semester at a different university, and she had been to several Carnival parties without ever asking him to accompany her — taking him at his word when he claimed to hold the season in low regard. He had long understood that she did not take him altogether seriously. Georg was attending today’s festivities chiefly to give the lie to her idea and to prove to himself that he was as capable as anyone else of mastering so-called Life.

Naturally he had made certain beforehand that Beate would not be present — a precaution which was proving little short of a blessing. If he were honest Georg had to admit that the party was not bringing him the reassurance 232

he hoped for. People avoided him and it was all going the same as when he had been repelled by the mirror into which Beate had fled. He saw her again, standing in the room in her costume, half boy, half girl . . .

What are you doing with that knee, dear Hans— Once more he saw her costume — could he be dreaming — but then he was not dreaming the jazz music, which had started up again — no, Beate’s costume was right in front of him as surely as he heard the music. The red trousers, the black blouse, the gleaming neck ruffle above — there could be no mistake. The costume drew away from the spot very slowly as though taunting him.

Georg, who had been the last one left on the floor, leapt to his feet and caught up with the costume—and found himself staring in the face of a perfect stranger.

“Where did you get the costume,” he asked brusquely.

“Now wait a minute,” returned the girl. “Here you . . . What business of yours is my costume anyhow?”

“A tremendous amount, in fact. You see, I know it.”

“Is that so . . .” The girl, who did not move, wrinkled her forehead as if to solve a difficult problem.

“Then perhaps you know a friend of mine, she — ” “Beate?”

“Hmm.” It turned out that the girl was indeed a friend of Beate, who had lent her the costume for the evening. She said her name was Mimi. Georg expressed a liking for the name, hoping to be able to pump her about Beate, but Mimi was more interested in herself. She said she had just come from another ball which was hopelessly dull and so poof she had decided to make herself scarce and come to the Münzers where the parties were always the best.

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And so now here she was. Poof.

It was fate; as if she had been commissioned to deliver the costume to this very place.

“Let’s dance,” Georg said to the costume, and Mimi opened her arms immediately. While they were dancing, he attempted to involve her in a conversation but succeeded only in getting her to go on yet again about how boring most parties were. Other topics seemed to bore her too much. But then wasn’t that boring for her, Georg suggested, looking for something to say. Rather than reply, she pulled him against herself and pushed her legs in between his as if by accident.

“I like you,” she said.

“I like you too,” he said.

She really did look quite nice and was so accommodating besides that there was no way Georg could have brought himself to disappoint her. While continuing to dance he spun out the silent dialogue which she had begun with her legs; all at once, however, he realized that his caresses were not in answer to hers but the reply to a challenge. And so he pursued the dialogue, which now and then even condensed into kisses, with a bitterness that would have been justified only if he were forced to overcome an arrogant foe. His conduct was even more senseless since, as he clearly saw, Mimi was extremely compliant. Yet the insight did not lead Georg to shed his conviction that he was meeting with resistance; instead it made him that much more determined. The longer he danced, the stronger was his urge to finish off for good the unknown opponent he fancied was challenging him. Mimi, too, seemed animated by urges; for with the next pause in the dance there was no stopping her as she hastened towards the door in the smaller room through which couples were always coming and going.

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As if by prior understanding the two of them passed through the door together. They were entering a dark narrow passage that was interrupted by a strip of light halfway down. When the hospital was still in operation, it must have been a secret passage connecting patients’ rooms. The light falling on it streamed from an ordinary kitchen where a couple of women were piling up mountains of holiday fritters and conversing in shrieks.

Behind them water poured from a tap without any interruption. While Mimi hesitated before this bit of everyday life which encroached on the night like a tiny stage set, Georg kept staring at her costume, which was transfigured by the kitchen shimmer. There was no chance he was being deceived: the big red buttons were scornfully rejecting him. Ja! “Something the matter?” asked Mimi. They made their way to the end of the corridor and found themselves in a room where a raised hand could not be seen before one’s eyes. Georg stumbled over several arms and legs before he realized that the floor consisted of people. A stifling closeness, pillows, giggling. Mimi pulled him to a higher area, a sort of final resting place. Here was room at last, it was astonishingly deep. As soon as they were stowed away they pressed against each other. Their mouths became one; their hands, greedy appropriators, seized control of ever more territory; their bodies refused to tolerate the least separation. Close by could be heard wavelike breathing, a monotonous up and down on every side which had nothing to do with them; and it carried them off as though they were being rocked in a cradle. “Now I have you,” Georg sputtered into yellow dankness. He meant the costume. No one else — that much was certain. From the beginning the costume had provoked him and had wanted to humiliate him. He 235

hated it with a blind hatred. Naturally he meant Beate, who disdained him, but Beate and the costume were one and the same. She was concealed in the red trousers, she laughed out of the insolent buttons.

But the tables were turned now and he would do the laughing. For an instant Georg recollected something which he pushed out of his mind just as quickly. Mimi — as if Mimi meant anything to him. Had they been naked together he would not have given her a glance but left her standing in the corner untouched. She could be a witness if she wanted, he cared only for the costume.

He attacked it more wildly than ever. How it groaned, how it writhed beneath him! And as if the triumph with which this revenge filled him were still not enough, the costume caressed him to thank him for the defeat it was experiencing. Beate caressed him—what matchless bliss!

There was heavy panting, the blouse ripped . . . Then the yellow swelled unmercifully.

“Look, look.”

A voice, from overhead. A pulling apart.

“What’s—” Georg wanted to sit up while lust still held him down. High above a chalk-face hovered. Pale as the moon.

“No harm meant,” said the pierrot whose face it was.

“I’m only glad Mimi pleases you . . . because Mimi’s my wife.”

The room was a bedroom with yellow wallpaper.

People were nestled everywhere, their limbs oddly contorted. “Lights out,” someone cried. Frau Heydenreich, who had been all set to sail with her rigging, slipped off the lap of her blond young man, having sprung a leak.

“Your wife,” Georg murmured. “If I’d only known.

Really I didn’t know —” Dread outweighed shame. The moon, an eerie disk, was motionless. Mimi stretched lazily as if she were far away and feeling bored again. An 236

endless time went by before she blinked at the disk.

Each and every one of her various eyelashes blinked individually for itself.

“Oh it’s you, Max,” she drawled. “This is Georg, Georg, Max.” She yawned. “Good thing you followed me. The Münzers still always throw the best parties.”

Georg readied himself for a fearful altercation. And no one would understand that thing with the costume . . .

“Turn off the light!” — “Let’s go!”

The pierrot bent down to him. “Isn’t she sweet,” he said feelingly. He literally dissolved with tenderness. Could it be that despite his moonshine he didn’t notice anything?

Yet every sign went to prove the opposite . . . Whatever the reason: for the moment at any rate there was no row.

Georg stood up. He was immensely relieved.

“Stay a little while,” said Mimi to the pierrot. She squatted on the pillows and tried to straighten out her clothes.

The pierrot shook his head: “Have fun . . . You should powder yourself, child.” Sadly he sank beneath the horizon. Mimi applied her makeup.

“Isn’t he sweet,” she said.

They trotted back to the main room where dancing was still going on as before. On the wall the naked pair came into view, making love in front of all. I’ve actually committed adultery Georg decided, not without satisfaction.

Buoyed by this achievement, he found the eternal hopping and skipping a little ridiculous and no longer understood why he had been so carried away at first. The people here were contenting themselves with a pastime fit for anterooms.

“Ah, Mimi . . . Fancy meeting you here.”

The Russian girl. The very same. Everything was transformed.

“This is Georg,” Mimi explained, blinking artistically to be amusing before she went on casually chatting away.

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Georg stood silently aside and looked fixedly at the young woman in the Russian smock — who, entering into the gossip in friendly fashion, paid him no attention.

Once again she sent him into a strangely disconcerting state of suspense; for although he stood very near her she seemed just as removed as before. And it was precisely as though he had been on an intimate footing with her since the beginning of time, and still he would never ever reach her. Not even in old age. While he was thus held captive between the near and the far, he heard long-drawn-out tones which made him forget about everything else except for this girl. Was Mimi asking him something? “Ah, Fritzchen!” She shouted as though liberated and rushed into the arms of the fat lonesome sailor, who was playing a harmonica. Definitely it was high time she and her borrowed costume disappeared “auf Nimmerwiedersehen.”72 Now at last he had the Russian girl all to himself. Alas she scarcely thought to return his smile over Mimi’s hurried exit, and instead let her eyes rest on him as seriously as ever. Which made it even harder for him to speak the way he wanted. He wanted to tell her how glad he was to be with her, and only managed to say that he was having a good time at the party. “Everyone’s enjoying themselves so . . .”

“Do you really believe that?” replied the Russian girl.

“What you take to be enjoyment is in most cases a perfect waste of time.”

His happiness a waste of time? With passion Georg insisted: “For instance, my own joy is entirely genuine.”

But this insistence was solely the pitiful remainder of an avowal which did not force its way out into the open. An avowal in which he assured the Russian girl among other things that he had dreamed her up, that he had no choice 238

other than to love her, and that she belonged to him as did Heaven and his right hand.

The girl frowned. “Still it’s too bad some people have such a bizarre way of being happy.” He stared at her dispiritedly. Didn’t she know that she was what mattered to him, that what he said to her sprang from the attachment between them which she herself had affirmed with her earlier glances?

By and by he understood: she believed that his happiness was because of Mimi and that he was demoting her to a mere sharer of that knowledge. Oh, how false an understanding of his words, impossible to undo! “Please listen to me,” he begged.

Her forehead was smooth again and she smiled as if to signal that he was behaving foolishly. Then she went up to someone he did not know, whom she knew.

“Auf Wiedersehen” — her last words.

“Until when?” he cried, to console himself. But she had already begun dancing with the other man. — — After this incident Georg found his way immediately to the coat check where the crush was so great he was obliged to exercise patience. It should be said that not all those who gathered here were in the process of leaving. Several youths spoke in low tones, and in front of the large mirror next to where coats were being given out were girls who had been worked over by the party and who were putting themselves together again. As their disheveled finery was being set to rights, in places the naked underneath peeked forth.

As he was distractedly observing this comedy, Georg was overcome by the feeling that an avenue of faces and coats opened before him. He went gliding down the avenue. And he became anxiously aware that his surroundings were breaking up and exposing a gap towards 239

which he was directly headed. Right in midst of the coat check mêlée such an unbelievable gap had opened up between day and night, yesterday and tomorrow, and not a soul would be able to find him . . . It was important to cling to the old woman handing out the coats — “Man, you’re leaving? Now that the philistines are gone, things will get very intimate . . . stay why not.”

The illustrator, who was coming out of the men’s room, clearly felt Georg’s early departure to be a betrayal. Georg made a gesture of “no thanks.” The woman handed him his coat.

“Well, if home’s really calling you — ,” said the illustrator. He laughed: “It seems you conducted yourself rather nicely in the darkroom. Everyone’s talking . . .”

“Hi, Toni. Hi, Toni.”

The door to the big room had flown open.

There was a tremendous din, colors were rocking in the din, lanterns in between were glowing in every color, and the people were spinning around in a circle to the sounds of jazz.

240

XI. After a couple hours’ sleep Georg went to the newspaper scarcely later than usual and attempted to work. But the noises from the inner courtyard were far too insistent to allow him to concentrate. And then, too, seemingly his desk had grown larger overnight; its surface stretched away incalculably—just as did the morning, which grew silently into the afternoon that was not apprehended for itself, being no less gray than the morning had been.

Georg happened to be looking up as a messenger entered to announce Doktor Rosin.

“I happened to be passing by—,” Rosin explained.

“You look so worried,” said Georg, surprised that Rosin was not creating the slightest disturbance. Any other time he made ten of himself right away. Today though he was being backed into the corner by Georg’s desk.

“Worried is hardly the word . . . You know, I’m really glad you’re here. Because I want to tell you something concerning myself, a situation that will end up driving me mad . . . Here I am running around with no one I can tell it all to . . . You’ve got to listen to me. Your advice is indispensable.”

“Yes of course . . . I hope you haven’t had any trouble at the university.”

“What are you thinking of . . .” Rosin brushed off the university like a bothersome fly. “It’s a purely private matter, I tell you . . . How shall I express it—I find myself in the hideous position of a person facing an inner decision which threatens to throw him utterly off course. It’s a genuine psychological catastrophe, you 241

know . . . Into which I fell, by the way, through a certain incident that I — for which I — in a word, I brought this misery if you will upon myself. But let’s leave the question of blame aside, perhaps I’m not even the guilty one, it all makes my head spin. And then the worst thing is, the longer I brood on the business and martyr my brains looking for a way out, the more confused I become. Believe me, I literally do not know the difference any longer between in and out. And if I say to you in addition that the destiny of another also hangs in the balance, you’ll certainly understand why it’s so important for me to bare my soul privately to a sensible person . . . Just between you and me, the matter’s strictly confidential . . .”

“I understand. Like going to confession.”

“That’s exactly it. Confession—” The telephone rang. Rosin started painfully. A wrong number. The objects were projecting themselves from the endless surface of the desk, each one for itself.

“Let’s go to Café Geyer,” Georg suggested. He found the interruption most agreeable. “We can talk there without being disturbed.”

As they passed through the corridors, Georg tried to work out where the real Rosin was actually keeping himself. In the little less than a year since his appointment as a private university lecturer, the Rosin he knew had become so furiously active that even with the best will in the world he could not possibly have had any leisure left for psychological catastrophes. And this new Rosin? It was undeniable: He was utterly lost in himself. He had sunken cheeks that were framed by sideburns resembling funeral bunting, and his unwonted quiet betrayed inward suffering.

I’ve been unfair to him thought Georg, and he reasoned with himself that anyone might stumble into the pit some time 242

or other. Out on the street he could no longer stand the way they were walking silently side by side, and so in spite of his apprehensions over the confession to come he asked Rosin about his work. But Rosin would not let himself be diverted, and instead fell into a far gloomier key.

“How am I supposed to find pleasure in working . . . Listen, the game simply isn’t worth the candle.

Just between you and me, sociology . . .” A dismissive gesture completed the sentence. “You’ll be astonished that I am the one to put forth this view, but have you ever noticed sociology achieving anything? People go on writing their bloated tomes on social organisms, social structures, social functions and who knows what, all the while forgetting the most important thing: namely, the meaning of a science within society — fortunately we two see completely eye to eye on this—gentlemen, a swindle I say . . . And talk about the university — if you only knew how sick I am of the life of a private lecturer! For the next several months I will be buried right up to my neck in work, nothing but the most important things, I really must tell you about them later, you might find that interesting . . . Though obviously none of it is of the least importance at the moment . . . Who knows, perhaps we'll still have time . . .”

The Café Geyer, which Georg was used to popping into frequently during working hours, stretched from its narrow street front into the depths like a passage in a cave. Seated along the walls and around the pair of central pillars throughout the day were businessmen, plain folk from the neighborhood, and unclassifiable couples — visitors who came and went quickly and with the dinner hour vanished one and all as if on command. And with them vanished the cave, too, so that anyone wishing to discover it late at night would surely still be peering around for it 243

when it already lay in his wake. Now, in the middle of the afternoon, the little place was so full that Rosin and Georg had difficulty finding somewhere to sit. When they had gotten their coffee, which took forever, Georg smiled attentively across the table at his companion and waited for the confession.

“So I’m all ears,” he said at last, to bring Rosin around to saying something.

The other nodded and let out a sigh. “If only it were easier to make oneself understood. Hasn’t it ever struck you that present-day human beings feel no need whatsoever to speak of themselves? It’s hardly a matter of psychology, I’ll go so far as to claim that we’re thoroughly incapable of communicating with each another any longer. Think of the contrast with Romanticism” — here Rosin set himself in motion like a train while winking from it at the same time — “these outpourings of the soul, these confessions, this urge to expand the ego into a world. Of course the familiar prejudice that the Romantics were politically reactionary is based exclusively on their own writings. Setting those aside it becomes apparent for instance that the most intimate connections are to be found between Romantic inwardness and modern advertising. The blue flower73 shines resplendent from the propaganda chief ’s button-hole. The late Schelling,74 yes I know—but I’ve discovered sources which yield astounding interrelationships . . . And today? The New Objectivity,75 man as machine, the age of functionalism.

Truly remarkable: Geist has been dismantled, and the Soul is useless ballast. What’s happened there, I ask you . . .”

Now he’s gotten himself into the right frame of mind, thought Georg, he’s about to start in on his confession. Two men at the next table were carrying on a heated discussion. “Thirty percent?” — “Out of the 244

question.” One was searching through a warped briefcase while the other looked vacantly at a paper. “Even if I put everything on the table, the junk’s not worth a bit more.” “. . . linked to the emergence of the masses, who with the end of the war stride onto the stage of European history as actual masses for the first time. They are something fundamentally new. What does ‘the history of ideas’ really amount to? There is no history of ideas; rather a procession of ideas is always being conditioned by economic and social events. Sociology is the fundamental science. Where were we? In any case it’s clear that the masses, among whom the impoverished middle classes must now be reckoned, can no longer be absorbed into the society of today. You know, an explanation of the fact that the great democracies develop during a period of low population density would be interesting. Now then, if it is certain that every spiritual order has some social order for a premise, it is equally certain that this order will necessarily be destroyed when the masses force their way into it. They muddle all standards and unleash anarchy.

It’s all happened before, I have only to refer you to the first centuries after Christ. The rule of anarchy is characterized by the combination of material misery and intellectual rootlessness: A state of affairs that condemns the majority of human beings to a dog’s life and, what is more important, denies them a decent death. The mass man croaks. I want to write a book about Death— ” In order to lend greater impressiveness to the word “Death,” which he pronounced with hollow solemnity, Rosin also made a hollow out of one hand and held it up meaningfully against his face. The two men at the neighboring table had been relieved by a quiet romantic couple. He could have been in the employ of a merchant and she a stenotypist.

245

“. . . the problem is how to regain control over the masses. Just take a glance at Soviet Russia or Italy, without resorting to superficial formulas such as ‘Bolshevism’ or ‘Fascism.’”

The lovers became so absorbed in each other’s respiration that the faintest breath was faithfully registered. “. . . basically they want the very same thing in Rome and in Moscow: To renew the mythic forces from below and to create a faith that comes from above and which places all people under an obligation to itself. In disputing with Christ, Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor 76 is right to champion the binding authority of the Church.

If the masses are to cease being the masses, there is a need for the Sacraments . . .”77 The little stenotypist let a delicate finger glide so tenderly over the neck of her boyfriend it was as if she typed a love-letter on it with a heavenly typewriter, and while he was answering her line for line by return mail, the two of them went soaring off, corresponding more and more energetically, and leaving behind the café, their offices, and the world.

“And that’s why a chapter of my book is dedicated to the Sacraments. What do you say to that? I’ve been pursuing theology for years, I’ll have you know. In the chapter we’re concerned with I shall pay tribute to the Sacraments from the standpoint of sociology, tracing their transformation from the Middle Ages up to the present, a time when, as is well known, sporting events are acquiring sacramental significance. Let us take for example Confession. I believe we were already speaking of it earlier—” “Stop,” Georg exclaimed in desperation. He shouted, for it was absolutely necessary to prevent this madness from continuing. But despite his efforts he was not able 246

to banish the commotion, which rose to the skies. And sure enough, to do justice to the most varied opinions as soon as possible Rosin had multiplied himself in his usual fashion into an entire assembly, each of whose members strove to talk the others out of their respective opinions.

One argued firmly for the Sacraments, the next swore in the name of World Revolution, a third supplied each of those two in turn with the reasons they needed: a vast number of dark gentlemen who no longer looked the least bit downcast but in the splendor of their sideburns shone as though waxed. They continually took up standpoints out of which they developed perspectives, which then led to viewpoints. The dispute was still going back and forth with no resolution in sight — Georg had been consigned to oblivion long since — when suddenly every single Rosin triumphantly tittered “tee-hee.” Strictly speaking, only a single specimen did so, having apparently chased away the rest in that very moment. “Hah-hah,” rejoiced the surviving Rosin, and he busily rubbed his hands together.

Then he pulled out his watch.

“For heaven’s sake, five o’clock!” I have to get to the seminar . . .”

“But you wanted to tell me something . . . ,” pleaded Georg. One last try.

“Oh, right. — I still wanted to tell you about the work I have ahead of me. Just between you and me, Fischer is going on vacation in the next few weeks and that’s going to stretch out over the whole summer semester.

Meanwhile I’ve got to take his place . . . Lectures, working with doctoral students, faculty meetings, exams: no small matter, let me tell you . . . You know Fischer’s writing the concluding volume of his General Sociology . . . A shame it’s so late already . . .”

Rosin signaled to the waitress and they paid up.

247

My chance is gone thought Georg. Gone. In his anxiety he heard nothing but Fischer, Fischer. “Is Fischer exactly like you?” he asked as they were putting on their coats.

Now I know what Death is — the one thought filled his mind.

“What can you be thinking! Fischer has a long full beard and is an extremely taciturn old gentleman who positively could not stand me at first . . . Though now I have him wrapped around my little finger . . . ‘You’re a devil of a fellow Rosin’ he always says.”

Once outside Rosin took hasty leave, explaining that the seminar was waiting on him. “Listen, this has been hugely stimulating and I’ve rarely enjoyed a conversation so much . . . We ought to get together more often . . . There’s my tram about to go . . .”

Rosin had taken to his heels long since and still Georg remained standing where he was. He felt utterly empty inside and knew only that he would not go back to the newspaper for love or money, back to that room which came from the morning and where he would once again be imprisoned with himself all alone. At length he determined to go to Frau Anders, being pretty much under the obligation anyway to thank her yet again for the costume. She was human; she felt empathy for him. There, bathed in the reflection of her hanging lamp — so Georg painted the scene for himself — he would sit peacefully beside her and consent to being hemmed in by some missing doilies.

Frau Anders opened the door herself. “Marie has her afternoon off,” she said. “Please don’t make a sound.”

Light was coming from Fred’s old room, a sign that Herr Neubert, Frau Anders’s renter, was in. Barely had they reached the living room when she erupted.

“Here’s the latest: I gave him notice yesterday!”

“Herr Neubert?”

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“Whatever’s the matter with you, Georg? Who else but Herr Neubert!” Frau Anders displayed genuine pique, seeing that he failed to measure the significance of her action immediately. On the brightly illuminated table lay the Morgenbote and her glasses and a long piece of knitting which arched into a twilight that began right beyond the edge of the table and was crammed with worries and whatnots. The report over yesterday’s scene was also woven into it. If Georg followed her, the termination was a consequence of Herr Neubert having had the audacity to become abusive during an innocuous exchange, and of having more or less ordered Frau Anders out of his room.

“Just imagine, what nerve! And all I did was request him to refrain from always strewing ashes on the floor. But this is what you get for becoming friendly with renters! A fine one he is anyhow! Do you think he shows the smallest consideration for my maid? Not an evening goes by when he doesn’t have visitors, and what hoodlums they are, creating a racket on into the night and smoking up the whole place. My curtains are ruined . . . There’s nothing for it, people have to know who’s living with them in the apartment. Early this morning Frau Eisenmann said that only a communist could be so shameless, and how right she is. Georg, what do these communists really want? You work at the Morgenbote.”

To fend off a decline into generalizations, Georg asked about Fred. As it happened, a letter from him had arrived this same day.

“When I only knew,” said Frau Anders, “why he would change jobs just like that. There must have been an intrigue against him. It's too awful of him! He knows very well how I long for every little scrap of news, and yet he writes that for a week now he has been in the employ of a readymade clothing company — that and nothing more.

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Something as important as that—and Fred really knows nothing about clothing.”

She extracted a crumpled sheet of writing paper from her purse and asked Georg if he would care to hear a bit of Fred’s letter. He did not, America was so far away. With due ceremony Frau Anders donned her spectacles and looked over the first few sentences, then began reading from the back side: It’s true I have much more to do than before, but I am glad for the change. You know, it’s good to be tossed about, one gathers a lot of experience for later. Recently I met Max, for whom things are in fact going brilliantly at the moment. By the way I have every hope that soon I will be able to send you monthly . . .”

Frau Anders interrupted her reading to observe that a few hints in Fred’s letters had led her to regard this Max, a new acquaintance of her son’s over in America, as disreputable through and through. Then she went on examining the letter for herself, assuming a dark expression, smiling brightly, and then exclaiming: “Ah, here’s something that will interest you” “. . . Saturday evening there was a large group of us visiting various bars — you needn’t be horrified for I was invited by a friend who can afford it.

I danced almost exclusively with Jane, whom I quite like despite your reservations — maybe only because she’s not obsessed with motorcars as all the other girls here are. On the contrary, she has a serious disposition and loves good books.

This summer she’s going to make a trip to 250

Europe with her mother and perhaps you will have an opportunity to form your own opinion about her . . .”

Frau Anders was about to put aside the letter when it occurred to her that she had forgotten a passage in it meant for Georg. “My awful memory,” she wailed, and then made good her omission: “N.B. Please say hello to Georg when you see him and tell him that he will be hearing from me at length some day soon. That in the last few weeks I’ve had no chance to write.”

