Wolf Among Wolves

Chapter Eight

He Goes Astray in the Night

I

In the bushes in front of the staff-house Violet von Prackwitz stood on guard; inside the office another girl, Amanda Backs, came out of her hiding place. She did not understand by a long way everything that these two, the Lieutenant and Fräulein Violet, were doing together. But much could be guessed. She had already heard of the Lieutenant who traveled the countryside gathering the people for some revolt; and at that time there was a saying current throughout Germany, darkly threatening: “Traitors will be punished by the secret tribunal, the Vehme!”

It is not pleasant to have to think of one’s lover as a traitor; and though Amanda Backs might be as sturdy a piece of vulgarity as one could imagine, she would never be a traitress. She loved and she hated without restraint, with all her powerful and unbreakable nature; but she could never betray. Therefore she continued to stand by her Hans, despite everything she knew about him. He too was just a man, and one cannot make much show, God knows, of any man—a girl has to take them just as they are.

She stole quickly into the room, knelt down by the bed and shook the sleeper vigorously. But he was not so easily to be shaken from his drunkenness. Amanda had to adopt strong measures, and when the wet face-cloth also failed to work she simply decided to tug at his hair with one hand while cautiously placing the other over his mouth so that he couldn’t make a noise.

And this succeeded—the furious pain woke up little Meier, for she pulled and tugged his hair with all her by no means insignificant strength. Like all men, and especially like Black Meier, he instinctively defended himself, biting the hand over his mouth.

She suppressed a cry and whispered in his ear: “Wake up! Wake up, Hans. It’s me—Amanda!”

“I can feel that,” he grunted angrily. “If you only knew how fed up I am with you women! You can never leave a chap in peace.” Feeling unwell, his head aching abominally, he would have continued his grumbling but she was afraid of the girl spying outside, and again laid her hand firmly over his mouth. Immediately he bit it again.

And now her patience was gone. She tore her hand away from his teeth and struck out blindly in the darkness, not caring where. Her senses, however, guided her well; she found her mark beautifully, thick and fast the blows fell on him, left, right—there, that must have been his nose! And now the mouth.…

And all the time she moaned softly, breathless, carried away by this hitting in the darkness at something which groaned. “Will you be sensible? Will you shut up? Otherwise they’ll kill you!” (She herself was well on the way to achieving this.)

Breathless, almost completely sober, frightened, unable to defend himself, Meier now begged: “But, Mandy! My little Mandy! I’ll do everything you want. But stop it now. Oh, be a bit careful.…”

Her breast heaving, she stopped. “Will you listen to me, you fathead?” she gasped with angry tenderness. “The Lieutenant was here!”

“Where—here?” he asked stupidly.

“Here in your room! He was looking for something—he took a letter out of your jacket.”

“A letter?” He still didn’t understand. But then his memory gradually if incompletely returned. “Oh, that!” he said scornfully. “He can keep that rubbish.”

“But, Hans, do be sensible! Think!” she begged. “You must have been up to something—he was so mad with you! He’s coming again. Tonight.”

“Let him,” he bragged, although an unpleasant feeling crept over him. “I’ve got the monkey where I want him, him and his fine Fräulein von Prackwitz.”

“But, Hans, she was here as well. She looked for the letter with him.”

“Who? Fräulein Vi—the boss’s daughter? In my room? With me lying drunk and naked in bed? Oh, dear, oh, dear.”

“Yes, and now she’s keeping watch outside your window so that you shan’t run away!”

“Me, run away!” he sneered boastfully. He involuntarily lowered his voice, however. “That’s what they’d like, for me to run away. That would please them both! But no fear, I’m staying; I’m going to the Rittmeister tomorrow morning, and I’ll show her up, with her fine Lieutenant.”

“Hans, stop this nonsense! He’s coming again, tonight. He won’t let you go to the Rittmeister tomorrow morning.”

“What can he do? He can’t tie me up!”

“No, he can’t tie you up.…”

“Supposing I tell the Rittmeister about the letter.”

“Oh, shut up about the silly letter! You haven’t got it anymore! He’s got it!”

“But Kniebusch can prove—”

“Nonsense, Hans. All nonsense. What sort of proof will the forester be, if it comes to telling on Fräulein Violet?”

Little Meier was silent for a moment, really beginning to think things over. Rather dejectedly he said: “But he can’t want to do anything to me. He’s up to the neck in it himself!”

“But, Hans, that’s just why! Because he’s up to the neck in it, he wants to settle with you. He’s afraid you’ll talk.”

“What should I talk about? I’ll keep my mouth closed about the silly letter.”

“But it isn’t only the letter, Hans,” she cried in desperation. “It’s the other thing, the Putsch!”

“What Putsch?” he asked bankly.

“Oh, Hans, don’t pretend! You needn’t pretend to me. The Putsch that’s planned—he’s afraid you’ll betray it!”

“But I don’t know anything of his silly Putsch, Mandy. Word of honor! I haven’t the faintest idea what the chaps are planning to do.”

She reflected for a moment. Almost she believed him. But her feeling again told her that all he was saying didn’t matter, that danger threatened him, and that therefore he must get away.

“Hans,” she said very seriously, “it makes no difference whether you really know anything or not. He thinks you do, and that you want to betray him. And he’s mad with you because of the letter. He wants to do something to you, I tell you!”

“What can he do to me?” he said feebly.

“Hans, don’t pretend like that! You know all right. And it was recently in the papers, with a picture, too, showing them all wearing white hoods so they shouldn’t be recognized, and holding a court. Under it was ‘Secret Tribunal.’ Traitors are punished by the Vehme, Hans, that’s what they say!”

“But I’m not a traitor,” he replied. Yet he said it only to say something, said it without any real conviction.

Nor did she accept it. “Hans,” she begged, “why won’t you go away? He’s gone to the village now, to a meeting, and I’ll get her away from the window. You can easily get away now—why won’t you? It isn’t that you think so much of me that you want to stay, seeing that today you were even playing around with Hartig.” (She had not managed to keep completely quiet about it, but already she was sorry.) “And look, the Rittmeister’s coming tomorrow, and you’ve only messed about while he was away, and you also got drunk in the pub during working hours—why don’t you go away of your own accord, seeing that he’ll throw you out, anyhow?”

“I haven’t a penny,” he said. “Where shall I go?”

“Well, I was thinking that you might go to one of the villages around here and put up at a little inn—perhaps in Grünow—there’s a nice inn there, where I’ve danced. And on Sunday when I’m free I’ll come over and see you. I’ve got a little money; I’ll bring it along. And then you can gradually look for a new job; there are always some in the paper. But not too near to—”

“Sunday in Grünow! Nothing doing!” he grumbled. “And I could whistle for the money!”

“But, Hans, don’t be so silly! I don’t need to offer it to you if I’m not coming! Well, then, are you going?”

“You seem to be in a devil of a hurry to get rid of me all of a sudden. Who have you got your eyes on now?”

“You’ve got a lot of reason to pretend to be jealous! Yes, to pretend, for you’re not in the least bit jealous!”

After a while he asked: “How much money have you got?”

“Oh, it can’t be much, because of the inflation. But I can always give you some more. I shall now see to it that the mistress pays me in goods—in Birnbaum they’re already supposed to be getting their wages in rye.”

“You and wages in rye.… The old woman would never dream of it. You’re always giving yourself nonsensical ideas.” He laughed scornfully. It was very necessary for him to feel superior. “Do you know what, Mandy? Go straight away and fetch your money now. After all, I can’t stay in the inn without money. And you can send Vi away at the same time. I’ve got to pack and I can’t do it in the dark. Oh, God!” he groaned suddenly. “Fancy dragging two heavy suitcases as far as Grünow! Only you could think of such a ridiculous thing!”

“Hans,” she comforted him, “it’s not so bad, so long as you get away safely. Just keep thinking of that. And I’ll carry them for a bit, there’s no need for me to go to bed now. You’ve no idea how fresh I’ll be if I wash myself from head to foot in cold water in the morning.”

“Yes, yes,” he said peevishly. “So long as you’re fresh, that’s the chief thing. Well, are you going or not?”

“Yes, of course, at once. But I may take a little time, I’ve got to get the girl away first. And you will hurry a little, won’t you, Hans? I don’t know when the Lieutenant’s coming back.”

“Oh, him!” said Black Meier contemptuously. “He shouldn’t brag so much. How long do you think a meeting like that will last? At least two or three hours! Peasants don’t let themselves be persuaded so quickly!”

“Well, hurry up, Hans,” she warned him again. “I’ll be back very quickly. A kiss, Hans.”

“Run along,” he said crossly. “All you think of is your cuddling and with me it’s a matter of life and death! But that’s just how you women are. Your heads always full of your so-called love. Not for me, thank you!”

“Oh, you blockhead,” she said and pulled his hair, but this time tenderly. “I’m just glad that you are getting away from here. At last I’ll be able to do some proper work again. It’s mad, but if you’ve got love in your blood and have to keep on stopping and staring … After all, what are you? You’re nothing—do you think I don’t know? But even knowing it doesn’t change things. Life’s just a monkey show, and you are certainly the biggest monkey of them all.”

And with that she planted a kiss on him, whether he liked it or not, and went out of the room, almost gay, almost contented.

II

Bailiff Meier didn’t wait long to make sure whether Amanda had really got Fräulein Violet away from her post. He cast a fleeting glance out of the window and, seeing no one, switched the light on. Like all unimaginative persons, he could form no idea of the danger threatening him. Everything had hitherto turned out quite well for him; one could go a long way by being thick-skinned, and things would be all right now, too.

As a matter of fact the prospects were not at all bad: it would be nice to play the rentier for a while—and of a sudden he even had his plans for the future! The Lieutenant had put ideas into his head. He still had a few things to settle before he departed, but he really ought to make haste. That was not so easy, however. His head was still hazy, and he found that putting on his town clothes, with shirt, collar and tie, presented some difficulty. His hands were trembling. “Must be the ether,” he decided. “I’ve never yet had it from drinking.”

With a sigh he set about packing. What a job, finding his few odds and ends in an untidy room and squeezing them, dirty and creased as they were, into two suitcases! He had got them in once (he had bought nothing in Neulohe), so in they must go again. By dint of much struggling he managed it at last, locked the cases and fastened the straps—his next girl would have nothing to laugh about, washing and ironing his things!

How much money would Mandy bring him? Efficient girl, Mandy, talked a bit too big, but otherwise quite nice! Well, she wouldn’t bring a lot of money; a lot of money would require a cart—but it would be useful as a supplement.

Cursing savagely he discovered that he was standing around in his socks—and his shoes were in the suitcase! Blast it. He was so used to putting on his high farm boots right at the end, that he hadn’t thought of his shoes. Naturally with his town clothes he wore his pointed shoes, the brownish patent ones. But which suitcase were they in? His farm boots looked out at him from the first case he half opened; after all, the patent shoes were rather narrow. But the thought of the figure he would cut for the girls in Grünow, in town clothes and farm boots, decided him. It must be the shoes.

Naturally they were in the second case! He got them on with some difficulty. “They’ll stretch in walking,” he consoled himself.

Then he strode into the office. He sorted his papers out of drawers and portfolios; he stamped his unemployment insurance card for six months ahead. There were stamps enough in this pigsty, and if the things became worth nothing afterwards it didn’t matter. And he carefully wrote himself a police notification to the effect that Herr Hans Meier was going on a journey. The stamp of the farm superintendent was pressed below it—there, that was all right.

Yet a moment’s reflection convinced him of the truth of the sentiment that two is always better than one, and so he wrote out a second notification. In this Meier became Schmidt … von Schmidt, Hans von Schmidt, occupation—farm manager, likewise on a journey. “There, you dolts, now try and find me!”

He grinned. Satisfaction at his great cunning banished the throb and ache in his head—it is a wonderful thing to be smarter than others and do them down! And now he began to type a testimonial for himself on a sheet of official Neulohe paper. Naturally, he was the pearl of all employees, knew everything, could do everything, did everything—and, moreover, was honest, reliable and industrious. It was rapture to give oneself all these things in writing. From the lines of the testimonial arose a new Meier with a fine, promising future, one fitted for the post of farm manager, the Meier he would like to be—in short the Meier of all Meiers!

This testimony was actually too good—it was not really comprehensible why one should ever let such an employee go; one ought to keep him to the end of his life. But clever, witty Meier was also able to deal with this. Owing to sale of lease, he wrote down. You see, the new boss would then not be able to ask the old one for further references. He had given up his lease, did not know where he had moved to. Now the stamp of the farm administration—the signature: Joachim von Prackwitz, captain (ret.) and tenant farmer—again the superintendent’s stamp—stamps are always good. The thing looked fine—the smartest fellow would be taken in by it.

Into his wallet with the papers. We’ll also put the supply of postage stamps in, we can always use stamps—why let them lie around here? The safe doesn’t hold overmuch, but it’ll do for a while. And if Mandy turns up trumps, then I’ll be able to live well for a few weeks. God, my breast pockets do bulge; papers on the right, cash on the left—a bosom, my child, a bosom is essential! A bosom is the latest fashion—no, as a matter of fact it isn’t. But as far as I’m concerned, a bosom is always nice. Now we’ll just close the safe, it’ll look better in the morning.…

“Leave it open, my lad! Always leave it open, young man—it looks better. Then tomorrow morning the Rittmeister will guess things at once!” cried the Lieutenant from the door.

