Oswald and Bruno had stepped forth from the trees which surrounded the lawn, just opposite to the château. His right arm was resting on the boy's shoulder, who again had put his arm round Oswald's waist, and looked smilingly up into the face of the young man. They were eagerly talking to each other, and stopped when they had advanced a few steps on the lawn. Oswald pointed in the direction from which they had come, and Bruno ran back into the wood. The young man stood waiting for his return, and whisked off, to pass his time, the heads of some grasses which had shot up too high. He had no suspicion that, at a little distance from him, a pair of beautiful sharp eyes were carefully examining every feature in his face and watching every motion.
"If that is the new tutor, he is one more proof of the old saying, that there is no rule without exception. He certainly does not look as if he belonged to the family of the Bemperleins. That elegant summer costume you must have bought in the city. Very neat, indeed, for a tutor. You seem to be rather vain, my dear sir, and to hold long interviews with your tailor. But you are well made, I must confess, and the little moustache is extremely becoming to you. I wish you would please raise your head a little more, so that I could see your eyes. That is right--ah!sauve qui peut!"
Oswald had raised his head and looked at the windows; Melitta stepped quickly back and hid behind the door. She cast a glance at the mirror that was hanging close by, and smoothed her hair in an instant. Then she approached the door once more stealthily.
Bruno came rushing forth from the shrubbery and showed Oswald a small volume. "Here it is," he cried, "but you shall not have it." Oswald tried to catch the provoking boy; but the latter only allowed him to approach quite close in order to escape again by a sudden turn, or by a leap such as Uncas himself would have boasted of frankly.
Melitta, attracted by the pretty scene, had stepped out of the room. As soon as Bruno perceived her he ran up to her, and Oswald, who had stopped in surprise at the unexpected sight, saw how the boy seized her hands and pressed them eagerly to his lips.
"There you are, little savage," said the lady, stroking the dark curls of the boy; "where have you been all the afternoon?"
"I have been out walking--with Oswald--I mean with Dr. Stein," said Bruno, and then turning to Oswald, who had come up in the mean while and bowed, "this is Frau von Berkow, of whom I spoke this morning; this is Mr. Stein, dear aunt, whom I love dearly, and whom you must like for my sake."
"We must not praise our own wares too much," said Oswald, bowing once more to the fair visitor, "or the purchaser will become suspicious."
"Not when the merchant enjoys such confidence as this wild little fellow," replied Melitta, blushing lightly. "How long have you been here at Grenwitz, doctor?"
"About a fortnight."
"I think the baroness told me you came from the capital?" asked Melitta, who was curious to know if her suspicions about Stein's costume were well founded.
"Not directly; I have been living in Grunwald lately."
"In Grunwald! I am glad to hear that. You will be able to give me the information I want. The thing is this--but I fear I am troubling you with indiscreet questions."
"Not at all! I should be very happy, indeed, if I could be of the slightest service to you."
"You are very kind. The thing is this: I want to send my son, who is about Bruno's age----"
"Oh, aunt, he is three years younger than I am," cried Bruno, balancing himself on a swing at some little distance.
"What keen ears the child has!" said Melitta, lowering her voice. "Well, I want to send my son Julius to Grunwald to college. Or rather, I have to do it, because his tutor, a Mr. Bemperlein, who has been six years at my house, has obtained a place as minister, and is going to leave us in a few days. Now I do not know--but here comes the baroness, and I must postpone for some other time my thousand and one questions about all kinds of things, of which I know as little as my good Bemperlein. I never knew how things look in a great city, and he has long since forgotten what he may have known. Here we shall never find an opportunity. What do you say, doctor--could you do me the honor to pay me a visit some one of these days? Perhaps to-morrow afternoon?"
Oswald--bowed assent.
"I have asked the doctor to pay me a visit to-morrow," said Melitta, turning to the baroness, who had just come back into the room with Mademoiselle Marguerite. "It is about that affair in Grunwald. You have no special engagement, I hope, for to-morrow afternoon, for I should not like to make Doctor Stein lose too much."
"We, an engagement!" said the baroness. "Don't you know our quiet life, my dear Melitta? On the contrary, I think a little diversion of that kind will be very welcome to the doctor, who must have begun to be tired of the uniformity of our life here. I had thought myself of proposing a visit to you, Doctor Stein,--to our minister, who is, I fear, a little hurt that you have not yet been presented to him."
"Well, we can do both things very easily," said Melitta; "to-morrow is Sunday; the Reverend Mr. Jager will be delighted if you increase the small number of his hearers by your presence. If you go through the forest you will find Berkow only half an hour's walk from Faschwitz. I would ask you at once to dine with me, but I know the minister's wife will not let you off so cheap. Well, what do you say, doctor?"
