The Black Obelisk (20 page)

"Would you kill them?" Wernicke asks in return.

"I don't know. It's the same as when someone is dying slowly and hopelessly and you know he is suffering. Would you give him an injection to save him days of pain?"

Wernicke makes no reply.

"Fortunately Bodendiek is not here," I say. "So we don't have to indulge in a moral and religious discussion. I had a comrade whose belly was ripped open like a butcher shop. He pleaded with us to shoot him. We took him to the field hospital. There he screamed for three days, then he died. Three days is a long time when you're roaring with pain. I have seen many people perish. Not die—perish. All of them would have been helped by an injection. My mother among them."

Wernicke remains silent

"All right," I say. "I know: to put an end to life in any creature is always like murder. Since my war experience I don't even like to kill a fly. Nevertheless, my portion of veal tasted fine tonight, and yet a calf had to be killed so that we could have it. Those are the old paradoxes, the incomplete logic. Life is a miracle, even in a calf or a fly. Particularly in a fly, that acrobat with its thousand-faceted eyes. It is always a miracle. But it always comes to an end. Why in time of peace do we kill a sick dog and not a suffering human being? And yet we murder millions in useless wars."

Wernicke still makes no reply. A big June bug is buzzing around the lamp. It strikes the bulb, falls, scrambles up, and flies once more, circling the light afresh. Experience has taught it nothing.

"Bodendiek, that son of the Church, naturally has an answer for everything," I say. "Animals have no soul; human beings do. But what becomes of that bit of soul when some convolution in the brain is injured? Where is it when someone becomes an idiot? Is it already in heaven? Or is it waiting somewhere for the twisted remnant that still causes a human body to slaver, eat, and defecate? I've seen some of your cases in the closed wards—animals are gods by comparison. What has become of the soul of an idiot? Is it divisible? Or is it hanging like an invisible balloon over the poor, muttering skull?"

Wernicke makes a gesture as though brushing away an insect.

"All right," I say. "That's a question for Bodendiek, who will answer it with the greatest ease. Bodendiek can solve everything with the great unknown God, with heaven and hell, the reward for suffering and the punishment for wickedness. No one has ever had any proof—faith alone makes one blessed, according to Bodendiek. But then why have we been given reason, the critical faculty, and the yearning for proof? Just in order not to use them? That's a strange game for the great Unknown to play! And what is reverence for life? Fear of death? Fear, always fear! Why? And why can we ask questions when there are no answers?"

"Finished?" Wernicke asks.

"No—but I'm not going to ask you anything more."

"Good. I couldn't answer anyway. You know that at least, don't you?"

"Of course. Why should it be just you who could when all the libraries in the world have only speculations for answer?"

The June bug has come to grief on its second flight. It scrambles to its legs again and begins a third. Its wings are like polished blue steel. It is a beautiful utilitarian machine; but faced by light it is like an alcoholic with a bottle of schnaps.

Wernicke pours the remainder of the Moselle into our glasses. "How long were you in the war?"

"Three years."

"Remarkable!"

I make no reply. I can guess what he is thinking and I have no desire to go into all that again. Instead he asks: "Do you believe that reason is a part of the soul?"

"I don't know. But do you believe that the debased creatures creeping about and soiling themselves in the closed wards still have souls?"

Wernicke reaches for his glass. "All that is simple for me," he says. "I'm a scientist. I don't believe in anything at all. I simply observe. Bodendiek, on the other hand, believes a priori! Between the two you flutter about in uncertainty. Do you see that June bug?"

The June bug is engaged in its fifth attack. He will go on doing it until he dies. Wernicke turns off the lamp. "There, that will help."

The night comes in, big and blue, through the open window, bringing with it the smell of earth, of flowers, and the sparkling of the stars. Everything I have said immediately seems to me dreadfully silly. The June bug makes one more buzzing circuit and then steers safely through the window.

"Chaos," Wernicke says. "Is it really chaos? Or is it only so for us? Have you ever considered how the world would be if we had one more sense?"

"No."

"But with one sense less?"

I reflect. "Then you would be blind, or deaf, or you couldn't taste. It would make a big difference."

"And with one sense more? Why should we always be limited to five? Why couldn't we perhaps develop six someday? Or eight? Or twelve? Wouldn't the world be completely different? Perhaps with the sixth our concept of time would disappear. Or our concept of space. Or of death. Or of pain. Or of morality. Certainly our present concept of life. We wander through our existence with pretty limited organs. A dog can hear better than any human being. A bat finds its way blind through all obstacles. A butterfly has a radio receiver that enables it to fly for miles directly to its mate. Migrating birds are vastly superior to us in their orientation. Snakes can hear with their skin. There are hundreds of such examples in natural history. So how can we know anything for certain? The extension of one organ or the development of a new one—and the world changes, life changes, and our concept of God changes.
Prost!
"

I lift my glass and drink. The Moselle is tart and earthy. "And so it's better to wait till we have a sixth sense, eh?" I say.

"That's not necessary. You can do what you like. But it's a good thing to know that one more sense would knock all our conclusions into a cocked hat. That puts an end to too much solemnity, doesn't it? How's the wine?"

"Good. How is Fräulein Terhoven? Better?"

"Worse. Her mother was here; she didn't recognize her."

"Perhaps she didn't want to."

