would be done to make matters worse.
Whereupon in the first three minutes the very worst happened. There was a frightful row, an infernal stench. Emil Quarkus, the cattle dealer, was certainly not squeamish and during his life had had to put up with a lot of unpleasant things; moreover the times were not propitious for cultivating a thin skin.… But what these three women said to each other stank more than all the dunghills of his future farms rolled into one.
And Quarkus, too, shouted and stormed. With his own hands he threw them out of the room in turn and, howling with fury, fetched them in again for cross-examination, exculpation. He bashed their heads together, separated the clawing women, telephoned for the police and immediately canceled the call, inspected Sophie’s trunks, and had almost at once to rush to her ladyship’s bedroom where murder seemed to be in progress. Then, picking up his hat, he marched off with the contemptuous exclamation: “You damned women, you can kiss my arse,” left the flat, got into his car, and made the chauffeur stop at once, it having occurred to him that under no circumstances could he leave his jewelry with that vulgar woman.…
The upshot was that he sat on a couch utterly exhausted, incapable of anything more. Her cheeks still red and her eyes flashing, Countess Mutzbauer paced up and down and mixed a pick-me-up for her Emil.
“Such vulgar women! All abominable lies, of course. It’s good that you dismissed them on the spot, Quarkus.” (He had done nothing of the sort.) “You’re quite right not to call in the police.” (He would dearly have loved to do so.) “In the end your wife would have learned of it, and you know what she is!”
Mathilde was sitting on her hamper in the kitchen, sniveling quietly as she waited for the carrier to fetch it. Then she would go by subway to her brother-in-law who lived off the Warschauer Brucke. Her sister wouldn’t be very joyful over this surprise because, as things were, the wage of a streetcar conductor was already insufficient. But, in possession of a fair pile of foreign currency which Quarkus, softened by her good cooking, had obtained for her bit by bit, she felt secure against any sisterly displeasure. As a matter of fact, dismissal at this moment suited Mathilde; she would now have time to do something for her illegitimate offspring, the fifteen-year-old Hans Gunther; that morning she had read in the newspapers of his arrest as ringleader of a mutiny in a Berlin institution for young delinquents, which was the reason for her anger when Sophie had annexed her day off. Now she had her free day after all. She was content.
Even more content, however, was Sophie Kowalewski. Through the gathering storm a taxi took her toward the Christian Hostel in Krausenstrasse. Accompanied by gentlemen, Sophie did not object to the most filthy accommodation hotel; but as a young lady traveling alone she was cognizant only of the Christian Hostel. She was going for her summer holiday, her trunks were packed with her ladyship’s nicest possessions, she had her wages; also she had sufficient money saved up and she would get in touch with her Hans, perhaps even see him. Yes, she too was content.
Only Herr Quarkus was not quite as happy as the three women. But he was not properly aware of it, and in any case he had to go and buy farms immediately. The mark pursued him faster than any female.
V
Forester Kniebusch walked slowly through the village of Neulohe, his pointer on a lead. One never knew what might happen; most people, anyhow, were incredibly more afraid of a dog than of a man. Old Kniebusch had always disliked going into the village—his house lay a little back from the road on the edge of the forest—and today he was particularly peevish. He had put off as long as practicable the rounding-up of the villagers for the ten o’clock meeting at the village magistrate’s, but now that the entire western sky was black with storm (from Berlin, of course; what else ever came from there?) he had to set about it. Needs must; he had to be careful not to offend anybody.
Thank heaven the village of Altlohe didn’t come into the picture so far as this secret military business was concerned. Only miners and industrial workers (therefore Spartacists and Communists) lived in Altlohe; that is, thieves who robbed the fields, wood stealers and poachers, in Herr Kniebusch’s opinion.
He was quite well aware why he had refused to notice the wood stealers that morning. They were Altlohers who became aggressive on the slightest provocation and openly proclaimed a doctrine akin to the right to steal. Forester Kniebusch was also quite well aware why he had left his rifle at home but taken his dog with him—a weapon only infuriated the people and made them even more dangerous. Still, a dog might mean a torn trouser leg, and trousers were expensive!
