The social activities begin in the afternoon. We have to stay because we have not yet received our money. Due to Wolkenstein’s long patriotic speech we have missed the noon dollar exchange rate—no doubt a substantial rise, and a loss for us. The day is hot. My borrowed morning coat is too tight around the chest. There are thick, white clouds in the sky, and on the tables stand thick goblets of Steinhäger schnaps and beside them tall glasses of beer. Faces are red and glittering with sweat. The feast for the dead was rich and abundant. That evening there is to be a great patriotic ball in the Niedersächsischer Hof. Paper garlands hang everywhere and flags—black, white, and red, of course—and wreathes of evergreen. A single black, red, and gold flag hangs from the garret window in the last house in the village. Those are the colors of the German republic. Black, white, and red were those of the old empire. They have been forbidden, but Wolkenstein has declared that the dead fell under those glorious old colors and anyone who exhibits black, red, and gold is a traitor. That means that Beste, the cobbler, who lives there is a traitor. He was shot in the lungs during the war, but he is a traitor. In our beloved fatherland it is easy to be denounced as a traitor. Only the Wolkensteins are not. They are the law. They decide who is a traitor.
Excitement increases. The older people disappear. A good many of the veterans as well. Work in the fields summons them. The Iron Guard, as Wolkenstein calls the others, remain. The ministers have long since departed. The Iron Guard consists of younger men. Wolkenstein, who despises the republic but accepts the pension it gives him and uses it to agitate against it, makes another speech which begins with the word “Comrades.” That is too much for me. No Wolkenstein ever called us comrades when we were in the army. Then we were filth, schweinehunde, idiots and, at best, men. Only once, on the evening before an attack, were we called comrades—by that slave driver Helle, a former commissioner of forests, who was our first lieutenant. He was afraid he would get a bullet in the back next morning.
We go to the mayor’s house. He is sitting at ease over coffee, cakes, and cigars, and he refuses to pay. We were prepared for something of the sort. Fortunately Heinrich Kroll is not with us; he has stayed behind to admire Wolkenstein. Kurt Bach has gone out into the grain fields with a muscular village beauty to enjoy nature. Georg and I stand facing Mayor Döbbeling, who is supported by his hunchbacked clerk, Westhaus. “Come back next week,” Döbbeling says comfortably, offering us cigars. “Then we’ll have the whole thing straightened out and we’ll pay you at once. In all this confusion it wasn’t possible today.”
We accept the cigars. “That may well be,” Georg replies. “But we need the money today, Herr Döbbeling.”
The clerk laughs. “Everyone needs money.”
Döbbeling winks at him. He pours schnaps. “Let’s drink to it!”
It was not he who invited us to the celebration; it was Wolkenstein, who gives no thought to gross commercial matters. Döbbeling would have liked none of us to be present—or at most, Heinrich Kroll. He would have had no trouble in handling him.
“It was agreed that we were to get the money at the dedication,” Georg says.
Döbbeling raises his shoulders equably. “That is practically the same thing—next week. If you were paid everywhere as promptly as that—”
“We are paid, otherwise we don’t deliver.”
“Well this time you have delivered. Prost!”
We do not refuse the schnaps. Döbbeling winks again at his admiring clerk. “Good schnaps,” I say.
“Have another?” the clerk asks.
“Why not?”
The clerk pours. We drink. “Well then—” Döbbeling says. “Next week.”
“Well then,” Georg says, “today! Where is our money?”
Döbbeling is offended. We have accepted his schnaps and cigars and yet we are still rebellious. That is against the rules. “Next week,” he says. “Have another schnaps for the road?”
“Why not?”
Döbbeling and the clerk grow animated. They think they have won. I glance through the window. Outside, as though in a framed picture, lies the late afternoon landscape—the courtyard gate, an oak tree, and beyond them, infinitely peaceful, extend the fields in bright chrome and light green. Why, I wonder, do we sit here quarreling? Isn’t life itself out there, golden and green and silent, in the rising and falling breath of the seasons? What have we turned it into?
“It pains me,” I hear Georg say, “but we must insist. You know that next week the money will be worth much less. We have already lost money on the job. It took three weeks longer than we expected.”
The mayor looks at him craftily. “Well then, one week more or less won’t make any difference.”
The little clerk suddenly bleats. “What do you expect to do, then, if you don’t get your money? You can’t take the memorial away with you!”
“Why not?” I reply. “There are four of us and one is a sculptor. We could easily take the eagles with us and even the lion if that proves necessary. Our workmen can be here in two hours.”
The clerk smiles. “Do you really think you could take apart a memorial that has been dedicated? There are several thousand people in Wüstringen.”
“Not to mention Major Wolkenstein and the veterans,” the mayor adds. “Enthusiastic patriots.”
“Besides, if you should try it, it would be hard for you ever to sell another tombstone here.” The clerk is grinning openly now.
“Another schnaps?” Döbbeling asks, grinning also. They have us in a trap. There’s nothing we can do.
At this moment a man comes racing across the courtyard. “Mayor!” he shouts through the window. “You must come at once. There has been an accident!” “What?”
“Beste! The carpenter—they have—they were going to pull down his flag and that’s when it happened!”
“What? Did Beste shoot? That damned socialist!” “No! Beste is—he’s bleeding—” “No one else?” “No, just Beste—”
Döbbeling’s face brightens. “Well then! No reason to shout so loud!”
“He can’t get up. He’s bleeding from the mouth.” “Got punched in his fresh snout,” the little clerk explains. “Why does he always have to be so irritating? We’re coming. Just take it easy.”
“You will excuse me, I feel sure,” Döbbeling says with dignity to us. “This is official business. I have to investigate the matter. We must postpone our business.”
He puts on his coat, sure that he is now through with us for good. We go out with him. He is in no great hurry, and we know why. When he arrives no one will remember who beat up Beste. It is an old story.
Beste is lying in the narrow hallway of his house. The flag of the republic lies beside him torn in two. A number of people are standing in front of the house. None of the Iron Guard is present. “What happened?” Döbbeling asks a policeman, standing beside the door, notebook in hand.
The policeman is about to report. “Were you present?” Döbbeling asks.
“No. I was called later.”
“Very good. So you know nothing. Who was present?”
No one replies. “Aren’t you going to send for a doctor?” Georg asks.
Döbbeling gives him a hostile glance. “Is that necessary? A little water—”
“It is necessary. The man is dying.”
Döbbeling turns around hastily and bends over Beste. “Dying?”
“Dying. He has a bad hemorrhage. Perhaps there are broken bones as well. It looks as though he had been thrown down the stairs.”