Beneath the Wheel

  Nothing specifically Swabian could be observed in the outward customs and furnishings of the academy in Maulbronn. On the contrary, side by side with the Latin names left over from the time when it had served as a monastery, a number of new classical labels had been affixed. The students' rooms were labeled Forum, Hellas, Athens, Sparta, Acropolis, and the fact that the last and smallest was called Germania seemed to signify a good reason for transforming the Germanic present, if possible, into a Greco-Roman utopia. Yet even these designations were merely decorative--Hebrew names would have been just as scholastically appropriate. As chance would have it, the study called Athens was allotted not to the most articulate and free-spirited boys but to a handful of honest dullards; Sparta did not house warriors or ascetics, but a bunch of happy-go-lucky students who lived off-campus. Hans Giebenrath and nine other pupils were assigned to Hellas.

  Contrary to his expectations, a surprisingly strange feeling gripped his heart when he entered this cool, sparse dormitory with the nine others for the first time and lay down in his narrow schoolboy's bed. A big kerosene lamp dangled from the ceiling. You undressed in its red glow. At a quarter to ten it was extinguished by the proctor. There they lay now, one bed beside the other, between every second bed a stool with clothes on it. Along one of the pillars hung the cord which rang the morning bell. Two or three boys who knew each other from home whispered timidly among themselves, but not for long. The others were strangers and each lay slightly depressed and deathly quiet in his bed. You could hear those who were asleep breathing deeply, or one would suddenly lift an arm and the linen rustled. Hans could not fall asleep for a long time. He listened to his neighbors breathing and after a while heard a strangely anxious noise coming from a bed two away from his. Someone was weeping, his blanket pulled over his head, and Hans felt oddly affected by these moans which seemed to reach him from a remote distance. He himself did not feel homesick though he missed his quiet little room. He only felt a slight dread of such an uncertain and novel situation and of his many new companions. It was not yet midnight and everyone in the hall had fallen asleep. The young sleepers lay side by side in their beds, their cheeks pressed into striped pillows: sad and stubborn, easygoing and timid boys vanquished by the same sweet, sound rest and oblivion. Above the old pointed roofs, towers, bow windows, turret, battlements and gothic arcades there rose a pale half-moon and its light lodged in cornices, on window ledges, poured over gothic windows and romanesque gateways and trembled pale-golden in the generous bowl of the cloister's fountain. A few stripes and spots of yellowish light fell through three windows into Hellas' sleeping quarters and kept the slumbering boys neighborly company, just as it had accompanied the dreams of generations of monks.

  *

  Next day, in the oratory, the boys were solemnly received into the academy. The teachers were dressed in their frock coats, the headmaster gave an address, the students sat rapt in thought in their chairs and stole an occasional glance at their parents, sitting way in the back. The mothers looked with pensive smiles at their sons; the fathers sat very erect, followed the speech closely and looked serious and determined. Proud and praiseworthy feelings and high hopes swelled in their breasts and it did not occur to a single one of them that this day he was selling his child for a financial advantage. At the end of the ceremony one student after the other was called by name, stepped up and was accepted into the academy with a handshake by the headmaster and was pledged that, provided he behaved himself, he would be duly sheltered and cared for by the state for the rest of his days. It did not occur to any of the boys, nor to their fathers, that all this would perhaps not really be free.

  Much more serious and moving was the moment when they took leave of their departing parents. These were now disappearing--some on foot, some by coach, others in any kind of transportation they had been able to arrange in the rush. For a long time handkerchiefs continued to flutter in the mild September air until finally the forest swallowed up the last of the travelers and the boys returned to the monastery in a gently pensive mood.

  "So, the parents have left," said the proctor.

