Beneath The Wheel Part 3

The large cistercian monastery of Maulbronn is situated in the northwest of the province among wooded hills and small tranquil lakes. Extensive, solidly constructed and well preserved, the handsome old buildings provide an attractive abode -- they are spectacular both inside and out, and over the centuries they have formed a whole with their beautiful, calm, green environs.

If you want to visit the monastery itself, you step through a picturesque gate in the high wall onto a broad and peaceful square. A fountain with running water is at its center, and there are old, solemn trees. At both sides stand rows of solid stone houses and in the background is the front of the main church with a large romanesque porch, called "The Paradise," of incomparable gracefulness and enchanting beauty. On the mighty roof of the church you can see a tower perched so absurdly small and pointed like a needle that it seems unbelievable it can bear the weight of the bell. The transept, itself a beautiful piece of workmans.h.i.+p, contains as its most precious gem an exquisite wall-chapel. The monks' refectory with its n.o.ble vigorous ribbed vaulting, the oratory, parlor, lay refectory, abbot's house and two churches together form a compact series of buildings. Picturesque walls, bow windows, gardens, a mill and living quarters are like a decorous wreath around the st.u.r.dy and ancient buildings. The broad square lies calm and empty and, in its repose, plays with the shadows of the surrounding trees. Only between noon and one o'clock does a fleeting semblance of life pa.s.s over it. At that time a group of young people step out of the monastery and, losing themselves in that wide expanse, introduce movement, shouts, conversations, laughter, perhaps a little ball-playing, only to disappear again at the end of that hour behind the wall without leaving a trace. It has occurred to many people while they stood on this square that it would be just the right place for the good life and for happiness, for something lively and gratifying to grow, for mature and good people to think glad thoughts and produce beautiful, cheerful works.

This magnificent monastery, hidden behind hills and woods, has long been reserved for the exclusive use of the students of the Protestant Theological Academy in order that their receptive young spirits will be surrounded by an atmosphere of beauty and peace. Simultaneously the young people are removed from the distracting influence of their towns and families and are preserved from the harmful sight of the active life. So it is possible to let them live under the definite impression that their life's goal consists exclusively of the study of Hebrew and Greek and sundry subjects and to turn the thirst of young souls toward pure and ideal studies and enjoyments. In addition there is the important factor of boarding-school life, the imperative need for self-education, the feeling of belonging together. The grant which makes it possible for the academy students to live and study here free of charge makes very sure that they become imbued with an indelible spirit by which you can recognize them forever after. It is a delicate way of branding them. With the exception of the few wild ones who break free, you can distinguish a Maulbronn student as such for the rest of his life.

Boys who still had a mother when they entered the monastery could think back on those days with touching emotions and grat.i.tude. Hans Giebenrath was not one of these; his mother's absence did not move him in the least, but he was in a position to observe scores of other mothers and this made a curious impression on him.

In the wide corridors with their rows of built-in closets, the so-called dormitories, there stood any number of chests and baskets which the owners and their parents were busy unpacking or stacking with their odds and ends. Everyone had been a.s.signed one of these numbered closets and a numbered bookstall in his study room. Sons and parents knelt on the floor while unpacking. The proctor pranced like a prince among them, freely dispensing advice left and right. Suits were spread out, s.h.i.+rts folded, books stacked, shoes and slippers set out in neat rows. Most of the boys had brought the same major articles because all essentials and the clothes you had to bring were prescribed. Tin washbasins with names scratched into them were unpacked and set up in the washroom; sponges, soap dish, comb and toothbrush next to them. Each boy also brought his own lamp, a can of kerosene and a set of table utensils.

The boys were busy and excited. The fathers smiled, tried to be of some help, cast frequent glances at their pocket watches, but were actually quite bored and looked for excuses to sneak off. The mothers were at the heart of all this activity. Piece by piece they unpacked the suits and underwear, smoothed out wrinkles, tugged at strings and then, after deciding on the most efficient placement of each article, distributed everything as neatly and practically as possible in the closet. Admonitions, advice and tender remarks accompanied this flow of laundry.

"You'll have to take extra care of your s.h.i.+rts. They cost three-fifty apiece."

