FLAGMAN THIEL * By Gernart HauprMaNN t Every Sunday Thiel, the flagman, was to be seen sitting in a pew in the church at Neu Zittau If he was absent, you mught be sure he was on Sunday duty or else—as happened twice in the course of ten years—at home ill mn bed Once a great lump of coal from the tender of a passing locomotive had struck his leg and sent him rolling into the ditch at the bottom of the embankment The second time the trouble was a wine bottle that had come flying from an express and had hit him in the middle of his chest Nothing but these two mishaps had ever succeeded in keeping Thiel from church the instant he was off duty. The first five years he had had to come alone to Neu Zittau from Schon-Schornstein, a small collection of homes onthe Spree Then, one fine day, he appeared in the company of a delicate, sickly lookig woman The people thought she al suited his herculean build. And on a later Sunday after- noon, at the altar of the church, he solemnly gave her his hand and pledged his troth. So, for two years, the delicate young creature sat beside him in the pew. For two years her fine, hollow-cheeked face bent over the ancient hymnal beside his weather-tanned face And suddenly the flagman was to be seen sitting alone, as of old On one of the preceding weekdays the bell had tolled for the dead That was all. . * Translated by Adele S. Seltzer. Copyright, 1933, by The Modern Library, Inc, aFLAGMAN THIEL 263 Scarcely any change, so the people declared, was to be observed in the flagman. The brass buttons of his clean Sunday umform were as brightly polished as before, his red hair as sleekly pomaded and as neatly parted, military fashion. Only he held his broad, hairy neck a little bent, and sang more eagerly, and listened to the sermon more devoutly. The general opinion was that his wife’s death had not hit him very hard. A view that was strengthened when in the course of the year he married again The second wife was a strong, stout milkmaid from Altegrund. Even the pastor felt free to express his doubts when Thiel came to announce his engagement “So soon again? You really want to marry so soon again ”” “T can’t keep my house running, sir, with the wife who’s ie.” “To be sure, But I mean—aren’t you ina bit of a hurry?” “It’s on account of the boy.” Thiel’s wife had died in childbirth. The boy had lived and been named Tobias. “Yes, yes, to be sure, the boy,” said the pastor, witha gesture clearly revealing that he had not thought of the infant until that moment “That throws a different light on the matter What have you been doing with him until now while you are at work?” Thiel explained that he left Tobias in the care of an old woman. Once she had nearly Jet him get burned, and an- other time had let him roll from her lap to the floor. Fortu- nately the child had not been badly hurt—only a big surface bruise Such a state of things could not continue, the flag- man said, especially as the child, being delicate, required particular attention For that reason and also because he had sworn to his wife on her deathbed that he would always take exceedingly good care of the child, he had decided to again. The people found absulutely nothing to cavil with in the new couple that now visited the church regularly on Sun- days. The milkmaid seemed to have been made for the flag-264 GERHART HAUPTMANN man She was but a few inches shorter than he and exceeded him in girth, while her features were just as coarsely molded as his, though, 1n contrast, they lacked soul If Thiel had cherished the desire for an inveterate worker and paragon of a housewife in his second wife, then his hopes were surprisingly fulfilled However, without know- ing it, he had purchased three other qualities, too, a hard, domineering disposition, quarrelsomeness, and brutal pas- sion Within half a year the whole place knew who was lord and master in the flagman’s httle house. Thiel became the object of general pity It was a piece of good luck for the “creature,” the exercised husbands said, that she had got such a gentle lamb as Thiel for a husband With other men she wouldn’t come off so easy, she’d recetve some hard knocks An animal like that had to be managed—with blows, if need be—a good sound thrashmg to make her behave herself But Thnel, despite his sinewy arms, was not the man to thrash his wife What got the people so annoyed seemed to cause him no perturbation As arule, he let his wife’s endless sermonizings pass without a word, and when he did occa- sionally make a response, the slow drag of his speech and the quiet coolness of his tone contrasted oddly with her high-pitched bawling The outside world seemed scarcely to touch him. It was as though he carried something within him that heavily overbalanced all of the evil 1t brought by good Nevertheless, for