Читать книгу The Undying Past - Hermann Sudermann - Страница 10

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The worst of it all was, that the crops were ripe for harvest, but could not be cut, because there were not enough hands for the labour.

Uncle Kutowski, whom Leo wanted to call to account for this, was nowhere to be found. He had not been seen since early morning, when he had driven off in his one-horse chaise. Leo learnt how matters stood from Schumann, who was officiously obliging in giving information.

The old man, it would seem, was in the habit of levying fines, which added not a little to his salary, so that the foreign reapers who let themselves out on hire in gangs, long before the beginning of the harvest, had been so exasperated by deductions made on their wages, that last pay-day they had packed their bundles and decamped in the night.

The home farm-labourers who were available were not capable of the work, and so it had been at a standstill for eight days. Half the crops were likely to be ruined in consequence, but the old steward felt no qualms on that score, and did not let the prospect of a spoilt harvest weigh on his mind.

This alone was enough to give Leo an insight into what sort of hands the management of his property had fallen for the last four years. He would have liked to horse-whip his uncle and send him packing without further parley, but, unfortunately, those who have been accomplices in our past sins, have to be gently dealt with, lest they betray secrets. He recognized the fact, in wrath and shame, that he had put himself, to a great extent, at the mercy of the old reprobate. Nevertheless, bold and resolute action might yet set him free.

He gave orders at the gatehouse that Herr Kutowski was to be sent to him so soon as he should show his face in the yard again. Then he shut himself up in his study.

Here, everything was the same as of old. In the embrasure of the window, there stood an ancestral bequest, in the shape of a huge escritoire, finely carved, with inlaid mother-of-pearl drawers, where many secrets lay hid. The walls were decorated with groups of pistols, sporting weapons and coats-of-arms, surrounded artistically with antlers, tusks, and bullet-ridden discs--trophies of boyish sportsmanship which once he had regarded with reverence, but which now hardly won a smile from him. Many an idle hour had he lounged away at one time of his life, on the old couch by the door, with its slippery, shabby leather covering, and dreamed of forbidden things. Over there were photographs of his nearest and dearest ones. Mamma, with a lace tippet over her long-waisted bodice, papa with epaulets and a general's whiskers. Pastor Brenckenberg, before he had grown puffy and bloated, when he had lived in the house as tutor, and ruled him with the cane. Then there was Johanna before she did up her hair, with white worsted stockings gleaming beneath her short skirts; Ulrich, as an upper third-form boy, round-backed as a fiddle-bow, with long hair and pigeon-breast. By him--strange coincidence--Felicitas, in budding maidenhood, with masses of curly hair and a languishing smile.

The picture dated from the days when, as distant cousin, she had come to stay at Halewitz, and when he had fallen head over ears in love with her. Ulrich had followed his example, and Johanna had been annoyed. He grasped his brow. Was it all a dream? A shudder ran through him. He who had once believed himself to be master of his fate, saw himself tossed like a cork on the waves, and now in sport cast up on the shore.

Breathing hard, he set to work on the accounts. Hours went by. He sat bowed over the ledgers adding up, and for the first time in his life he added up right. It was worse than he feared. Shock followed shock, but none was pleasant.

And in the midst of his reckoning a sudden burning blush of shame flooded his face. He read, "Sent to Monte Carlo 10,000 marks." And a few lines further on: "To Monte Carlo 141,500 marks."

How could he reproach others when he himself had been a mere common gambler? Was it not natural, that every man should try to grab his share out of the universal bankruptcy? But he felt that in this memorandum it was not so much his wretched property, as his friend's honour and peace of mind that was most at stake. It was for this he was determined to fight the old scoundrel. For a moment he let his eye linger on the opposite wall where the arms hung, and then he started on the figures again. The affair seemed to grow ever more and more complicated. It was almost inconceivable that, with expenditure always on the increase, and ever shrinking profits, a balance could be maintained. "The sequestrator must have been at home here for a long time," he muttered.

Altogether the actual accounts were in apple-pie order. Who could wonder? Everywhere amongst the uncle's hen-scratchings, Ulrich's beautiful clear signature proved how religiously his friend had performed his weekly duties as auditor. Only on the left-hand margin was entered here and there a certain mysterious sum of money, unendorsed, and specified among the receipts as "Interest called in by Herr Baron von Kletzingk." It ran each time to several thousand marks, and the total would have been a fortune.

