Wolf Among Wolves

Chapter Five

The Storm Breaks

I

About three o’clock the police sergeant, Leo Gubalke, returned from his allotment near the rolling-stock depot of Rummelsburg to his flat in Georgenkirchstrasse. He had ample time to change for duty and for a thorough wash, but not enough for the nap he had hoped to have. His very strenuous spell of duty lasted from four o’clock in the afternoon till two o’clock in the morning, and it was always better if he had a little sleep beforehand; it was good for his work and, above all, for his nerves.

Oberwachtmeister Gubalke was alone in his two-roomed flat. Since morning his wife had been at the allotment (North Pole estate); his two girls had gone there direct from school. Into the kitchen he brought the big tub which his wife used for the washing, and scrubbed himself slowly and carefully from top to toe.

It was an old controversy between them as to how best to wash all over. He himself started at the top and proceeded downwards: head, neck, shoulders, chest and so on, till he arrived at the feet. This was truly methodical and clean, for nothing which had already been cleansed was affected by the washing of the next part. Besides, it was economical, since the soapy water, as it flowed downwards, soaked those parts of the body to be dealt with later.

Frau Gubalke did not wish to grasp this method or, if she did, avoided it. She washed herself unsystematically: now the back, then the feet, now the chest, next the thighs. Oberwachtmeister Gubalke had to deal with hysterical women nearly every day, yet he was firmly convinced that women could be sensible if they wanted to. But, in any case, their sense was quite different from men’s, and to try to convince them of something about which they didn’t want to be convinced was absolutely useless.

She was a marvelously tidy woman, Frau Gubalke. The kitchen was spick and span, and Gubalke knew that in every carefully closed drawer, behind every reliably shut cupboard, each article lay in absolute order. But she would not get any system into the care of her body. Women were like that. Well, then, if that be so, it was no use attempting to alter them, otherwise they easily got irritated. The father, however, had scored a victory in that both the children washed according to his method.

The Oberwachtmeister was a man in the early forties, ruddy, on the plump side, very orderly, not without benevolence, if it could be afforded. He no longer felt any particular enthusiasm for his calling, although it satisfied his sense of order. Whether he cautioned chauffeurs for driving contrary to the law, or took a drunk and disorderly to the police station, or warned a prostitute off the prohibited Königstrasse, he was keeping Berlin in order and seeing to it that everything was ship-shape in the streets. But public order, naturally, could never rise to the heights of private order as exemplified in his flat, and perhaps it was this which damped his pleasure in his work. He would have preferred to sit among the records and be responsible for registers and card indexes. There, with the aid of pen and paper, and possibly a typewriter, he could almost have attained his ideal of the world. But his superiors had no wish to take him off the streets. This man, cool and collected, perhaps a trifle slow, could hardly, in these difficult and chaotic times, be replaced.

While Leo Gubalke scrubbed his pinkish fat till it was crimson, he reflected once again how he could so wangle it as to fulfill his frequently expressed desire for a transfer to indoor duties. There were various ways and means of achieving this, even when opposed by superiors; for instance, cowardice—but, of course, cowardice could not be entertained for a moment. Or excitability, to get rattled—but Oberwachtmeister Gubalke would never, of course, lose his self-control in front of people in the street. One could also become too particular, report every trifle, drag everybody to the police station—but that would not be fair to his colleagues. Or one might commit a serious error, some colossal blunder which would compromise the police and delight some of the newspapers—this would certainly disqualify him for outdoor work. But he was too proud of his uniform and the force to which he had belonged for so long.

He sighed. If one considered the matter closely, the world was surprisingly full of obstacles for a man who believed in order. Hundreds of things which the less scrupulous did every day were out of the question for him. On the other hand, he had the pleasurable feeling, without which a man could not live, that he was not only keeping the world in order, but was in harmony with it himself.

Gubalke carefully wiped the tin tub till the last drop of water was soaked up, and then hung it on its hook in the lavatory. He also wiped the kitchen floor, although the few splashes would dry all the same in the disquietingly close atmosphere. Then he buckled on his belt and, last of all, donned the shako. As always, Leo Gubalke examined himself in a kitchen mirror about the size of the palm of your hand; and, as always, he confirmed that he couldn’t see clearly in this whether the shako was being worn in the way prescribed by the regulations, or not. And thus to the dark corridor in front of the big mirror. It was annoying to switch on the electric light for such a short period (the consumption of current was said to be highest at the moment of switching on), but what could one do?

At twenty minutes to four he was ready—at one minute to four Oberwachtmeister Leo Gubalke would report for duty. He went downstairs. He had on one white glove, the other was held loosely in his hand. And now he approached the doorway and Petra Ledig.

The girl was leaning against the wall, her eyes closed. When she had asked Ernst to bring some rolls and he had gone to fetch them, she was possessed by an overwhelming vision of their proximity. She thought she could smell their freshness; something of their wholesome taste entered her stale and weary mouth. She had to swallow, and choked.

Again it grew black inside her head, her limbs yielded as if they had no firmness, her knees gave way; there was a continual trembling in arms and shoulders. Oh, please do come! Please do come! But, imprisoned in her torment of hunger, she did not know whom she was longing for—servant or lover.

Oberwachtmeister Gubalke had naturally to stop and have a look. He knew the girl by sight, for she lived in the same house as he did, although in the back part, and officially he knew nothing to her detriment. Still, she was lodging with a woman who occasionally harbored prostitutes, and she lived, unmarried, with a young man who apparently had no occupation but gambling—a professional gambler, if one could go by women’s gossip. All in all there was no reason to be either severe or lenient, and the officer watched her impartially.

She had had too much to drink, of course; but she was near her room and she would, somehow, get upstairs. Moreover, his spell of duty did not start till four; he need not have seen anything, which was all the easier as this was not his beat; neither had she noticed him. And Gubalke was about to go away when a violent fit of retching threw her body forward. He saw straight into the opening of the overcoat—and looked away.

This wouldn’t do. He couldn’t overlook this; all his clean and orderly life rose in revolt. Tapping the sick girl’s shoulder with his gloved finger, the Oberwachtmeister said: “Well, Fräulein?”

His calling, which had made the policeman skeptical of his fellow-beings, had also undermined confidence in the validity of his own observations. Till now the Oberwachtmeister had believed the girl to be dead drunk, and her dress, or rather state of undress, confirmed this belief. No girl who attached the slightest value to what was seemly about or around herself could go like this into the street.

But the look she gave him when he tapped her shoulder, that burning yet sane glance as of a creature in torment who spurns her torment—that glance dispelled any idea of drunkenness. In quite a different tone he asked: “Are you ill?”

She leaned against the wall, seeing but dimly the uniform, shako, and his ruddy full face and reddish stubby beard. She was not sure who was speaking to her, what she was to answer, to whom she should answer. But perhaps an orderly man, who has to struggle all day and every day with a disorderly world, understands better than anyone what proportions disorder can attain. From a few answers uttered with difficulty the Oberwachtmeister had quickly built up a picture of the state of affairs; he understood that she was only waiting for a couple of rolls, that the girl then intended to go to Uncle’s round the corner, who would certainly help her out with a dress, and that she would then look up some of her chap’s friends or relatives (she had the fare in her hand)—in short, that the scandal would in all probability be removed in a few moments.

The Oberwachtmeister gathered all this, found it reasonable, and was just about to say, “All right, Fräulein, I will let it pass for once,” and report for duty, when he was painfully struck by the thought: When would he actually arrive at the station? A glance at his wrist-watch showed that it was three minutes to four. Under no circumstances could he be at the station before a quarter past four, and he would thus be a quarter of an hour late for duty, and with what excuse? That he had, without taking any official action, gossiped for a quarter of an hour with an improperly dressed female? Impossible; everybody would think that he had overslept.

“I’m sorry, Fräulein,” said he officially. “I can’t let you go about like this. You must come along with me first.”

Gently but firmly he placed his gloved hand on her upper arm and gently but firmly led her into the street where it had been impossible for him to let her go unofficially. (Order often brings the paradoxical in its wake.)

“Nothing will happen to you, Fräulein,” he said soothingly. “You haven’t done anything wrong. But if I let you go alone in the street like this it might become a public nuisance or worse, and then you will have committed an offense.”

The girl went with him willingly. Nothing about the man who was leading her in a not unkind manner made her uneasy, although he wore a uniform. The Petra Ledig who had been, not so very long ago when she was walking the streets without a permit, unreasonably afraid of every policeman, now observed that, at close range, policemen were not alarming, but even fatherly. “They haven’t provided for such a contingency in the police station,” he was saying, “but I will see that you get something to eat at once. The men in the registration department are usually not very hungry, and I shall get hold of a piece of bread and butter there.” He laughed. “Someone else’s piece of stale bread and butter in a crumpled sandwich paper isn’t too bad. When I bring my girls something of that kind they get quite excited about it.”

“Yes,” said Petra. “I was always pleased when Herr Pagel used to bring me some.”

At the mention of Herr Pagel the Oberwachtmeister put on his official face. Though men had to stand together, particularly against women, he did not approve of this young gentleman, who among other things was said to be a gambler. He intended—but he would not tell the girl—to investigate the conduct of this young swell. Herr Pagel seemed not to be behaving very correctly, and it would do such a ne’er-do-well good if he realized that someone had an eye on him.

The Oberwachtmeister had fallen silent and stepped out smartly. Willingly enough the girl followed him, glad to get away from being stared at. And the two vanished toward the police station. In vain the manservant, Ernst, comes with his rolls; in vain Frau Pagel’s maid, Minna, makes her inquiries; in vain there sets out from Dahlem a luxurious Maybach with a lady and a blind child. In vain, too, is Wolfgang Pagel in a final quarrel with his mother.

For the present Petra Ledig has been removed from all civilian influence.

II

Without any particular haste Wolfgang Pagel had walked from the villas of the rich at Dahlem through the crowded streets of Schöneberg to the old West End—quite a walk. In many of the streets there was hardly a pedestrian; they were abandoned and as if dried up by the sun. At other times he passed along roads full of traffic, swarming with people, and he, the aimless, was carried along by those with a purpose.

Above hung a blanket of vapor made of the heat and exhalations of the city. Walking along Dahlem’s avenues of trees he had cast a clearly-defined shadow, but the more he mingled with the crowd the more his shadow paled, until it was gray and indistinguishable from the granite setts. His shadow was extinguished not only by the seething crowd surrounding him and by the ever higher and narrower housewalls, but by the blanket of vapor growing thicker and the sun, paler. The heat continuously poured into the overheated town, completely obliterating his shadow.

No clouds could yet be seen. Perhaps they lurked behind the rows of houses, crouched under the hidden horizon, ready to ascend and pour forth fire, thunder and flood, Nature’s unavailing incursion into an artificial world.

But Wolfgang Pagel walked no faster, for all that. At first he had set forth without a definite goal, merely because he felt he could no longer sit in that lordly kitchen. But when at last the object of his pilgrimage became clear, he went no quicker. He had always been easy-going, slow by nature and by habit; before he replied to a question he liked to make a gesture with his hand, since that postponed the answer a little.

And he was walking slowly now—it postponed the decision a little. In the kitchen, during the conversation with the blind child, he had still been of the opinion that he must leave the responsibility for Petra to others, because he himself could not help her. To help a girl without clothes or food, and in debt, could only mean one thing—money—and he had none. But then it had struck him that he did have money, if not in coin then in what was equally valuable. To put it concisely, von Zecke had presented him with an idea: he owned a painting. This painting, Young Woman at a Window, indisputably belonged to him. He remembered his mother telling him before he went to the Front: “This painting now belongs to you, Wolf. At the Front you must always remember that Father’s finest picture is waiting here for you.”

Wolfgang did not like this picture, but it had a market value. He would not oblige Zecke; there were art dealers in plenty who would gladly take a Pagel, and he decided to approach a big dealer in Bellevuestrasse. There they would certainly not lower themselves to cheat him, since a Pagel was a good proposition without that.

He would receive for the picture numerically an unheard-of sum, hundreds of millions, probably (perhaps even a milliard), but he wouldn’t touch a penny of it; not one note was to be changed. He would go on foot to Georgen-kirchstrasse—that little bit extra wouldn’t mean much to one who had walked from Dahlem into town. No, not one note should be changed. He would overwhelm his waiting Petra with the whole enormous sum.

Pagel walked through the scorching town of Berlin without haste, without stopping, running over his plans time after time, for there were various aspects to be considered. Most of all he thought about the moment when he would count out on the table an immense sum in notes; or, better still, he would let them rain down on the girl in bed so that she would be entirely covered by the money, covered with money in that filthy den. Often he had day-dreamed of this moment, imagining that it would be his winnings. Well, it would be instead money from the sale of his father’s painting. Money gained by gambling—snatched so to speak from the three birds of prey—that would have been better still. However, that idea was now definitely finished with; he would think of it no more.

So he marched on, Wolfgang Pagel, ex-second lieutenant, ex-gambler, ex-lover. Again, he had done nothing, only gone, gone from here to there, and back again. In the morning he did go, and made plans, but only these last ones were the right ones. His were the most excellent of intentions, and therefore he could walk without hurrying. He was completely satisfied with himself. He would sell a picture, turn it into money, and give the money to Peter—magnificent! Not for one moment did it occur to him that money might perhaps mean nothing to his Peter. He was bringing money, a lot of money, more money than she had ever had in her life—could a man do more for his girl? The world rushed on, the dollar rose, the girl starved—but he walked at his ease, for what he proposed to do was as good as done. He wasn’t in any hurry, there was time for everything: we have always muddled through somehow.

He turned into Tannenstrasse, a blind alley. A few steps more and he unlocked the front door and ascended the familiar stairs to his mother’s flat. There was no change: the porcelain name plate on the door, older than himself, with the missing corner which he himself had knocked off with a skate very long ago; the habitual odor in the corridor, its dark chests, oak cupboards, temperamental grandfather clock, and high up on the walls his father’s sketches seeming to float above the dark world as bright as clouds. But the splendid asters in the two china-blue vases on the old-fashioned mirror-table were an innovation, and when Wolfgang looked more closely he found a note from his mother. “Good day, Wolfgang,” he read. “There is coffee in your room. Make yourself comfortable. I had to go out urgently.”

For a moment he was taken aback by this greeting. From Minna’s reports he knew that his mother expected him every day, every hour almost—but this was too much—he had pictured her as hopeful rather than assured. It entered his mind not to touch the coffee but to take the painting and go; yet he did not fancy that either—it was too much like a thief in the night. He shrugged his shoulders and the pale man in the greenish mirror opposite did likewise; a trifle embarrassed, Wolfgang smiled at himself, screwed up the note and dropped it into his pocket. His mother, missing it, would guess that he was here—and look for him. The sooner the better.

He went to his room.

Here were flowers, too, this time gladioli. Dimly he remembered having once told his mother that he admired them. And of course she would remember that and put some there for him; he was still expected to like them. And he was also intended to feel how much his mother loved him, since she could think of all this.

Yes, she was great at such things; she weighed and measured love. If I do this, then he has to feel that. Yet nothing was further from his mind than to respond. Gladioli were not really beautiful, but stiff and artificial in their pale colors—mere painted wax. Peter would never love by double entry.

Why is Mamma so exasperating? he reflected, pouring out a cup of the hot coffee. (She must have just placed it there. It was a marvel they had not met on the stairs or in the street.) I’m absolutely furious with her. Is it the house, the old familiar smell, the memories? I’ve only realized, since I lived with Peter, how she has always tied me to her apron strings and lectured me.… Everything she wanted was good; every friend I chose was unsuitable. And now this dramatic reception … Yes, I’ve already noticed there’s another note on the desk. And over the chair hangs a newly pressed suit and underwear. A silk shirt with the studs put in.…

He prepared his third roll, which tasted excellent. The coffee was strong and mild at the same time; its rich flavor gently took possession of the whole palate, quite unlike Madam Po’s insipid yet harsh decoction. (Was Peter having her coffee too? Of course, she must have had it long ago. Perhaps she was now having her afternoon coffee.)

Stretching himself comfortably on the settee, Wolfgang Pagel tried to guess what was written on the slip of paper. Something like this of course: “You must choose your tie for yourself; they are hanging inside the wardrobe door.” Or “The bath water is hot.” Yes, something like that would be written there.

And when he did look he read that the bath-stove was alight. Angrily he thrust this crumpled note with its fellow. That he had summed up his mother so well didn’t please him but only made him angrier still.

Naturally, he thought, I can sum her up so well because I know her so well. Possessiveness. Bossiness. When I came home from school I always had to wash my hands and put on a clean collar, because I’d mixed with the “others”—and we were different, better. This note of hers is an insult to me, but above all to Peter, a calculated insult. It’s not enough to change my clothes, I must also have a bath. Because I’ve been with a creature whose face Mamma slapped outright. Insolence! I won’t stand it.

He stared furiously round his old room with the yellow birch desk, the birch bookshelves and the half-length green silk curtains hanging before them. The birch bedstead glittered like silver and gold. Everything was light and joyful—and outside the window there were trees, too, old trees. Everything was so tidy, clean and fresh; when one thought of the Thumann hovel one realized why this room was kept so neat and ready. The son was to compare the one with the other: that is how you live with the girl, but this is the care that your loving mother has for you. Sheer insolence and provocation!

Stop! He tried to control his anger. Stop. You’re running away with yourself, the horses are bolting. Part of it’s true; her flowers and notes are distasteful, but the room itself never looked different. Why am I so furious then? Because I can’t help remembering that Mamma slapped Peter? Nothing of the sort. With Mamma one couldn’t take such a thing seriously, and Peter didn’t take it seriously either. It must be something else.…

He went to the window. The nearest houses stood a good way off and one could see the sky. Dark sinister clouds were piling up, high on the horizon. The light was dismal, there was no breeze, not a leaf stirred. On the mansard roof opposite he saw a couple of sparrows squatting, puffed up and motionless; those quarrelsome chaps, too, were cowed by the impending threat in the sky. He must get away quickly. It wouldn’t be pleasant running in a storm with the picture under his arm.

And suddenly he understood. He visualized himself with the painting, wrapped in some used brown paper, walking to the art dealer’s. He couldn’t even afford a taxi. He was carrying an object worth millions, perhaps even milliards, huddled under his arm—as if he were a thief. On the sly, like a drunkard secretly taking the bedding from his wife and home to the pawnbroker.

But it is my property, he argued. I needn’t be ashamed.

But I am ashamed, though. Somehow it isn’t right.

Why isn’t it right? She has given it to me.

You know very well how attached she is to it. That’s why she gave it to you. She wanted to tie you all the closer to her. You will hurt her terribly if you take it away.

Then she oughtn’t to have given it to me. Now I can do what I like with it.

You’ve been in a bad way often enough before. You’ve often thought of selling it and you never did.

Because things were never so bad as they are now. They’ve come to a head.

Oh! have they? How do others manage who haven’t got a picture to fall back on?

Others would never have got to these straits. Others would not have let their affairs drift until they became desperate. Others would not in the last resort hurt their mother to give bread to their mistress. Others would not have gambled without any misgivings—without any misgivings because they had a picture in reserve. Others would have looked for work in time and would have earned money; would not have gone so casually to the pawnshop or asked for a loan or begged; would not have gone on taking and taking from a girl without ever thinking of what they could give her in return.

The sky was growing darker and perhaps sheet lightning was already playing, only one could not see it through the haze. Perhaps thunder was already muttering in the distance, but it could not be heard. The town thundered and roared even louder.

