by Hans Fallada
Violet was bored by these tales of woe. The forester ought to know what to expect from boasting about his heroic battle with the poacher. But when he announced that he had also met little Bailiff Meier in Frankfurt, she began to pay attention. Little Meier was a little man no longer; he seemed to have become a big man; he had money, a lot of money. In detail the forester described how Herr Meier was dressed, his elegance, the valuable rings on his fingers, his gold watch with a spring lid. But little Meier hadn’t become arrogant or haughty; he had invited Kniebusch to supper at a fine restaurant. There had been Rhine wine and afterwards champagne, finally capped with a red Burgundy which little Meier had called “Turk’s blood.” The forester licked his lips at the memory of this carousal.
“Just another profiteer!” said Vi contemptuously. “Black Meier’s cut out for that. And of course in return for the booze you told him everything that’s happening in Neulohe, I suppose?”
The forester turned red and protested vigorously against this imputation. He hadn’t even said that the Rittmeister was no longer there. And besides, they had talked about very different things.…
“What did you talk about?” asked Vi aggressively.
But the forester was not able to remember so exactly.
“You were drunk, Kniebusch,” she affirmed. “You’ve completely forgotten what you talked about. Well, so long.”
“Good day, Fräulein!” stammered the old man, and Violet continued her way alone.
The forester’s wretched babble bored her, the wood bored her, her grandmother’s pious phrases bored her. Her grandfather was always away on mysterious journeys or shut up with the magistrate Haase or silent and thoughtful. She kept out of Räder’s way and hadn’t even asked him what he had done with her letter. (But now she locked her door, both day and night, despite her mother’s astonished protests.) Oh, everything bored her, got on her nerves.… She asked herself what she used to do the whole day before she knew Fritz. She could not remember. Everything seemed hollow and empty—boring.
The only thing left was Wolfgang Pagel, whom she ought really to hate more than her mother. But she was quite indifferent to what he thought about her, what he said to her, or his mocking. It was as if she had no sense of shame where he was concerned, as if he were a sort of brother. The two spoke to each other in an incredible tone. Her grandmother would have fainted on the spot had she heard her grandchild (for whom she purified the works of that voluptuary, Wolfgang von Goethe) talking to young Pagel.
“None of your tender caresses, Fräulein,” Pagel might say. “I can see you’ve got another of your strange days today. Black rings round your eyes. But remember, I’m just a weak frail man.”
Violet could not quite cope with this tone. She hung on his arm, squeezed it hard and said: “You’re a fine one! You might be a bit nice to me for once; there isn’t any need for you to always save up everything for your Petra.”
“Always to save up,” corrected Pagel with Studmann-like pedantry. “You might perhaps try learning a little grammar sometime.”
Oh, he could irritate her into a fury. He kept at a distance; there was no more kissing—he saw to that. Sometimes she fled from him with flushed cheeks and tears of rage. She swore that he was a coward, a wretch, a weakling; that she would never speak a word to him again.…
Next morning she was standing outside the office door, waiting for him.
“Well, am I in your good graces again?” he grinned. “I swear to you, Violet, today I’m more of a coward, more of a wretch and more of a weakling than ever.”
“When my Fritz comes back,” she said, with flashing eyes, “I’ll tell him how you’ve treated me. Then he’ll challenge you and kill you. I shall be glad!”
Pagel merely laughed.
“Do you think I won’t do it? I will do it! You see!” she cried, angry again.
“You are quite capable of it,” he laughed. “I’ve known for a long time that you are really an absolutely cold-blooded creature, and that you wouldn’t care if the whole world pegged out so long as you got what you wanted.”
“I hope you peg out!”
“Yes, yes, but not now. Now I’ve got to go to the stable. Senta foaled last night. Coming along?”
And of course she went with him. Almost overwhelmed by tenderness, she stood before the little long-legged creature with its large head. “Isn’t it sweet?” she whispered excitedly. “Isn’t it a darling? Oh, it’s heavenly!”
