madness of this mad era, to be mad himself. Tirelessly, he continued without despairing. He’d certainly experienced a setback, a hope had escaped him, but he bore it. “I’m not a ladies’ man,” he went on. “I’m not fitted for their society. I’m too methodical, too correct—somehow I make them desperate. Once, a long while ago”—a vague gesture to indicate in what nebulous distance it lay—“I was engaged once. I was younger then, perhaps more flexible. Well, she broke off the engagement, all of a sudden. I was very much surprised—‘It’s just as if I’m going to marry an alarm clock,’ she told me. ‘You are absolutely reliable, you don’t go fast or slow, you ring exactly at the right time—you’re simply enough to drive one mad!’—Do you understand that, Pagel?”
Pagel had listened with a polite, interested expression, a trifle unsympathetic. This was the same Studmann who, when he himself was in trouble, had brusquely repelled every confidence.
The setback must have hit him hard. The solution probably came to him as a complete surprise this time, too.
“Well, Pagel,” said the changed and chatty Studmann, “you’re a different type of person. You don’t really live in a straight line—more hither and thither, up and down. You like to take yourself by surprise. I … I hate surprises!” His voice became a little icy and contrary. Pagel thought Studmann considered surprises above all vulgar, and therefore found them despicable. However, even at this urgent moment, Herr von Studmann did not pursue his intimate revelations. He soon returned to play the caring friend.
“You will be alone here now, Pagel. But I’m afraid not for long. I am sure that Frau von Prackwitz is mistaken in her judgment of her father. The rent ought absolutely to have been paid, on legal and personal grounds. Well, you’ll soon know all about that and will, I hope, inform me by letter. My interest remains the same. And should there come a change—over in the Villa—and I am really needed—well, you’ll let me know, won’t you?”
“Of course. But when are you going, then, Herr von Studmann? Surely not soon?”
“At once. That is, by the afternoon train, I think. I got in touch from Berlin with Herr Geheimrat Schrock.”
“And you won’t say good-by to Frau von Prackwitz?”
“I will leave a few lines behind for her. That reminds me, my dear Pagel; I will fix up your business at the same time.”
“What business? There’s nothing unsettled that I know of.”
“Oh, it’ll occur to you. And if not, I’m all for reliability in settlements, as I told you.”
And so Studmann had departed, a man of merit, a reliable friend, but a little withered; an unlucky fellow who thought himself a cornerstone of the universe. And, of course, in that business which he had wanted to fix up for Pagel he made a rare mess of things.
“What’s this I hear?” Frau Eva had asked next morning, highly indignant. “My husband has a debt of honor to you of two thousand marks in foreign money? What’s the meaning of that?”
It had been really painful for young Pagel. Secretly he cursed a friend who had not been able to omit speaking of that matter in a farewell letter to the woman of his heart. In these difficult times! Flatly he had left Studmann in the lurch. The matter had long ago been settled between him and the Rittmeister. Incidentally it had never been a question of two thousand marks. A very debatable matter—half a drinking debt, traveling expenses, he couldn’t remember just what. But, as mentioned, settled long ago.
Frau von Prackwitz looked at him steadfastly. “Why are you lying to me?” she said. “Herr von Studmann, a great psychologist, at least in business matters, foresaw that you would feel embarrassed about this affair. It’s a matter then of two thousand gold marks which you lent Herr von Prackwitz at roulette, isn’t it?”
“The devil take Studmann! I settle my affairs myself. Moreover, the police confiscated all the stake-money without exception—it was all lost!”
“Why are you embarrassed about money? You mustn’t be. Perhaps in this respect I have inherited my father’s practical sense.”
“I’m not here because of money,” Pagel had said sullenly. “Although it really looks like it now.”
“I’m pleased,” she said quietly, “if Neulohe has at least done someone good.”
“I can’t give you the money now, as you know, but I won’t forget it. Then Herr von Studmann wrote that there is also the question of your salary to be settled.” Pagel raged inwardly. “Up to now you have received only a sort of pocket money. That, of course, is impossible. I have thought it over—my father’s officials always had roughly ten hundredweights of rye in monthly wages. You will pay out to yourself from now on the value of two and a half hundredweights of rye weekly.”
