The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Xix Part 59

Victor would have liked, with his glowing gaze, to hide her in a burning bush, so that n.o.body else could approach her. One evening he forgot himself in Hoflinger's presence. Spiele had teased him about his red necktie, which began to look black with wear; she asked whether he would always stay a Garibaldi and offered to sew a new one for him, if he would let her remove the old. He agreed; n.o.body noticed the glow and the tension in his eyes. When she had unfastened the little red rag and was running away with it laughing, he quickly grabbed her hand and caught it between his crooked horse-teeth. Spiele cried out and tore herself away. Victor laughed with embarra.s.sment and excitement.

Hoflinger looked up startled. The tailor's daughter seemed angry and scolded Victor; but her scolding was music to his ears. When he finally noticed the husband's cold and disapproving glare, he showed his teeth again and remarked aggressively: "People ought to be able to take a joke!" Then he struck the table with his fist and went out quickly.

After that incident Hoflinger walked up and down in silence and listened to Spiele, who set about removing a double veil from his eyes.

She told him what a distant and strange husband he was, his head filled with the business of other people and his heart never heeding the need and the loneliness of his wife. Absorbed by other interests, he seemed to leave it to her whether she should continue to hope for the fulfillment of her longing, or like him, however young in years, pa.s.sively give up all hope. She told him what wrong he was directly committing against himself and her, by renouncing what after all, as he well knew, the law of nature would not force her to forego for a long time to come. She left him no room for doubt, that she was going by all means within her power to avoid being cheated out of happiness by his att.i.tude. A large, extensive organization was no compensation for the absence of a single innocent little being, which was perhaps denied them on account of his interest in the other. Not to lose a single trump, she pointed to the fiery young boarder as an example of a real lover. She took Hoflinger by the nose and made him follow all the successive steps in the development of her heart's cause. She did not even fail to show him that a good willing boy was suffering for a wife's faithfulness toward her absent husband, who unsuspectingly and self-complacently was busy with alien things. She poured such a storm of good arguments and sound object-lessons upon the absorbed mind of her partner, that she really succeeded in arresting his attention.

Hoflinger finally stopped and looked at her in astonishment. He had never noticed that his wife had grown from a little girl into a mature woman. It was the first time that he heard her talk like that, and her speech rang so true that one could not help agreeing with her in general. This was what that man of reality enjoyed most in all her argumentation. His eyes grew clearer and clearer before her. What her dances and her tricks had not accomplished, was achieved by this violent thunderstorm. When he had got over his first amazement, he began to rejoice in every fibre of his being; and his face showed a youthful and animated glow which pleased her so much that she allowed the storm to pa.s.s by and to be followed by a partial rainbow. Finally her magnetism so overpowered him, that in spite of the jealousy which gnawed and stung, as she had desired it should, he began to laugh. His.

eyes were so kindly and so enterprising, that she joined in his laughter, and morning and night were turned into another wedding-day.

Victor had been watching behind a tree to see whether Hoflinger would abuse his wife for the incident of the necktie. He witnessed a scene which filled him with burning misery from head to foot. He saw Spiele wrestling with her husband, laughing and brus.h.i.+ng her hair from her forehead and apparently running away from him. He firmly believed that she really feared him and suffered his amorous mood only because she could not help herself. At the end he heard Hoflinger whistle a tune, while he was locking the door of the cottage and bolting the sitting-room, and saw him, candle in hand, follow his wife to her bedroom. Victor decided that this evening cried for revenge in his own and in Spiele's name.

One day a thunderbolt came down before his eyes. Hoflinger took leave for three days and Victor was to remain alone with the idol and the wife. The long one had to take this trip in the interest of the workingmen's consumers' league which was now about to be realized.

