by Robert Musil
A few days later they had their first scene. After supper and a period of yawning, Moosbrugger pulled over the little purse from which Rachel paid for their daily needs, and tried to fish out a coin with his thick fingers. Rachel, who immediately saw what he was up to, could not get her purse away from him in time; she ran around the table and fell on his arm. —No! she exclaimed. —You mustn’t go to the tavern! You’ll be— But she did not get to finish her sentence, for Moosbrugger’s arm shoved her away so violently that she lost her balance and had to make strenuous efforts not to fall. Moosbrugger put on his hat and left the room, as unapproachable as a huge stone figure.
In desperation, Rachel thought over what she should do. She decided to do battle against Moosbruggers indiscretion. She reproached herself with letting herself be frightened by the change in his behavior, which in the loneliness of reflection seemed to her understandable. As the weaker person, it was easy for her to be the cleverer, but she had to bend every effort to make clear to him that in this case she really was more clever; and if he saw that, then he might possibly accommodate himself to his situation; for Rachel understood quite well that it was no situation for a hero to be in. But when Moosbrugger came home he was drunk. The room filled with a bad smell, his shadow danced on the walls, Rachel was dispirited, and her words chased after this shadow with sharp reproaches she did not intend. Moosbrugger had landed on the bed and was beckoning her with his finger. —No, never again! Rachel screamed. Moosbrugger pulled from his pocket a botde he had brought along. He had left die tavern at eleven, only one third filled with schnapps; the second third was filled with a bad conscience, and the third third with anger at having left. Rachel committed the strategic error of rushing at him in order to tear the bottle away. The next moment, she thought her head was bursting; the lamp revolved, and her body lost all connection to the world; Moosbrugger had warded off her attack with a powerful slap of his paw to her face, and when Rachel came to, she was lying far away from him on the floor; something was dripping out between her teeth, and her upper lip and nose seemed to have grown painfully together. She saw how Moosbrugger was still staring at the bottle, which he then rudely smashed on the floor; after which he stood up and blew out the lamp.
Whether deliberately or merely in his stupor, Moosbrugger had taken the bed, and Rachel crept weeping onto the pile of blankets, near which she had fallen. The pain in her face and body did not let her sleep, but she did not dare light the lamp to make poultices for herself. She was cold, humiliation filled her mind with a hazy restlessness that closely resembled feverish fantasies, and the spilled schnapps covered the floor with a nauseating, paralyzing haze. All night she thought over as well as she could what had to be done. She had to find Clarisse, but she had no idea where Clarisse lived. She wanted to run away, but then she told herself that she would be betraying Clarisse’s confidence if she left Moosbrugger in the lurch before Clarisse returned; she had taken money for this. It also occurred to her that she could go find Ulrich, but she was ashamed and put that off for later. She had never been beaten before, but aside from the pain it wasn’t so bad; it simply expressed the fact that she was weaker than this giant whom she loved, that her entreaties did not penetrate to his ear, and that she had to be circumspect; he did not mean to harm her, she realized that quite well, and the most unpleasant thing remained the fear that her chastisement would be repeated, an idea that robbed her breast of courage and made her totally miserable.
So day came before she reached any conclusions. Moosbrugger got up, and stumbling with inner emptiness, she had to follow his example. A glance in the mirror showed that her nose and mouth were badly swollen in a discolored, greenish-yellow, half-extinguished face; the magic of this night had made Rachel ugly and unprepossessing. Neither she nor Moosbrugger said anything. Moosbrugger had a fuzzy head; in his sleep he had smelled the schnapps and woken up with the feeling of not having drunk enough. When he saw Rachel’s swollen face, he had an inkling of what had happened the day before; a dim recollection that she had provoked him kept him from asking her about it. But he really would have liked to ask her; he just did not know how to go about it. And Rachel waited for a kind word from him the way any girl in love waits; when he let himself be served in silence, she became more and more sulky. Moosbrugger would have liked most of all to go straight back to the bar, but he was afraid of this girl, who would again make a scene, and he could not go on beating her every time. Her eyes, swollen with weeping, repelled him even more than her swollen mouth, which was visible every time she moistened the cloth she was holding to it. It was indeed his fault, he said to himself, what’s right is right, but to have this around first thing in the morning was too much. Rachel’s tender back and her slender arms, which she exposed as she washed, the devil take them, he didn’t like them, they looked like chicken bones.
