Wolf Among Wolves (90 page)

Yes, in her loneliness Vi had become Wolfgang Pagel’s constant companion. Her mother had little time for her; she also was out in the fields a lot. Frau Eva had spent all her youth in Neulohe; in the past she had often gone about the farm with her father, the Geheimrat, had heard what the old man mumbled to himself, had seen what he regarded as important. Now she was amazed how much of it had stuck. With her husband, whatever she saw she should not have seen. He had always said: “You understand nothing about it. Please don’t interfere with the way I run things.” And had immediately become annoyed.

Studmann never became annoyed. He listened attentively to what she had to say; he even encouraged her suggestions. And though he did not always do what she suggested, he would explain his contrary opinion so fully and so well that she was forced to agree—if sometimes with a little yawn. Studmann was certainly a very reliable and efficient man, but he was a little too pedantic. No one could imagine what he would look like should he one day declare his love for her, explaining it, setting forth the motives, analyzing it, discussing his attitude to his friend, stating his precise demands for the future. It was inconceivable! With all his efficiency Studmann was the most inefficient man in the world for love-making. Yet Frau Eva had to admit that his way of letting his glance rove absent-mindedly from her toes to her
mouth, in the midst of a sober calculation concerning the mixture of fodder for the cows, had its charm.

Slowly but surely, she thought. She was in no hurry; she had had enough of haste for the time being. Moreover she had probably no fixed plans or intentions; Studmann’s respectful admiration, after the storm-tide of quarreling these last few years, did her good. After the cascade of trouble, disagreement, and hurry of recent years, she was happy to be rocked and cradled by the stream of dependency and order emanating from Studmann. But it must be realized that a mother who had so many things to do hadn’t much time for her daughter. At first she had tried taking Violet with her round the farm and on her visits to the office. But this contact revealed that their relationship had suffered a serious blow. With sadness Frau Eva saw that Vi obstinately rejected everything coming from her. If she said the weather was fine, Violet found it oppressive; if she suggested that Violet ought to go bathing again, Violet found bathing a bore. There was nothing to be done; there was in this resistance something like serious hostility.

Perhaps I really have been unjust to her, the mother reflected. Perhaps it was nothing—some harmless little affair—we have certainly heard nothing more of any stranger. And now her girl’s sense of honor is mortally offended. Well, it will be best for me not to force matters, but to give her time to get over it. One day she’ll come back to me.

Vi therefore regained her freedom; there was no more talk of her being confined to her room. But what was she to do now? How empty this life had become! She couldn’t go on waiting like this forever—and perhaps in vain. In that case … but she didn’t know what to do in that case. If only something would happen! But nothing did, absolutely nothing.

In the first days of her new freedom she ran to all the places where she had been with Fritz. For hours on end she wandered up and down in the forest at the spot where they had met. She remembered every single one of the places where they had lain.… It was as if the grass had only just straightened itself, as if the mossy bank had only just become smooth again. But he did not return. Sometimes it seemed as if he had been nothing but a dream.

She went also to the Black Dale, and after long searching found the cleverly concealed spot where the weapons were buried. There she stayed a long time; he was bound to come sooner or later to see if the secret was still kept. But he did not come.

Sometimes she met old Forester Kniebusch on her wanderings, and he poured out his heart to her. He had been brought face to face with the poacher Bäumer, but that scoundrel must have got wind of the forester’s boasts.
Although he had not been conscious a moment after his fall, he had had the impudence to assert that the forester had thrown him from his bicycle and battered his head several times against the stone, hoping to beat his brains out. They had spoken to the old man very roughly, telling him that only his age protected him from immediate arrest. This is no time to talk of wild deer. The attempt on Bäumer’s life had to be settled first. And in the meantime the poacher was living in the hospital like a prince; he had excellent food, careful treatment, a private room—to be sure, with bars in the windows. Never in all his life had the scoundrel been so well off.

