Beneath the Wheel Read online

  Hans Giebenrath did not stand by him either. It was his duty--he certainly realized this and suffered from his awareness of his cowardly behavior. Unhappy and ashamed, he hid in an alcove not daring to raise his eyes. He felt the urge to go to his friend and he would have given much if he could have done so without anyone noticing. But someone who has been given as serious a sentence as Heilner might as well be blackballed for the time it takes people to speak to you again. Everyone knows that the culprit will be watched and that it is risky and gives you a bad reputation if you have anything to do with him. The benefits the state bestows on its charges have to have a corresponding measure of sharp and strict discipline. The headmaster had said as much in his first address. Hans was aware of this. And in the struggle between duty to his friend and his ambition, his loyalty succumbed. It was his ambition to succeed, to pass his examination with the highest honors, and to play a role in life, but not a romantic or dangerous one. Thus he remained in his corner hideout. There was still time to do the courageous thing, but from moment to moment this became increasingly difficult, and before he had given it any real thought, his inaction had turned into betrayal.

  Heilner did not fail to notice it. The passionate boy felt how he was being avoided and he understood why, but he had counted on Hans. Compared to the woe and outrage he now felt his former melancholy seemed barren and silly. For just a moment he stopped beside Giebenrath. He looked pale and haughty and softly he said:

  "You're nothing but a coward, Giebenrath--go to hell." And then he left, whistling softly, his hands stuck in his pants pockets.

  Fortunately the boys were kept busy by other thoughts and activities. A few days after this incident it suddenly began to snow. Then there was a stretch of clear frosty weather. You could enjoy snowball fights, go ice-skating. Now all of them suddenly realized and discussed the fact that Christmas and their first vacation were imminent. The boys began to pay less attention to Heilner, who went about the school with his head held high, a haughty expression, talking to no one and frequently penning verses in his notebook, a notebook wrapped in black oilcloth which bore the inscription "Songs of a Monk."

  Hoarfrost and frozen snow clung to the oaks, alders, beeches and willows in configurations of fantastic delicacy. On the ponds the crystal-clear ice crackled in the frost. The cloister yard looked like a sculpture garden, A festive mood spread through the rooms and the joy of anticipating Christmas even lent the two imperturbably correct professors a weak aura of benevolence. No one among the students and teachers remained indifferent to Christmas. Heilner began to look somewhat less grim and miserable, and Lucius tried to decide which books and what pair of shoes to take home with him. The letters the parents sent contained promising intimations: inquiries about favorite wishes, reports of "Bake Day," hints about forthcoming surprises and expressions of gladness about the imminent reunion.

  Just before the beginning of the vacation the entire school--particularly Hellas--witnessed another amusing incident. The students had decided to invite the teachers to a Christmas soiree in Hellas, the largest of the rooms. One oration, two recitations, a flute solo and a violin duet had been planned. But more than anything else the boys wanted to include a humorous number in their programs. They discussed and negotiated, made and dropped suggestions without being able to agree. Then Karl Hamel casually remarked that the most amusing number might be a violin solo by Lucius. That hit the spot. A combination of promises, threats and imprecations forced the unhappy musician to lend his services. The program, which the teachers received with a polite invitation, listed as a feature attraction: "Silent Night, air for violin, performed by Emile Lucius, chamber virtuoso." The latter appellation was Lucius' reward for his zealous endeavors in the remote music room.

  Headmaster, professors, tutors, music teacher and the dean of boys were invited and all came to attend the festivities. The music teacher's forehead broke out in cold sweat when Lucius, groomed and combed and sporting a black suit he had borrowed from Hartner, stepped up to the music stand with a gently smiling modesty. Just the way he clenched his bow was an invitation to laughter, and Silent Night, under his fingers, turned into a gripping lament, a groaning, painful song of suffering. He had to start over twice, ripped and hacked the melody apart, kept the beat with his foot and labored like a lumberjack in winter.

