"They can not be otherwise than friendly," returned Lenore. "We lived for weeks with Frau von Tarowska, and took every excursion together. She was the most elegant of all the ladies at the Baths, and her daughters, too, made a great impression by their distinguished bearing. They are very lovely and refined."
"He has eyes, though, exactly like those of the forester's fox. I would not trust him a yard out of my sight."
"I have made myself very smart to-day," laughed Lenore, again turning round; "for the girls are, as I said, lovely, and the Poles shall not say that we Germans look ill beside them. How do you like my dress, Wohlfart?" She turned back the flap of her pelisse.
"I shall admire no other half so much," Anton replied.
"You true-hearted Mr. Wohlfart!" cried Lenore, again reaching out her hand. Alas! the warning hare, the crows, would have been powerless to break the spell which attracted the fur glove to the Danish leather; something stronger must interfere.
When Anton stretched out his hand for the third time, he marveled to see it rise against his will, and describe a circle in the air, while he found himself outstretched in the snow. Looking round in amazement, he saw Lenore sitting by the overturned sledge, while the horse stood still, and laughed after his fashion. The lady had looked too much at her companion and too little at the way, and so they had been upset. Both jumped up lightly. Anton raised the sledge, and they were soon galloping onward once more. But the sledge-idyl was ended. Lenore looked steadily before her, and Anton occupied himself in shaking the snow out of his sleeves.
The sledges turned into a spacious court. A long, one-storied farm-house, whitewashed, and roofed with shingles, looked upon the wooden stables. Anton sprang out, and asked a servant in livery for the dwelling of Herr von Tarowski.
"This is the palace," replied the Pole, with a low obeisance, and proceeded to help the ladies out of the sledges. Lenore and the baroness exchanged looks of amazement. They entered a dirty hall; several bearded domestics rushed up to them, eagerly tore off their wraps, and threw a low door open. A numerous party was assembled in the large sitting-room. A tall figure in black silk came forward to meet them, and received them with the best grace in the world. So did the daughters—slender girls, with their mother's eyes and manners. Several of the gentlemen were introduced—Herr von this, Herr von that, all elegant-looking men in evening dress. At last the master of the house came in, his cunning face beaming with cordial hospitality, and his pair of fox's eyes looking perfectly harmless. The reception was faultless—on all sides the pleasant ease of perfect self-possession. The baron and the ladies were treated as welcome additions, and Anton too had his share of attention. His business was soon transacted, and Herr von Tarow smilingly reminded him that they had met before.
"That rogue of an inspector got off, after all," said he; "but do not be uneasy, he will not escape his fate."
"I hope not," replied Anton; "nor yet his abettors."
Herr von Tarow's eyes tried hard to look dove-like as he went on to say, "The fellow must be concealed somewhere about."
"Possibly somewhere very near," said Anton, casting a significant glance at the mean-looking buildings around.
Our hero looked in vain among the gentlemen present for the stranger he had previously seen, and charitably attributed to him good reasons for wishing to remain unseen by German eyes. However, to make up for him, there was another gentleman of a striking aspect, who seemed to be treated with especial respect. "They come and go, assemble and disperse," thought Anton, "just as the landlord said; there is a whole band of them to feel anxious about, not merely a few individuals." At that moment the stranger came up and began a courteous conversation. However unstudied the speaker's manner might appear, yet Anton remarked that he led the conversation, with the view of extracting his opinions and feelings as a German. This made him reserved; and the Pole, finding him so, soon lost his interest in him, and turned to the ladies.
Anton had now time to look about him. A Vienna piano-forte stood amid furniture evidently made by the village carpenter, and near the sofa a tattered carpet was spread over the black boards. The ladies sat on velvet seats around a worn-out table. The mistress of the house and her grown-up daughters had elegant Parisian toilettes; but a side door being casually opened, Anton caught a sight of some children running about in the next room so scantily clothed that he heartily pitied them. They, however, did not seem to feel the cold, and were screaming and fighting like little demons.
A fine damask table-cloth was now laid on the unsteady table, and a silver tea-kettle put down. The conversation went on most pleasantly. Graceful Frenchbon motsand animated exclamations in melodious Polish blended occasionally with an admixture of quiet German. The sudden bursts of laughter, the gestures and the eagerness, all showed Anton that he was among foreigners. They spoke rapidly, and excitement shone in their eyes and reddened their cheeks.
They were a more excitable people, more elastic, and more impressionable than his countrymen. Anton remarked with amazement how perfectly Lenore seemed in her element among them. Her face, too, grew flushed; she laughed and gesticulated like the rest; and her eyes looked, he thought, boldly into the courteous faces of the gentlemen present. The same smile, the same hearty, natural manner that she had enchanted him with, when alone, she now lavished upon strangers, who had acted as highwaymen against her father's interests. This displeased him to the utmost. Then the saloon, so incongruous in its arrangements, the carpet dirty and torn, the children in the next room barefooted, and the master of the house the secret patron of a dishonest rogue, and perhaps worse still! Anton contented himself with coldly looking on, and said as little as he possibly could.
At last a young gentleman struck a few chords on the piano, and all sprang up and voted for a dance. The lady of the house rang, four wild-looking men rushed into the room, snatched up the grand piano, and carried it off. The whole party swept through the hall to an apartment opposite. Anton was tempted to rub his eyes as he entered it. It was an empty room, with rough-cast walls, benches around them, and a frightful old stove in a corner. In the middle, linen was hung on lines to dry. Anton could hardly suppose they meant to dance here; but the linen was torn down by one servant in the twinkling of an eye, while another ran to the stove, and was equally expeditious in blowing up the fire, and in a very few moments six couples stood up for a quadrille. As there was a lady wanting, a young count, with a black beard like velvet, and a wondrously beautiful pair of blue eyes, bound his cambric handkerchief round his arm, and with a graceful courtesy announced himself a lady. He was immediately led out by another gentleman. Their dancing, in spite of its fashionable character, betrayed at times the fire and impetuosity of their race. Lenore threw herself into it heart and soul.
Meanwhile the baroness was conversing with great animation with her host, and Frau von Tarow made it her occupation to amuse the baron. Here, then, were all the social forms, the keen enjoyment of the present, which Anton had so often admired, but now they only excited a cold smile. It did not seem to him creditable that a German family should be on terms of such intimacy with recent enemies—people who were probably at this very time plotting against them and their country. Accordingly, when the first dance was over, and Lenore, passing him, asked why he did not dance with her, he replied, "I am every moment expecting to see Bratzky's face appear in some corner of the room."
"We will not think of him at present," returned Lenore, turning away offended.
Dance followed dance, the heads of the young people swam, their curls hung down damp, and relaxed with their exertions. Another rush of bearded domestics, and iced Champagne was brought in. The dancers tossed it off standing, and immediately a cry rose on all sides for a Polish mazurka—the national dance. Now, then, the dresses fluttered wide and high; the dancers positively flew along; the ladies were tossed like balls from one partner's arm to another; and Lenore, alas! in the midst of it all.
Anton stood near the distinguished Pole, carrying on a spiritless conversation, and coldly listened to the praises the former liberally bestowed on the German dancer. The rapid movements and strong excitement that were natural to the Polish girls made Lenore wild, and, Anton regretted to see, unfeminine; and his glance wandered away from her to the rough walls, the dusty stove, in which an immense fagot was burning, and the ceiling, from which long gray cobwebs hung down.
