There remained then only one way for him, that which led past the potato clamps fairly directly to Neulohe Farm and the staff-house. Kniebusch therefore went only this way, with great regularity, several times a day; and with the greatest regularity he arrived several times a day in the staff-house.
With the forester it had come to pass that he, a very old man, had at last found a real friend—and Pagel did not want to disappoint this simple faith. Yet he sighed whenever he saw the old man approaching, to sit down and not take his eyes off him for half an hour at a time. He did not exactly intrude; he never spoke if Pagel was busy—at the most he let himself be carried away into a rare exclamation of rapture when Pagel was typing, such as: “Oh, how fast he does that! Like machine-gun fire! Splendid!” No, he did not intrude, but it was a little disturbing to have those seal-like eyes fixed upon one in a glance of unbounded devotion, enthusiastic friendship. Perhaps it was disturbing precisely because Pagel did not in any way return this emotion. He had no particular love for the aged, timorous forester. And what had he done to earn such friendship, after all? Practically nothing: a talk on the telephone with the doctor, a little charity, two or three short sickbed visits.…
When things got too bad Pagel would interrupt his work. “Come along, Herr Kniebusch; I must see if there are any more mouse holes in my potato clamps: I’ll accompany you the little distance.”
The forester always got up at once and came away willingly. It never entered his head that his friend wanted to get rid of him. When this had happened three or four times, however, it occurred to the old man that at least he could take one job off this friend’s hands, and now on his morning walk to the office he would go from one clamp to the other. “Stacks six, seven, eleven each have a hole,” he would report. “At the north end, middle, south end.” He was very exact.
“Yes, you sigh, Herr Pagel,” said Amanda exasperated, “but you could easily tell him that the constant sitting around and staring is no good to you in the office. That Kniebusch is certainly no soft touch, and if he lays into someone, that someone definitely knows it. And if you don’t like to tell him, then I will.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, Amanda.” And Pagel spoke with such emphasis that Amanda did nothing of the sort.
When the forester had left his house that morning there was a very fine rain falling and no breath of wind. It was one of those mournful autumn days which lie on the hearts of young people like a nightmare, but the weather pleased the old forester, certain that his young friend could be found in the office, under shelter. Throwing a rain cape round his shoulders, he set forth.
Slowly and comfortably he shuffled toward the farm. His hands, clasped over his belly, were dry and warm under the cape. If he weighed up things closely, he had never been better off in his life, or felt better. He hadn’t even to fear the Geheimrat’s return. At Pagel’s instigation the doctor had written to the old gentleman, who had sent an amiable note to Kniebusch—he should see if he couldn’t get about a little again, so as to initiate his successor in the hiding places of the game, the ins and outs of the forest, and the artfulness of the population. But he shouldn’t bother himself any more about his work.
A fat lot the old gentleman knew! The forester wasn’t bothering himself or worrying a bit—least of all about the forest. But was he not perhaps a trifle sorry when he found holes in the potato clamps? That vexed and troubled his best and only friend, Pagel, as he knew; but it delighted him, because when there were holes he had something to report and was of use.
So he walked quite contentedly up one side of the clamps and down the other. Unfortunately, however, as he might almost have imagined, the people hadn’t, in this beastly weather, the heart even to steal; clothing was so scarce that men didn’t like to expose to rain the single gray uniform they had brought back with them from the war.
It looked then as if there would be nothing to report today, and that was annoying—till old Kniebusch came to the very last clamp, on the other side of which, next to the forest, he found the wished-for hole; and a splendid one, too. Six or eight hundredweights of potatoes had been taken out of it at least.
Satisfied, he might now have made his report. Instead, he looked thoughtfully at a small path trodden out from the hole into the pine plantation. The soft ground betrayed clearly that the potatoes had not been taken straight on a handcart to the road and thus to the village—the still quite fresh marks showed that they had been taken into the plantation and were probably still there.
