The discolored black moves no one; it becomes commonplace when seen on every second arm. The inhabitants of the apartment buildings have paused in their gateways and are staring at those who no longer have a home. It may be that as they do so they feel something in the manner of sympathy, but if I am one of these observers moved by their own goodness, after a moment I have to turn away in embarrassment. Sympathy that is utterly devoid of readiness to help seems to me discomfiting and unnecessary. It’ll occur to me rather that our hearts are too soft, that’s the problem. Besides, is pity not pathetic in itself? Who is the pity for? For an overabundant multitude in which each figure bears some mark of unsightliness corresponding to imperfections in their clothing. The idea that these blemishes conceal faults of character suggests itself automatically. The first impression is unfavorable. They are too big or too small, too skinny or too fat. The more of these figures there are, the more clearly the ugliness can be seen to be distributed among them in equal measure.
Multiplied by a sufficiently large number, the defects of appearance encumber the entire crowd like collective guilt. And the newcomers are as numerous as the inhabitants of the square; the latter will feel overwhelmed and powerless in the face of the distressing change that the mild morning has brought them without any warning. They begin to fill with resentment, because they see that above all they themselves are the victims. The change has been imposed at the cost of space that is rightfully theirs. To say nothing of the fact that their flower bed, the centerpiece of the square, has no hope of surviving intact. But to the painful question of why the refugees are encamped under their windows in particular, there will be no reply. If this is my story, I observe the development of events with distaste and resignation. It wasn’t the purpose of the streetcar to bring this wretched crowd. And now what has happened has happened, and cannot be changed.
The sheer numbers of this uninvited mass would have appalled the clerks of the government offices if they had not previously abandoned their observation posts by the windows overlooking the square. They would have watched the green of the lawn disappear entirely from view, everything blocked out by the overcoats — a profusion of dark cloth, black and navy blue, beneath which was the unseen padding, and beneath that the smooth lining. Nor was that alclass="underline" beneath the lining there were successive layers of fabric, all the way down to fustian undergarments. The material made of different kinds of fibers disturbs the purity of the space — it’s crammed together tightly in its excess, which accompanies the excess of characters. Under cover of an opaque curtain of mixed shades and textures, the newcomers may well end up trampling the flower bed. Looking down on the square at the present moment, the clerks, and especially their bosses, would have had to ask the official questions: who are these people, where are they from, and what ought to be done with them? Should they be dispatched without delay back where they came from, or, on the contrary, should a room be set up in the offices where they can turn in their applications and be issued residence permits bearing treasury stamps and a seal with the national emblem? But there is no one left to wonder what should be done with the crowd, which has gradually taken over the entire expanse of the square and is now sitting about on suitcases amid the lingering smell of mothballs, waiting for who knows what conclusion.
An order announced by megaphone has settled the matter of pedestrian traffic: from now on nonresidents are prohibited from crossing the boundary line of the streetcar tracks. What more could be demanded of the policeman in the face of so many adverse circumstances, which his absent superiors have left him to deal with on his own? It will not be at all easy to immortalize them in his daily report. He’s already done everything within his power. He did not forget to check the identification documents of the newcomers, or even to prepare a short memo, at least concerning the first family that arrived, before his pencil broke. Did he not ask searching questions about the children from the orphanage? He even managed to establish that before they were brought here on the streetcar they had been left to their own devices by their irresponsible or perhaps helpless guardians. If I am the policeman, no coup d’état will release me from duties that have become onerous to me, nor will it relieve me of the nuisance of having to submit reports. Nor do I know, or want to know, about the destruction that cannot be seen from here, unless my superiors inform me about it in a separate memorandum setting out exactly what is expected of me. Considering his meager salary, the policeman still manages to maintain an exemplary orderliness on his beat, while everywhere around him promotions are being handed out to arrogant striplings with no experience and no accomplishments, people whose only strong point turns out to be their handwriting. Nor will things be different this time; the policeman will be kept from advancement by superiors with the same taste for calligraphy as their predecessors, whose star has just fallen and been extinguished.
This is where the painful heart of the matter lies: in poorly formed letters and spelling mistakes. In the inflexible yet obscure principles of grammar. Thoughts flounder unhappily among them, straightforward yet entangled. There exists an exception to every rule, and so no rule can be relied upon. Every evening, with the same chewed-up pen in his hand, the policeman laboriously composes his clumsy sentences; the nib creaks torpidly, and ink spatters on the sheet of foolscap. It’s all for nothing. His only reward is scorn and disregard, and perpetual injustice done to him and his family. After all these years of service there has been no raise, even though he has a wife and children to support. His uniform allowance goes towards the costs of daily life, and even so he’s barely able to make ends meet. On top of everything, he even has to pay for the ink out of his own pocket. Since this is how things are, the policeman with his rather watery gaze cannot be expected to see through the falsifications in the invoices circulating far beyond his reach, nor to notice the actions of the true perpetrators of the confusion, since there has not even been a notification from which he could have learned about the existence of the back areas. How then could he have perceived the connection between it and the catastrophe brought about deliberately so as to kick over the traces? All the more, then, the policeman cannot be expected of his own volition to gather evidence in a matter for which the arms of even the highest-ranking functionaries are not long enough, and their eyes too slow; or that he alone will set the bureaucratic machine in motion. He would have to be mad to exert himself to such extremes.