“Don’t talk so big, you old rabbit,” said Meier peevishly, but put the letter back into his pocket. “The Rittmeister won’t hear about it. If you keep your trap shut …”
“I’ll keep my mouth shut,” said the forester and really meant it. “I’m having nothing to do with it, believe me. But you won’t keep your mouth shut.… No, Meier, be sensible for once and clear out. And quickly at that—Ah, it’s really starting now.”
The two had been paying no attention to the weather and the increasing darkness of the sky. But now a flash of lightning made the inn parlor as bright as midday, a crash of thunder deafened them, and the rain came pelting down as from a thousand sluice gates.
“You aren’t rushing out into the storm?”
“I am,” replied the forester hurriedly. “I’m running across to Haase’s. I wouldn’t like to stay here.” And was already gone.
Meier saw him disappear into the rain. About the parlor hung the smell of spirits, sour beer and dirt. Slowly Meier opened one window after another. When he passed the table where they had been sitting he involuntarily took hold of the bottle and raised it to his lips, shuddered at its smell, and let the spirit gurgle out on to the village square. Returning to the table, he lit a cigarette and withdrew the letter from his pocket. The envelope was now damaged beyond use. With the cautious movements of the half-drunk he laid the letter on the table. It was crumpled and he tried to smooth it out. What on earth am I to do? What on earth am I to do? he thought wearily.
The letter was growing wet beneath his smoothing hand. He looked. It had been placed in a pool of cognac and the writing was quite smudged.
What on earth am I to do? he thought again.
He stuffed the messy scrawl into his pocket. Then he took his stick and went into the pouring rain. He must go to bed, sleep himself sober.
VI
Kniebusch hurried as quickly as he could through the heavy rain to Haase’s farmstead. However unpleasant it was for an old man to get wet to his skin, it was ten times better than sitting with that fellow, Black Meier, and listening to smut.
He stopped on the sheltered side of Haase’s barn. In his present state he could not appear before the magistrate. Panting, he wiped his face meticulously and tried to comb out his wet beard. But while he did all this mechanically he was thinking, just as Black Meier yonder: What on earth am I to do? What on earth am I to do?
Once again he felt aggrieved that there was not a soul to whom he could pour out his heart. If he could have told only one person about this crazy business he would have felt easier. But as it was, what he had heard rankled till it was hardly bearable. It was like a sore place on a finger against which one kept on knocking; it was like an eczema which one had to scratch, whether it drew blood or not.
Forester Kniebusch knew from many a bitter experience how dangerous was his growing propensity to gossip; it had often caused great mischief and involved him in the most unpleasant scenes. In this case, however, there was really nothing much to tell—only the drunken talk of a fellow who was mad after women, little Meier.
Having dried himself in the shelter of Haase’s barn he was about to enter the house when the whole thing was revealed to him: he saw Meier in the inn pulling the letter out of his pocket, tearing it open, reading it …
Kniebusch gave a long and high whistle, although it actually took his breath away. His dog by his side, shivering with the damp cold, started and pointed, forepaw raised as if he smelt game. But Forester Kniebusch went on further than his dog; he’d spied the black-coated hog, the wretched boar, in its damp hide and put a bullet through its head. Black Meier had told a lie. “It isn’t possible otherwise,” he muttered to himself. “This chap with his blubber lips and our young Fräulein—no, I couldn’t swallow that. And it wasn’t necessary to swallow it, either. The foolish braggart and liar thinks I don’t see through him. Tears the letter open before my eyes, yet already knows what is written in it. Tells me he has just been with Fräulein Violet and has got a letter from her in his pocket. Of course she’s given him a letter, but to deliver to someone else, and the fellow’s read it on the quiet. Yes, I must think this matter over quietly and thoroughly. I shall be surprised if I don’t get to the bottom of it all, and most surprised if I don’t use it as a rope to hang you with, little Meier. You won’t be able to call me a rabbit and gaping owl much longer. We’ll see then who’ll be in a funk and gape!” Kniebusch turned round and faced the inn. But the inn was not to be seen, because the rain was so heavy.
It’s better not to do anything rash, he reflected. The matter had to be considered carefully, for obviously he must so manage things as to get into Fräulein Violet’s good books. She might be very useful to him one of these days.
Thereupon Kniebusch whistled shrilly the call, “Quick march, advance” and marched off, straight into the magistrate’s living room. He didn’t even leave the dog on the brick floor of the kitchen as usual, but let it make muddy circles with its wet paws on the waxed and polished floor. So sure of victory was he.
But in the living room he got a shock, for not only was the tall Haase sitting there, but in the hollow in the middle of the old sofa lounged the Herr Lieutenant as large as life, his old field cap on the crocheted elbow rest, and he himself shabby and unkempt. He was doing himself well, though, with a large cup of coffee and fried eggs and bacon, and soaking pieces of bread in the fat, like a plain honest countryman. But six o’clock in the evening was really not quite the right time to eat fried eggs.
“Order executed,” reported the forester standing to attention, as he did to anybody he believed invested with authority.
“Stand at ease,” ordered the Lieutenant. And then, quite friendly, a big piece of egg on his tin fork: “Well, forester, still running about on your old legs? The orders passed on and carried out? Everybody at home?”
“That’s just it,” said the forester dolefully, and told of his experiences in the village, and what Frau Pieplow and Frau Paplow had said.
“Old fool!” The Lieutenant calmly went on with his meal. “Then you’ll have to leg it through the village again, when the men are at home, understand? To tell the women such things! I always said there’s no fool like an old one.” And he went on eating.
“Yes, Herr Lieutenant,” said the forester obediently, concealing his fury. He might very well ask this young chap what right he had to snap at him, and why he was entitled to give him orders—but it wasn’t worth while, he’d leave it. Instead, he turned to the tall and wrinkled Haase who had been sitting in his big chair as silent as usual, listening without turning a hair. Kniebusch spoke to him not at all kindly. “Ah, Haase, since I’m here I’d like to ask you about my interest. It’s due in five days’ time and I must know what you intend to do.”
“Don’t you know?” asked Haase and looked nervously at the Lieutenant, who, however, seemed to be interested in nothing but his fried eggs and the bits of bread which he was chasing across the plate. “All that’s set down in the mortgage.”
“But, Haase,” entreated the forester, “we don’t want to quarrel, old people like us.”
“Why should we quarrel, Kniebusch?” asked Haase surprised. “You receive what is due to you and, besides, I’m not as old as you are by a long way.”