Читать книгу The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 11 - Francke Kuno - Страница 3

TRANSLATED AND CONDENSED BY MARION D. LEARNED, PH.D

Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Pennsylvania

The weather had grown more inclement as evening came on. On the forward deck groups of laborers on their way to the new railroad at Sundin were huddled more closely together between the high tiers of casks, chests, and boxes; from the rear deck the passengers, with few exceptions, had disappeared. Two elderly gentlemen, who had chatted much together during the journey, stood on the starboard looking and pointing toward the island around the south end of which the ship had to pass. The flat coast of the island, rising in a wide circuit to the promontory, became more distinct with each second.

"So that is Warnow?"

"Your pardon, Mr. President – Ahlbeck, a fishing village; to be sure, on Warnow ground. Warnow itself lies further inland; the church tower is just visible above the outlines of the dunes."

The President let fall the eye-glasses through which he had tried in vain to see the point of the church tower. "What sharp eyes you have, General, and how quickly you get your bearings!"

"It is true I have been there only once," replied the General; "but since then I have had only too much time to study this bit of coast on the map."

The President smiled. "Yes, yes, it is classic soil," said he; "there has been much contention over it – much and to no purpose."

"I am convinced that it was fortunate that the contention was fruitless – at least had only a negative result," said the General.

"I am not sure that the strife will not be renewed again," replied the President; "Count Golm and his associates have been making the greatest efforts of late."

"Since they have so signally proved that the road would be unprofitable?"

"Just as you have shown the futility of a naval station here!"

"Pardon, Mr. President, I had not the deciding voice; or, more correctly, I had declined it. The only place at all adapted for the harbor would have been there in the southern corner of the bay, under cover of Wissow Point, that is on Warnow domain. To be sure, I have only the guardianship of the property of my sister – "

"I know, I know," interrupted the President; "old Prussian honesty, which amounts to scrupulousness. Count Golm and his associates are less scrupulous."

"So much the worse for them," replied the General.

The gentlemen then turned and joined a young girl who was seated in a sheltered spot in front of the cabin, passing the time as well as she could by reading or drawing in a small album.

"You would like to remain on deck, of course, Else?" asked the General.

"Do the gentlemen wish to go to the cabin?" queried the young girl in reply, looking up from her book. "I think it is terrible below; but, of course, it is certainly too rough for you, Mr. President!"

"It is, indeed, unusually rough," replied the President, rolling up the collar of his overcoat and casting a glance at the heavens; "I believe we shall have rain before sundown. You should really come with us, Miss Else! Do you not think so, General?"

"Else is weatherproof," replied the General with a smile; "but you might put a shawl or something of the kind about you. May I fetch you something?"

"Thank you, Papa! I have everything here that is necessary," replied Else, pointing to her roll of blankets and wraps; "I shall protect myself if it is necessary. Au revoir!"

She bowed gracefully to the President, cast a pleasant glance at her father, and took up her book again, while the gentlemen went around the corner to a small passage between the cabin and the railing.

She read a few minutes and then looked up and watched the cloud of smoke which was rising from the funnel in thick, dark gray puffs, and rolling over the ship just as before. The man at the helm also stood as he had been standing, letting the wheel run now to the right, now to the left, and then holding it steady in his rough hands. And, sure enough, there too was the gentleman again, who with untiring endurance strode up and down the deck from helm to bowsprit and back from bowsprit to helm, with a steadiness of gait which Else had repeatedly tried to imitate during the day – to be sure with only doubtful success.

"Otherwise," thought Else, "he hasn't much that especially distinguishes him;" and Else said to herself that she would scarcely have noticed the man in a larger company, certainly would not have observed him, perhaps not so much as seen him, and that if she had looked at him today countless times and actually studied him, this could only be because there had not been much to see, observe, or study.

Her sketch-book, which she was just glancing through, showed it. That was intended to be a bit of the harbor of Stettin. "It requires much imagination to make it out," thought Else. "Here is a sketch that came out better: the low meadows, the cows, the light-buoy – beyond, the smooth water with a few sails, again a strip of meadow – finally, in the distance, the sea. The man at the helm is not bad; he held still enough. But 'The Indefatigable' is awfully out of drawing – a downright caricature! That comes from the constant motion! At last! Again! Only five minutes, Mr. So-and-so! That may really be good – the position is splendid!"

The position was indeed simple enough. The gentleman was leaning against a seat with his hands in his pockets, and was looking directly westward into the sea; his face was in a bright light, although the sun had gone behind a cloud, and in addition he stood in sharp profile, which Else always especially liked. "Really a pretty profile," thought Else; "although the prettiest part, the large blue kindly eyes, did not come out well. But, as compensation, the dark full beard promises to be so much the better; I am always successful with beards. The hands in the pockets are very fortunate; the left leg is entirely concealed by the right – not especially picturesque, but extremely convenient for the artist. Now the seat – a bit of the railing – and 'The Indefatigable' is finished!"

She held the book at some distance, so as to view the sketch as a picture; she was highly pleased. "That shows that I can accomplish something when I work with interest," she said to herself; and then she wrote below the picture: "The Indefatigable One. With Devotion. August 26th, '72. E. von W…"

While the young lady was so eagerly trying to sketch the features and figure of the young man, her image had likewise impressed itself on his mind. It was all the same whether he shut his eyes or kept them open; she appeared to him with the same clearness, grace, and charm – now at the moment of departure from Stettin, when her father presented her to the President, and she bowed so gracefully; then, while she was breakfasting with the two gentlemen, and laughing so gaily, and lifting the glass to her lips; again, as she stood on the bridge with the captain, and the wind pressed her garments close to her figure and blew her veil like a pennant behind her; as she spoke with the steerage woman sitting on a coil of rope on the forward deck, quieting her youngest child wrapped in a shawl, then bending down, raising the shawl for a moment, and looking at the hidden treasure with a smile; as she, a minute later, went past him, inquiring with a stern glance of her brown eyes whether he had not at last presumed to observe her; or as she now sat next to the cabin and read, and drew, and read again, and then looked up at the cloud of smoke or at the sailors at the rudder! It was very astonishing how her image had stamped itself so firmly in this short time – but then he had seen nothing above him but the sky and nothing below him but the water, for a year! Thus it may be easily understood how the first beautiful, charming girl whom he beheld after so long a privation should make such a deep and thrilling impression upon him.

"And besides," said the young man to himself, "in three hours we shall be in Sundin, and then – farewell, farewell, never to meet again! But what are they thinking about? You don't intend, certainly," raising his voice, "to go over the Ostersand with this depth of water?" With the last words he had turned to the man at the helm.

"You see, Captain, the matter is this way," replied the man, shifting his quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other; "I was wondering, too, how we should hold our helm! But the Captain thinks – "

The young man did not wait for him to finish. He had taken the same journey repeatedly in former years; only a few days before he had passed the place for which they were steering, and had been alarmed to find only twelve feet of water where formerly there had been a depth of fifteen feet. Today, after the brisk west wind had driven so much water seaward, there could not be ten feet here, and the steamer drew eight feet! And under these circumstances no diminution of speed, no sounding, not a single one of the required precautions! Was the Captain crazy?

The young man ran past Else with such swiftness, and his eyes had such a peculiar expression as they glanced at her, that she involuntarily rose and looked after him. The next moment he was on the bridge with the old, fat Captain, speaking to him long and earnestly, at last, as it appeared, impatiently, and repeatedly pointing all the while toward a particular spot in the direction in which the ship was moving.

A strange sense of anxiety, not felt before on the whole journey, took possession of Else. It could not be a trifling circumstance which threw this quiet, unruffled man into such a state of excitement! And now, what she had supposed several times was clear to her – that he was a seaman, and, without doubt, an able one, who was certainly right, even though the old, fat Captain phlegmatically shrugged his shoulders and pointed likewise in the same direction, and looked through his glass, and again shrugged his shoulders, while the other rushed down the steps from the bridge to the deck, and came straight up to her as if he were about to speak to her.

Yet he did not do so at first, for he hurried past her, although his glance met hers; then, as he had undoubtedly read the silent question in her eyes and upon her lips, he hesitated for a moment and – sure enough, he turned back and was now close behind her!

"Pardon me!"

Her heart beat as if it would burst; she turned around.

"Pardon me," he repeated; "I suppose it is not right to alarm you, perhaps without cause. But it is not impossible, I consider it even quite probable, that we shall run aground within five minutes; I mean strike bottom – "

"For Heaven's sake!" exclaimed Else.

"I do not think it will be serious," continued the young man. "If the Captain – there! We now have only half steam – half speed, you know. But he should reverse the engines, and it is now probably too late for that."

"Can't he be compelled to do it?"

"On board his ship the captain is supreme," replied the young man, smiling in spite of his indignation. "I myself am a seaman, and would just as little brook interference in such a case." He lifted his cap and bowed, took a step and stopped again. A bright sparkle shone in his blue eyes, and his clear, firm voice quivered a bit as he went on, "It is not a question of real danger. The coast lies before us and the sea is comparatively quiet; I only wished that the moment should not surprise you. Pardon my presumption!"

He had bowed again and was quickly withdrawing as if he wished to avoid further questions. "There is no danger," muttered Else; "too bad! I wanted so much to have him rescue me. But father must know it. We ought to prepare the President, too, of course – he is more in need of warning than I am."

She turned toward the cabin; but the retarded movement of the ship, slowing up still more in the last half minute, had already attracted the attention of the passengers, who stood in a group. Her father and the President were already coming up the stairs.

"What's the matter?" cried the General.

"We can't possibly be in Prora already?" questioned the President.

At that instant all were struck as by an electric shock, as a peculiar, hollow, grinding sound grated harshly on their ears. The keel had scraped over the sand-bank without grounding. A shrill signal, a breathless stillness for a few seconds, then a mighty quake through the whole frame of the ship, and the powerful action of the screw working with reversed engine!

The precaution which a few minutes before would have prevented the accident was now too late. The ship was obliged to go back over the same sand-bank which it had just passed with such difficulty. A heavier swell, in receding, had driven the stern a few inches deeper. The screw was working continuously, and the ship listed a little but did not move.

"What in the devil does that mean?" cried the General.

"There is no real danger," said Else with a flash.

"For Heaven's sake, my dear young lady!" interjected the President, who had grown very pale.

"The shore is clearly in sight, and the sea is comparatively quiet," replied Else.

"Oh, what do you know about it!" exclaimed the General; "the sea is not to be trifled with!"

"I am not trifling at all, Papa," said Else.

Bustling, running, shouting, which was suddenly heard from all quarters, the strangely uncanny listing of the ship – all proved conclusively that the prediction of "The Indefatigable" had come true, and that the steamer was aground.

All efforts to float the ship had proved unavailing, but it was fortunate that, in the perilous task required of it, the screw had not broken; moreover, the listing of the hull had not increased. "If the night was not stormy they would lie there quietly till the next morning, when, in case they should not get afloat by that time (and they might get afloat any minute), a passing craft could take off the passengers and carry them to the next port." So spoke the Captain, who was not to be disconcerted by the misfortune which his own stubbornness had caused. He declared that it was clearly noted upon the maps by which he and every other captain had to sail that there were fifteen feet of water at this place; the gentlemen of the government should wake up and see that better charts or at least suitable buoys were provided. And if other captains had avoided the bank and preferred to sail around it for some years, he had meanwhile steered over the same place a hundred times – indeed only day before yesterday. But he had no objections to having the long-boat launched and the passengers set ashore, whence God knows how they were to continue their journey.

"The man is drunk or crazy," said the President, when the Captain had turned his broad back and gone back to his post. "It is a sin and shame that such a man is allowed to command a ship, even if it is only a tug; I shall start a rigid investigation, and he shall be punished in an exemplary manner."

The President, through all his long, thin body, shook with wrath, anxiety, and cold; the General shrugged his shoulders. "That's all very good, my dear Mr. President," said he, "but it comes a little too late to help us out of our unhappy plight. I refrain on principle from interfering with things I do not understand; but I wish we had somebody on board who could give advice. One must not ask the sailors – that would be undermining the discipline! What is it, Else?" Else had given him a meaning look, and he stepped toward her and repeated the question.

"Inquire of that gentleman!" said Else.

"Of what gentleman?"

"The one yonder. He's a seaman; he can certainly give you the best advice."

The General fixed his sharp eye upon the person designated. "Ah, that one?" asked he. "Really looks so."

"Doesn't he?" replied Else. "He had already told me that we were going to run aground."

"He's not one of the officers of the ship, of course?"

"O no! That is – I believe – but just speak to him!"

The General went up to "The Indefatigable." "Beg your pardon, Sir! I hear you are a seaman?"

"At your service."

"Captain?"

"Captain of a merchantman – Reinhold Schmidt."

"My name is General von Werben. You would oblige me, Captain, if you would give me a technical explanation of our situation – privately, of course, and in confidence. I should not like to ask you to say anything against a comrade, or to do anything that would shake his authority, which we may possibly yet need to make use of. Is the Captain responsible, in your opinion, for our accident?"

"Yes, and no, General. No, for the sea charts, by which we are directed to steer, record this place as navigable. The charts were correct, too, until a few years ago; since that time heavy sand deposits have been made here, and, besides, the water has fallen continually in consequence of the west wind which has prevailed for some weeks. The more prudent, therefore, avoid this place. I myself should have avoided it."

"Very well! And now what do you think of the situation? Are we in danger, or likely to be?"

"I think not. The ship lies almost upright, and on clear, smooth sand. It may lie thus for a very long time, if nothing intervenes."

"The Captain is right in keeping us on board, then?"

"Yes, I think so – the more so as the wind, for the first time in three days, appears about to shift to the east, and, if it does, we shall probably be afloat again in a few hours. Meanwhile – "

"Meanwhile?"

"To err is human, General. If the wind – we now have south-southeast – it is not probable, but yet possible – should again shift to the west and become stronger, perhaps very strong, a serious situation might, of course, confront us."

"Then we should take advantage of the Captain's permission to leave the ship?"

"As the passage is easy and entirely safe, I can at least say nothing against it. But, in that case, it ought to be done while it is still sufficiently light – best of all, at once."

"And you? You would remain, as a matter of course?"

"As a matter of course, General."

"I thank you."

The General touched his cap with a slight nod of his head; Reinhold lifted his with a quick movement, returning the nod with a stiff bow.

"Well?" queried Else, as her father came up to her again.

"The man must have been a soldier," replied the General.

"Why so?" asked the President.

"Because I could wish that I might always have such clear, accurate reports from my officers. The situation, then, is this – "

He repeated what he had just heard from Reinhold, and closed by saying that he would recommend to the Captain that the passengers who wished to do so should be disembarked at once. "I, for my part, do not think of submitting to this inconvenience, which it would seem, moreover, is unnecessary; except that Else – "

"I, Papa!" exclaimed Else; "I don't think of it for a moment!"

The President was greatly embarrassed. He had, to be sure, only this morning renewed a very slight former personal acquaintance with General von Werben, after the departure from Stettin; but now that he had chatted with him the entire day and played the knight to the young lady on countless occasions, he could not help explaining, with a twitch of the lips which was intended to be a smile, that he wished now to share with his companions the discomforts of the journey as he had, up to this time, the comforts; the Prussian ministry would be able to console itself, if worse comes to worst, for the loss of a President who, as the father of six young hopefuls, has, besides, a succession of his own, and accordingly neither has nor makes claims to the sympathy of his own generation.

Notwithstanding his resignation, the heart of the worthy official was much troubled. Secretly he cursed his own boundless folly in coming home a day earlier, in having intrusted himself to a tug instead of waiting for a coast steamer, due the next morning, and in inviting the "stupid confidence" of the General and the coquettish manœuvrings of the young lady; and when the long-boat was really launched a few minutes later, and in what seemed to him an incredibly short time was filled with passengers from the foredeck, fortunately not many in number, together with a few ladies and gentlemen from the first cabin, and was now being propelled by the strokes of the heavy oars, and soon afterwards with hoisted sails was hastily moving toward the shore, he heaved a deep sigh and determined at any price – even that of the scornful smile on the lips of the young lady – to leave the ship, too, before nightfall.

And night came on only too quickly for the anxious man. The evening glow on the western horizon was fading every minute, while from the east – from the open sea – it was growing darker and darker. How long would it be till the land, which appeared through the evening mist only as an indistinct streak to the near-sighted man, would vanish from his sight entirely? And yet it was certain that the waves were rising higher every minute, and here and there white caps were appearing and breaking with increasing force upon the unfortunate ship – something that had not happened during the entire day! Then were heard the horrible creaking of the rigging, the uncanny whistling of the tackle, the nerve-racking boiling and hissing of the steam, which was escaping almost incessantly from the overheated boiler. Finally the boiler burst, and the torn limbs of a man, who had been just buttoning up his overcoat, were hurled in every direction through the air. The President grew so excited at this catastrophe that he unbuttoned his overcoat, but buttoned it up again because the wind was blowing with icy coldness. "It is insufferable!" he muttered.

Else had noticed for some time how uncomfortable it was for the President to stay upon the ship – a course which he had evidently decided upon, against his will, out of consideration for his traveling-companions. Her love of mischief had found satisfaction in this embarrassing situation, which he tried to conceal; but now her good nature gained the upper hand, for he was after all an elderly, apparently feeble gentleman, and a civilian. One could, of course, not expect of him the unflinching courage or the sturdiness of her father, who had not even once buttoned his cloak, and was now taking his accustomed evening walk to and fro upon the deck. But her father had decided to remain; it would be entirely hopeless now to induce him to leave the boat. "He must find a solution to the problem," she said to herself.

Reinhold had vanished after his last conversation with her father, and was not now on the rear deck; so she went forward, and there he sat on a great box, looking through a pocket telescope toward the land – so absorbed that she had come right up to him before he noticed her. He sprang hastily to his feet, and turned to her.

"How far are they?" asked Else.

"They are about to land," replied he. "Would you like to look?"

He handed her the instrument. The glass, when she touched it, still had a trace of the warmth of the hand from which it came, which would have been, under other circumstances, by no means an unpleasant sensation to her, but this time she scarcely noticed it, thinking of it only for an instant, while she was trying to bring into the focus of the glass the point which he indicated. She did not succeed; she saw nothing but an indistinct, shimmering gray. "I prefer to use my eyes!" she exclaimed, putting down the instrument. "I see the boat quite distinctly there, close to the land – in the white streak! What is it?"

"The surf."

"Where is the sail?"

"They let it down so as not to strike too hard. But, really, you have the eye of a seaman!" Else smiled at the compliment, and Reinhold smiled. Their glances met for a minute.

"I have a request to make of you," said Else, without dropping her eyes.

"I was just about to make one of you," he replied, looking straight into her brown eyes, which beamed upon him; "I was about to ask you to allow yourself to be put ashore also. We shall be afloat in another hour, but the night is growing stormy, and as soon as we have passed Wissow Hook" – he pointed to the promontory – "we shall have to cast anchor. That is at best not a very pleasant situation, at the worst a very unpleasant one. I should like to save you from both."

"I thank you," said Else; "and now my request is no longer necessary" – and she told Reinhold why she had come.

"That's a happy coincidence!" he said, "but there is not a moment to lose. I am going to speak to your father at once. We must be off without delay."

"We?"

"I shall, with your permission, take you ashore myself."

"I thank you," said Else again with a deep breath. She had held out her hand; he took the little tender hand in his, and again their glances met.

"One can trust that hand," thought Else; "and those eyes, too!" And she said aloud, "But you must not think that I should have been afraid to remain here! It's really for the sake of the poor President."

She had withdrawn her hand and was hastening away to meet her father, who, wondering why she had remained away so long, had come to look for her.

When he was about to follow her, Reinhold saw lying at his feet a little blue-gray glove. She must have just slipped it off as she was adjusting the telescope. He stooped down quickly, picked it up, and put it in his pocket.

"She will not get that again," he said to himself.

Reinhold was right; there had been no time to lose. While the little boat which he steered cut through the foaming waves, the sky became more and more overcast with dark clouds which threatened soon to extinguish even the last trace of the evening glow in the west. In addition, the strong wind had suddenly shifted from the south to the north, and because of this (to insure a more speedy return of the boat to the ship) they were unable to land at the place where the long-boat, which was already coming back, had discharged its passengers – viz., near the little fishing village, Ahlbeck, at the head of the bay, immediately below Wissow Hook. They had to steer more directly to the north, against the wind, where there was scarcely room upon the narrow beach of bare dunes for a single hut, much less for a fishing village; and Reinhold could consider himself fortunate when, with a bold manœuvre, he brought the little boat so near the shore that the disembarkment of the company and the few pieces of baggage which they had taken from the ship could be accomplished without great difficulty.

"I fear we have jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire," said the President gloomily.

"It is a consolation to me that we were not the cause of it," replied the General, not without a certain sharpness in the tone of his strong voice.

"No, no, certainly not!" acknowledged the President, "Mea maxima culpa! My fault alone, my dear young lady. But, admit it – the situation is hopeless, absolutely hopeless!"

"I don't know," replied Else; "it is all delightful to me."

"Well, I congratulate you heartily," said the President; "for my part I should rather have an open fire, a chicken wing, and half a bottle of St. Julien; but if it is a consolation to have companions in misery, then, it ought to be doubly so to know that what appears as very real misery to the pensive wisdom of one is a romantic adventure to the youthful imagination of another."

The President, while intending to banter, had hit upon the right word. To Else the whole affair appeared a "romantic adventure," in which she felt a genuine hearty delight. When Reinhold brought her the first intimation of the impending danger, she was, indeed, startled; but she had not felt fear for a moment – not even when the abusive men, crying women, and screaming children hurried from the ship, which seemed doomed to sink, into the long-boat which rocked up and down upon the gray waves, while night came over the open sea, dark and foreboding. The tall seaman, with the clear blue eyes, had said that there was no danger; he must know; why should she be afraid? And even if the situation should become dangerous he was the man to do the right thing at the right moment and to meet danger! This sense of security had not abandoned her when into the surf they steered the skiff, rocked like a nut-shell in the foaming waves. The President, deathly pale, cried out again and again, "For God's sake!" and a cloud of concern appeared even on the earnest face of her father. She had just cast a glance at the man at the helm, and his blue eyes had gleamed as brightly as before, even more brightly in the smile with which he answered her questioning glance. And then when the boat had touched the shore, and the sailors were carrying the President, her father, and the three servants to land, and she herself stood in the bow, ready to take a bold leap, she felt herself suddenly surrounded by a pair of strong arms, and was thus half carried, half swung, to the shore without wetting her foot – she herself knew not how.

