Chapter 7 glass, glass, shot glass

I just described the full-body photo of Oscar with a tin drum on his back and a snare drum stick in his hand. At the same time, I also revealed that after three years of deliberation, Oscar took the photo in front of the birthday party surrounded by three candles. In front of the birthday cake guests, what kind of decision was made.The photo album has been closed, lying silently beside me.Now, I'm going to talk about things that don't explain why I stopped growing when I was three, but things that happened after all, let alone things that I caused. It was clear to me from the start that adults won't understand you, and if their naked eyes can no longer see that you're growing, they'll say you're stunted and spend a lot of money to show you Doctors visited dozens or hundreds of doctors, and even if they couldn't treat it, they had to explain the cause.Therefore, in order to prevent the doctors from making wild diagnoses, I had to invent a plausible explanation for my lack of growth before they explained the cause.It was my third birthday on a sunny day in September.Late-summer vibes, haunting, even Gretchen Scheffler toned down her laugh.My mother sat at the piano, humming a song from "The Gypsy Baron," and Jan stood behind her and the piano bench, stroking her shoulders, as if he were reading the score carefully.Matzerath was in the kitchen preparing dinner.Grandmother Anna and Hedwig Bronski and Alexander Scheffler moved their chairs to Greve the greengrocer, because Greff always had stories to tell, of course the ones that proved the loyalty and bravery of the Boy Scouts.There was also a grandfather clock, which chimed every quarter of an hour, making the September days like a finely spun thread.Because everyone is busy with their own things like the bell, and because a thread runs from the Gypsy baron's Hungary, through the Vosges, climbed by Greve's scouts, and around Matzerath's kitchen (where, Kashu chanterelles with fried eggs and belly meat crackling in the pan), through the corridor, extending to the store, I slipped away, beating my drum casually, and walked behind the counter in the store, away from the piano , Boy Scouts, and the Vosges, found the trap door leading to the cellar open; Matzerath had just gone down to get a can of mixed fruit for an after-dinner snack, and when he came up, he forgot to close it.

-------- ① "The Gypsy Baron", an operetta (1885) by Johann Strauss Jr. (1825-1899). It took me a minute to figure out what the trap door to the cellar wanted me to do.God knows, I didn't want me to kill myself.If that's the requirement, it's too simple.But what I was asked to do was hard, painful, and required sacrifices, as I always do when sacrifices are made, and my brow was already sweating.The most important thing is not to damage my drum, it must be well protected, so I carried it down the sixteen steps, and put it in the middle of the flour bag, so that it would not be damaged.Then I went up again, to the eighth level, no, the seventh level, the fifth level is fine.However, if you fall from such a height, you can't survive the fall and suffer believable injuries.So I went up again, to the tenth step, which was way too high, and finally, I fell down the ninth step, knocked over a wooden rack full of raspberry juice bottles, and hit my head on my house The concrete floor of the cellar.

Before my perception had closed, I confirmed to myself that the experiment must be successful: the rattling of the raspberry juice bottle I deliberately toppled was enough to lure Matzerath from the kitchen, my mother from the piano, The rest of the birthday party came running down the steps from the Vosges to the trap door of the shop. Before they arrived, I smelled the splash of raspberry juice, saw the blood on my head, and thought about it—by this time they were on the steps, maybe Oscar's blood, maybe It's raspberry juice that tastes so sweet it lulls you to sleep.I was very glad that not only did everything go well, but that my drum was not damaged in any way because of my careful thinking.

