“Prackwitz! I implore you! How can you think such a thing? Here, read the letter from Dr. Schröck.”
The Rittmeister pushed letter and friend aside. “Very well thought out. No, thank you! I can see through you. It’s a put-up job, a conspiracy with my father-in-law. I’m to be got out of the way. I’m to be divorced! My substitute’s on the spot, eh, Eva? But I understand everything now! The talk about the lease this morning—was it actually the real lease? Was that faked, too, like the letter, just to provoke me? And the geese!—probably lured here by you yourselves. The gun!—how did the gun come to be loaded? I put it away unloaded. Everything prepared, and then, when I fall into your trap, when I really do shoot, against my will—I swear it, against my will!—then I’m to be declared insane! Pushed off into a madhouse! Put under guard—in a padded cell …”
He seemed overcome by grief. Rage seized him anew, however. “But I refuse! I’ll not budge an inch from Neulohe! I’ll stay. You can do what you like! But perhaps you’ve already got the keepers there—the strait-jacket …” He tried to a recall a name. It came to him in a flash of inspiration. “Where is Herr Türke? Where is the attendant Türke?”
He rushed to the door. In front of him was the little hallway, quiet and still.
“They might be hiding,” he murmured to himself. “Come out, Herr Türke,” he shouted into the dark house. “Come out. You know very well I’m here.”
“Enough of this!” cried Frau Eva angrily. “There’s no need to let all the servants know you are drunk. You’re just drunk! He can never stand alcohol when he’s excited; he simply goes into a frenzy,” she whispered to Studmann.
“Mad!” the Rittmeister wailed. He stood at the window, leaning his head against the glass. “Betrayed by my own wife and friend! Put under guard! Locked up!”
“You had better go now,” she whispered to Studmann, who was possessed with the thought of urging his friend to be sensible, of explaining everything. “The only place for him now is bed. Tomorrow he’ll be sorry. He was like this once before. You know, that business with Herr von Truchsess that made my father so angry.”
“I’m not going!” shouted the Rittmeister in a new fit of rage, beating on the glass. It broke. “O-ow!” he cried, and held out his bleeding hand to his wife. “I’ve cut myself.”
She could almost have laughed at the doleful change on his face. “Yes, come upstairs, Achim; I’ll bandage it. You must go to bed instantly. You need some sleep.”
“I’m bleeding,” he muttered, miserably supporting himself on her arm. This man who had been thrice wounded in the war turned pale at a cut scarcely half an inch long.
At this spectacle Studmann considered it advisable to go. It was not the woman who was in need of protection. In a last access of unbending determination the Rittmeister bellowed after him: “I’ll never go!”
It was not surprising, it was in fact quite natural, that Rittmeister von Prackwitz should go after all—at noon the next day, in very high spirits even, and of course to Dr. Schröck, with three gun-cases and on his right hand a strip of plaster. Almost with enthusiasm he had agreed to it next morning. He had no wish to see a friend before whom he had let himself go so abominably. And he was delighted at the prospect of a change, a journey, some shooting instead of money worries; while by no means least was the thought of the elegant sanatorium, the convalescent home of aristocracy—a Baron instead of his sweating father-in-law.…
“Just see that I’m regularly sent sufficient money,” he said anxiously to his wife. “I don’t want to look a fool.” Frau Eva promised. “I think I’ll look up my tailor in Berlin,” he went on pensively. “I really haven’t got a decent hunting suit.… You’ve no objection, have you, Eva?”
Frau Eva had no objection.
“You’ve got to manage for yourselves here now. I’m only going away at your wish, don’t forget that. So no complaining if anything goes wrong. I don’t care two hoots about going away. I can shoot bunny-rabbits here, too.”
“Aren’t you going to say good-by to von Studmann, Achim?”
“Yes, of course, if you think I ought to. But I’ll pack first. And the guns have to be greased. Anyway, give him my best regards if I don’t see him. He’ll probably always be asking your father for advice now; he can’t tell winter from summer barley! You’ll get into a mess, you see!” The Rittmeister smiled cheerfully. “Still, if it gets too bad you can send for me. I’d come at once, of course. I’m not the one to bear a grudge.”
XII
Listening at the door, Violet had only heard the beginning of the quarrel. Convinced that it would go on for some time and keep her mother busy, she slipped out of the house, at the back. For a moment she stood irresolute. Ought she really to chance it? If it was found out that she had left the house at night instead of going to bed, the stubbornest lying wouldn’t save her from being packed off to a strict boarding school, as her mother had threatened. Besides, if Hubert Räder found the Lieutenant and gave him her letter, Fritz would be under her window this very night. And there was the trellis on the wall! If she went away, she might miss him.…
Everything spoke in favor of staying and waiting. But there was the warm starry August night! The air seemed like a living thing, enveloping her body. It was like a link to him, who was also outside on this soft night, perhaps quite near her. She felt her blood singing in her ears that sweet alluring song which the body voices when it is ready. Perhaps she ought to go after all.… And she felt downcast at the thought that she might wait the whole night for him in vain.…
A little patch of light in the house, almost on the ground, attracted her attention. Uncertain what it was, she approached it, glad of any diversion which put off her decision. She knelt down and peered. It was Räder’s room in the basement, empty. He must have gone out to deliver her letter, then, and she could go up to her room with an easy mind: if the Lieutenant was in Neulohe tonight, he would come to her window. The otherwise orderly Räder had forgotten in his hurry to switch off the light.
Violet was just about to get up when the door opened. It was strange and a little uncanny: she, with the whole night around her, was looking unobserved at a little bright stage. Queer and at the same time a little uncanny was also the scene which now presented itself: the person closing the door was Hubert Räder, no longer the punctilious young man in gray livery, but a somewhat ridiculous thing in a disproportionately large nightshirt with gaily trimmed border. Above this angels’ raiment, however, was the sallow fishy head with its expressionless eyes—and Violet was no longer able to think this head stupid and silly. Something like horror filled her.…
Räder went to a cupboard in the corner. In his hand he carried a glass containing a tooth-brush. He unlocked the cupboard and placed the glass inside it.… That is how men are! After experiencing that evening a sensation which was perhaps unusual, something that might perhaps be termed the rehearsal of a murder, Hubert Räder put on a nightshirt and brushed his teeth as he did every other evening.… He was not always a murderer; normally he was a very ordinary citizen; and it was this which made him so dangerous. One recognizes a tiger by its stripes, but a murderer brushes his teeth like everyone else; he is unrecognizable.
And now Violet was to see something stranger still.…
But at the moment she was not thinking of Räder. I listened at the door for five minutes at the most, she calculated. Then I came out and stood say, for three minutes, wondering whether to chance it. Hubert still had to clear the table—he did that while I was saying good night—then put away the plates and things. But he couldn’t possibly have left the house! Undress, wash, brush his teeth! And my letter?