"I can only express my thanks to the ladies, that they are kind enough to dispose of my time so much better than I could possibly have done myself," replied Stein, with a polite bow.
"That means, the wise man yields to inevitable fate," said Melitta, laughing. "And here comes the baron with Malte, and we can go in to dinner, a step which I am perfectly ready to take."
The dinner was set on the terrace, which had been added to the château on the side towards the garden, and which ran the whole length of the building. A tent protected the guests against the sun. The evening was beautiful. The sun was near setting. Rosy lights were playing in the tops of the lofty beech-trees which surrounded the well-shaded lawn. Swallows flew about, dashing to and fro through the clear atmosphere. A peacock came, attracted by the well-known clattering of plates, and took his place at the foot of the terrace, where he picked up the bread-crumbs which the baron threw him over the stone balustrade.
The conversation was much more lively than usual. The baroness could make a very agreeable hostess when she chose, and was by no means so entirely free from vanity that she should have remained inactive when she feared to be neglected for the sake of Melitta. Melitta herself was in her most amiable humor; she jested and laughed, she teased and was teased, unconcerned and innocent, like a mere child. Oswald did not dream, while abandoning himself willingly to the charm of Melitta's attractions, that his presence contributed largely to the greater cheerfulness. And yet this was exactly the case. There are few women who are perfectly indifferent to the impression which they produce on the company in which they are, and Melitta was certainly not one of those few. Her disposition was rather to be easily excited, and to be bribed by pleasing forms and clever words, in a manner which is utterly unintelligible to colder natures. Oswald was perhaps not exactly what the world calls a handsome man; but yet nature had not neglected him, and the good society in which he had always moved had added to the innate gracefulness of his manners. All this surprised Melitta the more agreeably, as she had not expected it in a man of such humble pretensions. Oswald appeared to her every moment of greater importance; she began to fear that her brusque invitation had been out of place, and yet she was charmed with the idea of seeing the young man at her own house. She felt flattered when she met more than once, Oswald's admiring glance across the table; and yet she always cast down her long silky eyelashes, searching and eloquent as her eyes generally were.
After dinner the baroness proposed a game of graces, as Melitta declared that she could remain a little longer. Bruno ran off to bring the hoops, which were neither out of place nor out of repair,--a fact which spoke volumes for the scrupulous order that reigned at the château. Soon the company was standing about on the lawn in a wide circle, and the graces flew around merrily through the soft, warm evening air. All, even the baron, showed more or less skill in the game, except Malte, who could never catch the hoop when it did not fall straight upon his stick. Melitta, on the other hand, never failed to avail herself of his missing, for the purpose of sending her hoop, with lightning speed, out of the regular order, at the head of some one of the other players, and Oswald noticed that he was more frequently distinguished in this way than any of the others.
In the mean time it had become nearly dark; the old baron had noticed a few dew-drops on the grass, and the evening dew was, in his opinion, sheer poison for Malte, who had suffered for some time of diphtheria when a child. He proposed, therefore, that they should all go in. Melitta found that it was high time for her to return, and begged that her groom might be ordered to saddle the horses. Bruno had hurried away with the order; the baroness and mademoiselle had gone into the sitting-room; the baron was busy wrapping a thick shawl around Malte's throat to prevent his taking cold, and thus Oswald and Melitta found themselves alone for the first time since their short conversation before. Melitta had broken a rose from a bush which grew at the feet of the stone Flora, and stood looking thoughtfully at the brilliant flower.
"I must beg your pardon," she said suddenly, in a low, quick voice, but without raising her eyes, "that I committed the blunder of asking yousans façonto pay me a visit which may give you some trouble."
"Not at all; I repeat quite sincerely now, what I before said from common politeness, that I shall be very happy indeed to be of some service to you."
"Then you will come to-morrow?"
"At your service."
"No, as I wish it!--Just see how marvellously beautiful this rose is! Are you as fond of roses as I am?"
"I love everything beautiful," said Stein, looking not at the rose but at Melitta.
She raised her long eyelashes and looked deep and full into the young man's brilliant eyes.
"There!" she said suddenly, holding the rose towards him as if to let him smell it; but he only felt how the slim fingers of the lady touched his lips like a mere breath.
"Here are the horses, aunt!" cried Bruno.
"I am coming!" replied Melitta, and left Stein.
The rose was lying at his feet; he quickly stooped, picked it up, and hid it in his bosom.
Mademoiselle Marguerite brought Melitta her gloves, her hat, and her whip.
