Wolf Among Wolves (66 page)

“Oh, Mamma!” cried Vi.

“Well,” asked Frau von Prackwitz very coldly, “do you want anything, Violet?”

“I was just thinking.… I’d also have liked to go bathing.”

“You know, Violet, I have forbidden you to go out until you tell Papa and myself who the strange man was with whom you crossed the yard at night.”

“But, Mamma,” cried Vi, almost weeping. “I’ve already told you a hundred times that it wasn’t a strange man. It was Kniebusch! Räder also told you that!”

“You are lying, and Räder is lying, too. You are not going out of the house until you’ve told me the truth, and the good Hubert can expect sudden dismissal if he goes on telling lies. It’s shameful of you both to lie to me in this way.” Frau von Prackwitz looked very angry. Her ample bosom heaved hastily. Sharp, angry looks shot from her eyes.

“But if it really was the forester, Mamma—really and truly!—I can’t lie to you that it was someone else. Who else could it have been?”

“This is impudence!” cried Frau von Prackwitz breathlessly, trembling with rage. She controlled herself, however. “You are to go up to your room, Violet, and write out yesterday’s French lesson ten times, and without a mistake.”

“Even if I write it out a hundred times, Mamma,” said Vi, white with rage, “it
was
the forester!”

The door slammed: she was gone.

The Rittmeister had listened to this dispute in silence. Only by the twitching of his face had he indicated how painful it was to him. A quarrel between others he always found distressing. But he knew from experience that his wife, on the rare occasions when she was angry, had to be handled with extreme care. “Aren’t you being a little hard on Vi?” he therefore asked cautiously. “It might really have been the forester. Hartig is just a gossip.…”

“It wasn’t the forester. He says so now, but he can’t tell me why they went into the staff-house instead of the forest.”

“Hubert says they went to see whether there were any more cartridges for Vi.”

“Nonsense! You must excuse me, Achim, but don’t let those two make a fool of you. Räder knows as well as Vi that the cartridges are in your rifle cupboard.”

“They say they didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Disturb me! My light was on till after twelve—and Vi’s never yet been considerate. If she’s got a pimple on her neck she wakes me up at two in the night to have it rubbed with ointment.… All stupid lies!”

“But really, Eva, who could it have been, then? A stranger whom Hartig doesn’t know? And going with Vi at night to the staff-house?”

“That’s the worst of it, Achim: that’s why I can’t sleep. If it had been some young fellow from the district, someone we know, a farmer’s son or something like that—he would never be dangerous for her. A harmless flirtation which we could put an end to at once.… But it’s a stranger, a man of whom we haven’t the faintest inkling. She went with him to the staff-house; she was alone with him during the night. For Räder was in bed. That’s not a lie. Armgard confirms it, and she’d never lie for Hubert.”

“You really think, then, that something could have happened? I’d kill the fellow.”

“Yes, but you don’t know who it is. Who can it be, for all of them to be afraid to speak about him—to lie so desperately? The forester, Amanda Backs, Räder—and Vi! I can’t imagine.”

“But, Eva, I’m convinced you are worrying yourself like this for nothing. Vi’s still a mere child.”

“That’s what I also thought, Achim—but my eyes have been opened. She’s no longer a child, but she pretends to be one, very impudently, and a child who knows all about things.”

“Eva, you are exaggerating.”

“No, unfortunately not. She isn’t as clever as all that; sometimes she gives herself away. It’s sickening, Achim, to have to spy on one’s own daughter.… But I’m horribly afraid something may have happened to her. I searched her room to see whether a letter was lying around somewhere, some note, a picture of him—Vi’s so untidy, you know.”

She broke off and looked in front of her with dry, burning eyes. The Rittmeister stood at the window with his white hair and brown face. He did what all husbands do when embarrassed by their wives’ emotional outbursts. He drummed with his fingers lightly against the window pane.

“I thought she hadn’t noticed anything. I was ashamed and took care to leave everything lying as it was.… But yesterday she came into her room very quietly just when I had her album in my hand. I was very embarrassed.”

“And?” The Rittmeister was now very intent.

“And she said to me maliciously: ‘No, Mamma, I don’t keep a diary, either.’ ”

“But I don’t understand.”

