Joseph Roth - Tarabas

They went up the stair. “Guard here!” called Tarabas. The soldier accompanied Kristianpoller into the street.

But in a few minutes the inn-keeper had returned alone.

“He’s nowhere to be found,” he said. “Your Excellency must know,” he added, “he was simple. Not quite right in his mind. It was his son’s doing. …”

“I know his son,” said Tarabas.

“They tell me that he’s run away into the woods.”

“I’ll go and find him,” said Tarabas.

They were silent for a long time. They were in the upper story of the cellar, each with a little brandy keg for a seat. On a third one stood the candle. Its light flickered. On the damp, cracked walls the shadows of the two men flitted up and down. Colonel Tarabas seemed to be thinking deeply. Kristianpoller waited:

At last Tarabas spoke. “Listen, Kristianpoller,” he said. “Go upstairs and bring me one of your own suits. I’d like to borrow it for a while.”

“Certainly. I’ll go at once,” said the Jew.

“Roll it up into a bundle,” Tarabas called after him.

When Kristianpoller returned to the cellar with the bundle, Tarabas said to him: “Thanks, my friend. I’m going to disappear now for a day or two; but I don’t want anyone to know.”

And he left the cellar.

THE priest rose. For the hours he kept, it was late at night and time to go to bed.

“I have come on a personal matter,” said Tarabas, still on the threshold. The oil-lamp hung low over the table; its wide shade spread deep shadow over the upper half of the four bare walls. The feeble sight of the old man could not at first distinguish his visitor’s face. He stood there in a helpless attitude. His bony aged head, too, stood in the darkness above the lampshade, and the light, falling on his old soutane with the innumerable stuff-covered buttons, showed up their shining greasiness more clearly than by day. When he at last recognized Tarabas, the old man came a few hasty little steps towards him.

“Come in, please, and be seated,” he said.

Tarabas came over to the table, but did not sit down. The darkness cast by the lampshade was what he needed. When he spoke, it was as though he talked into space, not to the priest before him. He pulled the bunch of beard out of his pocket, held it tightly in his hand, and said: “This is the beard of a poor Jew. I pulled it out today.” And as though this were an official inquiry in which he was called upon to give all the details he knew, he added:

“His name is Shemariah, and he’s got red hair. I sent someone to look for him, but he has disappeared. They say his mind’s been turned, and that he has run away into the woods round about. I want to go and look for him myself. What shall I do? Am I to blame that he has gone mad? I wish I’d killed him — that would have been better than this. Yes,” Tarabas went on in a toneless voice, “I’d far rather have killed him. I’ve done in a lot of men in my time, and they didn’t worry me afterwards. I was a soldier.”

In all his long life, the priest of Koropta had never heard a speech like this. He knew many people, this old man — farmers, their maid-servants, their men-servants. He was seventy-six years old, and thirty of these he had lived in Koropta. Before that he had been in other little towns. To countless men and women he had been father-confessor, and all of them had poured much the same sins into his ears. One had beaten his father, who had become ancient and helpless, in the hope that he might die of the effects. Women had deceived their husbands. A thirteen-year-old boy had slept with a sixteen-year-old girl and begotten a boy. The mother had strangled the new-born infant. These were all extraordinary events, and, if the old priest ever took stock of his knowledge of the world and of mankind, these cases seemed to him the most hideous conceivable examples of what human beings may be brought to by the abysmal temptations of the devil. Now, listening to Tarabas, he was rather astonished than appalled.

“Please do sit down,” said the old man, for the standing had tired him as much as the remarkable recital itself. Tarabas sat down.

“Well, now,” began the priest, trying to get the matter clear in his own mind, too, “let us try and repeat what you have said, Colonel. You have torn out the beard of a Jew unknown to you, named Shemariah. And what do you mean to do about it? I know this Shemariah; I’ve known him for thirty years. He had a son who became a revolutionist, and he turned him out of his home. He’s a dangerous-looking man, but quite harmless really, and not altogether right in his mind. Well, Colonel, what can I do for you?”

