He sat, his head propped in his hands. Behind him the wood rustled, mysterious; the trees dripped unceasingly. He felt none too warm. Had he only been a little more cheerful, he would have gone to the farm, whistled together the guilty men and driven them off to the clamps to fetch their implements themselves. But today he hadn’t the least energy to face their sullen and spiteful arguments.
He sat like that for a long time. Then thoughts began to creep back into his brain, but they were not good thoughts. They were worries. He thought of the Geheimrat’s letter. That was the beginning of the end. No. It was the end, absolutely. The Geheimrat had remembered himself. Himself—that was his money, the unpaid rent. But because he was certain of not getting it, he wanted to get rid of the tenant. Not only did he forbid all to enter the forest who belonged to his son-in-law or worked for his daughter; not only did he forbid the farm carts to use the forest paths, which would necessitate their going hours out of their way if they went to the outlying fields—he also ordered the forester to keep a watchful eye on the sales made by the farm. Should grain or potatoes or livestock be delivered, the forester was to report immediately by telephone to the old gentleman’s lawyer, who would at once attach the moneys coming in.
It was now evident that from the business point of view Studmann had been right when he had insisted that old Elias be sent with the rent to Berlin on the second of October—the old gentleman would then have had to keep quiet!
“Do you think my father would make difficulties for me in my present situation?” Frau Eva had protested. “No, Herr von Studmann. You’re a very conscientious, very thorough businessman. The rent can wait, but I need a car at once, all the time. No, I will buy the car.” Between the absent father and the chauffeur who had presented the bill for the car with the threat, in case it was not settled, to return to Frankfurt immediately, Frau Eva had decided for the chauffeur.
“Perhaps we could manage by hiring a car,” Studmann had suggested.
“Which will never be available when I want it. No, Herr von Studmann; you are always forgetting that I have to find my daughter.”
Studmann had turned pale, had bitten his lip. He also didn’t say a word about what he thought about these reconnoiters through the countryside. He accommodated himself to them. “As you wish, madam. I’ll discharge the installment agreed upon, therefore. The remainder of the money will easily amount to three-quarters of the rent. …”
“Don’t talk to me anymore about the rent! I’ve told you that my father … in my present situation. Don’t you understand then?” Frau von Prackwitz had almost shouted. Oh, she was uncontrollable these days, so exceedingly irritable. Pagel also had been shouted at once or twice because he hadn’t, when she called him, immediately left everything as it stood. But she was not so unfriendly to him as to Studmann. It seemed inexplicable. Hadn’t she once had almost a weakness for the other? But perhaps she became so unfriendly just because of that weakness? Now she was nothing but a mother; and a mother who neglects her daughter because of her own love affair is surely contemptible!
“I should like you to pay for the car at once, Herr von Studmann. I want to be able to dispose of it freely. Settle that with Herr Finger and his firm. And give him notice. I shan’t need him as chauffeur; I know someone else more agreeable to my wishes.”
Studmann had replied with a bow, extremely pale.
“Pardon me for being a little out of temper, Herr von Studmann.” She held out her hand. “Things are not very well with me—but I hardly need to say this at all.”
Studmann hadn’t realized the effort this little concession cost her. “If I am to settle accounts with Herr Finger I must more or less know what was arranged with him.”
“Settle the whole thing as you think right; I shan’t bother you about it.… Oh, Herr von Studmann,” she had cried, suddenly almost in tears, “must you torment me as well? Have you no feeling at all?” And she had fled from the office. Herr von Studmann gestured heavily towards young Pagel, but remained silent. For a few moments he walked up and down in his office, then he sat down at his desk, unfasted his watch from its chain, and laid it before him.
Pagel had started to type again. During this argument he couldn’t have left the office. Frau von Prackwitz had stood by the door as if she wanted to leave as soon as possible.
