As if he were saying to himself that these sciences must first be cleansed of political fictions, or that he must first occupy himself with metaphysical questions, and only then could he do something with the results of the mechanical measurements.
Maybe not even then.
In the evenings, Schultze sat singing to himself in one of the comfortable armchairs in the great hall. He remained alone with his thoughts even as, around him, other teachers were reading or talking among themselves. He agonized about the desirable metaphysical foundation for the so-called final questions. He did not even notice when a record ended and kept spinning on the turntable, empty and crepitating under the needle. He also managed to talk himself out of looking for connections, relationships, or parallels in his intuitively collected mass of data.
He whistled classical melodies, always repeating them, the same way and always the same ones, maniacally.
At the same time, he drank quite a bit of red wine.
Every time he finished his work, he had to wait for Geipel, another teacher, from Berlin, a renowned expert on the genetic determinations of the palm and fingers, who did not always come alone but in the company of several guests, all of them scientists. Geipel was the scientific supervisor of the examinations, and because of his humorous ways, the boys had very quickly, not as with Schultze, come to like him.
They could more easily understand the rhythm and sense of this embarrassing, oppressive activity called supervision than the meaning of Schultze’s perpetual examinations. The supervisions were carried out at least three times a year. That is when they found out who among them were considered very interesting or problematical — which, theoretically, they should have known earlier, since they involuntarily followed the measuring technique’s secret instructions and made them their own with their own eyes, except that they could never decide why and from what viewpoint this or that fact would be decisive or interesting. Once Schultze had measured something, they observed that thing on themselves and on one another, so together they probably reached a more profound level of observation than Schultze ever did with his exact measurements. They knew everyone’s measurements in any part of his body, what any of them preferred to keep quiet about and, to avoid comparisons, what they wanted to keep a secret and from whom.
Vigilantly they watched one another’s features, limbs, and colors, the changes in their attributes and physical inclinations.
The fruit of this vigilance ripened during the times of supervision.
Schultze’s monkish strictness repelled and disgusted them.
Didn’t I tell you, I also saw it, see, I knew it in advance.
However, they enjoyed the subtle knowledge they gained by studying individual cases.
Involuntarily they became attuned to the scientific presuppositions Schultze studied so diligently, but since they did not need to strive for a scientific outcome, they were free to associate their observations with feelings and emotions. This was not without danger, because they could not ascertain the consequences of their individuality, of their exceptional or problematic qualities, though that might be the fount of their knowledge. That everything had grave, even dire consequences — of that they had no doubt. Nor could they discover whether there were prescribed units of measurement by which to gauge their being problematical. Hendrik and Hans found no papers relating to this question when on two consecutive nights they broke into Schultze’s office. Sometimes it seemed that the committee found the exceptional to be the norm; at other times the norm seemed to mean average or desirable, which again should have been designated by a number or series of numbers, which the boys could not find anywhere.
They also understood that a questionable number was nonetheless a number, its symbol x, just as in the periodic table there are empty spaces. But the empty spaces become visible with the filled places; thus it was not unreasonable to look for the latter. Boys considered problematical were not only exposed to merciless repetitions of previously assessed measurements but, in the silent presence of committee members, also subjected to measurements other boys were not. In any case, the boys had to strip naked for the measurements when Schultze measured the distance between chin, Gnathion, and the tip of the sternum, Suprasternale, and again for the supervisions.
If anyone thought of not stripping voluntarily, Schultze would demand it, on every occasion.
Kienast was considered a difficult case.
Let’s take off those shitty little drawers, Schultze sang, come on, get rid of those stinking socks.
The boys in the boarding school changed underwear once a week, and Schultze was particularly sensitive to the inevitable bodily emissions. He could barely forgive the boys when their bodily data were linked to organ functions. Another reason that made it hard to judge one’s own situation by the measurements of others was that not everyone liked to report on what happened to them in Schultze’s office, what irregularity was discovered or which body part was the focus of interest during a certain visit. Many of them tried to make their reports innocuous, which stood to reason, while others exaggerated theirs shamelessly. Even though no one knew what would result from either of these distortions, and it was impossible to gauge which was the better self-defense in the secret war against being scientific.
To keep quiet about the embarrassing experience of being measured, or to brag, exaggerate, and outdo the others.
They were all bastards, that was the truth.
The adults would never have said this aloud about them, and the boys were even less likely to mention it among themselves. They could not help thinking about it, because not only science but also the law declared them bastards. Nevertheless, the education these misbegotten children were given was in accordance with the most progressive, modern pedagogical theories. Most of the boys considered this an illusion intended to deceive them — a correct assumption — but they could not ignore the scientific level or quality of their education.
Fifty-nine boys, the number hardly changed over the years because the suicides were always replaced with others. They studied in small groups, and these groups were divided roughly by age. Mainly they studied classical sciences, mathematics, physics, botany, chemistry, but also ancient languages, Latin and Greek, literature and history, especially ancient history, and subjects such as archaeology and ethnology that were not usually in the curriculum of midrange schools. Their physical achievements and mental capacities were monitored, and they were given the results of this monitoring because they were asked to do achievement-increasing exercises for the proper assessment of which it was required that they strengthen the spirit of competition among them. Their mental capacity and their intelligence were tested, and copious notes were taken of their behavior in many different circumstances.
The boys could not imagine their instructors without their notebooks. They had to feel privileged to be living and studying in such an environment, and they knew that the highest levels of German science would use the data resulting from this. But they were repeatedly told that they were the same kind of person, birds of a feather, all in the same boat, tied by a bond that could never be broken. Whatever might happen, they could not — and they knew this — not even at the cost of their lives could they leave before high-school graduation. This was so far in the future for them that they couldn’t imagine a world with different conditions.
They could not decide what they should be like, since they were already the way they were.
Or how they should behave, so that despite their unfortunate birth, they might seem to be what in all probability they never had been and never could be. Yet in this way, given who they were, it filled them with satisfaction to think they performed a great service to German science. If Schultze were to succeed one day in defining the norms of racial desirability, based on the boys’ data, their stunted racial development would become their merit.