"I certainly will not! I am sick of this game of hide-and-seek, and out it must come, happen what may. Do you know, sir, or do you not know, that Paula loves you? Do you know, or do you not know, that she has loved you for ten years? that she has loved you from the hour when you saved her father from the axe of that murderous scoundrel--I can't remember his name. That with this love for you she has grown from the half child you first knew her, to womanhood? and that from that time there has been no hour of her life when she has not loved you, and certainly most of all at the times when she has seemed to love you least--for example at the time when you, you brainless mammoth, were fancying she was captivated by Arthur, who was tormenting her about you, and asking whether it was right and fair for the daughter of a prison-superintendent to make an inexperienced young man, condemned to only seven years' imprisonment, a prisoner for life? Have you any idea what it cost the poor girl to conceal her love from you? What it cost her to play the part of a sister and only a sister towards you, that you might remain unfettered to grasp boldly at whatever was highest and fairest in the world, and be able to mount the ladder upon whose topmost round the high-spirited girl wished to see the man she loved? What it cost her to send you to Zehrendorf to win the bride she had destined for you? What it cost her to turn a smiling face upon your happiness! And finally, what, it cost her not to hasten to you in your misfortunes, not to be able to say to you: 'Here, take my life, my soul--all, all is yours?' I ask you for the last time, do you know this, sir, or do you not?" In his excitement the doctor's voice had reached a pitch from which all tuning down was impossible. He did not even make the attempt, but instead, tore off his spectacles, stared angrily at me with his sparkling brown eyes, put on his glasses again, crammed his hat upon his flushed skull until it covered his ears, turned abruptly upon his heel and made for the door.
In two strides I overtook him.
"Doctor," I said, catching him by the arm, "how would it do if you let me go to-morrow in your place?"
"Do whatever you like!" he cried, running out of the room and banging the door behind him.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
There come days in our lives which we afterwards remember as some blessed dream which knows nothing of earthly sufferings or earthly restrictions, in which we soar as on the pinions of eagles, strong and high above all the little pitiful obstacles that otherwise so lamentably hamper our feet.
Of such dream-like beauty was the day on which I took the most memorable journey of my life: a wonderful summer day, whose glorious brightness was not marred by the smallest cloud, and yet palpitating in a mild balmy air that played around my cheeks and brow, while the train whirled in rattling speed through the lovely Thüringian country. It was the first journey I had made in my life, at least the first that was not a business trip, and the first also that took me from my northern home into the sunny plains of Middle Germany. The novelty of the scenery probably helped to make everything appear to me doubly graceful and lovely: I could not satiate myself with gazing at the soft undulating lines of the hills; at the sharply-defined crags whose summits were crowned with ruined fortresses and ancient keeps, and whose feet were laved by the clear water of winding rivers; at the flowing meadow-lands in which lines of trees with foliage of brightest green marked the courses of the streams; at the cities and towns that lay so peacefully in the valley, and at the little villages that nestled so cosily among the trees. It was not Sunday, but all these things wore a Sunday look, even the men who were working alone in the fields and stopped to look as the train rushed by, or those gathered in the neat stations where we stopped. It was as if everybody was travelling only for pleasure, and that even taking farewell was not painful on such a lovely day. And then the meetings of friends--the happy faces, the hand-shaking and kissing and embracing! Every one of these scenes I watched with the liveliest interest, and always with a feeling of emotion, as if I had a portion in it myself.
Thus I arrived in the afternoon at E., where I quitted the railroad and engaged a carriage from a number that were at the station to take me the remaining distance. We soon left the level land and entered a valley through which the road to "the forest" ran in many windings between hills on either side. The journey lasted several hours, and the sun was already declining as we slowly toiled up a mountain the steepest of all, "but the last," said the driver. We had both descended and were walking on either side the large and powerful horses, and keeping the flies off them with pine branches.
"Woa!" cried the driver; the horses stopped.
We had reached the summit, and stopped to let the horses blow a little.