It was late before the baroness broke up the party. The furs were brought in, the guests were wrapped therein, and the little bells sounded again cheerily over the snowy scene. But Anton was glad that Lenore now drove her father, and that he had to take care of the baroness. Silently he guided the sledge, thinking all the while that another whom he knew would never have swung to and fro in the mazes of the mazurka beneath the fluttering cobwebs, and in the house of her country's foes.
Mr. Itzig was now regularly established in business. Whoever visited him passed through a much-frequented hall, and went up a not entirely clean staircase, at the head of which was a white door, on which a great plate revealed the name of "V. Itzig." This door was closed. It had a very massive China handle, and was altogether much more suggestive and imposing than Ehrenthal's had been. Passing through this door, the visitor entered an empty lobby, in which a shrewd youth spent the day as half porter, half errand-boy, and a spy besides. This youth differed from the original Itzig only by a species of shabby gentility in his appearance. He wore his master's old clothes—shining silk waistcoats, and a coat a little too large for him. He showed, in short, that the new firm was more advanced in matters of taste and toilette than the in many respects commonplace establishment of Ehrenthal. The visitor, advancing through the lobby, was received by Mr. Itzig in one of two small rooms, of which the first contained little furniture, but two strikingly handsome lamps—a temporary security for the unpaid interest of a note of hand. The second was his sleeping apartment; in it were a simple bed, a long sofa, and a large round mirror, with a broad gilt frame, an acquisition from the secret stores of the worthy Pinkus. Itzig himself was marvelously changed, and on dark days, in his dimly-lighted office, he might really—looked at from a little distance—have almost passed for a gentleman. His haggard face had filled out, his great freckles had faded away, and his red hair, through much pomade and skillful brushing, had grown darker and more manageable. He had still a preference for black; but his clothes were new now, and fitted him better; for Mr. Itzig had acquired a taste for externals. He no longer grudged himself good food—nay, he even allowed himself wine. Yet, insignificant as his new establishment was, Itzig only used it at night and during office-hours. His inclinations still led him to his old haunts at Löbel Pinkus's. Thus he led a double life—that of a respectable man of business in his newly-painted office, beneath the glare of his solar lamps; and when in the caravanserai, which fitted his taste far better, a modest sort of life, with red woolen curtains, and a four-cornered chest for a sofa. Perhaps this shelter suited him so exactly, because of his uncontested influence over the master of the house. Pinkus, to his shame be it spoken, had sunk into a mere tool of Veitel's, and his wife, too, was devoted in her allegiance to the rising man.
On the present occasion Itzig sat carelessly on his sofa, and smoked a pipe with an amber mouth-piece. He was completely the gentleman, and expected a visitor of distinction. The bell rang, the servant flew to the door, and a sharp voice was heard. Next there arose a dispute in the lobby, which moved Veitel to shut up his writing-table in all haste, and to put the key into his pocket.
"Not at home, indeed! He is at home, you wretched greenhorn you!" cried the sharp voice to the guardian of the door. Next some resisting body was heard to be thrust on one side. Veitel buried himself in an old mortgage. The door opened, and Hippus appeared, red-faced and much ruffled. He had never looked more like an old raven.
"So you deny yourself, do you? You tell that grub yonder to send away old friends! Of course, you are become quite genteel, you fool! Did one ever meet with such barefaced ingratitude? Because the fellow has swindled himself into two fine rooms, his former associates are no longer good enough for him! But you have reckoned without your host, my boy, as far as I am concerned; I am not to be got rid of so easily."
Veitel looked at the angry little man before him with an expression of countenance by no means friendly.
"Why did you make a scene with the young man?" he said, coldly; "he has done nothing wrong. I was expecting a visitor on business, and I gave orders to exclude all strangers. How could I know that you would be coming? Have we not settled that you should only visit me in the evening? Why do you disturb me during my business hours?"
"Your business hours, you young gosling, with your shell still hanging about you!" cried Hippus, still more irate, and threw himself on the sofa. "Your business hours!" he continued, with infinite contempt; "any hours are good enough foryourbusiness."
"You are drunk again, Hippus," answered Veitel, thoroughly roused. "How often have I told you that I will have nothing to do with you when you come out of the spirit-shop?"
"Indeed!" cried Hippus; "you son of a witch, my visit is at all times an honor to you. I drunk!" he hiccoughed out; "and with what, you jack-pudding you? How is a man to get drunk," he screamed out, "when he has not wherewithal to pay for a glass?"
"I knew that he was without money again," said Veitel, in exasperation. "I gave you a dollar quite lately, but you are a perfect sponge. It is a pity to waste a farthing upon you."
"You will prove, though, that it is not at all a pity," answered the old man, tauntingly; "you will give me ten dollars here on the spot."
"That I will not," cried Veitel. "I am sick of supplying you. You know our agreement; you are only to have money given you when you do something for me in return. And now you are not in a condition either to read or write."
"I am always good enough for you and such as you, even if I had had a ten times better breakfast," said the old man, more calmly. "Give me what you have got for me to do. You are become a covetous rascal, but I'll put up with you. I will forgive your having denied yourself; I will forgive your having become a presumptuous ass—making a show with lamps that were meant for your betters; and I will not deprive you of my advice, provided, be it understood, I duly get my honorarium. And so we will make peace, my son. Now tell me what deviltry you have in hand."
Veitel pushed a thick parchment toward him, and said, "First of all, you must look over that, write me out an abstract of it, and tell me what you think of it. It has been offered me for sale. Now, however, I am expecting some one, so you must go into the other room, sit down at the table, and get through your task. When it is done we will talk about the money."
Mr. Hippus took the heavy deed under his arm and steered toward the door.
"To-day I am going to oblige you again, because you are a good boy," said he, affectionately, lifting his hand to pat Veitel on the cheek.
Veitel tolerated the caress, and was going to shut the door, when the drunken old man turned round once more, and inquired with a cunning leer, "So you expect some one, my child? Whom do you expect, little Itzig? Is it a lad or a lady?"
"It is a money-matter," said Veitel, shrugging his shoulders.
"A money-matter!" repeated Hippus, with tender approbation of his associate. "Ay, you are great in them—an accomplished swindler. Truly he who gets money from you is lost; it were better for him to jump into the water at once, though water is a despicable element, you confounded little swindler you!" And, raising his head, he fixed his swimming eyes affectionately on Veitel.
"And yet you yourself are come to get money from me," replied Veitel, with a forced smile.
"Yes, I am determined," said Hippus, stammering. "I am not flesh and blood! I am Hippus! I am Death!" and he tried to laugh intelligently.
The door-bell rang. Veitel desired him to keep quiet, shut the door upon him, took up his amber pipe, and awaited his visitor.
A sword was heard to clatter in the lobby—a hussar officer came in. Eugene Rothsattel had become a little older since the last winter, his fine face was more haggard, and he had a blue ring round his eyes. He put on an appearance of indifference, which did not deceive Mr. Itzig for a single second, for behind that mask his experienced glance detected the fever peculiar to hard-pressed debtors.
"Mr. Itzig?" inquired the officerde haut en bas.
"Such is my name," said Veitel, rising carelessly from the sofa. Eugene looked at him uneasily. This was the very man against whom his father had been warned, and now fate had driven him into the same snare. "I have to pay a debt in the course of the next few days to certain agents," began the lieutenant, "gentlemen of your acquaintance. When I proposed to hold a consultation with them, I was informed by both that they had sold their claims to you."
