Wolf Among Wolves

Chapter Fourteen

Life Goes On

I

It was October. Neulohe grew increasingly damper, windier, colder. And more and more difficult did Wolfgang Pagel find it to collect the necessary people for the potato digging. Where in September three wagons packed with laborers had rattled on to the fields from the local town, in October it had come to one, bearing a few sullen women wrapped up in sacks and woolen shawls.

Swearing and complaining, they toiled through the sodden growth over fields which seemed only to grow larger. Already Pagel had had to raise their wages twice, and had this not been in kind, had he not paid them with potatoes—that support of life which can replace even bread itself—none would have come. In those October days the dollar rose from 242,000,000 marks to 73,000,000,000. Hunger crept through the entire country, followed by influenza. Unprecedented despair seized the people; every pound of potatoes was a fence between them and death.

Wolfgang Pagel was now the overlord of Neulohe Manor, the farm and the forest. No time now to stand among the potatoes and give out tokens. Next year’s rye had to be sown and the fields plowed. In the forest the cutting down of firewood had started, and unless one gingered up Kniebusch every day the forester would have taken to his bed and died.

Pagel would come on his bicycle to the potato field where old Kowalewski would meet him ever more and more hollow-eyed. “We can’t do it, young sir,” was his lament. “This way we shall be digging in January in snow and ice.”

Wolfgang would laugh. “We’ll do it, Kowalewski. Because we’ve got to. Because potatoes are bitterly needed in the town.” And because the estate bitterly needs the money for them, he thought.

“But we ought to have more people,” moaned Kowalewski.

“And where shall I get them?” Pagel was a little impatient. “Shall I have another prison gang sent?”

“Oh, Lord, no!” exclaimed old Kowalewski, horrified—much too horrified, thought Pagel, looking at the diggers. “They’re only townsfolk, they’ve no business here,” he said discontentedly. “The work’s too unfamiliar for them. If only we could get the people from Altlohe as well.”

“We’ll never get them!” declared Kowalewski angrily. “They steal their potato supplies from our clamps at night.”

“They certainly do that,” sighed Pagel. “Every day I see the holes and have to have them filled up. I am always intending to go out at night and see if I can catch one, Kowalewski, but I always fall asleep over supper.”

“It’s too much, what the young gentleman has to do. All the estate and the whole forest and all the pen-pushing—no one’s done all that. You need help.”

“Oh, nobody knows what will happen here.”

Both were silent a moment. “But those miserable potato thieves—that’s a matter for the police,” said Kowalewski. “The young gentleman ought to apply to them.”

“The police! Oh, no. We’re not in favor with them anymore, Kowalewski. We’ve made too much work for them in the last six months.” Both were silent. Each new load of potatoes seemed to emerge like a yellowish brown blessing from the darkness into the dawn. Now Pagel could leave again, having established how far the work had proceeded. He had something else to say, and he was no longer too weak to say something which might be unpleasant. It had to be said, and he would say it. “By the way, I saw your Sophie this morning in the village. So she’s still at home?”

The old man grew very embarrassed. “She has to look after her mother—my wife is ill,” he stuttered.

“You told me last time she was taking up a situation on the first of October. Now you say she has to look after her mother. You’re not telling me the truth, Kowalewski. That won’t do. If you occupy one of our cottages, she’s got to work.”

Kowalewski looked very pale. “I have no authority over the lass, young gentleman,” he said in excuse. “She takes no notice of what I say.”

“Kowalewski, old fellow, don’t be so flabby! You know yourself how much we need every hand, and you know too that if the overseer’s daughter is lazy, then those of the laborers will certainly be.”

“I’ll tell her what you say, young gentleman,” said Kowalewski, distressed.

“Yes, do, and tell her that otherwise I’ll put another family into your house as well. Then you’ll only have a parlor, bedroom and kitchen. Good day, Kowalewski, I’m damned hungry.”

Young Pagel got on his bicycle. He was satisfied that he’d finally brought the business with Sophie in order—one way or another. He’d rather let her get away with things lately, he had had so much to do. But whenever he saw the girl in the village it had occurred to him that such an example of laziness was intolerable. It was difficult enough to retain one’s workers at that time—they never considered they were paid enough. However, they didn’t only get their wretched money, they got extras, too. Nobody in the village lived the life of the lilies in the field—the good Lord fed them! On the contrary, my good Sophie, on the contrary, these were not the times to rely on God in heaven. These were times to work yourself until you drop.

He could not deny that he was extremely angry with Sophie. He had liked her in the beginning. He dimly recalled a certain scene at the crab pool. She boldly defended the men’s clothes against the war, like Kniebusch. But either he had been mistaken in his liking or the girl had changed. She had such a confounded slovenly way of lounging about the village. Yes, she had once had the cheek to call after him as he sped by on his bicycle: “Always busy, Herr Pagel?”

When a thing was overdone it was time to stop it. If she wasn’t digging potatoes tomorrow, he would put Black Minna with all her screaming, quarrelsome retinue in Kowalewski’s attic.

He came into the farmyard. In the sheds the head carter spoke to him. It was too wet, he declared, to drill rye—the drills would foul. For Pagel, who understood nothing of farming and stock-raising, and yet had to supervise and decide, this sort of thing was difficult. In general the older people gladly helped him; had he passed himself off as experienced, then they would have taken pleasure in playing him trick after trick. But because he never behaved as though he knew something when he did not, they were helpful. The experience and perceptions of these old people was hardly appreciated. But Pagel liked to listen to them—he always just fell asleep over his thick textbooks.

“What shall we do then?” he asked, and the man suggested that plowing was possible on the lighter outfields. “Good,” said Pagel. “We’ll plow then.”

And went to his lunch.

Lunch he always took in the office, which was his living room, work room, smoke room and study. Although Studmann was no longer in Neulohe, his meals were not solitary. He had a companion, Amanda Backs. “Thank God,” she said, “that you’re punctual for once, Herr Pagel. Put on some dry clothes quickly. I’ll bring in the food at once.”

“Fine.” He went into his bedroom.

It was very likely, indeed it was almost certain, that the village scandalmongers, bearing in mind what was known of the girl’s earlier life, misrepresented this table fellowship of Pagel and Backs as a bed fellowship. Actually it had all come about quite naturally after the arrest of the convicts. The girls at the Manor had, without notice, wage or reference, fled in fear of prosecution for abetting escaped prisoners, not to mention the dreaded mockery of the villagers—leaving behind the single irreproachable—that Amanda Backs once publicly reproached at evening prayers. And old Elias also, of course. He, however, left next day to report no doubt to his employers, for he had no rent to take them. And did not return.

Pagel, those first days in October, had his mind too much occupied with a multitude of affairs to worry overmuch about the Manor. One day, however, he ran into Amanda Backs, and she inquired very forcibly what he was really thinking about, what did he imagine? Even if she didn’t actually shudder at being the sole occupant of that enormous old dungeon, all the same it wasn’t pleasant. And something would have to be done upstairs before the old people came back; the convicts’ party had left everything in a terrible mess, and two windows had been broken in the drawing room. Now the rain came in, and there had been puddles on the floor for a week.

Pagel, tired out and a little disheartened, not having had ten hours’ sleep in three days, looked at the rosy-cheeked Amanda, rubbed his exceedingly unshaven chin, and asked: “Yes, don’t you want to clear out as well, Amanda?”

“And who’ll look after my poultry?” she indignantly demanded. “Especially now, with winter coming, when the ducks and geese ought to be fattened and one can’t feed them enough! I clear out! Not on your life.”

“In the Villa they’re wringing their hands for a sensible housemaid,” he said. “You’ve no doubt heard that Lotte has also gone off. Wouldn’t you like to go there?”

“No.” Amanda Backs was clear on that point. “I’m used to the stupidity of my poultry, but I’ll never get used to that of my fellow-beings. They always make me boil with rage and then I’m not fit for anything.”

“All right,” Pagel had said hurriedly. “I’ll let you know this evening.”

He had intended to discuss this matter with Frau von Prackwitz; but she was out again in the car, and it was uncertain when she would return. The Rittmeister was withdrawn from all inquiries; he lay in bed, watched over by an attendant. There was no one in all populous Neulohe whom he could ask for advice.

And so, after some reflection, he rang up the Hotel Kaiserhof and asked to speak with Geheimrat von Teschow-Neulohe.

“We are very sorry. They have left.”

“Left?” It was something of a blow. “When, please?”

“On the third of October.” Immediately after the arrival of old Elias, that is!

“Will you give me his address, please?”

“We are very sorry, we were strictly forbidden to do so.”

“This is the Management of Neulohe Estate speaking—the Management of the Geheimrat himself,” said Pagel with all his self-control. “His address is indispensable for a very important decision. I must make you responsible for all damages arising out of your refusal.”

“A moment, please. I’ll inquire. Please hold on.”

And after some hesitation the clerk gave him the address. He was interested to know where these people had gone to, when their daughter was in despair and their grandchild lost. The address was Hotel Imperial, Côte d’Azure, Nice, France.

He sat quietly for a while, his face alert. His eyes saw nothing on the desk. But he saw something else. He saw the little dried-up woman with her sharp bird’s face and swift eyes; she drove the servants from one task to another; she was empty but she could make up for this with the life of others, any life, it didn’t matter which. She used her religion to worm herself into people. She was like a maggot, living on the decomposed offal of other existences.

He saw the fierce Geheimrat with his false heartiness, sweating enormously, dressed in worsted. And though he wouldn’t be wearing worsted down there on the Côte d’Azure, nothing would be changed by that. He would still sit and calculate, drawing up crafty agreements and writing business letters with catches in them. Everything he looked at was transformed into profit. Certainly people said that he loved his woods, and he did—but in his own fashion. He loved with his sense of gain, he loved so-and-so many cubic feet of timber. A thicket of young pines was not a green and golden mystery, but meant that at the thinning out, so-and-so many bean poles could be cut.

But one would have thought that at least they loved their daughter, their grandchild. One now saw what this love was worth. Fearing to be dragged into a disgraceful business, they fled, offering no help, showing neither kindliness nor charity—fled into the other corner of Europe, into that France which, still occupying the Ruhr, continued to refuse negotiations with a German Government.

So that’s what they were like, the old people, or as they say, the retired people. But the woman never found a home for her shallowness, or the man for his money, which he didn’t know how to use.…

Young Pagel, after he had thought enough, while still sitting by the telephone, did something remarkable: He took a mark note out of his pocket, lit a match, and burned it. Such was the action of the young Pagel, the very young Pagel. It was symbolic, as if to say: Oh Lord, let me never be so in love with money that I can’t part with it.

Besides, in doing this, he was depriving himself of something. It was Saturday evening. Paying the wages had completely emptied the estate coffers. That had been his last note, with which he wanted to get some cigarettes. Now he couldn’t smoke until Monday. Yes, despite all his recent experiences, he was still juvenile! But then again, didn’t it show how strong he was, too! He just whistled nonchalantly when he considered that he only had three or four cigarettes left.

And still whistling, he drummed up a crowd of women and fetched the maintenance man.

That same evening he had what was essential done in the Manor, the broken panes replaced, the doors locked. “Now we’ve finished with the Teschows! And you, Amanda, move over with your things into Herr von Studmann’s room. That is, if you’ve no misgivings.”

“Because of gossip, Herr Pagel? A fat lot I care! Talk and let talk, I say.”

“That’s right. And if at the same time you’d take pity on my food and laundry! They’ve looked somewhat woeful of late.”

“Black Minna …”

“Black Minna has to help in the kitchen at the Villa, besides which she’s the only one of the women who’s not afraid of the Rittmeister. The attendant has to take the air sometimes, and she takes his place.”

“As it should be!” said Amanda, deeply satisfied. “That’s what suits her. She afraid of men! She’s never been afraid enough of men, and you can hear any day you pass the almshouse, Herr Pagel, the squealing that comes from too little fear.”

“You’ve a scandalous gift of gab, Amanda,” Pagel said, half laughing. “The dangerously ill Rittmeister and Black Minna! No, I really don’t know if the two of us will get on well for long.”

“I’ll let you talk and you let me talk,” Amanda had replied, very contented. “That’s simple enough. Why shouldn’t we get on well, Herr Pagel?”

II

The bloated woman, who had no other job in life but to eat, was ladling soup from a tureen when Kowalewski came home tired and wet through. He looked into the tureen, knitted his brows, but restrained himself. Spreading lard on a crust of bread, he began to eat.

The woman, chewing, gave him a malicious look from her small eyes. In her case it was gluttony which kept her from talking. So the two old people sat silent, both eating; he the bread, she the chicken soup.

Only when her hunger was stilled did she open her mouth. “A fine fool you are!” she scolded. “The good chicken soup! It won’t make it any different you not touching a morsel.” She dipped the ladle in the soup and found a leg, at which she almost forgot to be angry. “What a fat hen it was, this! Yes, the Haases feed them well. It weighed over five pounds; and the beautiful pure yellow fat, that makes a rich soup!” She smacked her lips.

“Is our Sophie upstairs?” asked the dejected old man.

“Where should she be? They’re still sleeping.” Satiated, she was already luxuriating in the prospect of further meals. “Tonight we’re going to have a joint of venison. I’m fond of venison when it’s well done. And he’s also going to bring us a fat pig.”

“I don’t need a pig, I won’t have it!” cried old Kowalewski in despair. “We’ve always been honest. But now! Thieves and associates of thieves! We can’t look people in the face anymore.”

“Don’t excite yourself,” said his wife indifferently. “You know that he won’t put up with anything from you. Thieves! It’s only theft if one’s caught; he’s too clever for that. He’s ten times cleverer than you. A hundred times!”

“I don’t want him here anymore,” he mumbled.

“Yes, that’s like you!” shouted the glutton. “Someone at last who provides for us—and you want him to leave! But I tell you, if you start a row with him, I—” She waved the ladle, not knowing with what she should threaten him, while her little eyes, drowned in fat, searched the room. “I’ll eat up everything, and you can starve!” This was the worst threat she could contrive.

Her husband looked at her gloomily. Like mother, like daughter, he thought. Selfish and greedy. Greedy!

He turned across the room to the stairs.

“Don’t you go up! Don’t start a row!” she screamed after him.

Kowalewski was already climbing the stairs. For a moment he stood breathing quickly outside his daughter’s room, and almost lost his courage. Then he knocked.

“Who’s there?” asked Sophie’s angry voice after a while.

“Me—father!” he murmured.

There was whispering inside; the door was unlocked. Sophie looked into her father’s face. “What do you want?” she complained. “You know that Hans needs his sleep. First you make such a row downstairs that one can’t get a wink of sleep, then you come up here. What’s the matter?”

