Beneath The Wheel Part 8

Herr Giebenrath applied himself to his work at the cider press with dignity and considerable noise; Hans helped him. Two of Flaig's children had responded to the invitation. They were sorting apples, shared a little gla.s.s between them with which they sampled cider, and clutched big hunks of bread in their fists. But Emma had not come with them.

Not until his father had been gone for half an hour with the cooper did Hans dare ask where she was.

"Where's Emma? Didn't she feel like coming?"

It took a few moments for the children to swallow and clear their throats.

"She's gone, she has," they said and nodded.

"Gone? Gone where?"

"Home."

"With the train?"

The children nodded eagerly.

"When?"

"This morning."

The children again reached for their apples.

Hans fumbled about at the press, stared into the cider keg until the truth slowly dawned on him.

When his father came back, they worked and laughed, and finally the children said thank you and ran off. At dusk, everyone went home.

After supper Hans sat alone in his room. It turned ten, then eleven o'clock, and he did not light his lamp. Then he fell into a long deep sleep.

At first, when he awoke later than usual, he had only an indistinct feeling of an accident or loss. Then he remembered Emma. She had left without saying good-bye, without leaving a message. She must have known when she would be leaving the last night he'd seen her. He remembered her laughter and her kisses and the accomplished way she had of surrendering herself. She hadn't taken him seriously at all.

The pain and anger over this loss and the restlessness of his inflamed but unsatisfied pa.s.sion came together in a single agonizing confusion. The torment drove him from the house into the garden, then onto the streets and into the woods and finally back home again.

In this way he discovered -- perhaps too soon -- his share of the secret of love, and it contained little sweetness and much bitterness: days filled with fruitless lamentation, poignant memories, inconsolable brooding; nights during which a pounding heart and tightness around the chest would not let him sleep or plagued him with dreadful nightmares; nightmares during which the incomprehensible agitation of his blood turned into haunting images, into deathly, strangling arms, into hot-eyed fantastic ogres, dizzying precipices, giant flaming eyes. Waking, he found himself alone in his room, surrounded by the loneliness of a cool fall night. Hans suffered with longing for his girl and tried to suppress his moans in a tear-stained pillow.

The Friday when he was to begin his appenticeship drew near. His father bought him a set of blue overalls and a blue woolen cap. Hans tried the outfit on and felt quite ridiculous in it. Whenever he pa.s.sed the school house, the princ.i.p.al's house or the math teacher's, Flaig's workshop or the vicarage, he felt quite wretched. So much effort, so much pride and ambition and hope and dreaming -- and all for nothing. All of it only so that now, later than any of his former schoolmates and ridiculed by all, he could become the junior apprentice in a mechanic's workshop.

What would Heilner have said?

It took some time for him to reconcile himself to his blue mechanic's outfit but finally he began looking forward a little to the Friday on which he would be initiated. At least he would be experiencing something again!

Yet these hopes were not much more than glimmers in a generally gloomy sky. He could not forget the girl's departure, and his blood seemed even less willing to forget the agitation of those days. It gave him no peace and clamored for more, for relief from the awakened desire. And so time pa.s.sed with oppressive slowness.

Fall was more beautiful than ever -- with a gentle sun, silvery mornings, colorful bright middays, clear evenings. The more distant mountains a.s.sumed a deep velvety blue, the chestnut trees shone golden yellow and the wild grapevine curtained walls and fences purple.

Hans was in a state of restless flight from himself. In the daytime he roamed through town and fields. He avoided people since he felt they could detect his lovelorn state. But in the evening he went out into the streets, made eyes at every maid and crept guiltily after every pair of lovers. The magic of life and everything he had ever sought seemed to have been within reach with Emma. But even with her it had eluded his grasp. If she were with him now, so he believed, he would not be timid; no, he would tear every secret from her and completely penetrate that garden of love whose gate had been slammed in his face. His imagination had become inextricably tangled in this murky and dangerous thicket: straying despondently, his imagination preferred stubborn self-torment to acknowledging the existence of clear friendly s.p.a.ces outside this confining, magic circle.

In the end he was glad when the dreaded Friday arrived. With no time to spare in the morning, he donned his new blue outfit and cap and walked down Tanner Street, a little timidly, toward Schuler's workshop. A few acquaintances looked at him inquisitively and one even asked: "What's happened, you becoming a locksmith?"

