The breakfast which the ugly, taciturn old woman--whom Constance called "Pahlen"--set before me after about half an hour, might well have been ready in less time, for it consisted only of black bread, butter, cheese, and a flask of cognac. The cognac was excellent; but the remainder of the repast far from luxurious, for the bread was sour and mouldy in spots, the butter rancid, and the cheese hard as a stone; but what was that to a youth of nineteen, who had eaten nothing for twelve hours, and whose silly heart, moreover, was palpitating with its first passion! So it seemed to me that I had never had a more sumptuous repast; and I thanked the old woman for her trouble with the utmost politeness. "Pahlen" did not seem to know what to make of me. She looked askance at me two or three times, with a sort of surly curiosity; and to the questions that I put to her, replied with an unintelligible grumbling, out of which I could make nothing.
The room in which I now found myself--it was the same into which Herr von Zehren had conducted me on our first arrival--might, in comparison with the deserted apartments of the upper story, be called habitable, though the carpet under the table was ragged, several of the carved oaken chairs were no longer firm upon their legs, and a great antique buffet in one corner had decidedly seen better days. The windows opened upon a court, into which, my breakfast once over, I cast a look. This court was very spacious, the barns and stables that enclosed it of the very largest dimensions, such as are only found on the most considerable estates. So much the more striking was the silence that prevailed in it. In the centre of the space was a dove-cot built of stone, but no wings fluttered about it, unless perhaps those of a passing swallow. There was a duck-pond without ducks, a dunghill upon which no fowls were scratching--one peacock sat upon the broken paling--everything seemed dead or departed. Here was no hurrying to and fro of busy men, no lowing of cattle or neighing of horses--all was vacant and silent; only from time to time the peacock on the paling uttered his dissonant cry, and the sparrows twittered in the twigs of an old linden.
As Constance did not return, and as Pahlen, to my question about the dinner hour, responded by asking me if I now wanted dinner too, I came to the conclusion that for some hours at least I would be left to my own devices. I therefore walked into the court, and then perceived that this part of the castle was an addition, which formed a continuation to the main building, and had probably served as the manager's house. In the castle the shutters on the ground floor were closed, and secured with massive iron bars, a fact which did not by any means tend to give the old pile a more cheerful appearance. That a manager's house had long been a superfluous appendage, the surroundings plainly showed. In truth, there was nothing here to manage; the buildings, which at a distance still presented a tolerable appearance, proved, when near, to be little better than crumbling ruins. The thatched roofs had sunk in decay and were overgrown with moss, the ornamental work had dropped away, the plaster peeled off in patches, the doors hung awry on their rusted hinges, and in many places were entirely wanting. A stable into which I looked had been originally built to accommodate forty horses; now there stood in a corner four lean old brutes that set up a hungry neighing as they saw me. As I came out again into the court, a wagon, partly laden with corn and dragged by four other miserable jades, went reeling over the broken stones of the pavement, and disappeared in the yawning doorway of one of the immense barns, like a coffin in a vault.
I strolled further on, passing one or two dilapidated hovels, where half-naked children were playing in the sand, and a couple of fellows, more like bandits than farm-hands, were lounging, who stared at me with looks half shy half insolent, and reached the fields. The sun shone brightly enough, but it lighted up little that was pleasant to the eye: waste land, with here and there scattering patches of sparse oats, overgrown with blue cornflowers and scarlet poppies, a little rusted wheat, an acre or so where the rye--late enough for the season--still stood in slovenly sheaves, and where a second wagon was being laden by two fellows of the same bandit appearance as the men at the hovels, and who stared at me with the same surprised and skulking looks, without answering my salutation. At some distance appeared through the trees and bushes the roofs of farm-buildings, evidently upon another estate, to which belonged, doubtless, the far better cultivated fields which I had now reached. Further to the right, above a larger collection of houses, arose the plain white steeple of a church. But I did not care to push my exploration further: an impulse drew me back to the park, which I reached by a circuitous route on the other side, for I wished to avoid the castle and the grumbling old Pahlen.
I had hoped here to meet Constance again; but in vain did I listen more than an hour under the trees and among the bushes, watching the castle until I knew by heart nearly every broken tile upon the roof, and each separate patch--and they were not few--where the rains of so many years had detached the plaster and laid bare the stones beneath. No one was to be seen; no sound was audible; while the afternoon sun gleamed upon the window-panes, save when the shadow of a passing cloud swept over them.
My spirits began to yield to the depressing influences of this scene of sunlit desolation. I felt as if the silence, like an invisible magic net, was folding around me closer and closer, until I scarcely ventured to move--scarcely to speak. In place of the careless audacity, which was my natural temperament, a deep sadness took possession of me. How came I here? What was I to do here--what did I want here, where no one troubled himself about me? Was not all that had happened to me since yesterday only a dream, and had I not merely dreamed the beauteous maiden with the dark eyes and strange smile?
A sense as of home-sickness came over me. I saw in fancy the town with the narrow, crooked streets running between the old-fashioned gabled houses; I saw my little room, to which I would have returned from school by this time to fling my wearisome books upon the table and then fly to my friend Arthur, who I knew had arranged a boat excursion in the harbor. I saw my father sitting at the window of his bureau in the excise-office, and crept close to the wall to avoid being seen by him. How had my father borne my departure? Was he anxious about me? Assuredly he was; for he still loved me, notwithstanding our mutual alienation. What would he do when he learned--as sooner or later he must learn--that I was with the wild Zehren? Would he allow me to stay? Would he command me to return? Perhaps come for me himself?
As this thought came into my mind, I looked uneasily around. It would be intolerable to have to go back to the stifling class-room, to be scolded again, like a boy by Professor Lederer, and never more to see Fräulein von Zehren Constance! Never would I endure it! My father had driven me from his house; he might take the consequences. Rather than go back, I would turn bandit--smuggler----
I do not know how the last word came upon my lips, but I remember--and I have since often thought of it--that when I had uttered the word half aloud, merely as a heroical phrase, without attaching any distinct meaning to it, I suddenly started as if some one had spoken it in my immediate vicinity; and at the same moment the adventures of the previous night and what I had since observed, arranged themselves in a definite connection, just as one looking through a telescope sees heaven and earth blended together in dim confusion, until the right focus is attained, when a distinct picture stands before him. How could I have been so blind--so destitute of ordinary apprehension? Herr von Zehren over at Pinnow's, the strange connection that manifestly existed between the nobleman and the smith, Christel's warnings, Pinnow's behavior towards me, and the night sail in the terrible storm! And then this uncared-for house, this ruinous farm-yard, these desolated fields, this neglected park! The solitary situation of the place, upon a promontory extending far into the sea! I had learned already from frequent conversations between my father and his colleagues in the excise-office, how actively smuggling was carried on in these waters, what a flourishing business it was, and how much might be made at it by any one who was willing to peril his life upon occasion. All was clear as day; this, and no other, was the solution of the mystery.
"You must be mad," I said to myself again, "completely mad. A nobleman like Herr von Zehren! Such doings are for the rabble. Old Pinnow--yes, yes, that is likely enough; but a Herr von Zehren--shame upon you!"