Chapter One : Two Worlds
I begin my story with an experience from the time I was ten years old and attending the grammar school in our small town.
Many memories are wafted to me, touching me inwardly with melancholy and with pleasurable thrills: narrow, dark streets and bright houses and steeples, the chiming of clocks and people’s faces, rooms filled with hominess and warm comfort, rooms filled with mystery and profound fear of ghosts. There is a smell of cozy confinement, of rabbits and servant girls, of home remedies and dried fruit. Two worlds coincided there, day and night issued from two poles.
One world was my father’s house, but it was even more restricted than that: it actually comprised only my parents. For the most part, this world was very familiar to me; it meant mother and father, love and severity, exemplary manners and school. This was the world of a warm glow, clarity, and cleanliness; gentle, friendly speech, washed hands, clean clothes, and proper behavior were at home here. Here the morning chorale was sung, here Christmas was celebrated. In this world there were straight lines and paths leading to the future, there were duty and guilt, a troubled conscience and confession, forgiveness and good resolutions, love and respect, Bible sayings and wisdom. This was the world to adhere to if one’s life was to be bright and pure, lovely and well-ordered.
On the other hand, the other world began right in our own house; it was altogether different, smelled different, spoke differently, made different promises and demands. In this second world the... See more
Chapter One : Two Worlds
I begin my story with an experience from the time I was ten years old and attending the grammar school in our small town.
Many memories are wafted to me, touching me inwardly with melancholy and with pleasurable thrills: narrow, dark streets and bright houses and steeples, the chiming of clocks and people’s faces, rooms filled with hominess and warm comfort, rooms filled with mystery and profound fear of ghosts. There is a smell of cozy confinement, of rabbits and servant girls, of home remedies and dried fruit. Two worlds coincided there, day and night issued from two poles.
One world was my father’s house, but it was even more restricted than that: it actually comprised only my parents. For the most part, this world was very familiar to me; it meant mother and father, love and severity, exemplary manners and school. This was the world of a warm glow, clarity, and cleanliness; gentle, friendly speech, washed hands, clean clothes, and proper behavior were at home here. Here the morning chorale was sung, here Christmas was celebrated. In this world there were straight lines and paths leading to the future, there were duty and guilt, a troubled conscience and confession, forgiveness and good resolutions, love and respect, Bible sayings and wisdom. This was the world to adhere to if one’s life was to be bright and pure, lovely and well-ordered.
On the other hand, the other world began right in our own house; it was altogether different, smelled different, spoke differently, made different promises and demands. In this second world there were maids and journeymen, ghost stories and scandalous rumors; there was a motley flow of uncanny, tempting, frightening, puzzling things, things like slaughterhouse and jail, drunks and bickering women, cows giving birth, horses collapsing, stories of burglaries, killings, suicides. All these beautiful and scary, wild and cruel things existed all around, in the next street, in the next house; policemen and vagrants ran around, drunks beat their wives, clusters of young girls poured out of the factories in the evening, old women could cast a spell on you and make you sick, bandits lived in the woods, arsonists were caught by the constabulary—this second, violent world gushed out fragrantly everywhere, except in our rooms, where Mother and Father were. And that was very good. It was wonderful that here among us there was peace, order, and repose, duty and a clear conscience, forgiveness and love—and wonderful that all the rest existed, all those noisy, glaring, somber, and violent things, which nevertheless could be escaped with a single bound toward one’s mother.
