YOUNG TÖRLESS
“Young Törless,” from Selected
Writings, by
Publishing Company
Reprinted with permission
“In some strange way we
devalue things as soon as we give utterance to them. We believe we have dived to
the uttermost depths of the abyss, and yet when we return to the surface the
drop of water on our pallid finger-tips no longer resembles the sea from which
it came. We think we have discovered a hoard of wonderful treasure-trove, yet
when we emerge again into the light of day we see that all we have brought back
with us is false stones and chips of glass. But for all this, the treasure goes
on glimmering in the darkness, unchanged.”
MAETERLINCK
It was a small station on the
long railroad to Russia. Four parallel lines of iron rails extended endlessly
in each direction, on the yellow gravel of the broad track-each fringed, as
with a dirty shadow, with the dark strip burnt into the ground by steam and
fumes. Behind the station, a low
oil-painted building, there was a broad, worn dirt-road leading up to the
railway embankment. It merged into the trampled ground, its edges indicated
only by the two rows of acacia trees that flanked it drearily, their thirsty
leaves suffocated by dust and soot.
Perhaps it was these sad
colours, or perhaps it was the wan, exhausted light of the afternoon sun,
drained of its strength by the haze: there was something indifferent, lifeless,
and mechanical about objects and human beings here, as though they were all
part of a scene in a puppet-theatre. From time to time, at regular intervals,
the station-master stepped out of his office and, always with the same turn of
his head, glanced up the long line towards the signal-box, where the signals
still failed to indicate the approach of the express each time, which had been
delayed for a long time at the frontier; then, always with the very same
movement of his arm, he would pull out his pocket-watch and, then, shaking his
head, he would disappear again: lust so do the figures on ancient towerclock
appear and disappear again with the striking of the hour.
On the broad, well-trodden
strip of ground between the railwayline and the station building a gay company
of young men was strolling up and down, walking to right and to left of a
middle-aged couple who were the centre of the somewhat noisy conversation. But
even the blitheness of this group did not ring quite true; it was as if their
merry laughter fell into silence only a few paces away, almost as if it had run
into some invisible but solid obstacle and there sunk to the ground.
Frau Hofrat Törless-this was
the lady, perhaps forty years of age-wore a thick veil concealing her sad eyes,
which were a little reddened from weeping. This was a leave-taking. And she
found it hard, yet once again, having to leave her only child among strangers
for so long a period, without any chance to watch protectively over her
darling.
For the little town lay far
away from the capital, in the eastern territories of the empire, in thinly
populated, dry arable country.
The reason why Frau Törless
had to leave her boy in this remote and inhospitable outlandish district was
that in this town there was a celebrated boarding-school, which in the previous
century had developed out of a religious foundation and had since remained
where it was, doubtless in order to safeguard the young generation, in its
years of awakening, from the corrupting influences of a large city.
It was here that the sons of
the best families in the country received their education, going on then to the
university, or into the army or the service of the State; in all such careers,
as well as for general social reasons, it was a particular advantage to have
been educated at W.
Four years previously this
consideration had caused Hofrat and Frau Törless to yield to their son’s
ambitious plea and arrange for him to enter this school.
This decision afterwards cost
many tears. For almost from the first moment when the doors of the school
closed behind him with irrevocable finality, little Törless suffered from
frightful, agonizing homesickness. Neither lessons, nor games on the wide
luxuriant grasslands of the park, nor the other distractions that the school
offered its inmates, could hold his attention; he took almost no interest in these
things. He saw everything only as through a veil and even during the day often
had trouble in gulping down an obstinately rising sob; at night he always cried
himself to sleep.
He wrote letters home almost daily,
and he lived only in these letters; everything else he did seemed to him only a
shadowy, unmeaning string of events, indifferent stations on his way, like the
marking of the hours on a
clock-face. But when he wrote he felt within himself something that made him
distinct, that set him apart; something in him rose, like an island of
miraculous suns and flashing colours, out of the ocean of grey sensations that
lapped around him, cold and indifferent, day after day. And when by day, at
games or in class, he remembered that he would write his letter in the evening,
it was as though he were wearing, hidden on his person, fastened to an
invisible chain, a golden key with which, as soon as no one was looking, he
would open the gate leading into marvellous gardens.
The remarkable thing about it
was that this sudden consuming fondness for his parents was for himself
something new and disconcerting. He had never imagined such a thing before, he
had gone to boarding-school gladly and of his own free will, indeed he had
laughed when at their first leave-taking his mother had been unable to check
her tears; and only later, when he had been on his own for some days and been
getting on comparatively well, did it gush up in him suddenly and with
elemental force.
He took it for homesickness
and believed he was missing his parents. But it was in reality something much
more indefinable and complex. For the object of this longing, the image of his
parents, actually ceased to have any place in it at all: I mean that certain
plastic, physical memory of a loved person which is not merely remembrance but
something speaking to all the senses and preserved in all the senses, so that
one cannot do anything without feeling the other person silent and invisible at
one’s side. This soon faded out, like a resonance that vibrates only for a
while. In other words, by that time Törless could no longer conjure up before
his eyes the image of his ‘dear, dear parents’-as he usually called them in his
thoughts. If he tried to do so, what rose up in its place was the boundless
grief and longing from which he suffered so much and which yet held him in its
spell, its hot flames causing him both agony and rapture. And so the thought of
his parents more and more became a mere pretext, an external means to set going
this egoistic suffering in him, which enclosed him in his voluptuous pride as
in the seclusion of a chapel where, surrounded by hundreds of flickering
candles and hundreds of eyes gazing down from sacred images, incense was wafted
among the writhing flagellants ...
Later, as his ‘homesickness’
became less violent and gradually passed off, this, its real character, began
to show rather more clearly. For in its place there did not come the
contentment that might have been expected; on the contrary, what it left in
young Törless’s soul was a void. And this nothingness, this emptiness in
himself, made him realise that it was no mere yearning he had lost, but
something positive, a spiritual force, something that had flowered in him under
the guise of grief.
But now it was all over, and
this well-spring of a first sublime bliss had made itself known to him only by
its drying up.
At this time the passionate
evidence of the soul’s awakening vanished out of his letters, and in its place
came detailed descriptions of life at school and the new friends he had made.
He himself felt impoverished
by this change, and bare, like a little tree experiencing its first winter
after its first still fruitless blossoming.
But his parents were glad.
They loved him with strong, unthinking, animal affection. Every time after he
had been home on holiday from boarding-school, and gone away again, to the Frau
Hofrat the house once more seemed empty and deserted, and for some days after
each of these visits it was with tears in her eyes that she went through the
rooms, here and there caressing some object on which the boy’s gaze had rested
or which his fingers had held. And both parents would have let themselves be
torn to pieces for his sake.
The clumsy pathos and
passionate, mutinous sorrow of his letters had given them grievous concern and
kept them in a state of high-pitched sensitiveness; the blithe, contented
light-heartedness that followed upon it gladdened them again and, feeling that
now a crisis had been surmounted, they did all they could to encourage this new
mood.
Neither in the one phase nor
in the other did they recognise the symptoms of a definite psychological
development; on the contrary, they accepted both the anguish and its
appeasement as merely a natural consequence of the situation. It escaped them
that a young human being, all on his own, had made his first, unsuccessful attempt
to develop the forces of his inner life.
* * *
Törless, however, now felt
very dissatisfied and groped this way and that, in vain, for something new that
might serve as a support to him.
* * *
At this period there was an
episode symptomatic of something still germinating in Törless, which was to
develop significantly in him later.
What happened was this: one day
the youthful Prince H. entered the school, a scion of one of the oldest, most
influential, and most conservative noble families in the empire.
All the others thought him
boring, and found his gentle gaze affected; the manner in which he stood with
one hip jutting forward and, while talking, languidly interlocked and unlocked
his fingers, they mocked as effeminate. But what chiefly aroused their scorn
was that he had been brought to the school not by his parents but by his former
tutor, a doctor of divinity who was a member of a religious order.
On Törless, however, he made
a strong impression from the very first moment. Perhaps the fact that he was a
prince and by birth entitled to move in Court circles had something to do with
it; but however that might be, he was a different kind of person for Törless to
get to know.
The silence and tranquillity
of an ancient and noble country seat, and of devotional exercises, seemed
somehow to cling about him still. When he walked, it was with smooth, lithe
movements and with that faintly diffident attitude of withdrawal, that
contraction of the body, which comes from being accustomed to walking very
erect through a succession of vast, empty rooms, where any other sort of person
seems to bump heavily against invisible corners of the empty space around him.
And so for Törless
acquaintance with the prince became a source of exquisite psychological
enjoyment. It laid the foundations in him of that kind of knowledge of human
nature which teaches one to recognise and appreciate another person by the
cadence of his voice, by the way he picks up and handles a thing, even, indeed,
by the timbre of his silences and the expressiveness of his bodily attitude in
adjusting himself to a space, a setting-in other words, by that mobile,
scarcely tangible, and yet essential, integral way of being a human entity, a
spirit, that way of being it which encloses the core, the palpable and
debatable aspect of him, as flesh encloses the mere bones-and in so
appreciating to prefigure for oneself the mental aspect of his personality.
During this brief period
Törless lived as in an idyll. He was not put out by his new friend’s
devoutness, which was really something quite alien to him, coming as he did
from a free-thinking middle-class family. He accepted it without a qualm, going
so far as to see it, indeed, as something especially admirable in the prince,
since it intensified the essential quality of this other boy’s personality,
which he felt was so unlike his own as to be in no way comparable.
In the prince’s company he
felt rather as though he were in some little chapel far off the main road. The
thought of actually not belonging there quite vanished in the enjoyment of, for
once, seeing the daylight through stained glass; and he let his gaze glide over
the profusion of futile gilded agalma in this other person’s soul until he had
absorbed at least some sort of indistinct picture of that soul, just as though
with his finger-tips he were tracing the lines of an arabesque, not thinking
about it, merely sensing the beautiful pattern of it, which twined according
to some weird laws beyond his ken.
And then suddenly there came
the break between them.
Törless blundered badly, as
he had to admit to himself afterwards.
The fact was: on one occasion
they did suddenly find themselves arguing about religion. And as soon as that
happened, it was really all over and done with. For as though independently of
himself, Törless’s intellect lashed out, inexorably, at the sensitive young
prince; he poured out torrents of a rationalist’s scorn upon him, barbarously
desecrating the filigree habitation in which the other boy’s soul dwelt. And
they parted in anger.
After that they never spoke
to each other again. Törless was indeed obscurely aware that what he had done
was senseless, and a glimmer of intuitive insight told him that his wooden
yardstick of rationality had untimely shattered a relationship that was subtle
and full of rare fascination. But this was something he simply had not been
able to help. It left him, probably for ever, with a sort of yearning for what
had been; yet he seemed to have been caught up in another current, which was
carrying him further and further away in a different direction.
And then some time later the
prince, who had not been happy there, left the school.
* * *
Now everything around Törless
was empty and boring. But meanwhile he had been growing older, and with the
onset of adolescence something began to rise up in him, darkly and steadily.
At this stage of his development he made some new friends, of a kind
corresponding to the needs of his age, which were to be of very great
importance to him. He became friends with Beineberg and Reiting, and with Mote
and Hofmeier, the boys in whose company he was today seeing his parents off at
the railway station.
Remarkably enough, these were
the boys who counted as the worst of his year; they were gifted and, it went
without saying, of good family, but at times they were wild and reckless to the
point of brutality. And that it should be precisely their company to which
Törless now felt so strongly drawn was doubtless connected with his own lack of
self-certainty, which had become very marked in-deed since he had lost touch
with the prince. It was indeed the logical continuation of that break, for,
like the break itself, it indicated some fear of all over-subtle toyings with
emotions; and by contrast with that sort of thing the nature of these other
friends stood out as sound and sturdy, giving life its due.
Törless entirely abandoned
himself to their influence, for the situation in which his mind now found
itself was approximately this: At schools of the kind known as the Gymnasium,
at his age, one has read Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare, and perhaps even
some modern writers too, and this, having been half digested, is then written
out of the system again, excreted, as it were, through the finger-tips. Roman
tragedies are written, or poems, of the most sensitive lyrical kind, that go
through their paces garbed in punctuation that is looped over whole pages at a
time, as in delicate lace: things that are in themselves ludicrous, but which
are of inestimable value in contributing to a sound development. For these
associations originating outside, and these borrowed emotions, carry young people
over the dangerously soft spiritual ground of the years in which they need to
be of some significance to themselves and nevertheless are still too incomplete
to have any real significance. Whether any residue of it is ultimately left in
the one, or nothing in the other, does not matter; later each will somehow come
to terms with himself, and the danger exists only in the stage of transition.
If at that period one could bring a boy to see the ridiculousness of himself,
the ground would give way under him, or he would plunge headlong like a
somnambulist who, suddenly awaking, sees nothing but emptiness around him.
That illusion, that conjuring
trick for the benefit of the personality’s development, was missing in this school.
For though the classics were there in the library, they were considered
‘boring’, and for the rest there were only volumes of sentimental romances and
drearily humorous tales of army life.
Young Törless had read just
about all of them in his sheer greed for books, and this or that conventionally
tender image from one story or another did sometimes linger for a while in his
mind; but none had any influence-any real influence-on his character.
At this period it seemed that
he had no character at all.
Under the influence of this
reading, he himself now and then would write a little story or begin an epic
romance, and in his excitement over the sufferings of his heroes, crossed in
love, his cheeks would flush, his pulse quicken, and his eyes shine.
But when he laid down his
pen, it was all over; his spirit lived only, as it were, while in motion. And
so too he found it possible to dash off a poem or a story at any time, whenever
it might be required of him. The doing of it excited him, yet he never took it
quite seriously, and this occupation in itself did not strike him as important.
Nothing of it was assimilated into his personality, nor did it originate within
his personality. All that happened was that under some external pressure he
underwent emotions that transcended the indifference of ordinary life, just as
an actor needs the compulsion that a role imposes on him.
These were cerebral
reactions. But what is felt to be character or soul, a person’s inner contour
or aura, that is to say, the thing in contrast with which the thoughts,
decisions, and actions appear random, lacking in characteristic quality, and
easily exchangeable for others-the thing that had, for instance, bound Törless
to the prince in a manner beyond the reach of any intellectual judgment-this
ultimate, immovable background seemed to be utterly lost to Törless at this
period.
In his friends it was
enjoyment of sport, the animal delight in being alive, that prevented them from
feeling the need for anything of this kind, just as at the Gymnasium the
want is supplied by the sport with literature.
But Törless’s constitution
was too intellectual for the one, and, as for the other, life at this school,
where one had to be in a perpetual state of readiness to settle arguments with
one’s fists, made him keenly sensitive to the absurdity of such borrowed
sentiment. So his being took on a vagueness, a sort of inner helplessness, that
made it impossible for him to be sure where he stood.
He attached himself to these
new friends because he was impressed by their wildness. Since he was
ambitious, he now and then even tried to outvie them in this. But each time he
would leave off half-way, and on this account had to put up with no small
amount of gibes, which would scare him back into himself again. At this
critical period the whole of his life really consisted in nothing but these
efforts, renewed again and again, to emulate his rough, more masculine friends
and, counterbalancing that, a deep inner indifference to all such strivings.
Now, when his parents came to
see him, so long as they were alone he was quiet and shy. Each time he dodged
his mother’s affectionate caresses under one pretext or another. He would
really have liked to yield to them, but he was ashamed, as though he were being
watched by his friends.
His parents let it pass as
the awkwardness of adolescence.
Then in the afternoon the
whole noisy crowd would come along. They played cards, ate, drank, told
anecdotes about the masters, arid smoked the cigarettes that the Hofrat had
brought from the capital.
This jollity pleased and
reassured the parents.
That there were, in between
times, hours of a different kind for Törless was something they did not know.
And recently there had been more and more of such hours. There were moments
when life at school became a matter of utter indifference to him. Then the
putty of his everyday concerns dropped out and, with nothing more to bind them
together, the hours of his life fell apart.
He often sat for a long
time-gloomily brooding-as it were hunched over himself.
* * *
This time too his parents had
stayed for two days. There had been a lunching and dining together, smoking, a
drive in the country; and now the express was to carry Törless’s parents back
to the capital.
A faint vibration of the
rails heralded the train’s approach, and the bell clanging on the station roof
sounded inexorably in the Frau Hofrat’s ears.
“Well, my dear Beineberg, so
you’ll keep an eye on this lad of mine for me, won’t you?” Hofrat Törless said,
turning to young Baron Beineberg, a lanky, bony boy with big ears that stuck
out, and eyes that were expressive and intelligent.
Törless, who was younger and
smaller than the others, pulled a face at this repugnant suggestion of being
given into his friend’s charge; and Beineberg grinned, obviously flattered and
with a shade of triumphant malice.
“Really,” the Hofrat added,
turning to the rest of them, “I should like to ask you all, if there should be
anything at all the matter with my son, to let me know at once.
This was going too far, and
it drew from young Törless an infinitely wearied protest: “But, Father, what on
earth do you think could happen to me?” although he was well used by now to
having to put up with this excess of solicitude at every leave-taking.
Meanwhile the others drew
themselves up, clicking their heels, each straightening the elegant sword at
his side. And the Hofrat went on: “One never knows what may happen. It is a
great weight off my mind to know I would be instantly informed. After all,
something might prevent you from writing.”
At that moment the train drew
in. Hofrat Törless embraced his son, Frau von Törless drew the veil tighter
over her face to hide her tears, and one after the other the friends once more
expressed their thanks for having been entertained. Then the guard slammed the
door of the carriage.
Once again Hofrat and Frau
von Törless saw the high, bare back of the school building and the immense,
long wall surrounding the park; and then there was nothing to left and to right
but grey-brown fields and an occasional fruit-tree.
* * *
Meanwhile the boys had left
the railway station and were walking, in two single files, along the two edges
of the road-so avoiding at least the densest and most suffocating dust-towards
the town, without talking to each other much.
It was after five o’clock,
and over the fields came a breath of something solemn and cold, a harbinger of
evening.
Törless began to feel very
mournful.
Perhaps it was because of his
parents’ departure, or perhaps it was caused only by the forbidding stolid
melancholy that now lay like a dead weight on all the landscape, blurring the
outlines of things, even a few paces away, with lack-lustre heaviness.
The same dreadful
indifference that had been blanketed over the surrounding countryside all that
afternoon now came creeping across the plain, and after it, like a slimy trail,
came the mist, stickily clinging to the fresh-ploughed fields and the
leaden-grey acres of turnips. Törless did not glance to right or to left, but
he felt it. Steadily as he walked he set his feet in the tracks gaping in the
dust, the prints left by the footsteps of the boy in front-and he felt it as
though it must be so, as a stony compulsion catching his whole life up and
compressing it into this movement-steadily plodding on along this one line,
along this one small streak being drawn out through the dust.
When they came to a halt at a
crossroads, where a second road and their own debouched into a round, worn
patch of ground, and where a rotten timber sign-post pointed crookedly into the
air, the tilted line of it, in such contrast with the surroundings, struck
Törless as being like a cry of desperation.
Again they walked on. Törless
thought of his parents, of people he knew, of life. At this time of day people
were changing for a party or deciding they would go to the theatre. And
afterwards one might go to a restaurant, hear a band playing, sit at a café
table. . . . One met interesting people. A flirtation, an adventure, kept one
in suspense till the morning. Life went on revolving, churning out ever new
and unexpected happenings, like a strange and wonderful wheel.
Törless sighed over these
thoughts, and at each step that bore him closer to the cramped narrowness of
school something in him constricted, a noose was pulled tighter and tighter.
Even now the bell was ringing
in his ears. And there was nothing he dreaded so much as this ringing of the
bell, which cut the day short, once and for all, like the savage slash of a
knife.
To be sure, there was nothing
for him to experience, and his life passed along in a blur of perpetual
indifference; but this ringing of the bell was an added mockery, which left him
quivering with helpless rage against himself, his fate, and the day that was
buried.
Now you can’t experience
anything more at all, for twelve hours you can’t experience anything, for
twelve hours you’re dead. .. . That was what this bell meant.
* * *
When the little band of
friends reached the first low-built wretched cottages, this mood of gloom and
introspection lifted from Törless. As though seized by some sudden interest, he
raised his head and glanced intently into the smoky interior of the dirty
little hovels they were passing.
Outside the doors of most of
them the women-folk were standing, in their wide skirts and coarse shifts,
their broad feet caked with dust, their arms bare and brown.
If they were young and buxom,
some crude Slav jest would be flung at them. They would nudge each other and
titter at ‘the young gentlemen’; sometimes, too, one would utter a shriek when
her breasts were too vigorously brushed against in passing, or would answer a
slap on the buttocks with an insulting epithet and a burst of laughter. There
were others who merely watched the swift passersby with a grave and angry
look; and the peasant himself, if he happened to come on the scene, would smile
awkwardly, half unsure what to make of it, half in good humour.
Törless took no part in this
display of overweening and precocious manliness.
The reason for this lay
doubtless to some extent in a certain timidity about sexual matters such as is
characteristic of almost all only children, but chiefly in his own peculiar
kind of sensuality, which was more deeply hidden, more forceful, and of a
darker hue than that of his friends and more slow and difficult in its manifestations.
While the others were making
a show of shameless behaviour with the women, rather more for the sake of being
‘smart’ than from any lascivious urge, the taciturn little Törless’s soul was
in a state of upheaval, surging with real shamelessness.
He looked through the little
windows and the crooked, narrow
doorways into the interior of
the cottages with a gaze burning so hotly that there was all the time something
like a delicate mesh dancing before his eyes.
Almost naked children tumbled
about in the mud of the yards; here and there as some woman bent over her work
her skirt swung high, revealing the hollows at the back of her knees, or the bulge
of a heavy breast showed as the linen tightened over it. It was as though all
this were going on in some quite different, animal, oppressive atmosphere, and
the cottages exuded a heavy, sluggish air, which Törless eagerly breathed in.
He thought of old paintings
that he had seen in museums without really understanding them. He was waiting
for something, just as, when he stood in front of those paintings, he had
always been waiting for something that never happened. What was it . . . ? It
must be something surprising, something never beheld before, some monstrous
sight of which he could not form the lightest notion; something of a
terrifying, beast-like sensuality; something that would seize him in its claws
and rend him, starting with his eyes; an experience that in some still utterly
obscure way seemed to be associated with these women’s soiled petticoats, with
their roughened hands, with the low ceilings of their little rooms, with . . .
with a besmirching of himself with the filth of these yards . . . No, no . . .
Now he no longer felt anything but the fiery net before his eyes; the words did
not say it; for it is not nearly so bad as the words make it seem; it is
something mute-a choking in the throat, a scarcely perceptible thought, and
only if one insisted on getting it to the point of words would it come out like
that. And then it has ceased to be anything but faintly reminiscent of whatever
it was, as under huge magnification, when one not only sees everything more
distinctly but also sees things that are not there at all. . . . And yet, for
all that, it was something to be ashamed of.
* *
“Is Baby feeling homesick?”
lie was suddenly asked, in, mocking tones, by von Reiting, that tall boy two
years older than himself, who had been struck by Törless’s silence and the
darkness over his eyes. Törless forced an artificial and rather embarrassed
smile to his lips; and he felt as though the malicious Reiting had been eavesdropping
on what had been going on within him.
He did not answer. But meanwhile
they had reached the little town’s church square, with its cobbles, and here
they parted company.
Törless and Beineberg did not
want to go back yet, but the others had no leave to stay out any longer and
returned to the school.
The two boys had gone along
to the cake shop.
Here they sat at a little
round table, beside a window overlooking the garden, under a gas candelabrum
with its flames buzzing softly in the milky glass globes.
They had made themselves
thoroughly comfortable, having little glasses filled up now with this liqueur,
now with another, smoking cigarettes, and eating pastries between whiles,
enjoying the luxury of being the only customers. Although in one of the back
rooms there might still be some solitary visitor sitting over his glass of
wine, at least here in front all was quiet, and even the portly, aging
proprietress seemed to have dozed off behind the counter.
Törless gazed-but
vaguely-through the window, out into the empty garden, where darkness was
slowly gathering.
Beineberg was talking-about
India, as usual. For his father, the general, had as a young officer been there
in British service. And he had brought back not only what any other European
brought back with him, carvings, textiles, and little idols manufactured for sale
to tourists, but something of a feeling, which he had never lost, for the
mysterious, bizarre glimmerings of esoteric Buddhism. Whatever he had picked up
there, and had come to know more of from his later reading, he had passed on to
his son, even from the boy’s early childhood.
For the rest, his attitude to
reading was an odd one. He was a cavalry officer and was not at all fond of
books in general. Novels and philosophy he despised equally. When he read, he
did not want to reflect on opinions and controversies, but, from the very
instant of opening the book, to enter as through a secret portal into the midst
of some very exclusive knowledge. Books that he read had to be such that the
mere possession of them was as it were a secret sign of initiation and a pledge
of more than earthly revelations. And this he found only in books of Indian
philosophy, which to him seemed to be not merely books, but revelations,
something real-keys such as were the alchemical and magical books of the Middle
Ages.
With them this healthy,
energetic man, who observed his duties strictly and exercised his three horses
himself almost every day, would usually shut himself up for the evening.
Then he would pick out a
passage at random and meditate on it, in the hope that this time it would
reveal its inmost secret meaning to him. Nor was he ever disappointed, however
often he had to admit that he had not yet advanced beyond the forecourts of the
sacred temple.
Thus it was that round this
sinewy, tanned, open-air man there hovered something like the nimbus of an
esoteric mystery. His conviction of being daily on the eve of receiving some
overpoweringly great illumination gave him an air of reserve and superiority.
His eyes were not dreamy, but calm and hard. The habit of reading books in
which no single word could be shifted from its place without disturbing the
secret significance, the careful, scrupulous weighing of every single sentence
for its meaning and counter-meaning, its possible ambiguities, had brought that
look into those eyes.
Only occasionally did his
thoughts lose themselves in a twilit state of agreeable melancholy. This
happened when he thought of the esoteric cult bound up with the originals of the
writings open before him, of the miracles that had emanated from them, stirring
thousands, thousands of human beings who now, because of the vast distance
separating him from them, appeared to him like brothers, while he despised the
people round about him, whom he saw in all their detail. At such hours he grew
despondent. He was depressed by the thought that he was condemned to spend his
life far away from the sources of those holy powers and that his efforts were
perhaps doomed in the end to be frustrated by these unfavourable conditions.
But then, after he had been sitting gloomily over his books for a while, he
would begin to have a strange feeling. True, his melancholy lost nothing of its
oppressiveness-on the contrary, the sadness of it was still further
intensified-but it no longer oppressed him. He would then feel more forlorn
than ever, and as though defending a lost position; but in this mournfulness
there lay a subtle relish, a pride in doing something utterly alien to the
people about him, serving a divinity uncomprehended by the rest. And then it
was that, fleetingly, something would flare up in his eyes that was like the
ravishment of religious ecstasy.
* * *
Beineberg had talked himself
to a standstill. In him the image of his eccentric father lived on in a kind of
distorted magnification. Every feature was preserved; but what in the other had
originally, perhaps, been no more than a mood that was conserved and intensified
for the sake of its exclusiveness had in him grown hugely into a fantastic
hope. That peculiarity of his father’s, which for the older man was at bottom
perhaps really no more than that last refuge for individuality which every
human being-and even if it is only through his choice of clothes-must provide
himself with in order to have something to distinguish him from others, had in
him turned into the firm belief that he could achieve dominion over people by
means of more than ordinary spiritual powers.
Törless knew this talk by
heart. It passed away over him, leaving him almost quite unmoved.
He had now turned slightly
from the window and was observing Beineberg, who was rolling himself a
cigarette. And again lie felt the queer repugnance, the dislike of Beineberg,
that would at times rise up in him. These slim, dark hands, which were now so
deftly rolling the tobacco into the paper, were really-come to think of
it-beautiful. Thin fingers, oval, beautifully curved nails: there was a touch
of breeding, of elegance, about them. So there was too in the dark brown eyes.
It was there also in the long-drawn lankiness of the whole body. To be sure,
the ears did stick out more than would quite do, the face was small and
irregular, and the sum total of the head’s expression was reminiscent of a
bat’s. Nevertheless-Törless felt this quite clearly as he weighed the details
against each other in the balance-it was not the ugly, it was precisely the
more attractive features that made him so peculiarly uneasy.
The thinness of the
body-Beineberg was in the habit of lauding the steely, slender legs of Homeric
champion runners as the ideal-did not at all have this effect on him. Törless
had never yet tried to give himself an account of this, and for the moment he
could not think of any satisfactory comparison. He would have liked to scrutinise
Beineberg more closely, but then Beineberg would have noticed what he was
thinking and he would have had to strike up some sort of conversation. Yet it
was precisely thus-half looking at him, half filling the picture out in his
imagination-that he was struck by the difference. If he thought the clothes
away from the body, it became quite impossible to hold on to the notion of calm
slenderness; what happened then, instantly, was that in his mind’s eye he saw
restless, writhing movements, a twisting of limbs and a bending of the spine
such as are to be found in all pictures of martyrs’ deaths, or in the grotesque
performances of acrobats and ‘rubber men’ at fairs.
And the hands, too, which he
could certainly just as well have pictured in some beautifully expressive
gesture, he could not imagine otherwise than in motion, with flickering
fingers. And it was precisely on these hands, which were really Beineberg’s
most attractive feature, that his greatest repugnance was concentrated. There
was something prurient about them. That no doubt, was, what it amounted to. And
there was for him something prurient, too, about the body, which he could not
help associating with dislocated movements. But it was in the hands that this
seemed to accumulate, and it seemed to radiate from them like a hint of some
touch that was yet to come, sending a thrill of disgust coursing over Törless’s
skin. He himself was astonished at the notion, and faintly shocked. For this
was now the second time today that something sexual had without warning, and
irrelevantly, thrust its way in among his thoughts.
Beineberg had taken up a
newspaper, and now Törless could consider him closely.
There was in reality scarcely
anything to be found in his appearance that could have even remotely justified
this sudden association of ideas in Törless’s mind.
And for all that, in spite of
the lack of justification for it, his sense of discomfort grew ever more
intense. The silence between them had lasted scarcely ten minutes, and yet
Törless felt his repugnance gradually increasing to the utmost degree. A
fundamental mood, a fundamental relationship between himself and Beineberg,
seemed in this way to be manifesting itself for the first time; a mistrust that
had always been lurking somewhere in the depths seemed all at once to have
loomed up into the realm of conscious feeling.
The atmosphere became more
and more acutely uncomfortable. Törless was invaded by an urge to utter
insults, but he could find no adequate words. He was uneasy with a sort of
shame, as though something had actually happened between himself and Beineberg.
His fingers began to drum restlessly on the table.
* * *
Finally, in order to escape
from this strange state of mind, he looked out of the window again.
Now Beineberg glanced up from
the newspaper. Then he read a paragraph aloud, laid the paper aside, and
yawned.
With the breaking of the
silence the spell that had bound Törless was also broken. Casual words began to
flow over the awkward moment, blotting it out. There had been a momentary
alertness, but now the old indifference was there again. .
“How long have we still got?”
Törless asked.
“Two and a half hours.”
Suddenly shivering, Törless
hunched up his shoulders. Once again he felt the paralysing weight of the
constriction he was about to re-enter, the school time-table, the daily
companionship of his friend. Even that dislike of Beineberg would cease which
seemed, for an instant, to have created a new situation.
What’s for supper tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“What have we got tomorrow?”
“Mathematics.”
“Oh. Was there something to
prepare?”
“Yes. A few new trigonometry
theorems. But you needn’t worry about them, they’re not difficult.”
“And what else?”
“Divinity.”
“Divinity.... Oh, well.
That’s something to look forward to... .1 think when I really get going I could
just as easily prove that twice two is five as that there can be only one God.
. .
Beineberg glanced up at
Törless mockingly. “It’s quite funny how you go on about that. It strikes me
almost as if you really enjoyed it. Anyway, there’s a positive glare of
enthusiasm in your eyes. . .
“And why not? Don’t you think it’s fun? There’s always a
point you get to where you stop knowing whether you’re just making it all up or
if what you’ve made up is truer than you are
yourself.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, I don’t mean
literally, of course. Naturally, you always know you are making it up. But
all the same, every now and then the whole thing strikes you as being so
credible that you’re brought up standing, in a way, in the grip of your own
ideas.”
“Well, but what is it about
it you enjoy, then?”
“Just that: you get a sort of
jerk in your head, a sort of dizziness, a shock...”
“Oh, I say, shut up! That’s
all foolery.”
“Well, I didn’t say it
wasn’t. But still, so far as I’m concerned, it’s more interesting than anything
else at school.”
“It’s just a way of doing
gymnastics with your brain. But it doesn’t get you anywhere, all the same.”
“No,” Törless said, looking
out into the garden again. Behind his back-as though from a long way off-he
heard the buzzing of the gas-lights. He was preoccupied by an emotion rising up
in him, mournfully and like a mist.
“It doesn’t get you anywhere.
You’re right about that. But it doesn’t do to tell yourself that. How much of
all the things we spend our whole time in school doing is really going to get
anyone anywhere? What do we get anything out of? I mean for ourselves-you see
what I mean? In the evening you know you’ve lived another day, you’ve learnt
this and that, you’ve kept up with the time-table, hut still, you’re
empty-inwardly, I mean. Right inside, you’re still hungry, so to speak. .
Beineberg muttered something
about exercising the mind by way of preparation-not yet being able to start on
anything-later on...
“Preparation? Exercise? What for?
Have you got any definite idea of it? I dare say you’re hoping for
something, but it’s just as vague to you as it is to me. It’s like this:
everlastingly waiting for something you don’t know anything about except that
you’re waiting for it. . . . It’s so boring.
“Boring. . .” Beineberg
drawled in mimicry, wagging his head.
