The Benefactress

by Elizabeth Von Arnim

"Thank you," said Axel, "I don't want any."

"You'll be hungry then," said the man, going away. "There is no more food to-day."

Axel said nothing, and he went out. The smell of the soup, which was apparently of great potency, filled the little room. Axel tried to open the window wider, but though he was tall and he stood on his table, he could not reach it.

It began to get dark. The lamps in the street below were lit, and the shouts of the children at play came up to him. He guessed that it must be past nine, and wondered how long he was to be left there without a light. As it grew darker, his thoughts grew very dark. He paced up and down more and more restlessly, trying to force them into clearness. In the hurry and dismay he had left his keys at Lohm, he remembered, and all his money and papers were at the mercy of the first-comer. And he was poor; he could not afford to lose any money, or any time. Supposing he were to be kept here more than a few hours, what would become of his farming, just now at its busiest season, his people used to his constant direction and control, his inspector accustomed to do nothing without the master's orders? And what would be the moral effect on them of his arrest? If he had a pencil and paper he would write some hasty messages to keep them all at their posts till his return; but he had no writing materials, he was quite helpless. He had sent urgent word to his lawyer in Stralsund, telegraphing to him through Manske before leaving home, and he had expected to find him waiting for him at the prison. But he had not come. Why did he not come? Why did he leave him helpless at such a moment? Axel was determined to face his misfortune quietly; yet the feeling of absolute impotence, of being as it were bound hand and foot when there was such dire necessity for immediate action, almost broke down his resolution.

But it was only for a few hours, he assured himself, walking faster, thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets, and he could bear anything for a few hours. His brothers would come to him—to-morrow the first thing his lawyer would certainly come. It was all so extremely absurd; yet it was amazing the amount of suffering one such absurd mistake could inflict. "Thank God," he exclaimed aloud, stopping in his walk, struck by a new thought, "thank God that I have neither wife nor children." And he paced up and down again more slowly, his shoulders bent, his head sunk, a dull flush on his face; he was thinking of Anna.

The door was unlocked, and a warder with a bull's-eye lantern came in quickly. "The Public Prosecutor is coming up," he said breathlessly. "When he comes in, you stand at attention and recite your name and the crime of which you are accused."

He had hardly finished when the Public Prosecutor appeared. The warder sprang to attention. Axel slowly and unwillingly did the same.

"Well?" snarled the great man, as Axel did not speak. He was an old man, with a face grown sly and hard during years of association with criminals, of experiences confined solely to the ugly sides of life.

"My name is Lohm," said Axel, feeling the folly of attempting to defy anyone so absolutely powerful in the place where he was; and he proceeded to explain the crime of which he was suspected.

The Public Prosecutor, who knew perfectly well everything about him, having himself arranged every detail of the arrest, said something incomprehensible and was going away.