For a moment Meier’s face was distorted. But only for a moment. “I’ll do just what I like,” he said pertly, and shut the safe. “Anyway, you’ve got no business to be here at night.… You’ve just pinched a letter of mine from my room.”

“My lad,” said the Lieutenant threateningly and came two paces nearer. But he was a little nonplussed by this incredible cheekiness. “My lad, do you see this?”

“Of course I can see the thing,” declared Meier, and scarcely a tremor in his voice betrayed how unpleasant he found the sight of the pistol. “And I could have also got myself one of those cannons; there are enough of them lying in the drawer there. But I decided I could get on without it—I knew you were coming,” he added somewhat boastfully.

“Oh, you knew, did you?” said the Lieutenant slowly, observing the ugly little fellow intently.

“So you’re a conspirator! You want to plan a Putsch, eh?” said Meier mockingly, beginning to feel sure of himself. “And yet you didn’t notice that there was a girl in the next room the whole time, here in the office. While you were in my room. And she heard everything that you and Vi said. There, that surprises you!” But the Lieutenant did not seem at all surprised.

“So there was a girl hidden here, was there?” he said calmly. “And where’s the girl now? Still in the next room?”

“No,” said Meier boldly. “Not this time. We’re quite alone, so you needn’t be alarmed. Your lady fair’s taking a little walk with my lady fair. But you can naturally imagine,” he added warningly, when he saw the Lieutenant make an involuntary movement, “what my girl will say tomorrow if anything happens to me. Or do you want to shoot us both?” he said, tickled by his own impudence, and laughing.

The Lieutenant threw himself into a chair, crossed his legs and thoughtfully lit a cigarette. “You’re by no means stupid, my lad,” he said. “The only question is whether you’re not too clever. May I inquire what your plans are?”

“Indeed you may,” said Meier readily. Now that he had convinced the Lieutenant that it was wiser not to do anything to him, his only desire was to come to an understanding with the man. “I’m clearing out of here!” he said. “I’ve already knocked off—well, you saw it just now at the safe.” But the Lieutenant did not move an eye. “I’m well within my rights to take the money. My wages are owing to me. Besides, can you imagine what miserable wages they’ve been paying me here on account of the inflation? If I am taking a little, then it’s not so much by a long chalk as what the Rittmeister’s stolen from me.”

He looked at the Lieutenant challengingly, as if expecting him to agree. But the latter merely said: “That doesn’t interest me. Where are you intending to go?”

“A little further away,” said Meier with a laugh. “I find that the country around here smells sour. I was thinking of Silesia or perhaps Mecklenburg.”

“Fine, fine,” said the Lieutenant. “Very sensible. Silesia’s not bad. But where are you going now?”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.” The Lieutenant spoke a little impatiently. “I can quite understand that you’re not taking a train tomorrow morning from the local town, where everybody knows you.”

“Now? Oh, just to a village nearby.”

“I see, to a village? Which, may I ask?”

“What’s that got to do with you?” This interrogation, behind which something was hidden, made Meier quite nervous.

“Oh, it has a little to do with me, my lad!” answered the Lieutenant coolly.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I like to know, for example, the whereabouts of someone who is aware of my relations with Fräulein von Prackwitz. In Silesia not a soul would be interested; but here in the vicinity he might hit on the idea of making money out of his knowledge.”

“I would never think of such a thing,” said Meier indignantly. “I’m not such a scoundrel as that. You can rest assured, Lieutenant, I’ll keep my mouth shut. In such matters I’m a gentleman!”

“Yes, I know,” said the Lieutenant unmoved. “Well—what’s the name of the village?”

“Grünow,” said Meier hesitating, not really knowing why he shouldn’t give the name, seeing that the Lieutenant already knew everything.

“Grünow. Why particularly Grünow? I suppose you mean Grünow near Ostade?”

“Yes, my girl suggested it to me. She wants to visit me there on Sundays, for the dances.”

“You want to dance there as well? Then you’re going to stay there some time?”

“Just a few days. On Monday I shall be clearing off, leaving from Ostade. You can rely on that, Lieutenant.”

“Can I?” said the Lieutenant thoughtfully. He stood up and went to the drawer which Meier had previously pointed out to him. He pulled it open and regarded its contents. “Yes, you’ve got a couple of very nice blunderbusses there,” he said patronizingly. “You know what, Herr Meier? I’d take one of those things along if I were you.”

“What should I do with it? No, thanks!”

“You are going through the forest, and there are all sorts of rogues on the prowl now. I’d take the thing with you, Herr Meier; I myself never go about without firearms. Nothing like being prepared.” The young Lieutenant had become almost loquacious, so worried was he about the life of his friend Meier.

But the latter persisted in his refusal. “No one’s going to do anything to me,” he said. “No one’s done anything to me yet. That old thing just tears your pocket.”

“All right. Do what you like!” the Lieutenant said in sudden irritation and laid the pistol on the safe. He nodded curtly to little Meier, said, “Good evening,” and was already out of the office before the other could reply.

“Queer,” said Meier, and stared at the door. “He was very queer at the end. But still,” he went on to comfort himself, “all these chaps are like that. They first talk big and then there’s nothing behind it.”

He turned round and regarded the pistol. No. He’d have nothing to do with such a thing. It might even go off in his pocket. Where was Mandy? He’d have to have a look. She was well able to carry the suitcases for a bit.…

He went to the door. No, first he’d better put the pistol away again. It would look so silly there tomorrow morning.

He had the weapon in his hand, and again he hesitated.

As a matter of fact, he’s quite right, was the thought that darted through his head, a weapon is always handy.

He went to the door, switched the light out, left the house. At every step he noticed the weight of the pistol in his hip pocket.

Queer—gives you a feeling of strength, a thing like that, he thought, not dissatisfied.

III

And Meier had only to go a few steps to see the two girls sitting on a bench. Next to them stood the Lieutenant, talking. At his approach the fellow looked up and said: “Here he comes.” His proximity to the two girls, his whispering with them, this remark, all irritated little Meier. Advancing, he said crossly: “If I’m intruding I can go away again.”

No one seemed to have heard him, no one answered.

“I suppose you three have some nice secret among yourselves,” he said provokingly.

Again no answer. But now Violet stood up and, addressing the Lieutenant in a polite and formal tone, said: “Are you coming?”

“You needn’t be stand-offish to him on my account,” cried little Meier angrily. “We know what you’ve been up to!”

With astonishing calm the Lieutenant took the girl’s arm and walked away with her into the park, saying not a word.

“Good night, sir, good night, madam. Pleasant dreams!” Meier called after them contemptuously.

The Lieutenant turned round and called out to Amanda:

“Just try and persuade him. Persuasion always helps.”

Amanda nodded thoughtfully.

Angrily Meier let fly at her. “What do you mean by nodding to the fool? What do you mean speaking to the fellow at all?”

“You think that everyone’s a fool, except yourself!” she replied calmly.

“Oh! So in your eyes I’m a fool!”

“I didn’t say that!”

“Shut up! You said it just now!”

“I didn’t!” And after long reflection: “Fräulein Violet is quite right.”

“What is Vi right about? All she can do is talk nonsense. She’s just like a seven-months-old babe.”

“That it’s better not to get mixed up with a man like you.”

“So that’s what she said?” Meier almost burst with fury and injured conceit. “And her fellow, the Lieutenant—is he anything better than me? What? You think he is? A swine like that! Comes into my office and brandishes a revolver in front of my nose. But I told him where he got off! Just let him come again, the silly idiot. I’ve got a revolver now. And I won’t just threaten like that fool. I’ll shoot.” He wrenched the pistol from his pocket and waved it in the air.

“Have you gone mad?” Amanda screamed at him furiously. “Put that thing away at once. Waving a thing like that in my face! I am pleased! You seem to think it impresses me.”

He was startled by her angry, contemptuous words. Somewhat crestfallen, though of course still defiant, he stood before her, in his hand the pistol with its muzzle lowered.

“You’re going in again at once and put the money back in the safe!” she ordered. “Heavens, I can put up with a lot, and I’m not at all squeamish, but stealing money—no, thanks! Not me! And you’re not going to, either.”

Meier went red—she could not see it, of course.

“So that’s what he’s been blabbing to you, the fine chap!” he cried angrily. “I just want to tell you one thing: it’s no bloody business of his or of yours! That’s my own affair with the Rittmeister. If I take my wages, there’s no need for you to put your nose in—understand?”

“Hans,” she said more gently, “you must put the money back; otherwise it is finished between us. I can’t stand for that sort of thing.”

“I don’t bloody well care whether it’s finished between us or not. I’m glad it’s finished. Who do you think you are? Do you think I bother about you? I slept with Hartig tonight; yes, Hartig, so there! And an old girl like that with eight children—I prefer her ten times to you. Oh, damn!”

It was a blow with all her strength and it landed right in the middle of his face. Meier staggered.

“You swine, you!” she said breathlessly. “You miserable wretch!”

“You struck me?” He was half out of his mind with pain. “You—you low-down chicken girl—strike me, the bailiff? Now you shall see.…”

He himself could see almost nothing, however. Everything reeled before his eyes, her figure melted away in the moonlight; then she was there again.… And now he saw her quite clearly.… She had struck him!

He quickly raised the pistol and pressed the trigger, with trembling finger.…

The shot cracked unbearably loud in his ear.

Amanda’s face came close to him, getting bigger all the time, white and black in the moonlight.…

“You!” she whispered. “You, Hans, shoot at me!”

And there was complete silence between the two. Each heard only the jerky breathing of the other. They stood like that for a long time.…

The echoes of the shot had long died away, to be replaced by gentler noises.… They again heard the soft wind in the treetops.… Back in the stable a halter chain rattled slowly through its ring.

“Mandy,” said Black Meier. “Mandy … I …”

“Finished!” she said with a hard voice. “Quite finished!”

She looked at him once again.

“He fires at me—and then he says ‘Mandy.’ ” It was as if this thought took her breath away. “What would he have said if he had hit me?”

And the serious danger in which she had stood, her incredible escape, overwhelmed her so suddenly that she broke into a soft weeping. And weeping thus she ran away from him, her shoulders hunched. Under the light hem of her skirt he saw her strong legs moving faster and faster as she sped away.… She turned into the path leading to the Manor; he no longer saw her, heard only her weeping, that suppressed pitiful, sobbing—and then that, too, was gone.…

Meier stood for a moment longer, staring after her. Then he lifted the pistol, heavy in his hand, and regarded it. He moved the safety catch into place—there, now it was safe, nothing more could happen with the thing.…

With a peevish shrug of his shoulders he pushed it into his trouser pocket and went hastily into the office to get his suitcases.

IV

The Lieutenant and Vi were sitting on a bench in the park. They were not sitting there like a pair of lovers: or perhaps indeed they were—like lovers who have quarreled. That is to say, they sat far apart, silent.

“Fancy letting that coward say a thing like that to you,” she had said at the conclusion of their argument. “I don’t understand you.”

“Of course you don’t understand me, my little lamb,” he had answered very patronizingly. “That’s all to the good. That means he won’t understand me either.”

“Running away from the fellow! What airs he will give himself now! And I just can’t bear the smell of him.”

“Don’t go so near him,” he had said in a bored way. “Then his smell won’t upset you.”

“Excuse me, Fritz, when have I gone too near him? That was mean of you, Fritz!”

But Fritz returned no answer, and so they had fallen into silence.…

The echo of the shot interrupted this quarrel. The Lieutenant started out of his thoughts. “He has fired a pistol!” he cried and began running.

“Who?” she asked, received no answer, and ran after him.

Their course took them over the moonlit park. Its long grass wetted her stockings; then through bushes, across paths, right through flower beds. Vi panted, wanted to call out and could not, since she had to keep on running.

Then the Lieutenant paused and signaled to her to be quiet. She peered over his shoulder through lilac and guelder-rose bushes and just caught sight of the weeping poultry maid disappearing in the direction of the Manor. Bailiff Meier was standing motionless outside the house.

“Hasn’t hit her, thank God!” whispered the Lieutenant.

“Then what’s she crying for?”

“Fright.”

“The fellow must go to jail,” exclaimed Vi.

“Don’t be so silly, Vi. Then he’d let his tongue wag a bit, wouldn’t he? I suppose you’d like that?”

“Well, and now?”

“Now we’ll wait and see what he’s going to do.”

The little dark figure went quickly up to the staff-house; even in the bushes they could hear the noise of the vigorously slammed door. Bailiff Meier was gone.

“Now he’s gone,” said Fräulein von Prackwitz disconsolately. “And from now on I shall have to be particularly polite to him, so that he won’t tell Papa.”

“Just wait a bit,” was all the Lieutenant said.

They did not have long to wait. Hardly three or four minutes. Then the door opened again and out stepped Meier, a suitcase in his right hand, a suitcase in his left hand. He did not even waste time in closing the door again, but strode on, a little hampered, it is true, yet at a steady pace—toward the farmyard, out into the world—away.

“He’s clearing out,” whispered the Lieutenant.

“Thank God!”

“You won’t see him again,” he muttered, and fell silent, as if he was annoyed at what he had said.

“Let’s hope so.”

“Violet!” he said after a while.

“Yes, Fritz?”

“Wait here a minute, will you? I just want to find out something in the office.”

“What do you want to find out there?”

“Oh, nothing much.… Just to see what it looks like.”

“What do you mean? It doesn’t matter to us.”

