But she raised her head and started at me with streaming eyes and cried: “It’s too bad! It’s not enough that you’re blind drunk every day, you have to bring the firm into disrepute! Everybody’s saying that we’re not to be trusted any more, and that we’re out to cheat people …”
“Halt, stop, Magda,” I said slowly, and suddenly I was pleased that things had come to a head at last, and I was determined to spare her nothing.
“Halt, stop, Magda,” I said. “Not too much at a time! As far as being blind drunk every day is concerned, I’d like to ask you whether you’ve ever seen me stagger about or heard me stammer? I quite admit I take a little drink now and then, but I can stand it. It helps me to think clearer. People who can’t stand alcohol should avoid it. But that’s not me. Look,” I said slowly, and opened that certain compartment in my desk, “here we have a bottle of brandy that was still full at nine o’clock this morning, and now about a third is gone, a good third, let’s say. But am I staggering about? Can’t I manage my limbs? Am I muddled in the head? I’m ten times clearer than you! I wouldn’t allow any jumped-up muck-ox to call my wife a swindler. I’d knock his teeth in!” I shouted suddenly, and then continued more calmly. “But you went on talking to him, and calmed him down, and if I know you and that frightened old hen Hinzpeter, you either washed out that deal with the peas or else raised the price.”
I looked at her ironically.
“Of course we did,” she cried, and now she dried her tears, and looked at me without love or affection. “Of course we did. We’ve cancelled the deal, but we’ve lost a good client for ever.”
“Is that so?” I answered, still more ironically. “You’ve cancelled the deal. Of course, I’m just the lowest office boy here, and what I put my name to is just a scrap of paper! I’ll tell you one thing, Magda. If Mr Bailiff Schmidt of the Fliederhof doesn’t fulfil his agreement to the last hundredweight, I’ll summons him, and I’ll win my case. Because an agreement’s an agreement, any lawyer will tell you that. And if he has accepted my low offer, that’s his fault, not mine. I didn’t make him drunk, but he tried to make me drunk, and if he fell into his own trap, it’s not my fault. And, Magda,” I said, and now I got up from my chair, “I’d have you know that I’m the boss here, and if agreements are going to be cancelled, I’m to be asked, and no one else. It doesn’t suit me that you play yourself up here, and try to ride roughshod over me, with all this talk about being blind drunk when I’m as sober as an eel in the water and ten times more clever and more efficient than you are. I’m the boss here, and you’re not going to push me around. Get back to your pots and pans, I won’t interfere with you there. I didn’t ask you to come here, but now I’m asking you to go.”
I had been speaking very seriously and deliberately, and while I was speaking it had become clearer and clearer to me that I was right in every respect, and she was wrong. Now I sat down again.
Magda had been looking at me very attentively while I was speaking, as if she wanted to lip-read every word I said. Now that I had finished, she said: “I can see it’s no use talking to you any more, Erwin. You have lost all sense of right and wrong. The Count had told the bailiff that he would lose his job if this drunken agreement wasn’t cancelled at once, and you would be summoned for fraud.…”
“Let him try!” I cried ironically. “Of course, you’re impressed by a Count, just because he calls himself blue-blooded. But I don’t care that much!”
I snapped my fingers.
“Let him summon me! He’ll soon find out his mistake!”
“Yes,” cried Magda again, “it’s all the same to you whether your good name gets dragged through the mud in court. Unfortunately I’m forced to realise that now. But I give up talking to you about it. Schnaps has destroyed all sense of justice in you. But I would like to ask you something else, Erwin.”
“Go on, then,” I answered sullenly, but I was very much on the alert, for I anticipated that nothing good was coming. She took a deep breath and looked fixedly at me, then she said.
“Are you still a man of your word, Erwin? I mean, will you still stand by what you once promised me?”
“Of course I will,” I answered sullenly, “for instance I would keep to an agreement, whether I was drunk or sober at the time it was settled.”
She took no notice of my irony.
“When you were going to Hamburg,” she said, “you promised me faithfully you would come to the doctor’s with me. Will you keep your word, will you come with me to see Dr Mansfeld this afternoon?”
“Stop,” I said excitedly, “you’ve got things mixed up again, Magda! I never promised you to go to the doctor’s in any event, I only promised to do so if I came back ill. But I have come back perfectly healthy.”
“Yes, so healthy,” said Magda bitterly, “that the night you came back you emptied every bottle in my larder. And since then you haven’t been sober for a minute. But I see you don’t want to keep your word.”
“I would keep my word, but in this case I haven’t given any word, not like that.”
“But Erwin,” Magda began again, but quietly now, “why do you struggle so against having yourself examined for once by the doctor. If it’s as you say and the doctor confirms it, then everything’s all right … but if not …”
“Well, what then?” I asked ironically.
“… then something will have to be done about your health. Because you’re ill, Erwin, you’re so ill, you have absolutely no idea …”
“Oh, stop it,” I said, rather bored. “You won’t get round me that way. You talk soft to me, but I can see by your eyes that you don’t mean well. I’m not going to allow my wife to order me about, however efficient she may be.”
“I don’t want to order you about at all …”
“Oh, please: first you cancel my contracts, then I’m supposed to go to the doctor’s because you imagine some nonsense, finally you’d like to take my place as boss here, eh? During my absence you’ve been making yourself quite comfortable in my chair, haven’t you?”
“All right then,” she said, and now her eyes had a really wicked gleam, and no trace of mildness was left in her voice, “you don’t want to, you don’t want to do anything but drink and cause trouble. But I’m not going to allow you to ruin me and the firm. Ruin yourself as much as you like. But then I’ll have to take other steps …”
“Take them, take them,” I said sarcastically, “and see how you get on.… By the way, would you be good enough to tell me what steps you happen to be thinking of?”
My irony made her beside herself with rage.
“Certainly I’ll tell you,” she cried furiously. “First of all I’ll get a divorce …”