THE JAIL
he had not been in the shop for years and years, and had neither the interest nor the opportunity to go there, they took him to Vienna and put him into jail. He did not know a word of German, he could scarcely see; in the morning Papa Declich used to dress him, wrap him up in a plaid, put his stick in his hand and place him on the box. There the old man sat all day motionless and without speaking a word. Whether he thought, whether he did not think and, if he thought, what he thought,—heaven alone knew. And so when the sergeant explained matters to him,—and possibly when explaining them to him, he was only explaining this difficult affair to himself again, for it is the way of the Viennese to think and reflect aloud,—he only grunted, hm, hm, and coughed.
Hedrich came back from an errand. He had been shaving people in several rooms and wanted to rest. He put a cigar in his holder, lit it and sat down with us. The sergeant immediately unburdened himself to him of his dilemma. Hedrich looked around the room and remarked with deliberation: "If the superintendent comes, you can report to him, if a warder comes, let platoon-leader Kretzer report ". The sergeant exulted. He clapped Hedrich on the shoulder, asked him for a cigarette, and went off to explain to the censorists how he would manage it.
Mr. Kretzer, the platoon-leader, had an insuperable aversion to the trenches. For six months he had remained hidden in Vienna to avoid them, but he had nevertheless been tracked down. He was the size of a mountain, an unusually strong fellow except for that fatal weakness which had brought him in our midst. He had an enormous appetite, and he would have felt thoroughly happy in number 60 if it had not been for this appetite. But the sergeant, following a noble impulse of his soul, gave him a slice of bread when he had expressed his consent to do the reporting.
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