She certainly despises me even more than Frieda does. She saw me from the window as I came to fetch beer, hurried to the door, and locked it. I had to spend a long time begging her to open the door, and before she would let me in she made me promise her the ribbon in my hair. But when I gave it to her she threw it away in a corner. Well, she may despise me, for in part I am dependent on her goodwill, and she is a barmaid at the Castle Inn, although only temporarily, and she cer-tainly doesn’t have the qualifications for a permanent appointment there. You have only to hear how the landlord speaks to Pepi, and compare it with the tone he used to adopt in talking to Frieda. But that doesn’t keep Pepi from despising Amalia too, Amalia, a glance from whose eyes alone would be enough to send little Pepi with all her braids and bows running out of the room faster than she could go on her fat little legs of her own accord. Yesterday I heard her, yet again, saying such outrageous things about Amalia that finally the guests took my side, although in the same way as you have seen for yourself.’ ‘How frightened you are,’ said K. ‘I was only giving Frieda her due, I wasn’t trying to run you down, as you now seem to think. Your family seems special to me as well, I have not hidden it, but how that special quality can arouse disdain I don’t understand.’ ‘Oh, K.,’ said Olga, ‘I’m afraid even you will understand it yet. Can’t you see how Amalia’s conduct to Sortini was what first caused that disdain?’ ‘That really would be strange,’ said K. ‘Amalia may be admired or condemned for her conduct, but why disdained? And if people really feel disdain for Amalia, out of some feeling that I don’t understand, why would it be extended to the rest of you, her innocent family? It really is too bad if Pepi despises you, and if I am ever in the Castle Inn again I shall give her a good scolding.’ ‘But K.,’ said Olga, ‘if you were to try changing the minds of everyone who despises us it would be hard work, because it all starts with the castle. I still remember the late morning of that same day. Brunswick, who was our assistant at the time, had come as usual; our father had given him work to do and sent him home, and we were sitting at lunch, everyone was very lively except for Amalia and me, our father kept talking about yesterday’s festivities. He had all kinds of plans for the fire brigade.

The castle, you see, has its own fire brigade and had sent a detach-ment of it to the party. There had been a great deal of discussion with the castle firemen, the gentlemen from the castle had seen all that our own firemen could do, and the result was very much in our favour; there had been talk of the need to reorganize the castle fire brigade, instructors from the village would be called in, some of them were being considered, and our father hoped that he would be chosen. He was talking about it now, and as he had a pleasant habit of talking at length at mealtimes he sat there, his arms resting on the table, and as he looked out of the open window and up at the sky his face was so young, so happy and hopeful—and I was never to see him like that again. Then Amalia said, with an air of knowing better that we had not seen in her before, that we ought not to trust the gentlemen very much when they said such things; the gentlemen liked to say some-thing pleasing on such occasions, but it meant very little or nothing at all. No sooner was it said than it was forgotten for ever, but next time people would fall for their tricks again. Our mother reproved her for saying such things, and our father just laughed at her worldly-wise air of experience, but then he stopped short, seemed to be looking for something that he only now noticed was missing, but nothing was gone, and then he said that Brunswick had said some-thing about a messenger and a torn-up letter. He asked if we knew anything about it, who was the letter for or about, what had hap-pened? We girls said nothing. Barnabas, as young as a little lamb at the time, said something particularly silly or bold, we talked of other things, and the matter was forgotten.’

18

Amalia’s Punishment

‘But soon afterwards questions were being fired at us from all sides about that letter. Friends and enemies called to see us, acquaintances and strangers, but no one stayed long. Our best friends were in more of a hurry than anyone to say goodbye. Lasemann, usually slow and solemn in his manner, came in as if he just wanted to examine the size of the room, took a look around the place, and he’d finished. It was like some horrifying children’s game when Lasemann fled, and Father excused himself from talking to some other visitors and hur-ried after him to the front door of the house, where he gave up. Brunswick came and told Father that he wanted to set up in business for himself, he said it straight out—he was a clever fellow, he knew how to seize his moment. Customers went into Father’s storeroom looking for the boots they had brought for repair and taking them away. At first Father tried to make them change their minds—and we all backed him up as well as we could—but later he gave up and silently helped them to search. Line after line in the order book was crossed out, the stocks of leather that had been left with us were handed back, debts were paid, it all passed off without any argument. People were glad to be able to cut their links with us quickly and completely; they might suffer a loss, but that wasn’t a major consid-eration. And finally, as anyone could have foreseen, along came Seemann the captain of the fire brigade. I still see the scene before me: Seemann so tall and strong, but slightly stooped and tubercular, always serious, he can’t laugh at all, standing in front of my father whom he admired, in private he’d held out the prospect of appoint-ment as deputy fire chief to him, and now he had to tell him that the Association was dismissing him and asking him to return his diploma. The people there in our house stopped what they were doing and crowded into a circle around the two men. Seemann can’t say a word, he only claps my father on the shoulder as if knocking out of him the words that he himself ought to say and can’t find.

As he does so he keeps on laughing, probably in the hope of soothing himself and everyone else a little, but as he can’t laugh, no one has ever heard him laugh, it doesn’t occur to anyone that he is laughing. From then on, however, Father is too tired and despairing to help Seemann out. Indeed, he seems too tired to take in what’s going on at all. We were all equally despairing, but as we were young we couldn’t believe in such total disaster, we kept thinking that with all these visitors arriv-ing, someone would come at last to stop the process and make every-thing go back to where it used to be. Seemann, we foolishly thought, was just the man for the part. We waited in suspense for clear words to emerge from his fits of laughter. What was there to laugh about except the stupid injustice being done to us? Oh, fire chief, fire chief, do talk to these people, we thought, and crowded about him, but that just made him turn round and round in a funny way. At last, how-ever, he began—well, not to do as we secretly wished, but to speak after all in response to the encouraging or angry cries of the others. We still had some hope. He began by praising Father, called him an ornament to the fire service, an incomparable example to the next generation, an indispensable member of the fire brigade whose departure must be a heavy blow to it. That was all very well, and if only he had ended there! But he went on.

If, none the less, the Fire Service Association had decided to ask our father to resign his post, although only temporarily, everyone would know how serious were the grounds that forced the Association to do so. Yesterday’s festiv-ities, he said, would not have been so good without Father’s brilliant achievements, but those very achievements had attracted a particular degree of official attention, a spotlight was now turned on the Association, and it must be even more careful of its pure reputation than before. And then there had been the insult to the messenger, the Fire Service Association could find no other way out, and he, Seemann, he said, had assumed the onerous duty of saying so. He hoped Father would not make things even more difficult for him. Seemann was so glad to have got it over and done with that he wasn’t even very considerate any more, he pointed to the diploma hanging on the wall and crooked his finger at it. Our father nodded and went to