But I woke up at three, because the cat jumped on my and greeted me joyfully. She alternated between reproachful accusations and affection. I was wide awake, but lay in bed another while longer, and the cat snuggled up purring against my legs. I think we were both happy with life for half an hour. I got up at half-past three and prepared my breakfast by the light of the lamp, which I missed every evening in the Alm. The cat crept under the cover and went back to sleep. I left her a little fried meat and then, after I’d had my own and fed Lynx, I set off for the gorge. It was still quite dark and cold. The water ran down from the rocks in rapid rivulets and seeped into the road. I had to walk slowly so as not to stumble over the stones washed out by the last cloudburst. The road seemed to be in a pitiful state. The water from the thaw had already dug big channels in the spring, and by the side of the stream the soil had crumbled in places and fallen into the water. In the autumn I would have to repair the road before winter destroyed it entirely. I should have done it long before, but I hadn’t been able to face it. There was no excuse for that, and it served me right when I almost broke my legs in the dim morning light. When I’d arrived at the meadow I fetched the scythe from the barn and started swinging it. The ice–cold water of the stream drove the last sleep from me. By the time I started cutting it was almost light. The scythe hissed through the grass, and the moist swathes fell. I clearly noticed how much better I scythed when I was well rested. I went on for about three hours, and I was very tired by the end of it. Lynx crept out of the barn where he’d been sleeping, and went back to the hut with me. I went to bed with the cat, who snuggled against me, purring furiously, and went back to sleep immediately. The hut door was open, and the sun cast a bright yellow glow on the doorstep. Lynx had lain down on the bench by the house, and lay dozing in the first warmth. I slept until noon, then had a bite to eat and went back to the meadow to turn the grass. When I came back the cat had gone away after eating the meat. That suited me fine, because I didn’t want to see her disappointment when I had to leave her again.
At about seven o’clock we arrived at the Alm, and I immediately went to the byre to free Bella and Bull. I tethered Bella and left her outside for the night. Then I washed at the spring, drank some hot milk and went to bed.
The following day I milked Bella again in the afternoon and shut her and Bull in the byre. I slept in the hunting-lodge, and the cat came and snuggled against my feet. I’d brought a flask of milk with me, and she thanked me by arching her back and pushing her head against me over and over. the morning I scythed another large area, though I didn’t go back to bed but turned the grass I’d cut the previous day a second time. It was half-dry and smelled sweet and mild. By the afternoon I was able to take some of it to the barn and turn the grass I’d cut in the morning.
With this new plan I was able to make quick progress. While the moon was waxing the weather stayed hot and fine. This time I wanted to harvest part of an adjacent meadow as well, because I didn’t want to end up short of grass again. But the weather turned when I’d finished the big meadow, and it rained for a week with daily interruptions. It was pleasant weather that allowed the alpine meadow to grow with new vigour, but it wasn’t haymaking weather. So I waited, since most of the harvest had already been brought in, and I had nothing to worry about. My legs were in a bad state again anyway. I bound wet towels around them and went to bed in the daytime when I could. Lynx was unhappy about my immobility at first, but I showed him my sore legs and explained everything to him, and in the end he even seemed to understand. He prowled about the meadow on his own, but always stayed within hailing distance. At that time he was devoting himself to the pleasure of digging up mice. The weather had turned at the right time. I couldn’t let my legs heal entirely, but they did recover enough for me to return to my haymaking work after this break. It took me a week to harvest the smaller meadow. This time the cat’s welcome was calmer, an I hoped I’d cheered her up a little. She probably didn’t need cheering up, but thinking about her put my mind at rest.
Summer had gone curiously quickly, not only in my memory. I know it struck me as very short at the time. This year the raspberry-patch was even more overgrown, and I found only one bucket of berries, unusually large but not very sweet fruits. But of course they were still sweet as far as I was concerned. I let them dissolve on my tongue and thought about all the sweet things of the past. I have to laugh when I think about the hero in adventure stories plundering the hives of the wild bees. There aren’t any wild bees in my forest, and if there were I would never dare plunder their hives but would keep well away from them. I’m not a hero, not a resourceful person. I shall never learn to rub two sticks together to make a spark, or find a flint, because I’d never recognize one. I can’t even fix Hugo’s lighter, although I have flints and petrol. I can’t even build a decent door for the byre. And that’s constantly nagging at me.
I stayed in the Alm for the rest of August, always a little hampered by my aching legs. But I’d resumed the walks with Lynx, because if I lay idly on the bed I thought too much. I was already looking forward to the move, and summer had seemed a mere interlude.