I thought maybe it was Greve who carried me up.In the living room, Oscar emerged from a cloud of half raspberry juice and half his toddler's blood.Before the doctor arrived, his mother screamed and Matzerath tried to comfort her, but she slapped him several times with the palm and the back of her hand, calling him a murderer. I fell down, although it cannot be said that it was not serious, but the severity was calculated in advance by me.In this way, I not only gave grown-ups an important reason for why I didn't grow taller, which the doctors repeatedly confirmed was true, but I also gave Matzerath, who was harmless and kind, guilty person, however, this is an additional consequence, not my intention.He forgot to close the trap door, and my mother put all the blame on him, and he carried the blame for it for years, and though my mother didn't scold him often, when she scolded him, it was ruthless.This fall kept me in the hospital for four weeks. After I was discharged from the hospital, I rarely bothered the doctor. After a period of time, I went to Dr. Hollatz for a diagnosis every Wednesday.On the first day I became a drummer, I successfully sent a signal to the world. Before the adults explained based on the so-called truth that I created, I explained the cause of the disease myself.That's what they've been saying ever since: Our little Oskar fell down the cellar steps on his third birthday, and though he didn't break a bone, he didn't grow any bigger.

I started to beat the drums.Our apartment has five floors.I knocked from the ground floor to the roof room and down the stairs.Knock from Rabes Road to Max Halbe Square and from there to New Scotland, Anton Möller Road, Malia Street, Little Hammer Park, Share Brewery, Share Pond, Flebel Meadows, Pestalo Qi schools, Newmarket, and knock back to Rabes Road.I keep beating like this, my drums can take it, but the grown-ups can't take it, they try to stop my drums, don't let me play, and try to break my sticks - but, for God's sake Take care of me so that they do not succeed. Not long after my fall from the cellar steps I acquired the knack of beating a child's tin drum to keep the necessary distance between me and adults.Around the same time, I also acquired a voice that would allow me to stay in a very high register and sing trills, screams, or sing like screams.Then no one dares to take my drum away, though the sound of it deafens their ears; for as soon as they take my drum, I cry, and when I cry, all valuables are shattered: I can Shatter the glass with my song, break the vase with my cry; my song may shatter the panes and fill the room with drafts; my voice, like a pure and therefore merciless diamond, cuts through the glass shop-windows , and then cut through the well-proportioned, elegant, hand-poured, thinly covered glass of dust in the window, without losing its innocence.

It didn't take long for my skills to be known all over our street, that is, from Bressen Street to the residential area next to the airport.The games played by the children next door, such as "sour fried fish, one two three" or "black cook, are you there?" or "what I see you can't see" didn't interest me.But as soon as they saw me, they all sang a strange chorus: glass, glass, shot glass, No beer, but sugar, Mrs. Haller opened the window, Play the piano, jingle. It's just a boring, meaningless nursery rhyme.I didn't care a bit when I heard it, and with the drum on my back, I walked through them with strong steps, between the singing of "Little Glass" and "Mrs. Holler", adopting a simple style that was not unattractive to me. Rhythm: glass, glass, shot glass, beat out on the drum, but don't act as a mousecatcher, luring the children to follow me.

-------- ①The mouse catcher, a character in German medieval legends.There was a plague of rats in the city of Hameln. A flute player came and used the sound of the flute to lure all the rats in the city into the river and drown them.The people of Hameln did not give the promised reward to the mouse catcher, so he lured all the children of the city into the mountains with the sound of the flute. To this day, whenever Bruno cleans the windows in my room, I beat out the rhythm of this nursery rhyme on my drum. The satirical songs sung by the children in the neighborhood are fine, but what troubles and annoys me, especially my parents, is that every glass in our residential area that is intentionally broken by uneducated young rogues is counted as my property. In the account, I even blamed my voice; and asked us to pay for compensation.At first, when the windows in other people's kitchens were broken (actually, most of them were broken by slingshots), my mother honestly lost money. Later, she finally understood what was going on.Whenever people came to demand compensation, she stared into her practical, cold gray eyes and demanded evidence.And the neighbors did wrong me.At that time, the biggest mistake was to think that I had a kind of childish vandalism, that I hated glass and glass products for no reason, as children show their inexplicable hatred when they run amok.Only children who love to play will do destructive things because of mischief.I never play, just do my thing on my drums, and as for my voice, I only use it when I need to defend myself.Only when my right to continue drumming was threatened did I use my vocal chords as a weapon.If possible, I'd like to use the same voice and means to cut up Gretchen Scheffler's whimsical, intricately patterned, boring tablecloth, or scrape the dull paint off the piano. , preferring not to shatter any glass.But my voice can neither cut the tablecloth nor scratch the paint.I can neither peel off the wallpaper with a tireless cry, nor can I use two long-drawn, rising and falling sounds to rub hard like a stone age man strikes flint, so as to generate heat and finally burst into sparks, The curtains in front of the living room's two windows, dry as velvet and smelling of tobacco, were lit into decorative flames, much less the legs of the chairs in which Matzerath or Alexander Scheffler sat.I would have preferred a non-destructive and less mysterious weapon of self-defense, but no non-destructive weapon would serve me; besides, only glass obeyed my orders, so I had to pay for it.

