“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.”
“That’s enough! If I’m in your way, I can leave at once. Where to, Studmann?” The Rittmeister was mortally hurt.
“We-ell …” Studmann rubbed his nose and regarded his peevish friend. “I more or less thought … It was my idea …”
The Rittmeister gave him a dark look, but said nothing.
Studmann felt in his pocket and brought out a letter. “There’s this queer old chap, Dr. Schröck, who amused you so much, Prackwitz.”
The Rittmeister did not look like one who was amused.
“He has written to me a few times, about damages from that Baron—you remember, Prackwitz.”
The Rittmeister gave no sign of remembering.
“Well, of course, I refused everything. You know my view of the matter.”
Whether the Rittmeister knew it or not, he remained dark and silent.
Studmann continued more cheerfully, waving his letter. “And now there is this last letter from Dr. Schröck, which came the
day before yesterday.… he seems to be a queer sort of chap, with strangely sudden sympathies and dislikes. You told me yourself how much he seemed to hate his patient—Baron von Bergen. Well, he seems to have taken a liking to me, which is very funny when you come to think that he’s never seen me, and that all he knows is that I fell down the hotel stairs—drunk. Well, in this letter he makes me a proposal, nothing to do with Baron von Bergen …”
Studmann became doubtful. He looked at the letter, then at his unusually silent friend, then at Frau Eva, who nodded to him encouragingly. It was actually hardly a nod, more a closing of her eyelids to mean yes. Studmann glanced again at his friend, to see whether he had noticed this signal. But Prackwitz stood silent at the window.
“Of course, it’s only an idea of mine, a suggestion … Dr. Schröck was thinking of appointing a business manager for his sanatorium. It is a rather large place, over two hundred patients, about seventy employees, huge park, a little farming, too … So, you understand, Prackwitz, there are all sorts of things to do there … And, as I said, Dr. Schröck thought of me.”
Studmann gave his friend a friendly look, but his friend didn’t return it. Instead he helped himself to another vodka and drank it down. Then he poured himself another, which he didn’t drink down. Frau Eva fidgeted in her chair and cleared her throat, but she said nothing, including nothing against the vodkas. “Naturally, Dr. Schröck doesn’t want to engage me without seeing what I’m like; even his sympathies don’t go as far as that,” continued Studmann. “He invites me to go as his guest first for a few weeks, and so that I shouldn’t feel superfluous during that time, he complains movingly about an almost Australian plague of rabbits which despoil his park and fields. He suggests I might, with the help of his ferret keeper, deal with them. He seems to be quite a practical type, the old fellow.…”
Herr von Studmann again gave his friend a friendly look. The Rittmeister looked darkly back; instead of answering, he emptied his second vodka and poured himself a third. Frau von Prackwitz drummed lightly on the arm of her chair. The burden of talking continued to rest on Studmann, and it was gradually becoming oppressive.
“Well, you’re such an enthusiastic hunter and such a fine shot, Prackwitz! And we thought—I thought—a little relaxation would do you a lot of good. Just think, the peacefulness, the good food in a sanatorium like that. And then out of doors the whole day—he says there are thousands of rabbits there.” Studmann waved the letter cheerfully. “And since I have found an occupation here, and am not very well able to get away, because of your father-in-law … You see, he wants something like a firm business-like hand … I thought if you went along in my place … As I said, the peacefulness, no irritation—and I’m convinced you would recommend me warmly for the manager’s job.” Studmann tried to laugh, but did not quite succeed.
“Well, say something, Prackwitz,” he called out with a somewhat artificial cheeriness. “Don’t stand there so gloomy and pale. Your father-in-law will calm down …”
“Very well thought out,” said the Rittmeister darkly. “Very cleverly contrived.”
“But, Prackwitz!” Studmann was taken aback. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I felt it coming,” murmured Frau Eva, leaning back and placing her hands over her ears.
And the Rittmeister did indeed burst out with double fury after his long silence. “But nothing will come of it!” he shouted, raising in menace a trembling finger. His face was deathly white. “You want to get me certified as insane! You want to lock me up in a lunatic asylum! Very cunning. Marvelous.”
“Prackwitz! I implore you! How can you think such a thing? Here, read the letter from Dr. Schröck.”
The Rittmeister pushed letter and friend aside. “Very well thought out. No, thank you! I can see through you. It’s a put-up job, a conspiracy with my father-in-law. I’m to be got out of the way. I’m to be divorced! My substitute’s on the spot, eh, Eva? But I understand everything now! The talk about the lease this morning—was it actually the real lease? Was that faked, too, like the letter, just to provoke me? And the geese!—probably lured here by you yourselves. The gun!—how did the gun come to be loaded? I put it away unloaded. Everything prepared, and then, when I fall into your trap, when I really do shoot, against my will—I swear it, against my will!—then I’m to be declared insane! Pushed off into a madhouse! Put under guard—in a padded cell …”
He seemed overcome by grief. Rage seized him anew, however. “But I refuse! I’ll not budge an inch from Neulohe! I’ll stay. You can do what you like! But perhaps you’ve already got the keepers there—the strait-jacket …” He tried to a recall a name. It came to him in a flash of inspiration. “Where is Herr Türke? Where is the attendant Türke?”
