CHAPTER IX.
The rest of the party were already assembled. The two girls had appeared arm-in-arm, and kept together, although the Count, who had come forward hastily to meet them, directed his conversation to Elsa alone. He hastened to inform Fräulein von Werben that the carriage that was to fetch the doctor from Prora had been gone a quarter of an hour. Did Fräulein von Werben take any interest in painting, and would she allow him to direct her attention to some of the more important objects that he had brought from the gallery of Castle Golm for the decoration of the dining-room here, which really had appeared to him too bare. This was a Watteau bought by his great-grandfather himself in Paris; that was a fruit-piece by the Italian painter Gobbo, surnamed Da Frutti, a pupil of Annibale Caracci; this large still-life scene was by the Dutchman Jacob van Es. This flower-piece would be peculiarly interesting to her, as it was by a lady, Rachel Ruysch, a Dutchwoman, of course, whose pictures were in great request. Here, on the étagère, was a service of Dresden china, formerly belonging to Augustus the Strong, from whom his great-grandfather, who for many years had been Swedish ambassador at the court of Dresden, had received it in exchange for a team of Swedish horses, the first which had been seen on the Continent; here was an equally beautiful service of Sèvres, which he himself the preceding year had admired at the château of a French nobleman, and had received as a gift from him, out of gratitude for his successful efforts to preserve the château, which he (the Count) had converted into a hospital.
"You do not care for old china, however?" said he, observing that the lady's dark eyes only very briefly inspected his treasures.
"I have seen so little of it," said Elsa; "I do not know how to appreciate its beauty."
"And then we are all rather hungry," said Meta, "I am at least. At home we have supper at eight, and now it is eleven."
"Has not Captain Schmidt been told?" asked the Count of the butler.
"Yes, sir, a quarter of an hour ago."
"Then we will not wait any longer. The courtesy of kings does not seem to be shared by merchant captains. Allow me."
He offered his arm to Elsa; hesitatingly she laid the tips of her fingers upon it, she would gladly have spared the Captain the awkwardness of finding the whole party at table. But her father had already offered his arm to Meta's mother, the gallant President had given his to Meta herself; the three couples were moving towards the table which stood between them and the door, when the door opened, and the wonderful figure of a bearded man in a tailcoat and high seaboots appeared, in whom Elsa, to her horror, recognised the Captain. But the next moment she was forced to smile like the others. Meta dropped the President's arm and fled into a corner of the room, where she tried to conceal behind her handkerchief the convulsive laughter which had seized her at the unexpected appearance.
"I must apologise," said Reinhold, "but I have unfortunately only just discovered that the haste with which we left the ship was not favourable to a careful choice in my wardrobe."
"And as that haste was for our benefit, we have the less occasion to lay unnecessary stress upon the small mishap," said the President very courteously.
"Why did you not apply to my valet?" asked the Count, with mild reproach.
"I think the costume is very becoming," said Elsa, with a desperate effort to recover her gravity, and a severe look at Meta, who had indeed come out of her corner, but without venturing yet to remove her handkerchief from her face.
"That is much more than I could have possibly hoped," said Reinhold.
They took their seats at the table; Reinhold exactly opposite the Count and nearly opposite Elsa, while on his left hand sat Meta and on his right Herr von Strummin, a broad-shouldered man with a broad, red face, the lower part of which was covered with a big red beard, and whose big loud voice was the more disagreeable to Reinhold that it was perpetually breaking in upon the gay, good-humoured chatter of the young lady upon his left.
The good-natured girl had determined to make Reinhold forget her previous rudeness, and the keeping of this resolution was so much the easier to her, that now, when the tablecloth kindly covered those absurd boots, she found her first idea of him quite justified; the Captain with his large, bright blue eyes, his sunburnt complexion, and curly brown beard, was a handsome--a very handsome man. After she had attempted to convey this important discovery to Elsa by various significant glances and explanatory gestures, and to her great joy had perceived from Elsa's smiles and nods, that she agreed with her, she gave herself up to the pleasure of conversing with this good-looking stranger all the more eagerly that she was certain her eagerness would not remain unnoticed by the Count. Did she not know by experience that he was never pleased, that he even took it as a sort of personal affront, when ladies to whom he did not himself pay any particular attention, were especially civil to other men in his presence! And that this man was only a merchant-captain, whose fitness for society had been just now called in question, made the matter the more amusing and piquant to her mischievous imagination. Besides she really was very much amused. The Captain had so many stories to tell--and he told them so well and simply!
