Wolf Among Wolves

They smiled at each other, both recalling the scene in the Black Dale, the sentry’s whistle, the Lieutenant’s abrupt order to retire. Both gentlemen were thinking themselves very intelligent and superior to the other; the Lieutenant because he had concealed from the father his connection with the daughter, and the Rittmeister because, in spite of the other’s rudeness, he had found out about the buried weapons.

Their next remarks were worthy of notice. The Lieutenant said in a friendly, innocent way: “And how is your daughter?”

“Thank you, quite well,” replied the Rittmeister. Good bait catches fine fish, he thought and went on: “Everything all right in the Black Dale?”

“Yes,” said the Lieutenant coldly.

Conversation was over. Each of the intelligent pair believed he had found out what he wanted—the Lieutenant that the daughter had not prattled—the Rittmeister that the arms were still in the wood. Instinctively both looked across at the third man in the compartment. He, busy with a paper, sat silently in his corner, but now looked up, lowering his paper.

Although he, like the Lieutenant, was in mufti, his face and the way he held himself betrayed one whom the constant wearing of uniform had made stiff. In spite of his far too large lounge suit, the officer could be seen in him—it was not necessary to observe the monocle hanging from a wide black cord or the Hohen-zollern order in his buttonhole. His glance, heavy and slow, had been made cautious by endless experience. The bloodless face, with its thin skin, looked as if it were supported on the bones without interposing flesh; the scanty pale-blond hair was carefully flattened down in long wisps, through which a parchmentlike skin gleamed. The most noticeable thing about this barely disguised death’s head was the mouth, a mouth without lips, a line sharp as the slit of an automatic machine, a mouth which appeared to have tasted every bitterness.

I must have seen him somewhere, thought the Rittmeister, quickly visualizing the picture pages of those journals seen in recent weeks.

With a slender-fingered, trembling child’s hand, the disguised officer raised his monocle and the Rittmeister felt himself scrutinized. But just as he was about to introduce himself, the glance passed on to the young Lieutenant.

“Herr von Prackwitz, tenant of an estate at Neulohe, retired cavalry officer,” said the Lieutenant hurriedly. One felt that the glance had given him a jerk.

“Delighted,” said the other without, however, giving his own name, which did not at all disturb the Rittmeister, who knew that it was really his duty to have recognized a high officer. The monocle fell. “But sit down! Had a good harvest?”

Rittmeister and Lieutenant sat down. “Oh, the harvest’s not altogether bad,” replied the Rittmeister with the caution usual among farmers, to whom praise of a harvest seems like a challenge to heaven. “I was not in Neulohe these last weeks,” he added.

“Herr von Prackwitz is the son-in-law of Herr von Teschow,” explained the Lieutenant.

“Evidently,” said the officer mysteriously. To what this “evidently” referred, whether to the absence from Neulohe or to the family relationship, was not evident. Or it might refer to the harvest.

The Lieutenant, whose name—as the Rittmeister now noticed—had also not been mentioned, assisted again: “Herr von Prackwitz is the tenant of his father-in-law.”

“Clever man,” said he with the monocle. “Visited me once or twice recently. You know that?”

The Rittmeister did not, and couldn’t imagine what his rustic father-in-law might have to do with this parchment-like soldier. “No,” he said, confused. “I’ve been away, as I mentioned.”

“Clever,” said the other gratingly. “The kind who always pay only when they have the goods in their hand. Family feelings hurt?”

“Oh, no!” protested the Rittmeister. “I, too, am always having difficulties with—”

“Who wants to join the trip must first take his ticket,” proclaimed the officer with a bitterness which no word in the conversation made understandable. “Won’t perhaps even know the definition. You understand?”

The Rittmeister did not, but he nodded profoundly.

“Suppose,” went on the officer, “you have a car …”

“I haven’t,” explained the Rittmeister. “But I shall buy one.”

“Today? Tomorrow?”

“Certainly in a few days.”