She peered at Georg over her glasses to confide that Jane’s mother must be well-to-do, that it was Frau Eisenmann’s inalterable opinion that Jane was head over heels in love with Fred. The woman had already congratulated Frau Anders on her future daughter-in-law.

“You haven’t asked me one thing about the party,” said Georg.

“How was it, how was it?”

“Wonderful. My costume was such a hit that all the girls wanted to get me to tell them who had fitted me out so grandly . . . very pretty girls . . .” Georg strolled towards the window and into the darkness. Frau Anders was beaming with enthusiasm over his successes.

“Georg, I’m just burning to hear every last detail.

When people are young they ought to amuse themselves, I always say; old age comes soon enough.”

Steps echoed in the hallway. “Now he’s dashing into the kitchen again,” Frau Anders whispered. “The whole day he’s running back and forth.”

Having reached the window, Georg shoved aside 251

the curtains. He was immediately ambushed by a flock of noisy rear rooms that all looked onto the courtyard, which was itself a muffled interior. Impossible to escape; once more the curtains came billowing together. Close by on his left the black pedestal column rose like a sentry to guard the photograph album in which the past was sleeping. In front of the books on the etagère lay a pack of cards. Frau Anders had picked up her knitting. She sat on the black and yellow sofa in the circle of light from the hanging lamp, solemn as a frightened child, and clacked her needles over a weaving which stretched into the infinite future.

“Have I mentioned to you that I’m going to move out on October 1? Who knows when Fred will be in the position to support me, and what do I need with this large apartment anyhow. Two rooms are plenty. I’m going to move into one of those new apartment houses further out where they have all the gadgets, that way I’ll only need a cleaning lady. Of course I feel sorry for Marie, but I see no other solution. It goes without saying that I hope the distance won’t keep you from visiting me from time to time . . . Oh Georg, when I sit here by myself, a lot is always going through my head. How I can settle myself so I won’t become a burden to Fred, and whether I’ll see grandchildren one day. Everything is so terribly uncertain right now . . . A shame I can’t keep you here for supper . . .”

“But I have plans,” Georg was quick to say. His thoughts wandered to this love which could survive in a pair of lonely little rooms. Frau Anders was not to be dissuaded from seeing him out. As they made their way down the corridor, the door to Fred’s room burst open and out lurched a young man who rushed towards the exit without excusing himself.

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“Oh, Herr Neubert!” The terminated renter, what a fine turn of events.

To Georg’s astonishment, however, Frau Anders did not succumb to some fit of rage but trilled so sweetly that any casual observer might have concluded she was in love with Herr Neubert. “Always so busy,” she said flatteringly, “always with an eye on the main chance . . . Permit me to introduce you two gentlemen —” The introduction was very embarrassing for Georg since it overflowed with the most extravagant praise: “. . . influential position at the Morgenbote . . . big career . . . such interesting articles . . .” Frau Anders had once introduced the dead Herr Kummer in similar fashion.

Undoubtedly she was eager to parade the famous people she associated with in front of her lodger so as to curb his presumption.

But did this give him pause? No, he only appeared to grow more determined. As it was his share in the greeting amounted to growling something to himself and raising a hasty hand to his headgear — a projecting visor cap in a coarse checked pattern which must have fused with his skull, since he did not remove it the whole time.

Frau Anders gave Georg stolen looks that were meant to let him know how provoking she found these manners. The looks could be read a mile off. “Well then, see you very soon, Georg.” Frau Anders’s parting tone was unmistakable: she hoped to be rid of Herr Neubert very soon. She retreated, shutting the door behind her.

“An insufferable petite-bourgeoise,”78 Herr Neubert exclaimed on the steps with a finality that left no room for objections. He was blond and carried a briefcase.

Georg bridled to hear Frau Anders ruthlessly dismissed as a petite-bourgeoise. “And yet Frau Anders is really very kind . . . I’ve been a friend of her son for 253

years.”

Even as he was speaking Georg had a premonition that his dissent would not find its way to Herr Neubert. And indeed, the latter treated him to a biting rebuke: “As if kindness weren’t precisely a petit-bourgeois virtue! The only reason they cultivate and praise kindness is to excuse themselves from combatting the capitalist system, which provides them with their interest. Receiving interest is the prerequisite for a good heart.”

It was as though a tank rolled onward. So as not to be crushed, Georg sprang to another location. “I hear you’re giving up your room.” Something warned him to keep quiet about what Frau Anders had said, that the termination had been her doing.

“Yes, I’ve given notice. Since you’re acquainted with the woman, you know how she runs off at the mouth.

In the last few days she’s become impertinent to boot.

Her false consciousness 79 functions so marvelously that she confuses every communist with a criminal immediately.

But I absolutely will not put up with outrages . . . Which direction are you headed in?”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll accompany you part of the way.”

Neubert accepted the offer as though it were to be expected. Presumably his report was accurate, and Frau Anders had merely recast her defeat as a victory. What childishness — Georg could not help smiling. Whereupon it came to him that Neubert had never yet smiled; for him, humor did not exist. He seemed altogether absorbed in his revolutionary task, which would leave him no time for polite gestures. Without question smiling was petit-bourgeois.

“Several months ago,” said Neubert, “I recall having read a report on a congress which appeared under your 254

name and which, by deliberately confining itself to a minister’s idiotic opening remarks, adroitly mocked the nonsensicality of bourgeois congresses. Did the editors take any great exception to your report at the time?”

The poor Congress report thought Georg. And out loud: “They missed the mockery entirely.” He was certainly not about to confess that he had written the half-forgotten report in all innocence and till now had never subjected it to the least suspicion. How closely people read such things.

“I would guess,” continued Neubert, “that you, too, are one of those many sympathetic intellectuals who imagine they can rouse the bourgeois conscience and thereby destroy the class so to speak from within — be it with socially critical feuilletons, reports on poverty, or revolutionary theater pieces. But all these efforts rest on a petit-bourgeois illusion and are doomed to fail. For what does happen? Either the members of this class play dead, as in your case, and do not so much as respond to the attacks, or else they are titillated by the indignation that is served up to them. And small wonder! In the first place, the bourgeoisie are in possession of a very healthy class instinct and in the second place, the idea of destruction from within is un-Marxist, since it is the tail wagging the dog and looks for a change in consciousness to lead the charge rather than any change in actual conditions. Even granted that a couple of useful secondary results can be realized by such means — the decisive factor is and can only remain a class-conscious proletariat.

The Party knows precisely how much or how little it should expect from sympathetic intellectuals.”

Georg spared no effort in looking for an effective counter-argument. “Perhaps things aren’t quite so simple,” he said to gain time. But the longer he struggled to find a reply that would allow him to get his reservations across, 255

the more powerless he seemed to himself. Every answer of which he was in any way capable — and this he already knew as he reviewed them with frantic speed — would evaporate, helpless, before Neubert’s infallible self-assurance.

He pictured naked trembling flesh forced to measure itself against constructions hard as steel and whose shudderings are for naught. For a moment he wondered whether it might not be a good idea to conceal his own lack of certainty by boasting of his connections with Doktor Wolff, Fräulein Samuel, and all the rest who had upset him so frightfully that time at Frau Heinisch’s with their radical views. But Neubert would not take these people seriously either; that had been settled since the very first. Secretly Georg found the thought pleasing. Had his own unspoken reflections managed to reach the surface?

In any case he thought he heard Neubert pronounce the words “salon communists.” They crossed a crooked alley which opened onto a small square facing the river. There was a smell of water, the quay walls bordered on nothingness. How often had he not been here with Beate. Beate—she appeared before him in her costume, which was washed in the sounds of jazz and glistening tints, and once more he lay next to her as though in the night and caressed her until the smock ripped, until the pierrot with the moon-face bent over him. He looked up, distraught: a giant full moon was swimming through space.

Oh the tricks that were played by light! It revealed the wretchedness of the old houses along the riverbank and at the same time it gently lifted them from their moorings, bestowing on them an unearthly sheen.

“The houses are floating—” Georg exclaimed.

“Unhygienic piles of lumber,” Neubert growled.

Georg hated himself for having felt the beauty, and now he really feared Neubert would find him 256

contemptible. But Neubert wasn’t paying him any attention. With his cap pressed far down over his forehead, the young man pushed through all that floating wonder and did not feel a thing — like the crane which was looming beyond the quay walls. As if the moon were a class enemy reveling in luxury, against whose allure he had to defend himself. Neubert stopped before a dilapidated barracks and whistled a few measures of a tune over and over until at length they were answered from inside.

Georg stood where he was. Without quite turning in his direction Neubert pulled on the edge of his cap, which was practically covering his face, and made other signs to indicate that he did not wish to squander still more of his time with a bourgeois. Probably he was visiting a revolutionary comrade. His briefcase was overflowing, his overcoat in tatters.

“I would really enjoy a long conversation with you sometime,” said Georg, keeping to his original intention.

He was aware that this person, whom he found quite repugnant, left him no peace.

In the meantime the door had opened. Nobody appeared. As when there is a conspiracy.

“Unfortunately” — Neubert actually allowed himself to condescend to an “unfortunately” — “for the time being I won’t be able to see you. Next week I go away to the Ruhr for an undetermined length of time. I’ll be speaking there in the political cells and organizing a series of courses . . . Perhaps in the summer — ” The door slammed behind him. The crane sliced through the face of the moon. What good is shining thought Georg. A deceptive mantle of moss floated before his mind’s eye; but Georg was so tired that everything was confusing to him. One has to get through the bourgeois moss and touch bare ground. What was the name of 257

that Communist municipal deputy who always twitched so when he spoke of the “exploiters” — —

258

XII. This time spring made itself dreadfully at home. Buds everywhere and endless warbling. A universal burgeoning.

The days, too, became noticeably longer, so that the lovely twilight in the streets was ever more attenuated.

And human beings? Scarcely had they sensed the warmer season when overnight they shed their taste for costume parties and indoor socials. As if by appointment they began to care only for Nature. Raised windows, hats off underway, trooping out into the open air — they couldn’t get enough of Nature. Georg was dumbfounded at how easy it was for them to alter their wants completely in keeping with the season. He himself would have preferred to keep on dancing. Fräulein Peppel had stood a large bouquet of lilacs on her desk which she coddled as though it were a lap dog. Which did not make her any more endearing. And what would they not be up to for Easter and then Pentecost after that!

To save himself from the importunings of Nature, on late sunny afternoons Georg sometimes sought shelter in a cheap cinema frequented by errand boys and shop girls—or anyone unable to afford the business of spring.

Seasons were for a select public. The place smelled of unaired bodies, beer, embraces, pissoir, and coins — old entrenched odors with which one soon felt a comradeship — and when the lights came on for intermission, it seemed to grow very dark at first, so feebly did the two or three bulbs burn. Men’s shouts, pink programme flyers, tatty bits of fur — in the twilight from which these fragments emerged, rows of seats trailed sluggishly past 259

papered walls for the length of the theater—which was no proper theater, only a tube-like space created from two former offices that had been jammed together.

Georg felt safe here. Over and over he relished that moment when it became pitch dark and the images began to live. No doubt the same spring sun he had just fled immediately rose again, but now he reconciled himself to the blooming landscapes and went strolling blissfully through their reflection on the screen. Why go anywhere? The Blue Grotto80 came hovering right next to one, casting its light farther than it would ever have done on location.

Music sounded. A trapper in the Wild West who rode, shot, and swam fabulously freed a rich banker’s daughter who was pretty as a picture from the clutches of her persecutors, and a stenotypist who was pretty as a picture got herself a bank director in Grunewald81 for a husband, despite her poverty. Because of the way the music accompanied them, however, the events themselves grew insubstantial. Since the piano player had a poor view of the screen from where his instrument was situated—there being no real room for it — he only played whatever suited his whims — military marches, opera potpourris, dances, and songs. In fact he did not so much perform one piece right after another as insert different melodies like patterns into a fabric of glittering runs and passage work. And with such success that during murder scenes waltz variations were heard, and dismal engagement prospects fell unexpectedly into a storm of chords. Owing to the fact that the music preserved its independence and only ever coincided with the screen images by chance, the latter were deprived of their own validity and transformed into happenings as elusive as the relationship between image and music.

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Georg gave himself up to them and he was regularly reduced to tears when the final veil fell away and the lovers’ happiness shone in bright lights. Then, in place of this happiness whose falseness he in no way hid from himself, true happiness would approach Georg bodily, out of nowhere. The piano player was a shiftless ex-conservatory student who in his young days had been thought to have a great concert career ahead of him.

And every so often he must have yearned for one yet.

Now, abandoning the usual tunes, he spun musical fantasies which wove themselves about that lost future as pearls stud a veil. It was as though he were left behind on stage after a concert which had never taken place, dreaming in the empty hall of the applause of the crowd and the ephemeralness of all fame. Shimmering dreams—they ran through the eternal cinema-night into which this man strove to creep away. Like a bat he would flit unseen to the piano and then back, and nothing was more embarrassing for him than to have to expose himself to the audience when he was surprised by an unscheduled intermission. He was a heavyset man and his head sprang out of the darkness of a gigantic knotted necktie whose loops never stopped their flapping. His face was swollen and his hair waved about wildly the same as Lawatsch’s — and there was a strong resemblance between the two anyway.

Georg was constantly pursued by the phantom of the cinema pianist whenever he strode through the deserted corridors of the newspaper building on his way to Lawatsch late at night. Although he had not worked under the eye of the local news editor for a long time, it still gave Georg pleasure to provide him with his company during the final shift. The old man did not let himself be disturbed by the visit but went on as always, 261

correcting the daily bulletins on the stock market, chat pieces, and the reports on lectures; gluing little news items, which he trimmed with a scissors, onto a piece of scratch paper; and scribbling noisily in everything. He was cruelest to self-indulgent mood-pieces, from which he ripped all the five-dollar words. Eventually they were fit only for the trash can, so pathetic did they look. Divorce dramas and fatal robberies, however, were allowed free play for whole columns. “Women devour them with breakfast,” he muttered, “and since Doktor Petri recently demanded that the local news section shall, in his words, become ‘more stimulating than before’ . . . ‘more stimulating’ . . . naturally he means ‘more sensational,’ but do you ever hear the idealists admitting to that . . . ‘We have to move with the times, Lawatsch’ is another one of his sermons . . . ‘Aha, you see which way the wind’s blowing . . . ’” Whatever Lawatsch said next remained unintelligible.

Georg was sitting on the corduroy sofa, in the shadow of Lawatsch’s hunched back; inwardly he rejoiced.

What drew him back here time and again was the scorn filling the old man, and this constant agitation. The past few months he had neglected himself altogether; his fly stood open and apparently he did not come home from bars at all. But Georg loved him twice as much for the sake of his disintegration and felt the awe for him which one feels in front of an exile. Errand boys whose faces were illuminated in the green territory of his desk came and went with proof pages and manuscripts. Babies practically.

Scarcely hatched. “Now Hindenburg is Reichspräsident,” said Georg, hoping to get Lawatsch to vent his spleen against the prevailing political developments.82 But the old man merely croaked: “Serves all of you right”; as if such things were no longer any affair of his.

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Georg heard him lay a penholder aside and then it was still. The upper world dissolved; soundless depths opened wide. “Who among you ever thinks of Kummer?

And who knows anything about him except that he was a proofreader and set himself in motion only with the greatest effort? You all laughed about it; you never picked up the clue. As always happens with your sort . . .”

Lawatsch’s voice echoed from a great distance. There was a pause and he resumed: “The truth of the matter was, in genuine erudition this modest Kummer surpassed all the rest of the gentlemen in the house. What hadn’t he studied? History, languages, antiquity, political economy, geography. He was familiar with the books and the lexicons, and if any one of you had gone to him in your perplexity, he, Kummer, would have been equipped to answer any query. Admittedly there was little chance he would have ever answered; because from his earliest childhood he was subject to an unspeakable anxiety — the anxiety that he would not be able to provide the right information in the moment when it counted . . .

You see now, don’t you, this anxiety was what made Kummer so slow. During his university years it prevented him from showing up for the official qualifying examinations, and it finally drove him to the very bottom of the class . . . Perhaps it was for the best that professionally he didn’t have to do anything except limp along after a text and make sure it was kept free of typographical errors. — Going with the times, hah! . . . going backwards in Time . . .”

Lawatsch wheeled about: An exotic bird from the primeval world who is startled to discover himself locked up in the cage of local news editor. He bristled angry feathers and snarled: “You’re going astray, young man!” Georg recoiled. For it seemed to him as 263

if the old man, confused by his memories, was actually referring to himself as the “young man.” And yet Lawatsch winked at the sofa even while he snarled, as if to say to it: “The two of us! Think of the adventures we survived together.” Only when he attempted to sneak out of the room did Georg convince himself that the winking was meant for him, and he recoiled again. Lawatsch even smirked at him; a cunning smile of complicity with which he evidently meant to convey that he saw in Georg a boon companion and would quite have enjoyed straying arm in arm with the young man down the old crooked paths again.

So everything’s written on my forehead? Georg, perplexed, posed the question to himself. In fact, over the summer he not seldom undertook expeditions of a kind which scarcely anyone was prepared to countenance. As a rule they began in the evening with a stroll in the direction of the city center. He would have no particular plan in mind, but in any case that was where the things which were more or less impending would have to happen. The more crowded the streets became, the greater would be Georg’s excitement. Should it be now or perhaps was it better to wait . . .

Many couples floated in the river of humanity whose banks were lined with display windows, restaurants, the entrances to houses, and bars and nightclubs. These days all the young people went in for sports and they could inspire nervousness with their ever so healthy looks. The livelong day it was nothing but sun, wind, and water.

What they really planned to do with such quantities of good health was a mystery. Though ultimately the effort they expended on their bodies made them weaker. Let it become only a little bit warmer and the same men who showed off their magnificent hardihood were quick to 264

shed jackets and vests as so much ballast. Of course one was not allowed to forget how good they looked in a sports shirt. This was why Ohly, the theater critic, wore a violet one. He seemed to fill it like a breath of air.

Besides sports they had girlfriends, too, in order to satisfy their need for love; it was part of the style.

Understandably a great emphasis in such relationships was put on sensuality, but for all that they were no less inclined to demand a share for the heart. The truth was, they had a very elevated notion of love. And so there was a mutual exchange of various feelings with the girlfriends, whoever they might be; they went to the movies with them, they telephoned, and on Sundays made excursions with them into the countryside. Everyone regarded Nature as the purest maiden around. These were relationships which underwent development and became rather intimate until one day they expired, and a different girlfriend would come into the picture. That was part of the style.

A popular place for couples to rendezvous was the waiting room of a particular tram station located in the center of the city; it was exceptional not least for having underground men’s and women’s toilets. During his deliberate wanderings Georg always stopped here. He would approach the girls who were standing about and try to elicit which of them were truly waiting for boyfriends. Most seemed to be only loitering—girls who held onto their lacquered purses as if they were precious possessions and never stopped sending glances resembling searchlights up and down the platform. Georg studied them. As he stared, they seemed to multiply themselves continually—but this did not puzzle him at all. For even after he trotted off again, having become tired of the little station, they kept on crossing his path everywhere. At other times there had been scarcely a trace of them; now 265

they practically made a gauntlet. Up and down they trolled along the intersections with smaller streets, and they waved like colorful streamers before the monotonous house façades. Confronted with their improbable numbers, Georg reeled with giddiness; it was the same giddiness which had seized him as a child when he wandered back and forth so very near the concealed object and his playmates had called to him: “You’re warm, very warm! Watch out or you’ll burn yourself!”

“I don’t want anything to do with whores,” Fred said once. Fred scorned such creatures . . . Suddenly Georg would rush into the thicket quick as a flash and address a girl; as if he had at last discovered the hiding place. Any girl, it did not matter. Then at least the spell was broken, and nothing would any longer prevent him from achieving the goal of his expedition; how the adventure turned out next varied with each case. With some girls, a price having been agreed on, Georg immediately set out for a district of overnight hotels; with others who appeared to be servant girls — for whom it was less a matter of turning a profit than of feeling and touching love—he would promenade through the more sentimentally inclined sections of the municipal park.

One evening he ran into a woman who by no means resisted going with him for very long, but was adamant that they visit a well-known music café first.

Surely she only took to the street now and again. The café was of the metropolitan type, where the public was catered to in every way possible. Garlands of paper flowers enforced a holiday mood, and a band despoiled people of their last shred of sense. When not blaring out patriotic tunes, which instantly filled the air with the sounds of battle, victory celebrations, and parading troops, it lapsed into a tender cooing that still managed to be a 266

racket. The many trumpets and kettle-drums prevented the crowd from really telling love and Fatherland apart; and therefore they burned for both in identical fashion. This mingling, undertaken in the interest of the Fatherland, was reinforced with a never-ending sequence of lighting effects that caused faces to become green, yellow, and red in turn, so that at last no one knew any longer what color people actually were. Now and then they turned into cannibals.

The woman murmured something about a child which she had given into foster care, and for whose upkeep she was alone responsible. To hear her tell it, the child had fallen ill and the doctor was prescribing treatments and medicines which she simply could not afford.

Her wretched existence shone forth in the adornments of this story just as the cafĂŠ did in its dress of paper garlands.

Georg, who did not quite understand her for all the noise, stifled the terrible suspicion that she was bringing in the sick child only to get a higher price. Fundamentally he accepted everything people told him because he was ashamed of being so skeptical. The whole place roared with laughter, but these salvos did not succeed in mowing down sorrow.

They left the cafÊ and went into a small hotel where the woman must have often led clients. Upstairs a giant double bed jumped out at them and then they were standing in a room which resembled all the previous hotel rooms to a tee. Water jug, nightstand, mirrored armoire — the objects were unfeeling instruments waiting for their users. It was like a dream which stubbornly repeats itself, and the woman belonged in the dream. She removed her clothes so impersonally she might as well have been one of the furnishings. Her body appeared used up enough for that, too. Incidentally she was modest and 267

demanded no more than what Georg gave her. The bed was cool, white wallpaper-blooms swayed up to the ceiling, the room was melting in the heat.

Afterwards, Georg brooded for a time with his eyes closed. Doubtless the story about the child was why today for the first time he thought about the encounters in these hotel rooms and the reason they held such an attraction for him: They were charming in their randomness. To bring them about he threw himself away, and he wanted to throw himself away. Otherwise he would become inextricably tangled in lies. He always discovered the same thing; when he tried to engage his whole self, reality slipped away from him and the words turned false in his mouth. The rest, too, could certainly see through exaggerated thinking or notice how untrue were the impulses of the soul; but it did not stop them from asserting themselves and even mightily flaunting their ideas and experiences . . . Paper garlands in a haze of smoke . . . No, this higher existence sprang from dubious roots and became a nearly intolerable burden. Better to cast it off and be a nobody; cleaner to pay for physical pleasure with money than to transfigure it with emotions which for girlfriends and boyfriends went by the name of “love.” And so he entered into it stripped completely bare and kept nothing hidden in his hands; then at least the nothing left him remained safe from decay. The head of the water jug seemed a harbinger of the room, which rose out of the ashes.

“Leaving so soon?” the woman asked. Georg turned around, astonished. He had begun mechanically to dress and had not for a moment considered staying longer. The woman did not let up. “If you want, we can meet again in eight days from now . . . I’ll do it with you then for free,” she added, slightly embarrassed.

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Which meant . . . In the first instant Georg shrank from this proposal, deeply disturbed. He had been ambushed even here — here where he imagined himself beyond every temptation! Ah, one was always being blended into the doings of the world — an ingredient for a dish. One was eternally having to begin all over again. And yet somehow he felt himself touched in a way he could not successfully resist. I’ll do it with you for free — this promise was innocent like none other. It shone so timidly in the rubble.

They made to go, the woman smiling and already halfway into everyday existence. When they were down in the street they separated with a promise: at the café, in eight days. Before the time was over Georg received a letter from Frau Bonnet in which — there having been a mutual silence between them for months—she abruptly broke off their friendship. Georg it seemed clear was on a different path, away from her, and everything one heard of him recently only confirmed her impression that he was now espousing alien ideas. Since under the circumstances a fruitful exchange of views was out of the question, to maintain their outward connection no longer served any purpose. The letter indulged in such general insinuations that Georg could not tell whether Frau Bonnet was mainly upset over how he was currently leading his life or whether she faulted him more for the artificial warmth of his report on that feminist lecture of hers. It did not matter. He hardly attempted to feel guilty, and instead openly confessed to himself that the friendship this letter was supposed to end had already withered away. Why would Frau Bonnet even still be writing him? The eight days were over. Georg waited for the woman from the hotel at the entrance to the music café. She did not come at the appointed hour. Patiently 269

he continued waiting. At times he thought he spied her in the swarm of girls and couples endlessly surging past, but had she really been among them she would of course have hurried over to him. The longer he waited the more convinced he was that he had never seriously counted on the miracle of her coming. After an hour and a half Georg went into the nearest movie house. !

