casting a glance at the room, and passed. Close by was the front door. She opened it, stepped over the threshold, and closed the door behind her.
The blurs right and left were the faces of women neighbors. “What’s the row at your place?” asked one.
“Have they chucked you out, Fraulein?”
“Lord, she looks like a warmed-up corpse.”
But Petra only shook her head—if she spoke she would wake up and find herself again in the quarrelsome kitchen.… Softly and gently, or the dream would vanish! … She held the railing cautiously, and descended a step. It was a real dream stair; one went down and down.
She had to hurry. Upstairs a door opened; they were calling to her. “Wench, don’t be so silly. Where are you going with nothing on? Come upstairs. Ida forgives you, too.”
Petra made a gesture of dissent and went still lower, lower—to the bottom of a well. But down below was a shining gate—as in a fairy tale Wolfgang had told her. And now she passed through the bright gate, out into the sun, across sunny courtyards … and now she was in the street, an almost empty sunny street.
Petra looked up and down it. Where was Wolf?
III
At one o’clock, immediately on starting work, the bailiff Meier went to the sugar-beet field. It was as he had feared. Kowalewski, the overseer, had been slack and let the women merely scratch the soil, leaving half the weeds behind.
At once little Meier went crimson and started to curse him. “You damned swine, standing about flirting with the women instead of keeping your eyes open, you miserable old fool,” and so on, the well-known and frequently repeated formula upon every irregularity.
Without a word of excuse Kowalewski let the torrent pass over his almost white head, and had meanwhile pulled up one or two of the weeds with his own hands.
“You’re not here to cuddle the girls, but to watch them,” Meier shouted. “But naturally you prefer a cuddle.”
An utterly unfounded accusation. But Meier, having scored off the old man amid the laughter of his men, vanished among the firs, where his crimson complexion returned to its usual color—a healthy tan—and he laughed till his belly shook. He had given it hot and strong to the old fool: the telling-off would have its effect for at least three days. You had to learn the trick of shouting furiously without feeling angry, or else the laborers would be the death of you.
The Rittmeister, although an old officer and used to drilling recruits, had not this knack. When angry he turned as white as snow and as red as a lobster, and after every such explosion he was played out for twenty-four hours. Queer old bird—great man, indeed!
It would be interesting to see the workers he turned up with, supposing he brought any at all. If he did, they were bound to be excellent, because the Rittmeister had engaged them—and he, Meier, would have to cope with them. Complaints would be useless.
Well, it would pan out all right. He, little Meier, had always got on with great men. The most important thing was that he should bring a few nice girls along, too. In her way Amanda was quite all right, but Polish girls were still more impulsive and passionate, and, above all, they had no grand ideas. Black Meier sang absent-mindedly: “Both the rose and the girl want to be plucked.”
“Young man, you’re not alone!” At the deep voice of his employer’s father-in-law, Bailiff Meier started with fright. Geheime Okonomierat von Teschow was standing on the path beneath a fir tree.
Below the waist the old gentleman was sufficiently clad, particularly for such oppressively hot weather; that is to say, in top boots and coarse green trousers. But from the middle upward he wore over his enormous corporation only a Jager shirt with a colored pique front, which showed his gray, shaggy, sweating chest. Higher up again there was a grizzled reddish beard, a red bulbous nose, two cunning cheerful eyes, and on top a green hat decorated with a goat’s beard. The whole was Geheime Okonomierat Horst-Heinz von Teschow, owner of two estates and eight thousand acres of forest.
And, of course, the old gent was carrying a couple of sturdy branches—his hunting carriage was probably somewhere round the corner. The bailiff knew that he hated all fawning and false refinement, and was no enemy of his. Therefore he could speak undaunted. “Been looking for a bit of firewood, Herr Geheimrat?”
In his old age Herr von Teschow had leased both his estates, Neulohe to his son-in-law and Birnbaum to his son, keeping for himself only “a few fir trees”—that is how he described his eight thousand acres of woodland. And just as he insisted on the highest possible rent (“donkeys if they let themselves be fleeced”), so he kept his eyes as sharply on his wood as the devil does on a lost soul. Nothing was to be wasted; on every expedition he would, with his own hands, load his hunting carriage full of firewood. “I’m not such a nob as my fine son-in-law. I don’t buy firewood, not even from my own firs—I look for it. A perquisite of the poor, haw, haw, haw!”
This time, however, he was not inclined to air his views on the gathering of firewood. Branches in hand, he contemplated the young man who barely reached his armpits. Almost anxiously he inquired: “Up to your tricks again, eh, my boy? My wife’s on about you. Is the plucked rose the Backs wench?”
As well-behaved and polite as a good son, little Meier replied: “Herr Geheimrat, we’ve only been checking the poultry accounts.”
At once the old gentleman flushed purple. “What have my poultry accounts to do with you, sir? What has my poultry girl to do with you? You’re employed by my son-in-law, not by my maid, understand? Nor employed by me.”
“Certainly, Herr Geheimrat,” said little Meier obediently.
“Why must it be my wife’s maid, Meier, my boy, you Apollo, you?” the old gentleman lamented again. “There are so many girls about. Consider the feelings of an old man. And if it must be, why must you do it so that
“We only went through the poultry accounts,” maintained little Meier, for “Never admit anything” is the slogan of all petty criminals. “Fraulein Backs is no good at adding up—so I helped her.”
“All right,” laughed the old man. “She’ll learn it all right. Totting up, my lad, what?” And he laughed uproariously. “By the way, my son-in-law has phoned to say that he’s got the laborers.”
“Thank God!” said Meier hopefully.
“Only the trouble is, they gave him the slip; probably he’s been ordering them about too much. I neither know nor understand anything about it. My granddaughter, Violet, spoke to him on the phone. He’s held up at Fursten- walde—does that make sense? Since when was Furstenwalde part of Berlin?”
“May I ask a question, Herr Geheimrat?” said little Meier with all the politeness he kept in reserve for his superiors. “Am I to send conveyances to the station this evening or not?”
“I’ve no idea,” said the old man. “I’d better not interfere with your affairs, my son; if you make a mistake you’d like to say it was under my orders. No—ask Violet. She knows. Or doesn’t know. One can never tell the way things are run with you.”
“Certainly, Herr Geheimrat,” said the well-behaved Meier. One had to be on good terms with the old man. Who knew how long the Rittmeister would last with the rent he had to pay? And then perhaps the old man would engage him, Meier.
The Geheimrat whistled shrilly on two fingers for his carriage. “You can put the branches on my cart,” he said graciously. “And what about the sugar beet? You’re only hoeing now, aren’t you? Won’t grow, eh? You heroes have probably quite forgotten the sulphate of ammonia, eh, what? I wait and wait, nobody spreads manure. I think— leave them alone; a clever child knows without being told. And have a good laugh at you all. Good morning, sir.”
IV
The atmosphere of Police Headquarters at Alexanderplatz was stifling. The corridors stank of fermented urine, rotten fruit, unaired clothes; people stood about everywhere, dull figures with wrinkled gray faces, hopeless
