Kniebusch, you’re the biggest!”
The forester stood confounded and guilty. He, too, realized that he had done everything wrong.
“Haase was present,” Rader interposed.
“True, but he could have passed him the letter.”
“The forester didn’t have the letter.” (Rader again.)
“Oh, yes, I’m quite muddled. But Meier still has it—is still sitting in the inn, perhaps, and showing it to others.… You must set off at once, Hubert.”
“Meier has been back in his room for a long time,” said Hubert imperturbably. “I myself told you that he came back quite drunk from the inn some time after six o’clock. But I suggest the un-i-form.…”
“True. Go off, Hubert, and tell him. You’re bound to find him; he’s sure to be still at Haase’s. No, tell him nothing at all; merely tell him that I must speak to him at once. But where? Tell him at the old place.… How can I get away, though? Mamma won’t let me go out so late.”
“Hush! Madam is coming,” the imperturbable Hubert warned her.
“Well, what kind of a plot is going on here?” asked Frau von Prackwitz, standing very surprised on the threshold. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere, Violet, and I find you here!” She glanced from one face to the other. “Why do you all look so embarrassed? I want to know what’s going on. Will you tell me, Vi?” she added in a sharper tone.
“Excuse me, madam, if I speak.” It was Rader. “There’s no longer any purpose in not telling madam.”
Breathless silence. Despairing hearts.
“To tell the truth, madam, it’s about the buck.”
“About what buck? What’s this nonsense? Vi, I ask you—”
“Yes, the buck in the clover, which the Rittmeister was talking about,” said Rader. “Forgive me, madam, for having heard about it. It was the day before yesterday, at supper, when I was serving the tench.” His persuasive, slightly pedantic voice shrouded everything in a mist. “And the buck suddenly disappeared just when the Rittmeister was stalking it; and you’ve heard about it yourself, madam, the Rittmeister set great store on it.”
“I still haven’t heard what this assembly is about.”
“Well, today the forester’s seen the buck, madam, in Haase’s field, and it will have to be shot this evening, because it never stays anywhere. And so we thought, as the Rittmeister is away, that Fraulein should surprise him. It was not right of us, madam, to want to do it secretly … but it was my suggestion that we should wait till madam had gone to sleep, because there’s the full moon, which would be sufficient light for a rifle, Herr Kniebusch says. …”
“Stop that droning of yours, Hubert!” said Frau Eva, visibly relieved. “You’re a terrible man. For days on end one wishes that you would open your mouth, but when you do, one only wishes that you’d close it again as quickly as possible. And you might be a little nicer to the maids, Hubert; no gem would fall from your crown if you were.”
“Certainly,” said Rader calmly.
“And you, Vi,” she continued severely, “you’re a proper goose. Had you told me, the surprise for Papa wouldn’t have been any the less. Really, as a punishment I ought not to let you go; but if the buck is in Haase’s field only for this evening … You’re not to leave her for a moment, Kniebusch.… God, what’s the matter with you, Kniebusch—why are you weeping?”
“Ah, it’s really only the shock, madam, the shock of seeing you in the doorway,” wailed the old man. “And then I’ve no self-control. But it was a joyful shock, they’re tears of joy.…”
“I think, Hubert,” said madam dryly, “you’d better get ready to go with them, or else, if they meet a wood thief in the forest, our good Kniebusch will burst into tears of joy again and Vi will have to look after herself.”
“Oh, Mamma. I’m not afraid of wood thieves and poachers.”
“You’d better be more afraid of some other things, my dear Violet,” said Frau von Prackwitz energetically. “Above all, you ought to be afraid of secrecy. Then it’s arranged that Hubert’s to go with you.”
“Certainly, Mamma,” said Vi obediently. “Just a second. I’ll change my dress.”
With that she ran upstairs, leaving her mother with the two men, giving them a good talking-to for having “secrets with a mere child.” Frau Eva did this very thoroughly, but she was not quite satisfied with the result, having a womanly intuition that there was something wrong. However, since Vi was still only a child, it couldn’t be really bad, and she made herself easy with the thought that Vi’s misdeeds had so far turned out to be all rather harmless. Her worst wickedness to date had been cutting her beautiful long hair into an Eton crop. But such a crime, thank God, could be committed only once.
IV
The women’s section in Alexanderplatz prison was shamelessly overcrowded. When the prison had been built they had painted the air capacity of each cell on its green iron-plated door: so-and-so many cubic meters inscribed there as adequate for one occupant. Then they had put in a second bed; but that had happened so very long ago that two beds in the one cell were regarded as normal by even the oldest officials. Then came the inflation, and more and more women prisoners. Two further beds were placed in the cell, so that with one stroke the capacity of the prison was doubled. But now, for a long time, that, too, had been insufficient. As the endless procession of women came day after day in the green police van, they were pushed higgledy-piggledy into the cells. In the evening a couple of mattresses and a couple of woolen blankets were thrown after them—let them manage with that.
Seldom had Petra Ledig felt lonelier and more abandoned than in that overcrowded prison. It seemed as if it would never get dark.
True, she did not belong to the class of girl for whom prison means shame and the end of all things. She lived a commonplace existence; she knew that life was a difficult matter for those who were poor and friendless, who never knew what was coming to them, or from which point of the compass the winds of misfortune would blow.
She knew quite well, after the second very superficial examination at headquarters, what she was accused of, and she knew that these accusations were partly out of date, partly untrue. But she did not know what the consequences might be. It might mean the workhouse, or the surveillance card, or weeks or months in prison. Her future lay in the hands of men who were as strange to her as if they had been beings from another world.
She was led at once to the medical officer. The women stood in an endless line outside his door, and in the end it was announced: “No more examinations. The medical officer has gone home.”
So Petra was led back to her cell and she discovered that, meanwhile, supper had been issued and her share eaten up by the others. It didn’t matter very much; she had eaten enough for the time being at the police station. She listened with only half an ear to her fellow prisoners accusing one another—it might well be that the Hawk had stolen her portion, as the fat woman in the lower bed said (already the senior inmate, of two days’ standing).
But never mind. It would be better if they didn’t talk about it, for the Hawk became wild again and attacked Petra with noisy abuse. To have been put in the same cell with her was unpleasant, but that, too, must be endured. The girl couldn’t go on forever with her shouting and raving. When she had first come in she had still been as limp as a wet rag, but now she was restless once more. Again and again she attacked Petra and wanted to beat her. But she no longer had as much strength as formerly; alcohol and cocaine having done their work, Petra could ward her off with one hand. Although she made no reply, nevertheless the Hawk stormed more and more furiously.
That was tiresome. Under these continual attacks and this shouting Petra could not think as she would have liked to. There was the matter of Wolfgang—would he return that night? Would he ever return? She knew what the authorities thought of her and what they would tell him at the police station. What would he then think of her? In his place she would have come all the quicker, but with him you never could tell.
She looked around the cell. She would have liked to ask the gray-haired woman on the bed about the visiting hours, but the Hawk was shouting louder than ever. It seemed, as a matter of fact, not to disturb the others at all, not even to interest them. Two nut-brown gypsies with impudent, restless, birdlike eyes were squatting side by side on one corner of a mattress, whispering loudly, with many gesticulations; they looked at nobody else in the cell. The tall pale girl in the other lower bed had already crept under her blanket: one saw only her shoulders convulsively shaking. No doubt she was weeping. On the stool perched a little fat woman who, scowling, picked her nose.
The gray-haired woman sitting on the edge of her bed looked up and said angrily: “Shut up, you silly bitch. Sock her a couple, jail-birdie, so that she spits teeth.”