"That's practically the same thing; she didn't recognize her. She screamed at her to go away. A typical case."

"Why?"

"Do you want to listen to a long lecture on schizophrenia, mother complexes, flight from one's self, and the effects of shock?"

"Yes," I say. "Today I do."

"You won't hear it. Only the essentials. A split personality is usually flight from one's self."

"What is one's self?"

Wernicke looks at me. "We'll not go into that today. Flight into another personality. Or into several. Usually, however, the patient keeps returning for a shorter or longer period into his own. Not Geneviève. Not for a long time. You, for example, have never seen her as she really is."

"She seems quite reasonable as she is now," I say without conviction.

Wernicke laughs. "What is reason? Logical thought?"

I think about the two new senses we are to have and make no reply. "Is she very sick?" I ask.

"According to our experience, she is. But there have been quick and often amazing cures."

"Cures—from what?"

"From her sickness," Wernicke says, lighting a cigarette.

"She is often quite happy. Why don't you leave her the way she is?"

"Because her mother is paying for the treatment," Wernicke explains dryly. "Besides, she is not happy."

"Do you believe she would be happier if she were healthy?"

"Probably not. She is sensitive, intelligent, obviously full of imagination, and probably the bearer of a hereditary taint. Qualities that do not necessarily make for happiness. If she had been happy, she would hardly have taken flight."

"Then why isn't she left in peace?"

"Yes, why not?" Wernicke says. "I have often asked myself that question. Why operate on the sick when you know the operation will not help? Shall we write down a list of whys? It would be long. One of the whys would be: Why don't you drink your wine and shut up? And why don't you pay attention to the night instead of to your immature brain? Why do you talk about life instead of living it?"

He stands up and stretches. "I must make my evening rounds in the closed wards. Want to come along?"

"Yes."

"Put on a white gown. I'll take you to a special ward. Afterward you'll either be sick or able to enjoy your wine with profound thankfulness."

"The bottle's empty."

"I have another in my room. Perhaps we'll need it. Do you know what's remarkable? For your twenty-five years you've seen a considerable amount of death, suffering, and human idiocy—nevertheless, you seem to have learned nothing from all of it except to ask the silliest questions imaginable. But probably that's the way of the world—when we have finally learned something we're too old to apply it—and so it goes, wave after wave, generation after generation. No one learns anything at all from anyone else. Come along!"

We are sitting in the Café Central—Georg, Willy, and I. This night I did not want to stay at home alone. Wernicke has shown me a ward in the insane asylum I had never seen before—where the war casualties are, men with head wounds, men who were buried, and men who went to pieces. In the mild summer evening this ward stood there like a dark dugout amid the song of nightingales. The war, which has already been almost forgotten by everyone, still goes on ceaselessly in these rooms. Grenades explode in these poor ears; the eyes reflect, just as they did four years ago, an incredulous horror; bayonets continue to bore into defenseless stomachs, hourly, tanks crush the screaming wounded, flattening them like flounders; the noise of battle, the crash of hand grenades, the splitting of skulls, the roar of mines, the suffocation in collapsing dugouts, they all have been preserved here through a horrible black magic and go on silently in this pavilion in the midst of roses and summer. Orders are given and inaudible orders are obeyed. Beds are trenches and dugouts, constantly buried and constantly excavated anew; there is dying and killing, strangling and suffocation; gas sweeps through these rooms and agonies of terror find expression in shouts and creeping and horrified groans and tears and often simply in a silent cowering in a corner, compressed into the smallest possible space, with faces pressed hard against the wall—

"Stand up!" youthful voices suddenly shout behind us. A number of guests spring up smartly from their tables. The café orchestra is playing
"
Deutschland, Deutschland über alles
."
This is the fourth time tonight.

It is not the orchestra that is so nationalistic, nor the host. It is a group of young ruffians trying to make themselves important. Every half-hour one of them goes to the orchestra and commands the national anthem. He does this as though he were riding forth to battle. The orchestra does not dare to refuse, and so the anthem rolls out instead of the overture to
"
Dichter und Bauer
."
Then each time comes the command "Stand up!" from all sides—for one has to rise from one's seat when the national anthem is played, especially since it has brought two million dead, a lost war, and the inflation.

"Stand up!" screams a seventeen-year-old ruffian who could not have been more than twelve at the end of the war.

"Kiss my ass," I reply, "and go back to school."

"Bolshevist!" shouts the youngster, who almost certainly doesn't know what that means. "Here are some Bolshevists, comrades!"

The purpose of these good-for-nothings is to start a row.

They keep ordering the national anthem, and each time a number of people do not get up because it seems so silly. Then with blazing eyes the brawlers descend on them, looking for a fight. Somewhere a couple of cashiered officers are directing them and feeling important too.

A dozen are now standing around our table. "Stand up or there'll be trouble!"

"What trouble?" Willy asks.

"You'll see soon enough! Cowards! Betrayers of your country! Up!"

"Get away from our table," Georg says. "Do you think we need directions from minors?"

A man of about thirty pushes his way through the crowd. "Have you no respect for your national anthem?"

"Not in cafés when it's being used to start a brawl," Georg replies. "And now cut out this nonsense and leave us in peace!"

"Nonsense? Do you call a German's most sacred feelings nonsense? You'll pay for that! Where were you during the war, you shirker?"

"In the trenches," Georg replies, "unfortunately."