And there she stood now, a few steps distant from the men, who were consulting, wrapped in her raincoat, in the full consciousness of a rapture such as she never felt before. Was it not then really fine! Before her the gray, surging, thundering, endless sea, above which dark threatening night was gathering; right and left in an unbroken line the white foaming breakers! She herself with the glorious moist wind blowing about her, rattling in her ears, wrapping her garments around her, and driving flecks of spray into her face! Behind her the bald spectral dunes, upon which the long dune grass, just visible against the faintly brighter western sky, beckoned and nodded – whither? On into the happy splendid adventure which was not yet at an end, could not be at an end, must not be at an end – for that would be a wretched shame!

The gentlemen approached her. "We have decided, Else," said the General, "to make an expedition over the dunes into the country. The fishing village at which the long-boat landed is nearly a quarter of a mile distant, and the road in the deep sand would probably be too difficult for our honored President. Besides, we should scarcely find shelter there."

"If only we don't get lost in the dunes," sighed the President.

"The Captain's knowledge of the locality will be guarantee for that," said the General.

"I can scarcely speak of a knowledge of the place, General," replied Reinhold. "Only once, and that six years ago, have I cast a glance from the top of these dunes into the country; but I remember clearly that I saw a small tenant-farm, or something of the kind, in that direction. I can promise to find the house. How it will be about quarters I cannot say in advance."

"In any case we cannot spend the night here," exclaimed the General. "So, en avant! Do you wish my arm, Else?"

"Thank you, Papa, I can get up."

And Else leaped upon the dune, following Reinhold, who, hurrying on ahead, had already reached the top, while the General and the President followed more slowly, and the two servants with the effects closed the procession.

"Well!" exclaimed Else with delight as, a little out of breath, she came up to Reinhold. "Are we also at the end of our tether, like the President?"

"Make fun of me if you like, young lady," replied Reinhold; "I don't feel at all jolly over the responsibility which I have undertaken. Yonder" – and he pointed over the lower dunes into the country, in which evening and mist made everything indistinct – "it must be there."

"'Must be,' if you were right! But 'must' you be right?"

As if answering the mocking question of the girl, a light suddenly shot up exactly in the direction in which Reinhold's arm had pointed. A strange shudder shot through Else.

"Pardon me!" she said.

Reinhold did not know what this exclamation meant. At that moment the others reached the top of the rather steep dune.

"Per aspera ad astra," puffed the President.

"I take my hat off to you, Captain," said the General.

"It was great luck," replied Reinhold modestly.

"And we must have luck," exclaimed Else, who had quickly overcome that strange emotion and had now returned to her bubbling good humor.

The little company strode on through the dunes; Reinhold going on ahead again, while Else remained with the other gentlemen.

"It is strange enough," said the General, "that the mishap had to strike us just at this point of the coast. It really seems as if we were being punished for our opposition. Even if my opinion that a naval station can be of no use here is not shaken, yet, now that we have almost suffered shipwreck here ourselves, a harbor appears to me – "

"A consummation devoutly to be wished!" exclaimed the President. "Heaven knows! And when I think of the severe cold which I shall take from this night's promenade in the abominably wet sand, and that, instead of this, I might now be sitting in a comfortable coupé and tonight be sleeping in my bed, then I repent every word I have spoken against the railroad, about which I have put myself at odds with all our magnates – and not the least with Count Golm, whose friendship would just now be very opportune for us."

"How so?" asked the General.

"Golm Castle lies, according to my calculation, at the most a mile from here; the hunting lodge on Golmberg – "

"I remember it," interrupted the General; "the second highest promontory on the shore to the north – to our right. We can be scarcely half a mile away."

"Now, see," said the President; "that would be so convenient, and the Count is probably there. Frankly, I have secretly counted on his hospitality in case, as I only too much fear, a hospitable shelter is not to be found in the tenant-house, and you do not give up your disinclination to knock at the door in Warnow, which would, indeed, be the simplest and most convenient thing to do."

The President, who had spoken panting, and with many intermissions, had stopped; the General replied with a sullen voice, "You know that I am entirely at outs with my sister."

"But you said the Baroness was in Italy?"

"Yet she must be coming back at this time, has perhaps already returned; and, if she were not, I would not go to Warnow, even if it were but ten paces from here. Let us hurry to get under shelter, Mr. President, or we shall be thoroughly drenched in addition to all we have already passed through."

In fact, scattered drops had been falling for some time from the low-moving clouds, and hastening their steps, they had just entered the farmyard and were groping their way between barns and stables over a very uneven courtyard to the house in whose window they had seen the light, when the rain, which had long been threatening, poured down in full force.

[Pölitz receives his guests with apologies for the accommodations and his wife's absence from the room. His manner is just a bit forced; Else, noticing it, goes out to look for Mrs. Pölitz, and brings the report that the children are sick. The President suggests that they go on to Golmberg. Pölitz will not hear of it, but Else has made arrangements – makeshifts though they are – for the trip, and insists upon leaving, even in the face of the storm. A messenger is to be sent ahead to announce them – Reinhold included, upon Else's insistence. Else goes into the kitchen, where Mrs. Pölitz pours out her soul to her – the hardheartedness of the Count, who has never married, and her vain labors to keep their little home in Swantow. It sets her thinking, first about the Count, then about Reinhold – was he married or not? Wouldn't any girl be proud of him – even herself! But then there would be disinheritance! Yet she keeps on thinking of him. How would "Mrs. Schmidt" sound! She laughs, and then grows serious; tears come into her eyes; she puts her hand into her pocket and feels the compass which Reinhold had given her. It is faithful. "If I ever love, I too shall be faithful," she says to herself.

Reinhold, going out to look for the boat, wonders why he left it to accompany the others to Pölitz's house; but fortunately he finds it safe. Now his duty to the General and Else is fulfilled; he will never see her again, probably. Yet he hastens back – and meets them just on the point of leaving for Golmberg.

The President has been waiting for the storm to blow over, he says. Else is fidgety, yet without knowing why; she wonders what has become of Reinhold. The President sounds Pölitz on the subject of the railway – the nearest doctor living so far away that they cannot afford to have him come. But Pölitz says that they do not want a railway – a decent wagon road would be enough, and they could have that if only the Count would help a little. A naval station? So far as they are concerned, a simple break-water would do, he tells the President. The latter, while Pölitz is out looking for the messenger, discusses with the General the condition of the Count's tenants, in the midst of which the Count himself arrives with his own carriages to take them over to Golmberg.

A chorus of greetings follows. The Count had met the General in Versailles on the day the German Emperor was proclaimed, the General had not forgotten. The company now lacks only Reinhold, and the Count, thinking that he must have lost his way, is about to send a searching party, when Else tells him that she has already done so. The Count smiles. She hates him for it, and outside, a moment later, rebukes herself for not controlling her temper. Reinhold meets her there. She commands him to accompany them. As they are leaving Else makes a remark about the doctor, which is overheard, as she intended, by the Count, who promises to send for the doctor himself.

They proceed to Golmberg. Conversation in the servants' carriage is lively, turning on the relative merits of their respective masters – how liberal the Count is; how strict, yet not so bad, the General; while a bottle of brandy passes around. In the first carriage, where Else, the President, and the General are riding, the conversation is of the Count's family and of old families in general, then of the project before them – the railroad and the naval station. The President drops that subject, finding the General not kindly disposed to it. He and Else are both thinking of her indirect request to the Count to send for the doctor. Then Else's thoughts turn again to Reinhold – his long absence – what he would think of her command to accompany them. The Count and Reinhold in the second carriage speak hardly a dozen words. Reinhold's thoughts are of Else – how hopelessly far above him she is – how he would like to run away. They arrive at Golmberg.]

The President had dropped the remark in his note that the absence of a hostess in the castle would be somewhat embarrassing for the young lady in their company, but as it was not so easily to be remedied he would apologize for him in advance. The Count had dispatched a messenger forthwith to his neighbor, von Strummin, with the urgent request that he should come with his wife and daughter to Golmberg, prepared to spend the night there. The Strummins were glad to render this neighborly service, and Madame and Miss von Strummin had already received Else in the hall, and conducted her to the room set apart for her, adjoining their own rooms.

The President rubbed his thin white hands contentedly before the fire in his own comfortable room, and murmured, as John put the baggage in order, "Delightful; very delightful! I think this will fully reconcile the young lady to her misfortune and restore her grouchy father to a sociable frame of mind."

Else was fully reconciled. To be released from the close, jolting prison of a landau and introduced into a brightly lighted castle in the midst of the forest, where servants stood with torches at the portal; to be most heartily welcomed in the ancient hall, with its strangely ornamented columns, by two ladies who approached from among the arms and armor with which the walls and columns were hung and surrounded, and conducted into the snuggest of all the apartments; to enjoy a flickering open fire, brightly burning wax tapers before a tall mirror in a rich rococo frame, velvet carpets of a marvelous design which was repeated in every possible variation upon the heavy hangings before the deeply recessed windows, on the portières of the high gilded doors, and the curtains of the antique bed – all this was so fitting, so charming, so exactly as it should be in an adventure! Else shook the hand of the matronly Madame von Strummin, thanked her for her kindness, and kissed the pretty little Marie, with the mischievous brown eyes, and asked permission to call her "Meta," or "Mieting," just as her mother did, who had just left the room. Mieting returned the embrace with the greatest fervor and declared that nothing more delightful in the world could have come to her than the invitation for this evening. She, with her Mamma, felt so bored at Strummin! – it was horribly monotonous in the country! – and in the midst of it this letter from the Count! She was fond of coming to Golmberg, anyhow – the forest was so beautiful, and the view from the platform of the tower, from the summit of Golmberg beyond the forest over the sea – that was really charming; to be sure, the opportunity but seldom! Her mother was a little indolent, and the gentlemen thought of their hunting, their horses, and generally only of themselves. Thus she had not been a little surprised, too, at the haste of the Count today in procuring company for the strange young lady, just as if he had already known beforehand how fair and lovely the strange young lady was, and how great the pleasure of being with her, and of chattering so much nonsense; if she might say "thou" to her, then they could chatter twice as pleasantly.

The permission gladly given and sealed with a kiss threw the frolicsome girl into the greatest ecstasy. "You must never go away again!" she exclaimed; "or, if you do, only to return in the autumn! He will not marry me, in any case; I have nothing, and he has nothing in spite of his entail, and Papa says that we shall all be bankrupt here if we don't get the railroad and the harbor. And your Papa and the President have the whole matter in hand, Papa said as we drove over; and if you marry him, your Papa will give the concession, as a matter of course – I believe that's what it's called, isn't it? And you are really already interested in it as it is; for the harbor, Papa says, can be laid out only on the estates which belong to your aunt, and you and your brother – you inherit it from your aunt – are already coheirs? It is a strange will, Papa says, and he would like to know how the matter really is. Don't you know? Please do tell me! I promise not to tell anyone."

"I really don't know," replied Else. "I only know that we are very poor, and that you may go on and marry your Count for all me."

"I should be glad to do so," said the little lady seriously, "but I'm not pretty enough for him, with my insignificant figure and my pug nose. I shall marry a rich burgher some day, who is impressed by our nobility – for the Strummins are as old as the island, you know – a Mr. Schulze, or Müller, or Schmidt. What's the name of the captain who came with you?"

"Schmidt, Reinhold Schmidt."

"No, you're joking!"

"Indeed, I'm not; but he's not a captain."

"Not a Captain! What then?"

"A sea captain."

"Of the Marine?"

"A simple sea captain."

"Oh, dear me!"

That came out so comically, and Mieting clapped her hands with such a naïve surprise, that Else had to laugh, and the more so as she could thus best conceal the blush of embarrassment which flushed her face.

"Then he will not even take supper with us!" exclaimed Mieting.

"Why not?" asked Else, who had suddenly become very serious again.

"A simple captain!" repeated Mieting; "too bad! He's such a handsome man! I had picked him out for myself! But a simple sea captain!"

Madame von Strummin entered the room to escort the ladies to supper. Mieting rushed toward her mother to tell her her great discovery. "Everything is already arranged," replied her mother. "The Count asked your father and the President whether they wished the captain to join the company. Both of the gentlemen were in favor of it, and so he too will appear at supper. And then, too, he seems so far to be a very respectable man," concluded Madame von Strummin.

"I'm really curious," said Mieting.

Else did not say anything; but when at the entrance of the corridor she met her father, who had just come from his room, she whispered to him, "Thank you!"

"One must keep a cheerful face in a losing game," replied the General in the same tone.

Else was a bit surprised; she had not believed that he would so seriously regard the question of etiquette, which he had just decided as she wished. She did not reflect that her father could not understand her remark without special explanation, and did not know that he had given to it an entirely different meaning. He had been annoyed and had allowed his displeasure to be noticed, even at the reception in the hall. He supposed that Else had observed this, and was now glad that he had meanwhile resolved to submit quietly and coolly to the inevitable, and in this frame of mind he had met her with a smile. It was only the Count's question that reminded him again of the young sea captain. He had attached no significance either to the question or to his answer, that he did not know why the Count should not invite the captain to supper.

Happily for Reinhold, he had not had even a suspicion of the possibility that his appearance or non-appearance at supper could be seriously debated by the company.

"In for a penny, in for a pound," he said to himself, arranging his suit as well as he could with the aid of the things which he had brought along in his bag from the ship for emergencies. "And now to the dickens with the sulks! If I have run aground in my stupidity, I shall get afloat again. To hang my head or to lose it would not be correcting the mistake, but only making it worse – and it is already bad enough. But now where are my shoes?"

In the last moment on board he had exchanged the shoes which he had been wearing for a pair of high waterproof boots. They had done him excellent service in the water and rain, in the wet sand of the shore, and on the way to the tenant-farm – but now! Where were the shoes? Certainly not in the traveling bag, into which he thought he had thrown them, but in which they refused to be found, although he finally, in his despair, turned the whole contents out and spread them about him. And this article of clothing here, which he had already taken up a dozen times and dropped again – the shirt bosoms were wanting! It was not the blue overcoat! It was the black evening coat, the most precious article of his wardrobe, which he was accustomed to wear only to dinners at the ship-owners', the consul's, and other formal occasions! Reinhold sprang for the bell – the rotten cord broke in his hand. He jerked the door open and peered into the hall – no servant was to be seen; he called first softly and then more loudly – no servant answered. And yet – what was to be done! The coarse woolen jacket which he had worn under his raincoat, and had, notwithstanding, got wet in places had been taken away by the servant to dry. "In a quarter of an hour," the man had said, "the Count will ask you to supper." Twenty minutes had already passed; he had heard distinctly that the President, who was quartered a few doors from his room, had passed through the hall to go downstairs; he would have to remain here in the most ridiculous imprisonment, or appear downstairs before the company in the most bizarre costume – water-boots and black dress suit – before the eyes of the President, whose long, lean figure, from the top of his small shapely head to his patent-leather tips, which he had worn even on board ship, was the image of the most painful precision – before the rigorous General, in his closely buttoned undress uniform – before the Count, who had already betrayed an inclination to doubt his social eligibility – before the ladies! – before her – before her mischievous brown eyes! "Very well," he concluded, "if I have been fool enough to follow the glances of these eyes then this shall be my punishment, I will now do penance – in a black dress coat and water-boots."

With a jerk he pulled on the boots which he still held in his rigid left hand, regarding them from time to time with horror, and opened the door again, this time to go down the broad stairway, and with a steady step along the hall into the dining-room, the location of which he had already learned from the servant.

Meanwhile the rest of the company had assembled. The two young ladies had appeared arm in arm and did not allow themselves to be separated, although the Count, who approached them with animation, addressed his words to Else alone. He dutifully hastened to inform the young lady that the carriage had been sent off to Prora for the doctor a quarter of an hour before. He asked Else whether she was interested in painting, and if she would allow him to call her attention hastily to some of the more important things which he had brought from the gallery in Castle Golm to Golmberg to decorate the dining-room, which seemed to him altogether too bare: here a Watteau, bought by his great-grandfather himself in Paris; over there, a cluster of fruit, called "Da Frutti," by the Italian Gobbo, a pupil of Annibale Carracci; yonder, the large still-life by the Netherlander Jacob van Ness. This flower piece would interest the young lady especially, as it is by a lady, Rachel Ruysch, a Netherlander of course, whose pictures are greatly in demand. Here on the étagère, the service of Meissen porcelain, once in the possession of August the Strong, which his great-grandfather, who was for some years Swedish minister at the Dresden Court, had received in exchange for a pair of reindeer – the first that had been seen on the continent; here the no less beautiful Sèvres service, which he himself had in previous years admired in the castle of a nobleman in France, who had presented it to him, in recognition of his fortunate efforts to preserve the castle, which he had turned into a hospital.

"You are not interested in old porcelain?" queried the Count, who thought he noticed that the dark eyes of the young lady glanced only very superficially over his treasures.

"I have seen so few such things," said Else, "I do not know how to appreciate their beauty."

"And then, too, we are a bit hungry," put in Mieting – "at least I am. We dine at home at eight o'clock, and now it is eleven."

"Hasn't the Captain been called?" asked the Count of the butler.

"Certainly, your Grace; a quarter of an hour ago."

"Then we will not wait any longer. The etiquette of kings does not appear to be that of sea captains. May I accompany you, Miss Else?"

He offered Else his arm; hesitatingly she rested the tips of her fingers upon it. She would have liked to spare the Captain the embarrassment of finding the company already at the table, but her father had offered his arm to Mieting's mother, and the gallant President his to Mieting. The three couples proceeded to the table, which stood between them and the door, when the door opened and the strange figure of a bearded man in black suit and high water-boots appeared, in which Else, to her horror, recognized the Captain. But in the next moment she had to laugh like the others. Mieting dropped the arm of the President and fled to a corner of the hall to smother in her handkerchief the convulsive laughter which had seized her at the unexpected sight.

"I must apologize," said Reinhold, "but the haste with which we left the ship today was not favorable to a strict selection from my wardrobe, as I have unfortunately just now noticed."

"And, as this haste has turned out to our advantage, we least of all have reason to lay any greater stress upon the trivial mishap than it deserves," said the President very graciously.

"Why didn't you call on my valet?" asked the Count with gentle reproof.

"I find the costume very becoming," said Else, with a desperate effort to be serious again and with a reproving glance at Mieting, who had come out of her corner but did not yet dare to take the handkerchief from her face.

"That is much more than I had dared to hope," said Reinhold.

They had taken their places at the table – Reinhold diagonally opposite Else and directly across from the Count; at his left, Miss Mieting, and, at his right, von Strummin, a broad-shouldered gentleman with a wide red face covered on the lower part by a big red beard; he was possessed of a tremendously loud voice which was the more unpleasant to Reinhold as it continually smothered the low merry chatter of the young lady at his left. The good-natured child had determined to make Reinhold forget her improper behavior of a few minutes before, and the execution of this resolution was made easier for her as, now that the tablecloth graciously covered the ridiculous water-boots, she verified what she thought she had discovered at the first glance – that the Captain, with his great, bright, blue eyes, his brown face, and his curly brown beard, was a handsome man, a very handsome man. After she had tried to communicate to Else this important discovery by significant glances and explanatory gestures, and to her delight had had it corroborated by a smile and nod, she yielded to the pleasure of conversation with the handsome man, the more eagerly because she was sure that this fervor would not pass unnoticed by the Count. For she knew from experience that it would not please him, that he would even feel it a kind of personal offense when ladies, whose favor he did not seek, bestowed special attention upon other gentlemen in his presence! And the fact that this was a simple sea captain, whose social status had been discussed shortly before, made the matter more amusing and spicy in her merry eyes; besides, the conversation was entertaining enough without that. "The Captain has so many stories to tell! And he tells them so simply and frankly! You can't believe, Else, how interesting it is!" she shouted across the table; "I could listen to him all night!"

"The child is not very discriminating in her taste," said the Count to Else.

"I am sorry," said Else, "she has just chosen me as her friend, as you have heard."

"That is another matter," said the Count.

The conversation between them could not get under way; the Count found himself repeatedly left to talk to Madame von Strummin, with whom he then conversed also – not to be altogether silent; while Else turned to her neighbor on the other side, the President. And more than once, when Madame von Strummin was again conversing with the General, the Count had to sit and look on in silence and see how well the conversation at his table could go on without him. To fill out these forced pauses, he drank one glass of wine after another without improving his humor, which he vented on the servants because he had nobody else. It would have been most agreeable to him, to be sure, to use the Captain for this purpose, but he found him extremely odious – everything about him, his appearance, his attitude, his manners, his expression, his voice! It was the irony of fate that he himself had brought the man to his house in his own wagon! If only he had not asked the man to supper, but had left him in his room! He said to himself that it was ridiculous to be angry about the man, and yet he was angry – angry again because he could not control his feeling. He must, at any price, make the conversation general, to release himself from a state of mind which had become quite intolerable to him.

Opposite him von Strummin was shouting into the ear of the General, who seemed to listen only against his will, his views about the railroad and the naval station. The Count, for his part, had determined not to touch upon the delicate theme while at table; now any theme was agreeable to him.

"Pardon, my friend," said he, raising his voice; "I have heard a snatch of what you have just been telling the General about our favorite project. You say continually 'we' and 'us,' but you know that our views differ in essential points; I should like, therefore, to ask you, if you must speak of the matter now, to do so only in your own name."

"Ho, ho!" exclaimed von Strummin. "Wherein do we differ so seriously? In one point, I wish a station at Strummin just as much as you do at Golm."

"But we can't all have a station," said the Count with a patronizing shrug of the shoulders.

"Certainly not; but I must, or the whole project is not worth a red cent to me," exclaimed the other. "What! Am I to haul my corn half a mile, as before, and an hour later let the train whizz past my nose! In that case I shall prefer to vote at the Diet for the highway which the government offers; that will run right behind my new barn; I can push the wagon from the barn floor to the road. Isn't that true, Mr. President?"

"Whether the highway will run directly behind your barn or not, von Strummin, I really do not know," said the President. "In any case it will come through your property; as for the rest, my views have been long known to the gentlemen;" and he turned to Else again, to continue with her the conversation which had been interrupted.

