However, in the course of the day I caught sight of them from my window. First, the commerzienrath, taking his morning promenade through the garden, a long pipe in his mouth. He seemed to be pondering over important things. From time to time he stopped, and gazed long into vacancy. Doubtless, he was calculating. I observed how with his stumpy fingers he was multiplying, and then wrote the product in the air with the end of his pipe-stem. Once his face puckered into a grin of delight; what could he have reckoned out?

The next was the steuerrath. He went an hour later, with his brother, through the garden. The steuerrath was speaking very animatedly; he several times laid his right hand upon his breast, as if in a.s.severation. The superintendent's eyes were dropped; the subject of the conversation seemed to distress him. When they came near my window, he looked across with apparent uneasiness, and drew his brother behind a hedge. Apparently he did not wish me to witness his brother's gesticulations.

I had bent over my work again with the painful feeling that I was a superfluity and in the way, when suddenly the door leading from the office into the garden was opened, and the steuerrath hastily entered.

I was startled, as even a man of courage is startled when unexpectedly a serpent glides across his path. The steuerrath smiled very benignantly, and held out to me his white well-kept hand, which he again withdrew with a graceful wave, as I showed no disposition to take it.

"My dear young friend," he said, "must we meet again _thus_?"

I made him no answer; what could I answer to a phrase in which every word and every tone was a lie?

"How would I deplore your fate," he proceeded, "had not fortune brought you here to my brother, who without doubt is one of the n.o.blest and best of men alive, and who even now, while we were walking there, has said so many kind and affectionate things of you. I was impelled to offer you my hand, although I had a presentiment that you, like your father, would turn from one whom in truth fortune has bitterly enough persecuted."

And the victim of fortune threw himself into an arm-chair, and covered his eyes with his long white hand, the ring-finger of which was adorned with an enormous signet.

"I do not reproach him for it: Heaven forbid! I have known him for so many years. He is one of those strict men, whose horror of dereliction to duty is so great, and at the same time so blind, that in their eyes an accused person always appears a guilty one."

The last observation was too just for me not to admit it inwardly; and probably my look expressed as much, for the steuerrath said with a melancholy smile:

"Yes, you can sing a sad song to that tune! Well, well, I will not chafe the wound which pains you more than all the rest; but in truth you have only early learned what sooner or later we must all learn, that we can least expect a correct construction of our views and intentions, and even of our position, from those who stand in the closest relation to us."

In this too there was truth; and I could not refrain from looking in a more friendly manner at the man.

"I have just now had proof of this. My brother Ernest is, as I have already said, one of the best of men; and yet what trouble does it not give him to place himself in my situation. To be sure, he has always lived with so much regularity that he does not know what it is in one night to lose the half of one's receipts, which are anyhow dealt out in such stinted measure; he does not know what it is to have to compromise with one's creditors--to risk one's own subsistence and that of others, alas! and what is bitterest of all, to be dependent on the good-will of a hard-hearted man of money!"

Here the white hand wiped a tear which seemed to have acc.u.mulated in the inner corner of his right eye, and then resignedly glided to his lap, while a mild smile stole over his aristocratic features.

He rose and said:

"Forgive me; but an unfortunate one feels himself irresistibly attracted to the unhappy, and you have always been a friend of my house, and the best companion of my Arthur. You must not take it ill of the poor youth, if pride in his new sword has turned his head a little.

You know him; hardly once in ten times does his heart know what his tongue is saying; and he has already owned to me that in the notion that he owed it to his dignity as an ensign, he behaved very foolishly to you. You really must forgive him."

He smiled again, nodded to me, was about to offer his hand again, but remembered that I had refused it before, and withdrew it, smiled again, but very sadly, and went to the garden door, which he opened softly and softly closed behind him.

I looked after him with a mingled feeling of astonishment and contempt.