  Now they began to look each other over and become acquainted; first, of course, the boys within each room. Inkpots were filled with ink and the lamps with kerosene, books and notebooks were laid out. They all tried to make themselves at home in their new rooms, a process during which they kept eying each other with curiosity, started their first conversations, asked each other where they were from, what school they had attended, and kept reminding each other of the state examination through which they had sweated together. Groups formed around certain desks and entered into extended conversations; here and there a boyish laugh ventured forth, and by evening the roommates were better acquainted than passengers at the end of a long voyage.

  Four of Hans' companions in Hellas made an outstanding impression; the rest were more or less above average. First there was Otto Hartner, the son of a Stuttgart professor, a talented, calm, self-assured boy with perfect manners. He was tall, well-proportioned, well-dressed and impressed the room with his firm and decisive manner. Then there was Karl Hamel, the son of a mayor of a small village in the Swabian Alb. It took some time to get to know him for he was full of contradictions and would drop his seemingly phlegmatic attitude only rarely. Yet when he did he would become impassioned, extroverted and violent, but not for long; then he would crawl back into his shell and there was no telling whether he was merely being cagey or a truly dispassionate observer.

  A striking though less complicated person was a Hermann Heilner, a Black Forest boy from a good home. It became apparent the first day that he was a poet and esthete and it was rumored that he had written his German exam composition in hexameters. His talk was abundant and vivacious; he owned a good violin and seemed to be exactly what he was on the surface: a youthful combination of sentimentality and lightheadedness. Less obvious was a certain depth of character. He was precocious in body and soul and even now made tentative sallies in directions that were entirely his own.

  However, Hellas' most unusual occupant was Emil Lucius, a secretive, wan, flaxen-haired little fellow as tough, industrious and ascetic as an old peasant. Despite his slight and immature build and features, he did not give the impression of being a boy but had something altogether grown-up about him, as though he were completed and nothing could any longer be changed. The very first day, while the others were bored, or gabbed, Lucius sat calm and relaxed over a grammar, his thumbs plugged in his ears, and studied away as if he had lost years to make up for.

  This sly and reticent fellow's tricks were not discovered for some time, but then he was unmasked as such a crafty cheapskate and egoist that his perfection in these vices gained him a kind of respect, or at least acceptance by the boys. He had evolved a cunning system of usury whose fine points were revealed only by degrees and aroused genuine astonishment. The first step in this program occurred every morning, when Lucius appeared as either the first or last person in the washroom so as to be able to use someone else's soap or towel, or both, in order to conserve his own. In that way he contrived to make his own towel last from two to three weeks. However, the students were supposed to change their towels once a week, and each Monday the head proctor personally oversaw this transaction. Therefore Lucius hung a clean towel on his nail on Monday morning only to take it away again at noon, fold it neatly, replace it in his closet and hang the clean old towel back on the nail. His soap was an especially hard brand and it was difficult to use much of it at any one time. Thus one bar would last him months. Lucius' appearance, however, suffered no neglect. He always looked well groomed, his hair neatly combed and parted, and he took exemplary care of his linen and clothes.

  Once the boys were done in the washroom, they went to breakfast, which consisted of a cup of coffee, a lump of sugar and a roll. Most of them did not consider this very rich fare, for young people tend to have a considerable appetite after eight hours of sleep. Lucius was perfectly satisfied, saved his
daily lump of sugar and always found takers: two lumps for a penny, or a writing-pad for twenty-five. It follows that he preferred to work in the light of his roommates' lamps in order to conserve his own supply of expensive kerosene. Not that he was the child of poor parents. On the contrary, they were really quite well off. For as a rule it is the case that the children of impoverished parents don't know how to save and economize, but always need exactly as much as they happen to have and don't know what it means to put something aside.

  However, Lucius' system not only extended to the realm of tangible goods and personal ownership; in intellectual matters too he sought to gain an advantage whenever he could. Yet he was clever enough never to forget that intellectual property has only relative value. Therefore he concentrated his efforts on those subjects whose assiduous cultivation might bear fruit in a future examination while he was satisfied with middling grades in the rest of his subjects. Whatever he learned and accomplished he would evaluate only as it compared with the achievements of his fellow students; if he had had the choice, he would have preferred to come in first in class with half as much knowledge than come in second with double the amount. Therefore you could see him working in the evening undisturbed by the noise his roommates made while they played, and the occasional glance he threw in their direction was without envy, even cheerful, for if all the others were as industrious as he, his efforts would not have proved worthwhile.

