Book + 

I + 

I + 

The weather had grown worse towards evening. The groups of navvies on their way to the new railroad at Sundin cowered closer together between the piled-up barrels, casks, and chests on the foredeck, while the passengers had almost disappeared from the poop. Two elderly gentlemen who had been talking a good deal together during the journey now stood on the starboard side, looking at the island round which the steamer had to pass to the southwest, and whose level shores, sweeping in broad curves towards the promontory, appeared every moment more distinctly. + 

“So that is Warnow?” + 

“No. I beg your pardon, President⁠—that is Ahlbeck, a fishing village, which is, however, on the Warnow estates. Warnow itself lies farther inland. You can just see the church tower over the edge of the dunes.” + 

The President dropped the eyeglass with which he had vainly searched for the tower. + 

“You have sharp eyes, General, and are quick at finding out your bearings!” + 

“I have only been there once, it is true,” answered the General; “but since then I have had only too much cause for studying this line of coast on the map.” + 

The President smiled. + 

“Yes, yes; it is classical ground,” said he; “it has been long fought over⁠—long and vainly.” + 

“And I am convinced that it was right that the struggle should be in vain: at least, that it should have only a negative result,” said the General. + 

“I am not sure that it will not be taken up again,” answered the President. “Count Golm and Co. have been making immense efforts lately.” + 

“After you have so clearly proved that it is impossible that the railway should pay?” + 

“And you that the harbour would be useless!” + 

“Pardon me, President, the decision was not left to me: or, to speak more correctly, I declined to make it. The only place in the least suitable for the harbour would be just there, in the southernmost corner of the bay, protected by Wissow Head⁠—that is to say, on the Warnow property. It is true that I am only a trustee for my sister’s estates⁠—” + 

“I know, I know,” interrupted the President; “old-fashioned Prussian honesty, which becomes over-scrupulous sometimes. Count Golm and Co. are less scrupulous.” + 

“So much the worse for them,” said the General. + 

The two gentlemen turned and went up to a young girl, who was sitting in a sheltered place under the lee of the deck cabin, and passing the time as best she could, partly in reading, partly in drawing in a little album. + 

“You would like to remain on deck, I suppose, Elsa?” said the General. + 

“Are you both going into the cabin?” answered the girl, looking up from her book. “I think it is horrible down below; but it certainly is too chilly here for you, President.” + 

“It really is excessively chilly,” answered the President, turning up the collar of his overcoat, and casting a glance at the sky; “I think we shall have rain before sunset even now. You really should come with us, do not you think so, General?” + 

“Elsa is weatherproof,” answered the General, smiling. “But you might put a shawl or something round you. Shall I fetch you anything?” + 

“Thank you, papa! I have everything I can possibly want here,” said Elsa, pointing to her bundle of plaids and rugs; “I will cover myself up if it is necessary. Au revoir!” + 

She bowed gracefully to the President, gave her father a loving look and took up her book again, while the two gentlemen turned into the narrow passage between the cabin and the bulwarks. + 

She read for a few minutes, then looked up again and followed with her eyes the cloud of smoke which was still issuing from the funnel in thick, dark, eddying masses and rolling down upon the vessel. The man at the wheel, too, still stood on the same spot, still turning the wheel sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left, and again holding it immovable in his rough hands. And, yes, there was still the man who had been, walking up and down with such indefatigable perseverance from end to end of the vessel, and had showed in so doing a steadiness in his movements which Elsa, in the course of the day, had repeatedly tried to imitate, but with very doubtful results. + 

Otherwise, Elsa thought, he had not much to distinguish him; and she said to herself that she should hardly have noticed him amongst a greater number of people, certainly not have observed him attentively, perhaps not even have seen him; and that if in the course of the day she had looked at him constantly and really studied him, it was only because there had not been much to see, to observe, or to study. + 

Her sketchbook which she was now turning over proved this. This was meant for a view of the harbour of Stettin. It would require a good deal of imagination to make anything out of that, thought Elsa. This one has come out better⁠—the flat meadows, the cows, the floating beacon, smooth water beyond with a few sails, another strip of meadow, and the sea in the distance. The man at the wheel is not bad either: he stood still. But the “Indefatigable” is a terrible failure, a positive caricature! That is the results of being always in motion! At last! Only five minutes, Mr. What’s-your-name! this really might be good, the attitude is capital! + 

The attitude was certainly simple enough. He was leaning against a bench with his hands in his pockets, and as he looked straight out into the sea towards the west, his face was in full light, notwithstanding that the sun was hidden behind clouds, and it was also⁠—what Elsa always particularly liked to draw⁠—in profile. + 

“A fine profile,” thought Elsa, “although the finest features⁠—the large, good-humoured blue eyes⁠—are not seen at their best so. But, on the other hand, the dark beard will come out all the better, I can always succeed with beards; the hands in the pockets is very convenient, the left leg entirely hidden by the right, not particularly artistic but most convenient for the artist; now the bench⁠—a little bit of the bulwarks and the ‘Indefatigable’ is finished.” Elsa held the book at a little distance from her to look at the sketch as a picture; she was highly pleased. “That shows that I really can finish off a thing when I do it with all my heart,” she said to herself, and wrote under the picture: “The ‘Indefatigable.’ With all my heart, 26th August, ’72, E. v. W.” + 

While Elsa had been so busily trying to put upon paper the young man’s figure and features, her image also had been present to his mind; and to him it was all the same, whether he shut his eyes or kept them open, he always saw her with equal clearness, and always equally graceful and charming, whether at the moment of their departure from Stettin, when her father introduced her to the President, and she bowed so prettily; or as she breakfasted with the two gentlemen, and laughed so merrily as she put her glass to her lips; or as she stood on the bridge with the Captain, and the wind blew her dress so close to the slender figure, and the grey veil fluttered like a flag over her shoulder; or as she spoke to the navvy’s wife on the deck who was sitting in front of her on the coiled-up ropes and hushing her baby wrapped up in a shawl; as she stooped down, lifted the shawl for one moment, and looked with a smile at the hidden treasure; and as, a minute later, she passed by, and a severe look of the brown eyes asked him how he had dared to watch her? or as she now sat against the cabin and read and drew, and read again, and looked up to the clouds of smoke or to the sailor at the wheel. It was extraordinary how firmly her image had impressed itself on his mind in the short time; but then for more than a year he had seen nothing but the sky above and the water below. It was no wonder after all if the first pretty and nice-looking girl he saw after such long abstinence made so great an impression upon his feelings. + 

“And besides,” said the young man to himself, “in three hours we shall be at Sundin, and then farewell, farewell forever more. But what are they doing? You are surely not going over the Oster sands with this tide?” + 

With these latter words he turned to the man at the wheel. + 

“Well, sir, it’s a fact,” answered the man, rolling his quid from one cheek to the other; “seems to me, too, we ought to starboard a bit, but the Captain thinks⁠—” + 

The young man did not wait for the end of the speech. In former years he had often made this voyage; but he had passed the spot towards which their course was now directed only a few days ago, and had been alarmed to see that where there had formerly been fifteen feet of water, there were now only twelve. Today, after the strong west wind had kept the tide back to such an extent, there could hardly be ten feet, and the steamer drew eight. And yet there was no lessening of speed, no soundings were taken, not one of the proper precautions thought of! Was the Captain mad? + 

The young man ran so hastily past Elsa, and his eyes, as they fell upon her, had in them so singular an expression, that she rose involuntarily and looked after him. In another moment he was on the bridge beside the stout, elderly Captain, to whom he spoke long and earnestly, and at last even as it seemed warmly, while he repeatedly pointed with his hand to a particular spot in the direction in which the ship was going. + 

A strange feeling of anxiety came upon Elsa, such as she had not experienced in the whole journey. It could not be a small matter which roused such excitement in this quiet, good-humoured-looking man! And now she was certain of what she had already more than once guessed⁠—that he was a sailor, and in that case no doubt a first-rate one, who was of course in the right, though the fat old Captain did shrug his shoulders so coolly, and point in the same direction, and then look through his telescope and shrug his shoulders again, while the other now hastily descended the steps from the bridge to the poop, and came straight towards her as if intending to address her. + 

But he did not do so at once, although, as he hastened by her, his look met hers, and he no doubt read the silent inquiry in her eyes and on her lips. He hesitated a moment, and⁠—yes, really⁠—he turned back, and was now close behind her. + 

“Madam⁠—” + 

Her heart beat as if it would burst. She turned round. + 

“Madam,” he repeated, “it is wrong, I know, to alarm you, and perhaps without cause. But it is not impossible⁠—in fact, I think it is probable⁠—that within five minutes we shall be ashore. I mean we shall run aground.” + 

“Good heavens!” cried Elsa. + 

“I do not think any harm will come of it,” continued the young man, “if the Captain⁠—Ha! we have only got half-steam on now⁠—half-speed; but he ought to have reversed the engines, and probably even that would be too late now.” + 

“Can he not be made to do it?” + 

“On board his own ship the Captain is supreme,” answered the young man, smiling, in spite of his vexation. “I am a sailor myself, and in similar circumstances would yield just as little to any persuasions.” + 

He lifted his cap, bowed, and moved a step away, then stopped again. A deeper light shone in the blue eyes, and a slight tremor came into the clear, strong voice as he continued: + 

“There is no question of real danger. We are near the shore, and the sea is tolerably smooth. I only wished that you might not be taken by surprise. Forgive my boldness.” + 

He bowed again, and then quickly retired, as if he wished to avoid further questions. + 

“There is no question of danger,” murmured Elsa. “It is a pity; I should like to have been saved by him. But my father must know this. The President ought to be prepared; he needs it more than I do.” + 

She turned to the cabin; but already the diminished speed of the vessel, which in the last half-minute had still further lessened, had attracted the attention of the passengers assembled there. Her father and the President were already ascending the steps. + 

“What is the matter?” called the General. + 

“We cannot possibly be in Prora already?” said the President. + 

At that moment they all felt what seemed like an electric shock, while an odd, dull, grinding sound fell unpleasantly upon their ears. The keel had touched the sandbank, but had not stuck fast. A shrill whistle, a couple of seconds’ breathless silence, then the whole ship shook and quivered with the force of the reversed motion of the screw. + 

But what only a few minutes before would have averted the danger was too late now. The vessel had to pass backwards over the same sandbank which it had only just managed to get over. A larger wave in its retreat had forced the stern a few inches further down. The screw laboured vigorously; the ship heeled over a little, but remained fixed. + 

“What the devil is the meaning of this?” cried the General. + 

“There is no question of real danger,” said Elsa quickly. + 

“Bless my soul! my dear young lady!” cried the President, who had turned very pale. + 

“We are very near in shore, and the sea is tolerably quiet,” said Elsa. + 

“What do you know about it?” cried the General. “The sea is not a thing to be trifled with.” + 

“I am not trifling, papa,” said Elsa. + 

The hasty movements and shouts and cries that suddenly surrounded them on all sides, and the singular and uncomfortable position of the ship, all sufficiently proved that the prediction of the “Indefatigable” had come true, and that the steamer was aground. + 

II + 

Every effort to get the ship off had proved unavailing; indeed, it might even be considered fortunate that the screw had not been broken by the tremendous effort required of it. The ship had not heeled over any more, however; and if the night were not stormy, they might lie here peaceably till the next morning, when a passing vessel could take off the passengers and carry them farther on their journey, if they had not got afloat before then, which, indeed, might happen at any moment. + 

So spoke the Captain, whose coolness was undisturbed by the misfortune which his own obstinacy had caused. + 

There was the fact that on the charts, by which he and every other captain had to steer, fifteen feet were marked at this place; and the gentlemen at the head of affairs might take the blame to themselves and provide better charts, or, at any rate, proper buoys. And if, as he very well knew, other captains had for years past avoided this shoal, and had preferred to go some miles out of their way, he had constantly since then, and even the day before yesterday, crossed this very spot. However, he had no objection to launching the large boat and landing the passengers, for them to get on their way afterwards as best they could. + 

“The man is drunk or mad!” said the President, when the Captain had turned his broad back and retired to his post. “It is a sin and a shame that such a man should command a ship, even a mere tub; but I will have a strict inquiry held, and he shall receive exemplary punishment.” + 

The President’s long thin person quivered with anger, fear, and cold; the General shrugged his shoulders. + 

“That is all very fine and very well, my dear President,” said he; “but it will come a little too late, and will not help us out of our awkward position. On principle, I never interfere in matters which I do not understand; but I wish we had someone on board who could advise us what to do. We must not ask the sailors⁠—that would be encouraging insubordination. What do you want, Elsa?” + 

Elsa had looked at him meaningly. He went up to her and repeated his question. + 

“Ask that gentleman,” said Elsa. + 

“What gentleman?” + 

“That one there; he is a sailor, he can certainly advise you best.” + 

The General fixed his sharp eyes upon the person designated. + 

“Ah, that man,” said he. “He really does look as if he might⁠—” + 

“Does not he?” said Elsa. “And he told me before that we should run aground.” + 

“Of course he does not belong to the ship?” + 

“Oh no⁠—at least, I think⁠—but speak to him yourself.” + 

The General went up to the “Indefatigable.” + 

“I am told, sir, that you are a sailor.” + 

“I am.” + 

“Navigating officer?” + 

“Merchant captain: Reinhold Schmidt.” + 

“My name is General von Werben. I should be much obliged to you, sir, if you would give me your opinion, as a sailor, upon our situation; of course in strict confidence. I should be sorry to ask you to give evidence against a comrade, or in any way to shake his authority, which we may still possibly stand much in need of. Is the captain, in your opinion, to blame for our mishap?” + 

“Yes and no, General. No, because the charts by which, according to rule, we must be guided, show a channel in this place. The charts were right, too, till within the last few years. Since then there has been a great deal of silting up, and also, in consequence of the west wind which has prevailed for some weeks, the water has been constantly falling. More prudent men avoid this spot on that account. I, for my part, should have avoided it.” + 

“Good! And what do you think of our situation? Are we in danger? or are we likely to be in danger?” + 

“I think not. The ship lies almost straight, and on smooth sand. If nothing new happens, it may lie so a long time.” + 

“The Captain is right, then, in keeping us on board?” + 

“I think so; all the more that the wind, for the first time for days past, seems inclined to veer round to the east, and if that happens, we have good grounds for supposing that we shall be afloat again in a few hours. However⁠—” + 

“However?” + 

“Man is liable to error, General. If the wind⁠—it is southeast now; the thing is not likely, but it is possible⁠—if the wind should get round to the west again, and blow harder, perhaps very hard, then there might be serious danger.” + 

“We ought, then, to take advantage of the Captain’s permission to leave the ship?” + 

“As the passage would be easy, and perfectly safe, I cannot at any rate advise against it; but then it should be done while there is still sufficient daylight: it would be best immediately.” + 

“And you? You would remain⁠—of course?” + 

“Of course, General.” + 

“Thank you.” + 

The General touched his cap with a slight bend of the head. Reinhold lifted his for a moment, returning the movement with a stiff bow. + 

