"It is only the excessive heat," said Oswald, rising. "Pardon me, I pray, for leaving you so abruptly. I must try if the cool evening air will help me."
He made Hortense a very formal bow, and went without waiting for her answer.
"Well, what does that mean?" asked the latter, looking after him as he hastened out. "Has my excellent cousin made another conquest there? And have I unwittingly killed two birds with one stone? I meant only to rob Oldenburg of his new friend; but if I have robbed Melitta at the same time of a new admirer, so much the better. I should think that young man could be made useful. To be sure, I must be a little cautious, for Barnewitz has become a real Othello since that affair with Cloten--there he is now.... My dear Barnewitz, do you look a little after your poor, forlorn little wife? I have been sitting here all the evening waiting for you."
"Why don't you dance?"
"Do you think I like to dance when you are away?"
"I have arranged a little game at cards with Grieben and some others, but I can jump about with you some little time. Come! They are just beginning a waltz! That is exactly my forte."
And the happy couple entered the room where the dancers were.
In the mean while Oswald was wandering about in the garden, restless, like one who suffers terrible pain. From the open doors and windows came bright lights and merry voices; around the lawn colored paper lanterns had been hung by Anna Maria's direction, and the moonlight became almost superfluous. From time to time a few couples would come out and promenade in the balsamic night air. It was a pleasant, festive scene, which, however, offended Oswald in his present frame of mind, as when a friend smiles at our suffering. He went up on the wall, sat down on a bench and stared, his head resting on his hand, into the water of the moat, on which the rays of the moon were dancing in weird confusion.
"Would it not be better you made an end to your miserable life?" he murmured, "than to drag the burden of life still farther, to your own harm and to nobody's joy? Will you vegetate on and on till every illusion has been killed, and you have thrown everything overboard that was once dear and sacred to you? Will you wait till your patience is fully exhausted, like poor, great-hearted Berger? That, then, is the true portrait of the woman before whom you knelt as before a saint! That is the man whose hand you thought it an honor to press! You never were anything but a foot-ball for her high and noble caprices; and he condescended to make glorious baronial fun of you. But it cannot, cannot be! Why not? Is not their whole life an unbroken intrigue? Here the wife betrays the husband, and there the husband the wife? The father sells his daughter for money, and the mother disposes of her own flesh and blood. The friend cheats the friend. One coquette proclaims aloud the secrets of another coquette, and you think they would treat you better--you, the plebeian, who have to work for your daily bread?--And yet! and yet! It is horrible! The wife whom you adored like a goddess, perhaps even now in the arms of another, deceiving him, deceiving you, only to be deceived by him in her turn! And you, good-natured fool, you struggle like a madman against your passion for the sweet, the glorious creature, the only pure one among these witches; for she is pure and good, or there is nothing pure left in this world. No, no! And if all around you is cheat and deceit, if all betray you, look up to this high star; it is your star, for only what is unattainably high is worthy of your love! Let the lizards and the toads quarrel about the will-o'-the-wisp as they dance over the morass."
A slight noise near him made him start up. A tall, slender figure in a white dress was standing before him. Through a little opening in the foliage above, a ray of the moon fell upon the slim form.