Book + 

III + 

I + 

The General was working in his study; Aunt Sidonie was probably writing her “Court Etiquette;” Ottomar had not yet returned from parade; Elsa had fulfilled her household duties, had dressed herself, and had now time, before breakfast, to read Meta’s letters. + 

This morning two had again arrived together. Elsa had put them unread into her pocket when they were given to her, knowing that Meta’s letters were not of pressing importance. She had now gone into the garden, and was strolling under the tall trees near the wall of the Schmidts’ garden, her favourite walk, and with a smile on her face was deciphering one of the letters, the first she had put her hand upon; it did not generally signify in what order they were read. It was no easy task; Meta wrote a characteristic but not a particularly legible hand. Each letter stood by itself without reference to its neighbours on the right or left, and all had a decided objection to the horizontal, and either ran gaily up to the height above or drooped sadly towards the lower regions which belonged properly to the next line. Interspersed amongst them were strange hieroglyphics resembling swords or lances, which were probably meant for stops, but as they were never to be found where they were expected, and, indeed, in their superabundant zeal frequently appeared in the middle of a word, they rather increased than lessened the confusion. + 

Elsa at length made out the following: + 

“Cruel one! I understand all now, I may say for the first time in my life; and you⁠—you yourself, your last letter⁠—oh! that last letter! When men are silent stones will talk; if after five long anxious days the unhoped-for, unexpected meeting with the man she appeared to love, only gives the proud Elsa matter for a humorous description of that very meeting, poor Meta may dare to hope, does hope, and⁠—loves! Yes, she loves⁠—loves him whom you scorn, whom you coldly turn your back upon because the skirts of a princess have touched yours! You will say that this is pity⁠—not love! But are not pity and love twin sisters! Yes, I have suffered with him, I still suffer with him; I see his honest blue eyes swimming with tears, I see those tears falling persistently and slowly down the sunburnt cheeks into the curly beard; but the last tear⁠—the very last⁠—before it vanishes in the clouds of tender melancholy, I will myself wipe away⁠—yes, I! I have made up my mind. Tomorrow morning papa shall have the horses put to⁠—tomorrow evening you will see the face of one who pities you but is determined not to spare you the indignant countenance of his avenger and of your too happy + 

The second letter was as follows: + 

“You will not see it! Beloved, adored Elsa, forgive me! now in the depth of night, when all is still, so still that I can hear the blood coursing through my temples, and I start if our Castor barks in the courtyard; if an apple, which I had forgotten, or which I could not reach, rustles through the dry leaves of the tree in front of my window and falls to the ground⁠—they still look wonderful, but are all rotten⁠—now, only when I read your letter for the second time, do I understand it, and perceive the earnest, sorrowful tone that pierces through the hollow ring of your mirth. One word has made all clear to me; one single, deep, heartfelt word, so deep and so heartfelt as can come only from the heart and the pen of my Elsa. You write: ‘He walked up the gallery, the Princess spoke to me very graciously, as was apparent from her smiles and the kind tone of her soft voice; but I confess, to my shame, that her first words were Hebrew to me.’ To your shame?⁠—Elsa⁠—Elsa! to mine, to my deepest, most heartrending shame! Oh, heavens! what does not lie under that one word ‘Hebrew!’ Your grief, your sorrow, your penitence, your love! Well, then, love him! I resign him; I must do so! and my visit to you also. Papa cannot, as it happens, let me have the horses tomorrow, because he must send his fat sheep to Prora, and mamma wants to make plum-jam. Let me weep and sob out my sorrow in solitude and plum-jam, and keep a little love for your too unhappy + 

“What absurd nonsense!” said Elsa. + 

But she did not laugh, but said it, on the contrary, very gravely; read the scrawl again very carefully, and only dropped the letters into her pocket when Aunt Sidonie appeared through the door of the room which opened into the garden and came down the steps towards her. + 

“I must rest a little,” said Sidonie. + 

“How far have you got?” asked Elsa. + 

“To an extremely difficult chapter⁠—to the marriage festivities. Malortie leaves me altogether in the dark upon this point. The examples which he gives on page 181 of the second volume, give an immense amount of information, but only of use for the chamberlains at great courts: ‘Marriage of their late Majesties’⁠—à la bonne heure! ‘Programme of the marriage by proxy of his Majesty the King Don Pedro of Portugal and Algarve’⁠—” + 

“Who did he marry?” asked Elsa. + 

Sidonie, who was walking by her side with her hands behind her back, stood still in astonishment. + 

“Child! child! is it possible? You read me that chapter yourself only yesterday evening. I have been lying awake and racking my brains over it all night, and you have forgotten that his Highness’s illustrious bride was the Princess Stephanie of Hohenzollem-Sigmaringen? But the fact is, that you take no interest in my work; you do not, or will not, understand what an immense benefit a really comprehensive complete book on ceremonial, suited to small courts, would be! Well, well, child, I am not angry with you. You have never had much to do with such matters; how should you be expected to understand their importance, though you do now and then suggest very useful ideas on some of the most difficult points! Now imagine this: at the wedding of his late Majesty two Lieutenant-Generals, Herr von Brauchitsch and Herr von Kessel, who stood at the two ends of the table, carved the dishes, gave them to the footmen standing behind them, these to the pages, and from the latter they were received by the lords and gentlemen in waiting. That is all very well, but how are two Lieutenant-Generals to be found at a small court such as ours was?” + 

“Then take two Lieutenants,” said Elsa. + 

“Capital!” said Sidonie. “That⁠—no, that will not not do! What would become of precedence if I began with Lieutenants? But you are not listening.” + 

“Indeed I am, aunt. I was only thinking that this very evening we shall have two Lieutenant-Generals here, and that I should much prefer a few Lieutenants. We really have too few dancing men.” + 

“Ottomar can bring some of his brother officers; besides, there are not so very few. There is Count Golm, who told me he was passionately fond of dancing; there is Tettritz, there is Schönau⁠—he says he has given up dancing, but that cannot be allowed in a Second Captain. There is⁠—” + 

Her aunt named half a dozen names, but not the only one which Elsa wished to hear. + 

Elsa was stooping over the trellis which ran along the wall between the two great elm-trees. + 

“And Captain Schmidt, has he refused?” + 

“I did not send him the invitation, my dear child.” + 

“You did not send it!” + 

Elsa started up quickly; her expressive face showed surprise and annoyance. + 

“How can you excite yourself so over such a trifle, my dear child? It occurred to me, just as I was giving the letters to August, that we are going to give another party in a few weeks, to which we must invite Major Müller and some of that set; the Captain can be asked with them.” + 

“But why should he be!” exclaimed Elsa; “I remember that evening at Golmberg, when, without intending it, he was almost the only speaker at the table, and gave Count Golm besides a lesson which it is to be hoped he has not forgotten.” + 

“That is exactly what decided me,” said Sidonie; “just that warm discussion which you and your papa told me of between the two gentlemen⁠—the two gentlemen, you hear, Elsa, I make no distinction of rank. We are giving a party in honour of the Count, and as a return for the civilities he showed you. Would it be courteous, would it be becoming, to invite at the same time a gentleman⁠—mark that, Elsa⁠—a gentleman with whom he has had at his own table⁠—tranchons le mot!⁠—an altercation!” + 

“But he deserved the lesson.” + 

“And I suppose is to have a repetition of it here.” + 

“That he certainly will not. Captain Schmidt is courtesy itself.” + 

Sidonie stopped in her walk, her good-natured eyes looked almost sharply into Elsa’s face, which was flushed with the warmth of the dispute. + 

“If I could not see into your heart, Elsa, as clearly as in a looking-glass, I really should not know how to explain the perverseness which leads you to praise the courtesy of a simple merchant-captain at the expense of your aunt’s. Child, child, do not you bring sorrow on your dear papa, who already takes such a gloomy view of life; and on your aunt, who lives only for her ‘Court Etiquette’ and for you.” + 

“I do not understand what you mean, aunt,” answered Elsa, blushing up to the roots of her hair. + 

“Nor I either, thank God,” answered Sidonie, wiping her eyes; “only I get so anxious when I see your papa so out of spirits, as he was this morning when he gave me Aunt Valerie’s letter; he never answers her letters himself, although this last one is really so touchingly humble, that I shall find it very difficult to be severe with her again.” + 

“How can one be severe with a person who is so unhappy as you say Aunt Valerie is?” + 

“Child, you cannot understand,” answered Sidonie; “you must trust to your papa and me. There are things which can never be forgiven.” + 

“Not even if one is sorry for them, as Aunt Valerie evidently is? Is it only a brother who is to be forgiven until seventy times seven, and not a sister also?” + 

This was another of Elsa’s terrible ideas which Sidonie did not know how to meet. Her kind eyes looked around as if seeking for help, and rested at last on the trellis, where they wandered up and down. + 

“At last I have got it into order,” she exclaimed: “see, Elsa, for the last three days the bed has not been trodden down nor the leaves torn off the trellis. It is only a wild vine, but it was beginning to look so pretty; August swore he did not do it; but how can one believe people? Well, I have gained my object.” + 

“It is wonderfully quiet over there today,” said Elsa. + 

“I wish to heaven it were always so,” answered the aunt. + 

“Even the manufactory chimney is not smoking,” continued Elsa. “Good heavens! I have only just remarked it. I hope no misfortune has happened! Have you heard anything, August!” + 

August, who came to call the ladies to breakfast, was astonished that the ladies had not heard of it. “Herr Schmidt had dismissed twenty or thirty men last Thursday, because they⁠—with respect be it said⁠—were Socialists and Communists; and the rest, who are not much better, seized the opportunity and demanded from Herr Schmidt enormous wages. Well, Herr Schmidt of course turned off the ringleaders, and they came back with the others in great crowds to murder Herr Schmidt, when the Captain, who was at Golmberg with the General and Fräulein Elsa, stood in the doorway and⁠—did you not see?⁠—pulled out a pair of pistols; and they all took to their heels and went on strike, as they call it, when they do not work, and drink schnaps. Since yesterday evening there has not been so much as a cat in the entire building, and the workmen at the other marble-works have also struck, to keep them company. And they say it will cost Herr Schmidt several thousand thalers a day, and that he will soon have to give in; but I don’t believe that, for Herr Schmidt, as the ladies know, is A 1.” + 

“Shocking!” said Sidonie, shaking her head; “such near neighbours! I warned your papa when he bought the house. It really is not safe. And people like that are to be invited!” + 

Elsa did not answer. When the servant mentioned Reinhold, her telltale heart beat rapidly, and she had involuntarily felt for the compass which, since their last meeting at the Exhibition, she had always carried in her pocket, that she might return it to him at the first opportunity. Her aunt’s observation had filled her with speechless indignation. But when, a few minutes later, she sat opposite to her father at the breakfast-table, she asked him, to Sidonie’s great dismay, without further preparation, if he had heard what had happened to the Schmidts; and that Herr Schmidt and the Captain had been apparently in danger of their lives; and should not Ottomar go today and return the Captain’s visit, the rather that her aunt had postponed to the following week the invitation she had already written him? + 

“Certainly!” answered the General; “Ottomar shall take the invitation himself. I want to speak to the Captain, and quite reckoned upon seeing him this evening.” + 

Elsa cast down her eyes to avoid seeing the flush of embarrassment which she felt sure must cover her aunt’s cheeks at that moment. + 

“Has my son returned?” asked the General of the servant. + 

“The Lieutenant has just returned from parade, and has gone to his room to dress.” The General commissioned the ladies to inform Ottomar of his wishes with regard to the visit and the invitation, and to tell him that there was a letter for him on his writing-table; he had to attend a board, and was already a few minutes late: he begged them not to disturb themselves on his account. + 

The General rose, made a stately bow to the ladies, and left the room. He had, contrary to his custom, eaten scarcely anything, and appeared absent and gloomy. This had not escaped Elsa; but she did not venture to ask any questions, any more than she ventured now to ask her aunt what she was thinking of, as she silently and with unwonted energy picked the last remnant of meat from an unlucky wing of chicken. She knew too well that it was not “the difficult chapter” in the “Court Etiquette.” Fortunately Ottomar soon appeared; but neither did he bring cheerfulness: the Major had again been unbearable⁠—the same evolution over and over again; he had blown up the officers after the parade as if they had been schoolboys; it was unbearable, he was sick of the whole business; he had rather throw it all up at once. + 

Elsa thought the opportunity a bad one for troubling her brother, while he was so put out, with the commission which lay so near her heart, and was glad that her aunt did not start the subject, as she had feared. But the letter which was awaiting him on his father’s table could not be delayed. + 

“Why was not the letter brought to my room?” said Ottomar to the servant, raising his eyebrows. + 

“I know nothing about it, sir,” answered August. + 

Ottomar had already laid aside his napkin, and was rising, but now said: “I dare say it is not very important; will you hand me that dish, Elsa? I am as hungry as a wolf.” + 

All the same he hardly touched the food, but poured out successively several glasses of wine, which he drank down quickly. + 

“I am too thirsty to eat,” he said; “perhaps I shall have a better appetite an hour hence. Shall we leave the table?” + 

He pushed back his chair, and went to the door leading to his father’s study, but stopped a moment on the way and passed his hand over his forehead and eyes. “That confounded parade,” he said; “it would make the strongest man nervous.” + 

He was gone; his behaviour had struck Elsa painfully. She could not believe that the parade was the sole cause of his bad spirits: he had borne the same wearisome duties easily enough before. But for some time past he had seemed changed: his cheerful spirits and good humour had vanished; in the last few days especially she had been struck by his gloomy, disturbed manner. She thought she knew what was the cause, and had determined more than once to speak to him about it. It was wrong not to have done so, and now it was perhaps too late. + 

Elsa thought over all this while again walking in her favourite haunt in the garden; she was too much excited to undertake any of her usual occupations. Perhaps Ottomar would come into the garden too; or she might call him when he left his father’s room, the door of which she could see through the open door of the dining-room. + 

He stayed long, as it seemed to her impatience. Perhaps he was answering the letter at his father’s table; but at last he emerged, buttoning his uniform, and came into the garden; he had no doubt seen her in the walk under the trees. + 

He had not observed her. With head bare and eyes cast down, still fingering the buttons of his coat, he came slowly towards her. His handsome face was dark as night, in spite of the bright sunlight which shone upon it; Elsa saw how his lips trembled and quivered. + 

“In heaven’s name! what is the matter, Ottomar?” + 

“How you startled me!” + 

“And you me still more! What has happened, Ottomar? I implore you to tell me! Is it the letter?⁠—a challenge?” + 

“Or a sentence of death, perhaps? Nothing of importance⁠—a registered letter which my father received for me.” + 

“An unimportant letter⁠—registered! But if it is not the letter, it is what has for so long worried and absorbed you. How do matters stand between you and Carla, Ottomar!” + 

“Between me and Carla? What an extraordinary question! How should matters stand between oneself and a lady to whom one will shortly be betrothed?” + 

“Ottomar, look me in the face. You do not love Carla!” + 

Ottomar tried to meet her glance, but was not quite successful. “You are silly,” he said, with an embarrassed smile; “those are girlish fancies.” + 

“And is not Carla a girl? And do you not think that she has fancies too?⁠—that she has pictured to herself the happiness that she hopes for at your side?⁠—that for her, as for every other girl, this happiness can only exist with love, and that she, that you both will be unhappy if this love is absent on one side or the other, or on both? Do you not believe this?” + 

“I do not believe a word of it,” said Ottomar. + 

He looked at his sister now and smiled; but his eyes were fixed and hard, and his sad yet ironical smile cut Elsa to the heart. + 

“And yet?” she said sadly. + 

“And yet! Look here, my dear child; the matter is very simple. I require for my own expenses, and to pay off the debts that I was obliged to incur before I came into the enjoyment of my fortune this spring, ten thousand thalers a year. My income is, as you know, in consequence of the absurdly small rents on the property, five thousand. Carla has five thousand a year; the two together make ten thousand. Therefore I mean to marry her, and the sooner the better.” + 

“In order to pay your debts?” + 

“Simply in order to live; for this⁠—this everlasting dependence, this everlasting concealment about nothing at all⁠—because everything is known, after all⁠—this⁠—this⁠—” + 

The words would not come; he trembled all over. Elsa had never seen him so. Her limbs trembled also; but she was determined to do what she thought her duty⁠—what she had never so clearly recognised as her duty till that moment. + 

“Dear Ottomar,” said she, “I do not ask if you really require such a frightful amount of money. Papa has often told us⁠—” + 

“That when he was a lieutenant, he managed upon eighteen thalers a month. For heaven’s sake, no more of that! Times were different then. My father was in the Line; I am in the Guards; and he and I⁠—are like the Antipodes.” + 

“Very well. I take it for granted that you require as much as you say. In three years I shall also be of age, and shall then have five thousand thalers; I will gladly give them to you, if⁠—” + 

“ ‘I am not married by that time.’ Is that what you meant to say?” + 

“I will not marry then. I⁠—I will never marry.” + 

She could not any longer keep back her tears, which now streamed from her eyes. Ottomar put his arm round her. + 

“You dear, good Elsa,” said he. “I really do believe that you are capable of it; but do you not see that it would be a thousand times more hateful to save oneself at the cost of a sister whom one dearly loves, than at the cost of a woman whom one does not love certainly, but who very probably does not wish to be loved?” + 

“But, Ottomar, that⁠—that is just it,” exclaimed Elsa, drying her tears. “Why marry Carla, of whom I cannot say that she is incapable of loving; who, indeed, I am persuaded, does love you at this moment, in her way? But her way is not your way; and that you would soon find out, even if you yourself loved her, which you avowedly do not. You are not suited to one another. With the one exception that, in spite of her short sight, she rides well and is passionately fond of it, I do not know a single interest that you have in common. Her music⁠—that is to say, her Wagner music⁠—about which she is so enthusiastic, is hateful to you; her books, which I am convinced she very often does not understand herself, you will never look at; and it is the same on every subject. And the worst of all is, that what she understands by love is not what you understand by it. You have⁠—say what you will, and brilliant man of society as you are, and I hope always will be⁠—a tender, kind heart, which longs to beat against a heart of the same nature. Carla’s love is, I fear, too much mixed with vanity, lies too much on the glittering, sparkling surface of life; and if you longed some day to hear a deeper note, and struck that note yourself, you would find no echo in her heart.” + 

“Why, Elsa, you are wonderfully learned in matters of the heart!” said Ottomar. “Whom did you learn it all from⁠—from Count Golm?” + 

Elsa blushed up to the roots of her hair; she drew her arm out of her brother’s. “I have not deserved that,” she said. + 

Ottomar seized her hand and pressed it to his lips. “Forgive me,” he said. “I feel myself that my jokes are always unlucky now. I don’t know why. But Golm himself is the cause of this one. He is mad about you, as you probably know already, and he talked of nothing but you when we met in the park just now as we were riding home. He was riding one of his own horses, which he has had sent after him; so it looks as if he meant to stay here. However, I may tell you for your comfort that I am not so very fond of Golm. I do not think we should ever be very great friends, unless he happened to present himself in the capacity of⁠—but I will not make my little Elsa angry again. How many have accepted for tonight? Does Clemda come? He was not on parade today.” + 

It was evident that Ottomar wished to change the subject, and Elsa knew that she had spoken in vain. Her heart was heavy; misfortune was approaching her, invisible but unavoidable, just as it did when he had told her that the vessel would run aground in ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. And then he had been at her side, had remained by her; she had looked in the brave blue eyes and felt no fear, for she had known that this man was inured to dangers. And as she walked silently at her brother’s side⁠—who, silent and gloomy also, had evidently fallen back into his melancholy musings⁠—her faithful sister’s heart told her that the amiable, careless, lighthearted young man would and must succumb to a serious danger, unless some stronger hand than hers interfered to save him. Perhaps⁠—no, certainly⁠—his hand could do it; only that there was scarcely a possibility of bringing the two young men into such close relations. But, after all, what was not possible if one only had true courage? + 

“Before I forget it, Ottomar, papa wishes you to go over and invite Captain Schmidt for this evening. Aunt⁠—” + 

And she told him what had passed. + 

“August or my servant can do that quite as well,” said Ottomar. + 

“Not quite so well,” said Elsa. “The Captain paid us a visit⁠—or, at least, left his card, as nobody was at home, which comes to the same thing. It is only civil, therefore, that you should return his visit, and take the opportunity to give him the invitation.” + 

“I am so tired and knocked up; I must go and have a nap.” + 

“Then go later; there will be plenty of time.” + 

“It seems to me, Elsa, that you have rather a weakness for the Captain,” said Ottomar, standing still and looking his sister in the face. + 

“Yes, I have; and he deserves it,” said Elsa, bravely meeting his glance. “He is a good, noble man; I know few like him, and should be very glad if you knew him better. I am sure you would like him; and perhaps⁠—there are so few people, Ottomar, that one can trust, that one can count upon in every difficulty and danger.” + 

“As I can on you!” said Ottomar. + 

His eyes rested thoughtfully on his sister’s brave honest face, and then turned as if accidentally from her towards two windows of Herr Schmidt’s house, which could be seen from the place where they were standing. The blue silk curtains of one of the two windows were drawn; they had been for the last three days; it meant, “I do not expect you this evening.” Should he confide to the prudent, brave, faithful girl, the secret that weighed on his heart? Should he unburden his heavy heart by an open honest confession, here where he was sure to find, if not approval, at least comprehension, interest, and pity? + 

Pity? and if only scorn awaited him from behind those curtains, if he were finally dismissed, and must say tomorrow, “Do not trouble yourself further, Elsa; it is all over and at an end: she has dismissed me⁠—me!” he should have humbled himself to no purpose, exposed himself uselessly. No, no! there would be time enough for that. He would hear first from her own lips. + 

“I will go over, Elsa,” he said, “and I will go at once; I can sleep later.” + 

“You dear, good Ottomar!” exclaimed Elsa, throwing her arms round her brother and kissing him; “I knew you would.” + 

“Elsa, come here a minute, please!” called Sidonie from the dining-room door. + 

“I am coming, aunt.” + 

Elsa hurried away; Ottomar looked gloomily after her, as the two ladies disappeared into the house. + 

He walked a few paces farther till he was quite shut in by the thick shrubs and concealed from all eyes. He still looked cautiously round him, tore open his coat, and pulled out the letter which he had found on his father’s table. + 

In the envelope were several papers, he took out a small sheet in his father’s handwriting. On the sheet was written: + 

“Received this morning the two enclosed bills, which I have settled and receipted for you⁠—1,200 thalers; the last debts that I pay for you, for the reason that my own property, as you will see by the accompanying accounts, has been spent, with the exception of a small portion, in the same manner, and I cannot pay another penny without depriving my family of the means of living as our position demands, or running into debt myself, and must beg you to act accordingly. + 

A beautiful gay butterfly fluttered across the blue sky. A sparrow darted down from a tree, seized the butterfly, flew with it to the top of the garden wall, and there devoured his prize. + 

A bitter smile played on Ottomar’s lips. + 

“You have soon frittered your life away, poor butterfly! Everything must have an end, one way or another!” + 

II + 

Reinhold had vainly attempted the day before to persuade his uncle to agree, for this once at least, to the increase of pay demanded by the workpeople; he would so evidently be the greater sufferer if he were prevented, by the threatened strike of the workpeople, from completing his contracts within the stipulated time. Uncle Ernst was not to be moved. The workpeople, on the other hand, who were quite alive to their favourable position and perhaps overrated it, had adhered no less obstinately to their demands, so that after hours of discussion backwards and forwards, during which everybody got more and more excited, matters had come to extremities, and Reinhold, who had expected this result and had silently prepared for it, had been obliged, pistol in hand, to drive the furious and drunken mob back from his uncle’s threshold. At the same moment the police had appeared, had with some difficulty seized the ringleaders and put down the riot. But the agitation had spread like lightning through the other marble-works; everywhere there had been more or less disturbance; the men in the brick and stone yards joined the rising; since this morning all these works were at a standstill, and the yards were empty. The masters had speedily arranged a meeting, which was to take place in an hour. Uncle Ernst was just ready to start, Reinhold was with him in his room, attempting once more to persuade the obstinate man to greater mildness, or at least to take a calmer view of the state of affairs. + 