“Well?” asked Elsa, as her father came back to her. + 

“The man must have been a soldier,” answered the General. + 

“Why so?” asked the President. + 

“I wish I could always get such clear, explicit reports from my officers. The case stands thus.” + 

He repeated what he had just heard from Reinhold, and wound up by saying that he would speak to the Captain about the immediate disembarkation of such passengers as wished it. + 

“For my part, I do not intend to put myself to such inconvenience, which may be unnecessary too, unless Elsa⁠—” + 

“I, papa!” cried Elsa, “I should not think of such a thing.” + 

The President was in much embarrassment. It was true that he had only that morning, on leaving Stettin, renewed a very slight former acquaintance with General von Werben; but now, after he had been in conversation with him all day, and had taken every opportunity of showing attentions to his daughter, he could not well do otherwise than declare, with a quiver of the lips, which was meant for a smile, that he would share with them as formerly the pleasures, so now the disagreeables of the journey. Should the worst come to the worst, the Prussian Government would be able to console itself for the loss of a president, who besides, as the father of six hopeful children, would have his name handed down to posterity, and could therefore make no claim upon the sympathy of his contemporaries. + 

Notwithstanding his resigned words, the worthy official was very uncomfortable at heart. In secret he cursed his own inconceivable thoughtlessness in having trusted himself to a “tub,” merely to be at home a day sooner, instead of waiting for the next day’s mail-boat; he cursed the General’s “stupid security,” and the young lady’s “coquettish affectation of courage,” and when a few minutes later the large boat was really launched, and in an incredibly short time, as it seemed to him, filled with the happily small number of deck passengers, and a few ladies and gentlemen from the after-cabin, and at first with a few powerful strokes of the oars, and soon after with sails hoisted, made all speed to the shore, he sighed deeply, and firmly resolved, at whatever cost, even at that of a scornful smile from the young lady’s lips, that he also would leave the ship before night. + 

And night was approaching only too rapidly for his fears. The evening glow in the western sky was fading with every minute, and from the east, from the open sea, it grew darker and darker. How long would it be before the land, which to his shortsighted eyes already appeared only as an indistinct outline through the evening mists, would disappear altogether from his sight? + 

And there could be no doubt, too, that the waves were rising higher every minute, here and there even for the first time that day showing crests of white foam, and breaking with ever-increasing force against the unlucky ship! Added to this the horrible creaking of the yards, the dismal howling of the wind in the rigging, the intolerable roaring and hissing of the steam, which was being almost incessantly let off from the overheated boiler! The boiler would blow up perhaps finally, and the shattered limbs of the man who but now was buttoning up his overcoat, would be sent flying hither and thither through the air. + 

The President grew so hot at this idea that he unbuttoned his coat and then buttoned it up again as he was struck by the ice-cold wind. + 

“It is unendurable!” muttered he. + 

Elsa had long since observed how very little the President liked remaining on board ship, and that he had only made up his mind to it with evident unwillingness, out of consideration for his travelling companions. + 

She had been maliciously amused at first with the embarrassment which he tried to conceal, but now her good-nature conquered. He was after all an elderly gentleman, and apparently not very strong, and a civilian! he could not of course be expected to have either the intrepid courage or the indifference to hardships of her father, who had not even put on his greatcoat yet, and was now taking his usual evening walk up and down the deck. But papa had made up his mind, once for all, to remain; it would be quite useless to try to persuade him to go. “He must devise some means!” said she to herself. + 

Reinhold had disappeared after his last words with her father, and was not now on the afterdeck; she went forward, therefore, and found him sitting on a great chest, looking through a pocket telescope towards the shore so intently that she had come close to him before he remarked her. He sprang hastily to his feet and turned towards her. + 

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

“They will land directly,” he answered. “Will you look through this?” + 

He handed her the glass. At the moment when she touched it the metal still retained some warmth from the hand which had held it. In general this was not at all a pleasant sensation to her, but on this occasion she did not perceive it. She thought of it for a moment as she tried to bring the spot which he pointed out to her within the focus of the glass. + 

The attempt was unsuccessful; she could see nothing but undefined mist. + 

“I would rather trust to my eyes!” cried she, putting down the telescope. “I can see it so, quite plainly, there close in shore⁠—in the white streak. What is that?” + 

“The surf.” + 

“What has become of the sail?” + 

“It has been taken in so as not to have too much way on as they run in. But really you have a sailor’s eye!” + 

Elsa smiled at the compliment, and Reinhold smiled too. Their looks met, and remained turned upon each other. + 

“I have a request to make to you,” said Elsa, without dropping her eyes. + 

“And I was about to make one to you,” answered he, looking steadily into the brown stars which shone up towards him, “I wanted to ask you also to go on shore. We shall be afloat in an hour, but the night will be stormy, and we shall be obliged to anchor as soon as we have passed Wissow Head.” He pointed to the promontory. “Under the best of circumstances the situation would not be pleasant, at the worst it might be very unpleasant. I should like to know that you were safe from either alternative.” + 

“Thank you,” said Elsa, “and now my request need not be made;” and she told Reinhold why she had come. + 

“That happens most fortunately,” cried he, “but there is not a moment to lose. I will speak to your father immediately. We must go at once.” + 

“We?” + 

“With your permission I will take you on shore myself.” + 

“Thank you,” said Elsa again, with a deep breath. She held out her hand to him; he took the small delicate hand in his, and again their looks met. + 

“That hand may be trusted,” thought Elsa, “and the eyes too!” And aloud she said: “You must not think, however, that I am afraid of remaining here! it is really only on the poor President’s account.” + 

She withdrew her hand, and hastened away towards her father, who was already surprised at her long absence, and now came in search of her. + 

In the act of following her, Reinhold saw lying at his feet a little pale grey glove. She must have dropped it just now, as she took the telescope. + 

He stooped quickly, picked it up, and put it in his pocket. + 

“She will not have that back again,” said he to himself. + 

III + 

Reinhold was right; there was not a moment to be lost. As the little boat which he steered cut through the foaming waters, the sky was gradually obscured by black clouds which threatened soon to extinguish the last gleam of light in the west. In addition to this the wind, which was blowing violently, veered suddenly round from south to north, and it became necessary, in order to enable the boat to return more quickly to the ship, to land at a different place from that where the large boat, which they already saw on its way back, had discharged its passengers. This had been at the fishing village of Ahlbeck, in the centre of the bay, immediately under Wissow Head. They were obliged to keep close to the wind, and more to the north, where there was hardly space for a single hut, far less for a fishing village, on the narrow beach under the bare dunes; and Reinhold might think himself fortunate in being just able to bring the boat round by a bold manoeuvre so near to the shore, that the landing of the travellers with the few articles of luggage which they had brought from the ship could be effected without much difficulty. + 

“I am afraid we have only fallen from the frying-pan into the fire,” said the President in a melancholy tone. + 

“It is a comfort to me that it is not our fault,” answered the General, not without some sharpness in his deep voice. + 

“Oh! certainly not, most surely not!” admitted the President; “mea maxima culpa! my own fault entirely, Fräulein von Werben. But you must confess that our situation is deplorable, really miserably deplorable!” + 

“I don’t know,” answered Elsa; “I think it is quite beautiful here.” + 

“I congratulate you with all my heart,” said the President; “but for my part I should prefer a fire, a wing of chicken, and half a bottle of St. Julien; but if it is a consolation only to have companions in misfortune, it is a double one to know that what to the sober experience of the one is a very real misfortune, appears to the youthful fancy of the other as a romantic adventure.” + 

The President had hit the mark, though he spoke in jest. The whole thing appeared to Elsa as a romantic adventure, in which she found most real and sincere pleasure. When Reinhold brought her the first news of the threatening danger, she was certainly startled, but not for a moment had she felt afraid, not even when angry men, shrieking women, and crying children had hurried from the ship, which seemed doomed to destruction, into the large boat, which tossed up and down on the dark waves, while from the open sea the evening drew in darkly and gloomily. The tall sailor with the bright blue eyes had said that there was no danger; he must know; then why should she be afraid? And if danger should arise, he was a man who would be sure to do the right thing at the right moment, and would know how to meet the danger. This feeling of security had not deserted her even when they came through the surf, the little boat tossing about like a nutshell in the foaming waves, the President as pale as death perpetually exclaiming, “Bless my soul!” and even her father’s grave face showing a shade of anxiety. She had only looked towards the man at the helm, and the blue eyes had shone as brightly as before, even more brightly as he smiled in answer to her inquiring glance. Then as the boat ran ashore, and the sailors carried the President, her father, and the two servants to land, and she stood at the end meditating a bold spring, she had found herself suddenly encircled by two strong arms, and so half carried, half springing, she hardly knew how, landed on dry ground without wetting the sole of her foot. + 

And so she now stood here, a few paces apart from the men, who were consulting together, wrapped in her cloak, and with a feeling of such happiness as she believed she had never yet experienced. How wonderfully beautiful it was, too! Before her the dark, raging, thundering, endless sea, over which the black and threatening night drew on; right and left as far as the eye could see the line of white foaming surf, the glorious moist wind blustering round her, howling in her ears, blowing her dress about, even driving some flecks of foam in her face; behind her the barren ghostly-looking dunes, on which, still visible against the lighter western sky, the long bent-grass was nodding and beckoning⁠—whither? further into this delightful, charming adventure, that was not ended yet, that could not end, that ought not to end! it would be too hard. + 

The gentlemen came towards her. + 

“Elsa,” said the General, “we have decided to make an expedition over the dunes inland. The fishing hamlet at which the larger boat landed is nearly a mile off, and the walk there in the deep sand would be too fatiguing for our good friend the President. Besides, we should hardly find any accommodation there.” + 

“If only we do not lose our way on the dunes!” sighed the President. + 

“Captain Schmidt’s knowledge of the ground will guarantee us against that,” said the General. + 

“I can hardly call it knowledge of the ground, General,” replied Reinhold. “I have only once, and that was six years ago, looked over the country inland from the top of these dunes; but I distinctly remember having seen a farmhouse, or something of the sort, in that direction. I will answer for finding the place; but what sort of accommodation there will be there I cannot venture to say.” + 

“At any rate we cannot spend the night here,” said the General; “so forwards! Will you take my arm, Elsa?” + 

“No, thank you, papa. I can get up without it.” + 

And Elsa sprang up the side of the dune after Reinhold, who, hastening forward, had already reached the top; while her father and the President followed more slowly, and the two servants with the baggage brought up the rear. + 

“Well,” cried Elsa gaily, as somewhat breathless she came up to Reinhold, “are we at the end of our resources, like the President?” + 

“You may laugh,” answered Reinhold, “but I begin to feel a little anxious already about the responsibility I have taken on myself. There⁠—” and he pointed over some lower dunes inland where the advancing evening mist obscured all individual objects⁠—“it must be there.” + 

“Must be there if you are right! but must you be right?” + 

As if in answer to her mocking question, a light suddenly appeared in the precise direction in which Reinhold’s outstretched arm pointed. A strange thrill of terror struck Elsa. + 

“Forgive me!” said she. + 

Reinhold did not know what her exclamation meant. At this moment the others also surmounted the steep hill. + 

“Per aspera ad astra!” panted the President. + 

“I congratulate you, sir!” said the General. + 

“There was a good deal of luck in it,” answered Reinhold modestly. + 

“And people must have luck, I suppose!” cried Elsa, who had quickly conquered that curious feeling, and now relapsed into her gay spirits. + 

The little company proceeded farther over the dunes. Reinhold again in front, while Elsa now kept with the other gentlemen. + 

“It is curious enough,” said the General, “that our mishap should occur just at this part of the coast. It really seems as if we were to be punished for our opposition; and certainly if my opinion that a harbour for men-of-war would be of no good here does remain unshaken, it seems to me now that we ourselves have nearly suffered shipwreck here, that a harbour of some sort⁠—” + 

“Is an object devoutly to be wished!” cried the President; “heaven knows it is. And when I think of the fearful cold I shall catch from this nocturnal walk in the horrible wet sand, and that I might instead be sitting in a comfortable railway carriage, and could sleep in my own bed tonight, I repent of every word that I have spoken against the railroad, and on account of which I have quarrelled with all our great people here, and not least with Count Golm, whose friendship now would be very convenient to us.” + 

“How so?” asked the General. + 

“Castle Golm, according to my reckoning, is only four or five miles inland from here; the little shooting-box on the Golmberg⁠—” + 

“I remember,” interrupted the General; “the second headland to the north⁠—on our right. We cannot be much more than a couple of miles from it.” + 

“You see,” said the President, “how convenient that would be! and the Count is probably there. To speak the truth, I have been secretly counting on his hospitality, in case, as I greatly fear, we cannot find decent accommodation at the farmhouse, and you will not overcome your objection to going to Warnow, which certainly would be the simplest and most comfortable arrangement.” + 

The President, who had spoken with many pauses and pantings for breath, here stood still; the General answered in a morose tone: + 

“You know that I am not on terms with my sister.” + 

“But you said that the Baroness was in Italy.” + 

“She was to return about this time; has perhaps already returned, and if she were not I would not go to Warnow, if it were but ten paces from here. But we must hasten to get under shelter, or to all that we have already gone through we shall add a thorough ducking.” + 

For some time past, in fact, single drops had been falling from the thickening masses of cloud, and they had just with quickened steps reached the farmyard, and groped their way between two barns or outhouses, over very uneven ground, to the house from whose window the light gleamed, when the storm, which had long been threatening, broke in full fury. + 

IV + 

It was a small, low house, strangely disproportioned to the tall, broad-shouldered man, whose attention had been called by the furious barking of the yard-dog, and who now, thrusting back a yelping cur with his foot, received the belated guests in the doorway which he nearly filled. Small and low also was the room on the left hand into which he led them, and very scanty its furniture. + 

There was another room opposite, said Herr Pölitz; but he was not quite sure whether it was in order. He hoped, too, that they would excuse his wife; she could not come to them at once, but would soon have the honour of waiting upon them. + 

As the man spoke he arranged chairs with awkward politeness at the large round table which stood before the hard little sofa, and invited them to sit down. His hospitable efforts were evidently well meant, but there was a depressed tone in his voice which did not escape Elsa. She begged to be allowed to go in search of the mistress of the house, and without waiting for permission left the room, but came back in a few minutes, and after sending away the farmer under the pretence that his wife wanted to speak to him, said: + 

“We cannot remain here; these good people, with whom affairs do not seem to be very prosperous, have two sick children; the poor woman does not know which way to turn; it would be cruel to add to her anxiety by asking her to entertain so many guests.” + 

“Then there really remains nothing to be done but to claim hospitality from the Count,” said the President, turning to the General; “the Count and I are the best friends in the world; our little differences are quite beside the question in such a case as this. Besides, he is very likely not at his shooting-lodge, and we shall only have to do with his steward. It is altogether my opinion that we should migrate to Golmberg. The only question is how to get there?” + 

