Long as our intimate relations had now continued, I knew of no triumph that he had won. It was assuredly no triumph for the Crœsus of Uselin that he had been compelled to close his vast grain-trade, nor was it any triumph that even after this retreat in good order, as he termed it, no order could be brought into our financial arrangements. On the contrary, we were more pressed for ready money than ever; so hardly pressed that I struggled from one embarrassment to another, and was really often brought to the verge of despair. Not only was I most seriously hampered in my business operations by the perpetual uncertainty in which my father-in-law kept me, I also was harassed by the equally painful feeling that I had not been able to introduce a single one of those improvements in the condition of my workmen over which, in by-gone hopeful times, the doctor, Klaus, and I had so often laid our heads together, and drained so many a glass of grog. A chief who does not know how he shall meet his pecuniary obligations the next day is in no position to make concessions to his workmen to which he is not pledged, to which he is not bound by the letter of any contract, only by the voice in his own heart pleading for the poor. There were even times--and I think of them now as one recalls a peculiarly frightful dream--when I felt that I would close my heart against a cry of distress, even against a timidly murmured complaint, and when the example of my rivals, who had lowered the daily wages a groschen, seemed one that I ought to follow. I remember that at these times it was as if a gray veil had been spread over the world, that neither food nor drink were pleasant to me, that I tossed sleepless upon my bed as if I had a murder upon my conscience, that I went to and fro by the most unfrequented streets, and if I met an acquaintance, pulled my hat over my face and crossed to the other side. Once, as the load upon my heart was almost unbearable, I hastened to my friend, as the tortured patient hastens to the physician, and poured my sorrows into his faithful breast. He listened to me with kindness, and said:
"I have seen this coming, my dear George; so it is nothing which lies outside of human calculation, and consequently need not be despaired of, for the fault may be repaired by time and endurance. He who desires to preserve the freedom of his resolutions must not attach himself to any point on which others have fastened their unclean and dishonorable webs, and where there cannot fail to be confusion and entanglement. Wealth which, like your father-in-law's, has not been acquired with perfectly clean hands, cannot be kept without some soil. He who wishes to remain impartial in the cause of Hammer versus Anvil--no one can keep free from participation in it--must not place himself decisively on either side; and to a certain extent you have done this. Your father-in-law is a knight of the hammer, and you--you are his son-in-law, that is, the first of his followers, revolt as much as you may against this unpleasant truth. And my friend, I see, as things now are, no escape from this labyrinth but one, and that is that the case shall be brought as soon as possible before that higher tribunal of the great laws of economy, and there be decided promptly and finally, that you may become the free man you were before. This sounds very hard, very cruel; but my dear friend, you cannot take it amiss of a disciple of Hippocrates if he holds fast to that saying of his master: Quod medicamenta non sanant, ferrum sanat; quod ferrum non sanat, ignis."
The higher tribunal to which the doctor had referred me, was to decide for the Hippocratic fire-method in my case, sooner than perhaps the doctor himself expected.
When the commerzienrath complained to me again and again how hard it was just now to raise the very considerable amount of funds which I needed for the works, I had repeatedly and urgently entreated him to undertake seriously the sale of Zehrendorf. Heaven knows how hard it was for me to press this upon him. Zehrendorf had grown more dear to me than I can express. There was scarcely a clod on which my foot had not rested, no tree, no bush, that I had not become attached to. The prospect of being able to spend a day at Zehrendorf made every labor light, and bore me over many a care; the hope of passing my old days in the place where for the first and only time in my life I had been really young was dearer to me than any other. And I knew that Hermine felt the same. There she had dreamed her dream of love, and there it had become reality. Had she not been most seriously offended with me when her father intentionally gave her to believe that I was the originator of the project? Had I not breathed freely, and had she not loudly exulted when the sudden sickness of the old Prince Prora cut short the negotiations; and should I now be really the man who was to deprive her and myself of this treasure? Not I! It was the circumstances that were stronger than I; circumstances which I had not caused and was not responsible for, but which I could not allow to remain as they were, or the responsibility would really fall upon me. This I knew perfectly well; so I urged the matter upon my father-in-law again and again.
Strange to say, he now most obstinately resisted my urgency, as if the project had not been of his own devising. Did he really fear the unfavorable conjuncture of events? Did he really believe that he could retain the property? Did he fear what malicious tongues would say, remembering that when he closed his grain business he gave it out that he was tired of work and was going to retire to his countryseat for the rest of his old age? Was it simply despotic obstinacy, and an old man's waywardness? I did not know; and could not even say with certainty. At such times I consoled myself with the thought that perhaps the storm would blow over; his affairs must be in a better condition than I thought: perhaps he has grown a miser in his old days, and is holding back his hoarded treasures; for it is impossible that he can be as short of money as he pretends: what could he possibly have done with it?
"Your father-in-law has had an unlucky day to-day," said the banker Zieler to me, as coming from the Exchange one day, he met me on the street.
"How so, Herr Privy-Councillor?"
"Well, he had to pay a difference of a hundred thousand thalers upon a speculation he had made for a rise in alcohol: a curious miscalculation in so experienced a man of business."
A hundred thousand thalers at a moment when I was perplexed to raise a thousand, and in an operation of which he had never spoken to me, and which lay entirely outside of his regular business! I could not altogether keep my face from indicating the alarm that this piece of news caused me, and the councillor must have seen it, for he added with a smile:
"Well, well, your father-in-law can afford himself these little amusements. I have the honor to wish you a very good day."