"Is the baroness in the parlor?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll go and say good-by to her."
The old baron, Oswald, and the boys went through the gate in the iron railing of the park into the courtyard, where a groom was walking two horses up and down. Oswald admired the beauty of the animals, especially that with the lady's saddle, a thoroughbred, and Melitta's pet--Bella.
Melitta stepped quickly out of the portal, followed by the baroness and mademoiselle. The old baron helped her in the saddle.
"Good-by! good-by!" she called out. "Allez, Bella!" and thus she galloped away out of the courtyard into the dim evening air.
The others had gone back into the house. Oswald alone remained, his eyes fixed upon the gate through which Melitta had disappeared, and sunk in deep thought.
"Had we not better go in, Oswald?" said Bruno, seizing his hand. "It is quite dark now."
"It is quite dark now," repeated the young man, and followed the boy dreamily.
The baron had offered Oswald a carriage to drive to church, but the young man declined, remembering still the evil thoughts to which he had been tempted by the slowness of the bays on the night of his arrival. Bruno and Malte were looking for a visit from the sons of a neighbor. Bruno would have liked best to accompany Oswald, but as the latter begged him to stay at home, he said:
"You are very glad to get rid of me for a few hours, I know, but I know also what I shall do. I shall go into the woods, and not return home till evening."
"You will not do that, I hope, Bruno?"
"And why not?" asked the boy, angrily.
"Because you love me."
"Well, then, I'll stay here for your sake; nor will I beat stupid Hans von Plügger, and altogether behave so remarkably well that even aunty will have to be satisfied."
"Do that, my dear boy. Good-by!"
"Good-by, dearest, best of all friends!" cried the boy, and threw himself passionately on the bosom of his only friend. Then he tore himself away and ran off into the garden, there to be alone with his wild, unbridled heart.
Oswald took the path which he knew would lead him to the village where the minister lived. The sun was shining brightly in the blue sky, on which large white flakes of clouds were standing quietly about. The air was not oppressive, for the vicinity of the sea tempered the summer heat. Larks were singing their jubilates on high. Near the edge of the great forest, which sent an outrunner, as it were, far into the cultivated fields, an immense bird of prey was drawing its wide circles. No laborers were to be seen in the fields, and the ploughs and harrows were lying idle about. In an enclosure near the road, fat cows and calves were ruminating in peace and comfort; a couple of merry colts came up to the fence and looked with curiosity at the wanderer.
Oswald had gone beyond the farm-yard. He came to the place in the road where the scene between Bruno and the servant had taken place. Involuntarily, almost, he stopped; the whole scene came back to his mind; he saw the fair boy, angry and threatening, like a youthful god, and the mean, frightened hind. He almost regretted having persuaded his favorite to stay at home. He was so happy, so cheerful on this beautiful morning, and it had become quite a habit with him to share all his joys with the boy. "You wild, good, noble fellow," he said to himself, "what are you doing in this world of womanish men? Are they not afraid of you already now, when you are a mere boy; what will they do when you grow up to be a man? All the world cries aloud, 'We want men!' How can you ever expect to have men, when home and school and life all unite to break the proud strength of youthful hearts in the germ already? They take the bow and whittle away at it more and more, and then they wonder if the delicate thing breaks suddenly in their hands. Pygmies, who try to bind and fetter with a thousand slender threads the giant whom a lucky accident has brought to their desert island!"
Oswald was very near working himself into a most melancholy state of mind; but the bright, clear morning did not let him indulge long in dark night-thoughts. An image, the image of a beautiful woman, which had remained last night, before sleep closed his eyes, clearly before his soul, which had passed like a pleasant shadow through all his dreams, and which this morning had hovered around him like the echo of some charming melody, now came vividly before his mind's eye. He tried in vain to banish it. Who has not experienced the persistency with which the forms of persons who are often perfectly indifferent to us will present themselves before us, with every detail, against our earnest desire, whilst we cannot, by any effort of our own, conjure up the picture of those who are dearest to our heart? Is it because we are so rarely able to look upon these calmly and deliberately; or is it because where heart speaks to heart, and soul mingles with soul, the outward form is consumed as by a flash of lightning? Is it because the mind, capable of seizing what is imperishable, eternal, has no need of the mere perishable body? While Oswald was thinking only of Melitta, and wished to think of nothing else, he saw continually before him the baroness, Mademoiselle Marguerite, and a number of ladies of his acquaintance; but the Amazon in the green riding-habit was forever dissolving into capricious vapors. "Well, then, fare thee well, fair vision!" cried the young man, and endeavored to lead his thoughts into a new channel.