“It seems to me, uncle,” he said, “that this is just like a mutiny at sea. If a man is not strong enough to overpower the scoundrels and does not care to lose his ship and its cargo, to say nothing of his own life, he must try to come to terms with them. It is not easy for a proud man, as I know from experience, but in the end it is the wisest course. The men know that the masters have undertaken large contracts, that you will lose thousands upon thousands if you stop the works and are thereby prevented from fulfilling your engagements; they know all that, and they know also that you must give in at last. I should have done so yesterday in your place, before matters had gone so far that you were forced to uphold your authority by force on your own ground. Today matters have changed; today the question is not of one solitary case, but of a general calamity, which must be decided upon general principles. And if you do not agree with this view of affairs, well, give way for once; let yourself be ruled if it must be so; do not throw the weight of your name and credit into the balance of the disputants.” + 

Uncle Ernst laughed bitterly. + 

“The weight of my name, of my credit! My dear Reinhold, you forget who you are talking to! Am I Bismarck? Am I the Chancellor and President of the Council? Do all sit in breathless silence when I rise to speak? Do all tremble when I frown? Do all shrink when I raise my voice? Do all give way when I threaten to desert them? Is there an army at my back if I stamp my foot? Bah! my name is Schmidt, and there is an end of it.” + 

“No, no, uncle!” exclaimed Reinhold, “there is not an end of it; you have only shown that we must do in small matters what he does in great ones. Even the great Bismarck knows how to trim his sails and tack when it is necessary, and does it very skilfully so far as I can understand. We must take example even from our enemies. It sounds hard, I know, and is a bitter pill; but when you come home, as you probably will do, angry and wrathful, we will sit down to dinner, and I will help you manfully to wash down your anger and wrath in an extra bottle or two.” + 

Uncle Ernst did not answer at once; he walked up and down the room with his head down, sunk in deep thought, his hands behind his back, occasionally stroking his grey beard, or passing a hand through his bushy hair. At length he shook his head several times, stood still and said: + 

“I cannot do it; I cannot give in without giving myself up, without ceasing to be what I am. But why not? I no longer suit this world any more than it suits me. Neither of us loses anything in the other⁠—on the contrary, he who succeeds to my place will know better what should be done or left undone, in order to live in peace with the world. Will you be that other, Reinhold?” + 

“I?” exclaimed Reinhold, astonished, + 

“You! You are a true Schmidt, and have been so shaken and tossed about by the waves, that it must be a hard blow that you cannot stand up against. You learnt something in your youth, and since then have been out in the world, and you probably see things from a clearer point of view than we who have always remained at home and have by degrees lost our clearsightedness. You are tied to no past, to no scheme of life by which you must stand or fall, but may, on the contrary, start on an entirely fresh one, according to your own judgment and the light in which matters appear to you; and then the reason why I would choose you before all others for my successor is⁠—” + 

Uncle Ernst broke off, like a man who has still got the most difficult thing to say, and can only gather strength for it by a deep breath. + 

“Is that you are dear to me, Reinhold, and⁠—and⁠—I believe that you have a little love for me, and that is more than I can say of anyone else in the world.” + 

He had walked to the window and stood there. Reinhold followed him and laid his hand on his shoulder. + 

“Dear uncle⁠—” + 

Uncle Ernst did not move. + 

“Dear uncle! I thank you from my heart for your love, which you give me so freely, for how could I have deserved it? What I did yesterday I would have done for any captain under whom I had served for four and twenty hours. If indeed love deserves love, then I deserve yours, for I love and honour you as I would love and honour a father. But that I am the only one who loves you, you only say because you are out of spirits, and I hope you do not think it; and if you do think it, I know better than you.” + 

“Indeed!” said Uncle Ernst. “You know better? You know nothing about the matter. Have you ever waited in helpless anguish and despair, tearing your hair because nature seemed to do her work too slowly? Have you ever sunk on your knees in gratitude when your child’s first cry smote on your ear? Have you ever nursed children on your knees, and secretly found all your happiness in their laughing eyes, and then seen how those eyes ceased to laugh at you, how they looked shyly past you and turned away, eyes and hearts both? To know such things a man must have experienced them.” + 

“At the worst you can only be speaking of Philip,” said Reinhold, “and even there you take too gloomy a view; but Ferdinanda! And even if all is not as it should be, is it not partly your own fault, my dear uncle? A girl’s heart needs sunshine, constant sunshine! During these last few days I have never once heard you speak so kindly to her as you have just done to me.” + 

“Because you understand me,” exclaimed Uncle Ernst. “Ferdinanda does not understand me. I do not expect that she or any other woman should. They are not sent into the world for that; they are here to cook and to knit, like Rike, or if they cannot all cook and knit, to spend their time in playing the piano, playing at sculpture, and so on. I consider it one of the principal causes of the feebleness and worthlessness of the present day that women are allowed so much liberty, and can interfere in so many things that are quite beyond their province. Besides, if you think so much of the girl⁠—and I allow she is worth rather more than most of the chatterboxes⁠—marry her! You would then at once have a right to take the business off my hands.” + 

Was this one of his uncle’s grim jokes, or was it earnest? Reinhold could not tell. Happily he was spared the necessity of answering by a knock at the door. + 

It was Cilli’s father, old Kreisel, who at Herr Schmidt’s “Come in!” stepped into the room. + 

“What is it, Kreisel?” asked Uncle Ernst “But, my good man, what an extraordinary get up! Are you going to a funeral?” + 

The old man’s attire seemed to justify Uncle Ernst’s question. His little bald head only just appeared above the stiff collar of his old-fashioned, long-tailed coat, while his boots, on the contrary, at the end of the short shabby black trousers, had full liberty. He carried in his hands a tall chimney-pot hat, with a very narrow brim, of the most antiquated fashion, and a pair of gloves whose past lustre had faded with time as the colour had faded out of his shrunken face, the careworn, wasted look of which was only too well suited to his attire. + 

“In truth I am going to a funeral,” he answered with his low, tremulous voice. + 

“Well then, be off!” said Uncle Ernst. + 

“Whose is it?” + 

“My own.” + 

Uncle Ernst stared. “Are you mad, old friend?” + 

“I think not,” answered Kreisel; “but I will speak to you at a more convenient time.” + 

“To your own funeral?” repeated Uncle Ernst. “I am not in the humour for jokes. Wait a bit, Reinhold! And now out with it, Kreisel! What is the matter? What do you want?” + 

“My discharge!” said the old man, taking a white handkerchief from his coat pocket, and wiping his bald head, on which great drops of perspiration were standing. “And I may well call that my funeral.” + 

“Well, go and be buried then!” thundered Uncle Ernst. + 

The old man shrank together, as if he had really received his deathblow. Reinhold stood embarrassed and troubled. Uncle Ernst paced the room with hasty steps, then stopped and turned sharply towards the little man and growled down upon him from his superior height: + 

“And this is the way you treat me! Fourteen years have we worked together in joy and in sorrow; you have never heard a hasty word from my lips that I have not afterwards asked your pardon for, because you with your weak nerves cannot stand anything of the kind, and I would as soon do anything to hurt you as to your poor Cilli. And if I have not done enough for you, it is not my fault⁠—I have of my own accord doubled your salary, and would have tripled it if you had asked me: but you never said a word, and I have always had to press it on you; and now, when⁠—the devil may understand it! I cannot!” + 

“And you are not likely to understand, Herr Schmidt, if you will not allow me to tell you my reasons,” answered the clerk, turning his hat round and round despairingly. + 

“Well then, tell me in⁠—in my nephew’s presence; I have no secrets from him.” + 

“It is not exactly a business secret,” said the clerk; “it is my secret, which has long been burning into my soul, and it will be comparatively easy to tell it in the presence of the Captain, who has always been so kind to me and my daughter. I must leave you, Herr Schmidt, before you send me away, as you sent away those thirty men on Thursday; I also⁠—” + 

He held his hat steady now, and his voice no longer trembled; and he fixed his small, twinkling eyes firmly on Uncle Ernst. + 

“I also am a Socialist!” + 

The determination was doubtless an heroic one for the old man, and the situation in which he found himself was tragical; and yet Reinhold almost laughed out loud, when Uncle Ernst, instead of storming and thundering, as was his wont, only opened his eyes wide and said in an unusually quiet, almost gentle voice: “Are you not also a Communist?” + 

“I consider Communism to be, under certain circumstances, allowable,” answered the old gentleman, dropping his eyes again, and in a scarcely audible voice. + 

“Then go home,” said Uncle Ernst, “and take an hour’s sleep to calm your excitement, and when you awake again, think that it is all a dream; and now not a word more, or I shall be really angry.” + 

The old man did not venture to answer; he bowed himself out of the door, with a glance at Reinhold that seemed to say: “You are witness: I have done my duty.” + 

Reinhold seized his uncle’s hand. “Thank you!” + 

“What for? for not taking the poor old fool at his word? Pooh! he understands as much about such matters as a newborn baby, and has picked it all up out of his books, over which he spends half the night because he cannot sleep, and his Cilli, good little thing, keeps him company. That sort of Socialism will not do much harm.⁠—Well!” + 

Grollmann, the old servant, had entered with an embarrassed look and a visiting card, which he passed from one hand to the other as if it were a bit of red-hot iron. And Uncle Ernst, as soon as he had glanced at the card, threw it on to the table as if it had burnt him. “Are you mad?” + 

“The young gentleman was so urgent,” said Grollmann. + 

“I am not at home to him⁠—once for all.” + 

“It would only be for a few minutes; the Captain had spoken about him already.” + 

“What does this mean, Reinhold?” + 

Reinhold had read the name on the card: “Philip did beg me,” he answered, “the first time I met him, and yesterday again when I called upon him⁠—” + 

“You called upon him?” + 

“I thought it my duty⁠—and he begged me to ask your consent to an interview; I⁠—” + 

He did not like to continue before the servant, well as the old factotum must know all the family affairs; Uncle Ernst also seemed embarrassed: + 

“I must go to the meeting,” he said. + 

“You have still a quarter of an hour, uncle,” said Reinhold. + 

“It will only be for a few minutes,” repeated Grollmann. + 

Uncle Ernst turned an angry glance from one to the other, as if he wished to make them responsible beforehand for the consequences. “He may come in!” + 

“Do you wish me to stay, uncle?” + 

“You had better leave us alone.” + 

Reinhold was not of the same opinion; he knew too well Uncle Ernst’s expression not to feel sure that a storm was brewing. But his wish must be obeyed. + 

He met Philip in the doorway. Philip was quite distressed to disturb Reinhold; doubtless he and his father had important business together; he could come another time. + 

“I do not know that I shall be at home to you another time,” growled Uncle Ernst. + 

Reinhold pretended not to hear these unkind words, and excusing himself, hurried away. + 

The door had closed behind him; father and son were face to face. + 

“What do you want of me here!” asked Uncle Ernst, as if he were speaking to a third person crouching on the floor a few paces to the right of Philip. + 

“I come on business,” answered Philip, as if the person he addressed were floating in the air a few feet to the right of his father. + 

“I decline to transact any business with you.” + 

“But perhaps not with the directors of the Berlin and Sundin Railway Company?” + 

“I decline all business with the Berlin and Sundin Railway Company.” + 

“You are standing in your own light. The business would be highly advantageous to you. We have got in our pockets a concession for the island railroad which is the continuation of our own railroad. Our station must be added to. When I had the pleasure of working with you, we bought together the land on which the station stands⁠—” + 

“Upon your share, allow me to remark.” + 

“Upon my share because you would not part with yours⁠—” + 

“I had advanced you the money for the purchase of yours; so far as I know you had none then.” + 

“I am the more indebted to you; you laid thereby the foundation of my present prosperity; for, recognising and profiting by the opportunity, I sold a portion to the company⁠—” + 

“Which you had no right to sell.” + 

“I had already repaid you your money, to the last farthing, with the proper interest.” + 

“And had only forgotten the small circumstance that I gave you the money for the sole purpose of erecting⁠—in partnership with me⁠—cheap dwellings for workmen on that ground. It is true there was no written agreement.” + 

“Fortunately for me, and I should say for you too! After what happened yesterday, you have probably lost all desire to improve the condition of these heroes of strikes and riots, as you have hitherto done to your own cost. But you can now repay yourself what you have spent. Your colony of workpeople has, one way or another, never thriven, and is now at its last gasp. Put an end to it once for all. Quarter-day is at hand; we do not want the land before the new year; some of the houses will be empty now, particularly if you put some pressure on the people, and we will pay as if your cottages were so many four-storied houses.” + 

“Where will you get the money from, if I may venture to ask?” + 

“Where from? Where we have always got it.” + 

“Where you have always got it?” returned Uncle Ernst. He turned for the first time a stern, fixed look upon his son. “That is to say, out of the pockets of the public, whose credulity you have, in the most shameless manner, deceived and betrayed with false and lying prospectuses; whose anxious hopes you feed with sham dividends, which they must pay themselves; whose loud complaints you boldly stifle in your so-called general meetings, till at length it occurs to the legal authorities that might is not always right. I do not care to have anything to do with the legal authorities⁠—and my carriage is at the door.” + 

“So is mine,” said Philip, turning on his heel and leaving the room. + 

Uncle Ernst went to a side-table and poured out a large glass of wine⁠—the bottle knocked against the glass; he had some difficulty in pouring out the wine⁠—and drank it down at one gulp. + 

He stood there with an angry cloud on his brow, one hand leaning on the table, in a kind of stupor. + 

“I did not wish it,” he murmured; “I wished to keep calm. When he came in he reminded me of his mother⁠—a vacant face too; she never understood me; but he is only a caricature of her⁠—the vacancy supplemented by vice! And then his voice⁠—her voice also⁠—her thin voice when she inflicted upon me her commonplace wisdom⁠—only it is enlivened by insolence⁠—wretched, insolent boy!” + 

He drank down a second glass. The cloud on his brow had only grown darker. + 

III + 

Philip had whispered to Reinhold that he would look him up presently; Reinhold trembled for the result of a meeting between father and son, which could not have occurred at a more unfortunate moment; but it could not be helped, and he determined to employ the interval in saying a few words of comfort, after the scene that had just taken place, to the old clerk whom he had spoken to several times during the last few days, and had learnt to look upon as certainly a peculiar but an excellent and upright man. He found the old man in the little arbour at the end of the narrow walk, between the garden and the building, in the upper story of which he and Anders lived. He was sitting quite broken down on the bench, while Cilli, who was with him, wiped the drops of perspiration from his brow. She recognised Reinhold’s step at once, and said, as he entered the arbour: + 

“Thank God that you have come, sir! You were present. How did Herr Schmidt take my father’s confession? From what my father says, I conclude very badly.” + 

“On the contrary, Fräulein Cilli, my uncle is of opinion that between two such old friends as himself and your father, a merely theoretic difference is of no consequence.” + 

“But if it should not stop at theory,” exclaimed the old man, “if the practical consequences are carried out by everybody⁠—” + 

“But not by you, my dear Herr Kreisel! Answer me one question: would you take advantage of any crisis in business to force from your employer an increase of salary?” + 

“Never!” exclaimed the old man, “never!” + 

“You see for yourself! Though you may be perfectly right in theory, between it and practice there lies, in the minds of educated people like yourself, a long and rough road, into which you will never enter, or on which, after the first few steps, you will stand still in horror.” + 

“Ah! yes, my nerves!” murmured the old man; “my nerves are not strong enough for it. I am worn out; I believe he is right after all; an hour’s sleep would do me good.” He was persuaded by Reinhold and Cilli to go into the house; Reinhold went a little way with him; when he returned to the arbour, Cilli was sitting with her hands before her, and such an expression of deep sorrow and trouble on her pure, gentle face, that it went to Reinhold’s heart. + 

“Dear little Cilli,” said Reinhold, sitting down by her and taking her hands in his “do not be so anxious. I give you my word that my uncle does not dream of parting with your father; matters remain between them exactly as before.” + 

“Not exactly,” answered Cilli, shaking her head; “since Thursday my father has been quite changed. He has scarcely eaten or slept; and this morning, quite early, he came to my bedside and said that he had no longer any doubts, that he also was a Socialist, and he must tell Herr Schmidt. That was quite right, as we ought always to tell the truth, even in this case, when your uncle will not allow any Socialists on his works. And although, as you tell me, and I believed before, your uncle will make an exception in favour of my father, because he is old and feeble, my father is proud, and will not endure to be merely tolerated, all the more that he is undoubtedly in the right.” + 

“How, my dear Cilli?” asked Reinhold, astonished. “Your father is in the right?” + 

“Certainly he is,” answered Cilli warmly; “is it not wrong that even one man should suffer when others can prevent it? Did not Christ tell us to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to comfort the oppressed and heavy-laden? And if Christ had not commanded it, does not every good man’s heart command it?” + 

“In that case, my dear Cilli, all good men must be Socialists, and even I myself may lay claim to the title; but between the love of our neighbours, as you describe it, and Socialism as these people desire it, there is a wide difference.” + 

“I see none,” said Cilli. + 

Reinhold looked at the sightless eyes upraised with an expression of gentle enthusiasm. + 

“I can well believe that you do not see it, poor child,” he said to himself. + 

“And on that point I am quite easy,” continued the blind girl; “men must live up to their convictions, and bear the consequences patiently. And my father and I can do so the more easily, that at the worst we shall not have to bear them long.” + 

“What do you mean, dear Cilli?” + 

“I know that my father will not live long; the doctor has always feared that he would sink under one of his nervous attacks; and once, when he was very bad, he told me so, that I might be prepared. I am prepared. And if my father could only believe that I should not outlive him long, he would be more easy in his mind. He thinks so much of you; perhaps he would believe you if you assured him of it.” + 

“But how can I, dear Cilli?” + 

“Because it is only the truth. I am ill; dying of a nervous illness. My blindness, which came on when I was three years old, is only the result of this disease, which I doubtless inherited from my father. When I was eight years old, and had a very bad illness, my parents called in two doctors, and one said to the other as they went out⁠—they said it in a whisper, and probably did not intend me to hear, but they did not know how sharp my hearing is⁠—it would be a miracle if the child lived to be sixteen. I shall be sixteen next spring, and⁠—I do not believe in miracles.” + 

“Doctors often make mistakes; I hope they have made one in your case.” + 

“I do not hope it⁠—I do not wish it.” + 

“But you love life.” + 

“Only because I know that I must die soon, as you all say that I think the world so beautiful only because I am blind. And when my dear father is gone, whom shall I have to live for?” + 

“For your friends⁠—myself, for example; for Justus, whom you love, and who loves you.” + 

“Who loves me?” + 

The blind girl’s sweet mouth quivered. She drew two or three deep breaths, but the tears would not be kept back; they streamed from the poor blind eyes, and trickled through the slender white fingers with which she tried to hide them. + 

“Cilli! Cilli! what is the matter?” exclaimed Reinhold, seized with a painful foreboding. + 

“Nothing, nothing,” murmured the blind girl. “You see yourself that I am ill⁠—very ill. Hark! whose is that strange step in the courtyard?” + 

Reinhold looked up and recognised Philip, who came rapidly along the walk in search of him without looking into the arbour. He could not bear the idea of being found here by Philip at this moment, he must therefore make up his mind to leave Cilli, who herself implored him to go. + 

“Leave me! leave me! before you I am not ashamed of my tears. You alone may see me weep.” + 

It was high time. Philip had already turned back and came towards him. + 

“Where the devil have you been? I have been looking for you in your room, and all over the place.” + 

“Your interview with your father cannot have lasted long.” + 

Philip laughed bitterly. + 

“As if it were possible to talk to him! But I swear this shall be the last time. No man in the world would endure it if he were a hundred times his father.” + 

Philip was furious; he stormed at his father’s blindness and obstinacy. From what he could gather about the course of the interview, Reinhold could not quite justify his uncle, but he could not let pass the outrageous expressions of which the angry man made use. + 

“Are you going to begin now?” exclaimed Philip. “It is partly your fault. All that the old man said was only what you said to me yourself yesterday. What in the world induced you to set him against a project of which neither of you understand a word? He, in spite of his knowledge of business; you, in spite of your seamanship. What does it signify to you whether the harbour is east or north? Whether it is choked up in one place or goes to the devil in the other? Do you intend to invest your money in it? If others wish to do so, let them. Everyone can use his own eyes, and if he comes to grief it is his own lookout. The best of it is that none of you who set your faces against it can hinder the matter from coming to a conclusion; in fact, it is as good as concluded now. Count Golm has joined the Provisional Board; and it would be a good joke if a harbour on the east were decided upon, and Golm and the daughter of our principal opponent, General Werben, who is as obstinate as my father⁠—good heavens! there is young Werben! I hope he did not hear!” + 

This conversation had taken place while they walked up and down between the blocks of marble in the courtyard. Ottomar had learnt at the house from Grollman that Reinhold was in the courtyard, and now came suddenly towards him from behind one of the blocks. He had heard nothing, although Reinhold feared at first that he had from his gloomy and embarrassed air. But his handsome young face cleared the next minute; he held out his hand to him with the greatest cordiality, and then to Philip with less cordiality. + 

“He had been meaning to come every day, but the worries of military duty! Quite unbearable, my dear fellow! You have no conception what it is; you, especially, my dear Schmidt; you never were in the army, for reasons best known to the doctors. If I had a hand in the matter you should serve your time yet in the Guards. But what brought me here in this hand-over-head fashion was to bring you this invitation from my father and the ladies, with a thousand excuses, but the card had somehow been mislaid yesterday; for this evening⁠—quite a small party⁠—a good many officers, of course, a few ladies, of course also. There will be a little dancing, my sister says, who counts upon you. Of course you dance; and my father, as he told me yesterday, wants very much to talk to you on important matters of which I know nothing; some question about the harbour, I fancy. You see it is absolutely necessary that you should accept. You will accept?” + 

“With much pleasure.” + 

“That is capital.” + 

Ottomar had during the last few words completely turned his back on Philip; he now turned round. + 

“It will not be quite so lively as it was the other day at your house, my dear Schmidt; it was quite delightful. I heard from Golm that there was no end of a row afterwards, and the ladies were quite off their heads. So sorry I could not come; but I had a fearful headache; and headache, champagne, and pretty girls I have never yet been able to stand in that order, though in the reverse order I have suffered from them only too often.” + 

“Bertalda was in despair,” said Philip, who was inwardly greatly irritated at the offhand manner of the young guardsman. + 

“Dear little thing!” said Ottomar, shrugging his shoulders. “She says just what comes into her head. She is a jolly little girl. I hope Golm will behave well to her. But is not Herr Anders’ studio in this courtyard? His Satyr with the young Bacchus⁠—or is it Cupid?⁠—has made a tremendous sensation. I have never been in a sculptor’s studio; would it be too much, my dear fellow, to ask you to get me admitted?” + 

Reinhold was quite willing. Philip remarked carelessly that if the other gentlemen had no objection he would take the opportunity of inquiring about the four marble statues which he had ordered of Anders for his staircase, and of which two must be finished by this time. He had inwardly hoped that Ottomar would be impressed by “the four marble statues.” Ottomar did not even appear to have heard him. He walked on in front, with his arm in Reinhold’s, to whom he spoke in so low a tone that Philip could not hear what he said, probably was not meant to hear. + 

“Generous to remind me of it⁠—a petit souper⁠—in honour of Count Golm, who appears to be very susceptible of such ovations⁠—slipped in quite by chance⁠—came away immediately. Don’t say anything about it.” + 

“Can you suppose⁠—” + 

“One drops a word sometimes without thinking of it⁠—and it arouses suspicion⁠—the ladies and⁠—ces dames!⁠—a very different matter, thank goodness! My sister⁠—your cousin⁠—had the honour casually a few days ago. Should be in despair if a word⁠—the young lady is an artist, my sister tells me. One can hardly picture to oneself an artist, and a lady artist. After you, I beg!” + 