The farmer, who had meanwhile returned to the room, would not hear of the proposal. The weather was frightful, and even should the rain soon stop, the roads were bad; his wife would manage; the gentlefolk would make allowances. + 

The gentlemen looked irresolutely at each other, but Elsa stood firm. + 

“Men know nothing about such things,” said she; “this is woman’s business, and I have settled it all with your wife, Herr Pölitz. She is making me a cup of coffee now, and the gentlemen shall have some brandy and water. And while we refresh ourselves Herr Pölitz shall send a man on horseback to announce us at Golmberg, so that we may not arrive quite unexpectedly. If the Count is at home we owe him so much consideration; if he is not, so much the better⁠—we shall only have to do with the steward. Then when the rain has stopped, Herr Pölitz will have the horses put to⁠—” + 

“I have only a cart to offer you,” said the farmer. + 

“And that will be quite sufficient,” cried Elsa; “a carriage would not be at all suitable for shipwrecked people. And now, Herr Pölitz, do you be as good and wise as your good, wise little wife!” + 

She gave her two hands to the farmer. There was a strange quiver in the man’s sunburnt face. + 

“You are a good young lady,” he murmured, as he tightly pressed the little hands that lay in his. + 

The President had already taken a leaf from his pocketbook, and sat down at the farmer’s little desk to write his announcement. + 

“What did you say was your name, Captain?” he asked over his shoulder. + 

Reinhold was no longer in the room; he must just have left it. The maid who came in with the coffee told them that the gentleman had put on his macintosh in the outer-room, and said that he must see what had become of the steamer. + 

“A true sailor!” said the General. “He cannot rest in peace; it would be just the same with me.” + 

“I suppose we must include him? what do you think?” asked the President in a low voice of Elsa. + 

“Certainly!” said Elsa, with decision. + 

“Perhaps he does not wish it?” + 

“Possibly; but we must not leave the decision to him. His name is Schmidt.” + 

“Classical name,” murmured the President, bending over his paper. + 

The messenger was sent off; the farmer came in to keep the gentlemen company, while Elsa went back to the wife in the smoky little kitchen to tell her what had been arranged. + 

“I must thank you,” said the woman; “but it is hard, very hard⁠—” She pressed the corner of her apron to her eyes, and turned away to the fire. “I do not mean about thanking you,” she continued; “but I am sorry for my husband; it is the first time I am sure that he ever allowed guests to leave his house in this way.” + 

“It is only on account of the children,” said Elsa. + 

“Yes, yes,” said the woman; “but we have had the children ill before, without being obliged to trouble other people about it. That was when we lived at Swantow, three miles from here; that is the Count’s property too. We married there six years ago, but times were too hard, and the rent too high.” + 

“Could not the Count have helped you?” + 

“The Count?” + 

The woman looked up with a sad smile on her worn face. She seemed about to say something, but left it unsaid, and busied herself silently over her pots. + 

“Is not the Count a kind man?” asked Elsa. + 

“He is not married,” answered the woman; “he does not know what a father and mother feel when they must leave the house and farm where their first children were born, and where they had hoped to see them all grow up; and we should have got on here, though the rent is too high here also, if it had not been for the war. My husband had to go out with the Landwehr, and our two best men as well. I worked hard, even beyond my strength, but what can a poor woman do? Ah! my dear young lady, you know nothing of such trouble, and God grant that you never may!” + 

Elsa had seated herself on a stool, and was gazing into the flames. If she had known this before! She had thought that the Count was married. Strange, strange, that she had not asked about it; that the others had not mentioned it! If he should be at the castle, she was with her father and the good President certainly; but when Aunt Sidonie heard of it she would think it very improper; and if only he were a nice man, so that she could say on meeting him that she had already heard so much good of him from his tenants⁠—it was most vexatious. Was it too late to change? + 

One of the children in the room next to the kitchen began to cry loudly; the farmer’s wife hastened away. + 

“It is most vexatious,” repeated Elsa. + 

A pot on the fire threatened to boil over; she moved it on one side, not without blackening her hands with soot. The wind, which roared down the chimney, drove the smoke in her face. The ill-fitting window rattled; the child in the next room cried more pitifully. + 

“Poor woman,” sighed Elsa; “there is something terrible in being poor. I wonder whether he is poor? he does not seem rich. How does a merchant captain like that live when he is not at sea? Perhaps after all he is married, as the Count is unmarried; or does he love someone in a distant country, of whom he thinks while he paces the deck so restlessly? I must find that out before we part; I shall find an opportunity. And then I shall ask him to congratulate her from me, and to tell her that she will have a husband of whom she may be proud, of whom any girl might be proud. I mean a girl in his own station. For instance I⁠—absurd! one does not marry for a pair of honest eyes, particularly when disinheritance would be the result of such a mésalliance! It is a curious arrangement, but Schmidt is not a pretty name: Frau Schmidt!” + 

She laughed, and then suddenly her heart softened strangely, and tears came into her eyes. She felt for her handkerchief, and found something hard in her pocket. It was the little compass which he had given to her in the boat, when she was sitting by him and wanted to know the direction in which he was steering. She opened the case and looked inside. On the cover was prettily inlaid in gold letters the name, Reinhold Schmidt; and the needle trembled and pointed away from her, and always quivered in the same direction towards the name, however often she turned and twisted the case in her hands. + 

“As if it were seeking Reinhold Schmidt!” said Elsa; “how faithful it is! And I would be faithful if I once loved, and would stand by my husband, and cherish and tend the children⁠—and in six years’ time look as faded and pale and worn, as the poor woman here, who must certainly have been a very pretty girl. Thank heaven that I am not in love!” + 

She shut the case, slipped it back into her pocket, and looking into the little room where all was now still, said: “The water boils, but remain there, dear Frau Pölitz. I will take it in to the gentlemen;” and to herself she said: “He must be back now.” + 

Reinhold had left the room and the house, to look after the steamer, about which he was still anxious. + 

The storm had broken sooner and more violently than he had expected. If the ship had not got afloat beforehand, much harm, perhaps the worst might be feared. He reproached himself for not having remained on board, where his presence at this moment might be so urgently needed. It was true that it was only by agreeing to go himself that they had overcome the obstinacy of the General, who would certainly otherwise have remained, and his daughter with him. But what did he owe them? For the matter of that he did not owe anything to the ship⁠—certainly not: and the obstinate old Captain had bluntly and flatly rejected his advice. But yet⁠—it is the soldier’s duty to go to the front when the cannon are thundering; he knew that from the war; he had himself often done it with his breathless panting comrades, all inspired with but one idea: Shall we arrive in time? And now before him the thunder rolled nearer and nearer, as he hastily climbed the hill; but what good could he do now? + 

Thank God! the ship was out of danger! There⁠—a couple of miles farther to the south⁠—easily visible to the quick eyes in spite of night, and rain, and distance⁠—glimmered a spark of light. And now the spark vanished; it could only be behind Wissow Head, where, on the best anchorage-ground, the steamer might peacefully weather out the storm. Thank God. + 

He had foreseen and foretold it; and yet it seemed to him as a special favour from heaven. And after that he could humbly submit to the pain of having seen that beautiful girl for the last time. Yes, for the last time. At the moment when they reached the safe shelter to which he had promised to guide them, his services ended. Whatever happened now was nothing to him; that was the General’s affair. If they chose to move to the castle, for him there would be always a place at the farmhouse. He had only now to return once more, and say, “Farewell!⁠—farewell!” + 

He said it twice⁠—three times! He said it again and again as if it were the word that sounded in every wave that broke in thunder on the shore below him; the word that was whispered in the rough grass under his feet; the word that the wind moaned and wailed in long melancholy tones through the barren dunes; the word that sounded at every beat of his heart on which her glove lay, and on which he now kept his hand pressed close, as if the storm might tear his treasure from him, the only token that in future could say to him it was something more after all than a wild, delicious dream! + 

How long he thus stood dreaming in the dark blustering night he knew not, when he at last roused himself to return. The storm and the rain were less violent; here and there a star shone through the driving clouds. An hour at least must have gone by; he should certainly not find her now. And yet he walked quicker and quicker through the narrow sandy path which led through the fields to the farm. In the shortest possible time he had reached it, and stood now in the entrance between the two outhouses. Lighted lanterns were flickering about in the little farmyard, and before the house shone brighter lights, in whose glow he distinguished the outline of a carriage and horses and some dark figures busied about the carriage. They were not gone then! + 

A sudden fear thrilled through him. Should he plunge back into the darkness? Should he go forward? Perhaps they had only waited for him, were still waiting? Well, then, so be it; an obligation of courtesy! It would cost nothing to anyone but himself. + 

V + 

The President had not been waiting for his return, nor even for that of the mounted messenger, but rather to give the storm time to abate a little. + 

“Only a very little,” said he; “it cannot signify whether we arrive half an hour earlier or later; and as for our nocturnal drive in an open cart on our roads, my dear young lady, we shall always experience that soon enough and painfully enough.” + 

The President smiled, and so did Elsa, from politeness; but her smile had little heart in it. She felt uneasy and restless, she herself hardly knew why. Was it because their stay in the low, cramped, stuffy little house was being prolonged? Was it because their departure could not be many minutes delayed, and the Captain had not yet returned? The gentlemen could not understand his long absence either; could he have lost his way on the dunes in the darkness? It seemed hardly possible for a man like him. Could he have hastened to the fishing village to procure help for the endangered steamer? But a farm-servant, who had just come in from the shore, and⁠—like all the people about here⁠—was thoroughly at home in all seafaring matters, had seen the steamer steering southwards, and disappearing behind Wissow Head. That supposition therefore fell through. But what could it be? + 

“Have I affronted him in any way?” Elsa asked herself. “He has seen me today for the first time; he does not, cannot know that it is my way to joke and laugh at things; that I do it with everybody. Aunt Sidonie scolds me enough about it. But after all, she is right. One may do it to one’s equals, even to superiors⁠—towards inferiors, never. Inferior? He is a gentleman, whatever else he is. I have nothing to reproach myself with, but that I have treated him as if he were our equal, as I would have treated any of our young officers.” + 

She went back to the sickroom to ask the woman whether it were really impossible to procure a doctor. The farmer, to whom she had addressed the same inquiry, had shaken his head. + 

“The young lady thinks it would be so easy,” said he to the gentlemen, when Elsa had left the room; “but the nearest doctor is at Prora, and that is a three hours’ drive, and three back, besides his time here. Who can blame the doctor if he thinks twice before he makes up his mind to the journey? In summertime, and fine weather, he might come by boat, that is easier and simpler; but now, with our roads⁠—” + 

“Yes, yes,” said the President; “the roads, the roads! The Government cannot do as much there as it would like. The communes moan and groan as soon as we touch the tender place. Your Count, Herr Pölitz, is one of the worst grumblers at the Communal Assemblies!” + 

“Notwithstanding that he throws all the burden upon us,” answered the farmer; “and he has made our lives hard enough already. Yes, sir, I say it openly; and I have said it to the Count’s own face.” + 

“And what do you think about the railroad?” asked the President, with a glance at the General. + 

A bitter smile came upon the farmer’s face. + 

“What I think of it?” he returned. “Well, sir, we all had to sign the petition. It looked very well upon paper, but unfortunately we do not believe a word of it. What do we want with a railway? We have no money to spend upon travelling, and the little wool and corn that we sell when things go well, we could carry to the market at Prora in an hour and a half, if we only had a high-road, or even a good road of any sort, as we easily might have if the Count and the rest of the gentry would put their shoulders to the wheel. And then, as you know, sir, the sea is our real high-road, and will always be so; it is shorter, and certainly cheaper than the railway.” + 

“But as to the harbour!” asked the President, again looking at the General. + 

“I do not understand anything about that, sir,” answered the farmer; “the General will know more about it. For my part I only know that it would be very difficult to build a harbour in our sand, which is blown by the wind here today and there tomorrow, and that we country people and the sailors and fishermen need no harbour, whether for war or peace; and that the best and only thing for us would be just a breakwater, and a certain amount of regular dredging. Railroad, harbour, ah! yes, they will swallow up many a tree that will be cut down for them and turned into money, and many an acre of sand which is not worth sixpence now, and many an acre of good land too, on which now some poor man drags on his life in the sweat of his brow, who will then have to take his staff in his hand, and set out for America, if there is still room there for the like of us.” + 

The man’s rough voice trembled as he spoke the last words, and he passed the back of his sunburnt hand across his forehead. The President looked at the General again, but this time not inquiringly as before. The General rose from his seat, walked a few paces about the room, and went to the window which he opened. + 

“The messenger is a long time,” said he. + 

“I will go and look after him,” said the farmer, leaving the room. + 

The General shut the window, and turned quickly to the President: + 

“Do you know, I wish we had not sent to Golmberg. Our visit there, however involuntary it may be, puts us under an obligation to the Count, and⁠—” + 

The General rubbed his high forehead that was already getting bald at the temples, and angrily pulled his thick grey moustache; the President shrugged his shoulders. + 

“I am in a much more ticklish position,” said he. + 

“It is different with you,” answered the General; “you are acquainted with him, on friendly terms: you have been so, at any rate. And you cannot altogether avoid intercourse with him; business must bring you constantly together; this is only one instance amongst many. I, on the other hand⁠—” + 

The President smiled. + 

“My dear General,” said he, “you speak as if intercourse with the Count were a serious matter in itself! Confess now, it is not the stupid business of the railway and harbour that have set you against the Count, but the conversation of the worthy farmer.” + 

“Are the man’s complaints unfounded?” asked the General, turning on his heel. + 

The President again shrugged his shoulders. + 

“That is as you choose to consider it. The Count might perhaps do more for his tenants, but we must not be too hard upon him. The property was heavily embarrassed when he came into it as a very young man. To retain it at all it was necessary to raise the rents as high as possible. He was not in the happy position of your late brother-in-law, who allowed himself to be guided rather by the impulses of his kind heart than by economic considerations in his leases. The Warnow property falls in next Easter, does it not? You will be obliged then, as one of the trustees, to concern yourself more particularly about the condition of affairs here. Who knows whether this day year you will lend so willing an ear to the complaints of people whose discontent with everything has become a second nature?” + 

“I shall then, as I have hitherto invariably done, abstain as far as possible from all direct interference in the matter,” answered the General hastily. “You know that I have only once inspected the property, as was my duty when, six and twenty years ago, Herr von Wallbach, Councillor Schieler, and I had to undertake the care of the estate after my brother-in-law’s death, and since then I have left everything in Schieler’s hands. I have never since been here, and now⁠—” + 

“You are here,” cried the President, “by the strangest accident, undoubtedly; but a wise man, and a soldier too, must allow for strange accidents in his calculations. I think the rain has stopped, and if we cannot remain here, it is high time to mount our cart. I had almost said the scaffold.” + 

The President put aside the rug which he had carefully spread over his knees, rose from the corner of the little sofa, and came up to the General at the window. At this moment the yard-dog began to bark furiously, the farmer’s little terrier rushed yelping out at the housedoor; two bright lights appeared between the outhouses, followed soon by others, and the trampling of horses and rolling of wheels sounded on the uneven pavement. + 