all his phlegm, there were occasions on which he would not allow things to pass—when little Toby was concerned Then his childlike goodness, his yieldingness took on a dash of determination that even so untamed a temperament as Lena’s did not dare to oppose The moments, however, in which he revealed this side of nis character became rarer and tarer, and finally ceased completely During the first year of his marriage he had shown a certain suffering resistance to Lena’s tyranny InFLAGMAN THIEL 265 the second year this also ceased completely. After a quarrel he no longer left for his work witli his earlier indifference in case he had not previously placated her. Often he even stooped to beg her to be kind again His solitary post in the heart of the Brandenburg pine forest was no longer, as 1t had been, the place where he would rather be than anywhere else on earth. she quiet devout thoughts of his dead wife were crossed by thoughts of the ving wife. It was not with repugnance, as in the first months of lis marriage, that he trod the homeward way, but often with passionate haste, after having counted the hours and minutes till the time of his release. He who had been untted to his first wife by a more spiritual love fell to his second wife’s grip through the power of crude impulses He became almost wholly depend- ent upon her At times he experienced pangs of conscience at this turn, and resorted to a number of unusual devices to bring about a change. For one thing, he declared his hut and his beat to be holy ground, dedicated exclusively to the shades of the dead And he actually succeeded by all sorts of pretexts 1m preventing Lena from accompanying him there He hoped he should always be able to keep her off The very number of his hut and the direction in which it lay were sttll un- known to her Thus, by conscientiously dividing the time at his disposal between the living and the dead, Thiel actually succeeded 1n soothing his conscience Often, to be sure, especially in moments of solitary devo- tion, when he felt the tre hetween him and his dead wife deeply and warmly, he beheld his present condition in the hight of truth, and he experienced disgust Tf he was doing day duty, lis spiritual intercourse with her was limited to dear recollections of their life together But in the dark, when a snowstorm raged among the pines and along the embankment, Ins hut at midnight. by the light of his lantern, became a chapel.266 GERHART HAUPTMANN With a faded photograph of the departed before him on the table, and the hymnal and the Bible turned open, he alternately read and sang the whole night long, interrupted only at intervals by the trains rushing past He would attain astate of ecstasy in which he had visions of his wife stand- ing there in person. ‘ In its remoteness this post, which Thiel had held for ten ‘vears, contributed to the intensification of his mystic inclina- tions To the north, cast, south and west, it was separated by a walk of at least three quarters of an hour from the nearest habitation It lay mn the very heart of the forest But there was a grade crossing there, and Thiel’s duty was to lower and raise the gates In the summcr days passed, in the winter weeks without a single person except other railroad workers settmg foot on Thiel’s beat Almost the only changes in the solitude came from the weather and the periodic mutations of the seasons It was not difficult to recall the events—besides the two mishaps to his body—that had broken into the regular course of the hours of service Four years previous the imperial special bearing the Kaiser to Breslau had gone dashing by. Once on a winter's might an express had run over a stag And once on a hot summer’s day, as Thiel was making an inspection of his beat, he had found a corked bottle of wine It was scorching hot to the touch, and Thiel had esteemed its contents because when he uncorked it a geyser spouted out, showing that the stuff was well fermented Thicl had laid the bottle on the edge of a pond in the woods to cool off. Somehow it had disappeared from the spot, and even after the passage of years Thiel never thought of that bottle without a pang of regret. A bit of diversion was provided by a spring behind the hut From time to time men at work on the road bed or on the telegraph les came for a drink, and stayed, of course, to talk a while. Sometimes the forest ranger would also ‘ome when he was thirsty. fo. Tt.FLAGMAN THIEL 267 Tobias developed slowly. It was not until he was two years old that he learned to walk and talk For hs father he displayed unusual affection, and as he grew more under- standing Thiel’s old love for his child was re-awakened Accordingly Lena’s love for the child decreased, turning into unmistakable dislike when the next year a baby boy was