Free Cat and Mouse by Günter Grass Page B

Someday he's going to hang himself, or hell get to be something real big, or invent something terrific."
    And Schilling said to Hotten Sonntag: "Tell me the honest truth; if your sister went out with Mahlke, to the movies and all, tell me the honest truth; what would you do?"
     
     
     
    Chapter
    VII
     
    The appearance of the lieutenant commander and much-decorated U-boat captain in the auditorium of our school put an end to the concerts from within the former Polish mine sweeper Rybitwa. Even if he had not turned up, the records and the phonograph couldn't have held out for more than another three or four days. But he did turn up, and without having to pay a visit to our barge he turned off the underwater music and gave all our conversations about Mahlke a new, though not fundamentally new, turn.
    The lieutenant commander must have graduated in about '34. It was said that before volunteering for the Navy he had studied some at the university: theology and German literature. I can't help it, I am obliged to call his eyes fiery. His hair was thick and kinky, maybe wiry would be the word, and there was something of the old Roman about his head. No submariner's beard, but aggressive eyebrows that suggested an overhanging roof. His forehead was that of a philosopher-saint, hence no horizontal wrinkles, but two vertical lines, beginning at the bridge of the nose and rising in search of God. The light played on the uppermost point of the bold vault. Nose small and sharp. The mouth he opened for us was a delicately curved orator's mouth. The auditorium was overcrowded with people and morning sun. We were forced to huddle in the window niches. Whose idea had it been to invite the two upper classes of the Gudrun School? The girls occupied the front rows of benches; they should have worn brassieres, but didn't.
    When the proctor called us to the lecture, Mahlke hadn't wanted to attend. Flairing some possible gain in prestige for myself, I took him by the sleeve. Beside me, in the window niche -- behind us the windowpanes and the motionless chestnut trees in the recreation yard -- Mahlke began to tremble before the lieutenant commander had even opened his mouth. Mahlke's hands clutched Mahlke's knees, but the trembling continued. The teachers, including two lady teachers from the Gudrun School, occupied a semicircle of oak chairs with high backs and leather cushions, which the proctor had set up with remarkable precision. Dr. Moeller clapped his hands, and little by little the audience quieted down for Dr. Klohse, our principal. Behind the twin braids and pony tails of the upper-class girls sat Fourths with pocketknives; braids were quickly shifted from back to front. Only the pony tails remained within reach of the Fourths and their knives. This time there was an introduction. Klohse spoke of all those who are out there fighting for us, on land, on the sea, and in the air, spoke at length and with little inflection of himself and the students at Langemarck, and on the Isle of Osel fell Walter Flex. Quotation: Maturebutpure -- the manly virtues. Then some Fichte or Arndt. Quotation: Onyou-aloneandwhatyoudo. Recollection of an excellent paper on Fichte or Arndt that the lieutenant commander had written in Second: "One of us, from our midst, a product of our school and its spirit, and in this spirit let us. . ."
    Need I say how zealously notes were passed back and forth between us in the window niches and the girls from Upper Second. Of course the Fourths mixed in a few obscenities of their own. I wrote a note saying Godknowswhat either to Vera Pl ö tz or to Hildchen Matull, but got no answer from either. Mahlke's hands were still clutching Mahlke's knees. The trembling died down. The lieutenant commander on the platform sat slightly crushed between old Dr. Brunies, who as usual was calmly sucking hard candy, and Dr. Stachnitz, our Latin teacher. As the introduction droned to an end, as our notes passed back and forth, as the Fourths