And so banners were carried through the capital at the mass demonstrations on national holidays, past the tribunes of the rulers, bearing the sober words: We Love Our Republic!
In this connection W. recalled having confided in Feuerbach that he’d had a long conversation with his landlady. . That had been when autumn was approaching, but the weather was still hot; in his room all summer long W. had felt he was in an incubator; he was completely knackered as he walked up to Feuerbach, a fired-up nervous wreck who slept as he walked and at night, in his sleep, sweated, seethed and conducted crazed dialogues with his lost shadow; they met at the tables outside a small cafe at the eastern end of Frankfurter Allee.
Really? Feuerbach said, astonished (his face brightened despite the blinding afternoon light; he played his astonishment perfectly). You really went up to see her? Then it’s too bad you’ll be moving out. . what was she like, your landlady?
Harry Falbe, as he’d been able to conclude beyond a shadow of doubt from his conversations with her, had completely abandoned the intent to go West a long time ago. .
Impossible! said Feuerbach.
He’s always been open towards his aunt. . I’d say you can depend on it!
Feuerbach’s face had darkened again: That’s a completely false assessment, that’s information we can’t possibly submit. We could never pass it on like that, certainly not when you say aunt. . that’s not his aunt! When the time comes with this Falbe, we’ll have to look sharp. And you’re gullible, you fall for things. What we’re doing here is proving our suspicions against him. . and you’re steering in the opposite direction, you’re making him out to be a saint. As if he weren’t thinking day and night of how to put one over on us!
Why are you so hell-bent on proving something against this pathetic character?
Whether I like it or not, when a guy’s been mixed up in this as long as Falbe has, he simply has to have an intention of some kind. Understand? No, you don’t understand, you don’t want to, you’re playing the sentimental type again. And you think too much about the great scheme of things, about the consequences of what needs to be done. It would be much simpler just to take things one step at a time and leave the rest to take its course, leave it to the people who understand a bit about these things. .
Leave the rest to fate, said W. And we’re fate, is that it?
Fate is old-fashioned. Fate will be getting a new name soon, I daresay! he said darkly.
Still later (or still earlier) he seemed to expand on his ideas. . or seemed to set forth a preliminary stage thereof: You know, you’re like most people, you’re like a reader who has the frightening sense that he doesn’t understand a certain book. This person keeps flipping back and forth through the pages, looking something up again, reading on ahead, starting over and over again. . instead of trusting that the whole thing will gradually reveal itself on its own.
I’ll make a note of that, said W., in other words we should kindly leave all thoughts about our future to the State authorities, yessir, I’ll make a note of that. No one would ask himself if he wouldn’t rather leave the country, everyone would just wait for the step-by-step results to come in. .
Feuerbach laughed and said: But you are the State authorities, young man!
Feuerbach’s thoughts often seemed to correspond to the small-town boss’, or their mindsets seemed embroiled in conflict (incidentally, the two probably would have loathed each other, thought W.); once again, almost automatically, Feuerbach’s speeches had called the boss to mind. Undaunted — all the more when W. tried to escape — the boss had barraged him with his literary views: Of course you could think about going West (he put this forth as though W. had just been thinking out loud on the subject). There were lots of things you could have in your head, especially as a writer. In fact, he’d go even further and say that a writer had to think everything, with thoughts there could be no holding back, or rather, with thoughts there could be no going back. Putting those thoughts into action might be a different thing. . but thinking itself? You’d be amazed at the thoughts we think possible. . and maybe you really will be amazed some day. What would you say. . you’d probably look horrified if I told you a writer has to go so far in his thinking that he can be held criminally liable if that’s deemed necessary. . yes indeed, he has to be willing to go that far! What sort of pathetic literature would we have if the thinking in it were restricted or channelled? Ah well, you know, honestly we have to admit that this is the pathetic literature we’ve got, and exactly for the reasons I said. When what we urgently need in this country is a literature that runs the risk of being condemned lock, stock and barrel by the Party. . and I’m saying this even though I myself am in that Party. You can believe me, you’ve heard it for yourself, I’ve had these thoughts myself for quite some time, I know it’s better not to think them these days. Not out loud, at any rate. . but I’m not a loud thinker anyway, I’m not a literary type. I’m just thinking to myself. But bit by bit literature could start thinking these thoughts louder. . and literature, that’s you! Now I want to tell you something, if you weren’t a writer there’s no way you could come to me in my function with thoughts like that. . but you see, I’ve just exposed myself to you — I think the same way myself!
You say a writer ought to express thoughts for which he could be taken to court. What exactly would this achieve, in your opinion?
What this would achieve? The boss shook his head and looked genuinely baffled. You don’t have a very high opinion of literature! Can you imagine all the things we could achieve with literature? You’d be amazed if you knew. .
Strangely, W. felt utterly eviscerated each time he submitted to one of these sermons (and once again when he recalled the speeches in idle hours). The words had flooded him, seeming to infiltrate through every orifice and fill him like sand. . but once inside him it was immediately clear how used up these thoughts were, how far they had departed from all language sprung from life; they were platitudes, bromides, run thousands of times through the mental mills, at best the wording was original. And here lay a resemblance between Feuerbach’s speechifying and the boss’, even if their messages contradicted each other: ultimately both said the same thing with insultingly dreary contortions. — After letting the memory of one of these lectures run through his mind, W. felt an intense need for simple, even primitive phrases, nothing but sheer human conversation, serving — without a trace of outraged rhetoric — only concrete, artless understanding; he stood once again outside the lamp-bright ground-floor windows of the old days and thirsted for banal utterances, and once again he recalled the boss’ key phrase: You see best from the dark into the light! — But suddenly he had the opportunity to ring Frau Falbe’s doorbell and chat with her. — That April he’d already taken her up on her offer: he’d had to borrow money from her (as he put it), he’d overreached by paying her three month’s rent in advance. She returned him the money and then some; initially he’d thought she was greedy, but that didn’t seem to be the case. However, she immediately offered to ask about a job for him, which gave him a scare. — The next day she reminded him that the husband of a friend of hers was the personnel manager at a nearby service company and could surely recommend some appealing jobs. — This happened a few more times; Frau Falbe seemed to have no other topic of conversation, and she began to get on his nerves. — He couldn’t work until the 1st of May, or June, he told her, because he had to finish up his writing project by then. But after that, he promised for the sake of peace and quiet, he’d take a job. — In secret, though, that was when he planned to move (though it pained him to leave Frau Falbe before winter!); he decided to ask Feuerbach whether the two-and-a-half-room flat was still free. But now of all times the first lieutenant was nowhere to be found (and at that time W. didn’t yet know where he was fairly sure to find him. . at that time: it must have been towards the end of April in his first year in Berlin, a time, that is, which was developing more and more gaps in his recollection).