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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of What the Swallow Sang, by Friedrich Spielhagen
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: What the Swallow Sang
+       A Novel
+
+Author: Friedrich Spielhagen
+
+Translator: M. S.
+
+Release Date: December 8, 2010 [EBook #34599]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT THE SWALLOW SANG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+   1.  Page scan source:
+      http://books.google.com/books?id=uu89AAAAYAAJ&dq
+
+   2.  The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
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+
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+
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+
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+$1.25.
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+
+
+
+                         _LEISURE HOUR SERIES_
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+                         What The Swallow Sang
+
+
+                                A NOVEL
+
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                          FRIEDRICH SPIELHAGEN
+
+
+
+                       TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
+
+                                   BY
+
+                                  MS.
+
+                             TRANSLATOR OF
+            "_By His Own Might_," "_A Twofold Life_," _etc_.
+
+
+
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                            HOLT & WILLIAMS
+                                  1873
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
+                              HENRY HOLT,
+       In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+
+
+
+
+                     Poole & Maclauchlan, Printers,
+                        205-213 _East 12th St_.,
+                               NEW YORK.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         What The Swallow Sang.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+"I won't give you any farther trouble, I can find what I want myself."
+
+The sexton's wife looked at the gentleman in some little surprise, and
+then glanced at the bunch of huge keys which hung in the door she had
+just opened for the stranger.
+
+"That's right; you need not be uneasy, I shall not stay long, and here
+is something for your trouble."
+
+He pressed a piece of money into her hand, and turned towards the door.
+
+"The Herr Pastor has strictly forbidden it," said the woman.
+
+"He will have no objection," replied the stranger. "I will leave a few
+words for him."
+
+He took his note-book and wrote a few lines. When he tore out the leaf
+he perceived on the other side a little sketch which he had dashed off
+that afternoon with a few hasty strokes, while his carriage stopped
+before a village inn.
+
+A smile flitted over his grave features.
+
+"That won't do," he murmured. "And here again, everything is filled
+with scrawls. Well," he added aloud, as he thrust the note-book back
+into his pocket, "I will write from P----. Please tell him so;
+farewell, my good woman."
+
+The sexton's wife did not venture to make any reply, and turned away.
+The stranger looked after her retreating figure a few minutes.
+"Strange," he murmured, "it seems as if it would be committing a
+sacrilege to utter my name aloud in this place! It was really a relief
+to my mind that the woman did not know me. How we are all under the ban
+of gloomy feelings which we should be ashamed to confess to others! To
+be sure it is not strange that these emotions should almost overpower
+me here; here, in this spot which should be my home, where my cradle
+stood, and yet where I was not allowed to return until the grave had
+closed over him to whom I owe my life."
+
+He had taken a few noiseless steps within the church, and now pausing,
+gazed around the narrow space. The sun, already low in the horizon,
+cast through the round, leaden-cased panes of the lofty narrow windows
+a mysterious light, which brightened or faded as the soft breeze raised
+or lowered the branches of the ancient linden-trees outside the walls.
+And thus, now clear now dim, but always sorrowful, the memories of his
+early years swept through the stranger's mind as he stood motionless,
+his eyes wandering over the massive white-washed walls, the few dusky
+pictures hung here and there at far too great a height, the little
+oaken font black with age, the altar with its two large brass sconces,
+and the pulpit, whose desk was covered with a tattered cloth.
+Everything was just as it used to be; he even remembered the holes in
+the cover, only it was all very much smaller, more poverty-stricken and
+tasteless than memory had pictured it. Yet this was the most favorable
+light,--what must it be in the broad glare of day! And his gloomy,
+sorrowful childhood,--what was it when he extinguished the magical
+light of memory, when he saw it as it really was, as a cold fanatical
+father had made it to the child so early bereft of a mother's love.
+
+The traveller started from his revery as a sharp sound suddenly echoed
+through the quiet church as if something had burst asunder. It was the
+clock, which had just begun to strike. He passed his hand over his
+brow, mechanically counted the strokes and listened to the rumbling
+echo till the last sound died away. "Seven o' clock," said he; "it is
+time for me to set out again."
+
+He walked around behind the benches, up a side aisle, on the right of
+the pulpit, until he reached the large iron door of the crypt. It was
+fastened, but on both sides, affixed to the wall, were the mural
+tablets of the pastors of Rammin, who had preached the gospel over the
+coffins of their predecessors whom they were some day to join. He went
+to the last stone and read the inscription, that here rested in God,
+Gotthold Ephraim Weber, D.D., installed in 1805 as Pastor of St. Mary's
+church in Rammin, born August 3d, 1780, died June 15th, 1833.
+
+"Gotthold Ephraim Weber," murmured the stranger, "that is my name too,
+and I am also a Doctor of Theology. That I would not remain where my
+father placed me, but insisted upon taking the profession for which,
+according to my best knowledge and belief, I was born, separated him
+who now lies here from me forever. No, no, not that, at least that was
+not the true cause! I never understood in your sense what is written
+here: 'Blessed are those who die in the Lord.' We were never one, had
+been separated long before we parted. Well, father, at least let there
+be peace between us now. I wish with all my heart that you may have the
+bliss in which you believed; and say: 'blessed are the--dead,' so you
+certainly have the happiness in which I believe."
+
+Gotthold made a gesture like one who holds out his hand in
+reconciliation. "Let us have peace now," he repeated.
+
+A little bird, which had perched for a moment in one of the openings
+above the window, twittered so loudly that the sweet clear tones filled
+the silent empty church.
+
+"I will take it as an answer," said Gotthold.
+
+He left the building as slowly as he had entered it, and went down the
+broad path in the churchyard to a spot where, at a large iron cross,
+which also bore the inscription, "Blessed are those who die in the
+Lord," a narrow walk branched off towards the wall. Scarcely anything
+had been altered in this older portion of the cemetery; he still
+remembered every mound, every cross, every stone, and every epitaph;
+there at last was what he was seeking--the grave with the low wooden
+railing, the stunted weeping willow, the little slanting cross,
+neglected as ever, or perhaps even more so--his mother's grave.
+
+He had lost her so very young, when he was only four or five years old,
+that he had scarcely the faintest shadow of personal remembrance; he
+had never seen a picture of her, and his father only mentioned her name
+when he said angrily: "You are just like your mother," yet perhaps for
+this very reason his fancy had always busied itself very frequently
+with this dead mother, who had been like him, and would certainly have
+loved him as he loved her dear shadow, until it almost assumed a bodily
+form. A dear, dream-like form, which came unbidden, and disappeared
+when he would so gladly have detained it longer.
+
+He plucked a few leaves from the willow, but scattered them over the
+grave again.
+
+"We need no mementos," he said; "we understand each other without any
+outward tokens, and it shall remain as it is, decay silently and
+gradually, as time wills. Who would be benefited by the most superb
+monument I could order from Thorwaldsen's master hand? Not you--what do
+the shades in Nirwana care for such earthly vanities--and not I. I
+shall never stand upon this spot again, and to others the stone would
+be only a stone. No, it is better so; it is in harmony with the place."
+
+He looked up, and his artist's eye wandered over the graves, upon whose
+long grass, swaying in the soft breeze, the setting sun scattered rosy
+hues, to the ancient church, whose rude square tower still glowed in
+the purple light, while the main building was already in deep shadow.
+
+"This scene and hour would make a beautiful picture," said Gotthold,
+"but I shall not paint it. That would efface it from my mind, and I
+wish to hold it fast there forever."
+
+He closed his eyes a moment, and when he opened them did not look
+around again as he walked slowly, with his hands behind his back,
+through the narrow path to the gate. Suddenly he paused and
+involuntarily extended his hand towards two little graves close beside
+the path, whose inscriptions had caught his eye in passing. "Cecilia
+Brandow," "Caroline Brandow." The date of the birth and death of the
+children was also added in tiny characters, as small as the mounds
+themselves.
+
+A strange emotion thrilled his frame. He had thought this was over,
+utterly effaced from his life, and that he could take the journey to
+the bedside of his dying father, which had become a pilgrimage to his
+parents' graves, without being disturbed by the vicinity of his early
+love. Nay, just now when he came out of the church door, he had gazed
+from this lofty stand-point over the wide landscape to the park of
+Dahlitz, through whose dusky trees gleamed the white gables of the
+mansion, and the past had remained mute. Now it flooded his soul like a
+torrent which has suddenly burst its bounds. Her children--and she
+herself was then scarcely more than a child! Her children. One, the
+eldest, had borne her name--the name which ever since those days had
+always had a peculiar, sacred association, so that he could never hear
+or read it without a strange thrill. Cecilia! Her children! Strange!
+Incomprehensibly strange! Incomprehensible as the death to which they
+had so soon fallen victims! She had wept and knelt at these graves with
+her husband beside her, the husband whose name was also inscribed in
+gilt letters upon these tablets, and who asserted his paternal rights
+in the Christian name of the younger: "Carl Brandow"! Did he too shed
+tears for his children? It was impossible to think of Carl Brandow's
+sharp, hard features wet with tears.
+
+How the face of Gotthold's enemy--the only one he had ever had--rose in
+almost tangible outlines before his mind, while a sharp pang ran
+through the deep scar which, beginning under his hair, passed over the
+right temple, across the cheek, and even divided the heavy beard, the
+scar on whose account the sexton's wife, mindful of the words that
+marked people should be avoided, had been so unwilling to leave the
+stately stranger alone in the church. Was the wound going to bleed
+again--the wound that man's hand had dealt when both were schoolboys?
+Would it have been any miracle at that moment, when his heart was
+throbbing so violently, as if to say: The wound I have been struck is
+newer by some years, and much fresher and deeper, yet you see it is not
+healed as you supposed, and never will be!
+
+"Never," said Gotthold, "never! Well, at least I will not touch it.
+And--the innocent children are not to blame, if there is blame
+anywhere. I wish. I could call them back to life for you, poor Cecilia,
+and may Heaven preserve those who I trust have been given you in their
+place!"
+
+A figure clad in black, with a low broad-brimmed hat and white
+neck-tie, approached the churchyard from the parsonage. It was
+doubtless his father's successor, the new Pastor, who had returned from
+examining the school earlier than the sexton's wife expected, and come
+in search of the stranger who had inquired for him, and then ordered
+the church to be unlocked. In his present excited frame of mind
+Gotthold would gladly have avoided this meeting; but the reverend
+gentleman appeared to have seen him already, for he quickened his
+steps, and, as Gotthold now approached him, held out both hands,
+exclaiming: "Must we meet again under such sorrowful circumstances?"
+
+Gotthold cast a puzzled glance at the beardless, plump white face of
+the man who now stood before him, clasping and pressing his hands; his
+watery blue eyes winking perpetually, either from emotion or because
+the setting sun was shining into them.
+
+"Don't you know me, my dear brother?" asked the reverend gentleman;
+"didn't they tell you my name? August Semmel--"
+
+"Surnamed Kloss,"[1] said Gotthold with an involuntary laugh. "I beg
+your pardon, I really had not heard your name, and then I have never
+seen you lately except in uniform, with a military cap on one side of
+your head, and your face covered with a beard; it is really an
+excellent mask."
+
+Pastor Semmel dropped Gotthold's hands and hastily turned away, so that
+he placed himself in shadow.
+
+"A mask," he said, rolling up his eyes piously; "yes indeed! and, as I
+now think, a very vain, not to say sinful one. I often scolded you then
+because you would not enter our corps, although you sometimes did not
+disdain to go to an ale--to amuse yourself with us, I mean; now I envy
+you for having had the power of self-renunciation I lacked."
+
+"So Saul has now become Paul," replied Gotthold smiling, "while my
+journey to Damascus is still delayed."
+
+"Yes, yes," said the Pastor. "Who would have thought it! The most
+industrious of us all at school, the most indefatigable at the
+university; always held up as a pattern by teachers and professors;
+when in the fourth session already cram--preparing us older ones for
+the examination, passing your own with great distinction, and all
+this--"
+
+"For Hecuba! No, dear Semmel, you must not revile my art, although I
+freely admit I am but a poor artist as yet. But I can assure you of one
+thing: it is easier to pass a creditable examination in theology than
+to paint a good picture. I speak from experience; besides if I had
+remained a theological student, who knows whether the son might not
+have stepped into his father's place instead of you? That is to be
+considered too."
+
+"There would have been a terrible competition," said Herr Semmel,
+"although on the other hand a prophet has little honor in his own
+country; and to be frank, when I was a candidate here--after I left
+Halle I spent four years in Lower Pomerania as a tutor in Count
+Zerneckow's family, and afterwards came to Neuenkirchen to relieve the
+old man, who had grown very garrulous, so that I thought I was
+positively settled--but he has entirely recovered his powers again, and
+so it happened very opportunely--what was I going to say? yes--when I
+applied for this place a month ago, and thought it would be an
+advantage to present myself as an intimate school and university friend
+of my predecessor's son, I found the recommendation was not
+satisfactory everywhere. Herr Otto von Plüggen of Plüggenhof--"
+
+Gotthold could not help laughing. "I suppose so," said he, "I have
+often punched his stupid head when he went to school in P."
+
+"You know I was in the first class, while you were still in the
+second," continued the Pastor in an apologetic tone, "and had entirely
+forgotten that you must have known each other; but when, warned by my
+experience with von Plüggen, I mentioned you more cautiously to several
+others, I found a certain, what shall I term it? hostility would be
+unchristian, but--"
+
+"Let us drop the subject," said Gotthold somewhat impatiently.
+
+"Certainly, certainly," replied the Pastor, "although you will be glad
+to hear that I took advantage of this very opportunity to speak of your
+generous gift to the poor of our parish, which--"
+
+"But why did you do that when I particularly requested that my name
+should not be mentioned?"
+
+"Because it is written: 'Thou shalt not hide thy light under a bushel;'
+and because it was the only way to silence the injurious report that
+had become associated with your name."
+
+"Injurious report?" asked Gotthold.
+
+"Why yes, because people knew that for the last seven years, ever since
+your uncle's death, you have been in possession of a large fortune, and
+yet your father--"
+
+"Good Heavens! what could I do," cried Gotthold, "if my father
+obstinately refused all my offers? but I really cannot discuss this
+matter any farther. Besides, it is high time for me to set out, if I
+wish to reach P. in good season. Has Herr Wollnow arranged everything
+my father left according to your wishes? Unfortunately, I could not
+attend to it myself, since, as you have probably learned from him, I
+fell sick on my journey, and was forced to remain several weeks in
+Milan; but I wrote to him from there to carry out the wishes of my
+father's successor in every respect."
+
+"Without knowing who that successor was!" exclaimed Herr Semmel; "yes,
+that's the way with you artists. Well, I have not been grasping. True,
+there were many valuable books on theology in your father's library
+which I would gladly have retained, and as you gave the purchaser
+permission to set his own price--"
+
+"That is all right, my dear Semmel, and now don't come a step farther."
+
+"Only to your carriage, which I saw standing at the door of the inn."
+
+"Not another step, I beg of you."
+
+They were standing at the churchyard gate, which opened into the
+village-street; but the Pastor seemed unable to release Gotthold's
+hand.
+
+"For your own comfort, and the honor of your old schoolmates, I must
+add one remark in connection with our former subject of conversation.
+All were not guilty of such uncharitableness--I may surely be permitted
+to give it that name without being uncharitable myself. Some of them
+spoke very warmly in your praise; no one more so than Carl Brandow."
+
+"Brandow! Carl Brandow!" exclaimed Gotthold; "it is certainly--"
+
+"Certainly only his duty, if he tries to make amends to you for an
+offence committed in youthful thoughtlessness by everywhere asserting
+the truth, and declaring that the demon of avarice is the very last
+that could obtain dominion over you; and if your father died as poor as
+he had lived, it was undoubtedly--"
+
+"Farewell!" said Gotthold, extending his hand across the low door to
+the Pastor.
+
+"May God bless and keep you!" said the Pastor. "You ought to spare
+another hour to spend with an old friend."
+
+Gotthold said no more. He had withdrawn his hand with almost
+uncourteous haste, and was now walking rapidly down the village-street,
+with his hat pulled far over his brows. Herr Semmel looked after him
+with a contemptuous smile on his fat face.
+
+"The enthusiast!" said he; "it seems as if the ill-luck he has had has
+turned his brain. But no matter. People must cling to the rich. Carl
+Brandow is a sly fellow. He probably knows why, from the moment he
+heard he was coming back, he took a new key, and cannot say enough in
+praise of the man whom he once abused like a reed-sparrow. Perhaps he
+wants to try to borrow of him. Well, he certainly needs a loan. Plüggen
+says he is making his last shifts. He will be at Plüggenhof to-morrow.
+My news will make quite an excitement."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The long village-street was empty. Here and there an old woman appeared
+in the doorway of one of the low straw-roofed huts, or a few half-naked
+children played behind the tangled hedges in the neglected gardens;
+every one else had gone to the fields, for this was the first day of
+the rye-harvest.
+
+The village-street was empty, and the swallows had free course. Up and
+down they moved in their arrowlike flight, now on the ground, now
+rising in graceful circles, straight lines, or zig-zag course,
+chirping, twittering, and unweariedly fluttering their slender wings.
+
+Gotthold paused, pushed back his hat, which he had drawn over his eyes,
+and gazed as if absorbed in thought at the graceful little creatures,
+which he had loved from his earliest childhood. While he stood watching
+them, the angry displeasure roused by the Pastor's words gradually
+yielded to a strange melancholy.
+
+"What the swallow sang, what the swallow sang," he murmured. "Yes, yes,
+it echoes through the village just as it did then:--
+
+
+            When I went away, when I went away,
+               I left well-filled chests behind,
+            But returning to-day, but returning to-day,
+                  Naught I find.
+
+
+"I thought I understood it--but I had only read it with my eyes, not my
+heart, the heart of a lonely man, who after an absence of ten years
+returns to the sacred scenes of his youth to find what I have found
+to-day--the most painful memory of that which was once mine."
+
+Up and down flew the swallows, now close to the earth, and now in a
+lofty curve over a loaded harvest-wagon which had turned into the
+principal street from an adjoining lane, and disappeared in a barn.
+
+"How does it go on," said Gotthold:--
+
+
+            Back the swallows dart, back the swallows dart,
+               And the chests again run o'er;
+            But an empty heart, but an empty heart,
+                  Fills no more.
+
+
+He passed his hand over his eyes to brush away the tears which
+constantly sprang into them, while a mournful smile played around his
+lips.
+
+"It would be an amusing spectacle to my Roman friends if they could see
+me standing here crying like a schoolboy; and what would you say,
+Julia? The same thing that you did when I translated the song: That is
+all nonsense, my dear friend. How can a heart be empty? My heart has
+never been empty since I knew I had one, and now it is full of love for
+you, as yours is for me, you German dreamer. Then you stroked the hair
+from my brow, and kissed me as only you can kiss. And yet, and yet! If
+I loved you, Julia, it was only a feeble semblance of the passion I
+once felt, as the pale East just gleamed with rosy light from the
+reflection of the sunset glow in the western sky. I have parted from
+you, and my heart did not quiver as it did just now when I read on her
+children's gravestones the name of one now dead to me."
+
+He extended his hands as if in benediction.
+
+"Sing on your sweet sad song, innocent swallows! Go and return,
+bringing Spring to the barren fields and empty human hearts! May Heaven
+watch over you, my dear native meadows and beloved birthplace! In spite
+of all, you are as sacred to me as the memories of my youth!"
+
+The carriage was waiting at the door of the village-inn. The coachman
+had merely loosened the curbs on the horses' necks, that they might eat
+the bread chopped into little squares more easily. He now pushed aside
+the movable crib, hastily gave them a drink from the half-emptied pail,
+and when Gotthold came up was already standing with the reins in his
+hand beside the door, which he opened with a friendly grin.
+
+It was the first time he had shown his passenger such an attention.
+They had passed over the long road across the island--Gotthold,
+contrary to his usual custom, absorbed in gloomy thoughts, and by no
+means dissatisfied with the taciturnity of the driver, who sat
+motionless before him, hour after hour, his broad shoulders covered
+with a blue linen coat, somewhat white in the seams, stooping
+carelessly, and smoking a short pipe, which Gotthold did not forbid,
+unpleasant as the sickly odor of the weed often was.
+
+He might therefore have some reason to be surprised when, just after
+they had left the village and were driving slowly along between the
+cornfields, on the narrow by-way that led to the main road, the
+broad-shouldered man suddenly turned, and showing his large white
+teeth, said in his Platt Deutsch accent:
+
+"Don't you know me, Herr Gotthold?"
+
+"No," said Gotthold, laughing, as he looked into the smiling face of
+the driver, "but you seem to be better acquainted with me."
+
+"I've been thinking all the way whether it was you or not," said the
+man; "sometimes I thought it was, and then again that it wasn't."
+
+"You might have asked."
+
+"Yes, you may well say so, but I didn't think of it; that would
+certainly have been the simplest way. Well, it don't matter now; I know
+you--by that!" said the driver, drawing the handle of his whip over his
+face to mark the course of Gotthold's scar. "You ought to have been
+known by it this morning, for one don't see such things every day; but
+it's a long time ago, and such things often happen in war; besides,
+with your thick beard and brown, face, you look just exactly as if you
+had come from Spain, where no doubt they are fighting again; but when
+you stopped just now in Rammin, and went up to the parsonage without
+even asking a question, I said at once, 'Yes, it's certainly he.'"
+
+"And you are--you are Jochen--Jochen Prebrow!" exclaimed Gotthold,
+cordially extending his hand, which Jochen, turning half-round on his
+seat, clasped no less heartily in his huge palm.
+
+"To be sure," said he, "and you really didn't know me."
+
+"How could I," replied Gotthold. "You have grown so tall and stout,
+although indeed in this respect you have only fulfilled the promise of
+your boyhood."
+
+"Yes, that's so," replied Jochen, "but my sergeant in Berlin always
+said it was no vice."
+
+Jochen Prebrow turned back to his horses. He had established the
+identity between his stately passenger and the slender playfellow of
+his childhood, upon which he had been reflecting all day, and was
+perfectly satisfied. Gotthold too was silent; it moved him deeply to
+think he could have travelled nearly all day with worthy Jochen, as if
+he had been a total stranger.
+
+Jochen Prebrow, the son of the Dollan blacksmith! The pleasant days
+again rose before him when he left P. with Curt Wenhof for the
+holidays, which must always be spent in Dollan, and Jochen stood on the
+moor where the road branched off from the highway, waiting for them,
+and waving his cap; Jochen, who was well aware that his good times were
+coming with the pair, times of catching fish and snaring birds under
+the care of old Cousin Boslaf, to say nothing of a thousand wild,
+thoughtless pranks on land and sea for which Curt always undertook to
+be answerable to his good-natured father.
+
+"And the young master is dead too," said Jochen Prebrow, again turning
+half-round on his seat, in token that having settled the principal
+matter, he was now ready to proceed to details.
+
+Gotthold nodded.
+
+"Drowned sailing on the Spree," continued Jochen, "and yet he was
+skilful as any sailor, and could swim like a fish; it was very queer,
+but he told me that he should come to such an end some day." He filled
+his pipe afresh.
+
+"When did he tell you so?"
+
+"He had come from Gr. to his sister's wedding, and afterwards was to go
+to Berlin and show whether he had learned his lessons, and he would
+probably have come off badly, for our young master was never fond of
+study. So he told me about it when we came back from P., where the
+wedding took place. I drove the carriage because old Christian was
+sick, and then we went at full speed to Dollan, where a great breakfast
+was served, and our young master had probably been drinking a little
+too much when he came out to the stable, threw himself down on the
+straw, and began to sob pitifully.
+
+"What's the matter, young master?" said I.
+
+"Ah! Jochen," he answered, "it's all up. I begged my father to let me
+be a farmer, for he would never make a lawyer of me; but he says we
+have nothing, nothing at all; he can't even pay my sister's dowry."
+
+"Well, young master," said I, "that's not so very bad; you have a rich
+brother-in-law now who can certainly give you some money."
+
+"But he started up, sprang upon me, seized me by the throat, and shook
+me till I was afraid for my life, crying: If you ever say another
+word about that,--well, it was an ugly word for a man to call his
+brother-in-law, especially our young master, who had always been so
+good-natured, but I said to myself, He's been drinking too much; for he
+wanted me to upset them when I drove them to Dahlitz; you know the
+place, Herr Gotthold, just before you get to the smithy, when the moor
+lies below you on the left, as you come down the hill. It's very easy
+to upset a carriage there so that the people inside will never get up
+again; but it's pretty queer business to upset your master's daughter
+on her wedding-day, and even if I'd wanted to do it I didn't drive
+them, after all, for Herr Brandow had ordered his own carriage with
+four horses; and Hinrich Scheel, who was his coachman then and is now,
+wouldn't upset them, for nobody can deny that he knows how to drive and
+ride."
+
+Jochen Prebrow cracked his whip, and the horses, which had been
+advancing along the narrow by-way at a walk, trotted rapidly over the
+smooth broad high-road.
+
+A short distance on the left appeared Dahlitz, the fine estate once the
+property of the ancient noble family to which Cecilia's mother
+belonged, but which had long since passed into the possession of the
+plebeian Brandow, and was now Carl Brandow's inheritance.
+
+The highway, as Gotthold remembered, led directly through the estate,
+and for a considerable distance farther ran close by the wall of the
+park. His heart began to beat violently; his eyes wandered timidly
+towards the house, whose white front was already partially visible
+between the out-buildings. To pass so near her home, to let the only
+opportunity he might ever be offered escape thus, never, never to see
+her more!
+
+Gotthold leaned back in the corner of the carriage, drawing the broad
+brim of his hat farther over his eyes; he would fain have ordered
+Jochen to turn back again. Meantime Jochen was driving on at a slow
+trot; it would soon be over. But just as they were passing the gates an
+empty harvest wagon came out so rapidly that the horses almost struck
+Jochen's. The latter swore, the farm hand swore, and some one standing
+in the courtyard swore also, Gotthold could not understand whether at
+his own man or the strange coachman--probably at both; but it was not
+Carl Brandow's clear voice, and the coarse fat man in top boots, who
+strode heavily forward to the gate, certainly bore no resemblance to
+Carl Brandow's slight, elastic figure.
+
+Then Jochen again had a free passage for his frightened horses, which
+he reined in with considerable difficulty as they passed at full gallop
+by the low park wall, over which now and then one could obtain through
+the trees and shrubs a view of the pleasure-grounds, and even
+distinguish a broad handsome lawn which lay on one side of the mansion.
+On this piece of turf was a swing, in which two little girls were just
+being carefully pushed to and fro by their nurse, while a half-dozen
+other children of all ages gambolled upon the grass, their fresh voices
+ringing merrily on the quiet evening air. A stately lady moved among
+the group, with a little man dressed in black beside her, apparently
+the boys' tutor.
+
+The picture was only visible a few seconds, but Gotthold's keen eye had
+seized it down to the smallest detail, and it was still in his mind
+when the carriage moved more slowly along the broad highway. His heart
+had trembled causelessly; she no longer lived here. Where was she now?
+He had not heard a word from home for so long--was she dead? She was to
+him, of course, and yet, and yet--
+
+"That Redebas is a coarse fellow," said Jochen taking the reins in his
+left hand, "but he understands his business; he'll come out all right."
+
+"So Dahlitz does not belong to Herr Brandow?" said Gotthold.
+
+"Well, I declare," replied Jochen, pointing back with the handle of his
+whip into the gathering twilight, "didn't you hear anything yonder
+about what has been happening in this neighborhood?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing at all, my dear Jochen. Who was to tell me?"
+
+"To be sure," said Jochen, "writing isn't everybody's business, not
+mine for instance, and where you have been I suppose there were very
+few mails, and not much opportunity. My sergeant--he was one of the old
+soldiers--was in Spain too in 1807 and"--
+
+"But I have never been in Spain," said Gotthold, "I was in Italy."
+
+This objection was both unexpected and unwelcome to Jochen. He had
+fully made up his mind during the long hours that he had been
+reflecting whether his passenger was the son of the Pastor at Rammin or
+not, that if so, he must at any rate have come straight from Spain; for
+he had heard that Gotthold had given up "preaching" and was now living
+in a foreign country, and Spain was the only foreign country of which
+he had ever heard. So he sank into a profound revery, puffing huge
+clouds of smoke from his short pipe, and Gotthold, difficult as it was
+for him to do so, was compelled to repeat his question, as to where
+Herr Brandow was now living, several times.
+
+"Why, where should he live except in Dollan?" said Jochen at last. "He
+has come down from a horse to a donkey, but that's always so when
+people want to sit so high in their saddles."
+
+"And--and--his wife?"
+
+It must be asked; but Gotthold's lips quivered as he put the question.
+
+"Our poor young lady," said Jochen; "yes, when I drove her with four
+horses to P. for the wedding, she didn't dream the splendor would so
+soon be over. Yes, she is now in the old place again, and our old
+master and the young master are both dead, and her two oldest children
+too; she has only one left."
+
+So she still lived, and lived in Dollan again, dear Dollan, the
+forest-girdled, sea-washed spot where he had spent the happiest and
+most wretched hours of his youth, the sacred and yet accursed place to
+which his dreams had so often led him in joy or sorrow, so that he woke
+with a happy smile on his lips, and also so often with tears in his
+eyes! For a moment it seemed as if she had been restored to him, as if
+the old days had returned. He saw the slender figure gliding through
+the shrubs in the garden at twilight, while he stood at the little
+gable window with a throbbing heart, hearing Curt repeat "mi" till he
+threw the grammar on the table, declaring that he should never
+understand the stuff, and they had better go down to the garden with
+Cecilia. Gotthold passed his hand over his brow and eyes. Had he spoken
+the loved name aloud? Had Jochen, who had resumed his interrupted story
+in the old monotonous tone, mentioned her name? Jochen did not know
+exactly how it had all happened, for he had been in Berlin with the
+army when Herr Wenhof died, and young Herr Brandow came in possession
+of Dollan in addition to his own estate of Dahlitz: then when Jochen
+was released from military duty, as his father and older brother were
+enough to attend to the business of the smithy, he took service as a
+groom with Peter the innkeeper at Altefähr, and only left the place
+when he drove travellers to Stubbenkammer or some other part of the
+island, which did not occur very often. Besides, it had never happened
+that his way led to Dollan, or very near it, for what stranger would
+want to travel so far away from the main road? He had not seen even the
+smithy since, and if his brother had not come to Altefähr once or
+twice, would have known nothing about how things were now going in
+Dollan. True, now he came to think the matter over, his brother had not
+told him much more than he had already learned from others; for Herr
+Brandow was famous for having the finest horses in all Rugen and Upper
+Pomerania, and came every autumn to the races at Str.; the noblemen
+would have hard work to beat him if he was only a plain citizen; and he
+would be sure to win the prize among all the gentlemen riders this
+year; for Hinrich had trained a horse for him whose match could not be
+found. One thing was certain, Hinrich knew more about horse-flesh than
+all the English trainers who cost the other gentlemen so much money put
+together, while others hinted that there was something not quite right
+about the matter, and Hinrich's squint eyes could make horses do
+anything he pleased. That there were such things, he being a
+blacksmith's son, knew very well; but it made a great difference
+whether they were honest arts, such as his father understood for
+instance, or whether another person he would not mention more plainly
+had a finger in the pie. People don't cross mountains with him; he
+makes them pay too dear for his extra horses. It had already cost Herr
+Brandow his fine estate, and they said he could not even keep Dollan
+much longer, and that the devil's horses were eating the hair from his
+head. Did Herr Gotthold believe in such things?
+
+"No, no, no," said Gotthold, starting from his corner and sitting
+erect.
+
+Jochen was obliged to fill his pipe, in order to think over quietly an
+answer so different from what he had expected. Gotthold did not disturb
+his meditations, but sat in silence, absorbed in thought, dreaming of
+what was, what might have been and never would be! Never? Yes, but not
+because fate does not will it; it is because human beings bring on this
+destiny, because they prepare it for themselves, because in dreams
+which thicken into realities, in wishes which become acts, they mould
+their own fate. Did she not, on the evening when she, her father, Curt,
+and himself, had made an excursion from Dollan to Dahlitz, return home
+with the wish to become mistress of the place her mother's family had
+so long possessed; How silently she walked through the stately
+apartments, while her large sparkling eyes wandered thoughtfully over
+the dark pictures on walls hung with faded silken tapestry, and the
+numerous carved ornaments on the chimney-piece, which seemed to her
+unaccustomed eyes a marvel of costliness! How softly she passed her
+hand over the damask curtains in the sleeping-rooms, how she buried her
+glowing face again and again among the flowers in the hot-house, as if
+intoxicated by the heavy perfume. With what interest she listened to
+that squint-eyed Hinrich, as he expatiated upon the merits of the noble
+horses whose light chain halters clanked against the marble cribs, and
+said it was such a pity for the young master to waste his time at the
+agricultural school, when he could employ it to so much better
+advantage here! And how indignantly she looked at the friend who
+fancied himself so dear to her, when with jealous malice he observed
+that Carl Brandow might come back all the sooner, since from all
+accounts he showed the same industry at the college as he had formerly
+done at school! Afterwards she had haughtily bantered the two friends
+as they stood on the lawn, but when she sat down in the large wooden
+swing--the same one where he had just seen the children--resting her
+beautiful head on one hand, while she carelessly played with the
+scarlet ribbons on her white dress with the other, and Gotthold
+approached to put it in motion, she started up and said, laughing, that
+such an ignorant girl ought not to trouble so learned a gentleman. He
+did not suspect what bitter earnest was concealed under the jest, and
+the next morning, when he was obliged to return with Curt to their
+institution of learning, he slipped under her chamber-door a bit of
+paper, on which he had written a free translation of one of Anacreon's
+odes:--
+
+
+            Skittish foal, I prithee why,
+            Flashing fear from thy large eye,
+            Cruel, dost thou mocking flee?
+            "Fool! he nothing is to me."
+
+            Know for thee I soon shall bring
+            And about thy proud neck fling
+            The bridle, and with firm, tight rein,
+            Swift-racing, spur thee o'er the plain.
+
+            Tarry now 'mid pasture-ground,
+            Gayly frolic, lightly bound;
+            But, my skittish foal, take heed!
+            Thy right rider comes with speed.
+
+
+The right rider! Alas! ere six weeks had passed, the right rider came!
+
+It was a dark evening late in Autumn, like the present one. Men, women,
+boys and girls were all out of doors, for it was Saturday night, and
+the great wheat-field must if possible be mowed, the sheaves bound up
+and piled in heaps. They had paused to rest for half an hour, while
+waiting for the rising moon to disperse the dense clouds of mist and
+enable them to resume their interrupted task. Curt and he had busily
+helped the laborers, and even Cecilia tied up a few sheaves; then they
+carried the people the beer Cousin Boslaf had drawn from the huge cask.
+There had been shouting, singing, and jesting among the youths and
+maidens, but all had now become silent, and Herr Wenhof thought if they
+did not begin again soon the whole company would fall asleep, and then
+he should like to see the person who could get them on their feet
+again. But Cousin Boslaf said they must wait ten minutes longer until
+the moon shone clear, and Cousin Boslaf knew best. It grew more and
+more quiet, so quiet that the partridges thought every one had gone,
+and began to call loudly for their scattered families; so quiet that
+Gotthold fancied he could hear the beating of his own heart, as his
+eyes rested on the graceful figure that sat close beside him on a
+sheaf, so near that his hand might have touched her light dress, gazing
+up at the moon, whose white light made her face look strangely pale.
+But the dark eyes often flashed brightly from the pallid countenance,
+and a strange emotion thrilled the youth, as if a ray from the
+spirit-world had fallen upon him. Yes, from the spirit-world, where he
+hovered with his beloved, far above all earthly tumult, far as the pure
+fancy of a youth whose heart is full of a great, sacred love can soar.
+Oh! God, how immeasurably he loved her! How his whole being was bound
+up in this affection! How all his thoughts, feelings, emotions were
+merged into, carried away by, this passion! How every drop of blood
+that flowed through his throbbing heart glowed with this love! How
+every breath that passed over his fevered lips ever murmured: I love
+you, I love you!
+
+And at this moment, when the heavens opened before his enraptured eyes
+and he gazed into the region of the blest--at this moment the blow was
+to fall, which closed the gates of the Paradise of his youth forever,
+and destroyed for years his faith in the sacred feeling that dwells
+securely in the human breast. "Some one is coming on horseback," old
+Boslaf said, approaching the group, and pointing towards the forest. No
+one else perceived anything; but that proved nothing, for the old man
+could hear the grass grow. Cecilia started up, went forward a few
+steps, and paused to listen, and Gotthold saw her press her hand upon
+her heart. His own stood still.
+
+He and Curt had not been to Dollan during the weeks before the
+examination, now successfully passed, and he had heard nothing of all
+that had happened there except that one day Curt casually mentioned
+that Carl Brandow had returned; but now he knew everything. The horse,
+whose rapid hoof-beats he also distinguished, was not bearing Carl
+Brandow over the miles that intervened between Dollan and Dahlitz for
+the first time. Now he knew what the altered expression of her
+features, which had attracted his attention that day, meant--the dreamy
+softness that suddenly yielded to a strange excitement; he knew all,
+all,--that his temple was ruined, his sanctuary profaned. He stood
+apart, unable to move, while the others surrounded the rider, who had
+swung himself from his horse,--the slender rider, who now disengaged
+himself from the group--but not alone! They passed close by without
+noticing him, he with his arm thrown around her waist, bending down and
+whispering to her, she nestling to his side, every line in their
+figures clearly relieved against the bright moonlight; then he saw and
+heard nothing more, and afterwards could only remember that he lay long
+in a dull, terrible despair, in a place far from that spot, on the edge
+of the dark forest, and then started up and staggered through the
+silent, sultry woods as if in a horrible dream, sometimes crying aloud
+like a tortured animal, until he at last emerged from them upon the
+shore of the sea, which stretched before him in a vast, boundless
+expanse in the shimmering moonlight. Here he again threw himself down
+on the sand, but now tears came to his relief--burning tears which,
+however, flowed more and more gently, as if the lapping of the waves
+was a lullaby to the poor quivering heart. At last he rose to his
+knees, extended his arms, and in a long, fervent prayer, to which the
+roaring of the sea murmured an accompaniment, told the universal
+mother, who will never desert her child, that he would always love
+her with boundless affection. Just then old Boslaf suddenly stood
+beside him,--he had not heard his approach, nor did the old man say
+anything,--and they walked silently along the strand until they reached
+the old man's lonely little house among the downs. There he made him a
+rude couch carefully and silently, and mutely smoothed his damp hair
+with his hand, when he lay down to rest for an hour and looked at the
+moonlight which shone through the low window on the wall and glimmered
+upon the weapons, stuffed birds, nets, and fishing-rods, until the
+rustling of the treetops on the shore and the low murmur of the sea
+lulled him to sleep.
+
+Gotthold awoke from his dream. The carriage was standing still, and the
+horses were snorting as they looked into the forest, through which the
+road led for a short distance. It was perfectly dark, save that here
+and there a ray from the moon, which had just risen, trembled through
+the dense foliage of the beeches.
+
+"Why, what's the matter with the cursed jades?" said Jochen.
+
+There was a rustling and crackling in the thick underbrush on the
+right-hand side of the road; the noise grew louder, approached nearer
+and nearer, until, like a hurricane, a dark, compact, moving mass burst
+through the bushes and crashed into the undergrowth on the other side.
+It was scarcely seen before it disappeared, while the horses, in
+frantic terror, reared in the harness and swerved aside, so that it was
+only by the most violent efforts that the two men, who had sprung from
+the carriage, could control them.
+
+"The confounded wretches," said Jochen, "the same thing happened to me
+once before in this very spot. The Prince ought to do something about
+it; but it gets worse every year, and if old Boslaf didn't often thin
+them out a little it would be unbearable. There, hark!"
+
+The report of a musket rang through the forest at some distance on
+their left, whither the wolves had taken their flight.
+
+"That was he," said Jochen, in a low tone; "he only needs to whistle
+and they run straight within reach of his gun. Yes, yes, Herr Gotthold,
+you said just now that there was nothing of the kind; but you'll make
+an exception of old Boslaf. He can do more than one trick which no
+honest Christian can imitate."
+
+"So the old man is still alive?" asked Gotthold as they drove
+cautiously on through the forest.
+
+"Yes, why shouldn't he be?" replied Jochen, "they say he can live as
+long as he likes. Well, I don't believe that; his end will probably
+come some day, though I may not be here; but this I do know, that
+people who knew him fifty years ago say that he looked just the same
+then as he does now."
+
+"And he still lives in the house on the beach?"
+
+"Where else should he live?" asked Jochen. They had emerged from the
+forest and moorland upon the beautiful smooth highway, which, lined
+with huge poplars, announced to the weary traveller the vicinity of the
+capital. It was still an hour's journey, but the road sloped gradually
+downward, and the horses, well aware that their long day's work was
+over and their cribs close at hand, collected all their strength and
+trotted briskly onward. The crescent of an increasing moon floated in
+the deep blue sky, shedding a pure radiance; here and there a
+flickering reddish light in the dark landscape marked the situation of
+some mansion house or lonely peasant hut. And now a brighter glow
+shimmered from the hill up which the road led. Stately houses gleamed
+forth from amid the dark foliage of the trees and bushes, the horses'
+hoofs rang upon a stone pavement, and a few moments after the carriage
+stopped before the "Fürstenhof," whose host welcomed the late arrival
+with northern cordiality.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Gotthold had expected to reach P. at an early hour; it was now nearly
+ten o'clock, too late to pay the visit he had promised Herr Wollnow by
+letter, yet in spite of the time the gentleman might perhaps be
+waiting, and what he had to settle with him could be despatched in a
+few minutes. Then the minor object of his journey would be accomplished
+and he could set out again early the next morning; he would have
+preferred to go on that night.
+
+The ground seemed to be burning under his feet. The events of the last
+few hours, the meeting with the playmate of his youth, and his
+communications, had roused the greatest agitation in his mind. As he
+passed down the quiet street towards the house of his business
+acquaintance, he paused several times under the dark trees, gasping for
+breath, and made a defiant gesture, as if he could thus repel the
+ghostly throng of memories that hovered around him.
+
+"Thank God that now at least you are sure not to meet an old
+acquaintance again," he said to himself, as he rang the bell at the
+door of one of the handsomest houses upon the market-place.
+
+"Herr Wollnow is at home," said the pretty young servant-maid, "and--"
+
+"Bids you a most hearty welcome," interrupted Herr Wollnow, who at that
+moment came out of his counting-room, and extended a broad, powerful
+hand to his guest. "I am very glad to make your acquaintance at last,
+though I deeply regret that the occasion should be so sorrowful. Have
+you supped this evening? No? Why, that is capital; neither have I. To
+be sure, you must be contented with my company, at least for the
+present; my wife has a meeting of her great society to-day. She did not
+want to go, for she is very anxious to renew her acquaintance with you,
+or rather make it, as I say; for you will hardly remember her. She
+promised to be back again at ten o'clock; but I know what that
+means,--we shall have an hour to ourselves."
+
+Gotthold apologized for his late arrival, but said that he had thought
+it better to come late than not at all, especially as he intended to
+set out again early the next morning, if possible.
+
+"I think you will allow us to keep you with us a few days," replied
+Herr Wollnow; "yet time is money, as Englishmen say, so we will devote
+the time Stine needs to prepare supper to money matters. I have set
+everything right." Herr Wollnow invited Gotthold to take a seat upon
+the sofa in the little private office, and sat down beside him in a
+leather-covered arm-chair at the round table, on which various papers
+lay arranged in the most methodical order.
+
+"Here are the documents that concern your late father's legacies," he
+continued. "I have had wonderfully little trouble in executing the
+orders you sent me from Milan. The ready money amounted only to a few
+thalers, and as to furniture and other household appurtenances, the
+hermits of the Theban wilderness could not have possessed much less
+than satisfied your father during the latter years of his life. The
+only really valuable portion of his property was the library, and here
+I took the liberty of deviating a little from your commands. You had
+intended that the whole profit derived from the sale should be given to
+the poor of the parish, and also that your father's successor should be
+permitted to set his own price upon the books that pleased him,
+undoubtedly in the supposition that the gentleman would make a proper
+use of this favor. But that was not the case with Pastor Semmel. He
+believed in making hay while the sun shone; he not only wanted all the
+best, but wished to take advantage of the opportunity, and if possible
+get them for nothing. In a word, your two intentions could not be
+reconciled, and as I doubtless rightly supposed that the poor people
+would be nearer your heart than the Pastor, although he made a great
+ado about the intimacy that had existed between you at the university,
+and I believe even at school, I offered everything, with the exception
+of a few insignificant trifles I was obliged to leave with him, to a
+respectable firm which dealt in secondhand books, and after
+considerable bargaining came to an understanding with them. We obtained
+a large sum, as I wrote you, and if you are as well satisfied as the
+poor people in Rammin, I need not be ashamed of the way in which I
+carried out your command."
+
+An amused smile flashed from Herr Wollnow's dark eyes as Gotthold
+warmly pressed his hand.
+
+"I repeat, it was very little trouble," said he, "and I would have
+taken a hundred times as much with pleasure for a man to whom I am so
+greatly indebted."
+
+"You so greatly indebted? To me?"
+
+"To you, certainly. If, when you entered into the possession of your
+property five years ago, you had withdrawn the ten thousand thalers
+invested in my business, as I earnestly advised you to do, I might not
+now be in the pleasant situation of being able to return the money to
+you with my warmest thanks."
+
+"For Heaven's sake," cried Gotthold, pushing back Herr Wollnow's
+hand, which was extended towards a larger package fastened with an
+India-rubber band.
+
+"I have put aside the money at any rate," replied Herr Wollnow, "in
+cash and in good bonds."
+
+"But I don't want it now, any more than I did then."
+
+"Well," said Herr Wollnow, "I cannot persuade you to take it as
+earnestly as I did five years ago. To-day--I may venture to say it
+confidently--the money is perfectly safe, and I can give you the
+highest rate of interest. Then, when I was establishing a new business
+here under very peculiar circumstances, and in consequence of the
+impossibility of relying upon my business associates,--I mean the
+capitalists of this place--a crisis might occur at any moment, I only
+did my duty when I advised you to intrust your money, if not to more
+honest, to safer hands. Well, you would not hear of it; would have me
+keep the money; nay, I even believe I might have had it without
+interest."
+
+"You will admit, Herr Wollnow, that in so doing I carried out my
+uncle's views."
+
+"I don't know," replied the merchant. "Your uncle had a personal
+interest in leaving the money in my hands. The great profits which
+accrued to the business in Stettin through the new connections I
+formed, and I may say created here, were so important that they far
+outweighed the risk of a possible loss. But when your uncle gave you
+the free disposal of the property by will, he acknowledged that an
+artist's interests are and must be different from those of a business
+man."
+
+"Why yes, the interests of his art," replied Gotthold earnestly; "I
+never had and never shall have any others. In this feeling, and this
+alone, after I had recovered from my first astonishment, I joyfully
+welcomed the rich inheritance that fell to my lot so unexpectedly."
+
+"I know it," replied Herr Wollnow; "the assistance I have given from
+your property to that poor deserving Brüggberg during the last three
+years proves it, and he will not be your only pensioner."
+
+"It has proved as fortunate for him as for me that help came in time,"
+replied Gotthold.
+
+He supported his head on his left hand, and mechanically drew
+arabesques on a sheet of paper that lay before him, while he continued
+in a lower tone:
+
+"And it was also quite time for me. For two years in Munich I had
+already devoted every hour and moment I could spare from the labor of
+earning a livelihood, to art, beloved art, which is so infinitely
+coy to a tyro, especially one who is compelled to begin after his
+one-and-twentieth year. My strength was almost exhausted; I had seen
+the last star of hope disappear; nothing bound me to life except a sort
+of defiance of a fate which I thought I had not deserved, and the shame
+of appearing to rush out of this world like a simpleton, in the eyes of
+those who had aided me to live. How distinctly I remember the hour! I
+had returned to my little attic room towards nightfall, from the studio
+of a famous artist to which an acquaintance had procured me admittance,
+with a soul filled to overflowing with the mighty impressions produced
+by works of the greatest genius, and yet utterly exhausted, for I had
+resolved a few days before to give up no more lessons, even if I
+starved, and I was almost starving. I placed myself before my easel,
+but the colors blended into one confused mass. The palette fell from my
+hand; I staggered to the table to pour out a glass of water, and--there
+lay the letter which informed me that I had been made the heir of a
+relative whom I had never seen, and was the possessor of a fortune
+which, at a casual estimation, amounted to more than a hundred thousand
+thalers. What was more natural than that in this wonderful moment I
+should make the vow: this shall belong to Art, and to you only so far
+as you are an artist."
+
+"Nothing is more natural and simple," said Herr Wollnow; "but that you
+should have kept the oath, and I know you have done so, is--as we
+children of Adam are now constituted--not quite so natural and simple.
+But now, as the business matters are settled, we will, if agreeable to
+you, talk more comfortably over a glass of wine."
+
+Herr Wollnow opened the door of a spacious apartment handsomely
+furnished as a half dining, half sitting room, and invited his guest to
+take a seat at the table, which was covered with a snow-white cloth,
+and furnished with all sorts of dainties served in valuable china, and
+several bottles of wine. As Gotthold sat down, his eyes wandered over
+several large and small oil paintings which were skilfuly arranged upon
+the walls.
+
+"Pardon an artist's curiosity," said he.
+
+"I understand little or nothing of your beautiful art," replied Herr
+Wollnow, as he fastened a napkin under his fat chin; "but my wife is a
+great amateur, and, as she sometimes persuades herself, a connoisseur.
+You must give her the pleasure of showing you her treasures. I am
+afraid the little collection will not find much favor in your eyes,
+with the exception of one picture, which I also consider a masterpiece,
+and which is greatly admired by all who see it."
+
+Gotthold would gladly have gone nearer to the paintings; one of them
+which hung at some little distance, seemed strangely familiar, but Herr
+Wollnow had already filled the green glasses with odorous Rhine wine,
+and a robust elderly woman came noisily in with a platter of freshly
+broiled fish in her red hands.
+
+"Stine says that you were always particularly fond of flounders," said
+Herr Wollnow, "and so she would not give up the pleasure of offering
+you your favorite dish herself."
+
+Gotthold looked up at the stout figure, and instantly recognized good
+Stine Lachmund, who, during his boyhood, had almost kept the house at
+Dollan in the place of its invalid mistress, and after her death
+managed affairs entirely alone, yet had always maintained a good
+understanding with the boys and all the world, in spite of the many
+difficulties of her position.
+
+He held out his hand to his old friend, who, after putting the platter
+on the table, and wiping her red fingers on her apron in a most
+unnecessary manner, grasped it eagerly.
+
+"I was sure you would know me again," said she, her fat face beaming
+with delight. "But goodness gracious, how you have altered! What a
+handsome man you have grown! I should never have known you again!"
+
+"So I used to be desperately ugly, Stine?" asked Gotthold, smiling.
+
+"Why," replied Stine, with a grave, questioning glance, "you had
+handsome blue eyes, it is true; but they always looked so large and
+sorrowful that it made one feel badly, and then your little thin face
+was divided by a scar from there to there--it looked terribly; such a
+good boy, too, it was too outrageous--"
+
+"All that has been forgotten long ago," said Gotthold.
+
+"And a big beard has grown over it," added Stine.
+
+"Yen can tell Line to bring in a bottle of the red seal," said Herr
+Wollnow, who thought he perceived that his guest wished to cut short
+this recognition scene. "You must pardon me," he continued, turning to
+Gotthold, when Stine had gone out after again shaking hands, and the
+pretty young maid-servant, who moved noiselessly to and fro, began to
+wait upon the gentlemen, "you must pardon me for being unable to spare
+you this little scene. The good woman was so delighted to hear of your
+coming, and a man who returns home must make up his mind to meet
+familiar faces at every step."
+
+"I have experienced that to-day," replied Gotthold; "your wife, too,
+you said--"
+
+"Is proud of having known you when you were not a famous artist, but a
+diffident boy about thirteen years old, who obstinately refused to take
+part in a dance which some aristocratic mammas had arranged with
+difficulty, and then joined it when he heard that no one else would
+dance with little Ottilie Blaustein. She has never forgotten your
+magnanimity."
+
+"And she--Fraulein Ottilie--"
+
+"Has been my wife for six years," said Herr Wollnow. "You look at me
+with discreet astonishment; you have quickly calculated that the little
+dancer of those days cannot now be much more than twenty-five, and
+you set me down very correctly at some years over fifty--we will say
+fifty-six. But we Jews--"
+
+"Are you a Jew?" asked Gotthold.
+
+"Of the purest descent," replied Herr Wollnow; "didn't you perceive
+that, when I locked your money up in my desk so quickly just now? Of
+the purest Polish descent, although out of love for my wife, who
+declared that she had suffered enough from Judaism, and also from
+business motives, I have taken the step, a very easy one for me, from
+one positive religion which was indifferent to me, to another that was
+no less so. But I was going to say that we Jews, or we men who are
+educated in the Jewish faith, are as unromantic in regard to marriage
+as everything else, but we keep to the law; I mean by that the law of
+nature, which is not at all romantic, but very sober, and consequently
+all the more logical."
+
+"Then you think that a great difference between the ages of the husband
+and wife is one of the laws of nature which should be strictly
+observed?"
+
+"By no means, only that under certain circumstances it is no
+impediment."
+
+"Certainly not, but--"
+
+"Allow me to explain my opinion by some statistics. I am descended from
+a very long-lived family. My grandfather--he could not tell either the
+place or time of his birth positively--must have been more than a
+hundred years old when he died, blind and crippled, it is true, but
+with his mental powers almost entirely unimpaired. My father was
+ninety. I, who no longer needed to toil and moil for myself, was able
+six years ago, when in my fiftieth year, to marry, and thus I have the
+expectation of seeing my little family, even if an addition should be
+bestowed upon us, grow up to maturity, supposing that I attain my
+eightieth year, to which, as you will admit, I have on the father's
+side the most well-founded title."
+
+Herr Wollnow rested his broad shoulders comfortably against the back of
+his chair, and passed his hands over his high forehead and thick black
+hair, in which Gotthold could not yet perceive the smallest thread of
+gray. "That is," said he, "if I understand you rightly, marriage ought
+to be in the first place arranged for the welfare of the children, and
+therefore it is only necessary to consider the signs of the times in
+and for which the children are born."
+
+"Certainly," replied Herr Wollnow; "in the first place, I might almost
+say in the first and last."
+
+"And the husband and wife?"
+
+"Ought and will find their pleasure in their love for their children,
+their joy in the new fresh world which surrounds them, as well as a
+sufficient compensation for all lost illusions, and a reward for the
+anxieties and deprivations which necessarily spring from this love and
+joy."
+
+"And their own love, the love which brought them together, which
+induced them to make this particular choice out of the countless
+multitude of possibilities--the love which ever increases and must
+continue to increase until it finally illumines every thought,
+heightens every feeling, warms every drop of blood--would you take this
+from marriage, or consider it as something which may or may not exist?
+Never! 'Love is everywhere, except in hell,' says Wolfram von
+Eschenbach. I know not whether he is right, but I do know that a
+marriage where there is no love, nay, where love does not exist as I
+understand it, is in my eyes a hell."
+
+Gotthold had spoken with a passion which, eagerly as he strove to
+suppress it, had not escaped the keen ears of his host.
+
+"Let us change the subject," he said kindly, "and try another upon
+which we shall certainly find it easier to agree."
+
+"No, let us keep to this," replied Gotthold; "upon so important a
+subject I am anxious to hear the opinion of a man whose judgment and
+character I prize so highly--the full opinion; for I am sure you have
+still much to say."
+
+"Certainly," replied Herr Wollnow hesitatingly; "a great deal, but I
+fear very little that will please you, as you now think of marriage. I
+say as you now think, and beg you not to misunderstand me; for you, who
+have grown up among romantic traditions, and, as an artist, are perhaps
+especially disposed to take an ideal view of human affairs, can
+probably not be induced to give up your preconceived opinion except by
+your own experience. But no matter; I should need to be far less firmly
+convinced of the justice of my own opinion than I am, or to esteem my
+opponent less than I do if I allowed your last proposition to pass
+without contradiction. You said that without love, as you so eloquently
+described it, marriage would be a hell; I assert that this very love,
+or rather the unrealized dream of this love, makes a hell of many, far
+too many marriages."
+
+"Unrealized," said Gotthold; "oh! yes, that is just what causes the
+unhappiness."
+
+"An unavoidable one, or at least in many cases not to be avoided. You
+will admit that most marriages must commence with this illusion, which
+is more or less vivid according to the nature and imaginative power of
+the dreamer. There are so few persons who do not desire to be specially
+rewarded for paying their debts to nature and society. When they
+perceive that the question of marriage concerns a very different object
+from the realization of their dreams, and that this object is the more
+easily attained the less they give themselves up to fancies, the
+majority, of course, will at first rub their eyes in some little
+perplexity, but no longer take the affair tragically, but as it is; and
+these are the marriages which I--with all due respect for humanity,
+which certainly consists of average mortals--call average marriages,
+and which in Germany, England, America, nay, even in France and Italy,
+wherever I have wandered in the civilized world, I have always found as
+much alike as two eggs. It is, take it all in all, very dry, but very
+healthful prose; there is much modest quiet happiness, and of course
+also much, very much sorrow; but none which would not befall a human
+being as such. I mean the frail, easily injured creature at last doomed
+to death--and very little which results from the marriage. But this
+misery is found in overwhelming measure when people wish to realize,
+nay to transform into a still more brilliant reality, the dream they
+have enjoyed as lovers. How many heart-breaking conflicts, how many
+vain struggles, how much strength wasted which was greatly needed for
+far more important purposes, how much senseless and useless cruelty
+towards one's self and others! You see I speak only of those who take
+life earnestly, not of the multitudes of stupid people who are
+incapable of any moral idea, nor of the, if possible, still greater
+number of frivolous natures; who snap their fingers at all morality."
+
+"I know it," replied Gotthold; "but why should not earnest, honorable
+human beings, when they become conscious of their mistakes, seek to
+cast out the errors that have crept into the score of their lives while
+there is time?"
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"By restoring each other's freedom."
+
+"Freedom? What freedom? The liberty of chaining themselves again as
+soon as possible, of making another choice at once if, as is usually
+the case, they have not previously done so; a new choice which will
+probably prove no wiser, no more circumspect, than the first? Consider,
+we are speaking of earnest, honorable human beings! Well, they
+doubtless went earnestly and honorably to work in making their first
+choice, and if, in spite of all their earnestness, they went astray
+where they could choose freely and without embarrassment, they
+certainly would the second time, when burdened by the weight of
+self-created suffering, blinded by a treacherous passion. If a new
+clerk begins the first calculation I allow him to make on an entirely
+false principle, I may not send him away, but I never intrust any
+important matter to him again without watching him. And--while there is
+time--did you say? When is there time? Perhaps never, if two people
+have belonged to each other body and soul--for earnest, honorable
+people will give their souls to each other--perhaps never, and certainly
+not after; and here I come back to the point from whence I started--after
+the bond which thereby becomes a hallowed one has been blessed with
+children. Believe me, I could make many other remarks upon this subject:
+the chasm that severs the parents goes through the hearts of the
+children; they will feel the gulf painfully sooner or later, and never
+wholly cease to suffer from it, if--which to be sure is not always the
+case--they have hearts."
+
+"And will not a child's heart be torn," cried Gotthold, painfully
+agitated, "will it not bleed at the thought of its parents who have
+lived together in torment, and wasted away in this torture?"
+
+"They would not have wasted away," replied Herr Wollnow, "if they had
+come to an understanding with each other in my acceptation of the term;
+if they had always said to each other, and kept faithfully in their
+hearts the thought: for our children's sakes we must not despond, must
+bear our sorrows, must sacredly keep the ledger of our lives, and, if
+any error has actually crept in, calculate and calculate until we have
+found it. Who in the world should be responsible for the result except
+the person to whom the book was intrusted? And then there is also a
+bankruptcy from which the unfortunate sufferer comes forth
+impoverished, perhaps a beggar, with nothing to cover his nakedness
+except the consciousness: you have done your duty, met your
+obligations. Woe to him who cannot think this of his parents: well for
+him who can think and say so; who by their graves can weep sorrowful
+but sweet tears, and pass on in peace."
+
+Gotthold's head was resting on his hand. Let us have peace, he had said
+to his father's shade, and sorrowful but sweet tears had fallen from
+his eyes upon his mother's grave. Would they have been less sweet if
+she had left the father who could not make her happy, if she had sought
+and perhaps found joy in another's arms?
+
+Herr Wollnow's dark eyes rested upon his guest's noble features, now
+shadowed by gloom and doubt, with an expression of mingled compassion
+and severity. Had he said too much, or not enough? Should he be silent,
+or ought he to say more, and tell the young man who so closely
+resembled his mother, and yet had so much of his father's character,
+the history of his parents?
+
+Just then the door-bell rang, and at the same moment his wife's voice
+sounded from the entry. She was a woman to quickly inspire other and
+gayer thoughts in men's minds, even if the conversation had taken a
+grave and critical turn.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+"I beg you to excuse me a thousand, thousand times," cried Fran Wollnow
+from the threshold of the door.
+
+"That makes two thousand," said her husband, who with his guest had
+risen to meet her.
+
+"You shan't always reckon up everything, you bad man."
+
+"But take no notice of anything--"
+
+"And you shan't always interrupt me and spoil my prettiest speeches. I
+had thought of the most charming things to say to our guest."
+
+"Perhaps they begin with good evening?"
+
+"Why, of course; good evening, and welcome, you are most heartily
+welcome," said Frau Wollnow, extending two plump little hands to
+Gotthold, and looking up into his face with the most eager curiosity in
+her brown eyes. "Dear me, how you have grown, and how much you have
+improved!"
+
+Gotthold could not return the compliment. Ottilie Blaustein seemed to
+him to have grown much stouter, but neither taller nor handsomer than
+when he last saw her. Nevertheless the plump, somewhat flushed face
+beamed with mirth and good-nature, and it was by no means difficult for
+him to respond to the cordial greeting of his old acquaintance with no
+less warmth. She begged the gentlemen to sit down again; she would,
+with their permission, take a seat with them, and beg for a glass of
+wine, for she had been obliged to talk so much that evening that she
+was very thirsty. Then she instantly started up again, and asked her
+husband in a half whisper whether he had already showed it to him, in
+reply to which mysterious question Herr Wollnow smilingly shook his
+stately head. "I would not spoil your pleasure," said he.
+
+"You good Emil!" she exclaimed, hastily kissing her husband on the
+forehead, and then turned to Gotthold. "Come, I must give you a proof
+that you obliged no ungrateful person when you enabled the little
+Jewish girl to join the dance. See, I bought this in remembrance of
+you, and would have purchased it if it had been as worthless as it is
+valuable, and as dear as the price for which I obtained my treasure was
+nominal."
+
+She had seized a candle, and now led Gotthold to the landscape which
+had already attracted his attention, even across the room. The latter
+started, and with difficulty suppressed an exclamation of surprise and
+pain.
+
+"It is Dollan, isn't it?" said Ottilie.
+
+Gotthold made no reply; he took the candle from the lady's hand, and
+held it so that the light fell upon the picture, which was hung rather
+too high. Yes, it was the very one into which he had painted his love
+and anguish, the picture of which he had just spoken to Herr Wollnow,
+that had been upon his easel on the evening which had made such a
+wonderful change in his life. To prove to himself that he had
+irrevocably broken all ties with his past, and must now begin a new
+phase of his life and struggles, he gave away the sketch and did not
+destroy the picture, but very prosaically presented it to an
+exhibition, from which it went to another, then to a third and fourth,
+and was finally sold, he did not know where or to whom, nor did he wish
+to know; it should disappear to him. And yet during all this time he
+had been unable to shake off the recollection of this picture. He could
+have painted it again from memory, but it would not have been the one
+hallowed by so much suffering. And he must find it again, here and now,
+when his soul was already so full of the magic fragrance which
+everything he saw and heard bore to him from the days when every breath
+that swept across »his brow or fanned his cheek, exhaled the odor of
+pine trees, of the ocean, and of love.
+
+"And how do you suppose I obtained it?" said Frau Wollnow; "and
+especially how do you suppose I found out it was yours; for you know
+we do not judge from the style, or at least I did not at that time.
+But when people are to have a piece of good fortune! So I said to
+Cecilia Brandow, whom I--it is now six years ago, and I had just been
+married--met at the wool market in Sundin, I had almost said; but of
+course only the gentlemen went there, and we drove in with them on
+account of the exhibition, where I met her. We had so much to say,
+like any two friends who had not seen each other since they left
+boarding-school--you perhaps do not remember that Cecilia and I were in
+the same boarding-school at Sundin--or at least I had a great deal to
+say, for I found Cecilia very quiet. I believe she had lost her second
+child only a short time before. We were separated by the crowd, and I
+at last found her again in one of the most out-of-the-way rooms,
+standing alone before this picture with her eyes full of tears, which,
+as I came up, she tried to conceal."
+
+"Good Heavens!" said I; "isn't that--"
+
+"Yes," she replied; "and it is by him."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"In a word, she had recognized it instantly, and would not admit that
+she was mistaken when I told her the 'G. W.' in the corner might be
+Heaven knows whom. You see I didn't understand much about pictures
+then--now when I--but your hand trembles, you cannot hold the
+candlestick any longer."
+
+"Let me have the picture," said Gotthold; then perceiving that the
+husband and wife were looking at him in surprise, he added calmly,
+replacing the candlestick upon the table: "The painting is really not
+worthy to be hung among your other pictures, which are excellent. It is
+the work of a pupil, and moreover was painted from memory after a very
+hasty sketch, I will promise you another and better one of the same
+place, which I will make on the spot if you will--"
+
+"Oh! that would be delightful, that would be splendid," exclaimed Frau
+Wollnow. "I will hold you to your promise: another, not a better one,
+you can't make it better, that is impossible; but to have a picture
+painted on the spot by the most celebrated landscape painter of the day
+will be a triumph of which I can boast all the rest of my life. Give me
+your hand upon it!" She held out both hands to Gotthold.
+
+"Well," said Herr Wollnow, "the bargain is made, and now according to
+the good old custom we will seal it with a drink. You see, Herr
+Gotthold Weber, woman's wit surpasses priestly cunning. I might have
+preached a long time to induce you to remain here; my wife comes, and
+the timid bird is caught. Well, I am glad of it, heartily glad."
+
+"And how delighted Cecilia will be," cried Frau Wollnow. "My poor
+Cecilia! she really needs something to divert her thoughts a little,
+and this will be so pleasant." Gotthold turned pale. When he made his
+over-hasty promise, the thought of thus creating a convenient pretext
+for seeing Cecilia again had certainly been farthest from his mind.
+
+"I think we can spare our friend the trouble of the journey," said Herr
+Wollnow, "and you will be perfectly well satisfied with a copy."
+
+"You certainly know that we are not talking about a copy, but a new,
+entirely new picture," exclaimed Ottilie. "But you understand nothing
+about it, my dear Emil, or he doesn't want to understand."
+
+"I only do not want to send our friend away again immediately, but to
+keep him with us."
+
+"Tell the truth, Emil, tell the truth," said Frau Wollnow, shaking her
+finger at him. "The fact, Herr Weber, is simply that he can't bear
+Brandow, Heaven knows why. To be sure I can't either, and have no
+reason for it except that he always teased me at the dancing lessons in
+his malicious way. But I care nothing about him, only his angelic
+wife."
+
+"And since husband and wife are one--"
+
+"If everybody thought as you do, dear Emil--and I too, of course; but
+there is no rule without an exception, and the Brandow marriage is one
+so thoroughly bad and unfortunate that I really do not see why we--"
+
+"Should talk so much about it," said Herr Wollnow; "and it is all the
+more unnecessary, as our guest can probably take no special interest in
+the subject."
+
+"No interest," cried Ottilie, clasping her hands; "no interest. Pray,
+Herr Gotthold--how I keep falling into the old habit--excuse me--but
+do tell this man, who thinks Goethe's 'Elective Affinities' in bad
+taste--"
+
+"Pardon me, I said immoral--"
+
+"No, in bad taste; the evening of the day before yesterday, when we
+were talking about it at the Herr Conrector's, and you made the
+unprecedented assertion that Goethe had committed a perfidy--yes, you
+said perfidy--when he made the only person in the whole novel who
+uttered anything truthful about marriage-the mediator--a half
+simpleton."
+
+"But what do you want with your elective affinities!" exclaimed Wollnow
+almost angrily.
+
+"He don't believe in them," said Ottilie triumphantly, "and says that,
+like ghosts, they only haunt the brains of fools. But the fact is, he
+only pretends to think so, and secretly believes in them more than many
+other people; and now he is troubled, as a child is afraid of ghosts,
+at the thought that you will go to Dollan and see your old friend
+again."
+
+"How absurdly you talk," said Herr Wollnow, scarcely concealing his
+painful embarrassment by a forced smile.
+
+"Why, we have talked of nothing else all the evening in our little
+society," cried Ottilie. "You must know, Herr Gotthold, that there are
+three members of our dancing class here besides myself--all married
+now: Pauline Ellis--well, she perhaps will not interest you; Louise
+Palm, the girl with the brown eyes--we always called her Zingarella;
+and Hermine Sandberg--you know, that handsome girl, it is a pity that
+she was a little cross-eyed and stammered. We knew everything,
+everything down to the smallest particulars, especially your duel with
+Carl Brandow--"
+
+"At which, however, so far as I can remember, none of the ladies you
+have mentioned were present," said Gotthold.
+
+"Good!" exclaimed Herr Wollnow.
+
+"No, it isn't good," said Ottilie pouting; "it isn't at all good or
+kind in Herr Gotthold to make fun of the faithful friendship people
+have kept for him for so many years."
+
+"That was very far from my intention," replied Gotthold. "On the
+contrary, I feel highly honored and greatly flattered that my humble
+self furnished such charming ladies with a subject for conversation,
+even for a few moments."
+
+"Go on with your jibes."
+
+"I assure you once more that I am perfectly sincere."
+
+"Will you give me a proof of it?"
+
+"Certainly, if I can."
+
+"Well then," said Ottilie with a deep blush, "tell me how the duel
+chanced to take place, for I will confess that one said one thing, and
+another another, and at last we found out that nobody knew. Will you?"
+
+"Very willingly," said Gotthold.
+
+He had noticed Herr Wollnow's repeated attempts to give the
+conversation another turn, and thought he could perceive that his
+host's former remarks had not been so entirely unpremeditated as they
+had at first seemed. Had Frau Wollnow told her husband a romance to
+suit her own fancy, and made him play Heaven knows what ridiculous
+part? He must try to put an end to such rumors, and believed that the
+very best way of doing so would be to fulfil Frau Wollnow's wish, and
+tell the story with the utmost possible frankness, as if it concerned a
+third person.
+
+These thoughts passed rapidly through his mind as he slowly raised the
+glass of wine to his lips. He sipped a little of it, and then said,
+turning to Frau Wollnow with a smile:--
+
+"How gladly, honored lady, would I begin my story with the words of
+Schiller: 'Oh! queen, you wake the unspeakably torturing smart of the
+old wound, but it won't do, it won't do. True, when there is any sudden
+change of weather I have a twinge in the wound, but it is by no means
+unspeakably painful; and at all events at this moment I feel nothing at
+all, except the profound truth of the old saying, that young people
+will be young people, and will play youthful pranks, oftentimes very
+foolish ones. To this latter category undoubtedly belongs my combat
+with Carl Brandow, which did not, however, as you suppose, originate in
+the dancing lessons, but was only brought to a decisive issue there,
+after it had long been glowing under the ashes, and even threatened
+once before to break out into light flames. The first cause was this.
+In our fifth form it was an old custom, most sacredly observed, that an
+open space should be reserved between the first bench and the
+lecturer's chair for the 'old boys,' which no 'new boy' was permitted
+to enter before the close of the first term, on pain of a severe
+thrashing. Carl Brandow, it is true, belonged to the 'old boys,' indeed
+the very old boys; for he had been in the fifth form three years, but
+was still on the last bench, although if I remember rightly, he had
+already passed his eighteenth birthday. I was one of the 'new boys,'
+one of the latest comers indeed; for I had just entered at Michaelmas,
+a lad of fourteen, to the no small annoyance of my father, who had
+prepared me himself, and expected I should be at once enrolled among
+the first classes. It was not without reason, for when at the end of
+the first week, according to custom, the rank of the different scholars
+was assigned from the result of certain exercises we called
+extemporalia, mine proved to be without fault, and I was transferred to
+my well-earned dignity of _Primus omnium_ with a certain degree of
+ceremony. And yet I was not even now to be permitted to cross the space
+before the first bench! From the first moment I had felt this
+prohibition as an outrage; now I openly declared it to be one, and said
+that I would never submit to it, but on the contrary demanded the
+abolition of the brutal rule, not only for myself but all the new boys,
+whose champion I considered myself.
+
+"In thus wording my demand I had really been guided only by my own
+intuitive sense of justice, without being actuated by any other motive;
+but the result proved that I could not have done better if I had been
+the most crafty demagogue. Standing alone, I should have had no chance
+of accomplishing my bold innovation; but now my cause was the cause of
+all, that is of all the 'new boys,' and chance willed that our numbers
+were exactly the same as those of the other party. Even in regard to
+bodily strength, which boys so well know how to rate according to age,
+we might probably have compared tolerably with them, and the little
+that was wanting would have been well supplied by the enthusiasm for
+the good cause which I unceasingly labored to arouse--if it had not
+been for Carl Brandow. Who could withstand this eighteen-years-old
+hero, slender and strong as a young pine? He would rage among us like
+Achilles among the Trojans, and strew the field--a retired open space
+in a little wood behind the school-house--with the bodies of the
+enemies he had hurled to the ground; for it was agreed that whoever in
+struggling should touch the earth with his back was to be considered
+conquered, and desist from the battle, which was to be decided in this
+manner before the eyes of six honorable members of the first class, who
+accepted the office of umpires with a readiness deserving of
+acknowledgment.
+
+"Yet there was no retreat, even if we, which was not the case, had
+thought of making one. The hour arrived--one Saturday afternoon, on
+which we had contrived to evade the watchfulness of the teacher--and I
+do not believe that soldiers ordered to assault a battery vomiting
+death and destruction can feel more solemn and earnest than did we. I
+may say, especially I. I had caused the struggle; I had involved all
+the brave boys in it; I felt responsible for the result, and for the
+disgrace in case of defeat--an event which seemed more probable every
+moment. That I was determined to do my utmost and strain every nerve is
+a matter of course. I hoped and prayed the gods that Carl Brandow might
+fall to me--for the antagonists were to be drawn by lot, and only he
+who had conquered his opponent was permitted to choose from among those
+who had vanquished theirs until all was decided. I do not remember
+whether the senior boys, who devised these ingenious rules, had copied
+from Sir Walter Scott; I only know I have never read the famous
+description of the tournament at Ashby, in Ivanhoe, without being
+reminded of that Saturday afternoon--the shady forest glade, and the
+boyish faces glowing with courage and ardor for the combat.
+
+"And, as in the tournament of Ashby, a wholly unforeseen accident in
+the person of the Black Knight, the _Noir Fainéant_, saved the hero's
+otherwise hopelessly lost cause, so it was here.
+
+"Among the new boys was a lad of sixteen, with a frank honest face,
+which would have been handsome if it had possessed a little more
+animation, and the large earnest blue eyes had been a shade less
+dreamy. Although not tall, he was powerfully built, and we should
+perhaps have reckoned upon his assistance had not his indolence seemed
+to us to be very much greater than the strength he might possess, for
+he had never given any proof of it; and in reply to our eager questions
+about how he rated himself, merely shrugged his broad shoulders in
+silence."
+
+"Curt Wenhof!" exclaimed Frau Wollnow.
+
+"Yes, Curt Wenhof, my poor dear Curt," continued Gotthold, whose voice
+trembled at the recollection of the beloved friend of his youth. "I can
+see him now, as, after throwing his adversary to the ground as easily
+as a binder casts the sheaf behind him, he stood there as idly as if he
+had nothing more to do with the affair. I had also hurled my antagonist
+down and was just rising, gasping for breath, when Carl Brandow, who
+meantime had disposed of two or three, rushed upon me. 'Now,' I thought
+to myself, 'you must make it as hard for him as possible.' I did not
+dream of victory. But at the same instant Curt sprang before me; the
+next moment the two opponents had seized each other, and at the first
+grip Carl Brandow perceived that he had to deal with an adversary who
+was at least his equal in strength and courage, and, as the result
+proved, greatly his superior in coolness and endurance. It was a
+beautiful spectacle to see the two young athletes wrestling together--a
+spectacle we all enjoyed, umpires, victors, vanquished, and combatants;
+for by a silent agreement we had all formed a wide circle around them
+and watched every phase of the conflict with hope, fear, and loud
+cheers, according to the side to which we belonged, until at last a
+wild shout of exultation rang from my party, as Curt Wenhof raised his
+opponent, whose strength was utterly exhausted, and hurled him upon the
+turf with such violence that the poor fellow lay half senseless, unable
+to move.
+
+"The conflict was decided, so said the seniors, and in truth it was;
+who would have ventured to cope with Carl Brandow's conqueror? In the
+joy of my heart I embraced the good Curt, vowed an eternal friendship
+with him, and then turned to Carl Brandow, who meantime had risen from
+the ground, and, as the leader of one party to the representative of
+the other, offered him my hand, expressing the wish and hope that an
+honorable peace might follow the honorable struggle. He took my hand,
+and I believe even laughed, and said he was not a fool to grieve over a
+thing that could not be helped."
+
+"That's just like him," cried Frau Wollnow eagerly, "friendly and
+agreeable to your face, and malicious and cruel behind your back."
+
+"You see my wife has already taken sides," said Herr Wollnow.
+
+"Already!" exclaimed Fran Wollnow. "Why, I never thought or felt
+otherwise; I have always been against him, and certainly had good
+reason for it; I should like to know what would have become of me at
+those dancing lessons, if you had not come to my assistance so kindly.
+I shall never forget it, and it was all the more noble in you, because
+you cared nothing about me, but were in love with the beautiful
+Cecilia, which I never suspected."
+
+"I fear it would be useless to contradict you."
+
+"Entirely useless. I can see you now starting from the chair beside me,
+pale with anger and trembling in every limb, when Carl Brandow kissed
+Cecilia, and she burst into tears."
+
+"And had I not reason to be angry!" exclaimed Gotthold. "It was an
+agreement among us young people that the kisses which were ordered in
+the games of forfeits were to consist in pressing the lips upon the
+hand. All were bound by it, even Carl Brandow; and until then the
+compact had been inviolably kept. I had a right not to suffer this
+insolent breach of the bargain, or permit it to pass unpunished,--a
+double right, since during the last year I had been to Dollan with Curt
+so often, and was on such friendly terms with the brother and sister,
+especially as Curt, as you may remember, in his indolent way, would not
+share the dancing lessons, and I might therefore be permitted to
+consider myself the legitimate protector of my friend. Moreover, Curt,
+whom I had with great difficulty pulled through the examination for the
+senior class, was not in favor with the teachers; a flagrant breach of
+the peace such as would now be necessary, would undoubtedly have caused
+him to be suspended; and finally I will confess I thought Carl Brandow
+intended to vex and insult me by his impertinence, and resolved to take
+up the gauntlet and fight out the battle for Curt as he had appeared
+for me. It was all youthful folly, my honored friends; I blush even now
+when I think of it, and so I will relate what remains to be told in as
+few words as possible.
+
+"The preparations for the duel--for us proud seniors it must of course
+be a genuine duel"--continued Gotthold, "were conducted with all
+possible secrecy. Only those immediately concerned,--that is, the
+principals and seconds, to use this classic expression,--knew the place
+and hour. It was not difficult to procure weapons, for in spite of the
+strictest commands, there were at least half a dozen pairs of rapiers
+among us. Carl Brandow had one, and his particular friends told
+wonderful stories of his skill; but Curt was also the fortunate
+possessor of two good swords, with whose terrible clatter we had often,
+when at Dollan, startled the quiet woods from their repose. I had a
+quick eye, and, spite of my fifteen years, a firm hand, and Carl
+Braudow was probably no little surprised when, at the decisive moment,
+he found his despised opponent so well prepared; at least, he grew more
+restless and violent every moment, and thus made it possible for me,
+although he was really greatly my superior in skill, not only to hold
+my ground but even to change my posture to one of attack, and deal him
+a blow on the shoulder so deep that the blood flowed through the
+sleeve. The seconds shouted to us to stop. I instantly lowered my
+rapier, but in his frenzy of rage at his mischance he heard the shout
+and saw my gesture no more than I saw and heard anything of what
+happened to me during the next four weeks."
+
+"He is said to have struck twice," observed Frau Wollnow; "the last
+time when you were lying on the ground."
+
+"I do not believe it and never shall," replied Gotthold; "our seconds
+had certainly lost their heads and could not afterwards say positively
+how the affair had happened. But now, my clear Madam and Herr Wollnow,
+I fear I must have, exhausted your patience and will take my leave.
+Good Heavens! Twelve o'clock already! It is unpardonable!"
+
+"I could have listened all night," said Frau Wollnow, with a deep sigh,
+as she also, but very slowly, rose from her chair. "Ah! youth, youth!
+people are never young but once."
+
+"Thank God," said Gotthold gayly; "otherwise people would be compelled
+to play their foolish pranks twice."
+
+"Who is so old as to be safe from folly," said Herr Wollnow, with a
+grave smile.
+
+"You!" exclaimed his wife, embracing him. "You are much too old and far
+too wicked. People must not only be young, but also good, like our
+friend here, in order to be so badly rewarded for all his goodness. I
+can imagine how it went to your heart when Cecilia, married this
+Brandow. That sweet innocent girl of seventeen wedded to him! Ah! when
+we see such things it is enough to make us lose faith in mankind
+forever."
+
+"This faith is not so frequently to be found either in Israel or
+elsewhere," said Herr Wollnow.
+
+"Will you go?"
+
+"I am going already, my dear Madam."
+
+"Oh, dear! now you are beginning too. I meant to say, will you really
+go to Dollan?"
+
+"I must do so now, even if I were not obliged to go on account of the
+picture."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"To restore my faith in mankind, at least the part most important to
+me, myself," replied Gotthold, with a smile, whose derision did not
+escape Herr Wollnow.
+
+"I am very much displeased with you," said the latter, as he re-entered
+the dining-room, after accompanying Gotthold to the door.
+
+"With me?"
+
+"What must the man think of me? What a meddlesome awkward fellow he
+must consider me. It is a real piece of good fortune that I went no
+farther."
+
+"But what have I done?"
+
+"Why did you never tell me this famous narrative of your youth, from
+which it is very evident that he loved and probably still loves your
+friend Cecilia, as you call her, although I have never seen anything of
+the friendship."
+
+"Do you really think so?" exclaimed Fran Wollnow, starting up and
+throwing her arms around her husband; "do you really think so? Did he
+tell you so?"
+
+In spite of his vexation, Herr Wollnow could not help laughing.
+
+"I should probably be the last person whom he would choose for his
+confidant, especially now, after I, stupid oaf, have been hammering
+away upon this subject for the last hour."
+
+"On this subject? I really don't understand you, Emil."
+
+"Don't understand me! Gracious, you clever soul! How difficult it is
+for women to see their way in matters they proudly condescend to
+consider their own. Don't understand me? Well, I can assure you that
+yonder enthusiast understood you perfectly, and will be on his way to
+Dollan early to-morrow morning."
+
+"Well, I can't see any particular harm in that," said Frau Wollnow.
+"Why should not those two meet again, after so many years, even if they
+really do still love each other? I will give poor Cecilia the pleasure
+with all my heart--she needs consolation so much."
+
+"As much as her worthy husband needs money. Day after to-morrow is the
+last day of grace for his note of five thousand thalers which is
+deposited with me. Perhaps he will help both: he has the means to do
+so."
+
+"Oh! Emil, your everlasting prose is unbearable."
+
+"I never promised you that you would find me a poet."
+
+"Heaven knows that."
+
+"It would be better for me if you knew it."
+
+"Emil!"
+
+"I beg your pardon. I am really so much annoyed that I can't help being
+spiteful. But that conies of meddling with other people's affairs. Let
+the fools do as they please, and come to bed."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+
+When, after a night of torturing restlessness, Gotthold suddenly awoke
+from his heavy morning sleep, the sun had already been shining through
+the white lace curtains of his chamber for several hours. "Thank God,"
+he said aloud, "morning has come, and with the morning everything will
+doubtless look brighter."
+
+He was soon dressed, and standing at the open window. How familiar the
+scene was to him. There was the circular space, with its grass-grown
+walks, and the little obelisk in the centre, surrounded by pleasant
+white houses with pretty gardens; yonder the stately schoolhouse, from
+whose open windows the singing of the boys rang out so distinctly upon
+the quiet of the Sabbath morning, that he fancied he could distinguish
+the words of the hymn. On the right hand, peering between the houses,
+and rising above their roofs, appeared the dark green foliage of the
+huge trees in the royal park, and far away on the left, between other
+dwellings, gleamed a portion of the lake, and the tiny islet--just at
+this moment sparkling in the sunlight--which lies before the large
+island. He had seen the beautiful picture hundreds and hundreds of
+times just as he saw it now, when, after the morning service was over,
+he stood at the window of the school-house with Curt, his eyes
+wandering towards the region where beloved Dollan lay; and even as now
+it allured him from the narrow walls of the room out into the sunny
+fields, the shady woods, and by the blue lake. These lights, these
+shadow, this brilliant azure hue had kindled in the boy a pure desire
+to reproduce, to counterfeit what lay so clearly, though in such
+complicated lines before him, and so deeply stirred his heart with
+strange forebodings. They had been his first teachers in the wonderful
+language of lines and colors; and fluently as he had since learned to
+speak it, he was still indebted to them for all that he had attained.
+Had he not felt yesterday, when he drove through the familiar scenes,
+heavy as was his heart, that all his toil and labor in beautiful Italy
+had been more or less vain, and he had always painted only with his
+eyes and hand, never with his heart; spoken a beautiful, musical, but
+foreign tongue with difficulty, instead of his native language; and
+that here, and here only, in his native country, and beneath his native
+sky, could he become a true artist, who does not utter what others can
+say as well or better, but what he alone can express, because he is
+himself what he says.
+
+But could home really still be home to him after all that had happened,
+all he had experienced and suffered here? Why not, if he only saw it
+with the eyes with which he endeavored to see the rest of the world; if
+he wished to be nothing more than what, in his good hours, he believed
+himself to be--a true artist, living only in his ideal creations,
+behind whom everything that fetters other men lies like an
+unsubstantial vision, and for whom, when in evil plight, there is a God
+to whom he can tell what he suffers. Yes, his art, chaste and severe,
+had been his guiding-star in the labyrinth of his early days, his
+talisman in the misery and poverty of the years he had spent in
+Munich, his refuge at all times; and she should and would continue to
+be so--would cling loyally to him if he was faithful to her, and ever
+throned her reverently on high as his protectress, his adored goddess.
+
+The boys' song died away. Gotthold passed his hand over his eyes, and
+turned back into the room just as there was a loud knock at the door.
+
+"What, is it you, Jochen?"
+
+"Yes, Herr Gotthold, it is I," replied Jochen Prebrow, after putting
+the coffee-tray he had brought in as carefully on the table as if it
+had been a soap-bubble, which would break at the slightest touch. "Clas
+Classen, from Neuenkirchen, or, as they call him here, Louis, had just
+gone down cellar when you rang, and I thought the coffee would taste
+none the worse for my bringing it."
+
+"Certainly not; I am very much obliged to you."
+
+"And besides, I wanted to ask when I should harness the horses."
+
+"I shall remain here a few days," replied Gotthold.
+
+At these words a smile began to overspread Jochen's broad face, but it
+instantly vanished again as Gotthold continued: "So you must drive on
+alone, old friend."
+
+"I should like to stay here a few days too," said Jochen.
+
+"And you cannot unless I keep the carriage? Then I will, and, what is
+of more value to me, you; and we will go on at once to Dollan, which I
+suppose is what you want. Or do you think the horses ought not to be
+left so long?"
+
+Jochen had no anxiety on that score. His good friend, Clas Classen,
+whom the people here had the strange custom of calling Louis, would
+willingly undertake the care of them and see that they had all they
+needed, but why did Herr Gotthold walk when they had horses and
+carriage on the spot?
+
+"But I should prefer to walk," said Gotthold.
+
+"Well, what's one man's meat is another man's poison," said Jochen
+rubbing his thick hair. "But there's still another difficulty in the
+way: you will find the nest empty."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"They passed through here an hour ago, both the gentleman and lady,"
+replied Jochen. "I was sitting in the coffee-room and they stopped at
+the door."
+
+Gotthold stared steadily at Jochen. She had been there, so near him,
+under the window at which he had just been standing, and he might have
+seen the pure face again as Jochen saw it, who spoke of it as coolly as
+if it were a thing that might happen every day.
+
+"And did you speak to her, Jochen?" he said at last hesitatingly.
+
+"The lady remained in the carriage," said Jochen; "but he came in to
+drink a little rum, and as there was nobody else in the room, and I had
+just got some out of the cupboard for myself, I helped him to it; and
+then he asked where I came from, and I told him I was here with a
+gentleman, but I thought we should go on to-day as soon as he was up.
+He asked if I knew the gentleman; but of course I didn't; for, thought
+I, the friendship between those two was never very great, and the less
+one has to do with Herr Brandow the better. Wasn't I right? Well, and
+so one word led to another, and he took out his watch and said he was
+going to Plüggenhof and should probably stay there till to-morrow
+evening, and then he drank his rum, which he will perhaps pay for when
+he comes back, and away he went; he had a pair of splendid bays,
+thorough-breds, especially the saddle-horse. You would have been
+delighted with them, for you are a judge of horses; I saw that
+yesterday."
+
+Gotthold's eyes were still fixed steadily upon the floor. She would not
+even know that he had been here.
+
+Be it so! He had not intended, even for a moment, to cross her path;
+and now the way was open, perfectly open; he could carry out
+unhindered, and without any pain, the plan he had formed yesterday when
+he returned from the Wollnows' through the park to the inn.
+
+An hour afterwards the two men were walking along the road to Dollan,
+at first upon the highway, then by side paths and short cuts, every
+foot of which Gotthold knew.
+
+He walked on, lost in dreams of the days that had fled and could never
+return, while far above his head the larks sang unceasingly, the black
+crows stalked over the quiet fields abandoned to Sabbath solitude, the
+bright-plumaged jays fluttered over the moors, and above the border of
+the distant woods an eagle wheeled in majestic circles. Jochen, who had
+taken nothing except Gotthold's dressing-case and paint-box tied up
+with his own little bundle in a gay cotton handkerchief, generally
+loitered a little behind and did not disturb his silent companion by
+any undue loquacity. Jochen had his own thoughts, which to be sure did
+not dwell upon the past but the future, thoughts he would gladly have
+uttered, only that he knew not how to guide the conversation in that
+direction. But they were approaching nearer and nearer to the corner of
+the woods, where he must part from Gotthold for the day, and if he
+wished to hear his opinion at all, now was the time. So he took heart,
+overtook his companion with a few long strides, walked on a few minutes
+by his side in silence, and was not a little startled himself when he
+suddenly uttered aloud the question he had mutely repeated a hundred
+times: "What do you think about marrying, Herr Gotthold?"
+
+Gotthold paused and looked in astonishment at the worthy Jochen, who
+also stood still, and whose broad face, with its staring eyes and
+half-open mouth, wore so singular an expression that he could not help
+smiling.
+
+"What put that into your head?"
+
+"Because I want to get married."
+
+"Then you must know about it far better than I, who do not."
+
+Jochen closed his lips and swallowed several times, as if he had taken
+too large a mouthful. Gotthold was now forced to laugh outright.
+
+"Why, Jochen," he exclaimed, "why are you so mysterious to an old
+friend? I will gladly give you my best advice, and if I can, and you
+care about it, my blessing also, but I must first know what the matter
+is really about. So you want to be married?"
+
+"Yes, Herr Gotthold," said Jochen, taking off his cap and wiping the
+drops of perspiration from his brown forehead; "at least I don't
+exactly, but she says she has always wanted me."
+
+"That is something, and who is she?"
+
+"Stine Lachmund."
+
+"But, Jochen, she is at least fifteen years older than you."
+
+"She can't help that."
+
+"No, certainly not."
+
+"And then she is a capable woman, who has a good stout frame and strong
+bones, only it is a little hard for her to move about because she has
+rather too much flesh now, but she says that would probably go off if
+she had more work to do than she has at the Wollnows', where life is
+altogether too easy."
+
+"Well, if she thinks so herself."
+
+"Yes, and then she has put by a pretty sum of money at the Wollnows',
+and her old father and mother at Thiessow,--you know, Herr Gotthold, we
+sailed over there once with the young master, and there was a terribly
+high sea outside, so that we got there as wet as cats, and old Lachmund
+thought we must really have had a ducking."
+
+"And then he made us a stiff glass of grog," said Gotthold.
+
+"And our young master drank a little too much, and played all sorts
+of pranks in the old man's long jacket, with his sou'wester on his
+head--that was a jolly time, Herr Gotthold." Jochen had lost the thread
+of his story, but Gotthold kindly prompted him, and he now went on to
+relate that the old couple, rich people for their station in life, who
+had kept a sort of inn in the large fishing village, at last wished to
+resign the sceptre they had so long and obstinately held to their only
+daughter, and give themselves up to repose for the rest of their days,
+on condition that she should instantly marry some good man.
+
+So Stine Lachmund, whom Jochen had visited in the kitchen at the same
+time that Gotthold had been calling upon her master and mistress, had
+reported, and asked Jochen whether he would be her husband.
+
+"For you see, Herr Gotthold," continued Jochen, "she don't take to
+everybody, and she has known me, as one might say, all my life, and
+knows I am an orderly, sober man, who understands how to take care of
+horses, knows enough about farming, and can even manage a boat, if it
+doesn't blow too hard."
+
+"Then so far everything would be perfectly suitable," said Gotthold,
+"but now we come to the principal thing: do you really love her?"
+
+"Yes, that's just it," replied Jochen thoughtfully. "She asked me
+herself last night, and what was I to say?"
+
+"The truth, Jochen, nothing but the truth."
+
+"I did, Herr Gotthold, I did tell the truth. 'Not yet,' I said, and
+then she laughed and said that would do no harm, all that would come
+right if the woman and the man were well-behaved. I must ask you, you
+would give me the right advice."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes, you would know about it; you had always been a good man,
+and--and--"
+
+"And?"
+
+"And if you had married our young lady, she would have been a great
+deal better off than she is now; yes, and, Herr Gotthold, I only saw
+her side face this morning through the window, as she sat alone in the
+carriage; but this I must say, she doesn't look over happy, and Stine
+says she has not much reason to. Do you think so too, Herr Gotthold?"
+
+"I don't know, I hope"--replied Gotthold, "people talk so much,--but we
+were speaking about your offer."
+
+"Yes, and what do you say now?"
+
+"What is there to be said? If you feel inclined, marry Stine, who is
+certainly a worthy, honest girl, and may you both be as happy and
+prosperous as you deserve."
+
+They had seated themselves in the shade at the edge of the wood, in
+order to carry on this important conversation quietly, but now Gotthold
+rose, hastily seized his travelling case and paint-box, which Jochen
+had laid on the grass beside him, warmly shook the hard brown hand of
+his companion, and entered the forest without casting another glance
+behind. Jochen looked after his retreating figure, then took his own
+little bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and began to ascend the
+moor, above whose topmost crest the roof of his father's smithy was
+just visible.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+Gotthold hurried restlessly through the forest with hasty steps, as if
+he had not a moment to lose. But it was only the tumult of sore,
+sorrowful thoughts, that drove him on and would not leave him, any more
+than the swarm of flies which had entered the woods with him and
+hovered about his head, now rising, now falling, now lingering behind,
+now flitting on before.
+
+"To think that I must always hear it, everywhere, and from all
+tongues," he murmured, "as if I were responsible for it; as if it were
+a reproach to me that she is not happy! Happy! Who is? Perhaps the
+infallible people who can recite, their moral multiplication table
+forward and backward like this Wollnow, the wise, self-righteous
+Pharisee; or like good Jochen, to whom fifteen years more or less in
+his Stine is of no consequence, provided a good maintenance is
+guaranteed him. But on the other hand--am I happy? Are thousands and
+thousands of others, who have scarcely a greater fault than that they
+are men, men with hearts that feel and sympathize, suffer and
+compassionate? A curse upon compassion and sympathy! They make us the
+pitiful creatures we are. What are you rustling, venerable beeches,
+which for centuries have strewn your withered leaves each Autumn over
+the soil of this forest, only to shine forth again in Spring in the
+full beauty of your green foliage? What are you murmuring, little
+brook, as you carry your clear brown water to the sea as busily to-day
+as when I played upon your bank, a merry boy, and thought it a heroic
+deed to leap across you from shore to shore? Alas! in the rustling, the
+murmur, I hear the same song that the swallow sang yesterday, the song
+of the eternal youth of Nature, which is ever the same, always equally
+strong, equally beautiful; and of the transitoriness, the frailty of
+men, who prolong a sorrowful, yet greedy existence by fear and hope,
+eat this shadowy food until death, and yet are happiest while their
+hearts can still hope and fear, their hearts which can never again be
+filled if once emptied, or if they fill and throb once more, fill with
+contempt, throb with indignation, that they could ever have been so
+foolish as to beat anxiously in blended hope and fear. Well, I no
+longer hope, so I need not fear even the view that awaits me yonder."
+
+From the broader, but completely neglected road that had hitherto
+followed the course of the forest stream, and, turning to the right,
+still pursued its windings deeper into the woods to the sea, a
+foot-path branched off to the left and led upward, at first between the
+trunks of huge trees, but gradually through more and more stunted
+underbrush, which finally dwindled into heather and broom that covered
+the whole crest of the hill to its highest point, where the men of
+ancient times, in memory of one of their princes, had reared a huge
+monument of massive blocks of stone, now covered with thick moss, and
+partly buried in the earth. It was the spot from which Gotthold, with
+an unsteady hand, had made the colored sketch he afterwards used for
+the painting that hung in Frau Wollnow's room.
+
+And now he stood there again, after ten long years--in, the shadow of
+one of the blocks of stone which protected him from the burning rays of
+the sun, while before him stretched the landscape with whose wondrous
+beauty the boy's eyes had never been satiated. Ah! Time had not
+obliterated a single charm; nay, it seemed as if the hour was expressly
+adapted to show him the Paradise of his youth in all its magic.
+
+The hour of noon! The brilliant sunlight bathed the tops of the
+beeches, over which his eyes wandered to emerald meadows and golden
+cornfields--the meadows and fields of Dollan, which lay like a quiet
+sunny Eden among the shaded, wood-covered hills that enclosed it on all
+sides. Amid the meadows and fields, relieved against the darker foliage
+of the trees in the garden, appeared the straw thatched roofs of the
+farm buildings, and the tiled roof of the long, low mansion-house, in
+whose red gable he could distinctly perceive the tiny window of the
+little room he had occupied with Curt whenever he went to Dollan. What
+memories that little window evoked! It seemed as if his eyes were fixed
+upon it by some magic spell, and could scarcely turn away either to the
+right, where the hills opened and afforded a view of the blue sea upon
+which the distant white sails glittered like stars, or to the left, to
+glance over the wide brown moorland, upon which the lonely smithy stood
+under an ancient oak, the only tree in the shadeless waste, above whose
+verge towered other wood-crowned heights which closed the view on the
+land side.
+
+The hour of noon, the hour of the great Pan! Not the faintest breath
+stirred the shining air; motionless were the dazzling white clouds upon
+the steel blue vault of the heavens; motionless the tops of the trees,
+the blossoming bushes, even the long blades of grass. Not a sound
+disturbed the profound stillness; even the locust, which had chirped
+among the stones of the giant's monument, was silent, perhaps terrified
+by the brown serpent, which, with its head upraised and its round
+glittering eyes fixed steadily upon Gotthold, lay motionless upon one
+of the masses of rock a few paces off, with the rest of its scaly body
+buried in a dense mass of heather. He had not noticed it before, and
+now perceived it with a sort of shudder. It seemed as if the torpor
+into which Nature had sunk had been embodied; as if the spirit of
+loneliness and desolation had assumed a material form. Woe betide you
+when the loneliness of yonder mansion with its neglected garden, the
+desolation of this remote valley, so far away from all human society,
+stares at you with those cold, cruel eyes; when you listen in the
+stillness for a beloved voice, and hear only the blood seething in your
+temples, and the heavy, anxious throbbing of your heart.
+
+Avaunt, fiend, avaunt!
+
+He raised his staff; the serpent disappeared; when he reached the rock
+upon which it must have been lying, he could see nothing but the
+swaying of the flowers through whose closely interwoven roots it was
+gliding away.
+
+Or was it only an illusion of his excited fancy, and did the flowers
+bend to the soft breeze that now breathed through the hot air, growing
+constantly stronger and stronger, so that a rustling and murmuring
+arose in the forest behind him, the treetops at his feet began to
+whisper, and at last the cool fresh wind from the sea blew over the
+panting earth.
+
+The spell was broken; Gotthold again looked at the landscape; but now
+with the eye of the artist, who is seeking to obtain the best view of
+his subject.
+
+"I chose the morning light then, if one can call it choice; it was a
+mistake and I must arrange the atmospheric effect artistically, but the
+sun should be at a moderate height above the horizon, almost directly
+over the smithy; that will be about six o'clock, and I can have what I
+need until eight. I think it will prove a picture which might satisfy
+others as well as yonder talkative lady."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Gotthold collected his luggage; then it occurred to him that he might
+just as well leave his colors there. So he placed the box on the rock
+where the serpent had lain, in the dense shadow, and went down the
+hill, along the woodland path, to the long ravine through which the
+stream rippled to the sea, and at whose mouth, in the little inlet
+between two steep overhanging cliffs, stood Cousin Boslaf's lonely
+little house. In the old days at Dollan it had gone by the name of the
+beach-house, nor was the title used only there; the name was in all
+mouths, especially those of the ship-masters, to whom it was a welcome
+landmark on that dangerous coast even by day, and still more at night,
+when the warning light in Cousin Boslaf's window streamed through the
+yawning night over the dreary waste of waters to the helpless mariner.
+The brilliant glow extended a long distance, thanks to the huge arched
+tin dish which the old man had fastened behind the lamp, and whose
+spotless brightness rivalled polished silver. This light had now burned
+seventy years, to the joy of shipmasters and fishermen and the honor of
+the worthy man who kindled it night after night at no one's bidding,
+but in simple obedience to the dictates of his own kind heart.
+
+Seventy years, and probably more rather than less; no one had counted
+them. Ever since the oldest man in that neighborhood could remember,
+Cousin Boslaf had lived in the beach-house--was it strange that he
+should be a half-mythical personage to the younger generations? He
+almost seemed so to his own relatives in Dollan, among whom he lived;
+in whose society, at least, he spent many hours; whose joys and sorrows
+he shared in his quiet way, and to whom his history was known; at least
+Curt's father had known and related it, Gotthold could not remember
+the occasion, and whether he had told the boys or--what was more
+probable--communicated it to some friends over a bottle of wine, and
+the boys had secretly listened in some corner.
+
+It was long since Gotthold had thought of this story, which reminded
+him of a time when many a beech-tree that now reared its stately head
+far above the wanderer f did not exist. But now it once more came back
+to his memory, down to the smallest details, which he really knew not
+whether he had heard at that time, imagined since, or now first learned
+from the rustling of the forest giants, and the murmur of the brook
+that accompanied his steps.
+
+"When we were under the Swedish rule," so all the stories of those days
+began, there lived on the island two cousins named Wenhof--Adolf and
+Bogislaf--both equally young, equally strong and handsome, and equally
+in love with a charming young lady, whom her father would give only to
+a rich man, for the simple reason that he had nothing but his noble
+blood and the great estate of Dahlitz, which was loaded with debts to
+an amount exceeding its value. The two cousins, it is true, did not
+belong to the nobility, but they had descended from a very good old
+family, and the Lord of Dahlitz would have made no objection to either,
+except the one he was unfortunately obliged to make to both, namely,
+that they were, if possible, poorer than himself. In fact, neither
+possessed anything except a good rifle with the hunting equipments
+belonging to it, and a pair of stout boots, whose thick soles crossed
+the thresholds of their many friends on the island, where they were
+everywhere welcome companions in the hunt or at the board. Of equal
+height, and almost similar cast of features, they also did everything
+alike, or so nearly alike that the hospitable, cheery land-owners saw
+one enter the courtyard no less gladly than the other, and were still
+better pleased when both appeared, which was almost always the case,
+for the two cousins loved each other much more warmly than most
+brothers, and as for their passion for the beautiful Ulrica of Dahlitz,
+their hopes of possessing her were so small that it was not worth while
+to quarrel about it.
+
+Just at that time something happened which at one blow completely
+altered their situation, or at least the situation of one of them.
+
+A very wealthy and eccentric uncle in Sweden died, who, besides his
+property in that country, had an estate on the island to bequeath,
+namely, beautiful Dollan, which at that time included the forest down
+to the sea-coast, and all the land across the wide moor to the
+Schanzenberge. This estate he now left to the two cousins, or rather to
+one of them, for according to the singular wording of the will it was
+to go to the one whom a jury of six of his acquaintances should
+pronounce the "best man." Everybody laughed when this strange condition
+was made known, and the cousins laughed too. But they soon became very
+serious when they considered that not only Dollan was at stake, but
+Ulrica von Dahlitz, whom her father would joyfully give in marriage to
+the owner of Dollan. It was strange to see the two cousins, who had
+hitherto been inseparable, now begin to take separate paths, and, when
+they could not avoid each other, measure each other with grave,
+questioning, almost hostile looks, which seemed to say: I am the better
+man.
+
+In the bottom of his heart each was obliged to confess, and did
+acknowledge, that the matter was at least very doubtful; and so thought
+and said the six judges whom the two cousins had chosen, and whose
+decision they had promised to obey. But all six were blameless young
+men, who set about their difficult task very gravely and solemnly, and
+held long, very long consultations, during which immense quantities of
+good old red wine were drunk, and a vast number of pipes was smoked,
+until they at last came to the following conclusion, which was
+universally praised as a wise and perfectly suitable one.
+
+The cousin who should best perform six tasks to be given by the judges,
+should be considered by them and the world the best man.
+
+The cousins would now have been in a very unfortunate situation, if the
+judges had obtained their wisdom from any philosophical or learned
+book; but no one of them had even thought of such a thing. The best
+man, according to their standard, would be he who, in the first place,
+should be able in the presence of the judges, within forty-eight hours,
+to put a three-years-old stallion, which had never been mounted,
+through the four principal paces--the walk, the trot, the gallop, and
+the run; secondly, cross the moor of Dollan, from the manor-house to
+the old smithy, with a team of four fiery young horses, going at full
+gallop, on a certain line; thirdly, swim from the shore to a ship
+anchored a German mile away in the offing; fourthly, from sunset to
+sunrise--it was in June, and the nights were short--drink a dozen
+bottles of wine; and fifthly, during that time play Boston with three
+of the judges without making any great mistakes. But if, as was almost
+expected, the judges even then could not decide, the cousins were to
+have twelve shots with a rifle at a target placed at a distance of two
+hundred and fifty paces, and the one who could hit the centre most
+frequently should be "the best man," and the owner of Dollan.
+
+This sixth and last trial was really a last resource, upon which the
+judges had decided very unwillingly; for every child knew that Bogislaf
+was not only the better shot of the two, but the best on the whole
+island; still the matter must be settled in some way, and as Adolf,
+perhaps hoping that he should win the prize before that test was
+reached, made no objection to number six, everything was decided and
+the contest could begin.
+
+It began and continued as had been universally expected. The two young
+sons of Anak rode their horses, guided their carriages, swam their
+mile, drank their twelve bottles of wine, and played their Boston with
+such equal skill and faultlessness, that the most scrupulous eye could
+detect no difference in the merit of the performance, and with heavy
+hearts the judges were obliged to proceed to the last trial, whose
+result was not doubtful.
+
+And heavy, heavy as a hundred-pound weight poor Adolf's heart might
+well have felt in his brave breast, when he appeared on the ground on
+the momentous day. He was very much depressed, and the secret
+encouragement of the judges, who wished him well, did not cheer him.
+"It is all useless now," he murmured.
+
+But, strangely enough, Bogislaf seemed no less moved, nay, even more
+agitated than his cousin. He was pale, his large blue eyes looked dim
+and sunken, and his particular friends noticed, to their horror, that
+when the cousins shook hands, as they always did before every contest,
+his hand--his strong brown hand--trembled like that of a timid girl.
+
+The cousins, who were to fire alternately, drew lots; Adolf had the
+first shot. He was a long time in taking aim, raised and lowered his
+gun several times, and finally hit the last ring but one.
+
+"I knew it beforehand," he said, covering his eyes, and would have
+liked to stop his ears; but he listened intently, and drew a long
+breath, when instead of the "centre" he expected, the number of the
+last ring on the target was mentioned, and repeated in a loud tone by
+one of the judges.
+
+Was it possible? Well then, there was still hope. Adolf collected all
+his powers; he shot better and better, three, four, six, nine, and ten,
+and again six and ten; and Bogislaf always remained one ring behind
+him, neither more nor less--always one ring.
+
+"He is playing with him, as a cat plays with a mouse," the judges said
+to each other after the first three shots had been fired.
+
+But Bogislaf grew paler, and his hand trembled more and more violently
+at every trial, and only grew steady at the moment when he discharged
+the gun; but he was always one ring behind Adolf, and now came the last
+shot, the worst Adolf had made. In his terrible excitement he had just
+grazed the outer edge of the target; if Bogislaf now hit the centre, he
+would be the victor: the result of the long struggle, the magnificent
+estate, the beautiful bride--all, all depended upon that one shot.
+
+Pale as death, Bogislaf stepped forward, but his hand no longer
+trembled; firmly, as if his arm and the gun were one, he took aim, the
+glittering barrel did not swerve a hair's breadth, and now the report
+crashed upon the stillness. "It has hit the mark," said the judges.
+
+The markers went forward and sought again and again, they could not
+find the bullet; the judges also went to the spot and searched and
+searched, but they could not find it either. The unprecedented, almost
+incredible thing had happened--Bogislaf had not even hit the target.
+
+The judges looked at each other in perplexity, and for poor Bogislaf's
+sake scarcely ventured to utter what must be said. But Bogislaf went up
+to his cousin, who stood with downcast eyes, as if ashamed of his
+victory, seized his hand, and evidently wished to say something which
+did not escape his pale, quivering lips. But it could not have been a
+curse, for he fell sobbing on Adolf's neck, pressed him to his heart,
+then released him, and without uttering a word, strode away and
+disappeared.
+
+He remained absent. Many supposed he had killed himself; others
+declared that he had buried himself in the northern part of Norway amid
+the ice and snow to hunt bears and wolves; and they were perhaps right.
+
+At all events, he was not dead, but after an absence of several years
+suddenly appeared on the estate of a friend who had been one of the
+judges, and here his cousin Adolf and his young wife Ulrica met
+him--quite accidentally, for they had not heard of his return, and the
+young wife was so startled that she fell fainting on the floor, and was
+restored to consciousness with great difficulty. To be sure, she had
+always been one of those who believed Bogislaf dead, and had already
+had several discussions on the subject with her husband, who always
+asserted the contrary. It was said that this was by no means the only
+point of difference between the husband and wife, and there were in
+truth many things which did not increase the happiness of the young
+pair. True, the extravagant old Lord of Dahlitz, who had sold his
+property to a Herr Brandow--Carl Brandow's great-grandfather--and then
+lived very contentedly on his son-in-law for several years, was now
+dead, but the daughter had inherited her father's expensive tastes, and
+Adolf was anything but a good economist.
+
+This last quality certainly did not prevent him from doing what the
+simplest gratitude required;--and therefore--in spite of his wife's
+opposition--he invited poor Bogislaf to visit him at Dollan and remain
+as long as possible. At first Bogislaf positively refused, and with
+good reason. The cause of the result of the shooting match had now
+transpired! It was known that the evening before the contest Ulrica had
+sent her cousin and most intimate friend, Emma von Dahlitz, a poor
+orphan who lived with her wealthy relatives, to Bogislaf with the
+message: she would never, never, though everybody should declare him to
+be the best man, accept him for her husband, but Adolf, whom she always
+had loved, and always should. Then Bogislaf, as he no longer had any
+hope of winning the girl he loved, generously resigned to his cousin a
+property which no longer had any charm for him.
+
+He long refused to accept his fortunate cousin's invitation, but
+finally came--for only a week. But the days had become weeks, the weeks
+months, and the months years, so that this was now the fourth
+generation which had known old Bogislaf Wenhof, or, as he was commonly
+called, Cousin Boslaf, in the beach-house of Dollan. He had removed
+there at the end of the first week, after purchasing it, together with
+the few fields and meadows belonging to it, for a very small sum from
+the government, which had originally built it for a watch-house; but
+though the beach-house did not really belong to Dollan, but was Cousin
+Boslaf's own property, Cousin Boslaf clung to Dollan all the more
+closely, so closely that the constant intercourse had filled the heads
+of the people with all sorts of superstitious fancies, in which the old
+man sometimes figured as the good, and sometimes the evil genius of
+Dollan, and especially the Wenhof family. Alas! even if he were the
+good genius, he had been unable to prevent the ruin of the house, or
+withhold the son of Adolf and Ulrica, who had many of the Dahlitz
+traits of character, from selling Dollan to the convent of St. Jürgen
+at the close of the preceding century, after which he was glad to
+remain as a tenant where he had once been master. Cousin Boslaf had not
+been able to prevent that, or any of the other things which had
+happened from that time to the present day.
+
+"But what does this mean?" said Gotthold to himself. "How can one let
+his healthy brain become so bewildered by the rustling of the forest,
+the murmur of the stream, and these old tales! I believe the serpent
+has bewitched me with its cold glittering eyes, and I am still under
+its spell. But its reign is over now. There is the sea gleaming through
+the boughs, my own beloved, beautiful sea! Its fresh breath will cool
+my hot brow. And he, the old man who lives yonder, and who learned so
+early the meaning of the harsh word sacrifice; who renounced power,
+wealth, and woman's favor that he might not lose his own manhood, was
+probably the better and wiser man."
+
+Still following the course of the stream, which, now that it was so
+near its mouth, grew more noisy and impatient, falling in many a
+miniature cascade as it hurried plashing and murmuring down the ravine,
+overgrown with huge clumps of ferns and the most luxuriant grass,
+Gotthold, a few moments after, reached the shore. On the right hand,
+almost at the extreme point of the promontory, which, covered with
+large and small stones like the rest of the coast, ran out several
+hundred paces into the sea, stood Cousin Boslaf's house. The old flag,
+which Gotthold had remembered from his boyhood, still fluttered from
+the tall staff on the gable roof. It had originally been a Swedish
+banner, but in the course of years the wind and weather had so dimmed
+its colors, and made so many repairs necessary, that the authorities
+could not have taken umbrage at this relic of foreign rule, even if
+they had troubled themselves particularly about Cousin Boslaf's
+actions. This, however, they had never done, so the old flag fluttered
+and rustled and flapped merrily in the fresh breeze, which blew still
+stronger as Gotthold now stood before the low dwelling, built partly of
+unhewn stone from the shore, whose only door was on the side towards
+the land. The door was locked; he could not look into the little
+iron-barred windows on the right and left, which lighted the kitchen
+and store-room, for they were considerably above a man's height, close
+under the roof; and the strong iron shutters were put over the two
+larger windows in the front of the house, which faced the sea.
+Evidently Cousin Boslaf was not at home.
+
+"To be sure," said Gotthold, "after an absence of ten years we can't be
+surprised not to find a man who was eighty years old at the time we
+left him."
+
+And yet he could not believe that the old man was dead. He had just
+been thinking of him so eagerly, seen him so distinctly in his mind's
+eye--the tall, slender figure, walking with long, regular strides, as
+he had so often beheld him. No, no, the old man belonged to the race of
+giants; he had surely outlived this little space of time.
+
+And then the house and its surroundings--the little front yard enclosed
+by a walk, the tiny garden bordered with shells--did not look as if
+they had been left for any length of time. Everything was in order and
+painfully neat, as the old man used to keep it; the little bridge in
+the creek to which he fastened his boat had even been lately mended
+with new pieces of wood, carefully dovetailed together. But the boat
+had gone; undoubtedly cousin Boslaf had rowed out to sea in her. To be
+sure, it was not his custom, but the old man's habits might have
+altered during the last few years.
+
+The afternoon was already far advanced; the walk through the ravine to
+the beach-house had occupied more time than Gotthold expected. He would
+wait for Cousin Boslaf an hour longer, and then return to the giant's
+grave, paint until sunset, claim the hospitality of the smithy for the
+night, and early the next morning--it was to be hoped with better
+success--seek out his old friend once more. Then he could reach Prora
+at noon, and after taking leave of the Wollnows, drive on with Jochen
+without delay. He had thought yesterday of finishing the picture in
+Prora; but they would pass through the place to-morrow evening on their
+return from Plüggenhof, so Jochen had informed him, and he would not
+trust a second time to the chance which had saved him from meeting Carl
+Brandow that very morning.
+
+The young man had thrown himself down upon the shore under the shadow
+of the beeches, which here extended to the very brink of the steep
+cliff. Accustomed as he had been on his sketching excursions to satisfy
+himself for a whole day with a piece of bread and a drink from his
+flask, he now felt no hunger; but he experienced far more fatigue than
+he had usually done after longer walks. As he lay there with the
+beeches rustling over his head, and the waves breaking on the stony
+shore beneath with their monotonous cadence, his lids gradually fell
+over eyes wearied by long gazing over the boundless waste of waters.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+A few hours later, Carl Brandow and Hinrich Scheel were riding over the
+moor from the smithy to Dollan, the same road which they had passed
+over in the opposite direction not ten minutes before. They rode at a
+quick trot, the groom a few dozen paces behind his master, though not
+from any feeling of respect, and certainly not because he was worse
+mounted. On the contrary, his horse was a magnificent brown animal of
+the purest blood, far more valuable than his master's half-breed, so
+valuable in fact, that any passer-by would have wondered how such a
+noble animal could be ridden upon such an ordinary occasion. But
+Hinrich Scheel was no ordinary rider; he noticed every movement of the
+horse upon the rough road as carefully as if he were training it upon a
+smooth race-course; not the smallest awkwardness was suffered to pass
+unnoticed; it had just been guilty of a trick for which it must be
+punished; and that was the reason why he had remained a little behind.
+
+Suddenly Carl Brandow drew his rein, and half turning said, over his
+shoulder, "Are you perfectly sure you saw him?"
+
+"I told you I passed within a hundred paces of him," answered Hinrich
+Scheel sulkily; "and I had plenty of time to look at him too; I believe
+he stood up there an hour, as if he had taken root."
+
+"But why did that scoundrel of a Jochen say just now that he didn't
+know where he was?"
+
+"Perhaps he doesn't."
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!"
+
+They rode on a short distance side by side; the master staring gloomily
+straight before him, and the groom from time to time casting a sly
+glance at him from his squinting eyes. Then he urged his horse still
+nearer and said:
+
+"Why should he know? I don't know why you are running after him as a
+cat chases a mouse."
+
+"Bah!"
+
+"Nor why you came back from Plüggenhof so soon, have ridden the horses
+half to death, and gave me a louis-d'or when I told you I had seen
+him."
+
+"I'll give you six if you'll tell me where I can find him," cried Carl
+Brandow, turning eagerly in his saddle.
+
+"Where you can find him? Why that's easy enough; with the old man in
+the beach-house yonder."
+
+"Where I cannot seek him."
+
+"Without having the old man send a bullet through your body. Six
+louis-d'or! I think I should wait a long time for the money. But I will
+tell you where you can find him without the gold, if you'll let me ride
+Brownlock across the bog."
+
+"Are you crazy?"
+
+"I will cross it faster than you can cross the hill. Can I go?"
+
+Before them the road ran in a tolerably steep ascent over a hill, an
+outlying spur of the Schanzenberge on the left, which stretched some
+distance into the moor. On the right of this hill a broad tract of
+marshy land extended across the moor to the forest, where it found an
+outlet in the stream whose course to the sea Gotthold had followed that
+afternoon. The summit of the hill had undoubtedly sunk into the marsh
+years before, for the long mound of earth divided it like a wall, which
+at the time it was engulfed had doubtless been very steep, but in the
+course of years had been so much washed away by the trickling of water
+down the hillside that, it now formed an irregular slope, along whose
+upper edge ran the old carriage road, while farther up the acclivity
+large stones made the way impassable for vehicles, although horsemen
+and pedestrians might wind through. The condition of affairs had
+probably not been so bad when Bogislaf and Adolf Wenhof were obliged to
+drive their horses along here at full gallop, for now no man in his
+senses would pass the spot in a carriage except at a walk, and Jochen
+Prebrow was perfectly right when he said that it would have been easy
+for him--or any one else--to execute Curt's wild order, and hurl the
+young pair down the slope into the bog on their wedding day.
+
+The riders had stopped their horses; Carl Brandow looked up the hill
+and over the marsh.
+
+"You are crazy," he said again.
+
+"Crazy or not," exclaimed Hinrich Scheel impatiently, "it must be done.
+I went to Salchow this morning to hear what Mr. Thompson had to say.
+The fellow always knows everything, and declares that they have
+enclosed a piece of marshy ground in the race-course for Brownlock's
+special benefit, because they think he is too heavy to cross it, and
+you'll be obliged to take a wide sweep around. Well, sir, if you make
+the victory so easy for Bessy, Count Grieben and the other gentlemen
+will be very well satisfied, and I can be satisfied too."
+
+"You would be no better, suited than I," said Brandow, and then
+muttered between his teeth: "everything is all of a piece now."
+
+"Shall I?" said Hinrich Scheel, who probably perceived his master's
+irresolution.
+
+"For aught I care."
+
+A ray of joy flitted over Hinrich's ugly face. He turned the horse,
+which had long been champing his bit impatiently, and galloped a
+hundred paces to the left, to the edge of the marsh, then paused and
+shouted:
+
+"Ready?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Now!"
+
+Brownlock sprang forward with a mighty leap, and then flew over the
+marshy ground. Again and again his light hoofs broke through the thin
+covering of turf, so that the water dashed high into the air, but his
+wild speed did not lessen, on the contrary it seemed to increase, as if
+the noble animal knew a bottomless gulf was yawning under him, and that
+he was running for his own life and that of his daring rider. And now
+the quaking soil grew visibly firmer. The deed scarcely believed
+possible had been accomplished, Brownlock had crossed the marsh, and
+would cross any other. "There is no doubt now," muttered Brandow, "I
+can accept every bet; and am I to let Plüggen have the animal for the
+paltry sum of five thousand thalers! I should be a fool! Besides, he
+probably was not in earnest; but the money must be forthcoming, even if
+I should have to steal or commit a murder for it. Holloa!"
+
+He had not turned his eyes from Brownlock, as he rode across the hill
+at a gallop without noticing where he was going, until his chestnut,
+accustomed to pass this place at a walk, recoiled from the edge so
+suddenly that the gravel and pebbles rolled down the slope.
+
+"Holloa!" cried Brandow again, as he soothed the frightened animal, "I
+came very near committing the murder on myself."
+
+He rode down the other side of the hill more cautiously, and then
+dashed up to Hinrich, who was galloping up and down the edge of the
+bog, trying to soothe the snorting racer.
+
+"What do you say to that, sir?"
+
+"That you are a capital fellow; and now, since you have had your own
+way, where do you think I shall find him?"
+
+"On the giant's grave," said Hinrich; "I went up there after he had
+gone away, and found a thing like a box. There was a little key
+sticking in it, and it held his painting tools, as I saw. The box had
+been put carefully in the shade; but about six o'clock the sunlight
+will fall where the shadow rested this morning, and I think he will be
+on the spot at that time."
+
+"And why didn't you tell me so at once?"
+
+"You may be satisfied that I didn't tell you," answered Hinrich,
+tenderly patting Brownlock's slender neck. "You wouldn't have known
+that you are, I don't know how many thousand thalers richer than you
+supposed."
+
+"It is six o'clock," said Brandow, looking at his watch.
+
+"Then ride on and find him. I must take Brownlock home. Shall I tell
+Frau Brandow that we shall have a visitor this evening?"
+
+"I don't know that yet myself."
+
+"She would be so delighted."
+
+"Be off, and hold your tongue."
+
+A repulsive grin overspread Hinrich's grotesque face, and he cast a
+piercing glance at his master, but made no reply, turned Brownlock, and
+rode slowly away.
+
+"I might just as well tell him everything," said Carl Brandow to
+himself, as he turned his horse's head and rode over the moor towards
+the forest. "I believe the damned fellow sees through me as if I were
+glass. No matter; everybody must have some one on whom he can depend,
+and certainly I could not have done without him this time. I've no
+desire to invite the stupid fellow, but it is one chance more, and I
+should be a fool to hesitate long in my present situation."
+
+Carl Brandow dropped the reins on his horse's neck as he rode slowly up
+the rough forest path at a walk, and drew from his pocket a letter
+which he had found on his return home, half an hour before:
+
+
+"Dear Sir:--I hasten to inform you that, as I expected and told you, it
+was unanimously decided by the convent yesterday not to give an
+extension of credit, upon any account, but on the contrary to hold you
+to the promise given, both verbally and in writing, and require the ten
+thousand on the day it becomes due. I am very sorry to be obliged to
+write this to you, after what you told me in confidence; but I firmly
+believe that--with your excitable nature--you have considered your
+situation more desperate than it really is. In any case, I think it is
+better for you to know where you stand, and be able to use the week
+that still remains to discover new resources, if the old ones are
+really so entirely exhausted.
+
+"I intend to pay you a short visit on the 15th, as I must go to several
+estates at that time, and can, if agreeable to you, take the money back
+with me and save you the trouble of a journey here. Perhaps my wife
+will accompany me. She is very anxious to see Dollan, of whose romantic
+situation I have spoken so enthusiastically, and also renew her
+acquaintance with her old friends--Frau Wollnow in Prora and your
+wife--after an absence of so many years. Do you require any stronger
+proof of my conviction that you can separate the messenger from his
+message, and that both to you and your lovely wife, I am as ever, Your
+sincere friend,   Bernhard Sellien."
+
+"P. S. I have just learned something that greatly interests me, and may
+perhaps interest you also. Gotthold Weber, the distinguished artist
+whose acquaintance I made two years ago in Italy, and with whom you, as
+you afterwards informed me, have been intimate ever since your school
+days, passed through Sundin to-day on his way to Prora, where he
+intends to spend some time. He will undoubtedly seek you out, or
+perhaps you will seek him. He belongs to the class of people whom we
+are glad to find, even if we are obliged to go out of our way to do
+so."
+
+
+Carl Brandow laughed scornfully as he put the letter back into his
+pocket and took up the reins again.
+
+"I believe the devil has his finger in the pie. Ever since I have known
+that the man will come here, I have been pursued by the thought that
+he, and only he, can save me. Why? Probably because only a fool would
+take the trouble, and he is the greatest one I ever knew. And while I
+drove by under his very nose this morning, everybody rushes forward to
+put me on the track he so carefully conceals. It was plain that the man
+Jochen dared not tell where he was, either this morning or just now,
+but he belongs to the class of people for whom we are willing to go out
+of our way. And what a charming surprise it will be for her, if I can
+bring him to her."
+
+Again the rider laughed, even more bitterly than before, then stopped
+suddenly, gnawing his under lip with his teeth as he struck with his
+riding-whip at the overhanging boughs.
+
+"How pale she grew when the parson blundered out the news. Of course
+she did not wish it to be noticed, of course. But unluckily we observe
+everything in a person with whom we have enjoyed the pleasure of daily
+intercourse for nine or ten years! How she looked when I took my
+departure so soon after, as if she knew the cause, and how silent she
+was on the way, although I exerted all my powers of pleasing. She no
+longer believes in my amiability, nor I either; but I have so often
+vexed her about the man that I might surely make him afford her
+pleasure for once. And if, as is very probable, the silly swain is
+playing at hide and seek more on her account than mine--why it will be
+all the easier to lead him by the nose, and the affair will be all the
+more amusing. But, to be sure, I must catch him first. Well, we shall
+see directly."
+
+Carl Brandow swung himself from the saddle, fastened his horse's bridle
+to a tree, and began to ascend the narrow foot-path through the wood to
+the giant's grave.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Gotthold had already been working for half an hour with the zeal of an
+artist who has enthusiastically seized upon his subject, and must take
+advantage of the present hour, which will not return. Though sky,
+earth, and sea should adorn themselves at to-morrow's sunset with the
+same brilliant hues, though the hill should cast the same deep shadows
+upon the valley and ravines--he would not stand upon the same spot
+again to replace what had been forgotten, and complete what had been
+begun.
+
+So he sat upon one of the lower stones of the giant's grave, drinking
+in, with an artist's glowing eyes, the beauty of the scene and hour,
+and with an artist's busy hand creating an image of this beauty. The
+colors on the palette seemed to mingle of their own accord, and every
+stroke of the brush upon the little square of canvas brought the image
+nearer its original with a speed and certainty which astonished the
+artist himself. Never before had any work progressed so rapidly, never
+had design and execution met so lovingly, never had the enthusiastic
+feeling of power made him so happy.
+
+"Is it possible the dream that here alone I can reach the standard I am
+destined to attain may be something more than a dream?" he said to
+himself, "and is the hidden wisdom of the ancient myth of Antæus to be
+proved again in me? But to be sure we are all sons of earth; it is not
+our mother's fault if we struggle toward the distant suns, in whose
+strange glow our waxen wings quickly melt. I was such an Icarus
+yonder." "Yes, yes," he exclaimed aloud, "Rome, Naples, Syracuse, you
+Paradises of artists, what is this poor slip of earth in comparison
+with you! And yet to me it is more, so much more, it is my home."
+
+"To which an old friend bids you heartily welcome," said a clear voice
+behind him.
+
+Gotthold started and turned.
+
+"Carl Brandow!"
+
+There he stood, his slight, elastic figure resting against the very
+block upon which the serpent had lain that morning; and his round, hard
+eyes, whose piercing gaze was fixed upon him, reminded Gotthold of the
+staring eyes of the reptile.
+
+"To be sure it is I," said Carl Brandow, as he came forward with a
+smile intended to be friendly, but which was as cold as the hand he
+held out to Gotthold, and in which the latter hesitatingly placed the
+tips of his fingers.
+
+"How did you find me here?" asked Gotthold.
+
+"I am an old hunter," replied Brandow, showing his white teeth.
+"Nothing escapes me so easily, especially on my own ground. But I will
+not boast. The matter was really simple enough. I knew several weeks
+ago that you were coming, and this afternoon I heard, when with
+Plüggen, of Plüggenhof, Otto Plüggen, we used to call him Straw
+Plüggen, you know, to distinguish him from his younger brother, Gustav,
+Hay Plüggen, who has inherited Gransewitz--I was saying: I heard from
+our new Pastor that you had been in Rammin yesterday evening, and had
+driven on to Prora. Of course Plüggen, at my request, instantly sent
+his carriage to bring you to Plüggenhof; you were no longer there, but
+had set out on foot with Jochen Prebrow for Dollan. Well, of course I
+did not remain in Plüggenhof a moment longer, although we had just sat
+down to the table to receive you with full glasses. I drove my horses
+half to death, and nearly killed my poor wife with fright, in order at
+least to meet you on the way, in case you had been cruel enough not to
+wait for our return. We arrived and asked for you before we got out of
+the carriage: no one had been there. My wife and I looked at each other
+in horror. 'There is somebody sitting on the giant's grave,' said my
+factotum, Hinrich Scheel, who now came up to the carriage; 'I saw him
+there this noon.' 'It's not impossible,' said my wife, that 'he has
+learned on the way that we were not at home, and, industrious as usual,
+is making use of the time. It was always one of his favorite spots.' I
+said nothing, but ran up to the gable-room with my spy-glass, and saw
+what Hinrich, in spite of his squint eyes, had seen without any glass;
+ran down again, jumped on a horse, and--find here what I sought. That
+painting is wonderfully beautiful, really splendid; but now pack up
+your traps, if you please! Another day is coming, and this is enough,
+and too much for the present. From noon until now is certainly long
+enough, even for an artist. How delighted my wife will be!"
+
+Carl Brandow had already thrown Gotthold's travelling bag over his
+shoulder, and now seized the box which the latter had been arranging.
+
+"One moment," said Gotthold.
+
+"You can safely trust me with your treasures."
+
+"That is not the point."
+
+"What is it then?"
+
+Gotthold hesitated; but there was no time for deliberation.
+
+"It is this," said he; "I cannot accept your invitation, kindly as it
+is expressed and honestly as, I wish to believe, it is meant."
+
+"For Heaven's sake, why not?"
+
+"Because in so doing I should wrong myself, and, in a certain sense,
+you also. Myself: because I could not stay in Dollan, in your house,
+without being at every step, at every moment, a prey to the most
+painful memories; and who would not willingly spare himself such a
+trial, if he could avoid it? You: because--it must be said, Brandow! I
+have always considered you my enemy, and my sentiments towards you have
+been no friendly ones, even up to this very day, this very hour. Who
+would invite a man who is not well disposed towards him to his house!"
+
+"Is it possible?" cried Brandow. "Then that straw head of a Plüggen and
+the Parson may have been right when they said: 'He won't come!' 'He
+will come,' said I, 'if only to prove that he is still the generous
+fellow he always was!' No, Gotthold, you must not give me the lie, if
+only on account of those silly fellows, and people like them, who would
+then have another fine opportunity to make merry over Carl Brandow, who
+always aims very high and then comes out at the little end of the horn.
+Well, unhappily there is something in it: I am no longer what I was
+once, but a poor devil who must learn to be modest; but this time I
+won't be, just this time. And now your hand, old enemy! there, that's
+right! I knew you better than you knew yourself."
+
+They began to descend the hill, Brandow, who insisted upon carrying
+Gotthold's luggage, still talking eagerly in his hasty, often
+incoherent manner, Gotthold silent and vainly trying to shake off the
+bewilderment that clouded his brain and oppressed his heart; he had
+tried to be frank, perfectly frank; but he had not been so: he had not
+said the last thing because he could not, because he must appear like a
+fool, a coxcomb, if he did, and like a rude unmannerly boor if he did
+not, and simply answered: I will not. But would not even that have been
+better than for them to meet again?
+
+Gotthold stood still, and threw back his coat and vest; he felt as if
+he were stifling.
+
+"It's terribly sultry here in the wood," said Carl Brandow. "It would
+have been much nearer if we had gone down the other side, and then
+crossed the fields; but we were obliged to make this circuit to get my
+horse. There stands the rascal, stamping his shoes off in his
+impatience. Now then, en avant!"
+
+Brandow threw the bridle over his arm and Gotthold took a portion of
+his luggage, so they walked quickly through the woods by a cross path,
+which soon brought them out into the fields. At a short distance, only
+separated from them by a few meadows and a broad field of rye, stood
+the manor-house, already partly in the shadow which the hill on the
+left-hand side of the moor cast far into the valley, while the tops of
+the taller trees in the garden and the crests of the huge poplars,
+which enclosed the grounds on the three other sides, still glowed in
+the light of the setting sun. The little window of the gable-room
+glittered and flashed back his rays. Gotthold could scarcely turn his
+eyes away; he fancied every moment that it must open and Cecilia appear
+and wave her white hand towards him with a gesture of warning: no
+nearer, for God's sake, no nearer! And then it seemed to him as if he
+were once more back in the old days, when he used to come out with Curt
+to spend a precious Saturday afternoon and delightful Sunday, and in
+their impatience to reach their goal they ran the last part of the way
+at full speed. At every step his agitation increased; he scarcely heard
+what his companion was saying to him.
+
+But Carl Brandow was only talking in order to conceal from his guest
+the anxiety that oppressed him. Would it not have been better to have
+told her of his design, even at the risk of her opposition, or, still
+worse, of affording her pleasure? Ought he not at least to have taken
+advantage of the last opportunity, and prepared her for the visit by
+Hinrich Scheel, instead of expressly commanding him to be silent? Or
+would the clever fellow once more, as he had often done, follow his own
+counsel and guide an ill-managed affair into the right course? And yet,
+what could happen if he suddenly appeared before her with him? Would
+she give him the lie in the presence of her guest, say she had known
+nothing about his visit, and her husband had told an untruth? It was
+certainly possible; but woe be unto her if she did so.
+
+"Here we are," said Carl Brandow, as they reached the old linden before
+the door. "Welcome to Dollan! Welcome!"
+
+He had spoken in a very loud tone, standing in the open doorway, and
+now shouted, raising his clear voice to its highest pitch, "Hinrich,
+Fritz!--where are they all?"
+
+But there was no movement within the house, and no one appeared in the
+courtyard.
+
+"It is always just so on Sundays," said Brandow, "Everybody runs wild,
+especially if the master is away from home. Rike! Hinrich! Fritz!"
+
+A half-grown lad, in a dirty red waistcoat and top boots, now came
+running across the courtyard, and at the same moment a young girl
+appeared from the house. Brandow received both with angry words. The
+girl answered pertly: she had been with the mistress, who could not
+quiet the child; it was still crying about its arm; and the boy
+muttered as he took the horse's bridle: he had been obliged to help
+Hinrich about Brownlock; he was threatened with the colic.
+
+"Deuce take it!" cried Brandow; "that damned Hinrich, this is what I
+get by letting him have his own way! I must leave you alone a moment,
+or will you come with me?"
+
+Brandow did not wait for Gotthold's reply, but hurried across the
+courtyard with long strides. He must know what was the matter with
+Brownlock. And then: Cecilia had enough to do in the nursery; she would
+not come out at present.
+
+"What is the matter with the child?" asked Gotthold.
+
+"She fell down just as the mistress got home, and has probably broken
+her arm," said the girl, who had been gazing curiously at the stranger
+with her merry gray eyes, and now hurried back into the house.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+
+
+Gotthold followed her through the entry and into the sitting-room on
+the left, and would gladly have entered the adjoining chamber, from
+which, as the girl opened and closed the door, the wailing of a child
+and a woman's voice consoling it were distinctly audible. It was her
+voice,--somewhat deeper and more gentle, it seemed to him, than in the
+old days, but he had only distinguished a few tones above the moaning
+of the child.
+
+"Poor thing," he murmured, "poor child, if I could only help it."
+
+His hand was extended towards the handle of the door, but instantly
+fell again. If the girl had told her he was there, she would probably
+come out for a moment; at any rate Carl must soon return.
+
+He stationed himself at the open window and looked across the empty
+courtyard towards the building Brandow had entered. How could he stay
+so long! He again turned back into the room, which was already
+beginning to grow dark, and his eyes wandered mechanically over the
+furniture and pictures, many of which he thought he recognized, while
+his ear was strained to catch the sounds from the next room. But
+everything there had now become quiet, and in the stillness the old
+Black Forest clock ticked so loudly--he had not noticed it before--the
+evening breeze whispered in the linden before the window, and then once
+more he heard nothing except the blood beating in his temples.
+
+Had any misfortune happened? Was the child--he must have some
+certainty.
+
+But just as he took a step forward, the door opened and Cecilia
+entered. The girl had told her nothing about the stranger; she came to
+get a piece of linen from her work-basket, which stood in one of the
+windows. The shadows fell heavily over Gotthold, and she did not see
+him--her eyes were turned towards the window--until she had almost
+reached him, when she suddenly paused, extending both hands in terror
+towards the dark figure. The light of the setting sun streamed full
+upon her pallid face, from which the large dark eyes stared with a
+strange glassy look.
+
+"It is I, Cecilia!"
+
+"Gotthold!"
+
+He did not know that he held out his arms; the next moment he would not
+have been able to say whether she had really rested upon his breast.
+When he was again conscious of what was passing around him, he was
+standing beside her at the child's little bed.
+
+"The girl was playing with Gretchen just before we came home--she fell
+with her arm under her; I thought she had only bruised it; but it has
+grown worse and worse, she cannot move it, and cries at the slightest
+touch; I think she has broken it here above the wrist."
+
+Gotthold had bent over the child, who gazed at him in surprise, but
+without the least alarm. He thought he was looking into Cecilia's eyes.
+
+"Are you the new doctor?" asked the little girl.
+
+"No, Gretchen, I am not a doctor, but if you love your mamma you will
+let me take hold of your arm."
+
+"It hurts so," said Gretchen.
+
+"I won't be long."
+
+Gotthold took the little arm and moved it at the shoulder and
+elbow--the child made no resistance; then he passed his hand carefully
+down the lower arm to the joint and bent the wrist a little. The child
+uttered a low cry. Gotthold laid the arm gently back on the coverlet
+and stood erect.
+
+"I think I can assure you that the arm is not broken; it is nothing
+more than a severe sprain. I should like to put on a bandage, which
+will relieve Gretchen's pain, because it will prevent her from moving
+the joint. That will be sufficient until the doctor comes. May I?"
+
+He had spoken in a low tone, but the child heard.
+
+"Let him do it, mamma," she said; "I like the new doctor a great deal
+better than the old one."
+
+A few large tears ran down Cecilia's pale cheeks, and Gotthold's own
+eyes grew hot. He asked whether she had a certain kind of bandage which
+he described; one was brought, exactly what he needed. As he rolled it
+he said:
+
+"It is fortunate, that during the years I spent in study I visited, in
+the interests of my art and also from real love of the profession,
+various anatomical and other medical colleges. I have already been
+able, on several occasions, to make my little knowledge useful, when no
+other aid was at hand and the case was rather worse than this. I
+repeat, there is not the least danger, and I would, if necessary,
+undertake to effect a cure without the least hesitation."
+
+"I have perfect confidence in you."
+
+Gotthold's lips quivered. They had always addressed each other by the
+familiar "thou," nor had he, either in dreams or waking visions, called
+her by any other title during the last ten years.
+
+The bandage was adjusted to Gotthold's satisfaction. Gretchen,
+exhausted by weeping, and now entirely free from pain, had laid her
+head on her pillow and seemed about to fall asleep. Gotthold left the
+chamber and went back to the sitting-room. While groping about in the
+dark for his hat, the most singular sensation overpowered him.
+
+He had not forgotten that he wished to find Brandow and tell him of the
+child's condition, but it seemed as if the intention was entirely
+unnecessary; as if Carl Brandow cared as little about the child as he
+did about Carl Brandow's horse; as if only he and Cecilia had anything
+to do with it, and as though this had been not only during the last
+quarter of an hour, but always, and could never be different.
+
+Oppressed by this strange bewilderment, he stood motionless, and only
+regained his senses when Cecilia entered quietly, but hastily, held out
+both hands to him, and said in a low, rapid tone:
+
+"I thank thee, Gotthold, and--I noticed that the formal 'you' wounded
+thee, but the girl was looking at us in such astonishment; she repeats
+everything, and besides, it must be, but once--for the last time--I
+wanted to speak in the old way, as thou wert here once more."
+
+"That sounds, Cecilia, as if you[2] had not wished me to come."
+
+She had now released her hands, which he had clasped firmly in his own,
+and thrown herself into a chair by the window, supporting her head on
+her hand. He went up to her.
+
+"Cecilia, did you not wish me to come?"
+
+"Yes, yes," she murmured, "I have longed to see you again--for
+years--always; but you ought not to have come; no, you ought not to
+have come!"
+
+"Then I will go, Cecilia."
+
+"No, no," she exclaimed, hastily raising her head, "I do not mean that.
+You are here--the mischief is done. And now you can stay--you must stay
+until--"
+
+She paused suddenly. Gotthold, who was following the direction of
+her eyes, glanced through the open window and saw at the end of the
+court-yard Carl Brandow talking with Hinrich Scheel, whom he now left
+and came hurriedly towards the house.
+
+"He has returned already," she murmured; "what will you say to him?"
+
+"I don't understand you, Cecilia,"
+
+"He hates you."
+
+"Then I don't know why he sought me out and gave me such a pressing
+invitation to his home, which I certainly had never intended to enter."
+
+"He sought you out--invited you--that is impossible."
+
+"Then he meant to make me--us--but that is no less impossible."
+
+She looked at him in astonishment.
+
+"Impossible!" she said, "impossible!"
+
+A strange, sad smile flitted over her pale face.
+
+"Then everything can remain as it was," she said, "it is all right."
+
+"Holloa!" cried Brandow, who had seen them both at the window, and now
+quickened his already hasty steps and eagerly waved his hand.
+
+He entered the room immediately, after calling from the door: "Ah! so
+you have found her already! Isn't this a surprise, eh? What am I to get
+for it? Ah! a man must be cunning. Not a word to the wife, who would
+make all sorts of well-meant objections about old enmity and other
+long-forgotten follies; and then tell the friend she will be on
+tenter-hooks till I bring him home. That's the way to catch one's
+birds!"
+
+He laughed loudly.
+
+"You will wake Gretchen," said Cecilia.
+
+"Yes, what is the matter with her?" asked Brandow, lowering his voice.
+"I hope it is nothing serious, a false alarm, as it was with Brownlock,
+or--where are you going, Cecilia?"
+
+She had risen and entered the next room, closing the door behind her.
+Gotthold informed Carl how he had found the child, and what he had done
+for the present.
+
+"But shall we need to send for the doctor at once?" said Brandow.
+
+"I do not think it absolutely necessary," replied Gotthold, "but if you
+are at all anxious--"
+
+"I anxious? God forbid! It would be the first time in my life. I leave
+all that to my wife, who, if the child is in question--oh! here you
+are! Gotthold says we need not send for Lauterbach immediately, and
+besides it would be of very little use; he is never to be found on
+Sundays. I shall be obliged to drive over early to-morrow morning and
+then I can bring him back with me. Don't you think that will do?"
+
+"Will you look at Gretchen again?" said Cecilia. She did not glance at
+her husband, but addressed Gotthold, who followed her, leaving the door
+open behind him, in the expectation that Brandow would go with them;
+but he had paused half way. Gnawing his under lip, he looked through
+the open door at the pair, who were now standing one on each side of
+the child's little bed, bending over it, so that in the dusk their
+faces seemed to touch. Were they not whispering: "he has deceived us,"
+or something of the kind? No, it was Rieke who had spoken. "The girl
+shall keep a sharp watch for me. So far everything has gone better than
+I could expect."
+
+He went slowly into the room; involuntarily pausing a moment upon the
+threshold, which he had not crossed for a long time, and shrinking from
+a bluish light that suddenly filled the apartment, now almost dark. But
+it was nothing--only the first flash of lightning from a thunder-storm
+which had risen at the close of the sultry day. Thunder rolled in the
+distance, the trees in the garden swayed to and fro, and a few heavy
+drops of rain plashed against the window-panes.
+
+The storm had long subsided and the night was far advanced when
+Gotthold, treading softly and carefully, shielding his light with his
+hand, crossed the wide garretlike entry, lumbered with all sorts of
+articles, towards the gable-room, which had been assigned him as his
+sleeping apartment. Brandow, with whom he had been sitting until this
+time over a bottle of wine in the room on the right-hand side of the
+entry, which had always been appropriated by the master of the house,
+had wished to accompany him, but Gotthold declined: he could find the
+way; two pairs of boots made more noise than one, and he remembered
+that footsteps on the upper floor sounded remarkably loud at night.
+"Well then, go alone, you stickler for everybody's comfort," said
+Brandow laughing, "and remember, sleep off all thoughts of going away
+to-morrow; I tell you once for all I won't hear of it. I'll stop for
+Jochen Prebrow as I pass the smithy to-morrow; he can sit on the box
+with my Fritz, and I'll bring your luggage out to you. I shan't let you
+leave under a week, and if I had my way you should stay here always.
+But you'll take good care not to do that; such a life would be
+unendurable to a man of the world. Well, I have complained of my fate
+more than is seemly; but in the presence of a man of your stamp, one is
+too painfully reminded of what he might perhaps have made himself, and
+what he has finally become. Good night, old fellow, and pleasant
+dreams!"
+
+And now Gotthold stood at the open window in the cosy old gable-room.
+But eagerly as he inhaled the night breeze, which blew fresh and cool
+through the trees, still dripping with rain-drops, it did not lighten
+his heart, which throbbed heavily and painfully in his panting breast,
+like a sleeper whose brain is oppressed by some painful dream. Was it
+not all a mad dream that he was standing in Dollan in the gable-room,
+gazing at the dim light which fell upon the dark shrubbery from the
+window below him, the window of the room where she had slept when a
+girl, and in which she now watched beside the bed of her child, her
+child and his--
+
+Gotthold sank into a chair beside the window, and pressed his hands
+upon his burning brow.
+
+A gust of wind which sighed through the rustling trees roused him
+from his painful reverie. He started up with a shiver. His limbs
+trembled as if in a fever. He shut the window, and threw himself in
+the darkness--the light he had brought with him had gone out long
+before--upon the bed. It was the very same one in which he had so often
+slept when a boy and a youth, and it stood in the same place. He had
+noticed that when he entered the room. Now he thought of it again, and
+remembered the last time he had lain here--ten years ago, in the early
+morning after the night, the first part of which he had spent in the
+beach-house with Cousin Boslaf, and a few hours after, when they were
+awake below, he was to go down and bid them farewell forever--then too
+he; had turned his burning head first on one side and then the other
+upon the pillows, and had been unable to find rest anywhere.
+
+"After wandering through the wide world so long to be whirled back to
+this little room, the same as I was then! No, not the same! Poorer,
+much poorer!
+
+
+            When I wandered away, away, away,
+              Coffers and chests were heavy;
+            As homeward I turn my steps to-day,
+              Everything is empty.
+
+
+"Empty, empty!" he murmured, as if his burning, wakeful eyes could read
+the cheerless words from the white wall opposite to him, on whose bare
+surface the first gray light of dawn was struggling with the darkness
+of night.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+A succession of quiet days had passed over quiet Dollan, and each one
+was to have been the last Gotthold spent upon the estate, but there was
+always some reason why another was added. Once it was the unfinished
+sketch, which must be more nearly completed; then Gretchen wept so
+bitterly because Uncle Gotthold was going that morning, when it was her
+birthday; on Thursday the rye was cut, the farm hands had a little
+festival in the evening, and had arranged all sorts of amusing sports
+in which, through old Statthalter Möller, they begged Gotthold to help
+them a little; on Friday a young architect arrived, who wanted to show
+a plan for the new house, and Brandow was very anxious to have
+Gotthold's opinion about it; the next day his departure could not be
+thought of, because Brandow would be absent on business all day long,
+and the day after the Herr Assessor Sellien had promised to come with
+his wife, and Otto and Gustav Plüggen, Herr Redebas, from Dahlitz, and
+several other neighbors would arrive; there was to be quite a little
+company; Brandow had written to everybody that Gotthold would be there,
+everybody was anticipating the pleasure of meeting him, and, in a word,
+nothing could be said about going away before Monday, and on Monday
+they would discuss the subject again.
+
+It was Saturday afternoon; Brandow had ridden away in the morning and
+told Gotthold that he should not return before evening. The business
+must have been very urgent which could call the master away from his
+estate on such a day. Brandow was very much behindhand in getting in
+his rye, and moreover did not even have an inspector, though he had
+repeatedly complained to Gotthold of the stupid old Statthalter Möller,
+on whom he could not depend at all, so the crowd of laborers who were
+to-day employed in the fields and barn were left entirely to
+themselves. Gotthold had offered to take control of them, if Brandow
+was obliged to go away; but the latter, although he knew that Gotthold
+really understood the business, and that the people were fond of him
+and would have willingly obeyed him, most positively declined the
+proposal.
+
+"It's bad enough for me to be compelled to commit the rudeness of
+leaving you alone all day; more than that you must not require. So long
+as it is possible to avoid it, you know I am not accustomed to
+incommode my friends."
+
+With these words he had ridden away, and Gotthold had taken his
+painting utensils, in order to have an excuse for leaving the house and
+wandering through the woods and along the sea-shore; he strolled
+restlessly on without any definite purpose, until he recollected that
+he had heard from the old fisherman, Carl Peters, of Ralow, that Cousin
+Boslaf would return from his expedition to Sundin this very evening.
+Carl Peters must know, for the old man had given him the key of the
+beach-house, that he might light the lamp in the evening and keep watch
+at night; besides, Carl Peters' son had accompanied Cousin Boslaf on
+his expedition. So Gotthold went to the beach-house and sat down to
+wait on the bluff in the shadow of the beeches; but the sea broke upon
+the shore with such a melancholy, monotonous cadence, the sunny hours
+dragged along so slowly, and besides, if he wanted to tell her that he
+had decided to leave Dollan to-morrow instead of Monday, this was the
+right time.
+
+"The mistress is in the garden with Gretchen," said pretty Rieke; "you
+know her favorite seat."
+
+Gotthold looked quietly at the girl, who hastily averted her face. The
+last remark was at least superfluous, for the garden was not so large
+that any one could not easily find the person he sought; but moreover
+Rieke had spoken in a tone which jarred upon Gotthold's ear. He had
+often thought the girl's merry gray eyes wandered from him to Cecilia,
+and from Cecilia back to him, with a watchful glance, and she had
+several times entered the room quickly, or approached them elsewhere,
+always with the question whether they had called her. He had remembered
+Cecilia's words on the first evening of their meeting, "She repeats
+everything," and mentally added: "She shall have nothing to tell."
+
+"Well, her amusement will be over to-morrow," he thought to himself, as
+he went slowly up the walk, bordered on each side with hedges, towards
+a small spot, also surrounded with hedges and adorned with beds of
+flowers, where Cecilia usually remained at this hour with her child.
+
+Gretchen came running to meet him as soon as she caught sight of him.
+
+"Where have you been, Uncle Gotthold? What have you brought me?"
+
+He was always in the habit of bringing the child some rare flower,
+oddly shaped pebble, or other curiosity on his return from his rambles;
+but to-day, for the first time, he had not thought of it. Gretchen was
+very indignant "I don't love you any more," she said, running back to
+her mother; "and mamma shan't love you either!" she exclaimed, raising
+her little head from her mother's lap.
+
+Gotthold, after greeting Cecilia, had seated himself at a short
+distance from her on another bench, as he always did if she did not
+invite him to take his place beside her. She had not done so to-day,
+and scarcely looked up from her work when she silently gave him her
+hand. It had made a painful impression upon him, but as he watched her
+quietly, he thought he noticed that her eyelids were red. Had she
+wished to conceal the traces of recent tears, to hide the fact that she
+could still weep, that the cold expressionless glance with which she
+now seemed to look beyond him towards the child, who was playing at the
+other end of the glade, was not the only expression of which the eyes
+which had formerly beamed with such a gentle light were now capable?
+
+"I can bear it no longer," the young man murmured to himself.
+
+He had risen and approached Cecilia, who, as he came up, drew her dress
+away, although there was plenty of room on the large seat.
+
+"Cecilia," he said, "I have given a half-promise to stay until Monday,
+but it occurred to me that the Selliens, if they come to-morrow, will
+probably spend the night here, and perhaps some of your other guests,
+and as your accommodations are somewhat limited;--"
+
+"You wish to go!" interrupted Cecilia; "why not say so plainly?"
+
+She had looked up from her work, as Gotthold began to speak, with a
+quick, pained glance that cut him to the heart; but when she answered,
+her voice sounded perfectly calm, though a little hollow, and she even
+smiled as she took up her sewing again.
+
+"When do you wish to go?" she added after a pause, as Gotthold, unable
+to reply, was still silent.
+
+"I thought of leaving early to-morrow morning," he answered, and it
+seemed as if some one else had uttered the words. "Carl told me that he
+should send a carriage to town then."
+
+"Early to-morrow morning!"
+
+She had dropped her work in her lap again, and for a moment covered her
+eyes and forehead with her left hand, while the fingers of her right,
+which rested on the work, trembled slightly; then her hand fell
+heavily, and she stared fixedly at the ground with a frowning brow, as
+she said in the same hollow tone: "What reason should I have to keep
+you?"
+
+"Perhaps because you might be glad to see me here," answered Gotthold.
+
+He thought she had not heard the words, but they had been distinctly
+audible; the pause only lasted until she was sure that she could speak
+again without bursting into tears. She would not, dared not weep, and
+now regained her self-control.
+
+"You know I am," she replied; "but that is no reason for wishing to
+keep you. I feel too well how unpleasant life is here, how monotonous,
+how tiresome to all who are not accustomed to it, and one cannot become
+accustomed to things in a few days, it requires years, long years. So I
+invite no one--I cannot believe anybody takes pleasure in coming; and I
+detain no one--I can easily imagine that a guest is glad to go. Why
+should I treat you differently from others?"
+
+"There is no reason, if I am no more to you than others."
+
+"More? What does that imply? Oh! you mean because we knew each other so
+early in life, because we were friends when we were both young? But
+what does that signify? What is youthful friendship? And do we remain
+the same? You have done so perhaps, at least in the principal thing,
+but I certainly have not; I resemble the Cecilia of those days as
+little as--as reality resembles our dreams; and besides--I am married;
+a wife needs no friend, has no friend, if she loves her husband, and if
+she does not--"
+
+"Let us suppose the latter case," said Gotthold, as Cecilia suddenly
+paused.
+
+"The case is not so simple as it seems," she answered, examining the
+stitches in her sewing; "yes, many cases may be imagined. For instance,
+it is very probable that he loves her, and even a woman of very little
+nobility of character is rarely insensible to and ungrateful for true
+love; but granted that he does not love her, loves her no longer,
+perhaps never has loved her--well, then everything will depend upon how
+the wife is constituted. Perhaps she is not proud, and therefore not
+ashamed to confess her unhappiness to a friend, who might then venture
+to become her lover; or if she is proud, she will do--I know not what,
+but certainly she would conceal herself in the deepest chasm in the
+earth, rather than give way and say, no matter to whom, I am unhappy!"
+
+"And if that is not necessary, if her misery is written on her brow,
+looks from her eyes, speaks in every tone of her voice?"
+
+Something flitted over Cecilia's face like the shadow of a cloud; but
+she smoothed her work with special care, as she answered in a
+passionless, almost monotonous voice:
+
+"Who can say that? Who is so wise that he can read upon the brow of any
+human being the thoughts that are passing within, without ever
+deceiving himself or making another's face the mirror of his own
+beloved vanity? But we have fallen into a very disagreeable
+conversation. Tell me, instead, where you are going when you leave
+here, and where you expect to live in future? You will not return to
+Italy? It seems to me you told me so a short time ago."
+
+"Thanks for your interest in me," replied Gotthold, with trembling
+lips; "but I have made no definite plans as yet. When I left Rome, it
+was certainly with the desire to remain here in the North, at least for
+some time, and try whether home could ever become home again to me; but
+the attempt will probably not succeed, nay, I think has already
+failed."
+
+"It seems to me that this is rather too soon to decide such a
+question," said Cecilia; "but the matter is probably of importance only
+to us; you fortunate artists have your home in your art, and you take
+that with you wherever you turn your steps."
+
+"And yet, I think, we can have our art only at home," replied Gotthold.
+
+"That is?"
+
+"That is, that only in his home can the artist reach the highest point
+his talents will enable him to attain. I have formed this conclusion
+from the history of all arts, which have only prospered when the
+artists had the good fortune to be supplied with subjects furnished by
+the country of which they were citizens and the time in which they
+lived-for in this sense, time is also the artist's home: I mean: when
+they had the good fortune, and of course the power also, to be able to
+freely develop their talents on their native soil, and upon subjects
+furnished by their home. I have also drawn this inference from my own
+observation, which has taught me that those who were unable to find any
+materials for their art at home--subjects identified with the place and
+time--were no true artists, but either dilettanti and imitators, or
+positive charlatans, who deceived with their artificial productions,
+destitute alike of life and merit, only the great multitude--the
+beggarly crowd--to which they, in the inmost depths of their natures,
+certainly belonged."
+
+When Gotthold first began to speak upon this subject, which at that
+moment was very far from his thoughts, he had only wished to soothe the
+tumult of his soul, or at least to conceal it from the pale woman by
+his side; then, carried away by the theme, he had spoken with a certain
+earnestness, and at last with a freedom of which, a moment before, he
+would not have believed himself capable. And so, at first absently, but
+gradually with more eagerness, Cecilia had listened; a ray of the old
+fire flashed from her dark eye as she asked,
+
+"And does this apply to you?"
+
+"It does; that is, it was a misfortune that through my unhappy quarrel
+with my father, and in consequence of several sorrowful memories upon
+which it is not worth while to enter here,--it was a misfortune that I
+was, in a certain measure, banished from my home at the moment when I
+could least dispense with it: the flowers I had sought for in the
+meadows when a child; the trees under which the boy played, through
+whose tops he saw the sunbeams glide and heard the rain patter; the
+skies which at one time could laugh so brightly and anon look so
+unspeakably gloomy, so infinitely dreary; the sea, over whose smooth
+surface, gleaming in the sunset, or billows black with storm, the fancy
+of the youth had hovered, sailed out to the regions of the Blest, and
+the mournful, misty realms of his dreams of battle and conflict and
+early heroic death: all this--I mean the things and the dreams--I might
+have been able to paint, to the pleasure and delight of others, in
+whom, by my pictures, I might have awakened memories of their own
+childhood, boyhood, and youth; what I paint now I have not drawn from
+my own soul, have not painted, cannot paint with my whole heart, so how
+can it, at best, be anything more than sounding brass?"
+
+"Then why are you artists so eager to go to foreign lands?" asked
+Cecilia.
+
+She seemed once more the intelligent young girl, whose radiant dark
+eyes reflected the restless ardor of her mind, from whose lips fell
+silvery laughter, and then grave, earnest words.
+
+"I think this eagerness is often blind and foolish," replied Gotthold,
+"and, at any rate, I would always advise a young artist not to go to
+Rome until his own ideas are firmly fixed, or he will be a mere
+plaything of the winds and clouds. Goethe had written his works on
+German art, and long been a master of it, when he went to Italy; so he
+could quietly compose his Faust beneath the pines in the garden of the
+Villa Borghese, and return laden with the rich treasures of his
+observations of the country, the people, and the events which for
+centuries had taken place beneath its glorious skies, and yet remain to
+the very depths of his artist soul precisely the same as he was before.
+It is just the same in the republic of the arts as in the state,
+Cecilia. What citizen could understand the great relations of the
+government who had not first practised his powers of vision upon the
+smaller affairs of the parish; who could render any valuable service to
+the parish, who had not learned to rule his own household; who could
+manage his house, direct and govern his family, who did not know how to
+rule and guide himself?"
+
+Gertrude had come up while Gotthold was speaking; Cecilia lifted her
+into her lap, and the child sat there silently, as if she knew she must
+not interrupt. Now, as Gotthold paused, she said, "Mamma, I want Uncle
+Gotthold to be my papa!"
+
+A deep flush crimsoned Cecilia's face, and she hastily tried to put
+Gretchen down, but the child would not give up the point so easily. She
+threw her right arm around her mother's neck, and said, coaxingly,
+"Can't he, mamma; he has such pretty blue eyes, and is always kind to
+you, and papa is often so horrid; can't he, mamma?"
+
+Cecilia hastily rose with the child in her arms, and took a few paces
+forward, as if she wished to fly from the place. But her knees
+trembled, she could go no farther, and was obliged to put Gretchen
+down, who, alarmed by her mother's impetuosity, ran away crying, but
+the next moment forgot her grief at the sight of some bright-hued
+butterflies which fluttered before her over the flower-beds. Cecilia
+still stood motionless with her face averted.
+
+"Cecilia!" said Gotthold.
+
+He had approached her, and tried to take the hand that hung by her
+side. She turned, and the face of Medusa confronted him.
+
+"Cecilia!" exclaimed Gotthold, again extending his hands.
+
+She did not draw back, she did not stir; the rigid features were
+motionless, except for the quivering of the half-parted lips, and then
+the words came slowly, like the last drops of blood from a mortal
+wound.
+
+"I do not need your sympathy, do you hear? I have given you no right to
+pity me, neither you nor any one else. Why do you torture me?"
+
+"I shall not torture you long, Cecilia; I have told you I am going."
+
+"Why don't you go then? Why do you speak to me of such things? To me?
+You will drive me mad, and--I won't go mad."
+
+"This is madness, Cecilia," cried Gotthold passionately. "If you do not
+love him--and you do not, you cannot--no divine, and certainly no human
+law, compels you to remain, to pine, to die in nameless misery. And he
+loves you no better than you do him."
+
+"Did he tell you so?"
+
+"Is it necessary?"
+
+"On your honor, Gotthold, did he tell you so?"
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"And suppose he did love me, for all that, and--I loved him? How can
+you dare speak to me as you have spoken? How can you dare give me the
+lie by your silence, humiliate me so deeply in my own eyes! Is this
+your boasted friendship?"
+
+Gotthold bent his head and turned away. Gretchen came to meet him.
+
+"Where are you going, Uncle Gotthold?"
+
+He raised the child in his arms, kissed her, put her on the ground, and
+went on.
+
+"Why is Uncle Gotthold crying, mamma?" asked Gretchen, pulling her
+mother's dress. "Papa can't cry, can he, mamma?"
+
+Cecilia made no reply; her wide tearless eyes were fixed on the spot
+where Gotthold had disappeared between the beeches.
+
+"Forever," she murmured, "forever!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+When Gotthold reached the little wooden gate, which, shaded by a
+half-decayed linden-tree, afforded egress through the rough hedge on
+this side of the garden, he paused and glanced cautiously over the
+sunny fields towards the forest. He could not have endured to meet any
+one just now, perhaps be obliged to stop and answer a greeting or
+question. But he saw no one; all were in the great rye-field, where
+they had been toiling all day; the path to the forest was open.
+
+The sun shone with a fierce burning glow, and the heated air quivered
+over the wheat, which was already beginning to ripen, and whose stout
+stalks were unstirred by the faintest breeze; countless cicadas chirped
+and buzzed noisily on both sides of the narrow path that wound through
+the fields; a large flock of wild pigeons circled at no very great
+height in the air, and as they wheeled with lightning-like speed, the
+moving cloud glittered in the rays of the setting sun against the clear
+blue sky like a shield of polished steel.
+
+Gotthold saw all this, because he was accustomed to live with nature,
+and even felt the electricity that pervaded the atmosphere, but only as
+being perfectly in harmony with the conflict that oppressed his heart.
+Shame had long since dried the burning tears grief had forced from his
+eyes; shame for having, by his want of self-control, produced this
+scene, in which, after eight long days of torture, he had finally
+played the undignified part of the third person, only to learn that she
+still loved this man, and her unhappiness consisted in the knowledge
+that she was not as much beloved by him as she desired to be. "On your
+honor, Gotthold, did he tell you so?" In what a despairing tone she had
+uttered the words! How the dread of hearing a "yes" had disfigured her
+beautiful face! "Is this your boasted friendship?" Yes, his friendship,
+with which he had been troublesome to her years before, with which he
+was troublesome now, only that he could no longer hide himself behind
+its mask as in those days, only that he no longer had the poor
+consolation of being able to slip away unnoticed and unperceived, as he
+had done that night.
+
+He had lain here on the edge of the forest, under the great beech-tree,
+in the darkness of the night, and plucked up the moss, and cursed
+himself and the whole world because, by the pale light of the moon, he
+had seen two happy lovers. Now the sun glared broadly upon his couch of
+pain, as if it wished to show him how childish his grief had been, and
+that he should have reserved his despair for this hour. She had been
+happy! Gotthold tried to laugh, but the sound that came from his
+tortured breast was a cry, a dull moaning cry like that of a wounded
+animal. Even so had he wailed when he tottered along this very path
+through the sultry woods that night, and the trees danced around him in
+the dim moonlight like mocking spectres. Now they stood in brazen
+sun-steeped ranks, and seemed to say: What do we care for your
+self-created anguish, you fool!
+
+And what do I care for your misery! said the sea, which, now as he
+emerged from the forest upon the bluff, stretched before him in a
+blackish-blue expanse, as if petrified in its unapproachable majesty.
+He had seen it under this aspect once before, one afternoon when he had
+been wandering along the rocky cliffs of Anacapri, and it had given him
+the subject for one of his best paintings; but now he only bestowed a
+passing thought upon it, as the memory of the cool forest shade and
+murmuring fountain by which he sat a short time before, flits through
+the burning brain of a sun-scorched wanderer on a dusty highway.
+
+Below him in the little inlet, which had been toilsomely dug in the
+rocky shore, were the boats which belonged to the estate. During the
+last few days he had often used the smaller one to row to various
+places along the coast, and had the key of the chain by which it was
+fastened to the stake in his pocket.
+
+Broader and broader grew the shadow which fell from the shore upon
+the sea and overtook Gotthold, as with powerful strokes he began to
+row across the wide bay, at whose extreme southern point stood the
+beach-house, now brightly illumined by the sunlight. But the shadow did
+not proceed from the shore, but a black wall of clouds which, of
+perfectly uniform breadth, rose slowly in the heavens, and whose sharp
+upper edge glowed and sparkled with a gloomy fire. It was a heavy
+thunderstorm from the land. Well, let it come! Gotthold longed to escape
+from the sultry atmosphere that brooded over his soul, and breathe
+freely once more in the strife of the elements. A fiery shaft quivered
+across the black wall of clouds, then a second, a third; and with
+marvellous speed the dark curtain rose higher and higher, extinguishing
+every gleam of light in sky and shore, and upon the sea, over which the
+wind now whistled in gusts, furrowing its mirror-like surface and soon
+lashing it into foaming surges.
+
+Waves and wind turned Gotthold's little boat aside from its course and
+drove it, as if in sport, towards the sea, though now, clearly
+perceiving his danger, he tried to guide it to the shore. After a few
+strokes he realized that his only hope of deliverance was that the
+storm might pass as quickly as it had come.
+
+But it seemed as if the fiends of darkness had heard his sacrilegious
+words and were now determined to have their victim. The black shadow
+spread farther and farther over the raging sea; only a few white sails
+still gleamed in the distant horizon, and now they also disappeared in
+the darkness; the waves dashed still higher, and the boat receded still
+faster from the shore, where already, even to Gotthold's keen eye, the
+white bluff and the dark forest that crowned it blended together in one
+gray line. There was no longer any doubt that the skiff would be driven
+into the open sea, unless, which might happen at any moment, some wave
+upset it; nay, it seemed a miracle that this had not already occurred.
+
+Gotthold calmly did what he could to save himself; he carefully watched
+the rise and fall of every approaching wave and kept the boat's head to
+the wind, now with the right oar, now with the left, and anon making a
+powerful stroke with both. If it upset, all depended upon whether it
+sank immediately or floated on the surface. In the latter case his
+situation was not utterly desperate; he might perhaps be able to cling
+to it, and, if the wind veered, either be carried back to land, or
+rescued by some passing ship; but if the boat sank, he was lost
+according to all human calculation. He could not put down the oars a
+moment to divest himself of his clothing, and not even so good a
+swimmer as himself could hope, fully clad, to swim for many hours in
+such a sea, especially as he already began to feel that his strength,
+carefully as he had husbanded it, was gradually beginning to fail.
+
+Gradually at first, and then faster and faster. Hitherto he had
+executed the most complicated movements of the oars with perfect ease,
+but now they grew heavier and heavier in the stiffened hands, the
+benumbed arms. His breast grew more and more oppressed, his heart beat
+more and more painfully, his breathing changed to gasping, his throat
+seemed choked, his temples throbbed; come what would, he must rest a
+moment, take in the oars, and let the boat drift.
+
+The little skiff instantly began to ship water; Gotthold had expected
+it. "It can't last much longer now," he said to himself, "and what does
+it matter? If you could live for her, it would be worth the trouble;
+but now--to whom do you die except yourself? Death cannot be so very
+painful. True, she will think: 'He tried to lose his life, and he might
+have spared me that.' It is very ungallant in me to drift ashore a
+disfigured corpse, very ungallant and very stupid; but it is all of a
+piece, and surely a man cannot pay for a folly more dearly than with
+his life."
+
+Thoughts crowded still more confusedly upon his bewildered brain as,
+utterly exhausted, he sat bending forward, staring at the oars, which
+he still clenched mechanically in his stiffened fingers, and the
+reeling edge of the boat, which was now sharply relieved against the
+grayish-black sky, and then buried a foot deep under the foaming crest
+of a breaking wave. Then he saw all this only as a background, from
+which her face appeared in perfect distinctness, no longer with the
+mouth quivering with pain and the cold Medusa eyes, but transfigured by
+a merry roguish smile, as it had always arisen before his memory from
+the precious days of youth, and as he had seen it lately for one
+moment.
+
+Suddenly an infinite sorrow seized upon him that he must give up life
+without having lived, without being loved by her; the life which, if he
+was only permitted to go on loving her, was an inexpressible happiness;
+the life which did not belong to him, which he owed to her, and for
+which, for her sake, he would struggle till his latest breath.
+
+The stiffened fingers again closed firmly around the handles of the
+oars; the benumbed arms moved and parried with powerful strokes the
+onset of the rushing waves; the wearied eyes gazed once more over the
+foaming waters for some hope of deliverance, and a joyful shout escaped
+his laboring breast when, as if summoned by some spell, a sail emerged
+from the watery mist with which the air was filled. The next moment it
+came shooting forward, a large vessel, with her larboard side so low in
+the water, that Gotthold saw the whole keel from bow to stern, and
+above the high bulwark nothing was visible except the head of the
+steersman, whose snow-white hair fluttered in the wind, and the upper
+part of the body of a young man on the bowsprit, who held a coil of
+rope in his hand. And now, like a serpent, the line fell directly
+across his boat. He seized it and wound it around him. Then came a
+powerful jerk; his boat, filled almost to the water's edge, reeled to
+and fro, and sank under his feet; but his hands were already clinging
+to the side of the larger vessel; two strong arms seized him under the
+shoulders, and the next moment he fell at the feet of Cousin Boslaf,
+who held out his left hand to him, while with the right he turned his
+helm by a powerful effort, to save his own boat from being swamped.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+The sea was still heaving after the thunder-storm of the afternoon, but
+the sun had cast a trembling light over the dark waves before it set.
+The stars now gradually appeared in the blackish-blue vault of the
+heavens; Gotthold raised his eyes to them, and then gazed into the
+quiet countenance of the old man, by whose side he was seated upon a
+bench, sheltered by the thick walls of the beach-house. Through the
+window beside them gleamed the light of the lamp, which, ever since
+Cousin Boslaf had lived in the beach-house, had burned there night
+after night, and would now continue to burn on, even after his eyes
+were closed in death. It was for this object that he had taken the
+journey to Sundin--the first since he returned from Sweden, sixty-five
+years ago, and probably the last he would ever make in his life. It had
+cost him an effort to give up his hermit habits for days, and mingle
+with mankind once more. But it must be done; he dared not ask whether
+the road would be hard or easy for him. So he had sailed away,
+accompanied by young Carl Peters, the son of his old friend, and for
+six long days presented himself at the Herr Präsident's every morning,
+and was always sent away because the Herr Präsident was too busy to see
+him, as the valet said, who finally roughly forbade him to come again,
+just at the moment the former left his study, and, seeing the old man,
+asked him kindly who he was, and what he wanted. Then Cousin Boslaf
+told the friendly gentleman that his name was Bogislaf Wenhof, and he
+had been very intimate with Malte von Krissowitz, whose portrait was
+hanging on the wall, and who, if he was not mistaken, was the
+Präsident's great-grandfather, and then told him his desire. Malte von
+Krissowitz was one of the six young men who had officiated as judges
+during the contest between Bogislaf and Adolf Wenhof; the Präsident,
+when a very young man, had heard the famous story from his father, who
+had it from his grandfather, to whom his great-grandfather had related
+it; it seemed to him like a fairy tale that the hero of that story
+should be still alive, and the very old man who was sitting on the sofa
+beside him. He called his wife and daughter, introduced them to the old
+man, and insisted that he should stay to dinner. Everybody was most
+kind and friendly, and--what was most important--the Präsident, when he
+bade him farewell, gave him his word of honor that the good cause for
+which he pleaded should henceforth be his own.
+
+"Within a few days," said Cousin Boslaf, "a beacon will be erected here
+before the house, on a high foundation of stone, whose light can be
+seen a mile farther than that of my lamp. Carl Peters is appointed
+keeper, and will live with me in the beach-house, which for the present
+will serve as a watch-house, and after my death is to become the
+property of the government. So this great care is removed from my mind.
+I need say no longer, when I extinguish the lamp at daybreak: Will you
+be able to light it again this evening?"
+
+The old man was silent; the Swedish banner flapped still more loudly
+upon the roof of the beach-house; the waves broke more heavily upon the
+rocky strand. Gotthold's eyes wandered with deep reverence over the
+figure at his side, the tall form of the silver-haired old man of
+ninety, whose heart still beat so warmly in his breast for all
+mankind--for the poor sailors whom he did not know, and who did not
+know him, of whom he knew nothing except that they were sailing yonder
+in the night, invisible even to his keen eyes, and so long as they saw
+the light kept away from the dangerous coast, as their fathers and
+grandfathers had taught them to do. The old man who lived only for
+others, whose whole existence was nothing but love for others, from
+whom he neither asked nor expected love or gratitude, had to-day risked
+his own life to save him, who scarcely desired to be saved, to whom
+life seemed valueless because he loved and was not beloved in return.
+What would the old man say to that? Would he, in the boundlessness of
+his unselfish love, even be able to understand such a selfish,
+egotistical passion?
+
+"That was my one anxiety," Cousin Boslaf began again; "the government
+has relieved me of it; I have one other which no one can remove."
+
+"Does it concern her--Cecilia?" asked Gotthold with a beating heart.
+
+"Yes," said the old man, "it does concern her, Ulrica's
+great-grandchild, who looks so like her ancestress, but is probably
+even more unhappy. She should never have been allowed to marry the man,
+if I had had my way; but they threw my advice to the winds; they have
+always done so."
+
+A strange, terrible change had come over the old man. His tall form was
+bent as if all strength had left it; his deep voice, so firm a few
+moments before, quivered and trembled, when after a short pause, which
+Gotthold did not venture to interrupt, he continued:
+
+"They have always done so. And so they have lost their fields, one
+after another, and their forests, one after another, and become tenants
+where they were once masters, and gone to ruin, one after another. I
+have let it pass, been forced to let it pass, and always thought: Now
+matters can't be worse--but the worst was still in store for me. They
+were all reckless and frivolous; but none were wicked, not one, and
+after all they were men who, if need be, could live honestly by the
+labor of their hands. Now, now, even the old name will die out with me;
+only one poor helpless woman is left, who has exchanged her name for
+that of a man who is a good-for-nothing fellow like his forefathers;
+the worthless wretch will drag her down to shame with him--her shame
+and mine!"
+
+The old man's last words were scarcely audible; for he had buried his
+wrinkled face in his knotty hands. Gotthold laid his hand on his knee.
+
+"How can you talk so, Cousin Boslaf!" said he, "how can you accuse
+yourself of a misfortune you have been unable to prevent; you, who have
+always been the good genius of the house!"
+
+"The good genius of the house--great God!"
+
+The old man started up and strode hastily to the shore, where he stood
+with his face turned towards the sea; his white hair fluttered in the
+wind; he raised his arms towards the dark waters, and then let them
+fall again, muttering unintelligible words. Gotthold still kept by his
+side; had the old man become childish, or had he gone mad?
+
+"What is the matter, Cousin Boslaf?" he asked.
+
+"Cousin Boslaf!" shrieked the old man, "ay, Cousin Boslaf! He called me
+so, and she too, and all the rest with them and after them, my
+children, and children's children!"
+
+"Cousin Boslaf!"
+
+"Always Cousin Boslaf! Yes, it is quite right, and will be placed on my
+gravestone. I have sworn that no human being should ever hear the tale,
+but I can bear it no longer. One man shall learn the crime we committed
+against mankind, that he may forgive us our sin in the name of mankind.
+I have always loved you, and to-day I saved your life, so you shall be
+the man."
+
+He led Gotthold back to the bench.
+
+"You have probably heard of the contest I had with my Cousin Adolf
+about Dollan?"
+
+"Yes," replied Gotthold, "and have thought of it all very recently as I
+came to visit you, and in the depths of my heart praised the rare
+magnanimity with which you resigned the rich estate and beloved maiden
+to your cousin, after you learned that he was preferred by her. Emma
+von Dahlitz, Ulrica's confidante, brought you this message the evening
+before the decisive day; was it not so?"
+
+"Yes," said Cousin Boslaf, "only the message was false, and she who
+brought it lied, out of love--as she afterwards wrote me on her
+death--bed a few years after, when I was in Sweden--out of love for me,
+whom she hoped to win herself. The unhappy girl had also confessed this
+to Ulrica, who, like me, had believed her lies, and that I had mocked
+and jeered at her, and said I would rather have a Lapland woman for my
+wife. Well, I had wooed no Laplander; but the unfortunate maiden had
+become Adolf's wife, and so, as Adolf's wife and the mother of two
+children, I found her when I returned. A third child--also a boy--was
+born a year after. The two older ones died in early youth; the third
+lived and remained the only child, and this boy was--my son!"
+
+"Poor, poor man," murmured Gotthold.
+
+"Ay indeed, poor man!" said old Boslaf, "for who is poorer than a man
+who cannot rejoice over his own child, dares not call his before all
+the world, what is his if anything in the world is. I dared not. Ulrica
+was proud; she would rather have died ten deaths than taken upon
+herself the shame of the violation of her marriage vow; and I was
+cowardly, cowardly out of love for her and him--my poor, good,
+unsuspicious Adolf, whom from childhood I had loved like a brother, who
+believed in me wholly and entirely, who would have asserted against the
+whole world that I was his best, most faithful friend. So a few
+terrible years passed away; Ulrica, exhausted by the fearful conflict
+between duty and love she dared not acknowledge, died; holding her cold
+hands, I was forced to swear that I would keep the secret. So I have
+been and still remain Cousin Boslaf to my child and grandchildren. They
+have given me a little higher place in their affections than an old
+servant whom people will not dismiss, tiresome as he often is; they
+have also let me talk when they were in a good humor; and if a child
+was born, old Cousin Boslaf was allowed to sit at the lower end of the
+table at the christening festival, or when one of them was borne to the
+churchyard in Rammin he was suffered to ride in the last coach, if
+there was a vacant seat. I have borne it all: bitternesses without
+number or measure; I have believed that by humility, by love towards
+others, I might atone for the crime I had committed against my own
+flesh and blood; but the curse has not been removed from me: 'I have
+never yet seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their
+bread.' I have been no righteous man; my seed will be forced to beg
+their bread; I have grown so old only that I might live to see it."
+
+"Never, never!" exclaimed Gotthold starting up; "never!"
+
+"What will you do?" said the old man, "lend him money! What becomes of
+the water you take in your hand? What becomes of the money loaned to a
+gambler? I brought him one evening the savings of sixty years; it was
+no inconsiderable sum, the farm-rent of my few fields and meadows at
+interest and compound interest; the next morning he had not a shilling
+of it left. You told me just now that you were a rich man, perhaps
+you can give him more. He will take as much as he can get, and the
+moment he can obtain no more, show you the door and forbid you his
+house, as he did me. He knew very well I would not accuse him, that I
+could not; I had not required a written proof that I had given my
+great-granddaughter what I had."
+
+"And Cecilia?"
+
+"She is the true child of her ancestors; too proud to do anything but
+shed secret tears over the misery which has come upon her. I know those
+tears of old; they give the eyes which shed them at night upon lonely
+pillows, the fixed sad expression with which she has looked at me,
+whenever I have met her since--it has not been often. Where are you
+going so fast?"
+
+Gotthold had started up.
+
+"I have been here a long time already--too long."