He rushed to the door. In front of him was the little hallway, quiet and still.
“They might be hiding,” he murmured to himself. “Come out, Herr Türke,” he shouted into the dark house. “Come out. You know very well I’m here.”
“Enough of this!” cried Frau Eva angrily. “There’s no need to let all the servants know you are drunk. You’re just drunk! He can never stand alcohol when he’s excited; he simply goes into a frenzy,” she whispered to Studmann.
“Mad!” the Rittmeister wailed. He stood at the window, leaning his head against the glass. “Betrayed by my own wife and friend! Put under guard! Locked up!”
“You had better go now,” she whispered to Studmann, who was possessed with the thought of urging his friend to be sensible, of explaining everything. “The only place for him now is bed. Tomorrow he’ll be sorry. He was like this once before. You know, that business with Herr von Truchsess that made my father so angry.”
“I’m not going!” shouted the Rittmeister in a new fit of rage, beating on the glass. It broke. “O-ow!” he cried, and held out his bleeding hand to his wife. “I’ve cut myself.”
She could almost have laughed at the doleful change on his face. “Yes, come upstairs, Achim; I’ll bandage it. You must go to bed instantly. You need some sleep.”
“I’m bleeding,” he muttered, miserably supporting himself on her arm. This man who had been thrice wounded in the war turned pale at a cut scarcely half an inch long.
At this spectacle Studmann considered it advisable to go. It was not the woman who was in need of protection. In a last access of unbending determination the Rittmeister bellowed after him: “I’ll never go!”
It was not surprising, it was in fact quite natural, that Rittmeister von Prackwitz should go after all—at noon the next day, in very high spirits even, and of course to Dr. Schröck, with three gun-cases and on his right hand a strip of plaster. Almost with enthusiasm he had agreed to it next morning. He had no wish to see a friend before whom he had let himself go so abominably. And he was delighted at the prospect of a change, a journey, some shooting instead of money worries; while by no means least was the thought of the elegant sanatorium, the convalescent home of aristocracy—a Baron instead of his sweating father-in-law.…
“Just see that I’m regularly sent sufficient money,” he said anxiously to his wife. “I don’t want to look a fool.” Frau Eva promised. “I think I’ll look up my tailor in Berlin,” he went on pensively. “I really haven’t got a decent hunting suit.… You’ve no objection, have you, Eva?”
Frau Eva had no objection.
“You’ve got to manage for yourselves here now. I’m only going away at your wish, don’t forget that. So no complaining if anything goes wrong. I don’t care two hoots about going away. I can shoot bunny-rabbits here, too.”
“Aren’t you going to say good-by to von Studmann, Achim?”
“Yes, of course, if you think I ought to. But I’ll pack first. And the guns have to be greased. Anyway, give him my best regards if I don’t see him. He’ll probably always be asking your father for advice now; he can’t tell winter from summer barley! You’ll get into a mess, you see!” The Rittmeister smiled cheerfully. “Still, if it gets too bad you can send for
me. I’d come at once, of course. I’m not the one to bear a grudge.”
XII
Listening at the door, Violet had only heard the beginning of the quarrel. Convinced that it would go on for some time and keep her mother busy, she slipped out of the house, at the back. For a moment she stood irresolute. Ought she really to chance it? If it was found out that she had left the house at night instead of going to bed, the stubbornest lying wouldn’t save her from being packed off to a strict boarding school, as her mother had threatened. Besides, if Hubert Räder found the Lieutenant and gave him her letter, Fritz would be under her window this very night. And there was the trellis on the wall! If she went away, she might miss him.…
Everything spoke in favor of staying and waiting. But there was the warm starry August night! The air seemed like a living thing, enveloping her body. It was like a link to him, who was also outside on this soft night, perhaps quite near her. She felt her blood singing in her ears that sweet alluring song which the body voices when it is ready. Perhaps she ought to go after all.… And she felt downcast at the thought that she might wait the whole night for him in vain.…
A little patch of light in the house, almost on the ground, attracted her attention. Uncertain what it was, she approached it, glad of any diversion which put off her decision. She knelt down and peered. It was Räder’s room in the basement, empty. He must have gone out to deliver her letter, then, and she could go up to her room with an easy mind: if the Lieutenant was in Neulohe tonight, he would come to her window. The otherwise orderly Räder had forgotten in his hurry to switch off the light.
Violet was just about to get up when the door opened. It was strange and a little uncanny: she, with the whole night around her, was looking unobserved at a little bright stage. Queer and at the same time a little uncanny was also the scene which now presented itself: the person closing the door was Hubert Räder, no longer the punctilious young man in gray livery, but a somewhat ridiculous thing in a disproportionately large nightshirt with gaily trimmed border. Above this angels’ raiment, however, was the sallow fishy head with its expressionless eyes—and Violet was no longer able to think this head stupid and silly. Something like horror filled her.…