The Sleepwalkers

by Hermann Broch

  Esch felt that the other was smiling, and he saw Martin before him, smiling as he sometimes did in speaking. And the same smile was now in Bertrand’s voice:

  “But, my dear boy, in that case you should have given me in charge long ago.”

  One could make nothing of this man. Esch said defiantly: “I’m not a murderer.”

  Then Bertrand actually laughed, softly and inaudibly, and because the morning was so lovely, yes because the morning itself seemed so lovely, Esch could not summon up the annoyance natural in a man who is laughed at; he forgot that he had just spoken of murder, and had it not been unseemly in the circumstances he would have liked also to join in Bertrand’s soft laughter. And although the two ideas he now had in his head did not really go together, or if they did, then only in some relation difficult to grasp, he summoned up all his seriousness and went on:

  “No, I’m no murderer; you must set Martin free.”

  But Bertrand, who evidently understood everything, seemed to understand this too, though his voice, more serious now, still kept its tone of reassuring and light gaiety: “But Esch, how can anybody be so cowardly? Does one need a pretext for a murder?”

  Now the word had been uttered again, even if it had only flitted by like a silent, dark-hued butterfly. And Esch thought that there was really no need for Bertrand to die now, seeing that Hentjen was already dead in any case. But then like a soft and clear illumination came the thought that a human being might die twice. And Esch said, marvelling that this thought had not come to him before: “You’re at liberty to fly, of course,” and he added temptingly, “to America.”

  It was as though Bertrand were not speaking to him: “You know, my dear fellow, that I shan’t fly. I’ve waited too long already for this moment.”

  And now Esch felt a rush of love for this man who stood so much higher than himself and yet talked to him of death as though to a friend, to him, an obscure employee in his business and an orphan to boot. Esch was glad that he had kept the firm’s books so well and rendered faithful and honest service. And he felt afraid to say that he understood how things stood with Bertrand, or to beg Bertrand to do him in: he simply nodded his head understandingly; Bertrand said: “No one stands so high that he dare judge his fellows, and no one is so depraved that his eternal soul can lose its claim to reverence.”

  Then Esch saw everything more clearly than ever before, saw too that he had deceived himself and others, for it was as though the knowledge that Bertrand possessed about him now flowed back to him: no, never had he believed that this man would set Martin free. But Bertrand, both judge and judged, said with a slightly disdainful wave of the hand: “And if I were to fulfil your craven hope and your unfulfillable condition, Esch, wouldn’t we both feel ashamed of ourselves? You, who in that case would be only an ordinary little blackmailer, and I, for delivering myself into the hands of such a blackmailer?”

  And although nothing escaped Esch, the overwakeful dreamer, neither the somewhat contemptuous gesture of the hand, nor the ironical curl that could now be seen on Bertrand’s smiling lips, yet the hope refused to leave him that in spite of everything Bertrand would fulfil the condition or at least fly: Esch clung to this hope, for suddenly the fear had arisen in him that with Herr Hentjen’s second death his desire for Mother Hentjen might die too. But that was his private affair, and to make Bertrand’s fate dependent on it seemed to him as despicable as to extort money from Bertrand, and besides it did not accord with the purity of the morning. So he said: “There’s no other way out—I must give you in charge.”

  And Bertrand replied: “Everyone must fulfil his dream, whether it be unhallowed or holy. Otherwise he will never partake of freedom.”

  Esch did not wholly understand this, and to reassure himself he said: “I must give you in charge. Otherwise things will get worse and worse.”

  “Yes, my dear chap, otherwise things will get worse and worse, and we must try to prevent that. Of us two I have certainly the easier part; I need only go away. The stranger never suffers, he is released from everything,—it is the one who remains behind in the coils that suffers.”