“I’m not a skilled agriculturalist. There ought to be a bailiff here.”
“I don’t want to see any new faces now. Don’t you make things hard for me, too, Herr Pagel! You’ll do what I told you, won’t you?”
He took her hand.
“And please see to business matters for the moment exactly as you think, without asking me everything. Perhaps my husband will recover much quicker than we think.”
“I’m afraid, though, it won’t work. It’s too much, and I’ve no experience whatever.”
“Oh, yes, it will,” she had nodded. “Once you are acquainted with the work, we shall hardly miss Herr von Studmann.” Poor Studmann! This was his valediction from a woman whom he had reverenced and perhaps even loved. However, it can well be assumed that Studmann’s farewell letter contained not only business matters, like issues of salary and gambling debts, but also the type of emotional language that seems to refer rather to men’s wounded pride than to their unrequited love, which women always find so insulting and so ridiculous. But then, from her point of view, she might well say that she had been deserted in the hour of her greatest distress, because she had insisted that two payments should be made in a different order from that which he desired. She might also add that this friend had tactlessly wished to force on her a discussion of emotional matters at a time when her daughter was in peril and her husband dangerously ill.
No, if things were looked at from the woman’s standpoint, any woman’s, then Studmann was completely in the wrong. From a business point of view, however, he was now beginning to prove himself right.
“Well, my dear old friend,” he wrote in that letter which Wolfgang had stuffed into his pocket before the scene with Sophie, “no, dear young friend would be more correct, I am getting on excellently with Dr. Schrock. A droll creature, the old boy! But an organization which runs like a clock.… You ought to see the diet kitchen here, my dear Pagel. The best-conducted Berlin hotel can’t compare with such precision in weighing out, preparation, serving up. By the way, I have become a complete vegetarian; no more tobacco or alcohol. Somehow this seems to suit my whole constitution better, and I am astonished that I didn’t think of it before. Just consider for yourself—tobacco came to us from South America, Central America—tropical lands. And alcohol—that is, wine—from Palestine, according to the Bible—and thus cannot be suited to our northern character. But in no sense do I want to convert you! All the same, I must say however …” And so on and so on for four pages, to the memorable postscript: “Has the Geheimrat still not stirred himself about his rent? I should be very surprised.”
Pagel, constantly damper on his bale of straw, sighed. He lit a cigarette. Well, Studmann need not be surprised any longer; Studmann was right. The Geheimrat had stirred himself about his rent. He had, in fact, stirred himself most maliciously. And the first steps would be followed by others; the affair would come to a crisis. Get out! Your affectionate father!
It is in the nature of every man, especially of a young one, not to like working for something which is a failure. The deep discouragement which had seized hold of Pagel at the sight of a few rusting shovels undoubtedly came from this in the main. If the Geheimrat was going to write finish to the whole business in two or three weeks, all this rushing around wasn’t any longer amusing. No, thank you! Pagel wouldn’t stir a finger. Pagel wouldn’t bother himself anymore. Especially not for this declining patch of the German Reich, consisting of so many regions and fifty-four different parties! Good night!
As a proprietor, as a lessor, one couldn’t assert that the Geheimrat was in the wrong. It was a devilish thing that most people in most things were simultaneously in the right and in the wrong. The tenant undoubtedly had failed to meet his financial obligations, permitting himself expensive tastes that encumbered a property which he mismanaged with unskilled assistance; moreover he was no longer capable of business. Devil take it, what lessor wouldn’t be scared to death at having such a tenant?
If, on the other hand, one considered that the old landlord was very rich, that the real tenant was his daughter, and that at the moment she was in a pretty bad way, then again the lessor was damnably in the wrong. But, thought Pagel, it’s also not at all like the disagreeable old boy to start this business with the forester so utterly without reason. He himself knows that he is socially, as a gentleman, done for in the whole district if he now makes
