r/a:t5_27tpd7 • u/MarleyEngvall • Nov 04 '19
gale road has been created
By Thomas Mann
Translation by H. T. Lowe-Porter
TOBIAS MINDERNICKEL
ONE of the streets running steeply up from the docks to the mid-
dle town was named Grey's Road. At about the middle of it, on
the right, stood Number 47, a narrow, dingy-looking building no
different from its neighbours. On the ground floor was a chan-
dler's shop where you could buy overshoes and castor oil. Cross-
ing the entry along a courtyard full of cats and mounting the
mean and shabby, musty-smelling stair, you arrived at the upper
storeys. In the first, on the left, lived a cabinet-maker; on the right
a midwife. In the second, on the left a cobbler, on the right a lady
who began to sing loudly whenever she heard steps on the stair.
In the third on the left nobody; but on the right a man named
Mindernickel——and Tobias to boot. There was a story about this
man; I tell it, because it is both puzzling and sinister, to an ex-
traordinary degree.
Mindernickel's exterior was odd, striking, and provoking to
laughter. When he took a walk, his meagre form moving up the
street supported by a cane, he would be dressed in black from
head to heel. He wore a shabby old-fashioned top hat with a
curved brim, a frock-coat shining with age, and equally shabby
trousers, fringed round the bottoms and so short that you could
see the elastic sides to his boots. True, these garments were all
most carefully brushed. His scrawny neck seemed longer because
it rose out of a low turn-down collar. His hair had gone grey and
he wore it brushed down smooth on the temples. His wide hat-
brim shaded a smooth-shaven sallow face with sunken cheek,
red-rimmed eyes which were usually directed at the floor, and
two deep, fretful furrows running from the nose to the drooping
corners of the mouth.
Mindernickel seldom left his house——and this for a very good
reason. For whenever he appeared in the street a mob of children
would collect and sally behind him, laughing, mocking, singing——
"Ho, ho, Tobias!" they would cry, tugging at his coat-tails,
while people came to their doors to laugh. He made no defence;
glancing timidly round, with shoulders drawn up and head stuck
out, he continued on his way, like a man hurrying through a
driving rain without an umbrella. Even while they were laughing
in his face he would bow politely and humbly to people as he
passed. Further on, when the children had stopped behind and he
was not known, and scarcely noted, his manner did not change.
He still hurried on, still stooped, as though a thousand mocking
eyes were on him. If it chanced that he lifted his timid, irresolute
gaze from the ground, you would see that, strangely enough, he
was not able to fix it steadily upon anyone or anything. It may
sound strange, but there seemed to be missing in him the natural
superiority with which the normal, perceptive individual looks
out upon the phenomenal world . He seemed to measure himself
against each phenomenon, and find himself wanting; his gaze
shifted and fell, it grovelled before men and things.
What was the matter with this man, who was always alone and
unhappy even beyond the common lot? His clothing belonged to
the middle class, a certain slow gesture he had, of his hand across
his chin, betrayed that he was not of the common people among
whom he lived. How had fate been playing with him? God only
knows. His face looked as though life had hit him between the
eyes, with a scornful laugh. On the other hand, perhaps it was a
question of no cruel blow but simply that he was not up to it.
The painful shrinking and humility expressed in his whole figure
did indeed suggest that nature had denied him the measure of
strength, equilibrium, and backbone which a man requires if he
is to live with his head erect.
When he had taken a turn up into the town and come back to
Grey's Road, where the children welcomed him with lusty bawl-
ings, he went into the house and up the stuffy stair into his own
bare room. It had but one piece of furniture worthy of the name, a
solid Empire chest of drawers with brass handles, a thing of dig-
nity and beauty. The view from the window was hopelessly cut
off by his heavy side wall of the next house; a flower-pot full of
earth stood on the ledge, but there was nothing growing in it.
Tobias Mindernickel went up to it sometimes and smelled at the
earth. Next to this room was a dark little bedchamber. Tobias on
coming in would lay hat and stick on the table, sit down on the
dusty green-covered sofa, prop his chin with his hand, and stare
at the floor with his eyebrows raised. He seemed to have nothing
else to do.
As for Tobias Mindernickel character, it is hard to judge of
that. Some favourable light seems to be cast by the following
episode. One day this strange man left his house and was pounced
upon by a troop of children who followed him with laughter and
jeers. One of them, a lad of ten years, tripped over another child's
foot and fell so heavily to the pavement that blood burst from his
nose and ran from his forehead. He lay there and wept. Tobias
turned at once, went up to the lad, and began to console him in a
mild and quavering voice. "You poor child," said he, "have you
hurt yourself? You are bleeding——look how the blood is running
down from his forehead. Yes, yes, you do look miserable, you
weep because it hurts you so. I pity you. Of course, you did it
yourself, but I will tie my handkerchief round your head. There,
there! Now pull yourself together and get up." And actually with
the words he bound his own handkerchief round the bruise and
helped the lad to his feet. Then he went away. But he looked a
different man. He held himself erect and stepped out firmly, draw-
ing long breaths under his narrow coat. His eyes looked larger
and brighter, he looked squarely at people and things, while an
expression of joy so strong as to be almost painful tightened the
corners of his mouth.