“It is the Count himself, I will wager!” cried the President, forgetting all the General’s scruples and considerations at the joyful sight of the carriage. “Thank heaven! we shall not at any rate be tortured! My dear Count, how very kind of you!” + 

And he cordially stretched out both hands to the gentleman who quickly came in at the door which the farmer opened for him. + 

VI + 

The Count responded no less cordially to the President’s greeting. + 

“Kind!” he exclaimed, holding fast the other’s hands; “and kind of me? Why it is kind indeed, wonderfully kind; but of you, of all of you, to be cast here on the heights of Golmberg, to be thrown upon this most inhospitable shore⁠—inhospitable because no creature ever comes to us, or can come from that side. And now may I ask you to be so kind as to introduce me to General von Werben?” + 

He turned towards the General, who answered his extremely courteous bow with some reserve. + 

“It is not the first time that I have had the pleasure,” said he; “I had the honour formerly at Versailles⁠—” + 

“I could not have believed that General von Werben would have remembered so insignificant a matter,” cried the Count, “a poor knight of St. John!” + 

“Our meeting occurred on a very remarkable day,” said the General; “on the 18th of January.” + 

“The day of the proclamation of the German Empire!” interrupted the President, to whom the General’s last remark, and the tone in which he made it, seemed of doubtful courtesy; “and here comes our heroine! Fräulein Elsa von Werben, here is our deliverer in the time of need: Count von Golm.” + 

“I am highly honoured,” said the Count. + 

Elsa, who had just entered the room, answered only by a bow. + 

“Now we are all assembled,” cried the President, rubbing his hands. + 

“Captain Schmidt is still missing,” said Elsa, looking beyond the Count to her father. + 

“I am only afraid that we shall put the Count’s patience to too great a trial,” answered the General in a tone of annoyance. + 

“I put myself absolutely at your disposal,” said the Count; “but may I ask what the question is?” + 

“There is another gentleman with us, a captain in the merchant service,” said the General. + 

“Whom I mentioned to you,” interrupted the President. “He went out again after our arrival here to look after the steamer. I almost think that he must have lost his way among the sandhills, or that some accident has happened to him.” + 

“Some men with lanterns should be sent after him,” exclaimed the Count. “I will give the order at once.” + 

And he moved towards the door. + 

“You need not trouble yourself,” cried Elsa; “it has already been done at my request.” + 

“Oh!” said the Count, with a smile; “indeed!” + 

The blood rose to Elsa’s cheek. As she came into the room, and the Count turned quickly towards her⁠—with his regular features and clear bright colouring, set off by a fair moustache⁠—she had thought him good-looking, even handsome; the smile made him positively ugly. Why should he smile? She drew herself up to her full height. + 

“Captain Schmidt rendered us the most essential service during our passage; we have to thank him that we are here in safety. It seems to me only our duty not to leave him in the lurch now.” + 

“But, my dear madam, I am quite of your opinion!” said the Count, and smiled again. + 

The veins in Elsa’s temples were throbbing. She cast a reproachful glance at her father. Why did he leave her to defend a cause which after all was his? She did not know that her father was extremely vexed at the turn the conversation had taken, and was only doubting whether he could not use the Captain’s absence as a pretext to avoid for himself and his daughter at least the Count’s hospitality. She did not hear either with what marked emphasis he agreed to the necessity for waiting still some time longer, as she had left the room after her last words. + 

In the little entrance, in which through the wide open door the light from the carriage lamps now brightly shone, she stood still and pressed her slender hands against her brow. What had come over her so suddenly? Why had she been so eager? To provoke a stranger’s smile by her over-eagerness, to draw upon herself the suspicion of taking a too lively interest in the person, when it was only the cause she cared about, only that a debt of courtesy, to say nothing of gratitude, might be paid? Supposing the people who seemed to be just leaving the yard with their lanterns should not find him? How long might she still wait? When ought she to say, We must start? Or, supposing he returned only to say that he was not thinking of going with them, and that childish scene had been acted for nothing? For the third time, and now with right and reason, the Count might smile. + 

“That I could not bear!” said Elsa, and stamped her foot. + 

A figure stood in the outer doorway; his wet macintosh shining in the light of the lanterns, the waterproof cap shining, and the eyes in the brown-bearded face shining too⁠—and it all looked so odd and so funny, that Elsa laughed aloud, and laughing exclaimed: + 

“Have you come straight out of the water, Captain Schmidt? They are getting frightened about you in here. Make haste and come in. We must be off at once.” + 

“I had thought of remaining here,” said Reinhold. + 

Elsa’s laugh was checked. She made a step towards Reinhold: + 

“I wish you would come with us. You must.” + 

She disappeared into the passage which led on the right to the kitchen and the children’s room. Had it been jest or earnest? Her voice had trembled so oddly at the words, and her large eyes had shone so strangely! + 

The door opened; the General appeared on the threshold, with the two other gentlemen behind him. + 

“Ah, Captain Schmidt!” said the General. + 

“At last!” exclaimed the President. “You must tell us by-and-by where you have been hiding. This is Captain Schmidt, Count Golm. You are ready, I suppose, Fräulein von Werben?” + 

“I am ready,” said Elsa, who, in hat and cloak, accompanied by the farmer’s wife, appeared again in the entrance. “I think we are all ready, are we not, Captain Schmidt?” + 

“At your orders,” answered Reinhold. + 

“Well, then, goodbye, dear Frau Pölitz! a thousand, thousand thanks for your kindness! and as to the children, you must really send for the doctor, or you will wear yourself to death.” + 

Elsa had spoken the last words so loud, that the Count could not but hear them. + 

“Are your children ill, Frau Pölitz?” he asked. + 

“Very ill,” answered Elsa. “And Frau Pölitz declares that she cannot expect the doctor to come so far. + 

“I will myself send from Golmberg to Prora,” said the Count hastily: “of course; depend upon it Frau Pölitz! the doctor shall be here tonight⁠—tonight!” + 

“Then we will not lose another moment,” cried Elsa, hastening to lead the way to the carriage. + 

VII + 

The Count had made his arrangements very comfortably. A groom with a lantern rode in front; next came the close carriage, in which the General, Elsa, and the President took their seats; then a dogcart with himself and Reinhold; finally a small luggage-cart for the servants, who were joined by his own man. + 

In the luggage-cart they were very cheerful. + 

“Do you always carry so much baggage with you?” asked the Count’s servant, giving the carpetbag a contemptuous kick. + 

“The rest is on board ship still,” answered Johann; “but the President never takes much with him; little and good is what he says.” + 

“Just like my General,” said August; “it is always the case with us military men. In France we had only one trunk from first to last.” + 

“We had six,” said the Count’s servant. + 

“Were you there too, then?” + 

“Of course, as knights of St. John.” + 

“That is a fine thing!” + 

“It was very fine for me!” cried the man. “I would go again tomorrow: wine and women to one’s heart’s content. My master knows what is what, I can tell you. I should not stay six weeks with a man like your General.” + 

“It is not so bad, after all,” said August; “if one only does one’s confounded duty one can get on with him; it is not so easy, I allow, with the Fräulein.” + 

“Oh! but she looked a very good sort.” + 

“Yes, she! but the old lady, the General’s sister; we have no wife, you know.” + 

“I never serve in a house where there is a wife,” said the Count’s servant, “and above all children.” + 

“Then you would not do with us,” said Johann; “we have got a wife and a houseful of young gentlemen and ladies; one of them is married already even. How is it with you?” + 

“Oh! we are a widower,” said August, “not long since, after I came into his service, that may be about five years ago. Since then Fräulein Sidonie is by way of managing the household⁠—I should think so! That is to say, she would like to manage it; but as far as our young lady can, she won’t let it be taken out of her hands. Thank goodness! The old lady was a maid of honour once, at a court where the very mice don’t get enough to eat. That is always the worst sort. We have got a young gentleman, too, the lieutenant. Ah! he’s a thoughtless one. Good Lord! whatever comes into his hands doesn’t stay long! But I have no harm to say of him; live and let live is a good motto. He throws a hard word at your head, and a thaler after it. If he only had more of them!” + 

“With my old gentleman there are no hard words, but no thalers either,” said Johann. + 

“And with my Count hard words enough, but no thalers,” grumbled the other. + 

“Well, but you said⁠—” + 

“Oh, one must understand how to manage it, you know. In perquisites one can make it up.” + 

“Ah; in that way!” said Johann. + 

“That is another matter,” said August. + 

“For instance this bottle of cognac here,” cried the Count’s servant, pulling out a flask; “how do you like that?” + 

“Not so bad,” said August. + 

“Particularly in this cold!” said Johann, “it is like December!” + 

While the servants passed the bottle merrily round, amid talk and laughter, in the first carriage, the President, who now that he foresaw a comfortable end to his uncomfortable adventure, had quite recovered his good-humour, had almost alone sustained the burden of conversation. As a suitable introduction to their visit to the Castle, he gave a succinct sketch of the Count’s genealogy. The family was one of the oldest in the island, probably even older than the Princes of Prora, whom they had formerly rivalled in wealth, influence, and power. Latterly they had certainly been going down hill, especially from the extravagance of the great grandfather of the present man, the builder of the castles of Golm and Golmberg, who had spent also fabulous sums upon the celebrated picture gallery at Golm, and the collection of armour at the shooting-lodge. + 

The grandfather, a careful man, had settled the fragments of the property in an entail⁠—fortunately!⁠—for the father of the present Count, his late dear old friend, had followed in the steps of his grandfather. + 

In the character of the present man, as so often happened in old families, might be seen blended in the most curious manner both his ancestral qualities, frugality and extravagance. At one moment you would take him for a mere fine gentleman, the next he would surprise you by the display of qualities which you would only expect to find in a speculative man of business. + 

“Such talents do not make the descendant of an ancient family more respectable in my eyes, Herr von Sanden,” said the General. + 

In the darkness of the carriage the President allowed himself an ironical smile; the General called him for the first time today by his own name, evidently to remind him that he too was of an ancient family. + 

“Neither do they in mine,” replied he; “but I am not now criticising, only characterising.” + 

“There are some characteristics which criticise⁠—and judge themselves.” + 

“You are sharp, General; sharp and severe, as a soldier should be; I, as a Government official, having more to do with worldly business than I very often like, am glad to keep to the good old saying ‘Judge not, that you be not judged.’ ” + 

“And I gladly hold to another, which, if not so sacred, is at least as old, perhaps older; as old, that is, as nobility itself⁠—Noblesse oblige!” + 

The President smiled again in the darkness. + 

“A two-edged saying,” said he, “at all times; but more so now than ever.” + 

“Why so?” + 

“Because our situation was never so precarious as it is now. In the dusty arena in which, in this levelling century of ours, the battle for existence must be fought out, we have long stood on the same ground with the classes which have been pressing upon us from behind, or rather indeed are already against us; but sun and wind are not evenly distributed. Many weapons, of which the middle classes avail themselves with immense success, are forbidden to us, for noblesse oblige. Very fine! We have no longer any special privileges⁠—Heaven forbid!⁠—but special duties enough. We are to keep our position in the state, and in society, and always to preserve our superior moral qualities! And often enough that is a very difficult matter, sometimes impossible; it is expecting a man to square the circle! Take such a position as the Count’s here. He did not choose it for himself; he was born to it. He came into a mass of debts, which he might no doubt have lessened by mere humdrum frugality; but it would have been a long process, for a high-spirited young man inconveniently long. He thinks now that he has discovered a way by which he may attain the eagerly-desired end in the shortest possible time, and make good all the sins of his forefathers at one blow. And if our ancestors do not, as in this case, make our lives a burden to us, then our descendants do it. Nine-tenths of our nobility could tell you a tale about that, and I among others. The proletariate of officials is no chimera, but sober reality; and I wish to Heaven I could drive my six-in-hand through life over a smoother road than we are condemned to travel upon here; for what sins of our ancestors or descendants I know not. Mon dieu! I think the Count must mean to show us the necessity of the railroad, which he is so certain⁠—Oh! it really is abominable. It is impossible to talk comfortably when one’s words are so shaken and jolted out of one’s mouth.” + 

The President was not sorry to break off a conversation which was taken up in such a very different spirit on the other side. He did not know how disagreeable the turn it had lately taken must be to the General, to whose circumstances every word fitted so cruelly, who was so painfully reminded of these circumstances by the situation in which they now were! How he had hated this part of the country for many a long year! He had avoided setting foot in it as far as was possible, notwithstanding the pressing occasion for doing so caused by his trusteeship for his deceased brother-in-law’s estates. He had even, for the first and last time in his life, almost neglected his official duty when the project of the harbour had first arisen, and instead of informing himself on the spot of the state of matters, he had sent Captain von Schönau here in his place, and had even transferred to Colonel Sattelstädt the duty which properly fell to himself of making a report upon the business. And now after all he found himself here shaken and jolted over these horrible roads, and with all his gloomiest thoughts reawakened in him. It was a miserable irony of fate, but he had played into its hands by his foolish weakness. They might so perfectly have remained on board ship, and would have been spared all these delays and discomforts, all the considerations that must be attended to, and the obligations that must be undertaken. + 

And then Elsa’s extraordinary behaviour to the Count! To make a request of him at her first meeting with a man whom he would so gladly have avoided, and whose civilities were already oppressive to him! As if they had not enough to do to think of themselves! What in the world did it signify to her how or whether these farmers got the doctor? No, no! it was a part of Elsa’s character to give help wherever she could; and here as ever she had shown herself his good noble-hearted daughter; but it was unlucky for all that, very unlucky! + 

While her father thus worked himself into worse and worse spirits, a shade of melancholy had fallen even upon Elsa’s cheerful temper. She had hardly heard anything of the conversation between the two men. She was meditating uneasily upon the nature of the request that she had made, at least indirectly, to the Count; but there had been such a despairing look on the pale face of the poor farmer’s wife at the last moment, as she came out of the sick children’s room to take leave of her guests, that she had followed the impulse which crossed her mind without considering whether she thus put herself into a false position. He might take it as he pleased; so much the worse for him, if he did not take it as he ought. + 

Could she with a good conscience say the same as regarded Captain Schmidt? She was now nearly certain that he had only remained absent so long to allow them to drive away⁠—to separate himself from them for good or for evil. + 

Why should he leave them? Perhaps he was not at his ease with them; perhaps it was unpleasant and awkward for him to join in the society that he would find at the castle? to be drawn into the conversation which would arise at table, and in which he could not take a part? which he would probably not even understand! And then to see him sitting there, confused, awkward! the lips compelled to silence which had given the brief words of command with such strong, clear tones, amidst the howling of the wind and the thundering of the waves! and the blue eyes troubled and confused which had shone so brightly in the hour of danger. What a pity to lose the beautiful, delightful recollection, as if a successful sketch were to be spoiled by adding careless inappropriate touches! + 

