Three Comrades

by Erich Maria Remarque

  In the next room was a man who had been crippled for twelve years. He had a waxen skin, a thin, black beard, and very big, still eyes.

  "How goes it?" asked Jaffé.

  The man made a vague movement. Then he pointed to the window—"Just look at the sky. It's going to rain, I can feel it." He laughed. "One always sleeps better when it rains." In front of him on the bedcover lay a leather chessboard with pieces that could be inserted so that they would not slip. A pile of magazines and some books lay beside it.

  We passed on. I saw a young woman with horror-stricken eyes and blue lips, completely shattered by a difficult birth —a crippled child with crooked, feeble legs and water on the brain—a man with no stomach—an owl-like grey-haired old woman who wept because her relatives did not bother about her; she was too long dying for them—a blind man who believed he would see again—a syphilitic child, with its father sitting by the bedside—a woman who had had the second breast removed that morning—another twisted up with arthritis—a third whose ovaries had been taken out—a workman with crushed kidneys—room after room it went on, room after room the same thing: groaning, tormented bodies, motionless, all but extinguished figures; a seeming endless line of misery, fear, resignation, pain, despair, hope, trouble; and each time, when the door had closed, again in the corridor, suddenly, the unearthly rosy light of evening; always after the horror of the cubicles this cloud of soft, grey golden glory, of which one could not say whether it were dreadful irony or divine consolation.

  At the entrance to the operating theatre Jaffé stopped. Harsh light penetrated the frosted glass panes of the door. Two nurses wheeled in a flat trolley. On it a woman was lyinc;. I encountered her gaze. She did not see me; she was looking somewhere into the remote distance. Yet I winced before those eyes, such courage and composure and calm were in them.

  Jaffé's face was suddenly tired. "I don't know if it was right," said he; "but it would have been no use to try and reassure you with words. You wouldn't have believed me. Now you have seen that most of these people are much more ill than Pat Hollmann; some have nothing left but their hope. Yet the majority will come through, get better again. That's what I wanted to show you."

  I nodded. "You were right," said I.

  "Nine years ago my wife died. She was twenty-five. Never been sick. Flu." He was silent a moment. "You realize why I tell you that?"

  I nodded again.

  "You can't know anything beforehand. The incurable can survive the healthy. Life is a strange phenomenon." His face was now quite wrinkled. A nurse came and whispered something to him. He straightened and nodded toward the theatre. "I must go in now. Don't let Pat see you are worried. That's the main thing. Can you do that?"

  "Yes," said I.

  He shook hands and then went quickly with the nurse through the glass door into the chalk-white lighted room.

  I climbed slowly down the many stairs. The lower I went the darker it became, and on the first floor the electric lamp's were already burning. Then as I came out into the street I saw the rosy twilight flare up once more from the horizon as under some deep breath. Then immediately it was extinguished and turned to grey.

  I remained for some time sitting in the car staring ahead. Then I pulled myself together and drove back to the workshop. Köster was waiting for me at the gate.

  "Did you know?" I asked.

  "Yes," he replied. "But Jaffé wanted to tell you himself." I nodded.

  Köster looked at me.

  "Otto," said I, "I'm not a child, and I know nothing is lost yet. But it may be hard not to betray myself if I have to be alone with Pat to-night. To-morrow will be all right. I'll be through with it by then. Couldn't we all go somewhere together this evening?"

  "Why, sure, Bob. I had thought of that already and fixed it with Gottfried."

  "Then let me have Karl again. I'll drive home and get Pat first and then, in an hour's time, you."

  "Right."

  I drove off. In Nikolaistrasse it struck me that I had forgotten the dog. I turned and went back to get him.

  The shop was not lighted but the door was open. Anton was sitting at the back of the shop on a camp bed. He had' a bottle in his hand. "Tricked me, Gustav did," said he, smelling like a whole distillery.

  The terrier sprang toward me, sniffed me and licked my hand. His eyes shone green in the reflected light that entered from the street. Anton stood up. He swayed and suddenly started weeping.

  "My little dog, now you are going away too. Everything goes away—Thilda dead—Minna gone—tell me, mister, what do the likes of us live for, really?"

  The final touch! The little cheerless, electric light which he now switched on, the decaying smell of the aquariums, the light rustling of the tortoises and the birds, and the little bloated fellow in this shop . . .

  "The big bugs, they know of course—but tell me, mister, the likes of us what do we have to live for, I want to know? What do we poor miserable mongrels have to live for, eh sir?" The monkey uttered a lamentable cry and sprang like a madman to and fro on his perch. His shadow leapt with him, large upon the wall. "Koko," sobbed the little man, who had been sitting alone in the darkness drinking, "my only, come!" He held out the bottle to him. The monkey reached for it.

  "You'll do the creature in, if you give him that to drink," said I.

  "And what of it, mister?" he stuttered. "A few years longer on the chain or not—it's all one—all one—sir."

