The Drinker

by Hans Fallada

  I imagined something of the sort. Yes, a little joy had come back to me, an almost cosy contentment filled me—this time is best compared with the time I spent in the wood-yard of the remand prison. True, Mordhorst was lacking here but I did not really miss him. Mordhorst had always been driving on, complaining and agitating—and now I was all for peace. This place was horrible, with its filth and meanness and envy, but that was how it was, and what was the use of rebelling against it? We prisoners, we patients, were not worth it.

  At the end of the second month I swapped my whole packet of fine-cut tobacco for a rimmed magnifying glass and now I could always light my pipe, even in my work-cell, provided the sun was shining. I imagined myself richer and happier than ever before when I leaned by my window and smoked my little pipe. I felt I had never enjoyed my life so deeply or been so happy as here in my warm cell. Perhaps the contentment of my cell-mate Holz, his gift for extracting pleasure from the slightest things, had already affected me.

  52

  In the quiet peacefulness of those days, my interviews with the doctor were the only disturbing thing, and their effect lasted but a few days at most, before I had become completely at ease again and returned to my calm and agreeable condition. On the whole the interviews did not go favourably for me, though none were as bad as that first one. Unfortunately it was quite impossible for me to behave naturally with him, in my dealings with him I never achieved that freedom and self-assurance which, outside, would have been so much a matter of course for me. I was always oppressed by a dark sense of guilt, as if I had at all costs to hide something from him. I was never quite free of my fear of his hidden cunning and trickery; at the most innocent question I was hunted by one thought: “What’s he trying to trip me with now?”

  I never thought of him as the helpful doctor, only as the ally of the Public Prosecutor who in a confused and difficult moment had charged me with the attempted murder of my wife, and who would do anything to keep me inside these walls.

  Whenever I really managed to overcome my feelings, and to tell the doctor what moved my heart, it unfailingly ended in disappointment. For instance, one day I told him quite freely about my changed plans for the future, how I was going to retire to some quiet village and just live by brush-making. I had expected to get the doctor’s approval of this plan, his praise even, and I was astonished and disappointed beyond measure when he vigorously shook his head and said: “Those are just fantasies, you’re pulling the wool over your own eyes. You can’t live like that, and you don’t want to. You need your fellow-men, and above all, Sommer, you need a helping and guiding hand. No, that only comes from that quite unwarranted aversion of yours to your wife. Get the idea out of your head that your wife wants to harm you. You are the one who has wronged her and if your wife weren’t such a decent sort she would have every reason for being a bit spiteful towards you. But she hasn’t given a single unfavourable word of evidence against you, she tries to excuse you all the time! And here you tell me you don’t want to live and work with her any longer! What a fellow you are, Sommer! Can’t you see anything as it really is? Must you always invent some rigmarole?”

  Naturally I was bewildered and indignant at this unwarranted attack; as Magda had not written me a line and never made any attempt to see me, I quite justifiably assumed that I was irksome to her, that she considered me dead and buried. And, as is the custom, she spoke no ill of the dead. But it was decent of me to keep quietly out of her way, to make no trouble for her, to leave her in full possession of my property. That the doctor refused to acknowledge my generosity, and instead assailed me with hard spiteful words, proved to me how prejudiced he was against me, and that made me keep my mouth shut all the tighter in future, made me still more reticent and shy. Really he was nothing but my enemy, a pitiless enemy who tried by all the means at his disposal to outwit me and who unscrupulously used his weight as head of the institution against me. The other prisoners had been right when they constantly warned me of him.

  “Don’t trust that Stiebing! He’s friendly to your face, but behind your back he makes a report about you so you never get out of this hole alive!”

  They were right.

  During these few weeks, the doctor did not often send for me, and his demands on me did not become more frequent after he informed me that he had now been asked to prepare my report. Quite the reverse, in fact, another proof that he had a preconceived opinion about me, and did not want to find out anything further. In general, unless there was something specially urgent, the medical officer visited the institution twice a week, every Tuesday and Thursday evening. But I was sent for much more rarely, hardly once a week. Of course I rather welcomed this, since every visit was, as I have said, a torture that took me days to recover from. But these rare summonses showed me, too, how lightly he took this report on which the fate of my whole life depended. Yet in itself, my case was a particularly interesting one for a psychiatrist. In education, I was head and shoulders above the other inmates, I had achieved something in my lifetime, I was a respected man—and now I was in this death-house. The medical officer must have been able to see there was more in me than in the others, I had more to lose, I was more sensitive, too, and more prone to suffering than these utterly dull, stupid fellows. But no, he treated me like any Tom, Dick or Harry, he was often quite rude to me, called me an incorrigible liar and romancer! I had every reason to mistrust him and to be on my guard. When he upbraided me for my lack of frankness, that was just one of his baseless charges, to which I remained completely silent.

  53

  A change in my relations to the doctor only came when he visited me in my cell one day at an unusual hour—early in the afternoon, in fact. I had just been smoking, which is forbidden in the work-cells, but he made no comment on the tobacco-laden atmosphere, even although he usually insisted on a strict observance of the regulations. That day, he was not wearing his light doctor’s overall, and was without his eternal shadow, the head-nurse. For a moment Dr Stiebing looked at my work and then asked absently: “Well, how are you getting on with the brush-making, Sommer?”