Reinhold, who knew by experience that in consequence of the noise of hammers and chisels in Justus’s studio, a knock at the door was seldom heard, had gone before and opened the door at once, and had got some way into the room before he saw, in a corner before a cast at which Justus was working, the latter standing with Ferdinanda. Ottomar and Philip had followed him so quickly, that they had all got into the middle of the large room before the two, who were engaged in earnest conversation and bewildered by the noise around them, heard them come in, till Justus’s Lesto⁠—a shaggy little monster, of whom it was difficult to tell which was his head and which was his tail⁠—flew with a loud bark at Philip, whose polished boots seemed to arouse his wrath. In the tumult caused by this bold attack⁠—while Philip, fearing for his trousers, took refuge on a stool, and Justus, nearly dying of laughter, vainly called “Lesto! Lesto!” and the four or five assistants, with Antonio amongst them, moved a few obstacles out of the way, and brought chairs⁠—Reinhold had not noticed the deep blush that overspread Ferdinanda’s beautiful face when she perceived Ottomar, and the embarrassment with which the latter greeted her. By the time the confusion was somewhat allayed, and Lesto had subsided into quiet, the two had recovered their presence of mind, and the more easily that the first glance that passed between them was one of reconciliation. He had returned to her after three long anxious days, which she had passed in longing and despair. Now all was made up⁠—all was forgiven and forgotten. After the first happy and tremulous glance, she had not again looked at him, and was now chatting with Reinhold and Philip; but to Ottomar, the fact that she remained, that she did not after the first greeting retire into her studio, the door of which stood open, was an infallible proof of her penitence perhaps, certainly of her love. And then the full, somewhat deep tone of her voice⁠—he seemed to hear it for the first time; and he did hear it for the first time. Till today they had only exchanged hasty whispered words. Her laugh⁠—he had never thought that she could laugh⁠—it seemed to him a very miracle; her figure, whose classical form appeared more beautiful in the straight, clinging, grey working dress than it could have done in the most coquettish attire; the rich brown hair, drawn simply back from her brows and loosely knotted together low down in her neck⁠—he had never known how beautiful she was! He stood before finished and unfinished works⁠—they might have been the slides of a magic-lantern; he spoke to one and the other, chatted and joked; he had no idea what he said or what they answered; he was in a dream⁠—a sweet and delicious dream⁠—but for a few minutes only; then he awoke to a sense of the situation in which he found himself⁠—a situation which he could hardly have wished more favourable, and the advantages of which he was determined to profit by with rapid soldier-like courage and rashness. + 

And Ferdinanda was also dreaming the sweet, delicious dream of happy love, while she chatted and laughed with the others; only she never forgot or mistook the danger of the situation. From Reinhold, Justus, and Philip she feared nothing; a little prudence, a little clever acting, would suffice to protect her from any shadow of suspicion as far as they were concerned. But what prudence, however cunning, what acting, however clever, would protect her from Antonio’s gleaming black eyes? It was true, he had returned to his work in the farthest corner of the room, and hammered and chiselled away, apparently quite unconcerned with anything that passed around him. But this very quietness, which was only apparent, alarmed her a thousand times more than if his glittering eyes had been continually upon her. What he did not see he heard. She knew the incredible sharpness of his senses; if he did not look round before, he would do so at the moment which she saw approaching. And that moment had come. Ottomar, thinking himself safe, approached her and whispered a word that she did not understand, so low was it breathed. But what matter? She read it in his eyes, on his lips: “I must speak to you alone⁠—in your studio!” + 

But how was it to be managed? The moments were passing; there was so much to be seen in Justus’s studio, and the talk seemed endless. There were the four life-sized allegorical figures for Philip’s staircase. + 

“Trade, a bearded man of Oriental appearance and dress, calling to mind Nathan on his journey home. Industry, as you will perceive, rather vaguely represented by a female figure of the present day, with some half-dozen emblems, which may mean anything you please⁠—all possible things⁠—exactly as Industry herself makes everything possible out of all possible things. This Greek youth, gentlemen, with his winged sandals and hat, may be recognised at any distance as the genius of railroads, as Hermes, if he had lived long enough, would undoubtedly have been appointed Postmaster-General in Olympus. The tall, beautiful, stately lady, in the dress of a Nuremberg lady of rank of the fifteenth century, will be recognised by the mural crown on her head and the square and level in her hand, as patroness of architecture⁠—a neat allusion to the suburban streets which the worthy possessor has had to pull down, in order to build for himself in the middle of the town the house the vestibule of which these masterpieces are to adorn.” + 

“You are responsible for at least half a street, Anders!” cried Philip, laughing. + 

“Ah!” said Justus, “that is the reason then that the lady looks so gloomy and melancholy under her mural crown! I could not imagine what was the meaning of the expression that, without my intending it⁠—and even against my will⁠—would come out clearer and clearer; the good lady has a pang of conscience which I ought to have had! Will anyone say now that we do not bestow our best heart’s blood on our creations?” + 

“This last figure strikes me as being particularly beautiful, if I may venture to make an observation on a matter on which I am profoundly ignorant,” said Ottomar, with a glance at Ferdinanda, who strikingly resembled the lady with the mural crown, both in figure and in the haughty expression of the features. + 

Justus, who had caught the glance, laughed. “You are not so ignorant as you pretend, Herr von Werben! You appear to know very well where we get our inspirations. But that you may see that other people can not only inspire forms, but also create very beautiful ones⁠—may we, Fräulein Ferdinanda?” and Justus pointed to the door of her studio. + 

“Certainly,” said Ferdinanda, while her heart beat fast. Now or never was the time. Antonio had not looked round; perhaps he had not heard. It might be possible to go in with Ottomar while the others lingered behind. And so it happened. Philip and Reinhold were disputing about one of the symbols assigned to Trade; Philip, annoyed and irritated by the contradiction that met him on all sides today, in a loud, excited voice. Justus, however, was following her and Ottomar closely. As she got to the door, she turned and whispered to him, “Philip is unbearable today; do try and make peace between them?” + 

Justus answered, “Oh! it means nothing,” but turned back. + 

Ferdinanda entered quickly, followed by Ottomar. She walked a few steps to the left, till she was quite concealed from those in the other studio. Her arms encircled him, while she felt his arms around her. Their lips met, while he tasted the sweetness of her first kiss. + 

“This evening?” + 

“As you will.” + 

“Eight o’clock, in the Bellevue Gardens!” + 

“As you will.” + 

“Darling!” + 

“Darling!” + 

They did not venture on a second kiss, fortunately, as Justus appeared, bringing with him, for greater security, the disputants. + 

They stood before the Reaper, while Justus explained that it had been begun in the spring and intended at first for a pendant to the kneeling Roman Shepherd Boy in the Exhibition⁠—a girl, who, in the solitude of her maize field, deep in the Campagna, hears the Ave Maria ring out from the neighbouring convent, and who, laying aside her sickle and her sheaf, folds her hands for a moment in prayer; that the figure was nearly completed, attitude, gesture and expression, all quite admirable, and would have done honour to the greatest sculptors; that the greatest sculptors in Berlin had expressed their admiration; the Milanese Enrico Braga, who had been there on a visit in the summer, was quite overpowered. “And now, gentlemen, I ask you whether it is possible for any woman, even the most gifted, to carry out persistently a clearly defined aim! The statue is almost finished, only a few touches are wanted, but those touches are not given; we are not in the vein, we will wait for a more favourable day. One, two months pass, the day does not come; the clay dries up in the most unfortunate manner, breaks and splits everywhere⁠—we have lost all inclination for the work. I had made up my mind, at the risk of the deepest displeasure, to have the Reaper secretly cast at night before it quite fell to pieces; when about four weeks ago, one fine morning, I entered the studio⁠—the sweet, dreamy face, was changed into a Medusa head, whose terrible eyes, under the hand that had in the meantime been laid on her brow, stared into the distance, apparently expecting someone. I should not like to be that someone. Would you, Captain?” + 

Reinhold nodded to the sculptor; the statue had made exactly the same curiously mingled impression upon him, and he had almost expressed it in the same words. He said, smiling: “No, indeed!” + 

“Put it to the vote!” exclaimed Justus eagerly. “Would you, Herr von Werben?” + 

Ottomar did not answer. The work was begun in the spring; in the spring he had exchanged the first tender love-tokens with Ferdinanda; then had ensued a long, weary interval, during which she had altogether avoided him; and though four weeks ago she had given way to his imploring glances and resumed again their secret understanding, it had acquired in the interval a totally different character; a gloomy, passionate character, from which even he sometimes shrank. Was this the image of her love? Was it he who was here waited for? + 

All this passed through his brain with the speed of lightning, but his fixed glance had betrayed something of what was in his mind. + 

“Why say so much about it?” exclaimed Ferdinanda; “a work that must be put to the vote is not worthy to exist.” + 

She had seized the heavy mallet which lay on the table amongst her other tools and swung it towards the statue. Justus caught hold of her arm. + 

“Are you mad, Fräulein Ferdinanda? Cannot you understand a joke? I swear to you that it was only a joke! That I admire it even more than the former one! That you have surpassed yourself and me.” + 

Justus was quite pale with excitement; the others hastened to assure her that they were quite of the master’s opinion, that they thought the statue surpassingly beautiful, that they did not wish to see one feature altered. Ottomar was foremost with his praises, and his beautiful eyes entreated for forgiveness; but Ferdinanda was not to be appeased. + 

“It is too late,” she said, “the sentence has gone forth, and I am too proud, I confess, to accept praise which comes as an afterthought. Calm yourself, Anders; I will not destroy the statue, but I will never finish it, that I swear!” + 

“And I am to be calm?” exclaimed Justus; “may I break stones in the road if I do, if I⁠—what is it, Antonio?” + 

Antonio had entered, whispered a few words to Anders and then retired; as he went out he cast a gloomy look at the statue of the Reaper. + 

“A gentleman from the committee,” said Anders, “there is always somebody coming; they will drive me wild. I will be back directly.” + 

He hurried into his studio; Ottomar suggested that they had already troubled the young lady too long: he expected that Ferdinanda would press them to stay, but she did not; he bowed. “I hope, Ferdinanda,” said Reinhold, “that you will not distress us, I mean all of us, by carrying out your threat and leaving the statue unfinished.” + 

“If you knew me better,” said Ferdinanda, “you would know that I always keep my word to myself and to others.” + 

These last words she had, as if accidentally, addressed to Ottomar, and accompanied it with a glance which Ottomar understood and returned. Whatever became of the Reaper, she would come that evening. + 

The door had closed behind the gentlemen; Ferdinanda bolted it and then turned slowly round. Her fixed glance rested first on the spot where she had kissed Ottomar for the first time, and then passed on to the Reaper. Was it an effect of light, or was it that others’ words had first made it plain to her what she had produced? A shudder passed through her. + 

“I keep my word when I have given it⁠—but I wish I had not given it!” + 

IV + 

Ferdinanda had long ago emancipated herself from all control on the part of her aunt. She was accustomed to go and come as she pleased; the only point on which it was necessary to be attentive was punctuality at meals. Her father was very particular about this, only Aunt Rikchen declared, in order that he might worry her out of her five senses if she ever happened to be delayed by her household duties or other matters, as could hardly be avoided by such a poor creature. Ferdinanda was aware also that her father avoided every opportunity of being alone with his sister, and that it was therefore an especial annoyance to him if she herself stayed away from meals on any pretence. Under such circumstances her father always took his meals by himself in his own room. But this had very rarely happened, even in former days, and scarcely ever happened now. Ferdinanda had almost entirely withdrawn herself from all her friends; she said often that she had no friends, only acquaintances, and that she did not care much about them. + 

Today she must pretend to visit some friend, and leave word at home that she should not probably be back to supper, which was always served at nine o’clock punctually. Her pride revolted at the necessity of the lie, and such an improbable one, but she had given her word; whether good or evil came of it, her fate was decided⁠—the deed must be done. + 

She went therefore at half-past seven, with her bonnet and cloak on, down to her aunt, who was invariably to be found at that hour in the sitting-room behind the dining-room, where, in her seat near the window, she could count her stitches by the fading light, watch the passersby without trouble, and, as Uncle Ernst said, indulge her fancies quite undisturbed. The latter employment was the most successful today; the stitches were very difficult to count, in consequence of the gloomy weather, and the same cause had diminished the number of passersby, “as if they were all on strike, like those abominable workpeople;” besides the butcher had brought for the next day a miserable leg of veal, which, that silly Trine, the cook, ought never to have taken in, and for her punishment must take back again, although Heaven only knew how she was to get the supper ready all alone, for as for Trine being back in less than an hour, she knew the idle thing better than that. And now Ferdinanda was going out⁠—was going to spend the evening out! Aunt Rikchen in despair snatched her spectacles from her nose, and let her stocking, with the stitches she had only just picked up, fall into her lap. + 

“Good gracious! has everything combined against poor me today?” she exclaimed. “Reinhold has just been in to say that he will not be at home either.” + 

“Where is Reinhold?” + 

“Oh! did not he tell you? Quite a large soirée⁠—that is what you call it? He supposed he must put on his uniform.” + 

“At whose house?” + 

“At the Werbens’! Young Herr von Werben came here himself this morning. You saw him in your studio, by the by! I know nothing about it!⁠—of course I know nothing about it. At eight o’clock. It must be half-past seven already.” + 

Ferdinanda’s countenance fell. “At the Werben’s! At eight o’clock! How could that be!” + 

“And where are you going, if I may venture to ask?” + 

Ferdinanda told the lie she had prepared. She had spoken to Fräulein Marfolk the artist at the Exhibition; Fräulein Marfolk had given her such a pressing invitation to go and see her again; she had some curiosities and photographs to show her, which she had brought from Rome; this evening she happened to be disengaged. Professor Seefeld from Karlsruhe would be there also, who was most anxious to make Ferdinanda’s acquaintance. She had accepted, and could not draw back now. + 

“And poor I must eat my supper alone again!” said Aunt Rikchen; “for he had rather eat a live crocodile with its skin and bones, in company with seven Hottentots, than a comfortable mutton-cutlet with his poor old sister. Well, I must bear it. I must bear everything. If the whole business stands still, my poor intellect can stand still too, and my poor old heart with it.” Her misery was too great; Aunt Rikchen burst into tears. + 

“What is the good of exciting yourself so unnecessarily?” asked Ferdinanda impatiently. + 

“Exciting myself so unnecessarily!” exclaimed Aunt Rikchen. “Of course you think everything unnecessary. But I see it coming. I noticed the people as they went away this morning, how they stood there in the street and stared up at the house, and shook their fists threateningly, and abused the police who were dragging away those two wretches, Schwarz and Brandt, and that silly boy Carl Peters; and they abused your father, too. It was shocking to hear them! It makes me shudder when I think of it, and of what may still happen, for we have not seen the end yet⁠—of that you may be sure. But you don’t excite yourself of course⁠—not you!” + 

“I could not prevent it, and can do nothing against it,” said Ferdinanda. + 

“You might have prevented it, and you could still do something before matters come to the worst, and they burn the roof over our heads!” exclaimed Aunt Rikchen; “but I cannot see my hand before my eyes; I cannot distinguish a church-tower from a knitting-needle.” + 

“The old song!” said Ferdinanda. + 

“Every bird sings as he has learned,” exclaimed Aunt Rikchen; “and if my ways do not please you, it is only because in these days every chicken is wiser than the hen; for if I am not your mother, I have worried myself as much as two mothers about you, and have asked myself a hundred thousand times what is to come of it? But perhaps Providence may have willed it so; it is always, one way or another, kinder to you than to other people. And I am not at all sure that your father has not always intended it so, for I always had my suspicions of that thick red pencil, when no one else was allowed to touch his plans with a finger; and any old woman can see how highly he thinks of him, and he is extremely brave and good, and it would keep the family together, if you were wise and married him before in these bad times everything flies up the chimney.” + 

“Reinhold?” + 

“Did you think I meant the Emperor of Fez and Morocco? But you only pretend to be astonished, and jump up off your chair in order to make a poor old thing like me tremble in all her limbs, as if my nerves were not already sufficiently dérangés⁠—that is what you call it, is not it?” + 

“I got up because it is high time for me to go,” said Ferdinanda. “Goodbye, aunt.” + 

She had gone a few steps towards the door, when the portière which covered it was slowly drawn aside. + 

“Mi perdona, Signora! Signora Frederica, your most obedient servant!” + 

Ferdinanda stood still in horror. + 

“What did Antonio come for at this moment?” + 

“Mi perdona!” repeated Antonio. “I fear that the ladies did not hear me knock at the door, so I ventured to walk in.” + 

And he pointed carelessly in his easy Italian fashion to some books which he held in his hand. + 

“This is not the day for our lesson,” said Ferdinanda. + 

“I cannot come tomorrow, signora, so I ventured⁠—” + 

“I have no time today. You see I am just going out.” + 

She said it in a hasty tone, for which there was apparently not the smallest occasion, and which was a wonderful contrast to the Italian’s courteous, “Mi ritiro, e le domando perdona⁠—buona sera, signora,” and the low bow with which he passed again through the portière. + 

“Why were you so sharp with the young man?” asked Aunt Rikchen. + 

Ferdinanda did not answer; she was listening for the soft footstep as it retired, and for the sound of the closing door. Would it be the glass door leading to the garden, or the other one which led to the entrance hall? It was the glass door; he had not gone out then. And yet. Why had she said that she was going out? Should she give it up? + 

But there was no time to think. With a half-murmured: “Goodbye, aunt, I will make haste back,” she had left the room and was standing in the street, almost without knowing how she had got there. + 

She had intended to take a cab at the corner of the street, but the stand was empty; she must make up her mind to walk along the Springbrunnenstrasse as far as the Parkstrasse, where she hoped to find one. Perhaps it would be better; she could more easily make sure of not being followed than in a close carriage. As she walked hastily along she looked back two or three times; a few people met her; no one was behind her; she breathed more freely; he had not followed her. She feared no one but him. + 

But he whom she feared to see behind her was at that moment far in front. + 

Since this morning Antonio had felt certain that the relations between the handsome young officer and Ferdinanda had entered on a new stage, and probably something was going to take place, something that he must know at any price, that he would know, however secretly they might go about it. He had, therefore, made the lesson which he gave her once a week in his own language, an excuse for approaching her, in order to find fresh food for his jealous curiosity, which imagined all possible things. He had found her, who so seldom left the house in the evening, ready to go out, without having ordered the carriage as she usually did. She had sharply rebuffed him, as if she suspected his motive; and what at another time would have irritated him, now delighted him; his suspicions had taken a definite form; a rendezvous was in question! His determination to follow on her track was made even before the portière had closed behind him. + 

He had purposely shut the garden door loudly in order that Ferdinanda might believe that he had not left the grounds. But when he got into the garden he had turned to the right and passed through an iron gate into the courtyard, and in a few steps was in the entrance hall, through which he passed into the street. The cabstand at the corner was his first aim also; he was obliged to pass the window at which Aunt Rikchen sat; but if he stooped his head would be hidden by the elder bush in the front garden. It was a disappointment to find the cabstand empty, but she would experience the same disappointment, but not before she got to the corner of the street. At this corner there was a small public-house which the workmen belonging to the studio were in the habit of frequenting. He sprang down the steps, and stationed himself at the window opposite the cabstand. It was a mere chance⁠—she might go towards the town, or might already have done so; but no! there she was! She paused a few moments exactly as he had done himself, and came then past the window behind which he was concealed; his eyes were on a level with the pavement; he could see her slender feet as she walked quickly along, with her dress slightly raised. He let her get a little in advance, then emerged again, assured himself that she was walking down the street, dashed across the street and ran up the Kanalstrasse towards a private path that ran between villas and gardens parallel with the Springbrunnenstrasse and led also to the Parkstrasse. This narrow lane was now, as almost always, quite deserted; he could run along it without exciting any attention⁠—not that he would have cared about that; he should reach the Parkstrasse some minutes before she did. Arrived there, he flew across the street, and stationed himself between the shrubs in the Thiergarten, in such a manner that he could command the opposite side of the Parkstrasse and the opening of the three side streets. The opening of the private path immediately before him was no longer of any consequence to him, but she must come along the Springbrunnenstrasse on the left, and at the corner of the last side street to the right there was a cabstand. She might, it was true, turn to the left, towards the town, but he would still see her, and he was convinced that she would turn to the right. And she did turn to the right. She emerged from the Springbrunnenstrasse and walked quickly along the opposite side by the houses, past the cross street to where the cabs stood. There were two cabs, she took the first; the driver of the second politely shut the door after her, and then as the first driver drove off, seized the reins and drew his horse forward. The next moment Antonio was by his side. + 

“Where to?” asked the driver, + 

“Where that cab goes.” + 

“To the Grosse Stern, then.” + 

Antonio drew back his foot which was already on the step. The Grosse Stern, at the opposite side of the Thiergarten, where the Charlottenburg Avenue is crossed by several other paths, was not a favourable place for a pursuit in a carriage, which in the great Platz, and indeed on the way there, must excite remark and suspicion. There was a surer way. What signified to him the energetic curse which the disappointed cabdriver sent after him, as Antonio hastened past him along the road into the Thiergarten! The Grosse Stern Avenue, a broad ride, shadowed by old trees, by the side of which were footpaths, led, as he knew, right across the Thiergarten to the Grosse Stern; Ferdinanda’s cab must go round by the Corso Avenue. It was not much out of the way, and her cab went unusually quickly; but he was in the direct path, and could depend upon his muscles and sinews. He ran the several thousand yards that he had to go with wonderful rapidity, heeding as little the beating of his heart as the bloodhound heeds it when on the track of a stag; in fact, the immense exertion seemed to refresh him by overpowering for the moment his pangs of jealousy. He had reached his destination; the Platz lay before him; an omnibus coming from Charlottenburg rattled by without stopping; a few carts were coming from the town; between them, and then in front of them, a cab came rapidly along. It must be he! Antonio had hidden himself amongst the bushes⁠—he would be quite safe here: behind him was the entire park, where he could, at the worst, at any moment retreat into the darkness; and the bushes were so thick that the danger of being detected from the Platz was very slight, while he could see everything that passed there. The cab from the town had stopped; a gentleman sprang out. The cab immediately turned round and drove back to the town; the gentleman walked slowly along the Platz without stopping, looking around him on all sides. Antonio was startled at the first glance; the gentleman was not in uniform. Then with a scornful “Bestia!” he struck his forehead; and now that the gentleman passed his hiding-place at a short distance, he recognised his detested enemy by his slight figure and easy movements. It was too dark to see his features distinctly. But what matter? He knew quite well who was before him, and his hand grasped more firmly the handle of his stiletto, which he had drawn out, as a huntsman takes aim even when he knows that he is not within shot; and he gnashed his white teeth as at this moment the cab which he had passed came round the corner of the Corso Avenue, turned on to the Platz, and there stopped, but only for a moment, only that the man he hated might say a few words through the open door, then jump in and close the door behind him. The cab went on across the Platz, along the road to the Bellevue Schloss, and then disappeared amongst the trees. + 

Antonio murmured through his teeth the bitterest curse that he knew. The pursuit was at an end. He could not take a shortcut, because he did not know what direction they would take; he could not follow them, that was impossible along the public road. It mattered little, either, where the pursuit ended⁠—for today! + 

But he could not make up his mind to go back or quit the Platz. It was a splendid place for brooding over his revenge, while the darkness sank deeper and deeper, and the leaves around him hissed like serpents’ tongues, and above him in the tops of the mighty trees there were sighings and groanings as of a victim lying mortally wounded on the ground. + 

V + 

In the meantime the cab had only proceeded a short distance, to the entrance of the Bellevue Garden. + 

“We are quite secure here, I swear to you,” Ottomar had whispered, as he helped Ferdinanda to alight. The driver contentedly pocketed his thaler and immediately drove off. Ottomar gave Ferdinanda his arm and led her, bewildered, frightened, and half stunned, into the garden. He could hear her gasping for breath. “I swear it!” he repeated. + 

