“When he wakes up he must go to the fields at once; he’ll have no time for you.”
“But he asked me to come here through my father,” explained Sophie, not quite in accordance with truth. “Herr Pagel, in fact, wants me to dig potatoes!” She laughed bitterly.
“Dig potatoes,” repeated Amanda. The pair stood, one at the stove, the other at the window. “Herr Pagel’s right. Digging potatoes is certainly better than—” She broke off with telling effect.
“Than what, Fräulein? Than propping up the stove in case it falls over? There you are certainly right.”
“Many a person thinks that she alone is cunning,” said the Backs disdainfully. “But as Fräulein von Kuckhoff always said, too much cunning turns stupid. And that’s a fact.”
“And are you also cunning or are you stupid?” asked Sophie sweetly, sitting down at the desk.
“That’s no place for you, Fräulein!” said Amanda angrily, shaking the back of the chair. “There’s a place for you somewhere else.”
Sophie was aware what the other was driving at. But she wasn’t easily stopped in anything; she would sit where she was. “If I’m to go, Herr Pagel will tell me,” she said coolly. “All you do here are the beds, Fräulein.”
“But I don’t get in them, I don’t!” shouted Amanda, pulling at the chair furiously.
“That won’t be your fault, Fräulein. The gentleman perhaps has better taste than his predecessor.”
“You say that to me, Fräulein?” Amanda stepped back very pale.
The combat was now at its climax; the arrows had been loosed and many had gone home. Now must come the hand-to-hand fighting—it was a wonder that young Pagel hadn’t been waked up by the noise.
“Why shouldn’t I say that to you?” asked Sophie defiantly but less assured, for the expression on her opponent’s face made her uneasy. “You said so yourself before everyone during evening prayers.”
“Fräulein,” said Amanda threateningly, “if others can’t count up to five, I can. And if the five don’t come out right, then one can stand at night beneath a window and hear them talking.”
Now it was Sophie who turned pale. Then she bethought herself. “If one is decent,” she said in quite another tone, “one doesn’t need to have heard everything one hears.”
“And somebody like that talks about beds and better taste!” burst out Amanda angrily. “I ought to go and tell him on the spot.” She reflected. “I think I really ought to.” She looked doubtfully at Pagel’s door.
“Why should he know that?” asked Sophie. “He loses nothing by it.”
Amanda regarded her, undecided.
“You could have had a friend,” whispered Sophie, “just the same as … I can understand it if one sticks to a friend.”
“He’s not my friend any longer,” protested Amanda. “I don’t associate with a traitor.”
“Others can never know what someone is really like,” declared Sophie. “They only look at the outside. Someone may have had bad luck in his life.”
“I’ve heard that anyone from a penitentiary is always bad. Only the worst get sent there.”
“He can wish to improve. And there are such things as wrong verdicts.”
“Was he wrongly condemned then, Fräulein?”
Sophie considered. “No,” she said reluctantly.
“It’s good you said that. Or I should have thought you only wanted to wheedle me.”
“The sentence was too severe. He’s only heedless, not bad.”
Amanda thought. She couldn’t think as she wanted to; the image of Hänsecken prevented her. She’d remained true to him even when she knew that he was not only shallow but bad. But she eventually found what she wanted to ask. “Then why does he still hole up there?” asked Amanda. “If he really wants to change, he’s got to work. Is he lazy?”
“Not at all,” cried Sophie. “He holes up there …” She thought a bit. “We haven’t got the fare yet, and then he received a bullet in the escape—”
“A bullet? But the warders didn’t hit anyone!”
“That’s what they think! But he was shot in the leg, here in the thigh. And he’s been lying up there all these weeks without a doctor or proper attention. I’ve been nursing him. And now I’m to dig potatoes!”
Amanda looked doubtfully at the other’s face. “There’s so much stolen in the district at present,” she said. “I thought that would be your one, Fräulein.”
“With him always in bed, Fräulein Backs, and perhaps even lame the rest of his life? My father says it’s Bäumer up to his tricks again.”
“I thought that Bäumer was only a poacher.”
“That’s all you know! Bäumer will do anything. Now when they’re looking for him, and his relatives in Altlohe won’t have him with them, and he doesn’t know where to stay, he’ll do anything, he said.”
“How do you come to know that, Fräulein?” asked Amanda softly. “You are very well informed about him. You’ve even spoken to the man.”
“I …” stammered Sophie. But she recovered herself immediately. “Yes,” she whispered excitedly, “I lied. He wasn’t shot in the leg, and he goes out to provide for us, so that we can get the fare together. What can we do when they’re after him? You stood up for yours at evening prayers without being ashamed. One must stick by one’s fellow particularly when things are bad for him. And I’ll never believe that you’ll betray us—why, you smacked Meier’s face because he was a traitor!”
“Yes, I smacked my fellow’s face for that,” said Amanda. “Your friend—”
“And you would be a traitor after that?” interrupted Sophie. The two girls looked at one another. “You ought to know,” she whispered hurriedly, “what a girl feels like when she’s fond of someone and how one doesn’t give a damn if others say he’s no good. To them he may be bad, perhaps, but to me he’s good—and I of all people must leave him in the lurch? No, you don’t want that, nor do you want to betray us.”
Amanda Backs stood silent.
“I’ll see that he doesn’t touch anything more in Neulohe, and that we leave as soon as possible, as soon as we have a little money—but you won’t betray us, eh, Fräulein?”
“What is it Amanda’s not to betray?” Wolfgang Pagel stood between the two girls, a flushed, somewhat excited Amanda and a Sophie who had made herself very ladylike for this visit, so that not much excitement was to be noticed beneath her lipstick and powder.
Sophie did not reply. “I’ll just quickly make your coffee, Herr Pagel,” said Amanda. And she left the office.
“What’s the matter with her?” asked Pagel. “Have you quarreled?”
“Not a bit,” said Sophie quickly. “I was only asking her to put in a word for me with you, bailiff. But you were not to know what I’d asked her.” She shrugged her shoulders. “My father says that you want me for the potato digging. But father must have misunderstood. Just look at my hands; one can’t dig potatoes with hands like that.” And she stretched out hers, wonderfully manicured, nails brilliantly polished. But neither manicure nor polish could hide the fact that they had once been very robust country-girl’s hands.
Pagel gave them a benevolent pat and said: “Very nice! Well, Sophie, take a seat and we’ll talk reasonably with one another.”
She obediently sat down, but her manner betrayed that she was not inclined to enter into reasonable talk.
“Now look here, Sophie,” said Pagel amiably. “When you left Neulohe a few years back, those pretty hands looked a little different, don’t you agree? And yet they’ve become so pretty. Now, for a while again, they won’t look quite so beautiful, but you’ll be helping your father to earn a bit. What do you think? When you return to Berlin your hands will quickly enough become spotless and clean again.”