28 July. Despairing first impression of the barrenness, the miserable house, the bad food with neither fruit nor vegetables, the quarrels between W. and H. Decided to leave the next day. Gave notice. Stayed nevertheless. A reading from uberfall; I was unable to listen, to enjoy it with them, to judge. W."s improvised speeches.
Beyond me. The man writing in the middle of the garden; fat face, black eyes, pomaded long hair brushed straight back. Rigid stare, looked right and left out of the corners of his eyes. The children, uninterested, sat around has table like flies-I am more and more unable to think, to observe, to determine the truth of things, to remember, to speak, to share an experience; I am turning to stone, this is the truth. I am more and more unable even in the office. If I can"t take refuge in some work, I am lost. Is my knowledge of this as clear as the thing itself? I shun people not because I want to live quietly, but rather because I want to die quietly. I think of the walk we, E. and I, took from the tram to the Lehrter railway station. Neither of us spoke, I thought nothing but that each step taken was that much of a gain for me.
And E. is nice to me, believes in me for some incomprehensible reason, in spite of having seen me before the tribunal; now and then I even feel the effect of this faith in me, without, however, fully believing in the feeling.
The first time in many months that I felt any life stir in me in the presence of other people was in the compartment on the return trip from Berlin, opposite the Swiss woman. She reminded me of G.W. Once she even exclaimed: Children! She had headaches, her blood gave her so much trouble. Ugly, neglected little body; bad, cheap dress from a Paris department store. Freckles on her face. But small feet; a body completely under control because of its diminutive size, and despite its clumsiness, round, firm cheeks, sparkling, inextinguishable eyes.
The Jewish couple who lived next to me. Young people, shy and una.s.suming; her large hooked nose and slender body; he had a slight squint, was pale, short, and stout; at night he coughed a little. They often walked one behind the other. Sight of the tumbled bed in their room.
Danish couple. The man often very proper in a dinner jacket, the woman tanned, a weak yet coa.r.s.e-featured face. Were silent a good deal; sometimes sat side by side, their heads inclined towards one another as on a cameo.
The impudent, good-looking youngster. Always smoking cigarettes. Looked at H. impudently, challengingly, admiringly, scornfully, and contemptuously, all in one glance. Sometimes he paid her no attention at all. Silently demanded a cigarette from her. Soon thereafter, from the distance, offered her one. Wore torn trousers. If anyone is going to spank him, it will have to be done this summer; by next summer he will be doing the spanking. Strokes the arms of almost all the chambermaids; not humbly, however, not with embarra.s.sment but rather like some lieutenant whose still childish face permitted him liberties that would later be denied him. How he makes as if to chop off the head of a doll with his knife at the dinner table.
Lancers. Four couples. By lamplight and to gramophone music in the main hall. After each figure a dancer hurried to the gramophone and put on a new record. A decorous, graceful, and earnestly executed dance, especially on the part of the men. Cheerful, red-cheeked fellow, a man of the world, whose inflated stiff shirt made his broad, high chest seem even higher; the pale nonchalant fellow with a superior air, joking with everyone; beginning of a paunch; loud, ill-fitting clothes; many languages; read Die Zukunft; the gigantic father of the goitrous, wheezing family; you were able to recognize them by their labored breathing and infantile bellies; he and his wife (with whom he danced very gallantly) demonstratively sat at the children"s table, where indeed his offspring were most heavily represented.
The proper, neat, trustworthy gentleman with a face looking almost sulky in its utter solemnity; modesty and manliness. Played the piano. The gigantic German with dueling scars on his square face whose puffed lips came together so placidly when he spoke. His wife, a hard and friendly Nordic face, accentuated, beautiful walk, accentuated freedom of her swaying hips. Woman from Lubeck with shining eyes. Three children, including Georg who, thoughtless as a b.u.t.terfly, alighted beside complete strangers. Then in childish talkativeness asked some meaningless question. For example, we were sitting and correcting the "Kampf." Suddenly he appeared and in a matter-of-fact, trustful, and loud voice asked where the other children had run off to.
The stiff old gentleman who was a demonstration of what the n.o.ble Nordic wise-heads look like in old age. Decayed and unrecognizable; yet beautiful young wise-heads were also running around there.
29 July. The two friends, one of them blond, resembling Richard Strauss, smiling, reserved, clever; the other dark, correctly dressed, mild-mannered yet firm, too dainty, lisped; both of them gourmets, kept drinking wine, coffee, beer, brandy, smoked incessantly, one poured for the other; their room across from mine full of French books; wrote a great deal in the stuffy writing room when the weather was mild.
Joseph K., the son of a rich merchant, one evening after a violent quarrel with his father-his father had reproached him for his dissipated life and demanded that he put an immediate stop to it-went, with no definite purpose but only because he was tired and completely at a loss, to the house of the corporation of merchants which stood all by itself near the harbor. The doorkeeper made a deep bow, Joseph looked casually at him without a word of greeting. "These silent underlings do everything one supposes them to be doing," he thought. "If I imagine that he is looking at me insolently, then he really is." And he once more turned to the doorkeeper, again without a word of greeting; the latter turned towards the street and looked up at the overcast sky.
I was in great perplexity. Only a moment ago I had known what to do. With his arm held out before him the boss had pushed me to the door of the store. Behind the two counters stood my fellow clerks, supposedly my friends, their gray faces lowered in the darkness to conceal their expressions.
