Wolf Among Wolves (48 page)

The ether bottle dropped out of his trembling hand, fell to the floor and broke. Still intoxicated, he stared at it. Then he went quickly to the switch, turned off the light, entered his room again, switched off the light there, groped his way to the bed and threw himself down.

He lay without stirring, with closed eyes, surrendering completely to the bright visions within his brain. The shapes became dimmer, gray mist drifted over them. Darkness approached from the boundaries of consciousness, grew blacker and blacker. Black Meier slept.

IV

“You ought to know who’s got the key,” the Lieutenant stormed.

Three persons stood before the dark staff-house. Räder had tried the handle, but the door was locked.

“Herr Meier has the key, of course,” he said.

“There must be another,” insisted the Lieutenant. “Fräulein, don’t you, by any chance, know who has the second key?” Although the situation between them left no room for doubt, he continued to address Violet as Fräulein.

“The second key will be with father,” said Vi.

“And where does he keep it?”

“In Berlin.” In reply to an angry gesture, she added: “Papa is in Berlin, Fritz!”

“He won’t have dragged the key of this hovel all the way to Berlin! I
must
go to the meeting.”

“If we go afterwards …”

“And let him run off with the letter in the meantime? Is he in there?”

“I don’t know,” said the offended Hubert. “I’ve nothing to do with the bailiff, Herr Lieutenant.”

The Lieutenant felt he could die of impatience and fury. These damned love affairs were always hampering men. He had absolutely no use for women at this juncture. And how helpless Vi stood there; not a scrap different from the hopelessly stupid servant! He had to do everything himself. What was she going to suggest now?

“There’s a window open upstairs, Fritz,” she said.

He looked up. Yes, a window was open in the gable.

“Splendid, Fräulein. Now we shall pay the young man a visit. Here, you, I’ll lift you up on the chestnut tree. From that branch you can easily climb into the room.”

But Räder stepped back. “If Fräulein will excuse me, I’d rather go home.”

The Lieutenant cursed. “Don’t be so silly, man. Fräulein is present.”

“I’ve given you my willing assistance, Fräulein,” said the servant with invincible determination and taking no notice of the Lieutenant, “and I hope you won’t forget it. But I must really go home to bed.”

“Oh, Hubert,” begged Vi, “do me a favor. When you’ve opened the front door you can go home at once. It’ll only take a moment.”

“It is, so to speak, a punishable offense, Fräulein,” the servant protested respectfully. “And just now two women were standing by the dungheap. I would much rather go to bed.”

“Oh, let the fool go, Violet!” cried the Lieutenant furiously. “He’s messing his trousers like a whole company down with dysentery. Clear off, my lad, and don’t spy about in the bushes.”

“Thank you very much, Fräulein,” said Räder, imperturbably polite. “I wish you good night.” And with a steady stride (without acknowledging the Lieutenant) he vanished round the corner.

“What a boor,” the Lieutenant grumbled. “Really, Violet, I’d like to be for a Sunday what he fancies himself to be the whole week long. Now help me on to the tree. If the trunk weren’t so beastly slippery with the damp I could manage it alone. But what that idiot can do you can do also.”

While Vi was helping her Lieutenant on to the tree, Räder, softly whistling to himself, his hands in his jacket pockets, went across the farmyard. He had eyes in the back of his head and thus saw in the shadow of the stable the person who wanted to pass him.

“Good evening, Fräulein Backs,” he saluted very politely. “Still about so late?”

“You, too, are still about, Herr Räder!” the girl retorted, but stopped.

“Yes. But I’m going home to bed. When do you get up in the morning?”

Amanda Backs paid no attention to this question. “Where did Fräulein go to with the gentleman, Herr Räder?” she asked inquisitively.

“Everything in its turn,” said the unyouthful Räder, pedantically. “I asked you, Fräulein Backs, when you get up in the morning.”

If Amanda had not been a true woman she would have replied, “At five,” and could then have required the answer to her own question. However, she said: “It can’t interest you, Herr Räder, when I get up,” and thereby prolonged the argument.

But in the end, after considerable dispute, Herr Räder learned that Amanda’s time for getting up was governed by the sun, because chickens wake at sunrise, and he heard that in July the sun rose about four o’clock and that Amanda had to be outside by five at the latest.