Depressed, the forester slunk through the village threatened by the coming storm. “I would like to die peacefully in my bed,” he had again said to a wife almost paralyzed by rheumatism. She had nodded. “We are all in God’s hands,” she had said.
“Oh, you!” he would have liked to reply, for he had been certain a long time that God had nothing to do with all this ghastly confusion. But, after a glance at the colored Lord’s Supper on the wall, he had preferred to keep silent. In these days one could not say even to one’s own wife what one really thought.
He had pictured his old age differently. If the war and this damnable inflation had not come, he would long ago have been living in his own little house in Meienburg, letting duty and the wood thieves look after themselves, occupied only with his bees. But anyone could easily figure out how simple it was to starve to death on an old-age pension in these days. And as for the savings-bank book (hidden from thieves between the sheets in his wife’s linen cupboard), showing a total savings of over 7,000 marks scraped together coin by coin during forty long years of service, that did not bear looking at or thinking of, if tears were not to come at once into the eyes. Had there been no war that sum would have meant a little house in Meienburg, neat as a doll. And then there had been the first mortgage on the magistrate Haase’s farm here in Neulohe, a sound investment, for the interest of 4 per cent on the 10,000 marks Kniebusch had advanced was paid promptly. Some of this advance had been inherited, most of it saved; and it yielded 400 marks yearly, which would have been a welcome addition to Kniebusch’s old-age pension.
But that was past and done with. Incomprehensibly past and done with. The old man had had to continue running about, working, watching, trying to worm his way between the encroachments of the people and the reprimands of his employer. And this wearied man, so much in need of peace and retirement, was now terribly afraid of having to retire—for what could save the old couple from starving to death? Their two sons had fallen in the war, and their daughter, married to a railway clerk at Landsberg, did not know how to get food enough for herself and her children. Only when a pig was to be killed did she write to her parents, to remind them of the promised share of fat.
And so the old man had to carry on, fawn, flatter and humble himself to avoid dismissal at all costs. And when that fool of a Lieutenant beckoned, he could do nothing but click his heels and reply submissively: “Very good, Herr Lieutenant.” How was he to know whether his employer approved or not?
It was dreary walking round the village. The men whom the forester had to see were still in the fields, though it was time for feeding the cattle, nearly six o’clock. Or, sweating, they hurried past him with hardly an acknowledgment. There was not a moment to spare; they must get in all the crops they could before the storm broke.
Thus the forester had to leave his message with their womenfolk, and they, of course, said exactly what they thought. He was undoubtedly crazy, trying to call a meeting at the height of the harvest! He didn’t, of course, have such a bad time; he wasn’t aching in every limb; he could go for a walk while others worked themselves to death. He got up at six in the morning, their men at half-past two. They had no intention of delivering such a stupid message; he must go and look for bigger fools. They stood with their arms akimbo and the forester got it hot and strong. He had to persuade and beg them to give the message about the meeting at ten o’clock, and when he finally left he was not at all sure whether it would be delivered.
Some women, however, pursed their lips and listened in silence, though with angry, narrowed eyes. Then they turned away, but he heard them mutter that an old man like that should be ashamed to take part in such plottings. Hadn’t enough people been killed already in the World War? An old crock like him ought rather to be preparing for a peaceful death.
The forester’s face grew ever more troubled, almost bitter, the farther he went, muttering also. He had to give expression to his wrath somehow, and he was accustomed to talking to himself. Otherwise he had nobody in whom he could confide; his wife quoted texts at him on every occasion. He ground his almost toothless jaws in impotent anger. He suffered all the more because he was so helpless.
He arrived at the village square, round which Haase’s farm, the grocer’s shop, the inn, school and the clergyman’s dwelling were grouped. His business was not really with these people. Grocer and innkeeper were
