OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
“Look here,” calls a woman with a small child in her arms, “this one’s wounded too!”
Reinhold looks down at himself in surprise; his right hand is covered in blood, blood drips from his fingertips onto the pavement; now he feels a dull pain in his armpit, a sticky warmth along the entire sleeve.
So, so! he thinks, now I’m wounded. I’m wounded, and now I’ll have to admit I was there. He slows his step; he’s suddenly very tired and wants to sit, but he keeps going. I should see a doctor, he tells himself, but to whom can I turn? To whom could I confide without the father finding out?
And then he suddenly stops before the wide gate of a long building; people go in and out; the caretaker stands amid a group of excited people, and Reinhold overhears him negotiating with them about stretchers and doctors. Yes, I’m at the right door, thinks Reinhold; here at the General Hospital, I can find Doctor Semmelweis—he’s an obstetrician, but surely he can also dress a wound. He stuffs his handkerchief into his sleeve to avoid leaving blood traces; no one pays attention to him, no one stops him. The way is familiar; often enough, his father sent him with messages to Semmelweis, and Reinhold has found in the doctor a deeply soulful, admirable humanity, a man passionately devoted to his task. The wish to open up to this man has come close, and only the “Pöbel, do you want to make common cause? Do you want to let bad people incite you?”
“Get rid of the military!”
A club swings; the blow knocks the old man’s feathered hat down, strikes his temple; beneath the white hair, dark blood wells up, dripping onto the white uniform coat.
Reinhold throws himself back into the crowd, works his way through, reaches the mouth of a side alley. He just sees a battalion of pioneers marching in from Freyung into Herrengasse, rank upon rank, filling the entire street width with leveled bayonets. It stamps the crowd into the street’s narrowness, crushing bodies to pulp; pain and rage howl. Reinhold stands as stones and wooden debris rise, and then a salvo roars.
Reinhold runs; behind him, a scattering crowd; behind the crowd, pioneers with leveled bayonets. Now and then, one of the soldiers stops and fires.
Reinhold runs; a blow hits his shoulder. He turns while running, but no one is close enough to have struck him. A few screaming women, groups of men, then the soldiers behind.
Reinhold runs, makes a sharp turn, reaches Schottentor. There’s no intent behind it; he has no definite plan; he just wants to escape the cauldron there and the father’s fixed stare. Through Schottentor, from the suburbs, more crowds of workers still approach. Fleeing people come toward them: “They’re shooting at us!” — “We’re being murdered!” — “Blood has been shed!”
“Look here,” calls a woman with a small child in her arms, “this one’s wounded too!”
Reinhold looks down at himself in surprise; his right hand is covered in blood, blood drips from his fingertips onto the pavement; now he feels a dull pain in his armpit, a sticky warmth along the entire sleeve.
So, so! he thinks, now I’m wounded. I’m wounded, and now I’ll have to admit I was there. He slows his step; he’s suddenly very tired and wants to sit, but he keeps going. I should see a doctor, he tells himself, but to whom can I turn? To whom could I confide without the father finding out?
And then he suddenly stops before the wide gate of a long building; people go in and out; the caretaker stands amid a group of excited people, and Reinhold overhears him negotiating with them about stretchers and doctors. Yes, I’m at the right door, thinks Reinhold; here at the General Hospital, I can find Doctor Semmelweis—he’s an obstetrician, but surely he can also dress a wound. He stuffs his handkerchief into his sleeve to avoid leaving blood traces; no one pays attention to him, no one stops him. The way is familiar; often enough, his father sent him with messages to Semmelweis, and Reinhold has found in the doctor a deeply soulful, admirable humanity, a man passionately devoted to his task. The wish to open up to this man has come close, and only the The fear of revealing his timid self has so far made it impossible for him.
Now he heads straight down the familiar path to the maternity ward, turns from the shared anteroom of the two departments into the first, along the long corridor where many doors open. From one of them comes a groaning and moaning, and two nurses stand there with outstretched necks and intently listening expressions. But they seem to be listening not to the moaning from the sickroom but to a noise at the end of the corridor.
Reinhold hides his bloody hand behind his back. “Can I speak to Assistant Semmelweis?”
One of the nurses points to the end of the corridor where the noise comes from. “He’s in his room, but—”
The noise indeed comes from Semmelweis’s room; it’s Semmelweis’s voice roaring: “You despicable, vile person, have you no conscience at all?”
A murmur responds, and Semmelweis interjects: “Don’t talk so stupidly. You know the linen must be changed; I’ve said it a hundred thousand times. Now the woman has a fever and won’t pull through. It’s outrageous.”
