“You will excuse me, Herr Geheimrat,” said Studmann, with all that pleasant graciousness of which only a victor is capable. “I must at once give all the necessary instructions, so that the objection will be removed by evening at latest.”
“But I should like to know …” said the old man, letting Studmann hustle him out of the office without a protest. “You’d better see that everything is arranged by the evening, though!” he cried, relapsing into his threatening mood of before.
“Everything will be arranged by evening,” declared the cheerful Studmann, ostentatiously pocketing the office key instead of placing it as usual in the tin letter box. “Please give my kindest regards to Frau von Teschow.” And he strode toward the farm like a conqueror, the Geheimrat gazing after him open-mouthed.
VII
While Herr von Studmann was negotiating, discussing, disputing with the Geheimrat; while he was dashing over to the farmyard and rounding up men to whom he gave instructions; while in the barracks he was informing young Pagel of the turn of events, not omitting to warn him against any more familiarity with jovial old gentlemen; while he spoke with the prison warders, entreating them not to feel offended—that is to say, during the whole afternoon in which he was talking, flattering, scolding, exhorting, sweating and smiling, in order to save his friend Prackwitz from his father-in-law’s persecution—all that time Rittmeister Joachim von Prackwitz lay in a temper on his couch, sulking over his friend Studmann. He was furious with Studmann the guardian; cursed Studmann the nursery-governess; laughed contemptuously at Studmann the know-all; smiled scornfully at Studmann the prophet of evil!
As for old Geheimrat von Teschow, he merely cast one glance through the curtain at the beginnings of Studmann’s labors, and immediately nodded his head. “The fellow’s got brains all right,” he said. “I should have had a man like that for my son-in-law, not a long-shanked blunderbuss.”
The Rittmeister realized that he had been made to look completely ridiculous. Wife and friend had entered into a competition to see who could shame him the more. While his wife had ridiculed him before his friend by accusing him of exaggerating a little domestic intermezzo, in which, after all, he had been perfectly justified, his friend had represented him to his wife as an absolute nincompoop in business matters. He had cunningly deprived him of the whole management, and had even made him promise not to tell his father-in-law what he thought! This talk about the pitfalls in the lease was utter nonsense. By carefully avoiding details, the Rittmeister came to the conclusion that he had always done quite well in Neulohe, had always made a living—he hadn’t brought conceited fellows from Berlin to prove to him that he wasn’t.
He had wanted a friend, a companion to talk to, not a guardian. He wouldn’t put up with it, he shouted in his head. The fact that it was inaudible made it no less intense. The worthy Studmann had been afraid that he would be in an ungovernable rage with his father-in-law. What his father-in-law did, that ridiculous old man of seventy in breeches, didn’t mean a thing to him—he was furious with his friend, the friend who had mortally offended him.
In the harvesters’ barracks everything appeared to be in order. Studmann ran sweating to the Manor washhouse. Three village women, who had been hastily rounded up, followed him with flying apron strings, clucking like hens, full of noisy expectation as to what could be happening again. Having arranged the transfer of the cooking utensils to the fodder-kitchen in the cattle-shed, having ordered an almost religious purification of the Teschow copper, desecrated by the convicts’ food, Studmann ran at full speed to the village, to the house of Overseer Kowalewski, to discover from Sophie what had been the matter. He wanted to put things right with the girl, and perhaps at the same time find out what form the Geheimrat’s kind exhortation had taken. But Sophie, he was told, had gone to a friend at the other end of the village. Herr von Studmann had sweated a lot already; a little more sweat would not matter. Herr von Studmann ran to the other end of the village.
From the park the old Geheimrat saw how he ran. “You can run!” he said cheerfully to himself. “But even if you took along all my Belinde’s archangels and heavenly hosts, you wouldn’t save my son-in-law!” Saying which, the Geheimrat went deeper into the park, to a spot he knew well. He who digs a ditch twice gets what he wants.
“Madam says, would you please come to coffee, sir.”
“Thanks, Hubert. Ask her to leave me alone. Don’t want any coffee, I’m ill.”
“Are you ill, Achim?”
“Leave me alone!”
“Hubert says you are ill.”
“I know what I said! I’m not ill! I don’t want to be eternally treated like a child.”
“I’m sorry, Achim—you are right, you are really ill!”
“Heavens, woman, leave me alone, can’t you? I’m not ill! I just want to be left in peace.”
He was left in peace. He heard his wife talking quietly to Vi in the next room, at coffee. They ought to talk loudly; otherwise he would only think they were talking about him. Of course they were talking about him! They ought not to whisper like that! He was not
“Talk louder, can’t you!” roared the Rittmeister furiously through the closed door. “That whispering gets on my nerves! How can a man rest when all that rustling’s going on!”
“What are the men doing, I wonder?” said Frau von Teschow to Fraulein von Kuckhoff. “I think they’re building something.”
The two women were sitting in their window seats, gazing at the most interesting spot on Neulohe today, the harvesters’ barracks. (They usually slept at this time.)
“Everything comes to him who waits,” replied Jutta von Kuckhoff. But even she found waiting difficult. “You’re right, Belinde, they look as if they’re building something.”
“But what can they be building?” The old lady was excited. “The barracks has been like that ever since Horst-Heinz built it in ‘ninety-seven. I’ve got used to it. And now suddenly alterations without any warning! Please, Jutta, ring for Elias.”
Jutta rang.
“That young man, that so-called Herr Pagel, is directing the gang. I never trusted his face, Jutta. Why does he always run about in a field gray tunic, when they say he’s got two trunks full of suits? Elias, hasn’t that young man got some other suits?”
“Yes, madam, in a traveling wardrobe and in a large suitcase. Minna says he also has silk shirts which button all the way down like the Rittmeister’s. Silk, not linen. But he doesn’t wear them.”
“Why doesn’t he wear them?”
Elias shrugged his shoulders.
“Can you understand it, Jutta? A young man having silk shirts and not wearing them?”
“Perhaps they don’t belong to him, Belinde?”
“Oh, not if he has them in his trunk! There’s something behind it—mark my words, Jutta, remember what I said. We must be watchful. The first time he puts on a silk shirt something will be happening. I’m sure of it!”
The three old people looked at each other with gleaming eyes, greedy and curious; old ravens scenting the corpse while it was still alive. They understood each other; even Elias had been their servant long enough to know how to join in the hunt. “This morning the young man was in the park with the young Fraulein,” he said.
“With my granddaughter, with Fraulein Violet? You must be mistaken, Elias. Violet is confined to her room, she isn’t even allowed to come to us.”
“I know, madam.”
“And?”
“They were in the park for at least twenty-two minutes, at the back behind the trees, not in front on the lawn.”
“Elias! My granddaughter …”
“They smoked, too. He gave her a light, not with a match but with his cigarette. I’m just saying what happened, madam. I saw it. Afterwards, I couldn’t see, because the trees hid them. So I can’t say what happened then.”
The three fell silent. They looked at each other, then they looked away again as if they had caught one another doing something. At last Frau von Teschow piped: “Where was my daughter?”
