Young Torless

by Robert Musil

  “So when shall it be?”

  The night after the next was decided on.

  Törless made no resistance to its approach. And indeed in this new situation his feeling for Basini had completely died out. This was quite fortunate for him, since at least it freed him all at once from the wavering between shame and desire that he had been unable to get out of by exerting his own strength. Now at least he had a straightforward, plain repugnance for Basini; it was as if the humiliations intended for the latter might be capable of defiling him too.

  For the rest he was absent-minded and could not bring himself to think of anything seriously, least of all about the things that had once so intensely preoccupied him.

  Only when he went upstairs to the attic together with Reiting-Beineberg and Basini having gone ahead-the memory of what had once gone on in him became more vivid again. He could not rid himself of the sound of the cocksure words he had flung at Beineberg, and he yearned to regain that confidence. He lingered a little on each of the stairs, dragging his feet. But his former certainty would not return. Though he recalled all the thoughts he had had at that time, they seemed to pass him by, remote as though they were no more than the shadowy images of what he had once thought.

  Finally, since he found nothing in himself, his curiosity turned again to the events that were to come from outside; and this impelled him forward.

  Swiftly he followed Reiting, hurrying up the last of the stairs.

  While the iron door was groaning shut behind them, he felt, with a sigh, that though Beineberg's plan might be only laughable hocus-pocus, at least there was something firm and deliberate about it, whereas everything in himself lay in an impenatrable confusion and perplexity.

  Tense with expectation, they sat down on one of the horizontal beams, as though in a theatre.

  Beineberg was already there with Basini.

  The situation seemed favourable to his plan. The darkness, the stale air, the foul, brackish smell emanating from the water-tubs, all this generated a feeling of drowsiness, of never being able to wake up again, a weary, sluggish indolence.

  Beineberg told Basini to undress. Now in the darkness Basini' s naked skin had a bluish, mouldy glimmer; there was nothing in the least provocative about it.

  Suddenly Beineberg pulled the revolver out of his pocket and aimed it at Basini.

  Even Reiting leaned forward as though preparing to leap between the two of them at any moment.

  But Beineberg was smiling-smiling in a strangely distorted way, as though he did not really mean to at all, but rather as if fanatical words welling up in him had twisted his lips into a queer grimace.

  Basini had dropped to his knees, as though paralysed, and was staring at the gun, his eyes wide with fear.

  “Get up,” Beineberg said. “If you do exactly what I tell you, you won't come to any harm. But if you disturb me by making the slightest difficulty, I shall shoot you down like a dog. Take note of that!

  “As a matter of fact, I am going to kill you anyway, but you'll come back to life again. Dying is not so alien to us as you think it is. We die every day-in our deep, dreamless sleep.”

  Once again the wild smile distorted Beineberg's mouth.

  “Now kneel down, up there”-he pointed to a wide horizontal beam that ran across the attic at about waist-level-“that's it-quite straight-hold yourself perfectly straight-keep your shoulders back. And now keep looking at this-but no blinking! You must keep your eyes open as wide as you possibly can!”

  Beineberg put a little spirit-lamp in front of Basini in such a position that he had to bend his head back slightly in order to look right into the flame.

  It was difficult to make anything out exactly in the dimness, but after some time it seemed that Basini's body was beginning to swing to and fro like a pendulum. The bluish gleams were flickering on his skin. Now and then Törless thought he could see Basini's face, contorted with terror.

  After a time Beineberg asked: “Are you feeling tired?” The question was put in the usual way that hypnotists put it. Then he began explaining, his voice low and husky:

  “Dying is only a result of our way of living. We live from one thought to the next, from one feeling to the next. Our thoughts and feelings don't flow along quietly like a stream, they 'occur' to us, which means they 'run against' us, crash into us like stones that have been thrown. If you watch yourself carefully, you'll realise that the soul isn't something that changes its colours in smooth gradations, but that the thoughts jump out of it like numbers out of a black hole. Now you have a thought or a feeling, and all at once there's a different one there, as if it had popped up out of nothingness. If you pay attention, you can even notice the instant between two thoughts when everything's black. For us that instant-once we have grasped it-is simply death.

  “For our life is nothing but setting milestones and hopping from one to the next, hopping over thousands of death-seconds every day. We live as it were only in the points of rest. And that is why we have such a ridiculous dread of irrevocable death, for that is the thing that is absolutely without milestones, the fathomless abyss that we fall into. It is in fact the utter negation of this kind of living.

  “But it is so only if it is looked at from the point of view of this kind of living, and only for the person who has not learnt to experience himself otherwise than from moment to moment.

  “I call this The Hopping Evil, and the secret lies in overcoming it. One must awaken the feeling of one's own life in oneself as of something peacefully gliding along. In the moment when this really happens one is lust as near to death as to life. One ceases to live-in our earthly sense of the word-but one cannot die any more either, for with the cancelling out of life one has also cancelled out death. This is the instant of immortality, the instant when the soul steps out of our narrow brain into the wonderful gardens of its own life.

  “So now pay close attention to what I say.