"When did I ever lend money on interest?" cried Leo, striking his forehead on which started great beads of anxious sweat.

And the further he proceeded the oftener, with uncanny regularity, did the sum stare him in the face. It invariably occurred at a convenient juncture to cover some heavy outlay, or to help meet a long-standing bill. It presided over the columns as a deux ex machinâ, a blessing and friend in need.

The one person who could have thrown light on the bewildering problem was Uncle Kutowski, who still made himself scarce.

"If he owns up," Leo concluded, "I will let him off lightly. If not, it will be life or death."

Towards five o'clock, the old gentleman's one-horse trap drew up at the bailiff's house. He was lying back in a corner, tight as a drum, sucking the end of his burnt-out cigar.

Old Christian, who on Leo's behalf had been on the look-out for him, helped him to alight, and informed him that the master wished to speak to him at once.

Herr Kutowski poured out a volley of abuse which echoed over the courtyard.

"What has the youngster taken into his head? Am I his shoe-black, that he should order me about like this? He had better be careful. I'll teach him who I am, and what I know."

Christian, greatly scandalized to avert a further outbreak, hurried off to tell his master of the steward's arrival. Fortunately no one had been near to overhear his disrespectful words.

Uncle Kutowski swaggered with jingling spurs into his apartments, to indulge in a well-earned siesta. He surveyed himself in the cracked shaving mirror, which satisfied the small demands of his vanity, and had a long conversation with himself, from which it might have been gathered that he wished to be regarded as the lawful possessor of Halewitz.

Then he cleared off the remains of a ham-bone, which lay on the table with some blacking, a dirty pack of French cards, a cocoa-tin filled with tobacco, and a pig's bladder; he kicked a couple of empty beer-bottles off the sofa, which creaked at every touch like a hungry crow, and was just going to fling himself full-length on the horsehair cushions when the door opened and Leo walked into the room.

"It's the custom for people to knock before they come in here, my boy," the old man screamed in greeting. "Remember that in future."

Leo made no response, but calmly turned the key in the lock and then put it in his pocket.

"Now, uncle," said he, "we will have a talk."

There was a certain friendly decision in his manner, which did not impress the old man pleasantly. Still he was going to show that he had not drunk himself into a courageous frame of mind for nothing.

"Quite right, my dear boy," he said, leaning back with a lofty air. "You have come to apologise to your old uncle, which is only what I should have expected of you, considering how we are related to one another."

"I wish to remind you, my dear uncle," said Leo, "that, at the present moment, you are still in my service."

"Eh, what! Service!" sneered the old man. "I spit at your service."

And he spat.

"I am not asking you why, on my first day at home, you have taken the first opportunity of getting drunk, because I think I pretty well understand your temperament. I ask you only, whether you would rather sleep it off first, or whether you feel in a position to answer my questions straight away."

"What do you mean by in a position?" the old fellow snarled. "I am in a position to answer anything--that is to say, if I choose."

"Very well, then," said Leo; "in that case I am here as your master, and I must request you to stand before me."

"What! What! I stand?"

"Get up!" said Leo, and lifting the sofa in the air, he shook the old man off it, as if he were shaking a cat out of a feather-bed. Then he gave the worm-eaten piece of furniture a mighty kick, and with a grinding sound it fell to pieces.

The old man reeled against the table and gave Leo the crafty, savage look of a wild boar at bay.

"I'll remember this of you," he growled,

"I quite see," Leo went on, "that it is useless to try and get you to render me an account of my financial affairs, ... and that is not what I have come about. It is true that you have succeeded in playing the deuce with a large amount of my property, and the rest I shall have to put in order myself, to the best of my ability. Schumann and the accountant will explain the details to me. This much I have already ascertained, that if I thought it necessary, I should have abundance of material with which to put police-inspector Schuster on your track."

"Better and better," the old man said with a laugh of scorn, and began to toy with the pig's bladder.

"But don't think for a moment," Leo continued, "that I intend to do anything of the kind. Not that the relationship between us counts for anything. You could not very well bring more disgrace on my house than you have done during the last four years. Neither would the recollection of our old friendship deter me. I have had to pay dearly enough for it. No, I have another reason for coming here."

