by Ernst Jünger
Monday was the worst. It was the day of reckoning, the day of judgment. At six in the morning we rode in the manège, our heads heavy with sleep. I remember often wishing to be thrown by the horse and taken to the infirmary, but so long as no bones were broken this was out of the question. A “slight temperature”—as at home—did not exist here. Monteron thought these falls very healthy. They were good training and taught you to keep a firm seat.
Our next class was strategy at the sandbox, but the lesson rarely materialized. Monteron, who held the rank of a major, usually entered the classroom scowling like a threatening archangel. Today, naturally, there are still people one is afraid of; but his kind of authority no longer exists. Today one is simply afraid; in those days one had, in addition, a guilty conscience.
The Military Academy was not far from the capital, and the cadet whose pass had not just been canceled, or who was not in the guardhouse, spent his leave there, going by local train, by the horse-drawn streetcar, or in a carriage. Others went on horseback and stabled, their horses with relatives: there were still countless stables in town. We would all be in fine fettle, with money in our pockets, since there was no occasion to spend it on the drill grounds. No happier moment existed than the moment when the gates were opened.
On Monday morning everything had a different look. When Monteron entered his office, a pile of unpleasant letters, notices, and reports waited for him on his desk. In addition, there was the sentry’s never-failing report that two or three cadets had overstayed their leave and that a fourth hadn’t returned at all. Trifles were also reported—the name of a cadet had been taken down because he had smoked in front of the sentry of the Royal Castle, and of another because he had saluted the commanding officer of the city in a careless way. More often than not, however, something truly striking occurred. Two cadets had kicked up a row in a bar and had demolished the furniture; another had resisted arrest by drawing his sabre. These cadets were still locked up somewhere in town and had to be sent for. Two brothers, on leave of absence for a funeral, had gambled away all their money in Homburg.
At roll call every Saturday Monteron reinspected our uniforms. After having assured himself that nobody had appeared in “fancy” uniform, by which he meant the slightest deviation from the regulation, he dismissed us with a few parting words. He warned us against temptations. And each time, we rushed off in all directions, convinced of our immunity.
But the city was bewitched—a labyrinth. It laid its snares cunningly. Each day of furlough was divided into two halves, one light, the other dark, supper being the fairly exact demarcation line. It recalled certain children’s books, where on one page the good, on the other the bad boy is depicted, the only difference being that in our case the two boys were combined in one person. During the afternoons we visited relatives, sunned ourselves at sidewalk cafés, or strolled in the Tiergarten. Some of us could even be seen at concerts or lectures. We presented the ideal picture—Monteron’s picture—youthful, well-behaved, and as neat as a new pin. It was simply delightful.
In the evenings we had our dates. Either we spent them alone with our girls or we joined the others. Drinking started and the atmosphere became, shall we say, more animated. Later we separated, but at midnight we all met again at Bols or the English Buffet. As the evening wore on, the places we visited were more and more doubtful or even explicitly forbidden. At the Viennese Café, frequented by demimondaines, it was easy to clash with the insolent waiters. In the big beerhalls we had encounters with students, who were keen on picking quarrels. Eventually only a few places were still open, the Everburning Light, for example, and the waiting rooms of the railway stations. Here, most of the people were drunk; in the ensuing brawls there was no glory in winning. At Headquarters these places were notorious, and it was no accident that the military police would arrive at the exact moment when we were involved in a riot. When the spikes of their helmets were seen above the melée, the signal was given: Sauve-qui-peut. Often it was too late. They took you along, the patrol leader happy to have nabbed another cadet.
On Monday morning Monteron found the reports on his desk. They arrived by the early train or were telephoned in. Monteron was one of those superior officers who have an especially bad temper in the morning. The blood rushed easily to his head. Then he had to unbutton the collar of his uniform. A bad omen. He could be heard muttering:
“It’s incredible where these fellows knock about.”