“Come in, father-in-law!” shouted a falsely cordial voice. “An enormous pleasure. Sophie, shut up! Company has come. Our respected father-in-law! Sit down, please, old gentleman. Give him a chair, Sophie, so he can sit down. Do excuse us, father-in-law, that we’re still in bed. Had I guessed the honor to be done us, I would have put on my frock coat.” The speaker grinned at the intimidated old man. “That’s to say, looked at strictly, it’s not mine. But it fits me perfectly, Herr Rittmeister’s frock coat. Herr von Prackwitz was so kind as to come to my aid. My wardrobe was a little empty.”

Kowalewski had been so often and so thoroughly mocked and scolded in his life that, although it perhaps never ceased to hurt him, he never let this appear. He stood behind the chair, not looking at the bed or Hans Liebschner. “You, Sophie,” he said in low tones. “Well, what, father? Go on! More grumbling, I suppose, because something’s disappeared! Is Haase making such a row about the few hens that you can’t sleep? He can have something quite different happen!”

“Sophie, Herr Pagel again asked why you weren’t working.”

“Let him ask! Those who ask a lot, get a lot of answers. I’ll answer him all right if he comes to me.”

“But he says if you aren’t digging potatoes tomorrow, he’ll put Black Minna in the attic here.”

“The fellow can—”

“Yes, Hans. Give him one in his cheeky mug so he won’t be able to open his mouth for six weeks. What does the fool think he is?”

“Not for me, thank you, Sophie, that’s not my sort of job. That’s something for Bäumer. He’ll finish the chap with pleasure, so that he won’t even know he’s dead.”

“If anything happens to Herr Pagel, I’ll denounce you,” said the old man quietly.

“What does Pagel matter to you, father?” began Sophie. “You’re mad.”

“I’ve held my tongue because you’re my only daughter and because you’ve kept on promising to go away soon. It’s almost broken my heart, to see you here with such a—”

“Drivel on as much as you like, old gentleman!” cried the man in bed. “Don’t put yourself out among relatives. Convict, eh?”

“Yes, convict!” repeated old Kowalewski defiantly. “But it doesn’t mean I think all in prison are as low as you. And the stealing! Always stealing.… Does a man do that merely out of pleasure in doing mischief? You don’t gain anything by it. The money you get in Frankfurt and Ostade for the stolen things is worth nothing.”

“Be patient, old fellow. Times will change again. As soon as I’ve collected the fare and some working funds we’ll dash off. D’you think I’m so fond of your cottage? Or that I can’t bear to part from your whining face?”

“Yes,” cried the old man eagerly. “Go off. Go to Berlin.”

“Father-in-law, you’ve just told me that we’ve got no money. Or will you give me the dowry for your daughter in cash? What, my dear man, go to Berlin without money and be arrested at once! No, thanks. We’ve waited so long that a few days or weeks till we—”

“But what will happen if he really does put Minna in here?” said Sophie angrily. “You’ve let us in for this, father, so as to get rid of us!”

Herr Liebschner whistled and exchanged a glance with the girl, who fell silent.

Kowalewski had noticed this glance. “As true as I stand here, and hope that God will forgive me my weakness—if anything happens to Herr Pagel I’ll bring the gendarmes here myself!” There was such energy in the old man’s outburst that the other two were convinced he would do it.

“And you always pretend you are something like a father!” said the girl contemptuously.

“It’s no good talking, Sophie,” said Liebschner, resigned. “The old fellow’s taken a passion for the lout. There are things like that. Listen, Sophie. You shove off to the young man at once. He’ll be alone now, at midday. Be a little nice to him, Sophie; you know I’m not jealous. Then he’ll give way.… You’ll be able to manage that, eh, Sophie?”

“That lout! He’ll go on his knees if I want it. But the Backs will be there. He’s got her!”

“The fat one with the hens? If you can’t cut out that gawk, you can lose your job with me, too, Sophie.”

“Go away! Please. Better go away before everything is discovered,” pleaded Kowalewski.

“Before you catch on to something, the pastor’s got to preach three times on Sunday, I suppose, eh? Money, I say! You won’t get rid of us sooner. So set your mind at rest, father-in-law; we’ll wangle it. We shall keep on our lodgings; we still like them. And nothing will happen to your young chap—agreed?”

“You should go away,” said the old man obstinately.

“Show him the door, Sophie. Let him go away first! If I wasn’t too lazy, I’d show you how to travel down the stairs, father-in-law. Good morning, it’s been a pleasure. Give my regards to your friend Herr Pagel.”

The old man stood wretchedly on the stairs. “Oh, Sophie,” he muttered, “you were such a good child.”

III

Amanda had been right; things went well with the pair of them. No, more than that, things went excellently. To his astonishment Pagel discovered that this female who he thought would get on his nerves within a week, did, on the contrary, help him over many difficulties. That she was cleanly, industrious, quick and skillful he had more or less known. But this young thing with the tongue of an old fishwife knew very well when to be silent, and could tolerate other points of view. This illegitimate child, the sport of adversity, who had in one year received more hard words and blows than most people in an entire lifetime, and whose experience of people and of men in particular had filled her whole existence with a grinding pessimism, had a sensitiveness to every kind word, every slight hint, that never failed to move him.

“My God!” he exclaimed the third day on seeing the desk covered with a tablecloth and respectable china and cutlery which must have been fetched from the Manor—she had divined how much he detested the chipped earthenware and the stained knives and forks.

Yes, she said provocatively. So what’s wrong now? To each his own! What I always say is that I couldn’t give a damn about the packaging. It’s what’s inside that counts. But if you want to do it differently, help yourself!

The two young people lived as on an island, without any company or friends. They were completely dependent on one another. When Pagel, worn down by the rush and scramble of his work, wished for a little private life, he had to find it at “home,” that is, in the office. And when Amanda wished to hear a kind, a personal word, it had to be from Pagel.

So each became the savior of the other. Without her Pagel might have deserted like a Geheimrat von Teschow, a Herr von Studmann, or even a Rittmeister. That he should keep his flag flying—therein had Amanda Backs no little merit.

And who knows if she herself would have got over her experience with Meier if she had not had Wolfgang Pagel constantly before her eyes? There were, then, other men, decent men, men who did not run after every skirt or goggle at every bosom! It was foolish to be at odds with all the world because Meier had been a rascal. She ought to be angry only with herself, for such a bad choice. In the beginning almost everyone had it a little in his power to choose whom he would love—later, to be sure, it was usually too late. She had adored her little Hans after a time.

And so, as each of these two received something good from the other, it stood to reason that they were also good to each other. When Wolfgang, washed and changed, re-entered the office, he saw that the food was ready but the soup not yet served. “Well?” he smiled. “Aren’t we starting?”

“Post for you, too, Herr Pagel,” she said, holding out two letters, and went into the bedroom to remove the wet clothes and tidy up.

That’s what one could call being good to one another. Pagel didn’t think of it again, but felt it was true. He leaned against the pleasantly warm stove, put Studmann’s letter unread in his pocket, and tore open his mother’s. But before he began to read, he lit another cigarette. He knew he would be able to read in peace and complete comfort—that no cry of “your soup’s getting cold!” would disturb him.

Amanda always sorted out the post into little heaps: farm management, forest management, the occupants of the Villa, the land steward (also represented by Pagel), and finally, sometimes, a letter for Pagel himself. That letter, however, she did not place on the table, but kept secret somewhere, waiting till he had washed himself and felt a little fresher; then she said: “Post for you, too, Herr Pagel,” and disappeared. However, it was by no means the case that this had been agreed between them. Amanda had thought it up all by herself. It was astonishing that so blunt a woman could be so sensitive. Pagel had never told her about his home or sweetheart, yet she had guessed how it was with him, without having the slightest fact to go on; there was no bulky correspondence with a lady—except with a Frau Pagel who, from the writing and the name, could only be his mother. Yet Amanda could have sworn any oath that Herr Pagel, in her words, was “in firm hands.” And that, however firmly those hands held him, there was something in this affair not quite in order.

The girl cleared away the washstand and turned round again. Everything was in order. If he wanted to he could sleep here in the afternoon. Hopefully he would. He needed to. She listened out for the other room, but everything was quiet there. This quietness didn’t entirely satisfy her. But it continued.…

Amanda sat down. She felt neither upset by, jealous of, nor in love with the young Pagel. On the contrary, what she saw and learnt about him only did her good. It confirmed what was strong in her—her will to live.

Look, she thought roughly, here’s a clean and decent fellow, and for neither of us have things gone exactly smoothly. Why should I give up courage and despair when I clawed myself out of the dirt only two years ago? Thus ran Amanda’s thoughts. But now they were interrupted, because in the office next door sounded a penetrating whistle—not the tuneful notes of a contented man but a wild warlike shrill, something which even Amanda’s unsoldierly mind felt as a signal for attack. On the attack, quick march! Up and at the enemy! Then: Victory, fame, glory!

In the same moment, just when Amanda jumped up from her chair, the door was torn open. Pagel pushed his head into the bedroom and shouted: “AAmanda, wench! Hunger! Grub! Soup! On, on!”

She, with all the indignation people from the folk have for every exaltation, scrutinized his flushed face. “You’re going crazy,” she said aloofly, and passed by.

“What are we having, Amanda?” Pagel asked. Yet obviously he was indifferent.

“Goose giblets with barley.”

“Goose giblets again! And today! Today there ought … Oh, I certainly haven’t the patience to nibble at goose wings.”

“If you don’t soon stop the village urchins from forever crippling my geese by throwing stones at them, you’ll have to eat goose giblets every day, Herr Pagel,” replied the Backs with dangerous calmness.

“Amanda, couldn’t you give me a rest today from nagging? This is the first time for a long while that I’ve been more or less happy.”

“If my geese are to go on having their bones broken because you’re happy, Herr Pagel, then it would be better if you went around unhappy and did something for farming. Because that’s what you’re here for; not to be happy.”

Pagel’s amused gaze rested on her angry face. “Don’t go on pretending. I can see that you’re not in the least annoyed, because you’ve filled my plate with the stomach and heart. Which, as a matter of fact, I’m fondest of. As for the other thing, I ought to tell you that I’ve just had news I’m soon to be a father.”

“Oh!” Her tone sounded in no way pacified. “I didn’t know till now that Herr Pagel was married.”

This female response so surprised young Pagel that he put his spoon demonstratively into his goose stew, pushed back his chair and stared at Amanda with big eyes. “Married—me married? How do you arrive at that idiotic idea, Amanda?”

“Because you are shortly becoming a father, Herr Pagel,” she replied maliciously. “Fathers are usually married—or at least ought to be.”

“You’re a goose, Amanda,” said Wolfgang amused, returning to his soup. “You only want to pump me.”

For a while all was quiet.

Then Amanda said stubbornly, “I’m wondering if the young lady, when she noticed she was going to become a mother, whistled so tremendously and talked such rubbish to people.”

“Your wonder is quite correct, Amanda. The young lady was certainly not so pleased at the time, although she was also perhaps just a wee little bit happy.”

“Then,” said Amanda decidedly, “I would leave at once and marry her.”

“That’s what I should like to do. Unfortunately she has absolutely forbidden me to show my face.”

“She’s forbidden! And expecting a child from you?”

“That’s right,” nodded Pagel gravely. “You have completely grasped what I wanted to say.”

“Then …” She turned crimson.

“Then …” She did not dare say it.

“Then I should …” She became speechless.

“What would you do, please?” he asked very gravely.

She examined him with an ungracious eye, angry with herself for embarking on this inquisition which had discovered something she hadn’t wished to know. And she was angry with him because he spoke about these matters in just the same flippant, stupid way as other men—and she had thought him very different! So she looked at him testingly and unsparingly.

But seeing his twinkling eyes, she understood that he was actually very happy, and was only making fun of her and her stupid curiosity. And that he was exactly as she had thought he was. And, as is always the case, the happiness of the one was communicated to the other. She gulped suddenly.

She spoke quite as Amanda Backs, however. “If you’ve rummaged about enough in the giblets, I should now lie down for half an hour. It’s warm in there, and I’ve put a blanket for you on the sofa.”

“Good. I’ll do that for once,” he said obediently. “But wake me in half an hour.” And at the door he turned round. “I’m thinking of having it about Christmas, the marriage I mean. The son’s arriving three weeks earlier.”

And with that he shut the door as a sign that he no longer valued any answer, and that this subject was now absolutely closed. And as Amanda now knew everything she urgently needed to know, she also felt no need to talk anymore. She quietly cleared the table, took away the cutlery and sat down at the tiled stove, so that he could have real quiet for the remaining half-hour.

But of course, he wouldn’t sleep but would read his letter again!

IV

Pagel really had wanted to reread his letter but hardly had he lay down but a tiredness overcame him like a large, benign, warm, dark wave. The sentence informing him that he would be a father at the beginning of December and that Peter would soon be writing to him herself, was part of his dream. It produced a happy feeling of lightness, and he went to sleep smiling.

However, his dream was about a child, and that child was himself. With some amazement he saw himself standing on a grassy lawn in a white sailor suit with a blue collar and a sewn-on anchor. Over him a plum tree spread its branches laden with small yellow plums.

He saw himself stretching up to the branches. He saw his bare knees between his long socks and his trousers. And that one of his knees had been cut, but was already scarred over. I must have already dreamt that as a child, he said to himself in the dream, and saw himself reaching for the branches as a child. He was on tiptoe and still couldn’t reach them.

Then a voice called him, and of course it had to be Mama’s voice from the veranda, but no, the voice came from the thick crown of the tree itself, and it was Peter’s voice:

Little tree, shake and shake—Throw down your plums for my sake!

And the little plum tree shook all its plums over him like a golden shower of rain, and they fell, ever more, ever thicker, ever more golden. The green lawn was quite yellow with then. As if hundreds and thousands of buttercups were blossoming, and the child that he was bent over them, shouting with joy.

“No, I can’t disturb him now,” said Amanda. “You’ll have to come back later.” She gave Sophie Kowalewski a bellicose look.

But Sophie was not at all bellicose. “Perhaps I could wait here,” she said politely.

“When he wakes up he must go to the fields at once; he’ll have no time for you.”

“But he asked me to come here through my father,” explained Sophie, not quite in accordance with truth. “Herr Pagel, in fact, wants me to dig potatoes!” She laughed bitterly.

“Dig potatoes,” repeated Amanda. The pair stood, one at the stove, the other at the window. “Herr Pagel’s right. Digging potatoes is certainly better than—” She broke off with telling effect.

“Than what, Fräulein? Than propping up the stove in case it falls over? There you are certainly right.”

“Many a person thinks that she alone is cunning,” said the Backs disdainfully. “But as Fräulein von Kuckhoff always said, too much cunning turns stupid. And that’s a fact.”

“And are you also cunning or are you stupid?” asked Sophie sweetly, sitting down at the desk.

“That’s no place for you, Fräulein!” said Amanda angrily, shaking the back of the chair. “There’s a place for you somewhere else.”

Sophie was aware what the other was driving at. But she wasn’t easily stopped in anything; she would sit where she was. “If I’m to go, Herr Pagel will tell me,” she said coolly. “All you do here are the beds, Fräulein.”

