"I'm really not as superficial as you believe, Olaf. Twice I have been in love unhappily and once it bloomed happily."
It seemed to me that her hand on my shoulder had become heavier…
We walked slowly. We saw no people. Wind came across the meadows.In the sky there were clouds everywhere, threatening rain.
She looked at me. Her look was naked and spoke of passion.
That was neat, how I suddenly seized her and threw her into the grass with me and half-intoxicated whispered to her: "You, my"—and how she lay there weary and sobbed: "Olaf"-Afterwards I performed my school work badly. I probably won't be promoted.
Kuno Kohn
For six months I have been living in the house. None of the inhabitants has noticed anything. I am careful.
The white suit brings me luck. I earn enough. And I have begun to save; for I feel that one's powers decline. I am tired frequently; sometimes I have pain. I shall also become fat and old. I don't like to put make-up on-I am no longer being supervised. Kuno Kohn has made me free. I am thankful to him.
Kuno Kohn is repugnant; he has a hunchback. His hair is the color of brass, his face is beardless, and worn with furrows. His eyes seem old, encircled with shadows. A scar, like a stream of rain, runs from his nose. One of his legs is swollen. Kuno Kohn said once that he has an abscess in the bone.
The first meeting had been strange:
It was raining. The streets were wet and dirty. I stood under a street lamp and looked at my wet clothes. When the wind blew, I was chilled. My feet ached in my shoes.
Few people were on the street. Most of them on the other side. Protected by the trees. With their coat collars up. With the hat crooked over the forehead. No one was watching me; I was standing there, sad. The gravel crunched beneath me. Hard and sudden, so that I cried out. A
policeman came by, hands behind his back. He moved slowly. He looked at me suspiciously, proud of his authority. With a stark look, he felt that he was master. He moved further on. I laughed scornfully; he did not look back. The policeman despised me.
I yawned: it had become late.—Along came a man who was small and deformed. He stopped when he saw me. He had unhappy eyes; on his lips was an embarrassed smile. He hid part of his face behind scrawny fingers. And he rubbed his right eye-lid, like someone ashamed of himself. And he coughed slightly… I went up close to him, so that he felt me. He said: "Well—: I said: "Come, little one." He said: "I'm actually homosexual."
And he took my hand. And kissed with cold lips.
Mabel Meier
It was late. I heard the sounds of trucks passing frequently. In the distance I saw people. On a corner two people were standing who… felt ashamed as I drew near.
Girls came, who were late. A few, who wanted to earn money. I saw the tall whore, who worked this area every night. I recognized her by her slip.
A detective was watching me. In front of me a woman was walking, who stood still often and wailing.
I did not think about it. I looked up at the stars and found nothing to wish for. I looked at myself with indifference, like a foreign object. I shook my head, that the old man was walking alone so late… and murmured to the stars.. and it's so strange.
I met a woman who said: "Ah—" I said: "may I accompany you?" The woman said: "Please." It was quite dark.
We went along together; the woman said that her name was Meier; but her first name was Mieze. She lived with relatives; they employed a doorman. In addition, she sang in a chorus.
The woman was neither beautiful nor young, but she seemed approachable. I had no reason to be shy.
In front of the house in which the woman lived we stopped.
I suggested that we look for a hotel. The woman was not averse; she said: "No-" I said: "Why?" The woman said: "Papa" I said: "The you don't want—" A smile came over the woman's face. She looked at a street lamp—
Siegmund Simon
Nine doctors claim that Samuel Simon is suffering from delusions. I am of the same opinion.
For 29 years I have been in the mental institute. They are friendly to me. I can do what I want. When it's warm, I go into the garden and listen to the hours die. When it is cold, I sit at the window and let my mind drift towards the sky. Often I watch the people, when they call or work or are sad… I am glad that I am far away. I do not miss life. I am glad if no one does anything to me or wants anything from me. I don't envy people.
Nine times a year my pale wife brings me flowers. My son Siegmund never comes. The last time I saw him was when I was buried. On my 49th birthday-I lay in a plain wooden coffin. I was placed on a wagon-like catafalque. Nine pall-bearers dressed in black walked beside me. Behind me was the pastor, Leopold Lehmann, and at his side my wife Frieda and my nineteen-year-old son Siegmund. Behind them were a few relatives, who were contented, and were speaking about the plague of caterpillars.
The sun cast warm light. Wind blew from time to time. It crawled over the gravel, tickling the women's breasts and calves. We stopped before the open grave. The coffin was lowered, and a few formalities and
prayers were taken care of. Then the pastor, Leopold Lehmann, began, at the behest and at the expense of my wife, to deliver a memorial speech. He said:
"Dear sisters and brothers! Once again a kindly fate has robbed us of the life of a dear person. In grief we stand at the grave of the departed and remember him sadly."