It seemed incredible to us too. There is no difference greater than the one between a thick, aching head in the morning and the identical exuberant head of the night before. Yet it is the very same head. But that we should have been here or there, should have said—or even done—this or that, seemed to us like a story about some third person. It could not and should not be so at all.
Nevertheless, while being chased over the jumps by our riding instructor, we had dark misgivings that something was wrong. When you jump the hurdles with knotted snaffle, elbows tightly propped on your hips, you must have your wits about you. In spite of everything, we sometimes galloped as if in a dream, our minds preoccupied with the events of the night before, which now seemed a bewildering puzzle.
The solution was provided by Monteron at the sandbox, but in a way that exceeded all our fears. Occurrences, which we remembered only dimly and in fragments, now appeared in a blinding light as an extremely unpleasant whole. Twinnings, who in those days already showed a nimble wit, once declared that it was really unfair to allow sober patrols to hunt for tipsy youngsters on furlough—the police should be given a handicap.
Be that as it may—there was hardly a week that did not begin with a terrible dressing-down. Monteron could still open all the floodgates of authority; this too is a long-lost art. He was still capable of evoking in us a genuine acceptance of our misconduct. We had not simply perpetrated this or that. We had struck at the root of the State; we had endangered the monarchy. Actually there was a grain of truth in what he said—though the whole world did what it pleased, without exciting much notice, freedom being large and general—if a cadet deviated only slightly, that same world, that same public opinion, swooped down on him unanimously. This prefigured the enormous changes which took place soon afterwards. Monteron probably foresaw them; we cadets were simply thoughtless.
Looking back, it seems to me that these dressing-downs turned out, for the most part, far milder than we had expected. We lived in the fear of the Lord. When after the riding lesson, we changed hurriedly while the room senior goaded us on—”You are in for something; the Old Man has already loosened his collar”—it was worse than later when the order came: “Stand at attention.”
Fundamentally, the Old Man had a heart of gold. And in our hearts we knew it; this explained our intense respect for him. When he said: “I’d rather keep a bagful of fleas in order than a class of cadets,” he was right, for it wasn’t an easy job. There are superiors who gloat over someone who gets himself into a hopeless spot since then they can show their power. Monteron was deeply grieved. And since we knew this, a cadet who was in a complete fix could go to him in the evening and confess. When Gronau had gambled all his money away, Monteron drove to the city that same evening to take care of the matter; although when he returned the next afternoon, it was already too late.
Well, he wanted to harden us, but without injuring our inner core. On Monday mornings orders used to drum upon us like hail—arrest, cancellation of furlough, stable duty, lineup in fatigue dress. But by noon the storm had passed, and we tried, of course, to do our utmost on the drill ground.
In our class two or three cases came up where things took a different turn. Something happened that arrest couldn’t remedy. Yet it was remarkable how many things the Old Man could repair by putting us under arrest. In the cases I’m now thinking of, the storm never broke. On the contrary, an oppressed atmosphere prevailed, as if something had happened that should not be referred to or that was only a rumor. There was a coming and going; something went
on behind locked doors and afterward the culprit disappeared. His name was never mentioned again, or if it was mentioned, it seemed to happen by mistake, and everyone pretended not to have heard it.
On such days the Old Man, usually relentlessly alert, could be absent-minded, absorbed in his own thoughts. In the classroom he would stop mid-sentence and stare at the wall. Then fragments of a soliloquy might be heard involuntarily rising to his lips; for example: “I could swear that at the bottom of any dishonorable action there is always a woman.”
All this rose to the surface of my memory while Twinnings waited for my answer. It had, of course, only a remote relation to the present situation, since Monteron, muttering that sentence, would certainly never have thought of a woman like Teresa. It is nevertheless true that a man will do things for a woman which he would never do for himself.
