I shuddered. The medical officer watched me attentively.
“That was honestly spoken, Sommer,” he said at last. “If this experience has given you such a shock that it has quite cured you of drinking, then we really can take a chance on it. But now you’ll have to try to put your attitude towards your wife in order as well. You’re an easily-offended man, Herr Sommer, but I must tell you quite frankly that in your marriage, your wife is the guiding hand, the superior partner. She’s your good angel, Sommer, and when you drifted away from her, you fell. So get used to the idea that your wife only has the best intentions towards you, subordinate yourself to her a little.… There’s nothing to be ashamed of in that, it doesn’t make a henpecked husband of you. It’s a good thing when the weaker one lets himself be sheltered and guided by the stronger.…”
So the doctor went on talking to me for a long time. It was not easy for me to hear him out without contradiction. It really was not quite as he imagined. Certainly Magda was efficient, but ever since we owned the house, I had managed the business perfectly well without her. True, lately things had not gone so well as before, but that was due to other causes, a few unfortunate accidents, not to my bad management. But anyway, once I got out of this accursed place, I would find my feet again. Let Magda be the guiding hand, I wouldn’t make any trouble for her. So I kept silent and I was reconciled to my new position vis à vis Magda by the thought that she had spoken so well of me to the doctor. So she still loved me!
“So,” said the doctor finally, “I don’t promise you anything definite, I can’t do so. In let’s say three or four weeks’ time I shall present my report, then the court will arrange your hearing, you will get a light sentence, perhaps four weeks, perhaps only fourteen days.…”
“So little?” I cried in astonishment.
“Well, you had better ask a lawyer about that, I don’t want to raise any false hopes. I’m only a doctor. And then when you are at liberty again.…”
“I shall always think of this place, doctor, I promise you!” I concluded.
54
This visit altered at one stroke my thoughts, my feelings, my whole life. Suddenly I saw the most recent past through quite different eyes: I had not been living in an almost comfortable calm and self-sufficiency, but in a paralysis of the will, in almost complete hopelessness, in apathy. Now I understood for the first time how slight my hopes had been of getting out of this dreadful place, how near I had been to renouncing life. Holz’s joy in the little things of life seemed cheap and stupid to me and of an evening I bored the patient fellow with long harangues about all the things I was going to do after my release. For I intended to be very active. Though the doctor had asked my pardon for his frankness, I could not forgive his remarks about Magda’s superior efficiency. The more I thought about it, the falser it seemed. The moment I was out, I would show him and Magda and the whole world how efficient I could be. And I pestered the good-natured Holz with long descriptions of the opportunities offered by the market produce business, opportunities which I, of course, was going to seize on and exploit as quick as lightning. In vain he warned me out of his long experience.
“Sommer, you’re not out yet! Don’t make too many plans! You never know what might happen yet!”
I cried: “What could happen now? It’s up to me entirely, and I’m sure of myself.”
In my work at brush-making I had changed, too. It wasn’t that my work was bad, my hands couldn’t do that now, they could manage without any conscious guidance, and my productivity hardly fell off, either. But I worked now by fits and starts. I would stand half the day at my cell-window, looking for hours on end at the quickly scudding clouds in the sky, enjoying the meadows, the cattle, the woods, and smiling after the girls who raced by on their bicycles. Soon I would belong to all this again, I would be part of the world, no more kept away from it and already a living corpse. Then again I would apply myself to my brush-making with a burning zeal. The work simply flew through my hands, every gesture was just right, in two hours I had finished the finest nailbrush. Sometimes as I worked, I thought with longing of Magda and I heartily wished she could see me at work for once. I could be efficient too, extraordinarily efficient! Even my attitude to my workmates had considerably changed since this interview. If I had avoided them up to now, and never interfered in their quarrels, and left them all to go their own way however disgusting it might be, my present good mood made it possible for me to take part in their conversations, and even on one occasion to call out to a disagreeable fellow: “Thiede, don’t lick the table with your tongue! If the gravy’s been spilt, use your spoon!”
I can’t say that my fellow-sufferers took very kindly to this lively change in my bearing. My witty remarks were mostly received in deep gloomy silence, and my exhortations to good manners brought down vile insults on my head. But all this had little effect on my good-humour.
I only thought to myself: “You poor idiots! In a few weeks I’ll be out, while you’ll have to spend all your lives inside these walls. What do I care about your insults? You just don’t exist for me!”
The change in my way of thinking showed not only in my attitude to things inside the asylum, but also in relations to matters outside. After I had wrestled with myself for two nights, and had talked the matter over thoroughly with Holz, who advised me strongly against it, I got old Herr Holsten to come, a somewhat old-fashioned lawyer, who enjoyed the greatest respect among the respectable citizens of my native town, and who had occasionally advised my firm in odd legal questions that cropped up. With him I drew up a document conferring authority on Magda by power of attorney, and I made a will in which I named Magda as my sole beneficiary. I charged the old gentleman to place the power of attorney in my wife’s hands the very next day, but to deposit the will in court. This was my thanks to Magda for the beautiful way in which she had spoken of me to the medical officer. I was delighted that I could thank her in such an impressive fashion. To be sure, Holz, who at this time did not like to go about with me, groaned: “You’ll regret that in a few days’ time, Sommer. A moment’s thought ought to tell you that you shouldn’t put yourself right into another person’s hands. And what for, anyway? Nobody asked you to, so why do it?”
“I’ve always been a generous man, Holz,” I replied. “I’ve always had a passion for giving.”
I must say that the old lawyer was very far from happy about drawing up these two documents for me. Not that he didn’t agree with their content, quite the contrary.
“It’s always a good thing when a man puts his house in order, Herr Sommer,” he said, “and your wife is of course your nearest relative. You are facing an uncertain future. Have you already selected an advocate for your hearing, or would you like me to defend you?”
“Thank you, thank you,” I said lightly. “I intend to defend myself. In any case the whole affair is just a trifle which my dear fellow townsmen have blown up far too much.”
The lawyer was shocked at my “frivolity” as he called it.
“It’s never a trifle,” cried the old man indignantly, “when a respectable citizen has to go to prison, not just for his own sake, but particularly for the bad example it affords! Let me take on your defence, Herr Sommer, perhaps, almost certainly, I can get you bound over. Then you will avoid the dishonour of going to prison.”