“I’m sorry,” contradicted the servant politely, “but I have to deliver them at the Manor.”
“I’ll be damned!” shouted Studmann at this pig-headedness.
“I’ll be damned!” bellowed from the doorway a stronger voice, more practised in swearing. “What are my geese doing here? What are my geese doing on this barrow? Who has killed my geese?”
Studmann left the servant standing where he was and dashed from the office. Outside stood old Geheimrat von Teschow, scarlet with rage. He roared like a wounded lion, brandishing his stick. He threatened the estate’s builder Tiede, who dodged out of the way with almost silent curses.
“If you please, Herr Geheimrat,” said Studmann with all that painfully acquired calmness which had never deserted him, even when faced with hysterical women in the hotel, not to speak of the man with the geese, “I shall—”
“Did you kill my geese? My Attila? I’ll teach you, my lad! Clear out of my farm at once! Leave my stick alone!” The stick had been dangerously near Studmann’s face. With a quick movement Studmann had hold of it.
“If you please, Herr Geheimrat,” he requested, while the other, turning blue with rage, tugged at the stick, “not here before the men!”
“The men can go to blazes!” panted the old man. “Did you worry about the men when you shot my geese? But I’m telling you I won’t tolerate you a moment longer on this farm! Comes from Berlin, thinks he’s so clever, babbles like a shyster lawyer …” The Geheimrat was delighted to be able to retaliate on Studmann for the several set-backs he had suffered, to be able to curse him in the passion of a semi-simulated rage. He was too clever actually to believe that Studmann had killed his geese, but he wanted to have full freedom to curse.
Studmann, who did not know all the implications of the goose massacre, thought the old gentleman had some reason to be enraged, but felt at the same time that this fit of passion was not quite genuine. Suddenly he let go the stick and revealed what the old man would find out anyhow. “You’re mistaken, Herr Geheimrat. Your son-in- law shot the geese. He intended only to frighten them, but unfortunately—”
“You’re lying!” shouted the old man still more angrily. “You’re lying in your throat!”
“ ‘I assume, anyway, that he intended to frighten them,” said Studmann, turning white.
“My son-in-law? You’re lying! I’ve just spent half an hour with him in the forest, and he didn’t mention a word to me about the geese! Are you suggesting that he’s a liar—a coward? No, you are lying! You are a coward!”
Studmann, very pale, had an overpowering impulse to turn round on the spot, pack his bags and depart to more peaceful fields—perhaps to Berlin. Or to stamp so hard on the old man’s toes that he would collapse at once. There stood Tiede, the estate builder, who, with open mouth and flared nostrils, was the personification of listening. Rader in the office was certainly listening to everything, and quite close, just behind the nearest bushes, was the Manor—also, without a doubt, well supplied with ears. The raging old man became ever more insulting. But Herr von Studmann had the unmistakeable feeling that this old man was only raging in order to insult him for knowing the truth.
Yes, Studmann had every inclination to turn his abilities to a more fruitful field—he had had a letter in his pocket for two days, offering him another post—and the news that the Rittmeister had not told his father-in-law of his heroic deed did nothing to diminish this inclination.
He did not doubt for a moment that the old man was speaking the truth on this point.
If, then, Studmann did not go up to his room to pack his bags—if, instead of that, he abruptly left the dead geese and the fuming old man and went toward the Manor—he was not moved to do so by the bonds of friendship nor by the memory of a beautiful helpless woman nor by a feeling of duty, but purely by the stubbornness innate in every true man. He felt that the old fellow wanted to frighten him away forever, and so he remained. He would go when it suited him and not the old man.
“Look here, sir!” shouted the Geheimrat. “What are you doing there? I forbid you to go into my park!”
Studmann went on without a word, putting Herr von Teschow at a disadvantage. If his expostulations were to reach the trespasser he had to hurry after him. A man who is normally short-winded cannot curse very well when he is running. Between jerky breaths the Geheimrat shouted: “I forbid you—to go—in my park—you are—not—to enter—my house! Elias, don’t let him in. It’s a breach of the peace. Don’t let him up!”
The door of his wife’s room slammed upstairs.
Beckoning to Elias, the old man whispered: “What does he want here?”
“Frau von Prackwitz is upstairs,” Elias whispered back.
“Breach of the peace!” bellowed the Geheimrat again. It was the cannon-shot to cover his retreat. “Been here a long time?” he whispered.
“Over two hours.”
“And Frau von Teschow?”
“Heavens, sir, both of them are crying.”
“Damn it!” whispered the old man.
“Papa,” came a gentle call from upstairs, “won’t you come up?”
“No!” he shouted. “Got to bury my Attila! Goose murderers, damn them!”
She came tripping down the stairs as quickly as if she were still seventeen, as if she were still living in his house, in that distant happy time … “Papa!” she said, taking his arm. “I need your help.”
“Don’t help murderers!” The Geheimrat flared up. “The fellow must clear out of the house, I won’t move an inch as long as he’s upstairs!”
“Now, Papa, come along.”
He had one foot on the stairs.
“You know quite well that Herr von Studmann is one of the most decent and helpful men there are. You needn’t pretend to me.” There was a strange sad note in these words.
“You shouldn’t get old, Evie,” said the old man. Angrily he called over his shoulder: “Elias! If Herr von Prackwitz, my so-called son-in-law, comes, tell him I’m not at home to him! Let him go and get another farm— today!” Quietly to his daughter: “Evie, you think you can do what you like with me. But only if my son-in-law clears out of Neulohe, understand?”
“We’ll discuss everything calmly, Papa.”
“Yes, you want to get round me, Evie,” growled the old man and squeezed her arm.
IX
Geheimrat von Teschow had spoken the truth. He had met his son-in-law in the forest, and even if the two had not chatted long, they had said “Good day” quite pleasantly. Two-fifths of the conversation that followed was devoted to deer, and three-fifths to Violet, whom her grandfather had not seen for a good while. So no time was left to speak about the goose massacre. The Geheimrat had been right on this point, too.
If, however, Herr von Studmann entertained a still lower opinion of his former friend Prackwitz because of this silence, and even cursed him for a coward, then he was scarcely in the right. Prackwitz was no coward, but moody—as moody as a young girl shedding her childhood, as moody as a young woman expecting her first baby, as moody as a prima donna who has never had one and never will. That is to say, the Rittmeister was as moody as only a woman can be. But he was no coward. He would not have hesitated a moment to tell his father-in-law about the geese and engage him in the most violent quarrel regardless of consequences—if he had felt like it. But having humored his quarrelsomeness the whole morning and a good part of the afternoon, he was now in a peaceful mood. He had spent himself; his fit of anger had vanished with the two shots.
He looked at the sweaty old man, whose forehead was covered with perspiration. The news waiting for you will make you still hotter, he thought, politely promising to ask Eva whether Violet’s detention might not be relaxed so far as to permit her to visit her grandparents.
“You’re looking thin and pale, Vi,” said her grandfather. “Well, come along, give your old granddad a kiss. Here, not so fast, must dry myself a bit first.” And he drew out a huge handkerchief, gaily printed with the insignia of St. Hubert. The Rittmeister looked away indignantly. It was revolting that this gross old man with printed cotton handkerchiefs could kiss his granddaughter and yet tease and worry him with a wretched lease. He gazed into the pines, where birds fluttered now and again in the sunny cones, and after a while he said dryly:
“We must be getting along now.”
“Of course you must,” said the old man gaily. He was by no means unaware of his son-in-law’s feelings, often deriving an unsullied pleasure from his “finicky fineness.”
“Well, one last big hug for your granddad, Vi!” And he cried out in the drunken tones of a Berlin sausage