My son Siegmund bit his lips. The pastor said:
"The earth, which has singled out the body so that it might lead its own life for a short while, has taken it back into the bosom of the mother. A noble man has gone home—"
A fit of laughter overcame my son Siegmund. His face became red and serious… He laughed until he was gasping.
My wife shrieked.
A pall-bearer dropped a bottle of whiskey, which broke on the coffin.The pall-bearer regretfully cast his eyes down.
The relatives were outraged. They were ashamed of my son Siegmund.Some women cried into genuine lace handkerchiefs.
I was completely still.
The pastor said:
"If one does not how to behave, he should not come to a burial—Amen."
He threw some sand over the broken bottle of whisky. And left.Proud. Offended. The pastor. Leopold Lehmann.
My son Siegmund cleaned his fingernails.
The Friend
I love the dead days. They have no glow; they are colorless and filled with yearning. The houses stand like scenery before the grey clouds; the people move as though in a film: in the evening they move no differently from the way they moved in the morning. All things are more ponderous. And my room seems as though someone has died in it.
Whenever these days occur, a mindless desire to work grows irresistibly in me. I carry out my daily tasks as though as I were performing a mass. And I lose myself while doing so. Almost the way dreamers have lost themselves. But sometimes I notice that I have become motionless and inwardly rigid.
Then I become very alert, and I can no longer do tasks. I go to the window, where I have wonderful thoughts. But usually they occured only at night.
I feel out of place in all matters. They press upon me as though they don't know me: the streets and the people and the doors to the houses and the thousand movements. Wherever I look I become confused.
My little death torments me; there were many, greater deaths. And that I am alone. And that everywhere something inconceivable is threatening. And that I do not find my way.. And all the remaining sadnesses, for which there is no doctor, and which should not be revealed. Each must submit to them alone, and in his own way. Talking about them is ridiculous, but many die of them. I am afraid that I am so at odds with myself and so powerless. Until memories come. Unbidden. But kind. From somewhere. They numb me.
I smile when I find a child crying or the mother's death, which was hideous and is unspeakable, or the other bloody delights, dear things. I smile when the eyes of my friend suddenly come to life in the silky shadows, that they shine as though out of a haze, and they reveal their most inner secrets. No one has said it to me, and you will call me a fool… but I know that his death has always been in the eyes, the way for someone else it is in the lungs or in the spinal cord…
His eyes were miserable and lost and painfully hopeless, so that people laughed when he looked at them. He was ashamed of his eyes, as if they betrayed sinful adventures, and he hid them under yellowed lids. But he felt how he was stared at when he entered someplace where he was not expected. Or he sat down where his presence needed no explanation. He watched in an exaggerated manner, like a petitioner. Coughed and held his hand in front of his mouth, drew his cheeks in and pushed one of them outward with his tongue. Was embarrassed. Unhappy. Would have preferred to have been alone… in the dark.
Children bent their heads when his gaze caught their eyes. And turned red. And grinned shyly and silently. Women giggled, and looked innocuous, and slapped each other on the thigh or on the bare shoulders and kissed their ravaged men. In the night they lay awake and their thoughts were white hot. But the young girls avoided him.
Konrad Krause
Not once during the night do I have rest here. Often a hand or a word tears me from sleep. Because everything is dark, I often do not know in the morning who was with me.
I must get up early, to clean the clothes and polish the boots. My legs are heavy, and my eyes are still very weary. But the young masters are hard when I neglect something, and cruel. But at night they are friendly and caress me as though I were a grand lady.
Only old Mr. Konrad Krause is good during the day as well. When he wants something, he speaks without humiliating me; and something in the sound of his voice makes me happy. He does not permit anything nasty to be said about me in his presence. I like him very much.
Recently I had a laugh over him. I was awoken by noise coming from the corridor outside my room. It was a conversation. I detected two voices: I missed much of what one said, for it whispered; what I caught was young and rough. One I caught without trying; clear as if it were a body. I felt that it was too fat and had wrinkles.
From the rough voice I heard: "Do you also want to go to her, father?"
From the fat voice I heard, "Go first, my son—"
When Mr. Heinz came into the room, he made a frightened sound, because I was laughing so much. And then he had to sneeze…
But I will soon forget this. I can no longer even remember when the old Mr. Konrad Krause said he liked me. That was still nicer.
I only remember that the writing-table at which he sat was already dark when I brought the tea. He asked who was in the house; I said: "No one"—and wanted to pour the tea.. But he pointed to his thigh and said: "sit down"—I said: "If I may"—and I sat down. He said: "Put the teapot on the writing-table." I did that. And then we looked at each other ardently, but I was very bashful. Suddenly he took my hand and pressed it to his stomach. He said: "Beloved."
We trembled violently.
