CHAPTER XLII.
Besides all friendly house-sprites and household divinities, there is one other in the secret, and silently triumphant at Anton's return, and that is the cousin.
Strangers indeed may shake their heads at much that passes, but she knows better: that Anton should sit all day long pale and silent in the office; Sabine evince a tendency to blush in her brother's presence, which never appeared before; sit silent for hours over her work, then silently start up and rush through the house, playful as a kitten after a ball of twine; the merchant himself keep constantly looking at Anton, and growing more and more merry from day to day, so that at last he positively rallies the cousin without ceasing—all this, indeed, may seem perplexing, but it was not so to one who had known for years what each of them liked for dinner (although she only ventured to present the favorite dish in order, once a month), who had with their own hands knitted their stockings and starched their collars. She accounted for all their inconsistencies most naturally.
The good lady took all the credit of Anton's return entirely to herself. She had determined to restore her favorite to the office, and she had had no ulterior intention, at least so she declared; for, in spite of the rose-lined coverlet and the embroidered curtains, she knew that the house to which she belonged was a proud house, which had ways of its own, and required very skillful management. And, indeed, when told that Anton was only to be a guest, she was herself in some uncertainty. But soon she got the upper hand of the merchant and his sister, for she made discoveries.
The second story of the house had been uninhabited for years. The merchant and his young wife had occupied it in the lifetime of his parents. When he had lost one after another, parents, wife, and baby son, he moved to the first floor, and since then had seldom gone up stairs. Gray blinds hung down there the whole year through; the furniture and paintings were all covered up; in short, the whole story was like an enchanted castle, and even the ladies' footsteps fell softer when they were obliged to pass through the silent region.
The cousin was coming up stairs one day. In spite of her endless war with Pix, she had contrived to keep one small room to dry linen in. She was just musing upon the change official life made in men's characters, for Balbus, the successor of Pix, on whose humble bearing she had founded great hopes, showed himself in his new post just as aggressive as his predecessor. She had once more found a heap of cigar-boxes outside the three compartments which Pix had erected by main force in her own special domain, and she was just going to declare war against Balbus on their account. At that moment she remarked a door of the upper story wide open, and thought of thieves, and of calling out for help, but, upon consideration, judicially determined first to investigate the mystery. She crept into the curtained rooms, and was in some danger of being petrified with amazement when she saw her nephew standing there alone, looking at a picture of his departed wife, taken as a bride, in white silk, with a myrtle-wreath in her hair. The cousin could not restrain a sympathizing sigh. The merchant turned round in amazement. "I mean to remove the picture to my own room," said he, softly.
"But you have another portrait of Mary there already, and this one has always depressed you," cried the cousin.
"Years make us calmer," replied the merchant; "and, in course of time, another bride may come here."
The cousin's eyes flashed as she repeated "Another!"
"It was only a passing idea," said the merchant, cheerfully walking through the suite of rooms, followed by the cousin, proudly shrugging her shoulders. They might try to blind her as much as they liked; it was all in vain.
Neither did the cautious Sabine succeed any better.
Anton had silently sat near the cousin at dinner. When he rose, the good lady remarked that Sabine's eyes rested with an expression of tender anxiety upon his pale face, and then filled with tears. As soon as he had left the room, she moved to the window that looked into the court. The cousin crept behind her, and looked out too. Sabine was gazing down intently; suddenly she smiled, and her face was perfectly transfigured. Yet there was nothing to be seen but Anton, with his back toward them, caressing Pluto, who barked and jumped up at him.
"Oh!" thought the cousin, "it is not over Pluto that she laughs and cries at once."
And soon after, one day that the merchant opened the drawing-room door and called his sister out, the cousin spied a man with a great parcel standing in the hall. Her sharp eyes recognized in him a porter from one of the great draper's shops. The brother and sister went into the ante-room, a murmur of voices was heard, and a sound uncommonly like suppressed sobs. When Sabine returned her eyes were very red, but she looked happy and bashful. When the cousin went into the ante-room on some pretext or other, the great parcel was lying on a chair; and as she touched it—of course accidentally—and the paper was not tied up, it came to pass that she beheld its contents—a variety of exquisite dresses, and one thing that moved her to tears: it was that white robe of thickest silk which a woman only wears once in her life—on one solemn day of devout and trembling joy.