“You are a coward,” a voice whispered. “You are a poor devil, who has wasted his twenty-three years. You had everything here, love and gentle care, but you fled. Youth is afraid of happiness. It doesn’t want it. Because happiness means peace, and youth is restless. But where did you run to? Did you run to Youth? No, you went to the place where the old foregather, those who no longer feel the prick of the flesh, who have no passion left.… You went into the desert of artificial passions and yourself became arid, unnatural, prematurely old. You are a coward. And for once you have to make a decision, yet there you stand and hesitate. You don’t want to hurt your mother and yet you want to help Peter. You would prefer your mother to ask you, implore you with desperate gestures of entreaty, to sell the painting. But she won’t do that, she won’t spare you the decision; you will have to act like a man. There is no middle course, no shift, no compromise, no shirking. You have let things drift too long—now you have to decide—the one or the other.”

The clouds rose higher and higher. Wolfgang Pagel still stood irresolutely at the window. He was good to look at, with his slim hips and broad shoulders, the image of a warrior. But he was not a warrior. He had an open face, with a good forehead, a straight nose—but he was not frank, not straight. Many thoughts struggled within him; all were disagreeable and tormenting. All demanded something of him, and he was angry at having to deal with them.

Others have better luck, he thought. They do what they like and don’t bother. With me everything is difficult. I shall have to think it all out again. Is there no way—must I choose between Mother and Peter?

For a while he stood his ground; this time he did not wish to evade his responsibilities. But gradually, as he found no solution although everything clamored for a decision, he grew tired, lit a cigarette, and took another mouthful of coffee. Softly he opened the door of his room and listened. The flat was silent; Mamma was not back yet.

His hair was fair and curly, his chin was not a very strong one—he was soft, he was indolent. And now he smiled. He had made up his mind. Once again he had avoided a decision. He would take advantage of his mother’s absence to remove the painting without a scene. He smiled, suddenly very satisfied with himself. The thoughts that had tormented him were gone.

He went straight across the corridor toward his father’s room. There was no time to be lost, the storm was about to break, and Mamma might come back at any moment.

He opened the door and there, in the big armchair, sat Mamma, black, stiff and upright.

“Good afternoon, Wolfgang,” she said. “I’m so pleased to see you.”

III

He was not at all pleased. On the contrary, he felt like a thievish servant caught red-handed.

“I thought you were out shopping, Mamma,” said he lamely and gave her a limp hand which she pressed energetically and meaningfully. She smiled. “I wanted to give you time to feel at home again; I didn’t wish to overwhelm you at once. Well, sit down, Wolfgang, don’t stand about so irresolutely.… You’ve no engagements at present; you aren’t here on a visit, you’re at home.”

He sat down obediently, the son once again under maternal command and care. “Only on a visit. Just for a few minutes,” he muttered, but she did not hear him, whether intentionally or not he was to learn later.

“The coffee was still hot, was it? Good. I had only just made it when you came. You haven’t bathed and changed yet? Well, there’s plenty of time. I can quite understand that you wanted to have a look at your home first. It’s your world after all. Our world,” she modified, watching his face.

“Mamma,” he began, for this emphasis on the world that he belonged to, the insinuation that the Thumann flat was Petra’s world, annoyed him—“Mamma, you’re very much mistaken …”

She interrupted him. “Wolfgang,” she said in a changed, a much warmer voice, “Wolfgang, you needn’t tell me anything or explain anything. I know a good deal, I don’t need to know more. To clear the situation up once and for all, however, I’d like to admit here and now that I didn’t behave well to your girl-friend. I regret some of the things I said and even more what I did. You understand me! Is this enough, Wolfgang? Come, give me your hand, my boy.”

He scrutinized his mother’s face. He could not believe it at first; he knew his mother, knew her face and there was no doubt she meant it sincerely. She had repented. She had made her peace with him and with Peter—she was therefore reconciled, and Heaven alone knew how it had come about. Perhaps the suspense of waiting for him had softened her.

It was incredible. He held her hand. “Mamma,” he said, “that’s very nice of you. But perhaps you don’t know yet that we intended to marry today. It’s only …”

She interrupted him again—what readiness, what eagerness to meet him halfway! She was making everything easy for him. “It’s all right, Wolfgang. Now everything is settled. I’m so glad to see you sitting here again.”

An immense relief overwhelmed him. A moment ago he had stood at the window of his room tormented by doubts as to which of them he should hurt—his mother or Petra. Except these alternatives there seemed to be no escape. And now everything had altered; his mother had seen her mistake, and the way into this orderly home stood open to both of them.

He got up, he looked down on the white parting in his mother’s hair. Suddenly he was seized by something akin to emotion. He swallowed and wanted to say something, and cried out that he wished life were different, no, that he wished he were different, then he would have behaved differently.

The old woman sat at the table with an immobile wooden face. She didn’t look at her son, but she rapped her knuckles smartly on the table. It sounded wooden. “Ah, Wolfgang,” she said, “don’t be childish, please. In the Easter term when you hadn’t moved up to a higher form you always cried out ‘I wish …’ And when your engine was broken you were sorry afterwards about the way you had treated it. But that’s futile, and you’re no longer a child. Retrospective repentance is useless, my boy; you must learn in the end that life goes on, ever on and on. One can’t change the past, but one can change oneself—for the future.”

“Certainly, Mamma,” he said like a good boy. “I only wanted to …”

But he did not finish. The outer door opened and shut hurriedly, more than hurriedly. Steps hastened along the corridor …

“It’s only Minna,” explained his mother.

Their door opened without a preliminary knock; it was flung open, and Minna stood in the doorway, elderly, gray and shriveled.

“Many thanks, Minna,” said Frau Pagel quickly, for at the moment she did not wish to have any news from Georgenkirchstrasse; she had got here all that had interested her there. “Many thanks, Minna,” she therefore said, as severely as possible. “Please prepare the supper immediately.”

Minna, however, for this once was not the obedient servant; her eyes were angry and suspicious, her yellowish cheeks flushed. She didn’t look at her mistress, her hostile stare was directed at the hitherto beloved young master.

“Shame on you,” said she breathlessly. “Shame, Wolfgang. So you are sitting here?”

“Are you mad?” Frau Pagel cried indignantly, for she had never experienced such behavior from her Minna in all the twenty years of their life together. “You’re disturbing us.”

But no notice was taken and Wolfgang at once comprehended that something had happened “there.” A misgiving overcame him. He saw Peter, and Peter saying to him “Good luck, Wolf” as he went with the suitcase to the pawnbroker’s. She had given him a kiss …

He took Minna by the shoulders. “You’ve been there? What’s the matter? Tell me quickly!”

“If you say another word,” cried Frau Pagel, “you’re dismissed on the spot.”

“You needn’t dismiss me, madam!” said Minna, outwardly calm. “I’m going anyhow. Do you think I’d stay in a place where the mother encourages the son to do wrong and the son obeys her? Oh, Wolf, how could you have done it? How could you have been so wicked?”

“Minna, what’s come over you? How dare you! You old …”

“You can call me what you like, I’m used to it, madam. Only I always thought that you called me names only in fun. But now I know you mean it; you think that we’re different, that I’m just out of the kitchen and you’re a fine lady.”

“Minna,” shouted Wolfgang, and shook the old servant vigorously. She was quite beside herself. “Tell me what has happened to Peter. Is she …?”

“Oh? Do you really care, Wolf, even though you’ve run away from her on her wedding day and sold all the clothes off her body and left her with nothing but a shabby overcoat? The one from your husband, madam—and nothing underneath, no stockings, nothing … And so the police have arrested her. And what’s the worst of all, I’ll never forgive you for it, Wolf, she was starving. She was retching again and again and almost fell down the stairs.”

“But where do the police come in?” Wolfgang shouted despairingly, shaking Minna as hard as he could. “What have the police to do with it?”

“How should I know?” Minna shouted back, and tried to free herself from the young master who was unconsciously holding her still tighter. “How do I know what mess you’ve got her into? Of her own accord Petra’s done nothing wrong; I know her too well for that. And the vulgar person who lives on the same floor is going about saying that it serves Peter right because she considered herself too good to walk the streets. But I gave her something!” For a moment Minna stood there triumphantly. Then she said sullenly: “God bless her for not doing it, though you and all you menfolk don’t deserve anything better.”

Wolfgang let go of Minna so suddenly that she almost fell. She became silent at once.

“Mamma,” he said agitatedly. “Mamma, I haven’t the least idea what’s happened. I can’t make it out at all. I left about midday and tried to borrow some money. It’s true that I sold Petra’s clothes and that we owed the landlady money, and it’s possible that she hasn’t had much to eat lately. I admit I didn’t notice. I was very often away from there. But what the police have to do with all this!” He was speaking in lower and lower tones. It would have been much easier to tell all this to Minna than to his mother sitting there so wooden, so hard, and, incidentally, just under that particular painting. Well, that was done with, that was all over.

“Anyway, whatever may be the matter with the police, I’ll settle it at once. I’m quite certain, Mamma, that there’s no real trouble—we’ve done nothing, nothing. I’ll go there at once. It must be a mistake. Only, Mamma …” It grew increasingly difficult to speak to the dark woman who sat there quite unmoved, distant, hostile.… “Only, Mamma, unfortunately I’m at the moment without any money whatsoever. I need some for the fare, perhaps to settle with the landlady on the spot, for bail, I can’t tell; things for Petra, too, food.” He stared intently at his mother. There was need for haste. Peter must be freed, he must leave at once. Why didn’t she go to her desk and fetch the money?

“You’re worked up, Wolfgang,” said Frau Pagel, “but, in spite of that, we mustn’t act rashly. I fully agree with you—something must be done for the girl at once. But I don’t think you in your present condition are the right person to do it. Perhaps there will be lengthy explanations with the police—and you are somewhat lacking in self-control, Wolfgang. I think we should call up my solicitor, Justizrat Thomas. He knows all about such matters; he’ll settle it quicker and more smoothly than you.”

Wolfgang looked at his mother’s mouth as if he must not only hear the words she uttered but also read them from her lips. He passed his hand over his face; it felt so dry, the skin really ought to rustle. The hand, however, came away damp.

“Mamma,” he pleaded, “I can’t let this matter be settled by your lawyer and meanwhile sit here calmly, have a bath and eat my supper. I ask you to help me this once in my way. I must settle the matter myself, help Peter myself, fetch her out myself, speak with her myself.”

“That’s just like you,” said Frau Pagel, again rapping her knuckles on the table. “I have to remind you, Wolfgang, unfortunately, that if you have asked me once to do what you want in your own way, you have asked me a hundred times. And whenever I did so, it was always a mistake.”

“Mamma, you can’t compare this case with some childish trifle.”

“Dear boy, whenever you wanted anything all the rest was only a trifle. But this time I won’t yield, it doesn’t matter what you say, if only because these negotiations would bring you into contact with the girl. Be glad you got rid of her; don’t start all over again because of some mistake on the part of the police, or because of some foolish backstairs gossip.” She glanced sourly at Minna, who was standing in the doorway—her accustomed place. “Today you have finally separated from her. You’ve given up this ridiculous wedding, you’ve returned to me, and I’ve received you without any question or reproach. Am I now to witness you and the girl come together again, in fact help you to do this? No, Wolfgang, on no account!”

She sat erect and gaunt, looking at him with flaming eyes. She had not the slightest doubt in her mind, and her will was adamant. Had she ever been gay and free? Had she ever laughed, ever loved a man? All was past and gone. Gone! His father had scorned her advice, but she was not disconcerted; she had persevered. And should she now give way to the son? Do what she did not approve of? Never!

Wolfgang looked at her. He was rather like his mother. With his lower jaw pushed forward, his eyes glistening, he said very gently: “I didn’t quite catch that, Mamma. Today I’ve finally separated from Peter?”

She made a hasty movement. “Don’t let’s talk about it. I require no explanations. You’re here, that’s enough for me.”

And he, more gently if possible: “So I’ve given up this ridiculous wedding?”

She scented danger, but it did not make her cautious, only aggressive. “When the bridegroom doesn’t turn up at the registry office,” she said, “then one can draw a certain conclusion.”

“Mamma,” retorted Wolfgang, sitting down on the other side of the table and leaning across it, “you seem to be very well informed about my comings and goings. You ought to know then that the bride didn’t turn up either.”

Outside it had grown quite dark. A first gust of wind swayed the treetops, a few yellow leaves whirled through the window. In the doorway stood Minna, forgotten by mother as by son. And now there was a flash of lightning and the tense faces gleamed and were blotted out in a deeper gloom. There was a rumble of distant thunder.

The elements wanted to break out, but Frau Pagel tried to control herself. “Wolfgang,” she pleaded, “we don’t want to argue about the extent you’ve separated from Petra. I’m convinced that if this incident with the police hadn’t occurred you would have almost forgotten about her. Leave this matter to a lawyer, I beg you, Wolfgang, and I’ve never asked you so earnestly before. Do what I want for once.”

The son heard the mother pleading as he had pleaded with her a few minutes ago, but he paid no attention. In the gloom her face was dim. Behind her head the sky lighted up in sulphur-yellow, fell back into darkness and flashed anew.

“Mamma,” said Wolfgang, and his will was strengthened more and more by her resistance, “you’re very much mistaken. I didn’t come here because I had separated, partly or entirely, from Petra. I came because I wanted money for this ridiculous wedding.”

For a moment his mother sat motionless. But, however hard the blow was, she did not show it. “Well, my son, then I can tell you that you come in vain,” she replied bitterly. “You shan’t get a penny for that purpose here.” Her voice was very quiet but unfaltering. Still more quietly and without a trace of excitement, he replied: “I know you, and I never expected a different answer. You love only those people who want to be saved in your way, though one cannot congratulate you on the salvation you yourself have achieved.”

“Oh,” groaned the woman. This was a mortal blow—to her whole life, her whole being, her marriage and motherhood—struck by her own son.

But this cry of pain excited him all the more. Just as, in the world outside, oppressive heat and stench had simmered together since the early hours of the morning and were now at boiling point, so had possessiveness, an old woman’s assurance, the arbitrary exploitation of her position as mother and as guardian of the money, long been simmering together in him. But what made his anger dangerous was not these things, nor his mother’s contempt for Petra (who, without this, would not have had such significance). From his own weakness, from his own cowardice, came the hottest glow. And he had to revenge himself for having given way to her a hundred times. He was terrible now because he had been so afraid of this scene. His anger was shameless because it had been his intention to smuggle the painting away.

“Oh!” His mother’s groan had released in him a deep joy. It was a hungry age, a wolf age. Sons turned against parents, one hungry pack bared its teeth against another—who is strong shall live! But the weak must die. And let me do the killing!

“And I’ve also to tell you, Mother, that when I came into the room so quietly a moment ago, I was under the impression that you were out. I wanted to take away the painting secretly, the painting; you know which one I mean—the painting you gave me.”

“I’ve never given you a painting!” she said very quickly, but with an unmistakable tremor in her voice.

Wolfgang heard it clearly. But he talked on. He was drunk with revenge, shameless.

“I wanted to sell it secretly. Get a lot of money for it, nice money, a heap of money, foreign money, dollars, pounds, Danish kronen—and give it all to my dear good Petra.” He was sneering at her, but also at himself. He was a fool. Ah! this was even better than gambling; it excited him, inflamed him—to talk into the darkness against the lightning and the almost incessant threat and rumble of thunder far away. Out of the primeval origins of all human existence, liberated by this evil age, rose the earliest hatred of children for their parents. Youth against Age, recklessness against slow deliberation, blood against cold flesh.…

“I wanted to take it away without your knowing, but that, of course, was nonsense. It’s just as well to tell you everything once and for all—everything.… And after I’ve spoken I’ll take away the picture.”

“I won’t give it up,” she cried, jumping to her feet and standing in front of it. “No!”

“I’ll take it,” he said undaunted, and remained seated. “I’ll carry it off before your eyes and sell it, and Petra shall get the money, all of it.”

“You won’t take it by force!” There was fear in her voice.

“I shall take it by force,” he cried, “since I intend to have it. And you’ll be sensible. You know I want it, and that I’ll get it, too.”

“I’ll call the police,” she threatened, wavering between telephone and picture.

“You won’t call the police,” he laughed, “because you know quite well you gave me the picture.”

“Look at him, Minna,” cried Frau Pagel, and now she had forgotten that it was her son standing there. She saw in him the male, the male who always acted contrary to common sense, woman’s enemy from the beginning of time.

“Look at him! He can’t wait to get back to his girl! To deliver her from the police! It’s all lies and acting. She interests him as little as anything else. He only cares about money.” She mocked him. “Nice money, much money, dollars, pounds—but not for the dear, beautiful, good Petra in jail, for Fräulein Ledig; no, for the gaming table.”

She stepped aside, surrendering the picture, stood at the table, rapped it hollowly. “There, take it. That’s the worst I can do for you, to let you have it. Sell it, get money, a heap of money. And that will show your silly, obstinate, cantankerous mother to be in the right again—you won’t make the girl happy with it. You’ll lose the money gambling, just as you’ve gambled away everything else—love, decency, feeling, ambition, the power to work.” She stood there breathless, with flaming eyes.

“Anyhow, I thank you, Mamma,” said Wolfgang, suddenly dead tired of quarreling and talking. “And that’s the end of that, eh? And of everything else, too. I’ll send for my things this evening; I don’t want to burden you with them any longer. With regard to your prophecies, though—”

“Take everything,” she shouted, trembling in every limb as she watched him remove the picture from the wall. “Don’t you want some of the silver for the bride’s dowry? Take it. Oh, I know you Pagels,” she cried, and was once more the young girl she had been long, long before her betrothal and marriage. “Outwardly kind and gentle, but inwardly greedy and barren. Go! Go quickly! I don’t want to see you any more. I’ve sacrificed my life to you and in the end you’ve thrown mud at me, father as well as son, one the image of the other.… Yes, go, without a word, without a look. Your father was like that, too; he was too grand for arguments, and when he wanted to do anything at night which would give him a bad conscience, he used to creep out of the room in his stocking feet.”

Wolfgang was already going, the picture under his arm. He had looked round, intending to ask Minna for brown paper and string, but she stood stiffly in the doorway. And he was, above all, conscious of his mother’s voice, that shrill, merciless voice, like a cracked bell, eternally clanging since his childhood.

He would carry the picture as it was. He must get away before it rained.

But as he crossed the threshold of the room to the accompaniment of that wild raving voice, the old servant, that silly goose whom one could never please, burst forth in his very face: “Shame on you! Shame on you!”

He shrugged his shoulders. He had done it for Petra; it was Minna’s opinion also that he ought to have done something for the girl. But never mind, let them talk.

He was out of the flat, the door was closed. Once he had chipped a corner off its porcelain name plate. He went downstairs.

How much would he get for the picture?

IV

On this twenty-sixth day of July, 1923, the divorced Countess Mutzbauer (née Fräulein Fischmann) wished to go into the country to have a look at some farms with her present friend, a Berlin cattle dealer by the name of Quarkus.

Quarkus was a man in his late forties, stocky, with dark curly thinning hair, fleshy forehead, and a roll of fat at the back of the neck; a married man for almost a quarter of a century, and the father of five children. At first he had regarded the inflation favorably, since it had made him richer and richer, a few months changing a man with a weekly turnover of a wagon-load of pigs and two dozen cattle into a wholesale dealer whose buyers traveled into South Germany and even into Holland. Before the cattle, paid for in advance, arrived in Berlin, indeed even before they were dispatched, their value had risen twofold, threefold, and even fivefold, and Quarkus had always proved to be right when he had told his buyers: “Pay what the people ask you—it’s little enough.”

