The Sleepwalkers

by Hermann Broch

  Gödicke fell silent; he gazed suspiciously at them out of his bearded face, but finally he hobbled after them.

  Breathless and trembling Huguenau crossed the garden and reached the printing-shed. For a moment he did not know what had led him there. Then he remembered. The printing-press!

  He entered. The dark room was fitfully illumined from outside and lay in Sabbath-like order and neatness. Huguenau, his rifle between his knees, sat down in front of the press. He felt disappointed; the machine did not repay his exertions; cold and impassive it stood there and merely threw restless shadows which made him feel uncomfortable. If the convict rabble came it would serve the bloody machine jolly well right if they smashed it to pieces. Although it was a beautiful little machine … he laid his hands on it and was angry because the iron felt so cold. Merde, why should he get angry about that? Huguenau shrugged his shoulders, gazed out into the courtyard, across at the barn where the Sunday meetings were held. Would Esch be preaching there again next Sunday? Haïssez les ennemis de la sainte religion. Pious hypocrites. An empty barn, that was all their stock in trade … what had a man like that to lose! A man like that should have his bones broken for him. He had no worries … preached on Sunday, and now he was sitting upstairs with his wife and they were comforting each other, while a fellow had to sit down here beside this bloody machine.

  Once more he forgot why he had come. He leant his rifle against the printing-press. Standing in the courtyard he sniffed: again a smell of meat cooking was wafted to him. To-night of course there would be no supper, but upstairs they would be having something all right—she would see that Esch didn’t want.

  When he reached the landing above he started back, for the door of his room was lifted out of its hinges. That wasn’t as it should be. The door was jammed too, only with a great effort was he able to push it open, and inside in his room things looked still more desolate: the mirror no longer hung above the washing-table, but lay on the top of the broken crockery. A wilderness. Incomprehensible and disturbing, it reminded one of splintered bones. Huguenau sat down on the sofa, he wanted to realize what had happened but he did not want to think … someone should come to explain it all to him and comfort him … stroke his hair.

  Then it occurred to him that he must summon Frau Esch in any case to show her the damage … otherwise she would finish by holding him responsible for it … he had no intention of paying for damage that he had not caused. But just as he was about to call to her she rushed into his room, having heard his footsteps: “Where is my man?”

  A spacious, blissful and deeply moving sense of comfort descended on Huguenau at the sight of a familiar face. He smiled to her frankly and cordially: “Mother Esch …” he literally beamed upon her … now all will be well, she’ll put me to bed.… Meanwhile she did not seem even to see him: “Where is my man?” The stupid question disturbed him—what did the woman want Esch for now? if he wasn’t there, it was surely all the better … he replied roughly: “How should I know where he’s loafing about? He’ll come back for his supper all right.”

  Perhaps she had not even listened, for she stepped up to him, seized him by the shoulders, and almost screamed at him:

  “He’s gone, he’s gone with his rifle.… I’ve heard firing.”

  A hope rose in Huguenau: Esch was shot! but why in that case did the woman have such a lamenting voice? why did she have the wrong reaction? He wanted her to comfort him, and instead of that he must keep her here and comfort her, and all on account of Esch too! She was still beseeching him: “Where is he?” and she was still clutching him by the shoulder. Both embarrassed and furious he stroked her thick arm as if she were a weeping child, he would even have gladly shown her some kindness, he ran his hand up and down her arm, but his mouth spoke unkind words: “What are you snivelling about Esch for? haven’t we all had enough of the schoolmaster?… after all, you’ve got me …” and only while he was saying this did he himself become aware that he was making a more brutal demand on her … as a sort of substitute for what she had failed to give him. Now she too guessed what he was after: “Herr Huguenau, for God’s sake, Herr Huguenau.…” And already almost bereft of will-power, she made scarcely any further resistance to his panting urgency. Like a criminal trying to save the hangman trouble she undid her underclothes, and without even a kiss he fell with her on the sofa.

