“All right, we’ll sit here. I’ll have a bottle of wine for my money then. Waiter!”
“Stop,” said the fat man. “Where is it?”
“What?”
“Where the girl lives.”
“In the New-town, Festungs Promenade. Not twenty minutes away.”
“You said before it wasn’t half an hour there and back. What sort of letters are they? Love letters?”
“I’d keep my love letters at a girl’s, eh?”
“Let’s go then.” The fat man finished his drink and stood up. “But I tell you now, if you’re going to make trouble, as you did a little while ago at the barracks …”
“So you saw that as well?”
“I’ll not only smash you in the chest—I’ll go for the stomach so that you’ll never walk straight again.” Something flared in the ice-cold glance which threatened the Lieutenant. But this time it had no effect on him; he merely smiled. “I’m not making any trouble,” he said. “Anyway, as far as I can see, I haven’t got much more walking straight to do, eh? Threats haven’t really much point with someone like me, don’t you think?”
The fat man shrugged his shoulders. Through the rainy, deserted streets the two walked side by side.
The Lieutenant was trying to think how to get away from his tormentor; there were no letters and no girl in the New-town. But out there it ought to be easier to escape, to shake off this spy somehow, so as to do what had to be done without fresh humiliation or harassing surveillance. (Shall I really have courage enough—for that?) It was not going to be so easy to deceive this watchdog, however. Though the man shambled along beside him nonchalantly, the Lieutenant knew quite well what that hand always in his trouser pocket meant; he knew why the other kept so close to him that their shoulders touched at each step. Should he make the slightest unexpected movement the other’s fist would seize him in its demoralizing grip. Or there would be a report, once, twice, right here in the street, and then there would be something in the papers again about a political murder.
Not that! Not that! The Lieutenant was feverishly trying to form an idea of the geography of all the public- houses on their way and the possibility of escaping across the yard from the lavatory. But he could not concentrate on his task; his brain, despite all compulsion, refused to help him. Always the image of Violet von Prackwitz kept on coming between. The waiter had said that she was lying unconscious, and a fierce delight possessed him. Already, at my mere threats, you are unconscious. But wait and see how you will relish life when I have carried out my threat.… But I must think about escaping from some pub. Now we shall soon be passing The Fire Ball.…
Ah, the Lieutenant was obsessed with the girl. Now, death approaching, the scatterbrain had found a significance in life; this man of a hundred love affairs, who had never loved, had discovered hatred—a feeling which was worth living for! He pictured what it would be like when she saw him; it seemed to him he could hear her screams. It had to come to that; he wished it so strongly it couldn’t be otherwise. The wishes of the dying are fulfilled, he thought. And gave a start.
“What’s the matter?” The fat man was sharply on guard.
The wishes of the dying are fulfilled, thought the Lieutenant again, immensely delighted. “There you are. Herr von Prackwitz!” he said. “You wanted to speak to him. Please do.”
Their way to the New-town had brought them into the old long-demolished, long-outgrown fortifications, where the city fathers had made out of rampart and fosse a promenade for the citizens. And they were now walking in the fosse, with the ramparts rising steeply to the right and left, covered with trees and bushes. They had turned a corner and could see a strip of pathway, a lonely and remote spot.
To one side was a bench dripping with rain, and on this bench sat Rittmeister von Prackwitz, huddled, but not awake. His head was hanging over his chest; his sleep was the insensible wheezy sleep of the utterly drunken. Now and then, when his breathing became too embarrassed, his head gave a jerk, raised itself almost vertical and slowly sank, bumping at first on his shoulder, then back again onto his chest.
It was a deplorable, a shameful sight, which Herr von Prackwitz presented. For a moment the two spectators stood silent. The Rittmeister, searching for his car, had not been dumped in this solitary corner of the grounds for nothing. He had been robbed.
