“Yes, you sigh, Herr Pagel,” said Amanda exasperated, “but you could easily tell him that the constant sitting around and staring is no good to you in the office. That Kniebusch is certainly no soft touch, and if he lays into someone, that someone definitely knows it. And if you don’t like to tell him, then I will.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, Amanda.” And Pagel spoke with such emphasis that Amanda did nothing of the sort.
When the forester had left his house that morning there was a very fine rain falling and no breath of wind. It was one of those mournful autumn days which lie on the hearts of young people like a nightmare, but the weather pleased the old forester, certain that his young friend could be found in the office, under shelter. Throwing a rain cape round his shoulders, he set forth.
Slowly and comfortably he shuffled toward the farm. His hands, clasped over his belly, were dry and warm under the cape. If he weighed up things closely, he had never been better off in his life, or felt better. He hadn’t even to fear the Geheimrat’s return. At Pagel’s instigation the doctor had written to the old gentleman, who had sent an amiable note to Kniebusch—he should see if he couldn’t get about a little again, so as to initiate his successor in the hiding places of the game, the ins and outs of the forest, and the artfulness of the population. But he shouldn’t bother himself any more about his work.
A fat lot the old gentleman knew! The forester wasn’t bothering himself or worrying a bit—least of all about the forest. But was he not perhaps a trifle sorry when he found holes in the potato clamps? That vexed and troubled his best and only friend, Pagel, as he knew; but it delighted him, because when there were holes he had something to report and was of use.
So he walked quite contentedly up one side of the clamps and down the other. Unfortunately, however, as he might almost have imagined, the people hadn’t, in this beastly weather, the heart even to steal; clothing was so scarce that men didn’t like to expose to rain the single gray uniform they had brought back with them from the war.
It looked then as if there would be nothing to report today, and that was annoying—till old Kniebusch came to the very last clamp, on the other side of which, next to the forest, he found the wished-for hole; and a splendid one, too. Six or eight hundredweights of potatoes had been taken out of it at least.
Satisfied, he might now have made his report. Instead, he looked thoughtfully at a small path trodden out from the hole into the pine plantation. The soft ground betrayed clearly that the potatoes had not been taken straight on a handcart to the road and thus to the village—the still quite fresh marks showed that they had been taken into the plantation and were probably still there.
The inquisitiveness of old men, as tormenting as an eczema, plagued him, and the hunter’s instinct urged him on—one doesn’t track game a whole lifetime to pass heedlessly over a trail in one’s old age. The thought of being able to report something very special to his friend Pagel also encouraged him. Not for a moment did he think that this investigation could prove dangerous. Potato thieves were harmless people; their theft was merely of food and was punished with a paper fine, so that they had little to dread if caught. If anything caused the forester to hesitate, it was his firm decision not to bother about other things. However, he wanted to do Pagel a favor, so gently, on tiptoe, he took up the trail. Over the years people had provided themselves with so many poles and faggots from the plantation that the place had become thinned out, and the forester arrived very quickly at the spot where a small mound of potatoes lay. They were Red Professor Wohltmanns. Wanted, no doubt, to fatten his pigs with them!
Kniebusch, feeling that he was not alone, raised his eyes and saw a man squatting under the pines. His trousers were down and he looked calmly at the forester.
“Hi! What are you doing here?” shouted the surprised Kniebusch.
“I’m shitting,” replied the man with a friendly grin.
“I can see that,” said the forester, amused. Oh, what a lot he would have to tell Pagel! “Was it you who pinched the potatoes?”
“Of course,” declared the man, taking his time.
“But who are you? I don’t know you at all!” The forester thought he knew every soul for twenty kilometers round, but he had certainly never seen this man before.
“Take a good look at me,” said the man, standing and pulling up his trousers. “You’ll know me next time.”
It was all so friendly and good-tempered—and potato theft was, after all, not really a capital crime—that the forester continued to stand with his hands clasped under the cape, and saw without misgiving the man saunter toward him. If there was no apprehension in his mind, there was certainly astonishment. He was familiar with that jacket and knickerbockers of gray-patterned cloth. “But you are wearing a suit of the Rittmeister’s!” he exclaimed bewildered.
“You miss nothing, forester,” said the man grinning. “It fits me, don’t you think?” He was now standing right in front, laughing. But something in this laughter, in the tone of his words, in his nearness, displeased old Kniebusch. “Well, tell me your name,” he ordered. “I certainly don’t know you.”
“Then you shall,” cried the other. In a flash his expression changed into one of hate; in a flash he had his arms round the forester—who couldn’t move under his cape.
“What’s the meaning of this?” exclaimed the helpless Kniebusch, still not thinking it serious.
“Here’s a greeting from your old friend Bäumer!” the man shouted right in his face. And in the same moment the forester heard a terrible crack, right in his skull, a blinding whiteness.… There must have been two of them, he thought. One has knocked me on the head from behind.…
All became red and then gradually black—he felt himself falling—he lost consciousness.
Slowly memory returned to his brain. It attached itself to what he had last thought. There were two of them, he told himself. One I don’t know, but the other who hit me on the head from behind must have been Bäumer.… It’s not so bad to be killed like this—all my life I’ve gone in fear of it, and now it’s not so terrible at all.…
Not for a moment did he believe that he would escape with his life. That villain must have broken his skull. So the fellow had got him in the end! But it was not very painful. The warmth running over his skull was troublesome, though. That was the blood welling out. He was getting giddy from it. Had the fellows gone?
He listened, he heard nothing. No step, no rustling; not a twig snapped.
Painfully he moved his head to and fro; he could not move his eyes properly; he must move the whole head. He saw no one. Thought I was already done for; but it hasn’t been as quick as all that.
In truth he was lying there comfortably, old Forester Kniebusch; he had lain worse than that in his life. His limbs were getting heavy, but his head and something in his breast were getting lighter and lighter. For a moment he considered whether he should do something, and what he should do.… But why do anything?
The cold was increasing, that icy cold which was creeping up from the extremities of his limbs, but one could endure that; sooner or later in the morning people would come to the clamps; he was close by, he had only to shout. Then they would find him, carry him home, put him to bed—he had always wished to die in his bed.
The old forester, whose vital strength was slowly trickling from the terrible skull wound, pushed an arm under his head. It isn’t so bad at all, he thought again. If only one knew how little unpleasant even the most unpleasant thing is, one wouldn’t need to have any fears in life.