And what would he think of her insisting upon his joining their party again? For she really had insisted upon it! What in the world had she been thinking of? Had she really only wanted to look for a few hours longer at the handsome sunburnt face and the blue eyes, in sheer defiance of the Count, in whose face the question, “Am I not a handsome man?” was so clearly written. What were the two talking about? or were they sitting as silently together as she in her narrow prison here, to the close atmosphere of which it was, of course, owing that her heart was beating so nervously!⁠—Oh! + 

The front wheels stuck fast in one of the deep ruts made by heavy wagons in the soft sandy soil, the spirited horses started forward, and Elsa fell into the arms of the President, who was sitting opposite to her. + 

“I must apologise for the length of my unfortunate nose,” said the President in a melancholy voice, wiping away the tears which ran down his thin cheeks. + 

Elsa laughed, and laughed the more heartily from the absurd contrast of this ridiculous scene to the gloomy and sentimental thoughts from which she had been so suddenly startled. + 

The gentlemen in the other carriage had had no reason to complain of want of fresh air. After the heavy rain it had really grown cold; and though their almost constantly uphill road lay mostly through thick woods, where the great beeches gave them some shelter, the east wind struck them all the more sharply at the open parts which they had to pass. The Count was freezing, notwithstanding his cloak; and he took for mere perversity or bravado Reinhold’s assurance that he was too much inured to wind and weather to feel cold now, and that he really did not require the rug offered to him. The fellow was a most unnecessary and burdensome addition to the party. On his account he had given up the fourth seat in the close carriage, and therewith the neighbourhood of that charming girl, very likely quite unnecessarily. In the haste with which, on his return from shooting, he had read the President’s note, he had taken the captain spoken of for some aide-de-camp or other member of the General’s staff, to whom he must of course pay proper attention. He had now discovered, to his astonishment, that he was only a merchant captain, whose acquaintance with the rest of the party was but a few hours old, who appeared to have been of some small service during the passage from the steamer to the shore; and who, if it was necessary to take him with them at all, might have found a place in the luggage-cart. What was he to say to the fellow? Was there any occasion indeed for speaking to him at all? The Count came to the conclusion that there was no occasion, and that he did more than could be required of him in letting fall from time to time a few words about the roads, the weather, or such matters. + 

Reinhold, who did not feel quite sure if these brief utterances were fragments of a soliloquy, or awkward attempts to begin a conversation, answered when it seemed required of him, and at other times pursued his own thoughts. + 

There, on the dusky background of the wind-stirred trees, he saw her again as he had seen her today for the first time against the blue of the morning sky. Again he saw the slight graceful figure, and the fair face with its delicate yet expressive features; again the brown eyes shone upon him which had looked at him so mockingly and fearlessly, and then so gravely and severely. + 

Was it an enchantment? He had seen more beautiful women without being so struck with their appearance: he had thought himself in love, perhaps had loved, but never at first sight; bit by bit the feeling had grown⁠—but here it had come upon him like a storm, like a whirlwind, which threw all his sailing-gear into confusion, and gave no time for reefing and tacking, tore down masts and rigging, made all steering of the ship impossible, and tossed the helpless wreck from wave to wave. What business had he, a stranger to the sphere in which she moved, to be thinking of such things? Were not these foolish aimless fancies childish even in his own eyes? Was he now to make himself ridiculous to other eyes, perhaps to hers? Had he not already done so when he unresistingly obeyed her command? Would she not say to him scornfully: “I only wanted to see if you really were such a helpless, poor-spirited fool”? + 

Strange! that now, just now, the most terrible moment of his life should recur to his memory, when, riding alone through the Cordilleras from Santiago to Mexico, he was taken prisoner by Indians between Mazatlan and Inpic, forced to ride at full speed through mountain gulleys, away from the track into the desert, with the fear that the end of the ride might be a couple of shots, and a bleeding corpse falling from the saddle, and writhing in the last death-agony on the dried-up grass. + 

The only apparent chance of escaping with his life lay in the absolute obedience with which he complied with every order of the Indians, and yet he found it easier to resolve to extinguish that last ray of hope, and begin the mad struggle for freedom, than any longer to endure the shame of being in the power of these wretches. But a man can snatch from his holsters a pistol, overlooked by the robbers, and, setting spurs to his horse, plunge from the steep path down the sides of the ravine, so as at least to die in his own fashion; while he cannot jump from the seat of a smart dogcart, into which he has climbed at the command of a pretty girl, and take refuge in the forest, even if the fine gentleman sitting beside him had no objection to such a flight, and would merely laugh at it. + 

“Here we are!” said the Count. + 

They had come to an opening in the forest, in the centre of which stood a stately building, flanked as it seemed with towers, and whose windows were brightly illuminated. The carriages rolled quickly over the smooth approach, and stopped at the entrance, from which several servants now came forward, to assist the visitors to alight. + 

VIII + 

The President had remarked in his note that the want of a mistress of the house might be felt by the young lady of their party, but as the want was one that could not be at once made good, he promised the Count absolution beforehand. The Count had immediately sent off a mounted messenger to his neighbour, Herr von Strummin, with the pressing request to come with his wife and daughter to Golmberg and make arrangements for passing the night there. The family were quite ready to do him this neighbourly service, and Frau and Fräulein von Strummin received Elsa in the hall and conducted her to her apartment, which adjoined their own. + 

The President rubbed his thin white hands together before the fire in his own comfortable room, while Johann arranged his things: “Very nice! very nice indeed! This ought quite to reconcile our self-willed young lady to her mishap, and restore her grumbling old father to a more sociable frame of mind.” + 

Elsa was thoroughly reconciled. Set free from her moving prison, to find a brightly-illuminated castle in the depths of the forest⁠—servants with torches at the entrance⁠—and in the ancient hall, with its curiously-twisted columns, the unexpected appearance of two ladies, who, stepping forward from among the weapons and armour with which the walls and pillars were hung, welcomed her warmly, and led her into the cosiest of rooms, a flaming fire on the hearth, wax candles burning brightly before a tall looking-glass in a rich antique frame, silk hangings of the most wonderful pattern repeated in every possible variety on the heavy curtains over the deep-set windows, the portières to the lofty gilt doors, and the hangings of the old-fashioned bed⁠—all was so strange, so charming, so exactly what an adventure ought to be. Elsa shook the motherly-looking Frau von Strummin by the hand and thanked her for her trouble, and kissing the pretty, mischievous-looking, grey-eyed little girl, asked permission to call her “Meta,” as her mother did, who had just left the room. Meta responded with the greatest warmth to her embrace, and declared that nothing in the world could have pleased her more than this evening’s invitation. She and mamma had been so dull at Strummin⁠—it was so horribly dull in the country⁠—and then the Count’s letter came! She always liked coming to Golmberg, the forest was so beautiful, and the view from the summit of the tower or from the top of the Golmberg over the woods and sea was too enchanting. She did not often come here though; her mother did not much like the trouble of moving, and the gentlemen thought only of their shooting, their horses, and especially of themselves. So that she really had been not a little surprised at the Count being in such a hurry to provide company for the strange young lady, just as if he had known beforehand how sweet and charming the stranger would be, and how pleasant it would be to keep her company, and to chatter all this nonsense to her; and might she call her du? because then they could talk twice as comfortably. The permission, readily given and sealed with a kiss, enchanted the excitable little girl. + 

“You must never go away again,” she cried, “or, at any rate, it must be only to return in the autumn! He will never marry me; I have got nothing, and he has nothing, in spite of his great estates, and if we cannot manage to get the railroad and the harbour made here, my papa says we shall all be bankrupts. And your papa and the President have got it all in their own hands, my papa said as we came here, and so if you marry him, of course your papa will agree to the concession⁠—that is what they call it, is not it? And you are already concerned in it in a sort of way, for my papa says that the harbour can only be made on land which belongs to your aunt, and you and your brother will be her heirs, or are already co-heirs with her. My papa says it is the most wonderful will, and he should very much like to know how the matter really stands. Do you not know all about it? Do, do tell me! I will not tell anyone.” + 

“I really do not know,” answered Elsa, “I only know that we are very poor, and that as far as I am concerned you may still marry your Count.” + 

“I would do it very readily,” said the little lady seriously, “but I am not pretty enough for him with my insignificant little face and my snub nose. I shall marry some day a rich city man, who will be impressed with our old nobility⁠—for the Strummins are as old as the island, you know⁠—some Herr Schulze or Müller or Schmidt. By the by, what is the name of the officer who came with you?” + 

“Schmidt⁠—Reinhold Schmidt.” + 

“No; you are joking!” + 

“No, really; but he is not an officer.” + 

“Not an officer? But how is he a captain then?” + 

“He is captain of a ship.” + 

“In the navy?” + 

“Only a merchant-captain.” + 

“No! you don’t say so!” + 

It came out so comically, and Meta clasped her little hands in such naive amazement, that Elsa could not help laughing, and laughed all the more to hide the blush of confusion which rose to her cheek. + 

“But then he will not have supper with us?” said Meta. + 

“Why not?” asked Elsa, suddenly becoming quite grave again. + 

“Only a merchant-captain!” repeated Meta. “What a pity! such a good-looking man! I had quite counted upon him for myself! But a merchant-captain!” + 

Frau von Strummin here came in to accompany the two girls to supper. Meta flew to her mother to communicate her great discovery. + 

“It has all been arranged,” answered her mother. “The Count asked your father and the President if they wished Captain Schmidt to be invited to join the party. Both gentlemen expressed themselves in favour of it, and so he will appear at table. He really seems a very well-mannered sort of person,” concluded Frau von Strummin. + 

“I am really curious to see him,” said Meta. + 

Elsa said nothing; but as, coming into the corridor, she met her father just leaving his room, she whispered to him, “Thank you!” + 

“One must make the best of a bad job,” answered the General in the same tone. + 

Elsa was a little surprised; she had not thought that he would have taken so seriously the question of etiquette which he had decided according to her view. She did not consider that her father could not understand her words without some explanation, and did not know that he had given them quite another meaning. + 

He had been put out, and had allowed his annoyance to be seen⁠—even when they were received in the hall. He thought that this had not escaped Elsa, and that she was pleased now to see that he had meanwhile made up his mind to submit quietly and calmly to the inevitable, and therefore met him with a smile. The young sailor had only been recalled to his mind by the Count’s question. He had attached no importance to the question or to his own answer, that he did not know why the Count should not invite Captain Schmidt to his table. + 

Happily for Reinhold himself he had not even a suspicion of the possibility that his appearance or nonappearance at table could be a question to be seriously discussed by the other members of the party. + 

“What is begun may as well be continued,” said he to himself, as with the help of the things he had brought with him in a handbag from the ship in case of accidents, he arranged his dress as well as he could; “and now away with melancholy. If I have got aground by my own stupidity, I shall get off again in time. To go about hanging my head, or losing it, would not make up for my folly, but only make matters worse, and they are quite bad enough already. But where are my shoes?” + 

At the last moment on board he had changed the shoes he was wearing for a pair of high seaboots. They had been most useful to him since through rain and puddles, in the wet sands on the shore, and on the way to the farm; but now! Where were the shoes? Not in the bag, at any rate, into which he thought he had thrown them, and out of which they would not appear, although at last in his despair he tumbled all the things out and strewed them around him. And this garment which he had taken up a dozen times and let fall again, half the skirt was missing. It was not his blue frockcoat, it was his black tailcoat, the most precious article in his wardrobe, which he had only been in the habit of wearing for a dinner with his owners, or the consul, and on other most solemn occasions. + 

Reinhold rushed at the bell⁠—the broken rope came away in his hand. He tore open the door and looked into the passage⁠—not a servant to be seen. He called softly at first, then louder, not a servant would hear. What was to be done? The rough pilot-coat which he had worn under his waterproof, and which yet had got wet through in some places, had already been taken away by the servant to be dried. In a quarter of an hour the man had said the Count begged him to come to supper, twenty minutes had already passed; he had distinctly heard the President, whose room was some doors off from his, walk along the passage on his way downstairs. He must either remain here in the most absurd captivity, or appear before the company below in the extraordinary attire of seaboots and a dress-coat! Before the eyes of the President, whose long, thin figure, from the crown of his small aristocratic head to the soles of the polished boots which he had worn even on board, was a model of the most painfully precise neatness; before the stiff, tightly buttoned-up General; before the Count, who already showed some disposition to consider him of small account in society; before the ladies; before her⁠—before her laughter-loving brown eyes! “Well, if I was fool enough to follow a sign from those eyes, this shall be my punishment; thus will I do penance in tailcoat and seaboots.” + 

And with one effort he pulled on the garment which he had still held in his extended left hand, looking at it from time to time with dismay, and again opened the door, this time to pass with steady step along the corridor, down the broad stairs, and into the dining-room below, whose whereabouts he had already ascertained from the servant. + 

IX + 

The rest of the party were already assembled. The two girls had appeared arm-in-arm, and kept together, although the Count, who had come forward hastily to meet them, directed his conversation to Elsa alone. He hastened to inform Fräulein von Werben that the carriage that was to fetch the doctor from Prora had been gone a quarter of an hour. Did Fräulein von Werben take any interest in painting, and would she allow him to direct her attention to some of the more important objects that he had brought from the gallery of Castle Golm for the decoration of the dining-room here, which really had appeared to him too bare. This was a Watteau bought by his great-grandfather himself in Paris; that was a fruit-piece by the Italian painter Gobbo, surnamed Da Frutti, a pupil of Annibale Caracci; this large still-life scene was by the Dutchman Jacob van Es. This flower-piece would be peculiarly interesting to her, as it was by a lady, Rachel Ruysch, a Dutchwoman, of course, whose pictures were in great request. Here, on the étagère, was a service of Dresden china, formerly belonging to Augustus the Strong, from whom his great-grandfather, who for many years had been Swedish ambassador at the court of Dresden, had received it in exchange for a team of Swedish horses, the first which had been seen on the Continent; here was an equally beautiful service of Sèvres, which he himself the preceding year had admired at the château of a French nobleman, and had received as a gift from him, out of gratitude for his successful efforts to preserve the château, which he (the Count) had converted into a hospital. + 

“You do not care for old china, however?” said he, observing that the lady’s dark eyes only very briefly inspected his treasures. + 

“I have seen so little of it,” said Elsa; “I do not know how to appreciate its beauty.” + 

“And then we are all rather hungry,” said Meta, “I am at least. At home we have supper at eight, and now it is eleven.” + 

“Has not Captain Schmidt been told?” asked the Count of the butler. + 

“Yes, sir, a quarter of an hour ago.” + 

“Then we will not wait any longer. The courtesy of kings does not seem to be shared by merchant captains. Allow me.” + 

He offered his arm to Elsa; hesitatingly she laid the tips of her fingers upon it, she would gladly have spared the Captain the awkwardness of finding the whole party at table. But her father had already offered his arm to Meta’s mother, the gallant President had given his to Meta herself; the three couples were moving towards the table which stood between them and the door, when the door opened, and the wonderful figure of a bearded man in a tailcoat and high seaboots appeared, in whom Elsa, to her horror, recognised the Captain. But the next moment she was forced to smile like the others. Meta dropped the President’s arm and fled into a corner of the room, where she tried to conceal behind her handkerchief the convulsive laughter which had seized her at the unexpected appearance. + 