From that moment the cousin went about her avocations with the comfortable confidence of a good housewife, who forgives people, even though for a season they do behave themselves foolishly, knowing that the end of it all will be great excitement in her own especial province—hard work in the kitchen, a long bill of fare, great slaughter of fowls, and immense consumption of preserved fruit. She, too, waxed mysterious now. The store-room was subjected to a careful inspection, and new dishes often appeared at dinner. On such days the cousin would come from the kitchen with very red cheeks, and look at the merchant and Sabine with an expression which plainly said, "I have found you out," and was met with a severe glance from the master of the house.
And yet he was no longer severe now. Sabine and Anton grew daily more silent and reserved; he became more cheerful, far less silent than of yore, was never weary of drawing Anton into conversation, and listened with intense attention to each word he spoke. There was still a great flatness in trade, but he did not appear to heed it. When Mr. Braun, the agent, poured out his oppressed heart, he only laughed and returned a dry jest.
Anton, however, did not observe the change. When in the office, he sat silently opposite Mr. Baumann, and seemed to think of nothing but his correspondence. The evenings he generally spent alone in his room, burying himself in the books Fink had left, and trying to escape from his own dark thoughts. He did not find the firm as he had left it: several of its old mercantile connections were dissolved, several new ones entered into. He found new agents, new descriptions of goods, and new servants.
The clerks' apartments, too, had grown silent. With the exception of Mr. Liebold and Mr. Purzel, who had never been exciting social elements, he only found Baumann and Specht remaining of all his former acquaintances, and they, too, thought of leaving. Baumann had, immediately on Anton's return, confided to the principal that he must leave in the spring, and this time Anton's earnest representations failed to shake the future missionary's firm resolve: "I can no longer delay," said he; "my conscience protests against it. I go from hence to the London Training College, and thence wherever they choose to send me. I confess that I have a preference for Africa; there are certain kings there"—he pronounced several crack-jaw names—"that I can not think wholly ill of. There must be some hope of conversion among them. I trust to wean them from that heathenish slave-trade. They may make use of their people at home in planting sugar-cane and cultivating rice. In a couple of years I will send you, by way of London, the first samples of our produce."
Mr. Specht, too, came to Anton. "You have always been friendly to me, Wohlfart, and I should like to have your opinion. I am to marry a very accomplished girl; her name is Fanny, and she is a niece of Pix."
"What!" said Anton, "and do you love the young lady?"
"Yes, that I do," cried Specht, enthusiastically; "but, if I am to marry her, I am to enter into Pix's business, and that is what I want your opinion about. My lady-love has some fortune, and Pix thinks it would be best invested in his firm. Now you know Pix is a good fellow at bottom, but another partner might suit me better."
"I think not, my good old Specht," said Anton; "you are apt to be a little too precipitate, and it would be very well for you to have a steady partner."
"Yes," said Specht; "but only think of the branches he has chosen. No one could have believed it possible that our Pix would have taken to them."
"What are they, then?" asked Anton.
"All sorts of things," cried Specht, "that he never saw before. Skins and leather, and every kind of fur, from the sable to the mole, and, besides, hemp and brushes—every thing, in short, that is hairy and bristling. These are very low articles, Wohlfart."
"Don't be a child," replied Anton; "marry, my good fellow, and trust to the management of your uncle-in-law; it will do you no harm."
The next day Pix himself came to Anton's room. "I found your card, Wohlfart, and come to invite you to coffee on Sunday next. Cuba, and a Manilla! You will make my wife's acquaintance."
"And so you are going to take Specht as your partner?" asked Anton, smiling. "You used to have a great horror of partnerships."
"I should not enter into one with any body else. Between ourselves, I owe the poor fellow some compensation, and I can make the ten thousand dollars he is marrying useful in my business. I have undertaken a retail warehouse, in which I will place him. That will amuse him. He can be polite to the ladies all day long, and can have a new fur coat every winter. He will come out much stronger there than here in the office."
"How comes it that you have chosen this branch of trade?"
"I was obliged," was the reply. "I found a great stock on hand left by my predecessor in sorry plight, I can assure you, and was thrown all at once among those who valued hare-skins and pig's bristles exceedingly."
"And that alone decided you?" replied Anton, laughing.
"Perhaps something else as well," said Pix. "I could not remain here on account of my wife; and you will admit, Anton, that I, who was manager of the provincial department of this firm, could not open another in the same town of the same nature. I know the whole provincial department better than the principal, and all small traders know me better than they do him. I might have injured this house, though my capital is so much smaller. I should, no doubt, have got on, but this house would have suffered; so I was obliged to turn to something else. I went to Schröter as soon as I had decided, and talked it over to him. I only keep one thing in common with you here, and that is horse-hair, and in that I beat you hollow. I have told the principal so."