"You cannot think, Elsa, how interesting it is," she exclaimed across the table; "I could listen to him all night long!"
"That good little girl is not too particular in her tastes," said the Count to Elsa.
"I am sorry for that," said Elsa; "she has just chosen me, as you hear, for a friend."
"That is quite another thing," said the Count.
The conversation between these two would not flow properly, and the Count frequently found himself left to Frau von Strummin, to whom he had to talk so as not to be left in silence, whilst Elsa turned to her other neighbour--the President. And more than once, when that lady's attention was claimed by the General, he really was obliged to sit dumb, and silently to observe how well his friends entertained themselves at his own table without him. To fill up these enforced pauses he drank one glass of wine after another, and did not thereby improve his temper, which he then exercised upon the servants for want of any one else. He certainly would have preferred the merchant-captain for that purpose. He thought the fellow altogether odious, everything about him--appearance, manners, look, voice; it was all the more provoking that he should himself have brought the fellow to his house in his own carriage! If he had only not asked any one's opinion and left him in his room!
He told himself that it was ridiculous to vex himself about the matter, but he did vex himself about it nevertheless, and that all the more because he could not conquer the feeling. At any cost he must make the conversation general to free himself from a mood which was becoming intolerable.
Opposite to him Herr von Strummin was shouting his views upon the railroad and the harbour into the ear of the General, who appeared to listen unwillingly. He had made up his mind, for his part, not to touch upon this ticklish topic at table, but any topic was agreeable to him now.
"Excuse me, my good friend," said he, raising his voice, "I have been hearing something of what you have been saying to General von Werben about our favourite plan. You always say 'we' and 'us,' but you know that in many essential points our views differ; so I must beg you, if you do speak about the matter, to do so only in your own name."
"What! what!" cried Herr von Strummin; "what great difference is there? Is it that I want to have a station at Strummin, just as much as you want one at Golm?"
"But we cannot all have stations," said the Count, with a pitying shrug of the shoulders.
"Of course we can't, but I must! or I should not care a brass farthing for the whole project!" cried the other. "Am I to send my corn two or three miles, as I did before, and have the train steaming away under my nose an hour later! I would rather give my vote at the Assembly in that case for the road which the Government offers us; that would run just behind my new barn; I could send the waggons straight from the thrashing-floor out into the high-road. Could not I, President?"
"I really do not know, Herr von Strummin," said the President, "whether the road runs just behind your barn; it certainly crosses the boundary of your fields. But my views have long been known to you both;" and he turned again to Elsa, to continue his interrupted conversation with her.
The Count was furious at the rebuff which the last words seemed to imply, the more furious that he knew he had not deserved them. He had not begun upon the matter, but now it should be further discussed.
"You see," said he, turning to Herr von Strummin, "what disservice you do us--I must say 'us' now--by this perpetual overzealous putting forward of private interests. Of course we look to our own advantage in this; what reasonable man would not? But it must come second--first the State, then ourselves. At least, so I consider, and so does the General here, I am sure."
"Certainly I think so," said the General. "But why should I have the honour of being referred to?"
"Because nobody would gain more if this project were carried out than your sister, or whoever shall some day possess Warnow, Gristow, and Damerow."
"I shall never possess a foot of the property," said the General, knitting his brows. "Besides, as you know, Count, I have as yet had absolutely nothing to do with the question--not even so far as to express an opinion--and am, therefore, by no means in a position to accept the compliment you offer me." And he turned again to Frau von Strummin.
The Count felt the blood rising to his forehead.
"The opinions of a man of your standing, General," said he, with well-affected calmness, "even when he gives them no official shape, could as little remain hidden as the most official report of our excellent President."
The General's bushy eyebrows frowned still more sternly.
"Well, then, Count Golm," he cried, "I avow myself openly as the most determined opponent of your project! I consider it as strategically useless, and I hold it to be scientifically impracticable."
"Two reasons, either of which, if well founded, would be absolutely crushing," answered the Count, smiling ironically. "As to the first, I bow, of course, to such an authority, although we need not always have a war with a non-naval power like France, but might possibly have one with a naval power like Russia for instance, and should then find a harbour facing the enemy very necessary. But as to the practicability, General; there, with all submission, I think I may put in a word in my amphibious capacity of a country gentleman living by the sea. Our sand, however heavy it makes the roads, to the great inconvenience of ourselves and the President, is a capital material for a railway embankment, and will prove good ground for the foundation of our harbour walls."
"Until you come to the places where we should have to build on piles," said the President, who, on the General's account, felt himself bound to speak.
"Such places may occur, I allow," cried the Count, who, in spite of the other men's exasperating opposition, at any rate had now the satisfaction of seeing all other conversation at the table silenced, and he alone for the moment speaking. "But what do you prove by that, excepting that the making of the harbour may take some months or years longer, and cost some few hundred thousands, or, for aught I know, millions more? And what would that signify in a work which, once completed, would be an invincible bulwark against every enemy that threatens us from the East?"
"Excepting one!" said Reinhold.
The Count had never supposed that this fellow would interfere in the conversation. An angry flush rose to his brow; he cast a dark look at the new opponent, and asked, in a short, contemptuous tone:
"And what might that be?"
"The tide coming in with a storm!" answered Reinhold.
"We are too much used in this country to storms and high tides to fear the one or the other," said the Count, with forced calmness.
"I know that," answered Reinhold; "but I am not speaking of ordinary atmospheric changes and disturbances, but of a catastrophe which I am convinced has been preparing for years, and only awaits the final impulse, which will not long be wanting, to burst upon us with a violence of which the wildest fancy can form no conception."
"Are we still in the domain of reality, or already in the realm of fancy?" asked the Count.
"We are in the region of possibilities," answered Reinhold; "that possibility which, as a glance at the map will show us, has already at least once proved a reality, and, according to human calculations, will before very long become such again."
"You are making us extremely curious," said the Count.
He said it ironically; but he had truly expressed the feelings of the party. All eyes were turned upon Reinhold.
"I am afraid I may weary the ladies with these matters," said Reinhold.
"Not in the least," said Elsa.
"I am wild about everything connected with the sea," cried Meta, with a mischievous glance at Elsa.
"You would really oblige me," said the President.
"Pray continue," said the General.
"I will be as brief as possible," said Reinhold, directing his looks towards the President and the General, as if he only spoke for them. "The Baltic appears to have been formed by some most extraordinary convulsions, which have given it a character of its own. It has no ebb and flow, its saltness is far less than that of the North Sea, and decreases gradually towards the east; so that the fauna and flora----"
"What are they?" asked Meta.
"The animal and vegetable kingdoms," said he, courteously turning to her--"of the Gulf of Finland have almost a fresh-water character. But none the less do we find, besides the visible connection, a constant mutual influence between the ocean and the inner sea--a perpetual influx and reflux, resulting from a most complicated connection and combination of the most varied causes, one of which I must more particularly mention, as it is precisely that to which I am now referring. This is the regularity of the winds blowing from west to east, and from east to west, which, moving on the surface of the water, accompany and cause the ebb and flow of the under-currents. Seamen reckoned upon these winds almost with the certainty with which they might count upon a constantly recurring natural phenomenon; and rightly so, for within the memory of man no essential change had occurred, until a few years ago the east wind, which used always to appear in the latter half of August and continue till the middle of October, suddenly failed, and has not since returned."
"Well? and the consequence?" asked the President, who was listening with the most rapt attention.
"The consequence is, sir, that enormous masses of water have accumulated in the Baltic in the course of these years, which have been the less remarked that they have of course attempted to spread themselves equally on all sides, but the greatest pressure has always been in ever-increasing proportion towards the east, so that in the spring of last year at Nystad, in South Finland, four feet above the usual water-mark were registered; at Wasa, two degrees farther north, six feet; and at Tomeo, in the northernmost arm of the Gulf of Bothnia, there were even eight. The gradual nature of the rise and the almost universally high shores have to a great degree protected the inhabitants of those parts from any serious calamity. But for us, whose shores are almost without exception flat, a sudden reversal of this stream, which for years has tended uninterruptedly to the east, would be fearful. This reversal must however happen in case of a gale from the north-east or east, especially if it lasted for many days. The water driven westward by the power of the wind will vainly seek an outlet to the ocean through the narrow straits of the Belt and the Sound in the Cattegat and Skagerrack, and like some furious wild beast in the toils, will throw itself upon our shores, pouring for miles inland, tearing down everything that opposes its blind fury, covering fields and meadows with sand and rubbish, and causing a devastation of which our grandchildren and great-grandchildren shall speak with awe."
While Reinhold thus spoke, it had not escaped the Count that the President and the General had repeatedly exchanged looks of understanding and approval, that Herr von Strummin's broad face had grown long with amazement and terror, and--what above all angered him--that the ladies listened as attentively as if a ball were in question. At any rate he would not let him have the last word.