"Get out!" the boss shouted. "Thief! Get out! Get out, I say!"
"It"s not true," I shouted for the hundredth time; "I didn"t steal! It"s a mistake or a slander! Don"t you touch me! I"ll sue you! There are still courts here! I won"t go!
For five years I slaved for you like a son and now you treat me like a thief. I didn"t steal; for G.o.d"s sake, listen to me, I didn"t steal."
"Not another word," said the boss, "you"re fired!"
We were already at the gla.s.s door, an apprentice darted out in front of us and quickly opened it; the din coming in from what was indeed an out-of-the-way street brought me back to reality; I halted in the doorway, arms akimbo, and, as calmly as I could despite my breathlessness, merely said, "I want my hat."
"You"ll get it," the boss said, walked back a few steps, took the hat from Gra.s.smann, one of the clerks, who had jumped over the counter, tried to throw it to me but missed his aim, and anyway threw it too hard, so that the hat flew past me into the street.
"You can keep the hat now," I said, and went out into the street. And now I was in a quandary. I had stolen, had slipped a five-gulden bill out of the till to take Sophie to the theater that evening. But she didn"t even want to go to the theater; payday was three days off, at that time I should have had my own money; besides, I had committed the theft stupidly, in broad daylight, near the gla.s.s window of the office in which the boss sat looking at me. "Thief!" he shouted, and sprang out of the office. "I didn"t steal," was the first thing I said, but the five-gulden bill was in my hand and the till open.
Made jottings on the trip in another notebook. Began things that went wrong. But I will not give up in spite of insomnia, headaches, a general incapacity. I"ve summoned up my last resources to this end. I made the remark that "I don"t avoid people in order to live quietly, but rather in order to be able to die quietly." But now I will defend myself. For a month, during the absence of my boss, I"ll have the time.
30 July. Tired of working in other people"s stores, I had opened up a little stationery store of my own. Since my means were limited and I had to pay cash for almost everything- I sought advice, I wasn"t stubborn. It was not stubbornness when I silently laughed with contorted face and feverishly shining cheeks at someone who had unwittingly proffered me advice. It was suspense, a readiness on my part to be instructed, an unhealthy lack of stubbornness.
The director of the Progress Insurance Company was always greatly dissatisfied with his employees. Now every director is dissatisfied with his employees; the difference between employees and directors is too vast to be bridged by means of mere commands on the part of the director and mere obedience on the part of the employees. Only mutual hatred can bridge the gap and give the whole enterprise its perfection.
Bauz, the director of the Progress Insurance Company, looked doubtfully at the man standing in front of his desk applying for a job as attendant with the company. Now and then he also glanced at the man"s papers lying before him on the desk.
"You"re tall enough," he said, "I can see that; but what can you do? Our attendants must be able to do more than lick stamps; in fact, that"s the one thing they don"t have to be able to do, because we have machines to do that kind of thing. Our attendants are part officials, they have responsible work to do; do you feel you are qualified for that? Your head is shaped peculiarly. Your forehead recedes so. Remarkable. Now, what was your last position? What? You haven"t worked for a year? Why was that? You had pneumonia? Really? Well, that isn"t much of a recommendation, is it? Naturally, we can employ only people who are in good health. Before you are taken on you will have to be examined by the doctor. You are quite well now? Really? Of course, that could be. Speak up a little! Your whispering makes me nervous. I see here that you"re also married, have four children. And you haven"t worked for a year! Really, man! Your wife takes in washing? I see. Well, all right.
As long as you"re already here, get the doctor to examine you now; the attendant will show you the way. But that doesn"t mean that you will be hired, even if the doctor"s opinion is favorable. By no means. In any event, you"ll receive our decision in writing. To be frank, I may as well tell you at once: I"m not at all impressed with you. We need an entirely different kind of attendant. But have yourself examined in any case. And now go, go. Trembling like that won"t do you any good. I have no authority to hand out favors. You"re willing to do any kind of work? Certainly. Everyone is. That"s no special distinction. It merely indicates the low opinion you have of yourself. And now I"m telling you for the last time: Go along and don"t take up any more of my time. This is really enough."
Bauz had to strike the desk with his hand before the man let himself be led out of the director"s office by the attendant.
I mounted my horse and settled myself firmly in the saddle. The maid came running to me from the gate and announced that my wife still wanted to speak to me on an urgent matter; would I wait just a moment, she hadn"t quite finished dressing yet. I nodded and sat quietly on my horse, who now and then gently raised his forelegs and reared a little. We lived on the outskirts of the village; before me, in the sun, the highway mounted a slope whose opposite side a small wagon had just ascended, which now came driving down into the village at a rapid pace. The driver brandished his whip, a woman in a provincial yellow dress sat in the dark and dusty interior of the wagon.
I was not at all surprised that the wagon stopped in front of my house.
31 July. I have no time. General mobilization. K. and P. have been called up. Now I receive the reward for living alone. But it is hardly a reward; living alone ends only with punishment. Still, as a consequence, I am little affected by all the misery and am firmer in my resolve than ever. I shall have to spend my afternoons in the factory; I won"t live at home, for Elli and the two children are moving in with us. But I will write in spite of everything, absolutely; it is my struggle for self-preservation.
