evening; he ought to be put in prison or at least in a State asylum. There they’d cure him of his nasty tricks!”
“But he’s in your sanatorium—this poor fellow.”
“Unfortunately,” grumbled Dr. Schrock. “Unfortunately. I offer him to my colleagues as if he were sour beer, but they won’t take him, although he pays more than any other patient. Patient! My goodness, he’s just a vicious monkey. When I take him back to my institution, behind bars and locked doors in the ward for troublesome cases, of course, he’ll be tolerable for a month or two—especially if your friend has given him a good hiding.”
“A quarter of an hour ago he was nearly unconscious,” interposed the managing director.
“Excellent! But he’ll soon be overbearing again. He teases harmless patients into a frenzy, annoys the attendants, steals cigarettes, drives me and my assistants mad.… And he’s by no means stupid, he’s devilishly cunning. He’s always escaping. Watch him as much as we like, he always finds some fool. Borrows money or steals it.… And I can do nothing,” said the old man gnashing his teeth. “I can’t get rid of him. As he’s not in full possession of his mental faculties, the law’s on his side.” He sat there, grown suddenly older and exhausted. “For twenty-four hours I’ve been chasing him in my car.” He looked round. “If only I could get rid of him,” he groaned despairingly. “But then, as likely as not, he’d regain his freedom—no, I couldn’t take the responsibility. However, let’s at least try the ultimate remedy—expense. Perhaps his mother—he has only one mother, unfortunately—will get tired of paying for him. Herr Director, may I ask you for a bill, a detailed account?”
“Yes,” said the managing director, hesitating. “There’s been a lot of alcohol consumed, champagne, cognac …”
“Nonsense.” Dr. Schrock grew angry. “Those are trifles. Champagne, cognac! No, every person the fellow’s harmed is entitled to damages. I hear of half a dozen persons whom he’s made drunk.… Your friend, for instance, I think?”
“I don’t know whether my friend …” began von Prackwitz awkwardly.
“For Heaven’s sake,” cried the incensed Schrock, “don’t be a fool! Excuse me, I shouldn’t say that, of course, but really don’t be a fool! The greater the expense the sooner there’s a chance of his mother locking him up one of these fine days in a well-guarded lunatic asylum. You’re doing a service to mankind.”
The Rittmeister looked at the managing director, then at the typewriter in which the testimonial was still inserted. “My friend, who is assistant director and chief receptionist here, is to be discharged by the hotel management because he was intoxicated while on duty,” he said.
“Excellent,” cried Dr. Schrock, but this time the managing director interrupted him.
“I must contradict Herr von Prackwitz,” he said hastily. “We’re granting Herr von Studmann a long holiday, say three months, even six months. During that time Herr von Studmann, in view of his efficiency, will easily find another position. We do not dismiss him for drunkenness on duty,” he explained firmly, but without emotion. “We simply ask him to look round for another field of activity because in no circumstances must a hotel employee make himself conspicuous. Unfortunately, Herr von Studmann, when he fell down the hall stairs insufficiently clad and completely intoxicated, made himself very conspicuous in front of many employees and still more guests.”
Dr. Schrock was satisfied. “Together with an indemnity for a lost position we must consider the question of damages. That pleases me immensely; I see light. I shouldn’t be surprised if that didn’t put paid to young Bergen. How do I find your friend? At your place? Many thanks. I’ll make a note of your address. You’ll be hearing from me in two or three days’ time. Splendid. By the way, we pay, of course, in stable currency. I assure you that you can’t put in for too much in the way of expenses. Oh, don’t worry. Do you think I mind? Not a bit. It hurts nobody, I only wish it did.”
The Rittmeister rose. Life was a strange thing. Somebody had actually fallen downstairs for once and got rid of his troubles. Herr von Studmann could come to Neulohe as a man free from worry, as a paying guest if he liked. He, Prackwitz, would be no longer alone.
He took his leave, Dr. Schrock once again regretting that he was not allowed to shake Studmann’s hand for knocking the Baron down.