"But this wonderful storm is at best--I mean in the most favourable case for you--a mere hypothesis!" cried he.
"Only for those who are not convinced of its inevitableness as I am," answered Reinhold.
"Well, well," said the Count, "I will suppose that you do not stand alone in your opinion, even more, that you are right in it, that the storm will come to-day or to-morrow, or sometime; still it cannot happen every day--perhaps can only happen once in a century. Well, gentlemen, I have the deepest respect for the farsighted previsions of our authorities; but such distant perspectives must seem inappreciable to the most farseeing, and ought not to decide them to leave undone what is required at once."
As the Count's last words were evidently addressed to the General and the President, and not to him, Reinhold did not think himself called upon to answer. But neither did they answer; the rest kept silence too, and an awkward pause ensued. At last the President coughed behind his slender white hand, and said:
"It is strange that while Captain Schmidt, here, in that decided tone which only conviction gives, is prophesying to us a storm, which our kind host, to whom certainly it would come nearest, would prefer to remove into the land of fancy--it is strange that I have been reminded at every word of another storm----"
"Another!" cried Meta.
"Another storm, my dear young lady, and of quite another sort; I need not tell these gentlemen of what sort. In this case also the usual course of affairs has been in the most unexpected manner interrupted, and there has been an accumulation of waters, flowing in immense streams of gold, ladies, from west to east. In this case also the wise men prophesy that such an unnatural state of affairs cannot be of long continuance; that it has already lasted its time, that an ebb must soon come, a reaction, a storm, which--to preserve the image which so strikingly applies to the matter--will, like the other, come upon us, destroying, overwhelming everything, and with its troubled and barren waters cover the ground, on which men believed their riches and power to be for ever established."
In his eagerness to give another turn to the conversation, and in the pleasure of his happy comparison, the President had not considered that the topic was still the same, and that it must be more unpleasant to the Count in this new phase than in the former one. He became aware of his thoughtlessness when the Count, in a tone that trembled with agitation, exclaimed:
"I hope, President, that you do not confound our plan, dictated, I may say, by the purest patriotism, with the enterprises so much in favour nowaday, which mostly have no other source than the vulgarest greed of gain."
"My dear Count! how can you suppose that I could even dream of such a thing!" exclaimed the President.
The Count bowed. "Thank you," said he, "for I confess that nothing would hurt my feelings more. I have always considered it as a political necessity, and a proof of his eminently statesmanlike capacity, that Prince Bismarck has made use of certain means for carrying out his great ideas, which he certainly would have preferred not using, if only to avoid too close contact with persons, all intercourse with whom must have been formerly thoroughly distasteful to him. I consider it also as a necessary consequence of this misfortune, that in order to reward these persons he has inaugurated, has been obliged to inaugurate, the new era of speculators, and of immoderate greed of gain, with those fatal milliards. Meanwhile----"
"Excuse my interrupting you," said the General; "I consider these compacts of the Prince's with those persons, parties, strata of population, classes of society--call them what you will--as you do, Count Golm, most certainly a misfortune, but by no means a necessary one. On the contrary; the rocher de bronze, upon which the Prussian kingdom is established, formed as it was of a loyal aristocracy, a zealous body of officials, a faithful army--all these were strong enough to support the German Empire, if it must needs be German rather than Prussian, or indeed an empire at all."
"Yes, General, it had need to be, and to be German," said Reinhold.
The General shot a dark look at the young man from under his bushy eyebrows; but he had listened before with satisfaction to his explanations, and felt that he must let him speak now, when he disagreed with him.
"Why do you think so?" asked he.
"I judge by my own feelings," answered Reinhold; "but I am certain that they are the feelings of every one who has lived, as I have, often and long together far from home in a foreign land; who has experienced, as I have, what it means to belong to a people that is no nation, and because it is not one is little regarded, or even despised by the other nations with which we deal; what it means, in the difficult position in which a sailor so easily may find himself, to have only himself to look to, or, what is still worse, to have to request the assistance and protection needed from others, who give it grudgingly and would prefer not helping at all. I have experienced and gone through all this, as thousands of others have done, and have had to swallow as best I could all this injustice and unfairness. And I went abroad again last year after the war, returning only a few weeks ago, and found that I had no longer to stand on one side and sue for protection. I might step forward as boldly as others, and, gentlemen, I thanked God then with my whole heart that we had an Emperor--a German Emperor; for nothing less than a German Emperor was needed to demonstrate ocularly to English and Americans, Chinese and Japanese, that they no longer had to deal with Hamburgers and Bremeners, with Oldenburgers and Mechlenburgers, or even with Prussians, but with Germans, who sailed under one and the same flag--a flag which had the will and the power to shelter and protect the least and poorest of those who have the honour and happiness of being Germans."