  I took the dog that was pressing warm against me and went. Graceful, with long, easy movements, it ran beside me to the car.

  I drove home and with the clog on the lead, went cautiously up. In the passage I stopped and looked in the mirror. My face was as usual. I knocked on Pat's door, opened it a little, and let the dog in.

  I remained outside, holding firmly to the lead, and waited. But instead of Pat's voice I heard unexpectedly Frau Zalewski's bass: "Good gracious!"

  Breathing again, I looked in. I had been afraid of the first moment alone with Pat. Now it was all easy; Frau Zalewski was a bulkhead to be relied on.

  She was sitting enthroned at the table, a cup of coffee beside her and a pack of cards spread out in mystic order in front of her. Pat, with shining eyes, was curled up beside her having her future told.

  "Good evening," said I, suddenly very pleased.

  "There he comes," announced Frau Zalewski solemnly. "The short way in the evening hour, beside him a dark gentleman at the top of the house."

  The dog pulled free, and, barking, shot between my legs into the room.

  "My gracious!" cried Pat. "But it's an Irish terrier!"

  "One up to you," said I. "I didn't know that myself, an hour ago."

  She bent down and the dog sprang up stormily on her. "What's his name then, Robby?"

  "No idea. Probably Cognac or Whisky or some such, after his last owner."

  "Does he belong to us?"

  "So far as any living creature can belong to another, yes."

  She was quite breathless with joy. "We'll call him Billy, Robby. My mother had one when she was a girl. She often told me about it. His name was Billy too."

  "Then I've struck it lucky," said I.

  "Is it house-trained?" asked Frau Zalewski.

  "He has a pedigree like a duke," I replied. "And dukes are house-trained."

  "Not when they are little. How old is he then?"

  "Eight months. That is as much as sixteen years with a human being."

  "He doesn't look house-trained," declared Frau Zalewski.

  "He needs washing, that's all."

  Pat stood up and put her arm about Frau Zalewski's shoulder. I looked at her, perplexed. "I've always wanted to have a dog," said she. "You will let us keep him, won't you? You surely haven't anything against it."

  For the first time since I had known her, Frau Zalewski was at a loss what to say. "Well, in that case—so far as I am concerned," she replied. "Of course it is there in the cards. A surprise about a gentleman in the house."

&n
bsp; "Is it also in the cards that we are going out this evening?" I asked.

  Pat laughed. "We hadn't got that far, Robby. We had just arrived at you."

  Frau Zalewski rose and swept up the cards. "You can believe in it, and you cannot believe in it, and you can believe in it mistakenly, like Zalewski. With him the nine of spades always stood as an evil omen above the watery element. He took it to mean he must beware of water. But it was schnapps and Pilsner."

  "Pat," said I when she had gone, and I took her in my arms, "it is wonderful to come home and find you here. It is a constant new surprise to me. When I come up the last flight and open the door, I always have palpitations lest it may not be true."

  She looked at me smiling. She almost never answered when I said that sort of thing. I couldn't have imagined it, and could hardly have suffered it anyway if she had said anything like it—it seemed to me a woman ought not to tell a man that she loves him. Pat's eyes became only radiant and happy, and thereby she said more than many words.

  I held her tight a long time, I felt the warmth, of her skin and the faint fragrance of her hair—I held her tight and there was nothing there but her; the darkness fell away, she lived, she breathed, and nothing was lost.

  "Are we really going out, Robby?" she asked, near to my face.

  "All of us together," I replied. "Köster and Lenz too. Karl is at the door now."

  "And Billy?"

  "Billy comes, of course. What should we do with what is left of the supper otherwise? Or have you eaten already?"

  "No, not yet. I've been waiting for you."

  "But you shouldn't wait for me. Never. It's terrible waiting for someone."

  She shook her head. "You don't understand, Robby. It's only terrible to have nothing to wait for."

  She switched on the light over the looking-glass. "But now I must start to dress, or I shall never be ready. Are you dressing too?"

  "Later," said I. "I'll soon be done. Let me stay here awhile."

  I called the dog to me and sat in the armchair by the window. I liked to sit quietly and watch Pat while she dressed. I was never more aware of mystery, of the eternal strangeness of woman than in watching this light hither-and-thithering before the looking-glass, this contemplative appraisal, this complete absorption in herself, this slipping back into the unconscious sagacity of sex. I could not imagine a woman talking and laughing when she dressed— and if she did, must lack the mystery and inexplicable charm of the ever illusive. I loved Pat's graceful and yet lithe movements before the mirror, it was marvellous to watch how she reached to her hair, or deftly and cautiously . applied an eyebrow pencil to her forehead. She had something then about her of a deer and of a slim panther, and something too of an Amazon before the battle. She forgot everything around her, her face was grave and concentrated, quietly and attentively she held it up to its reflection in the looking-glass, and, as she leaned close toward it, it seemed no longer to be a reflection, but as if two women were there eyeing one another with age-old, knowing look —bold and appraising, out of the twilight of reality and the centuries.

