Wolf Among Wolves

Chapter Thirteen

Lost and Forsaken

I

Dawn on the thirtieth of September was overcast and sullen. The wind threw itself on Neulohe. Much would be swept away this day, love and hate, treachery, jealousy, selfishness; much blown away and the people scattered like leaves. And this although it was not yet October the first, the fateful day.

Herr von Studmann was the first to awake. It was still dark when the alarm clock went off; wind shook the house. Studmann was a man who did what he had in mind very matter-of-factly. He arose in the chilly gray morning without regret for his warm bed—today he had to find the rent and would do so, although he was fairly certain that it was to be used for quite other purposes.

He shaved himself carefully. When he went into town he always shaved twice. Now it occurred to him that he could shave himself twice for Neulohe, for Eva.… But he rejected this thought immediately. He was neither a youngster nor a Don Juan. He wasn’t going to preen like a peacock.

A little later he was in the office. On the desk lay a note. “Please wake me before you go. I’ve something to tell you, Pagel.”

Studmann shrugged his shoulders. Could it be anything important? Cautiously he opened Pagel’s door—the lamplight, entering, showed him peacefully asleep on his side. Over his forehead a great lock of hair rested on the closed eyelid, every hair gleamed like the very thinnest of gold thread, and the face was serene. All of a sudden some words came into Studmann’s mind, probably from his schooldays. “Favored by fortune, nothing done, dead like all.”

The important communication, he decided, was not important. It was only four o’clock, and another hour and a half’s sleep wouldn’t do the young man any harm. Gently he shut the door. Besides, he mustn’t miss the early train to Frankfurt, because that was what Eva wanted. Even the most important communication could not change that, but could only upset it.

Black Minna now appeared in the office, still half awake and more slovenly than ever. And the coffee she served looked just as slovenly. Studmann, who from his work in the hotel was very sensitive to cleanliness, had it in mind to speak harshly, but refrained. Knowing the situation as he did, he was aware that his reproof would promptly be made known in Frau Eva’s kitchen, and thus reach her. He didn’t want her to have any more trouble at present.

Carriage wheels crunched on the gravel outside; Hartig, the coachman, was there. Abandoning the coffee and stale bread, Studmann lit a cigar, put on his overcoat and left the house.

The coachman on his high seat was talking with the gendarme. Studmann said hello and asked after any news. There was no news. The gendarme’s all-night vigil had been as fruitless as beating through the woods the previous afternoon. Not the slightest trace of the fellows! The whole thing was stupid. They should have gone about things in quite another way, of course; numb and exasperated, the gendarme explained his own plan …

“Excuse me, officer, I have to go to the station now,” interposed Studmann. “But my coffee’s still standing in the office. It’s not much good but it’s warm—if you’d care to drink it.… But don’t make a noise, please; the young man’s asleep in the next room.”

The officer thanked him and went to the office. The carriage with the smoking Studmann and the silent, ever-grumpy Hartig, rolled toward the station. It was quarter past four.

It’s only a quarter past four, thought Frau Eva, looking unbelievingly at the small alarm clock on her night table. Had someone called her? Vi? Achim? She had started up in bed and had automatically turned on the light. Now she sat erect among the pillows, listening. Outside there was nothing but the howling of the wind. Not a cry. All were asleep. Frau Eva had slept well, and felt incredibly fresh, full of a vague happiness. But what on earth was she going to do in the four hours until her morning coffee?

She looked at her room, surprised, almost a little disappointed, that it could offer her neither distraction nor diversion. For a moment she considered getting up to see if Vi, perhaps, had called out in her sleep. But it was so warm in bed and Vi, anyway, was a grownup girl now; the time had passed when her mother, as a matter of course, rose five or six times a night, to tiptoe to her little one. Happy vanished times, obvious duties gladly performed, simple cares which life, because it was life, brought along with it … and nothing of all this unnecessary artificial worry, the least essential thing in the world.

Suddenly her face became drawn and she remembered what had been forgotten—that she lay in a decaying house, a member of a family in dissolution. And that the very floor which held her bed was decaying. The door leading to her husband’s bedroom was locked, had been locked after the angry scene yesterday evening. She frowned; her pretty plump shoulders drooped. She had suddenly become an old woman. How could I have lived with him year in, year out, and put up with all this? Impossible to live with him one week longer—and she had put up with it for twenty years! Inconceivable! She felt that she had completely lost the charity to be patient or forbearing or, in feminine cunning, achieve something with him. It seemed that with her love had vanished all capacity for this.

My God, he had come home many a time before this somewhat the worse for drink. But a wife learned to put up with that, although the mixture of bragging and sudden tenderness was always a little hard to support. But it was precisely yesterday afternoon he had picked on for this; he in his extreme folly could not wait to show off the car to—her brother! He had sneaked out. In an almost stupidly cunning way he had incited Violet against her and won her over to his side, a foolish child who was naturally enthusiastic about everything new, and especially something as new as a car. Finally, he had, to put the finish on everything, allowed this child of fifteen several liqueurs—he said one, she said two, but for certain there were four or five. No, all that was far more than even a woman married for many years could bear.

Supper had been laid, the servant waited, the maids in the kitchen waited. It grew late; too late. She had never thought that she would one day be sitting thus, angry and like a petite bourgeoise, waiting for her husband to come home. That had always appeared to her as the peak of the ridiculous and contemptible. The other must lead his own life; he was not kept on a chain!

And now she was sitting there like that, drawing up a list against him: This, that and the other thing. This done for him, that renounced for him, something else lost because of him. And yourself? This “yourself” grew and grew, until it became a monstrous cloud casting a shadow over her whole life, a threatening storm cloud, full of evil foreboding. And then the pair had come in, with the silly, unembarrassed jollity of the slightly tipsy.

“Oh, dear! … Oh, dear! Uncle Egon couldn’t find the corkscrew and knocked the neck off the bottle. Oh dear, oh dear!” Growling thunder from afar—who were you once upon a time? A slender, swift creature, no great thinker, for sure, but a knight without fear or reproach.… “And we passed a baby Opel in the wood, Mamma, and our worthy young Herr Pagel was in it; I’ll take my oath, with a young lady. She was holding her hand in front of her face, though!”

“Enough!” Yes, indeed enough, and more than enough. Words, quarreling, the young girl’s tears, the father’s amiable bad conscience changing into a raging one.…

“Only because you grudge me the car!” And Vi sobbing: “You don’t want us to have any pleasures! We can’t do anything. And now you want to tyrannize over Papa as well.”

Father and daughter in alliance against the mother, and the servants listening behind the door—that was the result of the home you had made, Eva! You had sworn to marry the first man who really had some style—you hated your father’s want of polish. Yes. Was everybody mad then? Was everybody diseased? Was this inflation some plague carried in the atmosphere, which everyone caught? Was this girl with blotched face, unrestrained gestures—now sobbing, now shouting her accusations—was that your daughter, your young and sheltered Violet? Was that your husband, the well-bred, upright man, so careful of his appearance, so fastidious and neat, now blustering and shouting and waving his hands about—“You won’t get the better of me”?

Yes, and was that you yourself, angrily replying, scornfully rebuking, and all the while thinking of another man? You, who had already arranged a substitute before this one had gone?

Shame, shame on all of us! One and all! She had rushed upstairs—she couldn’t get to her room quickly enough; she had wanted to be alone. The windows were open; it was pleasantly cool and fresh. She smelled a hint of central heating warmth in the air, and a hint of her soaps and perfumes as well. Just enough to remind her that she was at home now … Most of all she would have liked to have a bath, but she didn’t like the idea of seeing her body at the moment. It had seen too much of life, experienced too much, enjoyed too much for her to enjoy seeing it this evening. She slipped out of her clothes and in the darkness found the veronal which the doctor had once given her when an abscess in a tooth had been maddening.… She took a tablet—the smallest amount had its effect on her—and lay back to sleep.

She had almost dropped off, had almost banished the scenes of that evening from her mind—the deafening squabble no longer resounded in her ears—when the door opened. He was there. In a low, uncertain voice he asked: “Are you asleep, Eva? I thought I would just come in.”

This life can be one of constant disgust. She felt she would laugh, seeing him standing there. Although his hair was gray, he had learned nothing. Yes, he actually had on his best pajamas, had made himself smart for her, this eternal schoolboy, forever kept back in the class of those who would never understand anything.

“Eva! … Eva! … Eva! …” In every tone, considerate, pleading, and then slightly louder, so that she might wake up without his having exactly wakened her. She could see him quite well, outlined against the light, but he could not see her. Her face was in the shadow. And that was how things had been throughout a long marriage. What sort of a wife was it he imagined he had?

“Eva!”

Accusingly. Full of a melancholy reproach. See, he didn’t really believe she was asleep. But he perceived that she was unwilling, and murmured something. Whenever he was embarrassed he always muttered to himself, believing he thereby covered up his embarrassment.

She heard his door shut.

With a jump she was out of bed, running barefooted to the door. Loudly and unblushingly she turned the key and stood there listening, panting, triumphant. “Have we been plain enough, sir? Have you understood at last that it’s finished, forever?”

Not a sound. Not even one of his passionate exclamations. Only silence.

Slowly she had returned to her bed, had fallen asleep at once.…

And now it was twenty-five past four. She had woken up so happy. It seemed as if someone had called her. She remembered; neither father nor daughter would do that. Why on earth was she so happy?

She sat, bent over, but her limbs were relaxed, loose.

She buried herself in the bed again as if she were coiling and cuddling round something living, that could protect her. She wanted to go on sleeping. It seemed inconceivable, how she would pass the four hours until breakfast, haunted by such ghosts dancing around her.

God, what sort of face should she bring to this breakfast? What should she say? What should she do? She could go to the office. But Herr von Studmann was away, and young Pagel was too young.… Oh, well. We’ll see. In the end everyday passes somehow or another.

Goodnight.

II

After her too-early awakening Frau Eva slept so soundly that for the second time she looked at the alarm clock unbelievingly. Half-past nine. A soporific, according to an accepted saying, should be slept off. Well, she had slept twelve hours, which ought to be enough for one tablet of veronal. When she at last got up, however, and began to wash, her body was weary and her eyes felt as if they had just been weeping. Hastily and with increasing irritation she put on her clothes, scolding herself, resolving never again to take that “filthy veronal.” And she reviled her husband, Vi, the maids, Hubert, for letting her sleep on like that. With it all she had a mortal sadness, an intuition that the day which, rainless, was wetly dripping from the trees, would bring no good to her or others.…

The breakfast table was laid only for one; neither Achim nor Violet was there. Twice she had to ring the bell before the coffee and eggs were brought, not by Hubert but by Armgard, smiling in a way Frau Eva did not like at all.

“Have the Rittmeister and Fräulein Violet had their breakfast?” she asked while the girl poured out the coffee somewhat too primly.

“At seven o’clock, madam,” reported Armgard surprisingly promptly. “The Rittmeister and Fräulein Violet went out with the motor car before half-past seven.” The manner in which she articulated the words motor car showed that the new acquisition had her full approval; the Horch had brought pride and sumptuousness into the kitchen also. Opinion there, no doubt, was that at last they had really “fine people” to work for.

“Why wasn’t I called this morning?” asked Frau Eva rather sharply.

“The Rittmeister gave an emphatic order not to!” replied Armgard, a little offended. “Rittmeister and Fräulein Violet were very careful indeed not to disturb madam. They came down the stairs on tiptoe and only whispered during breakfast.”

Frau von Prackwitz could see all too well that heroic pair who out of pure charity would not wake her up. Yes, she might have interfered with their trip; she might even have gone with them! The cowards!

“Then there was, to be sure, the big rumpus,” said Armgard softly, with a very sanctimonious face.

Frau von Prackwitz chose to ignore this. Yesterday she had had all the noise she wanted; she had no desire to hear about any more.

“Did my husband say at all when he would be back?”

“The Rittmeister thought that he wouldn’t be here for dinner,” replied Armgard, looking at her expectantly. It was obvious that she knew about the quarrel with Achim; no doubt all the village, her own parents as well, knew about it by now. She would have to accustom herself soon to having everyone looking at her as if she were now half a widow, half a deserted wife.…

“Very well, Armgard,” said Frau Eva, enlivened in spite of herself by all this tomfoolery. “Then you can slice up the cold fillet from Sunday, with runner beans. There will be enough for our small number.” She counted on her fingers. “Myself, Lotte, you, that’s three, Hubert four—there will be quite enough.”

There was a pause, the maid silently regarding her mistress, a look which was really just a trifle disturbing. Frau von Prackwitz was on the point of smiling when she put her cup down. She would not be looked at like that by anyone. “Well? Why are you looking at me like that, Armgard?” she demanded.

“Oh, Lord, madam!” Armgard turned red. “Madam need not count Hubert in; the Rittmeister gave him notice this morning. That’s the reason there was such a rumpus. We could hear it even in the kitchen. Not that we wanted to, but—”

“Where is Hubert?” Frau von Prackwitz stopped the flow of words with a gesture. “Has he gone?”

“Oh, no, madam. He’s downstairs, packing his things.”

“Send him here. Tell him I want to speak with him.”

“Madam, Hubert threatened the Rittmeister that he—”

“Armgard! I don’t want any tales from you. Call Hubert.”

“Very good, madam!” Armgard, deeply offended, withdrew.

Frau Eva walked to and fro, waiting. Breakfast, of course, was now over. She’d known ever since she got up that today would be a loss. She walked to and fro feeling as she had done last night—everything was crumbling, disintegrating, while she stood impotently to one side and could do nothing. It was certainly not this ninny of a Hubert! She had never been his friend. A dozen times it would have given her the greatest pleasure to be rid of the freakish perverse fellow; moreover she had a physical repulsion to him. As a healthy woman she had always felt that things were not altogether right with that young man, quite apart from the maids’ talk of his strangeness.

Well, he had been dismissed, probably because of some enormous crime such as an egg too hard or a teaspoon not picked up when dropped. In his present humor Achim would find cause for an outburst of fury in anything. But it all happened so quickly, without warning; nothing new came into her life, only the old went away, constantly went away. It was like sitting on an ice floe from which piece after piece splits off until there is nothing left. Once you had parents with whom you got on not well but bearably—and now no longer. You had a husband and a daughter—and now no longer. You had a business in the country—when were you last there? You had a comfortable home. And now, here you are sitting alone at the breakfast table, your servant dismissed, and the doors between the individual bedrooms carefully locked during the night.

A feeling of despair, an impotent grief, rose in her. Had there ever been a time when life was so little worth living? It made you itch to do something. Something just had to be done to get out of this morass. But somehow everything one did mysteriously only sucked you deeper in. Any action turned against itself.

Armgard stood in the door—half embarrassed, half defiant. “Hubert says he is no longer in service here. He says it’s not necessary for him to come.”

“We’ll see about that!” cried Frau Eva passionately, reaching the hall in five steps.

“Madam! Please, madam!” implored the maid.

“What is it then?” she asked crossly. “No more tittle-tattle, Armgard!”

“But madam ought to know,” said the girl coming close in order to speak softly. “Hubert did threaten the Rittmeister so! About an arms dump. Rittmeister was quite pale.”

“And you saw that from the kitchen in the basement?” asked Frau Eva sarcastically.

“But the dining-room door was open, madam!” Armgard was deeply insulted. “I was just going up to fetch a collared ham and the door happened to be open. I’m not inquisitive, madam. I only wanted to help.”