  “Put all your thoughts to sleep, keep staring into this little flame. . . Don't think from one thing to another. . . Concentrate all your attention in an inward direction... Keep staring at the flame... Your thoughts are slowing down, like an engine gradually running slower and slower... slower... and... slower... Keep staring inward ... Keep on staring... till you find the point where you feel yourself, feeling without any thought or sensation...

  “Your silence will be all the answer I want. Don't avert your gaze from within!”

  Minutes passed.

  “Do you feel the point. . . ?” No answer.

  “Do you hear, Basini, have you done it?”

  Silence.

  Beineberg stood up, and his gaunt shadow rose high beside the beam. Up above, Basini's body could be seen rocking to and fro, drunk with darkness.

  “Turn sideways,” Beineberg ordered. “What obeys now is only the brain,” he murmured, “the brain, which still goes on functioning mechanically for a while, until the last traces of what the soul imprinted on it are consumed. The soul itself is somewhere else-in its next form of existence. It is no longer wearing the fetters of the laws of Nature.” He turned to Törless for a moment: “It is no longer condemned to the punishment of making a body heavy and holding it together. Bend forward, Basini-that's right-slowly, slowly. And a bit further. A bit further still. As the last trace is extinguished in the brain, the muscles will relax and the empty body will collapse. Or it will simply float, I don't know which. The soul has left the body of its own accord. This is not the ordinary sort of death. Perhaps the body will float in the air because there is nothing left in possession of it-no force either of life or of death. Bend forward... And a bit more.”

  * * *

  At this moment Basini, who had been obeying all these commands out of sheer terror, lost his balance and crashed to the floor at Beineberg's feet.

  Basini yelled with pain. Reiting burst out laughing. But Beineberg, who had fallen back a step, uttered a gurgling cry of rage when he realized that he had been tricked. With a swift movemen
t he ripped his leather belt from his waist, seized Basini by the hair, and began lashing him furiously. All the tremendous tension he had been under now found release in these frantic blows. And Basini howled with pain, so that the attic rang with lamentation as if a dog were howling.

  * * *

  Törless had sat in silence during the whole of the previous scene. He has been secretly hoping that something might happen after all that would carry him back to the emotional realm he had lost. It was a foolish hope, as he had known all along, but it had held him spellbound. Now, however, it seemed to be all over. The scene revolted him. There was no longer any trace of thought in him, only mute, inert repugnance.

  He got up quietly and left without saying a word, all quite mechanically.

  Beineberg was still lashing away at Basini and would obviously go on doing so to the point of exhaustion.

  When Törless was in bed, he felt: This is the end of it. Something is over and done with.

  During the next few days he went on quietly with his school work, riot bothering about anything else. Reiting and Beineberg were probably now carrying out their programme item by item; but he kept out of their way.

  Then on the fourth day, when nobody happened to be there, Basini came up to him. He looked ghastly, his face was wan and thin, and in his eyes there was a feverish flicker of constant dread. Glancing nervously about him, he spoke hurriedly and in gasps:

  “You've got to help me! You're the only person who can! I can't stand any more of their tormenting me. I've stood everything up to now, but if it goes on like this they'll kill me!”

  Törless found it disagreeable to have to say anything in reply to this. At last he said: “I can't help you. It's all your own fault. You're to blame for what's happening to you.

  “But only a short time ago you were still so nice and good to me.”

  “Never.”

  “Shut up! It wasn't me. It was a dream. A mood. It actually suits me quite well that your new disgrace has torn you away from me. For me it's better that way. .

  Basini let his head sink. He realized that a sea of grey and sober disappointment lay now between him and Törless. . . . Törless was cold, a different person.

  Then he threw himself down on his knees before Törless, beat his head on the floor and cried: “Help me! Help me! For God's sake help me!”

  Törless hesitated for a moment. He felt neither any wish to help Basini nor enough indignation to push him away. So he acted on the first thought that occurred to him. “Come to the attic tonight. I'll talk it over with you again.” But the next moment he was already regretting it.

  'Why stir it all up again?' he wondered, and then said, as though on second thoughts: “But they'd notice. It can't be done.”

  “Oh no, they were up all last night with me, till dawn. They'll sleep tonight.”

  “All right then, for all I care. But don't expect me to help you.”

  * * *

  It was against his own judgment that Törless had decided to meet Basini. For his real conviction was that inwardly it was all over-there was nothing more to be got out of it. Now only a sort of pedantry, some stubborn conscientiousness, had inspired him with the notion of again meddling with these things, even though he knew from the start that it was hopeless.

  He felt the need to get it over quickly.

  Basini did not know how he was expected to behave. He had been beaten so much that he scarcely dared to stir. Every trace of personality seemed to have gone out of him; only in his eyes there was still a little residue of it, and it peered out shakily, imploringly, as though clutching at Törless.

  He waited to see what Törless would do.

  Finally Törless broke the silence. He spoke rapidly, in a bored manner, as though it were merely for the sake of form that he was again going over a matter which had long been settled.

