Under her gaze I slowly collected my senses.
“But it doesn’t matter, Elinor. Put the money away. I don’t want to see it any more. I can get some more from the bank, I can get as much as you want. Tens of thousands! I come in with a cheque, they say to me: ‘Herr Sommer …’ ”
“So your name’s Sommer?”
“Yes, Sommer’s my name. Erwin Sommer. Like Sommer-time. If you go travelling with me you’ll have Sommer all the time.”
I laughed. But she remained serious. She said, “There you are, pop, somebody’s already stolen your money and things. You can’t manage, in your condition. I’ll look after it for you. It’s quite safe if I keep it for you. Here, I’ll put some money in your pocket. You don’t want to be entirely without money, do you, pop? It’s twenty-three marks. If that gets lost, it doesn’t matter so much.…”
She became more and more insistent. It was ridiculous how seriously she took this silly money.
“And you’ll promise, won’t you, pop, not to tell anybody that I’m keeping your money for you? Nobody? Whatever happens?”
“I’ll never tell anybody, Elinor,” I answered, “I swear. But all this is unnecessary. We’re going away at six o’clock.…”
“Well, you’ve sworn it, pop. You won’t forget. Not a word to anybody, ever. Whatever happens!”
“Not a word, Elinor!”
“My good old pop,” she cried and clasped me in her arms. “And now as a reward you shall be allowed to drink out of my mouth!”
She took a mouthful of kirsch, then she put her lips to mine, I shut my eyes, and from her mouth the kirsch flowed sharp and warm and living into my mouth. It was the sweetest thing I ever experienced. I ceased to exist.
24
I wake up, I look around. No, I am not awake, I am still dreaming. What I just saw was a whitewashed room with an iron grill on one of its sides—that is something out of my dream. I lie there with my eyes shut, I try to remember … something happened in the night. Then my left hand remembers. Quite involuntarily it gropes about the floor and now it encounters the cool smoothness of glass. It raises the bottle to my mouth, and I drink again, with eyes shut I drink Black Forest plum-brandy again. I am with Elinor again! I am with Elinor! Life is beginning again, I swing myself higher … I have only been asleep for a short time and now I’m with Elinor again.
Two, three mouthfuls, and now the bottle is empty. I suck at it, not another drop comes. With a deep sigh I put it down and once again I open my eyes. I see a whitewashed cell, rather dirty, with many inscriptions and obscene drawings scratched on the walls. Very high up on one wall, where it begins to slope, a small barred window. This window is open. Through the opening, I see a pale blue feebly sunlit sky. On its fourth side, this cell has a strong iron-barred grill, exactly like the bars of cages in the Zoo. Outside this grill is a stove, then a door, which is shut. I am imprisoned! I look at my bed. I am lying in my clothes on a miserable iron bedstead, on a straw-bag with a torn blanket. My cell also contains a table, a stool and a terrible stinking bucket. Yes, and the bottle which I have just emptied … I spring up from my bed, I hold the bottle up to the light: there really isn’t a drop in it! Finally I put it away behind the bucket, and while I am doing so, something of the night’s experiences returns …
I see the untidy dimly-lit bar-room, I see myself, Erwin Sommer, proprietor of a market produce business, a respectable citizen of 41 years old, I see myself grappling with the police, resisting arrest tooth and nail—we are rolling on the floor, and the stout landlady with the white hair, who had been so frightened of my gun and who now knows I was only pretending to have a gun, is all the time giving me sly kicks and punches, and suddenly pushing her hand in my face, while I am fighting with the police for my liberty, and at the same time, during the fight, I see Elinor watching us struggling, with an unfathomable smile on her face, but she doesn’t lift a finger to help. Neither does she say a word.
And yet I might perhaps have broken free, for a terror was raging within me that I, a civilised citizen, might be marched off to prison like some nobody, I, a respectable man to whom people raised their hats—in gaol! My desperation gave me such strength, that I might well have wrenched myself free from the sergeant—had it not been for Elinor. At one point of our struggle, perhaps at the very moment when victory was inclining towards me, she was suddenly standing by us with one of my bottles of Black Forest plum-brandy; smiling gently and looking radiantly at me with her pale eyes, she said: “Don’t be upset, pop. The sergeant’ll let you take a bottle of schnaps with you. It’s only for one night, pop, until you’ve got over your jag.”
That dispelled my fighting spirit, and they easily got the mastery of me. Once again, alcohol and Elinor seduced me (they were probably the same poison: alcohol and Elinor); they had deceived me so often, and led me to my most ignominious defeats, and yet I never seemed to learn. I sold my chances of freedom for a bottle of schnaps, and now, there it stands, behind the stinking bucket, empty. And here I stand, between white-washed walls; here is an iron grill, and up there, near the ceiling, a little window. No Freedom, no Elinor. No schnaps. And suddenly I recall the final scene, the very last of the previous night, such a shameful scene that I clench my fists and grind my teeth.… We had come to terms, the policeman and I. He had had a lot to say about the regulations and so on, but I suppose I had given him trouble enough already, and he was probably frightened I might make more difficulties on the way. He had finally agreed that I should take the bottle of schnaps with me; I carried it in my trousers pocket, the cork loose and ready to be pulled out. In return, I had given my word that I wouldn’t resist him any more, and wouldn’t attempt to escape. Despite that, he had put a little steel chain round my right wrist; perhaps he rather mistrusted a drunken man’s word, and now we are standing in the doorway. I turn and say to Elinor: “Good night, Elinor. Thank you for everything, Elinor.”
And she answers in an indifferent voice, “Good night, pop. Sleep well”—just as if I were some regular customer going home to bed after his evening pint. Well, with that we’re ready to go, the sergeant and I, when suddenly the landlady calls in a shrill voice: “What about my wine? And my schnaps? And the broken glasses? The drunken old scoundrel hasn’t paid yet, sergeant! He’s not going to get away with that! Let him pay up first!”
The sergeant looks doubtfully at me, sighs, then asks in a low voice: “Have you got any money?”
I nod.
“Pay up then, so I can get home.”
And aloud: “How much is it?”
The landlady tots it up, and says, “Sixty-seven marks, including service. Oh yes, and there’s the phone call to the police station, sergeant, that makes altogether sixty-seven marks twenty.”
I reach in my pocket, I bring out a little money. I reach into the breast-pocket of my jacket, it is empty. Suddenly I remember … I look at Elinor first with a silent question, then pleading, challenging, insisting … Elinor does not look at me. With a faint unfathomable smile she glances at the little pile of change. I have put down on the table. Then her glance slides away and across to the landlady. Elinor’s lips open a little, the smile broadens on her mouth. The landlady has darted over and counts the money in no time.
“Twenty-three marks!” she shrieks. “You scoundrel! You damned twister, you! First you rob me of my night’s rest and threaten me with a revolver, and then—”
She goes on abusing me. The sergeant listens, bored and yawning. Finally, as the landlady tries to get at my face again with her claws, he wards her off and says: “That’s enough, now, Frau Schulze.” And to me: “Haven’t you really any money?”