“But I don’t get in them, I don’t!” shouted Amanda, pulling at the chair furiously.

“That won’t be your fault, Fräulein. The gentleman perhaps has better taste than his predecessor.”

“You say that to me, Fräulein?” Amanda stepped back very pale.

The combat was now at its climax; the arrows had been loosed and many had gone home. Now must come the hand-to-hand fighting—it was a wonder that young Pagel hadn’t been waked up by the noise.

“Why shouldn’t I say that to you?” asked Sophie defiantly but less assured, for the expression on her opponent’s face made her uneasy. “You said so yourself before everyone during evening prayers.”

“Fräulein,” said Amanda threateningly, “if others can’t count up to five, I can. And if the five don’t come out right, then one can stand at night beneath a window and hear them talking.”

Now it was Sophie who turned pale. Then she bethought herself. “If one is decent,” she said in quite another tone, “one doesn’t need to have heard everything one hears.”

“And somebody like that talks about beds and better taste!” burst out Amanda angrily. “I ought to go and tell him on the spot.” She reflected. “I think I really ought to.” She looked doubtfully at Pagel’s door.

“Why should he know that?” asked Sophie. “He loses nothing by it.”

Amanda regarded her, undecided.

“You could have had a friend,” whispered Sophie, “just the same as … I can understand it if one sticks to a friend.”

“He’s not my friend any longer,” protested Amanda. “I don’t associate with a traitor.”

“Others can never know what someone is really like,” declared Sophie. “They only look at the outside. Someone may have had bad luck in his life.”

“I’ve heard that anyone from a penitentiary is always bad. Only the worst get sent there.”

“He can wish to improve. And there are such things as wrong verdicts.”

“Was he wrongly condemned then, Fräulein?”

Sophie considered. “No,” she said reluctantly.

“It’s good you said that. Or I should have thought you only wanted to wheedle me.”

“The sentence was too severe. He’s only heedless, not bad.”

Amanda thought. She couldn’t think as she wanted to; the image of Hänsecken prevented her. She’d remained true to him even when she knew that he was not only shallow but bad. But she eventually found what she wanted to ask. “Then why does he still hole up there?” asked Amanda. “If he really wants to change, he’s got to work. Is he lazy?”

“Not at all,” cried Sophie. “He holes up there …” She thought a bit. “We haven’t got the fare yet, and then he received a bullet in the escape—”

“A bullet? But the warders didn’t hit anyone!”

“That’s what they think! But he was shot in the leg, here in the thigh. And he’s been lying up there all these weeks without a doctor or proper attention. I’ve been nursing him. And now I’m to dig potatoes!”

Amanda looked doubtfully at the other’s face. “There’s so much stolen in the district at present,” she said. “I thought that would be your one, Fräulein.”

“With him always in bed, Fräulein Backs, and perhaps even lame the rest of his life? My father says it’s Bäumer up to his tricks again.”

“I thought that Bäumer was only a poacher.”

“That’s all you know! Bäumer will do anything. Now when they’re looking for him, and his relatives in Altlohe won’t have him with them, and he doesn’t know where to stay, he’ll do anything, he said.”

“How do you come to know that, Fräulein?” asked Amanda softly. “You are very well informed about him. You’ve even spoken to the man.”

“I …” stammered Sophie. But she recovered herself immediately. “Yes,” she whispered excitedly, “I lied. He wasn’t shot in the leg, and he goes out to provide for us, so that we can get the fare together. What can we do when they’re after him? You stood up for yours at evening prayers without being ashamed. One must stick by one’s fellow particularly when things are bad for him. And I’ll never believe that you’ll betray us—why, you smacked Meier’s face because he was a traitor!”

“Yes, I smacked my fellow’s face for that,” said Amanda. “Your friend—”

“And you would be a traitor after that?” interrupted Sophie. The two girls looked at one another. “You ought to know,” she whispered hurriedly, “what a girl feels like when she’s fond of someone and how one doesn’t give a damn if others say he’s no good. To them he may be bad, perhaps, but to me he’s good—and I of all people must leave him in the lurch? No, you don’t want that, nor do you want to betray us.”

Amanda Backs stood silent.

“I’ll see that he doesn’t touch anything more in Neulohe, and that we leave as soon as possible, as soon as we have a little money—but you won’t betray us, eh, Fräulein?”

“What is it Amanda’s not to betray?” Wolfgang Pagel stood between the two girls, a flushed, somewhat excited Amanda and a Sophie who had made herself very ladylike for this visit, so that not much excitement was to be noticed beneath her lipstick and powder.

Sophie did not reply. “I’ll just quickly make your coffee, Herr Pagel,” said Amanda. And she left the office.

“What’s the matter with her?” asked Pagel. “Have you quarreled?”

“Not a bit,” said Sophie quickly. “I was only asking her to put in a word for me with you, bailiff. But you were not to know what I’d asked her.” She shrugged her shoulders. “My father says that you want me for the potato digging. But father must have misunderstood. Just look at my hands; one can’t dig potatoes with hands like that.” And she stretched out hers, wonderfully manicured, nails brilliantly polished. But neither manicure nor polish could hide the fact that they had once been very robust country-girl’s hands.

Pagel gave them a benevolent pat and said: “Very nice! Well, Sophie, take a seat and we’ll talk reasonably with one another.”

She obediently sat down, but her manner betrayed that she was not inclined to enter into reasonable talk.

“Now look here, Sophie,” said Pagel amiably. “When you left Neulohe a few years back, those pretty hands looked a little different, don’t you agree? And yet they’ve become so pretty. Now, for a while again, they won’t look quite so beautiful, but you’ll be helping your father to earn a bit. What do you think? When you return to Berlin your hands will quickly enough become spotless and clean again.”

Sophie drew them back as if the theme was, in her view, done with. Almost in a whine she said: “But, bailiff, I must look after my mother. She can’t get up or walk any more, there’s so much dropsy in her legs.”

“Oh, if that is the case, Sophie,” he replied distressed, “then I’ll send the doctor to her tomorrow. He’ll be able to say if your mother requires constant attendance.” The pretty face was distorted by chagrin. “Sophie,” he went on more vigorously, “why are you trying to take me in? First you say you can’t work because of your hands, and then it’s because of your sick mother, and recently your father told me you wanted to go into service again. It’s all untrue. I’ll say nothing about the contract, according to which unmarried grown-up children must work as well; but is it right for you to idle around if everyone else is working himself to death? Is it right for a healthy young girl to live at the expense of her old worn-out father?”

“I don’t live at his expense!” she burst out. Rather more slowly: “I brought money with me from Berlin.”

“Lies, Sophie. Cheating again. We both arrived in Neulohe on the same day, have you forgotten? The dollar was then so-and-so many thousand marks, and now it’s so-and-so many milliards. What can be left of your money then?” She started to speak. “Yes, go on and tell me that you’re selling your jewelry or that as lady help or whatever you were in Berlin you got paid in foreign currency! All lies. No, Sophie,” he said firmly, “it’s settled: either you come to work tomorrow or I’ll put Black Minna with all her children in your father’s house.”

Her face changed, showing impatience, annoyance, then anger. There was something wrong in that pretty face, as if the beauty were only skin-deep and another face might at any moment be seen behind it, a face neither good nor beautiful. She restrained herself, however. She even smiled and she pleaded: “Oh, bailiff, let me off! What potatoes could I dig? Be so kind!” Pagel grew perplexed.

“How much you could do, Sophie, is another matter,” he said woodenly, feeling like Herr von Studmann. “The chief thing is the example.”

“But I’m not strong enough for such work,” she complained. “That’s why I left for the town, because I was too weak for farm work. You feel, Herr Pagel! I’ve no muscles, it’s all so tender.…”

She had approached, brushing against him. She was smaller than he. A fragrance came from her; she moved her arm to show that no biceps stood up. And all the while she was looking into his eyes, meekly, roguishly, pleadingly.

“Those who have to carry the sacks must have the muscles,” objected Pagel. “You only have to gather the potatoes, Sophie—even children can do that.”

“And my knees!” she wailed. “The kneeling will wear them out the first day. See, bailiff, how soft they are.” Her skirt was very short, but she lifted it higher. She patted her garter; he saw a gleam of white …

There went the door! “Put your skirt down!” he ordered sharply.

Yes, that other face now appeared from beneath the pretty one—a coarse face indeed. “Leave me alone! So that’s what you want! No, no!” she shouted and was out of the door, passing Amanda Backs.

Impassively Amanda put down the coffee things on the table. “Your coffee, Herr Pagel.”

“The damnable wench!” cried Pagel, breathing hard. “Amanda, I was to have been seduced here just now!” Amanda looked at him speechless. “Or,” he continued thoughtfully, “it was to look to you as if I were the seducer—that was the idea.” He gave an incredulous smile. “And all about a little potato digging! I don’t understand it.”

“I’d let her be, Herr Pagel,” said Amanda shortly.

“Yes, yes, Amanda, I’ve heard that you wished to put in a good word for her. But why? Is she to get off with her laziness?”

“I’m not putting in a word for her, Herr Pagel. I don’t worry myself about her, and the best thing would be for you not to worry about her either. Your coffee’s getting cold,” she said and left the office.

Pagel watched her go. Some things seemed questionable to him, but he actually had too much to do to try and answer such questions. He’d rather finish his coffee and finally read Herr von Studmann’s letter.

V

A quarter of an hour later Wolfgang Pagel was cycling through the woods. He must hurry, for it was dark at five, and as soon as twilight came nothing would keep Forester Kniebusch in the forest. He gave no explanation. At the first sign of dusk he would leave his men abruptly and go home.

“He’s getting a little cracked,” said some.

“He’s just scared stiff when the forest’s dark,” said others.

Kniebusch let them talk. He himself hardly said a word, no longer listening when something was being said. He didn’t want to know anymore, and didn’t say anything more himself. This change, so astonishing in such an old man, this forsaking of a weakness which he had not been able to overcome in a lifetime, dated from that first of October when he had marched on the fortress of Ostade with a troop of young peasants from Neulohe—to overthrow the Red Government in a big Putsch.

Pagel, noting the gossipy forester’s transformation, had believed that it was due to mortification over the shameful failure of the Putsch. Kniebusch indeed said nothing about the undertaking, but that could only strengthen this interpretation. One had learned enough from the newspapers without wanting personal accounts.

A few sections of militarized associations which had not been disbanded, together with many armed country folk, had appeared in front of the barracks and had summoned the Reichswehr to join in the fight against the Government. The Reichswehr had coldly replied no. In all probability those in the Putsch had held this to be a sort of formality, to save face, and after a brief delay, but hesitatingly, they had proceeded to something like an attack—again in order to save face, apparently. There had been half a dozen or even a dozen shots; the mass of the rebels had ebbed away in disorder; and thus an undertaking to which many capable men had for months devoted all their strength, intellect, courage and self-sacrifice, ended in confusion, rout, a dozen arrests and, unfortunately, two or three killed as well. However, it was a sign of these times, when everything seemed to dissolve—to collapse even as it was being born. The strongest will remained powerless. The idea of self-sacrifice seemed ridiculous—everyone for himself, but all against one.

(That trench jacket which a lieutenant had borrowed from a publican and had almost immediately returned so that it might not be dirtied—that trench jacket was none the less dirtied with soil as with blood.… In vain had the father turned a small beer shop into a respectable tavern. If, however, the lieutenant had not returned the new jacket, would the landlord’s son have stayed away then?)

In this way, or something like it, had the Putsch run its course. It had been a beautiful, splendid dream into which many had thrown their heart and soul—and then it was over, and one could well understand that a man could be bitter and silent about it. But as Pagel came more frequently in contact with the forester and observed, besides his taciturnity, that lifeless yet constantly frightened glance and the perpetually trembling hands—as he reflected rather more deeply on the Putsch and the man—then he said to himself: It is all wrong, it is something quite different. One could easily drive for half an hour through the forest and think of nothing but the forester Kniebusch. A certain slow tenacity in thought could at no time have been altogether denied young Pagel, and if the tempo of recent events had somewhat repressed this characteristic and demanded an almost unreflecting activity, the reaction was all the stronger now that he had to cover considerable distances alone between field and wood. He was not happy only to be active in the world; he wished also to understand it. He was not content to see that the forester was silent and afraid; he wanted to know why he had changed.

And when he came to rummage in his memories, it was not surprising that he recalled an autumn day when, along a forest path, a little drunken fellow had staggered toward him; and in the drunken fellow’s car the considerably drunker Kniebusch lay. That this scoundrel of a Meier bore the chief guilt for the discovery of the arms dump and therefore for the Lieutenant’s end, Pagel had always known since the slapping by Amanda Backs. Strange! At the time he hadn’t thought of the forester. But now he understood, of course, that Kniebusch had been Meier’s informer, intentionally or, what was more probable, unintentionally.

And something else occurred to him. He saw the room where the convicts’ orgy had taken place; he saw the cook howling under her apron and the fat detective. The man had sent someone to fetch the forester, who, however, was not at home.

Yes, why should the detective send for Kniebusch when he already knew what there was in the forest, and where? Only because he wanted to see him! To examine him! Because he was suspicious of him! And why was the forester not at home in the middle of the night? Why did that peaceable, timid man join in the Putsch? Because his fear of the Putsch was less than his fear of inquiries about the arms dump. Because he wanted to be absent!

And Pagel saw himself standing in the wood. The fat detective had gone on, soaked and dog-tired, toward Ostade. Kniebusch would have met none other than the questioner he wished to avoid; and what a ruthless questioner he could be Wolfgang knew well. That would have been a bad hour for Kniebusch, sealing his lips at last. Perhaps he had only escaped by the skin of his teeth—but he had escaped! He had returned home. Of what was he still afraid, then? Why couldn’t he remain in the wood at twilight?

Pagel advanced considerably further with his own reflections, but he was still not satisfied with their result. Something remained to be solved. Pagel himself, for a while, hadn’t been able to remain in the darkening wood after that night. All his nerves had begun to tremble as soon as the first twilight fell, and he would mount his bicycle and ride, as fast as his legs allowed, out into the open. But he had resisted this feeling of panic; reason told him that it was the same forest as before the thirtieth of September, that the dead do not walk, that we have only the living to fear. And gradually his common sense had won.

Now it might very well be that the forester on that fatal evening—having heard that the dump was discovered—had been driven by conscience to steal into the Black Dale, and had then found the Lieutenant. That discovery would have sent him home terror-stricken. Yes, it might be that.

Nevertheless a voice told Pagel that it was not so—the forester was afraid of something much more tangible than a dead man, long since buried somewhere or other. No, it was not the dead Lieutenant, and it was not the detective—who was undoubtedly a man who would strike at once, without torturing a victim for weeks or months. Nor could it be little Meier. He would never dare confront the forester again. No matter how run down Kniebush had become, Little Meier would take steps to defend himself against a man who made his life such a misery.

