The Sleepwalkers

by Hermann Broch

  But disorderly accounts meant a disorderly world, and a disorderly world meant that Ilona would go on being a target for knives, that Nentwig would continue with brazen hypocrisy to evade punishment, and that Martin would sit in jail for ever. He thought it all over, and as he slipped off his drawers the answer came spontaneously: the others had given their money for the wrestling business, and so he, who had no money, must give himself, not in marriage, certainly, but in personal service, to the new undertaking. And since that, unfortunately, did not fit in with his job in Mannheim, he must simply give notice. That was the way he could pay his debt. And as if in corroboration of this conclusion, he suddenly realized that he ought not to remain any longer with a company that had been the means of putting Martin in jail. No one could accuse him of disloyalty; even the Herr Chairman would have to admit that Esch was a decent fellow. This new idea drove Erna out of his head, and he lay down in bed relieved and comforted. Going back to Cologne and to Mother Hentjen’s would, of course, be pleasant, and that diminished his sacrifice a little, but so little that it hardly counted; after all, Mother Hentjen hadn’t even answered his letter. And there were restaurants a-plenty in Mannheim. No, the return to Cologne, that unjust town, was a very negligible offset to his sacrifice; it was at most an entry in the petty-cash account, and a man could always credit himself with petty cash. His eagerness to report his success drove him to see Gernerth early next morning: it was no small feat to have raised two thousand marks so quickly! Gernerth clapped him on the shoulder and called him the devil of a fellow. That did Esch good. Yet his decision to give up his job and take service in the theatre astounded Gernerth; he could not, however, produce any valid objection. “We’ll manage it somehow, Herr Esch,” he said, and Esch went off to the head office of the Central Rhine Shipping Company.

  In the upper floors of the head office buildings there were long, hushed corridors laid with brown linoleum. On the doors were stylish plates bearing the names of the occupants, and at one end of each corridor, behind a table lit by a standard lamp, sat a man in uniform who asked what one wanted and wrote down one’s name and business on a duplicate block. Esch traversed one of the corridors, and since it was for the last time he took good note of everything. He read every name on the doors, and when to his surprise he came on a woman’s name, he paused and tried to imagine what she would be like: was she an ordinary clerk casting up accounts at a sloping desk with black cuffs over her sleeves, and would she be cool and offhand with visitors like all the others? He felt a sudden desire for the unknown woman behind the door, and there arose in him the conception of a new kind of love, a simple, one might almost say a business-like and official kind of love, a love that would run as smoothly, as calmly, and yet as spaciously and neverendingly, as these corridors with their polished linoleum. But then he saw the long series of doors with men’s names, and he could not help thinking that a lone woman in that masculine environment must be as disgusted with it as Mother Hentjen was with her business. A hatred of commercial methods stirred again within him, hatred of an organization that, behind its apparent orderliness, its smooth corridors, its smooth and flawless book-keeping, concealed all manner of infamies. And that was called respectability! Whether head clerk or chairman of a company, there was nothing to choose between one man of business and another. And if for a moment Esch had regretted that he was no longer a unit in the smoothly running organization, no longer privileged to go out and in without being stopped or questioned or announced, his regret now vanished, and he saw only a row of Nentwigs sitting behind these doors, all of them pledged and concerned to keep Martin languishing in confinement. He would have liked to go straight down to the counting-house and tell the blind fools there that they too should break out of their prison of hypocritical ciphers and columns and like him set themselves free; yes, that was what they should do, even at the risk of having to join him in emigrating to America.