  No one held these tricks and dodges against the sly little grind. But like all who exaggerate and seek excessive profit, it was not long before he made a fool of himself. As all instruction in the academy was free of charge, it occurred to Lucius to take advantage of the situation by taking violin lessons. Not that he had had previous instruction or an ear or aptitude or even enjoyed music! But he decided it would be possible to learn to play the violin the way you could learn to master arithmetic and Latin. He had heard music might be of use to his career and that it made you popular, and in any case, it cost nothing, for the academy even provided a practice violin.

  Herr Haas, the music instructor, was ready to throw a fit when Lucius came and asked to take violin lessons. For Haas knew him only too well from the singing class, where Lucius' efforts proved highly amusing to the rest of the students but brought him, the instructor, close to despair. He sought to dissuade Lucius from this project; yet Lucius was not someone easily dissuaded. He put on a delicate and modest smile, invoked his rights and declared his passion for music to be overpowering. Thus Lucius was given the worst practice violin, received two lessons a week, and practiced each day for one half-hour. However, after he had practiced once, his roommates informed him it was the last time, and forthwith forbade him his merciless scraping in their presence. From that day on Lucius and his violin moved restlessly about the monastery in search of quiet nooks to practice, and strange squeaking and whining noises would emanate to frighten anyone in the vicinity. Heilner, the poet, said it sounded as though the tortured old violin were screaming out of all its wormholes for mercy. Because Lucius made no progress, the instructor became distraught and impolite, and as a consequence Lucius practiced even more frantically, his self-satisfied shopkeeper's countenance beginning to show signs of distress. It was truly tragic: when the teacher declared him completely incompetent and refused to continue the lessons, the mad pupil next chose the piano and spent further agonizing months until he was worn out and quietly gave up struggling with this instrument. In later years, however, when the conversation turned to music he quietly hinted that he himself had learned to play the violin and the piano at one time but, due to circumstances beyond his control, had become alienated slowly but surely from these beautiful arts.

  Hellas therefore was often in a position to be amused by its comical occupants, for Heilner, the esthete, also was the instigator of many ridiculous scenes. Karl Hamel played the role of the ironical and witty observer. He was one year older than the others--which gave him a certain advantage. Yet he was not really respected. He was moody and about once a week he felt the need to test his physical prowess in a fight and then he became wild and almost cruel.

  Hans Giebenrath watched all these doings with astonishment and went his own quiet way as a good but unexciting companion. He was industrious, almost as industrious as Lucius, and he enjoyed the respect of all his roommates with the exception of Heilner, who had hoisted a banner proclaiming himself a "lighthearted genius" and would occasionally mock Hans for being a grind. These rapidly growing boys got along very well, on the whole, even if the nightly roughhouse in the dormitory led to occasional excesses. For everyone was eager to feel mature and to justify the unaccustomed "Mister" with which the teachers honored them for their good behavior and scholarly seriousness. They all looked back on their grammar-school days with as much disdain as university students on their high-school days. But every so often unadulterated boyishness would break through the dignified facade and assert its rights. At those times the dormitory would resound with the uproar of rushing feet and boyish oaths.