The ground on which he had been walking had so far been undulating; now it became level, like the surface of the sea during a calm. A vast heath lay before him; beyond it the village with the church, which was the goal of his pilgrimage. Other farms appeared here and there against the horizon. The willows, which so far had followed the road on both sides, became scarcer, and at last disappeared entirely. Here and there the turf had been taken off and the peat lay bare, or was piled up high in long black rows, for the purpose of drying. In the ditches glimmered the black waters. Pee-wees and other marsh-birds were flying to and fro. In the whole wide expanse Oswald did not see a human being, except a woman who was sitting a few hundred yards before him, upon a boundary-stone. As he came nearer he saw that it was an old woman, dressed very poorly, but scrupulously neat. She must have fallen asleep on the stone from the fatigue of her journey, for she quickly threw up her head when Oswald approached, and looked with astonishment at the young man.
"Good-morning, mother," said the latter, stopping; "is the village there before us Fashwitz?"
"Yes," said the woman, with a vivacity rare at her time of life; "are you going to church there?"
"Yes, mother. When does service begin?"
The old woman glanced up at the sun, and said:
"I have slept too long; it is too late now for me; my old legs won't carry me fast enough; but you are a young man. You will be in time yet I beg your pardon, sir, but what is your name?"
"Stein--Oswald Stein."
"Stein? I must have heard that name somewhere."
"Maybe. It is not a rare name."
"Stein--hm, hm; I beg your pardon, sir, where do you come from?"
Oswald, who was rather amused at being questioned in this naïve way, and who liked the manner of the old woman, sat down opposite to the old lady on the trunk of a fallen willow-tree. He knew there was time enough for him; and while she, with her wrinkled hands resting on her knees, fixed her deep-sunk but expressive eyes firmly upon his face, he said to her:
"From Grenwitz, mother."
"From Grenwitz? Is it possible? That is where I came from. I beg your pardon, sir, are you on a visit there?"
"Not exactly. I teach the boys."
"Is that possible?"
"Why not?"
"Well, the candidates for the ministry generally look very differently."
Oswald laughed.
"And you are walking the long way quite alone, mother?"
"I have not a soul who could walk with me; my husband died ever so long ago, and my boys died and my girls died--they all died."
The old woman smoothed the folds of her dress on her knee as if she meant to say: All buried, and the earth smoothed down over them, and there is an end of them all.
Oswald felt deep pity for the lonely, helpless old age of the woman. He said, merely in order to say something which he thought might be of some little comfort to the poor old soul:
"Well, you will see all your dear ones again in the other world."
"In the other world?" said the old woman, glancing up at the blue sky. "I believe in no other world."
"What! You do not believe in it?" asked Oswald, astonished.
The old woman shook her head.
"You are quite young yet, Mr.--how was your name? Stein--yes--you are quite young yet, Mr. Stein; but when you have seen as many people die as I have, you too will no longer believe in it. When a man dies, he is dead--really dead. And then, at the resurrection, as they call it, what would become of all the people? In our village there is not a soul left of all who lived when I was young. And the others, who were born after me, they have grown old and they are dead too. And thus new ones are coming all the time, and more new ones. No; the whole earth would not have room enough for all these people."
"But perhaps in other stars?" suggested Oswald.
"How could they get there? No; no one gets away from the earth, but they all get under the earth--all--all;" and the old woman again smoothed the folds of her dress on her knees.
"The body, yes; but not the soul."
"Well, I don't know," said the matron, shaking her head; "but I know this much, that when any one dies he is really dead, and we say, Now the poor soul is at rest. And what better can we wish one another than rest, whether we are noblemen or peasants, young folks or old?"
"But why do you walk all the way to church if you do not believe in anything?" asked Oswald.
"Who says that?" said the matron, almost indignant; "I believe in God, like every good Christian; and everybody ought to be upright and pious; that has nothing to do with the resurrection; and we must do our duty, that no one need be told. And now, young master, make haste and get away, or you'll be too late. I'll turn back again. Goodby!" And so she got up, seized an oak stick which had been leaning by her side against the stone, offered Oswald her withered, trembling hand, which the latter pressed, not without a feeling of reverence, and set out to walk back slowly the way she had come.
"That is a remarkable woman," said the young man to himself, walking on rapidly. "I must inquire about her. Who would have imagined that the doctrines of modern philosophers--doctrines which, to be sure, are only ancient coins with a new image and superscription--are current even among these classes of the people? Well, well, when even the poor in spirit and the simple in heart begin to remember that they have eyes to see and ears to hear, the last day of lying prophets must be near at hand."
