just dispose of me as you like. Pretty. Very pretty. May I perhaps also be allowed to know where I am to travel?”
“I thought of …” began Studmann and felt in his pocket.
“No, don’t, Herr von Studmann,” said Frau Eva, stopping him. “Since he doesn’t want to go away, it’s no use making any suggestions. My dear Achim,” she said energetically, “if you don’t want to realize that Herr von Studmann and I talked for six hours with my parents solely on your account, then it’s useless to say another word. Who is always in difficulties with Papa? Who fired at the geese? You! And, after all, it is your future that is at stake. Violet and I can always stay in Neulohe. We annoy no one; we have no difficulties with my parents.”
“That’s enough! If I’m in your way, I can leave at once. Where to, Studmann?” The Rittmeister was mortally hurt.
“We-ell …” Studmann rubbed his nose and regarded his peevish friend. “I more or less thought … It was my idea …”
The Rittmeister gave him a dark look, but said nothing.
Studmann felt in his pocket and brought out a letter. “There’s this queer old chap, Dr. Schrock, who amused you so much, Prackwitz.”
The Rittmeister did not look like one who was amused.
“He has written to me a few times, about damages from that Baron—you remember, Prackwitz.”
The Rittmeister gave no sign of remembering.
“Well, of course, I refused everything. You know my view of the matter.”
Whether the Rittmeister knew it or not, he remained dark and silent.
Studmann continued more cheerfully, waving his letter. “And now there is this last letter from Dr. Schrock, which came the day before yesterday.… he seems to be a queer sort of chap, with strangely sudden sympathies and dislikes. You told me yourself how much he seemed to hate his patient—Baron von Bergen. Well, he seems to have taken a liking to me, which is very funny when you come to think that he’s never seen me, and that all he knows is that I fell down the hotel stairs—drunk. Well, in this letter he makes me a proposal, nothing to do with Baron von Bergen …”
Studmann became doubtful. He looked at the letter, then at his unusually silent friend, then at Frau Eva, who nodded to him encouragingly. It was actually hardly a nod, more a closing of her eyelids to mean yes. Studmann glanced again at his friend, to see whether he had noticed this signal. But Prackwitz stood silent at the window.
“Of course, it’s only an idea of mine, a suggestion … Dr. Schrock was thinking of appointing a business manager for his sanatorium. It is a rather large place, over two hundred patients, about seventy employees, huge park, a little farming, too … So, you understand, Prackwitz, there are all sorts of things to do there … And, as I said, Dr. Schrock thought of me.”
Studmann gave his friend a friendly look, but his friend didn’t return it. Instead he helped himself to another vodka and drank it down. Then he poured himself another, which he didn’t drink down. Frau Eva fidgeted in her chair and cleared her throat, but she said nothing, including nothing against the vodkas. “Naturally, Dr. Schrock doesn’t want to engage me without seeing what I’m like; even his sympathies don’t go as far as that,” continued Studmann. “He invites me to go as his guest first for a few weeks, and so that I shouldn’t feel superfluous during that time, he complains movingly about an almost Australian plague of rabbits which despoil his park and fields. He suggests I might, with the help of his ferret keeper, deal with them. He seems to be quite a practical type, the old fellow.…”
Herr von Studmann again gave his friend a friendly look. The Rittmeister looked darkly back; instead of answering, he emptied his second vodka and poured himself a third. Frau von Prackwitz drummed lightly on the arm of her chair. The burden of talking continued to rest on Studmann, and it was gradually becoming oppressive.
“Well, you’re such an enthusiastic hunter and such a fine shot, Prackwitz! And we thought—I thought—a little relaxation would do you a lot of good. Just think, the peacefulness, the good food in a sanatorium like that. And then out of doors the whole day—he says there are thousands of rabbits there.” Studmann waved the letter cheerfully. “And since I have found an occupation here, and am not very well able to get away, because of your father-in-law … You see, he wants something like a firm business-like hand … I thought if you went along in my place … As I said, the peacefulness, no irritation—and I’m convinced you would recommend me warmly for the manager’s job.” Studmann tried to laugh, but did not quite succeed.