Behind the through street stretched a long narrow courtyard surrounded by nothing but tenements which encroached on either side of the square. A late daylight was falling on the façades — when things got lively, only the melodies of barrel organs still clambered up the weathered plaster surfaces whose moldings and brackets might lay claim to earlier and better times. To the right and left doorways followed at short intervals, gloomy openings which looked so much the same that it would have been easy to confuse them. But that hardly mattered: the countless apartments and proletarian families in these places could be arbitrarily substituted for one another, too. That’s just how it is thought Georg as he approached the house door at the end of the courtyard which Neubert had indicated. The day before yesterday he had seen him in passing and seized the chance to arrange for a meeting this evening. More and more he was feeling put on the spot by communism; for a long time in fact he had wanted to have a thorough conversation with the man. Though it was a shame Neubert could not be induced to go to cafés but preferred to stay at home, where according to him one was far less bothered. The hallway on which his ground-floor apartment bordered smelled of old wallpaper, the remains 270

of food, and stopped-up toilets. Georg rang the bell. Just as he was beginning to feel impatient a girl appeared who showed him into a surprisingly spacious room.

“How are you?” asked Neubert.

To Georg’s annoyance, two other young men were seated in the corner of the room; he had come hoping to enjoy a confidential conversation. And if he were not very mistaken, Neubert had asked how he was chiefly for their benefit. Rather than for the sake of politeness, it was asked so he could begin the conversation by exposing Georg as a representative of the bourgeoisie—of the milieu in which such meaningless phrases were habitually exchanged. Both young men had manes of dark hair and horn-rimmed glasses and for the rest were as similar as twin brothers. Neubert gestured in their direction: “Two comrades . . . Comrade Buzaljev has just returned from Moscow.” He spoke of Moscow as of a neighboring town. Buzaljev or Volzujev — the name ended in –ev, so much was certain. The second comrade had an –ip at the end of his and was likely from the Balkans.

For sure both were revolutionaries. “One moment,” said Neubert and he went out. Georg hesitated whether or not to make up for Neubert’s omission and introduce himself but then decided against it, being unwilling to feed the suspicion which already more or less clung to him.

Under no circumstances would he be allowed to address anyone here with “Herr.” In addition to a broad window, the room possessed a glass door that opened onto a small green garden plot, really only a strip of grass running along a gigantic brick wall. On the other side of the wall, which held garden and room captive, more tenements, newly built, rose skyward.

Lacking something to do, Georg finally took a seat with the twins, who were stubbornly smiling to themselves.

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They persevered so in their silence it was as if they were convinced that a class alien like the one across from them lacked any means of communication. It was unfathomable why they had to sit with their backs to the room around the dreary fireplace — which had not even been set ablaze despite the cool September day. Could it be that the friendly little garden had recently proved a distraction from important discussions? Neubert entered, turned on the light, and sat himself down between the comrades and Georg.

“Before you came,” Neubert explained, “we were just talking through the general situation. It is quite unbelievable how clueless the German capitalists and their lackeys in the bourgeois press are. They drivel on about a revival of our industry and are actually completely in earnest when they let themselves hope that the economy is about to surge again. Always the same thing: they confuse economic change due to the laws of economics with accidental changes in the weather, and act as meteorologists with regard to them. But what is the truth about the so-called resurgence? That with the help of foreign credit,83 our firms are being made thoroughly efficient in a manner which will necessarily lead to a disastrous overproduction. In other words: instead of heading for a favorable economic constellation, we are accelerating the worldwide crisis that is already underway. And indeed, this time it isn’t going to be one of the usual periodic crises but a terminal crisis for the whole system. Because of the growing influence of the Soviet Union in Asia — the result of fabulously clever policies towards nationalities84 — limits are beginning to be imposed on the capitalist expansionary drive, limits which capitalism never had to reckon with earlier. India rouses itself from its lethargy; China organizes a boycott aimed at its former oppressors.85 In short, capitalism is skidding without fail into the abyss.

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In the space of a few years we’ll be in the midst of the next world war, which can have only one outcome: World Revolution . . .”

China, the next world war — Georg had never ever reflected on such connections. He admired Neubert for uncovering them so cold-bloodedly while he himself was gripped by a paralyzing fear of the void. It was as if the last veil had been ripped away and right before him a far too mighty panorama stretching endlessly into the future had been suddenly revealed. That was it — a panorama! And this panorama in which he feared to lose himself was no mirage but naked reality, which would have to evolve in just that way and not in any other.

One thing still puzzled him: that it was to unfold so to speak independent of human willing. What if humans were to change their minds and not go flocking into the panorama? The reality to which the panorama pretended relied precisely on its agreement with human needs and drives. It seemed insoluble to Georg. And therefore, going against every superior insight, he drew back with a shudder before the newly yawning spaces as from ghostly expanses, and attempted to protect himself from the compulsoriness which ruled them.

“Your panorama is absolutely compelling. I would have only one question . . .” Georg hesitated; his reservations were beginning to dissipate as he spoke. — “Namely, I ask myself if one is truly entitled to assume that the capitalists are dumb enough to bring about their own demise with their eyes wide open. They have only to notice the danger threatening them to be able to take up effective counter-measures against the world crisis. I don’t see how —” “What you’re saying is, to put it mildly, nonsense.

The only solution — here we agree — is communism, and 273

that means: the dictatorship of the proletariat. But how are the capitalists to achieve this insight on their own and even behave accordingly? It is the reverse: they will inevitably seal themselves off from genuine awareness with ever greater desperation; otherwise they automatically undermine their own existence. And what else is it but a portent of their approaching end that today they wallow in orgies of self-deception?

The twins sat there saying nothing, like watchmen.

Georg, who was affected by Neubert’s speech, gazed blankly at the darkened fireplace opening in which crumpled newspapers, cigarette butts, and used matches were heaped. A mass of indigestible refuse. So that’s our real situation he thought. And where are my kind of people, “the educated,” as they refer to themselves?

“Greetings all,” said a young woman who had just entered. She tossed aside a satchel. Her closely cut hair fell to either side.

“Did Karl make his report?” Neubert asked the woman.

“There was no Karl at the session.”

“How about that.”

“It’s true. — We waited for more than an hour.”

“Schweinerei. And you — what do you make of it?”

“Could be he’s still negotiating.”

The young woman left the room with a shrug of her shoulders. They always seemed to be coming and going here . . . The educated, their indifference — “After your awful flyers, nothing surprises me any longer.” An exclamation from the other corner of the room.

“Don’t go on like an idiot, Ruth . . .”

“Ruth” must have been in the room the entire time.

Georg, who noticed her only now, recognized her as the blond girl who had opened the door for him. In her loose, beltless dress she could have been a student doing 274

factory work who zealously strives to become a worker of the people.

“To think,” said Georg, “how the educated go on living without a conscience. Scarcely a one of them engages seriously with the existing state of affairs or feels any indignation over the injustice happening today. In fact most still regard their personal psychological conflicts as more important than external conditions, and strain upwards, full of idealism, without ever being familiar with the underneath — I mean the underneath of society. And how they emphasize their personal freedom, and what a miserable remnant of freedom it is.”

“Correct!” Georg was as pleased as a schoolboy by Neubert’s concurrence. — “That starts already with the modest artisans who make such a fuss over their independence whereas it is obvious that they are falling directly under the thumb of big concerns. The tavern owners are pure apostles of freedom. But as long as these dwarfish existences believe their advantage is found within the framework of the capitalist system, they will fight socialism as a matter of course. And with the higher middle classes things are not a whit different. Precisely because they are being willy-nilly reduced to proletarian status, the members of this stratum of society — students, officials, representatives of the liberal professions — adhere even more tenaciously to exhausted reactionary ideologies; with the unconscious wish of supporting the system to which they owe their social position.”

“Isn’t it frightful? . . . And these cultivated young people who lose themselves in a mist of soulfumes . . . The ego must be cleaned out—” Georg suddenly remembered Father Quirin’s linoleum room. Back then he had struggled against the cleaning out.

“Yes, yes . . .” Neubert turned to the comrades: 275

“If the thing doesn’t turn out well, tomorrow there’ll be a fine stink.” He whispered with the two of them. The young woman entered, gave the men a glance, and sat down next to the blond girl. Plainly no one would be given anything to drink. Georg felt he was being overlooked as long as he was by the hearth, and so he stood up, took another cigarette from the table without asking, and then casually ambled over to where the women were — who in his view were obviously being paid too little attention. They broke off their conversation and looked up in amazement.

“Cool this evening,” he said. Nothing else occurred to him.

The young woman looked at Ruth: “So you really do think —” Silence.

“Have you been working a long time for the Party?” he asked Ruth. As though on a guided tour.

“But of course. Where were you last night, Erna?

The discussion was organized fabulously, and all of us missed you there.”

Georg froze. They acted, these women, as if he had broken in on them furtively and were guilty of an inexcusable transgression. After a short and painful interval, which he added for the sake of propriety, he returned to the fireplace. Luckily the deliberations there had been concluded.

“Excuse us,” said Neubert, “we’re in the midst of important preparations, and besides that, tomorrow a comrade from Z.K. whom we did not expect is arriving.”

Georg felt grazed by the breath of Revolution. It was necessary for him to be clear . . . “Let me come back to the behavior of the educated class, that is indeed the thing which concerns me most.”

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“Certainly . . . If I’m not mistaken, the meaning of what you just said was, the freedom of the individual in bourgeois society is a sham. Which corresponds perfectly to the Marxist conception. Except that your negative finding must be supplemented with the positive one: Through their leap out of the anarchy of the private capitalist economy and into the collective socialist economy, an illusion of freedom will be traded in for genuine freedom. — This process of collectivization is being carried out at the present time in the Soviet Union —” Georg eagerly interrupted. “How I’d like to find out more about the collectives! . . . I can well imagine that many of those made to work in a collective would find themselves usefully scrubbed clean. The collective cancels the selfishness of such persons, forces them to divest themselves of a false superfluity, and leaves them so shorn that only the truly necessary things shine through them. Are you not of the same opinion?”

“Possibly.” Neubert was impatient. “Anyway, the realization of the socialist order depends on transforming the former owner of private property into the collective man. Not the individual human being but the community is the highest principle . . . You know of course that in the Soviet Union the collectives go all the way up to the top. In film for example there are no longer any stars, merely anonymous achievements whose source is precisely the collective . . .”

“Perhaps something of the kind can happen with cinema, but —” “Over there, humanity is being reconstructed,” concluded Neubert with the confidence of the experienced technician who repairs a machine that has become unusable.

But Georg could not get past his objection. “Do they also insist on works of art being produced in collec277

tives? In the final analysis, films are not art . . . Pardon me for saying so, but it’s my firm opinion that some achievements will always be reserved for exceptional individuals . . . And besides, there is much which can only be discovered within oneself.”

“Aha. Then you believe the artist is an exception.”

Ruth rebuked Georg with a sharpness which made it clear she was condemning not only his bourgeois prejudices but the conceitedness of artists: Artists were not better than other people. Through her Marxism she was able to derive artists from society, and since society supervised artists so closely, it followed that it was also superior to them. Oddly enough, all at once the women were sitting with the men. Everyone seemed to be waiting for Georg to justify himself; everyone except Neubert, who trampled on something and tried to shove it in the fireplace. The young woman whom they addressed as Erna went out to the door.

“In Moscow,” said the twins, “the revolutionary writers and painters have come together to create collectives. They hold discussions about different ideas and then work together to realize the theme which has been selected . . . It’s a good thing.”

The twins had a low tranquil voice and rolled their r’s. In reality only one of them spoke, but the two of them formed a collective so indissoluble that the one who was silent for the moment always seemed to be the one speaking; through which the strange impression arose that the two were speaking together.

“It seems very good to me, too,” Georg assured his listeners—he wished to be conciliatory. “Especially since it is among yourselves that performances with a revolutionary tendency are needed much more than works of art. And such things turn out best with a group of like-minded people.”

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The two comrades leaned forward attentively: “I don’t understand.”

“He means to say,” explained Erna, who in spite of her frequent absences was permanently present, “that art in the Soviet Union is not genuine art, because it pursues propagandistic aims.”

The way he was misrepresented!

But before Georg could even object, Neubert, who had not been listening in the least, interrupted: “Hey Ruth, telephone Karl’s again, he should drop by.”

“What for—” “Listen, don’t be stupid.”

In leaving the room Ruth squinted at Erna, who was shaking her hair into place and cozying up to Neubert for a moment.

“Naturally all artistic products must agree with the general party line,” replied the twins. “Every product which goes against it is counterrevolutionary and therefore collapses by itself.” The confident manner in which the two proclaimed their verdict was intimidating to Georg. And then too: he noticed that they did not call for things to happen, they emerged out of events. At least one of them had just been in Moscow. Could it really be that they knew their way around here, too?

“As it happens, art is of no interest to me,” Georg said, defending himself, “especially reactionary art. I was only standing up for —” “What you stand up for,” declared Neubert, “is petit-bourgeois individualism.”

And now he understood. They did not want to understand him, that was all. Would they have to be joined at the hip to the Party forever, eternally and unconditionally? And yet perhaps it was right for these people to barricade themselves behind their idea-blocks. Of course 279

there was still one difficulty— “Pardon me, if, being an outsider, I ask a stupid question. But given the fact that our educated are unanimous in regarding themselves as individuals — why doesn’t the Party attempt to enter into the way they look at things and gradually attract them to itself? Many among them are inclined to communism, and yet they are pushed away . . . I don’t suggest anything that would mean concessions . . .”

“We needn’t have any great concern for the perverted way of looking at things that reigns among the bourgeoisie. In the first place, we expect that” — Neubert could have been reading from an instruction manual — “with their increasing economic misery the intellectuals will make short work of their own individualism. And in the second place, in the class struggle the attitude of the middle classes, to which your intellectuals belong, has no decisive role to play anyway. As we know, according to Marx the petite bourgeoisie always aligns itself with the victorious class.

As soon as the proletariat gains control, the intellectuals will fall to it like ripe fruit . . . And then, too, what could the Party do to recruit a larger following among bourgeois intellectuals?”

“How shall I put it? For me the most important thing was something else . . .” Georg felt despair — once again, Neubert had installed him in a panorama. There was no way to grab a firm hold; right away perspectives yawned, receding views. For him the most important thing had been the terrific rigidity with which people here confronted not only intellectuals. “I’ll be frank. Sometimes I have the feeling that you are harming yourselves with your — yes, it needs to be said — with your radical exclusivity. There are so many firmly rooted ideas and forces which resist communism, and yet you refuse to examine 280

any other kind of thinking and, under some circumstances, to make use of it for your own purposes. And that is how the opposition often gains an easy victory . . . Please set me straight if I’m talking nonsense.”

Nothing but faces all around.

“Would there be no possibility, for instance, of the Party reaching a practical understanding with the Social Democrats?” added Georg, as though from a place of exile.

“Then again, I have no idea —” “Here we go.”

Immediately Georg regretted having brought in that business with the Social Democrats. The twins drew themselves up to their full height with a hostile air and smiled to themselves the same as they had at the beginning of the evening. “Lenin has said —” In the fireplace a match slipped down over the newspapers.

Neubert: “You completely misunderstand the nature of a revolutionary political party. A revolutionary party makes no compromises, especially not with class traitors.

And just as little can it acknowledge criticism which comes from without. The proletariat alone may criticize its tactics, since the revolutionary party is its vanguard.”

“I only thought — because of opposing forces.” An aimless, ashamed stammer. Georg had come from outside.

“We on our side reckon with an imminent resolution. The Party is receiving more new members than ever, and the next election should cost the Social Democrats numerous seats. The crisis will do the rest.”

A girl dressed in red entered. “Greetings all.”

“But no — ?” asked Neubert.

“He still had half an hour’s work . . . So a bit later, I’m telling you . . . Meanwhile I’ll arrange it for you that —” “Hildchen,” called Erna from outside.

281

He would have to be “Karl.” Hilde cleared her throat embarrassedly as she caught sight of Georg and then whispered with Erna. She was pale — a working girl like so many others, who came from one of the rear tenements with the substitutable entrances. But this paleness was unable to spread further over her, for it was checked by the happiness which filled Hilde. The happiness of having her place: the Party. Without a doubt here she had hoped to find none but comrades to whom she could tell everything. Now she went up to the twins, who had given her a nod. And while she spoke with them, something miraculous occurred: these two, who for Georg had been one indivisible entity, divided into entirely different young men, each of whom behaved towards Hilde in his own fashion. The one ended in –ev, the other in –ip. From the dim window wall Ruth streaked across the room. Neubert, next to whom she remained standing, laid an arm on her hips and in so doing tilted his chair.

Ruth did not disengage herself from him, and yet she avoided uttering tender expressions which might have been regarded as bourgeois. In the society which was to come, love too would change. Everyone spoke at the same time of some vote in the factories, the room was full of smoke. Numbers . . . the confusion . . . the waiting around . . . Georg was left to himself to stare at one and the same point. I must manage to say what is wrong with human beings — “Listen.” Georg addressed Neubert excitedly.

“Please.”

“We did not finish with one point. The human being in the collective: how does that work? I’m also very much against a person blowing himself up into a personality. Precisely the opposite: the ego must become small, 282

very small. That’s why earlier I said that one must clean out the ego —” “But just a moment! What are you actually always going on about? I, too, am a so-called individual, and I declare to you here and now that I have never experienced any need whatsoever to set myself off from the mass of other people as a special being, and for the life of me cannot conceive of something called an ego which has to be cleaned out the same as an apartment.

Even if we admit that different tastes exist, that one man prefers blond hair whereas the other one adores black hair above everything — well, these differences, which probably you call “individual characteristics,” have no importance. What does matter? The only thing which matters is the victory of the Revolution. Or if you really do insist: the introduction of the anonymous proletarian.

That would mean something.”

“So then taken for himself man is nothing at all?

That wasn’t what I meant. I want the human being to get to the bottom of himself . . . but to get rid of him . . . The way you look at things, the individual is only there for the sake of society, as the means to an end for society . . .”

“Correct — let me tell you, when I see people coming along with their “individuality,” sometimes I feel downright irritable.”

“And death?” — the correct was still reverberating inside Georg — “every human being must die alone.”

“Come again?”

“I’m saying: a person does not die in the collective but alone. And therefore he also stands outside of the collective. Do you understand?”

Silence.

“That a person dies, my friend, is a plain fact of nature 283

which we are unfortunately in no position to change at the moment . . . However, there’s one thing I don’t think I’m mistaken about . . . For those who have been liberated from capitalism, death will be made easier through the awareness that they persist in the community which was their life . . . What’s the problem with that? You look for problems where there aren’t any.”

Neubert let his mouth hang open and peered mistrustfully at his conversational partner. I’m alone thought Georg. And he realized that the others truly did not understand what mattered to him. They had never been alone with themselves but had lived from the beginning without an ego, facing outward . . . So without human beings . . . Once again his glance fell on Neubert, who sat there with such composure as if to say: What I say is right.

He had a wan, freckled face and in himself produced a rather scanty impression. A nothing, when one examined him carefully. And yet this nothing was of a terrifying rightness, and whoever got to talking with him did not end up seeing him that way, because the phenomenon that was Neubert completely disappeared behind the rightness.

“Enough of you two and your idle chatter,” cried Erna. “The whole evening you’ve been boring us silly. And here I am just bursting with impatience about whether it’s going to come off tomorrow morning. But you! Croaking on, exactly like frogs. ‘Individual personality, collective’ — how grand that sounds — and the workers with nothing to eat. Oh yes! . . . Stuff your theology. If only Karl would get here —” She stood at the fireplace as though issuing a challenge.

The pair of comrades smiled like high school teachers.

Neubert did not move.

“Isn’t it necessary for a person to achieve total theoretical clarity?” asked Hilde shyly.

284

“Hildchen, my child.” Erna stroked the pale girl and left the room.

“She’s got her monthlies today,” suggested Ruth.

All the chairs were moved about. Georg felt attracted to Erna even though she had spoken against him, and he silently reproached himself for what perhaps were his overly clever objections. In the end I’m superfluous went through his mind. But could he do anything differently?

A profound dejection overcame him. What should I do . . . one has to do something . . . the newspaper . . . Neubert’s question just then.

“In the course of our discussion,” said Georg to Neubert, “you asked me how the Party might acquire a larger following among the intelligentsia. I would think that there’d be no harm in repeatedly showing the educated class that their fear of losing their freedom in a socialist state is a mere figment of the imagination. That then they will no longer need to worry about surviving, and will therefore be much freer in reality than they are now. Only the collective will make them into the individuals they wish to be . . .” His conclusions felt utterly intoxicating. “I have the firm intention of bringing up these things in the Morgenbote. For instance, in my reports on lectures.”

The twins shook their heads thoughtfully. “You’ll be allowed to write that in the Morgenbote?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’m not so sure,” declared Neubert. “By the way, only yesterday there was a prominent article in your paper which — without any apparent provocation — went on the warpath against the trend towards a planned economy.

The author warmed up the old argument again”—Neubert turned and with a scornful tone addressed the comrades — “that only private initiative is capable of sustaining an organism as complex as the German economy. A commis285

sioned piece, naturally.” And back again to Georg: “You read the article?”

“No.” Georg almost never read the newspaper. “But then I don’t see to what extent such an article would get in my way. Many things are printed in the paper and as for me, up to now I have been able to write whatever I felt myself impelled to write . . . You may recall my report on the Congress.”

“That was then. In the meantime the situation has changed fundamentally. People will gossip, and the rumor that recently your publisher Petri has been seeking a loan cannot be dismissed out of hand. If it turns out to be true — and the aforementioned article only makes it seem more likely — then the financial backers will impose their conditions. I would say that in your optimism you fail to take these events into account.”

“It’s the first I’m hearing of it,” Georg said, embarrassed. At the moment he could not see what the consequences might be for him.

Ruth laughed dismissively: “Where do you live, anyway?”

Georg paid her no attention. “The more I think of it, the less I believe the rumor. With all the advertisements that are in the paper . . . And the mood there speaks against it, too.”

“Appearances are deceiving,” observed Neubert. “For my part I assume that Petri’s investments have been too large. But even if he’s not in a tight spot — such rumors rarely come out of nowhere. In our present case, they would probably go back to Petri having for some time traveled in certain very capital-rich circles; the same which have always been inclined to look askance at him because of his socialist leanings. The rascal’s got a fine nose. It could well be he’s sniffed out long since that with the 286

crisis there will first be a sharp turn to the right, and already he’s making preparations to shore up his connections.”

“And yet” — Georg tried to comfort himself — “you too consider that there may be no financial trouble.

And until the reversal reaches me . . . Besides I can only repeat that constraints have never been imposed on me. And I would never accept any. In this sense, people at the newspaper are extremely decent.”

“The class-interest places limits on decency.”

“We shall see.”

“We shall see.”

Just then Georg remembered the scene with Albrecht and his confidence yielded to a pang of distress. The thunder of the Panorama was approaching; China was no longer far away. Yes, those ghostly expanses would swallow him, too . . . And yet he still could not grasp that he was to be delivered up to its onslaught. As if the whole thing were a puppet play . . .

A younger, powerfully-built man entered, followed

by Erna. His features showed decision. Some kind of mechanic. Karl.

“Called off,” she said.

Karl made a motion as though he were crossing out something and looked quickly around the circle.

“Who—” He indicated Georg with his head; Neubert provided the information. Everyone stood by.

“I won’t disturb you,” said Georg.

Having given him an appraising look, Karl offered Georg his hand. “You can stay if you want.”

From close up Karl appeared thoroughly exhausted.

Hilde pushed a chair over to him. The twins kept themselves in the background.

“Erna, make some tea,” said Karl.

287

From sentences Karl jerked out in fits and starts Georg gathered that a strike promoted by the Party had been thwarted at the last minute through the maneuvering of union representatives. Karl spoke of a broken promise and added: “Our people are boiling with rage.” A clump of people formed, out of which Neubert’s voice rang. The comrade from Z.K. . . . flyers . . . a new action — they seemed to have forgotten that Georg was there. Erna brought the tea. Georg started to leave without saying anything. When he was by the door, Karl gave him a wave.

The courtyard lay in darkness. !

“What is it?”

Herr Krug, who has evidently only heard the motion of the door, stands in the middle of his office bewildered, staring at nothing; as if he were a guest in his own quarters. Any other time when Georg visits him early in the morning, he is sitting safe and secure at his desk, reading the newspapers through or at any rate pretending to do so, and Georg, who is used to this piece of theater, will wait patiently for the desk chair to rotate and for Herr Krug to face him with those friendly cheeks of his that thrive under the protection of the lenses of his glasses.

But today?

Krug’s office is no longer recognizable either. Snow lies outside, lovely white snow, the small disc of the sun hangs above the roofs, and everything should have led to the warm room silently drowsing its way into the peacefulness of the winter scene. But the room is in a perfect turmoil, like a sleeper startled out of her dream.

“What is it?”

A second later Georg discovers the cause of the 288

alteration: the furnishings are new. Instead of the old desk, which had aged together with the room and would not let itself be subtracted mentally from it any more than the window or the door, a crate-like monster is making itself at home; it shines a presumptuous yellow and produces an airless space about itself in which are rising the uprights of an etagère that offers endless modern possibilities for storing things. Georg seeks without success to bring to mind the former shelves, seemingly mislaid. As he takes in the armchair, he regrets no longer seeing the gray padding he used to secretly pick at. It had sprouted from the one armrest.

“In any case they ought to have let me know yesterday,” says Herr Krug, who still stands there helpless. “But no, everything is dumped and moved around as suits the gentlemen in charge . . . On top of which the secretary has called in sick. I find myself in the middle of a junk room and don’t know what I’m doing.”

Georg does in fact have the impression that the various pieces of furniture are arbitrarily stowed. An entire end of the etagère extends past the door frame, and the yellow desk pushes blindly towards the center of the room. All the objects appear haphazard and as though shunted about.

“I keep on looking, keep on looking . . . ,” murmurs Herr Krug. He is talking to himself and as he does so his eye strays uneasily over his papers — these heaps of newspapers, written-on sheets, letters, and manuscripts which, as he informs every visitor with a sigh, he must root through day after day. Before they always formed a wild mass of papers and, despite the seeming disorder, obeyed strict rules and maintained coherence; now they are stacked in neat piles of equal height across the desktop.

No doubt about it, a foreign hand has been laid on them, 289

perhaps with the thought even of establishing order. And yet Georg is not able to adequately account for Krug’s agitation. Assuredly none of his papers are missing, and it would be easy to re-establish the old disorder. Without warning Krug dives into the piles and extracts several sheets, then absentmindedly lays them aside.

“I would gladly help you,” says Georg. But scarcely has he approached the desk when an angry, unintelligible sound erupts from Herr Krug, who shoots out a sudden arm to conceal the sheets he has withdrawn. Dismayed, Georg steps back. Even so, he has already seen: the newspapers are years old and the uppermost letter bears a date of March 15.

So that’s it. Manuscripts which had been searched for high and low, reports that once upon a time were of great consequence, requests and complaints which in their day called for a response — all laid aside in these piles. Who would not have believed them long since moldered away to nothing? Then one day, something or other is set in motion which communicates itself to this office and the appalling thing takes place: the darkness begins to stir and the whole forgotten jumble seems ready to flutter out of its grave . . . Herr Krug gazes out the window without saying a word.

It has to be obvious what he does alone, night after night, at the newspaper during those hours which he claims to use for catching up on the day’s tasks. Surely he only sits before his desk at first, stealthily waiting until the secretary leaves and no messenger sweeps through the corridors any longer. A deep silence takes hold, and it may be that he actually has the intention to busy himself with his papers: to discard the worthless things, take care of unfinished correspondence, and prepare one or another article for publication. But precisely because he is so 290

alone, the unshakable feeling seizes him that with this activity he would be neglecting something incomparably more important. The only question is what that might be. Georg pictures to himself how Herr Krug, in the midst of the reigning silence, leans back to brood, tracing endless circles with his chair. He is so to speak making circles around himself and — despite his great efforts — is not able to find what he is searching for. It remains buried, buried forever. At last he stops, exhausted. Slowly the papers come back to him. He takes a good look at them and smiles—a smile Georg imagines to be as despairing as it is harsh — then adds a few more pages to the ones already there. What if these heaps of his keep on growing taller and taller, up to the ceiling . . .

It is snowing outside. “The chair,” Georg exclaims.

And indeed, the old desk chair is standing in the lefthand window corner, spared as by a miracle. Herr Krug, having turned around, also notices and sits himself down in it. His cheeks are creased and gray. Suddenly he starts to talk. He is speaking of his past; clearly he feels the need to speak his fill. And it turns out that at the same time Doktor Petri purchased the newspaper, he took on Krug. Along with Lawatsch, that makes Krug one of the most senior editors. The more he gets going, the more openly does Krug give expression to an unsuspected resentment against Petri. Georg learns that not only has the man known all along how to exploit Krug like a slave, with the help of cheap praise and empty promises; he has often made him serve the most questionable purposes besides. And that for his thanks, younger editors—men undeniably lacking maturity and experience in the craft — have been ruthlessly put over him — “If you only knew the things that go on in this place. Everything done just so, naturally, since we are 291

civilized people. Go and ask Lawatsch, he knows the situation as well as I . . . Oh, what stories I could tell you —” Oblivious of the new furniture, Krug bumps into the edge of the desk as he is speaking — an accident which only intensifies his bitterness. Instantly Georg realizes why Krug has become the way he is, and yet he still cannot grasp that this is the same man who is regarded by everyone as Petri’s most loyal follower and considered the very soul of benevolence by the entire editorial department, down to Fräulein Peppel. “Oh yes, our Krug,” one and all exclaim, and with such radiant grins it would seem that they already taste Krug’s friendliness from naming him.

“Neither will I conceal from you the fact,” continues Krug, “that the newspaper is scarcely an isolated example.

It is but the reflection of prevailing conditions. The discoveries I’ve made in society! They subscribe to charitable causes and do not give their own household employees enough to eat. They preach the value of community and lead utterly dissolute private lives. Apart from several praiseworthy exceptions, everywhere I see nothing but the most lamentable hardness of heart . . . To be sure, I’m in favor of individualism, too, still I would never confound honest self-assertion with crass selfishness. The way things look to me, it is even the case that individuals should be able to develop themselves better in a socialist state than under our present conditions . . . Perhaps you can tell I’ve been reading your most recent filings with the greatest profit. I am so completely of your opinion that I shall not hesitate to state that the collapse of the capitalist world order would not cause me to shed one single tear.”

“I’m really happy to hear it,” Georg assures Krug. He is still too shocked to fully absorb the man’s conversion.

And the revelations out of the newspaper! Though what a shame they concern only past events. “Do you know 292

much about the changes that one hears are taking place here at the paper? I have a definite feeling, there’s something in the air . . . Doubtless the most important thing would be to find out if Petri has taken out credit or not. That he denies it himself is of course no proof . . . We’d be falling into a frightful dependency.”

The telephone rings. Herr Krug reaches into empty space; the apparatus lies on the floor between the desk and the window. There are no more rings.

“Must be in-house,” muses Krug. And then, somewhat distractedly: “Changes? You know of course that Albrecht leaves us on January 1. He’s finally been captured by that big Berlin bank. Or he’s captured it . . . The news is that he’s also getting married then.”

“To whom?”

“A Fräulein Walter, if I have it right . . . But don’t you know her anyway? Ohly’s told me something to that effect . . . From everything one hears it seems Albrecht’s managed things for himself once again.”

Beate — — — “Pardon me, I trust I’m not disturbing anyone?”

A man has entered, a youngish very polite gentleman with hair brushed stiffly back; he wears a striped suit from which a reddish fountain pen is peeping. It is certain that other pens are hiding within. The striped suit sits so neatly it would seem that the gentleman has also been trimmed to measure.

“Our new managing director, Herr Grün.”

Herr Grün politely says hello. “Since there was no answer when I called, I’m simply stopping by myself . . .

Apparently the switchboard is not functioning very well . . .”

He looks about the room: “I only wished to convince myself that my instructions have been carried out.”

His words flow with an ease that lets one conclude 293

they are always at his disposal. Like the fountain pen.

Nothing required beyond a little unscrewing somewhere.

Beate — Albrecht — and I didn’t know anything about it.

“Now then —” Herr Grün continues to stand before the front of the desk with his head cocked to one side, rocking back and forth patronizingly. With one eye shut he examines the armchair. “Everything’s in order.

Even the armchair’s perfectly fine again, wouldn’t you say?”

“What haven’t you done for me,” Herr Krug exclaims. “A most pleasant surprise. Coming through the door early this morning I thought to myself, ‘God only knows, the firm has hired gnomes recently . . . ’ As far as my papers are concerned — ” “Oh, you needn’t worry.” Herr Grün raises his arms imploringly. “For us your papers are a holy shrine.”

“I know, I know . . .” Krug looks around the room.

“This armchair — truly magnificent, upon my word. And then the etagère . . . Though to be honest, I still have the feeling it should be set back a bit. But I might just as well be mistaken.”

Why wouldn’t Beate have preferred Ohly— — Herr Grün looks at the etagère, the etagère with its empty compartments looks at Herr Grün. He walks up to it, gives it a knock, and pushes on it here and there without causing it to move a hair.

“That better?” he inquires, breathing heavily.

“Excellent.”

As a matter of fact, even though nothing has changed, every deficiency seems overcome. The furniture has turned into an arrangement where nothing is lacking.

It has, one might say, received a vital midpoint to which it can meaningfully relate. Filled with the consciousness of being that midpoint, Herr Grün, who himself is lacking in nothing, sits complacently on the arm of the chair, and 294

it is as though the stripes of his suit run across all the surfaces of the furniture . . . What business of mine is Beate anymore — — “I would like to compliment you personally” — Herr Grün turns to Georg without warning — “as your reports of the last several weeks have sent me into raptures. And incidentally, Herr Doktor Petri, who pressed them in my hands yesterday, is also very keen on them. Admittedly I speak only as a layman, but let me say this much: You serve these reports up in exactly the right form. As I always say, the public prefers lively forays to sober bores and it responds to highly seasoned fare today more than ever . . .” To Krug: “We ought to have such things more often.”

“How’s that?” Herr Krug has not really been listening, because in the meantime his papers have fallen into disarray. Plainly he stretched out his arm for some reason.

He broods as though spellbound over the confusion.

“Pardon,” says Herr Grün. Always polite.

“Please, don’t trouble yourself . . .” Herr Krug looks up. “One cannot deny it, our young friend here is quite the charmer . . . Although I must confess to you that for my part I should regret having to dispense with purely objective reports.”

I might as well have a magic cap on and be invisible thinks Georg, who is pursued by Petri’s verdict on his reports. In the midst of which Neubert occurs to him, and inwardly he rejoices. Can he not then write everything that he wants to write? The communists were wrong after all; their prophecy that a stop would be put to his writing has not been borne out.

Herr Grün swings himself off the chair. “Wait, there’s still a piece of confidential news, gentlemen! The typesetters in the Reich are threatening to strike, and we 295

are preparing ourselves for new battles over wages . . . The outcome remains fully uncertain . . . It is obvious that the communists are pulling the strings. How unbelievable that this pack of robbers is visibly gaining adherents even from among sensible elements . . . High time, I always say, to oppose communist propaganda with every means at our disposal.” His hair shines as if lacquered, his stripes are lined up in military array. The disorder on the desktop has increased.

“As much as I am able to acknowledge your standpoint,” exclaims Herr Krug, “so little would I care to let myself be carried away and wrongly condemn the communists lock, stock, and barrel. My colleague will confirm that I am not afraid to acknowledge that some of the demands of the communists are thoroughly just.

Our chief danger is—as well in politics, precisely in politics — one-sidedness. And for this reason I speak of some demands; others, where they are not unjustified, are at best utopian. Indeed, weighing the pros and cons I even begin to think that, taken altogether, communism is a dubious adventure to be repudiated by all reasonable people. “Dubious” I say, and herein I find myself fortified by your appalling news. And so you see that we do more or less agree in essentials; though it is true I do not go so far as you in every one of the inessential points, and here I will not presume to decide what may be essential or, as the case may be, inessential.”

Herr Grün raises himself up on tiptoe. “You hit the nail on the head.” For a moment he keeps aloft, musing, then sinks down gently and with a start glances at the clock. “Duty, gentlemen, duty . . .”

After he has disappeared, Herr Krug settles himself at his desk; exactly as if the desk had never been exchanged.

His cheeks are the familiar friendly cheeks once again.

296

Georg stares at the floor . . . To be trampled on like that, to have to writhe like a worm . . .

The furniture is asunder. The room is not itself.

“My daily bread,” groans Herr Krug, pointing to the mass of papers. “And so, my friend, until tomorrow.” He makes circles with his chair.

297

XIII. “Delighted.”

Bank director Heydenreich gave Georg his hand.

His wife and he stood next to a wide doorway. From the formal room which Georg had just crossed one could see through the doorway into a large neighboring room filled with a throng of guests. Georg wanted to spin out this greeting into a conversation, but the audience which had been granted him was already at an end. And the master of the house left the impression of being unapproachable in any case. He had a nasal voice which seemed always to pass through an enfilade of rooms before eventually making its way out into the open, and he displayed his paunch with such dignity it seemed no ordinary paunch but a landed estate that had been swollen with annexations. The man with the full beard next to him would have to be Professor Fischer; in any event he met the description sketched by Rosin back then . . . Fischer, you must know Fischer . . .

“Herr Professor, allow me . . . ,” said Frau Heydenreich, and she introduced Georg, mentioning his activity at the Morgenbote. Georg made a polite bow.

To his disappointment, Professor Fischer turned away from him immediately after the introduction — conduct which could only spring from the man’s awareness of the immeasurable distance separating rigorous science from superficial journalism. Though perhaps he might have been distracted at that moment. As Georg stood there, superfluous, Frau Heydenreich produced a laugh for some social reason or other — exactly as if she were to cause a 298

pair of brightly tinkling little bells to begin to vibrate, little bells which were in no way connected to her physical self. Then she drew forth an attractive youth.

“This is Robby . . . I believe Robby would like to make your acquaintance.”

Robby’s flaxen hair was curly as a girl’s. He explained that he studied with Fischer and that he found Georg’s reports very daring. And as for Rosin — here Robby grinned — he was frequently somewhat confused but knew an incredible amount. Having gotten this far he was recalled by Frau Heydenreich, who clearly had need of him again. Around her neck she wore a chain of pearls, and a huge yellow blossom stood out from her simple dress, which flowed down effortlessly.

Now I’ll go over there myself decided Georg, and with a deliberately blasé expression he sauntered into the adjacent room, where he had long surmised the buffet would be. And sure enough, the buffet was there but was so stubbornly beset he could only edge his way gradually through the crowd. When he finally reached the foremost line, his blaséness failed him at the sight of platters of fowl, delicate salmon, many-tinted salads, and frothy cakes. In its place came a blind craving to help himself to as many different things as possible. He was still roaming from dish to dish in obedience to the craving when he collided with a gentleman who was reconnoitering the same territory.

“Elster,” said the gentleman. They exchanged a few amiable words which really came down to Herr Elster playfully warding off Georg’s apologies. A well-groomed man of somewhat advanced years, with smooth rosy cheeks and sporting a seal ring. Georg observed how he eased off with measured step in the direction of the glasses and liquors and then, oppressed by the feeling that he himself was deficient in this kind of superiority, looked 299

for a quiet corner where he might devote himself to his booty undisturbed. That way the evening would not be an utter waste.

Why really would Frau Heydenreich, who had never invited him before, think of him now? “All of us are attending the Fischer lecture,” she had let him know over the telephone two days earlier. “And afterwards the whole party will reassemble at our place.” Perhaps she thought he would have to report on the lecture and hoped to influence him in favor of Fischer — through whom it seems she had recently added luster to her salon. This suspicion, which unfortunately made itself felt in Georg only now, received a certain confirmation from the fact that Frau Heydenreich had actually shown little grace when accepting his confession at the beginning of the evening—his confession, namely, that he had been prevented at the last minute from attending the lecture. As if he still went to lectures of his own free will!

Georg was in a thoroughly excellent humor as he set aside his empty plate; but then he discovered that the portion of food he had demolished fell gravely short of the huge masses of food still heaped up on other plates.

It was the same old story. Whenever he judged that he was being reckless, always there were people who outdid him by far, and it would turn out that he had been too timid. If Professor Fischer was especially unrestrained when attacking his food, that was of course to be explained by the fact that he was in the midst of discussing a scientific problem with a white-haired colleague — a matter so profound that he was forgetting to suspend the more mechanical activity of eating.

“You must know Charlie,” said Robby, who was passing by with a girl. “How about that. You don’t know Charlie? And here I thought the whole world knows 300

Charlie. Shall I share a secret with you? Our girl here is in the habit of taking lonely walks beneath the moon. Isn’t that so, Charlie? Time to go . . .” Charlie and he joined some other young persons who went roaming about as a loose group or else formed a dense cluster. The room was humid and very noisy. Following a stream of people which had suddenly coalesced, Georg turned towards the formal room out of which he had first come. But he halted in the doorway, astonished. Never had he seen anything to equal this! The entire room swam in a soft light which had no visible origin but disseminated itself evenly in every direction. It wove the walls and the ceiling together into a uniform pale gray, played about the free-standing divan at the center of the room, and poured itself over an inordinate number of comfortable armchairs and their cushions. A shadowless salon-landscape. To increase the magic yet more, four internally illuminated glass cabinets were arrayed along the window wall among the hills and the groves; still as glowworms, they held nothing but glittering things: porcelain bowls, beautifully curving cups, chains, coins, exotic animal figurines. Reversing his earlier steps, Georg passed through the room, lingering briefly in front of these objects out of a vague feeling of sympathy for their refinement. As he neared the back wall he heard a “marvelous” being uttered somewhere.

Frau Heinisch. She was seated in the depths of the room and dressed in a shining silver robe. Next to her stood Doktor Wolff, looking annoyed. “Marvelous,” she exhaled, “meeting you here in the middle of this wilderness.”

Wolff looked up. “Well then, some other time . . . I’m glad to see you in better company.” He smiled at Georg with a mocking familiarity, elevating him to the status of a co-conspirator and at the same time signaling that he had fallen into the trap. Since Frau 301

Heinisch did not know what to answer, Wolff was able to walk away unpunished. Meanwhile the room had filled with guests who were wandering back in.

“Stay for a moment,” pleaded Frau Heinisch. “There’s so much I could tell you about Frau Bonnet . . . I’ve been back for a week.” Unless he were mistaken, she was conjuring up the memory of Frau Bonnet solely to chain him to herself . . . Like so long ago — “She’s broken off our friendship,” said Georg, recalling the unexpected letter of dismissal which Frau Bonnet had written him that past summer.

Frau Heinisch, who had not known of the affair with the letter, showed herself to be concerned only for Frau Bonnet. “She certainly must have done it in a fit of depression. You have no idea what the woman is going through . . . I spent a whole two weeks with her down there and am still in an unbelievable state over this cruel misfortune. For which she is not in the least to blame . . .”

The tip of Frau Heinisch’s nose was a trifle red, as if she had the sniffles.

Georg pulled up a chair for himself. “I know nothing about it. Won’t you tell me the story.” He sat down with his back to the room. A scene from Venice floated above Frau Heinisch. The account which she offered left events in almost total eclipse. It would seem Frau Bonnet had discovered about a year ago that her husband was deceiving her and had then shown forbearance and forgiven him; the marriage had appeared to be in order once again. Appeared to be; for Herr Bonnet vanished soon after, never to be seen again.

“The very same husband who courted her for years and always hung on her with such admiration.” The most puzzling thing for Frau Heinisch, however, was the following: After Frau Bonnet did not hear a word from her 302

husband for months on end, she had been left to learn in a round-about way in September that he had turned up in Vienna, where he was running around with morally objectionable persons — “. . . without any doubt, culture depends on the existence of an elite. It is scarcely an accident that cultural decline sets in with the arrival of a belief in progress, whose bearers, considered sociologically, are the awakening masses . . .”

Somebody or other spoke in loud tones. “To leave a woman like her for whores.” Frau Heinisch was instantly audible in her indignation. “And now? The poor thing is mired in filthy divorce proceedings and as hard as she tries she can’t get rid of the cottage. She has the idea to move to Lake Constance . . .” Georg saw: the white high road creeping through the midday heat to the cottage, Frau Bonnet whipping egg whites to a froth in the kitchen and, lying in the grass at the edge of the forest, half dried out already, the husband. And so at long last he had fled into depravity? “A woman’s fate for our times,” said Frau Heinisch from inside her silver robe. Forgotten pictures—they had continued growing on their own and now were stubbornly blocking Georg’s path. “. . . steps in technological progress come about under pressure from the masses and in their turn generate mass products. But this development is consummated only on the level of civilization and nothing would be more foolish than to brand technical advances as cultural achievements. The 303

automobile and the airplane do not forge relationships between human beings; they only make travel less burdensome — which, being overvalued, threatens to pervert whatever ties still survive . . . Just between you and me: The more news the radio disseminates, the less people will experience. On the other hand . . .”

The speaker could only be Rosin. “And how marvelously,” said Frau Heinisch, “does her greatness of soul prove itself in sorrow.” Evidently Rosin had been late to arrive and was now making up for what he had neglected.

“Frau Bonnet has by no means withdrawn into herself but is more radiant than ever, and seeks to console and to help others with redoubled energy. What a support she is to Frau Doktor Wolff, this pitiable woman embittered by her marriage! Who is anyway herself taking the wrong line. Tonight, for example, she ought never to have stayed at home, knowing as she does full well that her husband uses every opportunity to be unfaithful. Before you came, I handed Wolff a letter from Frau Bonnet that the good woman asked me to deliver personally, and treated him to a regular jeremiad in her name . . .”

An orphaned religion thought Georg, absorbed in his thoughts of Frau Bonnet. Frau Heinisch looked uncommonly self-important with her frowning forehead.

Georg felt bored. “What is Fräulein Samuel up to?” he inquired. “And how are the Guths and the others — ” “. . . technology and domination by the masses do not therefore lead directly to that general leveling which the cultural pessimists are always going on about. Quite 304

the contrary, the tendency of technological progress is precisely this: to liberate mankind altogether from any dependence on material things. And because free men only are even capable of a culture, culture is the product of that same civilization which is the agent of its dissolution . . .”

“Our circle has dispersed,” answered Frau Heinisch.

“Fräulein Samuel, just wait — ” Georg stood up without warning: “Do excuse me . . . I’ve got to look for a friend — ” Having already turned around, he beheld a tableau vivant: Professor Fischer in his black frock coat, taking up the middle of the divan, and at his feet, a crouching Frau Heydenreich separated from the naked floor by nothing more than a fluffy cushion, with guests making a ring around that artfully posed pair. Behind them the cabinets are glowing . . .

“To summarize, for us sociologists the usual distinction between culture and civilization is itself nothing more than the ideological construct created by a specific stratum of society. As I already observed in my lecture.”

Professor Fischer had come to the end. For a moment Frau Heydenreich mused to herself and then she drew on her resources for a smile which was intended to advertise her intellectual oneness with Fischer and casually win herself a portion of the admiration flowing his way. Everyone discussed the lecture. Robby, who made mocking faces, continually sent Georg signals, but Georg was far too engrossed in Fischer to satisfactorily register them, and so Robby left off. Everything about 305

Fischer—not only his manner of expressing himself but also the way he occasionally rubbed his hands together, and his perpetual back-and-forth movements, which either rushed ahead of his great tardy beard or buzzed furiously round and round it — absolutely everything gave irrefutable proof that he was possessed by Rosin —by this “devil of a fellow,” as Fischer himself referred to Rosin, if the testimony of the latter was admitted. Rosin had entered Fischer, Rosin tugged on his arms and legs, Rosin spoke from inside him.

And before that —who had been the one to infect Rosin? As Georg reflected on these interminable transformations, he was seized by a familiar feeling of horror. The same feeling had overcome him in the courtroom that time, at the trial of the murderer Ackermann, or was it Angermann, in any event the man had been questioned concerning the reasons for his crime and all at once a hole had opened up in Time itself, out of which ever new reasons rose, a never-to-be-terminated series which lost itself in a fog.

“You’ve not said a word yet about the lecture, my dear.” Frau Heydenreich spoke in a coaxing voice which was especially distinct, the result perhaps of a simultaneous lull in the conversation.

“No, really?” replied Frau Heinisch pensively. “Oh, I found the lecture marvelously transparent in its profundity . . .”

Nothing but silence.

“And the whole of it so harmoniously worked out . . .

Like music I should say . . . thought-music — ” “What a magician you are” — Frau Heydenreich turned to Fischer with a laugh —“that in addition to everything else you achieve musical effects too . . . May I have just a tiny drop of milk, please?” The little bells with which she produced her laugh were ringing victory.

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Frau Heinisch powdered the reddish tip of her nose, doing what little she could to cover up her defeat, but in spite of the rescue attempt suddenly her features were completely sunken — and they were exposed yet more by the ruthless sparkles of her silver robe.

Secretly Georg watched her; she appeared to him left over, a ruin. “Stresemann maneuvers very cleverly . . .”86 Herr Heydenreich wandered by with Professor Fischer; now the party was breaking up into small groups. “Thanks, Martin,” said Robby to the white-gloved waiter serving the mocha, who with his blank face was so convincing that Georg could not help feeling that a play was being staged and that he, too, belonged in it.

“Something I’ve always dreamed of,” he said to Robby in assigning himself a role, “is a valet who would always divine my intentions in advance. For example, if I were to experience a yen to set off on a journey and popped off to the train station, he would have to be there already, waiting with packed coffers. Don’t you know I’d arrive exactly one minute before departure time. — But who’s this Herr Elster?” Robby grimaced and explained to Georg — not without deploring his ignorance — that Elster was the well-known art dealer.

“An unpleasant snob, although Mary will never honestly concede that to me.” “Mary” — Frau Heydenreich — signaled to Robby to approach.

The little circle in which she sat was raving about a new book which, according to the various remarks being made about it, dealt with the vicissitudes of a postwar marriage and closed with the heroine’s renunciation.

