Everything happened just as Mordhorst had foretold. I found the slip, gave it to the warder when he unlocked the cell, I was taken down to the prison governor and questioned. Then they took me back to my cell and I heard them unlocking another cell-door further up the corridor: they were fetching Lobedanz. I heard no more about the affair that night, nor during the next two days, and this time Mordhorst heard nothing either. Then I was summoned by the governor and informed that the police had searched the barn; the planks at the back were loose but there was nothing under the straw, and in fact nothing was hidden in the barn at all. I went back to my cell deeply disappointed. So Lobedanz had been cleverer than the lot of them, and either he no longer had the things or else he had hidden them in some quite different place. But Mordhorst shook his head at this.
“Just wait,” he said, “there’s more in this than meets the eye, and I’ve already got an idea what it is. Just wait, I’ll get to the bottom of it, and if it’s as I think it is, somebody’s going to have nothing to laugh about.”
He really did find out, at least I believe that what he told me was the truth.
“The fellow who was released had picked it up and sold it. He took it just before the coppers got there—the fools, why couldn’t they move a bit faster! But I tell you, I’ll get the rotten dog, he’ll turn up in clink again, and then he’ll have something to holler about!”
And a name was spread throughout the whole prison, sixty prisoners took note of the name of the man who had turned traitor, and these prisoners would take care that in the course of time the traitor’s name was spread through many other prisons. Everywhere he would be looked on as a common traitor, for even among criminals there is a code of honour of sorts, and he had offended against this code.
But for me, who had played the least part of this game, the immediate consequences were most serious. For one morning when a warder had perhaps been a little sleepy and had not been paying proper attention to his task, I was unsuspectingly taking my bucket along the corridor, and did not notice that, contrary to custom, the door of Lobedanz’s cell was already open, and the gentle fellow leaped out at me like a tiger, knocked me and my bucket to the ground and struck me in the face with both fists so that I lost consciousness almost at once. By now they had told Lobedanz that I was in gaol too, and, prisoner-fashion, had teased and tormented him mercilessly over the loss of his loot. They had probably told him also, that the money that had been taken from him was being kept here at my disposal, and perhaps they had pretended that my stuff had come back into my possession again. Anyhow, Lobedanz was wild with rage, and all these days he had been brooding in his cell, thinking how utterly fruitlessly he had worked on me for weeks, how I had got everything back, and how he was faced with a long prison sentence on my account—and all for nothing! He had seen red, he had been brooding all the time on how he could mark me for life, and his rage and hatred had swept away all his native cowardice and caution. When he saw the cell-door open, he had lain in wait for me, he had got me down, and struck me in the face so that the blood immediately gushed from my nose and mouth. As usual the prisoners watched, unmoved and unconcerned, perhaps a little maliciously; it is not the custom, in prison, to interfere in any scuffle between two inmates. I am convinced that Mordhorst would have stood by me, but Mordhorst was not at hand, he was on the corridor below. And before the warder was able to rush up and pull Lobedanz off, Lobedanz had bent over my face and bitten my nose, so as to mark me for life—oh, he nearly bit half my nose off!
Terrible things happen in gaol, and frequently, and nobody makes any fuss about it. Lobedanz was put in a punishment cell, and later a charge of grievous bodily harm was added to all the rest. They laid me down on the straw-bag in my cell, washed off some of the blood, and waited till the prison doctor, summoned by telephone, arrived. The first thing I heard on regaining consciousness, was Duftermann’s nagging voice, complaining about all this “filth in his cell”, and demanding that I should be put somewhere else; and his voice did not cease to complain about me, as long as he was not asleep, every day that I had to share the cell with him.
In the doctor’s opinion, it was not serious enough for me to be transferred to hospital. He sewed up my nose after a fashion, and declared that everything would be all right in three or four days’ time. But it never did get quite right again; apart from the fact that to this day I cannot bear to look at myself in the mirror, because I am so disfigured and disgusting. No, I cannot smell any more, and I cannot breathe properly through my nose, either. I breathe with my mouth half-open like an idiot, and my sleeping-companions abuse me and jostle me of a night-time because I disturb their sleep with my snoring and groaning. That dog Lobedanz really has marked me for life, and I can never forget him. In fact, Lobedanz made a deeper impression on me than any other human being, even than Magda. Sometimes as I sit here, suddenly the image rises before me of how I stood at the attic-window and saw the town with its red-brown roofs spread at my feet in the evening light, saw the river shining among the green, and beyond, half-hidden in a blueish haze, the roof of my own house, while at my back, Lobedanz was assuring me in a soft whisper that he was a very poor but honest man, and making his joints crack. From the very first moment, I had realised that he was a rogue and a liar, and if I had had a little commonsense and decency I would have left that room there and then, and gone back home to the house in the blue haze. But in my frailty I stayed there and I have paid for it since a thousand times over.
35
I lay for three or four days, amid Duftermann’s abuse; I was in bad pain and I cursed my unhappy lot. All thought of revenging myself on Magda or of instituting divorce proceedings had quite faded away; I would have been glad if they had let me go home to her. I would have fallen on my knees and begged her forgiveness. But this was only a passing mood, it did not last. My feelings towards Magda were to change very often. I never saw the wood-yard again, nor my mate Mordhorst. Strangely enough, in my memory today they seem beautiful peaceful hours that I spent at the saw-bench, in my blue prison jacket, with the tops of the apple and pear trees above me, and the sunny sky.
Then late one afternoon, when I was absolutely in despair at the interminable nagging of that murderous incendiary Duftermann, the lock of the cell-door rattled at a quite unusual time, and the warder came in and cried: “Sommer, get up at once and pack your things! You’re released!”
I started up from my bed and stared at the warder.
“Released,” I whispered, and my heart beat furiously. At last! At last!
“Yes, released,” he said maliciously. “You’re going to the institution. Come on, come on, man, pack your things up! D’you think we’ve got all day?”
“Ah,” I said slowly, and started to pack. “Ah—to the institution!”
Duftermann watched me closely to see that I did not pack any of his precious belongings, and all the time he was telling the warder how glad he was that I was leaving, I was the worst cell-mate in the world, I never spoke a sensible word, and the row I kicked up of a night-time was unbearable. I left without a word to him, I did not even look round.
Below, in the governor’s office, stood a strange warder, who scrutinised me carefully, and I notice that he pulled a face at the sight of me. I was still wearing the bandage on my nose.
“Yes,” said the governor, “this is the man another prisoner tried to bite the nose off. I suppose you heard about it officer?”