“I have not come for practical advice,” said Tarabas, and looked down at the yellow, cracked linoleum with which the priest’s table was covered. “I want to atone!”

They were silent for a long time.

“Colonel,” said the priest, “I had better not have heard this, and will act as though I had not. You may go now, Colonel, if you would rather — for I have nothing to advise you. Is it spiritual consolation that you desire? May God forgive you, then! I will pray for you. You have hurt a poor, foolish Jew. Many of you have done the same, Colonel. And many more will do so. …”

“I am worse than a murderer,” said Tarabas. “And have been for years and years, but I only see it clearly now. I’ll atone for everything. I promise you. I shall put off all my murderous splendour and try to make atonement. When I came here, I still had a last, stupid hope — a sinful hope — that you might forgive me, and give me absolution. How could I have thought such a thing!”

“Go now, Colonel, please!” said the priest. “It seems to me that you will find the right way. Go, my son!”

On that same night he rode to the capital. He arrived in the early morning. He inquired where General Lakubeit lived and rode to the house. He tied up his horse and sat down outside the front door to wait until Lakubeit was up.

The general’s adjutant, the elegant lieutenant, saw Colonel Tarabas go into the general’s room, and leave it again after fifteen minutes. It was remarkable that the colonel had a parcel with him, which he would not allow to leave his hands. As to what took place between the colonel and Lakubeit, the adjutant could not, unfortunately, give any information for the entertainment of the inquisitive officers waiting in the ante-room for an audience.

The officers saluted Tarabas as he passed out. He beckoned the adjutant to him and said:

“I’ve left my horse outside. I’ll be sending for it in a few days’ time. Have it looked after in the meantime, please.”

Tarabas left the house, stood a while still outside the door, decided to go to the left, and took the broad street straight through the west of the town until he reached the fields beyond. He sat down on the edge of the road, undid his bundle, took off his uniform and put on Kristianpoller’s civilian clothes, went through the pockets of his uniform, took out nothing but a knife and Shemariah’s beard, folded the garments neatly, took a last look at them, and then began to walk along the straight highway that seemed to flow into the far, far distance and lose itself in the pale horizon.

MANY tramps roam on the highroads of the eastern countries. They can live on the compassion of their fellow-men. The roads are bad, and very tiring to the feet; the huts are poor and mean, and there is little room in them, but the hearts of the people are good, the bread is black and wholesome, and the doors open more readily. Even today despite the great war and the great revolution, although machines have started on their steel, precise, uncanny march towards the east of Europe, the people are still kind to the misery of strangers. There even the fools and imbeciles have a quicker and a better grasp of their neighbours’ need than the wise ones and the clever ones elsewhere. Asphalt has not yet covered all the highways. The laws and the caprices of the weather, the seasons, and the earth still change and determine the aspect and condition of the roads. In the little huts, that cling so close against the bosom of the earth, the people in them are as near to it as to the sky. Yes, there the sky itself comes down to earth and to the people, whereas in other places where the houses reach up towards it, it seems to draw away from them ever farther and ever higher. Great distances apart and scattered over all the land lie the villages. The little towns are rare, the large towns rarer, but the highroads and the byways are alive. Many people come and go upon them permanently. Their freedom and their poverty are loving sisters. This one must be a wanderer because he has no home; that one because he can find no rest; a third, because he will not rest, or because he has taken a vow to eschew repose; a fourth, because the road and the unknown houses of strangers are what he loves. One knows that in the eastern countries now, as in the west, they have begun to campaign against the beggar and the tramp. It is as though the unrest of the factories and machines, the windiness of dwellers on the sixth floor, the deceptively settled ones in their here-today and gone-tomorrow instability, can no longer bear the thought of the honest, calm, unceasing movement of the good and aimless wanderers. Where are you going to? What are you going to do when you get there? Why did you take to the road? How do you come to lead a life of your own, when we can all endure a common life? Are you better? Are you different?