The shop already resounded with the din of work. The master himself was busy forging. He had a piece of red-hot iron on the anvil and one of the journeymen was wielding the heavy sledge hammer, the master himself only executing the finer, form-giving blows, handling the tongs which held the iron, and striking so rhythmically with the lighter forge hammer that it rang out through the wide-open door clear and bright into the morning.

The senior journeyman and August both stood at the long workbench black with grease and iron filings, each of them busy at his vise. Along the ceiling purred the rapidly moving belts that drove the lathes, grindstone, bellows and drilling machine -- all driven by water power. August nodded to his companion as he entered and motioned to him to wait at the door until the master had time for him.

Hans gazed timidly at the forge, lathes, the whirring belts and the neutral gears. When the master had finished forging his piece of iron he came over and extended his warm, callused hand. "You hang your cap up there," he said and pointed to an empty nail on the wall. "Now come with me. There's your place and your vise." With that he led Hans to the vise farthest in the back. He demonstrated how a vise is handled and how you keep your bench and tools in order.

"Your father already told me that you're no Hercules, and I guess he's right. Well, until you're a little stronger you don't have to work at the forge."

He reached under the workbench and drew out a cast-iron cogwheel.

"You can start on that. The wheel is still rough from the casting and has little k.n.o.bs and ridges all over. They've got to be filed off, otherwise the fine tools will be ruined later on."

He clamped the wheel into the vise, picked up an old file and showed Hans how it was done.

"Well, now you take it from here. But don't you use any other of my files! That'll keep you busy till lunch break. Then you can show it to me. And while you're working don't pay attention to anything but your instructions. An apprentice doesn't need to have ideas of his own."

Hans started to file.

"Stop!" shouted the master. "Not like that. You put your left hand on top of the file. Or are you a lefty?"

"No."

"Well, all right. It'll work out somehow."

He went back to his vise, the one nearest the door, and Hans tried to do his best.

As he made his first strokes he was surprised how soft the ridges were and how easily they came off. Then he realized that only the topmost brittle coating was flaking off and the granular iron he had to file off was underneath. He pulled himself together and kept on filing. Not since the days of his boyhood hobbies had he tasted the pleasure of seeing something concrete and useful take shape under his hands.

"Not so fast!" shouted the master over the din. "You've got to file in rhythm: one-two, one-two, and press on it, or you'll ruin the file."

The oldest of the journeymen had to go to the lathe, and Hans could not keep from glancing in his direction. A drill bit was fitted into the chuck, the belt was moved into position, and the shining drill buzzed while the journeyman severed a hair-thin glinting steel shaving from it.

All around lay tools, pieces of iron, steel and bra.s.s, half-completed jobs, shining little wheels, chisels, drills, drill bits and awls of every shape and size; next to the forge hung the hammers, top and bottom tools, anvil, tongs and soldering irons. Along the walls lay rows of files and cutting files; along the shelves lay oil rags, little brooms, emery files, iron saws and oil cans, soldering fluid, boxes with nails and screws. Every moment someone or other had to go to the grindstone.

Hans noted with satisfaction that his hands were already black and hoped that his overalls would follow suit, for they still looked ridiculously new and blue next to the black and patched outfits of the others.

Later on in the morning people coming from the outside brought even more activity into the shop. Workers came from the nearby garment factory to have small parts ground or repaired. A farmer came and asked about a mangle of his they were repairing and cursed blasphemously when it was not ready. Then a smartly dressed factory owner came and the master took him to a room off to the side.

In the midst of all this, people, wheels and belts went on working smoothly, evenly, and thus for the first time in his life Hans understood labor's song of songs -- work. It has -- at least for the beginner -- something enchanting and pleasantly intoxicating as he beholds his own small person and own small life become a part of a greater rhythm.

At nine o'clock they had a fifteen-minute break and everyone received a chunk of bread and gla.s.s of cider. Only now could August greet the new apprentice. He talked to him encouragingly and enthused some more about the upcoming Sunday on which he wanted to treat his friends to a great spree with his first wages. Hans asked him what kind of wheel that was which he was filing smooth and was told that it was part of the watchworks of a tower clock. August was about to demonstrate the part it would play in the mechanism when the senior journeyman picked up his file again and they all quickly went back to their places.