"So it seems," scoffed his uncle.

"Look, here, old man; since we met last night it seems to me that you have been trying to intimate by various hints that you hold me in the hollow of your hand, that you have only to open your mouth to bring me to utter ruin, and I don't know what besides. Well, you are mistaken, dear uncle. You think, probably, that you have still the foolish, dissolute youth to deal with, who was once weak enough to let you lead him into all sorts of disreputable scrapes. You haven't the slightest idea who it is stands before you now. Do you know, uncle, what a desperado is? It is a man who has learnt the greatest wisdom in life; which is, that there's nothing in the world he need lose, so long as he doesn't use feeble means to get it, but instead stakes life and death on what he wants,--even if the thing be nothing bigger than a trouser-button. Such a desperado, I have come back to you, my dear uncle, and if you don't stop your damned grinning at once, I'll strike you down like a dog."

He raised his clenched fist, which for a few seconds waved like a swinging axe over the old man's stubby head. His last sneer choked in his throat, and he took a step backwards and crouched in terror against the wall. Then, with a laugh, Leo stuck his hand in his pocket.

"That's a sample for you, uncle," he said. "People shall do what I will have them do, or go to the devil. And now listen again. When I decided to come home, I knew perfectly well what a kettle of fish I should find. And then I looked at my pistols (I have a splendid pair of pistols, uncle dear, but I haven't got them here, because, just at present, I don't need them to take aim at you), and I said to myself, these beggars have helped me out of many a tight corner, where life and death were the stakes, why should I let them rust in old Europe, when the same will be for the most part nothing but a trouser-button. You are a trouser-button, uncle, nothing more or less. Don't be offended.... All I insist on is that you hold your tongue! I will have that cursed intrigue (you know which!) buried for ever and ever. Should it come to light, should I hear the slightest indication that you have breathed a word of what you know, then I shall take out one of my beautiful pistols and blow you into the skies. Do you believe me?"

"Don't joke," stuttered the old man, and squinted towards the door.

"You needn't be frightened, my dear little uncle," Leo laughed. "I told you that I hadn't got them with me. They are not necessary yet; this is only a preliminary warning. When I want you I shall find you, no matter where you may be. I should take a heathenish joy in hunting you down. We learn that sort of sport on the other side, uncle. Do you believe me?"

The old steward cringed further backwards, and clinging to the window-ledge, struggled to speak.

"How can you treat me like this?" he burst forth in half-strangled utterance. "I would go through fire and water for you. I would have cut off my right hand for you, and you shake your fist at me and threaten me with pistol-shots, and all the rest of it."

"Only for a certain emergency, you know," Leo interposed.

"Such suspicion!" went on the old man; "such want of confidence! I have kept as silent as the grave. I would rather have bitten my tongue out than said anything.... I have been plagued and racked by conscience all these years, and this is my reward!--this is my reward!"

In utter helplessness he began to cry like a baby. Leo waited till his grief had subsided, and then gave his commands.

By that evening he was to have left the castle, and the neighbourhood by the next morning. In case he should cherish ill-feeling and in consideration of his being a relation, a month's salary should be paid him at some place over the frontier--it was not certain where--probably either at Warsaw or Wilna, so that he might lead a decent life.

The old man said, "Thank you," humbly, and grovelled.

"When shall the carriage be ready, uncle?" asked Leo, opening the door.

Uncle Kutowski said that he had only to pack and to bid the ladies farewell, but if he might be allowed he should like to take a little nap before his departure.

"Sleep away, then, old sinner," said Leo, clapping him on the shoulder; and as his uncle seemed unable to move from the spot, either from emotion or fright, he took him by the arm and led him with gentle care to his bed, where he covered him up with his cloak which hung near on the wall. Then he went his way whistling "Paloma."

Before he sat down to his writing-table again, he ordered Christian to bring up a bottle of the oldest wine in honour of the day, and as he poured out the first glass and held it toward the youthful likeness of his friend, he said between his clenched teeth--

"Long live brute-force, little girl. It has saved both you and I to-day, from a catastrophe."

The same evening the arrival of the carriage from Uhlenfelde was announced.

