by Hans Fallada
“Are already, Herr Meier! More than enough!” said Pagel, sitting beside him, and pleased at the little man’s rage. “Though if I were you I’d use the horn less; it might in the end occur to our convicts that one can get to Berlin more comfortably in a car. There, keep a little to the left … Donnerwetter! what’s this?”
A large blue and white car hooted itself round the corner just ahead.
“The Rittmeister’s Horch!” whispered Meier and drove his small car close to the trees.
The great car howled once more, rushing past.
“The Rittmeister and our charming Vi,” grinned little Meier. “Well, they didn’t recognize us. I put my hand in front of my face at once. Trying it out, I suppose. Good luck to them! The splendor certainly won’t be lasting much longer.”
“In what way, Herr Meier?” asked Pagel sarcastically. “You believe the Rittmeister will go bankrupt because you’re no longer working for him?”
Meier made no reply. He was not a very experienced driver, and the rough, sandy path through the forest required all his attention.
At last they came to the forester’s house, unloaded him and laid him on a bed. From her armchair his wife reviled them for bringing her husband home drunk, for putting him on the wrong bed, for not undressing him …
“Well, that’s that, Herr Meier!” said Pagel. Little Meier was back in the car. Pagel stretched out his hand. “Well, a good trip!”
Meier looked at Pagel and Pagel’s hand. “You know, man—I can never remember your name—you know, I’ll not shake hands, and it’s better like that. You think I’m a big swine.… But I’m not such a big swine as to shake hands with you now. So there!” And he slammed the door on the astonished Pagel and nodded through the window. It seemed to be quite another face which was nodding: a sad, wretched one. Then the car started. Pagel looked after it a while. Poor devil, he thought. Poor devil. And he meant both the “poor” and the “devil.”
Then he returned to the farm, utterly uncertain whether he should say anything or what he should say or to whom he should say it.
He would think about it—just a little too long.
Chapter Thirteen
Lost and Forsaken
I
Dawn on the thirtieth of September was overcast and sullen. The wind threw itself on Neulohe. Much would be swept away this day, love and hate, treachery, jealousy, selfishness; much blown away and the people scattered like leaves. And this although it was not yet October the first, the fateful day.
Herr von Studmann was the first to awake. It was still dark when the alarm clock went off; wind shook the house. Studmann was a man who did what he had in mind very matter-of-factly. He arose in the chilly gray morning without regret for his warm bed—today he had to find the rent and would do so, although he was fairly certain that it was to be used for quite other purposes.
He shaved himself carefully. When he went into town he always shaved twice. Now it occurred to him that he could shave himself twice for Neulohe, for Eva.… But he rejected this thought immediately. He was neither a youngster nor a Don Juan. He wasn’t going to preen like a peacock.
A little later he was in the office. On the desk lay a note. “Please wake me before you go. I’ve something to tell you, Pagel.”
Studmann shrugged his shoulders. Could it be anything important? Cautiously he opened Pagel’s door—the lamplight, entering, showed him peacefully asleep on his side. Over his forehead a great lock of hair rested on the closed eyelid, every hair gleamed like the very thinnest of gold thread, and the face was serene. All of a sudden some words came into Studmann’s mind, probably from his schooldays. “Favored by fortune, nothing done, dead like all.”
The important communication, he decided, was not important. It was only four o’clock, and another hour and a half’s sleep wouldn’t do the young man any harm. Gently he shut the door. Besides, he mustn’t miss the early train to Frankfurt, because that was what Eva wanted. Even the most important communication could not change that, but could only upset it.
Black Minna now appeared in the office, still half awake and more slovenly than ever. And the coffee she served looked just as slovenly. Studmann, who from his work in the hotel was very sensitive to cleanliness, had it in mind to speak harshly, but refrained. Knowing the situation as he did, he was aware that his reproof would promptly be made known in Frau Eva’s kitchen, and thus reach her. He didn’t want her to have any more trouble at present.
