The Sleepwalkers

by Hermann Broch

  Jaretzki laughed bitterly:

  “God preserve you in your childish faith and send us decent cigarettes.…”

  With his sound right hand he had drawn a packet of cigarettes from the open shelf under the drawer of the table and now offered it to Flurschütz.

  Flurschütz pointed to the ash-tray full of cigarette-butts:

  “You shouldn’t smoke so much.…”

  Sister Mathilde came in.

  “Well, do we bind it up again … what’s your opinion, Doctor?”

  Sister Mathilde was looking well. She had freckles on her forehead. Flurschütz said:

  “It’s a bad business, this gas.”

  He stayed to watch the Sister binding up the arm and then he went on his rounds again. At both ends of the broad corridor the windows were wide open, but no current of air could blow away the hospital smell.

  CHAPTER VII

  The house lay in Fischerstrasse, one of the side-streets leading down to the river, a timbered edifice in which, it was obvious, all sorts of handicrafts had been carried on for centuries. Beside the door there was a black battered tin plate with the words in faded gold-lettering: “Kur-Trier Herald, Editorial and Business Office (in the courtyard).”

  Penetrating through the narrow passage-like entry, where in the darkness he stumbled over the trap-door leading down to the cellar, and passing an opening that gave on the stairs leading to the dwelling-house, Huguenau found himself in an unexpectedly spacious courtyard shaped somewhat like a horseshoe. A garden adjoined the courtyard; there a few cherry-trees were in blossom, and beyond the garden one’s gaze was lost in the lovely mountain country.

  The whole place witnessed to the semi-peasant character of its former possessor. The two wings had certainly served as granaries and stables; the left one had two storeys, and there was a steep and narrow wooden ladder on the outer wall; probably the top floor had once been the servants’ quarters. The upper storey of the stable buildings on the right was a hayloft, and one of the stable doors had been displaced by a large business-like barred window, behind which a printing-press could be seen at work.

  From the man at the printing-press Huguenau learned that Herr Esch was to be found on the first floor opposite.

  So Huguenau climbed the wooden steps and found himself plump before a door with the inscription, “Editorial and Business Office,” behind which Herr Esch, owner and publisher of the Kur-Trier Herald, exercised his functions. He was a lean man with a clean-shaven face in which, between two long and deep furrows running down the cheeks, a mouth as mobile as an actor’s grimaced sarcastically, showing a set of strong yellowish teeth. He had something of the actor about him, something of the clergyman, and something of the horse.

  The advertisement which Huguenau handed to him he scrutinized with the air of an examining magistrate considering a document. Huguenau took out his pocket-book, from which he extracted a five-mark note, as a hint, so to speak, that he was prepared to allot that sum for the insertion of the advertisement. But the other, paying not the least attention to this, asked abruptly: “So you’re out to exploit the people round about here, are you? I suppose the poverty of our winegrowers is common talk already—heh?”

  It was an unprovoked attack, and Huguenau decided that its purpose was to force up the price for inserting the advertisement. He produced therefore another mark, but that merely had the opposite effect from what he had wished: “Thanks … you can keep your advertisement.… Evidently you don’t appreciate what it means to corrupt the Press … let me tell you, you won’t corrupt me with your six marks, nor with ten, nor with a hundred!”

  Huguenau became more and more certain that he was dealing with a sharp business man. But simply for that reason it was imperative that he should not give way; perhaps the man was waiting for him to suggest going shares in the venture, and after all that arrangement would not be without its advantages.

  “Hm, I’ve heard that these advertisement deals are sometimes made on a percentage basis—how about a half-per-cent commission on the results? Of course in that case you would have to insert the announcement three separate times at least … still, you’re quite at liberty to insert it oftener than that, when it’s a matter of generosity I impose no limits …” he risked a confidential laugh and sat down beside the rough kitchen table which served Herr Esch as a desk.

