Wolf Among Wolves (82 page)

Standing apart from his foolish womenfolk, probably immersed in the consideration of goosey problems, he had not noticed the arrival of his good friend. Then, his attention having been attracted, he gazed for a moment with his pale, forget-me-not blue eyes at the noisy flock, recognized the cause of the row, and with outspread wings fluttered cackling toward the Geheimrat.

“Attila!” the latter called. “Attila!”

The geese cackled excitedly; the gander advanced in a haste that brooked no obstacle.… Struck by the powerful blows of his wings, his wives staggered aside—and nestling against the Geheimrat’s leg, neck lying on his stomach, head beating gently against his paunch, the gander softly and tenderly cackled a lot of things, announcing in every tone the unrestricted love of a friend for a friend.

With head bent, slowly coiling their necks in a wave-like movement, the flock of geese stood around.

“Attila!” said the Geheimrat, scratching the place geese cannot scratch, just above the beak which the gander, with a drowsy cackle, pressed gently against the softly heaving belly. And when the scratching finger grew sluggish, Attila pushed his head between shirt and waistcoat in a sudden adroit movement and remained thus, blissful, enjoying once again the greatest happiness on earth.

For a time the Geheimrat had to grant his furry friend such harmless pleasure. He stood in the meadow stippled with summer shade and summer sun, puffing his cigar slowly, a bearded, rosy-cheeked old man in rather sweaty
clothes. A creature of this earth, he willingly granted his fellow creature the peace on his belly. “Attila!” he said soothingly from time to time. “Attila!”

And from under his waistcoat came a peaceful hissing in reply. To deceive the love of his gander would have seemed villainous to the Geheimrat; about his relatives he thought differently.

At last, however, he gently pushed his friend away. Once again he scratched the beak, then said invitingly, “Attila!” and walked off. The gander instantly followed, cackling softly and contentedly. And, as may be seen in children’s books, all the geese followed in single file. First the old laying geese, then the grown-up goslings of the spring brood, with the wretched laggards in the rear.

Thus they wandered through the summery park. An ignorant onlooker would have found it a gay spectacle; an expert, of course, an Amanda Backs, would have shaken her head in suspicion. Unfortunately at this moment Amanda Backs was occupied in detaining with her protests Herr von Studmann, who was already late; she had not wanted to be freed from the kitchen, she could do the work in addition to looking after her poultry, and she would gladly have earned the money. She needed money. But the Geheimrat had said …

So Amanda saw nothing, and at this hour there was usually no one else in the park; in the country a park becomes frequented only after dusk. Thus the procession reached the hole in the fence unseen and unobserved. The Geheimrat stepped aside, and Attila stood before the hole.…

“Nice vetch, Attila, juicy vetch and anyway they cost me nothing,” said the Geheimrat persuasively. Attila laid his head on one side and looked at his friend critically. He seemed to prefer near-by tenderness to distant and uncertain food. Quickly the Geheimrat bent down and thrust his hand through the hole, explaining: “Look, Attila, you can get through here!”

The gander approached and seized tenderly but firmly a tuft of the yellow-gray beard.

“Let go, Attila!” said the Geheimrat angrily, and tried to straighten himself. He couldn’t. Attila held tight. A twenty-one-pound gander can hold very tightly. There the Geheimrat stood, crouched awkwardly; to put it exactly, his head was lower than the end of his back, which is a position even younger men do not find comfortable for long. It can be imagined what it was like for a somewhat too full-blooded old man with a tendency to apoplexy. Softly and tenderly the gander cackled, through his nose presumably, for he did not let the beard go.

“Attila!” implored the Geheimrat.

The female geese began to inspect his bent body and his hindquarters.

“This is intolerable!” groaned the Geheimrat, the world going black before his eyes. With a jerk he straightened himself. He stood, giddy, staggering. His cheek burned like fire. Attila cackled a gentle reproach, the tuft of hair still stuck to his beak.

“Blasted animal!” growled the Geheimrat, and pushed the gander violently through the hole in the fence. Attila cackled a loud protest, but already his wives were following him. What he, who saw only his friend, was prevented by his love from seeing, his wives noticed at once—the expanse of fields they had missed so long. They spread their wings. Cackling excitedly and ever louder, they fluttered—a noisy white cloud—toward the potato allotment stretching behind the laborers’ houses.