Such a thing was the job Zapparoni had to offer. I could not say why, yet there are some premonitions which rarely deceive you. No doubt there is a difference between protecting secrets of the State and those of an individual—even in our times, when most States have gone to the dogs. A position like the one offered by Zapparoni would sooner or later lead to an automobile accident. Anyone inspecting the wreckage would find twenty or thirty bullet holes in the back of the car; no case here for the highway patrol. And about the funeral there would be less in the obituaries than on the front page. Teresa would not meet the best people at the open grave, and certainly no one from our better days—not even Zapparoni—would be present. At nightfall, a stranger would deliver an envelope to her.
When my father was buried, things were quite different. He had led a quiet life, but at the end he hadn’t been too happy either. Lying sick in bed, he said to me: “My boy, I am dying at just the right moment.” Saying this, he gave me a sad, worried look. He had certainly foreseen many things.
These and other matters came into my mind while Twinnings waited for my answer. It is incredible what an avalanche of thoughts can unroll in such a moment. Like a painter, one should be able to compose it all into a picture.
But my mind’s eye saw our sparsely furnished apartment, our cold hearth—if I may use this poetic expression to paraphrase the fact that for days now the electricity had been cut off. In the mail were only reminders, and when the doorbell rang, Teresa did not dare answer it, afraid of insolent bill collectors. I had small reason to be fastidious.
On top of everything, I felt ridiculous—I sensed that I was being old-fashioned, one of those people who still wasted their time with scruples, while all the others, who pocketed whatever profit was offered, looked down on me. Together with a great number of others I had twice paid the piper for inefficient governments. We had carried off neither pay nor glory—just the opposite.
It was high time that I discarded my fossil judgments. Only the other day someone had called my attention to the fact that my conversation teemed with superannuated expressions like “old comrades” and “swear on one’s sword-knot.” These phrases sound funny nowadays, like the affectation of an old spinster who still prides herself on her stale virtue. Hang it all, I had to stop that.
My stomach felt unpleasantly empty. It was, quite simply, hunger; my mouth had a bitter taste. At the same time I felt a slight sympathy for Zapparoni rise in my heart. After all, here at last was someone who showed interest in me. Apart from the great difference in our financial status, he was probably in much the same situation as I was: he too had to pay the price and, to boot, was judged by moral standards. He was fleeced, robbed; and yet he was the exploiter. The government, unhesitatingly obliging to the majority, pocketed his taxes, and allowed him to be bled.
In any case, if “old comrades” sounded funny, why should words like “government” still be taken seriously? Did those figureheads have a monopoly, perhaps, on being serious? Were they an exception to the devaluation of words? Was there, in fact, a person still alive who could teach others the meaning of decency? Even a veteran was no longer respected; but this had its advantages too. The time had come for thinking of one’s self—for once.
You see, I had already begun to justify myself—this is the first step when one intends to venture upon something crooked. Strangely enough, no one can simply go ahead and do another person harm. You first have to convince yourself that the other has deserved it. Even a holdup man, about to rob a stranger, will first start a quarrel with him in order to work himself up to real anger.
This was easy for me, since my feelings had reached such a boiling point that almost anyone—no matter how innocent—would be a suitable target for my anger. Even Teresa had once been my victim.
Although I had by now almost decided to accept the offer, I made one last attempt to back out. I said to Twinnings: “I can’t imagine that Zapparoni has been waiting just for me. He must find it rather hard to choose.”
Twinnings nodded: “Most of the candidates are people,” he said with a gesture, “with a long list of convictions.” And he repeated the gesture like a fisherman catching a pike in still waters. Again he had touched a sore spot. Finally my temper gave out.
“Who doesn’t have a record, today? Perhaps you, because you’ve been a smart guy all your life. But otherwise there are only those who were shirkers in war and in peace.”
Twinnings laughed. “Don’t get excited, Richard—we all know you don’t have a flawless record. But in your case there’s a difference: your previous convictions are the right ones.”