The Family
The family all come together once every month. The women with the children meet in the afternoon.
Coffee is drunk. The children are sent away. The should play. They must not hear everything.
But the women whisper. Their faces show concern. They are speaking of someone who is very sick.
At twilight they tell stories about ghosts and miraculous cures. They become frightened. They call the children. They press the children to their breasts.
Then fruit is eaten.
The men come. Conversations about hair styles, about business. And so on. The conversation moves haltingly. Suddenly stops, like a defective clock. Fear that it will stop entirely. A young girl blushes-But at one point everything is still. It feels suffocating. It feels unsafe, like in a swing, helpless, like in a slide… it feels ridiculous. One hears something like the wind sweeping across the roofs. Rain beats against the grey windows.
Still silence.
There-Is it really so bad… with him—how should it turn out…People avoid each other's eyes.
Leopold Lehmann
I am an employee of a bank. Because I have no patron, and I am not especially hard-working, I am not getting ahead. For more than 30 years I have been shifting the same kind of papers around in the same department. For this reason I am considered conscientious.
For the last six months I have had a new assistant. His name is Leopold Lehmann. He knows everything better than I. He is the nephew of the deputy director. He calls himself a trainee. He likes to hear himself talk. Most of all he likes to talk about himself. As a result, I know the story of his life.
Leopold Lehmann, as he emphasizes, was drawn in a clumsy manner from the womb with a forceps. His head is misshapen, like a noodle. His nose also. He has gone through the usual illnesses. He enjoys a complicated form of syphillis. It has eaten holes the size of fists in Lehmann's body.
Leopold Lehmann wishes to give up his duties in the bank, to study theology. I believe that he has already given notice.
Lehmann associates exclusively with theologians and with me. And with the deputy director.
He has sclerosis of the spinal cord.
Conversation about Legs
When I was sitting in the coupé, the gentleman opposite me said:
"Nobody can step on your toes."
I said: "How so?"
The gentleman said: "You have no legs."
I said: "Is it noticeable?"
The gentleman said: "Of course."
I took my legs out of my backpack. I had wrapped them in tissue paper. And taken them with me as a memento.
The gentleman said: "What is that?"
I said: "my legs."
The gentleman said: "You have a leg up and yet get nowhere."
I said: "Unfortunately."
After a pause the gentleman said: "What do you think you’re really going to do without legs?"
I said: "I haven’t racked my brain much about that yet."
The gentleman said: "Without legs even committing suicide is difficult."
I said: "Yet that’s a bad joke."
The gentleman said: "Not at all. If you want to hang yourself, first you’ve got to get up on the window sill. And who will open the gas jet for you if you want to poison yourself? You could only buy a revolver secretly through a servant. But suppose the shot misses? To drown yourself you’ve got to take an automobile and have yourself carried down to the river on a stretcher by two attendants who have to haul you to the far bank."
I said: "That’s for me to worry about."
The gentleman said: "You’re wrong, I’ve been thinking since you’ve been siting here how one might get rid of you. Do you think that a man without legs makes a sympathetic picture? Has the right to live? On the contrary, you create a terrible disturbance for the aesthetic feelings of your fellow human beings."
I said: "I am a full professor of ethics and aesthetics at the university. May I introduce myself?"
The gentleman said: "How are you going to do that? Clearly you cannot imagine how impossible you are, in your condition."
I looked sadly at my stumps.
Soon the lady opposite me said:
"To have no legs must be a very odd feeling."
I said: "Yes."
The lady said: "I would not like to touch a man who had no legs."
I said: "I am very clean."
The lady said: "I must overcome a great erotic disgust to speak with you, not to mention looking at you."
I said: "Really…"
The lady said: "I don’t believe that you are a criminal. You might be a wise and, in your original condition, nice person. But I could not, with the best will in the world, have relations with you, because you have no legs."
I said: "One gets used to everything."
The lady said: "That a man has no legs causes a naturally sensitive woman to feel an inexplicable, profound terror. As though you had committed a disgusting sin."
I said: "But I am innocent. I lost one leg in the excitement of assuming my professorial chair for the first time, the other I lost when, sunk in thought, I found that important aesthetic law which led to basic changes in our discipline."
The lady said: "What is the name of that law?"
I said: "The law says: everything depends on the structure of the soul and the mind. If soul and mind are noble, a body must be considered beautiful, no matter how humped and misshapen it may be."
The lady ostentatiously lifted her dress and revealed, right up to the top of her thigh, sheathed sumptuously in silk, wonderful legs, that towered, like branches, from her ripe body.
At the same time the lady finally said: "You may be right, although one might as easily argue the opposite. In any case, a person with legs is totally different from one without them."
Then, striding proudly away, she left me sitting there.