“Either today or tomorrow, otherwise no use,” said the officer, seizing hold of his paper again.

“I don’t know.” The Rittmeister hesitated. Was this man with the monocle a representative of a motor-car factory? “After all, it’s a large sum of … I don’t know if the money …”

“Money!” cried the other contemptuously, crumpling his paper fiercely. “Who pays cash for cars? Give a bill!” He vanished behind his newspaper.

This time the Lieutenant gave no help, but sat in his corner with such an expression of repudiation that the Rittmeister withdrew into his, and, remembering his own newspaper, also began to crumple it fiercely. But somehow he couldn’t read. Continually his thoughts strayed to those mysterious words about a too-clever father-in- law, a ticket which must be paid for first, and a car which need not be paid for … In spite of many weeks in a peaceful sanatorium he was seized by a very impulsive anger, and when he thought of how the young man had treated him in the wood, he discovered that that matter hadn’t yet been settled; while, if he took into account his treatment today at the hands of the parchmentlike man, he felt even more that something ought to be done.…

The pair opposite had begun to whisper, which was unmannerly, the more so because they were obviously whispering about him. He was, after all, a reputable officer and a successful farmer. If you don’t discuss such things in front of ladies, you certainly don’t whisper them in front of elderly gentlemen. He had had a good deal to drink, and he now gave his paper a powerful blow—the row could begin. But the train was slowing down—they were already at Frankfurt; he would have to get out and change. His anger ought to have been quicker.

“You’re getting out, Rittmeister?” asked the Lieutenant politely and groped for the other’s suitcase.

“I’m changing! Don’t trouble yourself, please,” exclaimed the Rittmeister angrily. Despite which the Lieutenant lowered the case from the rack. “I have been asked to inform you,” he said in a low voice without looking at the Rittmeister, “that we are having a sort of old comrades’ reunion the day after tomorrow, October the first, in Ostade. At six in the morning, please. Uniform. Weapons, if any, to be brought.” Then he looked at the Rittmeister, who was overwhelmed; so overwhelmed that he said: “At your service!”

“Porter!” shouted the Lieutenant from the window and busied himself with the Rittmeister’s luggage.

Just as things had become interesting one must leave. The Rittmeister looked at the gentleman in the corner. He had stretched out his legs, his monocle dangled from its band; he seemed to be sleeping. Hesitant but respectful, the Rittmeister stepped across the somnolent legs, murmuring: “Good morning!”

“But with a car, you understand?” muttered the sleeper and dozed off again.

The Rittmeister stood on the platform in a daze. For the third time the porter asked where he was to carry the luggage. First the Rittmeister said to the Neulohe train, then he said Ostade.

“Oh, you want to go to Ostade. Then you’re on the wrong line. You ought to have gone by Landberg,” said the porter.

“No, no!” cried the Rittmeister, impatient. “I want a car. Can I buy a car here?”

“Here?” asked the porter, looking first at the passenger and then at the platform. “Here?”

“Yes, in Frankfurt.”

“Of course you can buy cars here, sir,” the porter reassured him. “Here you can get anything that way. That’s what they all do. They come by train from Berlin and buy their cars in Frankfurt …”

The Rittmeister followed the man. Everything was clear now. He had seen the officer who had been described to him a hundred times, whose face he had never before glimpsed: Major Ruckert, who was plotting the big Putsch against the Government. It was coming off early the day after tomorrow, at six, in Ostade, and the Rittmeister was to be present, with a car.

Father-in-law was too clever. He wanted to wait and see if the Putsch was successful before he bought his ticket. The Rittmeister, however, wasn’t so clever about money. He would buy a car at once, on credit. That might not be businesslike, but it was the right thing.

Docilely he let himself be taken to the waiting room, where he sat down pensively, tipped the porter, and ordered a coffee. He was not thinking now about the Putsch with Major Ruckert and the impolite Lieutenant. That affair had been settled: he would be in Ostade the day after tomorrow at six o’clock.