Monologue of the Blind Man

Everyone, coming upon me,

goes right by.

Anyone see, because I’m blind, me standing nigh?

And I’ve stood since three...

Now it’s coming on to rain yet!

When it’s raining, men aren’t good.

Whoever comes my way then, would

seem as if away he’d get.

Eyeless in the city I stand.

And it rains, as were I by the sea.

Evenings a dog I walk behind,

that on a leash has me.

Mine eyes will have in August

deathday number twelve.

Why struck the splinter not my breast

and heart, that no more delve?

Ah, no-one buys handpainted

postcards, since my luck I’ve lost.

One gröschen, each one costs!

Seven pfennigs is what I pay for them.

Back then I saw everything like you:

sunshine, flowers, woman and city.

And how my mother looked with pity,

that I shall forget with rue.

War makes blind. That in me is clear.

And it’s raining. And the wind blows wild.

Is there no strange mother here,

with for her own sons a thought?

And no child,

whom its mother gives for me aught?

Erich Kästner