ARNOSCHMIDT
89
that. -" Paula greedily felt the leather sheets that had been spread;
and EVERYTHING in general! (Were the pincers lying ready at hand ?).
/ When you closed your eyes, you saw nothing but green grass with
clover - : - - ).
7
White arc of fog stretched above. Ass in bed. (Damned narrow
this bed-frame here, extolled as especially "roomy" ! It was all the
same to Paula of course; right afterwards she made a soft mattress
out of me, and fell asleep.)
THE OWL THAT COMES EACH EVENING flew about our tin-smithy
here too, with a thin "hoo-hoo!"); (and "Hoho !" and "Bassa Manelka
!" and "Seest thou, good landlord ? !" and "Adieu !" and
"Faretheewell, good landlord !"). And in the house those two were
using the john
&
bath with more vengeance than the prodigal son;
(and now
&
again 1 wee voice repeated sweet
&
businesslike "It's
irrational." - "And from afar they saw the Grandduke come
ariding"; I had to chuckle a bit; and as my ribs jiggled, Paula
muttered in her dreams , (the wife of the railroad man nextdoor , who
always waxes her floors too slick, slipped and fell on them yesterday
herself; and cracked 2 ribs against the foot-end of the marital couch!
: mine jiggled again now; and Paula muttered a while longer (in the
infinite distance the lugubrious dragon howl of a freight train : red–
skinned, long
&
stiff, the tower-today : cables, tightened down over
you, like cages, (a sometime "fellow partisan," named "Ernst"
nowadays, did indeed want to hide me from my "pursuers" ! (and
signs of danger were indisputably present : wasn't 1 warted face
directing something my way? ! Wasn't there something creeping all–
about-me, white
&
completely camowlflaged ? (first I quickly
scribbled my name in the snow beside me : so that at least
Something of me might remain on earth ! (Ernst was already
shoving me ahead of him now through the treacherously low door,
(which at once grew even narrower! Didn't Someone from the Co–
alition already have hold of my foot? ! : "IT SEEMS TO ME THAT SOME–
THING HAS WOUNDED MY FOOT! !" : ROLAND DAUBLER ! (But Ernst
slammed it rattling behind me . He thought nothing of it,
&
followed
me! And I began, laboriously, to climb the winding spun yarn of the
hollow stairs, (and the wire snare grew ever more metallic and tight
- no air - :
''jUGURTHA
:
jUGURTHA
! !" ..... ))))))) . -