Pratteler spent half of each night on his wheel. He ate nothing and drank much. In those days he sought the midday rest with the other laborers and lay down where Hoflinger was wont to take his nap. Having to pay so much more attention to the machine used up his nervous energy, already much tried, and wore him out. He wanted to sleep, but the wild and foolish notion that he might take the place of Hoflinger at night, too, banished the rest he craved. Then he jumped up and went about in the courts and between the steel monsters, wherever the spirit of revolt was brooding and whispering into his ears wild and extravagant words. He breathed more freely when the siren called the herd to work. His task of serving the idol filled him with a dull indifferent hatred; he despised the monster. Sometimes he gave vent to all the bitterness and the scorn his breast was harboring by spitting into the revolving s.h.i.+ning face. But that had not the slightest effect.

The idol continued to screech and wheeze, and its claw greedily grabbed the next iron bar. Then Victor turned away weary and sad at heart, and mounted the iron staircase to attend to the oiling.

At noon Spiele came as usual through the dark gate, jumped off her wheel in her light-footed way and approached his place with a nod.

Recently she was inclined to be late and no longer waited in the crowd.

The first day, eager to cut short the ceremony of taking the lunch-pail from her, he managed to b.u.mp his head against hers. She looked straight at him, surprised at his haste. He trembled like a wall hit by a shot, and did not know whether to fall backward, or forward into her arms.

Both blushed. He exclaimed with embarra.s.sment: "Hopla!" and set the pail down. She scolded him for neglecting his lunch, while his trembling fingers rolled a cigarette and he lapsed into a moody silence. The next day he let her do everything herself. He ate a little, while she explained to him that it was unhealthy for him to be so much on his wheel. Besides, he should raise his handle-bar, for it could not be good for a stomach to float like a cloud over the ground.

It also shocked the nervous system too violently, when the arms alone bore the weight of the body, as was natural when the wheel leaped and b.u.mped over the uneven roadbed. Submissively and somewhat cautiously he replied that she might be right. That evening he obediently drew up the handle-bar by the width of a hand, and lowered the saddle. It was hard for him; but since she was solicitous about his health, there was some consolation in it. He thought she would not care, if she did not love him a little.

When he returned late from a tavern, his pa.s.sion got the better of him.

He went to the door of the sitting-room which led to the bedroom, and firmly pressed down the latch--not softly, but as if he had a right to enter. But the door was bolted. He rapped. Nothing moved; the door remained locked. With aching limbs he went up the stairs to his garret-room; he felt as if smoke were rising from his lungs and his very vitals were on fire. A tempest of thoughts was brewing in his head. In the morning he drank his coffee, pale and tortured. Spiele was invisible. It was not her habit to be present; she always retired once more after serving the men's breakfast and before Victor appeared. But that morning he considered it a special measure upon which she had decided--or a proof of guilt. He had all the day to decide which of the two it was. At noon he asked Spiele incidentally, whether Hoflinger were sure to return that night and observed her from the corner of his eyes. She said "yes" in a rather absent-minded manner, which he at once interpreted as secret sharing of his impatience. Heaving a deep breath he opened all doors to the remotest back gate of his soul to give free entrance to any idea that would promise help. After work he was busy with the idol a few minutes longer, as though he had to put something in order. In reality he loosened some screws and unfastened a coupling.

Then he threw himself once more upon his wheel. He did not return for supper. He sat in the inn down in the valley and only started for the house when he was sure that Hoflinger had returned and the couple had retired.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOORLAND]

The next morning at breakfast Hoflinger scanned him with a searching glance. "Did everything go well with the saw?" he asked with concern.

"Why should it not!" replied Victor sulkily and rose; the last mouthful stuck in his throat. When he rode to the works beside him, Hoflinger noticed the change in his wheel and nodded approvingly: "You are right to obey my wife's suggestion, Pratteler," said he, and added: "You should also give up your extravagant speeding and pedaling for hours at a stretch." Victor was silent. Later other workingmen joined them and greeted Hoflinger eagerly. But he was no more communicative than at other times.

They entered the machine-shop. Before the gable-wall in the background towered the idol. Its immense disk shone treacherously in the morning light. Victor's heart was beating. The siren howled. The belting-gear cracked and rolled up. The first shot rang out behind the halls.