The village of Fashwitz is an experiment made at the expense of the government. Originally the estate had been, like the whole larger part of the island, the property of a noble family, and had lapsed back into the possession of the crown when that family had become extinct. The government, desirous to obtain a nucleus of small landowners or independent farmers, which are here almost entirely wanting, had established here and on other estates genuine farmers' colonies, by laying them out in small parcels and selling these to all who chose to buy for merely nominal prices. The community at Fashwitz had a church built for them, and a minister was sent there; it was surely not the fault of the government if the good people of Fashwitz did not prosper.
It seemed, however, highly desirable that they should avail themselves of their other privileges and prerogatives a little more zealously than they seemed to do of the opportunity to obtain spiritual food on Sundays. For when Oswald obtained admittance to the church through a side-door--the great door was locked--he found that the devout listeners consisted of a few Sunday-school children, who were thereex officio, a handful of old women, faithful to the old traditions of their youth, and the families of some landowners in the neighborhood who tried to set their tenants and dependents a good example. The interior of the church formed a large, well-lighted hall, with a flat ceiling, in which pulpit, altar, and benches were discreetly arranged--everything bran new, perfectly practical, and very unattractive. There were no small stained window-panes, no pictures on the walls or over the altar, no angels of wood or bronze blowing their trumpets with swelling cheeks, no votive tablets, no faded wreaths, in fine, none of those means by which the Catholic, to whom the church is but the antechamber to heaven, gives expression to his longings for a higher life. The only poetical feature in the church were the shadows cast by the linden-trees before the windows, which waved to and fro on the bright wall opposite, and the broad bands of light which fell diagonally across the building, and formed so many golden bridges on which the thoughts could escape from the unattractive interior to the summer morning, which, outside, lay warm and fragrant on meadows, fields, and forests. No one in the audience, however, seemed to stand in need of such a road, or to find it at all practicable, except, perhaps, a pretty little girl about ten years old, with long golden curls, who seemed to have a strong longing after the bright flowers and white butterflies in the garden of her father, a stout old gentleman nodding devoutly by her side, and who, on that account, was frequently admonished by her governess to sit still and behave herself properly. The majority of the people looked as if they had left their minds carefully at home, and a few bore the infliction with the resignation of well-bred men.
And, indeed, it would have been strange if the congregation could have been edified by such a sermon and such a minister. Oswald, who had found a seat opposite the pulpit, and behind the pew of the great nobleman, discovered at the first glance at the preacher, and after a few words of his sermon, that there was about as much sympathy between the minister and the congregation as between a learned missionary and a tribe of good-natured savages. The minister, a small, lean man of about forty, with his dried-up, withered face, seemed to feel this himself very clearly, for he had scarcely seen Oswald when he began to address himself to him almost exclusively, as the only one capable of appreciating the precious pearls which an unwise government forced him to cast here before the swine.
"Oh, my devout brethren," he exclaimed, fixing his eyes through his spectacles upon Oswald, who tried to hide as well as he could behind the golden curls of the little girl, "Oh, my devout hearers, you see how weak our reason is in face of these momentous questions. And yet, and yet, oh, much beloved, there are misguided brethren and sisters who still rely on the dim rushlight of reason long after the sun has risen for them also. Alas! this little stump of a farthing candle seems to them bright enough in the days of feasting, frolicking, and jubileeing, but not so in the days of old age with its solemn thoughts and grave anxieties. Therefore, abandon your faith in reason, and hold fast on faith! Abandon your idle trust in sound common-sense, as you call it! Oh, my devout hearers, this sound common-sense is a sick, very sick sense, is a device of the devil's, and a will-o'-the-wisp which leads you inevitably into the pool of perdition."
Oswald was strangely, but by no means pleasantly affected by this sermon, which continued for half an hour more, richly larded with quotations from Holy Writ. He was deeply impressed with the contrast between the simple, childlike submission of the old woman to the great, eternal laws of nature, and her modest but solemn way of stating them, and the arrogant self-assurance with which the man in the pulpit decided on the most solemn questions, and condemned every sound sentiment and natural impulse of our heart as empty show and deceitful delusion. The unadorned wisdom of the matron was fresh and fragrant, like a flower on the heath; the boastful knowledge of the preacher, like a plant grown in the hot, oppressive air of a greenhouse, luxuriant in leaves and stalk, but without sap and strength and flowers. Oswald was glad when the learned preacher came at last to say amen! after having once more denounced the morality and anathematized the souls of all who thought differently from himself.
"That is most assuredly not so," he said to himself, as he tried on tiptoe to reach the little side-door by which he had come in. And when, outside, the blue sky once more rose high above him, and the fragrance of the linden greeted him, he breathed deeply, like one who comes from the hot, stifling atmosphere of a sick-room into the balsamic air of a garden.