Carriage wheels crunched on the gravel outside; Hartig, the coachman, was there. Abandoning the coffee and stale bread, Studmann lit a cigar, put on his overcoat and left the house.
The coachman on his high seat was talking with the gendarme. Studmann said hello and asked after any news. There was no news. The gendarme’s all-night vigil had been as fruitless as beating through the woods the previous afternoon. Not the slightest trace of the fellows! The whole thing was stupid. They should have gone about things in quite another way, of course; numb and exasperated, the gendarme explained his own plan …
“Excuse me, officer, I have to go to the station now,” interposed Studmann. “But my coffee’s still standing in the office. It’s not much good but it’s warm—if you’d care to drink it.… But don’t make a noise, please; the young man’s asleep in the next room.”
The officer thanked him and went to the office. The carriage with the smoking Studmann and the silent, ever-grumpy Hartig, rolled toward the station. It was quarter past four.
It’s only a quarter past four, thought Frau Eva, looking unbelievingly at the small alarm clock on her night table. Had someone called her? Vi? Achim? She had started up in bed and had automatically turned on the light. Now she sat erect among the pillows, listening. Outside there was nothing but the howling of the wind. Not a cry. All were asleep. Frau Eva had slept well, and felt incredibly fresh, full of a vague happiness. But what on earth was she going to do in the four hours until her morning coffee?
She looked at her room, surprised, almost a little disappointed, that it could offer her neither distraction nor diversion. For a moment she considered getting up to see if Vi, perhaps, had called out in her sleep. But it was so warm in bed and Vi, anyway, was a grownup girl now; the time had passed when her mother, as a matter of course, rose five or six times a night, to tiptoe to her little one. Happy vanished times, obvious duties gladly performed, simple cares which life, because it was life, brought along with it … and nothing of all this unnecessary artificial worry, the least essential thing in the world.
Suddenly her face became drawn and she remembered what had been forgotten—that she lay in a decaying house, a member of a family in dissolution. And that the very floor which held her bed was decaying. The door leading to her husband’s bedroom was locked, had been locked after the angry scene yesterday evening. She frowned; her pretty plump shoulders drooped. She had suddenly become an old woman. How could I have lived with him year in, year out, and put up with all this? Impossible to live with him one week longer—and she had put up with it for twenty years! Inconceivable! She felt that she had completely lost the charity to be patient or forbearing or, in feminine cunning, achieve something with him. It seemed that with her love had vanished all capacity for this.
My God, he had come home many a time before this somewhat the worse for drink. But a wife learned to put up with that, although the mixture of bragging and sudden tenderness was always a little hard to support. But it was precisely yesterday afternoon he had picked on for this; he in his extreme folly could not wait to show off the car to—her brother! He had sneaked out. In an almost stupidly cunning way he had incited Violet against her and won her over to his side, a foolish child who was naturally enthusiastic about everything new, and especially something as new as a car. Finally, he had, to put the finish on everything, allowed this child of fifteen several liqueurs—he said one, she said two, but for certain there were four or five. No, all that was far more than even a woman married for many years could bear.
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br /> Supper had been laid, the servant waited, the maids in the kitchen waited. It grew late; too late. She had never thought that she would one day be sitting thus, angry and like a petite bourgeoise, waiting for her husband to come home. That had always appeared to her as the peak of the ridiculous and contemptible. The other must lead his own life; he was not kept on a chain!
And now she was sitting there like that, drawing up a list against him: This, that and the other thing. This done for him, that renounced for him, something else lost because of him. And yourself? This “yourself” grew and grew, until it became a monstrous cloud casting a shadow over her whole life, a threatening storm cloud, full of evil foreboding. And then the pair had come in, with the silly, unembarrassed jollity of the slightly tipsy.
“Oh, dear! … Oh, dear! Uncle Egon couldn’t find the corkscrew and knocked the neck off the bottle. Oh dear, oh dear!” Growling thunder from afar—who were you once upon a time? A slender, swift creature, no great thinker, for sure, but a knight without fear or reproach.… “And we passed a baby Opel in the wood, Mamma, and our worthy young Herr Pagel was in it; I’ll take my oath, with a young lady. She was holding her hand in front of her face, though!”
