"Shall I see you again?"
"I go often to Doctor Rohan's!"
The door was unlocked from within.
"Good-night!"
"Good-night!"
Oswald seized Helen's hand and pressed it passionately to his lips.
The door opened.
"Till next time!" whispered Oswald.
"Till next time!" replied Helen, in a still lower tone. Oswald thought she mentioned his name also. The next instant she had disappeared in the house.
Oswald went back into the town in a state of excitement which was by no means altogether joyous. Pure, chaste joy could no longer enter his heart--as little as we are able to play a correct air upon an instrument out of tune.
Thus he reached town. Where Market street opens upon the square all the windows were brilliantly lighted up in the corner house, carriage after carriage drove up to the door, dressed-up ladies and gentlemen stepped out and disappeared under the lofty portal. When Oswald, walking close to the house, had come immediately in front of me door, another carriage was driving up. The driver checked the fiery horses too violently, and the servant, who was just jumping down from the box, was thrown violently upon the ground. He gathered himself up immediately, but the pain was probably too great--he remained immovable, as if stunned. Oswald, who had seen that there was only a lady in the coupe, who had already risen, expecting the door to be opened, seized the bolt, opened the door, and offered his hand to the lady, who, placing her hand in the well-fitting white glove unsuspiciously upon his arm, came down in a cloud of tulle and laces.
At that moment the light from the interior of the house fell brightly upon the lady and Oswald, and the former uttered a cry, remaining motionless, and staring at Oswald with wide, open eyes.
A deep blush overspread her face, her eyes flamed up--was it love or was it hatred, who knows? Her lips trembled; evidently she had been overcome with surprise.
The poor servant, who came limping up, hat in hand, broke the charm.
"Pardon me, my lady----"
Oswald's face showed an ironical smile.
"I congratulate you, _my lady_," he said, offering his hand to escort her up the steps.
Oswald felt the slender fingers grasping his arm very firmly.
"Was it not your will?" she whispered. And now he knew that the great gray eyes had flamed up with love, and not with hatred. "Many thanks!
Let me see you soon. I promise you Cloten will receive you well!"
They had reached the last step.
Oswald bowed.
"Then I shall see you again?"
"I will come!"
The young lady entered the house. Oswald went down the steps, past the lame servant, who was still rubbing his knees, and looked wonderingly at his improvised colleague.
Oswald laughed aloud as he went on: "Emily Breesen--Frau von Cloten!
And merely because I would have it so! And if I should not wish it to be so any longer--what then?"
CHAPTER II.
During the next eight days the last crows had come to town from the woods, and moved into their winter quarters in the steeples; likewise, it was reported in well-informed circles, that of the noble families who used to spend their winter in Grunwald not one of importance had remained in the country. The increased animation which filled the otherwise quiet streets, proved this sufficiently. At the theatre, the front boxes, which were exclusively reserved for the nobility, now overflowed every night. The good citizens of Grunwald were often frightened out of their first sleep by the noise of furiously-driven carriages, and twelve hours afterwards the same carriages came thundering back again through the streets, when the disturbers of their nightly rest had slept long enough, and felt an irrepressible desire to see each other again after so long an interval, and to exchange their views about the interesting events of the last ball--how often young Count Grieben had danced with the youngest Miss Nadelitz, and what a strange head-dress the Baroness Renrien had worn.
Last night there had been a great ball at Count Grieben's; and to-morrow was to be a great party at the Grenwitz mansion, the first they had given this season. As the local etiquette required that the invited guests should call on their host before the party, as well as after it, visits had to be paid to-day at both houses. The rolling of carriages had, therefore, no end to-day.
When visitors were expected in larger numbers, the large reception-rooms of the Grenwitz mansion, which fronted upon the street, laid aside their reserve and opened their doors to all comers. So it was to-day. A dozen visitors had been there; another dozen were expected. Just now there was a pause. It so happened that only the baron and the baroness were sitting in the parlor.
Any one who should have observed them just now, as they were escorting Mrs. Nadelitz and her three daughters with smiles and compliments to the parlor door, and who should have seen them after the door had been closed, would have been greatly astonished at their altered appearance.
The old gentleman sank with an air of thorough weariness into his easy-chair, and Anna Maria sat down opposite to him on a sofa, with a face from which all smiles had vanished to give way to clouds of deepest indignation. There had evidently been a scene between the two before the last visitors came, such as is not unusual in regular family dramas, and the question was now, simply, which of the two was to resume first the interrupted dialogue.
