"I don't know," said Brasig. "I am wholly unacquainted with his affairs, since I don't trouble myself about secrets. Hear to the end, says Kotelmann, to-morrow we shall know."

"But this Gottlieb, this quiet man!" exclaimed Frau Nussler.

"The Pietists are not wholly to be trusted," said Brasig. "Never trust a Jesuit!"

"Brasig!" cried Frau Nussler, and the old chair shrieked aloud, as she sprang up, "if there is something concealed here, I shall take back my child. If Rudolph had done it, I could have forgiven him, for he is a rough colt, and there is no secrecy about him; but Gottlieb? No, never in my life! One who can set himself up for a saint, and then do such a trick--don't come near me! I want nothing to do with such people!"

And when Gottlieb came to the table that evening, his future mother-in-law looked at him askance, as if she were a shop clerk, and he were trying to cheat her with a bad groschen. And when he asked Lining, after supper, if she would take a gla.s.s of fresh water up to his room, she told him Lining had something else to do, and when Gottlieb turned to Marik, the waiting-maid, she told him he might go to the pump himself, he could do it as well as Marik. And so she speedily drew a magic circle around him, over which no woman might pa.s.s.

As they sat at table next morning, Krischan came to the door, and beckoned to Frau Nussler; "Madam, Oh, just a word." And Frau Nussler motioned to Brasig, and the two old lovers went out with Krischan into the hall.

"Here it is," said Krischan, pulling out a great letter, from his waistcoat pocket, "and I know the name of the woman, too."

"Well?" asked Frau Nussler.

"Yes," whispered Krischan privately into Frau Nussler's ear. "Mine is her own name, and Sterium is her father's name."

"What? Is her name Mine Sterium?"

"Hoho!" cried Brasig, s.n.a.t.c.hing the letter from Frau Nussler's hand, "that comes from ignorance of outlandish names, that is the vocation of the Ministerium," and he opened the door, and shouted into room: "Hurrah! You old Pietist, you! Here it is, and next week is the wedding!"

And Frau Nussler fell upon old Gottlieb's neck, and kissed him, and cried, "Gottlieb, my dear Gottlieb, I have done you a great wrong: never mind, Gottlieb, Lining shall take up water for you, every evening, and the wedding shall be whenever you please."

"But what is it?" asked Gottlieb.

"No, Gottlieb, I cannot tell you yet; it is too shameful, but when you have been married three years, I will tell you all about it."

The wedding was celebrated, and a great deal might be told about it, how Mining and her sister Lining wept bitterly after the ceremony, how Gottlieb looked really handsome, since Lining had cut off the long locks, like rusty wheel-nails, out of his neck. But I will tell nothing about this wedding, but what I saw myself, and that was, the next morning, at half-past three, the two old friends young Jochen and young Bauschan, lying on the sofa, arm in arm, asleep.

Habermann was at the wedding, very silent, his Louise was there also, her inmost heart full of love for her little Lining, but she was also silent, quietly happy; Frau Pastorin had declined her invitation, but when the guests were crowding about the bride and bridegroom, and Jochen, afterwards, was trying to say a word also, the door opened, and the Frau Pastorin came in, in her widow's mourning, into the bright marriage joy, and she threw her arms around Lining's neck saying:

"I bless you, I bless you from my heart, and may you be as happy there as I have been. You are now the nearest to him." and she kissed and caressed her, and then turned quickly away, and went, without greeting any one, to the door; there she said, "Habermann!"

But she need not have spoken, for he stood by her already, and when she was in the carriage, he sat by her side, and they drove back to Gurlitz.

At Gurlitz, they got out of the carriage, the pastor's coachman, Jurn, must wait,--and went to the churchyard, and they held each other by the hand, and looked at the green grave, on which bright flowers were growing, and as they turned away, she said with a deep, deep sigh, as when one has drained a full cup, "Habermann, I am ready," and he placed her in the carriage, and drove with her to Rahnstadt.

