Wolf Among Wolves

Chapter Eleven

The Devil’s Hussars Come

I

“It’s an impertinence!”

“I knew you’d get excited,” said Frau von Prackwitz gently.

“I won’t have it!” cried the Rittmeister still more violently.

“It was just a precaution,” said Frau von Prackwitz soothingly.

“Where’s the letter? I want to have my letter! It’s my letter!” he roared.

“The matter has surely been dealt with long ago,” conjectured Frau von Prackwitz.

“A three-weeks-old letter addressed to me—and I don’t see it! Who is the master here?” thundered the Rittmeister.

“You!” said his wife.

“Yes, and I’ll show him I am,” he shouted and ran to the door. “He’s getting too big for his boots!”

“You’re forgetting your letter,” his wife reminded him.

“What letter?” The Rittmeister stopped, dumbfounded. Apart from this letter he could remember no other.

“The one over there—from Berlin.”

“Oh, yes.” He stuffed it into his pocket, giving his wife a dark threatening look. “You’re not to telephone the fellow!”

“Of course not. Don’t get so excited. The men will be coming at any moment.”

“The men can …” As befitted a well-bred gentleman, the Rittmeister did not say what the men could do until he was outside his wife’s room. She smiled. Immediately afterwards she saw her husband, bare-headed, storming along the road to the farm.

Frau von Prackwitz went to the telephone. “Is that you, Herr Pagel? Could you give me Herr von Studmann quickly? Thanks. Herr von Studmann? My husband’s coming in a frightful rage because we kept the letter about the electric current from him. Don’t worry if he blows off a little steam. He’s already got rid of the worst of it on me. Yes, of course, thanks. Oh, no, I’m used to it. Well, thanks very much.”

She hung the receiver up. “Do you want anything, Vi?”

“Can I go out for a walk for half an hour?”

Frau von Prackwitz looked at her watch. “In ten minutes’ time you can go with me to the Manor. I want to see whether anything has been arranged about the cooking for the men.”

“Oh, always there, Mamma! I would so like to go to the forest again. Can’t I go to the forest? And swim? I haven’t been swimming for four weeks.”

“You know, Violet …” In her driest tone, against her own heart.

“Oh, you torment me so! You torment me, Mamma. I can’t stand it any longer! You shouldn’t have let me have so much freedom before if you now want to keep me on a chain like this! Like a prisoner. But I can’t stand it any longer! I’m going mad in my room. Sometimes I dream that the walls are falling in on me and then I see the curtain cord and wonder whether it will hold. I feel like jumping out of the window. I feel like smashing the glass so that I can see my blood flowing and feel that I’m still living.… I shall do something, I don’t care what I do, I don’t care.”

“Vi, Vi!” said her mother. “If you would only tell us the truth! Do you think it’s easy for us? But as long as you go on lying to us we can’t do anything else.”

“It’s you! Only you! Papa said you’re being unjust. And Papa also believes I told the truth—it wasn’t a strange man, but Kniebusch. Everybody believes me, except you. You want to domineer over us, Papa says so, too.”

“All right, get ready,” said Frau von Prackwitz wearily. “I’ll arrange it so that we can go for a walk in the forest afterwards.”

“I don’t want to go there with you. I don’t need a keeper … I won’t be imprisoned by you! I—I hate you! I don’t want even to see you anymore; I won’t, I won’t!” Once again she broke into hysterics, which always ended in a loud sobbing that prostrated her, changing into a pitiable whimpering.

Frau von Prackwitz had a firm heart. She did not weep because others wept. Filled though she was with an infinite pity for her helpless child, she also thought: You are lying! If you weren’t trying to hide a secret you wouldn’t get so worked up.

She rang the bell.

“Don’t come in, Hubert. Call Armgard and Lotte—Fräulein Violet is feeling bad. Yes, and then bring me the Hoffmann drops from the medicine chest.”

Frau von Prackwitz, gently closing the door again, smiled sadly. The whimpering had noticeably lessened while she was giving the manservant her instructions; it had almost stopped when she ordered the hated Hoffmann drops.

You are feeling bad, my child, she thought, but you don’t feel so bad as not to be interested in what’s going to happen to you. There’s no help for it, we must keep on until one of us gives way. I hope it is you!

II

The Rittmeister stormed into the office.

“Hello,” said Studmann. “That’s what I call quick! Are the men coming?”

“To hell with the men!” shouted the Rittmeister, whose anger had been given fresh vigor by his dash here. “Where’s my letter? I want my letter!”

“You needn’t shout like that,” said Studmann coolly. “I can still hear perfectly. What letter?”

“This is a nice thing!” bellowed the Rittmeister. “People hide my letters from me, and I’m not even allowed to say what I think! I demand my letter!”

“Herr Pagel, do you mind closing the window? It isn’t necessary for all Neulohe to hear what …”

“Pagel, leave the window open! You work for me, understand? I want to have my letter—it’s three or four weeks old.”

“Oh, you mean that letter, Prackwitz.”

“Do you mean to say you’re hiding other letters from me? You are carrying on secret intrigues with my wife, Studmann!”

At this the young and frivolous Pagel burst out laughing.

The Rittmeister stood transfixed. Young Pagel had laughed. One could have heard a pin drop in the office.

He took two long paces toward Pagel. “You laugh, Pagel? You laugh, Herr Pagel, when I’m angry?”

“I’m sorry, Herr Rittmeister. I wasn’t laughing at you, sir. Only it sounded so funny. Herr Studmann carrying on secret intrigues with your wife.”

“So—so!” An icy look, a scrutiny from head to foot. “You are dismissed, Herr Pagel. You can get Hartig to drive you to the station to catch the three o’clock train. No contradiction, please. Leave the office! I have business to attend to here.”

Somewhat pale, yet with dignity, young Pagel left the office.

Herr von Studmann, angry, leaned against the safe. He looked out of the window, his forehead wrinkled. The Rittmeister regarded him sideways. “He’s an impertinent rascal!” he growled tentatively, but Studmann did not move.

“Now please give me my letter.”

“I have already given the letter back to Herr von Teschow,” announced von Studmann coolly. “I was able to convince the Geheimrat that his demands were unjust. He asked for the letter to be returned, so that the whole matter could be regarded as never having been raised.”

“I can believe it,” the Rittmeister said with a bitter laugh. “You let the old fox cheat you! He made a fool of himself and you give him back the proof of his blunder. Fine!”

“Negotiating with Geheimrat von Teschow was not very easy. He could still base himself legally on the confounded lease. What finally decided him was the question of his reputation, of your position as relations—”

“Position as relations! I am convinced you let yourself be hoodwinked, Studmann.”

“He seems to think a lot of his daughter and granddaughter. And how could I have been hoodwinked, since everything has been left as it was?”

“That doesn’t matter,” declared the Rittmeister obstinately. “I should have read the letter.”

“I thought I had full power to deal with it. You expressly asked me to keep all unpleasant things away from you.”

“When did I say that?”

“When we captured the field thieves.”

“Studmann, if I don’t want to be bothered by these petty thefts, it doesn’t mean that you are to hide letters from me.”

“Good. It won’t happen again.” Studmann leaned against the safe, a little reserved, but not impolite. “I have just examined the cooking arrangements in the washhouse. They seem to be all right. Amanda Backs is very efficient.”

“We’ll raise a fine stink with these convicts! I ought never to have agreed to it. But when you get everyone nagging you! I would ten times have preferred to take the Berlin people; then I wouldn’t have been obliged to turn my harvesters’ barracks into a jail. What it’s all cost! And now this impertinence from that Berlin fellow. Here, read that!”

He handed the letter to Studmann, who read it without moving a muscle, returned it and said: “That sort of thing was to be expected.”

“Was to be expected?” the Rittmeister almost screamed. “You think it’s all right, do you? The fellow demands seven hundred gold marks for wretches whom I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole! And you think it’s all right! Look here, Studmann—”

“The items are all there: ten gold marks agent’s fee per man makes six hundred marks, sixty hours of lost time at one mark, other expenses forty marks …”

“But you saw them, Studmann; they weren’t laborers. Seven hundred gold marks for a botanist’s tin and a babe in arms! No, you must write a strong letter to the fellow, Studmann!”

“Of course. What would you like me to write?”

“You know that best yourself.”

“Shall I reject his demands?”

“Of course!”

“Completely?”

“Absolutely! I won’t pay the fellow a penny!”

“Very good.”

“You think that’s right, don’t you?” asked the Rittmeister suspiciously.

“Right? Not at all, Prackwitz. You are bound to lose the case.”

“Lose the case … But, Studmann, they weren’t men—agricultural laborers.”

“One moment, Prackwitz …”

“No, listen, Studmann …”

“Well.”

And Rittmeister von Prackwitz was very angry with his friend von Studmann when the latter finally convinced him that they must try and come to an agreement. “It’ll cost money,” he sighed.

“Unfortunately I shall have to ask you for some more money today.” Studmann bent over an account book in which he hastily scribbled figures, endless figures with very many noughts.

“What do you mean—money? I haven’t anything worth mentioning. The bills can wait.”

“Since you’ve dismissed young Pagel,” said Herr von Studmann, apparently very busy with his figures, “you’ll have to pay your gambling debt. I have just reckoned it out. According to yesterday’s dollar rate it will be ninety-seven milliards two hundred million marks. Roughly one hundred milliards.”

“A hundred milliards!” exclaimed the Rittmeister breathlessly. “A hundred milliards! And you say off-handedly: ‘Prackwitz, I shall have to ask you for some money’ … Look here, Studmann, old man, I’ve got a feeling that you are angry with me somehow.”

“Me angry with you? Just now it looked as if you were angry with me.”

The Rittmeister paid no heed. “As if you were purposely creating difficulties for me!”

“Me—create difficulties for you?”

“But, Studmann, think! Where am I to get the money from? First there are these crazy expenses for the reconstruction of the harvesters’ barracks, then this Berlin fellow with seven hundred gold marks whom you think I shall have to pay something, and now Pagel.… My dear Studmann, I’m not made of money! I haven’t got a machine for printing bank notes, I haven’t got a mint, I can’t sweat money out of my ribs—yet you come along with these exorbitant demands. I don’t understand you.”

“Prackwitz,” said Studmann eagerly, “Prackwitz, sit down at once in this chair at the desk. There—comfortable? Good! Wait a moment. You’ll soon see something. I must just take a look at Pagel’s room.”

“But what’s the idea?” The Rittmeister was completely bewildered.

Studmann had disappeared into Pagel’s room and could be heard rummaging around. What was wrong with him? A serious business talk, and he started this nonsense!

“No, sit where you are,” cried Studmann, hurrying back. “Now you’ll see something.… What’s this?”

Somewhat foolishly the Rittmeister said: “A shaving mirror. Probably Pagel’s. But what in Heaven’s name—”

“Wait, Prackwitz! Whom do you see in the mirror?”

“Why, myself.” Like all men, he stroked his chin and listened to the soft scraping of the stubble. Then he shifted his tie. “But …”

“Who is this ‘me’? Who are you?”

“Now, look here, Studmann …”

“Since you don’t seem to know, Prackwitz, I’ll tell you. The man looking at you in the mirror is the most unbusinesslike, the most childlike, the most inexperienced man I have ever met in my life.”

“I beg you!” said the Rittmeister with injured dignity. “I certainly don’t want to underestimate your services, Studmann, but I managed Neulohe successfully even before you came here.”

“Hark at him!” said Studmann energetically. “In order to avoid hurting your feelings—for if I wasn’t your real friend, Prackwitz, I would pack up and go this very minute—let’s call the gentleman in question Herr Mirror. Herr Mirror goes to Berlin to engage men. He finds his way to a gambling den. Against the advice of his friend, he gambles. When he has been cleaned out he borrows about two thousand gold marks from a young man and loses that, too. The young man becomes Herr Mirror’s employee. He is very decent, he never says a word about the money, although he probably needs money very badly, for his cigarettes get worse every day, Prackwitz. Then Herr Mirror kicks the young man out and complains at having to pay him.”

“But he laughed at me, Studmann! Take your damn mirror away.”

“Herr Mirror,” continued Studmann pitilessly, keeping the mirror in front of the Rittmeister’s face despite his attempts to avoid it, “Herr Mirror engages men in Berlin. He expressly tells the agent: ‘Doesn’t matter what they look like, doesn’t matter what they know’! But when Herr Mirror sees the men he gets a shock, and rightly. But instead of trying to come to some settlement with the agent, Herr Mirror avoids the dispute, flies from the enemy, afraid of an open combat—”

“Studmann!”

“And then blames the whole world, with the exception of himself, because he has to pay.”

“I’m not blaming you, Studmann. I’m only asking you: Where am I to get the money from?”

“But these are trifles,” said Studmann, laying down the mirror. “The important thing, the unpleasant thing, comes now.”

“Good Lord, Studmann. No, not now, please. I’ve had enough irritation for one morning. Besides, the men will be here at any moment.”