"You should send the laundry home every four weeks by rail. If you need it in a hurry, send it parcel post. The black hat is for Sundays only."

A comfortably fat woman sat perched on top of a high chest teaching her son the art of sewing on b.u.t.tons.

"If you become homesick," another mother was saying, "all you have to do is write. And remember, it's not so long until Christmas."

A pretty woman, who was still quite young, took a last look at her son's overstuffed closet and pa.s.sed her hand lovingly over the piles of linen, jackets and pants. When she was done with this, she began to caress her son, a broad-shouldered, chubby-cheeked boy who was ashamed and tried to fend off his mother. He laughed with embarra.s.sment and then, so as not to appear touched, stuck both hands in his pockets. Their leavetaking seemed to affect the mother much more strongly than her son.

With other students just the opposite was the case. They stared dumbly and helplessly at their busy mothers, and looked as if they would just as soon return home immediately. But the fear of separation and the heightened tenderness and dependency were waging a bitter struggle in all their hearts with their shyness before on-lookers and the first proud signs of their defiant masculinity. Many a boy who wanted nothing more than to burst into tears a.s.sumed an artificially careless expression and pretended that none of this mattered to him. The mothers, noticing this, merely smiled. Most boys, in addition to essentials, had also brought a number of luxury articles. A sackful of apples, a smoked sausage, a basket of baked goods, or something on that order would appear from their chests. Many had brought ice-skates. One skinny, sly-looking fellow drew everyone's attention to himself when he unpacked a whole smoked ham, which he made no attempt to conceal.

It was easy to tell which boys had come straight from home and which had been to boarding school before. Yet even the latter, it was obvious, were excited and tense.

Herr Giebenrath helped his son unpack and set about it in an intelligent and practical fas.h.i.+on. He was done earlier than most other parents and for a while he stood bored and helpless beside Hans. Because everywhere he could see fathers instructing and admonis.h.i.+ng, mothers consoling and advising, sons listening in rapt bewilderment, he felt it was only fitting that he too should start Hans out in life with a few golden words of his own. He reflected for a long time and walked in awkward silence beside his son until he suddenly opened fire with a priceless series of pious cliches -- which Hans received with dumb amazement. That is, until he saw a nearby deacon break out in an amused smile over his father's speech; then he felt ashamed and drew the speaker aside.

"Agreed, you'll be a credit to the good name of the family? You'll obey your superiors?"

"Of course."

His father fell silent and breathed a sigh of relief. Now he began to get seriously bored. Hans, too, began to feel lost. He looked with perplexed curiosity through the window down into the quiet cloister, where old-fas.h.i.+oned peace and dignity presented a curious contrast to the life upstairs. Then he glanced timidly at his fellow students, not one of whom he knew so far. His Stuttgart examination companion seemed not to have pa.s.sed, despite his clever Goppingen Latin. At least Hans could see him nowhere around. Without giving it much real thought, Hans inspected his cla.s.smates. They were similar in kind and number as their accouterments, and it was easy to tell farmers' sons from city boys, the well-to-do from the poor. The sons of the truly wealthy of course entered the academy only rarely, a fact that let you make an inference about their pride, the deeper wisdom of their parents, or about the innate talent of their children -- as the case might be. Nonetheless, a number of professors and higher officials, remembering their own years at the monastery, sent their sons to Maulbronn. Thus you could detect many differences in cloth and cut among the forty-odd black-suited boys. What differentiated them even more clearly from one another were their manners, dialects and bearing. There were lanky fellows from the Black Forest, who had an awkward gait; strutting youths from the Alb; flaxen-haired, wide-mouthed, nimble low-landers with free and easy manners; well-dressed Stuttgarters with pointed shoes and a degenerate -- I mean, overly refined -- accent. Approximately one-fifth of this select group wore spectacles. One, a slight, almost elegant mother's boy from Stuttgart, wore a stiff felt hat and behaved very politely; he was completely unaware that his unusual decorousness had already laid the ground for future ribbing and bullying from the more daring of his companions.