“I must apologise,” said Reinhold, “but I have unfortunately only just discovered that the haste with which we left the ship was not favourable to a careful choice in my wardrobe.” + 

“And as that haste was for our benefit, we have the less occasion to lay unnecessary stress upon the small mishap,” said the President very courteously. + 

“Why did you not apply to my valet?” asked the Count, with mild reproach. + 

“I think the costume is very becoming,” said Elsa, with a desperate effort to recover her gravity, and a severe look at Meta, who had indeed come out of her corner, but without venturing yet to remove her handkerchief from her face. + 

“That is much more than I could have possibly hoped,” said Reinhold. + 

They took their seats at the table; Reinhold exactly opposite the Count and nearly opposite Elsa, while on his left hand sat Meta and on his right Herr von Strummin, a broad-shouldered man with a broad, red face, the lower part of which was covered with a big red beard, and whose big loud voice was the more disagreeable to Reinhold that it was perpetually breaking in upon the gay, good-humoured chatter of the young lady upon his left. + 

The good-natured girl had determined to make Reinhold forget her previous rudeness, and the keeping of this resolution was so much the easier to her, that now, when the tablecloth kindly covered those absurd boots, she found her first idea of him quite justified; the Captain with his large, bright blue eyes, his sunburnt complexion, and curly brown beard, was a handsome⁠—a very handsome man. After she had attempted to convey this important discovery to Elsa by various significant glances and explanatory gestures, and to her great joy had perceived from Elsa’s smiles and nods, that she agreed with her, she gave herself up to the pleasure of conversing with this good-looking stranger all the more eagerly that she was certain her eagerness would not remain unnoticed by the Count. Did she not know by experience that he was never pleased, that he even took it as a sort of personal affront, when ladies to whom he did not himself pay any particular attention, were especially civil to other men in his presence! And that this man was only a merchant-captain, whose fitness for society had been just now called in question, made the matter the more amusing and piquant to her mischievous imagination. Besides she really was very much amused. The Captain had so many stories to tell⁠—and he told them so well and simply! + 

“You cannot think, Elsa, how interesting it is,” she exclaimed across the table; “I could listen to him all night long!” + 

“That good little girl is not too particular in her tastes,” said the Count to Elsa. + 

“I am sorry for that,” said Elsa; “she has just chosen me, as you hear, for a friend.” + 

“That is quite another thing,” said the Count. + 

The conversation between these two would not flow properly, and the Count frequently found himself left to Frau von Strummin, to whom he had to talk so as not to be left in silence, whilst Elsa turned to her other neighbour⁠—the President. And more than once, when that lady’s attention was claimed by the General, he really was obliged to sit dumb, and silently to observe how well his friends entertained themselves at his own table without him. To fill up these enforced pauses he drank one glass of wine after another, and did not thereby improve his temper, which he then exercised upon the servants for want of anyone else. He certainly would have preferred the merchant-captain for that purpose. He thought the fellow altogether odious, everything about him⁠—appearance, manners, look, voice; it was all the more provoking that he should himself have brought the fellow to his house in his own carriage! If he had only not asked anyone’s opinion and left him in his room! + 

He told himself that it was ridiculous to vex himself about the matter, but he did vex himself about it nevertheless, and that all the more because he could not conquer the feeling. At any cost he must make the conversation general to free himself from a mood which was becoming intolerable. + 

Opposite to him Herr von Strummin was shouting his views upon the railroad and the harbour into the ear of the General, who appeared to listen unwillingly. He had made up his mind, for his part, not to touch upon this ticklish topic at table, but any topic was agreeable to him now. + 

“Excuse me, my good friend,” said he, raising his voice, “I have been hearing something of what you have been saying to General von Werben about our favourite plan. You always say ‘we’ and ‘us,’ but you know that in many essential points our views differ; so I must beg you, if you do speak about the matter, to do so only in your own name.” + 

“What! what!” cried Herr von Strummin; “what great difference is there? Is it that I want to have a station at Strummin, just as much as you want one at Golm?” + 

“But we cannot all have stations,” said the Count, with a pitying shrug of the shoulders. + 

“Of course we can’t, but I must! or I should not care a brass farthing for the whole project!” cried the other. “Am I to send my corn two or three miles, as I did before, and have the train steaming away under my nose an hour later! I would rather give my vote at the Assembly in that case for the road which the Government offers us; that would run just behind my new barn; I could send the wagons straight from the thrashing-floor out into the high-road. Could not I, President?” + 

“I really do not know, Herr von Strummin,” said the President, “whether the road runs just behind your barn; it certainly crosses the boundary of your fields. But my views have long been known to you both;” and he turned again to Elsa, to continue his interrupted conversation with her. + 

The Count was furious at the rebuff which the last words seemed to imply, the more furious that he knew he had not deserved them. He had not begun upon the matter, but now it should be further discussed. + 

“You see,” said he, turning to Herr von Strummin, “what disservice you do us⁠—I must say ‘us’ now⁠—by this perpetual overzealous putting forward of private interests. Of course we look to our own advantage in this; what reasonable man would not? But it must come second⁠—first the State, then ourselves. At least, so I consider, and so does the General here, I am sure.” + 

“Certainly I think so,” said the General. “But why should I have the honour of being referred to?” + 

“Because nobody would gain more if this project were carried out than your sister, or whoever shall some day possess Warnow, Gristow, and Damerow.” + 

“I shall never possess a foot of the property,” said the General, knitting his brows. “Besides, as you know, Count, I have as yet had absolutely nothing to do with the question⁠—not even so far as to express an opinion⁠—and am, therefore, by no means in a position to accept the compliment you offer me.” And he turned again to Frau von Strummin. + 

The Count felt the blood rising to his forehead. + 

“The opinions of a man of your standing, General,” said he, with well-affected calmness, “even when he gives them no official shape, could as little remain hidden as the most official report of our excellent President.” + 

The General’s bushy eyebrows frowned still more sternly. + 

“Well, then, Count Golm,” he cried, “I avow myself openly as the most determined opponent of your project! I consider it as strategically useless, and I hold it to be scientifically impracticable.” + 

“Two reasons, either of which, if well founded, would be absolutely crushing,” answered the Count, smiling ironically. “As to the first, I bow, of course, to such an authority, although we need not always have a war with a non-naval power like France, but might possibly have one with a naval power like Russia for instance, and should then find a harbour facing the enemy very necessary. But as to the practicability, General; there, with all submission, I think I may put in a word in my amphibious capacity of a country gentleman living by the sea. Our sand, however heavy it makes the roads, to the great inconvenience of ourselves and the President, is a capital material for a railway embankment, and will prove good ground for the foundation of our harbour walls.” + 

“Until you come to the places where we should have to build on piles,” said the President, who, on the General’s account, felt himself bound to speak. + 

“Such places may occur, I allow,” cried the Count, who, in spite of the other men’s exasperating opposition, at any rate had now the satisfaction of seeing all other conversation at the table silenced, and he alone for the moment speaking. “But what do you prove by that, excepting that the making of the harbour may take some months or years longer, and cost some few hundred thousands, or, for aught I know, millions more? And what would that signify in a work which, once completed, would be an invincible bulwark against every enemy that threatens us from the East?” + 

“Excepting one!” said Reinhold. + 

The Count had never supposed that this fellow would interfere in the conversation. An angry flush rose to his brow; he cast a dark look at the new opponent, and asked, in a short, contemptuous tone: + 

“And what might that be?” + 

“The tide coming in with a storm!” answered Reinhold. + 

“We are too much used in this country to storms and high tides to fear the one or the other,” said the Count, with forced calmness. + 

“I know that,” answered Reinhold; “but I am not speaking of ordinary atmospheric changes and disturbances, but of a catastrophe which I am convinced has been preparing for years, and only awaits the final impulse, which will not long be wanting, to burst upon us with a violence of which the wildest fancy can form no conception.” + 

“Are we still in the domain of reality, or already in the realm of fancy?” asked the Count. + 

“We are in the region of possibilities,” answered Reinhold; “that possibility which, as a glance at the map will show us, has already at least once proved a reality, and, according to human calculations, will before very long become such again.” + 

“You are making us extremely curious,” said the Count. + 

He said it ironically; but he had truly expressed the feelings of the party. All eyes were turned upon Reinhold. + 

“I am afraid I may weary the ladies with these matters,” said Reinhold. + 

“Not in the least,” said Elsa. + 

“I am wild about everything connected with the sea,” cried Meta, with a mischievous glance at Elsa. + 

“You would really oblige me,” said the President. + 

“Pray continue,” said the General. + 

“I will be as brief as possible,” said Reinhold, directing his looks towards the President and the General, as if he only spoke for them. “The Baltic appears to have been formed by some most extraordinary convulsions, which have given it a character of its own. It has no ebb and flow, its saltness is far less than that of the North Sea, and decreases gradually towards the east; so that the fauna and flora⁠—” + 

“What are they?” asked Meta. + 

“The animal and vegetable kingdoms,” said he, courteously turning to her⁠—“of the Gulf of Finland have almost a freshwater character. But none the less do we find, besides the visible connection, a constant mutual influence between the ocean and the inner sea⁠—a perpetual influx and reflux, resulting from a most complicated connection and combination of the most varied causes, one of which I must more particularly mention, as it is precisely that to which I am now referring. This is the regularity of the winds blowing from west to east, and from east to west, which, moving on the surface of the water, accompany and cause the ebb and flow of the undercurrents. Seamen reckoned upon these winds almost with the certainty with which they might count upon a constantly recurring natural phenomenon; and rightly so, for within the memory of man no essential change had occurred, until a few years ago the east wind, which used always to appear in the latter half of August and continue till the middle of October, suddenly failed, and has not since returned.” + 

“Well? and the consequence?” asked the President, who was listening with the most rapt attention. + 

“The consequence is, sir, that enormous masses of water have accumulated in the Baltic in the course of these years, which have been the less remarked that they have of course attempted to spread themselves equally on all sides, but the greatest pressure has always been in ever-increasing proportion towards the east, so that in the spring of last year at Nystad, in South Finland, four feet above the usual watermark were registered; at Wasa, two degrees farther north, six feet; and at Tomeo, in the northernmost arm of the Gulf of Bothnia, there were even eight. The gradual nature of the rise and the almost universally high shores have to a great degree protected the inhabitants of those parts from any serious calamity. But for us, whose shores are almost without exception flat, a sudden reversal of this stream, which for years has tended uninterruptedly to the east, would be fearful. This reversal must however happen in case of a gale from the northeast or east, especially if it lasted for many days. The water driven westward by the power of the wind will vainly seek an outlet to the ocean through the narrow straits of the Belt and the Sound in the Cattegat and Skagerrack, and like some furious wild beast in the toils, will throw itself upon our shores, pouring for miles inland, tearing down everything that opposes its blind fury, covering fields and meadows with sand and rubbish, and causing a devastation of which our grandchildren and great-grandchildren shall speak with awe.” + 

While Reinhold thus spoke, it had not escaped the Count that the President and the General had repeatedly exchanged looks of understanding and approval, that Herr von Strummin’s broad face had grown long with amazement and terror, and⁠—what above all angered him⁠—that the ladies listened as attentively as if a ball were in question. At any rate he would not let him have the last word. + 

“But this wonderful storm is at best⁠—I mean in the most favourable case for you⁠—a mere hypothesis!” cried he. + 

“Only for those who are not convinced of its inevitableness as I am,” answered Reinhold. + 

“Well, well,” said the Count, “I will suppose that you do not stand alone in your opinion, even more, that you are right in it, that the storm will come today or tomorrow, or sometime; still it cannot happen every day⁠—perhaps can only happen once in a century. Well, gentlemen, I have the deepest respect for the farsighted previsions of our authorities; but such distant perspectives must seem inappreciable to the most farseeing, and ought not to decide them to leave undone what is required at once.” + 

As the Count’s last words were evidently addressed to the General and the President, and not to him, Reinhold did not think himself called upon to answer. But neither did they answer; the rest kept silence too, and an awkward pause ensued. At last the President coughed behind his slender white hand, and said: + 

“It is strange that while Captain Schmidt, here, in that decided tone which only conviction gives, is prophesying to us a storm, which our kind host, to whom certainly it would come nearest, would prefer to remove into the land of fancy⁠—it is strange that I have been reminded at every word of another storm⁠—” + 

“Another!” cried Meta. + 

“Another storm, my dear young lady, and of quite another sort; I need not tell these gentlemen of what sort. In this case also the usual course of affairs has been in the most unexpected manner interrupted, and there has been an accumulation of waters, flowing in immense streams of gold, ladies, from west to east. In this case also the wise men prophesy that such an unnatural state of affairs cannot be of long continuance; that it has already lasted its time, that an ebb must soon come, a reaction, a storm, which⁠—to preserve the image which so strikingly applies to the matter⁠—will, like the other, come upon us, destroying, overwhelming everything, and with its troubled and barren waters cover the ground, on which men believed their riches and power to be forever established.” + 

In his eagerness to give another turn to the conversation, and in the pleasure of his happy comparison, the President had not considered that the topic was still the same, and that it must be more unpleasant to the Count in this new phase than in the former one. He became aware of his thoughtlessness when the Count, in a tone that trembled with agitation, exclaimed: + 

“I hope, President, that you do not confound our plan, dictated, I may say, by the purest patriotism, with the enterprises so much in favour nowaday, which mostly have no other source than the vulgarest greed of gain.” + 

“My dear Count! how can you suppose that I could even dream of such a thing!” exclaimed the President. + 

The Count bowed. “Thank you,” said he, “for I confess that nothing would hurt my feelings more. I have always considered it as a political necessity, and a proof of his eminently statesmanlike capacity, that Prince Bismarck has made use of certain means for carrying out his great ideas, which he certainly would have preferred not using, if only to avoid too close contact with persons, all intercourse with whom must have been formerly thoroughly distasteful to him. I consider it also as a necessary consequence of this misfortune, that in order to reward these persons he has inaugurated, has been obliged to inaugurate, the new era of speculators, and of immoderate greed of gain, with those fatal milliards. Meanwhile⁠—” + 

“Excuse my interrupting you,” said the General; “I consider these compacts of the Prince’s with those persons, parties, strata of population, classes of society⁠—call them what you will⁠—as you do, Count Golm, most certainly a misfortune, but by no means a necessary one. On the contrary; the rocher de bronze, upon which the Prussian kingdom is established, formed as it was of a loyal aristocracy, a zealous body of officials, a faithful army⁠—all these were strong enough to support the German Empire, if it must needs be German rather than Prussian, or indeed an empire at all.” + 

“Yes, General, it had need to be, and to be German,” said Reinhold. + 

The General shot a dark look at the young man from under his bushy eyebrows; but he had listened before with satisfaction to his explanations, and felt that he must let him speak now, when he disagreed with him. + 

