The Jail/Chapter XIII
XIII
Saturday.
Yesterday evening at 9 o'clock I again heard the call of the skylark. Mr. Kretzer also heard it, he attracted the attention of the rest, and the whole room listened. The skylark warbled its brief exultant song a few times and then was silent.
For a while there was an oppressive stillness in the room.
"I should like to have its liberty", began Mr. Fels.
“But not to sit with it on the top of the roof", remarked Mr. Goldenstein. "I would go to a music-hall today. But first of all I would have a good feed.""Ah yes, a portion of smoked meat, greens, dumplings", said the sergeant rapturously.
"No, first of all fish, a portion of soused fish, then roast meat with potatoes, braised onions on the roast meat, after that chicken with preserved fruit—at Meisl's and Schadn's they have splendid preserves—a glass of Pilsen beer with it, no, I'd have two at once put in front of me, and some pudding."
"Don't tantalize me! I'll kill you", Mr. Goldenstein threatened with comical desperation—but the comical part was put on, and the despair under it was genuine.
The man who was so enthusiastic about a copious supper was named Fröhlich, Abraham Fröhlich according to the jail records, but Adolf Fröhlich was the name above his shop and the one by which he was known in Viennese society. Also a censorist.
"Pooh—I don't long for freedom" declared Hedrich convincingly. “As long as Mr. Dušek and you (this was meant for me) are here, I like it."
"I'm quite satisfied here too", observed Mr. Kretzer, "if I were to leave to-day, I should be in the trenches within 24 hours, and that's not at all to my liking. If only there was enough to eat here."
"Yes, to eat", several hungry persons agreed. For at noon, in addition to an intolerably peppered water-soup, potatoes had made their appearance on the kneading-board. These potatoes had been thoroughly overboiled, and in the resulting pulp there were clots of baked flour, containing an intolerable addition of paprika. Nobody ate anything. Hedrich pronounced dreadful curses on the captive Russian, "an Asiatic who is head cook here, a fellow with slanty Chinese eyes, who takes good care to look after his own table." Everybody had eaten up his portion of bread (the soldiers received half a loaf, the civilians a fifth), the week's rations were consumed. Ah, Friday is here "the most horrible day", so Budi declared to me, but our Papa Declich unwrapped a piece of cheese and butter from his moist rags, opened a box of sardines and we ate. Quietly and without zest, fifteen pairs of eyes looked over to our table in greed and anger, and we ate quickly and in silence, as if we had stolen food somewhere.
"Well, tomorrow we'll eat too“ said the sergeant to Mr. Karl soothingly.
"And we'll drink—I've ordered three bottles of wine."
Let me point out that a bottle of wine sounds promising and thoroughly magnificent, but these bottles of wine were also delivered Saturday after Saturday by the caterer, red and white wine, his own bottling, a mysterious taste (a dash of lemonade, a dash of vinegar, a dash of alcohol, an enormous amount of water), and after drinking it there was a wooden feeling in one's head.
We went to bed before the bell commanded us, and there were none of the usual conversations from mattress to mattress. Nor was there any smoking—there was nothing to smoke. Such a Friday had no other significance except that it brought us twenty-four hours nearer to freedom.
And again I dreamt about it. It seemed to me that I was floating in a boat across the sea. The wind filled my sails, whose ropes I had entwined around my hand, while with the other hand I was steering. The boat, with a slight list, was speeding over the crinkled surface, the furrowed waves beat against its sides, I longed to get further and further onwards—I did not know from whence and what was there—but onward, away.
I was awakened by a rattling at the door. All the heads raised themselves on the straw matresses. Mr. Sponner was bringing in a new fellow-inmate. An elderly man in artillery uniform.Extensive cursing. Where was he to go? There was no room. Mr. Sponner declared that he couldn't help that, slammed the door and locked it. Everything was done with a maximum of noise, for a din is, as it were, the salt of military discipline in general and of jail discipline in particular.
"I can lie down here on the table", announced the artillery-man assuringly. "I don't mind it, I'm used to everything." He threw his overcoat on the table and prepared for rest.
"And why are you here?" asked Dr. Smrecsanyi. (This "why are you here" was the customary formula of welcome).
"Why? A few pair of boots got lost from the store and the canteen woman reported us. There are three of us, one on the first floor, the other on the second. Cursed old hag." For a little longer he sat half undressed on the table, and demonstrated his innocence to us. Then, seeing that the heads were sinking down on the mattresses and the eyes were closing, he stopped talking, rolled over on the wood and curled up under his overcoat.
That was Friday.
And then the next day was the day upon which had centred all hopes, dreams and longings of my fellow-inmates ever since Wednesday. Wait, on Saturday. If it were only Saturday. I am looking forward to Saturday.
We came back from our exercise, and the promised day began to perform its pranks:
Voronin took the fragment of a broom and swept up. Wo looked on,—a man deprived of freedom and movement is interested by everything that happens, whatever it may be. Voronin produced whirls of dust, the dust rose upwards, formed a haze of many shapes and fell down again on to the floor, straw mattresses, the towel which had been hung up, on the overcoats and upon us, the grateful spectators.
Papa Declich and the artilleryman of yesterday dragged in a tub of icy water, rolled up their shirt-sleeves, sprinkled the water on the floor, whereupon Voronin chased it to and fro with his broom, until it had turned into a black puddle. The artilleryman thrust a brush into it which had long since lost its bristles, and Papa Declich dabbled a black rag in it. The puddle, chased about in this way, rolled from wall to wall, finally it turned to the threshold of the room, where however, Papa Declich jumped after it, collected it with his rag and wrung it out in the tub.
