The Sleepwalkers

by Hermann Broch

  None the less he listened quietly as Bertrand went on: “One thing more, Pasenow; I have the impression that the estate, except where your mother looks after it and where it runs itself, is in a fairly neglected condition. In his present state your father could possibly do it a great deal of additional harm. Excuse me for suggesting, as I feel bound to do, that you might have him declared incapable of managing it. And you should engage a good steward; he would anyhow earn his wages. I think you should discuss it with your father-in-law; after all, he’s a landowner too.” Yes, Bertrand was talking like the vilest agent provocateur, and yet Joachim had to thank him for the advice, which he could see was just and well meant, and even had to express the hope that they would still see much of each other before Bertrand’s full recovery. “Delighted,” said Bertrand; “and give my humblest respects to your bride.” Then he sank back exhausted on his pillow.

  Two days later Joachim received a letter in which Bertrand announced that his health was much improved and that he had shifted into a hospital in Hamburg, so as to be nearer to his business. But they would certainly meet again before he started for the East. Bertrand’s cool assumption that as a matter of course they would have another encounter made Joachim decide to avoid it at all costs. But he suffered from the knowledge that from now on he would have to do without his friend’s sureness and lightness of touch, and his competence in the affairs of life.

  Behind the Leipzigerplatz there is a shop which externally can hardly be distinguished from its neighbours, unless it should attract attention because there are no goods displayed in its windows and the eye is prevented from seeing what is inside by opaque-glass screens, beautifully etched with Pompeian and Renaissance designs. But this peculiarity is one which the shop shares with many banking houses and brokers’ offices, and even the posters affixed to the screens, although they are an unpleasant interruption of the designs, have nothing unusual about them. On these posters the word “India” occurs, and a glance at the sign above the door informs one that inside the shop the Kaiser Panorama is on view.

  On entering, one advances first into a light and cosily heated room in which an elderly and obviously good-natured lady acts as a kind of cashier behind a small table, selling tickets of admission to the establishment. Most of the visitors, however, pause at the table only to have their books of subscription tickets stamped and to exchange a few friendly words with the old lady. When the aged attendant appears from behind the black curtains that cut off one end of the room, and with a deprecating little gesture begs one to wait a minute or two, the visitor subsides with a faint sigh into one of the cane chairs and continues his conversation, mistrustfully watching the glass door that leads into the street, and if a fresh client appears regarding him with jealous and ashamed hostility. Then there is heard the faint scraping of chairs behind the curtains, and the man who emerges blinks a little in the light, and departs with a brief salutation to the old lady, going hurriedly, nervously, and without looking at anybody, as if he too were ashamed. The waiting client, however, springs quickly to his feet lest someone should push in ahead of him, breaks off his conversation without more ado, and vanishes behind the protecting curtains. It happens but seldom that clients speak to each other, although many must get to know each other by sight in the course of years, and only one or two shameless old men bring themselves to address the other waiting clients as well as the cashier, and to praise the programme; yet even then they are answered mostly in monosyllables.

  Within, however, all is darkness, and one could suppose it an ancient, oppressive darkness that has been accumulating here for years. The attendant takes you gently by the hand and leads you carefully to a seat, a round seat without arms, that is waiting for you. In front of you are two bright eyes that look at you somewhat uncannily from a black screen, and under these eyes is a mouth, a hard rectangle softened by the dull light that fills it. Gradually you realize that you are set before a polygonal construction resembling a temple, and that the screen in front of which you are sitting is a part of it; you observe, too, that to right and left of you sits a worshipper who has applied his eyes to the eyes in the screen before him, and you do the same, after taking a look at the rectangle of light and noting that it says, “Government House in Calcutta.” But as soon as you peer into the open eye, Government House vanishes to the tinkle of a sweet bell and with a mechanical rattle; you can still see it sliding away while another view comes sliding after it, so that you feel almost cheated; but another bell tinkles, the view gives itself a little shake, as if to set itself off to the best advantage, and comes to rest. You see palm-trees and a well-kept path: in the background, where it is shaded, a man in a light suit is sitting on a seat; a fountain throws a congealed, whiplike jet of spray into the air, but you are not content until a glance at the softly lit rectangle informs you: “View in the Royal Park, Calcutta.” Then comes another tinkle, a sliding past of palms, seats, buildings, masts, a quiver into place, a tinkle of the bell, and in bright sunlight: “View of the Harbour, Bombay.” The man who has just been sitting on the seat in Calcutta Park is now standing in a sun-helmet on the hewn stones of the mole in the foreground. He is propped on a walking-stick and does not move, because he is spellbound by the taut rigging of the ships, by their funnels and cranes, spellbound by the bundles of cotton bales on the quay, and gazes at them spellbound, and his face is in shadow and cannot be recognized. Yet perhaps he will advance into the magic space, enclosed in polished brown, that lies between you and the picture, a space that is but an abstract cube and yet a long journey; perhaps he will step out freely and magically upon the wooden floor, and you will recognize that it is Bertrand, airily and yet terribly warning you that he can never more be crossed out of your life, however far away he may be. But that may be only your imagination, for God has already rung the bell for him, and without a greeting, stiff and motionless, without taking even one step, he slides away again. You peep at your left-hand neighbour to see if that is where Bertrand has gone, but his lit rectangle reports: “Government House in Calcutta,” and you can almost nurse the hope that Bertrand has appeared to you alone, to greet you only. But you have no time to reflect upon it, for when you turn quickly again to your own eyepieces a delightful surprise awaits you: the “Native Mother in Ceylon” is not only lit up by soft golden sunlight but represented in her natural colours; she smiles with white teeth between red lips and may be waiting for the white Sahib who has quitted the West because he despises European women. The “Temple Buildings in Delhi” also glow in all the colours of the Orient at the far end of the brown box: there the bad Christian may learn that even subject races know how to serve God. But did he not once say himself that it would devolve upon the black races to set up the Kingdom of Christ again? You look with horror at the swarm of brown figures, and are not ill-pleased to hear the signal with which they are dismissed, to give place to the “Elephant-hunting Expedition.” Here stand the colossal quadrupeds, one of them gently lifting a forefoot. The square is full of fine white sand, and when you turn your dazzled eyes away for a moment you see above the rectangular title-plate a small button, which you twirl experimentally. At once, to your delight, the picture is suffused by soft moonlight, so that you can expedite the hunters at your pleasure by day or by night. Well, since the sun-glare no longer blinds you, you seize the opportunity of examining the hunters’ faces, and if your eye does not deceive you it is Bertrand, after all, who is sitting in the howdah behind the dusky mahout, his rifle at the ready in his right hand, promising death. You change the light, and once more it is an utter stranger who smiles at you, and the mahout lays his goad behind the elephant’s ear to give the signal for the prescribed start of the expedition; they slide away into the jungle, yet you hear nothing of the trampling of the herds and the trumpeting of the bulls, but with a faint tinkle and a mechanical rattle landscape after landscape advances of its own accord and vanishes, and if the passing traveller seems to be really the man you are bound to seek for eve
r, the man you hunger for, the man who vanishes while you are still holding his hand, then the bell tinkles, and before you know where you are you are peering anxiously at your neighbour’s title-plate on the right, and discovering the inscription: “Government House in Calcutta,” so that you know your hour will be over soon. Then you give a cursory look to make sure that the palms of the Royal Park are due to follow, and since they follow on ruthlessly you scrape your chair, the attendant hurries up, and blinking a little, your collar turned up, a poor creature found indulging a pleasure he has never realized, you leave with a brief salutation the room in which others are already waiting, and in which the old lady is selling books of tickets.

  Into this establishment Joachim and Elisabeth strayed, accompanied by Elisabeth’s companion, when they were making purchases in the city for their house and the trousseau. For although they knew that Bertrand was still in Hamburg, and although they never mentioned his name again, the word India had a magic sound for them.

  The wedding at Lestow was a quiet one. The condition of Joachim’s father had become stationary; he lay in a coma, no longer recognizing the outer world, and one had to be reconciled to this lasting for years. True, the Baroness said that a quiet, intimate ceremony would be far more to the taste of herself and her husband than noisy display, but Joachim already knew the importance which his parents-in-law attached to their family festivals, and he felt to blame for his father, who robbed the occasion of its splendour. And he himself would perhaps have preferred a great and brilliant social setting to emphasise the social character of this marriage, into which mere love entered so little; yet on the other hand it seemed to him more in accordance with the gravity and Christian nature of the union that Elisabeth and he should approach the altar without any thought of the world. And so it was decided not to celebrate the marriage in Berlin, even although Lestow presented various difficulties not easy to overcome, more especially as Bertrand’s advice was no longer to be had. Joachim rejected the idea of leading his bride home for the wedding night: the idea of passing that night in the house of sickness filled him with repugnance, but still more impossible to him was the thought that Elisabeth should retire to rest under the eyes of the domestic staff who knew him so well; so he suggested that Elisabeth should spend the night at Lestow, and he would fetch her next day. Strangely enough this proposal encountered the opposition of the Baroness, who found such a solution unseemly: “Even if we closed our eyes to it, what would the servants think?” Finally it was decided to hold the ceremony at such an early hour that the young couple could catch the midday train. “Then you’ll be able to go straight to your own comfortable house in Berlin,” said the Baroness, but Joachim would not hear of that either. No, it was too far out, for they would be leaving Berlin again early in the morning, and probably they might even be able to take the night train to Munich without stopping. Yes, night travel was almost the simplest solution of the marriage problem, a safeguard against the fear that someone might smile understandingly when he and Elisabeth had to retire for the night. Yet presently he doubted whether they really could set out for Munich straight off; after the excitement of the day could one really expect Elisabeth to undertake a night journey? And how could their day in Munich, in perpetual expectation of what was to come, be put in? It was clear that one could not have discussed such matters even with Bertrand, one had to come to a decision oneself; all the same, several things would have been appreciably simpler if Bertrand had been at hand. He considered what Bertrand would have done in such circumstances, and came to the conclusion that there was no harm in his booking rooms in the Hotel Royal in Berlin; if Elisabeth should wish it, they could still take the night train. And he was honestly proud of having found this adroit solution by himself.

