“You know that the wearing of leather in any form whatsoever by civilians is strictly forbidden. Your shoes will stay here. They will be confiscated. Now show me your identification papers!”
Dear Lord, I didn’t have any.
“I’ve not experienced anything like this for at least a year!” The official sighed and called for a policeman. “Bring this man into office 194, room 8.”
I was forced to walk barefoot through some streets. Then we entered another administration building and went through corridors, breathing the smell of paper and hopelessness. I was pushed into a room and was interrogated by another official, who was wearing a uniform.
“You were found on the street without identification papers, so I must fine you two thousand guilders. I’ll write the receipt for you right away.”
“Forgive me,” I said timidly. “I don’t have that much with me. Couldn’t you lock me up for a while instead of fining me?”
He laughed loudly.
“Lock you up? My dear man, how can you think something like that? Do you think that we’d like to feed you, in addition to all this? No, my good man, if you cannot pay this small amount, you will be given the hardest punishment of all. I’ll have to demand the provisional deprivation of your license to exist. Please give me your license-to-exist card!”
I had none.
Now the official was completely speechless. He called for two colleagues, whispered to them for a long time, and pointed to me frequently. They all regarded me with fear and great astonishment. Then he had me taken to a jail until my case could be fully discussed.
Many people were standing and sitting there. A soldier stood on guard in front of the door. It struck me that, despite my lack of shoes, I was by far the best-dressed person in the cell, and the others were somewhat in awe of me. So they made room to let me sit down, and immediately a small, shy man pressed up next to me, leaned over carefully, and whispered into my ear, “Listen, I’ll make you a fabulous deal. I have a sugar beet at home! A perfectly good sugar beet! It weighs almost six pounds. You can have it. But what will you offer me in return?”
He leaned over and put his ear close to my lips, and I whispered, “Make me an offer yourself! How much do you want to have?”
“Let’s say a hundred and fifteen guilders!” he answered.
I shook my head and became absorbed in my thoughts.
I saw I had been away too long. It was difficult to accustom myself to this life again. I would have given a great deal for a pair of shoes or socks, for my bare feet were terribly cold, and I had been forced to walk through wet streets. But there was nobody in the room who was not barefoot.
After some hours had passed, they came for me. I was led into office number 285, room 19F. This time the policeman remained with me. He positioned himself between me and his superior, who seemed to me to be a very high official.
“You’ve managed to get yourself into quite a bad predicament,” he began. “You’re here in this city and living without a license to exist. I’m sure you know that this calls for the most severe punishment.”
I made a slight bow.
“If you’ll permit me,” I said, “I have just one request to make of you. I completely agree that I can’t handle this situation, and that my predicament is bound to become worse. So would it be possible for you to sentence me to death? I’d appreciate that very much!”
The high official gave me a mild look.
“I understand why you’re saying this,” he said gently. “But if I granted it, then everyone could eventually come with such a request. In any event, you’d have to buy a death card. Do you have the money for it? It costs four thousand guilders.”
“No, I don’t have that much. But I’d give all that I have. I have a great longing to die.”
He smiled strangely.
“I believe you. You’re not the only one. But it’s not so easy to die. You’re a citizen of a state and are obligated to this state with body and soul. I’m sure you know this. By the way—I see that you’ve registered yourself as Emil Sinclair. Are you the writer Sinclair?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Oh, I’m very pleased. I hope I can be of service to you. Officer, you may leave now.”
The policeman left, and the official offered me his hand.
“I’ve read your books with great interest,” he said courteously, “and I’ll try to help you as much as I possibly can. But tell me, dear God, how did you manage to get yourself into this terrible predicament?”
“Well, I was away for a long time. I had taken flight into the cosmos for a while. It may have been two or three years, and quite frankly I had hoped that the war would come to an end in the meantime, more or less. But tell me, can’t you obtain a death card for me? I’d be extremely grateful.”
“Perhaps I can manage it. But before I can arrange anything, you must have a license to live. Without it, any step I took would be hopeless. I’ll give you a letter of recommendation for office 127.
With my guarantee you’ll at least be able to obtain a provisional license to live. Of course it’s only valid for two days.”
“Oh, that’s more than enough time!”
“Very well! After you have it, come back to me.”
I shook hands with him.
“One more thing,” I said quietly. “May I ask you another question? You can imagine how badly informed I am about current events.”
“Please, please.”
“Well then, I’d be interested most of all in knowing how it is possible that life can go on at all under these circumstances. How can the people put up with all of this?”
“Well now,” he responded, “you’re in a particularly bad situation as a civilian and entirely without papers! There are very few civilians left. Whoever is not a soldier is a civil servant. This makes life more bearable for most people. Many are even very happy. And they have gradually become accustomed to the deprivation. When we gradually had to give up potatoes and become accustomed to wood pulp—it’s lightly charred, which makes it rather tasty—everyone thought that we would never be able to bear this. And now it’s worked out well. And that’s the way it is with everything.”
