Pagel’s face looked sullen and obstinate. He knew quite well what Studmann meant, yet he found it disagreeable. From his mother’s protective care he had passed to that of his sweetheart; every trifling worry had been listened to with sympathy. Suddenly all this was to end.
“All right, Studmann,” he said at last. “As you like.”
“Excellent,” said Studmann. He considered it advisable to discontinue the subject; he had read sufficient in the young man’s face. Raising his voice, he said: “And now, my worthy fellow farmer, tell me what sort of grain this is!”
“That’s rye,” said Pagel, letting an ear glide expertly through his fingers. “I know that stuff. I helped pile it in stacks yesterday.” And he cast a stealthy glance at his blistered hands.
“That’s my opinion too,” said Studmann. “But if it’s rye, we have to ask ourselves, is it our rye, that is to say, does the rye belong to the estate?”
“According to the plan of the holdings, no peasant has a field out here,” said Pagel hesitantly. “It should be ours.”
“Again my opinion. But if it’s ours, why hasn’t it been reaped yet? Seeing that we are already reaping oats? Has it been forgotten, perhaps?”
“Impossible. So near to the farm! We pass here every day with the teams. In that case I should have heard at least something about it from the men.”
“Don’t tell me anything about the men. In the country they’ll be no different from those in the hotel. They grin up their sleeves whenever the boss forgets anything. The experiences I had in the hotel!”
“Herr Studmann! Over there in the west, there lies Berlin—let it stay there, let’s not bring it up! We’re living in Neulohe—I don’t want to hear any tales about Berlin!”
“Excellent. So you accept my suggestion? Agreed! No more about Berlin!” … And with new eagerness: “Perhaps it isn’t ripe yet?”
“It is ripe,” cried Pagel, proud of his newly acquired knowledge. “Look, the grain should break clean over the nail—and this is already dry and as hard as a bone.”
“Queer. We must ask the Rittmeister—remind me. Just watch how I’ll impress him this evening with our vigilance! He shall learn that he now has employees with eyes in their heads and brains in their skulls, the beau ideal of all employees, employees of the first class. He shall weep with joy over us.”
“You’re right off your rocker, Studmann,” said Pagel. “I’ve never known you like this.”
“Pagel, don’t you know what it is? The peace of the fields, the breath of nature, grassy soil under one’s feet —you don’t know what it means, doing eighteen miles a day up and down the stupid corridors of a hotel, with the soles of your feet burning.”
“Berlin! Wicked, forgotten Berlin!”
“I already have an idea that even this peace is a fraud. In the houses of that charming little village which crouches so picturesquely in the forest, scandal, jealousy, and tale-telling are just as much at home as in any city tenement. Instead of the clanging streetcars there’s a pump handle eternally squeaking; instead of the scolding old woman on the floor above, here a farm dog howls day in and day out. The kite over there means the death of a mouse. But, Pagel, leave me my happiness, don’t pluck the young blossom of my faith! The peace of the fields, the harmony of the cottages, the quiet of nature …”
“Come and bathe, Studmann, a bathe will cool you down—the crayfish ponds are said to be very cold.”
“Yet, let’s go and bathe,” agreed Studmann enthusiastically. “Let’s plunge this hot body into the cool waters—let us wash from our worried brow the corroding sweat of doubt—Pagel, I must confess to you, I feel marvelous!”
V
Geheimrat Horst-Heinz von Teschow had once presented his old servant Elias with a stick, a yellowish brown malacca cane with a cylindrical golden knob. As a rule the old gentleman was not the one for giving presents, a problem he generally settled by asking: “Who gives me anything?” Sometimes, however, he was quite the opposite and presented someone with something (and then reminded him of it for the rest of his life).
The malacca cane had passed into the possession of Elias only when the gray lead filling was beginning to show through the knob’s glittering gold. This did not prevent the old gentleman from often reminding Elias of the “real gold stick.” “Do you polish it properly, Elias? You must grease the cane every four weeks. It’s an heirloom, a gold stick like that, you can bequeath it to your children. Of course you haven’t any (at least as far as I know), but I’m convinced that even my granddaughter Violet would be delighted with it if you left it to her in your will.”