1 August. Went to the train to see K. off. Relatives everywhere in the office. Would like to go to Valli"s.
2 August. Germany has declared war on Russia-Swimming in the afternoon.
3 August. Alone in my sister"s apartment. It is lower down than my room, it is also on a side street, hence the neighbors" loud talking below, in front of their doors.
Whistling too. Otherwise complete solitude. No longed-for wife to open the door. In one month I was to have been married. The saying hurts: You"ve made your bed, now lie in it. You find yourself painfully pushed against the wall, apprehensively lower your eyes to see whose hand it is that pushes you, and, with a new pain in which the old is forgotten, recognize your own contorted hand holding you with a strength it never had for good work. You raise your head, again feel the first pain, again lower your gaze; this up-and-down motion of your head goes on without pause.
4 August. When I rented the place for myself I probably signed something for the landlord by which I bound myself to a two- or even six-year lease. Now he is basing his demand on this agreement. My stupidity, or rather, my general and utter helplessness. Drop quietly into the river. Dropping probably seems so desirable to me because it reminds me of "being pushed."
5 August. The business almost settled, by the expenditure of the last of my strength. Was there twice with Malek as witness, at Felix"s to draft the lease, at the lawyers" (6 kr), and all of it unnecessary; I could and should have done it all myself.
6 August. The artillery that marched across the Graben. Flowers, shouts of hurrah! and nazdar! The rigidly silent, astonished, attentive black face with black eyes.
I am more broken down than recovered. An empty vessel, still intact yet already in the dust among the broken fragments; or already in fragments yet still ranged among those that are intact. Full of lies, hate, and envy. Full of incompetence, stupidity, thickheadedness. Full of laziness, weakness, and helplessness. Thirty-one years old. I saw the two agriculturists in Ottla"s picture. Young, fresh people possessed of some knowledge and strong enough to put it to use among people who in the nature of things resist their efforts somewhat. One of them leading beautiful horses; the other lies in the gra.s.s, the tip of his tongue playing between his lips in his otherwise unmoving and absolutely trustworthy face.
I discover in myself nothing but pettiness, indecision, envy, and hatred against those who are fighting and whom I pa.s.sionately wish everything evil.
What will be my fate as a writer is very simple. My talent for portraying my dreamlike inner life has thrust all other matters into the background; my life has dwindled dreadfully, nor will it cease to dwindle. Nothing else will ever satisfy me. But the strength I can muster for that portrayal is not to be counted upon: perhaps it has already vanished forever, perhaps it will come back to me again, although the circ.u.mstances of my life don"t favor its return. Thus I waver, continually fly to the summit of the mountain, but then fall back in a moment. Others waver too, but in lower regions, with greater strength; if they are in danger of falling, they are caught up by the kinsman who walks beside them for that very purpose. But I waver on the heights; it is not death, alas, but the eternal torments of dying.
Patriotic parade. Speech by the mayor. Disappears, then reappears, and a shout in German: "Long live our beloved monarch, hurrah!" I stand there with my malignant look. These parades are one of the most disgusting accompaniments of the war. Originated by Jewish businessmen who are German one day, Czech the next; admit this to themselves, it is true, but were never permitted to shout it out as loudly as they do now. Naturally they carry many others along with them. It was well organized. It is supposed to be repeated every evening, twice tomorrow and Sunday.
7 August. Even if you have not the slightest sensitivity to individual differences, you still treat everyone in his own way. L. of Binz, in order to attract attention, poked his stick at me and frightened me.
Yesterday and today wrote four pages, trivialities difficult to surpa.s.s.
Strindberg is tremendous. This rage, these pages won by fistfighting.
Chorus from the tavern across the way. I just went to the window. Sleep seems impossible. The song is coming through the open door of the tavern. A girl"s voice is leading them. They are singing simple love songs. I hope a policeman comes along. There he comes. He stops in front of the door for a moment and listens. Then calls out: "Landlord!" The girl"s voice: "Vojtiku." A man in trousers and shirt jumps forward out of a corner. "Close the door! You"re making too much noise." "Oh sorry, sorry," says the landlord, and with delicate and obliging gestures, as if he were dealing with a lady, first closes the door behind him, then opens it to slip out, and closes it again. The policeman (whose behavior, especially his anger, is incomprehensible, for the singing can"t disturb him but must rather sweeten his monotonous round) marches off; the singers have lost all desire to sing.
11 August. I imagine that I have remained in Paris, walk through it arm in arm with my uncle, pressed close to his side.
12 August. Didn"t sleep at all. Lay three hours in the afternoon on the sofa, sleepless and apathetic; the same at night. But it mustn"t thwart me.
15 August. I have been writing these past few days, may it continue. Today I am not so completely protected by and enclosed in my work as I was two years ago, nevertheless have the feeling that my monotonous, empty, mad bachelor"s life has some justification. I can once more carry on a conversation with myself, and don"t stare so into complete emptiness. Only in this way is there any possibility of improvement for me.
MEMOIRS OF THE KALDA RAILWAY.During one period of my life-it is many years ago now-I had a post with a small railway in the interior of Russia. I have never been so forsaken as I was there. For various reasons that do not matter now, I had been looking for just such a place at the time; the more solitude ringing in my ears the better I liked it, and I don"t mean now to make any complaint. At first I had only missed a little activity. The little railway may originally have been built with some commercial purpose in view, but the capital had been insufficient, construction came to a halt, and instead of terminating at Kalda, the nearest village of any size, a five-day journey from us by wagon, the railway came to an end at a small settlement right in the wilderness, still a full day"s journey from Kalda.
