II
In a city on the Rhine, Christian and Crammon were delayed by an accident. Something had happened to the motor of their car, and the chauffeur needed a whole day for repairs.
It was a beautiful evening of September, so they left the city streets and wandered quietly along the bank of the river. When darkness fell, they drifted by chance into a beer-garden near the water. The tables and benches, rammed firmly into the earth, stood among trees full of foliage, and were occupied by several hundred people—tradesmen, workingmen, and students.
“Let us rest a while and watch the people,” said Crammon. And near the entrance they found a table with two vacant seats. A bar-maid placed two pitchers of beer before them.
Under the trees the air had something subterranean about it, for it was filled with the odour of the exudations of so many people. The few lamps had iridescent rings of smoke about them. At the adjoining table sat students with their red caps and other fraternity insignia. They had fat, puffed-out faces and insolent voices. One of them hit the table three times with his stick. Then they began to sing.
Crammon opened his eyes very wide, and his lips twitched mockingly. He said: “That’s my notion of the way wild Indians act—Sioux or Iroquois.” Christian did not answer. He kept his arms quite close to his body, and his shoulders drawn up a little. There was a good deal of noise at all the tables, and, after a while, Christian said: “Do let us go. I’m not comfortable here.”
“Ah, but my dear boy, this is the great common people!” Crammon instructed him with a mixture of arrogance and mockery. “Thus do they sing and drink and—smell. ‘And calmly flows the Rhine.’ Your health, your Highness!” He always called Christian that among strangers, and was delighted when those who overheard showed a respectful curiosity. As a matter of fact, several of the men at their table looked at them in some consternation, and then whispered among themselves.
A young girl with blond braids of hair wreathed about her head had entered the garden. She stopped near the entrance, and looked searchingly from table to table. The students laughed, and one called out to her. She hesitated shyly. Yet she went up to him. “Whom are you looking for, pretty maiden?” a freshman asked. The girl did not answer. “Hide in the pitcher for your forwardness,” a senior cried. “It is for me to ask.” The freshman grinned, and took a long draught of beer. “What do you desire, little maiden?” the senior asked in a beery voice. “Have you come to fetch your father, who clings too lovingly to his jug?” The girl blushed and nodded. She was asked to give her name, and said it was Katherine Zöllner. Her father, she said, was a boatman. She spoke softly, yet so that Christian and Crammon understood what she said. Her father was due to join his ship for Cologne at three o’clock in the morning. “For Cologne,” the senior growled. “Give me a kiss, and I’ll find your father for you.”
The girl trembled and recoiled. But the fraternity approved of the demand, and roared applause. “Don’t pretend!” the senior said. He got up, put his arms roughly about her waist, and, despite her resistance and fright, he kissed her.
“Me, too! Me, too!” The cries arose from the others. The girl had already been passed on to a second, a third snatched her, then a fourth, fifth, sixth. She could not cry out. She could scarcely breathe. Her resistance grew feebler, the roaring and the laughter louder. The fellows at the neighbouring table grew envious. A fat man with warts on his face called out: “Now you come to us!” His comrades brayed with laughter. When the last student let her go, it was this man who grasped her, kissed her and threw her toward his neighbour. More and more men arose, stretched out their arms, and demanded the defenceless victim. Nothing happened except that they kissed her. Yet there spread through the crowd a wildness of lust, so that even the women screeched and cried out. The students, in the meantime, proud of their little game, raised their rough voices and sang a foolish song.
The body of the girl, now an unresisting and almost lifeless thing, was whirled from arm to arm. Christian and Crammon had arisen. They gazed into the quivering throng under the trees, heard the shrieks, the cries, the laughter, saw the girl, now far away, and the hands stretched out after her, and her face with eyes that were now closed, now open again in horror. At last one was found who had compassion. He was a young workingman, and he hit the man who was just kissing the girl square between the eyes. Two others then attacked him, and there ensued a rough fight, while the girl with her little remaining strength reeled toward the fence where the ground was grassy. Her hair fell loose, her blue bodice was torn and showed her naked bosom, her face was covered with ugly bruises. She tried to keep erect, groped about, but fell. A few thoughtful people now came up, helped her, and asked each other what was to be done.
Christian and Crammon followed the shore of the river back to the city. The students had begun a new ditty, that sounded discordantly through the night, until the distance gradually silenced it.