And the strangest thing of all was how the two worlds bordered each other, how close together they were! For example, when our maid Lina sat by the parlor door at our evening prayers and joined in the hymn with her bright voice, her scrubbed hands flat on her smoothed-down apron, she belonged totally with Father and Mother, with us, with brightness and correctness. Immediately afterward, in the kitchen or woodshed, when she told me the story of the headless gnome or wrangled with female neighbors in the little butcher shop, she was someone else, she belonged to the other world, she was enveloped in mystery. And so it was with everything, especially with myself. Naturally I belonged to the bright and correct world, I was my parents’ child; but wherever I turned my eyes and ears, the other world was there and I lived in it, too, even though it was often unfamiliar and uncanny to me, even though I regularly got pangs of conscience and anxiety from it. In fact, at times I preferred to live in the forbidden world, and frequently my return home to the bright realm, no matter how necessary and good that might be, was almost like a return to someplace less beautiful, more boring and dreary. At times I knew my goal in life was to become like my father and mother, just as bright and pure, superior and well-ordered as they. But that was a long road to travel; before you got there, you had to attend schools and study and take tests and exams, and the road constantly led you alongside that other, darker world, and right through it, so that it was quite possible to get stuck there and go under. There were stories of prodigal sons to whom that had happened; I had read them excitedly. Their return home to their father and a good life was always so satisfying and splendid; I realized keenly that that was the only proper, good, and desirable outcome, but the part of the story that took place among the wicked and the lost was by far the more appealing, and, if one were free to state and admit it, it was sometimes actually a downright shame that the prodigal repented and was found again. But one didn’t say that and didn’t even think it. The idea was merely somehow present as a premonition or possibility, deep down in your mind. When I visualized the Devil, I could quite easily imagine him down in the street, disguised or clearly identifiable, or else at the fair, or in a tavern, but never in our house.
My sisters also belonged to the bright world. It often seemed to me that their nature was closer to our father’s and mother’s; they were better, more well-behaved, faultless compared to me. They had shortcomings, they could be naughty, but, as I saw it, that wasn’t very serious, it wasn’t as it was with me; in my case, contact with evil was often so burdensome and torturing, the dark world was much nearer at hand. Like my parents, my sisters were people to be protected and honored; after any fight with them, my own conscience declared me to be the one in the wrong, the instigator, the one who had to ask forgiveness. For, by insulting my sisters, I was insulting my parents, the good and imposing faction. There were secrets I could much sooner share with the coarsest street boys than with my sisters. On good days, days of brightness and an untroubled conscience, it was often delightful to play with my sisters, to be good to them and well-behaved, and to see myself in a fine and noble aura. That’s how it must be to be an angel! That was the highest goal within our ken, and we imagined it was sweet and wonderful to be an angel, enveloped in bright music and fragrance, like Christmas and happiness. Oh, how seldom it was possible to live such hours and days! Often while playing, playing good, inoffensive, permissible games, I became too excited and violent for my sisters to put up with; this led to arguments and unhappiness, and when anger overcame me at such times, I was a terror, doing and saying things whose vileness I felt deeply and painfully at the very moment I did and said them. Then came vexing, dark hours of regret and contrition, and then the awful moment when I asked to be forgiven, and then once again a ray of brightness, a silent, grateful sense of undivided happiness that would last hours or only moments.
I attended grammar school; the mayor’s son and the son of the chief forest ranger were in my class and visited me sometimes; though wild boys, they nevertheless belonged to the good, permissible world. And yet I had close relations with neighbor boys who went to the ordinary elementary school, boys we usually looked down on. It’s with one of them that I must begin my story.
On one afternoon when there were no classes—I was not much more than ten years old—I was hanging around with two boys from the neighborhood. Then a bigger boy joined us, a burly, rough fellow of about thirteen, from the elementary school, the son of a tailor. His father drank and his whole family had a bad reputation. I knew Franz Kromer well and I was afraid of him, so that I didn’t like his joining us then. He already acted like a grown-up man, mimicking the walk and speech habits of the young factory laborers. With him as leader, we went down to the riverbank next to the bridge and hid from the world under the first arch of the bridge. The narrow bank between the vaulted bridge wall and the sluggishly flowing water consisted entirely of refuse, broken crockery and junk, tangled clusters of rusty wire and other rubbish. Sometimes usable items could be found there; under Franz Kromer’s direction we had to examine the stretch of ground and show him what we discovered. Then he either pocketed it or threw it into the water. He ordered us to pay special attention to any lead, brass, or pewter items that might be there; he pocketed them all, as well as an old horn comb. I felt very tense in his presence, not because I knew my father would forbid me to associate with him if he knew about it, but out of fear of Franz himself. I was glad that he took me along and treated me like the others. He gave orders and we obeyed, as if it were an old custom, even though I was with him for the first time.
Finally we sat down on the ground; Franz spat into the water and looked like a grown man. He spat through a gap in his teeth and could hit any mark he aimed at. A conversation began, and the boys started boasting and showing off, relating all sorts of schoolboy heroics and mischievous pranks. I kept silent but was afraid that this very silence would draw attention to me and make Kromer angry at me. From the outset my two companions had withdrawn from me and gone over to his side; I was a stranger among them, and I felt that my clothing and manners provoked them. As a grammar-school pupil and a “rich kid,” I couldn’t possibly be popular with Franz, and I was well aware that, the minute it came to that, the other two would disavow me and leave me in the lurch.