“Swear that you love me! I only ask that!” + 

Instead of answering he put his arm round her. She encircled him with both hers. Their lips met in a long, burning kiss. They then hastened, hand in hand, deeper into the park, till they were concealed by trees and shrubs and then sank again into one another’s arms, exchanging burning kisses and words of love, intoxicated with the bliss of which they had so long been dreaming, and which was now more precious than they had ever imagined in their wildest dreams. + 

So at least thought Ferdinanda, and so she said, while her lips again sought his, and so said Ottomar; and yet, at the very moment that he returned her burning kisses, there was a feeling in his heart that he had never known before, a dread of the flames that surrounded him, a sensation as of powerlessness in the presence of a passion which raged around and overpowered him with the irresistible might of a tempest. He had until now played at love, had looked upon his easy conquests as triumphs, had accepted the mute homage of beautiful eyes, the flattering words of gentle lips, as a tribute due to him, and not demanding any gratitude. Here, for the first time, he was the weaker. He would not acknowledge it to himself, and yet he knew it, as an experienced wrestler knows at the first touch that he has found his master, and that he must succumb, unless some accident gives him the advantage. Ottomar was already looking out for this accident, for some event to occur, some circumstance that should give him the advantage; then he blushed at his own cowardice, at his mean ingratitude towards this beautiful, gifted being, who so confidingly, so devotedly, and with such self-forgetfulness threw herself into his arms, and he redoubled the tenderness of his caresses and the sweet flattery of his loving words. + 

And then, that uneasy feeling might be a delusion; but she who had done what he had so often, so pressingly implored of her, who had at length granted him an interview, in which he could put before her his plans for the future, she would and must expect that he would at length trace out that sketch of the future over which he had so long delayed, and which at this moment seemed to him as uncertain as ever. He did not believe what she assured him, that she wanted nothing more than to love him, to be beloved by him, that everything of which he spoke⁠—his father, her father, circumstances which must be taken into consideration, difficulties which must be overcome⁠—all, all was only a mist, which would disperse before the rays of the sun; trifles not worthy that they should expend upon them one moment of precious time, one breath! He did not believe her; but he only too willingly took her at her word, even now silently absolving himself from the responsibility of the consequences which might, which must follow such a neglect of the simplest rules of prudence and wisdom. + 

And then he, too, forgot everything but the present moment, and she had to remind him that time was flying, that he was expected at home, and must not arrive too late for the party. + 

“But will you take me with you?” she asked. “Will you enter the room with me on your arm, and present me to all present as your bride? You have no need to be ashamed of me; there are not likely to be many women there whom I cannot look down upon, and I have always considered that to be able to look down upon others is halfway at least towards being a fine lady. To you I shall always look up. Tall as I am, I must stretch myself higher to reach your dear lips.” + 

There lay a wonderful proud charm in these jesting words, and deep love in the kiss which her smiling lips breathed upon his. He was intoxicated and bewitched by this loving gentleness, this proud love; he said to himself that she was right, and he told her so, that she could bear comparison with any queen in the world, that she deserved to be a queen; and yet⁠—and yet⁠—if it had been no jest, if she had demanded in earnest what one day she would demand. + 

“That was the last kiss,” said Ferdinanda. “As usual, I must be the most reasonable always. And now give me your arm, and come with me to the nearest cab, and then go straight home, and be very charming and amiable this evening, and break a few more hearts in addition to those you have already broken, and which you will hereafter lay at my feet in return for my heart, which is worth more than all of them put together.” + 

It was nearly dark when they quitted the silent, deserted park; the sky had clouded over, and heavy drops were beginning to fall. Fortunately an empty cab came by, in which Ferdinanda could go as far as the Brandenburg Gate, where she would take another, and thus destroy every trace of her road. She only allowed Ottomar to kiss her hand once more, as he helped her into the cab. Then she leaned back in the corner, closed her eyes, and dreamed over again the happy hour. Ottomar looked after the carriage. It was a miserable vehicle, drawn by a wretched screw, and as it swayed backwards and forwards in the feeble light of a few lamps, and disappeared in the darkness, a strange sensation of horror and loathing came over him. “It looks like a hearse,” he said to himself. “I could hardly bear to touch the wet handle. I could not have brought myself to get into it. The whole affair gets one into very uncomfortable situations. The walk home is no joke, either; it is nearly nine, and beginning to rain pretty hard.” + 

He turned into the Grosse Stern Avenue, which was his shortest way home. Under the great trees it was already so dark that he could only just distinguish the footpath along which he hastily walked; on the other side of the broad road, along which ran a narrower footpath, the trunks of the trees were hardly perceptible in the darkness. How many and many times had he ridden along this grand avenue⁠—alone⁠—with brother officers⁠—in a brilliant company of ladies and gentlemen⁠—how often with Carla! Elsa was right, Carla was a splendid rider, the best probably of all the ladies, certainly the most graceful. They had been so often seen and spoken of together⁠—after all it was quite impossible to draw back now; it would make such a frightful scandal. + 

Ottomar stood still. He had walked too fast. The perspiration was streaming from his brow; he felt stifled, and tore open his coat and waistcoat. He had never before experienced the sensation of physical fear, but now he started and his eyes peered anxiously into the darkness, as he heard behind him a slight rustle⁠—probably a twig that had broken in its fall. + 

“I feel as if I had committed a murder, or as if in another moment I should be murdered,” he said to himself, as almost running he continued on his way. + 

He did not suspect that to the breaking of that twig he owed his life. + 

Antonio had lingered, as if under the influence of a spell, at the entrance of the avenue, now sitting on the iron railing which separated the ride from the footpath, now pacing up and down, now leaning against the trunk of a tree, always revolving the same dark thoughts, concocting plans of revenge, delighting himself with the idea of the torments he would inflict on her and on him, as soon as he had them in his power, from time to time directing his glance across the Platz towards the entrance of the other avenue, along which the carriage had disappeared with them, as if they must reappear in that direction, as if his revengeful soul had the power of compelling them. He could have spent the whole night there, as a beast of prey, furious at the loss of his victim, remains obstinately in his lair, in spite of the pangs of hunger. + 

But what was that? There he came across the Platz directly towards him. His eyes, accustomed to the darkness, recognised him as if it had been bright day. Would the bestia be such a fool as to venture into the avenue, to give himself into his hands? Per Bacco! he would⁠—there. After a short pause he turned into the avenue; on the other side of the road, true, but so much the better, he could the more easily follow him on this side; he had only to dash across the ride when the moment came; in the deep sand his first steps would not be heard, and then in a few bounds he would reach him and bury the stiletto in his back, or if he should turn round, drive it up to the hilt under the seventh rib! + 

And his hand closed on the hilt as if hand and hilt were one, and with the finger of the other hand he repeatedly tried the sharp point, while he glided with long steps from tree to tree⁠—softly, softly⁠—the tiger’s velvet paw could not have fallen and been raised more softly. + 

They had reached the centre of the avenue. The darkness could not get more intense; it was just light enough to see the blade of the stiletto. One moment more, to assure himself that they were alone in the dark wood⁠—that other and himself⁠—and now, crouching low, he crossed the soft sand, behind the thick trunk which he had already selected. + 

But, quickly as he had crossed, the other had gained some twenty paces in advance. This was too much; they must be diminished by half. And it would not be difficult. He was in the soft sand of the road, to the right of the trees, while the other was on the hard footpath to the left, where the sound of his steps would overpower any accidental noise. But, maledetto di Dio⁠—his foot touched a dry twig, which broke with a snap. He stepped behind a tree⁠—he could not be seen; but the other must have heard; he was standing still⁠—listening, perhaps awaiting his assailant⁠—at all events no longer unprepared. Who knew⁠—he was a brave man and a soldier⁠—perhaps he was turning to defy his assailant. So much the better! only one spring from behind the tree, and⁠—he was coming! + 

The Italian’s heart throbbed as if it would choke him, as he now with his left foot advanced prepared for the spring; but his murderous thoughts had affected his usually sharp hearing. The steps were not coming towards him, but going away from him! By the time he became aware of his mistake, the distance between them was quite doubled; and trebled before, in his consternation, he could decide what was to be done. + 

Give up the chase? There was nothing else to do. His prey was now almost running, and a late cab rolled along the drive which crossed the avenue, and on the other side of the drive were cross paths right and left⁠—he had no certainty of being able to carry out his intention or of escaping afterwards; the moment was past⁠—for this time, but the next time! + 

Antonio murmured a fearful curse as he replaced his dagger in its sheath and concealed it in his coat pocket. + 

The other man had vanished; Antonio followed slowly along the same path, out of the park, along the Thiergartenstrasse, into the Springbrunnenstrasse, and to the house in which the man he hated lived, the windows of which were brightly lighted. A carriage drove up, an officer and some ladies in evening dress, wrapped in their shawls, got out; a second carriage followed. He, above, was now laughing and feasting, and whispering at that moment to one of the pretty girls who had just arrived what ten minutes before he might have whispered to Ferdinanda. If he could only pour into her heart the poison of jealousy which burnt in his own! If he could put some impossible barrier between her and him! If the whole affair could be betrayed to the stern signor, her father, or to the haughty capitano, his father, or to both⁠— + 

“Hallo!” + 

A man coming along the pavement had run up against him, as he leaned with folded arms against the iron railing of the front garden, and had called out rudely. + 

“Scusi!” said the Italian, lifting his hat. “I beg your pardon!” + 

“Hallo!” repeated the man, “is it you, Antonio?” + 

“Ah! Signor Roller, the overseer!” + 

“Signor Roller! overseer! No more signors and overseers for me,” said the man, with a loud laugh, “for the present at least⁠—till we have served out the old man; he and his nephew and the whole lot of them! If I only had them by the throat! If I could only do them some injury! I would not mind what it cost me, so it were not money! That is all gone.” + 

The man laughed again; he was evidently half drunk. + 

“I have money,” said Antonio quickly⁠—“and⁠—” + 

“We’ll have a drink then, Signor Italiano!” exclaimed the other, clapping him on the shoulder; “una bottiglia⁠—capisci!⁠—ha, ha! I have not quite forgotten my Italian!⁠—Carrara marble⁠—capisci, capisci?” + 

“Eccomi tutto a voi,” said the Italian, taking the man’s arm. “Where to?” + 

“To drink, to the devil, to the public-house!” exclaimed Roller, laughing and pointing to the red lamp over the public-house at the corner of the Springbrunnenstrasse. + 

VI + 

The three moderate-sized rooms in the upper floor of the small villa inhabited by the General, in the Springbrunnenstrasse, were got ready for the reception of the company; the larger room at the back was for the present closed. The supper was to be served there, and later it would be used as the dancing-room. Elsa went once more through the rooms to see that everything was in order. She did not usually do this, as she could quite depend upon the care and attention of the perfectly trained August; today, for the first time, he seemed to have taken his duties more easily. Or was it only her fancy? She asked herself this while she moved a few candlesticks and put them back again, and altered the arrangement of some knickknacks without being any better pleased with their appearance. “I do not know what is the matter with me today,” said Elsa. + 

She stepped before the looking-glass and contemplated her reflection with the greatest attention: she did not think herself looking the least pretty today. She was disappointed in her new blue dress; her hair was done much too loosely, the rosebuds were decidedly too dark, and were put in too far back; her eyes were not the least bright, and her nose was perceptibly red on the left side. “I really do not know what is the matter with me today,” said Elsa. + 

She sank into an armchair, laid her fan and gloves in her lap, and rested her head on her hand. + 

“I was looking forward so to this evening; but it is all Ottomar’s fault. How can anyone marry without love?⁠—it happens often enough though. Wallbach certainly does not love Louise, any more than she loves him; but Ottomar, who is so tenderhearted and can be so good and dear! That detestable money! how can one man spend such a sinful amount? I can’t think how they manage it. Horses!⁠—they always say they have sold them for so many guineas more than they gave for them; I don’t believe it; I am sure they always lose; but even that would not come to so much. I do not know; they say Wartenberg cannot manage with twenty thousand, and, that Clemda, with fifty thousand, incurs debts to that amount every year⁠—it is incredible! What good would my poor five thousand do him, and he would have to wait, one way and another, nearly five years for it. And if I fell in love with somebody who was not noble, and lost my portion⁠—I should not care, of course not, but I could not give him anything if I had not got it myself⁠—to say nothing of papa, who would certainly not allow it, though he is always talking about him; but it is all about the harbour, which is never out of his head⁠—but I am so glad that he always talks so kindly of him⁠—so glad⁠—” + 

“Good heavens, child, what are you doing?” + 

“What is it?” exclaimed Elsa, starting up from her dreams, and looking with a startled expression at her aunt, who, no less startled, stood before her. + 

“Your new tarlatane dress! You are completely crushing it.” + 

“Is that all?” exclaimed Elsa, drawing a deep breath. + 

“Oh, it is nothing to you!” exclaimed Sidonie. “You do not care about things that I care about very much, but I am getting accustomed to that by degrees!” + 

“Dear aunt!” + 

Elsa had thrown her arms round her aunt and kissed her; the kind creature wanted nothing more. “Well, well,” she said, “you careless child! You will quite spoil your pretty dress.” + 

She had freed herself from Elsa’s embrace, and was smoothing and arranging her darling’s dress. “There, step back a little; you look charming this evening, Elsa.” + 

“I don’t think so at all.” + 

“Like my Princess! The evening that the Duke, her present illustrious husband, was to be presented to her for the first time, ‘I don’t think I look at all pretty to day,’ said she.” + 

“But I am not going to be presented to a Duke,” said Elsa. + 

“How you do mix things up, child! As if you could marry a reigning prince, except by the left hand! Besides, we shall only have a member of a former reigning house here. Prince Clemda, and he is already betrothed. So I could not be thinking of him.” + 

“And of no one else, I hope, aunt.” + 

“I must be very much mistaken, Elsa, or your blushes⁠—yes, you are blushing, my dear child, and you blush more and more, though it is quite unnecessary before your aunt. I can assure you, on the contrary, that I consider the match in every respect a most proper and desirable one, and the chance⁠—if it is not a crime against Providence to speak of chance in such important matters⁠—” + 

“For heaven’s sake, aunt, if you love me, say no more,” exclaimed Elsa. The terror that seized her at the idea of hearing her aunt speak of Count Golm, after Ottomar had already alarmed her in the morning on the same subject, was too evident in the tone of her voice to escape even Sidonie. + 

“Good gracious!” she said, “can I really have been mistaken! I had been thinking over the extraordinary dispute which we had this morning, and could only account for it by the explanation that you wished to conceal the inclination you have for the Count by an affectation of indifference, and even of want of consideration towards him.” + 

“I did not intend anything of the kind,” said Elsa. + 

“I am really sorry for it,” said Sidonie, who now, under the pressure of her disappointment, seated herself⁠—though with due regard to her brown silk gown⁠—while Elsa walked up and down the room in some agitation; “really very sorry; I know nothing that would have given me greater pleasure, next to Ottomar’s betrothal to Carla, which, in my opinion, has been too long delayed. The Count is thirty⁠—a very good age for a man of his position to marry⁠—he must and will marry one of these days, and he might seek long before he would find a young lady who would so entirely satisfy all the pretensions he has a right to make, and no doubt does make. His circumstances are somewhat embarrassed, but that is almost always the case nowadays with large properties; men always settle down when they are married. Besides, he will gain enormously by the new railroad, so Schieler says, who told me all these particulars. The Councillor was with me yesterday, and I almost fancied he must have come on purpose to tell me, and to hear what I said about it, as he has always had a great regard for my opinion. He is a charming man, and discretion itself; so I did not hesitate to tell him exactly what I thought; in these cases openness is always the best diplomacy, and when advances are made there is no harm in meeting them halfway.” + 

“It is too bad, aunt!” exclaimed Elsa, turning round and standing with her lace handkerchief crushed between her hands, while burning tears of shame and anger started to her eyes. + 

Sidonie was so startled by this outburst, for which she was not in the least prepared, that she sat motionless and speechless with wide open eyes, while Elsa, instead of immediately begging her pardon, or calming herself, continued with flaming cheeks and sparkling eyes: “To talk me over like that with a stranger! and with Schieler, of all people, whom I detest as much as I do the other whom you have chosen for me, and whom I would never marry, not if he had a crown to lay at my feet, never⁠—never!” + 

“What is the matter, Elsa?” asked the General, who entered the room at that moment and had heard the last words. + 

“A slight difference of opinion between me and my aunt,” answered Elsa, hastily wiping her eyes. + 

“Well, well,” said the General, “I thought you ladies left that sort of thing to us men. Is Ottomar not here?” + 

He left the room again to inquire after Ottomar. + 

“Forgive me, aunt,” said Elsa, holding out her hand; “it was very wrong of me. You do not know, but⁠—I do not know myself, what is the matter with me this evening.” + 

It was with some hesitation that Sidonie took her hand; the General came in again. + 

“It is too bad,” he said; “Ottomar went out again quite an hour ago and has not yet returned.” + 

“He must be delayed by some important matter,” said Sidonie. + 

“No doubt!” said the General, frowning, and pulling his grey moustaches. + 

“Councillor Schieler!” announced August, opening the folding-doors. + 

The Councillor kissed Sidonie’s hand and bowed low to Elsa, then turned to the General: + 

“I have heaps of news for you, my dear friend.” + 

“Few things happen now to interest me, and still fewer that give me any pleasure,” answered the General, with a courteous yet melancholy smile. + 

“I fear I cannot promise that my news will give you any pleasure,” said the Councillor; “but at least it is interesting even to you, ladies, that the Baroness, instead of arriving on the 1st as she originally intended, will arrive on the 10th, and will therefore be here in three days.” + 

“I had a letter this morning which said nothing about it,” said the General. + 

“My letter arrived this afternoon, and is, therefore, doubtless the latest; it is not from herself, however, but⁠—” + 

The Councillor was interrupted by a slight cough. + 

“You may say the name out, my dear friend,” said the General; “it cannot be avoided when once our meetings begin.” + 

“You are right!” exclaimed the Councillor; “and I am happy⁠—” The widowed Countess von Fischbach arrived at this moment with her two daughters; the ladies were engaged with their guests, and the Councillor was able to draw the General aside. “I was about to say that I am happy to find you so well prepared for what awaits you from Munich. I know how painful everything connected with the subject is to you, and yet I must ask your patience for a few minutes before you are called away by your other guests. My second piece of news is that the concession is granted.” + 

“Impossible!” exclaimed the General. + 

“As good as granted.” + 

“We had a meeting only this morning; it is true we were engaged upon other matters, but his Excellency would at least⁠—” + 

“He knows your dislike to the project; I repeat, as good as granted, and that ‘as good’ is at the present moment better than good. I implore you, my honoured friend, to listen to me patiently; the matter is of the greatest importance, not only to me, who have only an indirect interest in it, but more especially and directly to you. The concession will of course only have been granted for a harbour on the north, against which you have no immediate objection; is not that true? Good. Now I know for certain that, behind your back, there was to the very last moment a hesitation between the North and the East Harbour, and that the pressure used has only just failed in turning the scale to the East. I need not tell you by whom pressure was put; you know better than anyone the interest that Golm, who by the way will join the management, has in the existence of the railroad; and his connections in a certain region are better, very much better than I could have dreamt of. I tell you it only wanted the merest trifle. And just imagine, Signor Giraldi⁠—I must mention his name now⁠—has written to me today that the sale of part of the property appears to him advisable for the better regulation and easier administration of the rest; and that the Baroness⁠—that is to say he⁠—for here as everywhere he is the mouthpiece of the Baroness⁠—will propose the sale at our meeting. Wallbach is in favour of it as he always has been; as a man of business I cannot oppose it; in short, the property will, as far as I can see, be sold. It is almost impossible, or at least most improbable, that Giraldi should know the state of affairs here, and that an eager purchaser is ready to hand in Golm. But if Golm sees a possibility of concluding the bargain, he will move heaven and hell to carry through the East Harbour at the last minute. And now, my honoured, my excellent friend, allow an old friend, of whose devotion you are aware, one word in confidence⁠—a bold one if you will: you are not rich; Ottomar is extravagant; it is no small matter for Ottomar to see his portion with one stroke doubled if not quadrupled in value with the rest, and Fräulein Elsa will be richer in the same proportion; and if at the death of the Baroness they inherit the remaining half, and Fräulein Elsa makes a suitable marriage⁠—with Count Golm for instance, to name the first that occurs to me⁠—you may close your eyes⁠—God in His providence grant not for many a long day⁠—with the comforting reflection that the external well-being of your family is secured for all futurity, so far as man’s foresight can determine. Be wise then, my honoured friend. You need do nothing. You have only to refrain from opposition and give in to what you cannot prevent. Lastly, you must remember the good old saying: ‘Well to endure what cannot well be cured;’ which you will doubtless remember in your youth.” + 

The General had listened without a sign of the impatience that was usual with him when an adverse opinion was put before him; his brow had not clouded; there was even an unusually gentle, almost sad, tone in his deep voice, as he now, without raising his eyes, said, as if to himself: “I remember the saying well. It dates from the time of the wars, of liberation, and many an oppressed heart derived comfort from it in those troubled times, and many a broken courage has been supported by it. It hung framed and glazed on the wall of my father’s best room; I can still see my dear mother standing before it and reading what she had read a thousand times before: + 

“ ‘To triumph not in joy nor dread the storm, + 

Well to endure what cannot well be cured, + 

To do good actions and rejoice in beauty, + 

To love our lives and not to fear death, + 

Firmly to trust in God and a better future, + 

This is to live, yet rob death of his sting.’ ” + 

The General looked thoughtfully before him. + 

What an inconveniently retentive memory the man has! thought the Councillor. + 

“And look, my dear friend,” continued the General⁠—and his eyes now rested so steadily on the Councillor that the latter, in spite of all his efforts, was forced to turn away his own⁠—“according to the true meaning of the proverb and my own feelings it would not be doing a good action. Indeed, according to my own feelings I could no longer live, and should with justice shrink with terror from death, like a dishonoured coward, if, for the sake of outward advantage, were it a thousand times as great as it here appears to be, I neglected my positive duty and obligation, and did not resist, by every means in my power, a project the accomplishment of which I am firmly persuaded would be a manifest injury to our military strength, and an unprincipled squandering of our means, which we have the strongest reasons to be careful of. I have already nearly neglected my duty when I threw the burden of the report of this odious affair on Sattelstädt’s shoulders; although I knew that his opinions were the same as my own. After what I have just heard from you, I cannot do otherwise than bring forward the subject on my own responsibility at the board, and in any case acquaint the Minister with my disapproval. And now, my dear friend, excuse me! I must help the ladies to do the honours.” + 

He turned towards the large drawing-room; the Councillor looked angrily after him. + 

“He is incorrigible. I almost wonder he did not turn me out of the house. That will be the next thing. Do not fatigue yourself so much, Count. It is of no use.” + 

VII + 

The Count had entered a few minutes before, in his deputy’s uniform, with the Cross of St. John. The room was by this time nearly full, and he had had some difficulty in making his way to the ladies of the house. Elsa had not helped him in his efforts; at the moment that he appeared in the doorway she continued so eagerly the conversation already begun with Captain von Schönau, that the Count, after bowing to Sidonie, had stood for half a minute behind her without attracting her attention, till Schönau at last felt bound with “I think” and a movement of the hand to draw her notice to the newly-arrived guest. + 

“I am happy⁠—” said the Count. + 

“Ah! Count Golm!” exclaimed Elsa, with well-acted astonishment. “I beg your pardon for not having seen you sooner, I was so absorbed. May I introduce you? Captain von Schönau, on the staff⁠—a great friend of ours⁠—Count von Golm. Have you seen papa, Count Golm? I think he is in the other room. You were saying, Captain von Schönau⁠—” + 

