The Sleepwalkers

by Hermann Broch

  As I have nothing further to report to-day, I beg to send you my profoundest respects and to declare myself eagerly willing for further service.

  Yours respectfully,

  WILH. HUGUENAU.

  P.S.—I beg respectfully to add that during our conversation in the Palatine Tavern Herr Esch made mention of the fact that in the prison in this town one or more deserters are lying at present, preparatory to their being shot. Thereupon everyone, including Herr Esch, loudly expressed the opinion that there was no object in shooting deserters now that the war is nearing its end (which these people seem to count on), seeing that enough blood had already been shed without that. Herr Esch was of the opinion that steps should be taken for this purpose. Whether by this he meant violent or other steps he did not say. I should like once more to respectfully insist that I consider the said E. as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, who conceals his subversive aims behind pious phrases. Once more with profoundest respects,

  W. H.

  After concluding this report Huguenau gazed into the mirror to see whether he could bring off an ironical grimace like that which had so often exasperated him in Esch. Yes, his letter was a masterly achievement; it did one good to put a spoke in Esch’s wheel, and Huguenau was so delighted with this pleasant thought that he could not help picturing the satisfaction which the Major would feel on receiving the letter. He considered whether he should deliver it personally, but then it seemed more fitting to him that it should reach the Major’s hands by the official postal delivery. So he sent it by registered post, not however without first writing in huge letters on the envelope “Personal,” and underlining it thrice.

  Huguenau had deceived himself, however; the Major was by no means pleased when he found the letter among the correspondence lying on his desk. It was a dull thundery morning, the rain poured down the window panes of his office and the air smelt of sulphur or of soot. Something ugly and violent was concealed behind this letter, something subterranean, and even though the Major did not know, and even though it was not his duty to know, that there must always be violence and violation when one man tries to force his way into the reality of others and to graft his own on to it, yet the word “Night-birds” came into his mind, and it seemed to him that he was called upon to protect himself, to protect his wife and children from something which was not of his world, but belonged to the pit. Hesitatingly he took up the letter again; at bottom one could not blame this man, whose violence was only, so to speak, an insignificant kind of violence, who merely fulfilled his duty as a patriot and made his report, and if he did it in the loathsome and dishonourable manner of an agent provocateur, yet one could not take that amiss in an uneducated man. Yet because all this was really incomprehensible and beyond his grasp, the Major felt only a rush of shame at having reposed confidence in a man of low mind, and his face under his white hair became a little redder with shame. Nevertheless the Town Commandant could not consider himself justified in simply relegating the communication to the wastepaper-basket; rather did his office oblige him to continue to regard the suspicious Herr Esch with due mistrust, to keep watch on him, so to speak, from the distance, so that any danger that might possibly threaten the Fatherland from Herr Esch’s activities might be prevented.

  CHAPTER XLVII

  Surgeon-Major Kühlenbeck rang up Dr Kessel on the telephone:

  “Can you come at three this afternoon to operate, a small bullet extraction …?”

  Dr Kessel thought he could hardly manage it, his time was so taken up.

  “Too simple for you, I suppose, fishing out a bullet, for me too … but one mustn’t ask too much … this isn’t a life or the type of work a man can stand for long, I admit, and I’ll throw it up some day or other, too … but to-day there’s no help for it.… I order you to come. I’ll send a car for you, it won’t take longer than half-an-hour.”

  Kühlenbeck put back the receiver and laughed:

  “Well, that’s two hours of his time accounted for.”

  Flurschütz was sitting beside him:

  “I had been wondering, I must admit, why you asked Kessel to come for such a trifle.”

  “Poor old Kessel is always trying to give me the slip. We’ll take out Kneese’s appendix at the same time.”

  “You really intend to operate on him?”

  “Why not? The man must be allowed his pleasures … and me too.”

  “Why, does he want to be operated on?”

  “Come, Flurschütz, you’re becoming as naive as our old friend Kessel—have I ever asked anybody that? Afterwards they were all thankful enough. And the four weeks’ sick-leave that I get for every one of them … well, just think for yourself.”

  Flurschütz made to say something. Kühlenbeck put up his hand:

  “Oh, leave me in peace with your secretion theories … my dear chap, if I can look into a man’s belly I have no need of theories … follow my example and become a surgeon … the only way of keeping young.”

  “And am I to throw up all the work I’ve done on glands?”

