Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (59 page)

Buch Insane Asylum, Detention Ward

In the lock-up of the panoptical building at headquarters it is at first suspected that Franz Biberkopf is flying a kite, as it were, that he is shamming madness, because he knows his bean is at stake. But then the doctor has a good look at the prisoner and orders his removal to Moabit Hospital. They can’t get a word out of him, it looks as if the man were really crazy, he lies there quite rigid or just blinks his eyes a bit. Having refused to eat for a few days, he is taken to the Buch Insane Asylum, where they place him in the detention ward. At any rate, that’s the thing to do, the fellow has to be kept under observation, that’s certain.

They first put Franz in the observation ward, because he was always lying around without a stitch on and didn’t cover himself up; he even kept tearing off his shirt which was the only sign of life Franz Biberkopf gave for a few weeks. He kept his eyes shut tight all the time, lay perfectly stiff refusing all food so that they had to feed him forcibly; he lived for weeks on milk and eggs and a bit of cognac. The strong man grew so wasted that one guard alone could easily carry him to the bathtub. Franz greatly enjoyed his bath and while he was in it, even uttered sometimes a few words, opened his mouth, sighed or groaned, although nobody was able to make anything out of these sounds.

The Buch Asylum lies somewhat away from the village; the detention ward is detached from the dwellings of those who are only sick and have not committed a crime. The detention ward lies in an open lot out on the level plain; wind and snow, cold and rain, day and night, beset the house with might and main. There are no streets to hold up the elements, only a few trees and bushes, and a few telegraph wires, otherwise there is only rain and snow, wind and cold, day and night.

Boom, zoom, the wind stretches his chest, draws in his breath, then he exhales as if he were a barrel, each breath heavy as a mountain, the mountain approaches, and crash-it rolls against the house. Rumbling of basses. Boom, zoom, the trees sway, they can’t keep time, they’re swaying right, they’re swaying left, and now he knocks them down. Falling weights, hammering air, a rattle and a roar, and a crash, boom, zoom. I’m yourn, come on, we’ll soon be there, boom, night, night.

Franz hears the calls. Boom, zoom, they do not stop, can’t they be quiet for a while? The guard sits at his table, reading, I can see him, he won’t let this howling outside disturb him. I’ve been lying here a long time. The chase, the damned chase, they have chased me helter-skelter, my arms and legs are broken, my neck’s smashed and broken. Boom, zoom, let it whimper, I’ve been lying here a long time, I won’t get up, Franz Biberkopf won’t get up again. And even if the Doomsday bugles should blow, Franz Biberkopf won’t get up again. Let them shout all they want, let them bring up their old feeding-tube, now they’re even pushing it down my nose because I won’t open my mouth, but don’t worry, I’ll starve to death all right, what can they do with their medicine, they can do anything they like. Tripe, a lotta damned tripe, but all that’s behind me. Now the guard is drinking his glass of beer, all that’s behind me, too.

*

Boom, crash, zoom, crash, boom, a battering ram, zoom, a knock at the door. Rushing and whirling and crushing and skirling, the Powers of Storm get together and hold their conference, it is night and they set about awakening Franz, not that they want to break his limbs, but the walls are so thick, he cannot hear what they call; but if he were nearer them, outside, he would feel them and hear Mieze crying. Then his heart would open up, his conscience would be awakened, and he would arise and everything would be all right. Now, however, they don’t know what to do. When a man takes a hatchet and slashes the solid wood, even the oldest tree begins to scream. But this rigid lying around, this selfeffacement, this self-abasement before disaster, that’s the worst thing in the world. We must not give up, either we’ll break into the detention ward with our battering ram and smash the windows, or we’ll raise the tiles on the roof; when he feels us, when he hears our screaming, Mieze’s screaming, which we are bringing along with us, he will live again and know better what’s up. We must put fear into him, we must frighten him, until he has no peace left in his bed, and then, how are we going to raise the coverlet, blast him to the floor, whirl the guard’s book and beer from the table. Boom, zoom, how am I going to overturn his lamp, I’ll kick the bulb down, maybe there’ll be a short-circuit in the house, maybe there’ll be a fire, boom, zoom, a fire in the madhouse, a fire in the detention ward.

Franz blocks his ears and stiffens up. Around the detention ward fair weather and rain follow each other day and night.