A more discerning observer could certainly see that this timid little group represented a fair cross section of the youth of the land. Alongside a number of perfectly average faces, those you could spot as earnest drudges even from a distance, you discovered no lack of delicate or st.u.r.dy heads behind whose smooth brows presumably existed the still half-asleep dream of a higher life. Perhaps there was among their number one of those clever and stubborn Swabians who would push his way into the mainstream of life and make his ideas, inevitably somewhat dry and narrowly individualistic, the focal point of a new and mighty system. For Swabia supplies the world not only with a fair number of well-prepared theologians but is also graced with a traditional apt.i.tude for philosophical speculation that on more than one occasion has produced noteworthy prophets, not to mention false prophets. And so this productive land, whose politically great tradition has long since pa.s.sed, still exerts its influence on the world if only through the disciplines of theology and philosophy. You will also find that the people in general are endowed with an age-old taste for beautiful form and for poetry that from time to time has given birth to poets and versifiers of the first order.

Nothing specifically Swabian could be observed in the outward customs and furnis.h.i.+ngs of the academy in Maulbronn. On the contrary, side by side with the Latin names left over from the time when it had served as a monastery, a number of new cla.s.sical labels had been affixed. The students' rooms were labeled Forum, h.e.l.las, Athens, Sparta, Acropolis, and the fact that the last and smallest was called Germania seemed to signify a good reason for transforming the Germanic present, if possible, into a Greco-Roman Utopia. Yet even these designations were merely decorative -- Hebrew names would have been just as scholastically appropriate. As chance would have it, the study called Athens was allotted not to the most articulate and free-spirited boys but to a handful of honest dullards; Sparta did not house warriors or ascetics, but a bunch of happy-go-lucky students who lived off-campus. Hans Giebenrath and nine other pupils were a.s.signed to h.e.l.las.

Contrary to his expectations, a surprisingly strange feeling gripped his heart when he entered this cool, spa.r.s.e dormitory with the nine others for the first time and lay down in his narrow schoolboy's bed. A big kerosene lamp dangled from the ceiling. You undressed in its red glow. At a quarter to ten it was extinguished by the proctor. There they lay now, one bed beside the other, between every second bed a stool with clothes on it. Along one of the pillars hung the cord which rang the morning bell. Two or three boys who knew each other from home whispered timidly among themselves, but not for long. The others were strangers and each lay slightly depressed and deathly quiet in his bed. You could hear those who were asleep breathing deeply, or one would suddenly lift an arm and the linen rustled. Hans could not fall asleep for a long time. He listened to his neighbors breathing and after a while heard a strangely anxious noise coming from a bed two away from his. Someone was weeping, his blanket pulled over his head, and Hans felt oddly affected by these moans which seemed to reach him from a remote distance. He himself did not feel homesick though he missed his quiet little room. He only felt a slight dread of such an uncertain and novel situation and of his many new companions. It was not yet midnight and everyone in the hall had fallen asleep. The young sleepers lay side by side in their beds, their cheeks pressed into striped pillows: sad and stubborn, easygoing and timid boys vanquished by the same sweet, sound rest and oblivion. Above the old pointed roofs, towers, bow windows, turret, battlements and gothic arcades there rose a pale half-moon and its light lodged in cornices, on window ledges, poured over gothic windows and romanesque gateways and trembled pale-golden in the generous bowl of the cloister's fountain. A few stripes and spots of yellowish light fell through three windows into h.e.l.las' sleeping quarters and kept the slumbering boys neighborly company, just as it had accompanied the dreams of generations of monks.

Next day, in the oratory, the boys were solemnly received into the academy. The teachers were dressed in their frock coats, the headmaster gave an address, the students sat rapt in thought in their chairs and stole an occasional glance at their parents, sitting way in the back. The mothers looked with pensive smiles at their sons; the fathers sat very erect, followed the speech closely and looked serious and determined. Proud and praiseworthy feelings and high hopes swelled in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and it did not occur to a single one of them that this day he was selling his child for a financial advantage. At the end of the ceremony one student after the other was called by name, stepped up and was accepted into the academy with a handshake by the headmaster and was pledged that, provided he behaved himself, he would be duly sheltered and cared for by the state for the rest of his days. It did not occur to any of the boys, nor to their fathers, that all this would perhaps not really be free.

