the case out of her hand, lashed out at her once or twice, rushed to the porch, snatched up my shoes and ran into the street in my socks. Suddenly I stopped short.
“Give me the suitcase, sir,” said Lobedanz’s soft insinuating voice. “I’ll go on ahead, look out, here come the women!” Quite mechanically, I handed the case to Lobedanz. He made off. I ran after him, off into the night, in my socks.
18
Lobedanz ran with the suitcase. He took the shortest route, plunged into the oldest part of the town, rushed along lanes and alleys, and suddenly turned a corner. I ran after him. It was very dark. It was only because he was wearing shoes and so made a noise as he ran, that I was able to follow him at all. I am quite sure that Lobedanz had intended to disappear completely with the suitcase, and leave me helpless in the street. He really thought he had shaken me off: he hadn’t heard my soft stockinged footsteps. But when he eventually stopped to draw breath, I was beside him, and asked him why he had been running so senselessly. Nobody was after us!
The scoundrel was not put out for a moment. He managed to conceal his disappointment at my appearance, and said: “You had some trouble with the women, didn’t you? The women were shouting, weren’t they? What did you do to them?”
“Nothing you hadn’t advised me to, Lobedanz,” I laughed. “I tried to frighten them by knocking them about but it didn’t come to much. It’s quite understandable that a woman should resist when her silver’s being taken. I’ve got the silver, Lobedanz.”
“Ah, have you?” the scoundrel answered. “Now we have to see if we get anything for it. Most silver is light and hollow, or the shape is unfashionable, silver that’s only good for melting down is hardly worth anything.”
“You needn’t worry about that, Lobedanz,” I said maliciously, “I’ll sell my silver without you—if I sell it at all, which I haven’t decided yet. Now let me carry my suitcase myself.”
During our conversation I had been putting my shoes on, and now I took the suitcase despite Lobedanz’s protestations. At last I had hit on the right tone for dealing with him. Alcohol, which is constantly stirring up new and different moods, had suggested it to me. Now Lobedanz became a worm again, he protested that he was only a poor worker incapable of dealing with an educated man. Of course my silver was bound to be good, bound to be. I must put it down to his stupidity—that he had thought a man like myself might have inferior silver. I pretended to be sunk in gloomy silence, which made him uneasier than ever, but to myself I was shaking with inner laughter. When we got back home, without having to be asked, Lobedanz brought out the bottle of brandy which, sure enough, he had kept ready. I reached in my pocket and asked: “How much?”
“Two marks fifty,” he whispered, very humbly.
“Here’s your money, and don’t you dare to bring me such rotten liquor again. Have I got to pay anything else?”
He assured me that everything was settled.
“Good, then get out. I want to sleep now.” He wriggled out through the door, I had managed to make him embarrassed and humble.
But I neither felt like sleeping nor drinking. My craving for intoxication had slackened for a while, for some unknown reason I was given a short respite, during which something of my former active self came up to the surface. Perhaps this was a result of the scene I had just had with Magda, which had deeply upset me—of course I tried to think of it as little as possible. For a while I sat brooding on the sofa. It was terribly apparent that, after what had happened, I could never return home again. My old plan of weaning myself from alcohol and facing Magda and the doctors as a healthy man, had finally collapsed—in my sober moments I had never quite believed in it myself. It was also impossible to stay any longer here with Lobedanz; the idea filled me with disgust. It could only end in madness. I had to find some other way, and I believed I had a notion of what this way might be. Within the next twenty-four hours I should have to risk a great deal. I couldn’t set about my task as a drunken man.
It must have been between two and three in the morning when I got up from the sofa and began unpacking the suitcase. I washed myself from head to foot, got half-dressed, and shaved with the utmost care. Everything went infinitely slowly. My hand was shaking so much that from time to time I despaired of ever being able to shave, but at last I managed it. From some unknown source within me, new energy arose, that gave me endurance, that allowed me just to take a few little mouthfuls of drink at long intervals.