  Esch thought he could see again the ironical curl on Bertrand’s lips: fatally entangled in the coils of that cold remoteness Harry Köhler could not but perish miserably, yet Esch could not feel angry with the man who brought such ruin on others. Indeed he too would have liked to dismiss the matter with a disdainful wave of the hand, and it was almost like a corroboration of Bertrand’s words when he said: “If there was no expiation, there would be no past, present, or future.”

  “Oh, Esch, you make my heart heavy. You hope for too much. Time has never been reckoned yet from the day of death: it has always begun with the day of birth.”

  Esch, too, had a heavy heart. He was waiting for this man to give the command for the black flag to be hoisted on the battlements, and he thought: “He must make way for the other who will begin the new dispensation of Time.”

  But Bertrand did not seem to be saddened by the thought, for he said casually, as though in parenthesis: “Many must die, many must be sacrificed, so that a path may be prepared for the loving redeemer and judge. And only through his sacrificial death can the world be redeemed to a new innocence. But first the Antichrist must come—the mad and dreamless Antichrist. First the world must become quite empty, must be emptied of everything in it as by a vacuum cleaner—nothingness.”

  That was illuminating, like everything that Bertrand said, so illuminating and frank that the challenge to imitate his ironical tone became almost an obligation, almost a token of acknowledgment: “Yes, order must be established, so that one can begin at the beginning.”

  Yet even while he said this Esch felt ashamed, ashamed of the sarcastic inflection of his voice; he was afraid lest Bertrand should laugh at him again, for he felt naked in front of him, and he was grateful when Bertrand merely corrected him in a mild voice: “Your order, Esch, is only murder and counter-murder—the order of the machine.”

  Esch thought: “If he were to keep me here with him there would be order: everything would be forgotten, and cloudlessly the days would flow by in peace and clarity; but he will cast me out.” And of course he would have to go, if Ilona were here. So he said: “Martin sacrificed himself, and yet he redeemed nobody.”

  Bertrand made a slight, somewhat contemptuous, hopeless gesture with his hand: “No one can see another in the darkness, Esch, and that cloudless clarity of yours is only a dream. You know that I cannot keep you beside me, much as you fear your loneliness. We are a lost generation. I too can only go about my business.”

  It was only natural that Esch should feel deeply stricken, and he said: “Nailed to the cross.”

  Now Bertrand smiled again, and because he had been repulsed, Esch could almost have wished Bertrand to die at that moment if the smile had not been so friendly, friendly and subdued, like Bertrand’s words which divined everything: “Yes, Esch,—nailed to the cross. And in the hour of final loneliness pierced by the spear and anointed with vinegar. And only then can that darkness break in under cover of which the world must fall into dissolution so that it may become again clear and innocent, that darkness in which no man’s path can meet another’s—and where, even if we walk side by side, we will not hear each other, but will forget each other, as you too, my last dear friend, will forget what I say to you now, forget it like a dream.”

  He pressed a button and gave orders. Then they went into the garden which stretched away illimitably behind the house, and Bertrand showed Esch his flowers and his horses. Dark butterflies flitted silently from flower to flower, and the horses made no sound. Bertrand had a buoyant step as he walked through his property, and yet it sometimes seemed to Esch as though this light-footed man should be walking on crutches, for the heavens were in eclipse. Then they sat down together and ate; silver and wine and fruit decked the table, and they were like two friends who knew all about each other. When they had eaten Esch knew that the hour of parting was near,
for the evening might unexpectedly overtake them. Bertrand accompanied him to the steps which led to the garden, and there the great red motor-car with the smooth red-leather seats, which were still hot with the rays of the midday sun, was already waiting. And now that their fingers touched in farewell, Esch felt an overwhelming desire to bow over Bertrand’s hand and kiss it. But the driver of the car sounded his horn loudly, so that the guest had hastily to climb in. Hardly was the car in motion before a powerful, yet warm wind arose, so that house and garden seemed to be whirled away, and this wind did not subside until they reached Müllheim, where a lighted train with its engine snorting awaited the traveller. It was Esch’s first drive in a motor-car, and it was very beautiful.

