Chapter 11
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Silver Dragon
Chapter: 11
Chapter Title: There Is No Always Correct Answer
-----------------------------------------------------------------
There is no such thing as an always correct answer.
Not all grays are the same.
There is the damp gray of asphalt soaked by rain, the chill gray of ancient tombstones. And here, the gray painted on the walls of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. This color is authoritative, rigid—a "dead" gray that sucks every last bit of warmth from the living creatures inside it.
I mixed achromatics on the palette. Black and white, with just a hint of Prussian blue. A cold, jittery hue emerged.
"Teacher, my arm's about to fall off..."
Franz spoke with a pitiful expression. He was perched on the windowsill, gazing out the window in position. Already thirty minutes stock-still.
"Hang in there five more minutes. I have to capture that light."
I was rendering the canvas's corner—the one small sliver of window where color was permitted.
Most of the painting was achromatic. The students seated at lecture hall desks were headless mannequins. Identical plaster busts perched atop their necks: Agrippa, Julian, Venus... heads swapped out for the professor's model answers, all individuality excised.
On the platform stood professors in slaughterer's aprons. Saws and hammers gripped in their hands instead of brushes. They were trimming students' jagged edges, hammering away any unique creativity to fit the mold.
The floor pooled with severed ears, eyes, and lips like blood. Not red blood. A thin, transparent, ether-like pale fluid. Soul essence, perhaps.
In this horrific, frigid slaughterhouse, one mannequin alone lived.
The lone boy among them, bearing his own face. Untouched by the slaughterer's hand, seated in the corner, head turned toward that single ray of light seeping through the window.
His gaze was longing. A yearning for escape, the instinctive certainty that true "life" existed out there.
"Done. Take a break."
The moment I set down my brush, Franz slumped to the floor, kneading his arm.
"Ow, my arm. It'll be wrecked before I even start school."
"Quit whining. I'm covering your tuition with modeling fees."
I stepped back a few paces from the canvas to take it all in.
Cold.
If my previous works burned with hot rage and madness, this one was a chill scalpel. Emotion suppressed, rational fury piercing the system's vitals with precision.
[Slaughterhouse of Souls].
Once this painting went public, the academy professors would try to kill me. It wasn't mere critique of their taste—it denied their very existence, branding educators as butchers.
"Teacher, this one's kinda sad."
Franz said, gulping water.
"Sad?"
"Yeah. Those headless guys. They look pitiful. Like they wanna scream but have no mouths."
...Hoo.
His sensitivity caught me off guard sometimes.
"Exactly. The system's aim is to silence even screams. They want parts that obey quietly, nothing more."
I rinsed the brush. The oil tin clouded murky gray.
The next day, true to my word, I took Franz to school.
Not a regular school. A private alternative place Morgenstern had recommended—free-spirited, for kids eager to learn arts or trades.
The principal was a kindly mustached gentleman. He didn't pry into Franz's grubby past. He simply beamed at the thick enrollment envelope I handed over.
"Franz, what would you like to learn here?"
Franz glanced at me at the principal's question. I shrugged—your call.
"Writing. And... how to do sums."
"Sums? Aspiring mathematician?"
"Nah. In case Teacher gets ripped off later 'cause he sucks at money, I'll handle it."
Bold kid. I let out a dry chuckle from the side. The principal roared with laughter.
"You'll make a splendid manager."
On the way out after enrollment, Franz fiddled with his new uniform. Crisp linen shirt and navy trousers—far too tidy for him.
"Like it?"
"Yeah. But... itchy."
"Get used to it. Time to live like a civilized man."
"And you, Teacher? Does that make you... a barbarian?"
"Yep, barbarian. Art's savage at heart. Only savages make it."
We returned to the gallery. In the carriage ride back, Franz stared silently out the window, not a word. His head was probably a whirlwind—alley freedom versus school discipline. But that was his to bear.
Upon arrival, I showed Morgenstern the new piece.
His reaction was as expected.
"Huh..."
He pressed his forehead.
"Hitler. You truly have no brakes, do you? The academy this time? Planning to make enemies of Vienna's entire art establishment?"
"Already enemies. They picked the fight."
"But this... it's too blatant. That slaughterer's face—clearly Professor Griepenkerl. Forehead wrinkles and all."
"Sharp eye. Nailed the features, didn't I?"
I grinned brazenly.
"Hang this in the showcase on the academy students' route. They won't be able to miss it going to and from class."
"You... inciting the students?"
"Not incitement. Awakening. Holding up a mirror to what they're enduring."
Morgenstern sighed but didn't refuse. After the crown prince fiasco, he'd learned my madness paid off. He grumbled but directed staff to place it front and center.
[Slaughterhouse of Souls].
The reaction was instantaneous.
This time was different. Not ordinary citizens or thrill-seekers—the real targets stirred.
Academy students passing by halted. Paint kits slung over shoulders, uniforms on. They peered at first out of curiosity, then paled or flushed beet red.
Recognizing themselves as the headless mannequins took no time.
"This... it's about us, right?"
"That prof—Professor Griepenkerl."
"Heavens, is that how we look?"
The murmurs weren't anger. Shock and shame, laced with strange empathy.
Everyone had felt it once: suffocated by a professor's iron grip, pride bent to match their tastes, own colors killed off.
From the attic window on the second floor, I watched them.
Just like Franz in the painting, peering in from outside the glass. But roles reversed—they were the trapped ones, I the free.
"Amusing."
I muttered, sipping wine.
Then I spotted a group of students entering the gallery. Not hesitant, but resolute, as if resolved to something grave.
"Teacher, customers? But they look broke."
Franz said, mid-homework.
"Broke customers can be the best kind. Let's go down."