Between ten and eleven Hans felt himself tiring. His knees and his right arm ached a little. He kept shifting his weight from one leg to the other and surrept.i.tiously stretched his limbs, but it did not help much. So he put down the file for a moment and rested against the vise. No one was paying any attention to him. As he stood there resting and heard the belts whirring above him, he felt slightly dizzy and he closed his eyes for a minute. Just then the master came up behind him.

"Well, what is it? p.o.o.ped already?"

"A bit," Hans admitted.

The journeyman laughed.

"You'll get over that," the master said calmly. "Now you come along and see how we solder."

Hans watched with fascination. First the soldering iron was heated, then the spot to be soldered was covered with chlorate of zinc, then the white metal dripped from the iron, gently hissing.

"Now you take a rag and wipe the spot clean. Soldering fluid corrodes, so you can't leave any on metal."

Hans went back to his vise and scratched away at his wheel. His arm hurt and his left hand with which he pressed down on the file had become red and began to smart.

Around noon when the senior journeyman put away his file and went to wash his hands, Hans took his work to the master, who gave it a cursory inspection.

"That's all right, you can leave it like that. Under your bench in the box is another just like it. You can do that this afternoon."

Now Hans washed his hands too and went home. He had an hour for lunch.

Two fellows who clerked for a businessman and with whom he had gone to grammar school followed him in the street and jeered.

"Academy mechanic!" one of them shouted.

He quickened his pace. He wasn't sure whether he was really satisfied or not. He had liked the workshop itself, only he had become so tired, so miserably tired.

As he was about to enter the house and was looking forward to the meal, he found himself thinking of Emma. He had not thought of her once all morning. He went softly into his little room, threw himself on his bed and moaned with misery. He wanted to cry but no tears would come. Again he saw himself hopelessly at the mercy of his longing. His head hurt and was in an uproar; his throat too hurt with suppressed sobs.

Lunch was sheer agony. He had to answer his father's a.s.sorted questions and tell him about the work. He endured a series of wisecracks -- his father was in a jolly mood. With the meal over, he dashed into the garden and spent fifteen minutes day-dreaming in the sun. Then it was time to head back for the workshop.

By the end of the morning he had already developed red swellings on his hands and now they began to hurt seriously. By evening they had swollen so he could not hold anything without hurting. And before he could go home he had to clean up the whole workshop under August's direction.

Sat.u.r.day was even worse. His hands burned, the swellings had turned into blisters, the master was in a rotten humor and flew off the handle at the least provocation. August tried to console him and said the swellings would go away in a few days, he would grow calluses and no longer feel anything. Yet Hans felt more wretched than ever, glanced at the clock throughout the day and kept scratching hopelessly at his wheel.

While cleaning up that evening August communicated to him in whispers that he and a couple of friends were going to Bielach the next day and that they intended to have a great old time and Hans would have to show, or else. Hans was to meet him at his place at two o'clock. Hans said yes but he would have preferred to spend all day Sunday in bed, he was so tired and miserable. At home Anna gave him some salve for his hands. He turned in at eight o'clock and slept until well into the morning. He had to rush not to miss church with his father.

During lunch he broached the subject of August and their going to Bielach for the afternoon. His father raised no objections, even gave him fifty pfennig, and only demanded he be back for supper.

As Hans ambled through the streets in the sunshine he realized for the first time in months with pleasure that it was Sunday. The streets were more solemn, the sun more cheerful, everything was more festive when you could leave the workday and its black hands behind. Now he understood the butchers and bakers, tanners and blacksmiths who sat on benches in front of their houses sunning themselves and looked so princely and glad; he no longer looked down on them as miserable Philistines. He watched the workers, the journeymen and apprentices, as they went in groups on Sunday walks or stopped into inns, their hats slightly tilted, with white collars and their well-brushed Sunday best. Mostly, if not always, the various members of a craft kept to themselves: carpenters with carpenters, masons with masons. They stuck together and preserved the honor of their guild, and of all of the guilds the locksmiths were the most respected, with the mechanics at the very top. All of this had something very cozy about it and even if it also contained a slightly naive and ridiculous element, there was the traditional beauty and pride of being an artisan, a tradition which even today represents something joyful and sound and which enhances even the lowliest little apprentice.