The Count was angry at the reproof which these last words seemed to convey, the more so as he was conscious that he had not deserved it. He had not begun the discussion! Now it might and must be carried still further!

"You see," continued he, turning to von Strummin, "what a bad turn you have done us – I must say 'us,' now – by this continual, disagreeable intrusion of personal interests. Of course we want our profit from it – what sensible man does not want that! But that is a secondary matter. First the State, then the other things. So I think, at least, and so does the General here."

"Certainly I think so," said the General; "but how is it that you bring me into it?"

"Because no one would profit more by the execution of the project than your sister – or whoever may be in possession of Warnow, Gristow, and Damerow."

"I shall never possess a foot of those estates," said the General knitting his eyebrows. "Besides, I have had absolutely nothing to do with the matter, as you yourself know, Count; I have not once expressed an opinion, and so am not in a position to accept the compliment you paid me."

He turned again to Madame von Strummin. The Count's face flushed.

"The views of a man in your position, General," he said with a skilful semblance of composure, "can no more be concealed than the most official declaration of our honored President, even if he give them no official form."

The General knitted his brows still more sternly.

"Very well, Count," exclaimed the General, "be it so, but I confess myself openly to be the most determined opponent of your project! I consider it strategically useless, and technically impossible of execution."

"Two reasons, either of which would be crushing if it were valid," rejoined the Count with an ironical smile. "As to the first, I submit, of course, to such an authority as you are – though we could not always have war with France and her weak navy, but might occasionally have it with Russia with her strong navy, and in that case a harbor facing the enemy might be very necessary. But the impracticability of the project, General! On this point I think that I, with my amphibian character as a country gentleman living by the sea, may with all deference say a word. Our sand, difficult as it makes the construction of roads, to the great regret of ourselves and our President, is excellent material for a railroad embankment, and will prove itself a good site for the foundation of our harbor walls."

"Except those places where we should have to become lake-dwellers again," said the President, who for the sake of the General could no longer keep silent.

"There may be such places," exclaimed the Count, who, in spite of the exasperating contradictions by both of the gentlemen, now had the satisfaction at least of knowing that all other conversation had ceased and that for the moment he alone was speaking; "I grant it. But what else would that prove than that the building of the harbor will last a few months or years longer and cost a few hundred thousands or even a few millions more? And what will they say of an undertaking which, once completed, is an invincible bulwark against any enemy attacking from the east?"

"Except one!" said Reinhold.

The Count had not thought that this person could join the conversation. His face flushed with anger; he cast a black look at the new opponent, and asked in a sharp defiant tone:

"And that is?"

"A storm flood," replied Reinhold.

"We here in this country are too much accustomed to storms and floods to be afraid of either," said the Count, with forced composure.

"Yes, I know," replied Reinhold; "but I am not speaking of ordinary atmospheric and marine adjustments and disturbances, but of an event which I am convinced has been coming for years and only waits for an opportune occasion, which will not be wanting, to break forth with a violence of which the boldest imagination can form no conception."

"Are we still in the realm of reality, or already in the sphere of the imagination?" asked the Count.

"We are in the domain of possibility," replied Reinhold; "of a possibility which a glance at the map will show us has already been more than once realized and will in all human probability be repeated at no very distant future time."

"You make us extremely curious," said the Count.

He had said it ironically; but he had only given expression to the feelings of the company. The eyes of all were fixed upon Reinhold.

"I am afraid I shall tire the ladies with these things," said Reinhold.

"Not in the least," said Else.

"I just revel in everything connected with the sea," said Mieting, with a mischievous glance at Else.

"You would really oblige me," said the President.

"Please continue!" added the General.

"I shall be as brief as possible," said Reinhold, glancing first at the General and then at the President, as if he were addressing them alone. "The Baltic appears to have remained a world to itself after its formation by revolutions of the most violent nature. It has no ebb and flow, it contains less salt than the North Sea, and the percentage of salt diminishes toward the east, so that the flora and fauna – "

"What's that?" interrupted Mieting.

"The vegetable and animal world, Miss Mieting – of the Gulf of Finland are almost those of fresh water. Nevertheless there is a constant interaction between the gulf and the ocean, as the two are still visibly connected – an ebb and flow from the latter to the former, and vice versa, with a highly complicated coincident combination of the most varied causes, one of which I must emphasize, because it is just that one of which I have to speak. It is the regularity with which the winds blow from west to east and from east to west, that accompanies and assists in a friendly manner, as it were, the ebb and flow of the water in its submarine channels. The mariner relied upon these winds with almost the same certainty with which one calculates the appearance of well established natural phenomena, and he was justified in doing so; for no considerable change had taken place within the memory of man, until, a few years ago, suddenly an east wind, which usually began to blow in the second half of August and prevailed until the middle of October, disappeared and has never reappeared."

"Well, and the effect of that?" asked the President, who had listened with rapt attention.

"The result is, Mr. President, that in the course of these years enormous masses of water have accumulated in the Baltic, attracting our attention the less because, as a matter of course, they tend to distribute themselves evenly in all directions, and the main force is continually increasing eastward, so that in the spring of last year at Nystad, in South Finland, a rise of four feet of water above the normal, at Wasa, two degrees further north, a rise of six feet, and at Torneo, in the northernmost end of the Bay of Bothnia, a rise of eight feet was registered. The gradual rise of the water and the uniformly high banks protected the inhabitants of those regions to a certain extent against the greatest calamity. But for us who have an almost uniformly flat shore, a sudden reversal of this current, which has for years set eastward without interruption, would be disastrous. But the reversed current must set in with a heavy storm from the northeast or east, particularly one that lasts for days. The water, forced westward by the violent storm, will seek in vain an outlet through the narrow passages of the Belt and of the Sound into the Kattegat and Skagger-Rak to the ocean, and, like a hunted beast of prey rushing over the hurdles, will surge over our coasts, rolling for miles inland, carrying with it everything that opposes its blind rage, covering fields and meadows with sand and boulders, and causing a devastation which our children and children's children will recount with horror."

While Reinhold was thus speaking the Count had not failed to notice that the President and General repeatedly exchanged knowing and corroborative glances, that von Strummin's broad face had lengthened with astonishment and horror, and, what vexed him most of all, the ladies had listened with as much attention as if it had been an account of a ball. He was determined at least not to allow Reinhold the last word.

"But this marvelous storm flood is at best – I mean, in the most favorable case for you – a hypothesis!" he exclaimed.

"Only for such as are not convinced of its inevitableness, as I am," replied Reinhold.

"Very well," said the Count; "I will assume for once that the gentleman is not alone in his conviction – yes, even more, that he is right, that the storm flood will come today, or tomorrow, or some time; yet it appears that it does not come every day, but only once in centuries. Now, gentlemen, I have the profoundest respect for the solicitude of our authorities, which looks far into the future; but such century-long perspectives of even the most solicitous would seem beyond calculation, at any rate not induce them to neglect what the moment demands."

As the last words of the Count were directed evidently to the General and the President, not to him, Reinhold thought he should refrain from answering. But neither of the two gentlemen replied; the rest, too, were silent; an embarrassing pause followed. Finally the President coughed into his slender white hand, and said:

"Strange! While the Captain here prophesies with a tone of conviction itself a storm flood, which our amiable host, who would be closest to it – as our Fritz Reuter says – would like to relegate to fable land, I have had to think at every word of another storm flood – "

"Still another!" exclaimed Mieting.

"Of a different storm flood, Miss Mieting, in another entirely different region; I need not tell the gentlemen in what region. Here too the usual course of things has been interrupted in the most unexpected manner, and here too a damming up of the floods has taken place, which have rushed in from west to east in an enormous stream – a stream of gold, ladies. Here, too, the wise predict that such unnatural conditions cannot last, that their consummation is imminent, that a reverse current must set in, a reaction, a storm flood, which, to keep the figure that so well fits the case, like that other flood will rush upon us with destruction and desolation, and will cover with its turbulent barren waters the places in which men believed that they had established their rule and dominion firmly and for all time."

In his zeal to give a different turn to the conversation and in his delight and satisfaction with the happy comparison, the President had not reflected that he was really continuing the subject and that the theme in this new form must be still more uncomfortable for the Count than in the first. He became aware of his thoughtlessness when the Count, in a tone reflecting his emotion, exclaimed:

"I hope, Mr. President, you will not associate our idea, dictated, I may be permitted to say, by the purest patriotism, with those financial bubbles so popular these days, which have usually no other source than the most ordinary thirst for gain."

"For Heaven's sake, Count! How can you impute to me such a thing as would not even enter my dreams!" exclaimed the President.

The Count bowed. "I thank you," said he, "for I confess nothing would have been more offensive to my feelings. I have, of course, always considered it a political necessity, and a proof of his eminent statesmanship, that Prince Bismarck in the execution of his great ideas made use of certain means which he would certainly have done better not to have employed, because he thus could not avoid too close contact with persons, dealings with whom were formerly very odious to him at least. I considered it also a necessary consequence of this unfortunate policy that he inaugurated, was forced to inaugurate, by means of these nefarious millions, the new era of haggling and immoderate lust for gain. However – "

"Pardon me for interrupting you," said the General; "I consider this bargaining of the Prince with those persons, parties, strata of the population, classes of society – call it what you will – as you do, Count, as of course an unfortunate policy but by no means a necessary one. Quite the contrary! The rocher de bronze, upon which the Prussian throne is established – a loyal nobility, a zealous officialdom, a faithful army – they were strong enough to bear the German Imperial dignity, even though it had to be a German and not a Prussian, or not an imperial dignity at all."

"Yes, General, it had to be an imperial dignity, and a German one too," said Reinhold.

The General shot a lowering glance from under his bushy brows at the young man; but he had just listened with satisfaction to his explanations, and he felt that he must now, even though Reinhold opposed him, let him speak. "Why do you think so?" he asked.

"I only follow my own feelings," replied Reinhold; "but I am sure that they are the feelings of all who have ever lived much abroad, away from home, as I have – those who have experienced, as I have, what it means to belong to a people that is not a nation, and, because it is not a nation, is not considered complete by the other nations with which we have intercourse, nay, is even despised outright; what it means in difficult situations into which the mariner so easily comes, to be left to one's own resources, or, what is still worse, to ask for the assistance or the protection of others who unwillingly render it or prefer not to help at all. I have experienced and endured all this, as thousands and thousands of others have done, and to all this injustice and wrong have had silently to clench my fist in my pocket. And now I have been abroad again since the war, until a few weeks ago, and found that I no longer needed to dance attendance and stand aside, that I could enter with as firm step as the others; and thus, my friends, I thanked God from the bottom of my heart that we have an Emperor – a German Emperor; for nothing less than a German Emperor it had to be, if we were to demonstrate to the Englishman, the American, the Chinese and Japanese, ad oculos, that they henceforth no longer carry on trade and form treaties with Hamburgers, Bremers, with Oldenburgers and Mecklinburgers, or even with Prussians, but with Germans, who sail under one and the same flag – a flag which has the will and the power to protect and defend the least and the poorest who shares the honor and the fortune of being a German."

The General, to whom the last words were addressed, stared straight ahead – evidently a sympathetic chord in his heart had been touched. The President had put on his eye-glasses, which he had not used the whole evening; the ladies scarcely took their eyes from the man who spoke with such feeling and loyalty – the Count seeing and noting everything; his dislike for the man grew with every word that came from his mouth; he felt he must silence the wretched chatterer.

"I confess," he said, "that I should regret the noble blood shed upon so many battlefields, if it were for no other purpose than to put more securely into the pockets of the men who speculate in cotton and sugar, or export our laborers, their petty profits."

"I did not say that it was for no other purpose," rejoined Reinhold.

"To be sure," continued the Count, with a pretense of ignoring the interruption; "the further out of gunshot the better! And it is very pleasant to bask in the glory and honor which others have won for us."

The General frowned, the President dropped his eye-glasses, the two young ladies exchanged terrified glances.

"I doubt not," said Reinhold, "that the Count has his full share of German glory; I, for my part, am content with the honor of not having been out of gunshot."

"Where were you on the day of Gravelotte, Captain?"

"At Gravelotte, Count."

The General raised his eyebrows, the President put on his eye-glasses, the young ladies glanced at each other again – Else this time with a thrill of delight, while Mieting almost broke out into unrestrained laughter at the puzzled expression of the Count.

"That is, to be accurate," continued Reinhold, whose cheeks were flushed by the attention which his last word had excited, as he turned to the General; "on the morning of that day I was on the march from Rezonville to St. Marie. Then, when it was learned, as the General knows, that the enemy was not retreating along the northern road, and the second army had executed the great flank movement to the right toward Berneville and Amanvilliers, we – the eighteenth division – came under fire at half-past eleven in the morning in the neighborhood of Berneville. Our division had the honor of opening the battle, as the General will recall."

Reinhold passed his hand over his brow. The dreadful scenes of those fateful days again came to his mind. He had forgotten the offensive scorn which had been couched in the Count's question, and which he wished to resent by his account of his participation in the battle.

"Did you go through the whole campaign?" asked the General; and there was a peculiar, almost tender tone in his deep voice.

"I did, General, if I may include the two weeks from the eighteenth of July to the first of August, when I was drilling in Coblenz. As a native Hamburger and a seaman I had not had the good fortune of thoroughly learning the military discipline in my youth."

"How did you happen to enter the campaign?"

"It is a short story, and I will tell it briefly. On the fifteenth of July I lay with my ship at the Roads of Southampton, destined for Bombay – captain of a full-rigged ship for the first time. On the evening of the sixteenth we were to sail. But on the morning of the sixteenth the news came that war had been declared; at noon, having already secured a suitable substitute, I severed my connection with the ship-owners and with my ship; in the evening I was in London; during the nights of the sixteenth and seventeenth on the way to Ostende by way of Brussels, down the Rhine to Coblenz, where I offered myself as a volunteer, was accepted, drilled a little, sent on, and – I don't know how it happened – assigned to the Ninth Corps, Eighteenth Division, – Regiment, in which I went through the campaign."

"Were you promoted?"

"To the rank of Corporal at Gravelotte; on the first of September, the day after the great sally of Bazaine, to the rank of Vice-Sergeant-Major; on the fourth of September – "

"That was the day of Orléans?"

"Yes, General – on the day of the battle of Orléans I received my commission as officer."

"My congratulations on your rapid advancement!" said the General with a smile; but his face darkened again. "Why didn't you introduce yourself to me as comrade?"

"The sea captain apologizes for the Reserve Lieutenant, General."

"Did you receive a decoration?"

"At your service! I received the Cross with my commission."

"And you don't wear the decoration?"

"My dress is a little disordered today," replied Reinhold.

Mieting burst into laughter, in which Reinhold freely joined; and the others smiled – polite, approving, flattering smiles, as it seemed to the Count.

"I fear we have taxed the patience of the ladies too long," he said with a significant gesture.

[Mieting and Else are alone in their room. Mieting declares her love for the captain, declaring he is just her ideal of a man. She then unbraids her long hair, which reaches to her feet, tells Else all her little love stories, kisses her and runs off to bed.

The gentlemen likewise prepare to retire. Reinhold excuses himself very formally, declines the Count's offer of a carriage for his journey in the early morning, and is also about to retire, when the butler knocks on his door and tells him that the President wishes to speak to him. The President assures him of his personal interest, and asks him to look over certain papers relating to the railway and naval project and tell him whether he would be willing to work with him in the capacity of chief pilot at Wissow to succeed the old chief, soon to be pensioned. Reinhold is quite overcome by this confidence on the part of the stranger. The President invites him to dinner at his house, when he is to give his answer. Reinhold considers the proposal – to give up all his plans – his command of a ship plying between South America and China for the great Hamburg firm, his North Pole expedition, in which he had interested many people – to give up all for this desert coast and – he had to confess it – to be near Else, though his social position was hopelessly inferior; he would be but a fool, he knew. Which course should he take? He looks out of the window and sees Venus, the star of love, shining through a rift of the clouds. He decides to accept the President's proposal. It is dawn, and he lies down for an hour's sleep.

Else lies awake for a long time thinking of the day's happenings. When she does fall asleep, she dreams wildly of searching for Reinhold, and of wrestling with Mieting, by whom she is finally awakened just before sunrise. Mieting helps Else dress and they both go out to watch the sunrise from a height overlooking the sea. Reinhold comes upon them there. He sees the ship and hastens away with a word for Mieting and a glance for Else, who returns the glance and sends him on his way with a joyous heart.

On the train to Berlin Reinhold is in the same compartment with Ottomar von Werben, Else's brother, and the two recognize each other. Reinhold tells of his adventures in hunting buffaloes and tapirs, in contrast with which Ottomar describes his tiresome occupation as an officer since the close of the war. In the conversation Ottomar tells Reinhold that he lives next door to Reinhold's uncle, and offers to help him find his uncle when they arrive, since Reinhold has not seen him for ten years. While Ottomar is looking through the crowd Reinhold recognizes his uncle, who gives him an affectionate greeting, and Ferdinande, his uncle's daughter, now a young lady of twenty-four. Reinhold introduces Ottomar to Ferdinande, but she is in a hurry to be off, and whispers in Reinhold's ear that her father and Ottomar's father have been enemies since '48.

Reinhold, on entering his uncle's luxurious home, feels that it lacks real comfort, but thinks this may be due to the fact that he is a stranger. Then he thinks of Else – she lives next door! Aunt Rikchen greets him with hugs and kisses when he comes in. At dinner he asks about his cousin Philip, and learns that Philip almost never comes home. The question seems to have opened an old sore, as Philip is at odds with his father – an unfortunate beginning for the evening meal, Reinhold thinks.]

Meanwhile it appeared that his fears were fortunately not to be justified. To be sure, Aunt Rikchen could not open her mouth without having the thread of her discourse abruptly cut off by Uncle Ernst, and Ferdinande took little part in the conversation; but that signified little in the beginning, or was easily explained, as Uncle Ernst asked Reinhold first of all for a detailed account of his adventures and experiences during the long years since they had seen each other, and listened with an attentiveness which brooked no interruption. Now Reinhold had an opportunity to admire the very unusual fullness and accuracy of Uncle Ernst's knowledge. He could not mention a city, however distant, with whose location, history, and mercantile relations his uncle was not fully acquainted. He expressed to his uncle his astonishment and admiration.

"What do you expect?" answered Uncle Ernst. "If one is born a poor devil and has not the good fortune, like you, to roam around professionally through the world, but as a boy, a youth, and a man, has been bound to the soil and to hard work to gain his daily bread, until he has become an old fellow and can now no longer travel as one otherwise might do – what remains for him but to study the maps and nose through books to find out how grand and beautiful God has made His world."

While Uncle Ernst thus spoke, all the roughness and bitterness vanished from his voice, all sullenness from his rigid features, but only for a moment; then the dark cloud again gathered over his brow and eyes, like gray mists about the snows of a mountain range, which had just gleamed in the sunlight.

Reinhold could not take his eyes from the fine old face, whose expression constantly changed but never showed the slightest trace of shallowness or commonplace, remaining always dignified and strong, nor from the splendid head which, now that his abundant curly hair and bushy beard had grown quite gray, appeared more stately, more majestic than in former years. And at the same time he was compelled to think constantly of another face, opposite which he had sat but a few evenings before – that of General von Werben, with features likewise fine and sturdy, to be sure, but more composed, more concentrated, without the glowing fervor which, in Uncle Ernst, shone out in a splendid flash, or again, with threatening gleam, as if from beneath an ashy covering. Reinhold had said to himself from the beginning that it might not be long before he should have proof that this inner, scarcely subdued glow was threatening, and needed only an occasion to break forth with stormy violence; and he was not deceived.

In the narration of his journeys and wanderings he had come to the day, when, in Southampton, he received news of the outbreak of the war, and severed all his connections, gave up his other occupations and habits, and returned to Germany to fulfil his duty toward his native land which was in peril. – "The enthusiasm," he explained, "dictated my determination; with full devotion and the use of all my intellectual and physical powers, I carried it out from beginning to end, without – I may be permitted to say so – even once growing weary, flagging, or doubting for a moment that the cause to which I had consecrated myself was a holy one, however unholy the horrible bloody vestments in which it had to be enveloped. Then when the great object was attained, in a greater, better, fuller sense than I and indeed all who had gone into the battle with me had thought, had imagined, had desired, had intended – then I returned to my old occupation without delay, steered my ship again over the sea, in the silent happy consciousness of having done my duty; in the assurance of finding in the shadow of the German flag a bit of home everywhere, wherever the changing fate of the mariner might lead me; in the happy confidence that you in the fair Fatherland would never let the hard-won victory be lost, but would employ the precious time in filling out and completing the work so nobly planned, so vigorously begun, and that if I returned home it would be to a land full of joy and peace and sunshine in the hearts and countenances of all.

"I must confess that during the few days of my stay in my native land I have had many experiences which appeared to mock my hopes; but I have not been willing to believe that I saw aright. On the contrary, I am convinced that chance only has brought me repeatedly into contact with people who are discontented with the state of things purely for this or that personal reason, or are not entirely satisfied at least with the present conditions, as some of the gentlemen whom I met at Count Golm's. I have not been restrained from voicing my opinion of the upper aristocracy, even as late as yesterday, in the presence of the skeptical President in Sundin, but have rather given strong and open expression to my views. And now even here – in the bosom of my family – at your table, Uncle Ernst, who have fought so often and suffered so much for the honor and welfare of the Fatherland – this silence can no longer be fully maintained; but I can surely expect a hearty understanding and unconditional approval."

Uncle Ernst had listened in silence, with his head resting on his hand; now he suddenly lifted his head, and said with a voice that boded nothing good, "Pardon me for interrupting you to call your attention to the fact that I, too, agree not in the least with what you say. It is always well for the speaker to know that he does not have the listener on his side."

There was an unusually sullen expression in his searching eyes. Reinhold was well aware of it; he considered for a moment whether he should be silent or continue. But even if he remained but a few days this theme would still have to be discussed frequently, and if his uncle were still of a different opinion, as could no longer be doubted, it would be worth while to hear the views of such a man. So he went on, "I am very sorry, dear uncle, on account of the theme, and – pardon me for saying so – on your account."

"I don't understand you."