Downstairs, five or six young men stood waiting. Academy uniforms. Eyes wavering.
"You're Adolf Hitler?"
The bespectacled one, apparent spokesman, asked.
"That's me. Here to buy? No student discounts."
"No. We have questions."
He pointed to the showcase.
"That painting... Do you really see us that way? Soulless mannequins?"
Provocative question. I crossed my arms and cocked a hip.
"What else? Parroting professors like parrots—what more do you do in there?"
"We're... learning tradition! Mastering the greats' techniques..."
"Tradition? Fine. But if it's strangling you? Killing your living emotions to ape the dead—is that learning? Brainwashing."
My barbs twisted his face. He wanted to retort, but felt the truth in his bones.
"And you? What's so superior about you? Rejected by the academy, painting this out of spite from your inferiority complex?"
Another student fired back.
"Inferiority complex."
I snorted.
"Had one, sure. Wanted to die when rejected. But not anymore. Grateful now. Kept me out of that slaughterhouse."
I stepped closer.
"Look closely. No professor praise, no degrees, no tradition in my work. But it's alive. Far more than your 'noble' academy drivel."
They fell silent. They couldn't deny the raw energy pouring from my canvas. Crude in technique perhaps, but its raw appeal no academy star pupil could fake.
"We... what should we do?"
The bespectacled youth asked, voice faint.
"Why ask me? It's your lives."
I turned away.
"Don't beg for lessons. Art isn't spoon-fed. Burst out of the slaughterhouse yourselves—or stay mannequins forever. Get sawn apart or shatter the window. Your call."
Harsh words, but the only advice I could give.
The students lingered before the painting a long while before leaving. Their backs looked heavier than on entry, yet kindled with some inner spark.
After that day, something peculiar happened.
The gallery entrance became a holy site for academy students. They'd skip classes to gawk at my work, gathering in clusters to debate. Real lessons unfolding on the street, not in academy halls.
"How's the cult leader life treating you?"
Egon Schiele dropped by, ribbing me.
"Not bad. Could use some tithes."
"Watch yourself. Griepenkerl won't stay quiet. Word is he petitioned the education ministry. Claims your painting's a bad influence on students."
"Gonna label it harmful media? What an honor."
But Schiele's warning proved true.
Days later, officials barged into the gallery.
"Vienna city hall hygiene department."
"Hygiene? This a restaurant?"
Morgenstern asked, baffled.
"Received complaints it's harming citizens' mental health. Especially detrimental to youth..."
Ridiculous pretext. Obvious: Griepenkerl and his professor cronies pulling administrative strings. Petty old fools.
The officials ordered the showcase covered. Threatened fines too.
"Take this down! Now!"
One reached for [Slaughterhouse of Souls].
"Don't touch it."
I interposed.
"Who the hell are you to lay hands on my painting?"
"Obstructing official duty—we can arrest you! Take it down nicely."
Tension spiked. Franz hid behind me, scared. Morgenstern paced helplessly.
That was when it happened.
"Get your hands off it!"
A shout from outside.
The glass door flew open as students poured in. The bespectacled youth from before led; dozens followed.
"We have a right to see this painting!"
"Yeah! Why's it harmful?"
"The real poison's the lies they teach at school!"
Students encircled the officials, protesting. The gallery turned protest site in seconds.
The officials backpedaled in panic.
"Class? You call that a school? It's a slaughterhouse!"
Someone yelled. The students erupted in cheers.
I watched the scene in a daze.
My painting had ignited the blaze. Unbidden by me, they'd banded together against the powers that be.
Was this the thrill past-life Hitler felt sparking the Munich putsch? The crowd's fervor, voices cheering him on.
But no.
These weren't blind followers. Awakened individuals thinking for themselves. I'd wanted artists with their own voices, not pawn soldiers trailing me.
"Teacher... the guys are pissed."
Franz whispered.
"Nah. That's not anger. Proof they're alive."
I laughed.
The officials wilted under the students' momentum and withdrew. Muttering tired threats like "just you wait," they fled.
The students, drunk on victory, high-fived and whooped. The bespectacled youth approached me.
"We protected it."
His eyes no longer wavered.
"Thanks. But you skipped all your classes, right? Griepenkerl'll redline the attendance."
"Doesn't matter. Planned to drop out anyway."
"Drop out?"
"Yeah. Better a starving street wolf than slaughterhouse meat."
The others nodded agreement.
This was snowballing.
I'd meant system critique, not a mass exodus. But the dice were cast.
"Wolf's fine—just don't starve. Hungry, come by. Bread at least."
The students burst out laughing.
That evening, the gallery front was festival grounds. Students lingered, unfolding sketchbooks on the street. Portrait swaps, passersby captured, lampposts rendered.
Styles all over: rough here, delicate there. No academy uniformity.
Freedom.
Vienna's streets hummed with its scent, laced with paint thinner—headily seductive.
I sat by the second-floor window, sketching the scene.
History was shifting.
Youths fated to die in trenches now gripped brushes here and laughed.
My butterfly effect. Not bad at all.
But I knew. Festivals end; bills arrive. Griepenkerl and the conservative old guard wouldn't sit idle. Bigger, slyer retaliation brewing.
Let them prepare.
I wouldn't stop my brush.
What next?
I envisioned colors exploding like fireworks across the festival night sky. A painting with sound this time—screams and cheers tangled, raucous.
[Vienna Rhapsody].
Good title.
"Franz, put on some music. The noisiest you've got."
"Beethoven?"
"No, something crazier. Schoenberg, maybe."
"Who's that?"
"You'll see. A genius crafting ear-shattering tunes."
Vienna's night stretched long. Our canvases, vast.