The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 11

Reinhold had vanished after his last conversation with her father, and was not now on the rear deck; so she went forward, and there he sat on a great box, looking through a pocket telescope toward the land – so absorbed that she had come right up to him before he noticed her. He sprang hastily to his feet, and turned to her.

"How far are they?" asked Else.

"They are about to land," replied he. "Would you like to look?"

He handed her the instrument. The glass, when she touched it, still had a trace of the warmth of the hand from which it came, which would have been, under other circumstances, by no means an unpleasant sensation to her, but this time she scarcely noticed it, thinking of it only for an instant, while she was trying to bring into the focus of the glass the point which he indicated. She did not succeed; she saw nothing but an indistinct, shimmering gray. "I prefer to use my eyes!" she exclaimed, putting down the instrument. "I see the boat quite distinctly there, close to the land – in the white streak! What is it?"

"The surf."

"Where is the sail?"

"They let it down so as not to strike too hard. But, really, you have the eye of a seaman!" Else smiled at the compliment, and Reinhold smiled. Their glances met for a minute.

"I have a request to make of you," said Else, without dropping her eyes.

"I was just about to make one of you," he replied, looking straight into her brown eyes, which beamed upon him; "I was about to ask you to allow yourself to be put ashore also. We shall be afloat in another hour, but the night is growing stormy, and as soon as we have passed Wissow Hook" – he pointed to the promontory – "we shall have to cast anchor. That is at best not a very pleasant situation, at the worst a very unpleasant one. I should like to save you from both."

"I thank you," said Else; "and now my request is no longer necessary" – and she told Reinhold why she had come.

"That's a happy coincidence!" he said, "but there is not a moment to lose. I am going to speak to your father at once. We must be off without delay."

"We?"

"I shall, with your permission, take you ashore myself."

"I thank you," said Else again with a deep breath. She had held out her hand; he took the little tender hand in his, and again their glances met.

"One can trust that hand," thought Else; "and those eyes, too!" And she said aloud, "But you must not think that I should have been afraid to remain here! It's really for the sake of the poor President."

She had withdrawn her hand and was hastening away to meet her father, who, wondering why she had remained away so long, had come to look for her.

When he was about to follow her, Reinhold saw lying at his feet a little blue-gray glove. She must have just slipped it off as she was adjusting the telescope. He stooped down quickly, picked it up, and put it in his pocket.

"She will not get that again," he said to himself.

Reinhold was right; there had been no time to lose. While the little boat which he steered cut through the foaming waves, the sky became more and more overcast with dark clouds which threatened soon to extinguish even the last trace of the evening glow in the west. In addition, the strong wind had suddenly shifted from the south to the north, and because of this (to insure a more speedy return of the boat to the ship) they were unable to land at the place where the long-boat, which was already coming back, had discharged its passengers – viz., near the little fishing village, Ahlbeck, at the head of the bay, immediately below Wissow Hook. They had to steer more directly to the north, against the wind, where there was scarcely room upon the narrow beach of bare dunes for a single hut, much less for a fishing village; and Reinhold could consider himself fortunate when, with a bold manœuvre, he brought the little boat so near the shore that the disembarkment of the company and the few pieces of baggage which they had taken from the ship could be accomplished without great difficulty.

"I fear we have jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire," said the President gloomily.

"It is a consolation to me that we were not the cause of it," replied the General, not without a certain sharpness in the tone of his strong voice.

"No, no, certainly not!" acknowledged the President, "Mea maxima culpa! My fault alone, my dear young lady. But, admit it – the situation is hopeless, absolutely hopeless!"

"I don't know," replied Else; "it is all delightful to me."

"Well, I congratulate you heartily," said the President; "for my part I should rather have an open fire, a chicken wing, and half a bottle of St. Julien; but if it is a consolation to have companions in misery, then, it ought to be doubly so to know that what appears as very real misery to the pensive wisdom of one is a romantic adventure to the youthful imagination of another."

