“Of course, Frau von Prackwitz. Always very slowly and looking at everyone. I understand. I read about it in the papers.”
Frau von Prackwitz shut her eyes for a moment. Then she said emphatically to Pagel, “I noticed quite clearly how unwillingly this man Finger drove as I wished him to. You all now do what I want unwillingly—you too, Herr Pagel!”
He moved away.
She said, “For goodness sake, let me do what I want. Isn’t it me who’s lost a daughter, after all? If only one of you had been clever enough before! But being clever now? What’s the point of that?”
Pagel was silent.
When they had at last driven off it was after six and quite dark. Wolfgang hadn’t been able to understand why they didn’t go direct to Neulohe instead of by a long roundabout way; why, in spite of the darkness, they seldom drove faster than fifteen miles an hour; why they had to stop again and again while Frau Eva went a few paces into some unknown wood. Wolfgang understood nothing of all that.
Perhaps she just wanted to be alone. Perhaps she only stood there waiting in the dark night, till the engine noise in her body had died away, and the beating of her own heart was again palpable. Did she think that if she felt her own true self that she would feel her daughter, once a part of that self, as well?
Did she stand there awaiting some vision in which they would come through the wood—he and she, the lost ones? Did she see him in front, his bloodless face lowered, the thin-lipped mouth compressed—and her daughter half a pace behind with closed eyes, still in sleep, as the mother had last seen her? Did she see the two wandering homeless over a cold and alien earth, where no hospitable door opened to them, no friendly word ever reached them?
It had been only a little while ago that Pagel had informed her that everything was different from what she feared, that no furtive lover was to be sought for, that the enemy was the manservant. “But that is impossible! I’ll never believe that,” she had cried.
Then she had believed it. She saw the two of them—and it seemed to her that they must eternally be together without a word, each silently chained to the other by the same hellish torment. She saw the pair so plainly that she imagined the servant must be wearing gray gym shoes with grooved rubber soles and Violet a man’s faded overcoat above a dress which did not fit properly because he had put it on while she slept.
Oh, those men, those police, those people from the Public Prosecutor, with their important airs, always ringing up, sending messages, wanting to know this, or measure some shoe! They would never find Violet, she was certain. She alone would meet the girl, some day or other. It didn’t matter where she waited. It just had to be outside—sometime, when the right moment came, she would be on the right spot. Hadn’t those people even wanted to carry out a kind of search of Violet’s room, fingerprints on the windowsill, a hunt for letters? She hadn’t allowed it, but simply locked the room. What was the good of such investigations now? Violet’s room belonged to her mother; when she came home utterly exhausted from her excursions, too tired even to weep, she would, after quickly looking at Achim, unlock the door and sit down by the bed. First she threw an anxious look at the window. But this was locked fast. She hadn’t been careless. Her daughter could sleep on undisturbed. She lay in her bed. Gradually the mother went to sleep too, in the wicker chair next to the empty bed—wishes became dreams! Eventually she slept soundly. Only the next day, when she awoke, did she change, wash herself, and prepare herself for the new day. These mornings, which filled her whole room with a wretched gray pallor, when the childish squabbling of the Rittmeister and his caregiver could be heard so embarrassingly clearly, and when, after the oblivion of sleep, the sense of her loss made itself felt like a consuming fire in her slowly awaking brain … But then there was the car, she would set out at once; she must hurry, the reunion with her daughter was perhaps close at hand. That foolish pedant of a Studmann had no idea what this car meant to her! It was the bridge into the future, her only hope. Yes, indeed. He had asked for a very urgent, hurried and private interview with her, but here she was standing in the wood and it was nine or ten o’clock. He didn’t understand that you don’t leave someone who’s been struck down by misfortune—! Perhaps she was only standing there because he was waiting for her!
Eventually she got back into the car again, and told the driver to continue. Neulohe approached, and then it really was ten o’clock.
Passing through the little town of Meienburg, she had asked to stop again. She was dying of hunger! There was a good hotel here, The Prince of Prussia; she had often been there as a young girl, with her parents.
It was a long time before she could make up her mind what to order; nothing on the menu was exactly right. She ordered wine, all the time watching Pagel out of the corner of her eye. He had said that he wasn’t hungry. He was almost surly—oh, how transparent people had become to her! She saw that he knew about the interview promised Herr von Studmann. Perhaps he knew a good deal more, of glances, certain words, of hopes. A woman can never have any idea how much men confess to one another; it is unimaginable.… Yes, young Pagel was dying of impatience on behalf of his friend; couldn’t he think of her for once? That she perhaps had reasons for hesitating, for waiting? He just didn’t think of her.
She drank a glass or two of wine and also ate a little. Then she got the waiter to unlock the veranda, unused in winter. She stood there a while—tables were piled on one another, the small garden could not be seen, nor the meadows and poplars on the bank of the little river.
At her side stood young Pagel. He didn’t understand why she had had to come here. “I came with Achim on our first outing together, just after we were engaged,” she said in a low voice, on going out. And she turned round to look again. The veranda showed no trace of the almost twenty years which lay between. A whole marriage had slipped by since then, a child had been born, more than a war had been lost. Vanished youth, forgotten laughter— gone forever!
Quieted, she had returned to her table; broodingly she turned the stem of the wineglass in her fingers. She could tell by young Pagel’s manner that he was no longer impatient or sulky or urgent—he had understood.
It is simply not true that youth is intolerant—a genuine young person will immediately understand a genuine feeling.
It had been after midnight when they arrived in Neulohe. “Please tell your friend,” she said, “that I will ring him up early tomorrow as soon as I can see him.”
Studmann without a movement had listened to the message. “I always thought, Pagel, that reliability was a desirable quality in this world,” said he, smiling a little miserably. “Be everything you like, however, but not reliable!” He looked old and tired. “I wrote to Frau von Prackwitz this evening. She will find the letter over there. Well, I’ll wait till tomorrow.”
Morning came. After breakfast Studmann had stayed in the office, not bothering about the farm. At first he tried to keep up the impression that he was working—then he gave that up altogether, a miserable person waiting for sentence.…
However, he didn’t go up to his room. He stayed in his office and walked up and down. His eyes, which now and then involuntarily fell upon the telephone, betrayed what he was thinking. Perhaps she’ll ring after all?
Pagel lay down to sleep, listening to the other man going up and down, up and down, while he himself went to sleep.
At half-past ten Pagel saw the great car drive through Neulohe. He hurried to the office. “Frau von Prackwitz wasn’t here? Hasn’t she rung up?”
“No. Why?”
“The car’s just gone out.”
Studmann seized the telephone. This time his hand did not tremble nor his voice falter. “Studmann here—may I speak to Frau von Prackwitz please? … She’s just gone out? … Good. Did she leave a message? … Yes, inquire please. I’ll hold on.” He sat there, his head bowed. “Yes, here.… Only that she’s not coming back today? Nothing else? … Thank you very much.”
He put the receiver down and spoke to Pagel without looking at him. “What was it Frau von Prackwitz told you yesterday evening?” Studmann stretched himself, almost smiling. “I’ve fallen down the stairs again, my dear Pagel, only somewhat more painfully than in the hotel.… Nevertheless I’m firmly convinced that there’s a spot somewhere in the world where absolute reliability is valued. I have decided to accept a situation open to me a long time. I will work in Dr. Schrock’s sanatorium. I am sure that the patients there will know how to value thorough reliability, evenness of temperament and inexhaustible patience.”
Pagel stared at a Studmann who now wished to be the nursemaid of neuropathics and hypochondriacs; was he speaking ironically? Oh, he was absolutely in earnest, never more so. He was not inclined to go along with the
