The Jail/Chapter XV
XV.
The lamps had already gone out, day was beginning to break.
In the night,—it must have been about two o'clock,—they had come to fetch Voronin. A dreadful shindy, a slamming of doors, a warder and a defence-corps man with a bayonet,—Voronin had to dress immediately, get his things together and be removed into another jail. He got up, tied his things into a pocket-handkerchief, shook hands with us and went. We were sorry for him. What was in store for him? Where would this good, quiet man be flung?
Then we went to sleep again.
And I recalled a memory. A week previously I had been on an excursion. I had gone along the Danube through blossoming meadows to Lang Enzersdorf. It had been a magnificent sunny day,—I was a free man.—
"Do you know how long the orderlies kept up their row? Till after midnight, long after midnight" related Mr. Fels.
"I never closed an eye", added Mr. Fröhlich.
"In England everything is permitted that is not forbidden, in Germany everything is forbidden that is not permitted, here everything is permitted that is forbidden,—especially in jail", remarked Mr. Goldenstein sententiously.
The bell had not yet clanged, but we got up. Even in the most oppressive situation man likes to preserve the appearance of free will,—he gets up voluntarily even though he could stay in bed another few minutes. And then he listens to the ringing of the bell with superior disdain.
But now it had already begun to peal. It seemed as if it were more shrill and ruthless than usual.
"That's it, keep your row up", growled the artillery-man.
"Get up, get up",—those who were already awake aroused those who were still sleeping.At the roll-call Papa Declich drew my attention to Mr. Fiedler. In truth, a picture of misery. His eyes were bleared, the veins in his temples swollen, his head was heavy and his hands trembled.
"Fallot" remarked Papa Declich with scorn. For the Italian likes to drink, but never gets drunk.
In the wash-house there was a supply of news. The night transport had taken sixty people from our jail to the military prison at Rossau, to Moellersdorf and elsewhere. There they would be "on ice". The superintendents did not need them, they would not be called up for cross-examination, they would keep on waiting. In this place there was a lack of room. Old Gehringer, our warder, had gone with them and had not yet returned. His successor was named Schmied and was a Feuerwerker, a bombardier in the artillery.
At breakfast Hedrich brought me a dish of black coffee. He said it was from Kranz. From Kranz? Did he know me? Perhaps he was a fellow-countryman? No, a Viennese, but he had heard that has an author, and he said he hoped that one day I would describe what I had seen and experienced here; moreover in the course of the morning he would come himself. Altogether the news had got about in the jail that I was there, and Warder Sponner was very much frightened that I should describe how he cursed and shouted. The superintendent also had recently inquired how I proposed to describe it. "The superintendent is a very decent fellow” added Hedrich in a whisper, "yesterday evening he had a row with Papritz in a public-house, and told him straight that he worried people for no reason, and called him a bloody brute. Papritz threatened that he wouldn't forget it."
The coffee was really coffee,—I shared it among our batch, and the patriots were glad.Fancy, Kranz. A feeling for music, a feeling for literature. "Hedrich, what have they against Kranz?"
"Oh, he has been in prison several times. He is about forty years old, and he has spent a good half of his years in jails. He is fond of burgling jewellers' shops, he has worn military uniform without authority, and so on. At the same time he is a thoroughly good fellow. And a man of character,—Papritz fears him like poison."
During exercise Dušek introduced me to a man in dragoon uniform with chains tied round his feet. To prevent the chain from dragging along the ground, he lifted it up with a rope, the end of which he held. He walked with legs astraddle, his face had an intelligent expression, there was a certain dignity in his pale blue eyes,—a very sympathetic personality. And his story, as Dušek related it to me, was a regular martyrdom. Engineer Kubaleck had been employed at the outbreak of war in Russia, at Revel; before that he had been in Germany, in Switzerland, in France. He had a Czech name, but he was a German. When war broke out he had hurried to Austria with his wife and two small children, he had been stopped on the frontier, and at Moravská Ostrava he had been led before Marshal Mattuschka, who snarled at him: "You are a Russian spy. And you know about Russian espionage in Austria." Now Kubaleck knew nothing, he answered a little brusquely,—and ever since he had remained in the clutches of military justice. His family had been interned at Chocen, he had finally been led away to Vienna. One day he had quarrelled with the superintendent, had broken his sword, and that was how he had come by the chain which he had worn ever since.
