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Traveler when you come to the spa writing history. Foreign literature abbreviated

The car stopped, but the engine was still purring; where a large gate opened. Then the engine stopped, and a voice came from outside:

“The dead are here, have you heard?” And the rest up the stairs, to the drawing room, understand?

- Yes, yes, I understand.

But I was not dead, I belonged to the others, and they carried me upstairs.

At first they walked along a long, dimly lit corridor, with green, painted oil paint walls.

Here from the darkness of the corridor emerged doors with signs 6-A and 6-B, between those doors hung Feuerbach's Medea. Next came the doors with others

Signs, between them - "A boy, takes out a blackthorn" - a pink photo with a reddish tint in a brown frame. And on the stairwell, on the yellow-painted wall, all of them were proud - from the great Elector to Hitler.

A portrait of old Fritz floated past in a sky-blue uniform, an example of the Aryan breed. Then everything else appeared: a bust of Caesar, Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, a column with a horn for Hermes, a mustache and the tip of Nietzsche’s nose in a golden frame on the left (the rest of the portraits were covered with the inscription “Light surgery“) ... “And before the orderlies began to go to the third floor , I managed to see her - intertwined

With a fireplace laurel wreath, a table with the names of the fallen, with a large golden Iron Cross at the top.

If now, flashed through my head, if now ... Yes, here he is, I already saw him - that landscape, large and bright, flat, like an old engraving ... in the foreground there is a large bunch of bananas, on the middle of them it was scrawled , I saw that inscription, because, it seems, I scratched it myself ...

I was taken to the drawing room, over the door of which hung the image of Zeus, it smelled of iodine, feces, gauze and tobacco and was noisy. All this, I thought, was not proof. Finally, in every gymnasium there are drawing rooms, corridors with green and yellow walls, and finally, the fact that “Medea” hangs between 6-A and 6-B is not yet proof that I am in my school. “... Not a single feeling tells you that you are in your own school, which you left only three months ago ... My heart did not respond.”

I spit out the cigarette and screamed: when you scream, it gets easier, you just have to scream louder, it was so good to scream, I screamed like crazy. I asked for a drink and another cigarette, in the pocket at the top. They brought me water, only then I opened my eyes and saw an old tired face, a fireman's uniform, the spirit of onions and tobacco wafted over me ...

- Where are we? I asked.

in Bendorf.

“Thank you,” I said, and took a drag.

Perhaps I'm in Bendorf, that is, at home.

There are three classical gymnasiums in Bendorf: Frederick the Great's gymnasium, Albert's gymnasium and (maybe it would be better not to say this), but the last, third is Adolf Hitler's gymnasium.

Now I could hear heavy guns firing somewhere. The guns fired confidently and measuredly, like a solemn organ music. Just like in the war, which they write about in books with drawings ... It suddenly occurred to me that my name would also be on the table of the fallen, carved into stone, and in the school calendar against my last name it would be written “Left school for the front and died for ... ”But I still didn’t know why, I didn’t know for sure yet, I’m at my school, I wanted to know something about it now.

I spat out a cigarette into the passage between the Solomyaniki and tried to move my hands, but I felt such pain that I screamed again.

Finally, a doctor grew up in front of me, silently looked at me, he looked at me for such a long time that I averted my eyes. Behind him was a fireman who gave me a drink. He whispered in the doctor's ear...

Wait a minute, it's your turn soon...

I closed my eyes again and thought: you must, you must find out what kind of wound you have and you really are in your school. Everything here was so alien to me and indifferent, as if I had been brought to some museum. cities of the dead, into a world deeply alien to me and uninteresting. No, it couldn't be that only three months had passed since I was painting vases here and writing typefaces, and in the breaks I slowly went down - past Nietzsche, Hermes, Togo, past Caesar, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius and went to Birgeler's watchman to drink milk - in a dim little closet.

Here the orderlies lifted me up and carried me behind the board, and I saw another sign: here, above the door, when a cross hung, as the gymnasium was also called the school of St. Thomas; The cross was then removed, but a fresh dark yellow mark remained on the wall, so expressive that it was, perhaps, even better visible than the old man himself, a small, thin cross. Then, in their hearts, they repainted the entire wall, and the painter was unable to match the colors, and the cross stood out again. They argued and did nothing. You could see the cross, you could even see the trace of the beech branch that Birgeler, the watchman, used to fasten when it was still allowed to hang crosses around schools...

So they put me on the operating table and I saw my reflection in the light of a light bulb. The heavy fireman stood in front of the board and smiled at me, he smiled tiredly and sadly. And suddenly, behind his shoulders, on the unerased other side of the board, I saw something that made my heart beat in my chest - there was an inscription on the board with my hand. Everything else was not yet proof: neither "Medea", nor Nietzsche, nor Dinarska's profile of a Verkhovinsk citizen from a movie, nor bananas from Togo, nor even a cross over the door, all this could be in all other schools. But it is unlikely that in other schools they wrote on the boards with my hand. Here it is, still there, the expression that we were told to write then, in that hopeless life that ended only three months ago: “Traveler, when you come to Spa ...” Oh, I remember how I took big letters and the art teacher shouted. Seven times it was written there - in my letter, in Latin, Gothic, italic, Roman, Italian and rock "Traveler, when you come to Spa ..."