He had not expected a visit from his friend so soon, and a thrill of joy and at the same time of alarm ran through him.

The visitor clasped his hand with the old genial pressure, which dispelled at once the anxious presentiment of a moment before. But the pale face wore an excited expression, and the sunset glow which came through the windows was reflected in the feverish glitter of his tired eyes.

"You are not well," said Leo, who read on the familiar features the story of recent mental excitement.

That Felicitas had something to do with it, and his own homecoming, it was not difficult to guess.

"Let me sit down quietly for a few minutes," Ulrich said, pressing his hand against his left side. "I shall be better soon."

He refused Leo's offers of refreshment, and with short hard gasps breathed in the perfumed evening air which was wafted into the room from the garden. When Leo saw him leaning back in his old accustomed place in the corner of the sofa, his heart bounded. How often they had sat together there, making youthful plans, while the grasshoppers chirruped outside, and the solemn quavering strains of a concertina sounded from the stables!

They had often touched on the subject of marriage, and had agreed that their wives must be two bosom friends, or, better still, two sisters, so that their old hearts' intimacy should not be sacrificed.

Nothing seemed changed outwardly to-night. The grasshoppers chirruped; the concertina began timidly, as if uncertain whether it might dare, now the master had come home. And yet everything was different.

"Still I have got him!" Leo's soul cried aloud. "And I will not let him slip through my fingers."

"You have seen how things are now with your own eyes," Ulrich said, sitting up, "I am afraid there's not much to congratulate you upon."

"I have found nothing but gross negligence," Leo assented.

"If I may venture to advise you, I should get rid of the old man, despite considerations of kinship and friendship. At all events, he isn't much use to you."

"I have kicked him out already," said Leo.

"So much the better," Ulrich remarked. "One of his worst feats was last Saturday, when his chicanery drove away the Lithuanian reapers."

"I am quite at sea in that matter," Leo declared. "Unless a miracle happens, the fine harvest will go to the dogs."

"Not quite a miracle is required to save it," replied Ulrich, with his dear old smile, which always seemed to bring comfort and help. "A few days ago I applied to Captain von Quetner in Münsterberg. I begged aid from him. He believed he could meet the emergency, and to-morrow before sunrise twenty-five men, Uhlans, will be brought over here on my waggons."

A wave of gladness swept over Leo. From this moment things would look up. He seized Ulrich's hand in dumb gratitude. But the latter bit his lips, and withdrew from him gently.

"I didn't come to tell you this," he said. "I could have written about that, but there are things to be discussed that cannot be committed to paper. I am sorry to say your prophecy has proved true. It must be all over between you and me. A woman has separated us. My marriage has demanded the sacrifice of our friendship."

Leo stared at him, unable to speak.

"Don't misunderstand me," Ulrich went on, struggling painfully with his words, "I needn't assure you that I love you to-day as much as I ever did. I fear that this separation may be my death-blow. Nevertheless, it must be."

"Because your--your wife desires it?" asked Leo, in growing bitterness.

"Don't call me weak, and abuse me for being a slave to a woman," Ulrich answered. "I have never in all my life been tied to apron-strings, and hope I never shall. But I am in the habit of listening to what my conscience dictates. And that insists on my doing my duty by the woman who bears my name and whose child I have made my own."

Leo was eager to know how she had taken the news, but was ashamed to try and glean the information from his friend by crooked questionings; however, as it proved, there was no need, for Ulrich on his own accord told him all he wanted to know.

"I did not think," he said, "that Felicitas, who lives and forgets so rapidly, would have been so deeply moved at your return. I must say that without taking credit to myself. God knows there is no reason why I should. I believed that she had completely got over her grief for the loss of Rhaden. She scarcely ever mentions his name, and even forgets the anniversary of his death. And for two years, I have, as tactfully as I could, endeavoured to impress on her your innocence in that unfortunate accident, ... for as an accident pure and simple I have always regarded the fatal duel. It seems that it has all been in vain. The first thing that happened yesterday was that she went into hysterics. I was afraid she was going to be seriously ill. The whole night she sat on the boy's bed, murmuring over him. I got her away early this morning almost by force, for the poor boy, too, was deprived of his night's rest. You will believe me, dear Leo, when I say that all this makes me bound to admit that she has right on her side."