At last, out of pure fear, I started telling a story, too. I made up an elaborate tale of thievery, making myself the hero. My story was that, in an orchard near the Corner Mill, along with a friend I had stolen a sackful of apples at night, and not just ordinary apples but exclusively Reinettes and Golden Pearmains, the best varieties. I took refuge in this story from the dangers of the moment; I was a fluent inventor and teller of tales. In order not to finish too soon and thus perhaps become involved in something worse, I showed off all my inventive skills. One of us, I narrated, had to stand guard the whole time that the other one was in the tree throwing down the apples; and the sack was so heavy that we finally had to open it again and leave half the apples behind, but we returned a half-hour later and fetched the rest.
When I was finished, I hoped for a little applause; I had gradually become enthusiastic and intoxicated by my own yarn-spinning. The two younger boys were silent in expectation, but Franz Kromer looked at me penetratingly through half-closed eyes and asked me in a menacing voice: “Is that true?”
“Yes,” I said.
“So it’s really and truly so?”
“Yes, really and truly,” I defiantly affirmed while choking inwardly with anxiety.
“Can you swear to it?”
I got very frightened, but I immediately said yes.
“Then say: ‘By God and my salvation!’”
I said: “By God and my salvation.”
“All right, then,” he said, and he turned away.
I thought that was the end of it, and I was glad when shortly afterward he stood up and started walking back. When we were on the bridge, I timidly said that I had to go home.
“Don’t be in such a hurry,” Franz laughed, “after all, we’re going the same way.”
He sauntered ahead slowly, and I didn’t dare to make a break for it, but he did actually walk toward our house. When we were there, when I saw our house door with its thick brass knob, the sunshine in the windows and the curtains in my mother’s room, I drew a deep breath of relief. Oh, I was back home! Oh, I had made a good, blessed return home, a return to brightness and peace!
When I opened the door quickly and slipped inside, prepared to close it behind me, Franz Kromer pushed his way in, too. He stood beside me in the cool, dark passage with its tiled floor, where the light came only from the yard; he held me by the arm and said quietly: “Hey, you, don’t rush away like that!”
I looked at him in fright. His grip on my arm was as hard as iron. I thought about his possible intentions and whether he might want to hit me. If I were to call out now, I thought, call out loudly and violently, would someone from upstairs show up fast enough to rescue me? But I decided not to.
“What is it?” I asked. “What do you want?”
“Not much. I just have to ask you something else. The others don’t need to hear it.”
“Is that right? Well, what else am I supposed to tell you? I’ve got to go upstairs, you know.”
Franz said quietly, “I’m sure you know who owns the orchard by the Corner Mill.”
“No, I don’t. I think, the miller.”
Franz had flung his arm around me and now he drew me very close to himself, so that I was forced to look directly into his face. His eyes were malicious, he had a nasty smile, and his face was full of cruelty and power.
“Yes, boy, I’m the one who can tell you who owns the orchard. I’ve known for some time that the apples were stolen, and I also know that the man said he’d give two marks to whoever could tell him who stole the fruit.”
“My God!” I exclaimed. “But you won’t tell him anything, will you?”
I felt that it would be useless to appeal to his sense of honor. He came from that other world, for him backstabbing was no crime. I was completely convinced of that. In matters like this, the people from the “other” world weren’t like us.
“Not tell him anything?” Kromer laughed. “My dear friend, do you think I’m a counterfeiter and can make my own two-mark pieces? I’m a poor guy, I don’t have a rich father like you, and whenever I can earn two marks, I’ve got to earn them. Maybe he’ll even give more.”
He suddenly let go of me again. Our vestibule no longer smelt of peace and security, the world was tumbling down around me. He was going to turn me in, I was a criminal, my father would be informed, maybe the police would actually come. All the terrors of chaos threatened me, everything ugly and dangerous was mustered up against me. That I hadn’t really stolen anything was completely beside the point. On top of that, I had sworn an oath. My God, my God!
