“Good night,” said Amanda Backs curtly and went toward the dark staff-house.
The coachman’s wife stood for a moment there, looking enviously after her. She was thinking how lucky such young unmarried girls were and how little they knew it. Then she sighed and went toward her home, to her scuffling children and nagging husband.
II
Frau von Teschow, after the shock of that evening’s devotions, felt a craving for peace and quietness. She wished to see and hear nothing more, only to go to bed as quickly as possible.
Supported on one side by Fraulein Jutta von Kuckhoff, on the other by Elias, she staggered upstairs into the big mahogany bedroom with its three windows. Fraulein von Kuckhoff undressed her trembling, tearful friend, and at last Frau von Teschow lay in her wide mahogany bed, looking no bigger than a child, with her little wizened bird’s head, a white nightcap over her thin hair and a loosely knitted bed-jacket round her shoulders.
“Oh, my Lord and my God, Jutta,” she wailed, “what a world! God forgive me for passing judgment—but how shameless the young people are! What will Lehnich say? And Superintendent Kolterjan?”
“Everything is good for something, Belinde,” said Jutta sagely. “Don’t agitate yourself any more. Are you still feeling cold?”
Yes, Frau von Teschow was still cold. Fraulein von Kuckhoff rang for Elias, who received an order to get two hot-water bottles from the kitchen.
“Oh, Elias!” The servant was just about to leave.
“Yes, madam?”
“Tell the cook to make me a cup of peppermint tea. Yes—and very strong. And with plenty of sugar. Yes. Oh, God!”
“Very good, madam.”
“Oh, Elias!”
“Yes, madam?”
“Perhaps she’d better make me some mulled wine, not peppermint tea. Peppermint tea makes one belch so. But no water, only red wine. Red wine already contains water. Oh, God! And a little nutmeg. And
“Certainly, madam.”
“And, Elias, one moment! She’s to put a dash of rum in it—I feel so ill. Not much, but naturally one must be able to taste it. Not too little, Elias, you understand?”
Elias, bald and getting on for seventy, understood quite well. He was going away when a faint call from the invalid reached him in the doorway. “Oh, Elias!”
“Yes, madam?”
“Please come nearer.… You can inquire in the kitchen—but not as if it came from me, quite casually …”
Elias waited. Madam must be feeling very ill; she could hardly talk. It would be better if she had her mulled wine quickly, but he couldn’t give the order yet. Frau von Teschow still had something on her mind.
“Elias—do ask—but without attracting attention—whether she—you know whom I mean—has gone to bed. Yes, do ask, but without attracting attention.”
For a while the invalid still felt very poorly, and Fraulein von Kuckhoff had plenty to do, what with proverbs and advice, or warming the cold hands between hers, or stroking the aching forehead. Then the hot-water bottles arrived and the mulled wine smelling strongly of rum—its fragrance alone revived Frau von Teschow. Sitting up in bed, she received, with compressed lips, the message that “she” had gone out.
“Thank you, Elias. I’m very sad. Good night. I don’t suppose I shall sleep.”
The old servant assumed a suitably troubled expression on hearing this farewell, wished madam good night, and sat down in the anteroom. He must wait for the Geheimrat, to take off his boots. Then his duty would be ended.
But the waiting was not too tiresome for him; he had his own interests. He pulled out a thick pocketbook, formerly brown, now almost black, and a long list with many numbers, names and words. A packet of brown bank notes came out of the pocketbook, the list was unfolded, and he started comparing, marking and writing.
That evening was a bad one for his old mistress, but a good one for him. He had that day succeeded in buying up five prewar brown red-stamped 1,000-mark notes.
Like many Germans, particularly elderly people, faced by the monstrous fantasy of inflation, Elias, too, refused to believe in a general devaluation. A man who had been saving assiduously for more than fifty years had to retain something; it was impossible that the whirlpool should swallow up everything. And it did not require much thought to convince him that “real money” from prewar times would remain “real.” This was already borne out by the statement on the notes themselves that they were redeemable at the Reichsbank for gold. And gold was “real.” Money which had been issued during or after the war was not, of course, “real.” It was the war which had started the fraud of “linen” shirts made of paper and “leather” shoes of cardboard!
When old Elias first noticed the signs of inflation, he began to buy 1,000-mark notes. There were always people who could not think so deeply as he did. Certainly he had heard that the Reichsbank in Berlin no longer redeemed these notes for gold; but that, of course, was only bluff, intended for fools. The Reichsbank wanted to call in its own notes cheaply—to save its scanty gold. Elias, however, being no fool, did not hand over his notes cheaply to the Reichsbank. He waited; he could afford to wait; one day he would receive gold, as was plainly stated on the notes.
Thus it started—in the beginning as a capital investment. Then Elias found that this investment had its own science; in his old age, without knowing it, he discovered the delights of collecting.
There were so many kinds of brown 1,000-mark notes! Of course, one learned at the very outset that only notes with the red stamp were valid. Those with the green stamp originated during the war or postwar times and should not be collected. But there were notes with one red stamp and some which bore two red stamps; bank- notes with no fiber strips and notes with a blue fiber strip on the left side and others with the strip on the right side. There were notes bearing eight signatures, some with nine, and some even with ten. There were notes with the series letters A, B, C, D, followed by seven and eight figures. Yet it was the same brown 1,000-mark note, pictures and text never changing—but with what a multitude of variations!
Old Elias jotted down and compared; he was now no longer collecting brown 1,000-mark notes, he was collecting variations, differences, distinctions. His big, round, smooth head grew crimson over his task. He beamed when he found a specimen which he had not seen before. He was firmly convinced that its distinctive features were secret signs made by connoisseurs for connoisseurs. They possessed a significance. He who knew how to interpret them would be rewarded with much gold thereby.
Let the old Geheimrat laugh at him! With all his cunning the old gentleman understood nothing of these secret matters. He believed what the people in the banks told him; he believed what was printed in the newspapers. Old Elias was not so credulous, and for that reason he was richer than his master; he possessed more than a hundred thousand marks in gold currency—or in currency as good as gold.
Tonight he was very happy; he had three perfectly new specimens among his recent purchases, among them a note from the year 1876. He had not known of any 1,000-mark notes of such an early date—his earliest hitherto was of 1884. He would think twice before going so far as to change these notes for gold. They were so beautiful with their engravings of human forms which, as he had heard, represented Industry, Trade and Transport.
“Industry, Trade and Transport,” he murmured and stared at the notes awe-struck. The labor of a whole people! Except that Agriculture was not included, which seemed a pity.
What would he do with gold? He could not carry about with him over a hundred thousand marks in gold. With gold he would be in a state of perpetual anxiety—whereas this paper money was so beautiful.
The old servant was happy. Each note was carefully folded before it found its way back into his pocketbook. The bank-note presses in Berlin harassed the people in an ever-increasing delirium—but they had presented Elias with happiness, great happiness. With beautiful notes.
The mulled wine had had its effect. From her pillows Frau von Teschow, feeling more lively, spoke to her friend: “Would you read to me, Jutta?”
“From the Bible?” asked Fraulein von Kuckhoff, quite agreeable.
But this suggestion did not find favor tonight. The evening devotions directed to the conversion of an erring girl had miscarried; the Bible and its God were rather in disgrace.