At first, raking in the money had given Herr Quarkus undiluted pleasure, creating in him a distaste for the Schultheiss pothouses, the Bötzow taverns and the Aschinger saloons; and he had become a generous, even popular, client of all the bars in the old Friedrichstadt and the new West End, asserting with conviction that one could eat really decently in only three of all Berlin’s restaurants. Thus, when it came about that a genuine countess embraced him, he felt that no earthly desire of his remained unfulfilled.

But the richer he grew and the less importance money held for him, the more thoughtful became cattle dealer Quarkus. His unscrupulous optimism which hitherto had relied, without worrying about the future, on the continued fall of the mark, became dashed at the sight of this currency leaping round the dollar in bounds which would have carried a flea over Ulm Cathedral.

“There’s a limit to everything,” he muttered when he learned that his pigs had brought him in twentyfold the purchase price. At a time when hundreds of thousands did not know where to find the money for a piece of bread, he became sleepless with the worry of how to invest his.

An expression whispered on many sides—real values—reached his ear. Nobody can free himself from his early training. The lad Emil (the name Quarkus had attained significance for the surrounding world only from his twenty-fifth year onwards) had had to drive one cow along many German highroads, and look after three pigs; he had been a cattle drover before he became a cattle dealer. Longingly the thin hungry youth had looked at the farmhouses beside the highroad, where the doors emitted such an alluring smell of fried potatoes and bacon. Whether it hailed, rained, snowed, or was cold enough to freeze your very eyelashes, the farms always sprawled comfortably along the roadside, their broad thatched or tiled roofs promising protection, warmth and comfort. Even the ox which Emil Quarkus drove could notice this; when it rained it lifted its head, stretched out its tail and lowed yearningly for the farmyards.

What for the boy had been the epitome of all security and comfort, now became a refuge for the man. At a time when the mark was bounding, leaping, crashing, nothing could be more secure than a farm—excepting five or ten farms. And Quarkus was resolved to buy them.

Countess Mutzbauer, née Fräulein Fischmann (which she did not naturally divulge to her friend Quarkus) was, of course, more in favor of an estate with a castle, terrace and racing stable. But about this Quarkus was adamant. “I have bought enough cattle from manors,” he said. “I don’t want to buy their worries, too.”

He was sure that if he went to a farm with a bag full of notes—better still with a trunk—asked to buy a cow, bought ten, threw his money around and bragged about it and used it as a bait, then no owner would be able to resist him. And after buying ten cows he would buy the cowhouse, the straw, the land on which the straw grew, and ultimately the whole farm. And when he told the owner that he could remain and carry on with the farming, doing what he liked with the produce, that farmer would think him cracked and would find other sellers for him, more than he wanted. Till the day dawned when the mark—well, nobody could conceive what the mark would be like on that day—it baffled imagination. Whatever happened, however, the farm would be there. The farms, rather.

Such were, roughly, Quarkus’s reflections as frequently outlined to the Countess. Actually, since the manor had been turned down, she took very little interest in the matter, but she was too wise to be disinterested enough to let her friend travel by himself. It was always better to be on the spot, for vulgar women, to whom money was as necessary as dung to the dung-beetle, were to be found everywhere. Moreover, if he bought ten farms, an eleventh might perhaps be thrown in as her pickings; and though the idea of her owning a farm was about as reasonable as her possessing a locomotive, yet it could always be sold—in fact, one could sell anything. (Countess Mutzbauer had already sold, in turn, three cars which she had been given by her friend, and had treated him to the magnificent explanation: “You’re too much of a gentleman, Quarkus, to expect me to put up with such an old-fashioned car.” And he was really too much of a gentleman—besides being uninterested in such points.)

The notion of the eleventh farm, however, had reminded the Countess that her chambermaid, Sophie, came from the country and toward midday, having slept thoroughly, she rang for her and conducted the following conversation:

“Sophie, you come from the country, don’t you?”

“Yes, Frau Countess, but I don’t like it.”

“Do you come from a farm?”

“No, Frau Countess, from a manor.”

“You see, Sophie, I told Herr Quarkus that he should buy a manor. But he says he only wants a farm.”

“Yes, Frau Countess, my Hans was just like that, too. When he had enough money for Habel and partridges, then he only wanted Aschinger with pea soup and bacon; men are like that.”

“So you, too, Sophie, think that a manor is much better?”

“Of course, Frau Countess. A manor is much bigger, and when it belongs to you, you don’t need to work yourself but employ people.”

“On a farm one has to work?”

“Terribly hard, Frau Countess; and work which ruins the appearance.”

Hastily the Countess decided to forgo the eleventh farm and accept instead the gift of a diamond ring. And with that decision she lost all personal interest in the trip or the purchase, and thus any reason for taking Sophie with her as adviser.

“Listen, Sophie, in case Herr Quarkus should ask you, don’t tell him that. That’s no need to dissuade him; it only spoils his pleasure and won’t stop him buying.”

“Just like my Hans,” said Sophie with a sigh, reflecting sadly that the police would never have nabbed Hans Liebschner if he had followed her advice.

“All right, Sophie. Then everything is settled. I knew you understood all about the country. Herr Quarkus and I are going to buy a farm, and I thought of buying one for myself. Then I would have taken you with me. But if a farm is no use …”

Too late Sophie realized that she had spoken too soon. A trip by car into the country with the rich Quarkus would have been very agreeable. She changed her tune. “Of course, Frau Countess, there are all sorts of farms—”

“No, no,” said the former Fräulein Fischmann. “You’ve explained everything splendidly. I’m not buying.”

Since there was nothing more to be gained here, Sophie looked for an advantage on the other side. “So Frau Countess will probably be away for some time?”

Yes, Countess Mutzbauer would hardly be back before tomorrow evening.

“Oh, if the Frau Countess would then be so kind … My aunt at Neukölln has been seriously ill and I ought to have gone to see her before.… Could I have this afternoon off? And perhaps till tomorrow midday?”

“Well, Sophie,” said her mistress graciously, although she took the sick aunt in Neukölln about as seriously as Sophie did the acquisition of a farm by the Countess, “it’s really Mathilde’s turn for a day off, but as you’ve given me such good advice … Don’t upset Mathilde, though.”

“Not at all, Frau Countess; if I give her a cinema ticket she’ll be quite happy. She’s so mean. Only recently the cobbler said to her: ‘Fräulein, don’t you ever go out? The soles of your shoes are still good the second year of wearing!’ But she’s like that.”

Perhaps the cook Mathilde was really like that with regard to stinginess, days off and the cinema; Sophie Kowalewski may have reported correctly, but she was mistaken in her forecast of the way in which Mathilde would receive the news about that particular afternoon off. Sophie had spoken quite casually about the paltry cinema ticket with which Mathilde would let herself be appeased; but nothing of the kind, nothing of the kind at all! Mathilde stormed. She wouldn’t have it. What? She, the economical and steady one, was to sacrifice herself for a whore who went with any lounge-lizard for three drinks! Oh, no! Unless Sophie immediately gave up this outing obtained in such an underhand manner, she, Mathilde, would go at once to the Countess, and what the Countess would then hear, Sophie might only too well imagine. Such filth wouldn’t pass without reason over her lips. At which point Sophie began to defend her client in front of her friend.

Oh, stout, easy-going Mathilde! Sophie could not understand why she was furious. Previously she had allowed her free days to be passed over a dozen times, had forgone them voluntarily or involuntarily, and when she sulked for once, a box of sweets or a cinema ticket had always appeased her. Had the oppressive heat driven the old woman mad? For a moment Sophie wondered whether she ought not to give in. If Mathilde opened her mouth to the Countess there might be a pretty stink. Not that Sophie was afraid of that. She could make short work of a drunken man who kicked up a row, and such could be almost as bad as a quarrelsome woman.

So she considered for a moment.… Then she spoke coldly and maliciously: “I don’t know what’s biting you, Mathilde. Why do you want to go out? You haven’t anything fit to wear.”

Oh, how sweetly this oil sizzles, how the flame rises higher and higher. “Nothing to wear! Of course, if I could use my mistress’s wardrobe, as some of us do …”

“You’d do it, Mathilde. Only nothing fits you. You’re so terribly fat.”

Even in 1923 it was a serious insult to call a woman plump—not to mention fat. Promptly Mathilde burst into tears. “Whore, strumpet, bitch!” she screamed, and rushed off to her mistress. Herr Quarkus had just come in, and they were about to set out for the country.

Sophie, shrugging her shoulders, stayed behind. It was all one to her, whatever happened. All of a sudden she had had quite enough of the life here, although a minute ago she would not have wished to leave. But it was like that nowadays, there was no stability; what was valid one moment was not so the next. (Never was the fatal gas tap turned on so often and so impulsively as in those days.)

Suddenly she felt how dog-tired and worn-out she was, and how attractive the thought of a couple of weeks’ holiday with her parents in Neulohe. That would be really fine: to sleep as long as you liked, do nothing, drink nothing and, above all—for a change—no gentlemen. Besides, you could show yourself off to envious school friends of bygone days as a finished woman-about-town—especially just now when they were working themselves to death over the harvest. Finally, and most important, quite close to Neulohe was Meienburg, where stood an establishment which little Sophie had formerly looked at with horror but which now sheltered her Hans. Suddenly she was seized by a mad longing for him; her whole body was a-tremble. She must go to him, she must live near him, she must sense him once again—at the very least she must see him. It ought to be easy to get into touch with him. Warders were only men after all.…

Sophie had stopped cleaning the silver—why do anything now? She’d leave today anyway; finish with the joint! With satisfaction she heard Mathilde’s guttural whine interspersed with the sharp, irritated voice of the Countess, and occasionally Herr Quarkus’s hoarse tones. If they came and made the slightest criticism there would be a showdown. What a showdown! They would have no option but to get rid of her on the spot—not without her month’s wages, though. And that great gawk Mathilde could whistle for her free day—she would have to do all the work herself.

With reluctance Countess Mutzbauer sent her friend Quarkus to fetch Sophie from the kitchen. Certainly she wanted no quarrel with her chambermaid, least of all in front of her friend. There had been, some time ago, rather an odd burglary in the flat, and though Herr Quarkus had generously replaced the lost jewelry, he had wanted then and there to get in touch with the police. It would not be pleasant if Sophie explained the ramifications of that theft. Even more painful, of course, would be an account of certain bedroom visits. Countess Mutzbauer was convinced that her gentleman friend would not be broad-minded in the latter respect; and even though one should never shed tears over a lost lover, there being as many good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, she was terrified of a good thrashing.

But what was to be done? Mathilde, in front of Herr Quarkus, had given an exact account not only of the freedom with which Sophie used her mistress’s wardrobe as well as underwear (the Countess had known this all along) but also of an orgy which had taken place in the Mutzbauer apartments during a two-day absence of the mistress, an orgy, besides, in which strange bullies and tarts had taken part, also her own liqueurs, cigarettes, champagne, and—here Herr Quarkus leaped up with a “Damn”—unfortunately the Mutzbauer bed, too.

Against all sense and reason the Countess hoped that Sophie would be reticent. On her side, at least, nothing would be done to make matters worse.

Whereupon in the first three minutes the very worst happened. There was a frightful row, an infernal stench. Emil Quarkus, the cattle dealer, was certainly not squeamish and during his life had had to put up with a lot of unpleasant things; moreover the times were not propitious for cultivating a thin skin.… But what these three women said to each other stank more than all the dunghills of his future farms rolled into one.

And Quarkus, too, shouted and stormed. With his own hands he threw them out of the room in turn and, howling with fury, fetched them in again for cross-examination, exculpation. He bashed their heads together, separated the clawing women, telephoned for the police and immediately canceled the call, inspected Sophie’s trunks, and had almost at once to rush to her ladyship’s bedroom where murder seemed to be in progress. Then, picking up his hat, he marched off with the contemptuous exclamation: “You damned women, you can kiss my arse,” left the flat, got into his car, and made the chauffeur stop at once, it having occurred to him that under no circumstances could he leave his jewelry with that vulgar woman.…

The upshot was that he sat on a couch utterly exhausted, incapable of anything more. Her cheeks still red and her eyes flashing, Countess Mutzbauer paced up and down and mixed a pick-me-up for her Emil.

“Such vulgar women! All abominable lies, of course. It’s good that you dismissed them on the spot, Quarkus.” (He had done nothing of the sort.) “You’re quite right not to call in the police.” (He would dearly have loved to do so.) “In the end your wife would have learned of it, and you know what she is!”

Mathilde was sitting on her hamper in the kitchen, sniveling quietly as she waited for the carrier to fetch it. Then she would go by subway to her brother-in-law who lived off the Warschauer Brücke. Her sister wouldn’t be very joyful over this surprise because, as things were, the wage of a streetcar conductor was already insufficient. But, in possession of a fair pile of foreign currency which Quarkus, softened by her good cooking, had obtained for her bit by bit, she felt secure against any sisterly displeasure. As a matter of fact, dismissal at this moment suited Mathilde; she would now have time to do something for her illegitimate offspring, the fifteen-year-old Hans Günther; that morning she had read in the newspapers of his arrest as ringleader of a mutiny in a Berlin institution for young delinquents, which was the reason for her anger when Sophie had annexed her day off. Now she had her free day after all. She was content.

Even more content, however, was Sophie Kowalewski. Through the gathering storm a taxi took her toward the Christian Hostel in Krausenstrasse. Accompanied by gentlemen, Sophie did not object to the most filthy accommodation hotel; but as a young lady traveling alone she was cognizant only of the Christian Hostel. She was going for her summer holiday, her trunks were packed with her ladyship’s nicest possessions, she had her wages; also she had sufficient money saved up and she would get in touch with her Hans, perhaps even see him. Yes, she too was content.

Only Herr Quarkus was not quite as happy as the three women. But he was not properly aware of it, and in any case he had to go and buy farms immediately. The mark pursued him faster than any female.

V

Forester Kniebusch walked slowly through the village of Neulohe, his pointer on a lead. One never knew what might happen; most people, anyhow, were incredibly more afraid of a dog than of a man. Old Kniebusch had always disliked going into the village—his house lay a little back from the road on the edge of the forest—and today he was particularly peevish. He had put off as long as practicable the rounding-up of the villagers for the ten o’clock meeting at the village magistrate’s, but now that the entire western sky was black with storm (from Berlin, of course; what else ever came from there?) he had to set about it. Needs must; he had to be careful not to offend anybody.

Thank heaven the village of Altlohe didn’t come into the picture so far as this secret military business was concerned. Only miners and industrial workers (therefore Spartacists and Communists) lived in Altlohe; that is, thieves who robbed the fields, wood stealers and poachers, in Herr Kniebusch’s opinion.

He was quite well aware why he had refused to notice the wood stealers that morning. They were Altlohers who became aggressive on the slightest provocation and openly proclaimed a doctrine akin to the right to steal. Forester Kniebusch was also quite well aware why he had left his rifle at home but taken his dog with him—a weapon only infuriated the people and made them even more dangerous. Still, a dog might mean a torn trouser leg, and trousers were expensive!

Depressed, the forester slunk through the village threatened by the coming storm. “I would like to die peacefully in my bed,” he had again said to a wife almost paralyzed by rheumatism. She had nodded. “We are all in God’s hands,” she had said.

“Oh, you!” he would have liked to reply, for he had been certain a long time that God had nothing to do with all this ghastly confusion. But, after a glance at the colored Lord’s Supper on the wall, he had preferred to keep silent. In these days one could not say even to one’s own wife what one really thought.

He had pictured his old age differently. If the war and this damnable inflation had not come, he would long ago have been living in his own little house in Meienburg, letting duty and the wood thieves look after themselves, occupied only with his bees. But anyone could easily figure out how simple it was to starve to death on an old-age pension in these days. And as for the savings-bank book (hidden from thieves between the sheets in his wife’s linen cupboard), showing a total savings of over 7,000 marks scraped together coin by coin during forty long years of service, that did not bear looking at or thinking of, if tears were not to come at once into the eyes. Had there been no war that sum would have meant a little house in Meienburg, neat as a doll. And then there had been the first mortgage on the magistrate Haase’s farm here in Neulohe, a sound investment, for the interest of 4 per cent on the 10,000 marks Kniebusch had advanced was paid promptly. Some of this advance had been inherited, most of it saved; and it yielded 400 marks yearly, which would have been a welcome addition to Kniebusch’s old-age pension.

But that was past and done with. Incomprehensibly past and done with. The old man had had to continue running about, working, watching, trying to worm his way between the encroachments of the people and the reprimands of his employer. And this wearied man, so much in need of peace and retirement, was now terribly afraid of having to retire—for what could save the old couple from starving to death? Their two sons had fallen in the war, and their daughter, married to a railway clerk at Landsberg, did not know how to get food enough for herself and her children. Only when a pig was to be killed did she write to her parents, to remind them of the promised share of fat.

And so the old man had to carry on, fawn, flatter and humble himself to avoid dismissal at all costs. And when that fool of a Lieutenant beckoned, he could do nothing but click his heels and reply submissively: “Very good, Herr Lieutenant.” How was he to know whether his employer approved or not?

It was dreary walking round the village. The men whom the forester had to see were still in the fields, though it was time for feeding the cattle, nearly six o’clock. Or, sweating, they hurried past him with hardly an acknowledgment. There was not a moment to spare; they must get in all the crops they could before the storm broke.

Thus the forester had to leave his message with their womenfolk, and they, of course, said exactly what they thought. He was undoubtedly crazy, trying to call a meeting at the height of the harvest! He didn’t, of course, have such a bad time; he wasn’t aching in every limb; he could go for a walk while others worked themselves to death. He got up at six in the morning, their men at half-past two. They had no intention of delivering such a stupid message; he must go and look for bigger fools. They stood with their arms akimbo and the forester got it hot and strong. He had to persuade and beg them to give the message about the meeting at ten o’clock, and when he finally left he was not at all sure whether it would be delivered.

Some women, however, pursed their lips and listened in silence, though with angry, narrowed eyes. Then they turned away, but he heard them mutter that an old man like that should be ashamed to take part in such plottings. Hadn’t enough people been killed already in the World War? An old crock like him ought rather to be preparing for a peaceful death.

The forester’s face grew ever more troubled, almost bitter, the farther he went, muttering also. He had to give expression to his wrath somehow, and he was accustomed to talking to himself. Otherwise he had nobody in whom he could confide; his wife quoted texts at him on every occasion. He ground his almost toothless jaws in impotent anger. He suffered all the more because he was so helpless.

He arrived at the village square, round which Haase’s farm, the grocer’s shop, the inn, school and the clergyman’s dwelling were grouped. His business was not really with these people. Grocer and innkeeper were much too cautious to associate themselves with a venture which might offend their customers; the organist Friedmann was much too old; and Pastor Lehnich always behaved as if he were not of this world, although he was very good at adding up what was due him. The village magistrate must be in the secret, however, otherwise the meeting would not have been convened at his house.

Nevertheless Forester Kniebusch stood irresolutely in the square, looking across at Haase’s farm; it might be a good idea to face up to the magistrate for once and discuss the mortgage and its interest. But before he could decide on this a window in the inn flew open and the ugly head of little Black Meier popped out, spectacles glittering and face flushed. “Well, Kniebusch, old hen, come along and drink to my departure from Neulohe,” he shouted.

The forester was really not in a mood for drinking, and knew, too, that Black Meier, when drunk, was as vicious as an old bull; but the greeting sounded very much like news, and he could never resist that. He had to know everything, so that he could trim his course accordingly. Therefore he entered the inn, where his dog crawled under the table, prepared to wait silently with canine submissiveness for one hour or four, whichever it might be. The forester knocked on the table warningly. “I’ve no money on me!” he said.

“Neither have I,” grinned Black Meier, who had been drinking hard. “In spite of that I’m going to treat you, Kniebusch. And willingly. They’re all out in the fields and so I’ve taken a bottle of cognac from the buffet, but I can get you some beer if you prefer it.”