Was this soft-speaking man, who in my presence could weep over his position, the same to whom as a boy I had looked up as to a superior being? And if his case was so desperate--and as far as I could learn it might very well be so--I might have behaved in a more friendly manner to him, might have afforded him a word of sympathy, above all, need not have repulsed his offered hand.

My face burned; it was the first time I had ever rudely repelled a supplicant. I asked myself again whether imprisonment had not corrupted me; and I was glad that I had kept so silent in regard to the relations between the steuerrath and his deceased brother, and especially that I had faithfully guarded the secret of that letter, even from the superintendent, in whom, in all other respects, I place unbounded confidence. Had the steuerrath a suspicion that I could have revealed something had I chosen? and had he come this morning to thank me for my silence?

The steuerrath appeared at once to me in an entirely different and much more favorable light We feel a certain inclination towards persons whom we have laid under obligation, if they are acute enough to let us perceive that they are penetrated by the feeling of that obligation.

I would also let Arthur see that I had forgiven his folly.

The steuerrath is right, I thought; not once in ten times does he know where his tongue is running to.

As I formed this magnanimous resolution, there came another knock--this time at the door that led into the hall, and I came very near laughing aloud when upon my calling "Come in!" the commerzienrath presented himself on the threshold; not this time in dressing-gown and slippers, with his long pipe in his hand as before, but in a blue frock-coat with gold b.u.t.tons, a wide black neckcloth, out of which projected fiercely, at least four inches, the long points of his high-standing collar, a flowered waistcoat loose enough not to incommode his prominent paunch, nor interfere with the display of his neatly-ironed frill, black trousers which were not so long but that one might see how firmly his two flat feet stood in the shining boots. In this very costume did this man pervade all the recollections of my earliest youth; and perhaps it was because then, in my childish innocence, I had laughed at his grotesque appearance, that now, when to say the least such behavior was far more unbecoming, I was again seized with an impulse to laughter.

"How are you now, my dear young friend?" said the commerzienrath, in the tone with which one inquires into the state of some one on his death-bed.

"I thank you for your kind inquiry, Herr Commerzienrath; I am quite well, as you see."

"You are a tremendous fellow," cried the commerzienrath, taking his tone from me at once. "But that is right; we can live but once; one must take things as they come. I said as much to your father only yesterday, when I met him upon the street. 'Good heavens!' I said, 'why do you make such a terrible matter of it? We have all been young once; and young men will be young men. Why have you stopped his allowance?' I asked. 'He is not condemned to hard labor; he has not forfeited the right to wear the national c.o.c.kade; he is only imprisoned. That might happen to any one; and you,' I said, 'are such an honorable man that it would be an honor to us all to play Boston with you, even if you had four sons in the penitentiary.'"

The commerzienrath's head sank again upon one side; it is possible that at his last words my face a.s.sumed a grave expression.

"To be sure," said he, "there are many that take it more easily. There is my brother-in-law. I would not be in his shoes although his father was a n.o.bleman of the empire and mine only an ordinary needleman. The investigation let him off, but it was with a black eye. Any one would suppose he had had enough of intriguing for his life-time; but he cannot keep out of it. Great heavens, it is a shame, the amount that his family has cost me already. Would you believe it, that I had to pay for my wife's trousseau out of my own pocket? Then the one at Zehrendorf and his drafts! By the way, did he ever tell you that he had a.s.signed all Zehrendorf to me, years ago? Try to think; he must have mentioned it to you on some occasion or other. He was not one of those that keep their mouths close shut. And there's the steuerrath! What have I not already done for the man; and now these pretensions of his!

Indemnification! A man must live; and if one has not a son, who naturally could not be set to earn his own living, still one has a daughter that one does not want to let starve. You must try to get out of here, my boy. The girl asks after you ten times a day. You have bewitched her, you rascal you!"

And the commerzienrath, who had arisen and was standing by me with his hat and stick in his hand, gave me a little poke in the ribs.

"The Fraulein is very kind," I said.