Studmann had sat steadily regarding his watch. After a very short time—he must have worked it out—he took the receiver out of the cradle, turned the handle, and gestured energetically to Pagel. Pagel stopped typing. He looked alarmingly forlorn. Whoever had seen him sitting thus, receiver in hand, waiting, would not have said that this man was without feeling. Perhaps he was awkward and annoying; a womanless life had erected so many barriers in the path of his emotions that he could no longer free himself alone; but one saw how the man trembled, and could hardly speak for agitation, when he began to ask Frau Eva for an immediate and quite private interview. Pagel had jumped up and gone to his room. The unhappy Studmann! Now that the battle was almost lost, he knew what he ought to have done. Talk to her as a human being, not as a businessman.
And a minute or two afterwards Studmann had asked Pagel to go to the Villa at once and make up accounts with the chauffeur. “Frau von Prackwitz would like to leave at once. Probably you must go, too. To the firm in Frankfurt. No, Pagel, please, I don’t want to go myself.… Frau von Prackwitz will see me at six o’clock.”
And Pagel had had to go to Frankfurt in charge of the attache case with the money, Finger the chauffeur not having been authorized to receive the full sum. In the back Frau von Prackwitz sat alone, erect on the edge of the seat, her white face pressed against the window. From time to time she called, “Stop!” Then she would get out and inspect the ground. “Go on slowly!”
She had seen a piece of paper in the ditch; she ran after it. That she hadn’t really expected to find there a message from her daughter was to be seen in the unhopeful way in which she unfolded it. “Go on slowly!”
Again and again she cried out: “Slower! Slower! I want to be able to see each face.” At a speed of fifteen miles an hour the powerful car crept along the roads.
“Slower!”
Ten miles an hour.…
“This is what she always does now,” the chauffeur had whispered. “It doesn’t matter to her where I drive, as long as she can get out and look around. As if the fellow would be still here in the neighborhood!”
She had gone into a road warden’s house. “I’m only allowed to go fast through villages and towns,” explained the chauffeur. “She thinks no doubt that the pair are utterly alone. Well, I’m glad I’m through with it today.”
“Aren’t you at all sorry for her?”
“Sorry? Of course I’m sorry for her. But after all I’m driving a sixty-horsepower Horch and not a pram. Do you think that’s a pleasure for a chauffeur, to loiter about like this?”
Frau von Prackwitz came out of the warden’s house. “Go on slowly!”
Pagel would have liked to hurry. They had to pay for the car before twelve o’clock. Studmann had strictly enjoined this; at twelve the new dollar rate would be announced.… But he said nothing.
It was three o’clock before they reached the town. The dollar was then 320 milliards as against 242 that morning—payment had taken all the rent. In fact there was even a small debt remaining. “Of no importance,” said the gentleman politely. “You can settle that at your discretion.”
Pagel knew that this would be very important to Herr von Studmann. He had hoped Pagel would still bring back a considerable amount as a loan. It would of course be even more important to Studmann that nothing had come of the meeting he had requested at six o’clock. Frau von Prackwitz had stood Pagel up in a local bar. She’d left to fetch the new chauffeur. Hours passed until she returned; the big new car stood driverless on the street. “This is Oskar,” she said and sat down exhausted. “Oskar is the son of a housekeeper of Papa’s. I remembered him. He’s a motor engineer by trade.”
“I have a driver’s license, also,” said Oskar. He was a young fellow about twenty with enormous hands and a face which looked as if roughly formed from a lump of dough; but he appeared good-natured, if a trifle simple.
Frau von Prackwitz swallowed one cup of coffee after the other, eating nothing. “Make a good meal, Oskar. We’ve a long way before us.”
“You ought to eat something, too, madam.”
“No, thank you, Herr Pagel.… Oskar knew Violet; he will help me to find her. How old was Violet, Oskar, when you left Neulohe to be apprenticed?”
“Eight.”
“At least he will drive as I want, isn’t that so, Oskar?”