The Count stepped back with a bow. + 

“That was rather strong, Fräulein Elsa,” said Schönau. + 

“What?” + 

Schönau laughed. + 

“Do you know that if I were not the most modest of men I might imagine all possible and impossible follies?” + 

“How so?” + 

“Why, did not you see that the Count held out his hand, and drew back with a face as red as my collar? A young lady with such sharp eyes as Fräulein Elsa von Werben could only overlook such a thing if she did not wish to see it; which can hardly be the case here, or if she⁠—I am afraid to go on.⁠—Who is that?” + 

“Who?” + 

“That officer⁠—to the left, near Baroness Kniebreche⁠—you are looking to the right! He is speaking to your father now⁠—a fine-looking man⁠—he has got the cross, too. Where did you meet with him?” + 

Elsa was forced to make up her mind to see Reinhold, though her heart beat fast, to her great annoyance. She was vexed already at having laid herself open to Schönau’s sharp-sighted eyes, and almost betrayed herself to him by her behaviour to the Count. It should not happen again. + 

“A Herr Schmidt,” she said, arranging the rosebuds in her hair⁠—“a merchant-captain. We made his acquaintance when we were travelling. Papa likes him very much.” + 

“A very fine-looking man,” repeated Schönau; “just the sort of handsome, manly face that I admire; and a very good manner, too, though one recognises the officer of the reserve at the first glance.” + 

“In what way?” asked Elsa, whose heart began to beat again. + 

“You ought to know that as well or better than I do, as you see more of the Guards. Compare him with Ottomar, who is late as usual, and is trying to repair his faults by making himself doubly agreeable! Look at the finished courtesy with which he kisses old Countess Kniebreche’s bony hand, and now turns and makes a bow to Countess Fischbach, for which the great Vestris might have envied him⁠—Allons, mon fils, montrez votre talent; and how he speaks now to Sattelstädt, not a shade too much or too little. It is really unfair to compare one of the reserve with the model of all knightly graces! Do not you agree with me?” + 

Elsa only looked straight before her. Schönau was right; there was a difference. She had liked him better as he walked up and down the deck in his rough pilot jacket. She had envied him the firmness and freedom of his movements. And when later he sat in the boat and steered it as calmly as a rider governs his fiery steed, then he had appeared to her as the model of a brave man conscious of his strength. If only he had not come now, just now! + 

At that moment Reinhold, who had all this time been talking to her father, and was now dismissed with a friendly nod, turned, and seeing Elsa, came straight towards her. Elsa trembled so violently that she was obliged to support herself by laying her hand on the back of a chair; she wished to act a little comedy before the quick-witted Schönau, and to appear perfectly cool and unconcerned; but as he now stepped towards her, his bright, honest eyes still beaming at the recollection of her father’s kind reception of him, in the open, manly features a certain embarrassment, which seemed to ask, “Shall I be welcome to you also?” her heart leaped up warmly and generously; and though one hand still rested on the chair, she held out the other towards him. Her dark eyes glowed, her red lips smiled, and she said: “Welcome to our house, my dear Herr Schmidt!” as cheerfully and frankly as if there were no finer name in the world. + 

He seized her hand and said a few words which she only half heard. She turned towards Schönau, the Captain had vanished; the colour mounted into her cheeks. + 

“It does not matter,” she murmured. + 

“What does not matter?” + 

“I will tell you by-and-by if⁠—We are going to dance a little after supper. I do not know⁠—” + 

“Whether I dance! I am very fond of it.” + 

“Even the Rheinländer?” + 

“Even the Rheinländer. And notwithstanding your incredulous smile, not so badly that Fräulein von Werben need be afraid to give me the honour.” + 

“The Rheinländer then! I have already promised all the others. Now I must go and entertain the company.” She nodded kindly to him and turned away, but came back immediately. “Do you like my brother?” + 

“Very much.” + 

“I wish so much that you should be friends. Do try to see more of him. Will you?” + 

“With all my heart.” + 

She was now obliged to go; and Reinhold also mixed with the rest of the company, without any of the embarrassment that he had felt on first entering a circle so brilliant and so strange to him. His hosts had received him as a dear friend of the house. Even the eyes of the dignified aunt had glanced at him not without a certain good-natured curiosity, stately as her curtsey had been; but the General had shaken him warmly by the hand, and after the first words of greeting, drawing him confidentially aside, had said: “I must introduce you to Colonel von Sattelstädt and Captain von Schönau, both on the staff. They are anxious to hear your opinion on the Harbour question. Pray speak your mind quite freely. You will be doing me a favour. I shall also have a special favour to ask of you with regard to this affair, which I will tell you later. Au revoir, then.” + 

That was flattering to the lieutenant of the reserve, said Reinhold to himself as he turned towards Elsa; and now she, too, had been so kind and friendly. He felt like one of Homer’s heroes, who in silence hopes that the goddess to whom he prays will be gracious to him, and to whom the divinity appears in the tumult of battle and looks at him with her immortal eyes, and in words which only he can hear, promises him her assistance. What mattered to him now that old Baroness Kniebreche’s gold eyeglass was so long fixed upon him with such a disagreeable stare, and then let fall with a movement that plainly said: It was hardly worth the trouble! What mattered to him that Count Golm avoided seeing him as long as he could possibly do so, and, when it was no longer possible, walked past him with a snappish “Ah, Captain! delighted to see you!” That young Prince Clemda’s bow when they were introduced might have been somewhat less careless. What did it all signify? And those were the only marks of coldness which had been shown him during the hour that he had already passed in the somewhat numerous assembly. He had met with scarcely anything but good-natured, open friendliness on the part of the ladies, and almost all the men, who were mostly officers, cordially received him as one of themselves. Even Prince Clemda seemed inclined to make up for his previous carelessness by suddenly coming up to him and murmuring a few sentences, amongst which Reinhold only distinguished clearly the words: Werben⁠—Orleans⁠—Vierzon⁠—confounded ride⁠—sorry. + 

But what pleased him most was his acquaintance with Herr von Sattelstädt and Herr von Schönau. They came up to him almost at the same moment, and begged him, if it was not troubling him too much, to give them his views on the practicability and utility of a harbour to the north of Wissow Head. “We are both well acquainted with the locality,” said the Colonel, “and are both⁠—the Captain even more than myself⁠—opposed to the project; we have of course discussed the matter often at the Admiralty, but none the less, or rather all the more, it would be of the greatest interest and importance to us to hear the opinion of an intelligent sailor, who, while thoroughly well acquainted with the circumstances of the case, is at the same time quite unprejudiced, more especially when he possesses at the same time the soldierly eye of a campaigner. Let us sit down in the study here⁠—there is another chair, Schönau! And now I think it would be best if you would allow us to ask you a few questions. It is the easiest and surest way of arriving at our object. We will not trouble you long.” + 

“I am quite at your orders,” said Reinhold. + 

The gentlemen intended only to take a discreet advantage of the permission; but as Reinhold, against his will, was obliged frequently to enter into details, in order to answer the questions put to him, the conversation prolonged itself further than either of them had intended, though no one seemed aware of it but himself. Flattering though the respectful attention might be with which the two officers listened to his explanations, and sincerely as he admired the sagacity and knowledge displayed by every question, by every word they said⁠—he could not refrain from casting from time to time a longing glance through the door of the study into the larger drawing-room, where the company were still circulating as before, and through the drawing-room into the second small room on the other side of the drawing-room, in which apparently a group of young people had assembled, amongst whom he perceived Ottomar and the lady who had been pointed out to him at the Exhibition as Fräulein von Wallbach, Count Golm, and finally Elsa. + 

A lively dispute was going on, as could be heard right across the intervening drawing-room, though naturally the actual words could not be distinguished. Even Schönau’s attention was at length caught by it. “I would bet anything,” he said, “that they are quarrelling over Wagner; where Fräulein von Wallbach presides, Wagner is sure to be the subject of discussion. I would give anything to hear what she says about him this evening.” + 

“That is to say, my dear Schönau, if I am not mistaken, I would give anything if Sattelstädt would hold his tongue,” said the Colonel, smiling. “Well, we have already taken an unconscionable advantage of Captain Schmidt’s patience.” He rose and held out his hand to Reinhold. Schönau protested that he meant nothing of the kind; the Colonel shook his finger threateningly at him. “For shame, Schönau, to deny your liege lady! She, you must know, Captain Schmidt, is Divine Harmony. For her he would go through fire and water, and let the harbour matters take care of themselves. Be off, Schönau!” + 

Schönau laughed, but went, taking with him Reinhold, who followed not unwillingly, as he was thus enabled to return to Elsa and to Ottomar, to whom he had only spoken in passing. + 

VIII + 

Ottomar had been fully occupied in making up for lost time. He went from one to the other, here whispering a compliment, there accompanying a shake of the hand with a jest, this evening more than ever overflowing with life and spirits and good-humour, the accomplished favourite of the Graces, and king of society. So said Baroness Kniebreche to Carla, who had just appeared in the drawing-room, with her brother and sister-in-law, and was immediately taken possession of by the old lady, one of whose “mignons” she was. “Look, my dear Carla! he is just speaking to Helene Leisewitz⁠—how happy the poor thing is! It is not often that she is so singled out. Mon Dieu! he is positively paying attentions to her. Do look!” + 

Carla was in despair. She could see nothing without her eyeglass, but did not like to make use of it while with the Baroness whose pince-nez, with glasses as big as thalers, were fixed to her almost sightless eyes. Besides the old lady screamed so loud that she might be heard half across the room, and she expected to be answered equally loudly, being quite deaf of the right ear and almost deaf of the left. + 

“Ah! at last he has fluttered off to Emilie Fischbach⁠—à la bonne heure! She has been making eyes at him for ever so long, charming little creature! She really grows more charming every day. And how she chatters and wriggles. A little too much simplicity, but she will improve. You will have another rival next season, my dear Carla. What, going already! No, no, my dear, not so fast; I have not spoken to you for ages. You owe me a world of confidences. Do you think that an old woman like me is to go about in society as ignorant as a newborn baby, while the whole world is au courant? Out with it! When is the betrothal to be? Not speak so loud? Why I am hardly speaking above a whisper⁠—this ear, please! It is not yet settled! Don’t be angry with me, my dear Carla; but what in the world are you thinking about? Do you imagine an Ottomar von Werben is always to be had?” + 

“Do you want me, Baroness?” said Ottomar, who had heard his name. + 

“I want you to sit down by me here, on my left side, you faithless butterfly!” + 

“Is there such a thing as a faithful butterfly, Baroness?” + 

“Now none of your jokes; I am a serious, practical old woman, and want you both⁠—why what has become of Carla?” + 

Carla had seized the opportunity, and, rising with an expression of delighted astonishment on her animated countenance, had hastened towards Count Golm, whom, by a hasty glance through her eyeglass, she had perceived at the other side of the room engaged in conversation with Countess Fischbach, and who now turned towards her. She was determined to punish Ottomar for the neglect with which he had in the most open manner treated her. Ottomar looked after her with gloomy eyes, and his glance did not clear while the old Baroness took him to task, as she expressed it. “Yes, yes, my dear Ottomar, it is only the truth; and from whom should you hear it if not from an old woman, who knows the world thoroughly and has known you ever since you were born? I have seen other affairs come to nothing that looked quite as promising as yours. Everything has its limits, even the patience of society. If this patience is tried too long, society says nothing will come of it; and when society has said so for a certain length of time nothing does come of it, simply because it has said so. People do everything as society decides; are betrothed, marry, separate, fall in love, fall out of it again, fall in love a second and a third time, fight duels, shoot their friends, shoot themselves⁠—society is always right.” + 

“And supposing society should be right in our case?” + 

The old lady let her pince-nez fall in horror: “Mais vous êtes fou, monsieur, positivement fou!” + 

She seized her large black fan, and fanned herself violently and noisily; replaced her pince-nez, cast a sharp glance at Ottomar, who stared moodily before him, and said, while she motioned to him to put his ear near her mouth⁠— + 

“Now listen patiently, like a good child, for you are children, both of you; you who sit here looking like an ensign who has had twenty marks too few at his examination for lieutenant; and Carla who is flirting over there with Count Golm, on purpose to provoke you. Don’t play with fire. You might burn your fingers badly. If the affair comes to nothing it will be the greatest scandal of the season. And now go and make your peace with Carla, and tell her from me that I have known the Counts Golm for three generations, and that the present one⁠—well, I had rather tell her myself.” + 

She rapped Ottomar on the knuckles with her fan. Ottomar rose quickly and moved a few paces towards Carla, in the full conviction that his approach was all that was necessary to appease her, as she had watched the whole progress of his conversation with the old lady, and now turned her eyeglass on him. But Carla let him come a few steps nearer and then turned completely round towards the Count, with the defiant movement of an actress who wishes to give the audience an opportunity of admiring the back of her dress. Ottomar started back and turned on his heel, murmuring between his teeth: “A formal provocation! Thank heaven!” + 

But when he now again mixed with the company, laughing and jesting even more gaily than before, in his heart was dark night. What the Baroness had murmured in his ear he had said to himself over and over again as he hastened home through the Thiergarten, and the mighty trees over his head could as little overpower with their sighings and groanings the warning voice within him, as the hum and rustle of the company could now overpower the harsh voice of the toothless old lady. Was she only the mouthpiece of society? So, exactly so, would and must society speak, perhaps did speak already, though he could not hear. Let it! What did society know of the tall, slender figure which he had but now held in his arms, of the throbbing heart that had rested on his breast, of the wealth of kisses that still burned on his lips? If the four charming girls with whom he was talking could combine all their charms into one, they would still not make a Ferdinanda. And as for Carla, he had never admired her as much as the rest of the world did, and now he thought her positively ugly, with her coquettish airs, her eternal laugh and her everlasting eyeglass. Let her marry the Count; let them say and do what they would! And what could they do? A duel with Wallbach? Well, it would be the fourth within four years, and if he were killed, so much the better! There would be an end to the whole affair; he need no longer trouble his head with his debts, or his heart about the women! Debts, women⁠—he would have done with them all! + 

“Oh, Herr von Werben! how intensely amusing you are this evening!” + 

“I feel intensely amusing, I assure you.” + 

“I don’t wonder, under the circumstances.” + 

“Of course not!” + 

“Then do us a favour.” + 

“A thousand.” + 

“Do bring us your brother officer from the reserve; what is his name?” + 

“Schmidt!” + 

“Really?” + 

“Really!” + 

“How funny!” + 

“Why?” + 

“How cross you look! It is not our fault. Emilie Fischbach says he is quite delightful! We want to know the delightful Herr Schmidt. Do please bring Herr Schmidt here!” + 

“Oh, do!” exclaimed the other young ladies, “bring Herr Schmidt here!” + 

“I fly.” + 

The titter of the girls, which was not ill-meant, sounded after him like an intentional scoff. His cheeks burnt with anger and shame; that name⁠—it was hers also. + 

“One word, Werben.” + 

Clemda touched him on the shoulder. + 

“What do you want?” + 

“I have had a letter from Brussels, from the Duke, and also one from Antonia. The Duke is now free. Our wedding is to be in four weeks. Antonia is very anxious that your betrothed should be one of her bridesmaids. You must of course take me under your wing; I dare not write and tell her that you are not yet betrothed. You are not angry with me for the hint?” + 

“Why should I be?” + 

“Because you look so serious over it. Where are you off to in such a hurry?” + 

“The ladies want me to take Lieutenant Schmidt to them.” + 

“Ah! not a bad fellow⁠—in his way!” + 

Clemda had let the last words slip out carelessly after the others⁠—as one might open a chink of a door one had just shut, in order to let the dog in, thought Ottomar. + 

“And what I wanted to say besides, Ottomar⁠—of course, as host, one has certain duties, but then certain duties are owed to the host also; and entre nous, I consider Golm’s flirtation as rather a want of consideration towards you, as he must know your situation with regard to Fräulein Wallbach as well as anybody.” + 

“He is quite a stranger in our circle.” + 

“Then you should explain matters to him; and Golm⁠—” + 

“My dear Werben! can you spare me a moment?” + 

“At your orders, Colonel!” + 

“Ah!” said Clemda, retiring with a bow before his commanding officer. + 

“Only a moment,” repeated Colonel von Bohl, drawing Ottomar a little on one side; “I have just been speaking to Wallbach; he was very pressing, but, with the best will in the world, I cannot give you leave before the spring. Clemda will want a long leave; Rossow must be away at least three months, as his wound threatens to break out again. I cannot spare all my best officers at once. His Excellency must understand that.” + 

“But there is no hurry, Colonel.” + 

“You want to marry, and I am not devoted to newly-married young officers; I grant you willingly, therefore, a year’s leave for diplomatic service in St. Petersburg. And then, my dear Werben⁠—” + 

The Colonel cast a glance behind him and said in a lower voice: + 

“I should not be sorry if you could find some excuse for a short absence,”⁠—the Colonel made a significant gesture; “those matters might be better and easier arranged from St. Petersburg than here⁠—believe me, my dear Werben!” + 

“But everything is arranged, Colonel; since this morning.” + 

“Everything?” + 

The Colonel looked Ottomar full in the face. + 

“All but a trifling matter⁠—” + 

“I should like even that trifling matter to be got over. His Majesty is very particularly sensitive on those matters just now, and with reason. Now, my dear Werben, we have all been young once, and you know my feelings towards you. I speak for your own sake, and may tell you in confidence that Wallbach, if not exactly prepared for any sacrifice⁠—that would be saying too much⁠—is ready to help you as far as he can in making any arrangement. You understand!” + 

The Colonel held out his hand, and turned quickly away to put an end to the interview. He had in the kindest and friendliest manner said his last word, his ultimatum. Ottomar had quite understood. The blood ran hot and cold through his veins; his temples throbbed violently. + 

He stopped a servant who was passing with a tray, tossed down several glasses of wine and then laughed, as one of his brother officers called out to him: “Leave a little for me!” + 

“Do you find it so hot too?” + 

“Tolerably! But I believe we are going to dance.” + 

“After supper; I don’t know why it is so late. I will ask my sister.” + 

“She is in that room.” + 

Ottomar plunged into the room, into the midst of a circle which had grouped itself round Carla. An extraordinary feeling of perversity came over him. In this little room almost all his most decisive meetings with Carla had taken place; here it was the custom, when the company was smaller, to withdraw in order to talk more at ease; and here were now gathered together all his most intimate friends: a few of his favourite brother officers⁠—Wartenberg, Tettritz⁠—only Schönau was absent⁠—a few of Elsa’s particular friends, Elsa herself, even old Baroness Kniebreche had made her appearance, as she always did wherever she expected an interesting conversation, and, preventing Carla from rising off the small, blue silk sofa, had sunk into an armchair, in which, leaning forward, with her hand to her left ear, she listened eagerly to Carla’s words. The only one of the party who was a stranger, as Ottomar himself had said a few minutes before to Clemda, was Count Golm; and this stranger stood, with one hand on the back of the small sofa, close to Carla, where he himself ought to have been standing, instead of remaining in the doorway, without the possibility of advancing a step farther into the crowded room, and not daring either to withdraw, after Baroness Kniebreche, turning her pince-nez angrily on him, had exclaimed: “There you are at last, when our dear Carla has been enchanting us with her clever talk⁠—yes, yes, my dear Carla, positively enchanting us. Let your brother stand, Elsa; he has richly deserved it. For heaven’s sake go on, my dear Carla!” + 

Carla had hastily glanced towards the door through her eyeglass. “I cannot say any more without repeating what I have said already.” + 

“Then repeat it!” exclaimed the Baroness. “One cannot hear often enough that Wagner is the master of all masters who have ever lived or ever will live.” + 

“I did not say that, Baroness,” said Carla, laying her hand on the old lady’s; “only of those who have lived! It is not for nothing that the master calls his music that of the future; and the future is so called because it is yet to come. But who can venture to predict what will come?” + 

“Is it not magnificent?” exclaimed the old lady⁠—“positively magnificent?” + 

“For,” continued Carla, “deep as is my admiration for the master, I cannot conceal from myself, though with some trembling⁠—only too natural in face of such incomparable greatness⁠—that the mystical connection between word and sound⁠—the Eleusinian mystery⁠—proclaimed by the master, though only to the initiated, produces a deeper, more heartfelt satisfaction, in which the last remains of that barbarous separation which has hitherto existed between poetry and music entirely and forever disappear.” + 

“Positively stupendous!” exclaimed the Baroness. + 

“Magnificent!” growled Lieutenant von Tettritz. + 

“But Wagner himself allows that,” said Von Wartenberg. + 

“And that speaks in my favour,” answered Carla. “When we see how this splendid genius goes further and deeper with every work, how he advances with giant strides from Rienzi and the Fliegende Holländer to Tannhäuser and Lohengrin; from these to the Meistersinger; from the Meistersinger to Tristan and Isolde, which I have only glanced at as yet, and now to what the Ring des Nibelungen is to bring us⁠—can we, dare we say, in opposition to the most modest of men, who looks upon every height that he has reached as only the stepping stone to a greater one, that with the Ring the ring is closed? Impossible! ‘Art,’ says Goethe, who, if he understood nothing of music, always deserves to be listened to on the universal principles of aesthetics⁠—‘Art has never been possessed by one man alone;’ and, godlike though he is, we must still look upon the master as a man.” + 

“I must kiss you⁠—I positively must kiss you!” exclaimed the Baroness. “What do you say to it, Count Golm⁠—what do you say to it?” + 

“I bow my head in admiration and⁠—silence,” answered the Count, laying his hand on his heart. + 

“And you, Ottomar?” exclaimed the Baroness, turning in her chair with almost girlish activity, and fixing her pince-nez like a double-barrelled pistol on him. + 

“I consider Wagnerism, from beginning to end, to be an abominable humbug!” answered Ottomar defiantly. + 

The company were horror-struck. “Good heavens!” “Unheard of!” “Abominable!” “Positive blasphemy!” was heard on all sides. + 

“What did he say?” asked the old lady, her hand to her ear, bending towards Carla. + 

Carla shrugged her shoulders. “You really cannot expect me to repeat Herr von Werben’s words. Baroness?” + 

“Which Ottomar did not mean seriously,” said Elsa, with an imploring look at her brother, which Ottomar answered by a shrug of the shoulders. + 

“I thought myself bound,” he said, “as the Baroness did me the honour to appeal directly to me, to give my opinion, though it can be of no importance in this ‘noble circle.’ ” He emphasised scornfully the last words. + 

“Humbug!” exclaimed the old lady, who, while the others were all talking at once, had made Herr von Tettritz repeat the fearful word in her ear. “It is too bad! You must withdraw it!⁠—you must positively withdraw it! Do you hear, Ottomar?” + 

“Perfectly, Baroness,” answered Ottomar; “but I am unfortunately unable to comply with your command.” + 

“It is an insult⁠—a positive insult!” exclaimed the Baroness, waving her enormous fan violently up and down⁠—“to us all, to Carla in particular⁠—on my honour, my dear Carla!” + 

Carla appeared not to hear; she was leaning back on the sofa, and laughing with Count Golm, who, leaning on his elbow, bent low over her. + 

Elsa was greatly disturbed. She knew that her brother did not in the least care about music, and that under any other circumstances he would have put an end to the disagreeable scene with one of the light jests that came so easily to him; and that if he did not do so now⁠—if, as was evident from his gloomy countenance, he was determined to continue it, he could only have one reason for doing so⁠—the wish to bring about a crisis, to break with Carla irrevocably and forever, in the presence of their friends! She did not wish for the marriage; she had spoken eagerly against it that very day; had opened her anxious heart to her brother. But Carla had not deserved this; she was only behaving today as she always did, and her laughter at this moment was doubtless forced. What could she say or do? + 

“Will you at least honour me with an answer?” exclaimed the angry old lady, half rising from her chair. + 

“Let me answer for him, Baroness?” said a voice. + 

Elsa almost exclaimed in joyful astonishment. It was Schönau, who, laying his hand on Ottomar’s shoulder, stepped into the doorway. Behind them she saw another bearded countenance, whose large, honest eyes rapidly surveyed the group, and finally rested on her. He could do no good here; but his very presence was a comfort, while Schönau’s wits would bring help. + 

