The two of them walked silently side by side, the Lieutenant with his hands in his pockets, with an ugly smile on his face. The detective, lively, with the cold-blooded look of a dog picking up a scent.
For the first time, however, the fat man was unlucky. The waiter, throwing a suspicious glance at the Lieutenant, stated that Herr von Prackwitz had gone out and the young lady was ill. No, no—impossible to see her. The doctor was there, the young lady was unconscious. Without even asking the wishes of these guests he turned away. It was obvious that he laid no value on their presence; he went back to his work.
“And what now?” asked the Lieutenant derisively.
“You’re a bit too sarcastic,” said the other with a trace of irritation. “That betrays how pleased you are that nothing’s come of this visit. Well, we’ll just wait here for Herr von Prackwitz. Waiter, a bitter.”
The Lieutenant had prepared his plan. “Listen,” he said, “there’s still a little money in my pocket, and I want to give it to a girl. Let’s go there quickly. It won’t take half an hour.”
“The maid at the colonel’s? You could have settled that a little while ago. What did she tell you, by the way? Waiter, a bitter!”
“Nothing,” replied the Lieutenant promptly. “She was in a rage with me because I only went when I wished to hear something, she said. We were shits and our Putsch was also shit, or something like that. But I mean another girl now, in the New-town.”
“Shits and shit. Well, that’s something. She got that from someone else; that’s why she was angry with you perhaps. Women like that always get mad with their fellow if some idiot speaks badly of him.… Isn’t the waiter going to bring me any beer? Waiter, a bitter, please.”
“Leave the beer,” begged the Lieutenant. “Let me go to the girl now. It won’t take half an hour—we can always meet Herr von Prackwitz afterwards.”
The waiter set down the glass of beer. “Twenty million,” he said rudely.
“Twenty million!” The fat man was indignant. “What sort of bitter is it here, then? Everywhere else it costs thirteen million.”
“Since midday. The dollar’s now two hundred and forty-two million.”
“Oh,” growled the fat man, and paid. “If I’d known that I wouldn’t have had a beer. Two hundred and forty-two million! You see what good it’ll do giving the girl money; it won’t make her any the happier! It’s all just acting.”
“There are also letters for me there, which I’d like to fetch.”
“Letters! What letters? You only want to get away.”
“All right, we’ll sit here. I’ll have a bottle of wine for my money then. Waiter!”
“Stop,” said the fat man. “Where is it?”
“What?”
“Where the girl lives.”
“In the New-town, Festungs Promenade. Not twenty minutes away.”
“You said before it wasn’t half an hour there and back. What sort of letters are they? Love letters?”
“I’d keep my love letters at a girl’s, eh?”
“Let’s go then.” The fat man finished his drink and stood up. “But I tell you now, if you’re going to make trouble, as you did a little while ago at the barracks …”
“So you saw that as well?”
“I’ll not only smash you in the chest—I’ll go for the stomach so that you’ll never walk straight again.” Something flared in the ice-cold glance which threatened the Lieutenant. But this time it had no effect on him; he merely smiled. “I’m not making any trouble,” he said. “Anyway, as far as I can see, I haven’t got much more walking straight to do, eh? Threats haven’t really much point with someone like me, don’t you think?”
The fat man shrugged his shoulders. Through the rainy, deserted streets the two walked side by side.
The Lieutenant was trying to think how to get away from his tormentor; there were no letters and no girl in the New-town. But out there it ought to be easier to escape, to shake off this spy somehow, so as to do what had to be done without fresh humiliation or harassing surveillance. (Shall I really have courage enough—for that?) It was not going to be so easy to deceive this watchdog, however. Though the man shambled along beside him nonchalantly, the Lieutenant knew quite well what that hand always in his trouser pocket meant; he knew why the other kept so close to him that their shoulders touched at each step. Should he make the slightest unexpected movement the other’s fist would seize him in its demoralizing grip. Or there would be a report, once, twice, right here in the street, and then there would be something in the papers again about a political murder.
Not that! Not that! The Lieutenant was feverishly trying to form an idea of the geography of all the public-houses on their way and the possibility of escaping across the yard from the lavatory. But he could not concentrate on his task; his brain, despite all compulsion, refused to help him. Always the image of Violet von Prackwitz kept on coming between. The waiter had said that she was lying unconscious, and a fierce delight possessed him. Already, at my mere threats, you are unconscious. But wait and see how you will relish life when I have carried out my threat.… But I must think about escaping from some pub. Now we shall soon be passing The Fire Ball.…
Ah, the Lieutenant was obsessed with the girl. Now, death approaching, the scatterbrain had found a significance in life; this man of a hundred love affairs, who had never loved, had discovered hatred—a feeling which was worth living for! He pictured what it would be like when she saw him; it seemed to him he could hear her screams. It had to come to that; he wished it so strongly it couldn’t be otherwise. The wishes of the dying are fulfilled, he thought. And gave a start.
“What’s the matter?” The fat man was sharply on guard.
The wishes of the dying are fulfilled, thought the Lieutenant again, immensely delighted. “There you are. Herr von Prackwitz!” he said. “You wanted to speak to him. Please do.”
Their way to the New-town had brought them into the old long-demolished, long-outgrown fortifications, where the city fathers had made out of rampart and fosse a promenade for the citizens. And they were now walking in the fosse, with the ramparts rising steeply to the right and left, covered with trees and bushes. They had turned a corner and could see a strip of pathway, a lonely and remote spot.
To one side was a bench dripping with rain, and on this bench sat Rittmeister von Prackwitz, huddled, but not awake. His head was hanging over his chest; his sleep was the insensible wheezy sleep of the utterly drunken. Now and then, when his breathing became too embarrassed, his head gave a jerk, raised itself almost vertical and slowly sank, bumping at first on his shoulder, then back again onto his chest.
It was a deplorable, a shameful sight, which Herr von Prackwitz presented. For a moment the two spectators stood silent. The Rittmeister, searching for his car, had not been dumped in this solitary corner of the grounds for nothing. He had been robbed.
“They are like carrion kites!” exclaimed the fat man furiously. “The vermin smell their prey faster than we ever do.” And he threw a suspicious look up at the ramparts. But no branch crackled among the bushes, no retreating foot sent a stone rolling down the slope. The kites had long flown with their spoils. Plundered, stripped to his underclothes, a ridiculous and lamentable figure, Rittmeister Joachim von Prackwitz-Neulohe slept off his intoxication in the drizzle. Too feeble to resist and fight like the strong, he had collapsed and resorted to the dirty Nirvana of alcohol—to awaken, how?