"I bought them unwillingly," replied Itzig. "I am not fond of having any thing to do with military men. Here are two notes of hand, one for eleven hundred, and the other for eight hundred, making a total of nineteen hundred dollars. Do you recognize these signatures as yours?" he coldly inquired, producing the documents; "and do you acknowledge nineteen hundred to be the sum borrowed by you?"
"I suppose it must be about that," said the lieutenant, reluctantly.
"I ask whether you acknowledge that to be the sum that you have to pay me on these notes of hand?"
"In the devil's name, yes," cried the lieutenant. "I own the debt, though I did not receive the half of it in cash."
Veitel locked up the papers in his desk, and, with a shrug of his shoulders, said ironically, "At all events, I have paid the whole sum to the parties herein named. Accordingly, I shall summon you to pay me to-morrow and the next day."
The officer was silent for a while, and a flush slowly overspread his sunken cheeks. At last, after a hard struggle, he began: "I beg of you, Mr. Itzig, to give me a little more time."
Veitel took up his amber pipe and leisurely turned it round. "I can give you no further credit," said he.
"Come, Itzig, be reasonable," said the officer, with forced familiarity. "I shall very probably soon be able to pay you."
"You will have as little money in a few weeks' time as you have now," replied Veitel, rudely.
"I am ready to write an I.O.U. for a larger sum, if you will have patience."
"I never enter into any transactions of the kind," lied Veitel.
"I will procure you an acknowledgment of the debt from my father."
"The Baron Rothsattel would obtain as little credit with me as yourself."
The lieutenant angrily struck the floor with his sword: "And supposing I do not pay?" he broke out; "you know that I am not legally compelled to do so."
"I know," quietly replied Veitel. "Will you pay to-morrow and the next day?"
"I can not!" exclaimed Eugene, in despair.
"Then take care of the coat on your back," said Veitel, turning away.
"Wohlfart was right to warn me against you," cried Eugene, beside himself. "You are an obdurate—" he suppressed the last word.
"Speak your mind freely," said Itzig; "no one hears you. Your words are like the fire in my stove; it crackles now, in an hour it will be burned to ashes. What you say to me in private, the people in the street will say to you in three days' time if you do not pay."
Eugene turned away with a curse. On reaching the door he stood still for a moment, then rushed down stairs.
Veitel looked round triumphantly. "The son as well as the father! He, too, is safely noosed," said he to himself; "he can never procure the money. There is an end of the Rothsattels, and their Wohlfart will not be able to sustain them. When I am married to Rosalie, Ehrenthal's mortgages will be mine. That will be the time, too, for finding the vanished notes of hand among my father-in-law's papers. Then I shall have the baron completely in my power, and the estate will be mine."
After this soliloquy he opened the door that had shut out Mr. Hippus from the distinguished visitor—the sunken from the sinking—and he found the little advocate fast asleep over the deed. Itzig looked at him with hearty contempt, and said, "He grows burdensome. He said he was death; I wish he were dead, and I freed from him." Then roughly shaking up the old man, he screamed out to him, "You are fit for nothing but to sleep; why must you come here to snore? Go home; I will give you the deed when you are sober."
The advocate accordingly reeled away, promising to return the following afternoon. Itzig proceeded to brush his silk hat with enviable dexterity; he then put on his best coat, gave his hair its most graceful curve, and went to the house of his antagonist Ehrenthal. As he entered the hall he cast a shy glance at the office door, and hurried on to the staircase. But he stopped on the lowest step. "There he is, sitting again in the office," said he, listening. "I hear him mutter; he often mutters so when he is alone. I will venture in; perhaps I can make something of him." So he stepped slowly to the door and listened again; then taking heart, he opened it suddenly. In the dimly-lighted room sat a stooping figure in a leathern chair, a shapeless hat on its head. The figure kept constantly nodding, and muttering unintelligible words. How changed was Hirsch Ehrenthal in the course of the past year! When he last drove over the baron's estate, he was a stout, respectable-looking man, a fresh, well-preserved man, who knew how to stick in his breast-pin to the best advantage, and cut a figure in ladies' eyes. Now the head that was constantly nodding in nervous debility was that of an old man, and the beard that hung down from his furrowed face had been untrimmed for weeks. He was a picture of that most lamentable decay, when the mind precedes the body on the way to second childhood.
The agent stood at the door and looked in dismay at his former master. Then, advancing nearer, he said, "I wish to speak to you, Mr. Ehrenthal."
The old man continued to nod his head, and answered in a trembling voice, "Hirsch Ehrenthal is my name; what have you to say to me?"
"I wish to speak to you on important business," continued Itzig.
"I hear," returned Ehrenthal, without looking up; "if the business be important, why do you not speak?"
"Do you know me, Hirsch Ehrenthal?" said Itzig, bending down and raising his voice.
The man in the leathern chair looked at him with languid eyes, and at length recognized him. He got up in all haste, and stood, his head still nodding, with a glance full of hatred and terror in his eyes. "What do you want here in my office?" cried he, with a quivering voice. "How can you come before me? Get out, man! get out!"
Itzig remained stationary. "Don't scream so; I am not doing any thing to you; I only want to speak to you on important subjects, if you will be calm as a man of your years should be."
"It is Itzig," murmured the old man; "he wants to speak on important subjects, and I am to be calm. How can I be calm," screamed he again, "when I see you before me? You are my enemy; you have ruined me here and ruined me there; you have been to me like the evil spirit with the sword, on which hangs the drop of gall. I opened my mouth, you pierced me with your sword, the gall has reached my heart; I needs must tremble when I see you."
"Be quiet," said Itzig; "and when you are so, listen to me."
"Is his name Itzig?" mumbled the old man to himself. "His name is Itzig, but the dogs bark at him as he walks through the streets. I will not see you," he again exclaimed. "Get out! I loathe the sight of you: I would rather have to do with a spider than with you."
To this Veitel replied in a resigned voice, "What has happened, Ehrenthal, has happened, and it's no use talking of it. You behaved unkindly to me, and I acted against you; both are true."
"He ate every Sabbath at my table," growled the old man.
"If you remember that," continued Itzig, "why, so will I. True, I have eaten at your table, and on that account I am sorry to be on bad terms with you. I have always felt a great attachment to your family."
"You have shown your attachment, young Itzig," continued the old man. "You are he who came into my house, and killed me before I am laid in my grave."
"What nonsense are you talking?" continued Veitel, impatiently. "Why do you always speak as if you were dead, and I the evil spirit with the sword? I am here, and I wish your prosperous life, and not your death. I will so contrive that you shall yet occupy a good position among our people, and that they who pass you in the street shall again take off their hats to you, as they did before Hirsch Ehrenthal became childish."
Ehrenthal mechanically took off his hat and sat down again. His hair had grown white.
"There ought to be friendship between you and me," continued Veitel, persuasively, "and your business ought to be as mine. I have sent to you more than one man of our connection, and have told you my wishes through him, and Mrs. Ehrenthal, your wife, has told you them too. I am become a man who can rank with the best men of business; I can show you a safe capital larger than you imagine. Why should we not put our money together? If you will give me your daughter Rosalie to wife, I shall be able to act for you as your son-in-law."
Old Ehrenthal looked at the suitor with a glance in which something of his old cunning shone through his half-wittedness. "If you want my daughter Rosalie," replied he, "hear the only question I have to put: What will you give me if I give you Rosalie?"
"I will reckon it up to you at once," cried Veitel.