  “I'm not going to help you. It's a fact, I did take an interest in you for a time, but that's over now. You're really nothing but a cowardly rotter. Definitely that's all you are. So what should make me take your part? I always used to think there must be some word, some feeling, I could find that would describe you differently. But there's really nothing that describes you better than saying you're a cowardly rotter. That's so simple and meaningless, and still it's all that can be said. Whatever else I wanted from you before, I've forgotten since you got in the way of it with your lecherous desires. I wanted to find a point remote from you, to look at you from there. That was my interest in you. You destroyed it yourself. But that's enough about that, I don't owe you any explanation. Only one more thing-what do you feel like now?”

  “What do you expect me to feel like? I can't stand any more of it.

  “I suppose they're doing pretty bad things to you now, and it hurts?”

  “Yes.”

  “But just pain-is it as simple as that? You feel that you're suffering and you want to escape from it? Simply that, without any complications?”

  Basini had no answer.

  “Oh, all right, I was just asking by the way, not really formulating it precisely enough. Still, that doesn't matter. I have no more to do with you. I've already told you that You don't arouse the slightest feeling in me any more. Do whatever you like.”

  Törless turned to go.

  Then Basini tore his clothes off and thrust himself against Törless. His body was covered with weals. It was a disgusting sight, and his movements were as wretched as those of a clumsy prostitute. Nauseated, Törless shook him off and went.

  But he had taken scarcely more than a few paces into the darkness when he collided with Reiting.

  “What's all this? So you have secret meetings with Basini, do you?”

  Törless followed Reiting's gaze, looking back at Basini. Just at the place where Basini was standing a broad beam of moonlight came in through a skylight, making the bluish-tinged skin with the weals on it look like the skin of a leper. As though he had to find some excuse for this sight, Törless said: “He asked me.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He wants me to protect him.”

  “Well, he's come to the right person, hasn't he!”

  “I might really do it, only the whole thing bores me.”

  Reiting glanced up, unpleasantly surprised. Then he turned angrily to Basini.

  “We'll teach you to start secret plots against us! And your guardian angel Törless will look on in person and enjoy it.”

  Törless had already turned away, but this piece of spite, so obviously aimed at him, held him back and, without stopping to think, he said: “Look here, Reiting, I shall not do anything of the kind. I'm not going to have any more to do with it. I'm sick of the whole thing.”

  “All of a sudden?”

  “Yes, all of a sudden. Before, I was searching for something behind it all....” He did not know why he said this or why now again it kept on coming back into his mind.

  “Aha, second sight!”

  “Yes. But now I can see only one thing-how vulgar and brutal you and Beineberg are.”

  “But you shall also see how Basini eats mud,” Reiting sneered.

  “That doesn't interest me any more.

  “It certainly used to!”

  “I've already told you, only as long as Basini's state of mind was a riddle to me.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I don't know anything about riddles. Things just happen: that's the sum total of wisdom.” Törless was surprised to find himself all at once again uttering phrases from that lost realm of feeling. And so, when Reiting mockingly retorted that one did not have to travel far to pick up that sort of wisdom, an angry sense of superiority shot up in him and made him speak harshly. For a moment he despised Reiting so much that he would really have enjoyed trampling him underfoot.

  “Gibe away as much as you like. But the things you two are up to are nothing more or less than brainless, senseless, disgusting torture of someone weaker than you are!”

  Reiting cast a sidelong gla
nce at Basini, who was pricking up his ears.

  “You mind what you say, Törless!”

  “Disgusting and filthy! You heard what I said!”

  Now Reiting burst out too. “I forbid you to be abusive about us in front of Basini!”

  “Oh, to hell with you! Who are you to forbid anything? That is over. Once I used to respect you and Beineberg, but now I can see what you really are-stupid, revolting, beastly fools!”

  “Shut up, or-“ and Reiting seemed about to leap at Törless. Törless retreated slightly, yelling at him: “D'you think I'm going to fight with you? You needn't think Basini's worth that to me! Do what you like with him, but get out of my way!”

  Reiting seemed to have changed his mind about hitting Törless; he stepped aside. He did not even touch Basini. But Törless knew him well enough to realize one thing: from now on all that was malicious and dangerous in Reiting would be a perpetual threat to him.

  It was in the afternoon, only two days later, that Reiting and Beineberg came up to Törless.

  He saw the unpleasant look in their eyes. Obviously Beineberg now bore him a grudge for the ridiculous collapse of his prophecies, and Reiting had probably been egging him on, into the bargain.

  “I hear you've been abusive about us. And in front of Basini, at that. Why?”

  Törless made no answer.

  “You realise we are not going to put up with that sort of thing. But because it's you, and we're used to your odd whims, and don't attach overmuch importance to them, we're prepared to let it go at that. There's just one thing you have to do, though.” In spite of the amiability of the words, there was something malevolently expectant in Beineberg's eyes.

  “Basini's coming to the lair tonight. We're going to discipline him for having set you against us. When you see us leave the dormitory, come after us.”

  But Törless refused. “You two can do what you like. You'll have to leave me out of it.”