Wolf Among Wolves (127 page)

“The devil take Studmann! I settle my affairs myself. Moreover, the police confiscated all the stake-money without exception—it was all lost!”

“Why are you embarrassed about money? You mustn’t be. Perhaps in this respect I have inherited my father’s practical sense.”

“I’m not here because of money,” Pagel had said sullenly. “Although it really looks like it now.”

“I’m pleased,” she said quietly, “if Neulohe has at least done someone good.”

“I can’t give you the money now, as you know, but I won’t forget it. Then Herr von Studmann wrote that there is also the question of your salary to be settled.” Pagel raged inwardly. “Up to now you have received only a sort of pocket money. That, of course, is impossible. I have thought it over—my father’s officials always had roughly ten hundredweights of rye in monthly wages. You will pay out to yourself from now on the value of two and a half hundredweights of rye weekly.”

“I’m not a skilled agriculturalist. There ought to be a bailiff here.”

“I don’t want to see any new faces now. Don’t you make things hard for me, too, Herr Pagel! You’ll do what I told you, won’t you?”

He took her hand.

“And please see to business matters for the moment exactly as you think, without asking me everything. Perhaps my husband will recover much quicker than we think.”

“I’m afraid, though, it won’t work. It’s too much, and I’ve no experience whatever.”

“Oh, yes, it will,” she had nodded. “Once you are acquainted with the work, we shall hardly miss Herr von Studmann.” Poor Studmann! This was his valediction from a woman whom he had reverenced and perhaps even loved. However, it can well be assumed that Studmann’s farewell letter contained not only business matters, like issues of salary and gambling debts, but also the type of emotional language that seems to refer rather to men’s wounded pride than to their unrequited love, which women always find so insulting and so
ridiculous. But then, from her point of view, she might well say that she had been deserted in the hour of her greatest distress, because she had insisted that two payments should be made in a different order from that which he desired. She might also add that this friend had tactlessly wished to force on her a discussion of emotional matters at a time when her daughter was in peril and her husband dangerously ill.

No, if things were looked at from the woman’s standpoint, any woman’s, then Studmann was completely in the wrong. From a business point of view, however, he was now beginning to prove himself right.

“Well, my dear old friend,” he wrote in that letter which Wolfgang had stuffed into his pocket before the scene with Sophie, “no, dear young friend would be more correct, I am getting on excellently with Dr. Schröck. A droll creature, the old boy! But an organization which runs like a clock.… You ought to see the diet kitchen here, my dear Pagel. The best-conducted Berlin hotel can’t compare with such precision in weighing out, preparation, serving up. By the way, I have become a complete vegetarian; no more tobacco or alcohol. Somehow this seems to suit my whole constitution better, and I am astonished that I didn’t think of it before. Just consider for yourself—tobacco came to us from South America, Central America—tropical lands. And alcohol—that is, wine—from Palestine, according to the Bible—and thus cannot be suited to our northern character. But in no sense do I want to convert you! All the same, I must say however …” And so on and so on for four pages, to the memorable postscript: “Has the Geheimrat still not stirred himself about his rent? I should be very surprised.”

Pagel, constantly damper on his bale of straw, sighed. He lit a cigarette. Well, Studmann need not be surprised any longer; Studmann was right. The Geheimrat had stirred himself about his rent. He had, in fact, stirred himself most maliciously. And the first steps would be followed by others; the affair would come to a crisis. Get out! Your affectionate father!

It is in the nature of every man, especially of a young one, not to like working for something which is a failure. The deep discouragement which had seized hold of Pagel at the sight of a few rusting shovels undoubtedly came from this in the main. If the Geheimrat was going to write finish to the whole business in two or three weeks, all this rushing around wasn’t any longer amusing. No, thank you! Pagel wouldn’t stir a finger. Pagel wouldn’t bother himself anymore. Especially not for this declining patch of the German Reich, consisting of so many regions and fifty-four different parties! Good night!

As a proprietor, as a lessor, one couldn’t assert that the Geheimrat was in the wrong. It was a devilish thing that most people in most things were
simultaneously in the right and in the wrong. The tenant undoubtedly had failed to meet his financial obligations, permitting himself expensive tastes that encumbered a property which he mismanaged with unskilled assistance; moreover he was no longer capable of business. Devil take it, what lessor wouldn’t be scared to death at having such a tenant?

