Wolf Among Wolves (43 page)

VIII

Sophie Kowalewski, Countess Mutzbauer’s former chambermaid, had spent a very pleasant evening at the Christian Hostel. Up to supper time she had rummaged among her things, triumphantly examining as final proprietor all that she had carried off from her former mistress, by no means a little. Sophie
could feel that she was expensively turned out. Neulohe, when it saw all this finery, would burst with envy.

Having examined her possessions, she now dressed up in them, for she had to wear something suitable for the evening meal in a hostel. With the instinctive adaptation to environment which was Sophie’s strong point, she chose a blue dress and a shantung silk blouse. For truly religious people the skirt was possibly a little too short, but nothing could be done about that now. She possessed no skirt which was longer; however, she made up her mind not to cross her legs. The low front of the blouse she corrected with a light-colored silk modesty vest.

Only a very little lipstick, only a hint of red on her cheeks, and Sophie was ready. She went downstairs to the dining hall. The texts on the wall, some in poker-work, some in colored cardboard, delighted her. The tables had ugly but elaborately carved legs, and the tablecloths were of gray crêpe paper. Where the crêpe had been stained it was covered by a paper serviette. This was economical, practical, and exceedingly ugly—in Sophie’s opinion.

The soup was thin and originated from a soup cube, and to make up for this the green peas were thickened with too much flour; the pork chop was far from large and the fat had a smell. This execrable food Sophie, the spoiled Sophie, ate with the greatest pleasure. It was fun for her to be living with the pious. So this was how they lived, inflicting privations on one another solely for the purpose of mortifying the flesh and standing well with the Lord, Who, after all, did not exist.

With particular interest Sophie looked at the waitresses, trying to make out whether they were fallen women who had been rescued or whether they really liked their present occupation. If they had ever fallen, she decided, it must have been very long ago—they were all so elderly. And they all looked discontented. This place couldn’t be—as advertised in the text above the sideboard—a fat green pasture.

When the meal was over, it was half-past eight—one couldn’t go to bed so early. For a while Sophie stood irresolutely at the dining-hall window, looking at the rain-soaked Wilhelmstrasse. She had been out only in the West End; perhaps for a change she might have a look at the places of amusement in the Center. But no—she decided to go to bed early that night and generally to be perfectly steady throughout her entire holiday. Going out that evening was out of the question. Thank heavens, she had discovered a door marked “Writing Room,” and thus knew how to pass her evening. She would inform her friend Hans that his sister would soon be visiting him.

In the very bare, poorly-lit writing room only one person was sitting—a white-haired gentleman in a long black frock coat—a pastor, surely. As she entered he started up in confusion from his newspaper, or from his nap over the newspaper, and stammered something. Decidedly he was embarrassed; possibly he was in doubt as to whether he should stay in the room alone with such a nicely dressed girl.

Gliding past him with a daughterly smile—at least Sophie considered it as such—she lifted herself into the revolving chair at the desk, thinking that this old sermon-spouter looked one of the soft sort. Pastor Lehnich in Neulohe was of a different breed. She had a distinct remembrance of his heavy hand when she had not learned the hymn verse or, worse still, when she had been caught with the boys.

But neither softness nor age nor religion seemed to prevent the white-haired gentleman from looking up from his paper every so often and peering at her legs. Angrily she pulled down her skirt as far as it would go—that is, as far as the knee. She considered that, for a pastor, his behavior was incorrect. Otherwise it amused her to watch men stealing glances at her legs, but it was not fitting for a pastor; he had something else to do than to find her legs attractive—he didn’t draw his salary for that.

Catching the old gentleman out for the third time, she looked at him severely. At once he turned red, muttered something, and rushed headlong from the room.

Sophie sighed. She hadn’t quite meant that. Occupying the writing room in solitary state was rather dismal.

However, the writing paper bore the heading “Christian Hostel,” which was pleasing. She supposed that such a letter would be handled at the penitentiary with respect, that it would, without fail, get her the longed-for visitor’s permit. As a precaution she slipped at least a dozen of the sheets and envelopes into her handbag; they would certainly come in useful one of these days.