Now even if the railway had extended to Kalda it would perforce have remained an unprofitable venture for an indefinite period, for the whole notion of it was wrong; the country needed roads, not railways, nor could the railway manage at all in its present state; the two trains running daily carried freight a light wagon could have hauled, and its only pa.s.sengers were a few farm hands during the summer. But still they did not want to shut down the railway altogether, for they went on hoping that if it were kept in operation they could attract the necessary capital for furthering the construction work. Even this hope was, in my opinion, not so much hope as despair and laziness. They kept the railway in operation so long as there were still supplies of coal available, the wages of their few workers they paid irregularly and not in full, as though they were gifts of charity; as for the rest, they waited for the whole thing to collapse.
It was by this railway, then, that I was employed, living in a wooden shed left standing from the time of the railway"s construction, and now serving at the same time as a station. There was only one room, in which a bunk had been set up for me-and a desk for any writing I might have to do. Above it was installed the telegraphic apparatus. In the spring, when I arrived, one train would pa.s.s the station very early in the day-later this was changed-and it sometimes happened that a pa.s.senger would alight at the station while I was still asleep. In that case, of course-the nights there were very cool until midsummer-he did not remain outside in the open but knocked, I would unbolt the door, and then we would often pa.s.s hours in chatting. I lay on my bunk, my guest squatted on the floor or, following my instructions, brewed tea which we then drank together sociably. All these village people were distinguished by a great sociability. Moreover, I perceived that I was not particularly suited to stand a condition of utter solitude, admit as I had to that my self-imposed solitude had already, after a short time, begun to dissipate my past sorrows. I have in general found that it is extremely difficult for a misfortune to dominate a solitary person for any length of time. Solitude is powerful beyond everything else, and drives one back to people. Naturally, you then attempt to find new ways, ways seemingly less painful but in reality simply not yet known.
I became more attached to the people there than I should have thought possible. It was naturally not a regular contact with them that I had. All the five villages with which I had to do were several hours distant from the station as well as from each other. I dared not venture too far from the station, lest I lose my job. And under no circ.u.mstances did I want that, at least not in the beginning. For this reason I could not go to the villages themselves, and had to depend on the pa.s.sengers or on people not deterred by the long journey that had to be made to visit me. During the very first month such people dropped in; but no matter how friendly they were, it was easy to see that they came only on the chance of transacting some business with me, nor did they make any attempt to conceal their purpose. They brought b.u.t.ter, meat, corn, all sorts of things; at first, so long as I had any money, I habitually bought everything almost sight unseen, so welcome were these people to me, some of them especially. Later, though, I limited my purchases, among other reasons because I thought I noticed a certain contempt on their part for the manner in which I bought things. Besides, the train also brought me food, food, however, that was very bad and even more expensive than that which the peasants brought.
Originally I had intended to plant a small vegetable garden, to buy a cow, and in this way make myself as self-sufficient as I could. I had even brought along gardening tools and seed; there was a great deal of uncultivated ground around my hut stretching away on one level without the slightest rise as far as the eye could see. But I was too weak to conquer the soil. A stubborn soil that was frozen solid until spring and that even resisted the sharp edge of my new pick. Whatever seed one sowed in it was lost. I had attacks of despair during this labor. I lay in my bunk for days, not coming out even when the trains arrived. I would simply put my head through the window, which was right above my bunk, and report that I was sick. Then the train crew, which consisted of three men, came in to get warm, though they found very little warmth-whenever possible I avoided using the old iron stove that so easily blew up. I preferred to lie there wrapped in an old warm coat and covered by the various skins I had bought from the peasants over a period of time. "You"re often sick," they said to me. "You"re a sickly person. You won"t leave this place alive."
They did not say this to depress me, but rather strove straightforwardly to speak the truth whenever possible. Their eyes usually goggled peculiarly at such times.
Once a month, but always on a different day of the month, an inspector came to examine my record book, to collect the money I had taken in and-but not always-to pay me my salary. I was always warned of his arrival a day in advance by the people who had dropped him at the last station. They considered this warning the greatest favor they could do me in spite of the fact that I naturally always had everything in good order. Nor was the slightest effort needed for this. And the inspector too always came into the station with an air as if to say, this time I shall unquestionably uncover the evidence of your mismanagement. He always opened the door of the hut with a push of his knee, giving me a look at the same time. Hardly had he opened my book when he found a mistake. It took me a long time to prove to him, by recomputing it before his eyes, that the mistake had been made not by me but by him. He was always dissatisfied with the amount I had taken in, then clapped his hand on the book and gave me a sharp look again. "We"ll have to shut down the railway," he would say each time. "It will come to that," I usually replied.
After the inspection had been concluded, our relationship would change. I always had brandy ready and, whenever possible, some sort of delicacy. We drank to each other; he sang in a tolerable voice, but always the same two songs. One was sad and began: "Where are you going, O child in the forest?" The other was gay and began like this: "Merry comrades, I am yours!"-It depended on the mood I was able to put him in, how large an installment I got on my salary. But it was only at the beginning of these entertainments that I watched him with any purpose in mind; later we were quite at one, cursed the company shamelessly, he whispered secret promises into my ear about the career he would help me to achieve, and finally we fell together on the bunk in an embrace that often lasted ten hours unbroken. The next morning he went on his way, again my superior. I stood beside the train and saluted; often as not he turned to me while getting aboard and said, "Well, my little friend, we"ll meet again in a month. You know what you have at stake." I can still see the bloated face he turned to me with an effort, every feature in his face stood prominently forth, cheeks, nose, lips.
