Translated by W.C. Bamberger
I stepped out onto the balcony of a large room. A sleepy wind played through the flower pots on the parapet. It was twilight. I wasn't sure if the twilight was that of early morning or evening, because everything that had happened and everything that existed before this step out onto the balcony was wiped out of my memory. While I pondered the omens of the twilight, I peered down from the four-story height to the intersection below and down one of the streets. It was empty of men. It reminded me of how we, as children, on beautiful summer afternoons when the townspeople had moved out into the forest and the field, amused ourselves by waiting for hours for the pavement, which was never busy anyway, to become completely empty. We rarely saw it deserted along its full length, and then only for a short time. This was such a moment again. But, no - someone was walking there, one man alone. He appeared to me to be wrapped in a black cloak and to be carrying a pole on his shoulder. That'll be the lamplighter, I thought, so this is evening now over the houses. And I was glad to have been relieved of the doubt about the twilight. But I would soon be back in the dark. Because no lights came on. The man passed by the lamps, ignoring them, and went into a house. - Who might this lone wanderer have been? And why is the street stubbornly empty? I wondered. The dark figure walked along as if it had come from a great distance, as if it did not belong in this city, not even in this country. In vain I considered which gestures or which article of clothing could have evoked this impression in me. I didn't know why. He just seemed strangely different from the others, this stranger - the Wanderer as I named him - although he was probably just another city dweller, a harmless resident of this street. He awoke a restless curiosity, a burning desire in my chest to see him again. - Will he come out of the house again? Probably not. He likely lives there. But if he is a stranger after all -?- No sooner had I thought this than he stepped out into the dusky street, crossed the road with a pole on his shoulder, as lantern lighters do on quiet evenings, and disappeared into a portal over there. - Who can he be? Who can he be? I tortured myself. He seemed the only one still alive in this extinction, because the street was still deserted. It didn't take long before I saw his dark cloak again under the portal, and again he strode across the street into the next house. Something moved out of the first doorway into which he had gone earlier - a long, narrow block, a black flat box - a coffin. I knew it was a coffin. A light glowed on its lid, as small as a shining dab. The coffin pushed itself out into the street. The dead man's last strength has been given to the wood, I thought, so that it slides over the ground on its own like a stiff animal without limbs or joints. And to see it uses the dot of light. Then an identical box, crowned by sparkles, pushed out of the house opposite, and soon a third and then a fourth out of another. Meanwhile, the stranger was walking from house to house - coming closer and closer to mine. And the crowd of crawling coffins increased. There were also some for children among them. They looked like the tongues of those big, lumbering animals, and it seemed to me as if the coffins of the elders were sliding carefully around them.
Again the dark cloak wafted across the quiet pavement - only animated by coffins - into a new house. It suddenly became clear to me, and I gasped: he will come for you too, this steadfast Wanderer, and your coffin - your coffin soon will march with the others down there! But I don't want to receive him, he in the dark coat; I can't speak to him, don't let it in! - Rushing into the room, I tried to lock the two doors, but the keys that were usually there were missing.- I tried to block the entrances! Chest panting, afraid I would finish too late, I pushed a heavy chest of drawers in front of one of the doors. But no sooner was it in place than it collapsed like rotten wood under my hands. Colorful fabrics and white linens in a tangled heap shone from its crumbling remains. I looked around, searching - he will be here soon! - I rushed onto the balcony - what should I do? - I knew there was a revolver and cartridges in the next room. I got them both, and while I was loading the gun, I stepped back out to my observation post and looked down at the street - just in time to see him enter my house. I wanted to make one last desperate attempt to barricade myself, but when I turned around and stepped back inside, he was already standing there in the middle of the room, greeting me. He no longer carried a pole. There was something tired about his greeting - it had a mechanical courtesy that made me think that he had often doffed his hat in this indifferent way - just as in all the other houses. He said nothing. He came closer and handed me a white card, a business card. I tried to read the name. But no sooner had my eyes caught the first letters than the others pushed themselves in front of and between them. Every time I tried to read the words, the dance began again. The stranger seemed to enjoy the game because he smiled when I looked up from the card. He was probably laughing at me! That made me angry, and I pulled the revolver out of my pocket - without much thought - only with the urge to keep him from making another malicious move - and I shot him in the face. He took a step back, looking slightly astonished, then raised his hand and dug the bullet out of his eye socket with one of his excessively long fingers. Only then did I see that he had no eyes - only deep holes that led into the darkness within the skull. He weighed the little bullet in the palm of his hand, lifted it with his pointed fingers, smiled and threw it lightly against a large vase that stood on a cupboard. At the same time a shot boomed and the vase burst into pieces and fell to the floor. Only then did I become aware that I hadn't heard a bang when I had pulled the trigger. Thoroughly confused, I stood immobile and was not able - as much as I wanted to - to shoot the stranger again. He paid me no mind, just turned back his coat and reached inside it. In doing so, he revealed a vest that shimmered as if opals had been made into a supple cloth. And through the milky sheen I saw his bowels stir like a lump of yellowish snakes. It was only for a moment. He immediately closed his coat again and pulled out the inner part of a matchbox he'd taken out of its sleeve. Then he began to gently pull and tug the box with long fingers - it got bigger and bigger, and soon he had to put it on the floor. But he didn't let up: he bent over, stretching its walls with nimble hands until finally a box like the many that crawled around each other in the street below stood before him. When he was done, he straightened up and looked at me like a surgeon would look critically at his patient when everything is set up - the moment before he takes action. - "I won't! I won't! "I screamed and fled across the room. That didn't seem to bother him. He followed me slowly and surely. When he was near, I jumped onto the divan, yanked a mirror from the wall, and brought it down on his skull. The shards of glass splashed like a thousand diamonds through the half-dark room. His head cracked through the mirror so that the frame came to rest on one shoulder. But he stood calmly in front of me and just shook the splinters off himself with a bored expression on his face. Shrugging his shoulders almost imperceptibly, as if to say quietly and persistently, "Your resistance won't help you; this must be done!" he reached for me and lifted me off the divan as if I weighed almost nothing. Defending myself, I put both hands into his beard. But the hair came away in my fists like soft down. He grabbed my arms and stretched them out horizontally. And when he let go of them again, I tried in vain to move them to another position. Then he - slow and businesslike - unbuttoned my shirt and vest and, just as carefully and painlessly, pierced my left breast with his long index finger. I felt his finger come out through my back, saw the mirror frame dangling ridiculously around his shoulders, saw the bald spots in his torn beard - then my senses faded.