However, not even the most pious superscription could free her from the labor of writing; as in the morning, so in the evening—it was a hard task and a long one.

But at last she finished. She hadn’t written much, only four or five sentences, but they were sufficient to prepare Hans Liebschner (and the penitentiary officials) for his “sister’s” visit. How Hans would grin over this letter! How amusing the visit would be if—and he could do it marvelously—he treated her as a sister. She already felt his mocking brotherly kiss, under the policeman’s very eyes, or whoever looked after a penitentiary.

It was half-past nine and there was nothing more to be done but go to bed. Slowly she undressed. Although she had been tired all day long, she
was now wide awake. Not a trace of the desire to sleep was left. Outside, cars glided beneath her window. She could almost see, while she peevishly undressed, men entering bars, pompously or with an affectation of nonchalance, nodding to the girls and climbing on to their high stools, ordering their first cocktail or whisky.

But under no circumstances would she go out tonight. She was resolved on that. And was therefore glad to find a little black book with red ends on the bedside table. It bore in gold letters the title
The Holy Scriptures
.

Since her confirmation Sophie had never had a Bible in her hand, and then her preoccupation with this book had been limited to learning verses and—more often—to looking for seductive passages. But this evening she had leisure for once; so she took up the Bible and, in order to deal with it properly, started to read from the beginning. (If it turned out to her liking, she would pack this excellent free holiday reading in her trunk.) It would be interesting to find out what there really was to this famous book. The narrative of the Creation awoke only a moderate interest—for aught she cared it might have happened like that or it mightn’t—it was unimportant, anyhow. The important thing was to be here oneself—thanks to the creation of Adam and Eve in the second chapter, and the fall from grace in the third.

So this was the famous Fall of Man with which a girl was so often bored in bars by educated men (as long as they were on their best behavior). Sophie rediscovered everything—the Tree of Knowledge, the apple and the snake. But she didn’t at all agree with the Bible version of what had taken place. If you carefully read what was written you would realize at once that God had never forbidden woman to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. Certainly, He had forbidden man to eat of it, but that was before woman had been created. To punish woman for something which had not been forbidden to her at all was a fine thing! That was exactly what men would do!

If it starts like that, she thought, what can you expect? It’s a put-up job—only a fool would be taken in by such rubbish. And those chaps still go on preaching to you nowadays. Well, let them come to me about it! … She shut the book angrily.… What! Take it with me on my holidays? I shouldn’t think of it for a moment. I should only get annoyed. That’s why they leave the book about so freely—there’s no demand for it!

She switched off the light.

It was very warm; the air in the room was oppressive. She rose and opened the windows. She could hear the streetcar bells clanging; when the streetcars turned into Krausenstrasse they always rang the bell. She heard footsteps, sometimes those of a solitary pedestrian, very distinct; at other times a noisy confusion. Cars came with a roar and a hoot, to scurry on …

Her body started to itch; she scratched herself here, she scratched herself there; she turned over on this side, turned over on that. Then she forced herself to lie still. She assumed a sleeping position—on her right side, both hands under her right cheek. She closed her eyes. Sleep was nearly there. But she was thirsty, and had to rise and drink a glass of water which tasted stale. Again she lay down and waited for sleep, in vain recalling how tired she had been that morning, her mouth foul with liquors, her feet aching. Then she had had to struggle against sleep as she forced herself to write a few lines to Hans, while behind her the cook, that clumsy creature, snored loudly. She began to count up to a hundred.

Similarly thousands of others lay in their beds, harassed and restless. Those who had spent their last penny. Those who had sworn by their morning hangover that they would never again go out at night, but would sleep soundly instead. They were those who’d grown tired of eternal youth and had given up looking for something night after night whose name they didn’t even know. Like Sophie, they tossed restlessly from side to side. It was not the craving for alcohol nor the longing for embraces which kept them awake and finally urged them to get up; no, they could not remain alone and find peace. The darkness of their rooms reminded them of Death. They had heard and seen enough of Death; for four years, at home and abroad, people had been dying. And they themselves would die soon enough—would die much too soon. At present they were alive and wanted to feel so.

