Through his binoculars Franz Joseph watched the movements of each individual platoon; for several minutes he felt proud of his army and for several minutes he also felt sorry to lose it. For he already saw it smashed and scattered, split up among the many nations of his vast empire. The huge golden sun of the Hapsburgs was setting for him, shattered on the ultimate bottom of the universe, splintering into several tiny solar balls that had to shine as independent stars on independent nations.
They just don’t want to be ruled by me anymore! thought the old man. What can you do? he added to himself. For he was an Austrian.
So to the dismay of all the chiefs he descended from his hill and began inspecting the motionless regiments, almost platoon by platoon. And occasionally he walked between the lines, viewing the new kit bags and the bread pouches, now and then pulling out a tin can and asking what was in it, now and then spotting a blank face and asking it about its homeland, family, and occupation, barely hearing the replies, and sometimes stretching out an old hand and clapping a lieutenant on the back. In this way he reached the rifle battalion in which Trotta served.
Four weeks had passed since Trotta had left the hospital. He stood in front of his platoon, pale, gaunt, and apathetic. But as the Kaiser drew nearer, Trotta began to notice his apathy and regret it. He felt he was shirking a duty. The army had become alien to him. The Supreme Commander in Chief was alien to him. Lieutenant Trotta resembled a man who has lost not only his homeland but also his homesickness for his homeland. He pitied the white-bearded oldster who drew nearer and nearer, curiously fingering kit bags, bread pouches, tin cans. The lieutenant wished for the intoxication that had overcome him in all festive moments of his military career: at home, during the summer Sundays, on his father’s balcony, at every parade, when he had received his commission, and just a few months ago at the Corpus Christi pageant in Vienna. Nothing stirred in Lieutenant Trotta as he stood five paces in front of his Kaiser, nothing stirred in his thrust-out chest except pity for an old man. Major Zoglauer rattled out the regulation formula. For some reason the Kaiser didn’t like him. Franz Joseph suspected that things weren’t quite as they should be in the battalion commanded by this man, and he decided to have a closer look. He gazed hard at the unstirring faces, pointed to Carl Joseph, and asked, “Is he sick?”
Major Zoglauer reported what had happened to Lieutenant Trotta. The name rang a bell in Franz Joseph, something familiar yet irksome, and he recalled the incident as described in the files, and behind the incident that long-slumbering incident at the Battle of Solferino. He could still plainly see the captain who, in a ridiculous audience, had so insistently pleaded for the removal of a patriotic selection from a reader. Selection No. 15. The Kaiser remembered the number with the pleasure aroused by minor evidence of his “good memory.” His mood improved visibly. Major Zoglauer seemed less unpleasant.
“I remember your father very well,” the Kaiser said to Trotta. “He was very modest, the Hero of Solferino!”
“Your Majesty,” the lieutenant replied, “that was my grandfather.”
The Kaiser took a step back as if shoved away by the vast thrust of time that had suddenly loomed up between him and the boy. Yes, yes! He could still recall the selection number but not the legion of years that he had already lived through.
“Ah!” he said. “So that was your grandfather! I see, I see! And your father is a colonel, isn’t he?”
“District commissioner of W.”
“I see, I see!” Franz Joseph repeated. “I’ll make a note of it,” he added, as if vaguely apologizing for the mistake he had just made.
He stood in front of the lieutenant for a while, but he saw neither Trotta nor the others. He no longer felt like striding along the lines, but he had to go on lest people realized he was frightened by his own age. His eyes, as usual, peered into the distance, where the edges of eternity were already surfacing. But he failed to notice that a glassy drop appeared on his nose, and that everyone was staring, spellbound, at that drop, which finally fell into his thick, silvery moustache, invisibly embedding itself.
And everyone felt relieved. And the march-past could begin.
