Wolf Among Wolves (70 page)

The forester had lowered his head; his face could not be seen.

“But if you tell us the truth, I promise you on my word of honor that we shall keep it to ourselves. I think I can also answer for Fräulein Sophie’s
keeping quiet?” Sophie nodded. “Yes, we should like to help you to get out of this situation honorably.”

The forester raised his head. He stood up. In his eyes were tears, and while he spoke these tears broke free and ran down into his beard. Others followed. Tears of old age, a graybeard’s tears, flowing of themselves.

“Yes, gentlemen,” said Forester Kniebusch, “but no one can help me. I understand that you are being very friendly to me, and I accept with gratitude your promise to say nothing. But I am a finished man. I’m too old—and when one is too old, nothing goes right for him any more. Everything that once pleased him is gone.… I recently caught the worst poacher, Bäumer, and I want to tell the truth now. I didn’t do anything; he simply fell from his bicycle onto a stone and was knocked unconscious at once. Everything I said about a struggle was only to praise myself … I wanted to be clever, but an old man shouldn’t try to be clever.”

Sophie and Wolfgang stared in front of them. They were ashamed of the weeping old man who so shamelessly poured out his heart. Herr von Studmann, however, had directed his brown eyes attentively on him, and now and again he nodded.

“Yes, gentlemen,” continued the forester, “and now in the courts they want to twist a rope out of it for me, because Bäumer has a high temperature. And the only one who can defend me is the Geheimrat, and if I don’t do what he wants, he won’t defend me, but will even take away my livelihood. And what will then become of me and my sick wife?”

The forester stood as if he had forgotten what he wished to say, but at Herr von Studmann’s glance he pulled himself together. “Yes, and today after lunch he phoned me up and told me that the gentlemen had gone bathing and that I was to be certain to take their clothes away, otherwise he wouldn’t help me. But Sophie was sitting there and it came to nothing. Why he is so angry with the gentlemen I don’t know; he didn’t say a word about that.” Kniebusch stared disconsolately before him.

“Well, Herr Kniebusch, there are other ponds here, aren’t there? We needn’t have come here,” said Studmann.

The forester reflected, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “In this direction it’s difficult,” he said. “Here, apart from this, it’s all forest and sand.”

“Birnbaum,” said Sophie.

“Yes, the gentlemen might have gone to the Birnbaum ponds. But then the gentlemen mustn’t be home before seven, because it’s so far. Would they like to sit in the forest as long as that?”

“Oh, of course we’ll do that,” said Studmann pleasantly. “The men can feed the cattle without us for once.”

“Then I thank the gentlemen very much,” said the forester, no longer tearful. “You are being very kind to an old man. But still, it won’t help much. I ought sometime to bring a real success home, but that’s asking too much of an old man. No young person knows what an old man feels like.” He stood a moment longer in thought. “However, through the kindness of the gentlemen, it hasn’t been a failure.”

He raised his hat and went.

Studmann gazed after him. Then he called out: “Wait, Herr Kniebusch, I’ll come along with you for a bit!” And he ran after him, barefooted, in bathing costume, without any regard for his rather tender feet. A true nursemaid, however, doesn’t think of herself when she sees others who need comforting.

Sophie and young Pagel were alone, and very pleasantly they conversed, first about Forester Kniebusch and then about the harvest. And because that afternoon Sophie was rested and happy, it did not occur to her to impress young Pagel with feminine tricks or even to make eyes at him, so that Wolfgang was continually obliged to marvel how wrongly he had judged this nice, intelligent girl in the train. And he was now tempted to blame his Berlin eyes for this false judgment.

As to the harvest, however, her father had said that in Neulohe they were at least three weeks behind, and they would never do it unless a proper reinforcement of strong men came. And no one in the village understood why the Rittmeister did not order a gang from Meienburg. They were the most industrious and most submissive of men, as long as they were given enough to eat and smoke. But the Rittmeister had to remember that all the farms in the neighborhood already had their gangs, and the prison was half empty. That’s what her father said, for of course she knew nothing about it, she had only just come to the district herself. But she was sorry about the harvest.…

Pagel thought this very intelligently spoken and thought it very good of the girl to worry about the Neulohe harvest, which after all did not matter a jot to a Berlin lady’s maid. He resolved to discuss the matter with Studmann that evening. Since, however, Studmann had not yet returned, they decided to go into the water once more.