“All right, Armgard,” said Frau Eva, about to go.

“But, madam, you don’t know! Hubert was talking about a letter. A letter from the Fräulein. It was something to do with an arms dump.”

“Rubbish,” said Frau Eva unceremoniously, and went down into the basement. All rubbish and keyhole eavesdropping. Hubert had obviously listened behind the door yesterday, when she was talking with her husband about the car and the Putsch, and he now wanted to be revenged for his dismissal. She would soon put Hubert in his place. But to say that Vi of all people had been writing letters about an arms dump! That was the sort of absolute nonsense which might be expected from keyholes.

The dismissed servant was bending over a suitcase on his bed, packing with laborious exactness a pair of carefully folded trousers; he was allowing, so to speak, for every millimeter. The bed on which his suitcase lay had already been stripped. Folded in their creases the sheets hung over a chair; nevertheless a large piece of paper was spread out under his suitcase to protect the bed. Minute preciseness to the end—Hubert Räder all over!

At this sight, and still more at seeing his fishlike, impassive face, she lost all desire to attack him. “So you want to leave us, Master Hubert?” she said, with a touch of humor.

Hubert was holding up a waistcoat, examining it against the light, before proceeding to fold it, as was proper, with the lining outside. But he made no attempt to answer, which was not at all proper.

“Well, Hubert?” Frau Eva smiled. “No reply? Are you angry with me, too?”

Hubert laid the waistcoat in the case and took up the jacket. A jacket is a difficult thing to fold. He bent low over it and said nothing.

“Hubert!” She spoke sharply. “Don’t be stupid. Even if you’re angry with the Rittmeister, that’s no reason why you should be rude to me.”

“Madam,” began Hubert solemnly, raising his dejected gray eyes, “the Rittmeister treated me like a slave.…”

“Well, I don’t suppose you said very friendly things to him, either. I’ve been told that you even threatened him.”

“Yes, madam. That is so. Armgard was listening—but it’s true. I am sorry for it. Perhaps madam will be good enough, when the Rittmeister returns, to say that I regret it. I spoke in passion.” He looked as passionate as a lump of wood.

“All right, Hubert. I’ll do that. Now tell me what happened.”

“And the Fräulein’s letter will not be made use of,” went on Hubert unswervingly. “That I promise. Although I shan’t burn it. Not yet.”

“Hubert! Be a good fellow and remember that I am not only an employer against whom you must naturally have some complaints, but also a mother who is often very worried. What is this letter of Violet’s in your possession? Do tell me the truth about it. Stop playing the fool for once, Hubert.”

“Excuse me, madam, I am not playing the fool,” explained Hubert unmoved. “I am like that.”

“All right, then. Tell me in your own way. I shall understand. Please tell me what you know, Hubert.”

He looked at her with his cold dead eyes. Perhaps the grisly fellow was a little happy to have a woman pleading with him; it was not observable, however. After a long silent inspection he shook his head. “No.” And returned to his jacket.

“Hubert, why not, then? You are leaving us, and it can’t do you any harm to tell me now. It would be so helpful perhaps.”

But Hubert Räder was busy with his jacket; he behaved as if he hadn’t heard a thing. After a long pause, however, he said “No” again.

“But why not?” she whispered. “I don’t understand you. What is the matter? Hubert, be amiable. I will give you a splendid recommendation, I’ll ask my relatives about another place for you.…”

“I’m not going into service again,” he explained.

“Well then, Hubert, you’ve said that you don’t want to burn the letter yet; that is, you intend perhaps to use it, perhaps to get money for it. Vi, I suppose, has done something silly. All right, Hubert, I will buy the letter from you, I’ll pay you what you wish … a hundred gold marks … five hundred … a thousand gold marks for a silly letter from a young girl!” Her speech and the suspense in which she watched him were feverish. She hardly thought about what she said. She couldn’t make a judgment any longer about what sort of a letter it might actually be. A mysterious anxiety had seized her, alone with this horrible fellow. How had she been able to put up with him so long? Evil! Evil!

Hubert Räder uncovered his teeth in what no doubt was meant for a smile. At his threatening glance, and the triumph in it, her agitation turned to a dull despair. Slowly he shook his head and for the third time said “No.” Then he looked at the jacket near him on the bed, as if he did not quite understand what it was doing there.

“All right, Hubert,” she said in sudden anger, “the letter isn’t yours. At the moment there are gendarmes here in Neulohe. I will send for one and have your things searched.”

It was the same now as at the beginning, though; the fellow appeared not to hear anything and was occupied only with his packing. Pleas, threats, money—all had been in vain. What else was there? To flatter him, she thought; the fellow must be morbidly conceited. That went against the grain, however; the very thought of humbling herself before him was repulsive.… But she remembered her daughter, the mysterious letter, and that this man perhaps had her in his power.…

“You ought not to lower yourself to this sort of thing, Hubert,” she ventured. (She had wanted to say “Herr Räder,” but it would not come out.) “Someone like you who sets a proper value on himself.…” Hopefully she watched him. His glance turned from the jacket to her; once more there was that lifting of the lips. He had seen through her, and she felt humiliated.

“Excuse me, madam, I don’t think I set much value on myself any longer, which is why I have no more use for money either.” He was apparently satisfied with the effect of his incomprehensible words, for, after a moment’s brooding, he said: “I will send madam the letter on October the second, by post. Madam doesn’t need to pay for it.”

“The day after tomorrow?” She knew that he had not promised her anything good. There was an obscure threat behind his words, something she could not ward off. But when she made to speak, there was a gesture from him, and she was silent at once, because he, the servant, wished it.

“Madam must not question me. I say only what I want to. The Fräulein treated me very badly. I never betrayed her, yet she incited her father to throw me out.… You said I shouldn’t lower myself. I know you only said so to get me to say something. If Fräulein Violet is not out of your sight till early the day after tomorrow, then nothing will happen.”

“She’s gone out.…” she whispered.

After the daughter, the mother. Somehow both came under the man’s spell. What was he? A stupid and a not exceedingly capable servant—the mother had hitherto supported him only with ridicule—but now she wasn’t thinking of making fun of him, she took him only too seriously. Fads and whims? Stupidities? No. Danger, threat, and something somber that only he could know.…

“She’s gone out,” she had whispered.

He nodded, curt, self-assured. “She will be back tonight. Don’t let her out of your sight then, madam, till early the day after tomorrow.” He returned to his packing, and she understood that this was final.

“The best of luck, then, Hubert,” she said. “You will fetch your papers and money from the office?”

He did not reply; he was preoccupied with scrupulously folding up his jacket. A gray and fishlike face, with no discoverable expression—that was the picture of him she was to take away, which she was to see many times in the future—her last glimpse of Hubert Räder.

She would never forget it.…

III

Leaving his room, she pushed open the door almost into Armgard’s face. The maid screamed and sought to escape, but Frau Eva was extremely indignant. Holding the girl firmly by the arm she gave her notice, abruptly.

“Get your wages and papers from the office. Pack at once. You can go with the milk cart.”

And with that she left her cook, paying no attention to her whining. The thought of having humiliated herself before Räder was bad enough; but to have had an audience, and such a one, was unbearable. Out of my sight! A fierce satisfaction filled her. He had thrown out the servant, and she the cook; everything was falling to pieces. What sort of a household would it seem in the next few days? What sort of meals would the seventeen-year-old Lotte rake together, with seven rooms to look after at the same time? Herr von Prackwitz would be astonished!

She went to the kitchen and disclosed the state of affairs to Lotte. Seven rooms, the cold fillet of beef, the beans, there was some sauce left, asparagus soup and—well, of all things, there stood the washing-up from last night! “My dear girl, don’t you wash up every evening, as I told you to? Why not, then?”

Whereupon Lotte promptly broke into tears. Sobbing, she declared she knew nothing about asparagus soup, that she would never be able to do it, that she wouldn’t let herself be shouted at, that she too would rather leave at once.…

Frau Eva wanted to think over what she had heard from Hubert Räder, what she should do with her daughter, and say to her husband. There were a thousand things to occupy and torment Frau Eva. But no, she must console Lotte and initiate her into the secret of how to make “real” asparagus soup from dried parings, with the aid of a small glass jar of asparagus tips. Finally she promised the disconsolate girl to ask her mother for a maid from the Manor as assistant.… And all the while she had the feeling that the disgusting Armgard was listening behind the kitchen door, delighted at her mistress’s embarrassment.… Seven rooms to be done were in truth a nightmare.

Frau Eva walked to the office; she had to inform young Pagel of the dismissals. But the place was closed and the customary notice dangling on the door: “Urgent inquiries at the Villa.…” But in the Villa there was only the disconsolate Lotte, and when the dismissed servants came to get their papers from the office they would see the notice inviting them back to the Villa. Confusion would be complete!

She shrugged her shoulders—things were like that—and she went on to the Manor, telling herself that there at least everything would be the same as ever. But in front stood a cart on which trunks were being loaded, and at that moment up drove the ancient landau with her father’s fat Hanover horses.

“What’s taking place here, Elias?” she asked, astonished.

“Good morning, madam. The lady and gentleman are going on a journey,” reported old Elias, taking off his little cap.

She ran into the house and up the stairs to her mother’s room. In her armchair Frau von Teschow was sitting in coat and hat; behind her was old Kuckhoff with a bundle of sticks and umbrellas under her arm. Frau von Teschow was directing the maids, who were drawing linen dustsheets over the furniture.

“So there you are, child,” said the old lady. “We shouldn’t have gone away, of course, without coming over to look in on you again.”

“But where are you going to so suddenly, Mamma? Papa never said a word about it yesterday.”

“My dear child! Last night! It was unbearable.” Holding her head, the old lady sighed dolefully. “Oh, why did your husband also have to bring these convicts to our dear Neulohe?”

“But they’ve gone away now, Mamma.”

“Run away! I never slept a wink all night. I could hear people prowling around all the time. The stairs creaked, and once I heard giggling there … Yes, exactly as you are giggling now, you stupid goose, Marta!” said Frau von Teschow, angrily rebuking a maid who turned crimson.

“You imagined that, Mamma. It would be the gendarme on guard in the street. Their officer said …”

“My dear child, I believe only my ears! I’m going away. Your father for once is thoughtfulness itself. We shall go first of all to Berlin. Hotel Kaiserhof, Eva, if there should be anything. We’re not going to be murdered in our beds! Oh, no!” And encumbered with her sticks and umbrellas, Aunt Jutta emphatically announced that she preferred the Kaiserhof to the churchyard.

Frau Eva saw it was useless to speak against the journey. The only puzzling thing was her father’s prompt consent, for usually no complaints whatever from his wife would drive him away from his beloved Neulohe. But there was one good thing about it: she would be able to get a maid from her mother without difficulty.

Frau von Teschow shook her head. “You are always having trouble with your servants. That comes of spoiling them. And you don’t send them to my evening prayers anymore!” In the end, however, after many a pointed remark, she declared herself willing that Marta should help. Marta, though, showed opposition. No, she wouldn’t. She had been taken on for the Manor, not the Villa. Frau von Teschow tried to talk her round, Frau von Prackwitz promised her a reward, Fräulein von Kuckhoff admonished her, but Marta remained obstinate. She would not. Very well, then Trudchen! But neither would Trudchen. Trudchen in fact had an excuse: the Villa was too gloomy for her. Too far from the village; and now, when convicts were loose.…

“I really can’t blame her, Eva,” whispered Frau von Teschow. “I don’t know how you look on your responsibility for Violet, but you should let her go with us to Berlin.”

For a moment Frau von Prackwitz thought this a good idea. But: “Violet has gone out with her father.”

“Of course. In that new car of yours. Horst-Heinz phoned to Berlin at once; a car like that costs easily twenty thousand marks. How can you afford it, when you are moaning about the rent?”

“Well, what about one of the maids, Mamma?”

“My dear child, you hear yourself. In these circumstances I really can’t compel them. If something happened to them in the Villa I should have to reproach myself forever.”

“Oh, you mustn’t do that, of course, Mamma. I’ll make shift with Minna or Hartig.”

“I do wish I could have helped you, Evchen. But you really must stand more on your authority with the servants. I hear that you often don’t go into the kitchen for a whole week!” Little pin-pricks, protestations, farewells …

When they went down to the carriage, Geheimrat von Teschow was standing in the hall in his best suit, which clothed the hairy East Prussian even more dreadfully than his customary worsted. “A minute, Eva. Yes, get in, Belinde. I want to say something to Eva.” And taking her arm he led her a few paces away into the park. “There’s one thing I especially want to tell you, Eva. I wouldn’t do so to your husband. He listens to nothing. Perhaps this trip of ours surprises you.…”

“Mamma said it was because of the convicts’ escape.”

“Rubbish! Do you think I should go away because of a few brainless convicts? To a miserable town like Berlin? Ha, ha! That looks like Horst-Heinz von Teschow! No! But have you heard anything about a Putsch?” He looked closely at his daughter, who did not reply. “Good, you don’t need to tell me. I can recite it off pat. My son-in-law’s unexpected return, the new car.… So your husband’s joined with them? I hope that he managed at least to get the money for the car beforehand. Still, he’s not quite as stupid as all that, to get himself into debt for those gentlemen.”

Frau Eva was silent.

“So he has!” crowed Herr von Teschow, delighted. “Well, well. Everyone’s as stupid as he must be. It’s all the same to me. Only I don’t understand you. All right. Good. Let’s drop it. Well, here’s a word for you. This Putsch will end in smoke. The gentlemen can say what they like, the Reichswehr won’t join in. I’ve been out and about the last few days all the time, keeping my ears open everywhere. A still-born child! There are twenty fools from the village in it, the magistrate Haase, that ninny, right in front. And so the other ninny’s my son-in-law, then?”

“Papa, the people ought to be warned!”

“What’s that? Believe an old man, my child—no one’s pleased if you try to interfere with his stupidities. There may be a bit of fighting—all right! They just can’t stop fighting; they don’t see that Messieurs Clemenceau and Poincaré are laughing fit to split at us killing one another here. So, Evchen, you talk your husband round cunningly and go away, too! If you remain here you will have to take sides one way or the other and be dragged into the mess. Better go away.”

“He wants to join in, though,” she said softly.

“Have I got to tell you, girl, how to get round a man? Say that you have to go to Frankfurt this evening, appendicitis if you like. But go away!”

“Let him join in, Papa.”

The old man looked up. “I’ll be damned!” he cried astonished. “So it’s like that, is it? Well, Evchen, you’ve taken a damned long time about it. I always thought I had a clever daughter.…”

“Oh, Papa.”

“All right, then. Let him join in. For all I care, the car can be lost, too.” He stopped, alarmed by his own generosity. “Well, that’s not altogether necessary. You must try and arrange somehow, Evchen, that the car can’t be taken out tomorrow. Speak to Herr von Studmann. He’s pretty wide awake, certainly.”

“Oh, and Papa! you’re going away—to whom are we to pay the rent tomorrow?”

“Oh, the rent! Have you got it then? Well, leave it till I get back.”

“No, Papa, that won’t do. Herr von Studmann is bringing the money back this afternoon. We can’t risk any devaluation.”

“I’ll be damned!” cried the old gentleman, looking at his daughter nonplussed. “I didn’t think for a moment that you’d have the money by tomorrow. What am I to do now?”