Törless was still gazing out
into the garden. He thought he could hear the rustling of the withered leaves
being blown into drifts by the wind. Then came that moment of utter stillness
which always
occurs a little while before
the descent of complete darkness. The shapes of things, which had been sinking
ever more deeply into the dusk, and the blurring, dissolving colours of
things-for an instant it all seemed to pause, to hover, as it were with a
holding of the breath ...
“You know, Beineberg,”
Törless said, without turning round, ‘~when it’s getting dark there always seem
to be a few moments that are sort of different. Every time I watch it happening
I remember the same thing: once when I was quite small I was playing in the
woods at this time of evening. My nursemaid had wandered off somewhere. I
didn’t know she had, and so I still felt as if she were nearby. Suddenly
something made me look up. I could feel I was alone. It was suddenly all so
quiet. And when I looked around it was as though the trees were standing in a
circle round me, all silent, and looking at me. I began to cry. I felt the
grownups had deserted me and abandoned me to inanimate beings.... What is it? I
still often get it. What’s this sudden silence that’s like a language we can’t
hear?”
“I don’t know the thing you mean.
But why shouldn’t things have a language of their own? After all, there are no
definite grounds for asserting that they haven’t a soul!”
Törless did not answer. He
did not care for Beineberg’s speculative view of the matter.
But after a while Beineberg
went on: “Why do you keep on staring out of the window? What is there to be
seen?”
“I’m still wondering what it
can be.” But actually he had gone on to thinking about something else, which he
did not want to speak of. That high tension, that harkening as if some solemn
mystery might become audible, and the burden of gazing right into the midst of
the still undefined relationships of things-all this was something he had been
able to endure only for a moment. Then lie had once again been overcome by the
sense of solitude and forlornness which always followed this excessive demand
upon his resources. He felt: there’s something in this that’s still too
difficult for me. And his thoughts took refuge in something else, which was
also implicit in it all, but which, as it were, lay only in the background and
biding its time: loneliness.
From the deserted garden a
leaf now and then fluttered up against the lit window, tearing a streak of
brightness into the darkness great future ahead of them usually go through a
period abounding in humiliations.
Törless’s taste for certain
moods was the first hint of a psychological development that was later to
manifest itself as a strong sense of wonder. The fact was that later he was to
have-and indeed to be dominated by-a peculiar ability: he could not help
frequently experiencing events, people, things, and even himself, in such a way
as to feel that in it all there was at once some insoluble enigma and some
inexplicable kinship for which he could never quite produce any evidence. Then
these things would seem tangibly comprehensible, and yet he could never
entirely resolve them into words and ideas. Between events and himself, indeed
between his own feelings and some inmost self that craved understanding of
them, there always remained a dividing-line, which receded before his desire,
like a horizon, the closer he tried to come to it. Indeed, the more accurately
he circumscribed his feelings with thoughts, and the more familiar they became
to him, the stranger and more incomprehensible did they seem to become, in
equal measure; so that it no longer even seemed as though they were retreating
before him, but as though he himself were withdrawing from them, and yet
without being able to shake off the illusion of coming closer to them.
This queer antithesis, which
was so difficult for him to grasp, later occupied an important phase of his
spiritual development; it was something that tore at his soul, as though to
rend it apart, and for a long time it was his soul’s chief problem and the
chief threat to it.
For the present, however, the
severity of these struggles was indicated only by a frequent sudden lassitude,
alarming him, as it were, from a long way off, when ever some ambiguous, odd
mood such as this just now-brought him a foreboding of it. Then he would seem
to himself as powerless as a captive, as one who had been abandoned and shut
away as much from himself as from others. At such times he could have screamed
with desperation and the horror of emptiness; but instead of doing anything of
the kind he would avert himself from this solemn and expectant, tormented,
wearied being within himself and-still aghast at his abrupt renunciation-would
begin to listen, more and more enchanted by their warm, sinful breath, to the
whispering voices of his solitude.
behind it. Then the darkness
seemed to shrink and withdraw, only in the next instant to advance again and
stand motionless as a wall outside the window. This darkness was a world apart.
It had descended upon the earth like a horde of black enemies, slaughtering or
banishing human beings, or, whatever it did, blotting out all trace of them.
And it seemed to Törless that
he was glad of this. At this moment he had no liking for human beings-for all
who were adults. He never liked them when it was dark. He was in the habit then
of cancelling them out of his thoughts. After that the world seemed to him like
a sombre, empty house, and in his breast there was a sense of awe and horror,
as though he must now search room after room-dark rooms where he did not know
what the corners might conceal-groping his way across thresholds that no human
foot would ever step on again, until-until in one room the doors would suddenly
slam behind him and before him and he would stand confronting the mistress of
the black hordes herself. And at the same instant the locks would snap shut in
all the doors through which he had come; and only far beyond, outside the
walls, would the shades of darkness stand on guard like black eunuchs, warding
off any human approach.
This was his kind of
loneliness since he had been left in the lurch that time-in the woods, where he
had wept so bitterly. It held for him the lure of woman and of something
monstrous. He felt it as a woman, but its breath was only a gasping in his
chest, its face a whirling forgetfulness of all human faces, and the movements
of its hands a shuddering all through his body....
He feared this fantasy, for
he was aware of the perverted lust in the secrecy of it, and he was disturbed
by the thought that such imaginings might gain more and more power over him.
But they would overwhelm him just when he believed himself to be most serious
and most pure. It happened, perhaps, as a reaction to those moments when he had
an inkling of another emotional awareness, which, though it was already
implicit in him, was as yet beyond his years. For there is, in the development
of every fine moral energy, such an early point where it weakens the soul whose
most daring experience it will perhaps be some day-just as if it had first to
send down its roots, gropingly, to disturb the ground that they will afterwards
hold together; and it is for this reason that boys with a
* * *
Törless suddenly proposed
that they should pay and go. A look of understanding gleamed in Beineberg’s
eyes: he knew and shared the mood. Törless was revolted by this concord, and
his dislike of Beineberg quickened again; he felt himself degraded by their
having anything in common.
But that had by now
practically become part of it all. Degradation is but one solitude more and yet
another dark wall.
And so, without speaking to
each other, they set out on a certain road.
There must have been a light
shower of rain a few minutes earlier-the air was moist and heavy, a misty halo trembled
round the street-lamps, and here and there the pavement glimmered.
Törless’s sword clattered on
the stones, and he drew it closer to his side. But there was still the sound of
his heels on the pavement, and even that sent a queer shiver through him. After
a while, leaving the pavements of the town behind them, they had soft ground
underfoot and were walking along wide village streets towards the river. The
water rolled along, black and sluggish, and with deep gurgling sounds under
the wooden bridge. There was a single lamp there, with broken, dusty glass. Now
and then the gleam of the light, which was blown uneasily hither and thither by
the gusts of wind, would fall on a rippling wave below and dissolve on its
crept. The rounded foot-planks of the bridge yielded under every step . . .
revolving forward, then back again. .
Beineberg stopped. The
farther bank was thickly wooded, and along the road, which turned at a
right-angle on the other side and continued along the river, the trees had the
menacing look of a black, impenetrable wall. Only if one looked carefully did
one discover a narrow, hidden path leading straight on and into it. A~ they
went on their way through the thick, rank undergrowth, which brushed against
their clothes, they were continually showered with drops. After a while they
had to stop again and strike a match. It was very quiet now; even the gurgling
of the river could not be heard. Suddenly from the distance there came a vague,
broken sound. It was like a cry or a warning. Or perhaps it was merely like a
call from some inarticulate creature that, somewhere ahead, was breaking its
way through the bushes, like themselves. They walked on towards this sound,
stopped again, and again walked on. All in all it was perhaps a quarter of an
hour before, with a long breath of relief, they recognized loud voices and the
notes of a concertina.
Now the trees grew more
sparsely, and a few paces further they found themselves standing on the edge of
a clearing, in the midst of which there was a squat, square building, two
storeys high.
It was the old pump-room. In
former times it had been used by the people of the little town and peasants
from the neighbouring countryside for taking the waters; but for years now it
had been almost empty. Only the ground floor was still used, as a tavern, and
one that was of ill repute.
The two boys stopped for a
moment, listening.
Törless was just taking a
step forward, about to issue forth from the thicket, when there was a sound of
heavy boots tramping on the floor-boards inside the house and a drunken man
came staggering out of the door. Behind him, in the shadow of the doorway,
stood a woman, and they could hear her whispering hurriedly and angrily, as
though demanding something from the man. He merely laughed, swaying on his
feet. Then it seemed that the woman was pleading, but again the words were
indistinguishable; all that could be made out was the coaxing, cajoling tone of
the voice. Now she advanced further and laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. The
moon shone upon her, lighting up her petticoat, her jacket, her pleading smile.
The man stared straight ahead of him, shook his head, and kept his hands firmly
in his pockets. Then he spat and pushed the woman away, perhaps because of
something she had said. Now their voices were raised and what they said could
be understood.
“-so you won’t pay up, eh?
You-!”
“You just take yourself off
upstairs, you dirty slut!”
“The cheek! You peasant clod,
you!”
By way of answer the drunken
man bent down, with a clumsy movement, and picked up a stone. “If you don’t
clear off, you silly bitch, I’ll knock your block off!”, and he raised his arm,
preparing to throw the stone at her. T8rless heard the woman running up the
steps with a last cry of abuse.
The man stood still for a
moment, irresolutely holding the stone in his hand. He laughed, glanced up at
the sky, where the moon floated, wine-yellow, among black clouds, and then
stared at the dark mass of the thicket, as though he were wondering whether to
go that way. Warily Törless drew his foot back; he could feel his heart
hammering in his throat. Finally, however, the drunken man seemed to reach a
decision. The stone dropped from his hand. With a raucous, triumphant laugh he
shouted an obscenity up at the window; then he disappeared round the corner.
The two boys stood motionless
a while longer. “Did you recognise her?” Beineberg whispered. “lt was Bozena.”
Törless did not answer; he was listening, trying to make sure that the drunken
man was not coming back again. Then Beineberg gave him a push forward. In
swift, wary dashes-avoiding the wedge of light from the ground-floor
window-they crossed the clearing and entered the dark house. A wooden
staircase, narrow and twisting, led up to the first floor. Here their footsteps
must have been heard, or perhaps the clatter of their swords against the
woodwork, for the door of the tavern room opened and someone came out to see
who was in the house; at the same time the concertina ceased playing, and there
was a momentary hush in the talk, a pause of suspense.
Startled, Törless pressed
close to the staircase wall. But in spite of the darkness it seemed he had been
seen, for he heard the barmaid’s jeering voice as the door was shut again, and whatever
she said was followed by guffaws of laughter.
On the first-floor landing it
was pitch-dark. They hardly dared to take another step for fear of knocking
something over and making a noise. Fumbling excitedly, they felt their way
along towards the door-handle.
* * *
As a peasant girl Bozena had
gone to the capital, where she went into service and in time became a lady’s
maid.
At first she did quite well.
Her peasant ways, which she never entirely lost any more than her plodding,
firm-footed walk, inspired confidence in her mistresses, who liked the whiff of
the cow-shed about her and the simplicity they associated with it; it also
inspired amorous desires in her masters, who liked the whiff of the cowshed
for other reasons. Perhaps from caprice, and perhaps too from discontent and a
vague yearning for passion, she gave up this quiet, orderly life. She took a
job as a waitress, fell ill, found employment in a house of public resort, one
of the smarter kind, and in the course of time, in the same measure as her
debauched life wore her down, drifted further and further out into the
provinces again.
And finally here, where she
had now been living for several years, not far from her native village, she
helped in the tavern during the day and spent the evenings reading cheap
novels, smoking cigarettes, and occasionally having a man in her room.
She had not yet become
actually ugly, but her face was strikingly lacking in any sort of charm, and
she evidently went to some trouble to emphasise this by her general air and
behaviour. She liked to convey that she was well acquainted with the smartness
and the manners of the stylish world, but that she had got beyond all that sort
of thing. She was fond of declaring that she did not care a snap of the fingers
for that, or for herself, or indeed for anything whatsoever. On this account,
and in spite of her blowsiness, she enjoyed a certain degree of respect among
the peasant lads of the neighbourhood. True, they spat when they spoke of her,
and felt obliged to treat her with even more coarseness than other girls, but
at bottom they were really mightily proud of this ‘damned slut’ who had issued
from their own midst and who had so thoroughly seen through the veneer of the
world. Singly and furtively, it is true, but ever and again they came to see
her. Thus Bozena found a residue of pride and self-justification in her life.
But what gave her perhaps even greater satisfaction was the young gentlemen
from ‘the college’. For their benefit she deliberately displayed her crudest
and most repellent qualities, because-as she was in the habit of putting it-in
spite of that they still came creeping along to her just the same.
When the two friends came in
she was, as usual, lying on her bed, smoking and reading.
Even as he hesitated in the
doorway, Törless was greedily devouring her with his eyes.
“Bless my soul, look at the
pretty boys that have come!” she called out in scornful greeting, surveying
them with a shade of contempt. “Well, young Baron? What’ll Mamma say to this,
eh?” This was the sort of welcome to be expected from her.
“Oh, shut up!” Beineberg
muttered, sitting down on the bed beside her. Törless sat down at some
distance; he was annoyed with Bozena for taking no notice of him and pretending
she did not know him.
Visits to this woman had
recently become his sole and secret delight. Towards the end of the week he
would become restless, scarcely able to wait for Sunday, when he would steal
off to her in the evening. It was chiefly this necessary stealth that preoccupied
him. What, for instance, if the drunken yokels in the bar-room just now had
taken it into their heads to pursue him? Say for the sheer pleasure of taking a
swipe at the vicious young gentleman. .. . He was no coward, but he knew he was
defenceless here. By comparison with those big fists his dainty sword was a
mockery. And apart from that, the disgrace and the punishment that would
follow! There would be nothing for it but to run, or to plead for mercy. Or to
let himself be protected by Bozena. The thought went shuddering through him.
But that was it! That was just it! Nothing else! This fear, this
self-abandonment, was what seduced him anew every time. This stepping out of
his privileged position and going among common people-among them? no, lower
than them!
He was not vicious. When it
came to the point his repugnance always had the upper hand, and together with
it his fear of possible consequences. It was only his imagination that had
taken an unhealthy turn. When the days of the week began to lay themselves,
leaden, one by one, upon his life, these searing lures began to work upon him.
The memories of these visits gradually took on the character of a peculiar
temptation. Bozena appeared to him as a creature of monstrous degradation, and
his relationship to her, with the sensations it evoked in him, was like a cruel
rite of self-sacrifice. It fascinated him to have to break the bounds of his
ordinary life, leaving behind his privileged position, the ideas and feelings
with which he was, as it were, being injected, all those things that gave him
nothing and only oppressed him. It fascinated him to throw everything to the
winds and, shorn of it all, to go racing off crazily and take his refuge with
this woman.
This was no different from
the way it is with such young people generally. Had Bozena been pure and
beautiful and had he been capable of love at that time, he would perhaps have
sunk his teeth in her flesh, so heightening their lust to the pitch of pain.
For the awakening boy’s first passion is not love for the one, but hatred for
all. The feeling of not being understood and of not understanding the world is
no mere accompaniment of first passion, but its sole non-accidental cause. And
the passion itself is a panic-stricken flight in which being together with the
other means only a doubled solitude.
Almost every first passion is
of short duration and leaves a bitter after-taste. It is a mistake, a
disappointment. Afterwards one cannot understand how one could ever have felt
it, and does not know what to blame for it all. That is because the characters
in this drama are to a large extent accidental to each other: chance companions
on some wild flight. When everything has calmed down, they no longer recognise
each other. They become aware of discordant elements in each other, since they
are no longer aware of any concord.
With Törless it was different
only because he was alone. The aging and degraded prostitute could not release all
the forces in him. Yet she was woman enough to, as it were, bring to the
surface, prematurely, particles of his innermost being, of all that still lay
dormant in him waiting for the moment of fulfilment.
Such, then, were his weird
imaginings and fantastic temptations. But at times he was almost as ready to
fling himself on the ground, screaming with desperation.
* * *
Bozena was still taking no
notice of Törless. She seemed to be behaving in this way out of spite, merely
in order to annoy him. Suddenly she broke the talk off by saying: “Give me some
money, you boys, I’ll fetch tea and gin.”
Törless gave her one of the
silver coins that had been a present from his mother that afternoon.
She took a battered
spirit-lamp from the window-sill and lit it. Then she went out, slowly
shuffling down the stairs.
Beineberg nudged Törless.
“Why are you being such a bore? She’ll think you’re scared.”
“Leave me out of it,” Törless
said. “I’m not in the mood. You go ahead and have your fun with her. By the
way, why does she keep on about your mother like that?”
“Since she’s known my name
she insists she was once in service with my aunt and knew my mother. I dare say
there’s some truth in it, but I’m sure the rest is a lie-she likes lying.
Anyway, I can’t quite see what the joke is.”
Törless blushed. A strange
thought had just occurred to him. But at that moment Bozena came back with the
gin and sat down on the bed again beside Beineberg. And she at once took the
conversation up where it had been dropped.
“Yes, your Mamma was a
good-looking girl. You don’t take after her very much, really, with those ears
of yours sticking out like that. She was a gay one, too. There were plenty of
men after her, I dare say. How right she was.
After a pause, something
particularly amusing seemed to occur to her. “You know your uncle, the dragoon
officer... Karl was his name, I think, he was a cousin of your mother’s. How he
did pay court to her! But on Sundays, when the ladies were in church, he was
after me. Every few minutes I had to be bringing something to his room for him.
A stylish chap he was, I remember him well, but he didn’t beat around the bush
much, I must say. . .” And she laughed insinuatingly. Then she continued
elaborating this theme, which apparently afforded her particular pleasure. Her
manner of speech was impertinently familiar, and her tone was even more
scurrilous than her words. “. . . It’s my guess your mother had a liking for
him too. If she’d only known about the goings-on! I dare say your aunt would
have had to kick me out of the house, and him too. That’s the way fine ladies
are, and all the more when they haven’t got a man yet. Dear Bozena here and
dear Bozena there-that’s the way it went all day long. But when the cook got in
the family way, my word, you should have heard them! I’m sure what they think
about the like of us is that we only wash our feet once a year. Not that they
said a word to the cook, but I heard plenty when I happened to be in the room
and they happened to be talking about it. Your mother looked as if she felt
like drinking nothing but eau-de-Cologne. And for all that it wasn’t so long
before your aunt herself had a belly on her so big it nearly touched her nose.
. .
While Bozena was talking,
Törless felt almost totally defenceless against her coarse innuendos.
He could see vividly before
his eyes what she was describing Beineberg’s mother turned into his own. He
remembered the bright rooms at home; the well-cared-for, immaculate,
unapproachable faces that often inspired him with a certain awe when his
parents gave dinner-parties; the cultivated, cool hands that seemed to lose
none of their dignity even while handling knife and fork. Many such details
came back to his mind, and he was ashamed of being here in a malodorous little
room, trembling whenever he replied to the humiliating words uttered by a
prostitute. His memory of the perfected manners of that society, which never
for an instant allowed itself any slip out of its own style, had a stronger
effect on him than any moral considerations. The upheaval of his dark passions
suddenly seemed ridiculous. With visionary intensity he saw the cool gesture of
rejection, the shocked smile, with which those people would brush him off, like
a small, unclean animal. Nevertheless he remained sitting where he was, as
though transfixed.
For with every detail that he
remembered riot only the shame grew greater in him, but with it a chain of ugly
thoughts. It had begun when Beineberg explained what Bozena was talking about
and Törless had blushed.
At that moment he had
suddenly found himself thinking of his own mother, and this now held him in its
grip and he could not shake it off. At first it had simply shot across the frontiers
of his consciousness-a mere flash of something, too far away to be recognised,
on the very edge of his mind-something that could scarcely be called a thought
at all. And immediately it had been followed by a series of questions that were
meant to cover it up: ‘What is it that makes it possible for this woman Bozena
to bring her debased existence into proximity with my mother’s existence? To
squeeze up against her in the narrow space of one and the same thought? Why
does she not bow down and touch the ground with her forehead when she speaks
of her, if she must speak of her at all? Why isn’t it as plain as if there were
an abyss between them that they have nothing whatsoever in common? How can it
be like this?-this woman, who is for me a maze of all sexual lust, and my
mother, who up to now moved through my life like a star, beyond the reach of
all desire, in some cloudless distance, clear and without depths
But all these questions were
not the core of the matter. They scarcely touched it. They were something
secondary, something that occurred to Törless only afterwards. They multiplied
only because none of them pointed to the real thing. They were only ways of
dodging the real problem, circumlocutions for the fact that, all at once,
preconsciously, instinctively, an association of feelings had come about that
was an inimical answer to the questions even before they were formulated.
Törless devoured Bozena with his eyes, and at the same time was unable to put
his mother out of his mind. It
was his being that linked
them one with another, inextricably; everything else was only a writhing under
this convolution of ideas. This was the sole fad. But because he was unable to
shake himself free of its tyranny, it assumed a terrible, vague significance that
hovered over all his efforts like a perfidious smile.
* * *
Törless looked around the
room, trying to rid himself of these thoughts. But by now everything had taken
on the one aspect. The little iron stove with the patches of rust on the lid,
the bed with the rickety posts and the paint peeling off the wooden frame, the
dirty blankets showing through holes in the worn counterpane; Bozena with her
shift slipping off one shoulder, the common, glaring red of her petticoat, and
her broad, cackling laughter; and finally Beineberg, whose behaviour by
contrast with other times struck Törless as like that of a lecherous priest who
had taken leave of his senses and was weaving equivocal words into the solemn
formulae of a prayer: all this was urgent in one and the same direction,
invading him and violently turning his thoughts back again and again.
Only at one place did his
gaze, which fled nervously from one thing to another, find rest. That was above
the little curtain over the lower half of the window. There the sky looked in,
with the clouds travelling across it, and the unmoving moon.
Then he felt as if he had
suddenly stepped out of doors into the fresh, calm air of the night. For a
while all his thoughts grew still. A pleasant memory came back to him: that of
the house they had taken in the country the previous summer. . . nights in the
silent grounds . . . a velvety dark firmament tremulous with stars . . . his
mother’s voice from the depths of the garden, where she was strolling on the
faintly glimmering gravel paths, together with his father . . . songs that she
hummed quietly to herself . . . But at once-a cold shudder went through
him-there was again this tormenting comparison. What must the two of them have
been feeling then? love? The thought came to him now for the first time. But
no, that was something entirely different. That was nothing for grown-up
people, and least of all for his parents. Sitting at the open window at night
and feeling abandoned by everyone, feeling different from the grown-ups,
misunderstood by every laugh and every mocking glance, being unable to explain
to anybody what one already felt oneself to be, and yearning for her, the
one who would understand-that was love! But in order to feel that one must be
young and lonely. With them it must have been something different, something
calm and composed. Mamma simply hummed a little song there in the evening, in
the dark garden, and was cheerful. - -.
But that was the very thing
Törless could not understand. The patient plans that for the adult
imperceptibly link the days into months and years were still beyond his ken.
And so too was that blunting of perception which makes it cease to be anything
of a problem when yet another day draws to its close. His life was focused on
each single day. For him each night meant a void, a grave, extinction. The
capacity to lay oneself down to die at the end of every day, without thinking
anything of it, was something he had not yet acquired.
That was why he had always
supposed there was something behind it that they were keeping from him. The
nights seemed to him like dark gateways to mysterious joys that were kept a
secret from him, so that his life remained empty and unhappy.
He recalled the peculiar ring
of his mother’s laughter and how, as he had observed on one of those evenings,
she had clung more tightly, as though jokingly, to her husband’s arm. There
seemed to be no doubt. There must be a gate leading hither even out of the
world of those calm and irreproachable beings. And now, since he knew, he could
think of it only with that special smile of his, expressing the malicious
mistrust against which he struggled in vain ...
Meanwhile Bozena had gone on
talking. Törless began to listen with half an ear. She was talking about
somebody who also came almost every Sunday. “Let me see now, what’s his name?
He’s in your class.”
“Reiting?”
“What does he look like?”
“He’s about as tall as him
over there,” Bozena said with a jerk of her head in Törless’s direction, “only
his head is a bit too big.”
“Oh, Basini?”
“Yes, that’s right, that’s
what he said his name was. He’s really comical. And quite the fine gentleman,
drinks nothing but wine.
But he’s stupid. It costs him
a pretty penny, and he never does anything but tell me stories. He boasts about
the love-affairs he says he has at home. What does he get out of it? I can see
quite plainly it’s the first time in his life he’s been with a woman. You’re
only a young lad too, but you’ve got a nerve. But he’s clumsy and frightened of
it, and that’s why he spins his long-winded stories about how to treat women if
you’re a sensualist-yes, that’s what he calls himself. He says women don’t
deserve anything else. How do the like of you know that so soon, I wonder?”
By way of answer Beineberg
grinned at her mockingly.
“Oh all right, laugh if you
like!” Bozena flung at him in amusement. “One time I asked him if he wouldn’t
be ashamed for his mother to know. ‘Mother? Mother?’ he said. ‘What’s that?
There’s no such thing now. I left that at home, before I came to see you. - -
Yes, you may well prick up
your big ears, that’s what you boys are like! Good little sons you are, you
fine young gentlemen! It almost makes me sorry for your mothers!”
At these words Törless
recalled his former notion of himself, realizing how he was leaving everything
behind him and betraying the image of his parents. And now he had to admit to
himself that ~n this he was not even doing something unique and terrible; it
was really quite commonplace. He was ashamed. But the other thought were there
again too. They do it too! They betray you! You have secret accomplices!
Perhaps it is somehow different with them, but this one thing must be the same:
a secret, frightful joy. Something ~n which one can drown oneself and all one’s
fear of the monotony of the days. - - Perhaps indeed they know more? - . -
something quite extraordinary? For in the daytime they are so calm . . - Arid
that laughter of his mother’s? . . - as though she were going, with quiet
steps, to shut all the doors -
In this conflict there came a
moment when Törless abandoned himself, letting the tempest rage over his
suffocating heart.
And at that very moment
Bozena got up and came over to him.
“Why is our little boy not
talking? Miserable, eh?”
Beineberg whispered something
and smiled spitefully.
“Homesick, eh? Mamma’s gone
away, has she? And the moment she’s gone the naughty boy comes running to the
like of me’.”
Bozena dug her fingers
caressingly into his hair.
“Come on, don’t be silly.
Give me a kiss, that’s right. You fine gentry are only made of flesh and blood,
after all, the same as everyone else,” and she bent his head back.
Törless wanted to say
something, to pull himself together and utter some crude joke, for he felt that
everything now depended on his being able to speak some indifferent word that
would not betray him. But he could not utter a sound. With a stony smile he
gazed into the depraved face, the blank eyes looking down into his own, and
then the outer world began to shrink, to withdraw further and further.. . . For
a moment there loomed before him the image of the peasant who had picked up the
stone, and it seemed to jeer at him. Then he was quite alone.
“I say,” Reiting whispered,
“I’ve got him.” Who?”
“The chap who’s been stealing
from the lockers!”
Törless had just come in,
together with Beineberg. It was only a short time till supper, and the usher on
duty had already left. Groups of chattering boys had formed between the green
baize tables, and the whole large room hummed and whirred with warm life. It
was the usual classroom with whitewashed walls, a big black crucifix, and
portraits of the Emperor and Empress on each side of the blackboard. Beside the
large iron stove, which was not yet lighted, the boys sat-some of them on the
platform, some of them on overturned chairs-among them those who had been at
the railway station that afternoon to see Törless’s parents off. Apart from Reiting
they were the tall Hofmeier and Dschjusch, a little Polish count who was known
by this nickname.
Törless felt a certain
curiosity.
The lockers, which were at
the back of the room, were long cupboards subdivided into compartments that
could be locked, and in them the boys kept their letters, books, money, and all
their little pet possessions.
For some time now various
boys had been complaining that they had missed small sums of money, but none of
them had anything definite to go on.
Beineberg was the first to be
able to say with certainty that the previous week he had been robbed of a
considerable sum of money. But only Reiting and Törless knew of it.
They suspected the servants.
“Go on, tell us!” Törless
urged.
But Reiting made a swift sign
to him. “Sssh! Later. Nobody knows anything about it yet.”
“Servant?” Törless whispered.
“Well, give us some idea,
anyway. Who?”
Reiting turned away from the
others and said in a low voice: “B.” No one else had heard anything of this
whispered conversation. Törless was thunderstruck at what he had learnt. B.?
That could only be Basini. And surely that wasn’t possible! His mother was a
wealthy woman, and his guardian an ‘Excellency’. Törless could not bring
himself to believe it, and yet time and again the story Bozena had told came to
his mind.
He could scarcely wait for
the moment when the others went in to supper. Beineberg and Reiting remained
behind, on the pretext of having had so much to eat that afternoon.
Reiting suggested that it
would be better to go ‘upstairs’ and talk about it there.
They went out into the
corridor, which stretched endlessly in each direction outside the classroom.
The flickering gaslight lit it only in patches, and their footsteps echoed from
recess to recess, however lightly they walked.
About fifty yards from the
door there was a staircase leading up to the second floor, where the natural
science ‘specimen room was, and other collections that were used in teaching.
There were also a large number of empty rooms.
From there on the stairs
became narrow and went up, in short flights at right-angles to each other, to
the attics. And-as old buildings are often whimsical in plan, with an abundance
of nooks and crannies and unmotivated steps-this staircase actually went a
considerable way above the level of the attics, so that on the other side of
the heavy, iron, locked door, which blocked the way further, it was necessary
to go down again, by a flight of wooden steps, in order to reach the floor of
the attic.
What this meant was that on
this side of the attic door was waste space some yards high, reaching up into
the rafters. In this place, which hardly anybody ever entered, old
stage-scenery had been stored, dating from school theatricals in the remote
past.
Even at brightest noon the
daylight on this staircase was reduced
to a twilight, which was
choked with dust, for this way into the attic, lying as it did in a remote wing
of the enormous building, was almost never used.
From the top landing
Beineberg swung himself over the bannister and, still holding on to the bars,
let himself drop between the pieces of scenery. Reiting and Törless followed
him. There they got a footing on a crate that had been specially dragged along
for that purpose, and from there jumped to the floor.
Even if the eye of someone
standing on the stairs had become accustomed to the darkness, that person could
not possibly have seen anything there but an irregular and indistinct jumble of
variously shaped pieces of stage-scenery all piled up together.
But when Beineberg shifted
one of these pieces of scenery slightly to one side, a narrow tunnel opened up
before the boys.
They hid the crate that had
aided them in their descent, and entered the tunnel.
Here it became completely
dark, and one had to know one’s way very well in order to make progress. Now and
then one of the big pieces of canvas scenery rustled, when they brushed against
it; there was a scurrying on the floors as of startled mice; and their nostrils
were filled with a musty smell as though from long-unopened trunks.
The three boys, who knew the
way well, nevertheless went along very cautiously, step for step, careful to
avoid tripping on any of the ropes pulled tight across the floor as traps and
alarm-signals.
It was some time before they
reached a little door on their right, only a short distance from the wall
separating this place from the attic.
When Beineberg opened this
door they found themselves in a narrow room under the top landing. It looked
fantastic enough in the light of a small, flickering oil-lamp, which Beineberg
had lit.
The ceiling was horizontal
only where it was directly under the landing, and even here only just high
enough for one to be able to stand upright. Towards the back it sloped away,
following the line of the stairs, until it ended in an acute angle. The thin partition
wall at the opposite side of the room divided the attic from the staircase, and
the third wall was formed by the brickwork on which the stairs rested. It was
only the fourth wall, in which the door was, that seemed to have been added
specially. Doubtless it had been built with the intention of making a small
room here to keep tools in, unless perhaps it owed its existence only to a whim
on the part of the architect, in whom this dark nook had inspired the medieval
notion of walling it up to make a hiding-place.
However that might be, apart
from these three boys there was doubtless scarcely anyone in the whole school
who knew of its existence, and still less anyone who thought of putting it to
any use.
And so they had been free to
furnish it entirely according to their own fantastic notions.
The walls were completely
draped with some blood-red bunting that Reiting and Beineberg had purloined
from one of the store-rooms, and the floor was covered with a double layer of
thick woolly horse-blanket, of the kind that was used in the dormitories as an
extra blanket in winter. In the front part of the room stood some low boxes,
covered with material, which served as seats; at the back, in the acute angle
formed by the sloping ceiling and the floor, a sort of bed had been made, large
enough for three or four people, and this part could be darkened by the drawing
of a curtain, separating it from the rest of the room.
On the wall by the door hung
a loaded revolver.
Törless did not like this
room. True, the constriction and isolation it afforded appealed to him; it was
like being deep inside a mountain, and the smell of the dusty old
stage-scenery gave rise to all sorts of vague sensations in him. But the
concealment, those trip-ropes to give the alert, and this revolver, which was
meant to provide the utmost illusion of defiance and secrecy, struck him as
ridiculous. It was as though they were trying to pretend they were leading the
life of bandits.
Actually the only reason why
Törless joined in was that he did not want to lag behind the other two.
Beineberg and Reiting themselves took the whole thing very seriously indeed.
Törless knew that. He also knew that Beineberg had skeleton keys that would
open the doors of all the cellars and attics in the school building, and that
he often slipped away from lessons for several hours in order to sit
somewhere-high up in the rafters of the roof, or underground in one of the many
semiruinous, labyrinthine vaults-by the light of a little lamp, which he always
carried about with him, reading adventure stories or thinking his thoughts
about supernatural things.
He knew similar things of
Reiting, who also had his hidden retreats, where he kept secret diaries; and
these diaries were filled with audacious plans for the future and with exact
records of the staging, and course of
the numerous intrigues that he instituted among the other boys. For Reiting
knew no greater pleasure than to set people against each other, subduing one
with the aid of each other and revelling in favours and flatteries obtained by
extortion, in which he could still sense the resistance of his victim’s hate.
“I’m practising,” was the
only excuse he gave, and he gave it with an affable laugh. It was also by way
of practising that almost daily he would box in some out-of-the-way place,
against a wall, 3 tree, or a table, to strengthen his arms and harden his hands
with callouses.