Violet was bored by these tales of woe. The forester ought to know what to expect from boasting about his heroic battle with the poacher. But when he announced that he had also met little Bailiff Meier in Frankfurt, she began to pay attention. Little Meier was a little man no longer; he seemed to have become a big man; he had money, a lot of money. In detail the forester described how Herr Meier was dressed, his elegance, the valuable rings on his fingers, his gold watch with a spring lid. But little Meier hadn’t become arrogant or haughty; he had invited Kniebusch to supper at a fine restaurant. There had been Rhine wine and afterwards champagne, finally capped with a red Burgundy which little Meier had called “Turk’s blood.” The forester licked his lips at the memory of this carousal.

“Just another profiteer!” said Vi contemptuously. “Black Meier’s cut out for that. And of course in return for the booze you told him everything that’s happening in Neulohe, I suppose?”

The forester turned red and protested vigorously against this imputation. He hadn’t even said that the Rittmeister was no longer there. And besides, they had talked about very different things.…

“What did you talk about?” asked Vi aggressively.

But the forester was not able to remember so exactly.

“You were drunk, Kniebusch,” she affirmed. “You’ve completely forgotten what you talked about. Well, so long.”

“Good day, Fräulein!” stammered the old man, and Violet continued her way alone.

The forester’s wretched babble bored her, the wood bored her, her grandmother’s pious phrases bored her. Her grandfather was always away on mysterious journeys or shut up with the magistrate Haase or silent and thoughtful. She kept out of Räder’s way and hadn’t even asked him what he had done with her letter. (But now she locked her door, both day and night, despite her mother’s astonished protests.) Oh, everything bored her, got on her nerves.… She asked herself what she used to do the whole day before
she knew Fritz. She could not remember. Everything seemed hollow and empty—boring.

The only thing left was Wolfgang Pagel, whom she ought really to hate more than her mother. But she was quite indifferent to what he thought about her, what he said to her, or his mocking. It was as if she had no sense of shame where he was concerned, as if he were a sort of brother. The two spoke to each other in an incredible tone. Her grandmother would have fainted on the spot had she heard her grandchild (for whom she purified the works of that voluptuary, Wolfgang von Goethe) talking to young Pagel.

“None of your tender caresses, Fräulein,” Pagel might say. “I can see you’ve got another of your strange days today. Black rings round your eyes. But remember, I’m just a weak frail man.”

Violet could not quite cope with this tone. She hung on his arm, squeezed it hard and said: “You’re a fine one! You might be a bit nice to me for once; there isn’t any need for you to always save up everything for your Petra.”

“Always to save up,” corrected Pagel with Studmann-like pedantry. “You might perhaps try learning a little grammar sometime.”

Oh, he could irritate her into a fury. He kept at a distance; there was no more kissing—he saw to that. Sometimes she fled from him with flushed cheeks and tears of rage. She swore that he was a coward, a wretch, a weakling; that she would never speak a word to him again.…

Next morning she was standing outside the office door, waiting for him.

“Well, am I in your good graces again?” he grinned. “I swear to you, Violet, today I’m more of a coward, more of a wretch and more of a weakling than ever.”

“When my Fritz comes back,” she said, with flashing eyes, “I’ll tell him how you’ve treated me. Then he’ll challenge you and kill you. I shall be glad!”

Pagel merely laughed.

“Do you think I won’t do it? I will do it! You see!” she cried, angry again.

“You are quite capable of it,” he laughed. “I’ve known for a long time that you are really an absolutely cold-blooded creature, and that you wouldn’t care if the whole world pegged out so long as you got what you wanted.”

“I hope
you
peg out!”

“Yes, yes, but not now. Now I’ve got to go to the stable. Senta foaled last night. Coming along?”

And of course she went with him. Almost overwhelmed by tenderness, she stood before the little long-legged creature with its large head. “Isn’t it sweet?” she whispered excitedly. “Isn’t it a darling? Oh, it’s heavenly!”

And Wolfgang looked at his Violet askance. Yet she would take the same pleasure in seeing me lie in the dust with a bullet through my heart. Or rather
a bullet through my stomach, so that she could hear me moan with agony. No; give me my Peter a thousand times over. You’re no good; all dolled up outside, but rotten inside.