  Esch paid no attention to him, but with a morose and suffering face walked from side to side of the room in a heavy awkward step which did not go with his lank appearance. The scrubbed floor creaked under his clumsy tread, and Huguenau contemplated the holes and loosened plaster between the two rooms, as well as Herr Esch’s heavy black shoes, which were fastened, instead of with laces, with queer thongs that reminded one of saddle-straps; over the tops of the shoes bulged an expanse of grey darned sock. Esch communed aloud with himself: “The vultures are hovering over those poor people already … but when you try to draw public attention to all the misery, you find yourself up against the censorship.”

  Huguenau had crossed his legs. He regarded the things scattered on the table. An empty coffee-cup with brown stains, now dry, a bronze replica of the Statue of Liberty in New York (aha, a paper-weight), a paraffin lamp whose white wick behind the glass funnel reminded one distantly and dimly of a fœtus or a tapeworm preserved in spirits. Now Esch’s voice boomed from the opposite corner:

  “The censorship people should be made to look at all the misery and the distress themselves … it’s to me that the people come … it would be simple treachery if …”

  On a rickety shelf some manuscripts were lying, along with piles of newspapers tied together. Esch had resumed his prowling. In the middle of one of the walls, which were distempered in yellow, hung on a fortuitous nail a small faded picture in a black frame, “Badenweiler and the Schlossberg”; probably it was an old picture postcard. Huguenau reflected that a picture or a bronze statuette like that would look very well in his office. But when he tried to recall to his memory that office, and what he had done in it, he was unsuccessful, it seemed so remote and strange that he gave up the attempt, and his eyes sought again the excitable Esch, whose brown-velvet jacket and light cloth trousers went just as badly with his clumsy shoes as the bronze statuette on the kitchen table. Esch must have felt his glance, for he shouted:

  “Damn it all, why do you go on sitting here?”

  Of course Huguenau could have gone away—but where? it was not so easy to hit on another project. Huguenau felt that unknown powers had launched him on these new rails, and that he could not afford to leave them without a struggle, nor indeed without suffering for it. So he remained quietly sitting and polished his eyeglasses, as he was in the habit of doing during difficult commercial negotiations to maintain an air of composure. Nor did it fail of its effect this time, for Esch, exasperated now, planted himself in front of Huguenau and burst out anew:

  “Where have you come from, anyway? Who sent you here? … you don’t belong to this part of the country, and you needn’t tell me that you intend to set up here as a wine-grower yourself.… You’re just here to spy. Locked up, that’s what you should be!”

  Huguenau gazed at Esch’s brown-velvet waistcoat, which was just at the level of his eye and showed a strip of leather belt beneath it, gazed at the light-coloured trousers spotted with grease. Past dry-cleaning, thought Huguenau, he’ll have to have them dyed black, I should tell him so; what is he really after? if he really wants to throw me out he has no need to provoke a quarrel first … so he wants me to stay, then. There was something queer about it. Somehow Huguenau felt a sort of fellow-feeling with this man, and at the same time divined that there was some profit to be made. So returning to the attack he resolved to make certain:

  “Herr Esch, I’ve offered you an honourable deal, and if you decide to refuse it that’s your business. But if you merely want to swear at me, then there’s no point in continuing our conversation.”

  He snapped his eyeglasses together and raised his bottom
slightly from the chair, indicating by this movement that he was ready to go away—Esch had only to say the word.

  But now Esch seemed really to have no wish to break off the conversation; he raised his hand propitiatingly, and Huguenau, once more using his bottom as an indicator, signified that he would remain:

  “To tell you the truth, it’s unlikely that I’ll set up as a wine-grower here myself; perhaps you were quite right there—although even that isn’t out of the question; a fellow longs for a quiet life. But I’m not here to exploit anyone,” he wrought himself up, “a middleman has as much title to respect as anybody else, all that he’s concerned with is to bring two parties together in a deal and satisfy them both, for then he has his reward too. Besides I must ask you to be a little more careful in the way you fling about expressions like ‘spy,’ that’s a dangerous game in war-time.”

