Tales of the German Imagination from the Brothers Grimm to Ingeborg Bachmann (Penguin Classics) (39 page)

‘Well I’ve got to be going now. You’ll excuse me.’

And the old man took a first few cautious steps. Once he’d got a little further away and noticed that the murderer wasn’t running after him, he walked faster. And finally he started running like a little boy.

‘There’s a funny sight, to see an old man running. What a crazy world.’ And the lunatic laughed so hard the blood ran down the folds of his face. He looked like a frightened devil.

But why shouldn’t he run, after all? The old man’s absolutely right to run. He’d do the same. Any minute now the hyenas could come back out of the field.

‘God, am I filthy!’ he looked himself over. ‘Where’d all that blood come from?’

And he tore off the woman’s apron and wiped off the blood as well as he could.

His memory failed him. He no longer had any idea, in fact, where he was. He set out again cross-country, taking footpaths through the fields in the burning midday sun. He felt like a giant flower wandering through the fields. A sunflower or something like that. He couldn’t tell for sure.

He got hungry.

Later he found a bed of turnips, tore out a few and ate them.

In one field he stumbled on a pond.

It lay there like a big black cloth right in the middle of the golden wheat.

He felt like taking a swim, got undressed and stepped into
the water. God, did that ever feel good – and so calming. He inhaled the water’s scent, spiced with the smells of the surrounding summer fields. ‘Oh, Water, Water,’ he said quietly, as though calling to someone. And then he swam like a great white fish around the trembling pond.

Back on the bank he braided himself a crown from the sedge and looked at himself in the water. Then he jumped about at the water’s edge and danced naked in the white sunlight – big, strong and beautiful like a satyr.

Suddenly it dawned on him that he was doing something indecent. He threw on his clothes, crouched down low and crawled into the field.

‘What if the orderly comes by now and finds me like this – he’ll report me to the director,’ he thought. But since nobody came by, he took courage and continued on his way.

All at once he was standing in front of a garden fence. There were fruit trees behind it. Laundry had been hung out to dry, children lay there asleep. He walked on and came to a street.

Quite a few people passed him without even turning their heads. A tram went by.

He was overcome by a boundless sense of loneliness; homesickness struck him with all its might. He would have loved there and then to run back to the asylum but he didn’t know where he was. And whom could he ask for directions? They’d be sure to take him for a lunatic then and that wouldn’t do.

And besides, he knew what he had to do. There was still so much business to take care of.

On the corner stood a policeman. The lunatic decided to ask him the way to his street. Then he had second thoughts. But he couldn’t very well go on standing there for ever. He approached the policeman. Suddenly he noticed a big bloodstain on his vest. Better not let the policeman see. And he buttoned up his jacket. Word for word, he considered what to say – rehearsed it a few times.

Everything went okay. He took off his hat, asked how to get to his street. The policeman gave him directions.

It’s not really that far, he thought. And then he recognized
the streets again. But how they’d changed – they even have a trolley-bus now.

He set out on his way, keeping close to the houses, and when someone passed by he turned his face to the wall. He was ashamed.

At last he reached his house. Children were playing out at the front; they looked at him with curiosity. He started up the stairs. It smelt of food everywhere. He continued to tiptoe and when he heard a door shut down below, he even took off his shoes.

Then he was at his own door. For a moment he sat down on the stairs and thought things over. Now the big moment had come. And what had to happen, had to happen – there was no question about it.

He got up and rang the bell. Not a sound inside. He walked back and forth a few times on the landing. He read the name on the door across the way. So, other people were living there. And then he went back and rang again. But again nobody came. He bent down to peer through the keyhole but everything was dark. He put his ear to the door to listen for some sign of life – a footstep maybe, a whispering. Not a sound.

And then he had a thought. All of a sudden he knew why nobody opened the door. His wife was afraid of him – his wife, she had no guts. That bitch, she knew what he had in store for her. So. What now?