As von Prackwitz approached the door it opened and there stumbled in, guided and supported by the attendant Turke, a creature bedizened in red and yellow, exceedingly wretched to look at, with his black eye and swollen face, contemptible with his hang-dog glance.
“Bergen!” said Dr. Schrock in a voice like a crow’s. “Bergen, come here!”
The coward broke down, fell on his knees. His gorgeous pajamas were in strange contrast with his miserable appearance. “Dr. Schrock,” he begged, “don’t punish me, don’t send me to a lunatic asylum. I’ve done nothing. They drank the champagne quite willingly.”
“Bergen, to begin with, you are deprived of your cigarettes.”
“Please don’t do that, Dr. Schrock! You know I can’t bear it. I can’t live without smoking. And I only shot into the ceiling when the gentleman didn’t want to drink.”
Von Prackwitz closed the door softly, and the miserable creature’s wails, a child without a child’s purity and innocence, died away. If only I were back in Neulohe, he thought. Berlin makes me vomit. No, it’s not only the printing of money which has gone mad. He looked down the clean corridor with its dark polished oak doors. It all had the appearance of soundness, but inside it was rotten. Was the war still in everybody’s bones? I don’t know, and anyway don’t understand.
Walking slowly along the corridor he came into the hall and inquired for his friend’s room. A lift took him up to just beneath the roof. There von Studmann sat on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands.
“I’ve a rotten hangover, Prackwitz,” he said, looking up. “Have you time to come with me into the open air for half an hour?”
“I’ve all the time in the world,” said the Rittmeister, suddenly cheerful. “Both for you and the open air. But first let me put on your collar.…”
II
The little bailiff, his head thick and muddled with drink, had thrown himself on his bed just as he was, with mud-stained boots and clothes soaking wet with the rain. Through the open window he could see that it was still pouring down, and he could hear someone scolding from the direction of the cowhouse and the pigsty. What are they doing? he thought. What’s the matter with them? My God, I want to sleep. I must sleep and forget; when I wake up I shall find out it’s not true!
He put his hand over his eyes and it was dark. Ah, this darkness was good! Darkness was the void; where the void is, nothing is; nothing has happened, nothing has been messed up.
But the darkness lightened into gray and the gray became brighter. Out of the brightness appeared the table, the bottle, the glasses … the letter!
Oh, God, what was he to do? Little Meier pressed his hand more firmly against his eyes. It grew dark again. But flaming wheels of many colors were circling in that darkness, faster and faster, till he felt giddy and sick.
He sat up and stared about the room, which was still light. He loathed it. How familiar it all was! The stinking slop-pail beside the washstand! The photos of nude girls around the mirror! He had cut them out of magazines and pinned them on the wallpaper, and he was sick of the sight of them. How he loathed his present life and what had happened! He would like to get out of this situation; to be something quite different. But what could he do? He sat there with protruding eyes and a swollen face. There was nothing that he could do. Everything was going to collapse about him. He must just stay still and wait—and he hadn’t wanted to do anything bad! If only he could sleep …
Thank God, there was a knock at the door of the adjoining office, to break the monotony. “Come in,” he growled, and when the person outside hesitated, he growled still louder: “Come in, you fool!” And was immediately frightened. Suppose it was somebody he oughtn’t to call a fool—the Geheimrat, or Frau von Prackwitz—then he’d be in the soup again. What a life!
But it was only old Kowalewski, the overseer.
“What’s the matter?” Meier shouted, delighted to have someone on whom he could vent his fury.
“I just wanted to ask a question, bailiff,” said the old man humbly, cap in hand. “We had a telegram from our daughter in Berlin; she’s coming tomorrow morning by the ten-o’clock train—”
“So that’s what you wanted to ask, Kowalewski?” sneered Meier. “Well, now you’ve asked it, you can go.”
“It’s only about her luggage,” said the overseer. “Is a carriage going tomorrow to the station?”
“Of course,” said Meier. “Tomorrow quite a lot of carriages are going to the station. To Ostade and