When at last, washed and tidied, I looked at myself in the mirror, I was astonished how well I still looked. True, my eyes were bloodshot, with pinpoint pupils, and my cheeks were rather flabby, but nobody could take me for a drunkard. I could risk it tomorrow morning, and I would risk it. I didn’t bother to go to bed. I wrapped a blanket round me and sat down on the sofa, to wait for morning. I listened. Everything was quiet in the house, but I was firmly convinced that Lobedanz was on the watch. Well, I would wait, and I trusted myself to outwit him.
I had filled a tumbler with brandy, and put the bottle with the rest of it in the furthest corner of my room. I would have to manage till morning with this tumbler of brandy: I had made up my mind. But I only sipped it. I was dead-tired from the unwonted activity of the night. I leaned back, and was soon asleep.
A slight clatter awoke me. I half-opened my eyes and blinked into the room, in which the morning sun had already got the upper hand of the light from the electric bulb. Lobedanz stood bent over my suitcase. He had taken a table-knife out of its baize, examined it critically and weighed it in his hand. For a while through half-closed eyelids I watched this scoundrel rummaging among the silver; then I stretched and yawned loudly like someone who is just waking, and looked round my room. It was empty. I just caught sight of the door-handle lifting into position. A glance into the suitcase convinced me that Lobedanz had contented himself for the time being with merely examining the silver. The actual pilfering was probably being reserved for my more drunken moments. I opened the window and looked out over the town. The sun had not risen far above the horizon, it must have been between six and seven o’clock. I called through the door for Lobedanz. The artful dog let some time pass before he answered. I called down to him that I would like to have my breakfast. He brought it very quickly: his cringing, almost sheeplike expression betrayed a lively alarm at the change in my bearing. I acted as if I had noticed nothing and for the first time I ate with some relish. The coffee was surprisingly good, the rolls crusty, the butter fresh and cool—that scoundrel Lobedanz certainly knew how to live.
While I was eating, Lobedanz tidied up my bed and the wash-stand, and as he did so, he couldn’t resist throwing furtive side glances at me. His cough seemed to get worse. The brandy-bottle which he found in the corner of the room, gave him at last the excuse he had been seeking to start a conversation:
“You’ve hardly drunk anything, sir,” he said, and held the bottle up to the light.
“No, my dear Herr Lobedanz,” I said ironically but genially, as I spread some butter thickly on a roll. “And if you go on bringing me such hooch, I’ll soon give up drinking altogether.”
“It was a mistake, sir,” he growled. “A mistake on the grocer’s part. As true as I stand here, I paid four marks fifty for this bottle, and the grocer gave me the wrong one. But of course I’ve only charged you the proper price, I paid the two marks myself, though I’m a poor man. I’m honest, sir …”
“Don’t talk rubbish, Lobedanz,” I answered roughly. “You’re no more honest than you are poor. You’re an old swindler, or rather a young one, but sly enough for an old one. Perhaps that’s why I like you. Now you can take that bottle,” I suddenly cried in pretended rage, “and drink it yourself. And see there’s a decent one here in five minutes.”
And I threw a note down on the table. He snatched it.
“As soon as the shops open,” he assured me.
“Not when the shops open!” I shouted still louder. “Now, this very minute! You idiot, do you think I’m going to sit awake all day after a night like this? I want to get to sleep some time.”
With a pretence of excitement, I had jumped up, already taken off my jacket and unbuttoned my waistcoat. I had to convince him now, or the whole thing would go wrong. So I snatched up the tumbler of brandy that stood on the table, gulped it down, and cried, “There, fill it up again with that damned hooch of yours. And see there’s some other drink here in five minutes; the grocer is bound to let you in by the back door, a good customer like you!” I had torn off my waistcoat and was already unbuttoning my braces.
“In five minutes!” Lobedanz assured me, and hurried out of the room. It was easy to detect the relief and satisfaction in his words. He had been afraid of losing his milch cow, but now I was boozing again, hallelujah!
Hardly had I heard the front door shut than I was in my clothes again. I shut the suitcase, took it, and ran