This was the one great diversion during the month when I let myself go; if inadvertently some brandy had been left over, I guzzled it down immediately after the inspector left. I could generally hear the parting whistle of the train while it gurgled into me. The thirst that followed a night of this sort was terrible; it was as if another person were within me, sticking his head and throat out of my mouth and screaming for something to drink. The inspector was provided for, he always carried a large supply of liquor on his train; but I had to depend on whatever was left over.
But then the whole month thereafter I did not drink, did not smoke either; I did my work and wanted nothing more. There was, as I have said, not very much to do, but what there was I did thoroughly. It was my duty every day, for instance, to clean and inspect the track a kilometer on either side of the station. But I did not limit myself to what was required and often went much farther, so far that I was barely able to make out the station. In clear weather the station could be seen at a distance of perhaps five kilometers, for the country was quite flat. And then, if I had gone so far off that the hut in the distance only glimmered before my eyes, I sometimes saw-it was an optical illusion-many black dots moving towards the hut. There were whole companies, whole troops. But sometimes someone really came; then, swinging my pick, I ran all the long way back.
I finished my work towards evening and finally could retreat into my hut. Generally no visitors came at this hour, for the journey back to the villages was not entirely safe at night. All sorts of shiftless fellows drifted about in the neighborhood; they were not natives, however, and others would take their place from time to time, but then the original ones would come back again. I got to see most of them, they were attracted by the lonely station; they were not really dangerous, but you had to deal firmly with them.
They were the only ones who disturbed me during the long twilight hours. Otherwise I lay on my bunk, gave no thought to the past, no thought to the railway, the next train did not come through till between ten and eleven at night; in short, I gave no thought to anything. Now and then I read an old newspaper thrown to me from the train; it contained the gossip of Kalda, which would have interested me but which I could not understand from disconnected issues. Moreover, in every issue there was an installment of a novel called The Commander"s Revenge. I once dreamed of this commander, who always wore a dagger at his side, on one particular occasion even held it between his teeth. Besides, I could not read much, for it got dark early and paraffin or a tallow candle was prohibitively expensive. Every month the railway gave me only half a liter of paraffin, which I used up long before the end of the month merely in keeping the signal light lit half an hour for the train every evening. But this light wasn"t at all necessary, and later on, at least on moonlit nights, I would neglect to light it. I correctly foresaw that with the pa.s.sing of summer I should stand in great need of paraffin. I therefore dug a hole in one corner of the hut, put an old tarred beer keg in it, and every month poured in the paraffin I had saved. It was covered with straw and could attract no attention. The more the hut stank of paraffin, the happier I was; the smell got so strong because the old and rotten staves of the keg had soaked up the paraffin. Later, as a precaution, I buried the keg outside the hut; for once the inspector had boasted to me of a box of wax matches, and when I had asked to see them, threw them one after the other blazing into the air. Both of us, and especially the paraffin, were in real danger; I saved everything by throttling him until he dropped all the matches.
In my leisure hours I often considered how I might prepare for winter. If I was freezing even now, during the warm part of the year-and they said it was warmer than it had been for many years-it would fare very badly with me during the winter. That I was h.o.a.rding paraffin was only a whim; if I had been acting sensibly, I should have had to lay up many things for the winter; there was little doubt that the company would not be especially solicitous of my welfare; but I was too heedless, or rather, I was not heedless but I cared too little about myself to want to make much of an effort. Now, during the warm season, things were going tolerably, I left it at that and did nothing further.
One of the attractions that had drawn me to this station had been the prospect of hunting. I had been told that the country was extraordinarily rich in game, and I had already put down a deposit on a gun I wanted sent to me when I had saved up a little money. Now it turned out that there was no trace of game animals here, only wolves and bears were reported, though during the first few months I had failed to see any; otherwise there were only unusually large rats which I had immediately caught sight of running in packs across the steppe as if driven by the wind. But the game I had been looking forward to was not to be found. The people hadn"t misinformed me; a region rich in game did exist, but it was a three-day journey away-I had not considered that directions for reaching a place in this country, with its hundreds of kilometers of uninhabited areas, must necessarily be uncertain. In any event, for the time being I had no need of the gun and could use the money for other purposes; still, I had to provide myself with a gun for the winter and I regularly laid money aside for that purpose. As for the rats that sometimes attacked my provisions, my long knife sufficed to deal with them.
During the first days, when I was still eagerly taking in everything, I spitted one of these rats on the point of my knife and held it before me at eye level against the wall.
You can see small animals clearly only if you hold them before you at eye level; if you stoop down to them on the ground and look at them there, you acquire a false, imperfect notion of them. The most striking feature of these rats was their claws-large, somewhat hollow, and yet pointed at the ends, they were well suited to dig with. Hanging against the wall in front of me in its final agony, it rigidly stretched out its claws in what seemed to be an unnatural way; they were like small hands reaching out to you.
In general these animals bothered me little, only sometimes woke me up at night when they hurried by the hut in a patter of running feet on the hard ground. If I then sat up and perhaps lit a small wax candle, I could see a rat"s claws sticking in from the outside and working feverishly at some hole it was digging under the boards. This work was all in vain, for to dig a hole big enough for itself it would have had to work days on end, and yet it fled with the first brightening of the day; despite this it labored on like a workman who knew what he was doing. And it did good work; the particles it threw up as it dug were imperceptible indeed, on the other hand its claw was probably never used without result. At night I often watched this at length, until the calm and regularity of it put me to sleep. Then I would no longer have the energy to put out the little candle, and for a short while it would shine down for the rat at its work.
Once, on a warm night, when I had again heard these claws at work, I cautiously went outside without lighting a candle in order to see the animal itself. Its head, with its sharp snout, was bowed very low, pushed down almost between its forelegs in the effort to crowd as close as possible to the wood and dig in claws as deep as possible under it. You might have thought there was someone inside the hut holding it by the claws and trying bodily to pull the animal in, so taut was every muscle.
And yet everything was ended with one kick, by which I killed the beast. Once fully awake, I could not tolerate any attack on my only possession, the hut.
To safeguard the hut against these rats I stopped all the holes with straw and tow and every morning examined the floor all around. I also intended to cover the hard-packed earthen floor of the hut with planks; such a flooring would also be useful for the winter. A peasant from the next village, Jekoz by name, long ago had promised to bring me some well-seasoned planks for this purpose, and I had often entertained him hospitably in return for this promise, nor did he stay very long away from me but came every fortnight, occasionally bringing shipments to send by the railway; but he never brought the planks. He had all sorts of excuses for this, usually that he himself was too old to carry such a load, and his son, who would be the one to bring the planks, was just then hard at work in the fields. Now according to his own account, which seemed correct enough, Jekoz was considerably more than seventy years old; but he was a tall man and still very strong. Besides, his excuses varied, and on another occasion he spoke of the difficulties of obtaining planks as long as those I needed. I did not press him, had no urgent need for the planks, it was Jekoz himself who had given me the idea of a plank flooring in the first place; perhaps a flooring would do no good at all; in short, I was able to listen calmly to the old man"s lies. My customary greeting was: "The planks, Jekoz!" At once the apologies began in a half-stammer, I was called inspector or captain or even just telegrapher, which had a particular meaning for him; he promised me not only to bring the planks very shortly, but also, with the help of his son and several neighbors, to tear down my whole hut and build me a solid house in its stead. I listened until I grew tired, then pushed him out. While yet in the doorway, in apology he raised his supposedly feeble arms, with which he could in reality have throttled a grown man to death. I knew why he did not bring the planks; he supposed that when the winter was closer at hand I should have a more pressing need for them-and would pay a better price; besides, as long as the boards were not delivered he himself would be more important to me. Now he was of course not stupid and knew that I was aware of what was in the back of his mind, but in the fact that I did not exploit this knowledge he saw his advantage, and this he preserved.
But all the preparations I had been making to secure the hut against the animals and protect myself against the winter had to be interrupted when (the first three months of my service were coming to an end) I became seriously ill. For years I had been spared any illness, even the slightest indisposition, but now I became indisputably sick. It began with a heavy cough. About two hours up-country from the station there was a little brook, where I used to go to fetch my supply of water in a barrel on a wheelbarrow. I often bathed there too, and this cough was the result. The fits of coughing were so severe that I had to double up when I coughed, I imagined I should not be able to survive the coughing unless I doubled up and so gathered together all my strength. I thought my coughing would terrify the train crew, but they knew all about it, called it the wolf"s cough. After that I began to hear the howl in the cough. I sat on the little bench in front of the hut and greeted the train with a howl, with a howl I accompanied it on its way when it departed. At night, instead of lying down, I knelt on the bunk and pressed my face into the skins at least to spare myself hearing my howls. I waited tensely until the bursting of some vital blood vessel should put an end to everything. But nothing of the kind happened and the coughing even abated after a few days. There is a tea that cures it, and one of the locomotive engineers promised to bring me some, but explained that it must be drunk only on the eighth day after the coughing began, otherwise it was of no use. On the eighth day he did in fact bring it, and I remember how not only the train crew but the pa.s.sengers as well, two young peasants, came into my hut, for it was accounted lucky to hear the first cough after the drinking of the tea. I drank, coughed the first mouthful into the faces of my guests, but then immediately felt a real relief, though indeed the coughing had already been easier during the last two days. But a fever remained and did not go down.
This fever tired me a great deal, I lost all my resistance; sometimes, quite unexpectedly, sweat would break out on my forehead, my whole body would tremble, and regardless of where I was I had to lie down and wait until I came to my senses again. I clearly perceived that I was not getting better, but worse, and that it was essential that I go to Kalda and stay there a few days until my condition improved.
21 August. Began with such hope and was then repulsed by all three stories; today more so than ever. It may be true that the Russian story ought to be worked on only after The Trial. In this ridiculous hope, which apparently has only some mechanical notion behind it of how things work, I start The Trial again-The effort wasn"t entirely without result.
29 August. The end of one chapter a failure; another chapter, which began beautifully, I shall hardly-or rather certainly not-be able to continue as beautifully, while at the time, during the night, I should certainly have succeeded with it. But I must not forsake myself, I am entirely alone.
