"Do you know, I fear, or rather I hope, you will not be able to carry out the plans of your eccentric friend as far as he intended?"
"Why?"
"Because--pardon me if I am too candid--because you are here in a false position, which must sooner or later become unbearable. Such a position is good only for one who cannot stand on his own feet, and is compelled to lean upon others; one who is accustomed from childhood up to subordinate his will to that of others, or rather, one who has no will and no opinion of his own. You are nothing of the kind. You are far too important for these people. They annoy you, and vice versâ. You think the baroness, what she really is, an ambitious, proud, avaricious person, stupid in spite of her reading; the baroness thinks you, what you are not, an immensely conceited, supercilious fool. You live in the same house, you eat at the same table, and yet you have no more points of contact than if a world lay between you. You stay together because neither of you chooses to say the word that will part you till the moment comes when one or the other will be compelled to utter it. Am I right?"
"I cannot deny it."
"You see! And the matter will be worse and worse."
"Why so?"
"Till now you had in this house of fools only one noble being whom you could love and pity, that admirable boy, Bruno; now, when you return, you will find there a second client. I fear the poor girl has been dragged away from her idyl, at the Hamburg boarding-house, in order to play the principal part in a family tragedy. I fear there is a terrible tempest ready to break upon the fair head of the unfortunate girl. As I know you, you will try to ward off the blow and you will be disconsolate if you fail. You look at me with open eyes, and I see that you know as good as nothing of the secrets of the family with whom you have been living now for three months. The thing is this: Anna Maria lives in constant fear of the death of the baron, because, as soon as he dies, she loses not only an old husband, but also the prospect of laying up quite a fortune out of the surplus of her revenues. That is why Malte is of less importance to her. Nevertheless, she fears for him also, because at his death the entail passes out of the family, and into the hands of a younger line, of which Felix Grenwitz, an ex-lieutenant and well-known roué, is the representative. And now comes the deviltry: to secure her influence even after the death of the baron and of Malte, Anna Maria has concocted a match between Miss Helen and her excellent cousin Felix. The poor child knows nothing as yet of this interesting project; but I fear the great Felix knows all the more. He is coming to Grenwitz in a few days--as the baroness says, to recover his worn-out health, far from the exciting life of the city, in the peaceful retirement of country life. In a word, it is the usual misère of Credit and Debit, the ordinary farce in which an innocent doll-baby is trained and prepared, and you will have the happiness to be allowed admittance to this sublime performance."
"That shall never be," exclaimed Oswald.
"Then you will give up your place."
"I suppose I must--or----" a tempest of passion filled Oswald's soul. He thought of unhappy Marie, who now frequently appeared to him in his dreams, with her hands crossed on her bosom, and looking like a martyred saint; he thought of Melitta, who had been sold by her own father! Now the rascality was to be repeated--before his eyes.