There he saw that Sophie swam excellently, and that it was an effort for him to keep up with her. But he was able to show her something new, a style of swimming which had just begun to spread in Berlin, and which was called the crawl. It always does a young man good when he can do something a little better than a young girl; and if he can teach this young girl something he finds her extremely likeable.

And Sophie also was very much pleased with her disinterested swimming instructor, whom otherwise she had found altogether ill-mannered; and so
the two of them were the best of friends when finally a limping, thoughtful Studmann appeared out of the forest.

“Well,” he said, sitting down on the grass and lighting himself a cigarette, “it’s a strange world, Pagel. The earth sweats fear instead of corn, and its fear infects everything. A generation full of fear, Pagel. As I suspected this afternoon, the peace of the fields is an illusion, and someone is not hesitating to make us understand that as quickly as possible.”

“That old geezer,” said Sophie very contemptuously, “has been chattering and gossiping again, I suppose? Perhaps it still works on you—we no longer pay any attention to his claptrap.”

“No, Fräulein Sophie,” countered Studmann, “the old man didn’t chatter, unfortunately. I wish he had been more talkative, for queer things seem to be happening here. Well, I think I’ll get to know them in time. But, Pagel, I ask you one thing: when you see the old man, be a little friendly. And if you can help him in anything, then do so. After all, he’s only an infirm old bundle of fears—Fräulein Sophie is right about that; but when a ship sends out an S O S, one helps it and doesn’t spend too much time asking about its cargo.”

“Good Lord!” mocked Sophie. “I would never have believed that Forester Kniebusch would ever have got two such helpers.” For Pagel had nodded in complete agreement with Studmann. “He certainly hasn’t deserved it, the sneak and tell-tale that he is.”

“Is there anyone here who deserves anything?” said Studmann. “Certainly not me, and probably not Pagel; and you, Fräulein Sophie, decent and good-hearted girl though you are, no doubt you also have not deserved an extra-special reward.”

Here Sophie turned red and felt that the line had a hook, although there was none.

“Well, let’s drop it. I really wanted to ask you, Fräulein Sophie, whether you wouldn’t like to tell us something about the wood thieves. You see, Kniebusch is so worried about them. He says they go about in gangs, and he as an individual is powerless against them.”

“What have the wood thieves got to do with me?” cried Sophie indignantly. “I’m not a spy!”

“I thought, Fräulein Sophie,” said Studmann, as if he had heard nothing, “that you in the village would notice when a gang like that sets out sooner than we who live on the farm.”

“I am not a spy,” Sophie again cried heatedly. “I don’t go around spying on poor people.”

“Wood-stealing is wood-stealing,” persisted Studmann. “Spy sounds ugly, but whoever reports wood-stealing is no spy. I think,” he continued persuasively, “you are interested in the farm and its welfare. Your father has a position like that among the men; he has to report sometimes who’s been working badly, without being called a sneak for it. And then you sat very comfortably next to the Rittmeister in the train and are sitting quite pleasantly here with us—one must know, after all, to whom one belongs.”

Sophie had propped her head on her hands. She looked thoughtfully, now at Herr von Studmann, now at Herr Pagel. But at the same time it wasn’t certain whether she had listened to Studmann’s cunning words; she seemed to be thinking about something. At last she spoke: “Very well, I’ll see. But it isn’t certain whether I’ll really find out anything. The people don’t count me one of them anymore.”

“Fine!” said Studmann and got up. “If you only think of us, that’s already something. The rest will arrange itself. And now if you’ve no objection, let’s all three go into the water again. My feet are in a bit of a mess; I’d like to cool them a little before going home. Our time ought to be up then, and we can go back without fear of reproach. And you must tell us about the Birnbaum pond, Fräulein Sophie. I believe the old gentleman’s capable of not believing the mere word of his forester, but will try and pump us a bit. If he doesn’t turn up here himself!”

And Studmann cast a suspicious glance at the forest.

