Chapter Thirty-Four

What's italicized is what I'm unsure about

    In the late afternoon, in the antiquated sitting room of the magistrate, decorated with expensive carvings, ceiling frescoes like tapestries out of brocade and red damask, rich jewelry, the meeting to which the mayor had invited Hans took place.

    Doctor Stoltzman confided his briefly and clearly developed plans and objects with reference to a suitable accommodation for the numerous arriving East Prussian refugees, which he had come up with for a wide,

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sweeping installation of the act of charity at the train station Maßnahmen, where now not only the troops who were passing through but also the refugees would be lookt after, and asked the gentleman to give proposals and suggestions as far as they were concerned.

    A few volunteered a word; he listened to them attentively, agreed with a lively nodding of his head to the thoughts that appeared to him practical and right, and now and then even made a note for himself with the huge pencil that lay on his table.  On the whole, however, one had the impression that he already had everything fixed and ready and these rhetorical remarks were really only accessories belonging to a meeting.

    "Where would I come to," he commented to Hans as they went home together, "especially in this time, when I let everything be spun out ten times in speaking in the meeting that suddenly is finished off by action?  Talking a lot was one of the biggest mistakes of the Germans; hopefully the war has brought an end to it.  We are now at the point of taking action there and not at the point of discussing."

    "We will find enough opportunity for taking action here too; the refugees will take care of that."

    "We must turn our attention to pushing them farther along as soon as it goes; a lasting place of residence in our city seems hardly advisable to me."

    "It would, however, not be very compassionate to send them farther immediately, when they have hardly reached any rest here."

    "And yet it would happen only for their welfare, because who gives us a guarantee that one day

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even our city won't be affected?"

    "You mean that the enemy could penetrate this far?"

    An obvious astonishment was in Hans' question.  The thought that Stoltzmann was fighting there appeared not to have come to him yet.

    "No," he added decidedly, "our brave troops would not let him come so far!"

    "I don't fear it either.  But it is much better to be calm about everything and take precautions than to let yourself be surprised.  I had our collections in the museum and the most important pieces of the town archive brought into safekeeping.  Your Nikolai church also has quite a share of pieces of value, above all the old paraments in the large sacristy; perhaps it would be advisable likewise to store them in a room as secure as possible.  I still have some space and am at your disposal."

    Hans wanted to reply when he saw his maid come towards him from the other side of the street:  "I should go straight to the town hall; the gracious Fräulein is sending me.  The Bärwald dignitaries, Mr. Hauptmann and the privy councillor, have just arrived.  The Pastor should go to them immediately."

    In the "Rodenburg Court," in which it had been very quiet in recent times, all of a sudden, life had now returned; the large hall was full of pieces of luggage, one piled on top of an-other.  The steps and hallways were filled with restless people rushing here and there, who were looking for their rooms and directing a thousand questions to the staff, which had become scarce because of the conscription.  This appeared set alight by the general nervousness;

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there were no answers at all or insufficient ones, about which the foreigners then fell again into bright annoyance.  Yes, even the otherwise so sure and dignified doorman in his gold-trimmed uniform had disposed of his magnificent composure so much that to Hans' question about a Captain Warsow-Bärwälde he strongly and firmly claimed that such a gentleman would not be staying in their hotel, that, actually, there was not such a gentleman at all.

    But through the large glass panes of the door that led into the dining hall, Hans already caught sight of the two old men.

    The Bärwalder sat quite bent, his head propped up on his wrinkled hand with the great blue veins, an answer-less question in his grey eyes.  More youthful appeared the privy councillor with the white goatee, the bold nose under the high, still quite smooth forehead, above which, artfully parted, his full, white-blond hair gleamed, whose care even to-day was not neglected in the least.  They were not talking politics to-day, as at other times; they were not fighting with one an-other; the privy councillor probably made a slight beginning of it because he had the newspaper in front of him and appeared to be reading the latest war news, but the Bärwalder did not show an interest in it; he had certainly not at all heard what his brother read; his eye remained directed into empty space.

    For a moment, Hans stood hesitating at the door.  He could not see this scene without being moved:  these two old men, whom life had otherwise taken hold of with such a gentle hand, had surrounded with all amenities and spoiled with all comforts, who, as far as he could think, had not yet gone through anything really difficult.  And now even them driven out of their home,

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alone and without help here abroad on the road!

    And around them all the tables were densely occupied with other East-Prussian owners from the surrounding area, old and young with women and children; at several were also individual ladies, whose husbands probably remained at home or had gone into the field.  He knew a few of them, but he had always seen them in fresh activities or in happy circles.  Now they sat next to each other silently and lookt in front of themselves just as despondent and defeated as the old Bärwalder.  And yet they felt that they belonged together, one firmly rooted with the other as never before in life.  For the same fate united all of them.  He must think about the Reckensteiner.  He no longer felt sorry for him; the lot had fallen more pleasantly for him than for these here.

    "That is indeed Hans!" the privy councillor said suddenly, stood up, and went a few steps towards the one coming in.  "Good that you came, dear boy, we have been waiting for you.  But haven't you brought Else with?"

    "I haven't spoken to her anymore; I just had a meeting in the town hall; but I believe she will be expecting you with us at home.  You will surely eat with us, can even stay with us.  In such a time, one gladly makes do, and we can manage room, despite a refugee family that we have taken in."

    "Very friendly, my good Hans, but we will calmly stay here.  I am glad that I have gotten Hermann so far; the move would be nothing for him; he is not allowed to come out of his habit.  It has hit him hard, very hard."

