The Sleepwalkers

by Hermann Broch

  The room was unheated, and its coldness stank. The two men chafed their hands, and while Esch sat down dully on a bench Martin put his hand into the works of the orchestrion, which blared out The March of the Gladiators into the cold atmosphere of the room. In spite of the din they could presently hear a wooden stair creaking under someone’s footsteps, and the swing door beside the buffet was flung open by Frau Hentjen. She was still in her morning working-garb, an ample blue-cotton apron was tied over her dress, and she had not yet donned her evening corset, so that her breasts lay like two sacks in her broad-checked dimity blouse. Her hair, however, was still as stiff and correct as ever, crowning like a sugar-loaf her pale, expressionless face, which gave no indication of her age. But everybody knew that Frau Gertrud Hentjen had thirty-six years to her credit, and that for a long, long time—they had reckoned a little while ago that it must certainly be fourteen years—she had been the relict of Herr Hentjen, whose photograph, yellow with age, gazed out over the Eiffel Tower between the restaurant licence and a moonlit landscape, all three in fine black frames with gold scroll-work. And although with his little goat’s beard Herr Hentjen looked like a snippet of a tailor, his widow had remained faithful to him; at least nobody could say anything against her, and whenever anyone dared to approach her with an honourable proposal she would remark with disdain: “Yes, the business would suit him to a T, no doubt. No, I’d rather carry on alone, thank you.”

  “Morning, Herr Geyring. Morning, Herr Esch,” she said. “You’re early birds to-day.” “We’ve been long enough on our legs, though, Mother Hentjen,” replied Martin, “if one works one must eat,” and he ordered wine and bread and cheese; Esch, whose mouth and stomach were still wry with the wine he had drunk yesterday, took Schnapps. Frau Hentjen sat down with the men and asked after their news. Esch was monosyllabic, and although he was not in the least ashamed of his dismissal, it annoyed him that Geyring should publish the fact so openly. “Yes, another victim of capitalism,” the trade-union organizer concluded, “but now I must get to work again; of course the Duke here can spread himself at his ease now.” He paid and insisted on settling for Esch’s Schnapps at the same time—“One must support the unemployed”—grasped his crutches, which he had propped beside him, braced his left foot against the wood, and swung himself out through the door between his two supports with a great clatter.

  After he had gone the two of them remained silent for a little; then Esch jerked his chin towards the door: “An anarchist,” he said. Frau Hentjen shrugged her plump shoulders: “And what if he is? He’s a decent man.” “He’s a decent man, right enough,” Esch corroborated, and Frau Hentjen went on: “but they’ll lay him by the heels again sooner or later: he’s done time for six months already …” then: “Well, it’s all in his day’s work.” Once more they became silent. Esch was wondering whether Martin had been a cripple since his childhood; misbegotten, he thought to himself, and said: “He would like to land me among his socialist friends. But I’m not having any.” “Why not?” asked Frau Hentjen without interest. “It doesn’t suit my plans. I want to get to the top of the tree; law and order are necessary if you want to get to the top.” Frau Hentjen could not but agree with that: “Yes, that’s true, you must have law and order. But now I must go to the kitchen. Will you be having dinner with us to-day, Herr Esch?” Esch might as well dine here as anywhere else, and after all why should he wander about in the icy wind? “Strange that the snow hasn’t come yet,” he said, “the dust fairly blinds you.” “Yes, it’s dismal outside,” said Frau Hentjen. “Then you’ll just stay here?” She disappeared into the kitchen, the swing door vibrated for a little longer, and Esch dully followed its vibrations until it finally came to rest. Then he tried to sleep. But now the coldness of the room began to strike into him; he walked up and down with a heavy and rather unsteady tread and took up the newspaper that lay on the buffet; but he could not turn the pages with his stiff fingers; his eyes too were painful. So he resolved to seek out the warm kitchen; with the newspaper in his hand he walked in. “I suppose you’ve come to have a sniff at the saucepans?” said Frau Hentjen, suddenly remembering that it was cold in the eating-room, and as it was her custom not to put on a fire there until the afternoon she suffered him to bear her company. Esch watched her bustling about the hearth and had a longing to seize her beneath the breasts, but her reputation for inaccessibility checked his desire at once. When the kitchenmaid who helped Frau Hentjen with her work went out he said: “I can’t understand your liking to live alone.” “Aha!” she replied, “you’re beginning that song too, are you?” “No,” said Esch, “it isn’t that. I was just wondering.” Frau Hentjen’s face had taken on a strangely frozen expression; it was as though she were disgusted at some thought, for she shook herself so violently that her breasts quivered, and then went about her work with the bored and empty face with which she always confronted her customers. Esch, sitting at the window, read his newspaper and afterwards looked out into the yard, where the wind was raising little cyclones of dust.