If, on the other hand, one considered that the old landlord was very rich, that the real tenant was his daughter, and that at the moment she was in a pretty bad way, then again the lessor was damnably in the wrong. But, thought Pagel, it’s also not at all like the disagreeable old boy to start this business with the forester so utterly without reason. He himself knows that he is socially, as a gentleman, done for in the whole district if he now makes it impossible for his daughter to carry on the farm, and puts her, so to speak, out on the street.… No, this bolt couldn’t have come from a clear sky. There must have been something else before. It was a damned nuisance, that one had promised the forester not to speak about the letter to Frau von Prackwitz.

Pagel got up from his bale of straw. He was an idiot; he ought to have looked through the private letters which Amanda took to the Villa. Perhaps there was a letter from the Geheimrat among them; almost certainly his daughter would neither have read nor replied to it. Nowadays she did little but drive through the world in a car. I certainly saw a pretty good bundle of letters lying unopened on her desk, he thought. I can tell if there’s something from the old boy by the postmark, and the handwriting. Then I could somehow approach the business from that side.

He walked up and down. A spade, there to make his life burdensome, was roughly kicked aside.

Oh, my God, he thought, I don’t want to have worked here, damn it all, for nothing. I don’t want to have merely sat dawdling here till Peter called me back. I want to have done something, to have laid down some little stone or other which the old fellow won’t overturn immediately. Another, a more pleasurable thought occurred to him. His cigarette flew in an arch over the next potato clamp and went out in the night. Away with sinful, tropical nicotine! I have, at least, done something that’s not so bad; I’ve packed our secret overseer Kniebusch off to bed for the next twenty-six weeks. That’s settled the veto on carts in the woods and the control of sales, my dear Geheimrat. You wanted to be so cunning. You began by taking away his work in the forest and his tree-cutting, with a secretive hint about imminent financial developments. But I’ve been even more cunning. I’ve taken everything from him: the forest as well as the spying.

The brief hour of discouragement had passed. No longer does he feel exhausted and flat. He’s a young man whose work suits him and who wants to bring it to a good end! With rapid steps Pagel made for the farm.

VII

But he did not get to the office at once. On the swiftest paths something always intervenes. This time it was the local veterinary surgeon, Herr Hoffart, whom the stableman had called in during Pagel’s absence; the Rittmeister’s saddle horse, an English thoroughbred mare called Mabel, had been foaling since the morning. Her throes came again and again, but the birth was no nearer.

Everything appropriate had been done: her box had been curtained off, because horses in foal are shamefaced and cannot bear to be observed by a human being; a curious glance can delay birth for hours. But this seclusion was now over. When Pagel and the vet entered the box the mare threw them a bloodshot look which spoke of torture and pleaded for help. As with human beings, shame had disappeared when pain became unbearable.

“Half an hour ago I could still hear the foal’s heartbeats. Now there’s nothing, and I’m convinced it’s dead. Very likely it has strangled itself in the navel string. I was called in too late, unfortunately.” Hoffart had the resigned air of one who is accustomed to having to enter every death as a debit in his accounts.

“And what is to be done?” asked Pagel, more interested in the beast’s misery than in a question of guilt.

“I have had a look,” said the vet, relieved and eager. “Unfortunately the mare is very narrow. I shall have to cut up the foal inside and fetch it out piecemeal. That, at least, would save the mare.”

“It’s only a broken-down thoroughbred. The Rittmeister’s said to have bought it from some racing stable or other for a couple of hundred marks. But he was very fond of her. I know what, Herr Hoffart,” said Pagel briskly, “have patience for another quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, and I’ll inform you then.”

“The throes have almost stopped and the heart’s very feeble. Is there someone here, at least, who can prepare a strong coffee for the horse? I’ll also give her a camphor injection.… But it must be done quickly.”

“It will be. I’ll send the coffee over to you. How much? A wine bottle full? Good.” Pagel ran across to the staff-house.