"You can reckon up a good deal, I dare say," said Ehrenthal, declining the statement, "but I will only require one thing: if you can give me back my son Bernhard, you may have my daughter. If you can not bring Bernhard out of the grave, so long as I have any voice left I shall say, 'Get out with you! get out of my office!' Get out!" screamed he, in a sudden transport of rage, clenching both fists against the suitor. Veitel quietly retreated into the shadow cast by the door, the old man sunk down again on his chair, and threatened and muttered to himself. Itzig watched him till his words again became unintelligible, when he shrugged his shoulders and left the room.
As he went up stairs to pay his visit to the ladies, he repeated the movement occasionally, to express his utter contempt of the poor imbecile below. He rang the bell, and was admitted by the untidy cook with a familiar smile.
Meanwhile Eugene drifted helplessly from one officer's room to another. He went to Feroni's; the oysters were flavorless, the Burgundy tasted like ink. Again he paced up and down the streets, the sweat of anguish on his brow. At last he sat down in a confectioner's shop, tired to death, and revolved every possible contingency. If Wohlfart were only here! But there was no time to write to him. These agents had put him off from day to day; it was only last night that they had both finally referred him to Mr. Itzig. But, though it was too late to write to Anton, might not this obliging friend have some acquaintance in the town? In recommending young Sturm, Anton had told him that the future bailiff's father was a safe man, not without substance. Perhaps he could get money from the father of a hussar now in the service of his family, if, indeed, the old man had any money. That was the question.
He turned to the Directory, and found John Sturm, porter, Island Street, No. 17. He drove thither in a drosky. A loud "Come in" was the reply to his hurried knock. The sore-pressed officer crossed the threshold of the porter. Father Sturm sat alone with his can of beer, a small daily paper in his hand. "A hussar!" cried he, remaining seated through very astonishment. The officer, on his part, was astonished at the colossal form now contemplating him, and both were silent.
"To be sure!" said the giant. "A hussar of my Karl's regiment—the coat is the same, the epaulettes the same; you are welcome, comrade!" and he rose. Then for the first time perceiving the metal of the epaulettes, he exclaimed, "As I live, an officer!"
"My name is Eugene von Rothsattel," began the lieutenant. "I am an acquaintance of Mr. Wohlfart."
"Of Mr. Wohlfart and of my son Karl," said Sturm, eagerly; "sit down, sir; it is an exceeding pleasure and honor to me to see you." He brought out a chair, and thumped it down in his zeal so as to make the door shake again.
Eugene was going to sit down. "Not yet," said Sturm; "I will first wipe it, that the uniform take no harm. Since my Karl went away, things are a little dusty here."
He wiped and polished up the chair for his visitor. "Now, sir, allow me to sit opposite you. You bring me tidings of my little fellow?"
"Only," replied Eugene, "that he is well in health, and that my father much values his services."
"Indeed!" cried Sturm, smiling all over, and rapping on the table so as to create a small earthquake in the room. "I knew, sir, that your father the baron would be satisfied with him; I would have given him a bond for that on stamped paper. He was a clever lad, even when he was that high," indicating with his hand a degree of smallness that belongs to no human being, even in the earliest days of its visible life.
"But can he do any thing?" he anxiously inquired, "in spite of—you know what." He held out his great fingers, and made confidential signs with them. "First and middle finger—it was a great misfortune, sir."
Eugene now called to mind the unlucky accident. "He has got over it," said he, rather embarrassed at the part the paternal affections of the giant made him play. "I came here to ask a favor."
"A favor?" laughed Sturm; "ask away, young baron; that is a simple matter. Any one from the house where my Karl is bailiff has a right to ask a favor from old Sturm. That is my view of the case."
"Well, then, Mr. Sturm, to make a long story short, I am called upon to make a heavy payment to-morrow, and I want the money for it. The debt has come upon me suddenly, and I have no time to communicate with my father. I know no one in this town to whom I can turn with so much confidence as to the father of our bailiff."
Sturm bent forward, and in his delight clapped the officer on the knee. "That was nobly said. You are a gentleman, who keeps to his own house, and does not go to strangers for what he can have from his own people. You want money? My Karl is bailiff at your father the baron's; my Karl has some money, so it is all right. How much do you want? A hundred dollars? Two hundred dollars? The money is there."
"I can hardly take courage, Mr. Sturm, to tell you the amount of the sum," said Eugene, embarrassed; "it is nineteen hundred dollars."
"Nineteen hundred dollars!" repeated the giant, in amazement; "that's a capital; that's a firm; that's what people call a fortune."
"So it is, Mr. Sturm," said Eugene, sadly. "And since you are so friendly toward me, I must own to you that I am heartily grieved that it should be so much. I am ready to give you a note of hand for it, and to pay any interest you may like."
"Do you know what," said Sturm, after some cogitation, "we will say nothing about the interest; you can settle that with my Karl; but as to the note of hand, that was a good thought of yours. A note of hand is pleasant, on account of the chances of life and death. You and I would have no need of such a thing; but I may die before my time. That would not matter, for you, who know of the transaction, would still be there. But then you might die, which, however, I have no fear of—quite the contrary; but still such a thing might be, and then my Karl ought to have your signature, so that he might come forward and say, 'My poor young master has written this, therefore pay.'"
"You will then have the kindness to lend me the money?"
"There is no kindness in it," said Sturm; "it is but my duty, as the thing is done regularly, and my dwarf is your bailiff."
Eugene was moved as he looked at the giant's laughing face. "But, Mr. Sturm, I want the money to-morrow."
"Of course," replied Sturm, "that is just what suits me. Come, baron, this way." He took up the candle, and led him into his bed-room. "Excuse things being so disorderly; but I am a lone man, and at my work all day long. Look here, this is my money-box." He drew out the iron chest. "It is safe from thieves," said he, with self-complacency, "for no one in the town can stir it but I, and no one can open it, for the lock is the masterpiece of the father of my dear departed wife. Few besides me can lift the lid, and even if many of them came, they would find it too tough a job for them; so you may believe that the money is safe here from rogues, and swindlers, and the like," said he, triumphantly. He was about to put the key into the lock. "Stop," he suddenly cried; "one word more. I trust you, baron, as I do my Karl—that of course; but just answer me this question: You really are the young baron?"
Now it was Eugene's turn to smile, and, putting his hand into his pocket, he said, "Here is my patent."
"Ah! many thanks," cried Sturm, carefully looking through the paper, and reverentially reading the names, then bowing, and giving it back with two fingers in the most respectful manner possible.
"And here," continued Eugene, "I happen to have a letter of Wohlfart's in my pocket."
"Of course," cried Sturm, looking at the address, "that is his living hand."
"And here is his signature."
"Your devoted Wohlfart," read the giant; "and if he writes that, you may be sure that it is true. So now the business is settled," said he, opening the box. "Here is the money. So, then, nineteen hundred dollars!" He took five great rolls out of the chest, held them comfortably in one hand, and gave them to Eugene. "Here are a thousand."
Eugene tried in vain to hold them.
"Just so," said the porter; "I will bring them down to the carriage. The rest I must give you in promissory notes. These are worth a little less than a hundred dollars, as of course you know."
"It does not signify," said Eugene.
"No," said the giant. "It can be mentioned in the note of hand. And now the matter is all settled." He closed the chest, and pushed it under the bed.
Eugene re-entered the little parlor with a lightened heart.
"Now, then, I will carry the money to the carriage," cried Sturm.
"The note of hand has yet to be written."
