“Aw, gwan!” said he and turned away.
I thought that everything was now all right, and was glad when he got
up and made for the town. When we were on the bridge I said timidly
that I must now go home. “Don’t be in such a hurry,” laughed Frank,
“we both go the same way.” He dawdled on, and I dared not tear myself
away, especially as he was actually taking the road to our house. As we
arrived, I looked at the heavy brass-knocker, the sun on the window and
the curtains in my mother’s room, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Home
at last! What a blessing it was to be at home again, to return to the
brightness and peace of the family circle!
As I quickly opened the door and slipped inside, ready to shut it
behind me, Frank Kromer forced his way in as well. He stood beside
me in the cool, dark stone corridor which was only lighted from the
courtyard, held me by the arm and said softly: “Not so fast, you!”
Terrified, I looked at him. His grip on my arm was one of iron. I tried
to think what he had in his mind, whether he was going to maltreat me.
I wondered, if I should scream, whether anyone would come down quickly
enough to save me. But I gave up the idea.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “What d’you want?”
“Nothing much. I only want to ask you something--something the others
needn’t hear.”
“Well, what do you want me to tell you? I must go upstairs, you know.”
“You know, don’t you, whose orchard that is by the mill on the corner?”
said Frank softly.
“No, I don’t know; I think it’s the miller’s.”
Frank had wound his arm round me, and he drew me quite close to him, so
that I had to look up directly into his face. His look boded ill, he
smiled maliciously, and his face was full of cruelty and power.
“Now, kid, I can tell you whose the garden is. I have known for a long
time that the apples had been stolen, and I also know that the man said
he would give two marks to anyone who would tell him who stole the
fruit.”
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “But you won’t tell him anything?” I felt
it was useless to appeal to his sense of honor. He came from the other
world; for him betrayal was no crime. I felt that for a certainty. In
these matters people from the “other” world were not like us.
“Say nothing?” laughed Kromer. “Look here, my friend, d’you think I am
minting money and can make two shilling pieces myself? I’m a poor chap,
and I haven’t got a rich father like yours, and when I get the chance
of earning two shillings I must take it. He might even give me more.”
Suddenly he let me go free. Our house no longer gave me an impression
of peace and safety, the world fell to pieces around me. He would
report me as a criminal, my father would be told, perhaps even the
police might come for me. The terror of utter chaos menaced me, all
that was ugly and dangerous was aligned against me. The fact that I
had not stolen at all did not count in the least. I had sworn to it
besides. O dear, O dear!
I burst into tears. I felt I must buy myself off. Despairingly I
searched all my pockets. Not an apple, not a penknife, absolutely
nothing. All at once I thought of my watch. It was an old silver one
which wouldn’t go. I wore it for no special reason. It came down to me
from my grandmother. I drew it out quickly.
“Kromer,” I said, “listen, you mustn’t give me away, that wouldn’t be
nice of you. Look here, I will give you my watch; I haven’t anything
else, worse luck! You can have it, it’s a silver one; the mechanism is
good, there is one little thing wrong, that’s all, it needs repairing.”
He smiled and took the watch in his big hand. I looked at his hand and
felt how coarse and hostile it was, how it grasped at my life and peace.
“It’s silver,” I said, timidly.
“I wouldn’t give a straw for your silver and your old watch!” he said
with deep scorn. “Get it repaired yourself!”
“But, Frank,” I exclaimed, quivering with fear lest he should go away.
“Wait a minute. Do take the watch! It’s really silver, really and
truly. And I haven’t got anything else.” He gave me a cold and scornful
look.
“Very well, then, you know who I am going to; or I can tell the police.
I know the sergeant very well.”
He turned to go. I held him back by the sleeve. I could not let that
happen. I would much rather have died than bear all that would take
place if he went away like that.
“Frank,” I implored, hoarse with emotion, “please don’t do anything
silly! Tell me it’s only a joke, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, a joke, but it might cost you dear.”