  The fresh breath of evening came in through the open window. I sat quietly there, I had forgotten nothing of the afternoon, I knew it all quite well—but as I looked across at Pat I felt the sombre grief, that had sunk down in me like a stone, begin to be lapped about by a wild hope, change and in some strange way mingle with hope; the one became the other; the grief, the hope, the wind, the evening, and the beautiful girl between the shining mirror and the lights; yes, for a moment I had a strange intuition that just this, and in a real and profound sense, is life: and perhaps happiness even—love with a mixture of sadness, reverence, and silent knowledge.

  Chapter XIX

  I was standing at the cab stand waiting. Gustav came up with his car and pulled in behind me.

  "How's the pup, Robert?" he asked.

  "He's fine," said. I.

  "And you?"

  I waved my hand ill-humouredly. "I'd be fine too, if I could earn a bit more. Think of it, two whole fifty pfennig fares to-day."

  He nodded. "It gets steadily worse. Everything is getting steadily worse. And more to come."

  "Yes, and I absolutely must have some money," said I. "Right now. A lot of money."

  Gustav scratched his chin.

  "A lot of money." Then he looked at me. "There's not a great deal to be picked up anywhere, really. Unless you speculate. What do you say to the tote? There are races to-day. I know a first-rate joint. Made twenty-eight to one on Aida there, just recently."

  "Don't care what it is. Is there a chance, that's the main thing?"

  "Have you backed horses before?"

  "Never."

  "Then you have beginner's luck—we might do something with that." He looked at his watch. "Should we go now? We can just make it."

  "Right." Since the business with the dog I had a lot of confidence in Gustav.

  The betting place was a fairly large room; the right half was a cigar stall, on the left was the totalisator. The show window was hung full of green and pink sporting papers and tips. Along one wall ran a counter with writing materials. Behind it were three men in frenzied activity. One was shouting down the telephone, another was running to and fro with slips in his hands, and the third, a bowler hat on the back of his head, rolling a fat, black Brazilian cigar between his teeth, coatless, with sleeves rolled up, stood behind the counter noting the bets. His shirt was of the most intense violet.

  To my surprise there was plenty of business. They were almost exclusively little people, craftsmen, workers, small clerks, a few pros'titutes and various hangers-on.

  At the door a chap with a dirty, grey mackintosh, grey bowler hat, and threadbare grey sports coat stopped us. "Von Bieling. Tips, gentlemen? Dead certs."

  "Tell your grandmother," said Gustav, who had suddenly taken on a quite different expression.

  "Only fifty pfennigs," urged Bieling. "Know the trainer personally. Out of the old days," he added at a glance from me.

  Gustav was already studying the list of events. "When does the Auteuil come out?" he called across to the counter.

  "Five o'clock," quacked the assistant.

  "Philomene, fat old batch," growled Gustav. "Proper draft horse in sticky weather." He was already sweating with excitement. "What's the next?" he asked.

  "Hoppegarten," said someone beside him.

  Gustav studied further. "We'll put two bucks each on Tristan as a beginning," he announced to me. "Sure thing."

  "Do you know anything about it, then?" I asked.

  "Know anything?" Gustav answered. "I know every horse's hoof."

  "And yet you're backing Tristan?" said someone alongside us. "Slippery Liz. man, your only chance. I know Johnny Burns personally."

  "And I," retorted Gustav imperturbably, "am the owner of Slippery Liz's stable. I know better still."

  He called out bets to the chap at the counter. We received a slip and sat down in the front of the hall where there were some tables and chairs. The air about us was humming with all manner of names. Some workmen were discussing horses racing at Nice, two postmen were studying the weather report from Paris, and an ex-coachman was reminiscing about the time when he drove in trotting races. Only one fat man with bristling hair sat indifferent at his table eating one bread roll after another. Two others were leaning against the wall watching him greedily. Each had a ticket in his hand, but their faces were haggard as if they had not eaten for days.

  The telephone rang loudly. All ears pricked up. The assistant called out the names. Of Tristan not a word was to be heard.

  "Damn," said Gustav and his face flushed. "Solomon's done it. Who'd have thought it, you?" he demanded of Slippery Liz. "You were well down too—also ran."

  Von Bieling appeared between us. "If you'd listened to me, gentlemen—I could have told you Solomon. Only Solomon. If you like, for the next race—"

  Gustav was not even listening. He had comforted himself and was now involved in a tec
hnical discussion with Slippery Liz.

  "Do you know about horses?" Bieling asked me.

  "Not a thing," said I.

  "Then back. Back. But only to-day," he added in a whisper, "and never again. Listen to me. You back—it doesn't matter what—King Lear or Silver Moth—or perhaps L'Heure Bleue. I don't want any money. Give me something if you win, that's all." His chin was trembling with the gambler's passion. I knew from poker the old rule: Beginners often win.

  "All right," said I, "what on?"

  "Whatever you like—whatever you like—"