There they stood on the steps, a swarm, a horde—the Rittmeister didn’t doubt for a moment that these were his men, although the agent was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh, God!” he groaned, stricken to the heart, “and that lot want to cut my rye, want to dig potatoes! That gang living in Neulohe!”
Young fellows, caps jauntily tipped over their ears, cigarette stubs in the corner of their mouths, with extremely wide trousers whose beautiful creases extended to the toes of their shoes, Chaplin sticks modishly in their hands; and other louts, shaggy, either without collars or with dirty open ones, their shirts gaping over chests tattooed like their arms in blue and red—in ragged trousers, barefooted or with worn-out plimsolls … Two street-girls with hair almost bleached white, silk dresses and high-heeled patent shoes … An extremely ancient man with nickel-rimmed spectacles, his black frock coat hanging over his withered loins, a botanist-box slung on string from his sloping shoulders … Another girl with some sort of green-striped flannel blouse over breasts like sacks of flour—a screaming child on her arm …
“Oh, my God!” groaned the Rittmeister again.
And not a scrap of luggage, not a margarine box, not even a cigarette carton—only this one battered green botanist-box, their communal luggage. Sixty tooth-brushes wouldn’t even go into the thing, let alone sixty shirts!
And all that crowd jostled one another in the best of moods, laughing, chattering, whistling popular hits, and bawling; two of them were already cuddling, sitting on a step.… They called out cheekily after travelers hurrying by, jeered at them, begged things of them … “A cigarette, guv’nor, please give us a cigarette.” And the scamp took the lit cigarette from the dumbfounded man’s mouth. “Thanks, guv’nor, I ain’t so particular, we’re all suffering from the same disease.”
The journey to Neulohe and the gathering of the harvest were a country excursion, a welcome spree for these hooligans! “Yes, hooligans,” growled the Rittmeister. And excitedly to von Studmann who had come up with a suitcase: “Look at these hooligans! And they want to work on the land. In patent shoes and pressed trousers!”
“Bad!” said von Studmann after a short scrutiny. “You shouldn’t take them. You asked for land workers!”
“But I must have men. My harvest is rotting out there!” said the Rittmeister with some embarrassment.
“Well, look for others. It won’t matter if we’re a day late. Let’s travel tomorrow!”
“But you can’t get proper men now, in the middle of harvest time. Everyone holds tight to what he’s got. And not a soul wants to go to the land!—They prefer to starve here in their cinemas.”
“Then take these—you will be able to use them for something.”
“And my father-in-law? My mother-in-law? I shall make myself absolutely ridiculous, they’ll laugh at me. I’ll be done for if I arrive with these people. They’re all pimps and prossies!”
“They do seem rather down at heel. But if you’ve got to have workers! What do you want to do, then?”
The Rittmeister avoided a direct answer. “I tell you, Studmann,” he said irritably, “I haven’t taken on an easy job. I’m no farmer, my father-in-law’s right about that. I study, I reflect, I run about from morning till night, but still I make a mess of things, admitted! Simply because I haven’t got the knack of it … And now I’ve really managed to get something to grow, not a bumper harvest, but tolerable—it’s standing out there, it should have been got in—I’ve this: no men! It’s enough to drive one to despair.”
“But why haven’t you any men, when others have? Excuse me, Prackwitz, but you yourself said they all hold tight to them.”
“Because I’ve got no money. The others engage their men in the spring. I put off engaging them to the last moment, so as to save the wages … Look, Studmann, my father-in-law is a rich man, a very rich man, but I have nothing. All I have is debts. He leased the farm to me as it stands, with all the stock; I required no money for that. Up till now I have always scraped along somehow, selling a few potatoes, some cattle—and that brought in enough for wages and our living expenses. But now I must have money! Otherwise I’m finished, completely bankrupt. And the money’s there, standing in the field. All I need is to bring in the harvest and I shall have money. And then I get men like that! I feel like hanging myself.”
“I don’t know how many million unemployed we have,” said von Studmann, “but they increase from day to day. Yet for work there are no workers.”
Prackwitz had not been listening. “I’m not taking this lot,” he said with grim determination. “Perhaps they’d even do a little work to begin with, as long as they didn’t have their return fare and were hungry. But I am not going to be laughed at by the whole district and my dear relatives! I’m not going to turn my reapers’ barracks into a brothel. Just look at those two cuddling around on the stairs. Disgusting. Damned disgusting! I’m not going to spoil Neulohe; it’s already bad enough with the people from Altlohe.… No, I am not taking them.”
“What are you going to do instead? Since you have got to have men?”
“I’ll tell you what, Studmann. I shall phone up the prison. Meienburg prison is near us, and I shall ask them to send me a prison gang. I’d rather have those scamps with a few proper warders in attendance, rifle in hand, than these. The governor of the prison can’t refuse me—and if need be we’ll both drive over to him. I’ve got you to help me now.”
The Rittmeister smiled. He realized once more that from now on he had close to him a real friend with whom he could discuss everything. That was why he had said more in the last five minutes than in the preceding five months.
“Now look, Studmann, my father-in-law is right again: I’m no businessman. Here I travel to Berlin at the most pressing time, leave all the harvest on which everything depends to an empty-headed fool for twenty-four hours, spend a mint of money, gamble away still more, return with a pile of debts to you and young Pagel, and then bring no men but have to do what my neighbors advised me to four weeks ago; that is, take a prison gang.” Von Prackwitz smiled and so did Studmann, but very cautiously. “All right, then, I’ve done it all wrong again. But what now? We all make mistakes, Studmann. My father-in-law, too. But the main thing is to realize our mistakes. I realize mine and I shall correct them. I’m going to carry on, Studmann, and you are going to help me.”
“Of course! But isn’t it time for our train? You’ve still got to talk to the agent, haven’t you? And young Pagel isn’t here yet, either!”
But von Prackwitz was not listening. Was his friend talking? Or was it the upsetting experience in the night? Prackwitz was talkative. Prackwitz wanted to unburden himself. Prackwitz wanted to confess.
“You’ve been working now for so long in a hotel, Studmann, you must certainly have learned something about bookkeeping and budgeting and handling men. I just yell at them. We’ve got to manage it. What? Manage so that I can keep the farm! I know my father-in-law would be only too glad to have it back. Excuse me for talking so much about him, but he’s my pet aversion. I can’t stand him and he can’t stand me. The old man can’t bear seeing me run the farm. And if I don’t scrape the rent together by the first of October, I’ve got to get out—and what shall I do then?” He looked at Studmann angrily. “But it’s standing out there, Studmann, and we’ll get it in; and now that I’ve got you we’ll make Neulohe into a model farm. Studmann, it was a lucky stroke meeting you. But I must confess to you that I really had a shock when I saw you there, bowing obsequiously in your black coat to every loudly dressed female. How you’ve come down in the world, Studmann! I thought.”