Wolf Among Wolves (67 page)

“You’re right off your rocker, Studmann,” said Pagel. “I’ve never known you like this.”

“Pagel, don’t you know what it is? The peace of the fields, the breath of nature, grassy soil under one’s feet—you don’t know what it means, doing eighteen miles a day up and down the stupid corridors of a hotel, with the soles of your feet burning.”

“Berlin! Wicked, forgotten Berlin!”

“I already have an idea that even this peace is a fraud. In the houses of that charming little village which crouches so picturesquely in the forest, scandal, jealousy, and tale-telling are just as much at home as in any city tenement. Instead of the clanging streetcars there’s a pump handle eternally squeaking; instead of the scolding old woman on the floor above, here a farm dog howls day in and day out. The kite over there means the death of a mouse. But, Pagel, leave me my happiness, don’t pluck the young blossom of my faith! The peace of the fields, the harmony of the cottages, the quiet of nature …”

“Come and bathe, Studmann, a bathe will cool you down—the crayfish ponds are said to be very cold.”

“Yet, let’s go and bathe,” agreed Studmann enthusiastically. “Let’s plunge this hot body into the cool waters—let us wash from our worried brow the corroding sweat of doubt—Pagel, I must confess to you, I feel marvelous!”

V

Geheimrat Horst-Heinz von Teschow had once presented his old servant Elias with a stick, a yellowish brown malacca cane with a cylindrical golden knob. As a rule the old gentleman was not the one for giving presents, a problem he generally settled by asking: “Who gives me anything?” Sometimes, however, he was quite the opposite and presented someone with something (and then reminded him of it for the rest of his life).

The malacca cane had passed into the possession of Elias only when the gray lead filling was beginning to show through the knob’s glittering gold. This did not prevent the old gentleman from often reminding Elias of the “real gold stick.” “Do you polish it properly, Elias? You must grease the cane every four weeks. It’s an heirloom, a gold stick like that, you can bequeath it to your children. Of course you haven’t any (at least as far as I know), but I’m convinced that even my granddaughter Violet would be delighted with it if you left it to her in your will.”

What Elias thought of the gold content of the knob remained unknown; he was too dignified to speak of such things. But he made much of the cane, and always carried it on his Sunday walks. Thus he had it today also. Cane in one hand and panama hat in the other, he bore his large yellowish skull in the afternoon
sun through Neulohe village, on his way to the Villa. In the breast pockets of his ceremonial brown frock coat he carried in the left the wallet with the 1,000-mark notes, and in the right the Geheimrat’s letter to his son-in-law.

Whenever he saw a face old Elias stopped and addressed it. If it was a child he asked for the first or fifth commandment; if it was a woman he inquired about her gout or whether there was enough milk to feed the baby. With the men, he asked about the progress of the harvest, said “Ah” or “Oh!” or “You don’t say!” and always broke off the conversation after three or four sentences, swung his panama gently, jabbed his stick against the ground and passed on. No ruling prince could have wandered among his subjects more affably or with more dignity than did old Elias among the villagers, who yet mattered nothing to him and to whom he mattered nothing. All, however, readily accepted him as he was; if ever a newcomer felt aggrieved after the first interview—what the devil did the old donkey want of him, what in all the world did he think he was?—at the second or third time, at the latest, he had succumbed to the spell of philosophic detachment and answered as readily as the old guard.

Although he was no younger than Forester Kniebusch, Elias was quite different; whereas the former was ever trying to take color from others, echoing their sentiments, always worrying about his old age and his livelihood, old Elias wandered about with unruffled serenity, the things of this world meaning nothing to him, and managing his crafty master just as naturally as a child does a doll. That’s how things are arranged in this strange world. The cares that press on the hearts of some are not even felt by others.

Having arrived at the Villa, Elias did not take his letter up the front stairs to the brass bell—which on Saturday had been given its Sunday polish by Räder—but went round the Villa and down into the basement, where he knocked at the door, not too loudly and not too softly, just as was proper. No one called, “Come in!” so Elias opened the door and found himself in the kitchen, where a complete Sunday silence and cleanliness prevailed. Only the kettle hummed softly over the dying flames. There was no one in the kitchen. Old Elias emptied the kettle in the sink and put it aside; he knew that Frau Eva liked to have her tea brewed only from freshly boiled water.