  “Quite well, doctor,” I answered. “I think the work-inspector is pleased with me.”

  He nodded, still rather absently, my good work did not seem to interest him much. He reached in his pocket, took out a silver cigarette case, and then he did something that completely astonished me, that almost bowled me over: he offered me the case.

  I looked at him disbelievingly, and a thin smile lay on his face as he said: “You can quite safely take one, Sommer, if your doctor offers it to you.”

  He even gave me a light first, and then stood for a moment calmly smoking under the high-set cell-window, in silence.

  Then he said: “I had a long talk about you yesterday with your wife, Herr Sommer. I had asked her to come in and see me some time, and yesterday she came.”

  I did not answer, I only looked at him, my heart hammered; it moved me, it shook me that this man had been with Magda just yesterday. I could not speak, I think I was trembling in every limb.

  “Yes,” said the doctor thoughtfully. “I got your wife to go over everything again, from the very beginning of your marriage, up to that unfortunate evening. A psychiatrist hears much more from relatives than they themselves would guess.”

  A wave of furious indignation began to rise in me. “So you’ve been trying to trick Magda too, and very likely have tricked her,” I thought. “Magda is so innocent, she has no notion what sort of man you are!”

  But the wave ebbed away again.

  He said: “On the whole, I have a not unfavourable impression from this account of your wife’s. I really think it is possible we may be able to do something with you, Sommer. You have a very brave and efficient wife.…”

  Again I felt on the defensive: I would have preferred that the doctor had used some other word than “efficient” in connection with Magda.

  “Yes, Sommer, of course I can’t say anything definite just yet, I’ll hav
e to keep you here under observation for a few weeks more. But if you go on behaving quietly and working hard, and if nothing special happens …”

  “Nothing special will happen, doctor,” I cried excitedly, “I’ll go on behaving quietly and working hard …”

  The doctor smiled again, and in that very moment when he was being so kind to me, I did not like his superior smile at all.

  “Well,” he said, “we keep all temptations away from you here, Sommer! To behave yourself here means nothing much. You have to be sure that you can resist every temptation outside, particularly alcohol …”

  “I’ll never touch alcohol again,” I assured him. “I decided that long ago. Not even a glass of beer. I’m going to be a total abstainer, I give you my firm promise on that, doctor.”

  “Oh Sommer,” he said sadly, “you’d better not promise me anything, what sort of promises do you think I get to hear, when people want to get out of this place? And three months outside, one month even, and one man’s stealing again, the other drinking. No, I don’t think anything of promises—I’ve been disappointed too often.”

  “But I really have changed,” I said and for the first time I could speak quite frankly to the doctor. “I would never have believed that it could happen to me. I thought I could do anything I liked, and Magda spoilt me, too, in that respect. But now that I’ve seen what has come from my drinking, this is going to be a lesson to me for ever. When I am tempted, and I look back on the weeks and months in this place …”

  I shuddered. The medical officer watched me attentively.

  “That was honestly spoken, Sommer,” he said at last. “If this experience has given you such a shock that it has quite cured you of drinking, then we really can take a chance on it. But now you’ll have to try to put your attitude towards your wife in order as well. You’re an easily-offended man, Herr Sommer, but I must tell you quite frankly that in your marriage, your wife is the guiding hand, the superior partner. She’s your good angel, Sommer, and when you drifted away from her, you fell. So get used to the idea that your wife only has the best intentions towards you, subordinate yourself to her a little.… There’s nothing to be ashamed of in that, it doesn’t make a henpecked husband of you. It’s a good thing when the weaker one lets himself be sheltered and guided by the stronger.…”

  So the doctor went on talking to me for a long time. It was not easy for me to hear him out without contradiction. It really was not quite as he imagined. Certainly Magda was efficient, but ever since we owned the house, I had managed the business perfectly well without her. True, lately things had not gone so well as before, but that was due to other causes, a few unfortunate accidents, not to my bad management. But anyway, once I got out of this accursed place, I would find my feet again. Let Magda be the guiding hand, I wouldn’t make any trouble for her. So I kept silent and I was reconciled to my new position vis à vis Magda by the thought that she had spoken so well of me to the doctor. So she still loved me!

  “So,” said the doctor finally, “I don’t promise you anything definite, I can’t do so. In let’s say three or four weeks’ time I shall present my report, then the court will arrange your hearing, you will get a light sentence, perhaps four weeks, perhaps only fourteen days.…”

  “So little?” I cried in astonishment.

  “Well, you had better ask a lawyer about that, I don’t want to raise any false hopes. I’m only a doctor. And then when you are at liberty again.…”

  “I shall always think of this place, doctor, I promise you!” I concluded.

