Street robbery.
Illegal possession of firearms.
Cheating.
Illegal gambling.
Receiving.
Passing of counterfeit money.
Drug-trafficking.
Procuring, trivial and serious cases of.
Blackmail.
Living on immoral earnings.
An endless list, the wearisome deathly menu of crimes, vices, misdemeanors, trespasses … Over their charge-sheets the officials almost nodded to sleep.… Then suddenly they started shouting, until their voices once more gave way.… An ever-rising flood of lies, evasions, distortions, denunciations. (And in the Government printing works, in a hundred auxiliary ones, they were preparing for the coming day its new abundance of money, poured out in overwhelming superfluity upon a starving, brutalized people who from day to day increasingly lost all feeling of self-respect and propriety.)
“It’s enough to drive one mad,” cried Rittmeister von Prackwitz, jumping up for the tenth time to pace the room. The fact that, in doing so, he had to avoid half a dozen men likewise engaged by no means improved his temper. Snorting, he stopped in front of his old comrade. “How much longer do you think we’ll have to stay here? Until the gentlemen condescend, eh? It’s monstrous, arresting me.”
“Now, just keep calm,” pleaded von Studmann. “Anyway, I don’t believe we’re arrested.”
“Of course we’re arrested,” cried the Rittmeister still more angrily. “The windows are barred and the doors locked. Don’t you call that arrested? Ridiculous. I’d just like to know what you think an arrest looks like, then.”
“Be calm, Prackwitz. Getting excited won’t do any good.”
“Be calm, of course, be calm! It’s all very well for you to talk—you haven’t got a family, you haven’t got a father-in-law. I’d just like to see how calm you would be if you had Geheimrat Horst-Heinz von Teschow as your father-in-law.”
“He won’t find out. I tell you, we only have to show our identification papers and then they’ll let us go. Nothing will happen.”
“Then why don’t they let me go? Here are my papers—I have them in my hand. I must get away, my train’s going, I have to take my harvesters to the country—I say, you—listen, Herr what’s-your-name?” He rushed upon the clerk who had just appeared. “I demand to be released at once. First they take all my money from me—”
“Later, later,” said the clerk indifferently. “First calm yourself a little. You are to come along now,” and he motioned to a fat man.
“First calm myself!” said von Prackwitz to Studmann. “That’s simply ridiculous. How can I calm myself when I’m treated in this way?”
“No, really, Prackwitz, pull yourself together. If you go on fuming like this, they’ll keep us to the last. And then I ask one more thing of you: don’t shout at the officials.”
“Why shouldn’t I shout at them? I’ll blow them up properly. Keeping me here for hours!”
“For half an hour.”
“Anyway, they’re used to being shouted at. They’re all old noncoms and sergeants—you can see it.”
“But you’re not here as their superior, Prackwitz. It’s not their fault that you were caught gambling.”
“No. But just look at young Pagel, the roué. Sits there as if the business didn’t trouble him at all, smirking and grinning like some Buddha. What are you grinning like that for, Pagel?”
“I was just thinking,” said Pagel, smiling, “how crazily everything happened today. Over a year I’ve been struggling for a little money and today I get it, piles and piles. Snap! It’s confiscated.”
“And that makes you laugh? Well, you’ve got a funny sense of humor.”
“And then another thing,” Pagel went on, unheeding. “This afternoon I wanted to get married …”
“You see, Pagel,” said Rittmeister triumphantly, suddenly in a good temper. “I guessed at once in Lutter and Wegner’s that you were worried about a woman.”
“Yes. And this evening I heard that my dear intended had been arrested for something and taken to Police Headquarters.… And now I’m sitting here, too.”
“Why was she arrested?” asked the Rittmeister curiously, for the consideration of events did not interest him so much as the events themselves.
Von Studmann shook his head, and Pagel remained silent.
The Rittmeister recollected himself. “I’m sorry, Pagel; of course, it’s no concern of mine. But it beats me why you sit there pleased and grinning just because of that, I must say. After all, it’s an extremely sad business.”
“Yes,” said Pagel. “It is. It’s funny. Very funny. If I had won the money only twenty-four hours earlier, she wouldn’t have been arrested and we would now have been married. Really very funny.”
“I wouldn’t think about it any more, Pagel,” suggested von Studmann. “That’s all finished and done with now, thank God. In a few hours we’ll all be sitting together in the train.”
There was a silence. Then Prackwitz cleared his throat. “Give me a cigarette, Pagel. No, you’d better not. I owe you so much already.”
Pagel waved his hand. “That’s all gone.”
“But, man, don’t talk such nonsense! You lent me money. Do you remember how much you gave me?”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Pagel. “I wasn’t meant to have any of it; that’s been proved.”
“Gambling debts are debts of honor, Herr Pagel,” declared the Rittmeister sternly. “You shall get your money back, you can depend on that. Of course, it won’t be possible at once. First we must have the harvest in and begin threshing.… Are you coming with me?”
“What, just in order to wait for the money?” said Pagel sullenly. “I’d like to start doing something worth while at last … if I only knew what. But if you have some proper work for me, Herr Rittmeister—”
“Of course I’ve got work for you, man,” said the Rittmeister excitedly. “You’ve no idea how much I’ve been wanting a couple of reliable men. To give out fodder, pay wages, distribute allowances, make a tour of inspection through the fields every now and again at night—you can’t imagine the things that are stolen from me.”
“And forests and fields,” added von Studmann. “Trees, animals—no brick houses with falling façades, no cocaine, no gambling clubs.”
“No, of course not,” said the Rittmeister eagerly. “You would have to promise me, Pagel, that you won’t gamble as long as you’re with me. That’s quite out of the question.” He turned red. “It doesn’t really matter if you don’t promise,” he said a little blusteringly. “I can’t really insist on that. Well, what do you say?”
“I’ll come to the station tomorrow morning in any case and tell you then,” said Pagel hesitatingly. “Eight o’clock at Schlesische Bahnhof—that was it, wasn’t it?”
Prackwitz and Studmann looked at each other. The Rittmeister made an almost angry gesture. “Hasn’t Fate answered your question yet?” said Studmann. Pagel kept silent. “For the game was your question, wasn’t it, Pagel?”
“But I won,” said Wolfgang obstinately.
“And sit here without anything!” laughed the Rittmeister scornfully. “Be a man, Pagel! I find your indecision horrible. Pull yourself together. Give up gambling.”
“Are you worried about the girl?” asked Studmann.
“A little,” admitted Pagel. “It’s really so strange for me to be sitting here, too.”
“Well, do what you must do,” cried the Rittmeister angrily. “I’m not going to beg you to come to Neulohe.”
“In any case, we shall be seeing each other at the station,” added von Studmann hastily, for someone was calling out. From the adjoining room came a thick-set man who ran to doors and windows, inspected them, shook his head. “Thieves! What a nerve, robbing the police!” he shouted.