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 tomorrow, 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 tomorrow, 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 today, 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 passerby. 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