“Tell me whom we shall pay it to, Papa. I shan’t let the money wait beyond October the first.”

“And tomorrow there’s the Putsch. Tomorrow the mark may fall and fall. I tell you what, Evchen, pay for the car with the money.”

“Will you take it instead of the rent, then, Papa? You would have to give me that in writing.”

“Eh? What will the car look like tomorrow, perhaps? There’s no family feeling in money matters. I tell you what, I’ll go to some expense about it. Send your young man—Pagel, isn’t it?—send him to me in the Kaiserhof. I’ll pay the fare, third class, of course, and a little for expenses.”

“That won’t do either, Papa. For particular reasons I want Achim to give you the money himself.”

“Damnation!” cried the old gentleman in a rage. “I wish I had gone away without talking to you. Then you could all of you see for yourselves how to get rid of your money. Achim will have to follow me, that’s all.”

“Achim won’t do that, Papa. You know what he has on hand tomorrow.”

“He will have to. Debts come first.”

“That’s what we think, too. But here!”

“Oh, so you’d like me to stay here? No, my child, your father is not such a fool. Elias, come here. Now, Elias, you’ll get from my son-in-law either this evening or tomorrow morning a mass of paper, what they call money nowadays. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Herr Geheimrat.”

“Put it in my old brown leather money bag, go at once to the station and take the next train to me in the Hotel Kaiserhof. Do you know it, Elias?”

“In the Wilhelmplatz, Herr Geheimrat.”

“Correct, Elias. Don’t say a word to anyone. Take a taxi at Friedrichstrasse Station. But don’t let go of the bag for a moment.”

“That I would never do, Herr Geheimrat.”

“Elias, plenty can cut away the bag in a crowd and then you turn up at the Kaiserhof with the handle.…”

“I shall come with the bag.”

“Well, all right, Elias. Listen, put a stone in at the bottom so you can tell by the weight.…”

“Certainly, Herr Geheimrat.”

“Good. Everything in order now, Evchen?”

“Only the receipt for the rent, Papa.”

“This is the limit. Here’s a trusting daughter for you. I can’t give the receipt till I’ve counted if the money is correct.”

“And we can’t give Elias the money without a receipt.”

“You hear, Elias, she doesn’t trust you. How often have you put a pacifier in her mouth, when she was crying in her pram—and now she doesn’t trust you! Very well, Elias, I’ll scribble a receipt for you now. And you must write in the exact sum you get, milliards and millions, exactly, Elias!”

“For certain, Herr Geheimrat.”

“And then the time, to the minute. Notice, for example, if it’s round about twelve, when the dollar changes. Wait a moment. Does your old watch go properly?”

With exactitude the watches were compared, and Elias was given the receipt. From the landau Frau von Teschow had been crying for the last five minutes: “We shan’t get the train, Horst-Heinz! Eva, how can you delay your father like that?”

The Geheimrat shook his daughter’s hand, hesitated a second, then kissed her on the cheek.

Frau von Prackwitz walked back to the farm, to the Villa.… Everyone was fleeing from Neulohe as though it were accursed.

IV

Rittmeister von Prackwitz had that sense of gain which suddenly emerges in those who know nothing of business. When his brother-in-law in Birnbaum admired greatly the Horch car, although thinking it very expensive, it had occurred to him that he might achieve in fact what he had falsely boasted of to his wife. That is, have the car paid for by the rebel gentlemen at Ostade. With a superior air he had assured his brother-in-law that, in the case of those who really knew their way about, cars didn’t cost as much as was supposed. Indeed, almost nothing—in fact, absolutely nothing. And by hints, winks and confidential disclosures he ended by creating in his brother-in-law’s mind a connection between the new car and the coming Putsch. Egon had naturally already heard of that. Everyone seemed to have known about it for a long time; the Rittmeister, if anything, last of all. Even though his brother-in-law did not appear to think the Putsch very hopeful, as a true son of his father young Teschow considered that no undertaking could be totally bad which had brought to light such a motor car.

Driving home in high spirits, with Vi no less cheerful beside him, the Rittmeister was already firmly convinced that the Reichswehr was under an obligation to pay for his car. What did that little Major mean by ordering him to appear with one? His life was at the service of his country day and night, but with his fortune he had to be more prudent. The croakings of disaster coming from Eva and his brother-in-law had not been altogether in vain; the Rittmeister resolved to drive to Ostade tomorrow, before the Putsch, and sound the comrades in the Reichswehr about squeezing a small installment out of them. Punctually on October the second the first payment for the car would be demanded, and he hadn’t the slightest notion where he was to get the money. But it was superfluous to worry about that. He would see to it in Ostade tomorrow.

He turned and inquired of his daughter, humming happily to herself, what she thought of making a trip there. Violet, naturally, was enthusiastic, embracing and kissing him with such warmth that the Rittmeister almost became suspicious. But it was the alcohol, of course, the delightful drive and the long monotonous weeks, now at an end, when she had been confined to her room. Nevertheless he had, for one moment, got on to the right scent. It was not the father but the sweetheart who was kissed. What did she care for the car or the trip? Ostade meant the Lieutenant. It was impossible to motor to Ostade and not see him. But the thought of her mother gave her some anxiety and she asked cautiously: “And Mamma?”

Her father was suitably annoyed. “Military enterprises are not for your Mamma. It would be as well not to trouble her with them. The best thing would be to do our job properly and surprise her later with its success.”

“But perhaps Mamma would like to go as well.” Violet was very anxious. She certainly didn’t want her mother present at her reunion with the Lieutenant. “Perhaps otherwise she won’t allow me to go.”

“If I allow you, yes, Violet!” It sounded very much the master of the house. In his heart, however, the Rittmeister was not quite so certain of his right to decide about his daughter. He didn’t understand much about young girls; the way in which Violet had just kissed him was really alarming. But Eva, no doubt, understood little more. That confinement to her room about absolutely nothing at all had been a ridiculous blunder, though fortunately Violet did not bear grudges. All the same—to make amends—Eva might well have been a little nicer to her recently. Yes, Violet had honestly earned this excursion to Ostade.

“I will speak to your mother this evening. But, as I said, it is not possible to take her with us. Be downstairs on time. We’ll have coffee at seven and be off by half-past. And don’t make a noise on the stairs. You know your mother likes to have a good sleep.” Again a gibe, even though it sounded solicitous. Actually, in undermining the mother in her daughter’s eyes, the Rittmeister did not feel altogether comfortable. Unfortunately, Eva did not want it otherwise. If she could treat him like a fool, send him to a sanatorium, exclude him from the management of his estate, then he had the right to show his daughter what sort of a man he was, and that her mother also was not without her little weaknesses. He went about things with the utmost discretion, however!

And then that evening there had been the quarrel, and Frau Eva hadn’t been invited to go with them, or even informed. That was forgotten. But the appointment between father and daughter, and not making a noise—that was remembered. Vi had been up first, and down the stairs like a cat, without a sound.

In the dining room the servant was laying the breakfast. What more natural than for her to call him to account at last? For a long time she had avoided him, he was too creepy; and she was glad when she did not have to speak to him. She never again forgot to lock the door to her room, night and day. Her love affair with the Lieutenant had become so hopeless—even she had to admit he had given up on her. Not because of her, but because the question of the letter that had come into the hands of the little Meier had so angered him. Everything was changed now, however. She was going with her father to Ostade; she would see her Fritz again this morning. He was face to face with great events and his cause would be victorious. Tomorrow he would no longer be a conspirator, having to conceal himself from the world; tomorrow he would be an important man, and her father said so, too. A hero who could openly acknowledge his love, and her. There must be then no more secrecy, nothing which she would have to hide from him; there must be no servant like Räder, knowing things about her.

She demanded her letter back.

He knew nothing about a letter.

Very agitated, she told him he should not be so low.

He replied that he was only a low servant and no fine Lieutenant.

She said she was going to Ostade now to meet him, and she would send him back. “You will see then!”

Räder looked at her with his melancholy dead eyes. Too late she realized that she had set about it wrongly. Too late she began to plead, to offer, to promise money; promised him indeed old Elias’s situation at the Manor. She could obtain that for him through her grandparents!

He only smiled.

She considered a long time, very pale. She must have the letter back. She knew that her Fritz would not forgive such thoughtlessness a second time. Speaking in a low voice, flaggingly, she promised to allow once more … what he before … he knew … in her room.… She gave him her word of honor. But he must hand over the letter at once.…

She got further than had her mother; she could see him begin to waver, as the memory of that dark hour and the highest gratification of his life rose in his thin cheeks, leaving red circular patches there. He gulped. Then he changed his mind. He had calculated for a long time, weeks and weeks. He had a definite plan in which this letter played a definite rôle. Violet was not enough. She alone was nothing, only a female a little better-looking than Armgard. No, it was the Lieutenant who was concerned. Anguish for the Lieutenant, her love for the fellow, her disgust for him the servant—all that was concerned in it.

“Is the Fräulein motoring today to Ostade?” he asked.

She was sure now of her victory. “You know that, Hubert! At once. Fetch the letter quickly—before Papa comes down.”

“If the Fräulein doesn’t go to Ostade today and this evening allows what has been promised, I will give up the letter then.”

She almost laughed in his face. Not to make the trip to Ostade, for his sake! He was a fool. Anger overwhelmed her. “If you don’t give me the letter at once, I shall tell Papa everything, and then out you’ll go and never get another situation in your life!”

“As the Fräulein wishes,” said he, quite unshaken.

And then the Rittmeister had entered. He would never have noticed anything about his servant, who was, as usual, like a block of wood. But Violet was seething with rage. Within three minutes she boiled over. That, perhaps, was what Räder wanted. Impassively he had passed her dripping when she asked for butter; and sugar instead of salt. Bursting into tears, Violet shouted that unless her father turned out that scoundrel on the spot she couldn’t stand it any longer. For weeks he had tormented and provoked her. He had stolen a letter of hers.…

Immovable and fishlike, the servant offered her father the tray with the fried eggs. The Rittmeister, who had had a very bad night, was at once exasperated. With his fork he gave the egg dish a good hit and, shouting at his daughter, demanded to know what was this about a letter. What letters, in Heaven’s name, did she have to write, even to the good manservant? He turned round and glared at Räder.

Violet’s explanation was hurried and disconnected. She had believed that the arms dump was endangered by the forester’s babbling, and so thought to send the Lieutenant a few warning lines through Räder. But the letter had been purloined by the man and he refused to give it back.

The Rittmeister stood up in fury. “You have intercepted a military communication from my daughter!” he shouted. “The buried weapons are in your power!”

Hubert set down the tray of fried eggs on the sideboard. Coldly he looked at the Rittmeister; and nothing more provokes anger than another’s composure.

“Excuse me, Herr Rittmeister,” he said, “but they are illegal arms.…”

The Rittmeister seized his servant by the lapels of his dark-gray jacket and shook him. Hubert offered no opposition. The Rittmeister shouted; Hubert kept silent. (Armgard’s statement that the Rittmeister had been threatened by his servant was, therefore, a lie. But then, she had never been able to support Räder’s arrogance.)

“Traitors against the wall!” cried the Rittmeister. Then a minute later: “If you hand over the letter now, it shall be forgiven and forgotten.”

“Turn him out, Papa,” said Violet.

The Rittmeister let go of his servant and spoke grimly. “Have you anything to say in your defense? Otherwise you are dismissed on the spot.”

Violet trembled. She knew that Hubert had only to open his mouth, say a few words to her father, and she was lost. But she had taken the risk, since she felt that he wouldn’t talk, that he had no interest at all in exposing her secrets to her father. And she was right. Hubert said only: “Then I am dismissed on the spot!”

He looked round the dining room once more and laid his napkin, which he had kept under his arm throughout the scene, on the sideboard. His eye lit on the fried eggs. “Shall I have them warmed up again?” he coolly asked.

There was no reply.

He went to the door, made a slight bow and said imperturbably: “A pleasant drive, Herr Rittmeister!” Then he was gone, without one glance at Violet.

Plunged in thought, the Rittmeister turned to his meal, for anger did not destroy his appetite. Then he had two cognacs and got into the car. All he said was: “To Ostade then, Finger.”

Herr von Prackwitz was so constituted that after the interval of action came inevitably that of reflection concerning his action. He had got rid of his servant; now he began to consider why he had, in fact, done so. On this question it was not so easy to shed light. Much that had seemed lucid in his rage was now rather obscure. Had the fellow been merely impertinent? Of course he had; the Rittmeister remembered it distinctly. But in what way impertinent? What had he actually said?

Violet sat beside him, careful not to interrupt his reflections with one of those girlish nonsensicalities which, because they could always put him in the best of humor, she usually had ready. A child knows the faults of its parents better than the parents know the faults of their children. A child’s observation is mercilessly sharp. Its first voyage of discovery to the new world is not encumbered by love or sympathy. She saw that her father was thinking about her; any word that sought to distract him would only make for suspicion. She had to wait till he began to speak, to question. He was one of those who pass without effort from this question to that and so lose sight of their original goal completely.

Moreover she had done something, the idea of which had come on seeing her father drink the two cognacs. The afternoon before, at her uncle’s, she had had quite a lot of liqueurs; how many she didn’t know and neither did her father. But the drink had done her good. It had given her courage to defy her mother, which she would never otherwise have dared; it had made her combative and cheerful. And when her father after breakfast went out to put on his coat, she had swiftly poured herself a cognac in his glass, while watching the door. She had filled it to the brim and emptied it at a gulp. Almost automatically she had, like her father, let a second drink follow the first.

And now she was curled up comfortably in the car, warmly covered, while the country glided slowly across the windows—an endless expanse of fields deserted except for a few plow teams in the distance or the long rows of potato diggers shifting forward on their knees, the three-pronged hoe in hand. A moment they raised their heads and looked after the car speeding by. Next the almost unending woodlands, where trees were often so close to the road that branches rustled across the windows, startling the motorists, who then laughed at their fright and saw that the glass was bedewed with drops of water from the branch.

The roads from Neulohe to Ostade were bad, softened by rain and cut up by the potato carts, so that the powerful car could not show its speed; at barely twenty miles an hour Finger drove her cautiously over the potholes and through the puddles. Despite this low speed, however, the deep note of the engine, the car’s elastic springing, its effortless gliding, produced in Violet a feeling of peaceful strength. The engine seemed to transfer a portion of its unused forces to her, and this sensation was heightened by the alcohol circulating through her tranquil body. First a warmth, then in the form of many different images which faintly and fleetingly arose in her, but nevertheless left her with a feeling of something like happiness. Her young body had greedily drunk down the poison. Her tastebuds had risen up against the alcohol, and her body had shaken as she quickly drank it down. But the more her tongue rejected it, the more another instinct in her had welcomed it, whether it was her brain or an even more mysterious center of the body, which often contradicts our sense of what we should hate or what we should love. To drive like this was complete happiness, and peace.

But it had to come. In the moment when she was thinking most pleasantly of the reunion with her Lieutenant, the Rittmeister asked rather abruptly: “How did you come to know this Lieutenant?”

“But, Papa, everyone knows him!”

“Everyone? I don’t know him!” contradicted the Rittmeister, annoyed.

“Papa, you were praising him to me only yesterday.”

“Maybe.” The Rittmeister was to some extent hit. “But I don’t know him—what we mean by knowing. We haven’t even been introduced. I don’t know his name, either.”

