Wolf Among Wolves

suddenly.”

“Oh, well,” he replied a little irritably, “I’ve never been one for writing, and then there was a slight bother.… That Baron von Bergen—you remember, the one who took in Studmann—well, he humbugged me, too. Nothing much—a few marks. But he got out because of them and Dr. Schrock was unbelievably upset about it.”

“And then you remembered October the first,” said Frau von Prackwitz coldly. “I understand.”

The Rittmeister made an angry gesture.

She jumped up, seized him by the lapels of his coat and shook him gently. “Oh, Achim, Achim,” she cried sadly, “if only you would not always go on deceiving yourself. You’ve done this for so many years and I keep on thinking: Now he has had a lesson—now he will change. But always it is the same, always.”

“How do I deceive myself?” He was vexed. “Please, Eva, let go of my coat. It has just been pressed.”

“I’m sorry.… How do you deceive yourself? Well, the truth is, Achim, you were sent away from there because of some folly or indiscretion. And because it’s painful for you to admit so, and it occurred to you in the train that the rent falls due on October the first—therefore you try to bamboozle yourself and me.”

“If that’s how you interpret it …” he said, offended. “Very well, then; I’m sent away and now I’m here. Or should I not be here?”

“But, Achim, if it’s not like that, say something, then. What is the help you intend to give? Are you going to get hold of the money? Have you any plans? You know that Papa made it a condition you should stay away for a good time, and yet you come back without a word of notice. We haven’t even been able to break it to my parents. …”

“I certainly didn’t think about my father-in-law’s feelings. All I thought was, you would be pleased.…”

“But, Achim!” she cried despairingly. “Don’t be a child. What have I to be pleased about? We’re no longer a newly married couple, for me to beam with pleasure as soon as I see you.”

“No, you certainly don’t do that.”

“Here we are struggling for the lease! That is the only thing which ensures us a small income such as we are accustomed to. What are we going to do if we lose it? I’ve learned nothing and there’s nothing I can do—and you —”

“I can do nothing either, of course,” said the Rittmeister bitterly. “What’s come over you, Eva? You are quite changed. Well, I may have come back a bit sooner than expected and perhaps it was a little thoughtless. But anyway, is that a reason to tell me I’ve learned nothing and can do nothing?”

“You are forgetting the car in front, Achim!” she cried. “You know we have no money at all, but there in front of the house is a brand-new car that certainly cost ten thousand gold marks!”

“Seventeen, Eva, seventeen.”

“Very well. Seventeen. Things are so bad I can say it’s all the same whether it cost ten thousand or seventeen thousand. We can’t pay either sum. What is the position with the car, Achim?”

“Everything is all right with it, Eva.” The proximity of extreme danger had restored his calm. He didn’t want another scene; he wished to hear no more unpleasant things. He had the right, surely, to do what he wanted. A man whose wife has done everything he wishes for twenty years can never understand why she so suddenly changes. The woman who for twenty years has been silent, forgiving, smiling, patient, becomes in his eyes a rebel when in the twenty-first year she loses her patience and argues, accuses, demands explanations. Then she is a mutineer against whom every stratagem is permissible. Twenty years of patience have only given her the right to be patient also in the twenty-first.

It was so easy for the Rittmeister. His nimble mind, his boundless optimism, made him see everything in the rosiest light. To put his wife in the wrong there was no need at all for him to give a false account of this car purchase; he only needed to say how it could have come about. Women didn’t understand. “All is in order, Eva. I’m not really supposed to speak about it, but I can say this. I bought the car more or less on higher instructions.”

“On higher instructions? What do you mean by that?”

“Well, on behalf of someone else. In short, for the military authorities.”

Frau von Prackwitz looked at her husband uneasily. That incorruptible weapon of womankind, her sense of reality, was not to be duped. Something was wrong.

“For the military authorities?” she asked thoughtfully. “Why don’t they buy their cars themselves?”

“My dear girl,” explained the Rittmeister, “the military today are restrained by a thousand considerations. By the talking shop in Berlin which won’t vote them any supplies. By the Treaty of Versailles. By the Commission of Control. By hundreds of spies. As a consequence they must, unfortunately, be secret in what they regard as indispensable.”

Frau von Prackwitz looked at her husband sharply. “So the car has been paid for by the military authorities?”

The Rittmeister would have liked to say yes, but he knew that a payment of 5,000 gold marks was due on October the second. Yet he ventured something. “Not quite that. But I shall get the money back.”

“Will you? I suppose, since the military have to be secret, there is consequently no written agreement either?”

The worst thing about the Rittmeister was that he became so quickly tired of anything, even of his lies. It was all so boring. “I am under official orders,” he said irritably. “And thank God I am still officer enough to carry out unhesitatingly whatever a superior officer commands.”

“But you’re not an officer, Achim! You’re a civilian, and if you as a civilian buy a car, you are answerable for it with your entire fortune.”

“Listen, Eva.” The Rittmeister was determined to put an end to all this questioning. “I ought not to speak about it, but I’ll tell you everything. On October the first, the day after tomorrow, the present Government is going to be overthrown—by the Reichswehr and other military associations. Everything is prepared. And I have received the official command to appear on October the first at six o’clock in Ostade—with a motor car. This motor car.”

“A different Government,” she said. “That wouldn’t be so bad. Instead of this mire into which we sink deeper every day. That would be a good thing.” She was silent for a moment. “But …”

“No, please, Eva,” he said resolutely. “No ‘buts.’ You know what is at stake. The thing’s settled.”

“And Herr von Studmann?” she asked suddenly. “He is also an officer. Does he know anything about it?”

“I couldn’t say.” The Rittmeister spoke stiffly. “I don’t know what are the principles according to which gentlemen are called upon.”

“I’m sure he knows nothing about it. And Papa? One of the richest men in the district? Hasn’t he been called upon also?”

“Some mention was made of your father,” retorted the Rittmeister bitingly. “Unfortunately, rather to his disfavor. It seems he has been the soul of caution, wanting to see the outcome first, before he joins.”

“Papa’s careful,” reflected Frau von Prackwitz. Then, suddenly seized by a thought: “And supposing the Putsch fails? What then? Who’s going to pay for your car then?”

“It won’t fail.”

“But it can,” she insisted. “The Kapp Putsch failed. Just think, seventeen thousand marks!”

“It won’t fail, however.”

“But it’s possible. And we should be ruined.”

“I’d return the car in that case.”

“If it’s confiscated? Or wrecked? Seventeen thousand marks!”

“I buy a car,” said the affronted Rittmeister, “and you go on talking about seventeen thousand marks! But when your dear father demands immense sums from us, simply ruinous, then you say we have to pay them without fail.”

“Achim, the rent must be paid. But we don’t need a car.”

“It’s an official command.” He was as obstinate as a mule.

“I don’t understand it at all. You have only just come out of the sanatorium, where you thought of nothing but shooting rabbits. And now, suddenly, you talk about a Putsch and buying a motor car, all at once.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. Her instinct kept on warning her that something was wrong.