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REVELATIONS

When Fischerle, violently winking, appeared of a sudden through the glass door, he was greeted by Kien with a benign smile. The compassionate office which he had recently taken upon himself had mellowed his soul and called forth noble metaphors. His soul inquired what might be the meaning of those flashing melancholy beacon-lights; in the torrential flood of his love he had forgotten all previously arranged signals. Kien's faith, unshaken as his distrust of book-blaspheming humanity, was browsing in beloved pastures. He was regretting the weakness of Christ, that mysterious prodigal. Gifts of food and wine, healing of the halt and the blind, parable after parable went through his head; how many books, he thought, might have been saved by these miracles: he felt that his present state of mind resembled that of Christ. He too would have acted in the same fashion; only in its objects did Christ's love seem to him an aberration, like that of the Japanese. Since the philologist in him still lived, he decided to devote himself, when peaceful times should again bless the land, to a fundamentally new textual examination of the gospels. It was possible that Christ had in fact not referred to men at all, and the barbarian hierarchy had falsified the original words of their founder. The unexpected appearance of Logos in the Gospel of St. John gave abundant grounds for doubt, all the more since the usual explanations refer it back to a Greek influence. He felt himself equipped with enough knowledge to guide Christianity back to its true sources, and though he was not to be the first to pour the true words of the Saviour out to humanity, whose ears were always ready to receive them, he might hope, nevertheless, on a sufficient inner conviction, that the indications he set down would be final.

Fischerle's indications of a threatening danger, on the other hand, went unrecognized. For a time he continued his warning winks, alternatively closing his right and his left eye. At last he threw himself on Kien, clutched his arm and whispered 'Police!' the most awesome word he knew. 'Run! I'll go first! he said, and placed himself, contrary to his promise, once more at the door to see the effect of his words. Kien cast a dolorous glance upwards, not to Heaven, to Hell rather, on the sixth floor. He vowed to return to this sanctified antechamber, if possible, even to-day. With all his heart he scorned the vile pharisecs who persecuted him. As a true saint he did not forget, before setting his long legs in motion, to thank the dwarf with a stiff but profound inclination. If he should forget his duty out of cowardice, he vowed his own library to a fiery death. He ascertained that his enemies had not in fact shown themselves. What did they fear? The moral force of his pleadings? He pleaded for no sinners, he pleaded for guiltless books. Meanwhile let them injure but one hair of one of these, and they would learn to know a very different side of him. He knew his Old Testament too, and reserved his vengeance. Fiends, he cried, ye keep watch for me in secret places, but with uplifted brow I forsake this sink of iniquity. I fear not, for countless millions fight on my side. He pointed upwards. Then, slowly, he betook himself to flight.

Fischerle did not let him out of his sight. He had no intention of handing his money out of Kien's pocket to any crook. He feared the appearance of unknown pawn-addicts and propelled Kien to further speed with both nose and arms. From the hesitative conduct of the other he drew a kind of guarantee for his future. The creature evidently had character and had certainly taken it into his head to get the reward money back in this and no other way. He had not diought him capable of so much logic and was filled with admiration. He proposed to further the plans laid by this man of character. He would help Kien to get rid of his capital down to die last penny, in the shortest time and without too much trouble. But since it would be a pity to break up a fortune which had been in the first place a very respectable one, Fischerle must take good care that no unauthorized person interfered. Business affairs between two men of character were their own concern and no one else's. He accompanied each step of Kien's with a joyful bob of his hump, pointed here and there to a dark corner, put his finger to his lips and walked on tiptoe. When they passed an official — by chance it happened to be the hog in charge of the valuations in the book section — he attempted a bow, and shot his hump towards him. Kien too bowed, out of sheer cowardice; he sensed that this so-called human being, who had come down the stairs a quarter of an hour before, functioned as a fiend on high, and trembled lest he should be forbidden his station at the window.

At long last Fischerle had forced him as far as the square behind the church, and drawn him into the porch. 'Saved!' he mocked. Kien was astounded at the magnitude of the danger in which he had been. Then he embraced the dwarf and said in a soft, caressing voice: 'If it were not for you ... ' 'You'd be in clink long ago!' Fischerle completed the sentence. 'Are my actions then such as to bring me into collision with the law?' 'Everything brings you into collision with the law. You get yourself a meal because you re hungry, and they take you up for stealing again. You help a poor devil to a pair of shoes, he goes off in the shoes and you've aided and abetted. You go to sleep on a bench, dream away for ten years, and they wake you up because you did something ten years ago — wake you up, indeed! Take you up, more like! You try to help a few poor innocent books and they put a cordon right round the Theresianum, one of them in every corner, you ought to have seen their new revolvers ! There's a major in charge of them, I ran right between his legs. What d'you think he's got down there, so low that none of the tall people walking by should notice — a warrant. The president of the police has drawn up a special warrant because you're sort of high-up. You know yourself who you are, I don't need to tell you ! Eleven o'clock sharp you're to be taken, alive or dead, inside the
Theresianum
. Once you're outside nothing's allowed to happen to you. Outside you're not a criminal any more. Eleven o'clock sharp. And how late is it now? Three minutes to eleven. Look for yourself!'