Half a dozen voices at once made him acquainted with the crime Ottomar had committed. + 

“Now, Werben, Werben!” said Schönau, shaking his head at him. “How could you let your rash daring lead you into such danger, even if you were as much at home in logic as you are on horseback? But to confuse cause with effect⁠—to call Bark giddiness because it produces giddiness, singing in the ears, and headache, is really unheard of!” + 

“You hear him!” exclaimed the old lady triumphantly, having only caught the last words. “Unheard of⁠—positively unheard of! Get up, Tettritz; let Schönau sit down here. Go on, Schönau. Wagner is the greatest musician⁠—eh?” + 

“And the greatest dramatist also,” said Schönau, taking the place willingly left free for him by the Baroness. + 

“Go on, go on!” exclaimed the Barones, tapping Schönau on the hand with her fan. + 

“Undoubtedly,” continued Schönau, with a smile, “it is the mission of every poet to hold a looking-glass to nature; but with a difference. ‘J’ai vu les mœurs de mon temps, et j’ai publié ces lettres,’ wrote Rousseau in the preface to his Nouvelle Héloise; that may suffice for the novelist, the poet’s half-brother, as Schiller calls him. We must be content if he presents to us good photographs of reality⁠—instantaneous pictures; and more than content if these photographs come out stereoscopically, and appear almost like life⁠—almost. For only the dramatist fulfils, and can fulfil, his mission in earnest, his aim having been from the first, and being still, to leave the impress of his style on the age and on the material world. The first thing necessary for this, however, is Shakespeare’s golden rule⁠—‘Be not too tame.’ And it is just because Wagner is not too tame⁠—because he has the courage, which his enemies call audacity, to allow the salient points in the character of his age to appear, to allow the excrescences to grow out of the material world⁠—it is this which raises him so far above his rivals in the estimation of all who have ears to hear and eyes to see.” + 

“I should like to kiss you!” exclaimed the Baroness. “Go on, my dear Schönau⁠—go on!” Schönau bowed. + 

“What are, however, the salient points of our age? Ask our philosophers⁠—Schopenhauer, Hartmann⁠—” + 

“This will please you, Carla!” exclaimed the Baroness. + 

“They will answer, the deep conviction of the insufficiency, wretchedness, misery⁠—let me say the word⁠—worthlessness of this our earthly life; and combined with this, the conscious-unconscious longing after the Nirvana, the sweet Nothing⁠—the beginning and foundation of things, which appears to our troubled nature as the only deliverance and last haven of refuge from the desolation and error of this life, and to which we should undoubtedly fly were it not for our will⁠—our gigantic, invincible, indestructible will⁠—that cares for nothing more than to live, to enjoy, to drink down the foaming cup of life, of love, to its last bitter drops. Renunciation there, enjoyment here, both to overflowing; because each is aware of the other, each hates the other, like the hostile brothers. And in this constantly renewed contest between irreconcilable contradictions; in this sensation of being torn backwards and forwards in the wildest confusion, the maddest tumult, the most entangled whirl; in this witches’ Sabbath, this will-o’-the-wisp dance, and this halo of falling stars of modern humanity, hurrying from hell to heaven, from heaven to hell, raging and vanishing into mist; in this everything, and something more, turned into endless singsong and eternal clang⁠—the most horrible Past painted into a rosy-red caricature of the Present, while the eyes of a spectral Future stare from the empty sockets⁠—the flute-notes of soft enjoyment, the violin-tones of fading bliss, drowned by the crashing cymbals and the shrill sound of the trumpets⁠—here you have the ‘Venusberg’ and the ‘Penitent,’ the ‘Wedding-Night’ and ‘Monsalvat,’ the chronic sorrows of love and the magic drink from a prescription; here you have, taking it all in all, him whose like has never been seen, and never will be seen⁠—here you have Richard Wagner! And now, Baroness and ladies, allow me to withdraw before the enchanted silence into which I have lulled you breaks into words, which might hurt my modesty, though not that of nature.” + 

Schönau kissed Baroness Kniebreche’s hand and disappeared, taking Ottomar with him. A few laughed, others cried “Treachery.” The Baroness exclaimed: + 

“I don’t know what you mean; he is quite right!” + 

Lieutenant von Tettritz, who, as an enthusiastic Wagnerite, felt himself seriously offended, and was considering whether he ought not to call out Schönau for this insult, tried to explain to her that the Captain had mystified and laughed at her in the most outrageous manner. + 

“Without my finding it out!” exclaimed the old lady. “You must not say that, my dear child; old Kniebreche knows better than that when she is laughed at, I can assure you.” + 

IX + 

Fortunately at this moment supper was announced; it was served from a buffet which had been prepared in the hitherto closed room, on two small tables which had in the meantime been laid. + 

“Are you not yet engaged?” asked Elsa of Reinhold as she passed him; “make haste, then; Fräulein Emilie von Fischbach is waiting for you; she is indeed, though you look so astonished! It is all settled; she is standing near the looking-glass with Fräulein von Rossow whom Schönau has engaged. I do not intend to engage myself⁠—I shall follow you in⁠—we are going to sit at the small round table in the window! Now make haste, for fear anybody should get there before us.” Reinhold hastened to fulfil so agreeable a command; Elsa stopped Ottomar, who was passing her. “Do, dear Ottomar, take Carla in to supper; I am sure she is waiting for you. You really have got a fault to make up for.” + 

“Which I shall not do by committing another.” + 

“I do not understand you; but you owe something to her and to us all.” + 

“I shall never be able to pay all my debts. Well, to please you⁠—there!” and he glanced at Carla, who just then passed on Golm’s arm to the nearest table; “you see how she has waited for me!” + 

“Paula!” exclaimed Elsa to a young lady, “my brother is anxious to take you in to supper, but does not dare ask you because you refused him the other day. At that table!⁠—Prince Clemda, at that table, please, near Count Golm and Ottomar⁠—there are just four places empty⁠—every seat must be occupied.” + 

“At your orders,” said Clemda; “allons, Werben!” + 

Ottomar, with the lady on his arm, still stood undecided. + 

“Will a Werben allow a Golm to say that he left the field clear for him?” whispered Elsa in his ear. + 

She regretted the words as soon as they were spoken: how could any cause prosper that was fed from the spring of injured vanity? But Ottomar had already led away her friend, and it was high time for her also to take her place. She was too late already. She had hoped that Reinhold would sit by her; but room must be made for another couple who had been wandering from table to table, and the whole arrangement was thus disturbed. Still he was opposite to her, and she had the satisfaction of seeing him⁠—of noticing his eyes so often, it could hardly be unintentionally, turned towards her⁠—if only for a moment; of hearing his hearty laugh, which had so enchanted Meta, and which she herself, as she secretly acknowledged, found so enchanting; the calm clearness of his words when he joined in the conversation, the modest silence with which he readily allowed the witty Schönau to take the lead in the conversation. The latter, now that he thought it worth his while, spoke his real opinion of Wagner and Wagnerism, and explained how he saw in Wagner, not the prophet of the future, but, on the contrary, the last exponent of a great past; how the mixing and mingling of arts, which Wagner held up as their highest development, had everywhere and at all times prepared and accompanied their downfall; how the blind fanaticism of his supporters, and the tyrannical intolerance with which they cried down every opposite opinion, was for him not a proof of their strength, but, on the contrary, of their weakness, the overpowering consciousness of which they sought to drown in this manner; and how, to his eyes, the only comfort to be derived from the whole affair was that the despotism usurped by the Wagnerites hung on one life only, namely, that of the master himself, and that his empire must fall into ruins as soon as he abandoned the scene, because his so-called theory did not rest on true principles of art, did not result necessarily from the essence of art, but was nothing more than the abstraction of his own highly-gifted, energetic but capricious and exceptional nature, of which it might truly be said that its like would hardly be seen again. + 

“Believe me, my friends, to his helpless disciples Mephistopheles’ saying will be carried out; they will have the parts in their hands, but the spiritual bond that united them will be gone forever.” + 

Schönau had addressed his words chiefly to Elsa, but Elsa’s thoughts were wandering, and yet she generally listened to him with so much pleasure; and he was talking today even better than usual, with a certain passion which was very striking in the usually quiet, reserved man. Her friends had often teased her about Captain Schönau, and she had never denied that she liked him; and now, while he was speaking, and her eyes wandered from him to Reinhold and back again, and she compared, almost against her will, these two men who were so unlike one another, she asked herself how it could be that one should like one man so much and yet like another a great deal better, even though the former had undoubtedly far more brilliant ideas beneath his broad, sharply-chiselled brow, than the other who listened to him with such respectful attention; besides, how curious it was, that while the one had for years frequented their house as an intimate friend, she had never troubled herself to think whether he enjoyed himself there, while her head was now constantly troubling itself with the question whether the other, who was their guest for the first time today, had come willingly and would wish to come again, and she rejoiced to see how contentedly he was chatting with pretty Emilie Fischbach, and how he now, in his openhearted way, lifted his glass to her and drained it, while his eyes looked so kindly and so steadily into hers. Yes, she was happy, and would have been entirely so if the talk at the long table near them had been somewhat less loud and excited, and if Ottomar’s voice had not several times rung out so loudly that she started in terror, and was relieved when the sounds of laughter and the clinking of glasses drowned his clear tones. She knew that it was always particularly noisy and jolly at the table at which Ottomar sat. + 

Today more than ever. “A Werben will not leave the field clear for a Golm!” The words sounded in Ottomar’s ear as he sat at table by his partner, opposite to Golm and Carla, and they reechoed in his passion-filled heart; and, if no one else remarked it, to Carla there was a tone in his voice as he now plunged into the conversation already started, in which he took and maintained the lead, as if it were a race, thought Carla, in which he was determined to be the victor in spite of all the efforts of his rivals. And Count Golm strove in every imaginable way⁠—but in vain. Ottomar was inexhaustible in his amusing fancies, absurd jokes, and witty answers; Carla had never seen him so brilliant. + 

Carla was enchanted; she knew what prize was being ridden for in this race, and why the foremost rider took the highest hedges and the widest ditches with such temerity, and that it was from her hands the winner would receive the prize. Poor Golm, he did all he could, and more than all; it was not his fault if he remained farther and farther behind, and at length seemed inclined to turn out of the course. But that could not be allowed; he must be cheered and encouraged, he must be allowed to receive at least the second prize, and be persuaded that it was only an unlucky accident that vanquished him this time, and that it was not impossible that another time he might win the first. + 

But this must be done very carefully, by an encouraging smile, by a kind, rapid glance; before the company Ottomar must be crowned; to Ottomar she addressed herself as they rose from table, and holding out her hand, said, loud enough to be heard by the bystanders: + 

“You really surpassed yourself, Herr von Werben.” + 

“You are too kind,” answered Ottomar, with so low a bow that it was almost mocking. + 

The mockery was not heartfelt. He was intoxicated by his success, and not by his success only. He had desired to forget his cares and troubles by drowning them in wine, and he had succeeded. The dark wood, and the beautiful girl whom a few hours back he had folded in his arms in that dark wood, it was all a dream⁠—a wild, confused dream which he had dreamt, heaven only knew when; here were pleasure and mirth, and light and brightness, whichever way he looked; and whichever way he looked bright eyes sparkled, rosy lips laughed, white shoulders glistened, and all sparkled, laughed, and glistened for him! Here was his empire; here he was king; he had only to hold out his hand and the hand of the lady most courted here would be laid in his! Was there a tomorrow? Let it come; the present belonged to him; pleasure and mirth forever! Bright eyes, and rosy lips, and white shoulders forever! + 

And as if all the spirits of pleasure and mirth were surrounding him, Ottomar flew through the rooms to apologise to the elder guests, if in the interests of the young people who wanted to dance a little they were somewhat crowded till the supper-room could be cleared, begging his brother officers not to waste precious time, but to engage their partners if they had not been wise enough to do so already, giving the young ladies the delightful information that the evening would wind up with a cotillon, with orders to be given by the ladies, and that there was room on his breast for more than one. And now the doors were reopened, from the empty room resounded the notes of a merry polka, and⁠— + 

“You will dance this with me, Carla?” exclaimed Ottomar, and without awaiting her answer⁠—putting his arm round her⁠—he flew with her into the dancing-room, followed by the other couples who had anxiously awaited this moment. + 

“Are you not dancing?” asked a deep voice behind Reinhold. + 

Reinhold turned. “No, General.” + 

“Do you not dance?” + 

“Oh yes; but you did me the honour to say you wished to speak to me. I was just about to⁠—” + 

“That is very good of you. I was coming to fetch you.” + 

“I am at your orders, General.” + 

“Come, then.” + 

The General, however, did not move. The aspect of the room, which was almost filled with dancers, appeared to interest and absorb him. Reinhold, who had unconsciously turned in the direction in which the General was looking, saw that the eyes of the latter were fastened on Ottomar, who with Carla was engaged in the centre of the room in performing the skilful evolutions demanded by the polka. A smile passed over his grave, stern face; then, as if rousing himself from a dream, he passed his hand over his forehead, and said again, “Come, then.” + 

He put his arm through Reinhold’s, and crossed with him the large drawing-room in front of a group that had assembled round Baroness Kniebreche. The Baroness suddenly stopped speaking; the round glasses of her pince-nez seemed to flash forth angry flames at the sight of the confidential manner of the General towards the young officer of the reserve. + 

“Look away!” thought Reinhold, while his heart beat proudly, “and heaven grant that I may prove worthy of the honour!” + 

They entered the small room in which a little while before Wagner had been so warmly discussed. The room was empty. + 

“Sit down,” said the General, taking possession of an armchair and motioning to Reinhold to sit by him; “I will not keep you long.” + 

“I am really in no hurry. General; I am only engaged once for a later dance with your daughter.” + 

“That is right,” said the General. “Elsa is in your debt, and here am I going to take advantage of your good-nature again. In one word, you have spoken to Colonel Sattelstädt and to Schönau, and have given them your decided opinion upon the matter you know of. They both say that your explanations have put the matter in quite a new light, which they consider most important, and which ought to decide the question in the eyes of all who can see in our favour; that is to say, in mine and these two gentlemen’s, who unfortunately stand pretty nearly alone in our views, and have every reason to look about us for allies. I ask you now, in our joint names, if you will be that ally, and if you will draw up for us a written statement of the circumstances of which we can make unrestricted use? Schönau will willingly provide you with maps and any other assistance you may want, if you will put yourself in communication with him. The first question now is, will you do us this kindness?” + 

“Most certainly, General, and will do it to the best of my ability.” + 

“I felt sure you would; but I must draw your attention to one important point. President von Sanden has told me that he has you in his mind, and Elsa confided to me that you were not disinclined to agree to the President’s wish, and accept the situation in question. The post is not in the gift of the Minister of War, but your report will cause ill feeling in more than one department, and we might find ourselves compelled to give up the name of our informant. Have you thought of that?” + 

“No, General; but I have never been ashamed of my name, and, thank God, have never had reason to be. From the moment that it is named in such company and in this affair, I shall be proud of it.” + 

The General nodded. + 

“One thing more: the matter is pressing, very pressing. When do you think you can have the report ready?” + 

“If I can communicate with Herr von Schönau tomorrow morning, it shall be ready the morning after.” + 

“But you would have to work all night.” + 

“I am a good sleeper, General, and I can keep awake too when necessary.” + 

The General smiled. + 

“Thank you, my dear Schmidt.” + 

It was the first time that he had spoken to Reinhold in the unceremonious manner usual from superior officers to their younger comrades. He had risen, and his usually stern glance rested with almost fatherly kindness on the young man who stood before him, colouring with pleasure and pride. + 

“And now go and amuse yourself for a little while with the young people; you are still young enough yourself, thank God. There comes my son, probably to fetch you.” + 

“Just so,” said Ottomar, who appeared hurriedly and excitedly in the doorway. “I apologise; but Elsa⁠—” + 

“Off with you!” said the General. + 

Ottomar drew Reinhold away. + 

The General looked thoughtfully after the two young men. + 

“It is a pity,” he said, “but one cannot have everything at once, and if Ottomar⁠—what do you want!” + 

“This letter has just been left.” + 

“A letter, now? How can that be?” + 

“The hall door is open, sir. The man who brought it said it was lucky, as otherwise he would have had to ring. It was very important.” + 

“Very odd!” said the General, contemplating the letter which he had taken from the servant. + 

It was a large, businesslike looking letter, and the direction was in a clerk’s hand. + 

“Very odd!” said the General again. + 

He had opened the letter mechanically and began to read it. What was this? He passed his hand over his eyes and looked again; but there it stood quite plain, in clear, bold words. His face became purple. + 

“Have you any orders, sir?” asked August, who was anxiously waiting. + 

“No, no! nothing, nothing! You can go,” murmured the General, as he put the letter down and pretended to fold it. But the servant had hardly left the room before he took it up again to read to the end. And then the strong man trembled from head to foot, while with a cautious glance around he quickly folded the letter, and tearing open his uniform, put it in his pocket. + 

“Unhappy boy!” he murmured. + 

X + 

The last carriage had driven away; the servants were arranging the rooms under Sidonie’s directions. Elsa, who generally spared her aunt all household cares, had withdrawn under pretext of feeling a little tired, that, in her quiet room, she might let the soft echoes of this happy evening die out of her heart, undisturbed by the clatter of chairs and tables. It had not needed that he should dance the Rheinländer so admirably; she would still have brought him in the cotillon the large blazing order which she had placed at the bottom of the basket, and which, when her turn came, she boldly and successfully drew out, and then with trembling hands fastened it beside the iron cross on his breast. Yes; her hands had trembled and her heart had fluttered as she had done the great deed, and then looked up in his sparkling eyes; but it was from happiness, from pure happiness and joy. And it was happiness and joy which now kept her awake, after she had laid her greatest treasures⁠—the album with his portrait and the little compass⁠—on the table by her bedside, and had extinguished the candle, which she lighted again in order to cast a glance at the box containing the compass, and to assure herself that “it was still faithful,” and “turned towards its master,” and then opened the album at the place at which it always opened, and looked at his portrait once more; no, not at the portrait⁠—that was detestable⁠—but at the inscription, “With all my heart,” and softly breathed a kiss upon it, and then quickly put the light out again, laid her head on the pillow, and sought in her dreams him to whom she was faithful waking and sleeping, and of whom she knew that he was faithful to her sleeping or waking. + 

Ottomar had also, as soon as the last guests were gone, retired, with a “Good night; I am tired to death; what has become of my father?” and had gone downstairs without waiting for the answer. In the passage leading to his room, he must pass his father’s door. He stood still for a moment. His father, who had gone downstairs a few minutes before, was doubtless still up, and Ottomar was accustomed under similar circumstances to knock and, at least, wish him good night through the open door. This evening he did not do so. “I am tired to death,” he repeated, as if he wished to apologise to himself for this breach of his usual habit. + 

But arrived in his room, he did not think of going to bed. It would have been useless so long as the blood coursed through his temples, “like mad,” said Ottomar, while he tore off and threw down his uniform with the cotillon orders, and tore open his waistcoat and cravat, and put on the first garment that he laid his hand upon⁠—his shooting-coat⁠—and stationed himself at the open window with a cigar. + 

The night was very fresh, but the cold did him good; a drizzling rain was falling from the black clouds, but he did not heed it; he stood there looking out into the dark autumn night, and smoking his cigar, confused thoughts whirling through his troubled brain, and the beating of the veins of his temples and the sighing of the wind in the trees prevented his hearing a twice-repeated knock at the door. He started like a criminal when he heard a voice at his ear. It was August. + 

“I beg pardon, sir. I knocked more than once.” + 

“What do you want?” + 

“The General begs you will go to him at once.” + 

“Is my father ill?” + 

August shook his head. “The General has not yet undressed, and does not look exactly ill, only a little⁠—” + 

“Only a little what?” + 

The man scratched his head. “A little odd, sir. I think, sir, the General⁠—” + 

“Confound you, will you speak out?” + 

August came a step nearer, and said in a whisper, “I think the General had a disagreeable letter a little while ago; it may have been about half-past eleven. I did not see the man who brought it, and Friedrich did not recognise him, and I believe he went away again immediately. But I was obliged to take the letter to the General myself, and the General made a curious face when he read the letter.” + 

“From a lady?” + 

August could not help smiling, in spite of his sincere anxiety for his young master. + 

“Oh no!” said he. “They look different, one finds that out by experience; an important looking letter.” + 

“Those infernal Jews!” muttered Ottomar. He could not understand what it meant; the next bill was only due in a week’s time; but what else in the world could it be? His father would be in an awful rage again. Well, he would only have to propose a few days earlier, if he must propose, were it only to put an end to these everlasting worries, which left a man no peace even to smoke his cigar quietly in his own room at night. + 

He tossed the cigar out of window. August had picked up his uniform coat, and was taking off the cotillon orders. + 

“What is that for?” + 

“Won’t you put on your uniform, sir?” asked August. + 

“Nonsense!” said Ottomar. “It would only⁠—” He broke off; he could not say to August, “It would only make this tiresome business longer and more solemn.” “I shall simply tell my father that I do not mean to trouble him with these matters in future, but prefer to allow Wallbach finally to settle my affairs,” said he to himself, while August went before him along the passage with the lamp, the gaslights having been extinguished, and stopped at his father’s door. + 

“You may put the light down on the table and go to bed, and tell Friedrich to wake me at six o’clock.” + 

He had spoken louder than was necessary, and it struck him that his voice sounded strange, as if it were not his own voice. Of course it was only because the house was quite quiet, so quiet that he again heard the blood coursing through his temples, and the beating of his heart. + 

“Those infernal Jews!” he muttered again through his teeth as he knocked at the door. + 

“Come in!” + 

His father stood at his writing-table, above which a hanging lamp was burning. On the console before the looking-glass also the lamps were still burning. The room seemed disagreeably light and formal-looking, although it was exactly as Ottomar had always seen it, as long as he could remember. He had better have put on his uniform after all. + 

“I must apologise for my dress, father; I was just going to bed, and August seemed to think you were in such a hurry.” + 

His father remained standing at the table, leaning on one hand, with his back towards him, without answering. The silence lay like a mountain on Ottomar’s soul. With a great effort he shook off his vague dread. + 

“What do you want, father?” + 

“First that you should read this letter,” said the General, turning round slowly, and pointing to a paper that was spread out before him on the table. + 

“A letter to me?” + 

“In that case I should not have read it; and I have read it.” + 

He had stepped back from the table, and paced slowly up and down the room with his hands behind his back, while Ottomar, standing where his father had stood just before, without taking the letter in his hand⁠—the handwriting was legible enough⁠—read as follows: + 

“Honoured Sir⁠—I trust your honour will forgive your humble servant, the undersigned, for venturing to call your honour’s attention to a circumstance which threatens seriously to endanger the welfare of your honoured family. It concerns the relations which have for some time subsisted between your son, Lieutenant von Werben, and the daughter of your neighbour, Herr Schmidt, the owner of the great marble-works. Your honour will excuse the undersigned from entering into details, with which he is thoroughly conversant, but which are better consigned to the obscurity in which the parties in question seek in vain to remain, and if the undersigned begs you to ask your son where, and in whose company he was this evening between eight and nine, it is only to prove to your honour how far the said relations have been carried. + 

“It would be both foolish and unpardonable to suppose that your honour is acquainted with all this, and has connived at it till your son is on the point of being betrothed to the daughter of an ultra-radical democrat. On the contrary, the undersigned can imagine beforehand the painful astonishment which your honour will experience on reading these lines; but, your honour, the undersigned has also been a soldier, and knows what military honour is, as indeed all his life long he has cherished it, and he cannot endure any longer to see the honour of such a brave officer so criminally trifled with behind his back, by him who more than any other appears called to protect that honour. + 

“The undersigned feels he need say no more in assertion of the great veneration with which he is of his honour and his honour’s whole family + 

