H. Adler - Panorama

Every pupil in The Box has a proctor, which is a pupil who has been at The Box for a minimum of one year and whose job is to help you know what to do and get used to things, but everything is so monotonous there’s no getting used to it, even if you do know how things are supposed to go, such as when to get up, and that you have to get dressed quickly, though you don’t need to make the bed, for that’s what the Sprites are for. You then rush into the washroom and hang your jacket on a hook, open your cabinet, take the box of toiletries, and run to a washing-up spot, as your neighbor wastefully splashes water about, the water ice-cold, such that in winter it even hurts your teeth. If you don’t bend your head down close enough to the washbasin, you are yelled at and your face is pushed into the water, the floor full of puddles as you grab the hand towel, because you have to dry off quickly, folding it over so that you can dry off your back, but since it’s so easy to bump your neighbor you hear again the cry “Hey, watch what you’re doing! Can’t you see that you’re hitting me?” And once again someone shoves you, and those who are not strong enough to defend themselves get a thrashing. That’s a main rule at The Box: you have to be strong so that you are able to thrash the others without being thrashed yourself, for that’s how you learn to be a real man who doesn’t let anything bad happen to him in life, since at The Box whoever is not a tough guy is a shit. The pupils use many such vulgar words, as they cuss a lot and are proud of how hardened they are, nor is there any protection available if someone hits too hard or is mean, except if you have an older brother or friend, and even then that doesn’t always help. The bigger kids look down on the younger ones and are proud that they are older, and they say a beating does no one any harm, because they were beaten as well, though few of them admit this and act as if they had never been small, for it’s a mortal sin to be a young boy.

After washing up and shining your shoes you rush off to the classrooms, which are arranged so that almost thirty pupils fit into each, everyone having his own desk with a chair, five desks always lined up next to one another that can be shoved out of the way if needed, the oldest pupils sitting by the window, the youngest getting the worst spots, even if their eyesight isn’t so good. If you have bad eyes you have to be very careful, for if you don’t watch out someone will rip your glasses off your nose and smash them on the ground in order to break them, or the attacker doesn’t wait for the full thrashing to begin but instead goes straight for the glasses, everything lost after that, as it is better perhaps always to have a spare pair of glasses, though actually any glasses are a handicap, and you are laughed at for having them. Meanwhile, when you get to the classroom each morning the desk stands open, the lid rising straight up, and inside are schoolbooks and notebooks, while in back of your seat, where the number is painted, there is actually a compartment that can be opened, in which books and games and whatever you want can be stored, be it care packages from home or other extra things to eat, such as the malted balls that are always sold by a wounded veteran at a table by the main staircase. And, because locking it with a standard-issue key does nothing to prevent things from being stolen, you can make arrangements to get a padlock, for which you have to pay, some even making use of a combination lock, which you have to know which way to turn in order to open.

Across from all the desks in the classroom stands another desk that belongs to a pupil from the highest class, and whenever no grown-up is present he can order the others in the room about, especially during study hall, though he never says anything to those in his own class, the pupils from the highest two classes acting like grown-ups, each wearing a tie, and it being an embarrassment should one not wear long pants. That’s why the younger ones also like to wear long pants, or if they are short they should be breeches, for they look somewhat grown up, while even the youngest also wear a tie. In each classroom there’s a saying on the wall that says something about a good education, and in Classroom I, where Josef sits, it says on the wall:

Hard work and diligence help form the wings

That will help you attain most anything

But in another room, painted on the wall is:

Ohn Fleiß kein Preiß *

Once a classmate of Josef’s had written Preiß with a sharp “ß,” but when Professor Felger returned the notebook Preiß was crossed out in red, since it was wrong, because it should be spelled Preis , with a round “s.” The professor was very angry and said that one should also not spell the plural as Preiße , as in the local dialect that would be taken to mean a “Prussian,” for Preise was right, but then a student said that he saw it spelled with a sharp “ß” in study hall, where Preiß was written on the wall. Professor Felger, however, didn’t believe him, for that was totally wrong, at which others chimed in and said that it indeed was written on the wall, Professor Felger deeply surprised to hear this, as he said he still couldn’t believe it was true, for most of the students hadn’t written Preiß but, rather, Preis , the professor then asking the entire class who thought that it should be written as Preis and not Preiß . Most then answered that they believed it should be spelled the way it was in the spelling book, but still it was written with a sharp “ß” in the study hall, at which Professor Felger said he had to see for himself, though he couldn’t do so during class.

In the next period, when the professor returned after the break, he had indeed looked at the saying on the wall and found that Preiß was written with a sharp “ß,” and said that he couldn’t believe it, that it was a mark against The Box, as there had earlier been other painters and varnishers who were still diligent and who were respectful of the mother tongue, but these days no one ever cared about spelling anything right, illiteracy being rampant and causing everything to go to pieces. His own son, who had suffered a hero’s death in the war, would, even as a young boy, have been able to tell the person painting the saying on the wall how to spell the word correctly, and even Professor Felger himself had known the correct spelling as a young abecedarian, and he said that he had spoken with The Bull and asked him why none of the inspectors had noticed that the children were learning bad German, the corruption of the language outrageous, though he would let the office know that the shoddy spelling would have to be corrected. Then Professor Felger explained what kind of silly results can happen if you don’t spell things correctly, it being ridiculous to write Rolladen , for that’s actually wrong and sounds like something you’d eat, though it has nothing to do with that, but instead the word is Rollladen , being a combination of rollen and Laden , since it’s a Laden , or “shutter,” that you roll, which is why it’s not right to leave off the third “l,” for the third “l” is needed, and it’s not true that it looks awful. Whoever is not pleased by it should only recall that one must never corrupt the mother tongue, for through such carelessness one ruins both style and so much more, Professor Felger soon providing more examples to prove his point. Thus one should write Dampschifffahrt always with three “f”s, even if you don’t put a hyphen between Dampschiff and Fahrt , for it’s easy to see once you hyphenate the word how silly it would be to use only two “f”s. If you simply want to corrupt the language, then you could just write Kaffeersatz instead of Kaffeeersatz with three “e”s, but then you might as well say that two “e”s is already too many, and then just write Kafersatz with only one “e.” But when the entire class laughed Professor Felger said that there was nothing funny about it, but rather sad, for he was afraid that someday no one would know the mother tongue, and that it would be worse than in the time of Frederick the Great, under whom at least many things were better than they are today, since back then there were noblemen who had their hearts in the right place, and who would hang their heads in shame if they were alive today. But back then the language was terrible, since everyone preferred to speak French, the king himself setting a terrible example, bringing that idiot Voltaire to Potsdam, though today there was no longer any reason to corrupt the language so, there no longer being any Frederick the Great, and French is never used, since no one now knew how to do anything except play soccer and drive a car.