Read An Offering for the Dead for Free Online Page A

have happened in the first place. Yet uncertainty was blatant in everything they said. Even if a person uttered something that was meant to be superior and sarcastic, it was more of a concealed question, and many glasses of wine were drunk, virtually to wash down a bad taste. Finally, someone put an end to the whole thing by asking: "What do the evening papers say?"
    In the past, people did not rely on their own judgment. They had suitable people who were supposed to report on everything and express an opinion that seemed the most appropriate for the majority. In the evening, one could read it punctually, and then, if one spoke to a neighbor before going to bed, one discovered that he was of the same mind. Thus everything was in order, and worrisome enigmas could not emerge.
    I know that this handful of people who have been driven together here by chance are waiting only for someone to tell them what to think. Perhaps that is the only reason why they are sleeping so long, although I must admit that it can also be due to exhaustion and hunger. I also believe that they are already counting on my being the one to come up with an opinion for them. I found this out before returning to the city. There was a man whom I thought younger and livelier than the others. I leaned over him and asked him something. Perhaps I asked him whether he wanted to accompany me. I virtually blew into the ashes, surmising that there was a spark left underneath. It would be more agreeable if I knew of someone who could stand at my side. But it was no use badgering him. He was not accustomed to being questioned. Yes, I now recall what I asked him: Did he think that the city and everything else were still the same as before, and that it might be we who had changed? Indeed, to be perfectly clear, I also asked him whether he believed that we were dead. But he did not understand me. There was only a touch of poignant willingness in his tired face — willingness to receive something from me, an order, an idea, but absolutely no question. If I had told him: We are dead! he would have been satisfied. He addressed me in the polite form, while I used the familiar.
    Shall I now make up something that they can believe in? And why? I myself do not need these people. After walking alone through the city and returning, I know that I can live quite well on a depopulated earth without dying of loneliness. I will live with my words, with the ones I have left. Some of them may perhaps take root, and this will give them a certain power over me, to which I must acquiesce. That is not so bad; it is a law to which I gladly submit. But these people around me will, at most, disturb me in the process; for I will have power over them, and heaven help me if I refrain from exercising it. They would kill me. Nothing makes people more unfree than having power, and only slaves love being powerful.
    If only I knew what has saved these people. If I could only fathom chance. Could these people be words that I once uttered heedlessly and that have become flesh? Professor So-and-so, a well-known zoologist, stated that there was nothing extraordinary about the possibility that, under certain conditions — in this case, obviously in Arctic regions — familiar animals could develop to unusual sizes. The two birds, he said, undoubtedly belonged to the class of seagulls. An expedition was already being fitted out to explore their breeding grounds and everything else. A report would be issued shortly.
    Incidentally, he went on, there was no cause for anxiety. So much for the newspapers. The man who kept addressing me as "My Friend" had not yet joined the conversation: he seemed entirely absorbed in pouring salt on a red-wine stain in the white tablecloth. But now he suddenly began: "What do we care about the blabber in the newspapers, since we are fortunate enough to have someone here who knows more about it. Let us ask him. Maybe he will do us the favor of replying." He looked at me, and all