And Wolfgang looked at his Violet askance. Yet she would take the same pleasure in seeing me lie in the dust with a bullet through my heart. Or rather a bullet through my stomach, so that she could hear me moan with agony. No; give me my Peter a thousand times over. You’re no good; all dolled up outside, but rotten inside.
But however calm and self-assured he usually felt in her presence, she could always enrage him with one thing—her casting away of all sense of physical shame before him. If she nestled close to him, exhibiting a half-ironical tenderness and passion, it was bearable, though not pleasant. (And to act Joseph to Potiphar’s wife is always a little ridiculous.) She had been awoken once and for all, but she hadn’t learned to pull herself together, to deny herself things. But when, in the middle of a walk through the fields, she said to him with studied carelessness: “Go on ahead, Pagel, I want to do a wee-wee,” or when, bathing, she undressed herself before him with as little embarrassment as if he were her grandmother—then he was seized with a wild rage, and could have struck her. Trembling with anger, he would upbraid her roundly.
“Damn it all, you’re not a whore!” he shouted.
“And supposing I were!” she said, looking at him mockingly, amused. “You couldn’t make any use of me.” Or else she would say, “Always boasting! Aren’t you spoken for? Why get so angry about such things?”
“You’re rotten and stinking, spoilt to the marrow! There’s not a speck of your body that isn’t dreck!”
“Specks are usually dreck,” she said coolly.
It was perhaps not so much the insult to his manhood which aroused him, although such things must infuriate any man, especially one of twenty-three; it was perhaps rather a sudden panic. Did she already regard herself as completely lost? Did she intentionally want to go to the dogs? Has this fifteen-year-old really already had enough of life? Every decent person feels himself a little responsible for his fellow-beings: only the wicked let their brethren run into the swamp without warning. Pagel felt his responsibility. He would try to talk to her, to warn her. But she affected a complete lack of understanding; she sat within a barbed-wire entanglement of foolish remarks: “All men are like that—one must be low-down, otherwise one just gets treated badly.” Or else: “Do you think it decent, the way Herr Studmann shows off to Mamma as soon as Papa goes away—and do you expect me to be more decent?” Or: “You don’t tell me, either, all the things you did with your Fräulein Petra before you broke it off. I don’t suppose you were very decent in that, anyway. So you needn’t have started talking about decency to me—even if I am only a country girl.” Oh, she could be as cunning as the devil. Darting off at a tangent, she would say: “Is it true that there are places in Berlin where girls dance all naked? And you’ve been there? Well, then! And you want to tell me that you faint when you sometimes see a little bit of me? You are ridiculous!”
There was nothing to be done, she would not be persuaded. Hundreds of times Pagel was on the point of talking to Studmann or Frau Eva about the girl. If he didn’t, it was not because of any silly feeling of gentlemanly discretion. But what good could the old people do if she wouldn’t listen to a young person like himself? Punishments and sermons will merely make it worse, he thought. Perhaps I shall have to speak about it if she ever wants to run away, but she certainly won’t get mixed up with any of the fellows here—she feels herself too much of the heiress for that and won’t want to tarnish her glory as future proprietress. If this scamp of a Lieutenant Fritz should turn up again, I shall hear of it instantly. Then I’l
l give the rascal a good hiding and write down for him, in no uncertain terms, that he can forget any idea of returning to these happy pastures.
Pagel stretched himself. He wasn’t afraid to scrap with the toughest man in the village. Three months of country life had developed his muscles; he felt himself strong enough for any Lieutenant, any adventurer.
“Well, whom would you like to embrace now?” asked Vi ironically.
“Your Lieutenant Fritz!” was the surprising answer. He leaped on his bicycle. “Cheerio, Fräulein. Our walk is off for this morning, I must get on to my Hussars. But perhaps at one o’clock.” He was gone.