The President, while intending to banter, had hit upon the right word. To Else the whole affair appeared a "romantic adventure," in which she felt a genuine hearty delight. When Reinhold brought her the first intimation of the impending danger, she was, indeed, startled; but she had not felt fear for a moment – not even when the abusive men, crying women, and screaming children hurried from the ship, which seemed doomed to sink, into the long-boat which rocked up and down upon the gray waves, while night came over the open sea, dark and foreboding. The tall seaman, with the clear blue eyes, had said that there was no danger; he must know; why should she be afraid? And even if the situation should become dangerous he was the man to do the right thing at the right moment and to meet danger! This sense of security had not abandoned her when into the surf they steered the skiff, rocked like a nut-shell in the foaming waves. The President, deathly pale, cried out again and again, "For God's sake!" and a cloud of concern appeared even on the earnest face of her father. She had just cast a glance at the man at the helm, and his blue eyes had gleamed as brightly as before, even more brightly in the smile with which he answered her questioning glance. And then when the boat had touched the shore, and the sailors were carrying the President, her father, and the three servants to land, and she herself stood in the bow, ready to take a bold leap, she felt herself suddenly surrounded by a pair of strong arms, and was thus half carried, half swung, to the shore without wetting her foot – she herself knew not how.

And there she stood now, a few steps distant from the men, who were consulting, wrapped in her raincoat, in the full consciousness of a rapture such as she never felt before. Was it not then really fine! Before her the gray, surging, thundering, endless sea, above which dark threatening night was gathering; right and left in an unbroken line the white foaming breakers! She herself with the glorious moist wind blowing about her, rattling in her ears, wrapping her garments around her, and driving flecks of spray into her face! Behind her the bald spectral dunes, upon which the long dune grass, just visible against the faintly brighter western sky, beckoned and nodded – whither? On into the happy splendid adventure which was not yet at an end, could not be at an end, must not be at an end – for that would be a wretched shame!

The gentlemen approached her. "We have decided, Else," said the General, "to make an expedition over the dunes into the country. The fishing village at which the long-boat landed is nearly a quarter of a mile distant, and the road in the deep sand would probably be too difficult for our honored President. Besides, we should scarcely find shelter there."

"If only we don't get lost in the dunes," sighed the President.

"The Captain's knowledge of the locality will be guarantee for that," said the General.

"I can scarcely speak of a knowledge of the place, General," replied Reinhold. "Only once, and that six years ago, have I cast a glance from the top of these dunes into the country; but I remember clearly that I saw a small tenant-farm, or something of the kind, in that direction. I can promise to find the house. How it will be about quarters I cannot say in advance."

"In any case we cannot spend the night here," exclaimed the General. "So, en avant! Do you wish my arm, Else?"

"Thank you, Papa, I can get up."

And Else leaped upon the dune, following Reinhold, who, hurrying on ahead, had already reached the top, while the General and the President followed more slowly, and the two servants with the effects closed the procession.

"Well!" exclaimed Else with delight as, a little out of breath, she came up to Reinhold. "Are we also at the end of our tether, like the President?"

"Make fun of me if you like, young lady," replied Reinhold; "I don't feel at all jolly over the responsibility which I have undertaken. Yonder" – and he pointed over the lower dunes into the country, in which evening and mist made everything indistinct – "it must be there."

"'Must be,' if you were right! But 'must' you be right?"

As if answering the mocking question of the girl, a light suddenly shot up exactly in the direction in which Reinhold's arm had pointed. A strange shudder shot through Else.

"Pardon me!" she said.

Reinhold did not know what this exclamation meant. At that moment the others reached the top of the rather steep dune.

"Per aspera ad astra," puffed the President.

"I take my hat off to you, Captain," said the General.

"It was great luck," replied Reinhold modestly.

"And we must have luck," exclaimed Else, who had quickly overcome that strange emotion and had now returned to her bubbling good humor.

The little company strode on through the dunes; Reinhold going on ahead again, while Else remained with the other gentlemen.

"It is strange enough," said the General, "that the mishap had to strike us just at this point of the coast. It really seems as if we were being punished for our opposition. Even if my opinion that a naval station can be of no use here is not shaken, yet, now that we have almost suffered shipwreck here ourselves, a harbor appears to me – "

"A consummation devoutly to be wished!" exclaimed the President. "Heaven knows! And when I think of the severe cold which I shall take from this night's promenade in the abominably wet sand, and that, instead of this, I might now be sitting in a comfortable coupé and tonight be sleeping in my bed, then I repent every word I have spoken against the railroad, about which I have put myself at odds with all our magnates – and not the least with Count Golm, whose friendship would just now be very opportune for us."