Tears welled up in my eyes. I felt that I had to buy myself off, and I rummaged desperately through all my pockets. There was nothing in them, not an apple, not a pocket knife. Then I remembered my watch. It was an old silver watch, and it didn’t go; I wore it “just for the sake of it.” It came from our grandmother. I quickly pulled it out.
“Kromer,” I said, “listen, you mustn’t turn me in, that wouldn’t be nice of you. I’ll give you my watch, look; unfortunately, I have nothing else. You can have it, its silver, and the works are good; it just has a minor defect, it has to be repaired.”
He smiled and took the watch into his large hand. I looked at that hand and felt how rough and deeply hostile it was to me, how it was reaching out for my life and my peace of mind.
“It’s silver—” I said timidly.
“I don’t give a hoot for your silver or that old watch of yours!” he said with profound contempt. “Get it repaired yourself!”
“But, Franz,” I exclaimed, trembling with the fear that he might run away. “Please wait a minute! Do take the watch! It’s real silver, really and truly. And I just don’t have anything else.”
He looked at me with cool contempt.
“In that case, you know who I’m going to see. Or I can also tell the police about it; I’m well acquainted with the sergeant.”
He turned around to leave. I held him back by the sleeve. It mustn’t be! I would much rather have died than bear all that would ensue if he left like that.
“Franz,” I pleaded, hoarse with agitation, “don’t do anything silly! It’s just a joke, right?”
“Yes, a joke, but one that can cost you dear.”
“Then, Franz, tell me what I should do! You know I’ll do anything!”
He surveyed me with his half-shut eyes and laughed again.
“Don’t be stupid!” he said with false bonhomie. “You know what’s what just the same as I do. I can earn two marks, and I’m not so rich that I can throw them away, you know it. But you’re rich, you even have a watch. All you need to do is give me the two marks, and that will be that.”
I understood his logic. But two marks! For me it was as much, and just as impossible to get, as ten, a hundred, a thousand marks. I had no money. There was a little money-savings box in my mother’s room that contained a few ten-pfennig and five-pfennig coins from uncles’ visits and similar occasions. Otherwise I had nothing. At that age I wasn’t yet receiving any allowance.
“I have nothing,” I said sadly. “I have no money at all. But, aside from that, I’ll give you anything. I have a book about Indians, and soldiers, and a compass. I’ll get it for you.”
Kromer merely twitched his brazen, malicious lips and spat on the floor.
“Don’t babble!” he said imperiously. “You can keep your junk. A compass! Don’t make me angry now, too, all right? And hand over the money!”
“But I don’t have any, I never get money. I just can’t help it!”
“Well, then, you’ll bring me the two marks tomorrow. After school I’ll be waiting down in the Market. And that’s that. If you don’t bring money, you’ll see!”
“Yes, but where am I to get it? My God, if I don’t have any—”
“You’ve got money enough in the house. That’s your affair. So then, tomorrow after school. And I’m telling you: if you don’t bring it—” He darted a frightening look into my eyes, spat again, and disappeared like a ghost.
* * *
I was unable to go upstairs. My life was wrecked. I thought about running away and never coming back, or drowning myself. But I had no clear images of that. In the darkness I sat down on the lowest step of the staircase, withdrew deeply into myself, and surrendered myself to my misfortune. Lina found me crying there when she came downstairs with a basket to fetch wood.
I asked her not to say anything upstairs, and I went up. On the rack beside the glass door hung my father’s hat and my mother’s parasol; domesticity and tenderness radiated to me from all those objects, my heart greeted them beseechingly and gratefully, just as the prodigal son greeted the sight and smell of the old rooms in his home. But now all of that was no longer mine, it was all part of the bright world of my father and mother, and I had sunk, guilt-laden, deep into the strange waters, entangled in intrigue and sin, threatened by my enemy and a prey to perils, anxiety, and shame. The hat and parasol, the good old freestone floor, the big picture over the vestibule closet, and the voice of my older sister coming from the parlor, all that was dearer, more gentle and precious than ever, but it no longer spelled consolation and solid possession, it was nothing but reproach. All that was no longer mine, I couldn’t participate in its serenity and tranquillity. There was dirt on my shoes that I couldn’t scrape off on the mat, I carried shadows along with me that were unknown to the world of my home. I had had plenty of secrets in the past, and plenty of anxiety, but that was all a game and a joke in comparison with what I was carrying with me into these rooms today. Fate was hounding me, hands were reaching out at me from which my mother couldn’t protect me, of which she shouldn’t even learn. Whether my crime was a theft or a lie (hadn’t I sworn a false oath by God and my salvation?) didn’t matter. My sin wasn’t any particular action, my sin was having given my hand to the Devil. Why had I gone along? Why had I obeyed Kromer, more readily than I had ever obeyed my father? Why had I concocted that story about stealing? Why had I boasted about crimes as though they were heroic deeds? Now the Devil had me by the hand, now my enemy was after me.