I went into the valley again on the tenth of September to hoe the potatoes. They were particularly fine. The beans had multiplied a great deal as well. There had been few storms and no high winds or floods. This time I left Bull and Bella in the meadow. The fine weather tempted me not to rob them of this sunny day.
I got to the pasture at around five o’clock. Suddenly, before I had a clear view of the hut, Lynx gave a start and then ran across the meadow, barking furiously. I’d never heard him barking like that, ferocious and hate-filled. I knew straight away that he’d seen something terrible. When the hut had stopped blocking my view, I saw it. A human being, a strange man was standing in the meadow, and before him lay Bull. I could see that he was dead, an enormous, grey-brown hill. Lynx jumped at the man and snapped at his throat. I called him off with a piercing whistle; he obeyed, and stood growling and bristling in front of the stranger. I dashed into the hut and tore the rifle from the wall. It took a few seconds, but those few seconds cost Lynx his life. Why couldn’t I run faster? While I was still running I saw the glint of the axe and heard the dull crack as it fell on Lynx’s skull.
I aimed and fired, but Lynx was already dead.
The man dropped the hatchet and collapsed with a strange spinning motion. I didn’t pay him any attention as I knelt beside Lynx. I couldn’t see any injury, but a little blood was dripping from his nose. Bull’s execution had been terrible; his skull, hewn open by repeated axe-strokes, lay in a big pool of blood. I carried Lynx to the hut and laid him on the bench. He’d suddenly grown small and light. And then, as if from a great distance, I heard Bella roaring. She was standing pressed against the byre wall, beside herself with fear. I led her into the byre and tried to calm her down. Only then did I give another thought to the man. I knew he must be dead, he had been such a big target that I couldn’t have missed. I was glad he was dead; it would have been hard for me to kill an injured person. And yet I couldn’t have left him alive. Or maybe I could, I don’t know. I turned him on to his back. He was very heavy. I didn’t want a clearer view of him. His face was very ugly. His clothes, dirty and dilapidated, were made of expensive material and had been stitched by a good tailor. Perhaps he had been a game–tenant like Hugo or one of the lawyers, directors and industrialists that Hugo had invited so often. Whatever he might have been, now he was just dead.
I didn’t want to leave him in the meadow; not beside the dead Bull, in the virgin grass. So I picked him up by the legs and dragged him to the vantage point. There, where the rocks fall steeply to the scree–slope and alpine roses bloom in June, I let him roll down the hill. I left Bull lying where he was. He was too big and heavy. In the summer his skeleton will bleach in the meadow, flowers and grasses will grow through him and he will sink very slowly into the rain–damp earth.
I dug a grave for Lynx in the evening. Under that shrub with
the sweet–smelling leaves. I dug the hole deep, laid Lynx into it, covered it with earth and stamped the grass down over it. And then I was very tired, more tired than ever before. I washed at the spring, then I went to Bella in the byre. She didn’t give a drop of milk, and was still trembling. I gave her a tubful of water, but she wouldn’t drink. Then I sat down on the bench and waited for the long night. It was a bright, starlit night, and the wind drifted coldly down from the cliffs. But I was colder than the wind and didn’t feel the chill.
Bella started roaring again. In the end I fetched my pallet and carried it into the byre. I lay down on it fully dressed. It was only then that Bella fell silent, and I think she fell asleep.
At first light I got up, packed my rucksack and tied another bundle on top of it, took the rifle and left the Alm with Bella. The moon hung flat and pale in the sky, and the first pink light of dawn coloured the rocks. Bella walked quietly, her head lowered. Sometimes she stopped and glanced back, bellowing gloomily.
Anything I didn’t absolutely need is still at the Alm today, and I’m not going to fetch it. Or perhaps this will pass, too, and I will be able to set foot there again.
I took Bella to her old byre, fed her and moved back into the hunting–lodge. During the night the cat came and lay down beside me, and I slept soundly, exhausted.
The next day I resumed my usual work. Bella went on roaring for two days, and then she was quiet. While the weather lasted I let her graze in the clearing. The very next day I set about mending the road. That took ten days. October came, and I harvested potatoes, beans and fruit. Then I dug the field and spread dung on it. I’d sawn up so much wood in the spring that I couldn’t store any more under the verandah. The straw needed cutting, but that took only a week, and finally, physically beaten and broken, I abandoned my senseless flight and confronted my thoughts, to no purpose. I don’t understand what happened. Even today I wonder why the strange man killed Bull and Lynx. I’d called Lynx off, and he had to stand there defenceless, waiting for his skull to be caved in. I’d like to know why the strange man killed my animals. I’ll never find out, and it may even be better that way.
When winter came in November, I decided to write this report. It was my last resort. I couldn’t spend the whole winter sitting at the table with that one question in my head, a question that no human being, nobody at all in the world, can answer. I’ve spent almost four months writing this report.
