Wolf Among Wolves

What one won’t tell, the other will babble—and I’ll eat my hat if I don’t worm everything out of Haase this evening.”

But in this he was mistaken: the magistrate kept as mum as the forester, to the old gentleman’s surprise. For such a thing had never happened before.

To be sure, he did not yet eat his hat on that account. The Geheimrat was not one to give up hope so easily.

VIII

Studmann and Pagel had taken leave of their fair companion outside her home, and the villagers had seen with astonishment that these suspicious gentlemen from Berlin had not simply passed on with a nod, as was usually done with a farm girl, but had shaken her hand properly, as if she were a real lady. The older one, with the egg- shaped head, had raised his cap. The younger was not wearing one.

Admiration for Sophie, who seemed to the villagers like a butterfly which has emerged dazzling and gay from its dull chrysalis, had immeasurably risen. What her clothes had begun (and the journey with the Rittmeister) was completed by this formal leave-taking. Mothers no longer found it necessary to admonish their urchins to behave themselves with Sophie—“She’s a real lady now!” Henceforth she was as safe from their mischievous tricks as, say, the young Fraulein in the Villa. None of them wanted to get into trouble with the gentlemen from Berlin, who might be detectives. And the gentlemen had gone on their way without any inkling that they had achieved the isolation in the village of a dangerous enemy.

Rader was waiting for them in the office. Madam would like to speak to Herr von Studmann at a quarter to seven.

Herr von Studmann, glancing at his watch, saw that it was a quarter past seven already. He looked at Rader inquiringly. But the servant did not move a muscle or utter a word.

“Well, I’ll go right away, Pagel,” said Studmann. “Don’t hold up supper because of me; you’d better begin.”

Wolfgang Pagel remained alone in the office. He did not begin his supper, however, but paced up and down, contentedly smoking his cigarette and glancing every now and again through the wide-open windows at the green park loud with the song of birds.

As is the way with all young men, he didn’t think about his situation. He just went to and fro, smoking, moving between light and shadow. Nothing weighed on him, and he desired nothing. If he had thought about his situation and summed it up in the shortest way, he would have said he was—almost—happy.

On closer examination he would perhaps have discovered a slight feeling of emptiness, like the convalescent who has survived a life-threatening illness and hasn’t yet been counted among the living. He’d survived serious danger, but still had no purpose in life; indeed he didn’t fully belong to it. A secret power which wanted him healthy led his actions and, even more, his thoughts. Quite unlike Herr von Studmann, he was not interested in whatever lay behind things; he was only interested in the exterior. He instinctively defended himself against having to worry. He didn’t look at rental contracts and made no painful calculations about rent levels. He considered old Herr von Teschow a good-natured, bushy-bearded old man and didn’t want to know about his cunning and sinister intentions. He was fully satisfied by the simple, tangible life-tasks—going out into the field, the stoking up of the barley, and the deep, dreamless sleep that comes from extreme physical exhaustion. He was carefree like a convalescent, superficial like a convalescent, and still felt, without being clear about it, again like a convalescent, that frightening hint of what he had only barely escaped from.

Tomorrow they would begin gathering in the sheaves again—excellent! They could, of course, have gathered them in today, as all the farms in the neighborhood were doing; but the old lady in the Manor (he had not yet seen her) was supposed to be against working on Sunday. Good. Studmann had planned something for this evening; what it was he didn’t know, but it was bound to be pleasant. Everything was pleasant here. He hoped Studmann would soon return. Wolfgang didn’t like to be alone. He felt best in the midst of people.

Thoughtfully he came to a stop in front of the pinewood bookshelf, where the black annual volumes of laws and decrees stood in long rows. Row upon row, volume upon volume, year upon year they decreed, proclaimed, threatened, regulated and punished from the beginning of time to the end of the world, and yet every individual continually battered his skull against this world of law and order.

Pagel lifted down one of the oldest volumes. From the spotty brown paper a decree spoke to him, forbidding that a servant or inmate be given more than six score crayfish a week to eat. He laughed. Today bathers were chased from the ponds, thus protecting the crayfish from the people; in those days people were protected from the crayfish!

He put the volume back in its place, and just below his eye-level was the top edge of another row of volumes of the official District Gazette. Out of one of them peeped the corner of a sheet of paper. He seized it with two fingers and found he held a piece of typewriting paper only a quarter covered with typing. “Dearest! My dearest darling! My only one!”

He glanced at the volume from which he had taken it. It was the Gazette for the year 1900. Pagel felt reassured and read on with a smile, tasting something of the charm which clings to love letters of a century ago, the letters of lovers whose voices have died away, whose love is extinguished, who lie cold in their graves. He read down to the name “Violet.”

That was no common name in Germany; until recently he had come across it only in books. But he had heard it frequently in the last few days, usually in the form “Vi.” In some families, however, names are handed down.… He rubbed his finger cautiously over the typescript. It was fresh! The fingertip showed a faint smear.

Tearing the cover from the typewriter, he typed the words “Dearest! My dearest darling! My only one!”—with repugnance. He, too, had once heard those similar words and did not like being reminded of them. There was no doubt about it. The letter had been typed on this machine, and very recently: the capital E was defective.…

His first impulse was to destroy the letter; his next, to put it back in the Gazette. He didn’t want to know anything of this affair.

But steady, old chap, steady! he thought. This Vi is very young—sixteen, perhaps only fifteen. She won’t like her letters lying about in an office. I ought … Pagel put the letter in his inside pocket. That was no mistrust of Studmann, but Pagel was determined to read this letter only after he had considered everything in detail. Perhaps he wouldn’t even mention it to him. In any case he must be clear about everything first. It was not pleasant; he would have liked to have continued walking up and down in his office without a thought in the world. But that’s life. It doesn’t ask if it suits us. We’re already engaged in it.

So Pagel went thoughtfully up and down his office, smoking. (If only Studmann doesn’t suddenly turn up!)

First question: Was the letter really a letter? No, it was the carbon copy of a letter. Second question: Would the sender have made a copy? Very improbable. Firstly, it wasn’t the sort of letter which is easily written on a typewriter—a thing like that had to be written by hand if it wasn’t to look utterly idiotic. Secondly, it was very improbable that Fraulein Violet would have chosen the office to write her love letters in. Thirdly, she would never keep the carbon copy there. And why make a copy at all? Conclusion: It was therefore, in all probability, the carbon copy of a copy of a letter of Fraulein Vi’s. (One could leave till later the consideration: Where was the copy itself?)

Third question: Could the recipient have made a copy and carbon for himself? There seemed to be no point in his making a copy, though. Because the recipient would have the original! No, it was quite clear—an unauthorized person was responsible. And it ought not to be difficult to find out who. This third party must have had regular access to the office, otherwise he would not have been able to type or keep anything there. No, there could be no doubt about it. It could only have been that ugly little fellow called Black Meier.

And Wolfgang now recalled Meier’s nocturnal departure, his waking up in a fright, his “He wants to shoot me.” They had thought it was a question of jealousy involving that chubby-cheeked poultry maid, and the Rittmeister had accepted this explanation. So he, too, had no inkling of the real truth. Yes, there was something mysterious and dangerous about the whole affair—although Meier, of course, was a coward who had only imagined he was going to be shot. One didn’t murder people so lightly because of an intercepted love letter.

And there still remained the question whether he ought to say nothing and replace this carbon copy—better still, destroy it; or whether he ought to speak about it—with Studmann, perhaps. Or with the passionate little Fraulein Vi. One must not forget, either, that the absconding Herr Meier was carrying another copy around with him.