For a moment, what I felt was no longer fear about the next day, but above all the terrible certainty that my path now led farther and farther downhill and into darkness. I perceived distinctly that my transgression must necessarily be followed by new transgressions, that rejoining my sisters, greeting and kissing my parents, was a lie, that I was carrying a destiny and secret with me that I was concealing within me.
For a moment, trust and hope blazed up in me, when I contemplated my father’s hat. I would tell him everything, I would accept his sentence and his punishment and make him my confidant and rescuer. It would only be a penance of the sort I had often undergone, a difficult, bitter hour, a difficult and repentant request for forgiveness.
What a sweet sound that had! How appealing and tempting it was! But nothing came of it. I knew I wouldn’t do it. I knew that now I had a secret, a guilt that I had to swallow on my own, all by myself. Perhaps I was at the crossroads right now, perhaps from this time on I would belong to the bad element forever and ever, sharing secrets with evil people, depending on them, obeying them, necessarily becoming like them. I had played the role of a grown man, of a hero; now I had to endure the consequences.
I was glad that, when I walked in, my father dwelt on my wet shoes. It was a diversion, he didn’t notice what was worse, and I was allowed to undergo a reproach which I secretly applied to all the rest. As that happened, a strangely novel feeling was aroused in me, a malicious corrosive feeling full of barbs: I felt superior to my father! For the space of a moment I felt a certain contempt for his ignorance, his scolding on account of my wet shoes seemed petty to me. “If you only knew!” I thought, and I felt like a criminal being interrogated about a stolen bread roll whereas he could have confessed to murders. It was an ugly, repellent feeling, but it was strong and had a profound attractiveness; more than any other notion, it chained me more tightly to my secret and my guilt. Perhaps, I thought, Kromer has already gone to the police and turned me in, and storm clouds are gathering over me while I’m being treated here like a little child!
Out of that whole experience, to the extent that I have narrated it up to here, that moment was the important and lasting element. It was the first rift in my father’s sanctity, it was the first nick in the pillars on which my childish life had rested, and which every human being must destroy before he can become himself. It is of these experiences, invisible to everyone, that the inner, essential line of our destiny consists. That kind of rift and nick closes over again, it is healed and forgotten, but in the most secret chamber of the mind it continues to live and bleed.
I myself was immediately terrified by this new feeling; I could have kissed my father’s feet right away, in order to apologize to him for it. But nothing so fundamental can be apologized for, and a child feels and knows that just as well and profoundly as any wise man does.
I felt the need to think over my situation, to make plans for the following day, but I didn’t get that far. I was occupied that entire evening solely by getting used to the altered atmosphere in our parlor. It was as if the wall clock and the table, the Bible and the mirror, the bookshelf and the pictures on the wall were saying good-bye to me; with a heart growing cold I had to watch my world, my good, happy life, becoming the past and detaching itself from me; I had to perceive that I was anchored and held fast outside in the unfamiliar darkness by thirsty new roots. For the first time I tasted death, and death tastes bitter because it is birth, it is anxiety and terror in the face of a frightening innovation.
I was happy when I was finally lying in my bed! Before that, as my final purgatory, I had had to endure our evening prayers, during which we had sung a hymn that was one of my favorites. Oh, I didn’t join in, and every note was gall and wormwood to me. I didn’t join the prayer when my father spoke the blessing, and when he ended “...upon us all!” I was convulsively torn out of their circle. The grace of God was upon them all, but no longer upon me. I left, cold and enormously weary.