'Good. I promise. Only speak!'

'You've promised then. Did you sec his belly?'

'Yes — but the smell, the smell.'

'In a minute. Didn't you notice anything about his belly?'

'No.'

'People say it has corners.'

'What's the meaning of that?' Kien's voice faltered. Something unheard of was coming.

'They say — I must prop you up or there'll be an accident — they say, he gets fat on books.'

'He —'

' — devours books!'

Kien gave a great cry and fell to the ground. In his fall he dragged the dwarf with him; he hurt himself on the pavement and for revenge went on talking. 'What do you expect, says the hog — I've heard him with my own ears — what am I to do with this muck? Muck, he said, he always calls books muck, muck's good enough for him to eat. What d'you expect, he says, this muck Ties about here for months, I'd as soon get something out of it, eat myself full once in a while. He's written his own cookery book, full of different recipes, he's looking for a publisher now. There are too many books in the world, he says, and too many empty stomachs. I owe my belly to my cookery, he says, I'd like everyone to have a belly like mine, and I want all books to vanish; if I had my way all books would have to go! You can burn them, of course, but that does no one any good. So cat them up, say I, raw with oil and vinegar like salad, or baked in a batter like schnitzel, with salt and pepper, or with sugar and cinnamon; a hundred and three receipts the hog's got, finds a new one every month; it's a sin and a shame, that's what I say.'

While Fischerle was croaking out these words without a moment's pause, Kien lay writhing on the ground. He smote the pavement with his flcshlcss fists as though to prove that the hard crust of the earth itself was softer than the heart of man. Sharp anguish rent his bosom; he wanted to cry aloud, to save, to deliver, hut instead of his lips, his fists only spoke, and they rang but faintly. They smote each paving stone in turn, omitting none. They smote themselves bloody; he frothed at the mouth and the blood from his fists mingled with it, so close to the earth were his trembling lips. When Fischerle had finished, Kien got up, swayed, clung to the hump and, after he had moved his lips once or twice in vain, shrieked out shrill across the square: 'Ca-ni-bals! Ca-ni-bals!' He stretched out his free arms in the direction of the Theresianum. With his other foot he pounded the pavement which, only a moment before, he had all but kissed.

Inside the church the hawker was still in his first energetic burst. Suddenly up popped Fischerle with his rich business friend, pushed the walking-stick on to a bench, said aloud: 'Are you mad?' looked about him and went on talking in a low voice. The hawker was very much frightened, for he had cheated Fischerle, and the business friend knew of how much. He crept as far as he could away from them and hid himself behind a column. Secure in the darkness he watched them, for an acute intuition told him why they had come: they were either bringing or fetching away the parcel.

In the dark, narrow church Kien came gradually to himself. He felt the proximity of another being, whose soft-voiced reproaches infused him with warmth. What was being said, he did not understand, but it quieted him. Fischerle worked desperately hard; he had overshot his target by a long way. While he poured out soothing words he was trying to make out what sort of a man precisely he had there sitting beside nim. If the creature was mad, then he was generously mad; if he only pretended to be, then he was the boldest crook in the world. A crook who lets the police come right up to him without running away, who has to be rescued by force from the arms of the police, who makes his grief credible to a flowerwoman so that she gives him roses for nothing, who risks 950 schillings without wasting a word on them, who will listen to the most monstrous lies from a hunchback without knocking him down! A world champion among crooks! To do down such a master of his craft is a pleasure; opponents of whom you have to be ashamed are what Fischerle can't stand. He's all for equality in every match, and since Kien has turned out to be his partner for financial reasons, he must regard him as his equal.

All the same he treated him as though he were an utter fool; he wanted it this way — well, he could have it. To distract his thoughts he asked him, as soon as he began to breathe more easily, about the events of the morning. Kien was not unwilling to free himself from the comfortless oppression, which burdened his soul since he had heard the worst, by the recollection of happier moments. He propped up his shoulders, ribs and the rest of his bones against the pillar which closed the end of the pew and smiled the weakly smile of an invalid who was on the road to recovery but must be spared as much as possible. Fischerle was willing to spare him. An opponent of such mettle was to be cherished. He clambered up on to the bench, knelt there and pressed his ear to the near neighbourhood of Kien's mouth: in case anyone should hear him. 'So that you don't overtire yourself,' he said. Kien no longer accepted things naturally. The least friendly movement of a fellow being seemed a miracle.