born to her, tou After that bad times began for Tobias In his father’s absence he was particularly made to suffer. He had to dedi- cate his feeble powers unrewarded to the service of the little cry-baby He became more and more exhausted. His head grew too large round, and hus fiery red hair, with the chalky face beneath, on top of his wretched little body, made an unlovely and pitiful impression When the backward mite was seen dragging himself down to the Spree with his baby brother bursting with health in his arms, curses were muttered behind the windows of the cottages But no one ever ventured to utter the curses in the open. Thiel, who was most of all concerned, seemed to have no eyes for what was going on, and refused to understand the hints of well-meaning neighbors rn Once Thiel returned from night duty at seven o’clock of a June morning Directly Lena had greeted him, she burst into her usual complaining A few weeks before notice had been given that they could no longer cultivate the piece of land which they rented for planting potatoes for their own use, and no other land had been found to replace it. Though everything pertaining to the land was part of Lena’s duty, Thiel none the less had to listen to a hundred iterations that he would be to blame 1f they had to buy ten sacks of potatoes for dear money. Thiel merely muttered a word’or two Paying slight attention to Lena’s tirade, he went straight over to Tobias’s bed, which he shared with the boy on nights when he was off duty.268 GERHART HAUPTMANN He sat down and watched the sleeping child with an anx- ious expression on his good face For a while he contented himself with chasing away the persistent flies, then he woke tum up A touching joy lighted up the boy's blue, dcep-set eyes He snatched for his father’s hand, and a pitiful smile drew the coincrs of his mouth Thiel helped him put on his few bits of clothing Suddenly a shadow chased across his face He noticed that Ins son's mght cheek was slightly swollen and bore finger marks designed white on red At breakfast Lena brought up the same subject again, pursuing it with even more vigor. Thiel cut her off by telling her that the railroad mspector had given him for nothing the use of a stretch of land alongside the tracks not far from his hut, probably because it was too distant for the inspector to use for himself. Lena was incredulous, then gradually her doubts melted away and she became noticeably good-humored How big was the lot? How good was the soil? She pled him with questions And when she learned that there were actually two dwarf fruit trees on the land, she fairly lost her head At length the questions were all asked, and as the shop- keeper’s hell, which could be heard in every house in the place, kept ringing incessantly, Lena ran forth to ferret out the latest news While she remained in the dark shop crowded with wares, Thiel occupied himself at home with Tobias, who sat on his knee playing with pine cones that his father had brought from the woods “What do you want to be when you grow up” asked Thiel The stereotyped question was invariably answered by the equally stereotyped reply, “Railroad mspector.” It was not asked mm fun The flagman’s dreams actually soared so high It was in all seriousness that he cherished the hope that with God’s help Tobias would become something ex- traordinary The instant “railroad inspector” left the child’s bloodless lips, Thiel’s face brightened, fairly radiated bliss. “Go play now, Tobias,” he said soon afterward, lightingFLAGMAN THIEL 269 his pipe with a shaving kindled at the hearth fire. The boy showing shy pleasure went out, Thiel undressed and got into bed. For a long while he lay staring up at the low, ctacked ceiling. Finally he fell asleep and woke up shortly before twelve o’clock While Lena in her noisy fashion prepared the midday meal, he dressed and went out on tne strect to fetch Tobias, whom he found scratching plaster out of a hole in the wall and stuffing it into lis mouth Thiel led him by the hand past the eight houses that constituted the hamlet down to the Spree, The stream lay dark and glassy between sparsely foliaged pop lars Thiel sat down on a block of granite close to the water’s Every fair day the villagers were accustomed to see him on this spot. The children were devoted to him. They called him Father Thiel. He taught them games that he remem- bered from his own childhood, reserving, however, the best of his memories for Tobias IIe whittled him arrows that flew farther than those of the other boys, he carved tim willow pipes, and even deigned to sing ditties in his rusty bass, and tap the beat with the horn handle of his knife against the bark of a tree The people thought him silly They blamed him They could not understand how he could go to so much