He took a few steps back. His eyes got very small, like two red dots. His low brow sank even lower. He crouched and then took a flying jump and hurled himself against the door. It cracked loudly but withstood the force. Then he shrieked at the top of his lungs and jumped again. And this time the door gave way. Its boards cracked, the lock sprang open and he tumbled in.

What he found was an empty apartment. Kitchen to the left, bedroom to the right. The wallpaper had been torn off. The floor was covered with dust and paint chips.

So. His wife was hiding from him. He ran along the four walls of the empty bedroom, down the small corridor, past the
toilet, the closet. Nothing, no one anywhere. The kitchen empty too. Then with one leap he landed on top of the stove.

But there she was, scampering about. She looked just like a big grey rat. That’s what she looked like. She kept running along the kitchen wall, round and round, and he tore an iron plate off the stove and threw it at the rat. But she was much nimbler. This time, this time he’ll hit her. And he tried again. This time. And the bombardment of iron hearth rings crashed so hard against the wall that dust streamed down everywhere.

He started screaming. He shrieked in a frenzy: ‘You filthy vile whore, you pig, you …’ He shrieked so loud the whole house shook.

Doors rattled everywhere and everywhere a noise arose. And now it was coming up the stairs.

And two men were already standing in the doorway, and behind them a pack of women with a whole battalion of little brats trailing along.

They saw the raving lunatic perched up on his stove. The two men mustered their courage. Then a poker went flying at one man’s head. The other was pushed to the ground, and with a few great leaps the madman bounded right over the gathering throng like a giant orangutan. He dashed up the stairs, reached the roof ladder, swung himself up onto the roof, crawled over a few walls, around chimneys, disappeared through an open hatch door, tumbled down a flight of stairs and suddenly found himself in a public green. An empty bench beckoned. He let himself drop down to it, buried his face in his hands and started weeping quietly.

He felt the need to sleep. But just as he was about to stretch out on the bench, he spotted a huge crowd of people approaching down a street with several policemen like generals in the lead.

‘They’re looking for me, want to put me back in the asylum. Probably think I can’t work out what to do,’ he thought.

He left the park in a hurry. Left his cap lying on the bench. And from far away he could still see how one of the men waved it like a trophy in the air.

He passed down a few crowded streets, across a garden,
through more streets. The crowds made him uneasy. He felt hemmed in; he searched for a quiet spot to lie down. One house had a great big gate. A man in a brown uniform with gold buttons stood at the front. Nobody else was around. He walked right past the doorman, who let him pass without a word – that really surprised him. ‘Doesn’t he know me?’ the lunatic thought. And, in fact, felt offended.

He came to a door that kept turning. All at once he was grabbed by one wing of the door, shoved forward, and suddenly found himself in a great big hall.

There were countless tables covered with kerchiefs and other pieces of clothing. Everything was drenched in a golden light which streamed in from high windows and spread throughout the duskiness of the giant room. A huge chandelier glimmering with countless diamonds hung from the ceiling.

On either side of the hall there were grand staircases on which people were ascending and descending one by one.

‘Christ, what a magnificent church,’ he thought. Men in suits and girls in black dresses stood in the corridors. A woman sat behind a pulpit – someone was counting out money in front of her. A coin dropped and rattled to the floor.

He climbed the stairs, passed through many big rooms full of all sorts of furniture, gadgets and pictures. In one room numerous clocks were stacked up and they all struck at once. Behind a wide curtain a parlour organ chimed melancholy music that seemed to seep slowly into the distance. Cautiously he drew back the curtain – scores of people were there listening to an organist. They all looked so serious and devout that it put him in a holiday mood. But he didn’t dare join them.

He came to a door with a gate. Behind it was a deep shaft with numerous cables that seemed to be running up and down. A big box rose from below; the gate was pulled back. Someone said: ‘Going up,’ and then he was inside the box, soaring upwards like a bird.

Upstairs he saw many people standing around big tables laden with plates, vases, glasses and pots. Or they were ambling around in the corridors past a row of podiums on which slender crystals, candelabra or brightly coloured porcelain lamps
sparkled like a field of glass flowers. A narrow gallery raised above a short flight of stairs ran past these treasures along the wall.