Well, the mystery was for the moment unsolvable. But one ought to be particularly nice to the old man. No doubt he was far from being a model of virtue, but, in the little time before he descended into the grave, he ought not to have to torment himself beyond all measure. One might try sometime to find out what it was that frightened him, whether it was something tangible which he might be talked out of, or something in himself, something intangible.

Pagel had now reached the place where the forester and his two overseers were working. It was not yet time for felling, of course; the great old beech trees which stood there had as yet hardly lost their foliage, and there was still too much sap in them. But all day the forester was out with these two, who would later have charge of the woodmen. He indicated the tree to be felled; the overseer’s ax flashed and a broad strip of silver-gray bark flew to the ground. Yellow, with rapidly reddening scars, the white tree shone in the wood. There, accommodate yourself to the winter; you will never know another spring. The woodmen will recognize you by your scar.

In reality it is a very epic calling which the old forester carries on there as deputy of the reaper who is called Death. And since death does not immediately overtake the one marked for it, since a certain respite has been granted to that which is ignorant of the sentence just passed—this makes his occupation almost a little unearthly. When, however, Pagel sees the forester walking among the trees, muttering or coughing hollowly, the shadow of a man withered by age, anxieties and a never-conquered fear of life—when he sees him point at a trunk with a bony forefinger already trembling—then the epic becomes grotesque. Then this reaper Death is himself visibly marked by death, carries out his regency only in an uncertain reprieve and perhaps even knows this. The overseers go from tree to tree, the trembling finger points, the ax rings clear and silvery, and they advance, slowly, leaving behind them the gleaming scars.

Pagel said a very polite good day to the forester, who, out of the corner of his prominent seal-like eyes, examined him, muttered something in reply, then went on, pointing. At his side strolled young Pagel, his hands in his pockets, smoking—he did not want the old man to have the feeling that he was being supervised—yet he could not help noticing how seldom the axes obtained something to do, how seldom the finger pointed, although it was nearly all timber fit for felling, indeed almost overseasoned. “You’re marking extremely few today, Herr Kniebusch,” he said after a while.

The forester turned his face away, muttering, but did not reply. He made a concession, however; he pointed at a tree—but, as the ax was lifted, he exclaimed: “No! Better not.” Nevertheless the ax was not lowered; it struck and the trunk was branded.

“It’s already getting hollow, forester,” shouted the overseer.

Murmuring something like a curse, the forester looked angrily at Pagel. Then he walked on slowly, head lowered without bothering about the trees, as if he had quite forgotten his work.

“Your job’s to do what the forester tells you,” Pagel shouted.

“Herr Pagel,” replied the man in a tone not at all disagreeable, “what we’re doing today is really utter nonsense. The last few days, this morning even, he let us mark again and again; but since midday not a thing! We point out to him rotten and overseasoned timber, but he shakes his head and goes on. It’s childish what he’s doing now; that’s not why we scour the woods and get sixty milliards of marks a day …”

“Oh, shut up, Karl!” said the other overseer. “Herr Pagel knows what’s wrong with the old fellow, he doesn’t cycle into the wood every day just for pleasure. The old un’s getting crazy, and since midday he’s quite mad.”

“Hold your tongue, man!” shouted Pagel. The forester had been standing two paces away and must have heard everything. He kept his face lowered; one couldn’t tell if the brutal words had hurt him. As if made aware of their glances, he lifted his head, said: “Time to knock off,” and walked quickly out of the trees into the glade, one hand holding his gun sling.

“It’s not half-past three yet,” said the more tactful overseer, reaching for his watch, “and it’s daylight till a quarter to five. It’s absurd, Herr Pagel, for him to send us home now.”

“Oh, shut up, Karl,” again said the other, who preferred to talk himself. “He knows why he’s afraid of the wood in the dark. People say that the dead man in the Black Dale walks about; and the one he wants to find knows it too and takes care to get out of the wood before it gets dark.”

Pagel mastered his anger. “Listen, my man,” he said, “the forester is your superior and you’ll do what he tells you, you understand?”

“If a man’s mad I’ve no intention of doing what he tells me,” said the fellow. “The forester’s mad, and I’ll tell him so till he clears out of the forest.”

“Listen, you!” began Pagel passionately.

The overseer interrupted him. “One can see that he’s got a bad conscience,” he declared. “No one’s found the dead man’s revolver, and a good many say it was nothing less than a rifle shot.”

“Oh!” shouted Pagel. “Oh! You old washerwoman!” Then his anger broke out. “God, man, aren’t you ashamed to repeat such stupid rubbish? There you have a decent old man; don’t make his life any harder than it is already.”

“There you’re right, Herr Pagel,” said the other overseer. “I always say …”

“Shut up, Karl! We all know officials stand by one another. But when something’s pretty wrong, I say so; and there’s something wrong with the forester.”

“You are dismissed,” bellowed Pagel. “You are dismissed on the spot. I’ll give you a week to get out of your cottage. Good evening.”

He turned and walked to his cycle, not feeling at all happy. But what was one to do? The poor devil was not to blame for being boorish. But then neither was the forester for being worn-out and ill. The young overseer, now it was time for felling, could find work anywhere, the old forester hardly ever again …

He trod hard on the pedals and tried to think for a moment about his mother’s letter. Barely two hours ago he had been almost happy! But however hard he tried, the letter remained very remote, like a faint light seen through trees at night—a light one never reaches because dark bushes and branches get in the way and extinguishes the little glowing spot.

Pagel had overtaken Kniebusch, who was dragging himself along with lowered head, exactly like a dog which has lost its master. And when the young man sprang from his bicycle he didn’t raise his head but trudged onward as though alone.

For some time they walked together without a word. Then Pagel spoke. “I’ve just got rid of Schmidt, Herr Kniebusch. He won’t be at work tomorrow.”

The forester kept silent for a long time. Then he sighed. “That won’t help anything, Herr Pagel.”

“Why won’t it? A mischief-maker the less is an anxiety the less, Herr Kniebusch.”

“Oh, for every anxiety which disappears there come ten new ones.”

“And what ones came today? Has it something to do with your not marking any more timber?” That, however, was too blunt a question for the man Kniebusch had become; he did not reply.

After a while Pagel tried again. “I was thinking, Herr Kniebusch, of ringing up the doctor this evening and having a talk with him. Then you can go to him tomorrow and he’ll put you down as ill and you can take a complete rest. I’ll answer for it. You know you’re entitled to sick benefit for twenty-six weeks.”

“Oh, who’s going to live on sick benefit?” said the old man despondently, yet no longer in despair.

“You have your allowance, Kniebusch. We should go on giving you that. We shouldn’t let you starve, you know.”

“And who will do my work in the woods?”

“I can also not mark the timber, Herr Kniebusch,” said Pagel amiably. “And I can make good use of your woodmen on the farm for a while.”

“The Geheimrat will never agree to that in his life,” cried the forester.

“Oh, the Geheimrat!” said Pagel disdainfully, to make the forester understand how little importance was to be attached to the old gentleman. “We’ve heard nothing from him for a month, and so he’ll have to be content if we settle his affairs here in the manner we think right.”

“But we have heard from him,” contradicted the forester. “He wrote a letter to me.”

“What! All of a sudden? And what does Herr Horst-Heinz von Teschow want? Can it be that he’s coming back to help look for his granddaughter?”

The forester did not react to this mockery. Fräulein Violet too did not interest him any longer, however much value he had formerly attached to getting on good terms with her. He was now only interested in himself. After a long while he said broodingly: “Do you really believe that the doctor will put me down as ill?”

“Of course! You are ill, Kniebusch.”

“And you will go on giving me an allowance in spite of the sick benefit? But that’s forbidden, Herr Pagel!”

“While I’m here you will get your allowance, Kniebusch.”

“Then I’ll go to the doctor tomorrow and have myself put down as ill.” The forester’s voice had quite another ring. But nothing more came. He was probably lost in dreams of a life free from anxieties, annoyance and fear.

“Well, what did the Geheimrat write about?” asked Pagel finally.

The forester started out of his visions. “If I’m ill I shan’t need to do what he wrote about,” he said unhelpfully.

“Perhaps I could do what he wants done,” proposed Pagel.

The forester looked at him bewildered; then a slight smile started to creep over his face. Yes, a smile. It was not a pretty sight, rather as if a dead man were smiling; nevertheless it was meant for a smile. “You would be in a position to,” he said, still smiling.

“Position for what?”

The forester was once again surly. “Oh, you will only go and talk about it.”

“I’ll hold my tongue, you know that, Herr Kniebusch.”

“But you will tell madam.”

“The lady at the moment is not in the mood to hear anything. What’s more, I promise not to tell her.”

The forester thought for a time. “I’d rather not,” he said. “The less one says the better. I’ve learned that at last.”

“You learned that in Ostade from the fat detective, didn’t you?” asked Pagel. And was immediately sorry he had said this. It was more brutal than the jeers of the boorish overseer. The old man turned deathly pale; he laid a shaking hand on Pagel’s shoulder and brought his face close. “You know that?” he asked trembling. “How did you know? Did he tell you?”

Pagel let go of his cycle and put his arm firmly round the forester. “I ought not to have said that, Herr Kniebusch,” he said, distressed. “You see, my tongue too runs away with me sometimes. No, you need have no fear. No one’s told me anything. I just worked it out myself, because you were so changed after coming back from Ostade.”

“Is that really true?” whispered the forester, still shaking violently. “He didn’t tell you about it?”

“No, on my word of honor.”

“But if you guessed about it so can someone else,” cried Kniebusch despairingly. “Everyone will point me out as a traitor to his country, and say I sold myself to the French.”

“And you haven’t done that, Kniebusch?” asked Pagel gravely. “Little Meier—”

“Little Meier made me drunk and pumped me!” cried the other. “He knew I was as talkative as an old woman and he took advantage of it. You must believe me, Herr Pagel! The detective believed me in the end. ‘Run home, you old fool,’ he said. ‘And don’t open your mouth again in your life!’ ”

“He said that? Then you don’t need to be afraid anymore, Kniebusch.”

“Oh, he was terrible,” gasped out the old man. To be able at last to relieve himself from the burden which was crushing him seemed almost intoxicating. “If he’d shot me down at once he would have been more merciful. ‘The dust of the man your tongue killed must grate on your teeth whenever you move your jaws,’ he said.”

“Quiet! Quiet!” Pagel laid his hand gently over the other’s mouth. “He’s a pitiless man, and also an unjust one. Others have more guilt toward the dead than you. Come along, Kniebusch. I’ll chuck down my bike here and fetch it tomorrow. I’ll take you home to your bed, and then I’ll ring up the doctor at once and he’ll visit you this evening and you’ll feel at peace.”

The man leaned on him like one seriously ill. Now that he had found someone whom he could trust, all resistance left him. What had kept him on his feet had been his isolation. Now he let himself sink into illness and prostration, confident that one stronger than he would care for him. Without check he prattled confusedly of the fear that people might learn of his shame; of his fear of the escaped poacher Bäumer, whose tracks he thought he had come across in the forest; of his fear that everything might yet come out if Fräulein Violet or the servant Räder were found; of his fear whether Haase the magistrate would go on paying the rent now that the Lieutenant was dead; of his fear that little Meier would turn up again; of his fear of the Geheimrat who would turn him out of the ranger’s house tomorrow, if he learned that his forester was not doing what he had written.…

Fear … The man’s entire life had become fear. So much could a man torment himself, then, about a meager life which had known little pleasure. And now that it was in decline, and had become quite flat and unblessed, the fear grew worse. From every side it assailed him; it was not the will to existence which kept him among the living, no, it was the fear of existence. Wolfgang Pagel soon gave up speaking to the old man comfortingly and consolingly. He clearly didn’t want consolation. He sat as if in the middle of his worries, which came at him like waves from all sides, lifting him up, ready to drown him! “Yes, Herr Pagel, I read every day in the newspapers about suicides, and that there are so many old people who do it, seventy and eighty years old. But I can’t, I just can’t do it; I have a sick wife and I keep on thinking: What would become of her if I went first? There’s not a soul who worries about her; they’d simply let her die like an animal. That’s why I’m so afraid.”

“Oh, stop talking, Kniebusch,” said Pagel, wearied. “Get into bed now and the doctor will come this evening; once you’ve had a sleep everything will look different. And while you’re undressing give me the Geheimrat’s letter to read.”

Kniebusch, the old forester, a little bad-tempered and complaining, clumsily removed his clothing. Pagel stood under the lamp and looked over the letter the Geheimrat Horst-Heinz von Teschow had written to his forester. In a big chair at the window sat the forester’s wife, whom the people in the village said grew stranger and stranger. She was staring into the night. On her knees was a book with a golden cross on the cover, no doubt a hymnal.

“Who puts your wife to bed?” asked Pagel, interrupting his reading.

“Oh, she won’t be going to bed today,” replied the forester. “She often sits like that all night and sings. But when she wants to go to bed she can manage quite well by herself.” The young man threw a quick searching look at the forester’s wife who continued to look out into the night while he read further. The forester crept into his nightshirt and then into his bed. On the pillow his face, tanned by sun and wind, and his yellow-white beard, seemed strangely colored.

Just as young Pagel had reached the part of the letter that the forester had just given him which once and for all banned everyone from access to the Geheimrat’s woods, starting with all those from Neulohe, including his son-in-law’s family, as well as all staff from the Neulohe estate, including the little upstart Pagel—just as Pagel had got this far in the incendiary, provocative and completely antagonistic letter, the old woman began to sing.

She’d stuck one finger into her songbook but didn’t look down at it. She continued to look out into the night, and with a shrill, broken voice sang lightly to herself from an old hymn, “Commit yourself and your cares to our true saviour who guides heaven. Through sky and clouds and tempests, he will guide your footsteps.”

Pagel looked towards the forester, but the old man didn’t move. His head was motionless on the pillow. “I’m going now, Herr Kniebusch,” said Pagel. “Here is the letter. Thanks very much and, as I said, I shall keep silent.”

“Shut the door from outside,” replied the old man. “The key’s in the lock. I have another, if the doctor comes. I shall hear him coming, I shan’t sleep.”

“The singing disturbs you, I suppose?”

“The singing? What singing? Oh, my wife’s? No, that doesn’t disturb me, I don’t even hear it. I’m thinking the whole time.… When you leave, please turn out the light; we don’t need a light.”

“What do you think about then, Herr Kniebusch?” asked Pagel looking down on the forester, lying with his eyes shut, motionless.

“Oh, I’ve been thinking it out like this. I think, Supposing I hadn’t done such and such a thing in my life or hadn’t met such and such a person—what would have happened then? But it’s a difficult matter.”

“Yes, it is certainly difficult.”

“For example, I think, If that rascal Bäumer hadn’t ridden me down, how would things have been then? It could so easily have been like that, eh, Herr Pagel? I need only have been going a little faster. If it hadn’t been so dark in the ravine I should have been out of it already; he would have seen from a distance and avoided me.”