I twitched, feeling a prick in my left thigh, I wanted to rise to my elbows and could not, but I managed to look at myself and saw - they had already unwound me - that I had no both arms, no right leg, so I immediately fell on my back, since I now had nothing to rely on, I cried out; and the doctor just shrugged his shoulders, I wanted to look at the board again, but the fireman was now standing very close to me and replacing it; he firmly held me by the shoulders, and I heard only the spirit of smalya and dirt emanating from his uniform, I saw only his tired, mournful face, and suddenly I recognized him: it was Birgeler.

“Milk,” I said quietly.

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Summary of “Traveler, when you come to Spa…”

Heinrich Belle Wayfarer, when you come to Spa...

The story is told in the first person.

The car stopped. The voice commanded that those who were still alive be carried to the drawing room. On the sides there were painted walls, on the doors there were signs, between them a photograph from the sculpture. Further column, sculpture, photographs. And on a small platform where they made a stop - a portrait of Friedrich. Further, the hero was carried between the Aryan physiognomies and reached the next platform, where there was a monument to the warrior. They carried it quickly, but the hero flashed the thought that somewhere he had seen it. This is probably related to feeling unwell. Further along the corridor stood three busts of emperors, and at the end of the corridor, above the entrance to the drawing room, hung the mask of Zeus. And again the signs on the doors, a painting by Nietzsche. The hero foresaw what was to come next. Indeed, he saw a map of Togo. He was carried into the drawing room, converted into surgery, and given a cigarette. The hero consoled himself with the fact that everything he saw could be in any gymnasium.

He didn't feel pain. He began to think that he was in the gymnasium that he graduated from eight years ago. But how could he find himself here, she's far away. Closing his eyes, he again saw the whole string of objects. And he screamed. They gave him a cigarette again and said that he was in Bendorf, which meant that he was at home. And he could say with certainty that he was in the gymnasium. They gave him water, but not much. There was little water, the city was on fire. The hero looked around and realized that he was in the drawing room of a classical gymnasium. But there are three of them in the city, in which one. Artillery volleys were heard outside the window. The hero began to continue to inspect the drawing room. The feeling did not tell him that he was in his native gymnasium. He began to remember how he learned to draw and write fonts. It was boring and he didn't get anything done. And now he was lying and could not move his arms. He did not remember how he was wounded, and again screamed. The doctor and the fireman looked at him. Then they took someone who was lying nearby and carried him by the sheet, behind which a bright light was burning. The hero closed his eyes again and began to remember his school years. Everything here seemed cold and alien. The orderlies took the stretcher with the hero and carried it behind the blackboard, behind the sheet, where the light was on. And he noticed another coincidence, a trace of a cross above the door. Near the operating table stood a doctor and a fireman who smiled sadly. The hero saw his image in the lamp, and turning his head, froze. On the inscribed side of the board, he saw an inscription in calligraphic handwriting "Traveler, when you come to Spa ...". It was his handwriting. Everything he had seen before could not be evidence. And now he recalled how several times he tried to write this phrase, and each time he did not have enough space on the board. At that moment they gave him an injection in the thigh, and he tried to get up, but he could not lean. Looking around himself, he found that he had been swaddled, and he no longer had his arms and right leg. He screamed. The doctor and the fireman looked at him with horror and held him. He recognized the fireman as the janitor of his school and quietly asked for milk.

Searched here:

traveler will come when to the spa summary
traveler when you come to the spa summary
Traveler when you come to Spa

7 CLASS

HEINRICH BELL

TRAVELER, WHEN YOU COME TO THE SPA...

(abbreviated)

The car stopped, but the engine was still gurgling; somewhere a large gate opened. Through the broken window, light entered the car, and then I saw that the light bulb under the ceiling was smashed to smithereens, only the scroll was still sticking out in the cartridge - a few flickering darts with the remains of glass. Then the engine stopped, and a voice crept in from outside:

Dead people here. Are there dead people there?

To hell with it, the driver cursed. - You don't make an eclipse anymore?

An eclipse will help here, when the whole city is on fire! shouted the same voice. Are there dead people, I ask?

Don't know.

The dead are here, heard? And the rest of the stairs up to the drawing room, understand?

Yes, yes, I understand.

And I was not yet dead, I belonged to the others, and I was carried up the stairs.

First they walked along a long, dimly lit corridor, with green walls painted with oil paint, into which black, crooked, old-fashioned hooks for clothes were hammered; then the doors with enameled plates emerged: 6-A and 6-B, between those doors hung, gleaming affectionately under glass in a black frame, Feuerbach's "Medea" with a look into the distance; then came the doors with signs: 5-A and 5-B, and between them - "The boy taking out -" - a lovely photo with a reddish tint in a brown frame.