“The men can …” said Herr von Studmann violently. “You’ve got to listen now, Prackwitz. It’s no use your trying to get out of it; you can’t run around in the world like a blind chicken.” He went to the window. “Oh, Frau von Prackwitz, could you come in for a moment?”

Frau von Prackwitz looked doubtfully at Vi, then at Studmann. “Is it so important?”

“My wife isn’t needed here,” protested the Rittmeister. “She doesn’t understand a thing about business.”

“She understands more than you,” Studmann whispered back. “Pagel! Look after the young Fräulein for a bit. Fine. Come along, Frau von Prackwitz.”

A little reluctantly, Frau von Prackwitz stepped toward the office. From the threshold she looked back at the two young people.

“Where would the young Fräulein like to go?” asked Pagel.

“Oh, just up and down in front of the windows.”

Frau von Prackwitz entered the office.

III

“Would you perhaps like to see the huge cooking arrangements in the Manor?” asked Pagel. “There’s terrific activity there now.”

“I’ve got to go there with Mamma afterwards. Who is doing the cooking?”

“Fräulein Backs and Fräulein Kowalewski.”

“I can understand Amanda doing it. But I should have thought Sophie considered herself a cut above cooking for convicts!”

“Everyone likes to earn a little money nowadays.”

“You don’t seem to, if you run around here smoking during working hours,” snapped Violet.

“Does my cigarette disturb you?” asked Pagel, taking it out of his mouth.

“Not at all. I like smoking myself. When the people in the office have forgotten us, we can sneak away into the park for a bit. Then you can give me one.”

“We can go straight away. Or do you think your mother considers me too dangerous to be allowed to walk in the park with you?”

“You dangerous!” Vi laughed. “No, but, you see, I’m supposed to be confined to my room.”

“You are allowed to go only with your Mamma, then?”

“How clever you are!” she cried mockingly. “For three weeks the whole district has been talking about my being confined to my room, and now you’ve noticed it, too.”

But her irritation made no impression on him. He smiled cheerfully. “May one inquire why you are confined to your room? Was it for something very bad?”

“Don’t be indiscreet!” she said very pertly. “A gentleman is never indiscreet.”

“I suppose I shall never be a gentleman, Fräulein,” confessed Pagel sadly, feeling his breast pocket with a secret smile. “But if you think the people in the office are talking loud enough, we might steal into the park and smoke a cigarette.”

“Wait.” She listened. Studmann’s voice could be heard, calm but very emphatic. Then the Rittmeister was plaintively protesting against something—and now Frau von Prackwitz was saying a great deal, very determined, very clear. “Mamma’s off, let’s go!”

They walked along the broad path between the lawns into the park.

“They can’t see us now. Now you can give me a cigarette.… Heavens, this is a wonderful brand you smoke. How much do they cost?”

“Some millions, I can’t remember; it changes every day. Anyway I get them from a friend, a certain Herr von Zecke who lives in Haidar-Pascha. Do you know where Haidar-Pascha is?”

“How should I know? I’m not training to be a teacher of kids!”

“No, of course not. I’m sorry.… Haidar-Pascha is on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus.”

“Heavens, Herr Pagel, stop talking such rubbish! Why do you keep grinning like that? Whenever I look at you, you’re grinning.”

“It’s a war injury, Fräulein. Injury of the nervus sympathicus in its central canal. You know, just as shell-shock cases shake, so I grin.”

“Are you trying to pull my leg?” she cried indignantly. “I won’t have it.”

“But, Fräulein, word of honor, it’s a war injury. When I cry it looks as if I were laughing tears—it has got me into the most unpleasant situations.”

“One doesn’t know where one is with you,” she declared, dissatisfied. “Men like you are simply horrible.”

“That makes me harmless; that’s an advantage, Fräulein.”

“Yes, I don’t doubt it!” she said scornfully. “I’d really like to know how you would go about it if …”

“Go about what? Go on, say it! Or are you afraid?”

“Afraid of you? Don’t be ridiculous! I was wondering how you’d look if you wanted to give a girl a kiss.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” confessed Pagel miserably. “To tell you the truth, Fräulein, I’ve thought about it thousands of times, but I’m so shy, and then …”

“What!” Vi gave him a superior look. “You’ve never yet given a girl a kiss?”

“I’ve intended to hundreds of times, Fräulein, word of honor! But at the decisive moment my courage …”

“How old are you?”

“Nearly twenty-four.”

“And you’ve never yet kissed a girl?”

“I’m telling you, Fräulein, my shyness …”

“Coward!” she cried with the deepest contempt. And for a while they walked in silence down the avenue of tall lime trees which led to the pond.

“Fräulein, may I ask you something?”

Ungraciously: “Well, what is it?—hero!”

“But you mustn’t be angry with me.”

“What is the question?”

“Sure you won’t?”

Very impatiently: “No! What’s the question?”

“Well—how old are you, Fräulein?”

“You idiot! Sixteen.”

“You see, you are angry—and I’m just beginning my questions.”

Stamping her foot: “Well, get on with them—you weakling!”

“You’re sure you won’t be angry?”

“Ask your questions!”

“Fräulein—have you ever kissed a man?”

“I?” She pondered. “Of course. Hundreds of times.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Thousands of times!”

“You’re joking!”

“It’s true. My Papa!” And she burst into a peal of laughter.

“There you are!” said Pagel when she had finally quieted down. “You haven’t the courage either.”

Vi was indignant. “I haven’t got the courage?”

“No, you’re just as afraid as I am.”

“Well, I have kissed a man. And not just Papa. A young man, a brave man”—her voice almost sang now—“not a weakling like you.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true, it’s true. He’s even got a mustache, a little fair one, it prickles. And you haven’t got one!”

“I see,” said Pagel, crestfallen. “And you’re really only sixteen, Fräulein?”

“I’m only fifteen, even,” she declared in triumph.

“I say, but you have got courage,” he said admiringly. “I could never be as brave as that. But, of course, you have never kissed a man. You only let yourself be kissed. That is quite different. To get hold of a man’s head and smother him with kisses—you couldn’t do that.”

“I couldn’t do that?” she cried with blazing eyes. “What do you think of me, then?”

He lowered his glance before hers. “Please, Fräulein! I haven’t said anything. Of course you could do it, I believe you. Please, don’t …” But he pleaded in vain. Her flaming eyes, her half-opened mouth, came closer to him, although he tried to retreat. Her mouth laid itself on his.…

And she felt a change come over him, as if her lips had given strength to him. She felt herself crushed in his arms, his lips returned her kiss.… Now she wanted to draw away, now she was afraid.… But the kiss of those lips grew hotter and hotter; she wanted to resist, and she felt herself yielding. Her head, which had been proudly erect, gave way, nestled.… Her back became soft, she hung in his arms.… “Oh!” she sighed and sank into the ecstasy she had missed for so long. “Oh, you …”

But his arms ceased to hold her. His face was again far away; it looked serious, no longer wearing the smile.

“Well, Fräulein, that was that!” he said calmly. “Anyone as weak as you shouldn’t play with men.”

“You are mean!” she cried with flaming cheeks, partly from anger and partly from shame. “A gentleman wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

“It was mean,” he admitted. “But there was something I had to know about you, and you would never have told me the truth. Now I know it.” He thrust his hand into his pocket. “I found this letter, this copy of a letter, in the office hidden in a book. I suppose it was yours?”

“Oh, that silly old letter!” she cried scornfully. “That’s why you’re carrying on this performance. Meier must be crazy, making a copy of it. You should have torn the thing up, instead of deceiving me so horribly.”

Pagel looked at her critically while he tore the letter into tiny pieces. “There,” he said, putting the little heap into his pocket. “I shall burn it at once. But there is at least still one copy in existence, and if this Herr Meier sends it to your father, what then?”

“Anyone could type out a thing like that!”

“Quite so! But you are confined to your room—it seems therefore that there is already a suspicion. Without the suspicion the copy would carry little weight. But with it?”

“I’ve got the original back. If I admit nothing, nothing can be proved.”

“But you might be outwitted.”

“Not me.”

“I outwitted you very quickly.”

“They’re not all as crafty as you.”

“Little Fräulein,” said Pagel with kindly admonition, “let’s agree that from now on you’ll be just as polite to me as I am to you. Let’s forget the letter which I have torn up. What I did, doesn’t seem very nice. But it was better, anyway, than if I’d gone to your mother and told tales. Perhaps I ought to have done so, but I didn’t care for that.”

“Don’t be so solemn!” she mocked. “You’ve probably also written love letters and received them.” But her mockery no longer had its old force.

“Very true,” he said calmly, “but I’ve never been a scoundrel. I’ve never yet corrupted fifteen-year-old girls. Come along,” he seized her arm, “let’s go to your mother. She’s sure to be getting worried.”

“Herr Pagel,” she said imploring, resisting. “He’s not a scoundrel.”

“Of course he is, and you know it quite well, too.”

“No,” she declared, struggling with her tears. “Why are you all so unkind to me now? Before it was different!”

“Who is unkind to you?”

“Mamma, who is eternally tormenting me, and Hubert.”

“Who is Hubert? Is Hubert his name?”

“No. Our servant, Hubert Räder.”

“Does he know?”

“Yes,” she said weeping. “Please let go my arm, Herr Pagel, you are crushing it.”

“Sorry. So the servant torments you, does he?”

“Yes.… He is so mean.”

“And who else knows?”

“No one that knows anything definite.”

“Not Bailiff Meier?”

“Oh, him! But he’s gone away!”

“Then he knows too? Who else?”

“The forester—but he doesn’t know anything definite.”

“Who else?”

“No one—really, Herr Pagel! Don’t look at me like that, I’ve told you everything. Really I have.”

“And the servant torments you? How does he torment you?”

“He is mean—he says mean things, and he puts dirty books under my pillow.”

“What sort of books?”

“I don’t know—about marriage, with pictures.”

“Come along,” said Pagel again, seizing her arm. “Be brave. Now we shall go to your parents and tell them everything. You have fallen into the hands of scoundrels who torture you till you no longer know what to do. Your parents will understand. They are only angry with you because they feel you are lying.… Come along, Fräulein, be brave—I’m the coward of the two.” And he smiled at her.

“Please, please, dear Herr Pagel, don’t do that!” Her face was streaming with tears; she had seized his hands as if he were wanting to run away with the bad news, she caressed him … “If you tell my parents, I swear to you I’ll jump into the water. Why do you want to tell them? It’s all over, anyway.”

“It’s all over?”

“Yes, yes,” she wept. “He hasn’t come for three weeks.”

He became thoughtful. Inevitably the vanished Petra stood before his eyes. When he had felt those lips under his own, felt that body soften as it surrendered itself to the seduction of pleasure, not to the ecstasy of love—her picture had arisen, distant but clear; a face sweet and composed, greeting him from the past. Reluctantly he found himself forced to make comparisons. What would Petra have done here? Would she have said that? She would never have behaved so.…

And the sweet face, seen a thousand times, the face of the girl who had forsaken him, whom he had forsaken, triumphed over this other schoolgirl face, and seemed to admonish him to kindness. She triumphed—and this triumph of the one who had abandoned him at least warned him to be good to this new one, and not to burden her with everything. If you’ve been too hard on me, he heard in his head, don’t do the same thing again to this one.

He reflected and considered. She read his face.

“What is he?” he asked.

“A Lieutenant.”

“In the Reichswehr?”

“Yes.”

“Do your parents know him?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know for certain.”

Again he pondered. The fact that it was an officer, that is to say a man who, whatever he might be, was subject to a certain code of honor, was a little reassuring. If the young fellow had once forgotten himself and had withdrawn in fright, then to some extent it wasn’t so bad; just a momentary lapse, perhaps when he was drunk—no repetition need be feared. But he ought to find out. Could one, however, ask such a young girl whether it had only happened once, whether there had been any sequel? If it had happened several times, it was scoundrelism. Then he would have to tell her parents.

No, he did not like asking. Perhaps he would have to reproach himself afterwards, but he could not.

“You are sure it is over?”

“Quite sure!”

“You swear to that?” he asked, although he knew how useless such oaths were.

“I swear it!”

He had an uncomfortable feeling. Something was wrong; she must have lied to him somewhere. “If I am to keep quiet, you must promise me one thing. But on your word of honor.”

“Yes, of course.”

“If this man—this Lieutenant—should again approach you, you must let me know at once. Will you promise me that? Give me your hand.”

“On my word of honor!” she said, giving him her hand.

“All right, then. Let’s go. Try and find some pretext for sending your manservant Räder over to me this evening, as late as possible.”

“Fine!” she cried enthusiastically. “What will you do to him?”

“I’ll make the young fellow yelp,” he said grimly. “He won’t torment you again.”

“And if he runs to Papa?”

“We’ve got to risk that. But he won’t. I’ll put such fear into him he won’t want to. Blackmailers are always cowards.”

“Can you hear whether they are still talking in the office? Heavens, I must be looking awful. Please give me your handkerchief quickly; I must have lost mine—no, I didn’t bring one with me. I’ll never lie to you again, not even about little things. You are so nice, I’d never have thought it. If I wasn’t in love already, I’d fall in love with you on the spot.”

