Part Two
Chapter Ten
I
It was no longer the same office. The bookshelves of ugly yellowish-gray pinewood, the desk with its green ink-stained felt, the over-large safe, were still there—but it was no longer the same office.
The windows sparkled; clean bright curtains had been put up; a dull gleam had been given to the furniture by an application of oil; the worn splintery floor had been planed smooth, waxed and polished; and the wheelwright had painted the safe a silver gray. No, it was no longer the same office.
Rittmeister von Prackwitz had at first worried about putting his friend into such a squalid office to scan wages lists and corn accounts. He need not have worried. Herr von Studmann was not the man to sit in squalor—he drove out slovenliness, gently but inexorably.
On one of those early days Studmann had had to fetch a key from the office—and Frau Hartig was standing on a window seat cleaning the windows. Studmann stopped and watched her. “Do you tidy up here?” he asked.
“I see to that all right!” Hartig said pugnaciously, for firstly she was deceived by this man’s gentleness and secondly she was angry with him because little Meier had gone. Even if she had solemnly renounced all right to the former bailiff, she couldn’t forgive the gentleman there—people said he was a detective—for the fact that Meier was gone.
The supposed detective did not reply, but for no earthly reason smelled the water with which she was cleaning the windows. Then he took the chamois in his hand, which was, of course, no chamois, but a mere rag, for Armgard at the Villa was not parting with good chamois for a bad office. Next he swung the cleaned window to and fro in the sunshine—Hartig’s whole body trembled with fury at a spy who now even sniffed round her work! His inspection finished, he raised his glance to the woman, seeming not to see that she was angry. “Your name is?”
“I am the coachman’s wife,” cried Hartig angrily and polished her window noisily.
“I see, the coachman’s wife,” said Studmann calmly. “And what is the coachman’s name?”
Then Hartig very excitedly and quickly said many things one after another; for example, that she understood her work, that it wasn’t necessary for anyone to come from Berlin to “learn” her how to work, that she had worked for four years in the Manor for the old lady before marrying Hartig, and that the old lady had always been satisfied with her, though she was actually hard to please …
“So your name is Frau Hartig,” said Herr von Studmann, patient because he had worked a long time in the hotel business. “Listen, Frau Hartig, this window cleaning is useless. One doesn’t clean windows in the sunshine— look, they are quite streaky.”
And he swung the window to and fro. But the annoyed Frau Hartig didn’t look. She knew quite well that the windows were streaky, but hitherto her work had been good enough for everyone. She said so, too.
Studmann was unmoved. “And it’s better to put a drop of spirit in the water; that makes the panes bright. But even then all your work will be in vain if you haven’t got a proper chamois. Look, the cloth is fluffy. There’s lots of fluff sticking to the windows!”
At first Frau Hartig was speechless with indignation. Then she asked Herr von Studmann very scornfully where was she to get spirit from, eh? She couldn’t sweat any through her ribs, and Armgard wouldn’t give her a chamois.…
“You shall get spirit and also a chamois,” said Studmann. “And if you haven’t got a chamois, you take an old newspaper—look, like this.” He seized an old newspaper and polished away. “See, like that! Isn’t it clean now?”
“That was the
“Oh!” said Studmann, embarrassed—in the early days both he and Pagel frequently made such mistakes out of sheer ignorance. He unfolded the damp paper ball. “The date is still readable—I’ll order another.” He made a note of the date.
This little blunder, however, had exhausted his patience. He spoke more curtly. “And now go home. This half-cleaning is useless. Come this evening at six. Then I’ll show you how I want the office and the room cleaned.”
And he went off with his key in his hand. Frau Hartig, though, was quite undisturbed by the talk of this ass from Berlin who would be hopping it in the next few days, anyway. She went on cleaning in her own way, and did not dream of appearing at six, as ordered.
When, however, curiosity impelled her to go to the staff-house towards seven, she saw to her indignation that Black Minna, that sanctimonious bitch, was pottering around, and when she entered quietly, seizing a pail and flannel as if nothing had happened, the detective merely turned round and said in his beastly gentle way: “You are dismissed, Frau Hartig. You don’t clean here anymore.” And before she was able to make any reply, he turned away. The wheelwright and his boy set their planes going with a shrap! shrap! shrip! Frau Hartig had stood there like Hagar driven into the wilderness. Tears had had no effect on the old lady, nor sobs on Frau Eva, nor pleadings on the Rittmeister; all had suddenly become different, a new wind was blowing.… “Yes, if Herr von Studmann doesn’t want to have you, then you can’t have done your work properly, Frieda. So we can’t say anything, and we can’t help you.” Not even the information about the spoiled newspaper, not even the news that Herr von Studmann had had Amanda for over an hour in the office after midnight—nothing which was usually listened to so willingly— had effect. “No, go home now, Frieda! You mustn’t gossip like that—gossiping is a very ugly habit. You must get out of it, Frieda.”
And so she had had to go, to a grumbling husband who was very displeased with her, and she hadn’t even been right in her prophecy that on Saturday evening, after the paying of all the many employees, the office would again look like a pigsty. No, it still looked spotless, for that ass from Berlin had placed a table and two chairs on the grass outside the door, and had paid out the wages there. The men, who were always ready to be impressed by anything new, had thought it wonderful.
“But what will he do when it rains? And in the winter?” Frau Hartig had screamed.
“Be quiet, Frieda,” said the men. “You’re just jealous. He’s ten times cleverer than you. He’s already kicked out Black Meier, and if you scream too much he’ll kick you out as well!”
“He ordered the poultry maid to come to him in the office at midnight!” she cried angrily.
“You’d like to cut her out again, as you did with little Meier, wouldn’t you?” the men had laughed. “Ah, Hartig, you’re silly. He’s really a fine gentleman, like the Rittmeister, and he doesn’t think of you or Amanda. Just be quiet!”
II
And now it was Sunday, a Sunday afternoon after a really busy week, and Herr von Studmann and Pagel were sitting in the spick-and-span office. Studmann was smoking a fine smooth Havana from the Rittmeister’s special box, for they had both been invited “over there” to lunch; young Pagel was smoking one of his own cigarettes.
Yes, both men, to the great awe of the Neulohe employees, had been invited to lunch in the Villa, having already been there twice for supper. This had never yet happened with farm officials, and it added to the rumors about their unusual mission. The elder of the two gentlemen, the one with the somewhat egg-shaped head and brown eyes, had even lived in the Villa until the nocturnal disappearance of little Meier. Then, of course, he had at
