Lobedanz was wild with rage, and all these days he had been brooding in his cell, thinking how utterly fruitlessly he had worked on me for weeks, how I had got everything back, and how he was faced with a long prison sentence on my account—and all for nothing! He had seen red, he had been brooding all the time on how he could mark me for life, and his rage and hatred had swept away all his native cowardice and caution. When he saw the cell-door open, he had lain in wait for me, he had got me down, and struck me in the face so that the blood immediately gushed from my nose and mouth. As usual the prisoners watched, unmoved and unconcerned, perhaps a little maliciously; it is not the custom, in prison, to interfere in any scuffle between two inmates. I am convinced that Mordhorst would have stood by me, but Mordhorst was not at hand, he was on the corridor below. And before the warder was able to rush up and pull Lobedanz off, Lobedanz had bent over my face and bitten my nose, so as to mark me for life—oh, he nearly bit half my nose off!
Terrible things happen in gaol, and frequently, and nobody makes any fuss about it. Lobedanz was put in a punishment cell, and later a charge of grievous bodily harm was added to all the rest. They laid me down on the straw-bag in my cell, washed off some of the blood, and waited till the prison doctor, summoned by telephone, arrived. The first thing I heard on regaining consciousness, was Duftermann’s nagging voice, complaining about all this “filth in his cell”, and demanding that I should be put somewhere else; and his voice did not cease to complain about me, as long as he was not asleep, every day that I had to share the cell with him.
In the doctor’s opinion, it was not serious enough for me to be transferred to hospital. He sewed up my nose after a fashion, and declared that everything would be all right in three or four days’ time. But it never did get quite right again; apart from the fact that to this day I cannot bear to look at myself in the mirror, because I am so disfigured and disgusting. No, I cannot smell any more, and I cannot breathe properly through my nose, either. I breathe with my mouth half-open like an idiot, and my sleeping-companions abuse me and jostle me of a night-time because I disturb their sleep with my snoring and groaning. That dog Lobedanz really has marked me for life, and I can never forget him. In fact, Lobedanz made a deeper impression on me than any other human being, even than Magda. Sometimes as I sit here, suddenly the image rises before me of how I stood at the attic-window and saw the town with its red-brown roofs spread at my feet in the evening light, saw the river shining among the green, and beyond, half-hidden in a blueish haze, the roof of my own house, while at my back, Lobedanz was assuring me in a soft whisper that he was a very poor but honest man, and making his joints crack. From the very first moment, I had realised that he was a rogue and a liar, and if I had had a little commonsense and decency I would have left that room there and then, and gone back home to the house in the blue haze. But in my frailty I stayed there and I have paid for it since a thousand times over.
35
I lay for three or four days, amid Duftermann’s abuse; I was in bad pain and I cursed my unhappy lot. All thought of revenging myself on Magda or of instituting divorce proceedings had quite faded away; I would have been glad if they had let me go home to her. I would have fallen on my knees and begged her forgiveness. But this was only a passing mood, it did not last. My feelings towards Magda were to change very often. I never saw the wood-yard again, nor my mate Mordhorst. Strangely enough, in my memory today they seem beautiful peaceful hours that I spent at the saw-bench, in my blue prison jacket, with the tops of the apple and pear trees above me, and the sunny sky.
Then late one afternoon, when I was absolutely in despair at the interminable nagging of that murderous incendiary Duftermann, the lock of the cell-door rattled at a quite unusual time, and the warder came in and cried: “Sommer, get up at once and pack your things! You’re released!”
I started up from my bed and stared at the warder.
“Released,” I whispered, and my heart beat furiously. At last! At last!
“Yes, released,” he said maliciously. “You’re going to the institution. Come on, come on, man, pack your things up! D’you think we’ve got all day?”
“Ah,” I said slowly, and started to pack. “Ah—to the institution!”
Duftermann watched me closely to see that I did not pack any of his precious belongings, and all the time he was telling the warder how glad he was that I was leaving, I was the worst cell-mate in the world, I never spoke a sensible word, and the row I kicked up of a night-time was unbearable. I left without a word to him, I did not even look round.
Below, in the governor’s office, stood a strange warder, who scrutinised me carefully, and I notice that he pulled a face at the sight of me. I was still wearing the bandage on my nose.
“Yes,” said the governor, “this is the man another prisoner tried to bite the nose off. I suppose you heard about it officer?”
He had heard about it.
The governor added: “But up to now he’s been quite a quiet orderly man. I don’t think you’ll need to handcuff him.”
“No, no!” said the warder sharply. “I’m responsible for him. If he runs away.…”
“Do as you think fit, officer,” said the governor, “I was merely giving my opinion. Listen, Sommer,” he now turned to me, “sign this receipt, that you’ve had all your things back from us. We’ll send your money on to you by post …”
“Please send it to my wife,” I said, on a sudden impulse. “I shan’t need money any more.”
“Very well,” said the governor impassively, and with that, I was released.
The warder put the handcuffs on my wrist and so I was led through my home town to the station, but that did not worry me. I still had the bandage on my nose; even Magda would not have recognised me.
Like my own ghost I walked through the town in which I was born, along the streets I had played in as a child; on that bench over there I once sat with Magda, she had plaits then, and we both carried school satchels under our arms.… Now we passed my own business, “Erwin Sommer, Market Produce, Wholesale and Retail” it still said on the ground-glass panes—for how much longer? And led along by a little chain, a suitcase in his free hand, this same Erwin Sommer went by, living yet dead for all that; traces of his life still remained—for how much longer?
“I’m only forty-one,” I said to the officer.
“What do you mean by that?” asked the young man. “What are you getting at?”
“Oh, nothing, officer,” I answered. “But when a man’s already dead to the outside world at forty-one.…”
“Ah, come on, don’t fret so,” said the warder placidly, “you’ll be much better off in the place I’m taking you to than you would be in clink, and if you make a sensible impression, maybe you’ll get out again some time. D’you know what?” he continued, more and more humanly, “later on, when we get on the train, I’ll take the handcuffs off, and I won’t put ’em on again outside either. It’s just here in town, one never knows what you fellows suddenly get into your heads.”
I was silent. He meant well, but he did not know how unimportant the little handcuffs were to me. But with his clumsy efforts to console me, he had uttered a phrase that struck me like a thunderbolt, in my depressed mood. “Maybe you’ll get out again some time,” he had said! Maybe … some time.… And I had been counting on a six weeks’ observation period, that’s what Mordhorst had told me.
Maybe … some time.…
Was it just a random remark of the sergeant’s, or did he really know something? He had my papers! Of course, he knew something: I was going to be locked up for life! Really dead to the outside world, as I had imagined just now. A mist rose before my eyes, and the sun that shone for everybody, shone no more for me. Never again would it shine for me.
36
We are walking together along a beautiful country road, the warder and I. I am free of the handcuffs, which has the advantage that I can carry the suitcase, which is none too light, now in my right hand, now in my left. The warder has lit a short pipe, and has graciously given me permission to smoke. This permission does not help me in the least. In any case it would probably go ill with my bitten nose.