+
+"Is she expecting you, Gotthold?"
+
+The old man had laid his hand upon his shoulder; Gotthold noticed how
+steadily the keen eyes rested upon him.
+
+"No," he said, "I do not think she is."
+
+"And it is better so," replied the old man. "It is enough for one to
+experience what I have done. When, shall I see you again?"
+
+"I intended to go away early to-morrow morning, but I will come here
+from Prora."
+
+"That's right; my child is unhappy enough now; the sooner you go the
+better it will be."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+"The better it will be," repeated Gotthold, as he strode through the
+dark forest. For whom--for me? My fate is decided. For her? What is it
+to her whether I come or go? For him? If he only wanted my money and
+not me, why didn't he say so long ago? I have offered it to him often
+enough--perhaps not plainly enough; I could not make up my mind to
+speak more distinctly; it seemed like trying to buy the husband's
+permission to remain near the wife. Why has he not wanted it? Doesn't
+he believe in my sincerity? Is he too proud to take it from _me_? And
+yet who should give to him more willingly than I? It is the only thing
+I can do for her. Perhaps that is all they need to make them perfectly
+happy; perhaps his love is of the kind that only thrives in the
+sunlight of prosperity, and languishes sadly in the mists of care. We
+will succor this feeble love. That will bring the roses back to her
+cheeks, and she will laugh happily again as she used to do in the old
+days.
+
+I play no very brilliant part in the family drama; but when was the
+rôle of third person conspicuous or grateful? Poor, poor old man! What
+must he not have suffered! What must he not suffer still! But he was
+not guiltless, no, not guiltless! Only falsehood is sin, not truth. The
+marriage bond between Adolf Wenhof and Ulrica von Dahlitz, as it was
+brought about by a lie, was and remained a lie. She loved another, and
+this other came; she saw that he loved her still as he had always loved
+her; in an hour of intoxication, after so many years of torture, she
+became his; she was his wife before her own conscience; she ought also
+to have become so in the sight of man. It was a twofold, threefold,
+thousandfold lie that she did not do so, that she did not break off the
+old life and suffer a new one to begin that very hour! In consequence
+of this lie, she, the proud, beautiful woman, sank into an early grave!
+He has vainly sought through all these endless years to atone for his
+crime--the crime of having thrust truth from his threshold and
+permitted falsehood to cross it! Holy genius of mankind, thou who
+livest in the light of truth, save me from the greatest of all sins;
+save me from falsehood!
+
+A dark figure came hastily across the glade near the edge of the
+forest, through which the path ran. When it approached a little nearer,
+Gotthold recognized old Statthalter Möller, who now raised both arms,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Thank God, here you are! You've given us a fine fright!"
+
+"I? Whom? How?"
+
+"You, to be sure, you! And whom? All of us, up to our mistress, who is
+perfectly beside herself! How? Well, that's a pretty question! When a
+man rows out to sea in such a nutshell of a boat, with a horrible
+thunderstorm rising, and that old blockhead of a Christian sees it, and
+thinks: Well, I'm curious to see how he gets back; but isn't at all
+curious, goes into the forest, and waits till the storm is over, and
+then about half an hour ago sends his boy to say: the boat hasn't come
+back yet, and may not some accident have happened to the gentleman?
+Lord, there was a pretty piece of business then! And our mistress must
+have been very much frightened, for she came running out at once, and
+started us off. The mistress is not to be trifled with when she is in
+earnest, kind as she is; and we all got frightened too, and some have
+gone down to Ralow, thinking you might have been driven in there; and
+some to Neuhof, and I was just going to the beach-house to ask the old
+gentleman, who has probably come back to-day, what we should do next.
+The mistress wanted to go herself, but I wouldn't let her."
+
+"Where is the mistress?"
+
+"She is probably still in the field," said Möller, pointing to the
+left; "I have just left her."
+
+"And how long have the others been gone?"
+
+"As long as I have; if I hurry, I shall probably overtake them."
+
+Statthalter Möller struck into the forest on the right, shouting the
+names of the laborers, while Gotthold hastily walked on by the path,
+which in a few moments brought him to the edge of the forest, where an
+old beech-tree stood alone in the open field, upon which the moon shed
+a dim, fitful light through the rifts in the heavy black clouds. It was
+the rye-field, which they had been reaping that day. A loaded wagon was
+just starting, and men were still working around a few others, but, as
+it seemed to Gotthold, rather lazily; he heard the voices of the men
+raised in eager conversation, and saw that they were standing in little
+groups between the sheaves, several rows of which extended along the
+edge of the forest. The thought that such important work had been
+interrupted or carried on less zealously on his account was unpleasant
+to Gotthold, and he hurried towards the workmen. He had not perceived
+Cecilia, although he could see the whole field with tolerable
+distinctness; she had probably gone back to the house again.
+
+But as he approached the beech-tree, a white figure which had been
+sitting with its face buried in its hands, and was now startled by his
+hasty steps, rose from the circular bench that surrounded the huge
+trunk.
+
+"In Heaven's name, Möller, have you returned already? Is he--"
+
+"It is I myself; Cecilia, dear, dearest Cecilia!"
+
+"Gotthold!"
+
+She had thrown herself into his arms; he held the pliant figure which
+clung closer and closer to him in an ardent embrace; her soft lips
+quivered against his in a long, tremulous, passionate kiss.
+
+"Is that you?" said Carl Brandow's voice suddenly, close beside them.
+
+It seemed as if he had sprung from the earth; doubtless the sheaves,
+the last of which stood partly under the ends of the drooping boughs of
+the beech-tree, had concealed his approach, but in the shadow of its
+foliage probably nothing but Cecilia's light dress had been visible to
+the new-comer. Yet, in Gotthold's sensitive mood, the man's loud laugh
+had a horrible sound, and his clear voice a disagreeably shrill tone
+never heard before, as, flourishing his riding-whip in the air,
+according to his custom, he cried: "I have heard all; I always say:
+Don't turn your back, something always happens which wouldn't have
+occurred otherwise. I shouldn't have let you go on such a wild-goose
+chase, any more than I would have commenced reaping at the end next the
+barn. What will become of this stuff if it should begin to rain again,
+as there is every appearance of its doing, and rain all day to-morrow?
+In that case we can take it to the manure heap, instead of the barn;
+nobody will come here with a wagon for a week, and it will have
+sprouted long before then."
+
+"It isn't so bad after all, sir," said Statthalter Möller, who had just
+come up with the men he had overtaken in the forest. "We haven't any
+more room in the barn; we'll put up a cover here, and then it will be
+all right."
+
+"Of course, you always know better than I!" exclaimed Brandow.
+
+"I wanted to begin by the barn; but Hinrich Scheel wouldn't allow it,
+and said you yourself--"
+
+"Oh! of course I did it myself; I'm always to blame when you idiots
+have done anything stupid!"
+
+It was not the first time that Gotthold had heard Carl Brandow scold
+his workmen in this way; but never had the cause been so frivolous, and
+the wrong so clearly on his own side. Gotthold had himself heard him,
+as he rode away that morning, call to Hinrich Scheel that they were to
+begin the reaping at the upper end of the field by the forest. Was he
+drunk? Had he seen more than he wished to have known? Did he want to
+wreak his jealous fury on the innocent workmen? Or was this merely the
+preamble, and a test to see whether, in the explanation which must take
+place immediately, he would adopt the tone of an injured, insulted man?
+
+Gotthold did not fear this explanation; his only dread was that it
+might take place in Cecilia's presence. He wished his loved one to be
+away, and moreover he felt the necessity of hearing one word from her
+to assure him that all this was no confused dream, but reality; that in
+the kiss which still trembled on his lips she had given herself to him,
+that he might venture to act, decide for her.
+
+But the fear of provoking an outbreak from Brandow made him timid and
+awkward; she shrank away, actuated by the same feeling; and he did not
+succeed in carrying out his intention on the way home. Brandow walked
+between them; he was obliged to relate his adventure, and Brandow
+railed at Cousin Boslaf, who was always everywhere, from whom one
+wasn't safe even when on the water, and who had undoubtedly arranged
+the whole scene, including the thunder-storm and all its appurtenances,
+in order to be able to save something again. Under other circumstances
+Gotthold would not have allowed such sarcasms, which Brandow
+accompanied with sneering laughter, to pass unanswered; but now he must
+be suffered to say what he chose. Then the latter clapped him on the
+shoulder, crying: "No offence, Gotthold; but I can't bear the old
+sneak, and have my own reasons for it. Either a man is master of his
+house, or he isn't; to have a third party, who is always interfering
+everywhere, and of course always thinks he knows best, would not do, at
+least not for me. As we used to say at school, 'One king, one ruler!'
+You probably remember the Greek words too; I, poor devil, am glad I
+happened to keep the German ones."
+
+They reached the house. Gotthold could not shake off Brandow, who
+detained him before the door in conversation about some agricultural
+matter, while Cecilia entered. Hinrich Scheel came up and complained of
+the Statthalter, who had ordered even the carriage-horses to be
+harnessed to the wagons. Brandow flew into a furious passion; Gotthold
+murmured something about being obliged to change his clothes, and
+slipped into the house. But he found no one in the sitting-room except
+pretty Rieke, who was setting the tea-table, and looked roguishly at
+him out of the corners of her eyes while he glanced over the newspaper
+which lay on the table before the sofa. The girl went out, but came
+back immediately, and pretended to be doing something in the closet;
+she evidently intended to remain in the room. Gotthold now went up to
+his chamber, and changed his clothes, which had been only partially
+dried in the beach-house. As he performed the task, his trembling hands
+almost refused to obey his bidding. Was it the fever of impatience
+before the final decision, or was it actual sickness, brought on by
+over-exertion during the storm? "Don't be sick now," he murmured; "now
+of all times! Now, when you no longer belong to yourself, when you owe
+your life, your every breath, your every drop of blood to her!"
+
+Brandow's voice echoed from the lower floor in loud, angry tones. Was
+he talking to Cecilia? Had the rage, perhaps repressed with difficulty
+till now, burst forth? Was the drama to be played before the servants?
+
+In the twinkling of an eye Gotthold had left his room, crossed the long
+dark entry, and gone down-stairs. But fortunately his fear had been
+groundless. Cecilia had sent word that she felt tired, and should not
+come to supper. Then why couldn't they have set the table in his room
+on the other side of the hall, where they would be undisturbed and
+disturb no one? Would Rieke never have any sense? Rieke answered
+pertly, as she reluctantly obeyed the command, that she wished other
+people's sense was as good as hers; who was to know what to do when one
+order was given one minute, and another the next! Brandow told her to
+be silent. The girl laughed scornfully: Oh! of course it was very
+convenient to forbid people to open their mouths, but it wouldn't do in
+the long run, and if she wanted to speak she would speak, and then
+other people would have to hold their tongues.
+
+"Leave the room," shouted Brandow furiously.
+
+The girl answered with a still more impudent laugh, and then left the
+apartment, banging the door after her.
+
+"That's what one gets for being too indulgent," cried Brandow,
+swallowing at a single gulp a glass of wine which he had poured out
+with an unsteady hand.
+
+He cast a sly glance at Gotthold, who looked him steadily in the face.
+What did this scene mean? What could the girl tell, if she chose to
+speak? Had she claims upon her master which he was obliged to
+acknowledge? Had a weapon unexpectedly fallen into his hands which
+might be of use to him in this hour? An ignoble weapon indeed; but
+perhaps not too much so for a conflict with a man who, while the
+husband of such a wife, did not disdain the servant.
+
+Yet Gotthold said to himself that he would not begin the quarrel, but,
+if possible, defer it until he had come to some understanding with
+Cecilia about the next step to be taken. And it seemed possible; nay,
+Gotthold soon became doubtful whether Brandow at most had anything more
+than a vague suspicion, to which he either could not or dared not give
+expression. Perhaps he wished to increase his courage by drink, for he
+now drained glass after glass, and brought one bottle of old wine after
+another from his sleeping-room; perhaps he wanted to give vent to his
+powerless anger, in some degree at least, when he railed at Cousin
+Boslaf, the old sneak who had perfectly disgusted him with life by his
+perpetual interference, until he at last forbade him the house; and
+then spoke once more of his miserable circumstances, as he called them,
+for which, however, he was less to blame than some other people.
+
+"True," he exclaimed, "I have spent more on my journeys than tailors
+and glove-makers do; I have lived in a manner befitting a gentleman,
+but the principal cause of my disgraceful situation is my marriage. Of
+course you look incredulous; you would like, as an old ally of the
+Wenhofs, to contradict me; it would be useless; I know too well how all
+this has come about. I will say nothing about the noble Curt--the few
+college debts I was obliged to pay for him were a mere bagatelle; but
+the old man, who was by no means so old as not to have a damned good
+relish for the pleasant things of this world--the old man was not a
+particularly desirable father-in-law. I even had to pay for the wedding
+outfit, but--good heavens--at such a time a man would bring the stars
+from the sky to adorn his beloved; so I wouldn't have minded advancing
+the money for the few trinkets and other things, if that had been the
+end of it. But unfortunately that was not the case. I gave my
+father-in-law ten thousand thalers in cash during the two years he
+lived, and was obliged to pay at least as much in debts after his
+death. That's a pretty good bit of money, _mon cher_, when a man has no
+more than enough for himself; and so my beautiful Dahlitz went to the
+devil, and I was glad to be able to creep into Dollan for shelter, and
+some day Dollan will go to the devil too; for a man can't keep the best
+farm in the world nowadays, unless he has property of his own, and the
+prudent Brothers of the Convent of St. Jurgen have kept me as short as
+my father-in-law, who could never get the better of them. But what am I
+thinking of, to be entertaining such a distinguished gentleman with
+this rubbish! You can't help me, and if you could, a man doesn't allow
+himself to be helped by his good friends--he applies to his good
+enemies."
+
+Brandow laughed loudly, and starting up, paced hastily up and down the
+room with an agitated air, and at last stopped before the closet
+containing his weapons, pulled a pistol from its nail, cocked it, and
+turning towards Gotthold, cried:
+
+"Only, unfortunately, the good friends are often the same as the good
+enemies, so that one can't separate them. Don't you think so!"
+
+"It may happen so," said Gotthold quietly; "but you would do better to
+hang up the pistol again; your hand is too unsteady for such tricks
+to-night; some accident might occur."
+
+Gotthold was determined not to enter upon an explanation with the
+half-intoxicated man this evening, under any circumstances; and equally
+determined not to yield to his threats, if this was intended for one,
+and permit the ransom money to be extorted, which he must pay if he
+wished to leave the place without any further difficulty.
+
+The expression of calm decision upon the grave countenance of his guest
+had not escaped Brandow; he let the half-raised weapon fall, laid it
+aside, came back to the table, threw himself into his chair, and said:
+
+"You are right! Some accident might happen; but no one would care, and,
+after all, it would only be consistent if I should put a bullet through
+my brain. You are a lucky fellow. You have been obliged to work from
+your early youth, and so have learned a great deal; now a great
+fortune, more than you can use, comes to you without the least trouble.
+I have never worked, have learned nothing, and I lose a property
+without which I am nothing, less than nothing: the jest of all who have
+known me, a scarecrow to the gay birds I have hitherto equalled or
+excelled, and who now leave the poor plucked crow to his fate. Death
+and the devil!"
+
+He dashed his glass down upon the table so violently that it broke.
+
+"Oh, pshaw! the matter is not worth getting into a passion about.
+Everything must have an end, and however they may jeer at me, nobody
+can say I have not enjoyed life. I have drunk the best wine, ridden the
+fastest horses, and kissed the prettiest women. You are a connoisseur
+too, Gotthold; you have done just the same in your quiet way, of
+course. Yes, you were always a sly-boots, and I had a cursed respect
+for your cunning, even in our school-days. Well, no offence; I am not
+very stupid, and clever people, like you and me, always get along
+together; it's only dunces who quarrel--dunces, silly boys, as we were
+then. Do you remember? Tierce, quart, quart, tierce! Ha! ha! ha! That
+wouldn't suit us now. Touch glasses, old boy, and drink! Drink to good
+fellowship!"
+
+And he held out his brimming glass.
+
+"My glass is empty," said Gotthold; "and so is the bottle. Let us go to
+bed; we have drunk more than enough."
+
+He left the room before Brandow, who was staring at him with eyeballs
+starting from his head, could reply.
+
+As the door closed behind him, Brandow made a spring like that of a
+wild beast after its prey, and then paused in the middle of the room,
+showing his white teeth, and shaking his clenched fists at the door.
+
+"Cursed scoundrel! I'll have your blood, drop by drop; but first I'll
+have your money!"
+
+His uplifted arms fell; he tottered to the table, and sat there
+supporting his burning head in his hands, gnawing his lips with his
+sharp teeth till the blood sprang through the skin, mentally heaping
+crime upon crime, but none would lead him to his goal. Suddenly he
+started up and a hoarse laugh burst forth. So it should be! She, she
+herself must ask him, and that was the way to force her to do so!
+Vengeance, full vengeance, and no danger, except that the servant might
+chatter! She had already threatened to do so several times, and to-day
+had been more impudent than ever; but all must be accomplished
+to-morrow, and to-night was available for many things.
+
+That night--he did not know how late it was, for he had lain there
+fully dressed, with throbbing temples, awake, and yet as if in some
+wild dream, falling from the heights of more than earthly bliss into
+the depths of helpless anxiety and dread--that very night Gotthold
+heard above the rustling of the foliage before his window, and the
+plashing of the rain against the panes, a sound which made him start
+from his bed, and, holding his breath, listen intently. The noise was
+like a scream, a woman's scream, and could only have come from the
+chamber below him, where Cecilia slept alone with her child. He reached
+the window at a single bound. The wind and rain beat into his face, but
+above the wind and rain he distinctly heard Brandow's voice, now louder
+and now lower, as a man speaks who is carried away by passion, and then
+violently forces himself to be calm. At intervals he thought he
+distinguished her voice; but perhaps it was only his fancy, excited to
+madness, which filled the pauses in which he did not hear the voice of
+the man he hated. A conjugal scene in the chamber of the wife, who
+cannot, must not lock her door; who must hear the wild words of the
+furious drunken husband, and has nothing to oppose to his fury save her
+tears!
+
+"And she bears it, must bear it! Must wring her hands helplessly! This
+is bitterer than death!" 'murmured Gotthold. "Why didn't I speak? All
+might now have been decided! Is not keeping silence when one ought to
+speak also a lie, a cruel, horrible lie, and must falsehood be spoken
+by the good as well as the bad? To-morrow, if to-morrow were only here,
+if such a night can have a morrow."
+
+He threw himself on his bed, moaning and sobbing, and buried his head
+in the pillows, then started up again. Was not that a step moving
+slowly and cautiously over the floor? Was any one coming to him with a
+murderous weapon? Thank God!
+
+Gotthold sprang to the door and tore it open. Everything was
+silent--silent and dark. The stairs from below led directly up the
+middle of the entry, between the two gables; the cautious step he had
+heard was not on his side, and had undoubtedly gone towards the other,
+where, opposite to his room, were two smaller chambers, one of which,
+on the left, stood empty, and the other was occupied by pretty Rieke;
+for a faint light, which was quickly extinguished, now gleamed through
+a crack in the door of the right-hand room, and through the deep
+stillness came a laugh, instantly hushed, as if a hand had been
+suddenly placed over the laughing lips.
+
+Gotthold shut the door; he wished to see and hear no more.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+A gray dreary morning followed the dark rainy night. Endless masses
+of vapor, now and then piled into thick clouds, rolled in from the
+sea,--masses so deep that they almost covered the lofty tops of the
+poplars, which now bent before the rude wind over the drenched straw
+roofs of the barns, and then rebounded defiantly, shaking their
+branches indignantly.
+
+Gotthold stood at the window of the sitting room, gazing gloomily at
+the dreary scene. He had slept an hour towards morning, almost against
+his will; but anxiety for what might be coming weighed upon his soul
+more heavily than physical exhaustion upon his body. Terrible as the
+night had been, stars of hope ever and anon had sparkled cheeringly
+through the darkness; now it seemed as if this dreary day had only
+dawned to say: This solitary, hideous drifting is life, reality; what
+have I to do with your dreams? As he came down the staircase, he had
+seen almost with an emotion of horror that preparations for the
+reception of guests were being made in the large hall looking out upon
+the garden, which was generally unused; the clattering of pots and
+pans, and the loud voices of maid-servants came from the kitchen at the
+end of the long hall; and a groom was just pushing from the stable the
+carriage which was to bring the guests from Prora. Everything was going
+on as usual, as if to-day would be like yesterday, and to-morrow like
+to day; as if nothing could happen which would make the old world young
+again as it was on the first day that dawned on Paradise. And yet, and
+yet, it surely was no dream; it had certainly happened. It could not
+blow away like formless mist! It must assume some shape, emerge from
+the chaos, perhaps be worked out by a hot conflict; it was all the
+same! Only it could not be lost!
+
+But this dreary inactive waiting was terrible! She must know that he
+had been standing here half an hour already, waiting for her, for one
+word from her lips, even one look, to say to him: I am yours, as you
+are mine; trust me as I trust you. Why did she not come? The moment was
+more favorable than any which might occur again all day. Brandow had
+just crossed the courtyard to the stables, as he did every morning; the
+breakfast was on the table; they had always spent half an hour together
+at this time undisturbed--and to-day, to-day she must needs leave him
+alone!
+
+A boundless impatience took possession of him; he paced up and down the
+room, glancing every moment towards the door through which that other
+had come and gone last night, and which was closed upon him, listening
+with straining ears that he might distinguish some sound, but heard
+nothing except the sleepy buzzing of a fly; even the house clock in the
+tall old-fashioned wooden case did not tick to-day; the hands had
+stopped during the night.
+
+He pressed his hands to his beating temples; it seemed as if he should
+go mad if this torture did not cease, and then a thought occurred to
+him more terrible than all the rest. Was she afraid of him? Did shame
+withhold her from appearing before the eyes of him against whose heart
+her own had throbbed yesterday, whose kiss she had received and
+answered? No, no, a thousand times no! Whatever kept her from him, it
+was not that, not that! It was a crime against her proud nature even to
+think it! She might die, but not live to be dishonorable. Perhaps she
+was ill, very ill, helpless, alone--ah! that was Gretchen's voice:
+"Mamma, I want to go with you; I want to go with you to Uncle Gotthold.
+I want to bid Uncle Gotthold 'good morning!'" and then low soothing
+tones, then the door opened and she entered.
+
+Gotthold rushed toward her, but only a few steps. She had raised both
+hands with a gesture of the most imploring entreaty, and the most
+imploring entreaty looked forth from the large tearful eyes, and pure
+pale face. So she approached, so she stood before him, and then almost
+inaudible words fell from her quivering lips.
+
+"Will you forgive me, Gotthold!"
+
+He could not answer; gesture, expression, words--all told him that his
+haunting fear had become reality; that in one way or another all was
+lost.
+
+A fierce anguish overpowered him, and then anger arose in his heart; he
+laughed aloud!
+
+"So this is all the courage you have!"
+
+Her arms fell, her lips closed, her features quivered convulsively, and
+her whole frame trembled.
+
+"No, Gotthold, not all. But I thank you for being angry; or it might
+have been impossible for me to perform my task. No, don't look at me
+so; don't look at me so. Laugh as you laughed just now! What can a man
+do but laugh, when a woman by whom he believes himself beloved comes
+and says--"
+
+"You need not," cried Gotthold; "you need not; a man does not
+comprehend such things, but he feels them without words."
+
+He turned towards the door.
+
+"Gotthold!"
+
+There was despair in the tone; the young man's hand fell from the
+latch.
+
+"Can it be, Cecilia? I have frightened you by my vehemence; but it
+shall not happen again. Only say one word--tell me you love me, and I
+will bear all; everything else is a matter of indifference to me; we
+must and shall see some way of escape; but you cannot let me go so, not
+so, I implore you!"
+
+But he searched her face for some token of assent in vain. Her features
+seemed set in a horrible smile.
+
+"No," she said, "not so: not before you have promised that you will
+save my husband, whom I love and honor; from whom I cannot, will not
+part."
+
+She uttered the words slowly, in a monotonous tone, like something
+learned by rote, and now paused like a scholar who has forgotten her
+lesson.
+
+"What does this farce mean?" said Gotthold.
+
+The door of the sleeping-room opened, Gretchen put her curly head in,
+and then came bounding towards her mother. Cecilia clasped the child
+passionately in her arms, and hastily continued, while a feverish
+flush replaced her former death-like pallor: "Save him from the
+bankruptcy into which he will fall, if you do not help him. The matter
+concerns--concerns--"
+
+She released Gretchen, and pressed both hands upon her brow.
+
+"Mamma, mamma," screamed the little one, beginning to cry aloud, as
+Gotthold supported the tottering figure to the nearest chair.
+
+"What is the matter with my wife?" asked Brandow.
+
+Gotthold had not heard him enter. At the first sound of his voice
+Cecilia raised herself from his arms, and stood erect between the two
+men, without support, clasping the child to her heart, pale as death,
+but with an expression of sorrowful resolution; and there was a
+strange, unvarying firmness in the tone of her voice, as, fixing her
+eyes upon her husband, she said:
+
+"He knows, and will do it."
+
+And then turning to Gotthold:
+
+"You will do it for the sake of our old friendship, Gotthold, will you
+not? And farewell, Gotthold; we shall not see each other again."
+
+She held out an icy hand to him, took Gretchen in her arms, and left
+the room without looking back, while the child stretched out its little
+hands over her shoulder, calling, "Bring me something pretty to-day,
+uncle Gotthold. Do you hear, uncle Gotthold?"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+"If women only wouldn't take everything tragically," said Brandow;
+"it's really a pity. First she proposed it herself, and now--but we
+mustn't expect the dear creatures to be consistent."
+
+"And what do you require of me?" asked Gotthold.
+
+He had seated himself at the table, while Brandow strode restlessly up
+and down the room, pretending to busy himself in doing first one thing
+and then another.
+
+"Require! How you talk! Require! If I had had anything to require of
+you I shouldn't have been silent so long; but I think my wife has told
+you all, or did she--"
+
+"She has told me everything except the amount."
+
+"Except the amount? Capital! capital!--so exactly like a woman! Except
+the amount! Of course there's no occasion to lay any stress upon such
+secondary considerations."
+
+And Brandow essayed a laugh which sounded rather hoarse.
+
+"Short and good."
+
+"Short, for aught I care, and good. Well, I hope you'll take it so. I
+want twenty-five thousand thalers."
+
+"When?"
+
+"That's the devil of it. Ten thousand, which I owe the trustees of the
+convent for arrears of rent, are to be paid to-morrow to the convent
+treasurer at Sundin; but Sellien, if he comes to-day, would take the
+money back with him; of course, however, that is only a favor on his
+part, and would be a convenience on mine--there's no obligation; so
+to-morrow morning will be time enough for that. The rest--I mean the
+fifteen thousand--is a debt of honor, which must be paid this evening,
+if I don't wish to lose Brownlock and my wheat harvest, which I
+pledged. Between ourselves, they really had designs only upon
+Brownlock. They, that is, the two Plüggens and Redebas, who fairly
+pressed me for the money, and then fixed to-day as the last limit of
+time for payment, because they knew what a strait I am in about my
+arrears of rent, and hoped, under any circumstances, I should be unable
+to pay, and then they would have Brownlock. The sneaks, the swindlers!
+Brownlock, that is worth twice as much as the whole amount--Brownlock,
+a horse on which I already have fifteen thousand in my betting-book,
+and which will bring me in thirty thousand as sure as my name is Carl
+Brandow."
+
+He acted as if he had talked himself into a rage, and lashed the air
+and the tops of his boots with his riding-whip, while his crafty eyes
+rested steadily upon Gotthold, who still sat motionless at the table,
+resting his head on his hand.
+
+"And I am to procure the money for you? How did you arrange that?"
+
+"My plan was something of this kind: my wife told me you wished to
+leave us to-day; of course I am prodigiously sorry; but you have your
+reasons, which I respect, although I don't know them; and you will
+perhaps make use of the carriage I am just going to send to Prora for
+the Selliens. I'll let Hinrich Scheel, on whom I can depend implicitly,
+go with you; and Hinrich could then bring back the fifteen thousand
+with which I must feed my dear guests. You need not pay the money at
+all; that blameless usurer, your worthy Wollnow, might not count it
+out. The ten thousand for Sellien can remain there: he can take it
+himself to-morrow morning, when he will be obliged to pass through
+Prora again. Just write me a line, or even tell Hinrich that the money
+will be ready for him at Wollnow's on receipt of my order. Then he
+could leave the acquittance here, or give it to Wollnow, from whom I
+can get it whenever I have an opportunity, and the affair is settled."
+
+"And suppose Wollnow won't give me the money?"
+
+"Won't give it to you? Why, you have fifty thousand in his business."
+
+"Not a groschen more than ten."
+
+"But Semmel assured me--"
+
+"Semmel is mistaken."
+
+Brandow had paused, with his riding-whip uplifted. Was the man trying
+to drive a bargain? A paltry ten thousand? Did he expect to get off
+with that?
+
+A scornful smile flitted over his sharp face, which was unusually pale
+to-day, and the riding-whip whizzed through the air.
+
+"Oh, pshaw, you have credit for fifty thousand. Credit is money, as
+nobody knows better than I, who have lived on it so long. But do as you
+choose! I don't plead for myself--I'm made of hard wood, and shall
+survive the storm. I am sorry for poor Cecilia, though. She reckoned so
+confidently upon your friendship; persuaded me so urgently to confide
+in you."
+
+Gotthold had been compelled to exert all his strength in order to
+control himself during this horrible scene, and not show his antagonist
+how terribly he was suffering. Suddenly a mist crept over his eyes, a
+roaring sound was in his ears, it seemed as if he was lying on the
+ground, and Brandow, who stood over him, was just raising his arm for a
+second blow. Then, with a violent effort, he shook off the faintness
+that threatened to overpower him, and said, rising:
+
+"That is right. Cecilia shall not have reckoned upon my friendship in
+vain; take care that you don't make a mistake yourself."
+
+Brandow had involuntarily recoiled a few paces, startled by Gotthold's
+ghastly face. He tried to answer with a jest to the effect that he was
+not in the habit of being mistaken where his debts were concerned; but
+Gotthold cut short the sentence with a contemptuous "Enough!" and left
+the room to pack his clothes.
+
+Fifteen minutes after, the carriage driven by Hinrich Scheel rolled
+away through the misty morning across the moor, on the way to Prora.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+Coffee had just been served in Frau Wollnow's pleasant little balcony
+room in the second story. The gentlemen had gone down-stairs to smoke a
+cigar in the office, but the ladies were still sitting at the table,
+from which the pretty young servant-girl was removing the dishes. The
+three children, who could not become accustomed to the altered
+arrangements of the household--coffee was generally served in the
+sitting-room below--romped noisily around, to Frau Wollnow's great
+amusement, while Alma Sellien smoothed a frown of displeasure from her
+white forehead with her soft dainty hand.
+
+"Couldn't you send the children away now?"
+
+"The children!" said Frau Wollnow, casting an astonished glance from
+her round brown eyes at her brown-eyed darlings.
+
+"I'm always a little nervous in the morning; and to-day must be doubly
+cautious, as I have a country excursion in prospect."
+
+"Pardon me, dear Alma; I forgot you were not accustomed to the
+noise. It is not always so bad; but since Stine left me day before
+yesterday--dear me, I can't blame her; the good old thing wants to get
+married, and to a young man who might almost be her son, so she
+certainly has no time to lose. She has gone back to her parents. The
+wedding will take place in a fortnight. It was hard enough for her to
+leave the children--"
+
+"You were going to send the children away, dear!"
+
+The children were sent away. Alma Sellien leaned back in the corner of
+the sofa exhausted, and said, closing her soft blue eyes as it half
+asleep: "I am sure this will be another disappointment."
+
+"What, dear Alma?" asked Frau Wollnow, whose thoughts were still with
+her children.
+
+"My husband is so terribly enthusiastic about him; he's always
+enthusiastic about men I afterwards think horrible."
+
+"You will be mistaken this time," cried Frau Wollnow, who, engrossed in
+this interesting subject, even failed to hear her youngest child crying
+upon the stairs; "your husband has said too little rather than too
+much. He is not only a handsome man--which, for my part, I consider of
+very little consequence--tall, and of an extremely elegant, graceful
+bearing, which harmonizes most admirably with the gentle, yet resolute
+expression of his features, the mild, yet steady gaze of his large
+deep-blue eyes, and even the soft, but sonorous tone of his voice."
+
+"You are surely turning poetess," said Alma.
+
+Ottilie Wollnow blushed to the roots of the curly bluish-black hair on
+her temples.
+
+"I don't deny that I am very, very--"
+
+"Much in love with him," said Alma, completing the sentence.
+
+"Why yes, if you choose to say so; that is, as I love everything good
+and beautiful."
+
+"An excellent theory, which I profess myself, only unfortunately in
+practice we must always be withheld by the opposition of our husbands.
+Yours did not seem to be quite so much delighted with your protégé."
+
+"My good Emil!" said Frau Wollnow, "we don't agree in a great many
+things, and, dear me, it is certainly no wonder; he has been obliged to
+work so hard all his life, that it has made him a little grave and
+pedantic; but he is a thoroughly good man, and in this case you are
+entirely mistaken; at heart he is even more interested in Gotthold than
+I, or, if that is saying too much, quite as much so."
+
+"It did not seem so."
+
+"But it was only seeming. He is afraid of compromising his dignity if
+he talks as he really feels. I have found that all people who have had
+a sorrowful youth are so. Even the heart, so to speak, needs to have
+had its dancing lessons, and when it has had none, when it has always
+been compelled to beat under the pressure of straitened, gloomy
+surroundings, as in my poor Emil's case, people never overcome it all
+their lives. But what I was going to say is, that this time there is a
+special reason for it. My good Emil certainly never told even me--dear,
+kind man, as if I would have taken it amiss--that thirty or thirty-five
+years ago he was once very deeply in love with Gotthold's mother, when
+they lived in the same house in Stettin--it is a long and very romantic
+story."
+
+"Oh! oh!" said Alma, "who would ever have given your husband credit for
+that?"
+
+"Why," cried Ottilie, "you are entirely mistaken in Emil; his nature
+has a freshness, a power, a youthful fire--"
+
+"How happy you are!" said Alma with a faint sigh.
+
+"I hope you are no less so; but I wanted to explain why Emil always
+becomes so quiet when the conversation turns upon Gotthold. That is the
+reason of it, and then he has taken it into his head that this visit to
+the Brandows must turn out unlucky for him--Gotthold. You know Gotthold
+used to be in love with Cecilia; nay, between ourselves, I am sure he
+loves her still. But now, tell me yourself: can you see any great
+misfortune in that?"
+
+"Not at all; I only think it rather improbable; you know I have never
+been able to share your enthusiasm about Cecilia, and don't see why all
+the men are to be in love with her. Her husband evidently isn't; at
+least I know a lady to whom he devotes himself whenever he meets her,
+in a way that proves his heart is not very strongly engaged in any
+other quarter."
+
+"If he has one. Forgive me, dear Alma, you are a prudent woman, and I
+am sure you love your husband; but Brandow is really an extremely
+dangerous man. Possessed of the most attractive manners, when he
+chooses to adopt them; always lively and humorous, even witty, yet
+sensible when the occasion requires him to be so; and moreover bold,
+fearless, an acknowledged master of all chivalrous arts--and such
+things always impose upon us women--in a word, a dangerous man. Good
+Heavens, would it have been possible, under any other circumstances, to
+understand how the aristocratic, poetic Cecilia could have fallen in
+love with him! But what does all this avail without true love, and I do
+not believe Carl Brandow is capable of the feeling. Now let a man such
+as I have described Gotthold to be, enter the home of such a couple,--a
+man, moreover, who has scarcely conquered a boyish love for the
+wife,--indeed, if one reflects upon it, one can hardly blame my
+husband: such passionate natures, and in the loneliness of country
+life,--it really seems as if scales had fallen from my eyes. And
+Gotthold has not written a word all this week! Still waters run deep,
+but may not deep waters perhaps be still? And I have actually been the
+cause of it by my unlucky mania for pictures!"
+
+"I think I can set your mind at rest, so far as that goes," said Alma.
+"I have found that men always have some reason for doing what they
+wish; if it isn't one thing, it's another. And then this evening, or
+to-morrow morning at latest, if we spend the night at Dollan, I can
+bring you the very latest and most exact news about all these
+interesting complications. I only fear they will prove less interesting
+than you expect."
+
+"Lucky Alma!" said Ottilie sighing; "how much I should like to go with
+you. But my husband would never allow it."
+
+"'Allow' is a word a husband should never be permitted to use to his
+wife," said Alma, as she slipped her wedding-ring up and down her
+slender finger.
+
+The conversation between the two ladies was interrupted by Assessor
+Sellien, who hastily entered the room.
+
+"Why," said his wife, "have you come back already? Is the carriage
+here? I haven't put on my travelling-dress yet."
+
+"The carriage is not here," said the Assessor as he seated himself
+between the two ladies, and raised his wife's hand, which hung loosely
+over the back of the sofa, to his lips; "I only came to ask whether you
+would not prefer to stay here."
+
+"Stay here!" said Alma, hastily starting from her lounging attitude in
+the sofa corner. "What has got into your head, Hugo?"
+
+"You have one of your headaches, dear child, and a very bad one; I
+noticed it some time ago."
+
+"You are entirely mistaken, dear Hugo; I feel unusually well this
+morning."
+
+"And this terrible weather," said the Assessor, looking thoughtfully
+through the open door that led to the balcony; "there, it is raining
+again; I don't understand how ladies can expose themselves so."
+
+He rose and shut the door.
+
+"Brandow will send a close carriage in any case," said Alma.
+
+"So much the worse," cried the Assessor. "You could not endure an hour
+in a close carriage, poor child. And then those terrible roads--I know
+them! To cross Dollan moor after it has rained all night--it's actually
+dangerous."
+
+"I will not expose you to the danger all alone," said Alma smiling.
+
+"That is very different, dear child. Men must follow wherever duty
+calls."
+
+"And the prospect of a good dinner--"
+
+"In a word, dear Alma, you would do me a favor if you would stay here."
+
+"I have not the least inclination to do you this favor, dear Hugo, and
+now what else is there, if I may ask?"
+
+The Assessor had risen and walked up and down the room.
+
+"Well, then," he said pausing, "you know how unwilling I am to deny you
+anything; but this time I really cannot allow you to go."
+
+Alma looked at her husband in astonishment; Ottilie, who could no
+longer control herself, burst into a merry laugh, exclaiming:
+
+"'Allow' is a word a husband should never be permitted to use to his
+wife."
+
+"Perhaps the word is not exactly suitable," said the Assessor; "but it
+does not alter the fact. And the fact is, that your husband has just
+given me certain information, which makes Alma's accompanying me this
+time appear not only undesirable, but even impossible. And your
+husband, my dear lady, is entirely of my opinion."
+
+"But Emil's solicitude carries him entirely too far," cried Frau
+Wollnow angrily; "poor Cecilia has not deserved this. That is attacking
+a woman's reputation, not only unnecessarily, but without the slightest
+reason. If people are so excessively strict, they will be obliged to
+give up all society."
+
+"I don't understand you, dear madam," said the Assessor, "at least I do
+not know what connection Frau Brandow's reputation could have with this
+very disagreeable affair."
+
+"Then I don't understand you," replied Ottilie.
+
+"It will be best," answered Sellien, "in order to avoid further
+misunderstandings, to tell the ladies plainly what the point in
+question really is. True, Herr Wollnow charged me to be cautious; but
+the flattering obstinacy with which my wife rejects my timid attempts
+to induce her to stay here, compels me to withdraw from my diplomatic
+position. Herr Wollnow has just informed me that my confident
+expectation that Brandow would have the ten thousand thalers ready,
+which I was to receive from him to-day, is all an illusion. To be sure,
+Brandow wrote me about a fortnight ago, and made no secret of his
+embarrassments; but he's such a clever fellow, and has always helped
+himself out of his scrapes when the pinch came; at any rate, he made no
+answer to my encouraging letter, and as I said before, I supposed he
+would not let me come for nothing, but on the contrary have everything
+ready. Now, however, I hear from your husband that matters are very
+different, in fact quite desperate. Brandow's credit is entirely
+exhausted. Herr Wollnow says that nobody could be found on the whole
+island who would lend him a thaler, since the two Plüggens and Redebas,
+who have kept his head above water so long, declared yesterday in
+Wollnow's counting-room that their patience was exhausted, and he would
+not get another shilling from them. Instead of that, they were to get
+something from him, that is, they were to receive a very large sum
+within a few days. They mentioned fifteen thousand thalers; but Herr
+Wollnow thinks there was probably a little exaggeration about it. But
+even if this was the whole amount of Brandow's indebtedness--which is
+undoubtedly not the case--he is still a lost man. The convent
+confidently expects that Brandow will pay his two years' rent
+to-morrow. If he does not, it will certainly make use of its right, and
+proceed to expel him from Dollan, and then Brandow will be as
+thoroughly and completely ruined as a man can be."
+
+"Poor Cecilia! Poor, poor Cecilia!" cried Frau Wollnow, bursting into
+tears.
+
+"I am sorry for her," said the Assessor, playing with his long nails.
+"But what can be done?"
+
+"Emil must help them!" exclaimed Frau Wollnow, removing her
+handkerchief from her face a moment.
+
+"He will beware of that, as he said just now; it is pouring water into
+the Danaïdes seive."
+
+"But you, dear Herr Sellien, you are his friend; you cannot see your
+friend go to ruin."
+
+The Assessor shrugged his shoulders. "Friend! Dear me, whom don't we
+call by that name? And my relations with Brandow are very superficial,
+mere business connections, if you choose to call them so; are they not,
+my dear wife?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly," murmured Alma.
+
+"And I should be giving up this very business relation if I allowed
+Alma to accompany me, when the situation was so critical. In the
+presence of ladies it is very difficult not to touch the chords of
+tender feeling, and it seems to me extremely desirable to avoid the
+possibility of doing so. Are you not of my opinion, dear Alma?"
+
+"It is a very disagreeable affair," said Alma.
+
+"Is it not? And why should you expose yourself to it unnecessarily? I
+knew my wise little wife would yield the point at last."
+
+And the Assessor tenderly kissed Alma's hand.
+
+"But in that case it seems to me you must stay here too, my dear Herr
+Assessor," said Frau Wollnow.
+
+"I? Why? On the contrary, it is only prudent for me to appear as
+natural as possible. I know nothing; I suspect nothing. Of course I
+shall be extremely sorry when Brandow takes me aside and tells me he
+can't pay; but I'll wager the dinner will be none the worse for that,
+and taste none the worse to me. His red wine and champagne were always
+superb."
+
+Frau Wollnow rose and went out upon the balcony. She must breathe the
+fresh air, even at the risk of having her new silk morning-dress
+spoiled by the rain, which was now falling quite heavily from the gray
+sky. "Poor, poor Cecilia!" she repeated sighing, "and there is no one
+who can and will save you."
+
+She remembered that she had brought her husband a dowry of fifty
+thousand thalers, but she could not touch them without Emil's
+permission, and Emil would not allow it. Should she try to move him by
+throwing herself prostrate at his feet? She could almost have laughed
+outright at the extravagant idea, especially when she imagined the
+astonished expression her husband's face would wear; but the tears
+again sprang to her eyes and mingled with the rain-drops that beat upon
+her burning face. Suddenly the husband and wife within were roused from
+their low-toned, eager conversation by a loud exclamation from the
+balcony. "Gotthold, good heavens, Gotthold!"
+
+"Where, where?" cried the Assessor and his wife with one voice, as they
+hurried out upon the balcony.
+
+"There he comes," said Ottilie, pointing towards the square, across
+which a man with a broad-brimmed hat, pulled low over his eyes, was
+walking directly towards the house.
+
+"He isn't so tall as Brandow," said Alma, who was critically inspecting
+the new-comer through an opera-glass.
+
+"What can he want?" asked her husband.
+
+"We shall soon know," said Frau Wollnow, as with a vague feeling of
+anxiety she pressed her two companions back into the room.
+
+But Gotthold had only asked for Herr Wollnow, the maid-servant informed
+them, and she had been ordered to show him into Herr Wollnow's
+counting-room. The interview, whatever its purport might be, lasted
+much longer than was at all agreeable to the impatient waiters, and
+after an hour, during which the Assessor had rather increased than
+lessened the ladies' impatience by a detailed account of his adventures
+with Gotthold in Sicily, Herr Wollnow appeared alone. They were
+astonished, amazed, and scarcely satisfied when Wollnow said that
+Gotthold had only gone to the Fürstenhof to change his clothes, and
+would come back if his business gave him time. They wanted to know what
+business could be so pressing that Gotthold had selected Sunday morning
+for its transaction.
+
+"The ladies must ask that of himself," said Herr Wollnow; "he has not
+taken me into his confidence. All I know is, that he is going to drive
+back to Dollan with our friends here, return to-night or to-morrow
+morning in the same excellent company, from which he anticipates a
+great deal of pleasure, and then continue his journey without further
+delay. It seems that the point in question concerns the hasty purchase
+of a few gifts, with which he wants to surprise his host and hostess at
+Dollan at parting; at least he wanted me to give him a sum of money
+which is rather large for mere travelling expenses, but I can say no
+more."
+
+And Herr Wollnow, apparently with the utmost unconcern, hummed an air
+from "Figaro" as he left the room to avoid further questioning.
+
+"I don't think it at all polite for him not to present himself a
+moment, at least," said Alma; "I've a great mind to punish him for it
+by not appearing at breakfast."
+
+"Oh! pray don't," said the Assessor.
+
+Ottilie Wollnow made no answer. She knew her husband too well to have
+the gloomy expression of his eyes and the cloud on his brow escape her
+notice, in spite of his apparent unconcern. Besides, she had a
+foreboding that Gotthold's interview with her husband had not been
+quite so innocent as it seemed, that there was something disagreeable,
+perhaps some misfortune impending, and above all, she was convinced
+that the Selliens were getting into a passion in vain, and Gotthold
+would not appear at breakfast.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+The little company at Dollan had already been wandering for half an
+hour up and down the rain-soaked paths in the garden, between the
+dripping hedges, waiting for the arrival of Assessor Sellien and
+dinner.
+
+"You're a pretty fellow," cried Hans Redebas, who was walking with Otto
+von Plüggen, as Brandow with Gustav von Plüggen and Pastor Semmel met
+him on the same spot for the third time: "first you invite us to meet
+some one who vanishes in the dew and mist; then it occurs to your
+lovely wife, on whose account we all come here, to have a headache and
+not appear; and finally, we're kept waiting for the Assessor, and
+wandering around your old wet garden like horses in a tread-mill! I'll
+give you ten minutes, and if we don't sit down to the table by that
+time I'll have my horses harnessed, and we'll dine in Dahlitz, and not
+badly either. What do you say to that, Pastor?"
+
+And Herr Redebas laughed and clapped the Pastor, who had come with him
+in his carriage, rudely on the shoulder. Brandow laughed too, and said
+they must have patience; it was not his fault that the Assessor had not
+arrived, and things had gone contrary that day; the dinner had been
+ready a long time.
+
+"Then in the name of three devils, let's go to the table, or I shall
+faint away," cried Herr Redebas.
+
+It was by no means probable that this man, with the frame and strength
+of a giant, would be overcome by such a sudden attack of weakness; but
+Brandow had every reason not to increase the ill-humor of his guests.
+Already, to shorten the time before dinner, they had played a game of
+cards, in which the Pastor took no share except by his intense
+interest, and lost a few hundred thalers. To be sure, the amount was
+very little in comparison to the sum he owed his visitors; but they had
+been irritated by the loss, and took the less care to conceal their
+annoyance as Brandow still uttered no word in allusion to the business
+for whose settlement they had really assembled. Undoubtedly he was
+unable to pay. To be sure, they had expected it, nay, in point of fact,
+the whole transaction which Hans Redebas and the two Plüggens had
+jointly undertaken was based upon this supposition; but now each was
+not sorry to consider himself in the light of a man of honor, whose
+confidence had been most shamefully betrayed.
+
+Herr Redebas, especially, was in a very irritable mood. The conditions
+to which, at the conclusion of the mutual bargain, he had agreed,
+pleased him less and less every moment. Why had he not required the
+whole sum to be paid, or else claimed for his share the second stake
+Brandow had offered in addition to Brownlock, his wheat-harvest? The
+wheat, as he had just convinced himself, was an exceptionably,
+unexpectedly fine crop; it would have brought in a very large profit;
+while the horse, after all, was a doubtful bargain. Since the committee
+had included a large tract of marsh land in the course laid out for the
+race between the gentlemen riders, the chances in favor of Brownlock,
+which was universally considered too heavy a horse, were very
+considerably lessened. And, moreover, what had such a sedate, man as
+Hans Redebas to do with such things, which, after all, were only fit
+for the nobility? It would be better for the two Plüggens to see what
+they could make of the horse! It was their trade; they understood it,
+and so in God's name let them take the beast for their ten thousand,
+and leave him the wheat crop! But this time, in spite of the proverbial
+want of harmony that prevailed between them, the two brothers made
+common cause. The bargain had been settled, and every one must rest
+satisfied with it; if Hans Redebas fancied he was the only one who
+could see into a thing, he'd find himself greatly mistaken. Therefore,
+as Herr Redebas could not vent his anger upon his two companions, he
+thought himself entitled to treat Brandow with all the more rudeness
+and want of consideration. Even before dinner he had shown this
+disposition to an extravagant degree, and the wine, of which he drank
+immense quantities at the table, in spite of its many other excellent
+qualities, did not possess that of improving the giant's temper.
+
+At any other time it would have been an easy matter for Brandow to
+parry his antagonist's coarse jests and turn the laugh against him;
+nay, he was usually considered among his associates to be a man whom
+one could not offend, with impunity; but to-day his dreaded powers of
+sarcasm, as well as his often tested courage, seemed to have deserted
+him. He did not hear what could not have been inaudible, did not
+understand what no one could fail to comprehend, laughed when he would
+usually have started up in fury, and with pale trembling lips tried as
+well as he could to give the conversation a jesting turn, for which
+purpose he grasped at more and more questionable expedients, and at
+last related anecdotes, which even to the long-suffering Pastor, seemed
+altogether too scandalous.
+
+In spite of the noise and laughter, in spite of the row of empty
+bottles which grew longer and longer under the side-board, it was a
+dreary, uncomfortable meal, and to no one more so than to the master of
+the house. Brandow knew from long experience that he could require his
+nerves to bear a great deal, but it now seemed as if he should not be
+able to accomplish what he had undertaken to-day. While laughing
+heartily over a story he had just related, his fingers fairly trembled
+with the longing he felt to snatch the champagne bottle from the cooler
+and shatter it upon Redebas' huge black head. He was aware that his
+strength was almost exhausted; he should break down if Hinrich Scheel
+did not return soon and release him from this horrible torture of
+uncertainty. And then it seemed as if this torment was nothing to the
+other, the torment of the certainty that his wife loved that man, and
+despised him too much even to hate him, and that he fully deserved her
+scorn. Again and again--with the speed of lightning--in the few seconds
+it required to raise a glass of wine to his lips and swallow the
+contents--he lived over the scene of the night before in her
+sleeping-room, when he stood before her with clenched fists, and not a
+muscle in her pale face quivered until he struck her to the heart with
+the fatal blow which he had cruelly withheld so long. To her heart! Her
+heart! It had been a master-stroke! A thrust which crushed the proud
+haughty woman like a stag overtaken by a bullet, rendered her his weak,
+obedient tool, and made him master of the situation. An enviable
+situation, to sit here and endure Redebas' coarse taunts, laugh at his
+own silly wit, look at the stupid faces of the two Plüggens, be cordial
+to the canting Parson, be forced to see that no one's glass was empty,
+and amid all the noisy tumult listen continually for the rolling of the
+carriage which would bring Hinrich, and with Hinrich the money for
+which he had done what he had done, suffered what he had suffered, and
+without which he was a ruined man. At last, at last! There was the
+clatter of horses' hoofs, and the rattle of a carriage, which stopped
+before the house. No one had heard it except himself! So much the
+better, he could speak to Hinrich undisturbed!
+
+He left his guests under the pretext that he wanted to get another
+brand of champagne, and hurried across the hall to the open door,
+before which the carriage was still standing, and he perceived the
+Assessor engaged in conversation with Hinrich Scheel, when he suddenly
+heard his own name called from his room, the door of which also stood
+open, and turning at the sound, saw the man he hated standing before
+him. A thrill of mingled rage and alarm shot through his frame like a
+two-edged sword. What brought this man back? How could he dare to
+return? To say that he had no money, would not pay.
+
+"We have a few moments to ourselves," said Gotthold, bolting the door
+behind Brandow; "the Assessor is still outside; he knows nothing; no
+one knows anything except, of course, Wollnow, without whom I could not
+procure the money you wanted. Even now I have been unable to get it as
+you wished, and therefore was obliged to come here again. You wanted
+fifteen thousand thalers in cash. Wollnow, who is obliged to make very
+large payments for the purchase of grain this morning, could give me
+only ten thousand; the remainder I bring you in these drafts of five
+thousand thalers each, accepted by Wollnow, and payable at sight
+to-morrow, in Sundin, by Philip Nathanson, the wealthiest banker there.
+These drafts, in consequence of Wollnow's credit with your friends in
+the neighborhood, are as good as ready money. I think you will be able
+to settle your affairs with them yourself; but in any case I am here to
+come to your assistance with my personal credit, though I confidently
+believe that it will not be needed."
+
+Gotthold laid a large sealed packet on the table, and drew from his
+pocket-book the three drafts, which he handed Brandow, and the latter
+glanced over with a practised eye to convince himself that these papers
+were really as good as ready money.
+
+A sensation of wonderful relief overpowered the half-intoxicated man.
+Freedom from the agony of expectation, the certainty of deliverance
+from his desperate situation, and, moreover, the prospect of soon
+coming out as winner of the Sundin races, and gainer of an immense sum
+of money by the aid of his now restored Brownlock--all this overwhelmed
+him like a delirium of joy, and he felt a sort of longing to clasp in
+his arms the man who had aided in procuring all this, as his preserver
+and only true friend; and at the same moment he said to himself that it
+was impossible that this man, dreamer and enthusiast though he was,
+would entrust to him a sum, which in itself was a little fortune,
+unless the worst that his jealous fancy had imagined had already
+happened--and the expression of the staring eyes he now fixed upon
+Gotthold seemed to say: "I could crush you like a serpent which has
+crossed my path!"
+
+"I do not think you will ever be in a situation to return this money,"
+said Gotthold; "perhaps it will not be disagreeable to you to hear that
+from this time I renounce all expectation of repayment, and therefore a
+receipt, which would really remain only a bit of paper."
+
+He left the room; Brandow burst into a hoarse laugh.
+
+"That, too," he muttered, "as if another proof were needed! But you
+shall pay for it, both of you, so dearly, that this in comparison will
+be only a drop of water on a hot stone."
+
+The Assessor looked in through the door, which Gotthold had left half
+open. He had heard from the latter that Brandow was here, and hastened
+to take advantage of the favorable opportunity to greet his friend
+alone, and express his regret that Gotthold's business had detained
+them so long in Prora, that he was unable to bring his wife, who was
+suffering from a severe headache, to Dollan. Brandow declared it to be
+a proof of the sympathy between two beautiful natures that his wife was
+also attacked by the same sickness to-day; and the sarcastic, even
+sneering tone in which he said it, caused the Assessor to secretly
+congratulate himself upon his caution in coming to this falling house
+alone. His astonishment was all the greater when Brandow continued with
+the most perfect composure:--
+
+"And as we are now alone, my dear Sellien, we will take advantage of
+the opportunity to settle our little business matter. Here are the ten
+thousand thalers due. I have them from Wollnow. The package is just as
+I received it, stamped with his seal. If you wish to take the, I
+presume superfluous, but perhaps necessary trouble, of counting them,
+don't have the least hesitation about it. When you have finished,
+follow me. I'll make out a receipt, which you will please sign and put
+in this drawer."
+
+The Assessor was so astonished that he really hardly knew what to
+answer; at any rate he was determined to subject the contents of the
+package to a rigid scrutiny, in spite of Wollnow's seals. Brandow
+hastily dashed off a receipt, and then left the room with a sarcastic:
+"Don't make any mistakes, my dear Assessor!"
+
+He had discharged this business hastily in order to be able to speak to
+his confidant. Hinrich Scheel was still waiting before the door with
+the carriage; but he had very little to tell, and didn't know why the
+departure from Prora had been so long delayed. He thought there had
+been some trouble about the money, and they were obliged to wait for
+Loitz, who had gone out to drive. The Assessor's wife was not sick; on
+the contrary, she was standing on the balcony beside Frau Wollnow,
+kissing her hand to the gentlemen as they drove away. Neither did he
+know what the gentlemen were talking about on the road; they had
+jabbered in some foreign language most of the time. So he drove into
+every hole on the way--and there were plenty to-day after the rain--and
+made the ride so uncomfortable for the Herr Assessor that he finally
+swore aloud in good German, and declared he would not go over that road
+again to-day if he was paid a ton of gold. Then the other answered: "In
+that case he must go back alone, for he wouldn't stay all night at
+Dollan under any circumstances."
+
+"It's a bad road at night," said Brandow.
+
+"Especially when it's as dark as it will be this evening," answered
+Hinrich Scheel.
+
+The eyes of the master and servant met and were instantly averted
+again.
+
+"There are many things which might make an accident befall a person who
+was positively determined to go over it at night," said Brandow slowly.
+
+"Unless the driver was very careful," added Hinrich Scheel.
+
+Again their eyes met. No doubt Hinrich had understood him--this time as
+usual, no doubt this time as usual, Hinrich knew what he wanted.
+Brandow drew a long breath. He would fain have seen whether Hinrich
+would not have said another, a final word; but the latter had turned
+towards his horses. A loud tumult of voices, shouting at each other in
+tones of the most violent rage, echoed from the dining-room, and at the
+same moment Rieke came running out. The pretty maid-servant's round
+cheeks were deeply flushed, her gray eyes sparkled, and her luxuriant
+fair hair was not so smooth as it had been at the commencement of the
+dinner.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked Brandow.
+
+"They've been quarreling for the last fifteen minutes. I think they
+will soon come to blows," said Rieke, showing her white teeth in a
+merry laugh.
+
+"We will speak of it again," Brandow called to Hinrich, who was just
+driving the carriage away, and then drew Rieke into the dark hall.
+
+"He has come back again," said he; "see where he goes, and as soon as
+you notice anything, tell me."
+
+"I don't want to be everlastingly running after those two," said Rieke
+sulkily.
+
+"Oh, of course you like it much better to have the gentlemen yonder
+pinch your cheeks and hug you."
+
+"Why not?" said the girl.
+
+"You know what I promised last night," whispered Brandow, now throwing
+his own arm around her slender waist, and putting his lips to her ear.
+
+"Promising is one thing, and keeping your word is another," said Rieke,
+but without making any very strenuous effort to release herself.
+
+The noise in the dining-room grew louder.
+
+"There, you will be a good child," said Brandow; "and now off with you;
+I must see what those fellows are doing."
+
+Hans Redebas had thought he would take advantage of their host's
+momentary absence to again urge upon the two brothers his proposal that
+they should give up Brandow's wheat-crop to him for his share, and in
+exchange take entire possession of Brownlock; and as a witness of the
+honesty of his intentions, quoted the Pastor, with whom he had
+repeatedly talked the matter over on the way to Dollan. The Pastor, who
+wished to make himself agreeable to his patron in every way, had
+endeavored to depict the advantages the arrangement would have for all
+concerned, but in his drunkenness laid on the colors so vividly that
+the two brothers were startled, and recalled a partial concession which
+they had already made. Upon this Hans Redebas called the Pastor a
+stupid dunce, who was always meddling with everything, though he knew
+nothing at all, except a little theological trash, and therefore ought
+to keep his mouth shut everywhere except in his pulpit. Then the
+reverend gentleman had started up exclaiming that "dunce" was a word
+which, as an old graduate of Halle, he would not endure from any one,
+even his patron, upon which Herr Redebas burst into a roar of laughter,
+which roused the drunken man to actual fury.
+
+Meantime the two Plüggens had also commenced a violent dispute. Gustav
+had whispered to his brother that he should like to accept the offer,
+if Redebas would add two thousand thalers to it; Otto, as the elder,
+warned the younger brother against entering into any bargain with
+Redebas, who had more sense in his little finger than he in his whole
+body. Gustav considered himself insulted by this doubt of his
+shrewdness, and muttered something about the "straw" which might be
+found in the other's head, an allusion to the well-known nickname of
+the elder brother, which of course produced a response in which "hay"
+was given a prominent place. So all four shouted at each other, to the
+great amazement of the groom, Fritz, who listened with open mouth till
+he suddenly felt some one touch him on the shoulder, and looking up saw
+his master's face.
+
+"Be off, and don't come in here again till I call you."
+
+The lad left the room; Brandow again surveyed the brawlers at the table
+with hasty glances. "This is just the right moment," he muttered
+through his clenched teeth.
+
+He approached the table, but instead of sitting down, remained standing
+with his arms resting on the back of his chair, and said, rejoicing in
+the sight of the confused faces of the four men, who had suddenly
+become silent: "Pardon me for interrupting your interesting
+conversation, gentlemen, especially with a mere business matter, but it
+must be settled. Hinrich Scheel has just returned from Prora--with the
+Assessor and another gentleman whose name shall be kept secret for the
+present. I had requested Wollnow to send me fifteen thousand thalers in
+cash from my balance in his hands. He begged me to allow him to send
+drafts to the same amount instead. Drafts, gentlemen, given by the
+house of Louis Loitz & Co., in Prora, accepted by Wollnow himself, and
+payable by Philip Nathanson in Sundin. Perhaps the gentlemen will be
+kind enough to hand me in exchange for these drafts--of five thousand
+thalers each--the three notes you lately received from me, in case you
+happen to have them with you."
+
+Bowing ironically, Brandow held out the three drafts which he had
+arranged in his hand in the shape of a fan.
+
+The confederates looked at each other suspiciously. The matter was not
+perfectly regular; the notes were payable in cash; they were not
+obliged to take drafts; but they had just been quarrelling too much
+among themselves to be capable of forming a united resolution at once,
+and at heart each was glad that the other was cheated out of the prey
+he had deemed secure.
+
+"Well, gentlemen," exclaimed Brandow, "I hope none of you will take
+exception to the manner of my payment. It would be an insult to the
+worthy Wollnow, to whose complaisance we have all at times been
+indebted. Or would you like to have the Assessor, who may come in at
+any moment, be a witness of the way in which the Herren von Plüggen and
+Herr Hans Redebas are in the habit of treating an old friend who has
+become involved in a little embarrassment?"
+
+In fact the Assessor's voice was now heard in the hall.
+
+"Hand it over," said Hans Redebas.
+
+"I'll raise no objections," said Otto von Plüggen.
+
+"I'm no spoil-sport," said Gustav.
+
+The drafts were put into the pocket-books of the three gentlemen, in
+exchange for the notes, which Brandow, with a sarcastic smile, crushed
+like pieces of waste paper, and thrust into his pocket just as the
+Assessor entered.
+
+His appearance afforded Brandow a welcome pretext for breaking up the
+dinner-party, which had already in his opinion lasted too long. It had
+stopped raining; would they not prefer to drink their coffee in the
+cool garden, instead of that close room? He expected to find Gotthold
+in the garden, and was not mistaken. They met him walking up and down
+in one of the most out-of-the-way paths. He said nothing when Brandow
+spoke of his return as a surprise he had prepared for his guests, and
+apologized for his non-appearance on plea of a violent headache, which
+often attacked him suddenly, and he had hoped to shake off before
+presenting himself to the company. The two Plüggens were delighted to
+see their old school-fellow, whom they had always cordially hated, and
+Herr Redebas esteemed it an honor to make the acquaintance of such a
+famous man, although it was very evident that he had not the least idea
+in what particular branch of human activity Gotthold had won his
+renown. The Pastor, upon whom he was accustomed to depend at such
+times, unfortunately could give him no information, because he had just
+thrust his arm into the Assessor's, whom he met that day for the first
+time, and was assuring him of his eternal friendship. The Assessor
+laughed and was good-natured enough to laugh again, when Hans Redebas,
+to display his much-admired strength, raised the pair in his arms and
+carried them around the open space, thereby inciting Otto von Plüggen
+to take out his silk pocket-handkerchief, and holding it by the two
+corners, jump over it forward and backward, while Gustav, in laudable
+emulation of his ingenious brother, balanced a garden chair on his
+lower teeth.
+
+"Now I should like to show you my trick," cried Brandow, "and therefore
+will beg you to follow me a few steps."
+
+He went forward and opened a little door in the hedge, which led
+directly into the open space where he trained his racers. It was a
+tolerably large piece of ground, selected with great discrimination,
+and prepared with much skill for the purpose for which it was intended.
+There were wide and narrow ditches, low and high fences, broad
+stretches of smooth, closely-shaven turf to permit the horse to display
+his full speed, and heavy fallow ground for a hunting gallop. Brandow
+had inclosed three sides of this space, the fourth of which was
+occupied by the stables, with a board fence the height of a man, and
+kept it jealously secluded from every one. Now he rejoiced in the
+glances of envious admiration the three landed proprietors cast around
+them. But he had a still greater annoyance in store. As the little
+party moved towards the stables, Hinrich Scheel came forward to meet
+them, leading Brownlock. The beautiful animal champed his bit
+impatiently, rubbed his delicate head against the shoulder of his
+groom, and then once more gazed at the by-standers with his large black
+eyes, as if to ask each who would have courage to cope with him.
+
+"Well, gentlemen," cried Brandow, "you had a great desire to ride
+Brownlock; there he is. I'll bet ten louis-d'or to one, that none of
+you can even mount him."
+
+"I shouldn't like to break the beast's back," muttered Hans Redebas.
+
+Otto Plüggen had sprained his foot in leaping, but Gustav thought he
+could easily win the ten louis-d'or.
+
+Gustav von Plüggen was universally acknowledged to be a good rider, and
+had gained the prize more than once in the Sundin races. He did not
+doubt for an instant that he should win the bet, but nevertheless
+thought it advisable to go to work with all possible caution. So he
+walked around the horse to render it familiar with the sight of him,
+patted the slender neck, scratched its smooth forehead, and then, still
+talking to the animal, gently took the reins and told Hinrich Sheel to
+stand aside. But the moment he touched the stirrup with his foot,
+Brownlock sprang aside so violently, that Gustav was glad even to
+retain his hold upon the bridle. Again and again he made the attempt,
+always with the same want of success.
+
+"I could have told you so before," cried Herr Redebas.
+
+"You're making a fool of yourself again unnecessarily," snarled his
+brother.
+
+Gotthold had noticed that Hinrich Scheel always stood directly before
+the horse with his squinting eyes fixed steadily upon it, and whenever
+Gustav tried to mount, made an almost imperceptible motion with his
+head, upon which the animal, whose black eyes were fixed intently upon
+its trainer, either sprang aside or reared.
+
+"I think you would do better if you told Hinrich Scheel to go away from
+the horse, Herr von Plüggen," said he.
+
+"Oh! Gustav will give it up," cried Brandow hastily; "I only made the
+bet in jest; the fact is, that Hinrich Scheel has trained Brownlock not
+to allow any one to mount except himself or me; and I could not get
+into the saddle against Hinrich's will. This was the very trick I
+wanted to show you."
+
+Every one, with the exception of Gotthold, took the whole thing as a
+joke, until Brandow proved the contrary before their own eyes.
+Brownlock would not allow him to mount, until Hinrich Scheel gave the
+sign. Now came the second part of the exhibition Brandow had in store
+for his guests. He rode Brownlock over the whole course, taking the
+most difficult obstacles with an ease which displayed in the clearest
+light his perfect horsemanship, as well as the almost wonderful
+strength and endurance of the noble animal, and filled the hearts of
+his three rivals with the bitterest envy.
+
+"It's a shame for a fellow like that to have such a horse," said Gustav
+Plüggen, who had joined Gotthold, while the rest of the party went to
+visit the stables; "a downright shame. That is: he certainly rides
+splendidly--for a plebeian, I mean; but a plebeian never ought to be
+allowed to keep race-horses. I talked about it enough in the committee,
+when we were arranging the races at Sundin eight years ago; but I
+couldn't get my way. Now we have the consequences. For the last four
+years Brandow has taken all the best prizes; it's enough to drive one
+mad. The fellow would have been ruined long ago if it hadn't been for
+the races, the races--and his wife."
+
+"His wife?" asked Gotthold.
+
+"Why, of course. We wouldn't have lent him another penny long ago; but
+for the sake of his wife, who is really a lovely woman; we can't let
+him go to ruin entirely. Of course he knows that better than any one
+else, and so she is always obliged to be of the party when any new
+credit is to be obtained. A week ago to-day, when we were in
+Plüggenhof, Otto paid his attentions to her at the table in the
+wildest way--in the presence of his own wife, née Baroness von
+Grieben-Keffen--and half an hour after dinner Brandow had his five
+thousand thalers in his pocket. It was a piece of madness on Otto's
+part; we had agreed that we would not give more than five thousand
+together. It would have proved a capital thing for us, but that
+damned Jew has spoiled it again. The devil knows why he helped him.
+And the Assessor told me he had been paid too. Twenty-five thousand
+thalers at one slap! I don't understand it at all--and that's saying
+something, for I generally know all his tricks and turns. The Pastor
+thinks you, and nobody else, have given him the money; and in return
+Brandow will overlook it if you and his wife--there, you needn't fly
+into a rage. Parson's gossip, that's all. You would take care of
+yourself--twenty-five thousand--ridiculous! But he has it--that's a
+fact, as they say in England--ever been in England? I was there--eight
+years ago when we were arranging about the Sundin races--famous
+country! horses, women, sheep--famous!-what was I going to say? He has
+the twenty-five thousand, and Dollan's safe for five years, the
+Assessor says; and now Brownlock too! Damn! that is a horse! On my
+honor, I haven't seen his equal even in England. What action! What a
+hock! And how he went over everything! Magnificent! But too heavy! too
+heavy, 'pon honor--he won't cross the piece of marsh-land we have now
+taken into the race-course. They say Prince Prora declared it wasn't
+fair! It's all very well for him to talk, he has no interest in the
+racing! Won't you come in with us? I hear there is to be a little
+card-party made up."
+
+"I have never gambled, and--my headache is coming on again."
+
+"Strange, I've no more idea what a headache is than if I had no
+head--you artists probably get it from the oil paints; they smell
+abominably."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+The young nobleman followed the others, who had already entered the
+house and gone into Brandow's room on the right of the hall, where the
+gaming-table, as Gotthold had noticed through the window, was already
+prepared.
+
+"Why, Herr Weber, are you going to stay out here?" asked Rieke, who had
+been standing in the hall, and now approached him.
+
+Her gray eyes rested upon him with a very friendly expression, and the
+thought passed through his mind that it probably depended only upon
+himself to win the goodwill of this avaricious creature, and even now
+he might make up for his neglect, nay must do so if he wished to
+accomplish the object for which he had returned to Dollan. He had given
+her a very handsome present when he took his departure that morning;
+perhaps he only needed to go on as he had begun.
+
+"We didn't expect to see you again so soon," added the girl; "and you
+went away so suddenly: you left a great many things behind; a beautiful
+red silk handkerchief--shall I get it for you?"
+
+She was now standing close beside him, and as if by accident, touched
+his arm.
+
+"I think it would be very becoming to you," said Gotthold.
+
+"Do you? I should think you would know a great deal about what was
+becoming to me. You never had eyes for anybody except--some one else."
+
+"Where is your mistress to-day? Why doesn't she appear?" asked
+Gotthold, and then as he fancied he saw a cloud pass over the girl's
+face, added: "I would give a great deal to know."
+
+"How much?" said the girl, with a roguish laugh.
+
+"Rieke, where are you?" cried Brandow's voice from the dining-room.
+
+"We want some more glasses. Where is the girl?" and he banged the door
+angrily behind him.
+
+"He didn't see us," whispered Rieke. "I must go in now, but I'll come
+back again directly."
+
+She glided away; Gotthold stood still a few moments, undecided whether
+to make an attempt to see Cecilia on his own account or not. There was
+no question that the girl could be of use to him if she chose; but
+would she choose? She seemed really frightened when Brandow called; but
+he had not relied much upon the fickle favor of the frivolous lass, and
+perhaps the whole thing was a preconcerted plot between Brandow and the
+girl in order to make sure of him, entangle him the more firmly in the
+net. No, it was better, trusting only to his own skill, to take
+advantage of the opportunity.
+
+And the opportunity was more favorable, than any which might offer
+again. A second stolen glance through the window into the already
+lighted room showed him that the party were busily engaged in their
+game--faro apparently--and Brandow had the bank--so he could not leave
+now. Rieke was standing at the back of the tolerably large room with a
+waiter full of glasses, which the Pastor was filling from a large
+bowl--so she too was employed for the present. The hall was perfectly
+still; the table in the dining-room still stood just as the guests had
+left it--the solitary candle at which they had lighted their cigars
+flickered in the strong draught, as if ready to go out. This room was
+also unoccupied; so he succeeded in reaching the dusky garden unseen.
+
+Although the sun had scarcely set, it was almost dark. The clouds,
+which had dispersed a little during the afternoon, were once more piled
+in huge dark masses, which a high wind blowing in irregular gusts,
+drove to and fro as if in wild sport. The tops of the old trees swayed
+hither and thither; and the tall hedges rustled and hissed like a
+thousand sharp tongues.
+
+So it seemed to Gotthold. Again and again he paused, gasping for
+breath; he was so entirely unaccustomed to do anything by stealth. And
+yet it must be; he could not part from her forever in this way.
+
+The end of the house, in the lower part of which was her chamber, and
+above it the room he had occupied, looked out upon a smaller garden,
+which was separated from the courtyard by a wall, shut in on the
+opposite side by a barn, and divided from the larger garden at the back
+of the house by a very thick, high hedge. It had originally been a
+fruit and vegetable garden, and a few huge old apple and pear trees
+still stood in different parts of it; but had afterwards been converted
+into a play-ground for the children of the house, for whose sake the
+asparagus and cucumber beds had been transformed into a grass plot, and
+a narrow door cut through the thick wall of the nursery.
+
+Gotthold had repeatedly seen Cecilia, who always retired early in the
+evening, in this garden with the child, or--at a later hour--alone. His
+hope was to find her here, or at any rate to make known his presence,
+of which she had probably not been informed, and--he did not know what
+would, must happen then; he only said to himself that things could not,
+should not remain as they were.
+
+The place, so far as it could be seen from the door, was empty, but a
+light appeared at first one and then another window. Cautiously as he
+closed the door, he could not prevent its creaking loudly on its rusty
+hinges; at the same moment a watch-dog with which Gretchen often played
+sprang towards the intruder with a loud bark, but was silent again as
+soon as it recognized Gotthold. He accepted the animal's caresses as a
+good omen, and walked cautiously on towards the light, which now
+streamed steadily from one window, that of the child's sleeping-room,
+which adjoined Cecilia's. Gotthold, with a beating heart, approached it
+and saw her.
+
+She had apparently just put the little girl's playthings away, and then
+sank into a chair beside the table, supporting her forehead upon her
+left hand, the image of grief. The rays of the light standing behind
+her clearly revealed the exquisite shape of the head, the delicate
+outlines of the slender neck, the soft curves of the shoulders and
+bust, while the deep shadow seemed to increase the expression of sorrow
+upon the pure features. Gotthold's heart overflowed with love and pity.
+"Cecilia, dearest Cecilia!" he murmured.
+
+She could not have heard the words; but at that moment she raised her
+head, and, glancing towards the window, perceived the dark figure
+before it. Starting from her chair with a low exclamation of joy, she
+extended her arms, then waved him back with both hands, crying in tones
+of agony:
+
+"No, no, for God's sake!"
+
+Gotthold had neither seen Cecilia's repellent gesture, nor heard her
+words. He had hastily entered by the door, which was only latched, and
+was now kneeling at her feet, clasping her hands, and covering them
+with passionate kisses.
+
+All that had moved his heart and filled it to bursting during these
+last few days, so overflowing with the joy and anguish of love, all the
+nameless agony he had suffered from the night before until now, gushed
+from his lips in a torrent of wild, passionate words; and, however she
+might struggle against it, she felt herself carried away and borne
+along by the tide, until, springing up and clasping her in his arms, he
+cried: "So come, Cecilia! you must not remain another moment in this
+house, must not stay under the same roof with this scoundrel, who
+allows himself to be paid with paltry money for the shame of knowing
+that his wife is beloved by another, and loves him in return. I went
+away without you this morning--it all came upon me so suddenly, was so
+incomprehensible; I thought I must obey your command, although I did
+not understand you, although you acted from compassion for the man whom
+you had once loved, nay, out of a remnant of affection for him. Now I
+understand you better, now I know, once for all, that you love me, now
+I have found--we have found each other again; now no one, nothing shall
+part us! Cecilia! you do not answer me?"
+
+She had gazed at him with eyes that expressed the most painful
+astonishment. Now she seized the light and led the way into her
+chamber, at the back of which stood her bed, and close before it the
+tiny couch of her child.
+
+The little one lay with her eyes not quite closed, her lips half
+parted, and her round cheeks flushed with the childish slumber which
+follows waking hours, as the hues of twilight follow the setting sun.
+Cecilia did not point to the child; but her glance and the expression
+of her features said as plainly as words, "This is my answer."
+
+Gotthold's eyes fell; in the selfishness of passion he had scarcely
+thought of the child at all, and certainly never as an obstacle. He did
+not understand it even now. "Your child will be mine," he faltered.
+"You shall never be parted from the child; I will never separate you
+from her."
+
+She had placed the light on the floor, that it might not shine in
+Gretchen's eyes, and then knelt beside the little bed, pressing her
+forehead against the edge, and waving her hand for him to go. Gotthold
+stood beside the kneeling form with the despair of a man who feels that
+his cause is lost, and yet cannot and will not give it up. Suddenly the
+dog, which had followed them, began to growl, and then broke into a low
+bark as he put his nose to the threshold of the door which opened into
+the sitting-room; Gotthold thought he heard a rustling there, and
+walked towards it; Cecilia threw herself before him. Her countenance
+and gestures expressed the most deadly terror; she motioned towards the
+nursery, through which they had come, and as Gotthold did not instantly
+obey, hurried into the room herself. Gotthold mechanically followed.
+
+"Go, go, for God's sake!" exclaimed Cecilia.
+
+They were the first words that had escaped her lips.
+
+"I will not fly again!"
+
+"You must! or all has been in vain! The torture, the conflict, the
+shame--all, all."
+
+"Cecilia," cried Gotthold, fairly beside himself, "I should be unworthy
+the name of a man, if I left you so again. I want light; I want to know
+what I am doing, why I am doing it?"
+
+"I dare say no more; you must understand me; I thought you would have
+done so from the first, or I should not have had the courage; I should
+be the most miserable creature on earth if you did not understand me
+even now. But you will, or I could not love you. And now, by your love
+for me, Gotthold, you must not remain here an instant longer. Farewell,
+and farewell forever!"
+
+It seemed as if a struggle had taken place between the two in the
+dimly-lighted room; he had held her and she had clung to him as if
+forever; then she desperately released herself from his hold, and
+pushed him from her, as if his presence must bring death and
+destruction. Then he once more held the dear form in his arms, clasped
+it to his heart, felt her hot, quivering lips pressed to his, and then
+stood outside in the garden, with the rain beating into his face, the
+swaying tree-tops above him rustling and whispering, and the tall
+hedges beside him hissing and muttering, as if with thousands and
+thousands of tongues: "Fool, silly fool, simpleton, to let yourself be
+cheated, once, twice, as often as she--or he chooses--how do I know?"
+
+He burst into a loud laugh, and as he did so there was a burning
+sensation in his breast which grew hotter and hotter; he would have
+given much if he could have wept. But that he could not, would not do.
+After all, nothing was yet decided; nothing was yet lost, although his
+soul was as dark as the black night that covered the earth around him.
+No star pierced the rack of dense driving clouds; scarcely the faintest
+ray of light was visible in the west. And yet--this dull gleam came
+from the sun, which had set and would rise again to-morrow; it was a
+pledge that the gloomy night would not last forever. And on his lips
+still lingered a memory of her breath, the fervor of her kisses. No!
+no! There could be no eternal separation! This torture could not last
+forever!
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Pretty Rieke had been detained in the dining-room longer than she
+liked, the Pastor had performed his office of cup-bearer with an
+unsteady hand, and moreover thought it necessary to accompany the
+performance with long-winded, incoherent speeches; but the gentlemen at
+the gaming-table had drunk the faster, and impatiently demanded more,
+until at last Rieke, tired of the continual running to and fro which
+seemed to have no end, resolutely carried the side-board with the bowl
+upon it to the gaming-table, and thus rendered it possible for the
+willing Pastor to present the glasses he filled himself. Then, after
+leaning over Hans Redebas' chair and watching the game a few minutes,
+she glided hastily out of the room.
+
+She wanted to continue her conversation with Gotthold. The handsome,
+quiet man had always pleased her, and she had played the rôle of spy,
+which Brandow had assigned her, less from love for her master than
+jealousy of her mistress, to whom she grudged the attentions of the
+stately stranger. The generous present he had bestowed upon her that
+morning had in some degree touched, and even puzzled her, and the
+cordiality he had just shown had completely disarmed her. Of course he
+had only come back for her mistress' sake, but to her fickle heart it
+was no enigma how one object can be kept in view without losing sight
+of another. She would even help him, if he was very, very friendly to
+her; and after all, it was certainly better for her if the stranger
+finally ran away with her mistress.
+
+But she did not find him at the door, where she had left him. Besides,
+the door was not a suitable place to continue the interesting
+conversation, and the hall was equally undesirable. Perhaps he was in
+the dining-room. He was not there; the trees in the garden, into which
+she cast a glance, were tossing quite too rudely. Where could he have
+gone? Where, except to his own room, to look after the things he had
+left there! She must help him; he could not find anything in the dark.
+
+The pretty servant-girl drew a long breath, and then in the twinkling
+of an eye glided noiselessly up the stairs and across the hall to the
+gable room Gotthold had occupied during his stay. Here she paused,
+pressing her hands to her burning cheeks and heaving breast, and then
+after a low knock, to which she expected no reply, slowly opened the
+door, as if with timid reluctance. Her cheeks had burned, her heart had
+throbbed in vain-the room was empty. She went to the window, and
+instantly drew back again. There, close beneath her, in the children's
+playground, was the man she sought, cautiously approaching the window
+from which a faint, varying light fell upon the tree-trunks; and then
+he disappeared--where, except through the nursery to her? She had not
+given the two hypocrites credit for that; they knew how to help
+themselves, to be sure! It was too shameless! Then the promise he had
+made her several times, but which she had not really believed, that he
+would make her his wife if the other was once out of the way, might
+come true. At any rate, he should know it; they deserved nothing
+better.
+
+"What does this mean?" cried Hans Redebas, as Brandow, with a hasty
+apology, rose from the table just as the cards had been cut.
+
+"I'll come back directly," answered Brandow.
+
+"That we should have expected," shouted Redebas. "Pastor, another
+glass!" Brandow left the table unwillingly; he had been winning
+considerable sums, and his gambler's superstition warned him that he
+ought, not to turn his back upon the game; but Rieke had beckoned to
+him over Hans Redebas' shock of black hair-something particularly
+important must have happened.
+
+He followed the girl into the hall, and from thence into the
+sitting-room on the left, where she told him by signs to step lightly,
+until they reached the narrow door that opened into Cecilia's
+sleeping-room. A faint ray of light gleamed through the crack over the
+threshold. The girl crouched down and put her ear to the door. Brandow
+stood bending over her, also listening. They could distinctly hear some
+one speaking, but neither who it was, nor what was said. But what did
+it matter? To whom could she speak here, except to him? What could they
+say except what they dared not suffer others to hear? And now the light
+grew brighter--they had entered the sleeping-room. Brandow trembled
+from head to foot with jealous fury. Should he rush in and strangle the
+pair, expose them to open shame? But Gotthold was no longer the feeble
+boy of former days; the result of a conflict with him, man to man, was
+at least doubtful, and he had certainly already received his pay. The
+disgrace would cling to him, and--it was too late! The barking of the
+dog, which made him and his accomplice fly from the door, must have
+warned them too; he would find the nest empty. Be it so; he had heard
+enough.
+
+"Well?" said Rieke, when they had glided back through the sitting-room
+and were again standing in the hall.
+
+"Go in, and say I will come directly," replied Brandow.
+
+The tone in which he spoke predicted some evil; Rieke was almost sorry
+for what she had done. "He isn't like you," she said soothingly, with
+the most perfect sincerity.
+
+Brandow laughed scornfully. "Go in," he repeated, stamping his foot.
+
+The girl obeyed; Brandow went to the open door and gazed across the
+dark court-yard towards the stables. The rain beat into his face, and
+with it came the sickly odor of native tobacco. On the left, directly
+under him, before the stone bench glowed a red spot, and a harsh voice
+asked:
+
+"Well, what about harnessing the horses?"
+
+It was the man for whom he had just been looking, upon whom he had
+depended for the execution of the plan of vengeance brooding darkly in
+his soul, nay the man, as he now imagined, who had implanted its first
+germ. So it was to be.
+
+"He won't want to go away now, if it were only on account of the bad
+weather."
+
+"The others must go too."
+
+"They have stayed here often enough."
+
+"Send them away."
+
+Brandow reflected a moment. "If I win a few hundred more, they will go
+of their own accord," he murmured. "But you must give him a thorough
+soaking, Hinrich--a thorough one, mind."
+
+"Where there is no bottom," said Hinrich.
+
+The words quivered through Brandow's soul like a flash of lightning
+across a midnight sky. That was the very thing.
+
+"And I'll give you whatever you ask!" he said, in a hoarse tone,
+bending down into the cloud of smoke that rose from Hinrich's pipe.
+
+"No pay, no work,--and that trick with Brownlock a little while ago
+cost me five louis-d'or. I should like half down now."
+
+"Here it is," said Brandow, feeling in his pocket, and giving him as
+much of the gold he had just won as he could grasp.
+
+"You have always been a good master to me," said Hinrich, rubbing the
+gold pieces together in his horny palm.
+
+"And will be a still better one in future."
+
+"The gentlemen will go away if you don't come in at once," said Rieke,
+hurrying out. She had left the door of the room open, and Hans Redebas'
+gruff bass voice was heard shouting: "Brandow! Brandow!" amid shrill
+laughter, and a hoarse tone repeating: "We won't go home! We won't go
+home!"
+
+"I'll get rid of you," muttered Brandow. "You will stay here, Hinrich."
+
+"I'll wait, sir."
+
+Brandow went back into the gaming-room.
+
+"You are taking an undue advantage of the freedom the accidental
+absence of ladies bestows," said Brandow, with cutting contempt, as his
+guests received him with upraised glasses and a halloo, to which Gustav
+von Plüggen added a loud hip, hip, hurrah!
+
+"Accidental?" cried Hans Redebas; "not at all accidental; you are
+driving a good business to-day."
+
+"And where is your wife?" said Otto von Plüggen.
+
+"I demand an explanation of this," cried Brandow; "I will not permit--"
+
+He paused suddenly. Turning angrily towards Otto von Plüggen, he saw
+Gotthold, who must have entered the room directly behind him, and had
+unquestionably heard all. It was impossible to discuss this subject in
+his presence. So, with a violent effort, he forced back the furious
+hate that surged up in his heart at the sight of his face, and cried:
+
+"So there you are at last! Where in the world have you hidden yourself?
+Thank God, you have come to put an end to this horrible gambling."
+
+"Ho! ho!" exclaimed Hans Redebas, "horrible gambling! Is that the way
+the wind blows? I believe you! He has won six hundred or more already.
+Does that taste badly?"
+
+"I owe no man any revenge, however," cried Brandow, with a gesture of
+exaggerated violence.
+
+"But, Brandow," expostulated the Assessor, "you mustn't weigh every
+word; Redebas had no intention of offending you. He only wanted to
+continue the game, and, to speak frankly, I don't see what we could do
+better."
+
+"Well, Herr Assessor, if you think what you have also won--"
+
+"The few thalers!" said the Assessor, not without some little
+embarrassment.
+
+"I can certainly make no objection," continued Brandow. "I only thought
+that this little consideration was due our friend Gotthold, who does
+not play, and of whom we have seen so little, or rather I should say,
+ourselves. He doesn't lose a great deal in dispensing with our society,
+but we do in losing his."
+
+"Pray don't disturb yourselves on my account," said Gotthold.
+
+"Well, then, in the devil's name, go on," cried Hans Redebas, seizing
+the cards. "I'll keep the bank for once, I can probably find a few
+little savings still."
+
+And with his left hand he drew from the thick pocketbook lying before
+him a pile of bank-notes which he crushed together in a heap. "There
+now, play in regular order, Brandow and the rest of you, I beg."
+
+"I am sorry, but what can I do? I hope you will excuse me," Brandow
+whispered to Gotthold, as he resumed his place at the table. Gotthold
+drew back, and could do nothing but accept the invitation of the
+Pastor, who was sitting in one corner of the great leather-covered
+sofa, and as Gotthold took his place beside him, leaned a little
+forward, not without difficulty, and began to talk with a faltering
+tongue.
+
+"Yes, yes, my beloved friend, a sinful world, a wicked, sinful world,
+but we must not be too harsh, not too harsh, for Heaven's sake! You
+work all the week, or at least order your servants to work for you; but
+they must not do it on Sunday, on pain of a heavy punishment. Just
+before the beginning of this harvest, we sent out a paper written in
+the strongest terms. What were they doing with the long hours? Idleness
+is the beginning of all crimes: gambling, drinking--Rieke, a glass--two
+glasses--don't you drink? Do very wrong--brewed myself--from a receipt
+of my honored employer, Count Zernikow. I brewed more than three
+hundred bowls during my career as tutor--could do it at last with my
+eyes shut--with my eyes shut--eyes shut."
+
+He had only stammered the last words, his heavy head fell forward, and
+the lower part of his face disappeared amid the folds of his crumpled
+white cravat. He sank helplessly back into his corner.
+
+The vacant face filled Gotthold with angry contempt.
+
+The man had realized the promise of the boy; intoxication had torn away
+the mask of hypocrisy, and there was the stupid, dissolute face of the
+Halle student, whom Gotthold so well remembered. It could not be
+otherwise. But that this pitiful creature should be his father's
+successor, this blinking owl sit in the eyrie of the eagle, whose fiery
+eyes had always sought the sun; this coarse buffoon be permitted to
+tinkle his bells in the very place where the preacher, with glowing
+eloquence, had summoned his hearers to repentance and atonement, seemed
+to him a personal insult. And yet this man was in his proper place; the
+flock was worthy of the shepherd; everything here was of a piece--like
+a picture drawn by some master hand, in the boldest outlines and most
+glaring colors: the drunken Pastor nodding in the sofa corner, the
+excited, wine-flushed faces of the gamblers, the voluptuous figure of
+the maid-servant passing to and fro and handing the fiery beverage to
+the revellers, exchanging a sly smile or hasty word with one,
+coquettishly pushing away the hand of another, who tried to pass his
+arm around her waist--the true goddess of this temple of sin!--and the
+whole enveloped in the circling wreaths of gray smoke which ascended
+from the constantly burning pipes, and floated in dusky red rings
+around the dim wicks of the candles; only that it was no picture, but
+the coarsest, rudest, most commonplace reality. And alas, the outrage
+that she should be compelled to live under this roof, that the wild
+riot should re-echo even in her quiet room--not for the first or last
+time!-that these were the men who frequented the house--these
+empty-headed, silly young noblemen, this rough upstart, with his coarse
+hands and coarser jests. And when this company of fauns and satyrs
+departed, to have for her only consoler solitude--solitude which stared
+at her with cold, hard, piercing serpent eyes. There they were, those
+very eyes; they had just glanced over the cards with a quick stealthy
+look! Those eyes, and hers--soft, gentle, tender!
+
+Gotthold no longer saw the gamblers. He beheld her sitting in the
+lonely nursery beside her child's playthings; a touching figure, still
+so girlish in its soft, delicate outlines. He saw the sad face suffused
+with a roseate flush of joy, saw it disfigured with pain and terror-he
+lived over in imagination the whole scene, which already seemed like a
+dream; and dreamed on of a future which must surely come, a future full
+of sunlight, love, and poetry.
+
+He could not have told how long he had been sitting absorbed in
+thought, when a loud noise at the gaming-table suddenly startled him.
+Something unusual seemed to have happened; Hans Redebas and Brandow
+alone retained their seats, the others were bending over the table with
+eager faces; even Rieke was gazing so intently that she forgot to push
+away the Assessor's arm, which had been thrown around her waist.
+
+"Do you take it again?" cried Redebas.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Another thousand? That will make it five!"
+
+"Devil take it, yes!"
+
+A breathless silence followed, in which Gotthold heard nothing but the
+noise of the cards Redebas dealt, and then another outcry and tumult,
+such as had previously roused him from his revery, only this time it
+was so loud that even the drunken Pastor staggered out of his corner.
+Gotthold approached the table. His first glance rested upon Brandow's
+face, which was deadly pale; but his thin lips were firmly compressed,
+and a disagreeable smile even sparkled in his stern, cold eyes, as he
+now cried, turning to the new-comer:
+
+"They have plucked me finely, Gotthold; but night never lasts forever."
+
+"But this," cried Redebas throwing the cards on the table, and making a
+memorandum in his pocket-book, "I decline!"
+
+"What does that mean?" asked Brandow.
+
+"That I will play no more," answered Redebas with a loud laugh, closing
+his pocket-book and rising heavily.
+
+"I always thought the loser could break up the game, not the winner."
+
+"If the winner is not sure of his point--oh! yes."
+
+"I demand an explanation!" cried Brandow, pushing the table aside.
+
+"Why, Brandow, do be reasonable!" exclaimed Otto and Gustav von
+Plüggen, in the same breath.
+
+"Are you in partnership again?" answered Brandow with a sneering laugh,
+and then stepped before Redebas: "I demand an explanation at once!"
+
+The giant had drawn back a step: "Oho," he cried; "if that's what you
+want, come on!"
+
+"My dear Brandow," said the Assessor soothingly, putting himself
+between them.
+
+"I know what I am doing, Herr Assessor," answered Brandow, pushing him
+aside.
+
+"And I know too," cried Redebas, throwing up the window, and shouting
+across the quiet court-yard in a voice like the roar of a lion.
+"Harness the horses, August! harness the horses!"
+
+A scene of wild confusion followed, in which all shouted together, so
+that Gotthold could only distinguish a word here and there. Hans
+Redebas raved loudest of all, but apparently quite as much from fear as
+anger, while Brandow remained comparatively calm, and was evidently
+intent upon separating the Assessor, who was constantly intermeddling,
+from the three others whom the Pastor now joined, and by all possible
+signs announced his intention of making a speech, in which he actually
+several times got as far as the beginning: "My beloved friends!"
+
+The three carriages, to which the impatient coachmen had harnessed the
+horses long before, drove up. The quarrel had been continued from the
+room to the hall, from the hall to the door, and even to the carriage
+steps.
+
+"We shall see, we shall see," cried Hans Redebas; "are you in, Pastor?
+Then, in the devil's name, drive on--we shall see," he shouted again
+from the carriage window, as the powerful Danish horses trotted away at
+a rapid pace towards the northern gate, from whence the shorter road,
+which, however, was scarcely visible in the darkness, led through the
+forest to Dahlitz.
+
+Meantime Otto and Gustav von Plüggen had finally become involved in a
+quarrel with each other. Gustav, who had no lamps on his carriage,
+declared that he must go across the moor, while Otto wanted to follow
+Redebas. Gustav had already borne so much from his older brother that
+day, that he considered himself obliged to take this refusal as a
+personal insult. He had no bundle of hay in front of his head, and
+wouldn't run the risk of breaking his skull against the trees in the
+forest. "Then he could light the straw in it, and find his way home by
+that," Otto replied.
+
+So they drove away in opposite directions.
+
+"That is very foolish," said Brandow, looking after Gustav's carriage.
+
+"One will get across and the other won't," replied Hinrich Scheel.
+
+"We know that you are the best driver."
+
+"An accident is liable to happen to any one."
+
+"That is, you want it to be so."
+
+"It seems you don't."
+
+Brandow did not answer immediately. He had thought the matter less
+difficult; but he need not break his neck, only an arm or leg.
+
+He cast a timid glance through the window; the light fell directly upon
+Gotthold's grave, handsome face. Brandow ground his teeth. No, it was
+not enough. He must have his life; the damned hypocrite deserved
+nothing better, and where was the crime? An accident might happen to
+the best driver.
+
+Suddenly he started. He had not thought of that before. By his quarrel
+with his associates at the gaming-table he had fortunately prevented
+the whole party from remaining all night until broad daylight, as they
+had often done before, and thus robbed Gotthold of a suitable excuse
+for staying also, if such was his intention--and of that Brandow, after
+what he had heard, was firmly convinced. He had also, by intentionally
+keeping the Assessor out of the quarrel, made it impossible for the
+latter to go away at once with the others, though he had not lacked
+invitations, as thus his prey would have escaped him, for Gotthold
+probably would not have remained without the Assessor. But now--how
+could he separate the two? If the Assessor stayed--and he did not seem
+to think of leaving--Gotthold would stay also, or at least have a
+most plausible excuse for doing so; and if he forced the Assessor to
+go--
+
+Again his sullen glance wandered towards the two men in the room--the
+Assessor talking to Gotthold with the most animated gestures; the
+latter, to judge from his expression and movements, listening
+reluctantly.
+
+"I drove them both here, so I can drive them both back again," said
+Hinrich Scheel, pressing down the ashes in his pipe.
+
+Both! One! yes; but what had the other done to him? Nothing! Nothing at
+all! And he had received ten thousand thalers from him to-day.
+
+"It's a pity about the beautiful money, if any accident should happen
+to us on the moor," said Hinrich, knocking the tobacco out of his pipe;
+"I'll get the carriage ready, and take those jades of Jochen Klüts; it
+would be a pity to hurt our grays."
+
+He walked slowly away. Brandow's eyes followed the short dark figure;
+he wanted to call him back, to tell him he need not harness the horses,
+but only a strange, hoarse, choking sound came from his throat; his
+tongue clung to his palate, and as he raised his foot he staggered like
+a drunken man, and was obliged to hold fast to the trunk of one of the
+old linden-trees, through whose thick branches a violent gust of wind
+was just roaring. The rain, which again began to fall, beat into his
+face, now burning with a strange flush, although he was shivering from
+head to foot.
+
+There! What was that? The noise of the carriage which Hinrich was
+pushing out of the barn. There was still time! But, after all, he had
+said nothing, nothing at all; how could he help it if an accident
+happened to Hinrich on the moor at night?
+
+Gotthold and the Assessor had remained in the room; the latter was
+trying to explain to Gotthold that Brandow had certainly been quite
+right when he asked that the game should be continued, but had done
+wrong to express his wish in so peremptory a manner; and finally he
+ought not to have forgotten that he was the host, and as such must
+overlook any little impropriety on the part of his guests.
+
+During the latter part of his long speech, the Assessor had addressed
+himself in an admonitory tone, partly to Brandow, who had just entered
+the room, and going up to the side-board swallowed several glasses of
+wine. "I have in fact been compelled to overlook many such things
+to-day, and am obliged to you, Herr Assessor, for keeping me in
+practice up to the last minute."
+
+The tone in which Brandow said this, and the gesture with which he
+approached the Assessor, were so peculiar that the latter was partly
+sobered, and stared in astonishment at his host, who now came a step
+nearer and said in a low voice:
+
+"Or what do you call it, when the guests, in presence of the servants,
+subject the conduct of the master of the house to such an unsparing
+criticism?" and he pointed to Rieke, under whose direction another maid
+servant and the groom Fritz were beginning to remove the glasses
+standing about on the tables, and sweep up the fragments scattered over
+the floor.
+
+The Assessor drew himself up to his full height.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said he, "and will request you to be kind enough
+to place your carriage at my disposal for my return. I regret that I
+did not accept from your other guests the favor I must now solicit of
+you. I can still depend upon your company, Gotthold?"
+
+"I think Brandow will make no objections."
+
+"I beg the gentlemen to act their own pleasure."
+
+They bowed to each other with distant civility. A few minutes after,
+the same light carriage that had brought the two gentlemen to Dollan a
+few hours before rolled over the rough road into the dark, gusty night.
+Hinrich Scheel drove the horses.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+It was about ten o'clock, but, although the season was mid-summer and
+the moon must have already risen, dark as only a moonless night in
+autumn could be. And with autumnal chillness the wind blew over the rye
+stubble, and the rain, which had just begun to fall again with renewed
+violence, beat into their faces.
+
+"Button your coat up," said Gotthold to his companion, who was swaying
+to and fro uncomfortably in his seat. "You seem very much heated."
+
+"Because I have kept buttoned up all the evening," answered the
+Assessor. "I mean it in a literal sense, on account of the ten thousand
+thalers I have had in my breast-pocket; figuratively I might have been
+somewhat more so; but for all that, I beg of you, my dear friend, give
+me some explanation of Brandow's mysterious conduct. He actually turned
+me out of doors! And why? I don't understand it. After we had been on
+the most cordial terms the whole evening; after we had been, so to
+speak, hand-and-glove. And everything settled! The whole large sum paid
+in cash, down to the last penny, which, to be sure, is the greatest
+mystery of all. And he is to have the money from Wollnow! Did Wollnow
+mystify me? And why? I no more see any light in all this than I can see
+my hand before my eyes. Horrible darkness!"
+
+"The moon has been up an hour already," said Hinrich Scheel.
+
+"And is that why you have no lamps on the carriage?"
+
+"Herr von Plüggen had none either."
+
+"You thought your pipe would give us light enough, didn't you?"
+
+"I needn't smoke, sir."
+
+"Then don't; I can't say that the odor of your canaster is very
+agreeable."
+
+"Folks like us can't smoke nice tobacco, like fine gentlemen," said
+Hinrich Scheel, emptying his pipe so roughly that the sparks flew in
+all directions through the darkness, and thrusting it into his
+breast-pocket.
+
+"Isn't this the same fellow who drove us here this afternoon?" asked
+the Assessor in a low tone.
+
+"The same," answered Gotthold; "and I should advise you to use the same
+precaution we adopted on the way here."
+
+But the Assessor was not in the mood to follow Gotthold's counsel. The
+intoxication, from which the scene with Brandow had only roused him for
+a short time, returned with redoubled power, now that he was exposed to
+the cold night air. He began to abuse Brandow, in whose favor he had
+always spoken at the convent, who but for him would have been obliged
+to leave Dollan a year ago, who was greatly indebted to him in every
+respect, and now repaid him with the basest ingratitude. But his
+friendship and protection were now at an end. He still had the fine
+fellow under his thumb. The lease must yet be renewed. To be sure,
+Brandow had paid this time, but what guarantee of future security was
+there to be had from a man who, in his precarious situation, loaded
+himself with a gambling debt of five thousand thalers? He need only
+give the monks this piece of information, and Brandow would be cast
+off. Did Brandow expect to satisfy the convent by the assurance that he
+would win the race on Brownlock! Brownlock, nothing but Brownlock!
+Brandow had not won yet, and they were strict in their rules at the
+race-course. Only last year, young Klebenitz--eldest son of a nobleman
+though he was--had been excluded because it got noised abroad that he
+had been twenty-four hours late in paying a gambling debt. It was still
+very doubtful whether Redebas would have the five thousand thalers he
+had just won from Brandow lying on his desk by to-morrow noon.
+
+Gotthold had tried in vain to interrupt his loquacious companion, and
+was therefore not at all displeased when the latter, after stammering a
+few incoherent words, suddenly relapsed into silence, and leaning back
+in his corner seemed to wish to sleep off his intoxication. Gotthold
+spread his own travelling-rug over his knees, turned up the collar of
+his overcoat, and gazing out into the darkness, resigned himself to his
+thoughts. Brandow's conduct was incomprehensible to him also. What
+could have induced him to insult the Assessor in this way?--a man whose
+favor he had every reason to keep. Had he been drunk too? But if so,
+the fit of intoxication must have come upon him very suddenly, and had
+at all events assumed a singular form--the form of the hatred which
+veils itself under the garb of cold politeness. Or, had all this
+concerned him alone? Had he been so anxious to get his enemy out of the
+house that he had even suffered it to cost him the friendship of the
+influential man? That was a solution so simple and natural, so unlike
+the cold calculating man; but if it was not drunkenness, or hate that
+wishes to satisfy itself, what was it?
+
+And suppose it were hate that desires to satisfy itself at any cost?
+Suppose this hate was directed towards her, no less than him, nay
+perhaps even more. Suppose this terrible man wanted to clear the house
+of guests in order to give free course to his furious hate, to be able
+to riot in some fell vengeance.
+
+Gotthold half started from his seat, groaning aloud, and then sank back
+again, reproaching himself for conjuring up such horrible apparitions.
+That was certainly the most improbable of all. Whatever means he had
+used the night before to break down the pride of one of the proudest of
+women, he had conquered, he was master of the situation; he might be
+satisfied! And was he not? He now knew the secret of coining gold,
+cunning alchemist that he was; and how soon he might be again in a
+situation where he would be obliged to make use of his art, that very
+evening had proved. What becomes of the water you take in your hand?
+What becomes of the money you give a gambler? Cousin Boslaf had been
+right.
+
+But the more Gotthold endeavored to push aside the terrible thought as
+improbable, nay impossible, the more distinctly the scene appeared
+before his eyes. He saw him creep towards her chamber, cautiously open
+the door, glide into the room, up to the bed. Merciful Heaven! what was
+that? He had distinctly heard his name called in a piercing cry of
+mortal agony.
+
+It was only a trick of his excited fancy, a horned owl perhaps, which,
+hurled along by the storm on noiseless wings, had swept close over his
+head, and in its surprise uttered the cry. This, or something of the
+sort.
+
+Undoubtedly; but fancy continued the cruel sport none the less
+zealously, and converted the long-drawn howling and hollow roaring of
+the tempest over the moor, the rustling of the clumps of broom by the
+wayside, the creaking of the carriage, and the panting of the weary
+horses, into ghostly voices which muttered terrible words, voices and
+words such as might be uttered by the shapes which glided through the
+grayish black twilight over the masses of rock on the moor on the right
+of the carriage, or flitted on the left through the impenetrable
+darkness that brooded coldly over the morass.
+
+The road had been gradually ascending for some time, and according to
+Gotthold's belief, they had almost reached the crest of the hill, when
+the horses suddenly stopped, snorting violently.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Gotthold.
+
+Hinrich Scheel's only reply was several violent lashes, which urged the
+horses onward again, but only a few paces, then they stopped once more,
+snorting still louder, and pressing backward so that the carriage moved
+a little down the hill.
+
+"The damned jades!" cried Hinrich Scheel, who was no longer on his seat
+on the box, but standing on the right of the carriage.
+
+"What is the matter, I say?" cried Gotthold, starting up.
+
+"Nothing at all," shouted Hinrich. "Sit still. The damned jades! This
+little pull! I'll teach them to shirk. Sit still, we shall be up
+directly! Damn the whip!"
+
+Hinrich, who had been lashing the horses frantically, now disappeared
+from the side of the carriage, the frightened animals made a few more
+bounds forward--suddenly the vehicle leaned towards the left--farther
+and farther; like a flash of lightning the thought passed through
+Gotthold's mind, that if the carriage should upset here, it would
+undoubtedly fall sixty feet down the slope into the morass; he already
+had his hand on the back to swing himself out on the right, but would
+not save himself without his companion. But the latter did not rise,
+did not even stir. He seized him to drag him out of the carriage.
+Too late! There was a dull roaring, rushing, rattling, as if the
+earth itself was opening to engulf carriage, horses, and men; a
+whizzing sound in their ears--a terrible shock, a falling, rolling,
+crashing,--another crashing, rolling, shattering, and then--the horror
+was over!
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+In the large comfortable room adjoining the office, in the subdued
+light of a beautiful lamp--the companion to which was burning on a
+side-table at the end of the room--sat Frau Ottilie Wollnow and Alma
+Sellien; Ottilie engaged in sewing; while Alma leaned back in the sofa
+corner, with her slender hands resting idly in her lap. Before the
+ladies, on a high-backed chair drawn forward in the light, stood
+Gotthold's picture of Dollan, at which Alma from time to time threw one
+of her languishing glances. If the gentlemen came back that evening,
+she wanted to give Gotthold a pleasant surprise by showing him the
+interest she took in his work, and therefore the picture, which had
+just been taken down at her request, must remain in its present
+position.
+
+"I am only afraid it may slip down and get injured," said Ottilie; "and
+besides, I am not at all sure they will come back this evening."
+
+"I don't know what their return has to do with my enjoyment of art,"
+answered Alma, shading her eyes with her hand, and looking at the
+picture with an evident increase of interest. "In what bold relief
+these beeches stand in the foreground! how easily the eye glides over
+the fields in the centre, and lingers there in refreshing repose, ere
+it turns with delight to the brown moor on the left, or wanders
+longingly towards the dim blue horizon bounded by the sea! He is really
+a great artist."
+
+Ottilie laughed. "And do you mean to say all that to him?"
+
+"Why not?" answered Alma. "I like to give every one his due."
+
+"Especially when the 'every one' is a man so attractive as Gotthold."
+
+"I have only seen and spoken to him five minutes this morning."
+
+"And that has been enough to completely win the heart of such a subtle
+connoisseur. Confess, Alma, you are fascinated, and now see that our
+poor Cecilia must not be judged so very harshly, even if she really did
+have the misfortune to think such a man attractive."
+
+"You know my views in regard to these things are very strict," replied
+Alma; "yes, very strict, though you do choose to open your eyes in
+astonishment. But to speak frankly, it is a matter of perfect
+indifference to me what your poor Cecilia thinks or doesn't think; only
+I would rather not despair of the good taste and good sense of the men,
+and that I certainly should do if such a man was so deluded as to think
+your poor Cecilia charming."
+
+"Why, Alma!"
+
+"Pray, my dear Ottilie, allow me to have and retain my own opinion on
+this point. Tell me instead--for it interests me, now that I have
+become personally acquainted with him--what you know of his former
+circumstances. Hugo declares he is almost a millionaire. Is he really
+so rich, and how did he get the property? Hugo says it is a very
+mysterious story--but he always says that when he can give no
+information about a thing. What is it?"
+
+"Nothing at all," replied Ottilie; "I mean nothing at all mysterious;
+but the story is a sad one; I could not help crying when Emil related
+it to me a short time ago--he had never spoken of it before!"
+
+And Ottilie Wollnow wiped away the tears that already hung on her dark
+lashes.
+
+"You make me terribly curious," said Alma; "how can a story be sad
+which finally results in half a million?"
+
+"It is probably not so much so now," said Ottilie; "besides, you must
+not ask me for any particulars, for Emil's story was very--what shall I
+say--very general--for reasons I hinted to you this morning, and
+I--from the same cause--did not venture to ask him for any farther
+details. We must always respect all such old German favors, and seem to
+think them true and genuine."
+
+"Old German favors?" asked Alma in astonishment.
+
+Ottilie laughed. "That's what I call our husbands' reminiscences of
+their old love affairs, which they treasure with such ludicrous
+emotion, and, so to speak, always wear secretly under their coats, in
+order not to shame us by their brilliancy, for we are really good,
+excellent wives; but how could we bear any comparison with these
+heroines? In this case, to be sure--"
+
+"Excuse me for interrupting you, dear Ottilie, but you were going to
+tell me how Gotthold got his fortune."
+
+"It is all closely connected," replied Ottilie; "the German favor, I
+mean my good Emil's old flame and Gotthold's mother, is one and the
+same person; but to be sure Emil declares I always begin my stories at
+the end, so now by way of exception I'll commence at the beginning. But
+how am I to do it?"
+
+"Perhaps by stating who the lady you have mentioned really was."
+
+"You always hit the nail on the head! Certainly, who was she? The only
+child of her parents; her father was Reginald Lenz, a rich merchant in
+Stettin--I have forgotten her mother's name; but she must have been a
+dear, sweet creature, and loved her husband passionately, too
+passionately perhaps. He was probably a very attractive man--he always
+went by the name of 'handsome Lenz,' and such people are spoiled: the
+merry bachelor life is continued after marriage; a few unlucky
+speculations may have happened also; in a word, Herr Lenz failed at the
+end of a few years, or stood on the verge of bankruptcy, and the books
+did not balance as they ought; he would not survive the disgrace,
+and--it is terrible to think of--he took a cheerful farewell of his
+young wife to go out hunting, and clear his head after reckoning so
+many figures, as he said, and in the evening they brought him home with
+his brains dashed out. Was it not terrible?"
+
+"Go on," said Alma.
+
+"Ah! the rest is almost as bad. The young wife, who had had no
+suspicion of her husband's situation--or she would not have let him
+leave her--saw the body without the slightest preparation. An hour
+after--the unhappy woman was daily expecting the birth of another
+child--she was attacked by a violent fever, and in a few days was a
+corpse."
+
+"How imprudent," said Alma.
+
+"The little five-year-old Marie--"
+
+"An ugly name," observed Alma.
+
+"I don't think so; at any rate its bearer was anything but ugly, Emil
+says; and to speak frankly, I am sure that in this respect he does not
+exaggerate, and the little lady, who naturally in the course of years
+grew up to maturity, really possessed all the admirable qualities which
+turned the head of the poor young fellow, who was then only twenty. And
+he was not alone; all the other young men employed in the business
+fared just the same. I forgot to say, or was just going to tell you,
+that the poor little orphan had been received in her uncle's house, the
+brother of her unhappy father, but a man who was exactly his opposite
+in every respect; plain, stern, pedantic, an excellent business-man of
+the old school, as Emil says, who had entered his counting-room and at
+that time risen to be head clerk. His wife was wonderfully well suited
+to him, that is, she was not one whit less plain, or less strict and
+pedantic, so the poor little girl could not have found the house
+exactly a bed of roses."
+
+"In spite of all her admirers?"
+
+"In spite of all her admirers. She inherited it from her father, who
+always aimed too high."
+
+"Perhaps she did not know what she wanted."
+
+"That is possible; at any rate, none of the young men found favor in
+her eyes, though Emil was slightly preferred; but only, he says,
+because he was the only Jew in the Christian establishment, and
+therefore in some degree rebuffed by the others--the position of the
+Jews thirty years ago, you must know, was even more precarious and
+uncomfortable than it is now, although even now everything is perhaps
+not quite what it should be. At any fate, she treated the man
+worst whose outward circumstances entitled him to the most
+consideration--namely, her cousin Eduard, the only son of the house, a
+quiet, shy young man, who loved her passionately. Emil says that even
+now it makes the tears come into his eyes when he thinks of the time
+that Eduard, who was his most intimate friend, spoke of what he
+suffered, not in pompous, high-sounding words, which would not have
+been at all like him, but so gently, so resignedly--"
+
+"I can't bear these gentle, resigned men," said Alma.
+
+"They seldom succeed, as poor Eduard's example shows. But to be sure,
+she refused very different people, who were by no means gentle and
+resigned--officers, barons, and counts: she was the wonder of the city,
+and the idol of all the young men, and she noticed them no more than
+the sun heeds the mist."
+
+"You are really getting poetical," said Alma.
+
+"It is one of Emil's comparisons, he always grows poetical when he
+speaks of her--till at last the right one came."
+
+"The country Pastor. Gracious Heavens! _Tant de bruit pour une
+omelette_," said Alma.
+
+"Excuse me, it was nothing of that sort; on the contrary, he was a very
+remarkable man, who had turned the heads of as many women as she had
+men. And it was not confined to women; many men, and those by no means
+the least important, were also very enthusiastic about him, among
+others, my Emil, who since he was baptized on our wedding-day, has not
+set foot inside of a church, but then, Jew as he was, attended
+regularly every Sunday the service held by the young Substitute--I
+believe that's what they call them. The whole city went, he says;
+people stood at the doors, and even outside, just to see him come in.
+In a word, this young preacher was the right man. How they became
+acquainted with each other I don't know, and it is of no consequence.
+To see and love each other was the same thing. Her foster-parents, who
+on Eduard's account were glad to get her out of the house, of course
+gave their consent at once, although the little parish here in Rammin
+on which they married was a place to starve rather than live in. So
+they left Stettin, and came here, and--"
+
+"The story ends," said Alma, "as all stories which begin in such a
+remarkable manner usually do--in commonplace poverty. But I don't see
+yet from all this how Gotthold got his half million."
+
+"It is not a half million," replied Ottilie; "about a hundred thousand,
+Emil thinks, and from whom should he get it but the good Eduard, who
+would never marry, though the rich heir, of course, could have made the
+most brilliant matches, but remained faithful to his early love as long
+as he lived, and on his death-bed left a portion of his property to
+benevolent institutions, and the remainder to his cousin's son as his
+nearest heir."
+
+"It must have been a very pleasant surprise," said Alma.
+
+"Undoubtedly, although I must say that no real blessing attends the
+money. To be sure, he is now a rich man, or at least well to-do; but
+what personal benefit does he get? Scarcely any. Ten thousand thalers
+or so were invested in Emil's business before our marriage; since then,
+thank God, he has needed no stranger's money, and he has never troubled
+himself about them; the rest he has left in the business in Stettin,
+which is carried on by one of the partners of the old firm, and where
+it is by no means safe; but he doesn't even touch the interest, except
+to aid needy artists, or encourage struggling young men by enabling
+them to go to the Academy, take a journey to Italy, or something of
+that sort. Well, he doesn't need it; he easily earns as much as he
+wants, and moreover is such a thoroughly good man that he likes to
+befriend others, but I think he has already made up his mind what to
+do."
+
+"What?" asked Alma.
+
+"Why doesn't he marry? He has certainly had the best opportunities, and
+he is twenty-eight years old! I fear, I fear he will remain a bachelor
+like his foster-uncle in Stettin, and--for the same reason. And as for
+the money, I think I know what will become of that too. After what we
+heard this morning about Brandow's circumstances, it would be very well
+invested; for poor Gretchen probably will not inherit much from her
+father and mother."
+
+"He won't be such a fool!" exclaimed Alma.
+
+"People said just the same about good Eduard Lenz. And I think, I
+think--but you must not betray me when your husband returns--I think a
+part of his property went into Brandow's hands to-day."
+
+"Did your husband tell you so?"
+
+"In that case I should be sure of it; the idea of Emil's
+chattering--but you don't know him. It's all my own idea, but we shall
+ascertain when the gentlemen come home to-morrow."
+
+"I told them when they went away that I should expect them without fail
+this evening," replied Alma, looking at the picture through her hand,
+and mentally repeating the words with which she intended to receive
+Gotthold.
+
+"Why, there they are already!" cried Ottilie as the door-bell rang.
+
+"It must be your husband back from his club."
+
+"He does not ring," answered Ottilie; "besides, it is not his step."
+
+Ottilie, with a "come in," went towards the door, at which they now
+heard a knock. Alma leaned back in the sofa corner with her head a
+little bent, in the act of displaying her white hands to the best
+possible advantage, when she was startled from her _pose_ by a low
+exclamation from Ottilie.
+
+"Herr Brandow!"
+
+"Pardon me, Madam, pardon me, ladies, for presenting myself unannounced
+in the absence of a servant. I hope you will bear with me a few
+minutes, and help me to carry out a little joke I want to play upon our
+friends."
+
+He bowed; Ottilie gazed at him in astonishment, even terror. Herr
+Brandow did not look like a person who is trying to carry out a jest;
+his face was pale and haggard, his long fair moustache disordered, his
+dress a strange mixture of evening and riding costume, and splashed
+with mud to his shoulders. And to come in this plight, at this late
+hour, to a house where he was a stranger, nay, which had actually been
+closed against him for years--Ottilie had only one explanation of all
+this.
+
+"Has any misfortune happened?" she exclaimed.
+
+"Misfortune," said Brandow; "none that I am aware of; or yes, the
+misfortune that I have treated my friends a little uncivilly. The
+rudeness was very slight, but as I, although a sorely tried man, am not
+accustomed to this kind of misfortune, I could not rest until I had
+made the attempt to rehabilitate myself in my own eyes, to say nothing
+of my friends, who have doubtless already forgiven me."
+
+"Then they are coming to-night, are they not? I told you so," exclaimed
+Alma.
+
+"Certainly, and they will be here immediately, in--we will say twenty
+minutes--yes, twenty minutes. They left Dollan at exactly ten minutes
+of ten; it is now just half-past; with my powerful horses and so good a
+driver as Hinrich they will not need more than an hour, in spite of the
+horrible weather; so in twenty minutes, ladies, we shall hear the
+carriage drive up."
+
+Brandow had taken out his watch, and did not turn his eyes from it as
+he made his calculation.
+
+"And you?" asked Alma.
+
+"I myself, dear madam, after parting from the gentlemen, with a want of
+cordiality I sincerely regret, rode away from Dollan precisely at ten,
+and just twenty-five minutes after had my horse put into the stable of
+the Fürstenhof, that is, I was just five times as long in going over
+the mile and a half from Dollan to the Fürstenhof, as in walking the
+five hundred steps from the Fürstenhof here."
+
+"You were twenty-five minutes in coming the same distance that will
+occupy the others an hour!" cried Alma.
+
+"Pardon me; I couldn't go by the same road our friends took across the
+Dollan moor, or it would have spoiled my surprise. I rode over another
+that leads through Neuenhof, Lankenitz, Faschwitz, etc. Frau Wollnow
+doubtless knows the direction--a way quite as long, and certainly as
+bad, as I unfortunately perceive too late, by the condition of my
+clothes."
+
+"Oh! how I admire these bold feats of horsemanship!" exclaimed Alma,
+opening her eyes very wide to express her enthusiasm. "Sit down here
+beside me, dear Herr Brandow."
+
+She had forgotten the arrangement she had made for Gotthold's
+reception, and as she pushed the back of the chair with her
+outstretched hand, the picture slipped down and fell on the floor.
+Ottilie, who saw it, uttered a loud exclamation. Brandow sprang forward
+to raise it, but had scarcely cast a glance at it, when he dropped it
+from his hands with a low cry.
+
+"My poor picture!" exclaimed Ottilie.
+
+"I beg ten thousand pardons," said Brandow. "I see that when a man has
+ridden a mile and a half in twenty-five minutes, he is not quite master
+of his limbs."
+
+In fact, he trembled violently as he again took the picture in his
+hands; nay, he seemed to find it difficult to stand. Ottilie, who
+noticed it, at last invited him to sit down.
+
+"Shall I not put the picture away first?" asked Brandow.
+
+"On no account!" exclaimed Alma. "I can't part with it, and to you, my
+dear friend, it must have a double interest. Just see in what bold
+relief these beeches stand in the foreground. How easily the eye glides
+over the fields in the centre and lingers in refreshing repose, ere it
+wanders longingly towards the dim blue horizon of the sea on the right,
+or turns with delight to the brown moor on the left."
+
+"Oh! certainly, certainly," said Brandow, without looking at the
+picture; "it is intended for Dollan, isn't it?"
+
+"Intended for Dollan!" exclaimed Ottilie, "why, Herr Brandow, you
+wanted to buy it yourself. Don't you remember the time when your wife
+and I were standing before the picture and you came up?"
+
+"Oh! certainly, certainly," said Brandow.
+
+"I would like to bet that the gentlemen are on that brown moor now,"
+said Alma.
+
+"Certainly; to be sure," replied Brandow.
+
+"Impossible!" exclaimed Ottilie, "unless some accident has happened to
+the carriage, which we do not want to fear."
+
+"Certainly, oh! certainly not," said Brandow, wiping the cold
+perspiration from his forehead with his handkerchief.
+
+"You are faint, Herr Brandow; let me offer you some refreshments,"
+said Ottilie, ringing the bell, and rising to give her orders to the
+maid-servant, who instantly entered.
+
+At the same moment Alma leaned forward, and holding out her hand to
+Brandow, whispered, "My dear friend, how glad I am to see you! What
+have you done to Hugo? I should think it would be for the interest of
+us all that you should remain good friends."
+
+Brandow took the little white hand, and hastily raised it to his lips.
+
+"Oh! certainly, certainly, my beautiful friend," he replied, "that is
+the very reason I am here; it is really nothing at all. I was a little
+excited by--I--oh! my dear madam, why do you trouble yourself? A glass
+of wine, if you insist upon it, but nothing else, I beg of you, nothing
+else."
+
+He had turned towards Ottilie. Alma--threw herself back into the sofa
+corner, pouting. Brandow's manner was certainly very strange to-day, so
+cold, not in the least like his usual one. Alma determined to punish
+him for it when Gotthold came, and to render the pain more severe,
+resolved to be particularly charming during the few minutes that would
+intervene.
+
+But the minutes passed, the clock struck eleven, half-past eleven--an
+hour had elapsed since Brandow's arrival, and still no sound of
+carriage wheels was heard, nothing but the rustling of the tall poplars
+in the little square before the house, and the plashing of the rain
+against the window-panes whenever a pause in the conversation occurred.
+And it seemed as if the later it grew, the more frequent such pauses
+became; for Ottilie, contrary to her custom, spoke very little. Alma,
+as usual, thought it enough to give people, by a gracious smile,
+permission to amuse her, and Brandow, this evening, was by no means the
+entertaining companion he was generally considered. The restlessness
+with which he darted from one subject to another had a feverish haste,
+his laugh sounded forced, at times he did not seem to notice that not a
+word had been uttered for some minutes, but sat staring at the picture,
+until he suddenly started and began to talk again in an extremely loud
+voice, whose harsh tones jarred upon Ottilie's nerves. Her anxiety
+increased every moment. She had already risen several times, gone to
+the window, and pushing aside the curtain, gazed out in the night,
+which was made, if possible, darker still by the feeble gleam of the
+tiny flames in the street-lamps.
+
+"I am very anxious," she exclaimed at last, turning from the window.
+
+"It is certainly strange," said Brandow, "it is now ten minutes of
+twelve; they ought to have been here an hour ago."
+
+"And my husband does not come either," said Ottilie.
+
+"Be glad that he is having a good time," replied Alma. "Are you going
+already, my dear friend?"
+
+"I will try to obtain some news of them," answered Brandow, who had
+hastily risen and taken his hat.
+
+"You won't venture out into this darkness again?" cried Alma.
+
+"Why, Alma!" exclaimed Ottilie.
+
+Brandow was in the act of taking leave, when the doorbell rang, a heavy
+step passed through the counting-room, and Herr Wollnow entered.
+Ottilie hurried towards him, and in a few words told him how matters
+stood. Herr Wollnow greeted the late guest with cold politeness. He saw
+no special reason for being anxious as yet, if Herr Brandow was not.
+
+"But he is," cried Ottilie.
+
+"In that case Herr Brandow would have gone in search of information
+long ago," replied Wollnow.
+
+"I am anxious, and I am not," said Brandow. "It is certainly a very
+dark night, and the road is not particularly good in one or two places,
+but Hinrich Scheel is a remarkably good driver, and--yes, it has just
+occurred to me--Gustav von Plüggen drove over the same road only a few
+minutes before our friends."
+
+"Which does not prove that some mischance may not have befallen one or
+the other party, or perhaps both," answered Wollnow. "I say mischance,
+ladies, not misfortune, but even a trifling mischance--the breaking of
+a wheel, or anything of that sort--is no joke on such a night as this;
+and I am most decidedly in favor of going to meet our friends. I will
+accompany you, Herr Brandow, if agreeable to you."
+
+"Certainly, of course, but I came on horseback," replied Brandow.
+
+"Then we will take a carriage at the Fürstenhof; if anything has
+happened, a carriage may be useful to them."
+
+Alma thought it very uncivil in the gentlemen to leave the ladies alone
+at such a moment, while Ottilie gave her husband a shawl, and whispered
+with a most affectionate kiss, "That's my own good Emil!"
+
+Wollnow had requested the ladies to stay in the room. When the door was
+closed, he said, "I am sure some misfortune has happened to them; and
+so are you, are you not?"
+
+His black eyes flashed so strangely, and looked so keen and piercing in
+the light of the lamp he carried in his hand, that Brandow shrank as if
+a question on which the result of the whole matter depended had been
+put to him in a court-room.
+
+"Oh! certainly not, by no means," he faltered; "that is, I really don't
+know what to think."
+
+"Nor I either," replied Wollnow curtly, putting the lamp on a table
+near the hall-door, and drawing back the bolt.
+
+The light fell brightly upon the door, and as Wollnow opened it
+darkness yawned outside. Suddenly against the black background appeared
+a figure at the sight of which even the calm Wollnow trembled, while
+Brandow, who was directly behind him, staggered back with a low
+cry--the figure of a man, whose clothing was drenched with water and
+besmeared with sand and clay as if he had just risen from the earth,
+and whose pale face, framed in its dark beard and shaded by a
+broad-brimmed hat, was terribly disfigured by a narrow stream of blood
+which ran from his temple across his cheek.
+
+"In Heaven's name, Gotthold, what has happened?" exclaimed Wollnow,
+holding out both hands to his friend, and drawing him into the house.
+
+"Where are the ladies?" asked Gotthold in a low tone.
+
+Wollnow motioned towards the sitting-room.
+
+"Then keep them away. Sellien is in the Fürstenhof, we have just
+bandaged his wounds, he is still unconscious; Lauterbach despairs of
+his recovery. I thought it would be better for me to bring the news.
+You here, Brandow?"
+
+Brandow had recovered his composure; it was absurd that he should have
+been so unnecessarily anxious. The scoundrel had as many lives as a
+cat, and what did he care for the other?
+
+"I have been waiting here for you almost two hours," said he. "But how
+could such an accident have happened? Poor Gotthold, and that good
+fellow Sellien! I must see how he is. You will probably remain here
+now, and you also, Herr Wollnow."
+
+Without waiting for a reply, he rushed out and disappeared in the
+darkness.
+
+Wollnow's eyes flashed as he looked after him, but he repressed the
+words that seemed trembling on his lips.
+
+"And you, my dear Gotthold?"
+
+"I have got off so," said Gotthold. "But what is to be done now? How
+shall we tell his wife?"
+
+"I should like to see him myself first. They know I was going to meet
+you, and will not miss me."
+
+"Then come."
+
+The two friends went out. Wollnow gave Gotthold his arm. "Lean on me,"
+said he; "lean firmly, and don't speak."
+
+"Only one thing. The ten thousand thalers Sellien had with him are
+lost. We did not notice it until we were cutting off his coat here."
+
+"How can they be lost if you were obliged to cut off his coat?"
+
+Gotthold made no reply; the faintness which he had already several
+times scarcely been able to conquer, once more stole over him, and he
+was obliged to lean very heavily on Wollnow's arm.
+
+Thus, not without considerable difficulty, they reached the Fürstenhof,
+where everything was in the greatest confusion, but did not see Brandow
+again. The host said that he had ordered his horse to be saddled as
+soon as he heard of the news of the loss of the money, and then rode
+away without seeing the Assessor. He could do no good here, he said;
+but the money would scarcely be found without him.
+
+"Nor with him perhaps," muttered Wollnow.
+
+There had been no change in the Assessor's condition.
+
+"If he does not recover his senses soon, we have no hope of saving the
+patient," said Doctor Lauterbach.
+
+The physician soon had two patients. Gotthold fell fainting upon
+Sellien's bed.
+
+"I said so," observed the Doctor; "it's a miracle that he has held out
+so long. It is really a bad accident."
+
+"If it is an accident," muttered Wollnow.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+Herr Wollnow and his wife now spent days and nights of ceaseless care.
+It had proved possible to move the Assessor, in spite of his serious
+injuries, to their house, where he was much more comfortably situated
+in every respect, while Gotthold, who in comparison was scarcely
+considered wounded, they were obliged to leave at the Fürstenhof. He
+had lain for hours, either unconscious or tossing in the wildest
+delirium, a prey to violent fever; the doctor shook his head gravely,
+and spoke of a concussion of the brain, which was not impossible, or
+some internal injury, which was extremely probable. Herr Wollnow was
+very anxious, and spent every moment he could spare by the bedside of
+the invalid.
+
+"The Assessor's case is really very simple," said he; "he has broken
+his left leg, and put his right arm out of joint; the arm has been set,
+and the leg is going on admirably. I'm not anxious about the Assessor,
+whom you ladies will soon set to rights; but with Gotthold it is
+different; we don't yet know exactly where we are; I can't be spared
+there."
+
+Ottilie thought he would have believed it impossible for him to be
+spared from Gotthold's side, under any circumstances, but she had
+nothing to say against a preference she herself shared; Gotthold
+already seemed like her own son.
+
+Herr Wollnow received this remarkable confession with a smile, and the
+same rather melancholy smile flitted over his grave face again and
+again, as he sat beside the sick man's bed, stroked the soft wavy hair
+from his burning brow, and compared the delicate features, now deadly
+pale and anon flushed with fever, with those of another face, which had
+once seemed to him the type and expression of all beauty, and whose
+memory his faithful heart had kept so loyally.
+
+And many strange thoughts, evoked by this recollection, passed
+through his mind as he sat in the quiet room through the long silent
+hours,--thoughts which approached caressingly, and he repelled because
+they sought to remove him from the firm ground on which he had placed
+himself and his house, and where he must stand resolutely if he did not
+wish to become the sport of the winds and the waves, with all that had
+been entrusted to his care. No, no; it beseems not only God to
+pronounce what He has created good, but man must also be permitted to
+say so of his works, must be able to say so, if he is to preserve the
+strength and courage needed to guard what he has made. He had chosen
+his own part; no matter whether he had taken the worse or better, he
+had chosen it, and in those words all was said. Those are not the best,
+but the worst men, who wish to decide for themselves what has been
+settled long ago.
+
+But for him, who, according to the number of his years, might be his
+son--whom he would so gladly--no no! not that, not that; but he loved
+him because he was so good and noble, loved him as an older man can and
+may love a younger whom he sees tottering along the same intricate
+mazes of the path of life, which once drank his own heart's blood--for
+him nothing was yet decided. Could not the determination be made so
+that the heart need not pour forth its best blood, ere it was calm
+enough to understand the lessons of wisdom? How gladly would he have
+procured him a happiness of which he had himself been deprived! It
+could no longer be a perfect happiness, under any circumstances--too
+much had already happened which would cast its shadow athwart the
+fairest future--but perhaps to him it was the only one possible. After
+all, there was something in the race, in the old habits of thought and
+feeling transmitted to their descendants by those ancient Germans, who
+did not try to improve their wretched homes, but simply gave the matter
+up, who knew of no other stratagem in battle except that of binding
+themselves together with chains, and in gambling preferred to be
+ruined, rather than make any concession to ill-luck. And now he too!
+the son of such a father, such a mother, who both had been destroyed by
+this excess of feeling, which will suffer no bargaining and trading.
+Here also the case was essentially different; a force was involved here
+which was entirely lacking then, a force which almost seemed to make
+what he would otherwise condemn as a crime against society, an act of
+philanthropy--a necessity, and yet in his eyes a sad one.
+
+To be sure, almost everything in regard to this question was still and
+must remain mere conjecture, at least so long as those who had been the
+victims of this--accident on the moor were unable to tell what they
+knew, or what observations they had made before and after. True, at
+best it was probable that very little weight could be given to the
+Assessor's statement, since from the little Gotthold had communicated
+on that first evening, it was evident enough that the former had been
+incapable of judging of anything; and even now, when he could think and
+speak clearly again, he persisted in the assertion that he knew
+nothing, and must have slept until the catastrophe happened. But
+Gotthold, who, with the delicate perceptions of an artist, must have
+seen, heard, and noticed everything, could undoubtedly supply materials
+which a clever investigator would know how to prize.
+
+To be sure, Justizrath von Zadenig, in the neighboring capital of the
+island, to whose district the case belonged, could hardly be included
+in this category. The Herr Justizrath saw nothing at all unusual in the
+event. That carriages might be upset in more or less dangerous places,
+and pocket-books or such things lost, everybody must admit; and that
+the road across Dollan moor contained such places was well known, at
+least to him, Justizrath von Zadenig, who knew the story of the two
+Wenhof cousins, part of which was connected with Dollan moor, very
+well, as everybody else did, who, like him, was descended from one of
+the old island families. The Brandows were not an old family, and the
+way in which they had got possession of Dahlitz was not exactly
+justifiable; but they no longer owned it, and Carl Brandow ought not to
+be called to account for the condition of the Dollan roads, over which
+three or four generations of Wenhofs had passed to and fro unmolested.
+That was a thing he, Justizrath von Zadenig, considered quite
+inadmissible, the more so as the brunt of the trouble would not come
+upon Brandow, but on his own brother-in-law, the Herr Landrath von
+Swantenit, of Swantenit, who at the last session of the court had been
+made responsible for the condition of the high-roads and by-ways. If,
+however, Herr Wollnow, of whose wisdom and judgment he held the highest
+opinion, thought that the matter ought to be thoroughly investigated,
+he would send at once for the Herr Referendar von Pahlen, and even
+despatch a gensdarme with him, which, always looked particularly
+official and serious. Surely Herr Wollnow would be satisfied with that.
+
+Herr Wollnow was satisfied, because he had obtained all he could get
+from the indolent, but in other respects worthy old gentleman; and
+after he had settled a few other business matters, returned to Prora,
+where, at the door of the Fürstenhof, he met Carl Brandow, who had
+ridden in to-day, as usual, to inquire in person about the condition of
+the invalids.
+
+"Things are going on admirably," he cried, as he saw Herr Wollnow. "His
+head has been perfectly clear for the last hour. I have not tried to
+see him, because I thought all excitement ought still to be avoided;
+but I spoke to Lauterbach, who looks very solemn. He had made up his
+mind to an inflammation of the brain, and now sees that he'll pull
+through. Sellien, too, is getting along as well as can be expected; so
+I can ride home today with a lighter heart than usual. How delighted my
+wife will be! Perhaps I shall bring her in with me tomorrow. I have
+Frau Wollnow's permission to do so. Good-by until to-morrow, Herr
+Wollnow, good by."
+
+"That chestnut gelding's a fine horse," said the groom, looking after
+him as he galloped away; "but it's nothing at all in comparison to the
+one he rode Sunday night. That was a splendid animal."
+
+Wollnow's glance had also followed the slight figure, whose seat in the
+saddle was so firm and graceful. "If he is really the scoundrel I think
+him, it will be difficult to outwit him at all events. And I must not
+let Gotthold notice anything; it would excite him terribly, and, for
+the present, without due cause; at least I must have firmer ground. It
+would certainly be no child's play: the snare which could catch the
+knave would need very small meshes."
+
+As his friend entered, Gotthold extended his hand, which, though very
+white, was entirely free from fever.
+
+"There," said he, "feel it yourself; and now with this clasp let me
+thank you for your kindness, your affection. I have not been so
+entirely out of my mind as not to see your face distinctly from time to
+time, amid all the delirious fancies that oppressed me, and always with
+the grave pitying expression, which I shall gratefully remember as long
+as I live."
+
+Gotthold's voice trembled, and tears glittered in his eyes--"It is not
+the weakness of sickness," said he: "I will frankly confess the truth:
+it is the power of an emotion which is entirely new to me. I have had
+so little opportunity to be grateful for the services of love. The
+person who to others, during their whole lives, stands forth as the
+image of unselfish, self-sacrificing devotion--my mother--died so
+early, I scarcely knew her; I was separated from my father by an--as I
+must believe--impassable gulf, and for ten years have wandered about
+the world amid a thousand events, a thousand relations, ever in the
+bustle of society, constantly among, and often even the centre of a
+large circle of friends, and yet in the inmost depths of my soul
+alone--alone, and longing for a love which so late in life has been
+given me by a man whom I saw a few days ago for the first time, and
+between whom and myself no relations had previously existed save those
+of the most ordinary business transactions."
+
+The merchant's grave dark face expressed keen emotion, and his deep
+voice sounded strangely low and gentle as he said after a short pause:
+
+"And suppose that we did not meet a few days ago for the first time;
+suppose I had held you in my arms when you were a boy four or five
+years old; suppose the interest I took in you sprang from a much deeper
+source than our business relations, was connected with all the poetry
+and beauty of my life: what then, my dear young friend, what then?"
+
+"Did you know my mother?" asked Gotthold, with a sudden presentiment;
+"you must have known her."
+
+"I knew and--loved her. To know and love her was in those days the same
+thing to me, nay, even at this moment they still seem to belong
+together, like light and warmth."
+
+"And my mother--loved you. Speak frankly, and explain the mystery that
+has always rested upon the relations between my parents."
+
+Wollnow shook his head. "No, no," said he, "that is not it; even if it
+seemed so for a moment, it was only seeming, and it is the sorrowful
+pride of my life that I did not allow myself to be dazzled by this
+semblance; that through it I perceived the rugged path duty and honor
+commanded me to tread."
+
+"You increase the mystery instead of dispelling it," said Gotthold.
+
+"So many things in this drama have remained mysterious, even to me,"
+replied Wollnow, covering his eyes with his hand; "but one fact is
+plain, that a man of your father's stamp, so highly gifted, so glowing
+with the holy passion of truth, could not fail to arouse an
+overmastering love in the heart of your no less gifted, no less
+enthusiastic mother. I assure you, my friend, if ever there was a love
+such as you described a short time ago, it was that which impelled
+these two rare, beautiful natures towards each other, like two flames
+which rush together into one. Any one who witnessed the spectacle stood
+in silent admiration, saying: No other conclusion is possible. My poor
+dear friend said so, though it was a death sentence to him; I said so
+too, and thought my heart would break; but it was stronger than I
+believed, and then--I was determined to live! With that determination
+one can do so, my friend, although it is at first a very wretched,
+pitiful fragment of life."
+
+Wollnow paused, for he felt that he could not go on calmly. After a
+short time he continued:
+
+"I am not now in a condition to judge whether I have erred in allowing
+myself to be led on to make this confession to you, but I should
+certainly wrong the memory of your parents, you, my dear young friend,
+nay, myself, if I did not now tell you all, although the all is but
+little, and this little terribly significant of the sad uncertainty of
+human destiny.
+
+"The handsome young couple came here. I saw them again by accident a
+few years after, when business chanced to bring me into this
+neighborhood, for I would have gone out of my way to avoid a meeting
+which could only cause me pain. But as I drove through Rammin, one of
+the wheels of my carriage broke directly in front of the parsonage. I
+was thrown out so violently that I dislocated my arm, and was compelled
+to claim your parents' hospitality for several weeks. You cannot
+remember me, but I can still see the curly-haired, large-eyed little
+boy, who played so happily at his mother's side among the beds of
+asters in the garden in the autumn sunlight, and, thank God, had no
+suspicion of the meaning of the mournful expression with which the
+beautiful young mother often gazed over the child's head into vacancy.
+Alas! for her the flowers did not bloom, the sun did not shine;
+everything around her was dark, and darkness was within her, in her
+warm young heart. And it was the same in the ardent heart of the man
+whom she had once so passionately loved, and who had loved her with
+equal fervor, who, I am perfectly sure, loved her with no less devotion
+at that moment, when they already seemed to hate each other, perhaps
+fancied they did. Oh! my dear friend, I won't preach--I won't begin our
+late dispute again; but how can I help touching the wound, and saying:
+'Here again it was--and in a fatal manner--the want of moderation,
+which will not be satisfied with things as they are, will not try to
+make the best of circumstances, but releasing itself from commonplace
+conditions, strives to realize an ideal vision'? These two beautiful
+natures, which could offer so much, be so much to each other,
+considered it nothing because it was not all. She expected him to be
+not only the champion of the Church before whom she had at first knelt
+in admiration, but also to possess every virtue the intelligent,
+much-courted young girl had ever admired in any man. He expected her to
+wear, in addition to all the charms with which nature had so lavishly
+endowed her--I know not what mystic crown, without which all earthly
+beauty was valueless in the eyes of the enthusiastic apostle. And
+instead of trying to lessen the necessary differences between their
+natures as much as possible by gentleness and patience, and overlook
+the remnant which would still be left, out of respect for the Great
+Power of which we are only an infinitesimal part, both with fatal
+defiance increased their special gifts; he wanted to do nothing but see
+and read obscure writings by a glass; she, who had always been far too
+proud to be vain, declared that the glass told her nothing except that
+she was young and beautiful, as the world was, in spite of all fanatics
+and devotees. And now this strange conflict went on in the quiet
+parsonage of a little village, on an island which in those days was
+almost entirely secluded from all intercourse with the outside
+world--what marvel was it that the two unhappy combatants bled from
+painful wounds--and must bleed to death if they are not separated in
+time, the world thinks and says in such cases. I am well aware of it,
+but I did not think so. I said to myself: 'These two cannot forget or
+lose each other, even if they should place a world between them, and
+next to themselves the person would suffer most who might be mad enough
+to aid this separation.' I said this also to the young wife, who could
+not or would not conceal her misery from me. I spoke to her--as I
+thought my duty required me to do--with earnest entreaty, and I must
+confess that in so speaking I drowned, not the voice of my conviction,
+but of my own heart, which during this strange scene seemed as if it
+would burst my laboring breast. Now, for the first time, I learned that
+before the right man came I had been dearer to the beautiful girl than
+I had ever ventured to hope or suspect--learned it in broken words and
+hints which rose from her glowing, passionate heart like sparks from a
+blazing fire. How can I deny that I was touched by this fire, that it
+became inexpressibly difficult for me to withstand it? Yes, my friend,
+I struggled like the patriarch of old on that wondrous night, and from
+my heaving breast, like his, the magic words were gasped forth, 'I will
+not let thee go, except Thou bless me.'
+
+"And was it no blessing that some trace of the repose I had won by so
+fierce a conflict seemed to calm the soul of the despairing young wife,
+that she--which in such a situation is everything--found time to regain
+her self-control, to remember what she had once possessed, to ask
+herself whether she might not possess it again if she desired. I can
+still see the look with which she extended her hand as she bade me
+farewell, the earnest, expressive glance in which a gleam of hope still
+sparkled. I can still hear her sweet voice utter the words which were
+the richest reward to me for all I had done and suffered, the words: 'I
+thank you, my friend.'"
+
+"And I thank you," said Gotthold, seizing the hand of the
+deeply-agitated man, and pressing it warmly, "thank you with all my
+heart, for you have acted according to your sincere conviction, and
+what can a man do more? But you did not save my poor mother from dying
+of a broken heart."
+
+Wollnow looked gloomily at the floor. Gotthold, smiling sadly,
+continued:
+
+"To be sure, it is better to die so, to die young, than to live on with
+a broken heart, to the torment instead of the joy of one's self and
+others, as was the fate of my poor father. And he cannot have become
+reconciled to my mother's shade. Else why, when he pushed me from him
+in anger, did his pale lips murmur: 'You are just like your mother'?
+No, no, my friend, I honor your wisdom, but I think one must be born
+wise--it is not to be learned."
+
+"At least in one lesson," said Wollnow, with grave kindness, "and this
+has lasted long enough--too long, when I consider the condition of the
+pupil."
+
+Gotthold protested against this decision; he felt perfectly well, and
+strong enough to continue the argument a long time; besides, the
+subject had a demoniacal charm for him.
+
+"And for that very reason we will drop it," replied Wollnow, "and
+instead, if you are really strong enough, I will request you to answer
+a few questions in relation to your unlucky drive. I will confess that
+I put them partly at the desire of a prominent magistrate. At least,
+Justizrath von Zadenig declares that no farther steps can be taken in
+this disagreeable matter without your deposition, and has begged me to
+take it down in a legal form."
+
+Gotthold looked up in astonishment--"What is the point in question?"
+
+"It concerns, in the first place, the lost money, which must, if
+possible, be recovered," replied Wollnow.
+
+"Poor Sellien! I am sorry for him," said Gotthold; "but I don't see how
+your questions and my answers can aid in its recovery."
+
+"Let us see. Do you know that Sellien had the money with him when you
+left Dollan?"
+
+"I am sure of it; as he did not suspect it came from me, he told me in
+a walk we took after dinner that Brandow had paid him, and showed me
+the packet, which he took out of the breast-pocket of his coat. I also
+saw it there during the whole evening--not without some little anxiety.
+I feared he might be tempted to stake the money. Fortunately he always
+won."
+
+"So he was gambling. Who was the loser?"
+
+"Brandow."
+
+"Did he lose much?"
+
+"I think he lost five thousand thalers to Redebas, who was the only
+person that had the courage to make a stand against so rash an
+adversary."
+
+"Of course he did not pay him on the spot."
+
+"Certainly not; and from that very circumstance arose the quarrel which
+ended in the others leaving the house in a rage."
+
+"Did you take any part in the dispute?"
+
+"Oh, no; Sellien perhaps was a little mixed up with it; at least
+Brandow made it the pretext for the rudeness that drove us also from
+the house."
+
+"Drove you out of the house! Very good," said Wollnow, when he had made
+a written record of the words. "And Sellien still had the money when
+you went away?"
+
+"I felt the packet when I buttoned his overcoat; he was then partially
+intoxicated."
+
+"And the overcoat was still buttoned when Lauterbach wanted to bandage
+his injuries here. So you said a short time ago, and Lauterbach
+confirms it. Did you make no attempt to remove his clothes at the
+smithy?"
+
+"No. Old Prebrow wanted to do so, but Sellien, who came to his senses
+for a moment, begged so earnestly to be let alone, that we desisted,
+and contented ourselves with making him as comfortable a bed as we
+could on some straw and hay in the bottom of the wagon the Prebrows had
+already prepared."
+
+"And did you feel the pocket-book there too?"
+
+Gotthold reflected a moment. "No," said he, "he did not have it there.
+I remember now, because first the old man and then I myself felt his
+breast, as he complained of severe pain in his left ribs. I could not
+have helped feeling the packet. That is certainly strange."
+
+"It is indeed," replied Wollnow, "since neither of the worthy Prebrows,
+father and son, who carried him from the place where the accident
+occurred to the smithy, can have taken it out of his pocket."
+
+"Impossible!" exclaimed Gotthold.
+
+"And it is almost equally impossible, though in another sense,
+that during his fall he can have lost it out of the pocket of a
+closely-buttoned coat, over which another was buttoned."
+
+"Yet there is no other supposition."
+
+"So it seems. But let us go back a few steps. You had the impression
+throughout, that Brandow was driving you from the house. Did not that
+seem strange?"
+
+"No and yes."
+
+"We will suppose that the no refers to your relations with Brandow, and
+the yes to the Assessor's, whose favor he certainly had the most urgent
+motives to keep. I confess it is incomprehensible to me. And on such a
+night too--as King Lear says, 'In storm and rain and darkness'--to
+drive you out of the house and give you a carriage with no lamps to
+convey you over such notoriously bad roads."
+
+"All that is true," said Gotthold in an embarrassed tone; "but
+recurring to Brandow's unfriendliness--which, moreover, he instantly
+regretted, and tried to make amends for the same evening--will scarcely
+help us to the recovery of the money."
+
+"You see what an unskilful inquisitor I am," replied Wollnow, passing
+his hand over his brow. "Let us leave the master, and without regard
+for the old adage, turn to the man. Was he not the same one who drove
+you out in the morning?"
+
+"The same. Brandow's trainer, and as you see, occasional coachman,
+steward also, in a word, factotum."
+
+"Factotum, very good," said Wollnow. "A do-everything, in contrast to
+always doing right, for this Signer Do-everything seems to fear nothing
+and no one, at least that was the impression he made upon me. What do
+you think of the man?"
+
+"That he is a remarkable fellow, so far as this, that any one who had
+seen him once would hardly forget him. I remember him perfectly from
+the time I first knew him, years ago, till now: the square flat head,
+and low retreating forehead of the large animals of the cat tribe, to
+which his green squinting eyes also bear a resemblance, while his broad
+shoulders, short, thick-set figure, and clumsy bow legs are more like
+the dog tribe--a cross between the terrier and bull-dog, whose tenacity
+and faithfulness he also possesses. I believe he would go through fire
+and water for his master."
+
+"And water," said Wollnow. "What wonderful eyes you artists have! How
+dear that description is! And now we have this estimable monster, this
+faithful Caliban, on the front seat of the carriage, driving through
+the darkness. What about the ride?"
+
+"I have frankly confessed that, until just before the accident, I
+noticed little or nothing of what was passing around me. But I remember
+now that we ascended the hill with difficulty, probably because the
+wind was directly against us, and Hinrich Scheel, with his usual
+cruelty, violently lashed the poor horses, which seemed to have a
+presentiment of their fate, and would not move from the spot until
+Hinrich at last jumped out of the carriage."
+
+"Jumped out of the carriage," repeated Wollnow; "that was very wise,
+very apropos; for the fall occurred directly after, didn't it?"
+
+"It must have taken place at that very moment."
+
+"Let us say a few moments after, otherwise the faithful Caliban would
+have been obliged to join the party. The fall you have already
+described to me, so far as you were conscious of the precise
+moment--and it is astonishing how far an artist's observation extends
+to the gates, nay, I might say across the very threshold of death. And
+how long did this terrible moment, when you were so near your end,
+last?"
+
+"I can hardly say; I became unconscious without pain or struggle, as
+quickly and imperceptibly as the lid falls over the eye; and in the
+same manner, without the slightest struggle, my senses returned, and I
+lay with my eyes fixed upon the moon, watching the yellowish brown
+clouds over her face grow thinner and thinner--as if I had nothing else
+to do--until her rays suddenly pierced the last transparent veil, and
+shone in their full brilliancy. At the same moment the consciousness of
+my situation returned, and I knew as well as if some one had told me
+that I had remained lying on a ledge about half way down the slope,
+while the carriage and horses, sliding down the precipice to the edge
+of the morass, were lying in one confused, terrible heap, amid which I
+could distinguish nothing. After this, I must have again fallen, not
+into an unconscious condition, but a sort of delirious state. I had a
+distinct vision of a horseman, who, with a speed that only occurs in
+dreams, dashed away from me across the marsh in the direction of
+Neuenhof. Like the traditional ghostly rider, he had his head bent far
+over the long thin neck of his flying steed, and wore a tall hat. A
+ghost in a tall hat, isn't it ridiculous?"
+
+"Very ridiculous!" said Wollnow. He had risen from his seat again, and
+gone to the window to conceal his agitation from Gotthold. What was
+that the groom had said just now about the remarkable speed of the
+horse Brandow had ridden that night? And the spectral rider had dashed
+in the direction of Neuenhof, from whence Brandow had come!--Brandow,
+who strangely enough had worn a tall hat that night, and the tall hat
+was splashed with marshy water.
+
+Wollnow turned to Gotthold again: "Do you think it impossible for any
+one, I mean any one of flesh and blood, to cross Dollan marsh, even on
+the best and fastest horse?"
+
+"What put that into your head?" asked Gotthold in amazement.
+
+"Oh! nothing, except that Brandow has been telling everywhere that one
+of the horses which broke away from the carriage and tried to make its
+escape across the morass was drowned in the attempt."
+
+"Then that is surely the best proof of the impossibility."
+
+"Certainly," replied Wollnow; "and now you must have perfect quiet, or
+Lauterbach will be very angry. I will come back again in two hours;
+until then you must sleep undisturbed."
+
+Wollnow spent the two hours in a restless, impatient mood, of which the
+calm, self-possessed man would not have believed himself capable. He
+was expecting the young lawyer, who had promised to stop in Prora on
+his return from Dollan and tell him the result of his investigations.
+Herr von Pahlen had left B. two hours before him, and might surely have
+executed his commission by this time. The expected visitor arrived at
+last, but without the gendarme Herr von Zadenig had ordered to attend
+him to give a suitable coloring to the affair.
+
+"This is a very strange business," said Herr von Pahlen. "You know I
+went ostensibly to take the deposition of the man who drove the
+gentlemen, Hinrich Scheel; at least he was the principal person, and
+now would you believe it--"
+
+"The man had disappeared," said Wollnow.
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"I only thought so; but go on."
+
+"Had actually disappeared," continued Herr von Pahlen, "although half
+an hour before our arrival he had been seen by the laborers on the
+estate, and also by Herr Brandow, who had just returned home. He had
+disappeared and could not be found, although Herr Brandow was kind
+enough to send men in every direction, who as Herr Brandow himself
+said, must have found him if--"
+
+"The man had wanted to be found."
+
+"Exactly, but how stupid in the fellow, who, after all, is not to
+blame, except for having taken for the journey the two worst beasts
+among the many good ones, in order to spare the carriage-horses. It is
+from this cause Brandow says, as he now looks at the matter, that the
+whole misfortune arose. To be sure, if the fellow has really fled--I
+have left Rüterbusch there for the present, who will arrest him if he
+makes his appearance--the case assumes a very different aspect. The
+fellow will suggest the inference that he either found the money, God
+knows how, or took it out of the Assessor's pocket while he was
+senseless, and now, being conscious of his guilt, fled when he saw us
+coming--and one can see a long distance over the moor. Brandow, who was
+very much astonished, said that he should have attributed such a crime
+to any one rather than this man, who had always been highly esteemed by
+his father, and since his death had served him faithfully and honestly,
+but admitted that the sudden disappearance was very mysterious; and
+after all everything was possible; at any rate, the possibility could
+not now be denied that the poor devil might have yielded to the great
+temptation of becoming a rich man at one stroke."
+
+"A devil always feels tempted to do evil, even if he is not poor," said
+Wollnow.
+
+"So you think he has stolen it," asked the lawyer eagerly.
+
+"I have nothing to do with the matter," replied Wollnow evasively,
+while his dark eyes flashed with an expression that seemed to say that
+for all that he did have an opinion in regard to the affair, and a very
+decided one.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+Gotthold had left Prora for Sundin as soon as his health permitted,
+although Ottilie declared that the Prora air was infinitely better for
+a convalescent, and he could complete the promised picture just as well
+here as there. Nay, she had even announced herself ready to give up the
+present entirely, if their friend could not be induced to stay on any
+other terms; but her husband had again differed from her in opinion.
+
+"We ought not to try to detain one who wants to go," said he, "or we
+must be responsible for all the results that may proceed from his stay,
+and that I have no inclination to do in this case. I am sincerely
+attached to the young man, as he deserves, and wish him from my heart
+all the happiness he deserves; but I don't exactly see how he could
+obtain it upon this path. And in this I have not clung to the views you
+know I hold regarding marriage. I would be reconciled to all possible
+concessions, if Gotthold could be helped. But that cannot be done yet.
+The only way to remove the obstacles from his path is such a terrible
+one, that, from my knowledge of his nature, he will shudder to use it
+if matters ever go far enough. At present they have not reached that
+point."
+
+"I shall take care not to rack my brains over this mystery," cried
+Ottilie; "only let me ask one question, to which I beg you to give me a
+plain, straightforward answer: Does Gotthold know of this expedient?"
+
+"I have not mentioned it to him, but it is possible that, with his
+penetration, he has hit upon it himself."
+
+However little satisfaction Ottilie had derived from this very vague
+information, she had not been able to doubt that Gotthold really wished
+to go away, and even her husband's persuasion would hardly have
+detained him.
+
+Gotthold had hurried off with the impetuosity of one who fancies some
+magic spell has been cast over him, and strives to break it, cost what
+it may. And had not an enchanted ring been woven around him from the
+moment he had entered his native island, and been driven by the
+companion of his boyhood, without recognizing him, through his native
+fields? Good Jochen Prebrow! He certainly bore very little resemblance
+to a Mercury, and yet with him had commenced the succession of marvels
+which had taken place during the last few days, which had now shown him
+a heavenly face and now a fiendish grin; now refreshed him with nectar
+and ambrosia, and anon strewn ashes on his tongue.
+
+"I should be the most miserable creature on earth if you did not
+understand me!"
+
+The words constantly rang in his ears--the words and the anxious tone
+in which she had uttered them, as if from the depths of the
+wretchedness into which she would sink without hope of deliverance, if
+he did not understand her. She and he! Was not doubt misunderstanding,
+and were not doubt and despair one and the same thing in this case?
+
+Had he understood her?
+
+It was in the middle of the night, when Gotthold started from a
+troubled sleep, that the meaning of the mystery had appeared before his
+soul, as if born of the darkness: there was one thing, and only one,
+which she could not, dared not do: go while her child remained,
+remained in the power of this fiend; and by this one thing the fiend
+had forced her to obey his will. And force her to go he can and will,
+will apply for the dissolution of a marriage bond she has broken--or
+would she, the proud woman, deny it? Deny upon oath, in a court of
+justice, that she had ever rested in the arms of her friend? Repeat in
+the court-room, before the world, the yes which in his presence she had
+long since changed to an inflexible no? Very well, then the breach of
+faith was proved, the marriage dissolved, the child would be taken from
+the guilty parent, and given to the one who was innocent of blame!
+
+Then, with a sneering laugh, he had repeated to her the shameful
+formula, with which the next morning, in the presence of her lover, she
+was to degrade herself to a level with the lowest--must do so if he did
+not see through the fiendish plot, if he did not understand her!
+
+Thank God, he understood her now! But how she must have suffered! How
+she must suffer still!
+
+And was this state of things to continue? Never, never. Now that he had
+at last penetrated his enemy's base game, he must win the victory. If
+he had allowed himself to be paid with money for the shame of knowing
+that his wife's heart belonged to another, how far would not his
+venality extend? But he would sell everything--honor, wife, and child.
+Why had he not disposed of all at once, since he knew any price would
+be paid that came within the means of the buyer? Did he wish to
+increase the value of his wares by selling them separately? Or was
+there, even for him, a limit which he could not pass? Inconceivable. Or
+was his hatred towards his rival greater than his avarice? Did he carry
+the refinement of cruelty so far as only to mutilate his victim, in
+order to exult in her agony?
+
+It was certainly very probable from such a man, but how long would this
+spendthrift and gambler remain in a situation to be able to afford
+himself so costly a luxury? How soon would necessity compel him to sell
+off his wares? What had the purchaser to do, except practise a little
+patience and keep the money ready?
+
+The property which Gotthold had hitherto considered of so little
+importance, suddenly acquired a priceless value in his eyes, and he
+felt sorely troubled by the thought that he had entrusted the greater
+part of it to persons whose honesty was by no means beyond question;
+at least Wollnow, even when their intercourse had been limited to
+letter-writing, had repeatedly made such hints, and finally in plain
+words warned him against the house in Stettin; but Gotthold, out of
+indifference towards the property, and respect for the name of his dead
+relative, which had been retained by the firm, had not heeded the
+warning until Wollnow had recently spoken on this point even more
+urgently, and said that he must withdraw his money, and there was
+danger in delay. The banker in Sundin who discounted Wollnow's notes
+had confirmed the statement of his business acquaintance, and offered
+him his services, but said it would be better to withdraw it to-day
+than to-morrow.
+
+Gotthold had intended to do so, but his next visit had been to his
+protégé, the young artist Bruggberg, whom he found dying, and in the
+duties of friendship he had forgotten everything else. Then days and
+weeks of the most sorrowful emotions had followed, during which he
+could form no resolution. Now he did not need to form any; now he was
+eager to make up for the delay; but it was too late.
+
+When he entered the banker's office, the latter came to meet him with a
+very grave face. News had just come from Stettin that Lenz & Co. had
+failed, in a most unprecedented, scandalous manner; the creditors would
+not receive five per cent. "I am sincerely sorry," said Herr Nathanson;
+"I lose a small sum myself, if one can be said to lose what one has
+given up all hopes of getting long ago; but you are very heavily
+involved, if I understand you rightly. Did you not have fifty thousand
+thalers invested there?"
+
+A short time before Gotthold would merely have shrugged his shoulders
+at such news, and gone back to his work. Now it came upon him like a
+thunder-clap. By the sum recently borrowed of Wollnow and his present
+loss, his property was reduced to about one-fourth of its original
+amount, and even this, strictly speaking, no longer belonged to him.
+Nay, he need not even be overstrict; it was only necessary not to be
+faithless to the obligations into which he had entered--obligations to
+struggling young artists, who had based their hopes of the future on
+his friendship, to widows and children of his deceased companions in
+art, who but for him would sink into poverty. What was left him if he
+paid these debts, as his honor, his heart bade him? Nothing! Nothing
+except the income from his labor. It was enough and more than enough
+for himself--but for the insatiate avarice of that spendthrift! He
+would not be put off with promises, nor accept payments on account, not
+he!
+
+Gotthold stood helpless before a barrier that towered before him in
+impassable height, and which neither his anger nor his despair could
+remove. Of what crime could she be charged, except that young,
+generous, and confiding, she had allowed herself to be deceived by a
+villain, and then after long years of terrible, silent agony, had once
+more breathed freely at the sight of the friend of her youth, and fled
+to his arms for deliverance? And now she was the guilty one, and this
+scoundrel, asserting his rights, could mock, torture, kill her
+unpunished.
+
+Thus anger and love drove him restlessly around in the terrible circle,
+from which no escape seemed possible unless some means could be found
+to fasten the crime, before the eyes of all the world, upon the person
+who was really guilty.
+
+But how could such crimes be proved?
+
+Gotthold started in horror when, while racking his brains over the
+possibility, he surprised himself in the act of producing this proof.
+Should he sully his own and Cecilia's honor by revealing the dark
+secrets, which, under cover of the night, extended from the master's
+room at Dollan to the little attic chamber of the maid-servant? Never!
+
+And that the spendthrift and gambler would ever venture out of the dark
+mole-tracks of vice to the comparatively open road of crime was a
+thought that had also occurred to him; but there were too many
+probabilities against it. He did not give the scoundrel credit for the
+courage that always belongs to crime; besides, in that case, Wollnow
+would probably have expressed some suspicion; Wollnow, who, apparently
+out of sympathy for the Assessor, and perhaps also from the impulse of
+his own nature, which every dark problem irritated, had entered into
+the affair so eagerly, followed with so much care even the smallest
+clew that might lead to the discovery of the lost or stolen money. And,
+after all, was it not a psychological impossibility, that even a
+Brandow--if he had been directly or indirectly concerned in the
+robbery--could quietly clasp the hand of the man he had wronged, as he
+had done just now, when Gotthold met him engaged in a most animated
+conversation with the convalescent and his wife. True, the matter had
+been settled by the trustees of the convent of St. Jürgen, in a manner
+particularly favorable to Sellien. Under the direction of Alma's
+father, who presided at the meeting, they decided that the Assessor was
+not in the least to blame, since, as the agent of the convent, he was
+authorized, nay obliged, to receive the money, and certainly could not
+be held responsible for what happened to him on Dollan moor, during and
+after the fall. So the convent merely set down the ten thousand thalers
+as lost, "and," Sellien's father-in-law said, "if we were requested to
+withdraw the warrant for the apprehension of Hinrich Scheel, I, for
+one, should make no objection. The fellow has escaped long ago, and it
+is neither for our interest, gentlemen, nor that of my son-in-law, to
+have the stupid story constantly kept before the people."
+
+Brandow laughed heartily when Sellien, in the most amusing manner, gave
+an account of the last meeting of the trustees, but was unfortunately
+obliged to take his leave immediately, as he wanted to go away directly
+after he had attended another consultation of the racing committee: the
+seventh within a fortnight! He could not get away from the city at all;
+but what was he to do? It was everything to him to get the resolution
+to include a piece of marshy ground in the race-course withdrawn. His
+Brownlock, which had compared very favorably with the other horses
+yesterday, was as good a steeple-chaser as could be found; but for the
+very reason that he had so much power in leaping, required firm ground.
+"It would be a sin and shame to treat him so; even young Prince Prora
+has declared it 'indigne.' But I'll pay no forfeit for non-performance
+of my contract. I'd rather be left sticking in the bog and if necessary
+drown."
+
+"He is a hero!" Alma Sellien exclaimed, ere Brandow had closed the door
+behind him, opening her eyes very wide to express her enthusiasm.
+
+"He is a fool," Gotthold muttered to himself, as he walked through the
+wet, silent streets towards his lodgings; "at least as much fool as
+knave, and certainly incapable of a deed which, in any sense, requires
+a man."
+
+On reaching his room, Gotthold found a letter in the firm, even bold
+hand of Wollnow, now so familiar to him.
+
+The epistle was a lengthy one. Gotthold expected to find news of the
+Stettin affair, about which a great deal of correspondence had passed
+between him and his friend during the last few weeks. He was mistaken.
+His eyes sparkled as, still standing, he glanced rapidly over the
+pages; then he threw himself into a chair, but instantly started up
+again, for his resolution was already formed. He hurried to the house
+where the racing committee met. Herr Brandow, after a violent
+altercation with one of the gentlemen on the committee, had left the
+house half an hour before. He went to the hotel where he knew Brandow
+usually lodged. This time Herr Brandow had not done the hotel the
+honor; perhaps he had taken a room at the "Golden Lion." The "Golden
+Lion" knew nothing of Herr Brandow; perhaps the gentleman might be at
+the "White Rose." Brandow had left the "White Rose" about fifteen
+minutes before, for home, the head waiter thought, at least he had
+ordered his luggage to be carried to the ferry-boat.
+
+The next boat left in half an hour. Gotthold had just time to hurry
+home and put clothing enough to last for a few days into a travelling
+bag. "It is possible that I may not return for several days," he called
+to the landlady, and added in an under-tone: "It is possible I may not
+return at all."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+The passage to the island was unusually long that day. A strong
+head-wind had sprung up; the boat was overloaded with passengers and
+horses, and they were obliged to tack, cautiously. Conversation among
+the passengers, most of whom were land-owners and farmers on the
+island, turned almost exclusively upon the races which were to take
+place in a few days, and would be the most brilliant ones that had ever
+been seen. Horses were to come from Silesia, and even Hungary; Prince
+Prora would probably have taken part in them himself, if he had been
+admitted. The great public prize was increased to a thousand thalers,
+but the principal race would be the one between the gentlemen riders.
+It had at first been supposed that not three of the twenty-four horses
+registered would appear, since even in May, six, from fear of Herr
+Brandow's Brownlock, had already paid the forfeit for failing to fulfil
+their contract; but now the tables were turned, now all wanted to be
+allowed a place, for it was notorious that Brownlock could not cross
+the marsh, and then he would be obliged to give up the lead to go round
+it, and could not recover it again, since there was only one very
+slight impediment between the bog and the winning-post, and on a free
+course the other horses could easily cope with him.
+
+So the men, putting their heads together, talked eagerly among
+themselves, while rain and spray dashed over their broad shoulders, and
+Gotthold pondered over the letter he carried in his pocket. "Brownlock
+can't cross the bog, Brandow says so himself;" he had another motive
+for saying so besides that of stimulating his opponent's desire to bet,
+as one of the speakers had suggested.
+
+At last the boat reached the opposite shore. Gotthold hurried to the
+inn to get a carriage to take him to Prora. Herr Peter's three
+carriages were all away, but one would soon return, nay, ought to have
+been back now; but he could not depend upon the grooms; the only
+reliable one he had ever had got married about three weeks ago, one
+Jochen Prebrow from Dollan, that is, not the estate, but the smithy,
+near which the accident had lately happened of which the gentleman had
+probably heard.
+
+"Why, good gracious!" exclaimed Herr Peters, "it's you yourself. I
+should hardly have known you. You look much paler and thinner than you
+did three weeks ago, when you passed through here with the Herr
+Assessor and Herr Wollnow. I was talking the matter over with Herr
+Brandow a few hours ago. It's a pity you missed the twelve o'clock
+boat, or you might have gone on with Herr Brandow, who always has his
+own horses here to meet him. There is no trace of Hinrich Scheel yet;
+no doubt the fellow has been on his way to America for the last three
+weeks."
+
+Herr Peters was now obliged to attend to his other guests, whose tall,
+broad figures crowded the large coffee-room. Gotthold had already seen
+curious glances directed towards him; probably Herr Peters had pointed
+him out as the hero of the accident on Dollan moor, which had caused a
+great deal of talk on, its own account, and now that Brandow's name was
+in every mouth, was more discussed than ever. So he left the room,
+which reeked with tobacco-smoke, and wandered about in the pouring
+rain, until at last, after an hour of impatient waiting, the promised
+carriage arrived--an old rickety chaise, to which fortunately a pair of
+fresh horses was harnessed. Herr Peters came out to take leave of him,
+and say that in consequence of the great demand, he could not have the
+carriage at the usual price. Gotthold consented to the shameless
+extortion, and would have given even more to get on.
+
+"I saw what was in the wind at once," said Herr Peters to his guests;
+"Brandow two hours ago, and now he. Mark my words; they are after
+Scheel."
+
+"Nonsense," said a fat farmer; "he's gone where the pepper grows long
+ago."
+
+"I think he has taken his life," observed another.
+
+"Or had it taken," growled a third.
+
+They again put their heads together, even more eagerly than before.
+That Hinrich Scheel had not reaped the fruits of his crime alone, nay,
+possibly, had been wholly cheated out of them, was an opinion which had
+obtained a firm hold upon the public mind, although the rumor had not
+assumed a definite form. This time also people either could not or
+would not mention any names; on the contrary, the affair grew darker
+and darker the longer they talked it over, and the more frequently the
+thick little glasses filled with a greenish liquid were emptied. Herr
+Peters looked on well satisfied; it might be doubtful which of the
+disputants would first call for a bowl of his famous mulled wine; but
+that the call would be made within the next five minutes was perfectly
+certain. Herr Peters had already made a signal through the little
+window that opened into the kitchen to his daughter, who was standing
+by the hearth.
+
+Meantime Gotthold drove on through the pouring rain, which shrouded the
+whole landscape in a gray veil that grew denser and denser hour by
+hour. The wind whistled through the chinks in the leathern curtains,
+which had been buttoned down to protect the occupants of the chaise
+from the storm; the crazy old vehicle creaked and groaned
+whenever--which happened only too often--the wheels on the right or
+left slipped into the holes of the rough road; but the horses were
+powerful, and the driver, who expected a liberal fee, was willing, so
+it rolled forward with tolerable speed, although by no means rapidly
+enough to suit Gotthold's increasing impatience.
+
+Yet he was compelled to acknowledge to himself, and did so again and
+again, that there was no sensible reason for his haste, that nothing
+depended upon one hour more or less, nay, that another hour, which
+might perhaps mature some definite resolution in his mind, would be
+welcome. Yet, even while he said so, he leaned forward to shout to the
+driver that the road was perfectly smooth here, and he might drive
+faster.
+
+Then he leaned back again into the corner of his little damp prison,
+drew out Wollnow's letter and gazed at it as if he could not believe
+any one could write such words as those in a hand so firm, characters
+so large and clear. And for the second time he read:
+
+"What I have to tell you to-day, my dear friend, is so bad that the
+most skilful preamble would not make it better. So without any
+introduction: the upsetting of the carriage on the moor was no unlucky
+accident, but a shameful crime, of which Brandow was the instigator.
+Secondly, the money was stolen. The originator of the theft, which
+might be termed murder, was Brandow again; he was probably present at
+the time, or else appeared on the scene directly after; at any rate,
+the fruits of the robbery fell into his hands. Whether the two crimes
+may to a certain extent be considered one--I mean whether the first was
+committed that the second might be executed, or whether the second was
+perpetrated on the spur of the moment, after the first had been
+performed--I do not know, and probably no one ever will, since it is to
+be feared that a third terrible crime has resulted from the first two.
+
+"Who betrayed this horror to me? That which is so often the betrayer of
+crimes--chance.
+
+"A chance than which nothing could be more accidental.
+
+"The money in the packet consisted of hundred, fifty, and twenty-five
+thaler notes. I had myself, as you know, counted and put up the amount;
+but of course that would not enable me to positively swear to the
+identity of any one of the bills, even if it came back to me again.
+With one, however, I am in a position to do so; the note is once more
+in my hands, and I can prove in whose possession it has been in the
+mean time.
+
+"I was obliged to pay out this bill ten years ago at a very critical
+time--it was the last money I possessed, and in a humorous freak I
+marked on it the words, 'a lucky journey,' and the date in small,
+almost microscopical characters, on the upper right-hand corner of its
+face. Four years ago this same note came back to me. I honored my old
+friend with the word 'welcome,' which, together with the date, I
+wrote on the left-hand upper corner of the back, and gave it, as a
+luck-penny, a place in my pocket-book, where it remained until three
+weeks ago. You will remember that ready money was rather scarce with
+me, and I took advantage of the opportunity to punish myself for my
+superstitious feelings by adding this note to the rest.
+
+"Now, this bill, to whose identity I can swear, Herr Redebas received
+from Brandow on the day after the accident, as a part of the gambling
+debt due that afternoon; he left the money in his desk without touching
+it, until he made me a payment yesterday in which was this very note. I
+asked Herr Redebas--without telling him my reasons--whether he could
+swear to this statement if necessary; he answered in some little
+astonishment, but very positively, that he was ready to do so at any
+moment.
+
+"Brandow, as is well known, had related here and there, that is, had
+intentionally spread the report, that the five thousand thalers he paid
+Herr Redebas at noon had been received in the morning from Jacob
+Demminer, a produce dealer in this place, as part payment on account of
+the seven thousand for which he had sold his wheat to him. This
+statement had nothing improbable in and of itself, and as Jacob
+Demminer bears the reputation of doing any business by which money can
+be made, even that of a receiver of stolen goods, there was certainly
+the shadow of a possibility that the master had received in the
+morning, in payment for his wheat, the very money of which the man had
+robbed our friend the night before, and thought he had placed in safety
+with the worthy Jacob, with whom he had perhaps had business dealings
+for a long time. I say, there is the shadow of a possibility, for the
+time was rather short; still, we do not yet know where and how Hinrich
+Scheel spent the rest of the night, so it might have been.
+
+"The worthy Jacob, however, had not this affair at least on his
+conscience, but the business Brandow wished to transact with him did
+not take place either. To be sure Brandow was here that morning, and
+also in the dark hole Jacob calls his counting-room; he took money away
+with him, too, but only two thousand thalers, and not for this year's
+wheat, which he had sold to Jacob months before, but for the next
+year's harvest. He was obliged to sell at any price, in order to be
+able to show the money at this time, and he could name any sum without
+fearing that the worthy Jacob would contradict a customer with whom he
+did such profitable business. The discovery of this trick was also
+effected by chance, in the person of a poor young Jew, who had worked
+several years for the worthy Jacob, and gained his confidence, until
+now his conscience, or I know not what, suddenly urged him to pour out
+his heart to me, and implore me to save him from this den of crime.
+
+"Let us recapitulate. Brandow, who on the day of the accident was known
+to be destitute of money, and received only two thousand thalers the
+following morning, pays Herr Redebas, at noon, five thousand at one
+stroke; and among this money is the hundred-thaler note which was in
+the package that disappeared at the time of the accident.
+
+"Disappeared! Why not lost, found, but not restored to its owner?
+
+"Then it would still have been stolen. But from the beginning it was
+both a theft and robbery.
+
+"Remember that you felt the package in the Assessor's coat-pocket after
+you left Dollan; that you no longer felt it at the smithy, and yet the
+coat you had buttoned was still fastened. This, to be sure, is no
+positive proof--nay, the latter circumstance at first even seems to be
+against my supposition. Why, it might be said, should a thief so
+cunning in all other respects intentionally incur an additional risk?
+But people may try to be too cunning; and it certainly was not known
+that you had kept your eye on the package all the evening, and
+afterwards, when you buttoned the Assessor's coat, even had it under
+your hand. The defender of the accused will, of course, doubt the
+correctness of this statement, will--but we are not in a court of
+justice. To me the fact is plain: the Assessor had the money with him
+at the time of the fall; afterwards, when the two Prebrows raised the
+poor fellow, while Henrich Scheel stood by with the lantern, he no
+longer had it--that is, it had been stolen during the interval.
+
+"By whom?
+
+"Undoubtedly by this very Hinrich Scheel, but very, very probably not
+by him alone.
+
+"Can Brandow have been present at the time?
+
+"He has taken no little trouble to prove his alibi, even before any
+proof was asked, and evidently began the affair cunningly enough. He
+rode here by the way of Neuenhof, Lankenitz, and Faschwitz--that is a
+fact; the people in the villages heard him dash through; he even took
+time to talk to several persons he met. If he rode the whole way he
+cannot have been present at the time the deed was committed; even the
+best rider on the fastest horse could not do that. But suppose he did
+not ride the whole way--suppose he turned into the road just above
+Neuenhof--suppose the spectral horseman whom you saw in your vision
+dashing across the morass had been a veritable rider of flesh and
+blood, and this rider had been Carl Brandow.
+
+"You say that is impossible. What is impossible to a man pursued by the
+furies, if he has a horse under him like the much-praised Brownlock?
+
+"Brandow rode Brownlock that night; the groom at the Fürstenhof swore
+it, after he saw the racer, day before yesterday, on his way to Sundin.
+And when a man like Brandow rides a horse which in itself represents a
+small fortune, and on which, moreover, he has bet thousands, on such a
+night, over such roads, at such a pace, he must have been in a great
+hurry.
+
+"He must have been in a very great hurry, or, my dear friend, you would
+not have escaped with your life; you certainly would not have been
+spared. A man whom people dash headlong over a precipice sixty feet
+high they silence entirely, if they are not in too great a hurry.
+
+"Yet, as I said before, this will probably remain a mystery, even to a
+wiser judge than Justizrath von Zadenig. One of those who were there
+will never betray it, and the other can no longer do so.
+
+"As I returned from B. I met Brandow; he may easily have learned from
+my coachman that I had been talking to the Justizrath for an hour. He
+rode towards home at full gallop; an hour after the lawyer arrived with
+the gendarme, but did not find Hinrich Scheel, although people had seen
+him about all the forenoon; and he even took his master's horse when he
+came home. The master was very, very anxious that the missing man
+should be found; he even directed the search himself; he--"
+
+"I will not protract this horrible supposition farther; it is the only
+one which occurs in my story, all the others are facts--facts which cry
+aloud to heaven--which ought not, must not remain unpunished. I know,
+my dearest friend, you'll think as I do, though every fibre of your
+heart must quiver at the thought that you--you--
+
+"I shall come to Sundin with my wife day after to-morrow. We will then
+discuss, not what is to be done--there can be no doubt about that; but
+the how is certainly to be considered."
+
+Gotthold put the letter back in his pocket, and gazed out into the
+cheerless, rain-blurred landscape so fixedly, that he scarcely heard a
+carriage, which, coming from Prora, passed by on the other side of the
+road. It was still a half hour's ride to Prora, but it seemed an
+eternity to the impatient traveller. At last the carriage stopped
+before Wollnow's house.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+"I am so sorry to have you go," said Ottilie; "my husband must
+certainly return before evening. He will be very angry with me for not
+keeping you. And then, confess it frankly, my dear friend, you are
+going without any definite plan--any fixed purpose--and in this way
+intend to meet a man like Brandow--that is, to lose the game before it
+is begun."
+
+Ottilie had seized Gotthold's hands as if to draw him back from the
+door into the room. Gotthold shook his head.
+
+"You are right," said he, "but there are cases where the one who is not
+right, or at least cannot prove that he is, must act according to his
+own opinions. That is my case. I cannot put Brandow in prison or drag
+him to the scaffold; I can't--"
+
+"Even if he must otherwise still remain Cecilia's husband? You cannot
+permit that either."
+
+"Certainly not, and therefore a third plan must be found."
+
+"Which never can be. Dear, dear Gotthold, let me say to you what my
+husband would have said if he were here: Never! He will never yield if
+you go to him so, alone and helpless, without the bailiff and myrmidons
+of the law; you must be able to prove that you have him completely in
+your power, and that is not the case now. My husband said yesterday
+evening: 'If we could only confront him with Scheel. There is really
+nothing to be done without him; but where is Scheel? Perhaps at the
+bottom of the Dollan morass.' Ah! my dear friend, stay away from this
+den of murderers."
