Joseph Roth - The Silent Prophet

‘So much the better. Then get away quickly. But don’t tell anyone. I shall never admit that I’ve spoken to you.’

‘But I heard your discussion,’ suddenly exclaimed Berzejev. He had opened the door, so that they could see the corridor.

‘I’ve been standing here for half an hour listening to you.’

He approached R. and raised his hand. R. ducked. Berzejev’s blow struck his ear. The next moment he sat under the table and cried: ‘Either calm down or go away!’

They went away.

‘I shall probably go to Germany,’ said Friedrich. ‘You’ll come with me, of course?’

‘No!’ said Berzejev. ‘We shall separate. You mustn’t be angry. I have to tell you frankly that I can’t leave Russia. I am happy to be able to live here in safety. Safely for the first time since my youth and with nothing to hide. This is my country. I love it. I was homesick when I was abroad. I can’t live abroad again. In a word — I’m staying.’

‘If I were in your place,’ said Friedrich slowly, ‘I should feel compelled to accompany my friend.’ I have no country, he thought quietly. He was too abashed to formulate it. But Berzejev guessed. ‘I’m only a Russian,’ he said — and it sounded like a reproach. ‘I’ve learned nothing. I can only remain in the army. What could I do abroad? I’d only be a nuisance to you. …’ ‘Farewell!’ said Friedrich. He gave him his hand, they embraced each other — lingeringly, as if each still had something to say to the other, something that could no longer be uttered. As if, still embracing, they were separated by an immense space, as if they stood on opposite shores of a lake, looked at each other, and realized that they could not catch each other’s words and that there was no point in articulating them.

And three days later Friedrich again stood alone in a great station and awaited a train to the West.

It was already dusk. Soldiers who had been ordered to the frontier were sitting in the carriage. They were discussing politics.

‘In Germany,’ said one, ‘it’ll only take a week before the Revolution breaks out. Then it will happen in France, then in England, and last of all in America.’

‘Blockhead,’ said the other. ‘Who told you that?’

‘I was at a lecture that R. gave to the students.’

‘What nonsense,’ said the other. ‘First, you didn’t understand the lecture, second, it probably had a special meaning, and third, R. is a Jew and I no longer believe a word he says. A few days ago, when I was on duty at T., he spoke to us.’

‘Jew or not, we’re finished with all that, there’s no religion any more.’

‘But there are still blockheads, since you’re still alive,’ cried a third and they all roared.

‘Who are the clever ones, then?’ asked Friedrich. They mentioned three names which echoed through Russia and the world. Finally, one mentioned the name that Savelli had now adopted. Several agreed with him.

‘A splendid man,’ he said. ‘He knows what has to be done. I came across him once in a corridor in the X-department. The corridor was narrow and dark, I stepped back to let him pass, I greeted him, he raised his head, did not reply, only looked at me with his eyes made of night and ice. I felt cold all over. He knows what he wants. Most of the clever Jews only speak prophecies, and that is on account of the radio, just because the ignorant peasants in the villages all listen. And so one never hears anything clever any more, it’s all kept for the radio.’

‘Yes,’ exclaimed another, ‘I often think that the comrades take us for stupider than we are. They say something quite simple a hundred times. I know it by heart already. In the paper they always write the same thing, too.’

‘Why should I care what they say?’ thought Friedrich. ‘I’m beginning a new life.’

But he began his new life as if he had already lived it once before. He knew it. He set foot in it like an actor on the stage in a part he has already played on many evenings, in the vague hope of some untoward incident of a minor nature which, through an emergency, assumes the nature of a sensation. He even hoped for minor misfortunes, an arrest, expulsion, perhaps a jail sentence.

Anyone else in his position would have thought of a revolution. He was surprised that the war did not recommence. When he arrived at M., the mid-German town where he had spent a few rainy days during the war, he noted that it was still raining. In the large windows of the café there still hung notices asserting that Frenchmen, Englishmen, Poles and other nationalities were unwelcome on the premises. The school was of red brick and when one passed by in the morning a chorus of clear children’s voices could be heard singing Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden . In the centre stood the red-brick church. The tax office was made of red brick. The town hall was constructed of red bricks. And although all these buildings veered towards prettiness, and seemed to have been assembled as in a game by some sort of oversized children, they nevertheless betrayed a tendency to eternity, like the Pyramids. After five or six years it was still raining. The tram still shuttled to and fro. Only the conductress had returned to hearth and home. The women still wore the same hats. Where was the comrade who, in those days, had arranged his first genuine false passport? He was alive. He had become naturalized in the meantime and been made a member of parliament. And where was the party leader? He was a member of the administration in Berlin. And, although the Communist tailor was now the furious political opponent of that Social Democratic party leader, it seemed to Friedrich, because he had not witnessed events at close quarters, that both, the Communist and the party leader, were engaged in a consistent and parallel ascent like officers or government officials who attained a higher grade after a certain period of service. And although they had both attained their rank in fighting against each other, the ironic fate that is a special feature of radical politicians conferred on them a frightening resemblance. Like the Jews, who always turn to the east when they pray, the revolutionaries always turned to the right when they began to act publicly. However radical the tailor might be, it did not affect this rule. Every month he seriously expected the revolution. He should have served a prison sentence on account of an insult he had hurled at the party leader, and he had to thank his parliamentary immunity for his present freedom. Twenty years earlier the insulted one had found himself in the same situation. But both seemed to have forgotten it. ‘Who knows,’ thought Friedrich, ‘twenty years from now my comrade will be insulted and complain. The Revolution always remained on the left; only its champions always turned to the right.’ ‘Last week,’ related the tailor, ‘two policemen had to remove me forcibly from parliament. You should have seen the goings-on! Oh, things aren’t always as peaceful for us as people in Moscow sometimes make out! We are just on the verge of a railway strike. The Party is working at full stretch. We’ve gained five thousand members in Hamburg. Here, in M., we’re strongly represented. We can count on fifty-five per cent of the factory workers. The party funds come in absolutely on time. And twice or three times a week we have our evenings.’ ‘What a local kind of patriotism this comrade has!’ thought Friedrich. ‘It’s on this basis that love of the fatherland is built. He is proud of the district that has elected him. It won’t take much to make him take even the reactionary parties of his constituency under his wing and consider them better than the reactionaries of other constituencies. Here I have an opportunity, no longer rare these days, to be present at the birth of a kind of local patriotism, love of constituency, ab ovo . He considers his communists the most revolutionary. And how he’s changed! He now wears a Russian blouse. The last time I was here, he was still wearing an unassuming shirt without a collar. And just as the men who make a bourgeois career acquire a double chin and a paunch, so the men who are my comrades procure a revolutionary costume and a briefcase. A few years ago he still had a hat. Now he wears a sports cap. Then he still wore his hair parted, now he combs it backwards. And he himself is unaware of this. His revolutionary posture develops as insidiously as a double chin. This comrade is reliable.’