I cannot say that this wish of Hermine's was very strongly opposed to my own feelings--rather the contrary. But my father-in-law declared that he felt it incumbent upon him as the first citizen of Uselin, that his daughter's marriage should take place in that town. He held to this with an obstinacy which he was not wont to display to his daughter; and so we had to yield the point.
Nor can I say that the fateful day proved by any means so terrible as we had fancied it. The discourse of the good pastor, who was the same that had officiated at my confirmation, and must even then have been an aged man, was very long and very rambling, it is true; the St. Nicholas church looked as bald and bare as ever, and the hundreds of eyes that were all fixed immovably upon us, all with the identical look as if we were presently to be executed before them, made the bleak space by no means more comfortable; the great dinner at the commerzienrath's villa was pompous and ceremonious to the last degree, and the healths and speeches a little flat and stupid--all these facts I admit; but then on the other hand it was the church among the timber-work of which I had performed so many neck-breaking gymnastic feats, and from whose belfry I had so often gazed longingly over land and sea into the blue distance; and among the indifferently-curious faces there was here and there one that I should have been sorry to miss on this day; and then the day itself, one of the brightest days of summer, was so fair, the sky so blue, with great white motionless clouds, the air so crystal-clear, that the old town looked really young in the splendid sunlight, and the threadbare uniforms of Luz and Bolljahn, those energetic guardians of the peace, who had held the youth of the streets assembled in front of the church in check in a most masterly manner, seemed absolutely new; and in the harbor, where all the ships had run up their colors, the bright pennons fluttered so gaily in the fresh east wind; and upon the wide expanse of waters the wavelets were dancing so merrily, beyond the strait the white chalk-cliffs of the island glittered so brightly, and upon the island was Zehrendorf, for which we started as the sinking sun began to tinge with red the edges of the white clouds.
CHAPTER XX.
Perhaps that isolated life which is the ideal of a young married pair, when from any causes its realisation by an abode upon a desert island is found to be impracticable, can nowhere be better realised than in a very large, populous city. It all depends upon one's possessing the secret of creating an isle here, past whose shores the restless tides of social life roll away. The thorough mastery of this art is greatly facilitated to the adept, when the great world, as often happens, has no special motive to trouble itself about him; the heart of the mystery lies in the other and harder condition, that he shall not trouble himself about the world.
The first of these conditions had already been very satisfactorily fulfilled in my case. The world had interested itself amazingly little about the young machinist while he pursued his laborious but valuable studies in the ruinous house standing in the ruinous court. He resembled at all points Lessing's wind-mill which went to nobody and nobody came to it, and which simply ground the corn that was thrown into the hopper. But now the case was very different; that court was no longer a wilderness of rubbish. The ruins had been cleared away, or built up into stately buildings; the wall which had separated the two lots was pulled down and the old factory united with the new into a single great arena for industry and activity. This was a great change, which was much discussed, gladly welcomed by some, scornfully criticised by others, but which still made scarcely so much talk as the change in my own fortunes.
From the obscure chrysalis of an ordinary machinist, had been developed that splendid butterfly, the ruling chief of this great new establishment, and this enviable butterfly was the son-in-law of a millionaire, the husband of a young wife whose striking beauty excited the envy of women, the admiration of men, and attracted the attention of all wherever she appeared. To so notable a metamorphosis even the blasé public of a metropolis could not be indifferent, and when so remarkable a person, over whose past life there circulated the most various and scarcely credible legends, determines to baffle the curiosity directed to him from all sides, he must understand and practise arts undreamed of by him in his former obscure pupa-state.
I cannot say that in the practice of an art so new to me I always succeeded, or was at all times favored by fortune.
After spending a fortnight at Zehrendorf, we had returned to the city and rented a set of apartments by no means expensive, but still pleasant and roomy, the only objection I had to which was that they lay too far from the factory, but which by no means suited Hermine, who had always been accustomed to having a house of her own. Now, as I knew and shared Hermine's wish in this respect, I thought I would please her, and at the same time realize a favorite dream of my own, if with the assistance of my good friend the architect, I very quietly, but with as much expedition as possible, restored the house I had so long occupied, to its original design, and by help of the old plan, turned it into a charming little villa. I had to use an infinity of stratagems to keep the secret a month, and I felt really childlike, as after returning from a winter trip with Hermine to Zehrendorf, I found everything complete and according to my wishes. In the joy of my heart I embraced my friend the architect who had shown himself so tasteful a decorator, and blessed the day when I should bring Hermine from her hated city lodgings to this little paradise.
"You dear boy," said Hermine, as on the day after her return I showed her with triumph my new creation, "you dear boy, that is all very pretty and nice, and in the summer, for a couple of weeks or months which we have to pass in this wretched town and not in Zehrendorf, it will be a very nice place to stay; but now, in the middle of winter--no, George, it will never do! It makes me shiver to think of it. And then the great bare buildings around, and the tall chimneys that look as if they would topple over on our heads every minute--that one does lean a little--just look at it--I could not sleep here a single night in peace. And you are already too fond of the horrible noise and confusion around us here, so that the thought will come into my head that you might change into some frightful great machine yourself. No, you must mix more among men, go into society; you must begin at last to have a little pleasure of your life, you poor, overworked man! And you can do this better in our old lodgings; so I think we will spend the winter there. The rent is paid in advance, anyhow, and we must be economical, as all young beginners should. Have I not heard that out of your own distinguished mouth, sir? And now put down your distinguished mouth and give me a kiss, and that settles the matter."
Of course that settled the matter; for I had really planned the whole for Hermine's sake rather than my own. And if she really wished to make a pleasure-trip or two from our lonely island upon the sea of city life, I was certainly not the man to say no. Indeed I saw perfectly that in my present position I was in duty bound to perform certain social duties, if not for my own pleasure, at least in the interest of my business, and that I had already some derelictions in this respect to make good.