“Do tell me, Frank, what to do. I’ll do anything!” He examined me
critically through his screwed-up eyes and laughed again.
“Don’t be silly,” he said with affected affability. “You know as well
as I do. I’ve got the chance of earning a couple of marks, and I’m not
such a rich fellow that I can afford to throw it away, you know that
well enough. But you’re rich, why, you’ve even got a watch. You need
only give me just two marks and everything will be all right.”
I understood his logic. But two marks! For me that was as much, and
just as unobtainable, as ten, as a hundred, as a thousand marks. I
had no money. There was a money box that my mother kept for me, with a
couple of ten and five pfennig pieces inside which I received from my
uncle when he paid us a visit, or from similar sources. I had nothing
else. At that age I received no pocket-money at all.
“I have nothing,” I said sadly. “I have no money at all. But I’ll give
you everything I have. I’ve got a book about red Indians, and also
soldiers, and a compass. I’ll get that for you.”
But Kromer only screwed up his evil mouth, and spat on the ground.
“Quit your jawing,” he said commandingly. “You can keep your old trash
yourself. A compass! Don’t make me angry, d’you hear? And hand over the
money!”
“But I haven’t any. I never get money. I can’t help it.”
“Very well, then, you’ll bring me the two marks in the morning. I shall
wait for you in the market after school. That’s all. If you don’t bring
any money, look out!”
“Yes; but where shall I get it, then? Good Lord! if I haven’t any----”
“There’s enough money in your house. That’s your business. To-morrow
after school, then. And I tell you: If you don’t bring it----”
His eyes darted a terrible look at me, he spat again and vanished like
a shadow.
I could not go upstairs. My life was ruined. I wondered if I should
run away and never come back, or go and drown myself. But these
thoughts were not clearly formulated. I sat crouched in the dark on the
bottom step and I surrendered myself to my misfortune. There Lina found
me in tears as she came down with a basket to get wood.
I begged her to say nothing on her return and I went up. My father’s
hat and my mother’s sunshade hung on the rack near the glass door. All
these things reminded me of home and tenderness, my heart went out to
them imploringly and, grateful for their existence, I felt like the
prodigal son when he looked into his old homely room and sensed its
familiar atmosphere. All this, the bright father-and-mother world, was
mine no longer, and I was buried deeply and guiltily in the strange
flood, ensnared in sinful adventures, beset by enemies and dangers,
menaced by shame and terror. The hat and sunshade, the good old
sandstone floor, the big picture over the hall cupboard, and the voice
of my elder sister in the living-room, all this was dearer and more
precious to me than ever, but it was no longer consolation and secure
possession. All of it was now a reproach. All this belonged to me no
more, I could share no more in its cheerfulness and peace. I carried
mud on my shoes that I could not wipe off on the mat, I brought shadows
in with me, of which the home-world had no knowledge. How many secrets
had I already had, how many cares--but that was play, a mere nothing
compared with what I was bringing in with me that day.
Fate was overtaking me, hands were stretched out after me, from which
even my mother could not protect me, of which she was to be allowed no
knowledge. It was all the same, whether my offense was thieving, or
a lie (had I not taken a false oath by God?). My sin was not this or
that, I had tendered my hand to the devil. Why did I follow him? Why
had I obeyed Kromer, more than ever I did my father? Why had I falsely
invented the story of the theft? Why had I plumed myself on having
committed a crime, as if it had been a deed of heroism? Now the devil
had me by the hand, now the evil one was pursuing me.
For a moment I felt no further dread of the morrow, but I had the
terrible certainty that my way was leading me further and further
downhill and into the darkness. I realized clearly that from my
wrongdoing other wrongdoings must result, that the greetings and kisses
I gave to my parents would be a lie, that a secret destiny I should
have to conceal hung over me.
For an instant confidence and hope came to me like a lightning flash
as I gazed at my father’s hat. I would tell him everything, would
accept his judgment and the punishment he might mete out; he would
be my confidant and would save me. Confession was all that would be
necessary, as I had made so many confessions before--a difficult
bitter hour, a serious, remorseful plea for forgiveness.