But however calm and self-assured he usually felt in her presence, she could always enrage him with one thing—her casting away of all sense of physical shame before him. If she nestled close to him, exhibiting a half-ironical tenderness and passion, it was bearable, though not pleasant. (And to act Joseph to Potiphar’s wife is always a little ridiculous.) She had been awoken once and for all, but she hadn’t learned to pull herself together, to deny herself things. But when, in the middle of a walk through the fields, she said to him with studied carelessness: “Go on ahead, Pagel, I want to do a wee-wee,” or when, bathing, she undressed herself before him with as little embarrassment as if he were her grandmother—then he was seized with a wild rage, and could have struck her. Trembling with anger, he would upbraid her roundly.

“Damn it all, you’re not a whore!” he shouted.

“And supposing I were!” she said, looking at him mockingly, amused. “You couldn’t make any use of me.” Or else she would say, “Always boasting! Aren’t you spoken for? Why get so angry about such things?”

“You’re rotten and stinking, spoilt to the marrow! There’s not a speck of your body that isn’t dreck!”

“Specks are usually dreck,” she said coolly.

It was perhaps not so much the insult to his manhood which aroused him, although such things must infuriate any man, especially one of twenty-three; it was perhaps rather a sudden panic. Did she already regard herself as completely lost? Did she intentionally want to go to the dogs? Has this fifteen-year-old really already had enough of life? Every decent person feels himself a little responsible for his fellow-beings: only the wicked let their brethren run into the swamp without warning. Pagel felt his responsibility. He would try to talk to her, to warn her. But she affected a complete lack of understanding; she sat within a barbed-wire entanglement of foolish remarks: “All men are like that—one must be low-down, otherwise one just gets treated badly.” Or else: “Do you think it decent, the way Herr Studmann shows off to Mamma as soon as Papa goes away—and do you expect me to be more decent?” Or: “You don’t tell me, either, all the things you did with your Fräulein Petra before you broke it off. I don’t suppose you were very decent in that, anyway. So you needn’t have started talking about decency to me—even if I am only a country girl.” Oh, she could be as cunning as the devil. Darting off at a tangent, she would say: “Is it true that there are places in Berlin where girls dance all naked? And
you’ve been there? Well, then! And you want to tell me that you faint when you sometimes see a little bit of me? You are ridiculous!”

There was nothing to be done, she would not be persuaded. Hundreds of times Pagel was on the point of talking to Studmann or Frau Eva about the girl. If he didn’t, it was not because of any silly feeling of gentlemanly discretion. But what good could the old people do if she wouldn’t listen to a young person like himself? Punishments and sermons will merely make it worse, he thought. Perhaps I shall have to speak about it if she ever wants to run away, but she certainly won’t get mixed up with any of the fellows here—she feels herself too much of the heiress for that and won’t want to tarnish her glory as future proprietress. If this scamp of a Lieutenant Fritz should turn up again, I shall hear of it instantly. Then I’ll give the rascal a good hiding and write down for him, in no uncertain terms, that he can forget any idea of returning to these happy pastures.

Pagel stretched himself. He wasn’t afraid to scrap with the toughest man in the village. Three months of country life had developed his muscles; he felt himself strong enough for any Lieutenant, any adventurer.

“Well, whom would you like to embrace now?” asked Vi ironically.

“Your Lieutenant Fritz!” was the surprising answer. He leaped on his bicycle. “Cheerio, Fräulein. Our walk is off for this morning, I must get on to my Hussars. But perhaps at one o’clock.” He was gone.

“Come along here, Violet!” called Frau Eva, who had observed this leave-taking from the office window and was sorry at the disappointed look on her daughter’s face. “I’m going to town in a quarter of an hour to fetch the wages. Come along with me—we’ll have pastry and cream at Kipferling’s.”

“Oh!” said Vi, pouting. “I don’t know, Mamma. No thanks, cream just makes you fat.” And in order not to be called back again she went quickly into the park.

“Sometimes I get very worried,” declared Frau von Prackwitz.

“Yes?” said Studmann politely, busy with his wage lists. Although he hadn’t nearly given the numbers all the noughts that belonged to them, no single column could contain the riches.

“She is so undecided, so slack. There’s no life in her.”

“It’s a rather critical age for young girls, though, isn’t it?” suggested Studmann.