We looked on. The censorists were sitting at the other table and swinging their legs in the air. Budi was lying upon the piled-up mattresses, Mr. Karl beside him (he was whistling a tune from the "Merry Widow" the while, and he was whistling it artistically); the sergeant together with platoon-leader Kretzer, had climbed on to the second pile of mattresses and were also looking on, the sergeant relating about his captain who, if he only had an inkling where he (the sergeant) was and why he was there, would give himself no rest until he had liberated him. Old Nicolodi was sitting on his box and also looking on, Hedrich was roaming about somewhere in the jail and shaving people. Dušek was writing in the superintendent's office, the rest were standing by the walls and also looking on. How modest a man can become, how simple in his tastes, with what trifling spectacles he can manage to be satisfied here!
The sergeant suddenly told me to climb up to him and look out of the window. From the courtyard outside could be heard quick steps,—I looked: Dr. Kramář. With his head bent forward he was fairly racing around the circumference of the large square courtyard. Defence-corps men with bayonets were guarding him and were watching to see that he did not communicate with Dr. Rašín, who was walking at a leisurely pace as if he were not in jail at all; but I had to jump down, a defence-corps man had noticed me and made a threatening gesture.
Dr. Kramář… we have met… and here… what will come of it all? It is hard to imagine. My native land reminds me of a grayish, inpenetrable mist. I did not know what was happening there, I did not know whether any faith or any hope was left there, or whether anybody was thinking of us and of what was coming. Still, the mist will fade away, the sun must appear, but shall we also see it rise? And if not… exoriare aliquis there is no policy more suicidal than to manufacture martyrs for a discontented nation.
"Dr. Kramář is a very gifted man" remarked the sergeant.
"Assuredly."
"And that is how he races along day after day. You can't call it walking."
"Where is Dr. Kramář?" asked Smrecsanyi and climbed up on the straw mattresses.
"Get down. If they report you, I shall be mixed up in it", and the sergeant Zimmerkommandant gave him a push.
The sergeant was a Viennese and consequently an anti-Semite by birth—of course, he did not know that Dr. Smrecsanyi was römisch-katolisch and on the editorial staff of the pious Reichspost.
The air in the room was damp, the floor still moist. I jumped down and measured it off. It was 10 paces long. each pace 57 centimetres, that is, 71⁄2 metres altogether. Something can be done to kill time and take exercise.
"Fellow criminals, our blood will grow putrid with this eternal sitting and lolling about. Of course, in jail we have to sit, but we will revolt, we will walk. Always in threes. If we walk for an hour and a half every day from wall to wall, we shall cover six kilometres, then two kilometres during our half hour's morning exercise in the yard, in the afternoon another two—ten kilometres altogether, that is enough. Messrs. Fels and Goldenstein, you join me and we will begin. And the rest of you arrange among yourselves, it's a pity to lose a single minute."
I concluded this speech, the censorists, Fels and Goldenstein joined me, and away we went.
The others talked it over and agreed that it was right.
A rhythm bore us along, the two censorists were glad that the time passed and that it was good for their health. The others looked at us. Mr. Karl intoned the Radetzky march to the sergeant's accompaniment.
"How do you manage to keep so calm?" Mr. Fels asked me.
"It's my clear conscience."
"And if they condemn you?"
"They will condemn themselves. Even if I were going to the gallows, I would whistle the Marseillaise."
"You Czechs are a wonderful nation."
The room rumbled beneath our steps. Mr. Smrecsanyi wanted to join in. "Go away" Mr. Fels snubbed him, "you don't belong to our squad. The order is only in threes."
Just before noon Mr. Fiedler arrived and ordered everybody to go to the office. The smoking requisites were there. Twenty men dashed out of the room and down the corridor as if it were a matter of returning to the other world.
After a while they were back again and clouds of smoke quivered through the air and glided away through the bars of the windows. Payment and distribution took place. Voronin, the orderly, took and stored away cigars and cigarettes, thanking with his quiet: Spasibo. Hedrich returned, and from his pockets he produced his week's pay; cigars and cigarettes.
"Never mind hunger, as long as there's something to smoke", declared the sergeant.
The orderlies dashed in with the kneading-board. What was there? Vegetables. Invectives and curses.
The pieces of meat were fished up out of the soup, but nobody touched the vegetables. Hedrich explained about the Russian Asiatic and what a scoundrel he was.
That afternoon there was no exercise—we were to receive the provisions we had ordered. The caterer had just delivered them.
Again a gallop to the superintendent's office. The superintendent was sitting there in quiet meditation smoking a pipe. Dušek was writing, Mr. Fiedler was distributing butter, cheese, ham, salami, sardines, marmalade, wine, Krondorfer, glasses, spoons,—whatever had been ordered. We carried our "Ausspeise" back to the room in our caps and hats.
And now it was already time for the evening roll-call. The superintendent, the warder and Mr. Fiedler counted us, the door closed—the end of the day. It was 3 o'clock in the afternoon. If anybody were to be taken fatally ill now, it would be no use, he would have to wait until the next morning.
Jaws were busy and smoking went on as well.
And the room rumbled beneath the steps of the squad of "scorchers". That was the new phrase.