“They’re very worried in the Manor about Fräulein Violet,” said Hubert bumptiously. “Herr Elias was only too eager to find out why the young Fräulein hasn’t been there for five days.”
“And what did you say, Hubert?”
“I, madam? I didn’t say anything!”
“Yes, you are good at that, Hubert,” affirmed Frau von Prackwitz bitterly. “You see how worried and distracted I am because of Violet. Won’t you really tell me who the unknown gentleman was, Hubert? I appeal to you!”
But one should not appeal to a blockhead for anything. “I don’t know of any unknown gentleman, madam.”
“No, of course not, because to you he is known! Oh, what a cunning fellow you are, Hubert!” Frau von Prackwitz was very angry. “But if you carry on like this, Hubert, with these mysterious doings and untruthfulness—then we’re no longer friends.”
“Ah, madam,” said Hubert sullenly.
“What do you mean by ‘Ah, madam’?”
“Excuse me, here is the letter.”
“No, I want to know what you meant just now, Hubert!”
“It is just a manner of speaking, as it were.…”
“What is a manner of speaking? Hubert, I insist!”
“That we shall no longer be friends, madam,” said Hubert very fishily. “I’m just the servant, and you, madam, are Frau von Prackwitz—so there can’t be any talk of friendship.”
Frau von Prackwitz went crimson at this impertinence. In her confusion she seized the letter which the servant still held out to her, tore it open and read it. In the middle of her reading, however, she raised her head and said sharply: “Herr Räder! Either you are too stupid or too clever for a servant’s position—in either case I fear we shall soon separate.”
“Madam,” said Räder, also a little angry now, “in my references I am recommended by persons of very high rank. And at the training school I received the golden diploma.”
“I know, Hubert, I know. You are a pearl!”
“And if the Rittmeister wants me to leave, then I ask that I be told in time, so that I can give notice. It is always an obstacle in my profession, if I’ve been given notice.”
“All right,” said Frau von Prackwitz, glancing quickly through the short letter and looking at the figures in it without understanding them. “It shall be as you wish, Hubert. This,” she said in explanation, “is just an unimportant business letter, nothing about Fräulein Violet. Elias was probably a bit inquisitive on his own account.”
Hubert saw, however, that Frau von Prackwitz folded the letter several times and pushed it into a little pocket in her dress.
“If you see Herr von Studmann, Hubert, tell him to call in about seven, no, let’s say at a quarter to seven.” And with that she nodded curtly and went into the Rittmeister’s room.
Hubert remained in the passage for a moment longer, until he heard husband and wife talking. Then he crept up the stairs with extreme caution, so that no board should creak. He knocked softly on a door, once only, and entered quickly.
In the room Violet was sitting at a little table; a crumpled damp handkerchief and red patches on her face revealed that she, too, had been crying.
“Well?” she said, curious nevertheless. “Did Mamma put you through it as well, Hubert?”
“The young Fräulein shouldn’t be so careless when she’s eavesdropping,” rebuked Hubert. “I saw your foot the whole time on the top stair. And madam could also have seen it.”
“Ah, Hubert, poor Mamma! She’s just been crying here. Sometimes I’m terribly sorry for her, and I feel that I ought to be ashamed.…”
“There’s no use being ashamed, Fräulein,” said Hubert severely. “Either you live as the old people want you to—then you won’t need to be ashamed—or else you live as we young people think right, and then you really don’t need to be.”
Vi looked at him searchingly. “Sometimes I think, though, you’re a very bad man, Hubert, and that you have very bad plans,” she said, but rather cautiously, almost anxiously.
“What I am must be no concern of yours, Fräulein,” he said at once, as if he had thought it all out long ago. “And my plans are mine, after all. What you want, that’s your concern.”
“And what did Mamma want?”
“Just the usual questions about the unknown man. Your grandparents are also worried about you, Fräulein.”
“Oh, God, if they could only get me out of here! I can’t stand it any longer indoors. I shall weep myself to death! Was there really nothing in the tree again, Hubert?”
“No letter, no note!”
“When did you look, Hubert?”
“Just before serving coffee.”
“Take another look now, Hubert. Go there immediately and let me know at once.”
“But it’s useless, Fräulein. He doesn’t come into the village in the daytime.”
“Do you keep a good look-out at night, Hubert? It’s impossible that he hasn’t come at all! He gave me his solemn promise! He was going to be here on the second night, no, the next night.”
“He has definitely not been here. I would have met him, and I would also have heard about it if he had been here.”
“Hubert, I simply can’t stand it any longer … I see him day and night, as if he were really here, but if I try to touch him, there’s nothing, and I seem to fall down a hundred stairs.… I feel quite different, it’s as if I’ve been poisoned, I can’t sleep any more.… And then I see his hands, Hubert. They hold you so tightly, they send a thrill through you.… Oh, what can be the matter with me?” She stared at servant Hubert Räder with wide-open eyes. But it was not certain that she saw him at all.
Räder stood by the door like a stick. His gray complexion took on no color, his eye remained gray and lusterless even though he did not turn his gaze away from the soft, confiding girl.
“You mustn’t think anything about it,” he said in his usual didactic tone. “It is so!”
Vi looked at her confidant, her only confidant, as if he were a prophet bringing salvation.
Räder nodded significantly. “Those are physical processes,” he explained. “That is physical desire. I can give you a book about it, written by a doctor, a specialist. In it everything is exactly described, how it comes, and where its seat is, and how it is cured. It is called deficiency-phenomena or abstinence-phenomena.”
“Is that really so, Hubert? Is that in the book? You must bring it me, Hubert.”
“That is it. Nothing to do with—the man.” Hubert narrowed his eyes and observed the effect of his words. “It is just the body—the body is hungry, Fräulein!”
Vi, although as foolish and pleasure-seeking as any girl in those days, still had her illusions about love, and not every pleasant fancy was swept away by the tearing of a single veil. Only gradually did she grasp the full significance of Hubert’s revelations; she shrank as if from a sudden pain; she moaned.
But then she drew herself up. “How disgusting!” she cried. “You are a swine, Räder, you dirty everything. Go away—don’t touch me! Out of my room, at once!”
“But please, Fräulein! Please calm yourself—madam’s coming! Tell some lie; if the Rittmeister finds out, the Lieutenant is lost.”
He glided out, vanishing into the adjoining bedroom of Frau von Prackwitz, and stood behind the door. He heard the hurried step; then the door of Violet’s room was shut. He could hear the mother’s voice, and Violet sobbing …
That’s the cleverest thing she can do, he thought with satisfaction. Cry! I was probably a bit too soon and too strong. Well, when she’s been a week without news of the Lieutenant …
He heard the Rittmeister’s footstep on the stairs and cowered well back between Frau von Prackwitz’s bathrobe and dressing gown. However contemptible the Rittmeister was in his stupidity and temper, he remained almost the only person of whom one had to be afraid. He was quite capable of throwing someone out of the window—through the glass.