Parents, grandparents, Altlohe and Neulohe, Ostade with its garrison, the autumn fair in Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, the Café Kranzler in Berlin—narrow world, servile world, world forever standing still. One sits at a little marble table, the waiter bows, Papa and Mamma argue whether their dear daughter can stand another cream puff, the impudent fellow at the next table stares, and the dear daughter looks away—of that ordered world only the ruins are left.
For another life has broken into it, and the past no longer counts. This life is swift and brilliant. Infinite fire, mysterious adventure, a wonderful darkness, in which one may be naked without shame! Poor Mamma who has never known this! Poor Papa—so old with your white temples! For me ever new paths, ever different adventures! Stupid ugly Black Meier, good for nothing but to get himself a little quarter of an hour’s thrill and then be severely punished for it.
“Is that the scrawl?” asked the Lieutenant, shining his torch on a damp smeared sheet of paper. “The fellow has drowned it in spirits!”
“Oh, please give it to me!” she cried, suddenly ashamed of her emotional scribblings.
“By no means, my child!” he replied. “You won’t send it traveling again and get me to run after it!” He had already put the letter in his pocket. “And I tell you this, Violet, you are not to write to me again. Never. Not a word!”
“But I wanted you so much!” she cried and threw her arms round his neck.
“Yes, of course, I understand—understand everything. Tell me, you don’t keep a diary, do you?”
“I? What do you mean? A diary? No, of course not.”
“Well, I think you’re lying. I shall have to inspect your room sometime.”
“Oh, do! Fritz, do come to my room sometime; it would be wonderful of you if you had been in my room!”
“Good! Good! We can arrange it. But now I must hurry off to the meeting. They’ll be cursing.”
“Today—will you come today? After the meeting? Oh, please, Fritz, do come.”
“Today? Absolutely impossible. I’ve got to come back here again after the meeting—chat with the fellow, hear whether he has told any others about the letter.” He became thoughtful.
“Yes, Fritz, go for him properly. You must make him afraid; otherwise he will tell everything. He’s too disgusting and mean.”
“And you yourself recommended him to me as a messenger—” began the Lieutenant, but controlled himself and stopped. There was no use in reminding women of an error they had committed, in starting a quarrel with them. It always immediately passed beyond all bounds. A different, a much more frightening, thought had occurred to him: the man there might not merely be able to babble about the letter—he knew other things. Perhaps Kniebusch had not kept things to himself.…
“No, I have got to talk to him later,” he said once again.
She seemed to have guessed his thoughts. “And what will you do with him then, Fritz? If he has betrayed you?”
The Lieutenant stood quite still. Even this silly little goose had thought of it, had sensed the danger which was always threatening the Cause, which everyone feared: betrayal. As yet hardly anything had been said; outside a very small circle hardly anyone knew exactly what it was all about, what was intended. Hints were thrown out, loose phrases. Dissatisfaction, hatred, despair, sufficiently abounded in the country. The printing presses in Berlin hurled a new wave of bitterness abroad with every new spate of paper money. Thus a few words were enough, the muffled clank of arms … almost nothing. But the traitor did not need to be well informed, he did not need to know much; if he told the Landrat that someone was running around inciting people, that he had even heard today that the weapons were to be counted in the village …
The Lieutenant let the ray of his torch fall on to the sleeper’s face. It was not a good face, not one that could be trusted. He had had the right instinct when he didn’t want to have this fellow in it.… But that was Violet. She had suggested that he would be such a convenient, unnoticeable go-between, always with access to the Rittmeister’s house and always to be found in the fields, in the woods.… And on the very first occasion the affair went wrong! Always these women had to put their oars in. They had nothing on their minds but their so-called love.
The Lieutenant turned round abruptly. “You are going to bed at once, Violet,” he said angrily.
She was quite frightened by his tone. “But Fritz, I wanted to wait for you here. And then I’ve also got to speak with the forester about the buck.”
“Here? Don’t be ridiculous. How can you think of it? Supposing the fellow wakes up, or someone comes in?”
“But, Fritz, what do you want to do then? If he wakes up now and notices his letter is gone, my letter, I mean, and he gets angry with us, he’ll run off and tell everything to Grandpa or Mamma.”
“Now please stop it, Violet! Please! I’ll see to all that. I shall deal with him after the meeting—and properly, I can tell you!”
“But supposing he runs away before?”
“He won’t run away. He’s drunk.”
“But supposing he does run away before?”
“For God’s sake, shut up now, Violet!” The Lieutenant almost shouted. Then, since he himself had had a fright, he added in a whisper: “Come along now, be sensible. You can’t possibly wait here. Keep watch for me outside the house—I shall be back here in an hour.”
They went out together, felt their way through the dark room and along the dark passage. Now they were in the open again. It was night, full moon and peaceful; the air was very warm.
“Blast the moon! Everyone can see us! Go into the bushes there. In an hour, then.”
“Fritz!” she called after him. “Fritz!”
“What’s the matter? Can’t you be quiet?”
“Fritz! Aren’t you going to give me a kiss? Not even one?”
“Damn and curse!” he muttered. Aloud: “Afterwards, my child, afterwards we’ll make up for everything.”
The gravel crunched and he was gone. Violet von Prackwitz stood in the bushes where Amanda Backs had been standing. Like the latter she kept her eyes on the window of the staff-house. She was a little disappointed but at the same time very proud of standing guard like this.
VI
Forester Kniebusch wandered along slowly, gun on back, through the dark forest. The full moon was already fairly high, but here below, among the tree trunks, its rays made visibility only more uncertain. The forester knew the forest just as a townsman knows his house; he had walked here at all hours of the day and night. He knew every bend of the path, every juniper bush which—eerily like a ghost—appeared amidst the trunks of lofty pine trees. He knew that the rustling he had heard came from a hedgehog hunting for mice, but even though everything was familiar, he did not like going through the wood now.
The forest had remained unchanged for ages, but the times had changed and the men with them. To be sure, there had also been timber thieves in the past. Yet they had always been the same questionable characters whose business was shady and whose reputation was even shadier. One had caught them, they were what they were, and because they were like that, they landed in jail. It hadn’t been necessary to get worried about them; in the end it was they who always did the worrying and paid the penalty of their misdeeds.