“Still, let me. Excuse me—now, you wait here!”

Hurriedly the Lieutenant went over to the staff-house. He felt his way through the dark passage, switched the light on in the office and went straight to the drawer containing the weapons. It was half open, but this was not sufficient for him. He pulled it right out and regarded its contents very attentively.

No, the nine-millimeter Mauser was not there. He closed the drawer again, switched off the light and went out.

“Well, what does it look like in there?” Violet asked a little maliciously. “I suppose he tidied it up quickly?”

“What should it look like? Oh—I see—yes, of course. Pigsty, that’s what it looks like, my little lamb.” The Lieutenant was strangely cheerful.

She took advantage of this at once. “I say, Fritz.”

“Yes, Violet?”

“Do you still remember what you wanted today?”

“Well, what did I want? To give you a kiss? All right, come along then!”

He seized her by the head, and for a while she lay completely breathless in his arms.

“There!” he said. “And now I must dash off to Ostade.”

“To Ostade? Oh, Fritz—you wanted to look round my room to see whether I kept a diary.”

“But, my lamb, not today. I really must dash off. I’ve got to be at Ostade at six!”

“Fritz!”

“What?”

“Isn’t it possible at all?”

“No—completely impossible today. But I shall come, quite definitely. The day after tomorrow; perhaps tomorrow even.”

“Oh, you’re always saying that. You didn’t say anything this evening about having to go at once to Ostade!”

“I must, I really must.… Come, Violet, walk along with me as far as my bicycle. Now, please don’t start making a fuss, my lamb.”

“Oh, Fritz, you … the way you treat me …”

V

For a long time Petra had sat as if benumbed. Her sick enemy also lay still for a long time, exhausted. She had hurled all the abuse of which she was capable into Petra’s face; spitting at her, she had reminded Petra in an ecstasy of malicious exultation of how she had once dragged her out of a taxi. “Away from that fine rich bloke. And your umbrella also went flying!”

Mechanically Petra had done what was to be done: had given her a little water, laid a compress on her forehead and a towel over her mouth, which she kept pushing away. However much the other abused and reviled her, jeered and tried to hurt her, it no longer affected Petra, just as the noises of the city, growing ever quieter after midnight, no longer affected her. The city outside, her enemy here inside—neither meant anything.

A feeling of extreme loneliness had numbed everything in her. In the end everyone was completely alone with himself. What others did, asked, performed, was nothing. With a single solitary person on it the earth whirled along its path through the infinities of time and space, always with one mere solitary person on it.

Thus Petra sat, thinking and dreaming—Petra Ledig, spinster. She tried to convince her heart that she would never see Wolf again, that things had to be this way, that this was precisely her fate, and that she must resign herself to it. In the days and weeks to come she was often to dream and try to convince herself. Even if love, filled with longing, would not let itself be convinced, there was yet something like consolation, like a faint memory of happiness, in the mere fact that she could thus sit and dream.

Therefore she was almost annoyed when a hand placed itself on her shoulder and a voice roused her from her brooding with the words: “I say, jail-birdie, talk to me. I can’t sleep. My head aches. Your girl-friend pulled my hair so hard, and I can’t help thinking of my business, too. What are you thinking about?” It was the fat elderly woman from the lower bed, whom the Hawk had previously attacked. She pushed a stool next to Petra, scrutinized her with dark mouse-like eyes and, tired of sitting alone and brooding, whispered, with a nod of her head toward the sick woman: “She can sting like a wasp! Is it true, what she said about you, jail-birdie?” Of a sudden Petra was glad that the other had spoken, that there was some diversion in the long night; she found the woman not too bad, if only because she looked without animosity at the girl who had caused her no little pain.

“Some things are true and some things are not true,” she answered readily.

“But that you go on the streets—that’s not true, is it?”

“A few times,” began Petra hesitatingly.

But the old woman understood at once. “Yes, yes, I know, my pet!” she said kindly. “I’ve also grown up in Berlin. I live in Fruchtstrasse. I’ve also lived through these times—such times as we’ve never had before! I know the world, and I know Berlin, too. You smiled at someone when you were hungry, eh?”

Petra nodded.

“And that’s what a cow like that calls going on the streets. And she squeals on you for a thing like that. She did squeal on you, didn’t she?”

Petra nodded again.

“There—she’s such a greedy, jealous cat—you can see it by her nose. People who have such thin noses are always sour and don’t like seeing anybody else have anything. But you mustn’t take it to heart. She can’t help being crazy; she didn’t choose her nose herself. And what do you do otherwise?”

“Sell shoes.…”

“There, I know all about that; that’s also an aggravating business for young girls. There are nasty old men who, when they get the itch, run from one shoe shop to another just trying on shoes, and then push the young girls with their toes. Well, I suppose you know all about that, too.”

“Yes, there are people like that,” said Petra, “and we know them. And if we don’t know them, then we can see it in their faces, and no one wants to serve them. And some are still worse. They don’t only push, they talk as well, more vulgarly than any girl on the streets … And if you won’t stand for it, they complain that the assistants give bad service, and they get a real kick when the manager tells you off.… There’s no use defending yourself, they don’t believe you when you say that a fine gentleman has used such vulgar words.”

“I know, girlie,” said the old woman soothingly, for the memory of some of the insults she had suffered had become so vivid to Petra that she had spoken almost heatedly. “We know all about that! Do you think it’s different in Fruchtstrasse? Not a bit. If we haven’t got shoe shops there, we’ve got sweet shops and ice-cream parlors—the under-dog always gets it in the neck. But there won’t be any more shoes for you now that you’re in prison. Or will they take you back when you come out?”

“I’ve had nothing to do with shoes for a long time,” declared Petra. “Nearly a whole year. I’ve been living with a boy-friend, and it was today—no, yesterday midday—that we were to have been married.”

“You don’t say!” said the old woman with wonderment. “And just on a red-letter day like that the little poisonous toad has to go and queer everything by peaching on you? Now, tell me, girlie, what mischief have you really been getting up to, for them to shove you straight away into prison rig? They only do that with real jail-birds, because they think they might escape in ordinary clothes. But if you don’t want to tell me, all right then. I don’t like being taken in, anyway, and I can always see if you’re not telling the truth.”

And so it came about that Petra Ledig, between one and two in the morning, related to a completely unknown elderly woman the rather wretched story of the collapse of her hopes, and how she now stood once again alone in life, and really did not quite know the why or the wherefore.

The old woman listened to it all quite patiently, now nodding her head, now shaking it vigorously and saying: “Yes, I know,” and “That does happen,” or “We ought to tell that to God, but he’s got a bit fed up with his job in the last five years and he’s deaf in one ear.” But when Petra had finished and looked silently at the sick woman below her, or maybe just stared in front of her at all the rubbish she really only became aware of while telling her own story—she no longer understood why, how, for whom and where it all began. The old woman gently laid her hand on her arm and said: “My child—so you are called Petra and he always said ‘Peter’ to you?”

“Yes,” said Petra Ledig rather morosely.

“Then I shall also say ‘Peter’ to you. I’m Frau Krupass—Ma Krupass, they call me in Fruchtstrasse, and you must call me that, too.”

“Yes,” answered Petra.

“I believe what you have told me, and that’s more than the chief of police himself can say. And if what you’ve told me is true—and it is true, I can see it in your face—then today or tomorrow you’ll be out again. For what can they want from you? They can’t want anything! You’re healthy and you haven’t been on the streets, and your name’s displayed in the registry office, too—don’t forget to tell them that; the registry office always works with them.”

“Yes.”

“Well then, today or tomorrow you’ll be out and they’ll also find some things for you to wear from the welfare office—so you’ll be out—and what will you do then?”

Petra shrugged her shoulders uncertainly, but now she regarded the speaker with great attention.

“Yes, that’s the question. Nothing else counts. Thinking and fretting and regretting—that’s all bunk. What are you going to do when you get out—that’s the question!”

“Of course,” said Petra.

“From the looks of you, you ain’t the sort to gas yourself or jump into the canal; and then you want to have your baby, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do!” said Petra with determination.

“And what about the shoes?” inquired Ma Krupass. “Do you want to start that again?”

“I won’t get a job again,” said Petra. “I’ve got no references for the last year; I simply stopped going to my last job, without notice. All my papers are still there. I told you, it all happened so quickly with Wolf …”

“I know, I know,” said Frau Krupass. “But still, you’ll fetch your papers; papers are always handy. So there’s nothing more doing with the shoes, and even if there was, you wouldn’t be earning enough, and then the other business would just happen again, and you don’t want that just now, do you?”

“No, no,” said Petra quickly.

“No, of course not, I know. I was only just saying it. And now there’s one more thing, girlie. Do you know what? I shall call you girlie, and not Peter—Peter doesn’t seem to come easy to my tongue. Well now, there’s your boy-friend—how do things stand with him, girlie?”

“He hasn’t come for me.”

“That’s the sort he is; you are right there. And probably he never will. He’ll think he’ll get into trouble with his gambling if he makes too many inquiries for you with the police, and perhaps he also thinks that you’ve squealed on him.”

“Wolf would never think that!”

“All right, then he doesn’t think that. Very good,” said Frau Krupass submissively. “He may be just as fine a gentleman as you say; I don’t dispute it at all—and yet he doesn’t come. Men are all the same. Do you want to go and look for him, then?”

“No,” said Petra. “Not look for him …”

“And if he comes tomorrow to visit you?” The old woman shot a quick dark glance at the girl, who began to walk up and down, stopping sometimes as if she were listening for sounds in the prison; then she shook her head dejectedly and began walking up and down again. Stopping, she leaned her head against the wall and stood like that for a long time.

“This is how it is,” Frau Kraupass at last said knowingly. “The warder will knock on the door and say: ‘Ledig, come along—visitor!’ And then you will follow him in your slippers, dressed as you are now in your blue prison smock. And then you will come into a room. In the middle there’s a wooden barrier, and he’ll be standing on one side, smartly togged up, and you on the other in your prison dress, and in the middle a warder will be sitting and watching you. And then you will talk to each other and when the warder says: ‘Time’s up,’ he will go out again into the free air and you will go back again to your cell.”

Petra was watching the old woman tensely, with pale face. She moved her lips as if she wanted to say something, ask something, but she said nothing, asked nothing.

“Yes, jail-birdie,” Frau Krupass said suddenly, in a hard angry voice, “now just tell me what mischief have you been up to then, to bring you shuffling back to the cell? And what marvelous thing has he done, so that he can go out into the free air again?”

It was very quiet in the cell. At last Petra said painfully: “But it isn’t his fault.”

“I see,” said the old woman sneeringly. “It wasn’t his fault, I suppose, that you were always hungry and always had to wait up for him, and that he pawned your clothes, though if it hadn’t been for that you wouldn’t have come here at all. It wasn’t his fault, no! He wore the skin off his paws shuffling cards, he was always working night shift!”

Petra wanted to say something.

“Be quiet!” cried the old woman. “Let me tell you something. You’re crazy. He had a good time with you, and when he’d finished having a good time, he hopped it and thought: We’ll look for someone else now, she can go and look after herself—I like that, I must say! I tell you, it makes my gall rise. Haven’t you any self-respect left in your body, girl, to want to stand there in the visitors’ room like a primrose pot with a pink serviette and beam at him—just because he really comes to visit you? Is that marriage, I ask you? Is it comradeship? Is it even friendship? It’s pure wanting to sleep with him, I tell you. You ought to be ashamed, girl.”

Petra’s whole body trembled. She had never yet been so rudely awakened; she had never seen her relationship with Wolf in this light—all the veils which love had drawn over it torn away. She would have liked to cry, “Stop!”

“It may be,” Frau Krupass continued more calmly, “that he’s quite a good man, as you say. He does something for your education, you say. All right, let him, if it amuses him. It would have been better if he had done something for your heart and your stomach, but there of course he doesn’t find himself so clever as he does with books. A good man, you say. But, child, he’s not a man. He might become one some day, perhaps. But you take an old woman’s word for it: what seems like a man in bed is a long way from being one. That’s just a silly idea you young girls have. If you go on with him in the same way, spoiling him and always doing what he wants, and a mother in the background, too, with a nice fat money bag—then he’ll never become a man, but you’ll become a doormat. God forgive me for saying so!” She breathed hard with exasperation.

Petra stood pale and quiet against her wall.

“I’m not asking you never to see him again. Just let him shift for himself for a while. You can wait a year, or as far as I’m concerned six months (I’m not so particular) and see what he does. See whether he goes on gambling or whether he goes back to his Ma or whether he gets another girl—in that case he never had any serious intentions about you. Or whether he starts doing some sensible work.”

“But I must at least tell him what’s happened to me, or write to him,” pleaded Petra.

“What for? How will that help? After all, he’s been seeing you every day for a year, and if he doesn’t know you yet, then writing’s of no use. And he can ask at the police station—they’ll soon tell him you are here, they won’t keep it a secret. And if he does come to visit you, then as far as I’m concerned you can go down and say to him: ‘This is the way things are, old chap. I shall show what I’m made of, and you shall show me what you are made of.’ And besides that: ‘I’m going to have a baby,’ you will say—not ‘We are going to have a baby.’ For you’re having it and you must keep it, too, and you’ll say: ‘I want the child to have a real man as his father, someone who can earn a bit of grub, something to eat, something to fill our tummies, so that I won’t go fainting in the street.’ ”

“Ma Krupass,” pleaded Petra, for the old woman was again becoming angry.