Törless knew about all this,
but he could understand it only up to a certain point. He had several times
accompanied both Reiting and Beineberg on their singular paths. The fantastic
element in it all did in fact appeal to him. And what he also liked was
afterwards coming back into the daylight, walking among the other boys, and
being back in the midst of their jollity, while he could still feel the
excitements of solitude and the hallucinations of darkness trembling his eyes
and ears. But when Beineberg or Reiting, for the sake of having someone to talk
to about themselves, on such occasions expounded what impelled them to all
this, his understanding failed. He even considered Reiting somewhat overstrung.
For Reiting was particularly fond of talking about how his father, who had one
day disappeared, had been a strangely unsettled person. His name was, as a
matter of fact, supposed to be only an incognito, concealing that of a very
exalted family. He expected that his mother would make him acquainted with
far-reaching claims that be would in due course put forward; he had day-dreams
of coups d’etat and high politics, and hence intended to be an officer.
Törless simply could not take
such ambitions seriously. The centuries of revolutions seemed to him past and
gone once and for all. Nevertheless Reiting was quite capable of putting his
ideas into practice, though for the present only on a small scale. He was a
tyrant, inexorable in his treatment of anyone who opposed him. His supporters
changed from day to day, but he always managed to have the majority on his
side. This was his great gift. A couple of years earlier he had waged a great
war against Beineberg, which ended in the defeat of the latter. Finally
Beineberg had been pretty well isolated, and this although in his judgment of
people, his coolness and his capacity for arousing antipathy against those who
incurred his disfavour, he was scarcely less formidable than his opponent. But
he lacked Reiting’s charm and winning ways. His composure and his unctuous
philosophic pose filled almost everyone with mistrust. One could not help
suspecting something excessive and unsavoury at the bottom of his personality.
Nevertheless he had caused Reiting great difficulties, and Reiting’s victory
had been little more than a matter of luck. Since that time they found it
profitable to combine forces.
Törless, by contrast,
remained indifferent to these things. Hence also he had no skill in them.
Nevertheless he too was enclosed in this world and every day could see for
himself what it meant to play the leading part in a State-for in such a school
each class constituted a small State in itself. Thus he had a certain diffident
respect for his two friends. The urge he sometimes felt to emulate them,
however, always remained a matter of dilettante experiment. Hence, and also
because he was the younger, his relationship to them was that of a disciple or
assistant. He enjoyed their protection, and they for their part would gladly
listen to his advice. For Törless’s mind was the most subtle. Once he was set
on a trail, he was extremely ingenious in thinking of the most abstruse
combinations. Nor was anyone else so exact as he in foreseeing the various
possible reactions to be expected of a person in a given situation. Only when
it was a matter of reaching a decision, of accepting one of these psychological
possibilities as the definite probability and taking the risk of acting on it,
did he fail, losing both interest and energy. Still, he enjoyed his role of
secret chief of staff, and this all the more since it was practically the only
thing that set him going, stirring him out of his state of deep inner boredom.
Sometimes, however, he did
realise how much he was losing as a result of this psychological dependence. He
was aware that everything he did was merely a game, merely something to help
him over this time at school, this larval period of his existence. It was without
relation to his real personality, which would emerge only later, at some time
still a long way off in the future.
For when on certain occasions
he saw how very seriously his two friends took these things, he felt quite
unable to understand them.
He would have liked to make
fun of them, but still he could not help being afraid that there might be more
truth behind their fantastic notions than he was capable of admitting to
himself. He felt 25 though torn between two worlds: one was the solid everyday
world of respectable citizens, in which all that went on was well regulated and
rational, and which he knew from home, and the other was a world of adventure,
full of darkness, mystery, blood, and undreamt-of surprises. It seemed then as
though one excluded the other. A mocking smile, which he would have liked to
keep always on his lips, and a shudder that ran down his spine cut across each
other. What came about then was an incandescent flickering of his thoughts....
Then he would yearn to feel
something firm in himself at long last, to feel definite needs that would
distinguish between good and bad, between what he could make use of and what
was useless, and to know he himself was making the choice, even though
wrongly-for even that would be better than being so excessively receptive that
he simply soaked up everything. .
When he entered the little
room this inner dichotomy had asserted itself in him again, as it always did
here.
Meanwhile Reiting had begun
telling what he had discovered. Basini had owed him money and had kept on
promising to pay and putting it off, each time giving his word of honour that
he was really going to pay the next time.
“Well, I didn’t particularly
mind that,” Reiting commented. “The longer it went on, the more he was in my
power. I mean, after all, breaking one’s word three or four times is no joke,
is it? But in the end I needed my money myself. I pointed this out to him, and
lie gave me his solemn oath. And of course didn’t stick to it that time either.
So then I told him I’d report him. He asked for two days’ grace, as he was
expecting supplies from his guardian. In the mean-time, however, I did some
investigating into his circumstances. I wanted to find out if he was in anyone
else’s power as well. After all, one must know what one has to reckon with.
“I wasn’t particularly
pleased with what I discovered. He was in debt to Dschjusch and to several of
the others as well. He’d paid back some of it, and of course out of the money
he still owed me. It was the others he felt it most urgent to pay. That annoyed
me. 1 wasn’t going to have him thinking l was the easy-going one of the lot. I
could scarcely have put up with that. But I thought to myself: ‘Let’s just wait
and see. Sooner or later there’ll be an opportunity to knock that sort
of idea out of his head.’ Once he mentioned the actual amount he was expecting,
sort of casually, you know, to put my mind at rest by showing me it was more
than what he owed me. So I checked up with the others and found out that the
total amount he owed was far more than what he said he was expecting. ‘Aha,’ I
thought to myself, ‘so now I suppose he’ll try it on yet once again.’
“And, sure enough, he came
along to me, all confidentially, and asked me to give him a little more time,
as the others were pressing him so hard. But this time I was dead cold with
him. ‘Beg off from the others,’ I said to him, ‘I’m not in the habit of taking
a back seat.’ So he said: ‘I know you better, I trust you more.’ ‘You’ll bring
me the money tomorrow,’ I said to him, ‘or you’ll have to comply with my terms.
That’s my last word.’ ‘What terms?’ he wanted to know. Oh, you should have
heard him! As if he were prepared to sell his soul. ‘What terms? Oho! You’ll
have to act as my vassal in all my enterprises.’ ‘Oh, if that’s all, I’ll do
that all right, I’m glad to be on your side.’ ‘Oh no, not just when you
happen to like it. You’ll have to do everything I tell you to do-in blind
obedience!’ So now he squinted at me in a way that was half grinning and half
embarrassed. He didn’t know how far he ought to go, what he was letting himself
in for, or how serious I was. Probably he would have promised me anything, but
of course he couldn’t help being afraid I was only putting him to the test. So
in the end he got very red and said, ‘I’ll bring you the money.’ I was getting
my fun out of him, he’d turned out to be a fellow like that and I’d never taken
any notice of him before, among the fifty others. I mean, he never sort of
counted at all, did he? And now suddenly he’d come so close to me that I could
see right into him, down to the last detail. I knew for a certainty the fellow
was ready to sell himself-and without making much fuss about it, only so long
as he could keep people from finding out. It was a real surprise, and there’s no
nicer sight than that: when a fellow is suddenly laid bare before you, and
suddenly his way of living, which you’ve never troubled to notice before, is
exposed to your gaze like the worm-holes you see when a piece of timber splits
open.
“Right enough, the next day
he brought me the money. And that wasn’t all, either. He actually invited me to
have a drink with him down town. He ordered wine, cake, and cigarettes, and
pressed it all on me-out of ‘gratitude’, because I’d been so patient. The only
thing about it I didn’t like was how awfully innocent and friendly he acted.
Just as if there’d never been an offensive word said between us. I said as
much. But that only made him more cordial than ever. It was as if he wanted to
wriggle out of my grip and get on equal terms with me again. He behaved as if
it were all over and done with, and every other word he uttered was to assure
me of his friendship. Only there was something in his eyes that was a sort of
clutching at me as though he were afraid of losing this feeling of intimacy he
had artificially worked up. In the end I was revolted by him. I thought to
myself: ‘Does he really think I’m going to put up with this?’ and I began to
think how I could take him down a peg or two. What I wanted was something that
would really get under his skin. So then it struck me Beineberg had told me
that morning that some of his money had been stolen. It lust occurred to me by
the way. But it kept coming back into my mind. And it made me feel quite tight
about the throat. ‘It would turn out wonderfully handy,’ I thought to
myself, and in a casual way I asked him how much money he had left. When he
told me, I added it up and got the right answer. I laughed and asked him: ‘Who
on earth was so stupid as to lend you money again after all this?’ ‘Hofmeier,’
he said.
“I simply shook with joy. The
fact is, Hofmeier had come to me two hours before that, asking me to lend him
some money. So what had shot into my head a few minutes ago suddenly turned
out to be true. Just the way you think to yourself, merely as a joke: ‘Now that
house over there ought to go on fire,’ and the next moment there are flames
shooting out of it, yards high. .
“I quickly ran over all the
possibilities in my mind once again. Admittedly there wasn’t any way of making
dead certain, but my instinct was good enough for me. So I leaned over towards
him and said in the most amiable way you can imagine, just as if I were gently
driving a little thin, pointed stick into his brain: ‘Look here, my dear
Basini, why do you insist on trying to deceive me?’ At that his eyes seemed to
swim in his head with fear. And I went on: ‘I dare say there are plenty of
people you can take in, but I don’t happen to be the right person. You know,
don’t you, that Beineberg . . .’ He didn’t turn red or white, it was as if he
were waiting for some misunderstanding to be cleared up. ‘Well, to cut a long
story short,’ I said, ‘the money from which you’ve paid me back what you owed
me is the money you took out of Beineberg’s locker last night.”
“I leaned back to study the
effect it had on him. He went as red as a tomato. He began spluttering and
slavering, as though choked by his own words. Finally he managed to get it out.
There were torrents of reproaches and accusations against me. He wanted to know
how I could dare to make such an assertion and what faintest justification
there was for such an abominable conjecture. He said I was only trying to pick
a quarrel with him because he was the weaker and that I was only doing it out
of annoyance because now that he had paid his debts he was out of my power, and
that he would appeal to the class-the ushers-the Head-and that God would bear
witness to his innocence, and so on and on ad infinitum. I really began to be
quite worried that I had done him wrong and hurt his feelings for nothing, he
looked so sweet with his face all red. He looked just like a tormented,
defenceless little animal, you know. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to let it
go at that quite so easily. So I kept up a jeering smile-almost only out of
embarrassment, actually-as I went on listening to his talk. Now and then I
wagged my head and said calmly: ‘Yes, but I know you did.’
“After a while then he
quieted down. I kept on smiling. I felt as though simply by smiling at him like
that I could make a thief of him, even if he weren’t one already. ‘And as for
putting it right again,’ I thought to myself, ‘there’s always plenty of time
for that later.’
“And then after a while, when
he had kept on glancing at me furtively, he suddenly got quite white. A queer
change came over his face. The innocent and delightful look that had beautified
him vanished out of his face, so to speak together with the colour. It turned
quite green, cheesy, and puffy. I’ve only seen anything like it once
before-once in the street when I came along just as they were arresting a
murderer. He’d been going around among people too, without anyone’s
noticing anything queer about him. But when the policeman put his hand on his
shoulder, he was suddenly changed into a different person. His face altered and
his eyes popped with
terror and looked around,
searching for some way of escaping-a thoroughgoing gallow’s-bird he looked.
“That came back to my mind
when the change came over Basini’s face. Then I knew it all, and only had to
bide my time.
“And then it all came out.
Without my having to say anything, Basini-worn out by my silence-began to
blubber and implore me for mercy. He said he’d only taken the money because he
was in a fix, and if I hadn’t found him out he would have put it back before
anyone noticed. He said I shouldn’t say he’d stolen it. He’d only taken
it as a secret loan. . . . By that time he was blubbering too much to say any
more.
“Afterwards he began pleading
with me again. He said he would do my will in everything, he would do whatever
I wanted, if only I wouldn’t give him away. At this price he positively offered
to be my slave, and the mixture of cunning and greed and fear that wriggled in
his eyes was simply disgusting. So to get it all done with I told him I’d think
it over and decide what was to be done with him, but I also told him that
primarily it was Beineberg’s affair. Well now, what do you chaps think we
should do with him?”
While Reiting told his story
Törless listened in silence, with his eyes shut. From time to time a shiver
went through him, right to his finger-tips, and in his head the thoughts rose
to the surface, wildly and chaotically, like bubbles in boiling water. It is
said to be thus with one who for the first time sets eyes on the woman who is destined
to involve him in a passion that will be his undoing. It is said that between
two human beings there can be a moment of bending down, of drawing strength
from deep within, of holding breath-a moment of utmost inner tension under a
surface of silence. No one can say what happens in this moment. It is, as were,
the shadow that coming passion casts ahead of it. This is a!) organic shadow;
it is a loosening of all previous tensions and at the same time a state of
sudden, new bondage in which the whole future is already implicit; it is an
incubation so concentrated that it is sharp as the prick of a needle . . .And
then again it is a mere nothing, a vague, dull feeling, a weakness, a faint
dread .
That was how Törless felt it
all. Reiting’s story seemed to him, when he put it to himself squarely, to be
of no importance in itself: a reckless misdeed, a mean and cowardly act, on
Basini’s side, and now, without doubt, some cruel whim of Reiting’s would
follow. On the other hand, however, he felt something like an anxious
premonition that events had now taken a quite personal turn against himself and
that there was in the incident some sharp menace directed against him, like a
pointed weapon.
He could not help imagining
Basini together with Bozena, and he glanced around the narrow room. The walls
seemed to threaten him, to be closing in on him, to be reaching out for him
with bloodstained hands, and the revolver seemed to swing to and fro where it
hung....
Now for the first time it was
as though something had fallen, like a stone, into the vague solitude of his
dreamy imaginings. It was there. There was nothing to be done about it. It was
a reality. Yesterday Basini had been the same as himself. Now a trap-door had
opened and Basini had plunged into the depths. It was precisely as Reiting had
described it: a sudden change, and the person had become someone else....
And once again this somehow
linked up with Bozena. He had committed blasphemy in his thoughts. The rotten,
sweet smell rising from them had made him dizzy. And this profound humiliation,
this self-abandonment, this state of being covered with the heavy, pale,
poisonous leaves of infamy, this state that had moved through his dreams like a
bodiless, far-off reflection of himself, all this had now suddenly happened to
Basini.
So it was something one must
really reckon with, something one must be on one’s guard against, which could
suddenly leap out of the silent mirrors in one’s mind?
But then everything else was
possible too. Then Reiting and Beineberg were possible. Then this narrow little
room was possible . . . Then it was also possible that from the bright diurnal
world, which was all he had known hitherto, there was a door leading into
another world, where all was muffled, seething, passionate, naked, and loaded
with destruction-and that between those people whose lives moved in an orderly
way between the office and the family, as though in a transparent and yet solid
structure, a building all of glass and iron, and the others, the outcasts, the
blood-stained, the debauched and filthy, those who wandered in labyrinthine passages
full of roaring voices, there was some bridge-and not only that, but that the
frontiers of their lives secretly marched together and the line could be
crossed at any moment.
And the only other question
that remained was: how is it possible? What happens at such a moment? What then
shoots screaming up into the air and is suddenly extinguished?
These were the questions that
this incident set stirring in Törless. They loomed up, obscurely, tight-lipped,
cloaked in some vague, dull feeling. . . weakness . . . a faint dread.
And yet as though from a long
way off, raggedly, at random, many of their words rang out within him, filling
him with anxious foreboding.
It was at this moment that
Reiting put his query.
Törless at once began to
talk. In doing so he was obeying a sudden impulse, a rush of bewildered
feeling. It seemed to him that something decisive was imminent, and he was
startled to the approach of it, whatever it was, and wanted to dodge it, to
gain time.... Even as he talked he could feel that he had nothing but
irrelevant points to bring up, and that his words were without any inner
substance, having nothing to do with his real opinion
What he said was: “Basini is
a thief.” And the firm, hard ring of the last word pleased him so much that he
repeated it twice. “A thief. And a thief gets punished- everywhere in the
world. He must be reported. He must be expelled. If he reforms afterwards,
that’s his affair, but he doesn’t belong here any more!”
But Reiting, with a look of
being unpleasantly disconcerted, said:
“No, no, why go and rush to
extremes?”
“Why? But isn’t it a matter
of course?”
“Not at all. You’re coming on
exactly as if fire and brimstone would be called down upon us all if we kept
Basini in our midst a minute longer. It’s not as if what he’d done were so very
frightful, after all.”
“How can you talk like that!
Do you really mean to sit, and eat, and sleep in the same room, day in, day
out, with a creature who has stolen money and who’s then gone and offered
himself to you as your servant, your slave? I simply fail to understand you.
After all, we’re being brought up together because we belong together socially.
Will it be all the same to you if some day you find yourself in the same
regiment with him, or working together in the same government office, if you
meet him at the houses of people you know-supposing he were to pay court to
your sister?”
“Here, I say, you are exaggerating!”
Reiting said with a laugh. “Anyone would think we’d joined a fraternity for
life! Do you really think we shall go round for ever wearing a badge: ‘Educated
at W. College for the Sons of Gentlemen-has special privileges and obligations’-?
Afterwards each of us will go his own way, and everyone will become whatever
he’s entitled to become. There isn’t only one society. So I don’t think we need
to worry about the future. And as for the present, I didn’t say we’ve got to be
dear friends with Basini. There’ll be some way of managing all right so that a
proper distance is kept. We’ve got Basini in the hollow of our hand, we can do
whatever we like with him, for all I care you can spit at him twice a day. So
long as he’ll put up with it, what’s to bother us about having him among us?
And if he rebels, there’s always time to show him who’s master.... You’ve only
got to drop the idea that there’s any relationship between us and Basini other
than the pleasure we get out of what a rotten swine he is!”
Although Törless was far from
being convinced of his own line of argument, he pressed on with it. “Look here,
Reiting, why are you so keen to defend Basini?”
“Keen to defend him? Not that
I know of. I’ve no particular reason to defend him at all. The whole thing
leaves me stone-cold from A to Z. I’m only annoyed at the way you exaggerate.
What’s the bee in your bonnet? Seems to be some kind of idealism. Enthusiasm
for the sacred cause of the school, or for justice. You’ve no idea how boring
and virtuous it sounds. Or perhaps”-and Reiting narrowed his eyes in
suspicion-“you have some other reason for wanting Basini kicked out and only
don’t want to admit what you’re up to. Some old score to settle, eh? Well, come
on, out with it! If there’s enough in it we might really turn it to account.”
Törless looked at Beineberg.
But Beineberg only grinned. He sat there, cross-legged in Oriental style,
sucking at a long chibouk, and with his protruding ears in this deceptive light
he looked like a grotesque idol. “For all I care,” he said, between puffs, “you
chaps can do what you like. I’m not interested in the money, nor in justice
either. In India they would drive a pointed bamboo pole through his guts.
There’d be some fun in that, anyway. He’s stupid and cowardly, so he would be
no loss, and anyway it’s always been a matter of the utmost indifference to me
what happens to such people. They themselves are nothing, and what may yet
become of their souls, we don’t know. May Allah bestow his grace upon your
verdict!”
Törless made no reply to
this. After Reiting had disagreed with him and Beineberg had refused to take
sides in the matter, leaving the decision to the two of them, he had no more to
say. He did not feel capable of arguing further; indeed, he felt he no longer
had any desire to do anything in order to prevent whatever was imminent.
And so a proposal that
Reiting now put forward was accepted. It was resolved that for the present they
should keep Basini under surveillance, appointing themselves, as it were, his
guardians, in order to give him a chance to make good what he had done. His
income and expenditure were from now on to be strictly checked and his
relations with the rest of the boys to depend on permission from the three
guardians.
This decision had the air of
being very correct and benevolent. But this time Reiting did not say it was
‘boring and virtuous’. For, without admitting it even to themselves, each of
them was aware that this was to constitute only a sort of interim state.
Reiting would have been reluctant to renounce any chance of carrying the affair
further, since he got such pleasure out of it; on the other hand, however, he
could not yet see clearly what turn he should give it next. And Törless was as
though paralysed by the mere thought that from now on he would be in close touch
with Basini every day.
When he had uttered the word
‘thief’ a short time earlier, for a moment he had felt easier. it had been like
a turning out, a pushing away from himself, of the things that were causing
such upheaval in him.
But the problems that
instantly rose up again could not be solved by the use of this simple word.
They had become more distinct, now that there was no longer any question of
dodging them.
Törless glanced from Reiting
to Beineberg, shut his eyes, repeated to himself the resolve that had just been
made, and looked up again.... He himself no longer knew whether it was only his
imagination that was like a gigantic distorting-glass between him and
everything, or whether it was true and everything was really the way it
uncannily loomed before him. And was it then only Beineberg and Reiting who
knew nothing of these problems-and this although it was precisely the two of
them who had from the beginning been so at home in this world that now all at
once, for the first time, seemed so strange to him?
Törless felt afraid of them.
But he felt afraid only as one might feel afraid of a giant whom one knew to be
blind and stupid.
One thing, however, was
settled: he was much further ahead now than he had been only a quarter of an
hour earlier. There was no longer any possibility of turning back. A faint
curiosity rose in him about what was to come, since he was held fast against
his will. All that was stirring within him still lay in darkness, and yet he
already felt a desire to gaze into the darkness, with all the shapes that
populated it, which the others did not notice. There was a thin prickling chill
mingled with this desire. It was as though over his life there would now always
be nothing but a grey, veiled sky-great clouds, monstrous, changing forms, and
the ever-renewed question: Are they monsters? Are they merely clouds?
And this question was for him
alone! A secret, strange territory forbidden to the others..
So it was that Basini for the
first time began to assume that significance which he was later to have for
Törless.
The next day Basini was put
under surveillance.
It was done not without
ceremony. It was in the morning, when they had slipped away from gymnastics,
which were performed on a large lawn in the school grounds.
Reiting delivered a sort of
speech. It was not exactly short. He pointed out to Basini that he had
forfeited his right to exist, that he actually ought to be reported, and that
it was only thanks to their extraordinary mercifulness that for the present
they were sparing him the disgrace of expulsion.
Then he was informed of the
particular conditions. Reiting took it upon himself to see that they were kept.
During the whole scene Basini
was very pale, but did not utter a word, and his face revealed nothing of what
was going on in him.
Törless found the scene
alternately in very bad taste and of very great significance.
Beineberg’s attention was
focused on Reiting more than on Basini.
During the following days the
affair seemed to be practically forgotten. Reiting was scarcely to be seen at
all, except in class
and at meals, Beineberg was
more taciturn than ever, and Törless continually put off thinking about the
matter.
Basini went around among the
other boys just as if nothing had ever happened.
* * *
He was a little taller than
Törless, but very slight in build, with slack, indolent movements and
effeminate features. He was not very intelligent, and he was one of the worst
at fencing and gymnastics, but he had a pleasing manner, a rather coquettish
way of making himself agreeable.
His visits to Bozena had
begun only because he wanted to play the man. Backward he was in his
development, it was scarcely to be supposed that he was impelled by any real
craving. What he felt was perhaps only a compulsion, a sort of obligation, lest
he should be noticeably lacking in the aura of one who has had his experiences
in gallantry. He was always glad when he left her, having got that behind him;
all that mattered to him was to have the memory of it.
Occasionally, too, he lied-out
of vanity. After every holiday, for instance, he came back with souvenirs of
little affairs-ribbons, locks of hair, tiny billets-doux. But once, when
he had brought back in his trunk a dear little scented, sky-blue garter, and it
subsequently turned out to belong to none other than his own twelve-year-old
sister, he was exposed to a great deal of jeering on account of his ridiculous
boasting. their characters were still unformed and undergoing development. It
was doubtless best, of course, to treat Basini in a strict and serious way, but
at the same time one should be charitable in one’s attitude to him and try to
reform him.
They reinforced this by a
whole series of examples, which were familiar to Törless. He distinctly
remembered that in the junior classes, where the authorities favoured Draconic
measures and kept pocket-money within strict limits, many of the little boys,
in their natural greed for sweets and delicacies, often could not resist begging
the fortunate possessor of a ham sandwich, or the like, for a piece of it. He
himself had not always been proof against this temptation, even if, ashamed of
it as he was, he tried to cover it up by abuse of the wicked, unkind school
regulations. And he owed it not only to the passing of the years, but also to
his parents’ admonitions, as kindly as they were serious, that he had gradually
learnt to have his pride and not to give in to such weaknesses.
But now all this failed to
have any effect.
He could not help seeing that
his parents were in many ways right, and he also knew that it was scarcely
possible to judge quite accurately from such a distance; yet something much
more important seemed to be missing from their letter.
What was missing was an
appreciation of the fact that something irrevocable had happened, something
that ought never to happen among people in a certain stratum of society. What
was missing was any sign of their being surprised and shocked. They treated it
as though it were quite a normal thing, which must be handled with tact but
without much ado, merely as a blemish, as something that was no more beautiful,
but also no more avoidable, than the relief of one’s natural needs. In their
whole letter there was as little trace of any more personal feelings or dismay
as there was in the attitude of Beineberg and Reiting.
Törless might usefully have
taken some note of this too. Instead, however, he tore the letter into shreds
and burnt it. It was the first time in his life that he committed such an act
of disrespect towards his parents.
The effect on him was the
opposite of what had been intended. In contrast with the plain view that had
been set before him he was again suddenly filled with awareness of all that was
problematic and ambiguous in Basini’s crime. Shaking his head, he told himself that
it still needed thinking about, although he could not give him-self any exact
account of the reason for this attitude.
It was queerest of all when
he pursued the matter dreamily rather than with conscious thought. Then at one
moment Basini seemed to him comprehensible, commonplace, and clear-cut, just as
his parents and his friends seemed to see him: and the next moment this Basini
would vanish, only to come again, and yet again, as a small and even smaller
figure, tiny and sometimes luminous against a deep, very deep background....
And then one night-it was
very late and everyone was asleep-Törless was waked by someone shaking him.
Beineberg was sitting on the
edge of his bed. This was so unusual that he at once realised something
extraordinary must be afoot.
“Get up. Don’t make a noise,
we don’t want anyone to notice. I want you to come upstairs, I’ve got something
to tell you.”
Törless quickly put some
clothes on, got into his slippers, and threw his coat round his shoulders.
When they were up in their
lair, Beineberg put all the obstacles back in their places with special care.
Then he made tea.
Törless, who was still heavy
with sleep, relaxed in enjoyment of the golden-yellow, aromatic warmth
pervading him. He leaned back in a corner and curled up; he was expecting a
surprise.
At last Beineberg said:
“Reiting is up to something behind our backs.”
Törless felt no astonishment;
he accepted it as a matter of course that the affair must necessarily develop
in some such way, and he felt almost as though he had been waiting for this.
Involuntarily he said: “I thought as much.”
“Oh? You thought so, did you?
But I don’t suppose you noticed anything? That wouldn’t be at all like you.
“That’s true, there wasn’t
anything special that struck me. And I haven’t been racking my brains about the
whole thing.”
“But I’ve been keeping a good
look-out. I didn’t trust Reiting from the very beginning. I suppose you know
Basini’s paid me back my money. And where do you think he got it? D’you think
it was his own? No.”
‘And so you think Reiting has
been up to something?”
‘Definitely.”
For a moment all Törless
could imagine was that now Reiting had got entangled in a similar way himself.
“So you think Reiting has
done what -----?”
“What an idea! Reiting simply
gave Basini some of his own money, so that he could settle his debt to me.”
“But I can’t see any good
reason why he should do that.”
“Neither could I for a long
time. Still, it must have struck you too how Reiting stood up for Basini right
from the start. You were quite right then. It would really have been the most
natural thing to have had the fellow chucked out. But I knew what I was doing.
I didn’t take your side at the time, because I thought to myself: I must get to
the bottom of this, I must see what he’s up to. Frankly, I can’t say for
certain whether he had it all worked out quite clearly at that stage or whether
he only wanted to wait and see what would come of it once he made completely
sure of Basini. Anyway, I know how things stand now.”
“Well?”
“Wait, the whole story isn’t
so simple. I take it you know about what happened in the school four years
ago?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well-that affair!”
“Vaguely. I only know there was
a great row about some swinishness that had been going on, and quite a number
of chaps got expelled.”
“Yes, that’s what I mean.
Once in the holidays I found out sonic more about it from one of the chaps in
that class. It was all because of a pretty boy there was in the class, that a
lot of them were in love with. You know that sort of thing, it happens every
few years. But they went a bit too far.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well-how! Don’t ask such
silly questions! And that’s what Reiting’s doing with Basini!”
Törless suddenly understood
what he meant, and he felt a choking in his throat as if it were full of sand.
“I wouldn’t have thought that
of Reiting.” He did not know what else to say.
Beineberg shrugged his
shoulders. “He thinks he can take us in.”
“Is he in love with him?”
“Not a bit of it. He’s not
such a fool. It amuses him; at the most he gets some sort of excitement out of
it.”
“And how about Basini?”
“Oh, him! Hasn’t it struck
you how uppish he’s become recently? He hardly takes anything from me at all
now. It’s always Reiting, Reiting, with him-as if Reiting were his private
patron saint. He probably decided it was better to put up with everything from
one than with a bit from everyone. And I dare say Reiting’s promised to look
after him as long as he does whatever Reiting wants of him. But they’ll find
out they’ve made a mistake, and I’m going to knock such ideas out of Basini’s
head!”
“How did you find out?”
“I followed them once.”
“Where to?”
“ln there, in the attic.
Reiting had my key to the other door. Then I came up here, carefully opened up
the gap and crept up to them.”
The fact was that in the thin
partition-wall dividing the cubbyhole from the attics they had broken open a
gap just wide enough to allow one to wriggle through. It was intended to serve
as an emergency exit in the event of their being surprised, and it was
generally kept closed with loose bricks.
Now there was a long pause,
in which all that could be heard was the faint hiss when the tips of their
cigarettes glowed.
Törless was incapable of
thinking; he simply saw . . . Behind his shut eyelids there was all at once a
wild vortex of happenings . . . people, people moving in a glare, with bright
lights and shifting, deep-etched shadows . . . faces . . . one face . . . a
smile . . . an upward look... a shivering of the skin. .. He saw people in a
way he had never seen them before, never felt them before. But he saw them
without seeing, without images, without forms, as if only his soul saw them;
and yet they were so distinct that he was pierced through and through by their
intensity. Only, as though they halted at a threshold they could not cross,
they escaped him the moment he sought for words to grasp them with.
He could not stop himself
from asking more. His voice shook. “And-did you see?”
“Yes.”
“And-did Basini-was he-?”
But Beineberg remained
silent, and once again there was nothing to be heard but, now and then, the
vaguely disturbing hiss of the cigarettes. Only after a long time did Beineberg
begin to talk again.
“I’ve considered the whole
thing from all points of view, and, as you know, I have my own way of
thinking about such things. First of all, as far as Basini goes, it’s my view
he’s no loss in any case. It makes no difference whether we go and report him,
or give him a beating, or even if we torture him to death, just for the fun of
it. Personally, I can’t imagine that a creature like that can have any meaning
in the wonderful mechanism of the universe. He strikes me as being merely
accidental, as it were a random creation outside the order of things. That’s to
say-even he must of course mean something, but certainly only something as
undefined as, say, a worm or a stone on the road, the sort of things you never
know whether to walk round or step on. In other words, they’re practically
nothing. For if the spirit of the universe wants one of its parts to he
preserved, it manifests its will more clearly. In such a case it says ‘no’ and
creates a resistance, it makes us walk round the worm and makes the stone so
hard that we can’t smash it without tools. And before we can get the tools, it
has had time to interpolate resistances in the form of all sorts of tough
little scruples, and if we get the better of them, well, that jus shows that
the whole thing has had another meaning all along.
“With a human being, it puts
this hardness into his character, into his consciousness as a human being, into
the sense of responsibility he has as a part of the spirit of the universe.
And if a human being loses this consciousness, he loses himself. But if a human
being has lost himself, abandoned himself, he has lost the special and peculiar
purpose for which Nature created him as a human being. And this is the case in
which one can be perfectly certain that one is dealing with something unnecessary,
an empty form, something that has already long been deserted by the spirit of
the universe.”
Törless felt no inclination
to argue. He was not even listening very attentively. He himself had never felt
the need to go in for such a metaphysical train of thought, nor had he ever
wondered how anyone of Beineberg’s intellect could indulge in such notions. The
whole problem had simply not yet risen over the horizon of his life.
Thus he made no effort to
enquire into the possible meaning, or lack of meaning, of Beineberg’s remarks.
He only half listened.
One thing he did not
understand, and that was how anyone could approach this matter in such a
longwinded way. Everything in him quivered, and the elaborate formality with
which Beineberg produced his ideas-wherever he got them from-seemed to him ridiculous
and out of place; it irritated him.
But Beineberg continued
calmly: “Where Reiting is concerned, on the other hand, it’s all very
different. He has also put himself in my power by doing what he has done, but
his fate is certainly not so much a matter of indifference to me as Basini’s
is. You know his mother is not very well off. So if he gets expelled, it’ll be
all up with his plans. If he stays here, he may get somewhere. If not, there’s
not likely to be much chance for him. And Reiting never liked me-see what I
mean?-he’s always hated me. He used to try to damage me wherever he could. I
think he would still be glad if he could get rid of me. Now do you see what an
immense amount I can make out of what I’ve discovered?”
Törless was startled-and it
was strangely as if Reiting’s fate affected him personally, were almost his
own. He looked at Beineberg in dismay. Beineberg had narrowed his eyes to a mere
slit, and to Törless he looked like a great, weird spider quietly lurking in
its web. His last words rang in Törless’s ears with the coldness and clarity of
an ultimatum.
Törless had not been
following, had only known: Beineberg is talking about his ideas again, and they
have nothing at all to do with the matter in hand.. .And now all at once he did
not know how it had reached this point.