“That’s over, Fräulein,” said Pagel dryly. “Please don’t forget it—you swore that.”

“Why, of course.”

“All right, now let’s go and show ourselves under the window. The debate in there seems to be endless.”

IV

“Dear Lady,” Herr von Studmann had said, straightening Frau von Prackwitz’s desk chair, which he gladly granted her, “apologies for calling you. But we’re having a meeting here which you have to attend. We’re talking about money.…”

“Really?” said Frau Eva, examining herself in the shaving mirror. “Of course, that’s quite a new topic for me! Achim discusses it at least every day.”

“Eva, please!” cried the Rittmeister.

“And why does my friend Prackwitz speak of money every day? Because he hasn’t any. Because the smallest bill upsets him. Because the rent due on the first of October weighs on him like a nightmare. Because he is always wondering if he will be able to pay it.”

“Quite right, Studmann, I’m worried. I’m a prudent businessman.”

“Let’s examine your financial position. You have no capital; current expenses are paid from current income—that is to say, by sales of cattle, of early potatoes, the harvest.… You have no capital reserves.…” Studmann rubbed his nose thoughtfully. Frau von Prackwitz gazed at herself in the mirror. The bored Rittmeister leaned against the stove, hoping that Studman (this eternal nursemaid) would at least have sufficient tact not to talk of his gambling debts.

“Then comes the first of October,” went on Studmann. “On that date the annual rent has to be handed over in cash to Geheimrat von Teschow. This, as you ought to know, is equivalent to three thousand hundredweights of rye, and as far as I’ve been able to find out, the price is round about seven or eight gold marks a hundredweight, which would mean a sum of twenty-five thousand gold marks, not to be expressed in milliards—if only because we don’t know what the price of rye will be in paper marks on the first of October.” Von Studmann gazed at his victims, but they were not yet aware of the significance of his words.

“I’m very much obliged to you, Studmann, for bothering with all these things. But, if you’ll pardon me, we know them. The rent is somewhat high, but I’ve got a very nice crop standing in the fields, and now that I’m getting reapers—”

“Excuse me, Prackwitz, you don’t see the problem. On October the first you’ve got to give Herr von Teschow the value of three thousand hundredweights of rye. Since the gold mark is a fictitious standard, the price of rye in paper marks—”

“I understand all that, my dear Studmann, I know that.”

“But,” continued the inexorable Studmann, “you can’t deliver three thousand hundredweights of rye to the dealer in one day. Judging by your books, you require about fourteen days for that. Now suppose you deliver three hundredweights of rye on September the twentieth. The dealer, let us say, will give you three hundred milliards for it. You put the three hundred milliards in your safe ready for payment on October the first. In the period between September the twentieth and thirtieth the mark continues to fall. On September the thirtieth you’ll get from the dealer, let us say, six hundred milliards for the three hundred hundredweights. Then the three hundred milliards in your safe will only represent the value of one hundred and fifty hundredweights. You would have to deliver another one hundred and fifty hundredweights.… That’s clear, isn’t it?”

“Just a minute,” said the Rittmeister, perplexed. “How was that? Three hundred hundredweights are suddenly only one hundred and fifty?”

“Herr von Studmann is quite right,” asserted Frau von Prackwitz. “But it’s terrible. No one can afford that.”

“It’s a fourteen-day race with inflation,” said Studmann. “And it will exhaust us.”

“But the inflation won’t necessarily keep on like this!” exclaimed the Rittmeister indignantly.

“No, of course not. But one can’t tell. It depends on so much: on the French in the Ruhr, on the firmness of the present government, which wants to continue the Ruhr struggle at all costs and so needs more and more money, on the attitude of England and Italy, who still oppose France’s action. That is to say, on thousands of things we can’t influence—yet we have to pay on October the first whatever happens.”

“Can we do it, Herr von Studmann?”

“We can, Frau von Prackwitz.”

“There you are!” cried the Rittmeister, half laughing, half angry. “Just like Studmann! First he frightens us, then he has the solution to hand.”

“There are people,” said Studmann, unperturbed, “who believe in the perpetual depreciation of our currency, who speculate on a fall. They’d be prepared to buy your rye from you today, Prackwitz, payment to be made on October the first, delivery to be made October to November.… I have a few offers here.”

“The fellows will make a mint of money out of it,” said the Rittmeister bitterly.

“But you’ll be able to pay Papa the rent punctually and without loss, Achim! That’s what we have to consider.”

“Give me the offers, Studmann,” said Prackwitz sullenly. “I’ll look them through. Anyway, I’m very grateful to you.”

“The second question is,” went on Studmann, “whether it is any use paying the rent at all.” He said nothing and looked at them both. Fallen from heaven, he thought, like children.

“But why?” asked Frau von Prackwitz, puzzled. “Papa must have his money, mustn’t he?”

“That’s a crazy idea, Studmann,” objected the Rittmeister very crossly. “As if there weren’t enough difficulties without that!”

“The contract states,” said Frau von Prackwitz, “that we would immediately lose the lease if punctual and full payment is not made!”

“I shall fulfill my obligations!” declared the Rittmeister.

“If you can!” said Studmann. “Listen, Prackwitz, now don’t interrupt me. You listen, too—it will be a little painful, as I must speak of your father.… Well, let’s speak of the lessor and lessee. For you are coming in for a few hard things, too, my dear Prackwitz, you, the lessee. The study of this lease is not uninteresting. If you examine it, you will be reminded of the Treaty of Versailles, over which stands the motto: ‘To hell with the conquered’! Over your lease stand the words: ‘Woe to the lessee!’ ”

“My father—”

“The lessor, Frau von Prackwitz, the lessor! I don’t want to speak of all the mean, petty conditions which might lead to disaster. The electric light incident opened my eyes. My dear Prackwitz, if I hadn’t been here you would have come to grief over that, as you were intended to. But the enemy retreated. He’s waiting for you to fall over the rent payment, and you will fall over it.”

“My father-in-law …”

“My father …”

“The lessor,” said von Studmann firmly, “fixed the rent at one and a half hundredweights of rye per acre. Is that a reasonable rent?”

“It is perhaps a little high,” began the Rittmeister.

“The State lands in the neighborhood pay sixty pounds of rye per acre; you pay more than twice that. And remember—the lessees of the State lands had to pay only an installment at the last quarter, and next quarter they’ll probably pay nothing. That won’t lose them their leasehold; but if you don’t pay the full amount punctually, well …”

“My brother in Birnbaum …”

“Quite so, Frau von Prackwitz; your brother in Birnbaum, as he always moans to everyone, pays the lessor the same rent. But what’s right for one child is too dear for the other. That’s to say, one hears everywhere that your brother actually pays only ninety pounds but has had to promise his father to say it’s one hundred and fifty.”

“My dear Studmann, that would be equivalent to fraud. I must ask you …”

“If, then, one can call the rent a very high one, it may be that Neulohe is such an excellent property that even an unusually high rent is justified. I did not find this office”—Studmann let a disapproving glance sweep over it—“a striking model of order. No, excuse me, Prackwitz. But one thing was very striking: there wasn’t a book to be found from the time of your predecessor, nothing which could afford information as to Neulohe’s productivity in previous years. However, there were other ways. The overseer kept threshing lists, there were records at the Treasury office, the dealers kept entry-books. Well, after some trouble I finally came to the conclusion that even in previous years Neulohe produced only an average crop of five to six hundredweights of rye per acre.”

“Much too low, Studmann!” cried the Rittmeister triumphantly. “You’re no farmer …”

“I carried out a test on the—lessor. He didn’t know why I was asking and wanted to try and fool me; like you he thought I was no farmer. But I’m a man who can calculate; it was Herr von Teschow who was fooled. The lessor admitted against his will that only an average crop of five to six hundredweights is to be expected, not more. ‘There’s a lot of sand in the outfields,’ he said.”

“But then I’m paying …” The Rittmeister paused in dismay.

“Yes,” said Studmann inexorably, “you pay twenty-five to thirty per cent of your crop as rent. That can hardly be called reasonable. If you will remember, Frau von Prackwitz, the peasants in the Middle Ages paid a tithe to their manorial lords, that’s to say, a tenth of their produce. It was not tolerable, and in the end they rose and killed their lords. Your husband doesn’t pay a tenth, no, he pays a quarter—even so, I wouldn’t advise killing.” Herr von Studmann smiled. He was happy. The nursemaid could instruct, the teacher could teach—forgetting, meanwhile, the despair of his listeners. A child whose toy has been broken does not find much consolation in being told how this could have been avoided.

“But what are we to do?” said Frau von Prackwitz tonelessly. “What can we do?”

“My father-in-law has certainly no inkling of all this,” said the Rittmeister. “One must tell him. You’re so clever and calm with it, Studmann.…”

“What about asking his son in Birnbaum to keep quiet?”

The Rittmeister said nothing.

“So far, one might still think the lessor was just a man eager to get money. Too eager. Somewhat greedy, eh? But unfortunately it is much worse.”

“If you please, Herr Studmann! We’ve had enough now.”

“Yes, you really must stop.”

“One must know everything, otherwise one will do the wrong thing. The rent amounts to three thousand hundredweights—one and a half hundredweights per acre, which corresponds to a farm of two thousand acres. And that is the area as given in the lease.”

“Is that also false?”

“I always heard, long before, that Neulohe had two thousand acres of land,” said Frau von Prackwitz.

“That’s quite true, Neulohe has two thousand,” replied Studmann.

“Well, then!” The Rittmeister heaved a sigh of relief.

“Neulohe has two thousand acres, but how large is the area you cultivate, Prackwitz? From the two thousand acres you must take away paths, unfertile land, the field-balks, ditches, heaps of stones. You must exclude, too, a few bits of arable land which have been planted with firs—you can get yourself a Christmas tree without having to ask the owner of the forest, Prackwitz …”

“Yes, I know. Nothing much.”

“You must exclude also the huge farmyard, the laborers’ houses, this staff-house, your Villa with its garden, and you must exclude too the Manor and the park! Yes, my dear Prackwitz, you even pay rent to your father-in-law for the house in which he lives!”

“I’ll be damned if I’ll do that!” cried the Rittmeister.

“Steady, steady—you want to get out of all your difficulties, don’t you? I have reckoned it out on the ground-plan; the area actually cultivated amounts to a trifle over fifteen hundred acres, so you are really paying two hundredweights of rye.”

“I’ll contest the contract, I’ll sue the fellow!” The Rittmeister looked as if he were about to dash immediately to the nearest law court.

“Oh, Achim!” wailed Frau von Prackwitz.

“Sit down!” shouted Studmann. “Now you know everything, and we can sit in judgment on the culprit—that’s you, Prackwitz. Steady, now! How could you have signed this disgraceful contract? You signed it as well, madam. Well, go on, Prackwitz. You can talk now.”

“How could a man imagine he was being tricked in such a low-down way—by relatives!” cried the Rittmeister angrily. “I knew my father-in-law was a skin-flint and after money like a cat after canaries. But I still can’t believe, Studmann, that he would cut his own daughter’s throat.”

“Herr von Teschow is no fool,” said Studmann. “When he drew up this lease he knew it could never be carried out. He must have had some motive. Have you anything to say about that, Prackwitz? I’d like to hear your views, too, madam.”

“I don’t know what my father was thinking.” But Frau von Prackwitz turned red under Studmann’s scrutiny.

“I’ll chuck the damn thing in his face! I’m going to court!”

“According to clause seventeen any objection to a condition of the contract dissolves the lease. Once you have lodged your complaint you are no longer the lessee. How did the contract come to be made? It’s new, and you’ve been farming here a long time.”

“Oh, that’s got nothing to do with the case. After the war we had nothing. I wasn’t going to be paid my pension—was I not a traitor? So we landed up here as visitors. I ran around the fields with my father-in-law—slaving like the devil. I found it fun at the time. Then one day he said: ‘I’m getting old, take the place as it stands. Eva will inherit all one day.’ So I started managing it alone.”

“Without any contract?”

“Without a contract.”

“What rent did you pay?”

“Nothing was settled. When he needed money I gave it to him if I had any; otherwise he just waited.”

“And then?”

“Then one day he said: ‘Let’s draw up a contract,’ and so we made this disgraceful lease with which I’m landed.”

“He just said ‘Draw up a contract’? But something must have happened?”

“Nothing happened.”

“Something’s missing,” persisted Studmann. “Well, Frau von Prackwitz?”

She had flushed. “Well, Achim,” she said hesitantly, “oughtn’t we to tell him? It’s better.…”

“Oh, the old story!” growled the Rittmeister. “Studmann, you’re a real nagger. What good will it do you to know—it won’t alter the lease.”

“Frau von Prackwitz,” pleaded Studmann.

“A short while before the lease was made,” she said quietly, “I had a quarrel with Achim. He thought it was time he started being jealous again—”

“Please, Eva, don’t be ridiculous!”