Much more serious and moving was the moment when they took leave of their departing parents. These were now disappearing -- some on foot, some by coach, others in any kind of transportation they had been able to arrange in the rush. For a long time handkerchiefs continued to flutter in the mild September air until finally the forest swallowed up the last of the travelers and the boys returned to the monastery in a gently pensive mood.

"So, the parents have left," said the proctor.

Now they began to look each other over and become acquainted; first, of course, the boys within each room. Inkpots were filled with ink and the lamps with kerosene, books and notebooks were laid out. They all tried to make themselves at home in their new rooms, a process during which they kept eying each other with curiosity, started their first conversations, asked each other where they were from, what school they had attended, and kept reminding each other of the state examination through which they had sweated together. Groups formed around certain desks and entered into extended conversations; here and there a boyish laugh ventured forth, and by evening the roommates were better acquainted than pa.s.sengers at the end of a long voyage.

Four of Hans' companions in h.e.l.las made an outstanding impression; the rest were more or less above average. First there was Otto Hartner, the son of a Stuttgart professor, a talented, calm, self-a.s.sured boy with perfect manners. He was tall, well-proportioned, well-dressed and impressed the room with his firm and decisive manner. Then there was Karl Hamel, the son of a mayor of a small village in the Swabian Alb. It took some time to get to know him for he was full of contradictions and would drop his seemingly phlegmatic att.i.tude only rarely. Yet when he did he would become impa.s.sioned, extroverted and violent, but not for long; then he would crawl back into his sh.e.l.l and there was no telling whether he was merely being cagey or a truly dispa.s.sionate observer.

A striking though less complicated person was a Hermann Heilner, a Black Forest boy from a good home. It became apparent the first day that he was a poet and esthete and it was rumored that he had written his German exam composition in hexameters. His talk was abundant and vivacious; he owned a good violin and seemed to be exactly what he was on the surface: a youthful combination of sentimentality and lightheadedness. Less obvious was a certain depth of character. He was precocious in body and soul and even now made tentative sallies in directions that were entirely his own.

However, h.e.l.las' most unusual occupant was Emil Lucius, a secretive, wan, flaxen-haired little fellow as tough, industrious and ascetic as an old peasant. Despite his slight and immature build and features, he did not give the impression of being a boy but had something altogether grownup about him, as though he were completed and nothing could any longer be changed. The very first day, while the others were bored, or gabbed, Lucius sat calm and relaxed over a grammar, his thumbs plugged in his ears, and studied away as if he had lost years to make up for.

This sly and reticent fellow's tricks were not discovered for some time, but then he was unmasked as such a crafty cheapskate and egoist that his perfection in these vices gained him a kind of respect, or at least acceptance by the boys. He had evolved a cunning system of usury whose fine points were revealed only by degrees and aroused genuine astonishment. The first step in this program occurred every morning, when Lucius appeared as either the first or last person in the washroom so as to be able to use someone else's soap or towel, or both, in order to conserve his own. In that way he contrived to make his own towel last from two to three weeks. However, the students were supposed to change their towels once a week, and each Monday the head proctor personally oversaw this transaction. Therefore Lucius hung a clean towel on his nail on Monday morning only to take it away again at noon, fold it neatly, replace it in his closet and hang the clean old towel back on the nail. His soap was an especially hard brand and it was difficult to use much of it at any one time. Thus one bar would last him months. Lucius' appearance, however, suffered no neglect. He always looked well groomed, his hair neatly combed and parted, and he took exemplary care of his linen and clothes.

Once the boys were done in the washroom, they went to breakfast, which consisted of a cup of coffee, a lump of sugar and a roll. Most of them did not consider this very rich fare, for young people tend to have a considerable appet.i.te after eight hours of sleep. Lucius was perfectly satisfied, saved his daily lump of sugar and always found takers: two lumps for a penny, or a writing-pad for twenty-five. It follows that he preferred to work in the light of his roommates' lamps in order to conserve his own supply of expensive kerosene. Not that he was the child of poor parents. On the contrary, they were really quite well off. For as a rule it is the case that the children of impoverished parents don't know how to save and economize, but always need exactly as much as they happen to have and don't know what it means to put something aside.