The web, which had, after
all, been begun somewhere far off in a realm of abstractions, as he vaguely
remembered, seemed to have contracted suddenly and with miraculous speed. For
all at once it was there, concrete, real, alive, and there was a head twitching
in it-choking.
He was far from having any
liking for Reiting, but he now recalled the agreeable, impudent, carefree way
in which he set about all his intrigues, and in contrast Beineberg seemed
infamous as he sat there, calm and grinning, pulling his many-threaded, grey,
abominable web of thoughts tight around the other.
Involuntarily Törless burst
out: “You mustn’t turn it to account against him!” What impelled him to the
exclamation was perhaps partlv his constant secret repugnance for Beineberg.
But after a few minutes’
reflection Beineberg said of his own jccord: “What good would it do, anyway?
Where he is concerned it would really be a pity. From now on in any case he’s
no danger to me, and after all he’s not so worthless that one should trip him
up over a silly thing of this kind.” And so that aspect of the affair was
settled. But Beineberg went on talking, now again turning his attention to
Basini’s fate.
“Do you still thing we ought
to report Basini?”
But Törless gave no answer.
Now he wanted Beineberg to go on talking, to hear his words sounding like the
hollow echoing of footsteps over a vault; he wanted to savour the situation to
the full.
Beineberg went on expounding
his ideas. “I think for the present we’ll keep him in our own hands and punish
him ourselves. He certainly must be punished-if only for his presumption. All
the school would do would be to send him home and write his uncle a long letter
about it. Surely you know more or less how automatically that sort of thing
works. Your Excellency, your nephew has so far forgotten himself. . - bad
influence . . . restore him to our care - . - hope you will be successful . . -
road towards improvement . . - for the present, however, impossible among the
others... and so on and so forth. You don’t suppose, do you, that such a case
has any interest or value in their eyes?”
“And what sort of value can
it have for us?”
“What sort of value? None for
you, perhaps, for you’re going to be a government official some day, or perhaps
you’ll write poems-all in all you don’t need that kind of thing, and perhaps
you’re even frightened of it. But I picture my life rather differently.”
Now Törless really began to
listen.
“For me Basini has some
value-very great value indeed. Look, it’s like this-you would simply let him go
and would be quite satisfied with the thought that he was a bad person.” Here
Törless suppressed a smile. “That’s all it amounts to for you, because you have
no talent or interest in training yourself by means of such a case. But I have
that interest. Anyone with my road ahead of him must take quite a different
view of human beings. That’s why I want to save Basini up for myself-as
something to learn from.”
“But how do you mean to
punish him?”
Beineberg withheld his answer
for a moment, as though consid ering the effect he expected it to have. Then he
said, cautiously and with some hesitation: “You’re wrong if you think I’m so
very much concerned with the idea of punishment. Of course ultimately it will
be possible to look at it as a punishment for him too. But to cut a long story
short, I’ve got something different in mind, what I want to do with him is-well,
let’s call it tormenting him.”
Törless took good care to say
nothing. He was still far from seeing the whole thing clearly, but he could
feel that it was all working out as-inwardly-it must work out for him.
Beineberg, who could not
gather what effect his words had had, continued: “You needn’t be shocked, it’s
not as bad as all that. First of all, as I’ve already explained to you, there’s
no cause to consider Basini’s feelings at all. Whether we decide to torment him
or perhaps let him off depends solely on whether we feel the need of the one or
the other. It depends on our own inner reasons. Have you got any? All that
stuff about morality and society and the rest of it, which you brought up
before, doesn’t count at all, of course. I should be sorry to think you ever
believed in it yourself. So I assume you to be indifferent. But however it may
be, you can still withdraw from the whole affair if you don’t want to take any
risks.
“My own road, however, leads
not back or around, but straight ahead and through the middle of it. It has to
be like that. Reiting won’t leave off either, for in his case too there’s a
special value in having a human being in the hollow of his hand so that he can
use him for the purpose of training himself, learning to handle him like a
tool. He wants to exercise power, and he would treat you lust the same as
Basini if he ever happened to get the chance. But for me it’s a matter of
something more than that. It’s almost a duty to myself. Now, how am I to make
clear to you exactly what this difference is between him and me? You know how
Reiting venerates Napoleon. Now contrast that with the fact that the sort of
person who most appeals to me is more like a philosopher or a holy man in
India. Reiting would sacrifice Basini and feel nothing but a certain Interest
in the process. He would dissect him morally in order to find out what one has
to expect from such operations. And, as I said before, it could be you or me
just as well as Basini, and it would be all the same to him. On the other hand,
I have this certain feeling, just as you have, that Basini is, after all, in
the last resort a human being too. There’s something in me too that is upset by
any act of cruelty. But that’s just the point! The point is the sacrifice! You
see, there are two threads fastened to me too. The first is an obscure one
that, in contrast with my clear conviction, ties me to the inaction that comes
from pity. But there is the second, too, which leads straight to my soul, to
the most profound inner knowledge, and links me to the universe. People like
Basini, as I told you before, signify nothing-they are empty, accidental forms.
True human beings are only those who can penetrate into themselves, cosmic
beings that are capable of that meditation which reveals to them their
relationship to the great universal process. These people do miracles with
their eyes shut, because they know how to make use of the totality of forces in
the universe, which are within them just as they are also outside them. But
hitherto everyone who has followed up the second thread, has had to tear the
first. I’ve read about appalling acts of penance done by illumined monks, and
the means used by lndian ascetics are, I imagine, not entirely unknown to you
either. All the cruel things that are done in this way have only one aim, to
kill the miserable desires directed towards the external world, which, whether
they are vanity or hunger, joy or pity, only take away something from the fire
that everyone can kindle in himself.
“Reiting knows only the outward
thread, but I follow the second. For the present he has got ahead of me in
everybody else’s eyes, for my road is slower and more uncertain. But I can
overtake him with one stride, just as if he were a worm. You see, they say the
universe is governed by mechanical laws that are unshakable. That’s all wrong!
That’s only what the school-books say! The external world is stubborn, I dare
say, and to some extent its so-called laws stand firm, but there have been
people who succeeded in bending them to their will. It’s written about in
sacred books that have stood the test of time and of which most people know
nothing. From these books I know there have been people who could move stones
and air and water merely by means of their will, and whose prayers were
stronger than any earthly power. But even these are only the external triumphs
of the spirit. For him who entirely succeeds in beholding his own soul,
physical life, which is only an accidental thing, dissolves. It is written in
the books that such beings enter directly into a higher spiritual realm.”
Beineberg spoke with entire
seriousness and with suppressed excitement. Törless still kept his eyes shut
almost all the time; he could feel Beineberg’s breath like something touching
him and drew it into himself like a suffocating narcotic. And so Beineberg
concluded his harangue: “Well, you can see what I am concerned with. What tells
me to let Basini off is something of low, external origin. You can obey it if
you like. For me it is a prejudice from which I have to cut myself loose as
from everything else that would distract me from my inner way.
“The very fact that I find it
hard to torture Basini-I mean, to humiliate him, debase him, and cast him away
from me-is good. It requires a sacrifice. It will have a purifying effect. I
owe it to myself to learn daily, with him as my material, that merely being
human means nothing-it’s a mockery, a mere external semblance.”
Törless did not understand
all of it. But once again it seemed to him as though an invisible noose had
suddenly been tightened into a palpable and fatal knot. Beineberg’s final words
went on echoing in his mind: “. . . a mockery, a mere external semblance.” lt
seemed to apply also to his own relation to Basini. Was it not in such
fantasies that the queer fascination lay which Basini held for him? Was it not
simply in the fact that he could not enter into Basini’s mind and so always
experienced him only in vague images? Just now, when he had tried to picture
Basini to himself, had there not been behind his face a second one, blurred and
shadowy and yet on a tangible likeness, though it was impossible to say what it
was a likeness of?
So it came about that,
instead of thinking over Beineberg’s very odd intentions, being bemused as he
was by these new and unfamiliar impressions, Törless was engaged in trying to
become clear about himself. He remembered the afternoon before he had heard
about Basini’s offence. Come to think of it, these fantasies had been there
even then. There had always been something that his thoughts could not get the
better of, something that seemed at once so simple and so strange. There had
been pictures in his mind that were not really pictures at all. It had been
like that passing the cottages on the road back from the station, and also when
he was sitting in the cake.shop with Beineberg.
They were likenesses and yet
at the same time unlikenesses, unsurmountabIe. And the toying with it all,
this secret, entirely private perspective, had excited him.
And now a human being took possession
of this. Now it was all embodied in a human being; it had become real. Thus all
the queer-ness of it attached itself to that human being. Thus it shifted out
of the imagination into life itself and became a menace.
All this agitation had tired
Törless; his thoughts were now but loosely linked together.
The only thing he could
really hold on to was the thought that he must not let go of this Basini, that
Basini was destined to play an important part in his life too, one that he
already recognised, although as yet unclearly.
And yet, recalling
Beineberg’s words, he could not help shaking his head in amazement. Was it the
same with him . . . ?
‘It can’t be that he is after
the same things as 1 am, and yet it was he who found the right words for it...
Törless was dreaming rather
than thinking. He was no longer capable of distinguishing his own inner problem
from Beineberg’s flights of fancy. In the end nothing remained but the one
feeling:
a vast noose tightening,
tightening round everything. .
No more was said between
them. They put out the light and crept warily back to their dormitory.
The next days brought no decision. There was a great
deal of school work, Reiting was careful not to find himself alone with either
of them, and Beineberg too avoided any reopening of their last discussion.
So it happened, in the days
that followed, that the thought of the affair went deeper into Törless, like a
river forced underground, and set his imagination moving irrevocably in one
particular direction.
This put a definite end to
any intention of getting rid of Basini. Now for the first time Törless felt he
was focused exclusively on himself, and was incapable of thinking of anything
else. Bozena too had become a matter of indifference to him. What he had felt
about her now became a mere fantastic memory; it had been replaced by something
really serious.
Admittedly, this really
serious matter seemed no less fantastic.
* *
Absorbed in his thoughts,
Törless had gone for a walk alone in the park. It was noon, and in the light of
the late autumn sun the lawns and paths shone as though with the wan gleam of
memory. Since in his restlessness he felt no inclination to go far, he merely
walked round the building and then threw himself down on the pale, rustling
grass at the foot of an almost windowless sidewall. The sky above him was a
vault-of that faded, ailing blue which is peculiar to autumn, and there were
little white puffs of cloud scudding across it.
Lying flat on his back, he
blinked, vaguely and dreamily, looking up between the tops of two trees in
front of him, now almost leafless.
He thought about Beineberg.
What a strange fellow that was! His way of talking would not have been out of
place in some crumbling Indian temple, among uncanny idols, where wizard serpents
lay hidden in deep crannies. But what place had such talk in broad daylight, in
this school, in modern Europe? And yet those words of his, after trailing on
and on, like an endless road of a thousand meanderings, leading no one knew
where, had seemed suddenly to arrive at a tangible goal
And suddenly-and it seemed to
him as if it had happened for the very first time-Törless became aware of how
incredibly high the sky was.
It was almost a shock.
Straight above him, shining between the clouds, was a small, blue hole,
fathomlessly deep.
He felt it must be possible
if only one had a long, long ladder, to climb up and into it. But the’ further
he penetrated, raising himself on his gaze, the further the blue, shining depth
receded. And still it was as though some time it must be reached, as though by
sheer gazing one must be able to stop it and hold it. The desire to do this
became agonisingly intense.
It was as if, straining to
the utmost, his power of vision were shooting glances like arrows between the
clouds; and yet, the further and further it aimed, still they always fell just
a little short.
Now Törless began to think
about this, making an effort to as calm and rational as he could. “Of course
there is no end,” he said to himself, “it just keeps going on and on for
ever, into infinity.’ He kept his eyes fixed on the sky, saying this aloud to
himself a~ though he were testing the power of a magical formula. But it was no
use; the words meant nothing, or rather, they meant something quite different,
as if, while dealing with the same subject, they were taking it from another
side, one that was strange, unfamiliar and irrelevant.
“Infinity!” Törless had often
heard the word in mathematics lessons. It had never meant anything in
particular to him. The term kept on recurring; somebody had once invented it,
and since then it had become possible to calculate with it as surely as with
anything, real and solid. It was whatever it stood for in the calculation; and
beyond that Törless had never sought to understand it.
But now it flashed through
him, with startling clarity, that there was something terribly disturbing about
this word. It seemed to him like a concept that had been tamed and with which
he himself had been daily going through his little circus tricks; and now all
of a sudden it had broken loose. Something surpassing all comprehension,
something wild and annihilating, that once had been put to sleep by some
ingenious operation, had suddenly leapt awake and was there again in all its
terrifying strength. There, in the sky, it was standing over him, alive and
threatening and sneering.
At last he shut his eyes, the
sight of it was such anguish to him.
* * *
When a little later he was
aroused by a gust of wind rustling through the withered grass, he could scarcely
feel his own body:
there was a pleasant coolness
streaming upwards from his feet, enfolding his limbs in gentle numbness. Now a
kind of mild exhaustion mingled with his dismay. He still felt the sky as
something vastly and silently staring down at him, but now he remembered how
often before he had felt the same thing; and in a state between waking and
dreaming he went back through all those memories, feeling how they spun their
threads round him, wrapping him up in ever further meanings and associations,
as in a cocoon.
There was, first of all, that
childhood memory of the trees standing there as solemn and silent as if they
were really people under an enchantment. Even then he must have felt this thing
that was later to happen to him again and again. There had been something of
this even behind those thoughts he had had in Bozena’s room, something special,
something of a larger premonition, that was more than the thoughts themselves.
And that moment in the cake-shop when everything had grown quiet outside the
window, in the garden just before the dark veils of sensuality sank about him,
yes, that too had been the same. And often, for the fraction of a thought,
Beineberg and Reiting would turn into something strange, unfamiliar, unreal.
And what about Basini? The thought of what was happening to Basini had rent
Törless in two. At one moment this thought was rational and commonplace; at
another it was vested in the same silence, flashing with sudden mental images,
which was common to all these impressions,which had been steadily seeping
through into Törless’s conscious mind and which now all at once was asserting
its claim to be treated as something real and living: just as the idea of
infinity had, a while earlier.
Törless now felt it enclosing
him on all sides. Like some far-off obscure force it had probably been
threatening from the very beginning, but he had instinctively shrunk from it,
only now and then giving it a shy, fleeting glance. But now a chance happening
hid made him alert to it, forced him to attend to it, and, as at a signal, it
came rushing at him from all directions: a torrent of immense perplexity that
spread out further and further with every instant.
Törless was assailed by a
sort of madness that made him experience things, processes, people, all as
something equivocal: as some-thing that by some ingenious operation had been
fettered to a harmless explanatory word and which nevertheless was something
entirely strange, which might break loose from its fetters at any moment now.
True, there is a simple,
natural explanation for everything, and Törless knew it too; but to his
dismayed astonishment it seemed only to tear off an outer husk, without getting
anywhere near laying bare what was within-that other, further thing which now,
as with a gaze that had grown unnaturally penetrating, he could always see
glimmering underneath.
So he lay there, all wrapped
up in memories, out of which strange notions grew like exotic flowers. Those
moments that nobody forgets, when there is a failure of that power of
association which generally causes our life to be faultlessly reflected in our
under-standing, as though life and understanding ran parallel to each other and
at equal speed-those moments formed a bewilderingly close-knit mesh around him.
In his memory that dreadfully
still, sad-coloured silence of certain evenings alternated abruptly with the
hot, quivering uneasiness of a summer noon-an uneasiness that had once rippled
over his soul in blazing heat and as with the light flitting feet of
innumerable iridescent lizards.
Then suddenly he recalled
that little prince-his smile, the glance the movement-with which, at the time
when they had reached the end of their relationship, he had gently freed himself
from all the associations that Törless had involved him in, and moved off into
some distance-new and alien and, as it were, concentrated in the life of one
ineffable instant-that had all at once opened out before him. Then again there
came memories of the forest and from out in the fields. Then there was a silent
scene in a darkening room at home, where he had suddenly felt reminded of his
lost friend. Words of a poem came into his mind. ...
And there are yet other
things in which this incomparability reigns, somewhere between experience and
comprehension. Yet it is always of such a nature that what in one moment we
experience indivisibly, and without question, becomes unintelligible and
con-fused as soon as we try to link it with chains of thought to the permanent
store of what we know. And what looks grand and remote so long as our words are
still reaching out towards it from a long way off, later, once it has entered
the sphere of our everyday activities, becomes quite simple and loses all its
disturbing quality.
* * *
And so it was that all these
memories all at once had the same mystery in common. As though they all
belonged together, they stood before him so distinctly that it seemed he could
almost take hold of them.
In their own time they had
been accompanied by an obscure emotion of which he had taken little notice.
And it was this that he was
trying to get at now. It occurred to him that once, when he had been standing
with his father, looking at one of those landscapes he had suddenly cried out: ‘Oh,
how beautiful it is!’-and then been embarrassed when his father was glad. For
he might just as easily have said: ‘How terribly sad it is.’ It was the failure
of language that caused him anguish, a half-awareness that the words were
merely accidental, mere evasions, and never the feeling itself.
And today he recalled the
scene, recalled the words-very distinctly recalled the sense he had had of
falsehood, though without knowing why or in what way. In memory his eye went
over it all again. But time and again it returned without bringing relief. A
smile of delight in the wealth of the thoughts that came to him, a smile that
had gradually become more and more absentminded, now slowly took on a just
perceptible twist of pain.
He felt the urge to search
unceasingly for some bridge, some connection, some means of comparison, between
himself and the wordless thing confronting his spirit.
But as often as he had put
his mind at rest about any one idea, there would again be that incomprehensible
objection: It’s all a lie.
It was as if he must work out
an unending sum in long division with a recurring decimal in it, or as if he
were skinning his fingers in the frantic struggle to undo an endless knot.
And finally he gave up. It
all closed tightly round him, and the memories grew large, weirdly distorted.
He had raised his eyes to the
sky again-as though he might yet by some fluke snatch its secret from it and,
that once gained, guess what perplexed him everywhere. But he grew tired, and a
feeling of profound loneliness closed over him. The sky kept silent. And
Törless felt that under that immovable, dumb vault he was quite alone, a tiny
speck of life under that vast, transparent corpse.
But it hardly frightened him
any more at all. It was like an old, familiar pain that had at last spread even
to the last limb.
It seemed to him as if the
light had now become milky and shimmering, dancing before his eyes like a
pallid, cold mist.
Slowly and warily he turned
his head and glanced about him to see if everything had really changed. His
glance happened to pass over the grey, windowless wall behind him: it seemed to
have leaned forward over him and to be looking at him in silence. From time to
time there was a faint rustling in it, the sound of uncanny life awakening in
the bricks and mortar.
It was the same faint
rustling he had often listened to in the lair upstairs, when Beineberg and
Reiting had raised the curtain on their fantastic world, and he had rejoiced in
it as in the queer incidental music to a grotesque play.
But now the bright day itself
seemed to have turned into an unfathomable lair, and the living silence closed
in on Törless from all sides.
He could not turn his head
away. Beside him, in a damp, shady corner, the ground was overgrown with
colt’s-foot, its broad leaves making fantastic lurking-places for slugs and
snails.
Törless could hear the
beating of his own heart. Then again there was a faint, whispering rustle that
came and faded away. . . . And these sounds were the only things alive in a
timeless world of silence.
The next day Törless saw
Beineberg and Reiting together, and he went and joined them.
“I’ve talked to Reiting,”
Beineberg said, “and it’s all fixed. After all, you’re not really interested in
such things, are you?”
Törless felt something like anger
and jealousy rising up in him at this sudden change; but he did not quite know
whether to mention the nocturnal discussion in front of Reiting.
“Well, you might have called
me in on it,” he remarked. “After all, I’ve as much say in the whole thing as
you chaps have.”
“Oh, we would have, my dear
Törless,” Reiting hastened to say obviously wishing to have no unnecessary
difficulties this time. “But you happened to have disappeared, and we assumed
you’d agree. Well, and what do you think of Basini now?” (There was no word of
excuse, just as if his own behaviour were entirely a matter of course.)
“If you want to know,” Törless replied, in embarrassment,
“I think he’s a low skunk.”
“lsn’t he just? A thorough
skunk.”
“But you’re going in for
something a bit off-colour yourself!’ And Törless smiled in a rather forced
manner, for he was ashamed of not being more indignant with Reiting.
“Me?” Reiting shrugged his
shoulders. “What harm does it do? One’s got to have had all sorts of
experiences, and if he’s stupid and low enough ...”
“Have you talked to him
since?” Beineberg now interposed. “Yes. He came to me yesterday evening, asking
for money, because he’s got into debt again and can’t pay up.”
“Did you give him any?”
“No, not yet.”
“Excellent,” Beineberg commented.
“Then we’ve got just the opportunity we want for settling his hash. You might
tell him to come along somewhere tonight.”
“Where? The cubby-hole?”
“No, I don’t think so. He
doesn’t need to know about that yet. But make him come up to the attic where you
took him before.”
“What time?”
“Let’s say-eleven.”
“Right.-D’you want to come
for a bit of a walk now?”
“Yes. I expect Törless still
has lots to do-haven’t you, Törless?”
He actually had no more work
to do, but he could feel that the other two were up to something together that
they wanted to keep a secret from him. He was annoyed with himself for being
too stiff to push his way in whether they wanted him or not.
So he watched them go,
jealously, and racked his brains about what they might be planning in secret.
And as he watched them it
struck him how much innocent grace and charm there was in Reiting’s erect
carriage and supple walk-just as there was in his way of talking. By contrast
he tried to imagine what Reiting must have been like-inwardly, in his emotions-that
other night. It must have been like some long, slow sinking of two souls with a
mortal stranglehold on each other, and then depths as of some subterranean
realm-and, in between, a moment in which the sounds of the world, far, far
above, faded and died out.
Could a human being really be
so gay and easy-going again after such an experience? Surely then it could not
mean so much to him. Törless would have liked to ask him. And instead of that,
now, in his childish timidity, he had left him with that spidery creature
Beineberg!
At a quarter to eleven
To~rless saw Beineberg and Reiting slip out of their beds, and he also got up
and began dressing. “Ssh! I say,wait, can’t you? Somebody’ll notice if the
three of us all go out together.”
Törless got back under the
bed-clothes.
A little while later they all
met in the passage, and with their usual caution they went on upstairs to the
attics.
“Where’s Basini?” Törless
asked.
“He’s coming up the other
way. Reiting gave him the key.”
They went all the way in
darkness. Only when they reached the top, outside the big iron door, did
Beineberg light his little hurricane-lamp.
The lock was stiff. It was
rusty from years of disuse and would not answer to the skeleton key. Then at
last it gave, with a loud snap. The heavy door scraped back reluctantly on its
rusty hinges, yielding only inch by inch.
From inside the attic came a
breath of warm, stale air, like that in small hothouses.
Beineberg shut the door after
them.
They went down the little wooden
staircase and then squatted on the floor beside a huge roof-beam.
On one side of them were some
large water-tubs for use in case of fire. It was obvious that the water in them
had not been changed for a very long time; it had a sweet, sickly smell.
The whole place was
oppressive, with the hot, bad air under the roof and the criss-cross pattern on
the huge beams and rafters, some of them vanishing into the darkness overhead,
some of them reaching down to the floor, forming a ghostly network.
Beineberg shaded his lamp,
and there they sat quite still in the dark, not speaking a word-for long, long
minutes.
Then the door in the darkness
at the other end of the attic creaked, faintly, hesitantly. It was a sound to
make one’s heart leap into one’s mouth-the first sound of the approaching prey.
Then came some unsure
footsteps, a foot stumbling against wood: dull sound as of a falling
body...Silence. .. Then again hesitant footsteps . . . A pause . . . A faint
voice asking: “Reiting?”
Now Beineberg removed the
shade from his lamp, throwing a broad ray of light in the direction from which
the voice had come.
Several immense wooden beams
loomed up, casting deep shadows. Apart from that, there was nothing to be seen
but the cone of light with dust whirling in it.
The footsteps grew steadier
and came closer.
Then ... and this time quite
near. .. a foot banged against wood again, and the next moment . . . framed in
the wide base of the cone of light. . . Basini’s face appeared, ash-grey in
that uncertain illumination.
* * *
Basini was smiling. . .
sweetly, cloyingly. It was like the fixed smile of a portrait, hanging above
them there in the frame of light.
Törless sat still, pressing
himself tightly against the woodwork; he felt his eyelids twitching.
Now Beineberg recited the
list of Basini’s infamies-monotonously, in a hoarse voice.
Then came the question: “So
you’re not ashamed at all?” At that Basini looked at Reiting, and his glance
seemed to say: ‘Now I think it’s time for you to help me.’ And at that moment Reiting
hit him in the face so that he staggered back, tripped over a beam, and fell.
Beineberg and Reiting leapt upon him.
The lamp had been kicked
sideways, and now its light flowed senselessly, idly, past Törless’s feet,
across the floor. . .
From the sounds in the
darkness Törless could tell that they were pulling Basini’s clothes off and
then that they were whipping him with something thin and pliant. Evidently they
had had everything prepared. He heard Basini’s whimpering and half-stifled
cries of pain as he went on pleading for mercy; and then finally he heard
nothing but a groaning, a suppressed howling, and at the same time Beineberg
cursing in a low voice and his heavy, excited breathing.
Törless had not stirred from
where he sat. Right at the beginning, indeed, he had been seized with a savage
desire to leap up too and join in the beating; but his feeling that he would
come too late and only be one too many had held him back. His limbs were
encased in paralysing rigidity, as though in the grip of some great hand.
In apparent indifference he
sat staring at the floor. He did not strain his ears to distinguish what the
various sounds meant, and his heart beat no faster than usual. His eyes
followed the light that spread out in a pool at his feet. Grains of dust
gleamed in it, and one ugly little cobweb. And the light seeped further, into
the dark-ness under the beams, and peered out in dusty, murky gloom.
Törless could have sat there
like that for an hour without noticing the passing of time. He was thinking of
nothing, and yet he was inwardly very much preoccupied. At the same time he was
observing himself. And it was like gazing into a void and there seeing himself
as if out of the corner of his eye, in a vague, shapeless glimmer. And then out
of this vagueness-as though coming round the corner of his mind-slowly, but
ever more distinctly, a desire advanced into clear consciousness.
Something made Törless smile
at this. Then once again the desire came more strongly, trying to draw him from
his squatting position down on to his knees, on to the floor. It was an urge to
press his body flat against the floorboards; and even now he could feel how his
eyes would grow larger, like a fish’s eyes, and how through the flesh and bones
of his body his heart would slam against the wood.
Now there was indeed a wild
excitement raging in Törless, and he had to hold on tight to the beam beside
him in an effort to fight off the dizziness that was trying to draw him
downwards.
Sweat pearled on his
forehead, and he wondered anxiously what all this could mean.
Startled quite out of his
former indifference, he was now straining his ears again to hear what the other
three were doing in the dark-ness.
It had grown quiet over
there. Only Basini could be heard groping for his clothes and moaning softly to
himself.
An agreeable sensation went
through Törless when he heard this whimpering. A tickling shudder, like thin
spidery legs, ran up and down his spine, then contracted between his shoulder
blades, pulling his scalp tight as though with faint claws. He was disconcerted
to realise that he was in a state of sexual excitement. He thought back, and
though he could not remember when this had begun, he knew it had already been
there when he felt that peculiar desire to press himself against the floor. He
was ashamed of it; but it was like a tremendous surge of blood going through
him, numbling his thoughts.
Beineberg and Reiting came
groping their way back and sat down in silence beside him. Beineberg looked at
the lamp.
At this moment Törless again
felt drawn downward. It was something that came from his eyes-he could feel
that now-a sort of hypnotic rigidity spreading from the eyes to the brain. It
was a question, indeed, it was-no, it was a desperation-oh, it was something he
knew already-the wall, that garden outside the window, the low-ceilinged
cottages, that childhood memory-it was all the same thing! all the same! He
glanced at Beineberg. ‘Doesn’t he feel anything?’ he wondered. But Beineberg
was bending down, about to put the lamp straight. Törless gripped his arm to
stop him.
“Isn’t it like an eye?” he
said, pointing to the light streaming across the floor.
“Getting poetical now, are
you?”
“No. But don’t you yourself
say there’s something special about eyes? It’s all in your own favourite ideas
about hyptiotism- how sometimes they send out a force different from anything
we hear about in physics. And it’s a fact you can often tell far more about
someone from his eyes than from what he says .
“Well-what of it?”
“This light seems like an eye
to me-looking into a strange world. It makes me feel as if I had to guess
something. Only I can’t. I only could gulp it down-drink it.”
“Well, so you really are
getting poetical.”
“No. I’m perfectly serious.
It simply makes me frantic. Just look at it yourself and you’ll see what I
mean. It makes you sort of want to wallow in the pool of it-to crawl right into
that dusty corner on all fours, as if that were the way to guess it . .
“My dear chap, these are idle
fancies, all nonsense. That’ll be enough of that sort of thing for the moment.”
Beineberg now bent right down
and restored the lamp to its former position. But Törlesss felt a sudden
spiteful satisfaction. He realised that, with some extra faculty he had, he got
more out of these happenings than his companions did.
He was now waiting for Basini
to re-appear, and with a secret shudder he noticed that his scalp was again
tightening under those faint claws.
After all, he knew quite well
by now that there was something in store for him, and the premonition of it was
coming to him at ever shorter intervals, again and again: it was a sensation of
which the others knew nothing, but which must evidently be of great importance
for his future life.
Only he did not know what
could be the meaning of this sexual excitement that was mingled with it. He did
remember, however, that it had in fact been present each time when things began
to be queer-though only to him-and to torture him because he could find no
reason for the queerness.
And he resolved that at the
next opportunity he would think hard about this. For the moment he gave himself
up entirely to the shudder of excitement with which he looked for Basini’s reappearance.
Since Beineberg had replaced
the lamp, the rays of light once again cut out a circle in the darkness, like
an empty frame.
And all at once there was
Basini’s face again, just as it had been the first time, with the same fixed,
sweet, cloying smile-as though nothing had happened in the meantime-only now,
over his upper lip, mouth, and chin, slowly, drops of blood were making a red,
wriggling line, like a worm.
* * *
“Sit down over there!”
Reiting ordered, pointing to the great beam. When Basini had obeyed, Reiting
launched out: “I suppose you were thinking you’d got yourself nicely out of the
whole thing, eh? I suppose you thought I was going to help you? Well, that’s
just where you were wrong. What I’ve been doing with you was only to see
exactly how much of a skunk you are.”
Basini made a gesture of
protest, at which Reiting moved as though to leap at him again. Then Basini
said: “But look, for heaven’s sake, there wasn’t anything else I could do!”
“Shut up!” Reiting barked at
him. “We’re sick and tired of your excuses! We know now, once and for all, just
where we stand with you, and we shall act accordingly.”
There was a brief silence.
Then suddenly Törless said quietly, almost amiably: “Come on, say ‘I’m a
thief’.”
Basini stared at him with
wide, startled eyes. Beineberg laughed approvingly.
But Basini said nothing. Then
Beineberg hit him in the ribs and ordered sharply: “Can’t you hear? You’ve been
told to say you’re a thief. Get on and say it!”
Once again there was a short,
scarcely perceptible pause. Then in a low voice, in a single breath, and with
as little expression as possible, Basini murmured: “I’m a thief.”
Beineberg and Reiting laughed
delightedly, turning to Törless:
“That was a good idea of
yours, laddie.” And then to Basini: “And now get on with it and say: I’m a
beast, a pilfering, dishonest beast, your pilfering, dishonest, filthy
beast.”
And Basini said it, all in
one breath, with his eyes shut. But Törless had leaned back into the darkness
again. The scene sickened him, and he was ashamed of having delivered up his
idea to the others.
During the mathematics period
Törless was suddenly struck by an idea.
For some days past he had
been following lessons with special interest, thinking to himself: ‘If this is
really supposed to be preparation for life, as they say, it must surely contain
some clue to what I am looking for, too.,
It was actually of
mathematics that he had been thinking, and this even before he had had those
thoughts about infinity.
And now, right in the middle
of the lesson, it had shot into his head with searing intensity. As soon as the
class was dismissed he sat down beside Beineberg, who was the only person he
could talk to about such things.
“I say, did you really
understand all that stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“All that about imaginary
numbers.”
“Yes. It’s not particularly
difficult, is it? All you have to do is remember that the square root of minus
one is the basic unit you work with.”
“But that’s just it. I mean,
there’s no such thing. The square of every number, whether it’s positive or
negative, produces a positive quantity. So there can’t be any real
number that could be the square root of a minus quantity.”
“Quite so. But why shouldn’t
one try to perform the operation of working out the square root of a minus
quantity, all the same? Of course it can’t produce any real value, and so
that’s why one calls the result an imaginary one. It’s as though one were to
say:
someone always used to sit
here, so let’s put a chair ready for him
today too, and even if he has
died in the meantime, we shall go on behaving as if he were coming.”
“But how can you when you
know with certainty, with mathematical certainty, that it’s impossible?”
“Well, you lust go on
behaving as if it weren’t so, in spite of everything. It’ll probably produce
some sort of result. And after all, where is this so different from irrational
numbers-division that is never finished, a fraction of which the value will
never, never, never be finally arrived at, no matter how long you may go on
calculating away at it? And what can you imagine from being told that parallel
lines intersect at infinity? It seems to me if one were to be
over-conscientious there wouldn’t be any such thing as mathematics at all.”
“You’re quite right about
that. If one pictures it that way, it’s queer enough. But what is actually so
odd is that you can really go through quite ordinary operations with
imaginary or other impossible quantities, all the same, and come out at the
end with a tangible result!”
“Well, yes, the imaginary
factors must cancel each other out in the course of the operation just so that
does happen.”
“Yes, yes, I know all that
just as well as you do. But isn’t there still something very odd indeed about
the whole thing? I don’t quite know how to put it. Look, think of it like this:
in a calculation like that you begin with ordinary solid numbers, representing
measures of length or weight or something else that’s quite tangible-at any
rate, they’re real numbers. And at the end you have real numbers. But these two
lots of real numbers are connected by something that simply doesn t exist.
