Wolf Among Wolves (111 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

He made a gesture of denial.

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

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

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

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

VII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Broken anything? No,” answered Finger.

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

But he knew no answer to that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Port,” murmured the Rittmeister.

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

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

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

Rittmeister von Prackwitz was prostrate once more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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