"True," nodded the giant; "we must do things in order. Just see, sir, whether you can write with my coarse pen. If I had known that I should have such a visitor, I would have brought a better one with me from Mr. Schröter's."
Eugene wrote out an acknowledgment, while Sturm sat by his can of beer, and looked at him in admiration. Then he accompanied him to the carriage, and said at leave-taking, "Greet my little lad heartily, and Mr. Wohlfart too. I have promised Karl to come to him at Christmas, on account of the Christmas-tree; but my health is no longer as good as it should be. I am forty-nine past."
A short time afterward, Eugene, writing to Anton, casually mentioned that he had borrowed nineteen hundred dollars from father Sturm on a note of hand. "Try to arrange the matter for me," said the letter; "of course my father must know nothing of it. A good-hearted, foolish fellow, that old Sturm. Think of something nice for his son the hussar—something that I can bring him when I pay you a visit."
Anton flung down the letter indignantly. "There is no helping them; the principal was right," said he. "He has squandered the money in golden bracelets for a mercenarydanseuse, or at dice with his lawless comrades, and he now pays his usurer's bills with the hard earnings of an honest working-man."
He called Karl into his room. "I have often been sorry to have brought you into this confusion, but to-day I deeply feel how wrong it was. I am ashamed to tell you what has happened. Young Rothsattel has taken advantage of your father's good-heartedness to borrow from him nineteen hundred dollars!"
"Nineteen hundred dollars from my governor!" cried Karl. "Had my Goliath so much money to lend! He always pretended that he did not know how to economize."
"Part of your inheritance is given away in return for a worthless note of hand, and what makes it still more aggravating is the coolness of the thoughtless borrower. Have you, then, not heard of it from your father?"
"From him!" cried Karl; "I should think not. I am only sorry that you should be so vexed. I implore you not to make any disturbance about it. You best know how many clouds hang over this house; do not increase the anxiety of these parents on my account."
"To be silent in a case like this," replied Anton, "would be to make one's self an accomplice in an unfair transaction. You must immediately write and tell your father not to be so obliging in future; the young gentleman is capable of going to him again."
Anton's next step was to write Eugene a letter of serious remonstrance, in which he pointed out to him that the only way of giving Sturm tolerably good security would be the procuring the baron's acknowledgment of his son's debt, and begged that he would lose no time in doing this.
This letter written, Anton said to Karl, "If he does not confess to his parents, I shall state the whole affair to the baron in his presence the very next day after his arrival. Don't try to dissuade me; you are just like your father."
The consequence of this communication was, that Eugene left off writing to Anton, and that his next letter to his father contained a rather unintelligible clause: "Wohlfart," he said, "was a man to whom he certainly had obligations; only the worst of that kind of people was, that they took advantage of these to adopt a dictatorial tone that was unbearable; therefore it was best civilly to shake them off."
This opinion was quite after the baron's own heart, and he warmly applauded it. "Eugene always takes the right view of the case," said he; "and I too earnestly long for the day when I shall be able to superintend the property, and to dismiss our Mr. Wohlfart."
The baroness, who had read the letter out to her husband, merely replied, "You would miss Wohlfart very much if he were to leave you."
Lenore, however, was unable to suppress her displeasure; and, leaving the room in silence, she went to look for Anton out of doors.
"What are you and Eugene differing about?" she cried, as soon as she saw him.
"Has he been complaining of me to you?" inquired Anton, in return.
"Not to me; but in his letter to my father he does not speak as he ought of one who has been so kind to him."
"Perhaps this is accidental—a fit of ill-humor that will pass off."
"No, it is more, and I will know about it."
"If it be more, you can only hear it from himself."
"Then, Wohlfart," cried Lenore, "Eugene has been doing something wrong, and you know of it."
"Be that as it may," returned Anton, gravely, "it is not my secret, else I should not withhold it from you. I pray you to believe that I have acted uprightly toward your brother."
"What I believe little signifies," cried Lenore. "I am to know nothing; I understand nothing; I can do nothing in this wretched world but grieve and fret when others are unjust to you."
"I very often," continued Anton, "feel the responsibility laid upon me by your father's indisposition a grievous burden. It is natural that he should be annoyed with me when I have to communicate unwelcome facts. This can not be avoided. I have strength, however, to brave much that is painful, so long as you and the baroness are unshaken in your conviction that I always act in your interest so far as I understand it."
"My mother knows what you are to us," said Lenore. "She never, indeed, speaks of you to me, but I can read her glance when she looks at you across the table. She has always known how to conceal her thoughts; how she does so more than ever—yes, even to me. I seem to see her pure image behind a white veil; and she is become so fragile, that often the tears rush to my eyes merely in looking at her. She always says what is kind and judicious, but she seems to have lost interest in most things; and though she smiles at what I say, I fancy that the effort gives her pain."
"Yes, just so," cried Anton mournfully.
"She only lives to take care of my father. No one, not even her daughter, knows what she inwardly suffers. She is like an angel, Wohlfart, who lingers on our earth reluctantly. I can be but little to her, that I feel. I am not helpful, and want all that makes my mother so lovely—- the self-control, the calm bearing, the enchanting manner. My father is sick—my brother thoughtless—my mother, spite of all her love, reserved toward me. Wohlfart, I am indeed alone."
She leaned on the side of the well and wept.
"Perhaps it will all be for your good," said Anton, soothingly, from the other side the well. "Yours is an energetic nature, and I believe you can feel very strongly."
"I can be very angry," chimed in Lenore through her tears, "and then very careless again."
"You grew up without a care in prosperous circumstances, and your life was easy as a game."
"My lessons were difficult enough, I am sure," remonstrated Lenore.
"I think that you were in danger of becoming a little wild and haughty in character."
"I am afraid I was so," cried Lenore.
"Now, you have had to bear heavy trials, and the present looks serious too; and if I may venture to say so, dear lady, I think you will find here just what the baroness has acquired in the great world—dignity and self-control. I often think that you are changed already."
"Was I, then, an unbearable little savage formerly?" asked Lenore, laughing in the midst of her tears, and looking at Anton with girlish archness.
He had hard work not to tell her how lovely she was at that moment; but he valiantly conquered the inclination, and said, as coolly as he could, "Not so bad as that, dear lady."
"And do you know what you are?" asked Lenore, playfully. "You are, as Eugene writes, a little schoolmaster."
"So that is what he has written!" cried Anton, enlightened.
Lenore grew grave at once. "Do not let us speak of him. As soon as I heard his letter, I came here to tell you that I trust you as I do no one on earth, if it be not my mother; that I shall always trust you as long as I live; that nothing could shake my faith in you; that you are the only friend that we have in our adversity; and that I could ask your pardon on my knees when any one offends you in word or even thought."
"Lenore, dear lady," cried Anton, joyously, "say no more."
"I will say," continued Lenore, "how I admire the self-possession with which you follow your own way and manage the people, and that it is you alone who keep any order on the estate, or can bring it into a better condition. This has been upon my mind to say; and now, Wohlfart, you know it."
"I thank you, lady," cried Anton; "such words make this a happy day. But I am not so self-possessed and efficient as you think, and every day I feel more and more that I am not the person to be really of service here. If I ever wish that you were not the baron's daughter, but his son, it is when I go over this property."