  “But it’s a pretty short star turn you’ve given us here,” the staff manager said when he gave in his notice and asked for a testimonial, and Esch felt tempted to divulge the real reasons for his departure from such a despicable firm. But he had to leave them unsaid, for the friendly staff manager immediately bent his attention to other matters, although he repeated once or twice: “A short star turn … a short star turn,” in an unctuous voice, as if he liked the phrase and as if he were hinting that theatrical life wasn’t so very different from or even superior to the business that Esch was relinquishing. What could the staff manager know about it? Was he really reproaching Esch with disloyalty and planning to catch him unawares? To trip him up in his new job? Esch followed his movements with a suspicious eye and with a suspicious eye ran over the document that was handed to him, although he knew very well that in his new profession nobody would ask to see a testimonial. And since the thought of his work in the theatre obsessed him, even as he was striding over the brown linoleum of the corridor towards the staircase he no longer remarked the quiet orderliness of the building, nor speculated about the woman’s name on the door he passed by, nor saw even the notice-board marked “Counting House”; the very pomp of the board-room and the Chairman’s private office in the front part of the main building meant nothing to him. Only when he was out in the street did he cast a glance back, a farewell glance, as he said to himself, and was vaguely disappointed because there was no equipage waiting at the main entrance. He would really have liked to set eyes on Bertrand for once. Of course, like Nentwig, the man kept himself well out of the way. And of course it would be better not to see him, not to set eyes on him at all, or on Mannheim for that matter and all that it stood for. Good-bye for ever, said Esch; yet he was incapable of departing so quickly and found himself lingering and blinking in the midday sunlight that streamed evenly over the asphalt of the new street, lingering and waiting for the glass doors to turn noiselessly on their hinges, perhaps, and let the Chairman out. But even though in the shimmering light it looked as if the two wings of the door were trembling, so that one was reminded of the swing doors behind Mother Hentjen’s buffet, yet that was only a so-called optical illusion and the two halves of the door were immobile in their marble framework. They did not open and no one came out. Esch felt insulted: there he had to stand in the glaring sun simply because the Central Rhine Shipping Company had established itself in a flashy new asphalt road instead of a cool and cellar-like street; he turned round, crossed the street with long, rather awkward strides, rounded the next corner, and as he swung himself on to the footboard of a tram that rattled past, he had finally decided to leave Mannheim the very next day and go to Cologne to start negotiations with Oppenheimer, the theatrical agent.

  II

  It was natural that Esch should be annoyed because Mother Hentjen had never answered his letter, since even business letters were always answered within a certain time, and a private letter deserved more consideration, not being a mere matter of business routine. Still, Mother Hentjen’s silence was in keeping with her character. It was common knowledge that a man needed only snatch at her hand, or try to pinch her on the more protuberant parts of her body, to make her stiffen into that rigidity of disgust with which she silently checked the importunate; perhaps Esch’s letter had provoked a similar reaction in her. After all, a letter is something the writer’s fingers have dirtied, not unlike dirty body-linen, and Mother Hentjen might be depended on to see it in that light. She was quite different from other women; she was not the woman to walk into a man’s room early in the morning before it had been tidied without showing embarrassment even if he was washing himself. She was no Erna: she would never have asked Esch to think of her sometimes and to write her nice, sentimental letters. Nor was she the woman to have an affair with a man like Korn, although she was a more earthly creature than Ilona. Of course, like Ilona, Mother Hentjen was something superior, only it seemed to Esch that on the earthly plane she had to maintain by artifice what Ilona had by nature. And if she was disgusted by his letter he could understand
and approve her attitude; he had almost a yearning to be scolded by her: it seemed as if she were bound to know what he had been up to, and he could feel again the cold look with which she had always reproached him whenever he slept with Hede; not even that had she been willing to tolerate, and yet the girl was a member of her own establishment.

