Kowalewski.
Pagel stared dejectedly at this name. What could the old and honest overseer have to do with potato thieves and murderers? Undoubtedly it was a stolen sack.
In this moment the office door opened, and Amanda Backs came in. She had been telephoning; the doctor would come in a quarter of an hour and the police perhaps in half an hour.…
In reply Pagel lifted the sack, showed her the name and said: “They all come too late. He didn’t see his murderer and didn’t recognize the one who held him. And the name on this sack doesn’t help us further.…”
Amanda turned very pale, looked at him with large terrified eyes and began to tremble.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Do you understand what the name Kowalewski is doing on the sack?”
Amanda had laid her hand on her breast and was looking from the dying man to the sack, and from the sack to Pagel.
“Speak, Amanda! What do you know about it?”
“I know,” she whispered, “that the runaway convict is living in Sophie Kowalewski’s room.”
With a white face Pagel regarded the trembling girl.
“Yes, and I know that Liebschner has been out stealing, together with Baumer, and so one of the pair held the forester fast, while the other hit—”
“Amanda!” he shouted.
“Yes, Amanda!” she repeated and burst into tears. “And now I’ve become an accomplice of murderers just when I thought I was quite out of the dirt.”
He listened to her sobbing. “You ought certainly to have told me about that, Amanda.”
“Yes,” she cried in despair, “I know that now. But at the time she gave me so many good words. And I couldn’t help thinking of my Hans, of Bailiff Meier, and what I should have felt like if someone had betrayed him to the police. I already helped him away from here as soon as he shot at me! You can’t let down a friend. And she told me, Sophie told me, her Liebschner is good to her and they were going away at once as soon as the fare money had been saved, that means stolen. He’s good to her! That’s why it was; because she told me he was good to her, that’s why I held my tongue.”
“But you ought to have felt, Amanda,” insisted Pagel, “that it was wrong to keep silent.”
“Yes, you may say that now!” she cried wildly. “Sometimes it almost broke my heart, especially when Sophie acted so despicably against you. But how do I know what’s right and not right in the world? You’ve always said: ‘Amanda, that won’t do!’ and ‘Amanda, please don’t do that!’ And when you turned up your nose without a word, that was even worse. And you’ve always done that whenever I start to talk about someone else. In the end I thought: Hold your tongue, he’s the only person who is decent to you, and he’ll think that treachery is treachery, and even a convict shouldn’t be betrayed. I didn’t know where I was any longer.”
“I’m very sorry, Amanda. You are right, I ought to have talked with you differently. And before everything, I ought not to have stopped you from talking. I am certainly the more guilty. But I must go at once! Sit down and hold his hand. He won’t notice the difference, and when he wakes up, tell him that I hadn’t wanted to wait for the police. Perhaps I’ll catch the fellows.…”
And Pagel ran out into the farmyard and drummed together a few sturdy fellows. Softly they entered the Kowalewski home and in the upper story they seized Baumer and Liebschner, at that moment engaged in packing their things. They had believed there was no need to hurry, for they were certain they had killed the forester and that he would not be found so quickly. Thus they were caught, overcome, manacled and handed over to the police. And thus they were prosecuted and sentenced to life imprisonment, because they couldn’t avoid the charge of murder.
Pagel, however, left to others the arrest of the still-unsuspecting Sophie and went back to the forester. But in his room there was only the doctor—the forester had already departed.
IV
It was not, however, on the evening of this day, it was not till the evening of the next, that Wolfgang learned beyond any doubt who the Prackwitzes were and who the Pagels, and what was actually the part he was playing on this estate and the value of all he had done there. Not only must mankind ponder its good deeds a while, before resolving for them; its basenesses great and small also require time. Frau Eva had required a good thirty-six hours.
When the large car stopped in front of the staff-house it was dark. But of course it was dark; mankind sins by night rather than by day, seeming to think that it need not be ashamed of an unseen iniquity. The car stopped—but neither Frau Eva nor the Rittmeister got out.
They waited.
“Sound your horn again, Oskar!” she cried, vexed. “He must have heard us stop. Why doesn’t he come out?”
Pagel had heard the car stop; he had heard the horn, too. But he did not go out. He was depressed and angry. He had sacrificed his relaxed happiness. Life no longer tasted good to him. It was as if he were grinding dust and ashes between his teeth. Yesterday and today he had knocked ten times at the Villa, twenty times had asked for Frau Eva on the telephone; he wanted to know what was to be done about the forester’s funeral, and what help given the destitute widow. But madam was not to be spoken with. Perhaps she resented his having taken away Sophie so inconsiderately, which meant that once again Black Minna was working in the Villa, that dirty wench with her heap of illegitimate brats.
Oh, let them all go to the devil. Probably Frau Eva was not so bad. Earlier he had found her really nice. Maternal, sensible, also friendly, and thoughtful towards others—as long as she was all right herself. But no doubt wealth had spoiled her; she had always had what she wanted, and now that things went badly for her she thought only of herself. She blamed the whole world, and let the world know it.
Let them hoot away, he wasn’t going out. In reality she was excellently suited to the Rittmeister. Both were made of the same stuff. Before the war they were on top, they were of the nobility, they had money. Let the so- called people see for themselves how they got on! … Undoubtedly a damned similarity with her husband. Naturally she didn’t behave so badly; she was a woman, after all, and could be amiable if she wanted something; feminine charm, a leg stretched out, a melodious voice—smiles. But in the end it came to the same thing. If she wanted a motor car she bought it, and the young bailiff, without money for wages, must do the best he could to get fifty families enough to eat.
“You will arrange that for me, won’t you? I don’t need to worry myself about it, then? You are so capable!” Yes, they wouldn’t be able to arrange it themselves, didn’t even want to—they had people to see to such things. Between Wolfgang Pagel and Black Minna there was (for madam) not such a great difference, by a long way, as between herself and him—the disparity was simply enormous!
I am unjust, he thought, and the car hooted again peremptorily. Unjust. She genuinely has a heavy affliction —and if wealth makes people selfish, if happiness makes them selfish, affliction does it so much the more. Ought I not to go out, after all?
It was no longer necessary to decide this. The chauffeur Oskar entered the office. “Herr Pagel, would you come outside to madam?”
Pagel stood up and looked thoughtfully at him. “All right.”
Oskar, made by the grace of Frau von Prackwitz chauffeur to the gentility, whispered: “Be careful, Herr Pagel, she’s going to slip off! But don’t give me away.” And went. Pagel smiled. There you were! Oskar, who only four weeks ago had beamed on Frau Eva as on a blessed angel, no longer appreciated the sweet cake of daily intercourse with gentlepeople. He felt that he was a hundred times closer to this almost unknown Herr Pagel than to the lady he saw daily.
“Good evening, madam,” said Pagel. “I was wanting to speak to you.”
“We’ve been hooting in front of your window for five minutes!” she cried, invisible in the dark car. “Were you sleeping? Do you go to sleep at eight in the evening?”
“Yesterday,” replied Pagel unmoved, “I tried twenty times to get in touch with you, madam. Arrangements must be made about the forester.…”
“My husband is quite ill! Both of us are ill from all these terrible excitements. I must beg you not to speak to me about these things now.” Her voice became gentler. “You have always been so considerate otherwise, Herr Pagel.”