  Later the two girls who acted as waitresses in the evening arrived, unwashed and unslept. Frau Hentjen, the two waitresses and the little kitchenmaid and Esch took their places round the kitchen table, stuck out their elbows, hunched themselves over their plates, and ate their dinner.

  Esch had drawn up his application for the Mannheim post; he now needed only the reference to enclose with it. Actually he was glad that things had turned out as they had. It wasn’t good for a man to vegetate all the time in one place. He felt he must get out of Cologne, and the farther the better. A fellow must keep his eyes open; as a matter of fact he had always done that.

  In the afternoon he went to the office of Sternberg & Company, wholesale wine merchants, to get his reference. Nentwig kept him waiting at the counter, and sat at his desk, fat and slouching, totting up columns. Esch tapped impatiently with his strong finger-nails on the counter. Nentwig got up: “Patience, patience, Herr Esch,” and he stepped to the barrier and said condescendingly: “Oh, about your reference?—that can’t be so very urgent. Well? Date of birth? Date of employment here?” With his head averted Esch supplied this information and Nentwig took it down. Then Nentwig dictated to the stenographer and brought the reference. Esch read it through. “That isn’t a reference,” he said, handing the paper back. “Oh! Then what is it?” “You must certify to my ability as a book-keeper.” “You—a book-keeper! You’ve shown us what you can do in that line.” Now the moment of reckoning had come: “It’s a very special kind of book-keeper that’s needed for the inventories you draw up, I happen to know.” Nentwig was taken aback: “What do you mean?” “I mean what I say.” Nentwig changed his tune, became friendly: “You only harm yourself with your obstreperousness; here you had a good post, and you had to get into a row with the chief!” Esch tasted victory and began to roll it on his tongue: “I mean to have a talk with the chief later.” “For all I care you can say what you like to the chief,” Nentwig countered. “Well, what do you want me to put in your reference?” Esch decreed that he should be described as “conscientious, reliable and thoroughly versed in all matters relating to book-keeping.” Nentwig wanted to be rid of him. “It isn’t true, of course, but as far as I’m concerned—” He turned again to the stenographer to dictate the new version. Esch grew red in the face: “Oh, so it isn’t true? … then please add: ’We heartily recommend him to any employer who may be in need of his services.’ Have you got that?” Nentwig bowed elaborately: “Delighted, I’m sure, Herr Esch.” Esch read the new copy through and was appeased. “The chief’s signature,” he commanded. But this was too much for Nentwig, who shouted: “So mine isn’t good enough for you?” “If the firm authorizes you I’ll let that pass,” was Esch’s large and magnanimous reply, and Nentwig signed.