In bed, after lying there a while, lovingly enveloped in warmth and security, my heart in its fear wandered back again, fluttering anxiously over what had occurred. As always, my mother had said good night to me; her steps still echoed in the room, the glow of her candle still shone through the opening in the door. Now, I thought, now she’ll come back again—she’s felt what’s going on—she’ll give me a kiss and she’ll ask me about it, ask me kindly and promisingly, and then I’ll be able to cry, then the stone in my throat will melt, then I’ll throw my arms around her and tell her everything, then things will be all right, then I’ll be saved! And when the door opening had already grown dark, I still listened a while and thought that it just had to happen.
Then I returned to reality and looked my enemy in the eye. I saw him clearly, he had half-shut one eye, his mouth was laughing coarsely, and while I looked at him and bitterly acknowledged the inevitable, he became bigger and uglier, and his malicious eyes flashed devilishly. He was right beside me until I fell asleep, but then I didn’t dream about him or that day’s events; instead, I dreamt we were sailing in a boat, my parents and sisters and I, surrounded by the perfect peace and glow of a holiday. In the middle of the night I awoke, still feeling the aftertaste of bliss, still seeing my sisters’ white summer dresses shimmering in the sunlight, and I relapsed from all that paradise into the reality of my situation; once more I was confronting my enemy with his malicious eyes.
In the morning, when my mother arrived hastily, calling out that it was already late and asking why I was still in bed, I looked sick; when she asked if anything was wrong with me, I vomited.
That seemed like a small gain for me. I very much liked being slightly ill and being able to stay in bed all morning with chamomile tea, listening to my mother tidying up in the next room and to Lina greeting the butcher out in the vestibule. A morning without school was something enchanted, like a fairy tale; the sun would poke around in the room, and it wasn’t the same sun that we shut out in school by lowering the green curtains. But even that had no savor today; it had taken on a false note.
Yes, if only I had died! But I was merely a little unwell, as often in the past, and nothing was accomplished thereby. It protected me from school, but it in no way protected me from Kromer, who would be waiting for me in the Market around eleven. And this time my mother’s friendliness offered no comfort; it was burdensome, and it hurt. Soon I pretended to be asleep again, and I thought things over. There was no help for it, I had to be in the Market at eleven. And so I got up quietly at ten and said that I felt well again. As usual in such instances, it meant that I either had to go back to bed or attend school in the afternoon. I said I’d like to go to school. I had devised a plan.
I couldn’t meet Kromer without money on me. I had to get my hands on the little money box that belonged to me. There wasn’t enough money in it, I was well aware, not nearly enough; but it was still something, and a premonition told me that something was better than nothing, and that Kromer had to be at least pacified.
I was in low spirits when I crept into my mother’s room in my stocking feet and took my box out of her desk; but it wasn’t as bad as the events of the previous day. The pounding of my heart choked me, and it didn’t get better when, down in the stairwell, I discovered on my first investigation that the box was locked. It was very easy to break it open; I merely had to rip apart a thin tin grating; but it hurt me to rip it open, because it was only then that I had committed a theft. Up until then I had merely filched some tidbit, sugar lumps or fruit. But this was stealing, even if it was my own money. I felt that I had taken one more step nearer to Kromer and his world, that bit by bit I was fairly headed downhill, and I retorted by defiance. Let the Devil carry me away, now there was no turning back! I counted the money fearfully; while it was in the box it had sounded like such a lot, but now in my hand there was miserably little of it. It came to sixty-five pfennigs. I hid the box in the vestibule, held the money in my clenched fist, and left the house, feeling different from any other time I had walked through that gate. From upstairs someone called after me, it seemed; I departed swiftly.
There was still plenty of time; I sneaked by roundabout paths through the narrow streets of a changed town, beneath clouds never before seen, past houses that looked at me and people who were suspicious of me. On the way I recalled that one of my school chums had once found a thaler coin in the Cattle Market. I would gladly have prayed to God to perform a miracle and let me make such a find, too. But I no longer had any right to pray. And, even so, the money box wouldn’t have been made whole again.
Franz Kromer saw me from a distance, but he walked toward me very slowly, seeming to pay no attention to me. When he was close to me, he signaled to me imperiously to follow him, and continued walking calmly, without looking around even once, down Straw Lane and over the footbridge until halting among the last houses, in front of a construction site. No work was going on there, the walls stood there bare without doors or windows. Kromer looked around and went in through the doorway, and I followed. He stepped behind the wall, beckoned me over, and held out his hand.
“Have you got it?” he asked coolly.
