"Sir," began Klutz, struggling hard with a dreadful inclination to cry again, for self-pity is a very tender and tearful sentiment, "Sir——"
"Let me order that beefsteak," said Axel kindly. "My cook will have it ready in ten minutes."
"Sir," said Klutz, with the tremendous dignity that immediately precedes tears, "Sir, I am not to be bribed."
"Well, take a cigar at least," said Axel, opening his case. "That will not corrupt you as much as the beefsteak, and will soothe you a little on your way home. For you must go home and get to bed. You are as near an illness as any man I ever saw."
The tears were so near, so terribly near, that, hardly knowing what he did, and sooner than trust himself to speak, Klutz took a cigar and lit it at the match Axel held for him. His hand shook pitifully.
"Now go home, my dear Klutz," said Axel very kindly. "Tell Frau Pastor to give you some food, and then get to bed. I wish you would have taken the beefsteak—here is your hat. If you like, we will talk about this nonsense later on. Believe me, it is nonsense. You will be the first to say so next week."
And he ushered him out to the steps, and watched him go down them, uneasy lest he should stumble and fall, so weak did he seem to be. "What a hot wind!" he exclaimed. "You will have a dusty walk home. Go slowly. Good-night."
"Poor devil," he thought, as Klutz without speaking went down the avenue into the darkness with unsteady steps, "poor young devil—the highest possible opinion of himself, and the smallest possible quantity of brains; a weak will and strong instincts; much unwholesome study of the Old Testament in Hebrew with Manske; a body twenty years old, and the finest spring I can remember filling it with all sorts of anti-parsonic longings. I believe I ought to have taken him home. He looked as though he would faint."
This last thought disturbed Axel. The image of Klutz fainting into a ditch and remaining in it prostrate all night, refused to be set aside; and at last he got his hat and went down the avenue after him.
But Klutz, who had shuffled along quickly, was nowhere to be seen. Axel opened the avenue gate and looked down the road that led past the stables to the village and parsonage, and then across the fields to Kleinwalde; he even went a little way along it, with an uneasy eye on the ditches, but he did not see Klutz, either upright or prostrate. Well, if he were in a ditch, he said to himself, he would not drown; the ditches were all as empty, dry, and burnt-up as four weeks' incessant drought and heat could make them. He turned back repeating that eminently consolatory proverb, Unkraut vergeht nicht, and walked quickly to his own gate; for it was late, and he had work to do, and he had wasted more time than he could afford with Klutz. A man on a horse coming from the opposite direction passed him. It was Dellwig, and each recognised the other; but in these days of mutual and profound distrust both were glad of the excuse the darkness gave for omitting the usual greetings. Dellwig rode on towards Kleinwalde in silence, and Axel turned in at his gate.