Another calls heatedly: “Shut your trap, Dräger! What do you always want to be so nosey for? Leave it to the fellow to tell what he wants. You just want to go crawling to the chief in the glass box tomorrow.”
A heated quarrel begins, about who is the head-nurse’s “earwig”. The occupants of other beds join in. Wild abuse is hurled to and fro. I am glad that, at least, they leave me in peace. I am tired, my nose hurts badly. The quarrel is just beginning to die down for lack of material when angry shouting is heard in the corridor, the sound of blows and howls. Our cell door flies open and a figure hurtles in.
A loud voice calls: “Will you get into your own bed instead of hanging round other people’s cells, you damned queen, you!”
And a shrill complaining voice—I recognise it immediately, it is the fang-toothed man: “You’ve hurt me bad, keeper. Keeper, I shan’t be able to work tomorrow!”
“You damned queen, you!” rumbles the voice outside once more. “Hurry up and roll into kip, or else you’re for it!”
The fang-toothed one thrusts his face into my bed.
“Well, new fellow, so you’re under me? I tell you straight, if you don’t lie still in the night, if you wobble about, I’ll come down and wobble you.”
“I’ll lie still all right,” I tell him, and I think anxiously of my rattling and snoring.
The little man undresses with incredible speed and shoots his rags outside the door. Then with a disgusting lack of ceremony he uses the bucket.
“You could have done that outside, Lexer,” calls an indignant voice.
“Are you too posh to breathe my stink?” cries the shrill insolent voice. “We’re real posh in here now the new fellow’s come! O.K. Now I’ll shit more than ever!”
And he lets a thunderous one.
“In hell,” I think. “I have landed in hell. However shall I be able to live here? And sleep? These are not human beings, these are animals. And am I supposed to live here for six weeks, perhaps longer? Perhaps very long? In this hell? This Lexer, or whatever he is called, is a devil!”
They try to question me further. But I do not want to hear or see anything more of them. I pretend to be asleep. And slowly they too become quieter, the shrill hateful voice falls silent. It becomes darker and darker, most of them are probably asleep already. I hear a clock strike three times. What would it be? A quarter to nine? A quarter to ten? I hope the clock strikes the hours as well. That would shorten the night. Above me Lexer tosses restlessly to and fro. My bed sways each time. And I am not supposed to move! I lie quite still, my face hidden in my arm. I am utterly alone with myself, I see clearly that from now on I shall always be utterly alone with myself. I am somewhere where neither love nor friendship can reach, I am in hell … I have sinned for a brief while and I am being punished for it, incredibly severely, for a long time! But one should have known, before one sinned, how severe the punishment would be. One should have been warned beforehand, then one would not have sinned … God, that bit of brandy-drinking, is it really so terrible? That squabble with Magda—well, all right, legally they could make out a case of uttering menaces, but do I have to spend a living death in hell on that account? If Magda knew how I am suffering—she would at least take pity on me, she would help me out of pity, even if she doesn’t love me any more. There is just one hope, and that is the doctor. Dr Stiebing, the medical officer, had not made a bad impression on me during that car journey. He had joked and laughed with Dr Mansfeld like a real human being. Perhaps he is a real human being, not just part of a machine. I will speak to him as to a human being, I will fight for my soul with him, I will save my soul from this hell.
“Sir,” I will say to him, “I take full responsibility for all I have done. I have never been so intoxicated that I did not know what I was doing. I want to be punished severely. I would gladly go to prison for a year, two years. I would do that gladly. But don’t leave me in this place, in this hell, where a man doesn’t know how he will come out again, and perhaps he will only come out feet first. Sir,” I will continue, “you know our family doctor, Dr Mansfeld. You joked and chatted with him in the car. Ask Dr Mansfeld, he has known me for many years. He will confirm that I am a decent, respectable, sober man. That affair was just a sudden attack, I don’t know how it happened myself”—No, I interrupted myself, I mustn’t tell the medical officer that, or he’ll certify me insane. “But Dr Mansfeld will confirm that I have always been decent. I put Magda into a private ward in hospital and paid the high cost of the operation without a murmur, and spared nothing for her comfort. I always was a decent man, sir, let me go back to live among decent men. Give me a chance.…”
The clock strikes, it strikes the hour, a quarter of the long night is past, it is now ten o’clock. And so I spend the first night in the asylum counting quarter-hour after quarter-hour, making speeches and writing letters, between sleeping and waking. Sometimes, exhausted, I have nearly fallen asleep, but then I start up again: Lexer above me has thrown himself about in his bed, or someone has gone over to the bucket. For a ‘joke’ I kept count this first night: from ten o’clock at night till a quarter to six in the morning seven men went to the bucket thirty-eight times. When I wanted to use it in the morning it was full to overflowing. And not a single man used paper—they were past that. Oh, I got to know a fine corner of hell that night.
38
I was clothed by the head-nurse. I got a brown jacket, striped cloth trousers, leather slippers, all new. The head-nurse treated me with discrimination. But perhaps it would have been better if he had given me old rags like the others. They could see I was wearing new things, and it strengthened their dislike of me.
“He wants to be something better than us, the fat swine,” they said, throwing malicious glances at me.
Incidentally, I did something strange while the clothing was being issued. I was allowed to take soap and a toothbrush out of my case, and I was able, in an unwatched moment, to steal a razor-blade. I had done this once before, but then I had been weak and cowardly, I had no idea what was in store for me. Now I would behave differently, I would slash myself without fear of the pain. No, not just yet; what I had done, this secret taking of the razor-blade, was quite a surprise to myself. Not just yet—first I would fight with myself. But should the fight be unavailing … well, all right, when I had had my hearing and my permanent transfer to this institution was confirmed, then, yes, then.… I was not going to spend my life in this hell, that much was certain.
I have taken my first breakfast with my fellow-sufferers. At half past six in the morning, in the rays of the early sun their faces look absolutely disconsolate. Raw faces, animal faces, blunt faces. Over-developed chins or chins completely missing. Cross-eyed men, hunchbacked men, stunted men. As pale and sad as their worn-out clothes. The head-nurse has assigned to me a place at the last table, right back against the wall. That is good. I can see and observe everything and sit quite undisturbed. From the orderly I have got a mug of some hot chicory brew, and the head-nurse has given me three thick slices of bread. Two I spread with margarine and one with jam. I eat them slowly and with great appetite. I chew thoroughly. Who knows what there will be for lunch today? The cabbage-water has frightened me a great deal. Some get more bread, they also get something extra to put on it. The extras may be chives or onion or skim-milk cheese. These, I learn, are the outside workers. They are engaged on heavy work all day, which is why they get such precious titbits.
Shortly after breakfast, the order “Fall in!” is heard, and all those who are working, line up, and are let through the iron-barred door by a keeper, and all that remain behind are the orderlies, the sick, and myself. There are many sick.…