30 August. Cold and empty. I feel only too strongly the limits of my abilities, narrow limits, doubtless, unless I am completely inspired. And I believe that even in the grip of inspiration I am swept along only within these narrow limits, which, however, I then no longer feel because I am being swept along. Nevertheless, within these limits there is room to live, and for this reason I shall probably exploit them to a despicable degree.
A quarter to two at night. Across the street a child is crying. Suddenly a man in the same room, as near to me as if he were just outside the window, speaks. "I"d rather jump out of the window than listen to any more of that." He nervously growls something else, his wife, silent except for her shushing, tries to put the child to sleep again.
1 September. In complete helplessness barely wrote two pages. I fell back a great deal today, though I slept well. Yet if I wish to transcend the initial pangs of writing (as well as the inhibiting effect of my way of life) and rise up into the freedom that perhaps awaits me, I know that I must not yield. My old apathy hasn"t completely deserted me yet, as I can see, and my coldness of heart perhaps never. That I recoil from no ignominy can as well indicate hopelessness as give hope.
13 September. Again barely two pages. At first I thought my sorrow over the Austrian defeats and my anxiety for the future (anxiety that appears ridiculous to me at bottom, and base too) would prevent me from doing any writing. But that wasn"t it, it was only an apathy that forever comes back and forever has to be put down again. There is time enough for sorrow when I am not writing. The thoughts provoked in me by the war resemble my old worries over F. in the tormenting way in which they devour me from every direction. I can"t endure worry, and perhaps have been created expressly in order to die of it. When I shall have grown weak enough-it won"t take very long-the most trifling worry will perhaps suffice to rout me. In this prospect I can also see a possibility of postponing the disaster as long as possible. It is true that, with the greatest effort on the part of a nature then comparatively unweakened, there was little I was able to do against my worries over F.; but I had had the great support of my writing in the first days of that period; henceforth I will never allow it to be taken from me.
7 October. I have taken a week"s vacation to push the novel on. Until today-it is Wednesday night, my vacation ends Monday-it has been a failure. I have written little and feebly. Even last week I was on the decline, but could not foresee that it would prove so bad. Are these three days enough to warrant the conclusion that I am unworthy of living without the office?
15 October. Two weeks of good work; full insight into my situation occasionally. Today, Thursday (Monday my holiday is over, I have taken an additional week), a letter from Miss Bl. I don"t know what to do about it, I know it is certain that I shall live on alone (if I live at all-which is not certain), I also don"t know whether I love F. (I remember the aversion I felt at the sight of her dancing with her severe eyes lowered, or when she ran her hand over her nose and hair in the Askanischer Hof shortly before she left, and the numberless moments of complete estrangement); but in spite of everything the enormous temptation returns again. I played with the letter all through the evening; I don"t work though I could (even if I"ve had excruciating headaches this whole past week). I"m noting down from memory the letter I wrote to Miss Bl.: What a strange coincidence, Grete, that it was just today I received your letter. I will not say with what it coincided, that concerns only me and the things that were troubling me tonight as I went to bed, about three. (Suicide; letter full of instructions to Max.) Your letter was a great surprise to me. Not because you wrote to me. Why shouldn"t you write to me? Though you do say that I hate you; but it isn"t true. Were the whole world to hate you, I still shouldn"t, and not only because I have no right to do so. You sat as a judge over me in the Askanischer Hof-it was awful for you, for me, for everyone-but it only seemed so; in reality all the time I was sitting in your place and sit there to this day.
You are completely mistaken about F. I don"t say this to worm details from you. I can think of no detail-and my imagination has so often gone back and forth across this ground that I can trust it-I say I can think of no detail that could persuade me you are not mistaken. What you suggest is completely impossible; it makes me unhappy to think that F. should perhaps be deceiving herself for some undiscoverable reason. But that is also impossible.
I have always believed your interest to be honest and free from any personal consideration. Nor was your last letter an easy one to write. I warmly thank you for it.
What did this accomplish? The letter sounds unyielding, but only because I was ashamed, because I considered it irresponsible, because I was afraid to be yielding; by no means because I did not want to yield. That was the only thing I did want. It would be best for all of us if she would not answer, but she will answer and I shall wait for her answer.
. . . I have now lived calmly for two months without any real contact with F. (except through the correspondence with E.), have dreamed of F. as though of someone who was dead and could never live again, and now, when I am offered a chance to come near her, she is at once the center of everything again. She is probably also interfering with my work. How very much a stranger she has sometimes seemed to me these latter days when I would think of her, of all the people I had ever met the most remote; though at the same time I told myself that this was simply because F. had been closer to me than any other person, or at least had been thrust so close to me by other people.
Leafed through the diary a little. Got a kind of inkling of the way a life like this is const.i.tuted.
21 October. For four days almost no work at all, only an hour or so all the time and only a few lines, but slept better; as a result almost got rid of my headaches. No reply from Bl.; tomorrow is the last possible day.
25 October. My work almost completely at a standstill. What I write seems to lack independence, seems only the pale reflection of earlier work. Reply from Bl.
arrived; I am completely undecided as to how to answer it. Thoughts so base that I cannot even write them down. Yesterday"s sadness . . .