PART THREE
Chapter 16
VARIOUS MAJOR CHANGES were occurring in the district captain’s home and life. He noted them, astonished and a bit grim. Minor signs—which, however, he regarded as tremendous—convinced him that the world was changing all around him, and he thought about its doom and about Chojnicki’s prophecies. He was looking for a new butler. Much younger and clearly respectable men with impeccable references had been recommended to him, men who had served in the army for three years and had even made sergeant. The district captain took one or another into his home on a trial basis. He kept none, however. Their names were Karl, Franz, Alexander, Joseph, Alois, or Christoph, or whatever. But he tried to call each one “Jacques.” After all, the real Jacques had originally been christened something else and only adopted this name and proudly borne it his entire long life, the way a famous poet bears his nom de plume, under which he writes immortal songs and poems. Within a few days, however, it turned out that the Aloises, the Alexanders, the Josephs, and the others refused to respond to the illustrious name of Jacques, and the district captain regarded this unruliness not only as insubordination toward him and toward the order of the world but also as an insult to the irrevocable dead. What? They minded being called Jacques? These good-for-nothings without experience or caliber, intelligence or discipline?
The dead Jacques lived on in the district captain’s memory as a servant of exemplary qualities, as the very model of a human being. And surprised as Herr von Trotta was at the unruliness of the successors, he was even more amazed at the carelessness of the employers and authorities who had written favorable references for such miserable wretches. Take a certain individual named Alexander Cak, a man whose name he would never forget, a name spoken with a certain malice, so that if the district captain pronounced that name, it sounded as if Cak had been shot. Now if it was at all possible that this Cak belonged to the Social Democratic Party, yet had made sergeant in his regiment, then one had to despair not only of this regiment but of the entire army. And the army, in the district captain’s opinion, was the only force that you could still rely on in the monarchy.
The district captain felt as if the whole world were suddenly made up of Czechs—a people he viewed as unruly, hardheaded, and stupid and as the inventors of the very concept of “nation.” A lot of peoples might exist, but no nations. And besides, the governor’s office kept sending him various barely comprehensible decrees and orders detailing a gentler treatment of “national minorities”—one of the terms that Herr von Trotta hated most, for by his lights “national minorities” were nothing but large communities of “revolutionary individuals.” He was totally surrounded by revolutionary individuals. He even thought he noticed that they were multiplying unnaturally, in a way that was not suitable for human beings. It had become quite clear to the district captain that the “loyal elements” were growing less and less fertile and bearing fewer and fewer children, as proved by the census statistics, which he sometimes leafed through. He could no longer squelch the dreadful thought that providence itself was displeased with the monarchy; and although he was, in the usual sense, a practicing but not very devout Christian, he nevertheless tended to assume that God Himself was punishing the Kaiser.
Indeed, he was having all kinds of strange thoughts. The dignity he had borne since the first day on which he had become district captain of W had instantly aged him. Granted, even when his whiskers had still been black, nobody would have ever dreamt of regarding Herr von Trotta as a young man. Yet it was only now that the people in his small town were starting to say that the district captain was growing old. He had been forced to discard all sorts of long-ingrained habits. Thus, since old Jacques’s death and his son’s return from the border garrison, Herr von Trotta had stopped taking his pre-breakfast constitutional, lest any of the sus
pect and so frequently changing wretches who served him forgot to place the mail on the breakfast table or open the window. He despised his housekeeper. He had always despised her but had addressed her now and then. Ever since old Jacques had stopped serving, the district captain refused to speak at the table. For in reality his nasty comments had always been for Jacques’s benefit and were, to some extent, meant to court his approval. Only now that the old man was dead did Herr von Trotta realize that he had spoken only for Jacques, like an actor who knows that a seasoned admirer of his art is sitting in the orchestra. And if the district captain had always eaten hastily, he now strove to leave the table after a few nibbles. For he felt it was blasphemous enjoying the garnished roast while the worms were devouring old Jacques in the grave. And if he glanced upward now and then, hoping with an innate piety that the dead man was in heaven and could see him, the district captain saw only the familiar ceiling of his room, for he had abandoned his simple faith, and his senses no longer obeyed the dictates of his heart. Oh, it was dreadful!