“And how would things have been different then, Herr Kniebusch?”

“Everything! Every single thing! Because if Bäumer hadn’t run over me then I shouldn’t have had a court case about him in Frankfurt. And if I hadn’t been in Frankfurt, then I shouldn’t have met Meier again. And if I hadn’t met Meier again, then he wouldn’t have betrayed the arms dump.”

Pagel grasped the forester’s dry bony hands, speckled with age. “I should try to find something else to think about, Herr Kniebusch,” he suggested. “Imagine what it will be like when you are pensioned. And you’ve got your pension from the employees’ insurance office. Then perhaps things really will be different with money. The Geheimrat writes about that in his letter, too. You must have read it.… I should think about how I’d arrange my life; some hobby or other.”

“Bees,” said the forester in a low voice.

“There you are then. Bees are supposed to be wonderful things. Whole books are supposed to have been written about them. Supposing you have a shot at something like that?”

“Yes, I could.” The forester opened his eyes wide for the first time. “But you still don’t understand why I do the other, Herr Pagel. Because if it only happened through Bäumer running me over, and I can think of a hundred such things in my life, then I’m not to blame for the other, either. And I haven’t got to suffer any remorse, isn’t that so?”

Pagel looked thoughtfully at the old man, who was once again lying with his eyes closed. At the window, her face turned toward the night, the old woman went on singing psalm after psalm in her grating voice, as if she were alone.

“Well, get a bit of rest before the doctor comes,” said Pagel suddenly. “I’ll ring him up now.”

“But why don’t you answer me, Herr Pagel?” complained the old man, half sitting up in bed and staring at him. “Isn’t it like I said, then? If Bäumer hadn’t run me down, everything would have been different!”

“You suffer remorse and wish to acquit yourself, isn’t that it, Herr Kniebusch? But acquittal is no good unless one feels innocent. I should prefer to have a go at the bees. Good night.” And with that Pagel turned out the light, locked the front door, and stood outside. It was already dark, but perhaps he would still find the men at the potato clamps.

VI

The clamps were some five minutes’ distance from the farmyard, at a place bordered on two sides by forest. The situation was convenient for carting, because three field paths met there, and the wood protected the clamps from the icy east and north winds; but its remoteness permitted thieves to approach it unseen, while the neighborhood of the forest made their flight an easy one.

Pagel had had constant trouble with these clamps. Every morning there was a hole dug here or there in the soil that covered the potatoes against the frost. Already over five hundred tons were stored here—the theft of four or five hundredweights was of little importance compared with the work required to fill the hole again, or with the danger a clamp ran of being frozen because of it. A hundred times had Pagel blamed himself for thoughtlessly agreeing to the suggestion that the clamps be laid down in this place. An experienced man would have foreseen all the difficulties which had arisen this year from the shortage of food. He was convinced that all Altlohe would have helped with the potato crop had the clamps been situated under constant supervision right by the farmyard. But as things were, it was much simpler to take at night, without risk, that which one otherwise could have won only through many days of hard and freezing labor. And the people could not even be blamed for it. They lacked the barest necessities, they suffered hunger. If they took a trifle of the abundance, whom could that harm?

In growing darkness Pagel roamed between the long, almost man-high mounds. The laborers had already gone, of course, and the thieves not yet come; once again he had made a fruitless journey.

But not quite fruitless: his foot knocked against a forgotten shovel, which would not be improved by being left out in the damp night. He picked it up, to take it along to the tool room. But a minute later he stumbled on two spades stuck in the ground. He took them along, too. Immediately he came across two pitchforks and more shovels—it was impossible, he couldn’t lug them all to the farm alone.

Suddenly, quite discouraged, he sat down on a bale of straw. It is often the case that someone bravely endures a host of troubles for a long time, only to be cast down by a trifle. Pagel had with unchanged amiability borne greater troubles these last weeks, but the thought that he was running about from dawn to well into the night while slovenliness and indolence increased—the thought that fifteen shovels, spades and forks would become rusty that night—utterly disheartened him.

He sat, his head propped in his hands. Behind him the wood rustled, mysterious; the trees dripped unceasingly. He felt none too warm. Had he only been a little more cheerful, he would have gone to the farm, whistled together the guilty men and driven them off to the clamps to fetch their implements themselves. But today he hadn’t the least energy to face their sullen and spiteful arguments.

He sat like that for a long time. Then thoughts began to creep back into his brain, but they were not good thoughts. They were worries. He thought of the Geheimrat’s letter. That was the beginning of the end. No. It was the end, absolutely. The Geheimrat had remembered himself. Himself—that was his money, the unpaid rent. But because he was certain of not getting it, he wanted to get rid of the tenant. Not only did he forbid all to enter the forest who belonged to his son-in-law or worked for his daughter; not only did he forbid the farm carts to use the forest paths, which would necessitate their going hours out of their way if they went to the outlying fields—he also ordered the forester to keep a watchful eye on the sales made by the farm. Should grain or potatoes or livestock be delivered, the forester was to report immediately by telephone to the old gentleman’s lawyer, who would at once attach the moneys coming in.

It was now evident that from the business point of view Studmann had been right when he had insisted that old Elias be sent with the rent to Berlin on the second of October—the old gentleman would then have had to keep quiet!

“Do you think my father would make difficulties for me in my present situation?” Frau Eva had protested. “No, Herr von Studmann. You’re a very conscientious, very thorough businessman. The rent can wait, but I need a car at once, all the time. No, I will buy the car.” Between the absent father and the chauffeur who had presented the bill for the car with the threat, in case it was not settled, to return to Frankfurt immediately, Frau Eva had decided for the chauffeur.

“Perhaps we could manage by hiring a car,” Studmann had suggested.

“Which will never be available when I want it. No, Herr von Studmann; you are always forgetting that I have to find my daughter.”

Studmann had turned pale, had bitten his lip. He also didn’t say a word about what he thought about these reconnoiters through the countryside. He accommodated himself to them. “As you wish, madam. I’ll discharge the installment agreed upon, therefore. The remainder of the money will easily amount to three-quarters of the rent.…”

“Don’t talk to me anymore about the rent! I’ve told you that my father … in my present situation. Don’t you understand then?” Frau von Prackwitz had almost shouted. Oh, she was uncontrollable these days, so exceedingly irritable. Pagel also had been shouted at once or twice because he hadn’t, when she called him, immediately left everything as it stood. But she was not so unfriendly to him as to Studmann. It seemed inexplicable. Hadn’t she once had almost a weakness for the other? But perhaps she became so unfriendly just because of that weakness? Now she was nothing but a mother; and a mother who neglects her daughter because of her own love affair is surely contemptible!

“I should like you to pay for the car at once, Herr von Studmann. I want to be able to dispose of it freely. Settle that with Herr Finger and his firm. And give him notice. I shan’t need him as chauffeur; I know someone else more agreeable to my wishes.”

Studmann had replied with a bow, extremely pale.

“Pardon me for being a little out of temper, Herr von Studmann.” She held out her hand. “Things are not very well with me—but I hardly need to say this at all.”

Studmann hadn’t realized the effort this little concession cost her. “If I am to settle accounts with Herr Finger I must more or less know what was arranged with him.”

“Settle the whole thing as you think right; I shan’t bother you about it.… Oh, Herr von Studmann,” she had cried, suddenly almost in tears, “must you torment me as well? Have you no feeling at all?” And she had fled from the office. Herr von Studmann gestured heavily towards young Pagel, but remained silent. For a few moments he walked up and down in his office, then he sat down at his desk, unfasted his watch from its chain, and laid it before him.

Pagel had started to type again. During this argument he couldn’t have left the office. Frau von Prackwitz had stood by the door as if she wanted to leave as soon as possible.

Studmann had sat steadily regarding his watch. After a very short time—he must have worked it out—he took the receiver out of the cradle, turned the handle, and gestured energetically to Pagel. Pagel stopped typing. He looked alarmingly forlorn. Whoever had seen him sitting thus, receiver in hand, waiting, would not have said that this man was without feeling. Perhaps he was awkward and annoying; a womanless life had erected so many barriers in the path of his emotions that he could no longer free himself alone; but one saw how the man trembled, and could hardly speak for agitation, when he began to ask Frau Eva for an immediate and quite private interview. Pagel had jumped up and gone to his room. The unhappy Studmann! Now that the battle was almost lost, he knew what he ought to have done. Talk to her as a human being, not as a businessman.

And a minute or two afterwards Studmann had asked Pagel to go to the Villa at once and make up accounts with the chauffeur. “Frau von Prackwitz would like to leave at once. Probably you must go, too. To the firm in Frankfurt. No, Pagel, please, I don’t want to go myself.… Frau von Prackwitz will see me at six o’clock.”

And Pagel had had to go to Frankfurt in charge of the attaché case with the money, Finger the chauffeur not having been authorized to receive the full sum. In the back Frau von Prackwitz sat alone, erect on the edge of the seat, her white face pressed against the window. From time to time she called, “Stop!” Then she would get out and inspect the ground. “Go on slowly!”

She had seen a piece of paper in the ditch; she ran after it. That she hadn’t really expected to find there a message from her daughter was to be seen in the unhopeful way in which she unfolded it. “Go on slowly!”

Again and again she cried out: “Slower! Slower! I want to be able to see each face.” At a speed of fifteen miles an hour the powerful car crept along the roads.

“Slower!”

Ten miles an hour.…

“This is what she always does now,” the chauffeur had whispered. “It doesn’t matter to her where I drive, as long as she can get out and look around. As if the fellow would be still here in the neighborhood!”

She had gone into a road warden’s house. “I’m only allowed to go fast through villages and towns,” explained the chauffeur. “She thinks no doubt that the pair are utterly alone. Well, I’m glad I’m through with it today.”

“Aren’t you at all sorry for her?”

“Sorry? Of course I’m sorry for her. But after all I’m driving a sixty-horsepower Horch and not a pram. Do you think that’s a pleasure for a chauffeur, to loiter about like this?”

Frau von Prackwitz came out of the warden’s house. “Go on slowly!”

Pagel would have liked to hurry. They had to pay for the car before twelve o’clock. Studmann had strictly enjoined this; at twelve the new dollar rate would be announced.… But he said nothing.

It was three o’clock before they reached the town. The dollar was then 320 milliards as against 242 that morning—payment had taken all the rent. In fact there was even a small debt remaining. “Of no importance,” said the gentleman politely. “You can settle that at your discretion.”

Pagel knew that this would be very important to Herr von Studmann. He had hoped Pagel would still bring back a considerable amount as a loan. It would of course be even more important to Studmann that nothing had come of the meeting he had requested at six o’clock. Frau von Prackwitz had stood Pagel up in a local bar. She’d left to fetch the new chauffeur. Hours passed until she returned; the big new car stood driverless on the street. “This is Oskar,” she said and sat down exhausted. “Oskar is the son of a housekeeper of Papa’s. I remembered him. He’s a motor engineer by trade.”

“I have a driver’s license, also,” said Oskar. He was a young fellow about twenty with enormous hands and a face which looked as if roughly formed from a lump of dough; but he appeared good-natured, if a trifle simple.

Frau von Prackwitz swallowed one cup of coffee after the other, eating nothing. “Make a good meal, Oskar. We’ve a long way before us.”

“You ought to eat something, too, madam.”

“No, thank you, Herr Pagel.… Oskar knew Violet; he will help me to find her. How old was Violet, Oskar, when you left Neulohe to be apprenticed?”

“Eight.”

“At least he will drive as I want, isn’t that so, Oskar?”

“Of course, Frau von Prackwitz. Always very slowly and looking at everyone. I understand. I read about it in the papers.”

Frau von Prackwitz shut her eyes for a moment. Then she said emphatically to Pagel, “I noticed quite clearly how unwillingly this man Finger drove as I wished him to. You all now do what I want unwillingly—you too, Herr Pagel!”

He moved away.

She said, “For goodness sake, let me do what I want. Isn’t it me who’s lost a daughter, after all? If only one of you had been clever enough before! But being clever now? What’s the point of that?”

Pagel was silent.

When they had at last driven off it was after six and quite dark. Wolfgang hadn’t been able to understand why they didn’t go direct to Neulohe instead of by a long roundabout way; why, in spite of the darkness, they seldom drove faster than fifteen miles an hour; why they had to stop again and again while Frau Eva went a few paces into some unknown wood. Wolfgang understood nothing of all that.

Perhaps she just wanted to be alone. Perhaps she only stood there waiting in the dark night, till the engine noise in her body had died away, and the beating of her own heart was again palpable. Did she think that if she felt her own true self that she would feel her daughter, once a part of that self, as well?

Did she stand there awaiting some vision in which they would come through the wood—he and she, the lost ones? Did she see him in front, his bloodless face lowered, the thin-lipped mouth compressed—and her daughter half a pace behind with closed eyes, still in sleep, as the mother had last seen her? Did she see the two wandering homeless over a cold and alien earth, where no hospitable door opened to them, no friendly word ever reached them?

It had been only a little while ago that Pagel had informed her that everything was different from what she feared, that no furtive lover was to be sought for, that the enemy was the manservant. “But that is impossible! I’ll never believe that,” she had cried.

Then she had believed it. She saw the two of them—and it seemed to her that they must eternally be together without a word, each silently chained to the other by the same hellish torment. She saw the pair so plainly that she imagined the servant must be wearing gray gym shoes with grooved rubber soles and Violet a man’s faded overcoat above a dress which did not fit properly because he had put it on while she slept.

Oh, those men, those police, those people from the Public Prosecutor, with their important airs, always ringing up, sending messages, wanting to know this, or measure some shoe! They would never find Violet, she was certain. She alone would meet the girl, some day or other. It didn’t matter where she waited. It just had to be outside—sometime, when the right moment came, she would be on the right spot. Hadn’t those people even wanted to carry out a kind of search of Violet’s room, fingerprints on the windowsill, a hunt for letters? She hadn’t allowed it, but simply locked the room. What was the good of such investigations now? Violet’s room belonged to her mother; when she came home utterly exhausted from her excursions, too tired even to weep, she would, after quickly looking at Achim, unlock the door and sit down by the bed. First she threw an anxious look at the window. But this was locked fast. She hadn’t been careless. Her daughter could sleep on undisturbed. She lay in her bed. Gradually the mother went to sleep too, in the wicker chair next to the empty bed—wishes became dreams! Eventually she slept soundly. Only the next day, when she awoke, did she change, wash herself, and prepare herself for the new day. These mornings, which filled her whole room with a wretched gray pallor, when the childish squabbling of the Rittmeister and his caregiver could be heard so embarrassingly clearly, and when, after the oblivion of sleep, the sense of her loss made itself felt like a consuming fire in her slowly awaking brain … But then there was the car, she would set out at once; she must hurry, the reunion with her daughter was perhaps close at hand. That foolish pedant of a Studmann had no idea what this car meant to her! It was the bridge into the future, her only hope. Yes, indeed. He had asked for a very urgent, hurried and private interview with her, but here she was standing in the wood and it was nine or ten o’clock. He didn’t understand that you don’t leave someone who’s been struck down by misfortune—! Perhaps she was only standing there because he was waiting for her!