How sweetly that sounded! How tempting that was! But nothing came of
it. I knew that I should not do it. I knew that I had now a secret,
that I was burdened with guilt for which I myself would have to bear
the responsibility alone. Perhaps I was at this very moment at the
cross-roads, perhaps from this hour henceforth I should have to belong
to the wicked, forever share secrets with the bad, depend on them, obey
them, and become as one of themselves. I had pretended to be a man and
a hero, now I had to take the consequences.
I was glad that my father, as he entered, found fault with my wet
boots. It diverted his attention from something worse, and I allowed
myself to suffer his reproach, secretly thinking of the other. That
gave birth to a peculiar new feeling in me, an evil cutting feeling
like a barbed hook. I felt superior to my father! I felt, for an
instant’s duration, a certain scorn of his ignorance; his scolding over
the wet boots seemed to me petty. “If you only knew!” I thought, and
looked upon myself as a criminal who is being tried for having stolen a
loaf of bread, while he ought to confess to having committed murder. It
was an ugly and repugnant feeling, yet strong and not without a certain
charm, and it chained me to my secret and my guilt more securely than
anything else. Perhaps Kromer has already gone to the police and given
me away, I thought, and a storm is threatening to break over my head,
while here I am looked upon as a mere child!
This was the important and permanent element of the whole event up to
this point of my narration. It was the first cleft in the sacredness of
parenthood, it was the first split in the pillar on which my childhood
had reposed, and which everyone must overthrow, before he can attain to
self-realization. The inward, fundamental basis of our destiny is built
up from these events, which no outsider observes. Such a split or cleft
grows together again, heals up and is forgotten, but in the most secret
chamber of the soul it continues to live and bleed.
I myself felt immediate terror in the presence of this new feeling, I
would have liked to embrace my father’s feet there and then, to beg his
forgiveness. But one cannot beg pardon for something fundamental, and a
child knows and feels that as well and as deeply as any adult.
I felt the need to think over the affair and to consider ways and means
for the morrow; but I did not get around to it. My whole evening was
taken up solely in accustoming myself to the changed atmosphere of our
living-room. Clock and table, Bible and looking-glass, bookcase and
pictures seemed all to be saying good-bye to me. With freezing heart I
had to stand by and watch my world, the good happy time of my life,
sever itself from me, to be relegated to the past. I was forced to
realize that I was being held fast to new sucking roots in the darkness
of the unfamiliar world outside. For the first time I tasted death, and
death tasted bitter, for it is birth, with the terror and fear of a
formidable renewal.
I was glad to be lying at last in bed. But first I had passed through
purgatory in the form of evening prayers, and we had sung a hymn, one
of my favorite ones. Alas! I did not join in, and each note was gall
and poison for me. I did not join in the common prayer, either, when
my father gave the blessing, and when he finished: “Be with us all!”
I tore myself convulsively from the circle. The grace of God was with
them all, but with me no longer. Cold and very tired, I went away.
After I had lain awhile in bed, wrapped around in warmth and safety,
my troubled heart strayed back once again, and fluttered uneasily in
the past. Mother had wished me good-night, as she always did, her step
sounded yet in the room, the light of her candle gleamed through the
crack in the door. Now, I thought, now she will come back again--she
has felt my need, she will give me a kiss and will ask, in tones kind
and full of promise, what is the matter. Then I can weep, the lump in
my throat will melt away, I will throw my arms about her and will tell
her, and everything will be right--I shall be saved! And when the crack
in the door had become dark again I still listened for a while and
thought--she must come, she must.
