stucco of the entrance. “By the way, my name is Wolfgang Pagel,” he said with a slight bow.
“Pleased to meet you,” she replied in the correct manner. “Mine is Petra Ledig.”
“Whether you’ll be pleased I don’t know,” he had laughed. “Come on, little one. I shall call you Peter. Petra is too Biblical and too stony. But your surname’s good enough for me and can stay as it is.”
III
Petra was still too much taken up with what was happening to pay much attention to the sense of Wolfgang’s words. Later she learned from him that Petra meant “rock,” and that it had first been borne by the disciple Peter, on whom Christ had founded his church.
Altogether she learned a good deal during the year she lived with him. Not that he behaved like a teacher. But it was inevitable that, during the long hours of their being together—for he was without a genuine occupation —he should talk a good deal with her, if only because they could not always sit in silence side by side in their dreary room. And when Petra gained confidence, she often asked a question, either to stop him brooding or because it gave her pleasure to hear him talk. For instance: “Wolf, how do they make cheese?” or: “Wolf, is it true that there is a man in the moon?”
He never laughed at her, nor did he ever refuse to answer her questions. He replied slowly and carefully, for the knowledge he had gained at the military college was of no great consequence. And where he was not informed, he took her with him and they went into one of the big libraries and he consulted their volumes. She would sit quietly, some little book in front of her, which, however, she did not read, and look about her awestruck at the big room in which people were sitting so still, so gently turning the pages, as quietly as if they were moving in their sleep. It always seemed like a fairy tale that she, a little shopgirl, an illegitimate child, who had just been on the point of going under, was now able to enter buildings where educated people, who had surely never heard of the rottenness with which she had been forced to make such an intimate acquaintance, were sitting. By herself she would never have dared to come, although certain poor creatures allowed to sit along the walls showed that not only wisdom was being sought here, but also warmth, light, and just that which she, too, sensed in these books—a profound peace.
When Wolfgang had learned enough, they went out and he told her what he had gleaned. She listened and forgot it, or remembered it but not accurately—that, however, was of no importance. What mattered was that he took her seriously, that she was something other than a creature whom he liked and who was good for him.
Sometimes, when she had spoken without thinking, she would exclaim, overwhelmed by her ignorance: “Oh, Wolf, I’m so terribly stupid. I’ll never learn anything. I shall remain stupid forever.”
Even then he did not laugh at the outburst, but entered into her feelings in a friendly and serious spirit, declaring that fundamentally it was unimportant whether one knew how cheese was made or not. For one would never know how to make it as well as the cheesemaker did. Stupidity, he believed, was something quite different. If one didn’t know how to arrange one’s life, how to learn from one’s mistakes, but got annoyed, repeatedly and unnecessarily, about little things, knowing that they would be forgotten in a fortnight; if one could not get on with one’s fellowmen—that was stupidity, real stupidity. His mother was a striking example. In spite of all her reading and her experience and intelligence, she had succeeded, out of sheer love, through knowing what was best for him and tying him to her apron string, in driving her son out of the house, he who was really patient and easy to get on with. (So he said.) She, Petra, stupid? Well,
What Wolf meant, of course. Spoiled their lives? Sulked? They had had the most glorious time, the most beautiful time of her whole life. Nothing could be more beautiful. As a matter of fact, she did not mind whether she was stupid or not—despite what he said, clever was out of the question—as long as he liked her and took her seriously.
A rough passage? Nonsense! She had learned often enough in her life, and especially during the last year, that to be without money need not spoil one’s existence. At this very time when everybody’s thoughts turned on money, money, money, figures stamped on paper, paper with more and more noughts printed on it—at this very time the little foolish girl had made the discovery that money was of no value. That it was absurd to bother one’s head about it for a moment; that is, about the money which one hadn’t got.
(Perhaps she was not quite so indifferent this morning, for she was hungry enough to be nearly sick, and at half-past one the rent had to be paid.)
If she had taken thought for the morrow, she could never have had a peaceful moment by the side of Wolfgang Pagel, former second lieutenant, who had managed for more than a year to provide a livelihood for both, with practically no working capital, from the gaming tables. Every evening at about eleven o’clock he gave her a kiss and said: “So long, little girl,” and went, she only smiling at him. For she mustn’t say a word, in case it brought him bad luck. At first, when she realized that this eternal nightly absence did not mean “going out on the loose,” but was “work” for both their livelihoods, she had sat up till three or four … to wait for him; and he would return pale, with nervous movements and hollow temples, his glance unsteady, his hair wet with perspiration. She had listened to his feverish descriptions, his triumphs when he won, his despair when he lost. Silently she had listened to his complaints about this or that woman who had purloined his stake money, or his brooding astonishment as to why, on that particular evening, black should have turned up seventeen times in succession, and have hurled him and Petra, almost on the threshold of wealth, back into poverty.
She did not understand anything of the game, his game of roulette, however much he told her about it (he had refused point-blank to take her with him). But she understood quite well that it was a kind of tax which he paid to life for having her, that he was so kind, so imperturbable, because in the hours at the gaming table he could spend his energy, all his despair over his spoiled and aimless life, the only life he knew.
Oh, she understood far more; she understood that he deceived himself, at least when he assured her passionately again and again that he was not a gambler.…
“Tell me, what could I do instead? If I were an accountant scribbling figures into a book I’d only get a salary on which we should starve. Shall I sell boots, write articles, become a chauffeur? Peter, the secret is to have but few needs and thus time to live your own life. Three or four hours, often only half an hour at the roulette table, and we can live for a week, a month. I a gambler? It’s a dog’s life! I would rather carry bricks, instead of standing there, holding myself from being swept off my feet by a run of luck. I am as cool as a cucumber and calculating; you know they call me the Pari Panther. They hate me, they scowl when they see me because there’s no change to be got out of me, because I take away my small gains every day, and once I have them, finish! No more play!”
And, with a marvelous inconsequence, having quite forgotten what he had just said: “Only wait! Let me pull off something really big! An amount which is worthwhile! Then you’ll see what we’ll do. Then you’ll see I’m no gambler. I shall never be caught that way again. Why should I? It’s the lowest kind of drudgery; no one would voluntarily take it on—if he’s not a gambler.”
Meanwhile she saw him coming home, night in, night out, with hollow temples, damp hair, gleaming eyes.
“I nearly brought it off, Peter,” he cried.
But his pockets were empty. Then he would pawn everything they had, keeping only what he stood up in (during such times she had to stay in bed), and go off with just enough money in his pocket to buy the minimum of counters—to return with some small winnings, or occasionally, very rarely, with his pockets stuffed with money. When it looked like the end of everything, he always brought in some money, she had to admit; much or little, he brought some.
He had some “system” or other connected with the rolling of the roulette ball, a system of chance, a system which was based on the fact that the ball often did not do what, according to the probabilities, it ought to do. This system he had explained to her a hundred times, but as she had never seen a roulette table she could not properly understand what he told her. She also doubted whether he always kept to his own system.
But however that might be, till now he had always scraped through. Relying on this, she had for a very long time managed to lie down and go quietly to sleep, without waiting up for him. Yes, it was better to feign sleep if by any chance she were still awake when he returned. There was no sleep that night if, straight from the game, he started to talk.
“How can you stand it, my girl?” Frau Thumann would say, shaking her head. “Out every night and with all your dough in his pocket. And they say the place is alive with classy tarts. I wouldn’t let my man go.”
“But you let your husband go up a building, Frau Thumann. A ladder may slip or a plank give way. And tarts