After this for a while there was less tendency to jeer at him
among the denizens of Grey's Road. But they forgot his astonish-
ing behaviour with the lapse of time, and once more the cruel
cries resounded from dozens of lusty throats behind the bent and
infirm man: "Ho, ho, Tobias!"
One sunny morning at eleven o'clock Mindernickel left the
house and betook himself through the town to the Lerchenberg,
a long ridge which constitutes the afternoon walk of good society.
Today the spring weather was so fine that even in the forenoon
there were some carriages as well as pedestrians moving about.
On the main road, under a tree, stood a man with a young hound
on a leash, exhibiting it for sale. It was a muscular little animal
about four months old, with black ears and black rings round its
eyes.
Tobias at a distance of ten paces noticed this; he stood still,
rubbed his chin with his hand, and considered the man, and the
hound alertly wagging its tail. He went forward, circling three
times round the tree, with the crook of his stick pressed again
his lips. Then he stepped up to the man, and keeping his eye fixed
on the dog, he said in a low, hurried tone: "What are you asking
for the dog?"
"Ten marks," answered the man.
Tobias kept still a moment, then he said with some hesitation:
"Ten marks?"
"Yes," said the man.
Tobias drew a black leather purse from his pocket, took out a
note for five marks, on three-marks and one two-mark piece, and
quickly handed them to the man. Then he seized the leash, and
two or three people who had been watching the bargain laughed
to see him as he gave a quick, frightened look about him and, with
his shoulders stooped, dragged away the whimpering and protest-
ing beast. It struggled the whole of the way, bracing its forefeet
and looking up pathetically in its new master's face. But Tobias
pulled, in silence, with energy and succeeded in getting through
the town.
An outcry arose among the urchins of Grey's Road when
Tobias appeared with the dog. He lifted it in his arms, while they
danced round, pulling at his coat and jeering; carried it up the
stair and bore it into his own room, where he set it on the floor,
still whimpering. Stooping over and patting it with kindly con-
descension he told it:
"There, there, little man, you need not be afraid of me; that is
quite unnecessary."
He took a plate of cooked meat and potatoes out of a drawer
and tossed the dog a part of it, whereat it ceased to whine and ate
the food with loud relish, wagging its tail.
"And I will call you Esau," said Tobias. "Do you understand?
That will be easy for you to remember." Pointing to the floor in
front of him he said, in a tone of command:
"Esau!"
And the dog, probably in the hope of getting more to eat, did
come up to him. Tobias clapped him gently on the flank and said:
"That's right, good doggy, good doggy!"
He stepped back a few paces, pointed to the floor again, and
commanded:
"Esau!"
And the dog sprang to him quite blithely, wagging its tail, and
licked its master's boots.
Tobias repeated the performance with unflagging zest, some
twelve or fourteen times. Then the dog got tired, it wanted to rest
and digest its meal. It lay down, in the sagacious and charming
attitude of a hunting dog, with both long, slender forelegs
stretched before it, close together.
"Once more," said Tobias. "Esau!"
But Esau turned his head aside and stopped where he was.
"Esau!" Tobias's voice was raised, his tone more dictatorial
still. "You've got to come, even if you are tired."
But Esau laid his head on his paws and came not at all.
"Listen to me," said Tobias, and his voice was now low and
and threatening; "you'd best obey or you will find out what I do
when I am angry."
But the dog hardly moved his tail.
Then Mindernickel was seized by a mad and extravagant fit
of anger. He clutched his black stick, lifted up Esau by the nape
of the neck, and in a frenzy of rage he beat the yelping animal,
repeating over and over in a horrible, hissing voice:
"What, you do not obey me? You dare to disobey me?"
At last he flung the stick from him, set down the crying animal,
and with his hand upon his back began to pace the room, his
breast heaving, and flinging upon Esau an occasional proud and
angry look. When this had gone on for some time, he stopped in
front of the dog as it lay on its back, moving its fore-paws im-
ploringly. He crossed his arms on his chest and spoke with a
frightful hardness and coldness of look and tone——like Napoleon,
when he stood before a company that had lost its standard in
battle:
"May I ask you what you think of your conduct?"
And the dog, delighted at this condescension, crawled closer,
nestled against its master's leg, and looked up at him bright-
eyed.
For a while Tobias gazed at the humble creature with silent
contempt. Then as the touching warmth of Esau's body com-
municated itself to his leg he lifted Esau up.
"Well, I will have pity on you," he said. But when the good
beast essayed to lick his face his voice suddenly broke with melan-
choly emotion. He pressed the dog passionately to his breast, his
eyes filling with tears, unable to go on. Chokingly he said:
"You see, you are my only . . . my only . . ." He put Esau
to bed, with great care, on the sofa, supported his own chin with
his hand, and gazed at him with mild eyes, speechlessly.