Then I came back to reality, and looked my enemy in the face. I saw him
clearly, he had one eye closed, his mouth laughed uncouthly. While I
gazed at him and the inevitable gnawed at my heart, he became bigger
and more ugly, and his wicked eye lit up devilishly. He was close
beside me, until I dropped off to sleep. But I did not dream of him,
nor of the day’s events. I dreamed instead that we were in a boat, my
parents, my sisters and I, lapped in peace and the brightness of a
holiday. I woke up in the middle of the night, with the aftertaste of
bliss. I still saw the white summer dresses of my sisters glistening in
the sun, and then fell from my paradise back to reality, and the enemy
with the wicked eye stood opposite me.
I looked ill when mother came in quickly in the morning and told me how
late it was and wanted to know why I was still in bed, and when she
asked what was the matter with me, I vomited.
But I seemed to have gained a point. I rather liked to be somewhat ill
and to be allowed to spend the morning in bed drinking chamomile tea,
to listen to mother clearing-up in the next room, and to hear Lina
outside in the corridor opening the door to the butcher. To stay away
from morning school was rather like a fairy-story, and the sun which
played in the room was not the same you saw through the green curtains
at school. But to-day all this had lost its charm for me. It had a
false ring about it.
If I had died! But I was only slightly ill, as I had often been before,
and nothing was gained by that. It prevented me from going to school,
but it did not protect me in any way from Kromer, who would be waiting
for me in the market at eleven o’clock. And mother’s friendliness
was this time without comfort; it was burdensome and painful. I soon
pretended to be asleep again, and thought the matter over, but all
to no purpose--I had to be in the market at eleven o’clock. For that
reason I got up at ten, and said that I was better. As usual in such
cases I was told that either I must go back to bed or go to school in
the afternoon. I said I would rather go to school. I had formed a plan.
I dared not go to Kromer without money. I had to get possession of the
little savings box which belonged to me. There was not enough money in
it, far from enough, I knew; but it was still a little, and something
told me that a little was better than nothing; for at least Kromer had
to be appeased.
I felt horrible as I crept in my socks into my mother’s room and took
my box from her writing table; but it was not so horrible as the
previous day’s experience. My heart beat so fast I nearly died, and
it was no better when I found, at the first look, down below on the
stairs, that the box was locked. It was easy to break it open, it
was only necessary to cut through a thin plate of tin; but the action
caused me pain, for only in doing this was I committing theft. Up to
then I had only taken lumps of sugar and fruit on the sly. Now I had
stolen something, although it was my own money. I realized I had taken
a step nearer Kromer and his world, that I was slipping gradually
downwards--and I adopted an attitude of defiance. The devil could run
away with me if he liked, there was no way out. I anxiously counted
the money, it had sounded so much in the box, now in my hand it was
miserably little. There were sixty-five pfennigs. I hid the box in the
basement, held the money in my closed fist and went out of the house,
with a feeling different from any with which I had ever left the portal
before. Someone called to me from above, I thought, but I went quickly
on my way.
There was still plenty of time. I sneaked by a roundabout way through
the streets of a changed town, beneath clouds I had never seen before,
by houses which seemed to spy on me, and people who suspected me. On
the way I recollected that one of my school friends had once found a
thaler in the cattle market. I would have liked to pray to God to work
a miracle and allow me to make such a treasure-trove. But I had no
longer the right to pray. And even then the box would not be made whole
again.
Frank Kromer saw me in the distance. However, he came along very
slowly and seemed not to be looking out for me. As he approached me he
beckoned me commandingly to follow. He passed on tranquilly, without
once looking round, went down Straw Street and over the bridge, and
stopped on the outskirts of the town in front of a new building. No
one was working there, the walls stood bare, without doors or windows.
Kromer looked round and then went through the doorway. I followed him.
He stepped behind the wall, beckoned to me and stretched out his hand.
“That makes sixty-five pfennigs,” he said and looked at me.
“Yes,” I said timidly. “That’s all I have--it’s too little, I know, but
it’s all. I haven’t any more.”
“I thought you were cleverer than that,” he exclaimed, blaming me in
what were almost mild terms. “Between men of honor there must be honest
dealing. I will not take anything from you, except what is right.