“Yes, Achim, it’s true. Well, you know him, and I do too. He immediately flew into a temper—you’d have thought the world was coming to an end. Screamed about divorce, adultery—well, it wasn’t nice to listen to. But I’ve been used to it for nearly twenty years and know that he really doesn’t mean it.”

“My dear Eva,” said the Rittmeister stiffly, “if you go on talking about me in this way I shall leave the office. And anyway, I was quite right. That affair with Truchsess—”

“Was years ago,” interrupted Studmann. “Please sit down again, Prackwitz. Don’t forget, it’s your money we are discussing.”

“I don’t want to hear any more of these stories!” cried the Rittmeister fiercely, sitting down, however.

“Go on, Frau von Prackwitz. So there was a little domestic quarrel?”

“Yes, and unfortunately my father heard of it without our knowing. From that time onwards he was convinced that Achim tormented and ill-treated me.”

“Ridiculous! I’m the most peaceful, most placable man.”

“For weeks he urged me to divorce Achim—”

“What!” The Rittmeister jumped up. “That’s the latest! He wanted you to divorce me?”

“Sit down, Prackwitz,” urged Studmann. “As you say, these are very old stories. Your wife is not divorced …”

“No, Papa saw that I didn’t want to. He thinks more of me than you’d expect.” She had flushed again. “And then there came this lease.”

“Now I understand him,” said Herr von Studmann, feeling extremely pleased. “And I hope you understand him, too, Prackwitz, and know what your attitude is to be. Your husband was intended to lose his nerve, become unbearable, be economically ruined; his incapability was to be proved, he was to pile up debt after debt …”

“And that man calls himself my father-in-law! It’s true I could never stand him, but I thought, after all, he’s quite a good fellow in his own way …”

“My dear Prackwitz,” said Studmann somewhat pointedly, “some people regard others as being good only because it is to their interest to do so. But if you don’t pull yourself together now, and if you let your father-in-law notice that you know anything, then you’re done for!”

“That’s impossible!” cried the Rittmeister. “I must be able to tell him my opinion. It makes my blood boil just to think of him!”

“Then you must simply turn aside if you see him in the distance. Prackwitz, for your wife’s sake, pull yourself together. Promise us you won’t talk or begin a quarrel or let yourself be provoked. Go away, say: ‘Herr von Studmann is looking after that.’ Finished! Your father-in-law would find that much more unpleasant! Leave all business matters to me. I’ll find a way out. Why not begin by taking some gold, plenty of gold—the outcome of your work. We’ll see later what we’ll do in the winter.”

“Herr von Studmann is right,” said Frau von Prackwitz eagerly. “This would be the worst moment to give up the lease. Leave everything to him.”

“Well, I suppose I’m just a fool,” growled the Rittmeister. “There’s a man for you, that Studmann! Understands in three weeks more than I do in three years. I—”

“The men are coming!” Vi exclaimed, bursting into the office with Pagel following slowly.

“There,” said the Rittmeister, glad to escape from the hated office, “they’re coming at last! I was beginning to think there would be difficulties there, too! My dear Pagel, will you see that the fellows get some grub right away, that implements are properly distributed, and all that?”

Pagel looked cheerfully at his employer. “Yes, Herr Rittmeister.” He clicked his heels and went.

“What are you doing, Prackwitz?” asked Studmann. “You’ve given Pagel the sack! He’s supposed to take the three o’clock train.”

“I sack Pagel? Don’t be silly, Studmann! You saw that the boy understood me perfectly. A good dressing-down when a young rip like that gets cheeky—and finish! I’m not the one to bear a grudge, you know.”

“No, you aren’t!” said Studmann. “Well, let’s have a look at the men. I’m anxious to know what a gang of fifty convicts looks like.”

V

Yes, there they came. They emerged just where the highway to Meienburg-Ostade turns into Neulohe, in fours, a warder at the side of every fourth row—and they sang loudly and with feeling the song about the nicest place I have on earth, my mother’s grave.

“Lord, they’re singing, too!” groaned Frau Belinde von Teschow to her friend Jutta at the Manor window. “It isn’t enough that the food for these murderers is to be cooked in my respectable washhouse, I’ve got to listen to their bawling as well! Elias, tell the Geheimrat to come to me. Murderers singing—it’s preposterous!”

“They’re coming! They’re coming!” cried the children in the village, and all who were not at work in the fields left standing everything that stood, let fall everything that would not stand, took up positions in the street, and stared—stared open-eyed and open-mouthed.

The prison authorities had spared no pains in doing the thing well. Despite the bad times, they had given the men fresh clothes. There were no worn-out uniforms made up of patches, no trousers reaching only halfway down the calves of the tall men, or jackets which drowned the short ones—their clothes fitted well, were spick and span, and proudly they sang their song: “We’re bold and bad hussars!”

The people in the village street opened their mouths still wider. Where were the cropped heads they had always heard about? Where were the chains and handcuffs? Where was the sinister brooding silence? Where the angry glance suffused with red? No brand of Cain, no wild-beast look. “Say, ma, going to close your mouth again when you’ve had it open long enough?” one of them shouted, and they all laughed.

No. Neulohe had been expecting too much, at any rate expecting something quite different. Large and small, fat and thin; handsome men, indifferent men, ugly men—all were in high spirits. They had escaped from the dead constraint of iron and cement, were able to see the world again, not merely the little section from the cell window, which even so was forbidden them. The fresh air had enlivened them, the sun had warmed them; no more of gray monotony, but new work, different diet, tobacco, the sight of young girls already, of a woman hastily pulling down her sleeve over a bare arm which had been dipped into the flour tub.

They sang:

The Devil’s Hussars are we,

No deed makes us afraid.

We’ve sinned right merrily,

And loved as well, pretty maid.

The warders were smiling too, glad to escape from their monotonous duty, the continual quarrels, objections, complaints, the unceasing worries about breaches of regulations, the outbreaks and revolts. The men would get enough to eat and smoke, they would be contented, there would be no rows—although one could never be quite certain about that. Almost with benevolence the warders regarded their lads—those to whom they devoted their whole life. After having passed through despair, hatred, indifference, they had almost come to love them. The prisoners looked so smart in their new things, they were so merry, they sang so cheerfully. “Warder, did you see the hare?” “Warder, this lunch time I’m going to have three helpings!” “Warder, what have we got for lunch—roast goose?”

They were like children. There were no murderers, no long-sentence men at all in the gang. Four years was already a lot; most were in for short stretches, and all, or nearly all, had served half their time. There were no desperate criminals among them, none of the big shots of the underworld—but in spite of that, in spite of their singing and gaiety, they were still convicts, that is to say, men whose freedom had been taken from them, a freedom which many of them would do everything, or almost everything, to regain. The officials could never forget that they might perhaps have to risk their own lives in keeping those prisoners from a desired freedom.

My darling said: I love you so,

You must not go from me.

No woman’s arms will hold me, though.

The Devil’s Hussars are we!

“They’re coming! They’re coming!” cried Amanda Backs in the Manor washhouse, and threw the ladle into the pea soup with a splash. “Come on, Sophie, let’s have a look at them. We can see the harvesters’ barracks from the coal cellar.”

“I don’t know why you’re so excited,” replied Sophie coolly. “Convicts—I wouldn’t budge an inch for them. The fellows will give us enough to worry about when they come to get their food. They’re all criminals.”

But she followed Amanda nonetheless, and leaned with her against the dirty coal-cellar hatch. Breathing quickly she looked over, saw the procession and heard the song; but could not see him. Supposing he was not there? Supposing they hadn’t sent him?

“What are you groaning like that for, Sophie?” asked Amanda in surprise.

“I? What do you mean, groaning? I’m not groaning! Why should I be groaning?”

“That’s what I’m asking,” said Amanda rather sharply. For the two were not yet friends, because up to now the question as to who was the cook and who the cook’s help had not been settled.

Behind the convicts came two of the farm wagons, bringing the men’s things; blankets, basins, knives and forks, medicine, water cans, buckets, spades, rakes.… Between the first wagon and the men marched Principal Warder Marofke, alone—a little man but a fine one, commander-in-chief of harvest crew five, Meienburg Prison, in Neulohe, the supreme master of fifty prisoners and four warders. He had very thin, short legs, clad in well-pressed gray trousers. His boots were the only ones which were almost shiny—a prisoner had had to “elbow-grease” them just before the entry into Neulohe. Marofke had a huge potbelly which quivered inside a blue tunic and was belted with a sword strap whereon a saber hung. As for his face, it was as tenderly colored as a young girl’s, white and pink despite his fifty years. At the slightest excitement, however, it turned scarlet. His cat-like bristling mustache was reddish-yellow, his eyes pale blue, his voice screeching and curt. Yet for all his curtness and sharpness, the principal warder was good-nature itself—so long as his authority was not impugned. Should that happen, he at once became as malicious, as crafty, as vengeful as a panther.

“Company halt!” he screeched.

The convicts stopped.

“About turn!”

They did so, but in no very military way, for in 1923 most men hated anything military. They turned their backs on the harvesters’ barracks and looked toward the staff-house and the farm.

Young Pagel stepped up to the little despot. “Principal Warder Marofke? Your governor has written to us. My name is Pagel, I’m a sort of—apprentice here. If I may present you to the boss, he is standing over there.” Under the last trees of the park, next to the staff-house, stood the Rittmeister with his family and Herr von Studmann.

Bloated with pride, as if every step lifted him from the lowly earth, Principal Warder Marofke approached the Rittmeister. He clicked his heels together, raised his hand to his cap and announced: “Principal Warder Marofke, at your service, Herr Rittmeister; with two warders, two assistant warders and fifty convicts forming harvest crew number five!”

“Thank you, principal warder,” said the Rittmeister graciously, looking at the little fellow with amusement. “Ex-soldier, eh?”

“Yes, Herr Rittmeister. Twenty-third Transport Section.

“Transport, eh? Of course. Obvious.” A spark glimmered in the principal warder’s eye. “At the front?”

“No, Herr Rittmeister. I had …”

“Whooping-cough? All right! Well, let the men go to their quarters, principal warder. Lunch is probably ready. You’ll look after everything, Pagel, eh? And see that they do some solid work, principal warder, I don’t want to have spent all this money for nothing. Thank you.”

Flaming red, the other went back to his men.

Studmann and Frau von Prackwitz exchanged a glance. Frau von Prackwitz in despair shrugged her shoulders. Studmann whispered soothingly: “I’ll set it right again.”

“Even you can’t set everything right.” Frau von Prackwitz had tears in her eyes.

“What are you pulling faces for?” the Rittmeister asked, turning round. “Queer stick, that principal warder. Got a big idea of himself. A shirker, of course. Well, I’ll put the fellow through it, I’ll show him what service is. Come along, Eva, come along, Vi. Afternoon, Studmann. Must try to get something into my stomach, too—you’ve successfully taken away my appetite this morning. Well, good afternoon!”

VI

“Why does he call me ‘principal warder’—can you tell me that?” the little principal warder asked Pagel heatedly. “We’re not on a parade ground here, he’s not my superior!”

They were sitting in Marofke’s room. In the barracks the prisoners were making an uproar, laughing, swearing, singing, nailing up on the wall photographs of their sweethearts and smuggled pictures of film stars, whistling, putting up beds, already clattering with their tinny knives and forks.

“We want grub!” shouted a voice.

“Like a cigarette?” But Herr Marofke politely refused. “You ought to have a nice cover on your table,” said Pagel, surveying the room. “A few other things, too, mirror, pictures, ash trays. You should shake the young girls up a bit—well, you’ll get round them all right. I suppose you’ve had plenty of experience with young girls.”

“If the governor says to me ‘principal warder,’ then it’s all right. But he—he hasn’t any right to. I could also say to him ‘Rittmeister.’ I’d like to see what sort of face he’d make then!”

“We want grub!” Spoons began to beat on cooking utensils.

“The boss is a queer chap,” said Pagel. “An hour ago he kicked me out. It’s true, Herr Marofke, sacked me on the spot for laughing while on duty. I’m not pulling your leg, word of honor! Well, I suppose he felt sorry for me, and keeps me on because I’ve nowhere else to go. But since he’s still angry he calls me ‘Herr.’ When he’s in a good mood he just says ‘Pagel’ or ‘young rip.’ ”

Pagel sprawled comfortably over the table, blowing very artistic smoke rings and not looking at Herr Marofke at all. The officer scrutinized him suspiciously. “Why does he talk about whooping-cough to me? When I’ve got a double rupture in the groin! It isn’t everyone can get a wound!”

“Poof!” said Pagel scornfully. “Wounds are nothing to the Rittmeister! He calls them whooping-cough, too. It’s just his way of speaking. Forget it.”

“We want grub!” The shouts outside were louder.

“What does mean anything to the Rittmeister, then?” asked the principal warder curiously. “I never heard that before, calling wounds whooping-cough. Supposing a man’s leg has been amputated?”

“He calls it whooping-cough, too. Well, forget it. It’s not worth worrying about. Herr Marofke, I want to ask you a great favor.”

“Yes?”

“When you take your men to fetch their food you’ll see two girls in the kitchen. I’ve got a crush on one of them, so be a sport and don’t queer my pitch for me. The other one’s also quite pretty.”