He summed it all up by finding himself in a really stupid situation that he had to stick out as honorably as he could. In the evenings he went to the tavern; he had made up his mind to risk it in this part of town where no one knew him, and Rachel no longer dared to refuse him the money or reproach him for it. Not even when he began to play cards and needed more. There was pretty good company in the bar; in this way, Moosbrugger thought, you can stick it out if you sleep a lot during the day. But Rachel did not sleep during the day, and bothered him like a bat. A few times he caught her in his arms. A few times, too, he made an attempt to begin a better life and to talk with her as the little Fraulein whom she indeed was. But then it came out that Rachel could do no more. She answered evasively and monosyllabically. Whenever Moosbrugger opened his mouth she froze, without meaning to, for she would have liked to talk with him; but he had poured something alien into her, violence, and the well that is the source of everything worth saying had frozen over. So there remained nothing for Moosbrugger to do but turn to the wall.
But there was one occasion when she always spoke up, and that was when Moosbrugger returned from the tavern. If he was not drunk he did not respond, or merely growled incomprehensible answers, and Rachel pursued him into sleep with reproaches about his heedlessness. He had beaten her in the tension, the very unpleasant tension, that ruled in him as long as he had been tempted to leave the house but could not make up his mind to do so; now that this was no longer a problem, he was tender and well-mannered, and Rachel, sensing that she was not in any danger, became bolder and bolder. He stayed out longer from one day to the next, in the hope of returning only after she had gone to sleep. But Rachel had developed a strange habit of sleeping. When he left the house after dark she instantly fell asleep, and when he returned she woke up, and with an assurance as if it were only the continuation of her dream, she began to quarrel with him. Her poor soul, condemned to be unable to resolve her situation through reflection and thought, allowed itself to be borne upward by the drunken powers of sleep.
—Such a scrawny little chicken! Moosbrugger thought about her, and the insult that such a meager chicken was allowed to scratch around him, day in, day out, gnawed at him. But Rachel, as if she knew what he thought about her without his having said it aloud, and in almost telepathic (somnambulent) concord with the silent man who groped his way through the room in the night, felt an obsessive desire to cackle and argue. And when Moosbrugger came home drunk, which was not exactly seldom, his stumbling and tottering was like a large ship dancing on the same waves as the girl’s small, excited sentences. And if one of these sentences struck too close to home, the powerfully drunken Christian Moosbrugger grabbed at her. As mentioned, it was never again the impulsive rage it had been the first time, when he had nearly crushed Rachel with a sweep of his hand, but he wanted to make this screeching, rebellious child shut up, and with cautiously measured force, the way a drunk carefully calculates his step over the curb, he let his hand fall on her. When Rachel was beaten she became still for a moment. A boundless astonishment came over her, as at a totally unexpected, conclusive answer. Since leaving her parents’ house she had not
been religious; the way she had grown up, she thought religion was something for coarse people: but if Elohim, or better yet an evil spirit, had suddenly sat on a bench in the park among the dressed-up people, that was exactly how it seemed to her when she was beaten. She was drawn to observe this evil spirit closely once more and sought to set it in motion. Then she would open her mouth again and say something about which she knew just as surely that it would irritate Moosbrugger as that if he would follow it it would be what he needed for his salvation. Then Moosbrugger would hit her with the back of his hand, or shove her to the wall. And Rachel, although again astonished, would find another expression, as sharp and penetrating as a knitting needle. And then of course Moosbrugger would have to increase the size of his gift. This giant, not wanting to kill her, beats her wildly on her back, her buttocks, tears her shift, throws her by the hair to the ground, or with a kick sends her flying into the corner; but he does all this with as much care in his wildness as his drunken condition permits, so that no bones will be broken. Rachel is amazed at the evil spirit of force and brutality that demolishes all words. When Moosbrugger shoves her she becomes completely weightless. No will can prevail against his strength. The will returns only when the pain stops. And as long as the pain is there she howls, and is herself astonished at the way she screams at the walls. And Moosbrugger would like to seize his head and, raising it from his fists, smash his own head against the ground, if that would only get this damned nothing of a person to shut up!