Isn’t that like a bridge where the piles are there only at the beginning and at
the end, with none in the middle, and yet one crosses it lust as surely and
safely as if the whole of it were there? That sort of operation makes me feel a
bit giddy, as if it led part of the way God knows where. But what I really feel
is so uncanny is the force that lies in a problem like that, which keeps such a
firm hold on you that in the end you land safely on the other side.”
Beineberg grinned. “You’re starting
to talk almost like the chaplain, aren’t you? You see an apple- that’s light-waves and the eye and so
forth-and you stretch out your hand to steal it-that’s the muscles and the
nerves that set them in action-but between these two there lies something else
that produces one out of the other, and that is the immortal soul, which in
doing so has committed a sin... ah yes, indeed, none of your actions can be
explained with-out the soul, which plays upon you as upon the keys of a
piano... And he imitated the cadences in which the chaplain was in the habit of
producing this old simile. “Not that I find all that stuff particularly
interesting.”
“I thought you were the very
person who would find it interesting. Anyway, it made me think of you at once
because-if it’s really impossible to explain it-it almost amounts to a piece of
evidence for what you believe.”
“Why shouldn’t it be
impossible to explain? I’m inclined to think it’s quite likely that in this
case the inventors of mathematics have tripped over their own feet. Why, after
all, shouldn’t something that lies beyond the limits of our intellect have
played a little joke on the intellect? But I’m not going to rack my brains
about it: these things never get anyone anywhere.”
That same day Törless asked
the mathematics master for permission to call on him, in order to discuss some
points in the last lesson.
The next day, during the noon
break, he went upstairs to the master’s little apartment.
He had gained an entirely new
respect for mathematics, for now it seemed all of a sudden to have ceased to be
a dead school subject and to have turned into something very much alive. And
arising out of this respect he felt something like envy of the master, who must
be on familiar terms with all these processes and relationships and who carried
the knowledge of them about with him always, like the key to a locked garden.
But above and beyond this Törless was also impelled by curiosity, though it
was, to be sure, rather diffident curiosity. He had never before been in the
room of a grownup young man, and there was a certain titillation in wondering
what things looked like in the life of such a person, a different person, one
who knew things and yet was composed and calm, ‘it least so far as one could
tell from the external objects surrounding him.
He had always been shy and
withdrawn in his relations with both teachers and believed that as a result he
was not particularly well liked by them. Hence his request, as he now paused in
agitation outside the door, seemed to him an act of daring in which the main
object was less to get some further light on his difficulties-for at the back
of his mind he had already begun to doubt that he would get any-than to cast a
glance, as it were, past the master and into this man’s daily cohabitation with
mathematics.
He was shown into the study.
It was a long narrow room with a single window; near the window was a desk
spattered with ink-blots, and against the wall was a sofa covered in some
scratchy green ribbed material, with tassels. Over this sofa a faded student’s
cap hung on the wall, together with a number of photographs, the size of
visiting-cards, brown and now grown dark with age, dating from the master’s
university days. On the oval table with the knock-kneed legs, which were of a
would-be grace and prettiness that had somehow gone wrong, there lay a pipe and
some leafy, crude-cut tobacco. The whole room was permeated with the smell of
cheap tobacco-smoke.
Törless had scarcely had time
to make these observations and note a trace of discomfort in himself, as on
contact with something unsavoury, when the master came in.
He was a fair, nervous young
man of no more than thirty, and quite a sound mathematician, who had already
submitted several important papers to the academy.
He at once sat down at his
desk, rummaged about a little among the papers strewn upon it (later it struck
Törless that he had positively taken refuge there), then, crossing his legs,
he began to polish his pince-nez with his handkerchief, and fixed an
expectant gaze on Törless.
Meanwhile Törless had been
scrutinising him too. He observed a pair of thick white woollen socks and saw
that over them the bands of the underpants had been rubbed black by the
blacking on the boots.
In contrast the handkerchief peeping
out of the breast pocket was all white and dainty, and though the tie was a
made-up one, it counterbalanced this by being as magnificently gaudy as a painter’s
palette.
Törless could not help
feeling further repelled by these little observations; he scarcely found it in
him to go on hoping that this man was really in possession of significant
knowledge, when there was nothing whatsoever about either his person or his
surroundings to suggest that it might be so. He had been secretly imagining a mathematician’s
study quite differently and as somehow expressive of the awe-inspiring matters
that were excogitated there. The ordinariness of what he saw affronted him; he
projected this on to mathematics, and his respect began to give way before a
mistrustful reluctance.
And since the master was now
shifting impatiently on his chair, not knowing what to make of this long
silence and this scrutinising gaze- even at this stage there was already an
atmosphere of misunderstanding between the two people in the room.
“And now let us. . . now you
. . .I shall be pleased to tell you whatever you want to know,” the master
began at last.
Törless then came out with
his difficulties, exerting himself to make clear what they meant to him. But he
felt as though he were talking through a dense and gloomy fog, and his best
words died away in his throat.
The master smiled, now and
then gave a little fidgety cough, said:
“If vou don’t mind,” and lit
a cigarette, at which he took hasty puffs. The cigarette-paper-and this was yet
another thing that Törless noticed and found incredibly sordid-at each puff
became greasy and crumpled up, crackling a little. The master took off his pince-nez,
put it on again, nodded . . And finally he cut Törlcss short. “I am
delighted, my dear Törless, yes, lam indeed delighted-’ he said, interrupting
him, “your qualms are indications of a seriousness and a readiness to think
for yourself, of a . . . h’m . . . but it is not at all easy to give you the
explanation you want. . . . you must not misunderstand what I am going to say.
“It is like this, you see-you
have been speaking of the intervention of transcendent, h’m, yes-of what are
called transcendent factors.
“Now of course I don’t know what
you feel about this. It’s always a very delicate matter dealing with the
suprasensual and all that lies beyond the strict limits of reason. I am not
really qualified to intervene there in any way. It doesn’t come into my field.
One may hold this view or that, and I should greatly wish to avoid entering
into any sort of controversy with anyone . . . But as regards math- ematics,”
and he stressed the word ‘mathematics’ as though he were slamming some fateful
door once and for all, “yes, as regards mathematics, we can be quite definite
that here the relationships work out in
a natural and purely mathematical way.
“Only I should really-in
order to be strictly scientific-I should really have to begin by posing certain
preliminary hypotheses that you would scarcely grasp, at your stage. And apart
from that, we have not the time.
“You know, I am quite
prepared to admit that, for instance, these imaginary numbers, these quantities
that have no real existence whatsoever, ha-ha, are no easy nut for a young
student to crack. You must accept the fact that such mathematical concepts are
nothing more or less than concepts inherent in the nature of purely
mathematical thought. You must bear in mind that to anyone at the elementary
stage at which you still are it is very difficult to give the right explanation
of many things that have to be touched upon. Fortunately, very few boys at your
stage feel this, but if one does really come along, as you have today-and of
course, as I said before, I am delighted-really all one can say is: My dear
young friend, you must simply take it on trust. Some day, when you know ten
times as much mathematics as you do today, you will understand-but for the
present: believe!
“There is nothing else for
it, my dear Törless. Mathematics is a whole world in itself and one has to have
lived in it for quite a while in order to feel all that essentially pertains to
it.”
Törless was glad when the
master stopped talking. Since he had heard that door slam it had seemed to him
that the words were moving farther and farther away from him . . . towards that
other, indifferent realm where all correct and yet utterly irrelevant explanations
lie.
But he was dazed by the
torrent of words and the failure, and did not instantly grasp the fact that now
he should get up and go.
So, in order to put an end to
it once and for all, the master looked for one last, convincing argument.
On a little table lay a
volume of Kant, the sort of volume that lies about for the sake of appearances.
This the master took up and held out to Toörless.
“You see this book. Here is
philosophy. It treats of the grounds determining our actions. And if you could
fathom this, if you could feel your way into the depths of this, you would come
up against nothing but just such principles, which are inherent in the nature
of thought and do in fact determine everything, although they themselves
cannot be understood immediately and without more ado. It is very similar to
the case with mathematics. And nevertheless we continually act on these principles.
There you have the proof of how important these things are. But,” he said,
smiling, as he saw Törless actually opening the book and turning the pages,
“that is something you may well leave on one side for the present. I only
wanted to give you an example which you may remember some day, later on. For
the present I think it would still be a little beyond you.”
All the rest of that day
Törless was in a state of inward upheaval. The fact that he had had the volume
of Kant in his hand-this quite haphazard circumstance, to which he had paid
little attention at the time-now worked mightily within him. The name of Kant
was familiar enough to him, though only as a name, and its currency value for
him was that which it had generally among those who even remotely occupied
themselves with things of the mind-it was the last word in philosophy. And this
authority it had was indeed part of the reason why Törless had hitherto spent
so little time on serious reading.
For very young people, once
they have got over the stage of wanting to be cab-drivers, gardeners or
confectioners when they grow up, in their imaginings are inclined to set their
ambitions for life in whatever field seems to hold out most chance for them to
distinguish themselves. If they say they want to be doctors, it is sure to be
because some time, somewhere, they have seen a well-furnished waiting-room
crowded with patients, or a glass case containing mysterious and alarming
surgical instruments, or the like; if they dream of a diplomatic career, it is
because they are thinking of the urbane glamour of cosmopolitan drawing-rooms;
in short, they choose their occupation according to the milieu in which they
would most like to see themselves, and according to the pose in which they like
themselves best.
Now, in Törless’s hearing the
name Kant had never been uttered except in passing and then in the tone in
which one refers to some awe-inspiring holy man. And Törless could not think
anything but that with Kant the problems of philosophy had been finally solved
so that since then it had become futile for anyone to concern himself with the
subject, lust as he also believed there was no longer any point in writing
poetry since Schiller and Goethe.
At home these men’s works
were kept in the book-case with the green glass panes in Papa’s study, and
Törless knew this book-case was never opened except to display its contents to
a visitor. It was like the shrine of some divinity to which one does not
readily draw nigh and which one venerates only because one is glad that thanks
to its existence there are certain things one need no longer bother about.
This distorted relationship
to philosophy and literature in due course had its unhappy effect on Törless’s
development, and to it he owed many of these miserable hours. For in this way
his ambition was diverted from the subjects to which he was really most
inclined; and while, being deprived of his natural goal, he was searching for
another, his ambition fell under the coarse and resolute influence of his
companions at school. His inclinations re-asserted themselves only occasionally
and shamefacedly, each time leaving him with a sense of having done something
useless and ridiculous. Nevertheless they were so strong that he did not
succeed in getting rid of them entirely; and it was this unceasing conflict
that left his personality without firm lines, without straightforward drive.
Today, however, this
relationship seemed to have entered a new phase. The thoughts that had just
caused him to seek in vain for enlightenment were no longer the baseless
concatenations produced by the random play of his fantasy; on the contrary,
they created upheaval in him, holding him in their grip, and with his whole
body he could feel that behind them there pulsed an element of his life. This
was something quite new for him. There was within him now something definite, a
certainty that he had never known in himself before. It was something
mysterious, almost like a dream. It must, he thought to himself, have been very
quietly developing under the various influences he had been exposed to in these
last weeks, and now suddenly it was like imperious knuckles rapping at a door
within him. His mood was that of a woman who for the first time feels the
assertive stirring of the growing child within her.
He spent an afternoon full of
wonderful enjoyment.
He got out of his locker all
the poetical scribblings that he had stored away there. Taking them with him,
he sat down by the stove, where he remained quite alone and unseen behind the
huge screen. He went through one copy-book after another, afterwards slowly
tearing each into small shreds and throwing the pieces into the fire one by
one, each time relishing the exquisite pathos of farewell.
In this way he meant to cast
away all the impedimenta he had brought with him from earlier days, just as
though he must now travel light, giving all his attention to the steps that had
to be taken, on into the future.
At last he got up and went to
join the others. He felt free, able to look at everything squarely. What he had
done had actually been done only in a quite instinctive way; there was no
surety that he would really be capable of being a new person now, none at all
unless the sheer existence of that impulse was surety. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said to
himself, ‘tomorrow I shall go over everything very carefully, and I shall get
a clear view of things all right somehow.’
He strolled about the room,
between the separate desks, glanced into copy-books lying open, at the fingers moving
swiftly and busily along in the act of writing on that glaring white paper,
each finger drawing along after it its own little brown shadow-he watched all
this like someone who had suddenly waked up, with eyes for which everything
seemed now to be of graver import.
But the very next day brought
a bad disappointment. What happened was that first thing in the morning
Törless bought himself the cheap paper-bound edition of the book he had seen in
his mathematics master’s room, and made use of the first break between lessons
to begin reading it. But with all its parentheses and footnotes it was
incomprehensible to him, and when he conscientiously went along the sentences
with his eyes, it was as if some aged, bony hand were twisting and screwing his
brain out of his head.
When after perhaps half an
hour he stopped, exhausted, he had reached only the second page, and there was
sweat on his forehead.
But then he clenched his
teeth and read on, and he got to the end of one more page before the break was
over.
That evening, however, he
could not bring himself even to touch the book again. Was it dread? Disgust? He
did not rightly know. Only one thing tormented him, with burning intensity: the
mathematics master, that man who looked so thoroughly insignificant, quite
openly had the book lying about in his room as if it were his daily
entertainment.
He was in this mood when
Beineberg came upon him.
“Well, Törless, how was it
yesterday with the maths crammer?” They were sitting alone in a window-bay and
had pushed the long clothes-stand, on which all the coats hung, across in front
of them, so that all they heard and saw of the class was the rising and falling
hum of voices and the reflection of the lamps on the ceiling. Törless fiddled
absent-mindedly with one of the coats hanging in front of him.
“I say, are you asleep? He
must have given you some answer, I suppose? Though I must say I can imagine it
got him in quite a fix, didn’t it?”
“Why?”
“Well, I dare say he wasn’t
prepared for a silly question like that.”
“It wasn’t a silly question
at all. I haven’t done with it yet.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it like
that, I only meant it must have seemed silly to him. They learn their stuff off
by heart just the way the chaplain can reel off the catechism, and if you go
and ask them anything out of turn it always gets them in a fix.”
“Oh, he wasn’t at a loss for
the answer. He didn’t even let me finish saying what I wanted to say, he had it
all so pat.”
“And how did he explain the
thing?”
“Actually he didn’t explain
it at all. He said I wouldn’t be able to understand it yet, these things were
principles inherent in the mode of thought, and only become clear to someone
who has gone on deeper into the subject.”
“There you are, you see,
there’s the swindle of it! They simply can’t put their stuff across to someone
who just has his brains and nothing else. It only works after he’s spent ten
years going through the mill. But up to then he’s done thousands of
calculations on the basis of the thing and erected huge constructions that always
worked out to the last dot. What it means is he then simply believes in it the
way a Catholic believes in revelation-it’s always worked so nicely. And where’s
the difficulty, then afterwards, in getting such people to believe in the proof
as well? On the contrary, nobody would he capable of persuading then’ that
though their construction stands, each single brick in it evaporates into thin
air as soon as you try to get hold of it!”
Beineberg’s exaggeration made
Törless feel uncomfortable.
“I don’t think it’s quite so
bad as you make out. I’ve never doubted
that mathematics is right - after all,
the results show that it is- the only thing that seemed queer to me was that
everv now and then it all seems to go against reason. And after all it’s quite
possible that that only seems to be so.”
“Well, you can wait and see
at the end of ten years, and perhaps by then your brain will be properly
softened up and receptive to it. But I’ye been thinking about it too since we
talked the other day, and I’m perfectly convinced there’s a catch in it
somewhere. Come to think of it, you talked about it quite differently then from
the way you’re talking today.”
“Oh no. It still seems pretty
dubious to me even now, only I’m not going to rush off into exaggerations the
way you do. It certainly is thoroughly queer. The idea of the
irrational, the imaginary, the lines that are parallel and yet meet at
infinity-in other words, they do meet somewhere-it all simply staggers
me! When I start thinking about it, I feel stunned, as though I’d been hit on
the head.” Törless leaned forward, right into the shadows, and his voice was
low and husky. “Everything was all so clear and plain in my head before. But
now it’s as if my thoughts were like clouds, and when I come to these
particular things, it’s like a sort of gap you look through into an infinite,
indefinable distance. Mathematics is probably right. But what is this thing in
my head, and what about all the others? Don’t they feel it at all? How does it
look to all of them? Or doesn’t it look like anything?”
“It seems to me you could see
that from how your maths master reacted. When you hit on a thing like
that, you always take a look round and wonder: now how does this fit in with
everything else in me? They’ve bored a track through their brains, with
thousands of spiral whorls in it, and they can only see as far as the last
turning, whenever they look back to see if the thread they spin out behind them
is still holding. That’s why it gets them in a fix when you come along with
that sort of question. None of them ever finds the way back. And anyway,
how can you say I’m exaggerating? These people who’ve grown up and become so
very clever have just spun themselves lip completely in a web, with each mesh
of it keeping the next in place, so that the whole thing looks as large as life
and twice as natural. But there’s nobody who knows where the first mesh is that
keeps all the rest in place.
“The two of us have never
talked seriously about this before-after all, one doesn’t particularly care to
make a lot of fuss about such things-but now you can see for yourself what a
feeble point of view these people have and how they come to terms with this
world. It’s all delusion, it’s all swindle, mere feebleness of mind! It’s
anemic! Their intellect takes them just far enough for them to think their
scientific explanation out of their heads, but once it’s outside it freezes up,
see what I mean? Ha ha! All these fine points, these extreme fine points that
the masters tell us are so fine and sharp that we’re not capable of touching
them yet-they’re all dead-frozen-d’you see what I mean? There are these admired
icy points sticking out in all directions, and there isn’t anyone who can do
anything with them, they’re so dead!”
For some time now Törless had
been leaning back again. Beineberg’s hot breath was caught up among the coats
and made the little corner warm. And as always when he was excited, Beineberg
made a disagreeable impression on Törless. It was especially so now when he
thrust up close, so close that his unwinking, staring eyes were like two
greenish stones straight in front of Törless’s own eyes, while his hands darted
this way and that in the half-darkness with a peculiarly repellent nimbleness.
“Everything they assert is
quite uncertain. They say everything works by a natural law. When a stone
falls, that’s the force of gravity. But why shouldn’t it be the Will of God?
And why should someone Ir. whom God is well pleased not some time be liberated
from sharing the fate of the stone? Still, why am I saying such things to you?
You’ll never be more than half a human being, anyway! Discovering a little bit
of something queer, shaking your head a little, being horrified a little-that’s
your way. Beyond that you lust don’t dare to go. Not that it’s any loss to me.
“But it is to me, you think?
Yet it isn’t as if your own statements were by any means so certain.”
“How can you say such a
thing! They’re the only thing that is certain. Anyway, why should I
quarrel with you about it? You’ll see all right some day, my dear Törless. I’d
even be prepared to bet that the day will come when you’ll be quite
confoundedly interested in the way it is with these things. For instance, when
things with Basini turn out as 1-“
“I don’t want to hear about
that,” Törless cut him short. “I don’t want that mixed up with it just now.”
“Oh, and why not?”
“Just like that. I don’t want
to, that’s all. I don’t care for it. Basini and this are two different things
for me. This is one thing, and Basini is an entirely different kettle of fish.”
Beineberg grimaced in
annoyance at this unaccustomed decisiveness, indeed roughness, on the part of
his younger friend. But Törless himself realised that the mere mention of Basini
had undermined all the confidence he had been displaying, and in order to
conceal this he talked himself into annoyance too.
“Anyway, you make these
sweeping statements with a certainty that’s positively mad. Hasn’t it occurred
to you that your theories may be just as much without a solid basis as anyone
else’s? The spiral whorls in your own head go a lot deeper and call for a whole
lot more good will.”
Remarkably enough, Beineberg
did not lose his temper. He only smiled-though rather twistedly and his eyes
gleamed more restlessly than ever-and he said over and over again: “You’ll see
for yourself, you’ll see for yourself.
“Well, what shall I see? Oh,
allright then, I’ll see, I’ll see. But I don’t give a damn about it, Beineberg!
It doesn’t interest me. You don’t understand me. You simply don’t know what
interests me. If mathematics torments me and jf”-but he instantly thought better
of it and said nothing about Basini-“if mathematics torments me, it’s because
I’m looking for something quite different behind it from what you’re looking
for. What I’m after isn’t anything supernatural at all. It’s precisely the
natural-don’t you see? Nothing outside myself at all-it’s something in me I’m
looking for! something natural, but, all the same, something I don’t
understand! Only you have just as little feeling for it as any maths master in
the world. Oh, leave me in peace-I’ve had enough of your speculations!”
Törless was trembling with
agitation when he stood up.
And Beineberg was saying over
and over again: “Well, we shall see, we shall see . .”
When Törless was in bed that
night he could not sleep. The quarters of the hours crept away like nurses
tiptoeing from a sick-bed; his feet were icy cold, and the blankets merely lay
heavy on him without warming him.
In the dormitory there was
nothing to be heard but the calm and regular breathing of the boys, all sunk in
their healthy, animal sleep after their lessons, gymnastics, and running about
in the open air.
Törless listened to the
sleepers’ breathing. There was Beineberg’s, Reiting’s, Basini’s breathing-which
was which? He did not know. But each was one of the many regular, equally calm,
equally steady sounds of breathing that rose and fell like the working of some
mechanism.
One of the linen blinds had
jammed half-way down, and under it the clear night shone into the room, making
out a pale, motionless rectangle on the floor. The cord must have got stuck at
the top, or it had slipped off the roller, and now it hung down, hideously
twisted, and its shadow crept like a worm across the bright rectangle on the
floor.
It was all grotesquely,
frighteningly hideous.
Törless tried to think of
something pleasant. Beineberg came into his mind. Had he not taken him down a
peg today? Dealt a blow to his sense of superiority? Had he today not succeeded
for the first time in asserting his individuality against him? In making it
apparent in such a way that the other must have felt the infinite difference in
the fineness of sensibility distinguishing their two views of things? Had there
been anything left for Beineberg to say? Yes or no?
But this ‘yes or no?’ swelled
up inside his head like a great bubble rising, and burst . . . and ‘yes or no?’
swelled, ceaselessly, in a stamping rhythm like the clatter of a railway train
running over the rails, like the nodding of flowers on excessively long stems,
like the thudding of a hammer that could be heard through many thin walls, in
a silent house . . . This insistent, complacent ‘yes or no?’ disgusted Törless.
His pleasure was not quite genuine, it hopped about so ridiculously.
And finally, when he started
up, it seemed to be his own head that was nodding, lolling about on his
shoulders, or thudding up and down like a hammer...
In the end all grew quiet in
him. Before his eyes there was only a great circular plain spreading out in all
directions.
Then... right from the very
edge... there came two tiny, wobbling figures.. . tiny figures approaching
obliquely across the table. Evidently they were his parents. But they were so
small that he could not feel anything about them.
At the far rim they vanished
again.
Then came another two-but
look, there was somebody running up behind them and past them-with strides
twice as long as his body-and an instant later he had vanished over the edge of
the table. Had it not been Beineberg? Now for the two-wasn’t one of them the
mathematics master? Törless recognised him by the handkerchief coyly peeping
out of his breast-pocket. But the other? The one with the very, very thick book
under his arm, which was half as big as himself, so that he could only just
manage to trudge along with it? .. . At every third step they stopped and set
the book down on the ground. And Törless heard his teacher say in a squeaky
little voice: ‘If that is really so, we shall find the right answer on page
twelve, page twelve refers us then to page fifty-two, but then we must also
bear in mind what is pointed out on page thirty-one, and on this
supposition...’ As he spoke they were stooping over the book and plunging their
hands into it, making the pages fly. After a while then they straightened up,
and the other stroked the master’s cheek five or six times. Then once more they
went on a few paces, and after that Törless yet again heard the voice, just as
if it were unravelling the long skein of some theorem in a mathematics lesson;
and this went on until the other again stroked the master’s cheek.
This other . . . ? Törless
frowned in the effort to see more clearly.
Was he not wearing a peruke?
And rather old-fashioned clothes? Very old-fashioned indeed? In fact, silk
knee-breeches? Wasn’t it-? Oh! And Törless woke up with a cry: “Kant!”
The next moment he smiled.
All was quiet around him; the sleepers’ breathing was very quiet now. He too
had been asleep. And meanwhile his bed had grown warm. He stretched luxuriously
under the bed-clothes.
‘So I’ve been dreaming about
Kant,’ he thought to himself. ‘Why didn’t it last longer? Perhaps he would have
let me into some of the secret. . .’ For he remembered that once recently when
he had not done his history preparation he had all night long dreamt of the
persons and events concerned, so vividly that the next day he had been able to
recount it all lust as though he had been there, and he had passed the test
with distinction. And now he thought of Beineberg again, Beineberg and
Kant-their discussion the previous day.
Slowly the dream
receded-slowly, like a silk cover slipping off the skin of a naked body, but
without ever coming to an end.
Yet soon his smile faded
again; he felt a queer uneasiness. Had he really come a single step forward in
his thoughts? Could he really get anything, anything at all, out of this book
that was supposed to contain the solution to all the riddles? And his victory?
Oh, it was probably only his unexpected energy that had made Beineberg fall
silent.
And now again he was
overwhelmed by profound discontent and a positively physical feeling of nausea.
So he lay for long minutes, hollowed out by disgust.
But then again suddenly he
became conscious of how his body was lapped by the mild, warm linen. Warily,
quite slowly. and warily, Törless turned his head. Sure enough, there the pale
rectangle still lay on the floor-the sides of it now slanting rather
differently, it was true, but still with that wormy shadow twisting across it.
It was as if there some danger lay bound in chains, something that he could
contemplate from here in his bed, as though protected by the bars of a cage,
with the calm knowledge that he was in safety.
In his skin, all over his body,
there awoke a sensation that suddenly turned into an image in his memory. When
he was quite small-yes, yes, that was it-when he was still in pinafores and had
not yet begun to go to kindergarten, there had been times when he had had a
quite unspeakable longing to be a little girl. And this longing too had not
been in his head-oh no-nor in his heart either-it had tingled all over his body
and gone racing round under his skin. Yes, there had been moments when he so
vividly felt himself a little girl that he believed it simply could not be
otherwise. For at that time he still knew nothing of the significant bodily
differences between the sexes, and did not understand why they all told him he
must just put up with being a boy once and for all. And when he was asked why
then he thought he would rather be a girl, he had not known how to say what he
meant....
Today for the first time he
felt something similar again-again that longing, that tingling under the skin.
It was something that seemed
to partake simultaneously of body and soul. It was a multifold racing and
hurrying of something beating against his body, like the velvety antennae of
butterflies. And mingled with it there was that defiance with which little
girls run away when they feel that the grown-ups simply do not understand
them, the arrogance with which they then giggle about the grown-ups, that timid
arrogance which is always, as it were, poised for flight and which feels that
at any instant it can withdraw into some terribly deep hiding-place inside its
own little body. .
Törless laughed quietly to
himself, and once again he stretched luxuriously under the bed-clothes.
How feverishly that quaint
little mannikin he had dreamt of had gone leafing through the book! And the
rectangle down there on the floor? Ha ha. Had such clever little mannikins ever
in their lives noticed anything of that sort? He felt vastly secure now, safe
from those clever persons, and for the first time felt that in his
sensuality-for he had long known that this was what it was-he had something
that none of them could take away from him, and which none of them could
imitate, either, something that was like a very high and very secret wall
protecting him against all the cleverness of the outside world.
Had such clever little mannikins
ever in their lives-he went on wondering-lain at the foot of a solitary wall
and felt terror at every rustle inside the bricks and mortar, which was as
though something dead were trying to find words that it might speak to them?
Had they ever felt the music that the breeze kindled among the autumn leaves,
and felt it through and through, so that suddenly there was terror looming
behind it-terror that slowly, slowly turned into lust? But into such strange
lust, more like running away from something, and then like laughter and
mockery. Oh, it is easy to be clever if one does not know all these questions.
In the meantime, however, the
mannikin every now and then grew to gigantic size, his face inexorably stern;
and each time this happened something like an electric shock ran agonisingly
from Törless’s brain all through his body. Then once again all his anguish at
still being left to stand outside a locked door-the very thing that only an
instant earlier had been flooded away by the warm waves of his pulsing
blood-awoke in him again, and a wordless lament streamed through his spirit,
like a dog’s howling in the night, tremulous over an expanse of dark fields.
So he fell asleep. And even
as he dropped off he looked across once or twice to the patch under the window,
like someone mechanically reaching out for a supporting rope, to feel whether
it is still taut. Then vaguely a resolution loomed up in his mind: the next day
he would again do some hard thinking about himself... it would be best to do it
with pen and paper... and then, last of all, there was only the pleasant warmth
that lapped him . . . like a bath and a stirring of the senses . . . but no
longer conscious to him as that, only in some utterly unrecognisable but very
definite way being linked with Basini.
Then he slept soundly and
dreamlessly.
And yet this was the first
thing in his mind when he woke the next morning. Now he intensely wished he
could know what it had really been that he had half thought, half dreamt, about
Basini as he fell asleep; but he could not manage to recollect it.
So all that remained was a
tender mood such as reigns in a house at Christmas-time, when the children know
the presents are already there, though locked away behind the mysterious door,
and all that can be glimpsed now and then is a glow of light through the
chinks.
In the evening Törless stayed
in the classroom. Beineberg and Reiting had disappeared; probably they had gone
off to the lair by the attics. Basini was sitting in his place in front,
hunched over a book, his head supported on both hands.
Törless had bought himself a
copy-book and now carefully set out his pen and ink. Then, after some
hesitation, he wrote on the first page: De natura hominum. The Latin title was,
he thought, the philosophic subject’s due. Then he drew a large artistic curlicue
round the title and leaned back in his chair to wait until it dried.
But it had been dry for a
long time, and still he had not picked up his pen again. Something held him
fast, kept him motionless. It was the hypnotic atmosphere of the big, hot
lamps, and the animal warmth emanating from all the living bodies in the
crowded room. He had always been susceptible to such an atmosphere, and this
state was one that could rise to such a pitch of intensity that he became physically
feverish, which again was always associated with an extraordinary heightening
of mental perceptiveness. So it was today too. He had worked out, during the
course of the day, what it actually was he wanted to make notes about: the
whole series of those particular experiences from the evening with Bozena on,
culminating in that vague sensual state which had recently been coming over
him. Once that was all put down, fact for fact, then-or so he hoped-the real
intellectual pattern of it would emerge of its own accord, just as an
encompassing line stands out distinctly and gives form to a tangled composition
of hundreds of intersecting curves. And more than that he did not want. But so
far he had fared like a fisherman who can feel by the jerking of his net that
he has got a heavy haul and yet in spite of all his straining cannot manage to
get it up into the light.
And now Törless did begin to
write after all, but rapidly and without paying any attention to the form. “I
feel something in me,” he wrote, “and don’t quite know what it is.” Then,
however, he hastily crossed this line out and wrote instead: “I must be
ill-insane!” At this a shudder went through him, for the word was pleasantly
melodramatic. “Insane-else what is it that makes things seem so odd to me that
are quite ordinary for the others? And why does this oddness of things torment
me? And why does this oddness cause me lusts of the flesh?”-he deliberately
used this Biblical and unctuous expression because it struck him as more
obscure and laden with implication. “Before, I used to have the same attitude
to this as any of the others here-“ but then he came to a halt. ‘Is that really
true?’ he wondered. ‘For instance, even that time at Bozena’s it was all so
queer. So when did it actually begin? . . . Oh well.’ he thought, ‘it doesn’t
matter. Some time, anyway.’ But he left his sentence unfinished.
“What are the things that
seem odd to me? The most trivial. Mostly inanimate objects. What is it about
them that seems odd? Something about them that I don’t know about. But that’s
just it! Where on earth do I get this ‘something’ notion from? I feel it’s
there, it exists. It has an effect on me, just as if it were trying to lip-read
from the twisted mouth of someone who’s paralysed, and simply not being able to
do it. It’s as if I had one extra sense, one more than the others have, but not
completely developed, a sense that’s there and makes itself noticed, but
doesn’t function. For me the world is full of soundless voices. Does this mean
I’m a seer or that I have hallucinations?
“But it’s not only inanimate
objects that have this effect on me. What makes me so much more doubtful about
it all is that people do it too. Up to a certain point in time I saw them the
way they see themselves. Beineberg and Reiting, for instance-they have their
lair, a perfectly ordinary secret cubby-hole, because they enjoy having a
place like that to retreat to. And they do one thing because they’re furious
with one fellow, they do another thing because they w3nt to prevent someone
else from having any influence on the others. All quite sensible, obvious
reasons. But nowadays they some-times appear to me as if I were having a dream
and they were only people in it. It’s not only what they say or what they
do-everything about them, bound up with their physical presence, sometimes has
the same sort of effect on me as inanimate objects have. And all the same, I
still hear them talking exactly the same way as before, I see how what they do
and say still follows the same old patterns... This really goes to show all the
time that there’s nothing extraordinary happening at all, and at the same time
something in me still goes on protesting that it isn’t like that. So far as I
can remember exactly, this change began with Basini’s-“
Here Törless involuntarily
glanced over at Basini himself.
Basini was still sitting
hunched over his book in the same attitude, apparently memorising something. At
the sight of him sitting there like that, Törless’s thoughts came to a
standstill, and now he had a chance to feel once more the workings of the
seductive torments that he had just been describing. For as soon as he became
aware of how quietly and harmlessly Basini was sitting there before him, in no
way differentiated from the others to right and to left, he vividly recalled
the humiliations that Basini had undergone. They sprang to life in his mind:
that is to say, he was far from thinking of them with the kind of indulgence
which goes with the moral reflection that it is in every one’s nature to try,
after having suffered humiliations, to regain at least an outward air of
casualness and unembarrassment as quickly as possible. On the contrary, something
instantly began in him that was like the crazy whirling of a top, immediately
compressing Basini’s image into the most fantastically dislocated attitudes
and then tearing it asunder in incredible distortions, so that he himself grew
dizzy. True, these were only figures of speech that he found for it afterwards.