Now and then the district captain even forgot to go to the office on normal days. And on some mornings, say, on a Thursday, he would actually slip into his black Sunday coat in order to go to church. It was not until he was outdoors that all sorts of indubitable weekday signs convinced him it was not Sunday, so that he turned around and changed into his everyday suit. Then again he forgot to go to church on some Sundays, while remaining in bed longer than usual and remembering that it was Sunday only when Kapellmeister Nechwal appeared down below with his musicians. Roast garnished with vegetables was served, as on all Sundays. And Herr Nechwal came for coffee. They sat in the study. They smoked Virginia cigars. Herr Nechwal had likewise gotten older. He was due to retire soon. He did not travel to Vienna so often now, and when he told jokes, even the district captain felt he had known them verbatim for years. He still did not understand them, but he recognized them, like certain people he kept running into without knowing their names.
“How is your family?” asked Herr von Trotta.
“Thank you, they’re doing just fine,” said the kapellmeister.
“How is Frau Nechwal?”
“Very well!”
“And the children?”—for the district captain still did not know whether Herr Nechwal had sons or daughters, which was why for twenty years now he had been cautiously asking about the “children.”
“My eldest boy has made lieutenant!” replied Nechwal.
“Infantry, naturally?” Herr von Trotta asked out of habit, then promptly remembered that his own son was now serving with the riflemen and not the cavalry.
“Yessir, infantry!” said Nechwal. “He’ll be visiting us soon. I hope you will permit me to present him to you.”
“Please, by all means, I’d be delighted!” said the district captain.
One day young Nechwal called on him. He was serving with the German Masters (an infantry regiment), had received his commission a year earlier, and looked, in Herr von Trotta’s opinion, like a “fiddler.”
“You take after your father,” said the district captain, “his spit ‘n’ image,” although young Nechwal actually resembled his mother more than the kapellmeister. “Like a fiddler”: the district captain was referring to a very specific carefree dash in the lieutenant’s face, the tiny, blond, twirled-up moustache that lay like a curling horizontal bracket under the short broad nose, and the well-shaped, symmetrical, doll-like little ears that seemed made of porcelain, and the neat sunny hair parted down the middle.
“A jolly-looking boy!” said Herr von Trotta to Herr Nechwal. “Are you content?” he then asked the boy.
“Frankly, Herr District Captain,” the kapellmeister’s son replied, “it’s a little boring.”
“Boring?” asked Herr von Trotta. “In Vienna?”
“Yes,” said young Nechwal, “boring! You know, Herr District Captain, if you’re stationed in a small garrison, you never even realize you don’t have money!”
The district captain was offended. He felt it was not proper to talk about money, and he was afraid that young Nechwal was alluding to Carl Joseph’s better financial position.
“My son is serving on the border,” said Herr von Trotta, “but he has always managed well. Even in the cavalry.” He stressed that last word. This was the first time he felt embarrassed that Carl Joseph had left the lancers. People like Nechwal certainly did not turn up in the cavalry! And the sheer thought that this bandmaster’s son imagined he resembled young Trotta in any way caused the district captain almost physical pain. He decided to nail this “fiddler.” He downright smelled treason in this boy, whose nose looked Czech.
“Do you like serving in the army?” asked the district captain.
“Frankly,” said Lieutenant Nechwal, “I could imagine a better profession.”
“What do you mean, a better one?”
“A more practical one,” said young Nechwal.
“Isn’t it practical to fight for your country?” asked Herr von Trotta. “Assuming, of course, that a man has a practical mind.”
It was clear that he put an ironical stress on the word “practical.”
“But we don’t fight,” retorted the lieutenant. “And if ever we did fight, it might not be all that practical.”
“Why not?” asked the district captain.