“Oh, Achim, that showed me she understood quite well what I was looking for, that she was making fun of me. She was really proud of her cunning! … And that’s the same girl, Achim, who asked you only three weeks ago about the stork. You told me so yourself. Inexperienced? She’s crafty. She’s been corrupted by these cursed times!”

The Rittmeister now stood there in a different way, expectant. His brown face looked gray—all his blood flowed to his heart. He made an angry step toward the bell. “Räder shall come here,” he murmured. “I’ll break every bone in the fellow’s body if he doesn’t confess.”

She stepped in his way. “Achim! You’ll spoil everything by that. I’ll find it out, you’ll see! I tell you they are all mortally afraid of him; there’s some secret. But I’ll find it out and then you can take action.”

She forced him against a chair and he sat down. “And I thought she was still a child!”

“It’s all bound up with little Meier somehow,” she said broodingly. “He must know something. It was certainly very clever of Herr Studmann to get rid of him so quietly, but it would be better now if we knew where he was. Don’t you know what he had in mind?”

“No—he wanted to get away, he was suddenly afraid.” The Rittmeister became animated. “But that’s just what you were saying! Meier, too, was mortally afraid.… Sacked by Studmann? No! He didn’t want to stay! He pleaded with Studmann to let him go, to give him a little money for his fare. Studmann gave it to him.”

“But why was Meier afraid so suddenly? He went off in the middle of the night, didn’t he?”

“With Amanda Backs. Amanda went with him to the station. The thing was like this—wait, Studmann told me about it—everything was so topsy-turvy in the first few days, I hardly paid any attention, and I must confess I was glad that Meier had gone; I never could stand him.…”

“In the night, you were saying,” prompted Frau Eva.

“Yes. In the night Pagel and Studmann were still in the office, looking at the books—Studmann’s thoroughness itself. Meier was sleeping in the next room. He’d handed over the money in the safe to me and Studmann in the evening,
not a penny missing.… Suddenly they heard him scream, frightfully, in mortal fear; ‘Help! help! He’ll kill me! …’ They jumped up, dashed into Meier’s room—he was sitting up in bed, as white as a sheet, stammering: ‘Please help me! He wants to shoot me again!’ ‘Who?’ asked Studmann.… ‘There, at the window—I distinctly heard him. He knocked. If I go, he’ll shoot! …’ Studmann opened the window, looked out—nothing.… But Meier insisted he was there, that he wanted to kill him.”

“But who?” asked Frau von Prackwitz, very excited.

The Rittmeister rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “Who? … Well, listen. Meier insisted so firmly that someone had been at the window to shoot him that at last Studmann sent Pagel outside to have a look. In the meantime he calmed Meier down a bit. The chap began to dress himself, and Pagel came back with a girl he had found in the bushes—Amanda Backs.”

“I see,” said Frau von Prackwitz, disappointed.

“Amanda Backs admitted straight away that she had knocked at the window. She said she had to speak to her friend. When Studmann saw it was only a love affair he left the two alone and went back to the office, with Pagel.”

“If he had questioned them properly, he might have found out everything.”

“Perhaps. After a while Meier came to the office with Amanda and said he must go away, at once. Studmann didn’t want to let him. Studmann is exactitude itself. He said it was impossible without notice; he must first ask me. Meier was very quiet and diffident, which is usually not like him; he said he had to go away now, but he would like to have the wages due to him, as fare money.… Finally Amanda Backs pleaded that Meier must get away, otherwise a calamity would happen.… And Studmann didn’t like to ask any more questions. He thought it was a case of love and jealousy. In the end he agreed because he knew I’d be glad to get rid of Meier, and the two went off.”

“Studmann didn’t behave very shrewdly there. Jealousy that shoots through the window doesn’t exist with us. And if I understood you rightly, Meier called out: ‘He wants to shoot me again.’ ”

“Yes, that’s what Studmann told me.”

“ ‘Shoot me again’—so the stranger had already tried it once. And this happened after the night on which Vi went into the staff-house with a strange man.”

There was silence. Neither of the married couple dared say a word of what they feared. The Rittmeister raised his head slowly and looked into the tearful eyes of his wife. “We always have misfortune, Eva. Nothing turns out well for us.”

“Don’t lose courage, Achim. For the moment these are all mere apprehensions. Let me handle the matter. Don’t worry about anything. I promise you I’ll tell you everything, even if it’s the worst. I shan’t lie to you.”