“Nor do I, Papa.”

“What? Nonsense. Don’t lie, Violet.”

“But it’s true, Papa. On my honor. The whole village calls him only Lieutenant Fritz, Papa. The forester told you that, too.”

“You never told me. You don’t trust me, Violet.”

“Of course I do, Papa. I tell you everything.”

“Not this about the Putsch and the Lieutenant.”

“But you were away, Papa.”

“Wasn’t he here before that?”

“No, Papa. Only the last few weeks.”

“Then he was not the same man who went with you and Hubert at night across the yard?”

“That was the forester Kniebusch, Papa! I’ve told you that a hundred times.”

“So your mother acted wrongly?”

“Of course, Papa.”

“I always told her so.”

The Rittmeister fell silent again. But this silence was no longer as somber as before. He felt that he had cleared up the matter in a very satisfying way; and what particularly pleased him was that once again he had proved his wife in the wrong. Because he felt inferior to her, especially now, he repeatedly had to prove that he was her superior. The only thought disturbing to this satisfaction was that Violet had wanted, behind his back, to send the letter of warning to the Lieutenant. That showed she had either no trust in him or that she was indeed secretly associated with the man.

Suddenly he turned hot at the thought that she was in any case lying to him. When she had met the Lieutenant near the arms dump, both had pretended not to know each other. Yes, the Lieutenant had been openly rude to her. Yet even so Vi had written him a letter! They had wanted to deceive him, therefore. Or the pair had actually only become acquainted later. In that case, why had she not given her warning about the forester verbally?

It was an extremely difficult case, a maddening and complicated affair. He would have to consider very deeply and be very cunning to get at the truth.

“Vi?” he said, frowning.

“Yes, Papa?” She was readiness itself.

“When we met the Lieutenant in the wood, did you know him then?”

“Of course not, Papa; otherwise he wouldn’t have been like that.” Violet felt her danger. Not desiring her father to follow up that line of thought too far, she decided on a counter-attack. “Papa,” she said energetically, “it seems to me you think with Mamma that I’m having affairs with men.”

“Not at all!” replied the Rittmeister hastily. The magic words “like Mamma” had broken down his defense at once. But he reflected a while before asking suspiciously: “What do you know about affairs with men, Violet?”

“Well, cuddling and so on, Papa,” said Violet with that girlish defiance which seemed to her suitable.

“Cuddling is a nasty word,” said the indignant Rittmeister. “Where do you hear that sort of thing?”

“From the maids, Papa. They all say that.”

“Our maids, too? Armgard? Lotte?”

“Of course, Papa. They all say that. But I can’t swear that I exactly heard it from Armgard or Lotte.”

“I’ll throw them out,” murmured the Rittmeister to himself. That was his particular way of annihilating the unpleasant things in life.

Violet had not heard him. She was very well satisfied with the path this examination was taking. She laughed. “A little while ago, Papa, I heard one of the girls in the village say to another: ‘Have you come to the pub to dance or to cuddle?’—I had to laugh so, Papa!”

“There’s nothing funny in that, Violet!” cried the Rittmeister indignantly. “That sort of thing is simply disgusting. I don’t want to hear anything more like that, and neither do I wish you to listen to such things again. Cuddling is an absolutely low word.”

“Isn’t it the same then as kissing, Papa?” she asked very surprised.

“Violet!” almost roared the Rittmeister.

The angry cry must have reached the chauffeur through the glass, for he turned round with a questioning face. By furious gestures Herr von Prackwitz showed him that he was to drive on and that it was nothing to do with him. But the chauffeur did not understand, put on his brakes, stopped, opened the window and said: “Excuse me, I haven’t quite understood, Herr Rittmeister.”

“You’re to drive on, man!” roared the Rittmeister. “Go on driving.”

“Yes, Herr Rittmeister,” replied the chauffeur politely. “We shall be in Ostade in twenty minutes.”

“Then get on.”

The window was closed and the car went on.

“Blockhead!” swore the Rittmeister at the window. Then to his daughter in a milder tone: “There is a respectable and a not-respectable term for many things. You don’t say, ‘What will you booze?’ but ‘What will you drink?’ So for kissing; a respectable person doesn’t use that other not-respectable word.”

Violet considered a moment. Then she said, smiling brightly at her father: “I understand, Papa. It’s like this. When you’re in good humor you say make water, and when you’re in a temper you say the other word which I mustn’t ever use, isn’t that it, Papa?”

The Rittmeister said nothing more all the way to Ostade. Violet, not honored with any further harangue, was very satisfied.

Now they were driving along the Oder. Somewhat revived, the Rittmeister instructed his chauffeur to stop in the Old Market at The Golden Hat, which the officers frequented to read the newspapers and drink sherry or port before lunch. The country gentlemen, of course, also frequented the inn.

The Rittmeister took care that his car was not driven into the yard but left in front. “We shall be going on immediately,” he told his chauffeur. That was not at all his intention, however. He wanted the splendor of his new car to be noticed.

In the dining room there was no one, at least no one who counted for the Rittmeister. Only a few civilians. Among whom he, although not in uniform, did not include himself. It was a little after eleven; the officers usually came about this time or perhaps not till half-past.

The Rittmeister collected all the illustrated, all the humorous, periodicals. Conversation with his daughter was out of the question; she had offended him too much. Ordering a glass of port for himself and a beef tea for her, he gave himself up to his reading.

It was absolutely disgusting that this girl had again spoilt this day. It was simply impossible to enjoy life in Neulohe. For three minutes the Rittmeister seriously considered giving up Neulohe and rejoining the army. He need only wait for the Putsch and everything would be possible! Glad that he only had to make the decision the day after tomorrow, he sank deeper into reading about the latest attacks on the government in Kladderadatsch.

Violet sat so that she could see the market place; it appeared surprisingly peaceful for a town which had to expect on the morrow a big Putsch which would completely change the constitution and government of sixty million people. In a row stood farmers’ carts with potatoes or cabbages; women went to and fro with their market bags—but there was nothing out of the way, nothing different, and above all no uniforms.

“Papa! I don’t see any uniforms at all.”

“They have something else to do today than stroll about,” replied the Rittmeister sharply. “Anyway, I’m reading.”

But a little later he lowered his newspaper and himself looked out of the window. Glancing at the clock, he called to the waiter: “Where are the officers?”

“They ought to be here by now,” said the waiter, also regarding the clock.

Fully satisfied with this definite information, the Rittmeister ordered a second port. Violet asked for one too, but he frowned. “Keep to your beef tea,” he said. With a slight smile the waiter moved away.

Violet felt deeply disgraced. Never again could she enter this inn. Papa had been absolutely beastly. Tears in her eyes, she stared at the market place and the chauffeur sitting in the car.

“Where are you thinking of driving to now, Papa?” she asked.

The Rittmeister started. “I? I’m not thinking of driving anywhere. Why?”

“You told the chauffeur we were going on immediately, Papa!”

“Mind your own business!” said he, nettled. “What’s more, alcohol is not for young girls in the morning.”

For a long time they stared at the market place. In the end there was nothing for the Rittmeister to do but order a third port. Irritably he asked the waiter where on earth the officers could be.

The man regretted very much, but he couldn’t explain it himself.

Wretched and more and more out of humor, the two gazed from the window. The civilians had long ago recaptured the periodicals; only Kladderadatsch remained with the Rittmeister, and from time to time he glanced at it but found the jokes stupid. The situation was certainly not one for humor. What on earth was he to do all day in a boring town like Ostade, if the officers weren’t going to appear? There wouldn’t be any lunch at home now; besides, he had not the slightest wish to drive back yet—this evening would be soon enough to hear what his wife had to say about Hubert’s dismissal. Most of all he would have liked to drive to one or two barracks, and make some inquiries. Unfortunately he had just told Violet that he had no intention of driving on anywhere.

Her movement made him attentive. Utterly absorbed, she was gazing at the door, and the Rittmeister, forgetting his good manners, turned on his chair and stared also.

In the doorway stood a young man in gray knickerbockers and a greenish-yellow trench coat. He was looking round the dining room, then over at the buffet and the waiter. In his incongruous get-up he appeared so different that it was some time before the Rittmeister recognized him. Then he sprang up, rushed toward the young man and, in his delight at this distraction, greeted him enthusiastically. “Good morning, Lieutenant. You see, I’m already here today …”

“Twenty cigarettes, waiter,” the young man called sharply. Having looked coolly at the Rittmeister he decided to say “Good morning,” very reserved.

“Surely you remember me!” cried the Rittmeister, astonished at this reception. “Rittmeister von Prackwitz. We met yesterday in the train. Major,” he whispered the name, “Rückert. You … I …” Louder: “I’ve already bought the car, a fairly good one. A Horch. No doubt you saw it outside.”

“Yes, yes,” said the Lieutenant absent-mindedly. The waiter coming up, he took his cigarettes, gave a note, acknowledged the change and asked: “The gentlemen not here yet?”

The waiter brought out his two sentences: “They ought to have been here long before this. I don’t understand it either.”

“Hmmm!” was all the Lieutenant said, but even the Rittmeister felt that this had not been good news for the young man.

The waiter had left. The two men looked at each other in silence a moment.

The Lieutenant made up his mind. “You must excuse me, I am very busy.” He spoke mechanically and did not move, but remained looking at the Rittmeister as if he expected something.

That his announcement about the purchase of a car had made so little impression offended Herr von Prackwitz very much. Nevertheless he did not want the Lieutenant to go. At the moment he was the only person with whom he could talk or from whom he could find out anything. “Perhaps you would join me at my table for a moment, Lieutenant?” he said. “I have something to tell you.”

The Lieutenant was obviously deep in thought. He waved his hand. “I am really very busy,” he said. But when the Rittmeister made a gesture of invitation he went with him. Violet had not taken her eyes away the whole time.

“You have met my daughter, Herr …” The Rittmeister’s laugh was embarrassed. “There now, I’ve forgotten your name, Lieutenant!”

Under Violet’s glance the Lieutenant had become more alert. She looked so fervent and affectionate that a strong repulsion stirred in him at once. She hasn’t even understood yet that she’s finished for me, he thought. You’ve got to be rude first to her.

“Meier,” he introduced himself. “Meier. Meier is a very useful, a very agreeable name, don’t you think?”

He was aware of her glance, plainly begging for pardon and mercy.

“No, I don’t believe that I know the young lady,” he said more harshly. “Or perhaps yes.”

“Yes—in Neulohe …” whispered Violet, cowering under that ruthless glance and remark.

“In Neulohe? Oh? Have we seen one another there? You must pardon me, Fräulein, but I for my part don’t remember it.” Turning to the Rittmeister, transfixed at this incomprehensible scene—for he saw that his daughter was stricken to the heart—the Lieutenant added: “No, please order nothing for me. I must go at once. You had something to say to me, Rittmeister?”

“I don’t know …” began the Rittmeister slowly.

Violet sat there with a pale and lifeless face.

The Lieutenant crossed his legs, basely making show of an expression of boredom, as of one who knew only too well what was coming. Lighting a cigarette he said superciliously: “If you don’t know, Herr—Herr—my excuses, the name escapes me” (with a vindictive look at Violet), “but if you don’t know, I should like to depart, if you don’t mind. As I told you, I am very busy.” And continued to sit there with a provocative air. A little more and it could have been said that he was openly yawning.

The Rittmeister restrained himself; outside his home he could do that. “The long and the short of it is, my daughter wrote you a letter.” He hesitated. “About the matter you know of, and which has got into the wrong hands.”

It was all as had been expected. The Lieutenant, conscious of the girl’s imploring gaze, put out his cigarette in the ash tray. Then he looked up from his dead butt, ran his eyes over the Rittmeister and said: “I am at your disposal, naturally, Rittmeister. I dispute nothing. Only,” he went on more quickly, “I should be grateful if you would wait till tomorrow’s action is over. My friends will call on you immediately afterwards.”

The Rittmeister was a very old man; hollow temples, white hair, a ravaged face. In almost an unintelligible voice he said: “Do-I-understand-you-aright?”

“Papa! Fritz!” cried Violet.

“You have completely understood,” the Lieutenant informed him in his supercilious and insolent voice.

“Oh, Fritz, Fritz! Papa …” the girl murmured, her eyes full of tears.

The Rittmeister seemed paralyzed. Holding his wineglass by the stem he turned it round and round, as if examining the color of the port. On his tongue was no taste of wine; only of bitterness and ashes … the bitterness and ashes of a whole life.

“Oh, Fritz.” It was Violet’s tearful voice.

In a flash he had thrown the remainder of his port in the impudent, conceited face. With great pleasure Joachim von Prackwitz saw the young fellow turn pale and the firm chin tremble.… “Have I understood you properly now, Lieutenant?” he asked.

Violet had moaned. The Lieutenant, before wiping the wine from his face, was young enough to look anxiously round the room—the civilians were sitting behind their newspapers. But the waiter at the buffet had given a start and was now rubbing the zinc bar with embarrassed vigor.

“That was unnecessary,” whispered the Lieutenant, full of hatred, standing up. “Anyway, I have always loathed your daughter.”

The Rittmeister groaned. He attempted to rise and strike the brutal odious face, but his legs were trembling, the room turned round and round and he had to hold on to the table. In his ears the blood roared like breakers on the shore—his daughter spoke from far away. Has she no pride at all? he thought. How can she still talk to him?

“Oh, Fritz! why have you done this? Now everything is ruined. Papa knew nothing.” He was looking at her with his clear malicious eyes, full of contempt and disgust.

She advanced round the table; it did not matter to her that she was in a public place. She seized his hand, she implored him: “Fritz, be kind.… Papa will do everything I want. I will talk him round.… I can’t be without you.… Even if I see you only once a week, once a month, we could still be married.”

He was attempting to withdraw his hand.…

Her eyes were large with anxiety and tears. She was trying to collect herself. With an attempt at a smile she said: “I will convince Papa that it’s all a mistake. He didn’t know about it at all! He must ask your pardon, Fritz, about the wine.… That was very horrible of him. I swear to you he will beg your pardon.”

“How do you mean, your father didn’t know?” he asked. “He was talking about the letter, wasn’t he?”

Thus his first words to her were a cold suspicious question, the sole reply to her stammering appeal.…

But she was happy to have him speak to her again; she pressed his hand, that bony cruel hand, and spoke rapidly. “Papa was talking about a quite different letter! I wrote to you again, about the arms, because the forester had seen you burying them. And the letter was intercepted. Don’t look so terrible, Fritz! Fritz! The arms are still there.… I haven’t done anything wrong, Fritz. Please.…”

She had spoken louder and louder, and now he put his hand over her mouth. From behind their newspapers the civilians had emerged to observe the scene with embarrassment, indignation or amusement. At his table the Rittmeister moved as if in sleep. “Let my daughter alone,” he murmured. And believed he had shouted this. The waiter had taken a step toward the couple and now stood unable to make up his mind whether to interfere or not.…

The Lieutenant, however, now understood everything: the absence of the officers this morning, the broken-off communications with the Reichswehr.… He perceived that the whole Putsch, this action which had been prepared for months, was endangered—and he was to blame! No, she was.