One of the two nurses approaches Reinhold cautiously as he hesitates at the door: “Go in, I beg you; otherwise, he might kill her.”
Reinhold knocks; he knocks again, but how can he be heard over this thunderstorm? So he opens the door and steps in. But if the nurse outside hoped that the presence of a stranger would end the distress of her colleague, she was mistaken.
Semmelweis doesn’t even see Reinhold; he stands before the nurse, tall and broad, with a contorted face, his fleshy hands balled into fists and raised as if to strike the woman: “What you’ve done is a crime, a murder—worse than any other murder, for you kill people not out of passion, love, or hatred, or greed, but out of sloppiness, laziness, and consciencelessness. You hear from me: cleanliness, cleanliness, cleanliness! And you give the poor woman dirty bed linen, with blood and filth and all sorts of things, so she must get infected with the mess.”
The nurse is a stout woman with a broad face where prominent cheekbones, swollen lips, and small, glittering pig-like eyes combine into an uninviting overall impression. One can imagine she handles her patients roughly and doesn’t fuss over them. She darts a sidelong glance at Reinhold and, drawing courage from the presence of a witness, tries to assert herself.
“Don’t you dare do anything to me, Herr Doctor,” says the nurse boldly, “everyone agrees that with your tricks, you annoy people. The other doctors say that too.”
Semmelweis turns pale; his fists sink. Yes, there grins at him again the unveiled envy and malice of his colleagues, the incomprehension and obstinacy of the staff against him; they form a closed battle line, undermining his reputation with jokes; the doctors’ smiles turn his orders into a mockery among the nurses. Yes, in this they are united, all united, that one must defend against these exaggerations. He rolls, like Sisyphus, an enormous boulder called the inertia of thought; he battles a superior enemy called convenience. And from inertia and convenience, young mothers die.
Semmelweis lets his hands drop. He says: “You can go. If you won’t follow my orders, you can go. You are dismissed. Immediately.”
Frau Rosine Knall laughs scornfully. Her insolence puffs up: “I’ll go! I’m glad to get out of this madhouse. If this keeps up, everyone will go crazy, and you first of all.” She turns away—oh no, this man shouldn’t think he’s subdued her; she must leave, fine, but she knows everyone is on her side, a satisfaction that turns her exit into a victory.
Semmelweis doesn’t look like he’s won a victory; on the contrary, as if he’s suffered a defeat. Only now does he notice Reinhold—the blood-soaked handkerchief around his wrist, the blood-crusted fingers. “What do you want here?” he asks irritably.
“There’s an uprising in the city. The soldiers shot at us.”
“So!” Semmelweis knows nothing of the uprising. It’s possible someone mentioned it, but Semmelweis has forgotten—what do revolutions and shootings matter to him? He had to perform an operation; his task is to prevent death. And he says gruffly, something seemingly unrelated: “Do you think because of your shootings, women will stop giving birth when their time comes?”
Then he adds: “You’re wounded?”
“Yes!”
“And I’m supposed to bandage you? Come here!”
It’s only a graze, leaving a flesh wound. After a quarter of an hour, Reinhold is washed and bandaged and can go. He had actually wanted to ask Semmelweis to keep quiet to his father; whatever troubles him, he’ll try to arrange it so it stays hidden at home. That’s what Reinhold wanted to say, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. How could he confess to this man—yes, I was there, but I don’t want my father to know? He feels small and pitiful.
As he’s about to leave through the gateway, some stretchers are brought in. On one, Reinhold sees the bloodied face of a very young student; on another, that of an ancient little man, shriveled and wrinkled, nestled in a gray beard.
Someone says: “That’s the old Esterházy Prince, who brings Easter to the houses. He had nothing to do with it.”
Something in Reinhold cries out. There are the victims—God knows how many still lie on the street. And I ran away; my courage didn’t suffice; I’m like a coward who ran away. I am bent, crumpled; I can’t straighten up. What did that man at the country house say? ‘Whoever lacks courage on this day belongs in the nursery!’ I belong in the nursery; I’ve been cheated of everything that drives and inspires the others; I’ve never been young.
And a foaming, raging hatred rises in him against those clear, cold eyes that have made his youth geriatric.
At Schottentor stands a raging crowd of men. They demand entry, but the gate has just been closed. No influx from the suburbs is allowed; those outside are to stay outside. Good, thinks Reinhold, I can’t go home; let the father find out I was there. One must go straight ahead, straight like Semmelweis, without looking left or right.
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