And he should know, since he had sat as one of my judges in the court of honor—not in the first one, when I was discharged after having been already sentenced by a court-martial because of preparation for high treason. (I first heard of the two verdicts in Asturia, where they were useful to me.) No, I am thinking of the second court of honor, though even the word “honor” belongs to those terms which have become thoroughly suspect.
So I was rehabilitated by people like Twinnings, who, wisely, had been living with his English relatives. By rights, it was he who should have had to justify himself. Something else strange: in my records the verdict is still listed. Governments change, files remain. The paradox remained: in the dossiers of the State the fact that I had risked my neck for it was simultaneously listed forever as treason. When my name was mentioned, the exalted file clerks in the government offices, who sat on their chairs only because I and people like me allowed them to, made a wry face.
Apart from this significant item, I admit that a few other trifles were listed also in my papers. Among them was one of those pranks we think up when we feel high-spirited—it happened when we still had a monarchy. “The desecration of a monument” was listed—a time-honored phrase in periods when monuments are no longer monuments. We had toppled over a concrete block with a name on it; I have forgotten which name. To begin with, we were a little drunk, and secondly, nothing is easier to forget nowadays than both the names which, only yesterday, were the talk of the town and the notables after whom the streets were named. The eagerness to erect monuments in their honor is extraordinary and, more often than not, hardly outlasts their lifetime.
All this not only damaged my reputation but had been entirely unnecessary. I didn’t like to think of it now. But others had a remarkable memory.
Well, Twinnings seemed to think that my former convictions had been the right ones. On the other hand, I didn’t like the idea that Zapparoni might also consider them the right ones. For what would that mean? It would mean that he was looking for someone with, as it were, two handles: not only a solid one which can be grasped, but another one too. He needed someone who was solid but not through and through.
A popular proverb calls the kind of factotum required in this case, a person “with whom you can steal horses.” This expression perhaps had its origin in times when the stealing of horses was risky but not disreputable. If it came off well, the affair was creditable; if not, you were hanged from the willow tree or forfeited your ears.
The adage was fairly apposite to my situation. There was
, of course, a slight difference: although Zapparoni was evidently looking for a man with whom he could “steal horses,” he himself was far too important a person to go on a scouting trip with him. But what could I do? There was still another proverb applicable to my situation: that the devil puts up with flies when he has nothing else to eat. So I said to Twinnings: “Well, I shall try, if you think I should. Perhaps he’ll take me. But, just between old comrades, I’ll tell you: I refuse to get involved in anything shady.”
Twinnings set me at ease. After all, I was not applying for a job with just any odd person but with a firm of world-wide repute. He would call Zapparoni this very day and would let me know. I had a chance. Twinnings rang the bell, and Frederick appeared.
Frederick, too, had grown older; he walked with a slight stoop, and the bald patch on his head was encircled by a thin, snowy-white fringe. I still knew him from the good old days, when he took care of Twinnings’ uniform. If you visited Twinnings you always met Frederick in the anteroom; usually he had in his hands an instrument, now antiquated and only fit for a museum, called a buttonhole scissors. Incidentally, whatever opinion you may have arrived at concerning a man like Twinnings, the fact that a valet sticks to his job with him for decades, is a plus for his master.
When Frederick entered the room, his face lit up with a smile. It was a wonderful moment, this moment of harmony, uniting the three of us. A glimmer of our carefree youth came back in a flash. Good God, how the world had changed since then! I sometimes thought that this sentiment had something to do with getting older. Each generation, after all, looks back on the good old days. But in our case it was something quite different, something horribly different. Of course, difference existed between military service under Henry IV, Louis XIII, or Louis XIV, but one always served on horseback. Today these magnificent creatures were doomed. They had disappeared from the fields and streets, from the villages and towns, and for years they had not been seen in combat. Everywhere they had been replaced by automatons. Corresponding to this change was a change in men: they became more mechanical, more calculable, and often you hardly felt that you were among human beings. Only at rare moments did I still hear a sound from the past—the sound of bugles at sunrise and the neighing of horses, which made our hearts tremble. All that has gone.