  It had now become quite wintry, and the closed carriages in which they drove to the church advanced only by slow stages through the snow. Joachim was in the same carriage as his mother; she sat there, broad and complacent, and Joachim felt irritated when she reiterated: “Father would have been delighted; well, it’s a great pity.” Yes, that was all that was needed to fill his cup; Joachim was exasperated—nobody would leave him in peace to gain that calm which was imperative at this solemn hour, doubly imperative for him to whom this marriage signified more than a Christian marriage, to whom it meant redemption from the pit and the mire and a heavenly assurance that he was entering the way of grace. In her wedding-robe Elisabeth looked more like a Madonna than ever, looked like Snow-white, and he could not help thinking of the legend of the bride who had fallen down dead before the altar because she suddenly recognized in her bridegroom an incarnation of the Devil. The thought would not leave him and took such complete possession of him that he heard neither the chant of the choir nor the pastor’s sermon: indeed he actually closed his ears to them out of a fear that he might be compelled to interrupt them and tell those people that a man unworthy, an outcast, stood before the altar, a man who desecrated the holy state of matrimony; and he started in terror when he had to pronounce the “Yes,” in terror too at the thought that the ceremony, which should have been for him the revelation of a new life, had come to an end so quickly and almost without his being aware of it. He found it actually comforting that Elisabeth should now be called, without really being, his wife, but the thought that this state would not last was appalling. During the drive back from the church he took her hand and said: “My wife,” and Elisabeth responded to his pressure. But then everything was drowned in the tumult of good wishes, the hurry of changing and setting out, so that only when they reached the station did they realize what had happened.

  He turned away while Elisabeth climbed into the compartment, so as not again to fall a prey to impure thoughts. Now they were alone. Elisabeth leant back wearily in her corner and smiled faintly at him. “You’re tired, Elisabeth,” he said hopefully, glad that it was his privilege and his duty to protect her. “Yes, I’m tired, Joachim.” He did not dare, however, to suggest that they should stop at Berlin, fearing that she might interpret it as concupiscence. Her profile stood out sharply against the window, beyond which stretched the grey winter afternoon, and Joachim felt relieved that that oppressive and affrighting vision in which her face changed into a landscape remained absent. But while he was still regarding her he saw that the trunk, which had been placed on the seat opposite, was outlined no less sharply against the grey sky, and he was overcome by the senselessly sharp fear that she might be a mere thing, a dead object, and not even a landscape. He got up hastily as though to do something to the trunk, but he merely opened it and took out the lunch-basket; it was a wedding present and a miniature miracle of elegance, suitable equally for train journeys and hunting expeditions: the ivory handles of the knives and forks were ornamented with decorative hunting scenes which were continued on the incised blades, and even the spirit-stove was not free from them; amid the ornamentation on each piece, however, one could recognize the intertwined arms of Elisabeth and Joachim. The centre space of the basket served as a receptacle for food and had been solicitously filled by the Baroness. Joachim pressed Elisabeth to eat, and as they had not been able to wait for the wedding lunch she gladly acceded. “Our first married meal,” said Joachim, and he poured the wine into the silver collapsible cups, and Elisabeth drank to him. In this way they passed the journey and Joachim was once more of the opinion that the train provided the best form of wedded life. He even began to understand Bertrand, who was at liberty to pass such a great part of his time in trains. “Shouldn’t we go straight through to Munich this evening?” he asked; but Elisabeth replied that she felt really fatigued and would rather break the journey. So he could not but divulge to her that he had already provided for her wish and booked rooms.