“They are like carrion kites!” exclaimed the fat man furiously. “The vermin smell their prey faster than we ever do.” And he threw a suspicious look up at the ramparts. But no branch crackled among the bushes, no retreating foot sent a stone rolling down the slope. The kites had long flown with their spoils. Plundered, stripped to his underclothes, a ridiculous and lamentable figure, Rittmeister Joachim von Prackwitz-Neulohe slept off his intoxication in the drizzle. Too feeble to resist and fight like the strong, he had collapsed and resorted to the dirty Nirvana of alcohol—to awaken, how?
“I thought you wished to speak to the gentleman?” jeered the Lieutenant. The wishes of the dying were fulfilled. If already this could happen to the father, how would the daughter be dishonored?
“What bloody beastliness!” raged the fat man, not taking his eye off the Lieutenant. He is in exactly the same situation as the ferryman who has to ferry a wolf, a goat and a cabbage, and only has one place left in his little craft. He could keep a watch on him or he could help the Rittmeister—both together were hardly possible. “Leave Herr von Prackwitz there,” advised the Lieutenant maliciously. “No one has seen us find him. And I—well, I’ve got to hold my tongue.”
The fat man stood thoughtfully there. “Lieutenant,” he said after a while, “dig yourself in the ribs. Tell me who blabbed about the dump, and I’ll let you go.”
“It’s my business,” said the Lieutenant slowly. “I don’t want anyone else sticking their nose into it. But I give you my word of honor it was all only stupid woman’s gossip and twaddle, not meant badly.…”
The fat man brooded. “I must know the name,” he said at last. “It wasn’t only Fraulein von Prackwitz—”
“It wasn’t Fraulein von Prackwitz!” the Lieutenant cried.
With a terrible blow in the pit of the stomach, the fat man was on him like a sudden storm; he couldn’t even begin to defend himself from the hail of blows. Before he knew where he was, he had been knocked down—the other groped in his pocket, drew out the pistol. “And the safety catch not up, you bloody coward!” he cursed. “Well, my lad, do what you needs must do, without a weapon. But I’ll get you again before you know about it.”
The Lieutenant, unable even to reply, lay on the ground. His whole body was in pain, but far worse was the fury of despair. This fat man, this pitiless brutal giant—he was at the bench, he already had the Rittmeister in his arms.
I must get up, I must go, thought the Lieutenant.
The fat man in passing gave him a frightful kick in the side, and it appeared as if he laughed or sniggered as he hurried away.
He wishes to damage me so that I don’t make off, thought the Lieutenant—and was alone. He lay there waiting for the return of his strength, for a little breath, for the blessing of a decision.… It is my chance, he thought. I must go away, to the Black Dale—the Black Dale. But I’ve no weapon and none of the comrades would give me one. They all know.… Oh, I must leave here.
Swaying, he got up. It was the second time he had been knocked down today, and it was the worse of the two.
“I mustn’t crawl like this; I must hurry, I must run,” he whispered and stood still, holding on to a tree. His face felt as if it had been flayed. I can’t go like this into the town. I must look a sight. He’s knocked me about horribly, the brutal swine. That’s what he wanted.
He was almost in tears with self-pity, almost in tears because it was so cowardly to sob. “Oh, my God,” he groaned, “my God! I want to die. Why don’t they let me die in peace? Will no one help me, my God?”
A little later he found himself walking. He had left the fortifications, he was in the town.
But I must go faster, he thought. He’ll catch me for certain, at the latest in my hotel. Yes, stare, you fool. That’s the way a man looks who’s been trimmed by them. And in a loud challenging voice, quarrelsome as a drunken man’s: “Stare, fool!”
“Good day, Herr Lieutenant,” said a polite, a very polite voice. “Perhaps the Lieutenant doesn’t remember me?”
Befogged by pain and numbness, the Lieutenant sought to recall the face. The polite, dispassionate voice soothed his shameful degradation. It seemed as though no one had spoken to him in that way for ages.
“Rader,” the other assisted him. “My name is Hubert Rader. I was in service at Neulohe, not with the Geheimrat but the Rittmeister.”
“Oh,” cried the Lieutenant, almost delighted, “you’re the one who wouldn’t help me up the chestnut tree.