I drew my clenched fist out of my pocket and shook out my money onto the flat of his hand. He had counted it even before the last five-pfennig piece stopped clinking.
“This is sixty-five pfennigs,” he said, and he looked at me.
“Yes,” I said timidly. “It’s all I have, I know it’s not enough. But that’s all there is. I have no more.”
“I would have thought you were smarter,” he said, scolding me almost gently. “Between men of honor things should be orderly. I don’t want to take anything from you unjustly, you know that. Take back your small change! That other man—you know who—won’t try to beat down my price. He’ll pay.”
“But I simply don’t have any more! This came from my money box.”
“That’s your affair. But I don’t want to drive you to despair. You still owe me one mark and thirty-five pfennigs. When will I get it?”
“Oh, you’ll definitely get it, Kromer! I don’t know right now—maybe I’ll have more soon, tomorrow or the day after. You realize I can’t talk to my father about it.”
“That doesn’t concern me. I’m not the type to want to do you harm. After all, I could get my money before noon, see? And I’m poor. You’re wearing nice clothes, and you get better stuff to eat for lunch than I do. But I say no more. For my part, I can wait awhile. Day after tomorrow I’ll whistle for you, in the afternoon, then you’ll settle up. Do you know my whistle?”
He performed it for me. I had heard it often.
“Yes,” I said, “I know.”
He went away as if I had nothing to do with him. It had been a business transaction between us, nothing more.
Even today, I think, Kromer’s whistle would give me a start if I heard it again suddenly. From that time on I heard it frequently; I seemed to be hearing it constantly. There was no place, no game, no task, no thought that that whistle didn’t pierce through; it robbed me of my independence, it was now my fate. I spent a lot of time in our little flower garden, which I loved, during the gentle, colorful autumn afternoons; and a peculiar urge led me to play childish games of earlier years once more; to some extent I was playing the role of a boy younger than I actually was, a boy still good and free, innocent and secure. But in the midst of it, always unexpected and yet always frightfully disruptive and surprising, Kromer’s whistle came from somewhere or other, cutting the thread, destroying the illusions. Then I had to go, had to follow my tormentor to bad, ugly places, had to make an accounting to him and be dunned for money. The whole thing lasted a few weeks, perhaps, but it felt to me like years or an eternity. I seldom had money, a five—or ten-pfennig coin stolen from the kitchen table when Lina left her shopping basket lying there. Each time, Kromer bawled me out and heaped scorn on me; I was the one who wanted to fool him and cheat him out of what was duly his; I was the one who was stealing from him; I was the one who was making him miserable! Not often in my life have I taken my distress so much to heart, never have I experienced greater hopelessness or loss of independence.
I had filled the money box with game tokens and put it back where it was; no one asked about it. But that, too, could come down around my ears any day. Even more than Kromer’s vulgar whistle, I often feared my mother when she walked up to me softly—wasn’t she coming to ask me about the money box?
Since I had presented myself to my devil without money a number of times, he began to torture and exploits me in another way. I had to work for him. He had to make deliveries for his father, and I had to make them for him. Or else he commanded me to perform some difficult feat, to hop on one leg for ten minutes or to attach a scrap of paper to a passerby’s coat. Many nights in dreams I continued suffering these torments and lay bathed in sweat from those nightmares.
For a while I became ill. I vomited frequently and was subject to chills, though at night I was sweaty and feverish. My mother felt that something was wrong, and displayed a lot of sympathy, which tortured me because I couldn’t repay her with my confidence.
One evening when I was already in bed she brought me a piece of chocolate. That was a reminiscence of earlier years in which on many evenings, when I had been well-behaved, I had received similar comforting tidbits at bedtime. Now she stood there and held out the piece of chocolate to me. I felt so bad that all I could do was shake my head. She asked what was wrong with me, and stroked my hair. I could merely blurt out: “No! No! I don’t want anything.” She put the chocolate on the night table and left. When she tried to ask me about it on the following day, I pretended I didn’t remember anything about it. Once she sent for the doctor to see me; he examined me and left instructions that I should wash in cold water every morning.
My condition in that period was a sort of insanity. In the midst of our household’s orderly, peaceful existence I was living as frightened and tormented as a ghost; I didn’t participate in the life of the others, and rarely took my mind off my troubles even for an hour. With my father, who was often irritated and questioned me, I was cold and reserved.