The General, to whom the last words were addressed, looked straight before him, evidently some chord in his heart was sympathetically touched; the President had put on his glasses, which he had not used the whole evening; the ladies hardly turned their eyes from the man who was speaking so honestly and straightforwardly; the Count saw and noted all, and his dislike to the man increased with every word that came from his mouth; he must silence this odious chatterer.
"I confess," said he, "if there was nothing further involved than that the gentlemen who speculate in sugar and cotton, or who carry away our labourers, should put their gains more comfortably into their pockets, I should regret the noble blood that has been shed upon so many battle-fields."
"I did not say that there was nothing else involved," answered Reinhold.
"No doubt," continued the Count, appearing not to notice this interruption, "it is a good thing to be out of range of the firing; and one can sun oneself comfortably in the honour and glory which others have won for us."
The General frowned, the President dropt his glasses, the young ladies exchanged terrified glances.
"I do not doubt," said Reinhold, "that Count Golm earned his full share of German fame; for my part I am well content with the honour of having been not out of range of the firing."
"Where were you on the day of Gravelotte, Captain Schmidt?"
"At Gravelotte, Count Golm."
The General raised his eyebrows, the President replaced his glasses, the young ladies again exchanged glances--Elsa this time in joyful surprise, while Meta very nearly laughed outright at the Count's confused look.
"That is to say," said Reinhold, the blood rising in his cheek at the attention which his rash speech had roused, and turning to the General, "to speak precisely, on the morning of that day I was on the march from Rezonville to St. Marie. Then, when it appeared, as you know, General, that the enemy was not in retreat upon the northern road, and the second army corps had completed the great flank movement to the right upon Verneville and Amanvilliers, we--the eighteenth division--came under fire near Verneville, about half an hour before midday. As you will remember, General, our division had the honour of commencing the battle." Reinhold passed his hand across his forehead. The frightful visions of that fateful day rose again to his mind. He had forgotten the contempt which had lain in the Count's question, and which he had wished to repel by the account of his share in the battle.
"You went through the whole campaign?" asked the General; and there was a peculiar, almost a tender, tone in his deep voice.
"Yes, sir, if you reckon the fortnight, from the 18th July to the 1st August, while I was being drilled at Coblenz. As a native of Hamburg and a sailor, I had not had the good fortune of learning my drill properly when young."
"How came you to be in the campaign?"
"It is a short story, which I will briefly relate. On the 15th July I was with my ship in the Southampton Roads, bound for Bombay--captain of my own ship for the first time. On the evening of the 16th we were to weigh anchor. But on the morning of the 16th came the news of the declaration of war; by midday an efficient substitute had been found, and I had said good-bye to my owners and my ship; in the evening I was in London; on the night of the 16th-17th on my way, by Ostend, Brussels and the Rhine, to Coblenz, where I offered myself as a volunteer, was accepted, went through a small amount of drill, sent forward, and, why, I know not, attached to the ---- regiment, eighteenth division, ninth corps, with which I went through the campaign."
"Were you promoted?"
"I was made a non-commissioned officer at Gravelotte, acting sub-lieutenant on the 1st September, the day after Bazaine's great sortie, and on the 4th December----"
"That was the day of Orleans?"
"Yes, sir; on the day of Orleans I got my commission."
"I congratulate you on your rapid promotion," said the General, smiling, but his face darkened again immediately. "Why did you not introduce yourself to me as a fellow-soldier?"
"The merchant-captain must apologise for the lieutenant of the reserve, General."
"Were you decorated?"
"Yes, sir; I received the Cross with my commission."
"And you do not wear it?"
"I have dressed so hastily to-day," answered Reinhold.
Meta broke into a laugh, in which Reinhold joined heartily; the others smiled too; a civil, approving, flattering smile, as it seemed to the Count.
"I fear that we are putting the patience of the ladies to too long a trial," he said, with a significant movement.
CHAPTER X.
The ladies retired as soon as the table was cleared. Frau von Strummin, who was accustomed to go to bed at nine o'clock, was really tired, and Meta professed to be so too. But her sparkling eyes belied her; and the two girls were no sooner alone, for their rooms communicated, and Meta insisted on acting as Elsa's lady's-maid, than she fell upon the latter's neck and declared that she loved to distraction the Captain, who, after all, was really a lieutenant.