This he thought was rather early; he himself got up at six and sometimes later.

“Yes, you,” said Amanda rather contemptuously, for after all, a man who tidied rooms was, for that very reason, contemptible. And now he was expressing the opinion that she ought to be in bed. “Where was Fräulein going so late with the gentleman?” she asked sharply. “She’s only fifteen and she ought to have been in bed long ago.”

“I don’t know when Fräulein goes to bed,” said Räder. “There’s probably no time fixed.”

Amanda did not despair. “And, anyway, who was the gentleman, Herr Räder? I don’t know him at all.”

Räder, however, was of the opinion that he had done his duty. Fräulein must be, by now, inside the house with her Lieutenant. He couldn’t do any more to protect them from spies.

“No, you probably don’t know the gentleman,” he confirmed. “We have so many gentlemen visitors. Good night!” Before Amanda could put a fresh question he had gone on.

Angrily she stared after him, trying to make up her mind to go home. In spite of young Räder’s being so clever, she was beginning to feel that he had
been pulling the wool over her eyes, and as Herr Räder had a good opinion of himself and rarely talked with her, he wouldn’t have fooled her without some end in view. There must be something behind it.

Thoughtfully Amanda walked on. She left the farmyard, turned the corner of the dark staff-house and stopped before her young man’s windows.

A short time ago those windows were open and had then been closed. A short time ago, when she looked for a moment across the farmyard, a light was burning in his room. Now there was no light. Amanda told herself that it was quite in order; her Hans was sleeping. It was better to let a drunken man sleep; and sleep, in view of her argument with Frau Hartig, would be better for herself, too. There was really no sense in stirring up any more strife—she was not like that. Frau Hartig wouldn’t take up again with her Hans—of that Amanda was convinced.

So she could let him sleep, and herself, too—she needed rest, a good rest. But she was itching with curiosity; she felt so worked up that bed didn’t attract her, although she was longing for it. At other times she knew what she wanted, but now, even though she wished to let him sleep, she nevertheless felt like tapping at the window, just to hear his furious sleepy voice, and know that all was well.… She wanted to and yet she didn’t.…

“Oh, well, I’ll tap,” she decided. And in that moment saw in Hans’s room a little beam of light, as if from a flashlight. Involuntarily she stepped aside, although she had seen by the light that the curtains were drawn. A similar beam had been directed at her a little time ago, when she was standing with Frau Hartig at the dungheap. Precisely similar!

She stood racking her brains, trying to puzzle out the connection between the torch, Fräulein and the unknown gentleman, and what they could be doing so late and so secretly in Hans’s room. She saw the beam of light move, go out, light up again, dart about.…

But she was not the kind of person to stand for long inactive and wondering. She went to the front door and cautiously pressed the handle. When she leaned against the door, it yielded.

Amanda tiptoed into the dark corridor and closed the door behind her.

V

The Lieutenant, through the gable room and down the loft stairs, reached the hall of the staff-house, where the beam of his flashlight showed him that the key, luckily, was in the door—he turned it, and Violet slipped in after him.

The office, it is true, was locked, but here Violet knew her way about: the double key lay in the little tin letterbox on the office door, and that was easily
opened—a convenient solution for Meier. Like that, he didn’t have to get up in the mornings, if the foreman fetched the key from the office. The two entered. There was an overpowering stench in the office. Shining his lamp on the broken bottle, the Lieutenant said: “Chloroform or alcohol. I hope the fellow hasn’t done himself in. Don’t tread on the broken glass, Violet!”

No, he had not done himself in. Their ears told them that. Black Meier was snoring and wheezing terribly.

Violet laid her hand on her friend’s arm and felt safe in the disgustingly close room. More than that—she found this whole nocturnal excursion, this commotion over a letter of hers, “ever so interesting,” and thought Fritz “terribly dashing”! She was fifteen; her appetite for life was great, and Neulohe very boring. The Lieutenant, of whose existence her parents were unaware (she herself knew him only by his Christian name), had been met on her walks in the forest. She had liked him at first sight. This hasty, often completely absent-minded, yet generally cool and insolent man, from whose reserve broke now and again an ever surprising and consuming fire—this Lieutenant seemed to her the epitome of all manliness and silent heroism.…

He was quite different from all the men she had yet known. Even if he were an officer, he in no way resembled the officers of the Reichswehr who had asked her to dance at the balls in Ostade and Frankfurt. The latter had always treated her with extreme courtesy; she was always the “young lady” with whom they chatted airily and politely of hunting, horses, and perhaps of the harvest.