Now I’m quite calm. I can see a little further ahead. I can see that this isn’t the end. Everything goes on. Since this morning I’ve been absolutely sure that Bella will have a calf. And, who knows, perhaps there will be kittens again. Bull, Pearl, Tiger and Lynx will never exist again, but something new is coming and I can’t escape that. If there should come a time when I am without fire, without ammunition, I shall deal with it and find a way. But now I have other things to do. As soon as the weather turns warmer I shall set about converting the bedroom into Bella’s new byre, and I’ll also manage to break open the door. I still don’t know how, but I’ll definitely find a way. I shall be very close to Bella and the new calf, and shall watch over them day and night. Memories, mourning an fear will remain, and hard work, as long as I live.
Today, the twenty-fifth of February, I shall end my report. There isn’t a single sheet of paper left. It’s now around five o’clock in the evening, and already so light that I can write without the lamp. The crows have risen, and circle screeching over the forest. When they are out of sight I shall go to the clearing and feed the white crow. It will already be waiting for me.
AFTERWORD
The Wall has been on my mind for over twenty-five years. The first time I read it was in 1986, and after I put it down, I immediately began thinking about how to turn it into a film.
Marlen Haushofer rewrote The Wall two times and had to wait nearly a decade to see it published. When her novel was released, critics completely ignored it. She died in 1970. Fifteen years later, she was rediscovered by the feminist and antinuclear movements. I spent seven years myself working on the film intensively.
If she could pour her soul into this book over the span of almost ten years, then I knew I could put in an equal effort to ensure her vision was properly preserved.
I always did my best to put Haushofer’s vision before everything else. The Wall is one of the greatest texts ever written in German-language literature and, for that matter, in any language. The Wall was translated into eighteen languages and sold more than one million copies. I wanted to capture the author’s ideas and themes in a way that not only did justice to what she had in mind as she was writing, but also in a way that conveyed my love for the story.
Of course, I tried to include my favorite parts, and they changed at times—but two or three passages are irreplaceable. Existentialism, love, the evolution of the physical and the metaphysical selves—these are all themes and moments I tried to reproduce in the film. I wanted to make this film as timeless as the book.
Yet, the curse of the filmmaker (or the filmmaker who spends his career shooting literary adaptations, anyway) is realizing with something like The Wall, one’s best efforts will ultimately amount to little more than pantomime. I do feel, however, that the novel and the film based upon Haushofer’s masterwork gets at something of the human condition that no other work of fiction does—the truth of yourself when you are the last remaining member of the human race.
The Wall is a novel that author and psychiatrist Paulus Hochgatterer has described as the precise embodiment of clinical depression. No amount of perseverance, dedication, or poring over the author’s life and work could have allowed me—or anyone else, for that matter—to capture the same kind of deeply personal despair in a different medium. That Haushofer conveyed it so brilliantly in this, her magnum opus, is an achievement for the ages.
I’m now working on new movies based on her novels The Loft and We Kill Stella. When I read her other work, I can feel how uncompromising Marlen Haushofer was in her writing.
As a reader, a scriptwriter, a director, and a deep admirer of The Wall, I continue to be inspired and captivated by the words within its pages. I hope that this novel allows you to find the strength and courage to go beyond your own wall and discover your own version of inner freedom, whatever that might be—just as I did, all those years ago.
Julian Roman Pölsler
Director of the film adaptation of The Wall (Die Wand)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARLEN HAUSHOFER was born on April 11, 1920 in Frauenstein, a region in Upper Austria. She attended Catholic boarding school in Linz, and studied German literature in Vienna and Graz. Her adult life was spent in Steyr, an old industrial city with a strong working class culture and a history of militancy. She died in 1970.
Haushofer published the novella “The Fifth Year” in 1952 and earned her first literary award in 1953. Her first novel, A Handful of Life, was published in 1955. The Wall, published in 1962, is considered her greatest literary achievement. Variously interpreted as an ironic Robinson Crusoe story, a philosophical parable of human isolation, and as dystopian fiction, The Wall is currently recognized for its important place in traditions of feminist fiction. Haushofer’s last novel, The Attic, was published in 1969. Her last short story collection, Terrible Faithfulness, brought her the Austrian State Prize for literature. She was been translated into several European languages.
1 Alpine pasture.
2 The warm, dry wind that blows down the northern slopes of the Alps.
Die Wand © by Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH, Berlin. Published in 1968 by claassen Verlag. Translation copyright © 1990 by Quartet Books.
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eISBN : 978-1-573-44915-1
eISBN : 978-1-573-44915-1
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