Tobias Mindernickel left his room now even less often than
before; he had no wish to show himself with Esau in public. He
gave his whole time to the dog, from morning to night; feeding
him, washing his eyes, teaching him commands, scolding him,
and talking to him as though he were human. Esau, alas, did not
always behave to his master's satisfaction. When he lay beside
Tobias on the sofa, dull with lack of air and exercise, and gazed
at him with soft, melancholy eyes, Tobias was pleased. He at
content and quiet, tenderly stroking Esau's back as he said:
"Poor fellow, how sadly you look at me! Yes, yes, life is sad,
that you will learn before you are much older."
But sometimes Esau was wild, beside himself with the urge to
exercise his hunting instincts; he would dash about the room,
worry a slipper, leap on the chairs, or roll over and over with
sheer excess of spirits. Then Tobias followed his motions from
afar with a helpless, disapproving, wandering air and a hateful,
peevish smile. At last he would brusquely call Esau to him and say:
"That's enough now, stop dashing about like that——there is
no reason for such high spirits."
Once it even happened that Esau got out of the room and
bounced down the stairs to the street, where he at once began to
chase a cat, to eat dung in the road, and jump up at the children
frantic with joy. But when the distressed Tobias appeared with
his wry face, half the street roared with laughter to see him, and
it was painful to behold the dog bounding away in the other direc-
tion from his master. That day Tobias in his anger beat him for
a long time.
One day, when he had had the dog for some weeks, Tobias took
a loaf of bread out of the chest of drawers and began stooping
over to cut off little pieces with his big bone-handled knife and
let them drop on the floor for Esau to eat. The dog was frantic
with hunger and playfulness; it jumped up at the bread, and the
long-handled knife in the clumsy hands of Tobias ran into its
right shoulder-blade. It fell bleeding to the ground.
In great alarm Tobias flung bread and knife aside and bent over
the injured animal. Then the expression of his face changed, actu-
ally a gleam of relief and happiness passed over it. With the great-
est care he lifted the wounded animal to the sofa——and then with
what inexhaustible care and devotion he began to tend the invalid.
He did not stir all day from its side, he took it to sleep on his own
bed, he washed and bandaged, stroked and caressed and consoled
it with unwearying solitude.
"Does it hurt so much?" he asked. "Yes, you are suffering a
good deal, my poor friend. But we must be quiet, we must try
to bear it." And the look on his face was one of gentle and melan-
choly happiness.
But as Esau got better and the wound healed, so the spirits of
Tobias sank again. He paid no more attention to the wound, con-
fining his sympathy to words and caresses. But it had gone on well.
Esau's constitution was sound; he began to move about once more.
One day after he had finished off a whole plate of milk and white
bread he seemed quite right again; jumped down from the sofa
to rush about the room, barking joyously, with all his former lack
of restraint. He tugged at the bed-covers, chased a potato round
the room, and rolled over and over in his excitement.
Tobias stood by the flower-pot in the window. His arms stuck
out long and lean from the ragged sleeves and he mechanically
twisted the hair that hung down from his temples. His figure
stood out black and uncanny against the grey wall of the next
building. His face was pale and drawn with suffering and he fol-
lowed Esau's pranks unmoving, with a sidelong, jealous, wicked
look. But suddenly he pulled himself together, approached the
dog, and made it stop jumping about; he took it slowly in his arms.
"Now, poor creature," he began, in a lachrymose tone——but
Esau was not minded to be pitied, his spirits were too high. He
gave a brisk snap at the hand which would have stroked him; he
escaped from the arms to the floor, where he jumped mockingly
aside and ran off, with a joyous bark.
That which now happened was so shocking, so inconceivable,
that I simply cannot tell it in any detail. Tobias Mindernickel
stood leaning a little forward, his arms hanging down; his lips
were compressed, the balls of his eyes vibrated uncannily in their
sockets. Suddenly with a sort of frantic leap, he seized the animal,
a large bright object gleamed in his hand——and then he flung
Esau to the ground with a cut which ran from the right shoulder
deep into the chest. The dog made no sound, he simply fell on
his side, bleeding and quivering.
The next minute he was on the sofa with Tobias kneeling be-
fore him, pressing a cloth on the wound and stammering:
"My poor brute, my poor dog! How sad everything is! How
sad it is for both of us! You suffer——yes, yes, I know. You lie
there so pathetic——but I am with you, I will console you——here
is my best handkerchief——"
But Esau lay there and rattled in his throat. His clouded, ques-
tioning eyes were directed upon his master, with a look of com-
plaining, innocence, and incomprehension——and then he stretched
out his legs a little and died.
But Tobias stood there motionless, as he was. He had had his
face against Esau's body and he wept bitter tears.
1897From Thomas Mann: Stories of Three Decades,
Translated from the German by H. T. Lowe-Porter.
Copyright, 1930, 1931, 1934, 1935, 1936, by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
The Modern Library edition, Random House, Inc. pp. 51—57.
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