The forester shuddered at the possible consequences of such arbitrary behavior. “No, thanks, Meier. I’ll have nothing.”

Immediately Meier flushed a deeper crimson. “Oh, you think I pinched it? You think I won’t pay for what I drink? I’ll have none of that, Kniebusch. Just tell me of one occasion when I’ve pinched anything, or …”

The alternative was never divulged, for the forester immediately assured him that everything was in order, and that he would like a cognac.

“A cognac’s nothing at all,” shouted little Meier, and in spite of mild opposition, he poured out with professional skill a glass of beer and fetched a box of cigars. For himself he brought a packet of cigarettes.

“Your health, Kniebusch. May our children get long necks!”

The forester knitted his bushy brows at this toast, which reminded him of his two fallen sons. But it was futile to protest to such a man as Black Meier. “What has happened since midday to make us celebrate your departure?” he asked instead.

Meier turned glum. “The storm,” he growled. “A miserable filthy Berlin storm. We never get a storm with a west wind. But we do today.”

“Yes, there’ll be a heavy downpour in about ten minutes,” said Kniebusch and looked toward the dark window. “Didn’t you bring in the crops? The whole village is working at it.”

“I can see that, too, you great ass!” Meier shouted angrily. And it would really have been difficult not to notice it—another heavily loaded wagon had just raced across the village square and disappeared into Haase’s farm.

“But it is not certain that the Rittmeister will sack you,” Kniebusch remarked consolingly. “Of course, in your place I’d have got the crops in.”

“If you were me you’d be so clever that you’d have been in two places at the same time,” Black Meier screamed furiously. He drank hastily, then spoke more calmly. “Any fool can be wise after the event. Why didn’t you tell me at midday that you’d have got the crops in, eh?” He smiled with a superior air, yawned, and drank again. Then he looked at the forester with screwed-up eyes, winking mysteriously, and said with meaning: “Besides, the Rittmeister won’t chuck me out only on that account.”

“No?” replied the forester. “By the way, did you notice whether Haase is in his farmyard?”

“Yes,” said Black Meier. “He went in a moment ago with the Lieutenant.”

This did not suit Kniebusch at all. If the Lieutenant was there, then it would be no use speaking with Haase about the mortgage. And yet it was absolutely necessary. In five days’ time the half-yearly interest was due again, and he could not be put off with a two-hundred-mark note slipped into his hand.

“Are you deaf in both ears, forester?” shouted Meier. “I’ve been asking you how old Vi is.”

“The young Fräulein? She was fifteen last May.”

“Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!” Meier pretended to lament. “Then the Rittmeister is sure to chuck me out.”

“Why?” The ever-wakeful curiosity of the tale-bearer and spy stung Kniebusch. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, don’t bother!” Meier made a magnificently disdainful gesture. “You’ll learn everything soon enough.” He had another drink and looked at the forester through his narrowed eyes, grinning impudently. “But the girl has a magnificent bosom, I can tell you that, Kniebusch, old rake.”

“What girl?” asked the forester, dumbfounded. He could hardly believe his ears.

“Well, that young thing Vi,” said Black Meier negligently. “A sweet little bit, I can tell you. What a welcome she gave me a short time ago in her deck chair. On the roof of the kitchen annex, mind you, with only a bathing costume on. And then she undid her shoulder-straps—like this—and then—well, don’t let us talk about it. Once a gentleman always a gentleman.”

“You’re mad, Meier,” remonstrated Kniebusch. “You’re boasting. You’re drunk.”

“Oh, yes, I’m boasting!” said Black Meier, with a show of indifference. “Oh, yes, I’m drunk! But if anybody asks you, Kniebusch, then you can tell him from me that here”—he pointed to his breast well beneath the armpit—“Vi has a tiny brown mole, and it’s a sweet cuddlesome spot, Kniebusch, I tell you that in confidence.”

Meier looked expectantly at the forester. “That you’ve seen her in her bathing dress, Meier, I can well believe,” said Kniebusch. “Several times lately she has been lying about like that on the kitchen roof and Madam won’t have it; I know that from Armgard the cook. But that she should have behaved as you suggest … no, Meier, I can’t swallow that. You must tell that to a bigger fool than Kniebusch.” The forester grinned conceitedly, pushed away his tumbler and rose. “Come along, Cæsar!”

“You don’t believe me?” Black Meier shouted, leaping up. “You’ve no idea, Kniebusch, how crazy women are about me. I can have them all, all of them. And little Vi …”

“No, no, Meier,” said Kniebusch smiling contemptuously and making a deadly enemy of little Meier for life. “You’re all right for a dairy maid or poultry maid, perhaps. But for the young Fräulein! No, Meier, you’re just drunk.”

“Shall I prove it to you?” Meier almost screamed, beside himself with alcohol, wrath and humiliation. “Shall I show it to you in black and white? There, can you read, you silly idiot? There! Your young Fräulein wrote that to me.” He had pulled the letter out of his pocket and opened it. “Can you read? There. ‘Your Violet.’ ‘Your’ underlined, you gaping owl. There, read: ‘Dearest! Most dearest!! My one and only!!!’ See the exclamation marks? There! No, there’s no need for you to read it all—only this. ‘I love you sooo much!’ ” He repeated it: “ ‘Sooo.’ Well, is that love? What do you say now?” He stood there triumphant. His thick lips trembled, his eyes were aflame, his face was flushed.

But the effect of his words was not at all what he had expected. Forester Kniebusch stepped from him toward the door. “No, Meier,” he said. “You oughtn’t to have shown me that letter and told me all that. What a swine you are, Meier! No, I wish I hadn’t seen it; I don’t want to know anything about it. It’s as much as my life’s worth. No, Meier,” and Kniebusch looked with open hostility in his faded eyes, “if I were you I’d pack my trunk and clear out without waiting for notice, and get away as far as possible. If the Rittmeister learns …”

“Don’t talk so big, you old rabbit,” said Meier peevishly, but put the letter back into his pocket. “The Rittmeister won’t hear about it. If you keep your trap shut …”

“I’ll keep my mouth shut,” said the forester and really meant it. “I’m having nothing to do with it, believe me. But you won’t keep your mouth shut.… No, Meier, be sensible for once and clear out. And quickly at that—Ah, it’s really starting now.”

The two had been paying no attention to the weather and the increasing darkness of the sky. But now a flash of lightning made the inn parlor as bright as midday, a crash of thunder deafened them, and the rain came pelting down as from a thousand sluice gates.

“You aren’t rushing out into the storm?”

“I am,” replied the forester hurriedly. “I’m running across to Haase’s. I wouldn’t like to stay here.” And was already gone.

Meier saw him disappear into the rain. About the parlor hung the smell of spirits, sour beer and dirt. Slowly Meier opened one window after another. When he passed the table where they had been sitting he involuntarily took hold of the bottle and raised it to his lips, shuddered at its smell, and let the spirit gurgle out on to the village square. Returning to the table, he lit a cigarette and withdrew the letter from his pocket. The envelope was now damaged beyond use. With the cautious movements of the half-drunk he laid the letter on the table. It was crumpled and he tried to smooth it out. What on earth am I to do? What on earth am I to do? he thought wearily.

The letter was growing wet beneath his smoothing hand. He looked. It had been placed in a pool of cognac and the writing was quite smudged.

What on earth am I to do? he thought again.

He stuffed the messy scrawl into his pocket. Then he took his stick and went into the pouring rain. He must go to bed, sleep himself sober.

VI

Kniebusch hurried as quickly as he could through the heavy rain to Haase’s farmstead. However unpleasant it was for an old man to get wet to his skin, it was ten times better than sitting with that fellow, Black Meier, and listening to smut.

He stopped on the sheltered side of Haase’s barn. In his present state he could not appear before the magistrate. Panting, he wiped his face meticulously and tried to comb out his wet beard. But while he did all this mechanically he was thinking, just as Black Meier yonder: What on earth am I to do? What on earth am I to do?

Once again he felt aggrieved that there was not a soul to whom he could pour out his heart. If he could have told only one person about this crazy business he would have felt easier. But as it was, what he had heard rankled till it was hardly bearable. It was like a sore place on a finger against which one kept on knocking; it was like an eczema which one had to scratch, whether it drew blood or not.

Forester Kniebusch knew from many a bitter experience how dangerous was his growing propensity to gossip; it had often caused great mischief and involved him in the most unpleasant scenes. In this case, however, there was really nothing much to tell—only the drunken talk of a fellow who was mad after women, little Meier.

Having dried himself in the shelter of Haase’s barn he was about to enter the house when the whole thing was revealed to him: he saw Meier in the inn pulling the letter out of his pocket, tearing it open, reading it …

Kniebusch gave a long and high whistle, although it actually took his breath away. His dog by his side, shivering with the damp cold, started and pointed, forepaw raised as if he smelt game. But Forester Kniebusch went on further than his dog; he’d spied the black-coated hog, the wretched boar, in its damp hide and put a bullet through its head. Black Meier had told a lie. “It isn’t possible otherwise,” he muttered to himself. “This chap with his blubber lips and our young Fräulein—no, I couldn’t swallow that. And it wasn’t necessary to swallow it, either. The foolish braggart and liar thinks I don’t see through him. Tears the letter open before my eyes, yet already knows what is written in it. Tells me he has just been with Fräulein Violet and has got a letter from her in his pocket. Of course she’s given him a letter, but to deliver to someone else, and the fellow’s read it on the quiet. Yes, I must think this matter over quietly and thoroughly. I shall be surprised if I don’t get to the bottom of it all, and most surprised if I don’t use it as a rope to hang you with, little Meier. You won’t be able to call me a rabbit and gaping owl much longer. We’ll see then who’ll be in a funk and gape!” Kniebusch turned round and faced the inn. But the inn was not to be seen, because the rain was so heavy.

It’s better not to do anything rash, he reflected. The matter had to be considered carefully, for obviously he must so manage things as to get into Fräulein Violet’s good books. She might be very useful to him one of these days.

Thereupon Kniebusch whistled shrilly the call, “Quick march, advance” and marched off, straight into the magistrate’s living room. He didn’t even leave the dog on the brick floor of the kitchen as usual, but let it make muddy circles with its wet paws on the waxed and polished floor. So sure of victory was he.

But in the living room he got a shock, for not only was the tall Haase sitting there, but in the hollow in the middle of the old sofa lounged the Herr Lieutenant as large as life, his old field cap on the crocheted elbow rest, and he himself shabby and unkempt. He was doing himself well, though, with a large cup of coffee and fried eggs and bacon, and soaking pieces of bread in the fat, like a plain honest countryman. But six o’clock in the evening was really not quite the right time to eat fried eggs.

“Order executed,” reported the forester standing to attention, as he did to anybody he believed invested with authority.

“Stand at ease,” ordered the Lieutenant. And then, quite friendly, a big piece of egg on his tin fork: “Well, forester, still running about on your old legs? The orders passed on and carried out? Everybody at home?”

“That’s just it,” said the forester dolefully, and told of his experiences in the village, and what Frau Pieplow and Frau Paplow had said.

“Old fool!” The Lieutenant calmly went on with his meal. “Then you’ll have to leg it through the village again, when the men are at home, understand? To tell the women such things! I always said there’s no fool like an old one.” And he went on eating.

“Yes, Herr Lieutenant,” said the forester obediently, concealing his fury. He might very well ask this young chap what right he had to snap at him, and why he was entitled to give him orders—but it wasn’t worth while, he’d leave it. Instead, he turned to the tall and wrinkled Haase who had been sitting in his big chair as silent as usual, listening without turning a hair. Kniebusch spoke to him not at all kindly. “Ah, Haase, since I’m here I’d like to ask you about my interest. It’s due in five days’ time and I must know what you intend to do.”

“Don’t you know?” asked Haase and looked nervously at the Lieutenant, who, however, seemed to be interested in nothing but his fried eggs and the bits of bread which he was chasing across the plate. “All that’s set down in the mortgage.”

“But, Haase,” entreated the forester, “we don’t want to quarrel, old people like us.”

“Why should we quarrel, Kniebusch?” asked Haase surprised. “You receive what is due to you and, besides, I’m not as old as you are by a long way.”

“My ten thousand marks,” said the forester in a trembling voice, “which I lent you on your farm was good prewar money—it took me twenty years to scrape it together. And on the last rent day you gave me a bit of paper—I still have it at home in a drawer. Not a stamp or a nail have I been able to buy with it.”

Kniebusch could not help himself; this time it was not the infirmity of age but an honest grief which brought the tears to his eyes. He was looking at Haase, who slowly rubbed his hands together between his knees and was just about to answer when a curt voice from the sofa called “Forester!”

The forester wheeled round, torn from his grief and entreaty. “Yes, Herr Lieutenant?”

“Matches, forester.”

The Lieutenant had finished eating. He had soaked up the last smear of fat from his plate, swallowed the last dregs of coffee. And now he lay stretched out on Haase’s sofa in his muddy boots, his eyes shut. A cigarette in his mouth, he demanded a light.

The forester gave it him. With the first puff of smoke the Lieutenant looked straight into the tearful eyes of the old man. “Well, what’s the matter?” he asked. “I almost believe you’re crying, Kniebusch?”

“It’s only the smoke, Herr Lieutenant,” replied the embarrassed forester.

“Well, that’s all right, then,” said the Lieutenant, shutting his eyes and turning over.

“I really don’t know why I listen to your eternal bleating, Kniebusch,” declared Haase. “According to the mortgage deed you’re to get two hundred marks. Last time I gave you a thousand-mark note, and because you had no change I let you keep the lot.”

“I couldn’t buy a nail with it,” repeated the forester doggedly.

“And this time I won’t be hard on you, either. I’ve already got a ten-thousand-mark note ready for you, and you needn’t give me any change. I’m like that, although ten thousand marks are as much as the entire mortgage.”

“But, Haase!” cried the forester. “That’s simply adding insult to injury. You know quite well that this ten-thousand-mark note is worth much less than a thousand marks six months ago. And I gave you my good money!” Grief almost broke his heart.

“What has that to do with me?” cried Haase angrily. “Did I turn your good money into bad? You must apply to the authorities in Berlin—it isn’t my fault. What’s written is written.”

“I only ask for justice,” begged the forester. “I’ve saved for twenty years, denying myself everything, and now you offer me a bum-wiper in exchange.”

“So?” said Haase venomously. “You say that, Kniebusch? What about the year of the drought when I couldn’t scrape the money together? Who said: ‘What’s written is written’? And what about the time when fat pigs cost eighteen marks per hundredweight and I said: ‘The interest is too high, you must reduce it’? Who answered: ‘Money is money, and if you don’t pay, then I’ll distrain on you’? Who said that? Was it you or somebody else?”

“But that was quite different, Haase,” said the forester dejectedly. “There was very little in it, really, but today you don’t want to give me anything at all. I don’t ask you to give me the full value, but if you gave me twenty hundredweights of rye instead of the two hundred marks—”

“Twenty hundredweights of rye!” Haase laughed loudly. “I believe you’ve gone mad. Twenty hundredweights of rye! That’s more than twenty million marks.”

“And yet not nearly as much as you ought to pay me,” insisted the forester. “In peace time it would be nearer thirty hundredweights.”

“Yes, in peace time,” said the magistrate, quite ruffled, for he realized that he could not easily rid himself of the forester, who now seriously threatened his purse. “But we haven’t got peace now, but In-fla-tion—and everyone must look after himself. Anyway, Kniebusch, I’ve had quite enough of your eternal bleating. You’re also for ever gossiping about us in the village, and not long ago you said at the baker’s that the magistrate didn’t pay his interest, but could afford to eat roast goose. Don’t argue, Kniebusch—you did say it; I hear everything. But tomorrow I’ll cycle to Meienburg and I’ll send you your interest, through my solicitor, two hundred marks exactly, and in addition you’ll get notice of repayment of the mortgage, and on New Year’s Eve you shall get your money, ten thousand marks exactly—and I don’t care how little you can buy with it. Yes, I’ll do that, Kniebusch, for I’ve had enough of your eternal moan about your savings. I’ll do it, you see.…”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind, Haase,” came a sharp voice from the sofa, “and it will have to do.” The Lieutenant was sitting upright, wide awake, the cigarette still alight between his lips. “On the last day of the month you’ll give the forester his twenty hundredweights of rye, and we’ll draw up a contract in writing in which you bind yourself to make the same payment as long as this muck called money is current.”

“No, Herr Lieutenant, I won’t do it,” said the magistrate resolutely. “You can’t order me to. Anything else, but not that. If I tell this to the Major—”

“He’ll give you a kick in the behind and throw you out. Or put you up against a wall as a traitor—everything is possible, Haase. Look here, my man,” cried the Lieutenant briskly, jumping up and buttonholing the magistrate. “You know our aims and objects, yet you, a veteran soldier, want to take advantage up to the last moment of the swinish actions of the scum in Berlin. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Haase.” He went back to the table, took another cigarette and bawled: “A light, forester!”

Kniebusch, a thousandfold relieved and cringingly grateful, rushed up to him. Giving the Lieutenant a light he whispered: “It ought to be written down also that the mortgage can’t be terminated. Otherwise he’ll pay me off with the rotten money—and it’s all my savings.” Self-pity overwhelmed him, gratitude at this unexpected rescuer made him abject. Kniebusch wept again.

The Lieutenant observed this with distaste. “Kniebusch, old water-tap,” he said, “clear out—or else I won’t say another word. Do you think I care about you? You and your miserable cash mean nothing to me. It’s the Cause; the Cause must be kept clean.”

The bewildered forester went over to the window. Wasn’t his case as clear as daylight? Why must he be snapped at?

The Lieutenant turned to the magistrate. “Well, what do you say about it, Haase?” he asked, puffing at his cigarette.

“Herr Lieutenant, why should I be placed in a worse position than the others? In this district they are all clearing off their mortgages. And Kniebusch is not a person who deserves special consideration.”

This time the lieutenant replied, “It isn’t a question of Kniebusch: it’s you, Haase. You can’t fill your pockets through the swindling of the Berliners and overthrow them because of those same swindles. That’s as clear as daylight; every child understands that; you understand it, too. And in there,” he tapped Haase lightly on his waistcoat and the magistrate draw away uneasily, “in there you know quite well that you’re in the wrong.”

A terrible struggle was taking place in the other’s heart. In the course of a long, strenuous life he had learned to hold on to what he had got, but he had not learned how to be generous. At last he said slowly: “I’ll write that I won’t repay the mortgage and that I’ll pay him the value of ten hundredweights of rye every six months.… The farm doesn’t yield more, Herr Lieutenant, times are bad.”

“Shame!” said the Lieutenant in a low voice and looking very gravely at the old man. “You don’t want to burden your conscience with the entire guilt, but you’ll profit by the smaller guilt all right, eh? Look at me, man! I’m not much to write home about, but there is one thing … I possess nothing at all, Haase; for five years I’ve possessed nothing except what I stand up in. Sometimes I get my pay, sometimes I don’t. It’s all one to me. If you believe in a cause, then you give up everything for it—or you don’t believe in it. If that’s the case, we’ve no more to say to one another.”

Haase was silent for a long time. At last he said peevishly: “You’re a young man, and I’m an old one. I’ve a farm, Herr Lieutenant, and I must look after it. We Haases have been living here since time immemorial, and I wouldn’t like to meet my father and grandfather in the hereafter if I’d played fast and loose with the farm.”

“And if you retain it by fraud, that wouldn’t matter at all?”

“It isn’t fraud,” cried the magistrate heatedly. “Everybody does it. Besides, Herr Lieutenant,” and his face wrinkled in a grin, “we’re human beings, after all, and not angels; my father now and again sold a horse as a good draught animal when it wasn’t. We are cheated and we cheat for once—I think that God does forgive, too; it isn’t just a bit of writing in the Bible.”

