Beneath The Wheel Part 9

And then he launched into a good dirty story.

All that Hans could make out at this point was a murky hubbub of voices, and when he had almost finished his second bottle, he found he had difficulty speaking and even laughing. He felt the urge to go over to the cage and tease the birds but after several steps he became dizzy, nearly fell down and carefully retraced his steps.

From that point on his mood of abandon and gaiety began to wane. When he knew he was drunk the whole business of drinking lost its appeal. And as if at a great distance he saw all sorts of misfortunes awaiting him: the way home, trouble with his father and next morning back at the shop. Gradually his head began to ache.

The others had had their fill too. In a lucid moment August decided to pay up and received only meager change for his bill. Gabbing and laughing loudly, they emerged into the street, blinded by the bright evening light. Hans was barely able to walk upright; he leaned unsteadily against August who dragged him along.

The colleague had now become sentimental. He was singing: "Tomorrow I must leave this place," with tears in his eyes.

Actually they wanted to head home but when they pa.s.sed the Swan the journeyman insisted on stopping by briefly. Hans tore free at the entrance.

"I've got to go home," he uttered.

"But you can hardly walk straight by yourself," laughed the journeyman.

"I can. I can. I -- must -- go -- home."

"Well, at least have one schnapps with us. That'll put you back on your feet and settle your stomach. You'll see."

Hans felt a gla.s.s in his hand. He spilled a good deal of it and the rest coursed down his gullet like a firebrand. He was shaken by a strong feeling of nausea. Alone he stumbled down the front steps and came -- he hardly knew how -- out of the village. Houses, fences, gardens wheeled crookedly and confusedly past him. He lay down in a wet meadow under an apple tree. Hideous sensations, agonizing fears and half-finished thoughts kept him from falling asleep. He felt filthy and defiled. How was he to get home? What was he to say to his father? And what was to become of him tomorrow? He felt shattered and wretched as though he would have to rest and sleep and be ashamed of himself for the rest of his life. His head and eyes ached and he did not even feel strong enough to get up and go on.

Suddenly a touch of his former gaiety returned fleetingly; he made a grimace and sang:

"O du lieber Augustin, Augustin, Augustin, O du lieber Augustin, Alles ist hin."

And he had barely finished singing when something in his innermost being flashed with pain, and a murky flood of unclear images and memories, of shame and self-reproach rushed at him. He groaned loudly and sank sobbing into the gra.s.s.

An hour later when it was getting dark he got up and walked unsteadily and with great effort down the hill.

Herr Giebenrath delivered a set of loud curses when his boy did not appear for supper. When nine o'clock struck and he still hadn't come he took out the cane. The fellow seemed to think he'd outgrown his father's rod, did he? Well, he had a little surprise waiting for him at home!

At ten he locked the front door. If his son wanted to carouse all night, he could find himself another bed to sleep in.

Still, he himself could not fall asleep but waited hour after hour with growing anger for Hans to try the door and then timidly pull the bell. He could picture the scene -- that night owl had it coming to him. He'd probably be drunk but he'd sober up fast, the louse, the dirty little sneak. And if he had to break every bone in his body. . .

Finally sleep overcame him and his fury.

At this very instant the boy who was the object of all these threats was drifting slowly down the cool river. All nausea, shame and suffering had pa.s.sed from him; the cold bluish autumn night looked down on the dark shape of his drifting body and the dark water played with his hands and hair and bloodless lips. No one saw him floating downstream, except perhaps an otter setting out even before daybreak for the hunt, eying him cagily as he glided past without a sound. No one knew how he came to be in the water. Perhaps he had lost his way and slipped at some steep spot by the river bank; perhaps he had been thirsty and had lost his balance; perhaps the sight of the beautiful water had attracted him and when he bent over the water the night and the pale moon had seemed so peaceful and restful that weariness and fear drove him with quiet inevitability into the shadow of death.