  Afterwards her first words were: “Save my man!” Huguenau felt indifferent about that; Esch could live now as long as he liked. But the next moment she broke out into shrill screams: the window was suddenly illumined a blood red, orange-yellow flames shot up, the Town Hall was burning. She sank to the floor, a shapeless lump … she, she was to blame for everything: “Jesus Maria, what have I done, what have I done …” she crept over to him, “… save him, save him.…” Huguenau had stepped to the window. He felt annoyed; now trouble was beginning here too. He had had enough of it out there already, more than enough. And what did this woman want from him? it was Esch that was finally responsible … he could burn out there with the Major if he liked, holy men had always been burned. And now there would be looting on the top of everything else … and he had forgotten again to lock up the printing-shed … he took the opportunity of escaping with credit: “I’ll look after him.” If he should meet Esch now, he reflected as he went out, he would fling him down the stairs.

  But in the printing-shed everything was neat and orderly as before. His rifle leant there and the machine threw its restless shadows. Red, black, yellow and orange-coloured, the sheaves of fire from the Town Hall shot up into the sky, while the barracks and the munition depot on the other side were still smouldering, a dirty brown. The bare branches of the fruit-trees were stiffly outlined. Huguenau contemplated the spectacle and found all at once that it was as it should be … everything was as it should be, and the printing-machine too pleased him once more … everything was as it should be, everything had been put right, he had been given back his customary nature and his clear common sense … now all that was needed was to put the final touch to the business and all would be well!

  He softly climbed the stairs again, peeped cautiously into the devastated kitchen, stole over to the bread cupboard and cut himself a good slice, and as he could find nothing more returned to the printing-shed, settled himself comfortably, took the rifle between his outstretched legs, and began slowly to eat … one would manage somehow or other to settle the looters too.

  Esch and the soldier knelt beside the Major. They were trying to bring him back to consciousness and rubbing his chest and hands with the damp grass. When at last he opened his eyes, they moved his arms and legs up and down, and it proved that nothing was broken. But he responded to none of their appeals, he remained lying outstretched on his back, and only his hands had grown restless, clutching at the damp earth, burrowing in the earth, seeking for clods and crumbling them to pieces.

  It was clear that they must get him away as quickly as possible. To summon help from the town was out of the question; so they would have to manage by themselves. The wounded sergeant had meantime gathered his strength sufficiently to sit up—one could therefore leave him by himself for a little, and they decided first of all to carry the Major across the fields to Esch’s house; it would have been too risky to take him by the main road.

  As they were debating over the best way to set about it, the Major made signs as though he wished to speak: clutching a fragment of earth in his fingers he raised his hand, and his lips opened and pushed themselves forward, but his hand fell again and again to the ground and no sound could be caught. Esch put his ear quite close to the Major’s mouth and waited: at last he made out the words: “Fell with my horse … an easy obstacle, fell all the same … the right foreleg broken.… I’ll shoot him myself … wipe out dishonour with a bullet …” and then more distinctly and as though he were seeking for assent: “… with a bullet, not with unchivalrous weapons.…” “What did he say?” asked the soldier. Esch replied softly: “He thinks that he’s f
allen from his horse … but now we must go … if only it wasn’t so damned light … we’ll better take our rifles with us in any case.”

  The Major had closed his eyes again. They raised him cautiously, and every now and then resting and exchanging places, they carried him across the sodden rain-soaked fields, whose miry soil clung persistently and heavily to their shoes. The Major opened his eyes once, saw the conflagration in the town, and looking straight at Esch, commanded: “Gas bombs … go and put them out.” Then he sank back again into somnolence.

