Schlump by Hans Herbert Grimm

Author:Hans Herbert Grimm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2016-06-16T04:00:00+00:00

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When Schlump woke again, his head was nestled on white pillows and a white sheet covered his body. Some artillery troops had picked him up, the medical orderlies told him, and carried him on their wagon.

He was soon put on to a stretcher and taken to the operating theatre. On the steps he passed a lance corporal from the medical corps, carrying over his shoulder a bare leg as if it were a rifle, and making a joke of it. Schlump was laid out on the operating table and a nurse put a gas mask over his face. It wasn’t long before he was dreaming again.

Once more Schlump was back home, but this time at the fair, where one carousel after another was turning round and round. The music was a jumble of burbling, gurgling and tinkling, with the occasional brash and throaty whistle of a traction engine. The girls were sitting on the wooden horses, holding their skirts above the knee, and laughing. All of a sudden Schlump saw Monsieur Doby beside him. They pushed and thrust their way through the throng of people and stopped outside a cinematographic theatre. The sun had just set, and the countless electric lamps shone in the clear dark blue sky. They were standing by the band – a delicate and friendly-looking gentleman made of wood, in buckled shoes and half-stockings, beat out time. Next to him massive placards had been erected, on which Schlump saw huge pictures of Michel, the famous Michel, removing the grenade pin with his teeth and blowing himself and the Tommy into the air.

Schlump took Monsieur Doby by the arm and guided him into the cinema. They sat on the front bench, where all the soldiers were sitting, and looked around. In the corner at the back he noticed sweet little Nelly, who gave him a smile and waved with her handkerchief. In front of the white screen sat the band, making a dreadful racket that sounded like bombs and shells going off. Beside the band stood a tall man in a black coat covered in stars. He was holding a baton and on his head was an incredibly tall pointed cone, on which the sun and the moon and all the constellations revolved. The man stared down his nose at Schlump through a pair of huge black spectacles. The lights went out and the screen started to flicker. Large writing appeared which Schlump couldn’t read. Then he saw inside a house where a gaggle of pretty girls were rocking back and forth on soldiers’ knees. And these soldiers wore expressions of bliss as they hugged their beauties. In the middle stood Michel, the famous Michel, playing the fiddle.

Now the buffoon in black next to the band started talking. Poking the screen with his baton, he spoke with a ridiculous trumpeting voice: ‘Private Michael from the machine-gunners had a glint in his eye! He always seemed to be chewing a curse in his teeth. For six days the company rested up.

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