"He really does look almost too ugly," his wife replied, rather meekly; she began to feel that she had laid too much stress Upon ugliness in her letter to the Herr Director.
As the man came nearer, and her keen eye could distinguish his features, she thought they did not quite correspond to the impression made upon her by his figure. He could hardly be called very handsome. The nose was too large, the mouth, shaded by a large moustache, not sufficiently well formed, and the face was too pale to be pronounced very handsome; but surely the large, dark eyes might be so considered, as they looked observantly about the court-yard; and when, upon advancing sufficiently near the castle to perceive Herr and Frau von Osternau at the window, the man lifted his hat courteously, his manner of doing so was such a contradiction of his appearance that Frau von Osternau hardly knew what to think. The head from which the hat was lifted seemed by no means repulsive, the dark, expressive eyes lent it a certain interest.
Herr von Osternau's impressions with regard to the stranger were identical with his wife's. "A very odd person," he observed, as the man disappeared beneath the window. "I am really curious to see him." His wife said nothing, but looked eagerly towards the door of the sitting-room. She had not long to wait. In a moment Hildebrandt, Herr von Osternau's old personal attendant, appeared, to announce that a very odd-looking stranger had arrived with a travelling-bag; his name he said was Gottlieb Pigglewitch, and he asserted that he was the Herr Tutor whom madame expected.
Old Hildebrandt looked grave when his mistress desired him to show in the Herr Tutor immediately, and he ventured to observe that the man did not look like a respectable tutor, but like some tramp who had stolen his ill-fitting clothes; nevertheless he obeyed his mistress's reiterated order, and ushered Herr Gottlieb Pigglewitch into the sitting-room.
When the tutor appeared on the threshold of the door, which Hildebrandt held open for him, Frau von Osternau could not but be struck again by the contrast between the young man's exterior and his air and bearing. He held his shabby old hat in his hand with the careless grace of a gentleman paying a morning call, and the bow with which he greeted the mistress and master of the house was respectful but easy. As he bowed, the large, dark eyes rested keenly for an instant upon Frau von Osternau, and were then turned with the same observant glance upon her husband.
The shyness and the awkwardness which are wont to attack young men unused to society upon first meeting persons of rank were evidently unknown to Herr Gottlieb Pigglewitch. He approached Frau von Osternau, and bowing again slightly, said, "Madame, allow me to introduce myself as the Candidate Gottlieb Pigglewitch, whom Herr Director Kramser has recommended to you for a tutor. I beg to thank you for your kindness in consenting to postpone my entering upon the duties of the important post assigned me until to-day, and to assure you that I am now ready to fulfil them to the best of my ability. Yes, I confess that I greatly desire to enter upon the honest performance of them. I am eager to teach your little son what you would have him learn."
It was an odd speech, and there was certainly no trace to be found in it of the formal tone always adopted upon every special occasion by the Herr Director Kramser in his youth. Everything about the young man was different from what Frau von Osternau had expected to find it. She was not easily embarrassed, in her gentle, kindly way she was used to be equal to any emergency, but, oddly enough, she hardly knew how to treat this tutor whom she had engaged, this young man who was henceforth to occupy a superior position among the dependants of her household. She had thought it but natural and right that she should not be at all disturbed by his entrance, and should calmly proceed with her knitting, but it was laid aside, and she felt obliged to receive him as she would have done a morning visitor of her own rank, as in a few courteous words she expressed her pleasure in seeing him and motioned him towards a seat.
Herr von Osternau's sensations were of a similar kind. He too rose from his chair and left the window as the tutor entered, and when the latter took a chair near the sofa, in compliance with Frau von Osternau's invitation, her husband seated himself likewise, and felt himself impelled to continue the conversation his wife had begun.
"I am glad to find you so punctual, Herr Pigglewitch," he said, with a kindly nod. "I am quite sure, from the representations of Herr Director Kramser, who is an old friend of my wife's, that you will inculcate fidelity to duty and punctuality in your teaching of my Fritz, but I must warn you upon one point. I prefer to undertake my son's training myself in all matters bearing upon religion. It is of importance to me that his views upon such subjects should agree with those of his parents."
At this explanation a smile hovered about the young man's lips. He inclined his head courteously towards the master of the house as he replied, "I thank you for relieving me of your son's religious instruction, since it is the department in which I feel myself least fitted to impart knowledge."