The Lieutenant had already started another cigarette. What the magistrate thought about God didn’t interest him. He was more concerned that things should first improve in this world. “A match, forester!” he ordered, and the forester, who had been playing with the tassels of the curtains, sprang forward.

“Take cover,” ordered the Lieutenant, and Kniebusch jumped back into the curtains.

“If you don’t do what I tell you,” declared the Lieutenant stubbornly—for he could be just as obstinate as an old farmer—“if you don’t do what is the simple duty of every decent fellow, I’ve no use for you in our Cause.”

“I always thought you needed us,” rejoined the magistrate, unmoved.

“And if you aren’t with us, Haase,” the Lieutenant continued, undaunted, “and we take command in a month or two, do you think that matters will turn out so very much in your favor?”

“Lord!” said Haase, unperturbed. “If you’re going to punish everybody who hasn’t been with you, Herr Lieutenant, there will be a deal of weeping and wailing in all the villages. And you won’t be appointed Minister of Agriculture, either, Herr Lieutenant,” he mocked.

“All right,” said the Lieutenant curtly, and picked up his cap from the sofa. “So you don’t want to, Haase?”

“I have said what I’ll do,” repeated the other stubbornly. “I won’t give notice and I’ll give the equivalent of ten hundredweights of rye.”

“We’ve finished with each other, Haase,” said the Lieutenant. “Come along, forester; I’ll tell you where the meeting’s taking place this evening. Not here, anyhow.”

Haase would have liked to say something more, but he pressed his thin lips together. The Lieutenant was no bargainer; you could not beat him down; he demanded everything or nothing. But since the magistrate did not wish to grant him everything, he remained silent.

The Lieutenant stood in the doorway of the house and looked across at the farm. Behind him, silent, stood Forester Kniebusch and his dog. The Lieutenant might have been reluctant to step out into the lessening, but still sufficiently heavy, rain. But he wasn’t thinking of the rain at all; he was looking absent-mindedly at the open barn floor, where, before knocking off for the day, they were hurriedly unloading the last cartful of rye saved from the storm.

“Herr Lieutenant,” said Kniebusch cautiously, “you could, perhaps, hold the meeting at Farmer Bentzien’s.”

“Bentzien, yes, Bentzien,” said the Lieutenant thoughtfully, and watched the unloading. He could hear the rustle of the dry straw. He had not been in the Great War—too young for that—but he had served in the Baltic Provinces and Upper Silesia and had learned the lesson that tenacity of purpose decides the issue. He had told the magistrate that they had finished with each other; Haase might think so, but the Lieutenant hadn’t yet finished with him. “Benzine,” he muttered. “Wait for me here, forester,” he said hastily.

And with that he went into the house again.

Less than five minutes afterwards the forester was called inside. Haase sat at the table and wrote a confirmation that he forewent his right of extinguishing the mortgage and that he pledged himself to pay an interest of forty hundredweights of rye in two half-yearly installments. The magistrate was inscrutable, and the Lieutenant was inscrutable, too. The forester could have sobbed with joy, but was afraid to, lest the agreement be rescinded. So he hid his feelings, with the result that he made a face like red lacquer nutcrackers.

“So that’s that,” said the Lieutenant and scrawled his name as witness. “And now go and call the people together, Kniebusch. Here, of course! Farmer Bentzien? Benzine doesn’t come into consideration now!”

And he laughed maliciously. The magistrate, however, remained silent.

The conversation between Lieutenant and magistrate had been very brief.

“Tell me, Haase,” the Lieutenant had said on re-entering, “it has just occurred to me—what about the fire insurance?”

“The fire insurance?” asked Haase dumbfounded.

“Yes, of course.” The Lieutenant spoke impatiently, as if a child ought to understand the reason for his question. “How much are you insured for?”

“Forty thousand.”

“Paper marks, what?”

“Ye-e-e-es.” Very long drawn-out.

“I think that’s about forty pounds of rye?”

“Ye-e-e-es.”

“Isn’t that damnably careless? With a barn full of dry hay and straw?”

“But there isn’t any other insurance,” the magistrate had cried despairingly.

“Oh, yes there is, Haase,” the Lieutenant had said. “That is, when you’ve called in Kniebusch and written down what I tell you.”

Whereupon the forester was called in.

VII

Retired Oberleutnant von Studmann, reception manager, had a very unpleasant experience that afternoon in the hotel. About three o’clock, at a time when travelers do not arrive by train, there appeared in the entrance hall a rather tall, powerfully built gentleman, faultlessly dressed in English cloth, a pigskin case in his hand. “A single room on the first floor, with bath but no telephone,” he demanded.

He was told that all the rooms in the hotel had telephones. The gentleman, who seemed to be a little over thirty, could contort his pale, clean-cut face into most horrifying grimaces. This he did now to such effect that the porter started back.

Studmann came closer. “If you wish it, the telephone could of course be removed from the room. At any rate …”

“I do wish it!” the stranger barked. Then, without any perceptible change of mood, he asked gently that the electric bell in his room should also be disconnected. “I dislike modern technical apparatus,” he added frowningly.

Von Studmann bowed without speaking. He was expecting a demand that the electric light be cut off, but the gentleman either did not regard electric light as belonging to modern technical apparatus, or he had overlooked the point. Preceded by the bedroom waiter with the registration form, he went upstairs muttering, followed by a page with the pigskin case.

Von Studmann had been in a metropolitan caravanserai long enough not to be surprised at any request from a visitor. His composure was not easily ruffled; there had been the South American lady, traveling alone, who had screamed for a commode for her little monkey; there had been the distinguished elderly gentleman who, emerging from his room in pajamas at two o’clock in the morning, had requested in a whisper that he be furnished with a lady, at once, please. (“Don’t pretend; we’re all men.”) Nevertheless something about this new visitor warned Studmann to be careful. Ordinarily the hotel was patronized by ordinary people, and ordinary people prefer rather to read of scandals in the newspapers than to experience them. The reception manager’s instinct warned him. He was not affected so much by the silly requests as by the grimacing and shouting, and the man’s restless glances, now arrogant, now furtive.

However, the reports which von Studmann received a little later were satisfactory. The page had been given in tip an entire American dollar; the visitor’s pocketbook had been extremely well lined. The bedroom waiter brought the registration form. The gentleman had inscribed himself as “Reichsfreiherr Baron von Bergen.” Süskind, the waiter, had also taken the precaution of asking to see the stranger’s passport, which he was entitled to do in accordance with a regulation issued by the police. The passport—an internal one, issued by the district authority at Wurzen—seemed to be in order. The Gotha Almanac, which was then consulted, confirmed at once that there were really Reichsfreiherren von Bergen; they were domiciled in Saxony.

“So everything is all right, Süskind,” said von Studmann and shut the Gotha.

Süskind shook his head doubtfully. “I’m not sure,” he hazarded. “The gentleman is queer.”

“What do you mean by queer? An impostor? If he pays it doesn’t matter to us, Süskind.”

“An impostor? Certainly not. But I think he’s cracked.”

“Cracked?” repeated von Studmann. Süskind had had the same impression as he himself. “Nonsense, Süskind. Perhaps a bit nervous. Or drunk?”

“Nervous? Drunk? Certainly not. He’s cracked.”

“But why? Has he behaved in an extraordinary way?”

“Not at all,” admitted Süskind readily. “That grimacing and tomfoolery mean nothing. Some people think they can impress us that way.”

“Well, then?”

“One has a hunch, Herr Director. When the woven-fabric merchant hanged himself in Room 43 I had a feeling …”

“For God’s sake, Süskind, don’t talk of the devil or you’ll see his imps. Well, I must get on. Keep me informed, and be sure to keep an eye on the gentleman.”

Von Studmann had a very strenuous afternoon. The new dollar rate had not only necessitated refixing all the prices, but the entire budget had to be calculated anew. Studmann sat on pins in the directors’ boardroom. Vogel, the managing director, debated laboriously and at length, whether they should not, as a precaution against further dollar increases, add a certain amount to the present charges so as not to become “impoverished.”

“We must maintain our stores and establishment, gentlemen. Maintain them.” And he set forth that the stock of alabaster soft soap, for instance, had fallen in the past year from seventeen hundredweights to half a hundredweight.

In spite of his superior’s disapproving glances, Studmann kept on dashing out into the hall. From four o’clock onwards the whole staff had to deal with the reception of a rush of incoming guests, and this stream met and blocked another stream of people who had suddenly made up their minds to depart.

Studmann gave only a brief nod when Süskind whispered that the gentleman in No. 37 had taken a bath, gone to bed, and had then ordered a bottle of cognac and one of champagne to be taken to his room.

So he’s a drinker, he thought. If he starts a row I’ll send the hotel doctor up to give him a sleeping draught.

And he hurried away.

When he next left the boardroom again, the managing director was holding forth on the ruinous effect preserved eggs were having on the hotel trade. Nevertheless, under present conditions, it should be considered whether or not a certain stock … since the supply of new-laid eggs … and unfortunately also of chilled eggs …

Idiot, thought von Studmann, rushing away, and was surprised to find himself so irritable. He ought to be used to all this dawdling by now. It must be the storm.

Süskind stopped him. “It’s starting, Herr Director,” he said, his face lugubrious above his black tie.

“What’s starting? Be quick about it, Süskind. I’ve no time to waste.”

“The gentleman in No. 37, Herr Director,” said Süskind reproachfully. “He says there’s a slug in the champagne.”

“A slug?” Von Studmann could not help laughing. “Nonsense, Süskind, he’s pulling your leg. How could there be a slug in the champagne? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“But there is a slug in it,” Süskind continued, worried. “I saw it with my own eyes. A great big black slug.”

“You saw it?” Studmann suddenly became serious. He began to think. That there should be slugs in the champagne in this establishment was quite impossible. “We don’t sell adulterated champagne here. He must have put it in himself by a trick. Take him another bottle and don’t charge him. Here—for the butler.” And he scribbled a wine slip.

“Watch him, Süskind, see that he doesn’t play us a trick again.”

Süskind bowed his utterly perplexed head. “Wouldn’t you like to go yourself? I’m afraid.…”

“Nonsense, Süskind. I’ve no time for such rubbish. If you can’t settle it yourself, take the butler with you as a witness, or anyone else you like.”

Studmann was already gone. In the hall the famous iron magnate, Brachwede, was shouting that he had rented an apartment for ten millions daily, and on the bill he had been charged fifteen. The magnate had to be informed of what he already knew, that is, the rise in the dollar. Here Studmann had to persuade, there to smile, elsewhere to give a stern hint to a page to be more careful; he had to superintend the transportation of a crippled lady in the lift; to refuse three telephone calls.…

The mournful Süskind stood behind him again.

“Herr Director. Please, Herr Director,” he begged in a truly old-fashioned nerve-racking stage whisper.

“What’s the matter now, Süskind?”

“The gentleman in 37, Herr Director.…”

“What is it this time? What is it? Another slug in the champagne?”

“Herr Tuchmann (this was the butler) is just opening the eleventh bottle—there were slugs in all of them.”

“In all of them?” von Studmann almost shouted. Feeling that the hotel guests had their eyes on him he lowered his voice. “Have you gone mad too, Süskind?”

Süskind nodded gloomily. “The gentleman is screaming that he won’t stand black slugs, he’s screaming.…”

“Come along,” Studmann cried and rushed up to the first floor, heedless of the dignified demeanor which the assistant director of so distinguished an establishment ought to maintain in every situation. Süskind, the woe-begone, followed him. Together they sprinted through the puzzled guests—and at once the rumor circulated, whence nobody knew, that the coloratura soprano, Contessa Vagenza, who was to have appeared that evening in the big concert hall, had just given birth to a child.

They arrived simultaneously at No. 37. In view of the information he had received, Studmann was of the opinion that he need not concern himself with time-wasting formalities—he knocked and entered without waiting for an invitation, closely followed by Süskind, who was careful to shut the baize inner door so as to deaden the noise of a possible dispute.

The room was a large one, the electric light full on. The curtains of the two windows were closely drawn. The door leading to the bathroom was shut—also locked, as was to be discovered later. The key had been removed.

The guest was lying in the wide modern bed of chromium steel. The sickly yellow of his skin, which had so struck Studmann in the hall, looked more ghastly still against the white of the pillows. He wore crimson pajamas made of what looked like a costly brocade, its thick yellow embroidery seeming pale against the bilious face. One powerful hand, displaying a strikingly handsome signet ring, lay on the blue silk counterpane. The other was hidden beneath the cover. Von Studmann saw, too, on the table which had been pushed up to the bed, a display of cognac and champagne bottles which astounded him. A much larger number must have been brought up than the eleven mentioned by Süskind. At the same time he realized that the overanxious waiter had not been content with the butler as a witness; near the table stood a small but embarrassed group of people consisting of a page, the chambermaid, an elevator boy and a gray female who was probably in temporary employment as a charwoman.

For a moment Studmann wondered whether he should, as a preliminary, turn out these witnesses to a possible scandal, but a glance at the guest’s face, which was twitching uncontrollably, showed him that speed was called for. So he went up to the bed, introduced himself with a bow, and waited for results.

At once the twitching stopped. “Very unpleasant.” The guest spoke through his nose in that arrogant military manner which von Studmann thought had become extinct long ago. “Extremely unpleasant for—you. Slugs in the champagne—filthy.”

“I see no slugs,” said von Studmann after a glance at the champagne glasses and bottles. What perturbed him was not this silly complaint, but the look of unbridled hatred in the guest’s dark eyes, eyes which were impudent and cowardly at the same time, an expression Studmann had never seen before.

“They are there!” screamed the guest so suddenly that everybody started. He was sitting up in bed, one hand clawing at the quilt, the other still covered.

On your guard, said von Studmann to himself. He’s up to something!

“They’ve all seen the slugs. Take this bottle; no, that one.”

With an appearance of unconcern Studmann held the bottle up to the light. He was convinced that the champagne was quite in order, and that the guest knew it as well as he did. For some reason which Studmann did not know yet, but would probably soon learn, he must have bamboozled the waiter and the butler.

“Look out, Herr Director,” Süskind shouted. Studmann wheeled round. But it was too late. Absorbed in looking at the bottle, Studmann had lost sight of the guest who, with incredible deftness, had slipped out of bed and locked the door. He stood now with the key in one hand, a revolver in the other.

Von Studmann had been some years at the Front—a weapon aimed at him was not unduly disturbing. What did frighten him was the expression of hatred and despair on the mysterious stranger’s face. At the same time this face was without a grimace, but it smiled, and a very sneering smile it was, too.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Studmann asked curtly.

“It means,” said the guest in low but distinct tones, “that the room is now under my control. Who disobeys will be shot.”

“Are you after our money? The result would be hardly worth your while. Are you not the Baron von Bergen?”

“Waiter,” said the stranger. He stood there, magnificent in the pajamas of crimson and yellow. “Waiter, pour cognac into seven champagne glasses. I shall count up to three and anyone who has not emptied his glass by then will stop a bullet. Now, hurry!”

With a look of entreaty toward von Studmann, Süskind obeyed.

“Why this unseemly jest?” von Studmann asked indignantly.

“You’re to drink,” said the hospitable one. “One—two—three—drink, will you. Drink up!”

He was shouting again.

The others looked at Studmann. Studmann hesitated.…

The stranger shouted again. “Empty your glasses!” He shot, and it was not only the women who screamed. Alone, von Studmann would have risked a struggle with the man, but he checked himself in consideration for the distracted people present and the hotel’s reputation.

He turned round and remarked calmly: “Drink, then,” smiling encouragement at the anxious faces; and himself drank.

There were several gulps of cognac in each glass. Studmann got rid of his quickly, but he heard the others behind him choking and panting.

“You must drink it all up,” said the stranger aggressively. “Who doesn’t is to be shot.”

Von Studmann couldn’t turn round, he had to keep an eye on the guest. He was still hoping that the man would look away for a moment and thus make it possible for him to snatch the weapon.

“You sent your bullet into the ceiling,” he said politely. “I must thank you for your consideration. May I ask why we’re to get drunk here?”

“I don’t want to shoot, though I don’t mind either way. What I do want is that you should get drunk. Nobody will leave this room alive until every drop of alcohol has been swallowed. Waiter, pour out the champagne.”

“That’s it,” said von Studmann, who was determined to keep the conversation going. “That’s what I understood. But I am interested to know why you want us to get drunk.”

“Because I like my little joke. Now drink.”

Someone from behind pushed a champagne glass into Studmann’s hand. He drank. “Oh,” he said, “because it amuses you? All right.” And then as nonchalantly as possible: “I presume you know that you’re insane?”

And the other just as imperturbably: “For six years I’ve been declared incapable of managing my own affairs and have been put into a loony house. Waiter, now let’s have say half a glass of cognac. I don’t want to hurry you. I want the pleasure to last longer,” he explained. And again imperturbably: “I couldn’t stand the shooting at the Front. They were shooting only at me. Since then I shoot alone. Drink!”

Von Studmann drank, and felt the alcohol rising like a fine mist into his brain. Without turning his head, he saw, out of the corner of his eye, Süskind at the other end of the room stealing toward the bathroom door. But the Baron had also seen him. “Unfortunately locked,” he said, smiling, and Süskind, with a regretful movement of his shoulders, vanished out of the assistant director’s range of vision.

Von Studmann heard a woman behind him gasp and the men whispering. “Look out, look out!” something was saying within him. Then his head was quite clear again.

“I see,” he said. “But how do we come to have the honor of drinking with you in this hotel if you are put away in an institution?”

“Cleared out,” the Baron laughed. “They’re such fools. Won’t the old chap curse when he fetches me back! I made a fine job of it, apart from the attendant whose nut I cracked. It’s going too slowly,” he muttered peevishly. “Much too slowly. Another cognac, waiter. A full glass.”

“I’d prefer champagne,” Studmann hazarded.

It was a mistake.

“Cognac,” the visitor screamed. “Cognac! Who doesn’t drink cognac will be shot. It’s all the same to me!” he shouted significantly to Studmann. “Under paragraph fifty-one I can’t be punished. I’m the Reichsfreiherr Baron von Bergen. No policeman can touch me. I’m insane. Drink!”

This is going badly, thought von Studmann desperately as the oily stuff trickled down his throat. The women are already laughing and giggling—in five minutes the lunatic will have got me, too, where he wants to have us, the sane groveling like crazy animals before the insane. I must see if …

But there was nothing to see. With undivided attention the fool stood by the door, the pistol in his hand, his finger on the trigger, very much on guard.

“Pour out,” he ordered again. “A full glass of champagne to refresh the palate.”

“Right-o, mister, right-o,” someone called, probably a page, and the others laughed their assent.

“You’re a gentleman.” Studmann made another attempt. “I suggest we let the two ladies go. None of the others will try to get out. I give you my word of honor.”

“Ladies out—nothing doing!” someone bawled from behind. “Isn’t that so, kitten? We don’t get a treat like this every day.”

“You hear?” the Baron answered. “Another drink—cognac this time. And sit down. That’s right—on the sofa. Come, on the bed, too. You will also sit down, Herr Director. Come on! Do you think I’m joking? I’ll shoot! There!” The revolver spoke again. There were screams. “So—another drink. And now make yourselves comfortable. Coats and collars off—you over there, take off your apron, girl. Yes, you can take off your blouses if you like.”

“Herr Baron,” remonstrated von Studmann, “we’re not in a brothel. I refuse to …” But he realized that, under the influence of alcohol, will and deed were no longer running parallel; his frock coat now hung over the back of a chair, and he was fumbling with his tie. “I refuse,” he objected once more, feebly.