VII

Herr von Studmann had no ground for his fear that the old Geheimrat might turn up in person at the crayfish ponds. In fact, he judged Herr von Teschow wrongly. The latter did not mind prying around quietly, but he preferred to leave things to his men when it came to open rows. Ten horses could not have dragged him to the crayfish ponds where, on this afternoon, a row was to be expected. Instead he wandered, serene and affable, through the village of Neulohe, stopped whenever he met someone, exchanged a few words, and was indeed just like a prince mingling with his subjects. Old Elias hadn’t done it better three hours previously.

And while the Geheimrat chattered his way through the village, he was continually thinking what sort of business he could pretend to have at Haase’s, for he didn’t like doing things awkwardly. He had to find out what the magistrate had against Kniebusch; why he had submitted such an unfavorable report on him. If one doesn’t know everything one knows nothing, he had always said, and from Fräulein Kuckhoff he had often heard that no filth is so filthy as to prevent someone coming and growing the finest cucumbers on it.

But he couldn’t think of the slightest excuse and was becoming quite discouraged when, just in front of the village square, where the road descended to the cemetery, he saw old Leege. Old Leege was a very ancient woman; formerly, when she was still able to work, she had been employed on the farm, while her husband, now dead for a long time, had earned his bread partly in the parish as a gravedigger, partly in the forest as a woodman. That was all a long time ago, however, and old Leege had been dwelling for some ten years now, ever since her last grandchild went to America, in an old cottage by the cemetery wall. She was a little odd, and feared by everyone, for she had the reputation of being able to put a spell on cattle. This much was certain—warts and erysipelas disappeared at her incantations.

The old Geheimrat was not very fond of old women, a hunters’ superstition; and so he hurried on his way when he saw old Leege. But she had spied him with her sharp black eyes. She darted across the village square so as to block his path, and began, weeping huskily, to mumble something about her cottage roof, through which the whole of the last rain had come as through a sieve.

“That’s no business of mine, Leege,” the Geheimrat shouted into her deaf ears. “You must go to the magistrate about it. It’s a parish matter, not a farm matter.”

But old Leege would not be put off so easily, for she was firmly convinced that Herr von Teschow was her master and responsible for her welfare, just as he had been thirty or forty years ago—nor would she let herself be hustled out of the way. She filled the whole square with her husky, wailing cries in such a way that the Geheimrat began to feel truly sorry about the business. And since he reflected that a bad excuse is always better than none at all—and why shouldn’t one, after all, talk to Haase about the leaky roof of a poor superannuated farm worker—he yielded and set off with her to Hangman’s Pines, as Leege’s dwelling place was called.

“Well, don’t any of your grandchildren ever write to you?” he asked in order to escape from the roof topic, about which he already knew everything—front, back and gable. Old Leege moaned happily that her grandsons wrote from time to time and also sent her little pictures.

Well, what did they write, and how were things over there?

Yes, what they wrote she couldn’t say exactly, for her old cat had broken her glasses over a year ago; but if the berry crop was good this year, she might perhaps be able to afford a new pair!

Then why didn’t she get someone to read the letters to her?

No, she wouldn’t do that, for if her grandsons should ever write that they weren’t getting on well, it would immediately be spread through the whole
village, and she didn’t want people to talk about her grandsons. She would have plenty of time to read them when she had new glasses.

Did they ever send anything for their old grandmother, a little money or a little packet of something to eat?

Oh, yes, they sent her nice pretty little pictures; but as to food, they probably hadn’t got so much in the Indian country!

In the meantime they had reached the old cottage, which really looked uncannily like a veritable witch’s hovel out of a fairy tale, there among the Hangman’s Pines. The Geheimrat took a look at the ancient mossy thatched roof, from the front, from the back and from the gable side, always accompanied by the wailing complaints of the old woman. He had suddenly become very thorough and was no longer in such a hurry to escape from her. For a true fox will smell out a goose in a cartload of straw. So he pushed open the door and entered the old hovel—he had smelled something. The inside of the house under the Hangman’s Pines looked exactly as one would expect from the outside; that is to say, just as a pigsty ought not to look if the pigs are to thrive.