"The firm can bear that," said Anton, and shook the fur-merchant by the hand.
But it was not in the office only; even among the porters around the great scales a change was observable. Father Sturm, the faithful friend of the house, threatened to quit both it and this little ball of earth together. One of Anton's first inquiries, on his return, had been for Father Sturm. He was told that Sturm had been unwell for some weeks, and did not leave his room. Full of anxiety, Anton went to the dwelling of the giant the second evening after his arrival.
While still in the street, he heard a loud hum, as though a swarm of gigantic bees had settled in the red-painted house. When he entered, the hum sounded like the distant roar of a family of lions. He knocked in amazement. No one answered. When he had opened the door he stood still on the threshold, for at first he could see nothing but a dense smoke, through which a yellow speck of light appeared, with a great halo round it. Gradually he discovered in this smoke a few rotund forms, placed around the candle like so many planets around the sun, and at times something was seen to move, possibly a man's arm, but not unlike an elephant's leg. At length the air through the open door partially cleared away the smoke, and he could see farther into the room. Six giants sat around the table—three on a bench, three on oaken chairs. All had cigars in their mouths, and wooden beer-mugs on the table, and the loud hum was their speech, duly lowered to suit a sick-room.
"I smell something," cried a loud voice, at length; "there must be a man there. I feel a cool draught; the door is open. Let whoever is there say who he is."
"Mr. Sturm," cried Anton, still on the threshold.
The great globes rapidly revolved and eclipsed the light.
"Do you hear?" cried the loud voice; "a man is there."
"Yes, and an old friend too," replied Anton.
"I know that voice," exclaimed some one at the other side of the table.
Anton drew nearer; the porters all rose and called out his name.
Father Sturm moved along to the farthest end of his bench, and held out both his hands. "I heard from my comrades that you had returned. It is a joy to me that you are come safe and sound from that outlandish country."
Anton's hand now passed first into that of old Sturm, who powerfully grasped it, and then tried to set the broken bones; next into that of the other five porters, whence it came out red, weak, and slightly dislocated, so that he was glad to put it into his coat pocket. While the five were exchanging greetings with him, one after the other, Sturm suddenly called out, "When does my Karl come?"
"Have you sent for him, then?" asked Anton.
"Sent for him! No," returned Sturm, shaking his head, "that I could not do, because of his situation as bailiff; for if I were to write him word 'come,' he would come if even a million scythes lay in his way. But then the family might want him, and therefore, unless he comes of his own accord, he will not come."
"He will come in the spring," said Anton, looking anxiously into the father's face.
Old Sturm shook his head. "He will not come in the spring—not to me, at least. Perhaps my little manikin may come here, but not to his father any more." He raised his can of beer and took a long draught, then shut down the lid, cleared his throat, and, looking full into Anton's face, solemnly rapped the table. "Fifty!" said he; "one other fortnight, and then it comes."
Anton threw his arm round the old man's shoulders, and looked inquiringly at the others, who held their cigars in their hands, and stood round like the chorus in a Greek tragedy.
"Look you, Mr. Wohlfart," said the chorus-leader, who, considered as a man, was colossal, but as a giant something less than old Sturm, "I will explain matters to you: This man thinks that he is getting weaker, and shall go on getting weaker, and that in a few weeks the day will come when we porters must each take a lemon in our hands, and put a black tail on our hats. We do not wish this." All shook their heads here and looked disapprovingly at Sturm. "There is an old dispute between him and us about the age of fifty. He is determined to be right—that is the whole of it—and our opinion is that he is not right. He has become weaker—that may be. Many are stronger at one time, and weaker at another. Why should the man think of leaving this place on that account? I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Wohlfart, it is downright absurdity on his part."
All the giants confirmed this statement by nodding their heads.
"So, then, he is sick?" inquired Anton, anxiously. "Whereabouts is your complaint, old friend?"
"It is here and there," replied Sturm. "It is in the air—it comes on slowly—it takes first the strength, then the breath. It begins with the legs, and then moves up." He pointed to his feet.
"Is it a trouble to you to stand?" asked Anton.
"That is just what it is," replied Sturm. "It is a sour trial, and every day more and more so; but, Wilhelm," continued he, addressing the spokesman of the party, "in a fortnight that will be all over, and there will then be no more sourness, except, perhaps, a little in your faces for an hour or two, till evening, when you must come back here and sit down, and talk of old Sturm as of a comrade who has laid him down to rest, and who will never lift another burden; for I fancy that yonder, where we go, there will be nothing heavy."