  Esch stepped out into the street and made for the nearest pillar-box. He whistled to himself; he felt rehabilitated. He had his reference, good; it was in the envelope with his application to the Cen
tral Rhine Company. The fact that Nentwig had given in showed that he had a bad conscience. So the inventories were faked then, and the man should be handed over to the police. Yes, it was simply one’s duty as a citizen to give him in charge straight away. The letter dropped into the post-box with a soft, muffled thud, and Esch, his fingers still in the aperture, considered whether he should go at once to the police headquarters. He wandered on irresolutely. It had been a mistake to send off the reference, he should have given it back to Nentwig; to force a reference out of a man and then give him in charge wasn’t decent. But now it was done, and besides, without a reference he had little chance of getting a post with the Central Rhine Shipping Company—there would be absolutely nothing left for him but to go back to his old job in Sternberg’s again. And he saw a vision of the chief discovering the fraud, and Nentwig languishing in prison. Yes, but what if the chief himself was involved in the swindle? Then of course the public interrogation would bring the whole concern toppling down. And then there would be another bankruptcy, but no post for a book-keeper. And in the newspapers people would read: “Revenge of a dismissed clerk.” And finally he would be suspected of collusion. And then he would be left without a reference and without a job, for nobody would take him on. Esch congratulated himself on the shrewdness with which he drew all the consequences, but he was furious. “A fine bloody firm!” he swore under his breath. He stood in the Ring in front of the Opera House, cursing and swearing into the cold wind which blew the dust into his eyes, and could not come to any decision, but finally resolved to postpone the affair; if he didn’t get the post with the Central Rhine there would still be time left to act the part of Nemesis. He went through the darkening evening, his hands buried in the pockets of his shabby overcoat, actually went, indeed, as a matter of form, as far as the police headquarters. There he stood looking at the policemen on guard, and when a police wagon drove up he waited until all the prisoners had got out, and felt disappointed when the policeman finally slammed to the door without Nentwig’s having put in an appearance. He remained standing for a few moments, then he turned resolutely and made for the Alt Markt. The two faint vertical lines on his cheeks had deepened. “Wine faker,” he muttered in a fury, “vinegar tout.” And morose and disillusioned over his poisoned victory, he ended the day by getting drunk again and sleeping with another girl.

  In her brown-silk dress, which she was accustomed usually to don only in the evening, Frau Hentjen had been spending the afternoon with a woman friend, and now, as always on her return, she was put into a bad temper by the sight of the house and the restaurant in which for so long she had been compelled to pass her life. Certainly the business allowed her to lay by a little now and then, and when she was praised and flattered by her women friends for her capability she experienced a faintly pleasant sensation which made up for a good deal. But why wasn’t she the owner of a linen-draper’s shop, or a ladies’ hairdressing saloon, instead of having to deal every evening with a pack of drunken louts? If her corset had not prevented her she would have shaken herself with loathing when she caught sight of her restaurant; so intensely did she hate the men who frequented it, these men that she had to serve. Though perhaps she hated still more the women who were always such fools as to run after them. Not a single one of her women friends belonged to the kind that took up with men, that trafficked with these creatures and like animals lusted for their embraces. Yesterday she had caught the kitchenmaid in the yard with a young lad, and the hand which had dealt the buffet still tingled pleasantly; she felt she would like to have it out with the girl again. No, women were probably still worse than men. She could put up only with her waitresses and all the other prostitutes who despised men even though they had to go to bed with them; she liked to talk to these women, she encouraged them to tell her their stories in detail, and comforted and pampered them to indemnify them for their sufferings. And so a post in Mother Hentjen’s restaurant was highly prized, and her girls looked upon it as well worth the best they could give in return and did all they could to retain it. And Mother Hentjen was delighted with such devotion and love.

  Her best room was up on the first floor; really too big, with its three windows on the narrow street it took up the full breadth of the house above the restaurant; in the back wall, corresponding to the buffet downstairs, there was an alcove shut off by a light curtain which was always drawn. If one drew aside the curtain and let one’s eyes get used to the darkness, one could make out the twin marriage-beds. But Frau Hentjen never used this room, and nobody knew whether it had ever been used. For a room of such a size was difficult to heat except at a considerable cost, and so Frau Hentjen could not be blamed for choosing the smaller room above the kitchen as her bed- and sitting-room, employing the chill and gloomy parlour only for storing food that might go bad. Also the walnuts which she was accustomed to buy in autumn were stored here and lay strewn in heaps about the floor, upon which two broad green strips of linoleum were laid crosswise.