"How so?" asked the General.

"Golm Castle lies, according to my calculation, at the most a mile from here; the hunting lodge on Golmberg – "

"I remember it," interrupted the General; "the second highest promontory on the shore to the north – to our right. We can be scarcely half a mile away."

"Now, see," said the President; "that would be so convenient, and the Count is probably there. Frankly, I have secretly counted on his hospitality in case, as I only too much fear, a hospitable shelter is not to be found in the tenant-house, and you do not give up your disinclination to knock at the door in Warnow, which would, indeed, be the simplest and most convenient thing to do."

The President, who had spoken panting, and with many intermissions, had stopped; the General replied with a sullen voice, "You know that I am entirely at outs with my sister."

"But you said the Baroness was in Italy?"

"Yet she must be coming back at this time, has perhaps already returned; and, if she were not, I would not go to Warnow, even if it were but ten paces from here. Let us hurry to get under shelter, Mr. President, or we shall be thoroughly drenched in addition to all we have already passed through."

In fact, scattered drops had been falling for some time from the low-moving clouds, and hastening their steps, they had just entered the farmyard and were groping their way between barns and stables over a very uneven courtyard to the house in whose window they had seen the light, when the rain, which had long been threatening, poured down in full force.

[Pölitz receives his guests with apologies for the accommodations and his wife's absence from the room. His manner is just a bit forced; Else, noticing it, goes out to look for Mrs. Pölitz, and brings the report that the children are sick. The President suggests that they go on to Golmberg. Pölitz will not hear of it, but Else has made arrangements – makeshifts though they are – for the trip, and insists upon leaving, even in the face of the storm. A messenger is to be sent ahead to announce them – Reinhold included, upon Else's insistence. Else goes into the kitchen, where Mrs. Pölitz pours out her soul to her – the hardheartedness of the Count, who has never married, and her vain labors to keep their little home in Swantow. It sets her thinking, first about the Count, then about Reinhold – was he married or not? Wouldn't any girl be proud of him – even herself! But then there would be disinheritance! Yet she keeps on thinking of him. How would "Mrs. Schmidt" sound! She laughs, and then grows serious; tears come into her eyes; she puts her hand into her pocket and feels the compass which Reinhold had given her. It is faithful. "If I ever love, I too shall be faithful," she says to herself.

Reinhold, going out to look for the boat, wonders why he left it to accompany the others to Pölitz's house; but fortunately he finds it safe. Now his duty to the General and Else is fulfilled; he will never see her again, probably. Yet he hastens back – and meets them just on the point of leaving for Golmberg.

The President has been waiting for the storm to blow over, he says. Else is fidgety, yet without knowing why; she wonders what has become of Reinhold. The President sounds Pölitz on the subject of the railway – the nearest doctor living so far away that they cannot afford to have him come. But Pölitz says that they do not want a railway – a decent wagon road would be enough, and they could have that if only the Count would help a little. A naval station? So far as they are concerned, a simple break-water would do, he tells the President. The latter, while Pölitz is out looking for the messenger, discusses with the General the condition of the Count's tenants, in the midst of which the Count himself arrives with his own carriages to take them over to Golmberg.

A chorus of greetings follows. The Count had met the General in Versailles on the day the German Emperor was proclaimed, the General had not forgotten. The company now lacks only Reinhold, and the Count, thinking that he must have lost his way, is about to send a searching party, when Else tells him that she has already done so. The Count smiles. She hates him for it, and outside, a moment later, rebukes herself for not controlling her temper. Reinhold meets her there. She commands him to accompany them. As they are leaving Else makes a remark about the doctor, which is overheard, as she intended, by the Count, who promises to send for the doctor himself.

