died away.
“That was Herr von Studmann, Fraulein Violet.”
“Yes, I must go home quickly, my parents will be going to bed now. God, if Mamma looks into my room!” She ran along by his side. “And all for nothing! Everything goes wrong!” she burst out angrily.
“Didn’t you visit your grandparents?” asked Pagel teasingly.
“Oh rubbish!” she exclaimed angrily. “All the worse for you if you haven’t yet understood what I was looking for!”
Pagel didn’t answer, and she also remained silent.
They reached the Villa. “Thank heavens! They’re still downstairs!” But as she spoke, the Rittmeister’s light went out. The gay little windows of the staircase, ascending obliquely, lit up. “Quick, up the trellis! Perhaps I can still do it,” she cried.
They ran round the house.
“Bend down, I’ll climb on your back,” she said with a laugh. “That’s the only thing you’re good for!”
“Always glad to be of service,” declared Pagel politely. Now she was standing on him, fumbling for a hold in the lattice work. You’re no feather, he thought, noticing how cheerfully she made him feel her full weight. Then she clambered higher. He stepped into a bush, the wisteria rustled, and the bright shadow disappeared into the dark room. Pagel saw four more windows light up, and heard the Rittmeister complaining, cursing and moaning through the open window.
“Sounds pretty drunk,” he said to himself, surprised.
He started for home. “I’ve still got to write to Mama about Petra,” he thought. “She needs to make inquiries about what’s happened to her. And if I have no news in a week, I’ll go to Berlin. I’ll find her all right … Vi is difficult.… Let’s leave it.…”
The summer slowly turned to autumn, the yellow cornfields became empty, the plow made the light stubble brown. The country people said: “Yes, we’ve done it again!” spat on their hands and turned to the aftermath. Some had already started with their potatoes.
Yes, something had been achieved. A certain amount of work had been done. But when they opened the newspapers—seldom on work nights, more likely on Sundays—they read that the Cuno Government had been overthrown. The Stresemann Government was said to be more kindly disposed to the French—but the French became no friendlier. They read that there was now a strike in the Government printing department. For a while there would be no money, not even trash. They read that a war was brewing, at first only a paper war, between the Defense Minister and the President of Saxony. And they read about a battle between the Bavarian government and the central government. They read that England had given up her resistance to the occupation of the Ruhr; they read of separatist demonstrations in Aachen, Cologne, Wiesbaden, Trier; they read that the Reich had expended 3,500 billion marks in one week in subsidies for the Rhine and the Ruhr. Then they read that passive resistance there, the struggle against the unjust French occupation, had been given up at last. They read that exports had ceased, that the German economic system was destroyed; they also read of fights between separatists and police —the police, however, were bundled into prisons by the French.
At this time, during these few weeks of the harvest, the dollar had risen from 4,000,000 to 160,000,000 marks!
“What are we working for?” the people asked. “What are we living for? The world is coming to an end, everything is falling to pieces. Let us be gay and forget our shame, before we depart this world.”
Thus they thought, spoke, and behaved.
“You’re not to go, Hubert. I shall go myself. Please come with me, Herr von Studmann.… There will be a terrible quarrel, but we’ll save what we can.”
“Of course, Frau von Prackwitz,” said Studmann.
“What about me?” cried the Rittmeister. “What about me? I suppose I’m not needed any more? I’m completely superfluous, eh? Hubert, you are to go at once with the geese or you are dismissed.”
“Very good, Herr Rittmeister,” said Hubert obediently, but looking at his mistress.
“Go along now, Hubert, or I’ll throw you out!” yelled the Rittmeister in a final explosion.
“Do as the Rittmeister says, Hubert. Come along, Herr von Studmann, we must try if possible to get to my parents before Elias.” She dashed away. Studmann glanced back at the two figures in the hall, shrugged his shoulders helplessly and followed.
“Papa!” said Vi, who had been waiting anxiously for her mother to forget her for the first time in two weeks, “may I go out for a bit, and bathe?”
“Well, Vi, those two are kicking up a fuss, aren’t they? Because of a few geese! I’ll tell you what’ll happen. They’ll talk all day and night, and then everything will be left where it is.”
“Yes, Papa. And may I go bathing?”
“You know you are confined to your room, Vi,” explained the consistent father. “I can’t allow you to do what your mother has forbidden. But if you like, come with me; I’m going to the forest for a little.”
“Yes, Papa.” His daughter felt annoyed beyond measure at having spoken. For her father would certainly also have forgotten her.
Chapter Twelve
I
Whenever Frau Eva came to the office in these weeks to discuss farm affairs Studmann never forgot to ask: “And your husband? What does Prackwitz write?” Usually Frau Eva merely shrugged her beautiful full shoulders which, so it seemed to Studmann, concealed themselves in ever more charming, ever flimsier blouses. Sometimes, however, she would say: “Just another post card. He’s getting on all right. He has now shot his five-hundredth rabbit.”
“That’s fine!” Studmann would answer, after which they said nothing more about the Rittmeister, but discussed the harvest and the work. They were both contented with their progress, and they were also contented with each other. Whatever measure they considered practical was decided upon without any long palaver, and also carried out. If it afterwards proved not to have been practical, they did not spend a long time regretting it but tried something else.
Naturally mistakes occurred, both large and small. It was not easy for Studmann to take over and manage such an entirely unfamiliar business at the busiest time. Often he had to make the most difficult decisions within the space of a minute. The bridge to outfield five had broken down, twenty teams of horses and eighty men stood idle. They stared at the cart sunk in the ditch and lolled in the shade, saying: “You can’t do anything about it.”
Studmann did do something about it. Within a minute men were racing to the farm; in five minutes rakes, spades and shovels were on the field; in fifteen minutes a dyke had been laid across the ditch; in twenty minutes a wagon brought logs from the wood—not half an hour and carts were again rumbling from outfield five to the farm …
“Fine fellow, that!” said the men.
“I’d almost like to have a child by him,” said Frau Hartig admiringly (although she now had to labor in the fields instead of the office).
“We’ve no doubt about that, Frieda!” laughed the others. “He’s quite a change from your little Black Meier.”
Yes, Herr von Studmann turned out well, but he also had good help. It was a miracle how the intimidated, humble overseer Kowalewski suddenly became communicative, how many an excellent piece of advice, born of experience, sprang from his lips. True, he was still a little lax and easy-going with the men, but there again it was amazing to see how young Pagel, sweating and lively, came sprinting up on his bicycle, cracked the most indecent jokes with the silliest of the women, but said firmly: “You’ve got to get as far as here by noon—and as far as there