  Still feeling angry, Frau Hentjen went up to the parlour to fetch sausage for her customers’ suppers, and as anger makes one careless she stumbled into some of the nuts, which rolled before her feet with an exasperatingly loud clatter. It exasperated her still more when one cracked beneath her foot, and while she picked up the nut so that it might not be altogether wasted, and carefully detached the kernel from the splintered pieces of shell, and stuck the white fragments with the bitter pale-brown skin into her mouth, she kept meanwhile screaming for the kitchenmaid; at last the brazen trollop heard her, came stumbling up the stairs, and was received with a torrent of incoherent abuse: of course a girl that flirted with half-grown louts would be stealing nuts too—the nuts had been stored beside the window and now they were just inside the door, and nuts didn’t walk across a floor of their own accord—and Frau Hentjen was preparing to raise her fist, and the girl had ducked and put up her arm, when a piece of shell caught in her mistress’s teeth, who contented herself with spitting it out contemptuously; then, followed by the sobbing maid, she descended to the kitchen.

  When she entered the restaurant, where already a thick cloud of tobacco smoke was hanging, she was overcome again, as almost every evening, by that apprehensive torpor which was so incomprehensible to her and yet so difficult to overcome. She went up to the mirror and mechanically patted the blond sugar-loaf on her head and pulled her dress straight, and only when she had assured herself that her appearance was satisfactory did her composure return. Now she looked round and saw the familiar faces among her customers, and although there was more profit on the drinks than on the food, she prized the eaters among her customers above the drinkers, and she stepped out from behind the buffet and went from table to table asking whether the food was to their liking. And she summoned the waitress almost with elation when a customer demanded a second helping. Yes, Mother Hentjen’s cooking had no need to fear examination.

  Geyring was already there; his crutches were leaning beside him; he had cut the meat on his plate into small pieces and now ate mechanically while in his left hand he held one of his Socialist papers, a whole bundle of which were always sticking out of his pocket. Frau Hentjen liked him, partly because, being a cripple, he did not count as a man, partly because it was not to shout and drink and make up to the waitresses that he came, but simply because his post demanded that he should keep in touch with the sailors and dock workers; but above all she liked him because evening after evening he had his supper at her restaurant and praised up her food. She sat down at his table. “Has Esch been here yet?” asked Geyring. “He’s got the job with the Central Rhine, starts work on Monday.” “And it’s you that got it for him, I’m sure, Herr Geyring,” said Frau Hentjen. “No, Mother Hentjen, we haven’t got the length yet of filling posts through the union … no, not by a long way … well, that’ll come too in time. But I put Esch on the track of it. Why shouldn’t one help a nice lad, even if he isn’t one of ourselves?” Mother Hentjen showed little sympathy with this sentiment: “Yo
u just eat that up, Herr Geyring, and you’ll have an extra titbit from myself as well,” and she went over to the buffet and brought on a plate a moderate-sized slice of sausage which she had garnished with a sprig of parsley. Geyring’s wrinkled face of a boy of fourteen smiled at her in gratitude, showing a mouthful of bad teeth, and he patted her white, plump hand, which she immediately drew back with a slight return of her frozen manner.

  Later Esch arrived. Geyring looked up from his paper and said: “Congratulations, August.” “Thanks,” said Esch. “So you know already?—there was no difficulty, a reply by return engaging me. Well, I must thank you for putting me on to it.” But his face beneath the short, dark, cropped hair had the wooden empty look of a disappointed man. “A pleasure,” said Martin, then he shouted over to the buffet: “Here’s our new paymaster.” “Good luck, Herr Esch,” replied Frau Hentjen dryly, yet she came forward after all and gave him her hand. Esch, who wished to show that all the credit was not due to Martin, pulled his reference out of his breast-pocket: “It wouldn’t have gone so smoothly, I can tell you, if I hadn’t made Sternberg’s give me such a good reference.” He heavily emphasized the “made,” and then added: “A measly firm.” Frau Hentjen read the reference absently: “A splendid reference.” Geyring too read it and nodded: “Yes, the Central Rhine must be glad they’ve got hold of such a first-class fellow.… I’ll really have to get the Chairman, Bertrand, to fork out a commission for my services.”