Shortly after my third birthday, I successfully performed the following performance for the first time.The drum probably broke within four weeks of being in my hands, because I worked so hard during that time.Although the red-and-white flame-shaped frame still connects the drumhead to the drum bottom, the hole in the center of the drumhead is already very conspicuous.Because I didn't bother to turn the drum over, the hole got bigger and bigger, tore several openings, cracked into sharp saw teeth, and some broken iron sheets that were thinned by the beating came out and fell into the drum body.Each time I tapped, the pieces crackled inside, like a resentful whine.Besides, on the carpet in the living room, and the reddish-brown floor in the bedroom, there is a gleaming white patent leather here and there, because they no longer want to stay on the tin drum that I have beaten so hard.

The cracked iron sheet was so sharp that they were afraid they would cut my hands, especially Matzerath.He had always been more careful since my fall on the cellar steps, and now advised me to be more careful when I played the drums.When I tapped quickly with both hands, my arteries did come within a hair's inch of the jagged holes, so I have to admit that Matzerath's fears, though exaggerated, were not entirely unfounded.Well, if they bought a new drum, they would have avoided any danger; but it never occurred to them to buy a new one, but to take my old drum away.Ah, what a drum!It wrestled with me, in and out of the hospital, followed me up and down stairs, up cobblestones and sidewalks, from those who played "sour herring, one two three," "what I see you can't see" and " Black Cook, are you there?" The children who were waiting for the game walked by.But they want to take the drum from me, and they don't plan to buy a new one to replace it.They tried to tempt me with broken chocolate candies.Mom held it in her hand and pursed her lips.Matzerath put on a stern look and grabbed my broken instrument.I hold on to this broken drum.He pulls.My strength was only enough to beat the drums, but now it is gradually exhausted.One after another, the tongues of red flame slipped out of my hand slowly, and the entire cylindrical drum body was about to be pulled away from my hand.That's when Oscar -- until that day, he had been a quiet kid, a little too obedient even -- let out that destructive, effective scream for the first time.The polished round glass covering the honey-yellow face of my grandfather clock to keep out dust and dead flies shattered and fell on the reddish-brown floor—some distance from the base because the carpet wasn’t long enough—and fell. smash.However, the internal structure of this precious machine is not damaged, the pendulum is still swinging smoothly, and the hour hand is moving safely.The chiming clock inside is usually very sensitive, almost hysterical. It will respond to a slight bump, or a beer truck passing outside the house, but my screams have no effect on it.Only the glass was broken and shattered. "The clock is broken!" shouted Matzerath, letting go of the drum.I glanced over to make sure my call hadn't damaged the clock itself, just that the glass was gone.But Matzerath, my mother, and my cousin Jan Bronski, who happened to be visiting that Sunday afternoon, all thought it wasn't just the glass on the clock face that was broken.They turned pale, looked at each other, helpless, and went separately to the tiled stove, the piano, and the cupboard, and stood there rigidly, not daring to move.Jan Bronski squinted his eyes imploringly and moved his parched lips.I still think he was saying a silent prayer, asking for help and mercy.Perhaps what he read was: "O Lamb of God, take away the sin of the world—have mercy on us!" After reading this passage three times, he read another passage: "Lord, I dare not be , as long as you say a word..."

