Was he speaking with reference to himself? Was Magelone what he desired? Johanna would have liked to help him to unburden his mind, but any mention of Magelone seemed to her to be indiscreet, so she merely remarked, "I cannot imagine any one's being too indolent to grasp an offered happiness."
"Happiness!" he repeated, with a melancholy smile. "Happiness! Who believes in it? You do not know how much strength is required for belief; much more than for passionate desire. Therefore the man who rushes blindly, head first, into the maddest, unworthiest passion, regardless of the harm that may result from it, seems to me not only more enviable, but more estimable even, than the prudent doubter, who is cold to-day and warm to-morrow, unable either to grasp or to relinquish. There stands the lovely being before you; your heart throbs at the sight of her; you long to call her your own, to belong to her, to lose yourself in her. But in the midst of your intoxication you know that she is but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, that she does not understand you, or wish to understand you, and that if your longing were fulfilled your desire would become satiety and disgust. You tell yourself that you never would be able to excuse to yourself the illusion of the past, and there are moments in which you even despise your desire."
He drew a long breath, paused, and stroked back the hair from his pale forehead. "Do I startle you?" he then said, in a quiet tone. "Forgive me, and forget what I have said. When you have known me longer you will understand that I am apt to be lost in illusions, and that I readily take phantoms for creatures of flesh and blood."
The Freiherr was able to leave his wheeled chair on this same day; he declared that nothing any longer stood in the way of the contemplated New Year's dinner, and preparations were begun for it. Johanna and Otto wrote the invitations; Aunt Thekla passed cellar and pantries in review, and had conferences with the housekeeper; old Christian polished up the 'ancestral plate,' as Hildegard reverently called it, and from spacious cupboards were produced treasures of antique glass and porcelain. Magelone was more whimsical than usual, beginning one thing after another only to lay it aside, and ridiculing the 'ceremonial state' in progress, but with a forced gayety that troubled Johanna. Hildegard strutted like a peacock in hopes of outshining in a new velvet gown all the ladies of the surrounding county, while Hedwig ascribed still more dazzling properties to her old Venetian lace. The Freiherr anticipated the New Year's dinner with the satisfaction with which an architect contemplates the laying of the corner-stone of a structure that has been long planned. Even the Herr Pastor was busy with the dinner. He was composing a toast to be given at it in honour of the betrothal.
What Johann Leopold's sensations were upon this occasion it would be difficult to say. By no hint did he betray his knowledge of the significance of the festival. His conduct towards Magelone was as cool and deliberate as ever. As long as the Freiherr remained amid the family circle, Johann Leopold was there also. So soon as the old gentleman withdrew, he also vanished. Johanna, in whom the impression of his talk in the forest was still vivid, watched him narrowly, but she looked in vain for any echo of that hour, and began to believe that not only Johann Leopold but also she herself had seen phantoms.
Thus the day before the first of the new year arrived. The clear Christmas weather had given place to thick gray clouds that, lashed by the winds, sailed above the mountains. The Freiherr, too, whose mood had been more cheerful since the gout had left him, looked as gloomy within-doors as did the skies without. "I do not know what to think of Waldemar," he said, as he paced the room to and fro, smoking his morning pipe. "It is a little too much to have no word from him since the telegram on Christmas-eve."
"Since that announced his arrival here to-day, he probably thought nothing further necessary," said Aunt Thekla.
"Indeed! And do you agree with him?" the Freiherr said, turning upon her. "Then see what this new-fangled want of consideration comes to. What is to be done about sending for him? I cannot have the carriage go to every train."
"Waldemar always comes by the express-train, which is due at five o'clock in Thalrode," said Hildegard, who sat opposite Aunt Thekla engaged on some embroidery.
"Nonsense! He comes sometimes at noon, and sometimes at eight in the evening," the Freiherr rejoined. "But that's of no consequence. Let him come when he chooses, he must send word when he will be here, and if he does not he will not be sent for. Basta!"