Then he went through a door at the back of the kitchen into the dark passage dividing the basement into two parts. His stick was clearly to be heard; he coughed, he also knocked on the door. But perhaps all these announcements of his presence were unnecessary, for Räder was sitting quite still and rigid in his bare room, his hands in his lap, staring with fishy eyes at the door, as if he had been sitting like that for hours.

When the servant Elias entered, however, the servant Räder got up, not too slowly and not too quickly, just as was proper, and said: “Good day, Herr Elias. Will you please take a seat?”

“Good day, Herr Räder,” answered old Elias. “But I shall be depriving you …”

“I like standing,” declared Räder. “Old age must be respected.” And he took the other’s hat and stick. Then he placed himself with his back against the door, facing Elias, but separated from him by the whole length of the room.

The old man mopped his forehead and said pleasantly, “Yes, yes—it’s hot today. Marvelous weather for the harvest.”

“I know nothing about that,” said Räder coldly. “I sit here in my cellar. I’ve nothing to do with the harvest.”

Elias folded his handkerchief carefully, put it into his coat pocket and brought out the letter. “I have a letter here for the Rittmeister.”

“From our father-in-law?” asked Räder. “The Rittmeister is upstairs. I’ll announce you at once.”

“Ah yes, ah yes!” sighed old Elias, looking at the letter as if he were reading the address. “Here are relatives writing letters to each other now. What one can’t say face to face, Herr Räder, ought not to be written either.” He looked at the address once again with disapproval and laid the letter absent-mindedly on Räder’s bed.

“Herr Elias, please take the letter off my bed,” said Räder sternly.

The old man picked it up with a sigh.

Räder spoke more calmly. “The letters from our father-in-law have never yet brought any good—you can deliver it yourself. I’ll announce you, Herr Elias.”

“Let an old man get his breath back, can’t you?” complained the old man. “There can’t be such a hurry about it, on Sunday afternoon.”

“Of course, so that the Rittmeister goes for a walk in the meantime, and I get the full force of his anger!” grumbled Räder.

“We’re worried over there about our grandchild,” said old Elias. “We haven’t seen Fräulein Violet in the Manor for five days.”

“Manor! It’s a mud hut, Herr Elias!”

“Is our little Vi ill?” asked the old man wheedlingly.

“We haven’t had the doctor here,” said Herr Räder.

“But what can she be doing? A young girl—and sitting in the house in such fine weather!”

“Your Manor is also a house—whether she sits there or here, it’s all the same!”

“So she really doesn’t go out at all—not even in the garden?” The old man got up.

“If you call this a garden, Herr Elias! … Does the letter concern the young Fräulein, then?”

“That I can’t say—but it’s possible.”

“Give it to me, Herr Elias, I’ll see to it.”

“You will give it to the Rittmeister?”

“I’ll see to it all right.… I’ll go upstairs at once.”

“I can tell the Geheimrat, then, that you have delivered it.”

“Yes, Herr Elias.”

Tap, tap, tap went the malacca cane, with old Elias, out into the sun; and tap, tap, tap went the servant Räder up to the first floor. But when he was about to knock at the door he heard steps and, looking up, saw the feet of Frau von Prackwitz coming down the stairs. So he held the letter somewhat behind him. “Madam!”

Frau von Prackwitz had two red patches under the eyes, as if she had just been crying. She spoke quite brightly, however. “Well, Hubert, what is it?”

“A letter has come from over there for the Rittmeister,” replied Räder, showing a corner of the letter.

“Yes? Why don’t you go in and deliver it, Hubert?”

“I’m just about to,” whispered Räder. “I’m braver than Herr Elias, who didn’t have the courage to deliver it. He even came into my room about it, a thing he’s never done before.”

Frau von Prackwitz became so thoughtful that a small wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows. Hubert showed nothing of the letter except a corner. From his room the Rittmeister burst forth. “What’s all this damned whispering and rustling outside my door? You know I can’t stand it! Oh, I’m sorry, Eva!”

“That’s all right, Achim. I have to discuss something with Hubert.”

The Rittmeister withdrew and his wife took Hubert over to one of the windows. “Well, give me the letter, Hubert,” she said.

“They’re very worried in the Manor about Fräulein Violet,” said Hubert bumptiously. “Herr Elias was only too eager to find out why the young Fräulein hasn’t been there for five days.”