Eventually she got back into the car again, and told the driver to continue. Neulohe approached, and then it really was ten o’clock.

Passing through the little town of Meienburg, she had asked to stop again. She was dying of hunger! There was a good hotel here, The Prince of Prussia; she had often been there as a young girl, with her parents.

It was a long time before she could make up her mind what to order; nothing on the menu was exactly right. She ordered wine, all the time watching Pagel out of the corner of her eye. He had said that he wasn’t hungry. He was almost surly—oh, how transparent people had become to her! She saw that he knew about the interview promised Herr von Studmann. Perhaps he knew a good deal more, of glances, certain words, of hopes. A woman can never have any idea how much men confess to one another; it is unimaginable.… Yes, young Pagel was dying of impatience on behalf of his friend; couldn’t he think of her for once? That she perhaps had reasons for hesitating, for waiting? He just didn’t think of her.

She drank a glass or two of wine and also ate a little. Then she got the waiter to unlock the veranda, unused in winter. She stood there a while—tables were piled on one another, the small garden could not be seen, nor the meadows and poplars on the bank of the little river.

At her side stood young Pagel. He didn’t understand why she had had to come here. “I came with Achim on our first outing together, just after we were engaged,” she said in a low voice, on going out. And she turned round to look again. The veranda showed no trace of the almost twenty years which lay between. A whole marriage had slipped by since then, a child had been born, more than a war had been lost. Vanished youth, forgotten laughter—gone forever!

Quieted, she had returned to her table; broodingly she turned the stem of the wineglass in her fingers. She could tell by young Pagel’s manner that he was no longer impatient or sulky or urgent—he had understood.

It is simply not true that youth is intolerant—a genuine young person will immediately understand a genuine feeling.

It had been after midnight when they arrived in Neulohe. “Please tell your friend,” she said, “that I will ring him up early tomorrow as soon as I can see him.”

Studmann without a movement had listened to the message. “I always thought, Pagel, that reliability was a desirable quality in this world,” said he, smiling a little miserably. “Be everything you like, however, but not reliable!” He looked old and tired. “I wrote to Frau von Prackwitz this evening. She will find the letter over there. Well, I’ll wait till tomorrow.”

Morning came. After breakfast Studmann had stayed in the office, not bothering about the farm. At first he tried to keep up the impression that he was working—then he gave that up altogether, a miserable person waiting for sentence.…

However, he didn’t go up to his room. He stayed in his office and walked up and down. His eyes, which now and then involuntarily fell upon the telephone, betrayed what he was thinking. Perhaps she’ll ring after all?

Pagel lay down to sleep, listening to the other man going up and down, up and down, while he himself went to sleep.

At half-past ten Pagel saw the great car drive through Neulohe. He hurried to the office. “Frau von Prackwitz wasn’t here? Hasn’t she rung up?”

“No. Why?”

“The car’s just gone out.”

Studmann seized the telephone. This time his hand did not tremble nor his voice falter. “Studmann here—may I speak to Frau von Prackwitz please? … She’s just gone out? … Good. Did she leave a message? … Yes, inquire please. I’ll hold on.” He sat there, his head bowed. “Yes, here.… Only that she’s not coming back today? Nothing else? … Thank you very much.”

He put the receiver down and spoke to Pagel without looking at him. “What was it Frau von Prackwitz told you yesterday evening?” Studmann stretched himself, almost smiling. “I’ve fallen down the stairs again, my dear Pagel, only somewhat more painfully than in the hotel.… Nevertheless I’m firmly convinced that there’s a spot somewhere in the world where absolute reliability is valued. I have decided to accept a situation open to me a long time. I will work in Dr. Schröck’s sanatorium. I am sure that the patients there will know how to value thorough reliability, evenness of temperament and inexhaustible patience.”

Pagel stared at a Studmann who now wished to be the nursemaid of neuropathics and hypochondriacs; was he speaking ironically? Oh, he was absolutely in earnest, never more so. He was not inclined to go along with the madness of this mad era, to be mad himself. Tirelessly, he continued without despairing. He’d certainly experienced a setback, a hope had escaped him, but he bore it. “I’m not a ladies’ man,” he went on. “I’m not fitted for their society. I’m too methodical, too correct—somehow I make them desperate. Once, a long while ago”—a vague gesture to indicate in what nebulous distance it lay—“I was engaged once. I was younger then, perhaps more flexible. Well, she broke off the engagement, all of a sudden. I was very much surprised—‘It’s just as if I’m going to marry an alarm clock,’ she told me. ‘You are absolutely reliable, you don’t go fast or slow, you ring exactly at the right time—you’re simply enough to drive one mad!’—Do you understand that, Pagel?”

Pagel had listened with a polite, interested expression, a trifle unsympathetic. This was the same Studmann who, when he himself was in trouble, had brusquely repelled every confidence.

The setback must have hit him hard. The solution probably came to him as a complete surprise this time, too.

“Well, Pagel,” said the changed and chatty Studmann, “you’re a different type of person. You don’t really live in a straight line—more hither and thither, up and down. You like to take yourself by surprise. I … I hate surprises!” His voice became a little icy and contrary. Pagel thought Studmann considered surprises above all vulgar, and therefore found them despicable. However, even at this urgent moment, Herr von Studmann did not pursue his intimate revelations. He soon returned to play the caring friend.

“You will be alone here now, Pagel. But I’m afraid not for long. I am sure that Frau von Prackwitz is mistaken in her judgment of her father. The rent ought absolutely to have been paid, on legal and personal grounds. Well, you’ll soon know all about that and will, I hope, inform me by letter. My interest remains the same. And should there come a change—over in the Villa—and I am really needed—well, you’ll let me know, won’t you?”

“Of course. But when are you going, then, Herr von Studmann? Surely not soon?”

“At once. That is, by the afternoon train, I think. I got in touch from Berlin with Herr Geheimrat Schröck.”

“And you won’t say good-by to Frau von Prackwitz?”

“I will leave a few lines behind for her. That reminds me, my dear Pagel; I will fix up your business at the same time.”

“What business? There’s nothing unsettled that I know of.”

“Oh, it’ll occur to you. And if not, I’m all for reliability in settlements, as I told you.”

And so Studmann had departed, a man of merit, a reliable friend, but a little withered; an unlucky fellow who thought himself a cornerstone of the universe. And, of course, in that business which he had wanted to fix up for Pagel he made a rare mess of things.

“What’s this I hear?” Frau Eva had asked next morning, highly indignant. “My husband has a debt of honor to you of two thousand marks in foreign money? What’s the meaning of that?”

It had been really painful for young Pagel. Secretly he cursed a friend who had not been able to omit speaking of that matter in a farewell letter to the woman of his heart. In these difficult times! Flatly he had left Studmann in the lurch. The matter had long ago been settled between him and the Rittmeister. Incidentally it had never been a question of two thousand marks. A very debatable matter—half a drinking debt, traveling expenses, he couldn’t remember just what. But, as mentioned, settled long ago.

Frau von Prackwitz looked at him steadfastly. “Why are you lying to me?” she said. “Herr von Studmann, a great psychologist, at least in business matters, foresaw that you would feel embarrassed about this affair. It’s a matter then of two thousand gold marks which you lent Herr von Prackwitz at roulette, isn’t it?”

“The devil take Studmann! I settle my affairs myself. Moreover, the police confiscated all the stake-money without exception—it was all lost!”

“Why are you embarrassed about money? You mustn’t be. Perhaps in this respect I have inherited my father’s practical sense.”

“I’m not here because of money,” Pagel had said sullenly. “Although it really looks like it now.”

“I’m pleased,” she said quietly, “if Neulohe has at least done someone good.”

“I can’t give you the money now, as you know, but I won’t forget it. Then Herr von Studmann wrote that there is also the question of your salary to be settled.” Pagel raged inwardly. “Up to now you have received only a sort of pocket money. That, of course, is impossible. I have thought it over—my father’s officials always had roughly ten hundredweights of rye in monthly wages. You will pay out to yourself from now on the value of two and a half hundredweights of rye weekly.”

“I’m not a skilled agriculturalist. There ought to be a bailiff here.”

“I don’t want to see any new faces now. Don’t you make things hard for me, too, Herr Pagel! You’ll do what I told you, won’t you?”

He took her hand.

“And please see to business matters for the moment exactly as you think, without asking me everything. Perhaps my husband will recover much quicker than we think.”

“I’m afraid, though, it won’t work. It’s too much, and I’ve no experience whatever.”

“Oh, yes, it will,” she had nodded. “Once you are acquainted with the work, we shall hardly miss Herr von Studmann.” Poor Studmann! This was his valediction from a woman whom he had reverenced and perhaps even loved. However, it can well be assumed that Studmann’s farewell letter contained not only business matters, like issues of salary and gambling debts, but also the type of emotional language that seems to refer rather to men’s wounded pride than to their unrequited love, which women always find so insulting and so ridiculous. But then, from her point of view, she might well say that she had been deserted in the hour of her greatest distress, because she had insisted that two payments should be made in a different order from that which he desired. She might also add that this friend had tactlessly wished to force on her a discussion of emotional matters at a time when her daughter was in peril and her husband dangerously ill.

No, if things were looked at from the woman’s standpoint, any woman’s, then Studmann was completely in the wrong. From a business point of view, however, he was now beginning to prove himself right.

“Well, my dear old friend,” he wrote in that letter which Wolfgang had stuffed into his pocket before the scene with Sophie, “no, dear young friend would be more correct, I am getting on excellently with Dr. Schröck. A droll creature, the old boy! But an organization which runs like a clock.… You ought to see the diet kitchen here, my dear Pagel. The best-conducted Berlin hotel can’t compare with such precision in weighing out, preparation, serving up. By the way, I have become a complete vegetarian; no more tobacco or alcohol. Somehow this seems to suit my whole constitution better, and I am astonished that I didn’t think of it before. Just consider for yourself—tobacco came to us from South America, Central America—tropical lands. And alcohol—that is, wine—from Palestine, according to the Bible—and thus cannot be suited to our northern character. But in no sense do I want to convert you! All the same, I must say however …” And so on and so on for four pages, to the memorable postscript: “Has the Geheimrat still not stirred himself about his rent? I should be very surprised.”

Pagel, constantly damper on his bale of straw, sighed. He lit a cigarette. Well, Studmann need not be surprised any longer; Studmann was right. The Geheimrat had stirred himself about his rent. He had, in fact, stirred himself most maliciously. And the first steps would be followed by others; the affair would come to a crisis. Get out! Your affectionate father!

It is in the nature of every man, especially of a young one, not to like working for something which is a failure. The deep discouragement which had seized hold of Pagel at the sight of a few rusting shovels undoubtedly came from this in the main. If the Geheimrat was going to write finish to the whole business in two or three weeks, all this rushing around wasn’t any longer amusing. No, thank you! Pagel wouldn’t stir a finger. Pagel wouldn’t bother himself anymore. Especially not for this declining patch of the German Reich, consisting of so many regions and fifty-four different parties! Good night!

As a proprietor, as a lessor, one couldn’t assert that the Geheimrat was in the wrong. It was a devilish thing that most people in most things were simultaneously in the right and in the wrong. The tenant undoubtedly had failed to meet his financial obligations, permitting himself expensive tastes that encumbered a property which he mismanaged with unskilled assistance; moreover he was no longer capable of business. Devil take it, what lessor wouldn’t be scared to death at having such a tenant?

If, on the other hand, one considered that the old landlord was very rich, that the real tenant was his daughter, and that at the moment she was in a pretty bad way, then again the lessor was damnably in the wrong. But, thought Pagel, it’s also not at all like the disagreeable old boy to start this business with the forester so utterly without reason. He himself knows that he is socially, as a gentleman, done for in the whole district if he now makes it impossible for his daughter to carry on the farm, and puts her, so to speak, out on the street.… No, this bolt couldn’t have come from a clear sky. There must have been something else before. It was a damned nuisance, that one had promised the forester not to speak about the letter to Frau von Prackwitz.

Pagel got up from his bale of straw. He was an idiot; he ought to have looked through the private letters which Amanda took to the Villa. Perhaps there was a letter from the Geheimrat among them; almost certainly his daughter would neither have read nor replied to it. Nowadays she did little but drive through the world in a car. I certainly saw a pretty good bundle of letters lying unopened on her desk, he thought. I can tell if there’s something from the old boy by the postmark, and the handwriting. Then I could somehow approach the business from that side.

He walked up and down. A spade, there to make his life burdensome, was roughly kicked aside.

Oh, my God, he thought, I don’t want to have worked here, damn it all, for nothing. I don’t want to have merely sat dawdling here till Peter called me back. I want to have done something, to have laid down some little stone or other which the old fellow won’t overturn immediately. Another, a more pleasurable thought occurred to him. His cigarette flew in an arch over the next potato clamp and went out in the night. Away with sinful, tropical nicotine! I have, at least, done something that’s not so bad; I’ve packed our secret overseer Kniebusch off to bed for the next twenty-six weeks. That’s settled the veto on carts in the woods and the control of sales, my dear Geheimrat. You wanted to be so cunning. You began by taking away his work in the forest and his tree-cutting, with a secretive hint about imminent financial developments. But I’ve been even more cunning. I’ve taken everything from him: the forest as well as the spying.

The brief hour of discouragement had passed. No longer does he feel exhausted and flat. He’s a young man whose work suits him and who wants to bring it to a good end! With rapid steps Pagel made for the farm.

VII

But he did not get to the office at once. On the swiftest paths something always intervenes. This time it was the local veterinary surgeon, Herr Hoffart, whom the stableman had called in during Pagel’s absence; the Rittmeister’s saddle horse, an English thoroughbred mare called Mabel, had been foaling since the morning. Her throes came again and again, but the birth was no nearer.

Everything appropriate had been done: her box had been curtained off, because horses in foal are shamefaced and cannot bear to be observed by a human being; a curious glance can delay birth for hours. But this seclusion was now over. When Pagel and the vet entered the box the mare threw them a bloodshot look which spoke of torture and pleaded for help. As with human beings, shame had disappeared when pain became unbearable.

“Half an hour ago I could still hear the foal’s heartbeats. Now there’s nothing, and I’m convinced it’s dead. Very likely it has strangled itself in the navel string. I was called in too late, unfortunately.” Hoffart had the resigned air of one who is accustomed to having to enter every death as a debit in his accounts.

“And what is to be done?” asked Pagel, more interested in the beast’s misery than in a question of guilt.

“I have had a look,” said the vet, relieved and eager. “Unfortunately the mare is very narrow. I shall have to cut up the foal inside and fetch it out piecemeal. That, at least, would save the mare.”