A girl from the village stands by the wall talking to a guard: “Can you see I’ve been crying?” “No, only one of your cheeks is a bit swollen.” “My whole head, the back of my skull, everything, I tell you.” She starts crying and takes her handkerchief from out of her bag. Her face has a sour expression. “What’s more, I didn’t do anything at all. I was told to go to the baker’s and fetch something. I happened to know the young lady there, so I asked her what she was doing, and she says I’m going to the bakers’ ball today. A person can’t sit at home all the time, in this bad weather. She had an extra ticket and wanted to take me along. Don’t cost me anything. That was nice of her, wasn’t it?” “Why, yes.” “But then you should hear my parents, my mother, I shouldn’t go. But why not, isn’t it a respectable ball? And then a girl would like a bit of fun, too, sometimes. What do I get out of life? No, I can’t go, the weather’s too bad, and father’s sick. But I said, I’ll go anyway. Then I got such a beating, is that nice?” She is crying again and stares into space. “The whole back of my head hurts. And my mother says, now are you going to do us this favor and stay at home. That’s going a little bit far, don’t you think so? Why shouldn’t I go out, I’m twenty years old now, Mother says you can go on Saturday and Sunday, well, then, why not on Thursday, because she’s got the tickets anyway.” “I can give you a handkerchief that long, if you want to.” “Oh, I’ve used up six so far, crying so hard; and then I got a cold on top of it, crying all day long like this, and what’ll I tell the young lady, why, I can’t go to the store with that swollen cheek I just want to go away, get a change of air; you know about your friend Sepp, I’ve written him, it’s all over between us, he hasn’t answered, it’s all over now.” “Leave that fellow alone, you can see him in town every Wednesday with another girl on the string.” “I like him a lot. That’s why I want to run away.”

An old man with a whisky-nose sits down on Franz’s bed. “Heh, fellow, open them eyes of yours, you might listen to me a minute. I’m in the same boat as you are. Home Sweet Home, you know what that means for me: under the sad. When I’m not at home, I wanta be under the sod. The microcephalics want to make a troglodyte outa me, a cave-dweller. That’s the cave they want me to live in. Y’know what a troglodyte is, don’t you, that’s us, awake, you wretched of the earth, doomed to starve, poor fallen victims of the fight in your holy love of mankind, you gave up your all for the people, life, liberty, and happiness. That’s us, old boy. In his luxurious mansions the despot feasts, drowning his unrest in wine; but a hand has already been writing the menacing signs upon his sumptuous board. I’m an autodidact, I am, everything I learned I learned by myself, from the jail, the detention ward, and now they lock me up here, they’re putting the people under tutelage, I’m too dangerous for society. You bet I am. I’m a freethinker, yes, sir, look at me, I’m the most peaceful man in the world, except when they get me excited. A time will come when the people will awake, strong and mighty and free, so rest in peace, my brothers, immense is the sacrifice you have made.

“Listen, brother, open them lamps of yours, I wanta know if you’re listening to me-that’s all right, you needn’t do more than that. I won’t give you away-what ‘dja do, didja take one of them tyrants for a ride, death to you all, executioners and despots, sing ho. You’re lying around here, y’know, and me, I can’t sleep all night long, there’s always that noise outside, boom, boom, don’t you hear it too? One of these nights they’ll be knocking down the whole shebang. They’re right. Last night I figured out, I was doing it all night, how many revolutions the earth makes around the sun in a second, I calculate and I calculate, I think it’s 28, and then I get a notion my old woman’s sleeping beside me and I wake her up and she says: Don’t get ‘excited, darlin’, but it was only a dream.

“They locked me up ‘cause I drink, but when I drink I get in a rage, I tell ye, but only at myself, and then I gotta knock everything into smithereens, everything that comes my way, simply because I’m not able to control my will. So one day I goes to the office about my pension and they’re all sitting around in the room, those lazy boobs, sucking their penholders and thinking they’re our Lords and Masters. I comes in, I opens that door with a bang and starts talkin’,and then they say what do you want here, who are you, anyway? Down goes my fist on their table: I don’t wanta talk to you, whom have I the honor of addressing, my name’s Schogel, please give me the telephone book, I want to call up the governor. So I smashed up the whole place, and two of them birds had to bite the dust, I tell ye.”

Boom, crash, zoom, crash, boom, a battering ram, zoom, a hammering at the door. Bashing and crashing, crackling and smashing. Who is this lying fool, Franz Biberkopf, this crying mule, this sighing ghoul, he’d like to wait here till it snows, then, he thinks, we’re gone and won’t come back again. Wonder what he’s thinking about, a feller like that can’t be thinking a great deal, he’s got water on the brain, he wants to lie around here and act like a mule. But never mind, we’ll make things hot for him, we have bones made of iron, crash door, look out, smash door, hole in the door, crack in the door, look out, no door, just an empty hole, a gaping hole, boom, zoom, watch out, boom, zoom.