Special praise was reserved for how the book shed light on the abysses of the soul; Georg assumed that naturally the outer world would have been left that much more in darkness. He asked for the name of the author and was 307

shocked when he heard it spoken. Could it be that all vanished things were conspiring to return again tonight?

He was none other than the man who, under the assumed name of Berg, had been celebrated at Frau Heinisch’s so far back as a great revolutionary. Georg could still see him with his woodcut of a profile, enthroned in her salon; the imprecations against capitalism and war still thundered in his ears. Don’t you feel he wanted to ask Frau Heydenreich that Berg has broken faith with the Revolution with his retreat into the “abysses of the soul?” But Frau Heydenreich anticipated him with the observation that the author “was a true poet”; and from the tone in which she said this, it was not difficult to infer that poets for her were higher beings who should not be held to account.

“The English edition,” proclaimed a woman of middle age, “promises to be a bestseller.” Robby whispered to Georg that the lady was a Frau Gilbert who fought her way through life for better or worse by translating from British and American English. Her hair was done up in innumerable little curls and she was hidden in a cloud of ruffles and pleats and ribbons whose indiscriminate mélange surely reflected the many inspirations which she owed to her association with literature. Somewhere along the margins arose a welter of voices, out of which Professor Fischer freed himself. He marched up to Frau Heydenreich.

“My dear lady . . . You are aware of the stipulation under which I’ve come.”

“I suppose it must be,” pouted Frau Heydenreich.

“If I didn’t know how implacably you resist my arts of seduction, don’t imagine I wouldn’t try to hold on to you.”

Frau Heinisch appeared next to them. “May I take you home in my motorcar, Herr Professor?” She beamed at Frau Heydenreich, and her silver robe became a coat 308

of mail. “I’m inconsolable to have to be going myself. But then I set off very early in the morning . . . A friend of mine has the absurd idea that it will be impossible for her to recuperate in Engadine without me . . . It was simply marvelous, my dear, for heaven’s sake don’t disturb yourself.”

Frau Heydenreich beamed, too: “How well I understand your friend . . . We come away only later and will probably content ourselves with the Riviera . . .” And more to the others: “Of course in the summer we are making a trip to America . . . If you please, ladies and gentlemen, the evening has scarcely begun.”

Poor Frau Heinisch thought Georg after the woman had left at the side of Professor Fischer. Just now she’s given herself such trouble and still she can’t any more succeed against Frau Heydenreich than that single vitrine in her salon can succeed against the four cabinets here.

Everyone talked enthusiastically about traveling. Italy, Spain, Egypt — the pale room dissolved in light and wafted away. Charlie was keeping to herself, away from the rest.

It was as if she were a slim silhouette standing on the deck of a ship and peering far out into the ocean. Georg approached but did not succeed in addressing her because Doktor Wolff gained a small lead over him. Nevertheless Georg fancied that Charlie only tolerated Wolff ’s presence out of politeness. He leaned against a console midway down the long wall and followed their talk with half an ear while also managing to pick up fragments of the general conversation. It seemed to take place behind a scrim.

“The main thing is really money” sounded its way to him. “Whoever has enough money has it much easier in life.”

“This point of view,” said Herr Elster, “seems to me — please forgive me! — a prejudice of your youth.” He 309

examined his seal ring. “The older one gets the clearer it becomes that money just does not rank with the most important goods, let alone with the highest.”

“Very true,” the guests nodded.

“Well now!” Robby went on the offensive against Elster. “Take the relatively innocent case where someone has suffered a severe romantic disappointment. If they are rich, they can always decide to board a train and seek oblivion amidst an exotic landscape . . . That’s got nothing to do with youth or age.”

Before Robby had even finished, there was a rustling and fluttering about Frau Gilbert, who could scarcely contain herself. “Nothing could be more false!” she rushed to declare. “One’s fortune is not decisive — temperament is.

People with the right sort of temperament, who understand how to take hold of life, do not have the slightest need of money in order to overcome their disappointment . . . Otherwise, you see, the rich would be happy every one of them!” She turned questioningly to Herr Elster; it was as though she wished to discover if she were defending the rich entirely to his satisfaction. Over her troubled face shadows were forever flitting — they almost seemed intermediaries between the curls and the ruffles.

“In my opinion, best and dearest,” said Frau Heydenreich, whose annoyance might have been encouraged by the expression on Elster’s face, “you go further than is necessary. With all due respect to the right temperament, I agree with Robby that money does have its great advantages.”

Georg thought he was dreaming. “How blissful it would be to take a walk with you by the light of the moon,” Doctor Wolff was whispering to his left. He shone with an intense light like an absolutely round, picture-postcard moon. Charlie shrugged: “You certainly 310

do seem the right one for me.”

Things that were past — where had they gone? And what had readied itself in the meantime, inaudible in the stillness, and was now drawing near?

Robby resumed: “That the sick and the starving are lost without money even Frau Gilbert will hardly dispute.”

She flickered a smile. “You have that completely wrong! As for the hungry — and they hardly belong in our discussion — suffice it to say that there will always be people coming to their aid. Nobody starves that quickly!

And the sick—for goodness sake, decent care naturally costs something. But you’ll have to grant me that it is none other than the less well off who receive handsome care in hospitals and sanatoria . . . Especially if they have a regular income.” The last was added in an undertone.

“Our splendid social policies,” said Herr Heydenreich, “are rapidly decimating the economy.”

Frau Heydenreich sighed: “If everyone did as much as we do . . .”

I’m in the theater — again, more strongly than before, Georg was dominated by the impression; except this time he found himself in a state of complete paralysis which prevented him from acting with the others, or even from intervening.

Doktor Wolff was working on Charlie as though she were a client who did not yet know her mind. “Then we’re agreed. You’ll come to me in my office tomorrow.”

— “It won’t happen,” replied Charlie. “What time were you thinking then?” The waiter bent over Frau Heydenreich; Frau Gilbert jerked her head, quick as lightning. One was not meant to gain their attention; the way they sat there, the whole lot were invented figures who appeared momentarily on the scene and would have fled at the smallest disturbance.

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“When I think to myself . . .” It was the young man who had spoken at the beginning. “A child suddenly dies, and the next day its mother must go back to the factory as though nothing has happened, tending the machine for eight hours, until she drops from weariness and sorrow . . . Wouldn’t one of the many diversions to which the affluent help themselves also help to soothe her affliction?”

“No, oh no!” cried Frau Gilbert, indignant over such lack of understanding. “It is the factory which constitutes the mother’s blessing. The mother is glad she can go into the factory. And there is no more effective medicine for her sorrow than her work in the factory.”

“Please,” said Robby scornfully, “next you’ll be telling us that people in mills and factories gladly perform their drudgery and don’t wish for a better existence.”

“But of course! And for the simple reason that they don’t know anything else . . . Care should be taken, too, not to show them the other things. With better conditions their needs will swell beyond measure. Then they’ll no longer be happy in any case.”

“Let’s be clear,” said Herr Elster, his voice resigned, “Frau Gilbert’s very much on the mark . . . In the mornings when I drive to the office in my motorcar, I often encounter a ragpicker, and let me assure you that every time I see him singing and whistling as he saunters along I always think: how cheerful and free this man is in comparison with me, I who end up tormenting myself over and over for next to nothing.”

“Very true,” the guests nodded.

Robby flared: “So why not become a ragpicker yourself, esteemed sir!”

“You’re really hopeless, Robby,” said Frau Heydenreich. “Quite seriously, I have to ask myself why 312

I spoil you so.” She stood up. Following her example, everyone put themselves in motion. Georg almost ran into the waiter who had just emerged from the adjacent room leaving the double doors flung wide far behind him. Apparently they been closed following the collation.

The waiter distributed beer and mineral water.

Georg remained standing in the door, that spot from which he had embarked on his wanderings through the salon. This room was disappearing in the haze like a depleted landscape, but the neighboring room was growing correspondingly radiant. It had been cleared in the meantime, and a cool breeze spread over its mirror-smooth floor. One after another those who were eager to dance meandered into the freshly resurrected room and ogled the black gramophone case; here they made empty swerving movements as though they had to rehearse or were expecting a surprise. Charlie was in the lead. Herr Elster was among the group, too, though actually he only waited tranquilly by the window with his arms crossed over his chest. His deportment showed that he was not merely desirous of observing the young people; his desire to be observed by them was no less.

In this he resembled a telescope on a mountain peak which peers all about and at the same time is a landmark itself. Georg was no longer willing to relax with a bit of dancing after everything that had happened, and so he turned back to the other room instead and joined a group forming itself around Herr Heydenreich. To judge from the number of persons still present, some guests must already have departed without ceremony.

“Come now,” Herr Heydenreich was saying to Wolff, “admit that your unions’ policy on wages makes no sense . . . You’re a man who knows the economy . . .” He bulged in his armchair, a tiny bulge from which a pair of 313

legs dangled and scarcely touched the floor.

Wolff laughed. “And why ‘no sense’? You’re forgetting that in the end your employees want to live, too.”

“Back already to politics,” scolded Frau Heydenreich.

“Come, Robby.” Robby made a comical gesture to Georg to indicate his impotence and trotted obediently alongside the lady of the house as she rustled into the next room. A perfect lapdog. All he lacked was the ribbon around his neck. The double doors slid shut.

“The allegedly low living standard of office workers” —Herr Heydenreich spoke through his nose—“belongs in the domain of the political fable.” He may have been speaking more nasally than usual since the distance between himself and his employees was so enormous. That was the reason, too, for his hesitation; he had to wait for his voice to show up. Then he went on: “The young secretary in my private office comes to mind, for example: a faultlessly turned out young lassie who supports two sisters on her 150 marks and always comes to work even-tempered and cheerful.”

“Lassie” he called her. Like someone’s proprietor.

“There are workers’ families,” said Wolff, “who have six children and live on less. But will you look at those children.”

“No electioneering, dear Doktor.”

The others were silent. Georg lost his composure.

“That’s not ‘electioneering’ . . . And as for your secretary, this ‘faultlessly turned out young lassie,’ she’s an inexplicable miracle . . . not simply a fable.”

“Please do sit down.” Herr Heydenreich pointed to an armchair and retrieved two boxes of cigars. “A good mild brand? Or would you prefer an import.”

If I must thought Georg then better the import with the lovely red band. The gramophone could be heard from next door. Inwardly Georg offered Wolff an apology.

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Herr Heydenreich wiped cigar ashes from his swelling middle. “As a student — when my father died I had to break off my studies prematurely — I needed just 120 marks and managed brilliantly.”

“When was that?” asked Wolff.

“I managed on 100,” remarked an elderly gentleman who had first added up everything. He was a professor, too.

“Around 1895 or so.”

“Well then.” Wolff used the information elicited from Herr Heydenreich to establish the fact that back then it had cost far less to live. Though unfortunately he left unspoken the necessary inferences, and so the conversation threatened to end without a real result. Georg, recalling his own university days, was incensed by this apathy. It did not come down so much to inexpensive living as to other circumstances.

“How many food packets did they send you from home?” asked Georg, turning to Herr Heydenreich. “And then, too: didn’t you bring with you all your suits, linen, and shoes? The fact of the matter is, your monthly draw was half pocket money—for theaters, concerts, parties, and what have you . . . The secretary on the other hand really is compelled to exist on her 150 marks. Calculate for yourself whether or not she can afford entertainment on that! . . . And here’s the worst of it: she lives in a state of dependency from which there appears no escape, whereas university studies lead upward . . . The biggest difference is the degree of hope.”

Now the sounds of the music reached them more distinctly. “I love you” — someone must have passed into the other room and left the door open a crack. O how tender . . . blue sea . . . a glow in the air . . .

“Your psychological considerations are a digression from the subject,” said Wolff, and he hummed “I love you.”

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Herr Heydenreich had equipped himself with pencil and paper. “You’re not going to claim that I ignored your need for precision,” he said, addressing himself to Georg.

“Let’s get to the bottom of the mystery of the secretary.

First there’s the outlay for her apartment . . .”

It was like a party game. Everyone had a share in making up a household budget, except for Wolff, who was obviously being lured away by the music. A wellintentioned lady allowed the secretary one tub bath in the month, a young man recommended taking meals in the canteen, another lady estimated a modest sum for the laundry. Georg was infected by the zeal for thrift which reigned on every side and after carefully weighing the matter, contributed a monthly tram ticket. Herr Heydenreich was taking notes as if he were himself the secretary. While it was all being toted up, the old professor with the hundred marks got up and became absorbed in the contents of the cabinets; he seemed incapable of bearing up under the many figures.

“Not possible!” declared the guests. And truth be told, the end result was significantly more than the secretary’s 150 marks.

“It doesn’t even include the most elementary acquisitions,” the well-intentioned lady complained.

“And where,” threw in Georg, “are such essentials as cigarettes, stamps, and the movies?” No one answered.

After a pause Herr Heydenreich remarked: “Even if our calculations are free of error, it shows only that how one lives cannot be reduced to petty arithmetic.

There are unsuspected sources of assistance tucked deeply away which can neither be quantified nor entered in an accounting. The best proof of this is precisely my secretary, who goes on cheerfully living even though in theory she would have starved to death long since. Every 316

set of calculations continues to founder on the richness and complexity of existence . . .” He placed his paper on the cigar box. “And what is more, I regard this exaggerated breast-beating as misplaced. Whoever wishes to rise has to prove himself in the struggle . . . I, too, have hard times behind me and I shouldn’t imagine that I ever complained.”

There was an audible sigh of relief from his listeners.

“The philosophy of the entrepreneur,” smiled Wolff. “Seriously: no matter how problematic the overall calculation, still it makes graphically clear how indispensable the unions are. Has your secretary been unionized? She ought to enroll with us as soon as she can! . . . At least both of us are clear on where we stand and fortunately I know you’re not the unrepentant sinner you make yourself out to be. And yet you do suffer from the general entrepreneurial psychosis. I always maintain that if the entrepreneurs knew how to assess their real interests without prejudice, they would not seal themselves off so from needed reforms and compensatory arrangements like those we seek in the spirit of socialism . . . Your obstinacy could have dire consequences.”

“I love you.”

Georg, who was still next to Herr Heydenreich, forgot his surroundings and himself: “Perhaps your secretary does have special assistance — millions of others don’t. And you call that living, when a person is forced to perform numbing work day in and day out under such conditions? Here’s life on the edge for you! One doesn’t croak right away but one does croak, bit by bit. From undernourishment, from fear of being let go, from the pervasive bleakness. As if it were that easy to rise these 317

days! The calculation’s correct, I tell you.”

“You seem to have gone over to the communists,” suggested Wolff. “. . . and say someone does manage to ‘rise’ — just where does that person arrive? For me, the people sitting on the top are a disgrace. They dwell in darkness.

Nowadays they do nothing but anesthetize themselves.

With social maneuvering, with trips, with love, with hit songs. And it’s not enough they anesthetize themselves, they do the same to their victims. It won’t be long before everyone is whistling “I love you” on the street and getting the idea they’re happy. Until finally no one will know why they’re alive in the first place . . .”

Suddenly Georg remembered Elli, the girl he had slept with years ago . . . Sunday afternoons on the sofa, the lifeless apartment houses behind the curtain . . . Now and then she had told him things about her office, tiny insignificant things — “Personally,” said Herr Heydenreich, “I would not have any objection whatsoever to communism if it could be put into practice. But where is the brain that could direct the infinitely intricate economic organism from a central office?”

“Absolutely right,” said Wolff absently.

“Not the least bit right,” shouted Georg. “It’s about something entirely different. It’s about justice. Justice demands that for once those who up till now were underneath rise to the top. This playacting has to stop, the entire stables must be cleansed from top to bottom.

That’s what it’s about, and only that. And not whether it’s practicable. Things will always be as good as they are in this society!”

Georg felt he was stumbling. He saw Neubert in front of him. He added: “But then it’s not going to be easy.”

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His last words were lost because Herr Heydenreich was speaking at the same time. “I’m afraid” — from the depths of his chair he was puffing up like a cupola — “that they aren’t particularly thrilled with your views over at the Morgenbote — are they, Mary?” All the guests from the neighboring room gathered around. There was a bright ringing sound.

The little bells, here in the room — — “Let’s hope your frenzy of destruction doesn’t extend to us . . . Our guests are ready to go, Sid.” Frau Heydenreich was flushed; her yellow flower hung limply on its stalk.

Frau Gilbert tried to drive away the shadows which swarmed over her face. Like flies. “Tomorrow is a new moon,” Charlie said to Wolff. Herr Elster bowed politely. Beyond the door opening the floor was sloping upward. The gramophone continued playing, just for itself.

And how it pined — !

Scarcely two weeks later Georg was in his cubby hole at the newspaper working on a couple of manuscripts which were urgently needed when a telephone call from Fräulein Peppel let him know that he should report to Doktor Petri without delay. It was late in the afternoon, an hour when little went on. Since the party at the Heydenreichs he had been leading the life of a recluse and what is more had barely spoken to anyone at work.

He made his way to the outer office, which lay on the opposite end of the corridors. He was still outside the door when he heard Fräulein Peppel and her rattling.

She did not greet him with the usual nod when he entered; instead her rattling grew louder — it was a surly sort of agitation which put him a bit on edge. Because 319

of his nervousness Georg was disconcerted to see the leather-upholstered door standing open, something hardly unusual in itself. Likewise the inner door was not shut but a little ajar. It had an inset of rectangular glass through which Doktor Petri was visible as he sat at his desk, absorbed in some document. Even though Petri remained very close at hand, he seemed as far away as a picture in a frame. In the corner of the outer office a solitary gentleman waited.

“Is the gentleman first —” asked Georg as he tried through various signs to bring Fräulein Peppel to say something about the purpose of the interview just before him. Fräulein Peppel assiduously ignored the signs. “The gentleman can wait,” she said in a voice that was quite audible. “You may go in immediately.” She went on rattling. Georg knocked on the glass and entered. Petri looked up for a moment and pretended to be noticing Georg only then; obviously the glass pane was opaque from the inside.

“Sit down. Be right with you . . .” Petri was leafing through a dossier containing numerous letters. “I’m off tonight and wanted to have a word with you first.”

“How nice, such trips,” said Georg so as to direct the subject away from himself.

“I get almost nothing done with all the traveling.

But the firm requires sacrifice. From each one of us . . .”

At last Petri laid the folder aside. “Tell me, dear fellow, are you aware that the newspaper has serious difficulties to contend with? — Not that we are menaced at this very moment! And yet it means we must take timely measures.”

What’s he up to thought Georg. How strangely he looks at me.

“The situation calls for serious retrenchment. And that is also the reason I summoned you.”

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Fräulein Peppel stuck her head through the door.

“Herr Doktor! Your conference with Berlin!”

“I don’t wish to be disturbed with anything else.”

While Petri was on the telephone, Georg sat there, paralyzed. “. . . tomorrow morning, Herr Präsident. The matter’s more than urgent . . .” Already for weeks now Georg had been prey to a vague anxiety; perhaps there would be a reduction in his salary, he would make do — “. . . excellent.

We’ll be able to discuss the question unhurriedly at lunch . . .” Petri with the Präsident, what could be more natural — it can’t be anything more than a reduction in salary — the question of the credits87 — they’re finishing — — “. . . see you then, Herr Präsident . . . So when does your wife return . . . glad to hear it, very glad . . .

Oh yes, Heydenreich is also in Berlin . . . Good, tomorrow at one-thirty.”

Petri hung up and turned to Georg as to an intimate: “These eternal social obligations, which usually don’t lead to anything much . . . Do you know what I’d really enjoy: to spend half a year in strict seclusion and write a book . . . Somewhere in the countryside—” Georg stretched out in relief. If Petri was mainly feeling the need to give his feelings a good airing, probably there was nothing to fear. Luckily he, Georg, found himself in the position to back up Petri and his discontent and also win his favor at the same time, and with the best conscience in the world.

“I’m so glad my criticism of society more or less coincides with your own. You will have noticed that in my articles I — ” “Yes, and now you yourself touch on the most ticklish item in our agenda. Your articles — has it never occurred to you that the outlook you’re developing these days is diametrically opposed to the political stance of the 321

Morgenbote? I’m putting things mildly.”

The room went blurry. On Petri’s vest a button stood open. Georg stammered: “But I heard the opposite, I mean that you’re satisfied with what I’m writing so I was told.”

“Who says that?”

“Herr Grün. Some time back, at any rate — ” Petri produced an angry click with his tongue and snatched a black ruler. “Herr Grün has nothing to do with the editorial side. At most Herr Grün will have informed you of his personal view, which editorially speaking is not of the slightest interest to us . . . And something else: not all things hold true all the time. Given our current state of affairs, the direction you are pursuing is simply untenable for the newspaper.” He took possession once more of the dossier recently shoved aside and quickly went through it, occasionally rapping sheets with his ruler. “These are letters complaining about you, a whole pile of them, and they’re driving none other than your Herr Grün to pull his hair out . . .”

“Personally I am less bothered by this rubbish here,” Petri added. “It’s well known that subscribers are always complaining.”

Georg pulled himself together. “In a word, I’m too radical for you. What you disapprove of are the radical viewpoints I represent.”

A pained smile slid over Petri’s features. It literally transfigured him, leaving the impression of a man whose noblest intentions have been misjudged. “You wound me when you impute such a thing to me. I, who on behalf of the Left . . .” He halted in mid-sentence. Apparently Petri did not regard defending himself against a subordinate as befitting of his dignity. His look became penetrating — he himself could have been the Präsident. “No, dear 322

fellow. You’ll not get off so easily as that. I do object to your articles indeed. But not because they are allegedly too radical, but because they criticize ‘the powers that be’ — and to which powers do you refer? — in a manner that to me seems of no use whatsoever. And not to me only by the way—the editors are of precisely the same opinion.

Sommer for one is constantly chewing my ear off about you. And unfortunately I have to admit that he’s right.

Merely to naysay is fruitless, and you wallow in negatives.

Not to mention the monotony into which you fall to such an extent that most of what you write smacks of nothing more than ressentiment . . . 88 Let me finish! People are never aware of the motives for their own actions —” Petri’s face had turned into a “countenance,” across which ever so many creases ran . . . Each one an experience . . . “You see, society is the way it is, and not a thing is changed when a person just goes on moaning about it.

What matters . . .”

“Then nothing can be done,” said Georg glumly.

Before he could say anything more to explain himself, Petri let it be known through the faintest of frowns that now was not the moment for Georg to bring him down with pedestrian reflections. Then, wrapping himself in a cloud, he floated skyward. Brightness was radiating from him.

“In these times what matters is fortifying people and bucking them up. Even without your articles, they know they have it rough and that one thing and another isn’t functioning. Quite honestly, there’s no need to tell them so over and over. What they require desperately is the positive affirmation of life and a smidgen of hope. All who find themselves in the daily struggle for survival thirst for consolation; even that kind which springs from illusions.

Why else are the movie houses so full nowadays? It seems 323

plain you’ve never given much thought to this. Instead you paint everything gray on gray and are amazed at yourself and how wonderful your intentions towards people are.

In reality you rob them of the courage to face life, of the possibility of forgetting . . . I find it scarcely worth mentioning that you, too, are caught up in the delusion of the literary set — namely, that capitalists are an especially privileged class of humanity spared the rigors of Fate.”

The more Petri went on, the less Georg felt capable of replying. Actually, he was constructing sentences the whole time which might have served for answers, but he kept a constant guard up against letting them out. There was no longer firm ground here, it had grown soft, and the most insignificant word would sink down into an infinite chasm. Humiliated by his muteness, he stared fixedly at Petri—a purely external stare which was aimed at his torturer because no other being was visible in any direction. He can’t just stop at torturing me thought Georg.

He also wants to make an example of me.

Petri leaned back comfortably in his chair and basked in the triumph he was expecting from his inspired oratory.

Perhaps he waited to hear a remorseful confession, or even counted on a cry of outrage that would present him with a most attractive opportunity for launching skyward yet again.

But nothing of the kind materialized. And so he rapidly darkened once more and returned to the penetrating presidential look he had already tried on. Even this, however, did not succeed in diverting Georg from his staring. Petri shifted about uneasily on his chair and, running an eye down his own person, noticed the undone vest button. As soon as he observed it, he wrinkled his nose as if smelling something low. Without a doubt he was convinced that he had discovered the object which held Georg’s attention. He felt unqualified contempt for anyone 324

who would stare at a ridiculous button while he, Petri, was traversing an empire that stretched far beyond all buttons.

“Another reason the thing’s hopeless,” said Petri, buttoning his vest, “is that your conduct is unacceptable.

For example, recently you embarrassed yourself dreadfully at a large social gathering . . . Oh no, I’m not going to name names . . . Attacking persons into whose circle you are innocently admitted with insulting speeches, practically ambushing them — such as happens constantly in certain popular assemblies — what bizarre gratification to procure for yourself ! You have only the hosts to thank that a scandal was averted. And besides, since when are social functions a crime? . . . Perhaps your behavior seems ultra-radical to you; I call it tactless myself. A tactlessness that much worse since as a representative of the Morgenbote you should have felt doubly obligated to weigh your words in such an exposed sittuation. And how does it make our editorial department look . . . Of course as a private individual you may promote whatever you wish . . .”