"I mean the question is so great and so weighty that it requires every pair of strong shoulders to move it; and it is so worthy and so holy that I am sorry for him who will not or cannot with full conviction participate in council and action."

"Or 'cannot'!" exclaimed Uncle Ernst; "quite right! Did I not take part in counsel and action as long as I could – on the barricades, in those March days, in the national convention, and everywhere and at all times when it was within human possibility – I mean when it was possible for an honorable man to put his shoulder to the wheel, as you said? I will not mention the fact that I pushed my shoulders sore in so doing – more than once; that they tricked me and molested me, dragged me from one penitential stool to another, and occasionally, too, clapped me into prison – that belonged to the game, and better people than I fared no better, but even worse, much worse. In a word, it was a struggle – a hopeless struggle, with very unequal weapons, if you will, but still a struggle! But how is it now? It is a fair, an old-clothes shop, where they dicker to and fro over the counter, and auction off one tatter after another of our proud old banner of freedom to the man who carries them all in his pocket, and who, they know, carries them all in his pocket."

The cloud on his brow grew more lowering, his dark brown eyes flashed, his deep voice grew sullen – a storm was coming; Reinhold thought it advisable to reef a few sails.

"I am not a politician, Uncle," he said. "I believe I have precious little talent for politics, and have at least had no time to cultivate such talent as I may possess. So I cannot contradict you when you say it is not altogether as it should be in this country. But then, too, you will grant me, as the aristocrats had to grant, that the question, viewed from the other side – I mean from abroad, from aboard ship, from a foreign harbor beyond the sea – makes a very different and much better impression; and I think you cannot blame me for thinking more favorably of the man – to put it flatly, for having a respect for him to whom we owe respect in the last analysis, a respect which the German name now enjoys throughout the world."

"I know the song!" said Uncle Ernst. "He sang it often enough, the sly old fowler, and still sings it every time when the bullfinches won't go into his net: 'Who is responsible for 1864, for 1866, for 1870? I! I!! I!!!'"

"And isn't he right, Uncle?"

"No, and a thousand times no!" exclaimed Uncle Ernst. "Has one man sole claim to the treasure which others have dug up and unearthed from the depths of the earth with unspeakable toil and labor, simply because he removed the last shovelful of earth? Schleswig-Holstein would still be Danish today if the noblemen had conquered it; Germany would still be torn into a thousand shreds if the noblemen had had to patch it together; the ravens would still flutter about the Kyffhäuser, if thousands and thousands of patriotic hearts had not dreamed of German unity, had not thought of Germany's greatness day and night – the hearts and heads of men who were not rewarded for their services with lands and the title of Count and Prince, and were not pardoned."

"I tell you, Uncle," said Reinhold, "I think it is with German unity as with other great things. Many fared in their imagination westward to the East Indies; in reality only one finally did it, and he discovered – America."

"I thought," said Uncle Ernst solemnly, "that the man who discovered it was called Columbus, and he is said to have been thrown into prison in gratitude for it, and to have died in obscurity. The one who came after and pocketed the glory, and for whom the land was named, was a wretched rascal not worthy to unloose the latchet of the discoverer's shoes."

"Well, really!" exclaimed Reinhold, laughing in spite of himself – "I believe no other man on the whole globe would speak in that way of Bismarck."

"Quite possible!" replied Uncle Ernst; "and I do not believe another man on the globe hates him as I do."

Uncle Ernst drained at one draught the glass he had just filled. It occurred to Reinhold that his uncle had tipped the bottle freely, and he thought he noticed that the hand which raised the glass to his mouth trembled a little, and that the hitherto steady gleam of his great eyes was dimmed and flickered ominously.

"That is the result of my obstinacy," said Reinhold to himself; "why excite the anger of the old graybeard? Every one has a right to look at things in his own way! You should have changed the course of the conversation."

On their way through the city he had given a brief account of the stranding of the steamer and the events that followed, so he could now without apparent effort resume the thread of his story there, and tell further how he had been kindly received by the President in Sundin and what prospects the President had held out to him. He described the manner of the man – how he at one time enveloped himself in clouds of diplomacy and, at another, spoke of men and things with the greatest frankness, while at the same time, in spite of his apparent tacking, keeping his goal clearly in view.

"You haven't drawn a bad portrait of the man," said Uncle Ernst. "I know him very well, ever since 1847, when he sat at the extreme right in the General Assembly. Now he belongs to the opposition – I mean to the concealed opposition of the old solid Bureaucracy, which bears a grudge toward the all-powerful Major Domus and would like, rather, to put an end to his clever economy, the sooner the better. He is not one of the worst; and yet I could wish that you hadn't gone quite so far with him."

"I have not yet committed myself," said Reinhold, "and I shall not do so until I have convinced myself that I shall find in the position offered to me a sphere of action in keeping with my powers and qualifications. But, if that should be the case, then I should have to accept it."

"Should 'have to'? Why?"

"Because I have sworn to serve my country on land and sea," replied Reinhold, with a smile. "The land service I have completed; now I should like to try the sea service."

"It appears that 'service' has become a necessity with you," said Uncle Ernst with a grim smile. It was intended as scorn – so Reinhold felt it; but he was determined not to yield to his opponent on a point which concerned, not himself, but his most personal views and convictions.

"Why should I deny," he questioned, "that the rigid Prussian military discipline has made a very profound impression on me? With us, in a small Republican community, everything is a little lax; no one understands rightly the art of commanding, and no one will submit to commands. Then we go on board ship, where one alone commands and the others must obey. But no one has learned what he is now to do; the officers lack, only too often, the proper attitude; they proceed at random with abuse and noise, where a calm firm word would be more in place; another time they let things go at sixes and sevens, and give free rein when they should keep a tight rein. The men, for their part, are the less able to endure such irregular treatment, as they are mostly rough fellows, only waiting for the opportunity to throw off restraint, which chafes them. So things do not move without friction of all sorts, and one may thank God if things don't come to a worse pass, and even to the worst, as indeed they unfortunately do, frequently enough, and as has happened to me more than once. And if one has been able to maintain authority without mishap during a long voyage and has finally established order and discipline among the men, by that time one is again in harbor; and on the next voyage the dance begins again. In the army none of this is to be found. Every one knows in advance that unconditional obedience is his first and last duty; indeed, what is still more important, every one, even the roughest, feels that disobedience is not simply a misdemeanor but folly, which, if it were permitted in even the slightest case, would of necessity destroy the whole organization – that our enormous, strangely complicated mechanism, which we call the Army, can work only when every one of the smallest wheels, and every one of the smallest cogs in the smallest wheel, performs in its place and time exactly what is prescribed."

"For example, people who think differently about what benefits the country – those shot down in the trenches of Rastatt, and so forth," said Uncle Ernst.

Reinhold made no answer. What reply should he make? How could he hope to come to an understanding with a man whose views about everything were diametrically opposed to his own, who pushed his opinions to the last extremity, never making a concession even to a guest who, only an hour before, had been received with such cordiality as a father displays toward his own son returning from abroad?

"Perhaps you have caused a rupture with him for all time," thought Reinhold. "It is too bad; but you cannot yield, bound hand and foot, unconditionally, to the old tyrant! If you cannot possibly touch chords which awaken a friendly response in his hard soul, let the ladies try to do so – and indeed that is their office."

Aunt Rikchen had evidently read the thought from his face. She answered his silent appeal with one of her sharp, swift, furtive glances, and with light shrugs of her shoulders, as if to say – "He's always so! It can't be helped." Ferdinande seemed not to notice the interruption. She continued to gaze straight ahead, as she had done during the entire meal, with a strange, distracted, gloomy expression, and did not now stir as her aunt, bending toward her, said a few words in a low tone. Uncle Ernst, who was just about to fill his empty glass again, set down the bottle he had raised.

"I have asked you a thousand times, Rike, to stop that abominable whispering. What is the matter now?"

A swift flush of anger passed over Aunt Rikchen's wrinkled old-maidish face, as the distasteful name "Rike" fell upon her ear; but she answered in a tone of resigned indifference, in which she was accustomed to reply to the reprimand of her brother, "Nothing at all! I only asked Ferdinande if Justus was not coming this evening."

"Who is Justus?" asked Reinhold, glad that some other subject had been broached.

"Rike is fond of speaking of people in the most familiar way," said Uncle Ernst.

"When they half belong to the family, why not?" retorted Aunt Rikchen, who seemed determined not to be intimidated this time. "Justus, or, as Uncle Ernst will have it, Mr. Anders, is a young sculptor – "

"Of thirty and more years," said Uncle Ernst.

"Of thirty and more years, then," continued Aunt Rikchen; "more exactly, thirty-three. He has been living, who knows how long, with us – "

"Don't you know, Ferdinande?" asked Uncle Ernst.

"Ferdinande is his pupil, you know," continued Aunt Rikchen.

"Oh!" said Reinhold; "my compliments."

"It isn't worth mentioning," said Ferdinande.

"His best pupil!" exclaimed Aunt Rikchen; "he told me so himself yesterday, and that your 'Shepherd Boy' pleased the Commission very much. Ferdinande has a 'Shepherd Boy' at the exposition, you know, suggested by Schiller's poem – "

"Uhland's poem, Aunt!"

"I beg pardon – I haven't had the good fortune of an academic education, as others have! – I don't know now what I was about to say – "

"I guess it won't make much difference," growled Uncle Ernst.

"You were speaking of Ferdinande's 'Shepherd Boy,' Aunt," said Reinhold, coming to her aid.

Aunt Rikchen cast a grateful glance at him, but, before she could answer, the bell rang in the hall and a clear voice asked, "Are the family still at the table?"

"It's Justus!" cried Aunt Rikchen. "I thought it was you! Have you had supper?"

[Justus blows in like a fresh breeze just in time for tea. He has a cheery word for each member of the family, and a hearty greeting for Reinhold. He tells Reinhold that Berlin is becoming a great metropolis, "famös und famöser" every day. He tells Aunt Rikchen he has a new commission for a monument. Uncle Ernst interjects that Justus sets a new head on an old figure to make a Victoria or a Germania. Uncle Ernst thinks this a good symbol of German unity. Justus assures Reinhold that this is Uncle Ernst's way; he is only envious; envy is his passion. He envies God for having made the world so beautiful! Justus then proceeds, eating and drinking everything in sight between the words, to describe his new monument – Germania on a stove mounted on a granite pedestal. On the fundament are to be reliefs, which Justus extemporizes on the spot, making Reinhold a national guardsman with the wrinkles of the old servant Grollmann; Uncle Ernst is to be the burgomaster, and Ferdinande the prettiest girl; General von Werben extends his hand to the burgomaster on entering the city. This awakens Uncle Ernst's protest, as he hates the General. Ferdinande falls in a faint, and Uncle Ernst shows the effects of his wine. Ferdinande goes into the garden, and Justus and Reinhold leave the room to retire.

At breakfast Reinhold has a confidential talk with Aunt Rikchen and learns many of the secrets of the family, especially the breach between Uncle Ernst and Philip. Aunt Rikchen thinks Philip can't be so bad after all, when he stops his poor old aunt on the street and asks her if she wants any money.

Reinhold goes out of the house, with its gloomy associations, into the glorious sunshine. He sees Cilli, the blind daughter of Kreisel, Uncle Ernst's head bookkeeper, feeling her way along the iron fence, and notices that she has caught her apron in a thorn-bush. He comes to her relief and converses with her about the light, which she cannot see, and about the world, which she can only feel and hear. Her face is an animated ray of sunlight.

Reinhold starts out to find Uncle Ernst in his establishment. He passes Ferdinande's studio and inquires of the young Italian, Antonio, whether Miss Schmidt is in. Antonio makes an indifferent and rather impolite reply, that he doesn't know. After passing from one department to another, Reinhold finally finds Uncle Ernst confronted by a group of socialistic strikers, and takes a stand close by his side. "We are all socialists," cries a voice from the group. His uncle, in his rage, orders the men to go and get their pay, and discharges them, as he declares that might goes before right and revolution has become permanent. He then sends Reinhold to accompany Ferdinande to the Exhibition.]

The young man in shirt-sleeves, who had given a rather discourteous answer to Reinhold, after closing the door shook his fist, muttering a strong oath in his native tongue between his sharp white teeth. Then he stepped back into the inclosure and stole with noiseless tread to the door which separated this studio from the adjoining one. He put his ear to the door and listened a few minutes. A smile of satisfaction lighted up his dark face; straightening up, he drew a deep breath and then, as noiselessly as a cat, stole up the iron steps of the winding staircase which led to the little room whence he had descended a few minutes before to answer Reinhold's knock.

After some minutes he came down the stairs again, this time without artfully concealing the noise, but stepping more heavily than was necessary and whistling a tune. He now had his coat and vest on, and wore patent-leather shoes on his narrow feet, at which he cast satisfied glances as he descended. Downstairs he stepped quickly before the Venetian mirror and repeatedly scanned his entire figure with the closest scrutiny, adjusted his blue cravat, pressed one of the gold buttons more firmly into his shirt front, and passed a fine comb through his blue-black curls, which shone like raven plumes. His whistling became softer and softer, and finally ceased. He turned away from the mirror, noisily moving one object after another, till he came directly up to the door at which he had listened shortly before. He reached out and seized a footstool, which he had placed against the wall at arm's length for the purpose, and now stepped upon it and put his eye to the door, as he had his ear a while before – very close; for he had with great pains bored a hole with the smallest auger, and had experienced great difficulty in learning to see through it into the adjoining room, or the place where she was accustomed to work. The blood flushed his dark cheeks as he peeped through. "Oh, bellissima!" he whispered to himself, pressing a fervent kiss upon the wood.

All at once he jumped away – noiselessly as a cat; the seat stood again by the wall, and he himself stood before the half-finished statue of a female figure of heroic size, as a knock was heard at the door on the other side – "Signor Antonio!"

"Signora?" called the young man from where he sat. He had taken up his mallet and chisel, evidently only better to play the rôle of one surprised.

"Can you come in a moment, Signer Antonio? Fatemi il piacere!"

"Si, Signora!"

He threw down the tools and ran to the door, the bolt of which was already shoved back. Notwithstanding the request, he knocked before opening it.

"Ma – entrate!– How finely you have fixed yourself up, Signor Antonio!"

Antonio dropped his eyelashes, and his glance glided down his slender figure to the points of his patent-leather shoes – but only for a moment. The next instant his black eyes were fastened with a melancholy, passionate expression upon the beautiful girl, who stood before him in her simple dark house-dress and her work-apron, holding the modeling tool in her hand.

"You do not need to make yourself beautiful. You are always beautiful."

He said this in German. He was proud of his German, since she had praised his accent repeatedly during the Italian lessons he had given her, and had said that every word sounded to her, when he uttered it, new and precious, like an acquaintance one meets in a foreign land.

"I think I am anything but beautiful, this morning," said Ferdinande. "But I need your help. My model did not come; I wanted to work on the eyes today. You have prettier eyes than your countrywomen, Antonio; do pose for me – only a few minutes."

A proud smile of satisfaction passed over the beautiful face of the youth. He took the same attitude toward Ferdinande that she had given her statue.

"Fine!" she said. "One never knows whether you are greater as actor or as sculptor."

"Un povero abbozzatore!" he muttered.

"You are not a workingman!" said Ferdinande. "You know you are an artist."

"I am an artist as you are a princess!"

"What do you mean by that?"

"I was born to be an artist and yet am not one, as you were born to be a princess and yet are not one."

"You are crazy!"

It was not a tone of irritation in which she said this; there was something like acquiescence in it, which did not escape the ear of the Italian.

"And now you know it," he added.

She made no reply, and kept on with her work, but only mechanically. "She called you to tell you something," said Antonio to himself.

"Where were you last evening, Antonio?" she asked after a pause.

"In my club, Signora."

"When did you come home?"

"Late."

"But when?"

"At one o'clock, ma perchè?"

She had turned around to her little table on which lay her tools, which she was fingering.

"I only asked the question. We did not go to bed till late at night. We had a visitor – a cousin of mine – there was much talking and smoking – I got a fearful headache, and spent an hour in the garden. Will you pose again? Or shall we give it up? It is hard for you; I think you look tired."

"No, no!" he muttered.

He took the pose again, but less gracefully than before. Strange thoughts whirled through his brain, and made his heart throb. – "When did you come home?" – "I was in the garden for an hour." – Was it possible – but no, no, it was impossible, it was chance! But if he had met her alone in the garden, alone, late at night – what would he have said, what would he have done?

His eyes swam – he pressed his hands, which he should have held to his brow, to his eyes.

"What is the matter?" exclaimed Ferdinande.

His hand dropped; his eyes, which were fixed upon her, were aflame.

"What is the matter with me?" he muttered. "What is the matter with me? —Ho – non lo so neppur io: una febbre che mi divora, ho, che il sangue mi abbrucia, che il cervello mi si spezza; ho in fine, che non ne posso più, che sono stanco di questa vita!"

Ferdinande had tried to resist the outbreak, but without success. She shook from head to foot; from his flaming eyes a spark had shot into her own heart, and her voice trembled as she now replied with as much composure as she could command, "You know I do not understand you when you speak so wildly and fast."

"You did understand me," muttered the youth.

"I understood nothing but what I could see without all that – that 'a fever consumes you, that your blood chokes you, that your brain is about to burst, that you are tired of this life' – in German; that 'you sat too late at your club last night, and raved too much about fair Italy, and drank too much fiery Italian wine.'"

The blue veins appeared on his fine white brow; a hoarse sound like the cry of a wild beast came from his throat. He reached toward his breast, where he usually carried his stiletto – the side pocket was empty – his eyes glanced about as if he were looking for a weapon.

"Do you mean to murder me?"

His right hand, which was still clutching his breast, relaxed and sank; his left also dropped, his fingers were interlocked, a stream of tears burst from his eyes, extinguishing their glow; he fell on his knees and sobbed: "Pardonatemi! Ferdinanda, l'ho amata dal primo giorno che l'ho veduta, ed adesso – ah! adesso —"

"I know it, poor Antonio," said Ferdinande, "and that is why I pardon you – once more – for the last time! If this scene is repeated I shall tell my father, and you will have to go. And now, Signor Antonio, stand up!"

She extended her hand, which he, still kneeling, pressed to his lips and his forehead.

"Antonio! Antonio!" echoed the voice of Justus outside; immediately there was a rap upon the door which led to the court. Antonio sprang to his feet.

"Is Antonio here, Miss Ferdinande?"

Ferdinande went herself to open the door.

"Are you still at work?" inquired Justus, coming in. – "But I thought we were going with your cousin to the Exhibition?"

"I am waiting for him; he has not yet appeared; just go on ahead with Antonio; we shall meet in the sculpture gallery."

"As you say! – What you have done today on the eyes is not worth anything – an entirely false expression! You have been working without your model again; when will you come to see that we are helpless without a model! —Andiamo, Antonio! If you are not ashamed to cross the street with me!"

He had taken a position by the side of the Italian as if he wished to give Ferdinande the pleasure he found in contrasting his short stout figure, in the worn velvet coat and light trousers of doubtful newness, with the elegant, slender, handsome youth, his assistant. But Ferdinande had already turned away, and only said once more, "in the sculpture gallery, then!"

"Dunque – andiamo!" cried Justus; "a rivederci!"

[Ferdinande says Antonio is the only one, after all, who understands her. She then reads a letter which she has received from Ottomar over the garden wall. Ottomar speaks only of meeting her, but says nothing of seeing her father, or of more serious purposes. Reinhold knocks on her studio door, enters, and sees how the artists live in a world of their own. Ferdinande says her father does not care what she does so long as she can have her own way. Reinhold inspects her work and the studio.]

"But now I am afraid you will spoil me so thoroughly that I shall find it difficult to get back into my simple life," said Reinhold, as he sped on at the side of Ferdinande in his uncle's equipage through the Thiergartenstrasse to the Brandenburgerthor.

"Why do we have horses and a carriage if we are not to use them?" inquired Ferdinande.

She had leaned back against the cushions, just touching the front seat with the point of one of her shoes. Reinhold's glance glided almost shyly along the beautiful figure, whose splendid lines were brought out advantageously by an elegant autumn costume. He thought he had just discovered for the first time how beautiful his cousin was, and he considered it very natural that she should attract the attention of the motley throng with which the promenade teemed, and that many a cavalier who dashed by them turned in his saddle to look back at her. Ferdinande seemed not to take any notice of it; her large eyes looked down, or straight ahead, or glanced up with a dreamy, languid expression to the tops of the trees, which, likewise dreamy and languid, appeared to drink in the mild warmth of the autumn sun without stirring. Perhaps it was this association of ideas that caused Reinhold to ask himself how old the beautiful girl was; and he was a little astonished when he calculated that she could not be far from twenty-four. In his recollection she had always appeared as a tall, somewhat lank young thing, that was just about to unfold into a flower – but, to be sure, ten years had gone since that. Cousin Philip – at that time likewise a tall, thin young fellow – must already be in the beginning of his thirties.

A two-wheeled cabriolet came up behind them and passed them. On the high front seat sat a tall, stately, broad-shouldered gentleman, clad with most precise and somewhat studied elegance, as it appeared to Reinhold, who, with hands encased in light kid gloves, drove a fine high-stepping black steed, while the small groom with folded arms sat in the low rear seat. The gentleman had just been obliged to turn out for a carriage coming from the opposite direction, and his attention had been directed to the other side; now – at the distance of some carriage lengths – he turned upon his seat and waved a cordial greeting with his hand and whip, while Ferdinande, in her careless way, answered with a nod of her head.

"Who was that gentleman?" asked Reinhold.

"My brother Philip."

"How strange!"

"Why so?"

"I was just thinking of him."

"That happens so often – and particularly in a large city, and at an hour when everybody is on the go. I shall not be surprised if we meet him again at the Exhibition. Philip is a great lover of pictures, and is not bad himself at drawing and painting. There, he is stopping – I thought he would – Philip understands the proprieties."

At the next moment they were side by side with the cabriolet.

"Good morning, Ferdinande! Good morning, Reinhold! Stunning hit that I strike you on the first day! Wretched pun, Ferdinande – eh? Looks fine, our cousin, with his brown face and beard – but he doesn't need to be ashamed of the lady at his side – eh? Where are you going – to the Exhibition? That's fine! We'll meet there. – My nag acts like crazy today. – Au revoir!"

