I'm Not Stiller Read Online Free PDF

said.
    'There's nothing to smile about,' I said. 'It took years of my life before I realized that I was her murderer, and finally drew the logical conclusion.'
    'Hm,' he said.
    'I deny nothing,' I said. 'But don't expect to see me with a bad conscience. I haven't got one any more. Somehow it has simply been used up. I had so much bad conscience while she was alive. It was terrible for her, simply terrible, to have to live at my side,'
    'And that's why you—murdered her?'
    I nodded.
    'I see,' he remarked,
    'It's unbearable,' I said, 'you can't go on having a bad conscience for years, without knowing why you have a bad conscience.'
    And so on.
    I don't know whether he understood me.
    ***
    Once a week, every Friday, we're allowed to take a shower, ten minutes each, ten prisoners at a time. Otherwise I never see my neighbours; but then I see them stark naked and to the accompaniment of a steamy splashing, so that we can scarcely talk to one another. One of them, who considers himself innocent, refuses to soap himself out of spite. One little Italian always sings. There is not much to be learnt from the faces under the shower, distorted by strands of wet hair and soap. Added to this is the nakedness of the whole body: after being used to seeing the face as the only naked area, you are more or less compelled to look at the whole naked body, which is not very pleasant. All you can guess is that it belongs to a workman, an intellectual, an athlete, a clerk. On the whole, our naked bodies are thoroughly embarrassing, because they are inexpressive; at best they are natural, but generally they are rather ridiculous. I have made friends with a German Jew; we soap one another's backs, since he can't reach all over his either, and we agree that we ought to have a shower every day. After an almost childish outcry over the cold water with which the head warder drives us into the drying-room, we are all very quiet as we rub ourselves down, with the pink faces of babies and hair like boys'. Apart from myself, I fancy, there is no one guilty of a serious offence among us. Thanks to the fact that they put me near the end of the alphabet (as 'Stiller'), I have a little more time to chat to the German Jew. We have both come to the conclusion that physical hygiene in Switzerland is in remarkable contrast to the rest of their obsession with cleanliness. He told me that where he lived in the town he was only allowed by contract to take a hot shower at week-ends, as in the prison. Then we march off to our cells one by one with bath towels round our necks.
    ***
    Today I received the following letter:
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Dear Brother,
You can imagine that since getting the news from your local canton police I have scarcely slept a wink. Anny too is very excited. Anny is my dear wife, I'm sure you will like her. Don't be angry with me for not coming to Zürich at once, but it's simply impossible at the moment. I hope you are not ill, at least, dear brother. Your photograph gave me a shock—you looked so thin on it that I could hardly recognize you. Have you been to see Father in the old age home yet? Don't listen to what he says, he is an old man now and you know what he's like. You know that Mother is dead? She suffered less than we feared she might. We will visit her grave together. When the canton police told us you had returned, I thought most of Mother. She often used to think you were on the point of coming home; she didn't say so, but we knew very well why she stayed up later than usual, she imagined you were coming back that evening. I just want to tell you that Mother always took your part. Whenever your name cropped up she used to say she hoped you were happy.
Of course, we are very anxious to hear your story, dear brother, for nothing much has happened to us. I'm a manager here, so you see nothing came of my farm in Argentina—it was simply impossible to leave Mother just then, but we're doing quite nicely.
Have you heard yet that your friend