At the moment he merely had the feeling of something in his tightened breast
whirling upwards into his head, like a wildly spinning top, and this was the
dizziness. Into the midst of it, like sparks, like dots of colour, there sprang
those same feelings that he had had at various times about Basini.
Actually it had always been
one and the same feeling. And more accurately, it was not a feeling at all, but
more like a tremor deep down within him, causing no perceptible waves and
nevertheless making his soul shudder quietly and yet so violently that in comparison
the surges of even the stormiest feelings were like harmless ripples on the
surface.
If this one ‘feeling’ was one
that had at different times seemed different to him, it was because all he had
to help him in interpreting this tide of emotion that would flood through his
whole being was the images it cast up into his consciousness-as if all that
could be seen of a swell stretching endlessly far away into the darkness were
single, separate droplets of foam flung high against the cliffs of some lighted
shore and, all force spent, immediately falling away again, out of the circle
of light.
So these impressions were
unstable, varying, and accompanied by an awareness of their random nature.
Törless could never hold on to them; and when he looked more closely, he could
feel that these incidents on the surface were in no proportion to the force of
the dark mass, deep down, of which they seemed to be the manifestations.
He never at any time ‘saw’
Basini in any sort of physically plastic and living attitude; never did any of
all this amount to a real vision. It was always only the illusion of one, as it
were only the vision of his visions. For within him it was always as if a
picture had just flashed across the mysterious screen, and be never succeeded
in catching hold of it in the very instant that this happened. Hence there was
all the time a restlessness and uneasiness in him such as one feels when
watching cinematographic pictures, when, for all the illusion the whole thing
creates, one is nevertheless unable to shake off a vague awareness that behind
the image one perceives there are hundreds of other images flashing past, and
each of them utterly different from the picture as a whole.
But he did not know where in
himself to search for this power of creating illusion-illusion that was,
moreover, by an immeasurably slight degree always just insufficient. He simply
had an obscure inkling that it was connected with that enigmatic quality his
spirit had of being assailed
at times even by inanimate objects, by mere things, as by hundreds of mutely
questioning eyes.
And so Törless sat quite
still, transfixed, staring across at Basini, wholly involved in the seething
whirl within him. And ever and 3gain the same question rose up before him: What
is this special quality I have? Gradually he ceased to see Basini any longer,
or the hot glaring lamps, ceased to feel the animal warmth surrounding him, or
to hear the buzzing and humming that goes up from a crowd of human beings even
if they are only whispering. It all merged into one hot, darkly glowing mass
that swung in a circle round him. His ears were burning, and his finger-tips
were icy cold. He was in that state of more psychic than bodily fever which he
loved. The mood went on intensifying, and now and then impulses of tenderness
mingled with it. Previously, when in this state, he had enjoyed abandoning
himself to those memories that are left in a young soul when for the first time
it has been touched by the warm breath of a woman. And today too he felt that
indolent warmth. A memory came to him . .. It was on a journey... in a little
town in Italy . . . his parents and he were staying in a hotel not far from the
theatre. Every evening the same opera was performed there, and every evening he
heard every word and every note of it wafted over to him. He had no knowledge
of the language; but for all that he spent his evenings sitting at the open
window, listening. So it came about that he fell in love with one of the
singers, without ever having set eyes on her. He was never again so moved by
the theatre as at that time; the passion of those arias was for him like the
wing-beats of great dark birds, and it was as though he could feel the lines
that their flight traced in his soul. These were no longer human passions that
he heard; no, they were passions that had escaped out of the human hearts,
taking flight as out of cages that were too cramped, too commonplace, for them.
In that state of excitement he could never think of the people who were over
there-invisible-acting out those passions. If he did try to picture them, on
the instant dark flames shot up before his eyes-or undreamt-of gigantic
dimensions opened up, as in the darkness people’s bodies grow and people’s eyes
shine like the mirroring surface of deep wells. This lurid conflagration, these
eyes in the dark, these black wing-beats, were what he at that time loved under
the name of the singer he had never seen.
And who had composed the opera?
He did not know. Perhaps the libretto was some dreary sentimental romance. Had
its creator ever felt that once set to music it would be transformed into something
else?
A sudden thought made his
whole body grow tense. Are even older people like that? Is the world like that?
Is it a universal law that there’s something in us stronger, bigger, more
beautiful, more passionate and darker than ourselves? Something we have so
little power over that all we can do is aimlessly strew thousands of seeds, until
suddenly out of one seed it shoots up like a dark flame and grows away out over
our heads? ... And every nerve in his body quivered with the impatient answer:
Yes.
Törless glanced about him
with blazing eyes. It was all still there, the lamps, warmth, and light, the
boys busily at work. But here in the midst of it he seemed to himself as one
elect-like a saint, having heavenly visions. For the intuition of great artists
was something of which he did not know.
Hurriedly, with the hastiness
of nervous dread, he snatched up his pen and made some notes on his discovery.
Once again there seemed to be a light within him scattering its sparks in all
directions . . . then an ash-grey shower of rain fell over his gaze, and the
glory in his spirit was quenched.
The Kant episode was now
practically over and done with. By day Törless had quite ceased to think of it;
the conviction thathe himself was very close to the answer to his riddles was
much too strong for him to go on bothering about anyone else’s way of dealing
with such problems. Since the last evening it was as if he had already felt in
his hand the knob of the door that would open into the further realm, and then
it had slipped from his grasp. But since he had realised that he must manage
without the aid of philosophic books, and since he put no real trust in them
anyway, he was rather at a loss as to how he was to find that knob again. He
several times made an attempt to continue his notes; but the written words
remained lifeless, a series, it seemed, of irksome and all too familiar
question-marks, and there was no re-awakening of that moment in which he had
gazed through them as into a vault illumined by flickering candle-flames.
Therefore he resolved that as
often as possible, and ever and again, he would seek those situations which had
that for him so peculiar meaning. And especially often did his gaze rest on
Basini, when the latter, having no sense of being watched, went about among the
others as if nothing at all were wrong. ‘Sooner or later,’ Törless thought to
himself, ‘it’ll come to life again, and then perhaps more intensely and clearly
than before.’ And he was quite relieved at the thought that where such things
were concerned one was simply in a dark room and there was nothing else one
could do, once the fingers had slipped from the right place, but keep on
groping and groping at random over the walls in the dark.
Yet at night this thought
lost some of its conviction, and he would be overtaken by something like shame
at having shied away from his original resolve to seek in the book his teacher
had shown him the explanation that it might, after all, contain. This happened
when he was lying still and listening for the sound of breathing from Basini,
whose outraged body drew breath as tranquilly as those of all the others. He
would lie still like a stalker in his hiding-place, with the feeling that he
only had to wait and the time so spent would surely bring its reward. And then
the thought of the book would come into his mind, and at once a fine-toothed
doubt would begin to gnaw in him, disturbing this stillness-a foreboding that
he was wasting his time, a hesitant admission that he had suffered a defeat.
As soon as this vague feeling
asserted itself, his attentiveness lost the comfortable quality of watching the
development of a scientific experiment. It seemed then that some physical
influence emanated from Basini, a fascination such as comes from sleeping near
a woman and knowing one can at any instant pull the covers off her body. It was
a tingling in the brain, which started from the awareness of only having to
stretch out one’s hand. It was the same thing that often drives young couples
into orgies of sensuality far beyond the bodies’ real demands.
* * *
According to the intensity
with which it struck him that his enterprise would perhaps seem ridiculous even
to himself if he knew all that Kant knew, all that his mathematics master knew,
and all that those people knew who had got to the end of their
studies-according to the varying force of this qualm in him there was a
weakening or an intensification of those sensual impulses that often kept his
burning eyes wide open, in spite of the stillness all round him, where everyone
else was asleep. At times, indeed, these impulses overwhelmed all other
thoughts. When at such moments he abandoned himself, half willingly, half
despairingly, to their insinuations, it was with him only as it is with all
those people who, after all, never so much incline to a mad outburst of
soul-rending, wantonly destructive debauchery as when they have suffered some
failure that upsets the balance of their self-confidence. .
Then, when at last, after
midnight, he was drifting into an uneasy sleep, it several times seemed to him
that someone got up, over where Reiting’s and Beineberg’s beds were, and took
his coat and went across to Basini. Then they left the dormitory . . . But it
might equally well have been imagination. . .
There came two public
holidays; and since they fell on a Monday and Tuesday, the headmaster gave the
boys Saturday off as well, so that they had four days free. For Törless this
was still too short a time to make the long journey home worthwhile; and he had
therefore hoped that at any rate his parents would come and see him. However,
his father was kept by urgent affairs at his government office, and his mother
did not feel well enough to face the strain of travelling alone.
But when Törless received his
parents’ letter, in which they told him they could not come, and added many
affectionate words of comfort, he suddenly realised that this actually suited
him very well. He knew now that it would have been almost an interruption-at
least it would have embarrassed him considerably-if he had had to face his
parents just at this stage.
Many of the boys had invitations
to estates in the district. Dschjusch, whose parents owned a fine property at
the distance of a day’s drive from the little town, was one of those who went
away, and with him went Beineberg, Reiting, and Hofmeier. Basini had also been
asked, but Reiting had bidden him refuse. Törless excused himself on the
grounds that he did not know for certain whether his parents might not come
after all; he felt totally disinclined for innocent, cheerful frolics and
amusements.
By noon on Saturday the great
building was silent and almost quite deserted.
When Törless walked through
the empty corridors, they echoed from end to end. There was nobody to bother
about him, for most of the masters had also gone away for a few days’ shooting
or the
like. It was only at meals,
which were now served in a small room next to the deserted refectory, that the
few remaining boys saw each other. When they left the table they once more took
their separate ways through the many corridors and class-rooms; it was as if
the silence of the building had swallowed them up, and whatever life they led
in these intervals seemed to be of no more interest to anyone than that of the
spiders and centipedes in the cellars and attics.
Of Törless’s class the only
two left were himself and Basini, with the exception of a few boys in the
sick-bay. When leaving, Reiting had exchanged a few words in private with
Törless in the matter of Basini, for he was afraid that Basini might make use
of the opportunity to seek protection from one of the masters; he had therefore
impressed it on Törless to keep a sharp eye on him.
However, there was no need of
that to concentrate Törless’s attention on Basini.
Scarcely had the uproar faded
away-the carriages driving to the door, the servants carrying valises, the boys
joking and shouting good-bye to each other-when the consciousness of being
alone with Basini took complete possession of Törless’s mind.
It was after the first midday
meal. Basini sat in his place in front, writing a letter. Törless had gone to a
corner right at the back of the room and was trying to read.
It was for the first time
again the volume of Kant, and the situation was just as he had pictured it: in
front there sat Basini, at the back himself, holding Basini with his gaze,
boring holes into him with his eyes. And it was like this that he wanted to
read: penetrating deeper into Basini at the end of every page. That was how it
must be; in this way he must find the truth without losing grip on life,
living, complicated, ambiguous life. .
But it would not work. This
was what always happened when he had thought something out all too carefully in
advance. It was too unspontaneous, and his mood swiftly lapsed into a dense,
gluey boredom, which stuck odiously to every one of his all too deliberate attempts
to get on with his reading.
In a fury, Törless threw the
book on the floor. Basini looked round with a start, but at once turned away
again and hurriedly went on writing.
So the hours crept on towards
dusk. Törless sat there in a stupor.
The only thing that struck
clearly into his awareness-out of a muffled, buzzing, whirring state of
generalised sensation-was the ticking of his pocket-watch. It was like a little
tail wagging on the sluggish body of the creeping hours. The room became blurred
... Surely Basini could no longer be writing... ‘Aha, he probably doesn’t dare
to light a lamp,’ Törless thought to himself. But was he still sitting over
there in his place at all? Törless had been gazing out into the bleak, twilit
landscape and now had to accustom his eyes again to the darkness of the room.
Oh yes, there he was. There, that motionless shadow, that would be Basini all
right. And now he even heaved a sigh-once, twice. He hadn’t gone to sleep, had
he?
A servant came in and lit the
lamps. Basini started up and rubbed his eyes. Then he took a book out of his
desk and began to apply himself to it.
To~rless could hardly prevent
himself from speaking to him, and in order to avoid that he hurried out of the
room.
In the night Törless was not
far from falling upon Basini, such a murderous lust had awakened in him after the anguish of that
senseless, stupefying day. By good fortune sleep overtook him just in time.
The next day passed. It
brought nothing but the same bleak and barren quietness. The silence and
suspense worked on Törless’s overwrought nerves; the ceaseless strain on his
attention consumed all his mental powers, so that he was incapable of framing
any thought at all.
Disappointed, dissatisfied
with himself to the point of the most extreme doubt, he felt utterly mangled.
He went to bed early.
He had for a long time been
lying in an uneasy, feverishly hot half-sleep when he heard Basini coming.
Lying motionless, with his
eyes he followed the dark figure walking past the end of his bed. He heard the
other undressing, and then the rustling of the blankets being pulled over the
body.
He held his breath, but he
could not manage to hear any more. Nevertheless he did not lose the feeling
that Basini was not asleep either, but was straining to hear through
the darkness, just like himself.
So the quarter-hours
passed... hours passed. Only now and then the stillness was broken by the faint
sound of the bodies stirring, each in its bed.
Törless was in a queer state
that kept him awake. Yesterday it had been sensual pictures in his imagination
that had made him feverish. Only right at the end had they taken a turn towards
Basini, as it were rearing up under the inexorable hand of sleep, which then
blotted them out; and it was precisely of this that he had the vaguest and most
shadowy memory. But tonight it had from the very beginning been nothing other
than an impelling urge to get up and go over to Basini. So long as he had had
the feeling that Basini was awake and listening for whatever sounds he might
make, it had been scarcely endurable; and now that Basini was apparently
asleep, it was even worse, for there was a cruel excitement in the thought of
falling upon the sleeper as upon a prey.
Törless could already feel
the movements of rising up and getting out of bed twitching in all his muscles.
But still he could not yet shake off his immobility.
‘And what am I going to do,
anyway, if I do go over to him?’ he wondered, in his panic almost speaking the
words aloud. And he had to admit to himself that the cruelty and lust in him
had no real object. He would have been at a loss if he had now really set upon
Basini. Surely he did not want to beat him? God forbid! Well then, in what way
was his wild sensual excitement to get fulfilment from Basini? Instinctively he
revolted at the thought of the various little vices that boys went in for.
Expose himself to another person like that? Never!
But in the same measure as
this revulsion grew the urge to go over to Basini also became stronger. Finally
Törless was completely penetrated with the sense of how absurd such an act was,
and yet a positively physical compulsion seemed to be drawing him out of bed as
on a rope. And while his mind grew blank and he merely kept on telling himself,
over and over again, that it would be best to go to sleep now if he could, he
was mechanically rising up in the bed. Very slowly-and he could feel how the
emotional urge was gaining, inch by inch, over the resistance in him-he began
to sit up. First one arm moved. .. then he propped himself on one elbow, then
pushed one knee out from under the bedclothes... and then . . . suddenly he was
racing, barefoot, on tip-toe, over to Basini, and sat down on the edge of
Basini’s bed.
Basini was asleep.
He looked as if he were
having pleasant dreams.
Törless was still not in
control of his actions. For a moment he sat still, staring into the sleeper’s
face. Through his brain there jerked those short, ragged thoughts which do no
more, it seems, than record what a situation is, those flashes of thought one
has when losing one’s balance, or falling from a height, or when some object is
torn from one’s grasp. And without knowing what he was doing he gripped Basini
by the shoulder and shook him out of his sleep.
Basini stretched indolently a
few times. Then he started up and gazed at Törless with sleepy, stupefied eyes.
A shock went through Törless.
He was utterly confused; now all at once he realised what he had done and he
did not know what he was to do next. He was frightfully ashamed. His heart
thudded loudly. Words of explanation and excuse hovered on the tip of his
tongue. He would ask Basini if he had any matches, if he could tell him the
time…
Basini was still goggling at
him with uncomprehending eyes. Now, without having uttered a word Törless
withdrew his arm, now he slid off the bed and was about to creep back
soundlessly to his own bed-and at this moment Basini seemed to grasp the
situation and sat bolt upright.
Törless stopped irresolutely
at the foot of the bed.
Basini glanced at him once
more, questioningly, searchingly, and then got out of bed, slipped into coat
and slippers and went padding off towards the door. And in a flash Törless
became sure of what he had long suspected: that this had happened to Basini
many times before.
In passing his bed, Törless
took the key to the cubbyhole, which he had been keeping hidden under his
pillow.
Basini walked straight on
ahead of him, up to the attics. He seemed in the meantime to have become thoroughly
familiar with the way that had once been kept so secret from him. He steadied
the crate while Törless stepped down on to it, he cleared the scenery to one
side, carefully, with gingerly movements, like a well-trained flunkey.
Törless unlocked the door,
and they went in. With his back to Basini, he lit the little lamp.
When he turned around, Basini
was standing there naked.
Involuntarily Törless fell
back a step. The sudden sight of this naked snow-white body, with the red of
the walls dark as blood behind it, dazzled and bewildered him Basini was
beautifully built; his body, lacking almost any sign of male development, was
of a chaste, slender willowyness, like that of a young girl. And Törless felt
this nakedness lighting up in his nerves, like hot white flames. He could not
shake off the spell of this beauty. He had never known before what beauty was.
For what was art to him at his age, what-after all-did he know of that? Up to a
certain age, if one has grown up in the open air, art is simply unintelligible,
a bore!
And here now it had come to
him on the paths of sexuality . . . secretly, ambushing him . . . There was an
infatuating warm exhalation coming from the bare skin, a soft, lecherous
cajolery. And yet there was something about it that was so solemn and
compelling as to make one almost clap one’s hands in awe.
But after the first shock
Törless was as ashamed of the one reaction as of the other. ‘It’s a man, damn
it!’ The thought enraged him, and yet it seemed to him as though a girl could
not be different.
In his shame he spoke
hectoringly to Basini: “What on earth d’you think you’re doing? Get back into
your things this minute!”
Now it was Basini who seemed
taken aback. Hesitantly, and without shifting his gaze from Törless, he picked
up his coat from the floor.
“Sit down-there!” Törless
ordered. Basini obeyed. Törless leaned against the wall, with his arms crossed
behind his back.
“Why did you undress? What
did you want of me?”
“Well, I thought..
He paused hesitantly.
“What did you think?”
“The others
“What about the others?”
“Beineberg and Reiting .
“What about Beineberg and
Reiting? What did they do? You’ve got to tell me everything! That’s what I
want. See? Although I’ve heard about it from them, of course.” At this clumsy
lie Törless blushed.
Basini bit his lips.
“Well? Get on with it!”
“No, don’t make me tell!
Please don’t make me! I’ll do anything you want me to. But don’t make me tell
about it... . Oh, you have such a special way of tormenting me . . . !” Hatred,
fear, and an imploring plea for mercy were all mingled in Basini’s gaze.
Törless involuntarily
modified his attitude. “I don’t want to torment you at all. I only mean to
make you tell the whole truth yourself. Perhaps for your own good.”
“But, look, I haven’t done
anything specially worth telling about.”
“Oh, haven’t you? So why did
you undress, then?”
“That’s what they wanted.”
“And why did you do what they
wanted? So you’re a coward, eh? A miserable coward?”
“No, I’m not a coward! Don’t
say that!”
“Shut up! If you’re afraid of
being beaten by them, you might find being beaten by me was something to
remember!”
“But it’s not the beatings
they give me that I’m afraid of!”
“Oh? What is it then?”
By now Törless was speaking calmly
again. He was already annoyed at his crude threat. But it had escaped him
involuntarily, solely because it seemed to him that Basini stood up to him more
than to the others.
“Well, if you’re not afraid,
as you say, what’s the matter with you?”
“They say if I do whatever
they tell me to, after some time I shall be forgiven everything.”
“By the two of them?”
“No, altogether.”
“How can they promise that? I have to be considered too!”
“They say they’ll manage that
all right.”
This gave Törless a shock.
Beineberg’s words about Reiting’s dealing with him, if he got the chance, in
exactly the same way as with Basini now came back to him. And if it really came
to a plot against him, how was he to cope with it? He was no match for the two
of them in that sort of thing. How far would they go? The same as with
Basini?.. . Everything in him revolted at the perfidious idea.
Minutes passed between him
and Basini. He knew that he lacked the daring and endurance necessary for such
intrigues, though of course only because he was too little interested in that
Sort of thing, only because he never felt his whole personality involved. He
had always had more to lose than to gain there. But if it should ever happen to
be the other way, there would, he felt, be quite a different kind of toughness
and courage in him. Only one must know when it was time to stake everything.
“Did they say anything more
about it-how they think they can do it? I mean, that about me.”
“More? No. They only said
they’d see to it all right.”
And yet. . . there was danger
now. .. somewhere lying in wait .. . lying in ambush for Törless.. . every step
could run him into a gin-trap, every night might be the last before the fight.
There was tremendous insecurity in this thought. Here was no more idle drifting
along, no more toying with enigmatic visions-this had hard corners and was
tangible reality.
Törless spoke again:
“And what do they do with
you?”
Basini was silent.
“If you’re serious about
reforming, you have to tell me everything.”
“They make me undress.”
“Yes, yes, I see that for
myself. . . And then?”
A little time passed, and
then suddenly Basini said: “Various things.” He said it with an effeminate, coy
expression.
“So you’re
their-mi-mistress?”
“Oh no, I’m their friend!”
“How can you have the nerve
to say that!”
“They say so themselves.”
“What!”
“Yes, Reiting does.”
“Oh, Reiting does?”
“Yes, he’s very nice to me.
Mostly I have to undress and read him something out of history-books-about Rome
and the emperors, or the Borgias, or Timur ....... oh well, you know, all that
sort of big, bloody stuff. Then he’s even affectionate to me. And then
afterwards he generally beats me.”
“After what? Oh, I see!”
“Yes. He says, if he didn’t beat
me, he wouldn’t be able to help thinking I was a man, and then he couldn’t let
himself be so soft and affectionate to me. But like that, he says, I’m his
chattel, and so then he doesn’t mind.”
“And Beineberg?”
“Oh, Beineberg’s beastly.
Don’t you think too his breath smells bad?”
“Shut up! What I think is no business of yours! Tell me what
Beineberg does with you!”
“Well, the same as Reiting,
only. . . But you mustn’t go yelling at me again....”
“Get on with it.”
“Only... he goes about it
differently. First of all he gives me long talks about my soul. He says I’ve
sullied it, but so to speak only the outermost forecourt of it. In relation to
the innermost, he says, this is something that doesn’t matter at all, it’s only
external. But one must kill it. In that way many people have stopped being
sinners and become saints. So from a higher point of view sin isn’t bad, only
one must carry it to the extreme, so that it breaks off its own accord, he
says. He makes me sit and stare into a prism. .”
“He hypnotises you?”
“No, he says it’s just that
he must make all the things floating about on the surface of my soul go to
sleep and become powerless. It’s only then he can have intercourse with my soul
itself.”
“And how, may I ask, does he
have intercourse with it?”
“That’s an experiment he
hasn’t ever brought off yet. He sits there, and I have to lie on the ground so
that he can put his feet on me. I have to get quite dull and drowsy from
staring into the glass. Then suddenly he orders me to bark. He tells me exactly
how to do it-quietly, more whimpering-the way a dog whines in its sleep.”
“What’s that good for?”
“Nobody knows what it’s good
for. And he also makes me grunt like a pig and keeps on and on telling me
there’s something of a pig about me, in me. But he doesn’t mean it offensively,
he just keeps on repeating it quite softly and nicely, in order-this is what he
says-in order to imprint it firmly on my nerves. You see, he says it’s possible
one of my former lives was that of a pig and it must be lured out so as to
render it harmless.”
“And you believe all that
stuff?”
“Good lord, no! I don’t think
he believes it himself. And then in the end he’s always quite different,
anyway. How on earth should I believe such things? Who believes in a soul these
days anyway? And as for transmigration of souls-! I know quite well I slipped.
But I’ve always hoped I’d be
able to make up for it again. There isn’t any hocus-pocus needed for that. Not
that I spend any time racking my brains about how I ever came to go wrong. A
thing like that comes on you so quickly, all by itself. It’s only afterwards
you notice that you’ve done something silly. But if he gets his fun out of
looking for something supernatural behind it, let him, for all I care. For the
present, after all, I’ve got to do what he wants. Only I wish he’d leave off
sticking pins in me. ...
“What?”
“Pricking me with a pin-not
hard, you know, only just to see how I react-to see if something doesn’t
manifest itself at some point or other on the body. But it does hurt. The
fact is, he says the doctors don’t understand anything about it. I don’t
remember now how he proves all this, all I remember is he talks a lot about
fakirs and how when they see their souls they’re supposed to be insensitive to
physical pain.”
“Oh yes, I know those ideas.
But you yourself say that’s not all.”
“No, it certainly isn’t all.
But I also said I think this is just a way of going about it. Afterwards there
are always long times-as much as a quarter of an hour-when he doesn’t say
anything and 1 don’t know what’s going on in him. But after that he suddenly
breaks out and demands services from me-as if he were possessed-much worse than
Reiting.”
“And you do everything that’s
demanded of you?”
“What else can I do? I want
to become a decent person again and be left in peace.”
“But whatever happens in the
meantime won’t matter to you at all?”
“Well, I can’t help it, can
I?”
“Now pay attention to me and
answer my questions. How could you steal?”
“How? Look, it’s like this, I
needed money urgently. I was in debt to the tuck-shop man, and he wouldn’t wait
any longer. Then I really did believe there was money coming for me just at
that time. None of the other fellows would lend me any. Some of them hadn’t got
any themselves, and the saving ones are always just glad if someone who isn’t
like that gets short towards the end of the month. Honestly, I didn’t want to
cheat anyone. I only wanted to borrow it secretly. . .
“That’s not what I mean,”
Törless said impatiently, interrupting his story, which it was obviously a
relief for Basini to tell. “What I’m asking is how-how were you able to do it,
what did you feel like? What went on in you at that moment?”
“Oh well-nothing, really.
After all, it was only a moment, I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t think about anything,
simply it had suddenly happened.”
“But the first time with
Reiting? The first time he demanded those things of you? You know what I
mean....”
“Oh, I didn’t like it, of
course. Because it had to be done just like that, being ordered to. Otherwise-well,
just how many of the fellows do such things of their own accord, for the fun of
it, without the others knowing anything? I dare say it’s not so bad then.”
“But you did it on being
ordered to. You debased yourself. Just as if you had crawled into the muck
because someone else wanted you to.”
“Oh, I grant that. But I had
to.”
“No, you didn’t have to.”
“They would have beaten me
and reported me. Think how I would have got into disgrace.”
“All right then, let’s leave
that. There’s something else I want to know. Listen. I know you’ve spent a lot
of money with Bozena. You’ve boasted to her and thrown your weight about and
made out what a man you are. So you want to be a man? Not just boasting and
pretending to be-but with your whole soul? Now look, then suddenly someone
demands such a humiliating service from you, and in the same moment you feel
you’re too cowardly to say no-doesn’t it make a split go through your whole
being? A horror-something you can’t describe-as though something unutterable
had happened inside you?”
“Lord! I don’t know what you
mean. I don’t know what you’re getting at. 1 can’t tell you anything-anything
at all-about that.”
“Now attend. I’m going to
order you to get undressed again.”
Basini smiled.
“And to lie down flat on the
floor there in front of me. Don’t laugh! I’m really ordering you to! D’you hear
me? If you don’t obey instantly, you’ll see what you’re in for when Reiting
comes back! . . That’s right. So now you’re lying naked on the ground in front
of me. You’re trembling, too. Are you cold? I could spit on your naked body now
if I wanted to. Just press your head right on to the floor.
Doesn’t the dust on the
boards look queer? Like a landscape full of clouds and lumps of rock as big as
houses? I could stick pins into you. There are still some over there in the
corner, by the lamp. D’you feel them in your skin even now? .. . But I don’t
mean to do that. I could make you bark, the way Beineberg does, and make you
eat dust like a pig, I could make you do movements-oh, you know-and at the same
time you would have to sigh: ‘Oh, my dear Mother!’ “ But Törless broke off
abruptly in the midst of this sacrilege. “But I don’t mean to-don’t mean to-do
you understand?”
Basini wept. “You’re
tormenting me. .
“Yes, I’m tormenting you. But
that’s not what I’m after. There’s just one thing I want to know: when I drive
all that into you like knives, what goes on in you? What happens inside you?
Does something burst in you? Tell me! Does it smash like a glass that suddenly
flies into thousands of splinters before there’s been even a little
crack in it? Doesn’t the picture you’ve made of yourself go out like a candle?
Doesn’t something else leap into its place, the way the pictures in the
magic-lantern leap out of the darkness? Don’t you understand what I
mean? I can’t explain it for you any better. You must tell me yourself!”
Basini wept without stopping.
His girlish shoulders jerked. All he could get out was to the same effect: “I
don’t know what you’re after, I can’t explain anything to you, it happens just
in a moment, and then nothing different can happen, you’d do just the same as
me.”
Törless was silent. He
remained leaning against the wall, exhausted, motionless, blankly staring
straight in front of him.
‘If you were in my situation,
you would do just the same,’ Basini had said. Seen thus, what had happened
appeared a simple necessity, straightforward and uncomplicated.
Törless’s self-awareness
rebelled in blazing contempt against the mere suggestion. And yet this
rebellion on the part of his whole being seemed to offer him no satisfactory
guarantee … ‘yes, I should have more character than he has, I shouldn’t
put up with such outrageous demands-but does it really matter? Does it matter
that I should act differently, from firmness, from decency, from-oh, for all
sorts of reasons that at the moment don’t interest me in the least? No, what
counts is not how I should act, but the fact that if I were ever really to act
as Basini has done, I should have just as little sense of anything
extraordinary about it as he has. This is the heart of the matter: my feeling
about myself would be exactly as simple and clear of ambiguity as his feeling
about himself. .’
This thought-flashing through his mind in half-coherent
snatches of sentences that ran over into each other and kept beginning all over
again-added to his contempt for Basini a very private, quiet pain that touched
his inmost balance at a much deeper point than any moral consideration could.
It came from his awareness of a sensation he had briefly had before and which
he could not get rid of. The fact was that when Basini’s words revealed to him
the danger potentially menacing him from Reiting and Beineberg, he had simply
been startled. He had been startled as by a sudden assault, and without stopping
to think had in a flash looked round for cover and a way of parrying the
attack. That had been in the moment of a real danger; and the sensation it had
caused him-those swift, unthinking impulses-exasperated and stimulated him. He
tried, all in vain, to set them off again. But he knew they had immediately
deprived the danger of all its peculiarity and ambiguity.
And yet it had been the same
danger that he had had a foreboding of only some weeks previously, in this same
place-that time when he had felt so oddly startled by the lair itself, which
was like some forgotten scrap of the Middle Ages lying remote from the warm,
bright-lit life of the class-rooms, and by Beineberg and Reiting, because they
seemed to have changed from the people they were down there, suddenly turning
into something else, something sinister, blood-thirsty, figures in some quite
different sort of life. That had been a transformation, a leap, for Törless, as
though the picture of his surroundings had suddenly loomed up before other
eyes-eyes just awakened out of a hundred years of sleep.
And yet it had been the same
danger.... He kept on repeating this to himself. And ever and again he tried to
compare the memories of the two different sensations. . .
Meanwhile Basini had got up. Observing
his companion’s blank, absent gaze, he quietly took his clothes and slipped
away.
Törless saw it happening-as
though through a mist-but he uttered no word and let it go at that.
His attention was wholly
concentrated on this straining to rediscover the point in himself where the
change of inner perspective had suddenly occurred.
But every time he came
anywhere near it the same thing happened to him as happens to someone trying to
compare the close-at-hand with the remote: he could never seize the memory
images of the two feelings together. For each time something came in between.
It was like a faint click in the mind, corresponding more or less to something
that occurs in the physical realm-that scarcely perceptible muscular sensation
which is associated with the focusing of the gaze. And each time, precisely in
the decisive moment, this would claim all his attention: the activity of making
the comparison thrust itself before the objects to be compared, there was an
almost unnoticeable jerk-and everything stopped.
So Törless kept on beginning
all over again.
This mechanically regular
operation lulled him into a rigid, waking, ice-cold sleep, holding him
transfixed where he was-and for an indefinite period.
Then an idea wakened him like
the light touch of a warm hand. It was an idea apparently so obvious and
natural that he marvelled at its not having occurred to him long ago.
It was an idea that did
nothing at all beyond generalising the experience he had just had: what in the
distance seems so great and mysterious comes up to us always as something plain
and undistorted, in natural, everyday proportions. It is as if there were an
invisible frontier round every man . . . What originates outside and approaches
from a long way off is like a misty sea full of gigantic, ever-changing forms;
what comes right up to any man, and becomes action, and collides with his life,
is clear and small, human in its dimensions and human in its outlines. And
between the life one lives and the life one feels, the life one only has
inklings and glimpses of, seeing it only from afar, there lies that invisible
frontier, and in it the narrow gateway where all that ever happens, the images
of things, must throng together and shrink so that they can enter into a .......
And yet, closely though this
corresponded to his experience, Törless let his head sink, deep in thought.
lt seemed a queer idea…
At last he was back in bed.
He was not thinking of anything at all any more, for thinking came so hard and
was so futile. What he had discovered about the secret contrivings of his
friends did, it was true, go through his mind, but now as indifferently and
lifelessly as an item of foreign news read in a newspaper.
There was nothing more to be
hoped from Basini. Oh, there was still his problem! But that was so dubious,
and he was so tired and mangled. An illusion perhaps-the whole thing.
Only the vision of Basini, of
his bare, glimmering skin, left a fragrance, as of lilac, in that twilight of
the sensations which comes just before sleep. Even the moral revulsion faded
away. And at last Törless fell asleep.