"I shall not make this man's acquaintance if I can help it," he continued his monologue, making his way down the little hill on which the church stood, and past several grand carriages, which had in the mean while overtaken him, till he reached the village. "What have I in common with him? His thoughts are not my thoughts, and his language is not my language. We would never understand each other. I do not believe in that vague humanity, which is on good terms with everybody and rejects no one; nor do I believe in that philosophy of the beetles, which hum around all flowers in the hope of finding somewhere the hidden treasure of sweet honey. The wise merchant sails past the coast which is too poor for barter, and the great words, 'Who is not with me is against me,' fell from the same holy lips which taught that love is the first duty of man."
Oswald had, as was his wont, given way to his thoughts with such utter forgetfulness of everything around him, that he wandered for some time about in the unknown village, where houses and barns and stables, walls and gardens, lay in inextricable confusion by each other, and presented to the stranger a perfect labyrinth. He was just leaving a narrow alley by the side of a large house, in order to get into a wider street, when the minister met him, coming from church. He could not possibly avoid the meeting, and his attempt to pass by with a polite bow was a total failure, for the minister had no sooner seen him than he stepped literally in his way and addressed him at once with these words:
"Ah! I surely have the pleasure and the honor to see before me Doctor Stein? How kind in you to come and see me! To tell the truth, I have expected you for several days. When I was last at Grenwitz, to pay my respects to the baroness, I learned, to my regret, that you were out on a walk with your two pupils; otherwise I should not have denied myself the pleasure of calling on you at your room. My wife will be delighted to welcome you at our humble home. Pray, this way! Pray come without ceremony!"
"No escaping this," thought Oswald, and for the sake of politeness, that ape of humanity, he allowed himself to be forced to accept a hospitality which he had determined, only a minute ago, to decline under all circumstances!
"Gustava! Gusty! Gusty!" called the minister, as he entered. The desired lady was, however, not willing to give up the vantage-ground of her position behind the curtained window in the kitchen-door, from which she reconnoitred in security the appearance of the stranger and the purpose of his visit. The minister, therefore, showed the way into his study, where he begged Oswald to allow him to take off his gown, and then to inform his Gustava of the honor that his house was receiving.
The reverend gentleman's study was a large room with two windows; a few book-shelves, some pictures of saints on the wall, a hard sofa covered with black horse-hair, a round centre-table littered with books, and a desk with a chair, which turned on a screw, near the window, formed the simple furniture; the atmosphere was heavy with tobacco-smoke. Oswald was so oppressed by this perfume that he had to open a window, and in doing this he felt a strong temptation to jump from the low casement upon the street and to make his escape.
The attempt to seek safety in flight was, however, defeated by the return of his host. The reverend gentleman appeared now in a summer costume of black shining material. He begged Oswald to remain a few minutes in his "cell," since "Gustava was ruling still in the kitchen."
Oswald, who had abandoned all hope of escape, had not even the heart to decline an invitation to dinner.
"You will find, it is true, nothing but thepaternum mensa tenui salinum, the ancestral furniture on the simple table," said the minister, desirous to show his guest that he had not forgotten his Latin; "but you know:vivitur parvo bene: we can live well upon a little. May I offer you a cigar till dinner is ready?"
Oswald declined, as he did not smoke.
"Oh! an excellent habit! a classic habit!" said the minister, laughing at his own wit; "the ancients did not smoke, and Goethe, whom a frivolous but witty author calls 'the great pagan,' was a bitter enemy to pipes and cigars. You permit me to remain faithful to my habit of smoking a light cigar after my sermon?"
"I pray you will do so."
"Don't you find"--puff! puff!--"that smoking"--puff! puff!--"is a thoroughly Germanic, I might almost say, a thoroughly Christo-Germanic element?" said the minister, who was determined to show his cleverness.
"You would certainly furnish a new weapon to the scoffers at our religion, if you really thought so," said Oswald, dryly.
"How so, my dear sir?"
"Said scoffers might reply that to show them only smoke, and no fire, was essentially a Germanic, a Christo-Germanic characteristic."
The minister cast at Oswald a quick, watchful glance over his glasses, as if he would have liked to see how far he might safely trust his guest. But as he considered it unsuitable for a man of classic tastes not to enter at once into a joke, even when it bordered very closely upon a frivolity, he replied with a bitter-sweet smile: "Not so bad! not so bad! But who is safe against scoffers? To be sure we might reply:Ex fumo lucem! ex fumo lucem!light out of smoke! But let us sit down, dear friend, let us sit down! How is our dear good baron, and how is the excellent baroness? Ah! you are a happy man, my dear sir, to live in such a house, with such admirable people, who unite to native nobility the nobility of the soul--especially the baroness, a pious and high-bred lady who wants to know everythingex fundamento. She is now reading Schleiermacher's discourses on religion." ...
