Ah, thought Wolfgang, and smiled weakly as if he were nauseated, what a lot of proverbs man has prepared to persuade himself that he must work and that work is good for him, though he would much prefer to sit here with me, doing nothing, waiting for something, I don’t know what. Only in the evening at the gaming table when the ball buzzes and clatters and is about to fall into the hole—only then do I know what I’m waiting for. But when it’s fallen, whether into the hole I want or another, then I no longer know.
He stared into vacancy. He hadn’t a bad brain; he had ideas, but he had gone to seed and was lazy, he didn’t want to pursue a thought to its logical conclusion. Why should he? I’m like that and I’ll stay like it. Wolfgang Pagel forever! Stupidly he had sold their last possessions merely to visit Zecke, to borrow money. But, arrived at Zecke’s, he had just as stupidly, for the sake of a malicious word, destroyed his chances of getting that money. And, again stupidly, he had gone with the first person he happened to run into, and that was why he was now sitting here—in stagnant water, a leaf without a purpose, the image of all leaves without a purpose. He was not without talents, not without good feelings, not unkind, but he was indolent—just as old Minna had expressed it, he wanted a nursemaid to come and take him by the hand and tell him what to do. For the last five years he had been nothing more than an ex-second lieutenant.
His presence had probably been made known by Liesbeth. A stout woman came in—a woman, not a lady— She cast a swift, almost embarrassed glance at Wolf, and announced from the cook stove that the master had just telephoned. They would eat at three-thirty sharp.
“Good,” said the girl at the stove and the woman left, not without casting another glance at Wolfgang. A stupid inspection. He would clear out at once!
The door opened once more and a liveried manservant came in, an important fellow. Unlike the fat woman, he did not need any excuse; but, crossing the kitchen, ascended the two steps and went up to Wolfgang at the table. He was an elderly man with a fresh-complexioned kindly, face.
Without any embarrassment he held out his hand and said: “My name is Hoffmann.”
“Mine is Pagel,” said Wolfgang after a momentary hesitation.
“It’s very close today,” said the servant in a friendly, low, but very clear and trained voice. “May I bring you something to drink—a bottle of beer?”
Wolfgang pondered a moment. “May I have a glass of water?”
“Beer makes one sleepy,” agreed the -other and fetched the water. The tumbler was on a plate and a piece of ice swam in the water; everything was done in style here.
“Yes, that’s good,” said Wolfgang, drinking greedily.
“Take your time,” advised the other, always with the same kind seriousness. “You can’t drink up all our water—nor the ice,” he added after a pause, and the corners of his eyes wrinkled. However, he fetched a second glass.
“Many thanks,” said Wolfgang.
“FrauleinLiesbeth is engaged for the moment. But she will come soon.”
“Yes,” said Wolfgang slowly. And pulling himself together—“I’d rather go now, I’m quite refreshed.”
“Fraulein Liesbeth is a very good girl, very good and very efficient.”
“Yes,” agreed Wolfgang politely. Only the thought of his money in this Fraulein’s pocket still held him there; those few notes so recently despised would take him back to Alexanderplatz. “There are many good girls,” he acquiesced.
“No,” declared the other. “Forgive me for contradicting you: the sort of good girl I mean is rare.”
“Yes?” inquired Wolfgang.
“Yes. For one ought not to do good just for the fun of it but because one loves what is good.” He looked at Wolfgang again, but not quite so kindly. (Queer fish! thought the visitor.)
“Well, it won’t be long now,” the servant concluded, and he left the kitchen just as gently, as deliberately, as he had entered. Wolfgang felt that although he had hardly said anything he had not given the man a good impression.
Now he must move a little; the girl from the stove came with a tablecloth, then a tray, and started to lay the table. “Stay where you are,” she said. “You’re not in my way.”
She too had a pleasant voice. It struck Wolfgang that the people in this house spoke well. They spoke very good German, clearly and distinctly.
“There’s your place,” said the girl as Wolfgang gazed absent-mindedly at the paper napkin in front of him. “You’ll have your lunch here.”
He made a vague but defensive gesture. Something was beginning to disturb him. The house was not far from Zecke’s mansion, yet far removed in other ways. But they ought not to talk to him as if he were a patient, or rather as if he were somebody who had committed a crime in a fit of madness, and must be spoken with cautiously so as not to provoke him again.
“You won’t disappoint Liesbeth, will you?” the girl said. And after a pause: “The mistress is agreeable.”
She laid the table, the silver clinking—not much, though, as she was very neat-handed. Wolfgang did not stir; a kind of paralysis caused by the heat, no doubt. So he was being treated as some sort of beggar from the street, a hungry man who was given a meal with the consent of the lady of the house. In his mother’s case, the beggar was not allowed into the kitchen; Minna would make some sandwiches and at best a plate of soup was handed out through the door, to be eaten on the landing.
Well, here at Dahlem they were more generous, but it didn’t matter much to the beggar. Whether he was outside the door or in the kitchen, a beggar was a beggar, now and forever after. Amen.
He hated himself for not going. He didn’t want food. What did he care about food? He could eat at his mother’s; Minna had told him that a place was always laid for him. It wasn’t that he was ashamed, but they ought not to talk to him as if he were a patient who had to be considerately treated. He wasn’t ill. It was only that damned money. Why hadn’t he taken those miserable scraps of paper out of her hand? He would be sitting in the subway by now …
In his nervousness he had taken out a cigarette and was just about to light it when the girl said: “Please not now, if you can possibly do without it. After I have sent the lunch up to the dining room it will be all right. The master has such a delicate sense of smell.”
The door opened and in came a little girl, the daughter of the house, ten or twelve years old, bright and cheerful. She certainly knew nothing of the evil gray town side. Probably wanted to have a look at the beggar. Beggars seemed to be a rarity in Dahlem.
“Papa is already on the way,” said the child to the girl at the cooker. “In a quarter of an hour we can eat. What have you got, Trudchen?” “Inquisitive!” laughed the girl and raised a lid. The child sniffed eagerly at the steam. “Oh, merely those old green peas again,” she said. “No, tell me honestly, Trudchen.”
“Soup, meat and green peas,” said Trudchen tantalizingly.
“And?” urged the child.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” laughed the girl.
Such a world still exists, thought Wolfgang, half smiling, half desperate. And I had only forgotten it because in Georgenkirchstrasse I lost sight of it. But children innocent and unspoiled, and real innocence, still exist. What the pudding’s going to be is important, even though hundreds of thousands of people have given up asking about their daily bread. Looting at Gleiwitz and Breslau, food riots in Frankfurt-on-the-Main and Neuruppin, Eisleben and Dramburg …
He eyed the child with suspicion. It’s a swindle, he thought, an artificial innocence, a carefully protected innocence—just as they have bars in front of their windows. Life will reach her in spite of all this. What will remain of her innocence in two or three years’ time?
“Good day,” said the child. She had only just noticed him, perhaps because he moved his chair in order to get up and go. He took the hand which she extended. Beneath a frank handsome forehead she had dark eyes. “You’re the gentleman who came in with our Liesbeth?” she asked, looking at him seriously.
“Yes,” said he and tried to smile at so much earnestness. “How old are you?”
“Eleven,” she answered politely. “And your wife has nothing on but your overcoat?”
“That’s so.” He still tried to smile and appear at ease. But it was damnable to hear one’s shortcomings from the mouths of others, especially from a child’s. “And she has nothing to eat—and won’t be able to get anything, not even a pudding with macaroons.”
She remained unaware that he had intended to hurt her. “Mamma has so many clothes,” she said
