"Daniel," said Brasig, "let us have a little breakfast, as soon as possible. For," he added, when Daniel was gone, "you must eat a little something, so as to have a different feeling in your stomach, for such things take away a man's strength." Did he speak entirely from benevolence, or a little from self-love? For when the breakfast came, Axel ate nothing, but he ate like a thresher.

About ten o'clock, Frida came into the room, and exclaimed:

"Herr Inspector! and you, Axel?"

"Yes, dear Frida: I got home this morning," said the young man in a low voice.

"And now you will not go away again, now you will stay here," said Frida, decidedly. "Ah, Axel, I have much to tell you,--good news. But how do you and the Herr Inspector happen to be together?"

Now, thought Uncle Brasig, it is time to keep my promise about fibbing.

"I went out for a little fishing, this morning,--you will not take it ill, gracious Frau, that I have left my fishing-rod in your hall,--and I met the Herr von Rambow, who was out walking, and we looked at his wheat together, and he invited me here to breakfast. But, gracious Frau, what fine sausage! you must surely have got the recipe from Frau Nussler."

"No," said Frida, absently, looking at Brasig and at Axel, as if it seemed very strange to her that Axel should have invited the old inspector. "How did it happen, Herr Inspector," she began. Hold!

thought Brasig, you will fib yourself into a trap, you must give another turn to the conversation, so he interrupted:

"With your leave, gracious Frau, you always call me 'inspector,' and so I have been; but I have been promoted, I am, now a.s.sessor at the court.

Apohpoh!" turning to Axel, "why don't you take your money, that lies ready for you at the court, in Rahnstadt?"

"What money?" inquired Axel.

"Why, the fifteen hundred thalers, that the baggage hadn't spent. You must have had a letter about it, several weeks ago, from the court."

"I have had so many letters from the court, of late, that I no longer open them."

"I know about the business," cried Frida. "Frau Nussler told me, on the way. I will get the letter," and she ran out of the door.

"Young Herr von Rambow," said Brasig, drawing himself up, "there you have done wrong again, for we judges are not only the punishers of mankind, we are also the benefactors of mankind."

"But do tell me what money it is!"

"Here is the letter," said Frida, giving it to her husband.

Axel opened it, and with what feelings! "Money, money!" had so long been the cry of his soul, always "Money!" Now this sum of money fell unexpectedly into his lap, but what money! "Oh, my G.o.d!" he cried, staggering blindly about the room, like a sleep-walker, "then that was not true either! All of it false! In whose hands have I been? Deceived in everything,--self-deceived! Bitterly self-deceived!"

He rushed out of the door, Frida would have followed him, but Brasig held her back. "Let me go, gracious Frau! I know a way to quiet him."

He followed him to the garden, where he was raging up and down; the old man placed himself in the way:

"Herr, what sort of performances are these?"

"Get out of my way!" cried Axel.

"No," said Brasig, "there is no necessity for it. Aren't you ashamed, to frighten your wife to death with your wild behavior?"

"Why did you not let me destroy myself?" cried Axel; "this is a thousand times worse than death! To receive benefits, and such benefits, from people, whom in better times I have despised and slandered, yes, even ruined! Not merely to receive,--no!--if one will live,--to be _obliged_ to receive it! Oh, oh!" he cried, striking his forehead, "why should I live? How can I live, with this sting in my heart?"

So he raged against himself and the world, and Uncle Brasig stood by quietly and looked at him. At last he said, "Go on like that a little longer; that pleases me uncommonly; the old n.o.bleman's humor must work itself out. What? You will have no friendship with honest, burgher people? Isn't it so? If the Herr Vons should come, or even the Pomuchelskopps and Slusuhrs and Davids, so that n.o.body need know, of it, that would be more agreeable to you; but they won't come any more.

But that is only a secondary matter; you ought to be ashamed that, under the eye of G.o.d, who delivered you this morning, you have again expressed the wish that you had shot yourself. Why, you are a double suicide!"

Axel was silent, and turned pale; he trembled, as he thought of the abyss into which he had looked that morning; Brasig took his arm and seated him on the bench, where his old father and his young wife had sat, in their anguish and distress. Gradually he recovered himself, and Zachary Brasig took him again by the arm: "Come! come to your gracious Frau! That is the best place for you now," and Axel followed like a lamb, and when his dear young wife took him in her arms, and drew him down by her on the sofa, and comforted him, then the hot tears started from his eyes, the last ice was broken up, and under the warmth of her lovely, spring sunshine his whole soul flowed out, open and free,--still in swelling waves, but free. And Zachary Brasig stood at the window, and drummed the old Dessauer, so that Fritz Triddelsitz, who was pa.s.sing by, came up and asked, "Herr Inspector, do you want me?"