“Because we’re sure to lose the war,” said Nechwal the lieutenant. “This is a different era,” he added—and not without malice, or so it sounded to Herr von Trotta. The lieutenant narrowed his small eyes so they vanished almost entirely, and in a way that seemed quite unendurable to the district captain, his upper lip bared his gum, his moustache touched his nose, which, in Herr von Trotta’s opinion resembled the broad nostrils of some animal.
A thoroughly repulsive fellow, the district captain thought.
“A new era,” young Nechwal repeated. “All these ethnic groups won’t be hanging together for long!”
“I see,” said the district captain. “And how do you know all this, Herr Lieutenant?” And the district captain simultaneously knew that his scorn was pointless, and he felt like an old soldier flashing his harmless, powerless sword against a foe.
“Everyone knows,” said the boy, “and they say so too!”
“Say so?” Herr von Trotta repeated. “Do your comrades say so?”
“Yes, they say so!”
The district captain lapsed into silence. All at once he felt he was standing on a high mountain facing Lieutenant Nechwal, who was down in a deep valley. Lieutenant Nechwal was very tiny! But even though he was tiny and far below, he was right all the same. And the world was no longer the old world. It was about to end. And it was quite in order that an hour before its end the valleys should prove the mountains wrong, the young the old, the stupid the sensible. The district captain remained silent. It was a Sunday afternoon in summer. The yellow blinds filtered golden sunlight into the study. The clock ticked. The flies buzzed. The district captain remembered that summer day when his son, Carl Joseph, had arrived in the uniform of a cavalry lieutenant. How much time had passed since that day? A few years. But during those years, the district captain felt, events had been piling up fast and thick. It was as if the sun had risen twice a day and set twice a day; as if every week had had two Sundays and every month sixty days and the years had been double years. And yet Herr von Trotta felt cheated by time even though it had given him twice as much; it was as if eternity had offered him double pseudo-years instead of single genuine ones. And while he despised the lieutenant who stood opposite him, deep down in his vale of tears, he distrusted the mountain on which he himself stood. Oh! It was all so unjust! Unjust, unjust! For the first time in his life the district captain felt like a victim of injustice.
He yearned for Dr. Skowronnek, the man he had been playing chess with every afternoon for several months now. For even the regular chess game was one of the changes in the district captain’s life. He had known Dr. Skowronnek a long time, just as he knew the
other café patrons, no more and no less. One afternoon they were sitting across from one another, each half-covered by an unfolded, outspread newspaper. As if at a command, they both put down their newspapers, and their eyes met. Instantly and simultaneously they realized they had been reading the same item. It was a report on a summer festival in Hietzing, where a butcher named Alois Schinagl had won the rib-eating competition by dint of his preternatural gluttony and been awarded the Gold Medal of the Food Contest Association of Hietzing. And the eyes of the two men said in unison: We like meat too, but awarding a gold medal for this kind of thing is really a newfangled crackpot notion! Whether there is love at first sight is rightfully questioned by experts. But there is no question about friendship at first sight, a friendship between elderly men. Dr. Skowronnek peered at the district captain over the rimless oval lenses of his spectacles, and at the same moment the district captain took off his pince-nez. He raised it. And Dr. Skowronnek stepped over to the district captain’s table.
“Do you play chess?” asked Dr. Skowronnek.
“Gladly!” said the district captain.
They did not have to make appointments. They met every afternoon at the same time. They arrived simultaneously. Their daily habits seemed governed by a harmonious accord. While playing they barely exchanged a word. Nor did they need to converse. On the small chessboard their gaunt fingers sometimes bumped into one another like people in a small square, jerked back, and returned home. But however casual these touches, their fingers virtually had eyes and ears, perceiving everything about one another and about the men they belonged to. And after their hands had bumped into one another several times, both the district captain and Dr. Skowronnek felt as if they had known each other for years and had no secrets from each other. And so one day gentle conversation began to surround their games, and their remarks about weather and world, politics and people floated over their hands, which were long since intimate. An estimable man! the district captain thought about Dr. Skowronnek. An extraordinarily fine man! Dr. Skowronnek thought about the district captain.