“It’s usual to deduct four per cent for cash payment,” said Herr Feld. “Really, only three hundred and ninety-eight thousand are due to you, but I make a present of the two thousand because you’re an old customer.”
Wolfgang laughed. “You’re smart, Uncle. You’ll get on, you see if you don’t. Then I’ll be your chauffeur. Yes?”
Herr Feld took it seriously. “Me be driven by you, Herr Lieutenant?” he protested. “No, not even free, since nothing matters to you, not even your things. Oh, no.” And once again the pawnbroker: “At your service when you have something else, Herr Lieutenant. Till then!”
Pagel rustled the notes and said laughingly: “Perhaps this will help me to get a car of my own.”
The pawnbroker still looked uneasy, and returned to his writing. Smiling, Wolfgang stepped into the street.
III
After the loathsome negotiations at the Harvesters’ Agency the Rittmeister felt that he deserved a little repose. But where could he go so early in the morning? This was an hour at which he had not hitherto been about in Berlin. Finally he thought of a hotel café in the Friedrichstadt where one could sit comfortably and perhaps see a few well dressed women.
And the first person whom he met in the hall of the hotel was, of course, an acquaintance. (Prackwitz always met acquaintances in the parts of the town he frequented—of course not at Schlesische Bahnhof. Or acquaintances of acquaintances. Or relatives. Or acquaintances of relatives. Or comrades from his regiment. Or comrades from the war. Or mere privates. He knew all the world.)
This time it was actually someone from his own regiment—Oberleutnant von Studmann.
Herr von Studmann stood in the hall, irreproachably dressed in a frock coat and brilliantly polished shoes (at such an early hour). He might have seemed momentarily embarrassed at the meeting; but the Rittmeister, in his pleasure at having found a companion for the two hours he had to wait, noticed nothing.
“Studmann, old chap—splendid to see you again. I’ve got two hours to spare. Have you had your coffee? I’m just going to—for the second time, that is; the first at Schlesische Bahnhof didn’t count—it was ghastly. When did we meet last? In Frankfurt, at the officers’ reunion? Well, never mind; in any case, I’m glad to see you again. But do come along; it’s quite comfortable here, if I remember rightly.”
Oberleutnant von Studmann replied in a low voice, distinct yet somewhat troubled: “With pleasure, Prackwitz—as soon as I’m free. I’m—er—reception manager in this joint. I must first attend to the guests coming by the nine-forty train.”
“Damn!” exclaimed the Rittmeister, just as softly, but quite downcast. “The inflation, I suppose? These swindlers! Well, I know all about it myself.”
Von Studmann nodded gloomily, as if he were past words. At the sight of that long, smooth, energetic face, Prackwitz was reminded of a certain evening when they had celebrated Studmann’s Iron Cross, First Class, at the beginning of 1915; actually the first I.C. First Class which had been allotted their regiment.… He would have liked to recall the face, laughing, cheerful, gay, and eight years younger, of this same Studmann, but the latter was already saying: “Certainly, porter, at once.” With a regretful gesture he turned from von Prackwitz and advanced on a rather bulky lady in a dust-colored silk coat. “Please, madam?”
For a moment the Rittmeister watched his friend standing there, leaning toward the lady and listening with a serious but friendly expression to her vigorous wishes or complaints. A deep sadness welled up within him, a formless, all-pervading sadness. Not good enough for anything better? Shame came over him, as if he had seen his friend doing something degrading. Quickly he turned away and entered the cafe.
Here prevailed the early forenoon silence, when only residents were there and the general public had not yet entered. In ones or twos the guests were dotted about at the tables. A newspaper rustled, a couple spoke in subdued voices, the little silver-metal coffeepots gleamed, a spoon clattered against a cup. The waiters, not yet busy, stood at their stations; one of them was carefully counting the silver, avoiding every unnecessary sound.
The Rittmeister soon found a seat to his liking. So good was the coffee, which arrived shortly after it had been ordered, that he resolved to give Studmann a few words of appreciation. But he rejected the idea. It might embarrass him. Oberleutnant von Studmann and a really fresh-made pot of hotel coffee!
He tried to make out why this feeling of embarrassment should overcome him again, as if Studmann were doing something illegal, even indecent. It was a job like any other. We’re no longer so narrow-minded that we consider one kind of work inferior to another, he thought. If it comes to that, I live at Neulohe only by the grace of my father-in-law, and I’ve the deuce of a job to scrape the rent together. So what’s the reason for it?
Suddenly it occurred to him that it might be because Studmann did this work only from sheer necessity. A man must work, certainly, if he wanted to justify his existence; but there ought to be freedom in the choice. Hated work, done only for the sake of the money, soiled. Studmann would never have chosen this job himself, he thought. He had no choice.
A feeling of impotent hatred overcame Rittmeister Joachim von Prackwitz. Somewhere in this town there was a machine—naturally a machine, for men would never submit to be prostituted for such a purpose—which vomited paper day and night over the city and the people. “Money” they called it; they printed figures on it, beautiful neat figures with many noughts, which became increasingly rounder. And when you had worked and sweated to put by a little for your old age, it all became worthless paper, paper muck. And for the sake of this muck his old friend Studmann had to stand in the hotel hall bowing and scraping. Good, let him stand there, let him bow and scrape—but not because of this muck. With painful clearness the Rittmeister recalled the kindly, serious face of his friend, as he had just seen it.
It suddenly grew dark, and then there was light once again. A small rapeseed oil-lamp dangled from the rough beams. It cast its warm reddish glow directly upon Studmann’s face—and this face laughed, laughed. The eyes sparkled with joy; a hundred little wrinkles twitched in their corners.
The joy of restored life is in that laugh, said a voice within the Rittmeister.
It was nothing, only the memory of a night spent in a dugout—where had it been? Somewhere in the Ukraine. It was a rich land; pumpkins and melons grew in the fields in hundreds, and of this royal abundance they had fetched some into the dugout, laying them on the shelves. They slept. A rat (there were thousands of rats) pushed a pumpkin down, and it fell on the head of a sleeper, on his face. He had yelled in fright, the pumpkin bouncing onward. There they lay, wide-awake, breathless, cowering in their blankets in the expectation of shell splinters from a direct hit. Moments of mortal fright—life rustles by and I am still alive. I want to think of something worthwhile, my wife, child, my daughter Vi. I have still got a hundred and fifty marks in my pocket; it would have been better if I had paid my wine bill; the money is now lost—and then von Studmann’s laugh: “Pumpkin, a pumpkin!”
They had laughed, laughed. Life restored was in that laughter. Little Geyer had wiped his bleeding nose and laughed too. Geyer was his name. He fell a little later; pumpkins were exceptions in the war.
But at the time it had been genuine fear and genuine danger and genuine courage. To tremble—but then to leap up, to discover that it was only a pumpkin and to laugh again! At oneself, at the fright, at this absurd life—to march on, down the street toward the non-existent point. To be threatened, however, by something which vomited paper, to be enslaved by something which made the world richer in noughts—that was shameful. It was painful for the man who did it; and it was painful for the man who watched the other do it.