However, Lucius' system not only extended to the realm of tangible goods and personal owners.h.i.+p; in intellectual matters too he sought to gain an advantage whenever he could. Yet he was clever enough never to forget that intellectual property has only relative value. Therefore he concentrated his efforts on those subjects whose a.s.siduous cultivation might bear fruit in a future examination while he was satisfied with middling grades in the rest of his subjects. Whatever he learned and accomplished he would evaluate only as it compared with the achievements of his fellow students; if he had had the choice, he would have preferred to come in first in cla.s.s with half as much knowledge than come in second with double the amount. Therefore you could see him working in the evening undisturbed by the noise his roommates made while they played, and the occasional glance he threw in their direction was without envy, even cheerful, for if all the others were as industrious as he, his efforts would not have proved worthwhile.

No one held these tricks and dodges against the sly little grind. But like all who exaggerate and seek excessive profit, it was not long before he made a fool of himself. As all instruction in the academy was free of charge, it occurred to Lucius to take advantage of the situation by taking violin lessons. Not that he had had previous instruction or an ear or apt.i.tude or even enjoyed music! But he decided it would be possible to learn to play the violin the way you could learn to master arithmetic and Latin. He had heard music might be of use to his career and that it made you popular, and in any case, it cost nothing, for the academy even provided a practice violin.

Herr Haas, the music instructor, was ready to throw a fit when Lucius came and asked to take violin lessons. For Haas knew him only too well from the singing cla.s.s, where Lucius' efforts proved highly amusing to the rest of the students but brought him, the instructor, close to despair. He sought to dissuade Lucius from this project; yet Lucius was not someone easily dissuaded. He put on a delicate and modest smile, invoked his rights and declared his pa.s.sion for music to be overpowering. Thus Lucius was given the worst practice violin, received two lessons a week, and practiced each day for one half-hour. However, after he had practiced once, his roommates informed him it was the last time, and forthwith forbade him his merciless sc.r.a.ping in their presence. From that day on Lucius and his violin moved restlessly about the monastery in search of quiet nooks to practice, and strange squeaking and whining noises would emanate to frighten anyone in the vicinity. Heilner, the poet, said it sounded as though the tortured old violin were screaming out of all its wormholes for mercy. Because Lucius made no progress, the instructor became distraught and impolite, and as a consequence Lucius practiced even more frantically, his self-satisfied shopkeeper's countenance beginning to show signs of distress. It was truly tragic: when the teacher declared him completely incompetent and refused to continue the lessons, the mad pupil next chose the piano and spent further agonizing months until he was worn out and quietly gave up struggling with this instrument. In later years, however, when the conversation turned to music he quietly hinted that he himself had learned to play the violin and the piano at one time but, due to circ.u.mstances beyond his control, had become alienated slowly but surely from these beautiful arts.

h.e.l.las therefore was often in a position to be amused by its comical occupants, for Heilner, the esthete, also was the instigator of many ridiculous scenes. Karl Hamel played the role of the ironical and witty observer. He was one year older than the others -- which gave him a certain advantage. Yet he was not really respected. He was moody and about once a week he felt the need to test his physical prowess in a fight and then he became wild and almost cruel.

Hans Giebenrath watched all these doings with astonishment and went his own quiet way as a good but unexciting companion. He was industrious, almost as industrious as Lucius, and he enjoyed the respect of all his roommates with the exception of Heilner, who had hoisted a banner proclaiming himself a "lighthearted genius" and would occasionally mock Hans for being a grind. These rapidly growing boys got along very well, on the whole, even if the nightly roughhouse in the dormitory led to occasional excesses. For everyone was eager to feel mature and to justify the unaccustomed "Mister" with which the teachers honored them for their good behavior and scholarly seriousness. They all looked back on their grammar-school days with as much disdain as university students on their high-school days. But every so often unadulterated boyishness would break through the dignified facade and a.s.sert its rights. At those times the dormitory would resound with the uproar of rus.h.i.+ng feet and boyish oaths.