There is a clatter. A clatter invades the storm, a clattering sound is audible through all its mumbling and rumbling, a woman upon a scarlet beast turns around. She has seven heads and ten horns. She cackles, holding a glass in her hand, she sneers, she lies in wait for Franz, she lifts her glass to the Powers of Storm: cluck, cluck, pipe down, gentlemen, the feller is not much good, you won’t be able to do much with that man, why, he’s only got one arm, there’s no flesh or fat on him, he’ll soon be a stiff, they’re beginning to put hot-water bottles in his bed, and I have his blood, he has only a wee bit left. he can’t go bragging around with that any more. Shush, I tell you, gentlemen, pipe down.

This happens right before Franz’s eyes. The whore moves her seven heads, cackles and nods. The beast plants its feet beneath her, lolling its head.

Grape-Sugar and Camphor Syringes, but in the end Somebody Else takes a Hand in it

Franz Biberkopf fights with the doctors. He can’t tear the tube away from them, he can’t pull it out of his nose, they pour oil on the rubber, and the tube slides down his throat and down his gullet, then milk and eggs flow down into his stomach. But after the feeding Franz starts to retch and to vomit. That’s troublesome and painful, but it works, even if they tie a fellow’s hands so that he can’t stick his fingers in his throat. A man can vomit everything he wants, and we’ll see who has the strongest will, they or I, and if anybody is going to coerce me in this damned world. I’m not here for doctors to experiment on me, and, anyway, they don’t know what’s wrong with me.

So Franz persists and grows weaker and weaker. They try all kinds of methods with him, they try to persuade him, they feel his pulse, they raise and lower him, they give him caffeine and camphor injections, they squirt grape-sugar and common salt into his veins, the prospects of his intestinal canal are discussed at his bedside, maybe we ought to make him inhale an extra amount of oxygen, he can’t get rid of the mask. He asks himself why are those gentlemen, those big doctors worryin’ about me all the time? A hundred men die in Berlin every day, and when a man’s sick, the doctor only comes if he gets a lotta money. Now they all come rushing up, but they don’t do it. because they want to help. They don’t care a rap about me today, no more than they did yesterday, but maybe I’m an interesting case for ‘em, and that’s why they get so mad about me, because they can’t do anything with me. And they don’t want anybody to get away with it, not on your life, it’s against the rules of the house here for somebody to die, it’s against the discipline of the institution. If I croak, they may get a calling down, and then they wanta put me up for trial on account of Mieze and so on and I’ve gotta be on my feet first, why, they’re hangman’s assistants, that’s all, not even hangmen, just assistants to the hangman, his beaters, and then they walk around in a doctor’s blouse and they ain’t ashamed, either.

There’s a Jot of sneering and whispering going on among the prisoners in the detention ward, after the doctor has made his round again, and Franz is lying just as before; they’ve gone to a lot of trouble with him, always new injections, next time they’ll make him stand on his head, now they’ re starting to talk about blood-transfusion for him, but where are they goin’ to get the blood from, there ain’t nobody here as dumb as all that, lettin’ em tap his blood, why not leave the poor feller alone, a man’s will is his Paradise, and what a man wants, well, that’s what he wants. The whole house is only interested to know what kind of injection our Franz is goin’ to get today, and they laugh behind the doctor’s back, for what’s the use, they won’t get anywhere with that feller, he’s hard-boiled all right, he’s hard as nails, he’ll show ‘em a thing or two, he knows what he wants.

The doctors put on their white blouses in the consultation-room, the Head Doctor, an assistant, two volunteers, and an interne, they all say it’s a case of stupor. The younger gentlemen have opinions of their own about this case: they are inclined to consider Franz Biberkopf’s trouble as psychogenic that is, his rigidity derives from the soul, it is a pathological condition of inhibitions and constraint which would be cleared up by an analysis (perhaps it emanates from earlier psychic levels) if-the big If. a most regrettable If, it’s too bad, a most irritating If-if only Franz Biberkopf would talk and sit down with them at the conference table to liquidate the conflict with them. The younger gentlemen envisage a Locarno with Franz Biberkopf. These younger gentlemen, the two volunteers and the interne, go, one by one, to the little ward, after the morning inspection and again in the afternoon, and visit Franz; each of them tries to start a conversation with him as best he can. They experiment, for instance, with the device of pretending nothing’s wrong, and talk to him as if he were listening to everything, and that’s all right, and as if they could coax him out of his isolation and break down his blockade.