The way the young mechanics stood in front of Schuler's house, so calm and proud, nodding to pa.s.sers-by and talking among themselves, you could easily discern that they were a self-sufficient group, had no need of company, not even on Sundays when they had their fun.

This was exactly what Hans felt and he was glad to be one of them. Still, he was a little apprehensive about the planned expedition. He was well aware that the mechanics were in the habit of taking their pleasures in rather ma.s.sive doses. Perhaps they would even go dancing. Hans had no idea how, but he decided to be a man even at the risk of a small hangover. He was not used to drinking quant.i.ties of beer and in the matter of smoking he had only just reached the stage where he could finish a cigar without running the danger of discomfort or disgrace.

August greeted him with easy cheerfulness. He said the senior journeyman did not want to come along but a colleague from another shop would come instead so there would be at least four of them, enough to turn a whole village upside down. Everyone could drink all the beer he wanted today, since he was paying. He offered Hans a cigar, then the four slowly got underway, ambled leisurely and proudly through town, only quickening their pace at the Lindenplatz to get to Bielach in good time.

The river reflected blue, gold and white. Through the almost bare maples and acacias you could feel the mild October sun. The sky was deep and of a cloudless light blue. It was one of those pure and tranquil friendly fall days on which everything that was beautiful in the previous summer fills the mild air with untroubled, smiling memories, when children forget what season it is and think they should be picking flowers, when old people gaze pensively from their windows, or up from benches in front of their houses into the sky because it seems to them the friendly memories of that year and of their whole long life winged visibly through the transparent blue. The young people were in high spirits and praised the day according to their gifts and temperament -- by drinking or slaughtering an animal, by singing or dancing, by drinking bouts or suffering. Everywhere fruitcakes and pies were being baked, young cider and wine were fermenting in the cellars, and fiddles and accordions in front of inns and under the linden in the squares celebrated the last beautiful days of the year, inviting the world to dance and sing and make love.

The young fellows were making rapid headway. Hans smoked his cigar with a semblance of carelessness and was himself surprised how well it became him. The journeyman recounted his years spent traveling about and no one objected to his boasting. That was part of the act. Even the most una.s.suming little apprentice, once he gets into the thick of his subject and is among his own kind and safe from eyewitnesses, will coolly lace his account of his traveling days with legendary attributes. For the marvelous poetry of the life the artisans and apprentices lead is the common property of the people. The traditional adventures are reincarnated in every one of them and adorned with new variations, and every journeyman, once he really gets going, is a bit of the eternal Eulenspiegel and the undying Straubinger.

"Man, the last time in Frankfurt, what a wild town that was! Didn't I tell you how a rich guy, a big business man, wanted to marry the boss's daughter but she gave him the sack because she liked me better? She was my girl for four months and if I hadn't gotten in a fix with the old man I'd still be there and his son-in-law."

And he went on to tell how his master, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, had tried to give him a hard time, the miserable s...o...b.., and once he even dared raise his hand against him but he didn't say a word, he just kept swinging that sledge hammer and gave the old man a look and the old man just sort of slunk away because he didn't want to have his head bashed in and then he gave him notice, the drip, in writing. And he went on to tell about a big street fight in Offenburg, where three locksmiths, he among them, had tangled with seven factory guys and knocked them half dead -- anyone coming to Offenburg, all he had to do was ask that beanstalk Schorsch, who's still there and who was along back then.

All of this was communicated in a cool, tough voice, but with great intensity and delight, and everyone listened with pleasure and made up his mind to tell that story someday somewhere else with other companions. For every locksmith has had his master's daughter for a sweetheart at one time or other and has taken off after the evil master with a hammer and beaten the daylights out of seven factory workers. One time the story is set in Baden, next in Hessen or Switzerland; once it is a file or a slug of red-hot iron and not a hammer; sometimes the victims are not factory workers but bakers or tailors but the stories are invariably the same, and you like hearing them again and again because they are old and good and bring honor to the craft. None of which is meant to imply that the traveling artisans lack fellows in their midst -- even today -- who are not geniuses in experiencing or inventing, which are basically one and the same thing.