  Arrived in his courtyard Esch dismissed the soldier; he was to go back at once to his comrades—Esch himself would follow later, he would easily find someone in the house to help him to carry the Major upstairs. So for the time being they laid him on the bench in front of the garden. But when the soldier was gone Esch went quietly into the house, leant his rifle against the wall and opened the trap-door to the cellar. Then he took the Major on his back and carried him in, cautiously feeling his way down the steps leading into the cellar, and when he reached the bottom laid him on a heap of potatoes, which he first carefully covered with a woollen rug. Then he lighted the paraffin lamp fastened to the dingy wall and stopped up the chinks in the cellar with boards and rags, so that no ray of light might pierce through and be seen from outside. Finally he scribbled a note which he stuck into the Major’s clasped hands: “Herr Major, you were knocked unconscious in an accident to the motor-car. I shall come back soon. Yours faithfully Esch.” He examined the lamp once more to see whether there was enough oil in it; perhaps he would not be able to return for a long time. The ladder leading up to the cellar door had only three steps: before Esch opened it he turned round for a last time, regarded almost with misgiving the low-vaulted roof and the man lying motionlessly outstretched: but for the smell of paraffin one might have taken it for a tomb.

  Slowly he climbed out. At the foot of the house stairs he listened for a little for any sound from above. Nothing moved—well, his wife would have calmed down by now … the wounded man outside the town was more important at present. He shouldered his rifle and stepped out into the street.

  But his thoughts were with the man who lay in the cellar, the paraffin lamp at his head. When the light expires the Redeemer is near. The light must expire so that the debt of time might be paid.

  Huguenau had just finished his slice of bread and was considering how he could get hold of further nourishment, when in the sharp light outside he caught sight of a figure in the garden. He seized his rifle, but recognized at the same moment that it was Esch himself, carrying a sort of sack on his shoulders. So the Herr Reverend had actually joined the looters! of course that wasn’t surprising; well, he would soon make sure, and he waited curiously for Esch to come nearer with his burden. Esch’s footsteps approached slowly and heavily through the courtyard; it was quite a long time before he was visible through the window. But then Huguenau became almost breathless with astonishment—Esch was carrying a man! Esch was carrying the Major out there! there was no possible mistake about it, it was the Major that Esch was carrying. Huguenau stole on tiptoe to the door and stuck out his head through the opening—no doubt about it, it was the Major—and he saw Esch disappearing with his burden through the cellar door.

  Huguenau was intensely excited while he waited to see how things would develop further. And when Esch once more appeared and stepped out into the street, Huguenau too shouldered his rifle and followed at a safe distance.

  The streets running in the direction of the Town Hall were fully illumined by the glare, but in the side-streets the houses threw sharp flickering shadows. Not a human being was to be seen. Everybody had rushed to the market-place, from which came a vague sound of tumult. Huguenau could not help thinking that in these deserted streets anyone could loot to his heart’s delight; and if he himself were to force his way into some house now and carry out whatever he liked, no one would seek to prevent him—though of course what was there of any value that one could lift from such hovels, and the phrase “better game” came into his mind. Esch turned round the next corner; so he wasn’t going to the Town Hall, the sanctimonious villain. Two youths ran past; Huguenau clutched his rifle in his hands, ready to strike. From a side-street a man leading a bicycle reeled towards him; he held the handle-bar convulsively with his left hand, the right arm dangled by his side as though broken; Huguenau gazed with horror into a smashed and battered face, from which one of the eyes still stared unseeingly into vacancy. Caring for nothing save to keep hold of his bicycle, as though he were resolved to take it with him into the next world, the stricken man reeled past. Face bashed in with a rifle butt, Huguenau told himself, and he clutched his rifle more firmly. A dog detached itself from a house door, ran sniffing behind the wounded man and licked the drops of blood as they fell. Esch was no longer to be seen. Huguenau quickened his steps. At the next street-crossing he caught again the glint of Esch’s fixed bayonet. He followed more quickly. Esch marched straight on, looking neither to the right nor the left; even the burning Town Hall did not seem to arouse his interest. Now his footsteps echoed no longer on the uneven pavement, for it came to a stop out here, and presently he turned into a narrow lane which ran along the town walls. Huguenau began to walk fast; he was now some twenty paces behind Esch, who calmly continued on his way: should he knock him over the head with the rifle butt? no, that would only be silly, what was needed was something that would end the business for good. And then it overwhelmed him like an illumination—he lowered his rifle, reached Esch with a few feline tango-like leaps, and ran the bayonet into his angular back. To the murderer’s great astonishment Esch went on calmly for a few steps more, then he fell forward on his face without a sound.

