IV
Christian remained at his country house. A heavy snow-fall came, and the year drew toward its end.
He received no visitors. He answered neither the letters nor the invitations of his friends. He was to have spent Christmas with his parents at the castle, but he begged them to excuse him.
Since he was of age, Christian’s Rest had now passed fully into his possession, and all his objects of art were gathered here—statuary, pictures, miniatures, and his collection of snuff-boxes. He loved these little boxes very much.
The dealers sent him their catalogues. He had a trusted agent at every notable auction sale. To this man he would telegraph his orders, and the things would arrive—a beaker of mountain crystal, a set of Dresden porcelains, a charcoal sketch by Van Gogh. But when he looked at his purchases, he was disappointed. They seemed neither as rare nor as precious as he had hoped.
He bought a sixteenth century Bible, printed on parchment, with mani-coloured initials and a cover with silver clasps. It had cost him fourteen thousand marks, and contained the book-plate of the Elector Augustus of Saxony. Curiously he turned the pages without regarding the words, which were alien and meaningless to him. Nothing delighted him but his consciousness of the rarity and preciousness of the volume. But he desired other things even rarer and more precious.
Every morning he fed the birds. With a little basket of bread crumbs he would issue from the door, and the birds would fly to him from all directions, for they had come to know both him and the hour. They were hungry, and he watched them busy at their little meal. And doing this he forgot his desires.
Once he donned his shooting suit, and went out and shot a hare. When the animal lay before him, and he saw its dying eyes, he could not bear to touch it. He who had hunted and killed many animals could no longer endure this sport, and left his booty a prey to the ravens.
Most of his walks led him through the village, which was but fifteen minutes from his park. At the end of the village, on the high-road, stood the forester’s house. Several times he had noticed at one of its windows the face of a young man, whose features he seemed to recall. He thought it must be Amadeus Voss, the forester’s son. When he was but six he had often visited that house. Christian’s Rest had not been built until later, and in those early years his father had rented the game preserve here and had often lodged for some days at the forester’s. And Amadeus had been Christian’s playmate.
The face, which recalled his childhood to him, was pallid and hollow-cheeked. The lips were thin and straight, and the head covered with simple very light blond hair. The reflection of the light’s rays in the powerful lenses of spectacles made the face seem eyeless.
It amazed Christian that this young man should sit there for hours, day after day, without moving, and gaze through the window-panes into the street. The secret he felt here stirred him, and a power from some depth seemed to reach out for him.
One day Christian met the mayor of the village at the gate of his park. Christian stopped him. “Tell me,” he said, “is the forester Voss still alive?”
“No, he died three years ago,” the man answered. “But his widow still lives in the house. The present forester is unmarried, and lets her have a few rooms. I suppose you are asking on account of Amadeus, who has suddenly turned up for some strange reason—”
“Tell me about him,” Christian asked.
“He was to have been a priest, and was sent to the seminary at Bamberg. One heard nothing but good of him there, and his teachers praised him to the sky. He got stipends and scholarships, and every one expected him to do well for himself. Last winter his superiors got him a position as tutor to the boys of the bank president, Privy Councillor Ribbeck. You’re familiar with the name. Very big man. The two boys whose education Voss was to supervise lived at Halbertsroda, an estate in Upper Franconia, and the parents didn’t visit them very often. They say the marriage isn’t a happy one. Well, everything seemed turning out well. Considering his gifts and the patron he had now, Amadeus couldn’t have wanted for anything. Suddenly he drops down on us here, doesn’t budge from the house, pays no attention to any one, becomes a burden to his poor old mother, and growls like a dog at any one who talks to him. There must have been crazy doings at Halbertsroda. No one knows any details, you know. But every now and then the pot seethes over, and then you get the rumour that there was something between him and the Privy Councillor’s wife.”
The man was very talkative, and Christian interrupted him at last. “Didn’t the forester have another son?” A faint memory of some experience of his childhood arose in him.
“Quite right,” said the mayor. “There was another son. His name was Dietrich, and he was a deaf-mute.”
“Yes, I remember now,” Christian said.
“He died at fourteen,” the mayor went on. “His death was never properly explained. There was a celebration of the anniversary of the battle of Sedan, and he went out in the evening to look at the bonfires. Next morning they found his body in the fish-pond.”
“Did he drown?”
“He must have,” answered the mayor.
Christian nodded farewell, and went slowly through the gate toward his house.