“Yes, yes, girlie,” she growled, “you can say that safely. It won’t rub the gilt off him, a man’s got to hear that sort of thing now and again, it does him good.”

“Yes, and what am I to do during the six months?”

“Now, girlie”—Frau Krupass was pleased—“that’s the first sensible word you’ve said this evening. Here, come and make yourself comfortable near me on the bed and let’s have a proper talk. We won’t talk any more about men anyway, a real woman shouldn’t talk so much about them, it only gives them swelled heads and they ain’t really so important.… What are you going to do during the year? I’ll tell you. You shall represent me.”

“Oh!” said Petra, a little disappointed.

VI

“Yes, you say, ‘Oh,’ ” said old Frau Krupass quite pleasantly. With a groan she crossed her legs, an action which revealed that she wore not only a very old-fashioned many-pleated skirt (she even had a petticoat underneath it) but also impossibly thick home-knitted woolen stockings—in the middle of summer. “You say, ‘Oh,’ girlie, and you are right. For how is a pretty young thing like you to take the place of an old scarecrow like me? I look like a keeper of a brothel or a flop house, don’t I?”

Petra shook her head with an embarrassed smile.

“But you’re wrong, girlie. And why are you wrong? Because you’ve written out bills in the shoe shop and can add up, and you’ve got eyes in your head that see what they look at. That’s what I told myself as soon as you came into the cell. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘here’s another one who’s got observant eyes, not bleary eyes like the idiots of today who look everywhere and see nothing.’ ”

“Have I really got such eyes?” Petra asked curiously, because her mirror had never given her the impression that her eyes were different from other people’s, and Wolfgang Pagel hadn’t yet said they were, although he had certainly from time to time felt their effect.

“If I say so, then you have,” declared Ma Krupass. “I’ve learned to know eyes in Fruchtstrasse where I’ve got fifty or sixty people running around; they all tell me lies with their mouths, but they can’t lie with their eyes! Well, here am I sitting in this miserable bug-hutch, brooding and wondering how much I’ll get this time; I’d like to think it’ll be three months, but it’ll probably be six. Killich also says it’ll be six, and Killich seldom makes a mistake; he must know, he’s my lawyer.”

Petra wanted to interpose a question, but the old woman nodded her head vigorously. “That’s all still to come. You’ll get to know everything at its proper time, girlie. And just as you said ‘Oh!’ before, so you can afterwards say ‘No!’; it won’t bother me. Except that you won’t say it.” She seemed so certain and so energetic, and at the same time so kind, that Petra lost all the doubts which such acquiescence in a prison sentence had aroused in her.

“And so here I sit and think,” Frau Krupass continued. “Six months in jail are all very well, and after all I do need some rest—but what’ll happen to the business, especially in times like these? Randolf can be trusted, but he’s weak in arithmetic; and now, when everything runs in millions and him using only slate and chalk—that won’t do, child, you can see that for yourself.”

Petra did see it.

“Yes, so here I sit and worry my head about managers, which is a nice word, except that they all steal like hungry crows and don’t think of the old woman in jail. But then you come in, child, and I look at you and your eyes and I see what goes on with that wench and I hear what she calls you—not to mention the attack on me and having my hair pulled out, and wrapping her in blankets—everything done nicely, without temper and yet not like the Salvation Army.…”

Petra sat quite still. But it does every person good to be rewarded with a little recognition, and it does especial good if that person has been ill-treated.

“Yes, and so I thought: She’s all right, she’s the sort of person you want. But then she’s in jail rig-out, you can’t get her. Just drop the idea, Ma Krupass. She’ll be patching shirts a long time after you’ve got out again. And then I hear what you’ve told me, and I wonder if there isn’t just the possibility that they may have sent the child straight from heaven to me in my loneliness.”

“Ma Krupass!” said Petra for the second time.

“There, Ma Krupass, of course, what else could it be?” said the old woman very pleased, and slapping Petra on the knee. “I told you a lot of unpleasant things before, didn’t I? Well, forget it, it won’t hurt you. When I was young I also had unpleasant things handed out to me, and afterwards, too, without stint: the boys were killed in the war and my old man was so depressed he hanged himself. But not at my place in Fruchtstrasse. He was already in Dalldorf, which is now called Wittenau. But don’t worry about it, is what I think—a little bitterness gingers you up.” She leaned forward. “But I am not so very cheerful even now, girlie, you understand that? I just seem cheerful. On the whole, I think the business ain’t worth the candle.”

And Petra nodded her head in complete agreement, and understood clearly that the business did not mean the police station in Alexanderplatz. She understood Ma Krupass’s outlook perfectly; one could find life rather depressing and yet not hang one’s head. In fact she had rather a similar attitude, and when you discover such feelings, you are always pleased.

“Yes, yes—but just because of that I carry on with the business. It keeps me alive. And if one doesn’t keep alive and do something, girlie, then it’s useless; you just rot alive. And what you’ve been doing, always squatting in a furnished room and perhaps, at the most, doing a bit of washing-up for the landlady—that’s no life, girl; it would make anyone crazy.”

Again Petra nodded her head. It was quite impossible to return to the old life. But she would have liked to know what sort of work it was which kept Frau Krupass so fresh and vigorous, and she hoped with all her heart that it was something decent and responsible.

And then Frau Krupass herself said: “Now I want to tell you, girlie, what sort of business I’ve got. Even if people do turn up their noses at it and say that it stinks, it’s still a good business. And it’s got nothing to do with my being in jail, for it’s a decent business—my being in jail is just the result of my own stupidity, because I was greedy for money. I can’t help it. I’ve said to myself a hundred times: ‘Don’t do it, Auguste (my name happens to be Auguste, but I never use it), don’t do it, you earn enough money as it is.’ But I can’t help it. And then I go and get caught—for the third time! And Killich says it’ll cost me six months.”

Greedy Frau Krupass! She looked very depressed, and Petra could see that her previous talk about six months’ rest was pure bravado—the old woman was by no means hard-boiled. On the contrary, she had an unearthly fear of six months in jail. She would like to have said something comforting to the old woman, but still didn’t exactly know what it was all about. She also hadn’t the faintest idea what the flourishing but dubious, yet apparently decent, business was that Frau Krupass ran.

“Lordy, now I’m sitting here in the dumps,” said Frau Krupass with an almost apologetic smile. “That always happens when you boast about being cheerful and all that. But now listen to me, girlie. Do you know what a rag-and-bone business is?”

Petra, with visions of a musty cellar, nodded slightly.

“Well, girlie, that’s what I’ve got, and there’s no need for you to turn your nose up, it’s a good business and gets one a living and you don’t have to stand for any nonsense from old lechers. Waste paper and old iron and bones and rags, and I’ve got skins too.… But I don’t push a little barrow to the rubbish dumps, not me! I’ve got a big yard, with a truck, and six men working for me. And then there’s Randolf; he’s my supervisor—a bit slow, but trustworthy, as I’ve already told you. Fifty or sixty barrows come to me every day. I pay what’s proper, and they know that Ma Krupass pays the proper prices. And it’s growing from day to day, now that everyone goes round with a barrow because there’s less and less work.”

“But, Ma Krupass, I don’t know a thing about it,” said Petra timidly.

“You don’t need to, my girl. Randolf knows everything, except that he can’t reckon and is slow. You’ll do the reckoning; you’ll keep the books and pay out the money. I’ve got a lot of confidence in you, girlie, and it’ll go all right. In the evenings you’ll phone up the spinning mills and the factories, to ask them what they’re all paying for the stuff that concerns them. I’ll tell you the names and telephone numbers of the people, and you’ll pay according to what they say. And then the truck will deliver at the factories, and you’ll get the money. We send off the paper when we’ve got enough for a truckload. Randolf will tell you all that. That again brings in more money. It cheers you up, girlie, when you take in money; and today any child can do business, when the dollar’s always rising.”

Seeing the old woman’s enthusiasm, Petra felt that the plan was not impossible. After all, it was work. Let’s say it’s a kind of future. Then she remembered that they were in prison, and that there must be some catch in the thing, and her joy left her.

But what the old woman now said restored her joy. “You needn’t think that there’s anything shady in my place. Everything’s honest and open. Proper bookkeeping, and no more bother with the income-tax people than everyone has. And a little house in the yard, slap-up, spotless, with flowers and summer-house, the proper thing. Downstairs lives Randolf, and I live upstairs, three rooms with bath and kitchen—classy. Randolf’s wife cooks my meals, and she shall cook them for you, too. I like eating nice things. She doesn’t cook bad! I was thinking you could live in my flat, and you can wash in the bathroom.… But you mustn’t use the bath, for then the enamel will get spoiled. I’m the only one who knows how to manage it. You must give me your solemn oath that you won’t touch the bath. Anyway, you won’t get so dirty that you’ll have to take a bath—Randolf and the men do the dirty work.”

Petra nodded. But there was still one thing, the one point.

“And tomorrow morning Killich’s coming here at visiting time; he’s my lawyer, and he’s a sly dog, girlie. I’ll say to him: ‘Killich, Herr Killich, Solicitor Killich—tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or even today someone will come to you in office hours. Petra Ledig’s her name. She is my business representative. Don’t look at what she’s wearing—that’s from the Welfare Office or Provident Society—look at her face. And if she does me down, Killich, then I won’t believe another person in the world, not myself, and you least of all, Herr Killich.’ ”

“Ma Krupass!” Petra laid her hand on the old woman’s, convinced that her crime could not really be so bad.

“Well, my girl, that’s how it is. And then Killich will take you to Randolf and tell him that you are to be like me as regards money and giving orders and rooms and food, just like me, and whatever clothes, underwear and things you need, you’ll buy yourself. And in the Municipal Bank, where I have my account, you’ll sign just like me; Killich will arrange all that for you.”

“But, Ma Krupass …”

“Well, what are you ‘butting’ about? You’ll have good food, you’ll have clothes, and you’ll have lodgings; and you can also have your baby in my place, though I hope I’ll be outside again by that time. There’s only one thing you won’t get: you won’t get wages. And why not? Because you’ll only give them to him. You’re that soft, I know. I’m a woman myself. If he comes and looks at you with a faithful doggy look, then you’ll give him what you’ve got. But what you haven’t got—that’s to say, my money—that you won’t give him—I know you well enough for that. That’s why you’ll get no wages. Not because I’m stingy! And now tell me, child, do you agree or don’t you?”

“Yes, Ma Krupass, of course I agree. But there’s still one other thing—the thing.”

“What thing? The fellow? We’ll not speak about him anymore. First let him become a fellow!”

“No; your affair, Ma Krupass—yours!”

“What do you mean, my affair? I’ve told you everything, girlie, and if that isn’t enough for you—”

“No, your affair—the business you’re in prison for, the business you want to get six months for.”

“Want to, girlie! You’re a nice one. A funny idea you’ve got of what I want, I must say! Now, that’s no concern of yours. You’ve got nothing to do with it, nor has the business; it’s only my greediness is responsible. It’s like this. When we sort rags I usually stand by, so that no cotton gets mixed up with linen rags, because linen is dear and cotton’s cheap. I suppose you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good,” said the old woman, pacified. “You’ve got brains, you have. Well, there I’m standing, with the rags flying through the air, and my greedy eyes see something sparkling. I edge up to it cautious=like and there I find a real dress shirt, and the idiot who chucked it away—though it was probably his servant, wanting to make a little money out of linen rags—a lot of people do that today because wages won’t go far—he’s left three diamond studs sticking in the front. I see at once they’re not duds, but real diamonds, and not little ones either! Well, I pretend I see nothing and pull them out quietly. Pleased as punch when I’ve got them home. That’s the way I am; if something hasn’t cost me a cent I’m as happy as a child. I know I mustn’t do it—I’ve been caught twice already—but I can’t stop myself. I always think no one’s seen me …”

The two looked at each other. Petra was very relieved, and Frau Krupass was very worried.

“And that’s the nasty thing about me, child: I can’t stop myself. It worries me to death because I can’t overcome it. Killich also says to me: ‘What’s the point of it, Frau Krupass? You’re a rich woman; you can buy yourself a whole bagful of diamond studs! Stop doing things like that.’ And he’s right, but I can’t stop. Not however much I try. What would you do in a case like that, child?”

“I would give them up,” said Petra.

“Give them up? Those beautiful studs? I’m not as silly as that.” Frau Krupass managed to control herself. “Well, let’s say no more about them. I’m angry enough without talking about it. What else is there for me to say? One of my men must have seen me, and before I can turn round there’s the copper, and he’s very polite. ‘Well, Frau Krupass, what’s all this again about stealing by finding?’ he says and grins, too, the fool! ‘Have you put it in the wardrobe again? Open it!’ And fathead that I am, I really have put the studs there again, like last time—the man’s right and no fool at all! It’s only me who’s always the fool. Well, the person who isn’t born a thief will never become one as long as he lives.”

Ma Krupass sat lost in thought. One could see that, despite her self-knowledge and her fear of imprisonment, even now she regretted the loss of the studs. Petra could almost have laughed at the foolish old woman. But then she thought of Wolfgang Pagel, and although at first she wanted to say: “But that’s different from studs!”—she yet thought: Perhaps I’m only imagining that it’s different. What Wolf is to me, the studs are to Ma Krupass.