  For a teacher at such an institution it ought to be an instructive and delicious experience to observe how such a horde of boys, after it has lived together for several weeks, begins to resemble a chemical mixture in which drifting clouds and flakes compact, dissolve again and re-form until a number of firm configurations result. After the first shyness has been overcome and after they have all become sufficiently acquainted, there begins a mingling and searching; groups form and friendships and antipathies become evident. Boys who had been schoolmates before or who came from the same region would link up only rarely. Most boys were on the lookout for new acquaintances--town boys for farm boys, mountain boys for lowlanders--all in accordance with a secret longing for variety and completion. The young beings groped around indecisively for what suited them best, and out of the awareness of sameness grew the desire for differentiation, and in some cases awakened for the first time the growing germ of a personality out of its childhood slumber. Indescribable little scenes of affection and jealousy took place, grew into pacts of friendship or into declared and stubborn animosities and ended, as the case might be, in a tender relationship with long walks or in wrestling and boxing matches.

  Hans did not engage outwardly in any of these activities. Karl Hamel had made him an explicit and stormy offer of his friendship--Hans had shied back, startled. Thereupon Hamel at once became friends with a boy from Sparta. Hans remained alone. A powerful longing made the land of friendship glow with alluring colors on the horizon and drew him quietly in that direction. Only his shyness held him back. The gift for entering into an affectionate relationship had withered during his motherless childhood and any demonstration of feelings filled him with horror. Then there was his boyish pride and last but not least his merciless ambition. He was not like Lucius, he was genuinely interested in knowledge, but he resembled Lucius in that he sought to disassociate himself from everything that might keep him from his work.

  So he remained anchored to his desk but pined with jealousy when he watched how happy their friendship made the others. Karl Hamel had not been the right one, but if someone else were to approach him and vigorously seek to win his friendship, he would respond gladly. Like a wallflower he stayed in the background waiting for someone to fetch him, someone more courageous and stronger than himself to tear him away and force him into happiness.

  Because their schoolwork, especially Hebrew, kept everyone busy, the first weeks passed in a great rush. The many small lakes and ponds that abound in the Maulbronn region reflected the late autumn sky, discolored ash trees, birches and oaks and long twilit evenings. Fall storms romped through beautiful forests cleaning the dried leaves off the branches, and a light hoarfrost had fallen several times.

  The poetic Hermann Heilner had vainly sought to find a congenial friend, and now he roamed every day during free hour through the forests by himself, showing a particular liking for a melancholy brown pond surrounded by reeds and overhung with dried tree crowns. This sad and
beautiful forest nook proved immensely attractive to his lyrical temperament. Here he dreamily traced circles in the water with a sprig, read Lenau's Reed Songs, and reclining on the reeds themselves, contemplated the autumnal theme of dying and the transience of all living matter while the falling leaves and the wind sighing through the stark trees added gloomy chords. Frequently he pulled out his small black notebook to write a verse or two.

  He was doing precisely that one overcast afternoon in late October when Hans Giebenrath, also by himself, happened on the same locale. He saw the fledgling poet sitting on the narrow boardwalk of the small sluice gate, notebook in lap, a sharpened pencil stuck pensively in his mouth. An open book lay by his side. Slowly Hans stepped closer.

  "Hello, Heilner. What are you doing there?"

  "Reading Homer. And you, Giebenrath, my boy?"

  "Do you think I don't know what you're up to?"

  "Well?"

  "You're writing a poem, of course."

  "You think so?"

  "Certainly."

  "Have a seat."

  Giebenrath sat down next to Heilner on the board, let his legs dangle over the water, and watched one brown leaf and then another spiral down through the cool stillness and settle inaudibly on the water's brownish mirror.

  "I must say it's sad here," Hans blurted out.

  "Yes, yes."

  Both of them had lain down on their backs. They saw little else of their autumnal surroundings but a few slanting treetops and the light blue sky with its drifting cloud islands.

  "What beautiful clouds!" Hans said, gazing on high.

  "Yes, Giebenrath," Heilner sighed. "If only we could be clouds like that."

  "What then?"

  "Then we would sail along up there, over woods, villages, entire provinces and countries like beautiful ships. Haven't you ever seen a ship?"

  "No, Heilner, have you?"

  "Oh yes. My God, you don't understand any of this if all you can do is study and be a drudge."