Hoflinger pressed down the lever and let the idol run. It rang the bell and whistled; but there was a crunching noise. Hoflinger listened and hastily threw back the lever; the disk made a sweeping movement.

Silently he went up to the iron gallery. After a moment which seemed an hour to Victor, he came down again. His face was grave; his eyes sought Victor. "Did you do anything to the machine, Pratteler?" asked he with troubled mien. "Is something wrong?" replied Victor much too loud and angry at the ring of his voice. "It ran well until work was over last night. After that I was not near it." Hoflinger cleared his throat.

"Then it is sabotage," said he dejectedly. "But it is senseless and murderous sabotage. If I had not heard that something was wrong, we two should not be going about much longer." He went to the tool box and again ascended the gallery.

Victor did not dare to follow him until he called. They both repaired the damage done. Victor's hands were cold as ice in all the heat that rose from the half-glowing iron blocks. At this moment he felt a violent hatred of Hoflinger and came near throwing him from the gallery. Hoflinger said only that the perpetrator would be expelled from the organization as soon as discovered. That word sounded like a judgment to Victor's ears. It gripped and shocked him in a depth of consciousness he had not yet realized. He began to tremble. He stood unknowingly under the jurisdiction of the power called social morality, and his highflown democratic notions were already so strongly modified, that he came near confessing his guilt to Hoflinger. Yet the impulse only intensified his hatred of the man who by his laconic and deeply ordered life deprived him of one freedom after another, until it became an unendurable torture. He had lost his heart to Spiele's charm over which the enemy had unlimited mastery. Now his self-will, too, was being shattered and pushed under the feet of the marching mult.i.tude.

Something had to happen to give the world breathing-s.p.a.ce. A master shot should explode that whole d.a.m.nable scheme in which his life was about to be sunk and buried.

A week after that incident in the short nine o'clock pause Hoflinger remarked casually, that Spiele would no longer bring them their lunch, and they would have to ride home. He gave no reason for this decision, and, when Victor glanced at him, did not look as if he were inclined to be questioned. Victor said it was all right, and stared dismally before him. Suddenly he took his cup and angrily spilled the coffee on the floor. He was convinced that Hoflinger had learned of the incidents of the first noon and the second night of his absence, and that the change was due to them. So he was again to be punished. Hoflinger had raised his brows in surprise: "Why do you spill that coffee?" "Because I don't like it--d--it!" Victor got up breathing fast and stepped aside.

Beside him glistened the cold disk of the saw; he looked wrathfully at the claw which had stopped about to grab a bar. What a tyrant the long one was! He found out everything; he got out everything from that helpless woman. He surely found it annoying to ride home every noon, but he wanted Victor to feel his power. He wanted to punish and torture him for his devotion to Spiele. And such a fellow was in the executive committee and was esteemed by the ma.s.s!

Suddenly Victor started, trembled and his eyes shudderingly turned away from the monster's claw. Whoever came within its grasp was lost, even if his name was Hoflinger and he was in the committee. Then he would cease to tyrannize over his handsome wife and to lead about by the nose, the ill-advised proletariat. A big humbug would end, and the air would be so much purer than before. Pratteler sighed, gritted his teeth and rapidly measured the idol with a look of distrust and hatred. After that, this beast should be disposed of--what a relief that would be!

Two scoundrels silenced. A giddiness came over him. For an instant he had to hold on to the lever, but the next moment found him once more standing firm and tense in all his muscles on his well-trained cyclist's legs. The siren called. The bells rang sharply through the shops. Five minutes later another shot was heard behind the machine halls. Engineers went watching back and forth. The individual workingman disappeared behind the steel monsters; nothing was seen but the movement of s.h.i.+ning metal limbs. There was a roar, and there a crash. Now an iron cry echoed through s.p.a.ce. An uncanny shrill ringing of bells followed. The walls seemed to throw back a cruel hard laughter. The gearing cracked and rolled. The belts were swaying. Cold bluish lightning flashed all over the machines. The idol wheezed and squealed.