The Lord naturally said nothing.The clock wasn't broken either, only the glass was broken.The relationship between adults and clocks is very peculiar, very childish, and in that sense I was never a child.A clock is perhaps the most amazing thing an adult can make.It proves that adults can be creators.With big ambitions, hard work, and a little luck, they can become creators.But as soon as they create a thing, they become the slaves of their epoch-making invention. what is a clockIt is nothing without adults.An adult winds it, winds it up or down, sends it to a watchmaker to be inspected, cleaned, and repaired if necessary.Other phenomena are equally meaningless without the wild guesses of adults, such as the premature cessation of cuckoo, the upside-down salt shaker, the sight of spiders in the early morning, and the black cat on the left, which they all think is ominous. omen.Just as they thought it was a sign when they saw their cousin's painting fall off the wall (it was only because the hooks in the plaster had loosened).Adults see more of the back and interior of a clock in a mirror than the clock itself can reveal.

Where is my mother?Although she can't help thinking wildly sometimes, she has a calm and pragmatic vision after all, and like her usual life, she hastily interpreted any suspicious signs in a positive way.At that time, she remembered a sentence, which made everyone feel relieved after hearing it. "Fragments bring good luck!" she cried, and, biting her fingers, brought the dustpan and broom, and swept the fragments, which meant good luck, together. If my mother's words are taken literally, then I have brought a lot of good luck to my parents, relatives, friends and people I don't know; anyone among them who wants to take my drum, I would shatter their windowpanes with shouts and songs, fill beer glasses, empty beer bottles, perfume bottles that smelled of spring, crystal bowls with fake fruit, in short, put everything in the glass factory by the glass workers Blown glass, sold on the market as raw or as artificially negotiated, was shattered. I have always loved beautifully shaped glass, then and still, so I always try not to cause too much damage.At night, if they tried to take my drum away from me to take it to the cot, I would break one or more of the four bulbs in the chandelier in the bedroom.On my fourth birthday in early September 1928, my parents, the Bronskis, my grandmother Anna Koljacek, the Schefflers and the Greffs gave me various presents : Tin soldiers, a sailboat, a firetruck, but no tin drum.They want me to play tin soldiers and fire engines, they don't like my broken drum, but it's my favorite drum, they want to take it from me Andy's out-of-place sailboat slipped into my hand.They both have eyes, but for the sole purpose of ignoring me and my wishes.So, I yelled and shattered all the four light bulbs on my chandelier, and put those who congratulated me on my birthday into the darkness before the creation of the world. Look at those adults!First they screamed and yelled desperately to return to the light, and then they got used to the darkness.My grandmother, Anna Koljacek, was the only one other than Stefan Bronski who didn't make a fortune out of the darkness.She went to the shop to fetch candles, followed by the shrill Stefan pulling her skirts.She came back with a lighted candle, lighting up the room, and seeing the rest of the birthday wine drunken couples form a curious couple. As I expected, my mother sat on Jan Bronski's lap with her blouse disheveled.Seeing Alexander Scheffler, the short-legged baker, almost disappearing into Mrs. Greff's arms was a turnoff.Matzerath was licking Gretchen Scheffler's horse and gold teeth.Only Hedwig Bronski sat with her hands folded in her lap, her cow eyes devout in the candlelight.She was not far from Greve the Greengrocer, but not too close.Greve didn't drink, but he sang, sweet and melancholy.He invited Hedwig Bronski to sing with him.They sang a two-part Boy Scout song to the effect that some mountain god named Lübechar wandered the Mountain of Giants. -------- ①This boy scout song was created in 1923. It tells that the Germans in the Sudetenland area are not free after the founding of Czechoslovakia, and asks the mountain god Lubecar of the Giant Mountains to help. They've left me behind.Oscar sat under the table with the remains of the drum on his back, and beat some rhythms out of the iron sheet.Mismatched men and women, bewildered, lying or sitting in their rooms, may have been delighted by the faint, even beat of my drum, which covered them like a varnish. The lip smacks and sucking sounds of frantic nervous proving how hard you work. I was still under the table when my grandmother came in.She held a candle, like an archangel, and by the light of the