And then she remembered again that it was now over with Wolf. She thought of the little house in the rag-and-bone yard; she could already visualize it (scarlet-runners on the summerhouse), and knew for certain now that there would be no more Madame Po and sweltering back room, no more screaming of tin being cut in the factory below, no more staying in bed through lack of clothes, no more cadging for a few rolls. No more passive waiting. Instead of that, cleanliness and order, a day regularly divided up by work, meals and rest … a prospect so overwhelming that she almost wept for happiness. She gulped and gulped again, but then pulled herself together. Going to the old woman, she took her hand and said: “Yes, I’ll do it, Ma Krupass, and gladly. I’m very grateful to you.”

VII

For a long time, for an immeasurably long time, almost an hour, the Rittmeister and young Pagel had played together. They had communicated with each other in whispers. Pagel had listened to the Rittmeister’s suggestions and had followed them or not, according to how he judged the state of play. Young Pagel, cool and calculating in his gambling, had not been a bad teacher. Herr von Prackwitz realized, when Pagel discussed the chances in a whisper, how foolishly he had been playing before. Now he could see that the sharp = nosed gentleman with the monocle, even though he seemed self-controlled, played like a fool. The Rittmeister was now able to make more sensible suggestions which, though noted, were often not accepted by the ex-officer cadet. And at first a slightly irritated, and then later a really bitter, attitude gradually became stronger in the Rittmeister. Young Pagel, on the whole, despite a few triumphs, was on the down-grade, however. If he himself was not aware of it, the Rittmeister noticed how he continually had to delve into his pocket for fresh counters. The young fellow had every cause to follow the advice of one who was an older man and his former superior. Time and again it had been on the tip of the Rittmeister’s tongue to say: “Do for once what I tell you! There, you’ve lost again!” And if he continued to swallow those words (though with great difficulty), it was not because young Pagel, after all, might play as he liked with his own money. There was no doubt about this: the Rittmeister himself was merely a tolerated spectator with three or four counters in his pocket and hardly any cash in reserve. So it was not this which kept him as the superior from calling the second lieutenant to order. It was rather the vague fear that Pagel might stop playing on the slightest excuse and want to go home. He trembled at the thought. It was the worst thing he could imagine—not to be able to go on sitting here, not to be able to continue watching the ball, not to hear the voice of the croupier which would at last, perhaps next time, announce the great coup. It was this fear alone, vague though it was, which restrained the explosive Rittmeister. Yet it was doubtful how long even this would be effective in view of his ever-increasing embitterment. A conflict between the two men was inevitable. And it came, of course, in a manner quite different from that expected.

The ball had been thrown and was rattling, the wheel was whirring round, the croupier had called. People hurried to withdraw their chips and replace them. Time passed quickly, accelerated, always busy. That moment when the ball seemed to balance on the edge of a number, undecided whether to fall into it or continue—that moment, when time seemed to be suspended with one’s breath and heartbeat, that one moment always seemed to be over too quickly.

Some games demand the complete attention of their devotees. The eye that wanders, if only for a moment, has already lost control. The context is lost—why are a heap of chips here, and player’s eyes glazed over there. The game is a merciless god. Only he who completely surrenders himself to the game is granted all the ecstasies of heaven, all the doubts of hell. The halfhearted, the lukewarm, are here—as everywhere—cast aside.

It was already difficult enough for Pagel to play calmly with the Rittmeister constantly chattering. But when, right in front of his eyes intent on the ball, there appeared a highly scented woman’s hand with several glittering rings, a hand holding a few counters, while a voice pleaded coaxingly: “There, you see, darling, I told you so. Now bet for me, too, as you promised”—then young Pagel’s patience gave way. Turning round savagely, he stared at the graciously smiling Valuta Vamp and snapped: “Go to the devil!” He was almost choking with rage.

The way the Rittmeister saw this incident was as follows: a young, very charming-looking lady had wanted to make her stake, perhaps somewhat awkwardly, over Pagel’s shoulder, and Pagel had thereupon shouted at her in the most discourteous, most insulting manner. Discourtesy toward women was hateful to the Rittmeister. Tapping Pagel on the shoulder, he said very sharply: “Herr Pagel, you, an officer! Apologize to the lady at once.”

The croupier regarded this encounter not without apprehension. He knew the lady very well and was unaware of anything ladylike about her; an illegal gambling club of this kind, however, could not possibly allow a noisy quarrel. There were the neighbors in those once very smart west-end apartment blocks. There were the owners of these properties tucked up in their matrimonial beds. Only the emergencies of the inflation had led them to hire out their respectable premises for such dubious purposes. The porter in the lodge below had been paid, but only just. A loud argument could make all of these people curious, suspicious and anxious. Therefore he threw a warning glance to his two assistants. And the assistants hurried to the battlefield. One whispered to the white-nosed Valuta Vamp: “Don’t make us any trouble, Walli,” while he said aloud: “Excuse me, madam, would you like a chair?” The other forced his way up to Pagel who, red with rage, had jumped to his feet; gently but firmly he removed the Rittmeister’s hand from the young fellow’s shoulder, for he knew that nothing makes an angry man more angry than to be gripped. At the same time he was considering, in case the young chap in the shabby tunic caused further trouble, whether a strong hook to the jaw would be out of place or not in this elegant assembly.

The croupier himself would have liked to act as mediator, but could not for the moment leave his place. In a low voice he requested the players to take back their stakes until the little difference of opinion between the gentlemen over there was settled. He was wondering which of the two disputants he would have to throw out. For one of them had to leave, that much was clear.

The table in front of him was now almost bare, and he was just getting ready to carry out his resolve, which was to request young Pagel to leave (quietly or by force, it didn’t matter which), when the tense situation settled itself in a way which, unfortunately, did not fully correspond to the croupier’s intentions.

The Valuta Vamp, or Walli rather, who within the last hour had been able to buy from a late-comer a few doses of snow which she had consumed at a mad speed, insisted, for no reason at all, in the incalculable way of all drug addicts, on regarding the angry Pagel this time as merely comic. Terribly comic, divinely comic, devastatingly comic! She felt like bursting with laughter at his expression, she invited the others to laugh with her, she pointed her finger at him. “He’s such a sweet kid when he’s angry. I must give you a kiss, darling.” And her hilarity was only increased when Pagel, mad with rage, called her a bloody whore before the whole assembly. Almost sobbing with hysterical laughter, she cried: “Not for you, dearie, not for you. You don’t need to pay me anything!”

“I told you that I’d hit you one on the jaw,” shouted Pagel and hit out. She screamed.

The tone of their dialogue, the way they abused each other, had long convinced the croupier’s assistant that a hook to the jaw would be just as much in place here as in his home district in Wedding. He too hit out—and unfortunately struck Walli as she was staggering backwards. The woman collapsed without another sound.

Both the croupier and von Studmann, who had been leaning against the wall, came too late. The Valuta Vamp lay on the floor unconscious. The assistant was trying to explain how it had all happened. Von Prackwitz stood there darkly, biting his lip with anger.

Rather dictatorially Studmann asked: “Well, are we going at last, now?”

Pagel, breathing quickly, was very white, and was obviously not listening to the Rittmeister, now making sharp comments on his ungentlemanly behavior.

The croupier saw the evening threatened. Many guests were preparing to go, and precisely the more distinguished ones, the guests of substance, those who held the opinion that one may overstep the bounds of the law, but only if all outward forms are preserved. In a few curt words he issued orders to his men: the unconscious girl was taken away into a dark adjoining room, the wheel again buzzed round, the ball rattled and jumped. In the lamplight the green cloth shone magical, soft, tempting. “There are still two stakes lying here on the table,” the croupier called out. “Make your game. Two gentlemen have forgotten their stakes.”

Many turned back.

“Well, let’s go then,” Studmann cried impatiently. “I really don’t understand you …” The Rittmeister looked at him sharply and angrily, but he followed when Pagel went out of the door without a word.

In the passage sat the sorrowful sergeant major at his little table. Fumbling in his pocket the Rittmeister fished out the two or three counters he had left, threw them on to the table and called in a tone that was meant to sound carefree: “There! For you, comrade. It’s all I possess.”

The sorrowful sergeant major slowly raised his round eyes toward the Rittmeister, shook his head and laid down three notes for the three counters.

Herr von Studmann had opened the door leading to the dark staircase and was peering down. “You must wait a moment,” said the sergeant major. “He’ll make a light for you at once. He’s just gone down with a couple of gentlemen.”

Pagel stood pale and worn-out in front of the greenish wardrobe mirror. He could distinctly hear the croupier calling: “Seventeen—red—odd.”

Of course. Red. His color! Soon he would be going down the stairs and into the country with the Rittmeister, while inside they were playing his color. And for him there would be no more playing.

The Rittmeister, in a tone intended to indicate that the past was forgiven and forgotten, but which still sounded very angry, said: “Pagel, you’ve also got some counters to change. It’s a pity to throw them away.”

Pagel dived into his pocket. Why doesn’t the fellow come to let us out? he thought. Naturally they want us to go on playing. He was trying to count the chips in his pocket. If there were seven or thirteen he would play one last time. He hadn’t played properly at all yet, today.

There must be more than thirteen, he couldn’t make out the number. Taking them out of his pocket he encountered the Rittmeister’s glance, which seemed to motion him toward the door.

There were neither seven nor thirteen. I must go home after all, he thought sadly. But he no longer had a home! The unsuspecting Studmann now stepped into the staircase to call the man with the light. Pagel looked at the counters in his hand. There were seventeen. Seventeen! His number! At that moment an indescribable feeling of happiness was his. The great chance had come!

He walked up to the Rittmeister and said in an undertone, with a glance through the open door at the stairs: “I’m not leaving yet. I’m going on playing.”

The Rittmeister said nothing, but his eye flickered once—as if something had flown into it.

Wolfgang stepped up to the change-table, drew out a packet of bank notes, the second. “Chips for the lot!” While the man counted and recounted, he turned to the Rittmeister and cried, almost exultingly: “Tonight I shall win a fortune. I know it.”

The Rittmeister moved his head slightly, as if he too knew it, as if it was indeed a natural thing.

“And you?” asked Pagel.

“I’ve no more money with me.” It sounded strangely guilty, and while saying it the Rittmeister glanced almost with fear at the open door.

“I can lend you some. Play on your own account.” Pagel held out a packet of money.

“No, no,” said the Rittmeister. “It’s too much. I don’t want so much.”

(Neither remembered at that moment the scene in Lutter and Wegner’s, when young Pagel had first offered him money and had been rebuked with the most scornful indignation.)

“If you really want to win,” explained Pagel, “you must have sufficient capital. I know!”

Again the Rittmeister nodded. Slowly he reached for the packet.

When von Studmann returned, the anteroom was empty. “Where are the gentlemen?”

The sergeant major made a movement with his head in the direction of the roulette room.

Von Studmann stamped his foot and went toward it. Then he turned back. I wouldn’t dream of it, he thought angrily; I’m not his governess, however much he needs one.

A door opened. The girl with whom Pagel had had the quarrel stepped out.

“Can you take me downstairs?” she asked tonelessly, speaking as if she were not quite conscious. “I feel bad, I would like some fresh air.”

Von Studmann, the eternal nursery governess, offered her his arm. “Certainly. I wanted to go anyway.” The sergeant major took a silver-gray wrap from the wardrobe and draped it over the woman’s naked shoulders.

The two descended the stairs without saying a word, the girl leaning heavily on Studmann’s arm.

VIII

The spotter, the same one who had shown them up, had been standing downstairs, taking good care not to hear the calls for him. Every player who wanted to go had to be given the opportunity of changing his mind. But when von Studmann appeared in the passage with the girl on his arm, he was fully capable of dealing with the situation. The Valuta Vamp, or Walli, he knew, and also that gold and love often play ring-around-the-rosy with each other.

“Taxi?” he asked. And before Studmann could reply, said: “Just wait here. I’ll get one from Wittenbergplatz.” With that he vanished. In the dark open passage of an unknown house, an unknown girl on his arm, von Studmann had time to reflect on his ambiguous situation. And upstairs was a gambling club. Now only the cops were missing.

It was all very awkward, and today had already fully covered von Studmann’s requirements so far as awkward situations were concerned. In these times a man never knew what was going to happen in the next quarter of an hour, whether things were what they seemed. He had honestly been pleased to meet his old regimental comrade that morning. Prackwitz had behaved with extraordinary decency; without his intervention nothing would have reached Studmann’s ear of a Dr. Schröck; he would have been kicked out more or less with ignominy. The prospect, too, of going with him out of this bottomless pit into the peaceful country had been very agreeable—and now the selfsame Prackwitz was sitting upstairs, throwing away his money in the silliest manner, and had already called him a “children’s nurse.”

He required no children’s nurse, he had said. Yet he did and at once. When Studmann recalled young Pagel’s absurd bundles of money, and the vulture-like nose and rapacious glance of the croupier, then he knew that—children’s nurse or no children’s nurse—he ought to go back at once and put an end to this suicidal gambling. But this unfortunate girl on his arm! She didn’t seem quite herself—and no wonder, after that heavy blow. She was trembling, her teeth chattered, she kept whispering something about snow. About snow—in a foul, damp heat that was enough to kill you! It was clear that Studmann ought to go upstairs at once and get his friend away, but it was just as necessary first to take this girl safely somewhere—to relatives. He wanted to learn her address, but she wouldn’t listen. Her sole response was brusque. Let him leave her in peace! Where she lived was no business of his!