Savior of the theater
Theaters should stop competing with the cinema. By doing so, they are thereby achieving –—rejoice, friends of the theater – the opposite of what they want: they are perishing.
The best way for these theaters to maintain themselves is to make concessions to the cinema; they make neither concessions in the selection of plays, nor in scope. This can be explained. What movies – giving in to the instincts of the crowd – offer can never be produced in the same dimensions and amount by theater, bound as it is by its limits. Shaking its head, the public notices the helpless effort. And runs to the movies. For what should bind the public most to the theater: art, is for the most part shamefully neglected. (As when makers of felt hats had the idea, when straw hats were worn by everyone, to bring to the market felt hats shaped and colored like straw hats.)
Before movies came along, the many second-class theaters were by far a much greater danger to the theater. Characteristically organizations of this kind are threatened most by movies. Some will remain for a while, because of the skill of their directors or through other accidents. Second-class theater undoubtedly will die out in a short time. The public, which found this sort of thing to their taste, has, in the movies, a much more luxurious substitute: death and homicide in abundance. Comedy until you burst. Juicy melodrama. And the movie actor with his heavy-handed emphases – for example, in a tragic, many-colored story of adultery (in period costumes) – surpasses the hammy Hamlet in heart-gripping effect.
Theaters that want to survive are compelled to think again about what they are doing. Directors must cultivate the pure art of theater. Actors – in contrast to "filmers", or better still "ciners" or "cinekers" – to maintain their reputations, must abandon all tricks and gimmicks. The public that goes to the theater in spite of movies is discriminating and can’t be taken in.
There cannot be too many movies. As a member of the cultural policeI would order that half a dozen be opened on every street.
The more people rush into the movies, the more a part of the fraud will become tiresome. Of the hundred thousands who throng the movies, a few hundred every year will return once more to the theater.
The number of theaters in the future will be smaller, but their average quality will be disproportionately better. The incompetent directors, dramatists, and other squabblers, who until now were parasites on the theater, will find in movie-making a place more suited to their capabilities. The many mediocre and bad actors who now help keep prices down and block the way will become wonderful cinikers. A talented shoemaker in the future will not go to theater schools but to film schools. Lispers, cripples, hunchbacks, mutes, and similar handicapped mimes will be able, more easily and more happily, to find relief in the movies.
(The cinema of boundless possibilities…)
But the theater, thanks to the movies free of hindering ballast and harmful influences, will have to return to the sacred dramatic art.
Doctor Bryller did become a senior teacher after all. A furious enemy of his had predicted such a destiny years ago, in the out-of-date periodical "The Other A". At that time he was deeply distressed about this insight of his enemy, the truth of which, after thinking intensely about it, he could not deny. He wrote an intemperate article which was not accepted for publication anywhere. And one evening he got a little drunk on French sparkling wine, to kill the innate fear which prevented him from beating up his enemy. But his cowardice did not leave him, even in drunkenness. Unspeakably unhappy, he gave up the idea of taking revenge.
Now in earnest he began to live a solitary and transfigured life. He let this be known in an in flammatory manner, just as he had so often done when announcing the agenda of a new trend in art. And with the profoundest solemnity, as though he were at an important funeral. He even exploited his failure in order to feel superior. In point of fact, he lived hardly differently than before. The only change was that he had actually become more hopeless in an emotional sense. Now he had to calm himself with the thought: Even if I could achieve what I wanted to, I would achieve nothing. While previously his line of thinking ran: Unfortunately it is indeed true that I can achieve nothing, but what I can achieve is rather good.
Practically minded as Berthold Bryller was in certain ways, he was able to cast his weaknesses in common human terms, so that the despair, which at first had revealed itself in hysterical attacks of a special kind, soon gave way—except in rare conditions—to a feeling of lofty indifference. He still wrote his impudent and careless letters, which did him considerable harm; he published particularly clever, slightly demented essays in the few journals with whose editors he didn't happen to be quarreling with; he founded both clubs which then expelled him, and periodicals in which he was attacked. Everywhere, and in other ways, he continued to make himself impossible even by his very presence. The uninitiated might interpret his absence from the Café Klößchen as a sign of his inward transformation, if it were not for a poster fixed to the door of the Cafe:
No admittance to Bryller!
which suggested that an argument with the manager was the reason for his absence.
But gradually the hopelessness of his literary existence became inescapable to Doctor Bryller, who was certainly no idiot. In addition, his funds for the foreseeable future were exhausted. So, incapable of killing himself if it were to become necessary, he had to focus his energy on working to earn a living. His writing activity was financially unsuccessful. He would not have the heart to take a permanent literary job—something like an editorship—aside from the fact that no one would take him. What other option did he have but to use the rest of his money to continue his interrupted university training, take the necessary state examinations, and then find himself a secure and pleasant position as a senior teacher. In point of fact, this profession seemed thoroughly comfortable to him. Convinced of the incorrigibility of human imperfection, which he had experienced first hand, and utterly convinced of the complete uselessness of physical and intellectual striving, he gladly gave free rein to any and all base impulse. He could satisfy his cravings for power, his other ambitions, even his erotic needs, most readily as a senior teacher.