“It’s only a broken-down thoroughbred. The Rittmeister’s said to have bought it from some racing stable or other for a couple of hundred marks. But he was very fond of her. I know what, Herr Hoffart,” said Pagel briskly, “have patience for another quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, and I’ll inform you then.”

“The throes have almost stopped and the heart’s very feeble. Is there someone here, at least, who can prepare a strong coffee for the horse? I’ll also give her a camphor injection.… But it must be done quickly.”

“It will be. I’ll send the coffee over to you. How much? A wine bottle full? Good.” Pagel ran across to the staff-house.

In the darkness somebody spoke to him, blocking his way. It was Black Minna, moaning something about madam, about Sophie.… He ran past her into the office.… Giving Amanda instructions about the coffee, he got through to the panel doctor. The doctor could not come. In the doorway appeared Black Minna and began again to blubber out something.… Furiously he waved her aside. But the doctor decided to come after all; he’d be at the office at nine or half-past and would like Pagel to show him the way to the forester’s house. Pagel called to Amanda: “Well, you get the coffee quickly to the stables,” and darted past the two women into the night. No doubt Minna really had some complaint, demand or warning, but he had no time to listen now. He had to go further. Behind his back, he couldn’t help feeling that a fine spat was brewing between the women. He had told the vet a quarter of an hour, and five minutes of that were already gone.

The Rittmeister’s attendant let him into the Villa, an elderly, somewhat fat man, with a few graying wisps of hair on his skull. He always wore, as if he were in an institution, a jacket with white and blue stripes, leather sandals, and baggy gray trousers which had obviously never been pressed since they were bought. Pagel liked the placid man. Schümann had related to him what he had told no one, not even the wife, not even the doctor. “I don’t believe,” he had whispered, “that the Rittmeister is so ill, mentally ill, as the doctor thinks. He has had a shock—but deranged? No! He can’t speak, he smiles at everything one says to him—but he’s only pretending! He doesn’t want to speak, he doesn’t want to see or hear anything more; he’s had enough of the world, that’s what it is! He can talk in his sleep …”

“But isn’t that illness?” Pagel had asked.

“Perhaps; I don’t know. Perhaps he’s only cowardly and discouraged. At first he was quite able to quarrel with me when he wanted his alcohol. Later he would only speak to beg for sleeping draughts, and when we also made him do without those, then he said to himself: There’s no point in talking, they won’t give me anything, so I’ll shut my mouth …”

“So, Herr Schümann, do you think he still wouldn’t drink anything, if he wasn’t being supervised?”

“That’s always difficult, Herr Pagel. You never know with such people! If everything went smoothly, perhaps he’d get through without drinking. But if he heard something unpleasant—and he hears everything, he’s so alert—then it’s possible he’d cave in again. That’s why I’m still here.”

“Well, what’s the Rittmeister doing?” asked Pagel now. “Is he in bed? Is he up? Is madam at home?”

“Madam’s gone out. The Rittmeister is up; I put on his collar and tie, and now he’s reading.”

“Reading?” Pagel found it difficult to imagine Prackwitz reading, even in health, unless it was the newspaper.

Herr Schümann grinned slightly. “If you hadn’t told me that he had passed a few weeks this summer as a shooting guest in a madhouse I should undoubtedly have been fooled.” The attendant did not hide his smile now. “I sat him in his study, I thrust a copy of Illustrated Sport in his hand, I said to him: ‘Herr Rittmeister, have a look at the pictures’—I was interested to see what he’d do. Naturally he immediately thinks of the lunatics he’s met and he’s not content till he has the magazine upside down. He kept on peeping at the same page, frowning, muttering—and only when I said—‘Herr Rittmeister, the next page!’—did he turn over.”

“But what’s the point of all that?” asked Pagel somewhat indignant.

“He’s pretending to be mad!” Herr Schümann giggled. “He’s very delighted to think how well he does it. When he believes I’m not looking he gives a side glance to see if I’m taking notice of what he’s doing.”

“But we’d leave him alone, without these stupid tricks!” said Pagel angrily.

“You wouldn’t! He’s right there. Once you noticed he’s in his senses you’d demand that he should think a bit about his affairs, bother about money; madam would expect him to grieve about his daughter, to assist. But that’s just what he doesn’t want. He’s run dry, has nothing more to give.”

“Then he is ill after all,” cried Pagel. “Well, we shall see. Listen, Herr Schümann.” And he expounded his plan.

“One can try,” said the attendant thoughtfully. “Of course, if it turns out badly we’ll both get it in the neck—from the doctor as well as madam. Well, come in, we’ll soon see how he reacts.”

It was a pitiable sight, and also a very shameful one—if the Rittmeister was not really so ill as he pretended. There he sat in one of his irreproachable English suits, his eyes dark as ever, but hair and eyebrows snow-white. His formerly brown face looked yellow. He had a newspaper in his hand and was chuckling with delight over it. The paper shook in his hand and his whole body shook with it.

“Herr Rittmeister!” said the attendant. “Please put down the paper. You must dress and go out a little.”

For a moment it looked as if the white bushy eyebrows were drawn closer together—then a fresh chuckle seized the man and the newspaper rustled.

“Herr Rittmeister,” said Pagel, “your mare, Mabel, is foaling. But it’s not going well and the vet is there. He says the foal is dead and the mare will peg out, too. Won’t you have a look?”

With wrinkled brows the Rittmeister stared at his paper; he had stopped chuckling and appeared to contemplate a picture.

“Come along, Herr Rittmeister,” said the attendant at last, amiably. “Give me the newspaper.”

The Rittmeister, of course, heard nothing, and so it was taken from his hands. He was led into the hall, an overcoat put on him, and a cap. Then they left the house.

“Please take my arm, Herr Rittmeister,” said the attendant with mild, somewhat professional, affability. “Herr Pagel, will you also give Herr Rittmeister your arm?—Walking must be very troublesome for you; you have been very ill, of course.” Almost imperceptibly the emphasis was on “been.”

Perhaps it was chance, perhaps the sick man had felt the emphasis, had considered it a challenge; he began to chuckle again. Then he walked on silently, swaying between the two men. They were close to the village when Pagel noticed that the Rittmeister’s arm was trembling in his; the whole man shook. Something like fear in regard to his venture threatened the young man. “You are trembling a lot—are you cold, Herr Rittmeister?” he said at last.

The Rittmeister, of course, did not reply. But the attendant had well understood what was in Pagel’s mind. “That won’t help us now, Herr Pagel,” he said. “We can’t turn back now. We must go through with it.”

They crossed the yard, they entered the stable. In the faces of those who stood there could be seen fright. The Rittmeister was, according to gossip, insane. And now the madman had come to them in the stable!

“Everybody outside!” Pagel ordered. “Only you, stableman, and, if you like, you, Amanda, can stay. Shut the stable door.” Thank goodness the vet behaved very sensibly. “Good evening, Herr Rittmeister,” he said calmly, and stepped a little to one side, leaving the entrance to the box free.

It seemed to Pagel as if he had felt a slight tug on his arm. Yes, the Rittmeister drew near the box, they need not hold him; he stood there by himself.

The horse lay on her side, legs stretched out. She turned her head with its sad, helpless eyes. She had recognized her master, and whinnied feebly as if expecting only from him the help which did not come.

“Since I gave the mare coffee and camphor,” reported the vet, “the throes have become stronger, and the heart’s quite good now. I almost thought I heard feeble heartbeats from the foal again, but I may be mistaken.”

There was a general silence.

What was the Rittmeister doing? He had taken off his overcoat, he looked round. The stableman—all were quiet, very quiet—took the coat. Rittmeister von Prackwitz also removed his jacket; the stableman took it. He fumbled with his cuff link—Amanda was there and helped him to roll up his sleeve. Yes, that was the real obstetrician’s hand, slender, with long dexterous fingers; a wrist thin as a child’s, but of steel. A long slender arm, not flesh, but of sinew, bone, muscle.

They held their breath as he knelt down behind the horse. He hesitated now, looked round displeased. What was the matter? What was lacking? Why didn’t he speak?

But the vet had understood him; he knelt down beside the Rittmeister and rubbed his arm with oil till it was smooth and supple. “A little carefully, Herr Rittmeister!” he whispered. “When the throes come, the mare will kick out; they have forgotten to unshoe her.”

The Rittmeister frowned and compressed his almost bloodless lips. Then he set about his work. His long arm disappeared to the shoulder in the mare’s body; mysteriously could be read on his face the groping and searching of his hand. Now his eyes shone with their old ardent gleam; he had found what he sought for.

Yes, yes—this Rittmeister—like a coward he had slunk away from his daughter’s shameful ruin. He had whined for alcohol and veronal. He pretended to be a lunatic. But because a horse was in distress he left his self-chosen isolation and returned to his fellow-beings; he had found something on earth which was still worth effort. Oh, my god! That’s people for you. That’s what they’re like—no better. But also, no worse!

Once or twice he had to discontinue his work. The mare kicked out in agony, but he did not withdraw his arm; he ducked down, for the throes which endangered him were also of help in releasing the fruit from the mother. His face had turned crimson; with all his power he withstood the throes which were forcing his arm, too, with enormous strength out of the mare’s body. Pagel got down on the straw beside him, supporting with his shoulder the shoulder of the Rittmeister—and was met by a glance which was certainly not that of an idiot, though perhaps of someone who had suffered unutterably.…

As the foal’s hoofs appeared, a stir went round the bystanders. See! now came the delicate silky muzzle; the head, the shoulders, followed only slowly. Then, swiftly, came the very long body—and the foal lay as if lifeless on the ground. The vet, kneeling down, examined it. “Living,” he said.

Up jumped the Rittmeister, swaying. “Just hold firmly to me, Herr Rittmeister,” said the attendant. “That was rather a lot for the beginning.” And the Rittmeister understood and held fast.

Amanda Backs advanced with a basin and warm water; she washed the Rittmeister’s blood-stained arm as if that also was something newborn and easily damaged. Then Herr von Prackwitz walked from the stable, led by the two men, went without looking at a person, without a word, with dragging feet as though he were already asleep. Slowly they passed between the farm buildings. Then, as the October wind, blowing from the woods, sprang at them with all its freshness, the Rittmeister came to a stop. A spasm shook his body and Joachim von Prackwitz said the first word after a long silence. It was only an exclamation, a cry of lament, of despair, of recollection—who knows? “My God!” he cried.

And after a while they went on their way again, the sick man walking heavily between them. Pagel helped to bring him to his bedroom; then, when the attendant started to undress Prackwitz, he went downstairs.

In the hall he sat for a time inactive. He was exhausted, but he had done a thing right and good. He thought of something, however, and, after a knock or two, went into Frau Eva’s room. As soon as he turned on the light he saw the piles of letters on the desk. He had a slight repugnance to overcome, but in life one couldn’t do only the things which were agreeable. He looked for the foreign stamp and postmark, but he glanced through the first pile in vain; the second also. There was nothing, either, in the third. As he put down the fourth and last, with as little result, his eye fell on a note pad. Without wishing to read it, he had done so. “Write to father” was written there. He returned to the hall.

That note could mean anything; Frau Eva might have thought herself of writing to her father, but equally she might not want to forget to reply. He’d conducted this rather depressing little rummage in vain, and didn’t know quite how to continue, but only knew that he must.…

A little later the attendant came down. “He went to sleep at once. It was really a bit too much for him. Well, we must wait and see. Will you tell madam?”

“Oh, yes. One of us must tell her. She ought not to hear about it from others.”

Herr Schümann looked thoughtful. “I tell you what, Herr Pagel. It was your doing, of course; but I’ll tell her and take the responsibility.” And when Pagel made a gesture: “I’ve heard there’s some gossip going round. Women are funny, you know; at least I’ll take that off your shoulders.” He smiled. “Of course, if it’s gone all right with the Rittmeister I shall get the credit.…”

“I can guess what’s up now,” said Pagel annoyed. “Just let them come to me, that’s all!”

“Don’t worry yourself about it, Herr Pagel. Well, good night for the present.”

“Good night.” Pagel set out again for the staff-house. It was after eight. Amanda would already be waiting with her evening meal. He had endless business mail to deal with and he also wanted to write his mother. The doctor was coming, he had to go to the forester, and he had to see to the foals. But he’d rather go straight to bed—and there’s chattering in the corridor! Give us peace, dear Lord, give us peace!

If only others were peaceful.…

VIII

It was now after ten. Pagel sat in front of his books; sick-fund contributions must be reckoned up, wage-tax stamps stuck on, and the cash book had to be somehow brought into agreement with the cashbox. All these were almost insuperable difficulties for a tired man; and in addition it was getting more and more difficult about the money. He would reckon out a laborer’s wage exactly according to the scale—so-and-so many millions and milliards. But he couldn’t give him the money; there weren’t enough notes! He had to take some large denomination, one of those rubbishy 100- or 200-milliard-mark notes, and call in four men. “Here, each of you take a corner, it belongs to you in common. As a matter of fact it’s a bit too much, I don’t know exactly, two or three milliards; but off with you into the town! Make your purchases together; you’ll have to come to an agreement somehow. Curse me if you like—I can’t get any other money.”

All right, they would go at last and find some tradesman who changed their note for them. But where could Pagel find someone to help him out with his own accounts? Oh, he was a great man, he had a weekly salary of two and a half hundredweights of rye—but that amount was regularly missing from his accounts. Often much more. Little Meier certainly never wrote so many incorrect figures in his cash book. If an accountant ever saw them—off to prison with this embezzler!

He propped his head in his hands; the wilderness of figures was sickening; there was something unclean in this parade of ever more astronomical numbers. Every small man a millionaire—but all we millionaires would yet starve! What had the doctor said to the forester just now? “We shall soon be having billion notes—a billion is a thousand milliards—it can’t go any higher! Then we shall get a stable currency, you’ll be pensioned off—and till then you can stay snugly in bed.”

“Shall we really have decent money again?” the forester had asked anxiously. “Shall I live to see it? I would truly like to see the day, Herr Doctor, when one can go into a shop again and the tradesman sells something without looking at the money in a fury, as if one’s a swindler.”

“You will certainly live to see it, old fellow!” the doctor had reassured him, tucking up the blankets under the forester’s chin. But outside he had said to Pagel: “See that the old man doesn’t take to his bed altogether. Give him some little job so that he can putter around. Utterly tired out and used up! How he ever ran about the woods for ten hours every day beats me. Once he’s properly on his back he won’t get up again, that’s certain.”

“So he won’t live to see the end of this inflation? I know from school that there are billiards and trillions and quadrillions and …”

“Come to a stop, man!” cried out the doctor, “or I’ll strike you down immediately with my reflex hammer! You want to go through all this misery? Such an appetite for life, young man, could give one indigestion!”

“No,” he whispered, “I have it from a man in the bank—the dollar will be stabilized at four hundred and twenty milliards.”