Attila saw his wives far ahead. He knew there was food in the offing, and his friend was forgotten—how can a goose fly ahead of a gander? He spread his wings. Fluttering and cackling, he hurried after them and put himself at their head. Past the rear of the laborers’ houses they hastened toward the fields, the broad fertile fields. Hastened. They knew they were doing what was forbidden; they knew that, once they were noticed, the hated people would come hurrying with sticks and whips to drive them back to the sour park grass. This did not make them any quieter, only quicker.…

For a moment the Geheimrat gazed after them. He rubbed his cheek and hoped his beard was worth it. But in any case it would be best if he was not on hand for the next few hours. Should anything happen to the geese, Belinde would be able to look after herself.

He hurried through the park on his way to the forest. The wind was against him.… Therefore he did not hear the shots. With a sigh of relief he disappeared into the shadow of the trees.

Young Pagel and his masons were at the crossbeam. Now, even at a distance, there was no mistaking what it was going to be. Therefore there was no more laughing, therefore there was no more huddling together of heads, therefore there was no more squinting over at the Manor windows.

“They’re sitting up there and looking,” said mason Tiede. “And if we peep at them the fat will be in the fire.”

But the fat was in the fire anyhow. Frau von Teschow trembled with indignation at the insult offered her. Maids and cook were running round the Manor like chickens, looking in turn for Elias and the Geheimrat.…

“Just when you need a man he’s certain never to be there,” croaked Jutta von Kuckhoff.

“They’re making fun of the holiest thing,” groaned the old woman. “But you’ll see, Jutta, that young man will also end up in prison.”

“Whoever wants to be a hog’s bristle is never a downy feather in his youth,” asserted Fräulein von Kuckhoff, pouring out a glass of port wine for her friend.

Two gunshots cracked out in the distance. But in the general upset no one noticed them.

Studmann heard the shots nearer at hand, very near. He had finally freed himself from Amanda by promising to talk to the Geheimrat and was walking in the afternoon heat, slowly, so that he should not begin perspiring again, on his way to the Villa. He started at hearing shots crack out in his immediate vicinity. What idiot’s shooting right near the houses? he thought with sudden anger.

At first he did not connect the cackling noisy geese with the shots. Then he saw a straggler, wailing sadly, with a hanging wing, probably broken. He saw three, four, five white spots on the green field. One of these was moving its feet and head convulsively. It became still.

But they are tame geese, not wild geese! thought Studmann, in astonishment, who was by no means familiar with all Neulohe’s customs. Then he caught sight of the Rittmeister at a ground-floor window, gun in hand. His face was white as snow, his whole body trembled with rage, and he stared at his friend as if he did not recognize him. “Present my compliments to my father-in-law—tell him I’m giving him roast goose!” he shouted much too loudly. And before Studmann could answer, the Rittmeister slammed down the window.

“Disaster, misfortune, catastrophe!” Studmann felt, still not understanding what was going on.

Studmann dashed up the stairs to the entrance. The door was open. In the little hall stood Frau von Prackwitz, Violet von Prackwitz, the old servant Elias.…

When troubles come they come in floods; no nursemaid of a Studmann, no patient wife can ward them off. Had Frau von Prackwitz remained at the coffee table she would have heard through the open window the cackling approach of the feared and hated geese; she might have been able to prevent the unfortunate rash shots.… But Elias had brought the message asking that the young Fräulein be allowed to come over to the Manor—it was wiser not to annoy the Rittmeister and better to speak to Elias confidentially. They had gone out into the hall. Not two minutes had passed when the disastrous shots rang out.

In tears Frau von Prackwitz hurried toward Studmann. Her grief had broken down all barriers. Seizing his hands she said in despair: “Studmann, Studmann, now everything is finished—he’s shot them.”

Studmann looked at the disturbed faces around him.

“Mamma’s breeding geese! Papa’s favorite gander Attila! It has just died.”

“But they’re only geese! We can settle the matter … compensation.”

“My parents will never forgive him.” She wept. “And it was also contemptible of him! It wasn’t the little bit of vetch! He wanted to hurt my parents.”

Studmann looked around inquiringly, but the serious faces of the old servant and the young girl told him that more than geese had been shot.

Hubert Räder came quietly up from the basement, on rubber soles. He took up a respectful attitude near the stairs, his face indifferent, yet ready for orders. He glanced neither at the weeping woman nor out of the window at the victims. But he was there in case he should be needed; he was ready.

“What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?” wept Frau von Prackwitz. “Whatever I do will annoy them, and will annoy him, too.”