  When he arrived in Cologne, however, and made it his first business to call on Mother Hentjen, Esch was received neither with the friendliness he had hoped for nor the reproach he had feared. She merely said: “Oh, there you are again, Herr Esch. I hope you’re staying for some time,” and he felt like an outsider, felt actually as if he were doomed for all eternity to vegetate forgotten in the Korn household. When Frau Hentjen did come to his table later she wounded him even more deeply by speaking only of Martin: “Yes, he’s got what he was asking for, Herr Geyring”—she had warned him often enough. Esch answered in monosyllables; he had told her all he knew when he wrote. “Oh! I must thank you for your letter, too,” said Frau Hentjen, and that was all. In spite of his disappointment he pulled out a parcel: “I’ve brought you a souvenir from Mannheim.” It was a replica of the Schiller Memorial outside the Mannheim theatre, and Esch indicated the shelf from which the Eiffel Tower looked down with its black-white-and-red flag; it would perhaps go all right up there. And although he merely handed the thing over without further ado, Frau Hentjen accepted it with unexpected and genuine delight, for this was something she could show to her friends. “Oh no, I won’t let anybody so much as look at it down here; it’s too lovely for that; it’s going upstairs into my parlour … but it isn’t right of you, Herr Esch, to go to such expense for me.” Her warmth put him in a good mood again, and he began to tell her about his life in Mannheim, not omitting to express certain edifying sentiments which, though really emanating from that fool Lohberg, would, he assumed, be acceptable to Mother Hentjen. With many interruptions, for she was often called to the buffet, he extolled to her the beauties of nature, especially of the Rhine, and said he was surprised that she stuck so closely to Cologne and never made an excursion to places so easily within her reach. “All very well for sweethearting couples,” said Mother Hentjen contemptuously, and Esch answered respectfully that she could quite well go alone or with a woman friend. That sounded plausible and reassuring to Frau Hentjen, and she said that she might consider it some day. “Anyhow,” she remarked, dismissing it for the present, “I knew the Rhine well enough when I was a girl.” Hardly had she said this than she stiffened and stared over his head. Esch was not surprised, for he knew Mother Hentjen’s sudden withdrawals. But there was a particular reason for her reserve on this occasion, a reason that Esch could not have surmised: it was the first time that Frau Hentjen had ever mentioned her private life to a customer, and she was so upset by the realization that she fled to the buffet to look in the glass and finger her sugar-loaf coiffure. She was angry with Esch because he had drawn confidences from her, and she did not return to his table although the Schiller Memorial was still standing there. She felt like telling him to take it away, especially as one or two of his friends had sat down beside him and were running it over with masculine eyes and masculine fingers. She fled still farther, into the kitchen, and Esch knew that he had unwittingly committed some blunder or other. But when she finally reappeared he rose and took the statuette to the buffet. She polished it clean with one of the glass-cloths. Esch, who remained standing because he did not know how to extricate himself, told her that in the theatre opposite the memorial the première—that was a word he had learned from Gernerth—the première of one of Schiller’s plays had taken place. He himself had now various connections with the theatre, and if everything went well he would soon be able to get tickets for her. Really? He had connections with the theatre? Oh, well, he had always been something of a wastrel. For Mother Hentjen connections with the theatre simply meant relations with the vulgar actresses, and she remarked, contemptuously and indifferently, that she could not bear the theatre, for there was nothing in it but love, love, and that bored her. Esch did not venture to contradict her, but while Frau Hentjen carried her present into safety upstairs he began talking to Hede, who had barely looked at him, being obviously offended because he had not thought it worth his while to send her a postcard too. Hede seemed thoroughly ill-humoured, and ill-humour seemed to pervade the whole restaurant, in which the automatic instrument, set a-going by a reckless client, was now grinding out its tunes. Hede rushed to the instrument to turn it off, since music at such a late hour was against the public regulations, and all the men laughed at the success of the prank. Through the half-open window a stray night breeze wandered in, and Esch, who had got a whiff of it, slipped outside into the mild freshness of the night, quickly, before Hede could return, quickly, before he could encounter Frau Hentjen again; for she might get out of him that he had thrown up his job with the Central Rhine Shipping: and she certainly wouldn’t be talked into believing that the promotion of wrestling matches was a respectable occupation; she wouldn’t believe in its prospects, but would be sure to make adverse malicious comments—perhaps with justice. Still, he had had enough for one night, and so he took himself off.

  In the black, cellar-like streets there was a chill stench, as always in summer. Esch was vaguely content. The air and the dark walls were familiar and comforting; a man did not feel lonely. He almost wished that he might meet Nentwig. He would have enjoyed giving the man a good hiding. And it exhilarated Esch to feel that life often provided quite simple solutions. Yet it was a lottery in which winning numbers were rare, and so he would just have to stick to the scheme for promoting wrestling matches.