In former days this would have evidently been the privilege of Anna Maria, who enjoyed strife, and felt sure of victory. But strangely enough, husband and wife seemed recently to have exchanged parts. The baron was almost transformed since Bruno's death and Helen's departure from home. Formerly good-natured, yielding, and peaceful, he had become sensitive, grumbling, and obstinate. This change might have been in part the effect of his bad state of health and his decline, which had become very perceptible in the last weeks; but sometimes it looked as if the cause was a deeper one--as if the recent events had roused the old gentleman from his lethargy, and shown him many things and many persons in a very different light from that in which he had seen them before. He who had formerly hardly taken a glass of water without first consulting his Anna Maria, suddenly began to act for himself, even to think for himself, and to have positive views of his own, which he maintained with that obstinacy and pertinacity which is often observed in weak minds. He had had attacks of this obstinacy in former years also, but now the sporadic occurrences seemed to have changed into a chronic disease. People are apt to say of somebody who acts in an extraordinary manner, "he won't live long;" and if there is any reason for this assertion, the days of the baron must have been numbered.
Perhaps this was really so, and the baron suspected it secretly, so that he made unheard-of efforts of his mind and his will, exactly as old, very sedate canary-birds are apt to hop about and to flutter with nervous violence a few minutes before composing themselves to sleep.
Such a nervous violence characterized the manner in which the old gentleman, taking a pinch from his gold snuff-box, closed the top, and then said, as if Anna Maria had given him the cue just then, and not half an hour ago:
"Stay! Everything must have an end; we cannot leave Helen forever at Miss Bear's."
"I am not accustomed," replied Anna Maria, taking up her embroidery--she liked to be found busy at work when visitors came--"I am not accustomed to say one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow.
Others may think differently about it. We would make ourselves ridiculous before the whole world if we were to take Helen back after four weeks."
"It is nearly six weeks," growled the baron.
"Four or six, that makes no difference."
"It does for me. I am an old man; I may die to-morrow."
"You have said so these ten years."
"If I have said so for ten years," replied the baron, deeply offended by the indifference which lay in the words of his wife, "it is because I have not had a well day for ten years; and one of these days the morning will break when I am no more, and that is why I should like to have my daughter near me again as soon as possible."
"And of your son you say nothing; you do not mind whether Malte is well or unwell. And yet it is Malte in whom all our hopes are centring. You ought to thank God that you have a son who can inherit the estate; instead of that it is Helen, and all the time Helen, whom you consider as all-important."
"I thank God that I have a son, and I thank you that you have given me a son; not because he is my heir, but because he is my flesh and blood, whom I can love, as I love my daughter also. As to the estate, you know my views about that. I abhor entails, which only serve to create discord in the family."
The baron took a pinch, evidently in order to becalm; but the remedy seemed this time to have the opposite effect, for he continued, after this interruption, with increasing violence:
"Why did you absolutely want to marry your daughter to Felix? Because Felix may possibly one of these days inherit the entail! Why is Felix your special protege? Because he may possibly inherit the entail! Why must O have Felix in my house, whom I cannot bear, and do without Helen, whom I love? Because Felix may inherit the entail?"
"Don't repeat yourself so often, dear Grenwitz," said Anna Maria in a quiet tone, which did not harmonize at all with the deep-red spots on her cheeks and the piercing sharpness of her large gray eyes, "and do not excite yourself unnecessarily so much, your cough will return directly. It matters very little how you think about entailed estates.
You cannot change them, God be thanked. But as for me, you must permit me to think differently about it, and to do in that direction what I think is my duty. If, you have no duties to fulfil to your children, I have. If you are willing to give your daughter to the first adventurer who wants her, or whom she wants--you need not stamp impatiently with your sick foot; and you will spill the snuff on the carpet if you knock your box so violently on the arm of the chair. I say, if it is indifferent to you whom Helen marries, it is not so to me. I have advocated the marriage with Felix, not from obstinacy, which I leave to others, but because I thought it was a good match, the best which a girl without fortune could make. You can see how little obstinate I am when you consider that I am no longer in favor of the match since Felix's accident, since the doctor thinks he is consumptive. On the contrary, as soon as it is well ascertained that Felix wont live long, I shall be one of the first to drop him, especially as he will leave nothing but debts."
The old gentleman seemed to be by no means pleased with this exhibition of cold-blooded egotism. He had a kind of dim perception--not the first of its kind--that his highly moral wife might possibly have a very bad heart, and he sighed. It is bitter to have to give up in the evening of life an illusion which we have indulged in for a quarter of a century.