"No!" growled Brasig, "go about your business, and attend to your farming."

A carriage drove up, and Habermann and Franz got out of it. Franz had gone with Habermann, about nine o'clock, to see Moses, and had told him that, instead of the other good people, he would pay the thirty-one thousand for his cousin, and Moses kept nodding his head, and said, "You are good; the others are good, too; but you are rich; better is better."

When the business was settled, and Franz had gone a little way along the street with Habermann, he said, "Dear father, sit down here a moment, on this bench, I will come back directly, I have forgotten something I wanted to speak to Moses about." And when he went back to Moses he said, "My father-in-law, Habermann, told me, this morning, that Pomuchelskopp wants to sell Gurlitz."

"Wonder of wonders!" cried Moses, "Habermann, father-in-law! What does it mean?"

"I am going to marry his daughter."

The old Jew rose painfully from his chair, and laid his withered hand on the young head of the Christian n.o.bleman:

"The G.o.d of Abraham bless you! You marry into a good family."

And after a little, Franz said, "Buy it for me, transact the business for me, but my name must not be mentioned, and no one--especially Habermann--is to know anything about it. At St. John's, I can raise a hundred thousand thalers."

"But how high shall I go?"

"I Leave that to you; but inquire about it to-day. I will come again to-morrow, and we can talk it over."

"Well," said Moses, "this is business, this is honest business. Why shouldn't I do a little business?"

Franz left him.

When Axel saw the two getting out of the carriage, he tried to control himself, and to conceal his agitation, but in vain. Too wild a flood was rushing through his soul, the green leaves were torn and scattered, and branches and limbs of trees floated down the current; Frida and Brasig interposed; and when he was rushing towards Habermann impulsively, Frida held him back, saying, "Axel, dear Axel, not now!

To-morrow, the day after, any time! You can always find him."

And Habermann took his hat, and said he had a message from Fritz Triddelsitz's father, and went out. Franz went up to Axel, and embraced him, and said, "Come into the other room, Axel, I have much to say to you."

And when they had been there awhile, Franz looked in at the door, and called Frida. And, a while after, Daniel Sadenwater ran out into the yard, to look for the Herr Inspector Habermann, and as he pa.s.sed in, before Brasig's eyes, Brasig began to find it lonely in the room, and he went out into the garden, and placed himself on a little elevation, and looked over to the Rexow firs, and the Lauban pond, thinking his own thoughts, and they began in this wise: "Remarkable! What is life, what is human life?" and when his thoughts had lasted about an hour and a halt, and he had snapped at innumerable flies, they at last broke out into words: "I wish one could get something to eat, by and by, and then a quiet place, to recreate one's self a little!"

And his wish was granted, for Daniel came and called him, and when he entered the room Habermann stood by Axel, holding his hand, and Franz was rubbing his hands, and looking at the dinner-table, and he came up to Brasig, saying, "Herr Inspector, we have good appet.i.tes to-day!" And Frida stood there, with the sweetest smile, and the most blessed content in her face, and said:

"Herr Inspector,--Herr a.s.sessor, I would say,--when we first came to Pumpelhagen, you were my neighbor at table, now that we are going away, you must be so once more."

"Going away?"

"Yes, old friend," said Habermann, "you are a Jack of all trades, and know all that is going on; but you never thought of this: the Herr von Rambow has exchanged with Franz, he takes Hogen Selchow, and Franz, Pumpelhagen."

"That is a good arrangement, Karl, and if you crack your jokes on me, because I knew nothing about it, I knew, at least, several years ago, that the Herr von Rambow, who was your pupil, would come to something."

And he went up to Franz, and shook his hand heartily.

After dinner, many things were talked over, and every one could perceive, by Axel's demeanor, how much lighter his heart was, now that he was no longer indebted to these people, but only to his cousin; and in this better mood, he agreed to everything, promised to let the inspector manage the estate, and to give Franz proper security.

Our story rapidly approaches its conclusion. After a week or so, Moses came to terms with Pomuchelskopp, for Gurlitz. It was sold for a hundred and ninety-two thousand thalers. From Moses Franz went straight to Schultz, the carpenter:

"Herr Schultz, can you hold your tongue?"