His hand still on her mouth, he whispered in her ear: his hatred for her submissive face flamed higher every moment. “You,” he whispered, “you’ve brought me only misfortune. I loathe you. I wouldn’t want you even if you were smothered in gold. You make me sick. I shudder when I think of your whining. I could tear myself to pieces when I think that I once touched you. Do you hear? Do you understand?” He spoke louder, for her eyes were closed and she hung as if lifeless from his arm. “You have ruined everything for me with your cursed filthy love. Listen, you!” He was shaking her. “Listen well. If the weapons are still there, then I’ll take care to get killed tomorrow. But if they’ve been found, I’ll shoot myself this afternoon—because of you, do you hear? Because of your magnificent love.” Triumphantly, full of hatred, he watched her. For a moment he grew confused; she hung so lifeless on his arm. But he still had something else to say to her, even though the waiter was shaking him roughly by the shoulder. In her ear he whispered: “Visit me this evening, do you understand, darling? There! I’ll look nice. All your life you shall think of me lying there—with a smashed skull!”

At her scream everyone started up, rushed forward.

The Lieutenant looked around, as if waking up. “There, take her! I don’t need her anymore,” he shouted to the waiter and released the girl so suddenly that she fell to the ground.

“Hey, pick her up at least, you!” yelled the waiter furiously. The Lieutenant, however, was already running from the inn.

V

The Lieutenant, he did not know how, had reached his small hotel; to stand in his room looking at the distempered walls and listening to the babble downstairs in the bar. “Be quiet!” he shouted with a face distorted by fury; but the bawling continued. For a while he listened, seeming to hear Violet’s humble, imploring voice. The whimpering of a slave! Damnation! He pulled himself together, drank a glass of stale water, looked round and noticed the pieces of field-gray uniform hanging up. He could not make up his mind how he would go “there,” whether in uniform or in mufti. For a long time he considered which would be more correct, but could not decide.

“Life’s a curse,” he said, sitting down. But now he could not keep his thoughts on the question of what to wear; it occurred to him that he had been ordered to go with his men at nine that evening to fetch the arms from the dump. There was no compulsion for him to have a look at the place beforehand. If the arms were gone, well, it was just as bad at nine in the evening as at midday—he need not have known about them. The Rittmeister and his daughter would keep their mouths shut, for dirty linen wasn’t washed in public. Scornfully he grinned at the thought of how dirty for the daughter this linen was.

“What a swine I am! What a swine!” he groaned, though he did not really mean it. In the end he was no lower than life had wished him to be. There he sat, head in his hands, the Don Juan of villages, the mysterious Lieutenant Fritz, as swift to act as to love. Flesh and hair, the smell of powder and the hot taste of long kisses—that had been his life—the smooth, cool stock of a weapon in his hand, the smooth, cool limbs of girls under their clothes, the blaze in the sky from a village set on fire—but also the eternally consuming flames in his body. Cold-bloodedly he could set on fire the farm of a Haase, if it suited him, but he could also spring into a blazing stable to fetch out the horses. That was the man he was, and he could not be any other.

Because of that, he would not wait till evening to make certain of the arms dump. No, he would go at once, and if all was lost there, then he was lost too, exactly as he had told that damned girl. He knew well that to many he was a man of questionable honor, one used by the Major only because he was suited to certain missions; but he had his own sort of honor and did not choose to be dependent on the silence of a Fräulein von Prackwitz.

He jumped up, his irresolution gone. From the cupboard he took out a suitcase and burrowing beneath the dirty linen in it fetched out his pistol. The safety-catch was up, but it was loaded from that time before—he remembered very well—when he had driven that little stinking beast Meier in front of him. He threw his case down at his feet—he was indecisive, a coward!

No, he had had no luck with her; she was associated with nothing but tremulous figures. Cowardly Meier, Kniebusch the chatterbox, that scoundrel of a Räder, the idiotic father who thought it was the thing to throw wine in other people’s faces and was then prostrated by his own heroic deed. And the most tremulous of all, the girl herself, with her romantic pretensions to love. “I can’t live without you!”—when every man in Neulohe and in the world could have given her what he himself had!

There was a knock. Swiftly, before calling “Come in,” the Lieutenant slipped the pistol into the roomy pocket of his knickerbockers. But it was only Friedrich, the boots, come to announce that Herr Richter had sent round to ask if Herr Fritz would drop in on him at once.

“Yes, yes, that’ll be all right, Friedrich,” said the Lieutenant with the greatest ease, although in his heart he cursed.

Very punctiliously and with a firm hand he parted his hair before the mirror, attentively observed by Friedrich who, of course, was also in the plot, though only as a minor hanger-on. In the mirror the Lieutenant was watching the face of his rear-rank man; it was as if kneaded out of clay, a coarse face, with a shapeless nose. Nevertheless its expression was unmistakably anxious. He made up his mind. “Well, Friedrich, where’s it burning?” he asked with a smile.

Friedrich looked at the Lieutenant in the mirror and said hurriedly: “The town has been put out of bounds to the troops.”

The Lieutenant gave a superior smile. “We know all about that. That’s all right, Friedrich. Did you think they’d let the men into the town beforehand, so that they could get drunk?”

Friedrich nodded a slow agreement with his shapeless head. “I understand that. But Herr Lieutenant, they say—”

“Do you listen to what people say? Then you have to listen to a lot, Friedrich.”

“But—”

“Oh, shut up! It’s all rubbish. We people obey and do our job.”

“But they say a car from the Commission of Control stopped in front of the artillery barracks, Herr Lieutenant.”

The boots, this insignificant something, one of hundreds, did not remove his glance from a Lieutenant who must not lose his self-possession or show dismay. For a moment only did the young man close his eyes, no more than a blink; then he was again looking at himself and the other in the mirror. Thoughtfully he tapped his comb on the rim of the washbowl. “Well, and what else? Is it still there?” he asked.

“No, sir, it went away again.”

“You see, Friedrich!” explained the Lieutenant, reassuring himself too. “You see! It stopped there and has gone away again, Friedrich. That’s all. The swine have to stick their noses in everything. Obviously they’ve heard something or other. It’s impossible, when thousands know about our affair, for there not to be a little gossip. They were trying to hear something, and they’ve had to go away again. Would they have left if they had really known anything?” He turned round, looking straight at his man. And whether it was the nearness of his glance or the effect of his words, he saw that he had convinced the boots.

“The Lieutenant is quite right. One oughtn’t to listen to what people say. One must just obey,” said the man.

The other secretly grinned. What a rotten business! See, here was one man persuaded out of about three thousand; and Heaven only knew what the others were being told in the meantime. For affairs like this one wanted a regiment of more or less deaf mutes.

“It’s not that I’m afraid, Herr Lieutenant. Only I’m so glad to have a job again at last, and the boss told me he’d throw me out if I joined in the Putsch.” The Lieutenant made a gesture. “But I shall join in, Herr Lieutenant,” Friedrich said hastily. “I’ll bring also the two sporting guns of the boss’s, as commanded. If everything goes all right tomorrow, he can chuck me out. Only, Herr Lieutenant, you’ll understand that if it had been absolutely hopeless … It’s no joke to be out of work.”

“No, no, Friedrich,” laughed the Lieutenant, clapping the man on his shoulder. “It’s O.K. That I guarantee—with my life.” Well, he had said it, he wanted to have said it like that; it was all bloody well the same, especially now. Should he be sorry for this fool? All were trying to cover themselves, the cowards.

“Thank you very much, Herr Lieutenant,” said Friedrich, beaming.

“So you see, comrade,” laughed the Lieutenant graciously, “never say die! Just think how pleased your boss will be the day after tomorrow that you joined in for him.” His tone changed. “Oh, and Friedrich, is my bike ready? I have to make another trip shortly.”

“Yes, of course, Herr Lieutenant. But first you were going to Herr Richter.…”

“That’s right,” said the Lieutenant, and left the room.

He strolled along, smoking. In the lavatory he quickly pushed back the safety catch and saw that there was a cartridge in the barrel. Then, with the pistol ready and gripped inside his trouser pocket, he went to Herr Richter. It was a strange thing; since he had heard about the Entente Commission’s car his mood was a hundred times happier. If all those condemned to death felt as cheerful as he did, then all the drivel about the death penalty was utter nonsense. It was possible that a few minutes at Herr Richter’s and things would explode. He with them!

Everything was quite friendly there, however. A crowd of discharged officers sat around Richter, some in mufti, some in threadbare uniforms without distinguishing marks. The Lieutenant knew them all. With an abrupt greeting he went at once to Richter, who was whispering with the one stranger, a genuine civilian.

Richter himself really looked like a civilian. Tall, dark, the young colts called him “God’s pencil” among themselves; he was always writing everything down—it was certain that the fellow had never smelled powder. The Lieutenant couldn’t bear him; and probably he could just as little bear the Lieutenant. He now signed to him brusquely to wait at a distance and went on whispering with the fat civilian. The Lieutenant turned round and in a bored way contemplated the room.

It was the back room of a public-house, dreary and discolored; and something dreary and discolored also appeared in the men there. It was revolting that he too should have to stand and wait with them. He fingered the pistol in his pocket; Richter’s first words would tell him whether those men knew something about him or not. Two or three words of the fat civilian’s reached his ear. He could not exactly make them out, but one word might have been “Meier” and the other “spy.” To be sure, there were many Meiers in the world, but the Lieutenant was convinced immediately that only one Meier could be intended. The swine had been born to make difficulties for him. Why hadn’t he let him roast in that forest fire which he had started? This was the result of a man’s good deeds! Actually it was stupid to wait any longer. Everything was plain and decided. Out and finish with it! Why let himself be insulted as well?

He considered where the lavatory might be in this place—but that would only make trouble for his comrades. He must go somewhere farther away, somewhere in the wood, in the undergrowth—no, the best place would be where he had promised her. She must not be let off that!

“Herr Lieutenant, please.”

He breathed freely again. Perhaps only a respite, but yet a little time longer to draw breath, to be himself, to have a future. Attentively he listened to Herr Richter explaining that since early that morning every communication with the Reichswehr had been broken. No one could get into the barracks, no one came out; officers were not to be seen on the streets. Telephone calls brought only evasive chatter.…

Ah, it was clear now how uncertain is all preparation. They were a handful of people, the remnants of Freicorps that had long been officially dissolved, together with a Landsturm of a few thousand men—strong if the Reichswehr joined them and, if it opposed them, a ridiculous mob. One had firmly counted on the Reichswehr. Naturally there had been nothing official; one had had the fullest comprehension of the difficulties which the comrades faced. From the debris of the army, from the ruins of revolution, a new army had to be created under the suspicious eyes of late enemies who were still hostile. Those outside were more than willing to take all the risk. The discharged officer had spoken with the one in service; the first had talked, the other had listened. “Yes” had not been said, but neither had “No.” But one had been given the feeling—if we only carry out our job, they will not be against it.

And then, out of the blue sky, a day before the event, this incomprehensible silence, utterly undeserved coldness, emphatic withdrawal, almost refusal. Herr Richter went on to represent urgently that this mystery must be cleared up at once and the shadow dissipated. One couldn’t lead people against the Reichswehr if it was to be hostile. He spoke very forcibly. The Lieutenant would surely understand what was desired?

With grave and attentive face the Lieutenant stood there. In the right places he nodded and said yes, but actually he heard nothing. Savage hatred filled him. Could so great and important a business be endangered through a little love-sick creature? Was everything to be in vain which hundreds of men had prepared for months, for which they had risked honor, life and fortune—all because a bitch like that couldn’t hold her tongue? Impossible! It couldn’t be. Oh, he should have said quite different things to her. He should have taken her by the hair and hit her love-filled face.

(But neither the Lieutenant nor his superior, now talking of treachery, arrived at the thought that a thing must indeed be rotten to be overthrown by the chatter of a fifteen-year-old girl; that it could only be an adventure without any life-giving spark of an idea; that they themselves were all trapped by the glittering and corrupt enchantments of a wicked age, and were thinking of the moment instead of the eternity beyond—even as the bank-note machines in Berlin were working only for the day and the hour.)

Herr Richter was silent. His talk at an end, he was hoping that this shady Lieutenant had understood him. But he merely looked questioningly at God’s Pencil, who therefore had to make up his mind to go further—a disgusting business for a decent person.

“I have heard,” he whispered with a cautious look at the fat civilian who still stood nearby waiting for something, “I have heard that you have the possibility of finding out a few … hmm … secrets. You are supposed to have some sort of connection.…” The disgust in his voice was so obvious that a little crimson crept into the Lieutenant’s cheeks. But he said nothing, only regarded his superior attentively. “Very well, then,” said Herr Richter impatiently, himself flushing. “Why beat about the bush? I ask you in the interests of the cause to make use of your connections, so that we can know where we stand.”

“Now?” The truth was that the Lieutenant wished to ride past the hotel, see if the lordly Horch car was still there, and then go at once to the dump. If it was as he now almost expected it to be, then back to her at once and before her eyes do what he had promised. No, he wouldn’t touch her, but she should carry with her that picture—much worse than any other—throughout her whole life. She was so impressionable, she would never get over it; day after day with that picture, starting up at night from sleep—screaming—with that picture before her. Therefore the Lieutenant hesitated. “Now?” he asked.

The dark haggard man became almost angry. “When would it be, then? Do you think we have much more time to lose? We’ve got to know what’s going to happen.”

“I don’t think,” said the Lieutenant, retaliating for his blush, “that the young lady has time for me at the moment. She’s only a housemaid and will have to clean up now. And the cook bears me a grudge.” That’s the stuff, he thought. If they need me, let them stop being so genteel, and eat my dirt.

Herr Richter, however, had become quite cold and polite. “I am convinced, Herr Lieutenant,” he said, “that you can arrange the matter. I shall therefore expect your report here—inside an hour.”

The Lieutenant bowed, and Herr Richter was on the point of dismissing him when he caught a gesture from the fat man. “Oh, yes—one or two more questions, Herr Lieutenant, in another connection, with which this gentleman is dealing.”

The fat man advanced, with a curt greeting. He had been watching the Lieutenant during the entire discussion, but now he hardly looked at him. Without circumlocution, without a trace of politeness, he asked: “Neulohe is in your district?”

“Certainly, Herr …?”

“The arms dump in the Black Dale also?”

The Lieutenant threw an irritated questioning glance at Herr Richter, who with an impatient sign ordered him to reply.

“Yes.”

“When was the last time you inspected the dump?”

“Three days ago. Tuesday.”

“Everything all right then?”

“Yes.”

“Had you set up secret marks?”

“I could see by the state of the ground that it had not been dug up since.”

“Are your people trustworthy?”

“Completely.”

“Do you think that anyone could have watched you while the arms were being buried?”

“That—no. Otherwise I would have shifted the dump at once.”

“Did anyone come in the neighborhood of the sentinels during the concealment?”

The Lieutenant was trying to consider what reply would be helpful to him. But the questions followed one another so rapidly, the observant eye was so cold, that he replied hastily, without reflection or weighing the consequences: “Yes.”

“Who?”

“Herr von Prackwitz and his daughter.”

“Did you know them?”

“Only by sight.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I sent them on.”

“Did both go forthwith?”

“Yes.”

“They asked for no explanation of what was taking place on their land?”

“Herr von Prackwitz is a former officer.”

“And his daughter?”

The Lieutenant was silent. This is like the police, he thought. Only criminals are questioned in this manner. Is there a spy in our section then? I heard something of that kind once.…

“And the daughter?” persisted the fat man.