  Oppenheimer, the theatrical agent, possessed neither an antechamber with cushioned chairs, nor a reception clerk with forms for visitors to fill up. That was only to be expected. But nobody likes an exchange for the worse, and Esch had nursed a vague hope of finding an establishment not unlike that of the Central Rhine Shipping translated into theatrical terms. Well, it wasn’t like that at all. After he had climbed a narrow dark staircase to the mezzanine floor, found a door marked “Oppenheimer’s Agency,” and knocked at it without getting any response, he was forced simply to walk in unannounced. He found himself in a room where an iron washstand was standing filled with dirty water and pigeonholes of all kinds were cluttered up with waste-paper. On one wall hung a large calendar issued by an insurance company, on the other wall, framed and glazed, was a picture of a ship of the Hamburg-Amerika line, the Kaiserin Augusta Viktoria, painted in gay colours with a swarm of smaller craft around her, as she left the harbour and clove the foaming blue waves of the North Sea. Esch did not give himself time to inspect the ship closely, for he had come on business, and since shyness was not one of his characteristics he pushed, although with some hesitation, into a second room. There he found a writing-desk that, in contrast to the disorder prevailing elsewhere, had nothing whatever upon it, not even any trace of writing materials, but was splotched with ink, its brown wood scored and nicked with old grey notches and new yellow ones, and its green-baize cloth torn in many places. There was no other door. In this room too, however, there were notable wall-decorations fastened to the wallpaper with drawing-pins, a collection of photographs that kindled Esch’s interest, for there were many ladies in tights or spangles, in seductive and alluring poses, and he gave a glance round to see if Ilona was amongst them. But he thought it more proper to withdraw and inquire of somebody where Herr Oppenheimer might be found. There was no house porter, and so he rang at several doors until he was told, with a contempt that included himself, that Oppenheimer’s office hours were highly irregular. “You can wait about for him if you’ve nothing better to do,” said a woman.

  So that was that. It was unpleasant to be treated in that way, and if his new profession were to expose him to such contempt it was hardly encouraging. Still, it couldn’t be helped, he had taken it on for Ilona’s sake (and the thought gave him a thrill of warmth about the heart); it was in any case his new professi
on, and so Esch waited. Fine office habits this Herr Oppenheimer had contracted! Esch had to laugh; no, this was not a job in which testimonials were likely to be asked for. He stood before the house door gazing down the street, until at length an insignificant, small, fair-haired, rosy man came towards the house and went up the stairs. Esch followed him. It was Herr Oppenheimer. When Esch explained his business Herr Oppenheimer said: “Women wrestlers? I’ll fix it up, I’ll fix it up all right. But what does Gernerth need you for?” Yes, what did Gernerth need him for? Why was he here? What had brought him here at all? Now that he had given up his post in the Central Rhine Shipping Company his visit to Cologne was by no means the official journey he had projected. Why had he come to Cologne, then? Surely not because Cologne was a stage nearer the sea?

  When an honest man emigrates to America his relations and friends stand on the quay and wave their handkerchiefs to him. The ship’s band plays, Must I then, must I then, leave my native Town, and although one might regard this, in view of the frequency with which ships make the voyage, as a show of hypocrisy on the part of the bandmaster, yet many of the listeners are moved. When the rope is once made fast to the tiny tug, when the ocean giant floats out on the dark, buoyant mirror of the sea, then fitful and forlorn over the water come faint gusts of more cheerful melodies with which the kindly bandmaster is trying to enliven the departing passengers. Then it becomes clear to many a man how dispersedly his fellows are scattered over the face of the sea and the earth, and how frail are the threads that bind them one to another. Thus, gliding out of the harbour into clearer waters, where the current of the river is no longer discernible and the fides of the sea actually seem to be setting backwards into the harbour, the great liner often swims in a cloud of invisible but tense anguish, so that many a spectator feels prompted to stop her. On she goes, past the ships that lie along the smoking, littered shores, rattling their cranes to and fro as they load and unload vague cargoes for vague destinations, past the littered shores that take on a dusty greenness towards the river-mouth and come to an end in scanty herbage, finally past the sand-dunes where the lighthouse comes into sight, on she goes, fettered like an outcast to her tiny escort, and on the ships and along the shores stand men who watch her go, raise their arms as if to stop her, yet summon up merely a half-hearted and awkward wave of the hand. Once she is out in the open sea and her hull is almost sunk below the horizon, so that her three funnels are barely visible, many a man peering out to sea from the coast asks himself if this ship is making for the harbour or forging her way into a loneliness that the longshoreman can never comprehend. And if he finds that she is heading for the land he is comforted, as though she were bringing home his sweetheart, or at least a long-expected letter that he had not known he was waiting for. Often in the light haze of that distant frontier two ships meet, and one can see them gliding past each other. There is a moment in which both the delicate silhouettes merge together and become one, a moment of subtle exaltation, until they softly separate again with a motion as quiet and soft as the distant haze in which they pair, and each one goes alone her own way. Sweet, never-to-be-fulfilled hope!