You know that. Take your pfennigs back, there! The other--you know
who--doesn’t try to beat me down. He pays.”
“But I have absolutely nothing else. That was my money box.”
“That’s your affair. But I don’t want to make you unhappy. You still
owe me one mark thirty-five pfennig. When can I have it?”
“Oh, you will soon have it, certainly, Kromer. I don’t know
yet--perhaps to-morrow, or the day after, I shall have some more. You
understand that I can’t tell my father, don’t you?”
“That’s no concern of mine. I don’t want to harm you. If I liked, I
could get the money before noon, you see, and I’m poor. You wear nice
clothes, and you get something better to eat for dinner than I do. But
I won’t say anything. I am willing to wait a few days. The day after
to-morrow, in the afternoon, I will whistle for you, then you will
bring it along. You can recognize my whistle?”
He gave me a whistle that I had often heard before.
“Yes,” I said, “I know it.”
He went away, as if I didn’t belong to him. It had been only a
transaction between us, nothing further.
Even to-day, I believe, Kromer’s whistle would terrify me if I heard
it again suddenly. From then on I heard it often. It seemed I heard it
continually and always. No place, no game, no work, no idea in which
this whistle would not sound. I was dependent on it, it was now the
messenger of my fate. On mild, glowing autumn afternoons I was often in
our little flower garden, which I loved dearly. A peculiar impulse made
me take up again boyish games which I had played formerly. I played, as
it were, that I was a boy who was younger than I, who was still good
and free, innocent and secure. But in the middle of the game, always
expected and yet always terribly disturbing and surprising sounded
Kromer’s whistle, destroying the picture my imagination had painted.
Then I had to go, I had to follow my tormentor to evil and ugly places,
had to render an account and let myself be dunned. The whole business
may have lasted a few weeks, but it seemed to me like a year, or an
eternity. I seldom had money--a five or ten pfennig piece stolen from
the kitchen table when Lina left the market basket standing there.
Each time I was blamed by Kromer, and heaped with abuse; it was I who
deceived him and kept back what was his due, it was I who robbed him
and made him unhappy! Seldom in life has need so oppressed me, seldom
have I felt a greater helplessness, a greater dependence.
I had filled up the savings box with toy money--no one made any
enquiries. But that as well could be discovered any day. I was even
more afraid of mother than of Kromer’s harsh whistle, especially when
she stepped up to me softly--was she not going to ask me about the
money box?
As I presented myself to my evil genius several times without money he
began to torment and to make use of me after a different fashion. I
had to work for him. He had to see to various things for his father.
I did that for him or he made me do something more difficult, hop on
one leg for ten minutes, or fasten a scrap of paper on to the coat of
a passer-by. Many nights these torments realized themselves in my
dreams, and I wept and broke out in a cold sweat in my nightmare.
For a time I was ill. I often vomited and felt cold, but at night I
lay in a fever, bathed in perspiration. Mother felt that something was
wrong and displayed much sympathy on my behalf, but this tortured me
because I could not respond by confiding in her.
One evening, after I had already gone to bed, she brought me a piece
of chocolate. This action was a souvenir of former years when, if I
had been good, I was often rewarded in this way before going off to
sleep. Now she stood there and held the piece of chocolate out to me.
This so pained me that I could do nothing but shake my head. She asked
what was the matter with me and stroked my hair. I could only sob out:
“Nothing! nothing! I won’t have anything.” She put the chocolate on my
bed table and went away. When she wished subsequently to question me
on the matter I made as if I knew nothing about it. Once she brought
the doctor to me, who examined me and prescribed cold ablutions in the
morning.
My state at that time was a sort of insanity. I was shy and lived in
torment like a ghost in the midst of the well-ordered peace of our
house. I had no part in the others’ lives, and could seldom, even for
as much as an hour, forget my miserable existence. In the presence of
my father, who often took me to task in an irritated fashion, I was
reserved and wrapped up in myself.