“My boy, it’s as you say. Don’t be afraid!” Herr Marofke felt very flattered.

“That’s decent of you,” Pagel blurted out in confusion.

“Man, when I was your age! I don’t know what’s wrong with you young men today. At your age I wouldn’t have gone begging to a fifty-year-old like myself. Still, consider it done. No need to be embarrassed. I’ll also keep an eye on the warders—two of them are unmarried; you tip me off which girl is yours. I think I’ll fetch the food myself.”

“We want grub! We want grub!”

“Yes, it’s time. Tell me quickly, what’s wrong with your boss? You don’t mind if we’re pals, do you? Of course, when the others are around we’ll have to be a bit stand-offish to each other.”

“Pals we are, Herr Marofke! And the boss—but you must promise not to breathe a word on any account.”

“Me? I don’t talk. I’m an official—even the public prosecutor can’t get a word out of me.”

“Good. Entirely between ourselves, the boss was buried alive in the war. When they dragged him from the dugout they thought he was dead. Ever since then—”

“Yes, that’s what he looks like—a warmed-up corpse!”

“Ever since then he’s got ‘buried alive’ on the brain. Everything else he calls whooping-cough!”

“So your boss is loony! All right—don’t be afraid, I won’t give you away.”

“Good morning, gentlemen,” said Herr von Studmann. “Well, everything in order? Satisfied, officer? House solid enough? I don’t think any of your fellows will get away from here. Excuse me, my name is von Studmann. I’m sort of business manager here. If you need anything, no matter what, if there’s anything wrong with the food, you can always come to me—it’s better not to bother the Rittmeister with such matters.”

The principal warder gave young Pagel a glance full of understanding. “Yes, sir; I wonder if I could have a tablecloth and an ash tray?”

“You shall have everything you want,” said Herr von Studmann pleasantly. “We’d like you to feel comfortable here. Pagel, go and get your lunch; it’s already on the table. The officer and I will supervise the sharing out of the food.”

Pagel gave the principal warder a glance of profound disappointment, but, at the other’s amiable nod, he said: “Right, Herr von Studmann,” and disappeared.

“Warder Siemens!” the principal warder screeched into the passage. “Have four men ready to get the food. Choose old men, married; there are pretty girls in the kitchen.”

Laughter and cat-calls arose in the barracks.

“Who told you about the pretty girls?” asked von Studmann in surprise. “Was it young Pagel?”

“A prison official has to know everything,” smirked the principal warder. “I have to be on the look-out with the boys—they get up to all sorts of tricks!”

“You haven’t told me where you got your information from, officer,” said von Studmann dryly. “It was Pagel, wasn’t it?”

“Well,” said the principal warder patronizingly, “I think the young fellow is in love. Between ourselves, in strictest confidence, he asked me to keep an eye on his girl.”

“Really!” Studmann was very surprised. “Which of the two is it? Amanda or Sophie? Of course, it’s Sophie, isn’t it?”

“He hasn’t told me yet. He was going to point her out when we went to fetch the food, but then you came along.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” laughed Studmann. “Well, he’ll be able to do it some other time.” Thoughtfully he followed the principal warder, and listened to a somewhat excited dispute as to why there were not four elderly married men detailed to fetch the food, but only three—the fourth man was young, with an unpleasantly smooth handsome face, shifty eyes and a too strong chin.

“I don’t want Liebschner!” shouted Herr Marofke. “When I say elderly men it doesn’t mean Liebschner. He’s wormed his way in—you don’t belong to my gang at all; you should be in your cell making mats! Brandt’s got boils on his feet and can’t get the food. I’ve got a boil too—in my stomach—but I can get it.” Applause and roars of laughter. “If I catch you fetching food again, Liebschner, you’ll march straight back to solitary! Understand? Hey, you there, Wendt, grab hold of the food-bin! March!”

Herr Studmann listened attentively. But he completely misheard it. It went in one ear and out the other. Studmann was thinking about Pagel. Young Pagel interested him. Studmann was one of those men who have to think and brood over something, but never over themselves. He did everything that had to be done, quite naturally, and was a completely uninteresting man. Pagel, however, was very interesting. Studmann had observed him carefully; the youngster did his work well, was always good-tempered, and adapted himself surprisingly to the unaccustomed farm life. Pulled his weight. He had been a gambler, but nothing indicated that he was longing to gamble again. He had no weakness for alcohol. He smoked too much, but that was a modern disease from which even Studmann was not free. Continually lighting up, puffing away. Yes, there was nothing wrong with young Pagel. He did his job!

And yet there was something wrong. There was no life in him; he was never enthusiastic, never angry. The fellow was twenty-three years old—he couldn’t go on running around with that half-hidden smile forever, regarding himself and everything as unimportant, as if the whole world were a swindle and he the one who had discovered it! He was, when you came to think of it, like a man seen through a veil, hazy, vague—as if he were just vegetating, as if his emotions were paralyzed.

Herr von Studmann had at first thought that this lack of vivacity was a temporary phase. Pagel was a convalescent. He had had a love affair from which he still suffered. Perhaps it had been wrong to forbid any mention of it, but Studmann was of the opinion that wounds should be left to heal.

And now came this news that Pagel was in love again, that he spoke to others about it, that he thought of a girl with anxiety. In that case everything was quite different; in that case something was rotten in the State of Denmark; in that case he was no convalescent, but merely a lazy-bones, an indolent fellow who must be urged into activity. Studmann decided to observe Pagel much more closely and to handle him in a more comradely way. There was still an invisible wall between them. A twenty-three-year-old lad with no close contact to any other person in the world, and didn’t even want any contact—that was nothing but weird. Twenty-three is surely no age to be a hermit! As far as Studmann knew, Pagel had not even written to his mother yet—that was not right; he would start on that first. All his nursemaid’s instincts were suddenly awakened. Herr von Studmann felt he had a task, and he would ponder over it and perform it.

Had Studmann ever thought about himself, he would have realized that he was eagerly rushing into this new task because he had failed with the old. After the morning’s discussion he had, without knowing it, given the Rittmeister up. The Rittmeister could not be saved, he was an incorrigible hothead—rescued from one rashness, he plunged into the next. He was a child that would never learn its lesson and the teacher was obliged to give up his job. When the lieutenant thinks about the Rittmeister, he no longer thinks, another step forward, but, now what’s he going to get up to? He did not want to forsake the Rittmeister (there was a wife and a daughter, both desirable problems), but a riddle that one wanted to solve, and which turns out to be no riddle at all, but a mass of contradictions, has no more attraction.

Thoughtfully Herr von Studmann let a friendly glance rest alternately on Amanda Backs and Sophie Kowalewski. Amanda, sturdy as a strong-boned Belgian horse, seemed to him out of the question, although one could never judge another’s tastes. Sophie, however, was quite pretty, though on closer inspection he found that her girlish features now and then acquired something sharp and evil, when her eyes became like pin-points, her voice almost hoarse. As when she now said to Principal Warder Marofke: “Is that supposed to mean we’re not trusted?”

Herr Marofke might perhaps be a queer stick, one that might break easily, but he was also an experienced prison official. One could have fared worse. He had made the four food carriers and his colleague Siemens wait outside the wash-house; he had made the girls give him a spoonful to taste; he had even praised them. “This is good stuff! This’ll please my lads.” Then he had told them to withdraw to the cellar passage before the men came in. At which Fräulein Sophie had asked very angrily: “Is that supposed to mean we’re not trusted?”

“Of course not,” said little Marofke very pleasantly. “That applies to all women—not just such pretty little ones!”

Sophie Kowalewski threw her head back angrily. “We wouldn’t get mixed up with convicts like that! You needn’t think that about us!”

“But my boys would be very glad to get mixed up with you, Fräulein,” explained the principal warder.

“Come on, Sophie!” urged Amanda. “I’m not so keen on seeing the fellows.”

Sophie was strangely obstinate—she had lost her head. Merely in order to discover at once whether he had come, she risked everything. Why had she asked for the job in this ugly old kitchen, disfigured her well-kept hands with potato peeling and splashing in cold water, given up her leisure—if she wasn’t to meet him here? She had come off worse than all the others now: if she had stood outside the harvesters’ barracks or in the village street, then at least she would have seen him marching by!

She risked everything, she even rashly tried to take advantage of her good relations with Herr von Studmann. “The warder can’t send me out of my own kitchen, can he, Herr von Studmann?”

Studmann could not find the key to this riddle! “Be sensible, Fräulein Sophie,” he said pleasantly, “don’t make the officer’s duty more difficult than it is.”

And he was surprised at the angry look Sophie gave the principal warder, a look full of hatred. Why in all the world should Sophie hate this little potbellied fellow? But now, since everything had been in vain, Sophie put as good a face on it as she could.

“Of course I don’t mind leaving my kitchen if I’m told,” she said, withdrawing. “Only Amanda and I can’t be responsible for anything—madam has checked up everything with us, cloths and pots.” With that the two girls were gone.

The principal warder called in his men, who carefully transferred into their bin the food that was laid out. “I thought at first the slim one was Herr Pagel’s girl,” Herr Marofke whispered. “But it must be the other. The pretty one’s keen on my boys, keen as poison. I’ll keep an eye on her, she wants to get off.”

“No, no,” protested Herr von Studmann, not quite convinced. “I know Fräulein Sophie, she’s a very decent girl.” But was that true? In the train she had made an extremely bad impression on him.

“You’ve no idea,” said the principal warder as they walked back to the barracks behind the food carriers, “how queer women are. Some of them go crazy for our lads … just because they’re convicts! Previously in winter we swept the snow from the streets in Meienburg. You can’t imagine the tricks some women got up to then, so as to smuggle in letters. Take it from me, Herr von Studmann, women are a perfect puzzle, and the pretty slim one …”

“Quite so,” said Herr von Studmann from time to time. He also found it puzzling. But he would soon find the solution. For a while he stood in the common-room to see how the men liked their food. Yes, they liked it. While they were gobbling up one helping they were squinting at the bin, wondering whether there was a second and possibly a third helping in it. The climax, the tit-bit, however, was the salt potatoes. Potatoes not boiled in the soup, where they only got hard, but boiled separately in a huge pot. The lads hadn’t had that since they had been “inside.” Some rolled the hot potatoes from one hand to another, and ate them like that, without soup, as soon as they had cooled a little.

“Fine, governor!” they called out to Studmann. “Couldn’t you get them to make us potatoes in their jackets, and herring?”

“You shall have it,” promised Studmann.

“I like my herrings with cream,” one voice cried.

“All nice on ice, eh, governor?”

“I must have a woman with my potatoes,” called a third, “to peel the skins. Could you do that, governor?”

A burst of laughter.

That was how they were, no worse and no better. Familiar and impudent, easily contented and greedy. They’re very like children, thought Herr von Studmann, but without their innocence. Now they clamoured around him. Their hunger satisfied, they begged for tobacco. Tobacco, the best thing in the world so long as one is deprived of it; a matter of course when one has it. They knew they had no claim on Studmann until they had worked a week: each man was due to have two packets of tobacco next Sunday. But in that they were like children; a joy which will only come tomorrow, which will only come on Sunday, is no joy—they must have it at once!

And Studmann let himself be persuaded, he promised to send over young Pagel with fifty packets of tobacco, and went off to the staff-house. The prisoners thought him a fine fellow. “We’ll milk him properly,” they said. “He’s the sort you’ve got to treat nice.” They gabbled away, making a terrific din, till the warders interfered. Discipline mustn’t be relaxed. “You’re not here on holiday, you’ve got to work!”

When Herr von Studmann entered the office, he saw Herr von Teschow and young Pagel in close conversation. The two men, the oldest and youngest farmers in Neulohe, seemed to be getting on excellently: they both had very pleased faces.

“I was just telling your friend,” boomed out Herr von Teschow, “what I used to get to eat when I was a young rip like him. Pork cutlets with spinach on a blasted week-day? Heavens, no! Warmed up dumplings three times a week! In the end we threw them at the ceiling where they stuck, they were that pasty. When I left the farm they were still sticking there.”

“And what did you actually eat?” asked Studmann politely, all the more so since he was extremely angry. For every possible document relating to that morning’s discussion with the Rittmeister lay open on the desk. There was nothing suspicious, but the old man was cunning; he could guess a whole plan of campaign from a hint.

“We stole like ravens!” said Herr von Teschow. “Larder, smoke house, apple bin—we had pass-keys to every nook and cranny!”

“So that in the end pork cutlets with spinach is still more economical for the employer,” said Studmann dryly. “Pagel, would you mind taking fifty packets of tobacco to the barracks?”

“They’re starting well!” boomed the Geheimrat. “Not a stroke of work yet, the rascals, and already fifty packets of tobacco! I’d also like to be one of your workers. Well, I won’t say anything.”

Pagel disappeared, waving his hand cheerfully to the Geheimrat. Studmann looked at Herr von Teschow challengingly, for the old man had sat himself in Studmann’s chair at the desk, immediately in front of the scattered letters. But the owner of Neulohe did not budge. Studmann picked up the letters and began putting them away.