+
+"And ought I to leave her there?" exclaimed Gotthold. "Woe betide me
+for having done so until now, for not having risked everything to take
+her away with me, her and her child, for it was only the child that
+detained her, and he would have sold the child too if I had had head
+and heart enough to offer him the right price. Now I can offer nothing
+except a mortal struggle; but I am sure, and he knows very well, that I
+shall not be conquered this time. Forgive me, my dear friend, for using
+so many words where acts would beseem me better, and--farewell."
+
+Ottilie burst into tears. "And you," she exclaimed, "my dear, dear
+friend. Ah! yes, you must go, you must risk all if you love Cecilia,
+and that you did love her--I knew long ago, and my good Emil knew it,
+and--and--Emil would not act otherwise in your place, believe me,
+whatever he may have said before, and may say after! He knows what
+passionate love is, nay, he would make no objections if he were eight
+and twenty, and in your place! But I can't help it if I am not as
+beautiful and intellectual as your dear dead mother was; and besides, I
+was not even in existence thirty years ago, and there are much more
+unhappy married couples than we, and, and--may you and your Cecilia be
+as happy!"
+
+She embraced and kissed Gotthold very warmly, and then stood at the
+open window letting the rain drip upon her tear-stained face as she
+waved her handkerchief while his carriage jolted over the rough
+pavement.
+
+In spite of all the delays, it was still nearly an hour before sunset
+when Gotthold left Prora, and the horses stepped out bravely; he must
+surely reach Dollan before dark. He repeated this to himself several
+times in the course of the next hour, and then reflected why he
+constantly recurred to this calculation over and over again, and what
+difference it made whether he reached Dollan before or after dark. He
+could find no answer, and even as he sought for one, said to himself
+once more: "Thank God, I shall get there before dark!" Were his
+thoughts beginning to get confused? That would be bad; his head would
+probably have much to bear to-day, then his anxious eyes wandered to
+the heavy clouds, wet stubble, and black fields, and he murmured: "It
+will grow dark earlier than I expected," and as if the obstinacy of the
+idea required a corresponding idea, even if it were a mild one, he
+added: "I shall not find her."
+
+And now he could not shake off the new idea: he would not find her. As
+if she would hide herself from him, and he would be obliged to seek her
+in vain because it was too dark.
+
+Or was all this only nonsense, such as arises in the confused brain of
+a man who for hours has jolted alone in a damp chaise, over rough
+country roads, staring out into the murky atmosphere, which grew grayer
+and denser every minute. Was it the terrible type of a terrible
+possibility. Hinrich Scheel had taken Brandow's horse when he came
+home, and two hours after Hinrich Scheel had disappeared. Now he had
+been at home at least four hours; so he had had twice as much time.
+
+Gotthold tore away the curtain which was still fastened on one side; it
+seemed as if he was suffocating. At last! there was the smithy close
+before him; he would see and speak to the worthy Prebrows; they lived
+so near that they could surely tell him they had seen and spoken to her
+a short time before.
+
+The smithy was lonely and deserted; several hours must have passed
+since the bellows, had been used: a thick covering of ashes lay over
+the dead coals. It seemed as if the father and son, who lived alone in
+the old-fashioned little house, had just run away from their work. The
+piece of iron they had last been forging still lay on the anvil, the
+pincers and hammer were close beside it on the ground, as if they had
+been suddenly thrown down to rush out of the door, which stood wide
+open. The driver was very indignant; one of the springs of the chaise
+was almost broken. He had depended upon getting the injury repaired
+here so that it should go no farther. Gotthold told the lad to follow
+him slowly, he would go forward on foot.
+
+He could not have waited a moment longer; the sight of the deserted
+smithy had infinitely increased the terrible anxiety which had tortured
+him all the way. He hurried up the ascending road over the moor,
+without heeding the rain that the wind drove into his face with
+redoubled violence as he walked hastily on, his eyes always fixed upon
+the nearest hillock which lay before him, and seemed inaccessible. Then
+he stood panting for breath on the top of the slope, but his view on
+the right was no clearer; a gray mist from the morass floated nearer
+and nearer, was so near already that the rugged side of the next
+hillock gleamed very dimly through the drizzling vapor, and he scarcely
+recognized the scene of the accident. On reaching the bottom he
+remembered that by keeping close to the edge one might pass between the
+hill and morass, so he left the height on the left, and took that
+course.
+
+But as he turned towards the marsh he entered farther and farther into
+the fog that had now spread over the bog like a heaving gray sea, and
+whirled against the steep acclivity like surges dashed by a violent
+wind against the cliffs.
+
+While the height on the left obstructed his view, and on the right he
+gazed into the gray mist, which scarcely permitted him to see where to
+set his feet, the terrible dread increased at every step; it seemed as
+if every moment the misty curtain must rise to reveal the horrible
+picture it now concealed, and the height against which it pressed was
+only there that he might not escape the scene. And there it was!
+
+Gotthold stood trembling and staring into the mist with eyes fairly
+starting from their sockets. It could have been nothing but a trick of
+his over-excited fancy, for he now saw nothing, nothing at all, and yet
+he had seen it with perfect distinctness: four or five figures standing
+in a circle, thrusting long poles into the morass--misty spectres!
+
+No, no; no spectres! Or else ghosts could speak with human voices,
+which he clearly distinguished, although he could not understand the
+words, and now he even caught a few.
+
+"Could it possibly be here?"
+
+"No, it was not possible--it was certain; he now knew why he had been
+so alarmed."
+
+The next moment, with a single bound, he had dashed through the tall
+sedges which, at this spot, enclosed the morass with a broad girdle;
+the thin covering of turf rose and fell under him--he did not notice
+it; again and again the water dashed up under his flying feet--he did
+not heed it; his eyes pierced the mist in the direction from which he
+had heard the voices, and now heard them again still nearer; and now
+the figures, which a rift in the mist had just revealed to him,
+appeared again; he reached them.
+
+"Cousin Boslaf!"
+
+"Stand farther away, and you others, too! There are too many of us
+here; the ground won't bear, and I can do it alone."
+
+They stepped back; again and again the old man let the long pole,
+furnished with an iron hook, slide cautiously down into the water which
+had here formed a small dark pool amid the rushes and nodding grass.
+Then he drew it out and gave it to one of the men. "There is nothing
+here. This was the last place, we will go back; keep close behind me;
+and you too, Gotthold. Tread in my footsteps."
+
+The old man, holding his gun on his shoulder, walked forward with the
+long, regular stride of a huntsman, till the others, among whom was
+Clas Prebrow, Jochen's brother, found it difficult to keep up with him.
+He paused several times, and seemed to be trying the ground; but it was
+only for a few moments, then he moved on into the mist. The men
+followed without hesitation; they knew they could go on calmly if
+Cousin Boslaf led the way; and now the ground became firmer and firmer;
+they were on the very spot from which they had started an hour ago.
+Cousin Boslaf called Gotthold to his side.
+
+"Since when?" asked Gotthold.
+
+"At two o'clock this morning; the dogs have been keen on her track; I
+knew it first three hours ago."
+
+"And you still have hope?"
+
+The old man gazed into the mist.
+
+"We have not found her," said he, "so the others may not either, and in
+that case there would still be hope, although it is not probable that
+she could have gone far with the child in the darkness."
+
+"With the child?" cried Gotthold, "with Gretchen! then all is well; she
+would do the child no injury."
+
+"Injury!" said the old man, "injury! there are greater injuries than
+death."
+
+Gotthold shuddered. She had not been willing to part from the child;
+she had thought herself obliged to bear--able to bear--anything for its
+sake. Now matters had become unendurable, and she was compelled to cast
+the burden aside. What would become of Gretchen? There are worse
+injuries than death.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+They walked rapidly towards the house, old Boslaf still leading the way
+with his long, regular strides, his eyes now bent upon the ground, and
+anon gazing keenly into the gloom of the gathering twilight; but he did
+not speak, and Gotthold asked no questions. Yet before he reached the
+court-yard, he knew--from various remarks made by the other men--that
+when, towards noon, the rumor spread abroad among the laborers that the
+mistress had disappeared with her child, it was said at once that they
+were dead. No one had been the first to utter the words; every one had
+spoken them at the same time, and suggested that somebody should
+go to Cousin Boslaf. Cousin Boslaf had come instantly--with his old
+long-barrelled gun over his shoulder--and divided the men into parties.
+Statthalter Möller, with one band, was to cross the fields and search
+the forest near the seashore. Prebrow, the blacksmith, who had been
+sent for, was to head another company and go to the upper part of the
+moor, towards the Schanzenbergen; and Cousin Boslaf himself, with the
+remainder, down to the morass; then they would all meet at the house
+again. Two hours before--they were then still farther out in the
+morass, and there was some little fog, though it was by no means so
+thick--they had seen Herr Brandow come home, and very soon after ride
+away again. He had taken a wise course, for the men had resolved that
+the murderer should not leave the estate alive again; it was no matter
+about Hinrich Scheel, who was as bad as his master; but his wife and
+child--it was too much, and they had always said it would happen some
+day.
+
+They had all said so and had let it happen! True, they had been unable
+to prevent it; but he! Gotthold thought his heart would burst with
+shame and horror.
+
+They reached the house almost at the same moment as the two other
+parties, who had carefully searched the region assigned to them, and
+found nothing, not the smallest trace.
+
+What was to be done now?
+
+Very little more could be done. True, the fog had dispersed, but
+twilight had already closed in; in half an hour, or an hour at latest,
+it would be perfectly dark. Besides, the men, who ever since noon had
+been constantly on their feet, searching bushes and woods, fields and
+morass, were evidently fatigued and exhausted, though quite ready to
+search the forest in the direction of Dahlitz, as soon as they had
+eaten the supper Cousin Boslaf had ordered to be brought out from the
+house. The old man himself neither eat nor drank; he stood with folded
+arms, leaning against the trunk of one of the huge old lindens, waiting
+patiently until the men should once more be ready to help him seek
+his great-granddaughter, the last of his race, at the bottom of the
+marl-pit, the depths of some forest ravine, or wherever she had fled
+with her child to die.
+
+Gotthold had entered the house to look for Mine, a good young
+servant-girl whom he had often seen playing with Gretchen, and who
+appeared to be very devoted to Cecilia; perhaps he might learn from her
+something that would give a clew. He found her in the kitchen, where
+with eyes swollen with weeping, she was helping the housekeeper prepare
+bread and butter for the men's supper. When she caught sight of
+Gotthold she dropped the knife with a cry of joy, and came running
+towards him.
+
+Gotthold told her to leave the room with him.
+
+At first the good child's tears almost choked her words. The mistress
+had been very sad the last few weeks, much more sorrowful than usual;
+she had scarcely spoken except to Gretchen, whom she would never trust
+out of her sight, and even to her only when it was absolutely
+necessary. Yesterday she had remained out of doors alone until very
+late in the evening, and when she came in looked so pale and exhausted,
+and stared straight before her with such a fixed expression; she would
+not go to bed, however, but insisted that she should go to her mother
+in Neuenhof, who was very sick, and added that she need not come back
+before noon, and then the mistress had already been gone, no one knows
+how long. Rieke had certainly known it long before, but said nothing
+from fear of the other servants, and hid herself up stairs until the
+master came home. At first he scolded her furiously, and struck at her
+with his riding-whip, but Rieke cried and screamed that she would
+charge the master with it, and made such evil speeches that at last he
+took her away with him in the carriage; and her dear kind mistress had
+been obliged to go out of the house in the middle of the night, and
+dear sweet little Gretchen had not even had her new boots, for they
+were locked up in the closet, and she had the key in her pocket.
+
+The girl began to cry again; Gotthold said a few words which were
+intended to be consoling, and was then obliged to turn away, for his
+own grief threatened to overpower him. The sobbing girl had reminded
+him of the sunny days when he sought out Cecilia in the garden, and
+played with Gretchen among the flower-beds.
+
+When he came out of the house again, the men had finished their meals
+and were ready to set out. Prebrow, the blacksmith, was to search the
+forest on the left, and the Statthalter on the right of the road to
+Dahlitz. Cousin Boslaf would keep to the road itself. They were just
+going when Gotthold's chaise jolted into the courtyard; the spring was
+now entirely broken, and the tire was off of one wheel. Cousin Boslaf
+asked the Statthalter whether Herr Wenhofs old carriage was still
+there, and capable of being used. The carriage was there, and might be
+made fit for use. Then Clas Prebrow should repair it, put in a pair of
+fresh horses, and follow them. Gotthold looked at the old man
+inquiringly.
+
+"I shall seek till I find her," said Cousin Boslaf, pushing the rifle
+farther over his shoulder, "and I shall find her--alive or dead; in
+either case we shall need the carriage."
+
+They reached the forest; the men had already spread out to the right
+and left, and now pressed eagerly into its depths.
+
+"I shall keep to the road," said Cousin Boslaf as they walked on side
+by side. "I can trust my old eyes, and I almost believe she has taken
+this way. She would reach the forest sooner, and directly behind the
+woods, in a ploughed field on the right, is the great marl-pit. When
+she was a child, a poor girl who had killed her new-born babe drowned
+herself there."
+
+The old man did not change his long, regular stride as he spoke, and
+his keen eyes searched the deep furrows of the rough road, or glanced
+over the bashes and tree trunks on either side, between which, here in
+the depths of the forest, the darkness already brooded gloomily. The
+men within the woods shouted to each other, in order to keep together:
+oftentimes one of the dogs they had taken with them barked loudly, then
+for a moment all was silent again, save the wind sighing through the
+treetops, and shaking the rain-drops from the leaves. Then the old man
+paused, listened, and went on again, after convincing himself that the
+men still kept to their track, and nothing remarkable had happened.
+
+So they came to the end of the forest, whose dark edge stretched out
+into the twilight on either side as far as the eye could reach. Nothing
+was to be seen of the men, who had been obliged to make their way
+through the underbrush more slowly. Cousin Boslaf pointed towards the
+right, where a short distance from the road, in the ploughed field, a
+round spot was relieved against the darker earth; it was the marl-pit,
+which the continual rain of the last few days had filled nearly to the
+brim.
+
+They crossed the edge of the road to the field; the old man again took
+the lead, but more slowly than before, and his head was bowed lower, as
+if he wished to count every separate blade of the short wet grass.
+Suddenly he paused: "Here!"
+
+He pointed to the wet ground, upon which, as Gotthold now also
+perceived, were the marks of footprints, a large one, with a smaller
+one beside it. The footprints came from the road they had just left,
+but had emerged from the forest sooner, and gone towards the marl-pit,
+and they had come upon it farther down at a right angle. The old hunter
+and the young man looked at each other; neither spoke--they knew the
+decisive moment had come.
+
+Slowly and cautiously they followed the clew, which ran straight before
+them towards the marl-pit, on whose surface they already saw the
+rippling of the water, as the strong breeze blew it against the edges.
+Only about fifty paces more, and all would be decided.
+
+Gotthold's eyes rested fixedly upon the horrible water, which glittered
+spectrally in the last feeble glimmer of twilight; he saw her standing
+on the edge holding the child by the hand, gazing--
+
+One of the old man's hands rested on his shoulder, the other pointed
+downwards. "She took the child in her arms here."
+
+There was only one footprint, the larger one, and the mark was
+deeper--five, ten, fifteen steps--
+
+"Stay!"
+
+The old man had uttered the word, and waving Gotthold back with his
+hand at the same moment, he fell upon his knees. The footprints were
+confused, as if she had taken a few steps irresolutely to and fro, and
+then the trail became distinct again, going straight on, but parallel
+with the edge of the marl-pit, and then they turned back in the
+direction of the road, and remained in that course to the bank, from
+whose sharp edge a small piece of turf had been torn as she stepped
+upon the path with her burden.
+
+The two men stood in the road once more; Gotthold felt as if the solid
+earth were reeling under him; he threw himself into the arms of the old
+man, who clasped him in a warm embrace.
+
+"We may hope now, my dear son; but we are not yet at the end."
+
+"I will bear and risk everything, so long as I can still hope," cried
+Gotthold.
+
+The dark figures of men now emerged singly and in pairs from the gloomy
+forest, and approached the place where they stood. They had found
+nothing; and Statthalter Möller asked whether they should now search
+the marl-pit; they could probably do no more than that today; it had
+grown too dark, and the people were completely worn out.
+
+"But if Herr Wenhof wants us to do anything, we will, won't we, men?"
+asked Statthalter Möller.
+
+"Ay, that we will," they replied in chorus.
+
+"I thank you," said Cousin Boslaf, "you can help me no more now; I will
+go on alone with this gentleman, as soon as Clas Prebrow comes with the
+carriage, and I now have a hope that I may find my great-grandchild
+alive."
+
+The old man's voice trembled as he pronounced the last words, and the
+people looked at him in astonishment.
+
+"Yes, my great-grandchild," the old man began again, and his voice was
+now strong, and had acquired a strangely deep, solemn tone, "for that
+she is--my great-grandchild, and the great-grandchild of Ulrica, the
+wife of Adolf Wenhof. You have aided me so faithfully to-day that I
+cannot help telling you the truth. There is no one living whom it can
+harm, but it may do you good to know that the truth must always be
+spoken, that an old man of ninety must speak it, for no other reason
+than that it is the truth. And now go home, children, and don't allow
+yourselves to be tempted to take vengeance on him who has driven my
+child from house and home--don't vent your anger on the house and farm.
+Better men have lived there before him, and better ones will dwell
+there after him; and now once more I thank you, children."
+
+The men had listened in silence; one after another removed his
+cap--they did not exactly know why; and when the old man and Gotthold
+entered the carriage, which meantime had quietly driven up, all stood
+around it with bared heads, and even after the coach had gone on, and
+they had set out on their way home, it was long ere any one ventured to
+speak aloud.
+
+But the coach drove on through the darkness towards the fishing village
+of Ralow. It was a delightful road on a summer evening, and Cecilia had
+been fond of walking here with the child. Gotthold thought she would
+follow this direction, and the old man had assented. "It is your turn
+now," said he. "We were seeking a dead body, and an old man is well
+suited for that; now that we are in search of a living woman, young
+blood may be better."
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+Two days after, Jochen Prebrow was standing before the door of his
+house, just after his second breakfast, looking out to sea through a
+long spy-glass, which with his left hand he rested against the tall
+flag-staff that stood before the house. Worthy Jochen might often be
+found in the same spot, engaged in the same occupation It was not that
+he sought or hoped to find anything unusual out at sea; but in leisure
+moments the spy-glass, which usually rested on two crooked bars close
+beside the door under the shelter of the projecting roof, afforded an
+excellent amusement, even if, as at this moment, there was nothing to
+be seen on the sea except the waves, here and there crested with foam,
+dancing merrily in the morning breeze.
+
+But to-day the worthy Jochen did not even see the foam-crested waves;
+he saw absolutely nothing at all; yet when, at the end of five minutes,
+he put down and closed the spy-glass, his broad face wore an expression
+as anxious as if he had perceived a large ship, driven by a north-east
+storm on the Wiessow cliffs, and his neighbor Pilot Bonsak had said she
+could not be saved.
+
+And the same anxious expression rested upon the plump face of his
+Stine, who had just appeared in the doorway, and with both hands,
+usually so busy, idly folded under her apron, began to gaze at the blue
+morning sky and shining white clouds scattered over it, without even
+noticing her Jochen, who was standing scarcely six paces away.
+
+"No, no," sighed Stine.
+
+"Yes, yes," said Jochen.
+
+"Jochen, how you frightened me!"
+
+"And it is frightful, when one thinks of it," said Jochen.
+
+He had opened the spy-glass again, and was evidently about to resume
+his former occupation; but Stine took it out of his hands, put it in
+its place, and said in a somewhat irritated tone, "You do nothing but
+look through the old thing, and I so worried that I hardly know whether
+I'm on my head or my heels."
+
+"Oh! but if you don't know, Stine"--
+
+"How am I to know? Why are you my husband, if I, poor creature, am
+expected to know everything? And she has just asked me again whether
+the Swede is not yet here. Poor girl! To go all that long way in such a
+nutshell of a boat! And who knows whether the people over yonder will
+want her. They are only fourth or fifth cousins."
+
+Stine had spoken with great emotion, but in a suppressed tone, and had
+drawn her Jochen out to the blackthorn hedge that divided the sandy
+little garden from the sandy village-street. Jochen had a vague
+perception that as a man and a husband, and moreover sole innkeeper of
+Wiessow, he must say something, so he replied: "You'll see, Stine, we
+sha'n't carry it through."
+
+"Jochen, I wouldn't have believed you were so bad," exclaimed Stine,
+as, sobbing violently and pressing both red hands over her eyes, she
+turned away from her husband and went back to the house.
+
+Jochen was left standing by the hedge, and raised his arms; but the
+spy-glass was resting quietly in its place, and, in consideration of
+his wickedness, he did not venture to take down the care-dispeller. So
+he let his arms fall again and thrust his hands into his pockets. Thank
+God, here was his pipe! It now had many idle hours, for Stine could not
+bear smoking, and if she should see him now when she was so angry, she
+probably would not make friends again.
+
+Jochen let the pipe slide back into his pocket, and gazed at the
+sparkling sea like one who, without any optical instrument, still sees
+only too distinctly the spot where just now a majestic ship went down
+with all on board.
+
+"Good-morning, Prebrow," said a voice close beside him.
+
+Jochen slowly turned his blue eyes from the distant horizon towards the
+gentleman who, with the collar of his coat turned up over his ears, had
+just passed along by the hedge with hasty strides.
+
+"Good-morning, Herr In--"
+
+"St--" said the gentleman, stopping and putting his finger on his lips.
+
+Jochen nodded.
+
+"To-night!" continued the gentleman; "I tell you, because, after
+everything has gone on well, until now, somebody might at the last
+moment get some suspicion, and inquire of you. Of course you don't know
+me."
+
+"Heaven forbid!" replied Jochen.
+
+The gentleman nodded and was about to continue his walk, but paused
+again as if struck by the troubled expression of Jochen's face, and
+added: "You needn't take it to heart, Prebrow; it serves the Rahnk
+right; their conduct is a disgrace to Wiessow and the whole region, and
+after all there is no one who would not be glad to have you get rid of
+the rascals. And when I come back next time, Prebrow, I shall of course
+lodge with you; this time I must keep out of the way."
+
+The gentleman nodded, walked lightly away, and after casting a rapid
+glance around him, entered the pilot's house.
+
+"A damned miserable business," muttered Jochen, without exactly knowing
+which of the two he meant, the one going on in his own house, or the
+other of which the Herr steuer-inspector had just spoken. It was
+probably the former; the second certainly did not concern him at all,
+but it was a secret the more, and he already had far too much trouble
+with one.
+
+"Good-morning, Jochen."
+
+This time Jochen was actually frightened. There was his brother Clas in
+the very spot where the Herr inspector had just been standing.
+
+"Why, good Heavens, Clas, what brings you here?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Ah! you may well say that, Jochen," answered Clas.
+
+"Is the smithy burned?"
+
+"Why, Jochen, how can you ask such stupid questions?"
+
+The bridge of understanding seemed broken. The feeling that the whole
+world was one dark secret, and he the unhappy man who had to guard it,
+overpowered Jochen still more.
+
+"Won't you come in, Clas?" said he.
+
+He could not help saying that; he could not leave his only brother, who
+moreover was the elder of the two, standing in the street.
+
+Clas Prebrow instantly accepted his brother's invitation,
+notwithstanding the unbrotherly tone in which it was given, shook hands
+with Jochen, and said, glancing towards the house, "You're very well
+off here, Jochen."
+
+Jochen nodded.
+
+"And probably have a great many guests."
+
+"What business is it of yours?" cried Jochen violently, as if he had
+been bitterly insulted.
+
+"Why, I only asked the question," said Clas.
+
+"There is no one here at all," cried Jochen, "no one at all;" and he
+stepped before the other as he was making his way towards the house.
+
+"That happens just right," said Clas; "then I can turn back and tell
+old Herr Wenhorf and Herr Gotthold that they can get lodgings in your
+house."
+
+Jochen was perfectly horrified. What should he do? He had promised to
+keep silence, but what could silence avail if Herr Gotthold came
+straight into the house, and the old gentleman too, for whom he had
+such a wholesome respect. If the latter fixed his clear old eyes upon
+him, he must certainly tell everything, and--"Stine, Stine," shouted
+Jochen, as if the only inn in Wiessow were in flames from top to
+bottom.
+
+"Jochen, have you gone perfectly crazy? Don't you think at all of--"
+
+Stine, who had come running out of the house at her husband's loud
+outcry, suddenly slopped short and stared at her brother-in-law with
+open mouth.
+
+"You see," said Jochen with great satisfaction.
+
+"Where is he?" asked Stine.
+
+Clas Prebrow felt that his diplomatic reserve would not answer with the
+clever Stine, and at this stage of his mission he must drop the mask.
+So he rubbed his large, hard, blackened hands contentedly, and showed
+his white teeth, but suddenly grew grave again, and said, while his
+glance wandered over the row of windows in the upper story, "Wouldn't
+it be better for us to go in?"
+
+They went in and entered the little sitting-room directly behind the
+large coffee-room, which Stine only left for a moment to get from the
+cupboard a bottle of rum and two glasses, that the brothers might drink
+to each other's health, and Clas's tongue should not get dry in case he
+had a great deal to tell.
+
+Clas probably would have had a very long story, but remembering that
+the gentlemen were awaiting his return, he cut it short.
+
+They had come upon the right clew the very first evening, but lost it
+again the following day because the lady left the carriage she had
+taken at Ralow, in Gulnitz, and went on on foot, to conceal her route.
+She succeeded so well in this, that they spent a whole day and night in
+searching, and only recovered the lost trail late yesterday evening in
+Trentow. To be sure, it would now scarcely have been doubtful what
+direction she had taken; but they had left the carriage at noon at Herr
+von Schoritz of Schoritz, who was a friend of Gotthold's, in order to
+proceed on their journey on foot to mislead Herr Brandow, in case he
+was behind them, and therefore they had been obliged to rest a few
+hours in Trentow, and to-day they were coming from Trentow, and he ran
+on before, less to inquire whether the lady was here than to beg his
+sister-in-law to prepare her, that she might not be too much
+frightened.
+
+"Oh! goodness gracious," said Stine, "poor, poor child! we were obliged
+to promise solemnly that we would not betray her."
+
+"Stine, we sha'n't be able to carry it through," said Jochen.
+
+In her heart Stine had never expected to do so; nay, she had always
+prayed that Heaven would interpose and send Herr Gotthold to them
+before it was too late. To be sure, she could not acknowledge this
+openly, but neither did she wish to be actually unfaithful to the
+promise she had given Cecilia, and in her perplexity began to weep
+bitterly.
+
+Jochen nodded assent, as if he wanted to show his Stine that she had
+now taken the right course. Clas emptied his glass and said, rising,
+"So we shall be here in fifteen minutes. You're so clever, Stine, you
+can easily settle matters, and you can come with me, Jochen."
+
+Jochen started up and went out of the room so hastily that he left his
+glass half full. Stine intended to pour the liquor back into the bottle
+again, but in her absence of mind drank it herself. Tears fell from her
+eyes: "We poor women!" she murmured.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+After Stine had left the room, Cecilia still remained sitting by her
+child's little bed. Gretchen had fallen asleep, and it now seemed to
+the mother that the innocent little face looked paler, and the white,
+delicate hands often twitched convulsively. Suppose she should be
+seriously ill? Suppose she should die, and all the horror and grief of
+these hours had been endured in vain?
+
+She pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. There was no one--no
+one who could counsel and help her. And yet she was with friends, with
+her good old Stine, who had received her yesterday with a flood of
+joyful tears, who was nearly beside herself with grief and joy at the
+unexpected visit, and with worthy Jochen, whose honest face mingled
+pleasantly with the happy memories of her girlish days--how deserted
+she would feel in yonder foreign land! Would they not look upon her,
+treat her as an adventuress? And could she blame them for it? Could she
+tell her pitiful story to all the world--nay, even to one human being?
+
+The harassing anxiety drove her from her seat to the window of the next
+room. A broad expanse of blue sea flashed between the gable-roofs of
+the neighbors' houses and the white downs; a sail gleamed on the
+distant horizon. It was a fresh, bright scene that was framed in by the
+low window, and she gazed at it with the eyes with which he had taught
+her to behold nature; then she remembered that the empty waste of
+waters, with the lonely ship pursuing its solitary way into the unknown
+distance, was to her and her child a cruel, pitiless reality. Her head
+drooped; she did not notice the slight noise outside the door, and only
+looked up when it opened, and Stine, an expression of mingled timidity
+and joy on her face, which was swollen and red with weeping, entered,
+and then looked back towards some one who was standing behind her. A
+sudden foreboding, which drove every drop of blood to her heart,
+thrilled Cecilia's frame. Who could the dark figure in the entry be
+except the one person for whom she had so eagerly longed, for whose
+coming she had waited and hoped as the devotee waits and hopes for a
+miracle? Now he was here, because he loved her--and yet, and yet it
+could not, must not be; and her half-extended arms fell, her trembling
+hands did not return the clasp of his.
+
+"Where is Gretchen?"
+
+They went to the child's bed, where good Stine had already preceded
+them. The little pale cheeks were now deeply flushed, the hands
+twitched more violently; Cecilia's anxious eyes said, what did not
+cross her trembling lips until they had again entered the next room,
+"If she dies, I have killed her."
+
+"She will not die," replied Gotthold, "but you must not decide upon
+anything hastily; you must no longer struggle on alone, must not
+disdain my aid as you have done till now."
+
+"That I may drag you, who are guiltless of this misery, down to ruin
+with me? I have already involved you too far, but more--never."
+
+"What do you call more, Cecilia? I love you; in those words all is
+said, in those words our lives are woven into one circle. What could
+you suffer that I would not suffer with you? Nay, has not even your
+past life become mine and always belonged to me? Has not all this ever
+brooded over my soul as a vague, anxious foreboding, drawing a veil
+over my brightest hours? Yes, Cecilia, when I consider this, I cannot
+help saying: 'Thank God! thank God that the veil is rent, that life
+lies before me as it is, although obstacles and difficulties of all
+kinds threaten to bar our way. We will conquer them. If I ever
+despaired, I shall do so no longer, now that you are restored to me."
+
+He had bent his lips to her ear as he sat behind her; his deep voice
+grew so low as to become almost inaudible, but she caught every
+syllable, and each word pierced her to the heart.
+
+"Ah! Cecilia, Cecilia! you would not have killed yourself and your
+child only--you would have slain me too. Well, since a voice you must
+ever hold sacred, of whose veracity you must never, never have the
+smallest doubt, has cried, live! live for me, Cecilia, for--you cannot
+live without me."
+
+"Nor with you," cried Cecilia, wringing her hands. "No, do not turn
+your honest eyes upon me with such a questioning, reproachful look, my
+own dear love! I would fain tell you all, but I cannot; perhaps I might
+to a woman, yet to her, if she were a true woman, I should not need to
+do so, for she would understand me without words."
+
+"You do not love me as you must love the man from whom you could and
+would accept every sacrifice, because love, the true love which bears
+and suffers all things, perceives no sacrifices, and yours is not the
+true love!"
+
+He spoke without the slightest tinge of bitterness; but his chest
+heaved painfully, and his lips quivered.
+
+"Am I not right in saying that no man, even the best, the most delicate
+in feeling, can rightly understand us?" replied Cecilia, bending
+towards Gotthold, and pushing his hair back from his burning brow. For
+a moment the old sweet smile played around her delicate lips and
+sparkled in her eyes, the smile of which Gotthold had often dreamed,
+and then spent the whole day absorbed in reverie, as if under the
+influence of some magic spell. But it was only for a moment; then it
+disappeared, and sorrowful earnestness was again expressed in every
+feature of the beautiful face, again echoed in the tones of her voice.
+
+"True love! Dare a woman who has experienced what I have, even take the
+word on her lips? True love! Would you have called it so, when I--"
+
+She paused suddenly, rose, went to the window, came back again, and
+standing before Gotthold with her arms folded across her breast, said:
+"When I procured still larger supplies for his avarice, when I would
+have suffered myself and my child to be sold, though you would have
+been compelled to sacrifice the last penny of your fortune to buy our
+freedom--"
+
+"You might have done so, and did not!" exclaimed Gotthold, in the most
+painful agitation.
+
+"I might, and did not," replied Cecilia, "but certainly not because I
+doubted, for an instant, that you would, without hesitation, sacrifice
+all, all; such a doubt is inconceivable to a woman who knows herself
+beloved, nay, she would, under similar circumstances, go begging for
+her lover; but--it is useless, Gotthold, I shall never find words. Ah!
+the misery that is even denied the relief of expressing its agony,
+which must consume away in silent torture."
+
+She wandered up and down the room, wringing her hands. Gotthold's
+mournful eyes followed her as she paced to and fro, and a feeling of
+intense bitterness welled up in his heart. There had been a
+possibility, but she had not seized it, and now it was too late.
+
+He told her so, and why it was now too late, and that even if, by the
+income from his labor, he could satisfy the claims which others already
+had upon the small remnant of property that now remained, it would be a
+mere nothing to her husband's avarice, a sum which, if any one offered
+him, he would hurl back into his face with a scornful laugh.
+
+Cecilia, pausing in the centre of the room, had listened eagerly,
+gasping for breath. "My poor Gotthold," said she; "but for me--it is
+better so, even the temptation cannot assail me now, and the matter is
+decided. Yes, Gotthold, it is decided; besides, perhaps it was only a
+momentary thirst for money, which the deadly hatred he bore you has
+long since swallowed up. He will not release me; I have not chosen,
+will not choose death as long as the last possibility of deliverance,
+flight, remains. Let me fly, Gotthold, before it is too late; do not
+detain me. You wish to save me, and are only driving me into the arms
+of death."
+
+"I will keep you, save you, and tear you from the arms of death," cried
+Gotthold, clasping Cecilia's hands, "you and your child, whom you would
+kill, if, while ill and feverish, you exposed it to the dangers of a
+journey, which, under any circumstances, would be a useless cruelty,
+for he would know how to find you there or anywhere if he wants to do
+so--there as well as here, and therefore you must not stay here. You
+can remain nowhere, except under my protection, I repeat it. I will
+guard you. Cecilia, have you then no faith in me, my courage, my
+strength, my judgment? And I too cannot tell you all, how I intend to
+save you, will save you; I must beg you to let me take my own way,
+without explanation. Is not what is fair for women, right for men? May
+not cases occur for us also, in which we act as duty and honor command,
+and which we can confide only to a man? And, Cecilia, when I tell you
+that I have trusted to a man, to whom from childhood you have looked up
+with deep reverence, without suspecting that you owed him the respect
+so freely paid--and this man approves of my plan and resolution, and
+will himself do all in his power that the plan may not remain a plan,
+that the resolution may be executed--and this man will assure you of
+the fact with his own lips--Cecilia, I will bring this old man, your
+ancestor, to you, and when kneeling before him with his hand resting
+upon your head, the past, which seems as brazen and immutable as fate,
+reels and totters, you will perhaps believe that the present is not
+unalterably fixed for those who live and love!"
+
+Gotthold hurried out of the room. Cecilia, trembling with a strange
+foreboding, gazed steadily at the door through which he had
+disappeared. It opened again: the tall form that entered was compelled
+to bend its head, and thus, with drooping head and downcast eyes,
+approached her. A strange conviction shot through her mind: even so had
+her father looked when he called her to his bedside an hour before he
+died, and at that moment he had resembled the picture of his
+grandfather, which hung in the sitting-room beside the old clock. Her
+knees trembled, and almost refused to support her, as he held out his
+hand.
+
+Gotthold closed the door. The words spoken between the two must ever
+remain a secret.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+The last rays of the setting sun trembled on the heaving water in
+crimson light, and crimson light glittered on the nodding grass of the
+broad swamp that stretched from the western shore to the downs, and
+bathed the figures of Gotthold and Jochen Prebrow, who, coming up from
+the narrower strip of ground that rose from the eastern beach, had just
+reached the highest point of ground. Gotthold, shading his eyes with
+his hand, was already gazing into the fiery sea, while Jochen kept
+pushing the spy-glass in and out of its case. At last he found the
+narrow mark on the glittering brass. "Here," said he, handing the glass
+to his companion, and then added as if to apologize: "One can see a
+devilish long ways with it."
+
+"My good fellow!" replied Gotthold smiling.
+
+Jochen showed his white teeth, and then both suddenly grew very grave
+again. Gotthold looked through the glass as eagerly as if he were
+actually trying to see the boat, which had sailed four hours before
+with a fair wind, and must now surely be off Sundin, if not already in
+the harbor, and Jochen was as downcast as if he had seen the round
+cheeks of his Stine, who positively insisted upon accompanying Frau
+Brandow for the last time.
+
+But the worthy fellow was not thinking of himself. He could do without
+his Stine for a few days or weeks, if necessary, and things generally
+went so pleasantly with him that he had more than once doubted whether
+he was not too well off; but his poor, poor Herr Gotthold! O Heavens!
+how they looked at each other when she was going to get into the
+boat, and they shook hands on the bridge once more; with such large,
+wide-open eyes, which were full of tears! And then when she reached the
+boat, she instantly rushed down into the cabin, where Stine had carried
+the child, and then, as the wind took the sails and the boat began to
+move, came out again, and stood leaning on the old gentleman's arm,
+waving her handkerchief, with her big wide eyes looking steadily
+towards him, though she certainly could see nothing through her tears.
+
+"But the boat is as good as any that can be found," said Jochen, "and
+as for my father-in-law, he was glad to get something to do again, and
+my brother Clas is a wonderfully clever fellow, and has often been in
+Sundin. He can take good care of them all; he said he knew where
+Wollnow lived, too, and one can depend upon the old gentleman, and
+nobody can do more than he can; and when one has done everything within
+the bounds of human possibility, he has done all he can."
+
+Jochen drew a long breath; he was astonished himself to find how he
+could talk to-day--even his Stine would have done no better--and Herr
+Gotthold had said nothing at all--what could he say against it? Jochen
+continued in a still more persuasive tone: "And so you mustn't be so
+sad, Herr Gotthold, for the night doesn't last all the time, and
+unexpected things often happen, and when a horse once gets the bit
+between its teeth, a man may pull his arms off, but it will run away
+for all that; and what a horse can do, a man can too."
+
+"I shall not fail, Jochen," replied Gotthold, "and I am no longer
+wretched, for I know I shall fight my way through, although it is a
+difficult matter so long as we don't have Scheel. But I think we shall
+get the fellow yet; at least he isn't dead, and that is the main
+thing."
+
+Jochen Prebrow shook his great head. "It's a damned, miserable
+business, Herr Gotthold," said he. "Old Arent in Goritz saw him a week
+ago,--well, he certainly knows him, for the old man was at Dahlitz till
+Hinrich Scheel drove him away, but at night all cats are gray, and
+besides--there are so many chances of getting away from here by sea to
+Sweden or Mechlenburg or elsewhere. Therefore, it is very probable that
+he came here; but that he could be here still--no, that I don't
+believe."
+
+The crimson glow which blazed in the western horizon had faded, and as
+they turned towards the east in descending from the summit of the down,
+the sea from the shore to the farthest horizon spread before them in a
+deep blue expanse, against which the white sand of the beach was
+relieved with singular distinctness. The chain of downs, upon whose
+highest point they had just been standing, stretched towards the north
+in a vast confused mass, which in the twilight seemed endless, here
+overgrown with coarse grass and broom, yonder in dreary baldness,
+rounded, lengthened, flattened, with sharp overhanging edges, like a
+sea which, while lashed by a tempest, had suddenly been converted into
+sand. Yonder, where the western shore projected farthest--Wiessow Point
+they called the narrow tongue of land--a roof, just visible to the eye,
+appeared above the downs, and Jochen Prebrow pointed towards it with
+his spy-glass.
+
+"Do you see that house?"
+
+"A part of it."
+
+"That's where the Rahnkes live; I shouldn't like to be in their skins
+to-day."
+
+"Why, what is going on there?" asked Gotthold.
+
+"Another of the good chances," continued Jochen, involuntarily lowering
+his voice, although, as far as the eye could reach, no living creature
+was to be seen except the sea-gulls hovering over the waves. "They
+pretend to be fishermen, and when we were under Swedish rule also had
+the right to sell liquor, and say they have it still. But that is
+probably only a rumor in order to have a reason why every moment boats
+run in full of people, who, like the Rahnkes, call themselves
+fishermen, and have just as little right to the name. There must often
+be a half-dozen there at once, the custom-house officers say, and when
+they come--either by land or water--all are away, just run out to sea.
+They have kept watch here on the downs, and cruised in the offing for
+days together; but then no boat has ever arrived except some innocent
+fishing-smack, and the Rahnkes have stood and laughed when the officers
+were disappointed again. But they'll get paid for it to-night."
+
+"What, this evening?"
+
+"I really ought not to tell, but it's different with you, and besides
+they must certainly be there already. Do you see the three sails
+standing towards the north? Those are Uselin fishing-boats, and this is
+the right time and the right course; but they have no fishermen in
+them, but custom-house officers in peajackets and southwesters, and
+when they are near enough they will heave to and stop close by Wiessow
+Point, and the moment they heave to, a dozen custom-house officers and
+gendarmes will come marching, marching up from the land-side. I have it
+all from Herr Inspector from Sundin, who has already spent two days in
+Wiessow, and I'm an old acquaintance of his, because I've often driven
+him to different places; so he told me about it. Look! Herr Gotthold,
+look! there it begins."
+
+Jochen, with an eagerness most unusual to him, pointed towards the
+three vessels, which, in fact, after holding their course in line
+directly towards the north, suddenly tacked and stood towards the land.
+At the same moment, two boats that must hitherto have lain concealed
+behind Wiessow Point appeared, and it was soon evident that they wished
+to escape between the coast and the three vessels, while the foremost
+was trying to cut them off. But it was already doubtful whether it
+would succeed, as it had a longer distance to run before reaching the
+point where the two courses crossed, and the smugglers sailed quite as
+fast, besides laying closer to the wind. In fact, at the end of ten
+minutes, a small gray cloud that rose from the pursuing boat, followed
+at shorter and shorter intervals by other little gray clouds, showed
+that the custom-house officers were beginning to despair of the success
+of the chase, and soon the cessation of the firing proved it had
+failed. The smugglers already looked like a mere speck on the horizon,
+the pursuing boat had tacked, and was standing back towards Wiessow
+Point, where the two others had arrived long before, "probably, with
+the men who now came hurrying up from the land-side, to find the nest
+empty once more," Gotthold said to himself.
+
+"The damned rascals!" cried Jochen Prebrow.
+
+They had been standing at the top of one of the higher downs, eagerly
+watching the exciting spectacle, every separate phase of which was as
+distinct to the two sons of the coast as if they had been in the midst
+of the action. In this the excellent spy-glass had done them essential
+service; it had been passed from hand to hand, and Gotthold had just
+taken it. He thought, if Jochen's information was correct, they must at
+least see some of the custom-house officers on the farthest downs, and
+slowly turning from hillock to hillock was searching the ground before
+him, already growing dim in the mists of evening, when he heard a low
+exclamation. At the same moment, however, he dropped the spy-glass, and
+pulled Jochen away from the crest of the down, so that their heads were
+concealed by the long waving grass.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Hinrich Scheel! I saw him distinctly. He was standing about a thousand
+paces away on the top of yonder down, with his back towards us."
+
+"How is that possible?"
+
+"I don't know; but it was he; I should know him among a thousand: there
+he is again."
+
+But it was not on the same down, but farther to the right, and, as it
+seemed to Gotthold, nearer than before; besides, the man, in whom
+through the spy-glass Jochen also thought he recognized Hinrich Scheel,
+was no longer standing erect, but crouching behind the crest of the
+down, like the two companions, gazing in the direction of the Rahnkes'
+house, from which he had come. At least Gotthold did not doubt it. The
+whole situation instantly grew plain to him. Hinrich Scheel, in some
+way or other, had been delayed in his flight, and found in the Rahnkes'
+house, which, according to Jochen's description, was nothing more than
+a den of thieves, a shelter, from which the attack of the custom-house
+officers had just driven him. He had now fled before them to the downs,
+and had every prospect of making his escape even if pursued, since the
+approaching darkness and extreme inequality of the soil greatly favored
+his designs.
+
+Jochen was entirely of Gotthold's opinion, but what should they do now?
+Wait to see whether Hinrich, who was still lying motionless in the same
+spot, would continue his flight in the same direction, and so come
+nearer and nearer to them, or make the attempt to crawl up to him, as
+he evidently expected no danger from this quarter? Both plans were
+almost equally uncertain. The darkness was now increasing very rapidly:
+at his present great distance the man would soon look like a mere dark
+spot on the light sand, and must disappear entirely in a short time; on
+the other hand, he need only glance around, if they were not wholly
+concealed, and then the next instant would surely slide from the down
+on which he lay, and of course overtaking him could not be thought of.
+
+Gotthold's heart throbbed as if it would burst, as he thought of all
+this, and discussed it with Jochen in a whisper. In all probability,
+his fate and hers depended upon his getting yonder man into his power.
+A few moments before, he had had scarcely the shadow of a hope that he
+would ever succeed in doing so; now an almost miraculous chance seemed
+to desire to aid him. There was the man, and here he himself with his
+faithful Jochen, the space that separated them so short that it could
+be crossed in a few minutes, and yet the turning of an eye, a breath of
+wind, a nothing, might tear his prey from him, as if he had only
+dreamed all this, as if it were but a delirium of his excited fancy,
+and he need only rub his eyes, and the dark spot yonder, which seemed
+to be a man, would disappear.
+
+He had disappeared. Had he seen the pursuers approaching from that
+side, and continued his flight, or had he thought the way was now open
+and he could begin his retreat? The place where he had just lain was
+empty. A mistake was impossible, in spite of the dim twilight the crest
+of the down was still sharply relieved against the sky. Would he appear
+again? And would it be nearer or farther?
+
+A few seconds elapsed, during which the two men did not venture to
+breathe. There! There he was again, and nearer--considerably nearer; he
+seemed to be coming directly towards them, and there could no longer be
+a doubt of it. Within a few minutes the distance had lessened at least
+one-half; they scarcely dared to look through the waving sedges,
+necessary as it was to watch the movements of the man, who even at the
+last moment might take another direction. And now he glided down the
+slope of the next hillock in the chain, and came straight up the down
+behind whose crest they lay. It was the highest of them all, and he
+probably wished to look around him a short time, in order to assure
+himself that no danger was threatening from any quarter.
+
+They had slipped down a few feet, and crouched as closely as possible
+among the sedges. In a few moments Hinrich Scheel's head must appear
+before them; they distinctly heard him toiling up the tolerably steep
+slope on the other side, and muttering curses when the sand gave way
+under his feet.
+
+"Now!"
+
+They started up, and darted to the summit. With a lightning-like
+movement Hinrich glided from under Gotthold's hands, but as he turned
+to the left ran directly into Jochen's arms, and the two in one
+indistinguishable ball, slipped, rolled, and tumbled down the hillock
+faster than Gotthold could follow them. Jochen had taken a firm hold,
+but in the last turn he fell underneath; with a desperate effort
+Hinrich released himself, and was dealing a furious blow with a large
+clasp-knife he had drawn from his pocket, when Gotthold seized his arm
+and turned the weapon aside. Jochen had already started up again, and
+the next instant Hinrich Scheel, in his turn, was lying on the sand,
+face downwards, and Jochen, kneeling on his shoulders, was in the act
+of tying his elbows behind him with a small rope, which, after the
+manner of old coachmen, he always carried about with him.
+
+"If you tie me, you'll crush me at the same time," gasped Hinrich
+Scheel. "I won't get up."
+
+"Release him," said Gotthold.
+
+"But we'll take care of this ourselves," said Jochen as he drew a
+pistol from the pocket of the prostrate man, and handed it to Gotthold.
+"There!"
+
+Hinrich Scheel stood erect. His squinting eyes stared horribly at his
+assailant from a face distorted with rage. Suddenly he started back.
+
+"You," he cried, "you! What do you want of me?"
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+There was a wild terror in Hinrich's look and gesture, and the rattling
+tone of his harsh voice.
+
+"What is the matter?" cried Gotthold, shaking the man, who still stood
+before him as if petrified, rudely by the shoulder.
+
+The powerful grasp produced a strange, mysterious effect upon the man.
+He stretched his long arms towards the dark sky, shook them wildly,
+waved them up and down, and then threw himself on his knees, bracing
+his left hand against the sand, and striking several furious blows with
+the right, as if he wished to murder some one he held by the throat;
+then he rose and shrieked, in answer to Gotthold's question:--
+
+"What's the matter? I wish I had him!"
+
+"Whom?"
+
+"He lied; he said you were dead, and they wanted to arrest me, and
+imprisonment for life would be the least punishment; and did I wish to
+bring misfortune upon him, who had always been such a good master to
+me, and would give me money enough to last all my life? But when he
+came that night to the giant's grave, where I had concealed myself, he
+only gave me five hundred thalers; he had no more, not another
+shilling; he was obliged to give the rest to the lawyer, as bail for
+his appearing at any moment if he was summoned. And all that was a lie,
+wasn't it, sir, all a lie, every word?"
+
+"All," said Gotthold, "all, every word."
+
+"All, every word," repeated Hinrich, as if he could not yet understand
+it. "Why did he need to lie? I should certainly have gone if it had
+been necessary--for him. I did it for him, and as for the money, I had
+it in my hand. I could have done what I chose with it, and I gave it to
+him. Not a thaler was lacking; it was the whole package, just as I took
+it out of the Assessor's pocket."
+
+"You did it for him," said Gotthold; "did you also do it by his
+orders?"
+
+"By his orders?" replied Hinrich, "what need was there of orders? I did
+it because--because--I don't know why; but he rode on my back until he
+got his pony, and then I taught him to ride; he learned all, all he
+knows from me; and if Brownlock wins and brings him in a pile of money,
+whom has he to thank for it but Hinrich Scheel?"
+
+While speaking in this manner, they walked on over the downs, Gotthold
+and Hinrich leading the way, while Jochen Prebrow followed behind,
+though not so far that he could not overtake them in a few bounds if
+necessary. It had grown very dark, so dark that they could scarcely see
+the wild rabbits which glided through the coarse grass at their feet,
+and a large owl soaring towards them fluttered aside in terror, as
+Hinrich, after a pause, continued with a savage imprecation:--
+
+"I did it, because I knew how hard up he was. He had five thousand
+thalers to pay Herr Redebas the following noon, and if he did not pay
+them he might be refused a place in the races. I knew that--I have been
+at them often enough, and know as much about the rules as any of the
+gentlemen--and I knew that he would make no fuss afterwards, although
+he had said nothing about it, and I believe had not even thought of the
+money the Herr Assessor carried in his pocket. But I had thought of it
+all day long, and even looked out the place as we drove to Dollan. It
+had long overhung the morass, and the rain had made long cracks in it,
+so I said to myself: 'If they drive back to-night, and the carriage is
+turned out of the road here, the earth will break off, and the whole
+thing will slide down, and that's an accident which might happen to the
+best driver, on a stormy night such as this will be.'"
+
+"Only you might easily have gone down with the rest," said Gotthold.
+
+"You mean, if I hadn't jumped out of the carriage at the right time?
+Bah, sir! It's no harder than to get off a horse that is running away,
+when one sees it is going to fall. I jumped out at the right time, and
+then the ground broke away, and slid down with a thundering, crashing
+sound, and then all was perfectly still, except that one or two small
+pieces cracked off and rattled down the slope, and the tempest swept
+howling and moaning over the morass; but that was nothing new to me,
+and it was perfectly still below.
+
+"I stood up and looked down, wondering how far the land-slide had
+probably gone. If the marl had held together well, it had doubtless
+fallen into the bog, and with its speed and weight had been buried
+nobody knows how deep; but it had jolted violently on the way, and I
+had heard it; the whole carriage must have broken to pieces, and in
+that case everything might still be lying on the edge. I must know how
+matters were, so I made up my mind to climb down.
+
+"But it was hard work; I could not find the right place in the dark,
+and nearly fell myself; at last, however, I reached the bottom of the
+slope."
+
+"Well!"
+
+"Well, then I groped around there; the moon had also broken through the
+clouds a little, and I soon found the carriage, or what was left of it;
+it was smashed into small pieces, and one horse was lying among them;
+it had broken its neck and was dead as a door-nail. Close beside the
+horse lay the Herr Assessor, but he was still breathing, and when I
+turned him on his back he groaned heavily, and then twitched several
+times; he would die without my help, and I had already taken the money
+out of his pocket, and buttoned up the coat again so that it might look
+as if he were lying just as he fell."
+
+"Did you not look for me?"
+
+"I looked, but I didn't find you; he told me afterwards that you
+were lying half-way down the slope, and besides the time I was
+crawling about in the dark seemed very long, and there was a rustling
+among the reeds, and then the other horse, which had broken loose
+from the carriage and run out into the morass with the pole--stupid
+beast!--began to scream, and it is a pitiful sound to hear a dying
+animal shriek in its agony, and so I came up again on dry land."
+
+"And was Herr Brandow already there?"
+
+"How do you know that?" asked Hinrich in astonishment.
+
+"I only imagined so."
+
+"No, he wasn't there then, but he came directly after, and I was
+furious because he had taken Brownlock; besides, what business had he
+there? I told him so too, and said he must go back at once; but he
+wouldn't; people had seen him ride away, and where should he say he had
+been when this story came out? I had offered him the package, but he
+knocked it out of my hand, and it lay on the ground between us, and I
+said it might stay there. 'So it can for aught I care,' said he; 'I
+didn't do it for the money;' and then he asked what had become of you?
+I gave him a short answer, for I was angry, and then he said I must
+turn back at once, and--and--'Do it alone, sir,' said I, 'I'll have
+nothing more to do with it.' He begged my pardon, but I wouldn't make
+up, out of pure ill-temper, and now he again grew anxious about what
+account he could give of his whereabouts during this time, till I said
+to him: 'As you have Brownlock under you, sir, you can just as well
+ride across the bog, and then you will get to Neuenhof as soon as if
+you had ridden away from Dollan directly after the gentlemen: I mean,
+of course, over the road.' He saw this too, but his courage failed,
+although he generally had plenty for such things, and I myself had
+ridden across the bog a week before under his own eyes; so I said to
+him: 'Then do what you choose, I must go and knock up the Prebrows now,
+or I shall come in for all the blame,' and then he rode away, and it
+was a splendid sight--I could see it distinctly, for the moon had come
+out--and the water dashed up under the hoofs--yes, it was a splendid
+sight to see how he rode."
+
+Hinrich walked on a few steps in silence; suddenly he stopped short.
+
+"And the way he has treated me is a sin and a shame; may God punish me
+if I don't pay him for it. He promised me ten per cent, of all
+Brownlock won, and he had ten thousand in his book then; but it may
+easily amount to as much again. And he knows I would give one of my
+hands to see Brownlock on the course, and have people point to me and
+say: 'That's Hinrich Scheel, who trained him; he understands those
+things better than all the English jockeys.' O Lord! Lord! and I'm to
+do all this for him, while he leaves me for a whole week in this kennel
+of Rahnkes' and I'm to come to Goritz the night before the boat, in
+which I'm to take passage, sails for Mecklenburg, and I must meet him
+in Goritz woods, and get the two thousand he promised me, but he was
+not there, and probably thought, 'He must go tomorrow, with or without
+the money;' but I'll pay him for it, by Heavens! I'll pay him for it."
+
+"That would cost you quite as much as him," replied Gotthold; "or do
+you think the law will set you free because you did everything solely
+for your master's sake?"
+
+"The law, sir! You won't deliver me up to the law," cried Hinrich.
+
+"And if I should, could you blame me for it?"
+
+Hinrich stopped short, but there was no possibility of escape. Jochen
+Prebrow's heavy hand rested on his shoulder, and Gotthold had just
+cocked the pistol, whose barrel glittered in the light of the nearest
+beacon, of which they were already within a very short distance. A
+single cry would summon the watchman, if he chose to push matters to
+extremities.
+
+"I am in your power, sir," said he, "and I am not. Neither you nor any
+other man shall compel me to repeat what I have just told you before a
+court of justice. I may have imposed upon you with a false tale."
+
+"That excuse will not avail you much, Hinrich; we have proofs that the
+money was not lost, but stolen and placed in your master's hands."
+
+And in a few words he told him the contents of Wollnow's letter, adding
+what he had just learned from old Boslaf, that while searching the
+bog--to the great astonishment of the men--they had followed the
+hoof-prints of a horse several hundred paces; and Hinrich's denial
+would produce little effect in opposition to this and other
+well-established facts.
+
+Hinrich had listened attentively.
+
+"I still think you won't give me up to the law, sir," said he; "it's an
+ugly story, and the less said about it the better, for--for all
+concerned; but if it must be, why, sir, we poor men are never much
+better treated than dogs, and these last few days I have fared even
+worse; so I don't mind going to jail, if he only comes too."
+
+It was too dark for Gotthold to see the cruel smile that played around
+the man's thick lips, as he uttered the last words.
+
+"I think I can spare you the jail," he answered, "if you will promise
+to make no attempt at flight, and obey all my orders implicitly. I will
+require nothing unreasonable."
+
+"I know that, sir," said Hinrich, "and here is my hand."
+
+The hand that rested in Gotthold's was as hard as iron; but he thought
+he felt in its nervous pressure that the man intended to keep his word.
+
+"Come, then," said he, "and, Jochen, show us a path by which we can
+reach your house without being seen, if possible."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+"My poor dear friend! To think we must part again; it is really too
+hard. But don't be discouraged! Gretchen will get well, and everything
+will come out right at last."
+
+Ottilie Wollnow said these words in the antechamber of her house in
+Sundin, to Gotthold, with whom she had just left the room where Cecilia
+and old Borlaf were watching Gretchen's feverish slumber.
+
+"Everything," repeated Ottilie, as she saw that the look of deep sorrow
+on Gotthold's expressive face remained unchanged.
+
+"You do not really think so yourself," he replied, gratefully pressing
+Ottilie's hand; "if the child dies, Cecilia, I fear, will never get
+over it, no matter how much, how entirely, that scoundrel is to blame;
+at any rate it will be another of those sad, torturing memories, which,
+according to her own confession to you, separate her from me forever."
+
+Herr Wollnow came out of an adjoining room, ready for walking. Ottilie
+accompanied the two friends to the door. "I wish I could go with you,"
+said she.
+
+"And it would not be a bad thing," said Wollnow as the two friends
+walked through the dusky streets, in which to-day there was an unusual
+stir and bustle; "women have what in such cases removes mountains--the
+sovereign passion which we men, luckily for ourselves, have reasoned
+away, though without obtaining in exchange the sovereign calmness with
+which that strange old man met Brandow this morning. I would not speak
+of it in the ladies' presence. Brandow, with the acuteness for which
+even his enemies must give him credit, had made up his mind from the
+first moment that Cecilia must sooner or later come here, even if she
+did not do so at once. He therefore instantly turned round and drove
+here as fast as the horses could go; he must have met you just outside
+of Prora. Since that time he has lurked around my house and your
+lodgings; I admire the firmness with which he has maintained his usual
+calm manner, and his boldness in telling everybody that his wife had
+gone away to make a little visit, and the farce Cousin Borlaf had
+played with the farm-hands--searching the bog and forest--was a piece
+of roguery for which he would call the spiteful old man, with whom he
+had long been on bad terms, to a strict account. He must have had a
+hell of anxiety and dread in his heart, for his enemies--and he has not
+a few, foremost among whom are Redebas and the Plüggens--took an eager
+interest in circulating the worst reports, and the members of the
+committee on the races were on the point of formally demanding an
+explanation from Brandow, when yesterday evening he said at the club
+that his wife had arrived here half an hour before, and was staying
+with us: the Selliens had also requested the pleasure of her company,
+but the Assessor's health was not yet entirely restored, so he had
+given us the preference. In order to give his statement the proper
+weight, or--urged on by I know not what devil of impudence--as soon as
+he heard of Cecilia's arrival yesterday evening--I suppose through Alma
+Sellien, who unluckily was with my wife at the time--he rang the
+door-bell, and sent in his card to Ottilie. She would undoubtedly have
+been glad to receive him and give full vent to her feelings; but the
+old gentleman entered the room, and with the stately politeness which
+we of the last two generations have forgotten, begged her to leave him
+alone with Brandow a moment. It was, in fact, not more than a minute
+before the old gentleman rejoined the ladies with a mien as calm as
+ever; while the other rushed down the staircase, and Cecilia, who had
+no suspicion of his presence, was startled by the violence with which
+somebody banged the door. Here we are at the 'Golden Lion.' Let me go
+in alone. If we should not find him this evening, he ought not to know
+that you have returned."
+
+Wollnow entered the wide hall, through whose open door a bright light
+streamed into the somewhat dusky street. There were a great many guests
+in the large hotel on account of the races, which had commenced to-day,
+and were to be continued to-morrow, so that Wollnow was obliged to ask
+several times before he could get a positive answer; and Gotthold was
+kept waiting longer than he expected. As, in walking up and down, he
+had for the second time proceeded some little distance from the house,
+a female figure suddenly emerged from a dark side-street, passed him,
+and instantly turned back with a murmured "Carl," raising her black
+veil at the same moment. In spite of the dim light, Gotthold recognized
+Alma Sellien.
+
+"You are mistaken," said he.
+
+Alma had also recognized him; she had felt so sure of her ground that
+terror almost robbed her of all presence of mind; but it was only for a
+moment. "It is fortunate it was no one else," she said, drawing a long
+breath, and then, as Gotthold made no reply, added: "I have begged him
+again and again to tell you; you must learn it sooner or later, and to
+you the news can give only pleasure; but he never would."
+
+"And for good reasons."
+
+"What reasons? Pray, pray tell me all."
+
+"In another place and at another time; neither hour nor scene is
+suitable."
+
+Wollnow came out of the hotel. "Another time, then," whispered Alma, as
+she drew down her veil and glided back into the dark street from which
+she had just emerged.
+
+"Who was that?" asked Wollnow.
+
+"This man will drag half the world into the mire with him," cried
+Gotthold.
+
+"Where we should have sought him long ago, if we wanted to find him,"
+replied Wollnow. "It was Frau Sellien, wasn't it? You betray no secret,
+it was one only to us; here the sparrows chatter it on the housetops.
+The man is making it easier for us than we expected; but it is a
+wonderful piece of luck that you caught Hinrich Scheel. If only the
+fellow's old clannish feeling doesn't break out again at the last
+moment."
+
+"I do not think it will; for it is precisely because Brandow has so
+brutally wounded this feeling, so basely broken the faith due from the
+chief to his follower--that has excited and angered the rough but in
+his way honest man, to the highest degree. No, on the contrary, what I
+fear is that our treatment of Brandow will not satisfy him, and he will
+try to revenge himself in his own fashion."
+
+"And is he so far wrong?" replied Wollnow earnestly, "are we not
+robbing the gallows of its victim? And even if we excuse ourselves by
+saying that there are crimes worse than highway robbery and murder,
+which do not come under the head of any law, cannot Hinrich Scheel
+quote the same thing himself, and demand that the breach of faith
+committed against him, and for whose condemnation he can certainly
+apply to no regular judge, shall not remain unpunished? But forgive my
+illogical obstinacy, my dear friend. I perceive that the future of more
+than one innocent person depends upon the secrecy with which we go to
+work. So let a Vehmgericht or a judgment from Heaven take the place of
+a public trial. Here we are at the club-house. I am sorry to leave you,
+but I feel with you that you must fight your way through this without
+seconds."
+
+Gotthold walked up and down the brightly-lighted vestibule; loud
+voices, laughter, and the clinking of glasses echoed from the
+dining-room, into which a liveried servant had taken his card; the
+clerk was sitting in the office busily employed on his books; and the
+servants in the dressing-room had enough to do to take and deliver up
+the coats of the gentlemen who were constantly arriving and departing.
+
+The man again appeared; Herr Brandow begged to be excused, but he was
+very busy just now; would not tomorrow morning be time enough?
+
+"Time enough for what?" asked Gustav Von Plüggen, who had come out of
+the dining-room directly behind the servant, and greeted Gotthold with
+his usual noisy gayety, now increased by plentiful potations of wine.
+"What? Brandow very busy? Stuff and nonsense! Pressing business! He's
+sitting behind a bottle of Canary, writing one round sum after another
+in his damned betting-book. They're all determined to be fools, though
+Redebas and Otto and I have tired ourselves out talking; after what we
+saw at Dollan, everything is possible. It will turn out just as it did
+with Harry--Harry at the Derby, five years ago. Ever been in England?
+Famous country--women, horses, sheep--famous. An old joke of mine that
+always keeps fresh. What was I saying? do you want to speak to Brandow?
+But why don't you come in? It will be a pleasure to me to introduce an
+old schoolmate. Celebrated artist, hey? I heard some devilish good
+things yesterday at the chairman's from Prince Prora, who made your
+acquaintance in Rome, and is delighted to hear that you are in Sundin.
+Even spoke of seeking you out; curious; on the race-course to-morrow.
+By the way, got a ticket? Stand A? Don't hesitate, I beg; see,
+half-a-dozen left; gives me great pleasure. Come in!"
+
+The servant had turned the handle of the door long before. The
+dining-room was crowded with people--members of the club, and their
+guests, among whom the officers of the garrison were especially
+numerous. They were sitting at different tables with bottles of
+champagne before them; a gay, even noisy conversation was going on; no
+one noticed the new-comers, not even Brandow, who had apparently just
+risen from the table, and was standing at the end of the apartment, in
+the midst of a group of people who were all talking to him at once,
+while he, holding up his betting-book, exclaimed: "One at a time,
+gentlemen! one at a time! since you are positively determined on being
+kind enough to make me a Cr[oe]sus. Trutwetter, one hundred and fifty!
+Please put your name underneath. Here, if you prefer! I have kept a
+place for Kummerrow's two hundred pistoles, Baron? No! Oh! dear, omen
+in nomine! who would have thought it? Another! Plüggen! Et tu Brutus?
+What is it? A gentleman--back again already? I am very busy! Tell the
+gentleman--"
+
+Brandow suddenly paused; he had just seen Gotthold, who had been
+standing directly behind him.
+
+"I have time to wait until you have finished your business here."
+
+"It would detain you too long."
+
+"I have plenty of time."
+
+Gotthold withdrew from the circle with a polite but formal bow; Brandow
+had turned very pale, and stared sullenly at his betting-book, while
+the lead-pencil trembled in his hand. What was the meaning of the
+pertinacity with which this man pursued him? Should he rudely dismiss
+him before the whole company? But that was impossible without a scene,
+and this evening a scene might be dangerous.
+
+"Now, Brandow! I have no time to wait!" cried a voice.
+
+"Are you reckoning them up already?" asked a second.
+
+"I really must run them over once," replied Brandow, closing the book;
+"have patience for a few minutes, gentlemen; it seems that there is a
+communication of some importance to be made to me. I'll be back again
+in a moment. Now may I ask your wishes?"
+
+"The communication I have to make is indeed of some importance, and
+might be best heard without witnesses. So it is only in your own
+interest that I request you to provide some place where we shall not be
+disturbed."
+
+"Have you considered that I shall probably have more to ask of you than
+you of me?"
+
+"I think I have considered everything; and that is probably more than
+you can say."
+
+They were standing somewhat apart from the others, speaking in low
+tones, and looking steadily into each other's eyes.
+
+"Come, then," said Brandow.
+
+"Who was that?" asked one of the gentlemen, whose autograph graced
+Brandow's betting-book.
+
+"A famous fellow!" cried Gustav von Plüggen. "Old schoolmate of mine;
+celebrated artist; talked about him all yesterday evening at the
+chairman's! Protégé of Prince Prora's! Famous fellow! I'm going to have
+him paint me. In England every man of rank has himself painted with all
+his favorite horses and dogs, and all the rest of the family. Ever been
+in England, Kummerrow? Famous country--women, horses, sheep--everything
+famous!"
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+They crossed the hall in silence, and, without exchanging a word,
+entered one of the rooms reserved for the private use of the members of
+the club, and which the servant opened for the two gentlemen at a sign
+from Brandow. A large hanging lamp, directly over a round table covered
+with green velvet, lighted the apartment tolerably well. Several
+arm-chairs, also covered with green velvet, stood around the table.
+
+"I suppose we shall be entirely undisturbed here," said Gotthold.
+
+"And I that the farce will not last long; you saw I was very busy."
+
+Brandow, as if in a fit of impatience, had drawn one of the chairs away
+from the table and thrown himself into it, but it was by no accident
+that his face was thus in the shadow, while the light streamed full on
+Gotthold's.
+
+"Very busy," repeated Brandow, drumming on the arm of the chair, "too
+busy not to be compelled to defer the account I have to settle with you
+until tomorrow morning. And if you should have the--the face to try to
+intimidate me, I say: Beware! beware! you do not yet know me; my
+patience is not inexhaustible, and however willing I might be to avoid
+a scandal, and for these few days, I freely confess, would fain escape
+it--if you urge me, and it must be--I am ready--ready at any moment."
+
+Brandow had spoken in a loud, threatening tone; but he had evidently
+failed in his object. Gotthold's eye rested upon him so calmly--with a
+glance of contempt, as it seemed to him--that he could not bear the
+gaze, and suddenly paused with a secret thrill of terror, as Gotthold
+now quietly opened a letter he had just taken out of his pocket.
+
+"Will you read this letter before you say more?"
+
+Brandow had not the courage to refuse.
+
+"From the noble Wollnow, apparently, to me and about you?"
+
+"Yes, it is from Wollnow, but to me and about you."
+
+"About me! that's strange, and passably long too."
+
+He tried to feign a yawn as he let the sheets slip through his fingers;
+but had scarcely cast a glance at them, and read the first lines, when
+he started up like a madman, and hurling the letter upon the table,
+exclaimed:
+
+"This is infamous! This demands blood! I will see nothing more, hear
+nothing more! I will not be the patient victim of a vulgar intrigue. We
+will speak of this again, sir, we will speak of this again."
+
+He wandered restlessly up and down the room; Gotthold remained quietly
+in his seat.
+
+"You have a moment to decide whether you will read the letter, or
+whether I shall show it to Count Zarrentin, before taking farther
+steps."
+
+Brandow paused in his walk. "So you really mean to have a scandal! I
+thought so. Well, perhaps it will be worth the trouble, to see how you
+intend to begin."
+
+He threw himself into his chair again, seized the letter, and began to
+read it with the air of a man who wished to get rid of a troublesome
+petitioner. A scornful smile played around his lips. "I was mistaken,"
+he muttered as if talking to himself, "it is simply ridiculous, utterly
+ridiculous."
+
+But his lips were pale; the smile changed to a grin, and his hands
+trembled more and more. He had read very rapidly at first; but the
+farther he proceeded the longer he lingered over every separate
+sentence, and even word. Many he seemed to weigh and test two or three
+times, and he made a pretence of reading long after he had evidently
+reached the end. At last, amid the terrible tumult of his soul, a
+resolution was formed.
+
+"You were going to give this--letter to our chairman," he said,
+carefully folding the sheets; "I have no objection, but on one
+condition."
+
+He withdrew the hand with which he had held out the letter to Gotthold.
+
+"On condition that I may first take a copy of this precious document,
+to serve as a basis for the charge of scandal I shall bring against the
+noble writer and delicate-minded receiver of this bungling performance.
+To a man so extremely just as yourself, a man who does not hesitate, on
+the most absurd proofs, to charge his friend with the most horrible
+crimes, this will doubtless be perfectly agreeable."
+
+"Entirely so," replied Gotthold; "you can also keep the original. The
+letter was merely to make you acquainted with certain things, to which
+I did not wish to refer verbally, and has performed its work."
+
+"And this interesting conversation is over," said Brandow, rising; "I
+mean for to-day; to-morrow we shall have more to say to each other;
+only the tables will be turned. The things of which I shall accuse you
+are no shameful inventions like the story about the bills, or silly
+fancies like the horrible murder of Hinrich Scheel, which you will
+probably cry, with all the terrible details, at the next fair, but
+facts, positive facts--a pretty commentary on the song of the worthy
+man, who knows how to make no better use of the hospitality offered
+him, than--you have done. So farewell until to-morrow!"
+
+Brandow walked towards the door with a wave of the hand intended to be
+contemptuous; Gotthold stepped before him.
+
+"You will probably have patience a short time longer, when I tell you
+that your future fate must be decided now and here."
+
+"My fate? Are you mad?"
+
+"Decide for yourself. Hinrich Scheel was found by me yesterday evening
+in Wiessow, where he had concealed himself, and is now at my lodgings
+guarded by the brothers Prebrow."
+
+Brandow staggered back as if a bullet had struck him, until his hand
+clutched the arm of a chair, and in that attitude stood staring at
+Gotthold with eyes that seemed starting from their sockets.
+
+"Hinrich Scheel!" he stammered.
+
+"Whom you thought had disappeared from the scene forever, though you
+were careless or niggardly enough not even to pay off your accomplice
+properly. I am now obliged to have him watched, not to prevent his
+escape--he has no wish to fly, he will endure any punishment if only
+the man for whom he did what he did, does not escape; I have him
+watched simply to prevent his taking this punishment into his own
+harsh, cruel hands."
+
+Brandow had sunk into the chair. His shameless courage and elastic
+strength seemed to have utterly deserted him; he looked ten years
+older; but suddenly he started up again.
+
+"Bah!" he cried, "do you think you can frighten me in that way? If that
+rascal Hinrich has allowed himself to be caught, so much the worse for
+him! What harm can he do me? I hope my word will weigh no less than
+that of a rascally groom, who has evidently been bribed by my enemies.
+A man who knows himself innocent cares nothing for bribery: or do you
+really expect to make any one believe that, if even a suspicion could
+have fallen upon me from any quarter, I would have let the fellow go
+without securing his silence in some way? That is certainly sheer
+nonsense: or will you say, he gave him nothing, so that if he were
+caught no one would ask, From whom and for what did you get this money?
+Settle it among yourselves, and do as you please--an honest man like me
+laughs at your threats."
+
+Again he went towards the door, but his step grew slower the nearer he
+approached it; and ere he reached the threshold, he turned on his heel
+and came up to Gotthold with a smile on his lips.
+
+"Let us drop the tragic masks, Gotthold, and talk like sensible people;
+what are your conditions?"
+
+"The first is that you shall confess the deeds of which Wollnow's
+letter accuses you. You know what I mean."
+
+"Not entirely. Is the confession only for yourself?"
+
+"If you consent to the other conditions, yes."
+
+"Very well; I did what I am said to have done. What more?"
+
+"That which follows as a matter of course. The daughter of an honorable
+family cannot and shall not be the wife of a criminal. That is, you
+will give your consent to everything we--I mean Herr Bogislas Wenhof,
+Wollnow and I--may dictate in regard to the divorce."
+
+"And my daughter?"
+
+"Answer the question yourself."
+
+"I love the child."
+
+"You lie, Brandow; and even were it possible, as it is impossible, you
+would still have forever forfeited the right to keep her, or even
+maintain any communication with her. I hope she will forget you are her
+father."
+
+"Which, however, I shall ever remain, and, _mon cher_, I'll give
+you this knowledge, which is doubtless uncommonly pleasing, as a
+wedding-present; or don't you intend to carry to a fitting end the
+business you have so beautifully begun?"
+
+"The point in question is your destiny, not mine."
+
+"Which, however, seems to be somewhat nearly connected with me. Or did
+you want me to believe you were doing all this for the service of God?
+Pshaw, my dear friend, our acquaintance is not a thing of yesterday,
+and our paths do not cross here and now for the first time. I have been
+in your way, and you in mine, on the schoolroom benches, the
+playground, at the dancing-lessons, and everywhere; I supplanted you in
+those days, and gave you a punishment to remember all your life. Well,
+you have done so, and this is the reprisal. I have lost the game--by a
+single foolish play--no matter! I have lost it; and I am too old a
+gambler not to understand and feel that it is my fate; but the game is
+not yet over; we shall meet again, and he who laughs last, laughs
+best."
+
+The man's eyes flashed glances of deadly hate, as he strode up and down
+the room with hasty steps. His sharp teeth gnawed his livid lips, and
+he tugged and tore at the ends of his long fair mustache, as he again
+paused and said:--
+
+"Only one question more. Shall I also have to provide the dowry?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean by that; I only know we intend to leave you
+to take your own course as soon as you have paid your debt--outwardly
+at least--and replaced the sum stolen. You will have a chance to do so
+to-morrow. It is gambler's money, but that don't concern us."
+
+"And if I don't win?"
+
+"You will work. Dollan has been leased to you for five years more; you
+can, if you choose--and you will be compelled to choose--pay back in
+less than half the time the ten thousand thalers I shall advance to
+you--it is almost the last remnant of my fortune. At any rate the
+package will be found on Dollan moor to-morrow evening, and day after
+to-morrow be in the coffers of the convent."
+
+"How well you have provided for yourself!"
+
+"And you too. If we drove you from your home, as you deserve--for you
+are not worthy to have German laborers call you master--you would go to
+ruin in the shortest possible time, and that, for your child's sake, I
+do not desire."
+
+Brandow essayed a scornful laugh, but Gotthold's last words, and the
+tone in which he uttered them, closed his lips.
+
+"You said just now, Brandow, that you loved your child: it was a lie;
+if you had done so even a little, for her sake you would at least have
+kept yourself innocent of crime. You have never loved any one except
+yourself, and that with a coarse, vain, egotistical love, which had no
+trace of respect for the sacredness of that which even the roughest men
+reverence. Yet--although this is my honest opinion--I am a man, and may
+be mistaken; perhaps it will touch your heart, when you hear that your
+child is ill, very ill--that we shall possibly only be able to prolong
+her innocent young life a few days. It is terrible to say it, but I
+cannot lighten the burden you have laid upon your conscience: if it
+dies, you have killed it."
+
+"I?" faltered Brandow; "I?"
+
+"Yes, you! You who made life worthless to her mother," replied
+Gotthold, turning to Brandow. "Or did you think the blow you dealt the
+mother would not strike the child, too? That the latter would not drink
+death from the poisoned cup of life you gave the former? You cannot
+have thought so, for you had based your whole plan upon this mutual
+love between the mother and child; you thought the bond that united
+their souls strong enough to bear your whole shameful web of falsehood
+and deceit, treachery and violence. I say once more: if it dies, you
+have killed it. Understand this clearly, man, if you can. It is so
+horrible that everything else you have done is innocent in comparison;
+it is so fearful that you must realize it."
+
+Gotthold walked several paces, and then paused before his enemy, who
+sat cowering in his chair with his head resting on his hands.
+
+"Brandow, they say that years ago, when, struck down by your sword, I
+lay on the ground before you, you dealt me a second blow. It has always
+been impossible for me to believe it, even now it is difficult; but
+however that may be, I cannot give a death-blow to any one lying on the
+ground, no matter who he is, or what he may have done; but neither can
+I hold out my hand to a worthless man, even if he extends his
+imploringly to me. Remember this, Brandow. Perhaps the moment will come
+sooner than you believe possible."
+
+Gotthold left the room; Brandow still sat in the same attitude into
+which he had first sunk, staring steadily at the carpet. A dreary smile
+flitted over his pale face.
+
+"That was a fine sermon," he muttered; "highly edifying! He got that
+from his father, the parson! And I sit here, and let myself be made out
+a villain by the miserable babbler, the cursed hypocrite, and don't
+hurl all he says back into his canting face. Bah!"
+
+He started up and wandered about the room.
+
+"Folly, folly, folly! Her love for this dauber is not a thing of to-day
+or yesterday; she has always loved him; she has never been able to
+forgive herself for stooping to wed me, the haughty Princess! I knew it
+from the first! And was I to pocket the insult quietly, act as if I did
+not notice it, be satisfied with the crumbs thrown to me? I should have
+been a fool! Nobody would have done so in my place, and I've only done
+what any one else would, what thousands do who have not even my excuse.
+Alma would have run away from her silly husband long ago, if I had
+wanted her, if I had not always dissuaded her. But that would have been
+just the right grist for their mill; their only regret is that I have
+not made it easier for them. And I've made it easy enough now. Fool,
+fool! How I might have made them writhe, how I might make them writhe,
+if it were not for the accursed money. They put a stone in my path for
+me to stumble over, and I did them the favor, and now they stand and
+triumph!"
+
+He strode up and down the room like a caged tiger.
+
+"But it is not always night. A little more, and I should have wept over
+that sentimental speech, as if it had been the truth, as if she had not
+taught the child to hate me, as if it had the slightest trace of
+resemblance to me, and might not just as well have been his, which it
+probably would, if he had then been the noble family friend for which
+he passes now. I have let myself be caught in the snare like a stupid
+boy. It came too suddenly; I was not calm enough; and Hinrich's
+reappearance was a shameful blow. Who would have thought it, after the
+fellow had once been so foolish as to draw all the suspicion upon
+himself, and I had made things so hot for him here! He shall pay for
+it, if he ever crosses my path again--the scoundrel; he shall pay for
+it. He and the daubing parson's son, and the old vagabond, and the
+damned Jew, and she--she--"
+
+He paused before one of the large mirrors which covered the walls of
+the room between the windows from floor to ceiling.
+
+"So I wasn't good enough for her. Other people think differently in
+this respect. The fact is, I sold myself too cheap. A fellow like me
+might have made very different pretensions; nay, can still at any
+moment, though I look now as Don Juan did last night when the devil was
+chasing him. But it's only the green glass and the dim light."
+
+A knock at the door interrupted his gloomy soliloquy. It was a servant,
+who came to ask whether Herr Brandow was not coming back to the
+dining-room soon.
+
+"At once," said Brandow.
+
+He cast another glance at the mirror. "I'm rather deplorable-looking
+still. No matter! Or so much the better. They will think I am anxious
+about to-morrow, and fall into the snare all the easier, the
+blockheads! And to-morrow noon I shall have my thirty or forty thousand
+in my purse, and--all the rest is nonsense."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+
+The clearest September morning shone upon the old Hanse city, whose
+narrow winding streets were remarkably quiet to-day, so quiet that the
+servant-girls who stood idly at the open doors of the houses could
+bewail their piteous fate to each other across them undisturbed. Was it
+not too shameful that the second day--the great day, when everybody,
+even the little apprentices from the cobblers' benches, had gone to see
+the show--they were obliged to stay and take care of the houses? And
+Kopp's carriage had just come back empty for the sixth time, and was
+now stopping at the apothecary's round the corner; but the young ladies
+always made such a parade, and were never ready; it was a sin and a
+shame, when one thought that other honest girls, who certainly wouldn't
+keep the carriage waiting, were not allowed to set foot outside of the
+door; but when the cat was away the mice would play.
+
+The merry girls, who had approached nearer and nearer each other,
+joined hands and began to whirl around on the rough pavement, out of
+the sunlight into the shadow of the houses, and out of the shadow back
+into the sunlight, and then with a scream scattered and fled, each into
+her own door, as the strange gentleman came out of a large, silent
+house near by.
+
+Gotthold had watched all night beside Gretchen's bed with Cecilia and
+old Boslaf, and good Stine had gone in and out. Several times they
+thought the last moment had come; but the little heaving breast, which
+Cecilia had pressed to her own, rose and fell more easily again, and
+she laid the sweet little creature back upon the pillows, which were
+scarcely whiter than her delicate pale face. After midnight the fever
+became a little less violent, and the Doctor, who came early in the
+morning, said that the danger, unfortunately, was not yet over, but a
+few quieter hours might be expected, and he urgently entreated them to
+use this interval in gaining fresh strength, which they certainly
+greatly needed.
+
+He had looked at old Boslaf as he spoke, but the old man smiled
+pleasantly, and said that the Doctor must not be anxious about him; he
+was used to night-watching, and should soon have plenty of time to
+sleep. But Cecilia, who was full of tender solicitude for the old man,
+whom she now always called father, insisted that he should lie down,
+and sent Gotthold away also. She would keep watch with Ottilie until
+noon; if Gretchen's condition should change for the worse, he should be
+notified at once.
+
+And so he now walked through the silent street towards his lodgings,
+gazed at the girls dancing merrily, the sunlight shining so brightly on
+the gray old gables, and the flock of white doves wheeling in airy
+circles under the bright blue sky. How beautiful the world was! How
+pure and balmy the soft warm air he eagerly inhaled! How lightly he
+strode along, in spite of the long night of anxious watching! How the
+blood bounded in his veins! And yet darkness and death might conquer!
+If the child died--Gotthold paused with a shudder--he had seen, the
+little dark mound so distinctly. But it was only a trick of his
+imagination; Gretchen was still alive; she would recover; the delicate
+little creature had struggled through this terrible night, and he might
+even be permitted to say that it was he who had saved her life once
+more. So she must live for him; her pure soft hands must fit the
+keystone of the building of his happiness. Had he not hitherto
+succeeded in everything far beyond his expectation! Had not even chance
+showed him her most gracious aspect! A few days ago, how could he even
+have ventured to hope that his rival would be so soon and so entirely
+delivered into his hands, and he should be able to say, "This shall be
+done, and it shall be done so and so, without any outcry, without the
+knowledge of any person unconcerned?" This very evening the unfortunate
+man was to return to Dollan to find the money he had stolen, and the
+following day restore it to the treasury of the convent, through
+Wollnow; and this evening also, the vessel which took his accomplice
+would sail for England, the latter having declared of his own free will
+that he could no longer stay here, and would rather go at once to
+America, especially if the gentlemen would provide him with money as
+generously as they had promised, and he knew they would keep their
+word. So within twenty-four hours at latest everything would be settled
+and levelled to a foundation on which another structure might be
+erected.
+
+A quick, heavy step, which came towards him through the deserted street
+near his lodgings, made Gotthold look up.
+
+"What is the matter, Jochen?"
+
+"He's gone," said Jochen, panting for breath. "I was just on my way to
+tell you."
+
+"Since when?"
+
+"It must have been an-hour or two ago; he said he was tired and would
+take a little nap, while Clas and I went down to Frau Müller's, who had
+invited us to breakfast. Well, Herr Gotthold, there we sat quietly; she
+had a nice pork sausage, and we never thought of any mischief, and
+meantime the fellow jumped out of a second-story window into the
+garden, which joins the city wall, and the gate is never locked, and we
+really are not to blame. Even if one don't exactly like a man, how is
+one to suppose he has such tricks in his head?"
+
+"An hour, you said?"
+
+Jochen nodded.
+
+"Where is Clas?"
+
+"Gone down to the harbor; it's just possible he may have gone on board
+the ship to look about him a little."
+
+Gotthold shook his head. "That is extremely improbable, after, as he
+knows, everything is arranged."
+
+"What shall we do, Herr Gotthold?"
+
+"Run to Herr Wollnow and tell him what has happened, and that I have
+gone out to the races; and follow me as fast as you can."
+
+Jochen looked amazed. "Yes, to be sure, Herr Gotthold, that's possible;
+he talked of nothing but the races all last evening."
+
+Gotthold had already taken several steps, when Jochen followed him.
+
+"You're not angry with me and my brother Clas, Herr Gotthold?"
+
+"You good, stupid fellows!"
+
+Jochen looked very much moved, and doubtless wished to say more; but
+Gotthold pressed his hard, honest hand, and hurried down the street to
+the gate, beyond which, at no very great distance from the city, was
+the race-course.
+
+He knew the way only from description; but it could not be missed
+to-day. The nearer he approached the gate, the more numerous became the
+people, who were all moving in the same direction; the suburban street
+through which they were obliged to pass had assumed a holiday garb. The
+modest little villas, half concealed behind the trees in their garden,
+were to-day adorned with garlands and tapestry; here and there, under
+the shade of the boughs, stood an old gentleman, or a gardener, or a
+nurse with a baby in her arms, looking pityingly or mischievously over
+the dusty hedges at the throng hurrying by in the summer heat. Often
+one of the long Holstein wagons, furnished with five or six seats
+placed one behind the other, rattled by, empty if going towards the
+city, crowded with people if driving away from it; and it rarely
+happened that the usual jokes failed to be exchanged between the lucky
+occupants and the dust-covered foot-passengers.
+
+Gotthold had already passed many of the pedestrians, and was still
+hurrying anxiously on. To be sure, it was scarcely to be hoped that
+either he or Jochen would find the man in such a crowd of people,
+especially as he evidently did not wish to be found; but that the
+race-course was the place to seek him, he did not doubt for a moment,
+and as he now hastened on the fugitive's track his heart grew heavier
+and heavier, the more clearly he perceived the bad results that
+threatened to ensue. If Hinrich had fled not to return, to become once
+more the master of his own fate, and Brandow learned it in time, he
+would retract all he had yielded; the battle must begin anew, and with
+an enemy who could not again be surprised; if Hinrich was only seeking
+an opportunity to revenge himself, Brandow's life was not safe a moment
+from the brutal violence of the man, and even admitting that Brandow
+was a person who could defend himself--everything which had seemed won
+was once more doubtful, even the secrecy in which the pitiful fate of
+the woman he loved had hitherto been veiled from an insolent, curious
+world.
+
+Gotthold hurried on still faster, hoping he should now soon reach
+his goal, but he turned out of one street lined with gardens into
+another--the suburbs seemed to have no end. It was still half an hour's
+walk to the racecourse, was the reply to his question.
+
+A light open carriage, drawn by two superb horses, overtook and dashed
+past him; he thought he had seen the face of the elegant young man who
+occupied the seat behind the driver before. The young man turned
+towards him, and instantly tapped his coachman eagerly on the shoulder;
+the carriage stopped; its occupant sprang out and hastily approached
+Gotthold, waving his hand, and calling: "Do I meet you at last?"
+
+A moment after, Gotthold was seated beside young Prince Prora, the
+horses dashed onward, and dusty pedestrians, hedges, gardens, villas,
+and barns flitted by them on either side.
+
+"You don't know how glad I am," said the Prince, pressing Gotthold's
+hand again; "but you will when I tell you that I came from Berlin,
+where I was engaged in a most important consultation with Schinkel
+about my castle, solely on your account. Count Ingenheim wrote that you
+had left Rome, and I heard from Prora that you were staying in this
+neighborhood, so I came to seek, see, talk, persuade, obtain--enfin:
+you must paint my castle in fresco. I have set my heart upon it, and
+you, I suppose, have no reason to say no: Schinkel desires it too, so
+you must consent. He wants you, you and nobody else; I know no one by
+whom I can be so sure of being understood, he said, and was delighted
+when I told him that I had had the honor of a personal acquaintance
+with you for a long time, and had spent the most delightful winter in
+Rome in your society. Ah! that divine Rome! But you conjurers shall
+restore it to me on the walls of my northern castle; I want nothing but
+Roman, or at least Italian, landscapes in the dining-room; all bright
+and sunny as you can paint so marvellously, grave as you are; and as
+for the landscapes of my native country, which we intend to have in the
+hall where the weapons are hung, I won't interfere with you at all. It
+shall be left entirely to you; and you can revel in melancholy, like
+the Danish Prince, but first of all you must say yes--will you?"
+
+The eager young man held out his hand, and a shadow crossed his
+delicate, winning face as Gotthold hesitated to clasp it. How
+willingly, how joyfully he would have accepted a commission so
+delightful, so complimentary, and so important; a commission which
+promised to fulfil all that his artist heart could only desire; but
+now, to-day--
+
+"You don't wish to undertake it?" said the young Prince, sadly.
+
+"I do wish it, certainly I do," replied Gotthold, pressing the
+outstretched hand with deep emotion, "but whether I can is the question
+I am asking myself, and which at this moment I can scarcely answer with
+a yes. Forgive me if I speak in riddles, Your Highness, but there are
+hours and times when we do not belong to ourselves, when we are under
+the spell of a fate whose course we can neither hasten nor retard, and
+whose decision we must await ere we can feel free to make any
+resolution ourselves."
+
+"I certainly do not fully understand you," replied the Prince, "but I
+believe I understand that something, which is certainly no trifle, is
+weighing upon your mind; that you have either met with or fear some
+great misfortune, and in that case the question comes so naturally that
+you will forgive my asking: can any one help you, and can I be the
+person?"
+
+"I thank you, Your Highness; but I shall probably have to fight my way
+through it alone."
+
+"Then I will press you no farther; but I am ready to serve you at any
+time, don't forget that."
+
+Meantime they had emerged from between the houses; before them on the
+boundless expanse of meadow-land was the race-course, with its tall
+stands, its little city of booths and tents, its long rows of carriages
+drawn up side by side, its dark crowd of curious spectators. A party of
+horsemen dashed past them at a furious gallop; one of them, not without
+difficulty, checked his foaming racer and came to the carriage door.
+
+"What, Plüggen, are you not with the others?" cried the Prince.
+
+"Paid the forfeit at the last minute, Your Highness, at the last
+minute--too certain it would turn out to-day as it did at the Derby,
+four years ago. Once in--ah! Gotthold, _bon jour, bon jour!_ Your
+friend Brandow's doing a splendid business to-day, an infernally
+splendid business."
+
+"How far away are they, then? Am I too late?"
+
+"God forbid, your Highness! That is, they must be here in ten minutes.
+Just up to the last obstacle but one; everybody there--intense
+excitement. Exactly as it was at the Derby four years ago, when
+Hurry-Harry by Robin Hood out of Drury Lane--"
+
+"Then we won't detain you, Plüggen. _Au revoir_ until this evening;
+drive on."
+
+Gustav von Plüggen, with rather a long face, touched his hat, turned
+his horse, and dashed after his companions.
+
+"So you know this Brandow?" asked the Prince. "It's a pity about that
+man; he would have had, I think, the material for a splendid general of
+cavalry; a clear head, a keen eye, never at a loss, and withal brave
+even to foolhardiness; but amid these tame plebeian surroundings he
+will make, I fear, nothing better than a _mauvais sujet_. But it is
+shameful that they took the piece of bog into the course on purpose to
+injure him. I hear it was only done to give the other horses a chance,
+since it is generally believed that a horse of Brownlock's weight
+cannot cross a swamp."
+
+"He will cross it, Your Highness," said Gotthold, "you can bet a
+million on it."
+
+"How comes Saul among the prophets?" cried the Prince, laughing. "Since
+when have you become such a connoisseur in horse-flesh? You must keep
+beside me, and act as prompter, if I, a notorious dilettante in these
+noble arts, run any risk of distinguishing myself by my blunders."
+
+"I am sure that Your Highness--"
+
+"You want to get rid of me, I understand. Well, I am very well content,
+now that I have seen and spoken to you. I shall stay three days longer
+in Sundin, and then remain a week in Prora, where you must be my guest,
+even in case--with which idea, however, I won't destroy my present good
+humor--you will not paint a stroke for my castle. Here we are; you will
+surely come up with me. One can get a better view from above, and you
+must at least allow me to secure you a good place."
+
+The carriage stopped. The Prince sprang out, and, without waiting for
+Gotthold's answer, began to ascend the steps of the stand. The latter
+was obliged to follow his friend, who fully expected him to do so; when
+once at the top, he could easily find an opportunity of taking leave of
+him without incivility.
+
+The steps and stand were crowded, but every one was eager to make way
+for the Prince, who was very popular, that he might reach the first
+bench, on which several seats had been reserved for him and his
+attendants. "I think your best course will be to follow me," cried the
+Prince, laughing, and looking over his shoulder at Gotthold, "you see
+here as elsewhere: everything is given away!" But Gotthold could not do
+otherwise than make use of the permission. The narrow space which had
+been opened between the rows of seats for the Prince had long since
+closed; nay, those behind were pressing forward to get as near him as
+possible, and Gotthold soon found himself surrounded by a brilliant
+assembly of the older and younger ladies of the country aristocracy, in
+magnificent attire; white-haired old noblemen, civil dignitaries
+adorned with orders, and distinguished soldiers, all smiling brightly
+and bowing to the young Prince, who, bowing in every direction,
+graciously accepted the offered homage.
+
+"Your Highness has come just at the right moment; we shall see the
+first horse appear from behind yonder hill directly; may I offer Your
+Highness my glass?" cried old Count Grieben, in his shrill voice.
+
+"Thanks, thanks; I should not like to rob you; you are more nearly
+interested in the matter than I; I suppose the goal is here in front of
+the stands, as it has been every year?"
+
+"Yes, Your Highness, there they come!"
+
+The Prince had now taken the glass from the old gentleman; there was a
+loud whispering and rustling on the stand. "There they come--pray sit
+down," echoed on all sides, and all eyes, whether furnished with
+glasses or not, sought the long hill Count Grieben had pointed out to
+the Prince, and on which in fact three moving specks now became
+visible, which with great speed, considering the distance, glided down
+the hill, and had already disappeared in a hollow, when four or five
+other moving dots appeared in precisely the same spot, likewise glided
+down the hill, and vanished. But the interest of the public was almost
+exclusively fixed upon the three foremost dots. From the interval of
+time between the appearance of the first three specks and the four
+following--to say nothing of the stragglers--it was now evident that
+the victor must be one of their number; and although even the best
+glass could only distinguish that the three moving clots were horsemen
+racing at the top of their speed, two names were already mentioned with
+positive certainty; there was a doubt about the third rider; some
+thought it was Baron Kummerrow on Hengist, while others bet upon Count
+Zarrentin's Rebecca, ridden by the younger Baron Breesen.
+
+"But the two others, Your Highness--the two others are my Curt and Carl
+Brandow," shrieked old Count Grieben, crimson with excitement and
+gesticulating furiously, in a tone so loud that it could be heard over
+the whole stand.
+
+Count Grieben! Carl Brandow! Like an alarm of fire the names flew from
+lip to lip along the stand, down the steps, and through the dense
+throng of men below, who were standing on tiptoe and stretching their
+necks; Count Grieben! Carl Brandow on Brownlock!
+
+Carl Brandow! A strange emotion thrilled Gotthold's frame. That was the
+name which, like the spell of some evil magician, had desolated and
+ruined his life; the name with which so many unpleasant thoughts had
+been connected from his youth, and which in early and later times, and
+even during the last few days, had been to him the incarnation of the
+principle that in every human breast strives and rebels against the God
+of light. And here the name rang on his ears from every lip. Carl
+Brandow! Carl Brandow! like a man from whose approach streams happiness
+and blessing; and beautiful eyes sparkled, and aristocratic hands
+impatiently fluttered the lace-edged handkerchiefs with which they
+wished to wave a welcome to the victor. Was the man whom a whole people
+thus awaited in breathless suspense, perhaps right when he ventured all
+and anything to gain his shining goal; wealth, and honor, and woman's
+favor? Could one who took every obstacle so boldly, be expected to turn
+aside from his path for a pious scruple? Could one who unhesitatingly
+risked his life when the victory could not be obtained at a lesser
+price, be blamed if he was not so punctilious about the weal and woe or
+even the lives of others, as may be expected and demanded from the
+quiet citizen?
+
+Such were the strange thoughts that passed through Gotthold's brain,
+while his eyes, like those of the assembled thousands, were fixed upon
+the spot pointed out by the experts near him as the one where the
+riders must again appear. And there they were already--now recognizable
+as horsemen, even by the naked eye--and "Count Grieben and Carl
+Brandow" burst forth anew. For only two emerged at the same time, while
+the third had already lost so much ground that he appeared full thirty
+seconds later. Nothing more was to be expected from him. At the speed
+with which the horses were running a lost second could not be regained,
+let alone the eternity of thirty! The result now depended upon
+Brownlock and Bessy, the two horses that had been the object of public
+attention from the first moment and on which immense sums had been
+staked up to the last. Would Brownlock win? Would Bessy carry off the
+prize? No one dared to decide, no one offered or accepted a bet; they
+scarcely ventured to speak, to stir; suspense had chained every tongue.
+The scales were still exactly poised, without bending in the least
+towards either side. If Bessy, as was universally asserted, was the
+faster animal, Brandow's well-known skill in horsemanship made up for
+the difference; head to head--the winding course to the stand could be
+as distinctly followed as the lines on a map--the horses leaped over
+the last hurdle but three, the last but two, the last but one; side by
+side the riders took the last obstacle, a wall six feet high, while a
+cry of admiration buzzed through the surging crowd. Then followed a
+breathless silence. The race must be decided within the next minute.
+After the last hurdle was a tract of perfectly level ground about five
+hundred paces long; then came several hundred acres of bog, marked by
+little flags affixed to poles. If Brownlock did not get a very
+considerable lead on the level ground, the race was lost to him; for
+Bessy--every one knew--could cross a marsh as lightly as a roe, and
+Brownlock would either stick fast or must take a round-about way, which
+would cost him his advantage and the victory.
+
+But Brownlock obtained no advantage, not a foot, not an inch; head to
+head they dashed across half the distance, and now Bessy took the lead,
+a half, a whole length, two, three, a half-dozen lengths. Those who had
+bet on Brownlock turned pale, but a hundred times as much was staked on
+Bessy; the betters exchanged triumphant glances; no one had time to
+speak; Bessy was already approaching the edge of the bog; her rider was
+seen to turn in his saddle to note the distance between him and his
+rival, and now he turned to the left towards the edge of the swamp.
+"Clever fellow," cried old Count Grieben; "it's wider, Your Highness,
+it's wider there, but the ground is firmer, and he has plenty of time.
+Brownlock can't come up with her, hurrah!" cried the enthusiastic old
+gentleman, waving his hat. "Hurrah, hurrah!" echoed from the fickle
+crowd, which had just cheered Brownlock; "Bessy wins, Brownlock loses.
+Hurrah!"
+
+Suddenly a deep silence followed, as if a thunderbolt had fallen before
+the eyes of all. Brandow reached the spot from which, a few seconds
+before, Count Grieben, rendered secure of the victory by his opponent's
+delay, had turned aside; and with a powerful bound Brownlock dashed
+upon the bog, without turning a hair's breadth from the straight
+course, flying directly over the deepest but narrowest part, with a
+speed which seemed to increase every moment, while his rider, as if
+going over the smoothest meadow-land, used neither whip nor spur, and
+waved his hand to his rival, as he darted by him with such speed that
+the water dashed into the air in a bright shower of spray.
+
+And now he had already reached the edge on the side nearest the stand,
+and came up the broad straight course which led to the goal--no longer
+at full speed, but in a long stretching gallop, as if to jeer at his
+opponent, who after reaching the firm ground, despairing of victory,
+had stopped; it seemed as if he wished to give the crowd an opportunity
+to offer their homage.
+
+And "Hurrah Brownlock! hurrah Brandow!" they shouted, waving their hats
+and caps, and the cry increased and swelled to a deafening, thundering
+roar as the victor now rode past the stands to the goal, in the same
+long stretching gallop. Everybody stood on tiptoe, the gentlemen
+cheering, the ladies waving their handkerchiefs--and now all crowded
+down the broad steps to the level ground, to see the victor and the
+beautiful horse still nearer, when he, as was customary, returned and
+again passed before the stands, but this time at a walk.
+
+"No privileges are recognized here, strength conquers," said the
+Prince, who as well as Gotthold was pushed down the steps by the
+swaying crowd; "the strength of enthusiasm, which is powerful even in
+the weak. Just see how heroically that delicate lady struggles through
+the throng--Is it Frau Brandow? I should like to offer her my arm."
+
+The lady's blue veil brushed against Gotthold's face, and he recognized
+Alma Sellien. She did not see him, though she stood directly beside
+him. The delicate, wan face was strangely beautified by the proud smile
+that hovered on the lips; a joyous light sparkled in the blue eyes,
+usually so dull and heavy; heeding nothing around her, she looked and
+waited for the coming of the man she loved, whose uncovered head was
+just visible above the surging crowd. And now a pair of bay shoulders
+appeared, vanished, and appeared again, then the beautiful head of a
+horse, and then the whole figure of the red-coated rider. Those
+standing in the foremost row, recognizing the Prince, made way, and he,
+with several other ladies and gentlemen, among them Alma Sellien, were
+pressed forward, while the ranks closed before Gotthold, who willingly
+drew back. Brandow, who, hat in hand, was bowing to the right and left,
+and talking to a few friends that surrounded him, had come very near
+them, when he saw the Prince, with Alma Sellien leaning on his arm. An
+amazed smile flitted over his face; he hastily turned Brownlock till he
+faced the pair, and bowed low over the racer's slender neck. The noble
+animal stood snorting, champing its bit, and pawing impatiently.
+Suddenly it sprang aside in wild alarm, and then, as its rider tried to
+force it back to the spot, reared. "Back!" shouted the Prince to the
+crowd, who, pressing forward from every direction, had collected in a
+dense mass. But those farther away, whom no immediate danger
+threatened, remained motionless. "Back, back!" cried the Prince again;
+the ladies screamed. "Jump down, Brandow!" exclaimed the gentlemen. But
+Brandow seemed to have forgotten his universally admired horsemanship.
+Some said afterwards that he had been stunned from the first moment by
+the violence with which, as the horse threw back its head in rearing,
+it struck him on the forehead. As he vainly struggled with the animal
+in an inconceivably preposterous manner, his eyes were fixed intently
+upon a man in the crowd, who in some way--all were pressing upon each
+other in wild confusion--had reached the foremost rank, and now, with
+upraised arms, sprang directly before, nay under the rearing horse; it
+was supposed he wanted to pull the furious animal down by the bridle.
+
+"Let me pass, for God's sake!" cried Gotthold.
+
+He had recognized Hinrich Scheel, although he had only seen the square
+head, covered with gray curling hair, from which the cap had been
+knocked in pressing through the crowd; not the brutal face with the
+squinting green eyes, under whose fiendish power the frightened animal
+reared higher and higher, pawing the air with its steel-shod hoofs as
+if it would fain destroy its tormentor. And now one of the hoofs struck
+the head of the mysterious man, who fell as if a bullet had pierced his
+brain; but at the same moment the horse, again rearing, fell backwards,
+burying his rider under him. The crowd parted with shrieks of horror.
+
+"A doctor, a doctor, is there no doctor here?"
+
+There was none, but no physician could have been of any avail. The man
+who had tried to seize the horse's bridle, and in whom others also now
+recognized Brandow's former trainer, Hinrich Scheel, for whose arrest a
+warrant had been issued, lay dead on his back with crushed skull and
+horribly distorted face, from which the dim eyes glared frightfully;
+his master still lived, but Gotthold, who was supporting him in his
+arms, saw that his end was fast approaching. A deathlike pallor rested
+on the delicate, clear-cut features, and the white teeth gleamed with a
+strange, frightful expression from between livid lips. A shudder
+convulsed the whole body, and the head fell on Gotthold's breast.
+
+"Here comes a doctor," cried several voices.
+
+"He will find nothing to do," murmured Gotthold; "help me to carry him
+away."
+
+As they raised the body, a lady in a blue veil, who had been standing
+near with her hands clenched convulsively, shrieked aloud, and sank
+fainting on the ground. No particular notice was taken of it. Several
+ladies had fainted.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+
+A wondrously beautiful autumn, with mild golden days, and clear starry
+nights, brooded over the country. Everywhere summer roses bloomed in
+the gardens beside the asters, and the forests were very slow in
+decking themselves in brilliant hues. The air was so still that the
+floating threads of gossamer scarcely stirred, and when a leaf fell it
+remained just where it touched the ground. The birds of passage had
+paused in their migration, and chirped and--twittered among the fields
+and hedges with their merry little voices, while in the evening the
+wild swans, which usually, long ere this time, had soared away on their
+strong white wings, called to each other along the shore.
+
+It was a wondrously beautiful autumn, which seemed marvellously like
+summer; "but it is only an illusion," said Cecilia, "the summer is
+over, winter is close at hand, and I must prepare for it."
+
+She had been six weeks in Dollan, which she had never expected to
+enter, never hoped to see again. But the physicians had urgently
+desired that, to secure perfect recovery from her severe illness, if a
+winter's residence in the South was impracticable, Gretchen should at
+least spend the beautiful days of autumn on the sea-shore, in a sunny
+spot, sheltered from the cold winds; and what place could have
+fulfilled these requirements better than quiet, sunny Dollan? And, even
+if it were a sacrifice for her to return here, she made it
+unhesitatingly for the sake of her child and her old father.
+
+He had so longed for Dollan when, contrary to the doctor's expectation,
+he recovered his consciousness after a fainting fit which, a few days
+after the accident on the race-course, suddenly attacked him as he sat
+surrounded by his friends. "Gratify the old man's wish," said the
+physician, "and do so quickly; he will not have many more. His days are
+numbered, and it is our duty to procure for him, during the few that
+remain, all the sunshine he misses so keenly here in the narrow crowded
+streets."
+
+And with deep thankfulness the old man greeted the sunlight on his
+native fields. Not that he expressed his gratitude in words. He usually
+talked very little; but on his pale, quiet face rested an expression of
+the deepest peace, his mild eyes often sparkled as if with joyful
+memories, and a happy smile played around his lips, as he walked slowly
+through the sunny fields by Cecilia's side, leaning on her arm. Often
+too--especially in the early morning--he went out alone, and Cecilia
+had been anxious about him, and at last ventured to beg him to take her
+with him, no hour was too early for her. But the old man stroked her
+cheeks, and said, "Let me alone; you don't know yet."
+
+Cecilia pondered over these strange words, and understood them for the
+first time when, one morning at early dawn, she looked out of her
+window, and saw the old man stand a long time in the garden beside one
+of the oldest trees--a linden, under whose shade, so the story ran,
+Charles the Twelfth of Sweden had sat--and then bend his white head and
+wave his hand, as people do when they take leave of any one. Yes, the
+old man was taking his leave, when he wandered alone through garden and
+field, forest and meadow--leave of the friends and acquaintances of his
+youth: here a tree, under whose branches he had dreamed of the woman he
+loved; yonder a rock, against whose hard breast he had once pressed his
+tortured young heart; the meadow where he had broken the wild steed
+with which he had hoped to win the beautiful Ulrica von Dahlitz; the
+forest whose echoes he had so often waked by the report of his good
+rifle. He never carried it now: the trusty gun that had formerly
+accompanied him in all his walks, rested quietly in the corner; he had
+taken leave of his faithful companion forever.
+
+Neither did he ever turn his steps in the direction of the beach-house,
+and once when he had wandered through the forest by Cecilia's side, and
+they unexpectedly emerged from the trees upon the cliffs, he seemed
+almost terrified, and then shook his venerable head and muttered: "That
+has cost me many years, many, many years!" So saying, he made a gesture
+as if to imply that those years were effaced from the tablet of his
+memory.
+
+Perhaps they were; he never said a word about the weary time he had
+lived in the beach-house, but often began to relate stories of his
+young days--ancient tales, which no living person knew except himself,
+and over which he could laugh merrily, while at other times the tears
+ran down his pale, withered cheeks.
+
+Ancient tales, of which he knew every detail, every name, and Christian
+name, the day and hour, and even whether the weather was pleasant or
+rainy; but he remembered nothing of what had lately happened, or made
+the strangest mistakes. Thus he repeatedly called Cecilia by the name
+of his early love, Ulrica, and it had been a bitter grief to his
+great-granddaughter, that he sometimes spoke of her husband, Gretchen's
+father, as a man he loved and eagerly longed to see again, although he
+had been there very recently, until she understood that he meant
+Gotthold.
+
+It had moved her strangely at first, and then when the old man recurred
+to it again as quietly as if it never had been and never could be
+otherwise, and brought her name into such close connection with that of
+her lover, she had accepted it like a dream, which comes between waking
+and sleeping, until she started in terror at the danger that lay in the
+vision. It must not, could not be. Why trifle with a reality which was
+impossible, a future that could never come to pass!
+
+She said it with passionate vehemence, and a flood of tears, more to
+herself than the old man, when he again spoke of Gotthold, who stayed
+away too long, who left her who longed to see him, and the child who
+was so fond of playing with him, too much and too long alone. She told
+him that she dared not think of such a thing; too much, too much had
+happened, which separated them forever, and that though she would give
+her blood for him drop by drop, if it did not belong to her child and
+her father, she could never, never be his wife.
+
+They were in the garden on one of the beautiful summer-like evenings of
+this month of October, and as she spoke the old man gazed earnestly
+towards the saffron-hued eastern sky, that gleamed through the
+brilliant foliage of the trees, which was unstirred even by the
+faintest breath of wind. "Yes, yes," he said, "you have suffered
+keenly, keenly: but"--he added after a short pause--"that is so long,
+so very long ago. Time heals much, much!"
+
+He seemed to be absorbed in dreams of the days, which to him alone were
+no nonentity, which to him alone emerged from the river Lethe; but as
+his glance fell upon the tear-stained face at his side, he passed his
+hand over his brow and eyes, and said hastily, as if he feared he might
+forget it again:
+
+"Not everything, or slowly, very slowly; sixty, seventy, I know not how
+many years passed by; and it is never quite right till we take courage
+and tell some human being; I told him the evening I saved him from the
+sea, and so many good things followed it, so many good things; my heart
+has been so light ever since. You must tell some one, too, but not me;
+I forget so much, and might forget that too. You must tell him."
+
+And when the next evening they again walked up and down the same
+garden-path, and the dim light again shimmered through the trees, he
+suddenly stopped and asked: "Have you told him?" and on the third and
+fourth day he repeated the question, always shaking his white head
+anxiously, when she answered with burning cheeks: "No, father, I have
+not told him yet," and mentally added: "And shall not tell him if he
+comes to-morrow, shall never tell him."
+
+Gotthold came, but not alone. Prince Prora, at whose castle he had
+again spent several days to show him the sketches for the armory, and
+decide upon the order of the Italian landscapes for the dining-hall,
+wished to accompany him on his way back to Prora, and when he heard
+that Gotthold must stop at Dollan to take leave of the family before
+setting out on his journey to Italy, begged permission to accompany him
+there also.
+
+"For we are neighbors, madame," said the young man, "whether I live at
+Prora or the castle, and I ought to have waited upon you long ago; but
+I will confess that a special interest brings me here to-day. Our
+friend has told me about the giant's grave you have in your forest,
+and that it is perhaps in the best preservation of any on the whole
+island. Now we need a landscape with one of these mounds for my armory,
+and when I reminded him of the one at Dollan, the obstinate fellow
+declares it won't do. I naturally insist it is the very one, since
+Dollan--before it came into the possession of your--I mean the Wenhof
+family--which, to be sure, if we include the Swedish branch, as is only
+just, was two hundred years ago--belonged to Prora, like all the rest
+of the island; nay, in Pagan times, a Castle Prora, surrounded with a
+lofty wall and deep moat, stood on the cliffs overlooking the sea. Its
+ruins are still mentioned in old histories, so it is very possible and
+even probable that the grave covers the bones of my ancestors. And am I
+to lose such a reminiscence for the sake of an artist's obstinacy?
+Never! We have an hour to spare, and I hear I can walk there and back
+in half an hour--pray don't trouble yourself, my dear friend! You are
+the very last person I will take with me, to spoil my temper by your
+objections."
+
+"I will accompany you with pleasure," said old Boslaf. "I have often
+been up there deer-hunting with your Highness' great-grandfather. I
+have not walked that way for a long, long time, and should like to go
+once more."
+
+The Prince looked at the old man in astonishment; he had greeted him
+with marked respect, in consequence of the many things Gotthold had
+told him about him; but it seemed like a fairy tale that any one now in
+existence could have gone hunting with Malte von Prora, who had lived
+in the times of Frederick the Great, and been sent to Berlin on a
+diplomatic mission by the Swedish government before the Seven Years'
+War.
+
+"It is impossible for me to give you so much trouble," said he, "quite
+impossible."
+
+But the old man did not seem to notice the polite refusal; he had
+already taken his staff, and with long regular strides led the way out
+of the garden, where this conversation had taken place. The Prince,
+with a smile, hurried after him.
+
+"At least your Highness will allow us to follow you," said Gotthold.
+
+"I beg you to do so," replied the Prince, "for the sake of the old man,
+who might not be satisfied with my company for any length of time," and
+then drawing Gotthold a few steps aside, he continued: "We have an
+hour, don't let it be passed unused. Since I have seen this lady, I
+understand all you have not told me, you most silent of men. May God
+take these mute lovers under His gracious protection!"
+
+Gotthold walked slowly back to the spot where he had left Cecilia, and
+saw her still sitting in the same thoughtful attitude. Would she speak
+to-day, or would she keep silence as she had done hitherto--let him go
+in silence?
+
+He went up and took the hand that hung by her side. "Cecilia?"
+
+She slowly raised her dark lashes, and looked at him with an expression
+of touching entreaty.
+
+"I am not to bid you speak, I am to leave you in silence, Cecilia! And
+yet it must be uttered; so let me say it for you. You could tell the
+secret only to a woman, and to a woman you would not need to do so; she
+would understand you without words. Was it not so? Should love be less
+clear-sighted than the eyes of a sympathizing friend? I do not know, I
+can only tell you what I read in your heart. And it is this, Cecilia:
+you love me, but dare not yield to your feelings; nay, you shrink from
+the thought of becoming my wife, as if it were a sin--against whom? It
+sounds cruel, Cecilia, and yet I must say it: against your pride. That
+is what you fear--yourself, not me. You know as well as that the sun is
+setting yonder to rise again to-morrow, that no day, no hour will come
+when I shall reproach you by word or look for having been--so unhappy,
+so unspeakably wretched; you know that I--as I think--have nothing to
+forgive you. But you, Cecilia, think you can never forgive yourself;
+you think, because when you were an inexperienced girl of sixteen you
+made a mistake, repentance and shame must follow you all your future
+life; repentance and shame would frighten you from my arms if you ever
+obeyed the impulse of your heart and threw yourself into them."
+
+"And should I not do right to think, to feel so?" cried Cecilia, while
+the tears streamed down her burning cheeks; "could I ever forgive
+myself for having become the wife of this man? An inexperienced
+girl of sixteen, do you say? I was not so very inexperienced; I was
+worldly--wise enough to understand that life in the beautiful castle
+and shady park of Dahlitz would be more brilliant than in a gloomy
+country parsonage. And so I trod the poor student's heart under foot,
+although a voice which, since that hour, has never been silenced,
+whispered, he is the better man. Should I forgive myself for that, and
+for letting him go away with an almost broken heart, without a word of
+sympathy, of consolation, glad that his honest eyes no longer rested
+upon me, no longer read my vain soul? And now, when my arrogant dream
+has produced its natural result, now that I am as utterly wretched as I
+deserve to be, and he returns and stands before me, a pure, noble man,
+who can look with just pride upon his honest, industrious past, and
+with joyful composure towards his future, which must develop still more
+gloriously--is he now to stay his victorious step to raise one so
+deeply fallen;--nay, what am I saying? Is she to chain him to herself
+for all the future, bind the strong industrious hands, constrain the
+proud mind, which ought always to be occupied with the highest things,
+to perpetual consideration, daily, hourly sympathy for a wretched,
+self-marred fate? Did you say pride prevented my doing that? Be it so!
+But it was pride for you, in you! Ah! Gotthold, I do not feel this
+pride to-day for the first time. I was proud of you when, with
+sparkling eyes, you could talk so brilliantly of gods and heroes, and
+say the heroic man might boldly compare himself with the gods
+themselves; and when I heard, years after, you had forced your way
+through obstacles, by which others would have been crushed a thousand
+times, and, with a speed that seemed wonderful to those who did not
+know your strength and talent, raised yourself to the highest rank in
+your art, and the name of the young painter was mentioned only among
+the best artists--yes, Gotthold, I was proud then, so proud and
+thankful--for I thought, now I can bear everything easier, since my
+crime was not visited on you, since I alone had to atone for the sin I
+alone had committed."
+
+They had left the fields, over which scattered threads of gossamer
+floated in the red light of the setting sun, and entered the dark,
+silent forest. No sound was heard except the rustling of the withered
+leaves at their feet, and, as Cecilia paused, the mournful song of a
+solitary bird.
+
+But Gotthold heard no interruption; it seemed to him as if the piteous
+notes of the bird only prolonged the wail of the human voice.
+
+"Alone, alone," he said, "always alone, and so you wish to remain, poor
+love! Can a human being be alone? And are you quite alone? Granted that
+I am--which I am not--the strong hero who can by constant labor
+struggle along his solitary path to the golden table of the father, is
+there not your child, from whom you must shut out the bright, sunny
+world? You, who turn away from life with veiled head in mute despair!
+what virtues will you teach it when you are yourself so wholly
+destitute of the cheerfulness, in which alone the virtues thrive; nay,
+when you no longer believe in that which is the best and highest of
+all, which makes us what we are, makes us human beings--love? Who
+pities yonder little bird, which, concealed amid the autumnal foliage,
+perhaps wounded and maimed, is left behind to perish miserably? None of
+its brothers and sisters, its husband or its children; they have all
+flown away, unheeding, and left it behind--alone, alone! They obey the
+immutable law that governs their coming and going, their life and
+death, and so they do not, cannot sin; but we can and do, if we do
+not obey the law that governs us, if we do not obey love. It is the
+all-powerful tie that has bound and will bind together all races of
+men, from the beginning to the end; the all-powerful sun beneath whose
+pure light spring must return to the darkest, saddest hearts: and so
+with my love I will hold you, dearest, however you may struggle; will
+open your heart, however you may try to close it against me: for I am
+more powerful than you, can lend you my strength, and yet have enough
+for myself, and you, and your child--our child, Cecilia!"
+
+She had paused, trembling in every limb; pale as death, and with her
+dark eyes dim with tears, she extended her hands imploringly.
+
+"Have mercy, Gotthold, have mercy! I can bear no more; I can bear no
+more."
+
+A hasty step came down the narrow path that led to the giant's grave.
+
+"Thank God! I was coming to meet you, dear madam--I think--I know you
+are not like other ladies--"
+
+"He is dead!" cried Cecilia.
+
+"I fear we shall not find him alive, though he had strength enough to
+send me back. I did not like to leave him, but he was so very, very
+anxious to see you, to see you both."
+
+They ran up the path through the underbrush, over the hill, to the
+giant's grave, whose huge mass stood forth in dark relief against the
+bright western sky.
+
+The old man was sitting on a moss-covered stone, with his back resting
+against one of the larger blocks, his hands lying in his lap, and an
+expression of the most profound peace on his pale, venerable face,
+gazing silently towards the west, from whence brilliant sunset hues
+streamed over fields, forest, moorland, and sea. Cecilia sank upon the
+broom at his feet, pressing her lips to his cold hand.
+
+At the touch, a slight shiver ran through the limbs of the dying man.
+His glance turned slowly away from the distant sky, and rested upon the
+beautiful, pale, tear-wet face before him. A happy smile gleamed over
+his features. "Ulrica," he whispered. The name fell from the white lips
+softly, almost inaudibly, and then lips and eyelids closed.
+
+Cecilia's head sank upon Gotthold's breast; the Prince, who during the
+whole scene had discreetly remained at a distance, turned away, and
+gazed steadily at the golden sunset.
+
+
+And the golden hues of sunset glowed upon fields and woods, and the
+churchyard of Rammin, in which the old man had just been laid to rest
+with his children and children's children. Only a small, very small
+company had stood around the grave when the coffin was lowered, and
+they had needed no priest to consecrate the place which would
+henceforth be sacred to them. Then Frau Wollnow embraced Cecilia,
+and whispered: "Don't allow yourself to be disconcerted by any
+narrow-minded creature you may meet," and Cecilia answered: "Have no
+fear, I know what I am doing." Then Ottilie kissed Gretchen; the Prince
+and Herr Wollnow took leave of Cecilia with a few cordial words, and
+the Prince's light carriage rolled towards his castle, and the
+Wollnow's heavy equipage along the road to Prora.
+
+At the other end of the village, where the road leads to Neuenfähr and
+Sundin, stood a travelling carriage, and they now walked silently
+through the little hamlet, arm-in-arm; while the child ran before them,
+and snatched at the swallows when they came too near.
+
+Otherwise the swallows had a free course. Up and down they darted in
+their arrowy flight, now grazing the earth, now rising in graceful
+curves, anon flying in a straight line and then zigzag, chirping,
+twittering, and fluttering their long wings unweariedly.
+
+For them, too, it was probably the last evening, and to-morrow they
+would fly towards the South, and not return till spring.
+
+Gotthold thought of this, and then of the evening when he had walked
+through the deserted village-street, and the swallows' song brought
+tears of sorrow to his eyes, and how empty his home and the whole
+beautiful world had been to him, and how the whole beautiful world now
+seemed to him like home; and as he gazed into the dark eyes of his
+beloved wife, and pressed the little warm hand of the child, now his,
+he knew "what the swallow sang."
+
+
+
+                               FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: Dumpling.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The second person singular is used throughout this
+conversation, but I have thought it better to adopt the English mode of
+address.--Tr.]
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's What the Swallow Sang, by Friedrich Spielhagen
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+<title>What the Swallow Sang</title>
+<meta name="Author" content="Friedrich Spielhagen">
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of What the Swallow Sang, by Friedrich Spielhagen
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: What the Swallow Sang
+       A Novel
+
+Author: Friedrich Spielhagen
+
+Translator: M. S.
+
+Release Date: December 8, 2010 [EBook #34599]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT THE SWALLOW SANG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Note:<br>
+1. Page scan source:
+http://books.google.com/books?id=uu89AAAAYAAJ&amp;dq</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1><span class="sc">Holt &amp; Williams</span>,</h1>
+<h2>25 BOND STREET, NEW YORK,</h2>
+<br>
+
+<h3><i>HAVE JUST ISSUED:</i></h3>
+
+
+<p class="hang1"><b>LORD HOUGHTON'S MONOGRAPHS</b>. Personal and Social. 12mo.
+With portraits
+of <span class="sc2">Walter Savage Landor</span>, <span class="sc2">Charles
+Buller</span>,
+<span class="sc2">Harriet</span>, <span class="sc2">Lady Ashburton</span>, and
+<span class="sc2">Suleiman Pasha</span>. $2.00.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;An extremely agreeable volume.... He writes so as to adorn
+everything
+which he touches.&quot;--<i>London Atheneum</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He has something new to tell of every one of his subjects.
+His book is
+a choice olio of fine fruits.&quot;--<i>London Saturday Review</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A volume as valuable as it is captivating.&quot;--<i>Boston Post</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lord Houghton has enjoyed an intimacy with all the subjects
+of these
+sketches, and writes from his own personal knowledge of the facts he
+relates.&quot;--<i>Boston Globe</i>.<p class="hang1"><b>PROF. HADLEY'S ESSAYS</b>.
+Essays, Philological and Critical. Selected from
+the papers of James Hadley, LL.D. 8vo. cloth, $4.00.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In extent and accuracy of knowledge, in retentiveness and
+readiness of
+memory, in penetration and justness of judgment, I have never met his
+equal. Whatever others may have done, he was, in the opinion of all who
+knew him most fully, America's best and soundest philologist.&quot;--<i>From
+the Preface of Prof. W. D. Whitney.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="hang1"><b>LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY</b>. By <span class="sc2">
+James
+Fitzjames Stephen, Q.C</span>. Post
+8vo. $2.00.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One of the most valuable contributions to political
+philosophy which
+have been published in recent times.&quot;--<i>London Saturday Review</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One of the most thorough overhaulings of the moral,
+religious, and
+political bases of society which they have recently received....
+Everybody who wants to see all the recent attempts to set things right
+analyzed by a master-hand, and in English which stirs the blood, will
+have a great treat in reading him.&quot;--<i>Nation</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="hang1"><b>HERO CARTHEW</b>. <span class="sc">A New Novel</span>. By <span class="sc2">
+Louisa Parr</span>. Author of &quot;Dorothy Fox,&quot;
+etc. 16mo. Leisure Hour Series. $1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A very charming novel * * * * By far the healthiest little
+love story
+that has lately appeared.&quot;--<i>Boston Globe</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is a fresh and pretty little story, full of interest,
+character,
+and grace.&quot;--<i>Boston Gazette</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="hang1"><b>UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE</b>. A Novel. By <span class="sc2">Thomas
+Hardy</span>. Leisure Hour
+Series. $1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The best prose idyl we have seen for a long time past.&quot;--<i>Saturday
+Review</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We know of no rustic dialogues to be compared to these but in
+the
+earlier and best pages of George Eliot.&quot;--<i>London Standard</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="hang1"><b>SCINTILLATIONS FROM HEINE</b>. Leisure Hour Series. $1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are classified after a very admirable method, and there
+is a
+bright thought or a sparkling joke in almost every line.&quot;--
+<i>Philadelphia Evening Bulletin</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="hang1"><b>COUNT KOSTIA</b>. <span class="sc">A Novel</span>. By <span class="sc2">
+Victor Cherbuliez</span>. Leisure Hour Series.
+$1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A great and deep work ... drawn with a vivid power of
+imagination
+which is a revelation to the cooler Anglo-Saxon reader.&quot;--<i>N. Y.
+Evening Mail</i>.
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3><i>LEISURE HOUR SERIES</i></h3>
+
+<hr class="W100">
+
+<br>
+<h1><span class="sc">What The Swallow Sang</span></h1>
+<br>
+
+<h2>A NOVEL</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h2>FRIEDRICH SPIELHAGEN</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<div style="line-height:200%">
+<h4>TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN</h4>
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h2>MS.</h2>
+
+<h4>TRANSLATOR OF</h4>
+<h4>&quot;<i>By His Own Might</i>,&quot; &quot;<i>A Twofold Life</i>,&quot; <i>etc</i>.</h4>
+</div>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>NEW YORK<br>
+HOLT &amp; WILLIAMS<br>
+1873</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="center">Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by<br>
+HENRY HOLT,<br>
+In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="sc">Poole &amp; Maclauchlan, Printers</span>,<br>
+205-213 <i>East 12th St</i>.,<br>
+<span class="sc">NEW YORK</span>.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1><span class="sc">What The Swallow Sang</span>.</h1>
+
+<hr class="W10">
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+<br>
+<p class="normal">&quot;I won't give you any farther trouble, I can find what I want myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sexton's wife looked at the gentleman in some little surprise, and
+then glanced at the bunch of huge keys which hung in the door she had
+just opened for the stranger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's right; you need not be uneasy, I shall not stay long, and here
+is something for your trouble.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pressed a piece of money into her hand, and turned towards the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Herr Pastor has strictly forbidden it,&quot; said the woman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He will have no objection,&quot; replied the stranger. &quot;I will leave a few
+words for him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took his note-book and wrote a few lines. When he tore out the leaf
+he perceived on the other side a little sketch which he had dashed off
+that afternoon with a few hasty strokes, while his carriage stopped
+before a village inn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A smile flitted over his grave features.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That won't do,&quot; he murmured. &quot;And here again, everything is filled
+with scrawls. Well,&quot; he added aloud, as he thrust the note-book back
+into his pocket, &quot;I will write from P----. Please tell him so;
+farewell, my good woman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sexton's wife did not venture to make any reply, and turned away.
+The stranger looked after her retreating figure a few minutes.
+&quot;Strange,&quot; he murmured, &quot;it seems as if it would be committing a
+sacrilege to utter my name aloud in this place! It was really a relief
+to my mind that the woman did not know me. How we are all under the ban
+of gloomy feelings which we should be ashamed to confess to others! To
+be sure it is not strange that these emotions should almost overpower
+me here; here, in this spot which should be my home, where my cradle
+stood, and yet where I was not allowed to return until the grave had
+closed over him to whom I owe my life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had taken a few noiseless steps within the church, and now pausing,
+gazed around the narrow space. The sun, already low in the horizon,
+cast through the round, leaden-cased panes of the lofty narrow windows
+a mysterious light, which brightened or faded as the soft breeze raised
+or lowered the branches of the ancient linden-trees outside the walls.
+And thus, now clear now dim, but always sorrowful, the memories of his
+early years swept through the stranger's mind as he stood motionless,
+his eyes wandering over the massive white-washed walls, the few dusky
+pictures hung here and there at far too great a height, the little
+oaken font black with age, the altar with its two large brass sconces,
+and the pulpit, whose desk was covered with a tattered cloth.
+Everything was just as it used to be; he even remembered the holes in
+the cover, only it was all very much smaller, more poverty-stricken and
+tasteless than memory had pictured it. Yet this was the most favorable
+light,--what must it be in the broad glare of day! And his gloomy,
+sorrowful childhood,--what was it when he extinguished the magical
+light of memory, when he saw it as it really was, as a cold fanatical
+father had made it to the child so early bereft of a mother's love.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The traveller started from his revery as a sharp sound suddenly echoed
+through the quiet church as if something had burst asunder. It was the
+clock, which had just begun to strike. He passed his hand over his
+brow, mechanically counted the strokes and listened to the rumbling
+echo till the last sound died away. &quot;Seven o' clock,&quot; said he; &quot;it is
+time for me to set out again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He walked around behind the benches, up a side aisle, on the right of
+the pulpit, until he reached the large iron door of the crypt. It was
+fastened, but on both sides, affixed to the wall, were the mural
+tablets of the pastors of Rammin, who had preached the gospel over the
+coffins of their predecessors whom they were some day to join. He went
+to the last stone and read the inscription, that here rested in God,
+Gotthold Ephraim Weber, D.D., installed in 1805 as Pastor of St. Mary's
+church in Rammin, born August 3d, 1780, died June 15th, 1833.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gotthold Ephraim Weber,&quot; murmured the stranger, &quot;that is my name too,
+and I am also a Doctor of Theology. That I would not remain where my
+father placed me, but insisted upon taking the profession for which,
+according to my best knowledge and belief, I was born, separated him
+who now lies here from me forever. No, no, not that, at least that was
+not the true cause! I never understood in your sense what is written
+here: 'Blessed are those who die in the Lord.' We were never one, had
+been separated long before we parted. Well, father, at least let there
+be peace between us now. I wish with all my heart that you may have the
+bliss in which you believed; and say: 'blessed are the--dead,' so you
+certainly have the happiness in which I believe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold made a gesture like one who holds out his hand in
+reconciliation. &quot;Let us have peace now,&quot; he repeated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A little bird, which had perched for a moment in one of the openings
+above the window, twittered so loudly that the sweet clear tones filled
+the silent empty church.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will take it as an answer,&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He left the building as slowly as he had entered it, and went down the
+broad path in the churchyard to a spot where, at a large iron cross,
+which also bore the inscription, &quot;Blessed are those who die in the
+Lord,&quot; a narrow walk branched off towards the wall. Scarcely anything
+had been altered in this older portion of the cemetery; he still
+remembered every mound, every cross, every stone, and every epitaph;
+there at last was what he was seeking--the grave with the low wooden
+railing, the stunted weeping willow, the little slanting cross,
+neglected as ever, or perhaps even more so--his mother's grave.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had lost her so very young, when he was only four or five years old,
+that he had scarcely the faintest shadow of personal remembrance; he
+had never seen a picture of her, and his father only mentioned her name
+when he said angrily: &quot;You are just like your mother,&quot; yet perhaps for
+this very reason his fancy had always busied itself very frequently
+with this dead mother, who had been like him, and would certainly have
+loved him as he loved her dear shadow, until it almost assumed a bodily
+form. A dear, dream-like form, which came unbidden, and disappeared
+when he would so gladly have detained it longer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He plucked a few leaves from the willow, but scattered them over the
+grave again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We need no mementos,&quot; he said; &quot;we understand each other without any
+outward tokens, and it shall remain as it is, decay silently and
+gradually, as time wills. Who would be benefited by the most superb
+monument I could order from Thorwaldsen's master hand? Not you--what do
+the shades in Nirwana care for such earthly vanities--and not I. I
+shall never stand upon this spot again, and to others the stone would
+be only a stone. No, it is better so; it is in harmony with the place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked up, and his artist's eye wandered over the graves, upon whose
+long grass, swaying in the soft breeze, the setting sun scattered rosy
+hues, to the ancient church, whose rude square tower still glowed in
+the purple light, while the main building was already in deep shadow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This scene and hour would make a beautiful picture,&quot; said Gotthold,
+&quot;but I shall not paint it. That would efface it from my mind, and I
+wish to hold it fast there forever.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He closed his eyes a moment, and when he opened them did not look
+around again as he walked slowly, with his hands behind his back,
+through the narrow path to the gate. Suddenly he paused and
+involuntarily extended his hand towards two little graves close beside
+the path, whose inscriptions had caught his eye in passing. &quot;Cecilia
+Brandow,&quot; &quot;Caroline Brandow.&quot; The date of the birth and death of the
+children was also added in tiny characters, as small as the mounds
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A strange emotion thrilled his frame. He had thought this was over,
+utterly effaced from his life, and that he could take the journey to
+the bedside of his dying father, which had become a pilgrimage to his
+parents' graves, without being disturbed by the vicinity of his early
+love. Nay, just now when he came out of the church door, he had gazed
+from this lofty stand-point over the wide landscape to the park of
+Dahlitz, through whose dusky trees gleamed the white gables of the
+mansion, and the past had remained mute. Now it flooded his soul like a
+torrent which has suddenly burst its bounds. Her children--and she
+herself was then scarcely more than a child! Her children. One, the
+eldest, had borne her name--the name which ever since those days had
+always had a peculiar, sacred association, so that he could never hear
+or read it without a strange thrill. Cecilia! Her children! Strange!
+Incomprehensibly strange! Incomprehensible as the death to which they
+had so soon fallen victims! She had wept and knelt at these graves with
+her husband beside her, the husband whose name was also inscribed in
+gilt letters upon these tablets, and who asserted his paternal rights
+in the Christian name of the younger: &quot;Carl Brandow&quot;! Did he too shed
+tears for his children? It was impossible to think of Carl Brandow's
+sharp, hard features wet with tears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How the face of Gotthold's enemy--the only one he had ever had--rose in
+almost tangible outlines before his mind, while a sharp pang ran
+through the deep scar which, beginning under his hair, passed over the
+right temple, across the cheek, and even divided the heavy beard, the
+scar on whose account the sexton's wife, mindful of the words that
+marked people should be avoided, had been so unwilling to leave the
+stately stranger alone in the church. Was the wound going to bleed
+again--the wound that man's hand had dealt when both were schoolboys?
+Would it have been any miracle at that moment, when his heart was
+throbbing so violently, as if to say: The wound I have been struck is
+newer by some years, and much fresher and deeper, yet you see it is not
+healed as you supposed, and never will be!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never,&quot; said Gotthold, &quot;never! Well, at least I will not touch it.
+And--the innocent children are not to blame, if there is blame
+anywhere. I wish. I could call them back to life for you, poor Cecilia,
+and may Heaven preserve those who I trust have been given you in their
+place!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A figure clad in black, with a low broad-brimmed hat and white
+neck-tie, approached the churchyard from the parsonage. It was
+doubtless his father's successor, the new Pastor, who had returned from
+examining the school earlier than the sexton's wife expected, and come
+in search of the stranger who had inquired for him, and then ordered
+the church to be unlocked. In his present excited frame of mind
+Gotthold would gladly have avoided this meeting; but the reverend
+gentleman appeared to have seen him already, for he quickened his
+steps, and, as Gotthold now approached him, held out both hands,
+exclaiming: &quot;Must we meet again under such sorrowful circumstances?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold cast a puzzled glance at the beardless, plump white face of
+the man who now stood before him, clasping and pressing his hands; his
+watery blue eyes winking perpetually, either from emotion or because
+the setting sun was shining into them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't you know me, my dear brother?&quot; asked the reverend gentleman;
+&quot;didn't they tell you my name? August Semmel--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Surnamed Kloss,&quot;<a name="div2Ref_01" href="#div2_01"><sup>[1]</sup></a> said
+Gotthold with an involuntary laugh. &quot;I beg
+your pardon, I really had not heard your name, and then I have never
+seen you lately except in uniform, with a military cap on one side of
+your head, and your face covered with a beard; it is really an
+excellent mask.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Pastor Semmel dropped Gotthold's hands and hastily turned away, so that
+he placed himself in shadow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A mask,&quot; he said, rolling up his eyes piously; &quot;yes indeed! and, as I
+now think, a very vain, not to say sinful one. I often scolded you then
+because you would not enter our corps, although you sometimes did not
+disdain to go to an ale--to amuse yourself with us, I mean; now I envy
+you for having had the power of self-renunciation I lacked.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So Saul has now become Paul,&quot; replied Gotthold smiling, &quot;while my
+journey to Damascus is still delayed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, yes,&quot; said the Pastor. &quot;Who would have thought it! The most
+industrious of us all at school, the most indefatigable at the
+university; always held up as a pattern by teachers and professors;
+when in the fourth session already cram--preparing us older ones for
+the examination, passing your own with great distinction, and all
+this--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For Hecuba! No, dear Semmel, you must not revile my art, although I
+freely admit I am but a poor artist as yet. But I can assure you of one
+thing: it is easier to pass a creditable examination in theology than
+to paint a good picture. I speak from experience; besides if I had
+remained a theological student, who knows whether the son might not
+have stepped into his father's place instead of you? That is to be
+considered too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There would have been a terrible competition,&quot; said Herr Semmel,
+&quot;although on the other hand a prophet has little honor in his own
+country; and to be frank, when I was a candidate here--after I left
+Halle I spent four years in Lower Pomerania as a tutor in Count
+Zerneckow's family, and afterwards came to Neuenkirchen to relieve the
+old man, who had grown very garrulous, so that I thought I was
+positively settled--but he has entirely recovered his powers again, and
+so it happened very opportunely--what was I going to say? yes--when I
+applied for this place a month ago, and thought it would be an
+advantage to present myself as an intimate school and university friend
+of my predecessor's son, I found the recommendation was not
+satisfactory everywhere. Herr Otto von Plüggen of Plüggenhof--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold could not help laughing. &quot;I suppose so,&quot; said he, &quot;I have
+often punched his stupid head when he went to school in P.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know I was in the first class, while you were still in the
+second,&quot; continued the Pastor in an apologetic tone, &quot;and had entirely
+forgotten that you must have known each other; but when, warned by my
+experience with von Plüggen, I mentioned you more cautiously to several
+others, I found a certain, what shall I term it? hostility would be
+unchristian, but--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let us drop the subject,&quot; said Gotthold somewhat impatiently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly, certainly,&quot; replied the Pastor, &quot;although you will be glad
+to hear that I took advantage of this very opportunity to speak of your
+generous gift to the poor of our parish, which--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But why did you do that when I particularly requested that my name
+should not be mentioned?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because it is written: 'Thou shalt not hide thy light under a bushel;'
+and because it was the only way to silence the injurious report that
+had become associated with your name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Injurious report?&quot; asked Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why yes, because people knew that for the last seven years, ever since
+your uncle's death, you have been in possession of a large fortune, and
+yet your father--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good Heavens! what could I do,&quot; cried Gotthold, &quot;if my father
+obstinately refused all my offers? but I really cannot discuss this
+matter any farther. Besides, it is high time for me to set out, if I
+wish to reach P. in good season. Has Herr Wollnow arranged everything
+my father left according to your wishes? Unfortunately, I could not
+attend to it myself, since, as you have probably learned from him, I
+fell sick on my journey, and was forced to remain several weeks in
+Milan; but I wrote to him from there to carry out the wishes of my
+father's successor in every respect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Without knowing who that successor was!&quot; exclaimed Herr Semmel; &quot;yes,
+that's the way with you artists. Well, I have not been grasping. True,
+there were many valuable books on theology in your father's library
+which I would gladly have retained, and as you gave the purchaser
+permission to set his own price--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is all right, my dear Semmel, and now don't come a step farther.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only to your carriage, which I saw standing at the door of the inn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not another step, I beg of you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were standing at the churchyard gate, which opened into the
+village-street; but the Pastor seemed unable to release Gotthold's
+hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For your own comfort, and the honor of your old schoolmates, I must
+add one remark in connection with our former subject of conversation.
+All were not guilty of such uncharitableness--I may surely be permitted
+to give it that name without being uncharitable myself. Some of them
+spoke very warmly in your praise; no one more so than Carl Brandow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Brandow! Carl Brandow!&quot; exclaimed Gotthold; &quot;it is certainly--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly only his duty, if he tries to make amends to you for an
+offence committed in youthful thoughtlessness by everywhere asserting
+the truth, and declaring that the demon of avarice is the very last
+that could obtain dominion over you; and if your father died as poor as
+he had lived, it was undoubtedly--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Farewell!&quot; said Gotthold, extending his hand across the low door to
+the Pastor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May God bless and keep you!&quot; said the Pastor. &quot;You ought to spare
+another hour to spend with an old friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold said no more. He had withdrawn his hand with almost
+uncourteous haste, and was now walking rapidly down the village-street,
+with his hat pulled far over his brows. Herr Semmel looked after him
+with a contemptuous smile on his fat face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The enthusiast!&quot; said he; &quot;it seems as if the ill-luck he has had has
+turned his brain. But no matter. People must cling to the rich. Carl
+Brandow is a sly fellow. He probably knows why, from the moment he
+heard he was coming back, he took a new key, and cannot say enough in
+praise of the man whom he once abused like a reed-sparrow. Perhaps he
+wants to try to borrow of him. Well, he certainly needs a loan. Plüggen
+says he is making his last shifts. He will be at Plüggenhof to-morrow.
+My news will make quite an excitement.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The long village-street was empty. Here and there an old woman appeared
+in the doorway of one of the low straw-roofed huts, or a few half-naked
+children played behind the tangled hedges in the neglected gardens;
+every one else had gone to the fields, for this was the first day of
+the rye-harvest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The village-street was empty, and the swallows had free course. Up and
+down they moved in their arrowlike flight, now on the ground, now
+rising in graceful circles, straight lines, or zig-zag course,
+chirping, twittering, and unweariedly fluttering their slender wings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold paused, pushed back his hat, which he had drawn over his eyes,
+and gazed as if absorbed in thought at the graceful little creatures,
+which he had loved from his earliest childhood. While he stood watching
+them, the angry displeasure roused by the Pastor's words gradually
+yielded to a strange melancholy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What the swallow sang, what the swallow sang,&quot; he murmured. &quot;Yes, yes,
+it echoes through the village just as it did then:--</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="t3">When I went away, when I went away,</p>
+<p class="t5">I left well-filled chests behind,</p>
+<p class="t3">But returning to-day, but returning to-day,</p>
+<p class="t7">Naught I find.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought I understood it--but I had only read it with my eyes, not my
+heart, the heart of a lonely man, who after an absence of ten years
+returns to the sacred scenes of his youth to find what I have found
+to-day--the most painful memory of that which was once mine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Up and down flew the swallows, now close to the earth, and now in a
+lofty curve over a loaded harvest-wagon which had turned into the
+principal street from an adjoining lane, and disappeared in a barn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How does it go on,&quot; said Gotthold:--</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="t3">Back the swallows dart, back the swallows dart,</p>
+<p class="t5">And the chests again run o'er;</p>
+<p class="t3">But an empty heart, but an empty heart,</p>
+<p class="t7">Fills no more.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">He passed his hand over his eyes to brush away the tears which
+constantly sprang into them, while a mournful smile played around his
+lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It would be an amusing spectacle to my Roman friends if they could see
+me standing here crying like a schoolboy; and what would you say,
+Julia? The same thing that you did when I translated the song: That is
+all nonsense, my dear friend. How can a heart be empty? My heart has
+never been empty since I knew I had one, and now it is full of love for
+you, as yours is for me, you German dreamer. Then you stroked the hair
+from my brow, and kissed me as only you can kiss. And yet, and yet! If
+I loved you, Julia, it was only a feeble semblance of the passion I
+once felt, as the pale East just gleamed with rosy light from the
+reflection of the sunset glow in the western sky. I have parted from
+you, and my heart did not quiver as it did just now when I read on her
+children's gravestones the name of one now dead to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He extended his hands as if in benediction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Sing on your sweet sad song, innocent swallows! Go and return,
+bringing Spring to the barren fields and empty human hearts! May Heaven
+watch over you, my dear native meadows and beloved birthplace! In spite
+of all, you are as sacred to me as the memories of my youth!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The carriage was waiting at the door of the village-inn. The coachman
+had merely loosened the curbs on the horses' necks, that they might eat
+the bread chopped into little squares more easily. He now pushed aside
+the movable crib, hastily gave them a drink from the half-emptied pail,
+and when Gotthold came up was already standing with the reins in his
+hand beside the door, which he opened with a friendly grin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the first time he had shown his passenger such an attention.
+They had passed over the long road across the island--Gotthold,
+contrary to his usual custom, absorbed in gloomy thoughts, and by no
+means dissatisfied with the taciturnity of the driver, who sat
+motionless before him, hour after hour, his broad shoulders covered
+with a blue linen coat, somewhat white in the seams, stooping
+carelessly, and smoking a short pipe, which Gotthold did not forbid,
+unpleasant as the sickly odor of the weed often was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He might therefore have some reason to be surprised when, just after
+they had left the village and were driving slowly along between the
+cornfields, on the narrow by-way that led to the main road, the
+broad-shouldered man suddenly turned, and showing his large white
+teeth, said in his Platt Deutsch accent:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't you know me, Herr Gotthold?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; said Gotthold, laughing, as he looked into the smiling face of
+the driver, &quot;but you seem to be better acquainted with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I've been thinking all the way whether it was you or not,&quot; said the
+man; &quot;sometimes I thought it was, and then again that it wasn't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You might have asked.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, you may well say so, but I didn't think of it; that would
+certainly have been the simplest way. Well, it don't matter now; I know
+you--by that!&quot; said the driver, drawing the handle of his whip over his
+face to mark the course of Gotthold's scar. &quot;You ought to have been
+known by it this morning, for one don't see such things every day; but
+it's a long time ago, and such things often happen in war; besides,
+with your thick beard and brown, face, you look just exactly as if you
+had come from Spain, where no doubt they are fighting again; but when
+you stopped just now in Rammin, and went up to the parsonage without
+even asking a question, I said at once, 'Yes, it's certainly he.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you are--you are Jochen--Jochen Prebrow!&quot; exclaimed Gotthold,
+cordially extending his hand, which Jochen, turning half-round on his
+seat, clasped no less heartily in his huge palm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To be sure,&quot; said he, &quot;and you really didn't know me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How could I,&quot; replied Gotthold. &quot;You have grown so tall and stout,
+although indeed in this respect you have only fulfilled the promise of
+your boyhood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, that's so,&quot; replied Jochen, &quot;but my sergeant in Berlin always
+said it was no vice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen Prebrow turned back to his horses. He had established the
+identity between his stately passenger and the slender playfellow of
+his childhood, upon which he had been reflecting all day, and was
+perfectly satisfied. Gotthold too was silent; it moved him deeply to
+think he could have travelled nearly all day with worthy Jochen, as if
+he had been a total stranger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen Prebrow, the son of the Dollan blacksmith! The pleasant days
+again rose before him when he left P. with Curt Wenhof for the
+holidays, which must always be spent in Dollan, and Jochen stood on the
+moor where the road branched off from the highway, waiting for them,
+and waving his cap; Jochen, who was well aware that his good times were
+coming with the pair, times of catching fish and snaring birds under
+the care of old Cousin Boslaf, to say nothing of a thousand wild,
+thoughtless pranks on land and sea for which Curt always undertook to
+be answerable to his good-natured father.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the young master is dead too,&quot; said Jochen Prebrow, again turning
+half-round on his seat, in token that having settled the principal
+matter, he was now ready to proceed to details.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Drowned sailing on the Spree,&quot; continued Jochen, &quot;and yet he was
+skilful as any sailor, and could swim like a fish; it was very queer,
+but he told me that he should come to such an end some day.&quot; He filled
+his pipe afresh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When did he tell you so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He had come from Gr. to his sister's wedding, and afterwards was to go
+to Berlin and show whether he had learned his lessons, and he would
+probably have come off badly, for our young master was never fond of
+study. So he told me about it when we came back from P., where the
+wedding took place. I drove the carriage because old Christian was
+sick, and then we went at full speed to Dollan, where a great breakfast
+was served, and our young master had probably been drinking a little
+too much when he came out to the stable, threw himself down on the
+straw, and began to sob pitifully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's the matter, young master?&quot; said I.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! Jochen,&quot; he answered, &quot;it's all up. I begged my father to let me
+be a farmer, for he would never make a lawyer of me; but he says we
+have nothing, nothing at all; he can't even pay my sister's dowry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, young master,&quot; said I, &quot;that's not so very bad; you have a rich
+brother-in-law now who can certainly give you some money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But he started up, sprang upon me, seized me by the throat, and shook
+me till I was afraid for my life, crying: If you ever say another
+word about that,--well, it was an ugly word for a man to call his
+brother-in-law, especially our young master, who had always been so
+good-natured, but I said to myself, He's been drinking too much; for he
+wanted me to upset them when I drove them to Dahlitz; you know the
+place, Herr Gotthold, just before you get to the smithy, when the moor
+lies below you on the left, as you come down the hill. It's very easy
+to upset a carriage there so that the people inside will never get up
+again; but it's pretty queer business to upset your master's daughter
+on her wedding-day, and even if I'd wanted to do it I didn't drive
+them, after all, for Herr Brandow had ordered his own carriage with
+four horses; and Hinrich Scheel, who was his coachman then and is now,
+wouldn't upset them, for nobody can deny that he knows how to drive and
+ride.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen Prebrow cracked his whip, and the horses, which had been
+advancing along the narrow by-way at a walk, trotted rapidly over the
+smooth broad high-road.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A short distance on the left appeared Dahlitz, the fine estate once the
+property of the ancient noble family to which Cecilia's mother
+belonged, but which had long since passed into the possession of the
+plebeian Brandow, and was now Carl Brandow's inheritance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The highway, as Gotthold remembered, led directly through the estate,
+and for a considerable distance farther ran close by the wall of the
+park. His heart began to beat violently; his eyes wandered timidly
+towards the house, whose white front was already partially visible
+between the out-buildings. To pass so near her home, to let the only
+opportunity he might ever be offered escape thus, never, never to see
+her more!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold leaned back in the corner of the carriage, drawing the broad
+brim of his hat farther over his eyes; he would fain have ordered
+Jochen to turn back again. Meantime Jochen was driving on at a slow
+trot; it would soon be over. But just as they were passing the gates an
+empty harvest wagon came out so rapidly that the horses almost struck
+Jochen's. The latter swore, the farm hand swore, and some one standing
+in the courtyard swore also, Gotthold could not understand whether at
+his own man or the strange coachman--probably at both; but it was not
+Carl Brandow's clear voice, and the coarse fat man in top boots, who
+strode heavily forward to the gate, certainly bore no resemblance to
+Carl Brandow's slight, elastic figure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then Jochen again had a free passage for his frightened horses, which
+he reined in with considerable difficulty as they passed at full gallop
+by the low park wall, over which now and then one could obtain through
+the trees and shrubs a view of the pleasure-grounds, and even
+distinguish a broad handsome lawn which lay on one side of the mansion.
+On this piece of turf was a swing, in which two little girls were just
+being carefully pushed to and fro by their nurse, while a half-dozen
+other children of all ages gambolled upon the grass, their fresh voices
+ringing merrily on the quiet evening air. A stately lady moved among
+the group, with a little man dressed in black beside her, apparently
+the boys' tutor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The picture was only visible a few seconds, but Gotthold's keen eye had
+seized it down to the smallest detail, and it was still in his mind
+when the carriage moved more slowly along the broad highway. His heart
+had trembled causelessly; she no longer lived here. Where was she now?
+He had not heard a word from home for so long--was she dead? She was to
+him, of course, and yet, and yet--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That Redebas is a coarse fellow,&quot; said Jochen taking the reins in his
+left hand, &quot;but he understands his business; he'll come out all right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So Dahlitz does not belong to Herr Brandow?&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, I declare,&quot; replied Jochen, pointing back with the handle of his
+whip into the gathering twilight, &quot;didn't you hear anything yonder
+about what has been happening in this neighborhood?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing, nothing at all, my dear Jochen. Who was to tell me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To be sure,&quot; said Jochen, &quot;writing isn't everybody's business, not
+mine for instance, and where you have been I suppose there were very
+few mails, and not much opportunity. My sergeant--he was one of the old
+soldiers--was in Spain too in 1807 and&quot;--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I have never been in Spain,&quot; said Gotthold, &quot;I was in Italy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This objection was both unexpected and unwelcome to Jochen. He had
+fully made up his mind during the long hours that he had been
+reflecting whether his passenger was the son of the Pastor at Rammin or
+not, that if so, he must at any rate have come straight from Spain; for
+he had heard that Gotthold had given up &quot;preaching&quot; and was now living
+in a foreign country, and Spain was the only foreign country of which
+he had ever heard. So he sank into a profound revery, puffing huge
+clouds of smoke from his short pipe, and Gotthold, difficult as it was
+for him to do so, was compelled to repeat his question, as to where
+Herr Brandow was now living, several times.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, where should he live except in Dollan?&quot; said Jochen at last. &quot;He
+has come down from a horse to a donkey, but that's always so when
+people want to sit so high in their saddles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And--and--his wife?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It must be asked; but Gotthold's lips quivered as he put the question.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Our poor young lady,&quot; said Jochen; &quot;yes, when I drove her with four
+horses to P. for the wedding, she didn't dream the splendor would so
+soon be over. Yes, she is now in the old place again, and our old
+master and the young master are both dead, and her two oldest children
+too; she has only one left.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So she still lived, and lived in Dollan again, dear Dollan, the
+forest-girdled, sea-washed spot where he had spent the happiest and
+most wretched hours of his youth, the sacred and yet accursed place to
+which his dreams had so often led him in joy or sorrow, so that he woke
+with a happy smile on his lips, and also so often with tears in his
+eyes! For a moment it seemed as if she had been restored to him, as if
+the old days had returned. He saw the slender figure gliding through
+the shrubs in the garden at twilight, while he stood at the little
+gable window with a throbbing heart, hearing Curt repeat &quot;mi&quot; till he
+threw the grammar on the table, declaring that he should never
+understand the stuff, and they had better go down to the garden with
+Cecilia. Gotthold passed his hand over his brow and eyes. Had he spoken
+the loved name aloud? Had Jochen, who had resumed his interrupted story
+in the old monotonous tone, mentioned her name? Jochen did not know
+exactly how it had all happened, for he had been in Berlin with the
+army when Herr Wenhof died, and young Herr Brandow came in possession
+of Dollan in addition to his own estate of Dahlitz: then when Jochen
+was released from military duty, as his father and older brother were
+enough to attend to the business of the smithy, he took service as a
+groom with Peter the innkeeper at Altefähr, and only left the place
+when he drove travellers to Stubbenkammer or some other part of the
+island, which did not occur very often. Besides, it had never happened
+that his way led to Dollan, or very near it, for what stranger would
+want to travel so far away from the main road? He had not seen even the
+smithy since, and if his brother had not come to Altefähr once or
+twice, would have known nothing about how things were now going in
+Dollan. True, now he came to think the matter over, his brother had not
+told him much more than he had already learned from others; for Herr
+Brandow was famous for having the finest horses in all Rugen and Upper
+Pomerania, and came every autumn to the races at Str.; the noblemen
+would have hard work to beat him if he was only a plain citizen; and he
+would be sure to win the prize among all the gentlemen riders this
+year; for Hinrich had trained a horse for him whose match could not be
+found. One thing was certain, Hinrich knew more about horse-flesh than
+all the English trainers who cost the other gentlemen so much money put
+together, while others hinted that there was something not quite right
+about the matter, and Hinrich's squint eyes could make horses do
+anything he pleased. That there were such things, he being a
+blacksmith's son, knew very well; but it made a great difference
+whether they were honest arts, such as his father understood for
+instance, or whether another person he would not mention more plainly
+had a finger in the pie. People don't cross mountains with him; he
+makes them pay too dear for his extra horses. It had already cost Herr
+Brandow his fine estate, and they said he could not even keep Dollan
+much longer, and that the devil's horses were eating the hair from his
+head. Did Herr Gotthold believe in such things?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no, no,&quot; said Gotthold, starting from his corner and sitting
+erect.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen was obliged to fill his pipe, in order to think over quietly an
+answer so different from what he had expected. Gotthold did not disturb
+his meditations, but sat in silence, absorbed in thought, dreaming of
+what was, what might have been and never would be! Never? Yes, but not
+because fate does not will it; it is because human beings bring on this
+destiny, because they prepare it for themselves, because in dreams
+which thicken into realities, in wishes which become acts, they mould
+their own fate. Did she not, on the evening when she, her father, Curt,
+and himself, had made an excursion from Dollan to Dahlitz, return home
+with the wish to become mistress of the place her mother's family had
+so long possessed; How silently she walked through the stately
+apartments, while her large sparkling eyes wandered thoughtfully over
+the dark pictures on walls hung with faded silken tapestry, and the
+numerous carved ornaments on the chimney-piece, which seemed to her
+unaccustomed eyes a marvel of costliness! How softly she passed her
+hand over the damask curtains in the sleeping-rooms, how she buried her
+glowing face again and again among the flowers in the hot-house, as if
+intoxicated by the heavy perfume. With what interest she listened to
+that squint-eyed Hinrich, as he expatiated upon the merits of the noble
+horses whose light chain halters clanked against the marble cribs, and
+said it was such a pity for the young master to waste his time at the
+agricultural school, when he could employ it to so much better
+advantage here! And how indignantly she looked at the friend who
+fancied himself so dear to her, when with jealous malice he observed
+that Carl Brandow might come back all the sooner, since from all
+accounts he showed the same industry at the college as he had formerly
+done at school! Afterwards she had haughtily bantered the two friends
+as they stood on the lawn, but when she sat down in the large wooden
+swing--the same one where he had just seen the children--resting her
+beautiful head on one hand, while she carelessly played with the
+scarlet ribbons on her white dress with the other, and Gotthold
+approached to put it in motion, she started up and said, laughing, that
+such an ignorant girl ought not to trouble so learned a gentleman. He
+did not suspect what bitter earnest was concealed under the jest, and
+the next morning, when he was obliged to return with Curt to their
+institution of learning, he slipped under her chamber-door a bit of
+paper, on which he had written a free translation of one of Anacreon's
+odes:--</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="t4">Skittish foal, I prithee why,<br>
+Flashing fear from thy large eye,<br>
+Cruel, dost thou mocking flee?<br>
+&quot;Fool! he nothing is to me.&quot;</p>
+<p class="t4">&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="t4">Know for thee I soon shall bring<br>
+And about thy proud neck fling<br>
+The bridle, and with firm, tight rein,<br>
+Swift-racing, spur thee o'er the plain.</p>
+<p class="t4">&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="t4">Tarry now 'mid pasture-ground,<br>
+Gayly frolic, lightly bound;<br>
+But, my skittish foal, take heed!<br>
+Thy right rider comes with speed.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">The right rider! Alas! ere six weeks had passed, the right rider came!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a dark evening late in Autumn, like the present one. Men, women,
+boys and girls were all out of doors, for it was Saturday night, and
+the great wheat-field must if possible be mowed, the sheaves bound up
+and piled in heaps. They had paused to rest for half an hour, while
+waiting for the rising moon to disperse the dense clouds of mist and
+enable them to resume their interrupted task. Curt and he had busily
+helped the laborers, and even Cecilia tied up a few sheaves; then they
+carried the people the beer Cousin Boslaf had drawn from the huge cask.
+There had been shouting, singing, and jesting among the youths and
+maidens, but all had now become silent, and Herr Wenhof thought if they
+did not begin again soon the whole company would fall asleep, and then
+he should like to see the person who could get them on their feet
+again. But Cousin Boslaf said they must wait ten minutes longer until
+the moon shone clear, and Cousin Boslaf knew best. It grew more and
+more quiet, so quiet that the partridges thought every one had gone,
+and began to call loudly for their scattered families; so quiet that
+Gotthold fancied he could hear the beating of his own heart, as his
+eyes rested on the graceful figure that sat close beside him on a
+sheaf, so near that his hand might have touched her light dress, gazing
+up at the moon, whose white light made her face look strangely pale.
+But the dark eyes often flashed brightly from the pallid countenance,
+and a strange emotion thrilled the youth, as if a ray from the
+spirit-world had fallen upon him. Yes, from the spirit-world, where he
+hovered with his beloved, far above all earthly tumult, far as the pure
+fancy of a youth whose heart is full of a great, sacred love can soar.
+Oh! God, how immeasurably he loved her! How his whole being was bound
+up in this affection! How all his thoughts, feelings, emotions were
+merged into, carried away by, this passion! How every drop of blood
+that flowed through his throbbing heart glowed with this love! How
+every breath that passed over his fevered lips ever murmured: I love
+you, I love you!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And at this moment, when the heavens opened before his enraptured eyes
+and he gazed into the region of the blest--at this moment the blow was
+to fall, which closed the gates of the Paradise of his youth forever,
+and destroyed for years his faith in the sacred feeling that dwells
+securely in the human breast. &quot;Some one is coming on horseback,&quot; old
+Boslaf said, approaching the group, and pointing towards the forest. No
+one else perceived anything; but that proved nothing, for the old man
+could hear the grass grow. Cecilia started up, went forward a few
+steps, and paused to listen, and Gotthold saw her press her hand upon
+her heart. His own stood still.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He and Curt had not been to Dollan during the weeks before the
+examination, now successfully passed, and he had heard nothing of all
+that had happened there except that one day Curt casually mentioned
+that Carl Brandow had returned; but now he knew everything. The horse,
+whose rapid hoof-beats he also distinguished, was not bearing Carl
+Brandow over the miles that intervened between Dollan and Dahlitz for
+the first time. Now he knew what the altered expression of her
+features, which had attracted his attention that day, meant--the dreamy
+softness that suddenly yielded to a strange excitement; he knew all,
+all,--that his temple was ruined, his sanctuary profaned. He stood
+apart, unable to move, while the others surrounded the rider, who had
+swung himself from his horse,--the slender rider, who now disengaged
+himself from the group--but not alone! They passed close by without
+noticing him, he with his arm thrown around her waist, bending down and
+whispering to her, she nestling to his side, every line in their
+figures clearly relieved against the bright moonlight; then he saw and
+heard nothing more, and afterwards could only remember that he lay long
+in a dull, terrible despair, in a place far from that spot, on the edge
+of the dark forest, and then started up and staggered through the
+silent, sultry woods as if in a horrible dream, sometimes crying aloud
+like a tortured animal, until he at last emerged from them upon the
+shore of the sea, which stretched before him in a vast, boundless
+expanse in the shimmering moonlight. Here he again threw himself down
+on the sand, but now tears came to his relief--burning tears which,
+however, flowed more and more gently, as if the lapping of the waves
+was a lullaby to the poor quivering heart. At last he rose to his
+knees, extended his arms, and in a long, fervent prayer, to which the
+roaring of the sea murmured an accompaniment, told the universal
+mother, who will never desert her child, that he would always love
+her with boundless affection. Just then old Boslaf suddenly stood
+beside him,--he had not heard his approach, nor did the old man say
+anything,--and they walked silently along the strand until they reached
+the old man's lonely little house among the downs. There he made him a
+rude couch carefully and silently, and mutely smoothed his damp hair
+with his hand, when he lay down to rest for an hour and looked at the
+moonlight which shone through the low window on the wall and glimmered
+upon the weapons, stuffed birds, nets, and fishing-rods, until the
+rustling of the treetops on the shore and the low murmur of the sea
+lulled him to sleep.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold awoke from his dream. The carriage was standing still, and the
+horses were snorting as they looked into the forest, through which the
+road led for a short distance. It was perfectly dark, save that here
+and there a ray from the moon, which had just risen, trembled through
+the dense foliage of the beeches.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, what's the matter with the cursed jades?&quot; said Jochen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a rustling and crackling in the thick underbrush on the
+right-hand side of the road; the noise grew louder, approached nearer
+and nearer, until, like a hurricane, a dark, compact, moving mass burst
+through the bushes and crashed into the undergrowth on the other side.
+It was scarcely seen before it disappeared, while the horses, in
+frantic terror, reared in the harness and swerved aside, so that it was
+only by the most violent efforts that the two men, who had sprung from
+the carriage, could control them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The confounded wretches,&quot; said Jochen, &quot;the same thing happened to me
+once before in this very spot. The Prince ought to do something about
+it; but it gets worse every year, and if old Boslaf didn't often thin
+them out a little it would be unbearable. There, hark!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The report of a musket rang through the forest at some distance on
+their left, whither the wolves had taken their flight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That was he,&quot; said Jochen, in a low tone; &quot;he only needs to whistle
+and they run straight within reach of his gun. Yes, yes, Herr Gotthold,
+you said just now that there was nothing of the kind; but you'll make
+an exception of old Boslaf. He can do more than one trick which no
+honest Christian can imitate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So the old man is still alive?&quot; asked Gotthold as they drove
+cautiously on through the forest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, why shouldn't he be?&quot; replied Jochen, &quot;they say he can live as
+long as he likes. Well, I don't believe that; his end will probably
+come some day, though I may not be here; but this I do know, that
+people who knew him fifty years ago say that he looked just the same
+then as he does now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And he still lives in the house on the beach?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where else should he live?&quot; asked Jochen. They had emerged from the
+forest and moorland upon the beautiful smooth highway, which, lined
+with huge poplars, announced to the weary traveller the vicinity of the
+capital. It was still an hour's journey, but the road sloped gradually
+downward, and the horses, well aware that their long day's work was
+over and their cribs close at hand, collected all their strength and
+trotted briskly onward. The crescent of an increasing moon floated in
+the deep blue sky, shedding a pure radiance; here and there a
+flickering reddish light in the dark landscape marked the situation of
+some mansion house or lonely peasant hut. And now a brighter glow
+shimmered from the hill up which the road led. Stately houses gleamed
+forth from amid the dark foliage of the trees and bushes, the horses'
+hoofs rang upon a stone pavement, and a few moments after the carriage
+stopped before the &quot;Fürstenhof,&quot; whose host welcomed the late arrival
+with northern cordiality.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had expected to reach P. at an early hour; it was now nearly
+ten o'clock, too late to pay the visit he had promised Herr Wollnow by
+letter, yet in spite of the time the gentleman might perhaps be
+waiting, and what he had to settle with him could be despatched in a
+few minutes. Then the minor object of his journey would be accomplished
+and he could set out again early the next morning; he would have
+preferred to go on that night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The ground seemed to be burning under his feet. The events of the last
+few hours, the meeting with the playmate of his youth, and his
+communications, had roused the greatest agitation in his mind. As he
+passed down the quiet street towards the house of his business
+acquaintance, he paused several times under the dark trees, gasping for
+breath, and made a defiant gesture, as if he could thus repel the
+ghostly throng of memories that hovered around him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank God that now at least you are sure not to meet an old
+acquaintance again,&quot; he said to himself, as he rang the bell at the
+door of one of the handsomest houses upon the market-place.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Herr Wollnow is at home,&quot; said the pretty young servant-maid, &quot;and--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bids you a most hearty welcome,&quot; interrupted Herr Wollnow, who at that
+moment came out of his counting-room, and extended a broad, powerful
+hand to his guest. &quot;I am very glad to make your acquaintance at last,
+though I deeply regret that the occasion should be so sorrowful. Have
+you supped this evening? No? Why, that is capital; neither have I. To
+be sure, you must be contented with my company, at least for the
+present; my wife has a meeting of her great society to-day. She did not
+want to go, for she is very anxious to renew her acquaintance with you,
+or rather make it, as I say; for you will hardly remember her. She
+promised to be back again at ten o'clock; but I know what that
+means,--we shall have an hour to ourselves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold apologized for his late arrival, but said that he had thought
+it better to come late than not at all, especially as he intended to
+set out again early the next morning, if possible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think you will allow us to keep you with us a few days,&quot; replied
+Herr Wollnow; &quot;yet time is money, as Englishmen say, so we will devote
+the time Stine needs to prepare supper to money matters. I have set
+everything right.&quot; Herr Wollnow invited Gotthold to take a seat upon
+the sofa in the little private office, and sat down beside him in a
+leather-covered arm-chair at the round table, on which various papers
+lay arranged in the most methodical order.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here are the documents that concern your late father's legacies,&quot; he
+continued. &quot;I have had wonderfully little trouble in executing the
+orders you sent me from Milan. The ready money amounted only to a few
+thalers, and as to furniture and other household appurtenances, the
+hermits of the Theban wilderness could not have possessed much less
+than satisfied your father during the latter years of his life. The
+only really valuable portion of his property was the library, and here
+I took the liberty of deviating a little from your commands. You had
+intended that the whole profit derived from the sale should be given to
+the poor of the parish, and also that your father's successor should be
+permitted to set his own price upon the books that pleased him,
+undoubtedly in the supposition that the gentleman would make a proper
+use of this favor. But that was not the case with Pastor Semmel. He
+believed in making hay while the sun shone; he not only wanted all the
+best, but wished to take advantage of the opportunity, and if possible
+get them for nothing. In a word, your two intentions could not be
+reconciled, and as I doubtless rightly supposed that the poor people
+would be nearer your heart than the Pastor, although he made a great
+ado about the intimacy that had existed between you at the university,
+and I believe even at school, I offered everything, with the exception
+of a few insignificant trifles I was obliged to leave with him, to a
+respectable firm which dealt in secondhand books, and after
+considerable bargaining came to an understanding with them. We obtained
+a large sum, as I wrote you, and if you are as well satisfied as the
+poor people in Rammin, I need not be ashamed of the way in which I
+carried out your command.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An amused smile flashed from Herr Wollnow's dark eyes as Gotthold
+warmly pressed his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I repeat, it was very little trouble,&quot; said he, &quot;and I would have
+taken a hundred times as much with pleasure for a man to whom I am so
+greatly indebted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You so greatly indebted? To me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To you, certainly. If, when you entered into the possession of your
+property five years ago, you had withdrawn the ten thousand thalers
+invested in my business, as I earnestly advised you to do, I might not
+now be in the pleasant situation of being able to return the money to
+you with my warmest thanks.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For Heaven's sake,&quot; cried Gotthold, pushing back Herr Wollnow's
+hand, which was extended towards a larger package fastened with an
+India-rubber band.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have put aside the money at any rate,&quot; replied Herr Wollnow, &quot;in
+cash and in good bonds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I don't want it now, any more than I did then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well,&quot; said Herr Wollnow, &quot;I cannot persuade you to take it as
+earnestly as I did five years ago. To-day--I may venture to say it
+confidently--the money is perfectly safe, and I can give you the
+highest rate of interest. Then, when I was establishing a new business
+here under very peculiar circumstances, and in consequence of the
+impossibility of relying upon my business associates,--I mean the
+capitalists of this place--a crisis might occur at any moment, I only
+did my duty when I advised you to intrust your money, if not to more
+honest, to safer hands. Well, you would not hear of it; would have me
+keep the money; nay, I even believe I might have had it without
+interest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will admit, Herr Wollnow, that in so doing I carried out my
+uncle's views.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know,&quot; replied the merchant. &quot;Your uncle had a personal
+interest in leaving the money in my hands. The great profits which
+accrued to the business in Stettin through the new connections I
+formed, and I may say created here, were so important that they far
+outweighed the risk of a possible loss. But when your uncle gave you
+the free disposal of the property by will, he acknowledged that an
+artist's interests are and must be different from those of a business
+man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why yes, the interests of his art,&quot; replied Gotthold earnestly; &quot;I
+never had and never shall have any others. In this feeling, and this
+alone, after I had recovered from my first astonishment, I joyfully
+welcomed the rich inheritance that fell to my lot so unexpectedly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know it,&quot; replied Herr Wollnow; &quot;the assistance I have given from
+your property to that poor deserving Brüggberg during the last three
+years proves it, and he will not be your only pensioner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It has proved as fortunate for him as for me that help came in time,&quot;
+replied Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He supported his head on his left hand, and mechanically drew
+arabesques on a sheet of paper that lay before him, while he continued
+in a lower tone:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And it was also quite time for me. For two years in Munich I had
+already devoted every hour and moment I could spare from the labor of
+earning a livelihood, to art, beloved art, which is so infinitely
+coy to a tyro, especially one who is compelled to begin after his
+one-and-twentieth year. My strength was almost exhausted; I had seen
+the last star of hope disappear; nothing bound me to life except a sort
+of defiance of a fate which I thought I had not deserved, and the shame
+of appearing to rush out of this world like a simpleton, in the eyes of
+those who had aided me to live. How distinctly I remember the hour! I
+had returned to my little attic room towards nightfall, from the studio
+of a famous artist to which an acquaintance had procured me admittance,
+with a soul filled to overflowing with the mighty impressions produced
+by works of the greatest genius, and yet utterly exhausted, for I had
+resolved a few days before to give up no more lessons, even if I
+starved, and I was almost starving. I placed myself before my easel,
+but the colors blended into one confused mass. The palette fell from my
+hand; I staggered to the table to pour out a glass of water, and--there
+lay the letter which informed me that I had been made the heir of a
+relative whom I had never seen, and was the possessor of a fortune
+which, at a casual estimation, amounted to more than a hundred thousand
+thalers. What was more natural than that in this wonderful moment I
+should make the vow: this shall belong to Art, and to you only so far
+as you are an artist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing is more natural and simple,&quot; said Herr Wollnow; &quot;but that you
+should have kept the oath, and I know you have done so, is--as we
+children of Adam are now constituted--not quite so natural and simple.
+But now, as the business matters are settled, we will, if agreeable to
+you, talk more comfortably over a glass of wine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Wollnow opened the door of a spacious apartment handsomely
+furnished as a half dining, half sitting room, and invited his guest to
+take a seat at the table, which was covered with a snow-white cloth,
+and furnished with all sorts of dainties served in valuable china, and
+several bottles of wine. As Gotthold sat down, his eyes wandered over
+several large and small oil paintings which were skilfuly arranged upon
+the walls.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pardon an artist's curiosity,&quot; said he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I understand little or nothing of your beautiful art,&quot; replied Herr
+Wollnow, as he fastened a napkin under his fat chin; &quot;but my wife is a
+great amateur, and, as she sometimes persuades herself, a connoisseur.
+You must give her the pleasure of showing you her treasures. I am
+afraid the little collection will not find much favor in your eyes,
+with the exception of one picture, which I also consider a masterpiece,
+and which is greatly admired by all who see it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold would gladly have gone nearer to the paintings; one of them
+which hung at some little distance, seemed strangely familiar, but Herr
+Wollnow had already filled the green glasses with odorous Rhine wine,
+and a robust elderly woman came noisily in with a platter of freshly
+broiled fish in her red hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stine says that you were always particularly fond of flounders,&quot; said
+Herr Wollnow, &quot;and so she would not give up the pleasure of offering
+you your favorite dish herself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold looked up at the stout figure, and instantly recognized good
+Stine Lachmund, who, during his boyhood, had almost kept the house at
+Dollan in the place of its invalid mistress, and after her death
+managed affairs entirely alone, yet had always maintained a good
+understanding with the boys and all the world, in spite of the many
+difficulties of her position.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He held out his hand to his old friend, who, after putting the platter
+on the table, and wiping her red fingers on her apron in a most
+unnecessary manner, grasped it eagerly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was sure you would know me again,&quot; said she, her fat face beaming
+with delight. &quot;But goodness gracious, how you have altered! What a
+handsome man you have grown! I should never have known you again!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So I used to be desperately ugly, Stine?&quot; asked Gotthold, smiling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why,&quot; replied Stine, with a grave, questioning glance, &quot;you had
+handsome blue eyes, it is true; but they always looked so large and
+sorrowful that it made one feel badly, and then your little thin face
+was divided by a scar from there to there--it looked terribly; such a
+good boy, too, it was too outrageous--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All that has been forgotten long ago,&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And a big beard has grown over it,&quot; added Stine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yen can tell Line to bring in a bottle of the red seal,&quot; said Herr
+Wollnow, who thought he perceived that his guest wished to cut short
+this recognition scene. &quot;You must pardon me,&quot; he continued, turning to
+Gotthold, when Stine had gone out after again shaking hands, and the
+pretty young maid-servant, who moved noiselessly to and fro, began to
+wait upon the gentlemen, &quot;you must pardon me for being unable to spare
+you this little scene. The good woman was so delighted to hear of your
+coming, and a man who returns home must make up his mind to meet
+familiar faces at every step.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have experienced that to-day,&quot; replied Gotthold; &quot;your wife, too,
+you said--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is proud of having known you when you were not a famous artist, but a
+diffident boy about thirteen years old, who obstinately refused to take
+part in a dance which some aristocratic mammas had arranged with
+difficulty, and then joined it when he heard that no one else would
+dance with little Ottilie Blaustein. She has never forgotten your
+magnanimity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And she--Fraulein Ottilie--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Has been my wife for six years,&quot; said Herr Wollnow. &quot;You look at me
+with discreet astonishment; you have quickly calculated that the little
+dancer of those days cannot now be much more than twenty-five, and
+you set me down very correctly at some years over fifty--we will say
+fifty-six. But we Jews--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you a Jew?&quot; asked Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of the purest descent,&quot; replied Herr Wollnow; &quot;didn't you perceive
+that, when I locked your money up in my desk so quickly just now? Of
+the purest Polish descent, although out of love for my wife, who
+declared that she had suffered enough from Judaism, and also from
+business motives, I have taken the step, a very easy one for me, from
+one positive religion which was indifferent to me, to another that was
+no less so. But I was going to say that we Jews, or we men who are
+educated in the Jewish faith, are as unromantic in regard to marriage
+as everything else, but we keep to the law; I mean by that the law of
+nature, which is not at all romantic, but very sober, and consequently
+all the more logical.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then you think that a great difference between the ages of the husband
+and wife is one of the laws of nature which should be strictly
+observed?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By no means, only that under certain circumstances it is no
+impediment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly not, but--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Allow me to explain my opinion by some statistics. I am descended from
+a very long-lived family. My grandfather--he could not tell either the
+place or time of his birth positively--must have been more than a
+hundred years old when he died, blind and crippled, it is true, but
+with his mental powers almost entirely unimpaired. My father was
+ninety. I, who no longer needed to toil and moil for myself, was able
+six years ago, when in my fiftieth year, to marry, and thus I have the
+expectation of seeing my little family, even if an addition should be
+bestowed upon us, grow up to maturity, supposing that I attain my
+eightieth year, to which, as you will admit, I have on the father's
+side the most well-founded title.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Wollnow rested his broad shoulders comfortably against the back of
+his chair, and passed his hands over his high forehead and thick black
+hair, in which Gotthold could not yet perceive the smallest thread of
+gray. &quot;That is,&quot; said he, &quot;if I understand you rightly, marriage ought
+to be in the first place arranged for the welfare of the children, and
+therefore it is only necessary to consider the signs of the times in
+and for which the children are born.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly,&quot; replied Herr Wollnow; &quot;in the first place, I might almost
+say in the first and last.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the husband and wife?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ought and will find their pleasure in their love for their children,
+their joy in the new fresh world which surrounds them, as well as a
+sufficient compensation for all lost illusions, and a reward for the
+anxieties and deprivations which necessarily spring from this love and
+joy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And their own love, the love which brought them together, which
+induced them to make this particular choice out of the countless
+multitude of possibilities--the love which ever increases and must
+continue to increase until it finally illumines every thought,
+heightens every feeling, warms every drop of blood--would you take this
+from marriage, or consider it as something which may or may not exist?