“Oh, I’ve heard that sort of talk the last half-year. I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Young man,” had declared the doctor solemnly, his eyes flashing behind his glasses, “let me tell you this. On the day when the dollar goes above four hundred and twenty milliards I’ll put on a mask and chloroform myself out of this life. Because then I shall have had enough of it.”

“So,” said Pagel, “we’ll speak together later.”

“Not as you think,” shouted the doctor angrily. “You modern youth are disgusting! Even hundred-year-old men weren’t as cynical as that in my time!”

“So when exactly was your time, Herr Doctor?” asked Pagel, grinning. “Pretty much a long time ago, eh?”

“I mistrusted you from the very beginning,” said the doctor sadly and climbed into his OpelLaubfrosch, “when you so shamefacedly asked me just how long the man could have been dead.”

“Quiet please, Doctor!”

“All right, I agree. On this point I’m a cynic myself. It’s the profession. Good night. And, as I said, if the dollar isn’t stabilized at four hundred and twenty.…

“Then we’ll wait a little longer,” Pagel shouted after the departing doctor.

It would have been good if there had been a coffee in the office, but there was naturally none at this time of night. Amanda Backs had long gone to bed. However, Pagel had once again underestimated Amanda: Coffees stood on the table. Unfortunately the coffee was no longer in a state to really cheer him up, or else Pagel was simply too tired. In any case, he sat, miserable, over his books. He got no further, wanted to go to bed, but wanted nevertheless to write to his mother, and tortured his conscience with the sentence: If I’m not too tired to write to Mama, I can’t be too tired to finish the wage-books.

This strange sentence, lacking all logic, a distortion of an overtired mind, tortured the young Pagel so persistently that he was unable either to do his accounts or write, and couldn’t sleep either. Eventually, he sank into a condition of semi-conscious misery and dazed numbness in which horrible thoughts crept into his mind. Doubts about life, doubts about himself, doubts about Petra.

“Damnation!” he cried and stood up. “I’d prefer to spring into the worthy Geheimrat’s swannery and take the coldest bath of my life than sit around here gloomy and sleepy-headed.”

And in this moment the telephone rang. A hurried feminine voice, familiar and yet strange, desired that Herr Pagel would come at once to the Villa; madam wished to speak to him.

“I’ll come at once,” he replied. Who was the woman who had spoken? Her voice had sounded disguised.

It was a quarter to eleven. Rather a little late, surely, for a man who got up at five, at half-past four, at four! Well, there was trouble again over there. The business with the Rittmeister had gone badly, or Frau Eva had at last learned something about Violet; or she only wanted to know how many potatoes had been dug up that day—she was often like that. At times she was her father’s daughter, and then she thought she had to supervise her young employee. Whistling happily, Pagel wandered through the estate out to the Villa. Although he was supposed to go straight to Madam, he made a detour via the stables. The Ostler was startled—but everything was in perfect order. The stallion was back in his stall and turned round to look at Pagel with its lively eyes. The foal with the unbelievably long legs was asleep. And Pagel sent the Ostler off to bed too.

Frau Eva herself opened the door. She had changed greatly in the last weeks. Her daily trips with their harrowing senseless hopes, their apathetic returns, the agonizing uncertainty day in day out, to which the worst certainty would have been preferable—all this had laid its mark on her features. Her eye, formerly so amiable and feminine, had now a dry burning glance. But it was not only this. Now that she no longer took care of herself or ate regularly, her skin had become flabby.… Formerly she had been able to laugh pleasantly, a woman in harmony with herself and the world; her voice had sweetness and vibration. Now it sounded as if her throat were parched. Her angry eyes examined him. “I am very sorry, Herr Pagel, but I can’t possibly put up with it. I have heard today that you are having affairs with women and taking advantage of your position to force girls …”

Oh, the poor transformed woman! “I’m very sorry.” Oh, no. She was furious. This woman who only a few weeks ago had been ready to close a smiling eye to everything must now revenge her daughter on men. Everything was dirty wherever she looked; but she wouldn’t put up with it in her neighborhood!

Pagel smiled; wrinkles appeared in the corners of his eyes. He couldn’t understand how a woman prostrate with anxiety for her family could still lend an ear to gossip.… Smilingly he shook his head. “No, madam,” he said, “I’m quite sure that I’m having no affairs with women.”

“But I was told so!” she cried. “You have …”

“Why should we listen to lies?” he asked, still amiably. “Seeing that I have no affairs with women whatever? I’d really rather we didn’t talk about such things, madam.”

Frau Eva made an impatient gesture. Some hatred or fury was driving her to tell that young fellow to his face what she had heard about him. And she wished to hear explanations, excuses—most of all a confession.

Pagel, however, swung round; he had understood why this conversation was taking place in the hall. Yes, Sophie Kowalewski stood where the kitchen stairs went down into the basement. She made to hide herself, but it was too late. Doubtless it was she who had phoned. “Come out, Sophie,” he called. “You’re the only one from whom I’d like to hear the story. Please relate in front of madam what you did so that you wouldn’t have to dig potatoes.”

Frau Eva flushed and made a gesture to stop him. But Pagel had walked toward the girl, not at all fiercely, but pleasantly. “Now, Sophie,” he said. “Come, my girl, talk, talk! Or better still, let madam see how you tried to show me your knees.”

And then it was shown that Sophie Kowalewski was not complete, either in goodness or in evil. She had slipped up and fallen into bad ways—beautiful, wrong, but not even really that bad. She hadn’t the courage even for her malice; she was cowardly. She screamed, ran down the kitchen stairs, and a door slammed.

Pagel turned back. He now showed nothing more of a bragging unconcern, but spoke in explanation, almost in excuse. “As a matter of fact, I had told her to appear early tomorrow for the potato harvest. Her laziness is a bad example to the village.”

Frau von Prackwitz looked at him. The flush of anger and shame had left her face, but not completely. Something remained, a hint of a healthier color. No, life—despite everything—was not just old, ugly and stale, it could still also be young, fresh and clean. Almost apologetically she said: “I’ve taken on Sophie here in the house. She offered, and I was in such a quandary. But please do come in, Herr Pagel.” She led the way, a little disconcerted. Shouldn’t she be ashamed? Her lack of belief, her doubt—they were so ugly compared to his belief and rectitude. “I didn’t know the circumstances,” she explained.

“Sophie will certainly be better suited to housework than to potato digging. The main thing is that she shouldn’t idle around any longer.”

“But to make up for it I have dismissed Black Minna,” reported Frau Eva guiltily. “The woman’s so ghastly.”

Pagel’s mouth had shut tightly; the lazy one got the good situation and the diligent, who worked herself to death, had to return to the icy potatoes. But there was no sense in arguing about it with Frau Eva. The good-looking Sophie pleased her better. “I’ll employ Minna, with your permission, in the Manor,” he proposed. “It’s very neglected, and some time or other the old people will be coming back.”

“Yes, do that, Herr Pagel! I’m so grateful to you. That will certainly be the best solution.” She looked at him almost guiltily. “You’re not angry with me about just now?”

“No. No. But perhaps you will be, when I tell you that I was here in your room a few hours ago,” he said a little embarrassed. “I was looking for a particular letter. I didn’t want to read it or anything, I only wanted to see if it was there. Then by mistake I read the note “Write to Father” on your notepad. I felt a despicable spy; but I wasn’t doing it for myself …”

“Why then? You only needed to ask me.”

“It is,” he said, annoyed and rubbing his nose, “a rather difficult case. I had intended to tell you that the forester had become bedridden and that we therefore had to write to the Geheimrat, which we will. However, it would be a fraud. The forester really is ill, but we needn’t worry about the forest on that account.”

“And what has actually happened?” she asked.

“Well, that’s the point. I’ve given my word not to tell anybody, including yourself. I had to,” he said more emphatically, “otherwise I would have learnt nothing.”

“But what happened then?” she asked uneasily. Was she always to expect new worries? She got up and walked up and down. “Can’t you tell me anything at all, Herr Pagel?”

“I should like to ask you something, madam. Has your father written to you since his departure?”

“Yes.” So it’s something to do with Father, she thought, but her tone was lighter. She didn’t take it seriously.

“Have you replied?”

“No,” she said curtly. He noticed that even the memory of the letter annoyed her. She looked at him expectantly, but he didn’t ask anything else. He seemed to have said all that he wanted to say. Finally, she decided: “Herr Pagel, I will tell you. Papa demands that I divorce the Rittmeister. He has always wished it. But can I? Can I desert him like that? Does one desert a friend in distress? Had he been in health or if I was anyway sure that he could live without me, then yes. But like this—no! Now definitely not! For better, for worse, as they say in the English marriages. I’m like that. Especially for the worse, explicitly for the worse!” Her face twitched. “Oh, Herr Pagel, I know you tried this evening to bring him back to the world. Of course, you would do that. How can something like that occur to an attendant?! I was very angry at first; you must see yourself that the poor fellow’s an invalid. Then I thought, Well, it was meant kindly. But all my father wants is for me to leave him, put him in some asylum, appoint a guardian. But we’ve lived together almost twenty years, Herr Pagel!”

“He said, ‘Oh God!’ ”

“Yes, I heard him. It doesn’t mean anything. He no longer knows what he’s saying. But you’re still young. You have hope. Oh, when I now drive round the country and see the people walking along the highroads in the frightful weather! There are so many of them, not only tramps. This terrible time makes everyone restless. This morning, there was such an icy rain, I saw two young people. The man was pushing a very old pram, and the woman was walking beside it talking to the child. I thought, My Violet is perhaps tramping round like that, but she has no child to whom she can speak, no one! Oh, Herr Pagel, what am I to do?”

“Hope,” he said.

“Ought I to? Is it right, for her sake, even to still wish she is alive? Isn’t it merely selfishness for me to hope she is still alive? Oh, I never cease to wish to find her, and at the same time I shudder from it. Herr Pagel, it’s now over four weeks she’s been away!”

“She has no will of her own,” he said softly. “One day she will find it again, and then she’ll come back.”

“Isn’t it so? You say that too? She’s still asleep. She’s still fast asleep! If you’re asleep, fast asleep, you don’t feel anything. Yes, she will come back unchanged. She will wake up in her room and believe that nothing has happened and that she went to sleep the evening before.” Frau Eva was radiant and young again. Hope and her unquenchable will to life have awoken her. She’s young again—life has abundant gifts ready for her. “I will tell you something else, Herr Pagel,” she whispered, with a glance at the door. “I’m not searching for them alone; there’s someone else, too. He stopped my car; a man with a bloated face, wearing a bowler hat—perhaps you know him?”

“Yes, I know him.”

“Don’t tell about him!” she exclaimed. “I don’t want to know. He stops my car, asks no questions, gives no greetings, only says: ‘Drive there, or there!’ Then I see him again, on some road or other in some little town; he, too, is always on his way somewhere. He only shakes his head when I look at him and goes on … Herr Pagel, if I don’t find her, he will! They talk so much about love, but hate is far stronger.”

“Yes. That man hates evil. His hate urges him on without rest.”

“It’s over four weeks now that he’s been with Violet; he must provide for her somehow or other.” This mother abominated the wretch who had made her daughter miserable, but because he permitted the girl to live she did not like to think of his falling into the hands of that pitiless fat man.

Pagel stood up. “Madam, at least don’t worry about the Geheimrat. For the moment nothing will happen. Something has intervened. Plans do exist.…”

“Yes, we’re supposed to leave this place.”

“But they can’t be carried out for the moment. If anything happens, I’ll let you know.”

He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. Then he added, “You needn’t trouble your father with a letter either. As you can’t do what he wants anyway, you could do just as well not to write him.”

“Thank you, Herr Pagel. Thank you for everything.” She gave him her hand, smiling at him. “It has done me good to talk to you.”

And with that sudden, inexplicable woman’s transition, she said, “And now, Herr Pagel, you must do me a favor too.”

“Yes, please,” he said, “gladly.”

“Don’t put up with this wretched woman Backs anymore! It’s said you eat with her and that she’s always sitting with you in the office. Oh, don’t be angry with me, Herr Pagel!” she cried hastily. “I’ve absolutely no mistrust for you. You simply haven’t noticed that the girl is in love with you.…”

“Amanda Backs is not in love with me, Madam,” said Pagel. “I only do her good because she’s been left on the shelf. What’s more, she does me good. Life in Neulohe is sometimes a bit too much for a young man like me. I sometimes like to have someone around with whom I can exchange a word.”

“Oh, God, Herr Pagel!” she cried, genuinely shocked. “I really didn’t mean that. I only meant Backs, because she’s with that Meier—and he really is horrible.…”

Pagel looked at her, but she didn’t notice. She really noticed nothing; she saw absolutely no parallels.

In the hall outside the clock struck midnight.

“Well, Herr Pagel,” she said earnestly, “see that you get to bed now. It’s really too late for you. I can believe that the work here is often a bit too much for a single person. Have a thorough sleep for once. Let the laborers manage for a bit alone; I’m agreeable to anything. Good night, Herr Pagel, and my best thanks again.”

“Good night, madam. I have to thank you.”

“A thorough sleep, then, without fail!” she called out after him.

Pagel smiled to himself in the dark. He didn’t hold it against her; in many respects this clever, alert woman was a child. By work, she always meant something like schoolwork. You can’t do much about it, but a teacher can occasionally grant a whole day free and then the children are happy! She had not yet understood (and probably never would) that life, that every day, has its tasks which no one is spared.

In the office building above, a white shadow appeared in the window. The faithful concierge was checking up on him.

“Everything shipshape, Amanda,” murmured Pagel in her direction. Sophie had put herself out in vain. “Go to sleep, get warm, and wake me tomorrow morning early at half past five—but with a coffee.”

“Good night, Herr Pagel” was heard from above.

IX

The next morning this takes place in front of the Villa:

Frau Eva is already in the car, giving Oskar directions, when the front door opens and out steps the Rittmeister, followed by his attendant. He walks with a queerly stumbling gait to the car. The attendant remains standing at the top of the steps.

Like a guilty child the Rittmeister asks: “May I drive with you, Eva?”

Frau Eva throws an astonished glance at the attendant, who nods emphatically.

“But, Achim!” she cries, “won’t it be too much for you?”

He shakes his head. His eyes are full of tears, his mouth trembles.

“Oh, Achim! Achim—I’m so happy indeed. All will be right again, you see. Sit down next to me. Herr Schümann, please help the Rittmeister into the car. Oskar, fetch another rug, the fur one. Herr Schümann, you must then go at once to Herr Pagel and tell him; he’ll be so pleased.”

The car starts. The Rittmeister makes an apologetic gesture. “Sorry, Eva,” he says quietly. And again with much effort, “I can’t speak properly yet. I don’t quite understand, but.…”

“But what do you need to speak for, Achim?” she says, taking his hand. “Surely, as long as we are together, everything will be easier?”

He nods vigorously.