“Come along here, Violet!” called Frau Eva, who had observed this leave-taking from the office window and was sorry at the disappointed look on her daughter’s face. “I’m going to town in a quarter of an hour to fetch the wages. Come along with me—we’ll have pastry and cream at Kipferling’s.”
“Oh!” said Vi, pouting. “I don’t know, Mamma. No thanks, cream just makes you fat.” And in order not to be called back again she went quickly into the park.
“Sometimes I get very worried,” declared Frau von Prackwitz.
“Yes?” said Studmann politely, busy with his wage lists. Although he hadn’t nearly given the numbers all the noughts that belonged to them, no single column could contain the riches.
“She is so undecided, so slack. There’s no life in her.”
“It’s a rather critical age for young girls, though, isn’t it?” suggested Studmann.
“Perhaps it’s really that,” agreed Frau Eva, adding cautiously: “As a matter of fact, she’s always with young Pagel and the tone between them seems to me rather familiar. Do you think there is anything in that?”
“Anything in what?” Studmann looked up from his wage lists a little distractedly. If he used the sick-benefit column for writing down the net wages then he would have to use the disability column for the health contributions. The disability column was too narrow for all this wealth of noughts; he would use the wage-tax column instead. And now it turned out that the wages book was much too narrow. You would have to have a kind of atlas-sized wage list, including all the world’s longitude lines. What a damn mess! And nothing balanced. The orderly Studmann looked at his disorderly wage list with a stern, discouraged face.
“Herr von Studmann!” cooed Frau von Prackwitz with a dove-like softness that would have frightened any man, as if he received an electric shock, “I was just asking you whether you had any doubts about young Pagel.”
Studmann looked startled, just as was proper.
“Oh, I beg your pardon, Frau von Prackwitz, I’m terribly sorry! I was so preoccupied with these wretched lists. They get worse and worse, I can’t make them balance anymore. And I’m beginning to realize that it’s useless tormenting myself with them. I suggest that we only pay round sums now; for instance, a milliard for every married man. It’s true we would be paying a little over, but I can’t see any other way of doing it.” He looked at Frau Eva, thoughtful and worried.
“Agreed,” she said tranquilly. “And now that the money questions are settled, do you mind paying some attention to my worries as a mother? To my doubts about young Pagel?”
Studmann turned very red. “Frau von Prackwitz, I am a silly ass in some ways. When I get involved in something you can’t do anything with me. I’ll explain it to you.…”
“No, please don’t, my dear Studmann!” cried Frau Eva in despair. “I don’t want explanations, but an answer! Sometimes,” she said pensively, “you are astonishingly like Achim, although you are such contrasts. With him I get no answer because of his hastiness, from you I get none because of your thoroughness. The result for me is the same: I still don’t know whether I ought to be worried about Herr Pagel.”
“Of course not,” declared Studmann hurriedly and guiltily. “Quite apart from the fact that Pagel is a man of honor, he is also perfectly harmless.”
“I don’t know,” said Frau Eva doubtfully. “He is very young. And he’s more or less in thoroughly high spirits now, looking really happy the last few weeks. I’ve noticed it, and a young girl will notice it, too.”
“That is so, isn’t it?” said Studmann, looking pleased. “He has quite recovered. I’m proud of my success. When he came from Berlin he was a wreck, ill, dispirited, lazy—almost ruined. And now? Even the convicts look cheery when they catch sight of him.”
“And my Violet, too!” said Frau Eva drily. “You are not exactly giving me a proof of the young man’s harmlessness.”
“But, Frau von Prackwitz!” cried Studmann in reproach. “He’s in love. Only a man in love is so pleased, so gay, so contented with everything. Anyone can see that. Why, even I can see it, a dry man of figures like myself.” He flushed slightly under her gently mocking glance. “When he came here he thought the affair was over. He was gloomy, without life. No, I didn’t ask him anything, I didn’t want to. I think that discussions about love are pernicious, because …”
Frau Eva coughed warningly.
