but strangely enough, this doesn’t seem so sweet to me any more. No, I don’t want to think of that country inn again. It was too horrible. And how that little whore fleeced me, like any silly schoolboy. But I’m not going for her like I will for Lobedanz, let her sink or swim with her loot, I’ll never see anything of her again. From now on, I live only for Magda. It’s a good thing I’m absolutely finished with those people at the inn. I’ve paid for everything, they can’t want anything else from me, I shall never see them again. I only wish I was so sure of Magda’s attitude to me.…
So my thoughts run. In between times I sleep a little, half drowsing or else suddenly gone right off as in a deep faint. And then I am awake again, conscious once more of the torment in my body, I groan: “My God, my God, I can’t bear this … am I never to get out of here?”
I run to and fro, shake the iron bars, lean against the door in the mad hope that perhaps it has been left open, and think of Magda.… To tell the truth, I am afraid of Magda … she can be so damned energetic.… But I am her husband, we loved each other, she will forgive me, she must … so turns the mill-wheel of my thoughts.
26
I have been sleeping again. The clatter of keys has awakened me. I spring up from my bed and look expectantly at the four gentlemen who come into my cell. Two of them I accord only a short glance: they wear police uniform. One is the sergeant who brought me here last night; the other is a policeman whom I know from my home town. Many a time I have played cards with him over a glass of beer, a good respectable man, not of my social class of course, but I never was proud. One of the two men in civilian clothes I do not know, a young man with sharp features and rather staring severe eyes. His lower lip protrudes heavily. But I know the other civilian all too well, it is our family doctor, good old Dr Mansfeld. The moment I recognise him, it passes through my mind like a lightning-flash that I’m not going to be released. He will take me to a home for alcoholics. But that is not so bad, on the contrary, perhaps it’s much better. In such a home, my present torments would be eased, they are bound to have some remedy there, and then I shall be spared that impending discussion with Magda. Magda will think much more leniently about a sick man in a home of that kind. All this runs through my mind in a few seconds and I hurry across to the doctor. I shake his hand. I say excitedly: “Thank you for coming, Dr Mansfeld. You see,” I laugh, a little embarrassed, “how they’ve housed me here!”
I glance around the dirty cell. Dr Mansfeld presses my hand firmly. I notice that he is upset too, his face is trembling.
“Yes, my dear Herr Sommer,” he says and there is a tremor in his voice, “I hadn’t intended things to end like this.”
“To end?” I say and try to give an easy tone to my voice. “To end, Dr Mansfeld? I think this is a new beginning. You’ll send me to a nursing-home and make me well again.”
“I wanted to do that a fortnight ago, my dear Herr Sommer,” says Dr Mansfeld, shaking his head, “but unfortunately you’ve made it impossible. Now it’s for the Public Prosecutor to say.”
And with that, he looks across at the younger man with the staring eyes, who pushes out his protruding underlip still further, looks at me severely, and says, at first hesitantly: “Yes, yes, of course.”
Then quickly, “Herr Sommer, I have to arrest you for the attempted murder of your wife. You are under arrest.”
I stand thunderstruck. For a moment I cannot utter a word.
“They can’t be serious,” I think feverishly. “They’re only trying to frighten you. Attempted murder? Of Magda?”
At last I can speak. I say in a trembling voice, “Attempted murder of my wife? That’s ridiculous. I never tried to murder Magda!”
The Public Prosecutor gives me a crushing look, and barks: “We’ll soon show you how ridiculous it is, Sommer!” and, “Come, doctor!”
And again, to the policeman from my own town. “You know what to do, sergeant. Take the man away.”
“Dr Mansfeld!” I call after them in boundless despair, as they leave, “Dr Mansfeld, you know how much I loved Magda.…”
The door slams behind the two civilians. I am alone with the two men in uniform. Distracted, I slump down on my straw bed and hide my face in my hands.
27
After I had sat motionless like that for a while with the words “attempted murder of your wife” running round and round in my head, the sergeant from my own town, Herr Schulze, put his hand on my shoulder and said, as a gentle reminder: “We have to go now, Sommer.”
“Sommer.” How it touched me, this simple “Sommer” without “Herr”! To be spoken to like that by quite a humble man with a yearly income of hardly more than two thousand four hundred marks, brought home to me in the clearest possible way the changed circumstances of my life. Ever since I finished my apprenticeship, no one had addressed me without calling me “Herr”, and now—I took my hands from my face and with tears in my eyes I asked, “Where are you taking me, Herr Schulze?”
I stressed the “Herr” but he took no notice. Such a simple man probably has no feeling for these fine shades of intonation.
“Only to the police-court, Sommer,” he said. “Only to the police-court.” And he continued, “Look, Sommer, you’re an educated man. You won’t cause any trouble, will you? I ought to put you in handcuffs, but if you promise not to cause trouble.…”
“I promise you, Herr Schulze”, I said eagerly, and almost cheerfully now, “I promise on my honour.”
“Fine,” he replied, “I’ll trust you. Put your coat on. There’s your hat. Have you got anything else? Then come along!”
He went with me out of the cell, we descended a stairway and stood in the village street. I had only been in the semi-darkness of the lock-up for a few hours, but the spacious brightness of the countryside overwhelmed me. My heart beat faster at this greeting from the outside world. “Supposing,” I quickly thought, “supposing I were to jump over the fence and run through that bushy garden, across the meadows and into the forest, would Schulze trouble to catch me again? Would he even shoot after me as if I were a real criminal? Oh no,” I thought, with a weak smile, “he’d never do that. We’ve often played cards together, and he knows who I am and what I represent. But I don’t want to run away from him at all,” I quickly thought, “I promised I wouldn’t cause any trouble, and I’m a man of my word. But there’s something else I want from him.…”
When Schulze had mentioned that he had to take me to the police-court, a hopeful possibility had occurred to me.
“Herr Schulze,” I said very politely, “I would like you to do me a favour.…”
“Well, what is it, Sommer?” he asked. “Am I walking too fast? We can easily go slower. The train doesn’t leave for another twenty minutes.”
“Look, Herr Schulze,” I began, “I’ve got a frightful toothache. And I see there’s an inn just over the road. Couldn’t I quickly nip in and have a rum or a brandy? That always relieves my toothache immediately. You can stand at the bar with me,” I quickly continued, “if you’re afraid I’ll run away from you. Of course, I won’t run away. It’s just on account of this terrible toothache.”
“You put that right out of your head,” said the sergeant firmly. “I’d lose my uniform if it got around that I’d been drinking schnaps with a prisoner in some pub. Nothing doing, Sommer.”
“But nobody knows me here, Herr Schulze,” I cried pleadingly. “It’ll never come out.”
“There!” cried the sergeant, and he raised his hand to his helmet in salute. The doctor’s car, with the Public Prosecutor sitting next to Dr Mansfeld, had passed us.
“If those two had seen us going into a pub, I’d have been for it! So let’s get on. Sommer!”
“Herr Schulze,” I pleaded, and I did not stir a step from the square in front of the inn, my last chance. “There’s really not a soul here who knows me. Please do me this one favour! Just one single schnaps! I’ll tell my wife to let you have a hundred marks …”