The General did not interrupt his son for some minutes, but as Ottomar still remained motionless, staring in front of him, his teeth pressing hard on his white lip, he stopped in his walk at the far end of the room, and asked: + 

“Have you any idea who wrote that letter?” + 

“No.” + 

“Have you the slightest suspicion that the lady whom it concerns⁠—” + 

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Ottomar impetuously. + 

“I beg your pardon, but I am under the painful necessity of asking questions, as you do not appear disposed to give me the explanations which I expected.” + 

“What am I to explain!” asked Ottomar half defiantly; “the thing is true.” + 

“Short and conclusive,” answered the General, “but not quite clear. At least, some points still require clearing up. Have you anything to reproach this lady with⁠—I may call her so?” + 

“I must beg you to do so.” + 

“Well, then, have you anything in the least to reproach this lady with, which, setting aside outward circumstances of which we will speak later, could prevent you from bringing her into Elsa’s company? On your honour!” + 

“On my honour, nothing!” + 

“Do you know anything of her family, again setting aside outward circumstances, even the smallest fact, which would and ought to hinder any other officer who was not in your peculiar position from forming a connection with her family! On your honour!” + 

Ottomar hesitated a moment; he knew absolutely nothing dishonourable of Philip; he only had the inborn instinct of a gentleman against a man who, in his eyes, is not a gentleman; but he would have considered it cowardly to shelter himself behind this vague feeling. + 

“No!” said he moodily. + 

“You have acquainted the lady with your circumstances?” + 

“In a general way, yes.” + 

“Amongst other things, that you are disinherited if you marry a woman who is not of noble birth?” + 

“No.” + 

“That was somewhat imprudent; however, I can understand it. But in a general way you say that she is aware of the difficulties which, under the most favourable circumstances, must stand in the way of a union between you and her?” + 

“Yes.” + 

“Have you ever let her perceive that you have neither the will nor the power to remove these difficulties?” + 

“No.” + 

“Rather have allowed her to believe, have probably assured her that you can and will set aside these obstacles?” + 

“Yes.” + 

“Then you will marry her.” + 

Ottomar started like a horse touched by the spur. He had felt that this must and would be the end; and yet, as the words were spoken, his pride chafed against the pressure put upon his heart even by his own father. And in the background lurked again ghostlike the horrid sensation that he had had in the park; that he was weaker than she who so confidingly nestled in his arms. Was he to be always the weaker, always to follow, whether he would or no, always to have his path traced out for him by others? + 

“Never!” burst from him. + 

“How! never!” said the General. “Surely I am not speaking to a headstrong boy who breaks the toy that he no longer cares about, but to an officer and a gentleman who is accustomed to keep his word strictly.” + 

Ottomar felt that he must give a reason, or at least the shadow of a reason. + 

“I mean,” he said, “that I cannot make up my mind to take a step in one direction that would compel me to do wrong in another.” + 

“I think I understand your position,” said the General; “it is not an agreeable one, but a man who pays attention in so many quarters should be prepared for the consequences. I must, however, do you the justice of admitting that I begin now to understand your behaviour to Fräulein von Wallbach, and that I only find wanting in it that consistency to which you have unfortunately never accustomed me on any point. In my opinion it was your duty to draw back once for all, the instant that your heart became seriously engaged in another direction. No doubt, considering our intimate acquaintance with the Wallbachs, this would have been extremely difficult and disagreeable, still a man may be deceived in his feelings, and society accepts such changes of mind and their practical consequences, provided everything is done at the right time and in a proper manner. How you are now to draw back, without bringing upon yourself and us the most serious embarrassment, I do not know; I only know that it must be done. Or have you carried your misconduct to its highest point and bound yourself here as you are bound there?” + 

“I am bound to Fräulein von Wallbach by nothing that the whole world has not seen; by no word that the whole world has not heard, or might not have heard, and my feelings for her have been from the first as undecided⁠—” + 

“As your behaviour. Let us say no more about it, then; let us rather face the situation into which you have brought yourself, and deduce the consequences. The first is, that you have destroyed your diplomatic career⁠—you cannot appear at the Court of St. Petersburg or any other court with a wife of low birth; the second, that you must exchange into another regiment, as you would never see the last of the collisions and rubs that must happen to you in your present regiment if you had a Fräulein Schmidt for your wife; the third, that if the lady does not bring you a fortune, or at least a very considerable addition to your means, you will have for the future to live in a very different way from what you have been hitherto accustomed to, and one which I fear will not be in accordance with your tastes; the fourth consequence is, that in forming this connection, were it as honourable in one sense as I wish and hope it may be, you will, according to the literal words of the will, lose all right to your inheritance. I mention this only in order to put the whole matter clearly before you.” + 

Ottomar knew that his father had not said everything, that he had been generously silent with regard to the five-and-twenty thousand thalers which he had in the course of the last few years paid for his son’s debts, that is to say, all but a small remnant of his own property, and that he could not soon repay his father the money as he had fully intended to do; perhaps would never be able to repay it. His father would then only have his pay, and later his pension, to depend upon, and he had often spoken lately of retiring. + 

His eyes, which in his confusion had sought the ground, now turned timidly towards his father, who, as before, slowly paced up and down the room. Was it the light, or was it that he looked at him more closely than usual? his father seemed to him aged by ten years, for the first time he looked like an old man. With the feelings of respect and affection that he had always entertained towards him were mixed a sensation almost of pity; he would have liked to throw himself at his feet, and clasping his knees, to cry: “Forgive me the sins I have committed against you!” But he felt rooted to the spot; his limbs would not obey him, or go the way he wished; his tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth; he could utter nothing but: “You have still Elsa!” + 

The General had remained standing before the life-sized pictures of his parents, which adorned one of the walls; an officer of rank in the uniform worn in the war of liberation, and a lady, still young, in the dress of that time, who strikingly resembled Elsa about the forehead and eyes. + 

“Who knows?” said he. + 

He passed his hand over his forehead. + 

“It is late; two o’clock; and tomorrow will have its cares also. Will you be so good as to extinguish the gaslight above you? Have you got a light outside!” + 

“Yes, father.” + 

“Good night, then.” + 

He had himself extinguished the lamp in front of the looking-glass and taken up the other one. “You may go.” + 

Ottomar longed to ask for his hand, but he dared not, and with a good night that sounded defiant, because he was ready to burst into tears, he moved towards the door. His father stopped at the door of his bedroom: “One thing more! I had forgotten to say that I reserve to myself the right of taking the next step. As you have delayed so long in taking the initiative, you will not refuse to grant me this favour. I shall of course keep you au courant. I beg that you will meantime take no step without my knowledge. We must at least act in concert, now we have come to an understanding.” + 

He said the last words with a sort of melancholy smile that cut Ottomar to the heart. He could bear it no longer and rushed out of the room. + 

The General also had his hand on the door; but when Ottomar had disappeared he drew it back, carried the lamp to the writing-table, and took out a casket in which he kept, amongst other ornaments of little value that had belonged to his dead wife and his mother, the iron rings that his parents had worn during the war of liberation. + 

He took out the rings. + 

“Times have altered,” he said, “not improved. What, ah! what has become of your piety, your dutifulness, your chaste simplicity, your holy self-sacrifice? I have honestly endeavoured to emulate you, to be the worthy son of a race that knew no fame but the courage of its men and the virtue of its women. How have I sinned that I should be so punished?” + 

He kissed the rings and laid them in the casket; and took from amongst several miniatures on ivory, one of a beautiful brown-eyed, brown-haired boy about six years old. + 

He gazed long and immovably at it. + 

“The male line of the Werbens would die out with him, and⁠—he was my darling. Perhaps I am punished because I was so unspeakably proud of him.” + 

XI + 

“Why did my brother ring for his coffee at four o’clock!” asked Aunt Rikchen in the kitchen. + 

“I do not know,” answered Grollmann. + 

“You never do know anything,” said Aunt Rikchen. Grollmann shrugged his shoulders, took the tray on which the second breakfast was prepared for his master and left the room, but came back in a few minutes and set down the tray, as he had taken it away, on the dresser. + 

“Well?” asked Aunt Rikchen irritably, “is it wrong again?” + 

“My master is asleep,” said Grollmann. + 

Aunt Rikchen in her astonishment almost dropped the coffeepot from which she had just poured Reinhold’s coffee. “Good heavens!” she exclaimed, “how can my brother sleep at this hour! He has never in his whole life done such a thing before. Is he ill?” + 

“I don’t think so,” said Grollmann. + 

“Has anything happened this morning?” + 

“This morning, no.” + 

“Or yesterday evening?” asked Aunt Rikchen, whose sharp ears had detected the short pause which Grollmann had made between “this morning” and “no.” + 

“I suppose so,” said Grollmann, staring before him, while the wrinkles in his weather-beaten face seemed to deepen every moment. + 

“Miserable man, tell me at once!” exclaimed Aunt Rikchen, seizing the old man by the arm and shaking him, as if she wished to shake his secret out of him. + 

“I know nothing,” said Grollmann, freeing himself; “is the coffee ready for the Captain?” + 

“Why does my nephew want it in his room today?” asked Aunt Rikchen. + 

“I don’t know,” answered Grollmann, slipping away with the coffee, as he had done before with the breakfast-tray. + 

“He is a horrid man,” said Aunt Rikchen; “he will be the death of me some day, with his mysteries. He shall tell me when he comes back.” + 

But Grollmann did not come back, although Aunt Rikchen almost tore down the bell-rope. Aunt Rikchen was very angry, and would have been furious if she had heard Grollmann relating above to Reinhold unasked, with the minutest details, what he would not have told her for any money. + 

“For you see, sir,” said Grollmann, “she is so good in other respects, Fräulein Frederike; but what she knows she must tell, sooner or later, if it cost her her life; and the master cannot bear that, especially from his sister, and we are the sufferers.” + 

“What did happen?” asked Reinhold. + 

“This was it,” said the old man. “About twelve o’clock last night he came back from the second meeting of the manufacturers; I lighted him to his room, as usual, turned up the lamps in his study, and went into his bedroom to shut the windows, which always stay open till he goes to bed, winter and summer; and there, close to the window, on the floor, lay, what I took at first for a piece of paper, till I took it up and found that it was a regular letter, which somebody must have thrown in from the street, and the small stone that had been fastened to it by a bit of packthread lay close by. I hesitated for a minute or two whether I would not hide the letter, without saying anything to the master, till it occurred to me that the letter might possibly be from a friend, and contain information of something which the master ought to know⁠—a fire, an attempt at murder, or God knows what, of which the rabble are quite capable; so I took it in to the master and told him where and how I had just found it. The master just looked at the address and said: ‘That is written in a disguised hand; I will have nothing to do with it; throw it into the fire.’ But I urged him so that he at length gave way and opened the letter. The master was standing at one side of the table and I at the other, and of course I could see his face while he was reading; and I was terribly alarmed, for the blood rushed to his head, and the hand in which he held the letter trembled so, that I thought, begging your pardon, that he was going to have a fit. But it passed off; the master only let fall the letter and said: ‘It is nonsense; I knew it before. They will not burn the house over our heads; you may go to bed in peace.’ I went, but I was not in peace, and was not much surprised when the master rang for me this morning at half-past three⁠—he is always particularly early when he has had any trouble or annoyance in the evening, or if he has anything in particular on his mind. This time it must have been something very bad; the master was in exactly the same dress in which he had come home yesterday evening, and the bed had not been touched. On the other hand, the bottle of wine which I always put in his room at night, and out of which he generally drinks only a glass or two, sometimes nothing at all, was empty to the very last drop; and he looked so wild and strange that I was naturally alarmed, and asked the same question that the Fräulein asked just now, if he was ill. He denied it however, said he had been very much vexed yesterday evening, and added something about the gentlemen who would not hear reason and were going to spoil all by their cowardice, and so on; but it all sounded confused and strange, as if, begging your pardon, he were not quite right in his head. I asked him if he would sleep now for a few hours, and was relieved when he lay down on the sofa and let me cover him up, saying, ‘I wish to be woke at half-past eight, Grollmann.’ And at half-past eight I went back again, but the coverlet lay on the ground near the sofa, and I saw at a glance that the master had not slept a minute. He had however washed and dressed himself, and now looked very ill. He said he had not been able to sleep, and had no time now. He wanted his breakfast in half an hour; at ten he had to be at another meeting, to which the workmen were going to send delegates. ‘I promised to be there,’ he said, ‘though I had rather not go; I might meet someone there whom I had rather not meet today.’ I did not dare to ask who the someone was, but I thought to myself, I am glad it is not me, for he gave a look, Captain, that filled me with terror. If he would only go to sleep now, thought I to myself, for while he was speaking he had sat down on the sofa and stared before him as if he were half asleep already. Well, Captain, and sure enough when I went in just now with the breakfast, quite quietly, he was sitting asleep in the corner of the sofa. For heaven’s sake, let him sleep, thought I, slipping gently out of the room with my breakfast; and now I only ask, Captain, shall I wake him when it is time, or shall I let him sleep? He wants it, God knows.” + 

“Let him sleep, Grollmann,” said Reinhold, after a short pause; “I will take the blame on myself.” + 

“He won’t blame you,” said Grollmann, passing his hand through his grey hair; “he thinks too much of you; I will risk it.” + 

“Do so,” said Reinhold, “on my authority, and do not trouble yourself any more about it. I am convinced that your first idea was correct, and that it was a threatening letter. You know my uncle; he fears nothing.” + 

“God knows it,” said Grollmann. + 

“But it has vexed and excited him still more, when he had already come back vexed and excited from the meeting. These are troublesome times for him, which must be gone through. We must be prepared for bad days till the good ones come again.” + 

“If they ever do come,” said Grollmann. + 

The old man had left the room; Reinhold tried to return to the work he had begun, but he could not collect his thoughts. He had tried to comfort the old man, yet he himself now felt uneasy and troubled. + 

If his uncle did not learn to moderate himself, if he continued to look and to treat in this passionately tragical way an affair which, near as it lay to his heart, was in fact a matter of business and must be considered from a sober, businesslike point of view, the bad days might indeed last long, inconveniently long, for all concerned⁠—“to whom I myself belong now,” said Reinhold. + 

He stood up and went to the window. It was a raw, disagreeable day. From the low-hanging clouds was falling a fine, cold rain; the tall trees rustled in the wind, and withered leaves were driven through the grey mist. How different had it looked when a few days ago⁠—it was only a very few, though it seemed to him an eternity⁠—he had looked down here one morning, for the first time. The sky had been such a lovely blue, and white clouds had stood in that blue sky so still, it seemed as if they could not weary of contemplating the beautiful sun-lighted earth, on which men, surrounded, indeed, by the smoke of chimneys and distracted by the noise of wheels and saws, must earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, though the sun shone brightly and the birds sang cheerily in the thick branches⁠—that earth on which there was so much pleasure, and love, and blessed hope, even in the heart of a poor blind girl, and a thousand times more for him who saw all this beauty spread out before him, doubly glorious in the reflection of the love which shone and glittered through his heart as the sun through the dewdrops on the leaves. And because the sun was now for a time hidden behind a cloud, was all the glory passed away? Because a few hundred idle men had cast their tools from their horny hands, must everyone feel life a burden, and refuse to carry that burden any longer? No; a thousand times no! The sun will shine again; the men will return to their duty; and you, happy man⁠—thrice happy man⁠—for whom the sun shines in spite of all in your innermost heart, return to your work, which for you is no hard duty, but rather a joy and an honour. + 

Reinhold greeted with eyes and hand the neighbouring house, one window of which he had long ago discovered between the branches of the plane trees, which he watched more eagerly than any star; and then hoped that Ferdinanda, whom he suddenly perceived in the garden, would take his greeting to herself if she had seen him. + 

She could hardly have seen the greeting, and could not even have seen him at the window as she walked up and down between the shrubs, under the rustling trees, without appearing to notice the rain which was falling on her. At any rate she was without hat, without umbrella, in her working dress, without even a shawl; sometimes standing still and gazing up into the driving clouds, then walking on again, her eyes turned to the ground, evidently sunk in the deepest thought. + 

“Curious people, those artists,” thought Reinhold, while he seated himself again at his work. “What a fool you were to think that her heart could beat for any creature of flesh or blood, or, indeed, for anything but her Reaping Girl and Boy, if she has a heart at all.” + 

In the meantime Grollmann was standing undecided at the top of the staircase, before the door leading to his master’s room. + 

His conscience was not quite satisfied by Reinhold’s assurance that he would take the responsibility on himself, if the master overslept himself. Should he go downstairs? should he go in? He must make up his mind; it was a quarter past nine. “If only something would occur to oblige me to wake him,” said Grollmann. + 

At that moment he heard the door open on the lower floor, and someone came up the stairs. Grollmann looked over the banisters; an officer⁠—a general⁠—the old General from over the way. “That is curious,” thought Grollmann, and stood at attention, as was fitting in an old servant who had been a soldier. + 

The General had come up the stairs. “I wish to speak to Herr Schmidt; will you announce me?” + 

“It is not exactly his hour for receiving,” said Grollmann; “and⁠—” + 

“Perhaps he will receive me, however, if you tell him that I have come on most important business; here is my card.” + 

“It is not necessary, General. I have the honour, General⁠—” + 

“Take the card, all the same.” + 

Grollmann held the card undecided in his hand; but, if the business was so important⁠—and he could not very well send a general unceremoniously away. “Will you excuse me a minute. General?” + 

The old man slipped through the door. The General looked gloomily around on the broad carpeted marble steps with their gilt banisters, on the dark, gilded folding-doors which led on three sides out of the gallery in which he stood, while the fourth wall, in which was the window, was decorated with magnificent plants; on the polished stucco walls, on the richly decorated ceiling. + 

“I wish the man lived in a plainer house,” murmured the General. + 

“Will you step this way, sir?” Grollmann had his hand on the door. “He has not slept all night,” he whispered, as if he must apologise for his master, who would probably not do so for himself. + 

“I have not slept either,” answered the General with a melancholy smile, as he walked with a firm, quiet step through the door, which the old man now opened and shut after him. + 

XII + 

The two men stood opposite one another, each measuring the other’s strength, like two athletes who are about to fight to the death, and yet cannot resist admiring each other’s noble appearance, and thinking that whichever falls will have succumbed to a worthy adversary. And yet the General had all the time the sensation that, strong and powerful as was the man who stood before him, he himself was in that moment the more composed, the calmer, and therefore the stronger. He saw it in the sullen fire that smouldered in the man’s eyes, in the trembling of the hand with which he pointed to a chair; he heard it in the deep voice which now said: “I did not expect your visit, General; but it does not surprise me.” + 

“I conjectured as much,” answered the General; “and it is for that reason that you see me here. I thought that every hour which passed unused by us, would diminish the probability of a friendly arrangement of the affair which brings me to you, as it would leave time for the miserable writer of this letter to spread his poison further and further. May I venture to give you the disagreeable task of reading this document?” + 

“Will you at the same time take the trouble of casting a glance at this production?” + 

The two men exchanged the letters which they had received. That which the General now read with calm attention, ran thus: + 

“This then is the man who dismisses his workpeople because they have not kept their word, as he says. Does he then keep his, he whose mouth is always full of the words liberty, equality, and fraternity; and boasts that he alone has held firmly by the old democratic flag of ’48, and who now shuts his eyes while his son buys estates and builds palaces with the money he has stolen from honest people, and while his daughter runs after an officer of the Guards, who has a new mistress every six months, and leads the wildest of lives, but who will ultimately make Fräulein Schmidt into Frau von Werben? Or does Herr Schmidt know this? does he wish this? It is not unlike the great man of progress; for to think one thing and speak another, and to speak one thing and act another, has always been the practice of these gentlemen, which they carry on till at last someone finds them out and stops their dirty work, as in this case is resolved by one who is determined to stop at nothing.” + 

The General gave back the letter and received his own. + 

“The man does not seem to have thought it necessary to put on any mask with you,” said the General, “except in the handwriting.” + 

“Which, however, I recognised at the first glance,” answered Uncle Ernst; “it is that of a certain Roller, who was for several years overseer at my works, till I was obliged a few days ago to dismiss him for disobedience, under the circumstances to which he alludes at the commencement of his letter.” + 

“I had heard of it,” said the General, “and that explains sufficiently the man’s brutal vindictiveness; and as for the way in which he has discovered what has up to this moment been a secret to both of us, we should not wish to follow him there if we could. Let us therefore set that point aside. Another appears to me more important. This man has not attempted to conceal his handwriting in the letter which he has written to me; he evidently concluded, therefore, that we should not communicate with one another.” + 

The General, at these words, raised his eyes, as if accidentally; but his glance was sharp and piercing as that of the commander of a battery counting the seconds as he looks out for the spot to which the first shot shall be directed. + 

“That is the only point on which he and I agree,” said Uncle Ernst. + 

His voice, which had become calmer, trembled again, and he had cast down his eyes. The General saw that it would probably be easy for him to provoke an explanation which would relieve him from all further explanation on his part, but he had laid his plan, point by point, and he was accustomed to carry his plans out. He said therefore: + 

“Before I proceed further, will you kindly allow me to give you a slight description of my views, socially and morally, and of the situation in which I and my family are placed? Imagine, I beg of you, that this is necessary for some unimportant purpose, that I must speak and you must listen, although the one had rather be silent and the other had rather not hear.” + 

The General gave Herr Schmidt no time to deny him the desired permission, but continued, without pausing: + 

“I am descended from a very old family, and can trace my descent authentically through many generations, though we appear never to have been rich, and for the last two centuries must reckon ourselves as belonging to the poorer, not to say to the poor nobility. It is no doubt a consequence of this poverty that the male descendants of the family, which was never very widespread, and has often depended only on one life, have almost without exception passed their lives at Court, and in attendance on their princes, particularly the military ones, and even the women have often devoted themselves to the service of their princesses. I consider it again as a result of this consequence, that fidelity to their liege lords, or, to express it in modern language, devotion to the royal family, the feeling of duty, and the obligation of showing themselves grateful for favours received, have been handed down and held from generation to generation in my family as their dearest, and often as their only heritage; the almost countless names of the Werbens in the annals of war and in the army lists, the names of the many who have fallen honourably and nobly before the enemy, are a proof of this. + 

“And as it usually happens in old families that the children who have been brought up by their parents in the same ideas in which the latter were brought up by their parents, and not only in the same ideas, but also in the same habits, morally, socially, and professionally, resemble their parents, both bodily and mentally, more than is the case under other circumstances, and this resemblance is at first looked upon as a curiosity, and then, after the fashion of mankind, as an advantage, so it has been with us. I know that this family pride is in the eyes of others laughable, if not wrong. I have no intention of justifying it; I have, as I told you at first, no other object than to give you an insight into the innermost life and habits of the family from which I descend, and thus to facilitate the explanation of certain peculiarities of character and of the rule by which I regulate and have regulated what I do or leave undone in all cases, as, for example, in the following: + 

“One of my two sisters⁠—there are three of us⁠—married to a rich landed proprietor, had the misfortune to have been mistaken in her choice, and committed the fault of bearing her unhappiness unworthily, and even of making it an excuse for a passion which she conceived for a man whom she had met abroad, and who was wanting, not only in noble birth, but also in all those virtues and qualities which I require in every man whom I am to respect. Death brought about the separation to which my brother-in-law had refused his consent. His large property was to descend to my children. After long resistance and deep consideration, in order not to embitter the unhappy man’s dying hours, I accepted the half for my children, under the same conditions which were imposed upon my sister for the possession of the other half, namely, that the inheritance should pass from her if she ever made a marriage contrary to the traditions of our family; I mean a marriage with a man not of noble birth. I may mention, by-the-way, that I myself had and have no resources but my pay, with the exception of what, to modern ideas, is a very small sum which I have saved out of that pay in the course of years. Even that small portion I no longer possess. My son has not inherited my economical habits; perhaps the spirit of the times, which is so unfavourable to the moderation which was recommended to us old people as the highest virtue is in fault. Perhaps I myself made a mistake when I allowed him to enter a regiment in which, as matters stand now, all the officers should be rich men; enough that my son has incurred debts which I have paid as long as it was in my power. For the reasons before mentioned, I can do this no longer, and I have unfortunately cause to suspect that my son’s position is a very precarious one if he loses the revenues of the inheritance on which he entered a year and a half ago. There would result for him from a marriage contrary to the habits of his rank and the traditions of his family, other more or less great worldly disadvantages which I will pass over, as my intention is only to point out to you in a general way our moral and financial situation; to suggest the sensations with which I read that letter; and lastly, to denote the course of the conversation which I had last night with my son immediately after the receipt of the letter, and which led to the result which I will now, with your permission, communicate to you.” + 