"Yes," said Lenore, "that is just the old regret. Our former bailiff used often to say the same. When I sit over my work, and see you and Mr. Sturm go out together, I get so hot, and I throw my useless frame aside. I can only spend, and understand nothing but buying lace; and even that I don't understand well, according to mamma. However, you must put up with the stupid Lenore as your good friend;" and she gave him her own true-hearted smile.
"It is now many years since I have, in my inmost soul, felt your friendship to be a great blessing," cried Anton, much moved. "It has always, up to this very hour, been one of my heart's best joys secretly to feel myself your faithful friend."
"And so it shall ever be between us," said Lenore. "Now I am comfortable again. And do not plague yourself any more about Eugene's foolish ways. Even I am not going to do so."
Thus they parted like innocent children who find a pleasure in saying to each other all that the passion of love would teach to conceal.
The enmity between Pix and Specht raged fiercely as ever. Now, however, Specht stood no longer alone; the quartette was on his side; for Specht was wounded in feelings that the quartette respected, and often celebrated in song. Mr. Specht was in love. Certainly this was nothing new to his excitable nature; on the contrary, his love was eternal, though its object often changed. Every lady of his acquaintance had, in her turn, been worshiped by him. Even the elderly cousin had been for a time the subject of his dreams.
On this occasion, however, Mr. Specht's love had some solid foundation. He had discovered a young woman, a well-to-do householder, the widow of a fur-merchant, with a round face and a pleasant pair of nut-brown eyes. He followed her to the theatre and in the public gardens, walked past her windows as often as he could, and did all that in him lay to win her heart.
He disturbed the quiet of her bereaved life by showers of anonymous notes, in which he threatened to quit this sublunary scene if she despised him. In the list of advertisements, among fresh caviare, shell-fish, and servants wanting places, there appeared, to the astonishment of the public, numerous poetical effusions, where Adèle, the name of the widow, was made prominent either in an acrostic, or else by its component letters being printed in large capitals. At length Specht had not been able to resist taking the quartette into his confidence on the subject. The two basses were amazed at such poetical efforts having proceeded from their office. True, they had often ridiculed them with others, while Specht inwardly groaned over counting-house criticism; but now that they knew one of themselves to have been the perpetrator, theesprit de corpsawoke, and they not only received his confessions kindly, but lent him their assistance in bribing the watchman in the widow's street, and serenading her, on which occasion a window had been seen to open, and something white to appear for a few minutes. Specht was now at the summit of earthly felicity, and as that condition is not a reticent one, he imprudently extended his confidence to others of his colleagues, and so it was that the matter came to the ears of Pix.
And now there began in the local advertiser a most extraordinary game of hide-and-seek. There were numerous insertions appointing a Mr. S. to a rendezvous with one dear to him in every possible part of the town. Wherever the place, Specht regularly repaired to it, and never found her whom he sought, but suffered from every variety of weather, was repulsed by stranger ladies, and had the end of a cigar thrown into his face by a shoemaker's apprentice, whom he mistook for his fair one in disguise. Of course he, on his side, gave vent, through the same medium, to his complaints and reproaches, which led to excuses and new appointments. But he never met the long-sought-for one.
This went on for some weeks, and Specht fell into a state of excitement which even the basses found reprehensible.
One morning Pix was standing as usual on the ground floor, when a plump, pretty lady, with nut-brown eyes, and enveloped in beautiful furs, entered the house, and in an irate tone of voice inquired for Mr. Schröter.
Pix informed her that he was not then at home, adding, with the air and tone of a field-marshal, that he was his representative.
After some reluctance to tell her tale to any other than Mr. Schröter had been overcome by the polite decision of Mr. Pix, the lady preferred her complaint against one of the clerks in that office who persecuted her with letters and poems, and unworthily made her name public in the daily papers.
The whole thing flashed upon Pix at once. "Can you give me the gentleman's name?"
"I do not know his name," said the widow; "he is tall and has curly hair."
"Gaunt in figure and a large nose, eh?" inquired Pix. "Very well, madam; from this day forth you shall have no further annoyance. I will be answerable for that."
"Still," recommenced the lady in the furs, "I should wish Mr. Schröter himself—"
"Better not, madam. The young man has behaved toward you in a manner for which I can find no adequate terms. Yet your kind heart will remember that he did not mean to offend. He wanted sense and tact, that was his offense. But he was really in earnest; and since I have had the honor to know you, I find it natural." He bowed. "I condemn him, as I said before, but I find it natural."
The pretty widow stood there embarrassed, and Pix proceeded to say that her forgiveness would be a source of happiness to the whole establishment.
"I never meant to make the establishment responsible for the ungentlemanlike behavior of one of its members."
"I thank you with my whole heart for your gracious conduct," said Pix, triumphantly, and then skillfully proceeded to lead the conversation to the goods with which they were surrounded, pointing out the peculiarities of different coffees, and stating that, although the firm had left off retail dealings, yet that in her case they would, at any time, be much flattered to receive an order, however small, and to furnish her with the articles required at wholesale prices.
The lady expressed her gratitude, and went away reconciled to the firm.
Pix went into the office, and calling Specht aside, severely remonstrated with him. Specht was at first speechless with terror. "She began in the daily papers," cried he, at length; "she first appointed the theatre, then the promenade, then the tower to see the view, then—"
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Pix, with virtuous indignation; "don't you see that some scapegrace or other has been making a fool of you? The lady has been rendered very unhappy by your conduct."
Specht wrung his hands.
"I have done all I could to set her mind at rest, and have promised that you shall never again intrude upon her in any one way; so mind what you are about, or Mr. Schröter shall hear the whole story."
While Specht, suffering inexpressibly, took counsel with his musical friends, Pix acted. A porter carried an immense packet to the widow's house that very evening, which Pix scrupulously charged to his own account. That same evening he called to announce Specht's penitence, and promises of never offending again. The following Sunday he took coffee at the lady's house, and four weeks after he made her a proposal. This was accepted, and Mr. Pix determined, in spite of moths and other hinderances, to give a fresh impulse to the fur-trade, and to become its centre.
To his honor be it said, he felt bound to communicate the fact to Specht before any one else, and to vouchsafe him a few words of consolation. "Fate has so willed it; be rational, Specht, and make up your mind. After all, it is one of your colleagues who is getting married; take my advice, and fall in love as fast as you can with some one else. It will give you no trouble at all."
"So you think," cried Specht, in despair.
"I assure you it will not, if you set about it in earnest. We will remain good friends; you shall be my groom's-man, and you will soon find another whose name will rhyme quite as well as Adèle."
This consolation, however, proved unavailing at the time, and Specht, indignant at the treachery of his opponent, enjoyed at least the mournful satisfaction of having the whole counting-house on his side, and hearing Pix universally condemned as a hard-hearted, selfish fellow. But time gradually poured its balsam into his heart; and the widow happening to have a niece whose eyes were blue and whose hair was golden, Specht began by finding her youth interesting, then her manners attractive, till one day he returned to his own room fully resolved to be the nephew-in-law of Mr. Pix.
The merchant sat one evening in his arm-chair, and seemed absorbed in his own thoughts. At last, turning to his sister, he said, "Fink has disappeared again."
Sabine let her work fall. "Disappeared! In America!"
"An agent of his father's was in our counting-house to-day. According to what he told me, there has been a fresh difference between Fink and his father, and this time I fear Fink is more in the right of it than the firm. He has suddenly given up the management of its affairs, has broken up by his strong measures a great company founded by his uncle, has renounced his claim upon his inheritance, and has disappeared. The uncertain reports that have come from New York say that he has gone to the prairies of the interior."