Sabotage had recently become more frequent. Several men had been caught, expelled from the organization and forced to leave the iron-works. If they refused, they were given up to the authorities.

Hoflinger was the most bitter foe of those malefactors. One day he again discovered that screws had been loosened and that some parts of the idol were even missing. In this way the black sheep among the workingmen were trying to take revenge. In the lower strata of the force there was a tendency toward disorganization. A group of secret anarchists and born marauders hoped to bring about general disorder during the strike and to have an occasion either to derive some personal profit or to destroy the whole plant. Though Victor did not belong to them and by his inborn middle-cla.s.s honesty was separated from those wild rebels, still there was a bridge leading from the sh.o.r.es of youthful discontent and ignorance to the camp of those law-breakers, and there was always intercourse through the medium of deserters and newsmongers. Victor realized the danger of sabotage, but he could not grow indignant about it, because he really wished injury to the capitalists.

Hoflinger was of course not ignorant of his ideas. Victor had a bad conscience, though this time he was innocent. He suspected that Hoflinger distrusted him and antic.i.p.ated that he would make use of this opportunity to frame a case against him. He spent a half day full of hatred and torture in helping him to repair the damage, while the engineers walked about excitedly. That clay there was not a moment when Victor did not wish the death of Hoflinger and in his mind was menace to his life. Pain gnawed at his very vitals. He felt as if his lungs were compressed in iron hoops. From time to time his teeth chattered.

Sometimes he had forcibly to collect his senses and was surprised that he was still there and alive. The whole shop moved about him like a wild and treacherous dream-world. Nothing was real in it but his boundless love and his unendurable hate. His bad conscience suggested ever new combinations and was eagerly active to realize the most improbable notions and fancies. If he had still believed in h.e.l.l, he would have imagined in those moments of self-absorption that he was in the midst of it. So the time had come when the seed of despair which he had so sadly and seriously tended in his soul, was quickened.

On a Sat.u.r.day evening, when he paid his board, Hoflinger told him that they had decided not to keep boarders any longer. The announcement was made in a kindly and friendly manner: but Victor listened with secret malice. He grew pale and gave Hoflinger a hostile stare. Hoflinger added that he regretted, that he had liked him, but that everybody had to arrange his life according to his own needs. These were more good words than Victor had ever heard from him, and his suspicion that the recent sabotage and a secret decision of the committee which the long one had carried through, were back of it, rapidly became a conviction.

In his mind he sneered: "We'll see who leaves the house first." He nodded convulsively and left the room with stiff knees. He thought by himself: "He wants me to feel his power" and "He denounced me so as to get me away from his wife. He is a wretched scoundrel one must get rid of!" These three conclusions henceforth determined his thoughts and the direction of his speculations. Before his eyes the claw of the idol continually appeared, rising from the ground and grabbing its prey.

Between the wife and the idol stood nothing but the doomed victim.

Everything else had vanished like smaller beasts at the tiger's coming.

The world had become strangely simplified.

Victor sat seriously brooding on the first step of the stairs to the gallery and stared before him with eyes, sunken and circled with dark rings. A workingman pa.s.sed and remarked laughing: "Get your hair cut, Garibaldi." He looked after him wondering what he meant.

Hoflinger stepped near. The siren shrieked. The electrical bells yelled through the shops. Softly the gearing began to move. The steel beasts came to life again. The first thrill went through the halls. Hundreds of s.h.i.+ning metal limbs were lifted high, slender, irresistible, triumphant. Elbows and fists appeared and disappeared. A low, mocking crackle, tinkle and knocking followed the first movements.

A dull roar slowly swallowed it all. The belts were whizzing and swaying. Once more the machines were masters.