“Drink,” shouted the visitor. With a sneer: “In five minutes you won’t refuse any longer. Champagne this time.”

There was a crash and clatter of breaking glass. Süskind had fallen across the table, then dropped to the floor. Now he lay there, gasping, obviously unconscious.

The giggling butler, his fat paw clasping the girl’s breast, sat on the bed. The elderly charwoman held a boy in each arm; she was as red as a turkey-cock and no longer aware of the world around her.

“You’re to drink,” screamed the madman. “You, mister, it’s your turn to pour out. Champagne!”

In three minutes I’m lost, thought Studmann, reaching for the champagne bottle. In three minutes he would be as far gone as the others.

In his hand the bottle felt cool and firm, and suddenly his head cleared. It’s quite simple, he thought.

The bottle changed into a bomb. He pulled out the pin and threw it at the other’s head. He leaped after it.

The Baron dropped key and pistol, and flopped to the floor. “You mustn’t touch me,” he shouted. “I’m insane. I’m protected by paragraph fifty-one. Don’t hit me, please don’t, or you’ll make yourself criminally liable. I’m immune.” And while, in a drunken fury, von Studmann thrashed the miserable creature, he thought angrily: I’ve been taken in by him, after all. He’s only a coward, like those who messed their trousers at every barrage. I should have punched his mug the first minute.

Then his stomach turned against beating the soft cowardly whimpering thing on the floor. Catching sight of the key, he picked it up, staggered to his feet, opened the door and stepped outside.

The large gathering of people who had sought shelter from the storm in the big hall of the hotel were startled at the appearance on the first-floor landing of a man with bleeding face and torn shirt sleeves, reeling along the gorgeous red stair carpet. At first only a few saw him, but soon an expectant silence caused others to turn round, too, and they in their turn stared as if they could not believe their eyes.

The gentleman stood swaying on the top of the stairs, glaring down into the crowded hall. He seemed not to know where he was. He mumbled something which no one could understand, but the silence spread until the music from the adjoining café could be clearly heard.

Rittmeister von Prackwitz got up from his chair and gazed at the apparition with amazement.

The hotel employees looked up, stared, wanted to do something about it, but were at a loss.

“Fools!” shouted the drunkard. “Mad! They think they’re immune. But I thrash them.”

He called down again to those staring up at him. “I’ll thrash you, you fools.”

He lost his balance. “Upsey,” he chirped and managed the next six steps. Then he tumbled forward, rolled down the staircase and came to rest at the feet of the visitors, who fell back. He lay motionless and unconscious.

“Where shall we take him?” Rittmeister von Prackwitz muttered, gripping him under the armpits.

Suddenly the staff surrounded the casualty. The guests were edged away, and Studmann—Prackwitz with him—was taken down the stairs to the corridor leading to the storerooms and kitchen quarters. Preliminary rumors circulated. “A young German-American. Not used to alcohol; prohibition, you know. Dollar-millionaire, dead drunk.”

Three minutes afterwards everything was normal again; people gossiped, were bored, asked for their letters, telephoned, had a look at the storm.

VIII

Between six and seven o’clock in the evening, when Wolfgang Pagel stepped out of the art dealer’s in Bellevuestrasse, it was still raining, though not so heavily. He looked up and down the street, uncertain. Taxis were available at the Esplanade Hotel as well as by the Rolandsbrunnen; they would have taken him quickly enough to Petra, but an obstinate caprice forbade him to touch money which was dedicated to her.

He pulled the old army cap firmly on and set out. He could easily be with Petra in half an hour. A little while ago, although penniless, he had had a free ride by tram to Potsdamerplatz. Although the picture he carried made him conspicuous to any conductor, the evening rush heightened by the weather had enabled him to travel without paying his fare. Now, with an incredible sum in his pockets, he dared not risk such a free trip; if he were caught he would be forced to take a ticket and thus break in upon his millions.

Pagel whistled contentedly as he walked along the endless garden wall by the Reich Chancellor’s palace. He knew quite well that this deliberation about fares or no fares was ridiculous and that it was more important (and also more decent) to bring Petra speedy help—but he shrugged his shoulders. He was once more the gambler. He had made up his mind, come what might, to stake only on red; and he would stake only on red. The devil might come for him, the chances might be against him as much as they liked. But red would win through. Petra’s case would come to a satisfactory end only if he carried out his intention to place the 760,000,000 marks intact in her hands. But if 10,000 marks or only 1,000 were missing, then the black consequences could not be foreseen.

Perhaps silly, certainly superstitious—but how could you be sure? This life was so complicated, turned up so unexpectedly, contradicted every rule of logic, every careful calculation—was there not a chance of catching it out by means of superstitions, wild ideas, absurdities and follies? Very well then, Wolfgang, it was all right; and if it wasn’t, it would work out just the same. Whether one made a mistake according to logic or folly was the private amusement of each individual. He, Wolfgang Pagel, plumped for folly.

As I am, so I remain, forever and ever. Amen.

Seven hundred and sixty million marks. A good round thousand dollars. Four thousand two hundred prewar marks. A nice little sum in the evening for one who at midday had had to beg Uncle for a single dollar. For whom two rolls and a very battered enamel can of adulterated coffee were beyond hope in the morning.

Pagel arrived at the Brandenburger Tor. He would have liked to pause for a moment to get out of the everlasting rain and dry his face, but it was not possible—the arches were thronged with beggars, hawkers and war-wounded. The rain had driven them from the entrances of the Tiergarten and the Pariserplatz into this shelter, and if Pagel were to place himself among them his inability to say no would endanger the inviolable treasure. He therefore fled from himself and the entreaties of the beggars into the rain again—hard-hearted out of weakness not hardness, like many another.

He carried himself rather stiffly, his hands guarding the pockets of his tunic. The money was in danger of getting wet. He did not forget for a moment that he was carrying a sum of 760 millions on him. A quarter of this sum, that is 250 dollars, was in good American notes, magnificent paper dollars, the most coveted currency in the Berlin of the day.…

I could afford to let the whole town dance tonight, he thought, and whistled contentedly. The remainder—570 millions—was in German notes, some of it in incredibly small denominations.

But the way it had been got together! It had been difficult enough to drag this sum out of the art chap that evening. No such amount of money was available in the place, nor could they send to the banks—they were closed by then. An advance certainly, and the balance tomorrow morning, nine-thirty, by messenger to any place in Berlin which Herr Pagel might designate. Herr Pagel would trust them for this sum, would he not? And at that the dealer, a massive man with rather a red face and a black Assyrian beard, had looked along his walls in affectionate pride.

Wolfgang followed this glance. He was sufficiently the son of his father to be able to understand the man’s pride in, and affection for, his pictures—this man who looked as if he had no concern with art.

Across the road, two blocks farther along by Potsdamerstrasse, the “Sturm” gallery also sold pictures. He had stood there now and then with Peter for quite a time and looked at these Marcs, Kampendocks, Klees and Noldes. Sometimes he had had to laugh or to shake his head or to complain, for many of the works were merely a colossal impudence—those were the times of Cubism, Futurism, and Expressionism. Scraps of newspaper were stuck together and made into pictures, and the world was carved up into triangles which one itched to put together again like a jigsaw puzzle. But sometimes, standing there, one had been thrilled. A feeling was stirred, you were affected, a chord had been touched. Would these rotten times give birth to something living?

But here at this rich man’s, who bought pictures only if he liked them, and who was not greatly interested in their sale, here one saw no such experiments or gropings. Even in the reception room there was a Corot, some pond bathed in reddish light; and redder still the cap of the solitary ferryman who was poling his boat off an embankment. There was a magnificent van Gogh, an immense expanse of green and yellow field and an even wider expanse of blue sky already darkened by the threat of an oncoming storm; a Gauguin of mild brown girls with beautiful bosoms; yes, and a Pointillist like Signac, a Rousseau, childlike and awkward, a peaceful animal scene by Zügel, Leistikow’s red sunny pine trees. These, however, were far removed from the experimental stage—they had been tested by the understanding, judged worthy of love, and were now loved. You could trust this man.

But Wolfgang Pagel equally realized that here he could demand whatever he wanted. He could be so unreasonable as to require them, after six o’clock in the evening, where there was no money left in the establishment, to scrape together a sum of 760 millions. He was as wet as a drowned cat when he first entered and produced the picture from under his tunic, where he had endeavored to shelter it from the storm. The gentleman, soft as an over-ripe plum, who had been shown it, said in matter-of-fact tones, but with a suspicious glance: “Certainly, a Pagel of the best period. You are selling on account of whom?” And Pagel felt that they would buy the picture on any condition and that he could dictate his own terms.

On his reply that he was selling on his own account, the over-ripe plum had called in the proprietor who, without making the slightest ado about the man in the tunic (in these times the most unlikely and shabby creatures sold most unlikely and precious possessions), had briefly remarked: “Set it down over there. Of course I know it, Dr. Mainz. Family property. An uncommonly good Pagel—sometimes he transcended himself. Not often—three or four times.… Mostly he’s too pretty for me. Too slick and smooth, eh?”

He had turned to Wolfgang. “But you don’t understand anything of that sort, do you? You only want money? As much as possible?”

Under the sudden attack Pagel started. He felt himself blushing crimson.

“I am the son,” he said as calmly as possible.

It was sufficient.

“I’m tremendously sorry,” the dealer said. “I admit I’m an ass. I ought to have seen the likeness, especially about the eyes—about the eyes if nowhere else. Your father has often been here. Yes, in his wheel-chair, to see some pictures. He liked pictures. Do you also like pictures?”

Again this abrupt, sudden—well, it was really an attack. At least Wolfgang felt it so. He had never considered whether the picture he had taken away from his mother was a good one or not. Fundamentally, the dealer had guessed correctly; even if he were the son, the transaction was only a question of money—although the money was for Peter.

With vexation mingled with sadness he realized that he really was the man he was estimated to be.

“Yes, I like them quite well,” he replied, sullen.

“It’s a very fine work,” said the dealer pensively. “I’ve already seen it twice; no, three times. Your mother didn’t want me to look at it. Does she agree to a sale?”

Again an attack. Pagel became annoyed. God, what a fuss about a picture, barely half a yard of painted canvas. A picture was something to look at if one wanted to; one wasn’t compelled, it wasn’t necessary. One could live without pictures; but not without money.

“No,” he said crossly. “My mother doesn’t agree to a sale.”

The dealer looked at him politely and waited in silence.

“She made me a gift of this”—with feigned indifference—“thing here; one makes presents to members of one’s family, you know. As I needed money, I remembered it. I’m selling it,” he added emphatically, “against my mother’s wishes.”

The dealer listened quietly; then he announced casually, but in a noticeably colder voice, “Yes, yes, I understand, of course.”

The over-ripe Dr. Mainz, who had vanished unnoticed, now re-entered. The dealer looked at his assistant (fine arts degree), and the assistant nodded briefly. “In any case,” said the dealer, “your mother raises no objection to its sale. I have just had her rung up,” he added, in answer to Pagel’s inquiring glance. “Now please don’t think I’m suspicious. I am a man of business, a prudent man of business. I don’t want any trouble.”

“And what will you pay?” Pagel asked abruptly. His mother could have prevented the sale with a word. She had not done so, and Wolfgang felt that the break was final. He could go his own way; from now onwards and forever his way was alone. She had no further interest in him.

“I’ll pay,” said the dealer, “a thousand dollars; that is, seven hundred and sixty millions of marks. If you would let me have the picture on commission I would exhibit it here and sell it on your account, and you might get a very much higher figure. But if I have understood you correctly, you need the money at once.”

“At once, within an hour.”

“Now, let’s say tomorrow morning,” smiled the dealer. “That’s pretty prompt. I’ll send my messenger with the money to whatever place you like.”

“Now!” said Pagel. “This very hour. I must …”

The dealer looked at him attentively. “We’ve sent our cash in hand to the bank,” he said kindly, as if he were explaining to a child. “I don’t keep money here overnight. But tomorrow morning …”

“Now,” said Pagel and laid his hand on the frame of the picture, “or the sale will not come off.”

He had correctly summed up the situation. True, the dealer disapproved of a rebellious son who took away from his mother and sold a cherished picture; true, since he had learned that fact the temperature of the conversation had fallen; but in spite of his disapproval he would not for one moment hesitate to make use of that combination of circumstances to buy. This man with the black Assyrian beard, tall, assured and rich, had his weak spot—we all have. There was not the slightest reason for Pagel to feel ashamed; on the contrary. He (Pagel) was forced to sell; the big man was not obliged to buy.

Pagel spoke quietly. “I must have the whole amount in half an hour. I need the money this evening, not tomorrow morning. There are other buyers …”

The art dealer made a gesture which signified that this picture at any rate was no longer the concern of any other dealer. “The money shall be found somehow. At the moment I don’t exactly know how. But it will be found.”

He whispered to his assistant, Mainz, who nodded and went out.

“Please come with me, Herr Pagel. Yes, you can leave the picture here—I have bought it.”

Pagel was shown into the dealer’s office, a large gloomy room. Here the only pictures on the walls were some bold and dashing charcoal drawings by an unknown artist.

“Please sit down. Over there. Here are cigarettes. Whisky and soda I’ll put within your reach. It may take”—slightly sarcastic—“even thirty-five minutes. So make yourself comfortable—come in!”

One after another the employees of the establishment entered, beginning with the historians of art with their degrees and ending with the totally unlettered charwomen who had by now started their evening work. Dr. Mainz had instructed them, and they went without a word to their employer’s desk, pulled their fortunes out of pockets, waistcoat pockets, purses or wallets, and laid it down while their chief counted. “Dr. Mainz, one million four hundred and thirty-five thousand. Fräulein Siebert, two hundred and sixty thousand. Fräulein Plosch, seven hundred and thirty-three thousand. I thank you, Fräulein Plosch.”

There must have existed in this firm a good relationship between employer and employee, for everyone gave as a matter of course. These shorthand-typists, accountants, gallery attendants, forwent what they had intended to do that evening. Sometimes they cast a look at the gentleman in the chair who was drinking whisky and soda, and smoking; it was not a look of hostility, but of detachment. Immaterial to them why this man in the shabby tunic needed money so urgently that they had to forgo their evening pleasures; but it did concern them if a picture which their chief wanted to buy was taken away from the firm. The giving up, counting, noting down of the money, was taken by both sides quite naturally; without exaggerated thanks or facetiousness and without embarrassed explanations on the side of the employer—a naturalness which almost induced Pagel to explain and excuse himself, to say that he really needed the money that evening, that his girl was in prison and he ought …

Yes, what ought he to do? Have money at once, at any rate, plenty of money!

Wolfgang Pagel said nothing.

“Stop, Fräulein Bierla,” said the dealer. “I see you have still fifty thousand in your purse. Excuse me, but this evening we have to scrape together every mark.”

Embarrassed, the beautiful brunette muttered something about fares.

“You don’t need any money for fares. Dr. Mainz has ordered taxis for closing time. The drivers will take you wherever you want to go.”

The paper money piled up. The dealer, rummaging in his own pocket-book and emptying it, said disparagingly to Dr. Mainz: “If you read the newspapers and listen to what people say, you hear that everyone is swimming in money. It’s in every pocket, it crackles in every hand. But here is what twenty-seven people, you and me included, carry on them. Not even seven hundred marks in peace time. A ridiculously exaggerated affair, this era of ours. If the people saw clearly, for once, how few figures stand in front of so many noughts they wouldn’t allow themselves to be so bemused.”

Dr. Mainz whispered something hurried and urgent.

“Yes, of course, telephone immediately. Meanwhile I’ll go to my wife. I’m sure to get money there.”

While Dr. Mainz telephoned some Herr Director Nolte, who ought to be receiving 250 paper dollars that evening, but was now asked to wait till tomorrow morning, Pagel reflected what an unaccustomed disorder had been brought into this place by his demand. But he realized with surprise in what an orderly fashion the disorder was being cleared up, without noise or bustle—taxis waiting at the door, every employee being driven where he wanted, the individual amounts neatly noted on a piece of paper.… In the moment disorder arose everything was being done to remove it in the shortest possible time.

I’ve also let disorder arise, he thought gloomily, but it never occurred to me to remove it. It has increased, has invaded spheres of which I never dreamed. Now all my life is in disorder.

He remembered how often he had asked Petra to dress before Frau Thumann brought in the morning coffee. I’ve always played a part to myself and, above all, to her, he thought. Disorder is not turned into order by putting a blanket over it. On the contrary—it is turned into something which no one dares to defend. Into a lying, cowardly disorder. Did Peter understand that? What did she really think? Was that the reason why she put so much value on our marrying? For the sake of order? She always did what I suggested, without protest. Fundamentally I know nothing about what she really thought.

The dealer returned, laughing and flourishing a fat wad of notes.

“At my house everyone’s staying at home tonight. My wife’s delighted; she was going to some ghastly first night, followed by a celebration of the dramatist already bursting with his own importance. She’s glad that we can’t go now, and is telephoning all the world enthusiastically, declaring that we’re without a penny—tomorrow I shall read about my insolvency in the newspapers. And you, Dr. Mainz?”

It appeared that Dr. Mainz, too, had been successful. Herr Director Nolte would wait for his 250 dollars till tomorrow morning.

“A thousand dollars—seven hundred and sixty millions,” said the dealer. “It took,” he pulled out his watch, “thirty-eight minutes to collect, however. I must apologize for the eight minutes.”

Why does he scoff at me? thought Pagel, exasperated. He should rather ask me why I need the money. People often do find themselves in situations where they need cash immediately. People very easily find themselves in such situations, but the question of responsibility also arises. Am I to blame for the blunders of the police? He became annoyed.

“It’s rather a lot of paper, but such is the spirit of our age,” the art dealer smiled. “Shall I have it tied up for you? You would rather put it in your pockets? It’s raining hard. Well, you’ll probably take a taxi.… Immediately to the right, as you go out of the door, in front of the Hotel Esplanade.… Or shall I call one?”

“No, thank you,” Pagel had replied grumpily, stuffing the notes into his pockets. “I’ll walk.”

And now he was passing through Königstrasse, wet through, his hands protectingly over his two outer pockets. People might get angry with him as his mother did, or mock him as this picture chap did; they might get into difficulties as Peter did; but he was going to do exactly what he wanted, and full steam ahead. He wouldn’t break into the money; he had no intention of taking a taxi even though his pockets were bursting with money. If he didn’t want to, then neither rain nor necessity could force him.

Nor did he go straight to the police station where Petra was confined; he went first to Frau Thumann, to look round. Now as ever he was convinced that there was plenty of time for everything. He was like a mule: the more he was thrashed the more obstinate he became.

Or was he, perhaps, afraid of what he would learn at the police station? Was he afraid of the shame he would feel when he saw Petra in such a deplorable situation?

Whistling, he crossed Alexanderplatz and turned into Landsbergerstrasse. What would give Petra greater pleasure—a tobacco shop or a flower shop? Or perhaps an ice-cream bar?

IX

Oberwachtmeister Leo Gubalke was not the sort of man who, on duty or off, was inclined to interference, spite, or bickering. That terrible temptation was not his which besets a man into whose mouth the words of power are placed: “Obey or die!” Although now and then he was subject to those petty meannesses from which no self-esteem is immune, it was always his exaggerated sense of order and punctuality which led him astray.

It was this which had made him remove Petra Ledig from the doorway in Georgenkirchstrasse. It was this which, in reply to his superintendent’s reproachful “What’s the matter with you, Gubalke? You—of all people—twenty minutes late,” made him report: “An arrest. This girl is connected with gamblers.”