"He is the very man I have always dreamt of," cried she; "young, but not too young, so that one can feel respect for him; wise, but not too wise, so that one is not afraid of him; brave, but no boaster; and then such beautiful white teeth when he laughs, and he laughs so readily and pleasantly. I should like him to be always laughing."
"How could you laugh as you did?"
"What was I to do? I had been serious for so long, I must laugh at something. And his dress! But do you know, as we said good-night to him just now, I was not at all inclined to laugh, I was quite agitated, and felt more like crying. I felt as if I should never see him again, and ought to apologise to him for all my rudeness. Now you are getting serious too; confess that you, too, are in love with him."
"I agree to everything that you have said of him, but as to being in love, that is going rather far."
"Not for me, not for my heart; only feel how it beats! Five minutes is enough to set my heart at work. I do not know how it is, but to see and to love are all one with me. One often makes mistakes, however; very often."
Meta seated herself on a stool, began to unplait her red gold hair, and said in a tragical tone:
"The first time--it is an immense while ago, I was about twelve years old--I fell in love with my brother's tutor. I have got a brother, you must know. He lives now in Lower Pomerania, where for the least possible amount of money the largest possible amount of sand can be bought. Of course the tutor has been married a long time now, and is a clergyman, and of course lives also in Lower Pomerania, close to my brother, and I saw him there this winter at a christening. Oh, how ashamed of myself I was!"
And Meta covered her face with her hands, and shook out her hair in front of her, till it fell like a thick veil to the ground.
"How ashamed of myself I was! It was dreadful! And if it had been only once! But the same story has been repeated at least twenty times--the last time in February, in Berlin, at the opera, in the first row of boxes. Papa said he was a pickpocket; but papa sees pickpockets everywhere when he is in Berlin, and spoils every enjoyment and destroys every illusion, and yet it is so pleasant to have illusions, when one is seventeen and inclined that way! Are you asleep already?"
"No, but I am very tired; give me a kiss, and then go to bed too."
Meta threw back her hair, sprang up, embraced Elsa with the warmest kisses, and whispered in her ear: "Do you know, I am as certain as I stand here that I shall be an old maid--a very old maid with a bent back, and great spectacles over my sunken eyes, and knitting an everlasting stocking with trembling hands! It is hard, you know, when one has a warm heart, and would take a husband on the spot, if he were only good and nice, and would be faithful to him till death, and beyond death, too, if he died first and really made a point of it. For you see our 'von' and our pretensions to nobility are all nonsense. They cannot make any one happy, particularly when there is nothing to support them, as is the case with us, and when one has a snub nose and red hair, and eyes of which one cannot tell oneself whether they are grey or green, or blue or brown. You have such wonderful soft chestnut-brown hair, and such a deliciously straight nose, and such beautiful, heavenly, hazel eyes, which are positively shining now in the half-light; and when you are the Countess you must be kind to poor little ugly Meta, and let me come here very often, that I may talk and laugh as much as I please--it does one so much good! oh, so much!"
And the strange little creature hid her burning face on her new friend's shoulder, and sobbed bitterly. Then she drew herself up suddenly, put back the hair from her face, and said: "I think I am tired too; I really do not know what I am saying. Good-night, you dear, beautiful thing!"
She raised herself, but dropped down again on the edge of the bed, bent over Elsa and asked in a whisper: "Have you never been in love? Do tell me, as you love me!"
"As I love you, no!"
"I thought so. Sleep well, and pleasant dreams to you!"
She kissed Elsa again, gathered her dressing-gown round her and glided away.
CHAPTER XI.
The gentlemen, too, had remained but a short time together. Herr von Strummin's proposal of a rubber of whist before going to bed fell through, as it appeared that with the exception of himself and the Count no one played. Even the cigars offered by the Count found no favour excepting with Herr von Strummin, as the General and the President did not smoke, and Reinhold professed to be the less willing to encroach further on the Count's kindness, because he must take his departure early the next morning, and would therefore ask permission to take leave of the Count now with many thanks for the hospitality he had experienced. He was anxious to know how the Neptune had stood the gale, and he was certain of finding the ship either still at anchor at Wissow or already at Ahlbeck, where she must return to take up the passengers landed there yesterday.