Hoflinger looked surprised at Victor who was still sitting on the iron step, his fists on his knees. "Well, Pratteler, are you going to look on today?" he asked with a halfhearted smile. Victor started. With a bewildered look he braced up, threw back his shoulders and went to work. The strike committee had sent guards and watchmen to prevent sabotage and everything seemed to be quiet. Hoflinger had just received their report and was pleased. "We have quietly put a stop to the tricks of those good-for-nothings," said he to Victor. "The machines run as smoothly as ever." The blood mounted to Victor's face. He had only heard the word "good-for-nothing" and mechanically interpreted its meaning; he was sadly experienced in that sort of thing. He felt sneered at and betrayed all around, and his temper rising, conjured the spirit of revenge. Again before his inner vision he saw the claw rise from the ground; he waited with bent head until it really appeared. Then with three hurried steps he approached Hoflinger.

Looking aside as if by accident, he pushed against the claw and the revolving disk, and waited, blind with excitement, to see what would happen. Six--eight--twelve heartbeats: finally, hearing no outcry, he looked around. One hand on the railing of the stairs, Hoflinger stood, his eyes turned toward him and scanning him with a troubled look, as the other day on the street. "Something seems to be wrong behind there after all," cried Victor his voice pitched too high and shaking with fear. "They are standing about a machine and consulting." That was true. Hoflinger looked in that direction. He resumed his reticent mien and bit his lip. Then he went up the iron stairs to the gallery and staid a long time.

With senseless regularity, without soul or breath, the iron sphinxes turned their hardened limbs. They stretched up their s.h.i.+ning fists and chased the connecting-shafts until they whined and moaned. Cold and haughty glowed the metal. The belts were flying without purpose or restraint. Periodically an explosion was heard. The idol stood in the steady fire of the torrent of sparks that shot from between its teeth.

The iron screamed. Pale and unreal the day looked in through the high windows. Where a sunbeam struck, it was felt as a burning torture.

Through the middle aisle three older workingmen came down with measured steps. Behind every machine heads bobbed up to look after them. Then the engineers approached and the heads vanished. Victor tended the idol and waited for Hoflinger.

When he came down the stairs, Pratteler counted his steps and listened to their sound. He thought he noticed that Hoflinger was afraid. That filled him with radiant joy and with faith in his good conscience. The victim knew that it was doomed. Everything seemed to clear of itself.

In the distance floated and beckoned the future of Spiele: that was the prize. His imagination painted glowing pictures of her life and of her heaven. His love became distorted like a cloud image and the adored form of his sweetheart went under in the wild conflagration. He hoped to see an angel rise from the flames; but at best it was a charred corpse that awaited him.

Like a monster horse the idol neighed. Its swinging disk rang and roared. Sparks flew about. That meant that the block was sawed through and the claw would soon appear--empty. Hoflinger was just stepping to the floor. Pratteler hurried to him and grabbed his arm.

"Come--look--quick--" cried he, hoa.r.s.e with excitement, and tried to drag him along. Hoflinger beat down his hand and stepped back. He looked at him more attentively. Victor threw himself upon him; carried away by his pa.s.sion he began to pummel and shake and drag him about without any sense. Hoflinger's fist came down on his head, but still without full intent. In Pratteler's soul all the long-suppressed rage and wretchedness flared up. Like a cat he leaped at the long one's neck, knocked him with his knees and twisted his feet about his legs to bring him down to the floor. He struck at his eyes and under his chin and tried to grab his throat. Hoflinger was at a disadvantage, because he did not act in temper and his defense was limited to a few straight but honest blows. The claw withdrew empty and appeared once more. The disk rang the bell and roared. The carts approached with their load and returned with it. Victor no longer thought of his prize; he had only in mind Hoflinger's destruction. All means for that purpose seemed justified to him. He did not even care, that he, too, would be ruined--if only Hoflinger were lying dead and in pieces behind the idol and the world were delivered from him and would be free to work out its own fate. When he saw that he was most likely to drag Hoflinger with him to the claw, he directed all his efforts to accomplis.h.i.+ng that purpose. Now Hoflinger grasped the bitter seriousness of the situation, and his blows became heavier and more direct. But whenever he threw Victor with a single blow against the railing, the young man jumped upon him or against his legs, so desperately quick and brutal and clever in his movements, that Hoflinger saw the moment come when he would have to fell him with a last well-aimed blow against the temples.

