H. Adler - Panorama

After bathing there’s nothing else special on Saturday, except that the school groups are not maintained that evening or on Sunday, each pupil sitting down to eat wherever he wishes, ad hoc groups forming, though otherwise Sunday is the worst day in The Box, especially when there’s a hike. This is required of all healthy pupils and lasts four hours, when the weather allows. On Sunday there is no schedule to keep, since there is no school, and so from breakfast until the midday meal there is nothing at all, only a couple of pious pupils attending Protestant and Catholic services with their parents, which during the war had been held in the chapel, though those who do go to church say that it’s no big deal. Inside The Box the hours barely creep by, as you write your weekly letter home, or at best read a book. But how can Josef settle in to read if he’s constantly wondering if the weather is bad enough to prevent a hike from taking place? Most of the pupils don’t like the hike, though at lunch it’s always said that there will be a hike, although if one cannot be entirely sure what the weather will be like at two o’clock, then most likely there will be a hike, and if the sun shines most are sad that the hike is on for sure.

Five minutes before two the bell rings, “Let’s hike!” is yelled throughout The Box, everyone heads out to the courtyard, where you form two lines, though you can decide whom you want to have as a partner on the hike, but before you head off you have to quickly get your school cap from the clothes room if you don’t have it in your desk, and if it’s not warm enough or it’s raining you also have to take your coat, for no one should catch cold. There are always a couple of pupils who have a reason not to go on the hike, be it the sniffles or some kind of leg wound, though the inspector decides if it’s a good enough reason to miss the hike, he telling most that it will do them no harm to go along for the hike, and that it’s best to be off. Then the only hope is that at the last moment the weather will turn bad, everyone looking up at the sky to see if it will finally rain, the inspectors also looking up and saying that these are only passing clouds that won’t amount to anything, the hike can proceed, though a couple of pupils call out that they have felt a couple of drops, it being better not to go for a hike. Then the two inspectors confer with each other and finally decide whether or not the hike will happen, it being a rare good bit of luck if the hike is canceled at the last minute, after which everyone can head back into The Box and do what he likes, be it play in the yard or in the hallways, in the classrooms or in the game room, while it can also occur that around two-thirty someone yells that the hike is back on, that they need to leave quickly in order to have enough time for a hike. The upper classes form the head of the line, the lower ones following, and at the end the inspector places a couple of older boys, who make sure that no one stays behind, the two inspectors seeing to it that everyone has a partner in order that the spirit of The Box is honored as they leave it, after which they hand out the afternoon snack wrapped in paper.

Then the pupils finally march off, not through the vestibule exit but directly from the courtyard into Rosenbühlstrasse, after which they hike through the streets, it being deadly boring, standing still not allowed unless it’s at a crosswalk, where one has to wait, “Stay in line” often heard so that no space opens up in the lines, most often their path taking them over the bridge known as the Blue Wonder, and then up the mountain through the settled suburbs where Professor Felger lives, though they don’t pass his villa. Farther on they head into the forest, which is quite desolate, even when the forest is beautiful, for you have to keep pressing on and cannot stray from the path, it only being rarely allowed for the two rows to stop to rest, but only for a little while before they are formed again. During the hike Josef feels more unsure of himself than he does at The Box, for during a hike there’s nothing to do but hike, until finally you reach the destination that the inspectors say is their goal, it always being a coffeehouse, where one can rest and sit in the garden along with a couple of day-trippers who gawk at the pupils in their brown caps, some of them even knowing that they are from The Box, as the inspectors go to the innkeeper and order coffee for everyone that is nearly as bad as that served in The Box, the pupils opening up their snacks, making sure to throw the paper in the waste can, the snack over before you know it. Then someone again yells “Line up!” the hike is about to move on, though at least it’s now headed back to The Box and goes along a different route, since it’s better to hike two different paths, but it doesn’t really matter what path you hike on, since it’s all so miserable. Then finally you cross the Blue Wonder once again and head back into the city, Rosenbühlstrasse soon approaching and The Box, the gate to the yard standing open, then once more closed, the inspectors satisfied since they enjoyed the hike, yet only they enjoyed it, the pupils running from the yard as fast as possible.

Many are tired from the hike, Josef as well, and sit down wherever they can, the evening meal soon following, after which all the pupils who had a pass return, as the evening passes quickly by, the bell rings, eight-thirty already, time for bed, as they head upstairs to the dormitory to lay their clothes on a stool, the pupils pulling the blankets over them, the big light turned off, the green light appearing once again. Now Josef feels alone, though it’s not so bad, as he thinks about everything that goes on in The Box, and why it is the way it is. He sees The Bull as he stands below, next to the main staircase, people clicking their heels to him, followed by Inspector Faber, who always wants to parade, Josef seeing everything that goes on in The Box, his feet somewhat sore from the hike. Josef knows only that he wants to leave The Box, for he’d rather not grow up to be the kind of proper man who, above all, will do honor to The Box, nor does he want to join the society of alumni, for as soon as he can get away from The Box he never wants to see it again, he never wants to pass by the castellan Herr Lindenbaum again, even if he has never done anything to him, since he’s not a bad man. Even if Josef should one day see this city again, he’ll never visit anyone in The Box, nor does he ever want to set foot in Weimarerstrasse again, Professor Felger being the only one he’d like to see, if he is still alive, so that he can show him the garden with the destroyed pump, under whose roof songbirds had nested until the brittle pump fell apart and became just a memory. From far off Josef can hear the song “Now for the Last Time” in his ears, though already he has forgotten almost everything, he knowing nothing more of The Box and thinking no more about how much he has been yelled at here, his eyes closing instead so that he no longer sees the green light, or hears the night attendant who sits up on his chair in front of the toilet in the foyer, everything going out inside Josef, because it’s quiet, as he falls into a dreamless sleep.

*This phrase translates to our contemporary phrase “no pain, no gain.” However, as the passage that follows is about how it is misspelled in German, I have chosen not to translate it in order to allow the difference between the sharp “s” or “ß” of the spelling on the wall to play out against the round “s” that Professor Felger says it should be. It should also be noted that Ohn is a very old-fashioned way of spelling Ohne , or “without,” in German.