Iron Gustav by Hans Fallada Read Free Book Online Page A

left.’
    Still the son did not move. In a rage Hackendahl went up to him and shouted: ‘Can’t you hear? Turn out your pockets!’ Yes, that was the old steely sergeant-major’s bark that had once called a whole company to attention, a voice that struck home to every man-Jack of them. And his son, too, jumped, turning out his pockets without a
word. But they held nothing. Hackendahl couldn’t believe it. ‘All that money!’ he cried. ‘Eighty marks squandered in a single evening. It’s not possible.’ Amazed by such laughable simplicity, the son shot a glance at his father. ‘I could easily have spent eight hundred,’ he boasted. ‘What else is money for?’
    The old man was thunderstruck; the situation was even worse than he had thought. In these namby-pamby times of peace there had sprung up a generation soft and pleasure-loving, which could squander but not earn; 1870/71 was too far off. And he recollected the murder of the Archduke yesterday. People were speaking of war, not a bad thing perhaps, since youth would then learn that life meant struggle.
    ‘So you would have thrown away eight hundred marks,’ he said contemptuously. ‘You, who haven’t earned eight in your life! Why, without your father you’d die like a dog in a ditch.’
    The son shrugged his shoulders.
    Hackendahl went, locking the cellar door and, when he got upstairs, he also locked the door leading to the passage – there was to be no more whispering. Disobedience must not be encouraged.
    He went into his room. This time he took up his pen without hesitation and wrote in the cash book: ‘29 June. Stolen by my son Erich … eighty marks.’
    Well, that was that! He pushed both cash and cash book into the drawer. They could be dealt with later – the most important matter was settled.
    Going out, he donned his blue cab driver’s coat with the brass buttons and his top hat; in the yard the hackney cab stood ready, Otto holding the bridle of the mettlesome horse.
    Hackendahl mounted the box, put the rug over his knees, settled the top hat on his head and took the whip. ‘I’ll be back at twelve. Take Kastor and Senta to the blacksmith’s – the foreshoes are worn out. You should have noticed that yourself. Gee-up, grey mare!’
    He clucked his tongue, the horse moved off and the cab rolled out of the yard.
    The whole house heaved a sigh of relief.
§ XII
    Eva had stood on tenterhooks behind her bedroom curtains waiting for her father to leave, although she had not risked much, as she knew, by sneaking into his room while he was busy with Erich in the cellar. She had not been so foolish as to touch the money on the desk, knowing that the morning receipts had already been counted and that the little bags of money lying in the drawer were also checked of course; but when Father found out that not only eighty but two hundred marks as well were missing, he’d blame Erich. And it hardly mattered to Erich whether he was hanged for a sheep or a lamb.
    She shrugged contemptuously, fingering the ten gold coins in her apron pocket – you had to keep your wits about you. Since making up her mind not to stay much longer in this cheerless house she had hoarded cash, as opportunity offered, taking small amounts, secretly pocketing some of the shopping money, pawning articles from her mother’s linen cupboard. Slowly but surely she was freeing herself from dependence on her father.
    Was she going to be conscience-stricken over stealing from him? Not on her life! Father of his own free will wouldn’t part with a penny, always maintaining that he was saving for his children, but he could live to be a hundred and she almost seventy before she inherited anything. No, better a bird in the hand, so far as the cash box was concerned, especially when it stood wide open, as it had done that morning!
    Eva pushed the swing-lamp – an old-fashioned oil apparatus converted to electric light – up to the ceiling. The higher she pushed it, the lower sank the