  Huguenau stood beside the fallen man. His foot touched Esch’s hand, which lay across a wheel-track in the sticky mire. Should he stamp on it? no doubt about it, the man was dead. Huguenau felt grateful to him—all was well now! he crouched down and looked into the sidewards-turned face with its unshaven stubble of hair. When he failed to find in it the jeering expression that he feared he was satisfied and clapped the dead man benevolently, almost tenderly, on the shoulder.

  All was well.

  He exchanged the rifles, leaving his own bloodstained one with the dead man, assuredly a superfluous piece of caution on such a day, but he liked to do everything methodically and in order. And after that he set out on his return journey. The town wall was brilliantly lighted up by the burning buildings, the shadows of the trees were outlined on it, a last orange-yellow shower of sparks shot up from the roof—Huguenau could not help remembering the man in the picture in Colmar soaring up into the opening heaven, and would have liked to shake him by the uplifted right hand, so light and happy did he feel—then the Town Hall tower crashed in and the conflagration ebbed to a brownish smoky red.

  “Rose Cottage,” half-wrecked, still lay dark and silent in the night breeze which blew up there.

  In the kitchen nothing had changed. In rigid immobility the six people still sat petrified in their places, still sat there motionless, more motionless perhaps even than before, as if bound and fettered in the stretched wires of expectation. They neither slept nor watched, nor did they know how long this state had already lasted. Only the child slept. The quilt had slipped from Hanna’s shoulder, but she did not feel cold. Once she said into the silence: “We must wait for it to end,” but the others probably did not even hear. And yet they listened, listened into vacancy, listened for the voices which came to them from outside. And though in Hanna’s ear the words “The invasion from below” kept perpetually repeating themselves, and though she could no longer attach any meaning to them, meaningless words, meaningless sounds, yet she listened to see whether it was not these meaningless words that people were shouting outside there. The water-tap dripped monotonously. None of the six moved. Perhaps the others also heard the words she was listening to, for in spite of the wide social differences between them, in spite of their isolation and estrangement, t
hey had all become a unified whole; a magic ring was cast round them, a chain whose links were themselves and which could not be broken through without grave injury. And in this enchantment, in this collective state of trance, it is comprehensible enough that for Hanna the cry of invasion should become more and more distinct, more distinct than she could ever have apprehended it with her physical hearing; the cry came to her as though winged by the power of their collective listening, it was borne on the current of that power, which was nevertheless a powerless power, power merely to accept and to hear, and the cry was very loud, the voice grew mightier and mightier and was like a rushing wind sweeping through the world. The dog whined in the garden and several times started barking. Then the dog too fell silent, and she heard nothing more save the voice. And at the voice’s command she stood up; the others did not seem to notice it, not even when she opened the door and left the room; she went in her bare feet, but she did not know it. Her bare soles went over a stretch of concrete, that was the passage, they went up five stone steps, went over linoleum, that was the office, went over parquet-flooring and carpeting, that was the hall, went over very dry coconut-matting, over splintered tiles, over the paving of a garden-path. In such an undeviating advance as this, which may almost be called a march, only the footsoles know the way, for the eyes see only the goal—and as she stepped out of the door she saw it, she saw the goal! at the end of the endlessly stretching paved path, stretching like a long bridge, there, with one leg swung over the garden fence, was the invader, the housebreaker, there, clambering over the parapet of the bridge—a man in grey convict’s clothes; like a grey block of stone he clung there. And did not move. With her hands outstretched before her she stepped on to the bridge, she let the quilt fall, her nightgown billowed in the wind, and thus she strode towards the motionless man. But whether it was that the others in the kitchen had after all noticed her leaving, or that they were drawn in a magical chain after her, the gardener appeared, followed by the housemaid, followed by the cook, followed by the gardener’s wife, and, though in faint and subdued voices, they called now to their mistress.