candle, she saw Sodom and Gomorrah.She flew into a rage, and trembled all over, and even the candle flickered.It was a nasty prank, she said, and thus ended the pastoral scene and Lubechar's wanderings in the Giant's Mountains.She put the candles on the plate, and while comforting Stefan who was still crying, she took the Schkatter card from the cupboard, threw it on the table, and announced that the second part of the birthday celebration was now beginning.Immediately afterwards, Matzerath screwed a new light bulb on the old lamp holder of the chandelier, set up the chair, and opened the beer bottle with a whoosh.They started playing scats on top of me, a tenth of a pfennig win or loss.As soon as my mother came up, I suggested that winning or losing a point is a quarter of a pfennig; however, my cousin Yang thought the risk was too great, so I still use a tenth of a pfennig to try my luck, unless it is doubled or accidentally hit a big full When it is consistent, the stakes are raised. -------- ① According to the "Bible" story, Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities in Palestine, which were destroyed by earthquakes and "fire rain" because of the sins of their residents.Generally used as a metaphor for extremely chaotic, noisy, noisy or sinful places. I stayed under the table, sitting in the shadow of the drooping tablecloth, and felt at ease.My inattentive drumming and the sound of the cards being played overhead followed the game, and after they had played Schkatter for a full hour, Jan Bronski was declared the loser.He had a good hand, but still lost.This is no surprise, since he is absent-minded.His mind was not on the blackjack he should get enough, but on other things.At the beginning of the game, while talking to his aunt, telling her that there was nothing to be surprised about the little secret religious ceremony in the dark just now, he took off the black sandal of his left foot, and pulled the foot in the black sock from my He stretched his head over to touch my mother's knee sitting across from him.As soon as he touched, my mother moved closer to the table, so that Jan - who said "no" casually after Matzerath had finished his call - first lifted the hem of her skirt with her toes, then , the whole foot—fortunately, the socks were just changed today—reached between her legs.My mom really amazes me.Although provoked under the table by feet in woolen stockings, on top of the sturdy tablecloth she was playing a very risky gamble.She called sixty, was sure, talked and laughed, and finally won.On the contrary, Yang is so decisive under the table, but loses again and again on the table. If Oscar plays such a good card, even when he is sleepwalking, he is guaranteed to win. Later, little Stefan, who was terribly sleepy, also crawled under the table. He didn't understand what his father's socked leg was looking for under my mother's skirt, and fell asleep after a while. Partly cloudy.A few light showers in the afternoon.The next day Jan Bronski came and took my birthday present, the nasty sailing boat, and went to Sigismund Markus's toy store to exchange it for a tin drum .When he came back to my house in the late afternoon, rained and a little wet, he brought the drum, with red flames on a white background, a pattern I was familiar with.He handed it to me, clutching my old battered drum with only spots of red and white paint left in one hand.Jan grabbed the old drum and I grabbed the new one, Jan, Mama, and Matzerath all had their eyes on Oskar; Do you adhere to any principles? Contrary to what they expected, instead of screaming and singing glass-shattering songs, I handed over the old drums, which were all scrap metal, and immediately grabbed the new instrument with both hands.I beat the drums for two hours with one mind, and mastered the knack of drumming. However, not all the adults around me were as knowledgeable as Jan Bronski.In 1929 (at that time, the New York stock market crash was the most talked about, and I wondered whether my grandfather Koljacek, who was in the lumber business in Buffalo, also lost money), Shortly after my fifth birthday, my mother, disturbed by my apparent stagnation, took me every Wednesday to Dr. Hollatz's clinic in Brunshoeffer Road.The endless inspection was annoying, but I endured it, because I had already liked the costume of the nurse Inge who was standing next to Horatz to help; this white nurse uniform was eye-catching Comfortable and reminds me of pictures my mom took when she was a nurse during the war.I was so focused on the folds of the changing nurse's gown that I couldn't hear what the doctor was sometimes snarling, emphasizing, and speaking in an obnoxiously patriarchal tone. -------- ① This marked the beginning of the "Great Depression" in the United States.At that time, the