Despite his moodiness and frequent peculiar behaviour, Doctor Bryller was one of the most popular teachers at the Horror High School. The small pupils idolized him, the bigger ones clung to him passionately. Of course there also were pupils who didn't like him. For example, the second-year pupil Max Mechenmal whose face he had slapped a few times without obvious reason. This could have had the most unpleasant consequences for Doctor Berthold Bryller. On the occasion of the teacher meeting called by director Rudolf Richter after the highly indignant complaint of the pupil, a large majority of the colleagues, unlike the pupils, turned out to have unfriendly feelings for the Doctor. When he, questioned about why he had pupil, smilingly replied that Mechenmal displeased him, they wanted to recommend to the authorities, following the suggestion of the respected colleague Lothar Laaks, that he be removed for a considerable time for the purpose of mental recovery in a sanatorium. Only the happenstance that the aggrieved pupil Mechenmal was hated equally by teachers and pupils, because of his overfriendly awkwardness and his malicious secret rabble-rousing, impeded such a decision. Although colleague Laaks—the only one who found words of appreciation for Mechenmal—advocated it heatedly with the use of much dirty dialectic. The colleagues were content to warn Doktor Bryller of the inappropriateness of his behavior.
One day, about a half year before the final incarceration of Berthold Bryller for life, in an insane asylum subsidized by the state, a yelling arose in the schoolyard of the Horror High School. A crowd of mostly smaller pupils surged behind a dwarfish, care-worn, lop-sided boy whose back showed the slight beginnings of a hump. They teased him cheerfully and spitefully—the words were unintelligible because of the noise but surely malicious. He was pushed so that he stumbled. Many older high school pupils looked on, amused at the lively rough-housing. Even senior teacher Laaks, who was supervising, failed to suppress an amused smile. In a window was the motionless face of Doctor Bryller.
The malformed boy continued walking without defending himself. With bent head. Often he had to wipe his eyes with his hand. Only once, when one of most impudent youths – who else but the second-year pupil Mechenmal—spat into his face while the others raucously clapped approval, did he throw himself sobbing deeply against the attacker, who immediately ran away. Through the middle of the shrieking crowd, which blocked his way in all directions, the crying humpback pursued his schoolmate. Perhaps he would have reached Mechenmal if the perennial fourth-year pupil Spinoza Spass hadn't suddenly grasped his hump as if with a hook. Spinoza Spass grinned comfortably and maliciously into the monkey-shaped, longingly apathetic face, as he propelled the little despairing Kohn like a weight slowly through the sunny spring air. By this heroic deed he became one of the most famous fourth-year pupils of the Horror High School.
Some sympathetic older high school pupils put an early end to the strange spectacle. The gaunt, pale senior Paulus snatched the tiny unfortunate boy from the venemously peering Spass and threatened to beat up anyone who annoyed the lop-sided little Kohn further. For fear of Paulus and some other like-minded boys, they left the flushed humpback in peace—at least for the time being. He walked along, pressing himself against the gray walls. And would have most happily sunk into the ground. When the school bell rang, he was glad to disappear into the classrooms.
The senior Peter Paulus was already walking along the somewhat dark corridor to the spacious room in which the parish priest Leopold Lehmann gave Hebrew lessons to the pupils in the upper classes, when the senior teacher Laaks caught up with him, called to him, and engaged him in a mysterious, very excited conversation. Laaks was apparently reprimanding Paulus. It was strange, however, that he didn't look like a teacher chastising a pupil, but rather like a mistrustful relative who believes himself taken advantage of in an inheritance matter. The behavior of the senior was also by no means the behavior of a subordinate…
The discussion between the two must have lasted a very long time. For when Peter Paulus entered more pale than usual and explained that his late arrival was caused by an official conversation, the priest Lehmann had long since concluded the topic of that day’s curriculum. He was engaged in a religious discussion which, following the modern trend, he linked regularly to the Hebrew lesson. They were speaking at the moment about God and the nature of student life, but came, after a few unimportant discussions, to the main topic: abortion and the inner life, which gave them pause. The discussion was triggered by a report in an art journal that someone had cut out and brought for the purpose of discussion. The priest read out loud:
Collapse of the famous dancer Lola Lalà
A correspondent has wired us that the famed variety dancer Lola Lalà, who also appears under the name Lo Lálalà and whose maiden name is Leni Levi, had to be taken to a lunatic asylum, which caused a tremendous sensation. The pitiful woman had been found toward morning in a wheat field, stark naked in her birthday suit, crying bitterly and smoking a large cigar. Mr Gottschalk Schulz, a poet of sensitivity, has published a moving poem about this in the "Newspaper for Enlightened Citizens". It has a piquant attraction because—so it is rumored and probably correctly—the poet maintained quite warm relations with the poor and charming dancer. Therefore this beautiful poem will not be withheld from our readers:-The poem had the heading: Smoke on the Field. The priest didn't read it out, however, because it was too smutty. Also it was not relevant. Instead he read:
As I learn further from a special, authentic source in the late evening, the cause of the mental collapse of the dancer is said to have been a fright caused by a burglary that happened after an abortion that was carried out successfully. A court-ordered investigation is underway.