“I understand,” I said. “It’s actually no longer astonishing. But there is something I don’t entirely understand. Tell me, why is the whole world actually exerting such tremendous energy this way? These deprivations, these laws, these offices and officials—what is it actually that people are protecting and maintaining with all of this?”
The gentleman looked at me with astonishment.
“That is some question!” he exclaimed, and shook his head. “You know, don’t you, that there is a war, war all over the world! And that’s what we are maintaining. It is war. Without these enormous efforts and accomplishments, the armies could not remain in the battlefields one week more. They would starve—they would not be able to endure.”
“Yes,” I said, “that’s certainly food for thought! So war is the good thing that is being maintained by all these sacrifices! Yes, but—permit me to ask a strange question—why do you place such high value on war? Is it really worth all this? Is war really a good thing at all?”
The official shrugged sympathetically He saw that I did not understand him.
“My dear Mr. Sinclair,” he said, “you’ve become very ignorant of the ways of the world. But please, just go through one street. Speak with the people. Just make a little effort to think and ask yourself: What else is left? What is it that constitutes our life? Then you will immediately have to say: War is the only thing that we still have! Pleasure and personal gain, social ambition, greed, love, intellectual work—all this no longer exists. War is the one and only activity for which we are grateful. It still gives us something like order, law, thought, and spirit in the world. Can you grasp this?”
Yes, now I understood, and I thanked the gentleman very much.
Then I left his room and mechanically stuck the letter of recommendation for office 127 i
nto my pocket. I did not intend to make use of it. Nothing now was so important that I had to bother another one of those officials. And before I could be noticed again and taken to task, I spoke to the tiny blessed star within me, shut off my heartbeat, made my body disappear into the shadow of a bush, and continued my previous voyage without thinking about returning home ever again.
THE
EUROPEAN
Finally, the Lord our God showed His consideration and brought about an end to the bloody world war on earth by sending the great flood. These tides of water mercifully cleansed the aging planet of everything that had desecrated it—the bloody fields of snow and the motionless mountains decked with cannons. They also cleared away the rotting corpses, along with those people who wept for them; the enraged and bloodthirsty individuals, along with the impoverished; the hungry, along with the mentally deranged.
The blue skies of the world now cast a friendly look at the brightly shining planet.
By the way, European technology had held its own splendidly until the very end. For weeks Europe had taken precautions and tenaciously resisted the gradually rising waters. First, it was through gigantic dams that millions of prisoners of war had built, then through artificial structures that were erected with astonishing rapidity. At the beginning they had looked like gigantic terraces, but they culminated more and more into towers. The human sense of the heroic emanated from these towers, and they stood the test with touching steadfastness until the end. While Europe and the rest of the world were swamped, the spotlights still glistened from the last of the projecting towers, dazzling and unperturbed through the damp dusk of the sinking earth, and shells soared out of the cannons, back and forth, forming elegant arches. Two days before the end, the leaders of the middle powers decided to make a peace offer to their enemies through signals of light. However, their enemies demanded the immediate evacuation of the fortified towers that were still standing, and not even the most resolute friends of peace could declare themselves ready to do that. Therefore both sides kept shooting heroically to the very last hour.
Then the entire world became submerged. The only surviving European drifted on a lifeboat in the flood and used all his energy to write down the events of the final days, so that a later humanity would know that it had been his fatherland that had outlasted its final enemies by hours and had thus secured the victory laurels for itself.
All of a sudden a ponderous vessel, black and gigantic, appeared on the gray horizon and gradually approached the exhausted man. Before he fainted, he had the satisfaction of recognizing the ancient patriarch, with his wavy silver beard, standing on board the houseboat. Then a tremendous black African fished the drifting man out of the water. He was still alive and regained consciousness. The patriarch gave him a friendly smile. His work had been successful: One type of each of the species living on earth had been saved.
While the ark sailed gently with the wind and waited for the muddy water to settle, life became merry and gay on board. Large fish followed the boat in dense schools. Birds and insects sprawled in lively, dreamlike flocks over the roof Every animal and every human rejoiced fervently at having been saved and chosen for a new life. The colorful peacock screeched its morning call shrilly and clearly over the water. The elephant laughed and sprayed a bath for himself and his wife, with his trunk raised high. The lizard sat glittering in the sunny joists. The Indian fetched sparkling fish out of the endless flood with a quick thrust of his spear. The African rubbed fire on the hearth out of dry wood and slapped his fat wife on her clapping thighs in rhythmic beats. The Hindu stood lean and stiff with folded arms and murmured ancient verses to himself from songs about the creation of the world. The Eskimo lay steaming in the sun and perspired, laughing out of small eyes, water and fat dripping from him, while a good-natured tapir sniffed him. And the small Chinaman had carved a thin stick that he carefully balanced first on his nose and then on his chin. The European used his writing materials to make an inventory of the present living creatures.
