So she could let him sleep, and herself, too—she needed rest, a good rest. But she was itching with curiosity; she felt so worked up that bed didn’t attract her, although she was longing for it. At other times she knew what she wanted, but now, even though she wished to let him sleep, she nevertheless felt like tapping at the window, just to hear his furious sleepy voice, and know that all was well.… She wanted to and yet she didn’t.…
“Oh, well, I’ll tap,” she decided. And in that moment saw in Hans’s room a little beam of light, as if from a flashlight. Involuntarily she stepped aside, although she had seen by the light that the curtains were drawn. A similar beam had been directed at her a little time ago, when she was standing with Frau Hartig at the dungheap. Precisely similar!
She stood racking her brains, trying to puzzle out the connection between the torch, Fräulein and the unknown gentleman, and what they could be doing so late and so secretly in Hans’s room. She saw the beam of light move, go out, light up again, dart about.…
But she was not the kind of person to stand for long inactive and wondering. She went to the front door and cautiously pressed the handle. When she leaned against the door, it yielded.
Amanda tiptoed into the dark corridor and closed the door behind her.
V
The Lieutenant, through the gable room and down the loft stairs, reached the hall of the staff-house, where the beam of his flashlight showed him that the key, luckily, was in the door—he turned it, and Violet slipped in after him.
The office, it is true, was locked, but here Violet knew her way about: the double key lay in the little tin letterbox on the office door, and that was easily opened—a convenient solution for Meier. Like that, he didn’t have to get up in the mornings, if the foreman fetched the key from the office. The two entered. There was an overpowering stench in the office. Shining his lamp on the broken bottle, the Lieutenant said: “Chloroform or alcohol. I hope the fellow hasn’t done himself in. Don’t tread on the broken glass, Violet!”
No, he had not done himself in. Their ears told them that. Black Meier was snoring and wheezing terribly.
Violet laid her hand on her friend’s arm and felt safe in the disgustingly close room. More than that—she found this whole nocturnal excursion, this commotion over a letter of hers, “ever so interesting,” and thought Fritz “terribly dashing”! She was fifteen; her appetite for life was great, and Neulohe very boring. The Lieutenant, of whose existence her parents were unaware (she herself knew him only by his Christian name), had been met on her walks in the forest. She had liked him at first sight. This hasty, often completely absent-minded, yet generally cool and insolent man, from whose reserve broke now and again an ever surprising and consuming fire—this Lieutenant seemed to her the epitome of all manliness and silent heroism.…
He was quite different from all the men she had yet known. Even if he were an officer, he in no way resembled the officers of the Reichswehr who had asked her to dance at the balls in Ostade and Frankfurt. The latter had always treated her with extreme courtesy; she was always the “young lady” with whom they chatted airily and politely of hunting, horses, and perhaps of the harvest.
In Lieutenant Fritz she had as yet discovered no politeness. He had dawdled through the woods with her, chatting away as if she were some ordinary girl; he had taken her arm and held it, and had let it go again, as if this had been no favor. He had offered her his dented cigarette case with an indifferent “Like one?” as if the strictly forbidden smoking was a matter of course, and then, when lighting her cigarette, he had taken her head in his hands and kissed her—just as if it were all part of it. “Don’t make a fuss,” he had said, laughing. “I find girls who make a fuss simply detestable!”
She did not want him to think her “simply detestable.”
One can warn a young person of dangers and perhaps even protect her from them—but how about the dangers which, like everyday things, do not look at all like dangers? Violet never really had the feeling with Lieutenant Fritz that she was doing anything forbidden, that she was ever really in danger. And when it had happened, and something like an instinctive resistance, a panic fear, did indeed threaten to seize her, he had said with such genuine indignation: “Look here, Violet, don’t kick up a fuss! I can’t for the life of me stand this silly gooselike pretense! Do you think it is different with any other girl? That’s what you’re in the world for! So come on!”
“Is that what I’m here for?” she had wanted to ask. But then she realized she was being merely stupid. She would have been ashamed not to do what he wanted. Just because he thought so little of her, because his visits were so short and irregular, just because all his promises were so unreliable (“I was going to be here Friday? Don’t be silly, Violet; I’ve really got other things to think about besides you!”), just because he was never polite to her, just because of all that, she had succumbed to him almost without resistance.
He was so different. Mystery and adventure hovered around him. All his faults became merits to her because others did not have them. His coldness, his sudden desire which disappeared just as rapidly, his off-hand manner that was only skin-deep, his complete lack of respect for anything in the world—all this was reality, frantic love, manliness!
What he did was right. This casual fellow who traveled about with a vague commission to mobilize the country-folk for all emergencies; this cold adventurer who was not concerned with the object of the struggle, but only with the struggle itself; this mercenary who would have fought for any party so long as there was unrest—for he loved unrest and hated quiet, which immediately left him unoccupied, out of his element, not knowing what to do with himself—this dashing jack-of-all-trades was the hero! And he might have set a world alight—he would nonetheless remain the hero to her!
The way he now, with the flashlight in his hand and her lightly trembling fingers on his arm, directed the beam on to the disarranged bed with the naked man on it, the indifferent way he said to her: “Better look away, Violet!” and covered up the fellow; the way he growled: “Swine!” and then told her to sit by the bed, adding: “See whether he wakes up! I’ll take a quick look through his things!”—this camaraderie which was a shabby thing, hardly concealing ruthlessness, lack of respect, and roughness—all this she found marvelous.
She sat on her chair. It was almost completely dark, the moon scarcely penetrating through the grayish-yellow curtains. The man in bed wheezed, snored and groaned, invisible to her, and then began tossing about, as if in his sleep he sensed his enemies. Behind her the Lieutenant was going through the things, cursing loudly; it is difficult to find anything in an unfamiliar room with a flashlight in one’s hand. He rustled about, stumbled over chairs; his torch danced suddenly across the window and went out. Then the rustling started again.…
Yes, she had to be early in bed of an evening. Now and again she was allowed to go to a dance till eleven o’clock, till twelve at the latest, or to go shooting, with special permission and accompanied by the forester and the servants. In the afternoons, on alternate days, her mother spoke French and English with her. “So that you shall keep up with things, Violet. Later on you will have to go into Society—not like your Mamma, who is only a farmer’s wife.” Oh, how thin, how false, how dull the world at home seemed! Here she sat in the bailiff’s malodorous room, and life smelled of blood and bread and dirt. It was by no means, as parents, governesses and vicars pretended, a gentle, friendly, polite business; it was dark … a wonderful darkness. And out of the darkness came a mouth with glistening white teeth. The eye-teeth were pointed, the lips were thin, dry, saucy. O mouth, man’s mouth for kissing, ravenous teeth for biting!