With the tip of his whip he touched the black horse, which was already beginning to rear in the traces, and sped off, nodding back once more over his broad shoulders.

"I should not have recognized Philip again," said Reinhold. "He doesn't resemble you – I mean Uncle and you – at all."

In fact, a greater contrast is scarcely conceivable than that between the broad, ruddy, beardless, clean-shaven face of the young man, with his closely clipped hair, and the splendid face of Uncle Ernst, with its deep furrows and heavy growth of gray hair and beard, or the stately pallor and aristocratic beauty of Ferdinande.

"Lucky for him!" cried Ferdinande.

"Lucky?"

"He is, as he appears, a man of his time; we are medieval ghosts. For that reason he moves about as a ghost among us – but it is not his fault."

"Then you are on his side in the rupture between him and Uncle?"

"The rest of us at home are never asked for our opinion; you must take note of that for the future."

"Also for the present," thought Reinhold, as Ferdinande sank back among the cushions.

"Ghosts are never one's favorite company, much less on such a beautiful sunny day. There are so many good happy people – sweet little Cilli, for example – and – of whom one thinks, him he meets!" As if wishing to make up in all haste for what he had foolishly neglected in the morning, he now tried to direct his thoughts to her whose image he believed he had forever in his soul, but which would not now appear. – "The throng is to blame for it," he said impatiently.

They were in the worst of the jam now, to be sure. A regiment was marching down Friedrichstrasse across the Linden with the band playing. The throng of pedestrians pressed back on both sides, particularly on that from which they came; in the midst of them mounted and unmounted policemen were striving with persuasion and force to maintain order and keep back the throng which now and then gave audible expression to their indignation.

The annoying delay seemed to make Ferdinande impatient, too; she looked at her watch. – "Already half-past twelve – we are losing the best part of the time." At last the rear of the battalion came along, while the van of the next battalion, with the band playing, came out of Friedrichstrasse again, and the throng of people pressed on with a rush through the small space in wild confusion. – "On! On! Johann!" cried Ferdinande, with an impatience which Reinhold could explain only by the anxiety which she felt. They got out of one crowd only to get into another.

In the first large square room of the Exhibition – the so-called clock room – a throng of spectators stood so closely jammed together that Reinhold, who had Ferdinande's arm, saw no possibility of advance. "There are not so many people in the side rooms," said Ferdinande, "but we must stand it a little while here; there are always good pictures here; let us separate – we can then move more freely. What do you think of this beautiful Andreas Achenbach? Isn't it charming, wonderful! In his best and noblest style! Sky and sea – all in gray, and yet – how sharply the individual details are brought out! And how well he knows how to enliven the apparent monotony by means of the red flag there on the mast at the stern of the steamer, and by the flickering lights on the planks of the bridge wet with spray here at the bow – masterful! Simply masterful!"

Reinhold had listened with great pleasure to Ferdinande's enthusiastic description. "Here she can speak!" he thought; "well, to be sure, she is an artist! You can see all that too, but not its significance, and you wouldn't be able to explain why it is so beautiful."

He stood there, wrapped in contemplation of the picture. – "What manœuvre would the captain make next? He would doubtless have to tack again to get before the wind, but for that he was already a ship's length or so too near the bridge – a devilish ticklish manœuvre."

He turned to communicate his observation to Ferdinande, and just missed addressing a fat little old lady, who had taken Ferdinande's place and was eagerly gazing through her lorgnette, in company with a score of other ladies and gentlemen standing closely together in a semicircle. Reinhold made a few vain efforts to escape this imprisonment and to get to Ferdinande, whom he saw at a distance speaking with some ladies, so absorbed that she did not turn even once, and had evidently forgotten him. – Another advantage of freedom of movement – you can also make use of that! – A picture nearby had attracted his attention – another sea view by Hans Gude, as the catalogue said – which pleased him almost better than the other. To the left, where the sea was open, lay a large steamer at anchor. On the shore, which curved around in a large bend, in the distance among the dunes, were a few fisher huts, with smoke rising from the chimneys. Between the village and the ship a boat was passing, while another, almost entirely in the foreground, was sailing toward the shore. The evening sky above the dunes was covered with such thick clouds that the smoke could hardly be distinguished from the sky; only on the extreme western horizon, above the wide open sea, appeared a narrow muddy streak. The night was likely to be stormy, and even now a stiff breeze was blowing; the flags of the steamer were fluttering straight out and there was a heavy surf on the bare beach in the foreground. Reinhold could not take his eyes from the picture. Thus it was, almost exactly, on that evening when he steered the boat from the steamer to the shore. There in the bow lay the two servants, huddled together; here sat the President, with one hand on the gunwale of the boat and the other clutching the seat, not daring to pull up the blanket which had slipped from his knees; here the General with the collar of his mantle turned up, his cap pulled down over his face, staring gloomily into the distance; and here, close by the man at the helm, she sat – looking out so boldly over the green waste of water, and the surf breaking before them; looking up so freely and joyously with her dear brown eyes at the man at the helm! – Reinhold no longer thought of the pressing throng about him, he had forgotten Ferdinande, he no longer saw the picture; he saw only the dear brown eyes!

"Do you think they will get to shore without a compass, Captain?" asked a voice at his side.

The brown eyes looked up at him, as he had just seen them in his dream; free and glad; glad, too, was the smile that dimpled her cheeks and played about her delicate lips as she extended her hand to him, without reserve, as to an old friend.

"When did you come?"

"Last evening."

"Then of course you haven't had time to ask after us and get your compass. Am I not the soul of honesty?"

"And what do you want of it?"

"Who knows? You thought I had great nautical talent; but let us get out of the jam and look for my brother, whom I just lost here. Are you alone?"

"With my cousin."

"You must introduce me to her. I have seen her 'Shepherd Boy' down stairs – charming! I have just learned from my brother that your cousin did it, and that we are neighbors, and all that. – Where is she?"

"I have been looking around for her, but can't find her."

"Well, that's jolly! Two children lost in this forest of people! I am really afraid."

She wasn't afraid. – Reinhold saw that she wasn't; she was at home here; it was her world – one with which she was thoroughly acquainted, as he was with the sea. How skilfully and gracefully she worked her way through a group of ladies who were not disposed to move! How unconcernedly she nodded to the towering officer, who bowed to her from the farthest corner of the room, above the heads of several hundred people! How she could talk over her shoulder with him, who followed her only with difficulty, when he was at her side, until they reached the long narrow passage in which the engravings and water colors were exhibited.

"I saw my brother go in here," she said. "There – no, that was von Saldern! Let us give him up! I shall find him soon – and you your cousin."

"Not here, either."

"It doesn't make any difference; she will not lack companions, any more than we. Let's chat a little until we find them; or do you want to look at pictures? There are a few excellent Passinis here."

"I prefer to chat."

"There is no better place to chat than at an exhibition, in the first days. One comes really to chat, to see one's acquaintances after the long summer when everybody is away, to scan the newest fashions which the banker's wife and daughters have brought back from Paris – we ladies of the officers don't play any rôle – one has an awful lot to do, and the pictures won't run away. You are going to spend the winter with us, my brother says?"

"A few weeks at least."

"Then you'll remain longer. You can't believe how interesting Berlin is in winter! And for you, too, who have the entrée into so many circles! Your uncle entertains in grand style, my brother says, from whom I have all my wisdom; artists go and come – as a matter of course, when the daughter herself is an artist, and pretty besides! Is she really so pretty? I'm so curious! At our house it's more quiet, and a little monotonous – always the same people – officers – but there are some fine men among them who will appeal to you, and among the ladies a few lovely, beautiful women and girls. This is familiar talk. And then Miss von Strummin is coming – Mieting! She promised me to do so at Golmberg, with a thousand pledges, and has already written half a dozen letters on the subject – she writes every day – sometimes two letters a day; the last one was entirely about you."

"That makes me curious."

"I believe it; but I shall take care not to tell you what was in it; you men are already vain enough. Papa, too, is very fond of you; did you know that?"

"No, I did not know it; but I don't know of anything that would make me prouder."

"He said – only yesterday evening, when Ottomar told us about meeting you, and that he had met you in Orléans – it was too bad that you didn't remain in the army; you would have had an easy time of it. You could still reënter any moment."

"Very kind! I thought of it myself during the campaign, and, if the campaign had lasted longer, who knows! But in time of peace! A second lieutenant at thirty years – that wouldn't do!"

"Of course, of course! But how would it be with the marine? That could certainly be arranged, and you could remain in your profession."

"I should be glad to remain in that, of course," answered Reinhold, "and I am just revolving in my mind a proposal which President von Sunden has made me recently, and which would advance me at once to the rank of commander."

"To the rank of commander!" exclaimed Else with wondering eyes.

"To the rank of Pilot Commander."

"Oh!"

There was disappointment in the exclamation, which did not escape Reinhold, and he continued with a smile: "That is, the command of a few dozen rough, seasoned, seaworthy men, and of a dozen capable, seaworthy, fast sailing craft, among them, I hope, also one or two life-boats – a modest position but yet one not without honor, and certainly full of dangers; all in all, a position of sufficient importance to justify any one who does not make any great claims on life, but is willing to exercise his capabilities in the service of the world, in devoting to it and risking for it, his powers and abilities and whatever else he has to give. And I – I should incidentally remain in my profession."

They stood at a window, a little apart from the throng of people which was surging just now up and down the long corridor with particular vivacity. Else, leaning gently against the window-sill, was looking with fixed eyes toward the street. Reinhold almost doubted whether she had heard what he said, when, suddenly lifting her head, she answered with the cheerful face of a few minutes before, "You are right – that is your real calling. Accepting the proposal which the dear old man has made to you, you have friends in all circles. Is it a question of some particular position, if I may ask?"

"Yes, I should have my post at Wissow."

"At Wissow?"

She clapped her hands and laughed. "At our Wissow? No, but that is too delightful! Then we should be half neighbors from Warnow and also from Strummin, when I make my promised visit to Mieting! Then we shall come, and you shall go sailing with us – but far, far out! Will you do it?"

"As far as you wish!"

"Done! And now we must continue our journey of discovery. Good gracious! Princess Heinrich August, with the princesses! The unfortunate Passinis! She has certainly seen me – she sees everything at a glance; I can't get away now. – But – "

"I am going!" said Reinhold.

"Yes, do; it is better! Here – give me your hand! Good-by!" She extended her hand which Reinhold held for a second; her eyes were turned again to the princess. He went down the corridor. When he turned again for a moment at the end of the corridor, he saw Else just making a deep curtsy to the princess. The noble lady had stopped and was speaking to Else.

"How will she get out of it," thought Reinhold. "She cannot say she has been in the bay window speaking with a pilot commander in spe."

Ferdinande had talked with her friends so long in the clock room that she thought she noticed that Reinhold, who had repeatedly looked around for her, now having dismissed her from his mind for the moment, was fully occupied in examining the pictures. Then, bowing to the ladies, she moved on with the crowd, which pressed toward the side room, stopping a few moments at the entrance to make sure that Reinhold was not following her; then, with quick steps and wearing the expression of a lady looking for her lost companion, giving only a quick nod to passing acquaintances, she went on through this room, the sky-light room, and the fourth room, from there turning into the long series of small rooms which extended along the larger, and into which but few visitors came, even in the first days of the exhibition.

Today it was comparatively empty, although here and there scattered visitors strolled past, scanning the pictures with hasty, feverish curiosity, not stopping long anywhere, but occasionally casting a glance of admiration at an officer who appeared to be absorbed in a few medieval landscapes. Now his interest seemed satisfied; he walked quickly up the passageway, until a picture at the far end again attracted his attention; it was the same one at which Ferdinande had been looking. The light fell so unfavorably upon the picture that it could be seen to advantage only from one place, and the officer had to approach very close to the lady – brushing her gown in doing so. "Pardon!" he said aloud, and then in a low tone, which reached her ear alone, "Don't turn round till I tell you to do so! Speak toward the corner; no one can notice it. First, thank you!"

"For what?"

"For coming."

"I only came to tell you that I can't bear it any longer."

"Do I have nothing to bear?"

"No – in comparison with me."

"I love you, as you do me."

"Prove it!"

"How?"

"By actions, not questions!"

"But if my hands are bound."

"Break the bonds!"

"I cannot."

"Farewell!"

She turned toward the entrance through which she had come; he forgot all rules of propriety and stepped in front of her. They stood face to face, looking into each other's eyes.

"Ferdinande!"

"I wish to proceed!"

"You must hear me! For Heaven's sake, Ferdinande, such an opportunity will not come again – perhaps for weeks."

She laughed scoffingly. "We have time enough!"

Again she tried to pass him; again he stopped her.

"Ferdinande!"

"Once more: Let me pass! You need an opportunity? Such a good one to get rid of me may never come again."

He stepped aside with a bow; she might have gone unhindered, but did not do so; hot tears filled her large eyes; she did not dare to go into the throng, but turned again toward the picture, while he took the same discreet pose as before.

"Be gracious, Ferdinande! I looked forward eagerly to this moment – why do you embitter for both of us the precious minutes? You know, you must know, that I am resolved upon the last extremity, if it must be. But we cannot take the final step without considering everything."

"We have considered for six months."

"Over the garden wall, in words which were only half understood; in letters, which never say what we mean to say. That is nothing. You must give me an appointment, for which I have so often asked. Shall my hand never rest in yours, my lips never touch yours? And you ask for proofs of my love!"

She looked at him with a side glance, gazed into his beautiful, light-brown, nervous eyes. Two more beautiful, two darker eyes, had looked at her an hour before with passionate fervor; she had resisted them, but she did not resist these. Her eyelids dropped. "I cannot do it," she stammered.

"Say: 'I do not wish to do it.' I have made countless proposals. I asked to be presented to your brother at the club, recently. He was delighted to make my acquaintance – gave me a pressing invitation to call upon him – to see his pictures. How easily we could meet there!"

"I am not allowed to visit my brother – have not been allowed to do so for a long time – and now, since last evening!"

"Then your cousin! He will surely come to see us; I shall return his call – your father certainly cannot show me the door!"

"I have thought of that, and prepared him for it. It would, in any case, be only a few minutes."

"Then I shall consider farther; if I only know that you wish it, I shall find a way and write you, or rather tell you as soon as you give the sign."

"I no longer dare to do it."

"Why not?"

"Some one is watching me at every step; I am not secure in his presence for a moment – Antonio – I told you about it; I am afraid."

"Yes, you are always afraid."

He made a quick, uneasy movement toward the recess of the window near which he was standing. At the same moment a strikingly handsome, well-dressed young man vanished through the door at the other end of the gallery, in which he had been standing for some time, so concealed that, by bending a little to the left, he viewed the recess of the window and the strange couple there with his falcon-like black eyes, without running great risk of being detected. In an emergency he needed only to spring into the throng which filled the larger side rooms. He had seen enough, and darted back.

When Ottomar, after looking out of the window a few seconds, turned to speak to Ferdinande a conciliatory word which was on his lips and in his heart, the place was empty.

Ferdinande had not been able to do otherwise. Her lady friends, with whom she had conversed a little while before, had just passed the door of the side room next to which she stood, fortunately without noticing her. But they had stopped close to the door – the dress of one of them was still in sight.

[While viewing the pictures, Madame von Wallbach asks her husband, Edward, who the striking figure is coming toward them. It is Count Golm, who is presented and converses with them about Italy and Paris. Else and Ottomar are referred to. Golm asks who Ottomar is. In the course of the conversation Carla intimates her relations with Ottomar, whom Golm wishes to meet. Princess Heinrich August comes along with her suite, speaking with Else, and, recognizing Golm, inquires about his island.

Philip comes upon Reinhold at the exhibition and converses with him in a friendly way, mentioning Bismarck as his great hero, much to Reinhold's delight. He then refers to his father in severe words and points out a nouveau riche, who but two years ago was a dabbler, and is today thrice a millionaire. Philip says that he himself is rich and is expecting large dividends soon. He asks Reinhold to share with him, but Reinhold declines, having saved a small sum himself. They step aside as the princess comes along with Else, Golm, and her suite. Philip meets Ferdinande again and talks with her. Ottomar is in the crowd, also talking to Carla, in close proximity to Ferdinande. Antonio is spying on Ferdinande and Ottomar, with curses on his lips.

Count Golm and Privy Councilor Schieler are at the Hotel Royal discussing the new projects for a north or an east harbor of the Sundin-Wissow railroad. The Count wants the east harbor; Schieler says he is no longer an official and has no influence. The Count speaks of his debts – fifty thousand thaler, due in October, and his account not particularly good with Lübbener. Schieler tells him he should marry a rich woman; suggests Else von Werben, mentioning the fact that Wallbach, a director of the railroad, is also trustee of the Warnow estates, and that Ottomar is engaged to Wallbach's clever sister, Carla. Wallbach calculates that half of the estate, if sold to the railroad, would be worth three or four times as much as the whole of it is now, but he hesitates to give advice in the matter. The Count proposes to buy the property at a lower rate and to sell it to the railroad. But they are reckoning without their host, Valerie, Baroness Warnow, who has, with her fifty years, acquired the right of a voice in administering the affairs of the estates; but Giraldi, her chamberlain, companion, and what not, is the power behind her. Schieler then tells Golm the history of Valerie, gives him an account of the will of her husband, and convinces the Count that the interests of the railroad and of Golm are identical. Schieler and Golm then go to call on Philip Schmidt, the general promoter of the railroad.

Schieler has prepared Philip for the visit, and told him that Golm must be won over. Philip shows Schieler and Golm his pictures. The Count is pleased and flattered, and offers Philip the hospitality of Golmberg. Golm learns how Philip, a plain master mason, has come up by his intelligence, inventive genius, energy, and speculation, especially as promoter of the railroad scheme. Lübbener, previously notified by Schieler, drops in at Philip's to see Golm. Refreshments are served, and Philip, as a bluff, pretends to banish business. Victorine, a mezzo-soprano, and Bertalde, a dancing girl, and, later, Ottomar come in, and make a breezy scene. The company, as a jest, constitutes itself a committee of promoters.

General von Werben is at work in his study, Aunt Sidonie is working on her book on Court Etiquette, Ottomar has not returned from drill, Else is reading Mieting's letters – one saying that Mieting will fall in love with Reinhold if Else does not want him, and that she is coming to make conquest; the second that Mieting has misunderstood Else's letter at the first reading, and having re-read it, is not coming. Sidonie and Else discuss the question of inviting Reinhold to the ball, and decide that Ottomar is to deliver the invitation in person. Else is worried at Ottomar's disturbed state of mind, and charges him with not loving Carla. Ottomar admits that he intends to marry Carla for her five thousand income, and taunts Else with having acquired her wisdom in love matters from Count Golm. Else resents this, and then tells Ottomar that his father wishes him to deliver the invitation. Ottomar demurs, and, going to his room, finds a letter on the table from his father, saying that he has paid twelve hundred thaler of Ottomar's debts – the last he will pay.

Reinhold tries to change Uncle Ernst's attitude toward his socialistic workmen. Kreisel comes in to tell Uncle Ernst that he is going to his own funeral, and to ask for his discharge, for he too is a socialist. Philip interviews his father in the interests of the railroad, offering to buy out his plant, but, meeting with a rebuff, goes away.

Cilli asks Reinhold how Uncle Ernst received her father's resignation, and then gives Reinhold an account of her blindness. Philip finds Reinhold with Cilli and accuses him with strengthening Uncle Ernst's prejudice against the railroad. Ottomar comes in to give Reinhold the invitation to the ball, and then views the work in the studio. Philip tells Justus that he will have half a street to his credit for his sculpture. Ottomar seizes an opportunity to kiss Ferdinande and make an appointment with her in the Bellevue Garden at eight o'clock. Antonio enters and takes in the situation.

Ferdinande tells Aunt Rikchen that she is to take supper with Miss Marfolk, a painter, to meet Professor Seefeld of Karlsruhe. Reinhold prepares to go to the Werben ball. Aunt Rikchen suggests to Ferdinande that she marry Reinhold herself, greatly to her astonishment. Antonio heightens the embarrassment by coming to give Ferdinande the lesson, which was to come on the following morning. Ferdinande sends him off, takes a cab to the Grosser Stern, while Antonio follows her in another cab. Ottomar, clad as a civilian, meets Ferdinande at the Grosser Stern.]

Meanwhile the cab had gone only a short distance, as far as the entrance to Bellevue Garden. "It is entirely safe here, I swear it is," Ottomar whispered, as he helped Ferdinande alight. The cabman put his dollar contentedly into his pocket and drove off; Ottomar took Ferdinande's arm and led the confused, anxious, dazed girl into the garden; he heard plainly her deep breathing. "I swear it is safe here," he repeated.

"Swear that you love me! That's all I ask!"

Instead of answering he placed his arm about her; she embraced him with both arms; their lips touched with a quiver and a long ardent kiss. Then they hurried hand in hand further into the park till shrubbery and trees inclosed them in darkness, and they sank into each other's arms, exchanging fervent kisses and stammering love vows – drunk with a bliss which they had so long, long dreamed, but which was now more precious than all their happy dreams.

So felt Ferdinande, at least, and so she said, while her lips met his again and again, and so said Ottomar; and yet in the same moment in which he returned her fervent kisses there was a feeling that he had never before known – a shuddering fear of the fever in his heart and hers, a feeling as of fainting in contrast to the passion which surrounded and oppressed him with the violence of a storm. He had sported with women before, considered his easy victories as triumphs, accepted the silent worship of beautiful eyes, the flattering words of loving lips, as a tribute which was due him and which he pocketed without thanks – but here – for the first time – he was the weaker one. He was not willing to confess it, but knew, as a practised wrestler knows after the first grip, that he has found his master and that he will be overcome if chance does not come to the rescue. Indeed, Ottomar was already looking for this chance – any event that might intervene, any circumstance which might serve to his advantage; and then he blushed for himself, for his cowardice, this base ingratitude toward the beautiful, precious creature who had thrown herself into his arms with such confidence, such devotion, such self-forgetfulness; and he redoubled the tenderness of his caresses and the sweet flattery of words of love.