“Said nothing.”

“You weren’t otherwise acquainted with her?”

“Only by sight.”

That look, that damned penetrating look! If only he had an idea what the fellow really knew! But, like this, one was groping in the dark completely. A single reply might have exposed him as a liar. And then … And then? Nothing more!

“You are certain that neither of the pair spied on your dump later?”

“Absolutely certain.”

“Why?”

“I should have seen by the ground.”

For the first time Herr Richter joined in. “I think we can be certain of Rittmeister von Prackwitz and his daughter. As a matter of fact they are now in town. I saw them go into The Golden Hat.”

“We could question them,” said the fat man thoughtfully, not removing his ice-cold glance from the Lieutenant.

“Certainly, question them! I’ll come with you at once. Come along, we’ll go,” almost shouted the Lieutenant. “What’s up? Am I a traitor? Have I blabbed? Come with me, you, Herr Policeman! Yes, I’ve just come from The Golden Hat; I was sitting there at a table with the Rittmeister and his daughter; I have—” He broke off, looking at his tormentor with hatred.

“Yes, what have you?” asked the fat man, quite unmoved by this outburst.

“I beg you, gentlemen,” cried God’s Pencil imploringly. “Don’t misunderstand the situation, Herr Lieutenant. There is no desire to offend you, but we have reason to believe that an arms dump has been betrayed. A car from the Entente Commission has been seen there. As yet we don’t know which dump is in question; we are inquiring of all the gentlemen to whom one has been entrusted. There is always the possibility that this is the reason for the peculiar behavior of our comrades opposite.”

The Lieutenant drew a deep breath. “Inquire, then,” he said to the other; and yet he felt that even that breath had been seen.

“You were speaking of The Golden Hat,” said the fat man impassively. “You said ‘I have’ and stopped.”

“Is that really necessary?” exclaimed Herr Richter in despair.

“I had some port with the Rittmeister, perhaps I was going to say that. I don’t remember now. Why don’t we go there?” he cried again, this time not desperately but in defiance, carrying on that game with death which had already been decided, however, as he well knew. “I’ll be pleased to go. It doesn’t matter to me. You can question Herr von Prackwitz in my presence.”

“And his daughter,” said the fat man.

“And his daughter,” repeated the Lieutenant, but in a low voice.

There was a silence, oppressive and lengthy.

What do they want, he thought in despair. Do they want to arrest me? They can’t do that. I am not a traitor; I have not lost my honor yet.

The fat man, without any embarrassment, whispered in Herr Richter’s ear, on whose face was seen once more, but intensified, an expression of disgust. He appeared to be in disagreement, to be rejecting something. Suddenly the Lieutenant remembered a former comrade from whom the colonel had torn the epaulettes in front of the regiment. But I don’t wear epaulettes, he thought forlornly; he can’t do that to me.

He looked across the room—it was ten paces to the door and no one stood in the way. Hesitatingly he took a step in that direction.

“A moment,” commanded the fat man roughly. His ice-cold eye saw everything, even when it was turned away.

“I answer for the dump with my honor,” cried the Lieutenant, beginning to tremble. The two men turned their faces to him. “And with my life,” he added, not so firmly.

It seemed as if the fat man made a slight negative gesture with his head, but Herr Richter said briskly: “Good. Good. Nobody mistrusts you, Herr Lieutenant.” The fat man was silent. No muscle of his face moved, but it nevertheless said: “I mistrust you.” I don’t want to be judged by you, thought the Lieutenant, not your way.

“May I go now?” asked the Lieutenant.

Herr Richter looked at the fat man, who said: “A couple of questions more, Herr Lieutenant.”

Hasn’t the fellow any shame? thought the young man in despair. I wish to God I was on the street. But he did not move and replied: “By all means”—as if it were of no consequence to him.

And it started again. “You know a farm bailiff, Meier from Neulohe?”

“Slightly. He was proposed. I turned him down.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t like him. I thought him unreliable.”

“Why?”

“I can’t remember. That was my impression. I think he had a lot of affairs with women.”

“Oh, affairs with women … You thought he was unreliable because of affairs with women?” The unbending cold glance rested on the Lieutenant.

“Yes.”

“Could this Meier have observed the concealment of the arms?”

“Absolutely impossible!” declared the Lieutenant quickly. “He had been gone from Neulohe a long time then.”

“Oh! Gone away? Why had he gone?”

“I really don’t know. One would have to ask Herr von Prackwitz.”

“Do you think there is anyone in Neulohe who is still in touch with this Meier?”

“I have no idea at all. Perhaps one of his girls.”

“You don’t know them?”

“I beg you!” said the Lieutenant heavily.

“It might be possible, don’t you think … that you know the name of one or another?”

“No.”

“So you can form no conjecture how this Meier might have heard of the arms dump?”

“But he can’t know anything about it!” shouted the Lieutenant, bewildered. “It’s weeks since he left Neulohe.”

“And who does know about it?”

Silence again. The Lieutenant shrugged his shoulders furiously.

“Well, it has been stated,” said Herr Richter placatingly, “that this Meier was sitting in the car of the Control Commission this morning. But it’s not certain that it was he.”

For the first time the fat man betrayed annoyance, and glanced at the too-talkative God’s Pencil with irritation. The other, however, made an end. “We’ll let that be enough of questioning now. It doesn’t seem to me that much has come out of it. You know your instructions, Lieutenant. I shall expect you back in a hour’s time, then. Perhaps you can learn what we haven’t found out here.” He made a sign of dismissal; the Lieutenant gave a slight bow and went to the door.

I am going to the door, he thought, remarkably relieved. Yet he was trembling lest the fat man, that terrible person, should say a word and detain him again.

But no word was spoken behind him; the uncomfortable chilliness in his back vanished, as if distance weakened the icy power of that glance. He saluted his comrades right and left, and by a great effort of will stopped at the door to light a cigarette. Then he seized the handle, opened and closed the door, crossed the taproom—and at last stood outside on the open street.

He felt as if he had been restored to freedom after a long excruciating imprisonment.

VI

Standing there he knew that never again would he return to Herr Richter in that room, would never make the awaited report, nor say comrade to comrade again. Honor lost, all lost! Yes, honor, which belonged to him in common with the other officers, had been lost. He had lied like a coward to escape the judgment of his comrades. But not because he feared death—he had already awarded himself death—but because he wanted to die in his own manner, so that she shouldn’t forget him.

Hands in his pockets, cigarette in mouth, he sauntered in the gently drizzling midday toward that outlying part of the town where were the officers’ villas. When he considered the matter, it was utterly foolish to take on himself this further humiliation of finding out from the maid Frieda what her employers had been saying, since he would never convey to Herr Richter the results of his investigation. Let them see how they would manage their Putsch themselves; he was only going to bother about his own affairs now.

As, apparently carefree and unbound by time, the Lieutenant strolled through the streets in his shabby clothes, entering a shop once and buying fifty cigarettes of a very much better kind than usual, there was a deep crease between his eyebrows, just above the bridge of the nose—a crease of intense brooding. It was, for a young man who throughout his life had preferred action to reflection, not very easy to understand what was really the matter with him, what he wanted and what he did not want.

Very surprising indeed was the thought of how indifferent he had now become toward that Putsch for which he had worked so many months, almost without money, denying himself everything that young men otherwise desire. Equally surprising was it how indifferent he felt at leaving his comrades, to whom he no longer belonged, and whose society had always been more important for him than the love of any girl.

He had had to endure a lot that morning, things he would normally never have borne, things which would have rendered him frantic: the wine thrown at him by the Rittmeister, the apprehensive queries of the contemptible Friedrich, Herr Richter’s hardly-concealed disgust, and, to cap all, the shameful examination by the fat detective. But all this too had lapsed from the mind of one who otherwise could not forget an injury for years, but who now had to coerce himself if he wished to remember anything at all of these recent happenings.

It is strange, he thought; I feel as if I am quite out of things already, as if I have really nothing more to do with this world, like a dying man when all fades round him. Yes, now I remember again. When people die, there hands begin to move restlessly about their bedclothes. Some say the dying try to dig their own graves; others that they are trying to find something to hold on to in this world. Is that what’s happening to me? Is everything withdrawing from me, and can I find nothing more on earth to hold on to? But I am no dying man; I am not the least bit ill. Is it that the cells in my body already know they must perish? Can death not only be annihilation through illness, but also the destruction of the body through thought? In that case am I really a traitor?

He looked around as if waking from a bad dream. He was on a large dismal ground stamped hard by the boots of many hundreds of soldiers, a yellow expanse of cheerless clay where hardly a weed ventured to grow. At the far end were the crude yellow barracks, surrounded by a high yellow wall topped with broken glass. The great iron gate, painted a dull gray, was shut; the sentry in steel helmet and with slung carbine was marching up and down to warm himself a little.

The Lieutenant contemplated this picture. In him a sullen resolution was forming, something evil and very somber. He crossed the ground. Now I’ll see about it, he thought.

He stood right in the sentry’s way and looked at him challengingly. “Well, comrade?” he said. He knew the man and the man knew him; many times had the Lieutenant stood a round for him and his friends. Occasionally they had sat together, and once, when there had been a fight at a country dance, they had cleared the hall side by side. They were therefore very good acquaintances, but now the man was acting as if he did not know of any Lieutenant. In a low voice he said: “Be off with you.”

The Lieutenant did not move. He had become more sullen and addressed the sentry again, sneeringly. “Well, comrade, have you become so important that you don’t know me now?”

The man’s face did not change; he appeared not to have heard and marched past in silence. But after six paces he had to turn again and march back. “Listen, man,” said the Lieutenant this time, “I have nothing to smoke. Give me a cigarette and I’ll go away at once.”

The man gave a quick look to the left. The small door for pedestrians was open, showing part of a gravel path and the windows of the guardroom. Then he turned to the Lieutenant, whose face bore an expression of contempt, despair and anxiety hard to decipher. The sentry could make little of this face, but it held something threatening; otherwise he might possibly have dared to hand over a cigarette. As it was, he passed by without a word and about-turned at the sentry box. Some premonition led him to remove the carbine from his shoulder before approaching again.

The Lieutenant was possessed by a savage and reckless despair. It was now clear that the Reichswehr did not want to have anything more to do with them, that the sternest orders had been given not to associate with the outsiders. He was determined, however, that, whatever the circumstances, the man should enter into conversation. He wanted to quarrel with him and be taken into the barracks, if need be under arrest. Then he could ask the officer on guard what they had against them. And if he then heard something about an arms dump … Very well. All over. All—over!

It was a completely insane thought which was keeping him there in its power; as though the officer on guard would be inclined to give to an arrested person information which had been denied the comrades in liberty. But the Lieutenant was no longer rational. He had been quite right that his body’s cells could be infected by thought.… This time he let the sentry pass him unchallenged, but while his back was turned he lit a cigarette. Puffing away, he watched the man returning and enjoyed the astonished and slightly foolish expression on his face when he saw one who had just asked for a cigarette now smoking. The Lieutenant held out a second cigarette and said: “Here, comrade, a cigarette for you because you didn’t have one for me.”

The man came to a halt and said firmly: “Go away or I’ll call the guard.”

“I’ll go when you’ve taken it,” declared the Lieutenant.

The man looked at him, made no attempt to take the cigarette, but raised his carbine a little. “Do be sensible. Go away,” he said at last.

The Lieutenant also desired to win over the other. “Comrade,” he said, “take the cigarette. Oblige me and take it. So that I know you are still my comrade. There!” He held it toward him. “If you don’t take it, I’ll have to give you a punch in the mug,” he added threateningly.

The man scrutinized him, serious and watchful. He made no attempt to take the cigarette but waited to see what the other would do.

A sudden thought made the Lieutenant almost mad with rage. “Ah!” he shouted. “I can see you think I’m drunk.… I’ll show you how drunk I am!”

He dropped his cigarette and at the same moment hit out at the soldier’s face. But, Heaven only knew why, the Lieutenant, usually a very skillful boxer, had no luck today. With a dull sound his fist struck the wood of the carbine stock, and a burning pain shot through his hand and arm. Then the butt hit him on the chest with great force and he tumbled over backwards. He felt that he would never be able to breathe again.

And as he lay there, battling for breath, with the sentry’s watchful eye on him as if he were a savage beast, and considered that he had not been arrested or taken into the barracks or fired upon, and remembered in the hundredth of a second that in his pocket there was a pistol with which he could pay back the shameful blow—then he was pierced by the thought that he had not only deceived his comrades about the betrayal of the dump and made fresh difficulties for them quite unnecessarily, but that he was also nothing but a coward. He was doing all this only to delay the journey to the Black Dale, to postpone the discovery of the truth, to steal a few more hours of life. His outer varnish disintegrated, colour seemed to peel off him; his whole existence seemed like the rotten carcass of an old wooden shipwreck. This is what you are! said the voice within him.

And while he lifted himself gropingly from the earth, while he walked on with aching limbs, taking no notice of the sentry, not even thinking of him—so completely had his new understanding extinguished all that had just happened—he could not help recalling again and again that summer morning in the wood when he had driven little Meier before him with a pistol. How he had despised the pitiful coward; what disgust had overwhelmed him at his entreaties! And now the anxiety was gnawing at himself: Shall I be as cowardly? Will I even have the courage to press the trigger? How will I die?

This thought grew ever stronger in him, and in a few minutes was completely dominant.

How will I die? Like a man or a coward? Will my hand tremble perhaps? Will I shoot myself blind, as little Rakow did? God, how he screamed!

He shuddered, gripping the smooth pistol stock in his pocket as if it could give him that self-confidence which had never failed him his whole life long and which now, when death was near, so completely deserted him. I must be quick, he thought desperately. I must go quickly to the Black Dale, so that I can make certain. How can I live when I don’t even know if I am courageous enough to die?

And all the time, while every fiber in him seemed to be urging a decision, he was going painfully but persistently away from the Black Dale, from death, farther and farther away, toward the carrying out of a repugnant job of spying which was already of no purpose to him. But he was no longer aware of this. When he saw a small public-house which he had sometimes visited, it occurred to him that he could not possibly appear before the servant-girl Frieda in such soiled clothes, and he entered. Ordering a glass of beer from the landlord, he asked if he hadn’t some jacket which he could put on in place of his dirty one.

The landlord looked at him for a moment; he knew more or less, of course, whom the Lieutenant represented. He disappeared, to come back with a brand-new trench jacket. “I think it will fit you,” he said. “What’s happened to yours then?”

“Fell down,” muttered the Lieutenant. He had stripped off his own jacket and saw on the outside of the lower arm a large, highly-colored bruise. Without thinking he opened his shirt over the chest and found there the marks of the gun butt. Doing up the shirt again, he encountered the landlord’s eye.

“It hasn’t started already, has it?” whispered the man.

“No.” The Lieutenant put on the trench jacket. “Might be made for me.”

“Yes, I saw at once you’re about the same size as my boy. I bought him the jacket for tomorrow. My boy’s also going, Herr Lieutenant.”

“Good,” said the Lieutenant, taking a gulp of beer.

“You will see that I have the jacket back this evening, won’t you, Herr Lieutenant?” begged the landlord. “He wants to look decent when he goes tomorrow—it’s the first time he’s been in anything like this.”

“That’s all right,” was all the Lieutenant said. “What do I owe?”

“Oh, nothing,” replied the landlord quickly. “I’d like to ask, if you won’t think it—”

“Well?”

