Wolf Among Wolves (42 page)

She’s getting tired, thought Amanda. There’s not much left of her, actually. Perhaps she doesn’t feel disposed to make a long story about me, and I can quickly get to my Hans!

Amanda Backs had no idea how the sins of others can warm up an old woman, how the errors of her sisters can revive her. For one moment it looked as if the mistress wanted to make an end of the meeting. But she changed her mind. Stepping before her little flock, she cleared her throat and said, rather hurriedly and somewhat embarrassed: “Yes, dear children, now we can say the Benediction and go quietly home, every one of us, and sleep with a good conscience in that we have ended our day well. But is that true of us all?”

The old woman, no longer embarrassed, looked from one face to the other. She had stilled the motions of that conscience which warned her that she was about to do something strictly prohibited.

“Yes, is this true of all of us? Looking at Neulohe and even more at Altlohe, where they are most likely still sitting in the pothouse, then we can well be satisfied with ourselves. But, if we look more closely within, what do we see? We are weak human beings, and every one of us errs every day. It is a good thing then if we confess our sins in public and tell our assembled fellow Christians in what way we have transgressed. Only our sins for one day! I myself will make the start.”

With that old Frau von Teschow quickly knelt down and at once prepared herself in silent prayer for an open confession. Through her flock there rippled a barely concealed agitation, however, for not one among them was ignorant that Pastor Lehnich, and even the superintendent at Frankfurt, had strictly forbidden madam to confess her sins in public. It was quite against the spirit of Christ and Luther, and smelled of the Salvation Army, the Baptists, and above all, of the objectionable auricular confession of the Roman Catholic Church!

But if none of those present got up and marched out as a protest—and old Fräulein von Kuckhoff or Elias were the ones to do it boldly—it was because they were all of them on tenterhooks to hear the old woman. Hardly one of us can listen to the sins of others without a thrill. Each person there hoped that it
would not fall to his lot to have to confess after madam, and everyone quickly rehearsed his recent sins, both secret and revealed, and thought that he would not come off too badly.

The one person, however, who knew definitely that she would be among the two or three whom Frau von Teschow would subsequently call upon, and who knew that the pastor’s and superintendent’s prohibitions had been disregarded on her account only—that particular individual sat very tensely, though without showing it. In a bad temper she listened to the old woman stammering; she must be very agitated, she was mixing her words up and constantly hiccuping. People would have laughed had it not been for the excitement. Frau von Teschow counted it as sinful that she had read another installment of the wicked serial in the newspaper—hiccup—that she had been impatient with her dear husband—hiccup—and that she had again kneaded margarine into the butter intended for the servants—hiccup!

Amanda Backs listened to all this with an impatient, scornful face. People listened to this silly stuttering, ten times more thrilled than if they were hearing God’s word, and yet the whole confession was only a sham. In spite of her show of piety, madam didn’t mention the things that really mattered. As for the margarine, they had all tasted it for themselves—there was no need to tell them about that. The bit about the serial was rubbish, and everybody in the house knew how often she quarreled with her “dear husband.” It was all eyewash. Madam ought rather to confess that she had staged this performance solely for the purpose of dealing a blow at her, Amanda Backs. That would, indeed, have been a confession! But madam didn’t see it like that at all.

In her excitement the cook was panting like a boiler; her cheeks were flushed crimson, and her whalebone casing creaked. Minna looked stupid and dull, her mouth gaping as if she expected it to be filled with roast chicken.

Amanda Backs’s cheeks also reddened, not with excitement and shame, but with defiance and anger. Madam was now brazenly talking about yesterday evening, when she had surprised a girl (alas, a girl of her own household) as she was climbing into a man’s room in the darkness (hiccup).

A downright start went through the whole assembly, and Amanda saw the faces rigid with sheer astonishment and anticipation. Now it was coming!

