Wolf Among Wolves (64 page)

“Well, you go and get the tickets and then come straight back here, Pagel. What do you want me to say to the man? He tried to do me down; now I am doing him down.”

“But that sort of thing isn’t done, Prackwitz. You don’t have to be afraid of explaining things. You are fully within your rights to refuse to have the men—they aren’t land workers. One doesn’t go sneaking off—like a schoolboy.”

“Studmann, I am not a schoolboy! I must ask you …”

“Like
a schoolboy, I said, Prackwitz.”

“All right, then, Studmann, I shall do as I think fit.”

“But I thought, Prackwitz, you wanted to have my advice.”

“Of course, Studmann, of course! Now don’t pull faces. I’m always glad to hear your advice, only this time, you see … the truth is I told the agent that the men could look as they liked so long as they had hands to work with.”

“I see!”

“But I didn’t think he’d send a gang like that. I can’t pay a couple of hundred gold marks commission for that. Now please, go on ahead with Pagel, I’ll come after you. Let me do the thing this once, as I like.”

“All right, Prackwitz,” said von Studmann after brief reflection. “Just this once. It isn’t really right nor is it a good beginning to our co-operation but …”

“Off with you!” cried the Rittmeister. “Second-class smoker! Another eight minutes and good-by Berlin—thank God!”

Ascending the stairs to the platform with young Pagel, von Studmann was very thoughtful. So don’t let’s consider it the beginning of our cooperation. But rather the end of Berlin. He was glad that he need not see how his old comrade, by a dash to the train, avoided paying an agent’s commission. Once the sight of the Rittmeister at other storming parties had helped him. What cursed times these were that could so change a man!

“So you have decided to come after all,” he said to young Pagel. “It’s very nice of you.”

VIII

Left alone, the Rittmeister gnawed his lip and looked at the ticket in his hand, undecided. The enthusiastic mood which had made all his confessions easy vanished with his two companions. Now he was overwhelmed by the situation, which was simply sickening. Angrily wrinkling his brow, he peered into the station hall. The men had become uneasy with the approach of the time due for
departure; those sitting on the steps had got up; groups formed and were carrying on excited discussions; on the landing stood the bony agent attempting to reassure those crowding round him. His eyes searched the hall.

The Rittmeister retreated further behind his pillar. He saw no possibility of getting through this gang of hooligans unseen. Why hadn’t the damned platform more entrances?

I’m not going to take the men, I won’t take them under any circumstances. I’m not going to make myself the laughing-stock of the whole district. Farming in silk dresses and high-heeled shoes! Not a spare shirt, not a spare pair of trousers. If the rascals should ever get wet they’d all sit stark naked on their bunks till their things were dry again. What a fine state of affairs! No, the convicts for me.

The Rittmeister peered round the pillar, drew back quickly. The agent had left his elevated point of vantage; with the girl in the shabby blouse on one side of him, the old boy with the botanist-box and frock coat on the other, he was struggling toward the platform entrance, talking excitedly. The Rittmeister would have liked to creep into the pillar, turn to stone, dissolve—so terrified was he of this trio.

And just at that moment, at that most critical of critical moments, a girl’s voice, somewhat harsh but by no means unpleasant, sounded in his ear. “Oh, the Rittmeister!”

He swung round and stared.

Yes, it was true; before him stood, as if she had fallen from heaven, the daughter of his overseer Kowalewski, a girl whom he had always liked to see on account of her fresh appearance and dainty beauty, so different from the rest of the silly, clumsy girls working on the farm. He had often favored her with a fatherly word.

“Sophie!” he said. “What are you doing here, Sophie?”

“I’m going to spend a holiday with my parents,” she laughed, looking at him in quite a daughterly way.

“Ah, Sophie,” he said eagerly. “You come as if you were really sent from heaven. See that man on the other side of the pillar, with a bald head, yes, the tall one—don’t stare like that, Sophie!—he mustn’t see me under any circumstances. I’ve got to get to the train and there’s only three minutes more. Can’t you get him away somehow, just long enough for me to flit through the entrance hall? I have my ticket. Thanks, thanks, Sophie, I’ll explain it all in the train. You’re still the same splendid girl. Hurry!”

He heard her voice, loud, very quarrelsome. “I say, don’t stand in the way! I’ve got to get to my train. Here, you’d better take my bags.”