“Well, say something, Prackwitz,” he called out with a somewhat artificial cheeriness. “Don’t stand there so gloomy and pale. Your father-in-law will calm down …”
“Very well thought out,” said the Rittmeister darkly. “Very cleverly contrived.”
“But, Prackwitz!” Studmann was taken aback. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I felt it coming,” murmured Frau Eva, leaning back and placing her hands over her ears.
And the Rittmeister did indeed burst out with double fury after his long silence. “But nothing will come of it!” he shouted, raising in menace a trembling finger. His face was deathly white. “You want to get me certified as insane! You want to lock me up in a lunatic asylum! Very cunning. Marvelous.”
“Prackwitz! I implore you! How can you think such a thing? Here, read the letter from Dr. Schrock.”
The Rittmeister pushed letter and friend aside. “Very well thought out. No, thank you! I can see through you. It’s a put-up job, a conspiracy with my father-in-law. I’m to be got out of the way. I’m to be divorced! My substitute’s on the spot, eh, Eva? But I understand everything now! The talk about the lease this morning—was it actually the real lease? Was that faked, too, like the letter, just to provoke me? And the geese!—probably lured here by you yourselves. The gun!—how did the gun come to be loaded? I put it away unloaded. Everything prepared, and then, when I fall into your trap, when I really do shoot, against my will—I swear it, against my will! —then I’m to be declared insane! Pushed off into a madhouse! Put under guard—in a padded cell …”
He seemed overcome by grief. Rage seized him anew, however. “But I refuse! I’ll not budge an inch from Neulohe! I’ll stay. You can do what you like! But perhaps you’ve already got the keepers there—the strait-jacket …” He tried to a recall a name. It came to him in a flash of inspiration. “Where is Herr Turke? Where is the attendant Turke?”
He rushed to the door. In front of him was the little hallway, quiet and still.
“They might be hiding,” he murmured to himself. “Come out, Herr Turke,” he shouted into the dark house. “Come out. You know very well I’m here.”
“Enough of this!” cried Frau Eva angrily. “There’s no need to let all the servants know you are drunk. You’re just drunk! He can never stand alcohol when he’s excited; he simply goes into a frenzy,” she whispered to Studmann.
“Mad!” the Rittmeister wailed. He stood at the window, leaning his head against the glass. “Betrayed by my own wife and friend! Put under guard! Locked up!”
“You had better go now,” she whispered to Studmann, who was possessed with the thought of urging his friend to be sensible, of explaining everything. “The only place for him now is bed. Tomorrow he’ll be sorry. He was like this once before. You know, that business with Herr von Truchsess that made my father so angry.”
“I’m not going!” shouted the Rittmeister in a new fit of rage, beating on the glass. It broke. “O-ow!” he cried, and held out his bleeding hand to his wife. “I’ve cut myself.”
She could almost have laughed at the doleful change on his face. “Yes, come upstairs, Achim; I’ll bandage it. You must go to bed instantly. You need some sleep.”
“I’m bleeding,” he muttered, miserably supporting himself on her arm. This man who had been thrice wounded in the war turned pale at a cut scarcely half an inch long.
At this spectacle Studmann considered it advisable to go. It was not the woman who was in need of protection. In a last access of unbending determination the Rittmeister bellowed after him: “I’ll never go!”
It was not surprising, it was in fact quite natural, that Rittmeister von Prackwitz should go after all—at noon the next day, in very high spirits even, and of course to Dr. Schrock, with three gun-cases and on his right hand a strip of plaster. Almost with enthusiasm he had agreed to it next morning. He had no wish to see a friend before whom he had let himself go so abominably. And he was delighted at the prospect of a change, a journey, some shooting instead of money worries; while by no means least was the thought of the elegant sanatorium, the convalescent home of aristocracy—a Baron instead of his sweating father-in-law.…
“Just see that I’m regularly sent sufficient money,” he said anxiously to his wife. “I don’t want to look a fool.” Frau Eva promised. “I think I’ll look up my tailor in Berlin,” he went on pensively. “I really haven’t got a decent
