'the autopsy', by georg heym
found in: 'great german short stories', edited and introduced by stephen spender
the text: The dead man lay naked and alone on a white table in the great theater, in the oppressive whiteness, the cruel sobriety of the operating theatre that seemed to be vibrating still with the screams of unending torment.
The noon sun covered him and caused the livid spots on his forehead to awaken; it conjured up a bright green out of his naked belly and made it swell like a great sack filled with water.
His body was like the brilliant calyx of a giant flower, a mysterious plant from the Indian jungles which someone had shyly laid down at the altar of death.
Splendid shades of red and blue grew along his loins, and the great wound below his navel, which emitted a terrible odor, split open slowly in the heat like a great red furrow.
The doctors entered. A few kindly men in white coats, with duelling scars and gold pince-nez.
They went up to the dead man and looked at him with interest and professional comments.
They took their dissecting instruments out of white cupboards, white boxes full of hammers, bone saws with strong teeth, files, horrible batteries of tweezers, little castles full of enormous needles that seemed to cry out incessantly for flesh like the curved beaks of vultures.
They commenced their gruesome work. They were like terrible torturers. The blood flowed over their hands, which they plunged even more deeply into the cold corpse, pulling out its contents, like white cooks drawing a goose.
The intestines coiled around their arms, greenish-yellow snakes, and the excrement dripped on their coats, a warm, putrid fluid. They punctured the bladder. Cold urine glittered inside it like a yellow wine. They poured it into large bowls; it had a sharp and caustic stench like ammonia. But the dead man slept. Patiently he suffered them to tug him this way and that, to pull at his hair. He slept.
And while the blows of the hammer resounded on his head, a dream, the remnant of love in him, awoke like a torch shining into his night.
In front of the large window a great wide sky opened, full of small white clouds that floated in the light, in the afternoon quiet, like small white gods. And the swallows travelled high up in the blue, trembling in the warm July sun.
The dead's man black blood trickled over the blue putrescence of his forehead. It condensed in the heat to a terrible cloud, and the decay of death crept over him with its brightly-colored talons. His skin began to flow apart, his belly grew white as an eel's under the greedy fingers of the doctors, who were bathing their arms up to the elbows in his moist flesh.
Decay pulled the dead man's mouth apart. He seemed to smile. He dreamed of a blissful star, of a fragrant summer evening. His dissolving lips quivered as though under a light kiss.
How I love you. I loved you so much. Shall I tell you how much I loved you? When you walked through the poppy fields, yourself a fragrant poppy flame, you had drawn the whole evening into yourself. And your dress that blew about your ankles was like a wave of fire in the glow of the setting sun. But you inclined your head in the light, and your hair still burned and flamed with all my kisses.
So you walked away, looking back at me all the time. And the lamp in your hand swayed like a glowing rose in the dusk long after you had gone.
I shall see you again tomorrow. Here, under the chapel window; here, where the candlelight pours through and changes your hair into a golden forest; here, where the narcissi cling to your ankles, tender as tender kisses.
I shall see you again every night at the hour of dusk. We shall never leave each other. How I love you! Shall I tell you how much I love you?
And the dead man trembled softly with his bliss on his white mortuary table, while the iron chisel in the doctor's hand broke open the bones of his temple.
discussion: given our first impressions, it would appear as though this is a story full of opposition: the title suggests an 'autopsy' while the text is brimming with life; the reality is set in the 'oppressive whiteness' of an examination room yet the mental scenes take place at dusk; the body itself is a host of many gruesome marks yet resembles 'the brilliant calyx of a giant flower'; initially there is stark silence following immediately by the chaos of the doctors; the mind of a dead man is full of life, perhaps moreso than that of the only living people in the story (the doctors--more on that later); and so on. however, upon closer inspection, these opposing forces are seen more as bookends and thus, the story covers the full spectrum of life and is in fact a celebration of it, an idea that works in concert with the expressionist 'movement' of which heym was at least a tangential part of in germany in the late 19th/early 20th century.
to further this theory is the use of color in a scene seemingly about death. there are 20 instances of color in the short story [21 including the phrase 'brightly colored'--used to describe 'the talons' of 'the decay of death' (!)] including only one 'black', which is the color we most often associate with scenes of death. thus, a scene with as many grizzly and disturbing images as this is bright and in possession of the vibrance of life.
as we are taken through the dramatic narrative up to the point of transportation into the dead man's mind, the only living characters that are available to convey the message of life's beauty are the doctors. initially--before beginning their examination--they are 'kindly'. however, once they begin the autopsy (i.e. once they have become more interested in death than in life), they are instantly viewed with a large measure of contempt by the narrator, seen as 'terrible torturers' with 'horrible instruments'. their obsession with death, which in many people can be extrapolated into a hesitant and thirstless life, has turned them into monsters.
to complete the beautiful imagery of a story titled 'the autopsy', the narrative then shifts to the first person, containing proclaimations of love and tender scenes at dusk. to be sure, the woman in question has left the man in some capacity. the circumstances regarding this departure, as well as of the relationship itself, are left a mystery by heym; certainly an author of a different time or place would have included it. however, we do not need all of the elements to a see a beautiful picture. this wonderful memory stands on its own and has given the man immense hope in death; should we not create our own?