  “Throw it up with a good conscience … you operate quite neatly as it is.”

  “Something must be done about Jaretzki, sir … the man’s going to pieces.”

  “Suppose we try a trepanning operation on him.”

  “But you’ve already discharged him … with his nerves in the condition they’re in he should be sent to a special institution.”

  “I’ve reported him for Kreuznach, he’ll soon pull himself together there.… You’re a fine generation! a little boozing and you break down and must be sent to an institute for neurotics.… Orderly!”

  The orderly appeared in the doorway.

  “Tell Sister Carla that we shall operate at three … oh yes, and Murwitz in room two and Kneese in room three are to be given nothing to eat to-day … that’s all … what do you say, Flurschütz, we won’t really need poor old Kessel, we’ll manage quite nicely by ourselves … it’s hardly worth while calling in Kessel, he only complains that his legs are paining him: real sadism of me to drag him out … well, what do you say, Flurschütz?”

  “With all respect, sir, I can act for Kessel this time, but this can’t go on indefinitely … and then it won’t be possible any longer simply to order a medical man to operate.”

  “Insubordination, Flurschütz?”

  “Merely theoretical, sir … yes, it seems to me that in no very long time medicine will have specialized itself so completely that a consultation between a physician and a surgeon or a dermatologist will lead to no result at all, simply because there will be no means of making one specialist understand another.”

  “Wrong, quite wrong, Flurschütz, very shortly there will be nothing but surgery … that’s the only thing that will be left of this whole wretched art of medicine … man is a butcher and whatever he may do he remains a butcher, he can’t understand anything else … but he understands that to a T.” And Dr Kühlenbeck regarded his great hairy skilful hands with the nails cut quite short.

  Then he said reflectively:

  “Do you know, a man who refused to come to terms with that fact might actually go off his head … one must take the matter as it is and get what pleasure one can out of it … so be advised, Flurschütz, swop horses and become a surgeon.”

  CHAPTER XLVIII

  One had to fight for every bale of paper that one asked to be delivered, and although Esch was furnished with a certificate from the authorities empowering him to receive the supply required by the Kur-Trier Herald, he had to go out to the paper factory every week. And almost every time there was a row with old Herr Keller or the factory manager.

  The men were just leaving for the day when Esch left the factory. He overtook the foreman Liebel and the mechanic Fendrich on the road. He really couldn’t stand Liebel, with his fair-haired conical head and the thick vein across his brow. He said:

  “ ’Evening.”

  “ ’Evening, Esch, have you been praying all this time with the old man?”


  Esch did not understand.

  “Why, to get him to deliver your paper.”

  “Bloody nonsense,” said Esch.

  Fendrich stopped and showed the soles of his shoes; they were in holes:

  “That’ll cost six marks … that’s how your rises in wages go.”

  This provided Esch with a starting-point:

  “You can’t do much by simply raising your wages, that’s the mistake all the unions make.”

  “What’s this, Esch? Are you thinking of mending Fendrich’s boots with the Bible too?”

  “Bloody nonsense,” repeated Esch.

  Fendrich’s eyes glowed feverishly in their dark cavities; he was tuberculous and could not get enough milk to drink. He said:

  “Religion too is probably a luxury that only the rich people can afford.”

  Liebel said:

  “Majors and newspaper editors.”

  Esch said somewhat apologetically:

  “I’m only an employee of the paper, like yourself,” then he flared up, “besides that’s all nonsense, as if the unions had ever taken the vow of poverty!”

  Fendrich said:

  “It would be all very fine if one could believe.”

  Esch said:

  “I’ve discovered something: religion has to renew itself too, and get a new life … it says in the Bible that only the son can build the house.”

  Liebel said:

  “Of course the next generation will have a better time, that isn’t news to me.… I simply can’t live now on my hundred and forty marks, even reckoning in the bonus … the old man won’t admit that … and I’m supposed to be foreman, too.”

  “I haven’t any more than that myself,” said Esch, “counting in the house and all.… I’ve two tenants, but I can’t decently ask anything from them, poor devils … my rent account is passive.”

  The evening wind freshened. Fendrich coughed.

  Liebel said:

  “Well? Any news?”

  Esch admitted:

  “I’ve been seeing the priest.…”

  “What for?”

