The Quarry by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Author:Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-02-23T16:00:00+00:00

THE DWARF

Hungertobel stopped in a park whose firs bordered on the forest, so Barlach assumed. For he could only guess at the edge of the forest against the horizon. Up here it snowed now in large clean flakes. Through the falling snow the old man glimpsed the front of the hospital. The car stood near the front entrance, which was set back into the wall and flanked by two carefully barred windows—from which one could watch the entrance, thought the Commissioner. Hungertobel lit a “Little Rose,” without speaking a word, left the car, and disappeared into the entrance. The old man was alone. He leaned forward and scrutinized the building, as far as that was possible in the darkness. Sonnenstein, he thought, reality. The snow fell harder, none of the many windows was illuminated. Only once in a while a vague shimmer flickered through the white masses of snow. The white modern complex of buildings—mostly built of glass—lay before him like a cemetery. The old man became restless; Hungertobel did not seem to want to return. He looked at his watch—but hardly a minute had passed. I’m nervous, he thought, and leaned back, intending to close his eyes.

At that moment Barlach’s glance fell through the car windows. The melting snow ran down in wide tracks, and he saw a figure hanging from the bars of the window to the left of the entrance. At first he thought he was seeing an ape, but then he recognized, surprised, that it was a dwarf, like one of those you sometimes find in a circus for the entertainment of the spectators. The little hands and feet were naked and gripped the bars as a while the huge head turned toward the monkey’s would,

Commissioner. It was a wrinkled stone-old face of a beastly ugliness, with deep cracks and creases, defiled by nature herself. It ogled at the old man with big dark eyes, motionless, like a weather-beaten mossy stone. The Commissioner bent forward and pressed his face against the wet window to see better, but the dwarf had already disappeared into the room with a catlike jump. The window was empty and dark. Now Hungertobel came, and behind him two nurses, looking all the more white in the incessant snowfall. The doctor opened the car door and was shocked to see Barlach’s pale face.

“What’s the matter?” he whispered.

“Nothing,” the old man answered. “I just have to get used to this modern building. Reality is always a little bit different from what one expects.”

Hungertobel sensed that the old man was not telling the truth and looked at him suspiciously. “Well,” he replied, under his breath as before, “here we go.”

Had he seen Emmenberger, whispered the Commissioner.

He had talked to him, reported Hungertobel. “There is no doubt possible, Hans, that it is he. I was not mistaken in Ascona.”

The two were silent. The nurses waited, already impatient.

We are chasing a phantom, thought Hungertobel. Emmenberger is a harmless doctor and this hospital like any other one, only more expensive.

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