+Never! 'Love is everywhere, except in hell,' says Wolfram von
+Eschenbach. I know not whether he is right, but I do know that a
+marriage where there is no love, nay, where love does not exist as I
+understand it, is in my eyes a hell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had spoken with a passion which, eagerly as he strove to
+suppress it, had not escaped the keen ears of his host.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let us change the subject,&quot; he said kindly, &quot;and try another upon
+which we shall certainly find it easier to agree.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, let us keep to this,&quot; replied Gotthold; &quot;upon so important a
+subject I am anxious to hear the opinion of a man whose judgment and
+character I prize so highly--the full opinion; for I am sure you have
+still much to say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly,&quot; replied Herr Wollnow hesitatingly; &quot;a great deal, but I
+fear very little that will please you, as you now think of marriage. I
+say as you now think, and beg you not to misunderstand me; for you, who
+have grown up among romantic traditions, and, as an artist, are perhaps
+especially disposed to take an ideal view of human affairs, can
+probably not be induced to give up your preconceived opinion except by
+your own experience. But no matter; I should need to be far less firmly
+convinced of the justice of my own opinion than I am, or to esteem my
+opponent less than I do if I allowed your last proposition to pass
+without contradiction. You said that without love, as you so eloquently
+described it, marriage would be a hell; I assert that this very love,
+or rather the unrealized dream of this love, makes a hell of many, far
+too many marriages.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Unrealized,&quot; said Gotthold; &quot;oh! yes, that is just what causes the
+unhappiness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;An unavoidable one, or at least in many cases not to be avoided. You
+will admit that most marriages must commence with this illusion, which
+is more or less vivid according to the nature and imaginative power of
+the dreamer. There are so few persons who do not desire to be specially
+rewarded for paying their debts to nature and society. When they
+perceive that the question of marriage concerns a very different object
+from the realization of their dreams, and that this object is the more
+easily attained the less they give themselves up to fancies, the
+majority, of course, will at first rub their eyes in some little
+perplexity, but no longer take the affair tragically, but as it is; and
+these are the marriages which I--with all due respect for humanity,
+which certainly consists of average mortals--call average marriages,
+and which in Germany, England, America, nay, even in France and Italy,
+wherever I have wandered in the civilized world, I have always found as
+much alike as two eggs. It is, take it all in all, very dry, but very
+healthful prose; there is much modest quiet happiness, and of course
+also much, very much sorrow; but none which would not befall a human
+being as such. I mean the frail, easily injured creature at last doomed
+to death--and very little which results from the marriage. But this
+misery is found in overwhelming measure when people wish to realize,
+nay to transform into a still more brilliant reality, the dream they
+have enjoyed as lovers. How many heart-breaking conflicts, how many
+vain struggles, how much strength wasted which was greatly needed for
+far more important purposes, how much senseless and useless cruelty
+towards one's self and others! You see I speak only of those who take
+life earnestly, not of the multitudes of stupid people who are
+incapable of any moral idea, nor of the, if possible, still greater
+number of frivolous natures; who snap their fingers at all morality.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know it,&quot; replied Gotthold; &quot;but why should not earnest, honorable
+human beings, when they become conscious of their mistakes, seek to
+cast out the errors that have crept into the score of their lives while
+there is time?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In what way?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By restoring each other's freedom.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Freedom? What freedom? The liberty of chaining themselves again as
+soon as possible, of making another choice at once if, as is usually
+the case, they have not previously done so; a new choice which will
+probably prove no wiser, no more circumspect, than the first? Consider,
+we are speaking of earnest, honorable human beings! Well, they
+doubtless went earnestly and honorably to work in making their first
+choice, and if, in spite of all their earnestness, they went astray
+where they could choose freely and without embarrassment, they
+certainly would the second time, when burdened by the weight of
+self-created suffering, blinded by a treacherous passion. If a new
+clerk begins the first calculation I allow him to make on an entirely
+false principle, I may not send him away, but I never intrust any
+important matter to him again without watching him. And--while there is
+time--did you say? When is there time? Perhaps never, if two people
+have belonged to each other body and soul--for earnest, honorable
+people will give their souls to each other--perhaps never, and certainly
+not after; and here I come back to the point from whence I started--after
+the bond which thereby becomes a hallowed one has been blessed with
+children. Believe me, I could make many other remarks upon this subject:
+the chasm that severs the parents goes through the hearts of the
+children; they will feel the gulf painfully sooner or later, and never
+wholly cease to suffer from it, if--which to be sure is not always the
+case--they have hearts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And will not a child's heart be torn,&quot; cried Gotthold, painfully
+agitated, &quot;will it not bleed at the thought of its parents who have
+lived together in torment, and wasted away in this torture?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They would not have wasted away,&quot; replied Herr Wollnow, &quot;if they had
+come to an understanding with each other in my acceptation of the term;
+if they had always said to each other, and kept faithfully in their
+hearts the thought: for our children's sakes we must not despond, must
+bear our sorrows, must sacredly keep the ledger of our lives, and, if
+any error has actually crept in, calculate and calculate until we have
+found it. Who in the world should be responsible for the result except
+the person to whom the book was intrusted? And then there is also a
+bankruptcy from which the unfortunate sufferer comes forth
+impoverished, perhaps a beggar, with nothing to cover his nakedness
+except the consciousness: you have done your duty, met your
+obligations. Woe to him who cannot think this of his parents: well for
+him who can think and say so; who by their graves can weep sorrowful
+but sweet tears, and pass on in peace.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold's head was resting on his hand. Let us have peace, he had said
+to his father's shade, and sorrowful but sweet tears had fallen from
+his eyes upon his mother's grave. Would they have been less sweet if
+she had left the father who could not make her happy, if she had sought
+and perhaps found joy in another's arms?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Wollnow's dark eyes rested upon his guest's noble features, now
+shadowed by gloom and doubt, with an expression of mingled compassion
+and severity. Had he said too much, or not enough? Should he be silent,
+or ought he to say more, and tell the young man who so closely
+resembled his mother, and yet had so much of his father's character,
+the history of his parents?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Just then the door-bell rang, and at the same moment his wife's voice
+sounded from the entry. She was a woman to quickly inspire other and
+gayer thoughts in men's minds, even if the conversation had taken a
+grave and critical turn.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg you to excuse me a thousand, thousand times,&quot; cried Fran Wollnow
+from the threshold of the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That makes two thousand,&quot; said her husband, who with his guest had
+risen to meet her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You shan't always reckon up everything, you bad man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But take no notice of anything--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you shan't always interrupt me and spoil my prettiest speeches. I
+had thought of the most charming things to say to our guest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps they begin with good evening?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, of course; good evening, and welcome, you are most heartily
+welcome,&quot; said Frau Wollnow, extending two plump little hands to
+Gotthold, and looking up into his face with the most eager curiosity in
+her brown eyes. &quot;Dear me, how you have grown, and how much you have
+improved!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold could not return the compliment. Ottilie Blaustein seemed to
+him to have grown much stouter, but neither taller nor handsomer than
+when he last saw her. Nevertheless the plump, somewhat flushed face
+beamed with mirth and good-nature, and it was by no means difficult for
+him to respond to the cordial greeting of his old acquaintance with no
+less warmth. She begged the gentlemen to sit down again; she would,
+with their permission, take a seat with them, and beg for a glass of
+wine, for she had been obliged to talk so much that evening that she
+was very thirsty. Then she instantly started up again, and asked her
+husband in a half whisper whether he had already showed it to him, in
+reply to which mysterious question Herr Wollnow smilingly shook his
+stately head. &quot;I would not spoil your pleasure,&quot; said he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You good Emil!&quot; she exclaimed, hastily kissing her husband on the
+forehead, and then turned to Gotthold. &quot;Come, I must give you a proof
+that you obliged no ungrateful person when you enabled the little
+Jewish girl to join the dance. See, I bought this in remembrance of
+you, and would have purchased it if it had been as worthless as it is
+valuable, and as dear as the price for which I obtained my treasure was
+nominal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had seized a candle, and now led Gotthold to the landscape which
+had already attracted his attention, even across the room. The latter
+started, and with difficulty suppressed an exclamation of surprise and
+pain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is Dollan, isn't it?&quot; said Ottilie.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold made no reply; he took the candle from the lady's hand, and
+held it so that the light fell upon the picture, which was hung rather
+too high. Yes, it was the very one into which he had painted his love
+and anguish, the picture of which he had just spoken to Herr Wollnow,
+that had been upon his easel on the evening which had made such a
+wonderful change in his life. To prove to himself that he had
+irrevocably broken all ties with his past, and must now begin a new
+phase of his life and struggles, he gave away the sketch and did not
+destroy the picture, but very prosaically presented it to an
+exhibition, from which it went to another, then to a third and fourth,
+and was finally sold, he did not know where or to whom, nor did he wish
+to know; it should disappear to him. And yet during all this time he
+had been unable to shake off the recollection of this picture. He could
+have painted it again from memory, but it would not have been the one
+hallowed by so much suffering. And he must find it again, here and now,
+when his soul was already so full of the magic fragrance which
+everything he saw and heard bore to him from the days when every breath
+that swept across »his brow or fanned his cheek, exhaled the odor of
+pine trees, of the ocean, and of love.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And how do you suppose I obtained it?&quot; said Frau Wollnow; &quot;and
+especially how do you suppose I found out it was yours; for you know
+we do not judge from the style, or at least I did not at that time.
+But when people are to have a piece of good fortune! So I said to
+Cecilia Brandow, whom I--it is now six years ago, and I had just been
+married--met at the wool market in Sundin, I had almost said; but of
+course only the gentlemen went there, and we drove in with them on
+account of the exhibition, where I met her. We had so much to say,
+like any two friends who had not seen each other since they left
+boarding-school--you perhaps do not remember that Cecilia and I were in
+the same boarding-school at Sundin--or at least I had a great deal to
+say, for I found Cecilia very quiet. I believe she had lost her second
+child only a short time before. We were separated by the crowd, and I
+at last found her again in one of the most out-of-the-way rooms,
+standing alone before this picture with her eyes full of tears, which,
+as I came up, she tried to conceal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good Heavens!&quot; said I; &quot;isn't that--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; she replied; &quot;and it is by him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By whom?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In a word, she had recognized it instantly, and would not admit that
+she was mistaken when I told her the 'G. W.' in the corner might be
+Heaven knows whom. You see I didn't understand much about pictures
+then--now when I--but your hand trembles, you cannot hold the
+candlestick any longer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let me have the picture,&quot; said Gotthold; then perceiving that the
+husband and wife were looking at him in surprise, he added calmly,
+replacing the candlestick upon the table: &quot;The painting is really not
+worthy to be hung among your other pictures, which are excellent. It is
+the work of a pupil, and moreover was painted from memory after a very
+hasty sketch, I will promise you another and better one of the same
+place, which I will make on the spot if you will--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! that would be delightful, that would be splendid,&quot; exclaimed Frau
+Wollnow. &quot;I will hold you to your promise: another, not a better one,
+you can't make it better, that is impossible; but to have a picture
+painted on the spot by the most celebrated landscape painter of the day
+will be a triumph of which I can boast all the rest of my life. Give me
+your hand upon it!&quot; She held out both hands to Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well,&quot; said Herr Wollnow, &quot;the bargain is made, and now according to
+the good old custom we will seal it with a drink. You see, Herr
+Gotthold Weber, woman's wit surpasses priestly cunning. I might have
+preached a long time to induce you to remain here; my wife comes, and
+the timid bird is caught. Well, I am glad of it, heartily glad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And how delighted Cecilia will be,&quot; cried Frau Wollnow. &quot;My poor
+Cecilia! she really needs something to divert her thoughts a little,
+and this will be so pleasant.&quot; Gotthold turned pale. When he made his
+over-hasty promise, the thought of thus creating a convenient pretext
+for seeing Cecilia again had certainly been farthest from his mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think we can spare our friend the trouble of the journey,&quot; said Herr
+Wollnow, &quot;and you will be perfectly well satisfied with a copy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You certainly know that we are not talking about a copy, but a new,
+entirely new picture,&quot; exclaimed Ottilie. &quot;But you understand nothing
+about it, my dear Emil, or he doesn't want to understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I only do not want to send our friend away again immediately, but to
+keep him with us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tell the truth, Emil, tell the truth,&quot; said Frau Wollnow, shaking her
+finger at him. &quot;The fact, Herr Weber, is simply that he can't bear
+Brandow, Heaven knows why. To be sure I can't either, and have no
+reason for it except that he always teased me at the dancing lessons in
+his malicious way. But I care nothing about him, only his angelic
+wife.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And since husband and wife are one--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If everybody thought as you do, dear Emil--and I too, of course; but
+there is no rule without an exception, and the Brandow marriage is one
+so thoroughly bad and unfortunate that I really do not see why we--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Should talk so much about it,&quot; said Herr Wollnow; &quot;and it is all the
+more unnecessary, as our guest can probably take no special interest in
+the subject.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No interest,&quot; cried Ottilie, clasping her hands; &quot;no interest. Pray,
+Herr Gotthold--how I keep falling into the old habit--excuse me--but
+do tell this man, who thinks Goethe's 'Elective Affinities' in bad
+taste--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pardon me, I said immoral--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, in bad taste; the evening of the day before yesterday, when we
+were talking about it at the Herr Conrector's, and you made the
+unprecedented assertion that Goethe had committed a perfidy--yes, you
+said perfidy--when he made the only person in the whole novel who
+uttered anything truthful about marriage-the mediator--a half
+simpleton.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But what do you want with your elective affinities!&quot; exclaimed Wollnow
+almost angrily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He don't believe in them,&quot; said Ottilie triumphantly, &quot;and says that,
+like ghosts, they only haunt the brains of fools. But the fact is, he
+only pretends to think so, and secretly believes in them more than many
+other people; and now he is troubled, as a child is afraid of ghosts,
+at the thought that you will go to Dollan and see your old friend
+again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How absurdly you talk,&quot; said Herr Wollnow, scarcely concealing his
+painful embarrassment by a forced smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, we have talked of nothing else all the evening in our little
+society,&quot; cried Ottilie. &quot;You must know, Herr Gotthold, that there are
+three members of our dancing class here besides myself--all married
+now: Pauline Ellis--well, she perhaps will not interest you; Louise
+Palm, the girl with the brown eyes--we always called her Zingarella;
+and Hermine Sandberg--you know, that handsome girl, it is a pity that
+she was a little cross-eyed and stammered. We knew everything,
+everything down to the smallest particulars, especially your duel with
+Carl Brandow--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At which, however, so far as I can remember, none of the ladies you
+have mentioned were present,&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good!&quot; exclaimed Herr Wollnow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, it isn't good,&quot; said Ottilie pouting; &quot;it isn't at all good or
+kind in Herr Gotthold to make fun of the faithful friendship people
+have kept for him for so many years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That was very far from my intention,&quot; replied Gotthold. &quot;On the
+contrary, I feel highly honored and greatly flattered that my humble
+self furnished such charming ladies with a subject for conversation,
+even for a few moments.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go on with your jibes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I assure you once more that I am perfectly sincere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you give me a proof of it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly, if I can.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well then,&quot; said Ottilie with a deep blush, &quot;tell me how the duel
+chanced to take place, for I will confess that one said one thing, and
+another another, and at last we found out that nobody knew. Will you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very willingly,&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had noticed Herr Wollnow's repeated attempts to give the
+conversation another turn, and thought he could perceive that his
+host's former remarks had not been so entirely unpremeditated as they
+had at first seemed. Had Frau Wollnow told her husband a romance to
+suit her own fancy, and made him play Heaven knows what ridiculous
+part? He must try to put an end to such rumors, and believed that the
+very best way of doing so would be to fulfil Frau Wollnow's wish, and
+tell the story with the utmost possible frankness, as if it concerned a
+third person.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">These thoughts passed rapidly through his mind as he slowly raised the
+glass of wine to his lips. He sipped a little of it, and then said,
+turning to Frau Wollnow with a smile:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How gladly, honored lady, would I begin my story with the words of
+Schiller: 'Oh! queen, you wake the unspeakably torturing smart of the
+old wound, but it won't do, it won't do. True, when there is any sudden
+change of weather I have a twinge in the wound, but it is by no means
+unspeakably painful; and at all events at this moment I feel nothing at
+all, except the profound truth of the old saying, that young people
+will be young people, and will play youthful pranks, oftentimes very
+foolish ones. To this latter category undoubtedly belongs my combat
+with Carl Brandow, which did not, however, as you suppose, originate in
+the dancing lessons, but was only brought to a decisive issue there,
+after it had long been glowing under the ashes, and even threatened
+once before to break out into light flames. The first cause was this.
+In our fifth form it was an old custom, most sacredly observed, that an
+open space should be reserved between the first bench and the
+lecturer's chair for the 'old boys,' which no 'new boy' was permitted
+to enter before the close of the first term, on pain of a severe
+thrashing. Carl Brandow, it is true, belonged to the 'old boys,' indeed
+the very old boys; for he had been in the fifth form three years, but
+was still on the last bench, although if I remember rightly, he had
+already passed his eighteenth birthday. I was one of the 'new boys,'
+one of the latest comers indeed; for I had just entered at Michaelmas,
+a lad of fourteen, to the no small annoyance of my father, who had
+prepared me himself, and expected I should be at once enrolled among
+the first classes. It was not without reason, for when at the end of
+the first week, according to custom, the rank of the different scholars
+was assigned from the result of certain exercises we called
+extemporalia, mine proved to be without fault, and I was transferred to
+my well-earned dignity of <i>Primus omnium</i> with a certain degree of
+ceremony. And yet I was not even now to be permitted to cross the space
+before the first bench! From the first moment I had felt this
+prohibition as an outrage; now I openly declared it to be one, and said
+that I would never submit to it, but on the contrary demanded the
+abolition of the brutal rule, not only for myself but all the new boys,
+whose champion I considered myself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In thus wording my demand I had really been guided only by my own
+intuitive sense of justice, without being actuated by any other motive;
+but the result proved that I could not have done better if I had been
+the most crafty demagogue. Standing alone, I should have had no chance
+of accomplishing my bold innovation; but now my cause was the cause of
+all, that is of all the 'new boys,' and chance willed that our numbers
+were exactly the same as those of the other party. Even in regard to
+bodily strength, which boys so well know how to rate according to age,
+we might probably have compared tolerably with them, and the little
+that was wanting would have been well supplied by the enthusiasm for
+the good cause which I unceasingly labored to arouse--if it had not
+been for Carl Brandow. Who could withstand this eighteen-years-old
+hero, slender and strong as a young pine? He would rage among us like
+Achilles among the Trojans, and strew the field--a retired open space
+in a little wood behind the school-house--with the bodies of the
+enemies he had hurled to the ground; for it was agreed that whoever in
+struggling should touch the earth with his back was to be considered
+conquered, and desist from the battle, which was to be decided in this
+manner before the eyes of six honorable members of the first class, who
+accepted the office of umpires with a readiness deserving of
+acknowledgment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet there was no retreat, even if we, which was not the case, had
+thought of making one. The hour arrived--one Saturday afternoon, on
+which we had contrived to evade the watchfulness of the teacher--and I
+do not believe that soldiers ordered to assault a battery vomiting
+death and destruction can feel more solemn and earnest than did we. I
+may say, especially I. I had caused the struggle; I had involved all
+the brave boys in it; I felt responsible for the result, and for the
+disgrace in case of defeat--an event which seemed more probable every
+moment. That I was determined to do my utmost and strain every nerve is
+a matter of course. I hoped and prayed the gods that Carl Brandow might
+fall to me--for the antagonists were to be drawn by lot, and only he
+who had conquered his opponent was permitted to choose from among those
+who had vanquished theirs until all was decided. I do not remember
+whether the senior boys, who devised these ingenious rules, had copied
+from Sir Walter Scott; I only know I have never read the famous
+description of the tournament at Ashby, in Ivanhoe, without being
+reminded of that Saturday afternoon--the shady forest glade, and the
+boyish faces glowing with courage and ardor for the combat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And, as in the tournament of Ashby, a wholly unforeseen accident in
+the person of the Black Knight, the <i>Noir Fainéant</i>, saved the hero's
+otherwise hopelessly lost cause, so it was here.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Among the new boys was a lad of sixteen, with a frank honest face,
+which would have been handsome if it had possessed a little more
+animation, and the large earnest blue eyes had been a shade less
+dreamy. Although not tall, he was powerfully built, and we should
+perhaps have reckoned upon his assistance had not his indolence seemed
+to us to be very much greater than the strength he might possess, for
+he had never given any proof of it; and in reply to our eager questions
+about how he rated himself, merely shrugged his broad shoulders in
+silence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Curt Wenhof!&quot; exclaimed Frau Wollnow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Curt Wenhof, my poor dear Curt,&quot; continued Gotthold, whose voice
+trembled at the recollection of the beloved friend of his youth. &quot;I can
+see him now, as, after throwing his adversary to the ground as easily
+as a binder casts the sheaf behind him, he stood there as idly as if he
+had nothing more to do with the affair. I had also hurled my antagonist
+down and was just rising, gasping for breath, when Carl Brandow, who
+meantime had disposed of two or three, rushed upon me. 'Now,' I thought
+to myself, 'you must make it as hard for him as possible.' I did not
+dream of victory. But at the same instant Curt sprang before me; the
+next moment the two opponents had seized each other, and at the first
+grip Carl Brandow perceived that he had to deal with an adversary who
+was at least his equal in strength and courage, and, as the result
+proved, greatly his superior in coolness and endurance. It was a
+beautiful spectacle to see the two young athletes wrestling together--a
+spectacle we all enjoyed, umpires, victors, vanquished, and combatants;
+for by a silent agreement we had all formed a wide circle around them
+and watched every phase of the conflict with hope, fear, and loud
+cheers, according to the side to which we belonged, until at last a
+wild shout of exultation rang from my party, as Curt Wenhof raised his
+opponent, whose strength was utterly exhausted, and hurled him upon the
+turf with such violence that the poor fellow lay half senseless, unable
+to move.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The conflict was decided, so said the seniors, and in truth it was;
+who would have ventured to cope with Carl Brandow's conqueror? In the
+joy of my heart I embraced the good Curt, vowed an eternal friendship
+with him, and then turned to Carl Brandow, who meantime had risen from
+the ground, and, as the leader of one party to the representative of
+the other, offered him my hand, expressing the wish and hope that an
+honorable peace might follow the honorable struggle. He took my hand,
+and I believe even laughed, and said he was not a fool to grieve over a
+thing that could not be helped.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's just like him,&quot; cried Frau Wollnow eagerly, &quot;friendly and
+agreeable to your face, and malicious and cruel behind your back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You see my wife has already taken sides,&quot; said Herr Wollnow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Already!&quot; exclaimed Fran Wollnow. &quot;Why, I never thought or felt
+otherwise; I have always been against him, and certainly had good
+reason for it; I should like to know what would have become of me at
+those dancing lessons, if you had not come to my assistance so kindly.
+I shall never forget it, and it was all the more noble in you, because
+you cared nothing about me, but were in love with the beautiful
+Cecilia, which I never suspected.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I fear it would be useless to contradict you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Entirely useless. I can see you now starting from the chair beside me,
+pale with anger and trembling in every limb, when Carl Brandow kissed
+Cecilia, and she burst into tears.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And had I not reason to be angry!&quot; exclaimed Gotthold. &quot;It was an
+agreement among us young people that the kisses which were ordered in
+the games of forfeits were to consist in pressing the lips upon the
+hand. All were bound by it, even Carl Brandow; and until then the
+compact had been inviolably kept. I had a right not to suffer this
+insolent breach of the bargain, or permit it to pass unpunished,--a
+double right, since during the last year I had been to Dollan with Curt
+so often, and was on such friendly terms with the brother and sister,
+especially as Curt, as you may remember, in his indolent way, would not
+share the dancing lessons, and I might therefore be permitted to
+consider myself the legitimate protector of my friend. Moreover, Curt,
+whom I had with great difficulty pulled through the examination for the
+senior class, was not in favor with the teachers; a flagrant breach of
+the peace such as would now be necessary, would undoubtedly have caused
+him to be suspended; and finally I will confess I thought Carl Brandow
+intended to vex and insult me by his impertinence, and resolved to take
+up the gauntlet and fight out the battle for Curt as he had appeared
+for me. It was all youthful folly, my honored friends; I blush even now
+when I think of it, and so I will relate what remains to be told in as
+few words as possible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The preparations for the duel--for us proud seniors it must of course
+be a genuine duel&quot;--continued Gotthold, &quot;were conducted with all
+possible secrecy. Only those immediately concerned,--that is, the
+principals and seconds, to use this classic expression,--knew the place
+and hour. It was not difficult to procure weapons, for in spite of the
+strictest commands, there were at least half a dozen pairs of rapiers
+among us. Carl Brandow had one, and his particular friends told
+wonderful stories of his skill; but Curt was also the fortunate
+possessor of two good swords, with whose terrible clatter we had often,
+when at Dollan, startled the quiet woods from their repose. I had a
+quick eye, and, spite of my fifteen years, a firm hand, and Carl
+Braudow was probably no little surprised when, at the decisive moment,
+he found his despised opponent so well prepared; at least, he grew more
+restless and violent every moment, and thus made it possible for me,
+although he was really greatly my superior in skill, not only to hold
+my ground but even to change my posture to one of attack, and deal him
+a blow on the shoulder so deep that the blood flowed through the
+sleeve. The seconds shouted to us to stop. I instantly lowered my
+rapier, but in his frenzy of rage at his mischance he heard the shout
+and saw my gesture no more than I saw and heard anything of what
+happened to me during the next four weeks.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is said to have struck twice,&quot; observed Frau Wollnow; &quot;the last
+time when you were lying on the ground.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not believe it and never shall,&quot; replied Gotthold; &quot;our seconds
+had certainly lost their heads and could not afterwards say positively
+how the affair had happened. But now, my clear Madam and Herr Wollnow,
+I fear I must have, exhausted your patience and will take my leave.
+Good Heavens! Twelve o'clock already! It is unpardonable!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I could have listened all night,&quot; said Frau Wollnow, with a deep sigh,
+as she also, but very slowly, rose from her chair. &quot;Ah! youth, youth!
+people are never young but once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank God,&quot; said Gotthold gayly; &quot;otherwise people would be compelled
+to play their foolish pranks twice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who is so old as to be safe from folly,&quot; said Herr Wollnow, with a
+grave smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You!&quot; exclaimed his wife, embracing him. &quot;You are much too old and far
+too wicked. People must not only be young, but also good, like our
+friend here, in order to be so badly rewarded for all his goodness. I
+can imagine how it went to your heart when Cecilia, married this
+Brandow. That sweet innocent girl of seventeen wedded to him! Ah! when
+we see such things it is enough to make us lose faith in mankind
+forever.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This faith is not so frequently to be found either in Israel or
+elsewhere,&quot; said Herr Wollnow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you go?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am going already, my dear Madam.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, dear! now you are beginning too. I meant to say, will you really
+go to Dollan?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I must do so now, even if I were not obliged to go on account of the
+picture.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To restore my faith in mankind, at least the part most important to
+me, myself,&quot; replied Gotthold, with a smile, whose derision did not
+escape Herr Wollnow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am very much displeased with you,&quot; said the latter, as he re-entered
+the dining-room, after accompanying Gotthold to the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;With me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What must the man think of me? What a meddlesome awkward fellow he
+must consider me. It is a real piece of good fortune that I went no
+farther.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But what have I done?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why did you never tell me this famous narrative of your youth, from
+which it is very evident that he loved and probably still loves your
+friend Cecilia, as you call her, although I have never seen anything of
+the friendship.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you really think so?&quot; exclaimed Fran Wollnow, starting up and
+throwing her arms around her husband; &quot;do you really think so? Did he
+tell you so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In spite of his vexation, Herr Wollnow could not help laughing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should probably be the last person whom he would choose for his
+confidant, especially now, after I, stupid oaf, have been hammering
+away upon this subject for the last hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On this subject? I really don't understand you, Emil.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't understand me! Gracious, you clever soul! How difficult it is
+for women to see their way in matters they proudly condescend to
+consider their own. Don't understand me? Well, I can assure you that
+yonder enthusiast understood you perfectly, and will be on his way to
+Dollan early to-morrow morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, I can't see any particular harm in that,&quot; said Frau Wollnow.
+&quot;Why should not those two meet again, after so many years, even if they
+really do still love each other? I will give poor Cecilia the pleasure
+with all my heart--she needs consolation so much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As much as her worthy husband needs money. Day after to-morrow is the
+last day of grace for his note of five thousand thalers which is
+deposited with me. Perhaps he will help both: he has the means to do
+so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! Emil, your everlasting prose is unbearable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I never promised you that you would find me a poet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Heaven knows that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It would be better for me if you knew it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Emil!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg your pardon. I am really so much annoyed that I can't help being
+spiteful. But that conies of meddling with other people's affairs. Let
+the fools do as they please, and come to bed.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">When, after a night of torturing restlessness, Gotthold suddenly awoke
+from his heavy morning sleep, the sun had already been shining through
+the white lace curtains of his chamber for several hours. &quot;Thank God,&quot;
+he said aloud, &quot;morning has come, and with the morning everything will
+doubtless look brighter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was soon dressed, and standing at the open window. How familiar the
+scene was to him. There was the circular space, with its grass-grown
+walks, and the little obelisk in the centre, surrounded by pleasant
+white houses with pretty gardens; yonder the stately schoolhouse, from
+whose open windows the singing of the boys rang out so distinctly upon
+the quiet of the Sabbath morning, that he fancied he could distinguish
+the words of the hymn. On the right hand, peering between the houses,
+and rising above their roofs, appeared the dark green foliage of the
+huge trees in the royal park, and far away on the left, between other
+dwellings, gleamed a portion of the lake, and the tiny islet--just at
+this moment sparkling in the sunlight--which lies before the large
+island. He had seen the beautiful picture hundreds and hundreds of
+times just as he saw it now, when, after the morning service was over,
+he stood at the window of the school-house with Curt, his eyes
+wandering towards the region where beloved Dollan lay; and even as now
+it allured him from the narrow walls of the room out into the sunny
+fields, the shady woods, and by the blue lake. These lights, these
+shadow, this brilliant azure hue had kindled in the boy a pure desire
+to reproduce, to counterfeit what lay so clearly, though in such
+complicated lines before him, and so deeply stirred his heart with
+strange forebodings. They had been his first teachers in the wonderful
+language of lines and colors; and fluently as he had since learned to
+speak it, he was still indebted to them for all that he had attained.
+Had he not felt yesterday, when he drove through the familiar scenes,
+heavy as was his heart, that all his toil and labor in beautiful Italy
+had been more or less vain, and he had always painted only with his
+eyes and hand, never with his heart; spoken a beautiful, musical, but
+foreign tongue with difficulty, instead of his native language; and
+that here, and here only, in his native country, and beneath his native
+sky, could he become a true artist, who does not utter what others can
+say as well or better, but what he alone can express, because he is
+himself what he says.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But could home really still be home to him after all that had happened,
+all he had experienced and suffered here? Why not, if he only saw it
+with the eyes with which he endeavored to see the rest of the world; if
+he wished to be nothing more than what, in his good hours, he believed
+himself to be--a true artist, living only in his ideal creations,
+behind whom everything that fetters other men lies like an
+unsubstantial vision, and for whom, when in evil plight, there is a God
+to whom he can tell what he suffers. Yes, his art, chaste and severe,
+had been his guiding-star in the labyrinth of his early days, his
+talisman in the misery and poverty of the years he had spent in
+Munich, his refuge at all times; and she should and would continue to
+be so--would cling loyally to him if he was faithful to her, and ever
+throned her reverently on high as his protectress, his adored goddess.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The boys' song died away. Gotthold passed his hand over his eyes, and
+turned back into the room just as there was a loud knock at the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What, is it you, Jochen?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Herr Gotthold, it is I,&quot; replied Jochen Prebrow, after putting
+the coffee-tray he had brought in as carefully on the table as if it
+had been a soap-bubble, which would break at the slightest touch. &quot;Clas
+Classen, from Neuenkirchen, or, as they call him here, Louis, had just
+gone down cellar when you rang, and I thought the coffee would taste
+none the worse for my bringing it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly not; I am very much obliged to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And besides, I wanted to ask when I should harness the horses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall remain here a few days,&quot; replied Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At these words a smile began to overspread Jochen's broad face, but it
+instantly vanished again as Gotthold continued: &quot;So you must drive on
+alone, old friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should like to stay here a few days too,&quot; said Jochen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you cannot unless I keep the carriage? Then I will, and, what is
+of more value to me, you; and we will go on at once to Dollan, which I
+suppose is what you want. Or do you think the horses ought not to be
+left so long?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen had no anxiety on that score. His good friend, Clas Classen,
+whom the people here had the strange custom of calling Louis, would
+willingly undertake the care of them and see that they had all they
+needed, but why did Herr Gotthold walk when they had horses and
+carriage on the spot?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I should prefer to walk,&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, what's one man's meat is another man's poison,&quot; said Jochen
+rubbing his thick hair. &quot;But there's still another difficulty in the
+way: you will find the nest empty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They passed through here an hour ago, both the gentleman and lady,&quot;
+replied Jochen. &quot;I was sitting in the coffee-room and they stopped at
+the door.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold stared steadily at Jochen. She had been there, so near him,
+under the window at which he had just been standing, and he might have
+seen the pure face again as Jochen saw it, who spoke of it as coolly as
+if it were a thing that might happen every day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And did you speak to her, Jochen?&quot; he said at last hesitatingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The lady remained in the carriage,&quot; said Jochen; &quot;but he came in to
+drink a little rum, and as there was nobody else in the room, and I had
+just got some out of the cupboard for myself, I helped him to it; and
+then he asked where I came from, and I told him I was here with a
+gentleman, but I thought we should go on to-day as soon as he was up.
+He asked if I knew the gentleman; but of course I didn't; for, thought
+I, the friendship between those two was never very great, and the less
+one has to do with Herr Brandow the better. Wasn't I right? Well, and
+so one word led to another, and he took out his watch and said he was
+going to Plüggenhof and should probably stay there till to-morrow
+evening, and then he drank his rum, which he will perhaps pay for when
+he comes back, and away he went; he had a pair of splendid bays,
+thorough-breds, especially the saddle-horse. You would have been
+delighted with them, for you are a judge of horses; I saw that
+yesterday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold's eyes were still fixed steadily upon the floor. She would not
+even know that he had been here.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Be it so! He had not intended, even for a moment, to cross her path;
+and now the way was open, perfectly open; he could carry out
+unhindered, and without any pain, the plan he had formed yesterday when
+he returned from the Wollnows' through the park to the inn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An hour afterwards the two men were walking along the road to Dollan,
+at first upon the highway, then by side paths and short cuts, every
+foot of which Gotthold knew.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He walked on, lost in dreams of the days that had fled and could never
+return, while far above his head the larks sang unceasingly, the black
+crows stalked over the quiet fields abandoned to Sabbath solitude, the
+bright-plumaged jays fluttered over the moors, and above the border of
+the distant woods an eagle wheeled in majestic circles. Jochen, who had
+taken nothing except Gotthold's dressing-case and paint-box tied up
+with his own little bundle in a gay cotton handkerchief, generally
+loitered a little behind and did not disturb his silent companion by
+any undue loquacity. Jochen had his own thoughts, which to be sure did
+not dwell upon the past but the future, thoughts he would gladly have
+uttered, only that he knew not how to guide the conversation in that
+direction. But they were approaching nearer and nearer to the corner of
+the woods, where he must part from Gotthold for the day, and if he
+wished to hear his opinion at all, now was the time. So he took heart,
+overtook his companion with a few long strides, walked on a few minutes
+by his side in silence, and was not a little startled himself when he
+suddenly uttered aloud the question he had mutely repeated a hundred
+times: &quot;What do you think about marrying, Herr Gotthold?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold paused and looked in astonishment at the worthy Jochen, who
+also stood still, and whose broad face, with its staring eyes and
+half-open mouth, wore so singular an expression that he could not help
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What put that into your head?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because I want to get married.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then you must know about it far better than I, who do not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen closed his lips and swallowed several times, as if he had taken
+too large a mouthful. Gotthold was now forced to laugh outright.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, Jochen,&quot; he exclaimed, &quot;why are you so mysterious to an old
+friend? I will gladly give you my best advice, and if I can, and you
+care about it, my blessing also, but I must first know what the matter
+is really about. So you want to be married?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Herr Gotthold,&quot; said Jochen, taking off his cap and wiping the
+drops of perspiration from his brown forehead; &quot;at least I don't
+exactly, but she says she has always wanted me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is something, and who is she?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stine Lachmund.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Jochen, she is at least fifteen years older than you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She can't help that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, certainly not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And then she is a capable woman, who has a good stout frame and strong
+bones, only it is a little hard for her to move about because she has
+rather too much flesh now, but she says that would probably go off if
+she had more work to do than she has at the Wollnows', where life is
+altogether too easy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, if she thinks so herself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, and then she has put by a pretty sum of money at the Wollnows',
+and her old father and mother at Thiessow,--you know, Herr Gotthold, we
+sailed over there once with the young master, and there was a terribly
+high sea outside, so that we got there as wet as cats, and old Lachmund
+thought we must really have had a ducking.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And then he made us a stiff glass of grog,&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And our young master drank a little too much, and played all sorts
+of pranks in the old man's long jacket, with his sou'wester on his
+head--that was a jolly time, Herr Gotthold.&quot; Jochen had lost the thread
+of his story, but Gotthold kindly prompted him, and he now went on to
+relate that the old couple, rich people for their station in life, who
+had kept a sort of inn in the large fishing village, at last wished to
+resign the sceptre they had so long and obstinately held to their only
+daughter, and give themselves up to repose for the rest of their days,
+on condition that she should instantly marry some good man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So Stine Lachmund, whom Jochen had visited in the kitchen at the same
+time that Gotthold had been calling upon her master and mistress, had
+reported, and asked Jochen whether he would be her husband.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For you see, Herr Gotthold,&quot; continued Jochen, &quot;she don't take to
+everybody, and she has known me, as one might say, all my life, and
+knows I am an orderly, sober man, who understands how to take care of
+horses, knows enough about farming, and can even manage a boat, if it
+doesn't blow too hard.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then so far everything would be perfectly suitable,&quot; said Gotthold,
+&quot;but now we come to the principal thing: do you really love her?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, that's just it,&quot; replied Jochen thoughtfully. &quot;She asked me
+herself last night, and what was I to say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The truth, Jochen, nothing but the truth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I did, Herr Gotthold, I did tell the truth. 'Not yet,' I said, and
+then she laughed and said that would do no harm, all that would come
+right if the woman and the man were well-behaved. I must ask you, you
+would give me the right advice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, you would know about it; you had always been a good man,
+and--and--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And if you had married our young lady, she would have been a great
+deal better off than she is now; yes, and, Herr Gotthold, I only saw
+her side face this morning through the window, as she sat alone in the
+carriage; but this I must say, she doesn't look over happy, and Stine
+says she has not much reason to. Do you think so too, Herr Gotthold?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know, I hope&quot;--replied Gotthold, &quot;people talk so much,--but we
+were speaking about your offer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, and what do you say now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is there to be said? If you feel inclined, marry Stine, who is
+certainly a worthy, honest girl, and may you both be as happy and
+prosperous as you deserve.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had seated themselves in the shade at the edge of the wood, in
+order to carry on this important conversation quietly, but now Gotthold
+rose, hastily seized his travelling case and paint-box, which Jochen
+had laid on the grass beside him, warmly shook the hard brown hand of
+his companion, and entered the forest without casting another glance
+behind. Jochen looked after his retreating figure, then took his own
+little bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and began to ascend the
+moor, above whose topmost crest the roof of his father's smithy was
+just visible.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold hurried restlessly through the forest with hasty steps, as if
+he had not a moment to lose. But it was only the tumult of sore,
+sorrowful thoughts, that drove him on and would not leave him, any more
+than the swarm of flies which had entered the woods with him and
+hovered about his head, now rising, now falling, now lingering behind,
+now flitting on before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To think that I must always hear it, everywhere, and from all
+tongues,&quot; he murmured, &quot;as if I were responsible for it; as if it were
+a reproach to me that she is not happy! Happy! Who is? Perhaps the
+infallible people who can recite, their moral multiplication table
+forward and backward like this Wollnow, the wise, self-righteous
+Pharisee; or like good Jochen, to whom fifteen years more or less in
+his Stine is of no consequence, provided a good maintenance is
+guaranteed him. But on the other hand--am I happy? Are thousands and
+thousands of others, who have scarcely a greater fault than that they
+are men, men with hearts that feel and sympathize, suffer and
+compassionate? A curse upon compassion and sympathy! They make us the
+pitiful creatures we are. What are you rustling, venerable beeches,
+which for centuries have strewn your withered leaves each Autumn over
+the soil of this forest, only to shine forth again in Spring in the
+full beauty of your green foliage? What are you murmuring, little
+brook, as you carry your clear brown water to the sea as busily to-day
+as when I played upon your bank, a merry boy, and thought it a heroic
+deed to leap across you from shore to shore? Alas! in the rustling, the
+murmur, I hear the same song that the swallow sang yesterday, the song
+of the eternal youth of Nature, which is ever the same, always equally
+strong, equally beautiful; and of the transitoriness, the frailty of
+men, who prolong a sorrowful, yet greedy existence by fear and hope,
+eat this shadowy food until death, and yet are happiest while their
+hearts can still hope and fear, their hearts which can never again be
+filled if once emptied, or if they fill and throb once more, fill with
+contempt, throb with indignation, that they could ever have been so
+foolish as to beat anxiously in blended hope and fear. Well, I no
+longer hope, so I need not fear even the view that awaits me yonder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From the broader, but completely neglected road that had hitherto
+followed the course of the forest stream, and, turning to the right,
+still pursued its windings deeper into the woods to the sea, a
+foot-path branched off to the left and led upward, at first between the
+trunks of huge trees, but gradually through more and more stunted
+underbrush, which finally dwindled into heather and broom that covered
+the whole crest of the hill to its highest point, where the men of
+ancient times, in memory of one of their princes, had reared a huge
+monument of massive blocks of stone, now covered with thick moss, and
+partly buried in the earth. It was the spot from which Gotthold, with
+an unsteady hand, had made the colored sketch he afterwards used for
+the painting that hung in Frau Wollnow's room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now he stood there again, after ten long years--in, the shadow of
+one of the blocks of stone which protected him from the burning rays of
+the sun, while before him stretched the landscape with whose wondrous
+beauty the boy's eyes had never been satiated. Ah! Time had not
+obliterated a single charm; nay, it seemed as if the hour was expressly
+adapted to show him the Paradise of his youth in all its magic.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The hour of noon! The brilliant sunlight bathed the tops of the
+beeches, over which his eyes wandered to emerald meadows and golden
+cornfields--the meadows and fields of Dollan, which lay like a quiet
+sunny Eden among the shaded, wood-covered hills that enclosed it on all
+sides. Amid the meadows and fields, relieved against the darker foliage
+of the trees in the garden, appeared the straw thatched roofs of the
+farm buildings, and the tiled roof of the long, low mansion-house, in
+whose red gable he could distinctly perceive the tiny window of the
+little room he had occupied with Curt whenever he went to Dollan. What
+memories that little window evoked! It seemed as if his eyes were fixed
+upon it by some magic spell, and could scarcely turn away either to the
+right, where the hills opened and afforded a view of the blue sea upon
+which the distant white sails glittered like stars, or to the left, to
+glance over the wide brown moorland, upon which the lonely smithy stood
+under an ancient oak, the only tree in the shadeless waste, above whose
+verge towered other wood-crowned heights which closed the view on the
+land side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The hour of noon, the hour of the great Pan! Not the faintest breath
+stirred the shining air; motionless were the dazzling white clouds upon
+the steel blue vault of the heavens; motionless the tops of the trees,
+the blossoming bushes, even the long blades of grass. Not a sound
+disturbed the profound stillness; even the locust, which had chirped
+among the stones of the giant's monument, was silent, perhaps terrified
+by the brown serpent, which, with its head upraised and its round
+glittering eyes fixed steadily upon Gotthold, lay motionless upon one
+of the masses of rock a few paces off, with the rest of its scaly body
+buried in a dense mass of heather. He had not noticed it before, and
+now perceived it with a sort of shudder. It seemed as if the torpor
+into which Nature had sunk had been embodied; as if the spirit of
+loneliness and desolation had assumed a material form. Woe betide you
+when the loneliness of yonder mansion with its neglected garden, the
+desolation of this remote valley, so far away from all human society,
+stares at you with those cold, cruel eyes; when you listen in the
+stillness for a beloved voice, and hear only the blood seething in your
+temples, and the heavy, anxious throbbing of your heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Avaunt, fiend, avaunt!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He raised his staff; the serpent disappeared; when he reached the rock
+upon which it must have been lying, he could see nothing but the
+swaying of the flowers through whose closely interwoven roots it was
+gliding away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Or was it only an illusion of his excited fancy, and did the flowers
+bend to the soft breeze that now breathed through the hot air, growing
+constantly stronger and stronger, so that a rustling and murmuring
+arose in the forest behind him, the treetops at his feet began to
+whisper, and at last the cool fresh wind from the sea blew over the
+panting earth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The spell was broken; Gotthold again looked at the landscape; but now
+with the eye of the artist, who is seeking to obtain the best view of
+his subject.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I chose the morning light then, if one can call it choice; it was a
+mistake and I must arrange the atmospheric effect artistically, but the
+sun should be at a moderate height above the horizon, almost directly
+over the smithy; that will be about six o'clock, and I can have what I
+need until eight. I think it will prove a picture which might satisfy
+others as well as yonder talkative lady.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold collected his luggage; then it occurred to him that he might
+just as well leave his colors there. So he placed the box on the rock
+where the serpent had lain, in the dense shadow, and went down the
+hill, along the woodland path, to the long ravine through which the
+stream rippled to the sea, and at whose mouth, in the little inlet
+between two steep overhanging cliffs, stood Cousin Boslaf's lonely
+little house. In the old days at Dollan it had gone by the name of the
+beach-house, nor was the title used only there; the name was in all
+mouths, especially those of the ship-masters, to whom it was a welcome
+landmark on that dangerous coast even by day, and still more at night,
+when the warning light in Cousin Boslaf's window streamed through the
+yawning night over the dreary waste of waters to the helpless mariner.
+The brilliant glow extended a long distance, thanks to the huge arched
+tin dish which the old man had fastened behind the lamp, and whose
+spotless brightness rivalled polished silver. This light had now burned
+seventy years, to the joy of shipmasters and fishermen and the honor of
+the worthy man who kindled it night after night at no one's bidding,
+but in simple obedience to the dictates of his own kind heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Seventy years, and probably more rather than less; no one had counted
+them. Ever since the oldest man in that neighborhood could remember,
+Cousin Boslaf had lived in the beach-house--was it strange that he
+should be a half-mythical personage to the younger generations? He
+almost seemed so to his own relatives in Dollan, among whom he lived;
+in whose society, at least, he spent many hours; whose joys and sorrows
+he shared in his quiet way, and to whom his history was known; at least
+Curt's father had known and related it, Gotthold could not remember
+the occasion, and whether he had told the boys or--what was more
+probable--communicated it to some friends over a bottle of wine, and
+the boys had secretly listened in some corner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was long since Gotthold had thought of this story, which reminded
+him of a time when many a beech-tree that now reared its stately head
+far above the wanderer f did not exist. But now it once more came back
+to his memory, down to the smallest details, which he really knew not
+whether he had heard at that time, imagined since, or now first learned
+from the rustling of the forest giants, and the murmur of the brook
+that accompanied his steps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When we were under the Swedish rule,&quot; so all the stories of those days
+began, there lived on the island two cousins named Wenhof--Adolf and
+Bogislaf--both equally young, equally strong and handsome, and equally
+in love with a charming young lady, whom her father would give only to
+a rich man, for the simple reason that he had nothing but his noble
+blood and the great estate of Dahlitz, which was loaded with debts to
+an amount exceeding its value. The two cousins, it is true, did not
+belong to the nobility, but they had descended from a very good old
+family, and the Lord of Dahlitz would have made no objection to either,
+except the one he was unfortunately obliged to make to both, namely,
+that they were, if possible, poorer than himself. In fact, neither
+possessed anything except a good rifle with the hunting equipments
+belonging to it, and a pair of stout boots, whose thick soles crossed
+the thresholds of their many friends on the island, where they were
+everywhere welcome companions in the hunt or at the board. Of equal
+height, and almost similar cast of features, they also did everything
+alike, or so nearly alike that the hospitable, cheery land-owners saw
+one enter the courtyard no less gladly than the other, and were still
+better pleased when both appeared, which was almost always the case,
+for the two cousins loved each other much more warmly than most
+brothers, and as for their passion for the beautiful Ulrica of Dahlitz,
+their hopes of possessing her were so small that it was not worth while
+to quarrel about it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Just at that time something happened which at one blow completely
+altered their situation, or at least the situation of one of them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A very wealthy and eccentric uncle in Sweden died, who, besides his
+property in that country, had an estate on the island to bequeath,
+namely, beautiful Dollan, which at that time included the forest down
+to the sea-coast, and all the land across the wide moor to the
+Schanzenberge. This estate he now left to the two cousins, or rather to
+one of them, for according to the singular wording of the will it was
+to go to the one whom a jury of six of his acquaintances should
+pronounce the &quot;best man.&quot; Everybody laughed when this strange condition
+was made known, and the cousins laughed too. But they soon became very
+serious when they considered that not only Dollan was at stake, but
+Ulrica von Dahlitz, whom her father would joyfully give in marriage to
+the owner of Dollan. It was strange to see the two cousins, who had
+hitherto been inseparable, now begin to take separate paths, and, when
+they could not avoid each other, measure each other with grave,
+questioning, almost hostile looks, which seemed to say: I am the better
+man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the bottom of his heart each was obliged to confess, and did
+acknowledge, that the matter was at least very doubtful; and so thought
+and said the six judges whom the two cousins had chosen, and whose
+decision they had promised to obey. But all six were blameless young
+men, who set about their difficult task very gravely and solemnly, and
+held long, very long consultations, during which immense quantities of
+good old red wine were drunk, and a vast number of pipes was smoked,
+until they at last came to the following conclusion, which was
+universally praised as a wise and perfectly suitable one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cousin who should best perform six tasks to be given by the judges,
+should be considered by them and the world the best man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cousins would now have been in a very unfortunate situation, if the
+judges had obtained their wisdom from any philosophical or learned
+book; but no one of them had even thought of such a thing. The best
+man, according to their standard, would be he who, in the first place,
+should be able in the presence of the judges, within forty-eight hours,
+to put a three-years-old stallion, which had never been mounted,
+through the four principal paces--the walk, the trot, the gallop, and
+the run; secondly, cross the moor of Dollan, from the manor-house to
+the old smithy, with a team of four fiery young horses, going at full
+gallop, on a certain line; thirdly, swim from the shore to a ship
+anchored a German mile away in the offing; fourthly, from sunset to
+sunrise--it was in June, and the nights were short--drink a dozen
+bottles of wine; and fifthly, during that time play Boston with three
+of the judges without making any great mistakes. But if, as was almost
+expected, the judges even then could not decide, the cousins were to
+have twelve shots with a rifle at a target placed at a distance of two
+hundred and fifty paces, and the one who could hit the centre most
+frequently should be &quot;the best man,&quot; and the owner of Dollan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This sixth and last trial was really a last resource, upon which the
+judges had decided very unwillingly; for every child knew that Bogislaf
+was not only the better shot of the two, but the best on the whole
+island; still the matter must be settled in some way, and as Adolf,
+perhaps hoping that he should win the prize before that test was
+reached, made no objection to number six, everything was decided and
+the contest could begin.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It began and continued as had been universally expected. The two young
+sons of Anak rode their horses, guided their carriages, swam their
+mile, drank their twelve bottles of wine, and played their Boston with
+such equal skill and faultlessness, that the most scrupulous eye could
+detect no difference in the merit of the performance, and with heavy
+hearts the judges were obliged to proceed to the last trial, whose
+result was not doubtful.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And heavy, heavy as a hundred-pound weight poor Adolf's heart might
+well have felt in his brave breast, when he appeared on the ground on
+the momentous day. He was very much depressed, and the secret
+encouragement of the judges, who wished him well, did not cheer him.
+&quot;It is all useless now,&quot; he murmured.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But, strangely enough, Bogislaf seemed no less moved, nay, even more
+agitated than his cousin. He was pale, his large blue eyes looked dim
+and sunken, and his particular friends noticed, to their horror, that
+when the cousins shook hands, as they always did before every contest,
+his hand--his strong brown hand--trembled like that of a timid girl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cousins, who were to fire alternately, drew lots; Adolf had the
+first shot. He was a long time in taking aim, raised and lowered his
+gun several times, and finally hit the last ring but one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I knew it beforehand,&quot; he said, covering his eyes, and would have
+liked to stop his ears; but he listened intently, and drew a long
+breath, when instead of the &quot;centre&quot; he expected, the number of the
+last ring on the target was mentioned, and repeated in a loud tone by
+one of the judges.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Was it possible? Well then, there was still hope. Adolf collected all
+his powers; he shot better and better, three, four, six, nine, and ten,
+and again six and ten; and Bogislaf always remained one ring behind
+him, neither more nor less--always one ring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is playing with him, as a cat plays with a mouse,&quot; the judges said
+to each other after the first three shots had been fired.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Bogislaf grew paler, and his hand trembled more and more violently
+at every trial, and only grew steady at the moment when he discharged
+the gun; but he was always one ring behind Adolf, and now came the last
+shot, the worst Adolf had made. In his terrible excitement he had just
+grazed the outer edge of the target; if Bogislaf now hit the centre, he
+would be the victor: the result of the long struggle, the magnificent
+estate, the beautiful bride--all, all depended upon that one shot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Pale as death, Bogislaf stepped forward, but his hand no longer
+trembled; firmly, as if his arm and the gun were one, he took aim, the
+glittering barrel did not swerve a hair's breadth, and now the report
+crashed upon the stillness. &quot;It has hit the mark,&quot; said the judges.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The markers went forward and sought again and again, they could not
+find the bullet; the judges also went to the spot and searched and
+searched, but they could not find it either. The unprecedented, almost
+incredible thing had happened--Bogislaf had not even hit the target.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The judges looked at each other in perplexity, and for poor Bogislaf's
+sake scarcely ventured to utter what must be said. But Bogislaf went up
+to his cousin, who stood with downcast eyes, as if ashamed of his
+victory, seized his hand, and evidently wished to say something which
+did not escape his pale, quivering lips. But it could not have been a
+curse, for he fell sobbing on Adolf's neck, pressed him to his heart,
+then released him, and without uttering a word, strode away and
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He remained absent. Many supposed he had killed himself; others
+declared that he had buried himself in the northern part of Norway amid
+the ice and snow to hunt bears and wolves; and they were perhaps right.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At all events, he was not dead, but after an absence of several years
+suddenly appeared on the estate of a friend who had been one of the
+judges, and here his cousin Adolf and his young wife Ulrica met
+him--quite accidentally, for they had not heard of his return, and the
+young wife was so startled that she fell fainting on the floor, and was
+restored to consciousness with great difficulty. To be sure, she had
+always been one of those who believed Bogislaf dead, and had already
+had several discussions on the subject with her husband, who always
+asserted the contrary. It was said that this was by no means the only
+point of difference between the husband and wife, and there were in
+truth many things which did not increase the happiness of the young
+pair. True, the extravagant old Lord of Dahlitz, who had sold his
+property to a Herr Brandow--Carl Brandow's great-grandfather--and then
+lived very contentedly on his son-in-law for several years, was now
+dead, but the daughter had inherited her father's expensive tastes, and
+Adolf was anything but a good economist.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This last quality certainly did not prevent him from doing what the
+simplest gratitude required;--and therefore--in spite of his wife's
+opposition--he invited poor Bogislaf to visit him at Dollan and remain
+as long as possible. At first Bogislaf positively refused, and with
+good reason. The cause of the result of the shooting match had now
+transpired! It was known that the evening before the contest Ulrica had
+sent her cousin and most intimate friend, Emma von Dahlitz, a poor
+orphan who lived with her wealthy relatives, to Bogislaf with the
+message: she would never, never, though everybody should declare him to
+be the best man, accept him for her husband, but Adolf, whom she always
+had loved, and always should. Then Bogislaf, as he no longer had any
+hope of winning the girl he loved, generously resigned to his cousin a
+property which no longer had any charm for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He long refused to accept his fortunate cousin's invitation, but
+finally came--for only a week. But the days had become weeks, the weeks
+months, and the months years, so that this was now the fourth
+generation which had known old Bogislaf Wenhof, or, as he was commonly
+called, Cousin Boslaf, in the beach-house of Dollan. He had removed
+there at the end of the first week, after purchasing it, together with
+the few fields and meadows belonging to it, for a very small sum from
+the government, which had originally built it for a watch-house; but
+though the beach-house did not really belong to Dollan, but was Cousin
+Boslaf's own property, Cousin Boslaf clung to Dollan all the more
+closely, so closely that the constant intercourse had filled the heads
+of the people with all sorts of superstitious fancies, in which the old
+man sometimes figured as the good, and sometimes the evil genius of
+Dollan, and especially the Wenhof family. Alas! even if he were the
+good genius, he had been unable to prevent the ruin of the house, or
+withhold the son of Adolf and Ulrica, who had many of the Dahlitz
+traits of character, from selling Dollan to the convent of St. Jürgen
+at the close of the preceding century, after which he was glad to
+remain as a tenant where he had once been master. Cousin Boslaf had not
+been able to prevent that, or any of the other things which had
+happened from that time to the present day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But what does this mean?&quot; said Gotthold to himself. &quot;How can one let
+his healthy brain become so bewildered by the rustling of the forest,
+the murmur of the stream, and these old tales! I believe the serpent
+has bewitched me with its cold glittering eyes, and I am still under
+its spell. But its reign is over now. There is the sea gleaming through
+the boughs, my own beloved, beautiful sea! Its fresh breath will cool
+my hot brow. And he, the old man who lives yonder, and who learned so
+early the meaning of the harsh word sacrifice; who renounced power,
+wealth, and woman's favor that he might not lose his own manhood, was
+probably the better and wiser man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still following the course of the stream, which, now that it was so
+near its mouth, grew more noisy and impatient, falling in many a
+miniature cascade as it hurried plashing and murmuring down the ravine,
+overgrown with huge clumps of ferns and the most luxuriant grass,
+Gotthold, a few moments after, reached the shore. On the right hand,
+almost at the extreme point of the promontory, which, covered with
+large and small stones like the rest of the coast, ran out several
+hundred paces into the sea, stood Cousin Boslaf's house. The old flag,
+which Gotthold had remembered from his boyhood, still fluttered from
+the tall staff on the gable roof. It had originally been a Swedish
+banner, but in the course of years the wind and weather had so dimmed
+its colors, and made so many repairs necessary, that the authorities
+could not have taken umbrage at this relic of foreign rule, even if
+they had troubled themselves particularly about Cousin Boslaf's
+actions. This, however, they had never done, so the old flag fluttered
+and rustled and flapped merrily in the fresh breeze, which blew still
+stronger as Gotthold now stood before the low dwelling, built partly of
+unhewn stone from the shore, whose only door was on the side towards
+the land. The door was locked; he could not look into the little
+iron-barred windows on the right and left, which lighted the kitchen
+and store-room, for they were considerably above a man's height, close
+under the roof; and the strong iron shutters were put over the two
+larger windows in the front of the house, which faced the sea.
+Evidently Cousin Boslaf was not at home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To be sure,&quot; said Gotthold, &quot;after an absence of ten years we can't be
+surprised not to find a man who was eighty years old at the time we
+left him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And yet he could not believe that the old man was dead. He had just
+been thinking of him so eagerly, seen him so distinctly in his mind's
+eye--the tall, slender figure, walking with long, regular strides, as
+he had so often beheld him. No, no, the old man belonged to the race of
+giants; he had surely outlived this little space of time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then the house and its surroundings--the little front yard enclosed
+by a walk, the tiny garden bordered with shells--did not look as if
+they had been left for any length of time. Everything was in order and
+painfully neat, as the old man used to keep it; the little bridge in
+the creek to which he fastened his boat had even been lately mended
+with new pieces of wood, carefully dovetailed together. But the boat
+had gone; undoubtedly cousin Boslaf had rowed out to sea in her. To be
+sure, it was not his custom, but the old man's habits might have
+altered during the last few years.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The afternoon was already far advanced; the walk through the ravine to
+the beach-house had occupied more time than Gotthold expected. He would
+wait for Cousin Boslaf an hour longer, and then return to the giant's
+grave, paint until sunset, claim the hospitality of the smithy for the
+night, and early the next morning--it was to be hoped with better
+success--seek out his old friend once more. Then he could reach Prora
+at noon, and after taking leave of the Wollnows, drive on with Jochen
+without delay. He had thought yesterday of finishing the picture in
+Prora; but they would pass through the place to-morrow evening on their
+return from Plüggenhof, so Jochen had informed him, and he would not
+trust a second time to the chance which had saved him from meeting Carl
+Brandow that very morning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young man had thrown himself down upon the shore under the shadow
+of the beeches, which here extended to the very brink of the steep
+cliff. Accustomed as he had been on his sketching excursions to satisfy
+himself for a whole day with a piece of bread and a drink from his
+flask, he now felt no hunger; but he experienced far more fatigue than
+he had usually done after longer walks. As he lay there with the
+beeches rustling over his head, and the waves breaking on the stony
+shore beneath with their monotonous cadence, his lids gradually fell
+over eyes wearied by long gazing over the boundless waste of waters.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">A few hours later, Carl Brandow and Hinrich Scheel were riding over the
+moor from the smithy to Dollan, the same road which they had passed
+over in the opposite direction not ten minutes before. They rode at a
+quick trot, the groom a few dozen paces behind his master, though not
+from any feeling of respect, and certainly not because he was worse
+mounted. On the contrary, his horse was a magnificent brown animal of
+the purest blood, far more valuable than his master's half-breed, so
+valuable in fact, that any passer-by would have wondered how such a
+noble animal could be ridden upon such an ordinary occasion. But
+Hinrich Scheel was no ordinary rider; he noticed every movement of the
+horse upon the rough road as carefully as if he were training it upon a
+smooth race-course; not the smallest awkwardness was suffered to pass
+unnoticed; it had just been guilty of a trick for which it must be
+punished; and that was the reason why he had remained a little behind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly Carl Brandow drew his rein, and half turning said, over his
+shoulder, &quot;Are you perfectly sure you saw him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I told you I passed within a hundred paces of him,&quot; answered Hinrich
+Scheel sulkily; &quot;and I had plenty of time to look at him too; I believe
+he stood up there an hour, as if he had taken root.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But why did that scoundrel of a Jochen say just now that he didn't
+know where he was?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps he doesn't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stuff and nonsense!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They rode on a short distance side by side; the master staring gloomily
+straight before him, and the groom from time to time casting a sly
+glance at him from his squinting eyes. Then he urged his horse still
+nearer and said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why should he know? I don't know why you are running after him as a
+cat chases a mouse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor why you came back from Plüggenhof so soon, have ridden the horses
+half to death, and gave me a louis-d'or when I told you I had seen
+him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll give you six if you'll tell me where I can find him,&quot; cried Carl
+Brandow, turning eagerly in his saddle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where you can find him? Why that's easy enough; with the old man in
+the beach-house yonder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where I cannot seek him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Without having the old man send a bullet through your body. Six
+louis-d'or! I think I should wait a long time for the money. But I will
+tell you where you can find him without the gold, if you'll let me ride
+Brownlock across the bog.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you crazy?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will cross it faster than you can cross the hill. Can I go?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before them the road ran in a tolerably steep ascent over a hill, an
+outlying spur of the Schanzenberge on the left, which stretched some
+distance into the moor. On the right of this hill a broad tract of
+marshy land extended across the moor to the forest, where it found an
+outlet in the stream whose course to the sea Gotthold had followed that
+afternoon. The summit of the hill had undoubtedly sunk into the marsh
+years before, for the long mound of earth divided it like a wall, which
+at the time it was engulfed had doubtless been very steep, but in the
+course of years had been so much washed away by the trickling of water
+down the hillside that, it now formed an irregular slope, along whose
+upper edge ran the old carriage road, while farther up the acclivity
+large stones made the way impassable for vehicles, although horsemen
+and pedestrians might wind through. The condition of affairs had
+probably not been so bad when Bogislaf and Adolf Wenhof were obliged to
+drive their horses along here at full gallop, for now no man in his
+senses would pass the spot in a carriage except at a walk, and Jochen
+Prebrow was perfectly right when he said that it would have been easy
+for him--or any one else--to execute Curt's wild order, and hurl the
+young pair down the slope into the bog on their wedding day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The riders had stopped their horses; Carl Brandow looked up the hill
+and over the marsh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are crazy,&quot; he said again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Crazy or not,&quot; exclaimed Hinrich Scheel impatiently, &quot;it must be done.
+I went to Salchow this morning to hear what Mr. Thompson had to say.
+The fellow always knows everything, and declares that they have
+enclosed a piece of marshy ground in the race-course for Brownlock's
+special benefit, because they think he is too heavy to cross it, and
+you'll be obliged to take a wide sweep around. Well, sir, if you make
+the victory so easy for Bessy, Count Grieben and the other gentlemen
+will be very well satisfied, and I can be satisfied too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You would be no better, suited than I,&quot; said Brandow, and then
+muttered between his teeth: &quot;everything is all of a piece now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shall I?&quot; said Hinrich Scheel, who probably perceived his master's
+irresolution.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For aught I care.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A ray of joy flitted over Hinrich's ugly face. He turned the horse,
+which had long been champing his bit impatiently, and galloped a
+hundred paces to the left, to the edge of the marsh, then paused and
+shouted:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ready?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brownlock sprang forward with a mighty leap, and then flew over the
+marshy ground. Again and again his light hoofs broke through the thin
+covering of turf, so that the water dashed high into the air, but his
+wild speed did not lessen, on the contrary it seemed to increase, as if
+the noble animal knew a bottomless gulf was yawning under him, and that
+he was running for his own life and that of his daring rider. And now
+the quaking soil grew visibly firmer. The deed scarcely believed
+possible had been accomplished, Brownlock had crossed the marsh, and
+would cross any other. &quot;There is no doubt now,&quot; muttered Brandow, &quot;I
+can accept every bet; and am I to let Plüggen have the animal for the
+paltry sum of five thousand thalers! I should be a fool! Besides, he
+probably was not in earnest; but the money must be forthcoming, even if
+I should have to steal or commit a murder for it. Holloa!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had not turned his eyes from Brownlock, as he rode across the hill
+at a gallop without noticing where he was going, until his chestnut,
+accustomed to pass this place at a walk, recoiled from the edge so
+suddenly that the gravel and pebbles rolled down the slope.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Holloa!&quot; cried Brandow again, as he soothed the frightened animal, &quot;I
+came very near committing the murder on myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He rode down the other side of the hill more cautiously, and then
+dashed up to Hinrich, who was galloping up and down the edge of the
+bog, trying to soothe the snorting racer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you say to that, sir?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That you are a capital fellow; and now, since you have had your own
+way, where do you think I shall find him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On the giant's grave,&quot; said Hinrich; &quot;I went up there after he had
+gone away, and found a thing like a box. There was a little key
+sticking in it, and it held his painting tools, as I saw. The box had
+been put carefully in the shade; but about six o'clock the sunlight
+will fall where the shadow rested this morning, and I think he will be
+on the spot at that time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And why didn't you tell me so at once?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You may be satisfied that I didn't tell you,&quot; answered Hinrich,
+tenderly patting Brownlock's slender neck. &quot;You wouldn't have known
+that you are, I don't know how many thousand thalers richer than you
+supposed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is six o'clock,&quot; said Brandow, looking at his watch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then ride on and find him. I must take Brownlock home. Shall I tell
+Frau Brandow that we shall have a visitor this evening?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know that yet myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She would be so delighted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Be off, and hold your tongue.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A repulsive grin overspread Hinrich's grotesque face, and he cast a
+piercing glance at his master, but made no reply, turned Brownlock, and
+rode slowly away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I might just as well tell him everything,&quot; said Carl Brandow to
+himself, as he turned his horse's head and rode over the moor towards
+the forest. &quot;I believe the damned fellow sees through me as if I were
+glass. No matter; everybody must have some one on whom he can depend,
+and certainly I could not have done without him this time. I've no
+desire to invite the stupid fellow, but it is one chance more, and I
+should be a fool to hesitate long in my present situation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Carl Brandow dropped the reins on his horse's neck as he rode slowly up
+the rough forest path at a walk, and drew from his pocket a letter
+which he had found on his return home, half an hour before:</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>:--I hasten to inform you that, as I expected and told you, it
+was unanimously decided by the convent yesterday not to give an
+extension of credit, upon any account, but on the contrary to hold you
+to the promise given, both verbally and in writing, and require the ten
+thousand on the day it becomes due. I am very sorry to be obliged to
+write this to you, after what you told me in confidence; but I firmly
+believe that--with your excitable nature--you have considered your
+situation more desperate than it really is. In any case, I think it is
+better for you to know where you stand, and be able to use the week
+that still remains to discover new resources, if the old ones are
+really so entirely exhausted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I intend to pay you a short visit on the 15th, as I must go to several
+estates at that time, and can, if agreeable to you, take the money back
+with me and save you the trouble of a journey here. Perhaps my wife
+will accompany me. She is very anxious to see Dollan, of whose romantic
+situation I have spoken so enthusiastically, and also renew her
+acquaintance with her old friends--Frau Wollnow in Prora and your
+wife--after an absence of so many years. Do you require any stronger
+proof of my conviction that you can separate the messenger from his
+message, and that both to you and your lovely wife, I am as ever, Your
+sincere friend, <span style="letter-spacing:10px">&nbsp; &nbsp;</span><span class="sc">Bernhard Sellien</span>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;P. S. I have just learned something that greatly interests me, and may
+perhaps interest you also. Gotthold Weber, the distinguished artist
+whose acquaintance I made two years ago in Italy, and with whom you, as
+you afterwards informed me, have been intimate ever since your school
+days, passed through Sundin to-day on his way to Prora, where he
+intends to spend some time. He will undoubtedly seek you out, or
+perhaps you will seek him. He belongs to the class of people whom we
+are glad to find, even if we are obliged to go out of our way to do
+so.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Carl Brandow laughed scornfully as he put the letter back into his
+pocket and took up the reins again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I believe the devil has his finger in the pie. Ever since I have known
+that the man will come here, I have been pursued by the thought that
+he, and only he, can save me. Why? Probably because only a fool would
+take the trouble, and he is the greatest one I ever knew. And while I
+drove by under his very nose this morning, everybody rushes forward to
+put me on the track he so carefully conceals. It was plain that the man
+Jochen dared not tell where he was, either this morning or just now,
+but he belongs to the class of people for whom we are willing to go out
+of our way. And what a charming surprise it will be for her, if I can
+bring him to her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Again the rider laughed, even more bitterly than before, then stopped
+suddenly, gnawing his under lip with his teeth as he struck with his
+riding-whip at the overhanging boughs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How pale she grew when the parson blundered out the news. Of course
+she did not wish it to be noticed, of course. But unluckily we observe
+everything in a person with whom we have enjoyed the pleasure of daily
+intercourse for nine or ten years! How she looked when I took my
+departure so soon after, as if she knew the cause, and how silent she
+was on the way, although I exerted all my powers of pleasing. She no
+longer believes in my amiability, nor I either; but I have so often
+vexed her about the man that I might surely make him afford her
+pleasure for once. And if, as is very probable, the silly swain is
+playing at hide and seek more on her account than mine--why it will be
+all the easier to lead him by the nose, and the affair will be all the
+more amusing. But, to be sure, I must catch him first. Well, we shall
+see directly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Carl Brandow swung himself from the saddle, fastened his horse's bridle
+to a tree, and began to ascend the narrow foot-path through the wood to
+the giant's grave.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had already been working for half an hour with the zeal of an
+artist who has enthusiastically seized upon his subject, and must take
+advantage of the present hour, which will not return. Though sky,
+earth, and sea should adorn themselves at to-morrow's sunset with the
+same brilliant hues, though the hill should cast the same deep shadows
+upon the valley and ravines--he would not stand upon the same spot
+again to replace what had been forgotten, and complete what had been
+begun.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he sat upon one of the lower stones of the giant's grave, drinking
+in, with an artist's glowing eyes, the beauty of the scene and hour,
+and with an artist's busy hand creating an image of this beauty. The
+colors on the palette seemed to mingle of their own accord, and every
+stroke of the brush upon the little square of canvas brought the image
+nearer its original with a speed and certainty which astonished the
+artist himself. Never before had any work progressed so rapidly, never
+had design and execution met so lovingly, never had the enthusiastic
+feeling of power made him so happy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it possible the dream that here alone I can reach the standard I am
+destined to attain may be something more than a dream?&quot; he said to
+himself, &quot;and is the hidden wisdom of the ancient myth of Antæus to be
+proved again in me? But to be sure we are all sons of earth; it is not
+our mother's fault if we struggle toward the distant suns, in whose
+strange glow our waxen wings quickly melt. I was such an Icarus
+yonder.&quot; &quot;Yes, yes,&quot; he exclaimed aloud, &quot;Rome, Naples, Syracuse, you
+Paradises of artists, what is this poor slip of earth in comparison
+with you! And yet to me it is more, so much more, it is my home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To which an old friend bids you heartily welcome,&quot; said a clear voice
+behind him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold started and turned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Carl Brandow!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There he stood, his slight, elastic figure resting against the very
+block upon which the serpent had lain that morning; and his round, hard
+eyes, whose piercing gaze was fixed upon him, reminded Gotthold of the
+staring eyes of the reptile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To be sure it is I,&quot; said Carl Brandow, as he came forward with a
+smile intended to be friendly, but which was as cold as the hand he
+held out to Gotthold, and in which the latter hesitatingly placed the
+tips of his fingers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How did you find me here?&quot; asked Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am an old hunter,&quot; replied Brandow, showing his white teeth.
+&quot;Nothing escapes me so easily, especially on my own ground. But I will
+not boast. The matter was really simple enough. I knew several weeks
+ago that you were coming, and this afternoon I heard, when with
+Plüggen, of Plüggenhof, Otto Plüggen, we used to call him Straw
+Plüggen, you know, to distinguish him from his younger brother, Gustav,
+Hay Plüggen, who has inherited Gransewitz--I was saying: I heard from
+our new Pastor that you had been in Rammin yesterday evening, and had
+driven on to Prora. Of course Plüggen, at my request, instantly sent
+his carriage to bring you to Plüggenhof; you were no longer there, but
+had set out on foot with Jochen Prebrow for Dollan. Well, of course I
+did not remain in Plüggenhof a moment longer, although we had just sat
+down to the table to receive you with full glasses. I drove my horses
+half to death, and nearly killed my poor wife with fright, in order at
+least to meet you on the way, in case you had been cruel enough not to
+wait for our return. We arrived and asked for you before we got out of
+the carriage: no one had been there. My wife and I looked at each other
+in horror. 'There is somebody sitting on the giant's grave,' said my
+factotum, Hinrich Scheel, who now came up to the carriage; 'I saw him
+there this noon.' 'It's not impossible,' said my wife, that 'he has
+learned on the way that we were not at home, and, industrious as usual,
+is making use of the time. It was always one of his favorite spots.' I
+said nothing, but ran up to the gable-room with my spy-glass, and saw
+what Hinrich, in spite of his squint eyes, had seen without any glass;
+ran down again, jumped on a horse, and--find here what I sought. That
+painting is wonderfully beautiful, really splendid; but now pack up
+your traps, if you please! Another day is coming, and this is enough,
+and too much for the present. From noon until now is certainly long
+enough, even for an artist. How delighted my wife will be!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Carl Brandow had already thrown Gotthold's travelling bag over his
+shoulder, and now seized the box which the latter had been arranging.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One moment,&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You can safely trust me with your treasures.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is not the point.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is it then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold hesitated; but there was no time for deliberation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is this,&quot; said he; &quot;I cannot accept your invitation, kindly as it
+is expressed and honestly as, I wish to believe, it is meant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For Heaven's sake, why not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because in so doing I should wrong myself, and, in a certain sense,
+you also. Myself: because I could not stay in Dollan, in your house,
+without being at every step, at every moment, a prey to the most
+painful memories; and who would not willingly spare himself such a
+trial, if he could avoid it? You: because--it must be said, Brandow! I
+have always considered you my enemy, and my sentiments towards you have
+been no friendly ones, even up to this very day, this very hour. Who
+would invite a man who is not well disposed towards him to his house!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it possible?&quot; cried Brandow. &quot;Then that straw head of a Plüggen and
+the Parson may have been right when they said: 'He won't come!' 'He
+will come,' said I, 'if only to prove that he is still the generous
+fellow he always was!' No, Gotthold, you must not give me the lie, if
+only on account of those silly fellows, and people like them, who would
+then have another fine opportunity to make merry over Carl Brandow, who
+always aims very high and then comes out at the little end of the horn.
+Well, unhappily there is something in it: I am no longer what I was
+once, but a poor devil who must learn to be modest; but this time I
+won't be, just this time. And now your hand, old enemy! there, that's
+right! I knew you better than you knew yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They began to descend the hill, Brandow, who insisted upon carrying
+Gotthold's luggage, still talking eagerly in his hasty, often
+incoherent manner, Gotthold silent and vainly trying to shake off the
+bewilderment that clouded his brain and oppressed his heart; he had
+tried to be frank, perfectly frank; but he had not been so: he had not
+said the last thing because he could not, because he must appear like a
+fool, a coxcomb, if he did, and like a rude unmannerly boor if he did
+not, and simply answered: I will not. But would not even that have been
+better than for them to meet again?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold stood still, and threw back his coat and vest; he felt as if
+he were stifling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's terribly sultry here in the wood,&quot; said Carl Brandow. &quot;It would
+have been much nearer if we had gone down the other side, and then
+crossed the fields; but we were obliged to make this circuit to get my
+horse. There stands the rascal, stamping his shoes off in his
+impatience. Now then, en avant!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow threw the bridle over his arm and Gotthold took a portion of
+his luggage, so they walked quickly through the woods by a cross path,
+which soon brought them out into the fields. At a short distance, only
+separated from them by a few meadows and a broad field of rye, stood
+the manor-house, already partly in the shadow which the hill on the
+left-hand side of the moor cast far into the valley, while the tops of
+the taller trees in the garden and the crests of the huge poplars,
+which enclosed the grounds on the three other sides, still glowed in
+the light of the setting sun. The little window of the gable-room
+glittered and flashed back his rays. Gotthold could scarcely turn his
+eyes away; he fancied every moment that it must open and Cecilia appear
+and wave her white hand towards him with a gesture of warning: no
+nearer, for God's sake, no nearer! And then it seemed to him as if he
+were once more back in the old days, when he used to come out with Curt
+to spend a precious Saturday afternoon and delightful Sunday, and in
+their impatience to reach their goal they ran the last part of the way
+at full speed. At every step his agitation increased; he scarcely heard
+what his companion was saying to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Carl Brandow was only talking in order to conceal from his guest
+the anxiety that oppressed him. Would it not have been better to have
+told her of his design, even at the risk of her opposition, or, still
+worse, of affording her pleasure? Ought he not at least to have taken
+advantage of the last opportunity, and prepared her for the visit by
+Hinrich Scheel, instead of expressly commanding him to be silent? Or
+would the clever fellow once more, as he had often done, follow his own
+counsel and guide an ill-managed affair into the right course? And yet,
+what could happen if he suddenly appeared before her with him? Would
+she give him the lie in the presence of her guest, say she had known
+nothing about his visit, and her husband had told an untruth? It was
+certainly possible; but woe be unto her if she did so.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here we are,&quot; said Carl Brandow, as they reached the old linden before
+the door. &quot;Welcome to Dollan! Welcome!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had spoken in a very loud tone, standing in the open doorway, and
+now shouted, raising his clear voice to its highest pitch, &quot;Hinrich,
+Fritz!--where are they all?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But there was no movement within the house, and no one appeared in the
+courtyard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is always just so on Sundays,&quot; said Brandow, &quot;Everybody runs wild,
+especially if the master is away from home. Rike! Hinrich! Fritz!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A half-grown lad, in a dirty red waistcoat and top boots, now came
+running across the courtyard, and at the same moment a young girl
+appeared from the house. Brandow received both with angry words. The
+girl answered pertly: she had been with the mistress, who could not
+quiet the child; it was still crying about its arm; and the boy
+muttered as he took the horse's bridle: he had been obliged to help
+Hinrich about Brownlock; he was threatened with the colic.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Deuce take it!&quot; cried Brandow; &quot;that damned Hinrich, this is what I
+get by letting him have his own way! I must leave you alone a moment,
+or will you come with me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow did not wait for Gotthold's reply, but hurried across the
+courtyard with long strides. He must know what was the matter with
+Brownlock. And then: Cecilia had enough to do in the nursery; she would
+not come out at present.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter with the child?&quot; asked Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She fell down just as the mistress got home, and has probably broken
+her arm,&quot; said the girl, who had been gazing curiously at the stranger
+with her merry gray eyes, and now hurried back into the house.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold followed her through the entry and into the sitting-room on
+the left, and would gladly have entered the adjoining chamber, from
+which, as the girl opened and closed the door, the wailing of a child
+and a woman's voice consoling it were distinctly audible. It was her
+voice,--somewhat deeper and more gentle, it seemed to him, than in the
+old days, but he had only distinguished a few tones above the moaning
+of the child.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor thing,&quot; he murmured, &quot;poor child, if I could only help it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His hand was extended towards the handle of the door, but instantly
+fell again. If the girl had told her he was there, she would probably
+come out for a moment; at any rate Carl must soon return.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stationed himself at the open window and looked across the empty
+courtyard towards the building Brandow had entered. How could he stay
+so long! He again turned back into the room, which was already
+beginning to grow dark, and his eyes wandered mechanically over the
+furniture and pictures, many of which he thought he recognized, while
+his ear was strained to catch the sounds from the next room. But
+everything there had now become quiet, and in the stillness the old
+Black Forest clock ticked so loudly--he had not noticed it before--the
+evening breeze whispered in the linden before the window, and then once
+more he heard nothing except the blood beating in his temples.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had any misfortune happened? Was the child--he must have some
+certainty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But just as he took a step forward, the door opened and Cecilia
+entered. The girl had told her nothing about the stranger; she came to
+get a piece of linen from her work-basket, which stood in one of the
+windows. The shadows fell heavily over Gotthold, and she did not see
+him--her eyes were turned towards the window--until she had almost
+reached him, when she suddenly paused, extending both hands in terror
+towards the dark figure. The light of the setting sun streamed full
+upon her pallid face, from which the large dark eyes stared with a
+strange glassy look.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is I, Cecilia!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gotthold!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not know that he held out his arms; the next moment he would not
+have been able to say whether she had really rested upon his breast.
+When he was again conscious of what was passing around him, he was
+standing beside her at the child's little bed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The girl was playing with Gretchen just before we came home--she fell
+with her arm under her; I thought she had only bruised it; but it has
+grown worse and worse, she cannot move it, and cries at the slightest
+touch; I think she has broken it here above the wrist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had bent over the child, who gazed at him in surprise, but
+without the least alarm. He thought he was looking into Cecilia's eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you the new doctor?&quot; asked the little girl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Gretchen, I am not a doctor, but if you love your mamma you will
+let me take hold of your arm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It hurts so,&quot; said Gretchen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I won't be long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold took the little arm and moved it at the shoulder and
+elbow--the child made no resistance; then he passed his hand carefully
+down the lower arm to the joint and bent the wrist a little. The child
+uttered a low cry. Gotthold laid the arm gently back on the coverlet
+and stood erect.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think I can assure you that the arm is not broken; it is nothing
+more than a severe sprain. I should like to put on a bandage, which
+will relieve Gretchen's pain, because it will prevent her from moving
+the joint. That will be sufficient until the doctor comes. May I?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had spoken in a low tone, but the child heard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let him do it, mamma,&quot; she said; &quot;I like the new doctor a great deal
+better than the old one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A few large tears ran down Cecilia's pale cheeks, and Gotthold's own
+eyes grew hot. He asked whether she had a certain kind of bandage which
+he described; one was brought, exactly what he needed. As he rolled it
+he said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is fortunate, that during the years I spent in study I visited, in
+the interests of my art and also from real love of the profession,
+various anatomical and other medical colleges. I have already been
+able, on several occasions, to make my little knowledge useful, when no
+other aid was at hand and the case was rather worse than this. I
+repeat, there is not the least danger, and I would, if necessary,
+undertake to effect a cure without the least hesitation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have perfect confidence in you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold's lips quivered. They had always addressed each other by the
+familiar &quot;thou,&quot; nor had he, either in dreams or waking visions, called
+her by any other title during the last ten years.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The bandage was adjusted to Gotthold's satisfaction. Gretchen,
+exhausted by weeping, and now entirely free from pain, had laid her
+head on her pillow and seemed about to fall asleep. Gotthold left the
+chamber and went back to the sitting-room. While groping about in the
+dark for his hat, the most singular sensation overpowered him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had not forgotten that he wished to find Brandow and tell him of the
+child's condition, but it seemed as if the intention was entirely
+unnecessary; as if Carl Brandow cared as little about the child as he
+did about Carl Brandow's horse; as if only he and Cecilia had anything
+to do with it, and as though this had been not only during the last
+quarter of an hour, but always, and could never be different.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oppressed by this strange bewilderment, he stood motionless, and only
+regained his senses when Cecilia entered quietly, but hastily, held out
+both hands to him, and said in a low, rapid tone:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thank thee, Gotthold, and--I noticed that the formal 'you' wounded
+thee, but the girl was looking at us in such astonishment; she repeats
+everything, and besides, it must be, but once--for the last time--I
+wanted to speak in the old way, as thou wert here once more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That sounds, Cecilia, as if you<a name="div2Ref_02" href="#div2_02"><sup>[2]</sup></a>
+had not wished me to come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had now released her hands, which he had clasped firmly in his own,
+and thrown herself into a chair by the window, supporting her head on
+her hand. He went up to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Cecilia, did you not wish me to come?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, yes,&quot; she murmured, &quot;I have longed to see you again--for
+years--always; but you ought not to have come; no, you ought not to
+have come!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I will go, Cecilia.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no,&quot; she exclaimed, hastily raising her head, &quot;I do not mean that.
+You are here--the mischief is done. And now you can stay--you must stay
+until--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She paused suddenly. Gotthold, who was following the direction of
+her eyes, glanced through the open window and saw at the end of the
+court-yard Carl Brandow talking with Hinrich Scheel, whom he now left
+and came hurriedly towards the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He has returned already,&quot; she murmured; &quot;what will you say to him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't understand you, Cecilia,&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He hates you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I don't know why he sought me out and gave me such a pressing
+invitation to his home, which I certainly had never intended to enter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He sought you out--invited you--that is impossible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then he meant to make me--us--but that is no less impossible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked at him in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Impossible!&quot; she said, &quot;impossible!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A strange, sad smile flitted over her pale face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then everything can remain as it was,&quot; she said, &quot;it is all right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Holloa!&quot; cried Brandow, who had seen them both at the window, and now
+quickened his already hasty steps and eagerly waved his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He entered the room immediately, after calling from the door: &quot;Ah! so
+you have found her already! Isn't this a surprise, eh? What am I to get
+for it? Ah! a man must be cunning. Not a word to the wife, who would
+make all sorts of well-meant objections about old enmity and other
+long-forgotten follies; and then tell the friend she will be on
+tenter-hooks till I bring him home. That's the way to catch one's
+birds!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughed loudly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will wake Gretchen,&quot; said Cecilia.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, what is the matter with her?&quot; asked Brandow, lowering his voice.
+&quot;I hope it is nothing serious, a false alarm, as it was with Brownlock,
+or--where are you going, Cecilia?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had risen and entered the next room, closing the door behind her.
+Gotthold informed Carl how he had found the child, and what he had done
+for the present.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But shall we need to send for the doctor at once?&quot; said Brandow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not think it absolutely necessary,&quot; replied Gotthold, &quot;but if you
+are at all anxious--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I anxious? God forbid! It would be the first time in my life. I leave
+all that to my wife, who, if the child is in question--oh! here you
+are! Gotthold says we need not send for Lauterbach immediately, and
+besides it would be of very little use; he is never to be found on
+Sundays. I shall be obliged to drive over early to-morrow morning and
+then I can bring him back with me. Don't you think that will do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you look at Gretchen again?&quot; said Cecilia. She did not glance at
+her husband, but addressed Gotthold, who followed her, leaving the door
+open behind him, in the expectation that Brandow would go with them;
+but he had paused half way. Gnawing his under lip, he looked through
+the open door at the pair, who were now standing one on each side of
+the child's little bed, bending over it, so that in the dusk their
+faces seemed to touch. Were they not whispering: &quot;he has deceived us,&quot;
+or something of the kind? No, it was Rieke who had spoken. &quot;The girl
+shall keep a sharp watch for me. So far everything has gone better than
+I could expect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He went slowly into the room; involuntarily pausing a moment upon the
+threshold, which he had not crossed for a long time, and shrinking from
+a bluish light that suddenly filled the apartment, now almost dark. But
+it was nothing--only the first flash of lightning from a thunder-storm
+which had risen at the close of the sultry day. Thunder rolled in the
+distance, the trees in the garden swayed to and fro, and a few heavy
+drops of rain plashed against the window-panes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The storm had long subsided and the night was far advanced when
+Gotthold, treading softly and carefully, shielding his light with his
+hand, crossed the wide garretlike entry, lumbered with all sorts of
+articles, towards the gable-room, which had been assigned him as his
+sleeping apartment. Brandow, with whom he had been sitting until this
+time over a bottle of wine in the room on the right-hand side of the
+entry, which had always been appropriated by the master of the house,
+had wished to accompany him, but Gotthold declined: he could find the
+way; two pairs of boots made more noise than one, and he remembered
+that footsteps on the upper floor sounded remarkably loud at night.
+&quot;Well then, go alone, you stickler for everybody's comfort,&quot; said
+Brandow laughing, &quot;and remember, sleep off all thoughts of going away
+to-morrow; I tell you once for all I won't hear of it. I'll stop for
+Jochen Prebrow as I pass the smithy to-morrow; he can sit on the box
+with my Fritz, and I'll bring your luggage out to you. I shan't let you
+leave under a week, and if I had my way you should stay here always.
+But you'll take good care not to do that; such a life would be
+unendurable to a man of the world. Well, I have complained of my fate
+more than is seemly; but in the presence of a man of your stamp, one is
+too painfully reminded of what he might perhaps have made himself, and
+what he has finally become. Good night, old fellow, and pleasant
+dreams!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now Gotthold stood at the open window in the cosy old gable-room.
+But eagerly as he inhaled the night breeze, which blew fresh and cool
+through the trees, still dripping with rain-drops, it did not lighten
+his heart, which throbbed heavily and painfully in his panting breast,
+like a sleeper whose brain is oppressed by some painful dream. Was it
+not all a mad dream that he was standing in Dollan in the gable-room,
+gazing at the dim light which fell upon the dark shrubbery from the
+window below him, the window of the room where she had slept when a
+girl, and in which she now watched beside the bed of her child, her
+child and his--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold sank into a chair beside the window, and pressed his hands
+upon his burning brow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A gust of wind which sighed through the rustling trees roused him
+from his painful reverie. He started up with a shiver. His limbs
+trembled as if in a fever. He shut the window, and threw himself in
+the darkness--the light he had brought with him had gone out long
+before--upon the bed. It was the very same one in which he had so often
+slept when a boy and a youth, and it stood in the same place. He had
+noticed that when he entered the room. Now he thought of it again, and
+remembered the last time he had lain here--ten years ago, in the early
+morning after the night, the first part of which he had spent in the
+beach-house with Cousin Boslaf, and a few hours after, when they were
+awake below, he was to go down and bid them farewell forever--then too
+he; had turned his burning head first on one side and then the other
+upon the pillows, and had been unable to find rest anywhere.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;After wandering through the wide world so long to be whirled back to
+this little room, the same as I was then! No, not the same! Poorer,
+much poorer!</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<p class="t4">When I wandered away, away, away,</p>
+<p class="t5">Coffers and chests were heavy;</p>
+<p class="t4">As homeward I turn my steps to-day,</p>
+<p class="t5">Everything is empty.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Empty, empty!&quot; he murmured, as if his burning, wakeful eyes could read
+the cheerless words from the white wall opposite to him, on whose bare
+surface the first gray light of dawn was struggling with the darkness
+of night.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">A succession of quiet days had passed over quiet Dollan, and each one
+was to have been the last Gotthold spent upon the estate, but there was
+always some reason why another was added. Once it was the unfinished
+sketch, which must be more nearly completed; then Gretchen wept so
+bitterly because Uncle Gotthold was going that morning, when it was her
+birthday; on Thursday the rye was cut, the farm hands had a little
+festival in the evening, and had arranged all sorts of amusing sports
+in which, through old Statthalter Möller, they begged Gotthold to help
+them a little; on Friday a young architect arrived, who wanted to show
+a plan for the new house, and Brandow was very anxious to have
+Gotthold's opinion about it; the next day his departure could not be
+thought of, because Brandow would be absent on business all day long,
+and the day after the Herr Assessor Sellien had promised to come with
+his wife, and Otto and Gustav Plüggen, Herr Redebas, from Dahlitz, and
+several other neighbors would arrive; there was to be quite a little
+company; Brandow had written to everybody that Gotthold would be there,
+everybody was anticipating the pleasure of meeting him, and, in a word,
+nothing could be said about going away before Monday, and on Monday
+they would discuss the subject again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was Saturday afternoon; Brandow had ridden away in the morning and
+told Gotthold that he should not return before evening. The business
+must have been very urgent which could call the master away from his
+estate on such a day. Brandow was very much behindhand in getting in
+his rye, and moreover did not even have an inspector, though he had
+repeatedly complained to Gotthold of the stupid old Statthalter Möller,
+on whom he could not depend at all, so the crowd of laborers who were
+to-day employed in the fields and barn were left entirely to
+themselves. Gotthold had offered to take control of them, if Brandow
+was obliged to go away; but the latter, although he knew that Gotthold
+really understood the business, and that the people were fond of him
+and would have willingly obeyed him, most positively declined the
+proposal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's bad enough for me to be compelled to commit the rudeness of
+leaving you alone all day; more than that you must not require. So long
+as it is possible to avoid it, you know I am not accustomed to
+incommode my friends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With these words he had ridden away, and Gotthold had taken his
+painting utensils, in order to have an excuse for leaving the house and
+wandering through the woods and along the sea-shore; he strolled
+restlessly on without any definite purpose, until he recollected that
+he had heard from the old fisherman, Carl Peters, of Ralow, that Cousin
+Boslaf would return from his expedition to Sundin this very evening.
+Carl Peters must know, for the old man had given him the key of the
+beach-house, that he might light the lamp in the evening and keep watch
+at night; besides, Carl Peters' son had accompanied Cousin Boslaf on
+his expedition. So Gotthold went to the beach-house and sat down to
+wait on the bluff in the shadow of the beeches; but the sea broke upon
+the shore with such a melancholy, monotonous cadence, the sunny hours
+dragged along so slowly, and besides, if he wanted to tell her that he
+had decided to leave Dollan to-morrow instead of Monday, this was the
+right time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The mistress is in the garden with Gretchen,&quot; said pretty Rieke; &quot;you
+know her favorite seat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold looked quietly at the girl, who hastily averted her face. The
+last remark was at least superfluous, for the garden was not so large
+that any one could not easily find the person he sought; but moreover
+Rieke had spoken in a tone which jarred upon Gotthold's ear. He had
+often thought the girl's merry gray eyes wandered from him to Cecilia,
+and from Cecilia back to him, with a watchful glance, and she had
+several times entered the room quickly, or approached them elsewhere,
+always with the question whether they had called her. He had remembered
+Cecilia's words on the first evening of their meeting, &quot;She repeats
+everything,&quot; and mentally added: &quot;She shall have nothing to tell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, her amusement will be over to-morrow,&quot; he thought to himself, as
+he went slowly up the walk, bordered on each side with hedges, towards
+a small spot, also surrounded with hedges and adorned with beds of
+flowers, where Cecilia usually remained at this hour with her child.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gretchen came running to meet him as soon as she caught sight of him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where have you been, Uncle Gotthold? What have you brought me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was always in the habit of bringing the child some rare flower,
+oddly shaped pebble, or other curiosity on his return from his rambles;
+but to-day, for the first time, he had not thought of it. Gretchen was
+very indignant &quot;I don't love you any more,&quot; she said, running back to
+her mother; &quot;and mamma shan't love you either!&quot; she exclaimed, raising
+her little head from her mother's lap.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold, after greeting Cecilia, had seated himself at a short
+distance from her on another bench, as he always did if she did not
+invite him to take his place beside her. She had not done so to-day,
+and scarcely looked up from her work when she silently gave him her
+hand. It had made a painful impression upon him, but as he watched her
+quietly, he thought he noticed that her eyelids were red. Had she
+wished to conceal the traces of recent tears, to hide the fact that she
+could still weep, that the cold expressionless glance with which she
+now seemed to look beyond him towards the child, who was playing at the
+other end of the glade, was not the only expression of which the eyes
+which had formerly beamed with such a gentle light were now capable?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can bear it no longer,&quot; the young man murmured to himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had risen and approached Cecilia, who, as he came up, drew her dress
+away, although there was plenty of room on the large seat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Cecilia,&quot; he said, &quot;I have given a half-promise to stay until Monday,
+but it occurred to me that the Selliens, if they come to-morrow, will
+probably spend the night here, and perhaps some of your other guests,
+and as your accommodations are somewhat limited;--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You wish to go!&quot; interrupted Cecilia; &quot;why not say so plainly?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had looked up from her work, as Gotthold began to speak, with a
+quick, pained glance that cut him to the heart; but when she answered,
+her voice sounded perfectly calm, though a little hollow, and she even
+smiled as she took up her sewing again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When do you wish to go?&quot; she added after a pause, as Gotthold, unable
+to reply, was still silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought of leaving early to-morrow morning,&quot; he answered, and it
+seemed as if some one else had uttered the words. &quot;Carl told me that he
+should send a carriage to town then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Early to-morrow morning!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had dropped her work in her lap again, and for a moment covered her
+eyes and forehead with her left hand, while the fingers of her right,
+which rested on the work, trembled slightly; then her hand fell
+heavily, and she stared fixedly at the ground with a frowning brow, as
+she said in the same hollow tone: &quot;What reason should I have to keep
+you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps because you might be glad to see me here,&quot; answered Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He thought she had not heard the words, but they had been distinctly
+audible; the pause only lasted until she was sure that she could speak
+again without bursting into tears. She would not, dared not weep, and
+now regained her self-control.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know I am,&quot; she replied; &quot;but that is no reason for wishing to
+keep you. I feel too well how unpleasant life is here, how monotonous,
+how tiresome to all who are not accustomed to it, and one cannot become
+accustomed to things in a few days, it requires years, long years. So I
+invite no one--I cannot believe anybody takes pleasure in coming; and I
+detain no one--I can easily imagine that a guest is glad to go. Why
+should I treat you differently from others?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is no reason, if I am no more to you than others.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;More? What does that imply? Oh! you mean because we knew each other so
+early in life, because we were friends when we were both young? But
+what does that signify? What is youthful friendship? And do we remain
+the same? You have done so perhaps, at least in the principal thing,
+but I certainly have not; I resemble the Cecilia of those days as
+little as--as reality resembles our dreams; and besides--I am married;
+a wife needs no friend, has no friend, if she loves her husband, and if
+she does not--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let us suppose the latter case,&quot; said Gotthold, as Cecilia suddenly
+paused.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The case is not so simple as it seems,&quot; she answered, examining the
+stitches in her sewing; &quot;yes, many cases may be imagined. For instance,
+it is very probable that he loves her, and even a woman of very little
+nobility of character is rarely insensible to and ungrateful for true
+love; but granted that he does not love her, loves her no longer,
+perhaps never has loved her--well, then everything will depend upon how
+the wife is constituted. Perhaps she is not proud, and therefore not
+ashamed to confess her unhappiness to a friend, who might then venture
+to become her lover; or if she is proud, she will do--I know not what,
+but certainly she would conceal herself in the deepest chasm in the
+earth, rather than give way and say, no matter to whom, I am unhappy!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And if that is not necessary, if her misery is written on her brow,
+looks from her eyes, speaks in every tone of her voice?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Something flitted over Cecilia's face like the shadow of a cloud; but
+she smoothed her work with special care, as she answered in a
+passionless, almost monotonous voice:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who can say that? Who is so wise that he can read upon the brow of any
+human being the thoughts that are passing within, without ever
+deceiving himself or making another's face the mirror of his own
+beloved vanity? But we have fallen into a very disagreeable
+conversation. Tell me, instead, where you are going when you leave
+here, and where you expect to live in future? You will not return to
+Italy? It seems to me you told me so a short time ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thanks for your interest in me,&quot; replied Gotthold, with trembling
+lips; &quot;but I have made no definite plans as yet. When I left Rome, it
+was certainly with the desire to remain here in the North, at least for
+some time, and try whether home could ever become home again to me; but
+the attempt will probably not succeed, nay, I think has already
+failed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It seems to me that this is rather too soon to decide such a
+question,&quot; said Cecilia; &quot;but the matter is probably of importance only
+to us; you fortunate artists have your home in your art, and you take
+that with you wherever you turn your steps.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And yet, I think, we can have our art only at home,&quot; replied Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is, that only in his home can the artist reach the highest point
+his talents will enable him to attain. I have formed this conclusion
+from the history of all arts, which have only prospered when the
+artists had the good fortune to be supplied with subjects furnished by
+the country of which they were citizens and the time in which they
+lived-for in this sense, time is also the artist's home: I mean: when
+they had the good fortune, and of course the power also, to be able to
+freely develop their talents on their native soil, and upon subjects
+furnished by their home. I have also drawn this inference from my own
+observation, which has taught me that those who were unable to find any
+materials for their art at home--subjects identified with the place and
+time--were no true artists, but either dilettanti and imitators, or
+positive charlatans, who deceived with their artificial productions,
+destitute alike of life and merit, only the great multitude--the
+beggarly crowd--to which they, in the inmost depths of their natures,
+certainly belonged.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When Gotthold first began to speak upon this subject, which at that
+moment was very far from his thoughts, he had only wished to soothe the
+tumult of his soul, or at least to conceal it from the pale woman by
+his side; then, carried away by the theme, he had spoken with a certain
+earnestness, and at last with a freedom of which, a moment before, he
+would not have believed himself capable. And so, at first absently, but
+gradually with more eagerness, Cecilia had listened; a ray of the old
+fire flashed from her dark eye as she asked,</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And does this apply to you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It does; that is, it was a misfortune that through my unhappy quarrel
+with my father, and in consequence of several sorrowful memories upon
+which it is not worth while to enter here,--it was a misfortune that I
+was, in a certain measure, banished from my home at the moment when I
+could least dispense with it: the flowers I had sought for in the
+meadows when a child; the trees under which the boy played, through
+whose tops he saw the sunbeams glide and heard the rain patter; the
+skies which at one time could laugh so brightly and anon look so
+unspeakably gloomy, so infinitely dreary; the sea, over whose smooth
+surface, gleaming in the sunset, or billows black with storm, the fancy
+of the youth had hovered, sailed out to the regions of the Blest, and
+the mournful, misty realms of his dreams of battle and conflict and
+early heroic death: all this--I mean the things and the dreams--I might
+have been able to paint, to the pleasure and delight of others, in
+whom, by my pictures, I might have awakened memories of their own
+childhood, boyhood, and youth; what I paint now I have not drawn from
+my own soul, have not painted, cannot paint with my whole heart, so how
+can it, at best, be anything more than sounding brass?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then why are you artists so eager to go to foreign lands?&quot; asked
+Cecilia.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She seemed once more the intelligent young girl, whose radiant dark
+eyes reflected the restless ardor of her mind, from whose lips fell
+silvery laughter, and then grave, earnest words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think this eagerness is often blind and foolish,&quot; replied Gotthold,
+&quot;and, at any rate, I would always advise a young artist not to go to
+Rome until his own ideas are firmly fixed, or he will be a mere
+plaything of the winds and clouds. Goethe had written his works on
+German art, and long been a master of it, when he went to Italy; so he
+could quietly compose his Faust beneath the pines in the garden of the
+Villa Borghese, and return laden with the rich treasures of his
+observations of the country, the people, and the events which for
+centuries had taken place beneath its glorious skies, and yet remain to
+the very depths of his artist soul precisely the same as he was before.
+It is just the same in the republic of the arts as in the state,
+Cecilia. What citizen could understand the great relations of the
+government who had not first practised his powers of vision upon the
+smaller affairs of the parish; who could render any valuable service to
+the parish, who had not learned to rule his own household; who could
+manage his house, direct and govern his family, who did not know how to
+rule and guide himself?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gertrude had come up while Gotthold was speaking; Cecilia lifted her
+into her lap, and the child sat there silently, as if she knew she must
+not interrupt. Now, as Gotthold paused, she said, &quot;Mamma, I want Uncle
+Gotthold to be my papa!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A deep flush crimsoned Cecilia's face, and she hastily tried to put
+Gretchen down, but the child would not give up the point so easily. She
+threw her right arm around her mother's neck, and said, coaxingly,
+&quot;Can't he, mamma; he has such pretty blue eyes, and is always kind to
+you, and papa is often so horrid; can't he, mamma?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Cecilia hastily rose with the child in her arms, and took a few paces
+forward, as if she wished to fly from the place. But her knees
+trembled, she could go no farther, and was obliged to put Gretchen
+down, who, alarmed by her mother's impetuosity, ran away crying, but
+the next moment forgot her grief at the sight of some bright-hued
+butterflies which fluttered before her over the flower-beds. Cecilia
+still stood motionless with her face averted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Cecilia!&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had approached her, and tried to take the hand that hung by her
+side. She turned, and the face of Medusa confronted him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Cecilia!&quot; exclaimed Gotthold, again extending his hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not draw back, she did not stir; the rigid features were
+motionless, except for the quivering of the half-parted lips, and then
+the words came slowly, like the last drops of blood from a mortal
+wound.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not need your sympathy, do you hear? I have given you no right to
+pity me, neither you nor any one else. Why do you torture me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall not torture you long, Cecilia; I have told you I am going.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why don't you go then? Why do you speak to me of such things? To me?
+You will drive me mad, and--I won't go mad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is madness, Cecilia,&quot; cried Gotthold passionately. &quot;If you do not
+love him--and you do not, you cannot--no divine, and certainly no human
+law, compels you to remain, to pine, to die in nameless misery. And he
+loves you no better than you do him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did he tell you so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it necessary?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On your honor, Gotthold, did he tell you so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, but--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And suppose he did love me, for all that, and--I loved him? How can
+you dare speak to me as you have spoken? How can you dare give me the
+lie by your silence, humiliate me so deeply in my own eyes! Is this
+your boasted friendship?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold bent his head and turned away. Gretchen came to meet him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where are you going, Uncle Gotthold?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He raised the child in his arms, kissed her, put her on the ground, and
+went on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why is Uncle Gotthold crying, mamma?&quot; asked Gretchen, pulling her
+mother's dress. &quot;Papa can't cry, can he, mamma?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Cecilia made no reply; her wide tearless eyes were fixed on the spot
+where Gotthold had disappeared between the beeches.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Forever,&quot; she murmured, &quot;forever!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">When Gotthold reached the little wooden gate, which, shaded by a
+half-decayed linden-tree, afforded egress through the rough hedge on
+this side of the garden, he paused and glanced cautiously over the
+sunny fields towards the forest. He could not have endured to meet any
+one just now, perhaps be obliged to stop and answer a greeting or
+question. But he saw no one; all were in the great rye-field, where
+they had been toiling all day; the path to the forest was open.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sun shone with a fierce burning glow, and the heated air quivered
+over the wheat, which was already beginning to ripen, and whose stout
+stalks were unstirred by the faintest breeze; countless cicadas chirped
+and buzzed noisily on both sides of the narrow path that wound through
+the fields; a large flock of wild pigeons circled at no very great
+height in the air, and as they wheeled with lightning-like speed, the
+moving cloud glittered in the rays of the setting sun against the clear
+blue sky like a shield of polished steel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold saw all this, because he was accustomed to live with nature,
+and even felt the electricity that pervaded the atmosphere, but only as
+being perfectly in harmony with the conflict that oppressed his heart.
+Shame had long since dried the burning tears grief had forced from his
+eyes; shame for having, by his want of self-control, produced this
+scene, in which, after eight long days of torture, he had finally
+played the undignified part of the third person, only to learn that she
+still loved this man, and her unhappiness consisted in the knowledge
+that she was not as much beloved by him as she desired to be. &quot;On your
+honor, Gotthold, did he tell you so?&quot; In what a despairing tone she had
+uttered the words! How the dread of hearing a &quot;yes&quot; had disfigured her
+beautiful face! &quot;Is this your boasted friendship?&quot; Yes, his friendship,
+with which he had been troublesome to her years before, with which he
+was troublesome now, only that he could no longer hide himself behind
+its mask as in those days, only that he no longer had the poor
+consolation of being able to slip away unnoticed and unperceived, as he
+had done that night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had lain here on the edge of the forest, under the great beech-tree,
+in the darkness of the night, and plucked up the moss, and cursed
+himself and the whole world because, by the pale light of the moon, he
+had seen two happy lovers. Now the sun glared broadly upon his couch of
+pain, as if it wished to show him how childish his grief had been, and
+that he should have reserved his despair for this hour. She had been
+happy! Gotthold tried to laugh, but the sound that came from his
+tortured breast was a cry, a dull moaning cry like that of a wounded
+animal. Even so had he wailed when he tottered along this very path
+through the sultry woods that night, and the trees danced around him in
+the dim moonlight like mocking spectres. Now they stood in brazen
+sun-steeped ranks, and seemed to say: What do we care for your
+self-created anguish, you fool!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And what do I care for your misery! said the sea, which, now as he
+emerged from the forest upon the bluff, stretched before him in a
+blackish-blue expanse, as if petrified in its unapproachable majesty.
+He had seen it under this aspect once before, one afternoon when he had
+been wandering along the rocky cliffs of Anacapri, and it had given him
+the subject for one of his best paintings; but now he only bestowed a
+passing thought upon it, as the memory of the cool forest shade and
+murmuring fountain by which he sat a short time before, flits through
+the burning brain of a sun-scorched wanderer on a dusty highway.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Below him in the little inlet, which had been toilsomely dug in the
+rocky shore, were the boats which belonged to the estate. During the
+last few days he had often used the smaller one to row to various
+places along the coast, and had the key of the chain by which it was
+fastened to the stake in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Broader and broader grew the shadow which fell from the shore upon
+the sea and overtook Gotthold, as with powerful strokes he began to
+row across the wide bay, at whose extreme southern point stood the
+beach-house, now brightly illumined by the sunlight. But the shadow did
+not proceed from the shore, but a black wall of clouds which, of
+perfectly uniform breadth, rose slowly in the heavens, and whose sharp
+upper edge glowed and sparkled with a gloomy fire. It was a heavy
+thunderstorm from the land. Well, let it come! Gotthold longed to escape
+from the sultry atmosphere that brooded over his soul, and breathe
+freely once more in the strife of the elements. A fiery shaft quivered
+across the black wall of clouds, then a second, a third; and with
+marvellous speed the dark curtain rose higher and higher, extinguishing
+every gleam of light in sky and shore, and upon the sea, over which the
+wind now whistled in gusts, furrowing its mirror-like surface and soon
+lashing it into foaming surges.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Waves and wind turned Gotthold's little boat aside from its course and
+drove it, as if in sport, towards the sea, though now, clearly
+perceiving his danger, he tried to guide it to the shore. After a few
+strokes he realized that his only hope of deliverance was that the
+storm might pass as quickly as it had come.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it seemed as if the fiends of darkness had heard his sacrilegious
+words and were now determined to have their victim. The black shadow
+spread farther and farther over the raging sea; only a few white sails
+still gleamed in the distant horizon, and now they also disappeared in
+the darkness; the waves dashed still higher, and the boat receded still
+faster from the shore, where already, even to Gotthold's keen eye, the
+white bluff and the dark forest that crowned it blended together in one
+gray line. There was no longer any doubt that the skiff would be driven
+into the open sea, unless, which might happen at any moment, some wave
+upset it; nay, it seemed a miracle that this had not already occurred.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold calmly did what he could to save himself; he carefully watched
+the rise and fall of every approaching wave and kept the boat's head to
+the wind, now with the right oar, now with the left, and anon making a
+powerful stroke with both. If it upset, all depended upon whether it
+sank immediately or floated on the surface. In the latter case his
+situation was not utterly desperate; he might perhaps be able to cling
+to it, and, if the wind veered, either be carried back to land, or
+rescued by some passing ship; but if the boat sank, he was lost
+according to all human calculation. He could not put down the oars a
+moment to divest himself of his clothing, and not even so good a
+swimmer as himself could hope, fully clad, to swim for many hours in
+such a sea, especially as he already began to feel that his strength,
+carefully as he had husbanded it, was gradually beginning to fail.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gradually at first, and then faster and faster. Hitherto he had
+executed the most complicated movements of the oars with perfect ease,
+but now they grew heavier and heavier in the stiffened hands, the
+benumbed arms. His breast grew more and more oppressed, his heart beat
+more and more painfully, his breathing changed to gasping, his throat
+seemed choked, his temples throbbed; come what would, he must rest a
+moment, take in the oars, and let the boat drift.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The little skiff instantly began to ship water; Gotthold had expected
+it. &quot;It can't last much longer now,&quot; he said to himself, &quot;and what does
+it matter? If you could live for her, it would be worth the trouble;
+but now--to whom do you die except yourself? Death cannot be so very
+painful. True, she will think: 'He tried to lose his life, and he might
+have spared me that.' It is very ungallant in me to drift ashore a
+disfigured corpse, very ungallant and very stupid; but it is all of a
+piece, and surely a man cannot pay for a folly more dearly than with
+his life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thoughts crowded still more confusedly upon his bewildered brain as,
+utterly exhausted, he sat bending forward, staring at the oars, which
+he still clenched mechanically in his stiffened fingers, and the
+reeling edge of the boat, which was now sharply relieved against the
+grayish-black sky, and then buried a foot deep under the foaming crest
+of a breaking wave. Then he saw all this only as a background, from
+which her face appeared in perfect distinctness, no longer with the
+mouth quivering with pain and the cold Medusa eyes, but transfigured by
+a merry roguish smile, as it had always arisen before his memory from
+the precious days of youth, and as he had seen it lately for one
+moment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly an infinite sorrow seized upon him that he must give up life
+without having lived, without being loved by her; the life which, if he
+was only permitted to go on loving her, was an inexpressible happiness;
+the life which did not belong to him, which he owed to her, and for
+which, for her sake, he would struggle till his latest breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The stiffened fingers again closed firmly around the handles of the
+oars; the benumbed arms moved and parried with powerful strokes the
+onset of the rushing waves; the wearied eyes gazed once more over the
+foaming waters for some hope of deliverance, and a joyful shout escaped
+his laboring breast when, as if summoned by some spell, a sail emerged
+from the watery mist with which the air was filled. The next moment it
+came shooting forward, a large vessel, with her larboard side so low in
+the water, that Gotthold saw the whole keel from bow to stern, and
+above the high bulwark nothing was visible except the head of the
+steersman, whose snow-white hair fluttered in the wind, and the upper
+part of the body of a young man on the bowsprit, who held a coil of
+rope in his hand. And now, like a serpent, the line fell directly
+across his boat. He seized it and wound it around him. Then came a
+powerful jerk; his boat, filled almost to the water's edge, reeled to
+and fro, and sank under his feet; but his hands were already clinging
+to the side of the larger vessel; two strong arms seized him under the
+shoulders, and the next moment he fell at the feet of Cousin Boslaf,
+who held out his left hand to him, while with the right he turned his
+helm by a powerful effort, to save his own boat from being swamped.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The sea was still heaving after the thunder-storm of the afternoon, but
+the sun had cast a trembling light over the dark waves before it set.
+The stars now gradually appeared in the blackish-blue vault of the
+heavens; Gotthold raised his eyes to them, and then gazed into the
+quiet countenance of the old man, by whose side he was seated upon a
+bench, sheltered by the thick walls of the beach-house. Through the
+window beside them gleamed the light of the lamp, which, ever since
+Cousin Boslaf had lived in the beach-house, had burned there night
+after night, and would now continue to burn on, even after his eyes
+were closed in death. It was for this object that he had taken the
+journey to Sundin--the first since he returned from Sweden, sixty-five
+years ago, and probably the last he would ever make in his life. It had
+cost him an effort to give up his hermit habits for days, and mingle
+with mankind once more. But it must be done; he dared not ask whether
+the road would be hard or easy for him. So he had sailed away,
+accompanied by young Carl Peters, the son of his old friend, and for
+six long days presented himself at the Herr Präsident's every morning,
+and was always sent away because the Herr Präsident was too busy to see
+him, as the valet said, who finally roughly forbade him to come again,
+just at the moment the former left his study, and, seeing the old man,
+asked him kindly who he was, and what he wanted. Then Cousin Boslaf
+told the friendly gentleman that his name was Bogislaf Wenhof, and he
+had been very intimate with Malte von Krissowitz, whose portrait was
+hanging on the wall, and who, if he was not mistaken, was the
+Präsident's great-grandfather, and then told him his desire. Malte von
+Krissowitz was one of the six young men who had officiated as judges
+during the contest between Bogislaf and Adolf Wenhof; the Präsident,
+when a very young man, had heard the famous story from his father, who
+had it from his grandfather, to whom his great-grandfather had related
+it; it seemed to him like a fairy tale that the hero of that story
+should be still alive, and the very old man who was sitting on the sofa
+beside him. He called his wife and daughter, introduced them to the old
+man, and insisted that he should stay to dinner. Everybody was most
+kind and friendly, and--what was most important--the Präsident, when he
+bade him farewell, gave him his word of honor that the good cause for
+which he pleaded should henceforth be his own.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Within a few days,&quot; said Cousin Boslaf, &quot;a beacon will be erected here
+before the house, on a high foundation of stone, whose light can be
+seen a mile farther than that of my lamp. Carl Peters is appointed
+keeper, and will live with me in the beach-house, which for the present
+will serve as a watch-house, and after my death is to become the
+property of the government. So this great care is removed from my mind.
+I need say no longer, when I extinguish the lamp at daybreak: Will you
+be able to light it again this evening?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man was silent; the Swedish banner flapped still more loudly
+upon the roof of the beach-house; the waves broke more heavily upon the
+rocky strand. Gotthold's eyes wandered with deep reverence over the
+figure at his side, the tall form of the silver-haired old man of
+ninety, whose heart still beat so warmly in his breast for all
+mankind--for the poor sailors whom he did not know, and who did not
+know him, of whom he knew nothing except that they were sailing yonder
+in the night, invisible even to his keen eyes, and so long as they saw
+the light kept away from the dangerous coast, as their fathers and
+grandfathers had taught them to do. The old man who lived only for
+others, whose whole existence was nothing but love for others, from
+whom he neither asked nor expected love or gratitude, had to-day risked
+his own life to save him, who scarcely desired to be saved, to whom
+life seemed valueless because he loved and was not beloved in return.
+What would the old man say to that? Would he, in the boundlessness of
+his unselfish love, even be able to understand such a selfish,
+egotistical passion?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That was my one anxiety,&quot; Cousin Boslaf began again; &quot;the government
+has relieved me of it; I have one other which no one can remove.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Does it concern her--Cecilia?&quot; asked Gotthold with a beating heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; said the old man, &quot;it does concern her, Ulrica's
+great-grandchild, who looks so like her ancestress, but is probably
+even more unhappy. She should never have been allowed to marry the man,
+if I had had my way; but they threw my advice to the winds; they have
+always done so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A strange, terrible change had come over the old man. His tall form was
+bent as if all strength had left it; his deep voice, so firm a few
+moments before, quivered and trembled, when after a short pause, which
+Gotthold did not venture to interrupt, he continued:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They have always done so. And so they have lost their fields, one
+after another, and their forests, one after another, and become tenants
+where they were once masters, and gone to ruin, one after another. I
+have let it pass, been forced to let it pass, and always thought: Now
+matters can't be worse--but the worst was still in store for me. They
+were all reckless and frivolous; but none were wicked, not one, and
+after all they were men who, if need be, could live honestly by the
+labor of their hands. Now, now, even the old name will die out with me;
+only one poor helpless woman is left, who has exchanged her name for
+that of a man who is a good-for-nothing fellow like his forefathers;
+the worthless wretch will drag her down to shame with him--her shame
+and mine!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man's last words were scarcely audible; for he had buried his
+wrinkled face in his knotty hands. Gotthold laid his hand on his knee.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How can you talk so, Cousin Boslaf!&quot; said he, &quot;how can you accuse
+yourself of a misfortune you have been unable to prevent; you, who have
+always been the good genius of the house!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The good genius of the house--great God!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man started up and strode hastily to the shore, where he stood
+with his face turned towards the sea; his white hair fluttered in the
+wind; he raised his arms towards the dark waters, and then let them
+fall again, muttering unintelligible words. Gotthold still kept by his
+side; had the old man become childish, or had he gone mad?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter, Cousin Boslaf?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Cousin Boslaf!&quot; shrieked the old man, &quot;ay, Cousin Boslaf! He called me
+so, and she too, and all the rest with them and after them, my
+children, and children's children!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Cousin Boslaf!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Always Cousin Boslaf! Yes, it is quite right, and will be placed on my
+gravestone. I have sworn that no human being should ever hear the tale,
+but I can bear it no longer. One man shall learn the crime we committed
+against mankind, that he may forgive us our sin in the name of mankind.
+I have always loved you, and to-day I saved your life, so you shall be
+the man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He led Gotthold back to the bench.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have probably heard of the contest I had with my Cousin Adolf
+about Dollan?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; replied Gotthold, &quot;and have thought of it all very recently as I
+came to visit you, and in the depths of my heart praised the rare
+magnanimity with which you resigned the rich estate and beloved maiden
+to your cousin, after you learned that he was preferred by her. Emma
+von Dahlitz, Ulrica's confidante, brought you this message the evening
+before the decisive day; was it not so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; said Cousin Boslaf, &quot;only the message was false, and she who
+brought it lied, out of love--as she afterwards wrote me on her
+death--bed a few years after, when I was in Sweden--out of love for me,
+whom she hoped to win herself. The unhappy girl had also confessed this
+to Ulrica, who, like me, had believed her lies, and that I had mocked
+and jeered at her, and said I would rather have a Lapland woman for my
+wife. Well, I had wooed no Laplander; but the unfortunate maiden had
+become Adolf's wife, and so, as Adolf's wife and the mother of two
+children, I found her when I returned. A third child--also a boy--was
+born a year after. The two older ones died in early youth; the third
+lived and remained the only child, and this boy was--my son!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor, poor man,&quot; murmured Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay indeed, poor man!&quot; said old Boslaf, &quot;for who is poorer than a man
+who cannot rejoice over his own child, dares not call his before all
+the world, what is his if anything in the world is. I dared not. Ulrica
+was proud; she would rather have died ten deaths than taken upon
+herself the shame of the violation of her marriage vow; and I was
+cowardly, cowardly out of love for her and him--my poor, good,
+unsuspicious Adolf, whom from childhood I had loved like a brother, who
+believed in me wholly and entirely, who would have asserted against the
+whole world that I was his best, most faithful friend. So a few
+terrible years passed away; Ulrica, exhausted by the fearful conflict
+between duty and love she dared not acknowledge, died; holding her cold
+hands, I was forced to swear that I would keep the secret. So I have
+been and still remain Cousin Boslaf to my child and grandchildren. They
+have given me a little higher place in their affections than an old
+servant whom people will not dismiss, tiresome as he often is; they
+have also let me talk when they were in a good humor; and if a child
+was born, old Cousin Boslaf was allowed to sit at the lower end of the
+table at the christening festival, or when one of them was borne to the
+churchyard in Rammin he was suffered to ride in the last coach, if
+there was a vacant seat. I have borne it all: bitternesses without
+number or measure; I have believed that by humility, by love towards
+others, I might atone for the crime I had committed against my own
+flesh and blood; but the curse has not been removed from me: 'I have
+never yet seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their
+bread.' I have been no righteous man; my seed will be forced to beg
+their bread; I have grown so old only that I might live to see it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never, never!&quot; exclaimed Gotthold starting up; &quot;never!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What will you do?&quot; said the old man, &quot;lend him money! What becomes of
+the water you take in your hand? What becomes of the money loaned to a
+gambler? I brought him one evening the savings of sixty years; it was
+no inconsiderable sum, the farm-rent of my few fields and meadows at
+interest and compound interest; the next morning he had not a shilling
+of it left. You told me just now that you were a rich man, perhaps
+you can give him more. He will take as much as he can get, and the
+moment he can obtain no more, show you the door and forbid you his
+house, as he did me. He knew very well I would not accuse him, that I
+could not; I had not required a written proof that I had given my
+great-granddaughter what I had.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And Cecilia?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is the true child of her ancestors; too proud to do anything but
+shed secret tears over the misery which has come upon her. I know those
+tears of old; they give the eyes which shed them at night upon lonely
+pillows, the fixed sad expression with which she has looked at me,
+whenever I have met her since--it has not been often. Where are you
+going so fast?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had started up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have been here a long time already--too long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is she expecting you, Gotthold?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man had laid his hand upon his shoulder; Gotthold noticed how
+steadily the keen eyes rested upon him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he said, &quot;I do not think she is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And it is better so,&quot; replied the old man. &quot;It is enough for one to
+experience what I have done. When, shall I see you again?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I intended to go away early to-morrow morning, but I will come here
+from Prora.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's right; my child is unhappy enough now; the sooner you go the
+better it will be.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The better it will be,&quot; repeated Gotthold, as he strode through the
+dark forest. For whom--for me? My fate is decided. For her? What is it
+to her whether I come or go? For him? If he only wanted my money and
+not me, why didn't he say so long ago? I have offered it to him often
+enough--perhaps not plainly enough; I could not make up my mind to
+speak more distinctly; it seemed like trying to buy the husband's
+permission to remain near the wife. Why has he not wanted it? Doesn't
+he believe in my sincerity? Is he too proud to take it from <i>me</i>? And
+yet who should give to him more willingly than I? It is the only thing
+I can do for her. Perhaps that is all they need to make them perfectly
+happy; perhaps his love is of the kind that only thrives in the
+sunlight of prosperity, and languishes sadly in the mists of care. We
+will succor this feeble love. That will bring the roses back to her
+cheeks, and she will laugh happily again as she used to do in the old
+days.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I play no very brilliant part in the family drama; but when was the
+rôle of third person conspicuous or grateful? Poor, poor old man! What
+must he not have suffered! What must he not suffer still! But he was
+not guiltless, no, not guiltless! Only falsehood is sin, not truth. The
+marriage bond between Adolf Wenhof and Ulrica von Dahlitz, as it was
+brought about by a lie, was and remained a lie. She loved another, and
+this other came; she saw that he loved her still as he had always loved
+her; in an hour of intoxication, after so many years of torture, she
+became his; she was his wife before her own conscience; she ought also
+to have become so in the sight of man. It was a twofold, threefold,
+thousandfold lie that she did not do so, that she did not break off the
+old life and suffer a new one to begin that very hour! In consequence
+of this lie, she, the proud, beautiful woman, sank into an early grave!
+He has vainly sought through all these endless years to atone for his
+crime--the crime of having thrust truth from his threshold and
+permitted falsehood to cross it! Holy genius of mankind, thou who
+livest in the light of truth, save me from the greatest of all sins;
+save me from falsehood!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A dark figure came hastily across the glade near the edge of the
+forest, through which the path ran. When it approached a little nearer,
+Gotthold recognized old Statthalter Möller, who now raised both arms,
+exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank God, here you are! You've given us a fine fright!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I? Whom? How?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You, to be sure, you! And whom? All of us, up to our mistress, who is
+perfectly beside herself! How? Well, that's a pretty question! When a
+man rows out to sea in such a nutshell of a boat, with a horrible
+thunderstorm rising, and that old blockhead of a Christian sees it, and
+thinks: Well, I'm curious to see how he gets back; but isn't at all
+curious, goes into the forest, and waits till the storm is over, and
+then about half an hour ago sends his boy to say: the boat hasn't come
+back yet, and may not some accident have happened to the gentleman?
+Lord, there was a pretty piece of business then! And our mistress must
+have been very much frightened, for she came running out at once, and
+started us off. The mistress is not to be trifled with when she is in
+earnest, kind as she is; and we all got frightened too, and some have
+gone down to Ralow, thinking you might have been driven in there; and
+some to Neuhof, and I was just going to the beach-house to ask the old
+gentleman, who has probably come back to-day, what we should do next.
+The mistress wanted to go herself, but I wouldn't let her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is the mistress?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is probably still in the field,&quot; said Möller, pointing to the
+left; &quot;I have just left her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And how long have the others been gone?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As long as I have; if I hurry, I shall probably overtake them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Statthalter Möller struck into the forest on the right, shouting the
+names of the laborers, while Gotthold hastily walked on by the path,
+which in a few moments brought him to the edge of the forest, where an
+old beech-tree stood alone in the open field, upon which the moon shed
+a dim, fitful light through the rifts in the heavy black clouds. It was
+the rye-field, which they had been reaping that day. A loaded wagon was
+just starting, and men were still working around a few others, but, as
+it seemed to Gotthold, rather lazily; he heard the voices of the men
+raised in eager conversation, and saw that they were standing in little
+groups between the sheaves, several rows of which extended along the
+edge of the forest. The thought that such important work had been
+interrupted or carried on less zealously on his account was unpleasant
+to Gotthold, and he hurried towards the workmen. He had not perceived
+Cecilia, although he could see the whole field with tolerable
+distinctness; she had probably gone back to the house again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But as he approached the beech-tree, a white figure which had been
+sitting with its face buried in its hands, and was now startled by his
+hasty steps, rose from the circular bench that surrounded the huge
+trunk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In Heaven's name, Möller, have you returned already? Is he--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is I myself; Cecilia, dear, dearest Cecilia!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gotthold!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had thrown herself into his arms; he held the pliant figure which
+clung closer and closer to him in an ardent embrace; her soft lips
+quivered against his in a long, tremulous, passionate kiss.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is that you?&quot; said Carl Brandow's voice suddenly, close beside them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed as if he had sprung from the earth; doubtless the sheaves,
+the last of which stood partly under the ends of the drooping boughs of
+the beech-tree, had concealed his approach, but in the shadow of its
+foliage probably nothing but Cecilia's light dress had been visible to
+the new-comer. Yet, in Gotthold's sensitive mood, the man's loud laugh
+had a horrible sound, and his clear voice a disagreeably shrill tone
+never heard before, as, flourishing his riding-whip in the air,
+according to his custom, he cried: &quot;I have heard all; I always say:
+Don't turn your back, something always happens which wouldn't have
+occurred otherwise. I shouldn't have let you go on such a wild-goose
+chase, any more than I would have commenced reaping at the end next the
+barn. What will become of this stuff if it should begin to rain again,
+as there is every appearance of its doing, and rain all day to-morrow?
+In that case we can take it to the manure heap, instead of the barn;
+nobody will come here with a wagon for a week, and it will have
+sprouted long before then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It isn't so bad after all, sir,&quot; said Statthalter Möller, who had just
+come up with the men he had overtaken in the forest. &quot;We haven't any
+more room in the barn; we'll put up a cover here, and then it will be
+all right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course, you always know better than I!&quot; exclaimed Brandow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wanted to begin by the barn; but Hinrich Scheel wouldn't allow it,
+and said you yourself--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! of course I did it myself; I'm always to blame when you idiots
+have done anything stupid!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not the first time that Gotthold had heard Carl Brandow scold
+his workmen in this way; but never had the cause been so frivolous, and
+the wrong so clearly on his own side. Gotthold had himself heard him,
+as he rode away that morning, call to Hinrich Scheel that they were to
+begin the reaping at the upper end of the field by the forest. Was he
+drunk? Had he seen more than he wished to have known? Did he want to
+wreak his jealous fury on the innocent workmen? Or was this merely the
+preamble, and a test to see whether, in the explanation which must take
+place immediately, he would adopt the tone of an injured, insulted man?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold did not fear this explanation; his only dread was that it
+might take place in Cecilia's presence. He wished his loved one to be
+away, and moreover he felt the necessity of hearing one word from her
+to assure him that all this was no confused dream, but reality; that in
+the kiss which still trembled on his lips she had given herself to him,
+that he might venture to act, decide for her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the fear of provoking an outbreak from Brandow made him timid and
+awkward; she shrank away, actuated by the same feeling; and he did not
+succeed in carrying out his intention on the way home. Brandow walked
+between them; he was obliged to relate his adventure, and Brandow
+railed at Cousin Boslaf, who was always everywhere, from whom one
+wasn't safe even when on the water, and who had undoubtedly arranged
+the whole scene, including the thunder-storm and all its appurtenances,
+in order to be able to save something again. Under other circumstances
+Gotthold would not have allowed such sarcasms, which Brandow
+accompanied with sneering laughter, to pass unanswered; but now he must
+be suffered to say what he chose. Then the latter clapped him on the
+shoulder, crying: &quot;No offence, Gotthold; but I can't bear the old
+sneak, and have my own reasons for it. Either a man is master of his
+house, or he isn't; to have a third party, who is always interfering
+everywhere, and of course always thinks he knows best, would not do, at
+least not for me. As we used to say at school, 'One king, one ruler!'
+You probably remember the Greek words too; I, poor devil, am glad I
+happened to keep the German ones.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They reached the house. Gotthold could not shake off Brandow, who
+detained him before the door in conversation about some agricultural
+matter, while Cecilia entered. Hinrich Scheel came up and complained of
+the Statthalter, who had ordered even the carriage-horses to be
+harnessed to the wagons. Brandow flew into a furious passion; Gotthold
+murmured something about being obliged to change his clothes, and
+slipped into the house. But he found no one in the sitting-room except
+pretty Rieke, who was setting the tea-table, and looked roguishly at
+him out of the corners of her eyes while he glanced over the newspaper
+which lay on the table before the sofa. The girl went out, but came
+back immediately, and pretended to be doing something in the closet;
+she evidently intended to remain in the room. Gotthold now went up to
+his chamber, and changed his clothes, which had been only partially
+dried in the beach-house. As he performed the task, his trembling hands
+almost refused to obey his bidding. Was it the fever of impatience
+before the final decision, or was it actual sickness, brought on by
+over-exertion during the storm? &quot;Don't be sick now,&quot; he murmured; &quot;now
+of all times! Now, when you no longer belong to yourself, when you owe
+your life, your every breath, your every drop of blood to her!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow's voice echoed from the lower floor in loud, angry tones. Was
+he talking to Cecilia? Had the rage, perhaps repressed with difficulty
+till now, burst forth? Was the drama to be played before the servants?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the twinkling of an eye Gotthold had left his room, crossed the long
+dark entry, and gone down-stairs. But fortunately his fear had been
+groundless. Cecilia had sent word that she felt tired, and should not
+come to supper. Then why couldn't they have set the table in his room
+on the other side of the hall, where they would be undisturbed and
+disturb no one? Would Rieke never have any sense? Rieke answered
+pertly, as she reluctantly obeyed the command, that she wished other
+people's sense was as good as hers; who was to know what to do when one
+order was given one minute, and another the next! Brandow told her to
+be silent. The girl laughed scornfully: Oh! of course it was very
+convenient to forbid people to open their mouths, but it wouldn't do in
+the long run, and if she wanted to speak she would speak, and then
+other people would have to hold their tongues.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Leave the room,&quot; shouted Brandow furiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl answered with a still more impudent laugh, and then left the
+apartment, banging the door after her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's what one gets for being too indulgent,&quot; cried Brandow,
+swallowing at a single gulp a glass of wine which he had poured out
+with an unsteady hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He cast a sly glance at Gotthold, who looked him steadily in the face.
+What did this scene mean? What could the girl tell, if she chose to
+speak? Had she claims upon her master which he was obliged to
+acknowledge? Had a weapon unexpectedly fallen into his hands which
+might be of use to him in this hour? An ignoble weapon indeed; but
+perhaps not too much so for a conflict with a man who, while the
+husband of such a wife, did not disdain the servant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet Gotthold said to himself that he would not begin the quarrel, but,
+if possible, defer it until he had come to some understanding with
+Cecilia about the next step to be taken. And it seemed possible; nay,
+Gotthold soon became doubtful whether Brandow at most had anything more
+than a vague suspicion, to which he either could not or dared not give
+expression. Perhaps he wished to increase his courage by drink, for he
+now drained glass after glass, and brought one bottle of old wine after
+another from his sleeping-room; perhaps he wanted to give vent to his
+powerless anger, in some degree at least, when he railed at Cousin
+Boslaf, the old sneak who had perfectly disgusted him with life by his
+perpetual interference, until he at last forbade him the house; and
+then spoke once more of his miserable circumstances, as he called them,
+for which, however, he was less to blame than some other people.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;True,&quot; he exclaimed, &quot;I have spent more on my journeys than tailors
+and glove-makers do; I have lived in a manner befitting a gentleman,
+but the principal cause of my disgraceful situation is my marriage. Of
+course you look incredulous; you would like, as an old ally of the
+Wenhofs, to contradict me; it would be useless; I know too well how all
+this has come about. I will say nothing about the noble Curt--the few
+college debts I was obliged to pay for him were a mere bagatelle; but
+the old man, who was by no means so old as not to have a damned good
+relish for the pleasant things of this world--the old man was not a
+particularly desirable father-in-law. I even had to pay for the wedding
+outfit, but--good heavens--at such a time a man would bring the stars
+from the sky to adorn his beloved; so I wouldn't have minded advancing
+the money for the few trinkets and other things, if that had been the
+end of it. But unfortunately that was not the case. I gave my
+father-in-law ten thousand thalers in cash during the two years he
+lived, and was obliged to pay at least as much in debts after his
+death. That's a pretty good bit of money, <i>mon cher</i>, when a man has no
+more than enough for himself; and so my beautiful Dahlitz went to the
+devil, and I was glad to be able to creep into Dollan for shelter, and
+some day Dollan will go to the devil too; for a man can't keep the best
+farm in the world nowadays, unless he has property of his own, and the
+prudent Brothers of the Convent of St. Jurgen have kept me as short as
+my father-in-law, who could never get the better of them. But what am I
+thinking of, to be entertaining such a distinguished gentleman with
+this rubbish! You can't help me, and if you could, a man doesn't allow
+himself to be helped by his good friends--he applies to his good
+enemies.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow laughed loudly, and starting up, paced hastily up and down the
+room with an agitated air, and at last stopped before the closet
+containing his weapons, pulled a pistol from its nail, cocked it, and
+turning towards Gotthold, cried:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only, unfortunately, the good friends are often the same as the good
+enemies, so that one can't separate them. Don't you think so!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It may happen so,&quot; said Gotthold quietly; &quot;but you would do better to
+hang up the pistol again; your hand is too unsteady for such tricks
+to-night; some accident might occur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold was determined not to enter upon an explanation with the
+half-intoxicated man this evening, under any circumstances; and equally
+determined not to yield to his threats, if this was intended for one,
+and permit the ransom money to be extorted, which he must pay if he
+wished to leave the place without any further difficulty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The expression of calm decision upon the grave countenance of his guest
+had not escaped Brandow; he let the half-raised weapon fall, laid it
+aside, came back to the table, threw himself into his chair, and said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are right! Some accident might happen; but no one would care, and,
+after all, it would only be consistent if I should put a bullet through
+my brain. You are a lucky fellow. You have been obliged to work from
+your early youth, and so have learned a great deal; now a great
+fortune, more than you can use, comes to you without the least trouble.
+I have never worked, have learned nothing, and I lose a property
+without which I am nothing, less than nothing: the jest of all who have
+known me, a scarecrow to the gay birds I have hitherto equalled or
+excelled, and who now leave the poor plucked crow to his fate. Death
+and the devil!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He dashed his glass down upon the table so violently that it broke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, pshaw! the matter is not worth getting into a passion about.
+Everything must have an end, and however they may jeer at me, nobody
+can say I have not enjoyed life. I have drunk the best wine, ridden the
+fastest horses, and kissed the prettiest women. You are a connoisseur
+too, Gotthold; you have done just the same in your quiet way, of
+course. Yes, you were always a sly-boots, and I had a cursed respect
+for your cunning, even in our school-days. Well, no offence; I am not
+very stupid, and clever people, like you and me, always get along
+together; it's only dunces who quarrel--dunces, silly boys, as we were
+then. Do you remember? Tierce, quart, quart, tierce! Ha! ha! ha! That
+wouldn't suit us now. Touch glasses, old boy, and drink! Drink to good
+fellowship!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he held out his brimming glass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My glass is empty,&quot; said Gotthold; &quot;and so is the bottle. Let us go to
+bed; we have drunk more than enough.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He left the room before Brandow, who was staring at him with eyeballs
+starting from his head, could reply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As the door closed behind him, Brandow made a spring like that of a
+wild beast after its prey, and then paused in the middle of the room,
+showing his white teeth, and shaking his clenched fists at the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Cursed scoundrel! I'll have your blood, drop by drop; but first I'll
+have your money!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His uplifted arms fell; he tottered to the table, and sat there
+supporting his burning head in his hands, gnawing his lips with his
+sharp teeth till the blood sprang through the skin, mentally heaping
+crime upon crime, but none would lead him to his goal. Suddenly he
+started up and a hoarse laugh burst forth. So it should be! She, she
+herself must ask him, and that was the way to force her to do so!
+Vengeance, full vengeance, and no danger, except that the servant might
+chatter! She had already threatened to do so several times, and to-day
+had been more impudent than ever; but all must be accomplished
+to-morrow, and to-night was available for many things.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That night--he did not know how late it was, for he had lain there
+fully dressed, with throbbing temples, awake, and yet as if in some
+wild dream, falling from the heights of more than earthly bliss into
+the depths of helpless anxiety and dread--that very night Gotthold
+heard above the rustling of the foliage before his window, and the
+plashing of the rain against the panes, a sound which made him start
+from his bed, and, holding his breath, listen intently. The noise was
+like a scream, a woman's scream, and could only have come from the
+chamber below him, where Cecilia slept alone with her child. He reached
+the window at a single bound. The wind and rain beat into his face, but
+above the wind and rain he distinctly heard Brandow's voice, now louder
+and now lower, as a man speaks who is carried away by passion, and then
+violently forces himself to be calm. At intervals he thought he
+distinguished her voice; but perhaps it was only his fancy, excited to
+madness, which filled the pauses in which he did not hear the voice of
+the man he hated. A conjugal scene in the chamber of the wife, who
+cannot, must not lock her door; who must hear the wild words of the
+furious drunken husband, and has nothing to oppose to his fury save her
+tears!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And she bears it, must bear it! Must wring her hands helplessly! This
+is bitterer than death!&quot; 'murmured Gotthold. &quot;Why didn't I speak? All
+might now have been decided! Is not keeping silence when one ought to
+speak also a lie, a cruel, horrible lie, and must falsehood be spoken
+by the good as well as the bad? To-morrow, if to-morrow were only here,
+if such a night can have a morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He threw himself on his bed, moaning and sobbing, and buried his head
+in the pillows, then started up again. Was not that a step moving
+slowly and cautiously over the floor? Was any one coming to him with a
+murderous weapon? Thank God!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold sprang to the door and tore it open. Everything was
+silent--silent and dark. The stairs from below led directly up the
+middle of the entry, between the two gables; the cautious step he had
+heard was not on his side, and had undoubtedly gone towards the other,
+where, opposite to his room, were two smaller chambers, one of which,
+on the left, stood empty, and the other was occupied by pretty Rieke;
+for a faint light, which was quickly extinguished, now gleamed through
+a crack in the door of the right-hand room, and through the deep
+stillness came a laugh, instantly hushed, as if a hand had been
+suddenly placed over the laughing lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold shut the door; he wished to see and hear no more.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">A gray dreary morning followed the dark rainy night. Endless masses
+of vapor, now and then piled into thick clouds, rolled in from the
+sea,--masses so deep that they almost covered the lofty tops of the
+poplars, which now bent before the rude wind over the drenched straw
+roofs of the barns, and then rebounded defiantly, shaking their
+branches indignantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold stood at the window of the sitting room, gazing gloomily at
+the dreary scene. He had slept an hour towards morning, almost against
+his will; but anxiety for what might be coming weighed upon his soul
+more heavily than physical exhaustion upon his body. Terrible as the
+night had been, stars of hope ever and anon had sparkled cheeringly
+through the darkness; now it seemed as if this dreary day had only
+dawned to say: This solitary, hideous drifting is life, reality; what
+have I to do with your dreams? As he came down the staircase, he had
+seen almost with an emotion of horror that preparations for the
+reception of guests were being made in the large hall looking out upon
+the garden, which was generally unused; the clattering of pots and
+pans, and the loud voices of maid-servants came from the kitchen at the
+end of the long hall; and a groom was just pushing from the stable the
+carriage which was to bring the guests from Prora. Everything was going
+on as usual, as if to-day would be like yesterday, and to-morrow like
+to day; as if nothing could happen which would make the old world young
+again as it was on the first day that dawned on Paradise. And yet, and
+yet, it surely was no dream; it had certainly happened. It could not
+blow away like formless mist! It must assume some shape, emerge from
+the chaos, perhaps be worked out by a hot conflict; it was all the
+same! Only it could not be lost!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But this dreary inactive waiting was terrible! She must know that he
+had been standing here half an hour already, waiting for her, for one
+word from her lips, even one look, to say to him: I am yours, as you
+are mine; trust me as I trust you. Why did she not come? The moment was
+more favorable than any which might occur again all day. Brandow had
+just crossed the courtyard to the stables, as he did every morning; the
+breakfast was on the table; they had always spent half an hour together
+at this time undisturbed--and to-day, to-day she must needs leave him
+alone!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A boundless impatience took possession of him; he paced up and down the
+room, glancing every moment towards the door through which that other
+had come and gone last night, and which was closed upon him, listening
+with straining ears that he might distinguish some sound, but heard
+nothing except the sleepy buzzing of a fly; even the house clock in the
+tall old-fashioned wooden case did not tick to-day; the hands had
+stopped during the night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pressed his hands to his beating temples; it seemed as if he should
+go mad if this torture did not cease, and then a thought occurred to
+him more terrible than all the rest. Was she afraid of him? Did shame
+withhold her from appearing before the eyes of him against whose heart
+her own had throbbed yesterday, whose kiss she had received and
+answered? No, no, a thousand times no! Whatever kept her from him, it
+was not that, not that! It was a crime against her proud nature even to
+think it! She might die, but not live to be dishonorable. Perhaps she
+was ill, very ill, helpless, alone--ah! that was Gretchen's voice:
+&quot;Mamma, I want to go with you; I want to go with you to Uncle Gotthold.
+I want to bid Uncle Gotthold 'good morning!'&quot; and then low soothing
+tones, then the door opened and she entered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold rushed toward her, but only a few steps. She had raised both
+hands with a gesture of the most imploring entreaty, and the most
+imploring entreaty looked forth from the large tearful eyes, and pure
+pale face. So she approached, so she stood before him, and then almost
+inaudible words fell from her quivering lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you forgive me, Gotthold!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He could not answer; gesture, expression, words--all told him that his
+haunting fear had become reality; that in one way or another all was
+lost.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A fierce anguish overpowered him, and then anger arose in his heart; he
+laughed aloud!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So this is all the courage you have!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her arms fell, her lips closed, her features quivered convulsively, and
+her whole frame trembled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Gotthold, not all. But I thank you for being angry; or it might
+have been impossible for me to perform my task. No, don't look at me
+so; don't look at me so. Laugh as you laughed just now! What can a man
+do but laugh, when a woman by whom he believes himself beloved comes
+and says--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You need not,&quot; cried Gotthold; &quot;you need not; a man does not
+comprehend such things, but he feels them without words.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned towards the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gotthold!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was despair in the tone; the young man's hand fell from the
+latch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Can it be, Cecilia? I have frightened you by my vehemence; but it
+shall not happen again. Only say one word--tell me you love me, and I
+will bear all; everything else is a matter of indifference to me; we
+must and shall see some way of escape; but you cannot let me go so, not
+so, I implore you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he searched her face for some token of assent in vain. Her features
+seemed set in a horrible smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; she said, &quot;not so: not before you have promised that you will
+save my husband, whom I love and honor; from whom I cannot, will not
+part.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She uttered the words slowly, in a monotonous tone, like something
+learned by rote, and now paused like a scholar who has forgotten her
+lesson.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What does this farce mean?&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The door of the sleeping-room opened, Gretchen put her curly head in,
+and then came bounding towards her mother. Cecilia clasped the child
+passionately in her arms, and hastily continued, while a feverish
+flush replaced her former death-like pallor: &quot;Save him from the
+bankruptcy into which he will fall, if you do not help him. The matter
+concerns--concerns--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She released Gretchen, and pressed both hands upon her brow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mamma, mamma,&quot; screamed the little one, beginning to cry aloud, as
+Gotthold supported the tottering figure to the nearest chair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter with my wife?&quot; asked Brandow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had not heard him enter. At the first sound of his voice
+Cecilia raised herself from his arms, and stood erect between the two
+men, without support, clasping the child to her heart, pale as death,
+but with an expression of sorrowful resolution; and there was a
+strange, unvarying firmness in the tone of her voice, as, fixing her
+eyes upon her husband, she said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He knows, and will do it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then turning to Gotthold:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will do it for the sake of our old friendship, Gotthold, will you
+not? And farewell, Gotthold; we shall not see each other again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She held out an icy hand to him, took Gretchen in her arms, and left
+the room without looking back, while the child stretched out its little
+hands over her shoulder, calling, &quot;Bring me something pretty to-day,
+uncle Gotthold. Do you hear, uncle Gotthold?&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If women only wouldn't take everything tragically,&quot; said Brandow;
+&quot;it's really a pity. First she proposed it herself, and now--but we
+mustn't expect the dear creatures to be consistent.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And what do you require of me?&quot; asked Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had seated himself at the table, while Brandow strode restlessly up
+and down the room, pretending to busy himself in doing first one thing
+and then another.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Require! How you talk! Require! If I had had anything to require of
+you I shouldn't have been silent so long; but I think my wife has told
+you all, or did she--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She has told me everything except the amount.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Except the amount? Capital! capital!--so exactly like a woman! Except
+the amount! Of course there's no occasion to lay any stress upon such
+secondary considerations.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Brandow essayed a laugh which sounded rather hoarse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Short and good.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Short, for aught I care, and good. Well, I hope you'll take it so. I
+want twenty-five thousand thalers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's the devil of it. Ten thousand, which I owe the trustees of the
+convent for arrears of rent, are to be paid to-morrow to the convent
+treasurer at Sundin; but Sellien, if he comes to-day, would take the
+money back with him; of course, however, that is only a favor on his
+part, and would be a convenience on mine--there's no obligation; so
+to-morrow morning will be time enough for that. The rest--I mean the
+fifteen thousand--is a debt of honor, which must be paid this evening,
+if I don't wish to lose Brownlock and my wheat harvest, which I
+pledged. Between ourselves, they really had designs only upon
+Brownlock. They, that is, the two Plüggens and Redebas, who fairly
+pressed me for the money, and then fixed to-day as the last limit of
+time for payment, because they knew what a strait I am in about my
+arrears of rent, and hoped, under any circumstances, I should be unable
+to pay, and then they would have Brownlock. The sneaks, the swindlers!
+Brownlock, that is worth twice as much as the whole amount--Brownlock,
+a horse on which I already have fifteen thousand in my betting-book,
+and which will bring me in thirty thousand as sure as my name is Carl
+Brandow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He acted as if he had talked himself into a rage, and lashed the air
+and the tops of his boots with his riding-whip, while his crafty eyes
+rested steadily upon Gotthold, who still sat motionless at the table,
+resting his head on his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I am to procure the money for you? How did you arrange that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My plan was something of this kind: my wife told me you wished to
+leave us to-day; of course I am prodigiously sorry; but you have your
+reasons, which I respect, although I don't know them; and you will
+perhaps make use of the carriage I am just going to send to Prora for
+the Selliens. I'll let Hinrich Scheel, on whom I can depend implicitly,
+go with you; and Hinrich could then bring back the fifteen thousand
+with which I must feed my dear guests. You need not pay the money at
+all; that blameless usurer, your worthy Wollnow, might not count it
+out. The ten thousand for Sellien can remain there: he can take it
+himself to-morrow morning, when he will be obliged to pass through
+Prora again. Just write me a line, or even tell Hinrich that the money
+will be ready for him at Wollnow's on receipt of my order. Then he
+could leave the acquittance here, or give it to Wollnow, from whom I
+can get it whenever I have an opportunity, and the affair is settled.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And suppose Wollnow won't give me the money?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Won't give it to you? Why, you have fifty thousand in his business.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not a groschen more than ten.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But Semmel assured me--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Semmel is mistaken.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow had paused, with his riding-whip uplifted. Was the man trying
+to drive a bargain? A paltry ten thousand? Did he expect to get off
+with that?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A scornful smile flitted over his sharp face, which was unusually pale
+to-day, and the riding-whip whizzed through the air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, pshaw, you have credit for fifty thousand. Credit is money, as
+nobody knows better than I, who have lived on it so long. But do as you
+choose! I don't plead for myself--I'm made of hard wood, and shall
+survive the storm. I am sorry for poor Cecilia, though. She reckoned so
+confidently upon your friendship; persuaded me so urgently to confide
+in you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had been compelled to exert all his strength in order to
+control himself during this horrible scene, and not show his antagonist
+how terribly he was suffering. Suddenly a mist crept over his eyes, a
+roaring sound was in his ears, it seemed as if he was lying on the
+ground, and Brandow, who stood over him, was just raising his arm for a
+second blow. Then, with a violent effort, he shook off the faintness
+that threatened to overpower him, and said, rising:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is right. Cecilia shall not have reckoned upon my friendship in
+vain; take care that you don't make a mistake yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow had involuntarily recoiled a few paces, startled by Gotthold's
+ghastly face. He tried to answer with a jest to the effect that he was
+not in the habit of being mistaken where his debts were concerned; but
+Gotthold cut short the sentence with a contemptuous &quot;Enough!&quot; and left
+the room to pack his clothes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fifteen minutes after, the carriage driven by Hinrich Scheel rolled
+away through the misty morning across the moor, on the way to Prora.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Coffee had just been served in Frau Wollnow's pleasant little balcony
+room in the second story. The gentlemen had gone down-stairs to smoke a
+cigar in the office, but the ladies were still sitting at the table,
+from which the pretty young servant-girl was removing the dishes. The
+three children, who could not become accustomed to the altered
+arrangements of the household--coffee was generally served in the
+sitting-room below--romped noisily around, to Frau Wollnow's great
+amusement, while Alma Sellien smoothed a frown of displeasure from her
+white forehead with her soft dainty hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Couldn't you send the children away now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The children!&quot; said Frau Wollnow, casting an astonished glance from
+her round brown eyes at her brown-eyed darlings.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm always a little nervous in the morning; and to-day must be doubly
+cautious, as I have a country excursion in prospect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pardon me, dear Alma; I forgot you were not accustomed to the
+noise. It is not always so bad; but since Stine left me day before
+yesterday--dear me, I can't blame her; the good old thing wants to get
+married, and to a young man who might almost be her son, so she
+certainly has no time to lose. She has gone back to her parents. The
+wedding will take place in a fortnight. It was hard enough for her to
+leave the children--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You were going to send the children away, dear!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The children were sent away. Alma Sellien leaned back in the corner of
+the sofa exhausted, and said, closing her soft blue eyes as it half
+asleep: &quot;I am sure this will be another disappointment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What, dear Alma?&quot; asked Frau Wollnow, whose thoughts were still with
+her children.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My husband is so terribly enthusiastic about him; he's always
+enthusiastic about men I afterwards think horrible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will be mistaken this time,&quot; cried Frau Wollnow, who, engrossed in
+this interesting subject, even failed to hear her youngest child crying
+upon the stairs; &quot;your husband has said too little rather than too
+much. He is not only a handsome man--which, for my part, I consider of
+very little consequence--tall, and of an extremely elegant, graceful
+bearing, which harmonizes most admirably with the gentle, yet resolute
+expression of his features, the mild, yet steady gaze of his large
+deep-blue eyes, and even the soft, but sonorous tone of his voice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are surely turning poetess,&quot; said Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ottilie Wollnow blushed to the roots of the curly bluish-black hair on
+her temples.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't deny that I am very, very--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Much in love with him,&quot; said Alma, completing the sentence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why yes, if you choose to say so; that is, as I love everything good
+and beautiful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;An excellent theory, which I profess myself, only unfortunately in
+practice we must always be withheld by the opposition of our husbands.
+Yours did not seem to be quite so much delighted with your protégé.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My good Emil!&quot; said Frau Wollnow, &quot;we don't agree in a great many
+things, and, dear me, it is certainly no wonder; he has been obliged to
+work so hard all his life, that it has made him a little grave and
+pedantic; but he is a thoroughly good man, and in this case you are
+entirely mistaken; at heart he is even more interested in Gotthold than
+I, or, if that is saying too much, quite as much so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It did not seem so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But it was only seeming. He is afraid of compromising his dignity if
+he talks as he really feels. I have found that all people who have had
+a sorrowful youth are so. Even the heart, so to speak, needs to have
+had its dancing lessons, and when it has had none, when it has always
+been compelled to beat under the pressure of straitened, gloomy
+surroundings, as in my poor Emil's case, people never overcome it all
+their lives. But what I was going to say is, that this time there is a
+special reason for it. My good Emil certainly never told even me--dear,
+kind man, as if I would have taken it amiss--that thirty or thirty-five
+years ago he was once very deeply in love with Gotthold's mother, when
+they lived in the same house in Stettin--it is a long and very romantic
+story.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! oh!&quot; said Alma, &quot;who would ever have given your husband credit for
+that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why,&quot; cried Ottilie, &quot;you are entirely mistaken in Emil; his nature
+has a freshness, a power, a youthful fire--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How happy you are!&quot; said Alma with a faint sigh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hope you are no less so; but I wanted to explain why Emil always
+becomes so quiet when the conversation turns upon Gotthold. That is the
+reason of it, and then he has taken it into his head that this visit to
+the Brandows must turn out unlucky for him--Gotthold. You know Gotthold
+used to be in love with Cecilia; nay, between ourselves, I am sure he
+loves her still. But now, tell me yourself: can you see any great
+misfortune in that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not at all; I only think it rather improbable; you know I have never
+been able to share your enthusiasm about Cecilia, and don't see why all
+the men are to be in love with her. Her husband evidently isn't; at
+least I know a lady to whom he devotes himself whenever he meets her,
+in a way that proves his heart is not very strongly engaged in any
+other quarter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If he has one. Forgive me, dear Alma, you are a prudent woman, and I
+am sure you love your husband; but Brandow is really an extremely
+dangerous man. Possessed of the most attractive manners, when he
+chooses to adopt them; always lively and humorous, even witty, yet
+sensible when the occasion requires him to be so; and moreover bold,
+fearless, an acknowledged master of all chivalrous arts--and such
+things always impose upon us women--in a word, a dangerous man. Good
+Heavens, would it have been possible, under any other circumstances, to
+understand how the aristocratic, poetic Cecilia could have fallen in
+love with him! But what does all this avail without true love, and I do
+not believe Carl Brandow is capable of the feeling. Now let a man such
+as I have described Gotthold to be, enter the home of such a couple,--a
+man, moreover, who has scarcely conquered a boyish love for the
+wife,--indeed, if one reflects upon it, one can hardly blame my
+husband: such passionate natures, and in the loneliness of country
+life,--it really seems as if scales had fallen from my eyes. And
+Gotthold has not written a word all this week! Still waters run deep,
+but may not deep waters perhaps be still? And I have actually been the
+cause of it by my unlucky mania for pictures!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think I can set your mind at rest, so far as that goes,&quot; said Alma.
+&quot;I have found that men always have some reason for doing what they
+wish; if it isn't one thing, it's another. And then this evening, or
+to-morrow morning at latest, if we spend the night at Dollan, I can
+bring you the very latest and most exact news about all these
+interesting complications. I only fear they will prove less interesting
+than you expect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lucky Alma!&quot; said Ottilie sighing; &quot;how much I should like to go with
+you. But my husband would never allow it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Allow' is a word a husband should never be permitted to use to his
+wife,&quot; said Alma, as she slipped her wedding-ring up and down her
+slender finger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The conversation between the two ladies was interrupted by Assessor
+Sellien, who hastily entered the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why,&quot; said his wife, &quot;have you come back already? Is the carriage
+here? I haven't put on my travelling-dress yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The carriage is not here,&quot; said the Assessor as he seated himself
+between the two ladies, and raised his wife's hand, which hung loosely
+over the back of the sofa, to his lips; &quot;I only came to ask whether you
+would not prefer to stay here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stay here!&quot; said Alma, hastily starting from her lounging attitude in
+the sofa corner. &quot;What has got into your head, Hugo?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have one of your headaches, dear child, and a very bad one; I
+noticed it some time ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are entirely mistaken, dear Hugo; I feel unusually well this
+morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And this terrible weather,&quot; said the Assessor, looking thoughtfully
+through the open door that led to the balcony; &quot;there, it is raining
+again; I don't understand how ladies can expose themselves so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He rose and shut the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Brandow will send a close carriage in any case,&quot; said Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So much the worse,&quot; cried the Assessor. &quot;You could not endure an hour
+in a close carriage, poor child. And then those terrible roads--I know
+them! To cross Dollan moor after it has rained all night--it's actually
+dangerous.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will not expose you to the danger all alone,&quot; said Alma smiling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is very different, dear child. Men must follow wherever duty
+calls.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the prospect of a good dinner--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In a word, dear Alma, you would do me a favor if you would stay here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have not the least inclination to do you this favor, dear Hugo, and
+now what else is there, if I may ask?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Assessor had risen and walked up and down the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, then,&quot; he said pausing, &quot;you know how unwilling I am to deny you
+anything; but this time I really cannot allow you to go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Alma looked at her husband in astonishment; Ottilie, who could no
+longer control herself, burst into a merry laugh, exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Allow' is a word a husband should never be permitted to use to his
+wife.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps the word is not exactly suitable,&quot; said the Assessor; &quot;but it
+does not alter the fact. And the fact is, that your husband has just
+given me certain information, which makes Alma's accompanying me this
+time appear not only undesirable, but even impossible. And your
+husband, my dear lady, is entirely of my opinion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But Emil's solicitude carries him entirely too far,&quot; cried Frau
+Wollnow angrily; &quot;poor Cecilia has not deserved this. That is attacking
+a woman's reputation, not only unnecessarily, but without the slightest
+reason. If people are so excessively strict, they will be obliged to
+give up all society.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't understand you, dear madam,&quot; said the Assessor, &quot;at least I do
+not know what connection Frau Brandow's reputation could have with this
+very disagreeable affair.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I don't understand you,&quot; replied Ottilie.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It will be best,&quot; answered Sellien, &quot;in order to avoid further
+misunderstandings, to tell the ladies plainly what the point in
+question really is. True, Herr Wollnow charged me to be cautious; but
+the flattering obstinacy with which my wife rejects my timid attempts
+to induce her to stay here, compels me to withdraw from my diplomatic
+position. Herr Wollnow has just informed me that my confident
+expectation that Brandow would have the ten thousand thalers ready,
+which I was to receive from him to-day, is all an illusion. To be sure,
+Brandow wrote me about a fortnight ago, and made no secret of his
+embarrassments; but he's such a clever fellow, and has always helped
+himself out of his scrapes when the pinch came; at any rate, he made no
+answer to my encouraging letter, and as I said before, I supposed he
+would not let me come for nothing, but on the contrary have everything
+ready. Now, however, I hear from your husband that matters are very
+different, in fact quite desperate. Brandow's credit is entirely
+exhausted. Herr Wollnow says that nobody could be found on the whole
+island who would lend him a thaler, since the two Plüggens and Redebas,
+who have kept his head above water so long, declared yesterday in
+Wollnow's counting-room that their patience was exhausted, and he would
+not get another shilling from them. Instead of that, they were to get
+something from him, that is, they were to receive a very large sum
+within a few days. They mentioned fifteen thousand thalers; but Herr
+Wollnow thinks there was probably a little exaggeration about it. But
+even if this was the whole amount of Brandow's indebtedness--which is
+undoubtedly not the case--he is still a lost man. The convent
+confidently expects that Brandow will pay his two years' rent
+to-morrow. If he does not, it will certainly make use of its right, and
+proceed to expel him from Dollan, and then Brandow will be as
+thoroughly and completely ruined as a man can be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor Cecilia! Poor, poor Cecilia!&quot; cried Frau Wollnow, bursting into
+tears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am sorry for her,&quot; said the Assessor, playing with his long nails.
+&quot;But what can be done?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Emil must help them!&quot; exclaimed Frau Wollnow, removing her
+handkerchief from her face a moment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He will beware of that, as he said just now; it is pouring water into
+the Danaïdes seive.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you, dear Herr Sellien, you are his friend; you cannot see your
+friend go to ruin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Assessor shrugged his shoulders. &quot;Friend! Dear me, whom don't we
+call by that name? And my relations with Brandow are very superficial,
+mere business connections, if you choose to call them so; are they not,
+my dear wife?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly, certainly,&quot; murmured Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I should be giving up this very business relation if I allowed
+Alma to accompany me, when the situation was so critical. In the
+presence of ladies it is very difficult not to touch the chords of
+tender feeling, and it seems to me extremely desirable to avoid the
+possibility of doing so. Are you not of my opinion, dear Alma?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is a very disagreeable affair,&quot; said Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it not? And why should you expose yourself to it unnecessarily? I
+knew my wise little wife would yield the point at last.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the Assessor tenderly kissed Alma's hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But in that case it seems to me you must stay here too, my dear Herr
+Assessor,&quot; said Frau Wollnow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I? Why? On the contrary, it is only prudent for me to appear as
+natural as possible. I know nothing; I suspect nothing. Of course I
+shall be extremely sorry when Brandow takes me aside and tells me he
+can't pay; but I'll wager the dinner will be none the worse for that,
+and taste none the worse to me. His red wine and champagne were always
+superb.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Frau Wollnow rose and went out upon the balcony. She must breathe the
+fresh air, even at the risk of having her new silk morning-dress
+spoiled by the rain, which was now falling quite heavily from the gray
+sky. &quot;Poor, poor Cecilia!&quot; she repeated sighing, &quot;and there is no one
+who can and will save you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She remembered that she had brought her husband a dowry of fifty
+thousand thalers, but she could not touch them without Emil's
+permission, and Emil would not allow it. Should she try to move him by
+throwing herself prostrate at his feet? She could almost have laughed
+outright at the extravagant idea, especially when she imagined the
+astonished expression her husband's face would wear; but the tears
+again sprang to her eyes and mingled with the rain-drops that beat upon
+her burning face. Suddenly the husband and wife within were roused from
+their low-toned, eager conversation by a loud exclamation from the
+balcony. &quot;Gotthold, good heavens, Gotthold!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where, where?&quot; cried the Assessor and his wife with one voice, as they
+hurried out upon the balcony.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There he comes,&quot; said Ottilie, pointing towards the square, across
+which a man with a broad-brimmed hat, pulled low over his eyes, was
+walking directly towards the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He isn't so tall as Brandow,&quot; said Alma, who was critically inspecting
+the new-comer through an opera-glass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What can he want?&quot; asked her husband.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We shall soon know,&quot; said Frau Wollnow, as with a vague feeling of
+anxiety she pressed her two companions back into the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Gotthold had only asked for Herr Wollnow, the maid-servant informed
+them, and she had been ordered to show him into Herr Wollnow's
+counting-room. The interview, whatever its purport might be, lasted
+much longer than was at all agreeable to the impatient waiters, and
+after an hour, during which the Assessor had rather increased than
+lessened the ladies' impatience by a detailed account of his adventures
+with Gotthold in Sicily, Herr Wollnow appeared alone. They were
+astonished, amazed, and scarcely satisfied when Wollnow said that
+Gotthold had only gone to the Fürstenhof to change his clothes, and
+would come back if his business gave him time. They wanted to know what
+business could be so pressing that Gotthold had selected Sunday morning
+for its transaction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The ladies must ask that of himself,&quot; said Herr Wollnow; &quot;he has not
+taken me into his confidence. All I know is, that he is going to drive
+back to Dollan with our friends here, return to-night or to-morrow
+morning in the same excellent company, from which he anticipates a
+great deal of pleasure, and then continue his journey without further
+delay. It seems that the point in question concerns the hasty purchase
+of a few gifts, with which he wants to surprise his host and hostess at
+Dollan at parting; at least he wanted me to give him a sum of money
+which is rather large for mere travelling expenses, but I can say no
+more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Herr Wollnow, apparently with the utmost unconcern, hummed an air
+from &quot;Figaro&quot; as he left the room to avoid further questioning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't think it at all polite for him not to present himself a
+moment, at least,&quot; said Alma; &quot;I've a great mind to punish him for it
+by not appearing at breakfast.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! pray don't,&quot; said the Assessor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ottilie Wollnow made no answer. She knew her husband too well to have
+the gloomy expression of his eyes and the cloud on his brow escape her
+notice, in spite of his apparent unconcern. Besides, she had a
+foreboding that Gotthold's interview with her husband had not been
+quite so innocent as it seemed, that there was something disagreeable,
+perhaps some misfortune impending, and above all, she was convinced
+that the Selliens were getting into a passion in vain, and Gotthold
+would not appear at breakfast.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The little company at Dollan had already been wandering for half an
+hour up and down the rain-soaked paths in the garden, between the
+dripping hedges, waiting for the arrival of Assessor Sellien and
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You're a pretty fellow,&quot; cried Hans Redebas, who was walking with Otto
+von Plüggen, as Brandow with Gustav von Plüggen and Pastor Semmel met
+him on the same spot for the third time: &quot;first you invite us to meet
+some one who vanishes in the dew and mist; then it occurs to your
+lovely wife, on whose account we all come here, to have a headache and
+not appear; and finally, we're kept waiting for the Assessor, and
+wandering around your old wet garden like horses in a tread-mill! I'll
+give you ten minutes, and if we don't sit down to the table by that
+time I'll have my horses harnessed, and we'll dine in Dahlitz, and not
+badly either. What do you say to that, Pastor?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Herr Redebas laughed and clapped the Pastor, who had come with him
+in his carriage, rudely on the shoulder. Brandow laughed too, and said
+they must have patience; it was not his fault that the Assessor had not
+arrived, and things had gone contrary that day; the dinner had been
+ready a long time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then in the name of three devils, let's go to the table, or I shall
+faint away,&quot; cried Herr Redebas.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was by no means probable that this man, with the frame and strength
+of a giant, would be overcome by such a sudden attack of weakness; but
+Brandow had every reason not to increase the ill-humor of his guests.
+Already, to shorten the time before dinner, they had played a game of
+cards, in which the Pastor took no share except by his intense
+interest, and lost a few hundred thalers. To be sure, the amount was
+very little in comparison to the sum he owed his visitors; but they had
+been irritated by the loss, and took the less care to conceal their
+annoyance as Brandow still uttered no word in allusion to the business
+for whose settlement they had really assembled. Undoubtedly he was
+unable to pay. To be sure, they had expected it, nay, in point of fact,
+the whole transaction which Hans Redebas and the two Plüggens had
+jointly undertaken was based upon this supposition; but now each was
+not sorry to consider himself in the light of a man of honor, whose
+confidence had been most shamefully betrayed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Redebas, especially, was in a very irritable mood. The conditions
+to which, at the conclusion of the mutual bargain, he had agreed,
+pleased him less and less every moment. Why had he not required the
+whole sum to be paid, or else claimed for his share the second stake
+Brandow had offered in addition to Brownlock, his wheat-harvest? The
+wheat, as he had just convinced himself, was an exceptionably,
+unexpectedly fine crop; it would have brought in a very large profit;
+while the horse, after all, was a doubtful bargain. Since the committee
+had included a large tract of marsh land in the course laid out for the
+race between the gentlemen riders, the chances in favor of Brownlock,
+which was universally considered too heavy a horse, were very
+considerably lessened. And, moreover, what had such a sedate, man as
+Hans Redebas to do with such things, which, after all, were only fit
+for the nobility? It would be better for the two Plüggens to see what
+they could make of the horse! It was their trade; they understood it,
+and so in God's name let them take the beast for their ten thousand,
+and leave him the wheat crop! But this time, in spite of the proverbial
+want of harmony that prevailed between them, the two brothers made
+common cause. The bargain had been settled, and every one must rest
+satisfied with it; if Hans Redebas fancied he was the only one who
+could see into a thing, he'd find himself greatly mistaken. Therefore,
+as Herr Redebas could not vent his anger upon his two companions, he
+thought himself entitled to treat Brandow with all the more rudeness
+and want of consideration. Even before dinner he had shown this
+disposition to an extravagant degree, and the wine, of which he drank
+immense quantities at the table, in spite of its many other excellent
+qualities, did not possess that of improving the giant's temper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At any other time it would have been an easy matter for Brandow to
+parry his antagonist's coarse jests and turn the laugh against him;
+nay, he was usually considered among his associates to be a man whom
+one could not offend, with impunity; but to-day his dreaded powers of
+sarcasm, as well as his often tested courage, seemed to have deserted
+him. He did not hear what could not have been inaudible, did not
+understand what no one could fail to comprehend, laughed when he would
+usually have started up in fury, and with pale trembling lips tried as
+well as he could to give the conversation a jesting turn, for which
+purpose he grasped at more and more questionable expedients, and at
+last related anecdotes, which even to the long-suffering Pastor, seemed
+altogether too scandalous.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In spite of the noise and laughter, in spite of the row of empty
+bottles which grew longer and longer under the side-board, it was a
+dreary, uncomfortable meal, and to no one more so than to the master of
+the house. Brandow knew from long experience that he could require his
+nerves to bear a great deal, but it now seemed as if he should not be
+able to accomplish what he had undertaken to-day. While laughing
+heartily over a story he had just related, his fingers fairly trembled
+with the longing he felt to snatch the champagne bottle from the cooler
+and shatter it upon Redebas' huge black head. He was aware that his
+strength was almost exhausted; he should break down if Hinrich Scheel
+did not return soon and release him from this horrible torture of
+uncertainty. And then it seemed as if this torment was nothing to the
+other, the torment of the certainty that his wife loved that man, and
+despised him too much even to hate him, and that he fully deserved her
+scorn. Again and again--with the speed of lightning--in the few seconds
+it required to raise a glass of wine to his lips and swallow the
+contents--he lived over the scene of the night before in her
+sleeping-room, when he stood before her with clenched fists, and not a
+muscle in her pale face quivered until he struck her to the heart with
+the fatal blow which he had cruelly withheld so long. To her heart! Her
+heart! It had been a master-stroke! A thrust which crushed the proud
+haughty woman like a stag overtaken by a bullet, rendered her his weak,
+obedient tool, and made him master of the situation. An enviable
+situation, to sit here and endure Redebas' coarse taunts, laugh at his
+own silly wit, look at the stupid faces of the two Plüggens, be cordial
+to the canting Parson, be forced to see that no one's glass was empty,
+and amid all the noisy tumult listen continually for the rolling of the
+carriage which would bring Hinrich, and with Hinrich the money for
+which he had done what he had done, suffered what he had suffered, and
+without which he was a ruined man. At last, at last! There was the
+clatter of horses' hoofs, and the rattle of a carriage, which stopped
+before the house. No one had heard it except himself! So much the
+better, he could speak to Hinrich undisturbed!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He left his guests under the pretext that he wanted to get another
+brand of champagne, and hurried across the hall to the open door,
+before which the carriage was still standing, and he perceived the
+Assessor engaged in conversation with Hinrich Scheel, when he suddenly
+heard his own name called from his room, the door of which also stood
+open, and turning at the sound, saw the man he hated standing before
+him. A thrill of mingled rage and alarm shot through his frame like a
+two-edged sword. What brought this man back? How could he dare to
+return? To say that he had no money, would not pay.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We have a few moments to ourselves,&quot; said Gotthold, bolting the door
+behind Brandow; &quot;the Assessor is still outside; he knows nothing; no
+one knows anything except, of course, Wollnow, without whom I could not
+procure the money you wanted. Even now I have been unable to get it as
+you wished, and therefore was obliged to come here again. You wanted
+fifteen thousand thalers in cash. Wollnow, who is obliged to make very
+large payments for the purchase of grain this morning, could give me
+only ten thousand; the remainder I bring you in these drafts of five
+thousand thalers each, accepted by Wollnow, and payable at sight
+to-morrow, in Sundin, by Philip Nathanson, the wealthiest banker there.
+These drafts, in consequence of Wollnow's credit with your friends in
+the neighborhood, are as good as ready money. I think you will be able
+to settle your affairs with them yourself; but in any case I am here to
+come to your assistance with my personal credit, though I confidently
+believe that it will not be needed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold laid a large sealed packet on the table, and drew from his
+pocket-book the three drafts, which he handed Brandow, and the latter
+glanced over with a practised eye to convince himself that these papers
+were really as good as ready money.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A sensation of wonderful relief overpowered the half-intoxicated man.
+Freedom from the agony of expectation, the certainty of deliverance
+from his desperate situation, and, moreover, the prospect of soon
+coming out as winner of the Sundin races, and gainer of an immense sum
+of money by the aid of his now restored Brownlock--all this overwhelmed
+him like a delirium of joy, and he felt a sort of longing to clasp in
+his arms the man who had aided in procuring all this, as his preserver
+and only true friend; and at the same moment he said to himself that it
+was impossible that this man, dreamer and enthusiast though he was,
+would entrust to him a sum, which in itself was a little fortune,
+unless the worst that his jealous fancy had imagined had already
+happened--and the expression of the staring eyes he now fixed upon
+Gotthold seemed to say: &quot;I could crush you like a serpent which has
+crossed my path!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not think you will ever be in a situation to return this money,&quot;
+said Gotthold; &quot;perhaps it will not be disagreeable to you to hear that
+from this time I renounce all expectation of repayment, and therefore a
+receipt, which would really remain only a bit of paper.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He left the room; Brandow burst into a hoarse laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That, too,&quot; he muttered, &quot;as if another proof were needed! But you
+shall pay for it, both of you, so dearly, that this in comparison will
+be only a drop of water on a hot stone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Assessor looked in through the door, which Gotthold had left half
+open. He had heard from the latter that Brandow was here, and hastened
+to take advantage of the favorable opportunity to greet his friend
+alone, and express his regret that Gotthold's business had detained
+them so long in Prora, that he was unable to bring his wife, who was
+suffering from a severe headache, to Dollan. Brandow declared it to be
+a proof of the sympathy between two beautiful natures that his wife was
+also attacked by the same sickness to-day; and the sarcastic, even
+sneering tone in which he said it, caused the Assessor to secretly
+congratulate himself upon his caution in coming to this falling house
+alone. His astonishment was all the greater when Brandow continued with
+the most perfect composure:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And as we are now alone, my dear Sellien, we will take advantage of
+the opportunity to settle our little business matter. Here are the ten
+thousand thalers due. I have them from Wollnow. The package is just as
+I received it, stamped with his seal. If you wish to take the, I
+presume superfluous, but perhaps necessary trouble, of counting them,
+don't have the least hesitation about it. When you have finished,
+follow me. I'll make out a receipt, which you will please sign and put
+in this drawer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Assessor was so astonished that he really hardly knew what to
+answer; at any rate he was determined to subject the contents of the
+package to a rigid scrutiny, in spite of Wollnow's seals. Brandow
+hastily dashed off a receipt, and then left the room with a sarcastic:
+&quot;Don't make any mistakes, my dear Assessor!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had discharged this business hastily in order to be able to speak to
+his confidant. Hinrich Scheel was still waiting before the door with
+the carriage; but he had very little to tell, and didn't know why the
+departure from Prora had been so long delayed. He thought there had
+been some trouble about the money, and they were obliged to wait for
+Loitz, who had gone out to drive. The Assessor's wife was not sick; on
+the contrary, she was standing on the balcony beside Frau Wollnow,
+kissing her hand to the gentlemen as they drove away. Neither did he
+know what the gentlemen were talking about on the road; they had
+jabbered in some foreign language most of the time. So he drove into
+every hole on the way--and there were plenty to-day after the rain--and
+made the ride so uncomfortable for the Herr Assessor that he finally
+swore aloud in good German, and declared he would not go over that road
+again to-day if he was paid a ton of gold. Then the other answered: &quot;In
+that case he must go back alone, for he wouldn't stay all night at
+Dollan under any circumstances.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's a bad road at night,&quot; said Brandow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Especially when it's as dark as it will be this evening,&quot; answered
+Hinrich Scheel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The eyes of the master and servant met and were instantly averted
+again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There are many things which might make an accident befall a person who
+was positively determined to go over it at night,&quot; said Brandow slowly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Unless the driver was very careful,&quot; added Hinrich Scheel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Again their eyes met. No doubt Hinrich had understood him--this time as
+usual, no doubt this time as usual, Hinrich knew what he wanted.
+Brandow drew a long breath. He would fain have seen whether Hinrich
+would not have said another, a final word; but the latter had turned
+towards his horses. A loud tumult of voices, shouting at each other in
+tones of the most violent rage, echoed from the dining-room, and at the
+same moment Rieke came running out. The pretty maid-servant's round
+cheeks were deeply flushed, her gray eyes sparkled, and her luxuriant
+fair hair was not so smooth as it had been at the commencement of the
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter?&quot; asked Brandow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They've been quarreling for the last fifteen minutes. I think they
+will soon come to blows,&quot; said Rieke, showing her white teeth in a
+merry laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We will speak of it again,&quot; Brandow called to Hinrich, who was just
+driving the carriage away, and then drew Rieke into the dark hall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He has come back again,&quot; said he; &quot;see where he goes, and as soon as
+you notice anything, tell me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't want to be everlastingly running after those two,&quot; said Rieke
+sulkily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, of course you like it much better to have the gentlemen yonder
+pinch your cheeks and hug you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not?&quot; said the girl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know what I promised last night,&quot; whispered Brandow, now throwing
+his own arm around her slender waist, and putting his lips to her ear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Promising is one thing, and keeping your word is another,&quot; said Rieke,
+but without making any very strenuous effort to release herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The noise in the dining-room grew louder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There, you will be a good child,&quot; said Brandow; &quot;and now off with you;
+I must see what those fellows are doing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hans Redebas had thought he would take advantage of their host's
+momentary absence to again urge upon the two brothers his proposal that
+they should give up Brandow's wheat-crop to him for his share, and in
+exchange take entire possession of Brownlock; and as a witness of the
+honesty of his intentions, quoted the Pastor, with whom he had
+repeatedly talked the matter over on the way to Dollan. The Pastor, who
+wished to make himself agreeable to his patron in every way, had
+endeavored to depict the advantages the arrangement would have for all
+concerned, but in his drunkenness laid on the colors so vividly that
+the two brothers were startled, and recalled a partial concession which
+they had already made. Upon this Hans Redebas called the Pastor a
+stupid dunce, who was always meddling with everything, though he knew
+nothing at all, except a little theological trash, and therefore ought
+to keep his mouth shut everywhere except in his pulpit. Then the
+reverend gentleman had started up exclaiming that &quot;dunce&quot; was a word
+which, as an old graduate of Halle, he would not endure from any one,
+even his patron, upon which Herr Redebas burst into a roar of laughter,
+which roused the drunken man to actual fury.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meantime the two Plüggens had also commenced a violent dispute. Gustav
+had whispered to his brother that he should like to accept the offer,
+if Redebas would add two thousand thalers to it; Otto, as the elder,
+warned the younger brother against entering into any bargain with
+Redebas, who had more sense in his little finger than he in his whole
+body. Gustav considered himself insulted by this doubt of his
+shrewdness, and muttered something about the &quot;straw&quot; which might be
+found in the other's head, an allusion to the well-known nickname of
+the elder brother, which of course produced a response in which &quot;hay&quot;
+was given a prominent place. So all four shouted at each other, to the
+great amazement of the groom, Fritz, who listened with open mouth till
+he suddenly felt some one touch him on the shoulder, and looking up saw
+his master's face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Be off, and don't come in here again till I call you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lad left the room; Brandow again surveyed the brawlers at the table
+with hasty glances. &quot;This is just the right moment,&quot; he muttered
+through his clenched teeth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He approached the table, but instead of sitting down, remained standing
+with his arms resting on the back of his chair, and said, rejoicing in
+the sight of the confused faces of the four men, who had suddenly
+become silent: &quot;Pardon me for interrupting your interesting
+conversation, gentlemen, especially with a mere business matter, but it
+must be settled. Hinrich Scheel has just returned from Prora--with the
+Assessor and another gentleman whose name shall be kept secret for the
+present. I had requested Wollnow to send me fifteen thousand thalers in
+cash from my balance in his hands. He begged me to allow him to send
+drafts to the same amount instead. Drafts, gentlemen, given by the
+house of Louis Loitz &amp; Co., in Prora, accepted by Wollnow himself, and
+payable by Philip Nathanson in Sundin. Perhaps the gentlemen will be
+kind enough to hand me in exchange for these drafts--of five thousand
+thalers each--the three notes you lately received from me, in case you
+happen to have them with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Bowing ironically, Brandow held out the three drafts which he had
+arranged in his hand in the shape of a fan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The confederates looked at each other suspiciously. The matter was not
+perfectly regular; the notes were payable in cash; they were not
+obliged to take drafts; but they had just been quarrelling too much
+among themselves to be capable of forming a united resolution at once,
+and at heart each was glad that the other was cheated out of the prey
+he had deemed secure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, gentlemen,&quot; exclaimed Brandow, &quot;I hope none of you will take
+exception to the manner of my payment. It would be an insult to the
+worthy Wollnow, to whose complaisance we have all at times been
+indebted. Or would you like to have the Assessor, who may come in at
+any moment, be a witness of the way in which the Herren von Plüggen and
+Herr Hans Redebas are in the habit of treating an old friend who has
+become involved in a little embarrassment?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In fact the Assessor's voice was now heard in the hall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hand it over,&quot; said Hans Redebas.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll raise no objections,&quot; said Otto von Plüggen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'm no spoil-sport,&quot; said Gustav.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The drafts were put into the pocket-books of the three gentlemen, in
+exchange for the notes, which Brandow, with a sarcastic smile, crushed
+like pieces of waste paper, and thrust into his pocket just as the
+Assessor entered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His appearance afforded Brandow a welcome pretext for breaking up the
+dinner-party, which had already in his opinion lasted too long. It had
+stopped raining; would they not prefer to drink their coffee in the
+cool garden, instead of that close room? He expected to find Gotthold
+in the garden, and was not mistaken. They met him walking up and down
+in one of the most out-of-the-way paths. He said nothing when Brandow
+spoke of his return as a surprise he had prepared for his guests, and
+apologized for his non-appearance on plea of a violent headache, which
+often attacked him suddenly, and he had hoped to shake off before
+presenting himself to the company. The two Plüggens were delighted to
+see their old school-fellow, whom they had always cordially hated, and
+Herr Redebas esteemed it an honor to make the acquaintance of such a
+famous man, although it was very evident that he had not the least idea
+in what particular branch of human activity Gotthold had won his
+renown. The Pastor, upon whom he was accustomed to depend at such
+times, unfortunately could give him no information, because he had just
+thrust his arm into the Assessor's, whom he met that day for the first
+time, and was assuring him of his eternal friendship. The Assessor
+laughed and was good-natured enough to laugh again, when Hans Redebas,
+to display his much-admired strength, raised the pair in his arms and
+carried them around the open space, thereby inciting Otto von Plüggen
+to take out his silk pocket-handkerchief, and holding it by the two
+corners, jump over it forward and backward, while Gustav, in laudable
+emulation of his ingenious brother, balanced a garden chair on his
+lower teeth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now I should like to show you my trick,&quot; cried Brandow, &quot;and therefore
+will beg you to follow me a few steps.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He went forward and opened a little door in the hedge, which led
+directly into the open space where he trained his racers. It was a
+tolerably large piece of ground, selected with great discrimination,
+and prepared with much skill for the purpose for which it was intended.