After this the priest started to talk about abortion by saying: "Human knowledge reaches its pinnacle in the realization that he is the most highly developed earthly being. No one can deny this." He didn't notice the deliberately exaggerated and suppressed laughter of a few boys. And he slowly continued. He condemned abortion as disagreeable to God from a religious and socio-political point of view. In conclusion, he said: "We are modern. We don't shrink from treating offensive questions with moral seriousness."
The only one who contradicted him was Peter Paulus. He fell—outwardly calm—into such a rage that he said: "If I were a doctor, Father, I myself would—". In reply the priest said heatedly: "Do you believe in God, Paulus?" And Peter Paulus said only: "No". A few minutes before the end of the class, he was expelled from the Hebrew lesson because of social democratic leanings and godlessness.
He left defiantly. Slammed the door.
When the widowed prison chaplain Christian Kohn had to give his only child, who was mentally ill and had heart disease, to an institution, he adopted—nobody knows why—a little cripple. There was much gossip. The most obstinate rumor was that the cripple, Kuno, was a natural son of the chaplain. The mother was said to be the popular Trude, who had been convicted of manslaughter after shooting her disloyal pimp. Trude had been pardoned, with the rejoicing approval of the whole village, because it had turned out that she was pregnant. It was claimed that the sympathetic chaplain had caused Trude's pregnancy. But this was not proved.
Kuno Kohn spent the half-awake first part of his youth in the dreary stone rooms and yards of the penitentiary. His adoptive father had little concern for the boy. He was absent for weeks at a time. Left in the care of a morose servant, whose main occupation was to manage the miserable financial affairs of the chaplain, and lacking sufficient care, lacking playmates, lacking stimulation and love, the crippled child could not develop. Remained always dwarfish. He slunk around, pale and dreamy. Intimidated and timorous. Toward evening, bold shadows and horrific noises teemed on the twisty stairs with their grated windows, and in the great gloomy halls and passages. A more robust boy would have ignored such peripheral things, if he had noticed them at all. But on Kuno Kohn the most insignificant thing left a deep impression, the most minor thing had meaning, and horrified him. Everywhere and from everything he feared disaster. Nothing was familiar to him. The eternal fear made him into a little darting ghost himself, and gave his consumptive eyes a phosphorescent glow. If he was sent out late at night, perhaps to get milk or kerosene, he would pray in feverish fervor to dear God. He would come back breathless and white as chalk.
More than anything, Kuno Kohn was afraid of the thousand-fold darkness before falling asleep. In the past, a tiny lamp had been put into the room for him; the reddish melancholy glow calmed him a little. On the soft wall the strangest grimaces and battles appeared, but also tin soldiers marching and a delightful jumble of fairies and cake plates and queens, until sleep came. After a time, the chaplain decided not to allow any more such mollycoddling of the soul of his son. Kuno would have to live in the dark. Gone was the tiny bit of visibility. The innumerable incomprehensible events of chaos rolled about the little boy. More of the world pressed into the small bedroom of the humpback than the entire day had contained. Kuno Kohn had lost the body that was supposed to lie in the bed: only fright and helplessness and longing were left. The worst was when the desolate indistinctness took on the shape of visions or touches. The Kohn boy then cried out despairingly. Either the cry was not heard by anyone or it carried no clear meaning. In prisons there are always yells in the night from somewhere. Kuno often lay for a long time, until the unfathomable hole, which had so many incomprehensible contents, admitted the lively pictures that brought dreams and sleep: burglars, or perhaps a hackney cab journey in the sun, a visit to his little ill brother, a game with street children, the dear, sad angel eyes of Maria Müller, for whom he would gladly die.