* * *
No dream disturbed him. There
was only an infinitely pleasant warmth spreading soft carpets under his body.
After a while he woke out of it. And then he almost screamed. There, sitting on
his bed, was Basini! And in the next instant, with crazy speed, Basini had
flung off his night-clothes and slid under the blankets and was pressing his
naked, trembling body against Törless.
As soon as Törless recovered
from the shock, he pushed Basini away from him.
“What do you think you’re
doing-?”
But Basini pleaded. “Oh,
don’t start being like that again! Nobody’s the way you are! They don’t
despise me the way you do. They only pretend they do, so as to be different
then afterwards. But you-you of all people! You’re even younger than me, even
if you are stronger. We’re both younger than the others. You don’t boast and
bully the way they do... You’re gentle... I love you...
“Here, I say! I don’t know
what you’re talking about! I don’t know what you want! Go away! Oh, go away!”
And in anguish Törless pushed his arm against Basini’s shoulder, holding
him off. But the hot proximity of the soft skin, this other person’s skin,
haunted him, enclosing him, suffocating him. And Basini kept on whispering: “Oh
yes... oh yes... please... oh, I should so gladly do whatever you want!”
* * *
Törless could find nothing to
say to this. While Basini went on whispering and he himself was lost in doubt
and consideration, something had sunk over his senses again like a deep green
sea. Only Basini’s flickering words shone out on it like the glint of little
silvery fishes.
He was still holding Basini
off with his arms. But something made them heavy, like a moist, torpid warmth;
the muscles in them were slackening.. . he forgot them.... Only when another of
those darting words touched him did he start awake again, all at once feeling
this very instant, as in a dream, his hands had drawn Basini closer.
Then he wanted to shake
himself into wakefulness, wanted to shout at himself: Basini’s tricking you,
he’s just trying to drag you down to where he is, so that you can’t despise him
any more! But the cry was never uttered, nor was there any sound anywhere in
the whole huge building; throughout the corridors the dark tides of silence
seemed to lie motionless in sleep.
He struggled to get back to
himself. But those tides were like black sentinels at all the doors.
Then Törless abandoned his
search for words. Lust, which had been slowly seeping into him, emanating from
every single moment of desperation, had now grown to its full stature. It lay
naked at his side and covered his head with its soft black cloak. And into his
ear it whispered sweet words of resignation, while its warm fingers thrust all
questionings and obligations aside as futile. And it whispered: In solitude you
can do what you will.
Only in the moment when he
was swept away he woke fleetingly, frantically clutching at the one thought:
This is not myself! It’s not me! ... But tomorrow it will be me again! ...
Tomorrow...
On Tuesday evening the first
of the other boys returned. The rest were arriving only by the night trains.
There was unceasing bustle in the building.
Törless met his friends
curtly and sullenly; he had not forgotten. And then, too, they came back
bringing from outside such a whiff of vigour and man-of-the-world confidence.
It shamed him, who now cared only for the stuffy air between four narrow walls.
He was, indeed, often ashamed
now. But it was not actually so much because of what he had let himself be
seduced into doing-for that was nothing so very rare at boarding-school-as
because he now found he could not quite help having a kind of tenderness for
Basini, while on the other hand he felt more intensely than ever how despised
and humiliated this creature was.
He quite often had secret
meetings with him. He took him to all the hiding-places he had learnt of from
Beineberg, and since he himself was not good at such furtive adventurings,
Basini soon knew the way everywhere better than he did and became the leader.
But at night he could not
rest for jealousy, keeping watch on Beineberg and Reiting.
These two, however, held
aloof from Basini. Perhaps they were already bored with him. At any rate, some
change seemed to have taken place in them. Beineberg had become gloomy and
reserved; when he spoke, it was only to throw out mysterious h~nts of something
that was imminent. Reiting seemed to have diverted his interest to other
things; with his usual deftness he was again weaving the web for some plot or
other, trying to win over some by doing them little favours and frightening
others by showing them that-by some obscure cunning of his own-he knew their
secrets.
However, when the three of them
were at last alone together, the other two urged that Basini should very soon
be given orders to appear once more in the cubbyhole or the attic.
Törless tried, on all sorts
of pretexts, to postpone this, and at the same time suffered ceaselessly because
of this secret sympathy for Basini.
Even a few weeks earlier such
a state of mind would have been utterly alien to him; for he came of sturdy,
sound, and natural stock.
But it would be entirely
wrong to believe that Basini had aroused in Törless a desire that was-however
fleetingly and perplexedly-a thorough-going and real one. True, something like
passion had been aroused in him, but ‘love’ was quite certainly only a casual,
haphazard term for it, and the boy Basini himself was no more than a substitute,
a provisional object of this longing. For although T6r-less did debase himself
with him, his desire was never satisfied by him; on the contrary, it went on
growing out beyond Basini, growing out into some new and aimless craving.
* *
At first it had been purely
and simply the nakedness of the boy’s slim body that dazzled him.
The feeling it had given him
was no different from what he would have felt had he been confronted with the
naked body of a little girl, a body still utterly sexless, merely beautiful. It
had been an overwhelming shock. . . a state of marvel . .. And the inevitable
purity of this feeling was what lent the appearance of affection-this new and
wonderfully uneasy emotion-to his relationship with Basini. Everything else had
little to do with it. All the other feelings-the erotic desire itself-had been
there long before; it had all been there much earlier, indeed even before he
had come to know Bozena. It was the secret, aimless, melancholy sensuality of
adolescence, a sensuality attaching itself to no person, and like the moist,
black, sprouting earth in early spring, or like dark, subterranean waters that
some chance event will cause to rise, sweeping the walls away.
The experience that Törless
had gone through turned out to be this event. Surprise, misunderstanding,
confusion about his own feelings, all combined to smash open the hushed
hiding-places where all that was secret, taboo, torrid, vague and solitary in
his soul was accumulated, and to send the flood of dark stirrings moving out in
Basini’s direction. And here it was that for the first time they encountered
something warm, something that breathed and was fragrant, was flesh, in which
these vaguely roving dreams took on form and had their share in the beauty of
the flesh, instead of in squalor such as they had been blighted with, in the
depths of his loneliness, by his experience with Bozena. This now all at once
flung open a gate, a way ahead into life, and in the half-light of this
condition everything now mingled-wishes and reality, debauched fantasies and
instant impressions that still bore the warm traces of life itself, stimuli
from without, and flames that came flaring up from within, mantling the
sensations in such a glare that they were unrecognisable.
But all this was beyond
Törless’s own power of discrimination; for him it was all run together in a
single, blurred, undifferentiated emotion, which in his first surprise he might
well take for love.
* * *
It was not long before he
learnt to evaluate it more accurately. From then on he was restlessly driven
hither and thither by uneasiness. Every object he picked up he laid down again
as soon as he had touched it. He could not talk to any of the other boys
without falling inexplicably silent or absent-mindedly changing the subject
several times. It would also happen sometimes that while he was speaking a wave
of shame flooded through him, so that he grew red, began to stammer, and had to
turn away....
By day he avoided Basini.
When he could not help looking at him, it almost always had a sobering effect.
Every movement of Basini’s filled him with disgust, the vague shadows of his
illusions gave way to a cold, blunt lucidity, and his soul seemed to shrivel up
until there was nothing left but the memory of a former desire that now seemed
unspeakably senseless and repulsive. He would stamp his foot and double up as
if thus he could escape from this anguish of shame.
He wondered what the others
would say to him if they knew his secret-what would his parents say?-and the
masters?
But this last turn of the
knife always put an end to his torments. A cool weariness would then come over
him; the hot, slack skin of his body would then grow taut again in a
pleasurable cold shiver. At such times he would be still and let everyone pass
him by. But there was in him a certain contempt for them all. Secretly he suspected
the very worst of everyone he spoke to.
And he imagined, into the
bargain, that he could see no trace of shame in them. He did not think that
they suffered as he knew he did. The crown of thorns that his tormented
conscience set on his own brow seemed to be missing from theirs.
Yet he felt like one who had
awakened from the throes of some long agony-like one who had been brushed by
the silent and mysterious finger-tips of dissolution-like one who cannot forget
the tranquil wisdom of a long illness.
This was a state in which he
felt happy, and the moments came again and again when he yearned for it.
They always began with his
once more being able to look at Basini with indifference and to face out the
loathsome and beastly thing with a smile. Then he knew that he would debase
himself, but he supplied it all with a new meaning. The uglier and unworthier
everything was that Basini had to offer him, the greater was the contrast with
that awareness of suffering sensibility which would afterwards set in.
Törless would withdraw into
some corner from which he could observe without himself being seen. When he
shut his eyes, a vague sense of urgency would rise up in him, and when he opened
his eyes he could find nothing that corresponded to it. And then suddenly the
thought of Basini would loom up and concentrate everything in itself. Soon it
would lose all definite outline. It seemed no longer to belong to him, and
seemed no longer to refer to Basini. It was something that was encircled by a
whirling throng of emotions, as though by lecherous women in high-necked long
robes, with masks over their faces.
Törless knew no name for any
of these emotions, nor did he know what any of them portended; but it was
precisely in this that the intoxicating fascination lay. He no longer knew
himself; and out of this very fact his urge grew into a wild, contemptuous debauchery,
as when at some fete galante the lights are suddenly put out and nobody
knows who it is he pulls down to the ground and covers with kisses.
* * *
Later, when he had got over
his adolescent experiences, Törless became a young man whose mind was both
subtle and sensitive. By that time he was one of those aesthetically inclined
intellectuals who find there is something soothing in a regard for law and
indeed-to some extent at least-for public morals too, since it frees them from
the necessity of ever thinking about anything coarse, anything that is remote
from the finer spiritual processes. And yet the magnificent external
correctitude of these people, with its slight touch of irony, at once becomes
associated with boredom and callousness if they are expected to show any more
personal interest in particular instances of the workings of law and morality.
For the only real interest they feel is concentrated on the growth of their own
soul, or personality, or whatever one may call the thing within us that every
now and then increases by the addition of some idea picked up between the lines
of a book, or which speaks to us in the silent language of a painting the thing
that every now and then awakens when some solitary, wayward tune floats past us
and away, away into the distance, whence with alien movements tugs at the in
scarlet thread of our blood-the thing that is never there when we are writing
minutes, building machines, going to the circus, or following any of the
hundreds of other similar occupations.
And so to such people the
things that make demands only on their moral correctitude are of the utmost
indifference. This was why in his later life Törless never felt remorse for
what had happened at that time. His tastes had become so acutely and
one-sidedly focused on matters purely of the mind that, supposing he had been
told a very similar story about some rake’s debaucheries, it would certainly
never have occurred to him to direct his indignation against the acts
themselves. He would have despised such a person not for being a debauchee, but
for being nothing more than that; not for his licentiousness, but for the
psychological condition that made him do those things; for being stupid, or
because his intellect lacked any emotional counter-weight-that is to say,
despising him always only for the picture he presented of something miserable,
deprived, and feeble. And he would have despised him in exactly the same way
whether his vice lay in sexual debauchery, or in uncontrolled and excessive
cigarette-smoking, or in drinking.
And as is the case with all
people who are exclusively concerned with heightening their mental faculties,
the mere presence of voluptuous and unbridled urges did not count for much
with him. It was a pet notion of his that the capacity for enjoyment, and
creative talent, and in fact the whole more highly developed side of the inner
life, was a piece of jewellery on which one could easily injure oneself. He
regarded it as inevitable that a person with a rich and varied inner life
experienced moments of which other people must know nothing, and memories that
he kept in secret drawers. And all he himself expected of such a person was the
ability to make exquisite use of them afterwards.
And so, when somebody whom he
once told the story of his youth asked him whether the memory of that episode
did not sometimes make him feel uncomfortable, he answered, with a smile: “Of
course I don’t deny that it was a degrading affair. And why not? The
degradation passed off. And yet it left something behind-that small admixture
of a toxic substance which is needed to rid the soul of its over-confident,
complacent healthiness, and to give it instead a sort of health that is more
acute, and subtler, and wiser.
“And anyway, would you try to
count the hours of degradation that leave their brand-marks on the soul after
every great passion? You need only think of the hours of deliberate humiliation
in love-those rapt hours when lovers bend down as though leaning over a deep
well, or one lays his ear on the other’s heart, listening for the sound of
impatient claws as the restless great cats scratch on their prison walls. And
only in order to feel their own trembling! Only in order to feel terrified at
their loneliness up there above those dark, corroding depths! Only-in their
dread of being alone with those sinister forces-to take refuge wholly in each
other!
“Just look young married
couples straight in the eyes. What those eyes say is: So that’s what you think,
is it?-oh, but you’ve no notion how deep we can sink! What those eyes express
is lighthearted mockery of anyone who knows nothing of so much that they know,
and the affectionate pride of those who have gone together through all the
circles of hell.
“And just as such lovers go
that way together, so I at that time went through all those things, but on my
own.”
* * *
Nevertheless, even if that
was Törless’s view of it later on, at this time, when he was still exposed to
the storm of solitary, yearning feelings, he was far from always being
confident that everything would turn out all right in the end. The enigmas that
had been tormenting him only a short time ago were still having a vague
after-effect, which went on vibrating in the background of his experiences,
like a deep note resounding from afar. These were the very things he did not
want to think of now.
But at times he remembered it
all. And then he would be overwhelmed with utter despair, and was at the mercy
of a quite different, weary, hopeless sense of shame.
Yet he could not account for
this either.
The reason for it lay in the
particular conditions of life at this school. Here youthful, upsurging energies
were held captive behind grey walls and, having no other outlet, they filled
the imagination with random wanton fancies that caused more than one boy to
lose his head.
A certain degree of
debauchery was even considered manly, dashing, a bold gesture of taking for
oneself the pleasures one was still forbidden. And it seemed all the manlier
when compared with the wretchedly respectable appearance of most of the
masters. For then the admonishing word ‘morality’ became ludicrously associated
with narrow shoulders, a little paunch, thin legs, and eyes roaming as
harmlessly behind their spectacles as the silly sheep at pasture, as though
life were nothing but a flowery meadow of solemn edification.
And, finally, at school one
still had no knowledge of life and no notion of all those degrees of
beastliness and corruption, down to the level of the diseased and the
grotesque, which are what primarily fills the adult with revulsion when he
hears of such things.
All these inhibiting factors,
which are far more effective than we can really appreciate, were lacking in
him. It was his very naivety that had plunged him into vice.
For the moral force of
resistance, that sensitive faculty of the spirit which he was later to rate so
high, was not yet developed in him either. However, there were already signs of
its growth. True, Törless went astray, seeing as yet only the shadows cast
ahead into his consciousness by something still unrecognised, and mistaking
them for reality: but he had a task to fulfil where he himself was concerned, a
spiritual task-even if he was still not equipped to undertake it.
All he knew was that he had
been following something as yet undefined along a road that led deep into his
inner being; and in doing so he had grown tired. He had got into the way of
hoping for extraordinary, mysterious discoveries, and that habit had brought
him into the narrow, winding passages of sensuality. It was all the result not
of perversity, but of a psychological situation in which he had lost his sense
of direction.
And this disloyalty to
something in himself that was serious and worth striving for was the very thing
that filled him with a vague sense of guilt. An indefinable hidden disgust
never quite left him, and an indistinct dread pursued him like one who in the
dark no longer knows whether he is still walking along his chosen road or has
lost it, not knowing where.
Then he would endeavour not
to think of anything at all. He drifted through life, dumb and bemused and
oblivious of all his earlier questionings. The subtle enjoyment that lay in his
acts of degradation became ever rarer.
It had not yet left him
entirely; but still, at the end of this period Törless did not even try to
oppose when further decisions were taken regarding Basini’s fate.
This happened some days
later, when the three of them were together in the cubby-hole. Beineberg was
very grave.
Reiting spoke first:
“Beineberg and I think things can’t go on as they have been going in the matter
of Basini. He’s got used to being at our beck and call. It doesn’t make him
miserable any more. He’s become as impudently familiar as a servant. So it’s
time to go a step further with him. Do you agree?”
“Well, I don’t even know yet
what you mean to do with him.”
“Yes, it isn’t so easy to
work that out. We must humiliate him still more and make him knuckle under
completely. I should like to see how far it can go. The question is only how to
do it. Of course I have one or two rather nice ideas about it. For instance, we
could give him a flogging and make him sing psalms of thanksgiving at the same
time . . . it would be a song well worth hearing, I think-every note covered
with gooseflesh, so to speak. We could make him bring us the filthiest things
in his mouth, like a dog. Or we could take him along to Bozena’s and make him
read his mother’s letters aloud while Bozena provided the suitable kind of
jokes to go with it. But there’s plenty of time to think about all that. We can
turn it over in our minds, polish it up, and keep on adding new refinements.
Without the appropriate details it’s still a bit of a bore, for the present.
Perhaps we’ll hand him right over to the class to deal with. That would be the
most sensible thing to do. If each one of so many contributes even a little,
it’ll be enough to tear him to pieces. And anyway, I have a liking for these
mass movements. Nobody means to contribute anything spectacular, and yet the
waves keep rising higher and higher, until they break over everyone’s head.
You chaps just wait and see,
nobody will lift a finger, but all the same there’ll be a terrific upheaval.
Instigating a thing like that gives me really quite particular pleasure.”
“But what do you mean to do
first of all?”
“As I said, I should like to
save that up for later. For the time being I should be content with
softening him up again in every respect, either by threats or by beating him.”
“What for?” Törless asked
before he could stop himself.
They looked each other
straight in the eye.
“Oh, don’t go and play the
innocent!” Reiting said. “You know perfectly well what I’m talking about.”
Törless said nothing. How
much had Reiting found out? Or was he only taking a shot in the dark?
“Don’t tell me you’ve
forgotten what Beineberg told you that time-about what Basini will lend himself
to.”
Törless drew a breath of
relief.
“Well, there’s nothing to
look so amazed about. You gaped just the same that time, too, but it’s not as
if it were anything so very frightful. Incidentally, Beineberg does the same
with Basini-he’s told me so himself.” And Reiting looked across at Beineberg
with an ironical grimace. That was very much his way: he had no scruple about
giving somebody else away in public.
Beineberg did not respond at all.
He remained sitting in his thoughtful attitude, scarcely glancing up.
“Well, aren’t you going to
come out with your idea?” Reiting said to Beineberg, and then, turning to
Törless, he went on: “The fact is he has a crazy notion he wants to try out on
Basini, and he’s set on doing it before we do anything else. I must say it’s
quite an amusing one, too.”
Beineberg remained grave. He
now looked hard at Törless and said: “You remember what we talked about that
time behind the coats?”
“Yes.”
“I never got talking about it
again, because after.all there’s no point in just talking. But I’ve often
thought about it-I assure you, often. And what Reiting has just been telling
you is true too. I’ve done the same with Basini as he has. In fact, perhaps a
bit more. And that was because, as I told you that time, I believe sex may
perhaps be the right gateway. It was a sort of experiment. I didn’t see any
other way to get to what I was looking for. But there’s no sense in this random
sort of going on. I’ve been thinking about it-for nights on end-trying to work
out how one could put something systematic in the place of it.
“Now I think I’ve got it, and
we shall make the experiment. Now you will see too how wrong you were that
time. All our knowledge of the universe is doubtful. Everything really works
differently. At that time we discovered this, so to speak, from the reverse
side, in looking for points where the perfectly natural explanation falls over
its own feet. But now I trust I am able to demonstrate the positive side-the
other side!”
Reiting set out the tea-cups.
As he did so, he nudged Törless cheerfully. “Now pay attention. It’s a pretty
smart thing he’s thought up!”
But Beineberg made a quick
movement and extinguished the lamp. In the darkness there was only the flame of
the spirit-stove, casting flickering bluish gleams on their faces.
“I put the lamp out, Törless,
because it is better to talk about such things in the dark. And you, Reiting,
can go to sleep for all I care, if you’re too stupid to understand profounder
things.”
Reiting laughed as if he were
amused.
“Well,” Beineberg began, “you
remember our conversation. At that time you yourself had discovered that little
peculiarity in mathematics, that example of the fact that our thinking has no
even, solid, safe basis, but goes along, as it were, over holes in the
ground-shutting its eyes, ceasing to exist for a moment, and yet arriving
safely at the other side. Really we ought to have despaired long ago, for in
all fields our knowledge is streaked with such crevasses-nothing but fragments
drifting in a fathomless ocean.
“But we do not despair. We go
on feeling as safe as if we were on firm ground. If we didn’t have this solid
feeling of certainty, we would kill ourselves in desperation about the
wretchedness of our intellect. This feeling is with us continually, holding us
together, and at every moment protectively taking our intellect into its arms
like a small child. As soon as we have become aware of this, we cannot go on
denying the existence of the soul. As soon as we analyse our mental life and
recognise the inadequacy of the intellect, we feel all this very clearly. We
feel it-do you understand? For if it were not for this feeling, we should
collapse like empty sacks.
“Only we have forgotten to pay attention to this feeling. But it
is one of the oldest feelings there is. Even thousands of years ago peoples
living thousands of miles apart from each other knew of it. Once one has begun
to take an interest in these things, one can no longer deny them. But I don’t
want to talk you into believing what I believe. I’m only going to tell you the
bare essentials, so that you won’t be quite unprepared. The facts themselves
will provide the proof.
“Now, assuming that the soul
exists, it follows as a matter of course-doesn’t it?-that we cannot have any
deeper longing than to restore the lost contact with it, become familiar with
it again, learn to make better use of its powers again, and gain for ourselves
a share in the supernatural forces that are dormant in its depths.
“For all this is possible. It
has been done more than once. The miracles, the saints, and the holy men of
India-they all bear witness to such events.”
“Look here,” Törless
interjected, “you’re rather talking yourself into believing this, aren’t you?
You had to put the lamp out specially so that you could. But would you talk
just the same if we were sitting downstairs among the others, who are doing
their geography or history or writing letters home, where the light is bright
and the usher may come round between the desks? Wouldn’t this talk of yours
seem a bit fantastic even to yourself there, a bit presumptuous, as though we
were not the same as the others, but were living in another world, say eight
hundred years ago?”
“No, my dear Törless, 1
should maintain the same things. Incidentally, it’s one of your faults that
you’re always looking at what the others are doing. You’re not independent
enough. Writing letters home! Thinking of your parents where such things are
concerned! What reason have you to believe they could at all follow us here? We
are young, we are a generation later, and perhaps things are destined for us
that they never dreamt of in all their lives. At least, I feel that it is so.
“Still, what’s the use of
going on talking? I shall prove it to you both anyway.
After they had been silent
for a while, Törless said: “And how, if it comes to that, do you mean to set
about getting hold of your soul?”
“I’m not going to explain
that to you now, all the more since I shall have to do it in front of Basini
anyway.”
“But you could at least give
us some sort of idea.”
“Well, it’s like this.
History teaches that there is only one way:
entering into one’s own being
in meditation. Only this is where the difficulty begins. The saints of old, for
instance, at the time when the soul still manifested itself in miracles, were
able to reach this goal by means of fervent prayer. The fact is at that time
the soul was of a different nature. Now that way is not open to us. Today we
don’t know what to do. The soul has changed, and unfortunately between then and
now there lie times when nobody paid proper attention to the subject and the
tradition was irrevocably lost. We can only find a new way by means of most
careful thought. This is what I have been intensively occupied with recently.
The most obvious choice is probably to do it by the aid of hypnosis. Only it
has never yet been tried. All they do is keep on performing the same
commonplace tricks, which is why the methods haven’t yet been tested for their
capacity to lead towards higher things. The final thing I want to say now is
that I shall not hypnotise Basini by the usual methods but according to one of
my own, which, if I am not mistaken, is similar to one that was used in the
Middle Ages.”
“Isn’t Beineberg a treat?”
Reiting exclaimed, laughing. “Only he ought to have lived in the age when they
went round prophesying the end of the world. Then he would have ended up by
really believing it was due to his soul-magic that the world remained intact.”
When Törless looked at
Beineberg after these mocking words, he saw that his face was quite rigid and
distorted as though convulsed with concentration, and in the next moment he
felt the touch of ice-cold fingers. He was startled by this high degree of
excitement. But then the tension relaxed, the grip on his arm slackened.
“Oh, it was nothing,”
Beineberg said. “Just an idea. I felt as though something special were lust
going to occur to me, a clue to how to do it....”
“I say, you really are a bit
touched,” Reiting said jovially. “You always used to be a tough sort of chap,
you only went in for all this stuff as a sort of game. But now you’re like an
old woman.”
“Oh, leave me alone-you’ve no
idea what it means to know such things are at hand and to be on the point of
reaching them today or any day now!”
“Stop quarrelling,” Törless
said. In the course of the last few weeks he had become a good deal firmer and
more energetic. “For all I care each of you can do what he likes. I don’t
believe in anything at all-neither in your crafty tortures, Reiting, nor in
Beineberg’s hopes. For my own part, I have nothing to say. I’m simply going to
wait and see what you two produce.”
“So when shall it be?”
The night after the next was
decided on.
Törless made no resistance to
its approach. And indeed in this new situation his feeling for Basini had
completely died out. This was quite fortunate for him, since at least it freed
him all at once from the wavering between shame and desire that he had been
unable to get out of by exerting his own strength. Now at least he had a
straightforward, plain repugnance for Basini; it was as if the humiliations
intended for the latter might be capable of defiling him too.
For the rest he was absent-minded and could not bring himself
to think of anything seriously, least of all about the things that had once so
intensely preoccupied him.
Only when he went upstairs to the attic together with
Reiting-Beineberg and Basini having gone ahead-the memory of what had once gone
on in him became more vivid again. He could not rid himself of the sound of the
cocksure words he had flung at Beineberg, and he yearned to regain that
confidence. He lingered a little on each of the stairs, dragging his feet. But
his former certainty would not return. Though he recalled all the thoughts he
had had at that time, they seemed to pass him by, remote as though they were no
more than the shadowy images of what he had once thought.
Finally, since he found
nothing in himself, his curiosity turned again to the events that were to come
from outside; and this impelled him forward.
Swiftly he followed Reiting,
hurrying up the last of the stairs.
While the iron door was
groaning shut behind them, he felt, with a sigh, that though Beineberg’s plan
might be only laughable hocus-pocus, at least there was something firm and
deliberate about it, whereas everything in himself lay in an impenatrable
confusion and perplexity.
Tense with expectation, they
sat down on one of the horizontal beams, as though in a theatre.
Beineberg was already there
with Basini.
The situation seemed
favourable to his plan. The darkness, the stale air, the foul, brackish smell
emanating from the water-tubs, all this generated a feeling of drowsiness, of
never being able to wake up again, a weary, sluggish indolence.
Beineberg told Basini to
undress. Now in the darkness Basini’ s naked skin had a bluish, mouldy glimmer;
there was nothing in the least provocative about it.
Suddenly Beineberg pulled the
revolver out of his pocket and aimed it at Basini.
Even Reiting leaned forward
as though preparing to leap between the two of them at any moment.
But Beineberg was
smiling-smiling in a strangely distorted way, as though he did not really mean
to at all, but rather as if fanatical words welling up in him had twisted his
lips into a queer grimace.
Basini had dropped to his
knees, as though paralysed, and was staring at the gun, his eyes wide with
fear.
“Get up,” Beineberg said. “If
you do exactly what I tell you, you won’t come to any harm. But if you disturb me
by making the slightest difficulty, I shall shoot you down like a dog. Take
note of that!
“As a matter of fact, I am
going to kill you anyway, but you’ll come back to life again. Dying is not so
alien to us as you think it is. We die every day-in our deep, dreamless sleep.”
Once again the wild smile
distorted Beineberg’s mouth.
“Now kneel down, up there”-he
pointed to a wide horizontal beam that ran across the attic at about
waist-level-“that’s it-quite straight-hold yourself perfectly straight-keep
your shoulders back. And now keep looking at this-but no blinking! You must
keep your eyes open as wide as you possibly can!”
Beineberg put a little
spirit-lamp in front of Basini in such a position that he had to bend his head
back slightly in order to look right into the flame.
It was difficult to make
anything out exactly in the dimness, but after some time it seemed that
Basini’s body was beginning to swing to and fro like a pendulum. The bluish
gleams were flickering on his skin. Now and then Törless thought he could see
Basini’s face, contorted with terror.
After a time Beineberg asked:
“Are you feeling tired?” The question was put in the usual way that hypnotists
put it. Then he began explaining, his voice low and husky:
“Dying is only a result of
our way of living. We live from one thought to the next, from one feeling to
the next. Our thoughts and feelings don’t flow along quietly like a stream,
they ‘occur’ to us, which means they ‘run against’ us, crash into us like
stones that have been thrown. If you watch yourself carefully, you’ll realise
that the soul isn’t something that changes its colours in smooth gradations,
but that the thoughts jump out of it like numbers out of a black hole. Now you
have a thought or a feeling, and all at once there’s a different one there, as
if it had popped up out of nothingness. If you pay attention, you can even
notice the instant between two thoughts when everything’s black. For us that instant-once
we have grasped it-is simply death.
“For our life is nothing but
setting milestones and hopping from one to the next, hopping over thousands of
death-seconds every day. We live as it were only in the points of rest. And
that is why we have such a ridiculous dread of irrevocable death, for that is
the thing that is absolutely without milestones, the fathomless abyss that we
fall into. It is in fact the utter negation of this kind of living.
“But it is so only if it is
looked at from the point of view of this kind of living, and only for the
person who has not learnt to experience himself otherwise than from moment to
moment.
“I call this The Hopping
Evil, and the secret lies in overcoming it. One must awaken the feeling of
one’s own life in oneself as of something peacefully gliding along. In the
moment when this really happens one is lust as near to death as to life. One
ceases to live-in our earthly sense of the word-but one cannot die any more
either, for with the cancelling out of life one has also cancelled out death.
This is the instant of immortality, the instant when the soul steps out of our
narrow brain into the wonderful gardens of its own life.
“So now pay close attention
to what I say.
“Put all your thoughts to
sleep, keep staring into this little flame. . . Don’t think from one thing to another.
. . Concentrate all your attention in an inward direction... Keep staring at
the flame... Your thoughts are slowing down, like an engine gradually running
slower and slower... slower... and... slower... Keep staring inward ... Keep on
staring... till you find the point where you feel yourself, feeling without any
thought or sensation...
“Your silence will be all the
answer I want. Don’t avert your gaze from within!”
Minutes passed.
“Do you feel the point. . .
?” No answer.
“Do you hear, Basini, have
you done it?”
Silence.
Beineberg stood up, and his
gaunt shadow rose high beside the beam. Up above, Basini’s body could be seen
rocking to and fro, drunk with darkness.
“Turn sideways,” Beineberg
ordered. “What obeys now is only the brain,” he murmured, “the brain, which
still goes on functioning mechanically for a while, until the last traces of
what the soul imprinted on it are consumed. The soul itself is somewhere
else-in its next form of existence. It is no longer wearing the fetters of the
laws of Nature.” He turned to Törless for a moment: “It is no longer condemned
to the punishment of making a body heavy and holding it together. Bend forward,
Basini-that’s right-slowly, slowly. And a bit further. A bit further still. As
the last trace is extinguished in the brain, the muscles will relax and the
empty body will collapse. Or it will simply float, I don’t know which. The soul
has left the body of its own accord. This is not the ordinary sort of death.
Perhaps the body will float in the air because there is nothing left in
possession of it-no force either of life or of death. Bend forward... And a bit
more.”
* * *
At this moment Basini, who
had been obeying all these commands out of sheer terror, lost his balance and
crashed to the floor at Beineberg’s feet.
Basini yelled with pain.
Reiting burst out laughing. But Beineberg, who had fallen back a step, uttered
a gurgling cry of rage when he realized that he had been tricked. With a swift
movement he ripped his leather belt from his waist, seized Basini by the hair,
and began lashing him furiously. All the tremendous tension he had been under
now found release in these frantic blows. And Basini howled with pain, so that
the attic rang with lamentation as if a dog were howling.
* * *
Törless had sat in silence
during the whole of the previous scene. He has been secretly hoping that
something might happen after all that would carry him back to the emotional
realm he had lost. It was a foolish hope, as he had known all along, but it had
held him spellbound. Now, however, it seemed to be all over. The scene revolted
him. There was no longer any trace of thought in him, only mute, inert
repugnance.
He got up quietly and left
without saying a word, all quite mechanically.
Beineberg was still lashing
away at Basini and would obviously go on doing so to the point of exhaustion.
When Törless was in bed, he
felt: This is the end of it. Something is over and done with.
During the next few days he
went on quietly with his school work, riot bothering about anything else.
Reiting and Beineberg were probably now carrying out their programme item by
item; but he kept out of their way.
Then on the fourth day, when
nobody happened to be there, Basini came up to him. He looked ghastly, his face
was wan and thin, and in his eyes there was a feverish flicker of constant
dread. Glancing nervously about him, he spoke hurriedly and in gasps:
“You’ve got to help me!
You’re the only person who can! I can’t stand any more of their tormenting me.
I’ve stood everything up to now, but if it goes on like this they’ll kill me!”
Törless found it disagreeable
to have to say anything in reply to this. At last he said: “I can’t help you.
It’s all your own fault. You’re to blame for what’s happening to you.
“But only a short time ago
you were still so nice and good to me.”
“Never.”
“Shut up! It
wasn’t me. It was a dream. A mood. It actually suits me quite well that
your new disgrace has torn you away from me. For me it’s better that way. .
Basini let his head sink. He
realized that a sea of grey and sober disappointment lay now between him and
Törless. . . . Törless was cold, a different person.
Then he threw himself down on
his knees before Törless, beat his head on the floor and cried: “Help me! Help
me! For God’s sake help me!”
Törless hesitated for a
moment. He felt neither any wish to help Basini nor enough indignation to push
him away. So he acted on the first thought that occurred to him. “Come to the
attic tonight. I’ll talk it over with you again.” But the next moment he was
already regretting it.
‘Why stir it all up again?’
he wondered, and then said, as though on second thoughts: “But they’d notice.