“Why do you think so?” asked he. + 

“I judge by my own feelings,” answered Reinhold; “but I am certain that they are the feelings of everyone who has lived, as I have, often and long together far from home in a foreign land; who has experienced, as I have, what it means to belong to a people that is no nation, and because it is not one is little regarded, or even despised by the other nations with which we deal; what it means, in the difficult position in which a sailor so easily may find himself, to have only himself to look to, or, what is still worse, to have to request the assistance and protection needed from others, who give it grudgingly and would prefer not helping at all. I have experienced and gone through all this, as thousands of others have done, and have had to swallow as best I could all this injustice and unfairness. And I went abroad again last year after the war, returning only a few weeks ago, and found that I had no longer to stand on one side and sue for protection. I might step forward as boldly as others, and, gentlemen, I thanked God then with my whole heart that we had an Emperor⁠—a German Emperor; for nothing less than a German Emperor was needed to demonstrate ocularly to English and Americans, Chinese and Japanese, that they no longer had to deal with Hamburgers and Bremeners, with Oldenburgers and Mechlenburgers, or even with Prussians, but with Germans, who sailed under one and the same flag⁠—a flag which had the will and the power to shelter and protect the least and poorest of those who have the honour and happiness of being Germans.” + 

The General, to whom the last words were addressed, looked straight before him, evidently some chord in his heart was sympathetically touched; the President had put on his glasses, which he had not used the whole evening; the ladies hardly turned their eyes from the man who was speaking so honestly and straightforwardly; the Count saw and noted all, and his dislike to the man increased with every word that came from his mouth; he must silence this odious chatterer. + 

“I confess,” said he, “if there was nothing further involved than that the gentlemen who speculate in sugar and cotton, or who carry away our labourers, should put their gains more comfortably into their pockets, I should regret the noble blood that has been shed upon so many battlefields.” + 

“I did not say that there was nothing else involved,” answered Reinhold. + 

“No doubt,” continued the Count, appearing not to notice this interruption, “it is a good thing to be out of range of the firing; and one can sun oneself comfortably in the honour and glory which others have won for us.” + 

The General frowned, the President dropped his glasses, the young ladies exchanged terrified glances. + 

“I do not doubt,” said Reinhold, “that Count Golm earned his full share of German fame; for my part I am well content with the honour of having been not out of range of the firing.” + 

“Where were you on the day of Gravelotte, Captain Schmidt?” + 

“At Gravelotte, Count Golm.” + 

The General raised his eyebrows, the President replaced his glasses, the young ladies again exchanged glances⁠—Elsa this time in joyful surprise, while Meta very nearly laughed outright at the Count’s confused look. + 

“That is to say,” said Reinhold, the blood rising in his cheek at the attention which his rash speech had roused, and turning to the General, “to speak precisely, on the morning of that day I was on the march from Rezonville to St. Marie. Then, when it appeared, as you know, General, that the enemy was not in retreat upon the northern road, and the second army corps had completed the great flank movement to the right upon Verneville and Amanvilliers, we⁠—the eighteenth division⁠—came under fire near Verneville, about half an hour before midday. As you will remember, General, our division had the honour of commencing the battle.” Reinhold passed his hand across his forehead. The frightful visions of that fateful day rose again to his mind. He had forgotten the contempt which had lain in the Count’s question, and which he had wished to repel by the account of his share in the battle. + 

“You went through the whole campaign?” asked the General; and there was a peculiar, almost a tender, tone in his deep voice. + 

“Yes, sir, if you reckon the fortnight, from the 18th July to the 1st August, while I was being drilled at Coblenz. As a native of Hamburg and a sailor, I had not had the good fortune of learning my drill properly when young.” + 

“How came you to be in the campaign?” + 

“It is a short story, which I will briefly relate. On the 15th July I was with my ship in the Southampton Roads, bound for Bombay⁠—captain of my own ship for the first time. On the evening of the 16th we were to weigh anchor. But on the morning of the 16th came the news of the declaration of war; by midday an efficient substitute had been found, and I had said goodbye to my owners and my ship; in the evening I was in London; on the night of the 16th⁠–⁠17th on my way, by Ostend, Brussels and the Rhine, to Coblenz, where I offered myself as a volunteer, was accepted, went through a small amount of drill, sent forward, and, why, I know not, attached to the ⸻ regiment, eighteenth division, ninth corps, with which I went through the campaign.” + 

“Were you promoted?” + 

“I was made a noncommissioned officer at Gravelotte, acting sublieutenant on the 1st September, the day after Bazaine’s great sortie, and on the 4th December⁠—” + 

“That was the day of Orleans?” + 

“Yes, sir; on the day of Orleans I got my commission.” + 

“I congratulate you on your rapid promotion,” said the General, smiling, but his face darkened again immediately. “Why did you not introduce yourself to me as a fellow-soldier?” + 

“The merchant-captain must apologise for the lieutenant of the reserve, General.” + 

“Were you decorated?” + 

“Yes, sir; I received the Cross with my commission.” + 

“And you do not wear it?” + 

“I have dressed so hastily today,” answered Reinhold. + 

Meta broke into a laugh, in which Reinhold joined heartily; the others smiled too; a civil, approving, flattering smile, as it seemed to the Count. + 

“I fear that we are putting the patience of the ladies to too long a trial,” he said, with a significant movement. + 

X + 

The ladies retired as soon as the table was cleared. Frau von Strummin, who was accustomed to go to bed at nine o’clock, was really tired, and Meta professed to be so too. But her sparkling eyes belied her; and the two girls were no sooner alone, for their rooms communicated, and Meta insisted on acting as Elsa’s lady’s-maid, than she fell upon the latter’s neck and declared that she loved to distraction the Captain, who, after all, was really a lieutenant. + 

“He is the very man I have always dreamt of,” cried she; “young, but not too young, so that one can feel respect for him; wise, but not too wise, so that one is not afraid of him; brave, but no boaster; and then such beautiful white teeth when he laughs, and he laughs so readily and pleasantly. I should like him to be always laughing.” + 

“How could you laugh as you did?” + 

“What was I to do? I had been serious for so long, I must laugh at something. And his dress! But do you know, as we said good night to him just now, I was not at all inclined to laugh, I was quite agitated, and felt more like crying. I felt as if I should never see him again, and ought to apologise to him for all my rudeness. Now you are getting serious too; confess that you, too, are in love with him.” + 

“I agree to everything that you have said of him, but as to being in love, that is going rather far.” + 

“Not for me, not for my heart; only feel how it beats! Five minutes is enough to set my heart at work. I do not know how it is, but to see and to love are all one with me. One often makes mistakes, however; very often.” + 

Meta seated herself on a stool, began to unplait her red gold hair, and said in a tragical tone: + 

“The first time⁠—it is an immense while ago, I was about twelve years old⁠—I fell in love with my brother’s tutor. I have got a brother, you must know. He lives now in Lower Pomerania, where for the least possible amount of money the largest possible amount of sand can be bought. Of course the tutor has been married a long time now, and is a clergyman, and of course lives also in Lower Pomerania, close to my brother, and I saw him there this winter at a christening. Oh, how ashamed of myself I was!” + 

And Meta covered her face with her hands, and shook out her hair in front of her, till it fell like a thick veil to the ground. + 

“How ashamed of myself I was! It was dreadful! And if it had been only once! But the same story has been repeated at least twenty times⁠—the last time in February, in Berlin, at the opera, in the first row of boxes. Papa said he was a pickpocket; but papa sees pickpockets everywhere when he is in Berlin, and spoils every enjoyment and destroys every illusion, and yet it is so pleasant to have illusions, when one is seventeen and inclined that way! Are you asleep already?” + 

“No, but I am very tired; give me a kiss, and then go to bed too.” + 

Meta threw back her hair, sprang up, embraced Elsa with the warmest kisses, and whispered in her ear: “Do you know, I am as certain as I stand here that I shall be an old maid⁠—a very old maid with a bent back, and great spectacles over my sunken eyes, and knitting an everlasting stocking with trembling hands! It is hard, you know, when one has a warm heart, and would take a husband on the spot, if he were only good and nice, and would be faithful to him till death, and beyond death, too, if he died first and really made a point of it. For you see our ‘von’ and our pretensions to nobility are all nonsense. They cannot make anyone happy, particularly when there is nothing to support them, as is the case with us, and when one has a snub nose and red hair, and eyes of which one cannot tell oneself whether they are grey or green, or blue or brown. You have such wonderful soft chestnut-brown hair, and such a deliciously straight nose, and such beautiful, heavenly, hazel eyes, which are positively shining now in the half-light; and when you are the Countess you must be kind to poor little ugly Meta, and let me come here very often, that I may talk and laugh as much as I please⁠—it does one so much good! oh, so much!” + 

And the strange little creature hid her burning face on her new friend’s shoulder, and sobbed bitterly. Then she drew herself up suddenly, put back the hair from her face, and said: “I think I am tired too; I really do not know what I am saying. Good night, you dear, beautiful thing!” + 

She raised herself, but dropped down again on the edge of the bed, bent over Elsa and asked in a whisper: “Have you never been in love? Do tell me, as you love me!” + 

“As I love you, no!” + 

“I thought so. Sleep well, and pleasant dreams to you!” + 

She kissed Elsa again, gathered her dressing-gown round her and glided away. + 

XI + 

The gentlemen, too, had remained but a short time together. Herr von Strummin’s proposal of a rubber of whist before going to bed fell through, as it appeared that with the exception of himself and the Count no one played. Even the cigars offered by the Count found no favour excepting with Herr von Strummin, as the General and the President did not smoke, and Reinhold professed to be the less willing to encroach further on the Count’s kindness, because he must take his departure early the next morning, and would therefore ask permission to take leave of the Count now with many thanks for the hospitality he had experienced. He was anxious to know how the Neptune had stood the gale, and he was certain of finding the ship either still at anchor at Wissow or already at Ahlbeck, where she must return to take up the passengers landed there yesterday. + 

The Count hoped that Captain Schmidt, if he really was determined to go, would at any rate make use of one of his carriages; but Reinhold declined the civil offer with equal civility; he was a good walker, and if he took a boat from Ahlbeck would reach Wissow sooner than the carriage could convey him there. He earnestly begged the Count not to disturb himself, and asked the General and Herr von Strummin kindly to make his excuses to the ladies. Herr von Strummin exclaimed that the ladies would be inconsolable, and would have further dilated on the subject in his own fashion when a look from the Count showed him that he was on the wrong tack. The General said shortly, as he gave Reinhold his hand, “Au revoir in Berlin, Lieutenant Schmidt!” The President, who had until now kept silence, came up to him at the last moment and whispered, “I wish to speak to you again.” + 

Reinhold had got to his room, and was thrusting his unfortunate dress-coat back into his travelling-bag and considering what the President’s mysterious words might mean, when there came a knock at his door. It was Johann, who came to inquire if Captain Schmidt would receive the President for a few minutes? Reinhold sent the servant back to say that he would come at once to receive the President’s commands, and followed him immediately. + 

The President received his midnight guest with a cordiality which struck Reinhold the more that till now he had thought that the reserved and rather haughty-looking old gentleman had hardly noticed him. The President must have read Reinhold’s thoughts in his face, for as he invited him to sit by him on the sofa, he said, “I must begin with a confession. It is my habit, nourished and perhaps justified by a long official career, to observe a certain, often I dare say too great, reserve towards all who for the first time come under my notice. But whenever I have good reason for interesting myself in anyone my interest is full and entire. You, Captain⁠—or must I, like my worthy friend, call you Lieutenant Schmidt?” + 

“Supposing you omit any title, President?” + 

“Very well⁠—you, Herr Schmidt, interest me. You are frank and bold by nature, and have fortunately remained so although you have thought and studied and learned more than most members of your profession. However, I am not keeping you from your night’s rest only to make you this very sincere compliment. I have two requests to make of you, of which the first is easy to grant, provided that your expedition after the Neptune is not merely an excuse.” + 

“An excuse, President?” + 

“You took my side on the harbour question too warmly not to come into collision with the Count, whose sensitiveness on this point is unfortunately only too easy to understand. You would perhaps avoid, for the sake of the rest of the party, a possible continuation of the discussion which puts our host into such an inhospitable temper, and⁠—” The President’s keen eyes shot a rapid glance at Reinhold’s face, as he coughed behind his white hand. + 

“That is exactly the state of the case, President,” said Reinhold. + 

“I thought so. You will then in a few hours be on board the Neptune. I left lying about in my berth a document which I was studying on the way⁠—a memorial to the Minister upon that very harbour question, and upon the condition of our water-highways, pilotage, coast-beacons⁠—reforms in all these directions⁠—and other matters. I should not like the papers to fall into strange hands even for a time; and you would greatly oblige me⁠—” + 

“Thank you heartily for the confidence you put in me, President,” said Reinhold; “the papers shall reach you in safety⁠—” + 

“But not before you have looked into them,” interrupted the President quickly. “And this is the prelude to my second request. You look surprised. The matter is simply this. The worthy old Superintendent of pilots at Wissow must, and will, soon retire. The post will be vacant next spring, perhaps even in the course of the winter. In the present state of affairs, with the many questions which are sure to crop up and require attention, the position is one of importance, far exceeding that usually attached to similar posts. I can only propose to the Minister for this post a thoroughly trustworthy and intelligent man, and one of whom I know that he will heartily support my plans from conviction of their propriety. Now if you can find such conviction for yourself in those papers, and would willingly continue the work with me, I would, with your permission, send in your name to the Minister.” + 

“Really, President,” said Reinhold, “you offer me such great and flattering confidence, a man of whom you really know nothing⁠—” + 

“That is my affair,” interrupted the President, smiling. “The question is now, are you inclined⁠—supposing, of course, that the other circumstances of the position, which are not brilliant, but still sufficient, should suit you⁠—to agree to my proposal? I do not expect, I do not even wish, for any answer at present; I only ask for it when you return the papers to me at Sundin, and we can discuss the matter further over a cutlet and a glass of Burgundy.” + 

The President rose. Reinhold felt that he must accede to the wishes of this strange man, and not further pursue the question here or now, and took his leave, expressing his thanks in a few words which came from his heart, and were received by the President with a kindly smile. He had already reached the door when the President called after him: + 

“If you like to hand over to my servant anything which might be in your way for your expedition, it shall be carefully looked after among my luggage, and kept as a pledge for my papers.” + 

A bow from the aristocratic grey head, a wave of the slender white hand, and Reinhold was dismissed. + 

“Very graciously, but very much as if I were already in the Government service and his,” said Reinhold, laughing, as he walked up and down his room, considering the proposal which had come to him so unexpectedly, and yet like the natural sequel to all that had happened in the day. The grounding of the steamer in an uncertain channel; the want of proper signals from the shore; the absence of all precautions in case of need, and principally of a lifeboat; the difficulty, even impossibility, of putting a boat to sea in stormy weather, from that low, unprotected shore⁠—all this had passed through his head. There was so much to be done here! And then that insane project of a harbour, that had been, as it seemed, within a hair’s breadth of being carried out, perhaps might still be carried out, if experienced men did not raise their voices loudly against it, and expose this delusion of the Count’s. The President was right. The position of a Superintendent of pilots in these waters was far more important than might appear at first sight, and was well worthy that a man should give his best strength to it, and sacrifice to it all that he had still hoped and promised to himself from life. + 