“Were you in the barracks?”

“No, I wasn’t in the barracks.”

“Oh! Then you won’t know, either. They say there’s something wrong there.” He looked expectantly at the other. Perhaps he was thinking of the blue-black patches on the Lieutenant’s body. “You don’t think, sir,” he went on earnestly, “that it’s likely to be serious tomorrow?”

“Be serious? How?”

“Oh, I only mean—serious. Fighting, shooting and so on. In that case I shouldn’t let my boy go.”

“Rubbish.” The Lieutenant laughed heartily. “What are you thinking of? Fighting, shooting! There’s nothing like that now. A Putsch like this is a really happy affair. There’s no heroic dying either, now. Heroic dying has been dismissed since 1918.” He stopped suddenly, as if disgusted.

“I don’t know if you are in earnest,” explained the landlord, “but I ask completely in earnest, Herr Lieutenant. Because I have only the one boy, that’s why! If something happened to him, who’d take over this house? One doesn’t want to have worked all one’s life for nothing. You ought to have seen the place when I bought it twenty years ago. A pigsty! But now! No, if I knew that it might be serious tomorrow—it would be too much of a pity about my boy. Otherwise he can gladly go—it’s also good for business, because we have so many customers among the military.”

The Lieutenant repeated his assurance that everything was all right and not at all dangerous, and once again he promised to send back the jacket in proper time that evening. Then he left. He had lied to the landlord, but what did that matter? A few lies more or less were not important now. Seen close at hand, it was enough to make one sick, the motives leading such people to join in. But perhaps his own motives seen close at hand were equally nauseating to Herr Richter. The weakening of his self-esteem had already made such progress that the Lieutenant could conceive this.

The short halt in the public-house, the two gulps of beer, had done him good. Now he stepped out and soon came to the little street of villas which was his goal. Pulling his cap down over his brows, the Lieutenant hurried on; he did not wish to be seen and recognized, here where so many of the officers lived.

A colonel of the Reichswehr inhabited the villa he was making for. Socially the Lieutenant had every right to press the button where the notice read: “Visitors only.” However, he didn’t ring here but went ten paces farther, to a small iron garden door with the notice: “Tradesmen.” He walked along a flagged path—the visitors’ entry was laid with black and white gravel—round the back of the villa to where a clothes pole and dustbins stood. He did not, like the visitors, climb five steps up to the first floor with its mirrors, but went down five steps to the basement with its gratings on his way to the kitchen.…

The Lieutenant had always believed that the end justified the means. He had not been ashamed to turn the formerly very respectable Frieda into a contemptible house spy, since by this he had often learned garrison secrets of considerable utility. If he was now making this visit with less pleasure than formerly, that was not only because his whole state of mind was far from cheerful, but also mainly because he had never before come this way in daylight. Our daylight deeds bear one aspect, our deeds at night another. The colonel on the first floor had two daughters, and the Lieutenant had even danced with them in the past; it would be embarrassing should they see him on a visit to the kitchen. He was not ashamed of his actions, but he was ashamed of being discovered at them.

He was fortunate—stepping into the corridor he met no one other than the maid Frieda. She was coming out of her room, carrying a duster and dustpan.

“G’day, Friedel!”

Friedel, about twenty, full-breasted, with that somewhat sturdy rustic beauty of which not a trace is left in the twenty-fifth year, was a little startled. “Is that you, Fritz?” she asked. “Are you coming in the day as well, now? I’ve no time for you, though.” But she put down the duster and dustpan against the wall.

“Well, Friedel,” said the Lieutenant awkwardly, “aren’t you pleased to see me?”

She made no attempt to approach him, take him in her arms, kiss as usual. Generally she was radiant whenever she saw her Lieutenant. Who knew what the girl had been imagining to herself? Devoted infatuation, humble readiness.… And now?

She spoke very pertly. “I knew all morning that you would come today.”

“Oh-ho?” The Lieutenant aped astonishment. “Have you presentiments nowadays? Were you dreaming about me, eh, Frieda? Well, I felt that … I thought, see what’s happening to Friedel …” It was frightful, but he could not get into swing. He observed the girl, observed her with deliberation. Yes, a girl; she had a pleasant bosom, powerful hips, fine legs and ankles just a little too heavy … oh, it was no good, he couldn’t get going. Just a female, quite unimportant—and Friedel was not so stupid that she couldn’t notice that.

“Oh, so you felt like that, Fritz?” she said derisively. “But perhaps you’ve also heard what’s being noised around, that you’ve all slipped up on your Putsch—and now you want to hear what your Friedel’s got to say, eh?”

“Slipped up? How?” he asked, hoping she would start talking.

“Yes, pretend to be stupid!” she cried out furiously. “You know very well indeed. You’re in a funk, that’s why you’ve come. You’re a rotter. When I heard what the colonel was saying to madam this morning I thought at once, well, we’ll see now. If he comes today then it’s not because of you, Friedel; it’ll be to get you to talk, and you are only his spy. And you see, just a couple of hours, and here you are already. And you try to tell me you felt like that!” She snorted; her sturdy bosom moved vehemently. Seeing this the Lieutenant thought helplessly: It’s no good going on talking—I’ve got to find out what the colonel told his wife.

Suddenly without a word he passed by her and entered her bedroom. The bed was not yet made. There she had lain, there she had slept …

“Now I’ll show you how I feel,” he said, seizing the girl in his arms without worrying about her resistance; he never paid any attention to feminine opposition—that was only maidenly primness, affectation. With her fists she was pushing against his chest, against the painful chest, but he covered her face with his, mouth to mouth, hers closed firmly in denial. But he kissed and kissed her.… Now I am kissing her, he thought. Soon she will give way, her lips will open—and then I shall have to die. Because of my kisses she will blab, she will tell me everything. And then I shall have to go to the Black Dale and do what I told Violet—damned Violet!

Unaware the Lieutenant had spoken the hateful name aloud. He’d already forgotten he was kissing a girl. He only held her lightly in his arms.

He felt himself pushed back with savage energy. He crashed into the wardrobe.

“Get out,” the girl panted. “You liar! So I’m to spy for you while you are thinking about others!”

He stood with a helpless, embarrassed smile near the wardrobe. He made no further attempt to explain or justify himself.

“Oh, well, Friedel,” he said at last, with the same embarrassed expression, “it’s a funny world. You are quite right. We already learned that at school: nemo ante mortem beatus, or something like that, I don’t remember exactly. That means: No one is to be esteemed happy before his death, and no one knows before his death what he’s really like. You are quite right. I’m a liar. Cheerio, Friedelchen, and no offense.”

He held out his hand and she took it hesitatingly. Her anger had died down; his embarrassment infected her. “Oh, God, Fritz,” she said, and did not at all know what she should reply to his unintelligible mottoes. “You are so queer. I was only angry because you don’t think anything of me.…”

He made a gesture of denial.

“All right, I won’t speak about that. But if you would like to know what the colonel said this morning …”

He dropped her hand. “No, Friedel, thanks. That’s no longer necessary. It’s all really damned funny,” he reflected again. “It’s nothing to do with me anymore now. Well, cheerio, Friedel. See that you get married soon; that would be best for you.” And with that he went, even forgetting to look at her in farewell again. Frieda too had vanished for him, and he did not hear what she called out. Lost in thought, he went along the corridor, up the little staircase, and down the tiled path onto the street. His cap was in his hand, and he was completely indifferent to being seen and recognized. At the moment he was not conscious of the existence of others; he had enough to do with himself.

All the same, at the first corner he had once again to return from the quiet world of his thoughts back to this venturesome and dangerous planet, for a hand was laid on his shoulder and a voice said: “A moment please, Herr Lieutenant.”

He looked up into the icy gaze of the fat detective.

VII

Had it not been for the waiter in The Golden Hat, Violet would have remained a long time where she had fallen in the coffee room. Rittmeister von Prackwitz was of no assistance. First he wanted to rush after the Lieutenant and shoot it out with him, then he called the guests to witness how shamefully the man had treated his daughter.… Kneeling beside Violet, he wiped her mouth with his handkerchief and wailed: “Violet, pull yourself together—you’re an officer’s daughter!”

Springing up he demanded port wine for himself. But not in that glass. That glass had been dirtied and must be smashed. He smashed it. “Where is my wife? My wife’s never there when she’s really needed. I call you to witness, gentlemen, that my wife is not here.”

The waiter sent for the chauffeur. The three of them lifted Violet up, to carry her outside, put her in the car and let her go home. But as she was being lifted she began to moan loudly—moaned without a pause or a word, a confused plaint, like an animal. The men nearly let her fall. She was laid on one of those horrible waxed fabric sofas, with recessed buttons, from which everything slides off. There they and a guest attempted to pull her dress down over her knees. Her eyes were closed. She was no longer a young girl. She was nothing but a thing of flesh that moaned, moaned terribly.…

Incoherent, the Rittmeister sat at a table, his almost white head in his hands. He had stopped his ears. “Take her away,” he murmured. “Stop her moaning. I can’t bear it. Take her to a hospital. Send for my wife.”

The last wish was the only realizable one. In the glittering Horch, the latest and already forgotten toy, Finger the chauffeur drove off to fetch the mother.

The proprietors of the hotel appeared. On the second floor a room was got ready, a doctor was telephoned for, and Violet was carried up, still moaning. The Rittmeister refused to accompany her. “I can’t bear the moaning,” he said. He had so managed it that there was now a whole bottle of port in front of him. He had found the salvation of those unfit for life. Alcohol, the escape from worries, that brings forgetfulness—and an awakening the next day which is a thousand times worse.

The landlady with the help of a chambermaid undressed Violet. She moaned. Nor did she stop moaning in bed.

“Dora,” said the landlady, “I must get back to my dishes; the gentlemen will be coming for lunch soon. You stay here for the moment and call me when the doctor comes.”

Down below, the gentlemen were in agreement that, although one would never have thought so to look at her, it was labor pains which caused the girl to moan so. Tomorrow all the district would know what was the matter with the daughter of Rittmeister von Prackwitz, the heiress. And what a cad of a fellow!

The Rittmeister was paying no attention to the chatter. He had something to drink, and he drank.

Upstairs Violet was moaning. Once or twice the chambermaid had said to her: “Fräulein, don’t do that. No one is harming you.… Why do you moan like that? Are you in pain?” Without success. With a shrug of her shoulders: “All right then, don’t.” And feeling that ingratitude had rewarded her friendliness, the chambermaid sat down beside the bed, but not before she had fetched her knitting. As Dora sat, knitting her pullover, in the bar room beneath Herr von Prackwitz sat and drank. Violet, mortally wounded at heart, could only cry. No one is born immune to misery: Young and playful Violet, a girl, still half a child, was used up, without any idea of real life. And now she had looked into the abyss. Only twilight and darkness remained, and out of that darkness only the repeated cry: Help me, I’m desperate.

The doctor was a long time coming. In vain the waiter and the landlady had suggested that the Rittmeister, who was drinking too much, should eat something, if only a plate of soup. Herr von Prackwitz stood by his port. Only a faint memory of all that had happened to him that morning remained undisturbed by the fumes of alcohol; but this faint memory that calamity had befallen him was somehow associated with port, to which he therefore clung. Gradually, as the first bottle was followed by a second and the second by a third, his face began to glow. He held his head erect again, looking straight in front of him. Sometimes he laughed aloud suddenly, or with nimble forefinger wrote many numbers on the tablecloth, apparently calculating.

The waiter kept a watchful eye on him. The Golden Hat was a very reputable house, and its reputation was not easily undermined. But it was enough, after all, for one guest to have collapsed on its premises; it would not do for the father to go the same way as his daughter. Frau Eva von Prackwitz, handing over all the vexation with the Entente Commission to young Pagel, the only representative left of the estate’s ownership and officialdom, hurried into the motor car without suspecting that neither husband nor daughter was yearning to see her, or that no one but a head waiter wanted her to come so that there shouldn’t be another scene. “Drive quickly,” she said. “Certainly, madam—but the roads!” replied the chauffeur.

She leaned back in her corner and surrendered to her worries, thoughts and anxieties. Doom was visiting her house, everything was collapsing. She was tempted ten times to bang on the window again and question Finger once more. But she stayed in her corner. It would be useless. The fellow knew nothing. They’d first called him when Violet lay unconscious in the bar room. It was only when they had wanted to take her away in the car that she’d began to cry out.

“Do you think that she broke anything?” Eva asked.

“Broken anything? No,” answered Finger.

“But why, then, had she cried out, Finger?” asked Eva.

But he knew no answer to that.

And not a word, not a message, from her husband! “Oh, Achim, Achim!” sighed Frau Eva, not knowing how much reason she indeed had to sigh over him. For in the dining room the Rittmeister was now becoming furious. Once or twice he had got up from his chair, holding tightly to the table and peering out at the market place. “What’s the matter? Is something wrong?” the waiter had asked anxiously. “Shall I bring you something to eat? Roast chicken’s very good today.”

The Rittmeister glared at him, flushed and unsteady. He turned away without a word, sat down and swallowed another glass of port, murmuring angrily. A minute later he was looking out of the window again, gripped by the thought that he had left a car in front of the hotel. Where was it? It had been stolen!

He threw a wary glance around. There they were, sitting and eating; but they could not be trusted. He encountered many glances. Why were they all staring at him? Perhaps they knew he had been robbed and were only waiting for him to notice it, too.

His glance returned to his own table, where the bottle of port swayed gently like a reed in the wind. Away went the glass and then it was suddenly quite close and very large. The Rittmeister seized his opportunity. He inclined the neck of his bottle over the glass, but only a miserable residue trickled out.

His eye searched for the waiter, who had left the room for the moment. The Rittmeister took advantage of this to stand up; thoughtfully he stopped before the clothes stand on which caps and overcoats hung next to Violet’s hat and jacket. What’s happened to her? he wondered.

Then a new wave of drunkenness washed this thought away. He had already forgotten that he wanted to put on his overcoat; and he left the dining room. With circumspection he went down a few steps. A door—and Herr von Prackwitz was in the street.

It was drizzling. Bareheaded, he stood looking up and down the street. Where should he go? At the corner he thought he saw a policeman’s shako glitter. Carefully, very erect, but with knees a little uncertain, he approached this policeman. At the corner, however, he saw that the glittering shako was a brass basin hanging outside a barber shop. Thoughtfully the Rittmeister stroked his chin, and the stubble rasped his fingers. He hadn’t managed to get a shave that morning, so he now entered the shop.

It did not look quite what the Rittmeister had expected. There were a few tables and chairs, but no mirrors. However, he didn’t mind that; he was glad to sit down a little, supporting his head in his hand and at once sinking into the troubled sea of drunkenness again.

After a while he noticed that someone had laid a hand on his shoulder. He raised his eyes and spoke with a thick tongue up into a sallow young face. “Shave, please!” There was a burst of laughter behind him.

The Rittmeister felt like becoming angry. Had someone possibly laughed at him? He’d turn round and see.

The young chap spoke in quite an affable manner. “Been having one or two, eh, Count? You want to be shaved? You can get that done afterwards, you know. This is only a pub.”

“We’ll shave you all right! Be only too glad to fleece you!” shouted a cheeky voice behind the Rittmeister.

“Shut up!” hissed sallow face. “Count, don’t listen to him, he’s boozed. Can I bring you somethin’ to drink?”