“You want to fire me,” Georg heard himself say.

He was filled with a desire that he suppressed with difficulty: to leap up and pummel away at Petri to his heart’s delight. Only by using one’s fists could this man be stopped then and there. A chop to the right ear for his windings, a chop to the left for his wendings . . .

“You want to fire me?” Georg repeated the question, having received no answer the first time.

Petri was deep in thought. His soulful look made it apparent that inwardly he had transcended their whole discussion and that perhaps he would continue to comply with the airy promptings of tact for a little longer.

Gradually he came to himself.

“Right away you’re always so terribly blunt.” Petri was condescending. “Your error is bluntness pure and 325

simple . . . In any case I must confess to you that I am not really able to imagine how our collaboration should be extended. Going separate ways would seem more advantageous for both parties. Say with April 1 . . .” He made a quick dismissive motion with his hand. “I know what you’re thinking, but you’re very wrong. Ultimately your radical outlook, which we happened to speak of just now, is the last reason I would decide to dissolve a proven association like ours, however much I might care to see— and this not from any commercial motive on my part— all purely negative criticism repressed. No, what determines me is solely the financial difficulty which I began by mentioning. “We have no choice but to eliminate your position, my dear fellow . . . The dictates of the budget, implacable, implacable . . .” He drummed on the tabletop as if to make concrete the rappings of Fate. “Budgetary dictates,” said his drumming, “are but the dictates of Fate, before which we humans are impotent.”

“That’s how it is.” Petri sighed and lifted his eyebrows.

Georg’s anger evaporated. All at once he felt very light; as if he had given himself the dismissal and was, so to speak, dwelling outside his ego. A happy-go-lucky spectator with no interests of his own to protect, he was taking unmixed pleasure in Petri’s acrobatics. Indeed, his sporting ardor was so stimulated by them that he felt a desire to incite the man to ever foolhardier stunts.

“The word everywhere,” he offhandedly began, “is that the newspaper plans to borrow money or has already taken out loans. Excuse me if I speak of the matter but if that is in fact the case, financial difficulties could . . .”

Petri clicked his tongue impatiently. “People say a lot of things. Let me ask you one favor: spare me idle gossip.

Our discussion is too serious for that . . . And by the way, the truth is just the reverse: in reality I am striving 326

to preserve that independence which the newspaper has enjoyed up till now.”

“Then precisely my radical point of view would have to be welcome . . . Except for when it came to financial things.”

“How naïve of you! That’s precisely not it. Anyone wishing to protect his independence in this day and age is forced to exercise extraordinary elasticity. Whoever is inflexible will be ruthlessly swallowed . . . You’ll not claim that your point of view possesses this advantage.”

“If the precondition of independence is ‘elasticity,’ as you call it, then I don’t actually see how independence is to be distinguished from dependence. A publicly avowed dependence would in my view be more honorable than this sort of independence. And more practical financially.”

“As if practical considerations were always foremost!

There’s also morality. And independence is a moral requirement first and last.” It distressed Petri that morality could be overlooked in favor of the practical. A suspicion rose in him: “Why do you wish so fervently for us to resort to some kind of dependency? You least of anyone would profit from it. The need to reduce costs would remain the same and as far as your viewpoint goes — people who invest money in the newspaper have at a bare minimum the right to expect that they will be exempt from abuse. — But we’re not sitting here to theorize.”

Georg couldn’t go on.

“Don’t lose courage,” said Petri in a consoling tone.

He must have been recalling his insistence on mankind’s thirst for consolation. “I speak of what might happen. I regard it as my plain duty to make you aware of possible developments.” “‘Possible developments?’ The first of April is no possibility after all!”

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“Well then, a reality if you prefer. Anyway, there’s still more than two months to April 1, and with your lack of ambition you’re sure to find something soon. For example, a quiet position at an institute — you see the situation’s hardly dire. Rest assured I am prepared to assist you with advice and recommendations at any time. — Yes?” Fräulein Peppel had appeared in the door. “Herr Doktor Stöckler has been waiting already for threequarters of an hour. Shall I send him away?”

“How could I forget!” — Petri glanced at the time.

“These journeys are too stupid. I still have to take care of that Silesian business, which may take half an hour. Right, let him drop by in half an hour if it suits him . . . Tell him I’m sorry.” Distractedly he turned to Georg: “That’s about it for now, my dear fellow.” And into the house telephone: “Have Herr Grün come up here.” Again to Georg: “I almost envy you. What a liberation, to be able to turn one’s back on this operation and on society. Believe me, the prospect of a peaceful institute would tempt me too.”

He beamed like a surgeon after a successful procedure. Petri was particularly pleased with himself for coming up with that pretty ending about the institute.

Georg went; his body was too much for him. He was making his way through the outer office in silence when Fräulein Peppel held him up. “Head high,” she said gently. He was surprised by her tender voice, something he never would have thought her capable of. All at once he understood that she had made such a racket before only out of delicacy. He nodded silently.

Out in the dark corridor Herr Sommer was standing next to a gentleman whom Georg recognized as the man who had been in the outer office. The two men took up the corridor completely so that he was unable to slip past them.

“Herr Doktor Stöckler,” Sommer said, “our new colleague.”

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Herr Doktor Stöckler was the spitting image of Herr Grün, who clearly had been mass-produced. “I feel as you do,” declared Herr Doktor Stöckler, “this New Youth is absolutely new.” “Ha!” exclaimed Herr Sommer. Then both of them fell silent so as to better hear the rustlings of Youth. Everything was new.

“Is there anything new?” asked Herr Sommer. They were following Georg with their eyes; they knew about it.

In Georg’s little room the manuscripts lay unaltered.

As he was mechanically readying them for the printer, he brooded over Petri.

The remarkable thing was that Petri himself took the evasions he was always making for the unvarnished truth and would surely have been most surprised if someone had called him a liar. In a sense he was no liar; he was so lacking in a relationship to truth that he was unable to keep truth and lies separate. In view of this lack, one could not blame him for uttering everything with a faith in its validity so long as it provided him with an advantage. And as well Petri possessed the capacity invariably to forget in the next instant whatever he had only finished saying. He was a butterfly who fluttered nonchalantly from one conviction to the next without bothering himself with befores and afters, and it would have been merely foolish to want to capture him or God forbid impale him.

As he stepped into the corridor Georg could tell that he had stayed far later than usual in his office. The rooms of the editing department along the hall were deserted, the cleaning ladies were creeping forth from their holes. Above in the composing rooms it was warm and cozy. He looked around for a compositor to whom he could give his manuscript and at length discovered the boxer sitting before his machine with his torso almost bare.

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“Just a moment,” said the boxer. “I still have to set a notice from the publisher. Once again they are showing themselves to be generous, subscribing 500 marks to the relief fund in Silesia.” After he had finished typing, he got up and massively arched his chest. “But look at you!” he cried in alarm.

“Oh it’s nothing,” said Georg, and then he melted and told the boxer of his firing.

In the meantime they had moved over to the other room where the proof sheets were to be readied. The boxer flexed his muscles wrathfully, and although he appeared to be of half a mind to smash the whole place to pieces, he made no movement. He stood there powerless — a tame cannibal for children. “And it had to be you,” he said quietly. “It’s known, the reason . . . When you leave us we’ll all be sad.” He patted down the brushes on the paper, not too tentatively and not too firmly.

“Anyhow, the world’s no longer a pleasant place . . . The pressure on us gets worse by the day. Soon they’ll be grabbing the last miserable freedoms we hang onto. I feel it in my bones . . . What are we workers meant to do about it?” The glass roof disappeared in shadow. Carefully the boxer wiped a hand on his pants and offered it to Georg. It was a hand magnified many times over. “Learn to box.” He was fatherly. “With boxing you manage to get through everything.”

Georg loved him like the very best of comrades.

He left with the feeling of always having to be leaving.

Blindly he passed by doors, windows, and flights of stairs, passed through every corridor from top to bottom. To think that once he had gotten lost in them! Now he knew them in his sleep and the building was no longer a labyrinth but a narrow old receptacle.

330

XIV. Georg sat on the terrace of a café on the upper Kurfürstendamm89 waiting for Fred. He had deliberately arrived somewhat early; not only because he chose to be early as a general thing but also because he loved especially this corner in the afternoon. Bright foliage gleamed in the sun. Automobiles went gliding between the trunks of trees as through a shadowy canal, passing the façades of buildings which lost themselves in the foliage almost as soon as they rose into view, and a fine odor of benzene — which joined itself wonderfully to that of spring—filled the warm green air. How good to be sitting here in the midst of a public life flowing in from the world and back out to it again! People dispersed continually in every direction; omnibuses, breaking endlessly out from the thickets, shot up steeply and then disappeared in the wink of an eye. And to further heighten the perfection of the hour, everywhere one looked there were bouquets of violets. Tranquil little points of inwardness — they adorned blouses, sent their greetings from inside vehicles, and invaded cafés which were now being visited by many couples who also recalled violets as they sat and bloomed for themselves in front of an audience. Not a single empty table was left on the entire terrace. Oh these faces! Brothel madams with hair dyed yellow, dandified little gentlemen, a tiny yelping pekingese, widows who prided themselves on their superior rented-out room, business folk, outright predators, girls from the cinema, other girls . . .

The Kurfürstendamm was gleaming. A small motorcar 331

drew up. Fred. Tall and lanky, he started across the terrace.

While still far away Fred caught sight of Georg and lifted up his arms in joy.

“Fred,” said Georg. He smiled: “I didn’t know you had an auto.”

“But it’s not mine. Someone I know just lent it to me. You know, Lorey, from my class . . . Now you tell me something, Georg, I’m in such suspense . . . Really, you haven’t changed.”

“You don’t think so?” Georg found it remarkable that he shouldn’t have changed. “First you tell me something. When someone comes from America . . .”

“There’s nothing to tell. I wrote you about the main thing: that I’ve been given a position here . . .” From Fred’s occasional news bulletins Georg was aware that in New York he had encountered the sole director of his new Berlin firm — it was absolutely by chance — and must have made a very favorable impression on the man. At any rate, not long since the firm had approached Fred with an offer — a perfect surprise. And as Fred put it now, all sorts of considerations would have made it sheer folly for him to reject the offer. He did not say more, and this remark was thrown out so casually it might have concerned another person. Sometime the day before he had reached Bremerhaven and then had continued immediately on to Berlin. “I’m lucky I speak flawless English. Earlier today I made my appearance at the office, and if the director keeps his promises . . . I’ll be spending the better part of the year abroad.”

He was handsome like before, only much more manly, or whatever the word might be for the quality of reserve which now adhered to him. So complete: as though coated with the thinnest layer of something. And even if the old sadness still lay in his eyes — whatever it had grown 332

out of seemed sealed up for good.

“Are you glad to be away from America?”

“That depends. New York is truly immense. And still, the everlasting moneygrubbing — and evenings in New York are rather bleak. They have no cafés there in our sense, the theater’s too expensive, and to be always going to the movies — naturally I would have stayed on anyway . . . On the other hand my mother’s no longer so very young. Incidentally, I’m seeing her tomorrow but Monday I’ll be back here to learn the ropes quickly before I travel to England . . . How lovely we’re already together today. I hope you’ve plenty of time.”

“As much as you want.”

“How long have you been in Berlin? Certainly not long.”

“For about two weeks . . . I’m looking—” “Do you have a solid prospect?”

“A prospect, yes.” In fact, until now Georg’s efforts had gone unrewarded. Always the same refusals, evasions, reservations, hints — nothing but the runaround. The little pekingese was carried on someone’s arm. It was like being in a luxury car. Don’t lose your courage. There was still enough money for two months.

“Listen, my friend — you mustn’t take it amiss if I speak of these things. Nowadays it’s hard to get a place, and in your case it might well be especially difficult. If I can help you out in the meantime . . . You must turn to me, I insist. I’m your good friend after all.”

“That’s really nice of you, Fred. At the moment fortunately I don’t need anything. And something or other has to work out.”

“Let’s hope so . . . But tell me, why did they fire you? My mother only wrote that you’d been fired, without mentioning a reason. She worries about you. Are 333

things going that badly for the paper? Or was it some underhanded trick? People don’t show the door to a resource like you without a reason. Go ahead, you can tell me everything.”

Georg shrugged. “There’s nothing to tell. My political views did not suit certain people, and that was the end of it . . . I spoke the truth too plainly . . . Let’s leave things there.” As he spoke, Georg realized how very unwilling he was to reveal himself.

“What a shame. I find that today one — ” “Care to buy some violets, sir?”

Fred broke off, made a signal to the woman, and took a thick bunch of flowers to lay beside his newspaper.

A still-life. The woman wanted to give him change, but he let her understand that she could go. It struck Georg that he did not even look at her. She was old and her head shook.

“You know what frightens me,” said Fred. “That the tensions in Germany have increased to an extraordinary extent in the two years I’ve been away.90 The most disturbing thing is this wave of nationalism, which your newspapers appear to underestimate. You can have no idea how one senses such things the very first day.

Maybe on the first day most of all. And these grotesque disparities! I have the feeling a civil war is coming. In my view the future belongs to the nationalist parties.91 Not that it’s what I’d want . . . And yet I have to confess that I consider the Communists and their insane program the greater evil. If those idiots are allowed to keep on, they’re bound to conjure up an unspeakable calamity. Over there, they made quick work of them.”

“The way you say that —” began Georg.

He fell silent. Now he knew that the only reason he had not said more about himself was that he had been 334

ready for an admission of this sort. Should he get excited?

Fred sat across from him, playing with the violets — a young man no different from thousands of others, wellgroomed and clueless, already smoothed and polished for use by the world. What’s the use thought Georg. And still he was not able to hide his thoughts entirely.

“The way you say that. Have you never given any thought to the horrifying injustice going on in the world?

And that it is the aim of the Communists to eradicate this injustice? . . . But your views are alien to me for other reasons as well. They make one suspect that basically you wouldn’t let yourself be seriously affected by anything. And try as I might I cannot understand how a person manages to go on living that way, with no connection to a cause. — Well so be it . . . I must say though, to me it seems very likely that your prognostications will come true.”

Fred remained calm. “We shouldn’t argue. The fact is, I avoid those questions which always preoccupy you. A minute ago you explained that at the newspaper you fought on behalf of truth, and also that you get excited over the injustice in the world. Call me superficial if you want, but I’m convinced that chasing after justice is madness. God knows, the world’s a den of thieves . . . And as for “the truth”: I remember that you used to be very religious. Later on you strayed from religion, I believe, and probably today you have some other view still. You’ve always been quick to change, my friend, you’ve always been sure your momentary truth was the final one. I admire the tireless searching. A single thing troubles me, and really just for your sake: What have you achieved through it all? I only see that your love of truth has landed you on the street, and that sooner or later you may have to settle for a modest position which will 335

not answer to your capacities in the least . . . Don’t be angry if I talk like this — ” “I’m not angry.” Whereas outwardly Georg smiled and rejected the supposition that he could be angry, to himself he was ruthlessly honest: Fred judged his situation correctly. What had he achieved? The answer he himself gave was: nothing. He well remembered the vague childish yearning he once felt for a public role, before joining the newspaper. And now? Now as then he stood outside and public life flowed over him without being altered one iota.

“Do you have Quenn,” Fred asked the cigarette boy.

On the other hand thought Georg if nothing’s been achieved still something’s changed. He tried to track down the change and decided that at least today he knew where he belonged. And not only that: this knowledge was embedded in a general change, though admittedly it would have been hard for him to put his finger on it. The image of a landscape rose before him over which the fog parted so that it was seen distinctly, down to the last detail.

How many dreams had left him — “How about Silber,” asked the cigarette boy, and Fred negotiated with him over the change. The long interruptions that getting hold of a couple of cigarettes entailed. In the last analysis, everything hung on insignificant trifles; even the great abuses only came about because of some tiny error. To be sure these abuses had to be attacked directly and if possible eliminated; but with the dreamlike clarity that was momentarily his, Georg saw that the tiny error would not be done away without additional effort — it was an error that lurked inside the construction. There was Fred, for example. He was not bad, any more than the world which he resembled was a “den of thieves” — the way Fred thought of it. If it actually had been that — one would be able to cauterize the world and create it afresh!

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But the real trouble was that the bad, wherever it was found, did not appear by itself; instead it was indissolubly fused together with the good. And what was more, for the most part the good even outweighed the bad. There was no doubt that the world dwelt very close to the good, and that only a millimeter-fine tipping of the scales would be needed to make it function to perfection. But here was the rub: Whether the negligible error went unperceived, or whether it was simply thought to be unnecessary to repair the error — precisely its tininess was to blame for the fact that it was never obliterated. And so the world, an inert mass, always went on sinking. Of course, a mighty effort would probably have been required to shift things the necessary hair’s breadth. On the street across the way a policeman stood taming the vehicular onslaught with three or four motions of his arms. Voices, honking automobiles, a green murmuring . . .

“This traffic,” said Georg.

Well-traveled Fred smiled. “It’s nothing against New York. Berlin is a village in comparison. You should get to know Broadway! When you’re on Broadway, you think you’re at the center of the world. And what about 42nd Street. When I landed back then in New York, the steamship docked level with 42nd Street, and I still remember it so vividly . . . After the tranquil crossing how overpowering the noise was as this street embraced me . . . Ah, Georg . . . Strange, but right now I’m thinking of the antediluvian lady in black we heard lecture the last time we were together. What’s she up to? If I’m not mistaken, she had an English-sounding name: ‘Bennett’ or something similar.” “‘Bonnet’ . . . but why bring that up.”

It was not as if Fred were interested in what Frau Bonnet was up to. He was plucking feathers from the past 337

purely to fill up time. The city was shooting ahead, ebbing back. There were always new people coming and occupying the terrace. Girls from the cinema, other girls . . .

“It’s lovely in Berlin,” said Georg. A deep excitement took possession of him. “Sometimes I stroll for hours through the streets and forget everything. Or rather the opposite, I see everything: people, things, houses.

To submerge myself in them is my greatest delight.

And while I pass through the multitude completely unrecognized, often I so to speak feel myself sensing the distribution of all the weights and measures and overhear their imperceptible rising and falling. Think of a trembling set of scales. It’s not seldom I catch myself holding in my breath and spreading and stretching my fingers; as though I had to use my fingers to very gently correct the scales.”

“Really, where do you live?” There was a tinge of anxiety in Fred’s voice. “Here in Berlin one has to use the elbows twice as much.”

Georg was taken aback: This was not the first time someone had asked him where was he really living. He quite failed to understand the question: to him it seemed that he was fully conscious and completely transparent.

The question should have been addressed to those who fled reality and whose lives did not become more real when they had their big successes. The air was charged with the day, which made itself heavy before it died away.

“I’d like to confide something in you,” said Fred. “I was going with a girl over there.”

“Jane?”

“Jane. You will have heard from my mother, to whom of course I wrote no details . . . Georg, I love this girl and believe me I don’t say it lightly . . . How cold and hard I must have been before . . . The thing is, I never made enough to be able to marry her. You see, she grew up in 338

comfortable circumstances. We spoke a great deal about the future and Jane appeared to be fully committed. Perhaps I would have been far enough along in another year.

As time passed she became more and more restless — only I didn’t guess what was going on in her. One day it spilled out: the idle waiting around no longer suited her and she was thinking of going to college, she wanted to study. Looking back I’m convinced that her mother was behind this scheme; she didn’t approve of our relationship to begin with. And now we come to my inexcusable error.

Maybe I was afraid I would lose Jane because of the long separation, or maybe I was jealous of the college study she wanted to devote herself to. Why waste words — I made her choose to stay with me in New York or else — we would have to part. That was about three months ago. Jane chose college—” Fred stared straight ahead; the café had grown empty.

How old was she, Georg wanted to know.

“Nearly nineteen.” Dusk had set in. “She wrote me once from college, and I wrote her back. Then it was the end. I wanted to get away from New York . . . Nothing means very much to me now, Georg. I have endless girls.

Someday for sure I’ll marry . . . In any event I’ll be traveling to America in September for the firm . . .”

And look at me thought Georg, me and my arrogance.

Here I believed he was incapable of being affected by anything . . . “You’re still so young,” he nearly said. The streetlamps were burning. Fred’s eyes shone in their light.

“I thank you, Fred, for telling me about Jane.” Georg had been planning to give Fred a good shaking up, to yank him out of himself. But after the confession he could not bring himself to dispute anything. “If you like, this evening after dinner we can go into it in more detail.”

“This evening” — Fred was very surprised. “Didn’t I 339

tell you I have a dinner invitation? From the director, you know, the one I have to thank for everything. I positively cannot get out of it.”

“But I beg you . . . After you get back then.”

Fred checked the time. “We should go.” He called the waiter, paid up, and snatched his bouquet of violets. A couple of girls who were still there looked him over as he left the terrace. Tall and lanky. Georg followed. In front of the car Fred put on his gloves.

“Why not come with me — though we wouldn’t have any time to speak of. I have to go to Dahlem92 and before that I need to quickly change my clothes in the hotel.

I’ll call you on Tuesday . . . Auf Wiedersehen, Georg.”

A melody sounded. Very soulful.

“Auf Wiedersehen, Fred. Greet your mother for me.”

The automobile disappeared before Georg knew it. The melody came from an old man who was playing his fiddle in front of the café terrace. As he crossed the lanes of traffic, Georg absently whistled the same melody. Then he stopped, in the middle of the road. It struck him that, strictly speaking, he was committing a theft. He had not given the man anything, and so he was not supposed to make use of his melody. Shouldn’t he go back? In the end he decided to stop his whistling and continue ambling along a bit further on foot. He was nearly run over by vehicles with chauffeurs who sent their curses after him. Whether it was the evening and the things it promised or perhaps the melody, he felt himself in a state of detachment which made him blissfully happy — as if he had cast aside all superfluous baggage and were really only setting out for the first time.

With a light heart he strolled down the Kurfürstendamm. Here in its upper reaches it resembled the promenade at a resort. Shaded faces, narrow 340

shops full of perfumes, purses, and confitures, marble staircases in back of the entrances, the even purring of the motorcars. Every so often wide streets came flowing perpendicularly into the allée; they evaporated in the vague distance along with their fore-gardens and their apartment houses. Streets these were which scarcely emitted a sound — at night sometimes, when they were no longer able to bear the emptiness, they surely screamed. Far away shone a reddish glimmer. From the other side of the allée a café was sending bright hard beams in Georg’s direction; it must have just opened. After a few months perhaps no one would remember it anymore. Businesses were always coming and going, each new one behaving as if the present moment would last forever. Newspaper hawkers praised their newspapers, the stream of pedestrians increased, and now an empty space gaped where a number of streets ran together. High overhead neon advertisements glittered, illuminating a jumble of rooflines, turrets, and caryatids. Their words and embellishments in every color accompanied the Kurfürstendamm from now on, and together with the plethora of other lights produced that reddish glare. It trickled through the foliage of the trees, it bathed the surging mass of people. “Matches, matches — please, help me.” The wind blew. In an opening that unexpectedly revealed itself, finely attired ladies, smiling children, and the heads of men fought against the darkness — a silent procession of photographs sliding along a wall and into an interior. People bumped into one another, paying no attention. Again and again the voice cried: “Matches, matches — please, help me.” Finally it was seen that the voice belonged to a blind man. He wore an old soldier’s cap and stood there so isolated and alone he could as well have been mute, too, and able to do no more than listen. He had sent his own voice 341

off to wander; it pursued its way like a messenger. At the next street corner the masses condensed into tightly packed throngs which continually disintegrated and re-created themselves in the same instant. Many people spoke in loud voices to blunt their weariness and their hunger. Sales ladies who had made themselves up quickly after their places of business closed, young gents from the readymade clothing outlets, stenotypists, shop girls, striplings: white-collar employees swarmed over the lower Kurfürstendamm93 at this hour of the day — an army of ants, falling upon automobiles and trams, sweeping through the holes and the cracks. “Matches” — bars followed one after another — “please, help me.” Darkness loomed over the Gedächtniskirche94 on the last short leg of the allée. The wind blew with ever greater violence. On the unprotected square in whose midst the church rose it roared past a frontage of gleaming columns and pipes, of plate glass, and vast stretches of posted bills. The light dispatched by the store fronts drove off the night horrors and was more horrible than the night. The implacable din it was making mixed with the howling of the storm.

Georg: Trials and Tribulations of an Everyman in Weimar Germany

“Georg,” the young newspaperman protagonist of Siegfried Kracauer’s similarly named Weimar novel, never finds any traction. He does not know where he belongs in society and searches in vain for some belief to live by.

He experiences many things, but those experiences do not leave Georg with the feeling that he has learned very much of anything. As the German would have it, his is a life of Erlebnisse and not Erfahrung. He is flooded with transient emotions and is reliably surprised by events. At most, he develops a social conscience which he is then powerless to assuage. By the end of the novel Georg is worse off than ever, and the future looms before him as a void.

Kracauer thought of his character as suffering a progressive disillusionment. In a short “analysis” of his novel, prepared for prospective publishers, he describes a dual trajectory. Whereas society is more and more exposed as selfish and corrupt, his hero, Georg, undergoes negative enlightenment as he learns to distrust the influences around him.