The prisoners were Kuno Kohn's good acquaintances. Not the guards; these were indeed quite friendly to him but there was an instinctive suspicion underneath. On the other hand, the ruffians and gamblers, sex killers and robbers, the most famous burglars, and most of the other distinguished old-established residents welcomed the little humpback warmly, by a slight nod of the head or almost imperceptible grin, whenever he came to watch with wide-open dreamy eyes the silent gray work. Only the fences, profiteers, confidence men, defrauders, swindlers, most of the bankrupts and some of the pimps, remained indifferent. In the course of the year, Kuno Kohn had made friends particularly with the youthful burglar Benjamin. The two often sat for hours together. If the guards looked the other way… Benjamin spoke enthusiastically to the humpback. Of sun. And freedom. And of the redemption of mankind. Kuno Kohn arranged Benjamin's secret traffic with the outside world and did various favors for his friend; he provided him with cigarettes, books, small tools. When once a volume of Goethe and a little cigarette ash were found in Benjamin's cell, Kohn was suspected. After the escape of the burglar, which happened shortly afterwards, which could have happened only with outside help, a message was sent to the clergyman. He forbade his son the company of the prisoners. The guards were not allowed to let him in any more.
The great problems that tormented Kuno Kohn constantly, as soon as he was able to get his thoughts together to some degree, were mainly death and God. At the age of four or five he did not believe in death, at least not in his own. And he prayed to the dear God daily before he lay down to sleep. "I am small, my heart is pure, no one shall live there but God alone". But if he had done something during the day that seemed sinful to him—and that almost always happened—he would add (sitting in bed or standing if it was particularly bad) long and remorseful monologues until he fell asleep, overfatigued, with fingers still folded and tears in his eyes. If darkness and fear came, he always prayed. Gradually his doubts increased, to the point where he had to believe in his own death and abandon his faith in God. When he started school, there began the fullness of suffering which some children find there.
Lunatic asylum: Bryller, Lola.
Drowning in the sea: Kohn, Maria.
Suicide: Schulz, Paulus.
Surviving: Spinoza Spass, Laaks, Mechenmal.
I. Appearance in the schoolyard. Peter Paulus for Kohn, Laaks against him (Kohn had filled his pants, Max Mechenmal). Later, Kohn joining Paulus against Laaks. Jealousy scenes. Because of Laaks' intrigues, Paulus fails the College Board Exam and shoots himself dead. Farewell letters (touching for Kohn, official funeral, Kohn runs away from it).
Senior teacher Dr. Bryller takes no action, even encourages Paulus, his favorite pupil, to kill himself: Kill yourself before it is too late (as long as you are still capable of it). It doesn't have any purpose, of course, but will give you something like satisfaction. (God is a temporal phenomenon.)
The corpse was carried well-packed in a box to the graveyard, where it was buried for eternity under a cloakroom marker.
II. Scene Kohn, Laaks in bathtub.
Laaks made an attack on Max's femininity.—Laaks and Kohn meet. Kohn greets him, Laaks catches up. Invites him to visit. "No, Mr Laaks". Kohn trembles—"Would you like to take a bath?"—"I have already bathed."—Moonlight shines on the two in the bathtub. In hairy nakedness—his hairy legs, like a woman's—a man's man.
III. Scene in homosexual bar.
(You see, my boy, that's life—he pinched him tenderly on the bottom.)
IV. Abortion scene.
The variety dancer Lola Lalà: The clever woman said jokingly: When women break down, they remain standing for a long time.—Farewell, young lady. Lola Lalà, alias Lene Levi, runs as though insane.
V. Burglary scene at Lola's: —The professional burglar Benjamin, lying under the bed, didn't know what to think. His head shook and his skull hit a senseless bedpost, which gave off a fixed tone. Benjamin was frightened. The lamp fell over. The curtains ignited immediately.
Suddenly she (Lola Lalà) also became frightened. Everything slurped up by licking fire. Ran out. Shut the door. Locked it. Twice. Senseless. Suddenly, pitiful masculine shouts from behind the door: Help, help. She screamed: Murderer, murderer, murderer. Ran. Onto the street in the peace of the evening: People coming out of houses. Helpless. She ran by all of them. Murderer, murderer… A crazy woman came up behind her. A dog catcher was able to grasp her. Murderer, murderer. Took her in an open hackney cab and through the town. Murderer, murderer. Windows go up, cars stop. Running about. Into lunatic section of the hospital.
In the meantime, burning room. Burglar Benjamin thrashing at the window: Help. Forbidden action. Help. One shouldn’t become a social democrat that way. Wailing: a police trap, to let decent people burn in a fire. Help, help. Fire department comes. Help. Water sprays him. From the frying pan into the fire. He can even jump right now into the river. Drowns.
When the half-decayed corpse was pulled from the water, the doctor, still drunk, began to make bad jokes. Dr. Bryller vomited.
All talking, thinking, writing is useless; a corpse pulled from the water, lying dead in front of you, ruins everything written with its terrible distortion. See how the face and the hands are rigid as though clamped in iron! As though they are screaming to get out of themselves!