And here is the column in front of the exit to the stairwell, and the long, narrow frieze of the Parthenon behind it... and everything else that has long been familiar: a Greek hoplite, armed to the toes, offensive and formidable, like an angry rooster. In fact, on the wall, painted yellow, they were all proud - from the great elector to Hitler.<...>

And again my stretcher fell, floated past me ... now samples of the Aryan breed: a Nordic captain with an eagle eye and a stupid mouth, a female model from the Western Moselle, a little lean and bony, an Aussie fool with a bulbous nose and a borlakuvaty long profile of the top from the movies ; and then the corridor stretched again ... I managed to see her too - a table with the names of the fallen, with a large golden Iron Cross at the top, was intertwined with a fireplace laurel wreath.

All this passed very quickly: I am not heavy and the orderlies were in a hurry. It’s not a miracle if I even dreamed of it: I was on fire, everything hurt me - my head, arms, legs; and my heart was beating like crazy. What not to see in delirium!

And when we passed the exemplary Aryans, everything else surfaced behind them: three grunts - Caesar, Cicero and Marcus Aurelius ... And when we found the corner, the Hermes Column appeared ... In the window to the right, I saw the glow of a fire - the whole sky it was red, and black, thick clouds of smoke floated solemnly across it.<...>

And again, in passing, I glanced to the left, and again I saw doors with signs: 01-A 01-B, and between these brown, as if impregnated with obstructed doors, I saw Nietzsche's mustache and the tip of his nose in a golden frame - the second half of the portrait was covered with paper with the inscription: " Light surgery.

If now, - flashed through my mind, - if now. And here he is, he has already seen it - a view of Togo ... a wonderful oleography ... in the foreground of the picture there was a large one depicted in life size a bunch of bananas - a bunch on the left, a bunch on the right, and it was on the middle banana in the right ketyagu that something was scrawled; I saw this inscription, because, it seems, I scratched it myself.<...>

Here the doors of the drawing room opened wide, I influenced there under the image of Zeus and closed my eyes.

I didn't want to see anything else.<...>

The drawing room smelled of iodine, feces, gauze and tobacco, and there was a hubbub.

The stretcher was placed on the floor, and I said to the orderlies:

Put a cigarette in my mouth, at the top, in my left pocket.

I felt someone touching my pocket, then they rubbed it with a syrniki, and a lit cigarette was in my mouth. I dragged on.

Thank you, I said.

All where, I thought, is not yet proof. After all, in every gymnasium there are drawing rooms, corridors with green and yellow walls and crooked, old-fashioned hooks in them, in the final analysis, the fact that Medea hangs between 6-A and 6-B is not yet proof that I'm at my school. Apparently, there are rules for classical gymnasiums in Prussia, which say that it is there that they should hang ... After all, witticisms are the same in all gymnasiums. Besides, maybe I started delirious from a fever.

I didn't feel pain. I felt very bad in the car... But now, perhaps, the injection began to work.<...>

This could not be, I thought, the car simply could not travel such a long distance - thirty kilometers. And one more thing: you don't feel anything; no instinct tells you anything, only eyes; no feeling tells you that you are in your school, in your school, which you dropped out just three months ago. Eight years - not this rubbish, really, having studied here for eight years, would you know everything ourselves only with your eyes?<...>

I spat out my cigarette and screamed; when you scream lighter, you just have to scream harder, it was so good to scream, I screamed like crazy.<...>

What?

Drink, - I said, - and another cigarette, in my pocket, at the top.

Again someone touched it in my pocket, rubbed it again with a match, and a lit cigarette was stuck in my mouth.

Where are we? I asked.

In Bendorf.

Thank you, I said and took a drag.

Apparently, I’m still in Bendorf, that is, at home, and if I didn’t have this terrible fever, I could say for sure that I’m in some kind of classical

gymnasiums; at least that I'm in school, that's for sure. Didn't that voice downstairs call out, "The rest of you in the drawing room!" I was one of the rest, I was alive, probably alive, and made up the "others".<...>

Finally he brought me some water, again the smell of tobacco and onions wafted over me, I involuntarily opened my eyes and saw a tired, old, unshaven face in a fire uniform, and an old voice said softly:

Drink, buddy!

I started drinking, it was water, but water is a wonderful drink; I felt the metallic taste of a cauldron on my lips, I realized with pleasure that there was still a lot of water there, but the fireman suddenly took the cauldron from my lips and walked away; I screamed, but he did not look back, only shrugged his shoulders wearily and went on; The wounded man lying next to me calmly said:

No need to make noise, they have no water, you see.<...>

What city is this? - I asked the one who was lying next to me, Bendorf, - he said.

Now there was no longer any doubt that I was lying in the drawing room of a certain classical gymnasium in Bendorf. There are three classical gymnasiums in Bendorf: Frederick the Great's gymnasium, Albert's gymnasium, and - perhaps it would be better not to say this - but the last, third, was called Adolf Hitler's gymnasium.