German economy, which was largely dependent on American capital, was also entering a period of crisis. After the examination, Horatz shook his head thoughtfully as he flipped through my medical records. The lenses of his glasses reflected all the belongings in the consulting room: lots of chrome, nickel, and glossy enamel; shelves and glass cabinets, inside There are glass bottles with neatly written labels, snakes, salamanders, toads, pig fetuses, human fetuses, and monkey fetuses soaked in alcohol.He repeatedly asked my mother to tell me how I fell down the cellar steps, and when she yelled at Matzerath for not closing the trapdoor and that he would be responsible for his life for not closing the trapdoor, Horatz turned to him again. comfort her. On a Wednesday a few months later, he wanted to take my drum away, probably to prove to himself, and perhaps to Nurse Inger, the results of his treatment.So, with a roar, I destroyed most of his collection of snakes and toads and embryos of all kinds. Apart from smashing unopened beer bottles and mother's perfume bottles in the past, it was the first time for Oscar to break so many glass bottles full of stuff, carefully stored and locked in the cupboard.The effect was incomparable. It not only awed all the people present, but also shocked my mother who knew the secret relationship between me and Glass.With my first blunt sound, I sliced ​​open the glass cabinet in which Horatz kept all his disgusting oddities, and almost the whole glass fell on the linoleum floor, breaking into a thousand pieces, but still Keep the original square.Then I shattered tube after tube with piercing stereo.Bottles and jars burst like firecrackers.Green, partially congealed alcohol flew in all directions, carrying specially processed, pale, sad-eyed snakes, salamanders, human fetuses, etc., onto the red oilcloth floor of the consulting room, and the room was full of pungent smells. The smell made my mother nauseous, and Nurse Inger had to open the window facing the Brunshoeffer Road.Dr. Hollatz is very resourceful, good at turning bad luck into good fortune and turning disaster into good fortune.Not a few weeks after I committed this atrocity, he published an article in the specialist journal Doctors and the World, devoted to himself, Oscar Ma, an unusual man who could sing about broken glass.It is said that the theory proposed by Dr. Holatz in this 20-page article has attracted attention in professional circles at home and abroad, and many experts have written articles, either opposing or agreeing.He sent several copies of the magazine to my mother, and she was so proud of this article, which got me thinking.She took the trouble to read some passages of the article to the Greves, the Schefflers, and her Jan, and she always read it to her husband Matzerath after dinner every day.Even the shoppers at the Colonial Warehouse had to listen to her read and do their due credit to my mother.Although she mispronounced the accents of the professional terms in the text, it showed that she had a rich imagination.The fact that my name appeared for the first time in the press meant nothing to me personally.The vigilant skepticism I already held at that time made me know how to evaluate Horatz's article: it is not small in length, and its writing cannot be said to be unsophisticated. A doctor who gets a professorship makes digressions to the point. Today, Oscar lies in the nursing and nursing home, his voice can not even shatter a toothbrush.Physicians like that of Horatz were coming and going in and out of his ward, giving him so-called Rorschach tests, association tests, and other tests, trying to find a resounding one for his forced delivery. Attributive to.Today, Oscar still likes to recall the years when he first got that sound, the ancient times in the history of his sound development.At the time, he sang broken glass outright only when necessary.Later, in periods of his artistic prosperity and decline, he used his abilities without outside pressure.He is purely out of the desire of the game, addicted to the idiomatic style of his later period, obsessed with art for art's sake; Oscar regards singing broken glass as a means of self-expression, and in the process, his own age has gradually increased . -------- ① Rorschach test, a psychological test, also known as "inkblot test", was pioneered by the Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach (1884~1922), using ten inkblots for patients to describe, and observing their Response to color and more.The theory of this test is that individuals have a tendency to project their unconscious attitudes into a multi-interpretation environment, so it is also called "projection test". ②Forcibly sent, a medical term, refers to forcibly sent to a hospital or mental hospital, etc.