Wolf Among Wolves Read Online Free PDF Page A

do it, see what I mean, for your own pleasure, and if it gets too much for you, then you hop it. No, slapping’s not nice, either; you c’n even go to the law about it.”
    “But it didn’t hurt at all. His mother’s got such tiny hands. My mother was quite different. And anyway …”
    IV
    A wooden barrier divided the room of the Berlin Harvesters’ Agency into two very unequal parts. The front part, in which Rittmeister von Prackwitz stood, was quite small and the entrance door opened into it. Prackwitz had hardly room to move.
    The other and larger part was occupied by a small, fat, darkish man. The Rittmeister was not sure whether he looked so dark because of his hair or because he had not washed. Gesticulating, the dark fat man in dark clothes was speaking vehemently with three men in corduroy suits, gray hats, and cigars in the corner of their mouths. The men replied just as vehemently, and although they were not shouting it seemed as if they were.
    The Rittmeister did not understand a word; they were speaking Polish, of course. Though the tenant of Neulohe employed every year half a hundred Poles, he had not learned Polish, apart from a few words of command.
    “I admit,” he would say to Eva, his wife, who spoke broken Polish, “I admit that I ought really to learn it for practical reasons. Nevertheless I refuse, now and forever, to learn this language. I absolutely refuse. We live too near the borders. Learn Polish—never!”
    “But the people make the most insolent remarks to your very face, Achim.”
    “Well? Am I to learn Polish so that I can understand their insolence? I haven’t the slightest intention of doing so.”
    And thus the Rittmeister did not understand what these four men were negotiating so vehemently in the corner, nor did he care. But he was not a very patient man: what had to be done had to be done quickly—he wanted to go back to Neulohe at noon with fifty or sixty laborers. A bumper harvest stood in the fields, and the sun shone so that he thought he could hear the crackling of the wheat. “Shop! Shop!” he called out.
    They talked on. It looked exactly as if they were quarreling for dear life; the next moment they would be flying at each other’s throats.
    “Hey, you there!” called the Rittmeister sharply. “I said ‘Good morning.’ ” (He had not said good morning.) What a crowd! Eight years ago, even five, they were whining before him and slavishly trying to kiss his hand. A damnable age, an accursed city! Wait till he got them in the country.
    “Listen, you there,” he rapped out in his curtest military voice, banging the counter with his fist.
    Yes—and how they listened! They knew that sort of voice. For this generation such a voice still had significance, its sound awakened memories. They stopped talking at once. Inwardly the Rittmeister smiled. Yes, the good oldsergeant major’s bark still had its effect—and most of all with such scum. Presumably it penetrated to their miserable bones as if it were the first blast of the last trumpet. Well, they always had a bad conscience.
    “I need harvesters,” he said to the fat, swarthy man. “Fifty to sixty. Twenty men, twenty women, the remainder boys and girls.”
    “Yes, sir.” The fat man bowed, politely smiling.
    “An efficient foreman reaper, must be able to deposit as security the value of twenty hundredweights of rye. His wife, for a women’s wage, to cook for them.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “I pay single fare and your commission; if the people stay till after the beet harvest their fares won’t be deducted. Otherwise …”
    “Yes, sir. Oh, yes, sir.”
    “And now get a move on. The train goes at twelve-thirty. Be quick. Pronto. Understand?” And the Rittmeister, a weight having been taken from his mind, nodded even toward the three figures in the background. “Get the contracts ready. I’ll be back in half an hour. I only want some luncheon.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Then everything’s settled,