  The headmaster nodded cheerfully in the direction of the music teacher, who was ashen with outrage.

  When Lucius launched into the third start and got stuck this time too, he lowered his violin, turned to the audience and excused himself: "It just won't go. But I only started to play the violin this fall."

  "It's all right, Lucius," said the headmaster, "we are grateful to you for your efforts. Just keep at it. Per aspera ad astra."

  Early in the morning of the twenty-fourth of December, the dormitories resounded with noise and activity. A thick layer of finely leafed ice-flowers blossomed on the windowpanes. The water in the washbasin was frozen and a keen wind cut across the cloister yard, but this did not bother anyone. In the dining hall large tureens steamed with coffee, and soon afterward the boys, insulated in thick coats and shawls, wandered in dark clumps across the white fields and through the hushed forest toward the remote railroad station. They were all chattering, joking and laughing loudly, and yet each boy's unexpressed thoughts turned to secret wishes, joys and expectations. Throughout the entire land--in towns, villages and isolated farmhouses--they knew that parents and brothers and sisters were expecting them in warm, festively decorated rooms. For most of them this was their first experience of taking a trip home for Christmas and most of them were aware of being awaited with love and pride.

  They waited on the bitterly cold platform of the little railroad station in the middle of the forest and at no time had they been as united, tolerant and cheerful as now. Only Heilner remained by himself and silent, and when the train pulled into the station he waited until his fellow students had mounted before he found a compartment where he could be alone. Hans saw him once more as they changed trains at the next station, but his feeling of shame and regret vanished beneath the excitement and joy of the trip home.

  There he was met by a satisfied delighted father and a table richly decked with gifts. However, the Giebenrath household could not produce a genuine Christmas atmosphere. There were no Christmas songs, no spontaneous joy in the festivities; there was no mother and no Christmas tree. Giebenrath senior lacked the art of celebrating a feast. But he was proud of his boy and he had not been stingy with presents. And Hans was used to the situation and did not feel that anything was lacking.

  People felt that he did not look well, or well fed, and was far too pale and they doubted whether he got enough to eat at the monastery. He denied this emphatically and assured everyone that he was in good shape except for his frequent headaches. The pastor assured him in this matter by telling him that he had suffered the same headaches while he was young, and thus all problems were solved.

  The river was frozen clear across, and during the holidays it was covered with ice-skaters from morning till night. Hans spent almost every day entirely out of doors wearing a new suit and the green academy cap. He had outgrown his former schoolmates and lived in a much-envied higher realm.

  Chapter Four

  IT IS COMMON knowledge that one or more students will drop out during the course of their four years at the academy. Occasionally one of them will die and be buried while the other students sing hymns, or be taken home with a cortege of friends. At other times a boy will run away or be expelled because of some outrageous misdemeanor. Occasionally--though rarely, and then only in the senior classes--it happens that a boy in despair will find an escape from his adolescent agonies by drowning or shooting himself.

  Hans' class, too, was to lose several of its members, and by a strange coincidence it happened that all of them had roomed in Hellas.

  One of the occupants of Hellas was a modest, flaxen-haired little fellow named Hindinger, whom they call
ed Hindu. He was the son of a tailor from predominantly Catholic Allgau, and was so quiet that only his departure made people take notice of him, and even then not for long. As the desk-neighbor of the parsimonious Lucius, Hindu had had, in his own friendly and unassuming way, a little more to do with him than with the others, but he had had no real friends. Not until they actually missed him did his roommates realize that they were fond of him as a good neighbor who had been undemanding and had represented a calm point in the often excited life of Hellas.

  One day in January he joined the ice-skaters who were going out to cavort on the Horsepond. He himself did not own a pair of skates and simply wanted to watch the others. Soon he began to feel the cold and stomped around the edge of the pond trying to keep warm. While doing so he began to run, lost his way, and came upon another little lake which, because of its warmer and stronger springs, had only a thin sheet of ice. As he stepped across it to go through the reeds, the ice broke, small and light though he was. Close to the edge, he struggled and screamed desperately and then sank unseen into the dark coolness.