For a teacher at such an inst.i.tution it ought to be an instructive and delicious experience to observe how such a horde of boys, after it has lived together for several weeks, begins to resemble a chemical mixture in which drifting clouds and flakes compact, dissolve again and re-form until a number of firm configurations result. After the first shyness has been overcome and after they have all become sufficiently acquainted, there begins a mingling and searching; groups form and friends.h.i.+ps and antipathies become evident. Boys who had been schoolmates before or who came from the same region would link up only rarely. Most boys were on the lookout for new acquaintances -- town boys for farm boys, mountain boys for low-landers -- all in accordance with a secret longing for variety and completion. The young beings groped around indecisively for what suited them best, and out of the awareness of sameness grew the desire for differentiation, and in some cases awakened for the first time the growing germ of a personality out of its childhood slumber. Indescribable little scenes of affection and jealousy took place, grew into pacts of friends.h.i.+p or into declared and stubborn animosities and ended, as the case might be, in a tender relations.h.i.+p with long walks or in wrestling and boxing matches.

Hans did not engage outwardly in any of these activities. Karl Hamel had made him an explicit and stormy offer of his friends.h.i.+p -- Hans had s.h.i.+ed back, startled. Thereupon Hamel at once became friends with a boy from Sparta. Hans remained alone. A powerful longing made the land of friends.h.i.+p glow with alluring colors on the horizon and drew him quietly in that direction. Only his shyness held him back. The gift for entering into an affectionate relations.h.i.+p had withered during his motherless childhood and any demonstration of feelings filled him with horror. Then there was his boyish pride and last but not least his merciless ambition. He was not like Lucius, he was genuinely interested in knowledge, but he resembled Lucius in that he sought to disa.s.sociate himself from everything that might keep him from his work.

So he remained anch.o.r.ed to his desk but pined with jealousy when he watched how happy their friends.h.i.+p made the others. Karl Hamel had not been the right one, but if someone else were to approach him and vigorously seek to win his friends.h.i.+p, he would respond gladly. Like a wallflower he stayed in the background waiting for someone to fetch him, someone more courageous and stronger than himself to tear him away and force him into happiness.

Because their schoolwork, especially Hebrew, kept everyone busy, the first weeks pa.s.sed in a great rush. The many small lakes and ponds that abound in the Maulbronn region reflected the late autumn sky, discolored ash trees, birches and oaks and long twilit evenings. Fall storms romped through beautiful forests cleaning the dried leaves off the branches, and a light h.o.a.rfrost had fallen several times.

The poetic Hermann Heilner had vainly sought to find a congenial friend, and now he roamed every day during free hour through the forests by himself, showing a particular liking for a melancholy brown pond surrounded by reeds and over hung with dried tree crowns. This sad and beautiful forest nook proved immensely attractive to his lyrical temperament. Here he dreamily traced circles in the water with a sprig, read Lenau's Reed Songs, and reclining on the reeds themselves, contemplated the autumnal theme of dying and the transience of all living matter while the falling leaves and the wind sighing through the stark trees added gloomy chords. Frequently he pulled out his small black notebook to write a verse or two.

He was doing precisely that one overcast afternoon in late October when Hans Giebenrath, also by himself, happened on the same locale. He saw the fledgling poet sitting on the narrow boardwalk of the small sluice gate, notebook in lap, a sharpened pencil stuck pensively in his mouth. An open book lay by his side. Slowly Hans stepped closer.

"h.e.l.lo, Heilner. What are you doing there?"

"Reading Homer. And you, Giebenrath, my boy?"

"Do you think I don't know what you're up to?"

"Well?"

"You're writing a poem, of course."

"You think so?"

"Certainly."

"Have a seat."

Giebenrath sat down next to Heilner on the board, let his legs dangle over the water, and watched one brown leaf and then another spiral down through the cool stillness and settle inaudibly on the water's brownish mirror.

"I must say it's sad here," Hans blurted out.

"Yes, yes."

Both of them had lain down on their backs. They saw little else of their autumnal surroundings but a few slanting treetops and the light blue sky with its drifting cloud islands.

"What beautiful clouds!" Hans said, gazing on high.