The inquisitiveness of old men, as tormenting as an eczema, plagued him, and the hunter’s instinct urged him on—one doesn’t track game a whole lifetime to pass heedlessly over a trail in one’s old age. The thought of being able to report something very special to his friend Pagel also encouraged him. Not for a moment did he think that this investigation could prove dangerous. Potato thieves were harmless people; their theft was merely of food and was punished with a paper fine, so that they had little to dread if caught. If anything caused the forester to hesitate, it was his firm decision not to bother about other things. However, he wanted to do Pagel a favor, so gently, on tiptoe, he took up the trail. Over the years people had provided themselves with so many poles and faggots from the plantation that the place had become thinned out, and the forester arrived very quickly at the spot where a small mound of potatoes lay. They were Red Professor Wohltmanns. Wanted, no doubt, to fatten his pigs with them!
Kniebusch, feeling that he was not alone, raised his eyes and saw a man squatting under the pines. His trousers were down and he looked calmly at the forester.
“Hi! What are you doing here?” shouted the surprised Kniebusch.
“I’m shitting,” replied the man with a friendly grin.
“I can see that,” said the forester, amused. Oh, what a lot he would have to tell Pagel! “Was it you who pinched the potatoes?”
“Of course,” declared the man, taking his time.
“But who are you? I don’t know you at all!” The forester thought he knew every soul for twenty kilometers round, but he had certainly never seen this man before.
“Take a good look at me,” said the man, standing and pulling up his trousers. “You’ll know me next time.”
It was all so friendly and good-tempered—and potato theft was, after all, not really a capital crime—that the forester continued to stand with his hands clasped under the cape, and saw without misgiving the man saunter toward him. If there was no apprehension in his mind, there was certainly astonishment. He was familiar with that jacket and knickerbockers of gray-patterned cloth. “But you are wearing a suit of the Rittmeister’s!” he exclaimed bewildered.
“You miss nothing, forester,” said the man grinning. “It fits me, don’t you think?” He was now standing right in front, laughing. But something in this laughter, in the tone of his words, in his nearness, displeased old Kniebusch. “Well, tell me your name,” he ordered. “I certainly don’t know you.”
“Then you shall,” cried the other. In a flash his expression changed into one of hate; in a flash he had his arms round the forester—who couldn’t move under his cape.
“What’s the meaning of this?” exclaimed the helpless Kniebusch, still not thinking it serious.
“Here’s a greeting from your old friend Bäumer!” the man shouted right in his face. And in the same moment the forester heard a terrible crack, right in his skull, a blinding whiteness.… There must have been two of them, he thought. One has knocked me on the head from behind.…
All became red and then gradually black—he felt himself falling—he lost consciousness.
Slowly memory returned to his brain. It attached itself to what he had last thought. There were two of them, he told himself. One I don’t know, but the other who hit me on the head from behind must have been Bäumer.… It’s not so bad to be killed like this—all my life I’ve gone in fear of it, and now it’s not so terrible at all.…
Not for a moment did he believe that he
would escape with his life. That villain must have broken his skull. So the fellow had got him in the end! But it was not very painful. The warmth running over his skull was troublesome, though. That was the blood welling out. He was getting giddy from it. Had the fellows gone?
He listened, he heard nothing. No step, no rustling; not a twig snapped.
Painfully he moved his head to and fro; he could not move his eyes properly; he must move the whole head. He saw no one. Thought I was already done for; but it hasn’t been as quick as all that.
In truth he was lying there comfortably, old Forester Kniebusch; he had lain worse than that in his life. His limbs were getting heavy, but his head and something in his breast were getting lighter and lighter. For a moment he considered whether he should do something, and what he should do.… But why do anything?
The cold was increasing, that icy cold which was creeping up from the extremities of his limbs, but one could endure that; sooner or later in the morning people would come to the clamps; he was close by, he had only to shout. Then they would find him, carry him home, put him to bed—he had always wished to die in his bed.