On the days after such evenings it seemed to Rachel as if she herself had been drunk. Her reason told her that she had to put an end to this. She went looking for Ulrich. But she was told he was away, and no one knew where he was or when he would return. On her way back she thought she noticed that everything in the world was secretly contrived for beatings. It was just a thought that went through her mind. Parents their child. The state its convicts. The military its soldiers. The rich the poor. The coachman his horse. People went walking with big dogs on leashes. Everyone would rather intimidate another person than come to an understanding with him. What had happened to her was no different from what it would have been if she had thrust her hand into pure lye instead of the diluted lye that is used everywhere for laundering. She had to get out! Her mind was confused. She resolved that in the evening, when Moosbrugger was out of the house, she would flee with everything she still possessed. It would be enough to last her for a few weeks by herself. She put on an innocent face when she entered the room, so as not to make Moosbrugger suspicious. But although it was only six o’clock and still daylight, she did not find him there. An instant suspicion made her inspect the room. Almost all her clothes were missing. The lamp and some of the blankets were gone. If thieves hadn’t broken in during his absence, Moosbrugger himself must have thrown it all together and pawned it.
Rachel packed up what was left. But then she did not know where to go, as evening was falling. She decided to stick it out one more night and hold her tongue when Moosbrugger came back sodden drunk, as was to be expected from these preparations. Then in the morning she intended to disappear without a trace. She lay down on the bed, and even though Moosbrugger had also taken the pillow, for the first time she slept soundly the whole night.
Despite her deep sleep, in the morning she immediately knew, even before she opened her eyes, that Moosbrugger had not come home. She looked around, wanting quickly to take the opportunity to make herself ready. But she was sad; she feared that in his rashness Moosbrugger had fallen into the hands of the police, and that grieved her. Involuntarily she hesitated while she tied up her bundle. In truth, Moosbrugger had for quite a while had something in mind. He had noticed that Rachel kept her money on her breast, and wanted to take it from her. But he shrank from reaching for it. He was afraid of those two girlish things between which it lay; he didn’t know why. Perhaps because they were so unmasculine. So he fell back on his other plan. It was the more natural one. It lifted Moosbrugger up and set him down again. But if it worked out the way he wanted, it would give him travel money and he could let himself be borne away. He really liked living with Rachel. She had her oddities, which dully persecuted him; but each time he fell into a rage or caught her for love, he unloaded a part of his unease, and this made the water level of his plan rise fairly slowly. He felt reasonably secure with Rachel; indeed, that was what it was, a really ordered life, when he went out in the evenings, drank something, and then had his quarrel with her. It removed, so to speak, the bullet from the magazine every evening. Both were lucky that he beat Rachel, as it were, in small installments. But just because life with her was so healthy, she did not greatly arouse his fantasies, and he nourished his secret plan to disappear into the world; he wanted to begin by getting totally drunk. When it got to be nine in the morning Rachel went for a newspaper to see if there was any bad news in it. She found it immediately. During the night a woman had been torn to pieces by a drunk or a madman; the murderer had been seized, and the establishment of his identity was imminent. Rachel knew that it was none other than Moosbrugger. Tears started to her eyes. She did not know why, for she felt cheerful and relieved. And should it occur to Clarisse to free Moosbrugger again, Rachel would tell the police about her. But she had to cry all day long, as if it were part of herself that would go to the gallows.