"Look there now, how you blush!" said the commerzienrath; "quite right; I like that. Respect for the ladies; don't be an idle c.o.xcomb; a fellow of that sort is worth nothing all his life. But you must not call my Hermann Fraulein; Fraulein Duff will never allow that; she must be called Fraulein herself, though she would give her two little fingers if she did not need to be called Mamsell or Fraulein any longer."

The commerzienrath winked as he said this, puffed out his cheeks, and gave me another little poke.

"I shall hardly have the opportunity," I said.

"Pooh!" said the commerzienrath, "don't be tragic. We are to ourselves here. I spoke with my brother-in-law to-day about it; you must take supper with us this evening. Hermann--you know I call her Hermann--wants particularly to see you. Adieu!"

And he kissed the tips of his clumsy fingers and left the room, giving me another wink as he pa.s.sed out at the door.

What was the meaning of these visits? What did the ceremonious steuerrath and the purse-proud commerzienrath want with me, a prisoner?

I might have racked my brain in vain for a solution of the enigma, had not the superintendent, who came into the office that afternoon, let fall a word which gave me the key to the mystery.

"I wish the next three days were over," said he. "You would not believe, my dear George, how repulsive to me are all these transactions, which have no material interest for me. They really only want me to act as umpire, and flatter me in the hope of influencing my decision beforehand. And if I could only decide--but how is that possible in this case where the parties themselves do all they can to obscure the matter? They count upon you, my dear George, as you are the only one who was near my unhappy brother in the latter part of his life, and thus may possibly be able to give information on some points that need to be cleared up. And now come with me into the garden.

Snellius and you must help me to entertain the company. My poor wife and I will really not be able to go through with it."

Smiling as he said these words, he took my arm and let me a.s.sist him down the steps into the garden and up the path to the Belvedere, from which even at a distance there reached us the joyous clamor of children. It was the first time since my misfortunes that I had gone into society. I had learned while in prison many things of which I was proud, but also one of which I was ashamed, namely, the agitation that overcame me as I heard nearer and nearer the voices of the speakers, and saw the dresses of the ladies glancing through the hedge, already thinned by the autumn winds.

I had cause to be content with my reception: the boys rushed at me, and Kurt cried that I must play with them, for Cousin Arthur kept with Hermine and Paula, and that was tiresome; and Hermine anyhow was only ten years old, and did not need to be so proud.

"Hermine is not proud, but you are too wild," said Paula, who was holding Hermine's hand, while Arthur kept a little in the background and twirled his little sprout of a moustache with visible embarra.s.sment.

I caught up the boys and tossed each in succession high in the air, to conceal my confusion as well as I could, while I kept my eyes fixed upon Hermine. It was really not possible to find anything more dainty and charming than this beautiful creature, in her white dress, which again was trimmed with cornflower blue ribbons, as when I saw her on the steamer. And her great blue eyes looked as eagerly at me, and her red lips were half parted, as if she had suddenly caught sight of the prince of a fairy-tale.

"Is that he?" I heard her whisper to Paula, "and can he really conquer lions?"

I did not catch Paula's answer to this singular question, for I had now to turn to Frau von Zehren, who sat between her sister-in-law and Fraulein Duff on the bench. Frau von Zehren looked paler than usual, and her poor blind eyes turned with an appealing look towards me, while a painfully-confused smile played about her lips.

She offered me her hand at once, and half arose from the bench, but remembered that she must remain sitting, and smiled yet more sadly.

I wished the born Baroness Kippenreiter, with her long yellow teeth, and the governess, with her long yellow ringlets, who were both staring at me through their eye-gla.s.ses, a thousand miles away.

The superintendent had now joined us, and said: "Will you not take my arm awhile, Elise? You will be chilled; the ladies will certainly excuse you."

"Oh, allow me to walk with our dear friend," cried the born Kippenreiter, springing up with decision. The superintendent slightly shrugged his shoulders.

"You are not one of the most robust yourself, dear sister-in-law," he said.