“Enough!” Yes, indeed enough, and more than enough. Words, quarreling, the young girl’s tears, the father’s amiable bad conscience changing into a raging one.…
“Only because you grudge me the car!” And Vi sobbing: “You don’t want us to have any pleasures! We can’t do anything. And now you want to tyrannize over Papa as well.”
Father and daughter in alliance against the mother, and the servants listening behind the door—that was the result of the home you had made, Eva! You had sworn to marry the first man who really had some style—you hated your father’s want of polish. Yes. Was everybody mad then? Was everybody diseased? Was this inflation some plague carried in the atmosphere, which everyone caught? Was this girl with blotched face, unrestrained gestures—now sobbing, now shouting her accusations—was that your daughter, your young and sheltered Violet? Was that your husband, the well-bred, upright man, so careful of his appearance, so fastidious and neat, now blustering and shouting and waving his hands about—“You won’t get the better of me”?
Yes, and was that you yourself, angrily replying, scornfully rebuking, and all the while thinking of another man? You, who had already arranged a substitute before this one had gone?
Shame, shame on all of us! One and all! She had rushed upstairs—she couldn’t get to her room quickly enough; she had wanted to be alone. The windows were open; it was pleasantly cool and fresh. She smelled a hint of central heating warmth in the air, and a hint of her soaps and perfumes as well. Just enough to remind her that she was at home now … Most of all she would have liked to have a bath, but she didn’t like the idea of seeing her body at the moment. It had seen too much of life, experienced too much, enjoyed too much for her to enjoy seeing it this evening. She slipped out of her clothes and in the darkness found the veronal which the doctor had once given her when an abscess in a tooth had been maddening.… She took a tablet—the smallest amount had its effect on her—and lay back to sleep.
She had almost dropped off, had almost banished the scenes of that evening from her mind—the deafening squabble no longer resounded in her ears—when the door opened. He was there. In a low, uncertain voice he asked: “Are you asleep, Eva? I thought I would just come in.”
This life can be one of constant disgust. She felt she would laugh, seeing him standing there. Although his hair was gray, he had learned nothing. Yes, he actually had on his best pajamas, had made himself smart for her, this eternal schoolboy, forever kept back in the class of those who would never understand anything.
“Eva! … Eva! … Eva! …” In every tone, considerate, pleading, and then slightly louder, so that she might wake up without his having exactly wakened her. She could see him quite well, outlined against the light, but he could not see her. Her face was in the shadow. And that was how things had been throughout a long marriage. What sort of a wife was it he imagined he had?
“Eva!”
Accusingly. Full of a melancholy reproach. See, he didn’t really believe she was asleep. But he perceived that she was unwilling, and murmured something. Whenever he was embarrassed he always muttered to himself, believing he thereby covered up his embarrassment.
She heard his door shut.
With a jump she was out of bed, running barefooted to the door. Loudly and unblushingly she turned the key and stood there listening, panting, triumphant. “Have we been plain enough, sir? Have you understood at last that it’s finished, forever?”
Not a sound. Not even one of his passionate exclamations. Only silence.
Slowly she had returned to her bed, had fallen asleep at once.…
And now it was twenty-five past four. She had woken up so happy. It seemed as if someone had called her. She remembered; neither father nor daughter would do that. Why on earth was she so happy?
She sat, bent over, but her limbs were relaxed, loose.
She buried herself in the bed again as if she were coiling and cuddling round something living, that could protect her. She wanted to go on sleeping. It seemed inconceivable, how she would pass the four hours until breakfast, haunted by such ghosts dancing around her.
God, what sort of face should she bring to this breakfast? What should she say? What should she do? She could go to the office. But Herr von Studmann was away, and young Pagel was too young.… Oh, well. We’ll see. In the end everyday passes somehow or another.
Goodnight.