"Louise is discreet," she said, "she took charge of everything for me, this morning."

They went together through the new house, and the little Frau Pastorin thanked him, and kissed him, for his friendship, that he had arranged everything just as it was in Gurlitz, and she looked out of the window, and said, "Everything, everything, but no grave!"

They stood for a long time at the window, then Habermann pressed her hand, and said, "Frau Pastorin, I have a favor to ask, I have given notice to Herr von Rambow, and shall leave next Christmas; can you spare me the little gable room, and will you take me at your table?"

At a less agitated moment, she would have had much to ask, and much to say; but now she said merely.

"Where Louise and I live, you are always the nearest."

Yes, so it is in the world, what is one's joy is another's sorrow, and weddings and graves lie close together, and yet the distance between them is wider than between summer heat and winter cold; but there is a wonderful kind of people in the world,--if one seeks one can find them,--who can throw a kind of wonderful, heaven-climbing bridges, from one heart to another, over the gulfs which the world has torn open, and such a bridge was built between the little, round Pastors' wives, Lining of Rexow, and Frau Pastorin of Rahnstadt; and when the key stone was dropped into place, exactly over the parsonage at Gurlitz, they fell into each other's arms, and held so fast together that to their life's end they were never parted.

And our old Gottlieb! He did his share, he brought stones and mortar,--he had but a brief experience in the pastoral office; but I must say that, when he preached his entrance sermon, he thought less of himself than of his faithful predecessor, the old Pastor Behrens.

"He sticks to common sense," said Brasig, as he came out of the church, and he patted Lining's cheek, and gave Mining a kiss. "The pietists often become very reasonable people; but they think too much of the devil. I have a very good pietist acquaintance, that is the Pastor Mehlsack, a really clever man, but he is so taken up with the devil that he says scarcely anything about the Lord; and there is the pastor in the beautiful Krakow region, who has paddagraphically discovered that there are three hundred, three and thirty thousand different devils running about the world, not counting the regular devil and his grandmother. And you see, Lining, what an inconvenience it is for us: you sit down in Rahnstadt with your good friends around a punch bowl, and you drink to this one, and to that one, and then to another, and at your side sits a gentleman in a brown dress-coat,--for the devil always wears a brown dress-coat, he must, that is his uniform,--and he talks, the whole evening, very friendly things to you, and when you wake up next morning there he stands before you, and says, 'Good morning! you signed yourself to me last evening,' and then he shows you his cloven foot, and if he is polite he takes out his tail, and slaps you over the ears with it, and there you are, his rightful property. So it is with the honest Pietists, the others are a great deal worse."

And so Gottlieb and Lining were settled in the pastor's house, and Mining was naturally much with them, and it often happened that good old Gottlieb embraced Mining, in the twilight, and gave her a kiss, instead of Lining; but it was all in friendship, he had no other design.

But Pomuchelskopp had a design, when he came with his wife and Malchen and Salchen to make their first call on the young Herr Pastor. And this design was the pastor's acre, and the blue dress-coat with the gilt b.u.t.tons said to the black coat he would take the field, and offered him just half the sum which the Herr von Rambow had given, and our old Hauning stood up and said, that was all it was worth, and it could not be otherwise disposed of, for Jochen Nussler had declined it, and old Gottlieb stood there bowing to the blue dress-coat, and was going to say "yes," when Lining sprang up like a ball, out of the sofa-corner, and said, "Hold! In this business, I have a word to say. We must consult other people," and she called, from the door, "uncle Brasig, will you come in, a moment?"

And he came, placing himself audaciously in a linen frock, before the blue dress-coat, and asked, "How so?"

And Lining sprang towards him saying, "Uncle Brasig, the field shall not be rented. It will be my chief pleasure."

"So it shall not, my dear Frau Pastorin Lining," and he bent down, and gave her a kiss, "I will farm it for you my personal self."

"I am not obliged to allow an under-pachter," cried Pomuchelskopp.

