Or did he merely wish to get out of my way, now that he had so perfectly gained his point of bringing me into disfavor with Hermine?

Did he need me no more, now that the machine was set up and the negotiation with the prince virtually fallen through?

Very possible; very possible; but perhaps I needed him still less; perhaps I was in a position to bid him farewell before he gave me a dismissal. This absence of the man, which seemed like a flight from me, came at this moment as a warning to accept the tempting offer of the young prince. What had I thus far attained from the commerzienrath in furtherance of my own aims? Abundance of promises, a flood of compliments--and that was all, and so it would evidently remain, especially if he did not sell Zehrendorf, and was thus released from his promise to me about the factory: yes, and very probably even though the sale were still effected.

For there were but few things that the commerzienrath held sacred, and I had good reason to believe that his word was not one of them. Thus he had promised me not to dismiss the foreman of the saw-mill, to whom he had already given notice; and as I pa.s.sed the mill this morning it was not running, and a workman told me that the master had been there the previous evening while I was at Rossow, and after a short conversation dismissed the foreman on the spot.

There was an instance; but it was merely the most recent; I had caught him more than once in these breaches of his word. No, indeed, the man did not seem a likely proselyte to my religion of humanity!

And the prince? The more distinctly I recalled to memory the particulars of our yesterday's conversation, the more vividly his face arose before me, so much the more did I believe that I discovered the stamp of an honorable and kindly nature in his features, and felt confident that it would well repay me to attach myself to him. It is a hard matter to remain entirely unmoved when any one approaches us with marked good will, especially when our well-wisher is a person of high rank and great influence. Now I cannot say that either then or at any time I should have considered a prince's favor the height of earthly felicity; but neither can I deny that, at that time at least, the reverence for dignities in which I had been brought up, helped to place this behavior of the young prince in its most favorable light. I thought that I had now found the key to the conduct which yesterday had seemed so enigmatical; and I highly prized the delicacy with which he had cleared out of the way what he knew lay as a stumbling-block between us, before he disclosed his real object. He had made no allusion to the scene in Zehrendorf forest nine years before; but he had never forgotten that I had then spared him, and why I had done so, and had attempted in this way to cancel the obligation.

I had to admit to myself that, all things considered, the procedure was n.o.ble and chivalrous on his part. So he had explained to me the reason of his visit to Paula's studio, and to a certain extent apologized for his conduct there; and if his attempt on the same day to clear scores with me was premature and unbecoming, he had more than compensated for it in my eyes by his present magnanimous and important proposal.

For it was both. Magnanimous, when I considered the open loyal way in which he made it, with no man[oe]uvrings, no bargaining nor chaffering; important, when I admitted to myself, as I had to do, that if it was really his wish to provide me with a wider field of operations, he was fully in a position to realize his promises. Granting that the commerzienrath was what he pretended to be--though on this point my doubts had rather increased than diminished--but granting that he was the wealthy and influential man he was generally thought, what was his wealth and influence compared with those of a Prince of Prora-Wiek? As a schoolboy I had known, like every one else in the town, and I believe every inhabitant of our province, that upon the island alone the prince owned a hundred and twenty estates; then the small town of Prora, the residence--in which there was now probably agitation enough in consequence of its lord's sudden illness--which stood entirely upon the prince's land; then the hunting-castle Wiek with its leagues of forest; the _Grafschaft_ of Ralow on the mainland near Uselin, where the townsfolk used to make excursions to the park in the summer; the magnificent palace at the residence, which I had often pa.s.sed with strange emotions; the domains in Silesia with the celebrated iron-works, the value of which alone was estimated at several millions--what was the Cr[oe]sus of Uselin in comparison with this real Cr[oe]sus, whose revenues for two years probably amounted to as much as the commerzienrath's whole capital?

True, I had looked forward to a far different career. My pa.s.sion for mathematical science, my advances in the machine-builder's art, my hope some day to be actively helpful in promoting the development of railroad industry, the plans I had so often devised with worthy Doctor Snellius for the good of the working cla.s.ses--it was no pleasant thought to have to give up all this. But had I then to give it up? Was it not in reality the same thing whether I worked here or there, in this manner or in that, so that I only worked and strove in the n.o.ble spirit of my unforgotten teacher and of my truehearted friend?

a.s.suredly I might in that spirit accept the prince's offer, and Paula would not be dissatisfied with me, for her thoughts and wishes, like those of her n.o.ble-hearted father, were only bent upon goodness in every form. I felt that it would not be difficult for me to show her how in this sphere I would have full opportunity to become more worthy of her than I had ever been. And then--I had always endeavored to hide it from myself, because it too rudely touched a painful spot in my heart; but now in this sleepless night it and many another thing stood in sharp conviction before my mind--she had not only let me go because a wider field of usefulness opened before me; she had even sent me away, because she had compa.s.sion with me, because she knew that my deep, devoted, reverential love found no echo in her heart; and as a kindly nature never takes away anything without offering, if possible, some indemnity, she had offered my loving heart, that yearned for a return of affection, the fulfilment of all my wishes in a lovely fascinating form, in the form of the beautiful wayward Bacchante who had played with me as she had played with tigers, leopards, and other forest-creatures which she was accustomed to yoke to her chariot. What did Paula's innocent heart know of this dangerous sport? What did she know of the arts of caressing with one hand while the other plies the lash?--of delighting at one moment in the free gambols of the favorite, and the next moment barring it into a narrow cage? What did Paula know of all this?

Had she known it, would she not be the first to called me back and say:

"You may and must sacrifice yourself, if nothing less will avail; but you may not throw yourself away; and as for my wishes and yours, they are all past and gone."