August in particular was delighted and completely swept off his feet. He laughed continuously and said yes, yes, yes, already considered himself a journeyman for all intents and purposes and blew tobacco smoke with epicurean disdain into the golden air. And the narrator continued to enjoy his role, for it mattered to him that his coming along would appear as a good-natured act of condescension since as a journeyman he, properly speaking, did not belong in the company of apprentices on a Sunday and should have been ashamed of himself for helping an apprentice drink up his first earnings.

They had walked a good ways down along the river and now had a choice between taking the gradually rising dirt road which curves lazily up the mountain or the steep footpath which was only half as long. They decided on the dirt road, though it was longer and dustier. Footpaths are for working days and for gentlemen on walks; but the common people prefer the regular country roads, especially on Sundays -- these roads have retained their poetry for the people. To climb steep footpaths is something for farmers, or for nature lovers from the city; that is either work or a sport but not a pleasure. On a country road, however, you can make leisurely headway and can talk and don't wear out your soles or clothes, see carts and horses, meet other people just as leisurely as yourself, overtake girls all dressed up and groups of singing fellows. People will call out jokes to you and you will laugh and parry them; you can stop and chat, and if you have nothing better to do, run after girls and laugh after them, and in the evening you can settle personal differences with your companions by taking direct action.

Thus they took the country road. The journeyman took off his coat, hung it on his stick and then shouldered the stick; instead of telling stories he had begun to whistle in an altogether daring and vivacious manner and he did not stop whistling until they reached Bielach an hour later. Hans had been the victim of a little needling but it had not penetrated very deep and these attacks were parried more eagerly by August than by himself. And now they stood at the edge of Bielach.

The village with its red-tile and silver-gray thatched roofs lay couched among autumn-tinted orchards, a dark densely forested mountain rising up in back.

They could not agree which tavern they should enter. The Anchor served the best beer but the Swan the best cake and Sharp Corner possessed a pretty innkeeper's daughter. Finally August's suggestion prevailed that they should first head for the Anchor, adding with a wink that the Sharp Corner probably would not run off while they had a few steins. No one had any objection to this so they entered the village, walked past animal pens, low farmhouse windows decked with geraniums and headed for the Anchor whose golden sign gleamed invitingly in the sun above two young chestnut trees. To the chagrin of the journeyman, who insisted on sitting inside, the bar was overcrowded already and they had to sit outside in the garden.

Its guests regarded the Anchor as a first-rate tavern, not, in other words, some old farmer's inn but a modern brick building with far too many windows, with chairs instead of wooden benches and a clutter of metal advertising signs, as well as a waitress in city clothes and an innkeeper whom you never caught with his sleeves rolled up but who always wore a modish brown suit. Actually he was bankrupt but he had mortgaged his house to his main creditor, the owner of a big brewery, and since then a.s.sumed an even more dignified air. The garden consisted of an acacia tree and a big wire fence, for the time being half overgrown with wild grapevines.

"To your health," shouted the journeyman and clinked steins with the three others. And to prove his mettle he chuggalugged the whole mug.

"Hey, miss, there wasn't anything in that one. Bring me another," he called after the waitress and handed her the mug across the table.

The beer was excellent, cool, and not too dry. Hans enjoyed it thoroughly. August drank with the air of a connoisseur, simultaneously clicked his tongue and smoked like an oven in ill repair -- something which Hans quietly admired.

It was not so bad after all then to go on a Sunday spree and sit at such a table like someone who has the right to, and with people who got a kick out of life. It felt good to join in the laughter and venture an occasional joke of your own; it was good and manly to slam your mug on the table when you were finished and call out without a care in the world: "Hey, miss, another!" It was good to drink a toast to an acquaintance at a nearby table, the b.u.t.t of your cigar dangling from your left hand, your hat pushed back onto your head, like everyone else's hat.