“And what did you say, Hubert?”

“I, madam? I didn’t say anything!”

“Yes, you are good at that, Hubert,” affirmed Frau von Prackwitz bitterly. “You see how worried and distracted I am because of Violet. Won’t you really tell me who the unknown gentleman was, Hubert? I appeal to you!”

But one should not appeal to a blockhead for anything. “I don’t know of any unknown gentleman, madam.”

“No, of course not, because to
you
he is known! Oh, what a cunning fellow you are, Hubert!” Frau von Prackwitz was very angry. “But if you carry on like this, Hubert, with these mysterious doings and untruthfulness—then we’re no longer friends.”

“Ah, madam,” said Hubert sullenly.

“What do you mean by ‘Ah, madam’?”

“Excuse me, here is the letter.”

“No, I want to know what you meant just now, Hubert!”

“It is just a manner of speaking, as it were.…”

“What is a manner of speaking? Hubert, I insist!”

“That we shall no longer be friends, madam,” said Hubert very fishily. “I’m just the servant, and you, madam, are Frau von Prackwitz—so there can’t be any talk of friendship.”

Frau von Prackwitz went crimson at this impertinence. In her confusion she seized the letter which the servant still held out to her, tore it open and read it. In the middle of her reading, however, she raised her head and said sharply: “Herr Räder! Either you are too stupid or too clever for a servant’s position—in either case I fear we shall soon separate.”

“Madam,” said Räder, also a little angry now, “in my references I am recommended by persons of very high rank. And at the training school I received the golden diploma.”

“I know, Hubert, I know. You are a pearl!”

“And if the Rittmeister wants me to leave, then I ask that I be told in time, so that I can give notice. It is always an obstacle in my profession, if I’ve been given notice.”

“All right,” said Frau von Prackwitz, glancing quickly through the short letter and looking at the figures in it without understanding them. “It shall be as you wish, Hubert. This,” she said in explanation, “is just an unimportant business letter, nothing about Fräulein Violet. Elias was probably a bit inquisitive on his own account.”

Hubert saw, however, that Frau von Prackwitz folded the letter several times and pushed it into a little pocket in her dress.

“If you see Herr von Studmann, Hubert, tell him to call in about seven, no, let’s say at a quarter to seven.” And with that she nodded curtly and went into the Rittmeister’s room.

Hubert remained in the passage for a moment longer, until he heard husband and wife talking. Then he crept up the stairs with extreme caution, so that no board should creak. He knocked softly on a door, once only, and entered quickly.

In the room Violet was sitting at a little table; a crumpled damp handkerchief and red patches on her face revealed that she, too, had been crying.

“Well?” she said, curious nevertheless. “Did Mamma put you through it as well, Hubert?”

“The young Fräulein shouldn’t be so careless when she’s eavesdropping,” rebuked Hubert. “I saw your foot the whole time on the top stair. And madam could also have seen it.”

“Ah, Hubert, poor Mamma! She’s just been crying here. Sometimes I’m terribly sorry for her, and I feel that I ought to be ashamed.…”

“There’s no use being ashamed, Fräulein,” said Hubert severely. “Either you live as the old people want you to—then you won’t need to be ashamed—or else you live as we young people think right, and then you really don’t need to be.”

Vi looked at him searchingly. “Sometimes I think, though, you’re a very bad man, Hubert, and that you have very bad plans,” she said, but rather cautiously, almost anxiously.

“What I am must be no concern of yours, Fräulein,” he said at once, as if he had thought it all out long ago. “And my plans are mine, after all. What you want, that’s your concern.”

“And what did Mamma want?”

“Just the usual questions about the unknown man. Your grandparents are also worried about you, Fräulein.”

“Oh, God, if they could only get me out of here! I can’t stand it any longer indoors. I shall weep myself to death! Was there really nothing in the tree again, Hubert?”

“No letter, no note!”

“When did you look, Hubert?”

“Just before serving coffee.”

“Take another look now, Hubert. Go there immediately and let me know at once.”

“But it’s useless, Fräulein. He doesn’t come into the village in the daytime.”

“Do you keep a good look-out at night, Hubert? It’s impossible that he hasn’t come at all! He gave me his solemn promise! He was going to be here on the second night, no, the next night.”