A taxi stopped outside. Studmann was not certain whether it was the one meant for him—the spotter was nowhere to be seen, the girl whispered something about snow, von Studmann stood, hesitating. Finally, however, he slouched out of the doorway into the taxi. “Sorry to have kept you waiting. I felt as if there was a nasty niff in the air. You know—the cops’ gambling squad! Those chaps can’t sleep quiet for one night; on their rotten wage, hunger keeps them awake.” He whistled the tune of—“And I sleep so bad and I dream so much.” “Well, hurry up, Count, into the bone-shaker with you. Don’t forget me! There, that’s nice. Some more cash the old woman doesn’t know about. Well, where to, Fräulein?”

He waited in vain. Von Studmann looked doubtfully at the girl reclining next to him in the taxi.

“Going home, Walli?” the spotter bellowed. “Where do you sleep now?”

She murmured something about being left in peace.

“All right, hop it, mate,” said the spotter to the driver. “Down Kurfürstendamm. She’ll soon wake up there.”

The taxi started, and Studmann was annoyed with himself for not getting out.

Later, when he looked back on it, it seemed as if they must have driven for hours and hours. Up streets, down streets—dark streets, brightly lit streets, empty streets, streets full of people. From time to time the girl tapped on the window, got out, went into a café or spoke to a man on the pavement …

She returned slowly, said to the chauffeur: “Drive on!” And the taxi set off again. She sobbed, her teeth chattered more and more, she muttered incoherently to herself.

“I beg your pardon?” said von Studmann.

She did not reply. As far as she was concerned he wasn’t there. He could have got out long ago and driven back to his friends. If he remained it was not because of her; he was not such an uncritical admirer of the feminine as Rittmeister von Prackwitz. And he knew now what he was sitting next to. He had guessed what the girl was hunting for. “Snow,” he remembered, had also been a subject of discussion in his hotel. A lavatory attendant in the café there had been trafficking in it recently. Of course, he had been dismissed—even the most modern hotel didn’t go quite so far toward meeting the wishes of its guests in crazy times.

No, if he still drove on with the girl, if he waited with increasing tension to see whether her inquiries met with success, it was because he was struggling with a decision. As soon as she was successful he would decide one way or the other.

The spotter’s remark about the cops’ gambling squad had given von Studmann the idea that the best thing would be for him to telephone the squad and have the club raided. What he had previously heard about these things, and the taxi driver confirmed it, was that the players had hardly anything to fear. Their names were taken, at the worst they were punished with a small fine, and that was all. The ones severely dealt with were the exploiters, the club organizers—which was only just.

Again and again Studmann said to himself that this was the best solution. What sense is there in my going up again? he kept thinking. I shall merely quarrel with Prackwitz, and he’ll just go on playing. No, I’ll ring up the police at the next café. I know that would be the most effective lesson for him; there’s nothing he hates more than being conspicuous, and if his identity were established by the police, that would rid him of any further desire to gamble. He still thinks he’s sitting in the casino—surrounded by beggars and swindlers.… It will do him good!

Yes, the organizers would be punished, but both the indiscreet Prackwitz and young Pagel, who seemed to have lost all his bearings, would be warned. Nevertheless, Studmann continued to fight for the strength to carry out his decision. Yet he felt reluctant to do the right thing, because one didn’t bring a friend into contact with the police—not even if one’s intention was for the best. First let him settle with the girl, then decide.

He waited for her expectantly, but again she said nothing, and whispered for a long time with the chauffeur.

“That’s too far, Fräulein,” he heard the driver say. “I’m going off duty soon.”

At last he gave way. “But, Fräulein, if that’s also no good …”

They drove on, endlessly. Deserted, almost black streets. Broken street lamps. For economy’s sake only every sixth or eighth one was burning.

The girl was muttering automatically “Oh, God—Oh, God,” and after each “Oh, God” she knocked her head against the back of the cab.

Von Studmann could see himself in the telephone booth of a café: “Please give me the police station, gambling squad …” But perhaps there wouldn’t be a telephone booth, and he’d have to phone at the counter; then the people would think he was a fleeced gambler wanting to revenge himself … It looked very indecent, but it was decent. “It—is—decent!” Studmann said it to himself again and again. Formerly people had been luckier; then decent things had also looked decent. He was decent as well this afternoon. He could have knocked this wretched Baron down dead. And he paid for his decency by rolling drunk down the steps—what a life!

If only he’d been in the country with the rescued Prackwitz—in the peace and quiet, with long-lasting patience.

At last the taxi stopped. The girl got out and stumbled toward a house, cursing. In the uncertain light von Studmann saw only dark house-fronts. Not one café. Not a soul. Something like a shop, a chemist’s apparently. The girl knocked at a ground-floor window next to the shop door, waited, knocked again.

“Where are we?” von Studmann asked the driver.

“Near Warschauer Brücke,” said the man sullenly. “Are you paying for the taxi? It’ll cost you a mint of money.”

“Yes,” said Studmann.

The window on the ground floor had opened; a large pale head above a white nightshirt appeared and seemed to be whispering maledictions. The girl pleaded and begged in a mournful whine.

“He’s not dishing any up,” said the driver. “What do you expect, being dragged out of his bed in the middle of the night like that? And he can go to jail for it. A skirt like that won’t keep her mouth shut. Well, what did I tell you!”

The nightshirt had angrily shouted, “No! No!” and slammed the window. The girl could be heard weeping, inconsolable and at the same time angry. Von Studmann could already see her collapsing. He got out of the taxi to help her.

But she was on him with several very quick, short steps.

“What’s the idea?” he cried.

She had wrenched the walking stick from his hand and ran, before he could get it away from her, back to the window—all without a word, sobbing. This sobbing was particularly horrible. And now she had shattered the windowpane with one blow. Loudly the glass rattled on to the pavement …

“Swindler! Fat pig!” screamed the girl. “Are you going to give me the snow?”

“Let’s shove off,” suggested the driver. “The cops must have heard that. Look, now the windows are being lit up.”

And, indeed, here and there in the dark house-fronts appeared lights. A weak high voice shouted, “Quiet!”

But it was quiet now, for the two by the broken window were whispering to each other. The pale-faced man was no longer cursing, or only softly.

“There you are!” drawled the driver. “Them that starts with such people have got to do what they want. She doesn’t care whether the cops come and shut up his shop so long as she gets her dope. Shall we drive on?”

But Studmann could not make up his mind to do this. Even if the girl had behaved irresponsibly and meanly, he couldn’t drive off and leave her in the street, when the police might come strolling round the corner at any moment. And then there was that other business—that if she got her snow, then he would ring up the police. Once again he saw himself with the receiver in hand: “Gambling division of the criminal police, please.” There was nothing else for it. Prackwitz must be saved. One had one’s obligations.

The girl was back, and von Studmann had no need to ask whether her expedition was successful. The way she suddenly regarded him, the way she addressed him, the way he began to exist for her again, made it easy to guess that she had got her snow and had already sniffed it.

“Well?” she asked challengingly and held his stick out to him. “Who are you? Oh, yes, you’re the pal of the young man who hit me. Nice friends you have, I must say, hitting a lady in the kisser!”

“You are wrong,” said von Studmann politely. “It was not the young man—who, by the way, isn’t my friend—who hit you like that. It was someone else, one of the two men who always stand next to the croupier.”

“Do you mean Curly Willi? No, don’t spring any yarns on me—I wasn’t born yesterday. It was your pal, the one who brought you along. Well, I’ll pay him out!”

“Shall we drive on?” suggested von Studmann. He felt dog-tired, tired of this woman and of her cheeky, quarrelsome tone, tired of this aimless wandering about in the gigantic city, tired of all the disorder, the filth, the wrangling.

“Of course we’ll drive on!” she said at once. “Do you think I’m going to pad the hoof to the West End? Driver, Wittenbergplatz.”

But now the driver rebelled, and since he didn’t find it necessary to speak like a gentleman, and since the gent had declared himself ready to pay the fare, he didn’t mince his words, but told her plainly what he thought of an old doper like her who broke windows. He announced that he wouldn’t drive her a step farther, not to save his life! He declared he would have chucked her out long ago if the gent hadn’t been there …

This abuse made little impression on the lady. She was used to it; in some ways quarreling was her natural element. It enlivened her, and the drug she had just taken lent wings to a fancy which proved vastly superior to that of the rather dense driver. She would report him to his employer. She had a friend—she had noted the number of his car. He needn’t be surprised if he found his tires slit tomorrow morning!

A silly, endless altercation. The exhausted von Studmann wanted to put an end to it, but he lacked animation and was no match for them. When would it end? Windows were being lit up again, voices were again calling for quiet …

“But I say, please …” he protested feebly.

Suddenly the noise was over, the quarrel at an end. It had not even been pointless: the parties had come to a friendly understanding. True, they were not going to drive as far as Wittenbergplatz, but all the same they were going to drive “a step,” namely as far as Alexanderplatz.

“My garage is close by there,” explained the driver, and this explanation prevented von Studmann from reflecting any further on their objective, Alexanderplatz. For otherwise it would undoubtedly have occurred to him that in Alexanderplatz stood the very Police Headquarters whose gambling squad he now had to phone up, seeing that the girl had obtained what she wanted. But he could think of nothing except of getting into the taxi again and being able to settle down comfortably. He was really very tired. It would be good if he could now have forty winks. Sleep is never so good as in a softly rattling car. But it wasn’t worth sleeping between here and Alexanderplatz—it would make him feel even more tired. He lit a cigarette.

“You might offer a lady a cigarette!”

“Help yourself!” said von Studmann, and offered her his case.

“No thanks!” she said sharply. “Do you think I need your rotten cigarettes? I’ve got some myself. You should be polite to a lady.”

She fetched a case out of her bag, brusquely demanded a light, and then said: “How do you think I’m going to pay your friend out?”

“He’s not my friend,” said von Studmann mechanically.

“I’ll give him something to remember me by, that lad! Sauce the chap’s got, hitting a lady. How does he come to have so much cash this evening? He usually hasn’t got any, the little squirt!”

“I really don’t know,” said von Studmann wearily.

“All right! If he doesn’t have his money taken off him in the club, I’ll see that he gets rid of it. You can be sure of that. When I’m through with him he won’t have a penny left.”

“My dear Fräulein!” pleaded von Studmann. “Won’t you let me smoke my cigarette in peace? I’ve already told you the gentleman is not my friend.”

“Yes, you and your friends!” she said angrily. “Hitting a lady! But I’ll peach on him—your friend!”

Von Studmann remained silent.

“Don’t you hear? I’ll peach on your friend!”

Silence.

Scornfully: “Don’t you know what peaching means? I’m going to squeal on your friend.”

Through the open glass partition came the driver’s voice: “Hit her one on the jaw. Right on the jaw. That’s what she deserves. Your friend was quite right; he’s a right ‘un, he knows what to do! Keep hitting it till she shuts up. Here are you running up all this expense with the taxi, and then she comes out with a lot of common talk about squealing!”

The quarrel between the two sprang into life once more. The glass partition was repeatedly wrenched open and again slammed shut, the taxi echoed with the screaming and shouting.

He ought to pay a little more attention to his steering, thought von Studmann. But what does it matter? If we hit something, at least this noise will stop.

However, they arrived safely at Alexanderplatz. Still cursing, the girl clambered out of the taxi, stumbling over von Studmann’s legs. “And a man like that thinks he’s a gentleman,” she shouted back into the car, and dashed off across the square toward a large building where only a few windows were lit up.

“There she goes!” said the driver. “And she’ll do a whole lot of talking if the cop lets her in; she’s really going to do what she said. And she’s done some pretty shady things herself. If they ask her whether she dopes she’ll be in the soup at once. Perhaps they’ll pinch her on the spot. Well, I shan’t be sorry.”

“What’s that?” von Studmann asked pensively, looking at the large building under whose gateway the girl had just whispered.

“Well, I say!” The driver was very astonished. “You must be a stranger here. Why, that’s Police Headquarters! Where she’s going to squeal on your friend.”

“What’s she going to do?” Von Studmann suddenly woke up.

“Squeal on your friend!”

“Why?”

“I think you must have been asleep during the row. Because he socked her! Even I understood that much.”

“No?” said Studmann very excited. “What for? One doesn’t go running to Police Headquarters because of a box on the ears.”

“How should I know? Do I know what your friend’s been getting up to? Anyway, you’ve been asking some funny questions yourself about gambling clubs and such-like. I suppose she’s going to blow the gaff to the cops!”

“Here!” Von Studmann jumped out of the taxi. Resolved as he had been a moment ago to denounce the gambling club, he was now equally convinced that this malicious girl’s denunciation must be prevented.

“Here!” also shouted the taxi driver, seeing his fare money, and a lot of fare money indeed, running away. And there came for the impatient feverish Studmann an endless arguing, a reckoning-up that went on and on. “Taxi comes to so much.” Reckoned out in pencil, and reckoned out in three different ways. “And then the extras …”

At last Studmann was able to run across the square, and then again he had to argue with the policeman on duty, who couldn’t understand what he wanted; whether he was looking for a lady or the gambling squad, whether he wanted to lay information or prevent its being laid.…

Ah, the placid, the cool, the calm, the collected ex-lieutenant and ex-hotel manager von Studmann! He had completely lost his head at the thought that someone wanted to report his friend Prackwitz and young Pagel for illegal gambling. Yet he had had the same idea himself only half an hour ago.