II
After her too-early awakening Frau Eva slept so soundly that for the second time she looked at the alarm clock unbelievingly. Half-past nine. A soporific, according to an accepted saying, should be slept off. Well, she had slept twelve hours, which ought to be enough for one tablet of veronal. When she at last got up, however, and began to wash, her body was weary and her eyes felt as if they had just been weeping. Hastily and with increasing irritation she put on her clothes, scolding herself, resolving never again to take that “filthy veronal.” And she reviled her husband, Vi, the maids, Hubert, for letting her sleep on like that. With it all she had a mortal sadness, an intuition that the day which, rainless, was wetly dripping from the trees, would bring no good to her or others.…
The breakfast table was laid only for one; neither Achim nor Violet was there. Twice she had to ring the bell before the coffee and eggs were brought, not by Hubert but by Armgard, smiling in a way Frau Eva did not like at all.
“Have the Rittmeister and Fräulein Violet had their breakfast?” she asked while the girl poured out the coffee somewhat too primly.
“At seven o’clock, madam,” reported Armgard surprisingly promptly. “The Rittmeister and Fräulein Violet went out with the motor car before half-past seven.” The manner in which she articulated the words motor car showed that the new acquisition had her full approval; the Horch had brought pride and sumptuousness into the kitchen also. Opinion there, no doubt, was that at last they had really “fine people” to work for.
“Why wasn’t I called this morning?” asked Frau Eva rather sharply.
“The Rittmeister gave an emphatic order not to!” replied Armgard, a little offended. “Rittmeister and Fräulein Violet were very careful indeed not to disturb madam. They came down the stairs on tiptoe and only whispered during breakfast.”
Frau von Prackwitz could see all too well that heroic pair who out of pure charity would not wake her up. Yes, she might have interfered with their trip; she might even have gone with them! The cowards!
“Then there was, to be sure, the big rumpus,” said Armgard softly, with a very sanctimonious face.
Frau von Prackwitz chose to ignore this. Yesterday she had had all the noise she wanted; she had no desire to hear about any more.
“Did my husband say at all when he would be back?”
“The Rittmeister thought that he wouldn’t be here for dinner,�
� replied Armgard, looking at her expectantly. It was obvious that she knew about the quarrel with Achim; no doubt all the village, her own parents as well, knew about it by now. She would have to accustom herself soon to having everyone looking at her as if she were now half a widow, half a deserted wife.…
“Very well, Armgard,” said Frau Eva, enlivened in spite of herself by all this tomfoolery. “Then you can slice up the cold fillet from Sunday, with runner beans. There will be enough for our small number.” She counted on her fingers. “Myself, Lotte, you, that’s three, Hubert four—there will be quite enough.”
There was a pause, the maid silently regarding her mistress, a look which was really just a trifle disturbing. Frau von Prackwitz was on the point of smiling when she put her cup down. She would not be looked at like that by anyone. “Well? Why are you looking at me like that, Armgard?” she demanded.
“Oh, Lord, madam!” Armgard turned red. “Madam need not count Hubert in; the Rittmeister gave him notice this morning. That’s the reason there was such a rumpus. We could hear it even in the kitchen. Not that we wanted to, but—”
“Where is Hubert?” Frau von Prackwitz stopped the flow of words with a gesture. “Has he gone?”
“Oh, no, madam. He’s downstairs, packing his things.”
“Send him here. Tell him I want to speak with him.”
“Madam, Hubert threatened the Rittmeister that he—”
“Armgard! I don’t want any tales from you. Call Hubert.”
“Very good, madam!” Armgard, deeply offended, withdrew.
Frau Eva walked to and fro, waiting. Breakfast, of course, was now over. She’d known ever since she got up that today would be a loss. She walked to and fro feeling as she had done last night—everything was crumbling, disintegrating, while she stood impotently to one side and could do nothing. It was certainly not this ninny of a Hubert! She had never been his friend. A dozen times it would have given her the greatest pleasure to be rid of the freakish perverse fellow; moreover she had a physical repulsion to him. As a healthy woman she had always felt that things were not altogether right with that young man, quite apart from the maids’ talk of his strangeness.
