Wolf Among Wolves (86 page)

“Well, what did Papa want?” she asked.

“The Rittmeister did not know what was happening about supper.”

“And what is happening?”

“The Rittmeister will wait.”

“If Mamma should still be at the Manor, I could take the letter myself,” she said hesitatingly.

“As the young Fräulein wishes,” said Räder coldly.

Vi folded the letter and surveyed him. That morning she had planned to hand him over to young Pagel for a good thrashing, but one couldn’t free oneself so easily from a fellow conspirator and confidant—she kept finding that she needed him. She was convinced that the Lieutenant would come to the village this evening, after burying the weapons. He hadn’t shown his face in the village for a fortnight. He’d never been away so long. Unlike the others, he hadn’t been wearing a steel helmet. Proof that he still intended to go somewhere. He would look into the tree for her message, but it would be still safer to hand him the letter personally. But she could not get away, Räder was the best messenger … and at present he was not at all impudent.…

Poor little misguided Vi! She had forgotten she had sworn to her Fritz never again to write a letter. She had forgotten she had sworn to Pagel that this affair was over. She had forgotten she had sworn to herself never again to get mixed up with Räder, who was becoming more and more uncanny. She had forgotten that she would endanger her father and her Fritz if she mentioned the buried weapons in a letter of this sort. Her heart made her forget everything, her heart prevailed over her common sense and understanding. All she thought was that she loved him, that she must justify herself to him, that she wanted to see him again at all costs, that he ought not to put her aside so coldly, that she could not wait any longer, that she needed him.

She handed the letter to the servant. “See that he gets it safely, Hubert.”

Räder’s leaden eyelids, almost violet at the corners, were lowered as he observed the young girl. He took the letter. “ ‘I can’t promise that I will find the Lieutenant.”

“Oh, you will find him, Hubert!”

“I can’t run around the whole night, Fräulein. Perhaps he won’t come. When shall I put it in the tree?”

“If you haven’t found him by twelve or one o’clock.”

“But I can’t run around as long as that, Fräulein. I have to get some sleep. I shall put it in the tree at ten.”

“No, Hubert, that’s much too early. It’s nine now already and we haven’t yet had supper. You won’t get out of the house before ten.”

“The doctors say, Fräulein, that the sleep before midnight is the healthiest sleep.”

“Hubert, don’t be so silly. You just want to annoy me again.”

“I don’t want to annoy the young Fräulein.… It’s true about the sleep. And I’d like to know, anyway, what I’m to get for this. If your parents find out I shall be dismissed, and then I won’t get a testimonial or reference.”

“How should they find out, Hubert? And what can I give you? I never get any money.”

“It needn’t be money, Fräulein.”

Hubert spoke in a low voice, and involuntarily Violet did the same. Between each quiet sentence the summer evening could be heard gliding into night with a cry from the village, with the clattering of a pail, with the buzzing amorous dance of the midges over the garden bushes.

“What do you want, then, Hubert? I really don’t know …” She avoided looking into his face. She glanced round the room as if looking for something that she could give him.… He, however, watched her more and more intently. His dead eyes came to life, a red spot appeared on his cheekbones.… “Since I am risking my reputation and my job for the young Fräulein, there’s something I should like to ask of her.”

She cast a swift glance at him and instantly looked away. Something of the fear of him she had once felt again arose in her. She strove against it, she tried to laugh, she said provokingly: “I suppose it isn’t a kiss you want from me, Hubert?”

He looked at her unmoved. Her laugh had already died away, it sounded so ugly and false. I don’t feel like laughing, she thought.

“No, not a kiss,” he said almost contemptuously. “I don’t believe in cuddling.”

“What then, Hubert? Go on, tell me.” She was burning with impatience. He had achieved what he wanted: she preferred the most fantastic request to this painful uncertainty.

“It is nothing unfitting that I ask of the young Fräulein,” he said in his cold, didactic tone. “Nor is it anything indecent.… I should just like to be allowed to place my left hand for a while on the young Fräulein’s heart.”

She said nothing. She moved her lips, she wanted to say something.

He made no movement to approach closer. He stood at the door in an attitude appropriate to a servant; he was wearing a kind of livery-jacket with gray armorial buttons; on his glistening oily head every hair was in its proper place.