Wasn't there such a bright, such a beautiful, huge portrait of old Fritz hanging on the staircase in the gymnasium of Frederick the Great? I studied at that gymnasium for eight years, but couldn’t such a portrait hang in another school in the same place, so bright that it immediately caught the eye; as soon as you step on the second floor?<...>

Now I heard heavy cannons firing somewhere ... confidently and measuredly, and I thought: dear cannons! I know it's mean, but that's what I thought... As for me, there's something noble about guns, even when they fire. Such a solemn moon, just like in that war that is written about in picture books ... Then I wondered how many names there would be on that table of the fallen, which, perhaps, would be nailed here later, decorating it with an even larger golden Iron Cross and adding more large laurel wreath. And suddenly it occurred to me that when I really am at my school, then my name will also stand there, carved into stone, and in the school calendar it will be written against my last name. He left school for the front and died for ... "

And I still didn’t know why, and didn’t know for sure yet, I was in my school, I wanted to know about it now.<...>

I looked around again, but... My heart did not respond. Wouldn’t it have called names even then if I had ended up in the room where I had been drawing vases and writing fonts for eight whole years? Slender, beautiful, exquisite vases, beautiful copies of Roman originals - the art teacher always put them on a stand in front of us - and all kinds of fonts: rondo, even, Roman, Italian. I hated those lessons above all else in the gymnasium, I perished for hours with melancholy and never once was able to really draw a vase or write a letter. And where did my curses go, where did my burning hatred for these ostogidli, as if wrinkling walls go? Nothing looked around in me, and I silently shook my head.

I erased every now and then, chiseled the pencil, erased again ... And - nothing.<...>

I did not remember how I was wounded, I knew one thing: that I would not move my arms and right leg, only my left, and even then only half-covered. I thought maybe they tied my arms so tightly to my body that I can't move them.<...>

At last a doctor appeared before me; he took off his spectacles and, blinking, silently looked at me ... I clearly saw behind the thick glasses large gray eyes with barely quivering pupils. He looked at me for so long that I averted my eyes, and then quietly said:

Wait a minute, it'll be your turn soon.<...>

I closed my eyes again and thought: you must, you must find out what kind of wound you have and you really are in your school.<...>

Here the orderlies again entered the hall, now they lifted me up and carried me there, behind the board. Once I swam past the door and, as I sailed, I noticed one more sign: here, above the door, once hung a cross, as the gymnasium was also called the school of St. Thomas; they then removed the cross, but in that place on the wall there was a fresh dark yellow mark from it. Then they repainted the whole wall badly, and the brand... The cross was visible, and, if you look more closely, you could even see an uneven mark on the right end of the cross-beam, where for years a beech branch hung, which the watchman Birgeler was clinging to.<...>All this flashed through my dining room in that brief moment while I was being carried behind a plank where a bright light was burning.

They put me on the operating table, and I clearly saw myself, only small, as if shortened, at the top, in the clear glass of a light bulb - such a short, white, narrow roll of gauze, as if a chimeric, fragile cocoon; so it was my reflection.

The doctor turned his back on me and, leaning over the table, rummaged through the instruments; an old, overweight fireman stood in front of the board and smiled at me; he smiled wearily and mournfully, and his overgrown, restless face looked like he was sleeping. And suddenly, behind his shoulders, on the unerased other side of the board, I saw something that, for the first time since I ended up in this dead house, my heart responded ... Nadoshtsi was an inscription in my hand. Above, in the highest row. I know my hand; seeing your letter is worse than seeing yourself in the mirror - much more likely. I could no longer doubt the identity of my own letter ... There it is, still there, the expression that we were ordered to write then, in that hopeless life that ended only three months ago “Traveler, when you come in Spa...»

Oh, I remember I didn’t have enough board, and the art teacher shouted that I didn’t calculate properly, took capital letters, and then, shaking his head, wrote in the same font below: “Empty when you come to Spa ... »

Seven times it was written there - in my letter, in Latin scripts, in Gothic italics, in Roman, Italian And the rondo "Traveler, when you come to Spa ..."

At the silent call of the doctors, the call of the firefighter stepped back from the board, and I saw the whole statement, only a little spoiled, because I did not calculate properly, chose large letters, took too many points.

I was joking, feeling a prick in my left thigh, I wanted to get up on my knees and could not, but I managed to look at myself and saw - they had already unwound me - that I didn’t have both hands, I didn’t have my right leg, that’s why I immediately fell on his back, because now he had nothing to lean on; I screamed; the doctor and the fireman looked at me in fear; and the doctor just shrugged his shoulders and again pressed the plunger of the syringe, slowly and firmly went down; I wanted to look at the board again, but the fireman was now standing quite close to me and replacing her; he firmly held me by the shoulders, and I heard only the spirit of smalyatin and dirt that came from his uniform, I saw only his tired, mournful face; and suddenly I recognized him: it was Birgeler.

Milk, - I said quietly ...

Translation Yes. Gorevoy

Heinrich Böll

Traveler, when you come to the Spa

Dead people here, do you have dead people here?

