Young Torless (23 page)

Then on the fourth day, when nobody happened to be there, Basini came up to him. He looked ghastly, his face was wan and thin, and in his eyes there was a feverish flicker of constant dread. Glancing nervously about him, he spoke hurriedly and in gasps:

“You've got to help me! You're the only person who can! I can't stand any more of their tormenting me. I've stood everything up to now, but if it goes on like this they'll kill me!”

Törless found it disagreeable to have to say anything in reply to this. At last he said: “I can't help you. It's all your own fault. You're to blame for what's happening to you.

“But only a short time ago you were still so nice and good to me.”

“Never.”

“Shut
up!
It wasn't me. It was a dream. A mood. It actually suits me
quite well that your new disgrace has torn you away from me. For me it's better that way. .

Basini let his head sink. He realized that a sea of grey and sober disappointment lay now between him and Törless. . . . Törless was cold, a different person.

Then he threw himself down on his knees before Törless, beat his head on the floor and cried: “Help me! Help me! For God's sake help me!”

Törless hesitated for a moment. He felt neither any wish to help Basini nor enough indignation to push him away. So he acted on the first thought that occurred to him. “Come to the attic tonight. I'll talk it over with you again.” But the next moment he was already regretting it.

'Why stir it all up again?' he wondered, and then said, as though on second thoughts: “But they'd notice. It can't be done.”

“Oh no, they were up all last night with me, till dawn. They'll sleep tonight.”

“All right then, for all I care. But don't expect me to help you.”

* * *

It was against his own judgment that Törless had decided to meet Basini. For his real conviction was that inwardly it was all over-there was nothing more to be got out of it. Now only a sort of pedantry, some stubborn conscientiousness, had inspired him with the notion of again meddling with these things, even though he knew from the start that it was hopeless.

He felt the need to get it over quickly.

Basini did not know how he was expected to behave. He had been beaten so much that he scarcely dared to stir. Every trace of personality seemed to have gone out of him; only in his eyes there was still a little residue of it, and it peered out shakily, imploringly, as though clutching at Törless.

He waited to see what Törless would do.

Finally Törless broke the silence. He spoke rapidly, in a bored manner, as though it were merely for the sake of form that he was again going over a matter which had long been settled.

“I'm not going to help you. It's a fact, I did take an interest in you for a time, but that's over now. You're really nothing but a cowardly rotter. Definitely that's all you are. So what should make me take your part? I always used to think there must be some word, some feeling, I could find that would describe you differently. But there's really nothing that describes you better than saying you're a cowardly rotter. That's so simple and meaningless, and still it's all that can be said. Whatever else I wanted from you before, I've forgotten since you got in the way of it with your lecherous desires. I wanted to find a point remote from you, to look at you from there. That was my interest in you. You destroyed it yourself. But that's enough about that, I don't owe you any explanation. Only one more thing-what do you feel like now?”

“What do you expect me to feel like? I can't stand any more of it.

“I suppose they're doing pretty bad things to you now, and it hurts?”

“Yes.”

“But just pain-is it as simple as that? You feel that you're suffering and you want to escape from it? Simply that, without any complications?”

Basini had no answer.

“Oh, all right, I was just asking by the way, not really formulating it precisely enough. Still, that doesn't matter. I have no more to do with you. I've already told you that
_.
You don't arouse the slightest feeling in me any more. Do whatever you like.”

Törless turned to go.

Then Basini tore his clothes
off
and thrust himself against Törless. His body was covered with weals. It was a disgusting sight, and his movements were as wretched as those of a clumsy prostitute. Nauseated, Törless shook him off and went.

But he had taken scarcely more than a few paces into the darkness when he collided with Reiting.

“What's all this? So you have secret meetings with Basini, do you?”

Törless followed Reiting's gaze, looking back at Basini. Just at the place where Basini was standing a broad beam of moonlight came in through a skylight, making the bluish-tinged skin with the weals on it look like the skin of a leper. As though he had to find some excuse for this sight, Törless said: “He asked me.”

“What does he want?”

“He wants me to protect him.”

“Well, he's come to the right person, hasn't he!”

“I might really do it, only the whole thing bores me.”

Reiting glanced up, unpleasantly surprised. Then he turned angrily to Basini.

“We'll teach you to start secret plots against us! And your guardian angel Törless will look on in person and enjoy it.”

Törless had already turned away, but this piece of spite, so obviously aimed at him, held him back and, without stopping to think, he said: “Look here, Reiting, I shall not do anything of the kind. I'm not going to have any more to do with it. I'm sick of the whole thing.”

“All of a sudden?”

“Yes, all of a sudden. Before, I was searching for something behind it all....” He did not know why he said this or why now again it kept on coming back into his mind.

“Aha, second sight!”

“Yes. But now I can see only one thing-how vulgar and brutal you and Beineberg are.”

“But you shall also see how Basini eats mud,” Reiting sneered.

“That doesn't interest me any more.

“I
t certainly used to!”

“I've already told you, only as long as Basini's state of mind was a riddle to me.”

“And now?”

“Now I don't know anything about riddles. Things just happen: that's the sum total of wisdom.” Törless was surprised to find himself all at once again uttering phrases from that lost realm of feeling. And so, when Reiting mockingly retorted that one did not have to travel far to pick up that sort of wisdom, an angry sense of superiority shot up in him and made him speak harshly. For a moment he despised Reiting so much that he would really have enjoyed trampling him underfoot.

“Gibe away as much as you like. But the things you two are up to are nothing more or less than brainless, senseless, disgusting torture of someone weaker than you are!”