  54

  This visit altered at one stroke my thoughts, my feelings, my whole life. Suddenly I saw the most recent past through quite different eyes: I had not been living in an almost comfortable calm and self-sufficiency, but in a paralysis of the will, in almost complete hopelessness, in apathy. Now I understood for the first time how slight my hopes had been of getting out of this dreadful place, how near I had been to renouncing life. Holz’s joy in the little things of life seemed cheap and stupid to me and of an evening I bored the patient fellow with long harangues about all the things I was going to do after my release. For I intended to be very active. Though the doctor had asked my pardon for his frankness, I could not forgive his remarks about Magda’s superior efficiency. The more I thought about it, the falser it seemed. The moment I was out, I would show him and Magda and the whole world how efficient I could be. And I pestered the good-natured Holz with long descriptions of the opportunities offered by the market produce business, opportunities which I, of course, was going to seize on and exploit as quick as lightning. In vain he warned me out of his long experience.

  “Sommer, you’re not out yet! Don’t make too many plans! You never know what might happen yet!”

  I cried: “What could happen now? It’s up to me entirely, and I’m sure of myself.”

  In my work at brush-making I had changed, too. It wasn’t that my work was bad, my hands couldn’t do that now, they could manage without any conscious guidance, and my productivity hardly fell off, either. But I worked now by fits and starts. I would stand half the day at my cell-window, looking for hours on end at the quickly scudding clouds in the sky, enjoying the meadows, the cattle, the woods, and smiling after the girls who raced by on their bicycles. Soon I would belong to all this again, I would be part of the world, no more kept away from it and already a living corpse. Then again I would apply myself to my brush-making with a burning zeal. The work simply flew through my hands, every gesture was just right, in two hours I had finished the finest nailbrush. Sometimes as I worked, I thought with longing of Magda and I heartily wished she could see me at work for once. I could be efficient too, extraordinarily efficient! Even my attitude to my workmates had considerably changed since this interview. If I had avoided them up to now, and never interfered in their quarrels, and left them all to go their own way however disgusting it might be, my present good mood made it possible for me to take part in their conversations, and even on one occasion to call out to a disagreeable fellow: “Thiede, don’t lick the table with your tongue! If the gravy’s been spilt, use your spoon!”

  I can’t say that my fellow-sufferers took very kindly to this lively change in my bearing. My witty remarks were mostly received in deep gloomy silence, and my exhortations to good manners brought down vile insults on my head. But all this had little effect on my good-humour.

  I only thought to myself: “You poor idiots! In a few weeks I’ll be out, while you’ll have to spend all your lives inside these walls. What do I care about your insults? You just don’t exist for me!”

  The change in my way of thinking showed not only in my attitude to things inside the asylum, but also in relations to matters outside. After I had wrestled with myself for two nights, and had talked the matter over thoroughly with Holz, who advised me strongly against it, I got old Herr Holsten to come, a somewhat old-fashioned lawyer, who enjoyed the greatest respect among the respectable citizens of my native town, and who had occasionally advised my firm in odd legal questions that cropped up. With him I drew up a document conferring authority on Magda by power of attorney, and I made a will in which I named Magda as my sole beneficiary. I charged the old gentleman to place the power of attorney in my wife’s hands the very next day, but to deposit the will in court. This was my thanks to Magda for the beautiful way in which she had spoken of me to the medical officer. I was delighted that I could thank her in such an impressive fashion. To be sure, Holz, who at this time did not like to go about with me, groaned: “You’ll regret that in a few days’ time, Sommer. A moment’s thought ought to tell you that you shouldn’t put yourself right into another person’s hands. And what for, anyway? Nobody asked you to, so why do it?”

  “I’ve always been a generous man, Holz,” I replied. “I’ve always had a passion for giving.”

  I must say that the old lawyer was very far from happy about drawing up these two documents for me. Not that he didn’t agree with their content, quite the contr
ary.

  “It’s always a good thing when a man puts his house in order, Herr Sommer,” he said, “and your wife is of course your nearest relative. You are facing an uncertain future. Have you already selected an advocate for your hearing, or would you like me to defend you?”

  “Thank you, thank you,” I said lightly. “I intend to defend myself. In any case the whole affair is just a trifle which my dear fellow townsmen have blown up far too much.”

  The lawyer was shocked at my “frivolity” as he called it.

  “It’s never a trifle,” cried the old man indignantly, “when a respectable citizen has to go to prison, not just for his own sake, but particularly for the bad example it affords! Let me take on your defence, Herr Sommer, perhaps, almost certainly, I can get you bound over. Then you will avoid the dishonour of going to prison.”

  “My honour is my own affair,” I said proudly. “Other people can’t take it from me.”

  Smiling sadly, the old man shook his head.

  “In any case this is a matter of crime passionel, and the consequences of such an offence are never dishonourable.”

  Again the old man sadly shook his head. “That kind of talk,” he said, “I have heard quite frequently within such walls as these, but I would have preferred not to hear it from you. How is the district psychiatrist’s report proceeding? Do you know anything about it?”

  I assured him that it was all most favourable, and that the medical officer did not consider it necessary to keep me in the asylum.

  “I do hope so, I hope so with all my heart,” cried Herr Holsten. “Well, Herr Sommer, I must go now. And if, despite your present intentions, you need me after all, you can call me at any time. For all my years, I’m not afraid of the long journey from town to this asylum, if only I can help you.”