could not see her. Her face was in the shadow. And that was how things had been throughout a long marriage. What sort of a wife was it he imagined he had?
“Eva!”
Accusingly. Full of a melancholy reproach. See, he didn’t really believe she was asleep. But he perceived that she was unwilling, and murmured something. Whenever he was embarrassed he always muttered to himself, believing he thereby covered up his embarrassment.
She heard his door shut.
With a jump she was out of bed, running barefooted to the door. Loudly and unblushingly she turned the key and stood there listening, panting, triumphant. “Have we been plain enough, sir? Have you understood at last that it’s finished, forever?”
Not a sound. Not even one of his passionate exclamations. Only silence.
Slowly she had returned to her bed, had fallen asleep at once.…
And now it was twenty-five past four. She had woken up so happy. It seemed as if someone had called her. She remembered; neither father nor daughter would do that. Why on earth was she so happy?
She sat, bent over, but her limbs were relaxed, loose.
She buried herself in the bed again as if she were coiling and cuddling round something living, that could protect her. She wanted to go on sleeping. It seemed inconceivable, how she would pass the four hours until breakfast, haunted by such ghosts dancing around her.
God, what sort of face should she bring to this breakfast? What should she say? What should she do? She could go to the office. But Herr von Studmann was away, and young Pagel was too young.… Oh, well. We’ll see. In the end everyday passes somehow or another.
Goodnight.
II
After her too-early awakening Frau Eva slept so soundly that for the second time she looked at the alarm clock unbelievingly. Half-past nine. A soporific, according to an accepted saying, should be slept off. Well, she had slept twelve hours, which ought to be enough for one tablet of veronal. When she at last got up, however, and began to wash, her body was weary and her eyes felt as if they had just been weeping. Hastily and with increasing irritation she put on her clothes, scolding herself, resolving never again to take that “filthy veronal.” And she reviled her husband, Vi, the maids, Hubert, for letting her sleep on like that. With it all she had a mortal sadness, an intuition that the day which, rainless, was wetly dripping from the trees, would bring no good to her or others.…
The breakfast table was laid only for one; neither Achim nor Violet was there. Twice she had to ring the bell before the coffee and eggs were brought, not by Hubert but by Armgard, smiling in a way Frau Eva did not like at all.
“Have the Rittmeister and Fraulein Violet had their breakfast?” she asked while the girl poured out the coffee somewhat too primly.
“At seven o’clock, madam,” reported Armgard surprisingly promptly. “The Rittmeister and Fraulein Violet went out with the motor car before half-past seven.” The manner in which she articulated the words motor car showed that the new acquisition had her full approval; the Horch had brought pride and sumptuousness into the kitchen also. Opinion there, no doubt, was that at last they had really “fine people” to work for.
“Why wasn’t I called this morning?” asked Frau Eva rather sharply.
“The Rittmeister gave an emphatic order not to!” replied Armgard, a little offended. “Rittmeister and Fraulein Violet were very careful indeed not to disturb madam. They came down the stairs on tiptoe and only whispered during breakfast.”
Frau von Prackwitz could see all too well that heroic pair who out of pure charity would not wake her up. Yes, she might have interfered with their trip; she might even have gone with them! The cowards!
“Then there was, to be sure, the big rumpus,” said Armgard softly, with a very sanctimonious face.
Frau von Prackwitz chose to ignore this. Yesterday she had had all the noise she wanted; she had no desire to hear about any more.
“Did my husband say at all when he would be back?”
“The Rittmeister thought that he wouldn’t be here for dinner,” replied Armgard, looking at her expectantly. It was obvious that she knew about the quarrel with Achim; no doubt all the village, her own parents as well, knew about it by now. She would have to accustom herself soon to having everyone looking at her as if she were now half a widow, half a deserted wife.…
“Very well, Armgard,” said Frau Eva, enlivened in spite of herself by all this tomfoolery. “Then you can slice up the cold fillet from Sunday, with runner beans. There will be enough for our small number.” She counted on her fingers. “Myself, Lotte, you, that’s three, Hubert four—there will be quite enough.”
There was a pause, the maid silently regarding her mistress, a look which was really just a trifle disturbing. Frau von Prackwitz was on the point of smiling when she put her cup down. She would not be looked at like that by anyone. “Well? Why are you looking at me like that, Armgard?” she demanded.
“Oh, Lord, madam!” Armgard turned red. “Madam need not count Hubert in; the Rittmeister gave him notice this morning. That’s the reason there was such a rumpus. We could hear it even in the kitchen. Not that we wanted to, but—”
“Where is Hubert?” Frau von Prackwitz stopped the flow of words with a gesture. “Has he gone?”
“Oh, no, madam. He’s downstairs, packing his things.”
“Send him here. Tell him I want to speak with him.”
“Madam, Hubert threatened the Rittmeister that he—”
“Armgard! I don’t want any tales from you. Call Hubert.”
“Very good, madam!” Armgard, deeply offended, withdrew.
Frau Eva walked to and fro, waiting. Breakfast, of course, was now over. She’d known ever since she got up that today would be a loss. She walked to and fro feeling as she had done last night—everything was crumbling, disintegrating, while she stood impotently to one side and could do nothing. It was certainly not this ninny of a Hubert! She had never been his friend. A dozen times it would have given her the greatest pleasure to be rid of the freakish perverse fellow; moreover she had a physical repulsion to him. As a healthy woman she had always felt that things were not altogether right with that young man, quite apart from the maids’ talk of his strangeness.
Well, he had been dismissed, probably because of some enormous crime such as an egg too hard or a teaspoon not picked up when dropped. In his present humor Achim would find cause for an outburst of fury in anything. But it all happened so quickly, without warning; nothing new came into her life, only the old went away, constantly went away. It was like sitting on an ice floe from which piece after piece splits off until there is nothing left. Once you had parents with whom you got on not well but bearably—and now no longer. You had a husband and a daughter—and now no longer. You had a business in the country—when were you last there? You had a comfortable home. And now, here you are sitting alone at the breakfast table, your servant dismissed, and the doors between the individual bedrooms carefully locked during the night.
A feeling of despair, an impotent grief, rose in her. Had there ever been a time when life was so little worth living? It made you itch to do something. Something just had to be done to get out of this morass. But somehow everything one did mysteriously only sucked you deeper in. Any action turned against itself.
Armgard stood in the door—half embarrassed, half defiant. “Hubert says he is no longer in service here. He says it’s not necessary for him to come.”
“We’ll see about that!” cried Frau Eva passionately, reaching the hall in five steps.
“Madam! Please, madam!” implored the maid.
“What is it then?” she asked crossly. “No more tittle-tattle, Armgard!”
“But madam ought to know,” said the girl coming close in order to speak softly. “Hubert did threaten the Rittmeister so! About an arms dump. Rittmeister was quite pale.”
“And you saw that from the kitchen in the basement?” asked Frau Eva sarcastically.
“But the dining-room door was open, madam!” Armgard was deeply insulted. “I was just going up to fetch a collared ham and the door happened to be open. I’m not inquisitive, madam. I only wanted to help.”
“All right, Armgard,” said Frau Eva, about to go.
“But, madam, you don’t know! Hubert was talking about a letter. A letter from the Fraulein. It was something