"You hear him!" said Wilhelm, anxiously. "He is getting absurd again."
"What says the doctor to your complaint?" suddenly inquired Anton.
"The doctor!" said old Sturm; "if he were to be asked about me, he would have enough to say. But we do not ask him. Between ourselves, there is no use in a doctor. They may know what is the matter with many men, that I don't deny; but how should they know what is the matter with us? Not one of them can lift a barrel."
"If you have no doctor, my good Mr. Sturm," cried Anton, throwing open the window, "let me begin at once to play a doctor's part. If your breathing be oppressed, this close atmosphere is poison to you; and if you suffer from your feet, you ought not to go on drinking." And he moved the beer-mug to another table.
"Hum, hum, hum!" said Sturm, watching his proceedings; "well meant, but of no use. A little smoke keeps one warm, and we are accustomed to the beer. After I have sat on this bench all day alone, without work or company, it is a pleasure to me that my friends should come and enjoy themselves with me of an evening. They talk to me, and I get some tidings of the business, and of what is going on in the world."
"But you yourself, at least, might abstain from beer and tobacco," replied Anton; "your Karl would tell you the same; and, as he is away, you must let me take his place." Then turning to the others, "I will convince him that he is wrong; leave me alone with him for half an hour."
The giants left the room. Anton sat by the invalid and spoke on the father's favorite topic—spoke of his son.
Sturm forgot all his dark forebodings, and got into excellent spirits.
At last he turned to Anton with his eyes shut, and said, confidentially, "Nineteen hundred dollars. He came here once again."
"But you gave him nothing?" anxiously inquired Anton.
"Only a hundred dollars," said the old man, apologetically. "He is dead now, the poor young gentleman. He looked so handsome with his epaulettes. While a man is a son, he ought not to die: it gives too much sorrow."
"I have spoken of your claim to Herr von Fink," said Anton; "he will see that you are paid."
"That Karl is paid," suggested old Sturm, looking round; "and you, Mr. Wohlfart, will undertake to give into my boy's hands what remains in the chest, if I do not myself see my little fellow."
"If you don't give up this idea," cried Anton, "I shall become your foe, and shall treat you with the greatest severity. Early to-morrow morning you may expect me to bring you Mr. Schröter's doctor."
"He is a worthy man, no doubt," said Sturm; "his horses must be remarkably well fed, they are so fat and strong, but he can do nothing for me."
The following morning the doctor visited the invalid.
"I don't consider his case a serious one as yet," said he; "his feet are swollen, indeed, but that might soon be cured. However, his sedentary inactive life is so bad for a frame like his, and his diet is so unwholesome, that I am sorry to say the sudden development of some serious complaint is only too likely."
Anton immediately wrote off this opinion to Karl, and added, "Under these circumstances, your father's own impression that he shall not survive his fiftieth birth-day makes me very uneasy. It would be well that you should be with him at that time."
Several days had now elapsed since Anton had written this letter, and, meanwhile, he had paid a daily visit to Sturm, who did not appear to change for the worse, but yet remained firm in his resolve of not outliving his birth-day. One morning a servant came to Anton's room, and announced that Sturm the porter urgently wished to see him.
"Is he worse?" inquired Anton, in dismay; "I will go to him immediately."
"He is at the door in a cart," said the servant.
Anton hurried out. A carrier's cart was standing there, with great barrel-hoops bent over the wicker-work, and covered by a white sheet, from which—a corner of it being turned back—the head of Father Sturm, ensconced in a colossal fur cap, appeared. He wore an anxious face, and, as soon as he saw Anton, held out a sheet of paper. "Read this, Mr. Wohlfart; I have had such a letter from my poor Karl! I must go to him at once. To the estate beyond Rosmin," he added to the driver, a burly carrier who stood by the vehicle.
Anton looked at the letter. It was written in the forester's clumsy characters, and the contents amazed him. "My dear father, I can not come to you, for a scythe-man has cut off the remainder of my hand, on which account I beg you, as soon as you get this, to set out to your poor son. You must take a large conveyance and drive to Rosmin. There you must stop at the Red Deer. A carriage and a servant from the estate will be waiting for you. The servant does not understand a word of German, but he is a good fellow, and will know you when he sees you. You must buy yourself a fur for the journey, and fur boots which must come above your knees, and be lined with leather. If you can't find any large enough for your great legs, godfather Kürschner must, during the night, sew a skin over your feet. Greet Mr. Wohlfart from me. Your faithful Karl."