But no, not yet. Madam, interrupted by many hiccups, accused herself of letting anger get the better of her, so that she had warmly rebuked the girl and threatened her with dismissal, instead of considering that we were all sinners, and that this erring lamb should be guided patiently to the fold. Ruefully she confessed that she had neglected her duty, since this young girl had been
entrusted to her care, and she begged that He might strengthen her with forbearance and long-suffering in her struggle against evil.…

Amanda, utterly contemptuous and very angry, listened to this twaddle. Hardly had Frau von Teschow said the last “Amen” and risen from her knees (certainly she had not had time to indicate by word of mouth or movement of finger the next who was to kneel down on the little stool of repentance and prayer), when Amanda rose with bright red cheeks and eyes dark with anger, and said that madam need not trouble herself, she (Amanda) knew very well who was referred to in all this talk, and there she stood, and perhaps madam was satisfied.

On top of these words, however, Amanda Backs, in a perfect fury, turned on Black Minna, who was pushing her forward so that she should be clearly seen by the whole assembly. “Will you take your muddy paws off my clean dress? I won’t be pushed forward—and least of all by you! The confession and penitence in this show have nothing at all to do with God!”

Having, with this angry hiss, crushed Minna, her enemy, Amanda turned again to the assembly and said (for she was now well wound up) that she had climbed through a window last night and, so that they should know everything down to the smallest detail, it had been the staff-house window, Bailiff Meier’s window. And she was not ashamed of it, and she could point to at least ten women present at the meeting who had climbed through other windows to other fellows! And with that she lifted her finger and pointed at Black Minna, who thereupon cowered down with a screech on her bench. And Amanda lifted her finger again, but before she could point it the bench where the younger girls sat in the dark corner at the back fell over with a crash, so exceedingly occupied had they all been in making themselves inconspicuous.

Then Amanda Backs laughed (and, alas and alack, a good many people joined in), but unexpectedly her laughing turned to weeping. Furiously she cried out: “It would be better if you paid us a decent wage.” And, sobbing unrestrainedly, she rushed out of the chapel into the dark park.

In the meeting place many other things besides the bench had crashed down, the old lady’s views and beliefs among them. Trembling she sat in her chair, gulping wretchedly; and this time even her old friend Jutta von Kuckhoff stood before her and said mercilessly: “You see, Belinde, you can’t touch pitch and remain undefiled.”

People, however, were making their way as fast as possible out of the chapel. They were looking very quiet and almost dumbfounded, but, alas, there was no doubt that before they reached home they would have recovered their powers of speech. And there could be no doubt about who was destined
to be the subject of their gossip—it would not be Amanda Backs, the victress in the combat.

She, tear-stained and still very agitated, was running about the park, not feeling at all victorious, but calling herself donkey and goose for having mismanaged her own and Hans’s case. Once she stopped, because she saw someone who turned out to be the old Geheimrat fumbling with the fence. She had wanted to take her courage in both hands and ask him for mercy, but her experience—young though she was—warned her not to ask anybody for anything.

However, roaming in the park, she became calmer, washed her face in the cool pond water and went to her Hans; and arrived just as the Geheimrat was knocking at the window and calling for Bailiff Meier. And heard, in Hans’s room, a frightened woman scream out.

VII

The dusk was thickening into darkness. It was after nine o’clock and the street lamps were already lit. From the window of Wolfgang’s room Frau Pagel looked out into the gardens now almost shrouded by night. In the background, however, there were twinkling lights and a reddish glow over the town—perhaps the mother was reflecting under which of the distant lights her son now sat squandering the filched money.

Impatiently she turned round to Minna, who was packing a trunk. “Hurry up, Minna,” she said. “He may come any moment for his things.”

But Minna did not look up from the shoes with their carefully inserted trees. “He won’t come, madam,” said she, placing the shoes in their small linen bags.

Frau Pagel grew angry. Minna’s answer sounded almost as if she were being talked out of expecting her longed-for visitor. “You know quite well what I mean,” she replied curtly. “Then he’ll send somebody for his things.”

Minna, unruffled, unflurried, went on with her packing. “There was no need to give him your best cabin trunk, madam. You won’t have a decent one to go away with next spring to Ems.”

“Silly creature!” said Frau Pagel, looking out of the window. She couldn’t see the street for the treetops, but in the deep silence she heard every footstep, every approaching car.

“Shall I put the bathing wrap in, too, madam?” asked Minna.

“What? Oh, the bathing wrap! Of course. Everything which belongs to him is to be packed.”

Minna made a sour face. “Then I must go up into the loft and fetch his books. I don’t know whether the porter is still up. I couldn’t manage the heavy cases by myself.”

“There’s time for the books,” said the old woman, annoyed by these continual difficulties. “You can ask him whether he wants them, when he comes.”

“He won’t come, madam,” said the old servant, monotonously dogmatic.

This time Frau Pagel had not been listening; this time she had no need to get angry at her maid’s obstinacy. Leaning out of the window, she strained her ears, listening for one footstep.…

The maid, although she had her back to her mistress, felt that something was happening. She stopped her packing, turned round, a bathing suit in her hand, and saw the listening figure. “Madam!” she said pleadingly.

“Wolfgang!” Frau Pagel called out of the window, doubtingly at first, then with certainty. “Wolfgang! Yes, wait, my boy, I’m coming. I’ll let you in immediately, I’ll open the front door for you at once.”

She wheeled round, her face flushed, the eyes under the white hair shining as of old.

“Hurry, Minna, the key! The young master’s waiting. Run!” And without heeding Minna’s imploring words, she ran into the dark corridor, switched on the light, seized some keys at random from the shelf beside the console table and, followed by Minna, ran downstairs.

She tried the house door, but the keys did not fit. “Quick, Minna, quick!” she called feverishly. “In case he changes his mind—he was always changeable.”

Minna, who had fallen silent, pressed the handle, and the house door, which had not been locked, opened. Frau Pagel ran through the small front garden and pushed open the little iron gate which led to the street. “Wolfgang, my boy! Where are you?”

A solitary wanderer, some crank who longed for fresh air and the smell of growing things rather than for bars and noise, started with surprise. In the glow of the solitary gas lamp he saw before him a white-haired, very agitated old lady; behind her an elderly maid with a bathing suit in her hand. “Yes?” he inquired stupidly.

The old lady stopped short and turned away so suddenly that she almost fell. Throwing him an angry glance, the elderly maid with the bathing suit followed her, took the old lady by the arm, and the two vanished into the house.

They don’t lock up, observed the wanderer to himself. Queer old hens, to scare a chap so! And he went his way, looking for an even quieter street.

The two old women went slowly upstairs without exchanging a word. Minna felt madam’s hand on her arm tremble violently, and she noticed how difficult her mistress found the stairs. The flat door stood open, the landing was brightly lit. Minna closed the door. She was not sure whether her mistress preferred to go into the young master’s room or to her own; it would certainly be better if she had a rest after all this excitement. But Minna, stubborn, obstinate Minna, had learned in her life one lesson which most women never learn—the lesson that there is a time for speaking and a time for silence. This was a time for silence.

Gently she led her mistress across the corridor until a gentle pull at her arm revealed that she wanted to go into the young master’s room again. The trunk stood open before them. A drawer had been pulled out; on top was the young master’s blue-and-white striped bathing wrap.

Frau Pagel stopped on seeing this. She cleared her throat. “Take out the bathing wrap, Minna!” she said coldly.

Minna did so and put the garment on the sofa.

“Take out everything,” said Frau Pagel more angrily. “You must start packing all over again, Minna. I find I can’t spare my trunk.”

Without a word Minna began the unpacking, her mistress, with a severe, hard face, watching her. Perhaps she hoped for some slackening, some slightest indication of the servant’s taking up an attitude about the matter; but Minna’s face remained expressionless, her movements were neither particularly quick nor particularly slow.

Suddenly Frau Pagel turned away. She wanted to escape to her own dark room. But she could not get as far as that. The tears burst forth, blinding her, and she leaned against the lintel weeping unrestrainedly.

“Ah, Minna, Minna,” she whispered. “Am I to lose him, too, the one person I love?”

But the old servant who during a lifetime had thought and worked only for her mistress’s benefit, who had fetched and carried according to her mistress’s whims, and who was at the moment again forgotten—the old servant seized her mistress’s hand almost imploringly: “He’ll come again, madam,” she whispered consolingly. “Our Wolf will certainly return.”