+There were wide and narrow ditches, low and high fences, broad
+stretches of smooth, closely-shaven turf to permit the horse to display
+his full speed, and heavy fallow ground for a hunting gallop. Brandow
+had inclosed three sides of this space, the fourth of which was
+occupied by the stables, with a board fence the height of a man, and
+kept it jealously secluded from every one. Now he rejoiced in the
+glances of envious admiration the three landed proprietors cast around
+them. But he had a still greater annoyance in store. As the little
+party moved towards the stables, Hinrich Scheel came forward to meet
+them, leading Brownlock. The beautiful animal champed his bit
+impatiently, rubbed his delicate head against the shoulder of his
+groom, and then once more gazed at the by-standers with his large black
+eyes, as if to ask each who would have courage to cope with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, gentlemen,&quot; cried Brandow, &quot;you had a great desire to ride
+Brownlock; there he is. I'll bet ten louis-d'or to one, that none of
+you can even mount him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shouldn't like to break the beast's back,&quot; muttered Hans Redebas.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Otto Plüggen had sprained his foot in leaping, but Gustav thought he
+could easily win the ten louis-d'or.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gustav von Plüggen was universally acknowledged to be a good rider, and
+had gained the prize more than once in the Sundin races. He did not
+doubt for an instant that he should win the bet, but nevertheless
+thought it advisable to go to work with all possible caution. So he
+walked around the horse to render it familiar with the sight of him,
+patted the slender neck, scratched its smooth forehead, and then, still
+talking to the animal, gently took the reins and told Hinrich Sheel to
+stand aside. But the moment he touched the stirrup with his foot,
+Brownlock sprang aside so violently, that Gustav was glad even to
+retain his hold upon the bridle. Again and again he made the attempt,
+always with the same want of success.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I could have told you so before,&quot; cried Herr Redebas.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You're making a fool of yourself again unnecessarily,&quot; snarled his
+brother.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had noticed that Hinrich Scheel always stood directly before
+the horse with his squinting eyes fixed steadily upon it, and whenever
+Gustav tried to mount, made an almost imperceptible motion with his
+head, upon which the animal, whose black eyes were fixed intently upon
+its trainer, either sprang aside or reared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think you would do better if you told Hinrich Scheel to go away from
+the horse, Herr von Plüggen,&quot; said he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! Gustav will give it up,&quot; cried Brandow hastily; &quot;I only made the
+bet in jest; the fact is, that Hinrich Scheel has trained Brownlock not
+to allow any one to mount except himself or me; and I could not get
+into the saddle against Hinrich's will. This was the very trick I
+wanted to show you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Every one, with the exception of Gotthold, took the whole thing as a
+joke, until Brandow proved the contrary before their own eyes.
+Brownlock would not allow him to mount, until Hinrich Scheel gave the
+sign. Now came the second part of the exhibition Brandow had in store
+for his guests. He rode Brownlock over the whole course, taking the
+most difficult obstacles with an ease which displayed in the clearest
+light his perfect horsemanship, as well as the almost wonderful
+strength and endurance of the noble animal, and filled the hearts of
+his three rivals with the bitterest envy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's a shame for a fellow like that to have such a horse,&quot; said Gustav
+Plüggen, who had joined Gotthold, while the rest of the party went to
+visit the stables; &quot;a downright shame. That is: he certainly rides
+splendidly--for a plebeian, I mean; but a plebeian never ought to be
+allowed to keep race-horses. I talked about it enough in the committee,
+when we were arranging the races at Sundin eight years ago; but I
+couldn't get my way. Now we have the consequences. For the last four
+years Brandow has taken all the best prizes; it's enough to drive one
+mad. The fellow would have been ruined long ago if it hadn't been for
+the races, the races--and his wife.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;His wife?&quot; asked Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, of course. We wouldn't have lent him another penny long ago; but
+for the sake of his wife, who is really a lovely woman; we can't let
+him go to ruin entirely. Of course he knows that better than any one
+else, and so she is always obliged to be of the party when any new
+credit is to be obtained. A week ago to-day, when we were in
+Plüggenhof, Otto paid his attentions to her at the table in the
+wildest way--in the presence of his own wife, née Baroness von
+Grieben-Keffen--and half an hour after dinner Brandow had his five
+thousand thalers in his pocket. It was a piece of madness on Otto's
+part; we had agreed that we would not give more than five thousand
+together. It would have proved a capital thing for us, but that
+damned Jew has spoiled it again. The devil knows why he helped him.
+And the Assessor told me he had been paid too. Twenty-five thousand
+thalers at one slap! I don't understand it at all--and that's saying
+something, for I generally know all his tricks and turns. The Pastor
+thinks you, and nobody else, have given him the money; and in return
+Brandow will overlook it if you and his wife--there, you needn't fly
+into a rage. Parson's gossip, that's all. You would take care of
+yourself--twenty-five thousand--ridiculous! But he has it--that's a
+fact, as they say in England--ever been in England? I was there--eight
+years ago when we were arranging about the Sundin races--famous
+country! horses, women, sheep--famous!-what was I going to say? He has
+the twenty-five thousand, and Dollan's safe for five years, the
+Assessor says; and now Brownlock too! Damn! that is a horse! On my
+honor, I haven't seen his equal even in England. What action! What a
+hock! And how he went over everything! Magnificent! But too heavy! too
+heavy, 'pon honor--he won't cross the piece of marsh-land we have now
+taken into the race-course. They say Prince Prora declared it wasn't
+fair! It's all very well for him to talk, he has no interest in the
+racing! Won't you come in with us? I hear there is to be a little
+card-party made up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have never gambled, and--my headache is coming on again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Strange, I've no more idea what a headache is than if I had no
+head--you artists probably get it from the oil paints; they smell
+abominably.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The young nobleman followed the others, who had already entered the
+house and gone into Brandow's room on the right of the hall, where the
+gaming-table, as Gotthold had noticed through the window, was already
+prepared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, Herr Weber, are you going to stay out here?&quot; asked Rieke, who had
+been standing in the hall, and now approached him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her gray eyes rested upon him with a very friendly expression, and the
+thought passed through his mind that it probably depended only upon
+himself to win the goodwill of this avaricious creature, and even now
+he might make up for his neglect, nay must do so if he wished to
+accomplish the object for which he had returned to Dollan. He had given
+her a very handsome present when he took his departure that morning;
+perhaps he only needed to go on as he had begun.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We didn't expect to see you again so soon,&quot; added the girl; &quot;and you
+went away so suddenly: you left a great many things behind; a beautiful
+red silk handkerchief--shall I get it for you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was now standing close beside him, and as if by accident, touched
+his arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think it would be very becoming to you,&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you? I should think you would know a great deal about what was
+becoming to me. You never had eyes for anybody except--some one else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is your mistress to-day? Why doesn't she appear?&quot; asked
+Gotthold, and then as he fancied he saw a cloud pass over the girl's
+face, added: &quot;I would give a great deal to know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How much?&quot; said the girl, with a roguish laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Rieke, where are you?&quot; cried Brandow's voice from the dining-room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We want some more glasses. Where is the girl?&quot; and he banged the door
+angrily behind him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He didn't see us,&quot; whispered Rieke. &quot;I must go in now, but I'll come
+back again directly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She glided away; Gotthold stood still a few moments, undecided whether
+to make an attempt to see Cecilia on his own account or not. There was
+no question that the girl could be of use to him if she chose; but
+would she choose? She seemed really frightened when Brandow called; but
+he had not relied much upon the fickle favor of the frivolous lass, and
+perhaps the whole thing was a preconcerted plot between Brandow and the
+girl in order to make sure of him, entangle him the more firmly in the
+net. No, it was better, trusting only to his own skill, to take
+advantage of the opportunity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the opportunity was more favorable, than any which might offer
+again. A second stolen glance through the window into the already
+lighted room showed him that the party were busily engaged in their
+game--faro apparently--and Brandow had the bank--so he could not leave
+now. Rieke was standing at the back of the tolerably large room with a
+waiter full of glasses, which the Pastor was filling from a large
+bowl--so she too was employed for the present. The hall was perfectly
+still; the table in the dining-room still stood just as the guests had
+left it--the solitary candle at which they had lighted their cigars
+flickered in the strong draught, as if ready to go out. This room was
+also unoccupied; so he succeeded in reaching the dusky garden unseen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Although the sun had scarcely set, it was almost dark. The clouds,
+which had dispersed a little during the afternoon, were once more piled
+in huge dark masses, which a high wind blowing in irregular gusts,
+drove to and fro as if in wild sport. The tops of the old trees swayed
+hither and thither; and the tall hedges rustled and hissed like a
+thousand sharp tongues.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So it seemed to Gotthold. Again and again he paused, gasping for
+breath; he was so entirely unaccustomed to do anything by stealth. And
+yet it must be; he could not part from her forever in this way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The end of the house, in the lower part of which was her chamber, and
+above it the room he had occupied, looked out upon a smaller garden,
+which was separated from the courtyard by a wall, shut in on the
+opposite side by a barn, and divided from the larger garden at the back
+of the house by a very thick, high hedge. It had originally been a
+fruit and vegetable garden, and a few huge old apple and pear trees
+still stood in different parts of it; but had afterwards been converted
+into a play-ground for the children of the house, for whose sake the
+asparagus and cucumber beds had been transformed into a grass plot, and
+a narrow door cut through the thick wall of the nursery.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had repeatedly seen Cecilia, who always retired early in the
+evening, in this garden with the child, or--at a later hour--alone. His
+hope was to find her here, or at any rate to make known his presence,
+of which she had probably not been informed, and--he did not know what
+would, must happen then; he only said to himself that things could not,
+should not remain as they were.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The place, so far as it could be seen from the door, was empty, but a
+light appeared at first one and then another window. Cautiously as he
+closed the door, he could not prevent its creaking loudly on its rusty
+hinges; at the same moment a watch-dog with which Gretchen often played
+sprang towards the intruder with a loud bark, but was silent again as
+soon as it recognized Gotthold. He accepted the animal's caresses as a
+good omen, and walked cautiously on towards the light, which now
+streamed steadily from one window, that of the child's sleeping-room,
+which adjoined Cecilia's. Gotthold, with a beating heart, approached it
+and saw her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had apparently just put the little girl's playthings away, and then
+sank into a chair beside the table, supporting her forehead upon her
+left hand, the image of grief. The rays of the light standing behind
+her clearly revealed the exquisite shape of the head, the delicate
+outlines of the slender neck, the soft curves of the shoulders and
+bust, while the deep shadow seemed to increase the expression of sorrow
+upon the pure features. Gotthold's heart overflowed with love and pity.
+&quot;Cecilia, dearest Cecilia!&quot; he murmured.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She could not have heard the words; but at that moment she raised her
+head, and, glancing towards the window, perceived the dark figure
+before it. Starting from her chair with a low exclamation of joy, she
+extended her arms, then waved him back with both hands, crying in tones
+of agony:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no, for God's sake!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had neither seen Cecilia's repellent gesture, nor heard her
+words. He had hastily entered by the door, which was only latched, and
+was now kneeling at her feet, clasping her hands, and covering them
+with passionate kisses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All that had moved his heart and filled it to bursting during these
+last few days, so overflowing with the joy and anguish of love, all the
+nameless agony he had suffered from the night before until now, gushed
+from his lips in a torrent of wild, passionate words; and, however she
+might struggle against it, she felt herself carried away and borne
+along by the tide, until, springing up and clasping her in his arms, he
+cried: &quot;So come, Cecilia! you must not remain another moment in this
+house, must not stay under the same roof with this scoundrel, who
+allows himself to be paid with paltry money for the shame of knowing
+that his wife is beloved by another, and loves him in return. I went
+away without you this morning--it all came upon me so suddenly, was so
+incomprehensible; I thought I must obey your command, although I did
+not understand you, although you acted from compassion for the man whom
+you had once loved, nay, out of a remnant of affection for him. Now I
+understand you better, now I know, once for all, that you love me, now
+I have found--we have found each other again; now no one, nothing shall
+part us! Cecilia! you do not answer me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had gazed at him with eyes that expressed the most painful
+astonishment. Now she seized the light and led the way into her
+chamber, at the back of which stood her bed, and close before it the
+tiny couch of her child.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The little one lay with her eyes not quite closed, her lips half
+parted, and her round cheeks flushed with the childish slumber which
+follows waking hours, as the hues of twilight follow the setting sun.
+Cecilia did not point to the child; but her glance and the expression
+of her features said as plainly as words, &quot;This is my answer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold's eyes fell; in the selfishness of passion he had scarcely
+thought of the child at all, and certainly never as an obstacle. He did
+not understand it even now. &quot;Your child will be mine,&quot; he faltered.
+&quot;You shall never be parted from the child; I will never separate you
+from her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had placed the light on the floor, that it might not shine in
+Gretchen's eyes, and then knelt beside the little bed, pressing her
+forehead against the edge, and waving her hand for him to go. Gotthold
+stood beside the kneeling form with the despair of a man who feels that
+his cause is lost, and yet cannot and will not give it up. Suddenly the
+dog, which had followed them, began to growl, and then broke into a low
+bark as he put his nose to the threshold of the door which opened into
+the sitting-room; Gotthold thought he heard a rustling there, and
+walked towards it; Cecilia threw herself before him. Her countenance
+and gestures expressed the most deadly terror; she motioned towards the
+nursery, through which they had come, and as Gotthold did not instantly
+obey, hurried into the room herself. Gotthold mechanically followed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go, go, for God's sake!&quot; exclaimed Cecilia.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were the first words that had escaped her lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will not fly again!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You must! or all has been in vain! The torture, the conflict, the
+shame--all, all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Cecilia,&quot; cried Gotthold, fairly beside himself, &quot;I should be unworthy
+the name of a man, if I left you so again. I want light; I want to know
+what I am doing, why I am doing it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I dare say no more; you must understand me; I thought you would have
+done so from the first, or I should not have had the courage; I should
+be the most miserable creature on earth if you did not understand me
+even now. But you will, or I could not love you. And now, by your love
+for me, Gotthold, you must not remain here an instant longer. Farewell,
+and farewell forever!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed as if a struggle had taken place between the two in the
+dimly-lighted room; he had held her and she had clung to him as if
+forever; then she desperately released herself from his hold, and
+pushed him from her, as if his presence must bring death and
+destruction. Then he once more held the dear form in his arms, clasped
+it to his heart, felt her hot, quivering lips pressed to his, and then
+stood outside in the garden, with the rain beating into his face, the
+swaying tree-tops above him rustling and whispering, and the tall
+hedges beside him hissing and muttering, as if with thousands and
+thousands of tongues: &quot;Fool, silly fool, simpleton, to let yourself be
+cheated, once, twice, as often as she--or he chooses--how do I know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He burst into a loud laugh, and as he did so there was a burning
+sensation in his breast which grew hotter and hotter; he would have
+given much if he could have wept. But that he could not, would not do.
+After all, nothing was yet decided; nothing was yet lost, although his
+soul was as dark as the black night that covered the earth around him.
+No star pierced the rack of dense driving clouds; scarcely the faintest
+ray of light was visible in the west. And yet--this dull gleam came
+from the sun, which had set and would rise again to-morrow; it was a
+pledge that the gloomy night would not last forever. And on his lips
+still lingered a memory of her breath, the fervor of her kisses. No!
+no! There could be no eternal separation! This torture could not last
+forever!</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Pretty Rieke had been detained in the dining-room longer than she
+liked, the Pastor had performed his office of cup-bearer with an
+unsteady hand, and moreover thought it necessary to accompany the
+performance with long-winded, incoherent speeches; but the gentlemen at
+the gaming-table had drunk the faster, and impatiently demanded more,
+until at last Rieke, tired of the continual running to and fro which
+seemed to have no end, resolutely carried the side-board with the bowl
+upon it to the gaming-table, and thus rendered it possible for the
+willing Pastor to present the glasses he filled himself. Then, after
+leaning over Hans Redebas' chair and watching the game a few minutes,
+she glided hastily out of the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wanted to continue her conversation with Gotthold. The handsome,
+quiet man had always pleased her, and she had played the rôle of spy,
+which Brandow had assigned her, less from love for her master than
+jealousy of her mistress, to whom she grudged the attentions of the
+stately stranger. The generous present he had bestowed upon her that
+morning had in some degree touched, and even puzzled her, and the
+cordiality he had just shown had completely disarmed her. Of course he
+had only come back for her mistress' sake, but to her fickle heart it
+was no enigma how one object can be kept in view without losing sight
+of another. She would even help him, if he was very, very friendly to
+her; and after all, it was certainly better for her if the stranger
+finally ran away with her mistress.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she did not find him at the door, where she had left him. Besides,
+the door was not a suitable place to continue the interesting
+conversation, and the hall was equally undesirable. Perhaps he was in
+the dining-room. He was not there; the trees in the garden, into which
+she cast a glance, were tossing quite too rudely. Where could he have
+gone? Where, except to his own room, to look after the things he had
+left there! She must help him; he could not find anything in the dark.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The pretty servant-girl drew a long breath, and then in the twinkling
+of an eye glided noiselessly up the stairs and across the hall to the
+gable room Gotthold had occupied during his stay. Here she paused,
+pressing her hands to her burning cheeks and heaving breast, and then
+after a low knock, to which she expected no reply, slowly opened the
+door, as if with timid reluctance. Her cheeks had burned, her heart had
+throbbed in vain-the room was empty. She went to the window, and
+instantly drew back again. There, close beneath her, in the children's
+playground, was the man she sought, cautiously approaching the window
+from which a faint, varying light fell upon the tree-trunks; and then
+he disappeared--where, except through the nursery to her? She had not
+given the two hypocrites credit for that; they knew how to help
+themselves, to be sure! It was too shameless! Then the promise he had
+made her several times, but which she had not really believed, that he
+would make her his wife if the other was once out of the way, might
+come true. At any rate, he should know it; they deserved nothing
+better.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What does this mean?&quot; cried Hans Redebas, as Brandow, with a hasty
+apology, rose from the table just as the cards had been cut.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll come back directly,&quot; answered Brandow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That we should have expected,&quot; shouted Redebas. &quot;Pastor, another
+glass!&quot; Brandow left the table unwillingly; he had been winning
+considerable sums, and his gambler's superstition warned him that he
+ought, not to turn his back upon the game; but Rieke had beckoned to
+him over Hans Redebas' shock of black hair-something particularly
+important must have happened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He followed the girl into the hall, and from thence into the
+sitting-room on the left, where she told him by signs to step lightly,
+until they reached the narrow door that opened into Cecilia's
+sleeping-room. A faint ray of light gleamed through the crack over the
+threshold. The girl crouched down and put her ear to the door. Brandow
+stood bending over her, also listening. They could distinctly hear some
+one speaking, but neither who it was, nor what was said. But what did
+it matter? To whom could she speak here, except to him? What could they
+say except what they dared not suffer others to hear? And now the light
+grew brighter--they had entered the sleeping-room. Brandow trembled
+from head to foot with jealous fury. Should he rush in and strangle the
+pair, expose them to open shame? But Gotthold was no longer the feeble
+boy of former days; the result of a conflict with him, man to man, was
+at least doubtful, and he had certainly already received his pay. The
+disgrace would cling to him, and--it was too late! The barking of the
+dog, which made him and his accomplice fly from the door, must have
+warned them too; he would find the nest empty. Be it so; he had heard
+enough.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?&quot; said Rieke, when they had glided back through the sitting-room
+and were again standing in the hall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go in, and say I will come directly,&quot; replied Brandow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The tone in which he spoke predicted some evil; Rieke was almost sorry
+for what she had done. &quot;He isn't like you,&quot; she said soothingly, with
+the most perfect sincerity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow laughed scornfully. &quot;Go in,&quot; he repeated, stamping his foot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl obeyed; Brandow went to the open door and gazed across the
+dark court-yard towards the stables. The rain beat into his face, and
+with it came the sickly odor of native tobacco. On the left, directly
+under him, before the stone bench glowed a red spot, and a harsh voice
+asked:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, what about harnessing the horses?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the man for whom he had just been looking, upon whom he had
+depended for the execution of the plan of vengeance brooding darkly in
+his soul, nay the man, as he now imagined, who had implanted its first
+germ. So it was to be.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He won't want to go away now, if it were only on account of the bad
+weather.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The others must go too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They have stayed here often enough.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Send them away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow reflected a moment. &quot;If I win a few hundred more, they will go
+of their own accord,&quot; he murmured. &quot;But you must give him a thorough
+soaking, Hinrich--a thorough one, mind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where there is no bottom,&quot; said Hinrich.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words quivered through Brandow's soul like a flash of lightning
+across a midnight sky. That was the very thing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I'll give you whatever you ask!&quot; he said, in a hoarse tone,
+bending down into the cloud of smoke that rose from Hinrich's pipe.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No pay, no work,--and that trick with Brownlock a little while ago
+cost me five louis-d'or. I should like half down now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here it is,&quot; said Brandow, feeling in his pocket, and giving him as
+much of the gold he had just won as he could grasp.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have always been a good master to me,&quot; said Hinrich, rubbing the
+gold pieces together in his horny palm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And will be a still better one in future.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The gentlemen will go away if you don't come in at once,&quot; said Rieke,
+hurrying out. She had left the door of the room open, and Hans Redebas'
+gruff bass voice was heard shouting: &quot;Brandow! Brandow!&quot; amid shrill
+laughter, and a hoarse tone repeating: &quot;We won't go home! We won't go
+home!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll get rid of you,&quot; muttered Brandow. &quot;You will stay here, Hinrich.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll wait, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow went back into the gaming-room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are taking an undue advantage of the freedom the accidental
+absence of ladies bestows,&quot; said Brandow, with cutting contempt, as his
+guests received him with upraised glasses and a halloo, to which Gustav
+von Plüggen added a loud hip, hip, hurrah!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Accidental?&quot; cried Hans Redebas; &quot;not at all accidental; you are
+driving a good business to-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And where is your wife?&quot; said Otto von Plüggen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I demand an explanation of this,&quot; cried Brandow; &quot;I will not permit--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paused suddenly. Turning angrily towards Otto von Plüggen, he saw
+Gotthold, who must have entered the room directly behind him, and had
+unquestionably heard all. It was impossible to discuss this subject in
+his presence. So, with a violent effort, he forced back the furious
+hate that surged up in his heart at the sight of his face, and cried:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So there you are at last! Where in the world have you hidden yourself?
+Thank God, you have come to put an end to this horrible gambling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ho! ho!&quot; exclaimed Hans Redebas, &quot;horrible gambling! Is that the way
+the wind blows? I believe you! He has won six hundred or more already.
+Does that taste badly?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I owe no man any revenge, however,&quot; cried Brandow, with a gesture of
+exaggerated violence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Brandow,&quot; expostulated the Assessor, &quot;you mustn't weigh every
+word; Redebas had no intention of offending you. He only wanted to
+continue the game, and, to speak frankly, I don't see what we could do
+better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, Herr Assessor, if you think what you have also won--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The few thalers!&quot; said the Assessor, not without some little
+embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can certainly make no objection,&quot; continued Brandow. &quot;I only thought
+that this little consideration was due our friend Gotthold, who does
+not play, and of whom we have seen so little, or rather I should say,
+ourselves. He doesn't lose a great deal in dispensing with our society,
+but we do in losing his.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pray don't disturb yourselves on my account,&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, then, in the devil's name, go on,&quot; cried Hans Redebas, seizing
+the cards. &quot;I'll keep the bank for once, I can probably find a few
+little savings still.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And with his left hand he drew from the thick pocketbook lying before
+him a pile of bank-notes which he crushed together in a heap. &quot;There
+now, play in regular order, Brandow and the rest of you, I beg.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am sorry, but what can I do? I hope you will excuse me,&quot; Brandow
+whispered to Gotthold, as he resumed his place at the table. Gotthold
+drew back, and could do nothing but accept the invitation of the
+Pastor, who was sitting in one corner of the great leather-covered
+sofa, and as Gotthold took his place beside him, leaned a little
+forward, not without difficulty, and began to talk with a faltering
+tongue.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, yes, my beloved friend, a sinful world, a wicked, sinful world,
+but we must not be too harsh, not too harsh, for Heaven's sake! You
+work all the week, or at least order your servants to work for you; but
+they must not do it on Sunday, on pain of a heavy punishment. Just
+before the beginning of this harvest, we sent out a paper written in
+the strongest terms. What were they doing with the long hours? Idleness
+is the beginning of all crimes: gambling, drinking--Rieke, a glass--two
+glasses--don't you drink? Do very wrong--brewed myself--from a receipt
+of my honored employer, Count Zernikow. I brewed more than three
+hundred bowls during my career as tutor--could do it at last with my
+eyes shut--with my eyes shut--eyes shut.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had only stammered the last words, his heavy head fell forward, and
+the lower part of his face disappeared amid the folds of his crumpled
+white cravat. He sank helplessly back into his corner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vacant face filled Gotthold with angry contempt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man had realized the promise of the boy; intoxication had torn away
+the mask of hypocrisy, and there was the stupid, dissolute face of the
+Halle student, whom Gotthold so well remembered. It could not be
+otherwise. But that this pitiful creature should be his father's
+successor, this blinking owl sit in the eyrie of the eagle, whose fiery
+eyes had always sought the sun; this coarse buffoon be permitted to
+tinkle his bells in the very place where the preacher, with glowing
+eloquence, had summoned his hearers to repentance and atonement, seemed
+to him a personal insult. And yet this man was in his proper place; the
+flock was worthy of the shepherd; everything here was of a piece--like
+a picture drawn by some master hand, in the boldest outlines and most
+glaring colors: the drunken Pastor nodding in the sofa corner, the
+excited, wine-flushed faces of the gamblers, the voluptuous figure of
+the maid-servant passing to and fro and handing the fiery beverage to
+the revellers, exchanging a sly smile or hasty word with one,
+coquettishly pushing away the hand of another, who tried to pass his
+arm around her waist--the true goddess of this temple of sin!--and the
+whole enveloped in the circling wreaths of gray smoke which ascended
+from the constantly burning pipes, and floated in dusky red rings
+around the dim wicks of the candles; only that it was no picture, but
+the coarsest, rudest, most commonplace reality. And alas, the outrage
+that she should be compelled to live under this roof, that the wild
+riot should re-echo even in her quiet room--not for the first or last
+time!-that these were the men who frequented the house--these
+empty-headed, silly young noblemen, this rough upstart, with his coarse
+hands and coarser jests. And when this company of fauns and satyrs
+departed, to have for her only consoler solitude--solitude which stared
+at her with cold, hard, piercing serpent eyes. There they were, those
+very eyes; they had just glanced over the cards with a quick stealthy
+look! Those eyes, and hers--soft, gentle, tender!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold no longer saw the gamblers. He beheld her sitting in the
+lonely nursery beside her child's playthings; a touching figure, still
+so girlish in its soft, delicate outlines. He saw the sad face suffused
+with a roseate flush of joy, saw it disfigured with pain and terror-he
+lived over in imagination the whole scene, which already seemed like a
+dream; and dreamed on of a future which must surely come, a future full
+of sunlight, love, and poetry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He could not have told how long he had been sitting absorbed in
+thought, when a loud noise at the gaming-table suddenly startled him.
+Something unusual seemed to have happened; Hans Redebas and Brandow
+alone retained their seats, the others were bending over the table with
+eager faces; even Rieke was gazing so intently that she forgot to push
+away the Assessor's arm, which had been thrown around her waist.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you take it again?&quot; cried Redebas.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Another thousand? That will make it five!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Devil take it, yes!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A breathless silence followed, in which Gotthold heard nothing but the
+noise of the cards Redebas dealt, and then another outcry and tumult,
+such as had previously roused him from his revery, only this time it
+was so loud that even the drunken Pastor staggered out of his corner.
+Gotthold approached the table. His first glance rested upon Brandow's
+face, which was deadly pale; but his thin lips were firmly compressed,
+and a disagreeable smile even sparkled in his stern, cold eyes, as he
+now cried, turning to the new-comer:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They have plucked me finely, Gotthold; but night never lasts forever.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But this,&quot; cried Redebas throwing the cards on the table, and making a
+memorandum in his pocket-book, &quot;I decline!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What does that mean?&quot; asked Brandow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That I will play no more,&quot; answered Redebas with a loud laugh, closing
+his pocket-book and rising heavily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I always thought the loser could break up the game, not the winner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If the winner is not sure of his point--oh! yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I demand an explanation!&quot; cried Brandow, pushing the table aside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, Brandow, do be reasonable!&quot; exclaimed Otto and Gustav von
+Plüggen, in the same breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you in partnership again?&quot; answered Brandow with a sneering laugh,
+and then stepped before Redebas: &quot;I demand an explanation at once!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The giant had drawn back a step: &quot;Oho,&quot; he cried; &quot;if that's what you
+want, come on!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear Brandow,&quot; said the Assessor soothingly, putting himself
+between them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know what I am doing, Herr Assessor,&quot; answered Brandow, pushing him
+aside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I know too,&quot; cried Redebas, throwing up the window, and shouting
+across the quiet court-yard in a voice like the roar of a lion.
+&quot;Harness the horses, August! harness the horses!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A scene of wild confusion followed, in which all shouted together, so
+that Gotthold could only distinguish a word here and there. Hans
+Redebas raved loudest of all, but apparently quite as much from fear as
+anger, while Brandow remained comparatively calm, and was evidently
+intent upon separating the Assessor, who was constantly intermeddling,
+from the three others whom the Pastor now joined, and by all possible
+signs announced his intention of making a speech, in which he actually
+several times got as far as the beginning: &quot;My beloved friends!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The three carriages, to which the impatient coachmen had harnessed the
+horses long before, drove up. The quarrel had been continued from the
+room to the hall, from the hall to the door, and even to the carriage
+steps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We shall see, we shall see,&quot; cried Hans Redebas; &quot;are you in, Pastor?
+Then, in the devil's name, drive on--we shall see,&quot; he shouted again
+from the carriage window, as the powerful Danish horses trotted away at
+a rapid pace towards the northern gate, from whence the shorter road,
+which, however, was scarcely visible in the darkness, led through the
+forest to Dahlitz.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meantime Otto and Gustav von Plüggen had finally become involved in a
+quarrel with each other. Gustav, who had no lamps on his carriage,
+declared that he must go across the moor, while Otto wanted to follow
+Redebas. Gustav had already borne so much from his older brother that
+day, that he considered himself obliged to take this refusal as a
+personal insult. He had no bundle of hay in front of his head, and
+wouldn't run the risk of breaking his skull against the trees in the
+forest. &quot;Then he could light the straw in it, and find his way home by
+that,&quot; Otto replied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So they drove away in opposite directions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is very foolish,&quot; said Brandow, looking after Gustav's carriage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One will get across and the other won't,&quot; replied Hinrich Scheel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We know that you are the best driver.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;An accident is liable to happen to any one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is, you want it to be so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It seems you don't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow did not answer immediately. He had thought the matter less
+difficult; but he need not break his neck, only an arm or leg.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He cast a timid glance through the window; the light fell directly upon
+Gotthold's grave, handsome face. Brandow ground his teeth. No, it was
+not enough. He must have his life; the damned hypocrite deserved
+nothing better, and where was the crime? An accident might happen to
+the best driver.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly he started. He had not thought of that before. By his quarrel
+with his associates at the gaming-table he had fortunately prevented
+the whole party from remaining all night until broad daylight, as they
+had often done before, and thus robbed Gotthold of a suitable excuse
+for staying also, if such was his intention--and of that Brandow, after
+what he had heard, was firmly convinced. He had also, by intentionally
+keeping the Assessor out of the quarrel, made it impossible for the
+latter to go away at once with the others, though he had not lacked
+invitations, as thus his prey would have escaped him, for Gotthold
+probably would not have remained without the Assessor. But now--how
+could he separate the two? If the Assessor stayed--and he did not seem
+to think of leaving--Gotthold would stay also, or at least have a
+most plausible excuse for doing so; and if he forced the Assessor to
+go--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Again his sullen glance wandered towards the two men in the room--the
+Assessor talking to Gotthold with the most animated gestures; the
+latter, to judge from his expression and movements, listening
+reluctantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I drove them both here, so I can drive them both back again,&quot; said
+Hinrich Scheel, pressing down the ashes in his pipe.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Both! One! yes; but what had the other done to him? Nothing! Nothing at
+all! And he had received ten thousand thalers from him to-day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It's a pity about the beautiful money, if any accident should happen
+to us on the moor,&quot; said Hinrich, knocking the tobacco out of his pipe;
+&quot;I'll get the carriage ready, and take those jades of Jochen Klüts; it
+would be a pity to hurt our grays.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He walked slowly away. Brandow's eyes followed the short dark figure;
+he wanted to call him back, to tell him he need not harness the horses,
+but only a strange, hoarse, choking sound came from his throat; his
+tongue clung to his palate, and as he raised his foot he staggered like
+a drunken man, and was obliged to hold fast to the trunk of one of the
+old linden-trees, through whose thick branches a violent gust of wind
+was just roaring. The rain, which again began to fall, beat into his
+face, now burning with a strange flush, although he was shivering from
+head to foot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There! What was that? The noise of the carriage which Hinrich was
+pushing out of the barn. There was still time! But, after all, he had
+said nothing, nothing at all; how could he help it if an accident
+happened to Hinrich on the moor at night?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold and the Assessor had remained in the room; the latter was
+trying to explain to Gotthold that Brandow had certainly been quite
+right when he asked that the game should be continued, but had done
+wrong to express his wish in so peremptory a manner; and finally he
+ought not to have forgotten that he was the host, and as such must
+overlook any little impropriety on the part of his guests.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">During the latter part of his long speech, the Assessor had addressed
+himself in an admonitory tone, partly to Brandow, who had just entered
+the room, and going up to the side-board swallowed several glasses of
+wine. &quot;I have in fact been compelled to overlook many such things
+to-day, and am obliged to you, Herr Assessor, for keeping me in
+practice up to the last minute.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The tone in which Brandow said this, and the gesture with which he
+approached the Assessor, were so peculiar that the latter was partly
+sobered, and stared in astonishment at his host, who now came a step
+nearer and said in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Or what do you call it, when the guests, in presence of the servants,
+subject the conduct of the master of the house to such an unsparing
+criticism?&quot; and he pointed to Rieke, under whose direction another maid
+servant and the groom Fritz were beginning to remove the glasses
+standing about on the tables, and sweep up the fragments scattered over
+the floor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Assessor drew himself up to his full height.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg your pardon,&quot; said he, &quot;and will request you to be kind enough
+to place your carriage at my disposal for my return. I regret that I
+did not accept from your other guests the favor I must now solicit of
+you. I can still depend upon your company, Gotthold?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think Brandow will make no objections.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg the gentlemen to act their own pleasure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They bowed to each other with distant civility. A few minutes after,
+the same light carriage that had brought the two gentlemen to Dollan a
+few hours before rolled over the rough road into the dark, gusty night.
+Hinrich Scheel drove the horses.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">It was about ten o'clock, but, although the season was mid-summer and
+the moon must have already risen, dark as only a moonless night in
+autumn could be. And with autumnal chillness the wind blew over the rye
+stubble, and the rain, which had just begun to fall again with renewed
+violence, beat into their faces.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Button your coat up,&quot; said Gotthold to his companion, who was swaying
+to and fro uncomfortably in his seat. &quot;You seem very much heated.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because I have kept buttoned up all the evening,&quot; answered the
+Assessor. &quot;I mean it in a literal sense, on account of the ten thousand
+thalers I have had in my breast-pocket; figuratively I might have been
+somewhat more so; but for all that, I beg of you, my dear friend, give
+me some explanation of Brandow's mysterious conduct. He actually turned
+me out of doors! And why? I don't understand it. After we had been on
+the most cordial terms the whole evening; after we had been, so to
+speak, hand-and-glove. And everything settled! The whole large sum paid
+in cash, down to the last penny, which, to be sure, is the greatest
+mystery of all. And he is to have the money from Wollnow! Did Wollnow
+mystify me? And why? I no more see any light in all this than I can see
+my hand before my eyes. Horrible darkness!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The moon has been up an hour already,&quot; said Hinrich Scheel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And is that why you have no lamps on the carriage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Herr von Plüggen had none either.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You thought your pipe would give us light enough, didn't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I needn't smoke, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then don't; I can't say that the odor of your canaster is very
+agreeable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Folks like us can't smoke nice tobacco, like fine gentlemen,&quot; said
+Hinrich Scheel, emptying his pipe so roughly that the sparks flew in
+all directions through the darkness, and thrusting it into his
+breast-pocket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Isn't this the same fellow who drove us here this afternoon?&quot; asked
+the Assessor in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The same,&quot; answered Gotthold; &quot;and I should advise you to use the same
+precaution we adopted on the way here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the Assessor was not in the mood to follow Gotthold's counsel. The
+intoxication, from which the scene with Brandow had only roused him for
+a short time, returned with redoubled power, now that he was exposed to
+the cold night air. He began to abuse Brandow, in whose favor he had
+always spoken at the convent, who but for him would have been obliged
+to leave Dollan a year ago, who was greatly indebted to him in every
+respect, and now repaid him with the basest ingratitude. But his
+friendship and protection were now at an end. He still had the fine
+fellow under his thumb. The lease must yet be renewed. To be sure,
+Brandow had paid this time, but what guarantee of future security was
+there to be had from a man who, in his precarious situation, loaded
+himself with a gambling debt of five thousand thalers? He need only
+give the monks this piece of information, and Brandow would be cast
+off. Did Brandow expect to satisfy the convent by the assurance that he
+would win the race on Brownlock! Brownlock, nothing but Brownlock!
+Brandow had not won yet, and they were strict in their rules at the
+race-course. Only last year, young Klebenitz--eldest son of a nobleman
+though he was--had been excluded because it got noised abroad that he
+had been twenty-four hours late in paying a gambling debt. It was still
+very doubtful whether Redebas would have the five thousand thalers he
+had just won from Brandow lying on his desk by to-morrow noon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had tried in vain to interrupt his loquacious companion, and
+was therefore not at all displeased when the latter, after stammering a
+few incoherent words, suddenly relapsed into silence, and leaning back
+in his corner seemed to wish to sleep off his intoxication. Gotthold
+spread his own travelling-rug over his knees, turned up the collar of
+his overcoat, and gazing out into the darkness, resigned himself to his
+thoughts. Brandow's conduct was incomprehensible to him also. What
+could have induced him to insult the Assessor in this way?--a man whose
+favor he had every reason to keep. Had he been drunk too? But if so,
+the fit of intoxication must have come upon him very suddenly, and had
+at all events assumed a singular form--the form of the hatred which
+veils itself under the garb of cold politeness. Or, had all this
+concerned him alone? Had he been so anxious to get his enemy out of the
+house that he had even suffered it to cost him the friendship of the
+influential man? That was a solution so simple and natural, so unlike
+the cold calculating man; but if it was not drunkenness, or hate that
+wishes to satisfy itself, what was it?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And suppose it were hate that desires to satisfy itself at any cost?
+Suppose this hate was directed towards her, no less than him, nay
+perhaps even more. Suppose this terrible man wanted to clear the house
+of guests in order to give free course to his furious hate, to be able
+to riot in some fell vengeance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold half started from his seat, groaning aloud, and then sank back
+again, reproaching himself for conjuring up such horrible apparitions.
+That was certainly the most improbable of all. Whatever means he had
+used the night before to break down the pride of one of the proudest of
+women, he had conquered, he was master of the situation; he might be
+satisfied! And was he not? He now knew the secret of coining gold,
+cunning alchemist that he was; and how soon he might be again in a
+situation where he would be obliged to make use of his art, that very
+evening had proved. What becomes of the water you take in your hand?
+What becomes of the money you give a gambler? Cousin Boslaf had been
+right.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the more Gotthold endeavored to push aside the terrible thought as
+improbable, nay impossible, the more distinctly the scene appeared
+before his eyes. He saw him creep towards her chamber, cautiously open
+the door, glide into the room, up to the bed. Merciful Heaven! what was
+that? He had distinctly heard his name called in a piercing cry of
+mortal agony.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was only a trick of his excited fancy, a horned owl perhaps, which,
+hurled along by the storm on noiseless wings, had swept close over his
+head, and in its surprise uttered the cry. This, or something of the
+sort.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Undoubtedly; but fancy continued the cruel sport none the less
+zealously, and converted the long-drawn howling and hollow roaring of
+the tempest over the moor, the rustling of the clumps of broom by the
+wayside, the creaking of the carriage, and the panting of the weary
+horses, into ghostly voices which muttered terrible words, voices and
+words such as might be uttered by the shapes which glided through the
+grayish black twilight over the masses of rock on the moor on the right
+of the carriage, or flitted on the left through the impenetrable
+darkness that brooded coldly over the morass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The road had been gradually ascending for some time, and according to
+Gotthold's belief, they had almost reached the crest of the hill, when
+the horses suddenly stopped, snorting violently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's the matter?&quot; asked Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hinrich Scheel's only reply was several violent lashes, which urged the
+horses onward again, but only a few paces, then they stopped once more,
+snorting still louder, and pressing backward so that the carriage moved
+a little down the hill.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The damned jades!&quot; cried Hinrich Scheel, who was no longer on his seat
+on the box, but standing on the right of the carriage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter, I say?&quot; cried Gotthold, starting up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing at all,&quot; shouted Hinrich. &quot;Sit still. The damned jades! This
+little pull! I'll teach them to shirk. Sit still, we shall be up
+directly! Damn the whip!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hinrich, who had been lashing the horses frantically, now disappeared
+from the side of the carriage, the frightened animals made a few more
+bounds forward--suddenly the vehicle leaned towards the left--farther
+and farther; like a flash of lightning the thought passed through
+Gotthold's mind, that if the carriage should upset here, it would
+undoubtedly fall sixty feet down the slope into the morass; he already
+had his hand on the back to swing himself out on the right, but would
+not save himself without his companion. But the latter did not rise,
+did not even stir. He seized him to drag him out of the carriage.
+Too late! There was a dull roaring, rushing, rattling, as if the
+earth itself was opening to engulf carriage, horses, and men; a
+whizzing sound in their ears--a terrible shock, a falling, rolling,
+crashing,--another crashing, rolling, shattering, and then--the horror
+was over!</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">In the large comfortable room adjoining the office, in the subdued
+light of a beautiful lamp--the companion to which was burning on a
+side-table at the end of the room--sat Frau Ottilie Wollnow and Alma
+Sellien; Ottilie engaged in sewing; while Alma leaned back in the sofa
+corner, with her slender hands resting idly in her lap. Before the
+ladies, on a high-backed chair drawn forward in the light, stood
+Gotthold's picture of Dollan, at which Alma from time to time threw one
+of her languishing glances. If the gentlemen came back that evening,
+she wanted to give Gotthold a pleasant surprise by showing him the
+interest she took in his work, and therefore the picture, which had
+just been taken down at her request, must remain in its present
+position.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am only afraid it may slip down and get injured,&quot; said Ottilie; &quot;and
+besides, I am not at all sure they will come back this evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know what their return has to do with my enjoyment of art,&quot;
+answered Alma, shading her eyes with her hand, and looking at the
+picture with an evident increase of interest. &quot;In what bold relief
+these beeches stand in the foreground! how easily the eye glides over
+the fields in the centre, and lingers there in refreshing repose, ere
+it turns with delight to the brown moor on the left, or wanders
+longingly towards the dim blue horizon bounded by the sea! He is really
+a great artist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ottilie laughed. &quot;And do you mean to say all that to him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not?&quot; answered Alma. &quot;I like to give every one his due.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Especially when the 'every one' is a man so attractive as Gotthold.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have only seen and spoken to him five minutes this morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And that has been enough to completely win the heart of such a subtle
+connoisseur. Confess, Alma, you are fascinated, and now see that our
+poor Cecilia must not be judged so very harshly, even if she really did
+have the misfortune to think such a man attractive.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know my views in regard to these things are very strict,&quot; replied
+Alma; &quot;yes, very strict, though you do choose to open your eyes in
+astonishment. But to speak frankly, it is a matter of perfect
+indifference to me what your poor Cecilia thinks or doesn't think; only
+I would rather not despair of the good taste and good sense of the men,
+and that I certainly should do if such a man was so deluded as to think
+your poor Cecilia charming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, Alma!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pray, my dear Ottilie, allow me to have and retain my own opinion on
+this point. Tell me instead--for it interests me, now that I have
+become personally acquainted with him--what you know of his former
+circumstances. Hugo declares he is almost a millionaire. Is he really
+so rich, and how did he get the property? Hugo says it is a very
+mysterious story--but he always says that when he can give no
+information about a thing. What is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing at all,&quot; replied Ottilie; &quot;I mean nothing at all mysterious;
+but the story is a sad one; I could not help crying when Emil related
+it to me a short time ago--he had never spoken of it before!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Ottilie Wollnow wiped away the tears that already hung on her dark
+lashes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You make me terribly curious,&quot; said Alma; &quot;how can a story be sad
+which finally results in half a million?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is probably not so much so now,&quot; said Ottilie; &quot;besides, you must
+not ask me for any particulars, for Emil's story was very--what shall I
+say--very general--for reasons I hinted to you this morning, and
+I--from the same cause--did not venture to ask him for any farther
+details. We must always respect all such old German favors, and seem to
+think them true and genuine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Old German favors?&quot; asked Alma in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ottilie laughed. &quot;That's what I call our husbands' reminiscences of
+their old love affairs, which they treasure with such ludicrous
+emotion, and, so to speak, always wear secretly under their coats, in
+order not to shame us by their brilliancy, for we are really good,
+excellent wives; but how could we bear any comparison with these
+heroines? In this case, to be sure--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Excuse me for interrupting you, dear Ottilie, but you were going to
+tell me how Gotthold got his fortune.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is all closely connected,&quot; replied Ottilie; &quot;the German favor, I
+mean my good Emil's old flame and Gotthold's mother, is one and the
+same person; but to be sure Emil declares I always begin my stories at
+the end, so now by way of exception I'll commence at the beginning. But
+how am I to do it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps by stating who the lady you have mentioned really was.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You always hit the nail on the head! Certainly, who was she? The only
+child of her parents; her father was Reginald Lenz, a rich merchant in
+Stettin--I have forgotten her mother's name; but she must have been a
+dear, sweet creature, and loved her husband passionately, too
+passionately perhaps. He was probably a very attractive man--he always
+went by the name of 'handsome Lenz,' and such people are spoiled: the
+merry bachelor life is continued after marriage; a few unlucky
+speculations may have happened also; in a word, Herr Lenz failed at the
+end of a few years, or stood on the verge of bankruptcy, and the books
+did not balance as they ought; he would not survive the disgrace,
+and--it is terrible to think of--he took a cheerful farewell of his
+young wife to go out hunting, and clear his head after reckoning so
+many figures, as he said, and in the evening they brought him home with
+his brains dashed out. Was it not terrible?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go on,&quot; said Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! the rest is almost as bad. The young wife, who had had no
+suspicion of her husband's situation--or she would not have let him
+leave her--saw the body without the slightest preparation. An hour
+after--the unhappy woman was daily expecting the birth of another
+child--she was attacked by a violent fever, and in a few days was a
+corpse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How imprudent,&quot; said Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The little five-year-old Marie--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;An ugly name,&quot; observed Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't think so; at any rate its bearer was anything but ugly, Emil
+says; and to speak frankly, I am sure that in this respect he does not
+exaggerate, and the little lady, who naturally in the course of years
+grew up to maturity, really possessed all the admirable qualities which
+turned the head of the poor young fellow, who was then only twenty. And
+he was not alone; all the other young men employed in the business
+fared just the same. I forgot to say, or was just going to tell you,
+that the poor little orphan had been received in her uncle's house, the
+brother of her unhappy father, but a man who was exactly his opposite
+in every respect; plain, stern, pedantic, an excellent business-man of
+the old school, as Emil says, who had entered his counting-room and at
+that time risen to be head clerk. His wife was wonderfully well suited
+to him, that is, she was not one whit less plain, or less strict and
+pedantic, so the poor little girl could not have found the house
+exactly a bed of roses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In spite of all her admirers?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In spite of all her admirers. She inherited it from her father, who
+always aimed too high.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps she did not know what she wanted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is possible; at any rate, none of the young men found favor in
+her eyes, though Emil was slightly preferred; but only, he says,
+because he was the only Jew in the Christian establishment, and
+therefore in some degree rebuffed by the others--the position of the
+Jews thirty years ago, you must know, was even more precarious and
+uncomfortable than it is now, although even now everything is perhaps
+not quite what it should be. At any fate, she treated the man
+worst whose outward circumstances entitled him to the most
+consideration--namely, her cousin Eduard, the only son of the house, a
+quiet, shy young man, who loved her passionately. Emil says that even
+now it makes the tears come into his eyes when he thinks of the time
+that Eduard, who was his most intimate friend, spoke of what he
+suffered, not in pompous, high-sounding words, which would not have
+been at all like him, but so gently, so resignedly--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can't bear these gentle, resigned men,&quot; said Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They seldom succeed, as poor Eduard's example shows. But to be sure,
+she refused very different people, who were by no means gentle and
+resigned--officers, barons, and counts: she was the wonder of the city,
+and the idol of all the young men, and she noticed them no more than
+the sun heeds the mist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are really getting poetical,&quot; said Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is one of Emil's comparisons, he always grows poetical when he
+speaks of her--till at last the right one came.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The country Pastor. Gracious Heavens! <i>Tant de bruit pour une
+omelette</i>,&quot; said Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Excuse me, it was nothing of that sort; on the contrary, he was a very
+remarkable man, who had turned the heads of as many women as she had
+men. And it was not confined to women; many men, and those by no means
+the least important, were also very enthusiastic about him, among
+others, my Emil, who since he was baptized on our wedding-day, has not
+set foot inside of a church, but then, Jew as he was, attended
+regularly every Sunday the service held by the young Substitute--I
+believe that's what they call them. The whole city went, he says;
+people stood at the doors, and even outside, just to see him come in.
+In a word, this young preacher was the right man. How they became
+acquainted with each other I don't know, and it is of no consequence.
+To see and love each other was the same thing. Her foster-parents, who
+on Eduard's account were glad to get her out of the house, of course
+gave their consent at once, although the little parish here in Rammin
+on which they married was a place to starve rather than live in. So
+they left Stettin, and came here, and--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The story ends,&quot; said Alma, &quot;as all stories which begin in such a
+remarkable manner usually do--in commonplace poverty. But I don't see
+yet from all this how Gotthold got his half million.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is not a half million,&quot; replied Ottilie; &quot;about a hundred thousand,
+Emil thinks, and from whom should he get it but the good Eduard, who
+would never marry, though the rich heir, of course, could have made the
+most brilliant matches, but remained faithful to his early love as long
+as he lived, and on his death-bed left a portion of his property to
+benevolent institutions, and the remainder to his cousin's son as his
+nearest heir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It must have been a very pleasant surprise,&quot; said Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Undoubtedly, although I must say that no real blessing attends the
+money. To be sure, he is now a rich man, or at least well to-do; but
+what personal benefit does he get? Scarcely any. Ten thousand thalers
+or so were invested in Emil's business before our marriage; since then,
+thank God, he has needed no stranger's money, and he has never troubled
+himself about them; the rest he has left in the business in Stettin,
+which is carried on by one of the partners of the old firm, and where
+it is by no means safe; but he doesn't even touch the interest, except
+to aid needy artists, or encourage struggling young men by enabling
+them to go to the Academy, take a journey to Italy, or something of
+that sort. Well, he doesn't need it; he easily earns as much as he
+wants, and moreover is such a thoroughly good man that he likes to
+befriend others, but I think he has already made up his mind what to
+do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What?&quot; asked Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why doesn't he marry? He has certainly had the best opportunities, and
+he is twenty-eight years old! I fear, I fear he will remain a bachelor
+like his foster-uncle in Stettin, and--for the same reason. And as for
+the money, I think I know what will become of that too. After what we
+heard this morning about Brandow's circumstances, it would be very well
+invested; for poor Gretchen probably will not inherit much from her
+father and mother.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He won't be such a fool!&quot; exclaimed Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;People said just the same about good Eduard Lenz. And I think, I
+think--but you must not betray me when your husband returns--I think a
+part of his property went into Brandow's hands to-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did your husband tell you so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In that case I should be sure of it; the idea of Emil's
+chattering--but you don't know him. It's all my own idea, but we shall
+ascertain when the gentlemen come home to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I told them when they went away that I should expect them without fail
+this evening,&quot; replied Alma, looking at the picture through her hand,
+and mentally repeating the words with which she intended to receive
+Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, there they are already!&quot; cried Ottilie as the door-bell rang.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It must be your husband back from his club.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He does not ring,&quot; answered Ottilie; &quot;besides, it is not his step.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ottilie, with a &quot;come in,&quot; went towards the door, at which they now
+heard a knock. Alma leaned back in the sofa corner with her head a
+little bent, in the act of displaying her white hands to the best
+possible advantage, when she was startled from her <i>pose</i> by a low
+exclamation from Ottilie.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Herr Brandow!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pardon me, Madam, pardon me, ladies, for presenting myself unannounced
+in the absence of a servant. I hope you will bear with me a few
+minutes, and help me to carry out a little joke I want to play upon our
+friends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He bowed; Ottilie gazed at him in astonishment, even terror. Herr
+Brandow did not look like a person who is trying to carry out a jest;
+his face was pale and haggard, his long fair moustache disordered, his
+dress a strange mixture of evening and riding costume, and splashed
+with mud to his shoulders. And to come in this plight, at this late
+hour, to a house where he was a stranger, nay, which had actually been
+closed against him for years--Ottilie had only one explanation of all
+this.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Has any misfortune happened?&quot; she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Misfortune,&quot; said Brandow; &quot;none that I am aware of; or yes, the
+misfortune that I have treated my friends a little uncivilly. The
+rudeness was very slight, but as I, although a sorely tried man, am not
+accustomed to this kind of misfortune, I could not rest until I had
+made the attempt to rehabilitate myself in my own eyes, to say nothing
+of my friends, who have doubtless already forgiven me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then they are coming to-night, are they not? I told you so,&quot; exclaimed
+Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly, and they will be here immediately, in--we will say twenty
+minutes--yes, twenty minutes. They left Dollan at exactly ten minutes
+of ten; it is now just half-past; with my powerful horses and so good a
+driver as Hinrich they will not need more than an hour, in spite of the
+horrible weather; so in twenty minutes, ladies, we shall hear the
+carriage drive up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow had taken out his watch, and did not turn his eyes from it as
+he made his calculation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you?&quot; asked Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I myself, dear madam, after parting from the gentlemen, with a want of
+cordiality I sincerely regret, rode away from Dollan precisely at ten,
+and just twenty-five minutes after had my horse put into the stable of
+the Fürstenhof, that is, I was just five times as long in going over
+the mile and a half from Dollan to the Fürstenhof, as in walking the
+five hundred steps from the Fürstenhof here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You were twenty-five minutes in coming the same distance that will
+occupy the others an hour!&quot; cried Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pardon me; I couldn't go by the same road our friends took across the
+Dollan moor, or it would have spoiled my surprise. I rode over another
+that leads through Neuenhof, Lankenitz, Faschwitz, etc. Frau Wollnow
+doubtless knows the direction--a way quite as long, and certainly as
+bad, as I unfortunately perceive too late, by the condition of my
+clothes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! how I admire these bold feats of horsemanship!&quot; exclaimed Alma,
+opening her eyes very wide to express her enthusiasm. &quot;Sit down here
+beside me, dear Herr Brandow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had forgotten the arrangement she had made for Gotthold's
+reception, and as she pushed the back of the chair with her
+outstretched hand, the picture slipped down and fell on the floor.
+Ottilie, who saw it, uttered a loud exclamation. Brandow sprang forward
+to raise it, but had scarcely cast a glance at it, when he dropped it
+from his hands with a low cry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My poor picture!&quot; exclaimed Ottilie.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg ten thousand pardons,&quot; said Brandow. &quot;I see that when a man has
+ridden a mile and a half in twenty-five minutes, he is not quite master
+of his limbs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In fact, he trembled violently as he again took the picture in his
+hands; nay, he seemed to find it difficult to stand. Ottilie, who
+noticed it, at last invited him to sit down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Shall I not put the picture away first?&quot; asked Brandow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On no account!&quot; exclaimed Alma. &quot;I can't part with it, and to you, my
+dear friend, it must have a double interest. Just see in what bold
+relief these beeches stand in the foreground. How easily the eye glides
+over the fields in the centre and lingers in refreshing repose, ere it
+wanders longingly towards the dim blue horizon of the sea on the right,
+or turns with delight to the brown moor on the left.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! certainly, certainly,&quot; said Brandow, without looking at the
+picture; &quot;it is intended for Dollan, isn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Intended for Dollan!&quot; exclaimed Ottilie, &quot;why, Herr Brandow, you
+wanted to buy it yourself. Don't you remember the time when your wife
+and I were standing before the picture and you came up?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! certainly, certainly,&quot; said Brandow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I would like to bet that the gentlemen are on that brown moor now,&quot;
+said Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly; to be sure,&quot; replied Brandow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Impossible!&quot; exclaimed Ottilie, &quot;unless some accident has happened to
+the carriage, which we do not want to fear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly, oh! certainly not,&quot; said Brandow, wiping the cold
+perspiration from his forehead with his handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are faint, Herr Brandow; let me offer you some refreshments,&quot;
+said Ottilie, ringing the bell, and rising to give her orders to the
+maid-servant, who instantly entered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the same moment Alma leaned forward, and holding out her hand to
+Brandow, whispered, &quot;My dear friend, how glad I am to see you! What
+have you done to Hugo? I should think it would be for the interest of
+us all that you should remain good friends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow took the little white hand, and hastily raised it to his lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! certainly, certainly, my beautiful friend,&quot; he replied, &quot;that is
+the very reason I am here; it is really nothing at all. I was a little
+excited by--I--oh! my dear madam, why do you trouble yourself? A glass
+of wine, if you insist upon it, but nothing else, I beg of you, nothing
+else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had turned towards Ottilie. Alma--threw herself back into the sofa
+corner, pouting. Brandow's manner was certainly very strange to-day, so
+cold, not in the least like his usual one. Alma determined to punish
+him for it when Gotthold came, and to render the pain more severe,
+resolved to be particularly charming during the few minutes that would
+intervene.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the minutes passed, the clock struck eleven, half-past eleven--an
+hour had elapsed since Brandow's arrival, and still no sound of
+carriage wheels was heard, nothing but the rustling of the tall poplars
+in the little square before the house, and the plashing of the rain
+against the window-panes whenever a pause in the conversation occurred.
+And it seemed as if the later it grew, the more frequent such pauses
+became; for Ottilie, contrary to her custom, spoke very little. Alma,
+as usual, thought it enough to give people, by a gracious smile,
+permission to amuse her, and Brandow, this evening, was by no means the
+entertaining companion he was generally considered. The restlessness
+with which he darted from one subject to another had a feverish haste,
+his laugh sounded forced, at times he did not seem to notice that not a
+word had been uttered for some minutes, but sat staring at the picture,
+until he suddenly started and began to talk again in an extremely loud
+voice, whose harsh tones jarred upon Ottilie's nerves. Her anxiety
+increased every moment. She had already risen several times, gone to
+the window, and pushing aside the curtain, gazed out in the night,
+which was made, if possible, darker still by the feeble gleam of the
+tiny flames in the street-lamps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am very anxious,&quot; she exclaimed at last, turning from the window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is certainly strange,&quot; said Brandow, &quot;it is now ten minutes of
+twelve; they ought to have been here an hour ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And my husband does not come either,&quot; said Ottilie.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Be glad that he is having a good time,&quot; replied Alma. &quot;Are you going
+already, my dear friend?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will try to obtain some news of them,&quot; answered Brandow, who had
+hastily risen and taken his hat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You won't venture out into this darkness again?&quot; cried Alma.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, Alma!&quot; exclaimed Ottilie.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow was in the act of taking leave, when the doorbell rang, a heavy
+step passed through the counting-room, and Herr Wollnow entered.
+Ottilie hurried towards him, and in a few words told him how matters
+stood. Herr Wollnow greeted the late guest with cold politeness. He saw
+no special reason for being anxious as yet, if Herr Brandow was not.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But he is,&quot; cried Ottilie.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In that case Herr Brandow would have gone in search of information
+long ago,&quot; replied Wollnow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am anxious, and I am not,&quot; said Brandow. &quot;It is certainly a very
+dark night, and the road is not particularly good in one or two places,
+but Hinrich Scheel is a remarkably good driver, and--yes, it has just
+occurred to me--Gustav von Plüggen drove over the same road only a few
+minutes before our friends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Which does not prove that some mischance may not have befallen one or
+the other party, or perhaps both,&quot; answered Wollnow. &quot;I say mischance,
+ladies, not misfortune, but even a trifling mischance--the breaking of
+a wheel, or anything of that sort--is no joke on such a night as this;
+and I am most decidedly in favor of going to meet our friends. I will
+accompany you, Herr Brandow, if agreeable to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly, of course, but I came on horseback,&quot; replied Brandow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then we will take a carriage at the Fürstenhof; if anything has
+happened, a carriage may be useful to them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Alma thought it very uncivil in the gentlemen to leave the ladies alone
+at such a moment, while Ottilie gave her husband a shawl, and whispered
+with a most affectionate kiss, &quot;That's my own good Emil!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wollnow had requested the ladies to stay in the room. When the door was
+closed, he said, &quot;I am sure some misfortune has happened to them; and
+so are you, are you not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His black eyes flashed so strangely, and looked so keen and piercing in
+the light of the lamp he carried in his hand, that Brandow shrank as if
+a question on which the result of the whole matter depended had been
+put to him in a court-room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! certainly not, by no means,&quot; he faltered; &quot;that is, I really don't
+know what to think.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor I either,&quot; replied Wollnow curtly, putting the lamp on a table
+near the hall-door, and drawing back the bolt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The light fell brightly upon the door, and as Wollnow opened it
+darkness yawned outside. Suddenly against the black background appeared
+a figure at the sight of which even the calm Wollnow trembled, while
+Brandow, who was directly behind him, staggered back with a low
+cry--the figure of a man, whose clothing was drenched with water and
+besmeared with sand and clay as if he had just risen from the earth,
+and whose pale face, framed in its dark beard and shaded by a
+broad-brimmed hat, was terribly disfigured by a narrow stream of blood
+which ran from his temple across his cheek.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In Heaven's name, Gotthold, what has happened?&quot; exclaimed Wollnow,
+holding out both hands to his friend, and drawing him into the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where are the ladies?&quot; asked Gotthold in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wollnow motioned towards the sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then keep them away. Sellien is in the Fürstenhof, we have just
+bandaged his wounds, he is still unconscious; Lauterbach despairs of
+his recovery. I thought it would be better for me to bring the news.
+You here, Brandow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow had recovered his composure; it was absurd that he should have
+been so unnecessarily anxious. The scoundrel had as many lives as a
+cat, and what did he care for the other?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have been waiting here for you almost two hours,&quot; said he. &quot;But how
+could such an accident have happened? Poor Gotthold, and that good
+fellow Sellien! I must see how he is. You will probably remain here
+now, and you also, Herr Wollnow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Without waiting for a reply, he rushed out and disappeared in the
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wollnow's eyes flashed as he looked after him, but he repressed the
+words that seemed trembling on his lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you, my dear Gotthold?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have got off so,&quot; said Gotthold. &quot;But what is to be done now? How
+shall we tell his wife?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should like to see him myself first. They know I was going to meet
+you, and will not miss me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The two friends went out. Wollnow gave Gotthold his arm. &quot;Lean on me,&quot;
+said he; &quot;lean firmly, and don't speak.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only one thing. The ten thousand thalers Sellien had with him are
+lost. We did not notice it until we were cutting off his coat here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How can they be lost if you were obliged to cut off his coat?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold made no reply; the faintness which he had already several
+times scarcely been able to conquer, once more stole over him, and he
+was obliged to lean very heavily on Wollnow's arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus, not without considerable difficulty, they reached the Fürstenhof,
+where everything was in the greatest confusion, but did not see Brandow
+again. The host said that he had ordered his horse to be saddled as
+soon as he heard of the news of the loss of the money, and then rode
+away without seeing the Assessor. He could do no good here, he said;
+but the money would scarcely be found without him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor with him perhaps,&quot; muttered Wollnow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There had been no change in the Assessor's condition.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If he does not recover his senses soon, we have no hope of saving the
+patient,&quot; said Doctor Lauterbach.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The physician soon had two patients. Gotthold fell fainting upon
+Sellien's bed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I said so,&quot; observed the Doctor; &quot;it's a miracle that he has held out
+so long. It is really a bad accident.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If it is an accident,&quot; muttered Wollnow.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Wollnow and his wife now spent days and nights of ceaseless care.
+It had proved possible to move the Assessor, in spite of his serious
+injuries, to their house, where he was much more comfortably situated
+in every respect, while Gotthold, who in comparison was scarcely
+considered wounded, they were obliged to leave at the Fürstenhof. He
+had lain for hours, either unconscious or tossing in the wildest
+delirium, a prey to violent fever; the doctor shook his head gravely,
+and spoke of a concussion of the brain, which was not impossible, or
+some internal injury, which was extremely probable. Herr Wollnow was
+very anxious, and spent every moment he could spare by the bedside of
+the invalid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Assessor's case is really very simple,&quot; said he; &quot;he has broken
+his left leg, and put his right arm out of joint; the arm has been set,
+and the leg is going on admirably. I'm not anxious about the Assessor,
+whom you ladies will soon set to rights; but with Gotthold it is
+different; we don't yet know exactly where we are; I can't be spared
+there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ottilie thought he would have believed it impossible for him to be
+spared from Gotthold's side, under any circumstances, but she had
+nothing to say against a preference she herself shared; Gotthold
+already seemed like her own son.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Wollnow received this remarkable confession with a smile, and the
+same rather melancholy smile flitted over his grave face again and
+again, as he sat beside the sick man's bed, stroked the soft wavy hair
+from his burning brow, and compared the delicate features, now deadly
+pale and anon flushed with fever, with those of another face, which had
+once seemed to him the type and expression of all beauty, and whose
+memory his faithful heart had kept so loyally.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And many strange thoughts, evoked by this recollection, passed
+through his mind as he sat in the quiet room through the long silent
+hours,--thoughts which approached caressingly, and he repelled because
+they sought to remove him from the firm ground on which he had placed
+himself and his house, and where he must stand resolutely if he did not
+wish to become the sport of the winds and the waves, with all that had
+been entrusted to his care. No, no; it beseems not only God to
+pronounce what He has created good, but man must also be permitted to
+say so of his works, must be able to say so, if he is to preserve the
+strength and courage needed to guard what he has made. He had chosen
+his own part; no matter whether he had taken the worse or better, he
+had chosen it, and in those words all was said. Those are not the best,
+but the worst men, who wish to decide for themselves what has been
+settled long ago.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But for him, who, according to the number of his years, might be his
+son--whom he would so gladly--no no! not that, not that; but he loved
+him because he was so good and noble, loved him as an older man can and
+may love a younger whom he sees tottering along the same intricate
+mazes of the path of life, which once drank his own heart's blood--for
+him nothing was yet decided. Could not the determination be made so
+that the heart need not pour forth its best blood, ere it was calm
+enough to understand the lessons of wisdom? How gladly would he have
+procured him a happiness of which he had himself been deprived! It
+could no longer be a perfect happiness, under any circumstances--too
+much had already happened which would cast its shadow athwart the
+fairest future--but perhaps to him it was the only one possible. After
+all, there was something in the race, in the old habits of thought and
+feeling transmitted to their descendants by those ancient Germans, who
+did not try to improve their wretched homes, but simply gave the matter
+up, who knew of no other stratagem in battle except that of binding
+themselves together with chains, and in gambling preferred to be
+ruined, rather than make any concession to ill-luck. And now he too!
+the son of such a father, such a mother, who both had been destroyed by
+this excess of feeling, which will suffer no bargaining and trading.
+Here also the case was essentially different; a force was involved here
+which was entirely lacking then, a force which almost seemed to make
+what he would otherwise condemn as a crime against society, an act of
+philanthropy--a necessity, and yet in his eyes a sad one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To be sure, almost everything in regard to this question was still and
+must remain mere conjecture, at least so long as those who had been the
+victims of this--accident on the moor were unable to tell what they
+knew, or what observations they had made before and after. True, at
+best it was probable that very little weight could be given to the
+Assessor's statement, since from the little Gotthold had communicated
+on that first evening, it was evident enough that the former had been
+incapable of judging of anything; and even now, when he could think and
+speak clearly again, he persisted in the assertion that he knew
+nothing, and must have slept until the catastrophe happened. But
+Gotthold, who, with the delicate perceptions of an artist, must have
+seen, heard, and noticed everything, could undoubtedly supply materials
+which a clever investigator would know how to prize.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To be sure, Justizrath von Zadenig, in the neighboring capital of the
+island, to whose district the case belonged, could hardly be included
+in this category. The Herr Justizrath saw nothing at all unusual in the
+event. That carriages might be upset in more or less dangerous places,
+and pocket-books or such things lost, everybody must admit; and that
+the road across Dollan moor contained such places was well known, at
+least to him, Justizrath von Zadenig, who knew the story of the two
+Wenhof cousins, part of which was connected with Dollan moor, very
+well, as everybody else did, who, like him, was descended from one of
+the old island families. The Brandows were not an old family, and the
+way in which they had got possession of Dahlitz was not exactly
+justifiable; but they no longer owned it, and Carl Brandow ought not to
+be called to account for the condition of the Dollan roads, over which
+three or four generations of Wenhofs had passed to and fro unmolested.
+That was a thing he, Justizrath von Zadenig, considered quite
+inadmissible, the more so as the brunt of the trouble would not come
+upon Brandow, but on his own brother-in-law, the Herr Landrath von
+Swantenit, of Swantenit, who at the last session of the court had been
+made responsible for the condition of the high-roads and by-ways. If,
+however, Herr Wollnow, of whose wisdom and judgment he held the highest
+opinion, thought that the matter ought to be thoroughly investigated,
+he would send at once for the Herr Referendar von Pahlen, and even
+despatch a gensdarme with him, which, always looked particularly
+official and serious. Surely Herr Wollnow would be satisfied with that.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Wollnow was satisfied, because he had obtained all he could get
+from the indolent, but in other respects worthy old gentleman; and
+after he had settled a few other business matters, returned to Prora,
+where, at the door of the Fürstenhof, he met Carl Brandow, who had
+ridden in to-day, as usual, to inquire in person about the condition of
+the invalids.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Things are going on admirably,&quot; he cried, as he saw Herr Wollnow. &quot;His
+head has been perfectly clear for the last hour. I have not tried to
+see him, because I thought all excitement ought still to be avoided;
+but I spoke to Lauterbach, who looks very solemn. He had made up his
+mind to an inflammation of the brain, and now sees that he'll pull
+through. Sellien, too, is getting along as well as can be expected; so
+I can ride home today with a lighter heart than usual. How delighted my
+wife will be! Perhaps I shall bring her in with me tomorrow. I have
+Frau Wollnow's permission to do so. Good-by until to-morrow, Herr
+Wollnow, good by.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That chestnut gelding's a fine horse,&quot; said the groom, looking after
+him as he galloped away; &quot;but it's nothing at all in comparison to the
+one he rode Sunday night. That was a splendid animal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wollnow's glance had also followed the slight figure, whose seat in the
+saddle was so firm and graceful. &quot;If he is really the scoundrel I think
+him, it will be difficult to outwit him at all events. And I must not
+let Gotthold notice anything; it would excite him terribly, and, for
+the present, without due cause; at least I must have firmer ground. It
+would certainly be no child's play: the snare which could catch the
+knave would need very small meshes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As his friend entered, Gotthold extended his hand, which, though very
+white, was entirely free from fever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There,&quot; said he, &quot;feel it yourself; and now with this clasp let me
+thank you for your kindness, your affection. I have not been so
+entirely out of my mind as not to see your face distinctly from time to
+time, amid all the delirious fancies that oppressed me, and always with
+the grave pitying expression, which I shall gratefully remember as long
+as I live.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold's voice trembled, and tears glittered in his eyes--&quot;It is not
+the weakness of sickness,&quot; said he: &quot;I will frankly confess the truth:
+it is the power of an emotion which is entirely new to me. I have had
+so little opportunity to be grateful for the services of love. The
+person who to others, during their whole lives, stands forth as the
+image of unselfish, self-sacrificing devotion--my mother--died so
+early, I scarcely knew her; I was separated from my father by an--as I
+must believe--impassable gulf, and for ten years have wandered about
+the world amid a thousand events, a thousand relations, ever in the
+bustle of society, constantly among, and often even the centre of a
+large circle of friends, and yet in the inmost depths of my soul
+alone--alone, and longing for a love which so late in life has been
+given me by a man whom I saw a few days ago for the first time, and
+between whom and myself no relations had previously existed save those
+of the most ordinary business transactions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The merchant's grave dark face expressed keen emotion, and his deep
+voice sounded strangely low and gentle as he said after a short pause:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And suppose that we did not meet a few days ago for the first time;
+suppose I had held you in my arms when you were a boy four or five
+years old; suppose the interest I took in you sprang from a much deeper
+source than our business relations, was connected with all the poetry
+and beauty of my life: what then, my dear young friend, what then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did you know my mother?&quot; asked Gotthold, with a sudden presentiment;
+&quot;you must have known her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I knew and--loved her. To know and love her was in those days the same
+thing to me, nay, even at this moment they still seem to belong
+together, like light and warmth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And my mother--loved you. Speak frankly, and explain the mystery that
+has always rested upon the relations between my parents.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wollnow shook his head. &quot;No, no,&quot; said he, &quot;that is not it; even if it
+seemed so for a moment, it was only seeming, and it is the sorrowful
+pride of my life that I did not allow myself to be dazzled by this
+semblance; that through it I perceived the rugged path duty and honor
+commanded me to tread.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You increase the mystery instead of dispelling it,&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So many things in this drama have remained mysterious, even to me,&quot;
+replied Wollnow, covering his eyes with his hand; &quot;but one fact is
+plain, that a man of your father's stamp, so highly gifted, so glowing
+with the holy passion of truth, could not fail to arouse an
+overmastering love in the heart of your no less gifted, no less
+enthusiastic mother. I assure you, my friend, if ever there was a love
+such as you described a short time ago, it was that which impelled
+these two rare, beautiful natures towards each other, like two flames
+which rush together into one. Any one who witnessed the spectacle stood
+in silent admiration, saying: No other conclusion is possible. My poor
+dear friend said so, though it was a death sentence to him; I said so
+too, and thought my heart would break; but it was stronger than I
+believed, and then--I was determined to live! With that determination
+one can do so, my friend, although it is at first a very wretched,
+pitiful fragment of life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wollnow paused, for he felt that he could not go on calmly. After a
+short time he continued:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am not now in a condition to judge whether I have erred in allowing
+myself to be led on to make this confession to you, but I should
+certainly wrong the memory of your parents, you, my dear young friend,
+nay, myself, if I did not now tell you all, although the all is but
+little, and this little terribly significant of the sad uncertainty of
+human destiny.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The handsome young couple came here. I saw them again by accident a
+few years after, when business chanced to bring me into this
+neighborhood, for I would have gone out of my way to avoid a meeting
+which could only cause me pain. But as I drove through Rammin, one of
+the wheels of my carriage broke directly in front of the parsonage. I
+was thrown out so violently that I dislocated my arm, and was compelled
+to claim your parents' hospitality for several weeks. You cannot
+remember me, but I can still see the curly-haired, large-eyed little
+boy, who played so happily at his mother's side among the beds of
+asters in the garden in the autumn sunlight, and, thank God, had no
+suspicion of the meaning of the mournful expression with which the
+beautiful young mother often gazed over the child's head into vacancy.
+Alas! for her the flowers did not bloom, the sun did not shine;
+everything around her was dark, and darkness was within her, in her
+warm young heart. And it was the same in the ardent heart of the man
+whom she had once so passionately loved, and who had loved her with
+equal fervor, who, I am perfectly sure, loved her with no less devotion
+at that moment, when they already seemed to hate each other, perhaps
+fancied they did. Oh! my dear friend, I won't preach--I won't begin our
+late dispute again; but how can I help touching the wound, and saying:
+'Here again it was--and in a fatal manner--the want of moderation,
+which will not be satisfied with things as they are, will not try to
+make the best of circumstances, but releasing itself from commonplace
+conditions, strives to realize an ideal vision'? These two beautiful
+natures, which could offer so much, be so much to each other,
+considered it nothing because it was not all. She expected him to be
+not only the champion of the Church before whom she had at first knelt
+in admiration, but also to possess every virtue the intelligent,
+much-courted young girl had ever admired in any man. He expected her to
+wear, in addition to all the charms with which nature had so lavishly
+endowed her--I know not what mystic crown, without which all earthly
+beauty was valueless in the eyes of the enthusiastic apostle. And
+instead of trying to lessen the necessary differences between their
+natures as much as possible by gentleness and patience, and overlook
+the remnant which would still be left, out of respect for the Great
+Power of which we are only an infinitesimal part, both with fatal
+defiance increased their special gifts; he wanted to do nothing but see
+and read obscure writings by a glass; she, who had always been far too
+proud to be vain, declared that the glass told her nothing except that
+she was young and beautiful, as the world was, in spite of all fanatics
+and devotees. And now this strange conflict went on in the quiet
+parsonage of a little village, on an island which in those days was
+almost entirely secluded from all intercourse with the outside
+world--what marvel was it that the two unhappy combatants bled from
+painful wounds--and must bleed to death if they are not separated in
+time, the world thinks and says in such cases. I am well aware of it,
+but I did not think so. I said to myself: 'These two cannot forget or
+lose each other, even if they should place a world between them, and
+next to themselves the person would suffer most who might be mad enough
+to aid this separation.' I said this also to the young wife, who could
+not or would not conceal her misery from me. I spoke to her--as I
+thought my duty required me to do--with earnest entreaty, and I must
+confess that in so speaking I drowned, not the voice of my conviction,
+but of my own heart, which during this strange scene seemed as if it
+would burst my laboring breast. Now, for the first time, I learned that
+before the right man came I had been dearer to the beautiful girl than
+I had ever ventured to hope or suspect--learned it in broken words and
+hints which rose from her glowing, passionate heart like sparks from a
+blazing fire. How can I deny that I was touched by this fire, that it
+became inexpressibly difficult for me to withstand it? Yes, my friend,
+I struggled like the patriarch of old on that wondrous night, and from
+my heaving breast, like his, the magic words were gasped forth, 'I will
+not let thee go, except Thou bless me.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And was it no blessing that some trace of the repose I had won by so
+fierce a conflict seemed to calm the soul of the despairing young wife,
+that she--which in such a situation is everything--found time to regain
+her self-control, to remember what she had once possessed, to ask
+herself whether she might not possess it again if she desired. I can
+still see the look with which she extended her hand as she bade me
+farewell, the earnest, expressive glance in which a gleam of hope still
+sparkled. I can still hear her sweet voice utter the words which were
+the richest reward to me for all I had done and suffered, the words: 'I
+thank you, my friend.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I thank you,&quot; said Gotthold, seizing the hand of the
+deeply-agitated man, and pressing it warmly, &quot;thank you with all my
+heart, for you have acted according to your sincere conviction, and
+what can a man do more? But you did not save my poor mother from dying
+of a broken heart.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wollnow looked gloomily at the floor. Gotthold, smiling sadly,
+continued:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To be sure, it is better to die so, to die young, than to live on with
+a broken heart, to the torment instead of the joy of one's self and
+others, as was the fate of my poor father. And he cannot have become
+reconciled to my mother's shade. Else why, when he pushed me from him
+in anger, did his pale lips murmur: 'You are just like your mother'?
+No, no, my friend, I honor your wisdom, but I think one must be born
+wise--it is not to be learned.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At least in one lesson,&quot; said Wollnow, with grave kindness, &quot;and this
+has lasted long enough--too long, when I consider the condition of the
+pupil.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold protested against this decision; he felt perfectly well, and
+strong enough to continue the argument a long time; besides, the
+subject had a demoniacal charm for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And for that very reason we will drop it,&quot; replied Wollnow, &quot;and
+instead, if you are really strong enough, I will request you to answer
+a few questions in relation to your unlucky drive. I will confess that
+I put them partly at the desire of a prominent magistrate. At least,
+Justizrath von Zadenig declares that no farther steps can be taken in
+this disagreeable matter without your deposition, and has begged me to
+take it down in a legal form.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold looked up in astonishment--&quot;What is the point in question?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It concerns, in the first place, the lost money, which must, if
+possible, be recovered,&quot; replied Wollnow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor Sellien! I am sorry for him,&quot; said Gotthold; &quot;but I don't see how
+your questions and my answers can aid in its recovery.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let us see. Do you know that Sellien had the money with him when you
+left Dollan?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am sure of it; as he did not suspect it came from me, he told me in
+a walk we took after dinner that Brandow had paid him, and showed me
+the packet, which he took out of the breast-pocket of his coat. I also
+saw it there during the whole evening--not without some little anxiety.
+I feared he might be tempted to stake the money. Fortunately he always
+won.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So he was gambling. Who was the loser?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Brandow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did he lose much?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think he lost five thousand thalers to Redebas, who was the only
+person that had the courage to make a stand against so rash an
+adversary.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course he did not pay him on the spot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly not; and from that very circumstance arose the quarrel which
+ended in the others leaving the house in a rage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did you take any part in the dispute?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, no; Sellien perhaps was a little mixed up with it; at least
+Brandow made it the pretext for the rudeness that drove us also from
+the house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Drove you out of the house! Very good,&quot; said Wollnow, when he had made
+a written record of the words. &quot;And Sellien still had the money when
+you went away?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I felt the packet when I buttoned his overcoat; he was then partially
+intoxicated.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the overcoat was still buttoned when Lauterbach wanted to bandage
+his injuries here. So you said a short time ago, and Lauterbach
+confirms it. Did you make no attempt to remove his clothes at the
+smithy?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No. Old Prebrow wanted to do so, but Sellien, who came to his senses
+for a moment, begged so earnestly to be let alone, that we desisted,
+and contented ourselves with making him as comfortable a bed as we
+could on some straw and hay in the bottom of the wagon the Prebrows had
+already prepared.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And did you feel the pocket-book there too?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold reflected a moment. &quot;No,&quot; said he, &quot;he did not have it there.
+I remember now, because first the old man and then I myself felt his
+breast, as he complained of severe pain in his left ribs. I could not
+have helped feeling the packet. That is certainly strange.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is indeed,&quot; replied Wollnow, &quot;since neither of the worthy Prebrows,
+father and son, who carried him from the place where the accident
+occurred to the smithy, can have taken it out of his pocket.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Impossible!&quot; exclaimed Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And it is almost equally impossible, though in another sense,
+that during his fall he can have lost it out of the pocket of a
+closely-buttoned coat, over which another was buttoned.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet there is no other supposition.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So it seems. But let us go back a few steps. You had the impression
+throughout, that Brandow was driving you from the house. Did not that
+seem strange?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No and yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We will suppose that the no refers to your relations with Brandow, and
+the yes to the Assessor's, whose favor he certainly had the most urgent
+motives to keep. I confess it is incomprehensible to me. And on such a
+night too--as King Lear says, 'In storm and rain and darkness'--to
+drive you out of the house and give you a carriage with no lamps to
+convey you over such notoriously bad roads.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All that is true,&quot; said Gotthold in an embarrassed tone; &quot;but
+recurring to Brandow's unfriendliness--which, moreover, he instantly
+regretted, and tried to make amends for the same evening--will scarcely
+help us to the recovery of the money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You see what an unskilful inquisitor I am,&quot; replied Wollnow, passing
+his hand over his brow. &quot;Let us leave the master, and without regard
+for the old adage, turn to the man. Was he not the same one who drove
+you out in the morning?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The same. Brandow's trainer, and as you see, occasional coachman,
+steward also, in a word, factotum.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Factotum, very good,&quot; said Wollnow. &quot;A do-everything, in contrast to
+always doing right, for this Signer Do-everything seems to fear nothing
+and no one, at least that was the impression he made upon me. What do
+you think of the man?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That he is a remarkable fellow, so far as this, that any one who had
+seen him once would hardly forget him. I remember him perfectly from
+the time I first knew him, years ago, till now: the square flat head,
+and low retreating forehead of the large animals of the cat tribe, to
+which his green squinting eyes also bear a resemblance, while his broad
+shoulders, short, thick-set figure, and clumsy bow legs are more like
+the dog tribe--a cross between the terrier and bull-dog, whose tenacity
+and faithfulness he also possesses. I believe he would go through fire
+and water for his master.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And water,&quot; said Wollnow. &quot;What wonderful eyes you artists have! How
+dear that description is! And now we have this estimable monster, this
+faithful Caliban, on the front seat of the carriage, driving through
+the darkness. What about the ride?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have frankly confessed that, until just before the accident, I
+noticed little or nothing of what was passing around me. But I remember
+now that we ascended the hill with difficulty, probably because the
+wind was directly against us, and Hinrich Scheel, with his usual
+cruelty, violently lashed the poor horses, which seemed to have a
+presentiment of their fate, and would not move from the spot until
+Hinrich at last jumped out of the carriage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Jumped out of the carriage,&quot; repeated Wollnow; &quot;that was very wise,
+very apropos; for the fall occurred directly after, didn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It must have taken place at that very moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let us say a few moments after, otherwise the faithful Caliban would
+have been obliged to join the party. The fall you have already
+described to me, so far as you were conscious of the precise
+moment--and it is astonishing how far an artist's observation extends
+to the gates, nay, I might say across the very threshold of death. And
+how long did this terrible moment, when you were so near your end,
+last?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can hardly say; I became unconscious without pain or struggle, as
+quickly and imperceptibly as the lid falls over the eye; and in the
+same manner, without the slightest struggle, my senses returned, and I
+lay with my eyes fixed upon the moon, watching the yellowish brown
+clouds over her face grow thinner and thinner--as if I had nothing else
+to do--until her rays suddenly pierced the last transparent veil, and
+shone in their full brilliancy. At the same moment the consciousness of
+my situation returned, and I knew as well as if some one had told me
+that I had remained lying on a ledge about half way down the slope,
+while the carriage and horses, sliding down the precipice to the edge
+of the morass, were lying in one confused, terrible heap, amid which I
+could distinguish nothing. After this, I must have again fallen, not
+into an unconscious condition, but a sort of delirious state. I had a
+distinct vision of a horseman, who, with a speed that only occurs in
+dreams, dashed away from me across the marsh in the direction of
+Neuenhof. Like the traditional ghostly rider, he had his head bent far
+over the long thin neck of his flying steed, and wore a tall hat. A
+ghost in a tall hat, isn't it ridiculous?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very ridiculous!&quot; said Wollnow. He had risen from his seat again, and
+gone to the window to conceal his agitation from Gotthold. What was
+that the groom had said just now about the remarkable speed of the
+horse Brandow had ridden that night? And the spectral rider had dashed
+in the direction of Neuenhof, from whence Brandow had come!--Brandow,
+who strangely enough had worn a tall hat that night, and the tall hat
+was splashed with marshy water.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wollnow turned to Gotthold again: &quot;Do you think it impossible for any
+one, I mean any one of flesh and blood, to cross Dollan marsh, even on
+the best and fastest horse?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What put that into your head?&quot; asked Gotthold in amazement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! nothing, except that Brandow has been telling everywhere that one
+of the horses which broke away from the carriage and tried to make its
+escape across the morass was drowned in the attempt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then that is surely the best proof of the impossibility.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly,&quot; replied Wollnow; &quot;and now you must have perfect quiet, or
+Lauterbach will be very angry. I will come back again in two hours;
+until then you must sleep undisturbed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wollnow spent the two hours in a restless, impatient mood, of which the
+calm, self-possessed man would not have believed himself capable. He
+was expecting the young lawyer, who had promised to stop in Prora on
+his return from Dollan and tell him the result of his investigations.
+Herr von Pahlen had left B. two hours before him, and might surely have
+executed his commission by this time. The expected visitor arrived at
+last, but without the gendarme Herr von Zadenig had ordered to attend
+him to give a suitable coloring to the affair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is a very strange business,&quot; said Herr von Pahlen. &quot;You know I
+went ostensibly to take the deposition of the man who drove the
+gentlemen, Hinrich Scheel; at least he was the principal person, and
+now would you believe it--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The man had disappeared,&quot; said Wollnow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How did you know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I only thought so; but go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Had actually disappeared,&quot; continued Herr von Pahlen, &quot;although half
+an hour before our arrival he had been seen by the laborers on the
+estate, and also by Herr Brandow, who had just returned home. He had
+disappeared and could not be found, although Herr Brandow was kind
+enough to send men in every direction, who as Herr Brandow himself
+said, must have found him if--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The man had wanted to be found.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Exactly, but how stupid in the fellow, who, after all, is not to
+blame, except for having taken for the journey the two worst beasts
+among the many good ones, in order to spare the carriage-horses. It is
+from this cause Brandow says, as he now looks at the matter, that the
+whole misfortune arose. To be sure, if the fellow has really fled--I
+have left Rüterbusch there for the present, who will arrest him if he
+makes his appearance--the case assumes a very different aspect. The
+fellow will suggest the inference that he either found the money, God
+knows how, or took it out of the Assessor's pocket while he was
+senseless, and now, being conscious of his guilt, fled when he saw us
+coming--and one can see a long distance over the moor. Brandow, who was
+very much astonished, said that he should have attributed such a crime
+to any one rather than this man, who had always been highly esteemed by
+his father, and since his death had served him faithfully and honestly,
+but admitted that the sudden disappearance was very mysterious; and
+after all everything was possible; at any rate, the possibility could
+not now be denied that the poor devil might have yielded to the great
+temptation of becoming a rich man at one stroke.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A devil always feels tempted to do evil, even if he is not poor,&quot; said
+Wollnow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So you think he has stolen it,&quot; asked the lawyer eagerly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have nothing to do with the matter,&quot; replied Wollnow evasively,
+while his dark eyes flashed with an expression that seemed to say that
+for all that he did have an opinion in regard to the affair, and a very
+decided one.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had left Prora for Sundin as soon as his health permitted,
+although Ottilie declared that the Prora air was infinitely better for
+a convalescent, and he could complete the promised picture just as well
+here as there. Nay, she had even announced herself ready to give up the
+present entirely, if their friend could not be induced to stay on any
+other terms; but her husband had again differed from her in opinion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We ought not to try to detain one who wants to go,&quot; said he, &quot;or we
+must be responsible for all the results that may proceed from his stay,
+and that I have no inclination to do in this case. I am sincerely
+attached to the young man, as he deserves, and wish him from my heart
+all the happiness he deserves; but I don't exactly see how he could
+obtain it upon this path. And in this I have not clung to the views you
+know I hold regarding marriage. I would be reconciled to all possible
+concessions, if Gotthold could be helped. But that cannot be done yet.
+The only way to remove the obstacles from his path is such a terrible
+one, that, from my knowledge of his nature, he will shudder to use it
+if matters ever go far enough. At present they have not reached that
+point.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall take care not to rack my brains over this mystery,&quot; cried
+Ottilie; &quot;only let me ask one question, to which I beg you to give me a
+plain, straightforward answer: Does Gotthold know of this expedient?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have not mentioned it to him, but it is possible that, with his
+penetration, he has hit upon it himself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">However little satisfaction Ottilie had derived from this very vague
+information, she had not been able to doubt that Gotthold really wished
+to go away, and even her husband's persuasion would hardly have
+detained him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had hurried off with the impetuosity of one who fancies some
+magic spell has been cast over him, and strives to break it, cost what
+it may. And had not an enchanted ring been woven around him from the
+moment he had entered his native island, and been driven by the
+companion of his boyhood, without recognizing him, through his native
+fields? Good Jochen Prebrow! He certainly bore very little resemblance
+to a Mercury, and yet with him had commenced the succession of marvels
+which had taken place during the last few days, which had now shown him
+a heavenly face and now a fiendish grin; now refreshed him with nectar
+and ambrosia, and anon strewn ashes on his tongue.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I should be the most miserable creature on earth if you did not
+understand me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words constantly rang in his ears--the words and the anxious tone
+in which she had uttered them, as if from the depths of the
+wretchedness into which she would sink without hope of deliverance, if
+he did not understand her. She and he! Was not doubt misunderstanding,
+and were not doubt and despair one and the same thing in this case?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had he understood her?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was in the middle of the night, when Gotthold started from a
+troubled sleep, that the meaning of the mystery had appeared before his
+soul, as if born of the darkness: there was one thing, and only one,
+which she could not, dared not do: go while her child remained,
+remained in the power of this fiend; and by this one thing the fiend
+had forced her to obey his will. And force her to go he can and will,
+will apply for the dissolution of a marriage bond she has broken--or
+would she, the proud woman, deny it? Deny upon oath, in a court of
+justice, that she had ever rested in the arms of her friend? Repeat in
+the court-room, before the world, the yes which in his presence she had
+long since changed to an inflexible no? Very well, then the breach of
+faith was proved, the marriage dissolved, the child would be taken from
+the guilty parent, and given to the one who was innocent of blame!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, with a sneering laugh, he had repeated to her the shameful
+formula, with which the next morning, in the presence of her lover, she
+was to degrade herself to a level with the lowest--must do so if he did
+not see through the fiendish plot, if he did not understand her!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thank God, he understood her now! But how she must have suffered! How
+she must suffer still!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And was this state of things to continue? Never, never. Now that he had
+at last penetrated his enemy's base game, he must win the victory. If
+he had allowed himself to be paid with money for the shame of knowing
+that his wife's heart belonged to another, how far would not his
+venality extend? But he would sell everything--honor, wife, and child.
+Why had he not disposed of all at once, since he knew any price would
+be paid that came within the means of the buyer? Did he wish to
+increase the value of his wares by selling them separately? Or was
+there, even for him, a limit which he could not pass? Inconceivable. Or
+was his hatred towards his rival greater than his avarice? Did he carry
+the refinement of cruelty so far as only to mutilate his victim, in
+order to exult in her agony?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was certainly very probable from such a man, but how long would this
+spendthrift and gambler remain in a situation to be able to afford
+himself so costly a luxury? How soon would necessity compel him to sell
+off his wares? What had the purchaser to do, except practise a little
+patience and keep the money ready?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The property which Gotthold had hitherto considered of so little
+importance, suddenly acquired a priceless value in his eyes, and he
+felt sorely troubled by the thought that he had entrusted the greater
+part of it to persons whose honesty was by no means beyond question;
+at least Wollnow, even when their intercourse had been limited to
+letter-writing, had repeatedly made such hints, and finally in plain
+words warned him against the house in Stettin; but Gotthold, out of
+indifference towards the property, and respect for the name of his dead
+relative, which had been retained by the firm, had not heeded the
+warning until Wollnow had recently spoken on this point even more
+urgently, and said that he must withdraw his money, and there was
+danger in delay. The banker in Sundin who discounted Wollnow's notes
+had confirmed the statement of his business acquaintance, and offered
+him his services, but said it would be better to withdraw it to-day
+than to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had intended to do so, but his next visit had been to his
+protégé, the young artist Bruggberg, whom he found dying, and in the
+duties of friendship he had forgotten everything else. Then days and
+weeks of the most sorrowful emotions had followed, during which he
+could form no resolution. Now he did not need to form any; now he was
+eager to make up for the delay; but it was too late.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he entered the banker's office, the latter came to meet him with a
+very grave face. News had just come from Stettin that Lenz &amp; Co. had
+failed, in a most unprecedented, scandalous manner; the creditors would
+not receive five per cent. &quot;I am sincerely sorry,&quot; said Herr Nathanson;
+&quot;I lose a small sum myself, if one can be said to lose what one has
+given up all hopes of getting long ago; but you are very heavily
+involved, if I understand you rightly. Did you not have fifty thousand
+thalers invested there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A short time before Gotthold would merely have shrugged his shoulders
+at such news, and gone back to his work. Now it came upon him like a
+thunder-clap. By the sum recently borrowed of Wollnow and his present
+loss, his property was reduced to about one-fourth of its original
+amount, and even this, strictly speaking, no longer belonged to him.
+Nay, he need not even be overstrict; it was only necessary not to be
+faithless to the obligations into which he had entered--obligations to
+struggling young artists, who had based their hopes of the future on
+his friendship, to widows and children of his deceased companions in
+art, who but for him would sink into poverty. What was left him if he
+paid these debts, as his honor, his heart bade him? Nothing! Nothing
+except the income from his labor. It was enough and more than enough
+for himself--but for the insatiate avarice of that spendthrift! He
+would not be put off with promises, nor accept payments on account, not
+he!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold stood helpless before a barrier that towered before him in
+impassable height, and which neither his anger nor his despair could
+remove. Of what crime could she be charged, except that young,
+generous, and confiding, she had allowed herself to be deceived by a
+villain, and then after long years of terrible, silent agony, had once
+more breathed freely at the sight of the friend of her youth, and fled
+to his arms for deliverance? And now she was the guilty one, and this
+scoundrel, asserting his rights, could mock, torture, kill her
+unpunished.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thus anger and love drove him restlessly around in the terrible circle,
+from which no escape seemed possible unless some means could be found
+to fasten the crime, before the eyes of all the world, upon the person
+who was really guilty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But how could such crimes be proved?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold started in horror when, while racking his brains over the
+possibility, he surprised himself in the act of producing this proof.
+Should he sully his own and Cecilia's honor by revealing the dark
+secrets, which, under cover of the night, extended from the master's
+room at Dollan to the little attic chamber of the maid-servant? Never!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And that the spendthrift and gambler would ever venture out of the dark
+mole-tracks of vice to the comparatively open road of crime was a
+thought that had also occurred to him; but there were too many
+probabilities against it. He did not give the scoundrel credit for the
+courage that always belongs to crime; besides, in that case, Wollnow
+would probably have expressed some suspicion; Wollnow, who, apparently
+out of sympathy for the Assessor, and perhaps also from the impulse of
+his own nature, which every dark problem irritated, had entered into
+the affair so eagerly, followed with so much care even the smallest
+clew that might lead to the discovery of the lost or stolen money. And,
+after all, was it not a psychological impossibility, that even a
+Brandow--if he had been directly or indirectly concerned in the
+robbery--could quietly clasp the hand of the man he had wronged, as he
+had done just now, when Gotthold met him engaged in a most animated
+conversation with the convalescent and his wife. True, the matter had
+been settled by the trustees of the convent of St. Jürgen, in a manner
+particularly favorable to Sellien. Under the direction of Alma's
+father, who presided at the meeting, they decided that the Assessor was
+not in the least to blame, since, as the agent of the convent, he was
+authorized, nay obliged, to receive the money, and certainly could not
+be held responsible for what happened to him on Dollan moor, during and
+after the fall. So the convent merely set down the ten thousand thalers
+as lost, &quot;and,&quot; Sellien's father-in-law said, &quot;if we were requested to
+withdraw the warrant for the apprehension of Hinrich Scheel, I, for
+one, should make no objection. The fellow has escaped long ago, and it
+is neither for our interest, gentlemen, nor that of my son-in-law, to
+have the stupid story constantly kept before the people.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow laughed heartily when Sellien, in the most amusing manner, gave
+an account of the last meeting of the trustees, but was unfortunately
+obliged to take his leave immediately, as he wanted to go away directly
+after he had attended another consultation of the racing committee: the
+seventh within a fortnight! He could not get away from the city at all;
+but what was he to do? It was everything to him to get the resolution
+to include a piece of marshy ground in the race-course withdrawn. His
+Brownlock, which had compared very favorably with the other horses
+yesterday, was as good a steeple-chaser as could be found; but for the
+very reason that he had so much power in leaping, required firm ground.
+&quot;It would be a sin and shame to treat him so; even young Prince Prora
+has declared it 'indigne.' But I'll pay no forfeit for non-performance
+of my contract. I'd rather be left sticking in the bog and if necessary
+drown.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is a hero!&quot; Alma Sellien exclaimed, ere Brandow had closed the door
+behind him, opening her eyes very wide to express her enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is a fool,&quot; Gotthold muttered to himself, as he walked through the
+wet, silent streets towards his lodgings; &quot;at least as much fool as
+knave, and certainly incapable of a deed which, in any sense, requires
+a man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On reaching his room, Gotthold found a letter in the firm, even bold
+hand of Wollnow, now so familiar to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The epistle was a lengthy one. Gotthold expected to find news of the
+Stettin affair, about which a great deal of correspondence had passed
+between him and his friend during the last few weeks. He was mistaken.
+His eyes sparkled as, still standing, he glanced rapidly over the
+pages; then he threw himself into a chair, but instantly started up
+again, for his resolution was already formed. He hurried to the house
+where the racing committee met. Herr Brandow, after a violent
+altercation with one of the gentlemen on the committee, had left the
+house half an hour before. He went to the hotel where he knew Brandow
+usually lodged. This time Herr Brandow had not done the hotel the
+honor; perhaps he had taken a room at the &quot;Golden Lion.&quot; The &quot;Golden
+Lion&quot; knew nothing of Herr Brandow; perhaps the gentleman might be at
+the &quot;White Rose.&quot; Brandow had left the &quot;White Rose&quot; about fifteen
+minutes before, for home, the head waiter thought, at least he had
+ordered his luggage to be carried to the ferry-boat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next boat left in half an hour. Gotthold had just time to hurry
+home and put clothing enough to last for a few days into a travelling
+bag. &quot;It is possible that I may not return for several days,&quot; he called
+to the landlady, and added in an under-tone: &quot;It is possible I may not
+return at all.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The passage to the island was unusually long that day. A strong
+head-wind had sprung up; the boat was overloaded with passengers and
+horses, and they were obliged to tack, cautiously. Conversation among
+the passengers, most of whom were land-owners and farmers on the
+island, turned almost exclusively upon the races which were to take
+place in a few days, and would be the most brilliant ones that had ever
+been seen. Horses were to come from Silesia, and even Hungary; Prince
+Prora would probably have taken part in them himself, if he had been
+admitted. The great public prize was increased to a thousand thalers,
+but the principal race would be the one between the gentlemen riders.
+It had at first been supposed that not three of the twenty-four horses
+registered would appear, since even in May, six, from fear of Herr
+Brandow's Brownlock, had already paid the forfeit for failing to fulfil
+their contract; but now the tables were turned, now all wanted to be
+allowed a place, for it was notorious that Brownlock could not cross
+the marsh, and then he would be obliged to give up the lead to go round
+it, and could not recover it again, since there was only one very
+slight impediment between the bog and the winning-post, and on a free
+course the other horses could easily cope with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the men, putting their heads together, talked eagerly among
+themselves, while rain and spray dashed over their broad shoulders, and
+Gotthold pondered over the letter he carried in his pocket. &quot;Brownlock
+can't cross the bog, Brandow says so himself;&quot; he had another motive
+for saying so besides that of stimulating his opponent's desire to bet,
+as one of the speakers had suggested.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last the boat reached the opposite shore. Gotthold hurried to the
+inn to get a carriage to take him to Prora. Herr Peter's three
+carriages were all away, but one would soon return, nay, ought to have
+been back now; but he could not depend upon the grooms; the only
+reliable one he had ever had got married about three weeks ago, one
+Jochen Prebrow from Dollan, that is, not the estate, but the smithy,
+near which the accident had lately happened of which the gentleman had
+probably heard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, good gracious!&quot; exclaimed Herr Peters, &quot;it's you yourself. I
+should hardly have known you. You look much paler and thinner than you
+did three weeks ago, when you passed through here with the Herr
+Assessor and Herr Wollnow. I was talking the matter over with Herr
+Brandow a few hours ago. It's a pity you missed the twelve o'clock
+boat, or you might have gone on with Herr Brandow, who always has his
+own horses here to meet him. There is no trace of Hinrich Scheel yet;
+no doubt the fellow has been on his way to America for the last three
+weeks.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Peters was now obliged to attend to his other guests, whose tall,
+broad figures crowded the large coffee-room. Gotthold had already seen
+curious glances directed towards him; probably Herr Peters had pointed
+him out as the hero of the accident on Dollan moor, which had caused a
+great deal of talk on, its own account, and now that Brandow's name was
+in every mouth, was more discussed than ever. So he left the room,
+which reeked with tobacco-smoke, and wandered about in the pouring
+rain, until at last, after an hour of impatient waiting, the promised
+carriage arrived--an old rickety chaise, to which fortunately a pair of
+fresh horses was harnessed. Herr Peters came out to take leave of him,
+and say that in consequence of the great demand, he could not have the
+carriage at the usual price. Gotthold consented to the shameless
+extortion, and would have given even more to get on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I saw what was in the wind at once,&quot; said Herr Peters to his guests;
+&quot;Brandow two hours ago, and now he. Mark my words; they are after
+Scheel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nonsense,&quot; said a fat farmer; &quot;he's gone where the pepper grows long
+ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think he has taken his life,&quot; observed another.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Or had it taken,&quot; growled a third.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They again put their heads together, even more eagerly than before.
+That Hinrich Scheel had not reaped the fruits of his crime alone, nay,
+possibly, had been wholly cheated out of them, was an opinion which had
+obtained a firm hold upon the public mind, although the rumor had not
+assumed a definite form. This time also people either could not or
+would not mention any names; on the contrary, the affair grew darker
+and darker the longer they talked it over, and the more frequently the
+thick little glasses filled with a greenish liquid were emptied. Herr
+Peters looked on well satisfied; it might be doubtful which of the
+disputants would first call for a bowl of his famous mulled wine; but
+that the call would be made within the next five minutes was perfectly
+certain. Herr Peters had already made a signal through the little
+window that opened into the kitchen to his daughter, who was standing
+by the hearth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meantime Gotthold drove on through the pouring rain, which shrouded the
+whole landscape in a gray veil that grew denser and denser hour by
+hour. The wind whistled through the chinks in the leathern curtains,
+which had been buttoned down to protect the occupants of the chaise
+from the storm; the crazy old vehicle creaked and groaned
+whenever--which happened only too often--the wheels on the right or
+left slipped into the holes of the rough road; but the horses were
+powerful, and the driver, who expected a liberal fee, was willing, so
+it rolled forward with tolerable speed, although by no means rapidly
+enough to suit Gotthold's increasing impatience.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet he was compelled to acknowledge to himself, and did so again and
+again, that there was no sensible reason for his haste, that nothing
+depended upon one hour more or less, nay, that another hour, which
+might perhaps mature some definite resolution in his mind, would be
+welcome. Yet, even while he said so, he leaned forward to shout to the
+driver that the road was perfectly smooth here, and he might drive
+faster.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he leaned back again into the corner of his little damp prison,
+drew out Wollnow's letter and gazed at it as if he could not believe
+any one could write such words as those in a hand so firm, characters
+so large and clear. And for the second time he read:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What I have to tell you to-day, my dear friend, is so bad that the
+most skilful preamble would not make it better. So without any
+introduction: the upsetting of the carriage on the moor was no unlucky
+accident, but a shameful crime, of which Brandow was the instigator.
+Secondly, the money was stolen. The originator of the theft, which
+might be termed murder, was Brandow again; he was probably present at
+the time, or else appeared on the scene directly after; at any rate,
+the fruits of the robbery fell into his hands. Whether the two crimes
+may to a certain extent be considered one--I mean whether the first was
+committed that the second might be executed, or whether the second was
+perpetrated on the spur of the moment, after the first had been
+performed--I do not know, and probably no one ever will, since it is to
+be feared that a third terrible crime has resulted from the first two.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who betrayed this horror to me? That which is so often the betrayer of
+crimes--chance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A chance than which nothing could be more accidental.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The money in the packet consisted of hundred, fifty, and twenty-five
+thaler notes. I had myself, as you know, counted and put up the amount;
+but of course that would not enable me to positively swear to the
+identity of any one of the bills, even if it came back to me again.
+With one, however, I am in a position to do so; the note is once more
+in my hands, and I can prove in whose possession it has been in the
+mean time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was obliged to pay out this bill ten years ago at a very critical
+time--it was the last money I possessed, and in a humorous freak I
+marked on it the words, 'a lucky journey,' and the date in small,
+almost microscopical characters, on the upper right-hand corner of its
+face. Four years ago this same note came back to me. I honored my old
+friend with the word 'welcome,' which, together with the date, I
+wrote on the left-hand upper corner of the back, and gave it, as a
+luck-penny, a place in my pocket-book, where it remained until three
+weeks ago. You will remember that ready money was rather scarce with
+me, and I took advantage of the opportunity to punish myself for my
+superstitious feelings by adding this note to the rest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, this bill, to whose identity I can swear, Herr Redebas received
+from Brandow on the day after the accident, as a part of the gambling
+debt due that afternoon; he left the money in his desk without touching
+it, until he made me a payment yesterday in which was this very note. I
+asked Herr Redebas--without telling him my reasons--whether he could
+swear to this statement if necessary; he answered in some little
+astonishment, but very positively, that he was ready to do so at any
+moment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Brandow, as is well known, had related here and there, that is, had
+intentionally spread the report, that the five thousand thalers he paid
+Herr Redebas at noon had been received in the morning from Jacob
+Demminer, a produce dealer in this place, as part payment on account of
+the seven thousand for which he had sold his wheat to him. This
+statement had nothing improbable in and of itself, and as Jacob
+Demminer bears the reputation of doing any business by which money can
+be made, even that of a receiver of stolen goods, there was certainly
+the shadow of a possibility that the master had received in the
+morning, in payment for his wheat, the very money of which the man had
+robbed our friend the night before, and thought he had placed in safety
+with the worthy Jacob, with whom he had perhaps had business dealings
+for a long time. I say, there is the shadow of a possibility, for the
+time was rather short; still, we do not yet know where and how Hinrich
+Scheel spent the rest of the night, so it might have been.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The worthy Jacob, however, had not this affair at least on his
+conscience, but the business Brandow wished to transact with him did
+not take place either. To be sure Brandow was here that morning, and
+also in the dark hole Jacob calls his counting-room; he took money away
+with him, too, but only two thousand thalers, and not for this year's
+wheat, which he had sold to Jacob months before, but for the next
+year's harvest. He was obliged to sell at any price, in order to be
+able to show the money at this time, and he could name any sum without
+fearing that the worthy Jacob would contradict a customer with whom he
+did such profitable business. The discovery of this trick was also
+effected by chance, in the person of a poor young Jew, who had worked
+several years for the worthy Jacob, and gained his confidence, until
+now his conscience, or I know not what, suddenly urged him to pour out
+his heart to me, and implore me to save him from this den of crime.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let us recapitulate. Brandow, who on the day of the accident was known
+to be destitute of money, and received only two thousand thalers the
+following morning, pays Herr Redebas, at noon, five thousand at one
+stroke; and among this money is the hundred-thaler note which was in
+the package that disappeared at the time of the accident.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Disappeared! Why not lost, found, but not restored to its owner?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then it would still have been stolen. But from the beginning it was
+both a theft and robbery.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Remember that you felt the package in the Assessor's coat-pocket after
+you left Dollan; that you no longer felt it at the smithy, and yet the
+coat you had buttoned was still fastened. This, to be sure, is no
+positive proof--nay, the latter circumstance at first even seems to be
+against my supposition. Why, it might be said, should a thief so
+cunning in all other respects intentionally incur an additional risk?
+But people may try to be too cunning; and it certainly was not known
+that you had kept your eye on the package all the evening, and
+afterwards, when you buttoned the Assessor's coat, even had it under
+your hand. The defender of the accused will, of course, doubt the
+correctness of this statement, will--but we are not in a court of
+justice. To me the fact is plain: the Assessor had the money with him
+at the time of the fall; afterwards, when the two Prebrows raised the
+poor fellow, while Henrich Scheel stood by with the lantern, he no
+longer had it--that is, it had been stolen during the interval.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By whom?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Undoubtedly by this very Hinrich Scheel, but very, very probably not
+by him alone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Can Brandow have been present at the time?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He has taken no little trouble to prove his alibi, even before any
+proof was asked, and evidently began the affair cunningly enough. He
+rode here by the way of Neuenhof, Lankenitz, and Faschwitz--that is a
+fact; the people in the villages heard him dash through; he even took
+time to talk to several persons he met. If he rode the whole way he
+cannot have been present at the time the deed was committed; even the
+best rider on the fastest horse could not do that. But suppose he did
+not ride the whole way--suppose he turned into the road just above
+Neuenhof--suppose the spectral horseman whom you saw in your vision
+dashing across the morass had been a veritable rider of flesh and
+blood, and this rider had been Carl Brandow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You say that is impossible. What is impossible to a man pursued by the
+furies, if he has a horse under him like the much-praised Brownlock?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Brandow rode Brownlock that night; the groom at the Fürstenhof swore
+it, after he saw the racer, day before yesterday, on his way to Sundin.
+And when a man like Brandow rides a horse which in itself represents a
+small fortune, and on which, moreover, he has bet thousands, on such a
+night, over such roads, at such a pace, he must have been in a great
+hurry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He must have been in a very great hurry, or, my dear friend, you would
+not have escaped with your life; you certainly would not have been
+spared. A man whom people dash headlong over a precipice sixty feet
+high they silence entirely, if they are not in too great a hurry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet, as I said before, this will probably remain a mystery, even to a
+wiser judge than Justizrath von Zadenig. One of those who were there
+will never betray it, and the other can no longer do so.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As I returned from B. I met Brandow; he may easily have learned from
+my coachman that I had been talking to the Justizrath for an hour. He
+rode towards home at full gallop; an hour after the lawyer arrived with
+the gendarme, but did not find Hinrich Scheel, although people had seen
+him about all the forenoon; and he even took his master's horse when he
+came home. The master was very, very anxious that the missing man
+should be found; he even directed the search himself; he--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will not protract this horrible supposition farther; it is the only
+one which occurs in my story, all the others are facts--facts which cry
+aloud to heaven--which ought not, must not remain unpunished. I know,
+my dearest friend, you'll think as I do, though every fibre of your
+heart must quiver at the thought that you--you--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall come to Sundin with my wife day after to-morrow. We will then
+discuss, not what is to be done--there can be no doubt about that; but
+the how is certainly to be considered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold put the letter back in his pocket, and gazed out into the
+cheerless, rain-blurred landscape so fixedly, that he scarcely heard a
+carriage, which, coming from Prora, passed by on the other side of the
+road. It was still a half hour's ride to Prora, but it seemed an
+eternity to the impatient traveller. At last the carriage stopped
+before Wollnow's house.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am so sorry to have you go,&quot; said Ottilie; &quot;my husband must
+certainly return before evening. He will be very angry with me for not
+keeping you. And then, confess it frankly, my dear friend, you are
+going without any definite plan--any fixed purpose--and in this way
+intend to meet a man like Brandow--that is, to lose the game before it
+is begun.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ottilie had seized Gotthold's hands as if to draw him back from the
+door into the room. Gotthold shook his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are right,&quot; said he, &quot;but there are cases where the one who is not
+right, or at least cannot prove that he is, must act according to his
+own opinions. That is my case. I cannot put Brandow in prison or drag
+him to the scaffold; I can't--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Even if he must otherwise still remain Cecilia's husband? You cannot
+permit that either.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly not, and therefore a third plan must be found.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Which never can be. Dear, dear Gotthold, let me say to you what my
+husband would have said if he were here: Never! He will never yield if
+you go to him so, alone and helpless, without the bailiff and myrmidons
+of the law; you must be able to prove that you have him completely in
+your power, and that is not the case now. My husband said yesterday
+evening: 'If we could only confront him with Scheel. There is really
+nothing to be done without him; but where is Scheel? Perhaps at the
+bottom of the Dollan morass.' Ah! my dear friend, stay away from this
+den of murderers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And ought I to leave her there?&quot; exclaimed Gotthold. &quot;Woe betide me
+for having done so until now, for not having risked everything to take
+her away with me, her and her child, for it was only the child that
+detained her, and he would have sold the child too if I had had head
+and heart enough to offer him the right price. Now I can offer nothing
+except a mortal struggle; but I am sure, and he knows very well, that I
+shall not be conquered this time. Forgive me, my dear friend, for using
+so many words where acts would beseem me better, and--farewell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ottilie burst into tears. &quot;And you,&quot; she exclaimed, &quot;my dear, dear
+friend. Ah! yes, you must go, you must risk all if you love Cecilia,
+and that you did love her--I knew long ago, and my good Emil knew it,
+and--and--Emil would not act otherwise in your place, believe me,
+whatever he may have said before, and may say after! He knows what
+passionate love is, nay, he would make no objections if he were eight
+and twenty, and in your place! But I can't help it if I am not as
+beautiful and intellectual as your dear dead mother was; and besides, I
+was not even in existence thirty years ago, and there are much more
+unhappy married couples than we, and, and--may you and your Cecilia be
+as happy!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She embraced and kissed Gotthold very warmly, and then stood at the
+open window letting the rain drip upon her tear-stained face as she
+waved her handkerchief while his carriage jolted over the rough
+pavement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In spite of all the delays, it was still nearly an hour before sunset
+when Gotthold left Prora, and the horses stepped out bravely; he must
+surely reach Dollan before dark. He repeated this to himself several
+times in the course of the next hour, and then reflected why he
+constantly recurred to this calculation over and over again, and what
+difference it made whether he reached Dollan before or after dark. He
+could find no answer, and even as he sought for one, said to himself
+once more: &quot;Thank God, I shall get there before dark!&quot; Were his
+thoughts beginning to get confused? That would be bad; his head would
+probably have much to bear to-day, then his anxious eyes wandered to
+the heavy clouds, wet stubble, and black fields, and he murmured: &quot;It
+will grow dark earlier than I expected,&quot; and as if the obstinacy of the
+idea required a corresponding idea, even if it were a mild one, he
+added: &quot;I shall not find her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now he could not shake off the new idea: he would not find her. As
+if she would hide herself from him, and he would be obliged to seek her
+in vain because it was too dark.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Or was all this only nonsense, such as arises in the confused brain of
+a man who for hours has jolted alone in a damp chaise, over rough
+country roads, staring out into the murky atmosphere, which grew grayer
+and denser every minute. Was it the terrible type of a terrible
+possibility. Hinrich Scheel had taken Brandow's horse when he came
+home, and two hours after Hinrich Scheel had disappeared. Now he had
+been at home at least four hours; so he had had twice as much time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold tore away the curtain which was still fastened on one side; it
+seemed as if he was suffocating. At last! there was the smithy close
+before him; he would see and speak to the worthy Prebrows; they lived
+so near that they could surely tell him they had seen and spoken to her
+a short time before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The smithy was lonely and deserted; several hours must have passed
+since the bellows, had been used: a thick covering of ashes lay over
+the dead coals. It seemed as if the father and son, who lived alone in
+the old-fashioned little house, had just run away from their work. The
+piece of iron they had last been forging still lay on the anvil, the
+pincers and hammer were close beside it on the ground, as if they had
+been suddenly thrown down to rush out of the door, which stood wide
+open. The driver was very indignant; one of the springs of the chaise
+was almost broken. He had depended upon getting the injury repaired
+here so that it should go no farther. Gotthold told the lad to follow
+him slowly, he would go forward on foot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He could not have waited a moment longer; the sight of the deserted
+smithy had infinitely increased the terrible anxiety which had tortured
+him all the way. He hurried up the ascending road over the moor,
+without heeding the rain that the wind drove into his face with
+redoubled violence as he walked hastily on, his eyes always fixed upon
+the nearest hillock which lay before him, and seemed inaccessible. Then
+he stood panting for breath on the top of the slope, but his view on
+the right was no clearer; a gray mist from the morass floated nearer
+and nearer, was so near already that the rugged side of the next
+hillock gleamed very dimly through the drizzling vapor, and he scarcely
+recognized the scene of the accident. On reaching the bottom he
+remembered that by keeping close to the edge one might pass between the
+hill and morass, so he left the height on the left, and took that
+course.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But as he turned towards the marsh he entered farther and farther into
+the fog that had now spread over the bog like a heaving gray sea, and
+whirled against the steep acclivity like surges dashed by a violent
+wind against the cliffs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While the height on the left obstructed his view, and on the right he
+gazed into the gray mist, which scarcely permitted him to see where to
+set his feet, the terrible dread increased at every step; it seemed as
+if every moment the misty curtain must rise to reveal the horrible
+picture it now concealed, and the height against which it pressed was
+only there that he might not escape the scene. And there it was!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold stood trembling and staring into the mist with eyes fairly
+starting from their sockets. It could have been nothing but a trick of
+his over-excited fancy, for he now saw nothing, nothing at all, and yet
+he had seen it with perfect distinctness: four or five figures standing
+in a circle, thrusting long poles into the morass--misty spectres!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No, no; no spectres! Or else ghosts could speak with human voices,
+which he clearly distinguished, although he could not understand the
+words, and now he even caught a few.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Could it possibly be here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, it was not possible--it was certain; he now knew why he had been
+so alarmed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next moment, with a single bound, he had dashed through the tall
+sedges which, at this spot, enclosed the morass with a broad girdle;
+the thin covering of turf rose and fell under him--he did not notice
+it; again and again the water dashed up under his flying feet--he did
+not heed it; his eyes pierced the mist in the direction from which he
+had heard the voices, and now heard them again still nearer; and now
+the figures, which a rift in the mist had just revealed to him,
+appeared again; he reached them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Cousin Boslaf!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stand farther away, and you others, too! There are too many of us
+here; the ground won't bear, and I can do it alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They stepped back; again and again the old man let the long pole,
+furnished with an iron hook, slide cautiously down into the water which
+had here formed a small dark pool amid the rushes and nodding grass.
+Then he drew it out and gave it to one of the men. &quot;There is nothing
+here. This was the last place, we will go back; keep close behind me;
+and you too, Gotthold. Tread in my footsteps.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man, holding his gun on his shoulder, walked forward with the
+long, regular stride of a huntsman, till the others, among whom was
+Clas Prebrow, Jochen's brother, found it difficult to keep up with him.
+He paused several times, and seemed to be trying the ground; but it was
+only for a few moments, then he moved on into the mist. The men
+followed without hesitation; they knew they could go on calmly if
+Cousin Boslaf led the way; and now the ground became firmer and firmer;
+they were on the very spot from which they had started an hour ago.
+Cousin Boslaf called Gotthold to his side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Since when?&quot; asked Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At two o'clock this morning; the dogs have been keen on her track; I
+knew it first three hours ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you still have hope?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man gazed into the mist.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We have not found her,&quot; said he, &quot;so the others may not either, and in
+that case there would still be hope, although it is not probable that
+she could have gone far with the child in the darkness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;With the child?&quot; cried Gotthold, &quot;with Gretchen! then all is well; she
+would do the child no injury.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Injury!&quot; said the old man, &quot;injury! there are greater injuries than
+death.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold shuddered. She had not been willing to part from the child;
+she had thought herself obliged to bear--able to bear--anything for its
+sake. Now matters had become unendurable, and she was compelled to cast
+the burden aside. What would become of Gretchen? There are worse
+injuries than death.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">They walked rapidly towards the house, old Boslaf still leading the way
+with his long, regular strides, his eyes now bent upon the ground, and
+anon gazing keenly into the gloom of the gathering twilight; but he did
+not speak, and Gotthold asked no questions. Yet before he reached the
+court-yard, he knew--from various remarks made by the other men--that
+when, towards noon, the rumor spread abroad among the laborers that the
+mistress had disappeared with her child, it was said at once that they
+were dead. No one had been the first to utter the words; every one had
+spoken them at the same time, and suggested that somebody should
+go to Cousin Boslaf. Cousin Boslaf had come instantly--with his old
+long-barrelled gun over his shoulder--and divided the men into parties.
+Statthalter Möller, with one band, was to cross the fields and search
+the forest near the seashore. Prebrow, the blacksmith, who had been
+sent for, was to head another company and go to the upper part of the
+moor, towards the Schanzenbergen; and Cousin Boslaf himself, with the
+remainder, down to the morass; then they would all meet at the house
+again. Two hours before--they were then still farther out in the
+morass, and there was some little fog, though it was by no means so
+thick--they had seen Herr Brandow come home, and very soon after ride
+away again. He had taken a wise course, for the men had resolved that
+the murderer should not leave the estate alive again; it was no matter
+about Hinrich Scheel, who was as bad as his master; but his wife and
+child--it was too much, and they had always said it would happen some
+day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had all said so and had let it happen! True, they had been unable
+to prevent it; but he! Gotthold thought his heart would burst with
+shame and horror.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They reached the house almost at the same moment as the two other
+parties, who had carefully searched the region assigned to them, and
+found nothing, not the smallest trace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What was to be done now?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Very little more could be done. True, the fog had dispersed, but
+twilight had already closed in; in half an hour, or an hour at latest,
+it would be perfectly dark. Besides, the men, who ever since noon had
+been constantly on their feet, searching bushes and woods, fields and
+morass, were evidently fatigued and exhausted, though quite ready to
+search the forest in the direction of Dahlitz, as soon as they had
+eaten the supper Cousin Boslaf had ordered to be brought out from the
+house. The old man himself neither eat nor drank; he stood with folded
+arms, leaning against the trunk of one of the huge old lindens, waiting
+patiently until the men should once more be ready to help him seek
+his great-granddaughter, the last of his race, at the bottom of the
+marl-pit, the depths of some forest ravine, or wherever she had fled
+with her child to die.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had entered the house to look for Mine, a good young
+servant-girl whom he had often seen playing with Gretchen, and who
+appeared to be very devoted to Cecilia; perhaps he might learn from her
+something that would give a clew. He found her in the kitchen, where
+with eyes swollen with weeping, she was helping the housekeeper prepare
+bread and butter for the men's supper. When she caught sight of
+Gotthold she dropped the knife with a cry of joy, and came running
+towards him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold told her to leave the room with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At first the good child's tears almost choked her words. The mistress
+had been very sad the last few weeks, much more sorrowful than usual;
+she had scarcely spoken except to Gretchen, whom she would never trust
+out of her sight, and even to her only when it was absolutely
+necessary. Yesterday she had remained out of doors alone until very
+late in the evening, and when she came in looked so pale and exhausted,
+and stared straight before her with such a fixed expression; she would
+not go to bed, however, but insisted that she should go to her mother
+in Neuenhof, who was very sick, and added that she need not come back
+before noon, and then the mistress had already been gone, no one knows
+how long. Rieke had certainly known it long before, but said nothing
+from fear of the other servants, and hid herself up stairs until the
+master came home. At first he scolded her furiously, and struck at her
+with his riding-whip, but Rieke cried and screamed that she would
+charge the master with it, and made such evil speeches that at last he
+took her away with him in the carriage; and her dear kind mistress had
+been obliged to go out of the house in the middle of the night, and
+dear sweet little Gretchen had not even had her new boots, for they
+were locked up in the closet, and she had the key in her pocket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl began to cry again; Gotthold said a few words which were
+intended to be consoling, and was then obliged to turn away, for his
+own grief threatened to overpower him. The sobbing girl had reminded
+him of the sunny days when he sought out Cecilia in the garden, and
+played with Gretchen among the flower-beds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he came out of the house again, the men had finished their meals
+and were ready to set out. Prebrow, the blacksmith, was to search the
+forest on the left, and the Statthalter on the right of the road to
+Dahlitz. Cousin Boslaf would keep to the road itself. They were just
+going when Gotthold's chaise jolted into the courtyard; the spring was
+now entirely broken, and the tire was off of one wheel. Cousin Boslaf
+asked the Statthalter whether Herr Wenhofs old carriage was still
+there, and capable of being used. The carriage was there, and might be
+made fit for use. Then Clas Prebrow should repair it, put in a pair of
+fresh horses, and follow them. Gotthold looked at the old man
+inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall seek till I find her,&quot; said Cousin Boslaf, pushing the rifle
+farther over his shoulder, &quot;and I shall find her--alive or dead; in
+either case we shall need the carriage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They reached the forest; the men had already spread out to the right
+and left, and now pressed eagerly into its depths.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall keep to the road,&quot; said Cousin Boslaf as they walked on side
+by side. &quot;I can trust my old eyes, and I almost believe she has taken
+this way. She would reach the forest sooner, and directly behind the
+woods, in a ploughed field on the right, is the great marl-pit. When
+she was a child, a poor girl who had killed her new-born babe drowned
+herself there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man did not change his long, regular stride as he spoke, and
+his keen eyes searched the deep furrows of the rough road, or glanced
+over the bashes and tree trunks on either side, between which, here in
+the depths of the forest, the darkness already brooded gloomily. The
+men within the woods shouted to each other, in order to keep together:
+oftentimes one of the dogs they had taken with them barked loudly, then
+for a moment all was silent again, save the wind sighing through the
+treetops, and shaking the rain-drops from the leaves. Then the old man
+paused, listened, and went on again, after convincing himself that the
+men still kept to their track, and nothing remarkable had happened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So they came to the end of the forest, whose dark edge stretched out
+into the twilight on either side as far as the eye could reach. Nothing
+was to be seen of the men, who had been obliged to make their way
+through the underbrush more slowly. Cousin Boslaf pointed towards the
+right, where a short distance from the road, in the ploughed field, a
+round spot was relieved against the darker earth; it was the marl-pit,
+which the continual rain of the last few days had filled nearly to the
+brim.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They crossed the edge of the road to the field; the old man again took
+the lead, but more slowly than before, and his head was bowed lower, as
+if he wished to count every separate blade of the short wet grass.
+Suddenly he paused: &quot;Here!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pointed to the wet ground, upon which, as Gotthold now also
+perceived, were the marks of footprints, a large one, with a smaller
+one beside it. The footprints came from the road they had just left,
+but had emerged from the forest sooner, and gone towards the marl-pit,
+and they had come upon it farther down at a right angle. The old hunter
+and the young man looked at each other; neither spoke--they knew the
+decisive moment had come.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Slowly and cautiously they followed the clew, which ran straight before
+them towards the marl-pit, on whose surface they already saw the
+rippling of the water, as the strong breeze blew it against the edges.
+Only about fifty paces more, and all would be decided.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold's eyes rested fixedly upon the horrible water, which glittered
+spectrally in the last feeble glimmer of twilight; he saw her standing
+on the edge holding the child by the hand, gazing--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One of the old man's hands rested on his shoulder, the other pointed
+downwards. &quot;She took the child in her arms here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was only one footprint, the larger one, and the mark was
+deeper--five, ten, fifteen steps--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stay!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man had uttered the word, and waving Gotthold back with his
+hand at the same moment, he fell upon his knees. The footprints were
+confused, as if she had taken a few steps irresolutely to and fro, and
+then the trail became distinct again, going straight on, but parallel
+with the edge of the marl-pit, and then they turned back in the
+direction of the road, and remained in that course to the bank, from
+whose sharp edge a small piece of turf had been torn as she stepped
+upon the path with her burden.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The two men stood in the road once more; Gotthold felt as if the solid
+earth were reeling under him; he threw himself into the arms of the old
+man, who clasped him in a warm embrace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We may hope now, my dear son; but we are not yet at the end.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will bear and risk everything, so long as I can still hope,&quot; cried
+Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The dark figures of men now emerged singly and in pairs from the gloomy
+forest, and approached the place where they stood. They had found
+nothing; and Statthalter Möller asked whether they should now search
+the marl-pit; they could probably do no more than that today; it had
+grown too dark, and the people were completely worn out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But if Herr Wenhof wants us to do anything, we will, won't we, men?&quot;
+asked Statthalter Möller.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay, that we will,&quot; they replied in chorus.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thank you,&quot; said Cousin Boslaf, &quot;you can help me no more now; I will
+go on alone with this gentleman, as soon as Clas Prebrow comes with the
+carriage, and I now have a hope that I may find my great-grandchild
+alive.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man's voice trembled as he pronounced the last words, and the
+people looked at him in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, my great-grandchild,&quot; the old man began again, and his voice was
+now strong, and had acquired a strangely deep, solemn tone, &quot;for that
+she is--my great-grandchild, and the great-grandchild of Ulrica, the
+wife of Adolf Wenhof. You have aided me so faithfully to-day that I
+cannot help telling you the truth. There is no one living whom it can
+harm, but it may do you good to know that the truth must always be
+spoken, that an old man of ninety must speak it, for no other reason
+than that it is the truth. And now go home, children, and don't allow
+yourselves to be tempted to take vengeance on him who has driven my
+child from house and home--don't vent your anger on the house and farm.
+Better men have lived there before him, and better ones will dwell
+there after him; and now once more I thank you, children.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The men had listened in silence; one after another removed his
+cap--they did not exactly know why; and when the old man and Gotthold
+entered the carriage, which meantime had quietly driven up, all stood
+around it with bared heads, and even after the coach had gone on, and
+they had set out on their way home, it was long ere any one ventured to
+speak aloud.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the coach drove on through the darkness towards the fishing village
+of Ralow. It was a delightful road on a summer evening, and Cecilia had
+been fond of walking here with the child. Gotthold thought she would
+follow this direction, and the old man had assented. &quot;It is your turn
+now,&quot; said he. &quot;We were seeking a dead body, and an old man is well
+suited for that; now that we are in search of a living woman, young
+blood may be better.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Two days after, Jochen Prebrow was standing before the door of his
+house, just after his second breakfast, looking out to sea through a
+long spy-glass, which with his left hand he rested against the tall
+flag-staff that stood before the house. Worthy Jochen might often be
+found in the same spot, engaged in the same occupation It was not that
+he sought or hoped to find anything unusual out at sea; but in leisure
+moments the spy-glass, which usually rested on two crooked bars close
+beside the door under the shelter of the projecting roof, afforded an
+excellent amusement, even if, as at this moment, there was nothing to
+be seen on the sea except the waves, here and there crested with foam,
+dancing merrily in the morning breeze.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But to-day the worthy Jochen did not even see the foam-crested waves;
+he saw absolutely nothing at all; yet when, at the end of five minutes,
+he put down and closed the spy-glass, his broad face wore an expression
+as anxious as if he had perceived a large ship, driven by a north-east
+storm on the Wiessow cliffs, and his neighbor Pilot Bonsak had said she
+could not be saved.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the same anxious expression rested upon the plump face of his
+Stine, who had just appeared in the doorway, and with both hands,
+usually so busy, idly folded under her apron, began to gaze at the blue
+morning sky and shining white clouds scattered over it, without even
+noticing her Jochen, who was standing scarcely six paces away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no,&quot; sighed Stine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, yes,&quot; said Jochen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Jochen, how you frightened me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And it is frightful, when one thinks of it,&quot; said Jochen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had opened the spy-glass again, and was evidently about to resume
+his former occupation; but Stine took it out of his hands, put it in
+its place, and said in a somewhat irritated tone, &quot;You do nothing but
+look through the old thing, and I so worried that I hardly know whether
+I'm on my head or my heels.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! but if you don't know, Stine&quot;--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How am I to know? Why are you my husband, if I, poor creature, am
+expected to know everything? And she has just asked me again whether
+the Swede is not yet here. Poor girl! To go all that long way in such a
+nutshell of a boat! And who knows whether the people over yonder will
+want her. They are only fourth or fifth cousins.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Stine had spoken with great emotion, but in a suppressed tone, and had
+drawn her Jochen out to the blackthorn hedge that divided the sandy
+little garden from the sandy village-street. Jochen had a vague
+perception that as a man and a husband, and moreover sole innkeeper of
+Wiessow, he must say something, so he replied: &quot;You'll see, Stine, we
+sha'n't carry it through.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Jochen, I wouldn't have believed you were so bad,&quot; exclaimed Stine,
+as, sobbing violently and pressing both red hands over her eyes, she
+turned away from her husband and went back to the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen was left standing by the hedge, and raised his arms; but the
+spy-glass was resting quietly in its place, and, in consideration of
+his wickedness, he did not venture to take down the care-dispeller. So
+he let his arms fall again and thrust his hands into his pockets. Thank
+God, here was his pipe! It now had many idle hours, for Stine could not
+bear smoking, and if she should see him now when she was so angry, she
+probably would not make friends again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen let the pipe slide back into his pocket, and gazed at the
+sparkling sea like one who, without any optical instrument, still sees
+only too distinctly the spot where just now a majestic ship went down
+with all on board.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good-morning, Prebrow,&quot; said a voice close beside him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen slowly turned his blue eyes from the distant horizon towards the
+gentleman who, with the collar of his coat turned up over his ears, had
+just passed along by the hedge with hasty strides.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good-morning, Herr In--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;St--&quot; said the gentleman, stopping and putting his finger on his lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To-night!&quot; continued the gentleman; &quot;I tell you, because, after
+everything has gone on well, until now, somebody might at the last
+moment get some suspicion, and inquire of you. Of course you don't know
+me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Heaven forbid!&quot; replied Jochen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The gentleman nodded and was about to continue his walk, but paused
+again as if struck by the troubled expression of Jochen's face, and
+added: &quot;You needn't take it to heart, Prebrow; it serves the Rahnk
+right; their conduct is a disgrace to Wiessow and the whole region, and
+after all there is no one who would not be glad to have you get rid of
+the rascals. And when I come back next time, Prebrow, I shall of course
+lodge with you; this time I must keep out of the way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The gentleman nodded, walked lightly away, and after casting a rapid
+glance around him, entered the pilot's house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A damned miserable business,&quot; muttered Jochen, without exactly knowing
+which of the two he meant, the one going on in his own house, or the
+other of which the Herr steuer-inspector had just spoken. It was
+probably the former; the second certainly did not concern him at all,
+but it was a secret the more, and he already had far too much trouble
+with one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good-morning, Jochen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This time Jochen was actually frightened. There was his brother Clas in
+the very spot where the Herr inspector had just been standing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, good Heavens, Clas, what brings you here?&quot; he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! you may well say that, Jochen,&quot; answered Clas.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is the smithy burned?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, Jochen, how can you ask such stupid questions?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The bridge of understanding seemed broken. The feeling that the whole
+world was one dark secret, and he the unhappy man who had to guard it,
+overpowered Jochen still more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Won't you come in, Clas?&quot; said he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He could not help saying that; he could not leave his only brother, who
+moreover was the elder of the two, standing in the street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Clas Prebrow instantly accepted his brother's invitation,
+notwithstanding the unbrotherly tone in which it was given, shook hands
+with Jochen, and said, glancing towards the house, &quot;You're very well
+off here, Jochen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And probably have a great many guests.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What business is it of yours?&quot; cried Jochen violently, as if he had
+been bitterly insulted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, I only asked the question,&quot; said Clas.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is no one here at all,&quot; cried Jochen, &quot;no one at all;&quot; and he
+stepped before the other as he was making his way towards the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That happens just right,&quot; said Clas; &quot;then I can turn back and tell
+old Herr Wenhorf and Herr Gotthold that they can get lodgings in your
+house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen was perfectly horrified. What should he do? He had promised to
+keep silence, but what could silence avail if Herr Gotthold came
+straight into the house, and the old gentleman too, for whom he had
+such a wholesome respect. If the latter fixed his clear old eyes upon
+him, he must certainly tell everything, and--&quot;Stine, Stine,&quot; shouted
+Jochen, as if the only inn in Wiessow were in flames from top to
+bottom.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Jochen, have you gone perfectly crazy? Don't you think at all of--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Stine, who had come running out of the house at her husband's loud
+outcry, suddenly slopped short and stared at her brother-in-law with
+open mouth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You see,&quot; said Jochen with great satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is he?&quot; asked Stine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Clas Prebrow felt that his diplomatic reserve would not answer with the
+clever Stine, and at this stage of his mission he must drop the mask.
+So he rubbed his large, hard, blackened hands contentedly, and showed
+his white teeth, but suddenly grew grave again, and said, while his
+glance wandered over the row of windows in the upper story, &quot;Wouldn't
+it be better for us to go in?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They went in and entered the little sitting-room directly behind the
+large coffee-room, which Stine only left for a moment to get from the
+cupboard a bottle of rum and two glasses, that the brothers might drink
+to each other's health, and Clas's tongue should not get dry in case he
+had a great deal to tell.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Clas probably would have had a very long story, but remembering that
+the gentlemen were awaiting his return, he cut it short.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had come upon the right clew the very first evening, but lost it
+again the following day because the lady left the carriage she had
+taken at Ralow, in Gulnitz, and went on on foot, to conceal her route.
+She succeeded so well in this, that they spent a whole day and night in
+searching, and only recovered the lost trail late yesterday evening in
+Trentow. To be sure, it would now scarcely have been doubtful what
+direction she had taken; but they had left the carriage at noon at Herr
+von Schoritz of Schoritz, who was a friend of Gotthold's, in order to
+proceed on their journey on foot to mislead Herr Brandow, in case he
+was behind them, and therefore they had been obliged to rest a few
+hours in Trentow, and to-day they were coming from Trentow, and he ran
+on before, less to inquire whether the lady was here than to beg his
+sister-in-law to prepare her, that she might not be too much
+frightened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! goodness gracious,&quot; said Stine, &quot;poor, poor child! we were obliged
+to promise solemnly that we would not betray her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stine, we sha'n't be able to carry it through,&quot; said Jochen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In her heart Stine had never expected to do so; nay, she had always
+prayed that Heaven would interpose and send Herr Gotthold to them
+before it was too late. To be sure, she could not acknowledge this
+openly, but neither did she wish to be actually unfaithful to the
+promise she had given Cecilia, and in her perplexity began to weep
+bitterly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen nodded assent, as if he wanted to show his Stine that she had
+now taken the right course. Clas emptied his glass and said, rising,
+&quot;So we shall be here in fifteen minutes. You're so clever, Stine, you
+can easily settle matters, and you can come with me, Jochen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen started up and went out of the room so hastily that he left his
+glass half full. Stine intended to pour the liquor back into the bottle
+again, but in her absence of mind drank it herself. Tears fell from her
+eyes: &quot;We poor women!&quot; she murmured.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">After Stine had left the room, Cecilia still remained sitting by her
+child's little bed. Gretchen had fallen asleep, and it now seemed to
+the mother that the innocent little face looked paler, and the white,
+delicate hands often twitched convulsively. Suppose she should be
+seriously ill? Suppose she should die, and all the horror and grief of
+these hours had been endured in vain?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. There was no one--no
+one who could counsel and help her. And yet she was with friends, with
+her good old Stine, who had received her yesterday with a flood of
+joyful tears, who was nearly beside herself with grief and joy at the
+unexpected visit, and with worthy Jochen, whose honest face mingled
+pleasantly with the happy memories of her girlish days--how deserted
+she would feel in yonder foreign land! Would they not look upon her,
+treat her as an adventuress? And could she blame them for it? Could she
+tell her pitiful story to all the world--nay, even to one human being?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The harassing anxiety drove her from her seat to the window of the next
+room. A broad expanse of blue sea flashed between the gable-roofs of
+the neighbors' houses and the white downs; a sail gleamed on the
+distant horizon. It was a fresh, bright scene that was framed in by the
+low window, and she gazed at it with the eyes with which he had taught
+her to behold nature; then she remembered that the empty waste of
+waters, with the lonely ship pursuing its solitary way into the unknown
+distance, was to her and her child a cruel, pitiless reality. Her head
+drooped; she did not notice the slight noise outside the door, and only
+looked up when it opened, and Stine, an expression of mingled timidity
+and joy on her face, which was swollen and red with weeping, entered,
+and then looked back towards some one who was standing behind her. A
+sudden foreboding, which drove every drop of blood to her heart,
+thrilled Cecilia's frame. Who could the dark figure in the entry be
+except the one person for whom she had so eagerly longed, for whose
+coming she had waited and hoped as the devotee waits and hopes for a
+miracle? Now he was here, because he loved her--and yet, and yet it
+could not, must not be; and her half-extended arms fell, her trembling
+hands did not return the clasp of his.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is Gretchen?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They went to the child's bed, where good Stine had already preceded
+them. The little pale cheeks were now deeply flushed, the hands
+twitched more violently; Cecilia's anxious eyes said, what did not
+cross her trembling lips until they had again entered the next room,
+&quot;If she dies, I have killed her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She will not die,&quot; replied Gotthold, &quot;but you must not decide upon
+anything hastily; you must no longer struggle on alone, must not
+disdain my aid as you have done till now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That I may drag you, who are guiltless of this misery, down to ruin
+with me? I have already involved you too far, but more--never.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What do you call more, Cecilia? I love you; in those words all is
+said, in those words our lives are woven into one circle. What could
+you suffer that I would not suffer with you? Nay, has not even your
+past life become mine and always belonged to me? Has not all this ever
+brooded over my soul as a vague, anxious foreboding, drawing a veil
+over my brightest hours? Yes, Cecilia, when I consider this, I cannot
+help saying: 'Thank God! thank God that the veil is rent, that life
+lies before me as it is, although obstacles and difficulties of all
+kinds threaten to bar our way. We will conquer them. If I ever
+despaired, I shall do so no longer, now that you are restored to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had bent his lips to her ear as he sat behind her; his deep voice
+grew so low as to become almost inaudible, but she caught every
+syllable, and each word pierced her to the heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! Cecilia, Cecilia! you would not have killed yourself and your
+child only--you would have slain me too. Well, since a voice you must
+ever hold sacred, of whose veracity you must never, never have the
+smallest doubt, has cried, live! live for me, Cecilia, for--you cannot
+live without me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor with you,&quot; cried Cecilia, wringing her hands. &quot;No, do not turn
+your honest eyes upon me with such a questioning, reproachful look, my
+own dear love! I would fain tell you all, but I cannot; perhaps I might
+to a woman, yet to her, if she were a true woman, I should not need to
+do so, for she would understand me without words.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You do not love me as you must love the man from whom you could and
+would accept every sacrifice, because love, the true love which bears
+and suffers all things, perceives no sacrifices, and yours is not the
+true love!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He spoke without the slightest tinge of bitterness; but his chest
+heaved painfully, and his lips quivered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Am I not right in saying that no man, even the best, the most delicate
+in feeling, can rightly understand us?&quot; replied Cecilia, bending
+towards Gotthold, and pushing his hair back from his burning brow. For
+a moment the old sweet smile played around her delicate lips and
+sparkled in her eyes, the smile of which Gotthold had often dreamed,
+and then spent the whole day absorbed in reverie, as if under the
+influence of some magic spell. But it was only for a moment; then it
+disappeared, and sorrowful earnestness was again expressed in every
+feature of the beautiful face, again echoed in the tones of her voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;True love! Dare a woman who has experienced what I have, even take the
+word on her lips? True love! Would you have called it so, when I--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She paused suddenly, rose, went to the window, came back again, and
+standing before Gotthold with her arms folded across her breast, said:
+&quot;When I procured still larger supplies for his avarice, when I would
+have suffered myself and my child to be sold, though you would have
+been compelled to sacrifice the last penny of your fortune to buy our
+freedom--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You might have done so, and did not!&quot; exclaimed Gotthold, in the most
+painful agitation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I might, and did not,&quot; replied Cecilia, &quot;but certainly not because I
+doubted, for an instant, that you would, without hesitation, sacrifice
+all, all; such a doubt is inconceivable to a woman who knows herself
+beloved, nay, she would, under similar circumstances, go begging for
+her lover; but--it is useless, Gotthold, I shall never find words. Ah!
+the misery that is even denied the relief of expressing its agony,
+which must consume away in silent torture.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wandered up and down the room, wringing her hands. Gotthold's
+mournful eyes followed her as she paced to and fro, and a feeling of
+intense bitterness welled up in his heart. There had been a
+possibility, but she had not seized it, and now it was too late.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He told her so, and why it was now too late, and that even if, by the
+income from his labor, he could satisfy the claims which others already
+had upon the small remnant of property that now remained, it would be a
+mere nothing to her husband's avarice, a sum which, if any one offered
+him, he would hurl back into his face with a scornful laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Cecilia, pausing in the centre of the room, had listened eagerly,
+gasping for breath. &quot;My poor Gotthold,&quot; said she; &quot;but for me--it is
+better so, even the temptation cannot assail me now, and the matter is
+decided. Yes, Gotthold, it is decided; besides, perhaps it was only a
+momentary thirst for money, which the deadly hatred he bore you has
+long since swallowed up. He will not release me; I have not chosen,
+will not choose death as long as the last possibility of deliverance,
+flight, remains. Let me fly, Gotthold, before it is too late; do not
+detain me. You wish to save me, and are only driving me into the arms
+of death.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will keep you, save you, and tear you from the arms of death,&quot; cried
+Gotthold, clasping Cecilia's hands, &quot;you and your child, whom you would
+kill, if, while ill and feverish, you exposed it to the dangers of a
+journey, which, under any circumstances, would be a useless cruelty,
+for he would know how to find you there or anywhere if he wants to do
+so--there as well as here, and therefore you must not stay here. You
+can remain nowhere, except under my protection, I repeat it. I will
+guard you. Cecilia, have you then no faith in me, my courage, my
+strength, my judgment? And I too cannot tell you all, how I intend to
+save you, will save you; I must beg you to let me take my own way,
+without explanation. Is not what is fair for women, right for men? May
+not cases occur for us also, in which we act as duty and honor command,
+and which we can confide only to a man? And, Cecilia, when I tell you
+that I have trusted to a man, to whom from childhood you have looked up
+with deep reverence, without suspecting that you owed him the respect
+so freely paid--and this man approves of my plan and resolution, and
+will himself do all in his power that the plan may not remain a plan,
+that the resolution may be executed--and this man will assure you of
+the fact with his own lips--Cecilia, I will bring this old man, your
+ancestor, to you, and when kneeling before him with his hand resting
+upon your head, the past, which seems as brazen and immutable as fate,
+reels and totters, you will perhaps believe that the present is not
+unalterably fixed for those who live and love!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold hurried out of the room. Cecilia, trembling with a strange
+foreboding, gazed steadily at the door through which he had
+disappeared. It opened again: the tall form that entered was compelled
+to bend its head, and thus, with drooping head and downcast eyes,
+approached her. A strange conviction shot through her mind: even so had
+her father looked when he called her to his bedside an hour before he
+died, and at that moment he had resembled the picture of his
+grandfather, which hung in the sitting-room beside the old clock. Her
+knees trembled, and almost refused to support her, as he held out his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold closed the door. The words spoken between the two must ever
+remain a secret.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The last rays of the setting sun trembled on the heaving water in
+crimson light, and crimson light glittered on the nodding grass of the
+broad swamp that stretched from the western shore to the downs, and
+bathed the figures of Gotthold and Jochen Prebrow, who, coming up from
+the narrower strip of ground that rose from the eastern beach, had just
+reached the highest point of ground. Gotthold, shading his eyes with
+his hand, was already gazing into the fiery sea, while Jochen kept
+pushing the spy-glass in and out of its case. At last he found the
+narrow mark on the glittering brass. &quot;Here,&quot; said he, handing the glass
+to his companion, and then added as if to apologize: &quot;One can see a
+devilish long ways with it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My good fellow!&quot; replied Gotthold smiling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen showed his white teeth, and then both suddenly grew very grave
+again. Gotthold looked through the glass as eagerly as if he were
+actually trying to see the boat, which had sailed four hours before
+with a fair wind, and must now surely be off Sundin, if not already in
+the harbor, and Jochen was as downcast as if he had seen the round
+cheeks of his Stine, who positively insisted upon accompanying Frau
+Brandow for the last time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the worthy fellow was not thinking of himself. He could do without
+his Stine for a few days or weeks, if necessary, and things generally
+went so pleasantly with him that he had more than once doubted whether
+he was not too well off; but his poor, poor Herr Gotthold! O Heavens!
+how they looked at each other when she was going to get into the
+boat, and they shook hands on the bridge once more; with such large,
+wide-open eyes, which were full of tears! And then when she reached the
+boat, she instantly rushed down into the cabin, where Stine had carried
+the child, and then, as the wind took the sails and the boat began to
+move, came out again, and stood leaning on the old gentleman's arm,
+waving her handkerchief, with her big wide eyes looking steadily
+towards him, though she certainly could see nothing through her tears.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But the boat is as good as any that can be found,&quot; said Jochen, &quot;and
+as for my father-in-law, he was glad to get something to do again, and
+my brother Clas is a wonderfully clever fellow, and has often been in
+Sundin. He can take good care of them all; he said he knew where
+Wollnow lived, too, and one can depend upon the old gentleman, and
+nobody can do more than he can; and when one has done everything within
+the bounds of human possibility, he has done all he can.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen drew a long breath; he was astonished himself to find how he
+could talk to-day--even his Stine would have done no better--and Herr
+Gotthold had said nothing at all--what could he say against it? Jochen
+continued in a still more persuasive tone: &quot;And so you mustn't be so
+sad, Herr Gotthold, for the night doesn't last all the time, and
+unexpected things often happen, and when a horse once gets the bit
+between its teeth, a man may pull his arms off, but it will run away
+for all that; and what a horse can do, a man can too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall not fail, Jochen,&quot; replied Gotthold, &quot;and I am no longer
+wretched, for I know I shall fight my way through, although it is a
+difficult matter so long as we don't have Scheel. But I think we shall
+get the fellow yet; at least he isn't dead, and that is the main
+thing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen Prebrow shook his great head. &quot;It's a damned, miserable
+business, Herr Gotthold,&quot; said he. &quot;Old Arent in Goritz saw him a week
+ago,--well, he certainly knows him, for the old man was at Dahlitz till
+Hinrich Scheel drove him away, but at night all cats are gray, and
+besides--there are so many chances of getting away from here by sea to
+Sweden or Mechlenburg or elsewhere. Therefore, it is very probable that
+he came here; but that he could be here still--no, that I don't
+believe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The crimson glow which blazed in the western horizon had faded, and as
+they turned towards the east in descending from the summit of the down,
+the sea from the shore to the farthest horizon spread before them in a
+deep blue expanse, against which the white sand of the beach was
+relieved with singular distinctness. The chain of downs, upon whose
+highest point they had just been standing, stretched towards the north
+in a vast confused mass, which in the twilight seemed endless, here
+overgrown with coarse grass and broom, yonder in dreary baldness,
+rounded, lengthened, flattened, with sharp overhanging edges, like a
+sea which, while lashed by a tempest, had suddenly been converted into
+sand. Yonder, where the western shore projected farthest--Wiessow Point
+they called the narrow tongue of land--a roof, just visible to the eye,
+appeared above the downs, and Jochen Prebrow pointed towards it with
+his spy-glass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you see that house?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A part of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That's where the Rahnkes live; I shouldn't like to be in their skins
+to-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, what is going on there?&quot; asked Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Another of the good chances,&quot; continued Jochen, involuntarily lowering
+his voice, although, as far as the eye could reach, no living creature
+was to be seen except the sea-gulls hovering over the waves. &quot;They
+pretend to be fishermen, and when we were under Swedish rule also had
+the right to sell liquor, and say they have it still. But that is
+probably only a rumor in order to have a reason why every moment boats
+run in full of people, who, like the Rahnkes, call themselves
+fishermen, and have just as little right to the name. There must often
+be a half-dozen there at once, the custom-house officers say, and when
+they come--either by land or water--all are away, just run out to sea.
+They have kept watch here on the downs, and cruised in the offing for
+days together; but then no boat has ever arrived except some innocent
+fishing-smack, and the Rahnkes have stood and laughed when the officers
+were disappointed again. But they'll get paid for it to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What, this evening?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I really ought not to tell, but it's different with you, and besides
+they must certainly be there already. Do you see the three sails
+standing towards the north? Those are Uselin fishing-boats, and this is
+the right time and the right course; but they have no fishermen in
+them, but custom-house officers in peajackets and southwesters, and
+when they are near enough they will heave to and stop close by Wiessow
+Point, and the moment they heave to, a dozen custom-house officers and
+gendarmes will come marching, marching up from the land-side. I have it
+all from Herr Inspector from Sundin, who has already spent two days in
+Wiessow, and I'm an old acquaintance of his, because I've often driven
+him to different places; so he told me about it. Look! Herr Gotthold,
+look! there it begins.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen, with an eagerness most unusual to him, pointed towards the
+three vessels, which, in fact, after holding their course in line
+directly towards the north, suddenly tacked and stood towards the land.
+At the same moment, two boats that must hitherto have lain concealed
+behind Wiessow Point appeared, and it was soon evident that they wished
+to escape between the coast and the three vessels, while the foremost
+was trying to cut them off. But it was already doubtful whether it
+would succeed, as it had a longer distance to run before reaching the
+point where the two courses crossed, and the smugglers sailed quite as
+fast, besides laying closer to the wind. In fact, at the end of ten
+minutes, a small gray cloud that rose from the pursuing boat, followed
+at shorter and shorter intervals by other little gray clouds, showed
+that the custom-house officers were beginning to despair of the success
+of the chase, and soon the cessation of the firing proved it had
+failed. The smugglers already looked like a mere speck on the horizon,
+the pursuing boat had tacked, and was standing back towards Wiessow
+Point, where the two others had arrived long before, &quot;probably, with
+the men who now came hurrying up from the land-side, to find the nest
+empty once more,&quot; Gotthold said to himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The damned rascals!&quot; cried Jochen Prebrow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had been standing at the top of one of the higher downs, eagerly
+watching the exciting spectacle, every separate phase of which was as
+distinct to the two sons of the coast as if they had been in the midst
+of the action. In this the excellent spy-glass had done them essential
+service; it had been passed from hand to hand, and Gotthold had just
+taken it. He thought, if Jochen's information was correct, they must at
+least see some of the custom-house officers on the farthest downs, and
+slowly turning from hillock to hillock was searching the ground before
+him, already growing dim in the mists of evening, when he heard a low
+exclamation. At the same moment, however, he dropped the spy-glass, and
+pulled Jochen away from the crest of the down, so that their heads were
+concealed by the long waving grass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hinrich Scheel! I saw him distinctly. He was standing about a thousand
+paces away on the top of yonder down, with his back towards us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How is that possible?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know; but it was he; I should know him among a thousand: there
+he is again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it was not on the same down, but farther to the right, and, as it
+seemed to Gotthold, nearer than before; besides, the man, in whom
+through the spy-glass Jochen also thought he recognized Hinrich Scheel,
+was no longer standing erect, but crouching behind the crest of the
+down, like the two companions, gazing in the direction of the Rahnkes'
+house, from which he had come. At least Gotthold did not doubt it. The
+whole situation instantly grew plain to him. Hinrich Scheel, in some
+way or other, had been delayed in his flight, and found in the Rahnkes'
+house, which, according to Jochen's description, was nothing more than
+a den of thieves, a shelter, from which the attack of the custom-house
+officers had just driven him. He had now fled before them to the downs,
+and had every prospect of making his escape even if pursued, since the
+approaching darkness and extreme inequality of the soil greatly favored
+his designs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen was entirely of Gotthold's opinion, but what should they do now?
+Wait to see whether Hinrich, who was still lying motionless in the same
+spot, would continue his flight in the same direction, and so come
+nearer and nearer to them, or make the attempt to crawl up to him, as
+he evidently expected no danger from this quarter? Both plans were
+almost equally uncertain. The darkness was now increasing very rapidly:
+at his present great distance the man would soon look like a mere dark
+spot on the light sand, and must disappear entirely in a short time; on
+the other hand, he need only glance around, if they were not wholly
+concealed, and then the next instant would surely slide from the down
+on which he lay, and of course overtaking him could not be thought of.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold's heart throbbed as if it would burst, as he thought of all
+this, and discussed it with Jochen in a whisper. In all probability,
+his fate and hers depended upon his getting yonder man into his power.
+A few moments before, he had had scarcely the shadow of a hope that he
+would ever succeed in doing so; now an almost miraculous chance seemed
+to desire to aid him. There was the man, and here he himself with his
+faithful Jochen, the space that separated them so short that it could
+be crossed in a few minutes, and yet the turning of an eye, a breath of
+wind, a nothing, might tear his prey from him, as if he had only
+dreamed all this, as if it were but a delirium of his excited fancy,
+and he need only rub his eyes, and the dark spot yonder, which seemed
+to be a man, would disappear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had disappeared. Had he seen the pursuers approaching from that
+side, and continued his flight, or had he thought the way was now open
+and he could begin his retreat? The place where he had just lain was
+empty. A mistake was impossible, in spite of the dim twilight the crest
+of the down was still sharply relieved against the sky. Would he appear
+again? And would it be nearer or farther?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A few seconds elapsed, during which the two men did not venture to
+breathe. There! There he was again, and nearer--considerably nearer; he
+seemed to be coming directly towards them, and there could no longer be
+a doubt of it. Within a few minutes the distance had lessened at least
+one-half; they scarcely dared to look through the waving sedges,
+necessary as it was to watch the movements of the man, who even at the
+last moment might take another direction. And now he glided down the
+slope of the next hillock in the chain, and came straight up the down
+behind whose crest they lay. It was the highest of them all, and he
+probably wished to look around him a short time, in order to assure
+himself that no danger was threatening from any quarter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had slipped down a few feet, and crouched as closely as possible
+among the sedges. In a few moments Hinrich Scheel's head must appear
+before them; they distinctly heard him toiling up the tolerably steep
+slope on the other side, and muttering curses when the sand gave way
+under his feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They started up, and darted to the summit. With a lightning-like
+movement Hinrich glided from under Gotthold's hands, but as he turned
+to the left ran directly into Jochen's arms, and the two in one
+indistinguishable ball, slipped, rolled, and tumbled down the hillock
+faster than Gotthold could follow them. Jochen had taken a firm hold,
+but in the last turn he fell underneath; with a desperate effort
+Hinrich released himself, and was dealing a furious blow with a large
+clasp-knife he had drawn from his pocket, when Gotthold seized his arm
+and turned the weapon aside. Jochen had already started up again, and
+the next instant Hinrich Scheel, in his turn, was lying on the sand,
+face downwards, and Jochen, kneeling on his shoulders, was in the act
+of tying his elbows behind him with a small rope, which, after the
+manner of old coachmen, he always carried about with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you tie me, you'll crush me at the same time,&quot; gasped Hinrich
+Scheel. &quot;I won't get up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Release him,&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But we'll take care of this ourselves,&quot; said Jochen as he drew a
+pistol from the pocket of the prostrate man, and handed it to Gotthold.
+&quot;There!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hinrich Scheel stood erect. His squinting eyes stared horribly at his
+assailant from a face distorted with rage. Suddenly he started back.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You,&quot; he cried, &quot;you! What do you want of me?&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a wild terror in Hinrich's look and gesture, and the rattling
+tone of his harsh voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter?&quot; cried Gotthold, shaking the man, who still stood
+before him as if petrified, rudely by the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The powerful grasp produced a strange, mysterious effect upon the man.
+He stretched his long arms towards the dark sky, shook them wildly,
+waved them up and down, and then threw himself on his knees, bracing
+his left hand against the sand, and striking several furious blows with
+the right, as if he wished to murder some one he held by the throat;
+then he rose and shrieked, in answer to Gotthold's question:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What's the matter? I wish I had him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whom?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He lied; he said you were dead, and they wanted to arrest me, and
+imprisonment for life would be the least punishment; and did I wish to
+bring misfortune upon him, who had always been such a good master to
+me, and would give me money enough to last all my life? But when he
+came that night to the giant's grave, where I had concealed myself, he
+only gave me five hundred thalers; he had no more, not another
+shilling; he was obliged to give the rest to the lawyer, as bail for
+his appearing at any moment if he was summoned. And all that was a lie,
+wasn't it, sir, all a lie, every word?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All,&quot; said Gotthold, &quot;all, every word.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All, every word,&quot; repeated Hinrich, as if he could not yet understand
+it. &quot;Why did he need to lie? I should certainly have gone if it had
+been necessary--for him. I did it for him, and as for the money, I had
+it in my hand. I could have done what I chose with it, and I gave it to
+him. Not a thaler was lacking; it was the whole package, just as I took
+it out of the Assessor's pocket.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You did it for him,&quot; said Gotthold; &quot;did you also do it by his
+orders?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By his orders?&quot; replied Hinrich, &quot;what need was there of orders? I did
+it because--because--I don't know why; but he rode on my back until he
+got his pony, and then I taught him to ride; he learned all, all he
+knows from me; and if Brownlock wins and brings him in a pile of money,
+whom has he to thank for it but Hinrich Scheel?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While speaking in this manner, they walked on over the downs, Gotthold
+and Hinrich leading the way, while Jochen Prebrow followed behind,
+though not so far that he could not overtake them in a few bounds if
+necessary. It had grown very dark, so dark that they could scarcely see
+the wild rabbits which glided through the coarse grass at their feet,
+and a large owl soaring towards them fluttered aside in terror, as
+Hinrich, after a pause, continued with a savage imprecation:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I did it, because I knew how hard up he was. He had five thousand
+thalers to pay Herr Redebas the following noon, and if he did not pay
+them he might be refused a place in the races. I knew that--I have been
+at them often enough, and know as much about the rules as any of the
+gentlemen--and I knew that he would make no fuss afterwards, although
+he had said nothing about it, and I believe had not even thought of the
+money the Herr Assessor carried in his pocket. But I had thought of it
+all day long, and even looked out the place as we drove to Dollan. It
+had long overhung the morass, and the rain had made long cracks in it,
+so I said to myself: 'If they drive back to-night, and the carriage is
+turned out of the road here, the earth will break off, and the whole
+thing will slide down, and that's an accident which might happen to the
+best driver, on a stormy night such as this will be.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only you might easily have gone down with the rest,&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You mean, if I hadn't jumped out of the carriage at the right time?
+Bah, sir! It's no harder than to get off a horse that is running away,
+when one sees it is going to fall. I jumped out at the right time, and
+then the ground broke away, and slid down with a thundering, crashing
+sound, and then all was perfectly still, except that one or two small
+pieces cracked off and rattled down the slope, and the tempest swept
+howling and moaning over the morass; but that was nothing new to me,
+and it was perfectly still below.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I stood up and looked down, wondering how far the land-slide had
+probably gone. If the marl had held together well, it had doubtless
+fallen into the bog, and with its speed and weight had been buried
+nobody knows how deep; but it had jolted violently on the way, and I
+had heard it; the whole carriage must have broken to pieces, and in
+that case everything might still be lying on the edge. I must know how
+matters were, so I made up my mind to climb down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But it was hard work; I could not find the right place in the dark,
+and nearly fell myself; at last, however, I reached the bottom of the
+slope.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, then I groped around there; the moon had also broken through the
+clouds a little, and I soon found the carriage, or what was left of it;
+it was smashed into small pieces, and one horse was lying among them;
+it had broken its neck and was dead as a door-nail. Close beside the
+horse lay the Herr Assessor, but he was still breathing, and when I
+turned him on his back he groaned heavily, and then twitched several
+times; he would die without my help, and I had already taken the money
+out of his pocket, and buttoned up the coat again so that it might look
+as if he were lying just as he fell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did you not look for me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I looked, but I didn't find you; he told me afterwards that you
+were lying half-way down the slope, and besides the time I was
+crawling about in the dark seemed very long, and there was a rustling
+among the reeds, and then the other horse, which had broken loose
+from the carriage and run out into the morass with the pole--stupid
+beast!--began to scream, and it is a pitiful sound to hear a dying
+animal shriek in its agony, and so I came up again on dry land.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And was Herr Brandow already there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How do you know that?&quot; asked Hinrich in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I only imagined so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, he wasn't there then, but he came directly after, and I was
+furious because he had taken Brownlock; besides, what business had he
+there? I told him so too, and said he must go back at once; but he
+wouldn't; people had seen him ride away, and where should he say he had
+been when this story came out? I had offered him the package, but he
+knocked it out of my hand, and it lay on the ground between us, and I
+said it might stay there. 'So it can for aught I care,' said he; 'I
+didn't do it for the money;' and then he asked what had become of you?
+I gave him a short answer, for I was angry, and then he said I must
+turn back at once, and--and--'Do it alone, sir,' said I, 'I'll have
+nothing more to do with it.' He begged my pardon, but I wouldn't make
+up, out of pure ill-temper, and now he again grew anxious about what
+account he could give of his whereabouts during this time, till I said
+to him: 'As you have Brownlock under you, sir, you can just as well
+ride across the bog, and then you will get to Neuenhof as soon as if
+you had ridden away from Dollan directly after the gentlemen: I mean,
+of course, over the road.' He saw this too, but his courage failed,
+although he generally had plenty for such things, and I myself had
+ridden across the bog a week before under his own eyes; so I said to
+him: 'Then do what you choose, I must go and knock up the Prebrows now,
+or I shall come in for all the blame,' and then he rode away, and it
+was a splendid sight--I could see it distinctly, for the moon had come
+out--and the water dashed up under the hoofs--yes, it was a splendid
+sight to see how he rode.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hinrich walked on a few steps in silence; suddenly he stopped short.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the way he has treated me is a sin and a shame; may God punish me
+if I don't pay him for it. He promised me ten per cent, of all
+Brownlock won, and he had ten thousand in his book then; but it may
+easily amount to as much again. And he knows I would give one of my
+hands to see Brownlock on the course, and have people point to me and
+say: 'That's Hinrich Scheel, who trained him; he understands those
+things better than all the English jockeys.' O Lord! Lord! and I'm to
+do all this for him, while he leaves me for a whole week in this kennel
+of Rahnkes' and I'm to come to Goritz the night before the boat, in
+which I'm to take passage, sails for Mecklenburg, and I must meet him
+in Goritz woods, and get the two thousand he promised me, but he was
+not there, and probably thought, 'He must go tomorrow, with or without
+the money;' but I'll pay him for it, by Heavens! I'll pay him for it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That would cost you quite as much as him,&quot; replied Gotthold; &quot;or do
+you think the law will set you free because you did everything solely
+for your master's sake?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The law, sir! You won't deliver me up to the law,&quot; cried Hinrich.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And if I should, could you blame me for it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hinrich stopped short, but there was no possibility of escape. Jochen
+Prebrow's heavy hand rested on his shoulder, and Gotthold had just
+cocked the pistol, whose barrel glittered in the light of the nearest
+beacon, of which they were already within a very short distance. A
+single cry would summon the watchman, if he chose to push matters to
+extremities.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am in your power, sir,&quot; said he, &quot;and I am not. Neither you nor any
+other man shall compel me to repeat what I have just told you before a
+court of justice. I may have imposed upon you with a false tale.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That excuse will not avail you much, Hinrich; we have proofs that the
+money was not lost, but stolen and placed in your master's hands.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And in a few words he told him the contents of Wollnow's letter, adding
+what he had just learned from old Boslaf, that while searching the
+bog--to the great astonishment of the men--they had followed the
+hoof-prints of a horse several hundred paces; and Hinrich's denial
+would produce little effect in opposition to this and other
+well-established facts.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hinrich had listened attentively.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I still think you won't give me up to the law, sir,&quot; said he; &quot;it's an
+ugly story, and the less said about it the better, for--for all
+concerned; but if it must be, why, sir, we poor men are never much
+better treated than dogs, and these last few days I have fared even
+worse; so I don't mind going to jail, if he only comes too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was too dark for Gotthold to see the cruel smile that played around
+the man's thick lips, as he uttered the last words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think I can spare you the jail,&quot; he answered, &quot;if you will promise
+to make no attempt at flight, and obey all my orders implicitly. I will
+require nothing unreasonable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know that, sir,&quot; said Hinrich, &quot;and here is my hand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The hand that rested in Gotthold's was as hard as iron; but he thought
+he felt in its nervous pressure that the man intended to keep his word.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, then,&quot; said he, &quot;and, Jochen, show us a path by which we can
+reach your house without being seen, if possible.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My poor dear friend! To think we must part again; it is really too
+hard. But don't be discouraged! Gretchen will get well, and everything
+will come out right at last.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ottilie Wollnow said these words in the antechamber of her house in
+Sundin, to Gotthold, with whom she had just left the room where Cecilia
+and old Borlaf were watching Gretchen's feverish slumber.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Everything,&quot; repeated Ottilie, as she saw that the look of deep sorrow
+on Gotthold's expressive face remained unchanged.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You do not really think so yourself,&quot; he replied, gratefully pressing
+Ottilie's hand; &quot;if the child dies, Cecilia, I fear, will never get
+over it, no matter how much, how entirely, that scoundrel is to blame;
+at any rate it will be another of those sad, torturing memories, which,
+according to her own confession to you, separate her from me forever.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Herr Wollnow came out of an adjoining room, ready for walking. Ottilie
+accompanied the two friends to the door. &quot;I wish I could go with you,&quot;
+said she.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And it would not be a bad thing,&quot; said Wollnow as the two friends
+walked through the dusky streets, in which to-day there was an unusual
+stir and bustle; &quot;women have what in such cases removes mountains--the
+sovereign passion which we men, luckily for ourselves, have reasoned
+away, though without obtaining in exchange the sovereign calmness with
+which that strange old man met Brandow this morning. I would not speak
+of it in the ladies' presence. Brandow, with the acuteness for which
+even his enemies must give him credit, had made up his mind from the
+first moment that Cecilia must sooner or later come here, even if she
+did not do so at once. He therefore instantly turned round and drove
+here as fast as the horses could go; he must have met you just outside
+of Prora. Since that time he has lurked around my house and your
+lodgings; I admire the firmness with which he has maintained his usual
+calm manner, and his boldness in telling everybody that his wife had
+gone away to make a little visit, and the farce Cousin Borlaf had
+played with the farm-hands--searching the bog and forest--was a piece
+of roguery for which he would call the spiteful old man, with whom he
+had long been on bad terms, to a strict account. He must have had a
+hell of anxiety and dread in his heart, for his enemies--and he has not
+a few, foremost among whom are Redebas and the Plüggens--took an eager
+interest in circulating the worst reports, and the members of the
+committee on the races were on the point of formally demanding an
+explanation from Brandow, when yesterday evening he said at the club
+that his wife had arrived here half an hour before, and was staying
+with us: the Selliens had also requested the pleasure of her company,
+but the Assessor's health was not yet entirely restored, so he had
+given us the preference. In order to give his statement the proper
+weight, or--urged on by I know not what devil of impudence--as soon as
+he heard of Cecilia's arrival yesterday evening--I suppose through Alma
+Sellien, who unluckily was with my wife at the time--he rang the
+door-bell, and sent in his card to Ottilie. She would undoubtedly have
+been glad to receive him and give full vent to her feelings; but the
+old gentleman entered the room, and with the stately politeness which
+we of the last two generations have forgotten, begged her to leave him
+alone with Brandow a moment. It was, in fact, not more than a minute
+before the old gentleman rejoined the ladies with a mien as calm as
+ever; while the other rushed down the staircase, and Cecilia, who had
+no suspicion of his presence, was startled by the violence with which
+somebody banged the door. Here we are at the 'Golden Lion.' Let me go
+in alone. If we should not find him this evening, he ought not to know
+that you have returned.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wollnow entered the wide hall, through whose open door a bright light
+streamed into the somewhat dusky street. There were a great many guests
+in the large hotel on account of the races, which had commenced to-day,
+and were to be continued to-morrow, so that Wollnow was obliged to ask
+several times before he could get a positive answer; and Gotthold was
+kept waiting longer than he expected. As, in walking up and down, he
+had for the second time proceeded some little distance from the house,
+a female figure suddenly emerged from a dark side-street, passed him,
+and instantly turned back with a murmured &quot;Carl,&quot; raising her black
+veil at the same moment. In spite of the dim light, Gotthold recognized
+Alma Sellien.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are mistaken,&quot; said he.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Alma had also recognized him; she had felt so sure of her ground that
+terror almost robbed her of all presence of mind; but it was only for a
+moment. &quot;It is fortunate it was no one else,&quot; she said, drawing a long
+breath, and then, as Gotthold made no reply, added: &quot;I have begged him
+again and again to tell you; you must learn it sooner or later, and to
+you the news can give only pleasure; but he never would.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And for good reasons.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What reasons? Pray, pray tell me all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In another place and at another time; neither hour nor scene is
+suitable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wollnow came out of the hotel. &quot;Another time, then,&quot; whispered Alma, as
+she drew down her veil and glided back into the dark street from which
+she had just emerged.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who was that?&quot; asked Wollnow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This man will drag half the world into the mire with him,&quot; cried
+Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where we should have sought him long ago, if we wanted to find him,&quot;
+replied Wollnow. &quot;It was Frau Sellien, wasn't it? You betray no secret,
+it was one only to us; here the sparrows chatter it on the housetops.
+The man is making it easier for us than we expected; but it is a
+wonderful piece of luck that you caught Hinrich Scheel. If only the
+fellow's old clannish feeling doesn't break out again at the last
+moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not think it will; for it is precisely because Brandow has so
+brutally wounded this feeling, so basely broken the faith due from the
+chief to his follower--that has excited and angered the rough but in
+his way honest man, to the highest degree. No, on the contrary, what I
+fear is that our treatment of Brandow will not satisfy him, and he will
+try to revenge himself in his own fashion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And is he so far wrong?&quot; replied Wollnow earnestly, &quot;are we not
+robbing the gallows of its victim? And even if we excuse ourselves by
+saying that there are crimes worse than highway robbery and murder,
+which do not come under the head of any law, cannot Hinrich Scheel
+quote the same thing himself, and demand that the breach of faith
+committed against him, and for whose condemnation he can certainly
+apply to no regular judge, shall not remain unpunished? But forgive my
+illogical obstinacy, my dear friend. I perceive that the future of more
+than one innocent person depends upon the secrecy with which we go to
+work. So let a Vehmgericht or a judgment from Heaven take the place of
+a public trial. Here we are at the club-house. I am sorry to leave you,
+but I feel with you that you must fight your way through this without
+seconds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold walked up and down the brightly-lighted vestibule; loud
+voices, laughter, and the clinking of glasses echoed from the
+dining-room, into which a liveried servant had taken his card; the
+clerk was sitting in the office busily employed on his books; and the
+servants in the dressing-room had enough to do to take and deliver up
+the coats of the gentlemen who were constantly arriving and departing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man again appeared; Herr Brandow begged to be excused, but he was
+very busy just now; would not tomorrow morning be time enough?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Time enough for what?&quot; asked Gustav Von Plüggen, who had come out of
+the dining-room directly behind the servant, and greeted Gotthold with
+his usual noisy gayety, now increased by plentiful potations of wine.
+&quot;What? Brandow very busy? Stuff and nonsense! Pressing business! He's
+sitting behind a bottle of Canary, writing one round sum after another
+in his damned betting-book. They're all determined to be fools, though
+Redebas and Otto and I have tired ourselves out talking; after what we
+saw at Dollan, everything is possible. It will turn out just as it did
+with Harry--Harry at the Derby, five years ago. Ever been in England?
+Famous country--women, horses, sheep--famous. An old joke of mine that
+always keeps fresh. What was I saying? do you want to speak to Brandow?
+But why don't you come in? It will be a pleasure to me to introduce an
+old schoolmate. Celebrated artist, hey? I heard some devilish good
+things yesterday at the chairman's from Prince Prora, who made your
+acquaintance in Rome, and is delighted to hear that you are in Sundin.
+Even spoke of seeking you out; curious; on the race-course to-morrow.
+By the way, got a ticket? Stand A? Don't hesitate, I beg; see,
+half-a-dozen left; gives me great pleasure. Come in!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The servant had turned the handle of the door long before. The
+dining-room was crowded with people--members of the club, and their
+guests, among whom the officers of the garrison were especially
+numerous. They were sitting at different tables with bottles of
+champagne before them; a gay, even noisy conversation was going on; no
+one noticed the new-comers, not even Brandow, who had apparently just
+risen from the table, and was standing at the end of the apartment, in
+the midst of a group of people who were all talking to him at once,
+while he, holding up his betting-book, exclaimed: &quot;One at a time,
+gentlemen! one at a time! since you are positively determined on being
+kind enough to make me a Cr[oe]sus. Trutwetter, one hundred and fifty!
+Please put your name underneath. Here, if you prefer! I have kept a
+place for Kummerrow's two hundred pistoles, Baron? No! Oh! dear, omen
+in nomine! who would have thought it? Another! Plüggen! Et tu Brutus?