The Rittmeister emerged from his room like a jack-in-the-box. His face was no longer white but flecked with red, betokening the transition from wordless fury to abusive rage. “Don’t take on like that!” he shouted at his wife. “Blubbering before all the servants on account of a few ridiculous geese.”

“I must ask you,” cried Studmann outraged, “not to shout at your wife like that!” In his teacher’s way he added a precept. “Men shouldn’t shout at their wives.”

“This is fine!” said the furious Rittmeister, looking around in protest. “Haven’t I pleaded, implored, demanded a hundred times: repair your fence, keep your geese under guard, don’t let them get at my vetch? Haven’t I warned them a hundred times: something will happen if I catch them at my vetch again? And now that something’s happened, my wife weeps as if the world was coming to an end and my friend shouts at me! This is really too much!” He threw himself into a hall chair, making it creak; he jerked at the crease of his trousers with long, trembling fingers.

“Oh, Achim!” wailed his wife. “You have shot away the lease. Papa will never forgive you for this.”

The Rittmeister jumped up from his chair at once. “You don’t think that the geese got at the vetch by accident, do you, after all that’s happened today? No, they were brought there. They wanted to annoy me, to provoke me. Good—I shot them!”

“But, Achim, you can’t prove it.”

“If I’m right I don’t need to prove it.”

“The weaker is always wrong …” began Studmann wisely.

“We’ll see whether I’m the weaker!” cried the Rittmeister, enraged afresh by this wise dictum. “I’m not going to have them jeer at me. Elias, go at once to the vetch, pick up the dead geese, take them to my mother-in-law and tell her …”

“Herr Rittmeister,” said the old servant, “I was sent here on an errand by my mistress. With all due respect, Herr Rittmeister, I am employed at the Manor.”

“You will do what I say, Elias!” cried the Rittmeister in a louder voice. “You will take the dead geese and tell my mother-in-law …”

“I shall not do it, Herr Rittmeister. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. Five or six geese are too much for an old man. Attila alone weighs a quarter of a hundredweight.”

“Hubert shall help you. Hubert, help him carry the dead geese.”

“Good day, madam. Good day, Herr Rittmeister.” Elias went.

“Fool!—Hubert, present my mother-in-law with my compliments; those who won’t listen to reason will have their knuckles rapped.”

“The Rittmeister’s compliments, and those who won’t listen to reason will have their knuckles rapped,” repeated Räder, his fishy eyes resting on his master.

“That’s right.” The Rittmeister spoke more calmly. “You can take a barrow, get a man from the farm to help you.…”

“Very good, Herr Rittmeister.” Hubert went to the door.

“Hubert!”

The servant stopped. He looked at his mistress. “Yes, madam?”

VIII

What made the tearful negotiations in the Manor so difficult was the slaughtered geese. Not the fact that they had been shot by martial law, as it were, for field stealing—this news had already been brought to Frau von Teschow by old Elias, with a haste that was quite unusual and undignified. No, it was the corpses of the victims themselves, their departed souls, which kept flitting through Frau von Teschow’s room, shaded so pleasantly by the lime trees. The noise of the masons’ hammers had died away; the door was bricked up; the cross had been painted over red on an order from Studmann, hastily whispered in passing by. The old Geheimrat was still wandering among his pines, knowing nothing, fortunately, so that there was still time to pacify his wife.

And Frau von Teschow was, in fact, sitting much more calmly in her large armchair, only infrequently dabbing a handkerchief to her old eyes that wept so easily. Fräulein von Kuckhoff uttered every now and again an apt or inapt proverb, usually apt. Herr von Studmann sat with a suitably courteous and somewhat troubled face, interjecting a shrewd word from time to time, as soothing as balm.

Frau Eva was huddled at her mother’s feet on a kind of little bolster, thus wisely indicating by her choice of seat how completely subordinate she was to the old lady, and revealing that she knew the chief precept of the marriage catechism inside out—that it is usually the wives who have to suffer for the vices and stupidities of their husbands. Not for one moment did she forget what she had said to Herr von Studmann as she left the Villa—namely that she wanted to rescue what could be rescued. Without flinching she let Frau von Teschow not only say things which do not matter very much to a woman, remarks on goose-slaughter, the brick cross, the convicts or the Rittmeister, but also things which a woman will not tolerate even from her mother: remarks about her extravagance in silk underwear, her expensive taste for lobster (“But, Mamma, they’re just Japanese crabs!”), her lipstick, her tendency to fatness, the low necks of her blouses, and Violet’s upbringing.