The mother, who secretly felt the deepest joy at the fulfilment of her hopes, was full of anxiety on account of the opinion of the world.
“You have acted thoughtlessly,” she said to Amrie, “to come into the house as you did, so that you cannot be fetched for the wedding. This is neither right nor the custom. If I could only send you away for a little time, or even John, that all might be done in order.” And to John she complained, “I think I can already hear the talk there will be at your hasty marriage—twice asked—and then all settled! This is as disreputable people do.”
She soon, however, suffered herself to be persuaded, and she smiled when John said, “Why, mother, you formerly studied morals like a parson. Why, then, should honorable people not do a thing because dishonorable persons sometimes screen themselves behind it? Can a single thing be said against my character?”
“No, your whole life has been good and honorable.”
“Ah, then people must show some confidence in me, and believe that to be right, which at first sight may not appear so. I have a right to demand as much as that. Then, as to how I and my Amrie came together, was so out of the usual order, that we might also have our own way of travelling upon the high road; it certainly was no bad way. We must have courage, and not be asking after the opinion of others. The pastor of Hirlengen once said, ‘That if to-day a prophet were to arrive, he would have to submit to an examination as to whether his views were according to the old established order?’ Now, mother, if we know that a thing is right, let us carry it through, without asking, right or left, the leave of anybody. Let them wonder for a time; by and by they will think as we do.”
His mother, no doubt, felt that even the most unusual event must at length be governed by the same laws that rule all other things. That the wedding might pass for a wonder, but not the wedded life, which must submit to the laws which govern all things; and she said, “With all these people, whom you now look upon so lightly, because you are conscious of your own rectitude, you will continue to live, and you will expect them to respect you and your honorable life. That they may do this, you must give them the best example; you cannot expect them to make you an exception, and you cannot run after each of them and say, ‘If you only knew how it happened, you would see that it was right.’” John answered,—
“You will soon learn that no one who has seen my Amrie, even for one hour, will have a word to say against her.” He knew also a sure way, not only to pacify his mother, but secretly to delight her, when he told her that every thing she had said to him of advice or warning, he had found brought out in Amrie. She smiled again when he mentioned the shoes, which, he declared, she should hear running about for many years to come.
His mother allowed herself to be quieted.
On Saturday morning, before the family council had assembled, came Dami; but he must immediately return to Holdenbrunn, to procure the requisite papers from the Mayor.
That first Sunday was an anxious day at the Landfried farm. The old people had accepted Amrie; but how would it be with the family? It is not easy to enter a family of such respectability, unless with a carriage and horses, household furniture, and money, and a large connection to prepare the way.