the fox says ‘Good Night.’
“Indeed, Amanda! Don’t be so low,” protested Black Minna. “Madam means well.”
“I seem to hear the word scram,” said Amanda Backs again, breaking off the discussion. That the old lady should have appointed Black Minna as spy was really too ridiculous. But everyone knew how childishly she fussed over that aged slatternly female. Whenever Minna got into trouble again—and the old lady noticed it only when the midwife arrived, although with such a scraggy, bony woman it had long been apparent to everyone else—then the mistress flew into a passion, abused the woman and once again cast her off forever and ever, telling her to remove from the almshouse where she lived, as utterly incorrigible.
Then Minna would shriek and carry on terribly. Sobbing, she would load her possessions on a little handcart —not everything, however, only enough to impress madam, but not forgetting a single one of her many children— and march through the village howling, and singing hymns. For the last time she would call at the Manor, push the brass bell-knob and ask Elias with many tears to give the dear good lady her blessings and gratitude. And could she be allowed to kiss her hands in farewell?
Thereupon Elias, who knew this play by heart, would say “No.” Whereupon Black Minna wept even more bitterly and departed with her fatherless children into the cold wide world, as far away as the curbstone at the Manor gateway. There she sat and wept and waited and, according to the extent of her mistress’s anger, had to sit one, two, or even five hours, and sometimes as long as half a day.
But she knew she would not wait forever, and if she had not known by experience, she could always tell by the curtains in the house. For the old lady opened and closed them with her trembling hands and could not refrain from gazing on her erring sheep.
But if the scandal happened to be a bad one, and Frau von Teschow had learned from the village magistrate via her husband that this time three men were definitely involved and perhaps even five—not to mention those who were shielded out of “sympathy,” for in her relationships Minna distinguished between “sympathetic” men and casuals—then madam hardened her soft, worldly-unwise heart, thought over all this Sodom and Gomorrah business and remembered how often Black Minna had promised to mend her ways.
Then she would let fall the curtain and say to her friend, old Fraulein von Kuckhoff, who lived with her: “No, Jutta, this time I won’t relent. And I won’t look at her out of the window.” And old Fraulein von Kuckhoff, with the black velvet ribbon round her neck, would energetically nod her little vulture-like head and remark in her flowery but precise manner: “Certainly, Belinde—constant dropping wears away even a stone.”
Yes, and half an hour had barely elapsed when there would be a gentle knock at the door. “Pardon me, madam, but I have to report that she’s exposing herself,” old Elias announced.
And indeed, when the two ladies rushed each to her window, there sat the poor homeless creature on the curbstone, her blouse unbuttoned, feeding the youngest fruit of her sins.
“Jutta, we cannot take the responsibility of this new scandal,” her mistress would sigh. And Jutta would remark obscurely: “Wasps do not attack bad fruit,” which Frau von Teschow then regarded as approval of her intentions.
“No, Elias, I’ll go myself,” she would say hurriedly, for although Elias was now well in his sixties it was uncertain whether he was a match for such a temptation. So old Frau von Teschow personally went down to the sinner who, when she saw madam step out, quickly did up her blouse. For her mistress might perhaps notice that it was only stageplay; Black Minna couldn’t feed any of her children, and had brought them all up on the bottle. That, however, was something madam did not need to know.
Then Minna and her mistress would go to the almshouse, the old woman walking beside the ridiculous barrow-load of furniture, the idea never entering her head that people would sneer or laugh. She had softened and humbled her heart, reminding herself how even she had almost yielded to temptation forty years ago when smart Lieutenant von Pritzwitz had wanted to kiss her behind the door—at a time when she was as good as engaged to Horst-Heinz.
And when she had accompanied Black Minna across the threshold of the almshouse, she was at the stage of understanding and forgiving all. Even if she were not quite so silly as to take the sinner’s tears at their face value, she nevertheless thought in her heart: She does mean it a little, after all, and she’s a tiny bit sorry—how do I know how much repentance God demands of us?
That, then, was how old Frau von Teschow thought and acted—and even Amanda Backs would have regarded it as nice and kind, if only madam’s good heart had been inclined as lovingly and forgivingly to all sinners. But man’s heart is strange—and why should an old woman’s heart be any different? What she forgave an artful female like Minna ten times, she would not once overlook in a young girl.
And in Amanda Backs least of all. For Amanda was brazen and shameless in her speech; she smiled joyously at all men; wore skirts so short that they were hardly skirts at all; never wept over a mistake; never repented, and never sang a hymn, only popular songs such as “What are you doing with your knee, dear Hans?” and “What a woman dreams in spring” …
No, Amanda knew quite well what was in store for her at the prayer meeting. But that Black Minna should have been assigned as her supervisor roused her to especial anger, and for a moment she seriously considered whether she should lock the two women up in the coop and slip off to her little Hans—it would be a glorious joke.
But however forward and impudent Amanda was with her tongue, she was prudent and circumspect in deed—which a poultry maid, of course, has to be above all things. For poultry are the most difficult creatures in the world, ten times more temperamental than a circus full of wild beasts, and obey only levelheaded persons. Yes, out of Meier’s window yesterday evening Amanda in her rage had talked big and threatened to leave madam—but all the same (the human heart is indeed strange) she was fond of her little blubber-lipped Hans Meier, and even the Garden of Eden itself would have appeared desolate without him.
So she didn’t slam the door of the hen house but contented herself with chasing out the two wingless hens, and brought her subjects to roost with a click and a cluck, counted their heads and found that none was missing. “There, you old hens,” she said emphatically, “since you have helped me so wonderfully I’ll scrub your pots for you in return.”
“Lor’, Amanda,” groaned the fat cook, her whalebone corset creaking, “if one didn’t know you were only joking …”
“And how do you know that?” asked Amanda Backs very aggressively. Aggressively she walked between the two women, who had now fallen silent, aggressively she bounced along in her short skirt. For she was very young, and the bitter experiences of her childhood had not been able to rob her of an appetite for life or of the freshness of youth; to be young was good fun and rows were fun and love amused her—if her mistress imagined she could rob her of this fun by hymns and prayers, then she was very much mistaken.
Such thoughts as Amanda’s might well carry one over the scrubbing of the sootiest pot, but they were not quite suitable for evening prayers in the Manor. By this time people had been sitting there quite a while—the usual crowd, a rather imposing assembly. For madam saw to it that not only those who were in her service came to these meetings, complete with chick and child, but that any villager who wanted a little firewood from the forest in the winter, or to gather berries and mushrooms there in summer, obtained permission for this only by sitting through many a service. Pastor Lehnich often did not have so many parishioners in the church of a Sunday as the old lady did evening after evening in her chapel.
“And you, Amanda?” she had asked. Amanda, starting out of her sinful thoughts, had stared around, and knew nothing of what was happening. The little geese on the back benches, the ones in their early ‘teens who laughed at everything, had of course begun to snigger. Madam, however, spoke quite mildly. “And your verse, Amanda?”
Oh, yes, they were having “singing in turns.” That meant that everybody had to name from the hymn book a verse which was then sung by all; which often led to a medley of vesper songs, dirges, hymns, penitential chants, hymns of the Passion, hymns of Jesus, and christening hymns. But it entertained them and livened up the wearisome evening. Even the old lady at her organ got red in the face, so quickly did she have to turn over the pages of her music book and leap from one melody to another.
“ ‘Commit thy ways unto the Lord,’ ” Amanda called out hurriedly before the sniggering could turn into laughter.