Thus it fermented and worked in my heated brain and my swelling heart all day long, while the sun rolled on his glowing path through the sky, and behind him clomb the gray vaporous clouds which had lowered on the horizon at his rise. I had looked up instinctively at the sky from time to time, as I wandered restlessly through the fields and the heath, tormented by my thoughts, and oppressed by the threatening storm, and so possessed by the emotions within me and the ominous preparations without, that I had lost my consciousness of place and time, found myself now in the evening twilight on the road to Trantowitz, the same road along which I had driven to Rossow, and which was also the road by which the excursionists would return, without knowing how I had got there or why I had come. Certainly not to visit Hans, who was with the party. Still I pushed on, until I reached the ill-kept broken hedge which divided Hans's famous garden, with its stunted fruit-trees, its neglected gra.s.s, and its waste potato and cabbage patches, from the road. Looking over the hedge, I thought that at the further end of this melancholy croft I saw a tall figure which could be no other than the good Hans himself. I pushed through the hedge--an operation attended with no difficulty--and went towards the figure. It was Hans, as I thought.

"I thought you were with them," I said.

"Not I," he answered, returning my grasp.

"But you were invited?"

"Oh, yes!"

"And how then are you here?"

"Well, when I saw them coming this morning, I got out of that window"--he pointed to the window of his bed-room--"and stayed in the woods until the coast was clear. And you?"

"I did not care to go, either."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Hans.

We strolled for a long time silently, side by side, up and down the gra.s.s-grown paths. The twilight had now grown so dim that color could no longer be distinguished. The air was inexpressibly sultry and oppressive, heat-lightnings flickered every now and then in the east, and from the Trantowitz woods, an angle of which reached down near us, came the song of the nightingale in long-drawn wailing tones.

"It is suffocating!" I said, turning into a sort of ruinous arbor that we had reached in our walk, and throwing myself upon one of the mouldering benches in it, I pulled off my coat and waistcoat.

Hans made no reply, but silently proceeded to his bedroom window, through which I saw his gigantic figure disappear, and re-appear after the lapse of a few minutes. He rejoined me with a couple of gla.s.ses in his hand and two bottles of wine under his arm, which he set down on the old table, drew two more bottles out of his coat pockets and laid them on the sand, pulled out his hunting-knife and uncorked the first pair, and then pushing one over to me, remarked:

"Drink off the half or the whole of that and you will feel better."

That was just the old Hans exactly, with his universal specific against all slings and arrows of outrageous fortune! Alas, it had proved but a poor panacea to the good fellow, and would probably be of little service to me, but I could not help feeling how kindly he meant it, and my hand trembled as I poured the wine for both, and my voice was unsteady as I clinked gla.s.ses with him, saying:

"To your health, dear Hans, and a better future to both of us."

"Don't know where it is to come from for me," said Hans, draining his gla.s.s at a draught, and filling both again.

"Hans, my dear good fellow," I said, "please don't speak in that dismal tone: I cannot stand it this evening: I feel every moment as if my heart was about to break."

Hans was about to push the bottle to me again, but remembered that I had already declined his universal specific, so he handed his cigar-case to me across the table.

In a minute two bright points were glowing in the dark arbor, throwing a faint glimmer upon the rickety table with the bottles, and upon the faces of two men that leaned over it in a long confidential conversation.

"It is so," said one at last.

"You will find yourself mistaken, as I was," replied the other.

"I think not. How long ago was it--yesterday, I believe--or it might have been the day before; I don't keep any reckoning of the days--I met her on the road to Rossow, and we rode together two or three miles, and the whole time she was talking of nothing but you."

"She must have been sadly in want of a topic of conversation."

"And she cried, too, poor thing! I was sorry for her, and have ever since had it on my mind to tell you that you must really bring the matter to a close."

A long silence followed. The third bottle was uncorked, the bright points still glowed, while the darkness sank ever deeper, and the noiseless sheet-lightning flickered from moment to moment.

"But you are not drinking," said Hans.

I did not answer: in fact I had scarcely heard him. I was hardly conscious that he was there or where we were. In the darkness that surrounded us I saw her eyes beaming; in the rustling of the wind in the leaves I heard her voice. And the large blue eyes gazed reproachfully upon me, and the voice seemed to tremble, and the sweet lips quivered as they had done yesterday when she asked me to accompany them.

"Where are you going?" asked Hans.

I had arisen and stood at the entrance of the arbor, gazing with burning eyes into the darkness. On the western horizon there was still a thin pale streak, but elsewhere the sky seemed to cover the earth like a black opaque pall. There was a deep silence; only from time to time strange moans and whispers seemed to pa.s.s through the air, and at intervals the nightingales in the woods sent forth a plaintive sobbing sound, as if bewailing the overthrow of a beautiful world full of light and love. Now and then an electrical flame clove the darkness, and flickered strangely along the edges of the low heavy clouds; but no thunder followed to break the oppressive stillness, and no refreshing rain came down to revive the exhausted earth.

"Where are you going?" asked Hans again.

"Where do you suppose they are now?"

"Who can tell? Certainly they have not got back, for they must pa.s.s this way."

"On the heath, between your beechwoods and the Rossow pines, the way must be hard to find in this darkness."

"It is indeed," said Hans. "I once rode around there for two hours without getting out of one place, and the night was not as dark as this. To be sure, we had been drinking pretty freely at Fritz Zarrentin's. Hallo! what are you about?"

I was on the point of rushing out; and when Hans spoke I grasped at my head, which felt as if it would burst.

"They may be at that very place now," I muttered.

"Don't go without me!" cried Hans, as I set off on a run.

I stopped: he came behind me and patted me two or three times gently on the shoulder with his great broad hand, saying: "So then, so!" as if he were quieting an excited horse. I caught his hand and said, "come along, Hans."

"Of course," he said; "but we must have two or three fellows with lanterns, or we can do nothing."