Damn! Are you no longer blacked out? the driver replied.

What the hell is darkening when the whole city is burning like a torch, the same voice shouted. - Are there dead people, I ask?

Don't know.

The dead are here, do you hear? The rest up the stairs, to the drawing room, understand?

But I was not yet a dead man, I belonged to the rest, and they carried me to the drawing room, up the stairs. First they carried along a long, dimly lit corridor with green walls painted with oil paint and old-fashioned black hangers tightly set into them; on the doors were small enamel plates: "VIa" and "VIb"; between the doors, in a black frame, softly gleaming under the glass and looking into the distance, hung Feuerbach's Medea. Then came the doors marked "Va" and "Vb", and between them was a picture of the sculpture "Boy Pulling a Splinter", a beautiful, red-tinted photograph in a brown frame.

Here is the column in front of the entrance to the landing, behind it is a wonderfully executed model - a long and narrow, truly antique frieze of the Parthenon made of yellowish plaster - and everything else that has long been familiar: a Greek warrior armed to the teeth, warlike and terrible, similar to a ruffled rooster. In the stairwell itself, on a yellow-painted wall, everyone flaunted - from the great elector to Hitler ...

And on a small narrow platform, where for a few seconds I managed to lie right on my stretcher, hung an unusually large, unusually bright portrait of old Friedrich - in a sky-blue uniform, with shining eyes and a large shining golden star on his chest.

And again I lay rolled to the side, and now I was carried past thoroughbred Aryan physiognomies: a Nordic captain with an eagle eye and a stupid mouth, a native of the Western Moselle, perhaps too thin and bony, an Eastsee scoff with a bulbous nose, a long profile and a protruding Adam's apple of a cinematic highlander; and then we got to another platform, and again for several seconds I lay right on my stretcher, and even before the orderlies began to climb to the next floor, I managed to see him - a monument to a warrior decorated with a stone laurel wreath with a large gilded Iron Cross upstairs.

All this quickly flashed one after another: I am not heavy, and the orderlies were in a hurry. Of course, everything could only seem to me; I have a strong fever and absolutely everything hurts: my head, legs, arms, and my heart is pounding like crazy - what can you not imagine in such a heat.

But after thoroughbred physiognomies, everything else flashed: all three busts - Caesar, Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, side by side, amazing copies; quite yellow, antique and important, they stood against the walls; when we turned the corner, I also saw the column of Hermes, and at the very end of the corridor - this corridor was painted in dark pink - at the very very end, over the entrance to the drawing room, hung a large mask of Zeus; but she was still far away. To the right, in the window, the glow of a fire was red, the whole sky was red, and dense black clouds of smoke solemnly floated across it ...

And again, I involuntarily shifted my gaze to the left and saw the signs “Xa” and “Xb” above the doors, and between these brown doors, which seemed to smell of musty, Nietzsche’s mustache and sharp nose were visible in a golden frame, the second half of the portrait was sealed with a piece of paper with the inscription “Light Surgery "...

If it happens now… flashed through my head. If now it will be ... But here it is, I see it: a picture depicting the African colony of Germany Togo - colorful and large, flat, like an old engraving, a magnificent oleography. On foreground, in front of the colonial houses, in front of the blacks and German soldier, for no known reason, sticking out here with their rifle, - in the very, very foreground, a large, life-size bunch of bananas turned yellow; a bunch on the left, a bunch on the right, and on one banana in the very middle of this right bunch something was scratched, I saw it; I myself, it seems, scribbled ...