"Yes, Giebenrath," Heilner sighed. "If only we could be clouds like that."

"What then?"

"Then we would sail along up there, over woods, villages, entire provinces and countries like beautiful s.h.i.+ps. Haven't you ever seen a s.h.i.+p?"

"No, Heilner, have you?"

"Oh yes. My G.o.d, you don't understand any of this if all you can do is study and be a drudge."

"So you think I'm a grind?"

"I didn't say that."

"I'm not as silly as you think by a long shot. But go ahead, tell me about your s.h.i.+ps."

Heilner turned around on his stomach, almost falling in the water in the process. Now he looked at Hans, his hands propping up his chin.

"I saw s.h.i.+ps like that," he went on, "on the Rhine during vacation. One Sunday there was music on the s.h.i.+p, at night, and colored lanterns. The lights were reflected in the water and we sailed downstream with the music. Everyone was drinking Rhine wine and the girls wore white dresses."

Hans listened without replying but he had closed his eyes and saw the s.h.i.+p sail through the night with music and red lights and girls in white dresses.

Heilnei went on: "Yes, things were certainly different then. Who knows anything about things like that around here? All these bores and cowards who grind away and work their fingers to the bone and don't realize that there's something higher than the Hebrew alphabet. You're no different."

Hans kept silent. This Heilner fellow certainly was a strange one. A romantic, a poet. As everyone knew, he worked hardly at all and still he knew quite a bit, he knew how to give good answers, and at the same time despised his learning.

'We're reading Homer," he went on in the same mocking tone, "as though the Odyssey were a cookbook. Two verses an hour and then the whole thing is masticated word by word and inspected until you're ready to throw up. But at the end of the hour the professor will say: 'Notice how nicely the poet has turned this phrase! This has afforded you an insight into the secret of poetic creativity!' Just like a little icing around the aorists and particles so you won't choke on them completely. I don't have any use for that kind of Homer. Anyway, what does all this old Greek stuff matter to us? If one of us ever tried to live a little like a Greek, he'd be out on his tail. And our room is called 'h.e.l.las'! Pure mockery! Why isn't it called 'wastepaper basket' or 'monkey cage' or 'sweatshop'? All this cla.s.sical stuff is a big fake."

He spat into the air.

"Were you working on a poem before?" Hans now asked.

"Yes."

"About what?"

"Here, about the pond and fall."

"Can I see it?"

"No, it's not finished."

"But when it's finished?"

"Sure, if you want to."

The two got up and slowly walked back to the monastery.

"There, have you actually noticed how beautiful that is?" Heilner said as they pa.s.sed the Paradise. "Halls, bow windows, cloisters, refectories, gothic and romanesque, all of it rich with artistry and made with an artist's hand. And who is all this magic for? For a few dozen boys who are poor and are supposed to become pastors. The state seems to be swimming in it."

Hans thought about nothing but Heilner for the rest of the afternoon. What an odd fellow! Hans' worries and desires simply did not exist for him. He had thoughts and words of his own, he lived a richer and freer life, suffered strange ailments and seemed to despise everything around him. He understood the beauty of the ancient columns and walls. And he practiced the mysterious and unusual art of mirroring his soul in verse and of constructing a semblance of life for himself out of his imagination. He was quick and untamable and had more fun in a day than Hans in an entire year. He was melancholy and seemed to relish his own sadness like an unusual condition, alien and delicious.