Anton held the letter in his hand, not exactly knowing what to make of it.
"What do you say to this new misfortune?" asked the giant, mournfully.
"At all events, you must go to your son at once," was Anton's reply.
"Of course I must," said the porter; "this blow comes heavily upon me just now; the day after to-morrow I shall be fifty."
The meaning of the letter now flashed upon Anton. "Are you accoutred according to Karl's directions?"
"I am," said the giant, throwing back the linen covering; "all is right, the fur and the boots too."
Anton looked in, and had some trouble to preserve his gravity. Sturm looked like a pre-Adamic bear of colossal dimensions. A great sword leaned against the seat. "Against those scythe-men!" said he, angrily shaking it. "I have still one other request to make you. Wilhelm has got the key of my house; will you take charge of this box? it holds what was formerly under my bed. Keep it for Karl."
"I will give it into Mr. Schröter's care," replied Anton; "he is just gone to the railway station, and may be back any moment."
"Greet him from me," said the giant; "greet him and Miss Sabine, and tell them both how heartily I thank them for all the friendliness they have shown to Karl and me." He looked in with emotion at the ground floor. "Many a happy year I have worked away there, and if the rings on the hundred weights are well polished, these hands have done their part to make them so. I have shared the fate of this house for thirty years, good and bad, and I can tell you, Mr Wohlfart, we were always wide awake. I shall roll your barrels no more," continued he, turning to the servants, "and some one else will help you to unload the wagons. Think often of old Sturm when you fasten up a sugar-cask. Nothing here below can last forever, not even the strongest; but this firm, Mr. Wohlfart, will stand and flourish so long as it has a chief like Mr. Schröter, and men like you, and good hands below there at the great scales. This is my heart's wish." He folded his hands, and tears rolled down his cheeks. "And now farewell, Mr. Wohlfart; give me your hand; and farewell Peter, Franz, Gottfried—all of you, think kindly of me. To Rosmin, driver." The cart rolled away over the pavement, the sheet opening once more, and Sturm's great head emerging for a last look and wave of the hand.
Anton was exceedingly anxious about him for a few days, when a letter came in Karl's own hand.
"Dear Mr. Wohlfart," wrote Karl, "you will of course have seen why I sent that last note to my Goliath. I had to get him out of that room, and to drive that notion about his birth-day out of his head; so, in my anxiety, I hazarded a white lie. This is how it all came about:
"The day before his birth-day, the servant was waiting for him at the Red Deer in Rosmin. I had ridden over there myself to see how my father got on, and how he looked; but I kept myself out of sight. About midday the cart came slowly rumbling up. The driver helped my father out—for he had great difficulty in moving—which at first gave me a fright about his legs; but it was really mainly owing to the fur boots and the jolting. On the street the old boy took out a letter and read it. Then he went up to Jasch, who had run to the cart, and who had to pretend that he did not understand a word of German, and began to make all manner of alarming gesticulations. He held his hand two feet above the pavement, and when the servant shook his head, the governor stooped down to the ground. This was meant to signify, 'My manikin!' but as Jasch failed to understand it, my father caught hold of one hand with the other, and shook it so violently under Jasch's nose, that the servant, who, without this, was frightened at the great creature, was near taking to his heels. At length my father and his effects were packed into a spring-cart, he having several times walked round, and shaken it rather mistrustfully. Then he drove off. I had told the servant to drive straight to the forester's, with whom I had planned every thing. As for me, I had gone there by a by-path; and as soon as the wagon arrived in the evening, I slipped into the forester's bed, and had my hand tied down under the clothes for fear I should stretch it out in my delight. When the old gentleman reached my bedside, he was so moved that he wept, and it went to my heart to be obliged to cheat him. I told him that I was better already, and that the doctor would allow me to get up on the morrow. This quieted him; and he said, with a most solemn mien, that he was glad of that, for that the morrow was a great day for him, and that he must then take to his bed. And so he went on with his nonsense. But not long. He soon got cheerful. The forester joined us, and we made a very good supper on what the young lady had sent us from the castle. I gave the old boy beer, which he pronounced execrable; whereupon the forester made some punch, and we all three drank heartily—I with my amputated hand, my father with his melancholy forebodings, and the forester. What with the long journey, the warm room, and the punch, my father soon got sleepy (I had had a strong bedstead placed in the forester's room); he kissed my head as he wished me good-night, tapped the quilt, and said, 'To-morrow, then, my manikin!' He was asleep in a moment; and how he slept, to be sure! I got out of the forester's bed, and watched every breath he drew. It was a weary night. The next morning he woke late. As soon as he began to stir, the forester came in, clapping his hands at the door, and exclaiming over and over again, 'Why, Mr. Sturm, what have you done?' 