And then – that anxious feeling might be a delusion; but she, who had done what he so often, so beseechingly asked, had at last granted him the meeting in which he wished to set forth his plans for the future – she had a right, she must expect, that he would finally unfold the plan for that future with which he seemed to have labored so long, and which was just as hazy to him as ever. He did not believe, what she declared to be true, that she wished nothing but to love him, to be loved by him, that everything of which he spoke – his father – her father – circumstances which must be considered – difficulties which must be overcome – everything, everything, was only a mist which vanishes before the rays of the sun, trifles not worth mentioning, causing them to waste even a moment of the precious time, even a breath of it! He did not believe it; but he was only too willing to take her at her word, already releasing himself silently from the responsibility of results, which such neglect of the simplest rules of caution and prudence might have, must have.

And then he forgot the flying moment, and had to be reminded by her that his time was up, that they were expecting him at home, that he must not reach the company too late.

"Or will you take me along?" she asked. "Will you enter the reception-room arm in arm with me and present me to the company as your betrothed? You shall not have cause to be ashamed of me; there are not likely to be many of your friends whom I cannot look down upon, and I have always found that to be able to look down on others is to be half noble. To you I shall ever have to look up; tall as I am, I must still reach up to you and your sweet lips."

There was a strange proud grace in the jest, and tenderest love in the kiss, which her smiling lips breathed upon his; he was enchanted, intoxicated by this lovely grace, this proud love; he said to himself that she was right – he said so to her – and that she could compare with any queen in the world; that she deserved to be a queen – and yet, and yet! If it had not been a jest, if she had demanded it seriously, what – yet she some time would demand it!

"That was the last kiss," said Ferdinande; "I must be the more prudent one, because I am so. And now give me your arm and conduct me to the nearest cab, and then you will go straight home and be very fine and charming this evening, and break a few more hearts in addition to those you have already broken, and afterwards lie at my feet in gratitude for my heart, which is larger than all theirs together."

It was almost dark when they left the silent park. The sky was all covered with clouds from which heavy drops of rain were beginning to fall. Fortunately an empty cab came along which Ferdinande could take to the Brandenburgerthor, there to step into another and thus obliterate every trace of the way she had gone. Ottomar could throw a kiss to her once more as he lifted her into the cab. And she leaned back into the seat, closed her eyes, and dreamed the blissful hour over again. Ottomar looked after the cab. It was a wretched nag, a wretched cab; and as they disappeared in the dark through the faint light of the few street lamps, a strange feeling of awe and aversion came over him. "It looks like a hearse," he said to himself; "I could hardly take hold of the wet doorhandle; I should not have had the courage to ride in the rig – the affair puts one into a strangely uncomfortable situation, indeed. The road home is no joke, either – it is nearly nine o'clock – and besides it is beginning to rain very hard."

He turned into the Grosser-Stern-Allee, the shortest way home. It was already growing dark so fast among the great tree trunks that he could distinguish only the hard walk upon which he was moving with hurried steps; on the other side of the broad bridle-path, where a narrow foot-path ran, the trunks of the trees were scarcely distinguishable from the blackness of the forest. He had ridden up and down this beautiful avenue countless times – alone, with his comrades, in the brilliant company of ladies and gentlemen – how often with Carla! Else was right! Carla was a skilful horse-woman, the best, perhaps, of all ladies, and certainly the most graceful. They had both so often been seen and spoken of together – it was, in fact, quite impossible to sever their relationship now; it would make a fearful fuss.

Ottomar stopped. He had gone too fast; the perspiration rolled from his brow; his bosom was so oppressed that he tore open his coat and vest. He had never known the sensation of physical fear before, but now he was terrified to hear a slight noise behind him, and his eyes peered anxiously into the dark – it was probably a twig which broke and fell. "I feel as if I had murder on my soul, or as if I myself were to be murdered the next moment," he said to himself, as he continued his way almost at a run.

He did not imagine that he owed his life to the breaking of that twig.

Antonio had lain in wait all this time at the entrance to the avenue as if bound by magic, now sitting on the iron railing between the foot-path and the bridle-path, now going to and fro, leaning against the trunk of a tree, continually engrossed in the same dark thoughts, projecting plans for revenge, exulting in imagining the tortures which he was to inflict upon her and upon him as soon as he had them in his power, directing his glance from time to time across the open place to the entrance of the other avenue into which the cab had disappeared with the two people, as if they must appear there again, as if his revengeful soul had the power to force them to come this way. He could have spent the whole night like a beast of prey that lies sullenly in his lair in spite of gnawing hunger, raging over his lost spoil.

And what was that? There he was, coming across the place, right toward him! His eye, accustomed to the darkness, recognized him clearly as if it had been bright day. Would the beast have the stupidity to come into the avenue – to deliver himself into his hand? Per bacco! It was so and not otherwise; then – after a short hesitation – he turned into the avenue – to the other side, to be sure; but it was all right; he could thus follow him on his side so much the more safely; then there was only the bridle-path to leap across, in the deep sand in which his first steps would certainly not be heard, and then – with a few springs, the stiletto in his neck, or, if he should turn, under the seventh rib up to the hilt!

And his hand clutched the hilt as if hand and hilt were one, and with the finger of the other hand he tested over and over the needle-point, while he stole along from tree to tree in long strides – softly, softly – the soft claws of a tiger could not have risen and fallen more softly.

Now half of the avenue was passed; the darkness could not become more dense now; it was just light enough to see the blade of the stiletto. One moment yet to convince himself that they were alone in the park; he over there, and himself – and now, crouching, over across the soft sand behind the thick trunk of a tree which he had already selected as the place!

But quickly as the passage was made, the other had now won a handicap of perhaps twenty paces. That was too much; the distance would have to be diminished by half. And it could not be so difficult; he still had the soft sand of the bridle-path to the right of the trees, while the other one was going to the left on the hard foot-path, where his footsteps would drown any slight noise. There! Maledetto di Dio– a dry twig broke with a crack under his stealthy foot. He crouched behind the tree – he could not be seen; but the other must have heard it; he stopped – listened, perhaps expecting his antagonist – in any case now no longer unprepared – who knows? – a brave man, an officer – turning about, offering his front to his antagonist. So much the better! Then there would be only a leap from behind the tree! And – he was coming!

The Italian's heart throbbed in his throat as he now, advancing his left foot, held himself ready to leap; but the murderous desire had dulled his otherwise sharp senses; the sound of the steps was not toward him but toward the opposite side! When he became aware of his mistake the distance had increased at least twofold – and threefold before he could determine in his amazement what was to be done.

To give up the chase! Nothing else remained. The beast was now almost running, and then a belated cab rattled down the street which intersected the avenue, and beyond the street were crossways to the right and left. It was not safe to do the deed; there was no certainty of escape afterwards – the moment was lost – for this time! But next time! – Antonio muttered a fearful curse as he put his stiletto back into its sheath and concealed it in his coat-pocket.

The other had vanished; Antonio followed slowly along the same road, out of the park across the Thiergartenstrasse into the Springbrunnenstrasse to the front of the house in which the hated one lived. The windows were brightly illuminated. An equipage came up; an officer and richly gowned ladies, wrapped in their shawls, alighted; a second equipage followed – he was laughing and reveling up there now, and whispering into the ear of one of the fair ladies who had alighted what he had whispered ten minutes before to Ferdinande. If only he could inspire her with the poisonous jealousy which consumed his own heart! If he could bring about something between her and him which would be insurmountable! If he could betray the whole thing to the grim signor, her father, or to the proud general, his father, or to both —

"Hello!"

A man coming along the pavement had run into him as he leaned on the iron railing of a front yard, arms folded, and had uttered the exclamation in a harsh voice.

"Scusi!" said the Italian, lifting his hat. "Beg your pardon!"

"Hello!" repeated the man. "Is it you, Antonio?"

"O Signor Roller! Mr. Inspector!"

"Signor Roller! Mr. Inspector! That's enough Signoring and Inspectoring," said the man, with a loud laugh – "for the present, at least, till we have given it to the old man – to him and his nephew and his whole brood! If I could only get at the throat of all of them – could only play them a real trick! I'd be willing to pay something for it! Only I have no money! It's all up!"

The man laughed again; he was evidently half drunk.

"I have money," said Antonio quickly, "and – "

"Then we'll take a drink, Signor Italiano," exclaimed the other, slapping him on the shoulder. "Una bottiglia – capisci? Ha! ha! I have not entirely forgotten my Italian! Carrara– marble oxen —capisci? – capisci?"

"Eccomi tutto a voi," said the Italian, taking the man's arm. "Whither?"

"To business, to the devil, to the cellar!" exclaimed Roller, laughingly pointing to the red lantern above the saloon at the corner of the Springbrunnenstrasse.

[The three upper rooms of the General's villa are arranged for a ball. Else appears in a blue gown, but is quite displeased with herself. All looks blue. It is Ottomar's fault, as usual; he has gone out and not returned. And then Wallbach doesn't love Luise, nor Luise him. The men spend so much money. Ottomar is deep in debt; Wartenberg can't get along with his twenty thousand, and Clemda with his fifty thousand spends twice that much every year. Aunt Sidonie comes in, and is charmed with Else's tarletan; she tells Else she looks just like her princess in the book she is writing, and then refers to Count Golm as a good match for Else. Else is infuriated, says she would not marry Golm if he laid a crown at her feet. The General comes in and Schieler enters and gives the General an account of the railroad project, touching upon the sale of Valerie's estates to Golm, and suggests Golm as a prospective husband for Else.]

The Count had entered a few minutes before in his provincial uniform with the order of St. John. The reception-room had become almost filled with guests meanwhile, and it was with some difficulty that he made his way to the hostesses. Else had not spared him this trouble, to be sure; at this moment, when he caught sight of her at the door, she was eagerly continuing the conversation, which she had begun with Captain von Schönau, so eagerly that the Count, having spoken to Sidonie, stood behind her for half a minute without being noticed, till Schönau finally thought it his duty to draw her attention to the new guest with a gesture, and the words, "I think, Miss Else – "

"I think myself fortunate," said the Count.

"Oh! Count Golm!" said Else, with a well feigned surprise. "Pardon me for not seeing you at once! I was so absorbed. May I make the gentlemen acquainted: Captain von Schönau of the General Staff – a good friend of our family – Count von Golm. Have you seen Papa, Count? He is in the other room. Then, dear Schönau – "

The Count stepped back with a bow.

"That was a bit severe, Miss Else," said Schönau.

"What?"

Schönau laughed.

"You know, Miss Else, if I were not a most modest man I should have all sorts of possible and impossible silly notions in my head."

"How so?"

"Why, my heavens, didn't you see that the Count was on the point of extending his hand and stepped back with a face as red as my collar? Such things a young lady like Miss Else von Werben overlooks only when she wishes to do so, which is hardly the case, or if she – I shall not venture to finish the sentence. Who is that?"

"Who?"

"The officer there – yonder to the left, next to the Baroness Kniebreche – see, at the right! – who is speaking to your father, a stately man – has a cross, too. How did he get here?"

Else had to decide now to see Reinhold, though her heart throbbed quickly and she was vexed at it. She was already vexed that, in her conduct toward the Count, she had exposed and almost betrayed herself to the sharp eyes of Schönau; now it was to happen again!

"A Mr. Schmidt," she said, pressing more firmly the rosebud in her hair. "Sea captain. We made his acquaintance on the journey; Papa was greatly pleased with him – "

"Really a fine looking man," repeated Schönau. "Splendid manly face, such as I like to see, and not without carriage; and yet one recognizes the officer of the reserve at the first glance."

"By what?" asked Else, as her heart began to throb again.

"That you should know as well and better than I, as you associate more with the Guard than I do! Compare him with Ottomar, who seems to have been late again and wishes to atone for his sins by being doubly amiable! Just see with what perfect form he kisses the hand of old Baroness Kniebreche, and now turns on his heel and bows to Countess Fischbach with a grace which the great Vestris himself might envy! Allons, mon fils, montrez votre talent. And now he converses with Sattelstädt – not a line too little, not one too much! To be sure, it is a little unfair to compare the gentlemen of the reserve with the model of all knightly form. Don't you think so?"

Else gazed straight ahead. Schönau was right; there was a difference! She would have preferred to see him as he strode up and down the deck in his woolen jacket; then she had envied him the steadiness and freedom of his movements – and when afterwards he sat at the helm of the boat, and steered it as calmly as the rider his rearing steed! If only he hadn't come just at this time!

Then Reinhold, who had been conversing with her father, excused himself with a friendly nod, and catching sight of Else, turned about and came straight toward her. Else trembled so that she had to steady herself with her left hand against the arm of the chair, for she wished to remain entirely cool and unconscious; but as he stepped up to her, his beautiful honest eyes still aglow from the gracious greeting accorded him by her father, and a certain shyness in his open manly face, which seemed to ask, "Shall I be welcomed by you, too?" – her heart grew warm and kind; even though her hand remained on the arm of the chair, she extended to him the other at full length; her dark eyes sparkled, her red lips laughed, and she said, as heartily and frankly as if there had not been a fairer name in the world – "Welcome to our house, dear Mr. Schmidt!"

He had grasped her hand and said a few words which she only half heard. She turned around to Schönau; the Captain had vanished; a flush came to her cheeks. "It doesn't matter," she muttered.

"What does not matter, Miss Else?"

"I shall tell you later, when there is to be some dancing after dinner; to be sure I don't know – "

"Whether I dance? Indeed I am passionately fond of it."

"The Rhinelander, too?"

"The Rhinelander, too! And, in spite of your incredulous smile, not so badly that Miss von Werben should not give me the honor."

"The Rhinelander, then! All the rest I have declined. Now I must mingle with the company."

She gave a friendly nod and turned away, but turned quickly again.

"Do you like my brother?"

"Very much!"

"I wish so much that you might become intimate with each other. Do make a little effort. Will you?"

"Gladly."

She was now really much occupied. Reinhold, too, mingled with the company, without any of the misgivings which he had felt upon entering the brilliant circle of strangers. For he had now been received by the hostess as a dear friend of the family! Even the eyes of her stately aunt had glanced at him with a certain good-natured curiosity, formal as her bow had been; on the other hand, her father had shaken his hand so heartily and after the first words of welcome, drawing him aside with evident confidence, said to him: "I must first of all make you acquainted with Colonel von Sattelstädt and Captain von Schönau, both of the General Staff. The gentlemen will be eager to hear. Please express yourself with entire freedom – I consider that important. I have yet a special request in the matter, which I wish to communicate to you as soon as I get that far. Then I shall see you later!"

"That was already flattering enough for the simple Lieutenant of the Reserve," Reinhold had thought to himself, as he went up to Else. And she! her kindness, her graciousness! He felt like a Homeric hero, who hoped, silently indeed, that the goddess to whom he prayed would be gracious to him, and to whom the divinity appears in person, in the tumult of battle, beckoning with immortal eyes and words which his ear alone hears. What mattered it to him now that the gold lorgnette of old Baroness Kniebreche was turned upon him so long with such an unnecessary stare, and then let drop with a movement which only too plainly said, "That was worth the effort!" What did he care that Count Golm looked past him as long as it was possible, and, when the manœuvre once utterly failed, slipped by him with an angry, snarling, "O, O, Captain – Very happy!" That the bow of young Prince Clemda might have been a little less indifferent when he was introduced! What difference did it make to him? And those were the only signs of unfriendly feeling which he had encountered in a quite numerous company during the hour just passed. Otherwise, amiable, natural friendliness on the part of the ladies, and polite comradeship on the part of the gentlemen, officers almost without exception, had been the rule throughout; even Prince Clemda seemed to wish to atone for his coolness, suddenly coming up to him and speaking through his nose a few phrases from which Reinhold heard with some clearness: "Werben – Orléans – Vierzon – Devil of a ride – sorry – "

The acquaintance of von Sattelstädt and von Schönau was the most agreeable to him. They came up to him almost at the same time and asked him if he was inclined to give them his views concerning the practicability and value of constructing a naval station north of Wissow Hook. "We both know the locality very well," said the Colonel; "are also both – the Captain a little more than I – opposed to the project. We have conferred frequently with the gentlemen of the Ministry, of course; but nevertheless, or, rather, now in particular, it would be of the greatest interest and most decided importance to hear the view of an intelligent, entirely unprejudiced and unbiased seaman, who is fully acquainted with the conditions – if he has in addition, as you have, Captain, the military eye of a campaign officer. Let us sit down in this little room – there is another chair, Schönau! And now, I think it is best that you allow us to ask questions; we shall come most easily and clearly to the point in that way. We do not wish to tax you long."

"I am at the service of the gentlemen!" said Reinhold.

The gentlemen intended to make only the most modest use of the permission thus granted; but as Reinhold had to go more into detail at times in order to answer the questions put to him, the conversation lasted much longer than anyone had intended, and, as it appeared, than he himself had realized. Flattering as was the respectful attention with which the two officers listened to his explanations, sincerely as he admired the keenness, the exactness, and the extent of the information exhibited by each of their questions, each word – nevertheless he could not resist casting a glance through the door of the room into the reception-room where the company was still mingling freely in the accustomed manner; and through the reception-room into the smaller room on the other side of the reception-room, in which a group of younger ladies and gentlemen had collected, among whom Reinhold noticed Ottomar and the lady who had been pointed out to him at the exhibition as Miss von Wallbach, and Count Golm, and, finally, Else too. A lively discussion was going on there, so that one could hear it across the reception-room, although only an occasional word could be understood. And Schönau's attention also was finally attracted to it. "I'll wager," he said, "that they are disputing about Wagner; when Miss von Wallbach is presiding, Wagner must be the subject of discussion. I would give something, if I could hear what ideas she is bringing forward today."

"That is to say, dear Schönau, if I am not mistaken, 'I would give something, if Sattelstädt would finally stop,'" said the Colonel with a smile. "Well, to be sure, we have tried the patience of our comrade longer than was right or proper."

He rose and extended his hand to Reinhold, Schönau protested; he had thought least of all of that which the Colonel imputed to him. The Colonel shook his finger. "Shame on you, Schönau, to betray your mistress! That is, you must know, comrade, the noble Dame Musica – for her he goes through fire and flood, and lets the naval station go to the dickens! March, march, Schönau!" And off they went.

Schönau laughed, but left, taking with him Reinhold, who followed without reluctance, as he would thus have the best opportunity of coming into the presence of Else and Ottomar, the latter of whom he had seen and saluted hastily a few minutes before.

[Ottomar returns and quite outdoes himself in his attentions to the ladies, much to the disquietude of Baroness Kniebreche and Carla. The Baroness finally brings Ottomar and Carla together, and delivers a little homily to them but without improving their relations. Ottomar thinks to himself that the four charming girls with whom he is talking would not make one Ferdinande from whom he has just parted. And suppose he did have a hostile encounter with Wallbach, it would only be the fourth in four years; and if the bullet did hit him, it would only be the end of his debts and his amours! Ottomar is asked to introduce his friend Reinhold. Clemda tells Ottomar that he is to marry Antonie in a month, and that they wish Carla to be a bridesmaid. Colonel von Bohl tells Ottomar that he can hardly begin his furlough before spring, as Clemda's time is to be extended, and then speaks of a possible post at St. Petersburg for Ottomar. Ottomar is embarrassed and runs into a group of ladies gathered around Carla, who is discoursing about Wagner. Count Golm is shrewd enough not to express his opinion about Wagner as a great musician, but Ottomar, to the great confusion of the Baroness and Carla, says he thinks the whole Wagner business is a humbug!

Supper is announced. Else implores Ottomar to take Carla to supper and repair the injury he has done, but Carla has taken Golm's arm. Else urges Ottomar not to let Golm beat him out. The polka starts. The General, seeing Reinhold disengaged, asks him whether he dances? Reinhold says he does, but is waiting for the chat which the General had requested. The General proceeds to unfold the railroad scheme, and elicits Reinhold's opinion. At the close of the ball, the General finds a letter telling of Ottomar's escapade with Ferdinande.]

The last carriage had rolled away; the servants were cleaning up the rooms under the direction of Sidonie; Else, who had usually relieved her aunt of the duties of the house, had withdrawn with the excuse that she felt a little tired, in order to allow the pleasant echo of the delightful evening to pass through her thoughts again while she sat in the quiet of her room, undisturbed by the clatter of chairs and tables. It would not have been at all necessary for him to dance the Rhinelander with such grace; she would have given him in the waltz, also, the great flaming favor which she had placed at the bottom of the basket, and which she drew, luckily, with a bold grab, when it came her turn to fasten it with her trembling hands next to the iron cross on his breast. Yes, her hands had trembled and her heart had throbbed as she accomplished the great work and now looked up into his beaming eyes; but it was for joy, for pure joy and bliss. And it was joy and bliss also which now let her fall asleep, after she had laid her greatest treasures, the sketch-book with his picture and the little compass, upon her dressing-table, and put out the light – but again lighted it to cast a glance at the compass-box and assure herself that "it was always true" and "sought its master," and then opened the sketch-book at the place where it always opened of itself, to look at his picture once more – no, not the picture – it was horrible! – but at the signature: "With love!" Secretly, very secretly to impress a kiss upon it, and then quickly, very quickly, to put out the light, to press her head into her pillow, and, in her dreams, to look for him to whom she was ever true, dreaming or waking – who, she knew, would ever be true to her, waking or dreaming.

Ottomar, too, had taken leave of the ladies, as the last guests left, with a hasty, "Good-night! I'm tired enough to drop! Where is Father?" and had gone downstairs without waiting for an answer to his question. In the hall which led to his room he had to pass his father's room. He had stopped a moment. His father, who had gone down a few minutes before, was certainly still up, and Ottomar had, on such occasions, always knocked and said at least, through the open door, "Good night!" This time he did not do it. "I am tired enough to drop," he repeated, as if he wished to excuse himself for the violation of a family custom. But, on reaching his room, he did not think of going to bed. It would not have been any use as long as the blood was raging through his veins "as if I were crazy," said Ottomar, opening his uniform covered with cotillion favors, and throwing it down. He opened his vest and collar, and got into the first piece of clothing that came to his hand – his hunting jacket – and seated himself with a cigar at the open window. The night was perceptibly cool, but the cool air was grateful to him; lightning flashed from the black clouds, but he took no notice of it; and thus he sat looking out on the black autumn night, puffing his cigar – revolving his confused thoughts in his perturbed mind, and not hearing, because of the throbbing of his pulse in his temples and the rustling of the wind in the branches, that there had twice been a knock at his door; shrinking like a criminal, as now the voice sounded close in his ear. It was August.