As did the others, Sophie Kowalewski got up, dressed hastily as if she had to keep a most urgent appointment—some important matter which she must not miss at any price—went quickly downstairs and out into the street.

Where should she go? She looked up and down the street. It doesn’t actually matter where she goes. She knows inside her: It’s always the same. But she remembered that she once wanted to see the drinking places in the town center. So she goes slowly (as she is among people, she suddenly feels she’s got plenty of time) towards the center of town.

IX

A long quiet stroll through the Tiergarten had cleared the head of von Studmann, the former reception manager. It had also given Rittmeister von Prackwitz the opportunity of painting to his friend a picture of Neulohe, surrounded by woods and remote, almost on the Polish frontier in fact. He had not intended to paint the place rosier than it was or to deceive his friend. But somehow, compared with this riotous and perverse city of Berlin, the Manor of Neulohe now appeared quieter and purer than in reality—every face there
known to him, every character in the last resort clear-cut, and in nothing contaminated by the madness of the times.

In the midst of the ostentatious shops with their marble fronts, illuminated signboards and advertisements, although the façades above were crumbling and decaying, Prackwitz found it easy to say: “My buildings, thank heavens, look quite different. Not handsome, but solid honest-to-God red brick.” And looking at the scorched lawns, the weed-ridden flower beds of the Tiergarten, for which no money was available in spite of the flood of money everywhere, he was able to say: “We, too, have had a drought. But we’re having quite a good harvest in spite of it.”

The rose gardens in the Tiergarten were stripped of their roses and badly damaged. There seemed to be florists who supplied themselves, not from the markets, but from the parks. “There’s a bit of pilfering at our place, but, thank heavens, not this devastation!”

They sat on a bench. The dry air had already sucked out the moisture from the soil. Before them stretched the New Lake, dotted with bush-clad islets, and above them the treetops were motionless. From the Zoological Gardens they heard the roar of wild beasts.

“My father-in-law,” said Herr von Prackwitz dreamily, “still retains eight thousand acres of woodland. Although the old man is so stingy in many ways, he’s generous over the shooting—you could kill many a handsome buck.”

Yes, in the increasing dusk Neulohe changed to a quite very remote island, and Herr von Studmann was not unreceptive to such a delineation. That morning he had rejected the idea of a flight into the country. But the afternoon, with its varied experiences, had proved that life today could break the nerve of a soldier who had been four years at the Front. It was not so much the grotesque painful incident with Reichsfreiherr Baron von Bergen—thank God, utter madmen were not as yet so common in contemporary life that one was forced to reckon with them daily—but the incident had laid bare in a frightful manner the inhuman nature of that hotel industry to which von Studmann had devoted his energies and zeal. It had been his belief that, in carrying out his duties conscientiously, he had earned, if not affection, at least respect. He had, however, seen himself the object of shameless, insolent curiosity, from the most recently engaged elevator boy to the managing director. If the temperamental Dr. Schröck had not intervened with his somewhat unusual views on lunatics, he (von Studmann) would have been discharged without any consideration whatever and at a moment’s notice, as if he were some sort of criminal.

As it was, he had, on his way out, been intercepted by the managing director who, in spite of his monumental appearance, had taken a very serpentine
course between on-the-one-hand and on-the-other; a gratuity—in good foreign currency, of course—was now pressed on him, and the warmest recommendations assured him later. “Yes, my dear colleague, I believe this rather trifling though exceedingly disagreeable incident will turn out to your advantage. If I have understood Dr. Schröck rightly, he expects you to put in a very heavy claim for damages—a very heavy claim.”

“No,” said Herr von Studmann, emerging from a reverie on his bench in the Tiergarten, “I shouldn’t like to take advantage of that young scamp’s moral weakness.”

“What?” asked von Prackwitz, starting. He had just been talking of wild-boar hunting in Neulohe. “No, of course not. I understand that quite well. It’s not necessary either.”