'What have I done?' asked my Goliath, still half asleep, and looking round in amazement. The birds were screaming very loud, and every thing looked so strange to him he hardly knew if he was still on earth or not. 'Where am I?' cried he; 'this place is not in the Bible.' However, the forester went on exclaiming, 'No; such a thing never was heard of before,' till the old man was quite alarmed, and anxiously asked what it was. 'What you have done, Mr. Sturm!' cried the forester; 'why, you have slept a night, and then a day, and then another night!' 'How so?' said my old boy; 'to-day is Wednesday, the 13th.' 'No such thing,' affirmed the forester; 'to-day is the 14th: it is Thursday.' So they went on disputing. At last the forester took out his pocket-book, on which he strikes out each day as it passes, and there was a great stroke over Wednesday; and on Tuesday he had put down as a memorandum, 'To-day, at seven o'clock, the bailiff's father arrived: a very tall man, can drink plenty of punch;' and on Wednesday, 'The bailiff's father has been asleep the whole day through.' Having read this, my governor got quite composed, and said, 'It's all correct: here we have it in black and white. Tuesday, I arrived at seven—a tall man—plenty of punch; all this tallies. Wednesday is past. This is Thursday—this is the 14th.' After some musing, he cried, 'Where is my son Karl?' Then I entered, my arm bound up, and told the same tale as the forester, till he said, 'I am like one bewitched; I don't know what to think.' 'Why, don't you see,' said I, 'that I am out of bed? Yesterday, when you were asleep, the doctor came, and gave me leave to get up. Now I am so well that I can lift this chair with my stiff arm.' 'No more weights,' said the old man. Then I went on: 'I spoke of your case, too, to the doctor. He is a skillful man, and told us one of two things would happen: either you would go off, or sleep through it. If he sleeps throughout the day,' said he, 'he will get over it. It's a serious crisis. Such things will happen sometimes'—'To us porters,' chimed in the old man. And so it was that we got him out of his bed; and he was very cheerful. But I was anxious all day long, and never left him. At noon all was nearly lost when the farmer came in to speak to me. Luckily, though, the forester had locked the yard door, and so he went out and gave the farmer a hint. As soon as the latter came in, my father called out, 'What day is it, comrade?' 'Thursday,' said the farmer, 'the 14th;' at which my father's whole face broke out into a laugh, and he cried, 'Now it's certain; now I believe it.' However, he slept at the forester's that night too, that we might get the birth-day well over.
"The next day I took my father to the farm-yard, to the room next mine. I had had it hastily furnished for him. Herr von Fink, who knew all about it, sent some good stout things from the castle; I had his old Blucher hung up, let in some robin-redbreasts, and put in a joiner's bench and a few tools, that he might feel comfortable. So I said, 'This is your room, father; you must stay with me now.' 'No,' said he; 'that will never do, my manikin.' 'There is no help for it,' I replied; 'Herr von Fink will have it so, Mr. Wohlfart will have it so, Mr. Schröter will have it so; you must give way. We won't part again as long as we are on earth.' And then drew my hand out of its bandages, and gave him such a fine lecture about his unhealthy way of life, and his fancies, that he got quite soft, and said all manner of kind things to me. Next came Herr von Fink, and welcomed him in his own merry way; and in the afternoon our young lady brought the baron in. The poor blind gentleman was quite delighted with my father; he liked his voice much, felt him all over, and as he went away, called him a man after his own heart; and so he must be, for the baron has come every afternoon since to my father's little room, and listened to his sawing and hammering.
"My father is still a good deal perplexed at all he sees here, and he is not quite clear about that day he is said to have slept, though he must be up to it too, for ever since he often catches me by the head, and calls me a rascal. This word now replaces 'dwarf' and 'manikin' in his talk, although it is a still worse appellation for a bailiff. He is going to be a wheelwright, and has been cutting out spokes all day. I am only afraid he will work too hard. I rejoice to have him here, and if he once gets over the winter, he will soon walk off the weakness in his feet. He means to sell the little house, but only to a porter. He begs that you will offer it to Wilhelm, who now rents one, and say that he shall have it cheaper than a stranger."