"I beg your pardon, Lieutenant! I have already knocked several times."

"What do you want?"

"The General requests the Lieutenant to come to him at once."

"Is Father sick?"

August shook his head. "The General is still in his uniform and doesn't look sick, only a little – "

"Only a little what?"

The man ran his fingers through his hair. "A little strange, Lieutenant! I think, Lieutenant, the General – "

"The devil! Will you speak?"

August came a step nearer, and said in a whisper, "I think the General received a bad letter a while ago – it may have been half-past eleven. I didn't see the one who brought it, and Friedrich didn't know him, and he probably went away immediately. But I had to take the letter to the General myself, and the General made a curious face as he read the letter – "

"From a lady?"

August could not suppress a smile in spite of the genuine concern which he felt for his young master. "I – he said – they looked differently – one will get over that in time – a highly important letter – "

"These damned Manichæans!" muttered Ottomar. He did not understand the connection; the next note was not due for eight days – but what else could it be? His father would make another beautiful scene for him! Oh, pshaw! He would get engaged a few days earlier, if he must get engaged, if it were only finally to put an end to the disgraceful worries from which he had no rest at night in his room, and couldn't smoke his cigar in peace!

He threw his cigar out of the window; August had taken his uniform and removed the cotillion favors. "What's that for?"

"Does the Lieutenant prefer to put on his uniform?" asked August.

"Nonsense!" said Ottomar. "That was just lacking to – "

He broke off; for he could not tell August – to make the tedious story still more tedious and more serious. "I shall simply explain to Papa that in the future I do not intend to molest him further with such things, and prefer to have my affairs finally arranged by Wallbach," he said to himself, while August went on ahead with the light – the gas lights in the hall were already extinguished – down the hall, and now stopped at his father's door.

"You may put the light on the table there, and as far as I am concerned, go to bed, and tell Friedrich to wake me at six o'clock in the morning."

He had spoken these words more loudly than was necessary, and he noticed that his voice had a strange sound – as if it were not his own voice. It was, of course, only because everything was so still in the house – so still that he now heard the blood coursing in his temples and his heart beating.

"The damned Manichæans!" he muttered again through his teeth, as he knocked at the door.

"Come in!"

His father stood at his desk, above which a hanging lamp was burning. And the lamps were still burning on the brackets before the mirror, there was an uncanny brightness in the room, and an uncanny order, although it was just exactly as Ottomar had seen it as long as he could remember. He ought really to have put on his uniform after all.

"I beg pardon, Papa, for coming in négligé. I was just about to go to bed, and August was so insistent – "

His father still stood at the desk, resting one hand on it, turning his back to him without answering. The silence of his father lay like a mountain on Ottomar's soul. He shook off with a violent effort the sullen hesitation. "What do you want, Papa?"

"First, to ask you to read this letter," said the General, turning around slowly and pointing with his finger to a sheet which lay open before him on his desk.

"A letter to me!"

"Then I should not have read it; but I have read it."

He had stepped back from the desk, and was going up and down the room with a slow, steady step, his hands behind him, while Ottomar, in the same place where his father had stood without taking the sheet in his hands – the handwriting was clear enough – read:

"Highly Honored and Respected General:

"Your Honor will graciously excuse the undersigned for venturing to call your Honor's attention to an affair which threatens most seriously to imperil the welfare of your worthy family. The matter concerns a relationship which your son, Lieutenant von Werben, has had for some time with the daughter of your neighbor, Mr. Schmidt, the proprietor of the marble works. Your Honor will excuse the undersigned from going into details, which might better be kept in that silence in which the participants – to be sure, in vain – strive to preserve them, although he is in a position to do so; and if the undersigned requests you to ask your son where he was this evening between eight and nine o'clock, and with whom he had a rendezvous, it is only to indicate to your Honor how far the aforementioned relationship has already progressed.

"It would be as foolish as impermissible to assume that your Honor is informed of all this and has winked at it, so to speak, when your son is on the point of engaging himself to the daughter of an ultraradical Democrat; on the contrary the undersigned can picture to himself in advance the painful surprise which your Honor must feel on reading these lines; but, your Honor, the undersigned has also been a soldier and knows what a soldier's honor is – as he for his part has respected honor his whole life long – and he could no longer look on and see this mischievous machination carried on behind the back of such a brave and deserving officer by him, who more than any other, appears to be called to be the guardian of this honor.

"The undersigned believes that, after the above, there is no need of a special assurance of the high esteem with which he is to your Honor and your Honor's entire family

"A most faithful devotee."

The General allowed his son some minutes; now that Ottomar still stared motionless before him – only his teeth bit nervously against his pale lower lip – he remained standing, separated by the width of the room, and asked: "Have you an idea who wrote this letter?"

"No."

"Have you the least suspicion who is the lady in question – ?"

"For Heaven's sake!" exclaimed Ottomar in anguish.

"I beg pardon; but I am in the painful situation of having to ask, since you seem inclined not to give the information which I expected."

"What shall I explain in the matter?" asked Ottomar with bitter scorn. "It is as it is."

"Brief and to the point," replied the General, "only not just so clear. There still remain some points which are obscure – to me, at least. Have you anything to object to the lady – I may so express myself?"

"I should have to request you to do so otherwise."

"Then have you anything, even the slightest thing – excepting external circumstances, and of that later – which would prevent you from bringing her into Else's company? On your honor!"

"On my honor, no!"

"Do you know anything at all, even the slightest, concerning her family, excepting external circumstances, which would and must prevent another officer, who is not in your exceptional position, from connecting himself with the family? On your honor!"

Ottomar hesitated a moment before answering. He knew absolutely nothing touching Philip's honor; he maintained toward him the native instinct of a gentleman who, in his eyes, was not a gentleman; but it seemed to him cowardice to wish to conceal himself behind this feeling.

"No!" said he solemnly.

"Have you acquainted the lady with your circumstances?"

"In a general way, yes."

"Among other things, that you are disinherited as soon as you marry a lady who is not of noble family?"

"No."

"That was a little imprudent; nevertheless I understand it. But in general, you said, she does understand the difficulties which will accompany a union between her and you in the most favorable case? Did you have her understand that you neither wish nor are in a position to remove the difficulties?"

"No."

"But led her to believe, perhaps assured her, that you could and would remove them?"

"Yes."

"Then you will marry the lady?"

Ottomar quivered like a steed when his rider drives the spurs into its flanks. He knew that would be, must be, the outcome of it; nevertheless, now that it was put into words, his pride revolted against any one forcing his heart, even his father. Was he to be the weaker one throughout – to follow where he did not wish to go – to allow his path to be prescribed by others?

"Not by any means!" he exclaimed.

"How? Not by any means?" returned the General. "I surely have not to do here with an obstinate boy, who breaks up his plaything because it does not amuse him any longer, but with a man of honor, an officer, who has the habit of keeping his word promptly?"

Ottomar felt that he must offer a reason – the shadow of a reason – something or other.

"I think," he said, "that I cannot decide to take a step in a direction which would put me into the position of necessarily doing an injustice in another direction."

"I think I understand your position," said the General. "It is not pleasant; but when one is so many sided he should be prepared for such things. Besides, I owe you the justice to declare that I am beginning to inform myself, now, at least, as to your conduct toward Miss von Wallbach, and I fail to find the consistency in that conduct which, to be sure, you have unfortunately never led me to expect. According to my conception, it was your duty to retire, once for all, the moment your heart was seriously engaged in another direction. In our close relations with the Wallbachs it would, indeed, have been very difficult and unpleasant, but a finality; one may be deceived in his feelings, and society accepts such changes of heart and their practical consequences if all is done at the right time and in the right manner. How you will make this retreat now without more serious embarrassment I do not know; I only know that it must be done. Or would you have pursued the wrong to the limit, and bound yourself in this case as you did in that?"

"I am not bound to Miss von Wallbach in any way except as everybody has seen, by no word which everybody has not heard, or at least might have heard; and my attachment for her has been so wavering from the first moment on – "

"Like your conduct. Let us not speak of it further, then; let us consider, rather, the situation into which you have brought yourself and consider the consequences. The first is that you have forfeited your diplomatic career – with a burgher woman as your wife, you cannot appear at St. Petersburg or any other court; the second is that you must have yourself transferred to another regiment, as you could not avoid the most objectionable conflicts and collisions in your own regiment, with a Miss Schmidt as your wife; third, that if the lady doesn't bring you property, or, at least, a very considerable sum, the arrangement of your external life in the future must be essentially different from what it has been heretofore, and, I fear, one that may be little in accord with your taste; the fourth consequence is that you by this union – even though it should be as honorable in a burgher moral sense as I wish and hope – by the simple letter of the will lose your claim to your inheritance – I mention this here once more only for the sake of completeness."

Ottomar knew that his father had not said everything, that he had generously kept silent about the twenty-five thousand thalers of debts which he had paid for him in the course of the last few years – that is, his entire private fortune except a very small residue – and that he could not pay back this money to his father in the near future as he had intended to do, perhaps would never be able to pay it back. His father was now dependent upon his salary, ultimately upon his pension; and he had repeatedly spoken recently of wishing to retire from the service!

His glance, which had been directed in his confusion toward the floor, now passed shyly over to his father, who was pacing slowly to and fro through the room. Was it the light? Was it that he saw him differently today? His father appeared to him to be ten years older – for the first time seemed to him an old man. With the feeling of love and reverence, which he had always cherished for him, was mingled one almost of pity; he wanted to fall at his feet, embrace his knees and exclaim, "Forgive me for the mistakes I have made!" But he felt riveted to the spot; his limbs would not move; his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth; he could say nothing but – "You still have Else."

The General had stopped in front of the life-size portraits of his father and mother, which hung on the wall – a superior officer in the uniform of the Wars of the Liberation, and a lady, still young, in the dress of the time, whom Else strikingly resembled about the forehead and eyes.

"Who knows?" he said.

He passed his hand over his forehead.

"It is late in the night, two o'clock, and the morrow will have its troubles, too. Will you be good enough to put out the gas lights above you? Have you a light out there?"

"Yes, Papa."

"Very well! Good-night!"

He had extinguished one of the lamps in front of the mirror, and taken the other.

"Can you find the door?"

Ottomar wished to exclaim, "Give me thy hand!" but he did not venture to do so, and went toward the door saying, "Good-night!" – which had a sound of resentment, because he had almost broken into tears. His father stood at the door of his bedroom. "One thing more! I forgot to say that I reserve the right to take the next step myself. As you have so long hesitated to take the initiative, you will have to grant me this favor. I shall keep you informed, of course. I beg you to take no further step without my knowledge. We must act in conjunction, now that we understand each other."

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

The General, too, already had his hand on the latch; but as Ottomar had now vanished he drew it back, took the lamp to the writing-desk, a drawer of which he unlocked, and drew out, where, among other ornaments of little value belonging to his deceased wife and mother, he kept also the iron rings of his father and mother from the Wars of the Liberation.

He took the rings.

"Another time has come," he muttered, "not a better one! Whither, alas! have they vanished? And your piety, your fidelity to duty, your modest simplicity, your holy resignation? I have honestly endeavored to emulate you, to be a worthy son of a race which knew no other glory than the bravery of its men and the virtue of its women. What have I done that it should be visited on me?"

He kissed the rings and laid them back into the box, and from the several miniatures on ivory took that of a beautiful brown-haired, brown-eyed boy of perhaps six years.

He looked at it for a long time, motionless.

"The family of Werben will die out with him, and – he was my favorite. Perhaps I am to be punished because I was unspeakably proud of him prematurely."

[Old Grollmann, the servant, finds a similar letter directed to Uncle Ernst, and delivers it. Uncle Ernst reads it, drinks a bottle of wine, and falls asleep, after having rung for his afternoon coffee. He is found in this condition by Grollmann. Reinhold has been casting longing glances toward the Werben house over the wall. The General calls to speak with Uncle Ernst about the letter.

The General gives Uncle Ernst a brief story of his life and his social point of view, so far as they touch the family of von Werben, disclosing his aristocratic attitude. Uncle Ernst replies that he has no family history to relate, but gives a brief sketch of his own life, recalling vividly the incident in which he spared the General before the barricade, and was taken captive by him in return, and shut up in Spandau. It is a struggle between the aristocrat and the democrat of '48; a sullen silence prevails between the two men. The General finally asks, in the name of Ottomar, for the hand of Ferdinande. Uncle Ernst starts back in amazement.]

The night had had no terrors and the morning no gloom for Ferdinande. In her soul it was bright daylight for the first time in many months – yes, as she thought, for the first time since she knew what a passionate, proud, imperious heart throbbed in her bosom. They had told her so, so often – in earlier years her mother, later her aunt, her girl friends, all – that it would some time be her undoing, and that pride goes before a fall; and she had always answered with resentment: "Then I will be undone, I will fall, if happiness is to be had only as the niggardly reward of humility, which always writhes in the dust before Fate, and sings hymns of thanks because the wheels of grim Envy only passed over it but did not crush it! I am not a Justus, I am not a Cilli!"

And she had been unhappy even in the hours when enthusiastic artists, Justus' friends, had worshipped, in extravagant words, the splendid blooming beauty of the young girl; when these men praised and aided her talents, and told her that she was on the right path to becoming an artist at last – that she was an artist, a true artist. She did not believe them; and, if she were a real artist – there were much greater ones! Even Justus' hand could reach so much higher and farther than hers; he plucked fruits with a smile and apparently without effort for which she had to strive with unprecedented efforts and which would ever remain unattainable to her, as she had secretly confessed to herself.

She had expressed her misgivings to that great French painter upon whom her beauty had made such an overwhelming impression. He had evaded her with polite smiles and words; then he finally told her seriously: "Mademoiselle, there is only one supreme happiness for woman – that is love; and she has only one gift of genius in which no man can equal her – that again is love." – The word had crushed her; her art life was thus a childish dream, and love! – Yes, she knew that she could love, and boundlessly! But her eye was yet to see the man who could kindle this love to the heavenly flame, and woe to her if she found him! He would not understand her love, not comprehend, and most certainly not be able to return it; would shrink back, perhaps, from its glow, and she would be more unhappy than before.

And had not this dismal foreboding already been most sadly fulfilled? Had she not felt herself unspeakably unhappy in her love for him who had met her as if the Immortals had sent him, as if he were himself an Immortal? Had she not declared countless times in writhing despair, with tears in her eyes and bitter scorn, that he did not comprehend her love, did not understand it – would never comprehend or understand it? Had she not seen clearly that he shrank back, shuddered – not before the perils which threatened along the dark way of love – he was as bold as any other and more agile – but before love itself, before all-powerful but insatiate love, love demanding everything!

So she had felt even yesterday – even the moment after the blissful one, when she felt and returned his first kiss! And today! Today she smiled, with tears of joy, at her dejection. Today, in her imagination, she begged her lover's pardon for all the harshness and bitterness which, in thought and expression, she had entertained toward him, but now, with a thousand glowing kisses pressed upon his fair forehead, his loving eyes, his sweet mouth, would never again think, never again express!

She had wished to work, to put the last touches on her "Woman with the Sickle." Her hand had been as awkward and helpless as in the period of her first apprenticeship, and it had occurred to her, not without a shudder, that she had sworn not to finish the work. It was a fortunate oath, though she knew it not. What should she do with this hopeless figure of jealous vengeance? How foolish this whole elaborate apparatus for her work appeared – this room with high ceiling, these easels, these mallets, these rasps, these modeling tools, these coats-of-arms, hands, feet, these heads, these busts, after the originals of the Masters, her own sketches, outlines, finished works – childish gropings with bandaged eyes after a happiness not to be found here – to be found only in love, the one true original talent of woman – her talent which she felt was her only one, that outshone everything which men had hitherto felt and called love!

She could not endure the room this morning; now her studio had become too small for her. She went out into the garden, and passed along the walks between the foliage, under the trees, from whose rustling boughs drops of rain from the night before fell down upon her. How often the bright sunshine and the blue sky had offended her, seeming to mock her pain! She looked up triumphantly to the gray canopy of clouds, which moved slowly and darkly over her head; why did she need the sunshine and the light – she, in whose heart all was pure light and brightness! The drizzling mist which now began to fall would only cool a bit the inner fire that threatened to consume her! Moving clouds and drizzling mist, rustling trees and bushes, the damp dark earth itself – it was all strangely beautiful in the reflection of her love!

She went in again and seated herself at the place where he had kissed her, and dreamed on, while in the next room they hammered and knocked and alternately chatted and whistled. – She dreamed that her dream had the power to bring him back, who now slowly and gently opened the door and – it was only a dream – came up to her with a happy smile on his sweet lips, and a bright gleam in his dark eyes, till suddenly the smile vanished from his lips and only his eyes still gleamed – no longer with that fervid glow, but with the dismal melancholy penetration of her father's eyes. And now it was not only her father's eyes; it became more and more – her father, great God!

She had started out of her dream, but sank back into her seat and grew rigid again. She had seen, with half-opened eyes, from the look in his eyes and the letter which he held in his hand, why he had come. So in half-waking, confused, passionate words, she told him. He bowed his head but did not contradict her; he only replied, "My poor child!"

"I am no longer your poor child, if you treat me so."

"I fear you never have been my child at heart."

"And if I have never been, who is to blame for it but you? Did you ever show me the love which a child is justified in demanding of a father? Have you ever done anything to make the life you gave me worth while? Did my industry ever wrest from you a word of praise? Did what I accomplished ever draw from you a word of recognition? Did you not rather do everything to humiliate me in my own eyes, to make me smaller than I really was, to make me dislike my art, to make me feel that in your eyes I was not and never could be an artist? Am I to blame that you never considered all this anything better than a big play house, which you bought for me to dally and play away my useless time in? And now – now you come to wrest from me my love, simply because your pride demands it, simply because it offends you that such a useless, lowly creature can ever have a will of its own, can wish something different from what you wish? But you are mistaken, Father! I am, in spite of all that, your daughter. You can cast me off, you can drive me into misery as you can crush me with a hammer, because you are the stronger; my love you cannot tear away from me!"

"I can, and I will!"

"Try it!"

"The attempt and success are one. Do you wish to become the mistress of Lieutenant von Werben?"

"What has that question to do with my love?"

"Then I will put it in another form: Have you the courage to wish to be like those wretched foolish creatures who give themselves up to a man, out of wedlock or in wedlock – for wedlock does not change matters – for any other prize than the love which they take in exchange for their love? Von Werben has nothing to give in exchange; von Werben does not love you."

Ferdinande laughed with scorn. – "And he came to you, knowing that you hated him and his whole family with a blind hatred, in order to tell you this?"

"He could not come; his father had to do the difficult errand for him, for which he had not the courage, for which his father had to enforce the permission of his son."

"That is – "

"It is not a lie! By my oath! And still more: He did not even go of his own will to his father; he would not have done it today, he would perchance never have done it, if his father had been content with asking him whether it was true, what the sparrows chatter from the roof and the blackmailers wrote to the unsuspecting father anonymously, that Lieutenant von Werben has a sweetheart beyond the garden-wall or – how do I know!"

"Show me the letters!"

"Here is one of them; the General will be glad to let you have the other, no doubt; I do not think the son will lay claim to it."

Ferdinande read the letter.

She had considered it certain that Antonio alone could have been the betrayer; but this letter was not by Antonio – could not be by him. Then other eyes than the passionate jealous eyes of the Italian had looked into the secret. Her cheeks, still pale, flared with outraged modesty. – "Who wrote the letter?"

"Roller; he has not even disguised his hand to the General."

She gave the letter back to her father quickly, and pressed her forehead as if she wished to remove the traces of emotion. "Oh, the disgrace, the disgrace!" she muttered; "oh, the disgust! the disgust!"

The dismissed inspector had taken up his residence in her family till Ferdinande had noticed that he was audaciously beginning to pay attention to her; she had made use of a pretense of a disagreement, which he had had with her father, first to strain the social relations, then to drop them. And the bold repulsive eyes of the man – "Oh, the disgrace! oh, the disgrace! oh, the disgust!" she muttered continually.

She paced with long strides up and down, then went hurriedly to the writing-desk which stood at one end of the large room, wrote hastily a few lines, and then took the sheet to her father, who had remained standing motionless in the same spot. "Read!"

And he read:

My father wishes to make a sacrifice of his convictions for me, and consents to my union with Lieutenant von Werben. But, for reasons which my pride forbids me to record, I renounce this union once for all, as a moral impossibility, and release Lieutenant von Werben from all responsibility which he may consider he has toward me. This decision, which I have reached with full freedom, is irrevocable; I shall consider any attempt on the part of Lieutenant von Werben to change it as an insult.

Signed, Ferdinande Schmidt.

"Is that correct?"

He nodded. "Shall I send him this?"

"In my name."

She turned away from him and, seizing a modeling stick, went to her work. Her father folded the sheet and went toward the door. Then he stopped. She did not look up, apparently entirely absorbed in her work. His eyes rested upon her with deep pain – "And yet!" he murmured – "Yet!"

He had closed the door behind him and was walking slowly across the court through whose broad empty space the rain-storm howled.

"Empty and desolate!" he murmured. – "All is empty and desolate! That is the end of the story for me and for her!"

"Uncle!"

He started from his sullen brooding; Reinhold was hastily coming from the house toward him, bareheaded, excited.

"Uncle, for Heaven's sake! – The General has just left me – I know all. – What did you decide?"

"What we had to."

"It will be the death of Ferdinande!"

"Better that than a dishonorable life!"

He strode past Reinhold into the house. Reinhold did not dare to follow him; he knew it would be useless.

[Giraldi and Valerie have just returned from Rome and put up at the Hotel Royal in Berlin. Valerie writes her brother, the General, a note, which Else answers. Valerie thinks the friendly answer a trap. Giraldi has another interview with Privy Councilor Schieler, "the wonderworker," about the Warnow estates and about enlisting the interests of Count Golm. The Count snaps eagerly at the bait held out by the company – namely, the sale of the Warnow estates through him to the company. Giraldi plans to have Golm get Else's part of the estate by marrying her. Giraldi discovers that Antonio is the original of the "Shepherd Boy" in the exhibition, and identifies him as the son of himself and Valerie. Justus had discovered Antonio in Italy and brought him home with him to Berlin. Antonio remains with Justus to be near Ferdinande. Jealousy leads Antonio to the discovery of the relation between Ferdinande and Ottomar. Ottomar's betrothal to Carla and Else's relations with Reinhold are touched upon. Giraldi goes out to receive His Excellency, tossing a few sweet phrases to Valerie, enough to show her that she is still in his grip, and that she will never be able to break his spell over her. Else calls and finds her in this frame of mind.