These last words, which he would never have uttered had he not been delayed—nothing being further from his thoughts than to do harm—were for some hours all that the police station knew about the arrest. Oberwachtmeister Gubalke had only wished to remove a half-naked girl from the streets, intending to give her a seat in the police station, and then get her something to eat. During the course of the evening he would have found out what sort of girl she was, would have begged some garments for her from a relief committee and, after a lecture on order and unseemly conduct, discharged her into the world again.

And instead of carrying out these good intentions, Herr Gubalke had reported that she was connected with gamblers. An unpunctuality which can only be excused by a kind heart and compassion remains an unpunctuality; this remark about gamblers turned the unpunctuality into a necessary official action. Until the moment when that remark, never to be recalled, escaped his lips, Gubalke had not even dreamed of ascribing to the girl any complicity in the vice of gambling, which he knew about only through women’s gossip. But man is a weak creature and with most of us—men and women alike—the tongue is weakness’s weakest point. Under the necessity of justifying himself, Gubalke entangled Petra’s fate with that of a gambler; and, as a finishing touch, turned a single gambler into gamblers.

It is certain that the Oberwachtmeister did not realize the far-reaching consequences to Petra Ledig of these few words. Hastily he buckled on his pistol, hooked on his rubber truncheon and thought only of going as quickly as possible to the assistance of his comrades in Kleine Frankfurterstrasse, in trouble with some street gangs. He was in such a hurry that he did not even look at the girl on his way out. If he thought of her again, it was certainly not with a bad conscience. At any rate she had been removed from the street into the safety of the police station, and at the latest he would be back in a couple of hours to deal with the matter.

Unfortunately, two hours later the Oberwachtmeister was lying in hospital at the Friedrichshain, mortally wounded, his bowels lacerated by a murderer’s bullet. He died the most disorderly, filthy and lingering death which could finish off such a clean and orderly man. The case of Petra Ledig was forever beyond his influence.

Nevertheless he did influence it. By the time the news of Gubalke’s murder reached the agitated police station, Petra Ledig had spent two hours there, unmolested and almost unperturbed. Except for a trifling incident, nothing worth mentioning had happened to her. An indifferent man or other in uniform, neither kind nor unkind, had pushed her into a small cell rather like a cage in the Zoo, with three solid walls, and a fourth of bars facing the charge-room. To her request that they should bring her something to eat, no matter what, as the Herr Wachtmeister had promised, the indifferent man at first mumbled that they had no facilities there, and that she must wait until she arrived at Alexanderplatz. After a while, however, he appeared with a thick crust of dry bread and a cup of coffee. He handed them to her between the bars.

Nothing better could have been given the half-starved Petra as her first nourishment. The stale and very hard crust compelled her to nibble away at extremely small fragments, which had to be chewed for a long time. In the beginning she was assailed again and again by waves of nausea. The stomach refused to keep down the food, to restart its activity. Huddled on the bench, her eyes closed, her head pressed against the corner of the cell, Petra heroically attacked her nausea, one sweat of weakness following another. Again and again she forced the food back into her stomach. I must eat, she thought dully, exhausted but unyielding. She was not eating for herself alone.

The crust of bread, which a three-year-old child would have managed in five minutes, lasted almost half an hour. But when she had finished it a physical warmth filled her, a feeling akin to spiritual bliss.

All this time she had not been conscious of the world around her, but now that she felt restored she began to take an interest in the life of the charge-room. That world held no shocks for her. Anyone who came from the place she had come from could not be afraid of greed or vulgarity, vice or drunkenness. All was part and parcel of human life, an expression of it, as was indeed Wolfgang’s smile and embrace, pleasure at a new dress, or the display in the window of a flower shop.

Nor did anything happen in the next half-hour to frighten her. They brought in a starved-looking youth who, as the half-audible examination showed, had tried to steal a pair of shoes from a department store; a drunken bilker; an unhappy woman in a shawl who, it seemed, took furnished rooms only with the intention of stealing something from them; and a man who sold gold-plated watches as solid gold, and found buyers by pretending that this unique opportunity was the result of picking a pocket.

All this wreckage washed into the charge-room underwent examination with composure; the prisoners wandered resignedly into cages which were locked behind them by the uninterested man in uniform.

Then the noise started. Two policemen brought in a woman, dead drunk and raving. They almost had to carry her. With benevolence—or what looked like it—they listened to the most filthy abuse; the girl, they said, had filched the pocketbook of her equally drunk gentleman escort, whom a third policeman now brought in. Rather pale and stupid-looking, he evidently grasped very little of what was going on outside him, because he was too preoccupied with what was going on within him. He was very sick.

The girl’s drunken screaming prevented any of the evidence being recorded; the yellow, half-audible secretary could not prevail on her to keep quiet. Again and again she flew, with her long, red-lacquered, dirty nails, at the faces of the policemen, the secretary and her gentleman friend.

This girl Petra recognized with genuine fear, reminded of a time in her life which she had believed forgotten, and was ashamed of. She knew her, not by name, it is true, but from her activities in the better part of the West End, Tauentzienstrasse, Kurfürstendamm and, after the restaurants had closed, also in Augsburgerstrasse. On her beat she was called “The Hawk,” probably because of her thin curved nose and her unreasoning hostility to any rival.

In those bad days before Petra had asked Wolfgang to take her along with him she had encountered the Hawk on several of those rare occasions when, the lack of money having become too frightening, she had herself gone on the hunt for a paying gentleman. Probably about that time the Hawk had been placed under police supervision and from then on had, with a noisy hatred which stuck at nothing, persecuted any girl who did not belong to the “profession.” When she discovered someone poaching on her beat, accosting a gentleman or even only glancing at him, she would try first to bring in the police. If that did not succeed or no policeman was near, she would seek to lower the intruder in the eyes of her gentleman, starting from a bad accusation and going on to a worse; at first accusing her of being a thief, next of having a venereal disease, and so on and so on. Her ultimate weapon had been a howling screech, an hysterical yell of rage stimulated by cocaine and alcohol to an inconceivable pitch, whereupon the other’s gentleman took to his heels.

Petra had had always the feeling that the Hawk disliked her particularly, and persecuted her with an especial hatred. Once she had escaped assault only by headlong flight through the dark streets to Victoria-Luise Platz where she found a hiding place behind the half-circle of pillars. Another time, however, she had not been so lucky. The Hawk had dragged her out of the taxi into which she and a gentleman were stepping, and there had been a free fight (the gentleman escaping in the taxi). Petra’s dress had been torn to shreds and her umbrella broken.

All this was very long ago, almost a year—or was it more than a year? Petra had experienced so much since then; the gates of another world had opened to her, and yet she looked at her enemy with the same old fear. That enemy had changed, too, but for the worse. Drugs—cocaine and alcohol—had done their work on her; and the removal of her beat from the rich West End to the East End spoke eloquently of her fading charms. The smooth round cheeks had become haggard and wrinkled, the soft red mouth cracked and dry; every movement as jerky as a mad woman’s.

She screamed, spilling her venom, an incessant abuse. Whenever the yellow secretary asked a question she started again, as if the filth within her were continually and mysteriously renewed. At last he made a gesture to the two policemen, and they removed her from the charge-room to the cells, one of them saying quietly: “Come along, little girl, and sleep it off.”

She was just about to start her screaming again when she caught a glimpse of Petra through the bars. She stood still. “Have you got that bitch at last?” she shouted triumphantly. “Thank God! The damned whore! Is she already under supervision? What a sow! Takes all the gentlemen away from a decent girl and infects them, that tart, that dirty tart! She walks the streets, Herr Wachtmeister, day and night, and the filthy bitch is a mass of disease.”

“Come along, girl,” said the policeman quietly and, finger by finger, disengaged the clinging hand from the bars of Petra’s cell. “Have a proper sleep.”

The secretary had risen from his desk to approach them. “Take her away,” he said. “One can hardly hear oneself speak. It’s snow—when it’s worn off she’ll collapse like a wet rag.”

The policemen nodded; between them they supported the girl and took her away. Except for this assistance she was upheld only by a senseless fury which fed on anything. Even when she could no longer see Petra she still shouted abuse over her shoulder.

The secretary cast his sick tired glance (the whites of his eyes were yellow, too) on Petra, and asked in low tones: “Is it a fact? Have you walked the streets?”

Petra nodded. “Yes, a year ago. But not now.”

The secretary also nodded, wearily. He went back to his desk. But he stopped again, turned round. “Have you got a disease?” he asked.

Petra shook her head energetically. “No, never have had.”

The secretary nodded again, sat down at his desk and continued his interrupted writing. Life in the charge-room went on. Some of the arrested might have been afraid, fidgety and worried; perhaps the drunkards were tormented by visions; but outwardly everything went smoothly and well.

Until shortly after six o’clock, when the telephone announced that Oberwachtmeister Leo Gubalke was mortally injured in the stomach and would probably die before midnight. From that moment the aspect of the police station completely changed. Doors were continually banging; officers, in plain clothes or uniform, came and went. One whispered to another, a third joined in, a fourth cursed. And at half-past six Gubalke’s comrades returned, those he had wanted to help in their fight with the two gangs, the fight in which he was wounded by the only shot fired. The whispering continued. The desk was banged; a policeman stood grimly in a corner, swinging his rubber truncheon; the looks cast at the prisoners were no longer indifferent but stern.

Those, however, which were cast at Petra Ledig were of particular intensity. Everybody had been told by the secretary that she was “Leo’s last official act.” Gubalke, because he had arrested this girl, had been twenty minutes late. Had he been punctual and turned out with the others, in closed formation, he might not have been hit by the murderer’s bullet. In fact it was certain.

The man who was in this moment suffering a painful and slow death was thinking, perhaps, of his wife and children. Possibly, in his extreme pain, he was pleased to remember that his girls at least washed themselves as he did, and that he had left behind him a part of his being, a tiny symbol of what he regarded as order. Or he may have thought, in the valley of the shadow of death, that now he would never sit in a tidy office and keep orderly records, or he remembered his allotment garden, or he wondered whether the burial club, at the present rate of devaluation, would pay out enough money for a decent funeral. The dying man might be thinking of a variety of subjects, but the chances that he was thinking of Petra Ledig, his “last official act,” were very scanty.

And yet he, dying, took possession of this case, singled it out from all the others. His colleagues saw in Petra not an ordinary girl but the reason for the dying man’s having been twenty minutes late. Gubalke’s last official act must have been important.

The tall, heavy, melancholy-looking superintendent with the sergeant major’s mustache came into the room, stood beside the secretary’s desk and asked significantly: “Is that the girl?”

“That’s the girl,” confirmed the secretary in a low voice.

“He told me that she had dealings with gamblers. Nothing else.”

“I’ve not yet examined her,” whispered the secretary. “I wanted to wait till—he came back.”

“Examine her,” said the superintendent.

“The drunken woman who made such a row recognized her. She’s walked the streets. She admitted it, but maintained that it was some time ago.”

“Yes, he was very observant. He saw everything which was not in order. I shall miss him very much.”

“We shall all miss him. He was an excellent worker and a good comrade, and not at all pushing.”

“Yes, we shall all miss him. Examine her. Remember that the only reference he made was to gamblers.”

“I’ll remember. How could I forget it? I’ll put her through it.”

Petra was led to his desk. If she had not already noticed the significant glances or realized by the way they stood round her cell that something was amiss, the manner in which the yellow secretary now spoke to her must have revealed that the atmosphere had changed and to her disadvantage. Something must have happened to make them think badly of her—could it have something to do with Wolf? This uncertainty made her timid and embarrassed. Once or twice she referred to the kind Wachtmeister “who lives in our house,” but the blank silence with which this appeal was met by the superintendent and the secretary frightened her the more.

As long as the examination concerned herself alone, and she could stick to the truth, everything went fairly well. But when the question cropped up as to her friend’s means of subsistence, when the word “gambler” fell on her ears, then she felt cornered and confused.

Without hesitation she admitted that she had accosted men several times (“Perhaps eight or ten times, I can’t remember exactly”), had slept with them and received money for it. But she did not want to admit that Wolfgang was a gambler for money, and that this had been their main resource for some time. Since he had never made any secret of it she was not even sure whether gambling was illegal, but she preferred to be on the safe side and prevaricated. Even on this point the dying man had done her a disservice. The word “gambler” had a meaning here in the East End of Berlin quite different from what it had in the West End. A girl of doubtful character who walked the streets and had a permanent friend and also “had dealings with gamblers” could mean only one thing in the East End: she was the companion of a cardsharp, that is to say, a three-card trickster. In the eyes of the two police officers she was a girl who acted as a decoy for her friend and brought in victims to be fleeced.

In a police station in the other part of Berlin this reference to gamblers would have had a more obvious significance. The West End—everybody knew it—swarmed with gambling clubs frequented by half the Smart Set and certainly the whole of the demimonde. The police section which dealt with this evil hunted down these clubs night after night, but it was a Sisyphean labor—for every ten closed there sprang up twenty new ones. The gambling public was not prosecuted, otherwise half the population of the West End would have been imprisoned; the promoters and the croupiers only were arrested, and all money confiscated.

If Petra had explained that her friend frequented a West End gambling club, the police in the East End would have had no further interest in the matter. But she evaded their questions, affected ignorance, lied, was caught out once or twice and thereafter kept silent out of sheer bewilderment.

If the dying man had not held the threads of the case in his hands it would probably have petered out. There could not have been much in it; a girl who lied so clumsily and blushed at every lie, contradicting herself, could hardly be the decoy of an artful confidence man, or the accomplice of a dangerous criminal. But there was always the possibility that some grave but unknown matter might lie behind it all. Petra was shouted at, admonished in a fatherly manner, warned of consequences and, when all this did not make her speak frankly, led back to her cell.

“Send her to Alexanderplatz with the seven-o’clock van,” decided the superintendent. “Draw their attention in the minutes to the importance of the case.”

The secretary whispered.

“Certainly, we can try and get hold of the fellow. But he’s sure to have bolted by this time. Anyhow, I’ll send a man to Georgenkirchstrasse at once.”

Thus, when at seven o’clock the green police van stopped outside the police station, Petra, too, was put in. It was raining. She found herself sitting next to her enemy, the Hawk, but the secretary was quite right—the cocaine had worn off and the girl was in a state of collapse. Petra had to support her during the ride or she would have fallen off her seat.

X

He turned out of Landsbergerstrasse into Gollnowstrasse. He left behind Weinstrasse on the right, Landwehrstrasse on the left. To the right again he came to Fliederstrasse, a small street with but few houses. Here on the corner stood a low schnapps bar which Pagel had never before entered.

He ordered a glass of vermouth at the counter. It cost seventy thousand marks and tasted of fusel oil. He paid and went as far as the door before remembering that he had no more cigarettes. Lucky Strikes? They had none, but they had Camels. Not bad either, thought Pagel. He lit one and ordered another vermouth.

For a while he stood at the counter shivering in his wet clothes. The fusel-oil vermouth didn’t help much, so he took a double cognac, which tasted horribly of raw spirit. But a slight warmth was kindled in his stomach and slowly spread; an artificial warmth, not bringing that quiet happiness which Petra had felt after eating the crust of bread.

Pagel stood there indolently, looking with indifference at the smelly barroom with its noisy crowd. Apathy had seized him. He was convinced that already, before he had lifted a finger to help Petra, everything had miscarried. It didn’t matter in the least that the carefully guarded money had now been broken into. Indeed, he would have preferred it to flow from him, if possible, without his having to make any effort—for what could money do? But if money couldn’t help, what did? Must there be any help? Did anything matter?

As he stood there, so he would have preferred to stand forever; each step he took brought him nearer to a decision which he did not wish to make, which he wanted to delay as long as possible. It occurred to him that he had really done nothing else the whole day long but put off that decision. First of all he must have money, then he would go forth in grand style. Now he had the money—and he stood calmly waiting at the counter.

A young lad wearing a peaked cap down over his ear came up to him, sniffed the smoke from his cigarette and begged for one. “I’m mad on English cigarettes. Don’t be so stingy, you; at least give me your fag end.” Smiling, Wolfgang shook his head, and the face darkened. The lad turned away. Wolfgang put his hand into his pocket, extricated a cigarette, shouted “Catch” and threw it. The other caught it and nodded curtly. At once there were three or four lads round Pagel, also begging for cigarettes. Hastily he paid at the counter, noticing their eyes fixed on his thick wad of money, and as he went out he pushed aside with his shoulder a lad who tried to jostle him.

Pagel was now only three minutes’ walk from his room and this time he did not dawdle. But as he rang Madam Po’s bell he felt the stimulus which the encounter in the dram-shop had supplied dying away; boundless sadness fell on him again. It seemed to weigh him down as the dark storm clouds had done that afternoon.

In the corridor he heard Madam Po’s repulsive shuffle and her phlegmy cough, noises which somewhat dispersed the cloud of sadness, and he felt that he would punish this woman for what had happened—no matter what it was.

Cautiously the door was put on the jar, but he kicked it wide open and towered over the startled woman. “Oh, Lor’, Herr Pagel, what a fright you gave me!” she complained.

He stood silent, perhaps waiting for her to speak, for her to start to tell him what had happened. But he had obviously filled her with fear, for she didn’t utter a sound, only smoothed her apron with her hands.

Suddenly—a second ago Pagel himself hadn’t known that he would do it—his shoulder pushed aside the woman as it had done the lad in the schnapps bar, and without hesitating he went along the dark corridor toward his room.

Frau Thumann rushed up behind him. “Herr Pagel! Herr Pagel! Listen to me a second,” she whispered.

“Well?” He turned so suddenly that she was again scared.

“Lor’, what’s the matter with you, Herr Pagel? I don’t understan’ it.” She was very flustered. “It’s only that I’ve let your room. To a girlfriend of Ida’s. She’s in it now—not by ‘erself. You understand? Why are you looking at me like that? You want to frighten me. You needn’t, I’m frightened enough already. If only Willem’d come! You ain’t left anything there, and your girl having been fetched away by the coppers …”

She was under way again, was Madam Po. But Pagel listened no longer. He pushed open the door of his room—had it been locked he would have broken it open—and went in.

On the bed sat a half-naked female, prostitute, of course—on the same narrow iron bed in which he had slept that morning with Petra. A young man of no better appearance than substance was just unbuttoning his braces.

“Get out!” said Pagel to the startled pair.

Frau Thumann was lamenting in the doorway. “Herr Pagel, this is the last straw. I’ll call the police. This is my room and you not having paid I need money too. No, Lotte, don’t talk, the man’s cracked. They took his girl to the police station, and so he’s gone off his rocker.”

“Shut up!” said Pagel sharply and punched the youth in the back. “Hurry. Get out of my room! Look sharp!”

“I must really ask—” The youth made a timid show of resistance.

“I’m just in the mood,” said Pagel softly but very distinctly, “to give you a good hiding. If you and that whore are not out of my room in one minute …”

His voice failed. He was shaking from head to foot with fury. He had never for one moment intended to claim this damned filthy hole, but it would suit him admirably if this bloody counterjumper said one single word of opposition.

He did not, however. Silent and flurried, he buttoned up his braces, fumbled with his waistcoat and jacket …

At the door Madam Po was wailing. “Herr Pagel! Herr Pagel! I don’t understand you! You’re an educated man an’ we always got on so well, an’ me wanting to give a roll and a pot of coffee to your girl, only Ida wouldn’t stand for it.… Besides, everything was Ida’s fault, I’d got nothing against you. Lor’, now he sets my place on fire!”

Pagel, paying no attention to her, had been standing by the window, absent-mindedly watching the girl putting on her blouse in a great hurry. Then it occurred to him that he was no longer smoking. Lighting a cigarette, he eyed the burning match in his fingers. Beside him was the curtain, the repulsive, dingy curtain which he had always hated. He touched it with the match. The hem scorched and writhed, then burst into flame.