In Lieutenant Fritz she had as yet discovered no politeness. He had dawdled through the woods with her, chatting away as if she were some ordinary girl; he had taken her arm and held it, and had let it go again, as if this had been no favor. He had offered her his dented cigarette case with an indifferent “Like one?” as if the strictly forbidden smoking was a matter of course, and then, when lighting her cigarette, he had taken her head in his hands and kissed her—just as if it were all part of it. “Don’t make a fuss,” he had said, laughing. “I find girls who make a fuss simply detestable!”

She did not want him to think her “simply detestable.”

One can warn a young person of dangers and perhaps even protect her from them—but how about the dangers which, like everyday things, do not look at all like dangers? Violet never really had the feeling with Lieutenant Fritz that she was doing anything forbidden, that she was ever really in danger. And when
it
had happened, and something like an instinctive resistance, a panic fear, did indeed threaten to seize her, he had said with such genuine indignation: “Look here, Violet, don’t kick up a fuss! I can’t for the life of me stand this
silly gooselike pretense! Do you think it is different with any other girl? That’s what you’re in the world for! So come on!”

“Is
that
what I’m here for?” she had wanted to ask. But then she realized she was being merely stupid. She would have been ashamed not to do what he wanted. Just because he thought so little of her, because his visits were so short and irregular, just because all his promises were so unreliable (“I was going to be here Friday? Don’t be silly, Violet; I’ve really got other things to think about besides you!”), just because he was never polite to her, just because of all that, she had succumbed to him almost without resistance.

He was so different. Mystery and adventure hovered around him. All his faults became merits to her because others did not have them. His coldness, his sudden desire which disappeared just as rapidly, his off-hand manner that was only skin-deep, his complete lack of respect for anything in the world—all this was reality, frantic love, manliness!

What he did was right. This casual fellow who traveled about with a vague commission to mobilize the country-folk for all emergencies; this cold adventurer who was not concerned with the object of the struggle, but only with the struggle itself; this mercenary who would have fought for any party so long as there was unrest—for he loved unrest and hated quiet, which immediately left him unoccupied, out of his element, not knowing what to do with himself—this dashing jack-of-all-trades was the
hero!
And he might have set a world alight—he would nonetheless remain the hero to her!

The way he now, with the flashlight in his hand and her lightly trembling fingers on his arm, directed the beam on to the disarranged bed with the naked man on it, the indifferent way he said to her: “Better look away, Violet!” and covered up the fellow; the way he growled: “Swine!” and then told her to sit by the bed, adding: “See whether he wakes up! I’ll take a quick look through his things!”—this camaraderie which was a shabby thing, hardly concealing ruthlessness, lack of respect, and roughness—all this she found marvelous.

She sat on her chair. It was almost completely dark, the moon scarcely penetrating through the grayish-yellow curtains. The man in bed wheezed, snored and groaned, invisible to her, and then began tossing about, as if in his sleep he sensed his enemies. Behind her the Lieutenant was going through the things, cursing loudly; it is difficult to find anything in an unfamiliar room with a flashlight in one’s hand. He rustled about, stumbled over chairs; his torch danced suddenly across the window and went out. Then the rustling started again.…

Yes, she had to be early in bed of an evening. Now and again she was allowed to go to a dance till eleven o’clock, till twelve at the latest, or to go shooting, with
special permission and accompanied by the forester and the servants. In the afternoons, on alternate days, her mother spoke French and English with her. “So that you shall keep up with things, Violet. Later on you will have to go into Society—not like your Mamma, who is only a farmer’s wife.” Oh, how thin, how false, how dull the world at home seemed! Here she sat in the bailiff’s malodorous room, and life smelled of blood and bread and dirt. It was by no means, as parents, governesses and vicars pretended, a gentle, friendly, polite business; it was dark … a wonderful darkness. And out of the darkness came a mouth with glistening white teeth. The eye-teeth were pointed, the lips were thin, dry, saucy. O mouth, man’s mouth for kissing, ravenous teeth for biting!