"Do you think she really understands them?" observed Oswald.
The minister looked again at Oswald with that peculiar glance over his glasses, as if he must take a close look at the man who had the courage so openly to utter a view which he entertained himself, but only in greatest secrecy. He contented himself, however, with a gesture, he drew down the corners of his mouth, he shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows--a gesture which might mean either "All vanity, dear friend!" or "The capacities of that good lady are beyond all measure!"
"You will, of course, miss Grunwald; especially your intimacy with a man of such vast erudition as Professor Berger. But I am in the same sad condition. I also can say:Barbarus hic ego sum, quia nulli intelligor.I pass here for an original, because no one understands me. Our great landowners are certainly excellent, worthy men, who fear God and serve the king; but, between us be it said, culture they have not; I mean, of course, scientific culture. Ah, if these gentlemen could have enjoyed in their youth the advantages of a genuine rational education, like young Malte ..."
"You are too kind, sir, although only the smallest part of that compliment would belong to me. I only wished theratiowould show itself for once in Master Malte, for until now he appears to me a most irrational small quantity."
"Is it possible you are disappointed in the young baron?" said the minister, in a tone as if he heard something entirely incredible and unexpected. "Ah! I understand, I understand. Certainly nature has endowed Bruno in many respects far more richly, although he is not very accessible to the great truths of our religion, as I have noticed when I was honored with the duty to prepare the two young gentlemen for their confirmation. Butnon omnia possumus omnes--omnes," repeated the minister, not knowing exactly how to continue. "Yes, as I said, but then Malte is heir to a magnificent estate."
"All the more desirable, it seems to me, that he should be a man in the full sense of the word. But is the Grenwitz estate really so magnificent?"
"Why, my dear friend," exclaimed the minister, in a tone of gentle reproach that Oswald should display such deplorable ignorance in such all-important matters, "is it magnificent? There are in this neighborhood alone five, no--with Stantow and Baerwalde, which to be sure are not entailed, there are seven large estates belonging to it. And in other parts of the island--let me see--there are one, two, three more. That is a capital of at least a million and a half. A million and a half!" he repeated, as if his mind could not part easily with such a lofty conception.
"And the estate is entailed?"
"Why, certainly. With the exception, of course, of two of the finest estates, which the last baron, the cousin of the present baron, inherited from his mother, and which he tied up in a very peculiar manner. Just imagine, my dear friend: the late baron, who, between us be it said, was a prodigiously wild and dissipated man, left these two estates to the son of one of his mistresses?"
"But did you not just now count the two estates as part of the family fortune?"
"Well, between us we can do so, I think," said the minister, in a low voice, coming up closely to Oswald. "Nobody knows, you see, where the boy is, nay, whether he is at all alive, nay, they do not even know if it is a boy or a girl."
"Why, that is a curious story," said Oswald, laughing.
"A very curious story," said the reverend gentleman, "a ridiculous story, you might say. Just think: Baron Harald,--they have all of them odd names in the family--that wild fellow, who ought to have lived somewhere in the middle ages, fell in love with a poor girl, the daughter of a mechanic, a case which no doubt was of frequent occurrence in his life, but never had such disastrous consequences. He carried her off, almost by force, and brought her here to his château. Half a year later she escapes in the middle of the night. No one knows to this day whether she ran away to live in obscurity, or to hide her shame in one of our dark moors. The baron was furious, beside himself. He searched through the whole island. Then, in order to drown his grief and his remorse, he drank and gambled and led a life even worse than before, so that he died in delirium a few weeks later. When they open his testament, they find that he has left the income derived from those two superb estates to the mother, and the estates themselves to the child of his lady-love, whether it be a girl or a boy, provided only it be born within a given period. He had evidently had a fit of penitence before dying, or, it may be, it was a mere caprice. What do you say to that?"
"The story certainly is rather tragic than comic," said Oswald; "and have they never found any trace of the mother or her child?"
"Never! and yet they publish every year--it is a terrible disgrace, and I pity the poor baroness with all my heart--an advertisement in all the papers of the province, inviting the lost one to come forward and claim her rights."
"How long has that being going on?"
"Some twenty years or more."
"Then it is hardly probable that the poor woman is still alive?"