Groups and friendships were formed, and whenever a quarrel was about to erupt, the patriarch settled it with a wave of his hand. Everyone was gregarious and happy. The only one who kept to himself was the European, who occupied himself with his writing.
Soon the multicolored people and animals thought up a new kind of game or tournament in which they would compete and demonstrate their abilities and talents. Each one wanted to be first, and the patriarch had to arrange everything. He separated the large and small animals, and then he set apart the people, and they all had to register and name the feat that they thought they could best accomplish. Then each one took a turn.
This splendid tournament lasted many days since each group would frequently interrupt its game and run off to watch another group. And every marvelous performance was loudly applauded by the spectators. How many wonderful things there were to see! All of God’s creatures displayed their latent talents. The richness of life revealed itself. How they laughed, applauded, crowed, clapped, stamped, and neighed!
The weasel ran wonderfully, and the lark sang enchantingly. The puffed-up turkey marched splendidly, while the squirrel was incredibly nimble in climbing. The mandrill imitated the Malayan, and the baboon, the mandrill. Runners and climbers, swimmers and pilots competed tirelessly, and they were all unbeatable in their way and were given due recognition. There were animals that employed magic to perform wonders, and animals that could make themselves invisible. Many distinguished themselves through their strength; many through cunning; many through attack; many through defense. Insects could protect themselves by looking like grass, wood, moss, or stone, and others among the weak drew applause and caused the laughing spectators to flee horrible odors. Nobody was left out. Nobody was without talent. Birds’ nests were woven, pasted, entwined, walled up. Predatory birds could detect the tiniest thing from scary heights.
And even the humans did their things in a superb way: The big African ran easily and effortlessly on a high beam. The Malayan made a rudder with three twists of a palm leaf and steered and turned on a tiny plank. That was worth watching. The Indian hit the smallest target with a light arrow, and his wife wove a mat out of two kinds of flax, which drew great admiration. Everyone was silent for a long time and stared as the Hindu appeared and did some magic tricks. Then the Chinaman demonstrated how one could triple the wheat harvest through hard work by pulling out the very young plants and then planting them in the same intermediate spaces.
The European, who was not very popular, had aroused the resentment of his kin many times because he found fault with them and judged them with harsh condescension. When the Indian shot down a bird from up high in the blue sky, the white man had shrugged and asserted that one could shoot three times as high with twenty grams of dynamite! And when the people challenged him to prove it, he had not been able to do it, but he responded, of course, that if he had this and that and some ten other things, he could certainly do it. He had also mocked the Chinaman and said the replanting of young wheat could certainly be accomplished through endless hard work, but such slavish work would definitely not make people happy. The Chinaman, however, had been roundly applauded when he maintained that people are happy when they have something to eat and pay their respects to God. Here, too, the European had simply laughed and sneered.
The merry tournament continued, and in the end all the humans and animals revealed their talents and artistic abilities. The impression they left was great and joyful. Even the patriarch laughed into his beard and said praisingly, “May the water subside and may a new life begin on this earth, for each colorful thread in God’s robe is still present, and nothing is lacking for the foundation of infinite happiness on earth,”
The only one who had not performed a feat was the European, and now all the others insisted strongly that he step up and do his own thing, so that they all could see whether he, too, had a valid claim to breathe God’s beautiful air and sail in the patriarch’s ark.
The man refu
sed to do anything for a long time and searched for excuses. But then Noah himself placed his finger on his chest and warned him that he had better obey.
“I, too,” the white man began, “I, too, have developed a talent with great proficiency and have practiced it. My eyes are not as good as those of other creatures, nor my ears, nose, or hands. My talent is of a higher kind. My gift is the intellect.”
“Show us!” the African cried out, and everyone crowded around the European.
“There is nothing to show,” the white man said calmly. “You have not really understood me. My mind is what distinguishes me from others.”
The African laughed cheerfully and displayed snow-white teeth. The Hindu curled his lips with sarcasm. The Chinaman smiled cleverly and good-naturedly to himself.
“Your mind?” he said slowly. “Well then, please show us your mind. Up to now you haven’t shown a thing.”
“There is nothing to be seen,” the European retorted gruffly, in self-defense. “My gift and uniqueness consist in this: I store images of the external world in my head, and out of them I am able to produce new images and arrangements only for myself. I can conceive the entire world in my mind. That is, I can create it anew.”
Noah placed his hand over his eyes.
“Permit me,” he said slowly, “but what good is all this? To create the world again that God already created, and entirely for yourself alone inside your head—what use is this?”
Everyone applauded and erupted with questions.
“Wait!” shouted the European. “You really don’t understand me. You cannot show the work of the mind so easily as you can show any kind of manual dexterity.”
The Hindu smiled.
“Oh yes, you can, my white cousin. Yes, you can. Show us just once the work of your mind. For instance, let us try addition. Let us have a contest to see who can add better! For instance: A couple has three children, of which each one marries and has a family. Each of the young couples has a child every year. How many years must pass before they have one hundred children in all?”
The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse Page 20