They proceed to Golmberg. Conversation in the servants' carriage is lively, turning on the relative merits of their respective masters – how liberal the Count is; how strict, yet not so bad, the General; while a bottle of brandy passes around. In the first carriage, where Else, the President, and the General are riding, the conversation is of the Count's family and of old families in general, then of the project before them – the railroad and the naval station. The President drops that subject, finding the General not kindly disposed to it. He and Else are both thinking of her indirect request to the Count to send for the doctor. Then Else's thoughts turn again to Reinhold – his long absence – what he would think of her command to accompany them. The Count and Reinhold in the second carriage speak hardly a dozen words. Reinhold's thoughts are of Else – how hopelessly far above him she is – how he would like to run away. They arrive at Golmberg.]

The President had dropped the remark in his note that the absence of a hostess in the castle would be somewhat embarrassing for the young lady in their company, but as it was not so easily to be remedied he would apologize for him in advance. The Count had dispatched a messenger forthwith to his neighbor, von Strummin, with the urgent request that he should come with his wife and daughter to Golmberg, prepared to spend the night there. The Strummins were glad to render this neighborly service, and Madame and Miss von Strummin had already received Else in the hall, and conducted her to the room set apart for her, adjoining their own rooms.

The President rubbed his thin white hands contentedly before the fire in his own comfortable room, and murmured, as John put the baggage in order, "Delightful; very delightful! I think this will fully reconcile the young lady to her misfortune and restore her grouchy father to a sociable frame of mind."

Else was fully reconciled. To be released from the close, jolting prison of a landau and introduced into a brightly lighted castle in the midst of the forest, where servants stood with torches at the portal; to be most heartily welcomed in the ancient hall, with its strangely ornamented columns, by two ladies who approached from among the arms and armor with which the walls and columns were hung and surrounded, and conducted into the snuggest of all the apartments; to enjoy a flickering open fire, brightly burning wax tapers before a tall mirror in a rich rococo frame, velvet carpets of a marvelous design which was repeated in every possible variation upon the heavy hangings before the deeply recessed windows, on the portières of the high gilded doors, and the curtains of the antique bed – all this was so fitting, so charming, so exactly as it should be in an adventure! Else shook the hand of the matronly Madame von Strummin, thanked her for her kindness, and kissed the pretty little Marie, with the mischievous brown eyes, and asked permission to call her "Meta," or "Mieting," just as her mother did, who had just left the room. Mieting returned the embrace with the greatest fervor and declared that nothing more delightful in the world could have come to her than the invitation for this evening. She, with her Mamma, felt so bored at Strummin! – it was horribly monotonous in the country! – and in the midst of it this letter from the Count! She was fond of coming to Golmberg, anyhow – the forest was so beautiful, and the view from the platform of the tower, from the summit of Golmberg beyond the forest over the sea – that was really charming; to be sure, the opportunity but seldom! Her mother was a little indolent, and the gentlemen thought of their hunting, their horses, and generally only of themselves. Thus she had not been a little surprised, too, at the haste of the Count today in procuring company for the strange young lady, just as if he had already known beforehand how fair and lovely the strange young lady was, and how great the pleasure of being with her, and of chattering so much nonsense; if she might say "thou" to her, then they could chatter twice as pleasantly.

The permission gladly given and sealed with a kiss threw the frolicsome girl into the greatest ecstasy. "You must never go away again!" she exclaimed; "or, if you do, only to return in the autumn! He will not marry me, in any case; I have nothing, and he has nothing in spite of his entail, and Papa says that we shall all be bankrupt here if we don't get the railroad and the harbor. And your Papa and the President have the whole matter in hand, Papa said as we drove over; and if you marry him, your Papa will give the concession, as a matter of course – I believe that's what it's called, isn't it? And you are really already interested in it as it is; for the harbor, Papa says, can be laid out only on the estates which belong to your aunt, and you and your brother – you inherit it from your aunt – are already coheirs? It is a strange will, Papa says, and he would like to know how the matter really is. Don't you know? Please do tell me! I promise not to tell anyone."

"I really don't know," replied Else. "I only know that we are very poor, and that you may go on and marry your Count for all me."

"I should be glad to do so," said the little lady seriously, "but I'm not pretty enough for him, with my insignificant figure and my pug nose. I shall marry a rich burgher some day, who is impressed by our nobility – for the Strummins are as old as the island, you know – a Mr. Schulze, or Müller, or Schmidt. What's the name of the captain who came with you?"