It can’t be done.”
“Oh no, they were up all last
night with me, till dawn. They’ll sleep tonight.”
“All right then, for all I care.
But don’t expect me to help you.”
* * *
It was against his own
judgment that Törless had decided to meet Basini. For his real conviction was
that inwardly it was all over-there was nothing more to be got out of it. Now
only a sort of pedantry, some stubborn conscientiousness, had inspired him with
the notion of again meddling with these things, even though he knew from the
start that it was hopeless.
He felt the need to get it
over quickly.
Basini did not know how he
was expected to behave. He had been beaten so much that he scarcely dared to
stir. Every trace of personality seemed to have gone out of him; only in his
eyes there was still a little residue of it, and it peered out shakily,
imploringly, as though clutching at Törless.
He waited to see what Törless
would do.
Finally Törless broke the
silence. He spoke rapidly, in a bored manner, as though it were merely for the
sake of form that he was again going over a matter which had long been settled.
“I’m not going to help you.
It’s a fact, I did take an interest in you for a time, but that’s over now.
You’re really nothing but a cowardly rotter. Definitely that’s all you are. So
what should make me take your part? I always used to think there must be some
word, some feeling, I could find that would describe you differently. But
there’s really nothing that describes you better than saying you’re a cowardly
rotter. That’s so simple and meaningless, and still it’s all that can be said.
Whatever else I wanted from you before, I’ve forgotten since you got in the way
of it with your lecherous desires. I wanted to find a point remote from you, to
look at you from there. That was my interest in you. You destroyed it yourself.
But that’s enough about that, I don’t owe you any explanation. Only one more
thing-what do you feel like now?”
“What do you expect me to
feel like? I can’t stand any more of it.
“I suppose they’re doing
pretty bad things to you now, and it hurts?”
“Yes.”
“But just pain-is it as
simple as that? You feel that you’re suffering and you want to escape from it?
Simply that, without any complications?”
Basini had no answer.
“Oh, all right, I was just
asking by the way, not really formulating it precisely enough. Still, that
doesn’t matter. I have no more to do with you. I’ve already told you that4
You don’t arouse the slightest feeling in me any more. Do whatever you
like.”
Törless turned to go.
Then Basini tore his clothes off
and thrust himself against Törless. His body was covered with weals. It was
a disgusting sight, and his movements were as wretched as those of a clumsy
prostitute. Nauseated, Törless shook him off and went.
But he had taken scarcely
more than a few paces into the darkness when he collided with Reiting.
“What’s all this? So you have
secret meetings with Basini, do you?”
Törless followed Reiting’s
gaze, looking back at Basini. Just at the place where Basini was standing a
broad beam of moonlight came in through a skylight, making the bluish-tinged
skin with the weals on it look like the skin of a leper. As though he had to find
some excuse for this sight, Törless said: “He asked me.”
“What does he want?”
“He wants me to protect him.”
“Well, he’s come to the right
person, hasn’t he!”
“I might really do it, only
the whole thing bores me.”
Reiting glanced up,
unpleasantly surprised. Then he turned angrily to Basini.
“We’ll teach you to start
secret plots against us! And your guardian angel Törless will look on in
person and enjoy it.”
Törless had already turned
away, but this piece of spite, so obviously aimed at him, held him back and,
without stopping to think, he said: “Look here, Reiting, I shall not do
anything of the kind. I’m not going to have any more to do with it. I’m sick of
the whole thing.”
“All of a sudden?”
“Yes, all of a sudden. Before,
I was searching for something behind it all....” He did not know why he said
this or why now again it kept on coming back into his mind.
“Aha, second sight!”
“Yes. But now I can see only
one thing-how vulgar and brutal you and Beineberg are.”
“But you shall also see how
Basini eats mud,” Reiting sneered.
“That doesn’t interest me any
more.
“it certainly used to!”
“I’ve already told you, only
as long as Basini’s state of mind was a riddle to me.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know anything
about riddles. Things just happen: that’s the sum total of wisdom.” Törless was
surprised to find himself all at once again uttering phrases from that lost
realm of feeling. And so, when Reiting mockingly retorted that one did not have
to travel far to pick up that sort of wisdom, an angry sense of superiority
shot up in him and made him speak harshly. For a moment he despised Reiting so
much that he would really have enjoyed trampling him underfoot.
“Gibe away as much as you
like. But the things you two are up to are nothing more or less than brainless,
senseless, disgusting torture of someone weaker than you are!”
Reiting cast a sidelong
glance at Basini, who was pricking up his ears.
“You mind what you say,
Törless!”
“Disgusting and filthy! You
heard what I said!”
Now Reiting burst out too. “I
forbid you to be abusive about us in front of Basini!”
“Oh, to hell with you! Who
are you to forbid anything? That is over. Once I used to respect you and
Beineberg, but now I can see what you really are-stupid, revolting, beastly fools!”
“Shut up, or-“ and Reiting
seemed about to leap at Törless. Törless retreated slightly, yelling at him:
“D’you think I’m going to fight with you? You needn’t think Basini’s worth that
to me! Do what you like with him, but get out of my way!”
Reiting seemed to have
changed his mind about hitting Törless; he stepped aside. He did not even touch
Basini. But Törless knew him well enough to realize one thing: from now on all
that was malicious and dangerous in Reiting would be a perpetual threat to him.
It was in the afternoon, only
two days later, that Reiting and Beineberg came up to Törless.
He saw the unpleasant look in
their eyes. Obviously Beineberg now bore him a grudge for the ridiculous
collapse of his prophecies, and Reiting had probably been egging him on, into
the bargain.
“I hear you’ve been abusive
about us. And in front of Basini, at that. Why?”
Törless made no answer.
“You realise we are not going
to put up with that sort of thing. But because it’s you, and we’re used to your
odd whims, and don’t attach overmuch importance to them, we’re prepared to let
it go at that. There’s just one thing you have to do, though.” In spite of the
amiability of the words, there was something malevolently expectant in
Beineberg’s eyes.
“Basini’s coming to the lair
tonight. We’re going to discipline him for having set you against us. When you
see us leave the dormitory, come after us.”
But Törless refused. “You two
can do what you like. You’ll have to leave me out of it.”
“Tonight we’re going to have
our fun with Basini, for the last time, and tomorrow we’re handing him over to
the class, because he’s beginning to be difficult.”
“You can do whatever you
like.”
“But you’re going to be there
too.”
“It’s in front of you especially
that Basini must see nothing can help him against us. Only yesterday he was
refusing to carry Out our orders. We half thrashed him to death, but he stuck
to it. We’ll have to resort to moral means again, and humiliate him first in
front of you and then in front of the class.”
“But I’m not going to be
there.” “Why not?”
“I’m not going to be there,
that’s all.”
Beineberg drew a deep breath;
it looked as if he were gathering together all the venom he had in him. Then he
stepped up very close to Törless.
“Do you really think we don’t
know why? Do you think we don’t know how far you’ve gone with Basini?”
“No further than you two.”
“Indeed? And I suppose that’s
why he chooses precisely you for his patron saint? Eh? That’s why he has this
great confidence precisely in you, is it? You needn’t think we’re stupid
enough to believe that!”
Törless grew angry. “I don’t
care what you know, I don’t want to have any more to do with your filthy
goings-on!”
“Oh, so you’re getting
impertinent again!”
“You two make me sick! Your
beastliness is utterly senseless! That’s what’s so revolting about you.
“Now listen to me. You ought
to be grateful to us for quite a number of things. If you think that in spite
of that you can now set yourself up above us, who have been your instructors,
then you’re making a grave mistake. Are you coming along tonight, yes or no?”
“No!”
“My dear Törless, if you
rebel against us and don’t put in an appearance, then you’ve got coming to you
what came to Basini. You know the situation Reiting found you in. That’s
sufficient. Whether we have done more, or less, won’t be of much help to you.
We shall use everything against you. You’re much too stupid and clumsy in such
things to be a match for us.
“So if you don’t see reason
in good time, we shall expose you to the class as Basini’s accomplice. Then
it’ll be up to him to protect you. Understand?”
A flood of threats, now from
Beineberg, now from Reiting, and now uttered by both together, broke over
Törless like a storm. And when they had both gone, he rubbed his eyes as if
awakening from a dream. But of course it was just like Reiting really; in his
anger he was capable of the utmost infamy, and Törless’s offensive and mutinous
words seemed to have cut him to the quick. And Beineberg? He had looked as if
he were shaking with a hatred that he had been concealing for years-and this
merely because he had made a fool of himself in front of Törless.
But the more menacingly
events hung over Törless’s head, the more indifferent he became and the more
mechanical it all seemed to him. Their threats frightened him. So much he
admitted to himself; but that was all. This danger had drawn him right into
the maelstrom of reality.
He went to bed. He saw
Beineberg and Reiting leave the dormitory, and then Basini shuffling wearily
after them. But he did not follow.
Yet he was tortured by
frightful imaginings. For the first time he thought of his parents again with
some affection. He could feel that he needed the calm, safe ground of home if
he was to consolidate and develop the things in himself that had hitherto only
got him into trouble.
But what were these things?
He had no time to think about it now and brood over what was going on. All he
felt was an impassioned longing to escape from this confused, whirling state
of things, a longing for quietness, for books. He felt his soul as black earth
in which the seeds were already beginning to sprout, though nobody could yet
know what flowers they would bear. He found himself thinking of a gardener, who
waters his flower-beds at the break of every day, tending his plants with even,
patient kindness. He could not rid himself of the image: that patient certainty
seemed now to be the focus of all his longing. This was how it must be! This
was the way! Törless now felt it clearly; and, overruling all his fear and all
his qualms, there was the conviction in him that he must exert himself to the
utmost in order to attain that state of being.
The only thing he was not yet
clear about was what had to be done next. For above all else this yearning for
tranquil contemplativeness only heightened his loathing for the intrigues he
was faced with now. Besides, he was really afraid of the vengeance that he had
now to reckon with. If the other two really did set about defaming him to the class,
trying to combat that would cost him a tremendous amount of energy; and energy
was the very thing he needed for other purposes just now. And the mere thought
of this tangle of events, this collision with the intentions and the will-power
of others, a collision so utterly lacking in any higher value, made him shudder
with disgust.
And then he remembered a
letter he had received from home quite a long time before. It was the answer to
one he had written to his parents, telling them, as well as he could, about his
peculiar states of mind, though this was before he had been drawn into the
sexual adventure. Once again it was a thoroughly prosaic answer, full of
well-meant, worthy, boring moral reflections, and it contained the advice to
get Basini to give himself up and thus put an end to the undignified and
dangerous state of subservience he was in.
Later on Törless had read
this letter again when Basini was lying naked beside him on the soft blankets
in the lair. And it had given him special pleasure to savour these stolid,
plain, sober words while reflecting that his parents, living as they did in
that excessive brightness of everyday reality, were doubtless blind to the
darkness in which his soul was now crouching, like some lithe and cat-like
beast of prey.
But today it was with quite
different feelings that he remembered that passage.
He felt himself being
enfolded by a pleasant sense of relief, as though under the touch of a firm,
kindly hand. ln this moment the decision was made. A thought had flashed upon
him, and he seized hold of it without a qualm, as though under the guidance of
his parents.
He lay awake until the three
came back. Then he waited until he could tell, by the regularity of their
breathing, that they were asleep. Now he hastily tore a page out of his
note-book and, by the dim flicker of the night-light, he wrote in large,
wavering letters:
“They’re going to hand you
over to the class tomorrow. You’re in for something terrible. The only way out
is to go straight to the Head and confess. He would get to hear about it all
anyway, only you’d be beaten half to death first.
“Put it all on R. and B. Say
nothing about me. You can see I’m trying to save you.”
He pushed this piece of paper into the sleeper’s hand. Then,
exhausted with excitement, he fell asleep too.
Beineberg and Reiting
seemed willing to grant Törless respite for at least the whole of the next day.
But where Basini was
concerned, things really got moving. Törless saw Beineberg and Reiting going up
to this boy and that, and watched groups forming round them, and eager
whisperings going on.
And still he did not know
whether Basini had found his note or not, for he had no chance to speak to him,
feeling as he did that he was himself under observation.
As a matter of fact, at first
he had been afraid they were talking about him too. But by now, when he was
actually confronted with the danger, he was so paralysed by its repulsiveness
that he could not have brought himself to lift a finger to ward it off.
It was only later that he
joined one of the groups, hesitantly and quite expecting that they would all
instantly turn against him.
But nobody took any notice of
him. For the present it was only Basini against whom the hunt was up.
The excitement grew. Törless
could see it growing. Reiting and Beineberg had doubtless added various lies of
their own to the whole story.
At first there were grins on
all faces, then some grew serious, and here and there hostile glances were cast
in Basini’s direction. Finally the class-room grew dense with a silence that
was charged with tension, with dark, hot, sinister urges.
It happened to be a free
afternoon.
They all gathered at the back
of the room, by the lockers. Then Basini was summoned.
Beineberg and Reiting took up
positions one on each side of him, like warders.
The doors having been locked
and sentries posted, the customary procedure of stripping was carried out, to
the general amusement.
Reiting had in his hand a
packet of letters from Basini’s mother to her son, and he began to read aloud.
“My dear little lad…”
There was a general guffaw.
“As you know, with the meagre
financial resources that I, as a widow, have at my disposal...”
Ribald laughter and lewd
jokes burst from the crowd. Reiting was about to continue his reading, when
suddenly somebody gave Basini a push. Another boy, against whom he stumbled,
pushed him away again, half jokingly and half in indignation. A third pushed
him on a little further. And suddenly Basini, naked as he was, his mouth agape
with terror, was being bounced around the room like a ball, to the
accompaniment of laughter, cat-calls, and blows-now to this side of the room,
now to that-getting bruised and cut on the sharp corners of desks, falling on
to his knees, which were beginning to bleed; and finally, streaked with blood
and dust, with wildly staring, stupefied, glassy eyes, he collapsed on the
floor and lay still, whereupon silence fell and everyone pressed forward to
have a good look at him.
Törless shuddered. Now he had
seen the terrible reality behind the threat Beineberg and Reiting had made.
And even now he still did not
know what Basini was going to do.
Tomorrow night, it was
resolved, Basini was to be tied to a bed and whipped with foils.
* * *
But to everyone’s
disconcerted surprise the headmaster came into the classroom early in the
morning. He was accompanied by the form-master and two other members of the
staff. Basini was removed from the class and taken to a separate room.
Meanwhile the headmaster
delivered an angry speech on the subject of the brutal bullying that had come
to light and announced that there was going to be a very strict investigation
into the matter.
Basini had given himself up.
Someone must have warned him
of what was still in store for him.
Nobody had any suspicions of
Törless. He sat there quietly, sunk in his own thoughts, as though the whole
thing did not concern him in the least.
Not even Reiting and
Beineberg entertained the idea that he might be the traitor. They themselves
had not taken their threats against him seriously; they had uttered them merely
in order to intimidate him, in order to make him feel their superiority, and to
some extent merely in the heat of the moment. Now, when their rage had passed
off, they scarcely gave it another thought. What would in any case have
prevented their treating Törless in a similar way was the fact of their being
acquainted with his parents and having enjoyed their hospitality. This was so
much a matter of course that it also prevented them from fearing any hostile
act on his part.
Törless felt no remorse for
what he had done. The furtive, cowardly quality about it did not count in
comparison with the sense of complete liberation he now had. After all the
agitation he had been through he now felt that everything within him was
wonder-fully clear and spacious.
He did not join in the
excited conversations all round him about what was going to happen. He went
quietly through the day’s routine, keeping to himself.
When evening came and the
lamps were lit, he sat down in his place, in front of him the copy-book in
which he had made those hasty notes some time ago.
But he did not read them for
long. He smoothed the pages with his hand, and it seemed to him that there was
a faint fragrance rising from them, like the scent of lavender that clings to
old letters.
He was overcome by that
tenderness mingled with melancholy which we always feel about a part of our
life that irrevocably belongs to the past, when a delicate, pale shadow rises
up out of that realm as though with withered flowers in its hands, and in its
features we discover a forgotten likeness to ourselves.
And this mournful, faint
shadow, this wan fragrance, seemed to be dissolving in a broad, full, warm
stream-in life itself, which now lay open before him.
One phase of development was
at an end; the soul had formed another annual ring, as a young tree does. And
this feeling, as yet wordless, but overwhelming, in itself made up for all that
had happened.
Now Törless began leafing
through his old notes. The sentences in which he had clumsily recorded what was
going on-that manifold amazement and bewilderment in the encounter with
life-grew vivid again, and seemed to stir, and began to form a picture. It all
lay before him like a brightly lit path on which he could see the imprints of
his own hesitant footsteps. But something still seemed to be missing. It was
not a new idea that he needed. Yet somehow the whole thing would not quite come
to life for him.
He still felt unsure of
himself. And now there came the fear of having to stand in front of his
teachers the next day and justify himself. And how was he to do it? How could
he explain to them? How could he make them understand that dark, mysterious way
which he had gone? Supposing they asked him why he had maltreated Basini,
surely he could not answer: ‘Because I was interested in something going on in
my own mind, something I don’t know much about even now, in spite of
everything-something that makes all that I think about the whole thing seem
quite unimportant.’
It was only a small matter, a
single step between him and the termination of this phase in his mental
development, but it appalled him, as though it were a monstrous abyss that lay
ahead.
And even before nightfall
Törless was in a state of feverish, panic-stricken excitement.
The next day, when the boys
were called up one by one for questioning, Törless was not to be found.
He had been last seen in the
evening, sitting over a copy-book, apparently reading.
He was searched for
throughout the building. Beineberg slipped away up to the lair to make sure
that he was not there.
Finally it became evident
that he had run away from school, and the police of the whole district were
called upon to look out for him and asked to handle him, if he was found, with
all possible discretion.
Meanwhile the enquiry began.
Reiting and Beineberg, who
believed that Törless had run away out of fear of their threat of implicating
him, felt themselves under an obligation to avert all suspicion from him, and
they said everything they could in his favour.
They shifted all the blame on
to Basini, and one by one the whole class bore witness to the fact that Basini
was a thieving, low character who had responded to the most well-meaning
attempts at reforming him only by repeating his offences again and again. Reiting
solemnly declared that they realised they had acted wrongly, but that it had
only been done because they were sorry for Basini and felt that one of their
number should not be delivered up to punishment before every means of
benevolent guidance had been tried. And once again the whole form asseverated
that the ill-treatment of Basini had been nothing but a spontaneous outbreak,
since Basini had rewarded the noble sentiments of those who felt mercifully
towards him with the most outrageous and vile derision.
In short, it was a
well-rehearsed farce, brilliantly stage-managed by Reiting, and the highest
possible moral tone was assumed in putting forward excuses that would find
favour in the masters’ eyes.
Basini preserved a stupefied
silence, no matter what was said. He was still paralysed with terror from his
experiences of two days earlier, and the solitary confinement in which he was
kept, together with the quiet and matter-of-fact course of the investigation,
was in itself a tremendous relief to him. All he wished for was that it might
be over soon. Besides, Reiting and Beineberg had not failed to threaten him
with the most atrocious revenge if he should dare to say anything against them.
Then Törless was brought in.
He had been picked up, dead tired and very hungry, in the next town.
His flight now seemed to be
the only mysterious element in the whole affair. But the situation was in his
favour. Beineberg and Reiting had done their work well, talking about the nervy
state he had been in recently and about his moral sensitiveness, which made him
feel it was positively a crime that he, who had known about the whole matter
all along, had not immediately gone and reported it, and by this omission had
become partly responsible for the catastrophe.
As a result there was now a
certain measure of sentimental benevolence in the masters’ attitude to
Törless, and his class-mates did not fail to prepare him for this.
Nevertheless, he was
dreadfully agitated, and the fear of not being able to make himself
intelligible almost exhatisted him.
For reasons of discretion,
since there was still a certain anxiety about possible revelations, the enquiry
was being conducted in the headmaster’s lodgings. Apart from the headmaster
himself, those present were the form-master, the chaplain, and the mathematics
master, to whom, as the youngest member of the staff, it fell to keep the
minutes.
When Törless was asked why he
had run away, he remained silent.
There was a general
sympathetic wagging of heads.
“Well, yes,” the headmaster
said, “I think we know all that is necessary about that. But now tell us what
induced you to conceal Basini’s offence.”
It would have been easy for Törless
to produce some lies now. But his nervousness had passed off and he was in fact
tempted to talk about himself and to try out his ideas on them.
“I don’t know exactly, sir.
When I heard about it for the first time, it struck me as something quite monstrous-simply
unimaginable.”
The chaplain looked
complacent and gave Törless an encouraging nod.
“I-I couldn’t help thinking
about Basini’s soul. . .
The chaplain beamed. The
mathematics master polished his spectacles, replaced them, and narrowed his eyes.
“I couldn’t imagine what the
moment must have been like when such a humiliation descended upon Basini, and
this was what kept driving me to seek his company.
“Well, yes-in other words,
you mean to say that you had a natural abhorrence of the particular error of
your class-mate’s ways, and that the sight of vice held you as it were
spellbound, just as the gaze of the serpent is said to hold its victims.”
The form-master and the
mathematics master hastened to express their appreciation of the simile by means
of lively gestures.
But Törless said: “No, it
wasn’t actually abhorrence. It was like this: sometimes I told myself he had
done wrong and ought to be reported to those in authority. . .
“And that is the way you
should have acted.”
“But then at other times he
struck me as so peculiar that I simply didn’t think about his being punished, I
looked at him from quite a different point of view. It always gave me a jolt
when I thought of him in that way..
“You must express yourself a
little more clearly, my dear Törless.”
“There isn’t any other way of
saying it, sir.”
“Oh yes. there is, there is.
“You are excited. We can see that. You are perplexed and confused. What you
said just now was very obscure.”
“Well yes, I do feel
perplexed. l have had much better ways of putting it. But it all comes to the
same thing in the end-there was something quite weird in me....”
“H’m, yes. But after all that
is only natural in a matter like this.”
Törless reflected for a
moment.
“Perhaps one can put it like
this: there are certain things that are destined to affect our lives in, as it
were, two different ways. In my case they have been people, events, dark dusty
corners, a high, cold, silent wall that suddenly came alive.
“Good gracious, Törless, what
is all this rambling talk?”
But Törless had suddenly
begun to enjoy talking and getting it all off his chest.
“...imaginary numbers...”
They all glanced now at one
another, now at Törless. The mathematics master cleared his throat and said:
“I should like to
interpolate, for the elucidation of these obscure allusions, that Törless here
one day came to see me, asking for an explanation of certain fundamental
mathematical concepts-with particular reference to that of imaginary
numbers-things that are in fact very likely to be a cause of difficulty to the
as yet insufficiently instructed intellect. I must indeed confess that he
unquestionably displayed acuity of mind. On the other hand, he showed a really
morbid insistence on singling out the very things which, so to speak, seemed-at
least to him-to indicate a lacuna in the causality of thought.
“Do you remember what you
said on that occasion, Törless?”
“Yes. I said it seemed to me
that at these points we couldn’t get across merely by the aid of thought, and
we needed another and more inward sort of certainty to get us to the other
side, as you might say. We can’t manage solely by means of thinking, I felt
that in the case of Basini too.”
The headmaster was becoming
impatient with this philosophical deviation from the direct line of the
enquiry. But the chaplain was very satisfied with Törless’s answer.
“So what you feel is that you
are drawn away from science towards the religious aspect of things?” he asked,
and then, turning to the others, went on: “Clearly it was really similar where
Basini was concerned. The boy seems to have a receptive sensibility for the
finer aspects, or as I should rather say, for the divine essence of morality
that transcends the limits of our intellect.”
Now the headmaster felt he
was really obliged to take up the point.
“Well now, tell me, Törless, is it as the Reverend Father says?
Have you an inclination to look behind events or things-as you yourself have
put it, in-a rather general way-seeking the religious background?”
He himself would have been heartily
glad if Törless had at long last given an affirmative answer and thus provided
a solid basis on which to judge his case.
But Törless said: “No, it
wasn’t that either.”
“Well, then for heaven’s
sake, boy, will you please tell us plainly what it was!” the headmaster
burst out. “After all, we cannot possibly settle down to a philosophical
discussion with you!” But now Törless became stubborn. He himself felt that he
had not put his case well, but both the antagonism and the misguided approval
he had met with gave him a sense of haughty superiority over these older men
who seemed to know so little about the inner life of a human being.
“I can’t help its not being
all these things you meant. But I myself can’t explain properly what I felt
each time. Still, if I say what l think about it now, you may understand why it
took me so long to tear myself away from it.”
He was standing very
straight, as proudly as if he were the judge here; and he looked straight
ahead, past the men facing him-he could not bear the sight of this ridiculous
assembly.
There outside the window was
a crow, perching on a branch. Apart from that there was nothing but the vast
white plain.
He felt that the moment had
come when he would talk clearly, coherently, and triumphantly of the things
that had at first been vague and tormenting within him, and later had been
lifeless, without force.
It was not that any new idea
had come to him, lending him this confidence and lucidity. He simply felt it
throughout his being, as he stood there drawn up to his full height and as
though standing in the middle of an empty room-felt it with the whole of his
being, just like that time when he had let his astonished gaze stray over his
class-mates as they sat there writing or memorising, all busily at work.
For it is strange how it is
with thoughts. They are often no more than accidentals that fade out again
without leaving any trace; and thoughts have their dead and their vital
seasons. We sometimes have a flash of understanding that amounts to the insight
of genius, and yet it slowly withers, even in our hands-like a flower. The form
remains, but the colours and the fragrance are gone. That is to say, we still
remember it all, word for word, and the logical value of the proposition, the
discovery, remains entirely unimpaired, and nevertheless it merely drifts
aimlessly about on the surface of our mind, and we do not feel ourselves any
the richer for it. And then, perhaps years later-all at once there is again a
moment when we see that in the meantine we have known nothing of it, although
in terms of logic we have known it all.
Yes, there are dead and
living thoughts. The process of thinking that takes place on the illumined
surface, and which can always be checked and tested by means of the thread of
causality, is not necessarily the living one. A thought that one encounters in
this way remains as much a matter of indifference as any given man in a column
of marching soldiers. Although a thought may have entered our brain a long
time earlier, it comes to life only in the moment when something that is no
longer thought, something that is not merely logical, combines with it and
makes us feel its truth beyond the realm of all justification, as though it had
dropped an anchor that tore into the blood-warm, living flesh.... Any great
flash of understanding is only half completed in the illumined circle of the
conscious mind; the other half takes place in the dark loam of our innermost
being. It is primarily a state of soul, and uppermost, as it were at the extreme
tip of it, there the thought is-poised like a flower.
Törless had needed only one
great shock to his soul at this time to bring this out in him at last,
flowering in the light.
Without paying any attention
to the disconcerted faces round about him, and as though soliloquizing, he
started out from this point and spoke right on without a pause, his eyes fixed
on some far distance.
“Perhaps I don’t know enough
yet to find the right words for it, but I think I can describe it. It happened
again just a moment ago. I don’t know how to put it except by saying that I see
things in two different ways-everything, ideas included. If I make an effort to
find any difference in them, each of them is the same today as it was
yesterday, but as soon as I shut my eyes they’re suddenly transformed, in a
different light. Perhaps I went wrong about the imaginary numbers. If I get to
them by going straight along inside mathematics, so to speak, they seem quite
natural. It’s only if I look at them directly, in all their strangeness, that
they seem impossible. But of course I may be all wrong about this, I know too
little about it. But I wasn’t wrong about Basini. I wasn’t wrong when I
couldn’t turn my ear away from the faint trickling sound in the high wall or my
eye from the silent, swirling dust going up in the beam of light from a lamp.
No, I wasn’t wrong when I talked about things having a second, secret life that
nobody takes any notice of! I-I don’t mean it literally-it’s not that things
are alive, it’s not that Basini seemed to have two faces-it was more as if I
had a sort of second sight and saw all this not with the eyes of reason. Just
as I can feel an idea coming to life in my mind, in the same way I feel
something alive in me when I look at things and stop thinking. There’s
something dark in me, deep under all my thoughts, something I can’t measure
out with thoughts, a sort of life that can’t be expressed in words and which is
my life, all the same.
“That silent life oppressed
me, harassed me. Something kept on making me stare at it. I was tormented by
the fear that our whole life might be like that and that I was only finding it
out here and there, in bits and pieces. . . . Oh, I was dreadfully afraid! I
was out of my mind.. .”
These words and these figures
of speech, which were far beyond what was appropriate to Törless’s age, flowed
easily and naturally from his lips in this state of vast excitement he was in,
in this moment of almost poetic inspiration. Then he lowered his voice and, as
though moved by his own suffering, he added:
“Now it’s all over. I know
now I was wrong after all. I’m not afraid of anything any more. I know that
things are just things and will probably always be so. And I shall probably go
on for ever seeing them sometimes this way and sometimes that, sometimes with
the eyes of reason, and sometimes with those other eyes. . . . And I shan’t
ever try again to compare one with the other. .”
He fell silent. He took it
quite as a matter or course that now he could go, and nobody tried to stop him.
* *
When he had left the room,
the masters looked at each other with baffled expressions.
The headmaster wagged his
head irresolutely. It was the form-master who first found something to say.
“Dear me, it strikes me that
this little prophet was trying to give us a lecture! it’s the very dickens to
know what to make of him! Such excitement! And at the same time this
bewilderment, this perplexity, about quite simple things!”
“Receptivity and spontaneity
of mind,” the mathematics master concurred. “Apparently he has been attaching
too much importance to the subjective factor in all our experience, and this is
what perplexed him and drove him to use those obscure metaphors.”
Only the chaplain was silent.
In all Törless’s talk it was the often recurring word ‘soul’ that had caught
his attention, and he would gladly have taken the boy under his wing.
But then, again, he was not
entirely sure what had been meant by it.
However, the headmaster put
an end to the situation. “I do not know what is really going on in this boy
Törless, but there is no doubt about it that he is in such an extreme state of
nervous tension that boarding-school is in all probability no longer what is
most suitable for him. What he needs is a more thorough supervision of his
intellectual diet than we are in a position to provide. I do not think that we
can continue to bear the responsibility. Törless ought to be educated
privately. I shall write to his father along these lines.”
All hastened to agree to this
excellent suggestion on the part of the worthy headmaster.
“He was really so odd that I
could almost believe he has some predisposition to hysteria,” the mathematics
master said to the colleague at his side.
* * *
At the same time that Törless’s
parents received the headmaster’s letter they also received one from Törless
himself, in which he asked them to take him away from the school, since he no
longer felt it was the right place for him.
Meanwhile Basini had been
expelled, and things at school had resumed their normal course.
It had been decided that
Törless was to be fetched away by his mother. It was with indifference that he
said good-bye to his classmates. He was almost beginning to forget their names
already.
He had never again gone up to
the little red room. All that seemed to lie far, far behind him.
Since Basini’s expulsion it
all seemed dead. It was almost as if that boy, in whom all those relationships
had intertwined, had broken the circuit with his departure.
A sort of quietness and skepticism
had come over Törless; his desperation had gone. ‘I suppose it was just those
furtive goings-on with Basini that made everything seem so frantic,’ he thought
to himself. Otherwise there did not seem to be anything to account for it.
But he was ashamed-just as
one is ashamed in the morning after a feverish night during which, from all the
corners of the dark room, one has seen dreadful threats looming up and about to
over-whelm one.
His behavior at the interview
in the headmaster’s room now struck him as unspeakably ridiculous. What a fuss!
Hadn’t they been quite right? Such a fuss about a little thing like that! But
still, there was something in him that robbed this humiliation of its sting. ‘I
suppose I did behave unreasonably,’ he reflected. ‘All the same, the whole
thing seems altogether to have had very little to do with my reason.’ For this
was his new feeling about it. He had the memory of a tremendous storm that had
raged within him, but all he could muster by way of explanation for it now was
entirely inadequate. ‘So I suppose it must have been something much more
fundamental and inevitable,’ he concluded, ‘than anything that can be dealt
with by means of reasoned argument.
And the thing that had been
there even before passion seized him, the thing that had only been overgrown by
that passion-the real thing, the problem itself-was still firmly lodged in him.
It was this mental perspective that he had experienced, which alternated
according to whether he was considering what was distant or what was near by;
it was this incomprehensible relationship that according to our shifts of
standpoint gives happenings and objects sudden values that are quite
incommensurable with each other, strange to each other.
All this, and the rest besides,
he saw remarkably clear and pure-and small. It was as one sees things in the
morning, when the first pure rays of sunlight have dried the sweat of terror,
when table and cupboard, enemy and fate, all shrink again, once more assuming
their natural dimensions.
But just as then there
remains a faint, brooding lassitude, so too it was with Törless. He now knew
how to distinguish between day and night; actually he had always known it, and
it was only that a monstrous dream had flowed like a tide over those frontiers,
blotting them out. He was ashamed of the perplexity he had been in. But still
there was also the memory that it could be otherwise, that there were fine and
easily effaced boundary-lines around each human being, that feverish dreams
prowled around the soul, gnawing at the solid walls and tearing open weird
alleys-and this memory had sunk deep into him, sending out its wan and shadowy
beams.
He could not quite have
explained this. But his inability to find words for it, this near-dumbness, was
in itself delightful, like the certainty of a teeming body that can already
feel in all its veins the faint tugging of new life. Confidence and weariness
intermingled in Törless. .
So it was that he waited
quietly and meditatively for the moment of departure.
His mother, who had expected
to find an overwrought and desperately perplexed boy, was struck by his cool
composure.
When they drove out to the
railway station, they passed, on the right, the little wood with the house in
it where Bozena lived. It looked utterly insignificant and harmless, merely a
dusty thicket of willow and alder.
And Törless remembered how
impossible it had been for him then to imagine the life his parents led. He
shot a sidelong glance at his mother.
“What is it, my dear boy?”
“Nothing, Mamma. I was just
thinking.”
And, drawing a deep breath,
he considered the faint whiff of scent that rose from his mother’s corseted
waist.
Translated by Eithne
Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser