seller: “They’re warm, and fat too.…”
“Now please, Vi!” ordered the Rittmeister sharply. One couldn’t be with the old man for five minutes without getting cross with him!
“Run along, Vi. I’m not fine enough for your father. Queer though, my farm’s fine enough for him!” And with this Parthian shot the old man plodded off, chuckling with pleasure.
For a while the Rittmeister walked along in silence—he was getting annoyed again and he didn’t want that— he couldn’t stand being annoyed. With an effort he banished all thought of his father-in-law and brooded about the Horch car which he was so anxious to have. He had wanted to buy it this autumn after the first threshing, but Studmann had, of course, destroyed this hope by his long-winded calculations. And why? Just because that old miser had swindled him with a fraudulent lease!
“Your grandfather always tries to annoy me, Violet!” he complained.
“Grandpa doesn’t mean it that way, Papa,” said Violet consolingly. “Papa, I wanted to ask you something …”
“Oh, doesn’t he! He means even more than he says!” Irritably the Rittmeister slashed at the weeds bordering the path. “Yes, what did you want to ask?”
“Irma has written to me, Papa,” Violet lied boldly. “Just think, Gustel Gallwitz wants to marry!”
“Really?” asked the Rittmeister without interest, for the Gallwitzes lived in Pomerania and were in no way related to the Prackwitzes. “Whom?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Someone or other—you don’t know him, a lieutenant. But what I wanted to ask, Papa …”
“In the Reichswehr?”
“I don’t know. I think so. But, Papa …”
“Then he must have means. Or the Gallwitzes are giving her a dowry.… He certainly won’t be able to live on the miserable pittance he draws as a lieutenant.”
“But, Papa,” cried Vi in despair, since she saw her father continually going off on the wrong track, “that’s not what I mean. I want to ask something quite different. Gustel is no older than I am!”
“Well—what of it?” asked the Rittmeister, not understanding.
“But, Papa!” Vi knew very well that she would not have been allowed to carry on such a conversation with her mother, who would have smelled a rat at once. But Papa never noticed anything. “Gustel is only just fifteen! Is one allowed to marry at fifteen?”
“No!” declared the Rittmeister firmly. “Absolutely impossible! That’s seduction of min—” He bit his lips. “No, it’s not allowed. It even says so in the penal code.”
“What’s in the penal code, Papa?” cried Vi, startled.
“That little kids like you ought not to know about such things,” concluded the Rittmeister with a somewhat false heartiness. It had occurred to him just in time that Frau Eva would have been very displeased at this conversation, suspecting as she did that Violet was no longer so innocent as her parents had believed. So he added darkly: “And fellows who meddle with fifteen-year-old girls are scoundrels and go to prison—that’s in the penal code.”
“But the man might not know she is only fifteen!” cried Violet excitedly.
The Rittmeister stopped and looked at his daughter. “Whoever meddles with a girl without even knowing how old she is, is already a scoundrel. One doesn’t defend fellows like that, Violet. Now come along.”
They went on. The Rittmeister was thinking again of his father-in-law and the Horch car—there must be some way of getting it. All his acquaintances had cars; only he …
“But, Papa,” Violet began again cautiously, “he wants to marry Gustel! So the marriage must be possible, even if she is only fifteen.”
“All right, if it’s possible then it is possible—that’s his worry!” said the Rittmeister crossly. “I think you have to apply to the Home Secretary or something. Anyway, I wouldn’t let my daughter do it.”
“I wouldn’t want to, Papa,” laughed Violet. “Do you think I would? Heavens, Papa, I’m so glad to be able to walk in the forest with you. I think all men are terrible except you!” She hung on his arm and nestled against him.
“There, Vi, I’ve told your mother ten times already that your mind isn’t on men yet!” he said with pleasure, giving her arm a strong squeeze.
“Oh, Papa, you’re hurting me! But, Papa, I’m awfully interested in this about Gustel. If Irma writes it, it must be true. Tell me all about it, Papa, all about the laws, and what they have to do.”
“Now, what next, Vi! You women are all the same; when it’s a question of marriage you become as inquisitive as monkeys.”
“Monkeys, Papa! I’m not a monkey. But if the Home Secretary says yes, must the father also say yes?”
“What do you mean?” The Rittmeister was getting more and more fogged about the relevance of this cursed Pomeranian marriage. “It’s the father who first has to ask the Home Secretary for permission to marry!”
“The father? Not Gustel?”
“But she’s only fifteen, child; she’s not yet of age.”
“Supposing he makes an application to the Home Secretary—the lieutenant, I mean?”
“Gustel can never marry without the consent of old Gallwitz. I’m amazed that he gave it!”
“Never, Papa?”
“Well, at least not before her twenty-first birthday.”
“Why not before? A lot of girls marry at seventeen or eighteen, Papa.”
“Heavens, Vi, you’re driving me crazy! Those girls have obtained their father’s consent.”
“And without it …”
“Without it,” cried the Rittmeister, “no decent girl marries at all. Understand, Vi?”
“Why, of course, Papa,” she said innocently. “I’m just asking you because you know everything and no one can explain things to me as well as you can. Not even Mamma.”
“Really, Vi,” said the Rittmeister, half placated, “you’ve been asking enough today to last a lifetime.”
“Because I want to know everything about Gustel! You see, Irma writes that old Gallwitz isn’t so pleased about it, but the lieutenant is so much in love, and Gustel too—and they want to marry whatever happens. So it has to be possible, Papa!”
“Yes, Vi,” said her father. “If she’s a bad and disobedient child, she’ll run away with him and go to England. In England there’s a blacksmith, and he can marry them. But it would be a scandalous marriage—the girl would never be able to return to her parents’ house, and the lieutenant would have to take off his uniform and could never be an officer again.”
“But would they be properly married, Papa?” asked Vi sweetly.
“Yes, properly married!” cried her father, red with rage. “But without their parents’ blessing!” (The Rittmeister never went to church.) “The parents’ blessing builds up a house for the children, but the father’s curse tears it down, as it says somewhere in the Bible.” (The Rittmeister had never looked at a Bible since he had been confirmed.) “And I forbid you, Vi, ever to write to these silly geese who put such stupid thoughts into your head! You shall give me the letter as soon as we get home.”
“Yes, Papa,” said Vi obediently. “But I’ve already torn it up.”
“The cleverest thing you could have done!” growled her unsuspecting father.
The two went on in silence. The Rittmeister tried in vain to think about his Horch—disturbing thoughts kept intervening. Only when he turned his mind actively to the car’s inner arrangements and encountered the serious questions—upholstery or leather? and what color?—only then did he succeed in becoming calm again and able to walk with contentment through the beautiful sun-swept forest, at the side of a daughter who, thank Heaven, no longer asked questions.
And Violet was just as content. She knew at last what she had long wanted to know: that there was a possibility of marrying her Lieutenant. What her father had added about the parents’ curse and the taking off of the uniform did not affect this wonderful news in the least. She had always got round her father, and why not after marriage? And her Fritz was so clever; he could become anything and did not need to be a lieutenant. Since she would one day inherit, as the only child, everything here, he could just as well settle down in Neulohe and help Papa, instead of always riding round the country on a bicycle. She really didn’t know which way to turn, but didn’t notice. Her whole future seemed like a mirror garlanded with may-branches, a mirror in which she saw only her own