The car stopped, but the engine purred for a few more minutes; somewhere a gate was thrown open. Light entered the car through the broken window, and I saw that the light bulb in the ceiling was also smashed to smithereens; only its plinth stuck out in the cartridge - a few gleaming wires with remnants of glass. Then the engine stopped, and someone shouted in the street:
- Dead people here, do you have dead people here?
- Damn it! Are you no longer blacked out? the driver replied.
- What the devil is darkened when the whole city is burning like a torch, the same voice shouted. - Are there dead people, I ask?
- Don't know.
- Dead people here, do you hear? The rest up the stairs, to the drawing room, understand?
- Yes Yes.
But I was not yet a dead man, I belonged to the rest, and they carried me to the drawing room, up the stairs. First they carried along a long, dimly lit corridor with green walls painted with oil paint and old-fashioned black hangers tightly set into them; on the doors were small enamel plates: "VIa" and "VIb"; between the doors, in a black frame, softly gleaming under the glass and looking into the distance, hung Feuerbach's Medea. Then came the doors marked "Va" and "Vb", and between them was a picture of the sculpture "Boy Pulling a Splinter", a beautiful, red-tinted photograph in a brown frame.
Here is the column in front of the entrance to the landing, behind it is a wonderfully executed model - a long and narrow, truly antique Parthenon frieze made of yellowish plaster - and everything else that has long been familiar: a Greek warrior armed to the teeth, warlike and terrible, similar to a ruffled rooster. In the stairwell itself, on a yellow-painted wall, everyone flaunted - from the great elector to Hitler ...
And on a small narrow platform, where for a few seconds I managed to lie right on my stretcher, hung an unusually large, unusually bright portrait of old Friedrich - in a sky-blue uniform, with shining eyes and a large shining golden star on his chest.
And again I lay rolled to the side, and now I was carried past thoroughbred Aryan physiognomies: a Nordic captain with an eagle eye and a stupid mouth, a native of the Western Moselle, perhaps too thin and bony, an Eastsee scoff with a bulbous nose, a long profile and a protruding Adam's apple of a cinematic highlander; and then we got to another platform, and again for several seconds I lay right on my stretcher, and even before the orderlies began to climb to the next floor, I managed to see him - a monument to a warrior decorated with a stone laurel wreath with a large gilded Iron Cross upstairs.
All this quickly flashed one after another: I am not heavy, and the orderlies were in a hurry. Of course, everything could only seem to me; I have a strong fever and absolutely everything hurts: my head, legs, arms, and my heart is pounding like crazy - what can you not imagine in such a heat.
But after thoroughbred physiognomies, everything else flashed: all three busts - Caesar, Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, side by side, amazing copies; quite yellow, antique and important, they stood against the walls; when we turned the corner, I also saw the column of Hermes, and at the very end of the corridor - this corridor was painted in dark pink - at the very very end, over the entrance to the drawing room, hung a large mask of Zeus; but she was still far away. To the right, in the window, the glow of a fire was red, the whole sky was red, and dense black clouds of smoke solemnly floated across it ...
And again, I involuntarily shifted my gaze to the left and saw the signs “Xa” and “Xb” above the doors, and between these brown doors, which seemed to smell of musty, Nietzsche’s mustache and sharp nose were visible in a golden frame, the second half of the portrait was sealed with a piece of paper with the inscription “Light Surgery "...
If it happens now… flashed through my head. If now it will be ... But here it is, I see it: a picture depicting the African colony of Germany Togo - colorful and large, flat, like an old engraving, a magnificent oleography. In the foreground, in front of the colonial houses, in front of the Negroes and the German soldier, for some unknown reason, sticking out here with his rifle, - in the very, very foreground, a large, life-size bunch of bananas turned yellow; a bunch on the left, a bunch on the right, and on one banana in the very middle of this right bunch something was scratched, I saw it; I myself, it seems, scribbled ...
But then the door to the drawing room opened with a jerk, and I swam under the mask of Zeus and closed my eyes. I didn't want to see anything else. The hall smelled of iodine, excrement, gauze and tobacco, and was noisy. The stretcher was placed on the floor, and I said to the orderlies:
- Put a cigarette in my mouth. In the top left pocket.
I felt strange hands fumble in my pocket, then a match struck, and a lit cigarette was in my mouth. I dragged on.
“Thank you,” I said.
All this, I thought, proves nothing. After all, in any gymnasium there is a drawing room, there are corridors with green and yellow walls, in which curved old-fashioned dress hangers stick out; after all, it is still no proof that I am in my school if Medea hangs between IVa and IVb, and Nietzsche's mustache between Xa and Xb. Undoubtedly, there are rules that say that this is where they should hang. Internal rules for classical gymnasiums in Prussia: "Medea" - between "IVa" and "IVb", in the same place "Boy pulling out a splinter", in the next corridor - Caesar, Marcus Aurelius and Cicero, and Nietzsche on the top floor, where already study philosophy. Parthenon frieze and universal oleography - Togo. The “boy pulling a splinter” and the frieze of the Parthenon are, after all, nothing more than good old school props passed down from generation to generation, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who took it into his head to write “Long live Togo!” on a banana. And the antics of schoolchildren, in the end, are always the same. And besides, it is quite possible that the intense heat made me delirious.
I didn't feel pain now. In the car, I still suffered a lot; when she was thrown on small potholes, I started screaming every time. Deep funnels are better: the car rises and falls like a ship on the waves. Now, apparently, the injection worked; somewhere in the dark, they put a syringe into my arm, and I felt the needle pierce the skin and my leg became hot ...