“Port,” murmured the Rittmeister.

“Oh, yes, of course! Port. Right-o! Only we haven’t got any port here. But the schnapps is first class. Can I bring one for myself, too? And for my friend? Fine. Here we’re so snug all on our own, so’s no reason why we shouldn’t sink one. Landlord! August! Three double schnapps and give us the bottle on the table. The gentleman’s invited us. That’s so, you have invited us, eh, Count?”

The Rittmeister sat half-asleep between the two. Frequently he started to his feet, as the call to action seized him. He must look for his car!

The others calmed him down. They would go and help him look in a moment; just let him have another one first. “The schnapps is bloody good, eh, Count?”

Rittmeister von Prackwitz was prostrate once more.

When the waiter in The Golden Hat noticed his guest’s disappearance, he was not immediately perturbed. He’s gone to the lavatory, he thought, and busied himself with his luncheon customers. He would have a look immediately afterwards; intoxicated persons often fell asleep there. Not a bad thing either. He would at least be in good keeping there.

The waiter put verve into his service. He bustled about, staggering up with trays, brought beer, made out bills—business, although the officers hadn’t turned up today, was excellent. Already they had had over sixty guests at table, almost all country gentlemen on their own, who no doubt had come to see if they could find out what was really going to happen tomorrow. Perhaps one would quickly have to link oneself up somehow.

In the meantime the doctor came, and was shown up to the second floor. There he found a young girl in bed who, at short intervals, gave an animallike cry of pain, rolling her head to and fro with closed eyes. The maid at the bedside could not give him any information. She didn’t know who was the sick person or what was the matter—but she would call the landlady.

The doctor stood alone beside the bed. He waited a while but nothing happened; the sick girl went on moaning and no one came. To have something to do, he felt her pulse and spoke to her. Had she pain? What had happened? There was no reply. As an experiment he almost shouted at her to be quiet, but she did not react; she didn’t hear him. He held her head firmly so that it could not be moved, but as soon as he let go, it started to toss about again and moan.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders and stood waiting at the window, observing the dismal weather. It was not a consoling prospect, nor were the girl’s cries of pain consoling; besides, after a difficult morning, the doctor was hungry. It was time the landlady came.

And at last she did. It had been awkward for her to leave the kitchen, and she was very much in a hurry. “Thank God, doctor, that you’re here at last. What is the matter with the girl?”

Which was exactly what the doctor would have liked to know.

“Yes, and now the father’s disappeared. Rittmeister von Prackwitz, from Neulohe; you know, the son-in-law of that old skinflint, Teschow. He drank three bottles of port and has gone out in the rain without his hat or coat, quite tipsy. I’ve sent out to look for him. What a business! Some days everything happens at once. What do you think of doing about the lass? The mother’s on her way by car; she can be here in one or two hours.”

“What has happened to the little Fräulein?”

The landlady didn’t exactly know, and the waiter was sent for. “My whole establishment is upside down; of course, it would happen today, when we have so many for lunch!”

But the waiter, too, had nothing more to report than that there had been some sort of argument with a young man.

“A love affair, then,” said the doctor. “Probably a bad nervous shock. I’ll give the girl something to make her sleep first—and then, when the mother’s here, I’ll call in again.”

“Yes, do see that she sleeps, doctor. I really can’t listen any longer to that moaning, and I can’t have someone sitting up here with her all the time. We’ve got our work to do, too—we’re not a hospital.” It was the sort of thing the doctor had to listen to a hundred times a day. He had never ceased to wonder why people did not get tired of explaining that, at the particular moment, they hadn’t the slightest time for illness; that illness was not a welcome guest. People, however, keep on telling their doctors such things.

He now drew up a mild narcotic into his syringe. The girl, when he stuck the needle into her forearm, twitched and for a moment stopped moaning.

The doctor looked thoughtful. He hadn’t yet pressed down the piston in his syringe. That twitch, that interruption, didn’t fit in with such a bad nervous shock; she oughtn’t to have felt the prick at all—yet she had done so. Therefore she was conscious; she was only simulating unconsciousness.

It was not a young doctor who stood by the sick-bed of Violet von Prackwitz, but an elderly man who was no longer annoyed when his patients humbugged him. So many people had passed through his hands—oh, heaps of them, heaps! He no longer had any didactic, educational, or moral purposes. If this young girl, this child of good family, could moan like that, seeking refuge thus in illness and unconsciousness, then an overwhelming fear of something evil must possess her—perhaps only because of an argument, perhaps because of something worse. The doctor knew how greatly people in their fear of the dark powers of life seek nirvana, and he also knew that a dreamless, all-forgetting slumber can give the new strength to bear what has been unbearable.

Gently he removed the syringe from its needle. He had intended to give the child rest for two or three hours; but it would be better to let her have a long deep sleep, so that she might thoroughly repose and evade the evil hours.

He filled a larger syringe. Before all the injection had entered the arm, her moans stopped. Violet von Prackwitz’s head fell to one side, she stretched herself, put one arm under her head and fell asleep.

It was a little after half-past twelve.

“There,” said the doctor to the landlady, “now she will sleep soundly for ten or twelve hours. So when the mother comes give me a ring.” He left.

One and a half hours later Herr Finger and Frau Eva arrived. The lunches were over, the landlady had time, the waiter, too, had a little time.

Many were the things Frau Eva was told—of an unknown young man, of a glass of port emptied in his face, of an argument. Her daughter had called out: “Fritz, oh, Fritz!” Her husband had drunk a little, on an empty stomach, gone out and not returned. No, he had not left word where he was going. The doctor considered it was a nervous shock. He would be rung up at once.… Yes, he had left his hat and overcoat behind; he had been away at least two hours now. Had he gone to a friend’s, perhaps?

Frau von Prackwitz heard this, item by item, but she could not give it a proper meaning. She was an active person; her family was in distress, the husband wandering about tipsily in the rain, the daughter in some unknown danger, yet sound asleep. She wanted to be doing something, changing things, improving them. But she had to sit inactive by the bedside and wait for a doctor, who could, of course, tell her nothing.

She stood at the window and looked out at the sad, rainswept hotel yard, its flat shining bitumin roofs. The porter greased the wheels of his trolley. With infinite slowness and pauses between each movement, he took a wheel from the axle and leaned it against the wall. He fetched a copper box with grease, put it next to the axle, then looked at the axle. Then he fetched a flat wooden stick, took some grease out of the box, and looked at the grease on the stick.—And then he slowly began to grease the axle.… And that’s how we fritter our life away, thought Eva bitterly. So it was a love affair! “Fritz! Oh Fritz!”—I was right. But what good does it do me to be right—and, above all, what good does it do her?

Eva turned round and looked at the sleeping girl. A frenzy of impatience seized her. She would have liked to grab her by the shoulders, shake her awake, question, advise, deliberate, do something. But by her pallid brows and her deep, somewhat noisy breathing she saw that shaking Violet would be in vain, that the girl was as much removed from her impatience and energy as that person who alone could still have given information—Achim.

Why isn’t Studmann here? she thought angrily. What’s the good of being reliable if he is never there when one really needs him? I can’t run all over town looking for Achim, I can’t peep into every public-house; I can’t even ring up our friends. Perhaps he’s not drunk at all and I should only shame him.

But at last she had an idea; she rushed downstairs and ordered the chauffeur to drive slowly through the streets and look out for the Rittmeister. Perhaps she was mistaken, but it seemed as if Herr Finger looked at her a little doubtfully. She was still not altogether sure whether Herr Finger was a proper chauffeur or more of an agent sent by the motor firm to keep an eye on their unpaid car, a man who would suddenly present a bill. In either case, the Rittmeister’s home must appear out of the ordinary to him, and a little disturbed; a lot had certainly happened in the bare two days he had been with them.

Frau Eva remained in the rain on the hotel steps. Finger took his dignified place at the wheel. The car rumbled and slowly drove off. Eva went back into the hotel. She ran back upstairs feeling that something must have happened in the meantime. Her heart beat faster. Ah, if only something had happened, if only Violet had waked up, so that one might talk with her! She could talk with her now.…

But Violet was sleeping soundly.

The mother sat by the bed, looking at her child—she ought to be able to explain to her—she had suddenly understood in how much she had acted wrongly. She could not understand now how she had descended to such undignified prying, which more than anything had alienated her daughter. This mistake she would never make again. She had learned that her child had her own interests, entrance to which was forbidden the mother, because she was not only mother but also woman.

There was a knock at the door.

The doctor had come then. He was a gaunt, elderly man with remarkably pale eyes behind impossible nickel spectacles, and a very awkward manner, obviously a bachelor. She grew impatient as soon as she saw him so precisely feeling the pulse, with such contented nods, as if he were God, responsible for its powerful throbbing. Obviously he didn’t know a thing. He was saying something about a shock, the necessity of sleeping a long time, of allowing the girl an interval, and not asking her any questions when she awoke, so as to spare her wounded feelings. What did this tiresome old fool know about her daughter’s wounded feelings? He had only seen her in a swoon! As it turned out, he hadn’t even spoken with Achim. About him, too, he had no information to give.

How long would Violet sleep? Till midnight, perhaps till tomorrow? Really, so that was all this booby had been able to do, to withdraw Vi from her mother in that very hour when she most needed her mother’s love!

Could one at least take the girl home today, away from this horrible hotel room? When? Well, as soon as her husband was back. That would be all right? She would not wake up in the car? “Very well. Then we will go as soon as Herr von Prackwitz is back. Thank you, doctor. Shall I pay your fee now, or will you send your account?”

“It all depends on the moment of awakening, madam,” said the doctor, sitting down without being invited. Pleasantly and without flinching he looked at her.

Of course, Frau von Prackwitz understood that. It was why she wanted to take Violet from this depressing room back to more familiar and happy surroundings.

“It is just that which may be wrong,” said the doctor. “Perhaps she ought not to see anything familiar when she wakes up, neither her own room nor someone she knows; perhaps not even you, madam.”

“Why do you think that, doctor?” There was an angry note in her voice. “I know what has happened. Some trifling love affair or other which my daughter has taken tragically. I’m no Puritan; I shan’t reproach her in the slightest.…”

“Exactly, exactly.” The doctor smiled. “You speak of a trifling love affair, when the girl is almost out of her reason about it. Two worlds, madam, two quite different worlds, unable to comprehend each other.”

“Violet will get over it,” began Frau von Prackwitz.

The doctor interrupted rudely. “I have been thinking about it this afternoon, madam. Perhaps I made a mistake. I ought to have let the child talk before I gave her an injection. She was not unconscious, madam. No, not at all. She was simulating unconsciousness.… Something terrible has happened, but she is even more afraid of something terrible which is going to happen. Please allow me, madam. I may be wrong, naturally. I explain it to myself thus—it is possible, there are indications, that by pretending to be unconscious she thinks to escape what she fears. We don’t know; perhaps this dreaded harm is not imminent.”

“But what further harm can there be, then?” Frau von Prackwitz was really annoyed. “The fellow’s thrown her over, and I’ve thought so a long time. By chance she met him here again, and he had a row with my husband. He must have behaved like a blackguard; otherwise my husband wouldn’t have thrown wine in his face. All this would upset her terribly, and she had a nervous collapse. Fine. Or rather, far from fine. But what further harm can happen now?”

“That’s just the thing, madam, we don’t know, and perhaps are not intended to know. If the facts are as you suppose,” and the doctor became persuasive, since Frau Eva remained totally unconvinced by his words, “then the girl ought to have been relieved after the scene. The fact that her father, and thus her parents, knew her secret at last ought rather to have relieved her, surely. How is it then that a young girl like her should dissemble thus? Why should she adopt a remedy so unusual?”

“But you are only supposing that Violet was dissembling, doctor. You didn’t talk with her.”

“No, unfortunately not. It’s pure assumption; there you are right, madam.”

“Very well; what would you advise?”

“Put your daughter in the hospital here. She would be well looked after and possibly she will feel safe there. And you can be with her in ten minutes if she wakes up and asks for you. Should she want to go home—that can be done at once.”

Frau Eva looked thoughtfully at the doctor, but she was not thinking about his proposal, the man being far too silly for that. She knew her Violet. A few words and all would be well again between mother and daughter. Naturally she would respect Violet’s secret, as one woman to another; this she had already firmly resolved on without all this talk of harm and greater harm. No, if Frau Eva was now thoughtful, it was because she was wondering why the doctor had made a proposal behind which there must be something else. “And you would attend Violet in the hospital here?” she asked glibly.

“If you wish, madam,” replied the unsuspicious doctor. “I would naturally keep an eye on her.”

The thing was clear. The little panel doctor had smelled money; his warnings against approaching harm were meant to justify a long and expensive treatment. Frau Eva stood up. “Thank you very much, doctor. I will talk it over with Herr von Prackwitz. Should we decide for it, I will let you know.”

It was a very definite rebuff. One can only be oneself. She was otherwise a sensible, clear-sighted woman, but in this moment she was only the daughter of a rich man, mistrusting the motives of all who were compelled to do something for money in order to live. “He only wants to earn some money.” That foolish attitude converted his shrewd, solicitous advice into a mean and selfish transaction.

And in the end the old man understood her. With a faint flush in his thin cheeks he bowed forlornly and approached the bed. There was nothing more he could do. He had been able to give the girl a little sleep, but he was not allowed to make easier for her what was coming after it. The world was like that. With bound hands the willing helper had to see the condemned, the unhappy, those in peril, go their way. He could merely warn. But his voice was drowned by laughter and death-cries, and was unnoticed as he stood by the roadside.

“Take great care when she wakes up,” he said, and went.

Restlessly Frau von Prackwitz walked up and down. Where was Achim? And no word from the chauffeur! She had been nearly an hour in this wretched hotel. To have something to do, she now went downstairs to the telephone. Though it was not possible to speak as she wished, for the telephone was too public, it did her good to hear young Pagel’s restful and somewhat leisurely voice.

Yes, so far everything was in order. The Commission of Control had gone off in their car a long time ago. Yes, rumors. He had refused to sign their record of the investigations, on the ground that he had no authority. They had gone away without. One other thing, which would amuse madam. Amanda Backs, you know, the poultry maid, had given little Meier a box on the ears several times, before all the visitors. With the shout of “Traitor!” No, nothing had happened. Not one of the gentlemen had moved a finger in Meier’s aid. Oh, yes, splendid, really splendid. A capital person in her way, a real bit of the people, but magnificent.… And how was Fräulein Violet, by the way?

Not well? Oh! Certainly, he would do that, and see about the heating for the bath also, of course. He wouldn’t forget. No, there would be no trouble about girls for once. The women had all come back soaked from the potato lifting; it was raining very heavily now. He would pick out three or four of the most suitable and see that the Villa was cleaned in person.

An excellent young fellow. Almost smiling, Frau von Prackwitz left the telephone. Before she went up, she ordered another coffee. Yes, please, in her room. And now back to it. But, just as last time, she was overcome with a feeling of anxiety on the stairs. Her heart beat faster. What had happened to Vi? She ran in such a way that she could feel her skirts on her knees.

But then back in her room, unchanged, Vi was in a deep sleep.

The anxiety declined and was replaced by dark desperation, and she thought suddenly: it’s like coming back to a dead person. And again she began the agonized wait.

Eva didn’t yet know how good it can be to come back to a dead person.