“The rubbish wouldn’t have bothered me,” said the old man patronizingly. “No letters bother me if I don’t have to answer them. But I suppose you like writing letters, eh?”

Studmann murmured something. It might have been a reply, or it might not.

“I always say a farmer needn’t know how to write at all. Read a little, perhaps, so that he can follow the prices of corn and livestock in the papers, but write! What for? So that they can sign bad bills of exchange, eh? All education is an invention of the Reds! Tell me, what good does it do a farm hand to be able to write? It makes him dissatisfied, that’s all.”

“Was everybody satisfied before?” asked Studmann. He was now leaning against the stove, smoking. He really ought to have been out on the farm, to see how things were going, but he would wait patiently to hear what the old man wanted. If he himself did not listen to it, the Rittmeister would have to, and then the business would be certain to go wrong.

“Of course not!” said the old man. “Of course they weren’t satisfied before. Men are born to bleat, Herr Studmann! When a man’s born he bleats away like a kid, and when he dies he rattles like an old goat. And in between he just goes on bleating. No, of course we weren’t satisfied before. But there’s a difference. Before, everyone merely wanted more than he had; today everyone wants what someone else has got!”

“There’s some truth in that,” assented Studmann and horridly wondered what he would like that others now had. He even thought of something.

“Of course there’s some truth in it,” said the old man triumphantly, now very pleased. Young Pagel had done him good, and Herr von Studmann also. They were both decent chaps—not like his son-in-law.

“Listen, Herr von Studmann,” he said good-naturedly, “we’re talking of bleating. Now take my old woman, she bleats too. That’s why I’m sitting here.”

Studmann looked at him inquiringly.

“Yes, Herr von Studmann, you’re lucky, you’re a bachelor. But I’m an old man. This time it’s your Devil’s hussars!”

“Who?”

“Those convicts. That’s what they call themselves. Since they arrived she won’t let me rest! ‘Horst-Heinz, I won’t tolerate it, convicts in our dear Neulohe! Whenever I look out of the window I see them; and they are all murderers and thieves, and now they’re singing, too—murderers shouldn’t be allowed to sing.’ ”

“So far as I’ve heard, the songs they sing are quite clean.”

“That’s what I told her, Herr von Studmann! My very words! They even sing ‘Sitting at my parents’ grave,’ I told her. But no, she won’t hear of murderers singing. Murderers must repent for the rest of their lives, she thinks.”

“There aren’t any murderers among them!” Studmann spoke with a trace of irritation, for he noticed that this chatter was intended to lead up to something more serious. “They are thieves and swindlers, all with relatively short sentences and good-conduct marks.”

“My very words, Herr von Studmann, exactly what I told my wife. But you try telling a woman something when she’s got something else in her head! ‘Why are they in the penitentiary if they aren’t murderers?’ she says. ‘There are ordinary prisons for thieves.’ I can’t explain the whole penal code to the woman!”

“So what’s to be done?” asked Studmann. “What does Frau von Teschow want?”

“Then there’s the matter of our washhouse,” continued the Geheimrat. “Well, my wife placed it at your disposal for the cooking. But now she doesn’t want to. You don’t know how these things are, you bachelors. She’s moaning about her beautiful copper in which our washing’s usually boiled, not the food for your lot. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, of course they are not your lot. And she thinks it is not right for Amanda to spend only half her time on the poultry. This morning there weren’t so many eggs as yesterday.”

“The chickens certainly didn’t know this morning that the convicts were coming,” said Studmann with a smile.

“You’re right there! Ha-ha-ha!” The old man slapped his hand resoundingly on the desk. “I must tell that to my wife. That’ll put her back up! Marvelous! The chickens didn’t know! My wife has a weak spot for you, Herr von Studmann—well, this’ll cure her. Really excellent!”

Studmann was extremely annoyed at his mistake. The old man, with all his parade of honesty, was such a big scoundrel, exploiting every slip ruthlessly—well, one simply had to be more careful than ever. And never lose patience, for that was all he desired. “We don’t want our men to be a burden to your wife,” he said politely. “We’ll do what we can. We’ll give up the washhouse. We can set up a kitchen somewhere else, in the fodder room or in the Villa—I’ll see. Amanda shall be released. I’ll take Frau Hartig to help Fräulein Kowalewski.”

“Sophie?” cried the old man in astonishment. “Didn’t you know? Well, you do know a lot about your own business! Sophie was standing in the cellar passage, sobbing out that your warder had insulted her, she wasn’t going to work any more. Of course, I tried to calm her down, but you know what these girls are …”

“Thanks for trying to calm her down, Herr Geheimrat,” said Studmann a little sharply. “I’ll also find a substitute for Sophie. I shall forbid singing in the barracks. That would dispose of every objection, wouldn’t it?”

“That’s nice of you,” cried the old man, beaming. “It’s a pleasure to deal with you. If it had been my son-in-law, there would have been a fine row. But,” the Geheimrat shook his head sadly, “unfortunately that isn’t all, Herr von Studmann. When my wife sits at the window and sees these convicts’ uniforms, it upsets her. She’s an old woman; I must be considerate with her.”

“Unfortunately I am not allowed to dress the men differently,” said Studmann. “Otherwise I would have done that, too, you may be sure. But the Manor has four fronts—couldn’t your wife choose a window somewhere else?”

“My dear Herr von Studmann,” replied the Geheimrat, “my wife has sat at her window for, let’s say, roughly fifty years. You really can’t expect her to change in her old days just because you’ve imported convicts into Neulohe!”

“What do you want us to do?” asked Studmann.

“Why, Herr von Studmann,” said the old Geheimrat, beaming, “send the men back to where they belong—to the prison! Today, if possible!”

“What about the harvest?” cried Studmann, horrified.

The Geheimrat smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

“You don’t ask this seriously, do you?” inquired Studmann incredulously.

“My dear sir!” said the Geheimrat rudely, “you don’t think I’d spend half an hour of my lunch time chatting with you for the fun of it, do you? The men are to leave Neulohe, and today!” He had risen from his chair and was regarding Studmann with an angry gleam. But, since a battle seemed imminent, the other was calm.

“Herr Geheimrat,” he said, “your objections come too late. You knew two weeks ago of our intention to bring a prison gang here. You raised no protest. On the contrary, you placed your washhouse and your poultry maid at our disposal. By doing so you expressed your agreement.”

“Look at him!” mocked the Geheimrat. “The little vest-pocket lawyer! But if you are clever, I can be clever, too. According to clause twenty-one of the contract of lease, the lessee has to remove at once any disturbance of the lessor’s right of residence. Your criminals are a disturbance of the right of residence. Immediately this disturbance was apparent I asked for redress. Well, let’s have your redress. Out with the men!”

“We refuse! We shall prove that a barracks occupied by Polish reapers with their wives and children is much more disturbing than convicts subject to strict discipline. We shall prove further—”

“In court, eh?” said the Geheimrat contemptuously. “Just go to court, my clever fellow! Any appeal to law dissolves the lease. Clause seventeen of the contract. Go on, appeal—I’ll be glad to take over the harvest.”

Studmann mopped his brow. Poor Prackwitz. If only he were here! But he’d no notion, and never would have. The old man wanted everything. He must have read the letters with the offers made by the corn dealers. Pagel was much too unobservant, too trusting. The old man was greedy—he not only wanted to clear out his son-in-law, he wanted the harvest as well. One must think of a way out.

“Well, Herr von Studmann?” said the old man with satisfaction. “Farming is different from the hotel business, eh? Why do you want to worry yourself here? My son-in-law certainly gives you no thanks for it. Send the men away and, if you’re sensible, go away yourself. This place is a burst balloon; even you won’t put any air into it.”

Studmann stood at the office window. “A moment,” he said, looking over at the barracks. Out of the door came Pagel; one, two, three convicts, then a warder. They went off, disappearing down the drive, probably to the toolshed.… All that could be seen from the Manor. There was no way out. Of course, he thought, it’s me he really wants out of the way. He’d make easy work of Prackwitz. Prackwitz would just throw the whole thing up and give him the harvest.… No, no.

A thought came to him which he immediately rejected. He looked more sharply at the barracks. Its pointed red gable faced the staff-house and the Manor. In the gable was a door and a fanlight; the two long sides were hidden by lilac and guelder-rose bushes. No, the idea was not bad; it was the idea.

He turned round abruptly. “The lessor raises four objections,” he said. “First, Amanda.”

“Right,” assented the Geheimrat, looking pleased.

“Amanda will be released. Suit you?”

“Right.” The old man grinned.

“The use of the washhouse will be given up.”

“Good!” laughed the old man.

“There’ll be no more singing.”

“Fine, fine. But with all your cunning you won’t fill the fourth hollow tooth, Studmann, my lad.”

“I am not a dentist. Fourth objection: The men can be seen from the Manor.”

“Right,” grinned Herr von Teschow.

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing else!” laughed the old man.

“It shall bother you no longer.” Herr von Studmann was unable to prevent a note of triumph creeping into his voice.

“How do you mean?” The old man was taken aback. “Are you going to …”

“Going to what?”

The old man mused to himself. “Transfer the barracks? Can’t be done. Quarter the men elsewhere? Can’t be done, either, since their quarters must be secure. What else?”

“You will excuse me, Herr Geheimrat,” said Studmann, with all that pleasant graciousness of which only a victor is capable. “I must at once give all the necessary instructions, so that the objection will be removed by evening at latest.”

“But I should like to know …” said the old man, letting Studmann hustle him out of the office without a protest. “You’d better see that everything is arranged by the evening, though!” he cried, relapsing into his threatening mood of before.

“Everything will be arranged by evening,” declared the cheerful Studmann, ostentatiously pocketing the office key instead of placing it as usual in the tin letter box. “Please give my kindest regards to Frau von Teschow.” And he strode toward the farm like a conqueror, the Geheimrat gazing after him open-mouthed.

VII

While Herr von Studmann was negotiating, discussing, disputing with the Geheimrat; while he was dashing over to the farmyard and rounding up men to whom he gave instructions; while in the barracks he was informing young Pagel of the turn of events, not omitting to warn him against any more familiarity with jovial old gentlemen; while he spoke with the prison warders, entreating them not to feel offended—that is to say, during the whole afternoon in which he was talking, flattering, scolding, exhorting, sweating and smiling, in order to save his friend Prackwitz from his father-in-law’s persecution—all that time Rittmeister Joachim von Prackwitz lay in a temper on his couch, sulking over his friend Studmann. He was furious with Studmann the guardian; cursed Studmann the nursery-governess; laughed contemptuously at Studmann the know-all; smiled scornfully at Studmann the prophet of evil!

As for old Geheimrat von Teschow, he merely cast one glance through the curtain at the beginnings of Studmann’s labors, and immediately nodded his head. “The fellow’s got brains all right,” he said. “I should have had a man like that for my son-in-law, not a long-shanked blunderbuss.”

The Rittmeister realized that he had been made to look completely ridiculous. Wife and friend had entered into a competition to see who could shame him the more. While his wife had ridiculed him before his friend by accusing him of exaggerating a little domestic intermezzo, in which, after all, he had been perfectly justified, his friend had represented him to his wife as an absolute nincompoop in business matters. He had cunningly deprived him of the whole management, and had even made him promise not to tell his father-in-law what he thought! This talk about the pitfalls in the lease was utter nonsense. By carefully avoiding details, the Rittmeister came to the conclusion that he had always done quite well in Neulohe, had always made a living—he hadn’t brought conceited fellows from Berlin to prove to him that he wasn’t.

He had wanted a friend, a companion to talk to, not a guardian. He wouldn’t put up with it, he shouted in his head. The fact that it was inaudible made it no less intense. The worthy Studmann had been afraid that he would be in an ungovernable rage with his father-in-law. What his father-in-law did, that ridiculous old man of seventy in breeches, didn’t mean a thing to him—he was furious with his friend, the friend who had mortally offended him.

In the harvesters’ barracks everything appeared to be in order. Studmann ran sweating to the Manor washhouse. Three village women, who had been hastily rounded up, followed him with flying apron strings, clucking like hens, full of noisy expectation as to what could be happening again. Having arranged the transfer of the cooking utensils to the fodder-kitchen in the cattle-shed, having ordered an almost religious purification of the Teschow copper, desecrated by the convicts’ food, Studmann ran at full speed to the village, to the house of Overseer Kowalewski, to discover from Sophie what had been the matter. He wanted to put things right with the girl, and perhaps at the same time find out what form the Geheimrat’s kind exhortation had taken. But Sophie, he was told, had gone to a friend at the other end of the village. Herr von Studmann had sweated a lot already; a little more sweat would not matter. Herr von Studmann ran to the other end of the village.

From the park the old Geheimrat saw how he ran. “You can run!” he said cheerfully to himself. “But even if you took along all my Belinde’s archangels and heavenly hosts, you wouldn’t save my son-in-law!” Saying which, the Geheimrat went deeper into the park, to a spot he knew well. He who digs a ditch twice gets what he wants.