“Now I have told the young Fräulein,” he said in his lifeless tone, “may I say that I intend nothing unchaste? It isn’t that I want to touch her breast.…”

She was still struck dumb. They were separated almost by the width of the room.

Hubert Räder made something like a very slight bow. She hadn’t moved and was quite still. He walked slowly across the room toward her; rigid, she saw him coming closer; no differently does the horrified victim await the murderer’s death blow.

He placed the letter on the table, turned round and walked toward the door.

She waited, waited an eternity. He had already grasped the doorknob when she moved. She cleared her throat—and Hubert Räder looked round at her.… She wanted to say something, but a spell lay over her. With a vague, unsteady movement she pointed at the letter—no longer thinking at all of letter or recipient.…

The man raised his hand to the switch near the door, and the room was in darkness.

It was so dark she could have screamed. She stood behind the table, she saw nothing of him; only the two windows on the left stood out grayly. She heard nothing of him, he always walked so quietly. If only he would come!

Not a sound, not a breath.

If only she could scream, but she couldn’t even breathe!

And then she felt his hand on her breast. No butterfly could have settled more gently on a blossom, yet with a shudder that passed through her whole body she shrank back.… The hand followed her shrinking body, laid itself in coolness over her breast.… She could shrink back no farther.… Coolness penetrated her thin summer dress, her skin, penetrated to her heart.…

Her fear was gone, she no longer felt the hand, only an ever more penetrating coolness.…

And the coolness was peace.

She wanted to think of something, she wanted to say to herself: It is only Hubert, a disgusting ridiculous fellow.… But nothing came of it. The pictures in the book on marriage drifted through her head; for a moment she saw its pages as if in bright lamplight.

Then she heard a melody from downstairs and knew it was her father. Bored with waiting, he had turned on the phonograph.

But the melody seemed to grow fainter and fainter, as if she were losing her strength in the ever-pervasive coolness. Her senses were becoming dulled, she only felt the hand … And now she felt the other … Its fingers fumbled lightly on her neck, they pushed her hair back.

Then the hand glided right round her throat; the thumb rested with a light pressure on her larynx, while the pressure on her heart increased …

She made a quick movement with her head, to free her neck from the hand—in vain, the thumb pressed on it more firmly …

But it was only the servant Hubert—he couldn’t want to choke her … She breathed with difficulty. The blood buzzed in her ears. Her head grew dizzy …

“Hubert!” she wanted to scream.

Then she was free. Struggling for breath, she stared into the darkness, which became light. At the switch stood the servant Räder, irreproachable, not a hair on his head out of place.

Downstairs could be heard the phonograph.

“Thank you very much, Fräulein,” said Räder, as unemotionally as if she had given him a tip. “The letter will be seen to.” It was in his hand again; he must have taken it from the table in the dark.

In the drive outside sounded her mother’s voice, then that of Herr von Studmann.

“Supper will be ready at once, Fräulein,” said Räder, gliding out of the room.

She looked around. It’s her room, unaltered. It was also the old, unchanged, funny servant, Räder—and she hadn’t changed either. A little painfully, as if her limbs had not yet regained their full life, she went to the mirror and looked at her throat. But nothing could be seen of the fiery red marks she had imagined. Not even the slightest reddening of the skin. He had only gripped her very gently, if indeed he had gripped her at all. Perhaps she had only imagined most of it. He was merely a crazy, disgusting fellow; when a little time had passed, so that he wouldn’t think it came from her, she must persuade Papa and Mamma to get another servant.…

Suddenly—she had already washed her face—a feeling of absolute despair came over her, as if everything were lost, as if she had gambled with her life and had lost it.… She saw her Lieutenant Fritz, first passionate and then quite cold, almost nasty to her.… She heard Armgard whispering to her mother that Hubert was a fiend, and the thought darted through her head that perhaps Hubert had also laid his hand on the fat cook’s breast, had encircled her throat—and that that was why she hated him.

Violet regarded herself in the mirror with an almost indifferent curiosity. She looked at her white flesh, she pushed down the neck of her dress. She felt so degraded that she thought the flesh must look sullied. (The same hands that had touched Armgard!) But it was white and healthy.…

“Supper, Vi!” cried her mother from downstairs.

She shook off the tormenting thoughts as a dog shakes off water from its coat. Perhaps all men were like that. All a little disgusting. She just mustn’t think of them.