  No one noticed he was missing until the first lesson at two o'clock.

  "Where's Hindinger?" the tutor called out.

  No one answered.

  "Someone go look for him in Hellas."

  But he was not to be found there either.

  "He must be delayed somewhere. Let's begin the lesson without him. We are on page forty-seven, verse seven. But I insist that there be no repetition of this sort of thing. You must be punctual."

  When the clock struck three and there still was no sign of Hindinger, the tutor became nervous. He sent for the headmaster, who immediately came to the lecture hall and went through a long series of questions. He then dispatched ten students, a proctor and a tutor to search for Hindinger. Those who stayed behind were assigned a written exercise.

  Around four o'clock the tutor entered the hall without knocking and began whispering in the headmaster's ear.

  "Quiet, everyone," demanded the headmaster. The students sat stock-still in their benches and looked expectantly at him.

  "Your friend Hindinger," he went on more softly, "it appears has drowned in one of the ponds. Now you must go help find him. Professor Meyer will lead the way. Your orders are to follow and obey him and to do nothing on your own initiative."

  Shocked, whispering among themselves, they got underway with the professor in the lead. A couple of men from town with ropes, boards and wooden poles joined the hurried procession. It was bitter cold and the sun was just about to slip behind the woods.

  Just as the small stiff body was recovered and placed on a stretcher in the snow-covered reeds, it became dusk. The students stood in disarray like frightened birds, staring at the corpse and rubbing their stiff, discolored fingers. Not until their drowned comrade was being carried before them on his stretcher were their numb hearts suddenly touched by dread. They smelled death as a deer smells hunters.

  Hans Giebenrath found himself walking next to his former friend, the poet Heilner, in that pitiful and freezing little group. They became aware of each other's proximity when they both stumbled over the same unevenness in the field. Perhaps it was the sight of death that overwhelmed and convinced them momentarily of the futility of all selfishness. In any case, when Hans saw his friend's pale face so near, he suddenly felt a deep, inexplicable ache and reached impulsively for his hand. But Heilner drew back at once and cast an offended and angry look to the side. Then he dropped back to the very rear of the procession.

  At that point the other boy's heart trembled with woe and shame. As he stumbled on across the frozen wastes, there was nothing Hans could do to keep his tears from trickling down his ice-cold cheeks. He realized that there are certain sins and omissions beyond forgiveness and repentance and it seemed to him that the stretcher bore not the tailor's little son but Heilner, who now took all the pain and anger caused by Hans' faithlessness with him far into another world where people were judged not by their grades and examination marks and scholastic success but solely in accord with the purity or impurity of their consciences.

  When they reached the road, they proceeded swiftly to the main monastery, where the entire staff with the headmaster in the lead stood at attention for the dead Hindinger who, if he had been alive, would have quailed at the mere thought of such an honor. The teachers apparently regarded a dead student very differently from a living one. They realized for a fleeting moment how irrecoverable and unique is each life and youth, on whom they perpetrated so much thoughtless harm at other times.

  During the evening and all next day, the presence of the unassuming corpse continued to exert its spell. It softened, muted and wreathed all activity and talk, so that for a brief time quarrels, anger, noise and laughter were invisible, like wood-nymphs who disappear briefly from a lake, leaving it tranquil and seemingly unpopulated. When two boys discussed their drowned comrade, they now used his full name, for Hindu seemed too undignified for a dead person. The quiet Hindu, who had always been lost in the crowd, now permeated the huge monastery with his name and the fact of his death.

  The second day after his death his father came, stayed a few hours in the room where his son lay, was invited to tea by the headmaster, and spent the night in the Stag, a nearby inn.