The girl and the Thumann woman screamed, the man made a step toward him, then hesitated.

“So!” said Pagel and crumpled the curtain up, thereby extinguishing the flame. “This is my room. What do I owe you, Frau Thumann? I’ll pay to the end of the month. Here!”

He gave her some money, any odd amount, a couple of notes, it didn’t matter. He was putting the wad back into his pocket when he noticed the girl looking at it with a pathetically covetous look. Supposing she knew, he thought with satisfaction, that this was only one of six such packets—and the least valuable at that.

“There!” he said to the girl and held it out.

She looked at the money, then at him, and he realized that she did not believe him. “All right, then,” he said indifferently and put the money away. “You’re a fool. If you’d taken it you could have kept it. Now you won’t get anything.”

He went to the door. “I’m going to the police, Frau Thumann. In an hour I’ll be back with my wife. See that there’s something for supper.”

“Certainly, Herr Pagel. But you haven’t paid for the curtain yet. A quarter of an hour ago a copper was looking for you. I told him you had ‘opped it.”

“Good. I’ll go there now.”

She hurried after him. “And, Herr Pagel, please don’t take it amiss. You’ll hear about it any’ow at the station. I only said you were a bit behind with the rent, and straightaway they made me sign something about fraud. But I’ll take it back, Herr Pagel, I didn’t mean it. I’ll go at once to the police and take it back. I didn’t want to do it, but he made me. I’ll be there right away. I must first get rid of the girl. A fool like her wouldn’t never have earned the rent, and you’ve seen what sort of a gent that was, Herr Pagel, with a dickey on …”

Pagel was already descending the stairs; the devil takes the hindmost, and so it was quite in keeping that Frau Thumann had laid a charge on account of fraud. It didn’t matter to him, but as regards Petra …

He returned. Madam Po had started to report the events to a neighbor on the landing. “If you’re not at the police station in twenty minutes, Frau Thumann,” he said, “there’ll be the devil of a row.”

The yellow secretary at the police station had had a bad day. It was a severe bilious attack, as he had feared in getting up that morning. Dull pressure in the region of his gall-bladder and a feeling of nausea had warned him. He knew quite well, and the surgeon had told him often enough, that he ought to report sick and undergo a course of treatment. But what married man nowadays could afford to let his family depend on sick benefits which lagged so far behind the devaluation?

The excitement of the Gubalke case had brought on a real bilious colic. He had hardly been able to finish the records for the transfer of the prisoners to Alexanderplatz at seven o’clock, and now he was huddled in the lavatory while they were calling for him outside. He could have screamed with pain. Of course he could go home if he was ill; no superintendent, and his least of all, would have any objection; but one couldn’t leave one’s duty so suddenly, especially at this hour when the heaviest tasks of the police started. The shops had closed, throwing thousands of businessmen and employees on the streets; hundreds of restaurants displayed their illuminated signs, and the lust for amusement swept people off their feet. He would stick it till he was relieved at ten o’clock.

He was sitting at his desk again. With some anxiety he noticed that, although the bilious attack and the pain had stopped, their place was taken by a state of utter irritation. Everything annoyed him, and he looked almost with hate at the pale spongy face of a street-vendor who, without having a license, had sold some toilet soap of dubious origin out of a suitcase and, when reprimanded by a policeman, had started a row. I must pull myself together, thought the secretary. I mustn’t let myself go. I’m not to look at him like that.

“It is forbidden to offer goods for sale in the street without a hawker’s license,” he said for the tenth time, as gently as possible.

“Everything is forbidden,” the hawker shouted. “You ruin a chap. Here you’re only allowed to starve to death.”

“I don’t make the laws,” said the secretary.

“But you’re paid to carry out the lousy laws, you and your fat job,” the man shouted. Just behind him stood a good-looking lad in a field-gray uniform, with an open, intelligent face. He gave the secretary strength to endure such abuse without exploding. “Where did you get the soap?” he asked.

“Find out!” the vendor bawled. “Why must you interfere with everything? You only want to ruin the likes of us, you corpse-maggot. When we’re dead you’ll have a good feed.” And his abuse did not cease even while a policeman was pushing him toward the cells.

The secretary shut the lid of the soap case sadly and put it on his desk. “Yes?” he said to the young man in the field-gray uniform, who, frowning and with his chin thrust out, had watched the hawker being taken away. His face, the secretary now noticed, was not so frank as he had first thought it; there was defiance in it and foolish obstinacy. The official was familiar with the expression which some men assume whenever a policeman uses force against a civilian. Such men, the born kickers against the pricks, see red, particularly when they have been drinking a little.

This young man had himself under control, however. With a sigh of relief he looked away as soon as the iron door closed on the corridor. He jerked one shoulder in the tightly fitting tunic, went up to the desk and said in a challenging but otherwise reasonable voice: “My name is Pagel. Wolfgang Pagel.”

The secretary waited, but nothing further was forthcoming. “Yes?” he said. “What do you want?”

“You are expecting me,” replied the young man angrily. “Pagel. Pagel from Georgenkirchstrasse.”

“Why, yes,” said the secretary. “Yes, of course. We sent a man along. We should like to have a talk with you, Herr Pagel.”

“And your man has compelled my landlady to make a charge against me.”

“Not compelled. Hardly compelled,” the secretary corrected. “We have no special interest in accepting charges. We’re stuffed up with them.” He was determined to keep on good terms with this young man.

“Nevertheless you’ve arrested my wife for no reason,” said the young man vehemently.

“Not your wife,” the secretary corrected again. “An unmarried girl, Petra Ledig, isn’t that so?”

“We wanted to marry at lunch time,” said Pagel flushing. “Our banns were put up at the registrar’s.”

“But the arrest didn’t take place till this evening. So you weren’t married at midday?”

“No. But we can soon change that. I had no money this morning.”

“I understand,” said the secretary slowly. “But an unmarried girl for all that!” his gall trouble made him add.

He looked at the green ink-stained baize before him, then selected a sheet from the pile of papers on his left. He avoided glancing at the young man, but again he could not resist adding: “And not arrested without a reason. No.”

“If you mean the charge of fraud, I’ve just paid the bill. In ten minutes the landlady will be here to withdraw her statement.”

“So this evening you have money,” was the secretary’s astonishing reply.

Pagel felt like asking the sallow man what business that was of his, but he refrained. “If the statement is withdrawn,” he said, “there will be nothing to prevent Fräulein Ledig from being discharged, then.”

“I believe there is something,” said the secretary. He was tired out, sick of all these things, and terribly afraid of a quarrel. He would have preferred to be in bed, a hot-water bottle on his belly, and his wife reading him the serial in today’s newspaper. Indeed, there would inevitably be a scene with this agitated young man whose voice was becoming more and more strained. Stronger, however, than his need for rest was the irritability which was oozing out of his gall-bladder and poisoning his blood. But he held himself in. Of all his points he chose the weakest, so as not to enrage this Herr Pagel any further. “When she was arrested she had no home and was dressed only in a man’s overcoat.” He watched Pagel’s face to see the effect of his words. “It was causing a public nuisance,” he explained.

The young man had become very red. “The room has been re-engaged and paid for,” he said hurriedly. “So she will have a roof. And with regard to her clothes, I can buy the necessary dresses and underclothes in a few minutes.”

“So you have enough money for that? Quite a lot of money?” The secretary was sufficiently a detective to pin a man down to anything he casually admitted under examination.

“Enough for that, anyhow,” said Wolfgang vehemently. “So she will be discharged?”

“The shops are now closed,” replied the secretary.

“Never mind. I’ll get her some clothes somehow.” And almost beseechingly: “You’ll discharge Fräulein Ledig?”

“As I said, Herr Pagel, we should like to have to talk with you, quite apart from this matter. That’s why we sent an officer along.”

The secretary whispered for a moment with a man in uniform, who nodded and vanished.

“But you’re still standing. Please take a chair.”

“I don’t want a chair. I want my friend to be discharged at once,” Pagel screamed. But he pulled himself together immediately. “Forgive me,” he said in lower tones. “This won’t happen again. But I’m very worried. Fräulein Ledig is a good girl. Anything you may have against her is my fault. I didn’t pay the rent, I sold her dresses. Do please set her free.”

“Sit down,” said the secretary.

Pagel wanted to flare up, but thought better of it. He sat down.

There is a method of examination by which criminologists can crush most men and certainly the inexperienced. This method is far removed from gentleness or humanity. It cannot be otherwise. The examiner has in most cases to discover a fact which the examined person does not want to admit, has to browbeat the questioned man till he admits the fact against his will.

The secretary had before him a man who was the subject of a vague accusation that he lived by card-sharping. This man would never confess to the truth of this accusation if he were in a calm and collected frame of mind; in order to make him lose his head he had to be provoked. Often it is difficult to find something which enrages the accused to the extent of making him lose his powers of reasoning. In this case the secretary had found the something which he needed: the man seemed to be genuinely concerned about his girl. That must be the lever to open the door to a confession. But such a lever could not be used gently; kindly consideration would not liberate the farmers of East Prussia from a three-card trickster. One had to attack him vigorously: the young man had self-control, he hadn’t flown into a rage, he had sat down. “I have a few matters to inquire about,” said the secretary.

“Certainly,” replied Pagel. “Ask what you like, as long as you promise me that Fräulein Ledig will be discharged this evening.”

“We can talk about that later.”

“Please promise me right away,” begged Pagel. “I’m worried. Don’t be cruel. Don’t torture me. Say yes.”

“I’m not cruel,” replied the secretary. “I’m an official.”

Pagel leaned back, discouraged and irritated.

Through the door came a tall, sad-looking man in uniform. He had heavy pouches under his eyes and an iron-gray sergeant major’s mustache. This man stepped behind the secretary’s chair, took a cigar out of his mouth and asked: “Is that the man?”

The secretary leaned back, looked up at his superior and said in an audible whisper: “That’s the man.”

The superintendent nodded slowly, subjected Pagel to a detailed scrutiny and said: “Carry on.” He continued to smoke.

“Now to our questions,” the secretary began.

But Pagel interrupted him. “May I smoke?” He was holding the packet of cigarettes in his hand.

The secretary rapped on the table. “The public are forbidden to smoke in this office.”

The superintendent puffed vigorously at his cigar. Angrily, but without losing his temper, Pagel put away his cigarettes.

“Now to our questions,” said the secretary again.

“One moment,” interrupted the superintendent, putting his big hand on the other’s shoulder. “Are you examining the man about his own case or the girl’s?”

“So I also am concerned?” Pagel asked with surprise.

“We shall see later,” said the secretary. And to his superior, again in that ridiculously audible whisper: “About his own case.”

They treat you like dirt, do what they like with you, thought Pagel bitterly. But I won’t be upset. The main thing is to get Petra out this evening. Perhaps Mamma was right, after all. I ought to have employed a lawyer. Then these fellows would be more careful.

He sat there outwardly calm, but inwardly uneasy. The feeling of despair, as if everything was in vain, had not left him since he had been in the schnapps bar.

“Now to our questions,” he heard the persevering secretary repeat. It had really begun.

“Your name?”

Pagel gave it.

“Born when?”

Pagel told them.

“Where?”

Pagel said where.

“Occupation?”

He was without an occupation.

“Address?”

Pagel gave them the address.

“Have you your identity papers?”

Pagel had.

“Show them.”

Pagel showed them.

The secretary looked at them, the superintendent looked at them. He indicated something to the secretary and the secretary nodded. He did not hand the papers back, but put them down in front of him. “So,” he said, leaning back and looking at Pagel.

“Now for the questions,” said Pagel.

“What?” demanded the secretary.

“I said ‘Now for the questions,’ ” Pagel replied politely.

“Right,” the secretary said, “Now for the questions.…”

It was not clear whether his irony had made any impression on the two officials.

“Your mother lives in Berlin?”

“As can be seen from the papers.” They want to confuse me, he thought, or they’re stupid. Yes, they’re definitely stupid.

“You don’t live with your mother?”

“No, in Georgenkirchstrasse.”

“Wouldn’t it be pleasanter to live in Tannenstrasse?”

“That’s a matter of taste.”

“Have you perhaps fallen out with your mother?”

“Not quite.” A complete lie was difficult for Pagel, and this case was not sufficiently important for one, anyhow. But to tell the truth was impossible; it would have resulted in an unending chain of questions.

“Possibly your mother doesn’t want you to live with her?”

“I live with my friend.”

“And your mother doesn’t want that?”

“She is my friend.”

“And so not your mother’s? Your mother disapproves of the intended marriage?”

The secretary looked at the superintendent, the superintendent looked at the secretary.

How clever they must feel to have found this out, Pagel was thinking. But they’re not stupid. No, not at all. I’d like to know how they do it. They find out all there is to know. I must be more careful.

“Your mother has private means?” the secretary began again.

“Who has private means in the inflation?” countered Pagel.

“Then you support your mother?”

“No,” said Pagel angrily.

“So she has enough to live on?”

“Certainly.”

“And possibly supports you?”

“No.”

“You earn your own living?”

“Yes.”

“And that of your friend?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Stop, stop! Pagel thought. They want to catch me. They’ve heard something. But nothing can happen to me; gambling’s not punishable. It’s better not to mention it at all, though. Peter, I’m sure, has given nothing away.

“I sell things.”

“What do you sell?”

“For instance, my friend’s possessions.”

“Whom do you sell them to?”

“For instance, the pawnbroker Feld in Gollnowstrasse.”

“And if there’s nothing left to be sold?”

“There’s always something to be sold.”

The official pondered a moment, looking up at his superior, who nodded slightly.

The secretary took a pencil, stood it on its point, eyed it reflectively and let it fall. “Your friend doesn’t sell anything?” he asked casually.

“Nothing!”

“She sells absolutely nothing at all?”

“Nothing at all.”

“You know that one can sell things which are not necessarily goods?”

What on earth, thought Pagel, dumbfounded, could Peter have sold for them to ask such foolish questions?

“I, too, didn’t mean only such things as clothes,” he said.

“What, for instance?”

“Pictures.”

“Pictures?”

“Yes, pictures.”

“What do you mean by pictures?”

“Oil paintings.”

“Oil paintings.… Are you an artist, by any chance?”

“No—but I’m the son of an artist.”

“Oh,” said the secretary dissatisfied. “You sell your father’s paintings. Well, we’ll talk about that later. I only want you now to confirm that Fräulein Ledig sells nothing.”

“Nothing. What there is to sell, I sell.”

“It’s possible,” said the secretary, and his bilious pains tormented him acutely—this young fool put on too many airs for his liking—“it’s possible that Fräulein Ledig sells something behind your back—without your knowledge?”

Pagel repressed the inquietude and misgivings which arose in him. “Theoretically it would be possible,” he admitted.

“But in practice?”

“In practice impossible.” He smiled. “For we don’t possess very much and I should at once notice if the smallest trifle were missing.”

“Oh?” said the secretary. He looked round at the superintendent, who returned the glance—it seemed to Pagel as if the shadow of a smile showed in their eyes. His uneasiness, his apprehensions increased. “We agreed, did we not”—the secretary half closed his eyes—“that one can sell not only tangible things, such as goods and paintings but—other things?”

Again this menace, now hardly veiled. What could Petra have sold?

“For example?” said Wolfgang crossly. “I can’t conceive of any intangible things which my friend could have sold.”

“For example …” the secretary began and looked up again at the superintendent.

The superintendent shut his eyes, at the same time moving his melancholy face from right to left, as if to say “No.” Pagel saw it clearly. The secretary smiled—the moment had not yet come to tell the young man, but it was close at hand. “For example—we’ll come to that presently,” he said. “First let’s get back to our questions. So you admit you get your livelihood by the sale of paintings?”

“Gentlemen!”—and Pagel got up and stood behind his chair, gripping it with both hands. Looking down at them he saw the knuckles show white against the reddened skin. “Gentlemen!” he said resolutely. “For some reason unknown you’re playing cat-and-mouse with me. I won’t stand it any longer. If Fräulein Ledig has done anything foolish I alone am responsible. I haven’t looked after her sufficiently, I’ve never given her any money, probably not even enough to eat; I’m responsible for everything. And if any damage has been done I can make that good. Here is money.” He tore at his pockets, he threw wads of notes on the table. “I’ll pay for whatever damage has been done, but tell me at least what has happened.”

“Money, a lot of money,” said the secretary, and looked with anger at the preposterously mounting pile of notes. The superintendent had shut his eyes, as if he wanted to avoid seeing the money, as if he could not bear the sight.

“And here are two hundred and fifty dollars,” Pagel cried, himself overwhelmed by the heap of money. It was the last wad to be thrown on the table. “I can’t think of any damage which nowadays couldn’t be repaired with that. I’ll give you the lot,” he said obstinately, “if you’ll let Fräulein Ledig go this evening.” He, too, was staring at the money, the monotonous white or brown of the German notes, the bright colors of the American.

The man in uniform let in Frau Thumann, Madam Po, her slatternly fat quivering in her loose garments. At a time when women’s skirts barely reached the knee, a draggle-tail skirt reached to her heels. Her flabby gray face trembled, her underlip hung down, revealing the inner side.

“Thank heavens I’m still in time, Herr Pagel. How I did run. I was in such a to-do lest you should set my place on fire again as you threatened you would. I’d have been in good time but just as I was in Gollnowstrasse and thinking of nothing else but you and getting here in time, a car ran into a horse. Then I ‘ad to stop, of course. All its guts outside and I says to myself—Auguste, take a look at that. They always say not to compare man and beast, but they must be pretty like inside, and then I thought to myself, you’ve always something wrong with your bladder and that oats-engine’s got a bladder too.…”

“So Herr Pagel threatened to set your flat on fire if you didn’t come here at once and withdraw your charge?”

But Frau Thumann wasn’t born yesterday; she talked a lot but she couldn’t be pinned down to anything. She had seen the money on the table, had acquainted herself with the situation, and was already gabbling on. “Who said that? He threatened me? I never said so, I demand that be showed on record, Herr Lieutenant. You put that in your own pipe and smoke it. Threaten me! And Herr Pagel such a pleasant, kind gentleman! I wouldn’t have signed that statement against ’im and ’is girl if that man of yours hadn’t talked me out of my senses. It’s the law, he says. ‘Ow can it be the law when I get my money? There can’t be any talk of fraud then. No, I want my statement back, I make you responsible for that.…”

“Silence!” thundered the superintendent, for the secretary’s halfhearted attempts at interruption were of no avail against this flood of talk. “Please go out of the room, Herr Pagel. We’ll talk this matter over with your landlady herself.”

Pagel looked at them for a moment, then at the money and papers on the table. He bowed and stepped out into the corridor. Opposite him was the door of the registration office; toward the street, just inside the exit, was the charge-room. He could see people in the street, where it seemed to have stopped raining. A cool breeze entered and strove with the stale air in the corridor.

Pagel leaned against the wall and lit the long-desired cigarette. They haven’t arrested me yet, he thought, or else they wouldn’t have let me go out by myself.

Inside, Frau Thumann’s voice was rambling on, but tearfully. From time to time the bark of the superintendent could be heard—how well the melancholy man growled! But he had to; in his job one had to. And their letting him out proved nothing. All his money was lying there on the table; they knew quite well that nobody would run away from so much money. But why should they arrest him at all? And what was the trouble about Petra? What could Petra have sold?

He racked his brains. He wondered whether she might have sold some of Frau Thumann’s belongings, bed linen or the like, to buy herself food. But that was all nonsense. Madam Po would have blurted it out long ago. Except for that, Petra had had no chance of taking anything.