Young Torless (13 page)

So he watched them go, jealously, and racked his brains about what they might be planning in secret.

And as he watched them it struck him how much innocent grace and charm there was in Reiting's erect carriage and supple walk-just as there was in his way of talking. By contrast he tried to imagine what Reiting must have been like-inwardly, in his emotions-that other night. It must have been like some long, slow sinking of two souls with a mortal stranglehold on each other, and then depths as of some subterranean realm-and, in between, a moment in which the sounds of the world, far, far above, faded and died out.

Could a human being really be so gay and easy-going again after such an experience? Surely then it could not mean so much to him. Törless would have liked to ask him. And instead of that, now, in his childish timidity, he had left him with that spidery creature Beineberg!

At a quarter to eleven
Törless
saw Beineberg and Reiting slip out of their beds, and he also got up and began dressing. “Ssh! I say,
wait, can't you? Somebody'll notice if the three of us all go out together.”

Törless got back under the bed-clothes.

A little while later they all met in the passage, and with their usual caution they went on upstairs to the attics.

“Where's Basini?” Törless asked.

“He's coming up the other way. Reiting gave him the key.”

They went all the way in darkness. Only when they reached the top, outside the big iron door, did Beineberg light his little hurricane-lamp.

The lock was stiff. It was rusty from years of disuse and would not answer to the skeleton key. Then at last it gave, with a loud snap. The heavy door scraped back reluctantly on its rusty hinges, yielding only inch by inch.

From inside the attic came a breath of warm, stale air, like that in small hothouses.

Beineberg shut the door after them.

They went down the little wooden staircase and then squatted on the floor beside a huge roof-beam.

On one side of them were some large water-tubs for use in case of fire. It was obvious that the water in them had not been changed for a very long time; it had a sweet, sickly smell.

The whole place was oppressive, with the hot, bad air under the roof and the criss-cross pattern on the huge beams and rafters, some of them vanishing into the darkness overhead, some of them reaching down to the floor, forming a ghostly network.

Beineberg shaded his lamp, and there they sat quite still in the dark, not speaking a word-for long, long minutes.

Then the door in the darkness at the other end of the attic creaked, faintly, hesitantly. It was a sound to make one's heart leap into one's mouth-the first sound of the approaching prey.

Then came some unsure footsteps, a foot stumbling against wood: dull sound as of a falling body...Silence. .. Then again hesitant footsteps . . . A pause . . . A faint voice asking: “Reiting?”

Now Beineberg removed the shade from his lamp, throwing a broad ray of light in the direction from which the voice had come.

Several immense wooden beams loomed up, casting deep shadows. Apart from that, there was nothing to be seen but the cone of light with dust whirling in it.

The footsteps grew steadier and came closer.

Then ... and this time quite near. .. a foot banged against wood again, and the next moment . . . framed in the wide base of the cone of light. . . Basini's face appeared, ash-grey in that uncertain illumination.

* * *

Basini was smiling. . . sweetly, cloyingly. It was like the fixed smile of a portrait, hanging above them there in the frame of light.

Törless sat still, pressing himself tightly against the woodwork; he felt his eyelids twitching.

Now Beineberg recited the list of Basini's infamies-monotonously, in a hoarse voice.

Then came the question: “So you're not ashamed at all?” At that Basini looked at Reiting, and his glance seemed to say: 'Now I think it's time for you to help me.' And at that moment Reiting hit him in the face so that he staggered back, tripped over a beam, and fell. Beineberg and Reiting leapt upon him.

The lamp had been kicked sideways, and now its light flowed senselessly, idly, past Törless's feet, across the floor. . .

From the sounds in the darkness Törless could tell that they were pulling Basini's clothes off and then that they were whipping him with something thin and pliant. Evidently they had had everything prepared. He heard Basini's whimpering and half-stifled cries of pain as he went on pleading for mercy; and then finally he heard nothing but a groaning, a suppressed howling, and at the same time Beineberg cursing in a low voice and his heavy, excited breathing.

Törless had not stirred from where he sat. Right at the beginning, indeed, he had been seized with a savage desire to leap up too and join in the beating; but his feeling that he would come too late and only be one too many had held him back. His limbs were encased in paralysing rigidity, as though in the grip of some great hand.

In apparent indifference he sat staring at the floor. He did not strain his ears to distinguish what the various sounds meant, and his heart beat no faster than usual. His eyes followed the light that spread out in a pool at his feet. Grains of dust gleamed in it, and one ugly little cobweb. And the light seeped further, into the da
rk
ness under the beams, and peered out in dusty, murky gloom.

Törless could have sat there like that for an hour without noticing the passing of time. He was thinking of nothing, and yet he was inwardly very much preoccupied. At the same time he was observing himself. And it was like gazing into a void and there seeing himself as if out of the corner of his eye, in a vague, shapeless glimmer. And then out of this vagueness-as though coming round the corner of his mind-slowly, but ever more distinctly, a desire advanced into clear consciousness.

Something made Törless smile at this. Then once again the desire came more strongly, trying to draw him from his squatting position down on to his knees, on to the floor. It was an urge to press his body flat against the floorboards; and even now he could feel how his eyes would grow larger, like a fish's eyes, and how through the flesh and bones of his body his heart would slam against the wood.

Now there was indeed a wild excitement raging in Törless, and he had to hold on tight to the beam beside him in an effort to fight off the dizziness that was trying to draw him downwards.

Sweat pearled on his forehead, and he wondered anxiously what all this could mean.