The Count hoped that Captain Schmidt, if he really was determined to go, would at any rate make use of one of his carriages; but Reinhold declined the civil offer with equal civility; he was a good walker, and if he took a boat from Ahlbeck would reach Wissow sooner than the carriage could convey him there. He earnestly begged the Count not to disturb himself, and asked the General and Herr von Strummin kindly to make his excuses to the ladies. Herr von Strummin exclaimed that the ladies would be inconsolable, and would have further dilated on the subject in his own fashion when a look from the Count showed him that he was on the wrong tack. The General said shortly, as he gave Reinhold his hand, "Au revoir in Berlin, Lieutenant Schmidt!" The President, who had until now kept silence, came up to him at the last moment and whispered, "I wish to speak to you again."
Reinhold had got to his room, and was thrusting his unfortunate dress-coat back into his travelling-bag and considering what the President's mysterious words might mean, when there came a knock at his door. It was Johann, who came to inquire if Captain Schmidt would receive the President for a few minutes? Reinhold sent the servant back to say that he would come at once to receive the President's commands, and followed him immediately.
The President received his midnight guest with a cordiality which struck Reinhold the more that till now he had thought that the reserved and rather haughty-looking old gentleman had hardly noticed him. The President must have read Reinhold's thoughts in his face, for as he invited him to sit by him on the sofa, he said, "I must begin with a confession. It is my habit, nourished and perhaps justified by a long official career, to observe a certain, often I dare say too great, reserve towards all who for the first time come under my notice. But whenever I have good reason for interesting myself in any one my interest is full and entire. You, Captain--or must I, like my worthy friend, call you Lieutenant Schmidt?"
"Supposing you omit any title, President?"
"Very well--you, Herr Schmidt, interest me. You are frank and bold by nature, and have fortunately remained so although you have thought and studied and learned more than most members of your profession. However, I am not keeping you from your night's rest only to make you this very sincere compliment. I have two requests to make of you, of which the first is easy to grant, provided that your expedition after the Neptune is not merely an excuse."
"An excuse, President?"
"You took my side on the harbour question too warmly not to come into collision with the Count, whose sensitiveness on this point is unfortunately only too easy to understand. You would perhaps avoid, for the sake of the rest of the party, a possible continuation of the discussion which puts our host into such an inhospitable temper, and----" The President's keen eyes shot a rapid glance at Reinhold's face, as he coughed behind his white hand.
"That is exactly the state of the case, President," said Reinhold.
"I thought so. You will then in a few hours be on board the Neptune. I left lying about in my berth a document which I was studying on the way--a memorial to the Minister upon that very harbour question, and upon the condition of our water-highways, pilotage, coast-beacons--reforms in all these directions--and other matters. I should not like the papers to fall into strange hands even for a time; and you would greatly oblige me----"
"Thank you heartily for the confidence you put in me, President," said Reinhold; "the papers shall reach you in safety----"
"But not before you have looked into them," interrupted the President quickly. "And this is the prelude to my second request. You look surprised. The matter is simply this. The worthy old Superintendent of pilots at Wissow must, and will, soon retire. The post will be vacant next spring, perhaps even in the course of the winter. In the present state of affairs, with the many questions which are sure to crop up and require attention, the position is one of importance, far exceeding that usually attached to similar posts. I can only propose to the Minister for this post a thoroughly trustworthy and intelligent man, and one of whom I know that he will heartily support my plans from conviction of their propriety. Now if you can find such conviction for yourself in those papers, and would willingly continue the work with me, I would, with your permission, send in your name to the Minister."
"Really, President," said Reinhold, "you offer me such great and flattering confidence, a man of whom you really know nothing----"
"That is my affair," interrupted the President, smiling. "The question is now, are you inclined--supposing, of course, that the other circumstances of the position, which are not brilliant, but still sufficient, should suit you--to agree to my proposal? I do not expect, I do not even wish, for any answer at present; I only ask for it when you return the papers to me at Sundin, and we can discuss the matter further over a cutlet and a glass of Burgundy."
The President rose. Reinhold felt that he must accede to the wishes of this strange man, and not further pursue the question here or now, and took his leave, expressing his thanks in a few words which came from his heart, and were received by the President with a kindly smile. He had already reached the door when the President called after him:
"If you like to hand over to my servant anything which might be in your way for your expedition, it shall be carefully looked after among my luggage, and kept as a pledge for my papers."
A bow from the aristocratic grey head, a wave of the slender white hand, and Reinhold was dismissed.