Fine girl! But she’d changed a lot. A bit flashy …

He raced off as fast as he could, not at all like a Rittmeister, not at all like an employer. The barrier. There in front was the barrier.

But perhaps the fellow had platform tickets. Queer shadows under her eyes. And her face had got fat, all its fineness gone. Bloated, yes, as if from drink … “I know, thanks; yes, I know, the train on the left—not the first time I’m traveling here. Thanks!”

Thank God he’d made it! But he would only be safe when the train was moving.… Yes, he was afraid little Sophie had already in the past got a little mixed up with the young fellows in the village, so he had heard—and Berlin was a very slippery place. He knew that to his own cost.… Thank God, there was Pagel waving! “Well, gentlemen, I’ve made it. Please, Studmann, please, Pagel—stand at the window so that no one can look in; the fellow’s quite capable of inspecting the carriages. I must first mop myself; I’m simply dripping. What a run, early in the morning.”

“So you got through without being molested?” asked Studmann.

“It wasn’t easy! And do you know who helped me? My overseer’s daughter! She happened to turn up, traveling home on holiday; she’s maid to some countess here in Berlin.… As a matter of fact, you might keep an eye open to see whether she still makes the train; it’s due to start at any moment now. You might ask her to get in here. I should like to find out how she’s getting on. A fine girl—she understood straight away, without a word!”

“Yes, but what does she look like? Old, young? Fat, thin? Fair, dark?”

“Ah, Berlin hasn’t done her much good. No, you’d better leave it. There would only be talk afterwards, and it would be awkward in Neulohe when we meet again. After all, she’s only the daughter of my overseer! Always keep to that rule, Pagel. Keep your distance from the men—no familiarity, no mixing with them. Understand?”

“Yes, Herr Rittmeister.”

“Thank God, we’re off. There, spread yourselves out comfortably. Let’s have a smoke. It’s fine, though, to travel out of this city into the summer, eh, Studmann? Eh, Pagel?”

“Marvelous!” said Studmann. “Something has just occurred to me, Prackwitz—doesn’t the man know your name?”

“Which man?”

“Why, the agent!”

“Yes, of course—why?”

“Well then, he’ll write to you and ask for compensation.”

“Damn it! I didn’t think of that. All that farce for nothing! But I won’t accept the letter; I’ll refuse to take it—no one can compel me to accept it.” The Rittmeister ground his teeth with rage.

“I’m very sorry, Prackwitz, but that will scarcely help.”

“Yes, you are sorry, Studmann. But you should either have told me that downstairs in the station or not at all. Now it’s too late! My whole journey’s spoiled! And it’s such nice weather!”

The Rittmeister stared angrily out of the window at his nice weather. Before Studmann could make any reply, however (and it was doubtful whether he had any great desire to do so), the door to the corridor opened and, instead of the guard, there appeared a very smart young girl. Smilingly she raised her hand to her little hat. “Orders executed, Herr Rittmeister!”

The Rittmeister jumped up, beaming. “This is fine, Sophie; so you caught the train, after all! I was already beginning to reproach myself. Gentlemen, this is Sophie Kowalewski, I’ve already told you … Herr von Studmann, Herr Pagel. The gentlemen are—ahem!—my guests. Well, that’s that. And now sit down here, Sophie, and tell me all the news. Cigarette? No, of course not. Very sensible. Young girls shouldn’t smoke at all, I always say that to my daughter. Fräulein Kuckhoff is right: women womanly—men manly. And you think so too, eh, Sophie?”

“Of course, Herr Rittmeister. Smoking is so unhealthy as well.” And with a glance at the two men listening: “Are the gentlemen coming only for the week-end or are they staying longer in Neulohe?”

Part Two
The Land Afire

Chapter Ten
The Peace of the Fields

I

It was no longer the same office. The bookshelves of ugly yellowish-gray pinewood, the desk with its green ink-stained felt, the over-large safe, were still there—but it was no longer the same office.

The windows sparkled; clean bright curtains had been put up; a dull gleam had been given to the furniture by an application of oil; the worn splintery floor had been planed smooth, waxed and polished; and the wheelwright had painted the safe a silver gray. No, it was no longer the same office.

Rittmeister von Prackwitz had at first worried about putting his friend into such a squalid office to scan wages lists and corn accounts. He need not have worried. Herr von Studmann was not the man to sit in squalor—he drove out slovenliness, gently but inexorably.