  “About that passage in the Bible, the idiot didn’t even listen … mumbled something about prayer and the Church, and that was all. The bloody priest … one must help oneself.”

  “That’s right,” said Fendrich, “nobody helps you.”

  Liebel said:

  “If you stick together, you help one another … that’s the advantage of the unions.”

  “The doctor says I must go to the mountains, and he’s applied ten times already to the sick-fund … but if you don’t come from the Front you’ve got to want, these days, and my cough just goes on and on.”

  Esch put on his ironical expression:

  “With your unions and your sick-funds you won’t get much further on than me with my priests.…”

  “You have to die by yourself,” said Fendrich, coughing.

  Liebel asked:

  “What really are you after?”

  Esch considered:

  “I used to think that one only had to clear out … to America … across the wide ocean on a ship … so as to begin a new life … but now …”

  Liebel waited for the end of the sentence:

  “And now?”

  But Esch answered unexpectedly:

  “Perhaps the Protestants are nearer it … the Major is a Protestant after all … but one must think the matter over first oneself … one must get together with other people and read the Bible to get some clear light … when one’s alone, one keeps on doubting, no matter how much one broods on the subject.”

  “When one has friends, everything’s easier,” said Fendrich.

  “You come and see me,” said Esch, “I’ll show you the passage in the Bible.”

  “All right,” said Fendrich.

  “And what about you, Liebel?” Esch felt obliged to ask.

  “You must tell me first what you’ve concocted together.”

  Fendrich sighed:

  “Everybody can only see things through his own eyes.”

  Liebel laughed and went away.

  “He’ll come yet, all right,” said Esch.

  CHAPTER XLIX

  STORY OF THE SALVATION ARMY GIRL IN BERLIN (7)

  My memory has not retained much of the evening that I spent with Nuchem Sussin at the Salvation Army meeting. I was occupied with more important things. No matter how one may estimate philosophical activity, it has at any rate the effect of making the external world insignificant and less worthy of notice. And apart from that even the most noteworthy things escape one’s notice while one is experiencing them. In short, all that I can remember is Nuchem Sussin walking along beside me with his grey frock-coat buttoned up, his trousers flapping about his legs, they were so short, and his absurdly small velour hat perched on his head. All these Jews, when they’re not rigged out in black caps, wear those velour hats that are too small for them, even the ostensibly fashionable Dr Litwak does this, and I could not forbear asking Nuchem the rude question where he had got that hat of his. “I just got it,” was the answer.

  Besides, the whole affair was not worth mentioning. It took on some colour of importance only because of Dr Litwak, who came in to see me yesterday. He has the unpleasant habit of simply walking in on me; he did the same thing on the occasion of my so-called illness. So he appeared before me again as I lay on the chaise-longue; he had the indispensable walking-stick in his hand and the absurd little velour hat on his head. That is to say, the hat itself was by no means small, it had a broad brim, but it sat on the very top of his skull without covering it. It occurred to me at that moment that Dr Litwak too must have had a milk-white complexion in his youth. Now it reminded one unquestionably of yellow cream.

  “You will be able to tell me about Sussin.”

  I said, because it conformed with the truth:

  “He is my friend.”

  “Friend, very good …” Dr Litwak pulled over a chair for himself, “his people are anxious, they asked me to come … you understand?”

  In reality I was under no obligation to understand him, but I wanted to shorten the proceedings:

  “He has a right to go where he likes.”

  “Oh, who has the right, who hasn’t the right.… I’m not reproaching you of course … but why is he running about with this goy girl?”

  It dawned on me only then that on that evening I had asked Marie and Nuchem into my room. People who haven’t money can’t sit about in restaurants.

  I could not help laughing.

  “You laugh, and his wife is sitting up there crying.”

  Well, that was certainly news to me; all the same I might have remembered that these Jews get married at fifteen. If I had only known which was Nuchem’s wife: one of the stylish girls? or one of the matrons with their hair parted in the middle? the latter seemed the more probable.

  I held Dr Litwak by the cord of his eyeglasses:

  “Has he children as well?”

  “Why, what do you expect him to have? Kittens?”

  Dr Litwak put on such an indignant expression that I had to ask him what his first name was.

  “Dr Samson Litwak,” he introduced himself anew.

  “Well then look here, Dr Samson, what do you really want of me?”

  He reflected for a while:

  “I’m an enlightened man … but this is going too far … you must stop him.”