+What is it? A gentleman--back again already? I am very busy! Tell the
+gentleman--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow suddenly paused; he had just seen Gotthold, who had been
+standing directly behind him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have time to wait until you have finished your business here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It would detain you too long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have plenty of time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold withdrew from the circle with a polite but formal bow; Brandow
+had turned very pale, and stared sullenly at his betting-book, while
+the lead-pencil trembled in his hand. What was the meaning of the
+pertinacity with which this man pursued him? Should he rudely dismiss
+him before the whole company? But that was impossible without a scene,
+and this evening a scene might be dangerous.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, Brandow! I have no time to wait!&quot; cried a voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you reckoning them up already?&quot; asked a second.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I really must run them over once,&quot; replied Brandow, closing the book;
+&quot;have patience for a few minutes, gentlemen; it seems that there is a
+communication of some importance to be made to me. I'll be back again
+in a moment. Now may I ask your wishes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The communication I have to make is indeed of some importance, and
+might be best heard without witnesses. So it is only in your own
+interest that I request you to provide some place where we shall not be
+disturbed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you considered that I shall probably have more to ask of you than
+you of me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think I have considered everything; and that is probably more than
+you can say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were standing somewhat apart from the others, speaking in low
+tones, and looking steadily into each other's eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, then,&quot; said Brandow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who was that?&quot; asked one of the gentlemen, whose autograph graced
+Brandow's betting-book.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A famous fellow!&quot; cried Gustav von Plüggen. &quot;Old schoolmate of mine;
+celebrated artist; talked about him all yesterday evening at the
+chairman's! Protégé of Prince Prora's! Famous fellow! I'm going to have
+him paint me. In England every man of rank has himself painted with all
+his favorite horses and dogs, and all the rest of the family. Ever been
+in England, Kummerrow? Famous country--women, horses, sheep--everything
+famous!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">They crossed the hall in silence, and, without exchanging a word,
+entered one of the rooms reserved for the private use of the members of
+the club, and which the servant opened for the two gentlemen at a sign
+from Brandow. A large hanging lamp, directly over a round table covered
+with green velvet, lighted the apartment tolerably well. Several
+arm-chairs, also covered with green velvet, stood around the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I suppose we shall be entirely undisturbed here,&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I that the farce will not last long; you saw I was very busy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow, as if in a fit of impatience, had drawn one of the chairs away
+from the table and thrown himself into it, but it was by no accident
+that his face was thus in the shadow, while the light streamed full on
+Gotthold's.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very busy,&quot; repeated Brandow, drumming on the arm of the chair, &quot;too
+busy not to be compelled to defer the account I have to settle with you
+until tomorrow morning. And if you should have the--the face to try to
+intimidate me, I say: Beware! beware! you do not yet know me; my
+patience is not inexhaustible, and however willing I might be to avoid
+a scandal, and for these few days, I freely confess, would fain escape
+it--if you urge me, and it must be--I am ready--ready at any moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow had spoken in a loud, threatening tone; but he had evidently
+failed in his object. Gotthold's eye rested upon him so calmly--with a
+glance of contempt, as it seemed to him--that he could not bear the
+gaze, and suddenly paused with a secret thrill of terror, as Gotthold
+now quietly opened a letter he had just taken out of his pocket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you read this letter before you say more?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow had not the courage to refuse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;From the noble Wollnow, apparently, to me and about you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, it is from Wollnow, but to me and about you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;About me! that's strange, and passably long too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He tried to feign a yawn as he let the sheets slip through his fingers;
+but had scarcely cast a glance at them, and read the first lines, when
+he started up like a madman, and hurling the letter upon the table,
+exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is infamous! This demands blood! I will see nothing more, hear
+nothing more! I will not be the patient victim of a vulgar intrigue. We
+will speak of this again, sir, we will speak of this again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He wandered restlessly up and down the room; Gotthold remained quietly
+in his seat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have a moment to decide whether you will read the letter, or
+whether I shall show it to Count Zarrentin, before taking farther
+steps.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow paused in his walk. &quot;So you really mean to have a scandal! I
+thought so. Well, perhaps it will be worth the trouble, to see how you
+intend to begin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He threw himself into his chair again, seized the letter, and began to
+read it with the air of a man who wished to get rid of a troublesome
+petitioner. A scornful smile played around his lips. &quot;I was mistaken,&quot;
+he muttered as if talking to himself, &quot;it is simply ridiculous, utterly
+ridiculous.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But his lips were pale; the smile changed to a grin, and his hands
+trembled more and more. He had read very rapidly at first; but the
+farther he proceeded the longer he lingered over every separate
+sentence, and even word. Many he seemed to weigh and test two or three
+times, and he made a pretence of reading long after he had evidently
+reached the end. At last, amid the terrible tumult of his soul, a
+resolution was formed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You were going to give this--letter to our chairman,&quot; he said,
+carefully folding the sheets; &quot;I have no objection, but on one
+condition.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He withdrew the hand with which he had held out the letter to Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On condition that I may first take a copy of this precious document,
+to serve as a basis for the charge of scandal I shall bring against the
+noble writer and delicate-minded receiver of this bungling performance.
+To a man so extremely just as yourself, a man who does not hesitate, on
+the most absurd proofs, to charge his friend with the most horrible
+crimes, this will doubtless be perfectly agreeable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Entirely so,&quot; replied Gotthold; &quot;you can also keep the original. The
+letter was merely to make you acquainted with certain things, to which
+I did not wish to refer verbally, and has performed its work.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And this interesting conversation is over,&quot; said Brandow, rising; &quot;I
+mean for to-day; to-morrow we shall have more to say to each other;
+only the tables will be turned. The things of which I shall accuse you
+are no shameful inventions like the story about the bills, or silly
+fancies like the horrible murder of Hinrich Scheel, which you will
+probably cry, with all the terrible details, at the next fair, but
+facts, positive facts--a pretty commentary on the song of the worthy
+man, who knows how to make no better use of the hospitality offered
+him, than--you have done. So farewell until to-morrow!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow walked towards the door with a wave of the hand intended to be
+contemptuous; Gotthold stepped before him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will probably have patience a short time longer, when I tell you
+that your future fate must be decided now and here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My fate? Are you mad?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Decide for yourself. Hinrich Scheel was found by me yesterday evening
+in Wiessow, where he had concealed himself, and is now at my lodgings
+guarded by the brothers Prebrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow staggered back as if a bullet had struck him, until his hand
+clutched the arm of a chair, and in that attitude stood staring at
+Gotthold with eyes that seemed starting from their sockets.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hinrich Scheel!&quot; he stammered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whom you thought had disappeared from the scene forever, though you
+were careless or niggardly enough not even to pay off your accomplice
+properly. I am now obliged to have him watched, not to prevent his
+escape--he has no wish to fly, he will endure any punishment if only
+the man for whom he did what he did, does not escape; I have him
+watched simply to prevent his taking this punishment into his own
+harsh, cruel hands.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow had sunk into the chair. His shameless courage and elastic
+strength seemed to have utterly deserted him; he looked ten years
+older; but suddenly he started up again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bah!&quot; he cried, &quot;do you think you can frighten me in that way? If that
+rascal Hinrich has allowed himself to be caught, so much the worse for
+him! What harm can he do me? I hope my word will weigh no less than
+that of a rascally groom, who has evidently been bribed by my enemies.
+A man who knows himself innocent cares nothing for bribery: or do you
+really expect to make any one believe that, if even a suspicion could
+have fallen upon me from any quarter, I would have let the fellow go
+without securing his silence in some way? That is certainly sheer
+nonsense: or will you say, he gave him nothing, so that if he were
+caught no one would ask, From whom and for what did you get this money?
+Settle it among yourselves, and do as you please--an honest man like me
+laughs at your threats.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Again he went towards the door, but his step grew slower the nearer he
+approached it; and ere he reached the threshold, he turned on his heel
+and came up to Gotthold with a smile on his lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let us drop the tragic masks, Gotthold, and talk like sensible people;
+what are your conditions?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The first is that you shall confess the deeds of which Wollnow's
+letter accuses you. You know what I mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not entirely. Is the confession only for yourself?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you consent to the other conditions, yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very well; I did what I am said to have done. What more?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That which follows as a matter of course. The daughter of an honorable
+family cannot and shall not be the wife of a criminal. That is, you
+will give your consent to everything we--I mean Herr Bogislas Wenhof,
+Wollnow and I--may dictate in regard to the divorce.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And my daughter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Answer the question yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I love the child.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You lie, Brandow; and even were it possible, as it is impossible, you
+would still have forever forfeited the right to keep her, or even
+maintain any communication with her. I hope she will forget you are her
+father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Which, however, I shall ever remain, and, <i>mon cher</i>, I'll give
+you this knowledge, which is doubtless uncommonly pleasing, as a
+wedding-present; or don't you intend to carry to a fitting end the
+business you have so beautifully begun?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The point in question is your destiny, not mine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Which, however, seems to be somewhat nearly connected with me. Or did
+you want me to believe you were doing all this for the service of God?
+Pshaw, my dear friend, our acquaintance is not a thing of yesterday,
+and our paths do not cross here and now for the first time. I have been
+in your way, and you in mine, on the schoolroom benches, the
+playground, at the dancing-lessons, and everywhere; I supplanted you in
+those days, and gave you a punishment to remember all your life. Well,
+you have done so, and this is the reprisal. I have lost the game--by a
+single foolish play--no matter! I have lost it; and I am too old a
+gambler not to understand and feel that it is my fate; but the game is
+not yet over; we shall meet again, and he who laughs last, laughs
+best.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man's eyes flashed glances of deadly hate, as he strode up and down
+the room with hasty steps. His sharp teeth gnawed his livid lips, and
+he tugged and tore at the ends of his long fair mustache, as he again
+paused and said:--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only one question more. Shall I also have to provide the dowry?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know what you mean by that; I only know we intend to leave you
+to take your own course as soon as you have paid your debt--outwardly
+at least--and replaced the sum stolen. You will have a chance to do so
+to-morrow. It is gambler's money, but that don't concern us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And if I don't win?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will work. Dollan has been leased to you for five years more; you
+can, if you choose--and you will be compelled to choose--pay back in
+less than half the time the ten thousand thalers I shall advance to
+you--it is almost the last remnant of my fortune. At any rate the
+package will be found on Dollan moor to-morrow evening, and day after
+to-morrow be in the coffers of the convent.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How well you have provided for yourself!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you too. If we drove you from your home, as you deserve--for you
+are not worthy to have German laborers call you master--you would go to
+ruin in the shortest possible time, and that, for your child's sake, I
+do not desire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Brandow essayed a scornful laugh, but Gotthold's last words, and the
+tone in which he uttered them, closed his lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You said just now, Brandow, that you loved your child: it was a lie;
+if you had done so even a little, for her sake you would at least have
+kept yourself innocent of crime. You have never loved any one except
+yourself, and that with a coarse, vain, egotistical love, which had no
+trace of respect for the sacredness of that which even the roughest men
+reverence. Yet--although this is my honest opinion--I am a man, and may
+be mistaken; perhaps it will touch your heart, when you hear that your
+child is ill, very ill--that we shall possibly only be able to prolong
+her innocent young life a few days. It is terrible to say it, but I
+cannot lighten the burden you have laid upon your conscience: if it
+dies, you have killed it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I?&quot; faltered Brandow; &quot;I?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, you! You who made life worthless to her mother,&quot; replied
+Gotthold, turning to Brandow. &quot;Or did you think the blow you dealt the
+mother would not strike the child, too? That the latter would not drink
+death from the poisoned cup of life you gave the former? You cannot
+have thought so, for you had based your whole plan upon this mutual
+love between the mother and child; you thought the bond that united
+their souls strong enough to bear your whole shameful web of falsehood
+and deceit, treachery and violence. I say once more: if it dies, you
+have killed it. Understand this clearly, man, if you can. It is so
+horrible that everything else you have done is innocent in comparison;
+it is so fearful that you must realize it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold walked several paces, and then paused before his enemy, who
+sat cowering in his chair with his head resting on his hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Brandow, they say that years ago, when, struck down by your sword, I
+lay on the ground before you, you dealt me a second blow. It has always
+been impossible for me to believe it, even now it is difficult; but
+however that may be, I cannot give a death-blow to any one lying on the
+ground, no matter who he is, or what he may have done; but neither can
+I hold out my hand to a worthless man, even if he extends his
+imploringly to me. Remember this, Brandow. Perhaps the moment will come
+sooner than you believe possible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold left the room; Brandow still sat in the same attitude into
+which he had first sunk, staring steadily at the carpet. A dreary smile
+flitted over his pale face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That was a fine sermon,&quot; he muttered; &quot;highly edifying! He got that
+from his father, the parson! And I sit here, and let myself be made out
+a villain by the miserable babbler, the cursed hypocrite, and don't
+hurl all he says back into his canting face. Bah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He started up and wandered about the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Folly, folly, folly! Her love for this dauber is not a thing of to-day
+or yesterday; she has always loved him; she has never been able to
+forgive herself for stooping to wed me, the haughty Princess! I knew it
+from the first! And was I to pocket the insult quietly, act as if I did
+not notice it, be satisfied with the crumbs thrown to me? I should have
+been a fool! Nobody would have done so in my place, and I've only done
+what any one else would, what thousands do who have not even my excuse.
+Alma would have run away from her silly husband long ago, if I had
+wanted her, if I had not always dissuaded her. But that would have been
+just the right grist for their mill; their only regret is that I have
+not made it easier for them. And I've made it easy enough now. Fool,
+fool! How I might have made them writhe, how I might make them writhe,
+if it were not for the accursed money. They put a stone in my path for
+me to stumble over, and I did them the favor, and now they stand and
+triumph!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He strode up and down the room like a caged tiger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But it is not always night. A little more, and I should have wept over
+that sentimental speech, as if it had been the truth, as if she had not
+taught the child to hate me, as if it had the slightest trace of
+resemblance to me, and might not just as well have been his, which it
+probably would, if he had then been the noble family friend for which
+he passes now. I have let myself be caught in the snare like a stupid
+boy. It came too suddenly; I was not calm enough; and Hinrich's
+reappearance was a shameful blow. Who would have thought it, after the
+fellow had once been so foolish as to draw all the suspicion upon
+himself, and I had made things so hot for him here! He shall pay for
+it, if he ever crosses my path again--the scoundrel; he shall pay for
+it. He and the daubing parson's son, and the old vagabond, and the
+damned Jew, and she--she--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paused before one of the large mirrors which covered the walls of
+the room between the windows from floor to ceiling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So I wasn't good enough for her. Other people think differently in
+this respect. The fact is, I sold myself too cheap. A fellow like me
+might have made very different pretensions; nay, can still at any
+moment, though I look now as Don Juan did last night when the devil was
+chasing him. But it's only the green glass and the dim light.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A knock at the door interrupted his gloomy soliloquy. It was a servant,
+who came to ask whether Herr Brandow was not coming back to the
+dining-room soon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At once,&quot; said Brandow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He cast another glance at the mirror. &quot;I'm rather deplorable-looking
+still. No matter! Or so much the better. They will think I am anxious
+about to-morrow, and fall into the snare all the easier, the
+blockheads! And to-morrow noon I shall have my thirty or forty thousand
+in my purse, and--all the rest is nonsense.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The clearest September morning shone upon the old Hanse city, whose
+narrow winding streets were remarkably quiet to-day, so quiet that the
+servant-girls who stood idly at the open doors of the houses could
+bewail their piteous fate to each other across them undisturbed. Was it
+not too shameful that the second day--the great day, when everybody,
+even the little apprentices from the cobblers' benches, had gone to see
+the show--they were obliged to stay and take care of the houses? And
+Kopp's carriage had just come back empty for the sixth time, and was
+now stopping at the apothecary's round the corner; but the young ladies
+always made such a parade, and were never ready; it was a sin and a
+shame, when one thought that other honest girls, who certainly wouldn't
+keep the carriage waiting, were not allowed to set foot outside of the
+door; but when the cat was away the mice would play.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The merry girls, who had approached nearer and nearer each other,
+joined hands and began to whirl around on the rough pavement, out of
+the sunlight into the shadow of the houses, and out of the shadow back
+into the sunlight, and then with a scream scattered and fled, each into
+her own door, as the strange gentleman came out of a large, silent
+house near by.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had watched all night beside Gretchen's bed with Cecilia and
+old Boslaf, and good Stine had gone in and out. Several times they
+thought the last moment had come; but the little heaving breast, which
+Cecilia had pressed to her own, rose and fell more easily again, and
+she laid the sweet little creature back upon the pillows, which were
+scarcely whiter than her delicate pale face. After midnight the fever
+became a little less violent, and the Doctor, who came early in the
+morning, said that the danger, unfortunately, was not yet over, but a
+few quieter hours might be expected, and he urgently entreated them to
+use this interval in gaining fresh strength, which they certainly
+greatly needed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had looked at old Boslaf as he spoke, but the old man smiled
+pleasantly, and said that the Doctor must not be anxious about him; he
+was used to night-watching, and should soon have plenty of time to
+sleep. But Cecilia, who was full of tender solicitude for the old man,
+whom she now always called father, insisted that he should lie down,
+and sent Gotthold away also. She would keep watch with Ottilie until
+noon; if Gretchen's condition should change for the worse, he should be
+notified at once.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And so he now walked through the silent street towards his lodgings,
+gazed at the girls dancing merrily, the sunlight shining so brightly on
+the gray old gables, and the flock of white doves wheeling in airy
+circles under the bright blue sky. How beautiful the world was! How
+pure and balmy the soft warm air he eagerly inhaled! How lightly he
+strode along, in spite of the long night of anxious watching! How the
+blood bounded in his veins! And yet darkness and death might conquer!
+If the child died--Gotthold paused with a shudder--he had seen, the
+little dark mound so distinctly. But it was only a trick of his
+imagination; Gretchen was still alive; she would recover; the delicate
+little creature had struggled through this terrible night, and he might
+even be permitted to say that it was he who had saved her life once
+more. So she must live for him; her pure soft hands must fit the
+keystone of the building of his happiness. Had he not hitherto
+succeeded in everything far beyond his expectation! Had not even chance
+showed him her most gracious aspect! A few days ago, how could he even
+have ventured to hope that his rival would be so soon and so entirely
+delivered into his hands, and he should be able to say, &quot;This shall be
+done, and it shall be done so and so, without any outcry, without the
+knowledge of any person unconcerned?&quot; This very evening the unfortunate
+man was to return to Dollan to find the money he had stolen, and the
+following day restore it to the treasury of the convent, through
+Wollnow; and this evening also, the vessel which took his accomplice
+would sail for England, the latter having declared of his own free will
+that he could no longer stay here, and would rather go at once to
+America, especially if the gentlemen would provide him with money as
+generously as they had promised, and he knew they would keep their
+word. So within twenty-four hours at latest everything would be settled
+and levelled to a foundation on which another structure might be
+erected.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A quick, heavy step, which came towards him through the deserted street
+near his lodgings, made Gotthold look up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is the matter, Jochen?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He's gone,&quot; said Jochen, panting for breath. &quot;I was just on my way to
+tell you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Since when?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It must have been an-hour or two ago; he said he was tired and would
+take a little nap, while Clas and I went down to Frau Müller's, who had
+invited us to breakfast. Well, Herr Gotthold, there we sat quietly; she
+had a nice pork sausage, and we never thought of any mischief, and
+meantime the fellow jumped out of a second-story window into the
+garden, which joins the city wall, and the gate is never locked, and we
+really are not to blame. Even if one don't exactly like a man, how is
+one to suppose he has such tricks in his head?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;An hour, you said?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is Clas?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gone down to the harbor; it's just possible he may have gone on board
+the ship to look about him a little.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold shook his head. &quot;That is extremely improbable, after, as he
+knows, everything is arranged.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What shall we do, Herr Gotthold?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Run to Herr Wollnow and tell him what has happened, and that I have
+gone out to the races; and follow me as fast as you can.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen looked amazed. &quot;Yes, to be sure, Herr Gotthold, that's possible;
+he talked of nothing but the races all last evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had already taken several steps, when Jochen followed him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You're not angry with me and my brother Clas, Herr Gotthold?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You good, stupid fellows!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Jochen looked very much moved, and doubtless wished to say more; but
+Gotthold pressed his hard, honest hand, and hurried down the street to
+the gate, beyond which, at no very great distance from the city, was
+the race-course.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He knew the way only from description; but it could not be missed
+to-day. The nearer he approached the gate, the more numerous became the
+people, who were all moving in the same direction; the suburban street
+through which they were obliged to pass had assumed a holiday garb. The
+modest little villas, half concealed behind the trees in their garden,
+were to-day adorned with garlands and tapestry; here and there, under
+the shade of the boughs, stood an old gentleman, or a gardener, or a
+nurse with a baby in her arms, looking pityingly or mischievously over
+the dusty hedges at the throng hurrying by in the summer heat. Often
+one of the long Holstein wagons, furnished with five or six seats
+placed one behind the other, rattled by, empty if going towards the
+city, crowded with people if driving away from it; and it rarely
+happened that the usual jokes failed to be exchanged between the lucky
+occupants and the dust-covered foot-passengers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold had already passed many of the pedestrians, and was still
+hurrying anxiously on. To be sure, it was scarcely to be hoped that
+either he or Jochen would find the man in such a crowd of people,
+especially as he evidently did not wish to be found; but that the
+race-course was the place to seek him, he did not doubt for a moment,
+and as he now hastened on the fugitive's track his heart grew heavier
+and heavier, the more clearly he perceived the bad results that
+threatened to ensue. If Hinrich had fled not to return, to become once
+more the master of his own fate, and Brandow learned it in time, he
+would retract all he had yielded; the battle must begin anew, and with
+an enemy who could not again be surprised; if Hinrich was only seeking
+an opportunity to revenge himself, Brandow's life was not safe a moment
+from the brutal violence of the man, and even admitting that Brandow
+was a person who could defend himself--everything which had seemed won
+was once more doubtful, even the secrecy in which the pitiful fate of
+the woman he loved had hitherto been veiled from an insolent, curious
+world.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold hurried on still faster, hoping he should now soon reach
+his goal, but he turned out of one street lined with gardens into
+another--the suburbs seemed to have no end. It was still half an hour's
+walk to the racecourse, was the reply to his question.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A light open carriage, drawn by two superb horses, overtook and dashed
+past him; he thought he had seen the face of the elegant young man who
+occupied the seat behind the driver before. The young man turned
+towards him, and instantly tapped his coachman eagerly on the shoulder;
+the carriage stopped; its occupant sprang out and hastily approached
+Gotthold, waving his hand, and calling: &quot;Do I meet you at last?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A moment after, Gotthold was seated beside young Prince Prora, the
+horses dashed onward, and dusty pedestrians, hedges, gardens, villas,
+and barns flitted by them on either side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You don't know how glad I am,&quot; said the Prince, pressing Gotthold's
+hand again; &quot;but you will when I tell you that I came from Berlin,
+where I was engaged in a most important consultation with Schinkel
+about my castle, solely on your account. Count Ingenheim wrote that you
+had left Rome, and I heard from Prora that you were staying in this
+neighborhood, so I came to seek, see, talk, persuade, obtain--enfin:
+you must paint my castle in fresco. I have set my heart upon it, and
+you, I suppose, have no reason to say no: Schinkel desires it too, so
+you must consent. He wants you, you and nobody else; I know no one by
+whom I can be so sure of being understood, he said, and was delighted
+when I told him that I had had the honor of a personal acquaintance
+with you for a long time, and had spent the most delightful winter in
+Rome in your society. Ah! that divine Rome! But you conjurers shall
+restore it to me on the walls of my northern castle; I want nothing but
+Roman, or at least Italian, landscapes in the dining-room; all bright
+and sunny as you can paint so marvellously, grave as you are; and as
+for the landscapes of my native country, which we intend to have in the
+hall where the weapons are hung, I won't interfere with you at all. It
+shall be left entirely to you; and you can revel in melancholy, like
+the Danish Prince, but first of all you must say yes--will you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The eager young man held out his hand, and a shadow crossed his
+delicate, winning face as Gotthold hesitated to clasp it. How
+willingly, how joyfully he would have accepted a commission so
+delightful, so complimentary, and so important; a commission which
+promised to fulfil all that his artist heart could only desire; but
+now, to-day--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You don't wish to undertake it?&quot; said the young Prince, sadly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do wish it, certainly I do,&quot; replied Gotthold, pressing the
+outstretched hand with deep emotion, &quot;but whether I can is the question
+I am asking myself, and which at this moment I can scarcely answer with
+a yes. Forgive me if I speak in riddles, Your Highness, but there are
+hours and times when we do not belong to ourselves, when we are under
+the spell of a fate whose course we can neither hasten nor retard, and
+whose decision we must await ere we can feel free to make any
+resolution ourselves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I certainly do not fully understand you,&quot; replied the Prince, &quot;but I
+believe I understand that something, which is certainly no trifle, is
+weighing upon your mind; that you have either met with or fear some
+great misfortune, and in that case the question comes so naturally that
+you will forgive my asking: can any one help you, and can I be the
+person?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thank you, Your Highness; but I shall probably have to fight my way
+through it alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I will press you no farther; but I am ready to serve you at any
+time, don't forget that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meantime they had emerged from between the houses; before them on the
+boundless expanse of meadow-land was the race-course, with its tall
+stands, its little city of booths and tents, its long rows of carriages
+drawn up side by side, its dark crowd of curious spectators. A party of
+horsemen dashed past them at a furious gallop; one of them, not without
+difficulty, checked his foaming racer and came to the carriage door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What, Plüggen, are you not with the others?&quot; cried the Prince.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Paid the forfeit at the last minute, Your Highness, at the last
+minute--too certain it would turn out to-day as it did at the Derby,
+four years ago. Once in--ah! Gotthold, <i>bon jour, bon jour!</i> Your
+friend Brandow's doing a splendid business to-day, an infernally
+splendid business.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How far away are they, then? Am I too late?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God forbid, your Highness! That is, they must be here in ten minutes.
+Just up to the last obstacle but one; everybody there--intense
+excitement. Exactly as it was at the Derby four years ago, when
+Hurry-Harry by Robin Hood out of Drury Lane--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then we won't detain you, Plüggen. <i>Au revoir</i> until this evening;
+drive on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gustav von Plüggen, with rather a long face, touched his hat, turned
+his horse, and dashed after his companions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So you know this Brandow?&quot; asked the Prince. &quot;It's a pity about that
+man; he would have had, I think, the material for a splendid general of
+cavalry; a clear head, a keen eye, never at a loss, and withal brave
+even to foolhardiness; but amid these tame plebeian surroundings he
+will make, I fear, nothing better than a <i>mauvais sujet</i>. But it is
+shameful that they took the piece of bog into the course on purpose to
+injure him. I hear it was only done to give the other horses a chance,
+since it is generally believed that a horse of Brownlock's weight
+cannot cross a swamp.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He will cross it, Your Highness,&quot; said Gotthold, &quot;you can bet a
+million on it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How comes Saul among the prophets?&quot; cried the Prince, laughing. &quot;Since
+when have you become such a connoisseur in horse-flesh? You must keep
+beside me, and act as prompter, if I, a notorious dilettante in these
+noble arts, run any risk of distinguishing myself by my blunders.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am sure that Your Highness--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You want to get rid of me, I understand. Well, I am very well content,
+now that I have seen and spoken to you. I shall stay three days longer
+in Sundin, and then remain a week in Prora, where you must be my guest,
+even in case--with which idea, however, I won't destroy my present good
+humor--you will not paint a stroke for my castle. Here we are; you will
+surely come up with me. One can get a better view from above, and you
+must at least allow me to secure you a good place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The carriage stopped. The Prince sprang out, and, without waiting for
+Gotthold's answer, began to ascend the steps of the stand. The latter
+was obliged to follow his friend, who fully expected him to do so; when
+once at the top, he could easily find an opportunity of taking leave of
+him without incivility.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The steps and stand were crowded, but every one was eager to make way
+for the Prince, who was very popular, that he might reach the first
+bench, on which several seats had been reserved for him and his
+attendants. &quot;I think your best course will be to follow me,&quot; cried the
+Prince, laughing, and looking over his shoulder at Gotthold, &quot;you see
+here as elsewhere: everything is given away!&quot; But Gotthold could not do
+otherwise than make use of the permission. The narrow space which had
+been opened between the rows of seats for the Prince had long since
+closed; nay, those behind were pressing forward to get as near him as
+possible, and Gotthold soon found himself surrounded by a brilliant
+assembly of the older and younger ladies of the country aristocracy, in
+magnificent attire; white-haired old noblemen, civil dignitaries
+adorned with orders, and distinguished soldiers, all smiling brightly
+and bowing to the young Prince, who, bowing in every direction,
+graciously accepted the offered homage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your Highness has come just at the right moment; we shall see the
+first horse appear from behind yonder hill directly; may I offer Your
+Highness my glass?&quot; cried old Count Grieben, in his shrill voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thanks, thanks; I should not like to rob you; you are more nearly
+interested in the matter than I; I suppose the goal is here in front of
+the stands, as it has been every year?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Your Highness, there they come!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Prince had now taken the glass from the old gentleman; there was a
+loud whispering and rustling on the stand. &quot;There they come--pray sit
+down,&quot; echoed on all sides, and all eyes, whether furnished with
+glasses or not, sought the long hill Count Grieben had pointed out to
+the Prince, and on which in fact three moving specks now became
+visible, which with great speed, considering the distance, glided down
+the hill, and had already disappeared in a hollow, when four or five
+other moving dots appeared in precisely the same spot, likewise glided
+down the hill, and vanished. But the interest of the public was almost
+exclusively fixed upon the three foremost dots. From the interval of
+time between the appearance of the first three specks and the four
+following--to say nothing of the stragglers--it was now evident that
+the victor must be one of their number; and although even the best
+glass could only distinguish that the three moving clots were horsemen
+racing at the top of their speed, two names were already mentioned with
+positive certainty; there was a doubt about the third rider; some
+thought it was Baron Kummerrow on Hengist, while others bet upon Count
+Zarrentin's Rebecca, ridden by the younger Baron Breesen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But the two others, Your Highness--the two others are my Curt and Carl
+Brandow,&quot; shrieked old Count Grieben, crimson with excitement and
+gesticulating furiously, in a tone so loud that it could be heard over
+the whole stand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Count Grieben! Carl Brandow! Like an alarm of fire the names flew from
+lip to lip along the stand, down the steps, and through the dense
+throng of men below, who were standing on tiptoe and stretching their
+necks; Count Grieben! Carl Brandow on Brownlock!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Carl Brandow! A strange emotion thrilled Gotthold's frame. That was the
+name which, like the spell of some evil magician, had desolated and
+ruined his life; the name with which so many unpleasant thoughts had
+been connected from his youth, and which in early and later times, and
+even during the last few days, had been to him the incarnation of the
+principle that in every human breast strives and rebels against the God
+of light. And here the name rang on his ears from every lip. Carl
+Brandow! Carl Brandow! like a man from whose approach streams happiness
+and blessing; and beautiful eyes sparkled, and aristocratic hands
+impatiently fluttered the lace-edged handkerchiefs with which they
+wished to wave a welcome to the victor. Was the man whom a whole people
+thus awaited in breathless suspense, perhaps right when he ventured all
+and anything to gain his shining goal; wealth, and honor, and woman's
+favor? Could one who took every obstacle so boldly, be expected to turn
+aside from his path for a pious scruple? Could one who unhesitatingly
+risked his life when the victory could not be obtained at a lesser
+price, be blamed if he was not so punctilious about the weal and woe or
+even the lives of others, as may be expected and demanded from the
+quiet citizen?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such were the strange thoughts that passed through Gotthold's brain,
+while his eyes, like those of the assembled thousands, were fixed upon
+the spot pointed out by the experts near him as the one where the
+riders must again appear. And there they were already--now recognizable
+as horsemen, even by the naked eye--and &quot;Count Grieben and Carl
+Brandow&quot; burst forth anew. For only two emerged at the same time, while
+the third had already lost so much ground that he appeared full thirty
+seconds later. Nothing more was to be expected from him. At the speed
+with which the horses were running a lost second could not be regained,
+let alone the eternity of thirty! The result now depended upon
+Brownlock and Bessy, the two horses that had been the object of public
+attention from the first moment and on which immense sums had been
+staked up to the last. Would Brownlock win? Would Bessy carry off the
+prize? No one dared to decide, no one offered or accepted a bet; they
+scarcely ventured to speak, to stir; suspense had chained every tongue.
+The scales were still exactly poised, without bending in the least
+towards either side. If Bessy, as was universally asserted, was the
+faster animal, Brandow's well-known skill in horsemanship made up for
+the difference; head to head--the winding course to the stand could be
+as distinctly followed as the lines on a map--the horses leaped over
+the last hurdle but three, the last but two, the last but one; side by
+side the riders took the last obstacle, a wall six feet high, while a
+cry of admiration buzzed through the surging crowd. Then followed a
+breathless silence. The race must be decided within the next minute.
+After the last hurdle was a tract of perfectly level ground about five
+hundred paces long; then came several hundred acres of bog, marked by
+little flags affixed to poles. If Brownlock did not get a very
+considerable lead on the level ground, the race was lost to him; for
+Bessy--every one knew--could cross a marsh as lightly as a roe, and
+Brownlock would either stick fast or must take a round-about way, which
+would cost him his advantage and the victory.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Brownlock obtained no advantage, not a foot, not an inch; head to
+head they dashed across half the distance, and now Bessy took the lead,
+a half, a whole length, two, three, a half-dozen lengths. Those who had
+bet on Brownlock turned pale, but a hundred times as much was staked on
+Bessy; the betters exchanged triumphant glances; no one had time to
+speak; Bessy was already approaching the edge of the bog; her rider was
+seen to turn in his saddle to note the distance between him and his
+rival, and now he turned to the left towards the edge of the swamp.
+&quot;Clever fellow,&quot; cried old Count Grieben; &quot;it's wider, Your Highness,
+it's wider there, but the ground is firmer, and he has plenty of time.
+Brownlock can't come up with her, hurrah!&quot; cried the enthusiastic old
+gentleman, waving his hat. &quot;Hurrah, hurrah!&quot; echoed from the fickle
+crowd, which had just cheered Brownlock; &quot;Bessy wins, Brownlock loses.
+Hurrah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly a deep silence followed, as if a thunderbolt had fallen before
+the eyes of all. Brandow reached the spot from which, a few seconds
+before, Count Grieben, rendered secure of the victory by his opponent's
+delay, had turned aside; and with a powerful bound Brownlock dashed
+upon the bog, without turning a hair's breadth from the straight
+course, flying directly over the deepest but narrowest part, with a
+speed which seemed to increase every moment, while his rider, as if
+going over the smoothest meadow-land, used neither whip nor spur, and
+waved his hand to his rival, as he darted by him with such speed that
+the water dashed into the air in a bright shower of spray.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And now he had already reached the edge on the side nearest the stand,
+and came up the broad straight course which led to the goal--no longer
+at full speed, but in a long stretching gallop, as if to jeer at his
+opponent, who after reaching the firm ground, despairing of victory,
+had stopped; it seemed as if he wished to give the crowd an opportunity
+to offer their homage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And &quot;Hurrah Brownlock! hurrah Brandow!&quot; they shouted, waving their hats
+and caps, and the cry increased and swelled to a deafening, thundering
+roar as the victor now rode past the stands to the goal, in the same
+long stretching gallop. Everybody stood on tiptoe, the gentlemen
+cheering, the ladies waving their handkerchiefs--and now all crowded
+down the broad steps to the level ground, to see the victor and the
+beautiful horse still nearer, when he, as was customary, returned and
+again passed before the stands, but this time at a walk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No privileges are recognized here, strength conquers,&quot; said the
+Prince, who as well as Gotthold was pushed down the steps by the
+swaying crowd; &quot;the strength of enthusiasm, which is powerful even in
+the weak. Just see how heroically that delicate lady struggles through
+the throng--Is it Frau Brandow? I should like to offer her my arm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lady's blue veil brushed against Gotthold's face, and he recognized
+Alma Sellien. She did not see him, though she stood directly beside
+him. The delicate, wan face was strangely beautified by the proud smile
+that hovered on the lips; a joyous light sparkled in the blue eyes,
+usually so dull and heavy; heeding nothing around her, she looked and
+waited for the coming of the man she loved, whose uncovered head was
+just visible above the surging crowd. And now a pair of bay shoulders
+appeared, vanished, and appeared again, then the beautiful head of a
+horse, and then the whole figure of the red-coated rider. Those
+standing in the foremost row, recognizing the Prince, made way, and he,
+with several other ladies and gentlemen, among them Alma Sellien, were
+pressed forward, while the ranks closed before Gotthold, who willingly
+drew back. Brandow, who, hat in hand, was bowing to the right and left,
+and talking to a few friends that surrounded him, had come very near
+them, when he saw the Prince, with Alma Sellien leaning on his arm. An
+amazed smile flitted over his face; he hastily turned Brownlock till he
+faced the pair, and bowed low over the racer's slender neck. The noble
+animal stood snorting, champing its bit, and pawing impatiently.
+Suddenly it sprang aside in wild alarm, and then, as its rider tried to
+force it back to the spot, reared. &quot;Back!&quot; shouted the Prince to the
+crowd, who, pressing forward from every direction, had collected in a
+dense mass. But those farther away, whom no immediate danger
+threatened, remained motionless. &quot;Back, back!&quot; cried the Prince again;
+the ladies screamed. &quot;Jump down, Brandow!&quot; exclaimed the gentlemen. But
+Brandow seemed to have forgotten his universally admired horsemanship.
+Some said afterwards that he had been stunned from the first moment by
+the violence with which, as the horse threw back its head in rearing,
+it struck him on the forehead. As he vainly struggled with the animal
+in an inconceivably preposterous manner, his eyes were fixed intently
+upon a man in the crowd, who in some way--all were pressing upon each
+other in wild confusion--had reached the foremost rank, and now, with
+upraised arms, sprang directly before, nay under the rearing horse; it
+was supposed he wanted to pull the furious animal down by the bridle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let me pass, for God's sake!&quot; cried Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had recognized Hinrich Scheel, although he had only seen the square
+head, covered with gray curling hair, from which the cap had been
+knocked in pressing through the crowd; not the brutal face with the
+squinting green eyes, under whose fiendish power the frightened animal
+reared higher and higher, pawing the air with its steel-shod hoofs as
+if it would fain destroy its tormentor. And now one of the hoofs struck
+the head of the mysterious man, who fell as if a bullet had pierced his
+brain; but at the same moment the horse, again rearing, fell backwards,
+burying his rider under him. The crowd parted with shrieks of horror.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A doctor, a doctor, is there no doctor here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was none, but no physician could have been of any avail. The man
+who had tried to seize the horse's bridle, and in whom others also now
+recognized Brandow's former trainer, Hinrich Scheel, for whose arrest a
+warrant had been issued, lay dead on his back with crushed skull and
+horribly distorted face, from which the dim eyes glared frightfully;
+his master still lived, but Gotthold, who was supporting him in his
+arms, saw that his end was fast approaching. A deathlike pallor rested
+on the delicate, clear-cut features, and the white teeth gleamed with a
+strange, frightful expression from between livid lips. A shudder
+convulsed the whole body, and the head fell on Gotthold's breast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here comes a doctor,&quot; cried several voices.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He will find nothing to do,&quot; murmured Gotthold; &quot;help me to carry him
+away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As they raised the body, a lady in a blue veil, who had been standing
+near with her hands clenched convulsively, shrieked aloud, and sank
+fainting on the ground. No particular notice was taken of it. Several
+ladies had fainted.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">A wondrously beautiful autumn, with mild golden days, and clear starry
+nights, brooded over the country. Everywhere summer roses bloomed in
+the gardens beside the asters, and the forests were very slow in
+decking themselves in brilliant hues. The air was so still that the
+floating threads of gossamer scarcely stirred, and when a leaf fell it
+remained just where it touched the ground. The birds of passage had
+paused in their migration, and chirped and--twittered among the fields
+and hedges with their merry little voices, while in the evening the
+wild swans, which usually, long ere this time, had soared away on their
+strong white wings, called to each other along the shore.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a wondrously beautiful autumn, which seemed marvellously like
+summer; &quot;but it is only an illusion,&quot; said Cecilia, &quot;the summer is
+over, winter is close at hand, and I must prepare for it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had been six weeks in Dollan, which she had never expected to
+enter, never hoped to see again. But the physicians had urgently
+desired that, to secure perfect recovery from her severe illness, if a
+winter's residence in the South was impracticable, Gretchen should at
+least spend the beautiful days of autumn on the sea-shore, in a sunny
+spot, sheltered from the cold winds; and what place could have
+fulfilled these requirements better than quiet, sunny Dollan? And, even
+if it were a sacrifice for her to return here, she made it
+unhesitatingly for the sake of her child and her old father.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had so longed for Dollan when, contrary to the doctor's expectation,
+he recovered his consciousness after a fainting fit which, a few days
+after the accident on the race-course, suddenly attacked him as he sat
+surrounded by his friends. &quot;Gratify the old man's wish,&quot; said the
+physician, &quot;and do so quickly; he will not have many more. His days are
+numbered, and it is our duty to procure for him, during the few that
+remain, all the sunshine he misses so keenly here in the narrow crowded
+streets.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And with deep thankfulness the old man greeted the sunlight on his
+native fields. Not that he expressed his gratitude in words. He usually
+talked very little; but on his pale, quiet face rested an expression of
+the deepest peace, his mild eyes often sparkled as if with joyful
+memories, and a happy smile played around his lips, as he walked slowly
+through the sunny fields by Cecilia's side, leaning on her arm. Often
+too--especially in the early morning--he went out alone, and Cecilia
+had been anxious about him, and at last ventured to beg him to take her
+with him, no hour was too early for her. But the old man stroked her
+cheeks, and said, &quot;Let me alone; you don't know yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Cecilia pondered over these strange words, and understood them for the
+first time when, one morning at early dawn, she looked out of her
+window, and saw the old man stand a long time in the garden beside one
+of the oldest trees--a linden, under whose shade, so the story ran,
+Charles the Twelfth of Sweden had sat--and then bend his white head and
+wave his hand, as people do when they take leave of any one. Yes, the
+old man was taking his leave, when he wandered alone through garden and
+field, forest and meadow--leave of the friends and acquaintances of his
+youth: here a tree, under whose branches he had dreamed of the woman he
+loved; yonder a rock, against whose hard breast he had once pressed his
+tortured young heart; the meadow where he had broken the wild steed
+with which he had hoped to win the beautiful Ulrica von Dahlitz; the
+forest whose echoes he had so often waked by the report of his good
+rifle. He never carried it now: the trusty gun that had formerly
+accompanied him in all his walks, rested quietly in the corner; he had
+taken leave of his faithful companion forever.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Neither did he ever turn his steps in the direction of the beach-house,
+and once when he had wandered through the forest by Cecilia's side, and
+they unexpectedly emerged from the trees upon the cliffs, he seemed
+almost terrified, and then shook his venerable head and muttered: &quot;That
+has cost me many years, many, many years!&quot; So saying, he made a gesture
+as if to imply that those years were effaced from the tablet of his
+memory.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Perhaps they were; he never said a word about the weary time he had
+lived in the beach-house, but often began to relate stories of his
+young days--ancient tales, which no living person knew except himself,
+and over which he could laugh merrily, while at other times the tears
+ran down his pale, withered cheeks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ancient tales, of which he knew every detail, every name, and Christian
+name, the day and hour, and even whether the weather was pleasant or
+rainy; but he remembered nothing of what had lately happened, or made
+the strangest mistakes. Thus he repeatedly called Cecilia by the name
+of his early love, Ulrica, and it had been a bitter grief to his
+great-granddaughter, that he sometimes spoke of her husband, Gretchen's
+father, as a man he loved and eagerly longed to see again, although he
+had been there very recently, until she understood that he meant
+Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had moved her strangely at first, and then when the old man recurred
+to it again as quietly as if it never had been and never could be
+otherwise, and brought her name into such close connection with that of
+her lover, she had accepted it like a dream, which comes between waking
+and sleeping, until she started in terror at the danger that lay in the
+vision. It must not, could not be. Why trifle with a reality which was
+impossible, a future that could never come to pass!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She said it with passionate vehemence, and a flood of tears, more to
+herself than the old man, when he again spoke of Gotthold, who stayed
+away too long, who left her who longed to see him, and the child who
+was so fond of playing with him, too much and too long alone. She told
+him that she dared not think of such a thing; too much, too much had
+happened, which separated them forever, and that though she would give
+her blood for him drop by drop, if it did not belong to her child and
+her father, she could never, never be his wife.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were in the garden on one of the beautiful summer-like evenings of
+this month of October, and as she spoke the old man gazed earnestly
+towards the saffron-hued eastern sky, that gleamed through the
+brilliant foliage of the trees, which was unstirred even by the
+faintest breath of wind. &quot;Yes, yes,&quot; he said, &quot;you have suffered
+keenly, keenly: but&quot;--he added after a short pause--&quot;that is so long,
+so very long ago. Time heals much, much!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He seemed to be absorbed in dreams of the days, which to him alone were
+no nonentity, which to him alone emerged from the river Lethe; but as
+his glance fell upon the tear-stained face at his side, he passed his
+hand over his brow and eyes, and said hastily, as if he feared he might
+forget it again:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not everything, or slowly, very slowly; sixty, seventy, I know not how
+many years passed by; and it is never quite right till we take courage
+and tell some human being; I told him the evening I saved him from the
+sea, and so many good things followed it, so many good things; my heart
+has been so light ever since. You must tell some one, too, but not me;
+I forget so much, and might forget that too. You must tell him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And when the next evening they again walked up and down the same
+garden-path, and the dim light again shimmered through the trees, he
+suddenly stopped and asked: &quot;Have you told him?&quot; and on the third and
+fourth day he repeated the question, always shaking his white head
+anxiously, when she answered with burning cheeks: &quot;No, father, I have
+not told him yet,&quot; and mentally added: &quot;And shall not tell him if he
+comes to-morrow, shall never tell him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold came, but not alone. Prince Prora, at whose castle he had
+again spent several days to show him the sketches for the armory, and
+decide upon the order of the Italian landscapes for the dining-hall,
+wished to accompany him on his way back to Prora, and when he heard
+that Gotthold must stop at Dollan to take leave of the family before
+setting out on his journey to Italy, begged permission to accompany him
+there also.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For we are neighbors, madame,&quot; said the young man, &quot;whether I live at
+Prora or the castle, and I ought to have waited upon you long ago; but
+I will confess that a special interest brings me here to-day. Our
+friend has told me about the giant's grave you have in your forest,
+and that it is perhaps in the best preservation of any on the whole
+island. Now we need a landscape with one of these mounds for my armory,
+and when I reminded him of the one at Dollan, the obstinate fellow
+declares it won't do. I naturally insist it is the very one, since
+Dollan--before it came into the possession of your--I mean the Wenhof
+family--which, to be sure, if we include the Swedish branch, as is only
+just, was two hundred years ago--belonged to Prora, like all the rest
+of the island; nay, in Pagan times, a Castle Prora, surrounded with a
+lofty wall and deep moat, stood on the cliffs overlooking the sea. Its
+ruins are still mentioned in old histories, so it is very possible and
+even probable that the grave covers the bones of my ancestors. And am I
+to lose such a reminiscence for the sake of an artist's obstinacy?
+Never! We have an hour to spare, and I hear I can walk there and back
+in half an hour--pray don't trouble yourself, my dear friend! You are
+the very last person I will take with me, to spoil my temper by your
+objections.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will accompany you with pleasure,&quot; said old Boslaf. &quot;I have often
+been up there deer-hunting with your Highness' great-grandfather. I
+have not walked that way for a long, long time, and should like to go
+once more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Prince looked at the old man in astonishment; he had greeted him
+with marked respect, in consequence of the many things Gotthold had
+told him about him; but it seemed like a fairy tale that any one now in
+existence could have gone hunting with Malte von Prora, who had lived
+in the times of Frederick the Great, and been sent to Berlin on a
+diplomatic mission by the Swedish government before the Seven Years'
+War.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is impossible for me to give you so much trouble,&quot; said he, &quot;quite
+impossible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the old man did not seem to notice the polite refusal; he had
+already taken his staff, and with long regular strides led the way out
+of the garden, where this conversation had taken place. The Prince,
+with a smile, hurried after him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At least your Highness will allow us to follow you,&quot; said Gotthold.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg you to do so,&quot; replied the Prince, &quot;for the sake of the old man,
+who might not be satisfied with my company for any length of time,&quot; and
+then drawing Gotthold a few steps aside, he continued: &quot;We have an
+hour, don't let it be passed unused. Since I have seen this lady, I
+understand all you have not told me, you most silent of men. May God
+take these mute lovers under His gracious protection!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold walked slowly back to the spot where he had left Cecilia, and
+saw her still sitting in the same thoughtful attitude. Would she speak
+to-day, or would she keep silence as she had done hitherto--let him go
+in silence?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He went up and took the hand that hung by her side. &quot;Cecilia?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She slowly raised her dark lashes, and looked at him with an expression
+of touching entreaty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am not to bid you speak, I am to leave you in silence, Cecilia! And
+yet it must be uttered; so let me say it for you. You could tell the
+secret only to a woman, and to a woman you would not need to do so; she
+would understand you without words. Was it not so? Should love be less
+clear-sighted than the eyes of a sympathizing friend? I do not know, I
+can only tell you what I read in your heart. And it is this, Cecilia:
+you love me, but dare not yield to your feelings; nay, you shrink from
+the thought of becoming my wife, as if it were a sin--against whom? It
+sounds cruel, Cecilia, and yet I must say it: against your pride. That
+is what you fear--yourself, not me. You know as well as that the sun is
+setting yonder to rise again to-morrow, that no day, no hour will come
+when I shall reproach you by word or look for having been--so unhappy,
+so unspeakably wretched; you know that I--as I think--have nothing to
+forgive you. But you, Cecilia, think you can never forgive yourself;
+you think, because when you were an inexperienced girl of sixteen you
+made a mistake, repentance and shame must follow you all your future
+life; repentance and shame would frighten you from my arms if you ever
+obeyed the impulse of your heart and threw yourself into them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And should I not do right to think, to feel so?&quot; cried Cecilia, while
+the tears streamed down her burning cheeks; &quot;could I ever forgive
+myself for having become the wife of this man? An inexperienced
+girl of sixteen, do you say? I was not so very inexperienced; I was
+worldly--wise enough to understand that life in the beautiful castle
+and shady park of Dahlitz would be more brilliant than in a gloomy
+country parsonage. And so I trod the poor student's heart under foot,
+although a voice which, since that hour, has never been silenced,
+whispered, he is the better man. Should I forgive myself for that, and
+for letting him go away with an almost broken heart, without a word of
+sympathy, of consolation, glad that his honest eyes no longer rested
+upon me, no longer read my vain soul? And now, when my arrogant dream
+has produced its natural result, now that I am as utterly wretched as I
+deserve to be, and he returns and stands before me, a pure, noble man,
+who can look with just pride upon his honest, industrious past, and
+with joyful composure towards his future, which must develop still more
+gloriously--is he now to stay his victorious step to raise one so
+deeply fallen;--nay, what am I saying? Is she to chain him to herself
+for all the future, bind the strong industrious hands, constrain the
+proud mind, which ought always to be occupied with the highest things,
+to perpetual consideration, daily, hourly sympathy for a wretched,
+self-marred fate? Did you say pride prevented my doing that? Be it so!
+But it was pride for you, in you! Ah! Gotthold, I do not feel this
+pride to-day for the first time. I was proud of you when, with
+sparkling eyes, you could talk so brilliantly of gods and heroes, and
+say the heroic man might boldly compare himself with the gods
+themselves; and when I heard, years after, you had forced your way
+through obstacles, by which others would have been crushed a thousand
+times, and, with a speed that seemed wonderful to those who did not
+know your strength and talent, raised yourself to the highest rank in
+your art, and the name of the young painter was mentioned only among
+the best artists--yes, Gotthold, I was proud then, so proud and
+thankful--for I thought, now I can bear everything easier, since my
+crime was not visited on you, since I alone had to atone for the sin I
+alone had committed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had left the fields, over which scattered threads of gossamer
+floated in the red light of the setting sun, and entered the dark,
+silent forest. No sound was heard except the rustling of the withered
+leaves at their feet, and, as Cecilia paused, the mournful song of a
+solitary bird.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Gotthold heard no interruption; it seemed to him as if the piteous
+notes of the bird only prolonged the wail of the human voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Alone, alone,&quot; he said, &quot;always alone, and so you wish to remain, poor
+love! Can a human being be alone? And are you quite alone? Granted that
+I am--which I am not--the strong hero who can by constant labor
+struggle along his solitary path to the golden table of the father, is
+there not your child, from whom you must shut out the bright, sunny
+world? You, who turn away from life with veiled head in mute despair!
+what virtues will you teach it when you are yourself so wholly
+destitute of the cheerfulness, in which alone the virtues thrive; nay,
+when you no longer believe in that which is the best and highest of
+all, which makes us what we are, makes us human beings--love? Who
+pities yonder little bird, which, concealed amid the autumnal foliage,
+perhaps wounded and maimed, is left behind to perish miserably? None of
+its brothers and sisters, its husband or its children; they have all
+flown away, unheeding, and left it behind--alone, alone! They obey the
+immutable law that governs their coming and going, their life and
+death, and so they do not, cannot sin; but we can and do, if we do
+not obey the law that governs us, if we do not obey love. It is the
+all-powerful tie that has bound and will bind together all races of
+men, from the beginning to the end; the all-powerful sun beneath whose
+pure light spring must return to the darkest, saddest hearts: and so
+with my love I will hold you, dearest, however you may struggle; will
+open your heart, however you may try to close it against me: for I am
+more powerful than you, can lend you my strength, and yet have enough
+for myself, and you, and your child--our child, Cecilia!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had paused, trembling in every limb; pale as death, and with her
+dark eyes dim with tears, she extended her hands imploringly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have mercy, Gotthold, have mercy! I can bear no more; I can bear no
+more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A hasty step came down the narrow path that led to the giant's grave.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank God! I was coming to meet you, dear madam--I think--I know you
+are not like other ladies--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is dead!&quot; cried Cecilia.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I fear we shall not find him alive, though he had strength enough to
+send me back. I did not like to leave him, but he was so very, very
+anxious to see you, to see you both.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They ran up the path through the underbrush, over the hill, to the
+giant's grave, whose huge mass stood forth in dark relief against the
+bright western sky.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man was sitting on a moss-covered stone, with his back resting
+against one of the larger blocks, his hands lying in his lap, and an
+expression of the most profound peace on his pale, venerable face,
+gazing silently towards the west, from whence brilliant sunset hues
+streamed over fields, forest, moorland, and sea. Cecilia sank upon the
+broom at his feet, pressing her lips to his cold hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the touch, a slight shiver ran through the limbs of the dying man.
+His glance turned slowly away from the distant sky, and rested upon the
+beautiful, pale, tear-wet face before him. A happy smile gleamed over
+his features. &quot;Ulrica,&quot; he whispered. The name fell from the white lips
+softly, almost inaudibly, and then lips and eyelids closed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Cecilia's head sank upon Gotthold's breast; the Prince, who during the
+whole scene had discreetly remained at a distance, turned away, and
+gazed steadily at the golden sunset.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">And the golden hues of sunset glowed upon fields and woods, and the
+churchyard of Rammin, in which the old man had just been laid to rest
+with his children and children's children. Only a small, very small
+company had stood around the grave when the coffin was lowered, and
+they had needed no priest to consecrate the place which would
+henceforth be sacred to them. Then Frau Wollnow embraced Cecilia,
+and whispered: &quot;Don't allow yourself to be disconcerted by any
+narrow-minded creature you may meet,&quot; and Cecilia answered: &quot;Have no
+fear, I know what I am doing.&quot; Then Ottilie kissed Gretchen; the Prince
+and Herr Wollnow took leave of Cecilia with a few cordial words, and
+the Prince's light carriage rolled towards his castle, and the
+Wollnow's heavy equipage along the road to Prora.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the other end of the village, where the road leads to Neuenfähr and
+Sundin, stood a travelling carriage, and they now walked silently
+through the little hamlet, arm-in-arm; while the child ran before them,
+and snatched at the swallows when they came too near.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Otherwise the swallows had a free course. Up and down they darted in
+their arrowy flight, now grazing the earth, now rising in graceful
+curves, anon flying in a straight line and then zigzag, chirping,
+twittering, and fluttering their long wings unweariedly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For them, too, it was probably the last evening, and to-morrow they
+would fly towards the South, and not return till spring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gotthold thought of this, and then of the evening when he had walked
+through the deserted village-street, and the swallows' song brought
+tears of sorrow to his eyes, and how empty his home and the whole
+beautiful world had been to him, and how the whole beautiful world now
+seemed to him like home; and as he gazed into the dark eyes of his
+beloved wife, and pressed the little warm hand of the child, now his,
+he knew &quot;what the swallow sang.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_01" href="#div2Ref_01">Footnote 1</a>: Dumpling.</p>
+
+<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_02" href="#div2Ref_02">Footnote 2</a>: The second
+person singular is used throughout this
+conversation, but I have thought it better to adopt the English mode of
+address.--<span class="sc2">Tr</span>.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>THE END.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's What the Swallow Sang, by Friedrich Spielhagen
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diff --git a/34599.txt b/34599.txt
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+++ b/34599.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of What the Swallow Sang, by Friedrich Spielhagen
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: What the Swallow Sang
+       A Novel
+
+Author: Friedrich Spielhagen
+
+Translator: M. S.
+
+Release Date: December 8, 2010 [EBook #34599]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT THE SWALLOW SANG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+   1.  Page scan source:
+      http://books.google.com/books?id=uu89AAAAYAAJ&dq
+
+   2.  The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+
+                            Holt & Williams,
+                       25 BOND STREET, NEW YORK,
+
+
+                          _HAVE JUST ISSUED:_
+
+
+LORD HOUGHTON'S MONOGRAPHS. Personal and Social. 12mo. With portraits
+of Walter Savage Landor, Charles Buller, Harriet, Lady Ashburton, and
+Suleiman Pasha. $2.00.
+
+"An extremely agreeable volume.... He writes so as to adorn everything
+which he touches."--_London Atheneum_.
+
+"He has something new to tell of every one of his subjects. His book is
+a choice olio of fine fruits."--_London Saturday Review_.
+
+"A volume as valuable as it is captivating."--_Boston Post_.
+
+"Lord Houghton has enjoyed an intimacy with all the subjects of these
+sketches, and writes from his own personal knowledge of the facts he
+relates."--_Boston Globe_.
+
+
+PROF. HADLEY'S ESSAYS. Essays, Philological and Critical. Selected from
+the papers of James Hadley, LL.D. 8vo. cloth, $4.00.
+
+"In extent and accuracy of knowledge, in retentiveness and readiness of
+memory, in penetration and justness of judgment, I have never met his
+equal. Whatever others may have done, he was, in the opinion of all who
+knew him most fully, America's best and soundest philologist."--_From
+the Preface of Prof. W. D. Whitney._
+
+
+LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY. By James Fitzjames Stephen, Q.C. Post
+8vo. $2.00.
+
+"One of the most valuable contributions to political philosophy which
+have been published in recent times."--_London Saturday Review_.
+
+"One of the most thorough overhaulings of the moral, religious, and
+political bases of society which they have recently received....
+Everybody who wants to see all the recent attempts to set things right
+analyzed by a master-hand, and in English which stirs the blood, will
+have a great treat in reading him."--_Nation_.
+
+
+HERO CARTHEW. A New Novel. By Louisa Parr. Author of "Dorothy Fox,"
+etc. 16mo. Leisure Hour Series. $1.25.
+
+"A very charming novel * * * * By far the healthiest little love story
+that has lately appeared."--_Boston Globe_.
+
+"It is a fresh and pretty little story, full of interest, character,
+and grace."--_Boston Gazette_.
+
+
+UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. A Novel. By Thomas Hardy. Leisure Hour
+Series. $1.25.
+
+"The best prose idyl we have seen for a long time past."--_Saturday
+Review_.
+
+"We know of no rustic dialogues to be compared to these but in the
+earlier and best pages of George Eliot."--_London Standard_.
+
+
+SCINTILLATIONS FROM HEINE. Leisure Hour Series. $1.25.
+
+"They are classified after a very admirable method, and there is a
+bright thought or a sparkling joke in almost every line."--
+_Philadelphia Evening Bulletin_.
+
+
+COUNT KOSTIA. A Novel. By Victor Cherbuliez. Leisure Hour Series.
+$1.25.
+
+"A great and deep work ... drawn with a vivid power of imagination
+which is a revelation to the cooler Anglo-Saxon reader."--_N. Y.
+Evening Mail_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         _LEISURE HOUR SERIES_
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+                         What The Swallow Sang
+
+
+                                A NOVEL
+
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                          FRIEDRICH SPIELHAGEN
+
+
+
+                       TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
+
+                                   BY
+
+                                  MS.
+
+                             TRANSLATOR OF
+            "_By His Own Might_," "_A Twofold Life_," _etc_.
+
+
+
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                            HOLT & WILLIAMS
+                                  1873
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
+                              HENRY HOLT,
+       In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+
+
+
+
+                     Poole & Maclauchlan, Printers,
+                        205-213 _East 12th St_.,
+                               NEW YORK.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         What The Swallow Sang.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+"I won't give you any farther trouble, I can find what I want myself."
+
+The sexton's wife looked at the gentleman in some little surprise, and
+then glanced at the bunch of huge keys which hung in the door she had
+just opened for the stranger.
+
+"That's right; you need not be uneasy, I shall not stay long, and here
+is something for your trouble."
+
+He pressed a piece of money into her hand, and turned towards the door.
+
+"The Herr Pastor has strictly forbidden it," said the woman.
+
+"He will have no objection," replied the stranger. "I will leave a few
+words for him."
+
+He took his note-book and wrote a few lines. When he tore out the leaf
+he perceived on the other side a little sketch which he had dashed off
+that afternoon with a few hasty strokes, while his carriage stopped
+before a village inn.
+
+A smile flitted over his grave features.
+
+"That won't do," he murmured. "And here again, everything is filled
+with scrawls. Well," he added aloud, as he thrust the note-book back
+into his pocket, "I will write from P----. Please tell him so;
+farewell, my good woman."
+
+The sexton's wife did not venture to make any reply, and turned away.
+The stranger looked after her retreating figure a few minutes.
+"Strange," he murmured, "it seems as if it would be committing a
+sacrilege to utter my name aloud in this place! It was really a relief
+to my mind that the woman did not know me. How we are all under the ban
+of gloomy feelings which we should be ashamed to confess to others! To
+be sure it is not strange that these emotions should almost overpower
+me here; here, in this spot which should be my home, where my cradle
+stood, and yet where I was not allowed to return until the grave had
+closed over him to whom I owe my life."
+
+He had taken a few noiseless steps within the church, and now pausing,
+gazed around the narrow space. The sun, already low in the horizon,
+cast through the round, leaden-cased panes of the lofty narrow windows
+a mysterious light, which brightened or faded as the soft breeze raised
+or lowered the branches of the ancient linden-trees outside the walls.
+And thus, now clear now dim, but always sorrowful, the memories of his
+early years swept through the stranger's mind as he stood motionless,
+his eyes wandering over the massive white-washed walls, the few dusky
+pictures hung here and there at far too great a height, the little
+oaken font black with age, the altar with its two large brass sconces,
+and the pulpit, whose desk was covered with a tattered cloth.
+Everything was just as it used to be; he even remembered the holes in
+the cover, only it was all very much smaller, more poverty-stricken and
+tasteless than memory had pictured it. Yet this was the most favorable
+light,--what must it be in the broad glare of day! And his gloomy,
+sorrowful childhood,--what was it when he extinguished the magical
+light of memory, when he saw it as it really was, as a cold fanatical
+father had made it to the child so early bereft of a mother's love.
+
+The traveller started from his revery as a sharp sound suddenly echoed
+through the quiet church as if something had burst asunder. It was the
+clock, which had just begun to strike. He passed his hand over his
+brow, mechanically counted the strokes and listened to the rumbling
+echo till the last sound died away. "Seven o' clock," said he; "it is
+time for me to set out again."
+
+He walked around behind the benches, up a side aisle, on the right of
+the pulpit, until he reached the large iron door of the crypt. It was
+fastened, but on both sides, affixed to the wall, were the mural
+tablets of the pastors of Rammin, who had preached the gospel over the
+coffins of their predecessors whom they were some day to join. He went
+to the last stone and read the inscription, that here rested in God,
+Gotthold Ephraim Weber, D.D., installed in 1805 as Pastor of St. Mary's
+church in Rammin, born August 3d, 1780, died June 15th, 1833.
+
+"Gotthold Ephraim Weber," murmured the stranger, "that is my name too,
+and I am also a Doctor of Theology. That I would not remain where my
+father placed me, but insisted upon taking the profession for which,
+according to my best knowledge and belief, I was born, separated him
+who now lies here from me forever. No, no, not that, at least that was
+not the true cause! I never understood in your sense what is written
+here: 'Blessed are those who die in the Lord.' We were never one, had
+been separated long before we parted. Well, father, at least let there
+be peace between us now. I wish with all my heart that you may have the
+bliss in which you believed; and say: 'blessed are the--dead,' so you
+certainly have the happiness in which I believe."
+
+Gotthold made a gesture like one who holds out his hand in
+reconciliation. "Let us have peace now," he repeated.
+
+A little bird, which had perched for a moment in one of the openings
+above the window, twittered so loudly that the sweet clear tones filled
+the silent empty church.
+
+"I will take it as an answer," said Gotthold.
+
+He left the building as slowly as he had entered it, and went down the
+broad path in the churchyard to a spot where, at a large iron cross,
+which also bore the inscription, "Blessed are those who die in the
+Lord," a narrow walk branched off towards the wall. Scarcely anything
+had been altered in this older portion of the cemetery; he still
+remembered every mound, every cross, every stone, and every epitaph;
+there at last was what he was seeking--the grave with the low wooden
+railing, the stunted weeping willow, the little slanting cross,
+neglected as ever, or perhaps even more so--his mother's grave.
+
+He had lost her so very young, when he was only four or five years old,
+that he had scarcely the faintest shadow of personal remembrance; he
+had never seen a picture of her, and his father only mentioned her name
+when he said angrily: "You are just like your mother," yet perhaps for
+this very reason his fancy had always busied itself very frequently
+with this dead mother, who had been like him, and would certainly have
+loved him as he loved her dear shadow, until it almost assumed a bodily
+form. A dear, dream-like form, which came unbidden, and disappeared
+when he would so gladly have detained it longer.
+
+He plucked a few leaves from the willow, but scattered them over the
+grave again.
+
+"We need no mementos," he said; "we understand each other without any
+outward tokens, and it shall remain as it is, decay silently and
+gradually, as time wills. Who would be benefited by the most superb
+monument I could order from Thorwaldsen's master hand? Not you--what do
+the shades in Nirwana care for such earthly vanities--and not I. I
+shall never stand upon this spot again, and to others the stone would
+be only a stone. No, it is better so; it is in harmony with the place."
+
+He looked up, and his artist's eye wandered over the graves, upon whose
+long grass, swaying in the soft breeze, the setting sun scattered rosy
+hues, to the ancient church, whose rude square tower still glowed in
+the purple light, while the main building was already in deep shadow.
+
+"This scene and hour would make a beautiful picture," said Gotthold,
+"but I shall not paint it. That would efface it from my mind, and I
+wish to hold it fast there forever."
+
+He closed his eyes a moment, and when he opened them did not look
+around again as he walked slowly, with his hands behind his back,
+through the narrow path to the gate. Suddenly he paused and
+involuntarily extended his hand towards two little graves close beside
+the path, whose inscriptions had caught his eye in passing. "Cecilia
+Brandow," "Caroline Brandow." The date of the birth and death of the
+children was also added in tiny characters, as small as the mounds
+themselves.
+
+A strange emotion thrilled his frame. He had thought this was over,
+utterly effaced from his life, and that he could take the journey to
+the bedside of his dying father, which had become a pilgrimage to his
+parents' graves, without being disturbed by the vicinity of his early
+love. Nay, just now when he came out of the church door, he had gazed
+from this lofty stand-point over the wide landscape to the park of
+Dahlitz, through whose dusky trees gleamed the white gables of the
+mansion, and the past had remained mute. Now it flooded his soul like a
+torrent which has suddenly burst its bounds. Her children--and she
+herself was then scarcely more than a child! Her children. One, the
+eldest, had borne her name--the name which ever since those days had
+always had a peculiar, sacred association, so that he could never hear
+or read it without a strange thrill. Cecilia! Her children! Strange!
+Incomprehensibly strange! Incomprehensible as the death to which they
+had so soon fallen victims! She had wept and knelt at these graves with
+her husband beside her, the husband whose name was also inscribed in
+gilt letters upon these tablets, and who asserted his paternal rights
+in the Christian name of the younger: "Carl Brandow"! Did he too shed
+tears for his children? It was impossible to think of Carl Brandow's
+sharp, hard features wet with tears.
+
+How the face of Gotthold's enemy--the only one he had ever had--rose in
+almost tangible outlines before his mind, while a sharp pang ran
+through the deep scar which, beginning under his hair, passed over the
+right temple, across the cheek, and even divided the heavy beard, the
+scar on whose account the sexton's wife, mindful of the words that
+marked people should be avoided, had been so unwilling to leave the
+stately stranger alone in the church. Was the wound going to bleed
+again--the wound that man's hand had dealt when both were schoolboys?
+Would it have been any miracle at that moment, when his heart was
+throbbing so violently, as if to say: The wound I have been struck is
+newer by some years, and much fresher and deeper, yet you see it is not
+healed as you supposed, and never will be!
+
+"Never," said Gotthold, "never! Well, at least I will not touch it.
+And--the innocent children are not to blame, if there is blame
+anywhere. I wish. I could call them back to life for you, poor Cecilia,
+and may Heaven preserve those who I trust have been given you in their
+place!"
+
+A figure clad in black, with a low broad-brimmed hat and white
+neck-tie, approached the churchyard from the parsonage. It was
+doubtless his father's successor, the new Pastor, who had returned from
+examining the school earlier than the sexton's wife expected, and come
+in search of the stranger who had inquired for him, and then ordered
+the church to be unlocked. In his present excited frame of mind
+Gotthold would gladly have avoided this meeting; but the reverend
+gentleman appeared to have seen him already, for he quickened his
+steps, and, as Gotthold now approached him, held out both hands,
+exclaiming: "Must we meet again under such sorrowful circumstances?"
+
+Gotthold cast a puzzled glance at the beardless, plump white face of
+the man who now stood before him, clasping and pressing his hands; his
+watery blue eyes winking perpetually, either from emotion or because
+the setting sun was shining into them.
+
+"Don't you know me, my dear brother?" asked the reverend gentleman;
+"didn't they tell you my name? August Semmel--"
+
+"Surnamed Kloss,"[1] said Gotthold with an involuntary laugh. "I beg
+your pardon, I really had not heard your name, and then I have never
+seen you lately except in uniform, with a military cap on one side of
+your head, and your face covered with a beard; it is really an
+excellent mask."
+
+Pastor Semmel dropped Gotthold's hands and hastily turned away, so that
+he placed himself in shadow.
+
+"A mask," he said, rolling up his eyes piously; "yes indeed! and, as I
+now think, a very vain, not to say sinful one. I often scolded you then
+because you would not enter our corps, although you sometimes did not
+disdain to go to an ale--to amuse yourself with us, I mean; now I envy
+you for having had the power of self-renunciation I lacked."
+
+"So Saul has now become Paul," replied Gotthold smiling, "while my
+journey to Damascus is still delayed."
+
+"Yes, yes," said the Pastor. "Who would have thought it! The most
+industrious of us all at school, the most indefatigable at the
+university; always held up as a pattern by teachers and professors;
+when in the fourth session already cram--preparing us older ones for
+the examination, passing your own with great distinction, and all
+this--"
+
+"For Hecuba! No, dear Semmel, you must not revile my art, although I
+freely admit I am but a poor artist as yet. But I can assure you of one
+thing: it is easier to pass a creditable examination in theology than
+to paint a good picture. I speak from experience; besides if I had
+remained a theological student, who knows whether the son might not
+have stepped into his father's place instead of you? That is to be
+considered too."
+
+"There would have been a terrible competition," said Herr Semmel,
+"although on the other hand a prophet has little honor in his own
+country; and to be frank, when I was a candidate here--after I left
+Halle I spent four years in Lower Pomerania as a tutor in Count
+Zerneckow's family, and afterwards came to Neuenkirchen to relieve the
+old man, who had grown very garrulous, so that I thought I was
+positively settled--but he has entirely recovered his powers again, and
+so it happened very opportunely--what was I going to say? yes--when I
+applied for this place a month ago, and thought it would be an
+advantage to present myself as an intimate school and university friend
+of my predecessor's son, I found the recommendation was not
+satisfactory everywhere. Herr Otto von Plueggen of Plueggenhof--"
+
+Gotthold could not help laughing. "I suppose so," said he, "I have
+often punched his stupid head when he went to school in P."
+
+"You know I was in the first class, while you were still in the
+second," continued the Pastor in an apologetic tone, "and had entirely
+forgotten that you must have known each other; but when, warned by my
+experience with von Plueggen, I mentioned you more cautiously to several
+others, I found a certain, what shall I term it? hostility would be
+unchristian, but--"
+
+"Let us drop the subject," said Gotthold somewhat impatiently.
+
+"Certainly, certainly," replied the Pastor, "although you will be glad
+to hear that I took advantage of this very opportunity to speak of your
+generous gift to the poor of our parish, which--"
+
+"But why did you do that when I particularly requested that my name
+should not be mentioned?"
+
+"Because it is written: 'Thou shalt not hide thy light under a bushel;'
+and because it was the only way to silence the injurious report that
+had become associated with your name."
+
+"Injurious report?" asked Gotthold.
+
+"Why yes, because people knew that for the last seven years, ever since
+your uncle's death, you have been in possession of a large fortune, and
+yet your father--"
+
+"Good Heavens! what could I do," cried Gotthold, "if my father
+obstinately refused all my offers? but I really cannot discuss this
+matter any farther. Besides, it is high time for me to set out, if I
+wish to reach P. in good season. Has Herr Wollnow arranged everything
+my father left according to your wishes? Unfortunately, I could not
+attend to it myself, since, as you have probably learned from him, I
+fell sick on my journey, and was forced to remain several weeks in
+Milan; but I wrote to him from there to carry out the wishes of my
+father's successor in every respect."
+
+"Without knowing who that successor was!" exclaimed Herr Semmel; "yes,
+that's the way with you artists. Well, I have not been grasping. True,
+there were many valuable books on theology in your father's library
+which I would gladly have retained, and as you gave the purchaser
+permission to set his own price--"
+
+"That is all right, my dear Semmel, and now don't come a step farther."
+
+"Only to your carriage, which I saw standing at the door of the inn."
+
+"Not another step, I beg of you."
+
+They were standing at the churchyard gate, which opened into the
+village-street; but the Pastor seemed unable to release Gotthold's
+hand.
+
+"For your own comfort, and the honor of your old schoolmates, I must
+add one remark in connection with our former subject of conversation.
+All were not guilty of such uncharitableness--I may surely be permitted
+to give it that name without being uncharitable myself. Some of them
+spoke very warmly in your praise; no one more so than Carl Brandow."
+
+"Brandow! Carl Brandow!" exclaimed Gotthold; "it is certainly--"
+
+"Certainly only his duty, if he tries to make amends to you for an
+offence committed in youthful thoughtlessness by everywhere asserting
+the truth, and declaring that the demon of avarice is the very last
+that could obtain dominion over you; and if your father died as poor as
+he had lived, it was undoubtedly--"
+
+"Farewell!" said Gotthold, extending his hand across the low door to
+the Pastor.
+
+"May God bless and keep you!" said the Pastor. "You ought to spare
+another hour to spend with an old friend."
+
+Gotthold said no more. He had withdrawn his hand with almost
+uncourteous haste, and was now walking rapidly down the village-street,
+with his hat pulled far over his brows. Herr Semmel looked after him
+with a contemptuous smile on his fat face.
+
+"The enthusiast!" said he; "it seems as if the ill-luck he has had has
+turned his brain. But no matter. People must cling to the rich. Carl
+Brandow is a sly fellow. He probably knows why, from the moment he
+heard he was coming back, he took a new key, and cannot say enough in
+praise of the man whom he once abused like a reed-sparrow. Perhaps he
+wants to try to borrow of him. Well, he certainly needs a loan. Plueggen
+says he is making his last shifts. He will be at Plueggenhof to-morrow.
+My news will make quite an excitement."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The long village-street was empty. Here and there an old woman appeared
+in the doorway of one of the low straw-roofed huts, or a few half-naked
+children played behind the tangled hedges in the neglected gardens;
+every one else had gone to the fields, for this was the first day of
+the rye-harvest.
+
+The village-street was empty, and the swallows had free course. Up and
+down they moved in their arrowlike flight, now on the ground, now
+rising in graceful circles, straight lines, or zig-zag course,
+chirping, twittering, and unweariedly fluttering their slender wings.
+
+Gotthold paused, pushed back his hat, which he had drawn over his eyes,
+and gazed as if absorbed in thought at the graceful little creatures,
+which he had loved from his earliest childhood. While he stood watching
+them, the angry displeasure roused by the Pastor's words gradually
+yielded to a strange melancholy.
+
+"What the swallow sang, what the swallow sang," he murmured. "Yes, yes,
+it echoes through the village just as it did then:--
+
+
+            When I went away, when I went away,
+               I left well-filled chests behind,
+            But returning to-day, but returning to-day,
+                  Naught I find.
+
+
+"I thought I understood it--but I had only read it with my eyes, not my
+heart, the heart of a lonely man, who after an absence of ten years
+returns to the sacred scenes of his youth to find what I have found
+to-day--the most painful memory of that which was once mine."
+
+Up and down flew the swallows, now close to the earth, and now in a
+lofty curve over a loaded harvest-wagon which had turned into the
+principal street from an adjoining lane, and disappeared in a barn.
+
+"How does it go on," said Gotthold:--
+
+
+            Back the swallows dart, back the swallows dart,
+               And the chests again run o'er;
+            But an empty heart, but an empty heart,
+                  Fills no more.
+
+
+He passed his hand over his eyes to brush away the tears which
+constantly sprang into them, while a mournful smile played around his
+lips.
+
+"It would be an amusing spectacle to my Roman friends if they could see
+me standing here crying like a schoolboy; and what would you say,
+Julia? The same thing that you did when I translated the song: That is
+all nonsense, my dear friend. How can a heart be empty? My heart has
+never been empty since I knew I had one, and now it is full of love for
+you, as yours is for me, you German dreamer. Then you stroked the hair
+from my brow, and kissed me as only you can kiss. And yet, and yet! If
+I loved you, Julia, it was only a feeble semblance of the passion I
+once felt, as the pale East just gleamed with rosy light from the
+reflection of the sunset glow in the western sky. I have parted from
+you, and my heart did not quiver as it did just now when I read on her
+children's gravestones the name of one now dead to me."
+
+He extended his hands as if in benediction.
+
+"Sing on your sweet sad song, innocent swallows! Go and return,
+bringing Spring to the barren fields and empty human hearts! May Heaven
+watch over you, my dear native meadows and beloved birthplace! In spite
+of all, you are as sacred to me as the memories of my youth!"
+
+The carriage was waiting at the door of the village-inn. The coachman
+had merely loosened the curbs on the horses' necks, that they might eat
+the bread chopped into little squares more easily. He now pushed aside
+the movable crib, hastily gave them a drink from the half-emptied pail,
+and when Gotthold came up was already standing with the reins in his
+hand beside the door, which he opened with a friendly grin.
+
+It was the first time he had shown his passenger such an attention.
+They had passed over the long road across the island--Gotthold,
+contrary to his usual custom, absorbed in gloomy thoughts, and by no
+means dissatisfied with the taciturnity of the driver, who sat
+motionless before him, hour after hour, his broad shoulders covered
+with a blue linen coat, somewhat white in the seams, stooping
+carelessly, and smoking a short pipe, which Gotthold did not forbid,
+unpleasant as the sickly odor of the weed often was.
+
+He might therefore have some reason to be surprised when, just after
+they had left the village and were driving slowly along between the
+cornfields, on the narrow by-way that led to the main road, the
+broad-shouldered man suddenly turned, and showing his large white
+teeth, said in his Platt Deutsch accent:
+
+"Don't you know me, Herr Gotthold?"
+
+"No," said Gotthold, laughing, as he looked into the smiling face of
+the driver, "but you seem to be better acquainted with me."
+
+"I've been thinking all the way whether it was you or not," said the
+man; "sometimes I thought it was, and then again that it wasn't."
+
+"You might have asked."
+
+"Yes, you may well say so, but I didn't think of it; that would
+certainly have been the simplest way. Well, it don't matter now; I know
+you--by that!" said the driver, drawing the handle of his whip over his
+face to mark the course of Gotthold's scar. "You ought to have been
+known by it this morning, for one don't see such things every day; but
+it's a long time ago, and such things often happen in war; besides,
+with your thick beard and brown, face, you look just exactly as if you
+had come from Spain, where no doubt they are fighting again; but when
+you stopped just now in Rammin, and went up to the parsonage without
+even asking a question, I said at once, 'Yes, it's certainly he.'"
+
+"And you are--you are Jochen--Jochen Prebrow!" exclaimed Gotthold,
+cordially extending his hand, which Jochen, turning half-round on his
+seat, clasped no less heartily in his huge palm.
+
+"To be sure," said he, "and you really didn't know me."
+
+"How could I," replied Gotthold. "You have grown so tall and stout,
+although indeed in this respect you have only fulfilled the promise of
+your boyhood."
+
+"Yes, that's so," replied Jochen, "but my sergeant in Berlin always
+said it was no vice."
+
+Jochen Prebrow turned back to his horses. He had established the
+identity between his stately passenger and the slender playfellow of
+his childhood, upon which he had been reflecting all day, and was
+perfectly satisfied. Gotthold too was silent; it moved him deeply to
+think he could have travelled nearly all day with worthy Jochen, as if
+he had been a total stranger.
+
+Jochen Prebrow, the son of the Dollan blacksmith! The pleasant days
+again rose before him when he left P. with Curt Wenhof for the
+holidays, which must always be spent in Dollan, and Jochen stood on the
+moor where the road branched off from the highway, waiting for them,
+and waving his cap; Jochen, who was well aware that his good times were
+coming with the pair, times of catching fish and snaring birds under
+the care of old Cousin Boslaf, to say nothing of a thousand wild,
+thoughtless pranks on land and sea for which Curt always undertook to
+be answerable to his good-natured father.
+
+"And the young master is dead too," said Jochen Prebrow, again turning
+half-round on his seat, in token that having settled the principal
+matter, he was now ready to proceed to details.
+
+Gotthold nodded.
+
+"Drowned sailing on the Spree," continued Jochen, "and yet he was
+skilful as any sailor, and could swim like a fish; it was very queer,
+but he told me that he should come to such an end some day." He filled
+his pipe afresh.
+
+"When did he tell you so?"
+
+"He had come from Gr. to his sister's wedding, and afterwards was to go
+to Berlin and show whether he had learned his lessons, and he would
+probably have come off badly, for our young master was never fond of
+study. So he told me about it when we came back from P., where the
+wedding took place. I drove the carriage because old Christian was
+sick, and then we went at full speed to Dollan, where a great breakfast
+was served, and our young master had probably been drinking a little
+too much when he came out to the stable, threw himself down on the
+straw, and began to sob pitifully.
+
+"What's the matter, young master?" said I.
+
+"Ah! Jochen," he answered, "it's all up. I begged my father to let me
+be a farmer, for he would never make a lawyer of me; but he says we
+have nothing, nothing at all; he can't even pay my sister's dowry."
+
+"Well, young master," said I, "that's not so very bad; you have a rich
+brother-in-law now who can certainly give you some money."
+
+"But he started up, sprang upon me, seized me by the throat, and shook
+me till I was afraid for my life, crying: If you ever say another
+word about that,--well, it was an ugly word for a man to call his
+brother-in-law, especially our young master, who had always been so
+good-natured, but I said to myself, He's been drinking too much; for he
+wanted me to upset them when I drove them to Dahlitz; you know the
+place, Herr Gotthold, just before you get to the smithy, when the moor
+lies below you on the left, as you come down the hill. It's very easy
+to upset a carriage there so that the people inside will never get up
+again; but it's pretty queer business to upset your master's daughter
+on her wedding-day, and even if I'd wanted to do it I didn't drive
+them, after all, for Herr Brandow had ordered his own carriage with
+four horses; and Hinrich Scheel, who was his coachman then and is now,
+wouldn't upset them, for nobody can deny that he knows how to drive and
+ride."
+
+Jochen Prebrow cracked his whip, and the horses, which had been
+advancing along the narrow by-way at a walk, trotted rapidly over the
+smooth broad high-road.
+
+A short distance on the left appeared Dahlitz, the fine estate once the
+property of the ancient noble family to which Cecilia's mother
+belonged, but which had long since passed into the possession of the
+plebeian Brandow, and was now Carl Brandow's inheritance.
+
+The highway, as Gotthold remembered, led directly through the estate,
+and for a considerable distance farther ran close by the wall of the
+park. His heart began to beat violently; his eyes wandered timidly
+towards the house, whose white front was already partially visible
+between the out-buildings. To pass so near her home, to let the only
+opportunity he might ever be offered escape thus, never, never to see
+her more!
+
+Gotthold leaned back in the corner of the carriage, drawing the broad
+brim of his hat farther over his eyes; he would fain have ordered
+Jochen to turn back again. Meantime Jochen was driving on at a slow
+trot; it would soon be over. But just as they were passing the gates an
+empty harvest wagon came out so rapidly that the horses almost struck
+Jochen's. The latter swore, the farm hand swore, and some one standing
+in the courtyard swore also, Gotthold could not understand whether at
+his own man or the strange coachman--probably at both; but it was not
+Carl Brandow's clear voice, and the coarse fat man in top boots, who
+strode heavily forward to the gate, certainly bore no resemblance to
+Carl Brandow's slight, elastic figure.
+
+Then Jochen again had a free passage for his frightened horses, which
+he reined in with considerable difficulty as they passed at full gallop
+by the low park wall, over which now and then one could obtain through
+the trees and shrubs a view of the pleasure-grounds, and even
+distinguish a broad handsome lawn which lay on one side of the mansion.
+On this piece of turf was a swing, in which two little girls were just
+being carefully pushed to and fro by their nurse, while a half-dozen
+other children of all ages gambolled upon the grass, their fresh voices
+ringing merrily on the quiet evening air. A stately lady moved among
+the group, with a little man dressed in black beside her, apparently
+the boys' tutor.
+
+The picture was only visible a few seconds, but Gotthold's keen eye had
+seized it down to the smallest detail, and it was still in his mind
+when the carriage moved more slowly along the broad highway. His heart
+had trembled causelessly; she no longer lived here. Where was she now?
+He had not heard a word from home for so long--was she dead? She was to
+him, of course, and yet, and yet--
+
+"That Redebas is a coarse fellow," said Jochen taking the reins in his
+left hand, "but he understands his business; he'll come out all right."
+
+"So Dahlitz does not belong to Herr Brandow?" said Gotthold.
+
+"Well, I declare," replied Jochen, pointing back with the handle of his
+whip into the gathering twilight, "didn't you hear anything yonder
+about what has been happening in this neighborhood?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing at all, my dear Jochen. Who was to tell me?"
+
+"To be sure," said Jochen, "writing isn't everybody's business, not
+mine for instance, and where you have been I suppose there were very
+few mails, and not much opportunity. My sergeant--he was one of the old
+soldiers--was in Spain too in 1807 and"--
+
+"But I have never been in Spain," said Gotthold, "I was in Italy."
+
+This objection was both unexpected and unwelcome to Jochen. He had
+fully made up his mind during the long hours that he had been
+reflecting whether his passenger was the son of the Pastor at Rammin or
+not, that if so, he must at any rate have come straight from Spain; for
+he had heard that Gotthold had given up "preaching" and was now living
+in a foreign country, and Spain was the only foreign country of which
+he had ever heard. So he sank into a profound revery, puffing huge
+clouds of smoke from his short pipe, and Gotthold, difficult as it was
+for him to do so, was compelled to repeat his question, as to where
+Herr Brandow was now living, several times.
+
+"Why, where should he live except in Dollan?" said Jochen at last. "He
+has come down from a horse to a donkey, but that's always so when
+people want to sit so high in their saddles."
+
+"And--and--his wife?"
+
+It must be asked; but Gotthold's lips quivered as he put the question.
+
+"Our poor young lady," said Jochen; "yes, when I drove her with four
+horses to P. for the wedding, she didn't dream the splendor would so
+soon be over. Yes, she is now in the old place again, and our old
+master and the young master are both dead, and her two oldest children
+too; she has only one left."
+
+So she still lived, and lived in Dollan again, dear Dollan, the
+forest-girdled, sea-washed spot where he had spent the happiest and
+most wretched hours of his youth, the sacred and yet accursed place to
+which his dreams had so often led him in joy or sorrow, so that he woke
+with a happy smile on his lips, and also so often with tears in his
+eyes! For a moment it seemed as if she had been restored to him, as if
+the old days had returned. He saw the slender figure gliding through
+the shrubs in the garden at twilight, while he stood at the little
+gable window with a throbbing heart, hearing Curt repeat "mi" till he
+threw the grammar on the table, declaring that he should never
+understand the stuff, and they had better go down to the garden with
+Cecilia. Gotthold passed his hand over his brow and eyes. Had he spoken
+the loved name aloud? Had Jochen, who had resumed his interrupted story
+in the old monotonous tone, mentioned her name? Jochen did not know
+exactly how it had all happened, for he had been in Berlin with the
+army when Herr Wenhof died, and young Herr Brandow came in possession
+of Dollan in addition to his own estate of Dahlitz: then when Jochen
+was released from military duty, as his father and older brother were
+enough to attend to the business of the smithy, he took service as a
+groom with Peter the innkeeper at Altefaehr, and only left the place
+when he drove travellers to Stubbenkammer or some other part of the
+island, which did not occur very often. Besides, it had never happened
+that his way led to Dollan, or very near it, for what stranger would
+want to travel so far away from the main road? He had not seen even the
+smithy since, and if his brother had not come to Altefaehr once or
+twice, would have known nothing about how things were now going in
+Dollan. True, now he came to think the matter over, his brother had not
+told him much more than he had already learned from others; for Herr
+Brandow was famous for having the finest horses in all Rugen and Upper
+Pomerania, and came every autumn to the races at Str.; the noblemen
+would have hard work to beat him if he was only a plain citizen; and he
+would be sure to win the prize among all the gentlemen riders this
+year; for Hinrich had trained a horse for him whose match could not be
+found. One thing was certain, Hinrich knew more about horse-flesh than
+all the English trainers who cost the other gentlemen so much money put
+together, while others hinted that there was something not quite right
+about the matter, and Hinrich's squint eyes could make horses do
+anything he pleased. That there were such things, he being a
+blacksmith's son, knew very well; but it made a great difference
+whether they were honest arts, such as his father understood for
+instance, or whether another person he would not mention more plainly
+had a finger in the pie. People don't cross mountains with him; he
+makes them pay too dear for his extra horses. It had already cost Herr
+Brandow his fine estate, and they said he could not even keep Dollan
+much longer, and that the devil's horses were eating the hair from his
+head. Did Herr Gotthold believe in such things?
+
+"No, no, no," said Gotthold, starting from his corner and sitting
+erect.
+
+Jochen was obliged to fill his pipe, in order to think over quietly an
+answer so different from what he had expected. Gotthold did not disturb
+his meditations, but sat in silence, absorbed in thought, dreaming of
+what was, what might have been and never would be! Never? Yes, but not
+because fate does not will it; it is because human beings bring on this
+destiny, because they prepare it for themselves, because in dreams
+which thicken into realities, in wishes which become acts, they mould
+their own fate. Did she not, on the evening when she, her father, Curt,
+and himself, had made an excursion from Dollan to Dahlitz, return home
+with the wish to become mistress of the place her mother's family had
+so long possessed; How silently she walked through the stately
+apartments, while her large sparkling eyes wandered thoughtfully over
+the dark pictures on walls hung with faded silken tapestry, and the
+numerous carved ornaments on the chimney-piece, which seemed to her
+unaccustomed eyes a marvel of costliness! How softly she passed her
+hand over the damask curtains in the sleeping-rooms, how she buried her
+glowing face again and again among the flowers in the hot-house, as if
+intoxicated by the heavy perfume. With what interest she listened to
+that squint-eyed Hinrich, as he expatiated upon the merits of the noble
+horses whose light chain halters clanked against the marble cribs, and
+said it was such a pity for the young master to waste his time at the
+agricultural school, when he could employ it to so much better
+advantage here! And how indignantly she looked at the friend who
+fancied himself so dear to her, when with jealous malice he observed
+that Carl Brandow might come back all the sooner, since from all
+accounts he showed the same industry at the college as he had formerly
+done at school! Afterwards she had haughtily bantered the two friends
+as they stood on the lawn, but when she sat down in the large wooden
+swing--the same one where he had just seen the children--resting her
+beautiful head on one hand, while she carelessly played with the
+scarlet ribbons on her white dress with the other, and Gotthold
+approached to put it in motion, she started up and said, laughing, that
+such an ignorant girl ought not to trouble so learned a gentleman. He
+did not suspect what bitter earnest was concealed under the jest, and
+the next morning, when he was obliged to return with Curt to their
+institution of learning, he slipped under her chamber-door a bit of
+paper, on which he had written a free translation of one of Anacreon's
+odes:--
+
+
+            Skittish foal, I prithee why,
+            Flashing fear from thy large eye,
+            Cruel, dost thou mocking flee?
+            "Fool! he nothing is to me."
+
+            Know for thee I soon shall bring
+            And about thy proud neck fling
+            The bridle, and with firm, tight rein,
+            Swift-racing, spur thee o'er the plain.
+
+            Tarry now 'mid pasture-ground,
+            Gayly frolic, lightly bound;
+            But, my skittish foal, take heed!
+            Thy right rider comes with speed.
+
+
+The right rider! Alas! ere six weeks had passed, the right rider came!
+
+It was a dark evening late in Autumn, like the present one. Men, women,
+boys and girls were all out of doors, for it was Saturday night, and
+the great wheat-field must if possible be mowed, the sheaves bound up
+and piled in heaps. They had paused to rest for half an hour, while
+waiting for the rising moon to disperse the dense clouds of mist and
+enable them to resume their interrupted task. Curt and he had busily
+helped the laborers, and even Cecilia tied up a few sheaves; then they
+carried the people the beer Cousin Boslaf had drawn from the huge cask.
+There had been shouting, singing, and jesting among the youths and
+maidens, but all had now become silent, and Herr Wenhof thought if they
+did not begin again soon the whole company would fall asleep, and then
+he should like to see the person who could get them on their feet
+again. But Cousin Boslaf said they must wait ten minutes longer until
+the moon shone clear, and Cousin Boslaf knew best. It grew more and
+more quiet, so quiet that the partridges thought every one had gone,
+and began to call loudly for their scattered families; so quiet that
+Gotthold fancied he could hear the beating of his own heart, as his
+eyes rested on the graceful figure that sat close beside him on a
+sheaf, so near that his hand might have touched her light dress, gazing
+up at the moon, whose white light made her face look strangely pale.
+But the dark eyes often flashed brightly from the pallid countenance,
+and a strange emotion thrilled the youth, as if a ray from the
+spirit-world had fallen upon him. Yes, from the spirit-world, where he
+hovered with his beloved, far above all earthly tumult, far as the pure
+fancy of a youth whose heart is full of a great, sacred love can soar.
+Oh! God, how immeasurably he loved her! How his whole being was bound
+up in this affection! How all his thoughts, feelings, emotions were
+merged into, carried away by, this passion! How every drop of blood
+that flowed through his throbbing heart glowed with this love! How
+every breath that passed over his fevered lips ever murmured: I love
+you, I love you!
+
+And at this moment, when the heavens opened before his enraptured eyes
+and he gazed into the region of the blest--at this moment the blow was
+to fall, which closed the gates of the Paradise of his youth forever,
+and destroyed for years his faith in the sacred feeling that dwells
+securely in the human breast. "Some one is coming on horseback," old
+Boslaf said, approaching the group, and pointing towards the forest. No
+one else perceived anything; but that proved nothing, for the old man
+could hear the grass grow. Cecilia started up, went forward a few
+steps, and paused to listen, and Gotthold saw her press her hand upon
+her heart. His own stood still.
+
+He and Curt had not been to Dollan during the weeks before the
+examination, now successfully passed, and he had heard nothing of all
+that had happened there except that one day Curt casually mentioned
+that Carl Brandow had returned; but now he knew everything. The horse,
+whose rapid hoof-beats he also distinguished, was not bearing Carl
+Brandow over the miles that intervened between Dollan and Dahlitz for
+the first time. Now he knew what the altered expression of her
+features, which had attracted his attention that day, meant--the dreamy
+softness that suddenly yielded to a strange excitement; he knew all,
+all,--that his temple was ruined, his sanctuary profaned. He stood
+apart, unable to move, while the others surrounded the rider, who had
+swung himself from his horse,--the slender rider, who now disengaged
+himself from the group--but not alone! They passed close by without
+noticing him, he with his arm thrown around her waist, bending down and
+whispering to her, she nestling to his side, every line in their
+figures clearly relieved against the bright moonlight; then he saw and
+heard nothing more, and afterwards could only remember that he lay long
+in a dull, terrible despair, in a place far from that spot, on the edge
+of the dark forest, and then started up and staggered through the
+silent, sultry woods as if in a horrible dream, sometimes crying aloud
+like a tortured animal, until he at last emerged from them upon the
+shore of the sea, which stretched before him in a vast, boundless
+expanse in the shimmering moonlight. Here he again threw himself down
+on the sand, but now tears came to his relief--burning tears which,
+however, flowed more and more gently, as if the lapping of the waves
+was a lullaby to the poor quivering heart. At last he rose to his
+knees, extended his arms, and in a long, fervent prayer, to which the
+roaring of the sea murmured an accompaniment, told the universal
+mother, who will never desert her child, that he would always love
+her with boundless affection. Just then old Boslaf suddenly stood
+beside him,--he had not heard his approach, nor did the old man say
+anything,--and they walked silently along the strand until they reached
+the old man's lonely little house among the downs. There he made him a
+rude couch carefully and silently, and mutely smoothed his damp hair
+with his hand, when he lay down to rest for an hour and looked at the
+moonlight which shone through the low window on the wall and glimmered
+upon the weapons, stuffed birds, nets, and fishing-rods, until the
+rustling of the treetops on the shore and the low murmur of the sea
+lulled him to sleep.
+
+Gotthold awoke from his dream. The carriage was standing still, and the
+horses were snorting as they looked into the forest, through which the
+road led for a short distance. It was perfectly dark, save that here
+and there a ray from the moon, which had just risen, trembled through
+the dense foliage of the beeches.
+
+"Why, what's the matter with the cursed jades?" said Jochen.
+
+There was a rustling and crackling in the thick underbrush on the
+right-hand side of the road; the noise grew louder, approached nearer
+and nearer, until, like a hurricane, a dark, compact, moving mass burst
+through the bushes and crashed into the undergrowth on the other side.
+It was scarcely seen before it disappeared, while the horses, in
+frantic terror, reared in the harness and swerved aside, so that it was
+only by the most violent efforts that the two men, who had sprung from
+the carriage, could control them.
+
+"The confounded wretches," said Jochen, "the same thing happened to me
+once before in this very spot. The Prince ought to do something about
+it; but it gets worse every year, and if old Boslaf didn't often thin
+them out a little it would be unbearable. There, hark!"
+
+The report of a musket rang through the forest at some distance on
+their left, whither the wolves had taken their flight.
+
+"That was he," said Jochen, in a low tone; "he only needs to whistle
+and they run straight within reach of his gun. Yes, yes, Herr Gotthold,
+you said just now that there was nothing of the kind; but you'll make
+an exception of old Boslaf. He can do more than one trick which no
+honest Christian can imitate."
+
+"So the old man is still alive?" asked Gotthold as they drove
+cautiously on through the forest.
+
+"Yes, why shouldn't he be?" replied Jochen, "they say he can live as
+long as he likes. Well, I don't believe that; his end will probably
+come some day, though I may not be here; but this I do know, that
+people who knew him fifty years ago say that he looked just the same
+then as he does now."
+
+"And he still lives in the house on the beach?"
+
+"Where else should he live?" asked Jochen. They had emerged from the
+forest and moorland upon the beautiful smooth highway, which, lined
+with huge poplars, announced to the weary traveller the vicinity of the
+capital. It was still an hour's journey, but the road sloped gradually
+downward, and the horses, well aware that their long day's work was
+over and their cribs close at hand, collected all their strength and
+trotted briskly onward. The crescent of an increasing moon floated in
+the deep blue sky, shedding a pure radiance; here and there a
+flickering reddish light in the dark landscape marked the situation of
+some mansion house or lonely peasant hut. And now a brighter glow
+shimmered from the hill up which the road led. Stately houses gleamed
+forth from amid the dark foliage of the trees and bushes, the horses'
+hoofs rang upon a stone pavement, and a few moments after the carriage
+stopped before the "Fuerstenhof," whose host welcomed the late arrival
+with northern cordiality.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Gotthold had expected to reach P. at an early hour; it was now nearly
+ten o'clock, too late to pay the visit he had promised Herr Wollnow by
+letter, yet in spite of the time the gentleman might perhaps be
+waiting, and what he had to settle with him could be despatched in a
+few minutes. Then the minor object of his journey would be accomplished
+and he could set out again early the next morning; he would have
+preferred to go on that night.
+
+The ground seemed to be burning under his feet. The events of the last
+few hours, the meeting with the playmate of his youth, and his
+communications, had roused the greatest agitation in his mind. As he
+passed down the quiet street towards the house of his business
+acquaintance, he paused several times under the dark trees, gasping for
+breath, and made a defiant gesture, as if he could thus repel the
+ghostly throng of memories that hovered around him.
+
+"Thank God that now at least you are sure not to meet an old
+acquaintance again," he said to himself, as he rang the bell at the
+door of one of the handsomest houses upon the market-place.
+
+"Herr Wollnow is at home," said the pretty young servant-maid, "and--"
+
+"Bids you a most hearty welcome," interrupted Herr Wollnow, who at that
+moment came out of his counting-room, and extended a broad, powerful
+hand to his guest. "I am very glad to make your acquaintance at last,
+though I deeply regret that the occasion should be so sorrowful. Have
+you supped this evening? No? Why, that is capital; neither have I. To
+be sure, you must be contented with my company, at least for the
+present; my wife has a meeting of her great society to-day. She did not
+want to go, for she is very anxious to renew her acquaintance with you,
+or rather make it, as I say; for you will hardly remember her. She
+promised to be back again at ten o'clock; but I know what that
+means,--we shall have an hour to ourselves."
+
+Gotthold apologized for his late arrival, but said that he had thought
+it better to come late than not at all, especially as he intended to
+set out again early the next morning, if possible.
+
+"I think you will allow us to keep you with us a few days," replied
+Herr Wollnow; "yet time is money, as Englishmen say, so we will devote
+the time Stine needs to prepare supper to money matters. I have set
+everything right." Herr Wollnow invited Gotthold to take a seat upon
+the sofa in the little private office, and sat down beside him in a
+leather-covered arm-chair at the round table, on which various papers
+lay arranged in the most methodical order.
+
+"Here are the documents that concern your late father's legacies," he
+continued. "I have had wonderfully little trouble in executing the
+orders you sent me from Milan. The ready money amounted only to a few
+thalers, and as to furniture and other household appurtenances, the
+hermits of the Theban wilderness could not have possessed much less
+than satisfied your father during the latter years of his life. The
+only really valuable portion of his property was the library, and here
+I took the liberty of deviating a little from your commands. You had
+intended that the whole profit derived from the sale should be given to
+the poor of the parish, and also that your father's successor should be
+permitted to set his own price upon the books that pleased him,
+undoubtedly in the supposition that the gentleman would make a proper
+use of this favor. But that was not the case with Pastor Semmel. He
+believed in making hay while the sun shone; he not only wanted all the
+best, but wished to take advantage of the opportunity, and if possible
+get them for nothing. In a word, your two intentions could not be
+reconciled, and as I doubtless rightly supposed that the poor people
+would be nearer your heart than the Pastor, although he made a great
+ado about the intimacy that had existed between you at the university,
+and I believe even at school, I offered everything, with the exception
+of a few insignificant trifles I was obliged to leave with him, to a
+respectable firm which dealt in secondhand books, and after
+considerable bargaining came to an understanding with them. We obtained
+a large sum, as I wrote you, and if you are as well satisfied as the
+poor people in Rammin, I need not be ashamed of the way in which I
+carried out your command."
+
+An amused smile flashed from Herr Wollnow's dark eyes as Gotthold
+warmly pressed his hand.
+
+"I repeat, it was very little trouble," said he, "and I would have
+taken a hundred times as much with pleasure for a man to whom I am so
+greatly indebted."
+
+"You so greatly indebted? To me?"
+
+"To you, certainly. If, when you entered into the possession of your
+property five years ago, you had withdrawn the ten thousand thalers
+invested in my business, as I earnestly advised you to do, I might not
+now be in the pleasant situation of being able to return the money to
+you with my warmest thanks."
+
+"For Heaven's sake," cried Gotthold, pushing back Herr Wollnow's
+hand, which was extended towards a larger package fastened with an
+India-rubber band.
+
+"I have put aside the money at any rate," replied Herr Wollnow, "in
+cash and in good bonds."
+
+"But I don't want it now, any more than I did then."
+
+"Well," said Herr Wollnow, "I cannot persuade you to take it as
+earnestly as I did five years ago. To-day--I may venture to say it
+confidently--the money is perfectly safe, and I can give you the
+highest rate of interest. Then, when I was establishing a new business
+here under very peculiar circumstances, and in consequence of the
+impossibility of relying upon my business associates,--I mean the
+capitalists of this place--a crisis might occur at any moment, I only
+did my duty when I advised you to intrust your money, if not to more
+honest, to safer hands. Well, you would not hear of it; would have me
+keep the money; nay, I even believe I might have had it without
+interest."
+
+"You will admit, Herr Wollnow, that in so doing I carried out my
+uncle's views."
+
+"I don't know," replied the merchant. "Your uncle had a personal
+interest in leaving the money in my hands. The great profits which
+accrued to the business in Stettin through the new connections I
+formed, and I may say created here, were so important that they far
+outweighed the risk of a possible loss. But when your uncle gave you
+the free disposal of the property by will, he acknowledged that an
+artist's interests are and must be different from those of a business
+man."
+
+"Why yes, the interests of his art," replied Gotthold earnestly; "I
+never had and never shall have any others. In this feeling, and this
+alone, after I had recovered from my first astonishment, I joyfully
+welcomed the rich inheritance that fell to my lot so unexpectedly."
+
+"I know it," replied Herr Wollnow; "the assistance I have given from
+your property to that poor deserving Brueggberg during the last three
+years proves it, and he will not be your only pensioner."
+
+"It has proved as fortunate for him as for me that help came in time,"
+replied Gotthold.
+
+He supported his head on his left hand, and mechanically drew
+arabesques on a sheet of paper that lay before him, while he continued
+in a lower tone:
+
+"And it was also quite time for me. For two years in Munich I had
+already devoted every hour and moment I could spare from the labor of
+earning a livelihood, to art, beloved art, which is so infinitely
+coy to a tyro, especially one who is compelled to begin after his
+one-and-twentieth year. My strength was almost exhausted; I had seen
+the last star of hope disappear; nothing bound me to life except a sort
+of defiance of a fate which I thought I had not deserved, and the shame
+of appearing to rush out of this world like a simpleton, in the eyes of
+those who had aided me to live. How distinctly I remember the hour! I
+had returned to my little attic room towards nightfall, from the studio
+of a famous artist to which an acquaintance had procured me admittance,
+with a soul filled to overflowing with the mighty impressions produced
+by works of the greatest genius, and yet utterly exhausted, for I had
+resolved a few days before to give up no more lessons, even if I
+starved, and I was almost starving. I placed myself before my easel,
+but the colors blended into one confused mass. The palette fell from my
+hand; I staggered to the table to pour out a glass of water, and--there
+lay the letter which informed me that I had been made the heir of a
+relative whom I had never seen, and was the possessor of a fortune
+which, at a casual estimation, amounted to more than a hundred thousand
+thalers. What was more natural than that in this wonderful moment I
+should make the vow: this shall belong to Art, and to you only so far
+as you are an artist."
+
+"Nothing is more natural and simple," said Herr Wollnow; "but that you
+should have kept the oath, and I know you have done so, is--as we
+children of Adam are now constituted--not quite so natural and simple.
+But now, as the business matters are settled, we will, if agreeable to
+you, talk more comfortably over a glass of wine."
+
+Herr Wollnow opened the door of a spacious apartment handsomely
+furnished as a half dining, half sitting room, and invited his guest to
+take a seat at the table, which was covered with a snow-white cloth,
+and furnished with all sorts of dainties served in valuable china, and
+several bottles of wine. As Gotthold sat down, his eyes wandered over
+several large and small oil paintings which were skilfuly arranged upon
+the walls.
+
+"Pardon an artist's curiosity," said he.
+
+"I understand little or nothing of your beautiful art," replied Herr
+Wollnow, as he fastened a napkin under his fat chin; "but my wife is a
+great amateur, and, as she sometimes persuades herself, a connoisseur.
+You must give her the pleasure of showing you her treasures. I am
+afraid the little collection will not find much favor in your eyes,
+with the exception of one picture, which I also consider a masterpiece,
+and which is greatly admired by all who see it."
+
+Gotthold would gladly have gone nearer to the paintings; one of them
+which hung at some little distance, seemed strangely familiar, but Herr
+Wollnow had already filled the green glasses with odorous Rhine wine,
+and a robust elderly woman came noisily in with a platter of freshly
+broiled fish in her red hands.
+
+"Stine says that you were always particularly fond of flounders," said
+Herr Wollnow, "and so she would not give up the pleasure of offering
+you your favorite dish herself."
+
+Gotthold looked up at the stout figure, and instantly recognized good
+Stine Lachmund, who, during his boyhood, had almost kept the house at
+Dollan in the place of its invalid mistress, and after her death
+managed affairs entirely alone, yet had always maintained a good
+understanding with the boys and all the world, in spite of the many
+difficulties of her position.
+
+He held out his hand to his old friend, who, after putting the platter
+on the table, and wiping her red fingers on her apron in a most
+unnecessary manner, grasped it eagerly.
+
+"I was sure you would know me again," said she, her fat face beaming
+with delight. "But goodness gracious, how you have altered! What a
+handsome man you have grown! I should never have known you again!"
+
+"So I used to be desperately ugly, Stine?" asked Gotthold, smiling.
+
+"Why," replied Stine, with a grave, questioning glance, "you had
+handsome blue eyes, it is true; but they always looked so large and
+sorrowful that it made one feel badly, and then your little thin face
+was divided by a scar from there to there--it looked terribly; such a
+good boy, too, it was too outrageous--"
+
+"All that has been forgotten long ago," said Gotthold.
+
+"And a big beard has grown over it," added Stine.
+
+"Yen can tell Line to bring in a bottle of the red seal," said Herr
+Wollnow, who thought he perceived that his guest wished to cut short
+this recognition scene. "You must pardon me," he continued, turning to
+Gotthold, when Stine had gone out after again shaking hands, and the
+pretty young maid-servant, who moved noiselessly to and fro, began to
+wait upon the gentlemen, "you must pardon me for being unable to spare
+you this little scene. The good woman was so delighted to hear of your
+coming, and a man who returns home must make up his mind to meet
+familiar faces at every step."
+
+"I have experienced that to-day," replied Gotthold; "your wife, too,
+you said--"
+
+"Is proud of having known you when you were not a famous artist, but a
+diffident boy about thirteen years old, who obstinately refused to take
+part in a dance which some aristocratic mammas had arranged with
+difficulty, and then joined it when he heard that no one else would
+dance with little Ottilie Blaustein. She has never forgotten your
+magnanimity."
+
+"And she--Fraulein Ottilie--"
+
+"Has been my wife for six years," said Herr Wollnow. "You look at me
+with discreet astonishment; you have quickly calculated that the little
+dancer of those days cannot now be much more than twenty-five, and
+you set me down very correctly at some years over fifty--we will say
+fifty-six. But we Jews--"
+
+"Are you a Jew?" asked Gotthold.
+
+"Of the purest descent," replied Herr Wollnow; "didn't you perceive
+that, when I locked your money up in my desk so quickly just now? Of
+the purest Polish descent, although out of love for my wife, who
+declared that she had suffered enough from Judaism, and also from
+business motives, I have taken the step, a very easy one for me, from
+one positive religion which was indifferent to me, to another that was
+no less so. But I was going to say that we Jews, or we men who are
+educated in the Jewish faith, are as unromantic in regard to marriage
+as everything else, but we keep to the law; I mean by that the law of
+nature, which is not at all romantic, but very sober, and consequently
+all the more logical."
+
+"Then you think that a great difference between the ages of the husband
+and wife is one of the laws of nature which should be strictly
+observed?"
+
+"By no means, only that under certain circumstances it is no
+impediment."
+
+"Certainly not, but--"
+
+"Allow me to explain my opinion by some statistics. I am descended from
+a very long-lived family. My grandfather--he could not tell either the
+place or time of his birth positively--must have been more than a
+hundred years old when he died, blind and crippled, it is true, but
+with his mental powers almost entirely unimpaired. My father was
+ninety. I, who no longer needed to toil and moil for myself, was able
+six years ago, when in my fiftieth year, to marry, and thus I have the
+expectation of seeing my little family, even if an addition should be
+bestowed upon us, grow up to maturity, supposing that I attain my
+eightieth year, to which, as you will admit, I have on the father's
+side the most well-founded title."
+
+Herr Wollnow rested his broad shoulders comfortably against the back of
+his chair, and passed his hands over his high forehead and thick black
+hair, in which Gotthold could not yet perceive the smallest thread of
+gray. "That is," said he, "if I understand you rightly, marriage ought
+to be in the first place arranged for the welfare of the children, and
+therefore it is only necessary to consider the signs of the times in
+and for which the children are born."
+
+"Certainly," replied Herr Wollnow; "in the first place, I might almost
+say in the first and last."
+
+"And the husband and wife?"
+
+"Ought and will find their pleasure in their love for their children,
+their joy in the new fresh world which surrounds them, as well as a
+sufficient compensation for all lost illusions, and a reward for the
+anxieties and deprivations which necessarily spring from this love and
+joy."
+
+"And their own love, the love which brought them together, which
+induced them to make this particular choice out of the countless
+multitude of possibilities--the love which ever increases and must
+continue to increase until it finally illumines every thought,
+heightens every feeling, warms every drop of blood--would you take this
+from marriage, or consider it as something which may or may not exist?
+Never! 'Love is everywhere, except in hell,' says Wolfram von
+Eschenbach. I know not whether he is right, but I do know that a
+marriage where there is no love, nay, where love does not exist as I
+understand it, is in my eyes a hell."
+
+Gotthold had spoken with a passion which, eagerly as he strove to
+suppress it, had not escaped the keen ears of his host.
+
+"Let us change the subject," he said kindly, "and try another upon
+which we shall certainly find it easier to agree."
+
+"No, let us keep to this," replied Gotthold; "upon so important a
+subject I am anxious to hear the opinion of a man whose judgment and
+character I prize so highly--the full opinion; for I am sure you have
+still much to say."
+
+"Certainly," replied Herr Wollnow hesitatingly; "a great deal, but I
+fear very little that will please you, as you now think of marriage. I
+say as you now think, and beg you not to misunderstand me; for you, who
+have grown up among romantic traditions, and, as an artist, are perhaps
+especially disposed to take an ideal view of human affairs, can
+probably not be induced to give up your preconceived opinion except by
+your own experience. But no matter; I should need to be far less firmly
+convinced of the justice of my own opinion than I am, or to esteem my
+opponent less than I do if I allowed your last proposition to pass
+without contradiction. You said that without love, as you so eloquently
+described it, marriage would be a hell; I assert that this very love,
+or rather the unrealized dream of this love, makes a hell of many, far
+too many marriages."
+
+"Unrealized," said Gotthold; "oh! yes, that is just what causes the
+unhappiness."
+
+"An unavoidable one, or at least in many cases not to be avoided. You
+will admit that most marriages must commence with this illusion, which
+is more or less vivid according to the nature and imaginative power of
+the dreamer. There are so few persons who do not desire to be specially
+rewarded for paying their debts to nature and society. When they
+perceive that the question of marriage concerns a very different object
+from the realization of their dreams, and that this object is the more
+easily attained the less they give themselves up to fancies, the
+majority, of course, will at first rub their eyes in some little
+perplexity, but no longer take the affair tragically, but as it is; and
+these are the marriages which I--with all due respect for humanity,
+which certainly consists of average mortals--call average marriages,
+and which in Germany, England, America, nay, even in France and Italy,
+wherever I have wandered in the civilized world, I have always found as
+much alike as two eggs. It is, take it all in all, very dry, but very
+healthful prose; there is much modest quiet happiness, and of course
+also much, very much sorrow; but none which would not befall a human
+being as such. I mean the frail, easily injured creature at last doomed
+to death--and very little which results from the marriage. But this
+misery is found in overwhelming measure when people wish to realize,
+nay to transform into a still more brilliant reality, the dream they
+have enjoyed as lovers. How many heart-breaking conflicts, how many
+vain struggles, how much strength wasted which was greatly needed for
+far more important purposes, how much senseless and useless cruelty
+towards one's self and others! You see I speak only of those who take
+life earnestly, not of the multitudes of stupid people who are
+incapable of any moral idea, nor of the, if possible, still greater
+number of frivolous natures; who snap their fingers at all morality."
+
+"I know it," replied Gotthold; "but why should not earnest, honorable
+human beings, when they become conscious of their mistakes, seek to
+cast out the errors that have crept into the score of their lives while
+there is time?"
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"By restoring each other's freedom."
+
+"Freedom? What freedom? The liberty of chaining themselves again as
+soon as possible, of making another choice at once if, as is usually
+the case, they have not previously done so; a new choice which will
+probably prove no wiser, no more circumspect, than the first? Consider,
+we are speaking of earnest, honorable human beings! Well, they
+doubtless went earnestly and honorably to work in making their first
+choice, and if, in spite of all their earnestness, they went astray
+where they could choose freely and without embarrassment, they
+certainly would the second time, when burdened by the weight of
+self-created suffering, blinded by a treacherous passion. If a new
+clerk begins the first calculation I allow him to make on an entirely
+false principle, I may not send him away, but I never intrust any
+important matter to him again without watching him. And--while there is
+time--did you say? When is there time? Perhaps never, if two people
+have belonged to each other body and soul--for earnest, honorable
+people will give their souls to each other--perhaps never, and certainly
+not after; and here I come back to the point from whence I started--after
+the bond which thereby becomes a hallowed one has been blessed with
+children. Believe me, I could make many other remarks upon this subject:
+the chasm that severs the parents goes through the hearts of the
+children; they will feel the gulf painfully sooner or later, and never
+wholly cease to suffer from it, if--which to be sure is not always the
+case--they have hearts."
+
+"And will not a child's heart be torn," cried Gotthold, painfully
+agitated, "will it not bleed at the thought of its parents who have
+lived together in torment, and wasted away in this torture?"
+
+"They would not have wasted away," replied Herr Wollnow, "if they had
+come to an understanding with each other in my acceptation of the term;
+if they had always said to each other, and kept faithfully in their
+hearts the thought: for our children's sakes we must not despond, must
+bear our sorrows, must sacredly keep the ledger of our lives, and, if
+any error has actually crept in, calculate and calculate until we have
+found it. Who in the world should be responsible for the result except
+the person to whom the book was intrusted? And then there is also a
+bankruptcy from which the unfortunate sufferer comes forth
+impoverished, perhaps a beggar, with nothing to cover his nakedness
+except the consciousness: you have done your duty, met your
+obligations. Woe to him who cannot think this of his parents: well for
+him who can think and say so; who by their graves can weep sorrowful
+but sweet tears, and pass on in peace."
+
+Gotthold's head was resting on his hand. Let us have peace, he had said
+to his father's shade, and sorrowful but sweet tears had fallen from
+his eyes upon his mother's grave. Would they have been less sweet if
+she had left the father who could not make her happy, if she had sought
+and perhaps found joy in another's arms?
+
+Herr Wollnow's dark eyes rested upon his guest's noble features, now
+shadowed by gloom and doubt, with an expression of mingled compassion
+and severity. Had he said too much, or not enough? Should he be silent,
+or ought he to say more, and tell the young man who so closely
+resembled his mother, and yet had so much of his father's character,
+the history of his parents?
+
+Just then the door-bell rang, and at the same moment his wife's voice
+sounded from the entry. She was a woman to quickly inspire other and
+gayer thoughts in men's minds, even if the conversation had taken a
+grave and critical turn.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+"I beg you to excuse me a thousand, thousand times," cried Fran Wollnow
+from the threshold of the door.
+
+"That makes two thousand," said her husband, who with his guest had
+risen to meet her.
+
+"You shan't always reckon up everything, you bad man."
+
+"But take no notice of anything--"
+
+"And you shan't always interrupt me and spoil my prettiest speeches. I
+had thought of the most charming things to say to our guest."
+
+"Perhaps they begin with good evening?"
+
+"Why, of course; good evening, and welcome, you are most heartily
+welcome," said Frau Wollnow, extending two plump little hands to
+Gotthold, and looking up into his face with the most eager curiosity in
+her brown eyes. "Dear me, how you have grown, and how much you have
+improved!"
+
+Gotthold could not return the compliment. Ottilie Blaustein seemed to
+him to have grown much stouter, but neither taller nor handsomer than
+when he last saw her. Nevertheless the plump, somewhat flushed face
+beamed with mirth and good-nature, and it was by no means difficult for
+him to respond to the cordial greeting of his old acquaintance with no
+less warmth. She begged the gentlemen to sit down again; she would,
+with their permission, take a seat with them, and beg for a glass of
+wine, for she had been obliged to talk so much that evening that she
+was very thirsty. Then she instantly started up again, and asked her
+husband in a half whisper whether he had already showed it to him, in
+reply to which mysterious question Herr Wollnow smilingly shook his
+stately head. "I would not spoil your pleasure," said he.
+
+"You good Emil!" she exclaimed, hastily kissing her husband on the
+forehead, and then turned to Gotthold. "Come, I must give you a proof
+that you obliged no ungrateful person when you enabled the little
+Jewish girl to join the dance. See, I bought this in remembrance of
+you, and would have purchased it if it had been as worthless as it is
+valuable, and as dear as the price for which I obtained my treasure was
+nominal."
+
+She had seized a candle, and now led Gotthold to the landscape which
+had already attracted his attention, even across the room. The latter
+started, and with difficulty suppressed an exclamation of surprise and
+pain.
+
+"It is Dollan, isn't it?" said Ottilie.
+
+Gotthold made no reply; he took the candle from the lady's hand, and
+held it so that the light fell upon the picture, which was hung rather
+too high. Yes, it was the very one into which he had painted his love
+and anguish, the picture of which he had just spoken to Herr Wollnow,
+that had been upon his easel on the evening which had made such a
+wonderful change in his life. To prove to himself that he had
+irrevocably broken all ties with his past, and must now begin a new
+phase of his life and struggles, he gave away the sketch and did not
+destroy the picture, but very prosaically presented it to an
+exhibition, from which it went to another, then to a third and fourth,
+and was finally sold, he did not know where or to whom, nor did he wish
+to know; it should disappear to him. And yet during all this time he
+had been unable to shake off the recollection of this picture. He could
+have painted it again from memory, but it would not have been the one
+hallowed by so much suffering. And he must find it again, here and now,
+when his soul was already so full of the magic fragrance which
+everything he saw and heard bore to him from the days when every breath
+that swept across "his brow or fanned his cheek, exhaled the odor of
+pine trees, of the ocean, and of love.
+
+"And how do you suppose I obtained it?" said Frau Wollnow; "and
+especially how do you suppose I found out it was yours; for you know
+we do not judge from the style, or at least I did not at that time.
+But when people are to have a piece of good fortune! So I said to
+Cecilia Brandow, whom I--it is now six years ago, and I had just been
+married--met at the wool market in Sundin, I had almost said; but of
+course only the gentlemen went there, and we drove in with them on
+account of the exhibition, where I met her. We had so much to say,
+like any two friends who had not seen each other since they left
+boarding-school--you perhaps do not remember that Cecilia and I were in
+the same boarding-school at Sundin--or at least I had a great deal to
+say, for I found Cecilia very quiet. I believe she had lost her second
+child only a short time before. We were separated by the crowd, and I
+at last found her again in one of the most out-of-the-way rooms,
+standing alone before this picture with her eyes full of tears, which,
+as I came up, she tried to conceal."
+
+"Good Heavens!" said I; "isn't that--"
+
+"Yes," she replied; "and it is by him."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"In a word, she had recognized it instantly, and would not admit that
+she was mistaken when I told her the 'G. W.' in the corner might be
+Heaven knows whom. You see I didn't understand much about pictures
+then--now when I--but your hand trembles, you cannot hold the
+candlestick any longer."
+
+"Let me have the picture," said Gotthold; then perceiving that the
+husband and wife were looking at him in surprise, he added calmly,
+replacing the candlestick upon the table: "The painting is really not
+worthy to be hung among your other pictures, which are excellent. It is
+the work of a pupil, and moreover was painted from memory after a very
+hasty sketch, I will promise you another and better one of the same
+place, which I will make on the spot if you will--"
+
+"Oh! that would be delightful, that would be splendid," exclaimed Frau
+Wollnow. "I will hold you to your promise: another, not a better one,
+you can't make it better, that is impossible; but to have a picture
+painted on the spot by the most celebrated landscape painter of the day
+will be a triumph of which I can boast all the rest of my life. Give me
+your hand upon it!" She held out both hands to Gotthold.
+
+"Well," said Herr Wollnow, "the bargain is made, and now according to
+the good old custom we will seal it with a drink. You see, Herr
+Gotthold Weber, woman's wit surpasses priestly cunning. I might have
+preached a long time to induce you to remain here; my wife comes, and
+the timid bird is caught. Well, I am glad of it, heartily glad."
+
+"And how delighted Cecilia will be," cried Frau Wollnow. "My poor
+Cecilia! she really needs something to divert her thoughts a little,
+and this will be so pleasant." Gotthold turned pale. When he made his
+over-hasty promise, the thought of thus creating a convenient pretext
+for seeing Cecilia again had certainly been farthest from his mind.
+
+"I think we can spare our friend the trouble of the journey," said Herr
+Wollnow, "and you will be perfectly well satisfied with a copy."
+
+"You certainly know that we are not talking about a copy, but a new,
+entirely new picture," exclaimed Ottilie. "But you understand nothing
+about it, my dear Emil, or he doesn't want to understand."
+
+"I only do not want to send our friend away again immediately, but to
+keep him with us."
+
+"Tell the truth, Emil, tell the truth," said Frau Wollnow, shaking her
+finger at him. "The fact, Herr Weber, is simply that he can't bear
+Brandow, Heaven knows why. To be sure I can't either, and have no
+reason for it except that he always teased me at the dancing lessons in
+his malicious way. But I care nothing about him, only his angelic
+wife."
+
+"And since husband and wife are one--"
+
+"If everybody thought as you do, dear Emil--and I too, of course; but
+there is no rule without an exception, and the Brandow marriage is one
+so thoroughly bad and unfortunate that I really do not see why we--"
+
+"Should talk so much about it," said Herr Wollnow; "and it is all the
+more unnecessary, as our guest can probably take no special interest in
+the subject."
+
+"No interest," cried Ottilie, clasping her hands; "no interest. Pray,
+Herr Gotthold--how I keep falling into the old habit--excuse me--but
+do tell this man, who thinks Goethe's 'Elective Affinities' in bad
+taste--"
+
+"Pardon me, I said immoral--"
+
+"No, in bad taste; the evening of the day before yesterday, when we
+were talking about it at the Herr Conrector's, and you made the
+unprecedented assertion that Goethe had committed a perfidy--yes, you
+said perfidy--when he made the only person in the whole novel who
+uttered anything truthful about marriage-the mediator--a half
+simpleton."
+
+"But what do you want with your elective affinities!" exclaimed Wollnow
+almost angrily.
+
+"He don't believe in them," said Ottilie triumphantly, "and says that,
+like ghosts, they only haunt the brains of fools. But the fact is, he
+only pretends to think so, and secretly believes in them more than many
+other people; and now he is troubled, as a child is afraid of ghosts,
+at the thought that you will go to Dollan and see your old friend
+again."
+
+"How absurdly you talk," said Herr Wollnow, scarcely concealing his
+painful embarrassment by a forced smile.
+
+"Why, we have talked of nothing else all the evening in our little
+society," cried Ottilie. "You must know, Herr Gotthold, that there are
+three members of our dancing class here besides myself--all married
+now: Pauline Ellis--well, she perhaps will not interest you; Louise
+Palm, the girl with the brown eyes--we always called her Zingarella;
+and Hermine Sandberg--you know, that handsome girl, it is a pity that
+she was a little cross-eyed and stammered. We knew everything,
+everything down to the smallest particulars, especially your duel with
+Carl Brandow--"
+
+"At which, however, so far as I can remember, none of the ladies you
+have mentioned were present," said Gotthold.
+
+"Good!" exclaimed Herr Wollnow.
+
+"No, it isn't good," said Ottilie pouting; "it isn't at all good or
+kind in Herr Gotthold to make fun of the faithful friendship people
+have kept for him for so many years."
+
+"That was very far from my intention," replied Gotthold. "On the
+contrary, I feel highly honored and greatly flattered that my humble
+self furnished such charming ladies with a subject for conversation,
+even for a few moments."
+
+"Go on with your jibes."
+
+"I assure you once more that I am perfectly sincere."
+
+"Will you give me a proof of it?"
+
+"Certainly, if I can."
+
+"Well then," said Ottilie with a deep blush, "tell me how the duel
+chanced to take place, for I will confess that one said one thing, and
+another another, and at last we found out that nobody knew. Will you?"
+
+"Very willingly," said Gotthold.
+
+He had noticed Herr Wollnow's repeated attempts to give the
+conversation another turn, and thought he could perceive that his
+host's former remarks had not been so entirely unpremeditated as they
+had at first seemed. Had Frau Wollnow told her husband a romance to
+suit her own fancy, and made him play Heaven knows what ridiculous
+part? He must try to put an end to such rumors, and believed that the
+very best way of doing so would be to fulfil Frau Wollnow's wish, and
+tell the story with the utmost possible frankness, as if it concerned a
+third person.
+
+These thoughts passed rapidly through his mind as he slowly raised the
+glass of wine to his lips. He sipped a little of it, and then said,
+turning to Frau Wollnow with a smile:--
+
+"How gladly, honored lady, would I begin my story with the words of
+Schiller: 'Oh! queen, you wake the unspeakably torturing smart of the
+old wound, but it won't do, it won't do. True, when there is any sudden
+change of weather I have a twinge in the wound, but it is by no means
+unspeakably painful; and at all events at this moment I feel nothing at
+all, except the profound truth of the old saying, that young people
+will be young people, and will play youthful pranks, oftentimes very
+foolish ones. To this latter category undoubtedly belongs my combat
+with Carl Brandow, which did not, however, as you suppose, originate in
+the dancing lessons, but was only brought to a decisive issue there,
+after it had long been glowing under the ashes, and even threatened
+once before to break out into light flames. The first cause was this.
+In our fifth form it was an old custom, most sacredly observed, that an
+open space should be reserved between the first bench and the
+lecturer's chair for the 'old boys,' which no 'new boy' was permitted
+to enter before the close of the first term, on pain of a severe
+thrashing. Carl Brandow, it is true, belonged to the 'old boys,' indeed
+the very old boys; for he had been in the fifth form three years, but
+was still on the last bench, although if I remember rightly, he had
+already passed his eighteenth birthday. I was one of the 'new boys,'
+one of the latest comers indeed; for I had just entered at Michaelmas,
+a lad of fourteen, to the no small annoyance of my father, who had
+prepared me himself, and expected I should be at once enrolled among
+the first classes. It was not without reason, for when at the end of
+the first week, according to custom, the rank of the different scholars
+was assigned from the result of certain exercises we called
+extemporalia, mine proved to be without fault, and I was transferred to
+my well-earned dignity of _Primus omnium_ with a certain degree of
+ceremony. And yet I was not even now to be permitted to cross the space
+before the first bench! From the first moment I had felt this
+prohibition as an outrage; now I openly declared it to be one, and said
+that I would never submit to it, but on the contrary demanded the
+abolition of the brutal rule, not only for myself but all the new boys,
+whose champion I considered myself.
+
+"In thus wording my demand I had really been guided only by my own
+intuitive sense of justice, without being actuated by any other motive;
+but the result proved that I could not have done better if I had been
+the most crafty demagogue. Standing alone, I should have had no chance
+of accomplishing my bold innovation; but now my cause was the cause of
+all, that is of all the 'new boys,' and chance willed that our numbers
+were exactly the same as those of the other party. Even in regard to
+bodily strength, which boys so well know how to rate according to age,
+we might probably have compared tolerably with them, and the little
+that was wanting would have been well supplied by the enthusiasm for
+the good cause which I unceasingly labored to arouse--if it had not
+been for Carl Brandow. Who could withstand this eighteen-years-old
+hero, slender and strong as a young pine? He would rage among us like
+Achilles among the Trojans, and strew the field--a retired open space
+in a little wood behind the school-house--with the bodies of the
+enemies he had hurled to the ground; for it was agreed that whoever in
+struggling should touch the earth with his back was to be considered
+conquered, and desist from the battle, which was to be decided in this
+manner before the eyes of six honorable members of the first class, who
+accepted the office of umpires with a readiness deserving of
+acknowledgment.
+
+"Yet there was no retreat, even if we, which was not the case, had
+thought of making one. The hour arrived--one Saturday afternoon, on
+which we had contrived to evade the watchfulness of the teacher--and I
+do not believe that soldiers ordered to assault a battery vomiting
+death and destruction can feel more solemn and earnest than did we. I
+may say, especially I. I had caused the struggle; I had involved all
+the brave boys in it; I felt responsible for the result, and for the
+disgrace in case of defeat--an event which seemed more probable every
+moment. That I was determined to do my utmost and strain every nerve is
+a matter of course. I hoped and prayed the gods that Carl Brandow might
+fall to me--for the antagonists were to be drawn by lot, and only he
+who had conquered his opponent was permitted to choose from among those
+who had vanquished theirs until all was decided. I do not remember
+whether the senior boys, who devised these ingenious rules, had copied
+from Sir Walter Scott; I only know I have never read the famous
+description of the tournament at Ashby, in Ivanhoe, without being
+reminded of that Saturday afternoon--the shady forest glade, and the
+boyish faces glowing with courage and ardor for the combat.
+
+"And, as in the tournament of Ashby, a wholly unforeseen accident in
+the person of the Black Knight, the _Noir Faineant_, saved the hero's
+otherwise hopelessly lost cause, so it was here.
+
+"Among the new boys was a lad of sixteen, with a frank honest face,
+which would have been handsome if it had possessed a little more
+animation, and the large earnest blue eyes had been a shade less
+dreamy. Although not tall, he was powerfully built, and we should
+perhaps have reckoned upon his assistance had not his indolence seemed
+to us to be very much greater than the strength he might possess, for
+he had never given any proof of it; and in reply to our eager questions
+about how he rated himself, merely shrugged his broad shoulders in
+silence."
+
+"Curt Wenhof!" exclaimed Frau Wollnow.
+
+"Yes, Curt Wenhof, my poor dear Curt," continued Gotthold, whose voice
+trembled at the recollection of the beloved friend of his youth. "I can
+see him now, as, after throwing his adversary to the ground as easily
+as a binder casts the sheaf behind him, he stood there as idly as if he
+had nothing more to do with the affair. I had also hurled my antagonist
+down and was just rising, gasping for breath, when Carl Brandow, who
+meantime had disposed of two or three, rushed upon me. 'Now,' I thought
+to myself, 'you must make it as hard for him as possible.' I did not
+dream of victory. But at the same instant Curt sprang before me; the
+next moment the two opponents had seized each other, and at the first
+grip Carl Brandow perceived that he had to deal with an adversary who
+was at least his equal in strength and courage, and, as the result
+proved, greatly his superior in coolness and endurance. It was a
+beautiful spectacle to see the two young athletes wrestling together--a
+spectacle we all enjoyed, umpires, victors, vanquished, and combatants;
+for by a silent agreement we had all formed a wide circle around them
+and watched every phase of the conflict with hope, fear, and loud
+cheers, according to the side to which we belonged, until at last a
+wild shout of exultation rang from my party, as Curt Wenhof raised his
+opponent, whose strength was utterly exhausted, and hurled him upon the
+turf with such violence that the poor fellow lay half senseless, unable
+to move.
+
+"The conflict was decided, so said the seniors, and in truth it was;
+who would have ventured to cope with Carl Brandow's conqueror? In the
+joy of my heart I embraced the good Curt, vowed an eternal friendship
+with him, and then turned to Carl Brandow, who meantime had risen from
+the ground, and, as the leader of one party to the representative of
+the other, offered him my hand, expressing the wish and hope that an
+honorable peace might follow the honorable struggle. He took my hand,
+and I believe even laughed, and said he was not a fool to grieve over a
+thing that could not be helped."
+
+"That's just like him," cried Frau Wollnow eagerly, "friendly and
+agreeable to your face, and malicious and cruel behind your back."
+
+"You see my wife has already taken sides," said Herr Wollnow.
+
+"Already!" exclaimed Fran Wollnow. "Why, I never thought or felt
+otherwise; I have always been against him, and certainly had good
+reason for it; I should like to know what would have become of me at
+those dancing lessons, if you had not come to my assistance so kindly.
+I shall never forget it, and it was all the more noble in you, because
+you cared nothing about me, but were in love with the beautiful
+Cecilia, which I never suspected."
+
+"I fear it would be useless to contradict you."
+
+"Entirely useless. I can see you now starting from the chair beside me,
+pale with anger and trembling in every limb, when Carl Brandow kissed
+Cecilia, and she burst into tears."
+
+"And had I not reason to be angry!" exclaimed Gotthold. "It was an
+agreement among us young people that the kisses which were ordered in
+the games of forfeits were to consist in pressing the lips upon the
+hand. All were bound by it, even Carl Brandow; and until then the
+compact had been inviolably kept. I had a right not to suffer this
+insolent breach of the bargain, or permit it to pass unpunished,--a
+double right, since during the last year I had been to Dollan with Curt
+so often, and was on such friendly terms with the brother and sister,
+especially as Curt, as you may remember, in his indolent way, would not
+share the dancing lessons, and I might therefore be permitted to
+consider myself the legitimate protector of my friend. Moreover, Curt,
+whom I had with great difficulty pulled through the examination for the
+senior class, was not in favor with the teachers; a flagrant breach of
+the peace such as would now be necessary, would undoubtedly have caused
+him to be suspended; and finally I will confess I thought Carl Brandow
+intended to vex and insult me by his impertinence, and resolved to take
+up the gauntlet and fight out the battle for Curt as he had appeared
+for me. It was all youthful folly, my honored friends; I blush even now
+when I think of it, and so I will relate what remains to be told in as
+few words as possible.
+
+"The preparations for the duel--for us proud seniors it must of course
+be a genuine duel"--continued Gotthold, "were conducted with all
+possible secrecy. Only those immediately concerned,--that is, the
+principals and seconds, to use this classic expression,--knew the place
+and hour. It was not difficult to procure weapons, for in spite of the
+strictest commands, there were at least half a dozen pairs of rapiers
+among us. Carl Brandow had one, and his particular friends told
+wonderful stories of his skill; but Curt was also the fortunate
+possessor of two good swords, with whose terrible clatter we had often,
+when at Dollan, startled the quiet woods from their repose. I had a
+quick eye, and, spite of my fifteen years, a firm hand, and Carl
+Braudow was probably no little surprised when, at the decisive moment,
+he found his despised opponent so well prepared; at least, he grew more
+restless and violent every moment, and thus made it possible for me,
+although he was really greatly my superior in skill, not only to hold
+my ground but even to change my posture to one of attack, and deal him
+a blow on the shoulder so deep that the blood flowed through the
+sleeve. The seconds shouted to us to stop. I instantly lowered my
+rapier, but in his frenzy of rage at his mischance he heard the shout
+and saw my gesture no more than I saw and heard anything of what
+happened to me during the next four weeks."
+
+"He is said to have struck twice," observed Frau Wollnow; "the last
+time when you were lying on the ground."
+
+"I do not believe it and never shall," replied Gotthold; "our seconds
+had certainly lost their heads and could not afterwards say positively
+how the affair had happened. But now, my clear Madam and Herr Wollnow,
+I fear I must have, exhausted your patience and will take my leave.
+Good Heavens! Twelve o'clock already! It is unpardonable!"
+
+"I could have listened all night," said Frau Wollnow, with a deep sigh,
+as she also, but very slowly, rose from her chair. "Ah! youth, youth!
+people are never young but once."
+
+"Thank God," said Gotthold gayly; "otherwise people would be compelled
+to play their foolish pranks twice."
+
+"Who is so old as to be safe from folly," said Herr Wollnow, with a
+grave smile.
+
+"You!" exclaimed his wife, embracing him. "You are much too old and far
+too wicked. People must not only be young, but also good, like our
+friend here, in order to be so badly rewarded for all his goodness. I
+can imagine how it went to your heart when Cecilia, married this
+Brandow. That sweet innocent girl of seventeen wedded to him! Ah! when
+we see such things it is enough to make us lose faith in mankind
+forever."
+
+"This faith is not so frequently to be found either in Israel or
+elsewhere," said Herr Wollnow.
+
+"Will you go?"
+
+"I am going already, my dear Madam."
+
+"Oh, dear! now you are beginning too. I meant to say, will you really
+go to Dollan?"
+
+"I must do so now, even if I were not obliged to go on account of the
+picture."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"To restore my faith in mankind, at least the part most important to
+me, myself," replied Gotthold, with a smile, whose derision did not
+escape Herr Wollnow.
+
+"I am very much displeased with you," said the latter, as he re-entered
+the dining-room, after accompanying Gotthold to the door.
+
+"With me?"
+
+"What must the man think of me? What a meddlesome awkward fellow he
+must consider me. It is a real piece of good fortune that I went no
+farther."
+
+"But what have I done?"
+
+"Why did you never tell me this famous narrative of your youth, from
+which it is very evident that he loved and probably still loves your
+friend Cecilia, as you call her, although I have never seen anything of
+the friendship."
+
+"Do you really think so?" exclaimed Fran Wollnow, starting up and
+throwing her arms around her husband; "do you really think so? Did he
+tell you so?"
+
+In spite of his vexation, Herr Wollnow could not help laughing.
+
+"I should probably be the last person whom he would choose for his
+confidant, especially now, after I, stupid oaf, have been hammering
+away upon this subject for the last hour."
+
+"On this subject? I really don't understand you, Emil."
+
+"Don't understand me! Gracious, you clever soul! How difficult it is
+for women to see their way in matters they proudly condescend to
+consider their own. Don't understand me? Well, I can assure you that
+yonder enthusiast understood you perfectly, and will be on his way to
+Dollan early to-morrow morning."
+
+"Well, I can't see any particular harm in that," said Frau Wollnow.
+"Why should not those two meet again, after so many years, even if they
+really do still love each other? I will give poor Cecilia the pleasure
+with all my heart--she needs consolation so much."
+
+"As much as her worthy husband needs money. Day after to-morrow is the
+last day of grace for his note of five thousand thalers which is
+deposited with me. Perhaps he will help both: he has the means to do
+so."
+
+"Oh! Emil, your everlasting prose is unbearable."
+
+"I never promised you that you would find me a poet."
+
+"Heaven knows that."
+
+"It would be better for me if you knew it."
+
+"Emil!"
+
+"I beg your pardon. I am really so much annoyed that I can't help being
+spiteful. But that conies of meddling with other people's affairs. Let
+the fools do as they please, and come to bed."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+
+When, after a night of torturing restlessness, Gotthold suddenly awoke
+from his heavy morning sleep, the sun had already been shining through
+the white lace curtains of his chamber for several hours. "Thank God,"
+he said aloud, "morning has come, and with the morning everything will
+doubtless look brighter."
+
+He was soon dressed, and standing at the open window. How familiar the
+scene was to him. There was the circular space, with its grass-grown
+walks, and the little obelisk in the centre, surrounded by pleasant
+white houses with pretty gardens; yonder the stately schoolhouse, from
+whose open windows the singing of the boys rang out so distinctly upon
+the quiet of the Sabbath morning, that he fancied he could distinguish
+the words of the hymn. On the right hand, peering between the houses,
+and rising above their roofs, appeared the dark green foliage of the
+huge trees in the royal park, and far away on the left, between other
+dwellings, gleamed a portion of the lake, and the tiny islet--just at
+this moment sparkling in the sunlight--which lies before the large
+island. He had seen the beautiful picture hundreds and hundreds of
+times just as he saw it now, when, after the morning service was over,
+he stood at the window of the school-house with Curt, his eyes
+wandering towards the region where beloved Dollan lay; and even as now
+it allured him from the narrow walls of the room out into the sunny
+fields, the shady woods, and by the blue lake. These lights, these
+shadow, this brilliant azure hue had kindled in the boy a pure desire
+to reproduce, to counterfeit what lay so clearly, though in such
+complicated lines before him, and so deeply stirred his heart with
+strange forebodings. They had been his first teachers in the wonderful
+language of lines and colors; and fluently as he had since learned to
+speak it, he was still indebted to them for all that he had attained.
+Had he not felt yesterday, when he drove through the familiar scenes,
+heavy as was his heart, that all his toil and labor in beautiful Italy
+had been more or less vain, and he had always painted only with his
+eyes and hand, never with his heart; spoken a beautiful, musical, but
+foreign tongue with difficulty, instead of his native language; and
+that here, and here only, in his native country, and beneath his native
+sky, could he become a true artist, who does not utter what others can
+say as well or better, but what he alone can express, because he is
+himself what he says.
+
+But could home really still be home to him after all that had happened,
+all he had experienced and suffered here? Why not, if he only saw it
+with the eyes with which he endeavored to see the rest of the world; if
+he wished to be nothing more than what, in his good hours, he believed
+himself to be--a true artist, living only in his ideal creations,
+behind whom everything that fetters other men lies like an
+unsubstantial vision, and for whom, when in evil plight, there is a God
+to whom he can tell what he suffers. Yes, his art, chaste and severe,
+had been his guiding-star in the labyrinth of his early days, his
+talisman in the misery and poverty of the years he had spent in
+Munich, his refuge at all times; and she should and would continue to
+be so--would cling loyally to him if he was faithful to her, and ever
+throned her reverently on high as his protectress, his adored goddess.
+
+The boys' song died away. Gotthold passed his hand over his eyes, and
+turned back into the room just as there was a loud knock at the door.
+
+"What, is it you, Jochen?"
+
+"Yes, Herr Gotthold, it is I," replied Jochen Prebrow, after putting
+the coffee-tray he had brought in as carefully on the table as if it
+had been a soap-bubble, which would break at the slightest touch. "Clas
+Classen, from Neuenkirchen, or, as they call him here, Louis, had just
+gone down cellar when you rang, and I thought the coffee would taste
+none the worse for my bringing it."
+
+"Certainly not; I am very much obliged to you."
+
+"And besides, I wanted to ask when I should harness the horses."
+
+"I shall remain here a few days," replied Gotthold.
+
+At these words a smile began to overspread Jochen's broad face, but it
+instantly vanished again as Gotthold continued: "So you must drive on
+alone, old friend."
+
+"I should like to stay here a few days too," said Jochen.
+
+"And you cannot unless I keep the carriage? Then I will, and, what is
+of more value to me, you; and we will go on at once to Dollan, which I
+suppose is what you want. Or do you think the horses ought not to be
+left so long?"
+
+Jochen had no anxiety on that score. His good friend, Clas Classen,
+whom the people here had the strange custom of calling Louis, would
+willingly undertake the care of them and see that they had all they
+needed, but why did Herr Gotthold walk when they had horses and
+carriage on the spot?
+
+"But I should prefer to walk," said Gotthold.
+
+"Well, what's one man's meat is another man's poison," said Jochen
+rubbing his thick hair. "But there's still another difficulty in the
+way: you will find the nest empty."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"They passed through here an hour ago, both the gentleman and lady,"
+replied Jochen. "I was sitting in the coffee-room and they stopped at
+the door."
+
+Gotthold stared steadily at Jochen. She had been there, so near him,
+under the window at which he had just been standing, and he might have
+seen the pure face again as Jochen saw it, who spoke of it as coolly as
+if it were a thing that might happen every day.
+
+"And did you speak to her, Jochen?" he said at last hesitatingly.
+
+"The lady remained in the carriage," said Jochen; "but he came in to
+drink a little rum, and as there was nobody else in the room, and I had
+just got some out of the cupboard for myself, I helped him to it; and
+then he asked where I came from, and I told him I was here with a
+gentleman, but I thought we should go on to-day as soon as he was up.
+He asked if I knew the gentleman; but of course I didn't; for, thought
+I, the friendship between those two was never very great, and the less
+one has to do with Herr Brandow the better. Wasn't I right? Well, and
+so one word led to another, and he took out his watch and said he was
+going to Plueggenhof and should probably stay there till to-morrow
+evening, and then he drank his rum, which he will perhaps pay for when
+he comes back, and away he went; he had a pair of splendid bays,
+thorough-breds, especially the saddle-horse. You would have been
+delighted with them, for you are a judge of horses; I saw that
+yesterday."
+
+Gotthold's eyes were still fixed steadily upon the floor. She would not
+even know that he had been here.
+
+Be it so! He had not intended, even for a moment, to cross her path;
+and now the way was open, perfectly open; he could carry out
+unhindered, and without any pain, the plan he had formed yesterday when
+he returned from the Wollnows' through the park to the inn.
+
+An hour afterwards the two men were walking along the road to Dollan,
+at first upon the highway, then by side paths and short cuts, every
+foot of which Gotthold knew.
+
+He walked on, lost in dreams of the days that had fled and could never
+return, while far above his head the larks sang unceasingly, the black
+crows stalked over the quiet fields abandoned to Sabbath solitude, the
+bright-plumaged jays fluttered over the moors, and above the border of
+the distant woods an eagle wheeled in majestic circles. Jochen, who had
+taken nothing except Gotthold's dressing-case and paint-box tied up
+with his own little bundle in a gay cotton handkerchief, generally
+loitered a little behind and did not disturb his silent companion by
+any undue loquacity. Jochen had his own thoughts, which to be sure did
+not dwell upon the past but the future, thoughts he would gladly have
+uttered, only that he knew not how to guide the conversation in that
+direction. But they were approaching nearer and nearer to the corner of
+the woods, where he must part from Gotthold for the day, and if he
+wished to hear his opinion at all, now was the time. So he took heart,
+overtook his companion with a few long strides, walked on a few minutes
+by his side in silence, and was not a little startled himself when he
+suddenly uttered aloud the question he had mutely repeated a hundred
+times: "What do you think about marrying, Herr Gotthold?"
+
+Gotthold paused and looked in astonishment at the worthy Jochen, who
+also stood still, and whose broad face, with its staring eyes and
+half-open mouth, wore so singular an expression that he could not help
+smiling.
+
+"What put that into your head?"
+
+"Because I want to get married."
+
+"Then you must know about it far better than I, who do not."
+
+Jochen closed his lips and swallowed several times, as if he had taken
+too large a mouthful. Gotthold was now forced to laugh outright.
+
+"Why, Jochen," he exclaimed, "why are you so mysterious to an old
+friend? I will gladly give you my best advice, and if I can, and you
+care about it, my blessing also, but I must first know what the matter
+is really about. So you want to be married?"
+
+"Yes, Herr Gotthold," said Jochen, taking off his cap and wiping the
+drops of perspiration from his brown forehead; "at least I don't
+exactly, but she says she has always wanted me."
+
+"That is something, and who is she?"
+
+"Stine Lachmund."
+
+"But, Jochen, she is at least fifteen years older than you."
+
+"She can't help that."
+
+"No, certainly not."
+
+"And then she is a capable woman, who has a good stout frame and strong
+bones, only it is a little hard for her to move about because she has
+rather too much flesh now, but she says that would probably go off if
+she had more work to do than she has at the Wollnows', where life is
+altogether too easy."
+
+"Well, if she thinks so herself."
+
+"Yes, and then she has put by a pretty sum of money at the Wollnows',
+and her old father and mother at Thiessow,--you know, Herr Gotthold, we
+sailed over there once with the young master, and there was a terribly
+high sea outside, so that we got there as wet as cats, and old Lachmund
+thought we must really have had a ducking."
+
+"And then he made us a stiff glass of grog," said Gotthold.
+
+"And our young master drank a little too much, and played all sorts
+of pranks in the old man's long jacket, with his sou'wester on his
+head--that was a jolly time, Herr Gotthold." Jochen had lost the thread
+of his story, but Gotthold kindly prompted him, and he now went on to
+relate that the old couple, rich people for their station in life, who
+had kept a sort of inn in the large fishing village, at last wished to
+resign the sceptre they had so long and obstinately held to their only
+daughter, and give themselves up to repose for the rest of their days,
+on condition that she should instantly marry some good man.
+
+So Stine Lachmund, whom Jochen had visited in the kitchen at the same
+time that Gotthold had been calling upon her master and mistress, had
+reported, and asked Jochen whether he would be her husband.
+
+"For you see, Herr Gotthold," continued Jochen, "she don't take to
+everybody, and she has known me, as one might say, all my life, and
+knows I am an orderly, sober man, who understands how to take care of
+horses, knows enough about farming, and can even manage a boat, if it
+doesn't blow too hard."
+
+"Then so far everything would be perfectly suitable," said Gotthold,
+"but now we come to the principal thing: do you really love her?"
+
+"Yes, that's just it," replied Jochen thoughtfully. "She asked me
+herself last night, and what was I to say?"
+
+"The truth, Jochen, nothing but the truth."
+
+"I did, Herr Gotthold, I did tell the truth. 'Not yet,' I said, and
+then she laughed and said that would do no harm, all that would come
+right if the woman and the man were well-behaved. I must ask you, you
+would give me the right advice."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes, you would know about it; you had always been a good man,
+and--and--"
+
+"And?"
+
+"And if you had married our young lady, she would have been a great
+deal better off than she is now; yes, and, Herr Gotthold, I only saw
+her side face this morning through the window, as she sat alone in the
+carriage; but this I must say, she doesn't look over happy, and Stine
+says she has not much reason to. Do you think so too, Herr Gotthold?"
+
+"I don't know, I hope"--replied Gotthold, "people talk so much,--but we
+were speaking about your offer."
+
+"Yes, and what do you say now?"
+
+"What is there to be said? If you feel inclined, marry Stine, who is
+certainly a worthy, honest girl, and may you both be as happy and
+prosperous as you deserve."
+
+They had seated themselves in the shade at the edge of the wood, in
+order to carry on this important conversation quietly, but now Gotthold
+rose, hastily seized his travelling case and paint-box, which Jochen
+had laid on the grass beside him, warmly shook the hard brown hand of
+his companion, and entered the forest without casting another glance
+behind. Jochen looked after his retreating figure, then took his own
+little bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and began to ascend the
+moor, above whose topmost crest the roof of his father's smithy was
+just visible.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+Gotthold hurried restlessly through the forest with hasty steps, as if
+he had not a moment to lose. But it was only the tumult of sore,
+sorrowful thoughts, that drove him on and would not leave him, any more
+than the swarm of flies which had entered the woods with him and
+hovered about his head, now rising, now falling, now lingering behind,
+now flitting on before.
+
+"To think that I must always hear it, everywhere, and from all
+tongues," he murmured, "as if I were responsible for it; as if it were
+a reproach to me that she is not happy! Happy! Who is? Perhaps the
+infallible people who can recite, their moral multiplication table
+forward and backward like this Wollnow, the wise, self-righteous
+Pharisee; or like good Jochen, to whom fifteen years more or less in
+his Stine is of no consequence, provided a good maintenance is
+guaranteed him. But on the other hand--am I happy? Are thousands and
+thousands of others, who have scarcely a greater fault than that they
+are men, men with hearts that feel and sympathize, suffer and
+compassionate? A curse upon compassion and sympathy! They make us the
+pitiful creatures we are. What are you rustling, venerable beeches,
+which for centuries have strewn your withered leaves each Autumn over
+the soil of this forest, only to shine forth again in Spring in the
+full beauty of your green foliage? What are you murmuring, little
+brook, as you carry your clear brown water to the sea as busily to-day
+as when I played upon your bank, a merry boy, and thought it a heroic
+deed to leap across you from shore to shore? Alas! in the rustling, the
+murmur, I hear the same song that the swallow sang yesterday, the song
+of the eternal youth of Nature, which is ever the same, always equally
+strong, equally beautiful; and of the transitoriness, the frailty of
+men, who prolong a sorrowful, yet greedy existence by fear and hope,
+eat this shadowy food until death, and yet are happiest while their
+hearts can still hope and fear, their hearts which can never again be
+filled if once emptied, or if they fill and throb once more, fill with
+contempt, throb with indignation, that they could ever have been so
+foolish as to beat anxiously in blended hope and fear. Well, I no
+longer hope, so I need not fear even the view that awaits me yonder."
+
+From the broader, but completely neglected road that had hitherto
+followed the course of the forest stream, and, turning to the right,
+still pursued its windings deeper into the woods to the sea, a
+foot-path branched off to the left and led upward, at first between the
+trunks of huge trees, but gradually through more and more stunted
+underbrush, which finally dwindled into heather and broom that covered
+the whole crest of the hill to its highest point, where the men of
+ancient times, in memory of one of their princes, had reared a huge
+monument of massive blocks of stone, now covered with thick moss, and
+partly buried in the earth. It was the spot from which Gotthold, with
+an unsteady hand, had made the colored sketch he afterwards used for
+the painting that hung in Frau Wollnow's room.
+
+And now he stood there again, after ten long years--in, the shadow of
+one of the blocks of stone which protected him from the burning rays of
+the sun, while before him stretched the landscape with whose wondrous
+beauty the boy's eyes had never been satiated. Ah! Time had not
+obliterated a single charm; nay, it seemed as if the hour was expressly
+adapted to show him the Paradise of his youth in all its magic.
+
+The hour of noon! The brilliant sunlight bathed the tops of the
+beeches, over which his eyes wandered to emerald meadows and golden
+cornfields--the meadows and fields of Dollan, which lay like a quiet
+sunny Eden among the shaded, wood-covered hills that enclosed it on all
+sides. Amid the meadows and fields, relieved against the darker foliage
+of the trees in the garden, appeared the straw thatched roofs of the
+farm buildings, and the tiled roof of the long, low mansion-house, in
+whose red gable he could distinctly perceive the tiny window of the
+little room he had occupied with Curt whenever he went to Dollan. What
+memories that little window evoked! It seemed as if his eyes were fixed
+upon it by some magic spell, and could scarcely turn away either to the
+right, where the hills opened and afforded a view of the blue sea upon
+which the distant white sails glittered like stars, or to the left, to
+glance over the wide brown moorland, upon which the lonely smithy stood
+under an ancient oak, the only tree in the shadeless waste, above whose
+verge towered other wood-crowned heights which closed the view on the
+land side.
+
+The hour of noon, the hour of the great Pan! Not the faintest breath
+stirred the shining air; motionless were the dazzling white clouds upon
+the steel blue vault of the heavens; motionless the tops of the trees,
+the blossoming bushes, even the long blades of grass. Not a sound
+disturbed the profound stillness; even the locust, which had chirped
+among the stones of the giant's monument, was silent, perhaps terrified
+by the brown serpent, which, with its head upraised and its round
+glittering eyes fixed steadily upon Gotthold, lay motionless upon one
+of the masses of rock a few paces off, with the rest of its scaly body
+buried in a dense mass of heather. He had not noticed it before, and
+now perceived it with a sort of shudder. It seemed as if the torpor
+into which Nature had sunk had been embodied; as if the spirit of
+loneliness and desolation had assumed a material form. Woe betide you
+when the loneliness of yonder mansion with its neglected garden, the
+desolation of this remote valley, so far away from all human society,
+stares at you with those cold, cruel eyes; when you listen in the
+stillness for a beloved voice, and hear only the blood seething in your
+temples, and the heavy, anxious throbbing of your heart.
+
+Avaunt, fiend, avaunt!
+
+He raised his staff; the serpent disappeared; when he reached the rock
+upon which it must have been lying, he could see nothing but the
+swaying of the flowers through whose closely interwoven roots it was
+gliding away.
+
+Or was it only an illusion of his excited fancy, and did the flowers
+bend to the soft breeze that now breathed through the hot air, growing
+constantly stronger and stronger, so that a rustling and murmuring
+arose in the forest behind him, the treetops at his feet began to
+whisper, and at last the cool fresh wind from the sea blew over the
+panting earth.
+
+The spell was broken; Gotthold again looked at the landscape; but now
+with the eye of the artist, who is seeking to obtain the best view of
+his subject.
+
+"I chose the morning light then, if one can call it choice; it was a
+mistake and I must arrange the atmospheric effect artistically, but the
+sun should be at a moderate height above the horizon, almost directly
+over the smithy; that will be about six o'clock, and I can have what I
+need until eight. I think it will prove a picture which might satisfy
+others as well as yonder talkative lady."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Gotthold collected his luggage; then it occurred to him that he might
+just as well leave his colors there. So he placed the box on the rock
+where the serpent had lain, in the dense shadow, and went down the
+hill, along the woodland path, to the long ravine through which the
+stream rippled to the sea, and at whose mouth, in the little inlet
+between two steep overhanging cliffs, stood Cousin Boslaf's lonely
+little house. In the old days at Dollan it had gone by the name of the
+beach-house, nor was the title used only there; the name was in all
+mouths, especially those of the ship-masters, to whom it was a welcome
+landmark on that dangerous coast even by day, and still more at night,
+when the warning light in Cousin Boslaf's window streamed through the
+yawning night over the dreary waste of waters to the helpless mariner.
+The brilliant glow extended a long distance, thanks to the huge arched
+tin dish which the old man had fastened behind the lamp, and whose
+spotless brightness rivalled polished silver. This light had now burned
+seventy years, to the joy of shipmasters and fishermen and the honor of
+the worthy man who kindled it night after night at no one's bidding,
+but in simple obedience to the dictates of his own kind heart.
+
+Seventy years, and probably more rather than less; no one had counted
+them. Ever since the oldest man in that neighborhood could remember,
+Cousin Boslaf had lived in the beach-house--was it strange that he
+should be a half-mythical personage to the younger generations? He
+almost seemed so to his own relatives in Dollan, among whom he lived;
+in whose society, at least, he spent many hours; whose joys and sorrows
+he shared in his quiet way, and to whom his history was known; at least
+Curt's father had known and related it, Gotthold could not remember
+the occasion, and whether he had told the boys or--what was more
+probable--communicated it to some friends over a bottle of wine, and
+the boys had secretly listened in some corner.
+
+It was long since Gotthold had thought of this story, which reminded
+him of a time when many a beech-tree that now reared its stately head
+far above the wanderer f did not exist. But now it once more came back
+to his memory, down to the smallest details, which he really knew not
+whether he had heard at that time, imagined since, or now first learned
+from the rustling of the forest giants, and the murmur of the brook
+that accompanied his steps.
+
+"When we were under the Swedish rule," so all the stories of those days
+began, there lived on the island two cousins named Wenhof--Adolf and
+Bogislaf--both equally young, equally strong and handsome, and equally
+in love with a charming young lady, whom her father would give only to
+a rich man, for the simple reason that he had nothing but his noble
+blood and the great estate of Dahlitz, which was loaded with debts to
+an amount exceeding its value. The two cousins, it is true, did not
+belong to the nobility, but they had descended from a very good old
+family, and the Lord of Dahlitz would have made no objection to either,
+except the one he was unfortunately obliged to make to both, namely,
+that they were, if possible, poorer than himself. In fact, neither
+possessed anything except a good rifle with the hunting equipments
+belonging to it, and a pair of stout boots, whose thick soles crossed
+the thresholds of their many friends on the island, where they were
+everywhere welcome companions in the hunt or at the board. Of equal
+height, and almost similar cast of features, they also did everything
+alike, or so nearly alike that the hospitable, cheery land-owners saw
+one enter the courtyard no less gladly than the other, and were still
+better pleased when both appeared, which was almost always the case,
+for the two cousins loved each other much more warmly than most
+brothers, and as for their passion for the beautiful Ulrica of Dahlitz,
+their hopes of possessing her were so small that it was not worth while
+to quarrel about it.
+
+Just at that time something happened which at one blow completely
+altered their situation, or at least the situation of one of them.
+
+A very wealthy and eccentric uncle in Sweden died, who, besides his
+property in that country, had an estate on the island to bequeath,
+namely, beautiful Dollan, which at that time included the forest down
+to the sea-coast, and all the land across the wide moor to the
+Schanzenberge. This estate he now left to the two cousins, or rather to
+one of them, for according to the singular wording of the will it was
+to go to the one whom a jury of six of his acquaintances should
+pronounce the "best man." Everybody laughed when this strange condition
+was made known, and the cousins laughed too. But they soon became very
+serious when they considered that not only Dollan was at stake, but
+Ulrica von Dahlitz, whom her father would joyfully give in marriage to
+the owner of Dollan. It was strange to see the two cousins, who had
+hitherto been inseparable, now begin to take separate paths, and, when
+they could not avoid each other, measure each other with grave,
+questioning, almost hostile looks, which seemed to say: I am the better
+man.
+
+In the bottom of his heart each was obliged to confess, and did
+acknowledge, that the matter was at least very doubtful; and so thought
+and said the six judges whom the two cousins had chosen, and whose
+decision they had promised to obey. But all six were blameless young
+men, who set about their difficult task very gravely and solemnly, and
+held long, very long consultations, during which immense quantities of
+good old red wine were drunk, and a vast number of pipes was smoked,
+until they at last came to the following conclusion, which was
+universally praised as a wise and perfectly suitable one.
+
+The cousin who should best perform six tasks to be given by the judges,
+should be considered by them and the world the best man.
+
+The cousins would now have been in a very unfortunate situation, if the
+judges had obtained their wisdom from any philosophical or learned
+book; but no one of them had even thought of such a thing. The best
+man, according to their standard, would be he who, in the first place,
+should be able in the presence of the judges, within forty-eight hours,
+to put a three-years-old stallion, which had never been mounted,
+through the four principal paces--the walk, the trot, the gallop, and
+the run; secondly, cross the moor of Dollan, from the manor-house to
+the old smithy, with a team of four fiery young horses, going at full
+gallop, on a certain line; thirdly, swim from the shore to a ship
+anchored a German mile away in the offing; fourthly, from sunset to
+sunrise--it was in June, and the nights were short--drink a dozen
+bottles of wine; and fifthly, during that time play Boston with three
+of the judges without making any great mistakes. But if, as was almost
+expected, the judges even then could not decide, the cousins were to
+have twelve shots with a rifle at a target placed at a distance of two
+hundred and fifty paces, and the one who could hit the centre most
+frequently should be "the best man," and the owner of Dollan.
+
+This sixth and last trial was really a last resource, upon which the
+judges had decided very unwillingly; for every child knew that Bogislaf
+was not only the better shot of the two, but the best on the whole
+island; still the matter must be settled in some way, and as Adolf,
+perhaps hoping that he should win the prize before that test was
+reached, made no objection to number six, everything was decided and
+the contest could begin.
+
+It began and continued as had been universally expected. The two young
+sons of Anak rode their horses, guided their carriages, swam their
+mile, drank their twelve bottles of wine, and played their Boston with
+such equal skill and faultlessness, that the most scrupulous eye could
+detect no difference in the merit of the performance, and with heavy
+hearts the judges were obliged to proceed to the last trial, whose
+result was not doubtful.
+
+And heavy, heavy as a hundred-pound weight poor Adolf's heart might
+well have felt in his brave breast, when he appeared on the ground on
+the momentous day. He was very much depressed, and the secret
+encouragement of the judges, who wished him well, did not cheer him.
+"It is all useless now," he murmured.
+
+But, strangely enough, Bogislaf seemed no less moved, nay, even more
+agitated than his cousin. He was pale, his large blue eyes looked dim
+and sunken, and his particular friends noticed, to their horror, that
+when the cousins shook hands, as they always did before every contest,
+his hand--his strong brown hand--trembled like that of a timid girl.
+
+The cousins, who were to fire alternately, drew lots; Adolf had the
+first shot. He was a long time in taking aim, raised and lowered his
+gun several times, and finally hit the last ring but one.
+
+"I knew it beforehand," he said, covering his eyes, and would have
+liked to stop his ears; but he listened intently, and drew a long
+breath, when instead of the "centre" he expected, the number of the
+last ring on the target was mentioned, and repeated in a loud tone by
+one of the judges.
+
+Was it possible? Well then, there was still hope. Adolf collected all
+his powers; he shot better and better, three, four, six, nine, and ten,
+and again six and ten; and Bogislaf always remained one ring behind
+him, neither more nor less--always one ring.
+
+"He is playing with him, as a cat plays with a mouse," the judges said
+to each other after the first three shots had been fired.
+
+But Bogislaf grew paler, and his hand trembled more and more violently
+at every trial, and only grew steady at the moment when he discharged
+the gun; but he was always one ring behind Adolf, and now came the last
+shot, the worst Adolf had made. In his terrible excitement he had just
+grazed the outer edge of the target; if Bogislaf now hit the centre, he
+would be the victor: the result of the long struggle, the magnificent
+estate, the beautiful bride--all, all depended upon that one shot.
+
+Pale as death, Bogislaf stepped forward, but his hand no longer
+trembled; firmly, as if his arm and the gun were one, he took aim, the
+glittering barrel did not swerve a hair's breadth, and now the report
+crashed upon the stillness. "It has hit the mark," said the judges.
+
+The markers went forward and sought again and again, they could not
+find the bullet; the judges also went to the spot and searched and
+searched, but they could not find it either. The unprecedented, almost
+incredible thing had happened--Bogislaf had not even hit the target.
+
+The judges looked at each other in perplexity, and for poor Bogislaf's
+sake scarcely ventured to utter what must be said. But Bogislaf went up
+to his cousin, who stood with downcast eyes, as if ashamed of his
+victory, seized his hand, and evidently wished to say something which
+did not escape his pale, quivering lips. But it could not have been a
+curse, for he fell sobbing on Adolf's neck, pressed him to his heart,
+then released him, and without uttering a word, strode away and
+disappeared.
+
+He remained absent. Many supposed he had killed himself; others
+declared that he had buried himself in the northern part of Norway amid
+the ice and snow to hunt bears and wolves; and they were perhaps right.
+
+At all events, he was not dead, but after an absence of several years
+suddenly appeared on the estate of a friend who had been one of the
+judges, and here his cousin Adolf and his young wife Ulrica met
+him--quite accidentally, for they had not heard of his return, and the
+young wife was so startled that she fell fainting on the floor, and was
+restored to consciousness with great difficulty. To be sure, she had
+always been one of those who believed Bogislaf dead, and had already
+had several discussions on the subject with her husband, who always
+asserted the contrary. It was said that this was by no means the only
+point of difference between the husband and wife, and there were in
+truth many things which did not increase the happiness of the young
+pair. True, the extravagant old Lord of Dahlitz, who had sold his
+property to a Herr Brandow--Carl Brandow's great-grandfather--and then
+lived very contentedly on his son-in-law for several years, was now
+dead, but the daughter had inherited her father's expensive tastes, and
+Adolf was anything but a good economist.
+
+This last quality certainly did not prevent him from doing what the
+simplest gratitude required;--and therefore--in spite of his wife's
+opposition--he invited poor Bogislaf to visit him at Dollan and remain
+as long as possible. At first Bogislaf positively refused, and with
+good reason. The cause of the result of the shooting match had now
+transpired! It was known that the evening before the contest Ulrica had
+sent her cousin and most intimate friend, Emma von Dahlitz, a poor
+orphan who lived with her wealthy relatives, to Bogislaf with the
+message: she would never, never, though everybody should declare him to
+be the best man, accept him for her husband, but Adolf, whom she always
+had loved, and always should. Then Bogislaf, as he no longer had any
+hope of winning the girl he loved, generously resigned to his cousin a
+property which no longer had any charm for him.
+
+He long refused to accept his fortunate cousin's invitation, but
+finally came--for only a week. But the days had become weeks, the weeks
+months, and the months years, so that this was now the fourth
+generation which had known old Bogislaf Wenhof, or, as he was commonly
+called, Cousin Boslaf, in the beach-house of Dollan. He had removed
+there at the end of the first week, after purchasing it, together with
+the few fields and meadows belonging to it, for a very small sum from
+the government, which had originally built it for a watch-house; but
+though the beach-house did not really belong to Dollan, but was Cousin
+Boslaf's own property, Cousin Boslaf clung to Dollan all the more
+closely, so closely that the constant intercourse had filled the heads
+of the people with all sorts of superstitious fancies, in which the old
+man sometimes figured as the good, and sometimes the evil genius of
+Dollan, and especially the Wenhof family. Alas! even if he were the
+good genius, he had been unable to prevent the ruin of the house, or
+withhold the son of Adolf and Ulrica, who had many of the Dahlitz
+traits of character, from selling Dollan to the convent of St. Juergen
+at the close of the preceding century, after which he was glad to
+remain as a tenant where he had once been master. Cousin Boslaf had not
+been able to prevent that, or any of the other things which had
+happened from that time to the present day.
+
+"But what does this mean?" said Gotthold to himself. "How can one let
+his healthy brain become so bewildered by the rustling of the forest,
+the murmur of the stream, and these old tales! I believe the serpent
+has bewitched me with its cold glittering eyes, and I am still under
+its spell. But its reign is over now. There is the sea gleaming through
+the boughs, my own beloved, beautiful sea! Its fresh breath will cool
+my hot brow. And he, the old man who lives yonder, and who learned so
+early the meaning of the harsh word sacrifice; who renounced power,
+wealth, and woman's favor that he might not lose his own manhood, was
+probably the better and wiser man."
+
+Still following the course of the stream, which, now that it was so
+near its mouth, grew more noisy and impatient, falling in many a
+miniature cascade as it hurried plashing and murmuring down the ravine,
+overgrown with huge clumps of ferns and the most luxuriant grass,
+Gotthold, a few moments after, reached the shore. On the right hand,
+almost at the extreme point of the promontory, which, covered with
+large and small stones like the rest of the coast, ran out several
+hundred paces into the sea, stood Cousin Boslaf's house. The old flag,
+which Gotthold had remembered from his boyhood, still fluttered from
+the tall staff on the gable roof. It had originally been a Swedish
+banner, but in the course of years the wind and weather had so dimmed
+its colors, and made so many repairs necessary, that the authorities
+could not have taken umbrage at this relic of foreign rule, even if
+they had troubled themselves particularly about Cousin Boslaf's
+actions. This, however, they had never done, so the old flag fluttered
+and rustled and flapped merrily in the fresh breeze, which blew still
+stronger as Gotthold now stood before the low dwelling, built partly of
+unhewn stone from the shore, whose only door was on the side towards
+the land. The door was locked; he could not look into the little
+iron-barred windows on the right and left, which lighted the kitchen
+and store-room, for they were considerably above a man's height, close
+under the roof; and the strong iron shutters were put over the two
+larger windows in the front of the house, which faced the sea.
+Evidently Cousin Boslaf was not at home.
+
+"To be sure," said Gotthold, "after an absence of ten years we can't be
+surprised not to find a man who was eighty years old at the time we
+left him."
+
+And yet he could not believe that the old man was dead. He had just
+been thinking of him so eagerly, seen him so distinctly in his mind's
+eye--the tall, slender figure, walking with long, regular strides, as
+he had so often beheld him. No, no, the old man belonged to the race of
+giants; he had surely outlived this little space of time.
+
+And then the house and its surroundings--the little front yard enclosed
+by a walk, the tiny garden bordered with shells--did not look as if
+they had been left for any length of time. Everything was in order and
+painfully neat, as the old man used to keep it; the little bridge in
+the creek to which he fastened his boat had even been lately mended
+with new pieces of wood, carefully dovetailed together. But the boat
+had gone; undoubtedly cousin Boslaf had rowed out to sea in her. To be
+sure, it was not his custom, but the old man's habits might have
+altered during the last few years.
+
+The afternoon was already far advanced; the walk through the ravine to
+the beach-house had occupied more time than Gotthold expected. He would
+wait for Cousin Boslaf an hour longer, and then return to the giant's
+grave, paint until sunset, claim the hospitality of the smithy for the
+night, and early the next morning--it was to be hoped with better
+success--seek out his old friend once more. Then he could reach Prora
+at noon, and after taking leave of the Wollnows, drive on with Jochen
+without delay. He had thought yesterday of finishing the picture in
+Prora; but they would pass through the place to-morrow evening on their
+return from Plueggenhof, so Jochen had informed him, and he would not
+trust a second time to the chance which had saved him from meeting Carl
+Brandow that very morning.
+
+The young man had thrown himself down upon the shore under the shadow
+of the beeches, which here extended to the very brink of the steep
+cliff. Accustomed as he had been on his sketching excursions to satisfy
+himself for a whole day with a piece of bread and a drink from his
+flask, he now felt no hunger; but he experienced far more fatigue than
+he had usually done after longer walks. As he lay there with the
+beeches rustling over his head, and the waves breaking on the stony
+shore beneath with their monotonous cadence, his lids gradually fell
+over eyes wearied by long gazing over the boundless waste of waters.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+A few hours later, Carl Brandow and Hinrich Scheel were riding over the
+moor from the smithy to Dollan, the same road which they had passed
+over in the opposite direction not ten minutes before. They rode at a
+quick trot, the groom a few dozen paces behind his master, though not
+from any feeling of respect, and certainly not because he was worse
+mounted. On the contrary, his horse was a magnificent brown animal of
+the purest blood, far more valuable than his master's half-breed, so
+valuable in fact, that any passer-by would have wondered how such a
+noble animal could be ridden upon such an ordinary occasion. But
+Hinrich Scheel was no ordinary rider; he noticed every movement of the
+horse upon the rough road as carefully as if he were training it upon a
+smooth race-course; not the smallest awkwardness was suffered to pass
+unnoticed; it had just been guilty of a trick for which it must be
+punished; and that was the reason why he had remained a little behind.
+
+Suddenly Carl Brandow drew his rein, and half turning said, over his
+shoulder, "Are you perfectly sure you saw him?"
+
+"I told you I passed within a hundred paces of him," answered Hinrich
+Scheel sulkily; "and I had plenty of time to look at him too; I believe
+he stood up there an hour, as if he had taken root."
+
+"But why did that scoundrel of a Jochen say just now that he didn't
+know where he was?"
+
+"Perhaps he doesn't."
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!"
+
+They rode on a short distance side by side; the master staring gloomily
+straight before him, and the groom from time to time casting a sly
+glance at him from his squinting eyes. Then he urged his horse still
+nearer and said:
+
+"Why should he know? I don't know why you are running after him as a
+cat chases a mouse."
+
+"Bah!"
+
+"Nor why you came back from Plueggenhof so soon, have ridden the horses
+half to death, and gave me a louis-d'or when I told you I had seen
+him."
+
+"I'll give you six if you'll tell me where I can find him," cried Carl
+Brandow, turning eagerly in his saddle.
+
+"Where you can find him? Why that's easy enough; with the old man in
+the beach-house yonder."
+
+"Where I cannot seek him."
+
+"Without having the old man send a bullet through your body. Six
+louis-d'or! I think I should wait a long time for the money. But I will
+tell you where you can find him without the gold, if you'll let me ride
+Brownlock across the bog."
+
+"Are you crazy?"
+
+"I will cross it faster than you can cross the hill. Can I go?"
+
+Before them the road ran in a tolerably steep ascent over a hill, an
+outlying spur of the Schanzenberge on the left, which stretched some
+distance into the moor. On the right of this hill a broad tract of
+marshy land extended across the moor to the forest, where it found an
+outlet in the stream whose course to the sea Gotthold had followed that
+afternoon. The summit of the hill had undoubtedly sunk into the marsh
+years before, for the long mound of earth divided it like a wall, which
+at the time it was engulfed had doubtless been very steep, but in the
+course of years had been so much washed away by the trickling of water
+down the hillside that, it now formed an irregular slope, along whose
+upper edge ran the old carriage road, while farther up the acclivity
+large stones made the way impassable for vehicles, although horsemen
+and pedestrians might wind through. The condition of affairs had
+probably not been so bad when Bogislaf and Adolf Wenhof were obliged to
+drive their horses along here at full gallop, for now no man in his
+senses would pass the spot in a carriage except at a walk, and Jochen
+Prebrow was perfectly right when he said that it would have been easy
+for him--or any one else--to execute Curt's wild order, and hurl the
+young pair down the slope into the bog on their wedding day.
+
+The riders had stopped their horses; Carl Brandow looked up the hill
+and over the marsh.
+
+"You are crazy," he said again.
+
+"Crazy or not," exclaimed Hinrich Scheel impatiently, "it must be done.
+I went to Salchow this morning to hear what Mr. Thompson had to say.
+The fellow always knows everything, and declares that they have
+enclosed a piece of marshy ground in the race-course for Brownlock's
+special benefit, because they think he is too heavy to cross it, and
+you'll be obliged to take a wide sweep around. Well, sir, if you make
+the victory so easy for Bessy, Count Grieben and the other gentlemen
+will be very well satisfied, and I can be satisfied too."
+
+"You would be no better, suited than I," said Brandow, and then
+muttered between his teeth: "everything is all of a piece now."
+
+"Shall I?" said Hinrich Scheel, who probably perceived his master's
+irresolution.
+
+"For aught I care."
+
+A ray of joy flitted over Hinrich's ugly face. He turned the horse,
+which had long been champing his bit impatiently, and galloped a
+hundred paces to the left, to the edge of the marsh, then paused and
+shouted:
+
+"Ready?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Now!"
+
+Brownlock sprang forward with a mighty leap, and then flew over the
+marshy ground. Again and again his light hoofs broke through the thin
+covering of turf, so that the water dashed high into the air, but his
+wild speed did not lessen, on the contrary it seemed to increase, as if
+the noble animal knew a bottomless gulf was yawning under him, and that
+he was running for his own life and that of his daring rider. And now
+the quaking soil grew visibly firmer. The deed scarcely believed
+possible had been accomplished, Brownlock had crossed the marsh, and
+would cross any other. "There is no doubt now," muttered Brandow, "I
+can accept every bet; and am I to let Plueggen have the animal for the
+paltry sum of five thousand thalers! I should be a fool! Besides, he
+probably was not in earnest; but the money must be forthcoming, even if
+I should have to steal or commit a murder for it. Holloa!"
+
+He had not turned his eyes from Brownlock, as he rode across the hill
+at a gallop without noticing where he was going, until his chestnut,
+accustomed to pass this place at a walk, recoiled from the edge so
+suddenly that the gravel and pebbles rolled down the slope.
+
+"Holloa!" cried Brandow again, as he soothed the frightened animal, "I
+came very near committing the murder on myself."
+
+He rode down the other side of the hill more cautiously, and then
+dashed up to Hinrich, who was galloping up and down the edge of the
+bog, trying to soothe the snorting racer.
+
+"What do you say to that, sir?"
+
+"That you are a capital fellow; and now, since you have had your own
+way, where do you think I shall find him?"
+
+"On the giant's grave," said Hinrich; "I went up there after he had
+gone away, and found a thing like a box. There was a little key
+sticking in it, and it held his painting tools, as I saw. The box had
+been put carefully in the shade; but about six o'clock the sunlight
+will fall where the shadow rested this morning, and I think he will be
+on the spot at that time."
+
+"And why didn't you tell me so at once?"
+
+"You may be satisfied that I didn't tell you," answered Hinrich,
+tenderly patting Brownlock's slender neck. "You wouldn't have known
+that you are, I don't know how many thousand thalers richer than you
+supposed."