“Madam says, would you please come to coffee, sir.”

“Thanks, Hubert. Ask her to leave me alone. Don’t want any coffee, I’m ill.”

“Are you ill, Achim?”

“Leave me alone!”

“Hubert says you are ill.”

“I know what I said! I’m not ill! I don’t want to be eternally treated like a child.”

“I’m sorry, Achim—you are right, you are really ill!”

“Heavens, woman, leave me alone, can’t you? I’m not ill! I just want to be left in peace.”

He was left in peace. He heard his wife talking quietly to Vi in the next room, at coffee. They ought to talk loudly; otherwise he would only think they were talking about him. Of course they were talking about him! They ought not to whisper like that! He was not ill! He had told her he wasn’t, hadn’t he? God in heaven, they were forcing him, although he needed peace and quiet, to get up and sit at the table—just to have their own way! Well, he wasn’t going to. But they shouldn’t whisper like that, otherwise he would have to.

“Talk louder, can’t you!” roared the Rittmeister furiously through the closed door. “That whispering gets on my nerves! How can a man rest when all that rustling’s going on!”

“What are the men doing, I wonder?” said Frau von Teschow to Fräulein von Kuckhoff. “I think they’re building something.”

The two women were sitting in their window seats, gazing at the most interesting spot on Neulohe today, the harvesters’ barracks. (They usually slept at this time.)

“Everything comes to him who waits,” replied Jutta von Kuckhoff. But even she found waiting difficult. “You’re right, Belinde, they look as if they’re building something.”

“But what can they be building?” The old lady was excited. “The barracks has been like that ever since Horst-Heinz built it in ‘ninety-seven. I’ve got used to it. And now suddenly alterations without any warning! Please, Jutta, ring for Elias.”

Jutta rang.

“That young man, that so-called Herr Pagel, is directing the gang. I never trusted his face, Jutta. Why does he always run about in a field gray tunic, when they say he’s got two trunks full of suits? Elias, hasn’t that young man got some other suits?”

“Yes, madam, in a traveling wardrobe and in a large suitcase. Minna says he also has silk shirts which button all the way down like the Rittmeister’s. Silk, not linen. But he doesn’t wear them.”

“Why doesn’t he wear them?”

Elias shrugged his shoulders.

“Can you understand it, Jutta? A young man having silk shirts and not wearing them?”

“Perhaps they don’t belong to him, Belinde?”

“Oh, not if he has them in his trunk! There’s something behind it—mark my words, Jutta, remember what I said. We must be watchful. The first time he puts on a silk shirt something will be happening. I’m sure of it!”

The three old people looked at each other with gleaming eyes, greedy and curious; old ravens scenting the corpse while it was still alive. They understood each other; even Elias had been their servant long enough to know how to join in the hunt. “This morning the young man was in the park with the young Fräulein,” he said.

“With my granddaughter, with Fräulein Violet? You must be mistaken, Elias. Violet is confined to her room, she isn’t even allowed to come to us.”

“I know, madam.”

“And?”

“They were in the park for at least twenty-two minutes, at the back behind the trees, not in front on the lawn.”

“Elias! My granddaughter …”

“They smoked, too. He gave her a light, not with a match but with his cigarette. I’m just saying what happened, madam. I saw it. Afterwards, I couldn’t see, because the trees hid them. So I can’t say what happened then.”

The three fell silent. They looked at each other, then they looked away again as if they had caught one another doing something. At last Frau von Teschow piped: “Where was my daughter?”

“Frau von Prackwitz was in the office—with Herr von Studmann.”

The two old women sat motionless, not looking at each other. Then, when Elias was certain that the hook held firmly he said: “The Rittmeister was also in the office.”

The two friends stirred slowly, as if waking from a deep sleep. Fräulein von Kuckhoff cleared her throat loudly and gave Elias a doubting look. Frau von Teschow preferred to gaze out of the window.

“What are they doing over there, Elias?” she asked.

Elias had no need to look, he knew, and whatever he did not know he guessed. “They’re bricking-up the door, because madam is upset by the sight of the criminals.”

Frau von Teschow tried to make up her mind whether this was an insult or a kindly considerateness. The two could be so similar, it all depended how one took it. “How are the men to get out of the barracks?” she asked at last.

“They are making a door out of the second window in the large common-room,” explained Elias. “Just behind the bushes, no, on the other side, facing the farm.… Madam will not be able to see them anymore.”

“It’s very inconsiderate of my son-in-law to brick-up my view,” began Frau von Teschow bitterly.

“The Rittmeister knows nothing about it,” Elias hastened to say. “He went straight home when the—er—men came. Herr von Studmann ordered it.”

“How did Herr von Studmann manage to block up my old view of the barracks?” shouted Frau von Teschow heatedly.

“Herr von Studmann makes a very pleasant impression,” said Fräulein von Kuckhoff warningly.

“The Geheimrat spent a long time talking with Herr von Studmann at midday,” reported Elias. “The Geheimrat—er—shouted very loudly.”

“It was very considerate of Horst-Heinz to think of it,” said Frau von Teschow. “I knew nothing about it—he wanted it to be a surprise.”

She gazed thoughtfully at the barracks. Two layers of bricks were already in place. The young man in field gray was talking eagerly to the farm masons; a warder stood by with an inquisitive face. Then all four burst out laughing. Laughing, they looked over at the Manor, at the windows. Frau von Teschow hastily moved her head out of the sun, although, half hidden behind the curtain, she could not be seen.

Still laughing, the two masons ran over to the farm. Young Pagel held out his cigarette case to the warder. They too were laughing.

Horst-Heinz shouldn’t have done this! thought Frau von Teschow angrily. I can’t stare at a bare wall the whole summer. I’m certain to hear stories of all these criminals, what they’ve done, why they’re in prison—and I won’t even know what they look like. She felt tempted to send over Elias to say that the alteration was not necessary, but did not dare. Her husband was good-natured only as long as no one interfered with his plans, which were usually secret. He could bellow in such a nerve-racking way! And he went purple in the face—Dr. Hotop was always saying that a stroke would be dangerous for him.

“Ask the Geheimrat to come to me, Elias,” said Frau von Teschow gently.

“The Geheimrat has gone out. Shall I tell him when he comes back?”

“No, no, it should be now.” A door can be bricked up so quickly. “But you might go over to my daughter and tell her I would like her to send Fräulein Violet for a little while.” Elias nodded. “If my daughter should say anything about the child’s being confined to the house, just hint, Elias—but carefully, quite unnoticeably—that Fräulein Violet went for a walk in the park today.”

Elias bowed.

“You needn’t mention anything about the young man to my daughter,” said Frau von Teschow. “I’ll talk to my granddaughter about it myself.”

Elias’s face showed that he had understood everything, that everything would be carried out perfectly. He asked whether there was anything else she wanted. But there was nothing. Elias went, dignified and calm, every inch the possessor of an enormous fortune.

“If Violet doesn’t come today I’m going to the Villa!” added Frau von Teschow energetically. “Even if Horst-Heinz grumbles. I’m not going to have my granddaughter disgraced!”

“May I come with you, Belinde?” asked Fräulein von Kuckhoff excitedly.

“I’ll see. Anyway, we must wait until my son-in-law leaves the house. And go at once and see if you can find Minna. Perhaps she knows something.”

Young Pagel had had a brain wave. Fifty men in the harvesters’ barracks laughed, five warders laughed, the masons laughed—soon the whole village would be laughing.

At first the atmosphere had been very unpleasant. This order to brick up the door, certainly a good solution on the part of Herr von Studmann, had not been a pleasant welcome to the convicts. “If they don’t want to see us then they shouldn’t bring us here to do their work,” they growled. “If we’re not too bad to dig up the potatoes they eat, then they shouldn’t feel bad at seeing us. Who knows how he made his money? He didn’t make his little pile by saying prayers!”

And the warders, too, had shaken their heads and pursed their lips. They considered they had—with two or three exceptions—a very orderly gang. The labor detachments from Meienburg were often far different. If the men behaved decently and worked well there was no need to keep on reminding them that they were convicts. It only made them restless and the warders’ duty more difficult.

And then Pagel had had his brain wave. They had all laughed. They had all grinned. “That will remind them to pray for us every day,” they said. “That’s the way to treat them. Always pull the leg of a sod like that—it’s the best way.” For sheer pleasure they would have liked to burst into song again, thunder out “Arise! ye starvelings from your slumbers!” or some such thing to make the ears in the Manor tingle. But they did not want to cause the young man any trouble. With cheerful faces they sawed their planks, drove nails into the shelves for the utensils, packed and checked the washing. Today they were only to work half a day; today they first had to get everything in order, a thing the principal warder regarded as indispensable, everything in rank and file, everything shipshape and polished—just as in Meienburg prison. Numbers on every eating bowl and numbers on every wash-basin; numbers on the beds, numbers on the stools, every place at the dining table numbered. Important deliberations in a whisper among the warders; who ought to sit next to whom at the table? Which men could share a room? A faulty distribution, and the germ of an attempt to escape or a mutiny would be created.

And all the time one or other of them would slink up to the slowly diminishing doorway to have a look. And on his return the others would ask with a grin: “How far have they got? Can you recognize it yet?”

“They’re just putting in the sixth layer. They’ll only be able to recognize it properly when the crossbeam comes.”

Von Studmann did not recognize it, either. He came from the village where he had at last found Sophie; and this time she hadn’t been at all to his liking. Stubborn, close, untruthful. What could have entered into the girl? She was quite changed. Was the Geheimrat the cause? Yes, he must have stirred her up somehow. It was just like him. The whole day he had only been thinking how to make trouble. Oh, yes. The harvest. It is harvest time. Every little bit that is threshed and sold gives him pain. I must go immediately to Prackwitz and see that he doesn’t again do anything stupid. Oh, yes, and I must ask Amanda what’s behind what Kowalewski said. Today’s one of those days when, once again, no sensible work will get done. You run about the whole time chasing your own tail. I would never have believed it, but it’s almost worse than working in a hotel.

“What’s the meaning of this, Pagel?” he said somewhat crossly. “There are plenty of red stones behind the cattle-shed: why mix in these ugly white cement ones?”

The two masons looked at each other and grinned. As is the way with such people, they pretended not to hear, but calmly went on with their work. An assistant warder, who poked his inquisitive head through the opening, drew it back hastily on seeing Herr von Studmann.

“Well?” asked Studmann very irritably.

Young Pagel gazed at his friend and superior with twinkling eyes. He threw his cigarette into the bushes and said with a sigh: “It’s a cross, Herr von Studmann.”

“What is a cross?” asked Studmann very testily, for he hated to have to grumble at or criticize a necessary labor.

“That!” Pagel pointed at the doorway. The two masons burst into laughter.

Studmann stared at the wall, at the doorway, at the stones white and red.… Suddenly it dawned upon him. “You mean that is going to be a cross, Pagel?”

“I thought it would look nicer,” said Pagel, grinning. “A blank red wall would be very boring to look at, I thought. But with a cross—a cross somehow inspires contemplation.”

The masons were working away with an almost counter-revolutionary zeal, wanting to protect the cross as far as possible from any prohibition. After a moment of reflection Studmann also laughed. “You’re a cheeky scamp, Pagel,” he said. “But still, if the effect is too bad we can always paint the white stones red.… See that you get it finished soon,” he said to the masons. “Put some beef into it, understand? I suppose they can’t yet see from the Manor what it’s going to be?”

“Not yet,” they replied. “When we get to the crossbeam, could the young gentleman go away for a bit? If they send over, we’ll say we’re only doing what we’ve been told.”

“Yes, do that!” Studmann did not want any conspiracy with the men against the Manor. “Listen, Pagel,” he said. “I’m going over to the Villa now, to tell Prackwitz about this.” With a gesture embracing the Manor and the barracks: “In the meantime you will, in all circumstances, maintain the position.”

“Position will be maintained, Herr Oberleutnant!” said Pagel, clicking his heels and saluting.

Studmann, however, did not go to the Villa, but to the staff-house, having remembered that he might meet the ladies. He couldn’t possibly appear covered with perspiration; at least he ought to put on a fresh collar. And with a von Studmann it is only a step from a fresh collar to a fresh shirt. So the ex-lieutenant washed himself from head to foot in cold water—and in the meantime Fate took its course. While he was washing, disaster crossed the path to the Villa, with a beating of wings.

Old Elias had not been mistaken: his master had gone into the park. If nothing at all occurs to us any more, we still have whatever is left over from our original plans. Something like that had just occurred to Herr Geheimrat. Without hesitation, but looking around carefully out of his round, reddish, seal-like eyes, he had betaken himself to that spot in the fence where he had once stood at night. As before, he brought no tools with him but his hands. But memory is a wonderful thing; what we want to remember, we do remember. Despite the darkness of that night and the days that had since elapsed, the Geheimrat had not forgotten where the loose slat was. A pull, a little leverage, and he held it in his hand.