1 November. Yesterday, after a long time, made a great deal of progress; today again virtually nothing; the two weeks since my holiday have been almost a complete loss-Part of the day-it"s Sunday-has been beautiful. In Chotek Park read Dostoyevsky"s pamphlet in his own defense. The guard at the castle and the corps headquarters. The fountain in the Thun palace-Much self-satisfaction all day. And now I completely balk at any work. Yet it isn"t balking; I see the task and the way to it, I simply have to push past small obstacles but cannot do it-Toying with thoughts of F.
3 November. In the afternoon a letter to E., looked through a story by Pick, "Der blinde Gast," (The Blind Guest) and made some corrections, read a little Strindberg, then didn"t sleep, home at half past eight, back at ten in fear of headaches which had already begun; and because I had slept very little during the night, did not work any more, partly too because I was afraid to spoil a fair pa.s.sage I had written yesterday. Since August, the fourth day on which I have written nothing. The letters are the cause of it; I"ll try to write none at all or only very short ones. How embarra.s.sed I now am, and how it agitates me. Yesterday evening my excessive happiness after having read several lines by Jammes, whom otherwise I don"t care for, but whose French (it is a description of a visit to a poet who was a friend of his) had so strong an effect on me.
4 November. P. back. Shouting excited past all bounds. Story about the mole burrowing under him in the trenches which he looked upon as a warning from heaven to leave that spot. He had just got away when a bullet struck a soldier crawling after him at the moment he was over the mole-His captain. They distinctly saw him taken prisoner. But the next day found him naked in the woods, pierced through by bayonets. He probably had had money on him, they wanted to search him and rob him of it, but he-"the way officers are"-wouldn"t voluntarily submit to being touched-P. almost wept with rage and excitement when he met his boss (whom in the past he had admired ridiculously, out of all measure) on the train, elegantly dressed, perfumed, his opera gla.s.s dangling from his neck, on his way to the theater. (A month later he himself did the same with a ticket given him by this boss. He went to see Der ungetreue Eckehart, a comedy.) Slept one night in the castle of Princess Sapieha; one night, while his unit was in reserve, right in front of the Austrian batteries; one night in a peasant cottage, where two women were sleeping in each of the two beds standing right and left against each wall, a girl behind the stove, and eight soldiers on the floor-Punishment given soldiers. Stand bound to a tree until they turn blue.
12 November. Parents who expect grat.i.tude from their children (there are even some who insist on it) are like usurers who gladly risk their capital if only they receive interest.
24 November. Yesterday on Tuchmacherga.s.se, where they distribute old clothing to the refugees from Galicia. Max, his mother, Mr. Chaim Nagel. The intelligence, the patience, the friendliness, the industry, the affability, the wit, the dependability of Mr. Nagel. People who, within their sphere, do their work so thoroughly that you believe they could succeed in anything on earth-yet it is part of their perfection too that they don"t reach out for anything beyond their sphere.
The clever, lively, proud, and una.s.suming Mrs. Kannegiesser from Tarnow, who wanted only two blankets, but nice ones, and who nevertheless, in spite of Max"s influence, got only old, dirty ones, while the new blankets were put aside for the better people in another room, together with all the best things. Then, they didn"t want to give her good ones because she needed them for only two days until her linen arrived from Vienna; they aren"t permitted to take back used articles because of the danger of cholera.
Mrs. l.u.s.tig, with a lot of children of every size and her fresh, self-a.s.sured, sprightly little sister. She spent so much time looking for a dress for a little girl that Mrs.
Brod shouted at her: "Now you take this or you won"t get anything." But then Mrs. l.u.s.tig answered in an even louder shout, ending with a wide, violent sweep of her arm: "The mitzveh [good deed] is worth more than all these shmattes [rags]."
25 November. Utter despair, impossible to pull myself together; only when I have become satisfied with my sufferings can I stop.
30 November. I can"t write any more. I"ve come up against the last boundary, before which I shall in all likelihood again sit down for years, and then in all likelihood begin another story all over again that will again remain unfinished. This fate pursues me. And I have become cold again, and insensible; nothing is left but a senile love for unbroken calm. And like some kind of beast at the farthest pole from man, I shift my neck from side to side again and for the time being should like to try again to have F. back. I"ll really try it, if the nausea I feel for myself doesn"t prevent me.
2 December. Afternoon at Werfel"s with Max and Pick. Read "In the Penal Colony" aloud; am not entirely dissatisfied, except for its glaring and ineradicable faults.
Werfel read some poems and two acts of Esther, Kaiserin von Persien (Esther, Empress of Persia). The acts carry one away. But I am easily carried away. The criticisms and comparisons put forward by Max, who was not entirely satisfied with the piece, disturb me, and I am no longer so sure of my impression of the play as a whole as I was while listening to it, when it overwhelmed me. I remember the Yiddish actors. W."s handsome sisters. The elder one leaned against the chair, often looked at the mirror out of the corner of her eye, and then-as if she were not already devoured by my eyes-gently pointed a finger to a brooch pinned to her blouse.
It was a low-cut dark blue blouse, her throat was covered with a tulle scarf. Repeated account of something that happened at the theater: some officers kept saying to each other in a loud voice during Kabale und Liebe: "Speckbacher is cutting a figure," by which they meant an officer leaning against the side of a box.
The day"s conclusion, even before meeting Werfel: Go on working regardless of everything; a pity I can"t work today, for I am tired and have a headache, already had preliminary twinges in the office this morning. I"ll go on working regardless of everything, it must be possible in spite of the office or the lack of sleep.