nevertheless conceded herself a quite joyous and hopeful life—Frau Eva had to listen to an exhaustive lecture on how Herr von Studmann proposed to raise the money for the rent the day after tomorrow.
The old schoolmaster! she thought, but not without sympathy. She was no girl now; she knew men (for to know one man properly is to know all) and she was aware that they possessed a bewildering lack of intuition. Under their very eyes a woman might expire from her desire for tenderness while they were demonstrating at length and in detail that they needed a new suit, and why they needed a new suit, and what color the new suit had to be.… And suddenly, very surprised and a little hurt, they say: “Aren’t you listening at all? What’s the matter with you? Aren’t you well? You’re looking so strange!”
Frau Eva had crossed her legs, which, her skirt being fashionably short, gave her the opportunity of studying them during the lecture. They were, she thought, still very nice to look at, and if she reduced, it would be better to do so on the hips and behind. But of course, one always got slimmer just where it was not so desirable.
Both suddenly noticed that neither was speaking.
“What was that, Herr von Studmann?” she asked and laughed. “Excuse me, my thoughts were elsewhere.” She drew back her legs as much as possible beneath the skirt.
Studmann was fully prepared to excuse her; his thoughts also had strayed. Hastily he took up his lecture again. It appeared that in the town of Frankfurt-on-the-Oder there lived a deranged person who was ready the following day to provide the full sum of rent in the finest of notes, if only the management of Neulohe Farm engaged to deliver him in December fifty tons of rye in exchange.
“The man’s mad!” exclaimed Frau von Prackwitz, puzzled. “He could have one hundred and fifty tons for his money tomorrow.”
That, admitted Studmann, had also been his opinion at first. But it was like this. The man—a rich fishmonger, by the way—would only have to change his tons of grain into paper money tomorrow or in a week. Everyone today, though, fled from paper money, tried to lay it out on some commodity of permanent value, and so this man had hit upon grain, no doubt.
“But how can he know that it will be different in December?”
“Obviously he can’t know. He hopes so, believes so; he is speculating on it. A little while back there were negotiations in Berlin about issuing a new currency. After all, the mark can’t go on falling forever. But they are at variance over money based on grain or on gold. No doubt the man thinks we shall have the new currency in December.”
“Would that change things for us?”
“As far as I can foresee, no. We should always have to deliver fifty tons of rye only.”
“Then let’s do it. We shall certainly never be able to rid ourselves of this nightmare more favorably.”
“Perhaps we ought to ask Prackwitz about it first,” proposed Studmann.
“Willingly. If you think so. Only—why? You have full authority.”
Women are the devil. At this moment there were certainly no legs in a conversation devoted to business, rent and currency. But when Frau Eva threw doubt on the necessity of consulting her husband, something dark and suppressed crept into the matter-of-fact discussion. It really sounded a little as if, to speak frankly, they were talking of a dying person.
“Yes,” said Studmann softly, “to be sure. Only, you both undertake the obligation to deliver in— December.”
“Yes. And—?” She did not comprehend.
“December! You will have, in all circumstances, to deliver in December. Fifty tons of grain. In all circumstances. A good two months yet.”
Frau von Prackwitz tapped a cigarette on the lid of the box. There was a small furrow between her eyebrows. For greater comfort she crossed her legs, without, however, thinking about it. Nor did Studmann notice it this time.
“You understand, madam,” he explained, “it would be a personal obligation of yours and your husband’s, not of the farm. You would have to deliver the fifty tons if—well, wherever you were.”
A long pause.
Frau von Prackwitz stirred. “Accept, Herr von Studmann,” she said vivaciously. “Accept in spite of that danger.” She shut her eyes; she was a beautiful, plump, fair woman, withdrawing into herself. She was like a cat, a cat who is happy, a cat on the hunt for mice. “If we lose the tenancy by December,” she said smilingly, “my father won’t leave
Studmann sat like a lump of wood. Amazing tidings had reached his ears. These women!
Frau von Prackwitz smiled. She was not smiling at Studmann, but at something imaginary between the stove and the law shelves. Putting her hand out to him, she said: “And may I rely also on you not to leave me in the lurch, Herr von Studmann?”
Disconcerted, Studmann gazed at the hand. It is a large but very white woman’s hand with rather too many rings. He felt exactly as if he’d been hit on the head. What had she said? Impossible! She couldn’t have meant it like that. He was a donkey.…
“Donkey!” said she in a deep warm voice, and for one moment the hand gently touched his lips. He felt its fresh softness, perceived its scent, and looked up, crimson. He would have to turn things over in his mind—the position was difficult. Prackwitz was his old friend, after all. He encountered her look, in which was a blend of mocking superiority and tenderness.
“Dearest madam …” said he, confused.
“Yes,” she smiled. “What I have always wanted to ask you was—what actually is your Christian name?”
“My Christian name? Well, it’s a bit awkward … actually I don’t use it. I’m called Etzel; that is—”
“Etzel? Etzel? Wasn’t that—?”
“Correct!” he explained hurriedly. “Attila or Etzel, a prince of the Huns, who swept into Europe with his Mongolian hordes, robbing and murdering. About 450 A.D. Battle on the Catalaunian Plain. ‘Savagery was as innate in him as dignity and sobriety.’ But, as I say, I make no use of it. It’s a sort of family tradition.”
“No, Etzel is quite impossible. Papa called his gander Attila. And what did your friends call you? Prackwitz always only says Studmann.”
“Like all the others do,” he sighed. “I’m not really suited to intimacies.” He turned a little red. “Sometimes I was called the Nursemaid. And in the regiment they called me Mummy.”
“Studmann, Nursemaid, Mummy.…” She shook her head with irritation, “Herr von Studmann, you really are impossible. No, I must find something else.”
“Dearest madam!” cried Studmann, enraptured. “Do you really mean that? I’m such a boring fellow, a pedant, a fussy old woman. And you—”
“Quiet,” she urged, shaking her head. “Wait. Don’t forget, Herr von Studmann, for the moment I have only asked you about your Christian name … nothing else.” She paused, supporting her head in her hands, armlets gently tinkling. She sighed, she made the most enchanting beginning to a yawn. She was altogether the cat which cleans itself, stretches, and does everything but look at the sparrow it is going to devour the next moment. “And then there is also the car.”
“What car?” He was confused again. Her transitions today were much too sudden for any sober-thinking man.
She pointed out of the window, though there was no car outside. But he understood. “Oh, the car! What about it?”
“He’s bought it,” she said.
“Oh?” He was thoughtful. “How much?”
“Seventeen thousand.”
Studmann made a gesture of despair. “Absolutely impossible!”
“And by installments?”
“Also.”
“Listen, Herr von Studmann,” she said with vigor, though a little sullenly. “In all circumstances you will go to Frankfurt tomorrow and obtain the money, but no more.”
“Certainly.”
“Whatever you may be told, you will go and fetch only that. Is it agreed?”
“Certainly.”