On one of those early days Studmann had had to fetch a key from the office—and Frau Hartig was standing on a window seat cleaning the windows. Studmann stopped and watched her. “Do you tidy up here?” he asked.

“I see to that all right!” Hartig said pugnaciously, for firstly she was deceived by this man’s gentleness and secondly she was angry with him because little Meier had gone. Even if she had solemnly renounced all right to the former bailiff, she couldn’t forgive the gentleman there—people said he was a detective—for the fact that Meier was gone.

The supposed detective did not reply, but for no earthly reason smelled the water with which she was cleaning the windows. Then he took the chamois in his hand, which was, of course, no chamois, but a mere rag, for Armgard at the Villa was not parting with good chamois for a bad office. Next he swung the cleaned window to and fro in the sunshine—Hartig’s whole body trembled with fury at a spy who now even sniffed round her work! His inspection finished, he raised his glance to the woman, seeming not to see that she was angry. “Your name is?”

“I am the coachman’s wife,” cried Hartig angrily and polished her window noisily.

“I see, the coachman’s wife,” said Studmann calmly. “And what is the coachman’s name?”

Then Hartig very excitedly and quickly said many things one after another; for example, that she understood her work, that it wasn’t necessary for anyone to come from Berlin to “learn” her how to work, that she had worked for four years in the Manor for the old lady before marrying Hartig, and that the old lady had always been satisfied with her, though she was actually hard to please …

“So your name is Frau Hartig,” said Herr von Studmann, patient because he had worked a long time in the hotel business. “Listen, Frau Hartig, this window cleaning is useless. One doesn’t clean windows in the sunshine—look, they are quite streaky.”

And he swung the window to and fro. But the annoyed Frau Hartig didn’t look. She knew quite well that the windows were streaky, but hitherto her work had been good enough for everyone. She said so, too.

Studmann was unmoved. “And it’s better to put a drop of spirit in the water; that makes the panes bright. But even then all your work will be in vain if you haven’t got a proper chamois. Look, the cloth is fluffy. There’s lots of fluff sticking to the windows!”

At first Frau Hartig was speechless with indignation. Then she asked Herr von Studmann very scornfully where was she to get spirit from, eh? She couldn’t sweat any through her ribs, and Armgard wouldn’t give her a chamois.…

“You shall get spirit and also a chamois,” said Studmann. “And if you haven’t got a chamois, you take an old newspaper—look, like this.” He seized an old newspaper and polished away. “See, like that! Isn’t it clean now?”

“That was the
District Gazette!”
exclaimed Frau Hartig contemptuously. “They’re collected and bound! No number must be missing.”

“Oh!” said Studmann, embarrassed—in the early days both he and Pagel frequently made such mistakes out of sheer ignorance. He unfolded the damp paper ball. “The date is still readable—I’ll order another.” He made a note of the date.

This little blunder, however, had exhausted his patience. He spoke more curtly. “And now go home. This half-cleaning is useless. Come this evening at six. Then I’ll show you how I want the office and the room cleaned.”

And he went off with his key in his hand. Frau Hartig, though, was quite undisturbed by the talk of this ass from Berlin who would be hopping it in the next few days, anyway. She went on cleaning in her own way, and did not dream of appearing at six, as ordered.

When, however, curiosity impelled her to go to the staff-house towards seven, she saw to her indignation that Black Minna, that sanctimonious bitch,
was pottering around, and when she entered quietly, seizing a pail and flannel as if nothing had happened, the detective merely turned round and said in his beastly gentle way: “You are dismissed, Frau Hartig. You don’t clean here anymore.” And before she was able to make any reply, he turned away. The wheelwright and his boy set their planes going with a shrap! shrap! shrip! Frau Hartig had stood there like Hagar driven into the wilderness. Tears had had no effect on the old lady, nor sobs on Frau Eva, nor pleadings on the Rittmeister; all had suddenly become different, a new wind was blowing.… “Yes, if Herr von Studmann doesn’t want to have you, then you can’t have done your work properly, Frieda. So we can’t say anything, and we can’t help you.” Not even the information about the spoiled newspaper, not even the news that Herr von Studmann had had Amanda for over an hour in the office after midnight—nothing which was usually listened to so willingly—had effect. “No, go home now, Frieda! You mustn’t gossip like that—gossiping is a very ugly habit. You must get out of it, Frieda.”