His body was found sometime during the day and was carried home. The startled father had to put aside his cane and relinquish his pent-up fury. Although he did not weep and made little show of his feelings, he remained awake all that night and occasionally he glanced through a crack in the door at his silent child stretched out on clean sheets: the delicate forehead and pale, intelligent face still made him look like someone special, whose inalienable right is to have a fate different from other people's. The skin on Hans' forehead and hands had been sc.r.a.ped and looked blue and red, the handsome features slumbered, the white lids covered the eyes and the half-open lips looked contented, almost cheerful. It seemed as if the boy's life had been nipped in the bud, as if a spectacular destiny had been thwarted, and his father in his fatigue and solitary grief succ.u.mbed to this happy delusion.

The funeral attracted a great number of curious onlookers. Hans Giebenrath had become a celebrity once again. The princ.i.p.al, the teachers and the pastor once more were involved in his fate. All of them were dressed in their best suits and solemn top hats. They accompanied the funeral procession and stopped for a moment at the graveside to whisper among themselves. The Latin teacher looked especially sad and the pastor said to him softly: "Yes, Professor, he could have really become someone. Isn't it a shame that one has so much bad luck with the best of them?"

Along with the father and old Anna, who wept without stopping, Master Flaig remained standing at the grave.

"Yes, something like that is rough, Herr Giebenrath," he said. "I was fond of the boy too."

"There's no understanding it," sighed Herr Giebenrath. "He was so talented and everything was going so well, the school, the examination -- and then suddenly one misfortune after the other."

The shoemaker pointed after the frock coats disappearing through the churchyard gate.

"There you see a couple of gentlemen," he said softly, "who helped to put him where he is now."

"What?" Giebenrath exclaimed and gave the shoemaker a dubious, frightened look. "But, my G.o.d, how?"

"Take it easy, neighbor. I just meant the schoolmasters."

"But how? What do you mean?"

"Oh nothing. Perhaps you and I failed the boy in a number of ways too, don't you think?"

A serene blue sky stretched over the little town. The river glistened in the valley, the spruce-covered mountains yearned blue and soft into the distance. The shoemaker smiled sadly and took Herr Giebenrath's arm, the arm of a man who now walked with embarra.s.sed, tentative steps out of this calm hour full of oddly painful thoughts down into the lowlands of his accustomed existence.

About the Author.

Born in 1877 in Calw, on the edge of the Black Forest, HERMANN HESSE was brought up in a missionary household where it was a.s.sumed that he would study for the ministry. Hesse's religious crisis (which is often recorded in his novels) led to his fleeing from the Maulbronn seminary in 1891, an unsuccessful cure by a well-known theologian and faith healer, and an attempted suicide. After being expelled from high school, he worked in bookshops for several years -- a usual occupation for budding German authors.

His first novel, Peter Camenzind (1904), describes a youth who leaves his Swiss mountain village to become a poet. This was followed by Unterm Rad (1906), the tale of a schoolboy totally out of touch with his contemporaries, who flees through different cities after his escape from school.

World War I came as a terrific shock, and Hesse joined the pacifist Romain Rolland in antiwar activities -- not only writing antiwar tracts and novels, but editing two newspapers for German prisoners of war. During this period, Hesse's first marriage broke up (reflected or discussed outright in Knulp and Rosshalde), he studied the works of Freud, eventually underwent a.n.a.lysis with Jung, and was for a time a patient in a sanatorium.

In 1919 he moved permanently to Switzerland, and brought out Demian, which reflects his preoccupation with the workings of the subconscious and with psychoa.n.a.lysis. The book was an enormous success, and made Hesse famous throughout Europe.

In 1922 he turned his attention to the East, which he had visited several times before the war, and wrote a novel about Buddha t.i.tled Siddhartha. In 1927 he wrote Steppenwolf, the account of a man torn between animal instincts and bourgeois respectability, and in 1930 he published Narziss und Goldmund, regarded as "Hesse's greatest novel" (New York Times), dealing with the friends.h.i.+p between two medieval priests, one contented with his religion, the other a wanderer endlessly in search of peace and salvation.

Journey to the East appeared in 1932, and there was no major work until 1943, when he brought out Magister Ludi, which won him the n.o.bel Prize in 1946. Until his death in 1962 he lived in seclusion in Montagnola, Switzerland.