The old forester, whose vital strength was slowly trickling from the terrible skull wound, pushed an arm under his head. It isn’t so bad at all, he thought again. If only one knew how little unpleasant even the most unpleasant thing is, one wouldn’t need to have any fears in life.
He tried to reckon out when the laborers would be likely to come. Potatoes had to be fetched for the pigs. At the most it would be another two hours; he would remain alive as long as that, surely, so that he could die in his own bed.…
But Pagel! he thought suddenly. My friend Pagel will be waiting for me. Every morning I’ve been there early and informed him of the holes—and today I don’t turn up! He’ll miss me!
Kniebusch shut his eyes. It was pleasant to feel that someone would miss him. He could hear that youthful, invariably friendly voice asking the Backs: “Where’s our old Kniebusch got to this morning? Why, he hasn’t made his report yet, Amanda!”
He smiled.
But an agonized feeling began to stir in him; he hadn’t yet made his report! Today he really had something to report, and today he failed to appear. They would soon find him, though. But this didn’t comfort him. I’m getting weaker all the time, he thought. I’m getting colder and colder. Perhaps I won’t be able to call out later on—they will find me too late.
He tried to move his head forward. He wanted to estimate, from the quantity of blood he had lost, the quantity of life which still remained to him; but he could not, it was too difficult.
A terrible struggle starts in him: the dying man wants only to lie quietly, to feel himself gently flowing away, to be at peace.… And something else tells him that he must get up and make his report. Bäumer is back again and someone else, a stranger—two dangerous people, two ravenous wolves.
I can’t get there! he groaned. I can’t walk even!
If you can’t walk, you must crawl, spoke the pitiless voice.
I never had any peace in my life; let me at least die in peace.
You will have peace in the grave—now make your report! said the voice without pity.
And the worn-out old man, the coward, the babbler, rolled over on his belly and drew up his icy limbs. Will-power, the ruthless will-power of duty—it was this which had always strengthened him against his entire nature. Now once more it drove him to a last extreme effort; old Kniebusch crawled on all fours across the forest and, coming to a sack, he took hold of it and dragged it with him, in the obscure feeling that he had snatched up some evidence.
He crawled up to the potato clamps and hopefully raised his head. No one was to be seen. “Oh, my God, my God! Will no one help me?” he wailed.
But he crawled onward. He crawled down from the clamps onto the path, and when he was alongside the park he saw in the hedge a hole and squeezed through this, to shorten his journey.… He did everything correctly, exactly, as if his brain were still functioning. But his brain was only in its twilight. Everything his mind and body could give was made possible by the massive will that forced him constantly to crawl forward. He no longer thought of Pagel, of Bäumer, of icy coldness, of wounds. He had forgotten the sack which, in the midst of torments, he went on dragging with him—he thought of nothing but that he must crawl on. Crawl—till he collapsed.
And collapse he did, in that moment when Pagel shouted to him: “My God, Kniebusch, dear Kniebusch—what have they done to you?” At that moment, hearing that familiar voice, his will gave way, his body failed him, and he stopped crawling forward. Together Amanda and he dragged the old man indoors. But they couldn’t get the sack out of his hand; it was as if his fingers had grown into the material.
III
It would certainly have been the bitterest irony in the world had Forester Kniebusch died in a strange bed without being able to make that report for which he had suffered so heroically. But Death was not so severe. Once again he was to open his eyes and see close above him his friend’s pale face and hear his kind voice. “Old Kniebusch, what a fright you gave us! Just wait a bit, the doctor will be here in a moment. He’ll patch you up again. Are you in bad pain?”
The forester moved his head angrily. Doctors and pain didn’t concern him any longer. He had been plunged into the darkness and only returned from it because he had something to settle, his report. And in disjointed words he whispered into Pagel’s ear, and Pagel nodded again and again and said: “Good, Kniebusch, good. Quietly—don’t tax yourself, I can understand everything.”
