Wolf Among Wolves (125 page)

“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?”