In the darkness somebody spoke to him, blocking his way. It was Black Minna, moaning something about madam, about Sophie.… He ran past her into the office.… Giving Amanda instructions about the coffee, he got through to the panel doctor. The doctor could not come. In the doorway appeared Black Minna and began again to blubber out something.… Furiously he waved her aside. But the doctor decided to come after all; he’d be at the office at nine or half-past and would like Pagel to show him the way to the forester’s house. Pagel called to Amanda: “Well, you get the coffee quickly to the stables,” and
darted past the two women into the night. No doubt Minna really had some complaint, demand or warning, but he had no time to listen now. He had to go further. Behind his back, he couldn’t help feeling that a fine spat was brewing between the women. He had told the vet a quarter of an hour, and five minutes of that were already gone.

The Rittmeister’s attendant let him into the Villa, an elderly, somewhat fat man, with a few graying wisps of hair on his skull. He always wore, as if he were in an institution, a jacket with white and blue stripes, leather sandals, and baggy gray trousers which had obviously never been pressed since they were bought. Pagel liked the placid man. Schümann had related to him what he had told no one, not even the wife, not even the doctor. “I don’t believe,” he had whispered, “that the Rittmeister is so ill, mentally ill, as the doctor thinks. He has had a shock—but deranged? No! He can’t speak, he smiles at everything one says to him—but he’s only pretending! He doesn’t want to speak, he doesn’t want to see or hear anything more; he’s had enough of the world, that’s what it is! He can talk in his sleep …”

“But isn’t that illness?” Pagel had asked.

“Perhaps; I don’t know. Perhaps he’s only cowardly and discouraged. At first he was quite able to quarrel with me when he wanted his alcohol. Later he would only speak to beg for sleeping draughts, and when we also made him do without those, then he said to himself: There’s no point in talking, they won’t give me anything, so I’ll shut my mouth …”

“So, Herr Schümann, do you think he still wouldn’t drink anything, if he wasn’t being supervised?”

“That’s always difficult, Herr Pagel. You never know with such people! If everything went smoothly, perhaps he’d get through without drinking. But if he heard something unpleasant—and he hears everything, he’s so alert—then it’s possible he’d cave in again. That’s why I’m still here.”

“Well, what’s the Rittmeister doing?” asked Pagel now. “Is he in bed? Is he up? Is madam at home?”

“Madam’s gone out. The Rittmeister is up; I put on his collar and tie, and now he’s reading.”

“Reading?” Pagel found it difficult to imagine Prackwitz reading, even in health, unless it was the newspaper.

Herr Schümann grinned slightly. “If you hadn’t told me that he had passed a few weeks this summer as a shooting guest in a madhouse I should undoubtedly have been fooled.” The attendant did not hide his smile now. “I sat him in his study, I thrust a copy of
Illustrated Sport
in his hand, I said to him: ‘Herr Rittmeister, have a look at the pictures’—I was interested to see what he’d do. Naturally
he immediately thinks of the lunatics he’s met and he’s not content till he has the magazine upside down. He kept on peeping at the same page, frowning, muttering—and only when I said—‘Herr Rittmeister, the next page!’—did he turn over.”

“But what’s the point of all that?” asked Pagel somewhat indignant.

“He’s pretending to be mad!” Herr Schümann giggled. “He’s very delighted to think how well he does it. When he believes I’m not looking he gives a side glance to see if I’m taking notice of what he’s doing.”

“But we’d leave him alone, without these stupid tricks!” said Pagel angrily.

“You wouldn’t! He’s right there. Once you noticed he’s in his senses you’d demand that he should think a bit about his affairs, bother about money; madam would expect him to grieve about his daughter, to assist. But that’s just what he doesn’t want. He’s run dry, has nothing more to give.”

“Then he is ill after all,” cried Pagel. “Well, we shall see. Listen, Herr Schümann.” And he expounded his plan.

“One can try,” said the attendant thoughtfully. “Of course, if it turns out badly we’ll both get it in the neck—from the doctor as well as madam. Well, come in, we’ll soon see how he reacts.”

It was a pitiable sight, and also a very shameful one—if the Rittmeister was not really so ill as he pretended. There he sat in one of his irreproachable English suits, his eyes dark as ever, but hair and eyebrows snow-white. His formerly brown face looked yellow. He had a newspaper in his hand and was chuckling with delight over it. The paper shook in his hand and his whole body shook with it.