Sabine listened with intense interest, but she said not a word. Her brother, too, was silent a while. "After all, there were noble elements in his character," said he, at length. "The present time requires energy and strength like his. Pix, too, is leaving us. He is to marry a widow with means, and to set up for himself. I shall give his post to Balbus, but he will not replace him."
"No," said Sabine, anxiously.
"This house is growing empty," continued her brother, "and I feel that my strength is failing. These last years have been heavy ones. We get accustomed to the faces, even to the weaknesses of our fellow-men. No one thinks how bitter it often is to the head of a firm to sever the tie that binds him to his coadjutors; and I was more used to Pix than to most men: it is a great blow to me to lose him. And I am growing old. I am growing old, and our house empty. You alone are left to me at this gloomy time; and when I am called upon to leave you, you will remain behind me desolate. My wife and my child are gone; I have been setting my whole hopes upon your blooming youth; I have thought of your husband and your children, my poor darling; but meanwhile I have grown old, and I see you at my side with a cheerful smile and a wounded heart—active, sympathizing, but alone; without great joys and without happy hopes."
Sabine laid her head on her brother's shoulder, and wept silently. "One of those whom you have lost was dear to you," said she, gently.
"Do not speak or think of him," replied her brother, darkly. "Even if he returned from thence he would be lost to us." He passed his hand over her head, took up his hat, and left the room.
"Yet he himself is always thinking of Wohlfart," cried the cousin from her window-niche. "This very day he was cross-examining old Sturm about Karl and the property. I declare I don't understand the man."
"Iunderstand him," sighed Sabine, and sat down again to her work. The cousin pouted: "You and he are just alike; there is no speaking to you on certain subjects." And she left the room.
Sabine left the room. The fire crackled in the stove, the pendulum of the clock swung backward and forward monotonously. "Ever so! ever so!" it seemed to say. Those pictures of her parents had been looking calmly down upon her, their last child, for many years. Her youth was passing away silent, serious, still as those painted forms. Sabine bowed her head and listened. Hush! little fairy steps in the corner of the room. Hark again! a merry laugh from a child's lip, and the steps tripped nearer, and a curly head was laid on her knee, and two little arms stretched out lovingly to clasp her neck. She bent down and kissed the air, and listened again to those blessed sounds which swelled her heart with rapture, and brought tears of joy to her eyes. Alas! she but grasped at empty air, and nothing was real but the tears that fell into her lap.
So sat she long till twilight closed in. The vibrations of the pendulum seemed to fail, the fire grew low in the stove, the pictures dim on the walls, the room dark and lonely.
At that moment old Sturm's hammer was heard outside. Every stroke fell strong, vigorous, decided. It sounded through court-yard and house. Sabine rose: "So it shall be," cried she. "I have twice hoped and feared, twice it has been an illusion, now it is over. My life is to be devoted to him to whom I am all. I can not bring to him the husband he hoped for, and no band of children will twine their arms about his neck. Yes, things will go on with us as they have done hitherto, always more silent, always more empty. But me shall he have, and my whole life. My brother, thou shalt never again feel with regret that thy life and mine are wanting in joyousness!"
She caught up her little key-basket, and hurried into her brother's room. Meanwhile the cousin was making up her mind to pay Mr. Baumann a visit.
Between the cousin and Mr. Baumann there had long been a silent understanding, and fate now willed that he should be her neighbor at the dinner-table. When the cousin glanced back over her succession of neighbors, she came to the conclusion that they had lost in sprightliness what they had gained in moral worth. Fink was rather profane, but very amusing; Anton had a certain equipoise of goodness and pleasantness; Baumann was the best of them all, but also the most silent. Her conversation with him, though edifying enough, was never exciting. On Mondays, indeed, they had a mutual interest in discussing the Sunday's sermon, but there was another tie between them, and that was Anton.
The good lady could not account for what she called his unnatural departure. Whether the fault was that of the principal or the clerk, she could not take upon herself to decide, but she was firmly convinced that the step was unnecessary, unwise, and injurious to all parties; and she had done all toward bringing the wanderer back into the firm that tender hints and feminine persuasions can do to counteract manly perversity. When first Anton left, she had taken every opportunity of mentioning and praising him, both to the merchant and to Sabine; but she met with no encouragement. The merchant always answered dryly, sometimes rudely, and Sabine invariably turned the subject or was silent. The cousin was not, however, to be taken in by that. Those embroidered curtains had let in a flood of light upon her mind, in which Sabine stood plainly revealed to her gaze. She knew that Mr. Baumann was the only one of his colleagues with whom Anton kept up a correspondence, and to-day she resolved to call him to her aid; therefore she took up the report of a benevolent society lent her by the future missionary, and, knocking at Mr. Baumann's door, handed it in to him. "Very good," said she, on the threshold; "Heaven will bless such a cause. Pray set me down as a subscriber for the future." Mr. Baumann thanked her in the name of the poor. The cousin went on. "What do you hear of late from your friend Wohlfart? He seems to have vanished from the face of the earth; even old Sturm has nothing to say about him."
"He has a great deal to do," said the reticent Baumann.
"Nay, I should think not more than here. If occupation was all he wanted, he might have remained where he was."
"He has a difficult task to perform, and is doing a good work where he is," cautiously continued Mr. Baumann.
"Don't talk to me of your good work," cried the cousin, entering, in her excitement, and closing the door behind her. "He had a good work to do here too. I beg your pardon, but really I never knew such a thing in all my life. He runs away just when he was most wanted. And no excuse for it either. If he had married or set up for himself, that would have been a different thing, for a man likes a business and a household of his own. That would have been God's will, and I should not have said a word against it. But to run off from the counting-house after sheep and cows, and noblemen's families and Poles, when he was made so much of, and was such a favorite here! Do you know what I call that, Mr. Baumann?" said she, the bows on her cap shaking with her eagerness; "I call that ungrateful. And what are we to do here? This house is getting quite desolate. Fink gone, Jordan gone, Wohlfart gone, Pix gone—you are almost the only one remaining of the old set, and you can't do every thing."
"No," said Baumann, embarrassed; "and I, too, am very awkwardly placed. I had fixed last autumn as the term of my stay here, and now spring is coming on, and I have not followed the voice that calls me."
"Stuff and nonsense!" cried the cousin, in horror, "you are not going away too?"
"I must," said Baumann, looking down; "I have had letters from my English brethren; they blame my lukewarmness. I fear I have done very wrong in not leaving you before; but when I looked at the heaps of letters, and Mr. Schröter's anxious face, and thought what hard times these were, and that the house had lost most of its best hands, I was withheld. I too wish that Wohlfart would return; he is wanted here."
"He must return," cried the cousin; "it is his Christian duty. Write and tell him so. Certainly we are not very cheerful here," said she, confidentially; "he may have a pleasanter time of it yonder. The Poles are a merry, riotous set."
"Alas!" replied Mr. Baumann, in the same confidential tone, "he does not lead a merry life. I am afraid he has a hard time of it there; his letters are by no means cheerful."
"You don't say so!" said the cousin, taking a chair.
Baumann drew his near her and went on.
"He writes anxiously; he takes a gloomy view of the times, and fears fresh disturbances."
"God forbid!" cried the good woman; "we have had enough of them."
"He lives in an unsettled district, with bad men around, and the police regulations seem to be quite inadequate."
"There are fearful dens of robbers there," chimed in the excited cousin.
