"Poor fellows?" said Hermine, pettishly pouting. "They did not look that way to me; and Herr Windfang, or whatever his name is, struck me as a complete coxcomb. I did not promise to be gracious to men of his stamp."
"But they belong to us."
"Nobody belongs to us. We belong to one another, you to me and I to you: remember that once for all, if you please!"
I laughed, but afterwards had some serious reflections on a peculiarity of character in my betrothed, which struck me not for the first time this morning. She interpreted the expression that we belonged to each other, quite literally, and when she appeared to make an exception to it, it was only in appearance, and always in favor of persons who were really in need of help, and to whom she could condescend as a princess to her subjects. Towards such she could behave with proud, but perfectly irresistible kindness.
I shall never forget how, upon the occasion of a little tour that we made through the island in these first happy days, and in which we visited the lonely village on the coast which had played so memorable a part in my flight--how she sat by the old sailor's widow, patted her brown wrinkled hands, wiped the tears from her brown wrinkled face, and consoled her with the assurance that her son would yet come back in spite of all; told her stories, which she invented at the moment, of sea-faring men who had returned laden with riches after being supposed lost for ten or twenty years; and how in the meantime she must look upon us two as her children, and that we would take care of her and make her comfortable in her old age. So too when we went to Uselin she was friendly beyond all my expectation to my sister, who had recently increased her family for the seventh time. She gave presents to all the children, who were very far from being either pretty or amiable, offered to be godmother to the new-comer, and contrary to her custom did not ridicule even the blundering attempts at politeness and clumsy obsequiousness of my brother-in-law.
"Poor people," she said: "Seven children and such a little house and such a little father. How did you ever manage to grow so big in that house, George, without knocking a hole in the roof with your hard head? And your father was quite as tall as you, and had every bit as hard a head. I don't wonder that you two could not get along together in such a nutshell of a house. But we must take care of them, George; don't forget that."
And then again my good Klaus and his Christel with her four children--a fifth was expected soon--had occasion to rejoice in her kindness, though in a different fashion. She had not shrunk from climbing the three interminable flights of stairs, and getting Christel to initiate her into the more recondite mysteries of the washing and ironing arts, nor from listening to Klaus's long enumeration of his wife's virtues. "Even if I were not compelled to like Klaus for his faithfulness to you, he would have captivated me by the way he worships his pretty plump wife. There, George; here's a pattern for you to follow. For him the world began with the moment when the waves cast up his Christel, who must have been then just as fat and white and nice as she is now, on the beach; and if she should be so unfeeling as to die before him, he would lie down and die too. And so will I do, if you should die--" she added, and looked at me with compressed lips, and angrily contracted brows.
Towards the poor, towards all who were dependent or seemed so, her proud nature could be kind and condescending; but all who wished to win her favor must make no pretensions to my affections, claim no place in my heart which she desired to dwell in and occupy alone. The lightest apprehension that any one besides herself might take possession of what was hers alone, filled her with an alarm which the vivacity of her nature could seldom long conceal, and which found vent sometimes in gloomy anger, sometimes in hot passionate tears. But how could I, beloved by this proud beautiful creature, complain of what after all was but an excess of that in which others daily exhibited so lamentable a deficiency? No; no word of complaint shall my pen enter in these records of my life, as none ever passed your lips, you good and noble hearts that loved me well, but withdrew to one side lest an unguarded look might seem to accuse her or myself.
Hermine felt this and understood it; and said sometimes, when Paula or Doctor Snellius visited us so very seldom, and her cheeks flushed while she said it:
"I ought to be ashamed to come thus between you and your friends; it is ungenerous, it is mean, I know; I know it, George, but I cannot help it; I cannot spare a crumb that falls from the table of our love. If I could only live with you on some lonely island, in the farthest seas, and some day an earthquake came and the island sank in the waters, and no one even knew of the spot where we had been so happy! But here among all these people for whom you have to care, who take an interest in you or you in them, for whom you must work, and, worse still, those who have no claim of any sort upon you, and take a cruel pleasure in coming about us, and questioning us, and watching us, as if we were on the world for no other purpose. I already think with horror of Uselin, and the curious looks of all the population, no one of whom can spare himself the treat of seeing the great clever George marry the little stupid Hermine. And then the celestial weeping of the two Eleonoras, to one of whom you are a traitor, you monster! or Duffy's tears of joy when she hears from the good pastor's mouth what she has known for eight or nine years! It is frightful! Couldn't we slip into some church about twilight and be married by a pastor, who would see us both for the first, and, as far as I am concerned, for the last time, and get for witnesses two or three old men or women who might happen to be about, who would not know us the next day, if they should meet us on the street?"