Reiting cast a sidelong glance at Basini, who was pricking up his ears.

“You mind what you say, Törless!”

“Disgusting and filthy! You heard what I said!”

Now Reiting burst out too. “I forbid you to be abusive about us in front of Basini!”

“Oh, to hell with you! Who are you to forbid anything? That is over. Once I used to respect you and Beineberg, but now I can see what you really are-stupid, revolting, beastly fools!”

“Shut up, or-“ and Reiting seemed about to leap at Törless. Törless retreated slightly, yelling at him: “D'you think I'm going to fight with you? You needn't think Basini's worth that to me! Do what you like with him, but get out of my way!”

Reiting seemed to have changed his mind about hitting Törless; he stepped aside. He did not even touch Basini. But Törless knew him well enough to realize one thing: from now on all that was malicious and dangerous in Reiting would be a perpetual threat to him.

It was in the afternoon, only two days later, that Reiting and Beineberg came up to Törless.

He saw the unpleasant look in their eyes. Obviously Beineberg now bore
him
a grudge for the ridiculous collapse of his prophecies, and Reiting had probably been egging him on, into the bargain.

“I hear you've been abusive about us. And in front of Basini, at that. Why?”

Törless made no answer.

“You realise we are not going to put up with that sort of thing. But because it's you, and we're used to your odd whims, and don't attach overmuch importance to them, we're prepared to let it go at that. There's just one thing you have to do, though.” In spite of the amiability of the words, there was something malevolently expectant in Beineberg's eyes.

“Basini's coming to the lair tonight. We're going to discipline him for having set you against us. When you see us leave the dormitory, come after us.”

But Törless refused. “You two can do what you like. You'll have to leave me out of it.”

“Tonight we're going to have our fun with Basini, for the last time, and tomorrow we're handing him over to the class, because he's beginning to be difficult.”

“You can do whatever you like.”

“But you're going to be there too.”

“It's in front of you especially that Basini must see nothing can help him against us. Only yesterday he was refusing to carry Out our orders. We half thrashed him to death, but he stuck to it. We'll have to resort to moral means again, and humiliate him first in front of you and then in front of the class.”

“But I'm not going to be there.” “Why not?”

“I'm not going to be there, that's all.”

Beineberg drew a deep breath; it looked as if he were gathering together all the venom he had in him. Then he stepped up very close to Törless.

“Do you really think we don't know why? Do you think we don't know how far you've gone with Basini?”

“No further than you two.”

“Indeed? And I suppose that's why he chooses precisely you for his patron saint? Eh? That's why he has this great confidence precisely in you, is it? You needn't think we're stupid enough to believe that!”

Törless grew angry. “I don't care what you know, I don't want to have any more to do with your filthy goings-on!”

“Oh, so you're getting impertinent again!”

“You two make me sick! Your beastliness is utterly senseless! That's what's so revolting about you.

“Now listen to me. You ought to be grateful to us for quite a number of things. If you think that in spite of that you can now set yourself up above us, who have been your instructors, then you're making a grave mistake. Are you coming along tonight, yes or no?”

“No!”

“My dear Törless, if you rebel against us and don't put in an appearance, then you've got coming to you what came to Basini. You know the situation Reiting found you in. That's sufficient. Whether we have done more, or less, won't be of much help to you. We shall use everything against you. You're much too stupid and clumsy in such things to be a match for us.

“So if you don't see reason in good time, we shall expose you to the class as Basini's accomplice. Then it'll be up to him to protect you. Understand?”

A flood of threats, now from Beineberg, now from Reiting, and now uttered by both together, broke over Törless like a storm. And when they had both gone, he rubbed his eyes as if awakening from a dream. But of course it was just like Reiting really; in his anger he was capable of the utmost infamy, and Törless's offensive and mutinous words seemed to have cut him to the quick. And Beineberg? He had looked as if he were shaking with a hatred that he had been concealing for years-and this merely because he had made a fool of himself in front of Törless.

But the more menacingly events hung over Törless's head, the more indifferent he became and the more mechanical it all seemed to him. Their threats frightened him. So much he admitted to himself; but that was all. This danger had drawn him right into the maelstrom of reality.

He went to bed. He saw Beineberg and Reiting leave the dormitory, and then Basini shuffling wearily after them. But he did not follow.

Yet he was tortured by frightful imaginings. For the first time he thought of his parents again with some affection. He could feel that he needed the calm, safe ground of home if he was to consolidate and develop the things in himself that had hitherto only got him into trouble.

But what were these things? He had no time to think about it now and brood over what was going on. All he felt was an impassioned longing to escape from this confused, whirling state of things, a longing for quietness, for books. He felt his soul as black earth in which the seeds were already beginning to sprout, though nobody could yet know what flowers they would bear. He found himself thinking of a gardener, who waters his flower-beds at the break of every day, tending his plants with even, patient kindness. He could not rid himself of the image: that patient certainty seemed now to be the focus of all his longing. This was how it must be! This was the way! Törless now felt it clearly; and, overruling all his fear and all his qualms, there was the conviction in him that he must exert himself to the utmost in order to attain that state of being.

The only thing he was not yet clear about was what had to be done next. For above all else this yearning for tranquil contemplativeness only heightened his loathing for the intrigues he was faced with now. Besides, he was really afraid of the vengeance that he had now to reckon with. If the other two really did set about defaming him to the class, trying to combat that would cost him a tremendous amount of energy; and energy was the very thing he needed for other purposes just now. And the mere thought of this tangle of events, this collision with the intentions and the will-power of others, a collision so utterly lacking in any higher value, made him shudder with disgust.