A desperate people in a desperate position; every despairing individual behaving desperately.…
Confused, chaotic times.
Chapter Eleven
The Devil’s Hussars Come
I
“It’s an impertinence!”
“I knew you’d get excited,” said Frau von Prackwitz gently.
“I won’t have it!” cried the Rittmeister still more violently.
“It was just a precaution,” said Frau von Prackwitz soothingly.
“Where’s the letter? I want to have my letter! It’s my letter!” he roared.
“The matter has surely been dealt with long ago,” conjectured Frau von Prackwitz.
“A three-weeks-old letter addressed to me—and I don’t see it! Who is the master here?” thundered the Rittmeister.
“You!” said his wife.
“Yes, and I’ll show him I am,” he shouted and ran to the door. “He’s getting too big for his boots!”
“You’re forgetting your letter,” his wife reminded him.
“What letter?” The Rittmeister stopped, dumbfounded. Apart from this letter he could remember no other.
“The one over there—from Berlin.”
“Oh, yes.” He stuffed it into his pocket, giving his wife a dark threatening look. “You’re not to telephone the fellow!”
“Of course not. Don’t get so excited. The men will be coming at any moment.”
“The men can …” As befitted a well-bred gentleman, the Rittmeister did not say what the men could do until he was outside his wife’s room. She smiled. Immediately afterwards she saw her husband, bare-headed, storming along the road to the farm.
Frau von Prackwitz went to the telephone. “Is that you, Herr Pagel? Could you give me Herr von Studmann quickly? Thanks. Herr von Studmann? My husband’s coming in a frightful rage because we kept the letter about the electric current from him. Don’t worry if he blows off a little steam. He’s already got rid of the worst of it on me. Yes, of course, thanks. Oh, no, I’m used to it. Well, thanks very much.”
She hung the receiver up. “Do you want anything, Vi?”
“Can I go out for a walk for half an hour?”
Frau von Prackwitz looked at her watch. “In ten minutes’ time you can go with me to the Manor. I want to see whether anything has been arranged about the cooking for the men.”
“Oh, always there, Mamma! I would so like to go to the forest again. Can’t I go to the forest? And swim? I haven’t been swimming for four weeks.”
“You know, Violet …” In her driest tone, against her own heart.
“Oh, you torment me so! You torment me, Mamma. I can’t stand it any longer! You shouldn’t have let me have so much freedom before if you now want to keep me on a chain like this! Like a prisoner. But I can’t stand it any longer! I’m going mad in my room. Sometimes I dream that the walls are falling in on me and then I see the curtain cord and wonder whether it will hold. I feel like jumping out of the window. I feel like smashing the glass so that I can see my blood flowing and feel that I’m still living.… I shall do something, I don’t care what I do, I don’t care.”
“Vi, Vi!” said her mother. “If you would only tell us the truth! Do you think it’s easy for us? But as long as you go on lying to us we can’t do anything else.”
“It’s you! Only you! Papa said you’re being unjust. And Papa also believes I told the truth—it wasn’t a strange man, but Kniebusch. Everybody believes me, except you. You want to domineer over us, Papa says so, too.”
“All right, get ready,” said Frau von Prackwitz wearily. “I’ll arrange it so that we can go for a walk in the forest afterwards.”
“I don’t want to go there with you. I don’t need a keeper … I won’t be imprisoned by you! I—I hate you! I don’t want even to see you anymore; I won’t, I won’t!” Once again she broke into hysterics, which always ended in a loud sobbing that prostrated her, changing into a pitiable whimpering.
Frau von Prackwitz had a firm heart. She did not weep because others wept. Filled though she was with an infinite pity for her helpless child, she also thought: You are lying! If you weren’t trying to hide a secret you wouldn’t get so worked up.
She rang the bell.
“Don’t come in, Hubert. Call Armgard and Lotte—Fräulein Violet is feeling bad. Yes, and then bring me the Hoffmann drops from the medicine chest.”
Frau von Prackwitz, gently closing the door again, smiled sadly. The whimpering had noticeably lessened while she was giving the manservant her instructions; it had almost stopped when she ordered the hated Hoffmann drops.
You are feeling bad, my child, she thought, but you don’t feel so bad as not to be interested in what’s going to happen to you. There’s no help for it, we must keep on until one of us gives way. I hope it is you!
II
The Rittmeister stormed into the office.
“Hello,” said Studmann. “That’s what I call quick! Are the men coming?”
“To hell with the men!” shouted the Rittmeister, whose anger had been given fresh vigor by his dash here. “Where’s my letter? I want my letter!”
“You needn’t shout like that,” said Studmann coolly. “I can still hear perfectly. What letter?”
“This is a nice thing!” bellowed the Rittmeister. “People hide my letters from me, and I’m not even allowed to say what I think! I demand my letter!”
“Herr Pagel, do you mind closing the window? It isn’t necessary for all Neulohe to hear what …”
“Pagel, leave the window open! You work for me, understand? I want to have my letter—it’s three or four weeks old.”
“Oh, you mean that letter, Prackwitz.”
“Do you mean to say you’re hiding other letters from me? You are carrying on secret intrigues with my wife, Studmann!”
At this the young and frivolous Pagel burst out laughing.
The Rittmeister stood transfixed. Young Pagel had laughed. One could have heard a pin drop in the office.
He took two long paces toward Pagel. “You laugh, Pagel? You laugh, Herr Pagel, when I’m angry?”
“I’m sorry, Herr Rittmeister. I wasn’t laughing at you, sir. Only it sounded so funny. Herr Studmann carrying on secret intrigues with your wife.”
“So—so!” An icy look, a scrutiny from head to foot. “You are dismissed, Herr Pagel. You can get Hartig to drive you to the station to catch the three o’clock train. No contradiction, please. Leave the office! I have business to attend to here.”
Somewhat pale, yet with dignity, young Pagel left the office.
Herr von Studmann, angry, leaned against the safe. He looked out of the window, his forehead wrinkled. The Rittmeister regarded him sideways. “He’s an impertinent rascal!” he growled tentatively, but Studmann did not move.
“Now please give me my letter.”
“I have already given the letter back to Herr von Teschow,” announced von Studmann coolly. “I was able to convince the Geheimrat that his demands were unjust. He asked for the letter to be returned, so that the whole matter could be regarded as never having been raised.”
“I can believe it,” the Rittmeister said with a bitter laugh. “You let the old fox cheat you! He made a fool of himself and you give him back the proof of his blunder. Fine!”
“Negotiating with Geheimrat von Teschow was not very easy. He could still base himself legally on the confounded lease. What finally decided him was the question of his reputation, of your position as relations—”
“Position as relations! I am convinced you let yourself be hoodwinked, Studmann.”
“He seems to think a lot of his daughter and granddaughter. And how could I have been hoodwinked, since everything has been left as it was?”