The forester went on whispering. Every word hurt him, but every word was necessary. When, however, he at last finished, he looked at Pagel with such imploring eyes that even the most callous would have understood the urgent question in that glance. And Pagel was by no means the most callous. “Good man,” he said, and gently pressed the forester’s hand. “Very good man.” Like one set free, the old forester smiled as he perhaps had never smiled in his life before. And then he seemed to sleep.
Holding the limp hand Pagel reflected on what he had heard; it was little enough, for the forester hadn’t seen one of the men, and the other he hadn’t known.
Sitting there dolefully, however, Pagel’s eye now alighted on the dirty old potato sack at his feet. For the dying man had let it fall as he groped for his friend’s hand. With his foot Pagel pushed at the sack and turned it about, and it looked to him as if, under all the dirt, there were black characters forming a name. Of course forage sacks were marked with their owner’s name.
He bent down and with his free hand laid the sack across his knee and wiped away the dirt—not letting go of the dying man’s hand. Letter by letter the writing became legible—legible with difficulty, but legible: Kowalewski.
Pagel stared dejectedly at this name. What could the old and honest overseer have to do with potato thieves and murderers? Undoubtedly it was a stolen sack.
In this moment the office door opened, and Amanda Backs came in. She had been telephoning; the doctor would come in a quarter of an hour and the police perhaps in half an hour.…
In reply Pagel lifted the sack, showed her the name and said: “They all come too late. He didn’t see his murderer and didn’t recognize the one who held him. And the name on this sack doesn’t help us further.…”
Amanda turned very pale, looked at him with large terrified eyes and began to tremble.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Do you understand what the name Kowalewski is doing on the sack?”
Amanda had laid her hand on her breast and was looking from the dying man to the sack, and from the sack to Pagel.
“Speak, Amanda! What do you know about it?”
“I know,” she whispered, “that the runaway convict is living in Sophie Kowalewski’s room.”
With a white face Pagel regarded the trembling girl.
“Yes, and I know that Liebschner has been out stealing, together with Bäumer, and so one of the pair he
ld the forester fast, while the other hit—”
“Amanda!” he shouted.
“Yes, Amanda!” she repeated and burst into tears. “And now I’ve become an accomplice of murderers just when I thought I was quite out of the dirt.”
He listened to her sobbing. “You ought certainly to have told me about that, Amanda.”
“Yes,” she cried in despair, “I know that now. But at the time she gave me so many good words. And I couldn’t help thinking of my Hans, of Bailiff Meier, and what I should have felt like if someone had betrayed him to the police. I already helped him away from here as soon as he shot at me! You can’t let down a friend. And she told me, Sophie told me, her Liebschner is good to her and they were going away at once as soon as the fare money had been saved, that means stolen. He’s good to her! That’s why it was; because she told me he was good to her, that’s why I held my tongue.”
“But you ought to have felt, Amanda,” insisted Pagel, “that it was wrong to keep silent.”
“Yes, you may say that now!” she cried wildly. “Sometimes it almost broke my heart, especially when Sophie acted so despicably against you. But how do I know what’s right and not right in the world? You’ve always said: ‘Amanda, that won’t do!’ and ‘Amanda, please don’t do that!’ And when you turned up your nose without a word, that was even worse. And you’ve always done that whenever I start to talk about someone else. In the end I thought: Hold your tongue, he’s the only person who is decent to you, and he’ll think that treachery is treachery, and even a convict shouldn’t be betrayed. I didn’t know where I was any longer.”
“I’m very sorry, Amanda. You are right, I ought to have talked with you differently. And before everything, I ought not to have stopped you from talking. I am certainly the more guilty. But I must go at once! Sit down and hold his hand. He won’t notice the difference, and when he wakes up, tell him that I hadn’t wanted to wait for the police. Perhaps I’ll catch the fellows.…”