“All correct,” said the driver. “And you will have enough money, sir? It’ll come to over three hundred marks.”
“Got enough,” said Pagel.
“Then it’s all right,” said the driver. “I was a bit leery, though.”
“Get her a cup of coffee here in Frankfurt and something to eat, but not in an inn. Fetch it out to her in the car. Good night.” And with this the fat man turned away.…
Strangely excited, Pagel shouted after him. The other made a sign with his hand, and turned a corner—never to be seen again.
“Driver,” said Pagel, “once we’re more or less through the town, stop at some little public-house. We want to eat something.”
It was now lighter in the taxi but the dark figure, its face pressed in the cushions, did not stir.
“Fraulein—Fraulein Violet, would you like to eat something?” said Pagel, oppressed. He had forgotten about it—no, he hadn’t forgotten about it, but he hadn’t wanted to talk to her as one talks to a stupid child or a simple dog.
She trembled in her corner. Did she understand? Or did she not want to understand? Or could she not?
The trembling increased, a moan of grief was heard, nothing articulate—as a bird in the night sometimes laments alone.
Amanda made a movement. Warningly Pagel laid his hand on hers and endeavored to strike the fat man’s cold passionless tones. “Keep quiet now. Sleep.…”
Later they stopped.
Amanda went inside and brought out what was necessary. “Eat—drink now,” said Pagel.
The taxi drove on again. “Go to sleep now.”
They drove a long way. It was dark and quiet. Was not Pagel also a son who had been lost and was now going home? She was also going home! Stranger—estranged, children don’t know their parents anymore. Is that you? asks a mother. Oh, life, life! We can’t hang on to it, whether we want to or not. We glide through it, we rush —restless, always changing. Of yesterday we ask, is that you? I no longer know you! Stop, oh, stop! Now, go on!
The car drives on. Sometimes the walls of the sleeping villages magnify the noise of the engine, which alternates with the purring quiet of the country roads.
Had Pagel believed that he would bring back a daughter to her mother, joyfully? He was merely tired and low-spirited, carrying on with Amanda a conversation drowsy and often a little irritable. What was she really going to do in Berlin if madam didn’t want her assistance? “I don’t know, Amanda. You are quite right; it was thoughtless.”
Then even that conversation died away, as if there were nobody special in the taxi, no daughter who was restored to life, but rather some indifferent, almost troublesome, occupant. Nothing more.…
At last he stood in the hotel lobby. It was half-past two in the morning. Only with trouble had he got the night porter to connect him with Frau van Prackwitz’s room.
“Yes, what is it then?” inquired the startled woman’s voice.
“This is Pagel—I am below in the lobby—I am bringing Fraulein Violet.” He broke off. He didn’t know what else to say.
A long, long silence.
Then came a distant low voice. “I’m—coming.”
And—only a few minutes could have passed—Frau Eva came down the stairs, those same red-carpeted stairs down which Herr von Studmann had once fallen. (But Pagel did not think of that now—although that fall, and a few other things, had taken him to Neulohe.)
She advanced, pale, very calm. She hardly looked at him. “Where?” was all she asked.
“In the taxi.” He led the way. Oh, he would have had so much to say and he had believed she would have had so much to ask—but no, nothing. Only this single “Where?”
He opened the door.
The woman pushed him aside. “Come, Violet.”
The figure stood up, came out of the taxi. For a moment Pagel saw the profile, the shut mouth, the lowered eyelids.…
“Come, child,” said the woman and gave her her arm. They went into the hotel, went out of Pagel’s life—he stood forgotten in the street.
“And where now, sir?” asked the driver.
“What?” said Pagel coming to himself. “Oh, yes. Some small hotel in the neighborhood. It doesn’t matter.”
And softly, taking Amanda’s hand: “But don’t cry, Amanda. Why are you crying?” And yet he too felt as though he must weep. And did not know why.
Chapter Sixteen
I
We have gone far, and have often had to stop on the way—now we’re in a hurry. When we began it was summer; almost a year has passed since then. Once more it is green outside, it is flowering, a harvest is approaching, and inside the town, in Frau Thumann’s room, the Pottmadam, the yellow-grey curtains once more hang motionless in the sticky heat. We don’t know, but we assume. Outside and in—it’s all the same. And everything is quite different. So little has happened: a man came and all was up with the senseless, the contemptible notes, the astronomical figures. To begin with, people looked at the new money in amazement. There was only a One on it or a Two or a Ten; if there were two noughts behind the number then it was a very large note indeed. How strange! When one had got used to counting in milliards and billions!
Coins came into circulation again, real money. One was to calculate not only in marks, but with groschen, no, with pfennigs also. There were men who, when they got their wages, built little towers with the money, playing with it. It seemed to them as though they had returned into childhood from a stormy, ruined age, from the terribly complicated into the simple.
And out of these low numbers, out of these coins and small notes, there came a magic. People began to calculate and suddenly they perceived—it tallies! I earn such and such a week, therefore I can spend so and so much—see, it tallies! For years people had been calculating—and it had never tallied. They had calculated themselves out of their minds; in the pockets of those who had starved to death had been found 1,000-mark notes; the poorest tramp on the highway had been a millionaire.
And now they all awoke from a confused torturing dream. They stood still and looked around. Yes, they could stand still and remember. Money would not run away from them now. Alarmed, they looked one another in the familiar, yet strange, faces. Was that you? they asked hesitatingly. Was that I? … Already those memories, still so near, were beginning to dissolve away like a fog.…
No, that wasn’t I, they declared. And with new courage they set upon their work; once more there was a meaning in work and life.
Oh, everything has become very different!
II
A man leaves the University building, crosses the outer court, and steps into Unter den Linden.
The street is in full sunshine. He blinks a little in the light. Hesitantly he watches a bus, a bus which drives the students home to wives and children. He makes up his mind, shakes his briefcase a little, holding it by the handle, and with an easy yet swift step he goes along toward the Brandenburger Tor, toward the Tiergarten park.