“Good,” he said. “I can easily wait.” And after short consideration, “Are you going to let Studmann into this? Studmann is discretion itself.”

“Perhaps. I must see first. The fewer who know the better. But perhaps I shall need him.’”

“Ah, Eva,” he said, much relieved (it already seemed to him as if he had merely been having a bad dream), “you don’t know how happy I am to have a real friend here.”

“I do, I do,” she said earnestly. “I know. I also thought …” But she broke off. She had been about to say that she also had believed she had a friend in her daughter who was now lost to her.… But she didn’t say it. Instead she said, “Excuse me a moment. I’ll just go and see Violet.”

“Don’t be hard on her,” he said. “The poor child’s already quite pale.”

IV

So there they went, the two of them, along the path to the forest. It was a real country path, which knew nothing of townsmen (and there is nothing townsmen like more than something which wants to know nothing of them). It led to the forest, and far inside the forest lay the crayfish ponds, deep, cool, clear—wonderful!

“Did you see the Rittmeister and family on the veranda just now?” asked Pagel. “What do you think of the young Fräulein?”

“And you?” countered Studmann, smiling.

“Very young,” declared Pagel. “I don’t know, Studmann, but I must have changed tremendously. Fräulein von Prackwitz here, and Sophie who traveled with us, and Amanda Backs—how they would have delighted me a year ago! I think I’m getting old.”

“You’ve forgotten to mention Black Minna who cleans up the office,” said Studmann gravely.

“No, seriously,” replied Pagel half crossly, half laughing. “I’ve got a sort of yardstick in me, and when I apply it, all girls seem to me too young, too stupid, too common.”

“Pagel!” Studmann raised his arm and extended it ceremoniously over the farms of Neulohe. “Pagel! Over there is the west. Berlin! And there it can stay. I declare to you solemnly, I don’t want to see or hear anything of the place. I live in Neulohe! No Berlin memories, no stories of Berlin, nothing of the merits of Berlin girls!” More seriously: “Of course you have a yardstick, you should be glad you have, you even wanted to marry it; but don’t think of it anymore now! Try to forget Berlin and everything in it. Enter into the spirit of Neulohe! Be a farmer only. When you’ve succeeded in that, and if your yardstick
still means something, then we can talk about it. Till then it’s only sentimental moonshine.”

Pagel’s face looked sullen and obstinate. He knew quite well what Studmann meant, yet he found it disagreeable. From his mother’s protective care he had passed to that of his sweetheart; every trifling worry had been listened to with sympathy. Suddenly all this was to end.

“All right, Studmann,” he said at last. “As you like.”

“Excellent,” said Studmann. He considered it advisable to discontinue the subject; he had read sufficient in the young man’s face. Raising his voice, he said: “And now, my worthy fellow farmer, tell me what sort of grain this is!”

“That’s rye,” said Pagel, letting an ear glide expertly through his fingers. “I know that stuff. I helped pile it in stacks yesterday.” And he cast a stealthy glance at his blistered hands.

“That’s my opinion too,” said Studmann. “But if it’s rye, we have to ask ourselves, is it our rye, that is to say, does the rye belong to the estate?”

“According to the plan of the holdings, no peasant has a field out here,” said Pagel hesitantly. “It should be ours.”

“Again my opinion. But if it’s ours, why hasn’t it been reaped yet? Seeing that we are already reaping oats? Has it been forgotten, perhaps?”

“Impossible. So near to the farm! We pass here every day with the teams. In that case I should have heard at least something about it from the men.”

“Don’t tell me anything about the men. In the country they’ll be no different from those in the hotel. They grin up their sleeves whenever the boss forgets anything. The experiences I had in the hotel!”

“Herr Studmann! Over there in the west, there lies Berlin—let it stay there, let’s not bring it up! We’re living in Neulohe—I don’t want to hear any tales about Berlin!”

“Excellent. So you accept my suggestion? Agreed! No more about Berlin!” … And with new eagerness: “Perhaps it isn’t ripe yet?”

“It is ripe,” cried Pagel, proud of his newly acquired knowledge. “Look, the grain should break clean over the nail—and this is already dry and as hard as a bone.”

“Queer. We must ask the Rittmeister—remind me. Just watch how I’ll impress him this evening with our vigilance! He shall learn that he now has employees with eyes in their heads and brains in their skulls, the beau ideal of all employees, employees of the first class. He shall weep with joy over us.”