What Elias thought of the gold content of the knob remained unknown; he was too dignified to speak of such things. But he made much of the cane, and always carried it on his Sunday walks. Thus he had it today also. Cane in one hand and panama hat in the other, he bore his large yellowish skull in the afternoon sun through Neulohe village, on his way to the Villa. In the breast pockets of his ceremonial brown frock coat he carried in the left the wallet with the 1,000-mark notes, and in the right the Geheimrat’s letter to his son-in-law.
Whenever he saw a face old Elias stopped and addressed it. If it was a child he asked for the first or fifth commandment; if it was a woman he inquired about her gout or whether there was enough milk to feed the baby. With the men, he asked about the progress of the harvest, said “Ah” or “Oh!” or “You don’t say!” and always broke off the conversation after three or four sentences, swung his panama gently, jabbed his stick against the ground and passed on. No ruling prince could have wandered among his subjects more affably or with more dignity than did old Elias among the villagers, who yet mattered nothing to him and to whom he mattered nothing. All, however, readily accepted him as he was; if ever a newcomer felt aggrieved after the first interview—what the devil did the old donkey want of him, what in all the world did he think he was?—at the second or third time, at the latest, he had succumbed to the spell of philosophic detachment and answered as readily as the old guard.
Although he was no younger than Forester Kniebusch, Elias was quite different; whereas the former was ever trying to take color from others, echoing their sentiments, always worrying about his old age and his livelihood, old Elias wandered about with unruffled serenity, the things of this world meaning nothing to him, and managing his crafty master just as naturally as a child does a doll. That’s how things are arranged in this strange world. The cares that press on the hearts of some are not even felt by others.
Having arrived at the Villa, Elias did not take his letter up the front stairs to the brass bell—which on Saturday had been given its Sunday polish by Rader—but went round the Villa and down into the basement, where he knocked at the door, not too loudly and not too softly, just as was proper. No one called, “Come in!” so Elias opened the door and found himself in the kitchen, where a complete Sunday silence and cleanliness prevailed. Only the kettle hummed softly over the dying flames. There was no one in the kitchen. Old Elias emptied the kettle in the sink and put it aside; he knew that Frau Eva liked to have her tea brewed only from freshly boiled water.
Then he went through a door at the back of the kitchen into the dark passage dividing the basement into two parts. His stick was clearly to be heard; he coughed, he also knocked on the door. But perhaps all these announcements of his presence were unnecessary, for Rader was sitting quite still and rigid in his bare room, his hands in his lap, staring with fishy eyes at the door, as if he had been sitting like that for hours.
When the servant Elias entered, however, the servant Rader got up, not too slowly and not too quickly, just as was proper, and said: “Good day, Herr Elias. Will you please take a seat?”
“Good day, Herr Rader,” answered old Elias. “But I shall be depriving you …”
“I like standing,” declared Rader. “Old age must be respected.” And he took the other’s hat and stick. Then he placed himself with his back against the door, facing Elias, but separated from him by the whole length of the room.
The old man mopped his forehead and said pleasantly, “Yes, yes—it’s hot today. Marvelous weather for the harvest.”
“I know nothing about that,” said Rader coldly. “I sit here in my cellar. I’ve nothing to do with the harvest.”
Elias folded his handkerchief carefully, put it into his coat pocket and brought out the letter. “I have a letter here for the Rittmeister.”
“From our father-in-law?” asked Rader. “The Rittmeister is upstairs. I’ll announce you at once.”
“Ah yes, ah yes!” sighed old Elias, looking at the letter as if he were reading the address. “Here are relatives writing letters to each other now. What one can’t say face to face, Herr Rader, ought not to be written either.” He looked at the address once again with disapproval and laid the letter absent-mindedly on Rader’s bed.