He believed that the Swiss had become insane.

Nevertheless he had seemed to notice before that the song of the idol was growing weaker, and now he became fully conscious of it. Even Victor in his G.o.d-forsaken mood became aware of it. He struggled a while against this knowledge and continued to fight, but he was startled by it and his attacks seemed to be aimed distractedly. The disk whistled and started to ring the bells. As if struck in his heart, Victor's hands dropped from Hoflinger, and he turned around at the idol. He looked about and about and was sobered. Behind the halls another explosion was heard. The gearings dragged and cracked. Then the machinery stopped. Victor collected his thoughts. It was far from closing-hour, only the middle of the afternoon. His eyes sought Hoflinger as if to question him, but strayed aside bewildered and turned to the sunbeams and their glaring torture. The siren cried. It howled. It blew a triumphant blast. It played tricks like the sirens of a merry-go-round or shoot-the-chutes. Finally it stopped on one note which it repeated with full force, half a minute at the time, again and again and always at the same pitch. The disk shone and shook treacherously. Behind all the machines the forms of workingmen rose.

Victor was amazed at the number of men that these halls had held. Again he looked at the long one, who contemplated him half pitifully, half angrily. He braved that look for a second; then he east his eyes down before the long feet of Hoflinger and awaited his judgment. His heart was beating in brief, timid beats. He could have been directly led to his death without uttering a word or a plea.

Hoflinger cleared his throat. "What is the matter with you, Pratteler?

Is that the way a union member treats a comrade?" His voice trembled with suppressed emotion. Victor listened. His false repose was not equal to this note. At mention of the organization a mult.i.tude of possibilities overwhelmed him. He thought that Hoflinger knew everything, and when he saw him retain his composure he dropped his last claim and looked up to this specimen of human greatness that had grown out of greater depths and had been formed by higher laws than he suspected.

Victor sighed deeply and raised his dim eyes to Hoflinger. "Forgive me, I was crazy," said he shaking his head. "I understand nothing of all this. If you can prevent it, don't have me expelled from the organization. Do you hear? If you want, I will immediately take my leave."

Hoflinger looked at him astonished. "Do you care at all for the union?"

he asked. "I don't understand you. Why should you be expelled? Besides, even if I wanted it, I should not have the power to do it."

Victor's head dropped; suddenly he gave himself up. "It was I who damaged the machine the first time. But not after that. Now you will have to tell on me, Hoflinger. Did you not know it? Why am I to leave your house?"

Hoflinger opened his eyes wide, as if he could not take in enough knowledge of this peculiar fellow. "Because my wife is about to become a mother and wants to be alone with--it, and with me," he replied with tension. "Why did you ask?"

"Oh, I thought it was from revenge--or something." Victor pa.s.sed his trembling hands over his brow and his hair. "It is all humbug," he added with bitterness.

Slowly Hoflinger began to comprehend. "The individual is a humbug, Pratteler," he added with precision and knowingly nodded at him.

"And yet you want to be a father," remarked Victor. "Your child will be nothing better."

Hoflinger grabbed his coat; he saw that all were getting ready and collecting in groups. "A man like me becomes not a father, but a brother, when his wife gives birth to children," he remarked as if to change the subject. "But why did you want to attack me? Did I offend you without knowing?"

Victor reddened violently and shook his head. "I can't tell you," he replied and grabbed his coat.

A workingman came running up the aisle. "Strike!" he called from far and swung his hat. "Strike, Hoflinger!" The long one nodded; it did not seem to surprise him. For him particularly it meant that he would open the food centre and realize his ideal. Victor forgot his coat when he heard the word "strike." Cold and hot s.h.i.+vers ran over him. Now he stood there as a little modest workingman in the great event which the others had prepared. When his eyes took in the situation, he recognized the excellence of the organization and the value of the waiting period which had preceded this date. His coat in hand, he quietly walked behind the two workingmen and his head was humming with thoughts that were neither foolish nor jealous.