+
+"It is six o'clock," said Brandow, looking at his watch.
+
+"Then ride on and find him. I must take Brownlock home. Shall I tell
+Frau Brandow that we shall have a visitor this evening?"
+
+"I don't know that yet myself."
+
+"She would be so delighted."
+
+"Be off, and hold your tongue."
+
+A repulsive grin overspread Hinrich's grotesque face, and he cast a
+piercing glance at his master, but made no reply, turned Brownlock, and
+rode slowly away.
+
+"I might just as well tell him everything," said Carl Brandow to
+himself, as he turned his horse's head and rode over the moor towards
+the forest. "I believe the damned fellow sees through me as if I were
+glass. No matter; everybody must have some one on whom he can depend,
+and certainly I could not have done without him this time. I've no
+desire to invite the stupid fellow, but it is one chance more, and I
+should be a fool to hesitate long in my present situation."
+
+Carl Brandow dropped the reins on his horse's neck as he rode slowly up
+the rough forest path at a walk, and drew from his pocket a letter
+which he had found on his return home, half an hour before:
+
+
+"Dear Sir:--I hasten to inform you that, as I expected and told you, it
+was unanimously decided by the convent yesterday not to give an
+extension of credit, upon any account, but on the contrary to hold you
+to the promise given, both verbally and in writing, and require the ten
+thousand on the day it becomes due. I am very sorry to be obliged to
+write this to you, after what you told me in confidence; but I firmly
+believe that--with your excitable nature--you have considered your
+situation more desperate than it really is. In any case, I think it is
+better for you to know where you stand, and be able to use the week
+that still remains to discover new resources, if the old ones are
+really so entirely exhausted.
+
+"I intend to pay you a short visit on the 15th, as I must go to several
+estates at that time, and can, if agreeable to you, take the money back
+with me and save you the trouble of a journey here. Perhaps my wife
+will accompany me. She is very anxious to see Dollan, of whose romantic
+situation I have spoken so enthusiastically, and also renew her
+acquaintance with her old friends--Frau Wollnow in Prora and your
+wife--after an absence of so many years. Do you require any stronger
+proof of my conviction that you can separate the messenger from his
+message, and that both to you and your lovely wife, I am as ever, Your
+sincere friend,   Bernhard Sellien."
+
+"P. S. I have just learned something that greatly interests me, and may
+perhaps interest you also. Gotthold Weber, the distinguished artist
+whose acquaintance I made two years ago in Italy, and with whom you, as
+you afterwards informed me, have been intimate ever since your school
+days, passed through Sundin to-day on his way to Prora, where he
+intends to spend some time. He will undoubtedly seek you out, or
+perhaps you will seek him. He belongs to the class of people whom we
+are glad to find, even if we are obliged to go out of our way to do
+so."
+
+
+Carl Brandow laughed scornfully as he put the letter back into his
+pocket and took up the reins again.
+
+"I believe the devil has his finger in the pie. Ever since I have known
+that the man will come here, I have been pursued by the thought that
+he, and only he, can save me. Why? Probably because only a fool would
+take the trouble, and he is the greatest one I ever knew. And while I
+drove by under his very nose this morning, everybody rushes forward to
+put me on the track he so carefully conceals. It was plain that the man
+Jochen dared not tell where he was, either this morning or just now,
+but he belongs to the class of people for whom we are willing to go out
+of our way. And what a charming surprise it will be for her, if I can
+bring him to her."
+
+Again the rider laughed, even more bitterly than before, then stopped
+suddenly, gnawing his under lip with his teeth as he struck with his
+riding-whip at the overhanging boughs.
+
+"How pale she grew when the parson blundered out the news. Of course
+she did not wish it to be noticed, of course. But unluckily we observe
+everything in a person with whom we have enjoyed the pleasure of daily
+intercourse for nine or ten years! How she looked when I took my
+departure so soon after, as if she knew the cause, and how silent she
+was on the way, although I exerted all my powers of pleasing. She no
+longer believes in my amiability, nor I either; but I have so often
+vexed her about the man that I might surely make him afford her
+pleasure for once. And if, as is very probable, the silly swain is
+playing at hide and seek more on her account than mine--why it will be
+all the easier to lead him by the nose, and the affair will be all the
+more amusing. But, to be sure, I must catch him first. Well, we shall
+see directly."
+
+Carl Brandow swung himself from the saddle, fastened his horse's bridle
+to a tree, and began to ascend the narrow foot-path through the wood to
+the giant's grave.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Gotthold had already been working for half an hour with the zeal of an
+artist who has enthusiastically seized upon his subject, and must take
+advantage of the present hour, which will not return. Though sky,
+earth, and sea should adorn themselves at to-morrow's sunset with the
+same brilliant hues, though the hill should cast the same deep shadows
+upon the valley and ravines--he would not stand upon the same spot
+again to replace what had been forgotten, and complete what had been
+begun.
+
+So he sat upon one of the lower stones of the giant's grave, drinking
+in, with an artist's glowing eyes, the beauty of the scene and hour,
+and with an artist's busy hand creating an image of this beauty. The
+colors on the palette seemed to mingle of their own accord, and every
+stroke of the brush upon the little square of canvas brought the image
+nearer its original with a speed and certainty which astonished the
+artist himself. Never before had any work progressed so rapidly, never
+had design and execution met so lovingly, never had the enthusiastic
+feeling of power made him so happy.
+
+"Is it possible the dream that here alone I can reach the standard I am
+destined to attain may be something more than a dream?" he said to
+himself, "and is the hidden wisdom of the ancient myth of Antaeus to be
+proved again in me? But to be sure we are all sons of earth; it is not
+our mother's fault if we struggle toward the distant suns, in whose
+strange glow our waxen wings quickly melt. I was such an Icarus
+yonder." "Yes, yes," he exclaimed aloud, "Rome, Naples, Syracuse, you
+Paradises of artists, what is this poor slip of earth in comparison
+with you! And yet to me it is more, so much more, it is my home."
+
+"To which an old friend bids you heartily welcome," said a clear voice
+behind him.
+
+Gotthold started and turned.
+
+"Carl Brandow!"
+
+There he stood, his slight, elastic figure resting against the very
+block upon which the serpent had lain that morning; and his round, hard
+eyes, whose piercing gaze was fixed upon him, reminded Gotthold of the
+staring eyes of the reptile.
+
+"To be sure it is I," said Carl Brandow, as he came forward with a
+smile intended to be friendly, but which was as cold as the hand he
+held out to Gotthold, and in which the latter hesitatingly placed the
+tips of his fingers.
+
+"How did you find me here?" asked Gotthold.
+
+"I am an old hunter," replied Brandow, showing his white teeth.
+"Nothing escapes me so easily, especially on my own ground. But I will
+not boast. The matter was really simple enough. I knew several weeks
+ago that you were coming, and this afternoon I heard, when with
+Plueggen, of Plueggenhof, Otto Plueggen, we used to call him Straw
+Plueggen, you know, to distinguish him from his younger brother, Gustav,
+Hay Plueggen, who has inherited Gransewitz--I was saying: I heard from
+our new Pastor that you had been in Rammin yesterday evening, and had
+driven on to Prora. Of course Plueggen, at my request, instantly sent
+his carriage to bring you to Plueggenhof; you were no longer there, but
+had set out on foot with Jochen Prebrow for Dollan. Well, of course I
+did not remain in Plueggenhof a moment longer, although we had just sat
+down to the table to receive you with full glasses. I drove my horses
+half to death, and nearly killed my poor wife with fright, in order at
+least to meet you on the way, in case you had been cruel enough not to
+wait for our return. We arrived and asked for you before we got out of
+the carriage: no one had been there. My wife and I looked at each other
+in horror. 'There is somebody sitting on the giant's grave,' said my
+factotum, Hinrich Scheel, who now came up to the carriage; 'I saw him
+there this noon.' 'It's not impossible,' said my wife, that 'he has
+learned on the way that we were not at home, and, industrious as usual,
+is making use of the time. It was always one of his favorite spots.' I
+said nothing, but ran up to the gable-room with my spy-glass, and saw
+what Hinrich, in spite of his squint eyes, had seen without any glass;
+ran down again, jumped on a horse, and--find here what I sought. That
+painting is wonderfully beautiful, really splendid; but now pack up
+your traps, if you please! Another day is coming, and this is enough,
+and too much for the present. From noon until now is certainly long
+enough, even for an artist. How delighted my wife will be!"
+
+Carl Brandow had already thrown Gotthold's travelling bag over his
+shoulder, and now seized the box which the latter had been arranging.
+
+"One moment," said Gotthold.
+
+"You can safely trust me with your treasures."
+
+"That is not the point."
+
+"What is it then?"
+
+Gotthold hesitated; but there was no time for deliberation.
+
+"It is this," said he; "I cannot accept your invitation, kindly as it
+is expressed and honestly as, I wish to believe, it is meant."
+
+"For Heaven's sake, why not?"
+
+"Because in so doing I should wrong myself, and, in a certain sense,
+you also. Myself: because I could not stay in Dollan, in your house,
+without being at every step, at every moment, a prey to the most
+painful memories; and who would not willingly spare himself such a
+trial, if he could avoid it? You: because--it must be said, Brandow! I
+have always considered you my enemy, and my sentiments towards you have
+been no friendly ones, even up to this very day, this very hour. Who
+would invite a man who is not well disposed towards him to his house!"
+
+"Is it possible?" cried Brandow. "Then that straw head of a Plueggen and
+the Parson may have been right when they said: 'He won't come!' 'He
+will come,' said I, 'if only to prove that he is still the generous
+fellow he always was!' No, Gotthold, you must not give me the lie, if
+only on account of those silly fellows, and people like them, who would
+then have another fine opportunity to make merry over Carl Brandow, who
+always aims very high and then comes out at the little end of the horn.
+Well, unhappily there is something in it: I am no longer what I was
+once, but a poor devil who must learn to be modest; but this time I
+won't be, just this time. And now your hand, old enemy! there, that's
+right! I knew you better than you knew yourself."
+
+They began to descend the hill, Brandow, who insisted upon carrying
+Gotthold's luggage, still talking eagerly in his hasty, often
+incoherent manner, Gotthold silent and vainly trying to shake off the
+bewilderment that clouded his brain and oppressed his heart; he had
+tried to be frank, perfectly frank; but he had not been so: he had not
+said the last thing because he could not, because he must appear like a
+fool, a coxcomb, if he did, and like a rude unmannerly boor if he did
+not, and simply answered: I will not. But would not even that have been
+better than for them to meet again?
+
+Gotthold stood still, and threw back his coat and vest; he felt as if
+he were stifling.
+
+"It's terribly sultry here in the wood," said Carl Brandow. "It would
+have been much nearer if we had gone down the other side, and then
+crossed the fields; but we were obliged to make this circuit to get my
+horse. There stands the rascal, stamping his shoes off in his
+impatience. Now then, en avant!"
+
+Brandow threw the bridle over his arm and Gotthold took a portion of
+his luggage, so they walked quickly through the woods by a cross path,
+which soon brought them out into the fields. At a short distance, only
+separated from them by a few meadows and a broad field of rye, stood
+the manor-house, already partly in the shadow which the hill on the
+left-hand side of the moor cast far into the valley, while the tops of
+the taller trees in the garden and the crests of the huge poplars,
+which enclosed the grounds on the three other sides, still glowed in
+the light of the setting sun. The little window of the gable-room
+glittered and flashed back his rays. Gotthold could scarcely turn his
+eyes away; he fancied every moment that it must open and Cecilia appear
+and wave her white hand towards him with a gesture of warning: no
+nearer, for God's sake, no nearer! And then it seemed to him as if he
+were once more back in the old days, when he used to come out with Curt
+to spend a precious Saturday afternoon and delightful Sunday, and in
+their impatience to reach their goal they ran the last part of the way
+at full speed. At every step his agitation increased; he scarcely heard
+what his companion was saying to him.
+
+But Carl Brandow was only talking in order to conceal from his guest
+the anxiety that oppressed him. Would it not have been better to have
+told her of his design, even at the risk of her opposition, or, still
+worse, of affording her pleasure? Ought he not at least to have taken
+advantage of the last opportunity, and prepared her for the visit by
+Hinrich Scheel, instead of expressly commanding him to be silent? Or
+would the clever fellow once more, as he had often done, follow his own
+counsel and guide an ill-managed affair into the right course? And yet,
+what could happen if he suddenly appeared before her with him? Would
+she give him the lie in the presence of her guest, say she had known
+nothing about his visit, and her husband had told an untruth? It was
+certainly possible; but woe be unto her if she did so.
+
+"Here we are," said Carl Brandow, as they reached the old linden before
+the door. "Welcome to Dollan! Welcome!"
+
+He had spoken in a very loud tone, standing in the open doorway, and
+now shouted, raising his clear voice to its highest pitch, "Hinrich,
+Fritz!--where are they all?"
+
+But there was no movement within the house, and no one appeared in the
+courtyard.
+
+"It is always just so on Sundays," said Brandow, "Everybody runs wild,
+especially if the master is away from home. Rike! Hinrich! Fritz!"
+
+A half-grown lad, in a dirty red waistcoat and top boots, now came
+running across the courtyard, and at the same moment a young girl
+appeared from the house. Brandow received both with angry words. The
+girl answered pertly: she had been with the mistress, who could not
+quiet the child; it was still crying about its arm; and the boy
+muttered as he took the horse's bridle: he had been obliged to help
+Hinrich about Brownlock; he was threatened with the colic.
+
+"Deuce take it!" cried Brandow; "that damned Hinrich, this is what I
+get by letting him have his own way! I must leave you alone a moment,
+or will you come with me?"
+
+Brandow did not wait for Gotthold's reply, but hurried across the
+courtyard with long strides. He must know what was the matter with
+Brownlock. And then: Cecilia had enough to do in the nursery; she would
+not come out at present.
+
+"What is the matter with the child?" asked Gotthold.
+
+"She fell down just as the mistress got home, and has probably broken
+her arm," said the girl, who had been gazing curiously at the stranger
+with her merry gray eyes, and now hurried back into the house.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+
+
+Gotthold followed her through the entry and into the sitting-room on
+the left, and would gladly have entered the adjoining chamber, from
+which, as the girl opened and closed the door, the wailing of a child
+and a woman's voice consoling it were distinctly audible. It was her
+voice,--somewhat deeper and more gentle, it seemed to him, than in the
+old days, but he had only distinguished a few tones above the moaning
+of the child.
+
+"Poor thing," he murmured, "poor child, if I could only help it."
+
+His hand was extended towards the handle of the door, but instantly
+fell again. If the girl had told her he was there, she would probably
+come out for a moment; at any rate Carl must soon return.
+
+He stationed himself at the open window and looked across the empty
+courtyard towards the building Brandow had entered. How could he stay
+so long! He again turned back into the room, which was already
+beginning to grow dark, and his eyes wandered mechanically over the
+furniture and pictures, many of which he thought he recognized, while
+his ear was strained to catch the sounds from the next room. But
+everything there had now become quiet, and in the stillness the old
+Black Forest clock ticked so loudly--he had not noticed it before--the
+evening breeze whispered in the linden before the window, and then once
+more he heard nothing except the blood beating in his temples.
+
+Had any misfortune happened? Was the child--he must have some
+certainty.
+
+But just as he took a step forward, the door opened and Cecilia
+entered. The girl had told her nothing about the stranger; she came to
+get a piece of linen from her work-basket, which stood in one of the
+windows. The shadows fell heavily over Gotthold, and she did not see
+him--her eyes were turned towards the window--until she had almost
+reached him, when she suddenly paused, extending both hands in terror
+towards the dark figure. The light of the setting sun streamed full
+upon her pallid face, from which the large dark eyes stared with a
+strange glassy look.
+
+"It is I, Cecilia!"
+
+"Gotthold!"
+
+He did not know that he held out his arms; the next moment he would not
+have been able to say whether she had really rested upon his breast.
+When he was again conscious of what was passing around him, he was
+standing beside her at the child's little bed.
+
+"The girl was playing with Gretchen just before we came home--she fell
+with her arm under her; I thought she had only bruised it; but it has
+grown worse and worse, she cannot move it, and cries at the slightest
+touch; I think she has broken it here above the wrist."
+
+Gotthold had bent over the child, who gazed at him in surprise, but
+without the least alarm. He thought he was looking into Cecilia's eyes.
+
+"Are you the new doctor?" asked the little girl.
+
+"No, Gretchen, I am not a doctor, but if you love your mamma you will
+let me take hold of your arm."
+
+"It hurts so," said Gretchen.
+
+"I won't be long."
+
+Gotthold took the little arm and moved it at the shoulder and
+elbow--the child made no resistance; then he passed his hand carefully
+down the lower arm to the joint and bent the wrist a little. The child
+uttered a low cry. Gotthold laid the arm gently back on the coverlet
+and stood erect.
+
+"I think I can assure you that the arm is not broken; it is nothing
+more than a severe sprain. I should like to put on a bandage, which
+will relieve Gretchen's pain, because it will prevent her from moving
+the joint. That will be sufficient until the doctor comes. May I?"
+
+He had spoken in a low tone, but the child heard.
+
+"Let him do it, mamma," she said; "I like the new doctor a great deal
+better than the old one."
+
+A few large tears ran down Cecilia's pale cheeks, and Gotthold's own
+eyes grew hot. He asked whether she had a certain kind of bandage which
+he described; one was brought, exactly what he needed. As he rolled it
+he said:
+
+"It is fortunate, that during the years I spent in study I visited, in
+the interests of my art and also from real love of the profession,
+various anatomical and other medical colleges. I have already been
+able, on several occasions, to make my little knowledge useful, when no
+other aid was at hand and the case was rather worse than this. I
+repeat, there is not the least danger, and I would, if necessary,
+undertake to effect a cure without the least hesitation."
+
+"I have perfect confidence in you."
+
+Gotthold's lips quivered. They had always addressed each other by the
+familiar "thou," nor had he, either in dreams or waking visions, called
+her by any other title during the last ten years.
+
+The bandage was adjusted to Gotthold's satisfaction. Gretchen,
+exhausted by weeping, and now entirely free from pain, had laid her
+head on her pillow and seemed about to fall asleep. Gotthold left the
+chamber and went back to the sitting-room. While groping about in the
+dark for his hat, the most singular sensation overpowered him.
+
+He had not forgotten that he wished to find Brandow and tell him of the
+child's condition, but it seemed as if the intention was entirely
+unnecessary; as if Carl Brandow cared as little about the child as he
+did about Carl Brandow's horse; as if only he and Cecilia had anything
+to do with it, and as though this had been not only during the last
+quarter of an hour, but always, and could never be different.
+
+Oppressed by this strange bewilderment, he stood motionless, and only
+regained his senses when Cecilia entered quietly, but hastily, held out
+both hands to him, and said in a low, rapid tone:
+
+"I thank thee, Gotthold, and--I noticed that the formal 'you' wounded
+thee, but the girl was looking at us in such astonishment; she repeats
+everything, and besides, it must be, but once--for the last time--I
+wanted to speak in the old way, as thou wert here once more."
+
+"That sounds, Cecilia, as if you[2] had not wished me to come."
+
+She had now released her hands, which he had clasped firmly in his own,
+and thrown herself into a chair by the window, supporting her head on
+her hand. He went up to her.
+
+"Cecilia, did you not wish me to come?"
+
+"Yes, yes," she murmured, "I have longed to see you again--for
+years--always; but you ought not to have come; no, you ought not to
+have come!"
+
+"Then I will go, Cecilia."
+
+"No, no," she exclaimed, hastily raising her head, "I do not mean that.
+You are here--the mischief is done. And now you can stay--you must stay
+until--"
+
+She paused suddenly. Gotthold, who was following the direction of
+her eyes, glanced through the open window and saw at the end of the
+court-yard Carl Brandow talking with Hinrich Scheel, whom he now left
+and came hurriedly towards the house.
+
+"He has returned already," she murmured; "what will you say to him?"
+
+"I don't understand you, Cecilia,"
+
+"He hates you."
+
+"Then I don't know why he sought me out and gave me such a pressing
+invitation to his home, which I certainly had never intended to enter."
+
+"He sought you out--invited you--that is impossible."
+
+"Then he meant to make me--us--but that is no less impossible."
+
+She looked at him in astonishment.
+
+"Impossible!" she said, "impossible!"
+
+A strange, sad smile flitted over her pale face.
+
+"Then everything can remain as it was," she said, "it is all right."
+
+"Holloa!" cried Brandow, who had seen them both at the window, and now
+quickened his already hasty steps and eagerly waved his hand.
+
+He entered the room immediately, after calling from the door: "Ah! so
+you have found her already! Isn't this a surprise, eh? What am I to get
+for it? Ah! a man must be cunning. Not a word to the wife, who would
+make all sorts of well-meant objections about old enmity and other
+long-forgotten follies; and then tell the friend she will be on
+tenter-hooks till I bring him home. That's the way to catch one's
+birds!"
+
+He laughed loudly.
+
+"You will wake Gretchen," said Cecilia.
+
+"Yes, what is the matter with her?" asked Brandow, lowering his voice.
+"I hope it is nothing serious, a false alarm, as it was with Brownlock,
+or--where are you going, Cecilia?"
+
+She had risen and entered the next room, closing the door behind her.
+Gotthold informed Carl how he had found the child, and what he had done
+for the present.
+
+"But shall we need to send for the doctor at once?" said Brandow.
+
+"I do not think it absolutely necessary," replied Gotthold, "but if you
+are at all anxious--"
+
+"I anxious? God forbid! It would be the first time in my life. I leave
+all that to my wife, who, if the child is in question--oh! here you
+are! Gotthold says we need not send for Lauterbach immediately, and
+besides it would be of very little use; he is never to be found on
+Sundays. I shall be obliged to drive over early to-morrow morning and
+then I can bring him back with me. Don't you think that will do?"
+
+"Will you look at Gretchen again?" said Cecilia. She did not glance at
+her husband, but addressed Gotthold, who followed her, leaving the door
+open behind him, in the expectation that Brandow would go with them;
+but he had paused half way. Gnawing his under lip, he looked through
+the open door at the pair, who were now standing one on each side of
+the child's little bed, bending over it, so that in the dusk their
+faces seemed to touch. Were they not whispering: "he has deceived us,"
+or something of the kind? No, it was Rieke who had spoken. "The girl
+shall keep a sharp watch for me. So far everything has gone better than
+I could expect."
+
+He went slowly into the room; involuntarily pausing a moment upon the
+threshold, which he had not crossed for a long time, and shrinking from
+a bluish light that suddenly filled the apartment, now almost dark. But
+it was nothing--only the first flash of lightning from a thunder-storm
+which had risen at the close of the sultry day. Thunder rolled in the
+distance, the trees in the garden swayed to and fro, and a few heavy
+drops of rain plashed against the window-panes.
+
+The storm had long subsided and the night was far advanced when
+Gotthold, treading softly and carefully, shielding his light with his
+hand, crossed the wide garretlike entry, lumbered with all sorts of
+articles, towards the gable-room, which had been assigned him as his
+sleeping apartment. Brandow, with whom he had been sitting until this
+time over a bottle of wine in the room on the right-hand side of the
+entry, which had always been appropriated by the master of the house,
+had wished to accompany him, but Gotthold declined: he could find the
+way; two pairs of boots made more noise than one, and he remembered
+that footsteps on the upper floor sounded remarkably loud at night.
+"Well then, go alone, you stickler for everybody's comfort," said
+Brandow laughing, "and remember, sleep off all thoughts of going away
+to-morrow; I tell you once for all I won't hear of it. I'll stop for
+Jochen Prebrow as I pass the smithy to-morrow; he can sit on the box
+with my Fritz, and I'll bring your luggage out to you. I shan't let you
+leave under a week, and if I had my way you should stay here always.
+But you'll take good care not to do that; such a life would be
+unendurable to a man of the world. Well, I have complained of my fate
+more than is seemly; but in the presence of a man of your stamp, one is
+too painfully reminded of what he might perhaps have made himself, and
+what he has finally become. Good night, old fellow, and pleasant
+dreams!"
+
+And now Gotthold stood at the open window in the cosy old gable-room.
+But eagerly as he inhaled the night breeze, which blew fresh and cool
+through the trees, still dripping with rain-drops, it did not lighten
+his heart, which throbbed heavily and painfully in his panting breast,
+like a sleeper whose brain is oppressed by some painful dream. Was it
+not all a mad dream that he was standing in Dollan in the gable-room,
+gazing at the dim light which fell upon the dark shrubbery from the
+window below him, the window of the room where she had slept when a
+girl, and in which she now watched beside the bed of her child, her
+child and his--
+
+Gotthold sank into a chair beside the window, and pressed his hands
+upon his burning brow.
+
+A gust of wind which sighed through the rustling trees roused him
+from his painful reverie. He started up with a shiver. His limbs
+trembled as if in a fever. He shut the window, and threw himself in
+the darkness--the light he had brought with him had gone out long
+before--upon the bed. It was the very same one in which he had so often
+slept when a boy and a youth, and it stood in the same place. He had
+noticed that when he entered the room. Now he thought of it again, and
+remembered the last time he had lain here--ten years ago, in the early
+morning after the night, the first part of which he had spent in the
+beach-house with Cousin Boslaf, and a few hours after, when they were
+awake below, he was to go down and bid them farewell forever--then too
+he; had turned his burning head first on one side and then the other
+upon the pillows, and had been unable to find rest anywhere.
+
+"After wandering through the wide world so long to be whirled back to
+this little room, the same as I was then! No, not the same! Poorer,
+much poorer!
+
+
+            When I wandered away, away, away,
+              Coffers and chests were heavy;
+            As homeward I turn my steps to-day,
+              Everything is empty.
+
+
+"Empty, empty!" he murmured, as if his burning, wakeful eyes could read
+the cheerless words from the white wall opposite to him, on whose bare
+surface the first gray light of dawn was struggling with the darkness
+of night.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+A succession of quiet days had passed over quiet Dollan, and each one
+was to have been the last Gotthold spent upon the estate, but there was
+always some reason why another was added. Once it was the unfinished
+sketch, which must be more nearly completed; then Gretchen wept so
+bitterly because Uncle Gotthold was going that morning, when it was her
+birthday; on Thursday the rye was cut, the farm hands had a little
+festival in the evening, and had arranged all sorts of amusing sports
+in which, through old Statthalter Moeller, they begged Gotthold to help
+them a little; on Friday a young architect arrived, who wanted to show
+a plan for the new house, and Brandow was very anxious to have
+Gotthold's opinion about it; the next day his departure could not be
+thought of, because Brandow would be absent on business all day long,
+and the day after the Herr Assessor Sellien had promised to come with
+his wife, and Otto and Gustav Plueggen, Herr Redebas, from Dahlitz, and
+several other neighbors would arrive; there was to be quite a little
+company; Brandow had written to everybody that Gotthold would be there,
+everybody was anticipating the pleasure of meeting him, and, in a word,
+nothing could be said about going away before Monday, and on Monday
+they would discuss the subject again.
+
+It was Saturday afternoon; Brandow had ridden away in the morning and
+told Gotthold that he should not return before evening. The business
+must have been very urgent which could call the master away from his
+estate on such a day. Brandow was very much behindhand in getting in
+his rye, and moreover did not even have an inspector, though he had
+repeatedly complained to Gotthold of the stupid old Statthalter Moeller,
+on whom he could not depend at all, so the crowd of laborers who were
+to-day employed in the fields and barn were left entirely to
+themselves. Gotthold had offered to take control of them, if Brandow
+was obliged to go away; but the latter, although he knew that Gotthold
+really understood the business, and that the people were fond of him
+and would have willingly obeyed him, most positively declined the
+proposal.
+
+"It's bad enough for me to be compelled to commit the rudeness of
+leaving you alone all day; more than that you must not require. So long
+as it is possible to avoid it, you know I am not accustomed to
+incommode my friends."
+
+With these words he had ridden away, and Gotthold had taken his
+painting utensils, in order to have an excuse for leaving the house and
+wandering through the woods and along the sea-shore; he strolled
+restlessly on without any definite purpose, until he recollected that
+he had heard from the old fisherman, Carl Peters, of Ralow, that Cousin
+Boslaf would return from his expedition to Sundin this very evening.
+Carl Peters must know, for the old man had given him the key of the
+beach-house, that he might light the lamp in the evening and keep watch
+at night; besides, Carl Peters' son had accompanied Cousin Boslaf on
+his expedition. So Gotthold went to the beach-house and sat down to
+wait on the bluff in the shadow of the beeches; but the sea broke upon
+the shore with such a melancholy, monotonous cadence, the sunny hours
+dragged along so slowly, and besides, if he wanted to tell her that he
+had decided to leave Dollan to-morrow instead of Monday, this was the
+right time.
+
+"The mistress is in the garden with Gretchen," said pretty Rieke; "you
+know her favorite seat."
+
+Gotthold looked quietly at the girl, who hastily averted her face. The
+last remark was at least superfluous, for the garden was not so large
+that any one could not easily find the person he sought; but moreover
+Rieke had spoken in a tone which jarred upon Gotthold's ear. He had
+often thought the girl's merry gray eyes wandered from him to Cecilia,
+and from Cecilia back to him, with a watchful glance, and she had
+several times entered the room quickly, or approached them elsewhere,
+always with the question whether they had called her. He had remembered
+Cecilia's words on the first evening of their meeting, "She repeats
+everything," and mentally added: "She shall have nothing to tell."
+
+"Well, her amusement will be over to-morrow," he thought to himself, as
+he went slowly up the walk, bordered on each side with hedges, towards
+a small spot, also surrounded with hedges and adorned with beds of
+flowers, where Cecilia usually remained at this hour with her child.
+
+Gretchen came running to meet him as soon as she caught sight of him.
+
+"Where have you been, Uncle Gotthold? What have you brought me?"
+
+He was always in the habit of bringing the child some rare flower,
+oddly shaped pebble, or other curiosity on his return from his rambles;
+but to-day, for the first time, he had not thought of it. Gretchen was
+very indignant "I don't love you any more," she said, running back to
+her mother; "and mamma shan't love you either!" she exclaimed, raising
+her little head from her mother's lap.
+
+Gotthold, after greeting Cecilia, had seated himself at a short
+distance from her on another bench, as he always did if she did not
+invite him to take his place beside her. She had not done so to-day,
+and scarcely looked up from her work when she silently gave him her
+hand. It had made a painful impression upon him, but as he watched her
+quietly, he thought he noticed that her eyelids were red. Had she
+wished to conceal the traces of recent tears, to hide the fact that she
+could still weep, that the cold expressionless glance with which she
+now seemed to look beyond him towards the child, who was playing at the
+other end of the glade, was not the only expression of which the eyes
+which had formerly beamed with such a gentle light were now capable?
+
+"I can bear it no longer," the young man murmured to himself.
+
+He had risen and approached Cecilia, who, as he came up, drew her dress
+away, although there was plenty of room on the large seat.
+
+"Cecilia," he said, "I have given a half-promise to stay until Monday,
+but it occurred to me that the Selliens, if they come to-morrow, will
+probably spend the night here, and perhaps some of your other guests,
+and as your accommodations are somewhat limited;--"
+
+"You wish to go!" interrupted Cecilia; "why not say so plainly?"
+
+She had looked up from her work, as Gotthold began to speak, with a
+quick, pained glance that cut him to the heart; but when she answered,
+her voice sounded perfectly calm, though a little hollow, and she even
+smiled as she took up her sewing again.
+
+"When do you wish to go?" she added after a pause, as Gotthold, unable
+to reply, was still silent.
+
+"I thought of leaving early to-morrow morning," he answered, and it
+seemed as if some one else had uttered the words. "Carl told me that he
+should send a carriage to town then."
+
+"Early to-morrow morning!"
+
+She had dropped her work in her lap again, and for a moment covered her
+eyes and forehead with her left hand, while the fingers of her right,
+which rested on the work, trembled slightly; then her hand fell
+heavily, and she stared fixedly at the ground with a frowning brow, as
+she said in the same hollow tone: "What reason should I have to keep
+you?"
+
+"Perhaps because you might be glad to see me here," answered Gotthold.
+
+He thought she had not heard the words, but they had been distinctly
+audible; the pause only lasted until she was sure that she could speak
+again without bursting into tears. She would not, dared not weep, and
+now regained her self-control.
+
+"You know I am," she replied; "but that is no reason for wishing to
+keep you. I feel too well how unpleasant life is here, how monotonous,
+how tiresome to all who are not accustomed to it, and one cannot become
+accustomed to things in a few days, it requires years, long years. So I
+invite no one--I cannot believe anybody takes pleasure in coming; and I
+detain no one--I can easily imagine that a guest is glad to go. Why
+should I treat you differently from others?"
+
+"There is no reason, if I am no more to you than others."
+
+"More? What does that imply? Oh! you mean because we knew each other so
+early in life, because we were friends when we were both young? But
+what does that signify? What is youthful friendship? And do we remain
+the same? You have done so perhaps, at least in the principal thing,
+but I certainly have not; I resemble the Cecilia of those days as
+little as--as reality resembles our dreams; and besides--I am married;
+a wife needs no friend, has no friend, if she loves her husband, and if
+she does not--"
+
+"Let us suppose the latter case," said Gotthold, as Cecilia suddenly
+paused.
+
+"The case is not so simple as it seems," she answered, examining the
+stitches in her sewing; "yes, many cases may be imagined. For instance,
+it is very probable that he loves her, and even a woman of very little
+nobility of character is rarely insensible to and ungrateful for true
+love; but granted that he does not love her, loves her no longer,
+perhaps never has loved her--well, then everything will depend upon how
+the wife is constituted. Perhaps she is not proud, and therefore not
+ashamed to confess her unhappiness to a friend, who might then venture
+to become her lover; or if she is proud, she will do--I know not what,
+but certainly she would conceal herself in the deepest chasm in the
+earth, rather than give way and say, no matter to whom, I am unhappy!"
+
+"And if that is not necessary, if her misery is written on her brow,
+looks from her eyes, speaks in every tone of her voice?"
+
+Something flitted over Cecilia's face like the shadow of a cloud; but
+she smoothed her work with special care, as she answered in a
+passionless, almost monotonous voice:
+
+"Who can say that? Who is so wise that he can read upon the brow of any
+human being the thoughts that are passing within, without ever
+deceiving himself or making another's face the mirror of his own
+beloved vanity? But we have fallen into a very disagreeable
+conversation. Tell me, instead, where you are going when you leave
+here, and where you expect to live in future? You will not return to
+Italy? It seems to me you told me so a short time ago."
+
+"Thanks for your interest in me," replied Gotthold, with trembling
+lips; "but I have made no definite plans as yet. When I left Rome, it
+was certainly with the desire to remain here in the North, at least for
+some time, and try whether home could ever become home again to me; but
+the attempt will probably not succeed, nay, I think has already
+failed."
+
+"It seems to me that this is rather too soon to decide such a
+question," said Cecilia; "but the matter is probably of importance only
+to us; you fortunate artists have your home in your art, and you take
+that with you wherever you turn your steps."
+
+"And yet, I think, we can have our art only at home," replied Gotthold.
+
+"That is?"
+
+"That is, that only in his home can the artist reach the highest point
+his talents will enable him to attain. I have formed this conclusion
+from the history of all arts, which have only prospered when the
+artists had the good fortune to be supplied with subjects furnished by
+the country of which they were citizens and the time in which they
+lived-for in this sense, time is also the artist's home: I mean: when
+they had the good fortune, and of course the power also, to be able to
+freely develop their talents on their native soil, and upon subjects
+furnished by their home. I have also drawn this inference from my own
+observation, which has taught me that those who were unable to find any
+materials for their art at home--subjects identified with the place and
+time--were no true artists, but either dilettanti and imitators, or
+positive charlatans, who deceived with their artificial productions,
+destitute alike of life and merit, only the great multitude--the
+beggarly crowd--to which they, in the inmost depths of their natures,
+certainly belonged."
+
+When Gotthold first began to speak upon this subject, which at that
+moment was very far from his thoughts, he had only wished to soothe the
+tumult of his soul, or at least to conceal it from the pale woman by
+his side; then, carried away by the theme, he had spoken with a certain
+earnestness, and at last with a freedom of which, a moment before, he
+would not have believed himself capable. And so, at first absently, but
+gradually with more eagerness, Cecilia had listened; a ray of the old
+fire flashed from her dark eye as she asked,
+
+"And does this apply to you?"
+
+"It does; that is, it was a misfortune that through my unhappy quarrel
+with my father, and in consequence of several sorrowful memories upon
+which it is not worth while to enter here,--it was a misfortune that I
+was, in a certain measure, banished from my home at the moment when I
+could least dispense with it: the flowers I had sought for in the
+meadows when a child; the trees under which the boy played, through
+whose tops he saw the sunbeams glide and heard the rain patter; the
+skies which at one time could laugh so brightly and anon look so
+unspeakably gloomy, so infinitely dreary; the sea, over whose smooth
+surface, gleaming in the sunset, or billows black with storm, the fancy
+of the youth had hovered, sailed out to the regions of the Blest, and
+the mournful, misty realms of his dreams of battle and conflict and
+early heroic death: all this--I mean the things and the dreams--I might
+have been able to paint, to the pleasure and delight of others, in
+whom, by my pictures, I might have awakened memories of their own
+childhood, boyhood, and youth; what I paint now I have not drawn from
+my own soul, have not painted, cannot paint with my whole heart, so how
+can it, at best, be anything more than sounding brass?"
+
+"Then why are you artists so eager to go to foreign lands?" asked
+Cecilia.
+
+She seemed once more the intelligent young girl, whose radiant dark
+eyes reflected the restless ardor of her mind, from whose lips fell
+silvery laughter, and then grave, earnest words.
+
+"I think this eagerness is often blind and foolish," replied Gotthold,
+"and, at any rate, I would always advise a young artist not to go to
+Rome until his own ideas are firmly fixed, or he will be a mere
+plaything of the winds and clouds. Goethe had written his works on
+German art, and long been a master of it, when he went to Italy; so he
+could quietly compose his Faust beneath the pines in the garden of the
+Villa Borghese, and return laden with the rich treasures of his
+observations of the country, the people, and the events which for
+centuries had taken place beneath its glorious skies, and yet remain to
+the very depths of his artist soul precisely the same as he was before.
+It is just the same in the republic of the arts as in the state,
+Cecilia. What citizen could understand the great relations of the
+government who had not first practised his powers of vision upon the
+smaller affairs of the parish; who could render any valuable service to
+the parish, who had not learned to rule his own household; who could
+manage his house, direct and govern his family, who did not know how to
+rule and guide himself?"
+
+Gertrude had come up while Gotthold was speaking; Cecilia lifted her
+into her lap, and the child sat there silently, as if she knew she must
+not interrupt. Now, as Gotthold paused, she said, "Mamma, I want Uncle
+Gotthold to be my papa!"
+
+A deep flush crimsoned Cecilia's face, and she hastily tried to put
+Gretchen down, but the child would not give up the point so easily. She
+threw her right arm around her mother's neck, and said, coaxingly,
+"Can't he, mamma; he has such pretty blue eyes, and is always kind to
+you, and papa is often so horrid; can't he, mamma?"
+
+Cecilia hastily rose with the child in her arms, and took a few paces
+forward, as if she wished to fly from the place. But her knees
+trembled, she could go no farther, and was obliged to put Gretchen
+down, who, alarmed by her mother's impetuosity, ran away crying, but
+the next moment forgot her grief at the sight of some bright-hued
+butterflies which fluttered before her over the flower-beds. Cecilia
+still stood motionless with her face averted.
+
+"Cecilia!" said Gotthold.
+
+He had approached her, and tried to take the hand that hung by her
+side. She turned, and the face of Medusa confronted him.
+
+"Cecilia!" exclaimed Gotthold, again extending his hands.
+
+She did not draw back, she did not stir; the rigid features were
+motionless, except for the quivering of the half-parted lips, and then
+the words came slowly, like the last drops of blood from a mortal
+wound.
+
+"I do not need your sympathy, do you hear? I have given you no right to
+pity me, neither you nor any one else. Why do you torture me?"
+
+"I shall not torture you long, Cecilia; I have told you I am going."
+
+"Why don't you go then? Why do you speak to me of such things? To me?
+You will drive me mad, and--I won't go mad."
+
+"This is madness, Cecilia," cried Gotthold passionately. "If you do not
+love him--and you do not, you cannot--no divine, and certainly no human
+law, compels you to remain, to pine, to die in nameless misery. And he
+loves you no better than you do him."
+
+"Did he tell you so?"
+
+"Is it necessary?"
+
+"On your honor, Gotthold, did he tell you so?"
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"And suppose he did love me, for all that, and--I loved him? How can
+you dare speak to me as you have spoken? How can you dare give me the
+lie by your silence, humiliate me so deeply in my own eyes! Is this
+your boasted friendship?"
+
+Gotthold bent his head and turned away. Gretchen came to meet him.
+
+"Where are you going, Uncle Gotthold?"
+
+He raised the child in his arms, kissed her, put her on the ground, and
+went on.
+
+"Why is Uncle Gotthold crying, mamma?" asked Gretchen, pulling her
+mother's dress. "Papa can't cry, can he, mamma?"
+
+Cecilia made no reply; her wide tearless eyes were fixed on the spot
+where Gotthold had disappeared between the beeches.
+
+"Forever," she murmured, "forever!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+When Gotthold reached the little wooden gate, which, shaded by a
+half-decayed linden-tree, afforded egress through the rough hedge on
+this side of the garden, he paused and glanced cautiously over the
+sunny fields towards the forest. He could not have endured to meet any
+one just now, perhaps be obliged to stop and answer a greeting or
+question. But he saw no one; all were in the great rye-field, where
+they had been toiling all day; the path to the forest was open.
+
+The sun shone with a fierce burning glow, and the heated air quivered
+over the wheat, which was already beginning to ripen, and whose stout
+stalks were unstirred by the faintest breeze; countless cicadas chirped
+and buzzed noisily on both sides of the narrow path that wound through
+the fields; a large flock of wild pigeons circled at no very great
+height in the air, and as they wheeled with lightning-like speed, the
+moving cloud glittered in the rays of the setting sun against the clear
+blue sky like a shield of polished steel.
+
+Gotthold saw all this, because he was accustomed to live with nature,
+and even felt the electricity that pervaded the atmosphere, but only as
+being perfectly in harmony with the conflict that oppressed his heart.
+Shame had long since dried the burning tears grief had forced from his
+eyes; shame for having, by his want of self-control, produced this
+scene, in which, after eight long days of torture, he had finally
+played the undignified part of the third person, only to learn that she
+still loved this man, and her unhappiness consisted in the knowledge
+that she was not as much beloved by him as she desired to be. "On your
+honor, Gotthold, did he tell you so?" In what a despairing tone she had
+uttered the words! How the dread of hearing a "yes" had disfigured her
+beautiful face! "Is this your boasted friendship?" Yes, his friendship,
+with which he had been troublesome to her years before, with which he
+was troublesome now, only that he could no longer hide himself behind
+its mask as in those days, only that he no longer had the poor
+consolation of being able to slip away unnoticed and unperceived, as he
+had done that night.
+
+He had lain here on the edge of the forest, under the great beech-tree,
+in the darkness of the night, and plucked up the moss, and cursed
+himself and the whole world because, by the pale light of the moon, he
+had seen two happy lovers. Now the sun glared broadly upon his couch of
+pain, as if it wished to show him how childish his grief had been, and
+that he should have reserved his despair for this hour. She had been
+happy! Gotthold tried to laugh, but the sound that came from his
+tortured breast was a cry, a dull moaning cry like that of a wounded
+animal. Even so had he wailed when he tottered along this very path
+through the sultry woods that night, and the trees danced around him in
+the dim moonlight like mocking spectres. Now they stood in brazen
+sun-steeped ranks, and seemed to say: What do we care for your
+self-created anguish, you fool!
+
+And what do I care for your misery! said the sea, which, now as he
+emerged from the forest upon the bluff, stretched before him in a
+blackish-blue expanse, as if petrified in its unapproachable majesty.
+He had seen it under this aspect once before, one afternoon when he had
+been wandering along the rocky cliffs of Anacapri, and it had given him
+the subject for one of his best paintings; but now he only bestowed a
+passing thought upon it, as the memory of the cool forest shade and
+murmuring fountain by which he sat a short time before, flits through
+the burning brain of a sun-scorched wanderer on a dusty highway.
+
+Below him in the little inlet, which had been toilsomely dug in the
+rocky shore, were the boats which belonged to the estate. During the
+last few days he had often used the smaller one to row to various
+places along the coast, and had the key of the chain by which it was
+fastened to the stake in his pocket.
+
+Broader and broader grew the shadow which fell from the shore upon
+the sea and overtook Gotthold, as with powerful strokes he began to
+row across the wide bay, at whose extreme southern point stood the
+beach-house, now brightly illumined by the sunlight. But the shadow did
+not proceed from the shore, but a black wall of clouds which, of
+perfectly uniform breadth, rose slowly in the heavens, and whose sharp
+upper edge glowed and sparkled with a gloomy fire. It was a heavy
+thunderstorm from the land. Well, let it come! Gotthold longed to escape
+from the sultry atmosphere that brooded over his soul, and breathe
+freely once more in the strife of the elements. A fiery shaft quivered
+across the black wall of clouds, then a second, a third; and with
+marvellous speed the dark curtain rose higher and higher, extinguishing
+every gleam of light in sky and shore, and upon the sea, over which the
+wind now whistled in gusts, furrowing its mirror-like surface and soon
+lashing it into foaming surges.
+
+Waves and wind turned Gotthold's little boat aside from its course and
+drove it, as if in sport, towards the sea, though now, clearly
+perceiving his danger, he tried to guide it to the shore. After a few
+strokes he realized that his only hope of deliverance was that the
+storm might pass as quickly as it had come.
+
+But it seemed as if the fiends of darkness had heard his sacrilegious
+words and were now determined to have their victim. The black shadow
+spread farther and farther over the raging sea; only a few white sails
+still gleamed in the distant horizon, and now they also disappeared in
+the darkness; the waves dashed still higher, and the boat receded still
+faster from the shore, where already, even to Gotthold's keen eye, the
+white bluff and the dark forest that crowned it blended together in one
+gray line. There was no longer any doubt that the skiff would be driven
+into the open sea, unless, which might happen at any moment, some wave
+upset it; nay, it seemed a miracle that this had not already occurred.
+
+Gotthold calmly did what he could to save himself; he carefully watched
+the rise and fall of every approaching wave and kept the boat's head to
+the wind, now with the right oar, now with the left, and anon making a
+powerful stroke with both. If it upset, all depended upon whether it
+sank immediately or floated on the surface. In the latter case his
+situation was not utterly desperate; he might perhaps be able to cling
+to it, and, if the wind veered, either be carried back to land, or
+rescued by some passing ship; but if the boat sank, he was lost
+according to all human calculation. He could not put down the oars a
+moment to divest himself of his clothing, and not even so good a
+swimmer as himself could hope, fully clad, to swim for many hours in
+such a sea, especially as he already began to feel that his strength,
+carefully as he had husbanded it, was gradually beginning to fail.
+
+Gradually at first, and then faster and faster. Hitherto he had
+executed the most complicated movements of the oars with perfect ease,
+but now they grew heavier and heavier in the stiffened hands, the
+benumbed arms. His breast grew more and more oppressed, his heart beat
+more and more painfully, his breathing changed to gasping, his throat
+seemed choked, his temples throbbed; come what would, he must rest a
+moment, take in the oars, and let the boat drift.
+
+The little skiff instantly began to ship water; Gotthold had expected
+it. "It can't last much longer now," he said to himself, "and what does
+it matter? If you could live for her, it would be worth the trouble;
+but now--to whom do you die except yourself? Death cannot be so very
+painful. True, she will think: 'He tried to lose his life, and he might
+have spared me that.' It is very ungallant in me to drift ashore a
+disfigured corpse, very ungallant and very stupid; but it is all of a
+piece, and surely a man cannot pay for a folly more dearly than with
+his life."
+
+Thoughts crowded still more confusedly upon his bewildered brain as,
+utterly exhausted, he sat bending forward, staring at the oars, which
+he still clenched mechanically in his stiffened fingers, and the
+reeling edge of the boat, which was now sharply relieved against the
+grayish-black sky, and then buried a foot deep under the foaming crest
+of a breaking wave. Then he saw all this only as a background, from
+which her face appeared in perfect distinctness, no longer with the
+mouth quivering with pain and the cold Medusa eyes, but transfigured by
+a merry roguish smile, as it had always arisen before his memory from
+the precious days of youth, and as he had seen it lately for one
+moment.
+
+Suddenly an infinite sorrow seized upon him that he must give up life
+without having lived, without being loved by her; the life which, if he
+was only permitted to go on loving her, was an inexpressible happiness;
+the life which did not belong to him, which he owed to her, and for
+which, for her sake, he would struggle till his latest breath.
+
+The stiffened fingers again closed firmly around the handles of the
+oars; the benumbed arms moved and parried with powerful strokes the
+onset of the rushing waves; the wearied eyes gazed once more over the
+foaming waters for some hope of deliverance, and a joyful shout escaped
+his laboring breast when, as if summoned by some spell, a sail emerged
+from the watery mist with which the air was filled. The next moment it
+came shooting forward, a large vessel, with her larboard side so low in
+the water, that Gotthold saw the whole keel from bow to stern, and
+above the high bulwark nothing was visible except the head of the
+steersman, whose snow-white hair fluttered in the wind, and the upper
+part of the body of a young man on the bowsprit, who held a coil of
+rope in his hand. And now, like a serpent, the line fell directly
+across his boat. He seized it and wound it around him. Then came a
+powerful jerk; his boat, filled almost to the water's edge, reeled to
+and fro, and sank under his feet; but his hands were already clinging
+to the side of the larger vessel; two strong arms seized him under the
+shoulders, and the next moment he fell at the feet of Cousin Boslaf,
+who held out his left hand to him, while with the right he turned his
+helm by a powerful effort, to save his own boat from being swamped.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+The sea was still heaving after the thunder-storm of the afternoon, but
+the sun had cast a trembling light over the dark waves before it set.
+The stars now gradually appeared in the blackish-blue vault of the
+heavens; Gotthold raised his eyes to them, and then gazed into the
+quiet countenance of the old man, by whose side he was seated upon a
+bench, sheltered by the thick walls of the beach-house. Through the
+window beside them gleamed the light of the lamp, which, ever since
+Cousin Boslaf had lived in the beach-house, had burned there night
+after night, and would now continue to burn on, even after his eyes
+were closed in death. It was for this object that he had taken the
+journey to Sundin--the first since he returned from Sweden, sixty-five
+years ago, and probably the last he would ever make in his life. It had
+cost him an effort to give up his hermit habits for days, and mingle
+with mankind once more. But it must be done; he dared not ask whether
+the road would be hard or easy for him. So he had sailed away,
+accompanied by young Carl Peters, the son of his old friend, and for
+six long days presented himself at the Herr Praesident's every morning,
+and was always sent away because the Herr Praesident was too busy to see
+him, as the valet said, who finally roughly forbade him to come again,
+just at the moment the former left his study, and, seeing the old man,
+asked him kindly who he was, and what he wanted. Then Cousin Boslaf
+told the friendly gentleman that his name was Bogislaf Wenhof, and he
+had been very intimate with Malte von Krissowitz, whose portrait was
+hanging on the wall, and who, if he was not mistaken, was the
+Praesident's great-grandfather, and then told him his desire. Malte von
+Krissowitz was one of the six young men who had officiated as judges
+during the contest between Bogislaf and Adolf Wenhof; the Praesident,
+when a very young man, had heard the famous story from his father, who
+had it from his grandfather, to whom his great-grandfather had related
+it; it seemed to him like a fairy tale that the hero of that story
+should be still alive, and the very old man who was sitting on the sofa
+beside him. He called his wife and daughter, introduced them to the old
+man, and insisted that he should stay to dinner. Everybody was most
+kind and friendly, and--what was most important--the Praesident, when he
+bade him farewell, gave him his word of honor that the good cause for
+which he pleaded should henceforth be his own.
+
+"Within a few days," said Cousin Boslaf, "a beacon will be erected here
+before the house, on a high foundation of stone, whose light can be
+seen a mile farther than that of my lamp. Carl Peters is appointed
+keeper, and will live with me in the beach-house, which for the present
+will serve as a watch-house, and after my death is to become the
+property of the government. So this great care is removed from my mind.
+I need say no longer, when I extinguish the lamp at daybreak: Will you
+be able to light it again this evening?"
+
+The old man was silent; the Swedish banner flapped still more loudly
+upon the roof of the beach-house; the waves broke more heavily upon the
+rocky strand. Gotthold's eyes wandered with deep reverence over the
+figure at his side, the tall form of the silver-haired old man of
+ninety, whose heart still beat so warmly in his breast for all
+mankind--for the poor sailors whom he did not know, and who did not
+know him, of whom he knew nothing except that they were sailing yonder
+in the night, invisible even to his keen eyes, and so long as they saw
+the light kept away from the dangerous coast, as their fathers and
+grandfathers had taught them to do. The old man who lived only for
+others, whose whole existence was nothing but love for others, from
+whom he neither asked nor expected love or gratitude, had to-day risked
+his own life to save him, who scarcely desired to be saved, to whom
+life seemed valueless because he loved and was not beloved in return.
+What would the old man say to that? Would he, in the boundlessness of
+his unselfish love, even be able to understand such a selfish,
+egotistical passion?
+
+"That was my one anxiety," Cousin Boslaf began again; "the government
+has relieved me of it; I have one other which no one can remove."
+
+"Does it concern her--Cecilia?" asked Gotthold with a beating heart.
+
+"Yes," said the old man, "it does concern her, Ulrica's
+great-grandchild, who looks so like her ancestress, but is probably
+even more unhappy. She should never have been allowed to marry the man,
+if I had had my way; but they threw my advice to the winds; they have
+always done so."
+
+A strange, terrible change had come over the old man. His tall form was
+bent as if all strength had left it; his deep voice, so firm a few
+moments before, quivered and trembled, when after a short pause, which
+Gotthold did not venture to interrupt, he continued:
+
+"They have always done so. And so they have lost their fields, one
+after another, and their forests, one after another, and become tenants
+where they were once masters, and gone to ruin, one after another. I
+have let it pass, been forced to let it pass, and always thought: Now
+matters can't be worse--but the worst was still in store for me. They
+were all reckless and frivolous; but none were wicked, not one, and
+after all they were men who, if need be, could live honestly by the
+labor of their hands. Now, now, even the old name will die out with me;
+only one poor helpless woman is left, who has exchanged her name for
+that of a man who is a good-for-nothing fellow like his forefathers;
+the worthless wretch will drag her down to shame with him--her shame
+and mine!"
+
+The old man's last words were scarcely audible; for he had buried his
+wrinkled face in his knotty hands. Gotthold laid his hand on his knee.
+
+"How can you talk so, Cousin Boslaf!" said he, "how can you accuse
+yourself of a misfortune you have been unable to prevent; you, who have
+always been the good genius of the house!"
+
+"The good genius of the house--great God!"
+
+The old man started up and strode hastily to the shore, where he stood
+with his face turned towards the sea; his white hair fluttered in the
+wind; he raised his arms towards the dark waters, and then let them
+fall again, muttering unintelligible words. Gotthold still kept by his
+side; had the old man become childish, or had he gone mad?
+
+"What is the matter, Cousin Boslaf?" he asked.
+
+"Cousin Boslaf!" shrieked the old man, "ay, Cousin Boslaf! He called me
+so, and she too, and all the rest with them and after them, my
+children, and children's children!"
+
+"Cousin Boslaf!"
+
+"Always Cousin Boslaf! Yes, it is quite right, and will be placed on my
+gravestone. I have sworn that no human being should ever hear the tale,
+but I can bear it no longer. One man shall learn the crime we committed
+against mankind, that he may forgive us our sin in the name of mankind.
+I have always loved you, and to-day I saved your life, so you shall be
+the man."
+
+He led Gotthold back to the bench.
+
+"You have probably heard of the contest I had with my Cousin Adolf
+about Dollan?"
+
+"Yes," replied Gotthold, "and have thought of it all very recently as I
+came to visit you, and in the depths of my heart praised the rare
+magnanimity with which you resigned the rich estate and beloved maiden
+to your cousin, after you learned that he was preferred by her. Emma
+von Dahlitz, Ulrica's confidante, brought you this message the evening
+before the decisive day; was it not so?"
+
+"Yes," said Cousin Boslaf, "only the message was false, and she who
+brought it lied, out of love--as she afterwards wrote me on her
+death--bed a few years after, when I was in Sweden--out of love for me,
+whom she hoped to win herself. The unhappy girl had also confessed this
+to Ulrica, who, like me, had believed her lies, and that I had mocked
+and jeered at her, and said I would rather have a Lapland woman for my
+wife. Well, I had wooed no Laplander; but the unfortunate maiden had
+become Adolf's wife, and so, as Adolf's wife and the mother of two
+children, I found her when I returned. A third child--also a boy--was
+born a year after. The two older ones died in early youth; the third
+lived and remained the only child, and this boy was--my son!"
+
+"Poor, poor man," murmured Gotthold.
+
+"Ay indeed, poor man!" said old Boslaf, "for who is poorer than a man
+who cannot rejoice over his own child, dares not call his before all
+the world, what is his if anything in the world is. I dared not. Ulrica
+was proud; she would rather have died ten deaths than taken upon
+herself the shame of the violation of her marriage vow; and I was
+cowardly, cowardly out of love for her and him--my poor, good,
+unsuspicious Adolf, whom from childhood I had loved like a brother, who
+believed in me wholly and entirely, who would have asserted against the
+whole world that I was his best, most faithful friend. So a few
+terrible years passed away; Ulrica, exhausted by the fearful conflict
+between duty and love she dared not acknowledge, died; holding her cold
+hands, I was forced to swear that I would keep the secret. So I have
+been and still remain Cousin Boslaf to my child and grandchildren. They
+have given me a little higher place in their affections than an old
+servant whom people will not dismiss, tiresome as he often is; they
+have also let me talk when they were in a good humor; and if a child
+was born, old Cousin Boslaf was allowed to sit at the lower end of the
+table at the christening festival, or when one of them was borne to the
+churchyard in Rammin he was suffered to ride in the last coach, if
+there was a vacant seat. I have borne it all: bitternesses without
+number or measure; I have believed that by humility, by love towards
+others, I might atone for the crime I had committed against my own
+flesh and blood; but the curse has not been removed from me: 'I have
+never yet seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their
+bread.' I have been no righteous man; my seed will be forced to beg
+their bread; I have grown so old only that I might live to see it."
+
+"Never, never!" exclaimed Gotthold starting up; "never!"
+
+"What will you do?" said the old man, "lend him money! What becomes of
+the water you take in your hand? What becomes of the money loaned to a
+gambler? I brought him one evening the savings of sixty years; it was
+no inconsiderable sum, the farm-rent of my few fields and meadows at
+interest and compound interest; the next morning he had not a shilling
+of it left. You told me just now that you were a rich man, perhaps
+you can give him more. He will take as much as he can get, and the
+moment he can obtain no more, show you the door and forbid you his
+house, as he did me. He knew very well I would not accuse him, that I
+could not; I had not required a written proof that I had given my
+great-granddaughter what I had."
+
+"And Cecilia?"
+
+"She is the true child of her ancestors; too proud to do anything but
+shed secret tears over the misery which has come upon her. I know those
+tears of old; they give the eyes which shed them at night upon lonely
+pillows, the fixed sad expression with which she has looked at me,
+whenever I have met her since--it has not been often. Where are you
+going so fast?"
+
+Gotthold had started up.
+
+"I have been here a long time already--too long."
+
+"Is she expecting you, Gotthold?"
+
+The old man had laid his hand upon his shoulder; Gotthold noticed how
+steadily the keen eyes rested upon him.
+
+"No," he said, "I do not think she is."
+
+"And it is better so," replied the old man. "It is enough for one to
+experience what I have done. When, shall I see you again?"
+
+"I intended to go away early to-morrow morning, but I will come here
+from Prora."
+
+"That's right; my child is unhappy enough now; the sooner you go the
+better it will be."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+"The better it will be," repeated Gotthold, as he strode through the
+dark forest. For whom--for me? My fate is decided. For her? What is it
+to her whether I come or go? For him? If he only wanted my money and
+not me, why didn't he say so long ago? I have offered it to him often
+enough--perhaps not plainly enough; I could not make up my mind to
+speak more distinctly; it seemed like trying to buy the husband's
+permission to remain near the wife. Why has he not wanted it? Doesn't
+he believe in my sincerity? Is he too proud to take it from _me_? And
+yet who should give to him more willingly than I? It is the only thing
+I can do for her. Perhaps that is all they need to make them perfectly
+happy; perhaps his love is of the kind that only thrives in the
+sunlight of prosperity, and languishes sadly in the mists of care. We
+will succor this feeble love. That will bring the roses back to her
+cheeks, and she will laugh happily again as she used to do in the old
+days.
+
+I play no very brilliant part in the family drama; but when was the
+role of third person conspicuous or grateful? Poor, poor old man! What
+must he not have suffered! What must he not suffer still! But he was
+not guiltless, no, not guiltless! Only falsehood is sin, not truth. The
+marriage bond between Adolf Wenhof and Ulrica von Dahlitz, as it was
+brought about by a lie, was and remained a lie. She loved another, and
+this other came; she saw that he loved her still as he had always loved
+her; in an hour of intoxication, after so many years of torture, she
+became his; she was his wife before her own conscience; she ought also
+to have become so in the sight of man. It was a twofold, threefold,
+thousandfold lie that she did not do so, that she did not break off the
+old life and suffer a new one to begin that very hour! In consequence
+of this lie, she, the proud, beautiful woman, sank into an early grave!
+He has vainly sought through all these endless years to atone for his
+crime--the crime of having thrust truth from his threshold and
+permitted falsehood to cross it! Holy genius of mankind, thou who
+livest in the light of truth, save me from the greatest of all sins;
+save me from falsehood!
+
+A dark figure came hastily across the glade near the edge of the
+forest, through which the path ran. When it approached a little nearer,
+Gotthold recognized old Statthalter Moeller, who now raised both arms,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Thank God, here you are! You've given us a fine fright!"
+
+"I? Whom? How?"
+
+"You, to be sure, you! And whom? All of us, up to our mistress, who is
+perfectly beside herself! How? Well, that's a pretty question! When a
+man rows out to sea in such a nutshell of a boat, with a horrible
+thunderstorm rising, and that old blockhead of a Christian sees it, and
+thinks: Well, I'm curious to see how he gets back; but isn't at all
+curious, goes into the forest, and waits till the storm is over, and
+then about half an hour ago sends his boy to say: the boat hasn't come
+back yet, and may not some accident have happened to the gentleman?
+Lord, there was a pretty piece of business then! And our mistress must
+have been very much frightened, for she came running out at once, and
+started us off. The mistress is not to be trifled with when she is in
+earnest, kind as she is; and we all got frightened too, and some have
+gone down to Ralow, thinking you might have been driven in there; and
+some to Neuhof, and I was just going to the beach-house to ask the old
+gentleman, who has probably come back to-day, what we should do next.
+The mistress wanted to go herself, but I wouldn't let her."
+
+"Where is the mistress?"
+
+"She is probably still in the field," said Moeller, pointing to the
+left; "I have just left her."
+
+"And how long have the others been gone?"
+
+"As long as I have; if I hurry, I shall probably overtake them."
+
+Statthalter Moeller struck into the forest on the right, shouting the
+names of the laborers, while Gotthold hastily walked on by the path,
+which in a few moments brought him to the edge of the forest, where an
+old beech-tree stood alone in the open field, upon which the moon shed
+a dim, fitful light through the rifts in the heavy black clouds. It was
+the rye-field, which they had been reaping that day. A loaded wagon was
+just starting, and men were still working around a few others, but, as
+it seemed to Gotthold, rather lazily; he heard the voices of the men
+raised in eager conversation, and saw that they were standing in little
+groups between the sheaves, several rows of which extended along the
+edge of the forest. The thought that such important work had been
+interrupted or carried on less zealously on his account was unpleasant
+to Gotthold, and he hurried towards the workmen. He had not perceived
+Cecilia, although he could see the whole field with tolerable
+distinctness; she had probably gone back to the house again.
+
+But as he approached the beech-tree, a white figure which had been
+sitting with its face buried in its hands, and was now startled by his
+hasty steps, rose from the circular bench that surrounded the huge
+trunk.
+
+"In Heaven's name, Moeller, have you returned already? Is he--"
+
+"It is I myself; Cecilia, dear, dearest Cecilia!"
+
+"Gotthold!"
+
+She had thrown herself into his arms; he held the pliant figure which
+clung closer and closer to him in an ardent embrace; her soft lips
+quivered against his in a long, tremulous, passionate kiss.
+
+"Is that you?" said Carl Brandow's voice suddenly, close beside them.
+
+It seemed as if he had sprung from the earth; doubtless the sheaves,
+the last of which stood partly under the ends of the drooping boughs of
+the beech-tree, had concealed his approach, but in the shadow of its
+foliage probably nothing but Cecilia's light dress had been visible to
+the new-comer. Yet, in Gotthold's sensitive mood, the man's loud laugh
+had a horrible sound, and his clear voice a disagreeably shrill tone
+never heard before, as, flourishing his riding-whip in the air,
+according to his custom, he cried: "I have heard all; I always say:
+Don't turn your back, something always happens which wouldn't have
+occurred otherwise. I shouldn't have let you go on such a wild-goose
+chase, any more than I would have commenced reaping at the end next the
+barn. What will become of this stuff if it should begin to rain again,
+as there is every appearance of its doing, and rain all day to-morrow?
+In that case we can take it to the manure heap, instead of the barn;
+nobody will come here with a wagon for a week, and it will have
+sprouted long before then."
+
+"It isn't so bad after all, sir," said Statthalter Moeller, who had just
+come up with the men he had overtaken in the forest. "We haven't any
+more room in the barn; we'll put up a cover here, and then it will be
+all right."
+
+"Of course, you always know better than I!" exclaimed Brandow.
+
+"I wanted to begin by the barn; but Hinrich Scheel wouldn't allow it,
+and said you yourself--"
+
+"Oh! of course I did it myself; I'm always to blame when you idiots
+have done anything stupid!"
+
+It was not the first time that Gotthold had heard Carl Brandow scold
+his workmen in this way; but never had the cause been so frivolous, and
+the wrong so clearly on his own side. Gotthold had himself heard him,
+as he rode away that morning, call to Hinrich Scheel that they were to
+begin the reaping at the upper end of the field by the forest. Was he
+drunk? Had he seen more than he wished to have known? Did he want to
+wreak his jealous fury on the innocent workmen? Or was this merely the
+preamble, and a test to see whether, in the explanation which must take
+place immediately, he would adopt the tone of an injured, insulted man?
+
+Gotthold did not fear this explanation; his only dread was that it
+might take place in Cecilia's presence. He wished his loved one to be
+away, and moreover he felt the necessity of hearing one word from her
+to assure him that all this was no confused dream, but reality; that in
+the kiss which still trembled on his lips she had given herself to him,
+that he might venture to act, decide for her.
+
+But the fear of provoking an outbreak from Brandow made him timid and
+awkward; she shrank away, actuated by the same feeling; and he did not
+succeed in carrying out his intention on the way home. Brandow walked
+between them; he was obliged to relate his adventure, and Brandow
+railed at Cousin Boslaf, who was always everywhere, from whom one
+wasn't safe even when on the water, and who had undoubtedly arranged
+the whole scene, including the thunder-storm and all its appurtenances,
+in order to be able to save something again. Under other circumstances
+Gotthold would not have allowed such sarcasms, which Brandow
+accompanied with sneering laughter, to pass unanswered; but now he must
+be suffered to say what he chose. Then the latter clapped him on the
+shoulder, crying: "No offence, Gotthold; but I can't bear the old
+sneak, and have my own reasons for it. Either a man is master of his
+house, or he isn't; to have a third party, who is always interfering
+everywhere, and of course always thinks he knows best, would not do, at
+least not for me. As we used to say at school, 'One king, one ruler!'
+You probably remember the Greek words too; I, poor devil, am glad I
+happened to keep the German ones."
+
+They reached the house. Gotthold could not shake off Brandow, who
+detained him before the door in conversation about some agricultural
+matter, while Cecilia entered. Hinrich Scheel came up and complained of
+the Statthalter, who had ordered even the carriage-horses to be
+harnessed to the wagons. Brandow flew into a furious passion; Gotthold
+murmured something about being obliged to change his clothes, and
+slipped into the house. But he found no one in the sitting-room except
+pretty Rieke, who was setting the tea-table, and looked roguishly at
+him out of the corners of her eyes while he glanced over the newspaper
+which lay on the table before the sofa. The girl went out, but came
+back immediately, and pretended to be doing something in the closet;
+she evidently intended to remain in the room. Gotthold now went up to
+his chamber, and changed his clothes, which had been only partially
+dried in the beach-house. As he performed the task, his trembling hands
+almost refused to obey his bidding. Was it the fever of impatience
+before the final decision, or was it actual sickness, brought on by
+over-exertion during the storm? "Don't be sick now," he murmured; "now
+of all times! Now, when you no longer belong to yourself, when you owe
+your life, your every breath, your every drop of blood to her!"
+
+Brandow's voice echoed from the lower floor in loud, angry tones. Was
+he talking to Cecilia? Had the rage, perhaps repressed with difficulty
+till now, burst forth? Was the drama to be played before the servants?
+
+In the twinkling of an eye Gotthold had left his room, crossed the long
+dark entry, and gone down-stairs. But fortunately his fear had been
+groundless. Cecilia had sent word that she felt tired, and should not
+come to supper. Then why couldn't they have set the table in his room
+on the other side of the hall, where they would be undisturbed and
+disturb no one? Would Rieke never have any sense? Rieke answered
+pertly, as she reluctantly obeyed the command, that she wished other
+people's sense was as good as hers; who was to know what to do when one
+order was given one minute, and another the next! Brandow told her to
+be silent. The girl laughed scornfully: Oh! of course it was very
+convenient to forbid people to open their mouths, but it wouldn't do in
+the long run, and if she wanted to speak she would speak, and then
+other people would have to hold their tongues.
+
+"Leave the room," shouted Brandow furiously.
+
+The girl answered with a still more impudent laugh, and then left the
+apartment, banging the door after her.
+
+"That's what one gets for being too indulgent," cried Brandow,
+swallowing at a single gulp a glass of wine which he had poured out
+with an unsteady hand.
+
+He cast a sly glance at Gotthold, who looked him steadily in the face.
+What did this scene mean? What could the girl tell, if she chose to
+speak? Had she claims upon her master which he was obliged to
+acknowledge? Had a weapon unexpectedly fallen into his hands which
+might be of use to him in this hour? An ignoble weapon indeed; but
+perhaps not too much so for a conflict with a man who, while the
+husband of such a wife, did not disdain the servant.
+
+Yet Gotthold said to himself that he would not begin the quarrel, but,
+if possible, defer it until he had come to some understanding with
+Cecilia about the next step to be taken. And it seemed possible; nay,
+Gotthold soon became doubtful whether Brandow at most had anything more
+than a vague suspicion, to which he either could not or dared not give
+expression. Perhaps he wished to increase his courage by drink, for he
+now drained glass after glass, and brought one bottle of old wine after
+another from his sleeping-room; perhaps he wanted to give vent to his
+powerless anger, in some degree at least, when he railed at Cousin
+Boslaf, the old sneak who had perfectly disgusted him with life by his
+perpetual interference, until he at last forbade him the house; and
+then spoke once more of his miserable circumstances, as he called them,
+for which, however, he was less to blame than some other people.
+
+"True," he exclaimed, "I have spent more on my journeys than tailors
+and glove-makers do; I have lived in a manner befitting a gentleman,
+but the principal cause of my disgraceful situation is my marriage. Of
+course you look incredulous; you would like, as an old ally of the
+Wenhofs, to contradict me; it would be useless; I know too well how all
+this has come about. I will say nothing about the noble Curt--the few
+college debts I was obliged to pay for him were a mere bagatelle; but
+the old man, who was by no means so old as not to have a damned good
+relish for the pleasant things of this world--the old man was not a
+particularly desirable father-in-law. I even had to pay for the wedding
+outfit, but--good heavens--at such a time a man would bring the stars
+from the sky to adorn his beloved; so I wouldn't have minded advancing
+the money for the few trinkets and other things, if that had been the
+end of it. But unfortunately that was not the case. I gave my
+father-in-law ten thousand thalers in cash during the two years he
+lived, and was obliged to pay at least as much in debts after his
+death. That's a pretty good bit of money, _mon cher_, when a man has no
+more than enough for himself; and so my beautiful Dahlitz went to the
+devil, and I was glad to be able to creep into Dollan for shelter, and
+some day Dollan will go to the devil too; for a man can't keep the best
+farm in the world nowadays, unless he has property of his own, and the
+prudent Brothers of the Convent of St. Jurgen have kept me as short as
+my father-in-law, who could never get the better of them. But what am I
+thinking of, to be entertaining such a distinguished gentleman with
+this rubbish! You can't help me, and if you could, a man doesn't allow
+himself to be helped by his good friends--he applies to his good
+enemies."
+
+Brandow laughed loudly, and starting up, paced hastily up and down the
+room with an agitated air, and at last stopped before the closet
+containing his weapons, pulled a pistol from its nail, cocked it, and
+turning towards Gotthold, cried:
+
+"Only, unfortunately, the good friends are often the same as the good
+enemies, so that one can't separate them. Don't you think so!"
+
+"It may happen so," said Gotthold quietly; "but you would do better to
+hang up the pistol again; your hand is too unsteady for such tricks
+to-night; some accident might occur."
+
+Gotthold was determined not to enter upon an explanation with the
+half-intoxicated man this evening, under any circumstances; and equally
+determined not to yield to his threats, if this was intended for one,
+and permit the ransom money to be extorted, which he must pay if he
+wished to leave the place without any further difficulty.
+
+The expression of calm decision upon the grave countenance of his guest
+had not escaped Brandow; he let the half-raised weapon fall, laid it
+aside, came back to the table, threw himself into his chair, and said:
+
+"You are right! Some accident might happen; but no one would care, and,
+after all, it would only be consistent if I should put a bullet through
+my brain. You are a lucky fellow. You have been obliged to work from
+your early youth, and so have learned a great deal; now a great
+fortune, more than you can use, comes to you without the least trouble.
+I have never worked, have learned nothing, and I lose a property
+without which I am nothing, less than nothing: the jest of all who have
+known me, a scarecrow to the gay birds I have hitherto equalled or
+excelled, and who now leave the poor plucked crow to his fate. Death
+and the devil!"
+
+He dashed his glass down upon the table so violently that it broke.
+
+"Oh, pshaw! the matter is not worth getting into a passion about.
+Everything must have an end, and however they may jeer at me, nobody
+can say I have not enjoyed life. I have drunk the best wine, ridden the
+fastest horses, and kissed the prettiest women. You are a connoisseur
+too, Gotthold; you have done just the same in your quiet way, of
+course. Yes, you were always a sly-boots, and I had a cursed respect
+for your cunning, even in our school-days. Well, no offence; I am not
+very stupid, and clever people, like you and me, always get along
+together; it's only dunces who quarrel--dunces, silly boys, as we were
+then. Do you remember? Tierce, quart, quart, tierce! Ha! ha! ha! That
+wouldn't suit us now. Touch glasses, old boy, and drink! Drink to good
+fellowship!"
+
+And he held out his brimming glass.
+
+"My glass is empty," said Gotthold; "and so is the bottle. Let us go to
+bed; we have drunk more than enough."
+
+He left the room before Brandow, who was staring at him with eyeballs
+starting from his head, could reply.
+
+As the door closed behind him, Brandow made a spring like that of a
+wild beast after its prey, and then paused in the middle of the room,
+showing his white teeth, and shaking his clenched fists at the door.
+
+"Cursed scoundrel! I'll have your blood, drop by drop; but first I'll
+have your money!"
+
+His uplifted arms fell; he tottered to the table, and sat there
+supporting his burning head in his hands, gnawing his lips with his
+sharp teeth till the blood sprang through the skin, mentally heaping
+crime upon crime, but none would lead him to his goal. Suddenly he
+started up and a hoarse laugh burst forth. So it should be! She, she
+herself must ask him, and that was the way to force her to do so!
+Vengeance, full vengeance, and no danger, except that the servant might
+chatter! She had already threatened to do so several times, and to-day
+had been more impudent than ever; but all must be accomplished
+to-morrow, and to-night was available for many things.
+
+That night--he did not know how late it was, for he had lain there
+fully dressed, with throbbing temples, awake, and yet as if in some
+wild dream, falling from the heights of more than earthly bliss into
+the depths of helpless anxiety and dread--that very night Gotthold
+heard above the rustling of the foliage before his window, and the
+plashing of the rain against the panes, a sound which made him start
+from his bed, and, holding his breath, listen intently. The noise was
+like a scream, a woman's scream, and could only have come from the
+chamber below him, where Cecilia slept alone with her child. He reached
+the window at a single bound. The wind and rain beat into his face, but
+above the wind and rain he distinctly heard Brandow's voice, now louder
+and now lower, as a man speaks who is carried away by passion, and then
+violently forces himself to be calm. At intervals he thought he
+distinguished her voice; but perhaps it was only his fancy, excited to
+madness, which filled the pauses in which he did not hear the voice of
+the man he hated. A conjugal scene in the chamber of the wife, who
+cannot, must not lock her door; who must hear the wild words of the
+furious drunken husband, and has nothing to oppose to his fury save her
+tears!
+
+"And she bears it, must bear it! Must wring her hands helplessly! This
+is bitterer than death!" 'murmured Gotthold. "Why didn't I speak? All
+might now have been decided! Is not keeping silence when one ought to
+speak also a lie, a cruel, horrible lie, and must falsehood be spoken
+by the good as well as the bad? To-morrow, if to-morrow were only here,
+if such a night can have a morrow."
+
+He threw himself on his bed, moaning and sobbing, and buried his head
+in the pillows, then started up again. Was not that a step moving
+slowly and cautiously over the floor? Was any one coming to him with a
+murderous weapon? Thank God!
+
+Gotthold sprang to the door and tore it open. Everything was
+silent--silent and dark. The stairs from below led directly up the
+middle of the entry, between the two gables; the cautious step he had
+heard was not on his side, and had undoubtedly gone towards the other,
+where, opposite to his room, were two smaller chambers, one of which,
+on the left, stood empty, and the other was occupied by pretty Rieke;
+for a faint light, which was quickly extinguished, now gleamed through
+a crack in the door of the right-hand room, and through the deep
+stillness came a laugh, instantly hushed, as if a hand had been
+suddenly placed over the laughing lips.
+
+Gotthold shut the door; he wished to see and hear no more.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+A gray dreary morning followed the dark rainy night. Endless masses
+of vapor, now and then piled into thick clouds, rolled in from the
+sea,--masses so deep that they almost covered the lofty tops of the
+poplars, which now bent before the rude wind over the drenched straw
+roofs of the barns, and then rebounded defiantly, shaking their
+branches indignantly.
+
+Gotthold stood at the window of the sitting room, gazing gloomily at
+the dreary scene. He had slept an hour towards morning, almost against
+his will; but anxiety for what might be coming weighed upon his soul
+more heavily than physical exhaustion upon his body. Terrible as the
+night had been, stars of hope ever and anon had sparkled cheeringly
+through the darkness; now it seemed as if this dreary day had only
+dawned to say: This solitary, hideous drifting is life, reality; what
+have I to do with your dreams? As he came down the staircase, he had
+seen almost with an emotion of horror that preparations for the
+reception of guests were being made in the large hall looking out upon
+the garden, which was generally unused; the clattering of pots and
+pans, and the loud voices of maid-servants came from the kitchen at the
+end of the long hall; and a groom was just pushing from the stable the
+carriage which was to bring the guests from Prora. Everything was going
+on as usual, as if to-day would be like yesterday, and to-morrow like
+to day; as if nothing could happen which would make the old world young
+again as it was on the first day that dawned on Paradise. And yet, and
+yet, it surely was no dream; it had certainly happened. It could not
+blow away like formless mist! It must assume some shape, emerge from
+the chaos, perhaps be worked out by a hot conflict; it was all the
+same! Only it could not be lost!
+
+But this dreary inactive waiting was terrible! She must know that he
+had been standing here half an hour already, waiting for her, for one
+word from her lips, even one look, to say to him: I am yours, as you
+are mine; trust me as I trust you. Why did she not come? The moment was
+more favorable than any which might occur again all day. Brandow had
+just crossed the courtyard to the stables, as he did every morning; the
+breakfast was on the table; they had always spent half an hour together
+at this time undisturbed--and to-day, to-day she must needs leave him
+alone!
+
+A boundless impatience took possession of him; he paced up and down the
+room, glancing every moment towards the door through which that other
+had come and gone last night, and which was closed upon him, listening
+with straining ears that he might distinguish some sound, but heard
+nothing except the sleepy buzzing of a fly; even the house clock in the
+tall old-fashioned wooden case did not tick to-day; the hands had
+stopped during the night.
+
+He pressed his hands to his beating temples; it seemed as if he should
+go mad if this torture did not cease, and then a thought occurred to
+him more terrible than all the rest. Was she afraid of him? Did shame
+withhold her from appearing before the eyes of him against whose heart
+her own had throbbed yesterday, whose kiss she had received and
+answered? No, no, a thousand times no! Whatever kept her from him, it
+was not that, not that! It was a crime against her proud nature even to
+think it! She might die, but not live to be dishonorable. Perhaps she
+was ill, very ill, helpless, alone--ah! that was Gretchen's voice:
+"Mamma, I want to go with you; I want to go with you to Uncle Gotthold.
+I want to bid Uncle Gotthold 'good morning!'" and then low soothing
+tones, then the door opened and she entered.
+
+Gotthold rushed toward her, but only a few steps. She had raised both
+hands with a gesture of the most imploring entreaty, and the most
+imploring entreaty looked forth from the large tearful eyes, and pure
+pale face. So she approached, so she stood before him, and then almost
+inaudible words fell from her quivering lips.
+
+"Will you forgive me, Gotthold!"
+
+He could not answer; gesture, expression, words--all told him that his
+haunting fear had become reality; that in one way or another all was
+lost.
+
+A fierce anguish overpowered him, and then anger arose in his heart; he
+laughed aloud!
+
+"So this is all the courage you have!"
+
+Her arms fell, her lips closed, her features quivered convulsively, and
+her whole frame trembled.
+
+"No, Gotthold, not all. But I thank you for being angry; or it might
+have been impossible for me to perform my task. No, don't look at me
+so; don't look at me so. Laugh as you laughed just now! What can a man
+do but laugh, when a woman by whom he believes himself beloved comes
+and says--"
+
+"You need not," cried Gotthold; "you need not; a man does not
+comprehend such things, but he feels them without words."
+
+He turned towards the door.
+
+"Gotthold!"
+
+There was despair in the tone; the young man's hand fell from the
+latch.
+
+"Can it be, Cecilia? I have frightened you by my vehemence; but it
+shall not happen again. Only say one word--tell me you love me, and I
+will bear all; everything else is a matter of indifference to me; we
+must and shall see some way of escape; but you cannot let me go so, not
+so, I implore you!"
+
+But he searched her face for some token of assent in vain. Her features
+seemed set in a horrible smile.
+
+"No," she said, "not so: not before you have promised that you will
+save my husband, whom I love and honor; from whom I cannot, will not
+part."
+
+She uttered the words slowly, in a monotonous tone, like something
+learned by rote, and now paused like a scholar who has forgotten her
+lesson.
+
+"What does this farce mean?" said Gotthold.
+
+The door of the sleeping-room opened, Gretchen put her curly head in,
+and then came bounding towards her mother. Cecilia clasped the child
+passionately in her arms, and hastily continued, while a feverish
+flush replaced her former death-like pallor: "Save him from the
+bankruptcy into which he will fall, if you do not help him. The matter
+concerns--concerns--"
+
+She released Gretchen, and pressed both hands upon her brow.
+
+"Mamma, mamma," screamed the little one, beginning to cry aloud, as
+Gotthold supported the tottering figure to the nearest chair.
+
+"What is the matter with my wife?" asked Brandow.
+
+Gotthold had not heard him enter. At the first sound of his voice
+Cecilia raised herself from his arms, and stood erect between the two
+men, without support, clasping the child to her heart, pale as death,
+but with an expression of sorrowful resolution; and there was a
+strange, unvarying firmness in the tone of her voice, as, fixing her
+eyes upon her husband, she said:
+
+"He knows, and will do it."
+
+And then turning to Gotthold:
+
+"You will do it for the sake of our old friendship, Gotthold, will you
+not? And farewell, Gotthold; we shall not see each other again."
+
+She held out an icy hand to him, took Gretchen in her arms, and left
+the room without looking back, while the child stretched out its little
+hands over her shoulder, calling, "Bring me something pretty to-day,
+uncle Gotthold. Do you hear, uncle Gotthold?"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+"If women only wouldn't take everything tragically," said Brandow;
+"it's really a pity. First she proposed it herself, and now--but we
+mustn't expect the dear creatures to be consistent."
+
+"And what do you require of me?" asked Gotthold.
+
+He had seated himself at the table, while Brandow strode restlessly up
+and down the room, pretending to busy himself in doing first one thing
+and then another.
+
+"Require! How you talk! Require! If I had had anything to require of
+you I shouldn't have been silent so long; but I think my wife has told
+you all, or did she--"
+
+"She has told me everything except the amount."
+
+"Except the amount? Capital! capital!--so exactly like a woman! Except
+the amount! Of course there's no occasion to lay any stress upon such
+secondary considerations."
+
+And Brandow essayed a laugh which sounded rather hoarse.
+
+"Short and good."
+
+"Short, for aught I care, and good. Well, I hope you'll take it so. I
+want twenty-five thousand thalers."
+
+"When?"
+
+"That's the devil of it. Ten thousand, which I owe the trustees of the
+convent for arrears of rent, are to be paid to-morrow to the convent
+treasurer at Sundin; but Sellien, if he comes to-day, would take the
+money back with him; of course, however, that is only a favor on his
+part, and would be a convenience on mine--there's no obligation; so
+to-morrow morning will be time enough for that. The rest--I mean the
+fifteen thousand--is a debt of honor, which must be paid this evening,
+if I don't wish to lose Brownlock and my wheat harvest, which I
+pledged. Between ourselves, they really had designs only upon
+Brownlock. They, that is, the two Plueggens and Redebas, who fairly
+pressed me for the money, and then fixed to-day as the last limit of
+time for payment, because they knew what a strait I am in about my
+arrears of rent, and hoped, under any circumstances, I should be unable
+to pay, and then they would have Brownlock. The sneaks, the swindlers!
+Brownlock, that is worth twice as much as the whole amount--Brownlock,
+a horse on which I already have fifteen thousand in my betting-book,
+and which will bring me in thirty thousand as sure as my name is Carl
+Brandow."
+
+He acted as if he had talked himself into a rage, and lashed the air
+and the tops of his boots with his riding-whip, while his crafty eyes
+rested steadily upon Gotthold, who still sat motionless at the table,
+resting his head on his hand.
+
+"And I am to procure the money for you? How did you arrange that?"
+
+"My plan was something of this kind: my wife told me you wished to
+leave us to-day; of course I am prodigiously sorry; but you have your
+reasons, which I respect, although I don't know them; and you will
+perhaps make use of the carriage I am just going to send to Prora for
+the Selliens. I'll let Hinrich Scheel, on whom I can depend implicitly,
+go with you; and Hinrich could then bring back the fifteen thousand
+with which I must feed my dear guests. You need not pay the money at
+all; that blameless usurer, your worthy Wollnow, might not count it
+out. The ten thousand for Sellien can remain there: he can take it
+himself to-morrow morning, when he will be obliged to pass through
+Prora again. Just write me a line, or even tell Hinrich that the money
+will be ready for him at Wollnow's on receipt of my order. Then he
+could leave the acquittance here, or give it to Wollnow, from whom I
+can get it whenever I have an opportunity, and the affair is settled."
+
+"And suppose Wollnow won't give me the money?"
+
+"Won't give it to you? Why, you have fifty thousand in his business."
+
+"Not a groschen more than ten."
+
+"But Semmel assured me--"
+
+"Semmel is mistaken."
+
+Brandow had paused, with his riding-whip uplifted. Was the man trying
+to drive a bargain? A paltry ten thousand? Did he expect to get off
+with that?
+
+A scornful smile flitted over his sharp face, which was unusually pale
+to-day, and the riding-whip whizzed through the air.
+
+"Oh, pshaw, you have credit for fifty thousand. Credit is money, as
+nobody knows better than I, who have lived on it so long. But do as you
+choose! I don't plead for myself--I'm made of hard wood, and shall
+survive the storm. I am sorry for poor Cecilia, though. She reckoned so
+confidently upon your friendship; persuaded me so urgently to confide
+in you."
+
+Gotthold had been compelled to exert all his strength in order to
+control himself during this horrible scene, and not show his antagonist
+how terribly he was suffering. Suddenly a mist crept over his eyes, a
+roaring sound was in his ears, it seemed as if he was lying on the
+ground, and Brandow, who stood over him, was just raising his arm for a
+second blow. Then, with a violent effort, he shook off the faintness
+that threatened to overpower him, and said, rising:
+
+"That is right. Cecilia shall not have reckoned upon my friendship in
+vain; take care that you don't make a mistake yourself."
+
+Brandow had involuntarily recoiled a few paces, startled by Gotthold's
+ghastly face. He tried to answer with a jest to the effect that he was
+not in the habit of being mistaken where his debts were concerned; but
+Gotthold cut short the sentence with a contemptuous "Enough!" and left
+the room to pack his clothes.
+
+Fifteen minutes after, the carriage driven by Hinrich Scheel rolled
+away through the misty morning across the moor, on the way to Prora.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+Coffee had just been served in Frau Wollnow's pleasant little balcony
+room in the second story. The gentlemen had gone down-stairs to smoke a
+cigar in the office, but the ladies were still sitting at the table,
+from which the pretty young servant-girl was removing the dishes. The
+three children, who could not become accustomed to the altered
+arrangements of the household--coffee was generally served in the
+sitting-room below--romped noisily around, to Frau Wollnow's great
+amusement, while Alma Sellien smoothed a frown of displeasure from her
+white forehead with her soft dainty hand.
+
+"Couldn't you send the children away now?"
+
+"The children!" said Frau Wollnow, casting an astonished glance from
+her round brown eyes at her brown-eyed darlings.
+
+"I'm always a little nervous in the morning; and to-day must be doubly
+cautious, as I have a country excursion in prospect."
+
+"Pardon me, dear Alma; I forgot you were not accustomed to the
+noise. It is not always so bad; but since Stine left me day before
+yesterday--dear me, I can't blame her; the good old thing wants to get
+married, and to a young man who might almost be her son, so she
+certainly has no time to lose. She has gone back to her parents. The
+wedding will take place in a fortnight. It was hard enough for her to
+leave the children--"
+
+"You were going to send the children away, dear!"
+
+The children were sent away. Alma Sellien leaned back in the corner of
+the sofa exhausted, and said, closing her soft blue eyes as it half
+asleep: "I am sure this will be another disappointment."
+
+"What, dear Alma?" asked Frau Wollnow, whose thoughts were still with
+her children.
+
+"My husband is so terribly enthusiastic about him; he's always
+enthusiastic about men I afterwards think horrible."
+
+"You will be mistaken this time," cried Frau Wollnow, who, engrossed in
+this interesting subject, even failed to hear her youngest child crying
+upon the stairs; "your husband has said too little rather than too
+much. He is not only a handsome man--which, for my part, I consider of
+very little consequence--tall, and of an extremely elegant, graceful
+bearing, which harmonizes most admirably with the gentle, yet resolute
+expression of his features, the mild, yet steady gaze of his large
+deep-blue eyes, and even the soft, but sonorous tone of his voice."
+
+"You are surely turning poetess," said Alma.
+
+Ottilie Wollnow blushed to the roots of the curly bluish-black hair on
+her temples.
+
+"I don't deny that I am very, very--"
+
+"Much in love with him," said Alma, completing the sentence.
+
+"Why yes, if you choose to say so; that is, as I love everything good
+and beautiful."
+
+"An excellent theory, which I profess myself, only unfortunately in
+practice we must always be withheld by the opposition of our husbands.
+Yours did not seem to be quite so much delighted with your protege."
+
+"My good Emil!" said Frau Wollnow, "we don't agree in a great many
+things, and, dear me, it is certainly no wonder; he has been obliged to
+work so hard all his life, that it has made him a little grave and
+pedantic; but he is a thoroughly good man, and in this case you are
+entirely mistaken; at heart he is even more interested in Gotthold than
+I, or, if that is saying too much, quite as much so."
+
+"It did not seem so."
+
+"But it was only seeming. He is afraid of compromising his dignity if
+he talks as he really feels. I have found that all people who have had
+a sorrowful youth are so. Even the heart, so to speak, needs to have
+had its dancing lessons, and when it has had none, when it has always
+been compelled to beat under the pressure of straitened, gloomy
+surroundings, as in my poor Emil's case, people never overcome it all
+their lives. But what I was going to say is, that this time there is a
+special reason for it. My good Emil certainly never told even me--dear,
+kind man, as if I would have taken it amiss--that thirty or thirty-five
+years ago he was once very deeply in love with Gotthold's mother, when
+they lived in the same house in Stettin--it is a long and very romantic
+story."
+
+"Oh! oh!" said Alma, "who would ever have given your husband credit for
+that?"
+
+"Why," cried Ottilie, "you are entirely mistaken in Emil; his nature
+has a freshness, a power, a youthful fire--"
+
+"How happy you are!" said Alma with a faint sigh.
+
+"I hope you are no less so; but I wanted to explain why Emil always
+becomes so quiet when the conversation turns upon Gotthold. That is the
+reason of it, and then he has taken it into his head that this visit to
+the Brandows must turn out unlucky for him--Gotthold. You know Gotthold
+used to be in love with Cecilia; nay, between ourselves, I am sure he
+loves her still. But now, tell me yourself: can you see any great
+misfortune in that?"
+
+"Not at all; I only think it rather improbable; you know I have never
+been able to share your enthusiasm about Cecilia, and don't see why all
+the men are to be in love with her. Her husband evidently isn't; at
+least I know a lady to whom he devotes himself whenever he meets her,
+in a way that proves his heart is not very strongly engaged in any
+other quarter."
+
+"If he has one. Forgive me, dear Alma, you are a prudent woman, and I
+am sure you love your husband; but Brandow is really an extremely
+dangerous man. Possessed of the most attractive manners, when he
+chooses to adopt them; always lively and humorous, even witty, yet
+sensible when the occasion requires him to be so; and moreover bold,
+fearless, an acknowledged master of all chivalrous arts--and such
+things always impose upon us women--in a word, a dangerous man. Good
+Heavens, would it have been possible, under any other circumstances, to
+understand how the aristocratic, poetic Cecilia could have fallen in
+love with him! But what does all this avail without true love, and I do
+not believe Carl Brandow is capable of the feeling. Now let a man such
+as I have described Gotthold to be, enter the home of such a couple,--a
+man, moreover, who has scarcely conquered a boyish love for the
+wife,--indeed, if one reflects upon it, one can hardly blame my
+husband: such passionate natures, and in the loneliness of country
+life,--it really seems as if scales had fallen from my eyes. And
+Gotthold has not written a word all this week! Still waters run deep,
+but may not deep waters perhaps be still? And I have actually been the
+cause of it by my unlucky mania for pictures!"
+
+"I think I can set your mind at rest, so far as that goes," said Alma.
+"I have found that men always have some reason for doing what they
+wish; if it isn't one thing, it's another. And then this evening, or
+to-morrow morning at latest, if we spend the night at Dollan, I can
+bring you the very latest and most exact news about all these
+interesting complications. I only fear they will prove less interesting
+than you expect."
+
+"Lucky Alma!" said Ottilie sighing; "how much I should like to go with
+you. But my husband would never allow it."
+
+"'Allow' is a word a husband should never be permitted to use to his
+wife," said Alma, as she slipped her wedding-ring up and down her
+slender finger.
+
+The conversation between the two ladies was interrupted by Assessor
+Sellien, who hastily entered the room.
+
+"Why," said his wife, "have you come back already? Is the carriage
+here? I haven't put on my travelling-dress yet."
+
+"The carriage is not here," said the Assessor as he seated himself
+between the two ladies, and raised his wife's hand, which hung loosely
+over the back of the sofa, to his lips; "I only came to ask whether you
+would not prefer to stay here."
+
+"Stay here!" said Alma, hastily starting from her lounging attitude in
+the sofa corner. "What has got into your head, Hugo?"
+
+"You have one of your headaches, dear child, and a very bad one; I
+noticed it some time ago."
+
+"You are entirely mistaken, dear Hugo; I feel unusually well this
+morning."
+
+"And this terrible weather," said the Assessor, looking thoughtfully
+through the open door that led to the balcony; "there, it is raining
+again; I don't understand how ladies can expose themselves so."
+
+He rose and shut the door.
+
+"Brandow will send a close carriage in any case," said Alma.
+
+"So much the worse," cried the Assessor. "You could not endure an hour
+in a close carriage, poor child. And then those terrible roads--I know
+them! To cross Dollan moor after it has rained all night--it's actually
+dangerous."
+
+"I will not expose you to the danger all alone," said Alma smiling.
+
+"That is very different, dear child. Men must follow wherever duty
+calls."
+
+"And the prospect of a good dinner--"
+
+"In a word, dear Alma, you would do me a favor if you would stay here."
+
+"I have not the least inclination to do you this favor, dear Hugo, and
+now what else is there, if I may ask?"
+
+The Assessor had risen and walked up and down the room.
+
+"Well, then," he said pausing, "you know how unwilling I am to deny you
+anything; but this time I really cannot allow you to go."
+
+Alma looked at her husband in astonishment; Ottilie, who could no
+longer control herself, burst into a merry laugh, exclaiming:
+
+"'Allow' is a word a husband should never be permitted to use to his
+wife."
+
+"Perhaps the word is not exactly suitable," said the Assessor; "but it
+does not alter the fact. And the fact is, that your husband has just
+given me certain information, which makes Alma's accompanying me this
+time appear not only undesirable, but even impossible. And your
+husband, my dear lady, is entirely of my opinion."
+
+"But Emil's solicitude carries him entirely too far," cried Frau
+Wollnow angrily; "poor Cecilia has not deserved this. That is attacking
+a woman's reputation, not only unnecessarily, but without the slightest
+reason. If people are so excessively strict, they will be obliged to
+give up all society."
+
+"I don't understand you, dear madam," said the Assessor, "at least I do
+not know what connection Frau Brandow's reputation could have with this
+very disagreeable affair."
+
+"Then I don't understand you," replied Ottilie.
+
+"It will be best," answered Sellien, "in order to avoid further
+misunderstandings, to tell the ladies plainly what the point in
+question really is. True, Herr Wollnow charged me to be cautious; but
+the flattering obstinacy with which my wife rejects my timid attempts
+to induce her to stay here, compels me to withdraw from my diplomatic
+position. Herr Wollnow has just informed me that my confident
+expectation that Brandow would have the ten thousand thalers ready,
+which I was to receive from him to-day, is all an illusion. To be sure,
+Brandow wrote me about a fortnight ago, and made no secret of his
+embarrassments; but he's such a clever fellow, and has always helped
+himself out of his scrapes when the pinch came; at any rate, he made no
+answer to my encouraging letter, and as I said before, I supposed he
+would not let me come for nothing, but on the contrary have everything
+ready. Now, however, I hear from your husband that matters are very
+different, in fact quite desperate. Brandow's credit is entirely
+exhausted. Herr Wollnow says that nobody could be found on the whole
+island who would lend him a thaler, since the two Plueggens and Redebas,
+who have kept his head above water so long, declared yesterday in
+Wollnow's counting-room that their patience was exhausted, and he would
+not get another shilling from them. Instead of that, they were to get
+something from him, that is, they were to receive a very large sum
+within a few days. They mentioned fifteen thousand thalers; but Herr
+Wollnow thinks there was probably a little exaggeration about it. But
+even if this was the whole amount of Brandow's indebtedness--which is
+undoubtedly not the case--he is still a lost man. The convent
+confidently expects that Brandow will pay his two years' rent
+to-morrow. If he does not, it will certainly make use of its right, and
+proceed to expel him from Dollan, and then Brandow will be as
+thoroughly and completely ruined as a man can be."
+
+"Poor Cecilia! Poor, poor Cecilia!" cried Frau Wollnow, bursting into
+tears.
+
+"I am sorry for her," said the Assessor, playing with his long nails.
+"But what can be done?"
+
+"Emil must help them!" exclaimed Frau Wollnow, removing her
+handkerchief from her face a moment.
+
+"He will beware of that, as he said just now; it is pouring water into
+the Danaides seive."
+
+"But you, dear Herr Sellien, you are his friend; you cannot see your
+friend go to ruin."
+
+The Assessor shrugged his shoulders. "Friend! Dear me, whom don't we
+call by that name? And my relations with Brandow are very superficial,
+mere business connections, if you choose to call them so; are they not,
+my dear wife?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly," murmured Alma.
+
+"And I should be giving up this very business relation if I allowed
+Alma to accompany me, when the situation was so critical. In the
+presence of ladies it is very difficult not to touch the chords of
+tender feeling, and it seems to me extremely desirable to avoid the
+possibility of doing so. Are you not of my opinion, dear Alma?"
+
+"It is a very disagreeable affair," said Alma.
+
+"Is it not? And why should you expose yourself to it unnecessarily? I
+knew my wise little wife would yield the point at last."
+
+And the Assessor tenderly kissed Alma's hand.
+
+"But in that case it seems to me you must stay here too, my dear Herr
+Assessor," said Frau Wollnow.
+
+"I? Why? On the contrary, it is only prudent for me to appear as
+natural as possible. I know nothing; I suspect nothing. Of course I
+shall be extremely sorry when Brandow takes me aside and tells me he
+can't pay; but I'll wager the dinner will be none the worse for that,
+and taste none the worse to me. His red wine and champagne were always
+superb."
+
+Frau Wollnow rose and went out upon the balcony. She must breathe the
+fresh air, even at the risk of having her new silk morning-dress
+spoiled by the rain, which was now falling quite heavily from the gray
+sky. "Poor, poor Cecilia!" she repeated sighing, "and there is no one
+who can and will save you."
+
+She remembered that she had brought her husband a dowry of fifty
+thousand thalers, but she could not touch them without Emil's
+permission, and Emil would not allow it. Should she try to move him by
+throwing herself prostrate at his feet? She could almost have laughed
+outright at the extravagant idea, especially when she imagined the
+astonished expression her husband's face would wear; but the tears
+again sprang to her eyes and mingled with the rain-drops that beat upon
+her burning face. Suddenly the husband and wife within were roused from
+their low-toned, eager conversation by a loud exclamation from the
+balcony. "Gotthold, good heavens, Gotthold!"
+
+"Where, where?" cried the Assessor and his wife with one voice, as they
+hurried out upon the balcony.
+
+"There he comes," said Ottilie, pointing towards the square, across
+which a man with a broad-brimmed hat, pulled low over his eyes, was
+walking directly towards the house.
+
+"He isn't so tall as Brandow," said Alma, who was critically inspecting
+the new-comer through an opera-glass.
+
+"What can he want?" asked her husband.
+
+"We shall soon know," said Frau Wollnow, as with a vague feeling of
+anxiety she pressed her two companions back into the room.
+
+But Gotthold had only asked for Herr Wollnow, the maid-servant informed
+them, and she had been ordered to show him into Herr Wollnow's
+counting-room. The interview, whatever its purport might be, lasted
+much longer than was at all agreeable to the impatient waiters, and
+after an hour, during which the Assessor had rather increased than
+lessened the ladies' impatience by a detailed account of his adventures
+with Gotthold in Sicily, Herr Wollnow appeared alone. They were
+astonished, amazed, and scarcely satisfied when Wollnow said that
+Gotthold had only gone to the Fuerstenhof to change his clothes, and
+would come back if his business gave him time. They wanted to know what
+business could be so pressing that Gotthold had selected Sunday morning
+for its transaction.
+
+"The ladies must ask that of himself," said Herr Wollnow; "he has not
+taken me into his confidence. All I know is, that he is going to drive
+back to Dollan with our friends here, return to-night or to-morrow
+morning in the same excellent company, from which he anticipates a
+great deal of pleasure, and then continue his journey without further
+delay. It seems that the point in question concerns the hasty purchase
+of a few gifts, with which he wants to surprise his host and hostess at
+Dollan at parting; at least he wanted me to give him a sum of money
+which is rather large for mere travelling expenses, but I can say no
+more."
+
+And Herr Wollnow, apparently with the utmost unconcern, hummed an air
+from "Figaro" as he left the room to avoid further questioning.
+
+"I don't think it at all polite for him not to present himself a
+moment, at least," said Alma; "I've a great mind to punish him for it
+by not appearing at breakfast."
+
+"Oh! pray don't," said the Assessor.
+
+Ottilie Wollnow made no answer. She knew her husband too well to have
+the gloomy expression of his eyes and the cloud on his brow escape her
+notice, in spite of his apparent unconcern. Besides, she had a
+foreboding that Gotthold's interview with her husband had not been
+quite so innocent as it seemed, that there was something disagreeable,
+perhaps some misfortune impending, and above all, she was convinced
+that the Selliens were getting into a passion in vain, and Gotthold
+would not appear at breakfast.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+The little company at Dollan had already been wandering for half an
+hour up and down the rain-soaked paths in the garden, between the
+dripping hedges, waiting for the arrival of Assessor Sellien and
+dinner.
+
+"You're a pretty fellow," cried Hans Redebas, who was walking with Otto
+von Plueggen, as Brandow with Gustav von Plueggen and Pastor Semmel met
+him on the same spot for the third time: "first you invite us to meet
+some one who vanishes in the dew and mist; then it occurs to your
+lovely wife, on whose account we all come here, to have a headache and
+not appear; and finally, we're kept waiting for the Assessor, and
+wandering around your old wet garden like horses in a tread-mill! I'll
+give you ten minutes, and if we don't sit down to the table by that
+time I'll have my horses harnessed, and we'll dine in Dahlitz, and not
+badly either. What do you say to that, Pastor?"
+
+And Herr Redebas laughed and clapped the Pastor, who had come with him
+in his carriage, rudely on the shoulder. Brandow laughed too, and said
+they must have patience; it was not his fault that the Assessor had not
+arrived, and things had gone contrary that day; the dinner had been
+ready a long time.
+
+"Then in the name of three devils, let's go to the table, or I shall
+faint away," cried Herr Redebas.
+
+It was by no means probable that this man, with the frame and strength
+of a giant, would be overcome by such a sudden attack of weakness; but
+Brandow had every reason not to increase the ill-humor of his guests.
+Already, to shorten the time before dinner, they had played a game of
+cards, in which the Pastor took no share except by his intense
+interest, and lost a few hundred thalers. To be sure, the amount was
+very little in comparison to the sum he owed his visitors; but they had
+been irritated by the loss, and took the less care to conceal their
+annoyance as Brandow still uttered no word in allusion to the business
+for whose settlement they had really assembled. Undoubtedly he was
+unable to pay. To be sure, they had expected it, nay, in point of fact,
+the whole transaction which Hans Redebas and the two Plueggens had
+jointly undertaken was based upon this supposition; but now each was
+not sorry to consider himself in the light of a man of honor, whose
+confidence had been most shamefully betrayed.
+
+Herr Redebas, especially, was in a very irritable mood. The conditions
+to which, at the conclusion of the mutual bargain, he had agreed,
+pleased him less and less every moment. Why had he not required the
+whole sum to be paid, or else claimed for his share the second stake
+Brandow had offered in addition to Brownlock, his wheat-harvest? The
+wheat, as he had just convinced himself, was an exceptionably,
+unexpectedly fine crop; it would have brought in a very large profit;
+while the horse, after all, was a doubtful bargain. Since the committee
+had included a large tract of marsh land in the course laid out for the
+race between the gentlemen riders, the chances in favor of Brownlock,
+which was universally considered too heavy a horse, were very
+considerably lessened. And, moreover, what had such a sedate, man as
+Hans Redebas to do with such things, which, after all, were only fit
+for the nobility? It would be better for the two Plueggens to see what
+they could make of the horse! It was their trade; they understood it,
+and so in God's name let them take the beast for their ten thousand,
+and leave him the wheat crop! But this time, in spite of the proverbial
+want of harmony that prevailed between them, the two brothers made
+common cause. The bargain had been settled, and every one must rest
+satisfied with it; if Hans Redebas fancied he was the only one who
+could see into a thing, he'd find himself greatly mistaken. Therefore,
+as Herr Redebas could not vent his anger upon his two companions, he
+thought himself entitled to treat Brandow with all the more rudeness
+and want of consideration. Even before dinner he had shown this
+disposition to an extravagant degree, and the wine, of which he drank
+immense quantities at the table, in spite of its many other excellent
+qualities, did not possess that of improving the giant's temper.
+
+At any other time it would have been an easy matter for Brandow to
+parry his antagonist's coarse jests and turn the laugh against him;
+nay, he was usually considered among his associates to be a man whom
+one could not offend, with impunity; but to-day his dreaded powers of
+sarcasm, as well as his often tested courage, seemed to have deserted
+him. He did not hear what could not have been inaudible, did not
+understand what no one could fail to comprehend, laughed when he would
+usually have started up in fury, and with pale trembling lips tried as
+well as he could to give the conversation a jesting turn, for which
+purpose he grasped at more and more questionable expedients, and at
+last related anecdotes, which even to the long-suffering Pastor, seemed
+altogether too scandalous.
+
+In spite of the noise and laughter, in spite of the row of empty
+bottles which grew longer and longer under the side-board, it was a
+dreary, uncomfortable meal, and to no one more so than to the master of
+the house. Brandow knew from long experience that he could require his
+nerves to bear a great deal, but it now seemed as if he should not be
+able to accomplish what he had undertaken to-day. While laughing
+heartily over a story he had just related, his fingers fairly trembled
+with the longing he felt to snatch the champagne bottle from the cooler
+and shatter it upon Redebas' huge black head. He was aware that his
+strength was almost exhausted; he should break down if Hinrich Scheel
+did not return soon and release him from this horrible torture of
+uncertainty. And then it seemed as if this torment was nothing to the
+other, the torment of the certainty that his wife loved that man, and
+despised him too much even to hate him, and that he fully deserved her
+scorn. Again and again--with the speed of lightning--in the few seconds
+it required to raise a glass of wine to his lips and swallow the
+contents--he lived over the scene of the night before in her
+sleeping-room, when he stood before her with clenched fists, and not a
+muscle in her pale face quivered until he struck her to the heart with
+the fatal blow which he had cruelly withheld so long. To her heart! Her
+heart! It had been a master-stroke! A thrust which crushed the proud
+haughty woman like a stag overtaken by a bullet, rendered her his weak,
+obedient tool, and made him master of the situation. An enviable
+situation, to sit here and endure Redebas' coarse taunts, laugh at his
+own silly wit, look at the stupid faces of the two Plueggens, be cordial
+to the canting Parson, be forced to see that no one's glass was empty,
+and amid all the noisy tumult listen continually for the rolling of the
+carriage which would bring Hinrich, and with Hinrich the money for
+which he had done what he had done, suffered what he had suffered, and
+without which he was a ruined man. At last, at last! There was the
+clatter of horses' hoofs, and the rattle of a carriage, which stopped
+before the house. No one had heard it except himself! So much the
+better, he could speak to Hinrich undisturbed!
+
+He left his guests under the pretext that he wanted to get another
+brand of champagne, and hurried across the hall to the open door,
+before which the carriage was still standing, and he perceived the
+Assessor engaged in conversation with Hinrich Scheel, when he suddenly
+heard his own name called from his room, the door of which also stood
+open, and turning at the sound, saw the man he hated standing before
+him. A thrill of mingled rage and alarm shot through his frame like a
+two-edged sword. What brought this man back? How could he dare to
+return? To say that he had no money, would not pay.
+
+"We have a few moments to ourselves," said Gotthold, bolting the door
+behind Brandow; "the Assessor is still outside; he knows nothing; no
+one knows anything except, of course, Wollnow, without whom I could not
+procure the money you wanted. Even now I have been unable to get it as
+you wished, and therefore was obliged to come here again. You wanted
+fifteen thousand thalers in cash. Wollnow, who is obliged to make very
+large payments for the purchase of grain this morning, could give me
+only ten thousand; the remainder I bring you in these drafts of five
+thousand thalers each, accepted by Wollnow, and payable at sight
+to-morrow, in Sundin, by Philip Nathanson, the wealthiest banker there.
+These drafts, in consequence of Wollnow's credit with your friends in
+the neighborhood, are as good as ready money. I think you will be able
+to settle your affairs with them yourself; but in any case I am here to
+come to your assistance with my personal credit, though I confidently
+believe that it will not be needed."
+
+Gotthold laid a large sealed packet on the table, and drew from his
+pocket-book the three drafts, which he handed Brandow, and the latter
+glanced over with a practised eye to convince himself that these papers
+were really as good as ready money.
+
+A sensation of wonderful relief overpowered the half-intoxicated man.
+Freedom from the agony of expectation, the certainty of deliverance
+from his desperate situation, and, moreover, the prospect of soon
+coming out as winner of the Sundin races, and gainer of an immense sum
+of money by the aid of his now restored Brownlock--all this overwhelmed
+him like a delirium of joy, and he felt a sort of longing to clasp in
+his arms the man who had aided in procuring all this, as his preserver
+and only true friend; and at the same moment he said to himself that it
+was impossible that this man, dreamer and enthusiast though he was,
+would entrust to him a sum, which in itself was a little fortune,
+unless the worst that his jealous fancy had imagined had already
+happened--and the expression of the staring eyes he now fixed upon
+Gotthold seemed to say: "I could crush you like a serpent which has
+crossed my path!"
+
+"I do not think you will ever be in a situation to return this money,"
+said Gotthold; "perhaps it will not be disagreeable to you to hear that
+from this time I renounce all expectation of repayment, and therefore a
+receipt, which would really remain only a bit of paper."
+
+He left the room; Brandow burst into a hoarse laugh.
+
+"That, too," he muttered, "as if another proof were needed! But you
+shall pay for it, both of you, so dearly, that this in comparison will
+be only a drop of water on a hot stone."
+
+The Assessor looked in through the door, which Gotthold had left half
+open. He had heard from the latter that Brandow was here, and hastened
+to take advantage of the favorable opportunity to greet his friend
+alone, and express his regret that Gotthold's business had detained
+them so long in Prora, that he was unable to bring his wife, who was
+suffering from a severe headache, to Dollan. Brandow declared it to be
+a proof of the sympathy between two beautiful natures that his wife was
+also attacked by the same sickness to-day; and the sarcastic, even
+sneering tone in which he said it, caused the Assessor to secretly
+congratulate himself upon his caution in coming to this falling house
+alone. His astonishment was all the greater when Brandow continued with
+the most perfect composure:--
+
+"And as we are now alone, my dear Sellien, we will take advantage of
+the opportunity to settle our little business matter. Here are the ten
+thousand thalers due. I have them from Wollnow. The package is just as
+I received it, stamped with his seal. If you wish to take the, I
+presume superfluous, but perhaps necessary trouble, of counting them,
+don't have the least hesitation about it. When you have finished,
+follow me. I'll make out a receipt, which you will please sign and put
+in this drawer."
+
+The Assessor was so astonished that he really hardly knew what to
+answer; at any rate he was determined to subject the contents of the
+package to a rigid scrutiny, in spite of Wollnow's seals. Brandow
+hastily dashed off a receipt, and then left the room with a sarcastic:
+"Don't make any mistakes, my dear Assessor!"
+
+He had discharged this business hastily in order to be able to speak to
+his confidant. Hinrich Scheel was still waiting before the door with
+the carriage; but he had very little to tell, and didn't know why the
+departure from Prora had been so long delayed. He thought there had
+been some trouble about the money, and they were obliged to wait for
+Loitz, who had gone out to drive. The Assessor's wife was not sick; on
+the contrary, she was standing on the balcony beside Frau Wollnow,
+kissing her hand to the gentlemen as they drove away. Neither did he
+know what the gentlemen were talking about on the road; they had
+jabbered in some foreign language most of the time. So he drove into
+every hole on the way--and there were plenty to-day after the rain--and
+made the ride so uncomfortable for the Herr Assessor that he finally
+swore aloud in good German, and declared he would not go over that road
+again to-day if he was paid a ton of gold. Then the other answered: "In
+that case he must go back alone, for he wouldn't stay all night at
+Dollan under any circumstances."
+
+"It's a bad road at night," said Brandow.
+
+"Especially when it's as dark as it will be this evening," answered
+Hinrich Scheel.
+
+The eyes of the master and servant met and were instantly averted
+again.
+
+"There are many things which might make an accident befall a person who
+was positively determined to go over it at night," said Brandow slowly.
+
+"Unless the driver was very careful," added Hinrich Scheel.
+
+Again their eyes met. No doubt Hinrich had understood him--this time as
+usual, no doubt this time as usual, Hinrich knew what he wanted.
+Brandow drew a long breath. He would fain have seen whether Hinrich
+would not have said another, a final word; but the latter had turned
+towards his horses. A loud tumult of voices, shouting at each other in
+tones of the most violent rage, echoed from the dining-room, and at the
+same moment Rieke came running out. The pretty maid-servant's round
+cheeks were deeply flushed, her gray eyes sparkled, and her luxuriant
+fair hair was not so smooth as it had been at the commencement of the
+dinner.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked Brandow.
+
+"They've been quarreling for the last fifteen minutes. I think they
+will soon come to blows," said Rieke, showing her white teeth in a
+merry laugh.
+
+"We will speak of it again," Brandow called to Hinrich, who was just
+driving the carriage away, and then drew Rieke into the dark hall.
+
+"He has come back again," said he; "see where he goes, and as soon as
+you notice anything, tell me."
+
+"I don't want to be everlastingly running after those two," said Rieke
+sulkily.
+
+"Oh, of course you like it much better to have the gentlemen yonder
+pinch your cheeks and hug you."
+
+"Why not?" said the girl.
+
+"You know what I promised last night," whispered Brandow, now throwing
+his own arm around her slender waist, and putting his lips to her ear.
+
+"Promising is one thing, and keeping your word is another," said Rieke,
+but without making any very strenuous effort to release herself.
+
+The noise in the dining-room grew louder.
+
+"There, you will be a good child," said Brandow; "and now off with you;
+I must see what those fellows are doing."
+
+Hans Redebas had thought he would take advantage of their host's
+momentary absence to again urge upon the two brothers his proposal that
+they should give up Brandow's wheat-crop to him for his share, and in
+exchange take entire possession of Brownlock; and as a witness of the
+honesty of his intentions, quoted the Pastor, with whom he had
+repeatedly talked the matter over on the way to Dollan. The Pastor, who
+wished to make himself agreeable to his patron in every way, had
+endeavored to depict the advantages the arrangement would have for all
+concerned, but in his drunkenness laid on the colors so vividly that
+the two brothers were startled, and recalled a partial concession which
+they had already made. Upon this Hans Redebas called the Pastor a
+stupid dunce, who was always meddling with everything, though he knew
+nothing at all, except a little theological trash, and therefore ought
+to keep his mouth shut everywhere except in his pulpit. Then the
+reverend gentleman had started up exclaiming that "dunce" was a word
+which, as an old graduate of Halle, he would not endure from any one,
+even his patron, upon which Herr Redebas burst into a roar of laughter,
+which roused the drunken man to actual fury.
+
+Meantime the two Plueggens had also commenced a violent dispute. Gustav
+had whispered to his brother that he should like to accept the offer,
+if Redebas would add two thousand thalers to it; Otto, as the elder,
+warned the younger brother against entering into any bargain with
+Redebas, who had more sense in his little finger than he in his whole
+body. Gustav considered himself insulted by this doubt of his
+shrewdness, and muttered something about the "straw" which might be
+found in the other's head, an allusion to the well-known nickname of
+the elder brother, which of course produced a response in which "hay"
+was given a prominent place. So all four shouted at each other, to the
+great amazement of the groom, Fritz, who listened with open mouth till
+he suddenly felt some one touch him on the shoulder, and looking up saw
+his master's face.
+
+"Be off, and don't come in here again till I call you."
+
+The lad left the room; Brandow again surveyed the brawlers at the table
+with hasty glances. "This is just the right moment," he muttered
+through his clenched teeth.
+
+He approached the table, but instead of sitting down, remained standing
+with his arms resting on the back of his chair, and said, rejoicing in
+the sight of the confused faces of the four men, who had suddenly
+become silent: "Pardon me for interrupting your interesting
+conversation, gentlemen, especially with a mere business matter, but it
+must be settled. Hinrich Scheel has just returned from Prora--with the
+Assessor and another gentleman whose name shall be kept secret for the
+present. I had requested Wollnow to send me fifteen thousand thalers in
+cash from my balance in his hands. He begged me to allow him to send
+drafts to the same amount instead. Drafts, gentlemen, given by the
+house of Louis Loitz & Co., in Prora, accepted by Wollnow himself, and
+payable by Philip Nathanson in Sundin. Perhaps the gentlemen will be
+kind enough to hand me in exchange for these drafts--of five thousand
+thalers each--the three notes you lately received from me, in case you
+happen to have them with you."
+
+Bowing ironically, Brandow held out the three drafts which he had
+arranged in his hand in the shape of a fan.
+
+The confederates looked at each other suspiciously. The matter was not
+perfectly regular; the notes were payable in cash; they were not
+obliged to take drafts; but they had just been quarrelling too much
+among themselves to be capable of forming a united resolution at once,
+and at heart each was glad that the other was cheated out of the prey
+he had deemed secure.
+
+"Well, gentlemen," exclaimed Brandow, "I hope none of you will take
+exception to the manner of my payment. It would be an insult to the
+worthy Wollnow, to whose complaisance we have all at times been
+indebted. Or would you like to have the Assessor, who may come in at
+any moment, be a witness of the way in which the Herren von Plueggen and
+Herr Hans Redebas are in the habit of treating an old friend who has
+become involved in a little embarrassment?"
+
+In fact the Assessor's voice was now heard in the hall.
+
+"Hand it over," said Hans Redebas.
+
+"I'll raise no objections," said Otto von Plueggen.
+
+"I'm no spoil-sport," said Gustav.
+
+The drafts were put into the pocket-books of the three gentlemen, in
+exchange for the notes, which Brandow, with a sarcastic smile, crushed
+like pieces of waste paper, and thrust into his pocket just as the
+Assessor entered.
+
+His appearance afforded Brandow a welcome pretext for breaking up the
+dinner-party, which had already in his opinion lasted too long. It had
+stopped raining; would they not prefer to drink their coffee in the
+cool garden, instead of that close room? He expected to find Gotthold
+in the garden, and was not mistaken. They met him walking up and down
+in one of the most out-of-the-way paths. He said nothing when Brandow
+spoke of his return as a surprise he had prepared for his guests, and
+apologized for his non-appearance on plea of a violent headache, which
+often attacked him suddenly, and he had hoped to shake off before
+presenting himself to the company. The two Plueggens were delighted to
+see their old school-fellow, whom they had always cordially hated, and
+Herr Redebas esteemed it an honor to make the acquaintance of such a
+famous man, although it was very evident that he had not the least idea
+in what particular branch of human activity Gotthold had won his
+renown. The Pastor, upon whom he was accustomed to depend at such
+times, unfortunately could give him no information, because he had just
+thrust his arm into the Assessor's, whom he met that day for the first
+time, and was assuring him of his eternal friendship. The Assessor
+laughed and was good-natured enough to laugh again, when Hans Redebas,
+to display his much-admired strength, raised the pair in his arms and
+carried them around the open space, thereby inciting Otto von Plueggen
+to take out his silk pocket-handkerchief, and holding it by the two
+corners, jump over it forward and backward, while Gustav, in laudable
+emulation of his ingenious brother, balanced a garden chair on his
+lower teeth.
+
+"Now I should like to show you my trick," cried Brandow, "and therefore
+will beg you to follow me a few steps."
+
+He went forward and opened a little door in the hedge, which led
+directly into the open space where he trained his racers. It was a
+tolerably large piece of ground, selected with great discrimination,
+and prepared with much skill for the purpose for which it was intended.
+There were wide and narrow ditches, low and high fences, broad
+stretches of smooth, closely-shaven turf to permit the horse to display
+his full speed, and heavy fallow ground for a hunting gallop. Brandow
+had inclosed three sides of this space, the fourth of which was
+occupied by the stables, with a board fence the height of a man, and
+kept it jealously secluded from every one. Now he rejoiced in the
+glances of envious admiration the three landed proprietors cast around
+them. But he had a still greater annoyance in store. As the little
+party moved towards the stables, Hinrich Scheel came forward to meet
+them, leading Brownlock. The beautiful animal champed his bit
+impatiently, rubbed his delicate head against the shoulder of his
+groom, and then once more gazed at the by-standers with his large black
+eyes, as if to ask each who would have courage to cope with him.
+
+"Well, gentlemen," cried Brandow, "you had a great desire to ride
+Brownlock; there he is. I'll bet ten louis-d'or to one, that none of
+you can even mount him."
+
+"I shouldn't like to break the beast's back," muttered Hans Redebas.
+
+Otto Plueggen had sprained his foot in leaping, but Gustav thought he
+could easily win the ten louis-d'or.
+
+Gustav von Plueggen was universally acknowledged to be a good rider, and
+had gained the prize more than once in the Sundin races. He did not
+doubt for an instant that he should win the bet, but nevertheless
+thought it advisable to go to work with all possible caution. So he
+walked around the horse to render it familiar with the sight of him,
+patted the slender neck, scratched its smooth forehead, and then, still
+talking to the animal, gently took the reins and told Hinrich Sheel to
+stand aside. But the moment he touched the stirrup with his foot,
+Brownlock sprang aside so violently, that Gustav was glad even to
+retain his hold upon the bridle. Again and again he made the attempt,
+always with the same want of success.
+
+"I could have told you so before," cried Herr Redebas.
+
+"You're making a fool of yourself again unnecessarily," snarled his
+brother.
+
+Gotthold had noticed that Hinrich Scheel always stood directly before
+the horse with his squinting eyes fixed steadily upon it, and whenever
+Gustav tried to mount, made an almost imperceptible motion with his
+head, upon which the animal, whose black eyes were fixed intently upon
+its trainer, either sprang aside or reared.
+
+"I think you would do better if you told Hinrich Scheel to go away from
+the horse, Herr von Plueggen," said he.
+
+"Oh! Gustav will give it up," cried Brandow hastily; "I only made the
+bet in jest; the fact is, that Hinrich Scheel has trained Brownlock not
+to allow any one to mount except himself or me; and I could not get
+into the saddle against Hinrich's will. This was the very trick I
+wanted to show you."
+
+Every one, with the exception of Gotthold, took the whole thing as a
+joke, until Brandow proved the contrary before their own eyes.
+Brownlock would not allow him to mount, until Hinrich Scheel gave the
+sign. Now came the second part of the exhibition Brandow had in store
+for his guests. He rode Brownlock over the whole course, taking the
+most difficult obstacles with an ease which displayed in the clearest
+light his perfect horsemanship, as well as the almost wonderful
+strength and endurance of the noble animal, and filled the hearts of
+his three rivals with the bitterest envy.
+
+"It's a shame for a fellow like that to have such a horse," said Gustav
+Plueggen, who had joined Gotthold, while the rest of the party went to
+visit the stables; "a downright shame. That is: he certainly rides
+splendidly--for a plebeian, I mean; but a plebeian never ought to be
+allowed to keep race-horses. I talked about it enough in the committee,
+when we were arranging the races at Sundin eight years ago; but I
+couldn't get my way. Now we have the consequences. For the last four
+years Brandow has taken all the best prizes; it's enough to drive one
+mad. The fellow would have been ruined long ago if it hadn't been for
+the races, the races--and his wife."
+
+"His wife?" asked Gotthold.
+
+"Why, of course. We wouldn't have lent him another penny long ago; but
+for the sake of his wife, who is really a lovely woman; we can't let
+him go to ruin entirely. Of course he knows that better than any one
+else, and so she is always obliged to be of the party when any new
+credit is to be obtained. A week ago to-day, when we were in
+Plueggenhof, Otto paid his attentions to her at the table in the
+wildest way--in the presence of his own wife, nee Baroness von
+Grieben-Keffen--and half an hour after dinner Brandow had his five
+thousand thalers in his pocket. It was a piece of madness on Otto's
+part; we had agreed that we would not give more than five thousand
+together. It would have proved a capital thing for us, but that
+damned Jew has spoiled it again. The devil knows why he helped him.
+And the Assessor told me he had been paid too. Twenty-five thousand
+thalers at one slap! I don't understand it at all--and that's saying
+something, for I generally know all his tricks and turns. The Pastor
+thinks you, and nobody else, have given him the money; and in return
+Brandow will overlook it if you and his wife--there, you needn't fly
+into a rage. Parson's gossip, that's all. You would take care of
+yourself--twenty-five thousand--ridiculous! But he has it--that's a
+fact, as they say in England--ever been in England? I was there--eight
+years ago when we were arranging about the Sundin races--famous
+country! horses, women, sheep--famous!-what was I going to say? He has
+the twenty-five thousand, and Dollan's safe for five years, the
+Assessor says; and now Brownlock too! Damn! that is a horse! On my
+honor, I haven't seen his equal even in England. What action! What a
+hock! And how he went over everything! Magnificent! But too heavy! too
+heavy, 'pon honor--he won't cross the piece of marsh-land we have now
+taken into the race-course. They say Prince Prora declared it wasn't
+fair! It's all very well for him to talk, he has no interest in the
+racing! Won't you come in with us? I hear there is to be a little
+card-party made up."
+
+"I have never gambled, and--my headache is coming on again."
+
+"Strange, I've no more idea what a headache is than if I had no
+head--you artists probably get it from the oil paints; they smell
+abominably."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+The young nobleman followed the others, who had already entered the
+house and gone into Brandow's room on the right of the hall, where the
+gaming-table, as Gotthold had noticed through the window, was already
+prepared.
+
+"Why, Herr Weber, are you going to stay out here?" asked Rieke, who had
+been standing in the hall, and now approached him.
+
+Her gray eyes rested upon him with a very friendly expression, and the
+thought passed through his mind that it probably depended only upon
+himself to win the goodwill of this avaricious creature, and even now
+he might make up for his neglect, nay must do so if he wished to
+accomplish the object for which he had returned to Dollan. He had given
+her a very handsome present when he took his departure that morning;
+perhaps he only needed to go on as he had begun.
+
+"We didn't expect to see you again so soon," added the girl; "and you
+went away so suddenly: you left a great many things behind; a beautiful
+red silk handkerchief--shall I get it for you?"
+
+She was now standing close beside him, and as if by accident, touched
+his arm.
+
+"I think it would be very becoming to you," said Gotthold.
+
+"Do you? I should think you would know a great deal about what was
+becoming to me. You never had eyes for anybody except--some one else."
+
+"Where is your mistress to-day? Why doesn't she appear?" asked
+Gotthold, and then as he fancied he saw a cloud pass over the girl's
+face, added: "I would give a great deal to know."
+
+"How much?" said the girl, with a roguish laugh.
+
+"Rieke, where are you?" cried Brandow's voice from the dining-room.
+
+"We want some more glasses. Where is the girl?" and he banged the door
+angrily behind him.
+
+"He didn't see us," whispered Rieke. "I must go in now, but I'll come
+back again directly."
+
+She glided away; Gotthold stood still a few moments, undecided whether
+to make an attempt to see Cecilia on his own account or not. There was
+no question that the girl could be of use to him if she chose; but
+would she choose? She seemed really frightened when Brandow called; but
+he had not relied much upon the fickle favor of the frivolous lass, and
+perhaps the whole thing was a preconcerted plot between Brandow and the
+girl in order to make sure of him, entangle him the more firmly in the
+net. No, it was better, trusting only to his own skill, to take
+advantage of the opportunity.
+
+And the opportunity was more favorable, than any which might offer
+again. A second stolen glance through the window into the already
+lighted room showed him that the party were busily engaged in their
+game--faro apparently--and Brandow had the bank--so he could not leave
+now. Rieke was standing at the back of the tolerably large room with a
+waiter full of glasses, which the Pastor was filling from a large
+bowl--so she too was employed for the present. The hall was perfectly
+still; the table in the dining-room still stood just as the guests had
+left it--the solitary candle at which they had lighted their cigars
+flickered in the strong draught, as if ready to go out. This room was
+also unoccupied; so he succeeded in reaching the dusky garden unseen.
+
+Although the sun had scarcely set, it was almost dark. The clouds,
+which had dispersed a little during the afternoon, were once more piled
+in huge dark masses, which a high wind blowing in irregular gusts,
+drove to and fro as if in wild sport. The tops of the old trees swayed
+hither and thither; and the tall hedges rustled and hissed like a
+thousand sharp tongues.
+
+So it seemed to Gotthold. Again and again he paused, gasping for
+breath; he was so entirely unaccustomed to do anything by stealth. And
+yet it must be; he could not part from her forever in this way.
+
+The end of the house, in the lower part of which was her chamber, and
+above it the room he had occupied, looked out upon a smaller garden,
+which was separated from the courtyard by a wall, shut in on the
+opposite side by a barn, and divided from the larger garden at the back
+of the house by a very thick, high hedge. It had originally been a
+fruit and vegetable garden, and a few huge old apple and pear trees
+still stood in different parts of it; but had afterwards been converted
+into a play-ground for the children of the house, for whose sake the
+asparagus and cucumber beds had been transformed into a grass plot, and
+a narrow door cut through the thick wall of the nursery.
+
+Gotthold had repeatedly seen Cecilia, who always retired early in the
+evening, in this garden with the child, or--at a later hour--alone. His
+hope was to find her here, or at any rate to make known his presence,
+of which she had probably not been informed, and--he did not know what
+would, must happen then; he only said to himself that things could not,
+should not remain as they were.
+
+The place, so far as it could be seen from the door, was empty, but a
+light appeared at first one and then another window. Cautiously as he
+closed the door, he could not prevent its creaking loudly on its rusty
+hinges; at the same moment a watch-dog with which Gretchen often played
+sprang towards the intruder with a loud bark, but was silent again as
+soon as it recognized Gotthold. He accepted the animal's caresses as a
+good omen, and walked cautiously on towards the light, which now
+streamed steadily from one window, that of the child's sleeping-room,
+which adjoined Cecilia's. Gotthold, with a beating heart, approached it
+and saw her.
+
+She had apparently just put the little girl's playthings away, and then
+sank into a chair beside the table, supporting her forehead upon her
+left hand, the image of grief. The rays of the light standing behind
+her clearly revealed the exquisite shape of the head, the delicate
+outlines of the slender neck, the soft curves of the shoulders and
+bust, while the deep shadow seemed to increase the expression of sorrow
+upon the pure features. Gotthold's heart overflowed with love and pity.
+"Cecilia, dearest Cecilia!" he murmured.
+
+She could not have heard the words; but at that moment she raised her
+head, and, glancing towards the window, perceived the dark figure
+before it. Starting from her chair with a low exclamation of joy, she
+extended her arms, then waved him back with both hands, crying in tones
+of agony:
+
+"No, no, for God's sake!"
+
+Gotthold had neither seen Cecilia's repellent gesture, nor heard her
+words. He had hastily entered by the door, which was only latched, and
+was now kneeling at her feet, clasping her hands, and covering them
+with passionate kisses.
+
+All that had moved his heart and filled it to bursting during these
+last few days, so overflowing with the joy and anguish of love, all the
+nameless agony he had suffered from the night before until now, gushed
+from his lips in a torrent of wild, passionate words; and, however she
+might struggle against it, she felt herself carried away and borne
+along by the tide, until, springing up and clasping her in his arms, he
+cried: "So come, Cecilia! you must not remain another moment in this
+house, must not stay under the same roof with this scoundrel, who
+allows himself to be paid with paltry money for the shame of knowing
+that his wife is beloved by another, and loves him in return. I went
+away without you this morning--it all came upon me so suddenly, was so
+incomprehensible; I thought I must obey your command, although I did
+not understand you, although you acted from compassion for the man whom
+you had once loved, nay, out of a remnant of affection for him. Now I
+understand you better, now I know, once for all, that you love me, now
+I have found--we have found each other again; now no one, nothing shall
+part us! Cecilia! you do not answer me?"
+
+She had gazed at him with eyes that expressed the most painful
+astonishment. Now she seized the light and led the way into her
+chamber, at the back of which stood her bed, and close before it the
+tiny couch of her child.
+
+The little one lay with her eyes not quite closed, her lips half
+parted, and her round cheeks flushed with the childish slumber which
+follows waking hours, as the hues of twilight follow the setting sun.
+Cecilia did not point to the child; but her glance and the expression
+of her features said as plainly as words, "This is my answer."
+
+Gotthold's eyes fell; in the selfishness of passion he had scarcely
+thought of the child at all, and certainly never as an obstacle. He did
+not understand it even now. "Your child will be mine," he faltered.
+"You shall never be parted from the child; I will never separate you
+from her."
+
+She had placed the light on the floor, that it might not shine in
+Gretchen's eyes, and then knelt beside the little bed, pressing her
+forehead against the edge, and waving her hand for him to go. Gotthold
+stood beside the kneeling form with the despair of a man who feels that
+his cause is lost, and yet cannot and will not give it up. Suddenly the
+dog, which had followed them, began to growl, and then broke into a low
+bark as he put his nose to the threshold of the door which opened into
+the sitting-room; Gotthold thought he heard a rustling there, and
+walked towards it; Cecilia threw herself before him. Her countenance
+and gestures expressed the most deadly terror; she motioned towards the
+nursery, through which they had come, and as Gotthold did not instantly
+obey, hurried into the room herself. Gotthold mechanically followed.
+
+"Go, go, for God's sake!" exclaimed Cecilia.
+
+They were the first words that had escaped her lips.
+
+"I will not fly again!"
+
+"You must! or all has been in vain! The torture, the conflict, the
+shame--all, all."
+
+"Cecilia," cried Gotthold, fairly beside himself, "I should be unworthy
+the name of a man, if I left you so again. I want light; I want to know
+what I am doing, why I am doing it?"
+
+"I dare say no more; you must understand me; I thought you would have
+done so from the first, or I should not have had the courage; I should
+be the most miserable creature on earth if you did not understand me
+even now. But you will, or I could not love you. And now, by your love
+for me, Gotthold, you must not remain here an instant longer. Farewell,
+and farewell forever!"
+
+It seemed as if a struggle had taken place between the two in the
+dimly-lighted room; he had held her and she had clung to him as if
+forever; then she desperately released herself from his hold, and
+pushed him from her, as if his presence must bring death and
+destruction. Then he once more held the dear form in his arms, clasped
+it to his heart, felt her hot, quivering lips pressed to his, and then
+stood outside in the garden, with the rain beating into his face, the
+swaying tree-tops above him rustling and whispering, and the tall
+hedges beside him hissing and muttering, as if with thousands and
+thousands of tongues: "Fool, silly fool, simpleton, to let yourself be
+cheated, once, twice, as often as she--or he chooses--how do I know?"
+
+He burst into a loud laugh, and as he did so there was a burning
+sensation in his breast which grew hotter and hotter; he would have
+given much if he could have wept. But that he could not, would not do.
+After all, nothing was yet decided; nothing was yet lost, although his
+soul was as dark as the black night that covered the earth around him.
+No star pierced the rack of dense driving clouds; scarcely the faintest
+ray of light was visible in the west. And yet--this dull gleam came
+from the sun, which had set and would rise again to-morrow; it was a
+pledge that the gloomy night would not last forever. And on his lips
+still lingered a memory of her breath, the fervor of her kisses. No!
+no! There could be no eternal separation! This torture could not last
+forever!
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Pretty Rieke had been detained in the dining-room longer than she
+liked, the Pastor had performed his office of cup-bearer with an
+unsteady hand, and moreover thought it necessary to accompany the
+performance with long-winded, incoherent speeches; but the gentlemen at
+the gaming-table had drunk the faster, and impatiently demanded more,
+until at last Rieke, tired of the continual running to and fro which
+seemed to have no end, resolutely carried the side-board with the bowl
+upon it to the gaming-table, and thus rendered it possible for the
+willing Pastor to present the glasses he filled himself. Then, after
+leaning over Hans Redebas' chair and watching the game a few minutes,
+she glided hastily out of the room.
+
+She wanted to continue her conversation with Gotthold. The handsome,
+quiet man had always pleased her, and she had played the role of spy,
+which Brandow had assigned her, less from love for her master than
+jealousy of her mistress, to whom she grudged the attentions of the
+stately stranger. The generous present he had bestowed upon her that
+morning had in some degree touched, and even puzzled her, and the
+cordiality he had just shown had completely disarmed her. Of course he
+had only come back for her mistress' sake, but to her fickle heart it
+was no enigma how one object can be kept in view without losing sight
+of another. She would even help him, if he was very, very friendly to
+her; and after all, it was certainly better for her if the stranger
+finally ran away with her mistress.
+
+But she did not find him at the door, where she had left him. Besides,
+the door was not a suitable place to continue the interesting
+conversation, and the hall was equally undesirable. Perhaps he was in
+the dining-room. He was not there; the trees in the garden, into which
+she cast a glance, were tossing quite too rudely. Where could he have
+gone? Where, except to his own room, to look after the things he had
+left there! She must help him; he could not find anything in the dark.
+
+The pretty servant-girl drew a long breath, and then in the twinkling
+of an eye glided noiselessly up the stairs and across the hall to the
+gable room Gotthold had occupied during his stay. Here she paused,
+pressing her hands to her burning cheeks and heaving breast, and then
+after a low knock, to which she expected no reply, slowly opened the
+door, as if with timid reluctance. Her cheeks had burned, her heart had
+throbbed in vain-the room was empty. She went to the window, and
+instantly drew back again. There, close beneath her, in the children's
+playground, was the man she sought, cautiously approaching the window
+from which a faint, varying light fell upon the tree-trunks; and then
+he disappeared--where, except through the nursery to her? She had not
+given the two hypocrites credit for that; they knew how to help
+themselves, to be sure! It was too shameless! Then the promise he had
+made her several times, but which she had not really believed, that he
+would make her his wife if the other was once out of the way, might
+come true. At any rate, he should know it; they deserved nothing
+better.
+
+"What does this mean?" cried Hans Redebas, as Brandow, with a hasty
+apology, rose from the table just as the cards had been cut.
+
+"I'll come back directly," answered Brandow.
+
+"That we should have expected," shouted Redebas. "Pastor, another
+glass!" Brandow left the table unwillingly; he had been winning
+considerable sums, and his gambler's superstition warned him that he
+ought, not to turn his back upon the game; but Rieke had beckoned to
+him over Hans Redebas' shock of black hair-something particularly
+important must have happened.
+
+He followed the girl into the hall, and from thence into the
+sitting-room on the left, where she told him by signs to step lightly,
+until they reached the narrow door that opened into Cecilia's
+sleeping-room. A faint ray of light gleamed through the crack over the
+threshold. The girl crouched down and put her ear to the door. Brandow
+stood bending over her, also listening. They could distinctly hear some
+one speaking, but neither who it was, nor what was said. But what did
+it matter? To whom could she speak here, except to him? What could they
+say except what they dared not suffer others to hear? And now the light
+grew brighter--they had entered the sleeping-room. Brandow trembled
+from head to foot with jealous fury. Should he rush in and strangle the
+pair, expose them to open shame? But Gotthold was no longer the feeble
+boy of former days; the result of a conflict with him, man to man, was
+at least doubtful, and he had certainly already received his pay. The
+disgrace would cling to him, and--it was too late! The barking of the
+dog, which made him and his accomplice fly from the door, must have
+warned them too; he would find the nest empty. Be it so; he had heard
+enough.
+
+"Well?" said Rieke, when they had glided back through the sitting-room
+and were again standing in the hall.
+
+"Go in, and say I will come directly," replied Brandow.
+
+The tone in which he spoke predicted some evil; Rieke was almost sorry
+for what she had done. "He isn't like you," she said soothingly, with
+the most perfect sincerity.
+
+Brandow laughed scornfully. "Go in," he repeated, stamping his foot.
+
+The girl obeyed; Brandow went to the open door and gazed across the
+dark court-yard towards the stables. The rain beat into his face, and
+with it came the sickly odor of native tobacco. On the left, directly
+under him, before the stone bench glowed a red spot, and a harsh voice
+asked:
+
+"Well, what about harnessing the horses?"
+
+It was the man for whom he had just been looking, upon whom he had
+depended for the execution of the plan of vengeance brooding darkly in
+his soul, nay the man, as he now imagined, who had implanted its first
+germ. So it was to be.
+
+"He won't want to go away now, if it were only on account of the bad
+weather."
+
+"The others must go too."
+
+"They have stayed here often enough."
+
+"Send them away."
+
+Brandow reflected a moment. "If I win a few hundred more, they will go
+of their own accord," he murmured. "But you must give him a thorough
+soaking, Hinrich--a thorough one, mind."
+
+"Where there is no bottom," said Hinrich.
+
+The words quivered through Brandow's soul like a flash of lightning
+across a midnight sky. That was the very thing.
+
+"And I'll give you whatever you ask!" he said, in a hoarse tone,
+bending down into the cloud of smoke that rose from Hinrich's pipe.
+
+"No pay, no work,--and that trick with Brownlock a little while ago
+cost me five louis-d'or. I should like half down now."
+
+"Here it is," said Brandow, feeling in his pocket, and giving him as
+much of the gold he had just won as he could grasp.
+
+"You have always been a good master to me," said Hinrich, rubbing the
+gold pieces together in his horny palm.
+
+"And will be a still better one in future."
+
+"The gentlemen will go away if you don't come in at once," said Rieke,
+hurrying out. She had left the door of the room open, and Hans Redebas'
+gruff bass voice was heard shouting: "Brandow! Brandow!" amid shrill
+laughter, and a hoarse tone repeating: "We won't go home! We won't go
+home!"
+
+"I'll get rid of you," muttered Brandow. "You will stay here, Hinrich."
+
+"I'll wait, sir."
+
+Brandow went back into the gaming-room.
+
+"You are taking an undue advantage of the freedom the accidental
+absence of ladies bestows," said Brandow, with cutting contempt, as his
+guests received him with upraised glasses and a halloo, to which Gustav
+von Plueggen added a loud hip, hip, hurrah!
+
+"Accidental?" cried Hans Redebas; "not at all accidental; you are
+driving a good business to-day."
+
+"And where is your wife?" said Otto von Plueggen.
+
+"I demand an explanation of this," cried Brandow; "I will not permit--"
+
+He paused suddenly. Turning angrily towards Otto von Plueggen, he saw
+Gotthold, who must have entered the room directly behind him, and had
+unquestionably heard all. It was impossible to discuss this subject in
+his presence. So, with a violent effort, he forced back the furious
+hate that surged up in his heart at the sight of his face, and cried:
+
+"So there you are at last! Where in the world have you hidden yourself?
+Thank God, you have come to put an end to this horrible gambling."
+
+"Ho! ho!" exclaimed Hans Redebas, "horrible gambling! Is that the way
+the wind blows? I believe you! He has won six hundred or more already.
+Does that taste badly?"
+
+"I owe no man any revenge, however," cried Brandow, with a gesture of
+exaggerated violence.
+
+"But, Brandow," expostulated the Assessor, "you mustn't weigh every
+word; Redebas had no intention of offending you. He only wanted to
+continue the game, and, to speak frankly, I don't see what we could do
+better."
+
+"Well, Herr Assessor, if you think what you have also won--"
+
+"The few thalers!" said the Assessor, not without some little
+embarrassment.
+
+"I can certainly make no objection," continued Brandow. "I only thought
+that this little consideration was due our friend Gotthold, who does
+not play, and of whom we have seen so little, or rather I should say,
+ourselves. He doesn't lose a great deal in dispensing with our society,
+but we do in losing his."
+
+"Pray don't disturb yourselves on my account," said Gotthold.
+
+"Well, then, in the devil's name, go on," cried Hans Redebas, seizing
+the cards. "I'll keep the bank for once, I can probably find a few
+little savings still."
+
+And with his left hand he drew from the thick pocketbook lying before
+him a pile of bank-notes which he crushed together in a heap. "There
+now, play in regular order, Brandow and the rest of you, I beg."
+
+"I am sorry, but what can I do? I hope you will excuse me," Brandow
+whispered to Gotthold, as he resumed his place at the table. Gotthold
+drew back, and could do nothing but accept the invitation of the
+Pastor, who was sitting in one corner of the great leather-covered
+sofa, and as Gotthold took his place beside him, leaned a little
+forward, not without difficulty, and began to talk with a faltering
+tongue.
+
+"Yes, yes, my beloved friend, a sinful world, a wicked, sinful world,
+but we must not be too harsh, not too harsh, for Heaven's sake! You
+work all the week, or at least order your servants to work for you; but
+they must not do it on Sunday, on pain of a heavy punishment. Just
+before the beginning of this harvest, we sent out a paper written in
+the strongest terms. What were they doing with the long hours? Idleness
+is the beginning of all crimes: gambling, drinking--Rieke, a glass--two
+glasses--don't you drink? Do very wrong--brewed myself--from a receipt
+of my honored employer, Count Zernikow. I brewed more than three
+hundred bowls during my career as tutor--could do it at last with my
+eyes shut--with my eyes shut--eyes shut."
+
+He had only stammered the last words, his heavy head fell forward, and
+the lower part of his face disappeared amid the folds of his crumpled
+white cravat. He sank helplessly back into his corner.
+
+The vacant face filled Gotthold with angry contempt.
+
+The man had realized the promise of the boy; intoxication had torn away
+the mask of hypocrisy, and there was the stupid, dissolute face of the
+Halle student, whom Gotthold so well remembered. It could not be
+otherwise. But that this pitiful creature should be his father's
+successor, this blinking owl sit in the eyrie of the eagle, whose fiery
+eyes had always sought the sun; this coarse buffoon be permitted to
+tinkle his bells in the very place where the preacher, with glowing
+eloquence, had summoned his hearers to repentance and atonement, seemed
+to him a personal insult. And yet this man was in his proper place; the
+flock was worthy of the shepherd; everything here was of a piece--like
+a picture drawn by some master hand, in the boldest outlines and most
+glaring colors: the drunken Pastor nodding in the sofa corner, the
+excited, wine-flushed faces of the gamblers, the voluptuous figure of
+the maid-servant passing to and fro and handing the fiery beverage to
+the revellers, exchanging a sly smile or hasty word with one,
+coquettishly pushing away the hand of another, who tried to pass his
+arm around her waist--the true goddess of this temple of sin!--and the
+whole enveloped in the circling wreaths of gray smoke which ascended
+from the constantly burning pipes, and floated in dusky red rings
+around the dim wicks of the candles; only that it was no picture, but
+the coarsest, rudest, most commonplace reality. And alas, the outrage
+that she should be compelled to live under this roof, that the wild
+riot should re-echo even in her quiet room--not for the first or last
+time!-that these were the men who frequented the house--these
+empty-headed, silly young noblemen, this rough upstart, with his coarse
+hands and coarser jests. And when this company of fauns and satyrs
+departed, to have for her only consoler solitude--solitude which stared
+at her with cold, hard, piercing serpent eyes. There they were, those
+very eyes; they had just glanced over the cards with a quick stealthy
+look! Those eyes, and hers--soft, gentle, tender!
+
+Gotthold no longer saw the gamblers. He beheld her sitting in the
+lonely nursery beside her child's playthings; a touching figure, still
+so girlish in its soft, delicate outlines. He saw the sad face suffused
+with a roseate flush of joy, saw it disfigured with pain and terror-he
+lived over in imagination the whole scene, which already seemed like a
+dream; and dreamed on of a future which must surely come, a future full
+of sunlight, love, and poetry.
+
+He could not have told how long he had been sitting absorbed in
+thought, when a loud noise at the gaming-table suddenly startled him.
+Something unusual seemed to have happened; Hans Redebas and Brandow
+alone retained their seats, the others were bending over the table with
+eager faces; even Rieke was gazing so intently that she forgot to push
+away the Assessor's arm, which had been thrown around her waist.
+
+"Do you take it again?" cried Redebas.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Another thousand? That will make it five!"
+
+"Devil take it, yes!"
+
+A breathless silence followed, in which Gotthold heard nothing but the
+noise of the cards Redebas dealt, and then another outcry and tumult,
+such as had previously roused him from his revery, only this time it
+was so loud that even the drunken Pastor staggered out of his corner.
+Gotthold approached the table. His first glance rested upon Brandow's
+face, which was deadly pale; but his thin lips were firmly compressed,
+and a disagreeable smile even sparkled in his stern, cold eyes, as he
+now cried, turning to the new-comer:
+
+"They have plucked me finely, Gotthold; but night never lasts forever."
+
+"But this," cried Redebas throwing the cards on the table, and making a
+memorandum in his pocket-book, "I decline!"
+
+"What does that mean?" asked Brandow.
+
+"That I will play no more," answered Redebas with a loud laugh, closing
+his pocket-book and rising heavily.
+
+"I always thought the loser could break up the game, not the winner."
+
+"If the winner is not sure of his point--oh! yes."
+
+"I demand an explanation!" cried Brandow, pushing the table aside.
+
+"Why, Brandow, do be reasonable!" exclaimed Otto and Gustav von
+Plueggen, in the same breath.
+
+"Are you in partnership again?" answered Brandow with a sneering laugh,
+and then stepped before Redebas: "I demand an explanation at once!"
+
+The giant had drawn back a step: "Oho," he cried; "if that's what you
+want, come on!"
+
+"My dear Brandow," said the Assessor soothingly, putting himself
+between them.
+
+"I know what I am doing, Herr Assessor," answered Brandow, pushing him
+aside.
+
+"And I know too," cried Redebas, throwing up the window, and shouting
+across the quiet court-yard in a voice like the roar of a lion.
+"Harness the horses, August! harness the horses!"
+
+A scene of wild confusion followed, in which all shouted together, so
+that Gotthold could only distinguish a word here and there. Hans
+Redebas raved loudest of all, but apparently quite as much from fear as
+anger, while Brandow remained comparatively calm, and was evidently
+intent upon separating the Assessor, who was constantly intermeddling,
+from the three others whom the Pastor now joined, and by all possible
+signs announced his intention of making a speech, in which he actually
+several times got as far as the beginning: "My beloved friends!"
+
+The three carriages, to which the impatient coachmen had harnessed the
+horses long before, drove up. The quarrel had been continued from the
+room to the hall, from the hall to the door, and even to the carriage
+steps.
+
+"We shall see, we shall see," cried Hans Redebas; "are you in, Pastor?
+Then, in the devil's name, drive on--we shall see," he shouted again
+from the carriage window, as the powerful Danish horses trotted away at
+a rapid pace towards the northern gate, from whence the shorter road,
+which, however, was scarcely visible in the darkness, led through the
+forest to Dahlitz.
+
+Meantime Otto and Gustav von Plueggen had finally become involved in a
+quarrel with each other. Gustav, who had no lamps on his carriage,
+declared that he must go across the moor, while Otto wanted to follow
+Redebas. Gustav had already borne so much from his older brother that
+day, that he considered himself obliged to take this refusal as a
+personal insult. He had no bundle of hay in front of his head, and
+wouldn't run the risk of breaking his skull against the trees in the
+forest. "Then he could light the straw in it, and find his way home by
+that," Otto replied.
+
+So they drove away in opposite directions.
+
+"That is very foolish," said Brandow, looking after Gustav's carriage.
+
+"One will get across and the other won't," replied Hinrich Scheel.
+
+"We know that you are the best driver."
+
+"An accident is liable to happen to any one."
+
+"That is, you want it to be so."
+
+"It seems you don't."
+
+Brandow did not answer immediately. He had thought the matter less
+difficult; but he need not break his neck, only an arm or leg.
+
+He cast a timid glance through the window; the light fell directly upon
+Gotthold's grave, handsome face. Brandow ground his teeth. No, it was
+not enough. He must have his life; the damned hypocrite deserved
+nothing better, and where was the crime? An accident might happen to
+the best driver.
+
+Suddenly he started. He had not thought of that before. By his quarrel
+with his associates at the gaming-table he had fortunately prevented
+the whole party from remaining all night until broad daylight, as they
+had often done before, and thus robbed Gotthold of a suitable excuse
+for staying also, if such was his intention--and of that Brandow, after
+what he had heard, was firmly convinced. He had also, by intentionally
+keeping the Assessor out of the quarrel, made it impossible for the
+latter to go away at once with the others, though he had not lacked
+invitations, as thus his prey would have escaped him, for Gotthold
+probably would not have remained without the Assessor. But now--how
+could he separate the two? If the Assessor stayed--and he did not seem
+to think of leaving--Gotthold would stay also, or at least have a
+most plausible excuse for doing so; and if he forced the Assessor to
+go--
+
+Again his sullen glance wandered towards the two men in the room--the
+Assessor talking to Gotthold with the most animated gestures; the
+latter, to judge from his expression and movements, listening
+reluctantly.
+
+"I drove them both here, so I can drive them both back again," said
+Hinrich Scheel, pressing down the ashes in his pipe.
+
+Both! One! yes; but what had the other done to him? Nothing! Nothing at
+all! And he had received ten thousand thalers from him to-day.
+
+"It's a pity about the beautiful money, if any accident should happen
+to us on the moor," said Hinrich, knocking the tobacco out of his pipe;
+"I'll get the carriage ready, and take those jades of Jochen Kluets; it
+would be a pity to hurt our grays."
+
+He walked slowly away. Brandow's eyes followed the short dark figure;
+he wanted to call him back, to tell him he need not harness the horses,
+but only a strange, hoarse, choking sound came from his throat; his
+tongue clung to his palate, and as he raised his foot he staggered like
+a drunken man, and was obliged to hold fast to the trunk of one of the
+old linden-trees, through whose thick branches a violent gust of wind
+was just roaring. The rain, which again began to fall, beat into his
+face, now burning with a strange flush, although he was shivering from
+head to foot.
+
+There! What was that? The noise of the carriage which Hinrich was
+pushing out of the barn. There was still time! But, after all, he had
+said nothing, nothing at all; how could he help it if an accident
+happened to Hinrich on the moor at night?
+
+Gotthold and the Assessor had remained in the room; the latter was
+trying to explain to Gotthold that Brandow had certainly been quite
+right when he asked that the game should be continued, but had done
+wrong to express his wish in so peremptory a manner; and finally he
+ought not to have forgotten that he was the host, and as such must
+overlook any little impropriety on the part of his guests.
+
+During the latter part of his long speech, the Assessor had addressed
+himself in an admonitory tone, partly to Brandow, who had just entered
+the room, and going up to the side-board swallowed several glasses of
+wine. "I have in fact been compelled to overlook many such things
+to-day, and am obliged to you, Herr Assessor, for keeping me in
+practice up to the last minute."
+
+The tone in which Brandow said this, and the gesture with which he
+approached the Assessor, were so peculiar that the latter was partly
+sobered, and stared in astonishment at his host, who now came a step
+nearer and said in a low voice:
+
+"Or what do you call it, when the guests, in presence of the servants,
+subject the conduct of the master of the house to such an unsparing
+criticism?" and he pointed to Rieke, under whose direction another maid
+servant and the groom Fritz were beginning to remove the glasses
+standing about on the tables, and sweep up the fragments scattered over
+the floor.
+
+The Assessor drew himself up to his full height.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said he, "and will request you to be kind enough
+to place your carriage at my disposal for my return. I regret that I
+did not accept from your other guests the favor I must now solicit of
+you. I can still depend upon your company, Gotthold?"
+
+"I think Brandow will make no objections."
+
+"I beg the gentlemen to act their own pleasure."
+
+They bowed to each other with distant civility. A few minutes after,
+the same light carriage that had brought the two gentlemen to Dollan a
+few hours before rolled over the rough road into the dark, gusty night.
+Hinrich Scheel drove the horses.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+It was about ten o'clock, but, although the season was mid-summer and
+the moon must have already risen, dark as only a moonless night in
+autumn could be. And with autumnal chillness the wind blew over the rye
+stubble, and the rain, which had just begun to fall again with renewed
+violence, beat into their faces.
+
+"Button your coat up," said Gotthold to his companion, who was swaying
+to and fro uncomfortably in his seat. "You seem very much heated."
+
+"Because I have kept buttoned up all the evening," answered the
+Assessor. "I mean it in a literal sense, on account of the ten thousand
+thalers I have had in my breast-pocket; figuratively I might have been
+somewhat more so; but for all that, I beg of you, my dear friend, give
+me some explanation of Brandow's mysterious conduct. He actually turned
+me out of doors! And why? I don't understand it. After we had been on
+the most cordial terms the whole evening; after we had been, so to
+speak, hand-and-glove. And everything settled! The whole large sum paid
+in cash, down to the last penny, which, to be sure, is the greatest
+mystery of all. And he is to have the money from Wollnow! Did Wollnow
+mystify me? And why? I no more see any light in all this than I can see
+my hand before my eyes. Horrible darkness!"
+
+"The moon has been up an hour already," said Hinrich Scheel.
+
+"And is that why you have no lamps on the carriage?"
+
+"Herr von Plueggen had none either."
+
+"You thought your pipe would give us light enough, didn't you?"
+
+"I needn't smoke, sir."
+
+"Then don't; I can't say that the odor of your canaster is very
+agreeable."
+
+"Folks like us can't smoke nice tobacco, like fine gentlemen," said
+Hinrich Scheel, emptying his pipe so roughly that the sparks flew in
+all directions through the darkness, and thrusting it into his
+breast-pocket.
+
+"Isn't this the same fellow who drove us here this afternoon?" asked
+the Assessor in a low tone.
+
+"The same," answered Gotthold; "and I should advise you to use the same
+precaution we adopted on the way here."
+
+But the Assessor was not in the mood to follow Gotthold's counsel. The
+intoxication, from which the scene with Brandow had only roused him for
+a short time, returned with redoubled power, now that he was exposed to
+the cold night air. He began to abuse Brandow, in whose favor he had
+always spoken at the convent, who but for him would have been obliged
+to leave Dollan a year ago, who was greatly indebted to him in every
+respect, and now repaid him with the basest ingratitude. But his
+friendship and protection were now at an end. He still had the fine
+fellow under his thumb. The lease must yet be renewed. To be sure,
+Brandow had paid this time, but what guarantee of future security was
+there to be had from a man who, in his precarious situation, loaded
+himself with a gambling debt of five thousand thalers? He need only
+give the monks this piece of information, and Brandow would be cast
+off. Did Brandow expect to satisfy the convent by the assurance that he
+would win the race on Brownlock! Brownlock, nothing but Brownlock!
+Brandow had not won yet, and they were strict in their rules at the
+race-course. Only last year, young Klebenitz--eldest son of a nobleman
+though he was--had been excluded because it got noised abroad that he
+had been twenty-four hours late in paying a gambling debt. It was still
+very doubtful whether Redebas would have the five thousand thalers he
+had just won from Brandow lying on his desk by to-morrow noon.
+
+Gotthold had tried in vain to interrupt his loquacious companion, and
+was therefore not at all displeased when the latter, after stammering a
+few incoherent words, suddenly relapsed into silence, and leaning back
+in his corner seemed to wish to sleep off his intoxication. Gotthold
+spread his own travelling-rug over his knees, turned up the collar of
+his overcoat, and gazing out into the darkness, resigned himself to his
+thoughts. Brandow's conduct was incomprehensible to him also. What
+could have induced him to insult the Assessor in this way?--a man whose
+favor he had every reason to keep. Had he been drunk too? But if so,
+the fit of intoxication must have come upon him very suddenly, and had
+at all events assumed a singular form--the form of the hatred which
+veils itself under the garb of cold politeness. Or, had all this
+concerned him alone? Had he been so anxious to get his enemy out of the
+house that he had even suffered it to cost him the friendship of the
+influential man? That was a solution so simple and natural, so unlike
+the cold calculating man; but if it was not drunkenness, or hate that
+wishes to satisfy itself, what was it?
+
+And suppose it were hate that desires to satisfy itself at any cost?
+Suppose this hate was directed towards her, no less than him, nay
+perhaps even more. Suppose this terrible man wanted to clear the house
+of guests in order to give free course to his furious hate, to be able
+to riot in some fell vengeance.
+
+Gotthold half started from his seat, groaning aloud, and then sank back
+again, reproaching himself for conjuring up such horrible apparitions.
+That was certainly the most improbable of all. Whatever means he had
+used the night before to break down the pride of one of the proudest of
+women, he had conquered, he was master of the situation; he might be
+satisfied! And was he not? He now knew the secret of coining gold,
+cunning alchemist that he was; and how soon he might be again in a
+situation where he would be obliged to make use of his art, that very
+evening had proved. What becomes of the water you take in your hand?
+What becomes of the money you give a gambler? Cousin Boslaf had been
+right.
+
+But the more Gotthold endeavored to push aside the terrible thought as
+improbable, nay impossible, the more distinctly the scene appeared
+before his eyes. He saw him creep towards her chamber, cautiously open
+the door, glide into the room, up to the bed. Merciful Heaven! what was
+that? He had distinctly heard his name called in a piercing cry of
+mortal agony.
+
+It was only a trick of his excited fancy, a horned owl perhaps, which,
+hurled along by the storm on noiseless wings, had swept close over his
+head, and in its surprise uttered the cry. This, or something of the
+sort.
+
+Undoubtedly; but fancy continued the cruel sport none the less
+zealously, and converted the long-drawn howling and hollow roaring of
+the tempest over the moor, the rustling of the clumps of broom by the
+wayside, the creaking of the carriage, and the panting of the weary
+horses, into ghostly voices which muttered terrible words, voices and
+words such as might be uttered by the shapes which glided through the
+grayish black twilight over the masses of rock on the moor on the right
+of the carriage, or flitted on the left through the impenetrable
+darkness that brooded coldly over the morass.
+
+The road had been gradually ascending for some time, and according to
+Gotthold's belief, they had almost reached the crest of the hill, when
+the horses suddenly stopped, snorting violently.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Gotthold.
+
+Hinrich Scheel's only reply was several violent lashes, which urged the
+horses onward again, but only a few paces, then they stopped once more,
+snorting still louder, and pressing backward so that the carriage moved
+a little down the hill.
+
+"The damned jades!" cried Hinrich Scheel, who was no longer on his seat
+on the box, but standing on the right of the carriage.
+
+"What is the matter, I say?" cried Gotthold, starting up.
+
+"Nothing at all," shouted Hinrich. "Sit still. The damned jades! This
+little pull! I'll teach them to shirk. Sit still, we shall be up
+directly! Damn the whip!"
+
+Hinrich, who had been lashing the horses frantically, now disappeared
+from the side of the carriage, the frightened animals made a few more
+bounds forward--suddenly the vehicle leaned towards the left--farther
+and farther; like a flash of lightning the thought passed through
+Gotthold's mind, that if the carriage should upset here, it would
+undoubtedly fall sixty feet down the slope into the morass; he already
+had his hand on the back to swing himself out on the right, but would
+not save himself without his companion. But the latter did not rise,
+did not even stir. He seized him to drag him out of the carriage.
+Too late! There was a dull roaring, rushing, rattling, as if the
+earth itself was opening to engulf carriage, horses, and men; a
+whizzing sound in their ears--a terrible shock, a falling, rolling,
+crashing,--another crashing, rolling, shattering, and then--the horror
+was over!
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+In the large comfortable room adjoining the office, in the subdued
+light of a beautiful lamp--the companion to which was burning on a
+side-table at the end of the room--sat Frau Ottilie Wollnow and Alma
+Sellien; Ottilie engaged in sewing; while Alma leaned back in the sofa
+corner, with her slender hands resting idly in her lap. Before the
+ladies, on a high-backed chair drawn forward in the light, stood
+Gotthold's picture of Dollan, at which Alma from time to time threw one
+of her languishing glances. If the gentlemen came back that evening,
+she wanted to give Gotthold a pleasant surprise by showing him the
+interest she took in his work, and therefore the picture, which had
+just been taken down at her request, must remain in its present
+position.
+
+"I am only afraid it may slip down and get injured," said Ottilie; "and
+besides, I am not at all sure they will come back this evening."
+
+"I don't know what their return has to do with my enjoyment of art,"
+answered Alma, shading her eyes with her hand, and looking at the
+picture with an evident increase of interest. "In what bold relief
+these beeches stand in the foreground! how easily the eye glides over
+the fields in the centre, and lingers there in refreshing repose, ere
+it turns with delight to the brown moor on the left, or wanders
+longingly towards the dim blue horizon bounded by the sea! He is really
+a great artist."
+
+Ottilie laughed. "And do you mean to say all that to him?"
+
+"Why not?" answered Alma. "I like to give every one his due."
+
+"Especially when the 'every one' is a man so attractive as Gotthold."
+
+"I have only seen and spoken to him five minutes this morning."
+
+"And that has been enough to completely win the heart of such a subtle
+connoisseur. Confess, Alma, you are fascinated, and now see that our
+poor Cecilia must not be judged so very harshly, even if she really did
+have the misfortune to think such a man attractive."
+
+"You know my views in regard to these things are very strict," replied
+Alma; "yes, very strict, though you do choose to open your eyes in
+astonishment. But to speak frankly, it is a matter of perfect
+indifference to me what your poor Cecilia thinks or doesn't think; only
+I would rather not despair of the good taste and good sense of the men,
+and that I certainly should do if such a man was so deluded as to think
+your poor Cecilia charming."
+
+"Why, Alma!"
+
+"Pray, my dear Ottilie, allow me to have and retain my own opinion on
+this point. Tell me instead--for it interests me, now that I have
+become personally acquainted with him--what you know of his former
+circumstances. Hugo declares he is almost a millionaire. Is he really
+so rich, and how did he get the property? Hugo says it is a very
+mysterious story--but he always says that when he can give no
+information about a thing. What is it?"
+
+"Nothing at all," replied Ottilie; "I mean nothing at all mysterious;
+but the story is a sad one; I could not help crying when Emil related
+it to me a short time ago--he had never spoken of it before!"
+
+And Ottilie Wollnow wiped away the tears that already hung on her dark
+lashes.
+
+"You make me terribly curious," said Alma; "how can a story be sad
+which finally results in half a million?"
+
+"It is probably not so much so now," said Ottilie; "besides, you must
+not ask me for any particulars, for Emil's story was very--what shall I
+say--very general--for reasons I hinted to you this morning, and
+I--from the same cause--did not venture to ask him for any farther
+details. We must always respect all such old German favors, and seem to
+think them true and genuine."
+
+"Old German favors?" asked Alma in astonishment.
+
+Ottilie laughed. "That's what I call our husbands' reminiscences of
+their old love affairs, which they treasure with such ludicrous
+emotion, and, so to speak, always wear secretly under their coats, in
+order not to shame us by their brilliancy, for we are really good,
+excellent wives; but how could we bear any comparison with these
+heroines? In this case, to be sure--"
+
+"Excuse me for interrupting you, dear Ottilie, but you were going to
+tell me how Gotthold got his fortune."
+
+"It is all closely connected," replied Ottilie; "the German favor, I
+mean my good Emil's old flame and Gotthold's mother, is one and the
+same person; but to be sure Emil declares I always begin my stories at
+the end, so now by way of exception I'll commence at the beginning. But
+how am I to do it?"
+
+"Perhaps by stating who the lady you have mentioned really was."
+
+"You always hit the nail on the head! Certainly, who was she? The only
+child of her parents; her father was Reginald Lenz, a rich merchant in
+Stettin--I have forgotten her mother's name; but she must have been a
+dear, sweet creature, and loved her husband passionately, too
+passionately perhaps. He was probably a very attractive man--he always
+went by the name of 'handsome Lenz,' and such people are spoiled: the
+merry bachelor life is continued after marriage; a few unlucky
+speculations may have happened also; in a word, Herr Lenz failed at the
+end of a few years, or stood on the verge of bankruptcy, and the books
+did not balance as they ought; he would not survive the disgrace,
+and--it is terrible to think of--he took a cheerful farewell of his
+young wife to go out hunting, and clear his head after reckoning so
+many figures, as he said, and in the evening they brought him home with
+his brains dashed out. Was it not terrible?"
+
+"Go on," said Alma.
+
+"Ah! the rest is almost as bad. The young wife, who had had no
+suspicion of her husband's situation--or she would not have let him
+leave her--saw the body without the slightest preparation. An hour
+after--the unhappy woman was daily expecting the birth of another
+child--she was attacked by a violent fever, and in a few days was a
+corpse."
+
+"How imprudent," said Alma.
+
+"The little five-year-old Marie--"
+
+"An ugly name," observed Alma.
+
+"I don't think so; at any rate its bearer was anything but ugly, Emil
+says; and to speak frankly, I am sure that in this respect he does not
+exaggerate, and the little lady, who naturally in the course of years
+grew up to maturity, really possessed all the admirable qualities which
+turned the head of the poor young fellow, who was then only twenty. And
+he was not alone; all the other young men employed in the business
+fared just the same. I forgot to say, or was just going to tell you,
+that the poor little orphan had been received in her uncle's house, the
+brother of her unhappy father, but a man who was exactly his opposite
+in every respect; plain, stern, pedantic, an excellent business-man of
+the old school, as Emil says, who had entered his counting-room and at
+that time risen to be head clerk. His wife was wonderfully well suited
+to him, that is, she was not one whit less plain, or less strict and
+pedantic, so the poor little girl could not have found the house
+exactly a bed of roses."
+
+"In spite of all her admirers?"
+
+"In spite of all her admirers. She inherited it from her father, who
+always aimed too high."
+
+"Perhaps she did not know what she wanted."
+
+"That is possible; at any rate, none of the young men found favor in
+her eyes, though Emil was slightly preferred; but only, he says,
+because he was the only Jew in the Christian establishment, and
+therefore in some degree rebuffed by the others--the position of the
+Jews thirty years ago, you must know, was even more precarious and
+uncomfortable than it is now, although even now everything is perhaps
+not quite what it should be. At any fate, she treated the man
+worst whose outward circumstances entitled him to the most
+consideration--namely, her cousin Eduard, the only son of the house, a
+quiet, shy young man, who loved her passionately. Emil says that even
+now it makes the tears come into his eyes when he thinks of the time
+that Eduard, who was his most intimate friend, spoke of what he
+suffered, not in pompous, high-sounding words, which would not have
+been at all like him, but so gently, so resignedly--"
+
+"I can't bear these gentle, resigned men," said Alma.
+
+"They seldom succeed, as poor Eduard's example shows. But to be sure,
+she refused very different people, who were by no means gentle and
+resigned--officers, barons, and counts: she was the wonder of the city,
+and the idol of all the young men, and she noticed them no more than
+the sun heeds the mist."
+
+"You are really getting poetical," said Alma.
+
+"It is one of Emil's comparisons, he always grows poetical when he
+speaks of her--till at last the right one came."
+
+"The country Pastor. Gracious Heavens! _Tant de bruit pour une
+omelette_," said Alma.
+
+"Excuse me, it was nothing of that sort; on the contrary, he was a very
+remarkable man, who had turned the heads of as many women as she had
+men. And it was not confined to women; many men, and those by no means
+the least important, were also very enthusiastic about him, among
+others, my Emil, who since he was baptized on our wedding-day, has not
+set foot inside of a church, but then, Jew as he was, attended
+regularly every Sunday the service held by the young Substitute--I
+believe that's what they call them. The whole city went, he says;
+people stood at the doors, and even outside, just to see him come in.
+In a word, this young preacher was the right man. How they became
+acquainted with each other I don't know, and it is of no consequence.
+To see and love each other was the same thing. Her foster-parents, who
+on Eduard's account were glad to get her out of the house, of course
+gave their consent at once, although the little parish here in Rammin
+on which they married was a place to starve rather than live in. So
+they left Stettin, and came here, and--"
+
+"The story ends," said Alma, "as all stories which begin in such a
+remarkable manner usually do--in commonplace poverty. But I don't see
+yet from all this how Gotthold got his half million."
+
+"It is not a half million," replied Ottilie; "about a hundred thousand,
+Emil thinks, and from whom should he get it but the good Eduard, who
+would never marry, though the rich heir, of course, could have made the
+most brilliant matches, but remained faithful to his early love as long
+as he lived, and on his death-bed left a portion of his property to
+benevolent institutions, and the remainder to his cousin's son as his
+nearest heir."
+
+"It must have been a very pleasant surprise," said Alma.
+
+"Undoubtedly, although I must say that no real blessing attends the
+money. To be sure, he is now a rich man, or at least well to-do; but
+what personal benefit does he get? Scarcely any. Ten thousand thalers
+or so were invested in Emil's business before our marriage; since then,
+thank God, he has needed no stranger's money, and he has never troubled
+himself about them; the rest he has left in the business in Stettin,
+which is carried on by one of the partners of the old firm, and where
+it is by no means safe; but he doesn't even touch the interest, except
+to aid needy artists, or encourage struggling young men by enabling
+them to go to the Academy, take a journey to Italy, or something of
+that sort. Well, he doesn't need it; he easily earns as much as he
+wants, and moreover is such a thoroughly good man that he likes to
+befriend others, but I think he has already made up his mind what to
+do."
+
+"What?" asked Alma.
+
+"Why doesn't he marry? He has certainly had the best opportunities, and
+he is twenty-eight years old! I fear, I fear he will remain a bachelor
+like his foster-uncle in Stettin, and--for the same reason. And as for
+the money, I think I know what will become of that too. After what we
+heard this morning about Brandow's circumstances, it would be very well
+invested; for poor Gretchen probably will not inherit much from her
+father and mother."
+
+"He won't be such a fool!" exclaimed Alma.
+
+"People said just the same about good Eduard Lenz. And I think, I
+think--but you must not betray me when your husband returns--I think a
+part of his property went into Brandow's hands to-day."
+
+"Did your husband tell you so?"
+
+"In that case I should be sure of it; the idea of Emil's
+chattering--but you don't know him. It's all my own idea, but we shall
+ascertain when the gentlemen come home to-morrow."
+
+"I told them when they went away that I should expect them without fail
+this evening," replied Alma, looking at the picture through her hand,
+and mentally repeating the words with which she intended to receive
+Gotthold.
+
+"Why, there they are already!" cried Ottilie as the door-bell rang.
+
+"It must be your husband back from his club."
+
+"He does not ring," answered Ottilie; "besides, it is not his step."
+
+Ottilie, with a "come in," went towards the door, at which they now
+heard a knock. Alma leaned back in the sofa corner with her head a
+little bent, in the act of displaying her white hands to the best
+possible advantage, when she was startled from her _pose_ by a low
+exclamation from Ottilie.
+
+"Herr Brandow!"
+
+"Pardon me, Madam, pardon me, ladies, for presenting myself unannounced
+in the absence of a servant. I hope you will bear with me a few
+minutes, and help me to carry out a little joke I want to play upon our
+friends."
+
+He bowed; Ottilie gazed at him in astonishment, even terror. Herr
+Brandow did not look like a person who is trying to carry out a jest;
+his face was pale and haggard, his long fair moustache disordered, his
+dress a strange mixture of evening and riding costume, and splashed
+with mud to his shoulders. And to come in this plight, at this late
+hour, to a house where he was a stranger, nay, which had actually been
+closed against him for years--Ottilie had only one explanation of all
+this.
+
+"Has any misfortune happened?" she exclaimed.
+
+"Misfortune," said Brandow; "none that I am aware of; or yes, the
+misfortune that I have treated my friends a little uncivilly. The
+rudeness was very slight, but as I, although a sorely tried man, am not
+accustomed to this kind of misfortune, I could not rest until I had
+made the attempt to rehabilitate myself in my own eyes, to say nothing
+of my friends, who have doubtless already forgiven me."
+
+"Then they are coming to-night, are they not? I told you so," exclaimed
+Alma.
+
+"Certainly, and they will be here immediately, in--we will say twenty
+minutes--yes, twenty minutes. They left Dollan at exactly ten minutes
+of ten; it is now just half-past; with my powerful horses and so good a
+driver as Hinrich they will not need more than an hour, in spite of the
+horrible weather; so in twenty minutes, ladies, we shall hear the
+carriage drive up."
+
+Brandow had taken out his watch, and did not turn his eyes from it as
+he made his calculation.
+
+"And you?" asked Alma.
+
+"I myself, dear madam, after parting from the gentlemen, with a want of
+cordiality I sincerely regret, rode away from Dollan precisely at ten,
+and just twenty-five minutes after had my horse put into the stable of
+the Fuerstenhof, that is, I was just five times as long in going over
+the mile and a half from Dollan to the Fuerstenhof, as in walking the
+five hundred steps from the Fuerstenhof here."
+
+"You were twenty-five minutes in coming the same distance that will
+occupy the others an hour!" cried Alma.
+
+"Pardon me; I couldn't go by the same road our friends took across the
+Dollan moor, or it would have spoiled my surprise. I rode over another
+that leads through Neuenhof, Lankenitz, Faschwitz, etc. Frau Wollnow
+doubtless knows the direction--a way quite as long, and certainly as
+bad, as I unfortunately perceive too late, by the condition of my
+clothes."
+
+"Oh! how I admire these bold feats of horsemanship!" exclaimed Alma,
+opening her eyes very wide to express her enthusiasm. "Sit down here
+beside me, dear Herr Brandow."
+
+She had forgotten the arrangement she had made for Gotthold's
+reception, and as she pushed the back of the chair with her
+outstretched hand, the picture slipped down and fell on the floor.
+Ottilie, who saw it, uttered a loud exclamation. Brandow sprang forward
+to raise it, but had scarcely cast a glance at it, when he dropped it
+from his hands with a low cry.
+
+"My poor picture!" exclaimed Ottilie.
+
+"I beg ten thousand pardons," said Brandow. "I see that when a man has
+ridden a mile and a half in twenty-five minutes, he is not quite master
+of his limbs."
+
+In fact, he trembled violently as he again took the picture in his
+hands; nay, he seemed to find it difficult to stand. Ottilie, who
+noticed it, at last invited him to sit down.
+
+"Shall I not put the picture away first?" asked Brandow.
+
+"On no account!" exclaimed Alma. "I can't part with it, and to you, my
+dear friend, it must have a double interest. Just see in what bold
+relief these beeches stand in the foreground. How easily the eye glides
+over the fields in the centre and lingers in refreshing repose, ere it
+wanders longingly towards the dim blue horizon of the sea on the right,
+or turns with delight to the brown moor on the left."
+
+"Oh! certainly, certainly," said Brandow, without looking at the
+picture; "it is intended for Dollan, isn't it?"
+
+"Intended for Dollan!" exclaimed Ottilie, "why, Herr Brandow, you
+wanted to buy it yourself. Don't you remember the time when your wife
+and I were standing before the picture and you came up?"
+
+"Oh! certainly, certainly," said Brandow.
+
+"I would like to bet that the gentlemen are on that brown moor now,"
+said Alma.
+
+"Certainly; to be sure," replied Brandow.
+
+"Impossible!" exclaimed Ottilie, "unless some accident has happened to
+the carriage, which we do not want to fear."
+
+"Certainly, oh! certainly not," said Brandow, wiping the cold
+perspiration from his forehead with his handkerchief.
+
+"You are faint, Herr Brandow; let me offer you some refreshments,"
+said Ottilie, ringing the bell, and rising to give her orders to the
+maid-servant, who instantly entered.
+
+At the same moment Alma leaned forward, and holding out her hand to
+Brandow, whispered, "My dear friend, how glad I am to see you! What
+have you done to Hugo? I should think it would be for the interest of
+us all that you should remain good friends."
+
+Brandow took the little white hand, and hastily raised it to his lips.