"And I fear, too, that his earnings are but small. At first I sent him a few trifles to which he is accustomed, such as tea and cigars, but in his last letter he told me he was going to be economical, and to leave them off. He must have very little money," continued Baumann, shaking his head; "not more than two hundred dollars."
"He is in want," cried the cousin; "actually he is. Poor Wohlfart! When you next write, we will send him a chest of the Pekoe tea, and a couple of our hams."
"Hams to the country! I fancy there are more swine there than any thing else."
"But they don't belong to him," cried she. "Listen to me, Mr. Baumann; it is your Christian duty to write to him at once, and tell him to return. The business wants him. I have the best reasons to know how much my cousin Schröter is silently feeling the loss of his best coadjutors, and how much he would rejoice to see Wohlfart back again."
This was a pious fraud of the good lady's.
"It does not appear so to me," interpolated Baumann.
"It was only to-day that my cousin Sabine said to her brother how dear Wohlfart had been to us all, and how great a loss he was. If he has duties yonder, he has duties here too, and these are the oldest."
"I will write to him," said Mr. Baumann; "but I fear, honored lady, that it will be to no purpose, for, now that he himself is a loser by it, he will never look back from the plow to which, for the sake of others, he has put his hand."
"He does not belong to the plow, but to the pen," cried the cousin, irritably, "and his place lies here. And because he gets a good name here, and drinks his tea comfortably, he does his duty none the less. And I tell you, too, Mr. Baumann, that I beg never to hear again of your African notions."
Baumann smiled proudly. However, as soon as the cousin had left the room, he obediently sat down and wrote off the whole conversation to Anton.
The snow had melted away from the Polish estate; the brook had swollen to a flood, the landscape still lay silent and colorless, but the sap began to circulate in the branches, and the buds on the bushes to appear. The ruinous bridge had been carried away by the winter torrents, and Anton was now superintending the building of a new one. Lenore sat opposite him, and watched his measurements. "The winter is over," cried she; "spring is coming. I can already picture to myself green grass and trees, and even the gloomy castle will look more cheerful in the bright spring sunshine than it does now. But I will sketch it for you just as it is, and it shall remind you of the first winter that we spent here under your protection."
And Anton looked with shining eyes at the beautiful girl before him, and, with the pencil in his hand, sketched her profile on a new board. "You won't succeed," said Lenore; "you always make my mouth too large and my eyes too small. Give me the pencil; I can do better. Stand still. Look! that is your face—your good, true face; I know it by heart. Hurrah! the postman!" cried she, throwing away the pencil and hurrying to the castle. Anton followed her; for the postman and his heavy bag were to the castle as a ship steering through the sandy deep, and bringing the world's good things to the dwellers on a lonely island. The man was soon relieved from his burden. Lenore gladly caught up the drawing-paper that she had ordered from Rosmin. "Come, Wohlfart, we will look out the best place for sketching the castle, and you shall hang up the picture in your room instead of the old one, which saddens me whenever I see it. Once you sketched our home, now I will sketch it for you. I will take great pains, and you shall see what I can do."
She had spoken joyously, but Anton had not heard a word she said. He had torn open Baumann's letter, and as he read it his face reddened with emotion. Slowly, thoughtfully, he turned away, went up to his room, and came down no more. Lenore snatched up the envelope, which he had dropped. "Another letter from his friend in the firm!" said she, sadly; "whenever he hears from him, he becomes gloomy and cold toward me." She threw away the envelope, and hurried to the stable to saddle her trusty friend the pony.
It was the weekly market in the little town of Rosmin. From time immemorial this had been an important festival to the country people around.
For five days of the week the peasant had to cultivate his plot, of ground, or to render feudal service to his landlord, and on Sunday his heart was divided between the worship of the Virgin, his family, and the public house; but the market-day led him beyond the narrow confines of his fields into the busy world. There, amid strangers, he could feel and show himself a shrewd man in buying and selling; he greeted acquaintances whom else he would never have met; saw new things and strange people, and heard the news of other towns and districts. So it had been even when the Slavonic race alone possessed the soil. Then the site where Rosmin now stands was an open field, with perhaps a chapel or a few old trees, and the house of some sagacious landed proprietor, who saw farther than the rest of his long-bearded countrymen. At that time the German peddler used to cross the border with his wagon and his attendants, and to display his stores under the protection of a crucifix or of a drawn Slavonic sword. These stores consisted of gay handkerchiefs, stockings, necklaces of glass and coral, pictures of saints and ecclesiastical decorations, which were given in exchange for the produce of the district—wolf-skins, honey, cattle, and corn. In course of time the handicraftsman followed the peddler, the German shoemaker, the tinsmith, and the saddler established themselves; the tents changed into strongly-built houses that stood around the market-place. The foreign settlers bought land, bought privileges from the original lords of the soil, and copied in their statutes those of German towns in general. In the woods and on the commons round, it was told with wonder how rapidly those men of a foreign tongue had grown up into a large community, and how every peasant who passed through their gate must pay toll; nay, that even the nobleman, all-powerful as he was, must pay it as well. Several of the Poles around joined lots with the citizens, and settled among them as mechanics or shopkeepers. This had been the origin of Rosmin, as of many other German towns on foreign soil, and these have remained what at first they were, the markets of the great plains, where Polish produce is still exchanged for the inventions of German industry, and the poor field-laborer brought into contact with other men, with culture, liberty, and a civilized state.
As we have before said, the market-day at Rosmin is a great day still. From early dawn hundreds of basket-carriages, filled with field-produce, move on toward the town, but the serf no longer whips on the used-up chargers of his master, but his own sturdy horse of German breed. And when the light carriage of a nobleman rolls by, the peasant urges his horse to a sharper trot, and only slightly touches his hat. Every where they are moving on toward the town: the children are driving their geese thither, and the women carrying their butter, fruit, and mushrooms, and, carefully concealed, a hare or two that has fallen a victim to their husbands' guns. Numbers of carts stand at the door of every inn, and crowds are pushing in and out of every drinking-shop. In the market-place the corn-wagons are closely ranged, and the whole wide space covered with well-filled sacks, and horses of every size and color; and a few brokers are winding their way, like so many eels, among the crowd, with samples of grain in each pocket, asking and answering in two languages at once. Amid the white smock frocks of the Poles, and their hats adorned with a peacock's feather, the dark blue of the German colonists appears, together with soldiers from the next garrison, townspeople, agriculturists, and fine youths, sons of the nobility. You may see the gendarme yonder at the corner of the square, towering high on his tall horse; he, too, is excited to-day, and his voice sounds authoritatively above all the confusion of the carts that have stopped up the way. Every where the shops are opened wide, and small dealers spread out their wares on tables and barrels in front of the houses; there the bargains are deliberately made, and the enjoyment of shopping is keenly felt. The last purchase over, the next move is into the tavern. There, cheeks get redder, gestures more animated, voices louder, friends embrace, or old foes try hard to pick a quarrel. Meanwhile men of business have to make the most of this day, when actions are brought and taxes paid. Now it is that Mr. Löwenberg drives his best bargains, not only in swine, but in cows and wool; besides which, he lends money, and is the trusted agent of many a landed proprietor. So passes the market-day, in ceaseless talking and enjoyment, earning and spending, rolling of carts and galloping of horses, till evening closes in, and the housewife pulls her husband by the coat, remembering that the earthen mugs he carries are easily broken, and that the little children at home are beginning to cry out for their mother. Such has ever been the weekly market in the town of Rosmin.