trouble for the httle brats. Though they should have been nchly content, seeing that the children were well taken care of when in his charge. Besides, Thiel did more than play with them. He took up serious things, too He heard the older ones recite their lessons, helped them study their Bible and hymn verses, and spelled out c-a-t and d-o-g with the younger ones, After the midday meal Thiel rested again a while, drank acup of coffee, and began to prepare for work. It took him a lot of time, as for everything he did Each move had been regulated for years Thé objects carefully spread out on the walnut dresser went into his various pockets always in the same order—knife, notebook, comb, a horse’s tooth, an270 GERHART HAUPTMANN old watch in a case, and a small book wrapped in red paper. The last was handled with especial care During the night it lay under Thiel’s pillow. and by day was carried in his breast pocket On a label pasted on the cover was written in Thiel’s awkward yet flourished hand, “Savings Account of Tobias Thiel” The clock on the wall with the long pendalum and sickly yellow face mdicated a quarter to five when Thiel left A small boat, his own property, ferried him acrpss the Spree, Arrived at the further side, he stood still a moment gnd listened back in the direction he had come from. Then he turned into a broad path through the woods and withm a few moments reached the depths of the deep-booming pine forest, its mass of needles like a dark green undulating sea The moist layers of needles and moss made a carpet as inaudible to the tread as felt Tiel made his way without looking up, now past the rusty brown columns of the older trees, now between the thickly enmeshed younger growth, and farther on across broad stretches of nursery, over- shadowed by a few tall sm pmes for the protection of the voung saplings A transparent bluish hazé rising from the earth laden with mingled fragrances blurred the forms of the trees A heavy, drab sky hung low over the tops Flocks of cawing crows seemed to bathe in the gray of the atmos- phere Black puddles filled the depressions in the path and cast a still drearier reficction of a dreary nature “Fearful weather,” thought Thiel when he roused out of eep reflection and looked up Suddenly his thoughts were deflected. A dim feeling came to him that he must have forgotten something And surely enough, when he searched his pockets, he discovered that he had not brought along the sandwich that he required on account of the long hours on duty For a while he stood undecided Then turned and hurried back In a short while he reached the Spree, rowed himself across in a few powerful strokes, and without delay, per- spiring from every pore, ascended-the gradual slope of theFLAGMAN THIEL 27. village street. The shopkeeper’s old, mangy poodle lay in the middle of the road. On the tarred board fence around a cottager’s yard perched a hooded crow It spread sts feathers, shook itself, nodded, uttered an ear-splitting caw, caw, and with a slapping sound of :ts wings rose in the air and let the wind drive :t in the direction of the forest. Nothing was to be seen of the villagers—about twenty fishermen and lumbermen with their families. vs, The stillness was broken—by a high-pitched voice. The flagman involuntarily stopped. A volley of violent, jangling tones assailed his ears. It seemed to come from the open dormer window of a low house that he knew only too well. Treading as silently as possible, he glided nearer Now he quite clearly recogmized his wife’s voice Only a few steps more, and he could understand almost everything she said. “You horrid little beast, you! Is the poor baby to scream its belly inside out from hunger ? What? Just you wait—just you wait I'll teach you to mind You'll never forget.” For a few moments there was silence Then a sound could be heard like the beating out of clothes And the next instarit another hailstorm of abuse was let loose ‘ “You miserable little puppy, you! Do you think T’ll let my own child die of hunger because of a mean httle thing like you?—Shut your mouth!” A slight whimper had been audible, “If you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll give you some- thing that’ll keep you going a whole week.” The whimpering did not subside. The flagman felt his heart pounding in irregular beats He began to tremble slightly. His glance fastened on the ground as though his mind were wandering, and again and again his coarse, hard hand went up to his freckled forehead to brush back a dank strand of hair For a second he was about to give way He stood shaken hv a convulsion that swelled his muscles and drew his fingers into a clenched ball. The convulsion subsided He was left in a state of dull ex- haustion. With unsteady steps he entered the narrow, brick-paved