+
+"Oh! certainly, certainly, my beautiful friend," he replied, "that is
+the very reason I am here; it is really nothing at all. I was a little
+excited by--I--oh! my dear madam, why do you trouble yourself? A glass
+of wine, if you insist upon it, but nothing else, I beg of you, nothing
+else."
+
+He had turned towards Ottilie. Alma--threw herself back into the sofa
+corner, pouting. Brandow's manner was certainly very strange to-day, so
+cold, not in the least like his usual one. Alma determined to punish
+him for it when Gotthold came, and to render the pain more severe,
+resolved to be particularly charming during the few minutes that would
+intervene.
+
+But the minutes passed, the clock struck eleven, half-past eleven--an
+hour had elapsed since Brandow's arrival, and still no sound of
+carriage wheels was heard, nothing but the rustling of the tall poplars
+in the little square before the house, and the plashing of the rain
+against the window-panes whenever a pause in the conversation occurred.
+And it seemed as if the later it grew, the more frequent such pauses
+became; for Ottilie, contrary to her custom, spoke very little. Alma,
+as usual, thought it enough to give people, by a gracious smile,
+permission to amuse her, and Brandow, this evening, was by no means the
+entertaining companion he was generally considered. The restlessness
+with which he darted from one subject to another had a feverish haste,
+his laugh sounded forced, at times he did not seem to notice that not a
+word had been uttered for some minutes, but sat staring at the picture,
+until he suddenly started and began to talk again in an extremely loud
+voice, whose harsh tones jarred upon Ottilie's nerves. Her anxiety
+increased every moment. She had already risen several times, gone to
+the window, and pushing aside the curtain, gazed out in the night,
+which was made, if possible, darker still by the feeble gleam of the
+tiny flames in the street-lamps.
+
+"I am very anxious," she exclaimed at last, turning from the window.
+
+"It is certainly strange," said Brandow, "it is now ten minutes of
+twelve; they ought to have been here an hour ago."
+
+"And my husband does not come either," said Ottilie.
+
+"Be glad that he is having a good time," replied Alma. "Are you going
+already, my dear friend?"
+
+"I will try to obtain some news of them," answered Brandow, who had
+hastily risen and taken his hat.
+
+"You won't venture out into this darkness again?" cried Alma.
+
+"Why, Alma!" exclaimed Ottilie.
+
+Brandow was in the act of taking leave, when the doorbell rang, a heavy
+step passed through the counting-room, and Herr Wollnow entered.
+Ottilie hurried towards him, and in a few words told him how matters
+stood. Herr Wollnow greeted the late guest with cold politeness. He saw
+no special reason for being anxious as yet, if Herr Brandow was not.
+
+"But he is," cried Ottilie.
+
+"In that case Herr Brandow would have gone in search of information
+long ago," replied Wollnow.
+
+"I am anxious, and I am not," said Brandow. "It is certainly a very
+dark night, and the road is not particularly good in one or two places,
+but Hinrich Scheel is a remarkably good driver, and--yes, it has just
+occurred to me--Gustav von Plueggen drove over the same road only a few
+minutes before our friends."
+
+"Which does not prove that some mischance may not have befallen one or
+the other party, or perhaps both," answered Wollnow. "I say mischance,
+ladies, not misfortune, but even a trifling mischance--the breaking of
+a wheel, or anything of that sort--is no joke on such a night as this;
+and I am most decidedly in favor of going to meet our friends. I will
+accompany you, Herr Brandow, if agreeable to you."
+
+"Certainly, of course, but I came on horseback," replied Brandow.
+
+"Then we will take a carriage at the Fuerstenhof; if anything has
+happened, a carriage may be useful to them."
+
+Alma thought it very uncivil in the gentlemen to leave the ladies alone
+at such a moment, while Ottilie gave her husband a shawl, and whispered
+with a most affectionate kiss, "That's my own good Emil!"
+
+Wollnow had requested the ladies to stay in the room. When the door was
+closed, he said, "I am sure some misfortune has happened to them; and
+so are you, are you not?"
+
+His black eyes flashed so strangely, and looked so keen and piercing in
+the light of the lamp he carried in his hand, that Brandow shrank as if
+a question on which the result of the whole matter depended had been
+put to him in a court-room.
+
+"Oh! certainly not, by no means," he faltered; "that is, I really don't
+know what to think."
+
+"Nor I either," replied Wollnow curtly, putting the lamp on a table
+near the hall-door, and drawing back the bolt.
+
+The light fell brightly upon the door, and as Wollnow opened it
+darkness yawned outside. Suddenly against the black background appeared
+a figure at the sight of which even the calm Wollnow trembled, while
+Brandow, who was directly behind him, staggered back with a low
+cry--the figure of a man, whose clothing was drenched with water and
+besmeared with sand and clay as if he had just risen from the earth,
+and whose pale face, framed in its dark beard and shaded by a
+broad-brimmed hat, was terribly disfigured by a narrow stream of blood
+which ran from his temple across his cheek.
+
+"In Heaven's name, Gotthold, what has happened?" exclaimed Wollnow,
+holding out both hands to his friend, and drawing him into the house.
+
+"Where are the ladies?" asked Gotthold in a low tone.
+
+Wollnow motioned towards the sitting-room.
+
+"Then keep them away. Sellien is in the Fuerstenhof, we have just
+bandaged his wounds, he is still unconscious; Lauterbach despairs of
+his recovery. I thought it would be better for me to bring the news.
+You here, Brandow?"
+
+Brandow had recovered his composure; it was absurd that he should have
+been so unnecessarily anxious. The scoundrel had as many lives as a
+cat, and what did he care for the other?
+
+"I have been waiting here for you almost two hours," said he. "But how
+could such an accident have happened? Poor Gotthold, and that good
+fellow Sellien! I must see how he is. You will probably remain here
+now, and you also, Herr Wollnow."
+
+Without waiting for a reply, he rushed out and disappeared in the
+darkness.
+
+Wollnow's eyes flashed as he looked after him, but he repressed the
+words that seemed trembling on his lips.
+
+"And you, my dear Gotthold?"
+
+"I have got off so," said Gotthold. "But what is to be done now? How
+shall we tell his wife?"
+
+"I should like to see him myself first. They know I was going to meet
+you, and will not miss me."
+
+"Then come."
+
+The two friends went out. Wollnow gave Gotthold his arm. "Lean on me,"
+said he; "lean firmly, and don't speak."
+
+"Only one thing. The ten thousand thalers Sellien had with him are
+lost. We did not notice it until we were cutting off his coat here."
+
+"How can they be lost if you were obliged to cut off his coat?"
+
+Gotthold made no reply; the faintness which he had already several
+times scarcely been able to conquer, once more stole over him, and he
+was obliged to lean very heavily on Wollnow's arm.
+
+Thus, not without considerable difficulty, they reached the Fuerstenhof,
+where everything was in the greatest confusion, but did not see Brandow
+again. The host said that he had ordered his horse to be saddled as
+soon as he heard of the news of the loss of the money, and then rode
+away without seeing the Assessor. He could do no good here, he said;
+but the money would scarcely be found without him.
+
+"Nor with him perhaps," muttered Wollnow.
+
+There had been no change in the Assessor's condition.
+
+"If he does not recover his senses soon, we have no hope of saving the
+patient," said Doctor Lauterbach.
+
+The physician soon had two patients. Gotthold fell fainting upon
+Sellien's bed.
+
+"I said so," observed the Doctor; "it's a miracle that he has held out
+so long. It is really a bad accident."
+
+"If it is an accident," muttered Wollnow.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+Herr Wollnow and his wife now spent days and nights of ceaseless care.
+It had proved possible to move the Assessor, in spite of his serious
+injuries, to their house, where he was much more comfortably situated
+in every respect, while Gotthold, who in comparison was scarcely
+considered wounded, they were obliged to leave at the Fuerstenhof. He
+had lain for hours, either unconscious or tossing in the wildest
+delirium, a prey to violent fever; the doctor shook his head gravely,
+and spoke of a concussion of the brain, which was not impossible, or
+some internal injury, which was extremely probable. Herr Wollnow was
+very anxious, and spent every moment he could spare by the bedside of
+the invalid.
+
+"The Assessor's case is really very simple," said he; "he has broken
+his left leg, and put his right arm out of joint; the arm has been set,
+and the leg is going on admirably. I'm not anxious about the Assessor,
+whom you ladies will soon set to rights; but with Gotthold it is
+different; we don't yet know exactly where we are; I can't be spared
+there."
+
+Ottilie thought he would have believed it impossible for him to be
+spared from Gotthold's side, under any circumstances, but she had
+nothing to say against a preference she herself shared; Gotthold
+already seemed like her own son.
+
+Herr Wollnow received this remarkable confession with a smile, and the
+same rather melancholy smile flitted over his grave face again and
+again, as he sat beside the sick man's bed, stroked the soft wavy hair
+from his burning brow, and compared the delicate features, now deadly
+pale and anon flushed with fever, with those of another face, which had
+once seemed to him the type and expression of all beauty, and whose
+memory his faithful heart had kept so loyally.
+
+And many strange thoughts, evoked by this recollection, passed
+through his mind as he sat in the quiet room through the long silent
+hours,--thoughts which approached caressingly, and he repelled because
+they sought to remove him from the firm ground on which he had placed
+himself and his house, and where he must stand resolutely if he did not
+wish to become the sport of the winds and the waves, with all that had
+been entrusted to his care. No, no; it beseems not only God to
+pronounce what He has created good, but man must also be permitted to
+say so of his works, must be able to say so, if he is to preserve the
+strength and courage needed to guard what he has made. He had chosen
+his own part; no matter whether he had taken the worse or better, he
+had chosen it, and in those words all was said. Those are not the best,
+but the worst men, who wish to decide for themselves what has been
+settled long ago.
+
+But for him, who, according to the number of his years, might be his
+son--whom he would so gladly--no no! not that, not that; but he loved
+him because he was so good and noble, loved him as an older man can and
+may love a younger whom he sees tottering along the same intricate
+mazes of the path of life, which once drank his own heart's blood--for
+him nothing was yet decided. Could not the determination be made so
+that the heart need not pour forth its best blood, ere it was calm
+enough to understand the lessons of wisdom? How gladly would he have
+procured him a happiness of which he had himself been deprived! It
+could no longer be a perfect happiness, under any circumstances--too
+much had already happened which would cast its shadow athwart the
+fairest future--but perhaps to him it was the only one possible. After
+all, there was something in the race, in the old habits of thought and
+feeling transmitted to their descendants by those ancient Germans, who
+did not try to improve their wretched homes, but simply gave the matter
+up, who knew of no other stratagem in battle except that of binding
+themselves together with chains, and in gambling preferred to be
+ruined, rather than make any concession to ill-luck. And now he too!
+the son of such a father, such a mother, who both had been destroyed by
+this excess of feeling, which will suffer no bargaining and trading.
+Here also the case was essentially different; a force was involved here
+which was entirely lacking then, a force which almost seemed to make
+what he would otherwise condemn as a crime against society, an act of
+philanthropy--a necessity, and yet in his eyes a sad one.
+
+To be sure, almost everything in regard to this question was still and
+must remain mere conjecture, at least so long as those who had been the
+victims of this--accident on the moor were unable to tell what they
+knew, or what observations they had made before and after. True, at
+best it was probable that very little weight could be given to the
+Assessor's statement, since from the little Gotthold had communicated
+on that first evening, it was evident enough that the former had been
+incapable of judging of anything; and even now, when he could think and
+speak clearly again, he persisted in the assertion that he knew
+nothing, and must have slept until the catastrophe happened. But
+Gotthold, who, with the delicate perceptions of an artist, must have
+seen, heard, and noticed everything, could undoubtedly supply materials
+which a clever investigator would know how to prize.
+
+To be sure, Justizrath von Zadenig, in the neighboring capital of the
+island, to whose district the case belonged, could hardly be included
+in this category. The Herr Justizrath saw nothing at all unusual in the
+event. That carriages might be upset in more or less dangerous places,
+and pocket-books or such things lost, everybody must admit; and that
+the road across Dollan moor contained such places was well known, at
+least to him, Justizrath von Zadenig, who knew the story of the two
+Wenhof cousins, part of which was connected with Dollan moor, very
+well, as everybody else did, who, like him, was descended from one of
+the old island families. The Brandows were not an old family, and the
+way in which they had got possession of Dahlitz was not exactly
+justifiable; but they no longer owned it, and Carl Brandow ought not to
+be called to account for the condition of the Dollan roads, over which
+three or four generations of Wenhofs had passed to and fro unmolested.
+That was a thing he, Justizrath von Zadenig, considered quite
+inadmissible, the more so as the brunt of the trouble would not come
+upon Brandow, but on his own brother-in-law, the Herr Landrath von
+Swantenit, of Swantenit, who at the last session of the court had been
+made responsible for the condition of the high-roads and by-ways. If,
+however, Herr Wollnow, of whose wisdom and judgment he held the highest
+opinion, thought that the matter ought to be thoroughly investigated,
+he would send at once for the Herr Referendar von Pahlen, and even
+despatch a gensdarme with him, which, always looked particularly
+official and serious. Surely Herr Wollnow would be satisfied with that.
+
+Herr Wollnow was satisfied, because he had obtained all he could get
+from the indolent, but in other respects worthy old gentleman; and
+after he had settled a few other business matters, returned to Prora,
+where, at the door of the Fuerstenhof, he met Carl Brandow, who had
+ridden in to-day, as usual, to inquire in person about the condition of
+the invalids.
+
+"Things are going on admirably," he cried, as he saw Herr Wollnow. "His
+head has been perfectly clear for the last hour. I have not tried to
+see him, because I thought all excitement ought still to be avoided;
+but I spoke to Lauterbach, who looks very solemn. He had made up his
+mind to an inflammation of the brain, and now sees that he'll pull
+through. Sellien, too, is getting along as well as can be expected; so
+I can ride home today with a lighter heart than usual. How delighted my
+wife will be! Perhaps I shall bring her in with me tomorrow. I have
+Frau Wollnow's permission to do so. Good-by until to-morrow, Herr
+Wollnow, good by."
+
+"That chestnut gelding's a fine horse," said the groom, looking after
+him as he galloped away; "but it's nothing at all in comparison to the
+one he rode Sunday night. That was a splendid animal."
+
+Wollnow's glance had also followed the slight figure, whose seat in the
+saddle was so firm and graceful. "If he is really the scoundrel I think
+him, it will be difficult to outwit him at all events. And I must not
+let Gotthold notice anything; it would excite him terribly, and, for
+the present, without due cause; at least I must have firmer ground. It
+would certainly be no child's play: the snare which could catch the
+knave would need very small meshes."
+
+As his friend entered, Gotthold extended his hand, which, though very
+white, was entirely free from fever.
+
+"There," said he, "feel it yourself; and now with this clasp let me
+thank you for your kindness, your affection. I have not been so
+entirely out of my mind as not to see your face distinctly from time to
+time, amid all the delirious fancies that oppressed me, and always with
+the grave pitying expression, which I shall gratefully remember as long
+as I live."
+
+Gotthold's voice trembled, and tears glittered in his eyes--"It is not
+the weakness of sickness," said he: "I will frankly confess the truth:
+it is the power of an emotion which is entirely new to me. I have had
+so little opportunity to be grateful for the services of love. The
+person who to others, during their whole lives, stands forth as the
+image of unselfish, self-sacrificing devotion--my mother--died so
+early, I scarcely knew her; I was separated from my father by an--as I
+must believe--impassable gulf, and for ten years have wandered about
+the world amid a thousand events, a thousand relations, ever in the
+bustle of society, constantly among, and often even the centre of a
+large circle of friends, and yet in the inmost depths of my soul
+alone--alone, and longing for a love which so late in life has been
+given me by a man whom I saw a few days ago for the first time, and
+between whom and myself no relations had previously existed save those
+of the most ordinary business transactions."
+
+The merchant's grave dark face expressed keen emotion, and his deep
+voice sounded strangely low and gentle as he said after a short pause:
+
+"And suppose that we did not meet a few days ago for the first time;
+suppose I had held you in my arms when you were a boy four or five
+years old; suppose the interest I took in you sprang from a much deeper
+source than our business relations, was connected with all the poetry
+and beauty of my life: what then, my dear young friend, what then?"
+
+"Did you know my mother?" asked Gotthold, with a sudden presentiment;
+"you must have known her."
+
+"I knew and--loved her. To know and love her was in those days the same
+thing to me, nay, even at this moment they still seem to belong
+together, like light and warmth."
+
+"And my mother--loved you. Speak frankly, and explain the mystery that
+has always rested upon the relations between my parents."
+
+Wollnow shook his head. "No, no," said he, "that is not it; even if it
+seemed so for a moment, it was only seeming, and it is the sorrowful
+pride of my life that I did not allow myself to be dazzled by this
+semblance; that through it I perceived the rugged path duty and honor
+commanded me to tread."
+
+"You increase the mystery instead of dispelling it," said Gotthold.
+
+"So many things in this drama have remained mysterious, even to me,"
+replied Wollnow, covering his eyes with his hand; "but one fact is
+plain, that a man of your father's stamp, so highly gifted, so glowing
+with the holy passion of truth, could not fail to arouse an
+overmastering love in the heart of your no less gifted, no less
+enthusiastic mother. I assure you, my friend, if ever there was a love
+such as you described a short time ago, it was that which impelled
+these two rare, beautiful natures towards each other, like two flames
+which rush together into one. Any one who witnessed the spectacle stood
+in silent admiration, saying: No other conclusion is possible. My poor
+dear friend said so, though it was a death sentence to him; I said so
+too, and thought my heart would break; but it was stronger than I
+believed, and then--I was determined to live! With that determination
+one can do so, my friend, although it is at first a very wretched,
+pitiful fragment of life."
+
+Wollnow paused, for he felt that he could not go on calmly. After a
+short time he continued:
+
+"I am not now in a condition to judge whether I have erred in allowing
+myself to be led on to make this confession to you, but I should
+certainly wrong the memory of your parents, you, my dear young friend,
+nay, myself, if I did not now tell you all, although the all is but
+little, and this little terribly significant of the sad uncertainty of
+human destiny.
+
+"The handsome young couple came here. I saw them again by accident a
+few years after, when business chanced to bring me into this
+neighborhood, for I would have gone out of my way to avoid a meeting
+which could only cause me pain. But as I drove through Rammin, one of
+the wheels of my carriage broke directly in front of the parsonage. I
+was thrown out so violently that I dislocated my arm, and was compelled
+to claim your parents' hospitality for several weeks. You cannot
+remember me, but I can still see the curly-haired, large-eyed little
+boy, who played so happily at his mother's side among the beds of
+asters in the garden in the autumn sunlight, and, thank God, had no
+suspicion of the meaning of the mournful expression with which the
+beautiful young mother often gazed over the child's head into vacancy.
+Alas! for her the flowers did not bloom, the sun did not shine;
+everything around her was dark, and darkness was within her, in her
+warm young heart. And it was the same in the ardent heart of the man
+whom she had once so passionately loved, and who had loved her with
+equal fervor, who, I am perfectly sure, loved her with no less devotion
+at that moment, when they already seemed to hate each other, perhaps
+fancied they did. Oh! my dear friend, I won't preach--I won't begin our
+late dispute again; but how can I help touching the wound, and saying:
+'Here again it was--and in a fatal manner--the want of moderation,
+which will not be satisfied with things as they are, will not try to
+make the best of circumstances, but releasing itself from commonplace
+conditions, strives to realize an ideal vision'? These two beautiful
+natures, which could offer so much, be so much to each other,
+considered it nothing because it was not all. She expected him to be
+not only the champion of the Church before whom she had at first knelt
+in admiration, but also to possess every virtue the intelligent,
+much-courted young girl had ever admired in any man. He expected her to
+wear, in addition to all the charms with which nature had so lavishly
+endowed her--I know not what mystic crown, without which all earthly
+beauty was valueless in the eyes of the enthusiastic apostle. And
+instead of trying to lessen the necessary differences between their
+natures as much as possible by gentleness and patience, and overlook
+the remnant which would still be left, out of respect for the Great
+Power of which we are only an infinitesimal part, both with fatal
+defiance increased their special gifts; he wanted to do nothing but see
+and read obscure writings by a glass; she, who had always been far too
+proud to be vain, declared that the glass told her nothing except that
+she was young and beautiful, as the world was, in spite of all fanatics
+and devotees. And now this strange conflict went on in the quiet
+parsonage of a little village, on an island which in those days was
+almost entirely secluded from all intercourse with the outside
+world--what marvel was it that the two unhappy combatants bled from
+painful wounds--and must bleed to death if they are not separated in
+time, the world thinks and says in such cases. I am well aware of it,
+but I did not think so. I said to myself: 'These two cannot forget or
+lose each other, even if they should place a world between them, and
+next to themselves the person would suffer most who might be mad enough
+to aid this separation.' I said this also to the young wife, who could
+not or would not conceal her misery from me. I spoke to her--as I
+thought my duty required me to do--with earnest entreaty, and I must
+confess that in so speaking I drowned, not the voice of my conviction,
+but of my own heart, which during this strange scene seemed as if it
+would burst my laboring breast. Now, for the first time, I learned that
+before the right man came I had been dearer to the beautiful girl than
+I had ever ventured to hope or suspect--learned it in broken words and
+hints which rose from her glowing, passionate heart like sparks from a
+blazing fire. How can I deny that I was touched by this fire, that it
+became inexpressibly difficult for me to withstand it? Yes, my friend,
+I struggled like the patriarch of old on that wondrous night, and from
+my heaving breast, like his, the magic words were gasped forth, 'I will
+not let thee go, except Thou bless me.'
+
+"And was it no blessing that some trace of the repose I had won by so
+fierce a conflict seemed to calm the soul of the despairing young wife,
+that she--which in such a situation is everything--found time to regain
+her self-control, to remember what she had once possessed, to ask
+herself whether she might not possess it again if she desired. I can
+still see the look with which she extended her hand as she bade me
+farewell, the earnest, expressive glance in which a gleam of hope still
+sparkled. I can still hear her sweet voice utter the words which were
+the richest reward to me for all I had done and suffered, the words: 'I
+thank you, my friend.'"
+
+"And I thank you," said Gotthold, seizing the hand of the
+deeply-agitated man, and pressing it warmly, "thank you with all my
+heart, for you have acted according to your sincere conviction, and
+what can a man do more? But you did not save my poor mother from dying
+of a broken heart."
+
+Wollnow looked gloomily at the floor. Gotthold, smiling sadly,
+continued:
+
+"To be sure, it is better to die so, to die young, than to live on with
+a broken heart, to the torment instead of the joy of one's self and
+others, as was the fate of my poor father. And he cannot have become
+reconciled to my mother's shade. Else why, when he pushed me from him
+in anger, did his pale lips murmur: 'You are just like your mother'?
+No, no, my friend, I honor your wisdom, but I think one must be born
+wise--it is not to be learned."
+
+"At least in one lesson," said Wollnow, with grave kindness, "and this
+has lasted long enough--too long, when I consider the condition of the
+pupil."
+
+Gotthold protested against this decision; he felt perfectly well, and
+strong enough to continue the argument a long time; besides, the
+subject had a demoniacal charm for him.
+
+"And for that very reason we will drop it," replied Wollnow, "and
+instead, if you are really strong enough, I will request you to answer
+a few questions in relation to your unlucky drive. I will confess that
+I put them partly at the desire of a prominent magistrate. At least,
+Justizrath von Zadenig declares that no farther steps can be taken in
+this disagreeable matter without your deposition, and has begged me to
+take it down in a legal form."
+
+Gotthold looked up in astonishment--"What is the point in question?"
+
+"It concerns, in the first place, the lost money, which must, if
+possible, be recovered," replied Wollnow.
+
+"Poor Sellien! I am sorry for him," said Gotthold; "but I don't see how
+your questions and my answers can aid in its recovery."
+
+"Let us see. Do you know that Sellien had the money with him when you
+left Dollan?"
+
+"I am sure of it; as he did not suspect it came from me, he told me in
+a walk we took after dinner that Brandow had paid him, and showed me
+the packet, which he took out of the breast-pocket of his coat. I also
+saw it there during the whole evening--not without some little anxiety.
+I feared he might be tempted to stake the money. Fortunately he always
+won."
+
+"So he was gambling. Who was the loser?"
+
+"Brandow."
+
+"Did he lose much?"
+
+"I think he lost five thousand thalers to Redebas, who was the only
+person that had the courage to make a stand against so rash an
+adversary."
+
+"Of course he did not pay him on the spot."
+
+"Certainly not; and from that very circumstance arose the quarrel which
+ended in the others leaving the house in a rage."
+
+"Did you take any part in the dispute?"
+
+"Oh, no; Sellien perhaps was a little mixed up with it; at least
+Brandow made it the pretext for the rudeness that drove us also from
+the house."
+
+"Drove you out of the house! Very good," said Wollnow, when he had made
+a written record of the words. "And Sellien still had the money when
+you went away?"
+
+"I felt the packet when I buttoned his overcoat; he was then partially
+intoxicated."
+
+"And the overcoat was still buttoned when Lauterbach wanted to bandage
+his injuries here. So you said a short time ago, and Lauterbach
+confirms it. Did you make no attempt to remove his clothes at the
+smithy?"
+
+"No. Old Prebrow wanted to do so, but Sellien, who came to his senses
+for a moment, begged so earnestly to be let alone, that we desisted,
+and contented ourselves with making him as comfortable a bed as we
+could on some straw and hay in the bottom of the wagon the Prebrows had
+already prepared."
+
+"And did you feel the pocket-book there too?"
+
+Gotthold reflected a moment. "No," said he, "he did not have it there.
+I remember now, because first the old man and then I myself felt his
+breast, as he complained of severe pain in his left ribs. I could not
+have helped feeling the packet. That is certainly strange."
+
+"It is indeed," replied Wollnow, "since neither of the worthy Prebrows,
+father and son, who carried him from the place where the accident
+occurred to the smithy, can have taken it out of his pocket."
+
+"Impossible!" exclaimed Gotthold.
+
+"And it is almost equally impossible, though in another sense,
+that during his fall he can have lost it out of the pocket of a
+closely-buttoned coat, over which another was buttoned."
+
+"Yet there is no other supposition."
+
+"So it seems. But let us go back a few steps. You had the impression
+throughout, that Brandow was driving you from the house. Did not that
+seem strange?"
+
+"No and yes."
+
+"We will suppose that the no refers to your relations with Brandow, and
+the yes to the Assessor's, whose favor he certainly had the most urgent
+motives to keep. I confess it is incomprehensible to me. And on such a
+night too--as King Lear says, 'In storm and rain and darkness'--to
+drive you out of the house and give you a carriage with no lamps to
+convey you over such notoriously bad roads."
+
+"All that is true," said Gotthold in an embarrassed tone; "but
+recurring to Brandow's unfriendliness--which, moreover, he instantly
+regretted, and tried to make amends for the same evening--will scarcely
+help us to the recovery of the money."
+
+"You see what an unskilful inquisitor I am," replied Wollnow, passing
+his hand over his brow. "Let us leave the master, and without regard
+for the old adage, turn to the man. Was he not the same one who drove
+you out in the morning?"
+
+"The same. Brandow's trainer, and as you see, occasional coachman,
+steward also, in a word, factotum."
+
+"Factotum, very good," said Wollnow. "A do-everything, in contrast to
+always doing right, for this Signer Do-everything seems to fear nothing
+and no one, at least that was the impression he made upon me. What do
+you think of the man?"
+
+"That he is a remarkable fellow, so far as this, that any one who had
+seen him once would hardly forget him. I remember him perfectly from
+the time I first knew him, years ago, till now: the square flat head,
+and low retreating forehead of the large animals of the cat tribe, to
+which his green squinting eyes also bear a resemblance, while his broad
+shoulders, short, thick-set figure, and clumsy bow legs are more like
+the dog tribe--a cross between the terrier and bull-dog, whose tenacity
+and faithfulness he also possesses. I believe he would go through fire
+and water for his master."
+
+"And water," said Wollnow. "What wonderful eyes you artists have! How
+dear that description is! And now we have this estimable monster, this
+faithful Caliban, on the front seat of the carriage, driving through
+the darkness. What about the ride?"
+
+"I have frankly confessed that, until just before the accident, I
+noticed little or nothing of what was passing around me. But I remember
+now that we ascended the hill with difficulty, probably because the
+wind was directly against us, and Hinrich Scheel, with his usual
+cruelty, violently lashed the poor horses, which seemed to have a
+presentiment of their fate, and would not move from the spot until
+Hinrich at last jumped out of the carriage."
+
+"Jumped out of the carriage," repeated Wollnow; "that was very wise,
+very apropos; for the fall occurred directly after, didn't it?"
+
+"It must have taken place at that very moment."
+
+"Let us say a few moments after, otherwise the faithful Caliban would
+have been obliged to join the party. The fall you have already
+described to me, so far as you were conscious of the precise
+moment--and it is astonishing how far an artist's observation extends
+to the gates, nay, I might say across the very threshold of death. And
+how long did this terrible moment, when you were so near your end,
+last?"
+
+"I can hardly say; I became unconscious without pain or struggle, as
+quickly and imperceptibly as the lid falls over the eye; and in the
+same manner, without the slightest struggle, my senses returned, and I
+lay with my eyes fixed upon the moon, watching the yellowish brown
+clouds over her face grow thinner and thinner--as if I had nothing else
+to do--until her rays suddenly pierced the last transparent veil, and
+shone in their full brilliancy. At the same moment the consciousness of
+my situation returned, and I knew as well as if some one had told me
+that I had remained lying on a ledge about half way down the slope,
+while the carriage and horses, sliding down the precipice to the edge
+of the morass, were lying in one confused, terrible heap, amid which I
+could distinguish nothing. After this, I must have again fallen, not
+into an unconscious condition, but a sort of delirious state. I had a
+distinct vision of a horseman, who, with a speed that only occurs in
+dreams, dashed away from me across the marsh in the direction of
+Neuenhof. Like the traditional ghostly rider, he had his head bent far
+over the long thin neck of his flying steed, and wore a tall hat. A
+ghost in a tall hat, isn't it ridiculous?"
+
+"Very ridiculous!" said Wollnow. He had risen from his seat again, and
+gone to the window to conceal his agitation from Gotthold. What was
+that the groom had said just now about the remarkable speed of the
+horse Brandow had ridden that night? And the spectral rider had dashed
+in the direction of Neuenhof, from whence Brandow had come!--Brandow,
+who strangely enough had worn a tall hat that night, and the tall hat
+was splashed with marshy water.
+
+Wollnow turned to Gotthold again: "Do you think it impossible for any
+one, I mean any one of flesh and blood, to cross Dollan marsh, even on
+the best and fastest horse?"
+
+"What put that into your head?" asked Gotthold in amazement.
+
+"Oh! nothing, except that Brandow has been telling everywhere that one
+of the horses which broke away from the carriage and tried to make its
+escape across the morass was drowned in the attempt."
+
+"Then that is surely the best proof of the impossibility."
+
+"Certainly," replied Wollnow; "and now you must have perfect quiet, or
+Lauterbach will be very angry. I will come back again in two hours;
+until then you must sleep undisturbed."
+
+Wollnow spent the two hours in a restless, impatient mood, of which the
+calm, self-possessed man would not have believed himself capable. He
+was expecting the young lawyer, who had promised to stop in Prora on
+his return from Dollan and tell him the result of his investigations.
+Herr von Pahlen had left B. two hours before him, and might surely have
+executed his commission by this time. The expected visitor arrived at
+last, but without the gendarme Herr von Zadenig had ordered to attend
+him to give a suitable coloring to the affair.
+
+"This is a very strange business," said Herr von Pahlen. "You know I
+went ostensibly to take the deposition of the man who drove the
+gentlemen, Hinrich Scheel; at least he was the principal person, and
+now would you believe it--"
+
+"The man had disappeared," said Wollnow.
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"I only thought so; but go on."
+
+"Had actually disappeared," continued Herr von Pahlen, "although half
+an hour before our arrival he had been seen by the laborers on the
+estate, and also by Herr Brandow, who had just returned home. He had
+disappeared and could not be found, although Herr Brandow was kind
+enough to send men in every direction, who as Herr Brandow himself
+said, must have found him if--"
+
+"The man had wanted to be found."
+
+"Exactly, but how stupid in the fellow, who, after all, is not to
+blame, except for having taken for the journey the two worst beasts
+among the many good ones, in order to spare the carriage-horses. It is
+from this cause Brandow says, as he now looks at the matter, that the
+whole misfortune arose. To be sure, if the fellow has really fled--I
+have left Rueterbusch there for the present, who will arrest him if he
+makes his appearance--the case assumes a very different aspect. The
+fellow will suggest the inference that he either found the money, God
+knows how, or took it out of the Assessor's pocket while he was
+senseless, and now, being conscious of his guilt, fled when he saw us
+coming--and one can see a long distance over the moor. Brandow, who was
+very much astonished, said that he should have attributed such a crime
+to any one rather than this man, who had always been highly esteemed by
+his father, and since his death had served him faithfully and honestly,
+but admitted that the sudden disappearance was very mysterious; and
+after all everything was possible; at any rate, the possibility could
+not now be denied that the poor devil might have yielded to the great
+temptation of becoming a rich man at one stroke."
+
+"A devil always feels tempted to do evil, even if he is not poor," said
+Wollnow.
+
+"So you think he has stolen it," asked the lawyer eagerly.
+
+"I have nothing to do with the matter," replied Wollnow evasively,
+while his dark eyes flashed with an expression that seemed to say that
+for all that he did have an opinion in regard to the affair, and a very
+decided one.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+Gotthold had left Prora for Sundin as soon as his health permitted,
+although Ottilie declared that the Prora air was infinitely better for
+a convalescent, and he could complete the promised picture just as well
+here as there. Nay, she had even announced herself ready to give up the
+present entirely, if their friend could not be induced to stay on any
+other terms; but her husband had again differed from her in opinion.
+
+"We ought not to try to detain one who wants to go," said he, "or we
+must be responsible for all the results that may proceed from his stay,
+and that I have no inclination to do in this case. I am sincerely
+attached to the young man, as he deserves, and wish him from my heart
+all the happiness he deserves; but I don't exactly see how he could
+obtain it upon this path. And in this I have not clung to the views you
+know I hold regarding marriage. I would be reconciled to all possible
+concessions, if Gotthold could be helped. But that cannot be done yet.
+The only way to remove the obstacles from his path is such a terrible
+one, that, from my knowledge of his nature, he will shudder to use it
+if matters ever go far enough. At present they have not reached that
+point."
+
+"I shall take care not to rack my brains over this mystery," cried
+Ottilie; "only let me ask one question, to which I beg you to give me a
+plain, straightforward answer: Does Gotthold know of this expedient?"
+
+"I have not mentioned it to him, but it is possible that, with his
+penetration, he has hit upon it himself."
+
+However little satisfaction Ottilie had derived from this very vague
+information, she had not been able to doubt that Gotthold really wished
+to go away, and even her husband's persuasion would hardly have
+detained him.
+
+Gotthold had hurried off with the impetuosity of one who fancies some
+magic spell has been cast over him, and strives to break it, cost what
+it may. And had not an enchanted ring been woven around him from the
+moment he had entered his native island, and been driven by the
+companion of his boyhood, without recognizing him, through his native
+fields? Good Jochen Prebrow! He certainly bore very little resemblance
+to a Mercury, and yet with him had commenced the succession of marvels
+which had taken place during the last few days, which had now shown him
+a heavenly face and now a fiendish grin; now refreshed him with nectar
+and ambrosia, and anon strewn ashes on his tongue.
+
+"I should be the most miserable creature on earth if you did not
+understand me!"
+
+The words constantly rang in his ears--the words and the anxious tone
+in which she had uttered them, as if from the depths of the
+wretchedness into which she would sink without hope of deliverance, if
+he did not understand her. She and he! Was not doubt misunderstanding,
+and were not doubt and despair one and the same thing in this case?
+
+Had he understood her?
+
+It was in the middle of the night, when Gotthold started from a
+troubled sleep, that the meaning of the mystery had appeared before his
+soul, as if born of the darkness: there was one thing, and only one,
+which she could not, dared not do: go while her child remained,
+remained in the power of this fiend; and by this one thing the fiend
+had forced her to obey his will. And force her to go he can and will,
+will apply for the dissolution of a marriage bond she has broken--or
+would she, the proud woman, deny it? Deny upon oath, in a court of
+justice, that she had ever rested in the arms of her friend? Repeat in
+the court-room, before the world, the yes which in his presence she had
+long since changed to an inflexible no? Very well, then the breach of
+faith was proved, the marriage dissolved, the child would be taken from
+the guilty parent, and given to the one who was innocent of blame!
+
+Then, with a sneering laugh, he had repeated to her the shameful
+formula, with which the next morning, in the presence of her lover, she
+was to degrade herself to a level with the lowest--must do so if he did
+not see through the fiendish plot, if he did not understand her!
+
+Thank God, he understood her now! But how she must have suffered! How
+she must suffer still!
+
+And was this state of things to continue? Never, never. Now that he had
+at last penetrated his enemy's base game, he must win the victory. If
+he had allowed himself to be paid with money for the shame of knowing
+that his wife's heart belonged to another, how far would not his
+venality extend? But he would sell everything--honor, wife, and child.
+Why had he not disposed of all at once, since he knew any price would
+be paid that came within the means of the buyer? Did he wish to
+increase the value of his wares by selling them separately? Or was
+there, even for him, a limit which he could not pass? Inconceivable. Or
+was his hatred towards his rival greater than his avarice? Did he carry
+the refinement of cruelty so far as only to mutilate his victim, in
+order to exult in her agony?
+
+It was certainly very probable from such a man, but how long would this
+spendthrift and gambler remain in a situation to be able to afford
+himself so costly a luxury? How soon would necessity compel him to sell
+off his wares? What had the purchaser to do, except practise a little
+patience and keep the money ready?
+
+The property which Gotthold had hitherto considered of so little
+importance, suddenly acquired a priceless value in his eyes, and he
+felt sorely troubled by the thought that he had entrusted the greater
+part of it to persons whose honesty was by no means beyond question;
+at least Wollnow, even when their intercourse had been limited to
+letter-writing, had repeatedly made such hints, and finally in plain
+words warned him against the house in Stettin; but Gotthold, out of
+indifference towards the property, and respect for the name of his dead
+relative, which had been retained by the firm, had not heeded the
+warning until Wollnow had recently spoken on this point even more
+urgently, and said that he must withdraw his money, and there was
+danger in delay. The banker in Sundin who discounted Wollnow's notes
+had confirmed the statement of his business acquaintance, and offered
+him his services, but said it would be better to withdraw it to-day
+than to-morrow.
+
+Gotthold had intended to do so, but his next visit had been to his
+protege, the young artist Bruggberg, whom he found dying, and in the
+duties of friendship he had forgotten everything else. Then days and
+weeks of the most sorrowful emotions had followed, during which he
+could form no resolution. Now he did not need to form any; now he was
+eager to make up for the delay; but it was too late.
+
+When he entered the banker's office, the latter came to meet him with a
+very grave face. News had just come from Stettin that Lenz & Co. had
+failed, in a most unprecedented, scandalous manner; the creditors would
+not receive five per cent. "I am sincerely sorry," said Herr Nathanson;
+"I lose a small sum myself, if one can be said to lose what one has
+given up all hopes of getting long ago; but you are very heavily
+involved, if I understand you rightly. Did you not have fifty thousand
+thalers invested there?"
+
+A short time before Gotthold would merely have shrugged his shoulders
+at such news, and gone back to his work. Now it came upon him like a
+thunder-clap. By the sum recently borrowed of Wollnow and his present
+loss, his property was reduced to about one-fourth of its original
+amount, and even this, strictly speaking, no longer belonged to him.
+Nay, he need not even be overstrict; it was only necessary not to be
+faithless to the obligations into which he had entered--obligations to
+struggling young artists, who had based their hopes of the future on
+his friendship, to widows and children of his deceased companions in
+art, who but for him would sink into poverty. What was left him if he
+paid these debts, as his honor, his heart bade him? Nothing! Nothing
+except the income from his labor. It was enough and more than enough
+for himself--but for the insatiate avarice of that spendthrift! He
+would not be put off with promises, nor accept payments on account, not
+he!
+
+Gotthold stood helpless before a barrier that towered before him in
+impassable height, and which neither his anger nor his despair could
+remove. Of what crime could she be charged, except that young,
+generous, and confiding, she had allowed herself to be deceived by a
+villain, and then after long years of terrible, silent agony, had once
+more breathed freely at the sight of the friend of her youth, and fled
+to his arms for deliverance? And now she was the guilty one, and this
+scoundrel, asserting his rights, could mock, torture, kill her
+unpunished.
+
+Thus anger and love drove him restlessly around in the terrible circle,
+from which no escape seemed possible unless some means could be found
+to fasten the crime, before the eyes of all the world, upon the person
+who was really guilty.
+
+But how could such crimes be proved?
+
+Gotthold started in horror when, while racking his brains over the
+possibility, he surprised himself in the act of producing this proof.
+Should he sully his own and Cecilia's honor by revealing the dark
+secrets, which, under cover of the night, extended from the master's
+room at Dollan to the little attic chamber of the maid-servant? Never!
+
+And that the spendthrift and gambler would ever venture out of the dark
+mole-tracks of vice to the comparatively open road of crime was a
+thought that had also occurred to him; but there were too many
+probabilities against it. He did not give the scoundrel credit for the
+courage that always belongs to crime; besides, in that case, Wollnow
+would probably have expressed some suspicion; Wollnow, who, apparently
+out of sympathy for the Assessor, and perhaps also from the impulse of
+his own nature, which every dark problem irritated, had entered into
+the affair so eagerly, followed with so much care even the smallest
+clew that might lead to the discovery of the lost or stolen money. And,
+after all, was it not a psychological impossibility, that even a
+Brandow--if he had been directly or indirectly concerned in the
+robbery--could quietly clasp the hand of the man he had wronged, as he
+had done just now, when Gotthold met him engaged in a most animated
+conversation with the convalescent and his wife. True, the matter had
+been settled by the trustees of the convent of St. Juergen, in a manner
+particularly favorable to Sellien. Under the direction of Alma's
+father, who presided at the meeting, they decided that the Assessor was
+not in the least to blame, since, as the agent of the convent, he was
+authorized, nay obliged, to receive the money, and certainly could not
+be held responsible for what happened to him on Dollan moor, during and
+after the fall. So the convent merely set down the ten thousand thalers
+as lost, "and," Sellien's father-in-law said, "if we were requested to
+withdraw the warrant for the apprehension of Hinrich Scheel, I, for
+one, should make no objection. The fellow has escaped long ago, and it
+is neither for our interest, gentlemen, nor that of my son-in-law, to
+have the stupid story constantly kept before the people."
+
+Brandow laughed heartily when Sellien, in the most amusing manner, gave
+an account of the last meeting of the trustees, but was unfortunately
+obliged to take his leave immediately, as he wanted to go away directly
+after he had attended another consultation of the racing committee: the
+seventh within a fortnight! He could not get away from the city at all;
+but what was he to do? It was everything to him to get the resolution
+to include a piece of marshy ground in the race-course withdrawn. His
+Brownlock, which had compared very favorably with the other horses
+yesterday, was as good a steeple-chaser as could be found; but for the
+very reason that he had so much power in leaping, required firm ground.
+"It would be a sin and shame to treat him so; even young Prince Prora
+has declared it 'indigne.' But I'll pay no forfeit for non-performance
+of my contract. I'd rather be left sticking in the bog and if necessary
+drown."
+
+"He is a hero!" Alma Sellien exclaimed, ere Brandow had closed the door
+behind him, opening her eyes very wide to express her enthusiasm.
+
+"He is a fool," Gotthold muttered to himself, as he walked through the
+wet, silent streets towards his lodgings; "at least as much fool as
+knave, and certainly incapable of a deed which, in any sense, requires
+a man."
+
+On reaching his room, Gotthold found a letter in the firm, even bold
+hand of Wollnow, now so familiar to him.
+
+The epistle was a lengthy one. Gotthold expected to find news of the
+Stettin affair, about which a great deal of correspondence had passed
+between him and his friend during the last few weeks. He was mistaken.
+His eyes sparkled as, still standing, he glanced rapidly over the
+pages; then he threw himself into a chair, but instantly started up
+again, for his resolution was already formed. He hurried to the house
+where the racing committee met. Herr Brandow, after a violent
+altercation with one of the gentlemen on the committee, had left the
+house half an hour before. He went to the hotel where he knew Brandow
+usually lodged. This time Herr Brandow had not done the hotel the
+honor; perhaps he had taken a room at the "Golden Lion." The "Golden
+Lion" knew nothing of Herr Brandow; perhaps the gentleman might be at
+the "White Rose." Brandow had left the "White Rose" about fifteen
+minutes before, for home, the head waiter thought, at least he had
+ordered his luggage to be carried to the ferry-boat.
+
+The next boat left in half an hour. Gotthold had just time to hurry
+home and put clothing enough to last for a few days into a travelling
+bag. "It is possible that I may not return for several days," he called
+to the landlady, and added in an under-tone: "It is possible I may not
+return at all."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+The passage to the island was unusually long that day. A strong
+head-wind had sprung up; the boat was overloaded with passengers and
+horses, and they were obliged to tack, cautiously. Conversation among
+the passengers, most of whom were land-owners and farmers on the
+island, turned almost exclusively upon the races which were to take
+place in a few days, and would be the most brilliant ones that had ever
+been seen. Horses were to come from Silesia, and even Hungary; Prince
+Prora would probably have taken part in them himself, if he had been
+admitted. The great public prize was increased to a thousand thalers,
+but the principal race would be the one between the gentlemen riders.
+It had at first been supposed that not three of the twenty-four horses
+registered would appear, since even in May, six, from fear of Herr
+Brandow's Brownlock, had already paid the forfeit for failing to fulfil
+their contract; but now the tables were turned, now all wanted to be
+allowed a place, for it was notorious that Brownlock could not cross
+the marsh, and then he would be obliged to give up the lead to go round
+it, and could not recover it again, since there was only one very
+slight impediment between the bog and the winning-post, and on a free
+course the other horses could easily cope with him.
+
+So the men, putting their heads together, talked eagerly among
+themselves, while rain and spray dashed over their broad shoulders, and
+Gotthold pondered over the letter he carried in his pocket. "Brownlock
+can't cross the bog, Brandow says so himself;" he had another motive
+for saying so besides that of stimulating his opponent's desire to bet,
+as one of the speakers had suggested.
+
+At last the boat reached the opposite shore. Gotthold hurried to the
+inn to get a carriage to take him to Prora. Herr Peter's three
+carriages were all away, but one would soon return, nay, ought to have
+been back now; but he could not depend upon the grooms; the only
+reliable one he had ever had got married about three weeks ago, one
+Jochen Prebrow from Dollan, that is, not the estate, but the smithy,
+near which the accident had lately happened of which the gentleman had
+probably heard.
+
+"Why, good gracious!" exclaimed Herr Peters, "it's you yourself. I
+should hardly have known you. You look much paler and thinner than you
+did three weeks ago, when you passed through here with the Herr
+Assessor and Herr Wollnow. I was talking the matter over with Herr
+Brandow a few hours ago. It's a pity you missed the twelve o'clock
+boat, or you might have gone on with Herr Brandow, who always has his
+own horses here to meet him. There is no trace of Hinrich Scheel yet;
+no doubt the fellow has been on his way to America for the last three
+weeks."
+
+Herr Peters was now obliged to attend to his other guests, whose tall,
+broad figures crowded the large coffee-room. Gotthold had already seen
+curious glances directed towards him; probably Herr Peters had pointed
+him out as the hero of the accident on Dollan moor, which had caused a
+great deal of talk on, its own account, and now that Brandow's name was
+in every mouth, was more discussed than ever. So he left the room,
+which reeked with tobacco-smoke, and wandered about in the pouring
+rain, until at last, after an hour of impatient waiting, the promised
+carriage arrived--an old rickety chaise, to which fortunately a pair of
+fresh horses was harnessed. Herr Peters came out to take leave of him,
+and say that in consequence of the great demand, he could not have the
+carriage at the usual price. Gotthold consented to the shameless
+extortion, and would have given even more to get on.
+
+"I saw what was in the wind at once," said Herr Peters to his guests;
+"Brandow two hours ago, and now he. Mark my words; they are after
+Scheel."
+
+"Nonsense," said a fat farmer; "he's gone where the pepper grows long
+ago."
+
+"I think he has taken his life," observed another.
+
+"Or had it taken," growled a third.
+
+They again put their heads together, even more eagerly than before.
+That Hinrich Scheel had not reaped the fruits of his crime alone, nay,
+possibly, had been wholly cheated out of them, was an opinion which had
+obtained a firm hold upon the public mind, although the rumor had not
+assumed a definite form. This time also people either could not or
+would not mention any names; on the contrary, the affair grew darker
+and darker the longer they talked it over, and the more frequently the
+thick little glasses filled with a greenish liquid were emptied. Herr
+Peters looked on well satisfied; it might be doubtful which of the
+disputants would first call for a bowl of his famous mulled wine; but
+that the call would be made within the next five minutes was perfectly
+certain. Herr Peters had already made a signal through the little
+window that opened into the kitchen to his daughter, who was standing
+by the hearth.
+
+Meantime Gotthold drove on through the pouring rain, which shrouded the
+whole landscape in a gray veil that grew denser and denser hour by
+hour. The wind whistled through the chinks in the leathern curtains,
+which had been buttoned down to protect the occupants of the chaise
+from the storm; the crazy old vehicle creaked and groaned
+whenever--which happened only too often--the wheels on the right or
+left slipped into the holes of the rough road; but the horses were
+powerful, and the driver, who expected a liberal fee, was willing, so
+it rolled forward with tolerable speed, although by no means rapidly
+enough to suit Gotthold's increasing impatience.
+
+Yet he was compelled to acknowledge to himself, and did so again and
+again, that there was no sensible reason for his haste, that nothing
+depended upon one hour more or less, nay, that another hour, which
+might perhaps mature some definite resolution in his mind, would be
+welcome. Yet, even while he said so, he leaned forward to shout to the
+driver that the road was perfectly smooth here, and he might drive
+faster.
+
+Then he leaned back again into the corner of his little damp prison,
+drew out Wollnow's letter and gazed at it as if he could not believe
+any one could write such words as those in a hand so firm, characters
+so large and clear. And for the second time he read:
+
+"What I have to tell you to-day, my dear friend, is so bad that the
+most skilful preamble would not make it better. So without any
+introduction: the upsetting of the carriage on the moor was no unlucky
+accident, but a shameful crime, of which Brandow was the instigator.
+Secondly, the money was stolen. The originator of the theft, which
+might be termed murder, was Brandow again; he was probably present at
+the time, or else appeared on the scene directly after; at any rate,
+the fruits of the robbery fell into his hands. Whether the two crimes
+may to a certain extent be considered one--I mean whether the first was
+committed that the second might be executed, or whether the second was
+perpetrated on the spur of the moment, after the first had been
+performed--I do not know, and probably no one ever will, since it is to
+be feared that a third terrible crime has resulted from the first two.
+
+"Who betrayed this horror to me? That which is so often the betrayer of
+crimes--chance.
+
+"A chance than which nothing could be more accidental.
+
+"The money in the packet consisted of hundred, fifty, and twenty-five
+thaler notes. I had myself, as you know, counted and put up the amount;
+but of course that would not enable me to positively swear to the
+identity of any one of the bills, even if it came back to me again.
+With one, however, I am in a position to do so; the note is once more
+in my hands, and I can prove in whose possession it has been in the
+mean time.
+
+"I was obliged to pay out this bill ten years ago at a very critical
+time--it was the last money I possessed, and in a humorous freak I
+marked on it the words, 'a lucky journey,' and the date in small,
+almost microscopical characters, on the upper right-hand corner of its
+face. Four years ago this same note came back to me. I honored my old
+friend with the word 'welcome,' which, together with the date, I
+wrote on the left-hand upper corner of the back, and gave it, as a
+luck-penny, a place in my pocket-book, where it remained until three
+weeks ago. You will remember that ready money was rather scarce with
+me, and I took advantage of the opportunity to punish myself for my
+superstitious feelings by adding this note to the rest.
+
+"Now, this bill, to whose identity I can swear, Herr Redebas received
+from Brandow on the day after the accident, as a part of the gambling
+debt due that afternoon; he left the money in his desk without touching
+it, until he made me a payment yesterday in which was this very note. I
+asked Herr Redebas--without telling him my reasons--whether he could
+swear to this statement if necessary; he answered in some little
+astonishment, but very positively, that he was ready to do so at any
+moment.
+
+"Brandow, as is well known, had related here and there, that is, had
+intentionally spread the report, that the five thousand thalers he paid
+Herr Redebas at noon had been received in the morning from Jacob
+Demminer, a produce dealer in this place, as part payment on account of
+the seven thousand for which he had sold his wheat to him. This
+statement had nothing improbable in and of itself, and as Jacob
+Demminer bears the reputation of doing any business by which money can
+be made, even that of a receiver of stolen goods, there was certainly
+the shadow of a possibility that the master had received in the
+morning, in payment for his wheat, the very money of which the man had
+robbed our friend the night before, and thought he had placed in safety
+with the worthy Jacob, with whom he had perhaps had business dealings
+for a long time. I say, there is the shadow of a possibility, for the
+time was rather short; still, we do not yet know where and how Hinrich
+Scheel spent the rest of the night, so it might have been.
+
+"The worthy Jacob, however, had not this affair at least on his
+conscience, but the business Brandow wished to transact with him did
+not take place either. To be sure Brandow was here that morning, and
+also in the dark hole Jacob calls his counting-room; he took money away
+with him, too, but only two thousand thalers, and not for this year's
+wheat, which he had sold to Jacob months before, but for the next
+year's harvest. He was obliged to sell at any price, in order to be
+able to show the money at this time, and he could name any sum without
+fearing that the worthy Jacob would contradict a customer with whom he
+did such profitable business. The discovery of this trick was also
+effected by chance, in the person of a poor young Jew, who had worked
+several years for the worthy Jacob, and gained his confidence, until
+now his conscience, or I know not what, suddenly urged him to pour out
+his heart to me, and implore me to save him from this den of crime.
+
+"Let us recapitulate. Brandow, who on the day of the accident was known
+to be destitute of money, and received only two thousand thalers the
+following morning, pays Herr Redebas, at noon, five thousand at one
+stroke; and among this money is the hundred-thaler note which was in
+the package that disappeared at the time of the accident.
+
+"Disappeared! Why not lost, found, but not restored to its owner?
+
+"Then it would still have been stolen. But from the beginning it was
+both a theft and robbery.
+
+"Remember that you felt the package in the Assessor's coat-pocket after
+you left Dollan; that you no longer felt it at the smithy, and yet the
+coat you had buttoned was still fastened. This, to be sure, is no
+positive proof--nay, the latter circumstance at first even seems to be
+against my supposition. Why, it might be said, should a thief so
+cunning in all other respects intentionally incur an additional risk?
+But people may try to be too cunning; and it certainly was not known
+that you had kept your eye on the package all the evening, and
+afterwards, when you buttoned the Assessor's coat, even had it under
+your hand. The defender of the accused will, of course, doubt the
+correctness of this statement, will--but we are not in a court of
+justice. To me the fact is plain: the Assessor had the money with him
+at the time of the fall; afterwards, when the two Prebrows raised the
+poor fellow, while Henrich Scheel stood by with the lantern, he no
+longer had it--that is, it had been stolen during the interval.
+
+"By whom?
+
+"Undoubtedly by this very Hinrich Scheel, but very, very probably not
+by him alone.
+
+"Can Brandow have been present at the time?
+
+"He has taken no little trouble to prove his alibi, even before any
+proof was asked, and evidently began the affair cunningly enough. He
+rode here by the way of Neuenhof, Lankenitz, and Faschwitz--that is a
+fact; the people in the villages heard him dash through; he even took
+time to talk to several persons he met. If he rode the whole way he
+cannot have been present at the time the deed was committed; even the
+best rider on the fastest horse could not do that. But suppose he did
+not ride the whole way--suppose he turned into the road just above
+Neuenhof--suppose the spectral horseman whom you saw in your vision
+dashing across the morass had been a veritable rider of flesh and
+blood, and this rider had been Carl Brandow.
+
+"You say that is impossible. What is impossible to a man pursued by the
+furies, if he has a horse under him like the much-praised Brownlock?
+
+"Brandow rode Brownlock that night; the groom at the Fuerstenhof swore
+it, after he saw the racer, day before yesterday, on his way to Sundin.
+And when a man like Brandow rides a horse which in itself represents a
+small fortune, and on which, moreover, he has bet thousands, on such a
+night, over such roads, at such a pace, he must have been in a great
+hurry.
+
+"He must have been in a very great hurry, or, my dear friend, you would
+not have escaped with your life; you certainly would not have been
+spared. A man whom people dash headlong over a precipice sixty feet
+high they silence entirely, if they are not in too great a hurry.
+
+"Yet, as I said before, this will probably remain a mystery, even to a
+wiser judge than Justizrath von Zadenig. One of those who were there
+will never betray it, and the other can no longer do so.
+
+"As I returned from B. I met Brandow; he may easily have learned from
+my coachman that I had been talking to the Justizrath for an hour. He
+rode towards home at full gallop; an hour after the lawyer arrived with
+the gendarme, but did not find Hinrich Scheel, although people had seen
+him about all the forenoon; and he even took his master's horse when he
+came home. The master was very, very anxious that the missing man
+should be found; he even directed the search himself; he--"
+
+"I will not protract this horrible supposition farther; it is the only
+one which occurs in my story, all the others are facts--facts which cry
+aloud to heaven--which ought not, must not remain unpunished. I know,
+my dearest friend, you'll think as I do, though every fibre of your
+heart must quiver at the thought that you--you--
+
+"I shall come to Sundin with my wife day after to-morrow. We will then
+discuss, not what is to be done--there can be no doubt about that; but
+the how is certainly to be considered."
+
+Gotthold put the letter back in his pocket, and gazed out into the
+cheerless, rain-blurred landscape so fixedly, that he scarcely heard a
+carriage, which, coming from Prora, passed by on the other side of the
+road. It was still a half hour's ride to Prora, but it seemed an
+eternity to the impatient traveller. At last the carriage stopped
+before Wollnow's house.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+"I am so sorry to have you go," said Ottilie; "my husband must
+certainly return before evening. He will be very angry with me for not
+keeping you. And then, confess it frankly, my dear friend, you are
+going without any definite plan--any fixed purpose--and in this way
+intend to meet a man like Brandow--that is, to lose the game before it
+is begun."
+
+Ottilie had seized Gotthold's hands as if to draw him back from the
+door into the room. Gotthold shook his head.
+
+"You are right," said he, "but there are cases where the one who is not
+right, or at least cannot prove that he is, must act according to his
+own opinions. That is my case. I cannot put Brandow in prison or drag
+him to the scaffold; I can't--"
+
+"Even if he must otherwise still remain Cecilia's husband? You cannot
+permit that either."
+
+"Certainly not, and therefore a third plan must be found."
+
+"Which never can be. Dear, dear Gotthold, let me say to you what my
+husband would have said if he were here: Never! He will never yield if
+you go to him so, alone and helpless, without the bailiff and myrmidons
+of the law; you must be able to prove that you have him completely in
+your power, and that is not the case now. My husband said yesterday
+evening: 'If we could only confront him with Scheel. There is really
+nothing to be done without him; but where is Scheel? Perhaps at the
+bottom of the Dollan morass.' Ah! my dear friend, stay away from this
+den of murderers."
+
+"And ought I to leave her there?" exclaimed Gotthold. "Woe betide me
+for having done so until now, for not having risked everything to take
+her away with me, her and her child, for it was only the child that
+detained her, and he would have sold the child too if I had had head
+and heart enough to offer him the right price. Now I can offer nothing
+except a mortal struggle; but I am sure, and he knows very well, that I
+shall not be conquered this time. Forgive me, my dear friend, for using
+so many words where acts would beseem me better, and--farewell."
+
+Ottilie burst into tears. "And you," she exclaimed, "my dear, dear
+friend. Ah! yes, you must go, you must risk all if you love Cecilia,
+and that you did love her--I knew long ago, and my good Emil knew it,
+and--and--Emil would not act otherwise in your place, believe me,
+whatever he may have said before, and may say after! He knows what
+passionate love is, nay, he would make no objections if he were eight
+and twenty, and in your place! But I can't help it if I am not as
+beautiful and intellectual as your dear dead mother was; and besides, I
+was not even in existence thirty years ago, and there are much more
+unhappy married couples than we, and, and--may you and your Cecilia be
+as happy!"
+
+She embraced and kissed Gotthold very warmly, and then stood at the
+open window letting the rain drip upon her tear-stained face as she
+waved her handkerchief while his carriage jolted over the rough
+pavement.
+
+In spite of all the delays, it was still nearly an hour before sunset
+when Gotthold left Prora, and the horses stepped out bravely; he must
+surely reach Dollan before dark. He repeated this to himself several
+times in the course of the next hour, and then reflected why he
+constantly recurred to this calculation over and over again, and what
+difference it made whether he reached Dollan before or after dark. He
+could find no answer, and even as he sought for one, said to himself
+once more: "Thank God, I shall get there before dark!" Were his
+thoughts beginning to get confused? That would be bad; his head would
+probably have much to bear to-day, then his anxious eyes wandered to
+the heavy clouds, wet stubble, and black fields, and he murmured: "It
+will grow dark earlier than I expected," and as if the obstinacy of the
+idea required a corresponding idea, even if it were a mild one, he
+added: "I shall not find her."
+
+And now he could not shake off the new idea: he would not find her. As
+if she would hide herself from him, and he would be obliged to seek her
+in vain because it was too dark.
+
+Or was all this only nonsense, such as arises in the confused brain of
+a man who for hours has jolted alone in a damp chaise, over rough
+country roads, staring out into the murky atmosphere, which grew grayer
+and denser every minute. Was it the terrible type of a terrible
+possibility. Hinrich Scheel had taken Brandow's horse when he came
+home, and two hours after Hinrich Scheel had disappeared. Now he had
+been at home at least four hours; so he had had twice as much time.
+
+Gotthold tore away the curtain which was still fastened on one side; it
+seemed as if he was suffocating. At last! there was the smithy close
+before him; he would see and speak to the worthy Prebrows; they lived
+so near that they could surely tell him they had seen and spoken to her
+a short time before.
+
+The smithy was lonely and deserted; several hours must have passed
+since the bellows, had been used: a thick covering of ashes lay over
+the dead coals. It seemed as if the father and son, who lived alone in
+the old-fashioned little house, had just run away from their work. The
+piece of iron they had last been forging still lay on the anvil, the
+pincers and hammer were close beside it on the ground, as if they had
+been suddenly thrown down to rush out of the door, which stood wide
+open. The driver was very indignant; one of the springs of the chaise
+was almost broken. He had depended upon getting the injury repaired
+here so that it should go no farther. Gotthold told the lad to follow
+him slowly, he would go forward on foot.
+
+He could not have waited a moment longer; the sight of the deserted
+smithy had infinitely increased the terrible anxiety which had tortured
+him all the way. He hurried up the ascending road over the moor,
+without heeding the rain that the wind drove into his face with
+redoubled violence as he walked hastily on, his eyes always fixed upon
+the nearest hillock which lay before him, and seemed inaccessible. Then
+he stood panting for breath on the top of the slope, but his view on
+the right was no clearer; a gray mist from the morass floated nearer
+and nearer, was so near already that the rugged side of the next
+hillock gleamed very dimly through the drizzling vapor, and he scarcely
+recognized the scene of the accident. On reaching the bottom he
+remembered that by keeping close to the edge one might pass between the
+hill and morass, so he left the height on the left, and took that
+course.
+
+But as he turned towards the marsh he entered farther and farther into
+the fog that had now spread over the bog like a heaving gray sea, and
+whirled against the steep acclivity like surges dashed by a violent
+wind against the cliffs.
+
+While the height on the left obstructed his view, and on the right he
+gazed into the gray mist, which scarcely permitted him to see where to
+set his feet, the terrible dread increased at every step; it seemed as
+if every moment the misty curtain must rise to reveal the horrible
+picture it now concealed, and the height against which it pressed was
+only there that he might not escape the scene. And there it was!
+
+Gotthold stood trembling and staring into the mist with eyes fairly
+starting from their sockets. It could have been nothing but a trick of
+his over-excited fancy, for he now saw nothing, nothing at all, and yet
+he had seen it with perfect distinctness: four or five figures standing
+in a circle, thrusting long poles into the morass--misty spectres!
+
+No, no; no spectres! Or else ghosts could speak with human voices,
+which he clearly distinguished, although he could not understand the
+words, and now he even caught a few.
+
+"Could it possibly be here?"
+
+"No, it was not possible--it was certain; he now knew why he had been
+so alarmed."
+
+The next moment, with a single bound, he had dashed through the tall
+sedges which, at this spot, enclosed the morass with a broad girdle;
+the thin covering of turf rose and fell under him--he did not notice
+it; again and again the water dashed up under his flying feet--he did
+not heed it; his eyes pierced the mist in the direction from which he
+had heard the voices, and now heard them again still nearer; and now
+the figures, which a rift in the mist had just revealed to him,
+appeared again; he reached them.
+
+"Cousin Boslaf!"
+
+"Stand farther away, and you others, too! There are too many of us
+here; the ground won't bear, and I can do it alone."
+
+They stepped back; again and again the old man let the long pole,
+furnished with an iron hook, slide cautiously down into the water which
+had here formed a small dark pool amid the rushes and nodding grass.
+Then he drew it out and gave it to one of the men. "There is nothing
+here. This was the last place, we will go back; keep close behind me;
+and you too, Gotthold. Tread in my footsteps."
+
+The old man, holding his gun on his shoulder, walked forward with the
+long, regular stride of a huntsman, till the others, among whom was
+Clas Prebrow, Jochen's brother, found it difficult to keep up with him.
+He paused several times, and seemed to be trying the ground; but it was
+only for a few moments, then he moved on into the mist. The men
+followed without hesitation; they knew they could go on calmly if
+Cousin Boslaf led the way; and now the ground became firmer and firmer;
+they were on the very spot from which they had started an hour ago.
+Cousin Boslaf called Gotthold to his side.
+
+"Since when?" asked Gotthold.
+
+"At two o'clock this morning; the dogs have been keen on her track; I
+knew it first three hours ago."
+
+"And you still have hope?"
+
+The old man gazed into the mist.
+
+"We have not found her," said he, "so the others may not either, and in
+that case there would still be hope, although it is not probable that
+she could have gone far with the child in the darkness."
+
+"With the child?" cried Gotthold, "with Gretchen! then all is well; she
+would do the child no injury."
+
+"Injury!" said the old man, "injury! there are greater injuries than
+death."
+
+Gotthold shuddered. She had not been willing to part from the child;
+she had thought herself obliged to bear--able to bear--anything for its
+sake. Now matters had become unendurable, and she was compelled to cast
+the burden aside. What would become of Gretchen? There are worse
+injuries than death.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+They walked rapidly towards the house, old Boslaf still leading the way
+with his long, regular strides, his eyes now bent upon the ground, and
+anon gazing keenly into the gloom of the gathering twilight; but he did
+not speak, and Gotthold asked no questions. Yet before he reached the
+court-yard, he knew--from various remarks made by the other men--that
+when, towards noon, the rumor spread abroad among the laborers that the
+mistress had disappeared with her child, it was said at once that they
+were dead. No one had been the first to utter the words; every one had
+spoken them at the same time, and suggested that somebody should
+go to Cousin Boslaf. Cousin Boslaf had come instantly--with his old
+long-barrelled gun over his shoulder--and divided the men into parties.
+Statthalter Moeller, with one band, was to cross the fields and search
+the forest near the seashore. Prebrow, the blacksmith, who had been
+sent for, was to head another company and go to the upper part of the
+moor, towards the Schanzenbergen; and Cousin Boslaf himself, with the
+remainder, down to the morass; then they would all meet at the house
+again. Two hours before--they were then still farther out in the
+morass, and there was some little fog, though it was by no means so
+thick--they had seen Herr Brandow come home, and very soon after ride
+away again. He had taken a wise course, for the men had resolved that
+the murderer should not leave the estate alive again; it was no matter
+about Hinrich Scheel, who was as bad as his master; but his wife and
+child--it was too much, and they had always said it would happen some
+day.
+
+They had all said so and had let it happen! True, they had been unable
+to prevent it; but he! Gotthold thought his heart would burst with
+shame and horror.
+
+They reached the house almost at the same moment as the two other
+parties, who had carefully searched the region assigned to them, and
+found nothing, not the smallest trace.
+
+What was to be done now?
+
+Very little more could be done. True, the fog had dispersed, but
+twilight had already closed in; in half an hour, or an hour at latest,
+it would be perfectly dark. Besides, the men, who ever since noon had
+been constantly on their feet, searching bushes and woods, fields and
+morass, were evidently fatigued and exhausted, though quite ready to
+search the forest in the direction of Dahlitz, as soon as they had
+eaten the supper Cousin Boslaf had ordered to be brought out from the
+house. The old man himself neither eat nor drank; he stood with folded
+arms, leaning against the trunk of one of the huge old lindens, waiting
+patiently until the men should once more be ready to help him seek
+his great-granddaughter, the last of his race, at the bottom of the
+marl-pit, the depths of some forest ravine, or wherever she had fled
+with her child to die.
+
+Gotthold had entered the house to look for Mine, a good young
+servant-girl whom he had often seen playing with Gretchen, and who
+appeared to be very devoted to Cecilia; perhaps he might learn from her
+something that would give a clew. He found her in the kitchen, where
+with eyes swollen with weeping, she was helping the housekeeper prepare
+bread and butter for the men's supper. When she caught sight of
+Gotthold she dropped the knife with a cry of joy, and came running
+towards him.
+
+Gotthold told her to leave the room with him.
+
+At first the good child's tears almost choked her words. The mistress
+had been very sad the last few weeks, much more sorrowful than usual;
+she had scarcely spoken except to Gretchen, whom she would never trust
+out of her sight, and even to her only when it was absolutely
+necessary. Yesterday she had remained out of doors alone until very
+late in the evening, and when she came in looked so pale and exhausted,
+and stared straight before her with such a fixed expression; she would
+not go to bed, however, but insisted that she should go to her mother
+in Neuenhof, who was very sick, and added that she need not come back
+before noon, and then the mistress had already been gone, no one knows
+how long. Rieke had certainly known it long before, but said nothing
+from fear of the other servants, and hid herself up stairs until the
+master came home. At first he scolded her furiously, and struck at her
+with his riding-whip, but Rieke cried and screamed that she would
+charge the master with it, and made such evil speeches that at last he
+took her away with him in the carriage; and her dear kind mistress had
+been obliged to go out of the house in the middle of the night, and
+dear sweet little Gretchen had not even had her new boots, for they
+were locked up in the closet, and she had the key in her pocket.
+
+The girl began to cry again; Gotthold said a few words which were
+intended to be consoling, and was then obliged to turn away, for his
+own grief threatened to overpower him. The sobbing girl had reminded
+him of the sunny days when he sought out Cecilia in the garden, and
+played with Gretchen among the flower-beds.
+
+When he came out of the house again, the men had finished their meals
+and were ready to set out. Prebrow, the blacksmith, was to search the
+forest on the left, and the Statthalter on the right of the road to
+Dahlitz. Cousin Boslaf would keep to the road itself. They were just
+going when Gotthold's chaise jolted into the courtyard; the spring was
+now entirely broken, and the tire was off of one wheel. Cousin Boslaf
+asked the Statthalter whether Herr Wenhofs old carriage was still
+there, and capable of being used. The carriage was there, and might be
+made fit for use. Then Clas Prebrow should repair it, put in a pair of
+fresh horses, and follow them. Gotthold looked at the old man
+inquiringly.
+
+"I shall seek till I find her," said Cousin Boslaf, pushing the rifle
+farther over his shoulder, "and I shall find her--alive or dead; in
+either case we shall need the carriage."
+
+They reached the forest; the men had already spread out to the right
+and left, and now pressed eagerly into its depths.
+
+"I shall keep to the road," said Cousin Boslaf as they walked on side
+by side. "I can trust my old eyes, and I almost believe she has taken
+this way. She would reach the forest sooner, and directly behind the
+woods, in a ploughed field on the right, is the great marl-pit. When
+she was a child, a poor girl who had killed her new-born babe drowned
+herself there."
+
+The old man did not change his long, regular stride as he spoke, and
+his keen eyes searched the deep furrows of the rough road, or glanced
+over the bashes and tree trunks on either side, between which, here in
+the depths of the forest, the darkness already brooded gloomily. The
+men within the woods shouted to each other, in order to keep together:
+oftentimes one of the dogs they had taken with them barked loudly, then
+for a moment all was silent again, save the wind sighing through the
+treetops, and shaking the rain-drops from the leaves. Then the old man
+paused, listened, and went on again, after convincing himself that the
+men still kept to their track, and nothing remarkable had happened.
+
+So they came to the end of the forest, whose dark edge stretched out
+into the twilight on either side as far as the eye could reach. Nothing
+was to be seen of the men, who had been obliged to make their way
+through the underbrush more slowly. Cousin Boslaf pointed towards the
+right, where a short distance from the road, in the ploughed field, a
+round spot was relieved against the darker earth; it was the marl-pit,
+which the continual rain of the last few days had filled nearly to the
+brim.
+
+They crossed the edge of the road to the field; the old man again took
+the lead, but more slowly than before, and his head was bowed lower, as
+if he wished to count every separate blade of the short wet grass.
+Suddenly he paused: "Here!"
+
+He pointed to the wet ground, upon which, as Gotthold now also
+perceived, were the marks of footprints, a large one, with a smaller
+one beside it. The footprints came from the road they had just left,
+but had emerged from the forest sooner, and gone towards the marl-pit,
+and they had come upon it farther down at a right angle. The old hunter
+and the young man looked at each other; neither spoke--they knew the
+decisive moment had come.
+
+Slowly and cautiously they followed the clew, which ran straight before
+them towards the marl-pit, on whose surface they already saw the
+rippling of the water, as the strong breeze blew it against the edges.
+Only about fifty paces more, and all would be decided.
+
+Gotthold's eyes rested fixedly upon the horrible water, which glittered
+spectrally in the last feeble glimmer of twilight; he saw her standing
+on the edge holding the child by the hand, gazing--
+
+One of the old man's hands rested on his shoulder, the other pointed
+downwards. "She took the child in her arms here."
+
+There was only one footprint, the larger one, and the mark was
+deeper--five, ten, fifteen steps--
+
+"Stay!"
+
+The old man had uttered the word, and waving Gotthold back with his
+hand at the same moment, he fell upon his knees. The footprints were
+confused, as if she had taken a few steps irresolutely to and fro, and
+then the trail became distinct again, going straight on, but parallel
+with the edge of the marl-pit, and then they turned back in the
+direction of the road, and remained in that course to the bank, from
+whose sharp edge a small piece of turf had been torn as she stepped
+upon the path with her burden.
+
+The two men stood in the road once more; Gotthold felt as if the solid
+earth were reeling under him; he threw himself into the arms of the old
+man, who clasped him in a warm embrace.
+
+"We may hope now, my dear son; but we are not yet at the end."
+
+"I will bear and risk everything, so long as I can still hope," cried
+Gotthold.
+
+The dark figures of men now emerged singly and in pairs from the gloomy
+forest, and approached the place where they stood. They had found
+nothing; and Statthalter Moeller asked whether they should now search
+the marl-pit; they could probably do no more than that today; it had
+grown too dark, and the people were completely worn out.
+
+"But if Herr Wenhof wants us to do anything, we will, won't we, men?"
+asked Statthalter Moeller.
+
+"Ay, that we will," they replied in chorus.
+
+"I thank you," said Cousin Boslaf, "you can help me no more now; I will
+go on alone with this gentleman, as soon as Clas Prebrow comes with the
+carriage, and I now have a hope that I may find my great-grandchild
+alive."
+
+The old man's voice trembled as he pronounced the last words, and the
+people looked at him in astonishment.
+
+"Yes, my great-grandchild," the old man began again, and his voice was
+now strong, and had acquired a strangely deep, solemn tone, "for that
+she is--my great-grandchild, and the great-grandchild of Ulrica, the
+wife of Adolf Wenhof. You have aided me so faithfully to-day that I
+cannot help telling you the truth. There is no one living whom it can
+harm, but it may do you good to know that the truth must always be
+spoken, that an old man of ninety must speak it, for no other reason
+than that it is the truth. And now go home, children, and don't allow
+yourselves to be tempted to take vengeance on him who has driven my
+child from house and home--don't vent your anger on the house and farm.
+Better men have lived there before him, and better ones will dwell
+there after him; and now once more I thank you, children."
+
+The men had listened in silence; one after another removed his
+cap--they did not exactly know why; and when the old man and Gotthold
+entered the carriage, which meantime had quietly driven up, all stood
+around it with bared heads, and even after the coach had gone on, and
+they had set out on their way home, it was long ere any one ventured to
+speak aloud.
+
+But the coach drove on through the darkness towards the fishing village
+of Ralow. It was a delightful road on a summer evening, and Cecilia had
+been fond of walking here with the child. Gotthold thought she would
+follow this direction, and the old man had assented. "It is your turn
+now," said he. "We were seeking a dead body, and an old man is well
+suited for that; now that we are in search of a living woman, young
+blood may be better."
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+Two days after, Jochen Prebrow was standing before the door of his
+house, just after his second breakfast, looking out to sea through a
+long spy-glass, which with his left hand he rested against the tall
+flag-staff that stood before the house. Worthy Jochen might often be
+found in the same spot, engaged in the same occupation It was not that
+he sought or hoped to find anything unusual out at sea; but in leisure
+moments the spy-glass, which usually rested on two crooked bars close
+beside the door under the shelter of the projecting roof, afforded an
+excellent amusement, even if, as at this moment, there was nothing to
+be seen on the sea except the waves, here and there crested with foam,
+dancing merrily in the morning breeze.
+
+But to-day the worthy Jochen did not even see the foam-crested waves;
+he saw absolutely nothing at all; yet when, at the end of five minutes,
+he put down and closed the spy-glass, his broad face wore an expression
+as anxious as if he had perceived a large ship, driven by a north-east
+storm on the Wiessow cliffs, and his neighbor Pilot Bonsak had said she
+could not be saved.
+
+And the same anxious expression rested upon the plump face of his
+Stine, who had just appeared in the doorway, and with both hands,
+usually so busy, idly folded under her apron, began to gaze at the blue
+morning sky and shining white clouds scattered over it, without even
+noticing her Jochen, who was standing scarcely six paces away.
+
+"No, no," sighed Stine.
+
+"Yes, yes," said Jochen.
+
+"Jochen, how you frightened me!"
+
+"And it is frightful, when one thinks of it," said Jochen.
+
+He had opened the spy-glass again, and was evidently about to resume
+his former occupation; but Stine took it out of his hands, put it in
+its place, and said in a somewhat irritated tone, "You do nothing but
+look through the old thing, and I so worried that I hardly know whether
+I'm on my head or my heels."
+
+"Oh! but if you don't know, Stine"--
+
+"How am I to know? Why are you my husband, if I, poor creature, am
+expected to know everything? And she has just asked me again whether
+the Swede is not yet here. Poor girl! To go all that long way in such a
+nutshell of a boat! And who knows whether the people over yonder will
+want her. They are only fourth or fifth cousins."
+
+Stine had spoken with great emotion, but in a suppressed tone, and had
+drawn her Jochen out to the blackthorn hedge that divided the sandy
+little garden from the sandy village-street. Jochen had a vague
+perception that as a man and a husband, and moreover sole innkeeper of
+Wiessow, he must say something, so he replied: "You'll see, Stine, we
+sha'n't carry it through."
+
+"Jochen, I wouldn't have believed you were so bad," exclaimed Stine,
+as, sobbing violently and pressing both red hands over her eyes, she
+turned away from her husband and went back to the house.
+
+Jochen was left standing by the hedge, and raised his arms; but the
+spy-glass was resting quietly in its place, and, in consideration of
+his wickedness, he did not venture to take down the care-dispeller. So
+he let his arms fall again and thrust his hands into his pockets. Thank
+God, here was his pipe! It now had many idle hours, for Stine could not
+bear smoking, and if she should see him now when she was so angry, she
+probably would not make friends again.
+
+Jochen let the pipe slide back into his pocket, and gazed at the
+sparkling sea like one who, without any optical instrument, still sees
+only too distinctly the spot where just now a majestic ship went down
+with all on board.
+
+"Good-morning, Prebrow," said a voice close beside him.
+
+Jochen slowly turned his blue eyes from the distant horizon towards the
+gentleman who, with the collar of his coat turned up over his ears, had
+just passed along by the hedge with hasty strides.
+
+"Good-morning, Herr In--"
+
+"St--" said the gentleman, stopping and putting his finger on his lips.
+
+Jochen nodded.
+
+"To-night!" continued the gentleman; "I tell you, because, after
+everything has gone on well, until now, somebody might at the last
+moment get some suspicion, and inquire of you. Of course you don't know
+me."
+
+"Heaven forbid!" replied Jochen.
+
+The gentleman nodded and was about to continue his walk, but paused
+again as if struck by the troubled expression of Jochen's face, and
+added: "You needn't take it to heart, Prebrow; it serves the Rahnk
+right; their conduct is a disgrace to Wiessow and the whole region, and
+after all there is no one who would not be glad to have you get rid of
+the rascals. And when I come back next time, Prebrow, I shall of course
+lodge with you; this time I must keep out of the way."
+
+The gentleman nodded, walked lightly away, and after casting a rapid
+glance around him, entered the pilot's house.
+
+"A damned miserable business," muttered Jochen, without exactly knowing
+which of the two he meant, the one going on in his own house, or the
+other of which the Herr steuer-inspector had just spoken. It was
+probably the former; the second certainly did not concern him at all,
+but it was a secret the more, and he already had far too much trouble
+with one.
+
+"Good-morning, Jochen."
+
+This time Jochen was actually frightened. There was his brother Clas in
+the very spot where the Herr inspector had just been standing.
+
+"Why, good Heavens, Clas, what brings you here?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Ah! you may well say that, Jochen," answered Clas.
+
+"Is the smithy burned?"
+
+"Why, Jochen, how can you ask such stupid questions?"
+
+The bridge of understanding seemed broken. The feeling that the whole
+world was one dark secret, and he the unhappy man who had to guard it,
+overpowered Jochen still more.
+
+"Won't you come in, Clas?" said he.
+
+He could not help saying that; he could not leave his only brother, who
+moreover was the elder of the two, standing in the street.
+
+Clas Prebrow instantly accepted his brother's invitation,
+notwithstanding the unbrotherly tone in which it was given, shook hands
+with Jochen, and said, glancing towards the house, "You're very well
+off here, Jochen."
+
+Jochen nodded.
+
+"And probably have a great many guests."
+
+"What business is it of yours?" cried Jochen violently, as if he had
+been bitterly insulted.
+
+"Why, I only asked the question," said Clas.
+
+"There is no one here at all," cried Jochen, "no one at all;" and he
+stepped before the other as he was making his way towards the house.
+
+"That happens just right," said Clas; "then I can turn back and tell
+old Herr Wenhorf and Herr Gotthold that they can get lodgings in your
+house."
+
+Jochen was perfectly horrified. What should he do? He had promised to
+keep silence, but what could silence avail if Herr Gotthold came
+straight into the house, and the old gentleman too, for whom he had
+such a wholesome respect. If the latter fixed his clear old eyes upon
+him, he must certainly tell everything, and--"Stine, Stine," shouted
+Jochen, as if the only inn in Wiessow were in flames from top to
+bottom.
+
+"Jochen, have you gone perfectly crazy? Don't you think at all of--"
+
+Stine, who had come running out of the house at her husband's loud
+outcry, suddenly slopped short and stared at her brother-in-law with
+open mouth.
+
+"You see," said Jochen with great satisfaction.
+
+"Where is he?" asked Stine.
+
+Clas Prebrow felt that his diplomatic reserve would not answer with the
+clever Stine, and at this stage of his mission he must drop the mask.
+So he rubbed his large, hard, blackened hands contentedly, and showed
+his white teeth, but suddenly grew grave again, and said, while his
+glance wandered over the row of windows in the upper story, "Wouldn't
+it be better for us to go in?"
+
+They went in and entered the little sitting-room directly behind the
+large coffee-room, which Stine only left for a moment to get from the
+cupboard a bottle of rum and two glasses, that the brothers might drink
+to each other's health, and Clas's tongue should not get dry in case he
+had a great deal to tell.
+
+Clas probably would have had a very long story, but remembering that
+the gentlemen were awaiting his return, he cut it short.
+
+They had come upon the right clew the very first evening, but lost it
+again the following day because the lady left the carriage she had
+taken at Ralow, in Gulnitz, and went on on foot, to conceal her route.
+She succeeded so well in this, that they spent a whole day and night in
+searching, and only recovered the lost trail late yesterday evening in
+Trentow. To be sure, it would now scarcely have been doubtful what
+direction she had taken; but they had left the carriage at noon at Herr
+von Schoritz of Schoritz, who was a friend of Gotthold's, in order to
+proceed on their journey on foot to mislead Herr Brandow, in case he
+was behind them, and therefore they had been obliged to rest a few
+hours in Trentow, and to-day they were coming from Trentow, and he ran
+on before, less to inquire whether the lady was here than to beg his
+sister-in-law to prepare her, that she might not be too much
+frightened.
+
+"Oh! goodness gracious," said Stine, "poor, poor child! we were obliged
+to promise solemnly that we would not betray her."
+
+"Stine, we sha'n't be able to carry it through," said Jochen.
+
+In her heart Stine had never expected to do so; nay, she had always
+prayed that Heaven would interpose and send Herr Gotthold to them
+before it was too late. To be sure, she could not acknowledge this
+openly, but neither did she wish to be actually unfaithful to the
+promise she had given Cecilia, and in her perplexity began to weep
+bitterly.
+
+Jochen nodded assent, as if he wanted to show his Stine that she had
+now taken the right course. Clas emptied his glass and said, rising,
+"So we shall be here in fifteen minutes. You're so clever, Stine, you
+can easily settle matters, and you can come with me, Jochen."
+
+Jochen started up and went out of the room so hastily that he left his
+glass half full. Stine intended to pour the liquor back into the bottle
+again, but in her absence of mind drank it herself. Tears fell from her
+eyes: "We poor women!" she murmured.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+After Stine had left the room, Cecilia still remained sitting by her
+child's little bed. Gretchen had fallen asleep, and it now seemed to
+the mother that the innocent little face looked paler, and the white,
+delicate hands often twitched convulsively. Suppose she should be
+seriously ill? Suppose she should die, and all the horror and grief of
+these hours had been endured in vain?
+
+She pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. There was no one--no
+one who could counsel and help her. And yet she was with friends, with
+her good old Stine, who had received her yesterday with a flood of
+joyful tears, who was nearly beside herself with grief and joy at the
+unexpected visit, and with worthy Jochen, whose honest face mingled
+pleasantly with the happy memories of her girlish days--how deserted
+she would feel in yonder foreign land! Would they not look upon her,
+treat her as an adventuress? And could she blame them for it? Could she
+tell her pitiful story to all the world--nay, even to one human being?
+
+The harassing anxiety drove her from her seat to the window of the next
+room. A broad expanse of blue sea flashed between the gable-roofs of
+the neighbors' houses and the white downs; a sail gleamed on the
+distant horizon. It was a fresh, bright scene that was framed in by the
+low window, and she gazed at it with the eyes with which he had taught
+her to behold nature; then she remembered that the empty waste of
+waters, with the lonely ship pursuing its solitary way into the unknown
+distance, was to her and her child a cruel, pitiless reality. Her head
+drooped; she did not notice the slight noise outside the door, and only
+looked up when it opened, and Stine, an expression of mingled timidity
+and joy on her face, which was swollen and red with weeping, entered,
+and then looked back towards some one who was standing behind her. A
+sudden foreboding, which drove every drop of blood to her heart,
+thrilled Cecilia's frame. Who could the dark figure in the entry be
+except the one person for whom she had so eagerly longed, for whose
+coming she had waited and hoped as the devotee waits and hopes for a
+miracle? Now he was here, because he loved her--and yet, and yet it
+could not, must not be; and her half-extended arms fell, her trembling
+hands did not return the clasp of his.
+
+"Where is Gretchen?"
+
+They went to the child's bed, where good Stine had already preceded
+them. The little pale cheeks were now deeply flushed, the hands
+twitched more violently; Cecilia's anxious eyes said, what did not
+cross her trembling lips until they had again entered the next room,
+"If she dies, I have killed her."
+
+"She will not die," replied Gotthold, "but you must not decide upon
+anything hastily; you must no longer struggle on alone, must not
+disdain my aid as you have done till now."
+
+"That I may drag you, who are guiltless of this misery, down to ruin
+with me? I have already involved you too far, but more--never."
+
+"What do you call more, Cecilia? I love you; in those words all is
+said, in those words our lives are woven into one circle. What could
+you suffer that I would not suffer with you? Nay, has not even your
+past life become mine and always belonged to me? Has not all this ever
+brooded over my soul as a vague, anxious foreboding, drawing a veil
+over my brightest hours? Yes, Cecilia, when I consider this, I cannot
+help saying: 'Thank God! thank God that the veil is rent, that life
+lies before me as it is, although obstacles and difficulties of all
+kinds threaten to bar our way. We will conquer them. If I ever
+despaired, I shall do so no longer, now that you are restored to me."
+
+He had bent his lips to her ear as he sat behind her; his deep voice
+grew so low as to become almost inaudible, but she caught every
+syllable, and each word pierced her to the heart.
+
+"Ah! Cecilia, Cecilia! you would not have killed yourself and your
+child only--you would have slain me too. Well, since a voice you must
+ever hold sacred, of whose veracity you must never, never have the
+smallest doubt, has cried, live! live for me, Cecilia, for--you cannot
+live without me."
+
+"Nor with you," cried Cecilia, wringing her hands. "No, do not turn
+your honest eyes upon me with such a questioning, reproachful look, my
+own dear love! I would fain tell you all, but I cannot; perhaps I might
+to a woman, yet to her, if she were a true woman, I should not need to
+do so, for she would understand me without words."
+
+"You do not love me as you must love the man from whom you could and
+would accept every sacrifice, because love, the true love which bears
+and suffers all things, perceives no sacrifices, and yours is not the
+true love!"
+
+He spoke without the slightest tinge of bitterness; but his chest
+heaved painfully, and his lips quivered.
+
+"Am I not right in saying that no man, even the best, the most delicate
+in feeling, can rightly understand us?" replied Cecilia, bending
+towards Gotthold, and pushing his hair back from his burning brow. For
+a moment the old sweet smile played around her delicate lips and
+sparkled in her eyes, the smile of which Gotthold had often dreamed,
+and then spent the whole day absorbed in reverie, as if under the
+influence of some magic spell. But it was only for a moment; then it
+disappeared, and sorrowful earnestness was again expressed in every
+feature of the beautiful face, again echoed in the tones of her voice.
+
+"True love! Dare a woman who has experienced what I have, even take the
+word on her lips? True love! Would you have called it so, when I--"
+
+She paused suddenly, rose, went to the window, came back again, and
+standing before Gotthold with her arms folded across her breast, said:
+"When I procured still larger supplies for his avarice, when I would
+have suffered myself and my child to be sold, though you would have
+been compelled to sacrifice the last penny of your fortune to buy our
+freedom--"
+
+"You might have done so, and did not!" exclaimed Gotthold, in the most
+painful agitation.
+
+"I might, and did not," replied Cecilia, "but certainly not because I
+doubted, for an instant, that you would, without hesitation, sacrifice
+all, all; such a doubt is inconceivable to a woman who knows herself
+beloved, nay, she would, under similar circumstances, go begging for
+her lover; but--it is useless, Gotthold, I shall never find words. Ah!
+the misery that is even denied the relief of expressing its agony,
+which must consume away in silent torture."
+
+She wandered up and down the room, wringing her hands. Gotthold's
+mournful eyes followed her as she paced to and fro, and a feeling of
+intense bitterness welled up in his heart. There had been a
+possibility, but she had not seized it, and now it was too late.
+
+He told her so, and why it was now too late, and that even if, by the
+income from his labor, he could satisfy the claims which others already
+had upon the small remnant of property that now remained, it would be a
+mere nothing to her husband's avarice, a sum which, if any one offered
+him, he would hurl back into his face with a scornful laugh.
+
+Cecilia, pausing in the centre of the room, had listened eagerly,
+gasping for breath. "My poor Gotthold," said she; "but for me--it is
+better so, even the temptation cannot assail me now, and the matter is
+decided. Yes, Gotthold, it is decided; besides, perhaps it was only a
+momentary thirst for money, which the deadly hatred he bore you has
+long since swallowed up. He will not release me; I have not chosen,
+will not choose death as long as the last possibility of deliverance,
+flight, remains. Let me fly, Gotthold, before it is too late; do not
+detain me. You wish to save me, and are only driving me into the arms
+of death."
+
+"I will keep you, save you, and tear you from the arms of death," cried
+Gotthold, clasping Cecilia's hands, "you and your child, whom you would
+kill, if, while ill and feverish, you exposed it to the dangers of a
+journey, which, under any circumstances, would be a useless cruelty,
+for he would know how to find you there or anywhere if he wants to do
+so--there as well as here, and therefore you must not stay here. You
+can remain nowhere, except under my protection, I repeat it. I will
+guard you. Cecilia, have you then no faith in me, my courage, my
+strength, my judgment? And I too cannot tell you all, how I intend to
+save you, will save you; I must beg you to let me take my own way,
+without explanation. Is not what is fair for women, right for men? May
+not cases occur for us also, in which we act as duty and honor command,
+and which we can confide only to a man? And, Cecilia, when I tell you
+that I have trusted to a man, to whom from childhood you have looked up
+with deep reverence, without suspecting that you owed him the respect
+so freely paid--and this man approves of my plan and resolution, and
+will himself do all in his power that the plan may not remain a plan,
+that the resolution may be executed--and this man will assure you of
+the fact with his own lips--Cecilia, I will bring this old man, your
+ancestor, to you, and when kneeling before him with his hand resting
+upon your head, the past, which seems as brazen and immutable as fate,
+reels and totters, you will perhaps believe that the present is not
+unalterably fixed for those who live and love!"
+
+Gotthold hurried out of the room. Cecilia, trembling with a strange
+foreboding, gazed steadily at the door through which he had
+disappeared. It opened again: the tall form that entered was compelled
+to bend its head, and thus, with drooping head and downcast eyes,
+approached her. A strange conviction shot through her mind: even so had
+her father looked when he called her to his bedside an hour before he
+died, and at that moment he had resembled the picture of his
+grandfather, which hung in the sitting-room beside the old clock. Her
+knees trembled, and almost refused to support her, as he held out his
+hand.
+
+Gotthold closed the door. The words spoken between the two must ever
+remain a secret.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+The last rays of the setting sun trembled on the heaving water in
+crimson light, and crimson light glittered on the nodding grass of the
+broad swamp that stretched from the western shore to the downs, and
+bathed the figures of Gotthold and Jochen Prebrow, who, coming up from
+the narrower strip of ground that rose from the eastern beach, had just
+reached the highest point of ground. Gotthold, shading his eyes with
+his hand, was already gazing into the fiery sea, while Jochen kept
+pushing the spy-glass in and out of its case. At last he found the
+narrow mark on the glittering brass. "Here," said he, handing the glass
+to his companion, and then added as if to apologize: "One can see a
+devilish long ways with it."
+
+"My good fellow!" replied Gotthold smiling.
+
+Jochen showed his white teeth, and then both suddenly grew very grave
+again. Gotthold looked through the glass as eagerly as if he were
+actually trying to see the boat, which had sailed four hours before
+with a fair wind, and must now surely be off Sundin, if not already in
+the harbor, and Jochen was as downcast as if he had seen the round
+cheeks of his Stine, who positively insisted upon accompanying Frau
+Brandow for the last time.
+
+But the worthy fellow was not thinking of himself. He could do without
+his Stine for a few days or weeks, if necessary, and things generally
+went so pleasantly with him that he had more than once doubted whether
+he was not too well off; but his poor, poor Herr Gotthold! O Heavens!
+how they looked at each other when she was going to get into the
+boat, and they shook hands on the bridge once more; with such large,
+wide-open eyes, which were full of tears! And then when she reached the
+boat, she instantly rushed down into the cabin, where Stine had carried
+the child, and then, as the wind took the sails and the boat began to
+move, came out again, and stood leaning on the old gentleman's arm,
+waving her handkerchief, with her big wide eyes looking steadily
+towards him, though she certainly could see nothing through her tears.
+
+"But the boat is as good as any that can be found," said Jochen, "and
+as for my father-in-law, he was glad to get something to do again, and
+my brother Clas is a wonderfully clever fellow, and has often been in
+Sundin. He can take good care of them all; he said he knew where
+Wollnow lived, too, and one can depend upon the old gentleman, and
+nobody can do more than he can; and when one has done everything within
+the bounds of human possibility, he has done all he can."
+
+Jochen drew a long breath; he was astonished himself to find how he
+could talk to-day--even his Stine would have done no better--and Herr
+Gotthold had said nothing at all--what could he say against it? Jochen
+continued in a still more persuasive tone: "And so you mustn't be so
+sad, Herr Gotthold, for the night doesn't last all the time, and
+unexpected things often happen, and when a horse once gets the bit
+between its teeth, a man may pull his arms off, but it will run away
+for all that; and what a horse can do, a man can too."
+
+"I shall not fail, Jochen," replied Gotthold, "and I am no longer
+wretched, for I know I shall fight my way through, although it is a
+difficult matter so long as we don't have Scheel. But I think we shall
+get the fellow yet; at least he isn't dead, and that is the main
+thing."
+
+Jochen Prebrow shook his great head. "It's a damned, miserable
+business, Herr Gotthold," said he. "Old Arent in Goritz saw him a week
+ago,--well, he certainly knows him, for the old man was at Dahlitz till
+Hinrich Scheel drove him away, but at night all cats are gray, and
+besides--there are so many chances of getting away from here by sea to
+Sweden or Mechlenburg or elsewhere. Therefore, it is very probable that
+he came here; but that he could be here still--no, that I don't
+believe."
+
+The crimson glow which blazed in the western horizon had faded, and as
+they turned towards the east in descending from the summit of the down,
+the sea from the shore to the farthest horizon spread before them in a
+deep blue expanse, against which the white sand of the beach was
+relieved with singular distinctness. The chain of downs, upon whose
+highest point they had just been standing, stretched towards the north
+in a vast confused mass, which in the twilight seemed endless, here
+overgrown with coarse grass and broom, yonder in dreary baldness,
+rounded, lengthened, flattened, with sharp overhanging edges, like a
+sea which, while lashed by a tempest, had suddenly been converted into
+sand. Yonder, where the western shore projected farthest--Wiessow Point
+they called the narrow tongue of land--a roof, just visible to the eye,
+appeared above the downs, and Jochen Prebrow pointed towards it with
+his spy-glass.
+
+"Do you see that house?"
+
+"A part of it."
+
+"That's where the Rahnkes live; I shouldn't like to be in their skins
+to-day."
+
+"Why, what is going on there?" asked Gotthold.
+
+"Another of the good chances," continued Jochen, involuntarily lowering
+his voice, although, as far as the eye could reach, no living creature
+was to be seen except the sea-gulls hovering over the waves. "They
+pretend to be fishermen, and when we were under Swedish rule also had
+the right to sell liquor, and say they have it still. But that is
+probably only a rumor in order to have a reason why every moment boats
+run in full of people, who, like the Rahnkes, call themselves
+fishermen, and have just as little right to the name. There must often
+be a half-dozen there at once, the custom-house officers say, and when
+they come--either by land or water--all are away, just run out to sea.
+They have kept watch here on the downs, and cruised in the offing for
+days together; but then no boat has ever arrived except some innocent
+fishing-smack, and the Rahnkes have stood and laughed when the officers
+were disappointed again. But they'll get paid for it to-night."
+
+"What, this evening?"
+
+"I really ought not to tell, but it's different with you, and besides
+they must certainly be there already. Do you see the three sails
+standing towards the north? Those are Uselin fishing-boats, and this is
+the right time and the right course; but they have no fishermen in
+them, but custom-house officers in peajackets and southwesters, and
+when they are near enough they will heave to and stop close by Wiessow
+Point, and the moment they heave to, a dozen custom-house officers and
+gendarmes will come marching, marching up from the land-side. I have it
+all from Herr Inspector from Sundin, who has already spent two days in
+Wiessow, and I'm an old acquaintance of his, because I've often driven
+him to different places; so he told me about it. Look! Herr Gotthold,
+look! there it begins."
+
+Jochen, with an eagerness most unusual to him, pointed towards the
+three vessels, which, in fact, after holding their course in line
+directly towards the north, suddenly tacked and stood towards the land.
+At the same moment, two boats that must hitherto have lain concealed
+behind Wiessow Point appeared, and it was soon evident that they wished
+to escape between the coast and the three vessels, while the foremost
+was trying to cut them off. But it was already doubtful whether it
+would succeed, as it had a longer distance to run before reaching the
+point where the two courses crossed, and the smugglers sailed quite as
+fast, besides laying closer to the wind. In fact, at the end of ten
+minutes, a small gray cloud that rose from the pursuing boat, followed
+at shorter and shorter intervals by other little gray clouds, showed
+that the custom-house officers were beginning to despair of the success
+of the chase, and soon the cessation of the firing proved it had
+failed. The smugglers already looked like a mere speck on the horizon,
+the pursuing boat had tacked, and was standing back towards Wiessow
+Point, where the two others had arrived long before, "probably, with
+the men who now came hurrying up from the land-side, to find the nest
+empty once more," Gotthold said to himself.
+
+"The damned rascals!" cried Jochen Prebrow.
+
+They had been standing at the top of one of the higher downs, eagerly
+watching the exciting spectacle, every separate phase of which was as
+distinct to the two sons of the coast as if they had been in the midst
+of the action. In this the excellent spy-glass had done them essential
+service; it had been passed from hand to hand, and Gotthold had just
+taken it. He thought, if Jochen's information was correct, they must at
+least see some of the custom-house officers on the farthest downs, and
+slowly turning from hillock to hillock was searching the ground before
+him, already growing dim in the mists of evening, when he heard a low
+exclamation. At the same moment, however, he dropped the spy-glass, and
+pulled Jochen away from the crest of the down, so that their heads were
+concealed by the long waving grass.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Hinrich Scheel! I saw him distinctly. He was standing about a thousand
+paces away on the top of yonder down, with his back towards us."
+
+"How is that possible?"
+
+"I don't know; but it was he; I should know him among a thousand: there
+he is again."
+
+But it was not on the same down, but farther to the right, and, as it
+seemed to Gotthold, nearer than before; besides, the man, in whom
+through the spy-glass Jochen also thought he recognized Hinrich Scheel,
+was no longer standing erect, but crouching behind the crest of the
+down, like the two companions, gazing in the direction of the Rahnkes'
+house, from which he had come. At least Gotthold did not doubt it. The
+whole situation instantly grew plain to him. Hinrich Scheel, in some
+way or other, had been delayed in his flight, and found in the Rahnkes'
+house, which, according to Jochen's description, was nothing more than
+a den of thieves, a shelter, from which the attack of the custom-house
+officers had just driven him. He had now fled before them to the downs,
+and had every prospect of making his escape even if pursued, since the
+approaching darkness and extreme inequality of the soil greatly favored
+his designs.
+
+Jochen was entirely of Gotthold's opinion, but what should they do now?
+Wait to see whether Hinrich, who was still lying motionless in the same
+spot, would continue his flight in the same direction, and so come
+nearer and nearer to them, or make the attempt to crawl up to him, as
+he evidently expected no danger from this quarter? Both plans were
+almost equally uncertain. The darkness was now increasing very rapidly:
+at his present great distance the man would soon look like a mere dark
+spot on the light sand, and must disappear entirely in a short time; on
+the other hand, he need only glance around, if they were not wholly
+concealed, and then the next instant would surely slide from the down
+on which he lay, and of course overtaking him could not be thought of.
+
+Gotthold's heart throbbed as if it would burst, as he thought of all
+this, and discussed it with Jochen in a whisper. In all probability,
+his fate and hers depended upon his getting yonder man into his power.
+A few moments before, he had had scarcely the shadow of a hope that he
+would ever succeed in doing so; now an almost miraculous chance seemed
+to desire to aid him. There was the man, and here he himself with his
+faithful Jochen, the space that separated them so short that it could
+be crossed in a few minutes, and yet the turning of an eye, a breath of
+wind, a nothing, might tear his prey from him, as if he had only
+dreamed all this, as if it were but a delirium of his excited fancy,
+and he need only rub his eyes, and the dark spot yonder, which seemed
+to be a man, would disappear.
+
+He had disappeared. Had he seen the pursuers approaching from that
+side, and continued his flight, or had he thought the way was now open
+and he could begin his retreat? The place where he had just lain was
+empty. A mistake was impossible, in spite of the dim twilight the crest
+of the down was still sharply relieved against the sky. Would he appear
+again? And would it be nearer or farther?
+
+A few seconds elapsed, during which the two men did not venture to
+breathe. There! There he was again, and nearer--considerably nearer; he
+seemed to be coming directly towards them, and there could no longer be
+a doubt of it. Within a few minutes the distance had lessened at least
+one-half; they scarcely dared to look through the waving sedges,
+necessary as it was to watch the movements of the man, who even at the
+last moment might take another direction. And now he glided down the
+slope of the next hillock in the chain, and came straight up the down
+behind whose crest they lay. It was the highest of them all, and he
+probably wished to look around him a short time, in order to assure
+himself that no danger was threatening from any quarter.
+
+They had slipped down a few feet, and crouched as closely as possible
+among the sedges. In a few moments Hinrich Scheel's head must appear
+before them; they distinctly heard him toiling up the tolerably steep
+slope on the other side, and muttering curses when the sand gave way
+under his feet.
+
+"Now!"
+
+They started up, and darted to the summit. With a lightning-like
+movement Hinrich glided from under Gotthold's hands, but as he turned
+to the left ran directly into Jochen's arms, and the two in one
+indistinguishable ball, slipped, rolled, and tumbled down the hillock
+faster than Gotthold could follow them. Jochen had taken a firm hold,
+but in the last turn he fell underneath; with a desperate effort
+Hinrich released himself, and was dealing a furious blow with a large
+clasp-knife he had drawn from his pocket, when Gotthold seized his arm
+and turned the weapon aside. Jochen had already started up again, and
+the next instant Hinrich Scheel, in his turn, was lying on the sand,
+face downwards, and Jochen, kneeling on his shoulders, was in the act
+of tying his elbows behind him with a small rope, which, after the
+manner of old coachmen, he always carried about with him.
+
+"If you tie me, you'll crush me at the same time," gasped Hinrich
+Scheel. "I won't get up."
+
+"Release him," said Gotthold.
+
+"But we'll take care of this ourselves," said Jochen as he drew a
+pistol from the pocket of the prostrate man, and handed it to Gotthold.
+"There!"
+
+Hinrich Scheel stood erect. His squinting eyes stared horribly at his
+assailant from a face distorted with rage. Suddenly he started back.
+
+"You," he cried, "you! What do you want of me?"
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+There was a wild terror in Hinrich's look and gesture, and the rattling
+tone of his harsh voice.
+
+"What is the matter?" cried Gotthold, shaking the man, who still stood
+before him as if petrified, rudely by the shoulder.
+
+The powerful grasp produced a strange, mysterious effect upon the man.
+He stretched his long arms towards the dark sky, shook them wildly,
+waved them up and down, and then threw himself on his knees, bracing
+his left hand against the sand, and striking several furious blows with
+the right, as if he wished to murder some one he held by the throat;
+then he rose and shrieked, in answer to Gotthold's question:--
+
+"What's the matter? I wish I had him!"
+
+"Whom?"
+
+"He lied; he said you were dead, and they wanted to arrest me, and
+imprisonment for life would be the least punishment; and did I wish to
+bring misfortune upon him, who had always been such a good master to
+me, and would give me money enough to last all my life? But when he
+came that night to the giant's grave, where I had concealed myself, he
+only gave me five hundred thalers; he had no more, not another
+shilling; he was obliged to give the rest to the lawyer, as bail for
+his appearing at any moment if he was summoned. And all that was a lie,
+wasn't it, sir, all a lie, every word?"
+
+"All," said Gotthold, "all, every word."
+
+"All, every word," repeated Hinrich, as if he could not yet understand
+it. "Why did he need to lie? I should certainly have gone if it had
+been necessary--for him. I did it for him, and as for the money, I had
+it in my hand. I could have done what I chose with it, and I gave it to
+him. Not a thaler was lacking; it was the whole package, just as I took
+it out of the Assessor's pocket."
+
+"You did it for him," said Gotthold; "did you also do it by his
+orders?"
+
+"By his orders?" replied Hinrich, "what need was there of orders? I did
+it because--because--I don't know why; but he rode on my back until he
+got his pony, and then I taught him to ride; he learned all, all he
+knows from me; and if Brownlock wins and brings him in a pile of money,
+whom has he to thank for it but Hinrich Scheel?"
+
+While speaking in this manner, they walked on over the downs, Gotthold
+and Hinrich leading the way, while Jochen Prebrow followed behind,
+though not so far that he could not overtake them in a few bounds if
+necessary. It had grown very dark, so dark that they could scarcely see
+the wild rabbits which glided through the coarse grass at their feet,
+and a large owl soaring towards them fluttered aside in terror, as
+Hinrich, after a pause, continued with a savage imprecation:--
+
+"I did it, because I knew how hard up he was. He had five thousand
+thalers to pay Herr Redebas the following noon, and if he did not pay
+them he might be refused a place in the races. I knew that--I have been
+at them often enough, and know as much about the rules as any of the
+gentlemen--and I knew that he would make no fuss afterwards, although
+he had said nothing about it, and I believe had not even thought of the
+money the Herr Assessor carried in his pocket. But I had thought of it
+all day long, and even looked out the place as we drove to Dollan. It
+had long overhung the morass, and the rain had made long cracks in it,
+so I said to myself: 'If they drive back to-night, and the carriage is
+turned out of the road here, the earth will break off, and the whole
+thing will slide down, and that's an accident which might happen to the
+best driver, on a stormy night such as this will be.'"
+
+"Only you might easily have gone down with the rest," said Gotthold.
+
+"You mean, if I hadn't jumped out of the carriage at the right time?
+Bah, sir! It's no harder than to get off a horse that is running away,
+when one sees it is going to fall. I jumped out at the right time, and
+then the ground broke away, and slid down with a thundering, crashing
+sound, and then all was perfectly still, except that one or two small
+pieces cracked off and rattled down the slope, and the tempest swept
+howling and moaning over the morass; but that was nothing new to me,
+and it was perfectly still below.
+
+"I stood up and looked down, wondering how far the land-slide had
+probably gone. If the marl had held together well, it had doubtless
+fallen into the bog, and with its speed and weight had been buried
+nobody knows how deep; but it had jolted violently on the way, and I
+had heard it; the whole carriage must have broken to pieces, and in
+that case everything might still be lying on the edge. I must know how
+matters were, so I made up my mind to climb down.
+
+"But it was hard work; I could not find the right place in the dark,
+and nearly fell myself; at last, however, I reached the bottom of the
+slope."
+
+"Well!"
+
+"Well, then I groped around there; the moon had also broken through the
+clouds a little, and I soon found the carriage, or what was left of it;
+it was smashed into small pieces, and one horse was lying among them;
+it had broken its neck and was dead as a door-nail. Close beside the
+horse lay the Herr Assessor, but he was still breathing, and when I
+turned him on his back he groaned heavily, and then twitched several
+times; he would die without my help, and I had already taken the money
+out of his pocket, and buttoned up the coat again so that it might look
+as if he were lying just as he fell."
+
+"Did you not look for me?"
+
+"I looked, but I didn't find you; he told me afterwards that you
+were lying half-way down the slope, and besides the time I was
+crawling about in the dark seemed very long, and there was a rustling
+among the reeds, and then the other horse, which had broken loose
+from the carriage and run out into the morass with the pole--stupid
+beast!--began to scream, and it is a pitiful sound to hear a dying
+animal shriek in its agony, and so I came up again on dry land."
+
+"And was Herr Brandow already there?"
+
+"How do you know that?" asked Hinrich in astonishment.
+
+"I only imagined so."
+
+"No, he wasn't there then, but he came directly after, and I was
+furious because he had taken Brownlock; besides, what business had he
+there? I told him so too, and said he must go back at once; but he
+wouldn't; people had seen him ride away, and where should he say he had
+been when this story came out? I had offered him the package, but he
+knocked it out of my hand, and it lay on the ground between us, and I
+said it might stay there. 'So it can for aught I care,' said he; 'I
+didn't do it for the money;' and then he asked what had become of you?
+I gave him a short answer, for I was angry, and then he said I must
+turn back at once, and--and--'Do it alone, sir,' said I, 'I'll have
+nothing more to do with it.' He begged my pardon, but I wouldn't make
+up, out of pure ill-temper, and now he again grew anxious about what
+account he could give of his whereabouts during this time, till I said
+to him: 'As you have Brownlock under you, sir, you can just as well
+ride across the bog, and then you will get to Neuenhof as soon as if
+you had ridden away from Dollan directly after the gentlemen: I mean,
+of course, over the road.' He saw this too, but his courage failed,
+although he generally had plenty for such things, and I myself had
+ridden across the bog a week before under his own eyes; so I said to
+him: 'Then do what you choose, I must go and knock up the Prebrows now,
+or I shall come in for all the blame,' and then he rode away, and it
+was a splendid sight--I could see it distinctly, for the moon had come
+out--and the water dashed up under the hoofs--yes, it was a splendid
+sight to see how he rode."
+
+Hinrich walked on a few steps in silence; suddenly he stopped short.
+
+"And the way he has treated me is a sin and a shame; may God punish me
+if I don't pay him for it. He promised me ten per cent, of all
+Brownlock won, and he had ten thousand in his book then; but it may
+easily amount to as much again. And he knows I would give one of my
+hands to see Brownlock on the course, and have people point to me and
+say: 'That's Hinrich Scheel, who trained him; he understands those
+things better than all the English jockeys.' O Lord! Lord! and I'm to
+do all this for him, while he leaves me for a whole week in this kennel
+of Rahnkes' and I'm to come to Goritz the night before the boat, in
+which I'm to take passage, sails for Mecklenburg, and I must meet him
+in Goritz woods, and get the two thousand he promised me, but he was
+not there, and probably thought, 'He must go tomorrow, with or without
+the money;' but I'll pay him for it, by Heavens! I'll pay him for it."
+
+"That would cost you quite as much as him," replied Gotthold; "or do
+you think the law will set you free because you did everything solely
+for your master's sake?"
+
+"The law, sir! You won't deliver me up to the law," cried Hinrich.
+
+"And if I should, could you blame me for it?"
+
+Hinrich stopped short, but there was no possibility of escape. Jochen
+Prebrow's heavy hand rested on his shoulder, and Gotthold had just
+cocked the pistol, whose barrel glittered in the light of the nearest
+beacon, of which they were already within a very short distance. A
+single cry would summon the watchman, if he chose to push matters to
+extremities.
+
+"I am in your power, sir," said he, "and I am not. Neither you nor any
+other man shall compel me to repeat what I have just told you before a
+court of justice. I may have imposed upon you with a false tale."
+
+"That excuse will not avail you much, Hinrich; we have proofs that the
+money was not lost, but stolen and placed in your master's hands."
+
+And in a few words he told him the contents of Wollnow's letter, adding
+what he had just learned from old Boslaf, that while searching the
+bog--to the great astonishment of the men--they had followed the
+hoof-prints of a horse several hundred paces; and Hinrich's denial
+would produce little effect in opposition to this and other
+well-established facts.
+
+Hinrich had listened attentively.
+
+"I still think you won't give me up to the law, sir," said he; "it's an
+ugly story, and the less said about it the better, for--for all
+concerned; but if it must be, why, sir, we poor men are never much
+better treated than dogs, and these last few days I have fared even
+worse; so I don't mind going to jail, if he only comes too."
+
+It was too dark for Gotthold to see the cruel smile that played around
+the man's thick lips, as he uttered the last words.
+
+"I think I can spare you the jail," he answered, "if you will promise
+to make no attempt at flight, and obey all my orders implicitly. I will
+require nothing unreasonable."
+
+"I know that, sir," said Hinrich, "and here is my hand."
+
+The hand that rested in Gotthold's was as hard as iron; but he thought
+he felt in its nervous pressure that the man intended to keep his word.
+
+"Come, then," said he, "and, Jochen, show us a path by which we can
+reach your house without being seen, if possible."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+"My poor dear friend! To think we must part again; it is really too
+hard. But don't be discouraged! Gretchen will get well, and everything
+will come out right at last."
+
+Ottilie Wollnow said these words in the antechamber of her house in
+Sundin, to Gotthold, with whom she had just left the room where Cecilia
+and old Borlaf were watching Gretchen's feverish slumber.
+
+"Everything," repeated Ottilie, as she saw that the look of deep sorrow
+on Gotthold's expressive face remained unchanged.
+
+"You do not really think so yourself," he replied, gratefully pressing
+Ottilie's hand; "if the child dies, Cecilia, I fear, will never get
+over it, no matter how much, how entirely, that scoundrel is to blame;
+at any rate it will be another of those sad, torturing memories, which,
+according to her own confession to you, separate her from me forever."
+
+Herr Wollnow came out of an adjoining room, ready for walking. Ottilie
+accompanied the two friends to the door. "I wish I could go with you,"
+said she.
+
+"And it would not be a bad thing," said Wollnow as the two friends
+walked through the dusky streets, in which to-day there was an unusual
+stir and bustle; "women have what in such cases removes mountains--the
+sovereign passion which we men, luckily for ourselves, have reasoned
+away, though without obtaining in exchange the sovereign calmness with
+which that strange old man met Brandow this morning. I would not speak
+of it in the ladies' presence. Brandow, with the acuteness for which
+even his enemies must give him credit, had made up his mind from the
+first moment that Cecilia must sooner or later come here, even if she
+did not do so at once. He therefore instantly turned round and drove
+here as fast as the horses could go; he must have met you just outside
+of Prora. Since that time he has lurked around my house and your
+lodgings; I admire the firmness with which he has maintained his usual
+calm manner, and his boldness in telling everybody that his wife had
+gone away to make a little visit, and the farce Cousin Borlaf had
+played with the farm-hands--searching the bog and forest--was a piece
+of roguery for which he would call the spiteful old man, with whom he
+had long been on bad terms, to a strict account. He must have had a
+hell of anxiety and dread in his heart, for his enemies--and he has not
+a few, foremost among whom are Redebas and the Plueggens--took an eager
+interest in circulating the worst reports, and the members of the
+committee on the races were on the point of formally demanding an
+explanation from Brandow, when yesterday evening he said at the club
+that his wife had arrived here half an hour before, and was staying
+with us: the Selliens had also requested the pleasure of her company,
+but the Assessor's health was not yet entirely restored, so he had
+given us the preference. In order to give his statement the proper
+weight, or--urged on by I know not what devil of impudence--as soon as
+he heard of Cecilia's arrival yesterday evening--I suppose through Alma
+Sellien, who unluckily was with my wife at the time--he rang the
+door-bell, and sent in his card to Ottilie. She would undoubtedly have
+been glad to receive him and give full vent to her feelings; but the
+old gentleman entered the room, and with the stately politeness which
+we of the last two generations have forgotten, begged her to leave him
+alone with Brandow a moment. It was, in fact, not more than a minute
+before the old gentleman rejoined the ladies with a mien as calm as
+ever; while the other rushed down the staircase, and Cecilia, who had
+no suspicion of his presence, was startled by the violence with which
+somebody banged the door. Here we are at the 'Golden Lion.' Let me go
+in alone. If we should not find him this evening, he ought not to know
+that you have returned."
+
+Wollnow entered the wide hall, through whose open door a bright light
+streamed into the somewhat dusky street. There were a great many guests
+in the large hotel on account of the races, which had commenced to-day,
+and were to be continued to-morrow, so that Wollnow was obliged to ask
+several times before he could get a positive answer; and Gotthold was
+kept waiting longer than he expected. As, in walking up and down, he
+had for the second time proceeded some little distance from the house,
+a female figure suddenly emerged from a dark side-street, passed him,
+and instantly turned back with a murmured "Carl," raising her black
+veil at the same moment. In spite of the dim light, Gotthold recognized
+Alma Sellien.
+
+"You are mistaken," said he.
+
+Alma had also recognized him; she had felt so sure of her ground that
+terror almost robbed her of all presence of mind; but it was only for a
+moment. "It is fortunate it was no one else," she said, drawing a long
+breath, and then, as Gotthold made no reply, added: "I have begged him
+again and again to tell you; you must learn it sooner or later, and to
+you the news can give only pleasure; but he never would."
+
+"And for good reasons."
+
+"What reasons? Pray, pray tell me all."
+
+"In another place and at another time; neither hour nor scene is
+suitable."
+
+Wollnow came out of the hotel. "Another time, then," whispered Alma, as
+she drew down her veil and glided back into the dark street from which
+she had just emerged.
+
+"Who was that?" asked Wollnow.
+
+"This man will drag half the world into the mire with him," cried
+Gotthold.
+
+"Where we should have sought him long ago, if we wanted to find him,"
+replied Wollnow. "It was Frau Sellien, wasn't it? You betray no secret,
+it was one only to us; here the sparrows chatter it on the housetops.
+The man is making it easier for us than we expected; but it is a
+wonderful piece of luck that you caught Hinrich Scheel. If only the
+fellow's old clannish feeling doesn't break out again at the last
+moment."
+
+"I do not think it will; for it is precisely because Brandow has so
+brutally wounded this feeling, so basely broken the faith due from the
+chief to his follower--that has excited and angered the rough but in
+his way honest man, to the highest degree. No, on the contrary, what I
+fear is that our treatment of Brandow will not satisfy him, and he will
+try to revenge himself in his own fashion."
+
+"And is he so far wrong?" replied Wollnow earnestly, "are we not
+robbing the gallows of its victim? And even if we excuse ourselves by
+saying that there are crimes worse than highway robbery and murder,
+which do not come under the head of any law, cannot Hinrich Scheel
+quote the same thing himself, and demand that the breach of faith
+committed against him, and for whose condemnation he can certainly
+apply to no regular judge, shall not remain unpunished? But forgive my
+illogical obstinacy, my dear friend. I perceive that the future of more
+than one innocent person depends upon the secrecy with which we go to
+work. So let a Vehmgericht or a judgment from Heaven take the place of
+a public trial. Here we are at the club-house. I am sorry to leave you,
+but I feel with you that you must fight your way through this without
+seconds."
+
+Gotthold walked up and down the brightly-lighted vestibule; loud
+voices, laughter, and the clinking of glasses echoed from the
+dining-room, into which a liveried servant had taken his card; the
+clerk was sitting in the office busily employed on his books; and the
+servants in the dressing-room had enough to do to take and deliver up
+the coats of the gentlemen who were constantly arriving and departing.
+
+The man again appeared; Herr Brandow begged to be excused, but he was
+very busy just now; would not tomorrow morning be time enough?
+
+"Time enough for what?" asked Gustav Von Plueggen, who had come out of
+the dining-room directly behind the servant, and greeted Gotthold with
+his usual noisy gayety, now increased by plentiful potations of wine.
+"What? Brandow very busy? Stuff and nonsense! Pressing business! He's
+sitting behind a bottle of Canary, writing one round sum after another
+in his damned betting-book. They're all determined to be fools, though
+Redebas and Otto and I have tired ourselves out talking; after what we
+saw at Dollan, everything is possible. It will turn out just as it did
+with Harry--Harry at the Derby, five years ago. Ever been in England?
+Famous country--women, horses, sheep--famous. An old joke of mine that
+always keeps fresh. What was I saying? do you want to speak to Brandow?
+But why don't you come in? It will be a pleasure to me to introduce an
+old schoolmate. Celebrated artist, hey? I heard some devilish good
+things yesterday at the chairman's from Prince Prora, who made your
+acquaintance in Rome, and is delighted to hear that you are in Sundin.
+Even spoke of seeking you out; curious; on the race-course to-morrow.
+By the way, got a ticket? Stand A? Don't hesitate, I beg; see,
+half-a-dozen left; gives me great pleasure. Come in!"
+
+The servant had turned the handle of the door long before. The
+dining-room was crowded with people--members of the club, and their
+guests, among whom the officers of the garrison were especially
+numerous. They were sitting at different tables with bottles of
+champagne before them; a gay, even noisy conversation was going on; no
+one noticed the new-comers, not even Brandow, who had apparently just
+risen from the table, and was standing at the end of the apartment, in
+the midst of a group of people who were all talking to him at once,
+while he, holding up his betting-book, exclaimed: "One at a time,
+gentlemen! one at a time! since you are positively determined on being
+kind enough to make me a Cr[oe]sus. Trutwetter, one hundred and fifty!
+Please put your name underneath. Here, if you prefer! I have kept a
+place for Kummerrow's two hundred pistoles, Baron? No! Oh! dear, omen
+in nomine! who would have thought it? Another! Plueggen! Et tu Brutus?
+What is it? A gentleman--back again already? I am very busy! Tell the
+gentleman--"
+
+Brandow suddenly paused; he had just seen Gotthold, who had been
+standing directly behind him.
+
+"I have time to wait until you have finished your business here."
+
+"It would detain you too long."
+
+"I have plenty of time."
+
+Gotthold withdrew from the circle with a polite but formal bow; Brandow
+had turned very pale, and stared sullenly at his betting-book, while
+the lead-pencil trembled in his hand. What was the meaning of the
+pertinacity with which this man pursued him? Should he rudely dismiss
+him before the whole company? But that was impossible without a scene,
+and this evening a scene might be dangerous.
+
+"Now, Brandow! I have no time to wait!" cried a voice.
+
+"Are you reckoning them up already?" asked a second.
+
+"I really must run them over once," replied Brandow, closing the book;
+"have patience for a few minutes, gentlemen; it seems that there is a
+communication of some importance to be made to me. I'll be back again
+in a moment. Now may I ask your wishes?"
+
+"The communication I have to make is indeed of some importance, and
+might be best heard without witnesses. So it is only in your own
+interest that I request you to provide some place where we shall not be
+disturbed."
+
+"Have you considered that I shall probably have more to ask of you than
+you of me?"
+
+"I think I have considered everything; and that is probably more than
+you can say."
+
+They were standing somewhat apart from the others, speaking in low
+tones, and looking steadily into each other's eyes.
+
+"Come, then," said Brandow.
+
+"Who was that?" asked one of the gentlemen, whose autograph graced
+Brandow's betting-book.
+
+"A famous fellow!" cried Gustav von Plueggen. "Old schoolmate of mine;
+celebrated artist; talked about him all yesterday evening at the
+chairman's! Protege of Prince Prora's! Famous fellow! I'm going to have
+him paint me. In England every man of rank has himself painted with all
+his favorite horses and dogs, and all the rest of the family. Ever been
+in England, Kummerrow? Famous country--women, horses, sheep--everything
+famous!"
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+They crossed the hall in silence, and, without exchanging a word,
+entered one of the rooms reserved for the private use of the members of
+the club, and which the servant opened for the two gentlemen at a sign
+from Brandow. A large hanging lamp, directly over a round table covered
+with green velvet, lighted the apartment tolerably well. Several
+arm-chairs, also covered with green velvet, stood around the table.
+
+"I suppose we shall be entirely undisturbed here," said Gotthold.
+
+"And I that the farce will not last long; you saw I was very busy."
+
+Brandow, as if in a fit of impatience, had drawn one of the chairs away
+from the table and thrown himself into it, but it was by no accident
+that his face was thus in the shadow, while the light streamed full on
+Gotthold's.
+
+"Very busy," repeated Brandow, drumming on the arm of the chair, "too
+busy not to be compelled to defer the account I have to settle with you
+until tomorrow morning. And if you should have the--the face to try to
+intimidate me, I say: Beware! beware! you do not yet know me; my
+patience is not inexhaustible, and however willing I might be to avoid
+a scandal, and for these few days, I freely confess, would fain escape
+it--if you urge me, and it must be--I am ready--ready at any moment."
+
+Brandow had spoken in a loud, threatening tone; but he had evidently
+failed in his object. Gotthold's eye rested upon him so calmly--with a
+glance of contempt, as it seemed to him--that he could not bear the
+gaze, and suddenly paused with a secret thrill of terror, as Gotthold
+now quietly opened a letter he had just taken out of his pocket.
+
+"Will you read this letter before you say more?"
+
+Brandow had not the courage to refuse.
+
+"From the noble Wollnow, apparently, to me and about you?"
+
+"Yes, it is from Wollnow, but to me and about you."
+
+"About me! that's strange, and passably long too."
+
+He tried to feign a yawn as he let the sheets slip through his fingers;
+but had scarcely cast a glance at them, and read the first lines, when
+he started up like a madman, and hurling the letter upon the table,
+exclaimed:
+
+"This is infamous! This demands blood! I will see nothing more, hear
+nothing more! I will not be the patient victim of a vulgar intrigue. We
+will speak of this again, sir, we will speak of this again."
+
+He wandered restlessly up and down the room; Gotthold remained quietly
+in his seat.
+
+"You have a moment to decide whether you will read the letter, or
+whether I shall show it to Count Zarrentin, before taking farther
+steps."
+
+Brandow paused in his walk. "So you really mean to have a scandal! I
+thought so. Well, perhaps it will be worth the trouble, to see how you
+intend to begin."
+
+He threw himself into his chair again, seized the letter, and began to
+read it with the air of a man who wished to get rid of a troublesome
+petitioner. A scornful smile played around his lips. "I was mistaken,"
+he muttered as if talking to himself, "it is simply ridiculous, utterly
+ridiculous."
+
+But his lips were pale; the smile changed to a grin, and his hands
+trembled more and more. He had read very rapidly at first; but the
+farther he proceeded the longer he lingered over every separate
+sentence, and even word. Many he seemed to weigh and test two or three
+times, and he made a pretence of reading long after he had evidently
+reached the end. At last, amid the terrible tumult of his soul, a
+resolution was formed.
+
+"You were going to give this--letter to our chairman," he said,
+carefully folding the sheets; "I have no objection, but on one
+condition."
+
+He withdrew the hand with which he had held out the letter to Gotthold.
+
+"On condition that I may first take a copy of this precious document,
+to serve as a basis for the charge of scandal I shall bring against the
+noble writer and delicate-minded receiver of this bungling performance.
+To a man so extremely just as yourself, a man who does not hesitate, on
+the most absurd proofs, to charge his friend with the most horrible
+crimes, this will doubtless be perfectly agreeable."
+
+"Entirely so," replied Gotthold; "you can also keep the original. The
+letter was merely to make you acquainted with certain things, to which
+I did not wish to refer verbally, and has performed its work."
+
+"And this interesting conversation is over," said Brandow, rising; "I
+mean for to-day; to-morrow we shall have more to say to each other;
+only the tables will be turned. The things of which I shall accuse you
+are no shameful inventions like the story about the bills, or silly
+fancies like the horrible murder of Hinrich Scheel, which you will
+probably cry, with all the terrible details, at the next fair, but
+facts, positive facts--a pretty commentary on the song of the worthy
+man, who knows how to make no better use of the hospitality offered
+him, than--you have done. So farewell until to-morrow!"
+
+Brandow walked towards the door with a wave of the hand intended to be
+contemptuous; Gotthold stepped before him.
+
+"You will probably have patience a short time longer, when I tell you
+that your future fate must be decided now and here."
+
+"My fate? Are you mad?"
+
+"Decide for yourself. Hinrich Scheel was found by me yesterday evening
+in Wiessow, where he had concealed himself, and is now at my lodgings
+guarded by the brothers Prebrow."
+
+Brandow staggered back as if a bullet had struck him, until his hand
+clutched the arm of a chair, and in that attitude stood staring at
+Gotthold with eyes that seemed starting from their sockets.
+
+"Hinrich Scheel!" he stammered.
+
+"Whom you thought had disappeared from the scene forever, though you
+were careless or niggardly enough not even to pay off your accomplice
+properly. I am now obliged to have him watched, not to prevent his
+escape--he has no wish to fly, he will endure any punishment if only
+the man for whom he did what he did, does not escape; I have him
+watched simply to prevent his taking this punishment into his own
+harsh, cruel hands."
+
+Brandow had sunk into the chair. His shameless courage and elastic
+strength seemed to have utterly deserted him; he looked ten years
+older; but suddenly he started up again.
+
+"Bah!" he cried, "do you think you can frighten me in that way? If that
+rascal Hinrich has allowed himself to be caught, so much the worse for
+him! What harm can he do me? I hope my word will weigh no less than
+that of a rascally groom, who has evidently been bribed by my enemies.
+A man who knows himself innocent cares nothing for bribery: or do you
+really expect to make any one believe that, if even a suspicion could
+have fallen upon me from any quarter, I would have let the fellow go
+without securing his silence in some way? That is certainly sheer
+nonsense: or will you say, he gave him nothing, so that if he were
+caught no one would ask, From whom and for what did you get this money?
+Settle it among yourselves, and do as you please--an honest man like me
+laughs at your threats."
+
+Again he went towards the door, but his step grew slower the nearer he
+approached it; and ere he reached the threshold, he turned on his heel
+and came up to Gotthold with a smile on his lips.
+
+"Let us drop the tragic masks, Gotthold, and talk like sensible people;
+what are your conditions?"
+
+"The first is that you shall confess the deeds of which Wollnow's
+letter accuses you. You know what I mean."
+
+"Not entirely. Is the confession only for yourself?"
+
+"If you consent to the other conditions, yes."
+
+"Very well; I did what I am said to have done. What more?"
+
+"That which follows as a matter of course. The daughter of an honorable
+family cannot and shall not be the wife of a criminal. That is, you
+will give your consent to everything we--I mean Herr Bogislas Wenhof,
+Wollnow and I--may dictate in regard to the divorce."
+
+"And my daughter?"
+
+"Answer the question yourself."
+
+"I love the child."
+
+"You lie, Brandow; and even were it possible, as it is impossible, you
+would still have forever forfeited the right to keep her, or even
+maintain any communication with her. I hope she will forget you are her
+father."
+
+"Which, however, I shall ever remain, and, _mon cher_, I'll give
+you this knowledge, which is doubtless uncommonly pleasing, as a
+wedding-present; or don't you intend to carry to a fitting end the
+business you have so beautifully begun?"
+
+"The point in question is your destiny, not mine."
+
+"Which, however, seems to be somewhat nearly connected with me. Or did
+you want me to believe you were doing all this for the service of God?
+Pshaw, my dear friend, our acquaintance is not a thing of yesterday,
+and our paths do not cross here and now for the first time. I have been
+in your way, and you in mine, on the schoolroom benches, the
+playground, at the dancing-lessons, and everywhere; I supplanted you in
+those days, and gave you a punishment to remember all your life. Well,
+you have done so, and this is the reprisal. I have lost the game--by a
+single foolish play--no matter! I have lost it; and I am too old a
+gambler not to understand and feel that it is my fate; but the game is
+not yet over; we shall meet again, and he who laughs last, laughs
+best."
+
+The man's eyes flashed glances of deadly hate, as he strode up and down
+the room with hasty steps. His sharp teeth gnawed his livid lips, and
+he tugged and tore at the ends of his long fair mustache, as he again
+paused and said:--
+
+"Only one question more. Shall I also have to provide the dowry?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean by that; I only know we intend to leave you
+to take your own course as soon as you have paid your debt--outwardly
+at least--and replaced the sum stolen. You will have a chance to do so
+to-morrow. It is gambler's money, but that don't concern us."
+
+"And if I don't win?"
+
+"You will work. Dollan has been leased to you for five years more; you
+can, if you choose--and you will be compelled to choose--pay back in
+less than half the time the ten thousand thalers I shall advance to
+you--it is almost the last remnant of my fortune. At any rate the
+package will be found on Dollan moor to-morrow evening, and day after
+to-morrow be in the coffers of the convent."
+
+"How well you have provided for yourself!"
+
+"And you too. If we drove you from your home, as you deserve--for you
+are not worthy to have German laborers call you master--you would go to
+ruin in the shortest possible time, and that, for your child's sake, I
+do not desire."
+
+Brandow essayed a scornful laugh, but Gotthold's last words, and the
+tone in which he uttered them, closed his lips.
+
+"You said just now, Brandow, that you loved your child: it was a lie;
+if you had done so even a little, for her sake you would at least have
+kept yourself innocent of crime. You have never loved any one except
+yourself, and that with a coarse, vain, egotistical love, which had no
+trace of respect for the sacredness of that which even the roughest men
+reverence. Yet--although this is my honest opinion--I am a man, and may
+be mistaken; perhaps it will touch your heart, when you hear that your
+child is ill, very ill--that we shall possibly only be able to prolong
+her innocent young life a few days. It is terrible to say it, but I
+cannot lighten the burden you have laid upon your conscience: if it
+dies, you have killed it."
+
+"I?" faltered Brandow; "I?"
+
+"Yes, you! You who made life worthless to her mother," replied
+Gotthold, turning to Brandow. "Or did you think the blow you dealt the
+mother would not strike the child, too? That the latter would not drink
+death from the poisoned cup of life you gave the former? You cannot
+have thought so, for you had based your whole plan upon this mutual
+love between the mother and child; you thought the bond that united
+their souls strong enough to bear your whole shameful web of falsehood
+and deceit, treachery and violence. I say once more: if it dies, you
+have killed it. Understand this clearly, man, if you can. It is so
+horrible that everything else you have done is innocent in comparison;
+it is so fearful that you must realize it."
+
+Gotthold walked several paces, and then paused before his enemy, who
+sat cowering in his chair with his head resting on his hands.
+
+"Brandow, they say that years ago, when, struck down by your sword, I
+lay on the ground before you, you dealt me a second blow. It has always
+been impossible for me to believe it, even now it is difficult; but
+however that may be, I cannot give a death-blow to any one lying on the
+ground, no matter who he is, or what he may have done; but neither can
+I hold out my hand to a worthless man, even if he extends his
+imploringly to me. Remember this, Brandow. Perhaps the moment will come
+sooner than you believe possible."
+
+Gotthold left the room; Brandow still sat in the same attitude into
+which he had first sunk, staring steadily at the carpet. A dreary smile
+flitted over his pale face.
+
+"That was a fine sermon," he muttered; "highly edifying! He got that
+from his father, the parson! And I sit here, and let myself be made out
+a villain by the miserable babbler, the cursed hypocrite, and don't
+hurl all he says back into his canting face. Bah!"
+
+He started up and wandered about the room.
+
+"Folly, folly, folly! Her love for this dauber is not a thing of to-day
+or yesterday; she has always loved him; she has never been able to
+forgive herself for stooping to wed me, the haughty Princess! I knew it
+from the first! And was I to pocket the insult quietly, act as if I did
+not notice it, be satisfied with the crumbs thrown to me? I should have
+been a fool! Nobody would have done so in my place, and I've only done
+what any one else would, what thousands do who have not even my excuse.
+Alma would have run away from her silly husband long ago, if I had
+wanted her, if I had not always dissuaded her. But that would have been
+just the right grist for their mill; their only regret is that I have
+not made it easier for them. And I've made it easy enough now. Fool,
+fool! How I might have made them writhe, how I might make them writhe,
+if it were not for the accursed money. They put a stone in my path for
+me to stumble over, and I did them the favor, and now they stand and
+triumph!"
+
+He strode up and down the room like a caged tiger.
+
+"But it is not always night. A little more, and I should have wept over
+that sentimental speech, as if it had been the truth, as if she had not
+taught the child to hate me, as if it had the slightest trace of
+resemblance to me, and might not just as well have been his, which it
+probably would, if he had then been the noble family friend for which
+he passes now. I have let myself be caught in the snare like a stupid
+boy. It came too suddenly; I was not calm enough; and Hinrich's
+reappearance was a shameful blow. Who would have thought it, after the
+fellow had once been so foolish as to draw all the suspicion upon
+himself, and I had made things so hot for him here! He shall pay for
+it, if he ever crosses my path again--the scoundrel; he shall pay for
+it. He and the daubing parson's son, and the old vagabond, and the
+damned Jew, and she--she--"
+
+He paused before one of the large mirrors which covered the walls of
+the room between the windows from floor to ceiling.
+
+"So I wasn't good enough for her. Other people think differently in
+this respect. The fact is, I sold myself too cheap. A fellow like me
+might have made very different pretensions; nay, can still at any
+moment, though I look now as Don Juan did last night when the devil was
+chasing him. But it's only the green glass and the dim light."
+
+A knock at the door interrupted his gloomy soliloquy. It was a servant,
+who came to ask whether Herr Brandow was not coming back to the
+dining-room soon.
+
+"At once," said Brandow.
+
+He cast another glance at the mirror. "I'm rather deplorable-looking
+still. No matter! Or so much the better. They will think I am anxious
+about to-morrow, and fall into the snare all the easier, the
+blockheads! And to-morrow noon I shall have my thirty or forty thousand
+in my purse, and--all the rest is nonsense."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+
+The clearest September morning shone upon the old Hanse city, whose
+narrow winding streets were remarkably quiet to-day, so quiet that the
+servant-girls who stood idly at the open doors of the houses could
+bewail their piteous fate to each other across them undisturbed. Was it
+not too shameful that the second day--the great day, when everybody,
+even the little apprentices from the cobblers' benches, had gone to see
+the show--they were obliged to stay and take care of the houses? And
+Kopp's carriage had just come back empty for the sixth time, and was
+now stopping at the apothecary's round the corner; but the young ladies
+always made such a parade, and were never ready; it was a sin and a
+shame, when one thought that other honest girls, who certainly wouldn't
+keep the carriage waiting, were not allowed to set foot outside of the
+door; but when the cat was away the mice would play.
+
+The merry girls, who had approached nearer and nearer each other,
+joined hands and began to whirl around on the rough pavement, out of
+the sunlight into the shadow of the houses, and out of the shadow back
+into the sunlight, and then with a scream scattered and fled, each into
+her own door, as the strange gentleman came out of a large, silent
+house near by.
+
+Gotthold had watched all night beside Gretchen's bed with Cecilia and
+old Boslaf, and good Stine had gone in and out. Several times they
+thought the last moment had come; but the little heaving breast, which
+Cecilia had pressed to her own, rose and fell more easily again, and
+she laid the sweet little creature back upon the pillows, which were
+scarcely whiter than her delicate pale face. After midnight the fever
+became a little less violent, and the Doctor, who came early in the
+morning, said that the danger, unfortunately, was not yet over, but a
+few quieter hours might be expected, and he urgently entreated them to
+use this interval in gaining fresh strength, which they certainly
+greatly needed.
+
+He had looked at old Boslaf as he spoke, but the old man smiled
+pleasantly, and said that the Doctor must not be anxious about him; he
+was used to night-watching, and should soon have plenty of time to
+sleep. But Cecilia, who was full of tender solicitude for the old man,
+whom she now always called father, insisted that he should lie down,
+and sent Gotthold away also. She would keep watch with Ottilie until
+noon; if Gretchen's condition should change for the worse, he should be
+notified at once.
+
+And so he now walked through the silent street towards his lodgings,
+gazed at the girls dancing merrily, the sunlight shining so brightly on
+the gray old gables, and the flock of white doves wheeling in airy
+circles under the bright blue sky. How beautiful the world was! How
+pure and balmy the soft warm air he eagerly inhaled! How lightly he
+strode along, in spite of the long night of anxious watching! How the
+blood bounded in his veins! And yet darkness and death might conquer!
+If the child died--Gotthold paused with a shudder--he had seen, the
+little dark mound so distinctly. But it was only a trick of his
+imagination; Gretchen was still alive; she would recover; the delicate
+little creature had struggled through this terrible night, and he might
+even be permitted to say that it was he who had saved her life once
+more. So she must live for him; her pure soft hands must fit the
+keystone of the building of his happiness. Had he not hitherto
+succeeded in everything far beyond his expectation! Had not even chance
+showed him her most gracious aspect! A few days ago, how could he even
+have ventured to hope that his rival would be so soon and so entirely
+delivered into his hands, and he should be able to say, "This shall be
+done, and it shall be done so and so, without any outcry, without the
+knowledge of any person unconcerned?" This very evening the unfortunate
+man was to return to Dollan to find the money he had stolen, and the
+following day restore it to the treasury of the convent, through
+Wollnow; and this evening also, the vessel which took his accomplice
+would sail for England, the latter having declared of his own free will
+that he could no longer stay here, and would rather go at once to
+America, especially if the gentlemen would provide him with money as
+generously as they had promised, and he knew they would keep their
+word. So within twenty-four hours at latest everything would be settled
+and levelled to a foundation on which another structure might be
+erected.
+
+A quick, heavy step, which came towards him through the deserted street
+near his lodgings, made Gotthold look up.
+
+"What is the matter, Jochen?"
+
+"He's gone," said Jochen, panting for breath. "I was just on my way to
+tell you."
+
+"Since when?"
+
+"It must have been an-hour or two ago; he said he was tired and would
+take a little nap, while Clas and I went down to Frau Mueller's, who had
+invited us to breakfast. Well, Herr Gotthold, there we sat quietly; she
+had a nice pork sausage, and we never thought of any mischief, and
+meantime the fellow jumped out of a second-story window into the
+garden, which joins the city wall, and the gate is never locked, and we
+really are not to blame. Even if one don't exactly like a man, how is
+one to suppose he has such tricks in his head?"
+
+"An hour, you said?"
+
+Jochen nodded.
+
+"Where is Clas?"
+
+"Gone down to the harbor; it's just possible he may have gone on board
+the ship to look about him a little."
+
+Gotthold shook his head. "That is extremely improbable, after, as he
+knows, everything is arranged."
+
+"What shall we do, Herr Gotthold?"
+
+"Run to Herr Wollnow and tell him what has happened, and that I have
+gone out to the races; and follow me as fast as you can."
+
+Jochen looked amazed. "Yes, to be sure, Herr Gotthold, that's possible;
+he talked of nothing but the races all last evening."
+
+Gotthold had already taken several steps, when Jochen followed him.
+
+"You're not angry with me and my brother Clas, Herr Gotthold?"
+
+"You good, stupid fellows!"
+
+Jochen looked very much moved, and doubtless wished to say more; but
+Gotthold pressed his hard, honest hand, and hurried down the street to
+the gate, beyond which, at no very great distance from the city, was
+the race-course.
+
+He knew the way only from description; but it could not be missed
+to-day. The nearer he approached the gate, the more numerous became the
+people, who were all moving in the same direction; the suburban street
+through which they were obliged to pass had assumed a holiday garb. The
+modest little villas, half concealed behind the trees in their garden,
+were to-day adorned with garlands and tapestry; here and there, under
+the shade of the boughs, stood an old gentleman, or a gardener, or a
+nurse with a baby in her arms, looking pityingly or mischievously over
+the dusty hedges at the throng hurrying by in the summer heat. Often
+one of the long Holstein wagons, furnished with five or six seats
+placed one behind the other, rattled by, empty if going towards the
+city, crowded with people if driving away from it; and it rarely
+happened that the usual jokes failed to be exchanged between the lucky
+occupants and the dust-covered foot-passengers.
+
+Gotthold had already passed many of the pedestrians, and was still
+hurrying anxiously on. To be sure, it was scarcely to be hoped that
+either he or Jochen would find the man in such a crowd of people,
+especially as he evidently did not wish to be found; but that the
+race-course was the place to seek him, he did not doubt for a moment,
+and as he now hastened on the fugitive's track his heart grew heavier
+and heavier, the more clearly he perceived the bad results that
+threatened to ensue. If Hinrich had fled not to return, to become once
+more the master of his own fate, and Brandow learned it in time, he
+would retract all he had yielded; the battle must begin anew, and with
+an enemy who could not again be surprised; if Hinrich was only seeking
+an opportunity to revenge himself, Brandow's life was not safe a moment
+from the brutal violence of the man, and even admitting that Brandow
+was a person who could defend himself--everything which had seemed won
+was once more doubtful, even the secrecy in which the pitiful fate of
+the woman he loved had hitherto been veiled from an insolent, curious
+world.
+
+Gotthold hurried on still faster, hoping he should now soon reach
+his goal, but he turned out of one street lined with gardens into
+another--the suburbs seemed to have no end. It was still half an hour's
+walk to the racecourse, was the reply to his question.
+
+A light open carriage, drawn by two superb horses, overtook and dashed
+past him; he thought he had seen the face of the elegant young man who
+occupied the seat behind the driver before. The young man turned
+towards him, and instantly tapped his coachman eagerly on the shoulder;
+the carriage stopped; its occupant sprang out and hastily approached
+Gotthold, waving his hand, and calling: "Do I meet you at last?"
+
+A moment after, Gotthold was seated beside young Prince Prora, the
+horses dashed onward, and dusty pedestrians, hedges, gardens, villas,
+and barns flitted by them on either side.
+
+"You don't know how glad I am," said the Prince, pressing Gotthold's
+hand again; "but you will when I tell you that I came from Berlin,
+where I was engaged in a most important consultation with Schinkel
+about my castle, solely on your account. Count Ingenheim wrote that you
+had left Rome, and I heard from Prora that you were staying in this
+neighborhood, so I came to seek, see, talk, persuade, obtain--enfin:
+you must paint my castle in fresco. I have set my heart upon it, and
+you, I suppose, have no reason to say no: Schinkel desires it too, so
+you must consent. He wants you, you and nobody else; I know no one by
+whom I can be so sure of being understood, he said, and was delighted
+when I told him that I had had the honor of a personal acquaintance
+with you for a long time, and had spent the most delightful winter in
+Rome in your society. Ah! that divine Rome! But you conjurers shall
+restore it to me on the walls of my northern castle; I want nothing but
+Roman, or at least Italian, landscapes in the dining-room; all bright
+and sunny as you can paint so marvellously, grave as you are; and as
+for the landscapes of my native country, which we intend to have in the
+hall where the weapons are hung, I won't interfere with you at all. It
+shall be left entirely to you; and you can revel in melancholy, like
+the Danish Prince, but first of all you must say yes--will you?"
+
+The eager young man held out his hand, and a shadow crossed his
+delicate, winning face as Gotthold hesitated to clasp it. How
+willingly, how joyfully he would have accepted a commission so
+delightful, so complimentary, and so important; a commission which
+promised to fulfil all that his artist heart could only desire; but
+now, to-day--
+
+"You don't wish to undertake it?" said the young Prince, sadly.
+
+"I do wish it, certainly I do," replied Gotthold, pressing the
+outstretched hand with deep emotion, "but whether I can is the question
+I am asking myself, and which at this moment I can scarcely answer with
+a yes. Forgive me if I speak in riddles, Your Highness, but there are
+hours and times when we do not belong to ourselves, when we are under
+the spell of a fate whose course we can neither hasten nor retard, and
+whose decision we must await ere we can feel free to make any
+resolution ourselves."
+
+"I certainly do not fully understand you," replied the Prince, "but I
+believe I understand that something, which is certainly no trifle, is
+weighing upon your mind; that you have either met with or fear some
+great misfortune, and in that case the question comes so naturally that
+you will forgive my asking: can any one help you, and can I be the
+person?"
+
+"I thank you, Your Highness; but I shall probably have to fight my way
+through it alone."
+
+"Then I will press you no farther; but I am ready to serve you at any
+time, don't forget that."
+
+Meantime they had emerged from between the houses; before them on the
+boundless expanse of meadow-land was the race-course, with its tall
+stands, its little city of booths and tents, its long rows of carriages
+drawn up side by side, its dark crowd of curious spectators. A party of
+horsemen dashed past them at a furious gallop; one of them, not without
+difficulty, checked his foaming racer and came to the carriage door.
+
+"What, Plueggen, are you not with the others?" cried the Prince.
+
+"Paid the forfeit at the last minute, Your Highness, at the last
+minute--too certain it would turn out to-day as it did at the Derby,
+four years ago. Once in--ah! Gotthold, _bon jour, bon jour!_ Your
+friend Brandow's doing a splendid business to-day, an infernally
+splendid business."
+
+"How far away are they, then? Am I too late?"
+
+"God forbid, your Highness! That is, they must be here in ten minutes.
+Just up to the last obstacle but one; everybody there--intense
+excitement. Exactly as it was at the Derby four years ago, when
+Hurry-Harry by Robin Hood out of Drury Lane--"
+
+"Then we won't detain you, Plueggen. _Au revoir_ until this evening;
+drive on."
+
+Gustav von Plueggen, with rather a long face, touched his hat, turned
+his horse, and dashed after his companions.
+
+"So you know this Brandow?" asked the Prince. "It's a pity about that
+man; he would have had, I think, the material for a splendid general of
+cavalry; a clear head, a keen eye, never at a loss, and withal brave
+even to foolhardiness; but amid these tame plebeian surroundings he
+will make, I fear, nothing better than a _mauvais sujet_. But it is
+shameful that they took the piece of bog into the course on purpose to
+injure him. I hear it was only done to give the other horses a chance,
+since it is generally believed that a horse of Brownlock's weight
+cannot cross a swamp."
+
+"He will cross it, Your Highness," said Gotthold, "you can bet a
+million on it."
+
+"How comes Saul among the prophets?" cried the Prince, laughing. "Since
+when have you become such a connoisseur in horse-flesh? You must keep
+beside me, and act as prompter, if I, a notorious dilettante in these
+noble arts, run any risk of distinguishing myself by my blunders."
+
+"I am sure that Your Highness--"
+
+"You want to get rid of me, I understand. Well, I am very well content,
+now that I have seen and spoken to you. I shall stay three days longer
+in Sundin, and then remain a week in Prora, where you must be my guest,
+even in case--with which idea, however, I won't destroy my present good
+humor--you will not paint a stroke for my castle. Here we are; you will
+surely come up with me. One can get a better view from above, and you
+must at least allow me to secure you a good place."
+
+The carriage stopped. The Prince sprang out, and, without waiting for
+Gotthold's answer, began to ascend the steps of the stand. The latter
+was obliged to follow his friend, who fully expected him to do so; when
+once at the top, he could easily find an opportunity of taking leave of
+him without incivility.
+
+The steps and stand were crowded, but every one was eager to make way
+for the Prince, who was very popular, that he might reach the first
+bench, on which several seats had been reserved for him and his
+attendants. "I think your best course will be to follow me," cried the
+Prince, laughing, and looking over his shoulder at Gotthold, "you see
+here as elsewhere: everything is given away!" But Gotthold could not do
+otherwise than make use of the permission. The narrow space which had
+been opened between the rows of seats for the Prince had long since
+closed; nay, those behind were pressing forward to get as near him as
+possible, and Gotthold soon found himself surrounded by a brilliant
+assembly of the older and younger ladies of the country aristocracy, in
+magnificent attire; white-haired old noblemen, civil dignitaries
+adorned with orders, and distinguished soldiers, all smiling brightly
+and bowing to the young Prince, who, bowing in every direction,
+graciously accepted the offered homage.
+
+"Your Highness has come just at the right moment; we shall see the
+first horse appear from behind yonder hill directly; may I offer Your
+Highness my glass?" cried old Count Grieben, in his shrill voice.
+
+"Thanks, thanks; I should not like to rob you; you are more nearly
+interested in the matter than I; I suppose the goal is here in front of
+the stands, as it has been every year?"
+
+"Yes, Your Highness, there they come!"
+
+The Prince had now taken the glass from the old gentleman; there was a
+loud whispering and rustling on the stand. "There they come--pray sit
+down," echoed on all sides, and all eyes, whether furnished with
+glasses or not, sought the long hill Count Grieben had pointed out to
+the Prince, and on which in fact three moving specks now became
+visible, which with great speed, considering the distance, glided down
+the hill, and had already disappeared in a hollow, when four or five
+other moving dots appeared in precisely the same spot, likewise glided
+down the hill, and vanished. But the interest of the public was almost
+exclusively fixed upon the three foremost dots. From the interval of
+time between the appearance of the first three specks and the four
+following--to say nothing of the stragglers--it was now evident that
+the victor must be one of their number; and although even the best
+glass could only distinguish that the three moving clots were horsemen
+racing at the top of their speed, two names were already mentioned with
+positive certainty; there was a doubt about the third rider; some
+thought it was Baron Kummerrow on Hengist, while others bet upon Count
+Zarrentin's Rebecca, ridden by the younger Baron Breesen.
+
+"But the two others, Your Highness--the two others are my Curt and Carl
+Brandow," shrieked old Count Grieben, crimson with excitement and
+gesticulating furiously, in a tone so loud that it could be heard over
+the whole stand.
+
+Count Grieben! Carl Brandow! Like an alarm of fire the names flew from
+lip to lip along the stand, down the steps, and through the dense
+throng of men below, who were standing on tiptoe and stretching their
+necks; Count Grieben! Carl Brandow on Brownlock!
+
+Carl Brandow! A strange emotion thrilled Gotthold's frame. That was the
+name which, like the spell of some evil magician, had desolated and
+ruined his life; the name with which so many unpleasant thoughts had
+been connected from his youth, and which in early and later times, and
+even during the last few days, had been to him the incarnation of the
+principle that in every human breast strives and rebels against the God
+of light. And here the name rang on his ears from every lip. Carl
+Brandow! Carl Brandow! like a man from whose approach streams happiness
+and blessing; and beautiful eyes sparkled, and aristocratic hands
+impatiently fluttered the lace-edged handkerchiefs with which they
+wished to wave a welcome to the victor. Was the man whom a whole people
+thus awaited in breathless suspense, perhaps right when he ventured all
+and anything to gain his shining goal; wealth, and honor, and woman's
+favor? Could one who took every obstacle so boldly, be expected to turn
+aside from his path for a pious scruple? Could one who unhesitatingly
+risked his life when the victory could not be obtained at a lesser
+price, be blamed if he was not so punctilious about the weal and woe or
+even the lives of others, as may be expected and demanded from the
+quiet citizen?
+
+Such were the strange thoughts that passed through Gotthold's brain,
+while his eyes, like those of the assembled thousands, were fixed upon
+the spot pointed out by the experts near him as the one where the
+riders must again appear. And there they were already--now recognizable
+as horsemen, even by the naked eye--and "Count Grieben and Carl
+Brandow" burst forth anew. For only two emerged at the same time, while
+the third had already lost so much ground that he appeared full thirty
+seconds later. Nothing more was to be expected from him. At the speed
+with which the horses were running a lost second could not be regained,
+let alone the eternity of thirty! The result now depended upon
+Brownlock and Bessy, the two horses that had been the object of public
+attention from the first moment and on which immense sums had been
+staked up to the last. Would Brownlock win? Would Bessy carry off the
+prize? No one dared to decide, no one offered or accepted a bet; they
+scarcely ventured to speak, to stir; suspense had chained every tongue.
+The scales were still exactly poised, without bending in the least
+towards either side. If Bessy, as was universally asserted, was the
+faster animal, Brandow's well-known skill in horsemanship made up for
+the difference; head to head--the winding course to the stand could be
+as distinctly followed as the lines on a map--the horses leaped over
+the last hurdle but three, the last but two, the last but one; side by
+side the riders took the last obstacle, a wall six feet high, while a
+cry of admiration buzzed through the surging crowd. Then followed a
+breathless silence. The race must be decided within the next minute.
+After the last hurdle was a tract of perfectly level ground about five
+hundred paces long; then came several hundred acres of bog, marked by
+little flags affixed to poles. If Brownlock did not get a very
+considerable lead on the level ground, the race was lost to him; for
+Bessy--every one knew--could cross a marsh as lightly as a roe, and
+Brownlock would either stick fast or must take a round-about way, which
+would cost him his advantage and the victory.
+
+But Brownlock obtained no advantage, not a foot, not an inch; head to
+head they dashed across half the distance, and now Bessy took the lead,
+a half, a whole length, two, three, a half-dozen lengths. Those who had
+bet on Brownlock turned pale, but a hundred times as much was staked on
+Bessy; the betters exchanged triumphant glances; no one had time to
+speak; Bessy was already approaching the edge of the bog; her rider was
+seen to turn in his saddle to note the distance between him and his
+rival, and now he turned to the left towards the edge of the swamp.
+"Clever fellow," cried old Count Grieben; "it's wider, Your Highness,
+it's wider there, but the ground is firmer, and he has plenty of time.
+Brownlock can't come up with her, hurrah!" cried the enthusiastic old
+gentleman, waving his hat. "Hurrah, hurrah!" echoed from the fickle
+crowd, which had just cheered Brownlock; "Bessy wins, Brownlock loses.
+Hurrah!"
+
+Suddenly a deep silence followed, as if a thunderbolt had fallen before
+the eyes of all. Brandow reached the spot from which, a few seconds
+before, Count Grieben, rendered secure of the victory by his opponent's
+delay, had turned aside; and with a powerful bound Brownlock dashed
+upon the bog, without turning a hair's breadth from the straight
+course, flying directly over the deepest but narrowest part, with a
+speed which seemed to increase every moment, while his rider, as if
+going over the smoothest meadow-land, used neither whip nor spur, and
+waved his hand to his rival, as he darted by him with such speed that
+the water dashed into the air in a bright shower of spray.
+
+And now he had already reached the edge on the side nearest the stand,
+and came up the broad straight course which led to the goal--no longer
+at full speed, but in a long stretching gallop, as if to jeer at his
+opponent, who after reaching the firm ground, despairing of victory,
+had stopped; it seemed as if he wished to give the crowd an opportunity
+to offer their homage.
+
+And "Hurrah Brownlock! hurrah Brandow!" they shouted, waving their hats
+and caps, and the cry increased and swelled to a deafening, thundering
+roar as the victor now rode past the stands to the goal, in the same
+long stretching gallop. Everybody stood on tiptoe, the gentlemen
+cheering, the ladies waving their handkerchiefs--and now all crowded
+down the broad steps to the level ground, to see the victor and the
+beautiful horse still nearer, when he, as was customary, returned and
+again passed before the stands, but this time at a walk.
+
+"No privileges are recognized here, strength conquers," said the
+Prince, who as well as Gotthold was pushed down the steps by the
+swaying crowd; "the strength of enthusiasm, which is powerful even in
+the weak. Just see how heroically that delicate lady struggles through
+the throng--Is it Frau Brandow? I should like to offer her my arm."
+
+The lady's blue veil brushed against Gotthold's face, and he recognized
+Alma Sellien. She did not see him, though she stood directly beside
+him. The delicate, wan face was strangely beautified by the proud smile
+that hovered on the lips; a joyous light sparkled in the blue eyes,
+usually so dull and heavy; heeding nothing around her, she looked and
+waited for the coming of the man she loved, whose uncovered head was
+just visible above the surging crowd. And now a pair of bay shoulders
+appeared, vanished, and appeared again, then the beautiful head of a
+horse, and then the whole figure of the red-coated rider. Those
+standing in the foremost row, recognizing the Prince, made way, and he,
+with several other ladies and gentlemen, among them Alma Sellien, were
+pressed forward, while the ranks closed before Gotthold, who willingly
+drew back. Brandow, who, hat in hand, was bowing to the right and left,
+and talking to a few friends that surrounded him, had come very near
+them, when he saw the Prince, with Alma Sellien leaning on his arm. An
+amazed smile flitted over his face; he hastily turned Brownlock till he
+faced the pair, and bowed low over the racer's slender neck. The noble
+animal stood snorting, champing its bit, and pawing impatiently.
+Suddenly it sprang aside in wild alarm, and then, as its rider tried to
+force it back to the spot, reared. "Back!" shouted the Prince to the
+crowd, who, pressing forward from every direction, had collected in a
+dense mass. But those farther away, whom no immediate danger
+threatened, remained motionless. "Back, back!" cried the Prince again;
+the ladies screamed. "Jump down, Brandow!" exclaimed the gentlemen. But
+Brandow seemed to have forgotten his universally admired horsemanship.
+Some said afterwards that he had been stunned from the first moment by
+the violence with which, as the horse threw back its head in rearing,
+it struck him on the forehead. As he vainly struggled with the animal
+in an inconceivably preposterous manner, his eyes were fixed intently
+upon a man in the crowd, who in some way--all were pressing upon each
+other in wild confusion--had reached the foremost rank, and now, with
+upraised arms, sprang directly before, nay under the rearing horse; it
+was supposed he wanted to pull the furious animal down by the bridle.
+
+"Let me pass, for God's sake!" cried Gotthold.
+
+He had recognized Hinrich Scheel, although he had only seen the square
+head, covered with gray curling hair, from which the cap had been
+knocked in pressing through the crowd; not the brutal face with the
+squinting green eyes, under whose fiendish power the frightened animal
+reared higher and higher, pawing the air with its steel-shod hoofs as
+if it would fain destroy its tormentor. And now one of the hoofs struck
+the head of the mysterious man, who fell as if a bullet had pierced his
+brain; but at the same moment the horse, again rearing, fell backwards,
+burying his rider under him. The crowd parted with shrieks of horror.
+
+"A doctor, a doctor, is there no doctor here?"
+
+There was none, but no physician could have been of any avail. The man
+who had tried to seize the horse's bridle, and in whom others also now
+recognized Brandow's former trainer, Hinrich Scheel, for whose arrest a
+warrant had been issued, lay dead on his back with crushed skull and
+horribly distorted face, from which the dim eyes glared frightfully;
+his master still lived, but Gotthold, who was supporting him in his
+arms, saw that his end was fast approaching. A deathlike pallor rested
+on the delicate, clear-cut features, and the white teeth gleamed with a
+strange, frightful expression from between livid lips. A shudder
+convulsed the whole body, and the head fell on Gotthold's breast.
+
+"Here comes a doctor," cried several voices.
+
+"He will find nothing to do," murmured Gotthold; "help me to carry him
+away."
+
+As they raised the body, a lady in a blue veil, who had been standing
+near with her hands clenched convulsively, shrieked aloud, and sank
+fainting on the ground. No particular notice was taken of it. Several
+ladies had fainted.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+
+A wondrously beautiful autumn, with mild golden days, and clear starry
+nights, brooded over the country. Everywhere summer roses bloomed in
+the gardens beside the asters, and the forests were very slow in
+decking themselves in brilliant hues. The air was so still that the
+floating threads of gossamer scarcely stirred, and when a leaf fell it
+remained just where it touched the ground. The birds of passage had
+paused in their migration, and chirped and--twittered among the fields
+and hedges with their merry little voices, while in the evening the
+wild swans, which usually, long ere this time, had soared away on their
+strong white wings, called to each other along the shore.
+
+It was a wondrously beautiful autumn, which seemed marvellously like
+summer; "but it is only an illusion," said Cecilia, "the summer is
+over, winter is close at hand, and I must prepare for it."
+
+She had been six weeks in Dollan, which she had never expected to
+enter, never hoped to see again. But the physicians had urgently
+desired that, to secure perfect recovery from her severe illness, if a
+winter's residence in the South was impracticable, Gretchen should at
+least spend the beautiful days of autumn on the sea-shore, in a sunny
+spot, sheltered from the cold winds; and what place could have
+fulfilled these requirements better than quiet, sunny Dollan? And, even
+if it were a sacrifice for her to return here, she made it
+unhesitatingly for the sake of her child and her old father.
+
+He had so longed for Dollan when, contrary to the doctor's expectation,
+he recovered his consciousness after a fainting fit which, a few days
+after the accident on the race-course, suddenly attacked him as he sat
+surrounded by his friends. "Gratify the old man's wish," said the
+physician, "and do so quickly; he will not have many more. His days are
+numbered, and it is our duty to procure for him, during the few that
+remain, all the sunshine he misses so keenly here in the narrow crowded
+streets."
+
+And with deep thankfulness the old man greeted the sunlight on his
+native fields. Not that he expressed his gratitude in words. He usually
+talked very little; but on his pale, quiet face rested an expression of
+the deepest peace, his mild eyes often sparkled as if with joyful
+memories, and a happy smile played around his lips, as he walked slowly
+through the sunny fields by Cecilia's side, leaning on her arm. Often
+too--especially in the early morning--he went out alone, and Cecilia
+had been anxious about him, and at last ventured to beg him to take her
+with him, no hour was too early for her. But the old man stroked her
+cheeks, and said, "Let me alone; you don't know yet."
+
+Cecilia pondered over these strange words, and understood them for the
+first time when, one morning at early dawn, she looked out of her
+window, and saw the old man stand a long time in the garden beside one
+of the oldest trees--a linden, under whose shade, so the story ran,
+Charles the Twelfth of Sweden had sat--and then bend his white head and
+wave his hand, as people do when they take leave of any one. Yes, the
+old man was taking his leave, when he wandered alone through garden and
+field, forest and meadow--leave of the friends and acquaintances of his
+youth: here a tree, under whose branches he had dreamed of the woman he
+loved; yonder a rock, against whose hard breast he had once pressed his
+tortured young heart; the meadow where he had broken the wild steed
+with which he had hoped to win the beautiful Ulrica von Dahlitz; the
+forest whose echoes he had so often waked by the report of his good
+rifle. He never carried it now: the trusty gun that had formerly
+accompanied him in all his walks, rested quietly in the corner; he had
+taken leave of his faithful companion forever.
+
+Neither did he ever turn his steps in the direction of the beach-house,
+and once when he had wandered through the forest by Cecilia's side, and
+they unexpectedly emerged from the trees upon the cliffs, he seemed
+almost terrified, and then shook his venerable head and muttered: "That
+has cost me many years, many, many years!" So saying, he made a gesture
+as if to imply that those years were effaced from the tablet of his
+memory.
+
+Perhaps they were; he never said a word about the weary time he had
+lived in the beach-house, but often began to relate stories of his
+young days--ancient tales, which no living person knew except himself,
+and over which he could laugh merrily, while at other times the tears
+ran down his pale, withered cheeks.
+
+Ancient tales, of which he knew every detail, every name, and Christian
+name, the day and hour, and even whether the weather was pleasant or
+rainy; but he remembered nothing of what had lately happened, or made
+the strangest mistakes. Thus he repeatedly called Cecilia by the name
+of his early love, Ulrica, and it had been a bitter grief to his
+great-granddaughter, that he sometimes spoke of her husband, Gretchen's
+father, as a man he loved and eagerly longed to see again, although he
+had been there very recently, until she understood that he meant
+Gotthold.
+
+It had moved her strangely at first, and then when the old man recurred
+to it again as quietly as if it never had been and never could be
+otherwise, and brought her name into such close connection with that of
+her lover, she had accepted it like a dream, which comes between waking
+and sleeping, until she started in terror at the danger that lay in the
+vision. It must not, could not be. Why trifle with a reality which was
+impossible, a future that could never come to pass!
+
+She said it with passionate vehemence, and a flood of tears, more to
+herself than the old man, when he again spoke of Gotthold, who stayed
+away too long, who left her who longed to see him, and the child who
+was so fond of playing with him, too much and too long alone. She told
+him that she dared not think of such a thing; too much, too much had
+happened, which separated them forever, and that though she would give
+her blood for him drop by drop, if it did not belong to her child and
+her father, she could never, never be his wife.
+
+They were in the garden on one of the beautiful summer-like evenings of
+this month of October, and as she spoke the old man gazed earnestly
+towards the saffron-hued eastern sky, that gleamed through the
+brilliant foliage of the trees, which was unstirred even by the
+faintest breath of wind. "Yes, yes," he said, "you have suffered
+keenly, keenly: but"--he added after a short pause--"that is so long,
+so very long ago. Time heals much, much!"
+
+He seemed to be absorbed in dreams of the days, which to him alone were
+no nonentity, which to him alone emerged from the river Lethe; but as
+his glance fell upon the tear-stained face at his side, he passed his
+hand over his brow and eyes, and said hastily, as if he feared he might
+forget it again:
+
+"Not everything, or slowly, very slowly; sixty, seventy, I know not how
+many years passed by; and it is never quite right till we take courage
+and tell some human being; I told him the evening I saved him from the
+sea, and so many good things followed it, so many good things; my heart
+has been so light ever since. You must tell some one, too, but not me;
+I forget so much, and might forget that too. You must tell him."
+
+And when the next evening they again walked up and down the same
+garden-path, and the dim light again shimmered through the trees, he
+suddenly stopped and asked: "Have you told him?" and on the third and
+fourth day he repeated the question, always shaking his white head
+anxiously, when she answered with burning cheeks: "No, father, I have
+not told him yet," and mentally added: "And shall not tell him if he
+comes to-morrow, shall never tell him."
+
+Gotthold came, but not alone. Prince Prora, at whose castle he had
+again spent several days to show him the sketches for the armory, and
+decide upon the order of the Italian landscapes for the dining-hall,
+wished to accompany him on his way back to Prora, and when he heard
+that Gotthold must stop at Dollan to take leave of the family before
+setting out on his journey to Italy, begged permission to accompany him
+there also.
+
+"For we are neighbors, madame," said the young man, "whether I live at
+Prora or the castle, and I ought to have waited upon you long ago; but
+I will confess that a special interest brings me here to-day. Our
+friend has told me about the giant's grave you have in your forest,
+and that it is perhaps in the best preservation of any on the whole
+island. Now we need a landscape with one of these mounds for my armory,
+and when I reminded him of the one at Dollan, the obstinate fellow
+declares it won't do. I naturally insist it is the very one, since
+Dollan--before it came into the possession of your--I mean the Wenhof
+family--which, to be sure, if we include the Swedish branch, as is only
+just, was two hundred years ago--belonged to Prora, like all the rest
+of the island; nay, in Pagan times, a Castle Prora, surrounded with a
+lofty wall and deep moat, stood on the cliffs overlooking the sea. Its
+ruins are still mentioned in old histories, so it is very possible and
+even probable that the grave covers the bones of my ancestors. And am I
+to lose such a reminiscence for the sake of an artist's obstinacy?
+Never! We have an hour to spare, and I hear I can walk there and back
+in half an hour--pray don't trouble yourself, my dear friend! You are
+the very last person I will take with me, to spoil my temper by your
+objections."
+
+"I will accompany you with pleasure," said old Boslaf. "I have often
+been up there deer-hunting with your Highness' great-grandfather. I
+have not walked that way for a long, long time, and should like to go
+once more."
+
+The Prince looked at the old man in astonishment; he had greeted him
+with marked respect, in consequence of the many things Gotthold had
+told him about him; but it seemed like a fairy tale that any one now in
+existence could have gone hunting with Malte von Prora, who had lived
+in the times of Frederick the Great, and been sent to Berlin on a
+diplomatic mission by the Swedish government before the Seven Years'
+War.
+
+"It is impossible for me to give you so much trouble," said he, "quite
+impossible."
+
+But the old man did not seem to notice the polite refusal; he had
+already taken his staff, and with long regular strides led the way out
+of the garden, where this conversation had taken place. The Prince,
+with a smile, hurried after him.
+
+"At least your Highness will allow us to follow you," said Gotthold.
+
+"I beg you to do so," replied the Prince, "for the sake of the old man,
+who might not be satisfied with my company for any length of time," and
+then drawing Gotthold a few steps aside, he continued: "We have an
+hour, don't let it be passed unused. Since I have seen this lady, I
+understand all you have not told me, you most silent of men. May God
+take these mute lovers under His gracious protection!"
+
+Gotthold walked slowly back to the spot where he had left Cecilia, and
+saw her still sitting in the same thoughtful attitude. Would she speak
+to-day, or would she keep silence as she had done hitherto--let him go
+in silence?
+
+He went up and took the hand that hung by her side. "Cecilia?"
+
+She slowly raised her dark lashes, and looked at him with an expression
+of touching entreaty.
+
+"I am not to bid you speak, I am to leave you in silence, Cecilia! And
+yet it must be uttered; so let me say it for you. You could tell the
+secret only to a woman, and to a woman you would not need to do so; she
+would understand you without words. Was it not so? Should love be less
+clear-sighted than the eyes of a sympathizing friend? I do not know, I
+can only tell you what I read in your heart. And it is this, Cecilia:
+you love me, but dare not yield to your feelings; nay, you shrink from
+the thought of becoming my wife, as if it were a sin--against whom? It
+sounds cruel, Cecilia, and yet I must say it: against your pride. That
+is what you fear--yourself, not me. You know as well as that the sun is
+setting yonder to rise again to-morrow, that no day, no hour will come
+when I shall reproach you by word or look for having been--so unhappy,
+so unspeakably wretched; you know that I--as I think--have nothing to
+forgive you. But you, Cecilia, think you can never forgive yourself;
+you think, because when you were an inexperienced girl of sixteen you
+made a mistake, repentance and shame must follow you all your future
+life; repentance and shame would frighten you from my arms if you ever
+obeyed the impulse of your heart and threw yourself into them."
+
+"And should I not do right to think, to feel so?" cried Cecilia, while
+the tears streamed down her burning cheeks; "could I ever forgive
+myself for having become the wife of this man? An inexperienced
+girl of sixteen, do you say? I was not so very inexperienced; I was
+worldly--wise enough to understand that life in the beautiful castle
+and shady park of Dahlitz would be more brilliant than in a gloomy
+country parsonage. And so I trod the poor student's heart under foot,
+although a voice which, since that hour, has never been silenced,
+whispered, he is the better man. Should I forgive myself for that, and
+for letting him go away with an almost broken heart, without a word of
+sympathy, of consolation, glad that his honest eyes no longer rested
+upon me, no longer read my vain soul? And now, when my arrogant dream
+has produced its natural result, now that I am as utterly wretched as I
+deserve to be, and he returns and stands before me, a pure, noble man,
+who can look with just pride upon his honest, industrious past, and
+with joyful composure towards his future, which must develop still more
+gloriously--is he now to stay his victorious step to raise one so
+deeply fallen;--nay, what am I saying? Is she to chain him to herself
+for all the future, bind the strong industrious hands, constrain the
+proud mind, which ought always to be occupied with the highest things,
+to perpetual consideration, daily, hourly sympathy for a wretched,
+self-marred fate? Did you say pride prevented my doing that? Be it so!
+But it was pride for you, in you! Ah! Gotthold, I do not feel this
+pride to-day for the first time. I was proud of you when, with
+sparkling eyes, you could talk so brilliantly of gods and heroes, and
+say the heroic man might boldly compare himself with the gods
+themselves; and when I heard, years after, you had forced your way
+through obstacles, by which others would have been crushed a thousand
+times, and, with a speed that seemed wonderful to those who did not
+know your strength and talent, raised yourself to the highest rank in
+your art, and the name of the young painter was mentioned only among
+the best artists--yes, Gotthold, I was proud then, so proud and
+thankful--for I thought, now I can bear everything easier, since my
+crime was not visited on you, since I alone had to atone for the sin I
+alone had committed."
+
+They had left the fields, over which scattered threads of gossamer
+floated in the red light of the setting sun, and entered the dark,
+silent forest. No sound was heard except the rustling of the withered
+leaves at their feet, and, as Cecilia paused, the mournful song of a
+solitary bird.
+
+But Gotthold heard no interruption; it seemed to him as if the piteous
+notes of the bird only prolonged the wail of the human voice.
+
+"Alone, alone," he said, "always alone, and so you wish to remain, poor
+love! Can a human being be alone? And are you quite alone? Granted that
+I am--which I am not--the strong hero who can by constant labor
+struggle along his solitary path to the golden table of the father, is
+there not your child, from whom you must shut out the bright, sunny
+world? You, who turn away from life with veiled head in mute despair!
+what virtues will you teach it when you are yourself so wholly
+destitute of the cheerfulness, in which alone the virtues thrive; nay,
+when you no longer believe in that which is the best and highest of
+all, which makes us what we are, makes us human beings--love? Who
+pities yonder little bird, which, concealed amid the autumnal foliage,
+perhaps wounded and maimed, is left behind to perish miserably? None of
+its brothers and sisters, its husband or its children; they have all
+flown away, unheeding, and left it behind--alone, alone! They obey the
+immutable law that governs their coming and going, their life and
+death, and so they do not, cannot sin; but we can and do, if we do
+not obey the law that governs us, if we do not obey love. It is the
+all-powerful tie that has bound and will bind together all races of
+men, from the beginning to the end; the all-powerful sun beneath whose
+pure light spring must return to the darkest, saddest hearts: and so
+with my love I will hold you, dearest, however you may struggle; will
+open your heart, however you may try to close it against me: for I am
+more powerful than you, can lend you my strength, and yet have enough
+for myself, and you, and your child--our child, Cecilia!"
+
+She had paused, trembling in every limb; pale as death, and with her
+dark eyes dim with tears, she extended her hands imploringly.
+
+"Have mercy, Gotthold, have mercy! I can bear no more; I can bear no
+more."
+
+A hasty step came down the narrow path that led to the giant's grave.
+
+"Thank God! I was coming to meet you, dear madam--I think--I know you
+are not like other ladies--"
+
+"He is dead!" cried Cecilia.
+
+"I fear we shall not find him alive, though he had strength enough to
+send me back. I did not like to leave him, but he was so very, very
+anxious to see you, to see you both."
+
+They ran up the path through the underbrush, over the hill, to the
+giant's grave, whose huge mass stood forth in dark relief against the
+bright western sky.
+
+The old man was sitting on a moss-covered stone, with his back resting
+against one of the larger blocks, his hands lying in his lap, and an
+expression of the most profound peace on his pale, venerable face,
+gazing silently towards the west, from whence brilliant sunset hues
+streamed over fields, forest, moorland, and sea. Cecilia sank upon the
+broom at his feet, pressing her lips to his cold hand.
+
+At the touch, a slight shiver ran through the limbs of the dying man.
+His glance turned slowly away from the distant sky, and rested upon the
+beautiful, pale, tear-wet face before him. A happy smile gleamed over
+his features. "Ulrica," he whispered. The name fell from the white lips
+softly, almost inaudibly, and then lips and eyelids closed.
+
+Cecilia's head sank upon Gotthold's breast; the Prince, who during the
+whole scene had discreetly remained at a distance, turned away, and
+gazed steadily at the golden sunset.
+
+
+And the golden hues of sunset glowed upon fields and woods, and the
+churchyard of Rammin, in which the old man had just been laid to rest
+with his children and children's children. Only a small, very small
+company had stood around the grave when the coffin was lowered, and
+they had needed no priest to consecrate the place which would
+henceforth be sacred to them. Then Frau Wollnow embraced Cecilia,
+and whispered: "Don't allow yourself to be disconcerted by any
+narrow-minded creature you may meet," and Cecilia answered: "Have no
+fear, I know what I am doing." Then Ottilie kissed Gretchen; the Prince
+and Herr Wollnow took leave of Cecilia with a few cordial words, and
+the Prince's light carriage rolled towards his castle, and the
+Wollnow's heavy equipage along the road to Prora.
+
+At the other end of the village, where the road leads to Neuenfaehr and
+Sundin, stood a travelling carriage, and they now walked silently
+through the little hamlet, arm-in-arm; while the child ran before them,
+and snatched at the swallows when they came too near.
+
+Otherwise the swallows had a free course. Up and down they darted in
+their arrowy flight, now grazing the earth, now rising in graceful
+curves, anon flying in a straight line and then zigzag, chirping,
+twittering, and fluttering their long wings unweariedly.
+
+For them, too, it was probably the last evening, and to-morrow they
+would fly towards the South, and not return till spring.
+
+Gotthold thought of this, and then of the evening when he had walked
+through the deserted village-street, and the swallows' song brought
+tears of sorrow to his eyes, and how empty his home and the whole
+beautiful world had been to him, and how the whole beautiful world now
+seemed to him like home; and as he gazed into the dark eyes of his
+beloved wife, and pressed the little warm hand of the child, now his,
+he knew "what the swallow sang."
+
+
+
+                               FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: Dumpling.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The second person singular is used throughout this
+conversation, but I have thought it better to adopt the English mode of
+address.--Tr.]
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's What the Swallow Sang, by Friedrich Spielhagen
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