That very evening Heilner treated the entire room to a performance of his checkered and striking personality. One of their companions, a show-off and mean-spirited fellow by the name of Otto Wenger, picked a quarrel with him. For a short while Heilner stayed calm, witty and superior, then he let his impulse carry him away and he gave Wenger a slap in the face. At once the two became pa.s.sionately and inextricably entangled, drifted and tumbled like a rudderless s.h.i.+p in fits and jerks and half-circles through h.e.l.las, along walls, over chairs, across the floor, neither saying a word, gasping, fuming and foaming at the mouth. The roommates watched this with critical expressions, avoiding the tangle of arms and legs, salvaging their legs, desks and lamps, awaiting the outcome eagerly and with high expectations. After several minutes Heilner rose, not without some effort, freed himself and just stood there breathing heavily. He looked mutilated, his eyes were red, his collar torn and he had a hole in his pants knee. His opponent was about to renew his onslaught but Heilner just crossed his arms and said haughtily: "I won't go on -- if you want, go ahead, hit me." Otto Wenger left cursing. Heilner leaned against his desk, fiddled with his lamp, plunged his hands in his pants pockets and seemed to fall into a reflective far-off mood. Suddenly tears broke from his eyes, one after the other, more and more. This was unheard of. For crying was beyond doubt considered the most despicable thing an academy student could do. And Heilner did nothing to try to conceal it. He did not leave the room, he simply stood there, his face pale from the exertion, looking at the lamp; he did not wipe his tears, did not even take his hands out of his pockets. The others stood around him, curiosity and malice in their faces until Hartner planted himself in front of him and said; "Hey, Heilner, aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

The tearful Heilner slowly looked around, like someone who has just awakened from a deep sleep.

"Feel ashamed -- in front of you?" Then he said loud and derisively: "No, my friend."

He wiped his face, smiled angrily, blew out his lamp and left the room.

Hans Giebenrath had not moved from his desk during the entire incident and only glanced in astonishment at Heilner. Fifteen minutes later, he dared to go look for him. He saw him sitting in the dark chilly dormitory hall in one of the deep window embrasures, immobile, gazing out into the cloister. From the back his shoulders and his narrow, sharply chiseled head looked unusually serious and unboyish. He did not move as Hans stepped up to him. After a while he asked hoa.r.s.ely, without facing Hans: "What's up?"

"It's me," said Hans timidly.

"What do you want?"

"Nothing."

"Well, in that case, why don't you leave?"

Hans was hurt and was about to do just that. Heilner held him back.

"Don't go," he said with a lightness that did not sound convincing. "I didn't mean it like that."

Now they faced each other and at this moment each took his first serious look at the other and tried to imagine that these boyishly smooth features concealed a particular personality and a soul of its very own.

Hermann Heilner slowly extended his arm, took Hans by the shoulder and drew him to him until their faces almost touched. Then Hans was startled to feel the other's lips touch his.

His heart was seized by an unaccustomed tremor. This being together in the dark dormitory and this sudden kiss was something frightening, something new, perhaps something dangerous; it occurred to him how dreadful it would be if he were caught, for he realized how much more ridiculous and shameful kissing would seem to the others than crying. There was nothing he could say, but the blood rose to his head and he wanted to run away.

An adult witnessing this little scene might have derived a quiet joy from it, from the tenderly inept shyness and the earnestness of these two narrow faces, both of them handsome, promising, boyish yet marked half with childish grace and half with shy yet attractive adolescent defiance.

The young students had now grown accustomed to one another. They each had formed some picture of the others and numerous friends.h.i.+ps had been struck. There were couples who learned Hebrew verbs together or painted, went for walks or read Schiller. There were students who were bad in math but good in Latin who had paired up with students good in math but bad in Latin so as to enjoy the fruits of cooperation. But there were also friends.h.i.+ps whose basis was a kind of contract and sharing of tangible goods. Thus the much-envied owner of the whole ham had found his better half in the person of a gardener's son from Stammheim whose closet floor was piled high with apples. Once while eating his ham he asked the gardener's son for an apple, offering him a slice of ham in exchange. They promptly sat down together, and their careful conversation revealed that there were many more hams where this came from and the apple owner too could draw freely on his father's supply. In that fas.h.i.+on a solid friends.h.i.+p came into being, one which outlasted many a more idealistic and impetuous pact.

There were only a few boys who remained single, and among them was Lucius, whose acquisitive devotion to the art of music was still in full bloom at that time.

There also were some badly matched pairs. Hermann Heilner and Hans Giebenrath, the lightheaded and the conscientious, the poet and the grind, were regarded as possibly the most ill-matched. Although both were considered to be two of the brightest and most gifted students, Heilner enjoyed the half-mocking reputation of being a genius while Hans bore the stigma of being a model boy. Still, since everyone else was preoccupied with his own friends.h.i.+p, these two were left pretty much to themselves.