Yes, this is simply impossible, I thought, the car certainly did not cover such a long distance - almost thirty kilometers. And besides, you don’t feel anything, nothing in your soul tells you that you are in your school, in the same school that you left only three months ago. Eight years is not a trifle, do you really recognize all this only with your eyes after eight years?
I closed my eyes and again I saw everything like in a movie: the lower corridor, painted with green paint, a stairwell with yellow walls, a monument to a warrior, a playground, the next floor: Caesar, Marcus Aurelius ... Hermes, Nietzsche's mustache, Togo, the mask of Zeus ...
I spat out my cigarette and screamed; when you shout, it becomes easier, you just need to shout louder; screaming is so good, I was screaming like crazy. Someone leaned over me, but I did not open my eyes, I felt someone else's breath, warm, repulsive smelling of a mixture of onions and tobacco, and I heard a voice that calmly asked:
- Why are you screaming?
“Drink,” I said. - And another cigarette. In the top pocket.
Again a strange hand fumbled in my pocket, again a match was struck, and someone shoved a lit cigarette into my mouth.
- Where are we? I asked.
- In Bendorf.
"Thanks," I said, and took a drag.
All the same, apparently, I really am in Bendorf, which means I am at home, and, if it were not for such a strong heat, I could say with confidence that I am in a classical gymnasium; that this is a school, in any case, no doubt. Didn't a voice shout downstairs: "The rest of you in the drawing room!"? I was one of the others, I lived, the rest were obviously alive. This is a drawing room, and if my ears didn't deceive me, then why should my eyes fail me? Hence, there is no doubt that I recognized Caesar, Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, and they could only be in the classical gymnasium; I do not think that in other schools the walls of the corridors were decorated with sculptures of these fellows.
At last he brought water; Again I was overwhelmed by the mixed smell of onion and tobacco, and I involuntarily opened my eyes, the tired, flabby, unshaven face of a man in the uniform of a firefighter bent over me, and an old voice said softly:
- Drink up, buddy.
I started drinking; water, water - what a delight; I felt the metallic taste of a bowler hat on my lips, I felt the elastic fullness of my throat, but the fireman took the bowler hat from my lips and left; I screamed, he did not even turn around, only shrugged his shoulders wearily and walked on, and the one who was lying next to me calmly said:
- In vain you shout, they have no water; the whole city is on fire, you see.
I saw it, despite the blackout - behind the black curtains, the fiery element blazed and raged, black and red, like in a furnace where coal had just been poured. Yes, I saw the city burning.
- What city is this? I asked the wounded man lying next to me.
"Bendorf," he said.
- Thank you.
I looked straight ahead at the rows of windows, and sometimes at the ceiling. It was still impeccably white and smooth, with a narrow classical stucco cornice; but such ceilings with classical stucco cornices are in all the drawing rooms of all schools, at least all the good old classical gymnasiums. It's undeniable.
I could no longer doubt: I was in the drawing room of one of the classical gymnasiums in Bendorf. There are only three classical gymnasiums in Bendorf: Frederick the Great's gymnasium, Albert's gymnasium and... perhaps it's better not to mention it at all... Adolf Hitler's gymnasium. Didn't there hang a portrait of Old Fritz on the landing in the gymnasium of Frederick the Great, extraordinarily bright, extraordinarily handsome, extraordinarily large? I studied at this school for eight years in a row, but couldn’t the exact same portrait hang in another school, in the same place, and so bright, so conspicuous that the look of everyone who went up to the second floor involuntarily stopped on it?
Heavy artillery fired in the distance. In general, it was almost calm, only from time to time a voracious flame broke free and somewhere in the darkness the roof collapsed. Artillery guns fired evenly, at regular intervals, and I thought: glorious artillery. I know it's mean, but that's what I thought. Oh God, how she soothed, this artillery, how familiar was its thick and low roar, soft, gentle, like the roar of an organ, there is even something noble in it; in my opinion, there is something noble in artillery, even when it fires. All this is so solid, just like in that war that we read about in picture books ... Then I thought about how many names would be carved on the new monument to the warrior, if new monument they will put it up, and that an even more grandiose gilded Iron Cross and an even grander stone laurel wreath will be hoisted on it; and suddenly the thought struck me: if I really am in my old school, then my name will also show off on the monument carved on the plinth, and in the school calendar against my last name it will be said: “I left school for the front and fell for ...”
But I didn't know why yet... And I wasn't sure yet if I was in my old school. Now I definitely wanted to install it. The monument to a warrior also has nothing special, nothing exceptional, it is the same as everywhere else, a standard mass-produced monument, all monuments of this type are supplied by some one department ...
I looked around the drawing room, but the pictures were taken, and what can be judged by several desks piled in the corner, and by narrow and high windows, frequent, frequent, as it should be in the drawing room, where there should be a lot of light? My heart told me nothing. But would it be silent if I ended up where for eight years, from year to year, I drew vases, lovely, slender vases, amazing copies from Roman originals, the drawing teacher used to put them in front of the class on a stand; where I displayed fonts - rondo, latin direct, roman, italian? I hated nothing at school more than these lessons, I swallowed boredom for hours and never could draw a vase or reproduce any type. But where are my curses, where is my hatred for these dreary dull walls? Nothing in me spoke, and I silently shook my head.
Again and again I drew, erased the drawing, sharpened the pencil ... and nothing, nothing ...
I did not remember how I was wounded, I only felt that I could not move my arms and my right leg, only my left, and then barely; it was because, I thought, that I had been swaddled very tightly.
