while inside they were playing his color. And for him there would be no more playing.
The Rittmeister, in a tone intended to indicate that the past was forgiven and forgotten, but which still sounded very angry, said: “Pagel, you’ve also got some counters to change. It’s a pity to throw them away.”
Pagel dived into his pocket. Why doesn’t the fellow come to let us out? he thought. Naturally they want us to go on playing. He was trying to count the chips in his pocket. If there were seven or thirteen he would play one last time. He hadn’t played properly at all yet, today.
There must be more than thirteen, he couldn’t make out the number. Taking them out of his pocket he encountered the Rittmeister’s glance, which seemed to motion him toward the door.
There were neither seven nor thirteen. I must go home after all, he thought sadly. But he no longer had a home! The unsuspecting Studmann now stepped into the staircase to call the man with the light. Pagel looked at the counters in his hand. There were seventeen.
He walked up to the Rittmeister and said in an undertone, with a glance through the open door at the stairs: “I’m not leaving yet. I’m going on playing.”
The Rittmeister said nothing, but his eye flickered once—as if something had flown into it.
Wolfgang stepped up to the change-table, drew out a packet of bank notes, the second. “Chips for the lot!” While the man counted and recounted, he turned to the Rittmeister and cried, almost exultingly: “Tonight I shall win a fortune. I know it.”
The Rittmeister moved his head slightly, as if he too knew it, as if it was indeed a natural thing.
“And you?” asked Pagel.
“I’ve no more money with me.” It sounded strangely guilty, and while saying it the Rittmeister glanced almost with fear at the open door.
“I can lend you some. Play on your own account.” Pagel held out a packet of money.
“No, no,” said the Rittmeister. “It’s too much. I don’t want so much.”
(Neither remembered at that moment the scene in Lutter and Wegner’s, when young Pagel had first offered him money and had been rebuked with the most scornful indignation.)
“If you really want to win,” explained Pagel, “you must have sufficient capital. I know!”
Again the Rittmeister nodded. Slowly he reached for the packet.
When von Studmann returned, the anteroom was empty. “Where are the gentlemen?”
The sergeant major made a movement with his head in the direction of the roulette room.
Von Studmann stamped his foot and went toward it. Then he turned back. I wouldn’t dream of it, he thought angrily; I’m not his governess, however much he needs one.
A door opened. The girl with whom Pagel had had the quarrel stepped out.
“Can you take me downstairs?” she asked tonelessly, speaking as if she were not quite conscious. “I feel bad, I would like some fresh air.”
Von Studmann, the eternal nursery governess, offered her his arm. “Certainly. I wanted to go anyway.” The sergeant major took a silver-gray wrap from the wardrobe and draped it over the woman’s naked shoulders.
The two descended the stairs without saying a word, the girl leaning heavily on Studmann’s arm.
VIII
The spotter, the same one who had shown them up, had been standing downstairs, taking good care not to hear the calls for him. Every player who wanted to go had to be given the opportunity of changing his mind. But when von Studmann appeared in the passage with the girl on his arm, he was fully capable of dealing with the situation. The Valuta Vamp, or Walli, he knew, and also that gold and love often play ring-around-the-rosy with each other.
“Taxi?” he asked. And before Studmann could reply, said: “Just wait here. I’ll get one from Wittenbergplatz.” With that he vanished. In the dark open passage of an unknown house, an unknown girl on his arm, von Studmann had time to reflect on his ambiguous situation. And upstairs was a gambling club. Now only the cops were missing.
It was all very awkward, and today had already fully covered von Studmann’s requirements so far as awkward situations were concerned. In these times a man never knew what was going to happen in the next quarter of an hour, whether things were what they seemed. He had honestly been pleased to meet his old regimental comrade that morning. Prackwitz had behaved with extraordinary decency; without his intervention nothing would have reached Studmann’s ear of a Dr. Schrock; he would have been kicked out more or less with ignominy. The prospect, too, of going with him out of this bottomless pit into the peaceful country had been very agreeable—and now the selfsame Prackwitz was sitting upstairs, throwing away his money in the silliest manner, and had already called him a “children’s nurse.”
He required no children’s nurse, he had said. Yet he did and at once. When Studmann recalled young Pagel’s absurd bundles of money, and the vulture-like nose and rapacious glance of the croupier, then he knew that— children’s nurse or no children’s nurse—he ought to go back at once and put an end to this suicidal gambling. But this unfortunate girl on his arm! She didn’t seem quite herself—and no wonder, after that heavy blow. She was trembling, her teeth chattered, she kept whispering something about snow. About snow—in a foul, damp heat that was enough to kill you! It was clear that Studmann ought to go upstairs at once and get his friend away, but it was just as necessary first to take this girl safely somewhere—to relatives. He wanted to learn her address, but she wouldn’t listen. Her sole response was brusque. Let him leave her in peace! Where she lived was no business of his!
A taxi stopped outside. Studmann was not certain whether it was the one meant for him—the spotter was nowhere to be seen, the girl whispered something about snow, von Studmann stood, hesitating. Finally, however, he slouched out of the doorway into the taxi. “Sorry to have kept you waiting. I felt as if there was a nasty niff in the air. You know—the cops’ gambling squad! Those chaps can’t sleep quiet for one night; on their rotten wage, hunger keeps them awake.” He whistled the tune of—“And I sleep so bad and I dream so much.” “Well, hurry up, Count, into the bone-shaker with you. Don’t forget me! There, that’s nice. Some more cash the old woman doesn’t know about. Well, where to, Fraulein?”
He waited in vain. Von Studmann looked doubtfully at the girl reclining next to him in the taxi.
“Going home, Walli?” the spotter bellowed. “Where do you sleep now?”
She murmured something about being left in peace.
“All right, hop it, mate,” said the spotter to the driver. “Down Kurfurstendamm. She’ll soon wake up there.”
The taxi started, and Studmann was annoyed with himself for not getting out.
Later, when he looked back on it, it seemed as if they must have driven for hours and hours. Up streets, down streets—dark streets, brightly lit streets, empty streets, streets full of people. From time to time the girl tapped on the window, got out, went into a cafe or spoke to a man on the pavement …
She returned slowly, said to the chauffeur: “Drive on!” And the taxi set off again. She sobbed, her teeth chattered more and more, she muttered incoherently to herself.
“I beg your pardon?” said von Studmann.
She did not reply. As far as she was concerned he wasn’t there. He could have got out long ago and driven back to his friends. If he remained it was not because of her; he was not such an uncritical admirer of the feminine as Rittmeister von Prackwitz. And he knew now what he was sitting next to. He had guessed what the girl was hunting for. “Snow,” he remembered, had also been a subject of discussion in his hotel. A lavatory attendant in the cafe there had been trafficking in it recently. Of course, he had been dismissed—even the most modern hotel didn’t go quite so far toward meeting the wishes of its guests in crazy times.
No, if he still drove on with the girl, if he waited with increasing tension to see whether her inquiries met with success, it was because he was struggling with a decision. As soon as she was successful he would decide one way or the other.
The spotter’s remark about the cops’ gambling squad had given von Studmann the idea that the best thing would be for him to telephone the squad and have the club raided. What he had previously heard about these things, and the taxi driver confirmed it, was that the players had hardly anything to fear. Their names were taken, at the worst they were punished with a small fine, and that was all. The ones severely dealt with were the exploiters, the club organizers—which was only just.
