Once Dubslav was again outside, the great question naturally became, “Well, what now?” It was only now going on eleven and the whole business would not be over before six, if it wasn’t drawn out even longer. He expressed these sentiments to a number of the gentlemen seated on one of the benches in front of the inn who had somewhat prematurely helped themselves to the Prince Regent’s liqueur cabinet, which under normal circumstances did not put in an appearance until after dinner.
[ . . . ]
Around four everyone had returned from the excursion and again stopped in front of the Prince Regent on a plaza occupied by old trees, which since time immemorial had born the name ‘The Triangle’ because of its shape. The election results were by no means yet certain. By now it could be seen rather clearly, however, that many Progressive votes would pass to the candidate of the Social Democrats, to file maker Torgelow, who, although not personally present, had the simple folk behind him. Hundreds of his party comrades stood around in groups on the Triangle, conversing laughingly about the election speeches that had been presented by speakers of the opposing parties, partly in Rheinsberg and Wutz, and partly out in the flat countryside. One of those standing under the trees, an intimate of Torgelow, was the wood turner’s journeyman Söderkopp, who simply in his capacity as wood turner’s journeyman enjoyed considerable standing. Everyone thought, “that fellow can turn out to be a Bebel someday. Why not? Bebel is old and then we’ll have this fellow.” But Söderkopp also knew how to really enthrall the people. He went after Gundermann the hardest. “Yes sir, this Gundermann, I know the likes o’ him. A board-cutter and stock-market swindler. Scrounges every penny that comes his way. Got seven mills, he does, but only two turns of phrase, and progress is alternately the ‘precursor’ or else it’s the ‘father’ of socialism. Maybe we all come from the likes of him. That sort’s capable of anything.”
Uncke, as Söderkopp was going on in this way, edged closer and closer from tree to tree, taking his notes. At a further distance stood Pyterke, smiling to himself, visibly surprised that Uncke found so much worthy of copying down.
Pyterke’s astonishment regarding Uncke’s “note taking” was only too justified, but it would have been a good bit less so if Uncke’s auditory zeal had been directed, instead of at the Social Democrat Söderkopp, toward a group standing off to the side. Here, in fact, several of those considered stalwarts of the state were chatting about the presumable outcome of the election and that the chances for old Stechlin’s victory were getting worse from minute to minute. Especially the Rheinsbergers were said to have turned the outcome to his disadvantage.
“Devil take the whole of Rheinsberg,” swore an elderly Herr von Kraatz, whose red face as he spoke became all the redder. “Miserable hole this. As truly as I’m standing here, we’re not going to get him in, our good, old Stechlin. And what that means, we all know. Anybody who votes against us, votes against the king. It’s all one and the same. That’s what they call ‘solidarity’ these days.”
[ . . . ]
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