Georg nods. “It’s a secret! But I’ll reveal it to you. Never do anything complicated when something simple will serve as well. It’s one of the most important secrets of living. Very hard to apply. Especially for intellectuals and romanticists.”
“Anything more?”
“No. But don’t pose as an intellectual Hercules when a pair of new trousers will produce the same result. You won’t irritate your partner and she won’t have to exert herself to follow you; you remain calm and relaxed, and what you want will fall, figuratively speaking, into your lap.”
“Be careful not to get grease on your silk lapels,” I say. “Sprats are drippy.”
“You’re right,” Georg takes off his coat. “One must never press one’s luck. Another important rule.”
He reaches once more for the sprats. “Why don’t you write mottos for a calendar company?” I inquire bitterly of that cheerful purveyor of worldly wisdom. “It’s a shame to waste them on the universe at large.”
“I present them to you. For me they’re a stimulus, not platitudes. Anyone who is melancholy by nature and has to work at a business like mine must do all he can to cheer himself up and mustn’t be choosy about it. Another maxim.”
I see that I cannot get the better of him and withdraw into my room as soon as the box of sprats is empty. But even there I can find no relief—not even at the piano, because of the dead or dying sergeant major—and as for funeral marches, the only possible thing to play, I have enough of them in my head as it is.
Chapter Twenty One
In the window of old Knopfs bedroom a ghost suddenly rises. The sun, striking the panes of our window keeps me for a time from recognizing the sergeant major. So he is still alive and has dragged himself from his bed to the window. His gray head protrudes woodenly from his gray nightgown. “Just look,” I say to Georg. “He doesn’t intend to die between sheets. Theold war horse is going to have a last look at the Werdenbrück Distilleries.”
We gaze at him. His mustache hangs in a sorry tangle over his mouth. His eyes are leaden. He stares out for a while, then turns away.
“That was his last look,” I say. “How touching that even such a soulless slave driver should want to gaze at the world once more before leaving it forever. A theme for Hungermann, the poet of social consciousness.”
“He’s taking a second look,” Georg replies.
I abandon the Presto mimeographing machine, on which I have been turning out catalogue pages for our salesmen, and go back to the window. The sergeant major is standing there again. Beyond the sun-struck pane I see him raise something to his lips and drink. “His medicine!” I say. “To think that even the most hopeless wreck still clings to life! Another theme for Hungermann.”
“That’s not medicine,” Georg replies, who has sharper eyes than mine. “Medicine doesn’t come in schnaps bottles.”
“What?”
We open our window. The reflection disappears, and I see that Georg is right: old Knopf is unmistakably drinking out of a schnaps bottle. “What a good idea!” I say. “His wife has filled a schnaps bottle with water so it will be easier for him to drink. There’s no liquor in his room, you know; everything has been thoroughly searched.”
Georg shakes his head. “If that was water he’d have hurled the bottle out of the window long ago. For as long as I’ve known the old man he’s only used water for washing—and grudgingly at that. What he has there is schnaps; he has kept it hidden somewhere in spite of the search, and you, Ludwig, have before you the edifying spectacle of a man courageously going to meet his fate. The old sergeant major intends to fall on the field of honor with his hand at the enemy’s throat.”
“Oughtn’t we to call his wife?”
“Do you think she could take the bottle away from him?”
“No.”
“The doctor has only given him a few days at best. What difference does it make?”
“The difference between a Christian and a fatalist Herr Knopf!” I shout. “Sergeant Major!”
I don’t know whether he has heard me—but he makes a gesture as though waving to us with the bottle. Then he puts it to his mouth again. “Herr Knopf!” I shout. “Frau Knopf!”
“Too late!” Georg says.
Knopf has lowered the bottle. He makes another circular motion with it. We wait for him to collapse. The doctor has declared that a single drop of alcohol will be fatal. After a while he fades backward into the room like a corpse sinking beneath the water. “A fine death,” Georg says.
“Oughtn’t we to tell the family?”
“Leave them in peace. The old man was a pest. They’ll be happy that it’s all over.”
“I don’t know; attachment sometimes takes strange forms. They could get his stomach pumped out.”
“He’d fight that so hard he’d get a stroke. But telephone the doctor if your conscience is bothering you. Hirshmann.”
I reach the doctor. “Old Knopf has just drunk a small bottle of schnaps,” I say. “We saw it from our window.”
“In one gulp?”
“In two, I believe. What has that to do with it?”
“Nothing. It was just curiosity. May he rest in peace.”
“Isn’t there anything to be done?”
“Nothing,” Hirshmann says. “He’d have died anyway. As a matter of fact, I’m surprised he held out till today. Give him a tombstone in the shape of a bottle.”
“You’re a heartless man,” I say.
“Not heartless, cynical. You ought to know the difference! Cynicism is heart with a minus sign, if that’s any comfort to you. Have a drink in memory of the departed schnaps thrush.”
I put down the telephone. “Georg,” I say, “I believe it’s really high time I changed my profession. It coarsens one too much.”
“It doesn’t coarsen, it only dulls the sensibilities.”
“Even worse. It’s not the thing for a member of the Werdenbrück Poets’ Club. What becomes of our profound wonder, horror, and reverence in the face of death when one measures it in money or in monuments?”
“There’s enough left,” Georg says. “But I understand what you mean. Now let’s go to Eduard’s and drink a silent toast to the old twelve-pointed stag.”
In the afternoon we return. An hour later screams and cries resound from Knopf’s house. “Peace to his ashes,” Georg says. “Come on, we must go over and speak the customary words of comfort.”
“I only hope they all have their mourning clothes ready. That’s the one comfort they need at this moment.”
The door is unlocked. We open it without ringing and stop short. An unexpected picture greets us. Old Knopf is standing in the room, his walking stick in his hand, dressed and ready to go out. His wife and daughters are cowering behind the three sewing machines. Knopf is screeching with rage and striking at them with his cane. Grasping the neck of the nearest sewing machine with one hand for a firm stance, he rains blows with the other. They are not very heavy blows, but Knopf is doing the best he can. Round him on the floor lie the mourning clothes.
It’s easy to see what has happened. Instead of killing him, the schnaps has so enlivened the sergeant major that he has got dressed, probably with the intention of going on his usual round through the inns. Since no one has told him he is sick unto death and his wife has been too terrified of him to summon a priest to prepare him for his passage into blessedness, it has never occurred to Knopf to die. He has already survived a number of attacks and, as far as he is concerned, this is just one more. It is not hard to see why he is enraged—no one enjoys seeing that his family has written him off so completely that they are laying out precious money for mourning weeds.