  Esch was put to shame:

  “Come, come, I didn’t intend any offence … but sometimes your disgust at things rises into your throat, and then you can’t keep it from bursting out.… A Cologne builder, a thorough swindler, has been buying up land here for a mere song … driven the people out of their homes … and the chemist here has been following his example … what use can Paulsen the chemist have for vineyards? can you tell me that, perhaps?”

  Huguenau said again in an offended voice:

  “A spy.…”

  Esch had once more resumed his prowling:

  “One should emigrate. Somewhere or other. To America. If I were younger I would fling everything up and start all over again …” once more he halted before Huguenau, “but you’re a young man—why aren’t you at the Front, eh? how do you come to be wandering about here?” Suddenly he had become aggressive again. Well, Huguenau had no desire to enter into that question; he evaded it; it was quite incomprehensible to him, he said, that a man in a distinguished position, the proprietor and editor of a newspaper, living amid lovely surroundings and enjoying the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and no longer young besides, should cherish thoughts of emigrating.

  Esch grimaced sarcastically:

  “Esteem of my fellow-citizens, esteem of my fellow-citizens … they snarl at my heels like a pack of curs.…”

  Huguenau glanced at the picture of the Schlossberg, then he said:

  “I can hardly believe that.”

  “Indeed! perhaps you’re on their side? that wouldn’t surprise me …”

  Huguenau steered his craft into safer waters:

  “Again these vague accusations, Herr Esch. Won’t you at least express yourself more precisely, if you have anything against me?”

  But Herr Esch’s desultory and irascible mind was not so easy to curb:

  “Express myself precisely, express myself precisely, it’s very easy to talk like that … as if a man can give a name to everything …” he shouted in Huguenau’s face. “Young man, until you know that all names are false you know nothing; not even the clothes on your body are what they seem to be.”

  An uncanny feeling came over Huguenau. He didn’t understand that, he said.

  “Of course you don’t understand it … but when a chemist snaps up land for a song, you can understand that all right … and it’s quite understandable to you that a man who calls things by their real names should be persecuted and slandered as a communist … and be set upon by the Censor, what? that seems quite right to you?… and I suppose you think too that we’re living in a just country?”

  It was a disagreeable position to be in, said Huguenau.

  “Disagreeable! One should emigrate … I’m sick of struggling against it.”

  Huguenau asked what Herr Esch thought of doing with the paper.

  Esch waved his hand contemptuously: he had often said to his wife that he would like to sell the whole show, but he would keep the house—he had thoughts of opening a bookshop.

  “The opposition must have damaged the paper a good deal, I suppose, Herr Esch? I mean to say, the circulation can’t amount to very much now?”

  Not at all, the Herald had its regular subscribers, the restaurants, the hairdressers, above all the people in the villages round about: the opposition was confined to certain circles in the town. But he was sick of squabbling with them.

  Had Herr Esch any idea as to the price he wanted?

  Oh yes … the paper and the printing-office were worth 20,000 marks, and a bargain at the price. In addition he would let the buyer have the use of the buildings rent-free for an extended period, say five years: and that would mean a big advantage for the buyer too. That was how he had figured it out, it was a decent offer, he didn’t want to overreach anybody, he was simply sick of the whole business. He had often said so to his wife.

  “Well,” said Huguenau, “I didn’t ask out of idle curiosity … as I said before I’m a middleman, and perhaps I may be able to do something for you. Mark my words, my dear Esch,” and he patronizingly clapped the newspaper proprietor on the bony shoulder—“we’ll do a little business deal together yet; you should never be in too great a hurry to throw anyone out. All the same you must put the thought of twenty thousand out of your head. Nobody pays fancy prices nowadays.”

  Self-assured and in excellent spirits Huguenau clattered down the wooden steps.

  A child was squatting in front of the printing-shed.

  Huguenau contemplated the child, contemplated the entrance to the printing-shed; he saw “No Admittance except on Business” on the door-plate.

  Twenty thousand marks, he thought, and the little girl thrown in.