Leo was silent. If he had spoken it would have been hypocrisy, and he could not bring himself to that.

"When she had become calmer," Ulrich went on, "I told her of our conversation, and of the fears you had entertained about the continuance of our intercourse. I wanted to prove to her by that, how much you had considered the condition of her feelings. But the effect was quite contrary from what I had expected. Especially what you said about the child seemed to excite her to the last degree. Forgive me, dear old boy, if it was a blunder to repeat it. I hoped it would help both you and me. Why should I repeat to you all her expressions of resentment against you? It is unnecessary to tear open old wounds. You may believe me that I know how to distinguish between the hysterical exaggerations to which she gave vent in her grief, and the grief itself. But that is genuine enough, and when she says, 'How can I touch your hand, when I know that to-day it has lain in the hand which struck down my child's father?'--when she says that she is right, a thousand times right. I ought to have foreseen it all, before I linked her fate with mine. Now it is done, and, in your words, it has come to the decision. 'You must choose between me and her.'"

Still Leo was silent. The fatal image of the woman glided before his eyes. It seemed to melt into the gold of the evening clouds, and with the damp mist to fill the darkening world.

How came it that she had been able to rob him of what was dearest to him on earth? And, what was worse than anything else, she was justified. It was only strange that she, who, as a rule, was given to half-measures, and avoided anything like resolute action, had proved herself, in this, almost firmer than he was. But then, of course, she had no friend to lose....

"I thank you, old boy," Ulrich went on, "for not reproaching or laughing at me. Not that any contradiction on your part would have been of the least use. The facts are inexorable, and what we are doing is the only natural course to take."

"Yes," Leo assented, staring out of the window.

If Ulrich had only guessed what truth he was speaking!

"And now there is nothing more to say, except, as it were, to make my last bequests. When you want me, I shall come to you--at any hour of the day or night, in good or evil fortune. I shall expect the same from you, even though in ordinary circumstances we shall have no alternative but to pass each other by with a silent pressure of the hand."

"It must be as you decide," said Leo; and he felt a dull aching at his heart.

Ulrich sat rigid and upright, every muscle brought into obedience to the power of his will. His burning eyes rested unwaveringly on his friend's face, as if he would fain absorb him with his gaze. Not once did his voice tremble.

"Just one word more, old boy," he said, "before we part. I have to make an open confession to you concerning a certain matter, and to ask your pardon. You will find in your books the constant occurrence of a sum of money which you will not be able to explain. Interest--called in by--then follows my name."

Leo was all attention.

"The sum comes altogether to sixty-six thousand and a few hundred marks. You know you had no ready money. It fell to my share to save the sinking ship. So I gave what was necessary out of my own means to set it afloat again.... Forgive the deception, and don't thank me! No. I won't be thanked," he repeated, as Leo stood up and seemed as if he were going to rush and embrace him. "Anything I have is always at your service. That, of course, is an understood thing. And now good luck and good-bye."

He was making quickly for the door, but at the last moment he was seized with one of those attacks which Leo with dread had seen coming on for several minutes. He fell across the sofa, growing deadly pale. His eyes were fixed, his pulse stood still, and he lost consciousness.

Leo had known these symptoms from earliest youth, and also knew the remedy. As he fell, he had caught Ulrich's head in his arms, and began massaging his scalp vigorously with his finger-tips. After a few seconds the eyes recovered their ordinary expression, a gentle flow of blood mounted to his temples, and he came to himself again.

"Thank you, dear old boy," he said, standing up with a sad smile. "Once more I have lived to experience your skill in casting out the little white mice."

And he seized his hat. Leo begged him to wait till he had quite recovered, but Ulrich refused.

"No loitering," he said; "it will only excite us again, and prolong the agony."

The carriage had driven round to the door. For a moment he let his thin, delicate hand rest tremblingly in Leo's hard palm, then he wrenched himself away.

"Remember me to your people," he said, covering himself with the carriage-rug.

The horses started, and the carriage rolled away with subdued crunching of wheels unto the purple evening dusk.

Leo, half blinded by his rising tears, staggered back unto his study.

"Be sensible ... no whining ... don't be an old woman," he cried, preaching courage to himself, for it was right that this should be. Only thus could all be made straight again.