“To be well informed is half the battle, Pagel.”
“Well?”
“You go to the village and get some old inhabitant who knows everyone.…”
“Kowalewski? The overseer?”
“Yes, that’s right. He’s a bit slack; it’ll be good for him to come more into conflict with his men; it’ll make him sharper. They’ll be in a rage with him if he has to name them.”
But Pagel had long stopped listening to the opinions of a former reception manager of a city hotel in a period of inflation. He was already running at a steady trot toward the village. It did him good to run. It had been an eternity since he had done anything like this. Not since his time in the Baltic. Since then, he’d always moved as slowly as possible. It was a long day, waiting for play to begin. Now he was glad to see how efficiently his body worked. The mild, somewhat cool damp air filled his lungs, and he was glad that he had such a broad chest; despite his running he inhaled deeply and slowly and pleasurably. In Berlin he had sometimes had a stitch in lungs or heart, and as is the way with young people who have never really been ill, he had then imagined some serious malady. Well, thank God, it had been nothing. He ran like Nurmi. I’m in good condition, he thought cheerfully.
In the village he slowed down to a walk, so as not to arouse attention. Nevertheless, his disappearance into Kowalewski’s house attracted a lot of notice. “See that!” they said. “An hour and a half ago he was saying bye-bye to Sophie, and now he’s calling on her again. He’s got rid of that old egg-face he had with him, of course. Well, what do you expect of a Berliner? And he’s a strong fellow, too. Sophie’s also become a bit of a townee—if you’re used to cream, you want cream!”
Unfortunately the young man came out of Kowalewski’s house, accompanied only by the old man, immediately. He probably hadn’t seen Sophie, who went on singing upstairs. Hastily the two left the village, Kowalewski keeping to the young man’s side, half a pace behind, like a well-trained dog. When Pagel had burst into his Sunday quiet, merely saying: “Come along with me, Kowalewski,” the old overseer had followed without a question. A poor man has not to reason why.
Studmann was waiting where the path turned into the fields.
“Good evening, Kowalewski. Glad you’ve come. Has Pagel told you? No? Good. Where does this path lead to?”
“To our outfields, sir, and then into the Geheimrat’s forest.”
“Any peasants’ fields there?”
“No, only our land. Lots five and seven. And on the other side lots four and six.”
“Good. If you had met six or seven people here half an hour ago, silent, with baskets that looked empty on their backs—what would you have thought, Kowalewski?”
Kowalewski pointed. “Going over there?”
“Yes, over there, toward the outfields.”
Kowalewski pointed. “Coming from over there?”
“Yes, Kowalewski, that’s about where they’ll have come from, not from the village.”
“Then they were from Altlohe, sir.”
“And what do Altlohe people want on our field? Now, at nighttime?”
“Well, sir, there’s nothing on the potatoes yet. But there are the beetroots; perhaps they want to pick the leaves. And then further over is the wheat which we cut on Friday and Saturday—perhaps they want a few ears.”
“Stealing, eh, Kowalewski?”
“They need the beetroot leaves for goats’ fodder, nearly all of them have a goat. And if the wheat’s nice and dry, you can grind it in a coffee grinder—they learned that in the war.”
“Very good. Well, let’s follow them. You come with us, Kowalewski. But I suppose you don’t like to?”
“It’s not for me to say, sir.”
“You needn’t have any more to do with it, Kowalewski, than just to give me a dig in the ribs if one of the people tells me a false name.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But I suppose they’ll have it in for you, Kowalewski?”
“Even if they’re Altlohe people, they know I have to do what I’m ordered. They understand that much.”
“But you don’t like admitting that they are stealing, Kowalewski, do you?”
“You see, sir, it’s bad if you’ve got a goat and have no fodder for it. And it’s still worse if you’ve got no flour for the children’s soup.”
“But Kowalewski!” Studmann stopped abruptly, then went on into the growing darkness. “How are you going to preserve order if people simply steal what they need? That would ruin the farm, wouldn’t it?”
Kowalewski kept obstinately silent, but Studmann was unyielding. “Well, Kowalewski?”
“That’s no sort of order, sir, if you’ll excuse me, when people work and yet can’t give their children anything to eat.”
“Why don’t they buy things? If they work, they must have money to spend.”
“They’ve only got paper money, sir. Everybody sticks tight to his goods and won’t take the paper.”
“I see! But still you must agree, Kowalewski, that the farm can’t carry on if everyone takes what he needs. You want your wages when they’re due, but where are they to come from if there are no profits? Take it from me, the Rittmeister doesn’t find it too easy.”
“The old Geheimrat always did well; he made a lot of money.”
“But perhaps the Rittmeister has more difficulties—he has to pay the old man rent.”
“The people from Altlohe don’t take any notice of that.”
“You mean they don’t care?”
“No, they don’t care.”
“And do you think it right for them to steal, Kowalewski?”
“If a man has no fodder for his goat …” began the obstinate old man again.
“Rubbish! Do you think it right, Kowalewski?”
“I wouldn’t do it, sir. But of course I get my corn from the farm and potatoes and free pasture for a cow …”
“Do you think it right, Kowalewski?” Herr von Studmann almost screamed. Pagel began to laugh.
“What are you laughing at, Pagel? Don’t be an idiot! Here’s an old man, who himself has never stolen, advocating the right to steal from his own employer. Have you ever stolen yourself, Kowalewski?”
It was laughable. Herr von Studmann screamed at the old man almost as Bailiff Meier used to. But this did not intimidate Kowalewski.
“Do you mean what you call stealing, sir, or what we call stealing?”
“Is there any difference?” growled Studmann. But he knew there was.
Pagel intervened. “May I put a question, Herr von Studmann?”
“If you like. This warped morality seems to amuse you very much, Herr Pagel!”
“It’s now very dark,” said Pagel cheerfully, “and Herr Kowalewski knows that neither of us is familiar with the fields. Tell me, Kowalewski, where does our beetroot field lie?”
“About five minutes’ walk ahead and then to the right over the rye stubble. You can see it in the starlight.”
“And the wheat field?”
“About three or four minutes’ walk along the path. Then we’ll be right on it.”
“Well, Kowalewski,” said Pagel mischievously, “if you think that these people have a right to take their fodder, why don’t you lead us a bit zigzag in the dark. You know we haven’t the faintest notion where things are!”
“Pagel!” cried Studmann.
“I can’t do that, sir. That wouldn’t be right. If you tell me to do something, I can’t lead you around by the nose.”
“Well, then,” said Pagel with satisfaction, “now we’ve got the thing clear. You believe in what’s right, Kowalewski. And what Herr von Studmann does is right. But what the people from Altlohe do is not right. You understand what they’re doing, but you don’t find it right, you don’t find it proper …”
“Well, sir, that may be. But when the goat hasn’t any fodder?”
“Stop!” shrieked Studmann. “Your success didn’t last long, Pagel!”