Narrative Drafts
MID TO LATE 1920s
THE REDEEMER
(C. 1924/25)
I.
A dreadful chapter
The dream
Around midnight, no matter what the night, the heavy wooden door of the entryway was closed and two iron bars thick as arms were shoved in behind it; until then, a sleepy maid with the look of a peasant about her waited for late guests. A quarter of an hour later a policeman came by on his long, slow rounds, overseeing the closing time of inns. Around 1:00 a.m. the swelling three-step of a patrol from the nearby supply barracks emerged from the fog, echoed past, and faded away again. Then for a long time there was nothing but the cold, damp silence of November nights; only around three did the first carts come in from the country. They broke over the pavement with a heavy noise; wrapped in their coverings, deaf from the clatter and the morning cold, the corpses of the drivers swayed behind the horses.
Was it like that or wasn’t it, when on this night, shortly before the closing hour, the couple asked about a room? The maid, unhurried, first shut and barred the door, and then without asking any questions went on ahead. First there was a stone staircase, then a long, windowless corridor, and suddenly two unexpected corners; a staircase with five stone steps hollowed out by many feet, and another corridor, whose loosened tiles wobbled under their soles. At its end, without the visitors being put off by it, a ladder with a few rungs led up to a small attic space onto which three doors opened, doors that stood low and brown around the hole in the floor.
“Are the other rooms taken?” The old woman shook her head while, by the light of her candle, she opened one of the rooms. Then she stood with her light raised and allowed the guests to enter. It might not have happened often that she heard the rustle of silk petticoats in this room; and the tattoo of high heels, which in fright gave way to every shadow on the tile floor, seemed stupid to her; obtuse and obstinate, she looked the lady, who now had to brush past her, straight in the face. The lady nodded patronizingly in her embarrassment; she might be forty, or somewhat older. The maid took the money for the room, extinguished the last light in the corridor, and went to bed in her room.
After that there was no sound in the whole house. The light of the candle had not yet found time to creep into all the corners of the wretched room. The strange man stood by the window like a flat shadow, while the lady, with uncertain expectations, had sat down on the edge of the bed. She had to wait an agonizingly long time; the stranger did not stir from his place. If up till now things had gone as quickly as the beginning of a dream, now every motion was mired in a stubborn resistance that did not let go of a single limb. He felt that t
his woman was expecting something from him. Opening her stays—that was like opening the doors of a room. A table was standing in the middle. At it sat the man, the son. He observed it secretly, hostilely, and fearfully, full of arrogance. He would have liked to throw a grenade, or tear the wallpaper to tatters. With the greatest effort he finally succeeded in at least wresting a sentence from the stubborn resistance. “Did you really notice me right away when I looked at you?”
Oh, it worked. She could not control her impatience any longer. She had let herself be led astray, but no one should think she was a bad woman. So in order to save her honor she had to find him still magical. The blood that had risen to her throat in fear and vexation now rushed pell-mell down to her hips.
At this moment he felt that it would be quite impossible to take a bird in his hand, and this naked skin was to be pressed against his naked and unprotected skin? His breast was to be filled with warmth from her breast? He sought to draw things out with jokes. They were tortured and fearful. He said, “Isn’t it true that fat women lace their feet too. Along with their shoes. And above the knot the flesh spills over a little, and there is a little unpleasant smell there. A little smell that exists nowhere else in the world.”
She said to herself: “He must be a writer; now I understand his odd behavior. Later I will play the elegant lady with him.” She resolutely began to undress; she owed it to her honor.
He became anxious; now he knew for certain: I can never take this leap into another human being, let myself into an utterly alien existence. Since he did not move, she stopped; she was suddenly bad-tempered; she too became fearful. What if she had fallen victim to an unconscionable man? She did not know him. The woman, who had not revealed her name, began to have regrets. She still waited. But something told her: it will get better once we’ve gone further.