The colleague from the other shop began to unthaw too and to tell stories of his own. He told about a locksmith in Ulm who drank twenty mugs of beer at a sitting, and of the good Ulm beer, and when it was finished he would wipe his mouth once and say: "Now let's have a bottle of wine for a chaser!" And he had known a stoker in Cannstatt who could eat twelve knockwursts in a row and had won a bet that way. But he had lost a second bet just like it. He had bet he could eat everything on the menu of a small inn and he'd eaten his way down to the cheeses and when he reached his third cheese he just pushed the platter away and said: "I'd rather die than eat another bite."

These stories too were well received. It became clear to Hans that on this earth there must exist a goodly number of endurance drinkers and eaters, for everyone knows about one such hero and his feats. One can tell about a man in Stuttgart, another about a dragoon, I think in Ludwigsburg, one story has seventeen potatoes, another eleven pancakes and a salad. All these events are recounted with professional seriousness and everyone takes comfort in the realization that -- after all -- there exist all sorts of remarkable people and beautiful talents, and crazy fools. This sense of well-being is an old and honorable heirloom of tavern conventions and it's imitated by the young just as they imitate drinking, talking politics, smoking, marrying and dying.

While they were at their third mug, one of them asked for some cake. The waitress was hailed and they were told there was no cake. They all became quite wrought up. August rose to his feet and announced that if this place didn't even have cake, they might as well hit the next inn down the street. The colleague cursed about what a lousy way it was to run a business; only the journeyman wanted to stay -- he had been flirting with the waitress, had even stroked her bottom in pa.s.sing. Hans had noticed and this sight plus the effeet of the beer had excited him strangely. He was glad they moved on.

Once the bill was paid and all of them stepped out on the street, Hans began to feel slightly affected by his three mugs of beer. It was a pleasant sensation, half weariness, half devil-may-care. He was conscious too of something like a thin veil before his eyes through which everything looked more remote, almost unreal and much as it looks in dreams. He could not help giggling, had set his hat at an even more rakish angle and considered himself one h.e.l.l of a fellow. The Frankfurt journeyman whistled again in his tough way and Hans tried to keep the beat.

It was pretty quiet in the Sharp Corner. A couple of farmers were sampling the new wine. There was no draft beer, only bottles, and each of them was immediately served one. The colleague journeyman wanted to prove how grand he was and ordered an apple pie big enough for all of them. Hans suddenly felt hunger pangs and ate several slices in quick succession. It was comfortably dark on the firm, wide benches along the wall in the old dark-brown barroom. The old-fashioned counter and the huge stove were no longer distinguishable in the semi-darkness; in a big cage built of wooden staves fluttered two songbirds. A whole branch with red birdberries had been thrust through the staves for them.

The host stopped at their table for a moment and bade them welcome. After that it took a while for a real conversation to develop. Hans took a few gulps from the tart bottled beer and wondered whether he was going to be able to down the whole bottle.

The journeyman was carrying on again about wine festivals in the Rhineland, his journeyman days and what a vagabond life he had led. They all listened in high spirits and even Hans could not stop laughing.

Suddenly he became aware that something was not quite right with him. Every few seconds or so the room, the tables, bottles and gla.s.ses and his companions merged into a brownish miasma, and only by a great effort on his part did they regain their outlines. From time to time, when the conversations and laughter rose in volume, he would join the laughter, add a comment and forget immediately what he'd said. When they clinked gla.s.ses he joined in and after some time he realized that his quart was empty.

"That's quite an intake you have," said August. "Want another?"

Hans nodded and laughed. He'd always thought that such a drinking bout would be much more dangerous. And now the journeyman intoned a song and they all joined in and Hans sang with as much fervor as the rest.

Meanwhile the room had filled up and the innkeeper's daughter came to lend the waitress a hand. She was a tall, well-built girl with a healthy, vigorous face and calm brown eyes.

When she placed the new bottle in front of Hans, the journeyman who was sitting next to him instantly showered her with elegant compliments, but she paid him no mind. Perhaps because she wanted to show him her indifference or perhaps because she had taken a liking to the boy's finely shaped face, she turned to Hans and quickly ran her hand through his hair; then she went back behind the counter.

The Journeyman, who was on his third bottle, followed her and went to great lengths to engage her in conversation but without success. The big girl looked at him evenly, made no reply and turned her back on him. Then he came back, drummed his empty bottle on the table and called out with sudden enthusiasm: "Come, fellows, let's be happy, clink gla.s.ses."