  Great is the fear of him who awakens. He returns with less certainty to his waking life, and he fears the puissance of his dream, which though it may not have borne fruit in action has yet grown into a new knowledge. An exile from dream, he wanders in dream. And even if he carries in his pocket a picture postcard which he can gaze at, it does not avail him: before the Judgment he stands condemned a false witness.

  Often it may happen that a human being never notices that the lineaments of his desire have altered in the course of a few hours. The change may consist merely in certain fine distinctions, nuances of light and shade which our average traveller is totally unaware of, yet his longing for home has unexpectedly been transformed into a longing for the promised land, and even if his heart is full of a vague dread, a dread of the darkness of his quiescent, waiting home, yet his eyes are already filled with an invisible radiance which has appeared from somewhere, invisible as yet, although one can divine that it is the radiance beyond the ocean, where the dark mists thin away: but if the mists should rise, then the radiant outspread rows of fields over there come into sight, and the gently sloping lawns, a land in which eternal morning is so embedded that the fearful traveller begins to forget women. The land is uninhabited, and the few colonists are strangers. They hold no intercourse with one another; every man lives alone in his stronghold. They go about their business and till the fields, sow and weed. The arm of justice cannot reach them, for they have neither rights nor laws. In their motor-cars they drive over the prairies and the virgin land, which has never yet been traversed by roads, and all that drives them on is their insatiable longing. Even when the colonists have made a home there they still feel strangers; for their longing is a longing for things afar off, and is directed towards far distances of an ever greater, never attainable radiance. And that is the strange thing about them, for they are a western people, that is to say a people whose gaze is turned towards the evening as though they awaited there not the night but the gates of dawn. Whether they seek this radiance because they wish to think clearly and definitely, or simply because they are afraid of the dark, remains disputable. All that is known is that they either settle where the forests are sparse, or clear the trees to make a spacious park; for though they love the coolness of the grove, they tell each other that they must protect their children from its uncanny gloom. Now whether this be true or not, it shows in any case that the ways of colonists are not so rude as those of colonists and pioneers are generally supposed to be, but resemble rather the ways of women, as their longing resembles the longing of women, which though ostensibly a longing for the man they love, is in reality a longing for the promised land into which he shall lead them out of their darkness. Yet one must be cautious in expressing such generalizations: for the colonists easily take offence, and then they withdraw into a still more impenetrable solitude. In the prairies, however, in the grass-lands which they love, rich in hills and veined with cooling streams, they are a cheerful race, although they are too shamefast to sing. Such is the life of the colonists, remote from care, and they seek it beyond the ocean. They die lightly and still young, even should their hair be already grey, for their longing is a perpetual rehearsal of farewell. They are as proud as Moses when he beheld the promised land, he alone in his divine longing, and he alone forbidden to enter. And often one may see among them the same somewhat hopeless and somewhat contemptuous gesture of the hand as in Moses on the mount. For irrevocably behind them lies the home of their race, and inaccessibly before them stretches the distance, and the man whose longing has been transformed without his knowledge sometimes feels like one whose sufferings have been merely deadened, and who can never fully forget them. Vain hope! For who can tell whether he is pressing towards the blessed fields, or straying like a lost orphan? Even though one’s grief for the irretrievable becomes less and less the farther one presses into the promised land, even if many things thin away into vapour in the deepening radiance, and one’s grief too becomes lighter, more and more transparent, perhaps even invisible, yet it does not vanish any more than the longing of the man in whose sleep-wandering the world passes away, dissolving into a memory of the darkness of woman, desirous and maternal, where at last it is only a painful echo of what had once been. Vain hope, and often groundless arrogance. A lost generation. And so many of the colonists, even when they appear cheerful and untroubled, suffer remorse of conscience, and are more prone to repentance than many who lead more sinful lives. Indeed it is possible that there may be some who can no longer endure the peace and clarity to which they have surrendered themselves, and although one may assume that their insatiable longing for far-off things has grown so great that of necessity it had to swing round to its opposite, to what may have been its original starting-point, yet it is none the less credible that colonists have been observed sobbing with their hands over their faces as though they were yearning for home.