  Well, he had no business in there yet, but from now on they could not refuse him admittance; if you were trying to sell a concern you had a right to see it. Esch would be obliged to show him round the printing-shed. Huguenau considered whether he should shout to him to come down, but then he decided, no: in a couple of days he would be returning here in any case, perhaps even with concrete proposals for buying the place,—Huguenau was quite certain of it, and besides it was dinner-time now. So he betook himself to his hotel.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Hanna Wendling was awake. She did not open her eyes, however, for there was still a chance that she might catch her vanishing dream. But it glided slowly away, and finally nothing remained but the emotion in which it had been immersed. As the emotion too drained away, Hanna voluntarily abandoned it just an instant before it completely vanished and glanced across at the window. Through the slats of the venetian blinds oozed a milky light; it must still be early, or else the sky was overcast. The striped light was like a continuation of her dream, perhaps because no sound entered with it, and Hanna decided that it must be very early after all. The venetian blinds stirred with a soft swaying motion between the open casements; that must be the dawn wind, and she inhaled its coolness by sniffing delicately, as if her nose could tell her what time it was. Then with closed eyes she reached out her hand to the bed on her left; it was not occupied; the pillows, the blankets and the eiderdown quilt were methodically piled up and covered by the plush counterpane. Before she drew back her hand, so as to return it along with her naked shoulder beneath the warm sheets, she ran it again over the yielding and slightly cold plush, and the action was like a corroboration of the fact that she was alone. Her thin nightgown had slipped up over her thighs and formed an uncomfortable bunch. Ah, she had slept badly again; as a sort of indemnification, however, her right hand was lying on her warm smooth body, and her finger-tips stroked softly and almost imperceptibly the soft downy curve of her bosom. She could not help thinking of some French rococo picture of dalliance; then she remembered Goya’s portrait of the disrobed Maya. She remained lying in this position for a few minutes longer. Thereupon she smoothed down her nightgown—strange that a film-thin gown could warm one immediately like that—considered whether she should turn on her left or her right side, decided for the latter, as though she were afraid that the piled-up bed beside her would cut off the air, listened for a little longer to the silence of the street, and gave herself up to anot
her dream, sought refuge in another dream, before any sound could reach her from outside.

  When an hour later she once more found herself awake, she could no longer conceal from herself that the forenoon was already far advanced. For anyone who is bound only by very frail threads, threads that are scarcely palpable to him, to what other people or he himself calls life, getting up in the morning is always a hard task. Perhaps even a slight violation. And Hanna Wendling, who felt the unavoidable day once more approaching, got a headache. It began at the back of her head; she crossed her hands behind her neck, and when she tugged at her hair, which softly coiled round her fingers, for a moment she forgot her headache. Then she pressed against the place where the pain was; it was a throbbing which began behind her ears and ran down to the top of her spine. She was used to it. When she was in company, sometimes it seized her so violently that she became quite dizzy. With sudden resolution she flung back the bedclothes, slipped her feet into her high-heeled bedroom slippers, opened the venetian blinds without pulling them up, and holding her hand-glass behind her head contemplated the painful area at the back of her neck in the large mirror on her toilet-table. What was hurting her there? nothing could be seen. She turned her head from side to side; she could see the play of her spine under the skin; really she had a pretty neck. And her shoulders were pretty too. She would have liked to have had her breakfast in bed, but it was war-time; bad enough to have stayed in bed so late. Really she should have got up and taken her little son to school. Every day she made up her mind to do it. Twice she had actually done it, and then had left it again to the maid. Of course the boy should have had a French or an English governess long ago. Englishwomen made the best governesses. Once the war was over they would have to send the boy to England. When she was his age, yes when she was seven, she spoke French better than German. She searched for the flask with the toilet-vinegar, rubbed her neck and temples, and examined her eyes attentively in the mirror: they were golden-brown, in the left one a tiny red vein could be seen. That came from her restless night. She threw her kimono round her shoulders. And then she rang for the maid.