He wound his way through the crowds and climbed the steps to the gallery. He leant against the banister. Down below he saw the people scurrying about. With their little heads, legs and arms constantly in motion, they seemed like hordes of black flies giving off a non-stop drone. And, lulled by the monotony of the sound, overcome by the oppressive heat of the afternoon, sick with the exaltations of the day, he shut his eyes.

Then he was a great white bird up in the wild blue yonder, swaying in the eternal light over a vast and lonely sea. His head brushed against the white clouds; he was neighbour to the sun that filled the sky above his head – a huge golden dish that started to resound with a mighty ringing.

His wings – whiter than a sea of snow, strong as tree trunks – spanned the horizon. And down below, purple islands seemed to float in the current like huge pink mussels. An unending peace, an eternal calm wafted beneath this eternal sky.

He couldn’t really tell: was it he who was flying so quickly or was the sea being dragged from under him? So it was the sea.

How jealous they’ll be back at the asylum to hear all this tonight after lights out. That’s what he felt best about. But better not breathe a word of it to the doctor. He’d just say: ‘I see, I see.’ He never believes anything. What a phoney. Even if he always says he believes it all.

A great white barge with slow sails floated by in the sea down below. ‘Just like one out of Humboldt harbour,’ he thought, ‘only bigger.’

Christ, was it ever nice to be a bird. Why hadn’t he become a bird long ago? And he wheeled his arms around in the air.

Down below, a few women noticed him. They laughed. Others came to look. A crowd gathered – salesgirls ran to fetch the manager.

He climbed onto the parapet, raised himself upright and seemed to hover over the crowd.

A giant light shone beneath him in the ocean. Now it was time to dive; now it was time to swoop into the sea.

But there was something black, something hostile that bothered him – that wouldn’t let him come down. But he’d take care of that – he was so very strong.

And he took off and leapt from the parapet into the midst of the Japanese glass, the Chinese porcelain and the Tiffany crystal. Here’s the blackness, here it is – and he grabs a salesgirl, puts his hands around her neck and squeezes.

And the crowd scatters down the corridors, staggering down the stairs, falling all over each other. A piercing shriek fills the whole building. ‘Fire! Fire!’ people cry. In a split second the whole floor is deserted. Only a few children lie trampled or crushed to death at the head of the stairs.

He kneels over his victim and slowly strangles her to death.

The great golden sun is all around him – its waves billow to both sides like towering, shimmering rooftops. He’s riding a black fish, he wraps his arms around its head. ‘Isn’t it a fat one, though,’ he thinks. Far down below in the green depths, entwined in a few shimmering rays of sunlight, green castles, green gardens are lost in the eternal deep. How far might they be? If only he could get down to them, just once.

The castles drop ever deeper; the gardens seem to sink deeper and deeper.

He is crying. He will never get there. He’s nothing but a poor pathetic fool after all. And that fish under him is starting to act up, still wriggling; he’ll soon take care of that, and he twists its head off.

Behind the door a man appeared, laid a rifle to his cheek and took aim. The shot struck the lunatic in the back of the head. He staggered back and forth a few times, then fell with a heavy thump over his last victim, over the shattered glass.

And as the blood flowed from his wound, it seemed as if he were sinking down in the depths, ever deeper, quiet as a peacock feather. And eternal music surged upwards and his dying heart opened, trembling in immeasurable ecstasy.

1915

Alfred Lichtenstein

As I was seated in the coupé, the gentleman directly across from me said:

‘One can’t very well walk your legs off.’

‘Why’s that?’ I said.

To which the gentleman said: ‘You have no legs.’

I said: ‘Is it that obvious?’

‘Naturally,’ the gentleman said.

I took my legs out of my knapsack. I had wrapped them in tissue paper and taken them along as a souvenir.

‘What’s that?’ the gentleman said.

‘My legs,’ I said.

To which the gentleman said: ‘You can take your legs in hand and still not get anywhere.’

‘Alas,’ I said.

After a while the gentleman said: ‘What the devil do you intend to do without legs?’