VII
The dusk was thickening into darkness. It was after nine o’clock and the street lamps were already lit. From the window of Wolfgang’s room Frau Pagel looked out into the gardens now almost shrouded by night. In the background, however, there were twinkling lights and a reddish glow over the town—perhaps the mother was reflecting under which of the distant lights her son now sat squandering the filched money.
Impatiently she turned round to Minna, who was packing a trunk. “Hurry up, Minna,” she said. “He may come any moment for his things.”
But Minna did not look up from the shoes with their carefully inserted trees. “He won’t come, madam,” said she, placing the shoes in their small linen bags.
Frau Pagel grew angry. Minna’s answer sounded almost as if she were being talked out of expecting her longed-for visitor. “You know quite well what I mean,” she replied curtly. “Then he’ll send somebody for his things.”
Minna, unruffled, unflurried, went on with her packing. “There was no need to give him your best cabin trunk, madam. You won’t have a decent one to go away with next spring to Ems.”
“Silly creature!” said Frau Pagel, looking out of the window. She couldn’t see the street for the treetops, but in the deep silence she heard every footstep, every approaching car.
“Shall I put the bathing wrap in, too, madam?” asked Minna.
“What? Oh, the bathing wrap! Of course. Everything which belongs to him is to be packed.”
Minna made a sour face. “Then I must go up into the loft and fetch his books. I don’t know whether the porter is still up. I couldn’t manage the heavy cases by myself.”
“There’s time for the books,” said the old woman, annoyed by these continual difficulties. “You can ask him whether he wants them, when he comes.”
“He won’t come, madam,” said the old servant, monotonously dogmatic.
This time Frau Pagel had not been listening; this time she had no need to get angry at her maid’s obstinacy. Leaning out of the window, she strained her ears, listening for one footstep.…
The maid, although she had her back to her mistress, felt that something was happening. She stopped her packing, turned round, a bathing suit in her hand, and saw the listening figure. “Madam!” she said pleadingly.
“Wolfgang!” Frau Pagel called out of the window, doubtingly at first, then with certainty. “Wolfgang! Yes, wait, my boy, I’m coming. I’ll let you in immediately, I’ll open the front door for you at once.”
She wheeled round, her face flushed, the eyes under the white hair shining as of old.
“Hurry, Minna, the key! The young master’s waiting. Run!” And without heeding Minna’s imploring words, she ran into the dark corridor, switched on the light, seized some keys at random from the shelf beside the console table and, followed by Minna, ran downstairs.
She tried the house door, but the keys did not fit. “Quick, Minna, quick!” she called feverishly. “In case he changes his mind—he was always changeable.”
Minna, who had fallen silent, pressed the handle, and the house door, which had not been locked, opened. Frau Pagel ran through the small front garden and pushed open the little iron gate which led to the street. “Wolfgang, my boy! Where are you?”
A solitary wanderer, some crank who longed for fresh air and the smell of growing things rather than for bars and noise, started with surprise. In the glow of the solitary gas lamp he saw before him a white-haired, very agitated old lady; behind her an elderly maid with a bathing suit in her hand. “Yes?” he inquired stupidly.
The old lady stopped short and turned away so suddenly that she almost fell. Throwing him an angry glance, the elderly maid with the bathing suit followed her, took the old lady by the arm, and the two vanished into the house.
They don’t lock up, observed the wanderer to himself. Queer old hens, to scare a chap so! And he went his way, looking for an even quieter street.
The two old women went slowly upstairs without exchanging a word. Minna felt madam’s hand on her arm tremble violently, and she noticed how difficult her mistress found the stairs. The flat door stood open, the landing was brightly lit. Minna closed the door. She was not sure whether her mistress preferred to go into the young master’s room or to her own; it would certainly be better if she had a rest after all this excitement. But Minna, stubborn, obstinate Minna, had learned in her life one lesson which most women never learn—the lesson that there is a time for speaking and a time for silence. This was a time for silence.
Gently she led her mistress across the corridor until a gentle pull at her arm revealed that she wanted to go into the young master’s room again. The trunk stood open before them. A drawer had been pulled out; on top was the young master’s blue-and-white striped bathing wrap.
Frau Pagel stopped on seeing this. She cleared her throat. “Take out the bathing wrap, Minna!” she said coldly.
Minna did so and put the garment on the sofa.
“Take out everything,” said Frau Pagel more angrily. “You must start packing all over again, Minna. I find I can’t spare my trunk.”
Without a word Minna began the unpacking, her mistress, with a severe, hard face, watching her. Perhaps she hoped for some slackening, some slightest indication of the servant’s taking up an attitude about the matter; but Minna’s face remained expressionless, her movements were neither particularly quick nor particularly slow.
Suddenly Frau Pagel turned away. She wanted to escape to her own dark room. But she could not get as far as that. The tears burst forth, blinding her, and she leaned against the lintel weeping unrestrainedly.
“Ah, Minna, Minna,” she whispered. “Am I to lose him, too, the one person I love?”
But the old servant who during a lifetime had thought and worked only for her mistress’s benefit, who had fetched and carried according to her mistress’s whims, and who was at the moment again forgotten—the old servant seized her mistress’s hand almost imploringly: “He’ll come again, madam,” she whispered consolingly. “Our Wolf will certainly return.”
VIII
Sophie Kowalewski, Countess Mutzbauer’s former chambermaid, had spent a very pleasant evening at the Christian Hostel. Up to supper time she had rummaged among her things, triumphantly examining as final proprietor all that she had carried off from her former mistress, by no means a little. Sophie could feel that she was expensively turned out. Neulohe, when it saw all this finery, would burst with envy.
Having examined her possessions, she now dressed up in them, for she had to wear something suitable for the evening meal in a hostel. With the instinctive adaptation to environment which was Sophie’s strong point, she chose a blue dress and a shantung silk blouse. For truly religious people the skirt was possibly a little too short, but nothing could be done about that now. She possessed no skirt which was longer; however, she made up her mind not to cross her legs. The low front of the blouse she corrected with a light-colored silk modesty vest.
Only a very little lipstick, only a hint of red on her cheeks, and Sophie was ready. She went downstairs to the dining hall. The texts on the wall, some in poker-work, some in colored cardboard, delighted her. The tables had ugly but elaborately carved legs, and the tablecloths were of gray crepe paper. Where the crepe had been stained it was covered by a paper serviette. This was economical, practical, and exceedingly ugly—in Sophie’s opinion.
The soup was thin and originated from a soup cube, and to make up for this the green peas were thickened with too much flour; the pork chop was far from large and the fat had a smell. This execrable food Sophie, the spoiled Sophie, ate with the greatest pleasure. It was fun for her to be living with the pious. So this was how they lived, inflicting privations on one another solely for the purpose of mortifying the flesh and standing well with the Lord, Who, after all, did not exist.
With particular interest Sophie looked at the waitresses, trying to make out whether they were fallen women who had been rescued or whether they really liked their present occupation. If they had ever fallen, she decided, it must have been very long ago—they were all so elderly. And they all looked discontented. This place couldn’t be— as advertised in the text above the sideboard—a fat green pasture.
When the meal was over, it was half-past eight—one couldn’t go to bed so early. For a while Sophie stood irresolutely at the dining-hall window, looking at the rain-soaked Wilhelmstrasse. She had been out only in the West End; perhaps for a change she might have a look at the places of amusement in the Center. But no—she decided to go to bed early that night and generally to be perfectly steady throughout her entire holiday. Going out that evening