Aunt Sidonie calls to see Valerie and chatters long about the family and the betrothal of Ottomar and Carla. Else has thus been able to reestablish friendly relations between Valerie and her father's family.]

Giraldi had not intended to stay away so long. It was to have been only a formal call, a return of the one he had made on His Excellency yesterday morning – but that loquacious gentleman still had much to say about the things they thought they had settled yesterday – much to add – even when he was standing at the door with one hand on the knob, and the other, which held his hat, passing before his half-blinded eyes, covered by gray spectacles, in an effort to shield them from the light that came in too brightly from the window opposite.

"It seems foolish to try to warn the wisest of men," said he with a cynical smile which, on his strange face, turned into a tragic grimace.

"Especially when the warning comes from the most courageous of men," answered Giraldi.

"And yet," continued His Excellency, "even he is wise – you underestimate his wisdom; even he is courageous – almost to foolhardiness. He gives proof of it every day. People like him, I think, cannot be appreciated par distance at all; at least half of the charm which they have for their associates is in their personality. You have to be close to them, personally – come into contact with them in the same room – see them going to a Court soirée, to understand why the other beasts grovel in the dust before such lions, and, even when they wish to oppose, can do no more than swish their tails. Believe me, honored friend, separation in space is just as unfavorable to the appreciation of such truly historic greatness as is separation in time. You Romans think you can explain by the logic of facts everything that depends solely upon overpowering personality, just as our all-wise historians construe the marvelous deeds of an Alexander or a Cæsar, even to the dotting of an "i," all very coldly, as necessarily following the bare situations in the case, just as though the situations were a machine that turns out its product, whether master or menial set it going."

Giraldi smiled. "Thanks, Your Excellency, in the name of His Holiness; for you probably intended that brilliant little sermon for him anyway. It is a good thing, too, for His Holiness to be shown the other side of the medal once in a while, so that he may not forget fear, which is the foundation of all wisdom, and may remain mindful of the necessity of our advice and support. Only, at this moment, when the shadows of clouds that threaten all around our horizon lie dark on his soul, I would rather not represent the case to him as more troublesome, nor the man in the case more dangerous, than we ourselves see them from our knowledge of them. That is why I diligently used my very last interview to raise his dejected spirits a little. May I give Your Excellency an instance to show how very necessary that was? Very well! His Holiness was speaking in almost the same words of the demoniac power of the arch-enemy of our most Holy Church; he calls him a robber, a Briareus, a murderer, a colossus, that plants his feet on two hemispheres, as the one at Rhodes did on the two arms of the harbor. This, Your Excellency, was my answer to His Holiness – that I could see even now the stone falling from on high, the stone which would crush the feet of the colossus. His eyes gleamed, his lips moved; he repeated the words to himself; soon he will proclaim it urbi et orbi, as he does everything with which we stuff him. Our enemies will laugh, but it will reassure the weak hearts among us as it visibly reassured that poor old man."

"I would it were as true as it is reassuring," said His Excellency.

"And isn't it true?" cried Giraldi. "Doesn't the colossus really stand on feet of masonry? What good is all this bloated boasting of the power and the majesty and the cultural mission of the German Empire? The end of the whole story, which he carefully avoids mentioning – or at most has added very obscurely – is ever the strong Prussian kingdom. What good can it do him to change restlessly from one rôle to another, and proclaim today the universal right of suffrage, to thunder against socialism tomorrow, day after tomorrow, in turn, to censure the bourgeoisie as though they were rude schoolboys. He is, and will always be, the major domus of the Hohenzollerns, whether he will or not, in moments of impatience at his most gracious lord's wise hesitation on some point, of anger at the intrigues of the court camarilla, or whatever else may stir up his haughty soul. Believe me, Your Excellency, this man, in spite of the liberalism which he wears most diligently for appearances' sake, is an aristocrat from head to foot, and, in spite of his oft-vaunted broad-mindedness, is full of medieval, romantic cobwebs; he can at heart never desire anything, and will never desire anything, but a kingdom by divine right, and, while desiring a kingdom by divine right, he works away at one by the people's right. Or what else is it, when he uproots respect for the clergy in the people – not only for the Catholic clergy! – The interests of all sects have always been common, and the sympathy which a maltreated Catholic clergy awakens in the Protestant will soon enough come to light. But without clerics there will be no God, and no king by divine right – that is to say, he cuts off the branch to which he clings. Now if he were not to take the thing nearly as seriously as he does, if he were to be – which is incredible to me – so narrow-minded and frivolous as to regard it all only in the light of a question of etiquette, a dispute over precedence of the major domus and grandees in the state of his own creation, which he wishes to justify in the eyes of the church, then history would lead him back ad absurdum, for it teaches on every page that a priest never accepts this subordination; at the most, he endures it if he must. We are what we always have been, and always shall be. And, Your Excellency, that is his Achilles' heel – not to understand this, to believe that he can intimidate us by threats and frights, and make us into creatures of his will. When he sees that he will not get anywhere that way – and I hope he will not see it very soon – he will try to compromise with us, and compromise again and again, and be driven step by step into the camp of the reactionaries; he will be forced to express more and more openly the contradiction of his purpose – the kingdom by divine right and his methods which he has borrowed from the arsenal of the revolution; and this contradiction into which he is hopelessly driving, and from which the revolution must come – for no people will long endure a self-contradictory régime – is the stone which is already rolling, and will let loose the avalanche and crush the colossus."

"Serve him right, and good luck to him!" said His Excellency with a sarcastic smile, and then – after a little pause – "I am only afraid sometimes that we too shall take the salto mortale with him, and – "

"And stand firmer than ever on our feet," interrupted Giraldi quickly. "What have we to fear from the revolution, the people? Nothing, absolutely nothing! If people dance around the golden calf today, they will grovel so much the lower in the dust before Jehovah tomorrow. If today they enthrone the Goddess of Reason, tomorrow they will flee, like a child that has frightened itself, back to the bosom of the Mother Church. And if, as you said, Darwinism is really to be the religion of the future for Germany – very well; then we shall be Darwinians par excellence and proclaim the new doctrine with holy zeal from the rostra of the universities; we know well enough that Nature wraps herself the more closely in her veil the more impatiently the inquisitive pupil pulls at it, and then, when he has looked into the hollow eyes of nothing, and lies crushed on the ground, we come and raise up the poor knave and comfort him with the admonition, 'Go thy way and sin no more'; and he goes his way and sins henceforth no more in the foolish thirst for knowledge, for the burden of ignorance is lighter and her yoke is easier —quod erat demonstrandum."

The corners of His Excellency's mouth were drawn apart as far as possible. Even Giraldi was smiling.

"I wish I had you here always," said His Excellency.

"To tell Your Excellency things which you have long worn off on the soles of your shoes with which you mount the rostrum."

"I generally speak from my place."

"And ever at the right place."

"It's often enough nothing but sound, and no one knows that better than I myself. One has to consider how things sound."

"And not for naught. To us across the mountain the little silver bell is the huge bell of the cathedral, whose bronze voice calls the tardy to their duty and spurs on the brave to fiercer fight."

"And that reminds me that I myself am a tardy one this moment, and that a fierce fight awaits me today in the Chamber."

"His Excellency will not forget my little commission," said Giraldi.

"How could I!" exclaimed His Excellency. "I hope, indeed, to have a chance before the day is over to mention the matter. Of course they won't do it without a little baksheesh– they don't do anything there for the love of God; fortunately we always have such stuff on hand. The promise to drive the screw one turn less tight in Alsace-Lorraine and not to disturb rudely the childish pleasure of the old Catholic gentlemen in Cologne, and not to beat the drum quite so loudly in the coming discussion about the brave Bishop of Ermeland – every single one of these kindnesses is worth a General, especially if he has such antediluvian, unpractical ideas concerning the state, society and the family."

"And such a thing passes without éclat?"

"Absolutely without éclat. Oh, my honored friend, you must not consider us any longer the honest barbarians of Tacitus; we really have learned something since that time! – God help you!"

"Will Your Excellency permit me to accompany you to your carriage?"

"Under no circumstances; my body-servant is waiting for me in the hall; have him come in, please."

"Grant, Your Excellency, that now, as ever, I be your humble servant."

Giraldi was about to offer his arm to the half-blinded man, when a new caller was announced.

"Who is it?" asked His Excellency with some anxiety; "you know I must not be seen here by every one."

"It is Privy Councilor Schieler, Your Excellency."

"Oh, he! – By the way, don't trust that old sneak any more than is necessary! He is a box that contains many good wares, but is to be handled with care. Above all things, don't trust him in the matter in question; it is quite unnecessary; his high protector can do nothing about it."

"That is why I took the liberty to turn to Your Excellency."

"One is always too late with his advice to you. Another thing: In this little clan war, as you have to carry it on here with the North German centaurs, you need what is known to be thrice necessary in real war. Are you sufficiently provided with that?"

"I was ever of the opinion that war must sustain war. Besides, I can draw on Brussels at any time for any amount, if it should be necessary."

"Perhaps it will be necessary. In any case, keep the party in hand. There is, in spite of your sanguine hopes for the future, which I, by the way, share fully, a period of lean years ahead of us first. We shall have to lead the life of a church mouse, and church-mouse precaution behooves us now more than ever. You will keep me au courant?"

"In my own interest, Your Excellency."

The Privy Councilor had entered; His Excellency extended him his hand. "You come as I am leaving – that's too bad. You know that there is no one with whom I would rather chat than with you. Which way does the wind blow today in Wilhelmstrasse? Did they sleep well? Did they get out of bed with the right foot or the left first? Nerves faint or firm? Is country air in demand or not? Good Heavens! Don't let me die of unsatisfied curiosity!" His Excellency did not wait for the smiling Privy Councilor to answer, but shook hands again with both gentlemen, and, leaning on the arm of his body-servant, who meanwhile had come in, left the room.

"Isn't it wonderful," said the Privy Councilor, – "this prodigious versatility, this marvelous ready wit, this quickness in attack, this security in retreat. A Moltke of guerilla warfare. What an enviable treasure your party has in this man!"

"Our party, my dear sir? Pardon me, I really must first stop and think each time that you don't belong to us. Won't you sit down?"

"Thank you, no. I haven't a moment to spare, and I can only tell you the most essential part in flying haste. First, in the Department of Commerce they are beside themselves over a just reported vote of the great General Staff on the Harbor matter which, as a colleague has informed me – I myself have not been able to get a look at it – is as much as a veto. The finished report is by a certain Captain von Schönau – but the mind behind it – it is an unheard of thing – is there, right in the War Department, and is, of course, none other than our friend the General. That sets us back again I don't know how far or for how long. I am beside myself, and the more so because I am absolutely at a loss in the face of this obstruction. Good Heavens! A man may have influence and could use this influence if he had to, even against an old friend, but he surely would not do that sort of thing except in the last extremity. Now what is your advice?"

"The purity of our cause is not to be clouded by intermingling with such repugnant personalities," replied Giraldi. – "If you think that you must spare an old friend, then there is, as you know, an old feud between the General and myself, and everything which I personally might do against him, or cause to be done, would properly seem to every one to be an act of common revenge – which may God Almighty forbid! If he will, he can have some incident occur which will disarm our enemy, and which doesn't need to be an accident because people call it so."

"You mean if he should die?" questioned the Privy Councilor with a shifty look.

"I don't mean anything definite at all, and certainly not his death. As far as I am concerned he may live long."

"That is a very noble sentiment, a very Christian sentiment," replied the Privy Councilor, rubbing his long nose. – "And it is my heart's wish, of course; and yet his opposition is and always will be a stumbling block. I wish that were our only obstacle! But Count Golm tells me now – I have just come from him – he will give himself the honor immediately after me – I have just hurried on ahead of him because I have another little bit of information about him to give you, which I'll tell you in a moment – Count Golm tells me that his efforts with the President in Sundin – he had come over in his semi-official capacity as president of the board of directors in spe– that they had been fruitless, quite fruitless; that he had been convinced, and unalterably, much as he would like to do it for the Count, for a thousand reasons – regard for a fellow countryman, and personal friendship, and so on. Golm, who, between you and me, is crafty enough and by no means a fool, finally hinted at the great sacrifices which we had decided to make – but all in vain. In fact, Golm says that he rather made matters worse than better by that."

"As ever when one does things by halves," said Giraldi.

"By halves, my dear sir! How do you mean that? What did they offer him?"

"Fifty thousand thalers as compensation, and the first position as director of the new road, with six thousand a year fixed salary, besides customary office rent, traveling expenses, and so forth."

"Well then, that, I suppose, is just half of what the man demanded himself!"

"He didn't demand anything."

"One doesn't demand such things; one has them offered him. Authorize the Count to propose twice as much, and I'll wager the deal is closed."

"We can't go as far as that," replied the Privy Councilor, scratching his close-cropped hair. – "We haven't the means to permit that; and the rest of us, too – and then, for the present, Count Golm is satisfied with fifty thousand; we could not offer the President twice as much without insulting Golm. He is already not so very kindly disposed toward us, and that is the point that I should like to settle with you before he gets here. Is it really impossible for you to – I mean for us: the Board of Trustees of Warnow – to sell directly to us: I mean the corporation?"

"Over the Count's head?" cried Giraldi. – "Goodness, Privy Councilor, I think that you are bound by the most definite promises, so far as the Count is concerned, in this respect!"

"Of course, of course, unfortunately. But then even Lübbener – our financier, and at the same time – "

"The Count's banker – I know – "

"You know everything! – Even Lübbener thinks that one could get a little assistance from a man who, like the Count, falls from one dilemma into another, and is always inclined or compelled to sell his birthright for a mess of pottage. Only we do not wish or intend to act contrary to your plans, and if you insist upon it – "

"I insist upon nothing, Sir," replied Giraldi; "I simply follow the wishes of my mistress, which, on this point, are identical with those of von Wallbach."

"Good Lord," exclaimed the Privy Councilor impatiently, "I quite understand that, to keep up appearances, one would rather sell to an equal in rank than to a committee, even though the man concerned be a member of this very committee; but you ought not to forget, too, that we should have to pay direct to you just as much, or about as much, as we shall hereafter have to pay the Count."

"The Count will not get off so cheaply as you say, either – "

"He will sell to us so much the higher," said the Privy Councilor. "Matters will only be worse for us thereby."

"And yet I must, to my great regret, hereby refuse my support," replied Giraldi decidedly.

The Privy Councilor made a very wry face. "It will be best," he said grumblingly, "if he can't find the money – not even the hundred thousand, to say nothing of the million, or whatever sum we may agree upon in family council as the price of the estates. For he has to yield to us; I do not know any one else in the world who would advance him so much, at once or in instalments. I can say in advance, of course, without being Merlin the Wise, that he will not get the money from us cheaply, and so it will be evened up again at the end. – But now, my honored patron, I must give place to the Count, and take leave of you. My regards to Madame, whom I have not had the pleasure, unfortunately, of meeting, but for whom I have felt the profoundest respect and have gallantly shattered many a lance, after the manner of a knight. Not in vain, for this family visit – I met Miss Sidonie down in the hall; Miss Else had already gone on ahead – is a concession which I, without immodesty, may consider the fruits of my persuasive art. Apropos, my dear old friend Sidonie – she wanted to know yesterday what had really been the deciding element in the matter of the engagement, which had broken Ottomar's stubborn resistance."

"Well?" asked Giraldi with unfeigned curiosity.

"I do not know," said the Privy Councilor, laying his finger on his long nose – "that is to say, my dear friend knows nothing, or she would have told me. From what the servant says – that was all she could tell me – an interview took place the night before between father and son. I have every reason to think the subject was by no means a romantic one – on the contrary, one as prosaic as it is inexhaustible, that of Ottomar's debts. – Farewell, my dear, honored patron; you will keep me informed, will you not?"

"Be assured of that!"

The Privy Councilor had gone; Giraldi kept his dark eyes fixed on the door, a smile of profoundest contempt played about his lips. "Buffone!" he muttered.

[Wallbachs and Ottomar call on Valerie. Giraldi asks François about the interview between Valerie, Sidonie and Else. Count Golm is announced, and speaks with Giraldi in the outer room about the advance of the loan, and the impossible conditions which Lübbener, the banker, has made him, and mentions his visit to Philip. Giraldi confuses Philip with Reinhold, to the disgust of Golm, who informs Giraldi that Philip is a promoter of the Sundin-Berlin railroad; that he is to build the road, and is, besides, a graceful, companionable, immensely rich man. Giraldi offers Golm half a million as advance loan for a four per cent. mortgage, under promise of secrecy, telling him it is the hand of a friend, not of a usurer, that is extended to him. The Count then goes into the other room to meet the ladies.

Carla is eager to make the acquaintance of Giraldi, but Ottomar conceives a dislike for the Count, and is alarmed at the power of Giraldi; but Giraldi wins his confidence by flatteries and assurances of friendship. During the conversation Valerie compares the studied manner of Carla with the naturalness and ease of Else, and is convinced that Carla is not suited to Ottomar. The company departs, and a scene follows between Giraldi and Valerie.

The General speaks frankly with Reinhold about Ferdinande and wishes that her father would relent as he has, but Uncle Ernst is still obdurate. Justus and Reinhold converse about Uncle Ernst, and Justus asks Reinhold to sit as model for one of his reliefs. The conversation turns upon love, which Justus declares is a strange drop in the artist's blood; Reinhold begs Justus not to express his opinions of love in Cilli's hearing.

Cilli's father speculates in the railroad stocks on the sly. Cilli is to be modeled by Justus, and tells Reinhold how her friends look, although she cannot see them. She asks Reinhold if he loves Else, and when he confesses he does, Cilli tells him that she was afraid at first that he was in love with Ferdinande. Reinhold tells Cilli that he thinks Else unattainable; Cilli replies that love is always a miracle, and that Reinhold must be himself if he would win Else. Reinhold goes away greatly encouraged, and finds in his room a letter from the President telling him that his appointment as Pilot Commander has been ratified, and that he shall appear at the ministry at his earliest convenience.

Mieting comes unannounced to visit Else, and makes conquest of the entire circle of Else's friends; even the stern old General and Baroness Kniebreche are captivated by her spritely, impulsive personality; but Mieting is not pleased with Carla as Ottomar's prospective bride. Mieting refers to the evening at Golmberg, and tries to find out Else's relations to Reinhold. She finally discovers the compass in one of Else's gowns, and finds, in conversation with Else, that she and Reinhold are in love. Justus models Mieting, who describes the meaning of artistic terms to Else in her own naïve way. She tells Else that Justus has made a model of Reinhold, which Else is to wear in the form of a medallion as big as a cart-wheel.]

Mieting followed her hero without allowing herself to be deterred by anything, even Aunt Rikchen's spectacles. – "And that is not a matter for jest," said Mieting, as she related that evening the experiences of the session; "I would rather face the lorgnette of Baroness Kniebreche. For behind that is nothing but a pair of dimmed eyes, for which I feel anything but fear; but when Aunt Rikchen lets her spectacles slip down to the point of her nose, she only begins to see clearly, so that one might become anxious and uneasy if one had not a good conscience – and you know, Else, something unusual must have happened between you and the Schmidts, has it not? It is, to be sure, still mysterious, for the good lady mixes up everything, like cabbage and turnips; but she had nothing good to say of the Werbens, like my Papa about the Griebens, who continually dig away his line, he says; and you have dug away something from the Schmidts, and that, you will find, is the reason why Reinhold has become distant. We shall not learn it from him, but Aunt Rikchen can't keep anything secret, and we are already the best of friends. I am a good girl, she says, and can't help being so; and the dove that brought the olive branch to the earth did not know what it had in its beak, and I saw that Reinhold, who was in the studio, winked at her, and Mr. Anders also made a really wry face and looked at Reinhold – the three know something; that much is clear, and I mean to find it out, depend upon it!"

But Mieting did not find it out, and could not, for Aunt Rikchen herself did not know the real situation and the others did not let her into the secret. Mieting's communications contributed by no means to Else's pacification, even though Else had at least had the pleasure during the first few days of hearing about Reinhold through Mieting – how he had come into the studio and kept them company for a while, and how he had looked; but even this source of consolation flowed less freely and appeared gradually to dry up entirely. One day he had been there scarcely five minutes; another day he had only gone through the studio; a third, Mieting had not seen him at all; on the fourth she did not know whether she had seen him or not. Else supposed she knew what to think of this apparent indifference – that Mieting had learned something which she did not wish to tell her, or had convinced herself otherwise of the hopelessness of her love, and that the detailed account which she gave of her other experiences and observations, in the studio, were only to serve to conceal her embarrassment.

It was, accordingly, with only divided interest that Else listened to these accounts – how Mieting rose daily in the favor of Aunt Rikchen, who was really a fine old lady and had her heart in the right place, even if her spectacles did always sit crooked on the point of her nose; and how the kind old woman had something specially touching for her, for she too would look like that in fifty years. But a pretty young blind girl, who came every day, had touched her still more deeply, because Mr. Anders wanted to model them side by side on the same relief; when she spoke, it was just as if a lark sang high, high up in the blue air on a Sunday morning, when all is quiet in the fields; and Justus said that Nature had never but once brought forth a contrast like her and Cilli, and if he succeeded in reproducing that, people would be permitted to speak to him only with their hats in their hands. – There was another, next to Justus' studio, which aroused her curiosity, because the occupant never showed herself, and she could form no idea of a lady who kneaded clay, or hammered around on marble – least of all of a marvelously beautiful, elegant lady, such as Justus says Miss Schmidt is. – "For you know, Else, a sculptor differs in appearance from a baker only in that he has clay instead of dough in his fingers, and is powdered with marble-dust instead of flour, so that one can hardly consider such a queer human child as a decent gentleman, much less as an artist, and the only one who always looks so clean and neat, in spite of his working jacket, and is more wonderfully handsome than any one I have ever seen in my life – that one is not an artist, Justus says, for he cannot do anything but point and carve – but you, poor child, possibly do not know at all what pointing means? Pointing, you know, is that which one does with a bill-stork or a stork-bill – "