While Professor Jager was thus making the round, winding snake-like through the circle of the gentlemen. Primula flitted sylph-like through the circle of ladies. She had, like the "maiden from afar," a gift for every one. She pays a compliment to the elder ladies. She envies Thusnelda and Fredegunda their "charming, highly-poetical" names; she congratulates Ida Snellius on her progress in Portuguese, and pats Mary Kubel on the blushing cheeks and calls her a dear, sweet child.
"But our colleague comes really a little too late," says Rector Clemens, looking at his watch. "I think, Augusta, we might have tea."
"Whom do you expect, my dear sir?" asks Professor Jager of the rector.
"Whose foot did not yet cross this threshold?" asks Primula, who is full of reminiscences of Wallenstein, of the lady manager.
At the very moment, when the professor and his wife are about to answer these questions, the door opens and Oswald's tall form appears in the frame.
CHAPTER XIX.
When the last comer at a party enters the room he always excites a certain sensation in the assembled company, especially when, as was here the case, the arrival of the guest has been looked for with some curiosity. Oswald was a perfect stranger to the whole circle. His only acquaintance was the rector, whom he had met officially. The other gentlemen and ladies, belonging to the college, he had perhaps seen now and then in company during his former residence in Grunwald, but without noticing them or being noticed by them. When he had paid his visits during the day, he had found nobody at home except the Kubel family. The gentlemen were curious to see their new colleague, the older ladies the young man who might possibly become one of these days their son-in-law, and the young ladies the new acquisition for their social meetings--all were ready to examine him and to criticize. Thus there followed a pause in the merry conversation, as he entered, and he had to encounter the eyes of the whole company.
Undismayed by this cross-fire of glances, Oswald approached Mrs. Clemens, kissed her hand, excused his late arrival, and begged her to present him to the other ladies, whom he was not yet fortunate enough to know. After this ceremony had been performed in due form, he begged the rector in like manner to make him acquainted with the gentlemen; then he turned again to the ladies to pay a few compliments to his hostess, and at last to Primula, who immediately entered upon a lively conversation with marked eagerness. Primula had taken Oswald from the first moment into her poetic heart, on account of his "fair, chevalieresque, and truly romantic appearance," as she called it, and all the admonitions of her husband had not been able permanently to arrest the current of her sympathetic sentiments. She had, to be sure, paid due respect in the country to existing circumstances, and dropped the fallen greatness, but she had determined in her heart to follow the impulse of her soul freely whenever she should be able to let her captive psyche fly with untrammelled wings. That moment had come now; she greeted Oswald, who had become more interesting than ever to her through his "exceedingly romantic catastrophe at Castle Grenwitz," with the double warmth of friendship and of admiration. Oswald, however, who was determined, if possible, to make himself acceptable to all the ladies, could not be kept long by all the charms of the poetess; he talked seriously with the elderly ladies, he teased the younger ones, and after ten minutes he seemed to have accomplished his end.
In the meantime he had been carefully watched by the gentlemen, who had gathered around Professor Jager. The interpreter of the fragments of Chrysophilos hated Oswald with a very hearty hatred. Oswald had never paid the vain man the attention which he claimed, and had even treated him with undisguised contempt, especially during the latter part of his stay at Grenwitz. Professor Jager had never forgotten the insult offered to Pastor Jager, and waited only for a suitable occasion to pay off the long accumulated debt. He was, however, far too clever and too cowardly to come out with it openly, as the gentlemen of the college now questioned him about Oswald, whom he declared he knew perfectly. He contented himself with mysterious hints, as: "a young man, about whom much might be said--you will see yourselves, gentlemen--I only hope he has grown more prudent in the meantime; hem! hem! You know he is one of Berger's pet pupils. Well, Berger is a remarkable man, a brilliant man; but he is at the asylum in Fichtenau, and we see once more that 'all is not gold that glitters;' hem! hem!" These and similar words fell like poisonous malaria upon the harmless souls of the pedagogues.
"If we had known that, collega!" said Rector Clemens secretly to Professor Snellius.