Puffing a little, he looked round. Again his memory worked excellently: he looked sharply at the bush in which he had once thought he saw Amanda Backs. Now, in the daylight, he recognized that it was a witch-wood bush—and no one was hiding in it. He went and thrust the slat into the middle of the bush and walked round it. The bush fulfilled all that was expected of it—the slat was invisible.

Nodding with satisfaction, the Geheimrat went in search of Attila. It was not his way to make a hole in a fence and then leave it to the geese to find, probably at the wrong time—this was the moment! The geese were, so to speak, the drop that was to fill the Rittmeister’s cup of bitterness to overflowing. Now the Geheimrat went looking for Attila.

He found the geese—eighteen in all—on the meadow by the swans’ pond, moodily cropping the park’s sour grass. They greeted him with a disapproving and excited cackling. They stretched their necks, laid their heads on one side, squinted at him wickedly with their blue eyes, and hissed. But the Geheimrat knew his geese, even if they did not recognize him. These angrily hissing ladies were temporary phenomena; God’s vice-regent here on earth, in this case Frau von Teschow, delivered them annually to the cook’s knife, with the exception of three or four kept to breed. They were merely fleeting guests on the Geheimrat’s meadow; hardly were they grown up when their flesh changed into smoked breasts and salted legs.

The only one who remained, surviving generation after generation, was Attila the breeding gander, a heavy bird weighing twenty-one pounds. Proud and superior, he regarded himself as the center of creation, bit the children, fluttered angrily at the postman’s bicycle, making him fall, hated women’s legs, which of late revealed more and more of themselves from under their skirts, and snapped at them till they bled. A stern despot in his harem, absolute monarch and autocrat, he tolerated no contradiction, was inaccessible to flattery, and had only one soft spot in his goosey heart—for Geheimrat Horst-Heinz von Teschow. Two kindred souls had recognized and fallen in love with each other.

Standing apart from his foolish womenfolk, probably immersed in the consideration of goosey problems, he had not noticed the arrival of his good friend. Then, his attention having been attracted, he gazed for a moment with his pale, forget-me-not blue eyes at the noisy flock, recognized the cause of the row, and with outspread wings fluttered cackling toward the Geheimrat.

“Attila!” the latter called. “Attila!”

The geese cackled excitedly; the gander advanced in a haste that brooked no obstacle.… Struck by the powerful blows of his wings, his wives staggered aside—and nestling against the Geheimrat’s leg, neck lying on his stomach, head beating gently against his paunch, the gander softly and tenderly cackled a lot of things, announcing in every tone the unrestricted love of a friend for a friend.

With head bent, slowly coiling their necks in a wave-like movement, the flock of geese stood around.

“Attila!” said the Geheimrat, scratching the place geese cannot scratch, just above the beak which the gander, with a drowsy cackle, pressed gently against the softly heaving belly. And when the scratching finger grew sluggish, Attila pushed his head between shirt and waistcoat in a sudden adroit movement and remained thus, blissful, enjoying once again the greatest happiness on earth.

For a time the Geheimrat had to grant his furry friend such harmless pleasure. He stood in the meadow stippled with summer shade and summer sun, puffing his cigar slowly, a bearded, rosy-cheeked old man in rather sweaty clothes. A creature of this earth, he willingly granted his fellow creature the peace on his belly. “Attila!” he said soothingly from time to time. “Attila!”

And from under his waistcoat came a peaceful hissing in reply. To deceive the love of his gander would have seemed villainous to the Geheimrat; about his relatives he thought differently.

At last, however, he gently pushed his friend away. Once again he scratched the beak, then said invitingly, “Attila!” and walked off. The gander instantly followed, cackling softly and contentedly. And, as may be seen in children’s books, all the geese followed in single file. First the old laying geese, then the grown-up goslings of the spring brood, with the wretched laggards in the rear.

Thus they wandered through the summery park. An ignorant onlooker would have found it a gay spectacle; an expert, of course, an Amanda Backs, would have shaken her head in suspicion. Unfortunately at this moment Amanda Backs was occupied in detaining with her protests Herr von Studmann, who was already late; she had not wanted to be freed from the kitchen, she could do the work in addition to looking after her poultry, and she would gladly have earned the money. She needed money. But the Geheimrat had said …

So Amanda saw nothing, and at this hour there was usually no one else in the park; in the country a park becomes frequented only after dusk. Thus the procession reached the hole in the fence unseen and unobserved. The Geheimrat stepped aside, and Attila stood before the hole.…

“Nice vetch, Attila, juicy vetch and anyway they cost me nothing,” said the Geheimrat persuasively. Attila laid his head on one side and looked at his friend critically. He seemed to prefer near-by tenderness to distant and uncertain food. Quickly the Geheimrat bent down and thrust his hand through the hole, explaining: “Look, Attila, you can get through here!”

The gander approached and seized tenderly but firmly a tuft of the yellow-gray beard.

“Let go, Attila!” said the Geheimrat angrily, and tried to straighten himself. He couldn’t. Attila held tight. A twenty-one-pound gander can hold very tightly. There the Geheimrat stood, crouched awkwardly; to put it exactly, his head was lower than the end of his back, which is a position even younger men do not find comfortable for long. It can be imagined what it was like for a somewhat too full-blooded old man with a tendency to apoplexy. Softly and tenderly the gander cackled, through his nose presumably, for he did not let the beard go.

“Attila!” implored the Geheimrat.

The female geese began to inspect his bent body and his hindquarters.

“This is intolerable!” groaned the Geheimrat, the world going black before his eyes. With a jerk he straightened himself. He stood, giddy, staggering. His cheek burned like fire. Attila cackled a gentle reproach, the tuft of hair still stuck to his beak.

“Blasted animal!” growled the Geheimrat, and pushed the gander violently through the hole in the fence. Attila cackled a loud protest, but already his wives were following him. What he, who saw only his friend, was prevented by his love from seeing, his wives noticed at once—the expanse of fields they had missed so long. They spread their wings. Cackling excitedly and ever louder, they fluttered—a noisy white cloud—toward the potato allotment stretching behind the laborers’ houses.

Attila saw his wives far ahead. He knew there was food in the offing, and his friend was forgotten—how can a goose fly ahead of a gander? He spread his wings. Fluttering and cackling, he hurried after them and put himself at their head. Past the rear of the laborers’ houses they hastened toward the fields, the broad fertile fields. Hastened. They knew they were doing what was forbidden; they knew that, once they were noticed, the hated people would come hurrying with sticks and whips to drive them back to the sour park grass. This did not make them any quieter, only quicker.…

For a moment the Geheimrat gazed after them. He rubbed his cheek and hoped his beard was worth it. But in any case it would be best if he was not on hand for the next few hours. Should anything happen to the geese, Belinde would be able to look after herself.

He hurried through the park on his way to the forest. The wind was against him.… Therefore he did not hear the shots. With a sigh of relief he disappeared into the shadow of the trees.

Young Pagel and his masons were at the crossbeam. Now, even at a distance, there was no mistaking what it was going to be. Therefore there was no more laughing, therefore there was no more huddling together of heads, therefore there was no more squinting over at the Manor windows.

“They’re sitting up there and looking,” said mason Tiede. “And if we peep at them the fat will be in the fire.”

But the fat was in the fire anyhow. Frau von Teschow trembled with indignation at the insult offered her. Maids and cook were running round the Manor like chickens, looking in turn for Elias and the Geheimrat.…

“Just when you need a man he’s certain never to be there,” croaked Jutta von Kuckhoff.

“They’re making fun of the holiest thing,” groaned the old woman. “But you’ll see, Jutta, that young man will also end up in prison.”

“Whoever wants to be a hog’s bristle is never a downy feather in his youth,” asserted Fräulein von Kuckhoff, pouring out a glass of port wine for her friend.

Two gunshots cracked out in the distance. But in the general upset no one noticed them.

Studmann heard the shots nearer at hand, very near. He had finally freed himself from Amanda by promising to talk to the Geheimrat and was walking in the afternoon heat, slowly, so that he should not begin perspiring again, on his way to the Villa. He started at hearing shots crack out in his immediate vicinity. What idiot’s shooting right near the houses? he thought with sudden anger.

At first he did not connect the cackling noisy geese with the shots. Then he saw a straggler, wailing sadly, with a hanging wing, probably broken. He saw three, four, five white spots on the green field. One of these was moving its feet and head convulsively. It became still.

But they are tame geese, not wild geese! thought Studmann, in astonishment, who was by no means familiar with all Neulohe’s customs. Then he caught sight of the Rittmeister at a ground-floor window, gun in hand. His face was white as snow, his whole body trembled with rage, and he stared at his friend as if he did not recognize him. “Present my compliments to my father-in-law—tell him I’m giving him roast goose!” he shouted much too loudly. And before Studmann could answer, the Rittmeister slammed down the window.

“Disaster, misfortune, catastrophe!” Studmann felt, still not understanding what was going on.

Studmann dashed up the stairs to the entrance. The door was open. In the little hall stood Frau von Prackwitz, Violet von Prackwitz, the old servant Elias.…

When troubles come they come in floods; no nursemaid of a Studmann, no patient wife can ward them off. Had Frau von Prackwitz remained at the coffee table she would have heard through the open window the cackling approach of the feared and hated geese; she might have been able to prevent the unfortunate rash shots.… But Elias had brought the message asking that the young Fräulein be allowed to come over to the Manor—it was wiser not to annoy the Rittmeister and better to speak to Elias confidentially. They had gone out into the hall. Not two minutes had passed when the disastrous shots rang out.

In tears Frau von Prackwitz hurried toward Studmann. Her grief had broken down all barriers. Seizing his hands she said in despair: “Studmann, Studmann, now everything is finished—he’s shot them.”

Studmann looked at the disturbed faces around him.

“Mamma’s breeding geese! Papa’s favorite gander Attila! It has just died.”

“But they’re only geese! We can settle the matter … compensation.”

“My parents will never forgive him.” She wept. “And it was also contemptible of him! It wasn’t the little bit of vetch! He wanted to hurt my parents.”

Studmann looked around inquiringly, but the serious faces of the old servant and the young girl told him that more than geese had been shot.

Hubert Räder came quietly up from the basement, on rubber soles. He took up a respectful attitude near the stairs, his face indifferent, yet ready for orders. He glanced neither at the weeping woman nor out of the window at the victims. But he was there in case he should be needed; he was ready.

“What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?” wept Frau von Prackwitz. “Whatever I do will annoy them, and will annoy him, too.”

The Rittmeister emerged from his room like a jack-in-the-box. His face was no longer white but flecked with red, betokening the transition from wordless fury to abusive rage. “Don’t take on like that!” he shouted at his wife. “Blubbering before all the servants on account of a few ridiculous geese.”

“I must ask you,” cried Studmann outraged, “not to shout at your wife like that!” In his teacher’s way he added a precept. “Men shouldn’t shout at their wives.”

“This is fine!” said the furious Rittmeister, looking around in protest. “Haven’t I pleaded, implored, demanded a hundred times: repair your fence, keep your geese under guard, don’t let them get at my vetch? Haven’t I warned them a hundred times: something will happen if I catch them at my vetch again? And now that something’s happened, my wife weeps as if the world was coming to an end and my friend shouts at me! This is really too much!” He threw himself into a hall chair, making it creak; he jerked at the crease of his trousers with long, trembling fingers.

“Oh, Achim!” wailed his wife. “You have shot away the lease. Papa will never forgive you for this.”

The Rittmeister jumped up from his chair at once. “You don’t think that the geese got at the vetch by accident, do you, after all that’s happened today? No, they were brought there. They wanted to annoy me, to provoke me. Good—I shot them!”

“But, Achim, you can’t prove it.”

“If I’m right I don’t need to prove it.”

“The weaker is always wrong …” began Studmann wisely.

“We’ll see whether I’m the weaker!” cried the Rittmeister, enraged afresh by this wise dictum. “I’m not going to have them jeer at me. Elias, go at once to the vetch, pick up the dead geese, take them to my mother-in-law and tell her …”

“Herr Rittmeister,” said the old servant, “I was sent here on an errand by my mistress. With all due respect, Herr Rittmeister, I am employed at the Manor.”

“You will do what I say, Elias!” cried the Rittmeister in a louder voice. “You will take the dead geese and tell my mother-in-law …”

“I shall not do it, Herr Rittmeister. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. Five or six geese are too much for an old man. Attila alone weighs a quarter of a hundredweight.”

“Hubert shall help you. Hubert, help him carry the dead geese.”

“Good day, madam. Good day, Herr Rittmeister.” Elias went.

“Fool!—Hubert, present my mother-in-law with my compliments; those who won’t listen to reason will have their knuckles rapped.”

“The Rittmeister’s compliments, and those who won’t listen to reason will have their knuckles rapped,” repeated Räder, his fishy eyes resting on his master.

“That’s right.” The Rittmeister spoke more calmly. “You can take a barrow, get a man from the farm to help you.…”

“Very good, Herr Rittmeister.” Hubert went to the door.

“Hubert!”

The servant stopped. He looked at his mistress. “Yes, madam?”