I spat out a cigarette into the space between the bags stuffed with straw and tried to move my arm, but from the terrible pain I screamed again; I screamed incessantly, screamed with pleasure; in addition to the pain, I was driven to rage by the fact that I could not move my arms.
Then I saw a doctor in front of me; he took off his glasses and, blinking frequently, looked at me; he didn't say anything; behind him stood the fireman, the one who gave me water. The fireman whispered something in the doctor's ear, and the doctor put on his glasses, behind their thick glasses I clearly saw large gray eyes with slightly quivering pupils. The doctor looked at me for a long time, so long that I involuntarily averted my eyes. He said:
"Wait a minute, it's your turn now..."
Then they lifted the one who was lying next to me and carried him behind the blackboard; I looked after them; the board was parted and placed obliquely, a sheet hung between it and the wall, a bright light burned behind the sheet ...
Not a sound was heard until the sheet was thrown back and the one who had just been lying next to me was carried out; orderlies with tired, indifferent faces dragged the stretcher to the door.
I closed my eyes again and thought: you should definitely find out what kind of injury you have and whether you really are in your old school.
Everything here seemed so cold and alien to me, as if I had been carried through a museum. dead city; this little world was completely indifferent and distant to me, and although I recognized it, it was only with my eyes. And if so, how could I believe that only three months ago I was sitting here, drawing vases and writing types, during breaks I ran down the stairs, holding marmalade sandwiches brought from home, passed Nietzsche, Hermes, Togo, Caesar , Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, then walked along the lower corridor with his "Medea" and went to the porter Birgeler to drink milk, drink milk in this dim closet, where you could risk smoking a cigarette, although this was strictly forbidden? Surely they carried the one who used to lie next to me down, where they carried the dead; perhaps the dead were laid in a hazy closet, where it smelled of warm milk, dust and cheap Birgeler tobacco ...
Finally, the orderlies returned to the hall, and now they lifted me up and carried me behind the blackboard. I swam past the doors again and, as I sailed, discovered another coincidence: in those days when this school was called the school of St. Thomas, a cross hung over this very door, it was later removed, but a non-disappearing dark yellow spot remained on the wall - an imprint of the cross, clear and clear, more clear, perhaps, than this dilapidated, fragile, small cross itself, which was removed; a clear and beautiful imprint of the cross remained on the faded wall. Then the new owners angrily repainted the entire wall, but that didn't help, the painter couldn't find the right color, the cross remained in its place, light brown and clear on the pink wall. They were angry, but in vain, the cross remained, brown, clear against the pink background of the wall, and I think that they had exhausted all their resources for paints, but could not do anything. The cross was still there, and if you look closely, you can even see an oblique mark on the right crossbar, where for many years a boxwood branch hung, which the doorman Birgeler attached there in those days when it was still allowed to hang crosses in schools ...
All this flashed through my head in that brief second as I was being carried past the door to the chalkboard, where a bright light was burning.
I lay on the operating table and in the brilliant glass of the electric lamp I saw myself, my own reflection, very small, shortened - very tiny, white, narrow gauze bundle, like a chrysalis in a cocoon; that was me.
The doctor turned his back on me; he stood at the table and rummaged through the tools; an old fireman, broad in the shoulders, blocked the chalkboard and smiled at me; he smiled wearily and sadly, and his bearded face seemed like the face of a sleeper; looking over his shoulder, I saw something on the written side of the board that made my heart flutter for the first time since I had been in this dead house. Somewhere in the recesses of my soul, I was desperately, terribly frightened, my heart began to beat faster: on the blackboard I saw my handwriting - at the top, at the very top. Knowing my own handwriting is worse than seeing myself in a mirror, it is much more irrefutable, and I have no way left to doubt the authenticity of my hand. Everything else has not yet served as proof - neither "Medea", nor Nietzsche, nor the profile of a film mountaineer, nor a banana from Togo, nor even the trace of a cross preserved above the door, all this existed in all schools, but I do not think that in other schools anyone wrote on the blackboard in my handwriting. She was still showing off here, this line, which only three months ago, in that damned life, the teacher asked us to write calligraphically on the blackboard: “Traveler, when you come to the Spa ...”
Oh, I remember the blackboard was too short for me, and the teacher was angry that I miscalculated, chose too much large print, and he himself in the same font, shaking his head, deduced below: “Traveler, when you come to the Spa ...”
This line was repeated seven times - in my handwriting, Latin direct, gothic font, in italics, Roman, Old Italian and Rondo; seven times, clearly and mercilessly: "Traveler, when you come to the Spa ..."
The doctor called quietly to the fireman, and he stepped aside, now I saw all the lines, not very beautifully written, because I chose too large a font, brought out too large letters.
I jumped, feeling a prick in my left thigh, I wanted to lean on my hands, but I could not; I looked myself up and down and saw everything. They swaddled me, and I had no more arms, no more right leg, and I suddenly fell on my back: I had nothing to hold on to; I screamed; the fireman and the doctor looked at me in horror; shrugging his shoulders, the doctor kept pressing the plunger of the syringe, slowly and evenly sinking deeper and deeper; I wanted to look at the board again, but the fireman blocked it; he firmly held my shoulders, and I smelled the smell of burning, the dirty smell of his soiled uniform, saw a tired, sad face - and suddenly I recognized him: it was Birgeler.
- Milk, - I said quietly ...