VI. Lunatic asylum scene: the insane red-haired sister of MartinMüller (Maria).
"The earth is getting dark", said Maria, the insane red-haired sister of Martin Müller. (She loves her brother). She strokes little Kohn, but says: "I can love only saints". All around were the melodies of the evening, which conceal everything as with a silk veil: the green trees, the longing earth, the bench with the red-haired girl and the little humpback.
In the lunatic asylum: one inmate, a lady with hair already rather gray, said: "If one stops here too long, one stays."—A modern writer who imagines he is there only to study the milieu, but who has, in reality, a softening of the brain, etc.
VII. Kohn's first lover (on Laaks' order): Hysterical person, the bugs really crept around in the kitchen.
VIII. The end of Dr. Bryller.
IX. Schulz the writer and Kitty the cocotte.
(Kitty said "Not so loud" as Schulz was telling her about God.)
X. Lecture of the scholar Neumann:
Sensation: A barely sixteen year old scholar named Neumann speaks about maternity regulations and the bringing up of children—it doesn't seem to him the place to talk about fallen girls—women have understood that it is right and proper to stay where they belong—the misery of prostitution—posed gestures. Voice. Raise the eyebrows. I must express myself in extremes. I must decidedly condemn zionism as a special variety of prostitution. Maternity regulations: The mother must be protected against her children (new sensational concept), a lady said.—She, a German specialist, contributed to the debate: "In the place where you have left your faith, there you must fetch it".
XI. Kohn’s second lover: Teenager (in one hand she had an illustrated astronomy text).
He loved her in this way: He frequently made a note if she said something funny to use it later (literarily). But in a cafe on a pond—everywhere it was already evening, and haze hung like veil on the trees and tables and waiters—he took out his notebook from the torn inside pocket of his overcoat and read to her quietly… She laughed and he laughed—more quietly and sadly. Each thought: This isn't the right thing… she thought further: he isn't thoughtful… he thought further: the poor thing, how distant she is from me… then they went rowing.
XII. Bar scene in Nuremberg: Kunstmayer.
They are all blissfully drunk and can hardly speak clearly anymore. Slurring, someone says: "Dede do dadä". – What are these brutish sleepers worth?—"See how the gaze of this worker is turned inward like an ox's eye ", said Paulus.
"The upper-crust ten thousand rule the world", grumbled the waiter bitterly; then he played a wild variation of "Sweetie, You Are the Apple of My Eye" on a mouth organ. From time to time, he beat against the edge of a table. He rubbed his hand clean on his sleeve or trouser leg.
Karl Kunstmayer, a revue performer down on his luck: I like to tell dirty jokes… a great guy, philosophically tip-top, but is too ideal-They were in a melancholy mood. Kunstmayer sang quietly: "The girls like this so much".
XIII. Drowning in the sea.
I am afraid that the girl has also drowned. My rival had an accident at sea (drowned). "It is vulgar that you can at most only make a poem about this, or suddenly find the ending for a story", yelled the dead Kohn. While they walked along, they found white newspaper flyers about the event everywhere.—"That is a brutality", said another. "This is the correct expression".—"Finally!" sighed another, relieved. Kohn yelled: "But I don't want to have an ending for a story. That is vulgar. I'm losing my mind. I want to inflame you. I want to torment you, not satisfy you. You must moan and wail. You must dissolve in pain." The dead Kohn was not noticed.
Detective Daniel
A thunderstorm was making a racket. The detective Daniel woke with a start from his sleep. He said: "Damned disturbance of the peace". There was an agitated knock on the door. The dancer Lola Lalà came in.
"There are much too few burglars", detective Daniel said. "There are fewer murderers than you think", Daniel said, calming the anxious woman.
Max Mechenmal
He took the young thing, after he had first inquired about her age, having in mind only erotic things, planning to speak words of love to her and privately making fun of it; in other words, he is a downright bad fellow. Somewhat proud of knowing just how bad a character he was, he calmed himself down and decided to rape the girl.
Berthold Bryller
"Kuno Kohn is the same in green as pupil Else Lasker is in blue",Bryller said.
If he wanted to get rid of a girl, he told her in a wonderfully touching way about his syphilis, presenting himself as a martyr who is making a sacrifice for the sake of her health. Most girls, crying, took him for an important and very noble man. Only one asked impudently one time why he didn't say that before.
Contrast between the devil-may-care skillful nihilism of Bryller and the pure despair of Paulus.
Senior teacher Laaks
I have longing, love and who knows what else for her.—Funny things could happen.
Lola Lalà
She boasted about her now-and-then and piece-wise virginity.
She said: as already mentioned, I am visibly frightened.—I find this silly, with good reason.—These really short lines.—He loves me only erotically.—In fact, I always lie.—He was very fond of me.—As is well known, every dancer has a friend.—