“But the affair seems to have got straightened out again, he receives and writes letters, he is as merry as a bird, he works with a will—he would like to embrace the whole world.”
“But not my Vi, if you please!” cried Frau Eva with determination.
II
Yes, Wolfgang Pagel was writing and receiving letters. And Studmann was right in saying that Wolfgang’s new pleasure in life was bound up with these letters, although not a line had come from Petra or had been written to her. Despite everything, happy. Despite everything, ready for action. Despite everything, expansive and all-embracing. Despite everything, patient with the child Violet.
When old Minna had received the young master’s first letter from the postman, and had recognized the handwriting, her limbs had trembled so much that she had to sit down. And then she became quite calm.
I mustn’t frighten the old lady like this, she thought. She doesn’t eat anymore, doesn’t drink anymore, doesn’t do anything; just sits there and thinks. And when she believes I’m not looking she takes out the note which he left when he fetched his things, and in which he said that he was now going to work properly and wouldn’t write before he’d found his feet again. And now he’s written.
She looked at the letter mistrustfully. But perhaps there were only silly things in it which would upset his mother. Minna became more and more doubtful. And perhaps he only wanted money again, because he was in a fix somewhere. She turned the letter round, but on the back were only stamps.… The writing was quite neat, Wolf used to write much worse. And it was in ink, not scribbled off in a hurry. Perhaps there was good news in it.
For a moment Minna thought of opening the letter secretly and, if it was too bad, of answering it herself. Wolfi was also her child in a way. But if it was good news, let his mother be the first to enjoy it. “Oh, it can’t be anything bad!” And thereupon she stood up from her chair, calm, determination restored.
And she placed the letter under the newspaper so that nothing of it could be seen, and when Frau Pagel had sat down sadly at the breakfast table, she left her post at the door—against all habit—mumbled something about “market” and disappeared, deaf to the calls of her mistress. And she actually did dash to the market, where she purchased a trout for 900,000,000 marks. Her mistress would at last have an appetite again.
When she returned, Frau Pagel was already on the look-out for her, her eyes sparkling as they had not sparkled in the last eight weeks.
“Silly old goose!” she greeted her faithful servant. “Do you really have to run away, so that I haven’t anyone to say a word to? Yes, the young master has written, he’s in the country now, on a large farm, something like an apprentice. But he has rather a lot of responsibility, I don’t understand anything about it—you must read it yourself, the letter’s on the table. He’s getting on well and he sends his regards to you and it’s the first letter, since I don’t know how long, in which he writes nothing about money. With
the inflation I really couldn’t blame him if he did; even if he still had the money from the picture it would be worth nothing now. He writes ever so cheerfully, he has never written so cheerfully before; there must be a lot of queer people there, but he seems to get on with everybody. Well, you’ll read it yourself, Minna; why should I tell you all of it? But he doesn’t want to stay on the farm even though he does like it; he writes that it is like a sort of sanatorium. I’m not to mind, and if he really has become a taxi driver, I’m not to try and change his mind. But I’m not going to answer him, I’ve not forgotten how you told me that I made everything too easy for him. Yet it was you who always gave him sweets whenever he howled, you old know-all! I think that you should reply first and then we can see whether he gets sulky and hurt again. In that case he won’t be cured yet. And, Minna, he wants some information. I don’t agree with it, no, I don’t agree with it at all, but I shan’t say anything again, so you can take this afternoon off and make inquiries. And this evening write to him at once; if we post the letter today he’ll get it tomorrow. But perhaps it’s a country post there, in which case he’ll get it a day later. Besides, I might write a line, perhaps, after all.…”
“Madam,” said Minna, “madam—if you don’t sit down at once and eat your egg and at least two rolls I won’t read the letter or reply this evening.… This is really absolute foolishness: first you don’t eat because of sorrow and then you eat nothing because of joy. Yet you expect Wolfgang to be a calm and sensible person!”