(I noticed that when Dušek was relating this story with many details, Papa Declich puckered his lips several times as if he wanted to say something, and at the same time his eyes twinkled with a light and sceptical smile of contempt,—but he controlled himself and said nothing.)
Kubaleck spoke the choice and pure language of an intellectual, his comments on people and things were to the point, incisive and witty, he was self-sufficing, that is, he did not make adisplay of his misery (and, as Dušek told me, his misery was great), he was resigned to his fate, but also prepared to stand up for himself and defend his rights up to the last consequences—an interesting man. He made not the slightest reference to his story when speaking to me; our conversation was about aeroplanes—he said he had served in the flying corps of the Prussian army. He explained to me the various types, their advantages and defects, and he said that he himself had made experiments in the construction of a new machine but that the war had intervened and ended everything.
What a magnificent morning it must have been outside! The blue, rarified sky seemed to be loftier than usual, without even a cloudlet in it; only the first golden flashes of the rising sun were beginning to spread, and the swifts, drunk with the freshness of morning, were wheeling beneath it in joyful circles.
And there we were, pressing along through a crowd of talking, coughing and spitting men, in the smoke of reeking cigarettes, amid creatures whom human society had rejected from its midst, we whom blind justice had flung among them, we lovers of freedom, air and light,—"if only an aeroplane were to come down" suggested Kubaleck.
"I would get into it without any further reflection, and would fly over mountains, valleys and waters far, far beyond the black-yellow frontier-posts" I added.
A few tiny lads, scarcely more than fourteen years old, ran to and fro amongst us and picked up the ends of cigars and cigarettes."Colleagues?"
"Yes. They stole some copper wire and sold it."
Rags on their bodies, rags on their feet, deplorable misery in their faces,—fourteen or fifteen years old, and the whole of life still before them.
We were back again in the room.
Mr. Kranz.
He was not tall, but he was sturdy, with a military cap slantwise on his head, an upturned moustache, a good-humoured, tolerant expression in his blue eyes—he stood in the middle of the room and looked around him.
"Kranz, this way” exclaimed Hedrich.
He came up to our table. I thanked him for the coffee; he waved my thanks aside, but said he wanted to ask me that if some day I were to write about what I had seen here and whom I had met, I should not forget him. His name was Kranz, Kranz[1], the same as what rests upon coffins, Kranz, a thief and a rogue. But he said he would like to see his name some day written by an honest hand. Up till now he had been only in criminal records, in judges' verdicts, in the annals of the police court.
I believe that what others call a soul is a holy fire in man, greater in some, less in others, in others again only a tiny spark; and this holy fire forms our moral, artistic and human worth. At that moment I saw a spark of it flashing with humour in the eyes of this robber.
"Kranz, how much longer?" asked the sergeant.
"Five and a half,—if Papritz doesn't get into my way when I'm in a temper."
"Like yesterday evening?""Yes, yesterday evening. If I'd had him there, he'd have gone flying through the room. I'd have made him jump."
"Kranz, how many did you put away?"
"Forty. There's forty empty bottles. But do they call that wine? I'd just like to get hold of that blackguard of a caterer. I'd tell him the mischief he does when he mixes such stuff."
"Kranz, has anything been heard about an amnesty?"
"They say so. It's supposed to be because of these victories in Russia. But that will be an amnesty for us, for the slight offenders, nothing for you, for serious criminals. Nothing, gentlemen."
He looked at us, indicated us and the patriots with a comprehensive gesture, and gave a devilish laugh.
"I must have a cucumber,—my head's all to pieces" he said more to himself, and went to the door.
"Open, you blockhead", and he banged upon it with his fists. "Sponner, you scoundrel", and he kicked until the door shook and rattled.
Sponner opened: "Come, come, come—"
"Idiot", answered Mr. Kranz, and walked out solemnly.
- ↑ German wreath.