"Certainly not; and nobody thinks of it," laughed the minister. "They would make a pretty face at Grenwitz, if all of a sudden a young vagabond should present himself there, claiming to be the most obedient nephew of the baron, and demand the two farms, with the interest for twenty years! It would not suit the baroness, I can tell you; for she has not a farthing of her own, and, as the whole estate is entailed, she and her daughter would, after the baron's death, be as poor as she was before she married."
"You seem to be a great advocate of entails?"
"Certainly, I am. I consider it fortunate that such large estates cannot be parcelled away by subdivision, and that thus an aristocracy of wealthy landowners is formed, which serves as a kind of ballast for the ship of state in times of peril--which God, I pray, may long avert from our beloved land."
"Well," said Oswald, "there are two sides to that question, as to most questions."
"Of course, I know," said the obliging minister. "But I, for my part, I have too long enjoyed the honor and the happiness of being intimate with wealthy families, noble in the true sense of the word, not to be a warm adherent of the aristocracy of the land. Besides which, I have had too many sad experiences of the fatal effect which large property often has upon the minds of plebeians, to use the historic expression; I mean the vanity, pride, and worldliness which it begets."
"I am sorry to hear such things of my friends."
"Of your friends?" asked the minister in astonishment.
"Yes, of my friends. For, without any purpose of mine, and often without, exactly knowing why, I have always found myself on the plebeian side, whenever in history the conflict between patricians and plebeians has become marked. I was a sworn adherent of the Gracchi and other Roman demagogues; I fought with the Independents against the Cavaliers, and I confess that even in the terrible peasants' wars I felt more sympathy for the poor oppressed serfs, whom brutal treatment had brutalized, than for the high-mighty, all-powerful barons and counts, who were not a whit less brutal for all their splendor and power."
The minister listened to these words with a smile of incredulity, as if he were listening to the rhodomontades of goslings who assume the air of accomplished roués.
"Very good! very good!" he said "You clever people are fond of paradoxes. You bring that home with you from the æsthetic teas in the great city, and you wish not to get out of practice, although nobody may listen to you but a poor country parson."
"I assure you, sir----"
"Never mind, never mind. But when you have lived five years among the rustics-- Do you believe it, I have never been able to induce these people even to buy a bell for the church, although they are bound by law to provide for the house of God? But when they are called upon to provide for a merry-making, or to carry out some worldly purpose, they have always an abundance of money."
"Well," said Oswald, "the nobles of this neighborhood are not exactly famous for their repugnance to merry-making, as you call it."
"The nobles? My dear sir, that is a very different thing. Their device is and must be: Live and let live! But, you know, the same thing does not suit all."
"And many things are not suitable for anybody," added Oswald.
"Ah, here comes my Gustava," cried the minister, glad to be able to break off a conversation which he liked less and less every moment.
The minister's wife, who just then came into the room, was a lady of about forty, with sandy hair, very light blue eyes, and a face which, at that moment, was rather red from the kitchen-fire and the hurry in which she had dressed; ordinarily she looked pale, faded, and old-maidish. She wore a dress of yellow raw silk, with a gold watch in the belt, and a cap with yellow ribbons, so that on the whole she made upon Oswald the impression of an elderly, unhealthy canary-bird, hung up in a room which looks towards the north. She, too, could hardly find words--and yet they came in crowds--to express her joy at seeing the friend of the great house under her lowly roof--evidently a stereotype phrase common to husband and wife. She felt so grateful for the visit, as her poor man had no well-educated neighbor at all, and now, she knew, the want was at once supplied by Oswald's arrival.
"My poor Jager"--that was the husband's name--"my poor Jager will become a hypochondriac here," she exclaimed, fixing her watery blue eyes with great tenderness upon the object of her apprehensions. "I do what may be in my feeble power to make him miss the society of clever and learned men as little as possible, but a poor ignorant woman cannot do much in that direction."
"You will compel me to contradict you," said Oswald, in whom the sense of the humorous had been getting the better of the disgust with which the hypocrisy of the worthy couple had at first filled him. "I shall insist upon it that ignorance and Mrs. Jager have never yet met, much less can they ever have made acquaintance with each other."
"You are very kind; I am sure you are too kind," said the delighted lady. "I cannot deny that I have all my life endeavored to relieve myself, for one, of the popular reproach that women are unfit for the sphere of highest----"
"Dinner's ready!" cried the parlor-maid in at the door.
"Now you see; that is the way our daily life is always asserting its rights as soon as we try to rise a little higher," said the dweller in the spheres of highest cultivation. Oswald offered her politely his arm, and the minister laid his cigar carefully aside, so that he might easily find it again after dinner.