"Nor shall you, nor shall you, Herr Zamel! I will merely manage it as inspector for the Herr Pastor himself."

"Herr Nussler gave it to me in writing."

"That you are a blockhead!" said his Hauning, and drew him angrily out of the room.

"My dear Herr Pastor," said uncle Brasig, going with Gottlieb into the garden, "you have not to thank me for this arrangement, but only your dear wife, Lining. It is really worthy of notice, how positive these innocent little creatures become, after they are married. Well, never mind, perhaps they know best. You, from your Christian stand-point, about the blows on the right and left cheeks, you will read me a lecture about hatred, but hatred must be,--where there is no hate, there is no love, and the story of the blows is all nonsense to me. I have a hatred, I hate Zamel Pomuchelskopp! Why? How? What? He says 'Sie' to you, and wouldn't you hate him?"

"My dear Herr Inspector, this wicked axiom----" and he would, in his new office of pastor, have preached the old man a sharp sermon, as he had before about fishing if, Lining had not fortunately come along, and throwing her arms around his neck cried, "uncle Brasig, uncle Brasig, how shall we repay you for giving up your leisure for us?"

"Don't trouble yourself about that, Lining, where there is hate there is also love; but did you notice how I called him merely Herr Zamel, although he was christened by the more distinguished name, 'Zamwel?'"

"You mean Samuel," interrupted Gottlieb.

"No, Herr Pastor, 'Samuel' is a Jew's name, and although he is a real Jew,--that is, a white one,--he was baptized by the Christian name of Zamwel, and his wife by the name of Karnallje."

"Uncle Brasig," cried Lining, laughing heartily, "how you mix things together! Her name is Cornelia."

"It is possible, Lining, that she lets herself be called so now, because she is ashamed of it, but I have seen it with my very eyes. The old pastor at Bobzin had died; and the s.e.xton had to keep the church books, and there it stood; 'Herr Zamwel Pomuchelskopp to Fraulein Karnallje Klatterpott,' for she is a born Klatterpott, and she is a Karnallje too. But, Lining, let her go; they shall not trouble us, and we two will have a pleasant time together, and you shall give me the little corner room, that overlooks the yard, and the devil must be in it, if in a year and a day, our young pastor isn't in a condition to farm his land himself. And now, adieu," and he went off, the old heathen, who could not give up his hatred.

Bat he who will hate, must expect to be hated in turn; and n.o.body was more hated that day than uncle Brasig. When the Pomuchelskopps had reached home, Hauning stroked the quiet, simple father of a family, and Mecklenburg law-giver, the wrong way, and stung his poor knightly flesh with thorns and nettles, and the constant conclusion of her satirical remarks was: "Yes, Kopp, you are as prudent as the Danish horses, that come home three days before it rains!"

At last, our old friend could bear it no longer, he sprang up out of his sofa-corner, and cried:

"Malchen, I beg of you, have I not always cared for you as a father?"

But Malchen was as deep in the Rostock Times, as if her own betrothal were recorded there.

"Salchen, is it my fault that the world is so bad?"

But Salchen embroidered earnestly on the flesh of a little cupid, and sighed, as if it were a pity that her dear father were not the little cupid; and to fill his cup, Gustaving came in, and rattled the keys on the board, as if he was attempting to set this lovely family scene to appropriate music.

But too much is too much! Human nature can bear only a limited amount; our old friend must show his refractory family that he was master in his own house, so he ran out of the room, and left them alone; he ran into the garden, as far as the sundial, but what good did it do? He had exercised his rightful power on his own flesh and blood, but he himself was no happier, for before his eyes lay the pastor's acre, the beautiful pastor's acre. And beyond lay Pumpelhagen, fair, fair Pumpelhagen, which rightfully belonged to him, for he had given for the Pastor's acre two thousand thalers, payment in advance, and how much more to Slusuhr and David, and that beggar, the Herr von Rambow! He could not bear the sight, he turned away, and looked up into the blue harvest heaven, and asked, was there no righteousness left in the world?