Propelled by a wish to do what is right and to find a good and secure place in the bustle of the world, [Georg] approaches many persons and acquaints himself with many tendencies, but almost all of these prove unsatisfactory.

Sometimes he seems about to become the victim of intrigues that are set in motion around him, and sometimes he struggles not to fall into 343

despair. The further the action of the novel advances, the more disenchanted he becomes.

He ends his relationship with Fred, he frees himself from the most varied false connections. At last he sees through the wretchedness of the society in which he is living, and when he makes no secret of his opinion of it, he is dismissed from the newspaper. He is left enlightened and clear-thinking, and without illusions.1

Coming from the author, this amounts to an oddly reductive reading. For a start, the world in which Kracauer’s protagonist moves is not simply bad; instead it seems to be at cross purposes — a realm of warring halftruths that are espoused by persons with motives admirable and otherwise. In the final chapter, Georg himself concludes that more good than bad exists in the world, but that the two always arrive mixed up with each other. Kracauer was trained as an architect and practiced the profession for a decade before turning to journalism.

Fittingly, Georg’s next thought is that there must be a small “error” in the “construction” of the world which is never corrected — either because it appears insignificant or because it is not even noticed.

Kracauer contends that Georg fails to make a place for himself in this flawed world because he differs so greatly from it. Setting out on a misguided search for the Holy Grail, ever wary of contamination, he is something like Parzifal, a “pure fool.” 2 And true enough, once he begins working at the Morgenbote (the “Morning Herald”), Georg is surrounded by schemers. But he is himself already flawed. “Always so terribly blunt” is the diagnosis Doktor Petri offers as he prepares to fire him, “your error is bluntness pure and simple.”

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Over and over again Georg surprises himself and the reader by rashly challenging the ideas of others. And indeed: questionable remedies for what ails the world are proposed by nearly everyone he meets — from the shadowy mountebank Herr Berg to the complacent socialist Doktor Wolff to the doctrinaire communist Herr Neubert. Nevertheless, his rash sorties into public debate are more than offset by something else — a readiness to disengage. Occasionally he is gripped by the urge to flee himself altogether. And this in spite of a desire, frequently expressed, to leave his mark on a world seemingly in so much in need of help.

Disengagement provides Georg with feelings of buoyancy and even bliss. The inclination appears central to his way of coping with life. In chapter 7, for instance, he flees the Congress on community building and his tormenting memories of Fred for the delicious solitude of his hotel.

“Was being alone really so awful?” Georg asks himself.

It was pure and inviolable, like the evening through which, wrapped in thought, [he] made his way. Afterwards, sheltered by a palm, he sat in the beautiful hotel lobby at a small round table, his cane resting next to him on a chair.

Here at last he was safe from every persecution.

In the last chapters of the novel Georg is still indulging reveries of bourgeois privilege. As here in chapter 13: “Something I’ve always dreamed of,” [Georg] said to Robby . . . “is a valet who would always divine my intentions in advance. For example, if I were to experience a yen to set off on a journey and popped off to the train station, he would have 345

to be there already, waiting with packed coffers.

Of course I’d arrive just one minute before departure time.

And yet an awkward dialectic does not cease to work in him: moments later Georg will rebuke Herr Heydenreich, Kracauer’s representative plutocrat.

Particularly when it comes to sex, Georg finds ways to jettison himself completely. In chapter 10, his alter ego engages in wild coupling with a costume at a Carnival party, but this is possible only after he has managed to ditch his usual shy self: . . . it was so to speak as if he sank from himself, and someone else whom he did not know took over the directing in his place. This other strange Georg — into whom he was by no means absorbed — went around with Apache maidens, pimps, and negresses, letting out admiring “ahs” and omitting no mischief whatsoever.

He was everywhere at the same time. And it was all automatic.

After having sex with a middle-aged prostitute (chapter 12) Georg meditates on why such experiences appeal to him: They were charming in their randomness. To bring them about he threw himself away, and he wanted to throw himself away. Otherwise he would become inextricably tangled in lies.

He always discovered the same thing; when he tried to engage his whole self, reality slipped away from him and the words turned false in his mouth . . . No, this higher existence sprang 346

from dubious roots and became a nearly intolerable burden. Better to cast it off and be a nobody; cleaner to pay for physical pleasure with money than to transfigure it with emotions which for girlfriends and boyfriends went by the name of “love.”

The romantic relationship with Fred that occupies a prominent place in the early chapters of the novel is there in part to characterize Georg as escapist. Their shared existence depends on being confined to a cocoon; beyond the narrow limits of Fred’s room it founders.

What is more, the boy is attractive to Georg only while he remains unformed. It is as if Georg were immersing himself in the relationship to hide from certain difficulties of his own. When Fred matures and begins to make his own life choices, the magic vanishes. Grown up Fred is no longer fascinating: He was handsome like before, only much more manly, or whatever the word might be for the quality of reserve which now adhered to him.

So complete: as though coated with the thinnest layer of something. And even if the old sadness still lay in his eyes — whatever it had grown out of seemed sealed up for good.

Siegfried Kracauer was familiar with this variety of eros and its frustrations from his friendship with a much younger Theodor W. Adorno, whom he tutored privately in philosophy for a number of years.3 His faults aside, Georg possesses a fund of common sense. The objections he raises to the glib assurances and rationalizations of those around him are sound. He 347

may not be eloquent and every so often he fails to articulate a thought, but such limitations turn out rather to his credit. No wily intellectual, he is Weimar’s own Everyman.

Kracauer conceived of his character as a “divining rod” to whom “all the figures in [the novel] expose their inadequacies or their hidden value” as soon as they come into contact with him.4 For his part Georg, never capable of embracing positive belief for long, is pulled leftward as the novel progresses. Clearly he feels the unfairness of the world more and more intensely, yet almost to the very end he will insist that it can be changed only through individuals changing themselves and not by means of any socially imposed solution; he is repelled by the inhumanity of an untempered capitalism but no less by the inhumanity he discerns in Herr Neubert and his communist ideology.

Eventually his common sense falters, even so. A second encounter between Georg and Herr Neubert brings the critical moment (chapter 12). Georg has been pondering the fate of intellectuals under a Marxist order: “In the course of our discussion,” said Georg to Neubert, “you asked me how the Party might acquire a larger following among the intelligentsia. I would think that there’d be no harm in repeatedly showing the educated class that their fear of losing their freedom in a socialist state is a mere figment of the imagination. That then they will no longer need to worry about surviving and will in reality be much freer than they are now. The collective alone will make them into the individuals they wish to be . . .”

His conclusions felt utterly intoxicating.

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“I firmly mean to bring these things up in the Morgenbote,” Georg assures Neubert. Alas, at this juncture he is trying to square an intellectual circle; his thinking becomes wishful, whereas his previous repudiation of Neubert and his “panorama” was convincing. Moreover Georg’s newfound sophistry quickly lands him in trouble at the newspaper.

But those views of his may well shift again. Before the book finishes Georg is treated by Fred to some rather frank observations: I remember that you used to be very religious.

Later on you strayed from religion, I believe, and probably today you have some other view still. You’ve always been quick to change, my friend, you’ve always been sure your momentary truth was the final one. I admire the tireless searching. A single thing troubles me, and really just for your sake: What have you achieved through it all? I only see that your love of truth has landed you on the street, and that sooner or later you may have to settle for a modest position which will not answer to your capacities in the least . . .”

At bottom Georg is impotent. His last attempts to alter things, to correct the world’s mysterious flaw, are sheer fantasy as he describes them to Fred: “It’s lovely in Berlin,” said Georg. A deep excitement took possession of him. “Sometimes I stroll for hours through the streets and forget everything. Or rather the opposite, I see everything: people, things, houses. To submerge myself in 349

them is my greatest delight. And while I pass through the multitude completely unrecognized, often I so to speak feel myself sensing the distribution of all the weights and measures and overhear their imperceptible rising and falling.

Think of a trembling set of scales. It’s not seldom I catch myself holding in my breath and spreading and stretching my fingers; as though I had to use my fingers to very gently correct the scales.”

Here Kracauer implies a criticism of the flâneur, that bourgeois type par excellence. Relieved of Fred, Georg will saunter down the Kurfürstendamm and be sucked into a nightmare from which there is no escape. !

The wish Georg feels to be free of outer ties is a sign of his alienation. Certainly his efforts to bridge the gap between his own inner life and other people regularly end in failure. On the other hand, an unflagging comic energy begotten of this disjunction supplies Kracauer’s novel with tremendous vitality. Significantly, Georg is never seen through the eyes of anyone else — we do not have the least clue concerning his appearance, and for that matter are told very little about him. He is not even provided with a surname. Nonetheless, his subjectivity constantly influences the way the rest of the characters are described. The bizarre phantasmagorical images of Fräulein Peppel and Herr Lawatsch and Doktor Albrecht that continually well up signify how Georg is seeing them from one moment to the next. But at the same time, these images also transcend his perceptions. We are far from the realistic novel and a comfortably settled point of view.

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The last point may be illustrated with Frau Heinisch’s dinner party (chapter 7) — an elaborate scene with Weimar drawing-room society in full dress whose construction brings to mind Flaubert. Towards the middle of it, Georg glimpses a troop of starving men and women falling upon one another out of desperation as they hover above her richly appointed table; the reader is being made privy to what is evidently his hallucination. Though strangely, one other person at the table seems to share in what he sees. Still, whether Frau Guth really sees for herself or whether she is merely part of what Georg imagines is not certain. As he continues to observe her she begins to vanish. Ultimately Georg himself will vanish, bleeding into the author’s doomsday vision at the close of the book.

In Georg distortion and displacement are constants.

People are spoken of as if they were objects; objects become living things. Georg’s sometime adversary Fräulein Peppel is reduced to a fortifications, an overheated oven, and finally to a chattering, clattering contraption. Her boss, the scarily unpredictable Doktor Petri, turns into a train as he hurries past her; and as the train departs the office, his attaché case becomes a passenger in his roomy overgarment: The window was shut; Fräulein Petri glowed, inwardly on fire. There was a jolt and off the train rushed again. Georg absentmindedly watched the yellow case, which peered out like a first-class passenger at the receding corridors from one of the openings in the paletot.

A remarkable transformation occurs with Kracauer’s fantasy of the blackboard at the Bad Sulzbach resort where Georg 351

and Fred are on holiday together (chapter 6). It manages to produce an inflationary eclipse: Like a menacing cloud [the blackboard] stood immobile on the horizon of the dining room, and not satisfied with this, proceeded to increase its billions from day to day. Soon it had become a sinister blue-black shape which outgrew the four walls of the room and, visible from every direction, weighed heavily on the entire landscape. It blotted out the sun and filled the guests with terror. Fresh masses of paper bills were always falling from it, sticky masses in every color.

They could no more be done away with than the vegetation advancing across the garden.

The passage, a pure flourish of the author’s imagination, hints at his affinity with Surrealism, a movement reaching its crest in the years Georg was being written.

Typically, Kracauer compounds his characters from discrete elements which enter into intricate metaphors.

Here is how Georg first sees Herr Krug, whose benevolence is later shown to be a façade: His face spread the mild glow of a hanging lamp over the family dining table, a harmonious evening peace in which cheeks shone like little gardens. The entire homestead was sheltered by the two roundish lenses of his glasses.

In the same paragraph Krug’s behavior seems to grow out of the chair he habitually sits in, and perhaps his way of speaking does, too:

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Herr Krug’s desk chair was designed to be tilted and rotated, and as he spoke he was continually turning this way and that. His sentences, too, appeared as circles which gradually grew narrower, as if they traveled round and round a certain goal; they resembled a bird of prey who describes arcs in the sky before swooping down on its victim with hairline precision.

Actually, Krug is an outlier as far as Georg’s impressions are concerned. Benign and threatening at the same time, the miscellanies editor poses an outright contradiction.

His professional predicament will become clear to Georg only towards the end of the novel. Especially interesting is the way this character repeatedly succumbs to what may be an unconscious impulse to send his papers flying: a protest for which no one can be held responsible.

More representative is Doktor Rosin, the delirious academic. Although he multiplies himself into a throng of selves who take every position on a question and bewilder poor Georg terribly, the man appears in much the same light each time they meet. So does Frau Bonnet, the feminist and socialist lecturer who is always on fire with inner goodness and blind to the failings of others.

Kracauer has fun with these characters by making them more extravagant on their successive entrances, increasing the number of fanciful facets while keeping to a formula.

If his people are mostly cartoonish, they are sharply rendered and manage in their few strokes to convey a great deal. Herr Sommer communicates Kracauer’s ambivalence towards the German youth movement; with his insouciance and his casual dress and his charmingly improvised office décor, the man is both sympathetic and ridiculous. Father Quirin, the Jesuit priest, verges on 353

a stereotype and still he and his few words limn several of the essential mysteries of faith. The rivalry between two society ladies, Frau Heinisch and Frau Heydenreich, relished in catty fashion, suggests how very unserious such persons are about politics.

In this rogues’ gallery, Rosin and Krug are the two who are most addicted to bullshitting. The motormouth sociologist sows intellectual confusion in his listeners, being confused himself. The other, nearly as longwinded, is a virtuoso in obfuscation. Herr Krug’s endless nuances are deployed against those who appear to threaten his sinecure at the Morgenbote. What he says with reference to Georg in reply to the latter’s question during their first exchange applies infinitely more to Krug himself: “Then my thoughts aren’t clearly expressed?”

“That is not at all what I meant. Quite the contrary. You’ve altogether succeeded in making yourself understood. At least to the extent that——you’re a beginner, are you not? Usually they find it especially difficult to express themselves in an unambiguous manner. With you, too, one has a bit of a hard time deciding where you really stand. Which does not mean, naturally, that your attempt dispensed with a point of view.”

Of course tacking and feinting, not stating one’s convictions, are what earn kudos at the Morgenbote. The newspaper operates in the larger sphere just as Krug does in his little one. Doktor Petri, confronted again and again with Georg’s naiveté, cannot believe that his employee is politically inept and prefers to see in him a deep Machiavellian.

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Among all those we meet, by far the weirdest is Herr Kummer. Herr Krug poses a contradiction; the lowly proofreader is unfathomable. From the start he is a physical puzzle, for his head is not distinct from his trunk and he has mere slits for eyes. Besides which his utterances are always late arriving—the “Korrektor” appears to be out of sync with time. It is an epiphany for Georg and for us when this “soft, mute massif ” unveils himself as an instrument for combatting the grievous mistakes made in high places (chapter 9): “Let me tell you something in confidence,” replies the old man. “Though it is not at all necessary for me to do so, usually I read the articles I am proofing, and as a result I come to meditate upon the actions of statesmen and politicians. Thanks to these eyes of mine sharpened in the course of catching printing errors, I have now reached the conclusion that it is almost a rule that their actions diverge from the original text they were supposed to faithfully reproduce. History is nothing more than a garbled text. Especially in recent times the mutilations have accumulated to such an extent that the text threatens to become completely illegible. A catastrophe is in the making . . . And in view of its approach I shall henceforth artificially multiply the errors rather than remove them, contrary to the duties of my profession. Through such warning signs I hope to draw people’s attention all the more forcefully to the erroneousness of history. To be sure, almost no one knows the original text.

Naturally it would therefore be best if one 355

were to correct it himself right away. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll . . .”

Herr Kummer is nothing short of sublime in his futility.

The author feels special tenderness for Kummer and for Herr Lawatsch, the local news editor of the Morgenbote.

Neither elderly denizen is at home in the world any longer. But if Lawatsch is only another spokesman for plain old-fashioned conservatism, his colleague contemplates becoming a new kind of anarchist.

Kracauer can strike an unmistakably utopian note, as for example when the pair of moneygrubbing businessmen at a table next to Georg and Doktor Rosin are replaced by an enamored couple who float away to paradise (chapter 11): The lovers became so absorbed in each other’s respiration that the faintest breath was faithfully registered . . . The little stenotypist let a delicate finger glide so tenderly over the neck of her boyfriend it was as if she typed a love-letter on it with a heavenly typewriter, and while he was answering her line for line by return mail, the two of them went soaring off, corresponding ever more and more energetically and leaving behind the café, their offices, and the world.

The cinema pianist who gives after-hours concerts for himself in a tawdry neighborhood movie house (chapter 12) is capable of transforming an oppressive reality, too.

Like the lagging replies of Herr Kummer, the pianist’s accompaniments are out of sync. More often than not they contradict the images which are appearing on the screen, and yet he compensates for his lack of synchronization 356

and is even able to reverse his history of failing at his chosen career.

The cinema is itself a refuge from life and its disappointments for Georg and countless others. In his loving tribute Kracauer paints the movies as a working-class preserve open to those unable to afford the pricey outdoor rites of spring. A study of the interwar German cinema (“from Caligari to Hitler”) which Kracauer completed in American exile would become his best-known work and is still widely read today.5 Georg already shows proofs of a heightened visual awareness. Kracauer describes rooms with a precision that might easily let them be replicated as stage sets.

His narrator’s roving eye takes in all the elements of an interior and from them reads the social fortunes of its inhabitants. Frau Ander’s middle-class sitting room depends on older furniture she acquired before the war but has been incongruously smartened up with new slipcovers in a contemporary fabric (she is handy with a needle): The chairs in her sitting room wore modern slipcovers; nothing but severe stripes running straight down, unbroken, over a yellow ground.

But they did not get very far, these stripes, being stopped in their tracks by wooden curves. A flower pattern would have suited the curves better. The legs of the table curved, too; one barely noticed them beneath the cloth hanging down from it. A smaller fabric lay over the first; it bore in turn a stand, out of which a vase grew. Each layer protected the next, so that only the uppermost one was exposed to the elements. If the nucleus of these furnishing stemmed from Frau Anders’s 357

early married life, over the years she had added various enrichments which answered to her desire for beauty and social validation . . .

In one corner was a black pedestal column made of wood and next to the buffet painted fishing boats stood forth delicately from the sea . . .

Occasionally a paragraph of narration ends with an unprepared and seemingly extraneous statement. When Georg leaves an immobile Herr Kummer alone on the stairs to ascend to the newspaper offices (chapter 8) there is this enigmatic reference: “The cigarette pack was still lying there.” No one has been smoking or talking about cigarettes. It is as though a movie camera has suddenly seized on a single silent detail. And then we realize that the cigarette pack is a stray object someone has abandoned, just as Kummer is abandoned on the stairs and forgotten about. The unlit fireplace in Herr Neubert’s abode (chapter 12) functions in the same way.

When we are casually informed that a used match has slipped down over the newspapers heaped in it, the thought that they must catch fire one day cannot be far off. The detritus of bourgeois society can ignite at any time. (Images of the dark, lying in wait in a corner or behind a door or curtain, are scattered like omens through the whole of the novel.)

The cinema is treasured; the “legitimate” theater is an object of suspicion and a source of woe. In chapter 4, when Georg travels to report on the destruction of a venerable theater by fire, he associates its trappings with hypocrisy and falseness and finds himself unable to deplore the damage. Furthermore, the manager of the theater is an unchastened nationalist who sees Wagner and 358

Mozart as bulwarks in the battle against foreign influence.

Later, a theater evening provides the occasion for Georg’s final disillusionment with Beate, whom he considers to have deceived him (chapter 9). And even later, as Georg is recoiling from the hardheartedness of the people he encounters at the wealthy Heydenreichs, his feelings of alienation will cause him to imagine that he is in the midst of a theatrical production and that the guests around him lack reality (chapter 13).

Georg’s own professional advancement at the Morgenbote seems hardly more real; indeed, given his lack of Machiavellian instincts, it is laughably improbable.

Time and again he finds himself being admired for cleverly manipulating public opinion when he has only been blurting out his conviction of the moment. In this sense he really is the “pure fool” that Kracauer saw.

His rise from rookie reporter as an unwitting oracle has some subterranean connection with the larger world, whose doings are equally incredible. The turbulent history of the Weimar Republic will pass before the reader as a series of laconic references, most of them in the form of casual asides from the author. A memorable example occurs in chapter 9: “So, mademoiselle,” said Georg when Albrecht had finally said his goodbyes. “Couldn’t have been more comical,” declared Beate in a loud voice. And anxiously in the same breath: “Was my behavior all that bad?” Then the two of them laughed as if over a ghost. About this time Hitler attempted a putsch in Munich, but it failed miserably.

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!

For Kracauer, Georg was equally the record of an individual and the portrait of a society. The novel is an anti-Bildungsroman because it demonstrates a lack of true development in the protagonist; Georg cannot take hold.

But society, too, seems rudderless. Benefitting from hindsight, Kracauer could write gloomily in his prĂŠcis that “the reader is left feeling certain that the society will soon fall to ruin; a completely logical conclusion.â€?6 As a social novel [Georg] offers the picture of a society which seems to open itself subsequent to the shocks of the war, but then falls pitifully short.

Instead of following through with the (political and social) innovations which are talked about interminably, it grows visibly harder. The novel shows how this society is cut off from those nourishing roots which every people needs to have in order to live. It bandies about phrases, it dresses up its selfish interests with sheer ideology; it fails on the human level.7

Though in fact, up to the apocalyptic intimations of its last pages Georg sustains a comic vision of these insufficiencies and frequently allows for genuine hilarity. A man of the left, Kracauer aims his barbs chiefly at fellow leftists who failed to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of imperial Germany in November 1918. Also in his sights are enthusiasts for assorted modern lifestyles: feminists, those in love with youth and young people, the sportsminded.8 They all diverted attention from what many advocates of change believed was their sole imperative: redressing class injustice. Georg confronts us with devel360

opments from 1919 through 1926,9 years that witnessed a retreat of the German left and the temporary return to economic and political stability under the aegis of the US dollar. (While Georg is developing leftist sympathies, the Morgenbote swims with the tide, ever more solicitous of conservative agendas). Comparatively little space is given to the revanchist elements which were no less prominent in the early postwar years, and as Kracauer was to observe, Georg ends before National Socialism began to gather steam at the end of the 1920s.10 Finally, there is no interest shown in Jewishness per se, even though vivid Jewish characters are featured and the author himself was a Jew.11 When he began Georg, sometime in 1928,12 Kracauer had been the principal feuilleton editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung, Germany’s leading liberal newspaper, for the better part of a decade. In certain obvious respects the Morgenbote is its fictional counterpart.13 From this bastion he promoted the work of many artists and intellectuals in the midst of ongoing political and cultural unrest — that same atmosphere so tellingly evoked in Georg. In his own essays for the Frankfurter Zeitung, Kracauer employed a new intuitive sociology to analyze contemporary life from advertising to tourism, and most of all the new forms of mass entertainment.14 Then, in 1930, he suspended work on the novel to publish a path-breaking monograph on white-collar employees, an expanding urban class which he judged to be essentially rootless and hence particularly susceptible to the lure of fascism.15 The protagonist of Georg belongs to this class.

1930 was also the year of the first real upswing for Adolf Hitler and his party. Kracauer continued in his post at the Frankfurter Zeitung until the National Socialist takeover, which was followed by the dismissal 361

of Jews and leftists from positions of influence anywhere in Germany.16 Georg would be finished in France,17 where Siegfried Kracauer remained until 1941, his escape being an affair of the last minute. The novel never appeared while its author was alive, and yet it seems a worthy enough companion for his famous film study.18 Carl Skoggard July 3, 2015

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Essay Notes 1. Siegfried Kracauer Werke: VII. Romane und Erzählungen, ed. by Inka Mülder-Bach in collaboration with Sabine Biebl (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2004) 605.

The concise “analysis,” some four pages of typescript, dates from 1934.

2. Kracauer Werke: VII, 603.

3. Unlike the fictional relationship portrayed in Georg, theirs was sustained through an intellectual exchange which is recorded in more than four decades of correspondence.

It is clear from his early letters that the homely Kracauer had fallen in love with his pupil, who was almost fifteen years younger and nearly as handsome as he was brilliant.

See Theodor W. Adorno. Briefe und Briefwechsel: VII. Theodor W. Adorno/Siegfried Kracauer. Briefwechsel 1923-1966. “Der Riß der Welt geht auch durch mich . . .” Ed. by Wolfgang Schopf (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2008).

4. Kracauer Werke: VII, 603.

5. Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological Study of the German Film (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1947; reissued in 2004 with an introduction by Leonardo Quaresima). Written mainly during the Second World War, the book was among the first to treat the cinema seriously as a medium of culture.

6. Kracauer Werke: VII, 605.

7. Kracauer Werke: VII, 604-605.

8. When he came to write From Caligari to Hitler, Kracauer would show no special sympathy for the many movies that were made in Weimar Germany to promote social causes such as women’s rights, the rights of homosexuals, or the bettering of prison conditions.

9. Kracauer Werke: VII, 603. In his “analysis,” Kracauer 363

gives the period covered as “1920 to 1926/28.” A careful collation of the historical events that are mentioned with various internal references to the passing of time suggests the dates 1919 to 1926. Occasionally the narrator of Georg speaks retrospectively of things that occurred early in the novel as if to a more distant past.