  Then came the burial. The coffin was given a place of honor in the dormitory and the tailor from Allgau stood beside it, watching everything that was being done. He was a tailor from head to toe; skinny and angular, he wore a black dresscoat with a greenish sheen to it, and narrow, skimpy trousers. In his hand he held a shabby top hat. His small thin face looked grieved, sad and weak, like a penny-candle in the wind; he was both embarrassed and overawed by the headmaster and the professors.

  At the last moment, just before the pallbearers picked up the coffin, the sorry little man stepped forward once more and touched the coffin lid with timid tenderness. He remained there, helplessly fighting his tears, standing in the large quiet room like a withered tree in the winter--it was sorrowful to behold how lost and hopeless and at the mercy of the elements he looked. The pastor took him by the hand and stayed at his side. The tailor put on his fantastically curved top hat and was the first to follow the coffin down the steps, across the cloister, through the old gate and across the white countryside toward the low churchyard wall. While singing hymns at the graveside the students annoyed the music-teacher by not watching his hand beating time. Instead they looked at the lonely, wind-blown figure of the little tailor who stood sad and freezing in the snow, listening with bowed head to the pastor's and headmaster's speeches, nodding to the students, and occasionally fishing with his left hand for a handkerchief in his coat without ever extracting it.

  "I could not help imagining my own father standing there like that," Otto Hartner said afterward. Then they all joined in: "Yes, I thought the same thing."

  Later on the headmaster brought Hindinger's father to Hellas. "Was one of you particularly close to the deceased?" the headmaster asked. At first no one volunteered and Hindu's father stared with misery and fear at the young faces. Then Lucius stepped forward and Hindinger took his hand, held it a while but did not know what to say and soon left again with a humble nod of the head. Thereupon he took leave of the monastery altogether. He had to travel a whole long day through the bright winter landscape before he reached his home where he could tell his wife in what sort of place their Karl lay buried.

  *

  The spell that death had cast over the monastery was soon broken. The teachers were giving reprimands again, the doors were again being slammed and little thought if any was devoted to the former occupant of Hellas. Several boys had contracted colds while standing around that melancholy pond and lay in the infirmary or ran about in felt slippers with shawls wrapped around their throats. Hans Giebenrath had withstood the ordeal intact in health, but he looked older and more serious since the day of misfortune. Something inside him had changed. The boy had become an adolescent, and his soul seemed to hav
e been transferred to another country, where it fluttered about anxiously, knowing no rest. This change was due not so much to shock or sorrow over Hindu's death but to his having suddenly become aware of what he had done to Heilner.

  Heilner lay with two other boys in the infirmary. He had to swallow hot tea, and there was ample time to arrange his impressions of Hindinger's death for possible future use in his poetry. Still, he did not seem overly intent on writing poetry at the moment, for he was languishing and said hardly a word to his fellow patients. His isolation, a consequence of his prolonged room-arrest, had wounded and embittered his sensitive spirit. He could not go long without communicating his feelings and thoughts. The teachers kept a sharp eye on him as a dissatisfied troublemaker; the students avoided him; the tutors treated him with mocking goodwill, and his friends Shakespeare, Lenau and Schiller showed him a different, mightier and more spectacular world than his present oppressive and humiliating surroundings. His Monk Songs, which at first had struck only a melancholy note of isolation, gradually turned into a collection of bitter and hate-filled verses about the monastery, his teachers and fellow students. He took sour pleasure in his martyrdom, derived satisfaction from being misunderstood, and felt like a young Juvenal with his ruthlessly irreverent monk's verses.

  Eight days after the burial, when the two others had recuperated and Heilner was alone in the infirmary, Hans paid him a visit. His greeting sounded timid as he pulled a chair to the bedside and reached for Heilner's hand. Heilner turned morosely toward the wall and seemed quite unapproachable. But Hans refused to be put off. He held on to the hand he had grasped and forced his former friend to look at him. Heilner looked at him with a sneer.

  "What are you after anyway?"

  Hans did not let his hand go.