"Very graciously, but very much as if I were already in the Government service and his," said Reinhold, laughing, as he walked up and down his room, considering the proposal which had come to him so unexpectedly, and yet like the natural sequel to all that had happened in the day. The grounding of the steamer in an uncertain channel; the want of proper signals from the shore; the absence of all precautions in case of need, and principally of a lifeboat; the difficulty, even impossibility, of putting a boat to sea in stormy weather, from that low, unprotected shore--all this had passed through his head. There was so much to be done here! And then that insane project of a harbour, that had been, as it seemed, within a hair's breadth of being carried out, perhaps might still be carried out, if experienced men did not raise their voices loudly against it, and expose this delusion of the Count's. The President was right. The position of a Superintendent of pilots in these waters was far more important than might appear at first sight, and was well worthy that a man should give his best strength to it, and sacrifice to it all that he had still hoped and promised to himself from life.
For a sacrifice it was. His almost completed negotiations with the great Hamburg firm, who had offered him their finest ship for some years to come, for the South American and China trade; his plan of a North Pole expedition, which he had worked out from a completely new point of view, and for which he had already planned and spoken so much, and with such success--such far-reaching views, such important designs to be given up, that he might confine himself to this narrow horizon! to help to prevent this intricate channel from being quite silted up! to organise some useful improvements on this coast; to----
"Be honest!" said Reinhold, suddenly standing still. "Confess to yourself that it is to avoid putting a few thousand miles between her and you, to remain in her neighbourhood, to have the possibility of seeing her again, to make a fool of yourself as you have done to-day. For it is folly! What good can come of it? This daughter of a general officer, of noble family, would raise her brown eyes with a good deal of astonishment if the very unaristocratic Superintendent of pilots were to venture seriously to lift his eyes to her; and to the General himself I am, and remain, the Lieutenant of the Reserve--something that is neither fish nor flesh, and which one only puts up with in case of necessity, and then very much against the grain. I think I might have known that. And supposing that the most improbable thing in the world did happen, that I could gain the love of this beautiful girl and the friendship of her father, what sort of society should I find myself in in future! How would it please me to be perpetually meeting Count Golm, Herr von Strummin, and Co.? to be always reading in their looks and manners: 'What does the fellow want amongst us? Can he not remain with his equals? or does he really think that he, or his democratic uncle----'" Reinhold could not help laughing. "Uncle Ernst! He had not seen him for ten years; but if he found him again in Berlin--grumbling, bitter, dissatisfied, and apparently impossible to satisfy, as he was formerly--the stubborn old radical and the stern old soldier would make a fine piece of work together! And good Aunt Rikchen, with her anxious little face under her great white cap, and her little mincing steps, how would she get on with the beautiful aristocratic young lady? And his little cousin Ferdinanda--she must by this time be his grown-up cousin, and, if she had kept the promise of her childhood, a very pretty girl. But she might, perhaps, fit in better, although---- Have I really gone out of my mind? What is the good of all this? What is it all, but the wildest imagination, of which I ought to be ashamed, of which I shall be ashamed tomorrow! To-morrow? Why it is morning already!"
He went to the window. It was still dark; the great trees, which seemed to surround the whole house, rustled monotonously, like the rippling of the waves upon a level shore. The sky was completely overcast with black clouds. Reinhold gazed out into the darkness.
"It would be difficult to steer a straight course here," he said to himself, "and I have given away my compass. I cannot even find out how I stand. And yet, if but one star appeared, the star of her love, I should know what to do, and would find my way past all rocks and all obstacles!"
He started with a thrill of joy. As if called by enchantment from the black clouds, directly before him there shone a bright steady light--a star--Venus herself! By the hour and the inclination towards the horizon it could be none other than Venus!
It was a chance--of course a chance; but he had never been able to laugh at sailors' superstitions even if he did not share them, and he would not laugh now. No; he would take it as a sign from heaven, as a confirmation of the principle to which he had held as long as he could remember--not with childish self-will to strive after the unattainable, but on a really worthy purpose, attainable by courage and strength and perseverance, to set all his courage, all his strength, and all his perseverance.
Venus had disappeared in dark clouds, but other stars peeped out; there was a louder rustle in the trees, whose heavy masses began to stand out from the sky--the morning was breaking.
Reinhold closed the window. He wanted an hour's repose, and felt that now he could take it. A gentle peace like the lull after a storm had come upon his spirit--he felt that he was himself again, that he had no need to blame or quarrel with himself further, and with fate he had never quarrelled.
He put out the candles, which had nearly burnt down to their sockets; sank into the great arm-chair which stood before the fire, stared for a few moments at the embers which here and there shone amongst the ashes with a feeble and ever feebler glow, and then fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.