In the end, however, he obtained permission to enter, and the policeman told him how to get to the Night Division, for that seemed to be his objective and not the gambling squad, as he had hitherto believed. Nevertheless, not having paid attention to these directions, he soon lost himself in the huge, badly lit building. Through passages and up stairs he trotted, the hollow echo of his footsteps with him. He knocked at doors from behind which no answer came, and at others from which he was gruffly or sleepily sent on. In his weariness it seemed to him as if he were in a dream that would never end. Until at last he stood outside the right door and heard the sharp voice of the girl inside.

And at the same moment it occurred to him how senseless was his errand, for he could say no word to refute the denunciation; no, he would even have to confirm it. For it was a gambling club, and it was illegal gambling. He ought rather to run off as fast as he could to the club, and get the two of them away before the police came.

He retraced his footsteps, slunk guiltily past the policeman on duty. He would have to hurry in order to get there before the police; happily he remembered that here he was right next to the subway, and that he could get to the West End more quickly that way than by taxi. He ran over to the station and wandered around among the closed booking offices until it dawned on him that there were no more trains at this time of night. He would have to take a taxi after all. And at last he found one, and sank down in its cushions with relief.

Immediately he sat up again. Hadn’t he heard a police car just then?

Suddenly he became conscious of the stupidity of his actions the whole evening. Am I the same Studmann who never lost his head in battle? he thought with horror. And he felt as if he were no longer himself, but a hateful, fidgety, senseless person. “Cursed times!” he said, beating himself on the breast. “Damnable times, which steal people from themselves. But I shall get out of it all—I’m going to the country, and shall become myself again, as truly as I’m Studmann! But I must get there first—I can’t let them be caught.”

IX

Certain of victory, Wolfgang Pagel stepped into the gambling room with the Rittmeister beside him. In his closed hand he loosely held the seventeen counters from the first game, shaking them with a saucy gay, rattle. He knew that this time he was going to the game in a different spirit. Always before he had played wrongly, devised idiotic systems which were bound to fail. But now he must do it as he had today; wait for an inspiration and then stake. Then wait until another inspiration came—perhaps endless waiting. But he must have patience.

“Yes, very nice. Very,” he said in smiling reply to the Rittmeister, who had asked something. Prackwitz looked at him in astonishment. Probably he had made some ridiculous reply, but it didn’t matter, he was really near the gambling table now.

At this time the table was more densely besieged than ever. It was the last hour; at three, or half-past three at the latest, they closed down here. All the players who, exhausted, had stood against the wall and smoked, all who had sat undecided in armchairs and on settees—all now thronged round the table. Time was escaping, but once again offering the prospect of great winnings. Take your chance! When the city awakes in a few hours, you’ll either be rich or poor. Wouldn’t you prefer rich? The incident with Pagel had long been forgotten; no one took any notice of him. Seeing no possibility of getting close to the table, he went right round it and with his shoulder he forced himself between croupier and assistants. Curly Willi, the thick-set bruiser from Wedding, was on the point of making an angry protest against this irregularity when a quiet word from the croupier stopped him.

Wolfgang Pagel shook his seventeen counters lightly in his hand. He wanted to make a bet. With a mocking smile under his moustache, the croupier reminded the old gambler that he couldn’t make a bet while the ball was rolling.

Wolfgang had to wait, and it was as if time stood still. Finally the ball came to a halt. A number was called out. The other players raked in their profits, ridiculous, paltry, insignificant profits.

Wolfgang’s hand descended upon the green cloth!

Seventeen counters lay on the number seventeen.

The croupier gave him a swift side glance and smiled slightly. Calling to the players for the last time to make their stakes, he seized the knob, the wheel began to turn, the ball rolled.…

His game began—the game of Wolfgang Pagel, at the time without occupation, ex-lover of a girl named Petra Ledig—that game for which he had been waiting a year, no, a lifetime, for which he had, in fact, become what he had become; for whose sake he had quarreled with his mother; for whose sake he had taken to himself a girl who had shortened for him the period of waiting, and who had gone when the time was right. We have staked on seventeen, seventeen counters on number seventeen …

Attention, we are playing! Seventeen brings a win of thirty-six to one—the ball rolls ceaselessly, rattling, rattling.… We still have time to reckon out in millions and milliards what we shall win when seventeen turns up … If the ball were made of bone we could say that the bones of the dead in their crypts rattle like it. But we are alive, and playing.

“Seventeen!” called the croupier.

There, is he not calling it out? It is the hour of judgment. The black sheep will be shorn but the just—they shall be crowned! There is a rattling down of counters, a rain, a flood, a deluge. Into my pockets with them! Wait. I also want to stake. Isn’t there a chair free for a player like me? What am I staking on? I must be calm, reflect … I shall stake on red. Red is correct, I once reckoned it out, a long, long time ago. Look, there’s a chair!

“Here, my son, here are ten dollars, good American dollars. Do you remember how you wanted to hit me on the jaw before? Ha-ha-ha!”

I mustn’t make so much noise? I disturb the others? The others can go to the devil! What do I care about the others with their measly stakes. They play to win, to hoard filthy paper money. I play for the sake of the game, for the sake of life … I am King!

Red!

He sat there and stared, suddenly morose, mistrustful. Were those enough counters? He piled them up before him in heaps of ten and, his hands trembling with excitement immediately, pushed them over again. They all wanted to cheat him here, rob him. After all, he was only the Pari Panther, a nobody in a shabby tunic. That dog, the croupier, had always treated him like a thief—he would pay him back for it!

And he staked again and won again, and Fortune returned to him. Blissful ecstasy never before experienced, like a cloud in the summer sky, and underneath the heavy dark earth with its vulgar people and their heavy distorted faces. Fly away, heavenly clouds and heavenly gods—O happiness!

What fell there? What’s gushing? What’s falling?

Like a brook the counters fell merrily splashing through his arms onto the floor, for he could no longer gather them together. Let them fall, Fortune is smiling on me! Let others bend down for them … We have enough, and we shall get still more!

How morose the croupier looks, how his beard bristles! Yes, we’re going to fleece you today, my son. You shall slink back to your hole as bare as a rat—soon you’ll have no counters left and you’ll have to bring out your paper money; today we’re taking everything!

What does the Rittmeister want? He has lost everything? Yes, you must know how to play. Do it like me, Rittmeister; after all, I’ve shown you how. Here you have paper money, American dollars, 250 dollars. No, ten were given to Curly Willi—240 then! Yes, tomorrow morning we’ll settle it up, but in half an hour this money too will come back to me by way of the croupier.

The game is turning? The ball no longer rolls as he wants it to?

Yes, it is a fact: one shouldn’t give away money in the middle of a game; it brings bad luck.

He sat there gloomily, he tried the pari chances again, the three-to-one chances. He played cautiously, with calculation. But the counters between his arms dwindled, the ranks became thin. Again and again the army of the defeated rattled away beneath the croupier’s rake. The croupier smiled again.

And the players no longer looked at Pagel; they took no more notice of him. They boldly went on placing their stakes over his shoulder again. He was no longer a favored player; he was a player like the rest. Luck smiled on him once, then forgot him again; he was the plaything of fortune, not its bed-fellow.

What had he been doing the whole time? How long had he been sitting here?

Already he was fishing in his pockets, the stream had dried up. Had he immediately forgotten the lesson Fate had taught him? He must back seventeen—seventeen counters on seventeen—that’s what it was.

Seventeen!

And the rattle of the counters!

The ecstasy returned, remoteness from the world, and sun. He sat there, his head bent slightly forward, a lost smile on his lips. He could stake as he liked, the stream now gushed again. And then happened what he had been expecting: the counters gave out. Now notes were coming to him, more and more. They crackled, they looked up at him with dull colors—ridiculous paper marks, valuable pound notes, exquisite dollars, fat contented gulden, substantial Danish kronen—booty from the wallets of fifty or sixty visitors. It all streamed to him.

The croupier looked as gloomy as death, as if he had been seized by a sickness and was suffering intolerable pains. He could hardly control himself. Curly Willi had already run twice into the anteroom for fresh money, the day’s takings had to be brought. Soon you’ll have to use your wallet, croupier!

Croupier murmured something about closing down, but the players protested, threatened.… Hardly any of them were playing now; they were watching the duel between croupier and Pagel. They trembled for the young man. Would luck remain true to him? He was one of them, the born gambler; he was revenging all their losses on the wicked old vulture, the croupier. This young man didn’t love money as did the croupier—he loved the game! He was no exploiter.

And young Pagel sat there, ever more smiling, ever more calm. With excitement the Rittmeister whispered at his shoulder. Pagel merely shook his head with a smile.

The Rittmeister shouted: “Pagel, man, stop now. You’ve got a fortune!”

No, the Rittmeister was no longer embarrassed to shout in this room, but Pagel smiled unheedingly. He was here and yet was far away. He wanted this to go on forever, endlessly through the eternities. That’s what we live for! The wave of Fortune bears us on. Inexpressible feeling of joy in existence. This is how a tree must feel which, after days of tormented rising of its sap, unfolds all its blossoms in an hour. What is the croupier? What is money? What is the game itself? Roll on, little ball, roll. Did I ever think that the bones of the dead rattled like that?

Glory of heaven! Red? Of course red, and once more red. And red again. But now we’ll take black—otherwise life has no savor. Without a slight mingling of black, life has no savor. Still more bank notes. Where shall I put them all? I should have brought a suitcase with me—but who could anticipate a thing like this?

What does Studmann want again? What’s the shouting? Police? What does he mean by police—what does he want police for? Where are they all running to? Stop, let the ball finish rolling! I win once more, I win again, always again! I am the eternal winner …

Here are the police! Now all the players are standing as silent as their own ghosts. What does the funny man with the bowler hat want? He is saying something to me. All gambling money is confiscated. All money? But, of course, it’s all gambling money—money for gambling—otherwise it would have no sense. What else is it for?

We are to get ready and come along? Of course we are coming along; if there’s to be no more playing we might as well come. Why is the Rittmeister arguing with the man in blue? There’s no sense in that. If we can’t play, nothing matters!

“Come along, Herr Rittmeister, be calm. Look, Studmann is also going along, and he hasn’t played once. So let’s go.”

How deathly pale the croupier looks! Yes, for him it is bad. He was losing—I, however, I won as I’ve never won in my life! It was wonderful beyond words. Good night!

At last I can sleep peacefully, I have achieved what I longed for; as far as I’m concerned, I can sleep forever. Good night!

X

In a little courtroom in Police Headquarters at Alexanderplatz a wretched old incandescent lamp cast its reddish light on the faces of those arrested in the gambling club, some scowling, some silent and depressed, others sleepy or eagerly chatting. Only the croupier and his two assistants had been led off separately—all the rest had been driven into this room as they got out of the police wagon, and the doors had been locked on the outside in order to dispense with a guard. Now wait until your turn comes!

At long intervals the door to an adjoining room opened, a weary-looking, wrinkled clerk motioned to the man standing nearest him, and that man vanished and did not return. Then after an interminable period, the next was summoned.

Headquarters were extremely busy. The murder of Oberwachtmeister Leo Gubalke had led to a series of raids, and there was no lack of objectives for these raids, unfortunately. Gangs were rounded up, receivers’ dens visited, night clubs inspected, naked-dancing resorts combed out, accommodation and assignation hotels were searched, station waiting rooms and down-and-out shelters scanned.…

Incessantly was heard from the square the exciting, nervous trilling of the patrol wagons setting out or returning with fresh hordes of arrested. Every room, every hall was packed full. Exhausted secretaries, clerks half asleep; gray-looking typists kept inserting fresh sheets of paper in their typewriters; in hoarse voices officials asked questions so quietly that they could hardly be understood.

Assault.

Immorality.

Unnatural vice.

Petty larceny.

Pocket-picking.

Housebreaking.

Robbing drunks.

Begging.

Street robbery.

Illegal possession of firearms.

Cheating.

Illegal gambling.

Receiving.

Passing of counterfeit money.

Drug-trafficking.

Procuring, trivial and serious cases of.

Blackmail.

Living on immoral earnings.

An endless list, the wearisome deathly menu of crimes, vices, misdemeanors, trespasses … Over their charge-sheets the officials almost nodded to sleep.… Then suddenly they started shouting, until their voices once more gave way.… An ever-rising flood of lies, evasions, distortions, denunciations. (And in the Government printing works, in a hundred auxiliary ones, they were preparing for the coming day its new abundance of money, poured out in overwhelming superfluity upon a starving, brutalized people who from day to day increasingly lost all feeling of self-respect and propriety.)

“It’s enough to drive one mad,” cried Rittmeister von Prackwitz, jumping up for the tenth time to pace the room. The fact that, in doing so, he had to avoid half a dozen men likewise engaged by no means improved his temper. Snorting, he stopped in front of his old comrade. “How much longer do you think we’ll have to stay here? Until the gentlemen condescend, eh? It’s monstrous, arresting me.”

“Now, just keep calm,” pleaded von Studmann. “Anyway, I don’t believe we’re arrested.”

“Of course we’re arrested,” cried the Rittmeister still more angrily. “The windows are barred and the doors locked. Don’t you call that arrested? Ridiculous. I’d just like to know what you think an arrest looks like, then.”

“Be calm, Prackwitz. Getting excited won’t do any good.”

“Be calm, of course, be calm! It’s all very well for you to talk—you haven’t got a family, you haven’t got a father-in-law. I’d just like to see how calm you would be if you had Geheimrat Horst-Heinz von Teschow as your father-in-law.”

