Free The Drinker by Hans Fallada

all: right away within the next few days I would go to one or more of them and get certificates attesting to my perfect health. With such a target before my eyes it should be easy not to drink for a day or two before my visit to the doctor. She would soon find out whom she had to deal with, would Magda; despite fifteen years of married life, she didn’t know her husband at all! Anyway, before I’d give up my property to her, I’d sooner burn the house down over her head, that was certain.
    So my thoughts ran, on my way to the village inn, and the filling-in of all the details shortened the journey for me in the most agreeable fashion. For instance, I could dwell on the idea of being shut up in some institution cell, disciplined with cold water and fed on bad food, while Magda ate veal cutlets and asparagus in our pretty dining-room. Tears of self-pity nearly came into my eyes at the thought of my hard lot and Magda’s injustice. In between times, I fed my sandwiches to the village ducks and geese, for as usual lately, I wasn’t in the least hungry, and every so often I dived behind a hedge and took a drink. I never quite lost the feeling of shame that I, Erwin Sommer, was hiding behind a hedge, pouring schnaps into myself like the lowest tramp. I could never take it for granted, I never became quite so blunted. But it just had to be, it couldn’t be otherwise.
    I had finished the bottle shortly before reaching my goal. I threw the bottle into the ditch and began my last five minutes’ walk. It was striking noon from the village steeple; before me, behind me, and all around, the villagers were coming from the fields, with hoes and spades over their shoulders. Some of them greeted me, some gave me keen sidelong looks, and others nudged each other, pulled faces and laughed as they passed me by. It may only have been the usual critical village attitude to townsfolk, but I had the suspicion that it might be noticeable I had been drinking, perhaps, or that something about my clothing was disarranged. I was already acquainted with the fact that the worst thing about alcohol was the feeling of uncertainty it gave, as if something was not quite right. You can look in the mirror as often as you like, look your clothes over, try every button, but when you have had something to drink, you are never sure that you have not overlooked something, something quite obvious that has been neglected despite the closest attention. One has similar experiences in dreams, one moves quite happily in the most exclusive society, and suddenly discovers that one has forgotten to put one’s trousers on. Well then, I found it irksome to be so stared at, and besides, it occurred to me that this busy noonday hour would not be the right time for me to go looking for my pretty one. I turned aside into a field path and threw myself down on the grass under a shady bush. At once I fell asleep, into that pitch-black sleep that alcohol induces, in which one is, so to speak, extinguished, one dies a modified death. There are no more dreams, no notion of light and life—off into nothingness!
    When I woke up, the sun was already low. I must have been asleep for four, perhaps five hours. As usual nowadays, my sleep had not refreshed me, I woke up old and tired, a shaky feeling in my limbs. My bones were stiff when I stood up; and I found walking very difficult. But I knew by now that all this would be better as soon as I had had my first few drinks, and I hurried to reach the inn.
    I had chosen a good time: the bar-room was empty again, there was nobody behind the bar either. Stiffly, I let myself fall into a wicker chair and called for some service. First a woman’s head appeared in the crack of the door; it wasn’t my pale pretty one however, but an unkempt red-nosed elderly character, and then a fat woman looked in, calling “Coming, coming!” and opened the door by the stairway which I had climbed that night, led blindly by the hand.
    “Elinor, Elinor,