“I don’t know …” began the Rittmeister slowly.
Violet sat there with a pale and lifeless face.
The Lieutenant crossed his legs, basely making show of an expression of boredom, as of one who knew only too well what was coming. Lighting a cigarette he said superciliously: “If you don’t know, Herr—Herr—my excuses, the name escapes me” (with a vindictive look at Violet), “but if you don’t know, I should like to depart, if you don’t mind. As I told you, I am very busy.” And continued to sit there with a provocative air. A little more and it could have been said that he was openly yawning.
The Rittmeister restrained himself; outside his home he could do that. “The long and the short of it is, my daughter wrote you a letter.” He hesitated. “About the matter you know of, and which has got into the wrong hands.”
It was all as had been expected. The Lieutenant, conscious of the girl’s imploring gaze, put out his cigarette in the ash tray. Then he looked up from his dead butt, ran his eyes over the Rittmeister and said: “I am at your disposal, naturally, Rittmeister. I dispute nothing. Only,” he went on more quickly, “I should be grateful if you would wait till tomorrow’s action is over. My friends will call on you immediately afterwards.”
The Rittmeister was a very old man; hollow temples, white hair, a ravaged face. In almost an unintelligible voice he said: “Do-I-understand-you-aright?”
“Papa! Fritz!” cried Violet.
“You have completely understood,” the Lieutenant informed him in his supercilious and insolent voice.
“Oh, Fritz, Fritz! Papa …” the girl murmured, her eyes full of tears.
The Rittmeister seemed paralyzed. Holding his wineglass by the stem he turned it round and round, as if examining the color of the port. On his tongue was no taste of wine; only of bitterness and ashes … the bitterness and ashes of a whole life.
“Oh, Fritz.” It was Violet’s tearful voice.
In a flash he had thrown the remainder of his port in the impudent, conceited face. With great pleasure Joachim von Prackwitz saw the young fellow turn pale and the firm chin tremble.… “Have I understood you properly now, Lieutenant?” he asked.
Violet had moaned. The Lieutenant, before wiping the wine from his face, was young enough to look anxiously round the room—the civilians were sitting behind their newspapers. But the waiter at the buffet had given a start and was now rubbing the zinc bar with embarrassed vigor.
“That was unnecessary,” whispered the Lieutenant, full of hatred, standing up. “Anyway, I have always loathed your daughter.”
The Rittmeister groaned. He attempted to rise and strike the brutal odious face, but his legs were trembling, the room turned round and round and he had to hold on to the table. In his ears the blood roared like breakers on the shore—his daughter spoke from far away. Has she no pride at all? he thought. How can she still talk to him?
“Oh, Fritz! why have you done this? Now everything is ruined. Papa knew nothing.” He was looking at her with his clear malicious eyes, full of contempt and disgust.
She advanced round the table; it did not matter to her that she was in a public place. She seized his hand, she implored him: “Fritz, be kind.… Papa will do everything I want. I will talk him round.… I can’t be without you.… Even if I see you only once a week, once a month, we could still be married.”
He was attempting to withdraw his hand.…
Her eyes were large with anxiety and tears. She was trying to collect herself. With an attempt at a smile she said: “I will convince Papa that it’s all a mistake. He didn’t know about it at all! He must ask your pardon, Fritz, about the wine.… That was very horrible of him. I swear to you he will beg your pardon.”
“How do you mean, your father didn’t know?” he asked. “He was talking about the letter, wasn’t he?”
Thus his first words to her were a cold suspicious question, the sole reply to her stammering appeal.…
But she was happy to have him speak to her again; she pressed his hand, that bony cruel hand, and spoke rapidly. “Papa was talking about a quite different letter! I wrote to you again, about the arms, because the forester had seen you burying them. And the letter was intercepted. Don’t look so terrible, Fritz! Fritz! The arms are still there.… I haven’t done anything wrong, Fritz. Please.…”
She had spoken louder and louder, and now he put his hand over her mouth. From behind their newspapers the civilians had emerged to observe the scene with embarrassment, indignation or amusement. At his table the Rittmeister moved as if in sleep. “Let my daughter alone,” he murmured. And believed he had shouted this. The waiter had taken a step toward the couple and now stood unable to make up his mind whether to interfere or not.…
The Lieutenant, however, now understood everything: the absence of the officers this morning, the broken-off communications with the Reichswehr.… He perceived that the whole Putsch, this action which had been prepared for months, was endangered—and he was to blame! No, she was.
His hand still on her mouth, he whispered in her ear: his hatred for her submissive face flamed higher every moment. “You,” he whispered, “you’ve brought me only misfortune. I loathe you. I wouldn’t want you even if you were smothered in gold. You make me sick. I shudder when I think of your whining. I could tear myself to pieces when I think that I once touched you. Do you hear? Do you understand?” He spoke louder, for her eyes were closed and she hung as if lifeless from his arm. “You have ruined everything for me with your cursed filthy love. Listen, you!” He was shaking her. “Listen well. If the weapons are still there, then I’ll take care to get killed tomorrow. But if they’ve been found, I’ll shoot myself this afternoon—because of you, do you hear? Because of your magnificent love.” Triumphantly, full of hatred, he watched her. For a moment he grew confused; she hung so lifeless on his arm. But he still had something else to say to her, even though the waiter was shaking him roughly by the shoulder. In her ear he whispered: “Visit me this evening, do you understand, darling? There! I’ll look nice. All your life you shall think of me lying there—with a smashed skull!”
At her scream everyone started up, rushed forward.
The Lieutenant looked around, as if waking up. “There, take her! I don’t need her anymore,” he shouted to the waiter and released the girl so suddenly that she fell to the ground.
“Hey, pick her up at least, you!” yelled the waiter furiously. The Lieutenant, however, was already running from the inn.
V
The Lieutenant, he did not know how, had reached his small hotel; to stand in his room looking at the distempered walls and listening to the babble downstairs in the bar. “Be quiet!” he shouted with a face distorted by fury; but the bawling continued. For a while he listened, seeming to hear Violet’s humble, imploring voice. The whimpering of a slave! Damnation! He pulled himself together, drank a glass of stale water, looked round and noticed the pieces of field-gray uniform hanging up. He could not make up his mind how he would go “there,” whether in uniform or in mufti. For a long time he considered which would be more correct, but could not decide.
“Life’s a curse,” he said, sitting down. But now he could not keep his thoughts on the question of what to wear; it occurred to him that he had been ordered to go with his men at nine that evening to fetch the arms from the dump. There was no compulsion for him to have a look at the place beforehand. If the arms were gone, well, it was just as bad at nine in the evening as at midday—he need not have known about them. The Rittmeister and his daughter would keep their mouths shut, for dirty linen wasn’t washed in public. Scornfully he grinned at the thought of how dirty for the daughter this linen was.