round, but he had certainly never seen this man before.
“Take a good look at me,” said the man, standing and pulling up his trousers. “You’ll know me next time.”
It was all so friendly and good-tempered—and potato theft was, after all, not really a capital crime—that the forester continued to stand with his hands clasped under the cape, and saw without misgiving the man saunter toward him. If there was no apprehension in his mind, there was certainly astonishment. He was familiar with that jacket and knickerbockers of gray-patterned cloth. “But you are wearing a suit of the Rittmeister’s!” he exclaimed bewildered.
“You miss nothing, forester,” said the man grinning. “It fits me, don’t you think?” He was now standing right in front, laughing. But something in this laughter, in the tone of his words, in his nearness, displeased old Kniebusch. “Well, tell me your name,” he ordered. “I certainly don’t know you.”
“Then you shall,” cried the other. In a flash his expression changed into one of hate; in a flash he had his arms round the forester—who couldn’t move under his cape.
“What’s the meaning of this?” exclaimed the helpless Kniebusch, still not thinking it serious.
“Here’s a greeting from your old friend Baumer!” the man shouted right in his face. And in the same moment the forester heard a terrible crack, right in his skull, a blinding whiteness.… There must have been two of them, he thought. One has knocked me on the head from behind.…
All became red and then gradually black—he felt himself falling—he lost consciousness.
Slowly memory returned to his brain. It attached itself to what he had last thought. There were two of them, he told himself. One I don’t know, but the other who hit me on the head from behind must have been Baumer.… It’s not so bad to be killed like this—all my life I’ve gone in fear of it, and now it’s not so terrible at all.…
Not for a moment did he believe that he would escape with his life. That villain must have broken his skull. So the fellow had got him in the end! But it was not very painful. The warmth running over his skull was troublesome, though. That was the blood welling out. He was getting giddy from it. Had the fellows gone?
He listened, he heard nothing. No step, no rustling; not a twig snapped.
Painfully he moved his head to and fro; he could not move his eyes properly; he must move the whole head. He saw no one. Thought I was already done for; but it hasn’t been as quick as all that.
In truth he was lying there comfortably, old Forester Kniebusch; he had lain worse than that in his life. His limbs were getting heavy, but his head and something in his breast were getting lighter and lighter. For a moment he considered whether he should do something, and what he should do.… But why do anything?
The cold was increasing, that icy cold which was creeping up from the extremities of his limbs, but one could endure that; sooner or later in the morning people would come to the clamps; he was close by, he had only to shout. Then they would find him, carry him home, put him to bed—he had always wished to die in his bed.
The old forester, whose vital strength was slowly trickling from the terrible skull wound, pushed an arm under his head. It isn’t so bad at all, he thought again. If only one knew how little unpleasant even the most unpleasant thing is, one wouldn’t need to have any fears in life.
He tried to reckon out when the laborers would be likely to come. Potatoes had to be fetched for the pigs. At the most it would be another two hours; he would remain alive as long as that, surely, so that he could die in his own bed.…
But Pagel! he thought suddenly. My friend Pagel will be waiting for me. Every morning I’ve been there early and informed him of the holes—and today I don’t turn up! He’ll miss me!
Kniebusch shut his eyes. It was pleasant to feel that someone would miss him. He could hear that youthful, invariably friendly voice asking the Backs: “Where’s our old Kniebusch got to this morning? Why, he hasn’t made his report yet, Amanda!”
He smiled.
But an agonized feeling began to stir in him; he hadn’t yet made his report! Today he really had something to report, and today he failed to appear. They would soon find him, though. But this didn’t comfort him. I’m getting weaker all the time, he thought. I’m getting colder and colder. Perhaps I won’t be able to call out later on—they will find me too late.
He tried to move his head forward. He wanted to estimate, from the quantity of blood he had lost, the quantity of life which still remained to him; but he could not, it was too difficult.
A terrible struggle starts in him: the dying man wants only to lie quietly, to feel himself gently flowing away, to be at peace.… And something else tells him that he must get up and make his report. Baumer is back again and someone else, a stranger—two dangerous people, two ravenous wolves.
I can’t get there! he groaned. I can’t walk even!
If you can’t walk, you must crawl, spoke the pitiless voice.
I never had any peace in my life; let me at least die in peace.
You will have peace in the grave—now make your report! said the voice without pity.
And the worn-out old man, the coward, the babbler, rolled over on his belly and drew up his icy limbs. Will- power, the ruthless will-power of duty—it was this which had always strengthened him against his entire nature. Now once more it drove him to a last extreme effort; old Kniebusch crawled on all fours across the forest and, coming to a sack, he took hold of it and dragged it with him, in the obscure feeling that he had snatched up some evidence.
He crawled up to the potato clamps and hopefully raised his head. No one was to be seen. “Oh, my God, my God! Will no one help me?” he wailed.
But he crawled onward. He crawled down from the clamps onto the path, and when he was alongside the park he saw in the hedge a hole and squeezed through this, to shorten his journey.… He did everything correctly, exactly, as if his brain were still functioning. But his brain was only in its twilight. Everything his mind and body could give was made possible by the massive will that forced him constantly to crawl forward. He no longer thought of Pagel, of Baumer, of icy coldness, of wounds. He had forgotten the sack which, in the midst of torments, he went on dragging with him—he thought of nothing but that he must crawl on. Crawl—till he collapsed.
And collapse he did, in that moment when Pagel shouted to him: “My God, Kniebusch, dear Kniebusch—what have they done to you?” At that moment, hearing that familiar voice, his will gave way, his body failed him, and he stopped crawling forward. Together Amanda and he dragged the old man indoors. But they couldn’t get the sack out of his hand; it was as if his fingers had grown into the material.
III
It would certainly have been the bitterest irony in the world had Forester Kniebusch died in a strange bed without being able to make that report for which he had suffered so heroically. But Death was not so severe. Once again he was to open his eyes and see close above him his friend’s pale face and hear his kind voice. “Old Kniebusch, what a fright you gave us! Just wait a bit, the doctor will be here in a moment. He’ll patch you up again. Are you in bad pain?”
The forester moved his head angrily. Doctors and pain didn’t concern him any longer. He had been plunged into the darkness and only returned from it because he had something to settle, his report. And in disjointed words he whispered into Pagel’s ear, and Pagel nodded again and again and said: “Good, Kniebusch, good. Quietly—don’t tax yourself, I can understand everything.”
The forester went on whispering. Every word hurt him, but every word was necessary. When, however, he at last finished, he looked at Pagel with such imploring eyes that even the most callous would have understood the urgent question in that glance. And Pagel was by no means the most callous. “Good man,” he said, and gently pressed the forester’s hand. “Very good man.” Like one set free, the old forester smiled as he perhaps had never smiled in his life before. And then he seemed to sleep.
Holding the limp hand Pagel reflected on what he had heard; it was little enough, for the forester hadn’t seen one of the men, and the other he hadn’t known.
Sitting there dolefully, however, Pagel’s eye now alighted on the dirty old potato sack at his feet. For the dying man had let it fall as he groped for his friend’s hand. With his foot Pagel pushed at the sack and turned it about, and it looked to him as if, under all the dirt, there were black characters forming a name. Of course forage sacks were marked with their owner’s name.
He bent down and with his free hand laid the sack across his knee and wiped away the dirt—not letting go of the dying man’s hand. Letter by letter the writing became legible—legible with difficulty, but legible:
