They sat on a bench. The dry air had already sucked out the moisture from the soil. Before them stretched the New Lake, dotted with bush-clad islets, and above them the treetops were motionless. From the Zoological Gardens they heard the roar of wild beasts.
“My father-in-law,” said Herr von Prackwitz dreamily, “still retains eight thousand acres of woodland. Although the old man is so stingy in many ways, he’s generous over the shooting—you could kill many a handsome buck.”
Yes, in the increasing dusk Neulohe changed to a quite very remote island, and Herr von Studmann was not unreceptive to such a delineation. That morning he had rejected the idea of a flight into the country. But the afternoon, with its varied experiences, had proved that life today could break the nerve of a soldier who had been four years at the Front. It was not so much the grotesque painful incident with Reichsfreiherr Baron von Bergen— thank God, utter madmen were not as yet so common in contemporary life that one was forced to reckon with them daily—but the incident had laid bare in a frightful manner the inhuman nature of that hotel industry to which von Studmann had devoted his energies and zeal. It had been his belief that, in carrying out his duties conscientiously, he had earned, if not affection, at least respect. He had, however, seen himself the object of shameless, insolent curiosity, from the most recently engaged elevator boy to the managing director. If the temperamental Dr. Schrock had not intervened with his somewhat unusual views on lunatics, he (von Studmann) would have been discharged without any consideration whatever and at a moment’s notice, as if he were some sort of criminal.
As it was, he had, on his way out, been intercepted by the managing director who, in spite of his monumental appearance, had taken a very serpentine course between on-the-one-hand and on-the-other; a gratuity—in good foreign currency, of course—was now pressed on him, and the warmest recommendations assured him later. “Yes, my dear colleague, I believe this rather trifling though exceedingly disagreeable incident will turn out to your advantage. If I have understood Dr. Schrock rightly, he expects you to put in a very heavy claim for damages—a very heavy claim.”
“No,” said Herr von Studmann, emerging from a reverie on his bench in the Tiergarten, “I shouldn’t like to take advantage of that young scamp’s moral weakness.”
“What?” asked von Prackwitz, starting. He had just been talking of wild-boar hunting in Neulohe. “No, of course not. I understand that quite well. It’s not necessary either.”
“Forgive me,” said von Studmann, “I was still here in my thoughts. In Berlin. I’ve been doing very stupid work. Rather like charring—one gets tired out and next morning everything is dirty again.”
“Of course. Female work. At my place …”
“Excuse me, I couldn’t live with you either and do nothing. A real job of work …”
“You’d be a great help,” said von Prackwitz pensively. “I told you this morning about the various political and military complications. At times I’m rather isolated—rather perplexed.”
“So many people are running away from their jobs,” went on Studmann. “To work, to do anything at all, has suddenly become idiotic. As long as people received a fixed tangible value at the end of the week or the month, even the most boring office job had some reason. But the fall of the mark has opened their eyes. Why do we live? they suddenly ask. Why are we doing anything? Anything at all? They don’t see why they should work merely to be paid in a few worthless scraps of paper.”
“This devaluation is the most infamous cheating of the nation ever known,” said von Prackwitz.
“This afternoon opened my eyes. If I really came to live with you, Prackwitz, I’d have to have a real job. Hard work, you understand!”
Von Prackwitz racked his brain. Horse-breaking, he thought. But my nags already have more exercise than is good for them. Scribbling in the office? But I can’t ask Studmann to make out the pay sheets. In his mind’s eye he saw the Manor office with its old-fashioned green safe and ugly deal shelves full of out-of-date law books. A hideously dusty and neglected hole!
Von Studmann was more practical than his friend. “To my knowledge,” he prompted, “they have agricultural students on many estates.”
“They do exist,” confirmed Prackwitz. “A terrible crowd. They pay a premium—otherwise nobody would take them on—keep their own horse, stick their nose into everything, understand nothing, don’t lend a hand anywhere, but hold forth very grandly about agriculture.”
“Well, then, not that,” decided von Studmann. “What other openings are there?”
“All sorts of things. For instance, bailiffs who hand out the fodder, supervise the feeding, milking and grooming of the animals, keep stock books, work with the threshing machine. Then there are outdoor bailiffs who arrange about the plowing, manuring and harvesting, all the fieldwork, and have to be present …”
“On a horse?”
“Bicycle,” replied von Prackwitz. “At least at my place.”
“So you have a bailiff?”
“I’ll sack him tomorrow, he’s a lazy drunken fellow.”
“But not because of me, Prackwitz. I couldn’t become your bailiff straight away. You’d say, ‘Studmann, manure that rye,’ and upon my soul it’d be a difficult job for me. I haven’t the slightest idea about it—except for natural manuring, which would be insufficient, I fear.”
The two men laughed heartily, and stood up. Von Studmann’s brainstorm was over. Prackwitz was sure his friend would join him. Walking along, it was agreed that von Studmann should come to Neulohe as something in between a student, a confidential clerk and a supervisor.
“You’ll travel with me tomorrow morning, Studmann. You’ll have your things packed in half an hour, if I know anything of you. If only I could get hold of another sensible fellow now, to take charge of the people I’ve engaged today, the harvest would do very well. Oh, God, Studmann, I’m so glad! My first happy hour for I don’t know how long. Listen, let’s go to some decent place and have something to eat; it’ll do you good after the wretched drink. What do you say to Lutter and Wegner’s? Fine! Now, if I could get another man, also from the army if possible, an ex-sergeant major or someone like that, who knows how to handle people …”
At Lutter and Wegner’s they went into the cellar restaurant. The army man whom the Rittmeister needed was sitting at a small corner table. He had not been a sergeant major but a second lieutenant and at present was rather drunk.
X
“There’s Second Lieutenant Pagel!” said von Studmann.
“There’s Bombshell Pagel!” said Prackwitz.
And both saw vividly again that scene which had made this same Pagel unforgettable among their many comrades of the World War, or rather, for that war was over, of the last desperate attempt by German troops to hold the Baltic Provinces against the Red onslaught. It had been in the spring of 1919, during that wild attack of the Germans and Letts which finally liberated Riga.
Young Pagel, looking hardly older than a schoolboy, had been one of Rittmeister von Prackwitz’s motley detachment. He may have been seventeen, but more probably was only sixteen. Intended for an officer’s career, he had been thrust from the military college at Gross-Lichterfelde into a delirious world exhausted with fighting and no longer wishing to have anything to do with officers. Uprooted and not knowing what to do, the boy had wandered farther and farther into East Prussia until he fell in with men whom he might call comrades but was not forced to address as “Comrade.”
This beardless youth who had never before smelled gunpowder was both moving and ridiculous in his delight at being among veterans who spoke his language, wore uniforms, gave and accepted orders, and really carried them out, too. Nothing could damp his ardor or his desire to get acquainted with all there was to know in the shortest possible time—machine guns, mine mortars, and the one and only armored train.
Until it came to an attack; until hostile machine guns as well as friendly ones started to rattle and the frist shells whined overhead to burst in the rear; until the enthusiastic schoolboy play turned into reality. Then Prackwitz and Studmann had seen young Pagel turn pale and silent, flinching at every scream of a shell and ducking his head.
With a glance the two officers had understood each other. To the boy they said nothing. Green with terror, with sweating brow and wet hands, he was fighting against his fear; to them he was a bridge between the present and those inconceivably remote days in August 1914, when they themselves had heard this screaming for the first time, and had flinched. All had to go through that experience; everybody, once and for all, had to fight down the