“I am sorry to be obliged to interrupt you, General,” said Uncle Ernst. “If you thought it right to justify beforehand the result of your considerations, whatever it may be, I think I may reasonably claim for myself the same favour. I might possibly be suspected of having formed my resolution consequently upon yours. The possibility of this suspicion would be unbearable to me; I shall avoid it if you will allow me to state my circumstances as clearly as you have just done yours; the conclusion will follow naturally.” + 

“I cannot refuse,” said the General; “though I should have wished that you would allow me to add the few important words which I still have to say. I have a conviction that it would be better for all parties.” + 

“I must insist, however, on my request,” said Uncle Ernst. + 

The General had again fixed his clear, steady glance on his opponent. His plans were crossed. “I ought to have proceeded more rapidly,” said he to himself, “now I shall be forced to take the defensive, and the attack will apparently be hot enough.” + 

“Pray proceed,” he said, leaning back in his chair. + 

Uncle Ernst did not answer immediately; when the General was announced, he had determined to be calm; and while the General was speaking he had constantly repeated this determination. He knew that he should have remained so if he had found the haughty aristocrat whom he expected, if the aristocrat had from the first explained to him with cold scorn, or with brutal warmth, that a union between his son and a girl of low birth was not to be thought of, and that he must request the father in future to keep his daughter under better control, if he wished to avoid scandal, and more to the same effect. But he had been deceived in his expectations. All that the man brought forward were only circumstances, explanations, insulting enough in reality, but the manner was courteous, was meant to be courteous, and he for his part was forced to swallow and choke down these polite insults with no less politeness. He was really half choked. And it was just this that threatened to deprive the passionate man of the last remains of his calm, that forced him to be silent for a few minutes longer, till he had so far subdued his raging heart, that he could at least preserve outward composure, and not betray himself by his first words. And now for it! + 

“I have no family history to relate, even briefly, General. In the ordinary sense of the word, I have no family to speak of at all; I do not even know who my grandfather was. My father never spoke of him; he appears to have had no reason to be proud of his father. My father was proud, but only of himself, of his herculean strength, of his untiring energy, of his dauntless courage. My father was the owner of a river boat: if an opportunity occurred at the bursting of a dyke to risk his life for that of others, or in the times of the French War to carry a dangerous message, or to undertake anything which no one else would undertake, my father did it, and carried it out. He was as passionate as he was proud. When the superintendent of dykes, a man of high rank, on one occasion had a quarrel with him and ventured to lay his hand upon him, my father knocked him down on the spot, and paid for his violence by a year’s imprisonment. + 

“It seems that even people of no family have a right to talk of hereditary virtues and vices. My brother, the father of my nephew, who has the honour to be known to General von Werben, appeared to have inherited only the virtues; an intelligent, prudent, brave man, who left his home early, in order to seek his fortunes in the wide world, and died many years ago in the exercise of his calling as captain of a mail steamer at Hamburg. I, on the contrary, had inherited, besides the few advantages of which my father could boast, nearly all his weaknesses; I was proud, arrogant, haughty, and passionate, like him. I have never been able to understand how men could endure any restraint which they were able to throw off, I mean an unjust restraint, which does not necessarily result from the nature of man, such as sickness or death, or from the nature of society, such as law and order, but which one set of men have exercised over another, from arbitrariness, avarice or hard-heartedness, and which the others have borne out of stupidity, denseness or cowardice. I have therefore always instinctively hated the rule of kings and princes as an institution which only suits a people that is yet in its infancy, or a worn-out and aged people, but which must be rejected with horror by a strong nation, conscious of its strength; and I have especially hated the nobility as the refuse and chips of the material from which the idol is made; and I have hated all institutions which in principle tend towards royalty and nobility. To endure as little as possible of these restraints, to place myself in a position in which I could live according to my convictions, has been, as long as I can remember, the most absorbing passion of my mind. That I have not remained as ignorant as I came out of the village school, that I have worked my way up from my position as cabin-boy and steersman to be a man of property, I may thank that passion. It ran a little wild at first, before reason came to its aid and showed it ends to which it could attain, instead of the unattainable ones for which it struggled in its first heat; for instance, a free commonwealth, a republic of equal men, not enslaved or dishonoured by the exemptions or privileges of any one man.” + 

Uncle Ernst paused; he must once more conquer the stream that rushed roaring and raging from his heart to his brain. He must remain calm, now especially. + 

Outside the rain was falling, a dull twilight reigned in the room. + 

The General sat, his head resting on his hand, sunk in thought. There could only be a question now of an honourable retreat; the how would settle itself. + 

“Proceed, I beg!” said he. + 

“A day came,” continued Uncle Ernst, “when this ideal appeared no longer to float in the clouds, but to be ready to descend upon the earth. I regret deeply to have to awaken recollections which must be painful and bitter to you, General; but I cannot unfortunately avoid it, as you will see. + 

“On the 18th of March I had been directing, in the heart of the Königsstadt, the erection of some barricades, against which, because they were in reality made with greater art and upon a settled plan, and also no doubt were better defended, the might of our opponents failed, in spite of the obstinacy and bitterness with which they fought, especially here, under the command of an officer whose fearless courage must have excited the most sluggish to emulation. In fact he constantly exposed himself almost as if he wished to meet death. He would undoubtedly have found it here and in this hour had not our people been miserable marksmen, who could only fire into the mass, but invariably missed any single object. There was only one good marksman behind the barricade; that one was the leader, myself. The wild duck that swift as an arrow bursts through the sedges on the bank, had not been safe from my gun, and the officer sat for a full minute as quietly on his horse, in the midst of the hottest shower of balls, as if man and horse had been carved in stone. More than once was my rifle pointed; I said to myself that I must kill the officer, that this one man was more dangerous to the cause for which I was fighting than whole regiments; in fact that he was the personification of the cause for which he fought. I could not make up my mind. It was doubtless the respect that one brave man has for another⁠—this time to my cost, for I was convinced that this man, if ever I were in his power, would kill me without mercy, like a poisonous snake; and he confirmed my expectations. The battalion that he commanded was ordered to retire; I saw that he exchanged warm words with the officer who brought the order; I fancied I could see that he debated within himself whether he should or should not obey the command, which he considered at once as stupid and disgraceful⁠—and from his point of view rightly; we could not have held out five minutes longer. Military discipline conquered; he rode close in front of the barricade, and said, while he thrust his sword into the scabbard: ‘I have orders to retire; if it depended upon me I would overthrow you all and put every man of you to the sword.’ Then he turned his horse and rode back at a foot’s pace. Even death by a shot from behind had no terrors for him in this moment. A few balls did indeed whistle past him, but the bullets which had spared his brave breast did not touch his back.” + 

Uncle Ernst was once more silent. The room had become almost dark; the drizzling mist had turned into heavy rain; the large drops beat against the windowpanes, and the clock on the chimneypiece ticked loudly. + 

The General had leaned his head heavily on his hand, and he did not raise it while he said, as before, in a curiously low, almost broken voice: + 

“Go on, I beg!” + 

“The battle was at an end here; but from the centre of the town was still heard the thunder of cannon and rattle of musketry. I hastened to the spot where there seemed to be still something to do. I had to cross the Königsstrasse if I did not wish to go a long way round; I made the attempt, although I was told that it was in the hands of the troops already almost as far as the Alexanderplatz. My attempt failed; a quarter of an hour later I was a prisoner in the cellars of the King’s palace. + 

“I pass over the horrors of that night; a man must have experienced it, when the close poisonous air, around the hundreds that were huddled together, seemed to transform itself into grinning devils, which whispered and mocked ceaselessly: ‘In vain! in vain! Fool, fool! The cause for which you fought is hopelessly lost⁠—lost! A man must have experienced that! + 

“About four o’clock we were led away, driven, hunted to Spandau. My strength was not yet broken, but weaker men gave way. Near me was a pale youth, a delicate young student, in spectacles. He had held out bravely as long as he could, but he could bear no more. Though he clenched his teeth, the tears would burst forth when a blow in the back from the butt-end of a musket forced him to exertions of which he was no longer capable. Blood flowed from his eyes and mouth; I could no longer bear the sight of his sufferings, I rushed forward, throwing down all before me, towards an officer who rode alongside, and cried to him: ‘If you are a man do not suffer such unmanly cruelties to be perpetrated close to you!’ I was frantic; I believe I had seized his horse by the bridle. The officer may have thought it was a personal attack; he spurred his horse which reared and threw me down. I started up again immediately: ‘If you are a man!’ I cried again, once more throwing myself before him. ‘Democrat!’ and he gnashed his teeth, ‘then die if you will have it so!’ He raised himself in his stirrups, his sword whistled over me. My broad-brimmed hat and my thick hair lessened the force of the blow, but I sank on my knee, and for a moment lost consciousness. It could only have been a moment. The next I stood there again, determined to sell my life dearly, when another officer hastened up, bringing a message to the first, an order⁠—I do not know what⁠—on which the latter, exclaiming ‘Is it possible?’ turned his horse. At that moment the moon, which had been hidden behind black clouds, shone out; by its light I recognised distinctly in the officer my opponent at the barricade. He galloped away. ‘We shall meet for the third time!’ I cried after him, while I was forced back into the ranks with blows; ‘perhaps it will be my turn then, and’⁠—I swore a deep oath⁠—‘then I will not again spare you.’ + 

“Since that night four and twenty years have passed; I have seen the officer often and often; naturally he did not know me; I should have known him among millions. Since that time our hair and beards have grown grey; I swear to God that I wished and hoped that that third time would be spared me. It was not to be; he and I now stand here for the third time face to face.” + 

Both men had risen in their excitement. Neither dared to look at the other; each shrank from saying the next word. The heavy drops rattled against the windows; the clock on the chimneypiece prepared to strike. The General knew the word that was to come as well as he knew the hour that was about to strike; still it must be spoken. + 

“And now,” he said, “for the conclusion; I think it is my turn.” + 

Uncle Ernst looked up, like a lion whose victim has stirred again; the General answered his dark and threatening glance by a melancholy smile, and his deep voice sounded almost soft as he continued: + 

“It seems to me that we have exchanged the parts which are usually taken by the man of the people and the aristocrat. The man of the people remembers minutely a wrong that was done him a generation back, and has forgiven nothing; the aristocrat has not indeed forgotten, but he has learnt to forgive. Or do you think that he has nothing to forgive? You said one must have experienced what you did on that night, in order to understand it. Well! can you, on the other hand, place yourself in the position of a man who saw, on that night, all that he held honourable and holy, all for which he had lived and for which his ancestors had shed their blood, fall to pieces in shameful ruin, and chaos take its place? But he has learnt more than merely to forgive; he has learnt to value the good qualities of his opponents wherever he can find them; he has learnt no longer to shut his eyes to the weaknesses of his own party; he has seen that the struggle must be fought out on different ground, on the ground of right and justice, and that the victory will remain with that party which understands how to seize first on this ground and to take the strongest root. For this reason the excesses committed by his party find no more inflexible judge than himself; for this reason he demands that everyone shall be in private life an example and pattern of conduct and morals, and shall act justly, let it cost him what it will. What it has cost me to make this advance to you today, you must leave me to decide with myself and with my God⁠—it is more and less than you can understand. Enough that I am here, and ask you to forgive my son, if on this matter, from a false, culpable, but not unnatural regard to the circumstances in which he is born, he has allowed himself to deviate from the straight road that led him to the father of the woman he loved. I ask you not to let the children suffer because the fathers have stood face to face with weapons in their hands; I ask you, in the name of my son, for your daughter’s hand for my son.” + 

Uncle Ernst started back like a traveller before whom a piece of rock falls, blocking his path, while the precipice gapes near him, and no return is possible. + 

Without, the storm raged; the clock struck the hour of ten. Uncle Ernst collected himself; the rock must be removed⁠—it must! + 

“I have sworn that this hand shall wither sooner than that it shall touch the hand of General von Werben.” + 

“But hardly by the God of goodness and mercy?” + 

“I have sworn it.” + 

“Then remember what is written, ‘That man is like the grass, that today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven.’ We are neither of us any longer young; who knows how soon the morrow will come for us?” + 

“May it come soon, is my wish!” + 

“Mine also, perhaps, but till then? Remember that the father’s blessing builds the children’s house; but that we have no power to loose the bonds of two hearts that have found one another without our help⁠—perhaps against our wish and will. Consider that the responsibility of the curse which must ensue from these unhallowed bonds henceforth rests on your head.” + 

“I have considered it.” + 

“And I have done my duty.” + 

The General bowed in his usual stately and dignified manner, and moved, courteously escorted by Uncle Ernst, towards the door. There he stood still: + 

“One thing more; the failure of consent on the part of the fathers hinders a marriage at least in this case, in which a portionless officer is the suitor. None the less will my son consider himself bound till your daughter herself releases him. I take it for granted that your daughter will not do this, unless her father exercises compulsion over her.” + 

“I take it for granted also that General von Werben has exercised no compulsion on his son, in obtaining authority from the latter to make the proposal with which he has just honoured me.” + 

The stern eyes flashed, he had his opponent in his grasp; the crisis must come now. A look of pain passed over the General’s face. + 

“The supposition would not be quite correct; the sense of duty was stronger in the father than in the son.” + 

He was gone. The wild fire in the eyes of him who remained behind had changed to a joyful gleam. + 

“I knew it! The brood are always the same, however they may boast of their virtue. Down! down! down with them!” + 

He stood there, bending forward, moving his powerful arms, as if his enemy in reality lay at his feet. Then he drew himself up. His arms sank, the gleam disappeared from his eyes. The victory was not his yet; another struggle was before him, the hardest, the struggle with his own flesh and blood. + 

XIII + 

For Ferdinanda the night had had no terrors, the morning no darkness. In her soul was brightest day, for the first time for many months; for the first time, indeed, she thought, since she knew what a passionate, proud, ambitious heart beat in her bosom. They had often told her⁠—in former days, her mother; later, her aunt, her friends, all⁠—that it would one day bring her unhappiness, and that pride went before a fall; and she had always answered scornfully, “Then I will be unhappy; I will fall, if happiness is only to be had at the mean price of humility, which always grovels in the dust before fate, and sings hymns of praise if the wheels of envious fate have only grazed and not crushed her. I am not like Justus or Cilli.” + 

And she had been unhappy, even in the hours when the enthusiastic artists⁠—Justus’s friends⁠—had done homage in unmeasured terms to the blooming beauty of the young girl; when these men praised her talents, told her she was on the right road to become an artist; finally, that she was an artist⁠—a true artist. She did not believe them; and if she really were an artist, there were so many greater ones⁠—even Justus’s hand reached so much higher and further than hers; laughing, and apparently without trouble, he gathered fruits for which she strove with the most intense effort, and which, as she secretly acknowledged to herself, must always be beyond her reach. + 

She had told her woes to that great French artist, on whom her beauty had made such an overpowering expression. He had for some time only put her off with courteous and smiling words; at last he had said seriously: + 

“Mademoiselle, there is only one highest happiness for woman, and that is love; and there is only one talent in which no man can equal her⁠—that is again love.” + 

The words had crushed her; her artistic talent was then only a childish dream, and love! Yes, she knew that she could love⁠—unspeakably, boundlessly! But the man was still to be found who could awaken that love to its heavenward soaring flame; and woe to her when she found him! He would not comprehend her love, he would not realise it, and he would certainly be unable to return it; perhaps would shrink back before its fire, and she would be more unhappy than before. + 

And was not this gloomy foreboding already sadly fulfilled? Had she not already felt herself unspeakably unhappy in her love for him who had come to her as if sent from heaven⁠—as if he himself were one of the heavenly ones? Had she not already, countless times, with hot tears, with bitter scorn, with writhing despair, complained, exclaimed, cried out, that he did not understand or realise her love, never would understand or realise it? Had she not clearly seen that he trembled and shrank back, not from the danger which threatened him on the dark path of his love⁠—he was as bold and dexterous as man could be⁠—but before her love, before her all-powerful, but also all-exacting, insatiable love? + 

She had experienced this again yesterday, at the very instant that followed that happy moment when she had received and returned his first kiss! And today; today she smiled at her doubts amidst tears of joy; today she asked pardon of her beloved, amidst a thousand burning kisses that she pressed in thought on his beautiful brow, his tender eyes, and his dear mouth, for every harsh or bitter word or thought she had ever had against him, and which she never, never would say or think again. + 

She had tried to work, to put the finishing touches to the Reaping Girl, but her hand had been hopeless, powerless, as in her first attempts, and she had recollected, not without a shudder, that she had vowed not to finish the group. The vow had been⁠—contrary to her anticipations⁠—a forerunner of happiness. What was to her this miserable image of jealous revenge? How worthless appeared to her all this extensive apparatus of her work⁠—this lofty room, these pedestals, these mallets, chisels, modelling-tools; these casts of arms, hands, feet; these heads, these busts from the originals of old masters; her own sketches, attempts, completed works⁠—childish strivings with bandaged eyes for a happiness that was not to be found here⁠—that was only to be found in love, the sole, true talent of woman⁠—her talent, of which she felt that it was unique, that it outshone everything that had till then been felt as love and called love! She could not bear her room this morning; even her studio seemed too small. She stepped into the garden, and wandered along the paths, between the shrubs, under the trees, from whose rustling branches drops of the night’s rain fell upon her. How often had she hated the bright sunshine, the blue sky, that had seemed to mock at her anguish! She looked in triumph now up into the grey clouds that passed, dark and heavy, above her head. What need had she of sun and light⁠—she in whose heart was nothing but light and brightness? The drizzling rain that now began to fall would only serve to cool the internal fire that threatened to consume her. Driving clouds, drizzling rain, rustling trees, whispering shrubs, even the damp, black earth⁠—all was wonderfully beautiful in the reflection of her love! + 

She went in again and seated herself in the place where he had kissed her, and dreamed again that happy dream, while near at hand was hammering and knocking, and, between whiles, chattering and whispering, and the rain rattled against the tall window⁠—dreamed that her dream had the power to draw him to her, who now opened the door softly and⁠—it was only a dream⁠—came towards her with the tender smile on his dear lips and the beautiful light in his dark eyes, till suddenly the smile died on his lips, and only the eyes still gleamed, but no longer with tender light, but with the gloomy, melancholy depths of her father’s eyes. And now they were not only her father’s eyes; it was more and more himself⁠—her father. Good God! + 

She had started out of her doze; her limbs trembled; she sank back in the chair, and drew herself up again. She had seen at once in the glance of his eyes, in the letter which he held in his hand⁠—seen with the first half-waking glance why he had come. She said so, in half-awake, wild, passionate words. + 

He had bent his head, but he did not contradict her; he answered nothing but “My poor child!” + 

“I am your child no longer if you do this to me.” + 

“I fear you have never been so in your heart.” + 

“And if I have not been so, whose fault is it but yours? Have you ever shown me the love that a child is entitled to ask from its father? Have you ever done anything to make the life you gave me a happy one? Has my industry ever drawn from you a word of praise, or my success a word of acknowledgment? Have you not rather done everything to humble me in my own eyes, to make me smaller than I was in reality, to insult my art, to make me feel that in your eyes I was no artist and never should be one⁠—that you looked on all this as nothing better than a large doll’s house, which you had bought for me in order that I might trifle and idle away my worthless time here! And now, now you come to tear my love from me, only because your pride wills it so⁠—only because you consider it an insult that such a poor, useless creature should will, or wish anything that you do not wish and will! But you are mistaken, father; I am, in spite of all, your daughter. You may repudiate me, you may drive me to misery, as you might dash me in pieces with that hammer, because you are the stronger; but you cannot tear my love from me!” + 

“I both can and will.” + 

“Try!” + 

“To try and to succeed are one. Would you be the mistress of Lieutenant von Werben?” + 

“What has that question to do with my love?” + 

“Then I will put it in another form. Have you the face to make yourself the equal of those wretched, foolish creatures who give themselves to a man, whether without marriage or in marriage⁠—for marriage does not mend matters⁠—for any other price than that of love, for which they give their own in exchange? Herr von Werben has nothing to give you in exchange; Herr von Werben does not love you.” + 

Ferdinanda laughed scornfully. “And he has come to you, of whom he knew that you pursue him and his kind with blind hatred, to tell you that?” + 

“He has not come; his father was forced to take the hard step for him, for which he himself had not the courage, for which the father had to force the son’s consent.” + 

“That is⁠—” + 

“Not a lie! On my oath. And further, he did not even go to his father of his own free will; he would not have done so today, he would perhaps never have done it, if his father had not sent for him to ask him if it were true what the sparrows said on the housetops, and what insolent wretches wrote in anonymous letters to the unsuspecting fathers, that Lieutenant von Werben had a love affair on the other side of the garden-wall, or⁠—what do I know!” + 

“Show me the letters!” + 

“Here is one; the General will doubtless willingly let you have the other. I doubt whether his son will lay claim to it.” + 

Ferdinanda read the letter. + 

She had taken it for granted that only Antonio could have been the traitor; but this letter was not from Antonio, could not be from Antonio. So that other eyes than the love-inspired, jealous eyes of Antonio had seen through her secret. Her pale cheek glowed in angry shame. “Who wrote the letter?” + 

“Roller; in the letter to the General, he has not disguised his hand.” + 

She gave the letter hastily back to her father and struck her hands together, as if she wished to remove all trace of its touch: “Oh, the shame, the shame!” she murmured; “oh, the disgrace! the horror of it!” + 

The dismissed overseer had been at first received in the family, till Ferdinanda saw that he had dared to raise his eyes to her; she had taken advantage of a dispute he had had with her father first to loosen and then to put an end altogether to his relations with the family. And the insolent, evil eyes of this man⁠—“Oh, the shame! oh, the disgrace!” she murmured again. + 

She paced rapidly up and down, then hastened to the writing-table, which stood at the far end of the long room, wrote a few hurried lines, and then came back with the note to her father, who had remained motionless on the same spot: “Read it!” + 

And he read: + 

“My father is ready to sacrifice his convictions for my sake and consents to my marriage with Lieutenant von Werben. I, however, for reasons which my pride refuses to write down, reject this marriage now and forever as a moral impossibility, and release Lieutenant von Werben from any obligation which he has, or thinks he has, towards me. This determination, which I have made of my own free will, is irrevocable; any attempt on the part of Lieutenant von Werben to overthrow it, I shall regard as an insult. + 

“Is that right?” + 

He nodded. “Am I to send him this!” + 

“In my name.” + 

She turned from him, and, with a modelling-tool in her hand, went up to her work. Her father folded the letter and went towards the door. There he remained standing. She did not look up, but appeared quite absorbed in her work. His eyes rested on her with an expression of deep sorrow. “And yet!” murmured he, “and yet!” + 

He closed the door behind him and walked slowly across the yard, through whose wide, empty space the storm was raging. + 

“Deserted and empty!” he murmured, “all deserted and empty. That is the burden of the song for her and me.” + 

“Uncle!” + 

He started from his gloomy musings. Reinhold came hurriedly from the house towards him⁠—bareheaded and excited. + 

“Uncle, for heaven’s sake!⁠—the General has just left me. I know all⁠—what have you decided?” + 

“What must be.” + 

“It will be the death of Ferdinanda.” + 

“Better death than a life of dishonour.” + 

He stepped past Reinhold into the house. Reinhold did not venture to follow him; he knew that it would be useless. + 