She ran down the stairs, humming the tune she had heard on the phonograph.
Up you go, my girl, raise your leg high!

XI

It turned out that Frau Eva and Herr von Studmann had already had supper with the old Teschows. Deeply hurt, the Rittmeister sat at table with his daughter, while the two for whom he had so heroically waited talked quietly in the adjoining room. The door stood open; the Rittmeister, muttering and growling, let slip disjointed sentences about punctuality and consideration for others, and from time to time barked at his daughter, who pleaded she had no appetite. Räder, a napkin under his arm, was the only one who had his approval. With unerring instinct he guessed which dish was wanted; he refilled the beer glass to the second.

“My dear Studmann,” shouted the Rittmeister, having at last distinctly sniffed tobacco smoke, “do me just one favor and don’t smoke, at least while I’m eating!”

“Sorry, Achim, I am smoking!” called his wife.

“So much the worse,” growled the Rittmeister.

At last he jumped up and went in to the others.

“Enjoy your supper?” asked his wife.

“Nice question when I’ve been waiting two hours for you for nothing!” Full of irritation, he poured himself out another vodka. “Listen, Eva,” he said aggressively, “Studmann has to get up at four in the morning. You should have let him go to bed rather than drag him over here. Or are you perhaps going to start on those ridiculous geese again?”

“Violet!” cried Frau Eva. “Come along now, say good night. You can go to bed, it is almost ten. Hubert, lock the doors, you are at liberty now.”

The three were alone. “Quite so, now we’ll start on the ridiculous geese again. You should at least thank your friend von Studmann; without him we shouldn’t need to discuss it, but just pack our bags and go. If it were not for him, it would have been all over with Neulohe.” Frau von Prackwitz spoke more
sharply than she had ever yet done to her husband. Six hours of battle with a tearful mother and a crafty father had exhausted her patience.

“That’s fine!” cried the Rittmeister. “I’m to be thankful for being able to stay in Neulohe! What do I care for the place? I’d find a job anywhere better than the one I’ve got here. You don’t know what’s going on in the world. The Army needs officers again!”

“Let us talk calmly,” pleaded Studmann, anxiously observing the approaching storm. “You are probably right, Prackwitz; an officer’s job would suit you best. But with an army only a hundred thousand strong—”

“Ah! you already seem to think you’re a better farmer than I am, eh?”

“If,” said Frau von Prackwitz heatedly, “you care so little about Neulohe, then perhaps you’ll agree to our suggestion that you should go away for a few weeks.”

“Please, Prackwitz. Please, Frau von Prackwitz.”

“I go away!” shouted the Rittmeister. “Never! I’m staying.” And he sat down in haste, as if the two might even dispute his right to a chair. He glowered at them.

“It is unfortunately a fact,” said Studmann quietly, “that your parents-in-law are both at the moment filled with a strong prejudice against you. Your father-in-law has only one desire: to annul the lease.”

“Then let him annul it, damn him! He’ll never find another fool like me to give him three thousand hundredweights of rye as rent. Fool!”

“Since it’s impossible to keep a family today on a captain’s pension …”

“Why impossible? Thousands do it!”

“…  and since the farm offers a certain basis of livelihood …”

“You were saying just the opposite this morning!”

“If the lessor is well disposed,” interjected Frau Eva. “Which your father never was in his life, my dear.”

“…  your wife agreed to manage the farm alone for the next few weeks while you travel for a bit. Until your parents-in-law have calmed down sufficiently to be approached again, that is.”

“She agreed, did she?” mocked the Rittmeister bitterly. “Without asking me. Not necessary, I suppose. You just dispose of me as you like. Pretty. Very pretty. May I perhaps also be allowed to know where I am to travel?”

“I thought of …” began Studmann and felt in his pocket.

“No, don’t, Herr von Studmann,” said Frau Eva, stopping him. “Since he doesn’t want to go away, it’s no use making any suggestions. My dear Achim,” she said energetically, “if you don’t want to realize that Herr von Studmann and I talked for six hours with my parents solely on your account, then it’s useless
to say another word. Who is always in difficulties with Papa? Who fired at the geese? You! And, after all, it is your future that is at stake. Violet and I can always stay in Neulohe. We annoy no one; we have no difficulties with my parents.”