I must help the poor creature! he thought. What does that kid think she’s doing, carrying on in this way! Why, she can’t be more than fifteen!
At this moment Pagel, likewise wrapped in thought, looked up from his cheese. “How old do you reckon Fräulein Violet is?”
“What?” cried Herr von Studmann, dropping his knife and fork with a loud clatter on his plate. “What makes you ask, Pagel? What’s it got to do with you?”
“Good Lord!” said Pagel, taken aback. “I can ask, can’t I? All right, then—not!”
“I was just thinking of something else,” explained Studmann, a little embarrassed.
“It looked damn well as if you had just been thinking of her age, too!” grinned Pagel.
“Not a bit. Little girls like that don’t mean a thing to me—I’m not twenty-two, like you, Pagel.”
“Twenty-three.”
“All right. Well, it’s now just after eight. I think it’ll be a good idea if we toddle along and indulge in a drink at one of the two local inns.”
“Fine. And how old do you think Fräulein Violet is?”
“Sixteen. Seventeen.”
“Much too high! She’s got such soft curves, it’s deceptive. Fifteen at the most.”
“Anyway, keep your hands off her, Herr Pagel!” cried Studmann with a fierce glint in his eyes.
“Why, of course,” said Pagel with astonishment. “Heavens, Studmann, you’re getting like the sphinx itself. Well, about the inns?”
Somewhat more calmly Studmann outlined his plan of getting to know the innkeeper, of becoming regular patrons, and thus trying to discover as much as possible from the village gossip. “Neulohe is much too big. Even if we were to run round night after night looking for field thieves, we might still never find one. And our Rittmeister wants to see results. So a hint from the innkeeper would be worth its weight in gold.”
“True!” agreed Pagel. “Are we taking a gun with us?”
“No use doing that tonight; tonight we just want to get pally. But if you’d like to take one along! You still want to be in full war paint. I dragged one of those things around for over five years.”
It was half-past eight when the two finally set off. The sun had gone down, but it was scarcely dusk even in the shade of the trees. The road to the village was full of people: children ran about, old people sat on little benches outside their doors, the younger folk hung about in groups, a girl dragged a restive goat into its shed. When the two men passed by, the people fell silent, the children stopped running about, everyone stared after them.
“Come along, Studmann,” suggested Pagel, “let’s go on the outside of the village. We’ll find our way somehow. This being stared at gets me down. And anyway they don’t all have to know that the farm officials are going boozing.”
“Very well,” said Studmann, and they turned into a narrow path between the windowless gable walls of two laborers’ houses, and came to a ridge. To the left lay deserted orchards, to the right stretched a flourishing potato field. They came to a churned-up cart track; on the right it led straight into the fields, on the left it approached the last houses in the village. The air was turning gray, one could feel the darkness coming on, the birds had become silent. From the village echoed a laugh which died away.
As Pagel and Studmann strolled along, each in a rut of the track, they encountered a troop of people, some six or seven, men and women, who went by quietly in single file, baskets on their backs, along the grassy strip between the ruts.
“Good evening!” said Pagel loudly.
There was a muffled response, and the ghostly procession was gone.
The two went on a few steps, uncertain, then stopped as if by agreement. They turned round and gazed after the silent wanderers. Yes, it was true, they hadn’t gone to the village, but had turned into the path between the fields.
“Well!” said Pagel.
“That was queer!” replied Studmann.
“Where are they going to at this hour?”
“With baskets?”
“To steal!”
“They might be going over there into the forest to gather wood.”
“Gather wood—at night!”
“Well, let’s give up our drink and errand, and follow them.”
“Yes, but wait a moment. Let them get over the crest first.”
“I didn’t recognize any of them,” said Pagel thoughtfully.
“It’s getting dark; you could hardly distinguish their faces.”
“It would be marvelous if we caught six first go.”
“Seven,” said Studmann. “Three men and four women. Well, let’s go.”
But after the first few steps Studmann stopped again. “We haven’t thought this out, Pagel. Even if we catch the people we won’t know them. How are we to find out their names? They can tell us what they like.”
“While you’re holding a general staff meeting here, Studmann, the people will slip through our fingers,” urged Pagel impatiently.
“To be well informed is half the battle, Pagel.”
“Well?”
“You go to the village and get some old inhabitant who knows everyone.…”
“Kowalewski? The overseer?”
“Yes, that’s right. He’s a bit slack; it’ll be good for him to come more into conflict with his men; it’ll make him sharper. They’ll be in a rage with him if he has to name them.”
But Pagel had long stopped listening to the opinions of a former reception manager of a city hotel in a period of inflation. He was already running at a steady trot toward the village. It did him good to run. It had been an eternity since he had done anything like this. Not since his time in the Baltic. Since then, he’d always moved as slowly as possible. It was a long day, waiting for play to begin. Now he was glad to see how efficiently his body worked. The mild, somewhat cool damp air filled his lungs, and he was glad that he had such a broad chest; despite his running he inhaled deeply and slowly and pleasurably. In Berlin he had sometimes had a stitch in lungs or heart, and as is the way with young people who have never really been ill, he had then imagined some serious malady. Well, thank God, it had been nothing. He ran like Nurmi. I’m in good condition, he thought cheerfully.
In the village he slowed down to a walk, so as not to arouse attention. Nevertheless, his disappearance into Kowalewski’s house attracted a lot of notice. “See that!” they said. “An hour and a half ago he was saying bye-bye to Sophie, and now he’s calling on her again. He’s got rid of that old egg-face he had with him, of course. Well, what do you expect of a Berliner? And he’s a strong fellow, too. Sophie’s also become a bit of a townee—if you’re used to cream, you want cream!”
Unfortunately the young man came out of Kowalewski’s house, accompanied only by the old man, immediately. He probably hadn’t seen Sophie, who went on singing upstairs. Hastily the two left the village, Kowalewski keeping to the young man’s side, half a pace behind, like a well-trained dog. When Pagel had burst into his Sunday quiet, merely saying: “Come along with me, Kowalewski,” the old overseer had followed without a question. A poor man has not to reason why.
Studmann was waiting where the path turned into the fields.
“Good evening, Kowalewski. Glad you’ve come. Has Pagel told you? No? Good. Where does this path lead to?”
“To our outfields, sir, and then into the Geheimrat’s forest.”