10. Kracauer Werke: VII, 603.

11. Kracauer (1889-1966) was born into a secular Jewish family settled in Frankfurt am Main. Among the characters in Georg with names indicative of a Jewish ancestry are the frantic Doktor Rosin, Fräulein Samuel the socialist agitator, and the bank director Sid (Sidney) Heydenreich.

Kracauer’s own kerndeutsch given name reflects an enormous vogue at the time for Richard Wagner’s operas.

12. The first known mention of Kracauer’s novel is preserved in a letter from Joseph Roth to the author, dated July 10, 1928. In it the prominent journalist offers advice on how to position the protagonist of Georg within the society he will be criticizing. Brief excerpts from the novel started to appear soon after Kracauer began work on it, always under a pseudonym. Seven chapters had been completed when he fled Germany in 1933.

13. The Frankfurter Zeitung was founded by several prominent Jewish citizens of Frankfurt am Main in the middle of the 19th century. It soon became an influential newspaper offering regular support for liberal causes. Kracauer’s Morgenbote is an insignificant local organ before being acquired by a “radical-left bourgeois element” after the Great War; Doktor Petri presides over its opportunistic drift to the right. The Frankfurter Zeitung remained wholly in the hands of a few Jewish families down to June of 1929, when a 49% interest was ceded to a representative of the giant chemical conglomerate I.G. Farben. Towards the end of the Weimar era, the paper grew increasingly 364

conservative, much to Kracauer’s displeasure. It would be “Aryanized” in 1933 and reemerge after the Second World War under a revised name (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) as Germany’s preeminent center-right broadsheet.

14. A collection of these early essays, edited by the author, appeared a few years before his death. See Siegfried Kracauer, Das Ornament der Masse (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1963). The essays are available in English translation under an equivalent title. See: The Mass Ornament (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 1995; ed. by Thomas Y. Levin).

15. Die Angestellten: Aus dem neuesten Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main: Frankfurter Societäts-Druckerei, 1930). Kracauer’s book received a long and favorable review from Walter Benjamin in Die literarische Welt (June 16, 1930). In English as: The Salaried Masses: Duty and Distraction in Weimar Germany (London and New York: Verso, 1998; translated by Quintin Hoare and introduced by Inka Mülder-Bach).

16. By 1933 the Jewish Kracauer was decidedly Marxist.

But he continued to be highly critical of the Soviet Russian regime under Stalin. His Marxism comes out clearly in his précis for Georg and in a chapter-by-chapter summary of its contents which was compiled at the same time (1934).

17. A fair copy of his novel carries the typewritten German annotation “written in the years 1930 to 1934 in: Frankfurt a. Main, Berlin, Paris, Combloux, Paris.”

18. Georg was first issued in 1973 by Suhrkamp Verlag.

Up to now it has received less attention than has Ginster, Kracauer’s first novel, published in 1928 to considerable success.

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Explanatory Notes ! Chapter 1 " 1. the Soviet revolution in Munich: Between April 6 and May 3, 1919, radical leftists wishing to install a Soviet-style government run by “workers’ councils” were in control of Munich; the revolution was violently put down.

2. Schweinerei: German, “What a disgrace!” or “What a scandal!” when used as an exclamation. Said of behavior befitting pigs, either literally or figuratively.

3. the ‘Morgenbote’: The “Morning Herald.”

4. Referendar Doktor Wolff: Wolff, a beginning lawyer, has not yet passed an examination that will qualify him for an assistant judgeship.

5. On top of the opera house . . . four steeds: The first of several references to this sculptural group. They hint at Frankfurt am Main as the principal setting for the novel.

6. ‘The Idiot’: A novel by the Russian author Feodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881); its naive, saintly hero helps bring disaster onto the other characters, greedy and selfish people who inhabit a world in need of profound ethical transformation.

7. harmed by ‘Egmont’: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s play of that name, completed in 1788, justifies the mid-16th-c. uprising of the Netherlanders against their Spanish overlords.

8. the two addressed each other familiarly, with “Du”: In Germany at this time, even most friends addressed one another formally, with “Sie”; here “Du” reveals an unexpected intimacy.

! Chapter 2 " 9. right after the end of the war: World War I (“The Great War”) 366

officially ceased on November 11, 1918, with an armistice and Germany’s conditional surrender to her foes, the Allied powers.

10. the occupied Rhineland: Following the armistice that brought the Great War to an end, France and several other Allied powers undertook a military occupation of German lands west of the Rhine and of smaller areas to the east of the river. There were three such zones, each administered by a different Allied authority. The occupation, subsequently ratified by the Treaty of Versailles, lasted until 1930 in certain places.

11. the pension name: “Isolde” is the name of the tragic heroine of Richard Wagner’s operatic masterpiece Tristan und Isolde (first staged in 1865).

12. Gymnasium . . . the Obertertia: The Gymnasium (from the Greek for “place for [boys’] naked exercises”) is the Central European equivalent of a college preparatory school in the United States. “Obertertia” corresponds to ninth grade in the American system.

13. Ein, zwei, drei, vier : “One, two, three, four.”

! Chapter 3 " 14. the latest telegrams . . . a note from the Allied powers: Specific events are not identifiable from these references.

15. the old Baroque portal: There is a very famous Baroque entranceway to the so-called Kaisertreppe in the Römer in Frankfurt’s Altstadt, but the rather detailed description given of the portal in the novel does not agree with it.

16. Carnival costumes: In many Roman Catholic lands, the period leading up to the beginning of Lent is a time of festivity and public merrymaking; both western and southern Germany are predominantly Catholic regions and celebrate Carnival (“Fasching” in German).

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! Chapter 4 " 17. King Wilhelm . . . Sedan or Gravelotte . . . the fallen: King Wilhelm of Prussia led the successful armies of the confederation of German states during the Franco-Prussian War (187071); Sedan and Gravelotte were signal Prussian victories. French forces (“the fallen”) wore blue-and-red uniforms.

18. the crowning of the Kaiser . . . Versailles: The sumptuous Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles was chosen to be the site of the coronation of Wilhelm of Prussia as Wilhelm I, the first head of the newly forged German Empire. His crowning took place there on January 18, 1871.

19. the Oberbürgermeister: The Lord Mayor. A lord mayor presides at meetings of the municipal council of Frankfurt am Main.

20. his shirt collar open in the Schiller manner: A free and informal fashion in masculine dress named for Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), German poet and dramatist. A portrait of the composer Beethoven in a “Schiller collar” is also widely known.

21. the erstwhile glamor of Empire and Kaiser: With the coming together of the numerous German states as a single political entity following the Franco-Prussian War, “Germany” came to occupy the heart of the European continent as its most formidable nation. The new German Empire or “Deutsches Reich” found embodiment in the person of its ruler or “Kaiser” (i.e., “Caesar”). In 1918 it was dissolved, having been in existence for less than fifty years, and replaced by a republic (the so-called Weimar Republic).

22. Eichendorff . . . Jean Paul: Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (1788-1857) and Jean Paul (Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, 1763-1825) were leading German Romantic literary figures.

23. the feuilleton editor: The feuilleton (French, “leaflet”) is that section of European newspapers meant to entertain general readers. It usually includes serious cultural criticism, poems and 368

shorter fiction, and a scattering of more diverting, purely topical items. Frequently in former times a novel might be serialized in a feuilleton before it was published as a book.

24. the Allied demands for reparations: The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany was to pay indemnities of many billions of marks for damage caused to civilian property during the Great War. The demands were never accepted by the Germans as fair since they rested on the premise that the losing side bore all moral responsibility for the conflict.

25. scores for ‘Rienzi’: Rienzi, an early opera by the German nationalist composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883). Rienzi, the hero and the last of the Roman tribunes, attempts to become the political saviour of his people. Hitler, who identified himself with this figure, eventually acquired the autograph manuscript of the score of Wagner’s opera.

26. the Allied zone: Georg travels deep into French-occupied territory, extending mainly south and west of Frankfurt. The city itself lay no more than a few miles outside the zone.

27. Senegalese blacks . . . bugles blazon . . . spring: These are signs of the French occupation. The French deployed colonial troops from Senegal in the Rhineland, outraging the Germans and stirring up racial hysteria. The bugle calls are identifiably French (Kracauer employs a French word, clairons, for “bugles”).

28. Festspielhaus: German, “festival theater.” The first of these was conceived by Richard Wagner for Bayreuth as a kind of pilgrimage site meant for the staging of his own operas.

29. political murders, how horrible: Between 1919 and 1922 there were several hundred political murders in Germany, committed by rightwing and also leftwing extremists, the most shocking being the assassination of the German foreign minister Walter Rathenau in Berlin on June 24, 1922, at the hands of ultra-nationalists.

30. Down in Württemberg: A former state in southwestern 369

Germany and now part of Baden-Württemberg. The Bonnets are moving hundreds of miles south.

31. had in mind to habilitate: In Central Europe “habilitation” calls for a candidate seeking a position as a university professor to produce a work of independent scholarship beyond the doctoral dissertation. In German, a “Habilitationsschrift.”

32. ‘Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon’: One of the bestknown multi-volume general encyclopedias in the German language, it was first issued in 1839 as Meyers ConversationsLexicon and enjoyed an independent existence until 1984.

33. You asbsolutely must read him for your lectures: Apparently an in-joke: the only person with the name “Philippe de la Rochelle” to be found online is a French grammarian whose works were being issued in the years when Kracauer himself was a student.

34. after that comes “the downfall of the West”: An allusion to Oswald Spengler’s two-volume work Das Untergang des Abendlandes (The Downfall of the West; 1918, 1922). Once very widely read, the book treats human cultures as individual organisms with set lifespans; Western man is already in his “winter time.”

35. until at last Graf Keyserling appears: Hermann Graf Keyserling (1880-1946), a popular philosopher who hoped to interest his fellow Germans in international, democratic principles.

36. the dollar is rising: Beginning during the war and increasingly thereafter, with an enormous inflationary spike late in 1923, the German mark lost all of its value relative to the US dollar. Hyperinflation seems to have been the result of a deliberate policy on the part of the German government to foil payment of war reparations in hard currency.

37. last things: The branch of Christian theology known as eschatology (from Greek, “the study of final things”) treats of death, the Last Judgment, Heaven, and hell. They are “the four 370

last things.” Siegfried Kracauer’s final monograph, published after his death, is titled: History: The Last Things Before the Last (1969).

! Chapter 5 " 38. like a house on stakes: Prehistoric houses raised on stakes or piles over water; many are known to have been constructed in Alpine lakes.

39. the Young Catholics: A network of youth organizations sponsored by the Catholic Church. During the early 20th c., a broad range of organized youth activities emerged in Germanspeaking Europe. Anti-authoritarian bourgeois young people set the pace, and German nationalists, Catholics, Zionists, Social Democrats, and Communists all ended up sponsoring youth groups to promote their own aims. The “Hitler Youth” was a late development.

40. the youth movement: The overall phenomenon of socially organized youth in Germany during the early decades of the 20th c. was referred to as the “youth movement” (German, Jugendbewegung). During this period the movment was part of the national political discussion.

41. the Wandervögel: An early manifestation of the German youth movement. The first local group of Wandervögel (German, “wandering birds”) was founded in the Berlin suburb of Stieglitz in 1896 to foster a sense of community among boys through regular, organized activities undertaken in nature, with a minimum of adult supervision. Unlike the British boy scouts, the early Wandervögel were not inspired by military values; some groups soon welcomed girls along with boys.

42. Things on the Ruhr: In 1923 France together with Belgium staged a military occupation of the whole of the Ruhr Valley, the most heavily industrialized area of Germany, to compel 371

in-kind payment of reparations. The occupation, which provoked serious unrest, was lifted after two years.

43. the Center party: With the beginning of mass electoral politics, the Roman Catholic populations of various European nations began forming political parties at the national level to protect and promote Catholic interests. The Deutsche Zentrumspartei (German Center Party) was founded in 1870 and remained a major force until it was outlawed by the National Socialists.

44. a . . . minor chieftain in his Indian books: The books of Karl May (1842-1912) offered a romanticized view of American Indian life and helped ignite a German craze for imitating Native American ways. This interest is still alive in Germany today.

45. the Lord gives to his own in sleep: A German saying that comes from Psalms 127:2 (second half), where it is asserted that the Lord sees to the needs of those who find trust in him even while they sleep.

! Chapter 6 " 46. Sulzbach: Apparently a fictional place, although there is a valley of this name high up in the Black Forest (as well as several towns with the name elsewhere). Kracauer and his young friend Theodor W. Adorno once met and stayed the night in the scenic Lower Franconian town of Amorbach. Rich in Baroque vestiges, Amorbach would seem far more attractive and considerably less isolated than “Sulzbach” (“pickled brook” or “brine brook”).

47. calling for “Bürschle” . . . not to be unrolled: The dog’s name means “little guy” or “little fellow.”

48. they look like stenotypists: Stenotypists, nearly all of whom were female, took stenographic dictation (“shorthand”) and then worked up their notes at typewriters.

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! Chapter 7 " 49. the will to a national community: The Romantic notion of a national community, literally a “community of the folk” (German, Volksgemeinschaft), was originally a linguistic and cultural category. First proposed by Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), it was intended to provide Germans with a national identity in spite of their disunited condition and lack of political nationhood. By the 20th c. the idea of a “community of the folk” had acquired an anti-Semitic and xenophobic edge and was a standard component of rightwing nationalist thinking. The Minister also echoes Friedrich Nietzsche and his celebrated phrase “the will to power” (“die Wille zur Macht”).

50. now we get to hear Huebner: The pied piper of the German youth movement was Gustav Wyneken (1875-1964), educational reformer, freethinker, and charismatic leader. An outspoken proponent of pedagogical eros, Wyneken was convicted of making sexual advances to male students, following a very public trial in 1921. “Huebner” may well be intended to recall him to the reader’s mind.

51. the one by Fleury . . . whole picture: Probably a reference to Émile Félix Fleury (1815-1884), aide-de-camp to Emperor Napoléon III and a participant in secret diplomacy between France and the papacy mediated by Empress Eugénie. (His memoirs would seem an unlikely key with which to explain nearly everything.)

52. On the table lay the Communist Manifesto: An epochmaking German political pamphlet written in 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It offered a concise analysis of world history as a series of struggles between social classes. By an inevitable historical process, workers will eventually rule the world.

53. passive resistance: During the first nine months of 1923, in response to the military occupation of the Ruhr by French and Belgian troops, the German goverment paid industrial 373

workers there to strike, and it ordered the general population in the region to neither confront the foreign forces nor cooperate with them in any manner. The policy led to a calamitous drop in economic activity and hyperinflation.

54. the proletariat: In Marxist theory, the class of workers, especially industrial wage earners, who possess virtually no capital or property and who must sell their labor to survive. The term comes from Latin proletarius, used in ancient Rome to designate a member of the lowest class — those whose only wealth was their children or progeny (proles).

! Chapter 8 " 55. differences in weltanschauung: The German word Weltanschauung refers to the general way an individual has of looking at the world. The word was associated with German Romantic philosophy and has found its way into English and other languages as well.

56. Lincrusta: A deeply embossed, extremely durable wall covering patented in 1877 by the Englishman Frederick Walton, who earlier had come up with linoleum as a floor treatment.

It was once in very wide use.

57. led by the ‘Geist’ of the New Youth: Geist (German, “spirit” or “mind”) was conceived by the philosopher Hegel (17701831) as the essential inner force of world history. The latter represents the process through which “spirit” or “mind” comes to know itself. Herr Sommer believes that the German youth movement, an instrument of that “mind,” will spearhead a transformation of society.

58. the foehn: a warm, dry wind coming off the northern slopes of the Alps.

59. “Heil” . . . no other salutation was thinkable: Thought by the Grimm brothers to have been in use among the ancient 374

German tribes, the salutation “Heil” is meant to appeal to Sommer, who indulges in old folk customs such as leaping over fires on mountaintops with his young friends to mark the summer solstice. It was appropriated by the National Socialists for the so-called “Hitler greeting” (“Heil Hitler”). Georg’s use of “Heil” is darkly comic.

! Chapter 9 " 60. The last months of the year . . . bartering: The autumn of 1923 saw the peak of the German inflationary spiral, with nominal prices doubling every two days.

61. Saxony . . . Bavarian government . . . the Reich: In October 1923 the federal government, fearing a communist insurrection, sent troops to depose the recently elected leftwing government of the state of Saxony. In Bavaria around the same time, a rightwing administration proclaimed a state of emergency and nullification of federal security laws banning extremist organizations. Liberal newspapers were closed and deportation actions were taken against Jews.

62. every town issued its own emergency currency: During bouts of hyperinflation such as occurred in Germany in 1923, the breakdown of the official currency encourages the creation of local currencies to pay for goods and services that are generated in that same area.

63. about this time Hitler . . . a putsch: On November 9, 1923, Adolf Hitler attempted a coup in Munich which came to be known as the Beer Hall Putsch. It was quickly put down by police after he failed to get leading rightist politicians to support him.

64. the mark was stabilized: On October 15, 1923, the German government introduced a new currency, the so-called “Rentenmark,” to replace the worthless paper marks then 375

in use. The Rentenmark was backed by tax payments made to the federal treasury on the value of privately-owned land being used for agriculture and business. With one trillion paper marks redeeming one new Rentenmark, the conversion was quickly achieved.

65. put off until March: March of 1924, assuming a lapse of several months since the previously mentioned stabilization of the mark.

66. on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg: The chief district in Hamburg for entertainment and prostitution, internationally known then and now.

67. the formal mode of address: The formal “Sie” was the default way to address all those outside of one’s family, except for children, animals, and other adults at uninhibited parties.

Nowadays conventions governing how persons should be addressed are less strictly observed, especially by peers.

68. his doppelgänger: His double. A fixture of German Romantic novels and poems.

69. to carry off one little word: ‘Du’: Being allowed to address another adult with “Du” is a privilege that is awarded on a person-by-person basis, with the consent of both parties.

70. ‘Die große Nacht’ . . . Karl Grohmann: In English, The big Night, a title with an ironic application for Kracauer’s hero.

Grohmann is not traceable as a playwright.

! Chapter 10 " 71. “What are you doing with that knee, dear Hans”: In German, “Was machst du mit dem Knee, lieber Hans?” The title of a hit song from 1925; the phrase has passed into the German language and is used to playfully call someone’s attention to his or her clumsy behavior.

72. auf Nimmerwiedersehen: In English, “until we never see 376

each other (one another) again.” A play on “auf Wiedersehen,” i.e., “until we see each other again,” the usual way of saying good-bye.

! Chapter 11 " 73. the blue flower: A central emblem of German literary Romanticism and symbolizing a yearning for the unattainable.

74. the late Schelling: F.W.J. Schelling (1775-1854), an important German philosopher whose late works were discounted at the time of the novel.

75. the New Objectivity: In German, “die Neue Sachlichkeit.”

An artistic trend in 1920s Germany which arose as a reaction to Expressionism. It employed a mannered realism to convey the artists’ cynical, socially critical attitude.

76. Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor: In Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov (1880), the Grand Inquisitor argues for the social usefulness of institutional Christianity, even though it goes against the real message of Jesus, who is said to “hinder” its work. People are to live happily and without free will in obedience to the Church.

77. the Sacraments: In Christian churches, these are rites which are regarded as an outward sign or confirmation of the bestowal of inward divine grace; ordained by Jesus Christ, the sacraments are administered by the Church to every Christian in good standing.

78. an insufferable petite-bourgeoise: In Marxist theory, the “petite bourgeoisie” (French, “lesser bourgeoisie”) are a distinct socioeconomic class made up of small business owners, tradespeople, and artisans, and all who, like Frau Anders, live on the interest from modest amounts of capital. Her behavior and attitudes will be fully determined by her class identity as a “petite bourgeoise,” i.e., a woman belonging to this class.

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79. her false consciousness: The Marxist concept of “false consciousness” accounts for the fact that persons belonging to a given class do not always act rationally, i.e., do not always promote their own real interests as members of that class. In political terms, they are duped into supporting the interests of others who actually work against their interests.

! Chapter 12 " 80. the Blue Grotto: A sea cave on the coast of the island of Capri in the Bay of Naples; famous as a natural wonder.

81. Grunewald: A prestigious residential neighborhood lying in the west of Berlin.

82. Hindenburg is Reichspräsident . . . developments: A highly popular general who had commanded the German war effort, Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934) was elected president of the Reich on May 12, 1925. Running as an independent, he was de facto the conservative candidate in the final electoral round. The Communists and several minor parties acted as spoilers in order to deny the presidency to the Social Democratic candidate.

83. foreign credit: In August 1924 a consortium of American banks agreed to lend the German government a very large sum of money, with the aim of putting the German economy on a secure footing again. The so-called Dawes Plan oversaw the introduction of yet another new currency, the “Reichsmark” — based on the gold standard — along with a reorganization of German banking. It led to the temporary resumption of meaningful reparations payments by Germany to the Allies.

84. clever policies towards nationalities: Within the recently established Soviet Union were numerous peoples who had come under Russian sway during imperial times; according to 378

the official Communist line, they were all now members of “the Federation of Soviet Socialist Republics” by choice.

85. India rouses itself . . . China organizes a boycott . . . former oppressors: At this time, the Indian struggle for independence from Britain was in full swing, having adopted Ghandi’s principles of non-violence and civil resistance. Between June 1925 and October 1926, the Chinese Nationalist government fomented strikes in Hong Kong, then a British colony, and organized a boycott of its goods and services.

! Chapter 13 " 86. Stresemann maneuvers very cleverly: Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929) was a conservative politician and German foreign minister between 1923 and 1929. His policies of normalization led to better relations with France and included firm support for the capitalist interests represented by bank director Heydenreich.

87. the question of the credits: The reference is to foreign loans for Germany, perhaps additional ones beyond those granted through the Dawes Plan. Further restructuring of German debt under American guidance would come in 1929, with the so-called Young Plan. Doktor Petri is on the phone with Reichspräsident Hindenburg.

88. ressentiment: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) employed the French word in certain of his philosophical writings to refer to the envy felt by the weak for the strong; such individuals deny their own inferiority by identifying with the Christian virtue of self-abnegation. Petri implies that Georg is merely envious of the rich capitalists he is excoriating in articles for the Morgenbote.

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! Chapter 14 " 89. the upper Kurfürstendamm: The most fashionable boulevard in Berlin, the Kurfürstendamm runs from east to west in the west of the city; its outermost (westernmost) reaches constitute an exclusive “upper” portion.

90. the two years I’ve been away: Fred has been in America from March 1924 until some time in the spring of 1926.

91. the nationalist parties: A significant share of the Weimar electorate supported political parties which stressed militarism and state authority while asserting German cultural and racial superiority. Nationalist parties were especially keen to return Germany to its former strength. Hitler’s National Socialists remained a small, largely regional party until 1930 (until 1932 the biggest vote in federal elections always went to the Social Democrats).

92. I have to go to Dahlem: A swank, primarily residential area in the far west of Berlin.

93. the lower Kurfürstendamm: The eastern segment of the boulevard.

94. the Gedächtniskirche: Sited on Breitscheidplatz just beyond the eastern terminus of the Kurfürstendamm, the Gedächtniskirche (“Memorial Church”) was erected by Kaiser Wilhelm II as a Lutheran place of worship during the 1890s to honor the memory of his grandfather, Kaiser Wilhelm I. It was destroyed during World War II but has since been reconstituted to function as an anti-war memorial and parish church.

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A Note on the Translation Liberties have been taken by the present translator in several important respects: He has introduced the use of italics for thoughts of the protaganist when these were sudden or urgent or intimate, and also when they would not be set off otherwise.

Kracauer’s highly idiosyncratic and seemingly expressive punctuation has been retained at least in principle, but with some modification. Here and there a series of three em-dashes became a pair of em-dashes. The exact significance of his multiple em-dashes remains uncertain; the translator is inclined to think that they indicate a charged silence if they conclude an utterance. On the other hand, an em-dash or a pair of em-dashes coming between two complete spoken sentences may represent only some extra silence.

Occasionally the translator has altered the paragraphing of Kracauer’s text. In particular, there were long stretches of narration, extending over many pages at times, which showed no paragraphing at all and made for needless difficulty in reading.

Lastly, several obvious slips on the part of the author or his typist have been silently emended, and several phrases or sentences of narration removed which provided information already given to the same effect nearby. With the upheaval that attended the writing of Georg, it is unlikely that Kracauer’s novel was ever reviewed by a professional editor.

The translator wishes to express his warmest thanks to both Ursula Tax and Sissi Tax for replying to numerous translation queries and also for checking portions of the translated text.

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Other books by Carl Skoggard: Recently the same author has produced translations with extensive commentary for three works by Walter Benjamin—his Berliner Kindheit um 1900 (Berlin Childhood circa 1900), Berliner Chronik (The ‘Berlin Chronicle’ Notices), and the complete Sonnets (in a bilingual edition). The last-named makes Benjamin’s poetry available in English for the first time. All may be ordered from Publication Studio Hudson, Troy, New York. Skoggard’s translation of Ein Jahr in Arkadien, an explicitly gay pastoral penned in 1805 by the eccentric Duke August of Saxe-Gotha and Altenburg, appeared as Year in Arcadia (Atropen Verlag) in 1999.