For a sacrifice it was. His almost completed negotiations with the great Hamburg firm, who had offered him their finest ship for some years to come, for the South American and China trade; his plan of a North Pole expedition, which he had worked out from a completely new point of view, and for which he had already planned and spoken so much, and with such success⁠—such far-reaching views, such important designs to be given up, that he might confine himself to this narrow horizon! to help to prevent this intricate channel from being quite silted up! to organise some useful improvements on this coast; to⁠— + 

“Be honest!” said Reinhold, suddenly standing still. “Confess to yourself that it is to avoid putting a few thousand miles between her and you, to remain in her neighbourhood, to have the possibility of seeing her again, to make a fool of yourself as you have done today. For it is folly! What good can come of it? This daughter of a general officer, of noble family, would raise her brown eyes with a good deal of astonishment if the very unaristocratic Superintendent of pilots were to venture seriously to lift his eyes to her; and to the General himself I am, and remain, the Lieutenant of the Reserve⁠—something that is neither fish nor flesh, and which one only puts up with in case of necessity, and then very much against the grain. I think I might have known that. And supposing that the most improbable thing in the world did happen, that I could gain the love of this beautiful girl and the friendship of her father, what sort of society should I find myself in in future! How would it please me to be perpetually meeting Count Golm, Herr von Strummin, and Co.? to be always reading in their looks and manners: ‘What does the fellow want amongst us? Can he not remain with his equals? or does he really think that he, or his democratic uncle⁠—’ ” Reinhold could not help laughing. “Uncle Ernst! He had not seen him for ten years; but if he found him again in Berlin⁠—grumbling, bitter, dissatisfied, and apparently impossible to satisfy, as he was formerly⁠—the stubborn old radical and the stern old soldier would make a fine piece of work together! And good Aunt Rikchen, with her anxious little face under her great white cap, and her little mincing steps, how would she get on with the beautiful aristocratic young lady? And his little cousin Ferdinanda⁠—she must by this time be his grown-up cousin, and, if she had kept the promise of her childhood, a very pretty girl. But she might, perhaps, fit in better, although⁠—Have I really gone out of my mind? What is the good of all this? What is it all, but the wildest imagination, of which I ought to be ashamed, of which I shall be ashamed tomorrow! Tomorrow? Why it is morning already!” + 

He went to the window. It was still dark; the great trees, which seemed to surround the whole house, rustled monotonously, like the rippling of the waves upon a level shore. The sky was completely overcast with black clouds. Reinhold gazed out into the darkness. + 

“It would be difficult to steer a straight course here,” he said to himself, “and I have given away my compass. I cannot even find out how I stand. And yet, if but one star appeared, the star of her love, I should know what to do, and would find my way past all rocks and all obstacles!” + 

He started with a thrill of joy. As if called by enchantment from the black clouds, directly before him there shone a bright steady light⁠—a star⁠—Venus herself! By the hour and the inclination towards the horizon it could be none other than Venus! + 

It was a chance⁠—of course a chance; but he had never been able to laugh at sailors’ superstitions even if he did not share them, and he would not laugh now. No; he would take it as a sign from heaven, as a confirmation of the principle to which he had held as long as he could remember⁠—not with childish self-will to strive after the unattainable, but on a really worthy purpose, attainable by courage and strength and perseverance, to set all his courage, all his strength, and all his perseverance. + 

Venus had disappeared in dark clouds, but other stars peeped out; there was a louder rustle in the trees, whose heavy masses began to stand out from the sky⁠—the morning was breaking. + 

Reinhold closed the window. He wanted an hour’s repose, and felt that now he could take it. A gentle peace like the lull after a storm had come upon his spirit⁠—he felt that he was himself again, that he had no need to blame or quarrel with himself further, and with fate he had never quarrelled. + 

He put out the candles, which had nearly burnt down to their sockets; sank into the great armchair which stood before the fire, stared for a few moments at the embers which here and there shone amongst the ashes with a feeble and ever feebler glow, and then fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. + 

XII + 

It was long, very long, before Elsa could sleep. As soon as she closed her eyes the bed changed to a ship that rocked up and down in the waves, and when she raised her weary eyelids more and more wonderful shadows flitted between the heavy folds of the curtains in the dim light of her night-lamp. The events of the day passed through her mind in the most varied form and in the utmost confusion. She was sitting by the sickbed of the children in the close farmhouse room; but near her sat, not the farmer’s wife, but Meta, who had let her loosened hair fall over her face, and told her with sobs how ashamed she was of being in love with a merchant captain whom she had never seen before. And then, again, it was the farmer’s wife who sat upon the side of her bed and begged her to forget what she had said about the Count, who had sent for the doctor the moment she asked him, and who was certainly a kind gentleman in his own way, although he did not care about children and poor people, and looked sometimes so proud, and would be very angry if he knew that she always kept the little compass concealed in her pocket, which she must return to its owner tomorrow, for she had promised it by her friendship. + 

That must have been the last flickering thread of the half-waking thoughts with which her dreams now played the most grotesquely painful tricks. Through narrow passages on board ship, and magnificent saloons, through dark forests, over foaming waves, now in a rocking boat, now in a shaking carriage, then again running hastily across the sandhills, where the ground at every step gave way under her eager feet, as she vainly endeavoured to hold by the waving grasses⁠—always and everywhere she hastened after the Captain, to whom she must speak, she knew not why, to whom she must give something, she knew not what; she only knew that her happiness depended upon her speaking to him, upon her giving this thing to him. But she could not find him, and when she was certain that he was only hidden behind a curtain, behind which she could even see his figure, and called to him to come forward⁠—she knew very well that he was there, and at last wanted, laughingly, to lift the curtain⁠—someone always held her back, sometimes her father shaking his head with displeasure, then the President, who put up his eyeglass and assured her that he could see through the thickest curtains, but there was nobody there. It was not a red silk curtain either, but thick dark smoke, which only shone so red from the blood which had been shed behind it; but that blood was the lifeblood of the Captain, who had just fallen in the battle of Gravelotte, half an hour before midday. She could do nothing to help him now. + 

“But I must see him again. He gave me his heart; I have it in my pocket, and it is always quivering and wanting to get back to him. I cannot give it back to him, but I will give him my own instead, and then his will be at rest again.” + 

“If that is the case,” said the President, “just put your heart here upon his tombstone.” + 

And he drew back the red smoke as if it had been a curtain. There she saw a great iron cross, flooded with bright morning light; and at the foot of the cross, on the green turf, sat he whom she sought, in dress-coat and fisherman’s boots, and by his side Meta von Strummin; and they had a casket in their hands, in which lay a heart. She could not see it, but she knew that it was a heart. + 

“You must not give that away,” said she. + 

“Why not?” cried Meta. “I can give away my heart as often as I please, you know; I have given it away twenty times already.” + 

“But that is my heart⁠—my heart!” + 

Meta would not give her the heart, and then she grew so anxious and fearful. She caught Meta’s hands, and struggled with her. + 

“Do wake up!” said Meta. “You are sighing and groaning so that you quite woke me.” + 

“I thought the cross was red!” said Elsa. + 

“You are dreaming still. That is the shadow of the window frame; I have drawn back the curtains to let in the light. The sun must rise soon, the sky is quite red now. It looks beautiful! Do just sit up, and that will rouse you altogether.” + 

Elsa sat up. The whole room was filled with a red glow. + 

“What have you been dreaming about?” asked Meta. + 

“I do not know,” said Elsa. + 

“How pretty you are,” said Meta; “much prettier even than you were yesterday evening. Did your dream give you such rosy cheeks, or is it the morning glow!” + 

“The morning glow,” said Elsa. “How I should like to see the sun rise! I have never yet seen it.” + 

“No!” cried Meta, clasping her hands together; “never yet seen the sun rise! Is it possible! Oh, you town people! Come! it never rises more beautifully than here at Golmberg, but we must make haste. I am half-dressed already. I will come and help you directly.” + 

Meta came back in a few minutes and began to help Elsa to dress. + 

“I was born to be a lady’s-maid,” said she. “Will you have me? I will dress and undress you all day long, and be as faithful as a lapdog to you; for one’s heart must cling to something, you know, and my heart has nothing now to cling to, you know. There now, just a veil over your beautiful hair, and this lovely shawl round you⁠—you will want them; it will be quite cold enough.” + 

But a soft warm air met them as they stepped from the glass door on to the little balcony, from which a small iron staircase led down into a strip of garden which had been laid out between the two wings of the building. + 

“The gate is never locked,” said Meta; “we can get straight into the forest, you know, and be there in five minutes; but we must make haste if we want to see anything.” + 

She dragged her faintly-resisting companion quickly on. “Don’t be afraid,” she cried, “I know every step of the way; we shall not meet a soul, at the utmost only a roedeer⁠—look!” + 

She held Elsa back by the arm and pointed to the broad path. + 

There stood a deer not a hundred yards from them. It seemed to see nothing alarming in their two figures, but bent its delicate head, which it had raised for a moment, and quietly went on grazing. + 

“That is what I delight in,” said Meta, as they quickly pursued the narrow path. + 

“So do I,” said Elsa. + 

“Then you must marry the Count.” + 

“You must not say that again if we are to remain friends,” said Elsa, standing still. + 

“Your eyes look as solemn as the deer’s,” said Meta. “Now you are laughing again, and that is much more becoming. But now shut your beautiful eyes tight, give me your hand, and don’t be afraid to walk on; but do not open your eyes. Mind you do not open them till I say, Now!” + 

Elsa did as she was bid. A low rustling sound which she had perceived for some time past became louder and louder, the wind blew more and more strongly against her, a rosy light shone through her closed eyelids. + 

“Now!” + 

Elsa uttered a cry. + 

“Do not be afraid; the railing is strong, and I am holding you,” said Meta. + 

Elsa was startled, but only with delight at the wonderful picture which was spread before her. Below her, far below, a sea of rustling, rosy, glowing boughs, and beyond the forest billows, the real sea, as far as the eye could reach, tossing in waves whose foaming crests shone here and there in a crimson glow, answering to that which overspread the heavens. And a crimson glow was on the shore, which swept in graceful curves out to the right hand as far as the rugged promontory, against whose steep cliffs, plainly seen notwithstanding the great distance, the surf leapt high up in foam and froth. + 

“Well, what do you say?” cried Meta. + 

Elsa could not answer; her soul was too full of the wonderful sight, and yet, as she repeated to herself, “How beautiful! oh, how beautiful!” her heart, which had been so light, grew sadder and more sad. With the impetuous music of the wind through the rustling branches at her feet, in the sullen thunder of the waves as, unseen by her eyes they broke upon the level shore, there mingled a melancholy tone⁠—the reverberation of the dream from which she had awoke in such terror. Was not that crimson cloud, paling momentarily before the trembling light in the horizon, like the crimson curtain which had been drawn aside to show her that wonderful picture at the foot of the cross as it shone in the morning light; that picture of the two who were playing with her heart and laughing, while she was breaking it in grief and pain? + 

Lighter and lighter grew the horizon, their eyes could hardly bear the glory. At last the sun leapt up⁠—a mass of light, a sheaf of rays, a ball of flame, before which the glow on sky and sea and earth as if in terror fled and vanished. Elsa was forced to close her eyes; she turned away, and when she opened them again⁠—good heavens! what did she see? + 

They were standing a few paces from her, holding each other’s hands and smiling, with the golden light of the sun shining full upon them. Was she dreaming again? or was it a delusion of her bewildered senses! + 

“This is too delightful!” cried Meta. + 

“Good morning, Fräulein von Werben!” said Reinhold, as he withdrew his hand from Meta, who in her surprise had kept it a most indecorously long time, and came up to Elsa. “I must apologise again for disturbing you here. But how could I suppose that I should meet you in the forest at sunrise?” + 

“And may I ask what you are doing in the forest at sunrise. Captain Schmidt?” asked Meta. + 

Reinhold pointed with his hand over the sea, to a ship which had just rounded the promontory, and now seemed to be steering straight across the bay, leaving behind it a long straight streak of dark smoke: + 

“That is our steamer,” said Reinhold, turning to Elsa. “She has been lying all night at anchor, behind Wissow Head, and is coming now, I suppose, to pick up our fellow-passengers. There, in the centre of the bay, you can just see the roofs over the edge of the dunes, lies Ahlbeck, the village where they were landed. The farmhouse, where we were yesterday evening, lies much nearer, and more to our right; but the spurs of the hill on which we now stand come between us and conceal it. I must make haste now to be able at least to signal to her from the shore. They will be surprised to see me come on board alone.” + 

“Why should not we also go on board, if it would be so easy?” asked Elsa. + 

“You will get to Neuenfähr almost as quickly, and much more comfortably, by road,” answered Reinhold. “That was settled yesterday by the gentlemen, after the ladies had retired, and I could only agree with them.” + 

“And you?” asked Meta. + 

“I belong to the ship. There, she has just turned, and is coming in shore now. Besides, I have a commission from the President to execute. But it is high time for me to be off.” + 

“Goodbye, Captain Schmidt,” said Meta; “we shall meet again, I hope.” + 

“You are very kind,” said Reinhold. “Goodbye.” + 

He had turned to Elsa. Something like a shadow dimmed his blue eyes, and they did not look at her, but beyond her, perhaps towards the ship. + 

“Goodbye, Captain Schmidt.” + 

At the sound of her voice the shadow vanished; the blue eyes that now turned towards her shone brightly, brightly and joyfully as the sun, only that she had no need or desire now to close her eyes, but answered the deep earnest look frankly and earnestly, as her heart prompted her. + 

And then he disappeared. + 

The two girls retraced their steps, but without talking as they had done on their way out. They walked silently side by side, till, at the spot where the two paths crossed, and where they had before seen the deer, Meta suddenly threw her arms round Elsa’s neck, and kissed her passionately and repeatedly. + 

“What is the matter, Meta?” + 

“Nothing⁠—nothing at all! Only you have such beautiful eyes!” + 

Reinhold, meanwhile, hastened down the narrow woodland path, which led from the place where he had found them, by a sharp descent over the side of the hill, between tall beeches and thick underwood, down to the seashore. He had not felt so gay and lighthearted since the days of his childhood. He could have sung and shouted for joy; and yet he was silent⁠—quite silent, that he might not disturb the echo of her voice. + 

Only, as at a turn of the path the forest suddenly opened out, and the sea, his beloved sea, appeared in the bright morning sunshine between the trees that sloped down to the shore, he spread out his arms and cried: + 

“I will be always true to you⁠—always!” + 

Then he laughed at the double meaning of his words, laughed like a schoolboy, and ran down the steep path as if he had wings to his feet. + 