  And so, the nearer he approached Mannheim in the dimly breaking dawn, the more painfully was Esch overcome by dread, and he scarcely knew whether the train might not be carrying him straight to the restaurant in Cologne, or whether Mother Hentjen might not be waiting at Mannheim to conceive a child by him. He was disappointed when all that awaited him was the letter on which in any case he had reckoned, and he felt disinclined to read it at all. Especially as he could see from the confounded letter that it had been written under Herr Hentjen’s portrait. Perhaps for that reason, but perhaps too out of mere dread, Esch’s hand trembled when, in spite of everything, he reached for the letter.

  He gave Erna hardly a glance, ignored her reproachful looks, and went at once into the town, for he had a report to hand in at the police headquarters. Strangely enough, however, he landed first in Lohberg’s shop, where he passed the time of day, and then he considered whether he should pay a visit to the docks. But he had already lost all desire even for that, and he would have liked best to take a tram out to the prison, although he knew quite well that there was no admittance before the afternoon. Loneliness threatened him, although it was still far off, and at last he stood before the Schiller monument, and would have been quite happy had he found the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty beside it. Perhaps it was merely the difference in the dimensions, but the life-size monument suggested nothing to him, and he found that he was no longer able even to picture Mother Hentjen’s restaurant. Thus he frittered away the morning and wrestled with his memories; yes, he must hand in a report to the police, yet he was unable to formulate to himself the contents of that report. With a feeling of immense relief he gave up the plan at last when it dawned upon him that the Mannheim police, who had imprisoned Martin, were unworthy of receiving such a charge, and that he still remained under an obligation to provide the Cologne police with a substitute, as it were, for Nentwig. He felt irritated at himself: that might surely have occurred to him before, but now everything was in order, and he lunched in Lohberg’s company with a good appetite.

  Then he took a tram to the prison. Again it was a scorching day, again he found himself sitting in the visiting-room—had he ever left it? for everything had remained as it was, and nothing seemed to lie between that visit and this—again Martin entered with the warder, again Esch felt that agonizing feeling of emptiness in his head, again it was incomprehensible to him
why he should be sitting in this official chamber, incomprehensible although it was happening for a definite end and after long premeditation. Fortunately he could feel the cigarettes in his pocket which he would take care this time to hand over to Martin, so that at least the visit might wipe off his former omission. But that was a pretext, yes a pretext, thought Esch, and then: a man’s legs must work if his head won’t. Everything exasperated him, and as they sat all three at the table again, this time it was Martin’s ironically friendly air that exasperated him particularly—it reminded him of something that he did not want to admit to himself.

  “So, back from your rest cure, August? You’re looking first-rate, too. Have you run up against all your friends?”

  Esch was not lying when he replied: “I’ve run up against nobody.”

  “Aha! So you weren’t at Badenweiler after all?”

  Esch could not answer.

  “Esch, have you been playing the fool?”

  Esch still remained silent, and Martin became serious: “If you’ve been up to any mischief I’m finished with you.”

  Esch said: “Things are too queer. What mischief could I be up to?”

  Martin replied: “Have you a good conscience? Something isn’t as it should be!”

  “I have a good conscience.”

  Martin still regarded him searchingly, and Esch could not but think of the day when Martin had followed him in the street as though to strike him from behind with his crutch. But Martin was now quite friendly again and asked: “And what are you doing here in Mannheim still?”

  “Lohberg is going to marry Erna Korn.”

  “Lohberg … oh, I remember now, the tobacconist fellow. And you’re staying on because of that?” Martin’s eyes had become suspicious again.

  “I’m leaving to-day in any case … to-morrow at latest.”

  “And what’s to happen to you after that?”