“He won’t find out. I tell you, we only have to show our identification papers and then they’ll let us go. Nothing will happen.”

“Then why don’t they let me go? Here are my papers—I have them in my hand. I must get away, my train’s going, I have to take my harvesters to the country—I say, you—listen, Herr what’s-your-name?” He rushed upon the clerk who had just appeared. “I demand to be released at once. First they take all my money from me—”

“Later, later,” said the clerk indifferently. “First calm yourself a little. You are to come along now,” and he motioned to a fat man.

“First calm myself!” said von Prackwitz to Studmann. “That’s simply ridiculous. How can I calm myself when I’m treated in this way?”

“No, really, Prackwitz, pull yourself together. If you go on fuming like this, they’ll keep us to the last. And then I ask one more thing of you: don’t shout at the officials.”

“Why shouldn’t I shout at them? I’ll blow them up properly. Keeping me here for hours!”

“For half an hour.”

“Anyway, they’re used to being shouted at. They’re all old noncoms and sergeants—you can see it.”

“But you’re not here as their superior, Prackwitz. It’s not their fault that you were caught gambling.”

“No. But just look at young Pagel, the roué. Sits there as if the business didn’t trouble him at all, smirking and grinning like some Buddha. What are you grinning like that for, Pagel?”

“I was just thinking,” said Pagel, smiling, “how crazily everything happened today. Over a year I’ve been struggling for a little money and today I get it, piles and piles. Snap! It’s confiscated.”

“And that makes you laugh? Well, you’ve got a funny sense of humor.”

“And then another thing,” Pagel went on, unheeding. “This afternoon I wanted to get married …”

“You see, Pagel,” said Rittmeister triumphantly, suddenly in a good temper. “I guessed at once in Lutter and Wegner’s that you were worried about a woman.”

“Yes. And this evening I heard that my dear intended had been arrested for something and taken to Police Headquarters.… And now I’m sitting here, too.”

“Why was she arrested?” asked the Rittmeister curiously, for the consideration of events did not interest him so much as the events themselves.

Von Studmann shook his head, and Pagel remained silent.

The Rittmeister recollected himself. “I’m sorry, Pagel; of course, it’s no concern of mine. But it beats me why you sit there pleased and grinning just because of that, I must say. After all, it’s an extremely sad business.”

“Yes,” said Pagel. “It is. It’s funny. Very funny. If I had won the money only twenty-four hours earlier, she wouldn’t have been arrested and we would now have been married. Really very funny.”

“I wouldn’t think about it any more, Pagel,” suggested von Studmann. “That’s all finished and done with now, thank God. In a few hours we’ll all be sitting together in the train.”

There was a silence. Then Prackwitz cleared his throat. “Give me a cigarette, Pagel. No, you’d better not. I owe you so much already.”

Pagel waved his hand. “That’s all gone.”

“But, man, don’t talk such nonsense! You lent me money. Do you remember how much you gave me?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Pagel. “I wasn’t meant to have any of it; that’s been proved.”

“Gambling debts are debts of honor, Herr Pagel,” declared the Rittmeister sternly. “You shall get your money back, you can depend on that. Of course, it won’t be possible at once. First we must have the harvest in and begin threshing.… Are you coming with me?”

“What, just in order to wait for the money?” said Pagel sullenly. “I’d like to start doing something worth while at last … if I only knew what. But if you have some proper work for me, Herr Rittmeister—”

“Of course I’ve got work for you, man,” said the Rittmeister excitedly. “You’ve no idea how much I’ve been wanting a couple of reliable men. To give out fodder, pay wages, distribute allowances, make a tour of inspection through the fields every now and again at night—you can’t imagine the things that are stolen from me.”

“And forests and fields,” added von Studmann. “Trees, animals—no brick houses with falling façades, no cocaine, no gambling clubs.”

“No, of course not,” said the Rittmeister eagerly. “You would have to promise me, Pagel, that you won’t gamble as long as you’re with me. That’s quite out of the question.” He turned red. “It doesn’t really matter if you don’t promise,” he said a little blusteringly. “I can’t really insist on that. Well, what do you say?”

“I’ll come to the station tomorrow morning in any case and tell you then,” said Pagel hesitatingly. “Eight o’clock at Schlesische Bahnhof—that was it, wasn’t it?”

Prackwitz and Studmann looked at each other. The Rittmeister made an almost angry gesture. “Hasn’t Fate answered your question yet?” said Studmann. Pagel kept silent. “For the game was your question, wasn’t it, Pagel?”

“But I won,” said Wolfgang obstinately.

“And sit here without anything!” laughed the Rittmeister scornfully. “Be a man, Pagel! I find your indecision horrible. Pull yourself together. Give up gambling.”

“Are you worried about the girl?” asked Studmann.

“A little,” admitted Pagel. “It’s really so strange for me to be sitting here, too.”

“Well, do what you must do,” cried the Rittmeister angrily. “I’m not going to beg you to come to Neulohe.”

“In any case, we shall be seeing each other at the station,” added von Studmann hastily, for someone was calling out. From the adjoining room came a thick-set man who ran to doors and windows, inspected them, shook his head. “Thieves! What a nerve, robbing the police!” he shouted.

He hammered against the door. Officer, open up! Hey, Tiede, see that no one escapes—!

Confusion, yells, laughter.

Policemen entered. The fat Criminal Commissar stormed up and down. “Get into line, all of you. We’re going to search you. Will you be quiet over there? Look under the tables and chairs as well.”

It appeared that one or two of these arrested had not known how to employ the time more usefully than by screwing off the bronze door- and window-fittings. There were no more door-handles, no more window-handles, no more lock-fittings. Even the policemen laughed. The Commissar himself could not but smile.

“What a nerve! Have you ever heard of such a thing? Of course the fellow’s already gone, or the fellows, for there must have been a few of them—one man couldn’t have hidden it all. I questioned them and noticed nothing! Well, I shall have to look through the identity lists at once.”

“A moment, Herr Commissar!” called Studmann.

“What do you want? You heard, didn’t you? I haven’t any time now. Oh, it’s you, man. I’m very sorry, Oberleutnant von Studmann. The light’s so bad. What are you doing in our shop, my old friend of the Baltic Corps? Well, come along, then; of course it’s your turn next. Only a few formalities, but you’ll get a fine. Still, you needn’t turn gray because of that; the currency devaluation will settle that. Your friends? How do you do, Rittmeister? How do you do, Lieutenant? I’m Commissar Künnecke, formerly quartermaster-sergeant in the Rathenower Hussars.… Yes, this is how we meet again. Wretched times, aren’t they? So you’re the young man who made that enormous pile? Incredible. And just then the wicked police had to come in! Yes, the money has gone bye-bye; we don’t give it back again. What we have we keep. Ha, ha! But you shouldn’t let it worry you. Money of that sort never yet brought any luck—thank your Creator you are rid of it! The doorknobs? Our colleagues will enjoy pulling our legs tomorrow. I still can’t help laughing. It was good bronze—they’ll get a sack of money from the old-iron merchant. All right, and now the personal details. Herr von Studmann—occupation?”

“Reception manager.”

“You? Lordy, lordy, lordy! What have we come down to? You—reception manager! Excuse me, Herr Oberleutnant …”

“Certainly, certainly—and at that I am an ex-reception manager, now agricultural apprentice.”

“Agricultural apprentice? That’s better. Even very good. Land is the only real thing today. When were you born?”

XI

Outside a door lined with sheet-metal stood a table, an ordinary deal table, on which lay a packet of sandwiches and a thermos flask. At the table sat an old man in police uniform, reading a newspaper by the very weak illumination of a fanlight. Hearing footsteps coming along the passage, he lowered the paper and glanced up over his pince-nez.

The young man came slowly nearer. At first it seemed as if he was about to walk past the table. “Excuse me,” he said, “does this lead to the police prison?”

“It does,” said the official, folding his paper carefully and laying it on the table. “But it is only a door for those on duty,” he added.

The young man hesitated. “Well, what’s on your mind? Do you want to give yourself up?” the old man asked.

“What do you mean—give myself up?” asked Pagel.

“Well,” said the old man slowly, “it’s getting on for four. Sometimes about this hour someone who is troubled because he’s been up to something comes and gives himself up. But then you must go to the Night Division. I’m only on duty at the door.”

“No,” said Pagel, “I’ve not been up to anything.” He fell silent. Then, seeing the old man’s calm glance: “I only want to speak to my girl-friend. She’s inside there.” And he motioned with his head toward the door.

“Now?” The old man was almost indignant. “At night, between three and four?”

“Yes.”

“Then you have really been getting up to something which won’t let you rest?”

Pagel made no reply.

“There’s nothing doing. Visits aren’t allowed now. And anyway …”

“Isn’t it possible at all?”

“Absolutely impossible!” The old man reflected. At last he said: “And you know it as well as I do. You’re just standing here like this because it won’t let you rest.”

“I’m here in the police station quite by accident. I didn’t come here on purpose.”

“But you came to this door on purpose? It wasn’t easy to find at night, eh?”

“No.”

“There, you see,” said the old man. “It’s just the same with you as with those who come to give themselves up; they also say that they don’t come because of a bad conscience. Bad conscience! There’s no such thing anymore. Why do you come, then, at two or three in the night? That’s a strange time. A man’s alone with himself then; he suddenly gets very different thoughts from the daytime. And then he comes here.”

“I don’t know,” said Pagel gloomily. And he really did not. He didn’t want to leave Berlin without at least having asked her whether it was true. Sometimes he told himself that the official must have misinformed him—it was preposterous. He knew Petra! And then again he told himself that an official wouldn’t tell him anything that was untrue; he had no interest in telling him a lie. Yes, the game was finished; victory had turned into defeat. How alone Peter now is. Peter—someone was once with him, something alive, that clung to him. Is everything now lost?

“I am going away early tomorrow morning,” he pleaded. “Can’t anything be done tonight? No one need notice anything.”

“What are you thinking?” cried the old man. “There are night warders inside. No, it’s absolutely impossible.” He thought for a moment, looked at Pagel critically. “And anyway …”

“What do you mean—‘and anyway’?” Pagel asked, somewhat angrily.

“And anyway, visitors are not usually permitted.”

“And unusually?”

“Unusually neither.”

“I see,” said Pagel.

“This is a police prison here,” said the old man, feeling there was some need to explain the situation. “In the remand prison the examining magistrate can give permission for visits, but here it’s not allowed. Most of them only stay with us a few days.”

“A few days? …”

“Yes. Perhaps you can inquire next week in Moabit Prison.”

“Is it quite certain that I can’t visit her tomorrow morning? No exceptions are made?”

“None at all. But naturally, if you know something to prove that your girlfriend is inside without cause, and tell it to the Commissar tomorrow, then she’ll come out—that’s plain.”

Pagel reflected.

“But you don’t look as if you had any information of that sort, do you? Otherwise you wouldn’t come here to me at night. You just want to have an ordinary talk with your girl-friend, don’t you—in private?”

“I wanted to ask her something,” said Pagel.

“Well, write her a letter, then,” said the old man kindly. “If there’s nothing in it about the charge she’s here for, then it’ll be handed over to her, and she’ll also be allowed to reply.”

“But it’s precisely about the charge that I want to ask her!”

“Well, young fellow, then you’ll have to be patient. If you want to inquire about that, you can’t do it in the remand prison, either. Until the charge has been tried, nobody is allowed to discuss the matter with her.”

“How long will that take?” asked Pagel desperately.

“Well, that depends entirely on the charge. Has she confessed?”

“That’s just it. She has confessed, but I don’t believe her. She’s confessed something she hasn’t done.”

The old man seized his newspaper very angrily. “Now run along to bed,” he said. “If you want to persuade a self-confessed prisoner to withdraw her confession, then you can wait a long time for permission to visit her. And you won’t be allowed to write to her, either, which is to say, she won’t get your letter. You certainly have a nerve. You want me to help you to visit her secretly. No, you go home. I’ve had enough.”

Pagel stood there, uncertain. “But it does happen sometimes that someone confesses to a thing he hasn’t done. I’ve often read it.”

“So you’ve read that, have you?” asked the old man almost venomously. “Then let me tell you, young fellow, anyone who makes a false confession has always been up to something worse. Yes, a man confesses to housebreaking because at the same hour he committed a murder. That’s how it is. And if your girl-friend’s confessed, then she’ll very well know why. I wouldn’t do any persuading if I was you. Otherwise she’ll find herself in a worse mess.” The old man squinted angrily at Pagel through his pince-nez.

Pagel, however, stood as if thunder-struck. New light had been thrown on Petra’s confession. Yes, she had confessed to street-walking in order to escape something worse; she had confessed to street-walking in order to escape him. Prison was better than living with Wolfgang Pagel. Faith lost, confidence lost—gone from him, gone from the world, away from the intolerable to that which could be tolerated! A big win lost again—gone, vanished.…

“Thank you very much,” he said very politely. “You have given me good advice.” And he went slowly down the passage, followed by the old man’s suspicious glance.

It was the right hour to fetch his things from Tannenstrasse. At this hour his mother would certainly not be expecting him; she would be sound asleep. In Alexanderplatz he would certainly find a taxi. Thank God that Studmann had lent him some money. Studmann, the non-gambler, the only capitalist; Studmann the helpful. He could almost think of Studmann and Neulohe with pleasure.