"Schmidt, Reinhold Schmidt."

"No, you're joking!"

"Indeed, I'm not; but he's not a captain."

"Not a Captain! What then?"

"A sea captain."

"Of the Marine?"

"A simple sea captain."

"Oh, dear me!"

That came out so comically, and Mieting clapped her hands with such a naïve surprise, that Else had to laugh, and the more so as she could thus best conceal the blush of embarrassment which flushed her face.

"Then he will not even take supper with us!" exclaimed Mieting.

"Why not?" asked Else, who had suddenly become very serious again.

"A simple captain!" repeated Mieting; "too bad! He's such a handsome man! I had picked him out for myself! But a simple sea captain!"

Madame von Strummin entered the room to escort the ladies to supper. Mieting rushed toward her mother to tell her her great discovery. "Everything is already arranged," replied her mother. "The Count asked your father and the President whether they wished the captain to join the company. Both of the gentlemen were in favor of it, and so he too will appear at supper. And then, too, he seems so far to be a very respectable man," concluded Madame von Strummin.

"I'm really curious," said Mieting.

Else did not say anything; but when at the entrance of the corridor she met her father, who had just come from his room, she whispered to him, "Thank you!"

"One must keep a cheerful face in a losing game," replied the General in the same tone.

Else was a bit surprised; she had not believed that he would so seriously regard the question of etiquette, which he had just decided as she wished. She did not reflect that her father could not understand her remark without special explanation, and did not know that he had given to it an entirely different meaning. He had been annoyed and had allowed his displeasure to be noticed, even at the reception in the hall. He supposed that Else had observed this, and was now glad that he had meanwhile resolved to submit quietly and coolly to the inevitable, and in this frame of mind he had met her with a smile. It was only the Count's question that reminded him again of the young sea captain. He had attached no significance either to the question or to his answer, that he did not know why the Count should not invite the captain to supper.

Happily for Reinhold, he had not had even a suspicion of the possibility that his appearance or non-appearance at supper could be seriously debated by the company.

"In for a penny, in for a pound," he said to himself, arranging his suit as well as he could with the aid of the things which he had brought along in his bag from the ship for emergencies. "And now to the dickens with the sulks! If I have run aground in my stupidity, I shall get afloat again. To hang my head or to lose it would not be correcting the mistake, but only making it worse – and it is already bad enough. But now where are my shoes?"

In the last moment on board he had exchanged the shoes which he had been wearing for a pair of high waterproof boots. They had done him excellent service in the water and rain, in the wet sand of the shore, and on the way to the tenant-farm – but now! Where were the shoes? Certainly not in the traveling bag, into which he thought he had thrown them, but in which they refused to be found, although he finally, in his despair, turned the whole contents out and spread them about him. And this article of clothing here, which he had already taken up a dozen times and dropped again – the shirt bosoms were wanting! It was not the blue overcoat! It was the black evening coat, the most precious article of his wardrobe, which he was accustomed to wear only to dinners at the ship-owners', the consul's, and other formal occasions! Reinhold sprang for the bell – the rotten cord broke in his hand. He jerked the door open and peered into the hall – no servant was to be seen; he called first softly and then more loudly – no servant answered. And yet – what was to be done! The coarse woolen jacket which he had worn under his raincoat, and had, notwithstanding, got wet in places had been taken away by the servant to dry. "In a quarter of an hour," the man had said, "the Count will ask you to supper." Twenty minutes had already passed; he had heard distinctly that the President, who was quartered a few doors from his room, had passed through the hall to go downstairs; he would have to remain here in the most ridiculous imprisonment, or appear downstairs before the company in the most bizarre costume – water-boots and black dress suit – before the eyes of the President, whose long, lean figure, from the top of his small shapely head to his patent-leather tips, which he had worn even on board ship, was the image of the most painful precision – before the rigorous General, in his closely buttoned undress uniform – before the Count, who had already betrayed an inclination to doubt his social eligibility – before the ladies! – before her – before her mischievous brown eyes! "Very well," he concluded, "if I have been fool enough to follow the glances of these eyes then this shall be my punishment, I will now do penance – in a black dress coat and water-boots."