    The weak eyes of the Bärwalder had still not seen his nephew at all; only when his brother

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made him aware and Hans himself now approached his uncle to greet him, did a faint shimmer of joy pass over his tired features and for a few seconds gave them something stirring, grasping in the heart.

    "We will go for our regular walk in the sun in the afternoon - right, Manny?" the privy councillor said.  "And then you'll lie down upstairs in your room and sleep a little."

    "Yes, then I'll lie down and sleep a little."

    "You've had a bad trip?" Hans turned to the privy councillor.

    "A very bad.  We decided only at the last moment.  Indeed, he was not to be moved for the departure and wanted to stay under any circumstances.  Only when everyone around us fled did the Hutemach and I bring him to it with a bit of force.  Now, however, it had already become a little late.  We needed to take the railway trip here, which one otherwise does in two hours with the fast train, the whole night, from ten o'clock in the evening until seven o'clock in the morning, and rode in the most dreadful corner in a compartment in the fourth class."

    The waiter brought the lunch.  Hans was invited and gladly joined.  But the Bärwalder took next to nothing.  The fish, which the privy councillor prepared and gave to him, remained lying, barely touched.

    "You should have taken the Hutemach with," he said grumpily, "she knows best what gets me."

    "But I know it too and am standing in for her."

    "But I am just used to her," the old man replied in that harmless selfishness, which had strongly developed through the infirmity of his body;

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it also appeared in such times as perfectly natural that everything had to turn around him.

    "The Hutemach has stayed in Bärwalde?" Hans askt.

    "She and Borowski.  Thanks be to God!  What would become of Bärwalde otherwise!?"

    "But it is a lot from her that she has done it."

    "She explained from the beginning that she wanted to stay.  She has often been in Russia, understands the language, and hopes to manage with the enemy if they should come."

    "But it is a lot," Hans repeated.

    Even from the poultry, which he otherwise preferred and which the privy councillor had again carefully prepared for him, the Bärwalder took hardly one bite.  The brother's patience gave out on him.

    "But you must pull yourself together a little, Manny!"

    The old man replied not a word.  But a vague resentment lay on his face, and his thick, white brows knit themselves together tightly and firmly.

    "It is a difficult time!" Hans sought to agree with the privy councillor and at the same time to placate him, "but we all suffer under it."

    Again no answer, and yet one saw how it was working behind the furrowed brow.  Finally, the old man lifted his head from his chest; searching for the word with difficulty, he said:  "A difficult time for us all, quite right, my son.  And you, who, although a city dweller and a scholar, cling to the country home like all the Warsows, must understand why food and drink has no taste for me anymore.  They have driven me from my soil!  I grew up on it; my parents grew up on it, and my grandparents.  I have cultivated and ploughed it from my

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earliest youth on.  I have put all my work and energy into it, seen it turn green and grow and bear fruit, every spring, every summer, every fall.  But now when I am become old and tired and hoped to find well-earned rest on it and later on to see my body be bedded down in her bosom, now they come and force me abroad away from it!"

    His watery, dark eyes shimmered; even the other two were moved.

    "Those are the sacrifices that the Fatherland demands from us, Manny!" the privy councillor eventually said.

    "The Fatherland!" retorted the old man, "I know it well.  But then what is the Fatherland?  For all who sit here around us, for all country-born, it is the small piece of earth that they cultivate.  The soil is our home, and what you call love of the Fatherland arises out of the love for the soil.  My whole life long, I have known to treasure the produce of the spirit and of the culture; Hans there knows that the best.  But they are the artistic creations; they are not the original ones, the natives.  That is the piece of land that the man conquers anew every day with his strength and work; only through this does it become his property."

    Speaking became difficult for him.  But he pulled himself together and went on:  "Certainly, we sacrifice it, must sacrifice it so that the whole will be saved.  For in all of us, whoever we are, is and lives nothing else but the Fatherland.  But we people of the land give our last with it, and while we give it, we bleed to death, not much different from the soldier in the field.  But especially when we become old and already so united with our soil that

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we are no longer able to create a new home for ourselves."

    The privy councillor noticed how this subject excited his sickly brother; he began to worry about him.

    "For the time being, the enemy is not yet in Bärwalde, thanks be to God," he admitted, "and even if it should come to the worst, then after the peace and the victory, which is sure for us, we would be richly compensated for the destruction."  Then an angry flame ran over the wrinkled features of the old man.

    "Compensated for!?" he cried, for the first time his voice loudly raised so that even the others around him stopped.  "Pardon, my dear, you are not already become such a strong city dweller that you can say such a thing.  Compensated for!  One can compensate you for your money that you have lost, your furniture and appliances; perhaps one can compensate Hans for his books and his tools - but how can one compensate us for a destroyed home?  All those hallowed treasures of many generations before that are hidden in it?  We sacrifice them - that is our duty.  But we sacrifice them as something not able to be compensated for, never again to be made up for; that makes this sacrifice so difficult for us."

    Now even the privy councillor said nothing more.  Hans had not participated in the conversation at all, rather just listened silently and absorbed in himself.  Everything that the Bärwalder said there had a core and a strength, as always, once he opened his mouth.  Yet this time, however, it was something different:  the old man had given expression to what he himself constantly felt and what grasped him deep in his soul at this moment.

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    The Bärwalder appeared completely exhausted; his hands shook, and the color of his face was drained, become ashen, after the red of the excitement.

    "I think you should lie down, Manny!" the privy councillor said.

    "Yes, yes, I can lie down.  It may be good for me."

The old condition of the sudden tiredness and the concern for his well being arose again; he got up with the help of his brother, offered his hand to Hans, and proceeded to his room.