Startled quite out of his former indifference, he was now straining his ears again to hear what the oth
er three were doing in the dark
ness.

It had grown quiet over there. Only Basini could be heard groping for his clothes and moaning softly to himself.

An agreeable sensation went through Törless when he heard this whimpering. A tickling shudder, like thin spidery legs, ran up and down his spine, then contracted between his shoulder blades, pulling his scalp tight as though with faint claws. He was disconcerted to realise that he was in a state of sexual excitement. He thought back, and though he could not remember when this had begun, he knew it had already been there when he felt that peculiar desire to press himself against the floor. He was ashamed of it; but it was like a tremendous surge of blood goi
ng through him, numb
ing his thoughts.

Beineberg and Reiting came groping their way back and sat down in silence beside him. Beineberg looked at the lamp.

At this moment Törless again felt drawn downward. It was something that came from his eyes-he could feel that now-a sort of hypnotic rigidity spreading from the eyes to the brain. It was a question, indeed, it was-no, it was a desperation-oh, it was something he knew already-the wall, that garden outside the window, the low-ceilinged cottages, that childhood memory-it was all the same thing! all the same! He glanced at Beineberg. 'Doesn't he feel anything?' he wondered. But Beineberg was bending down, about to put the lamp straight. Törless gripped his arm to stop him.

“Isn't it like an eye?” he said, pointing to the light streaming across the floor.

“Getting poetical now, are you?”

“No. But don't you yourself say there's something special about eyes? It's all in your own favourite ideas about hyptiotism- how sometimes they send out a force different from anything we hear about in physics. And it's a fact you can often tell far more about someone from his eyes than from what he says .

“Well-what of it?”

“This light seems like an eye to me-looking into a strange world. It makes me feel as if I had to guess something. Only I can't. I only could gulp it down-drink it.”

“Well, so you really are getting poetical.”

“No. I'm perfectly serious. It simply makes me frantic. Just look at it yourself and you'll see what I mean. It makes you sort of want to wallow in the pool of it-to crawl right into that dusty corner on all fours, as if that were the way to guess it . .

“My dear chap, these are idle fancies, all nonsense. That'll be enough of that sort of thing for the moment.”

Beineberg now bent right down and restored the lamp to i
ts former position. But Törless
felt a sudden spiteful satisfaction. He realised that, with some extra faculty he had, he got more out of these happenings than his companions did.

He was now waiting for Basini to re-appear, and with a secret shudder he noticed that his scalp was again tightening under those faint claws.

After all, he knew quite well by now that there was something in store for him, and the premonition of it was coming to him at ever shorter intervals, again and again: it was a sensation of which the others knew nothing, but which must evidently be of great importance for his future life.

Only he did not know what could be the meaning of this sexual excitement that was mingled with it. He did remember, however, that it had in fact been present each time when things began to be queer-though only to him-and to torture him because he could find no reason for the queerness.

And he resolved that at the next opportunity he would think hard about this. For the moment he gave himself up entirely to the shudder of excitement with which he looked for Basini's reappearance.

Since Beineberg had replaced the lamp, the rays of light once again cut out a circle in the darkness, like an empty frame.

And all at once there was Basini's face again, just as it had been the first time, with the same fixed, sweet, cloying smile-as though nothing had happened in the meantime-only now, over his upper lip, mouth, and chin, slowly, drops of blood were making a red, wriggling line, like a worm.

* * *

“Sit down over there!” Reiting ordered, pointing to the great beam. When Basini had obeyed, Reiting launched out: “I suppose you were thinking you'd got yourself nicely out of the whole thing, eh? I suppose you thought I was going to help you? Well, that's just where you were wrong. What I've been doing with you was only to see exactly
how
much of a skunk you are.”

Basini made a gesture of protest, at which Reiting moved as though to leap at him again. Then Basini said: “But look, for heaven's sake, there wasn't anything else I could do!”

“Shut up!” Reiting barked at him. “We're sick and tired of your excuses! We know now, once and for all, just where we stand with you, and we shall act accordingly.”

There was a brief silence. Then suddenly Törless said quietly, almost amiably: “Come on, say 'I'm a thief'.”

Basini stared at him with wide, startled eyes. Beineberg laughed approvingly.

But Basini said nothing. Then Beineberg hit him in the ribs and ordered sharply: “Can't you hear? You've been told to say you're a thief. Get on and
say
it!”

Once again there was a short, scarcely perceptible pause. Then in a low voice, in a single breath, and with as little expression as possible, Basini murmured: “I'm a thief.”

Beineberg and Reiting laughed delightedly, turning to Törless:

“That was a good idea of yours, laddie.” And then to Basini: “And now get on with it and say: I'm a beast, a pilfering, dishonest beast,
your
pilfering, dishonest, filthy beast.”

And Basini said it, all in one breath, with his eyes shut. But Törless had leaned back into the darkness again. The scene sickened him, and he was ashamed of having delivered up his idea to the others.

During the mathematics period Törless was suddenly struck by an idea.

For some days past he had been following lessons with special interest, thinking to himself: 'If this is really supposed to be preparation for life, as they say, it must surely contain some clue to what I am looking for, too.,

It was actually of mathematics that he had been thinking, and this even before he had had those thoughts about infinity.

And now, right in the middle of the lesson, it had shot into his head with searing intensity. As soon as the class was dismissed he sat down beside Beineberg, who was the only person he could talk to about such things.

“I say, did you really understand all that stuff?”

“What stuff?”