Free What's to Become of the Boy? by Heinrich Böll

of students for a sort of weekly seminar. Grosche, the classic Rhinelander, the classic, highly educated abbé, the Claudel translator and expert, one of Germany’s first truly ecumenical priests, yet intensely Roman: his study, crammed with books and always filled with pipe smoke, was an island that fascinated and at the same time intimidated me. We discussed “salvation arising from the Jews,” he lent us books to which he had drawn our attention. As a sideline Grosche was also editor of the Cologne bookdealers’ “literary guide.” Those were unforgettable evenings. Grosche was very West European yet very German, with a surprising admixture of nationalism; very Catholic, witty, of high caliber, courageous. We were sure he was a “born” cardinal, born to be the future Bishop of Cologne. But no: when Cardinal Schulte died, he was followed by Frings. Maybe Grosche was too lofty for the Vatican, perhaps even too cultured, and whether he would have suited the Nazis, who, according to the Concordat, had a say in the matter, is uncertain.
    Here I will permit myself a brief speculation beyond the year 1937: Grosche, rather than Frings, Cardinal and Archbishop of Cologne after 1945; Grosche, who certainly favored and would have favored the Christian Democrats, as the decisive figure beside Adenauer in German postwar Catholicism? Things would have turned out differently. Whether better is something I dare not say. Even in those days, on leaving that marvelous, comfortable Vochem study, full of books and tobacco smoke, to go home to Cologne by train or on my bike, I would feel a bit intimidated by so much cultured composure, by that hint of nationalism, and the unmistakable if gentle over-ripeness of the bourgeoisie. It was tremendous to be there, to be with him, but it was not what I was looking for.
    Our own family were turning their backs more and more on the bourgeoisie, and Grosche’s study, equipped in the classic manner with piles of books and journals, and all that saturated culture flowing toward us from the lectures given by the Catholic Academic League—all that was not only well meant but also helpful, and it was good; yet I knew, or rather, merely suspected, that I didn’t belong there.
    At home, things were far from always being “comfortable”: that explosive mixture of petty-bourgeois vestiges, Bohemian traits, and proletarian pride, not truly belonging to any class, yet arrogant rather than humble, in other words almost “class conscious” again. And of course, of course, in spite of everything, Catholic, Catholic, Catholic. There was no room for that “confounded” serenity of existence sub specie œternitatis . We lived sub specie œtatis . And I don’t know whether I am in trouble again with my synchronization in assuming that it was during that summer that we became addicted to Pervitin, unwittingly—at least my mother, my older sister, and I did; the rest of the family didn’t. The brother of a friend, a doctor, told us about this “stuff” used in hospitals, where they put it into the coffee of obstinate malingerers to encourage them to leave voluntarily. Apparently the “stuff” worked, and we bought it. Today it is one of the most strictly controlled prescription stimulants, but in those days it could be bought over the counter in any pharmacy: thirty tablets for 1.86 marks. We took it, and it worked: it induced a tremendous euphoria, and we could use some euphoria; it had a drier, I might almost say “more spiritual,” effect than alcohol. (I used it well into the war, obtaining prescriptions for it from a young woman with whom I was friendly, a doctor’s assistant, after prescriptions became required. Thank God I ran out of supplies one day, and I kicked the habit. It was dangerous stuff, and one of our best friends succumbed to it.)
    Again and again our electricity was cut off, a harsh penalty for a family of such voracious readers: candles were expensive and quickly burned