Meanwhile Bräsig was pacing the room with long strides; he held his nose very high in the air, blowing it loudly every now and then, arched his eyebrows, and pointed his feet straight out to the right and left with as much dignity as if he were the father of the two girls, and their forgiveness lay in his hands. As he walked up and down the picture of a beautiful young woman came to his remembrance, he saw her as once of old, her head crowned with a garland of ferns and yellow corn-flowers, and he thought how well they suited the quiet loving eyes. She seemed to take him by the hand, to lead him gently to the mother and children, and laying his hands upon their heads to whisper: "Never mind, they belong to you too."
Rudolph went up to Godfrey, held out his hand and said: "You're not angry with me now, are you Godfrey?"--And Godfrey pressing his cousin's hand warmly, replied: "How can you think so, dear brother. Forgiveness is a Christian duty."--The rector coughed preparatory to making another speech, and Kurz caught him by the coat tails and entreated him not to meddle with the affair.--It was then that Joseph's absence was discovered.--"Where was he?"--"Goodness gracious me!" cried Mrs. Nüssler suddenly. "What's become of my Joseph?"--"Bless me! Where's Joseph?" asked all the others, but Bräsig was the first who thought of going in search of him. He hastened out of the front door into the yard, shouting: "Joseph!" and then he ran to the back door and called: "Joseph!" On his way back, he peeped into the kitchen where he caught sight of a red face watching the coals under the great copper kettle, and he saw that it was Joseph.
While Joseph was in the parlour, he was suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling that it behoved him to do something under such peculiar circumstances, and his heart felt so hot and heavy that 80° F. in the shade was too cold for him, and so he had taken refuge in the kitchen, in order to bring his outward and inward temperature more nearly to the same degree. There was another reason for his having gone there, and that was that he could not imagine a family festival without a bowl of punch, so he was busy making it when his friend found him. Bräsig helped him by taking the tasting part of the business off his hands, and when they returned to the parlour they looked exactly like two fiery dragons guarding a treasure, for they came in carrying Mrs. Nüssler's largest soup-tureen between them. When Joseph put the tureen on the table, he merely said: "There!" so Bräsig turning to the twins, said: "Go and thank your father. He has thought of everything."
While the old gentlemen gathered round the punch bowl, and the young people were amusing themselves in their own way, Mrs. Nüssler slipped out of the room. She needed a little quiet time to speak to a much older friend than even Bräsig, before she could rejoin the others. The twins were full of happy anticipations of the future, and blushed rosy red whenever uncle Bräsig called attention to them in any joking speech, and that pleased him so much that he was often guilty of doing so. "Yes," he said to Godfrey, "there are all kinds in the world, that mischievous thing Methodism amongst others. You wanted to convert me; take care, I intend to convert you. I'll convert you through Lina."--And when Godfrey was about to answer him, he rose, and shaking hands with him heartily said: "Never mind you shall have it all your own way when once you have a living. I mean you well at heart, we've smoked the pipe of peace together."--Then he said to Rudolph: "Wait a bit! You caught my tench, you rascal, but Hilgendorf will take your fishing-rod from you," so saying he went up to the lad and whispered in his ear: "I don't mean you harm! You must think of Mina whenever you have to weigh out a bushel of corn; and next spring when you've to stand amongst a dozen harrows, while a high east-wind is blowing no end of lime dust down your nose, and closing it up as if a swallow had built her nest in it; and when the sun, seen through the lime dust flying about you looks as round and red as a copper kettle you must think that it's Mina's face looking down at you. Mustn't he, my dear little god-child?"
When the rector had drunk three glasses of punch to the health of each set of lovers, and one to the health of the whole company, he was no longer to be restrained even by Kurz, but was determined to make a speech in spite of all opposition. He rose, picked up the tea-ladle, and the sugar-tongs which had been left on the table since coffee time, coughed twice to clear his throat, and then seeing that he had attracted every one's attention, and that Joseph watched each movement he made with curiosity and interest, he gazed thoughtfully at the spoon and the sugar-tongs. Suddenly thrusting the tea-ladle under Bräsig's nose, he asked: "Do you know this?" as emphatically as if Bräsig had stolen it and were now required to confess his guilt. "Yes," was the answer, "what do you mean?"--Upon which Baldrian held the sugar-tongs out to Kurz and asked if he knew them.--He acknowledged that he did, adding that they belonged to Joseph.--"Yes" the rector went on, "you know them, that is to say, you have an idea of them as sensible objects of knowledge; you can distinguish them from other objects by their colour, brightness and shape, but you do not know the moral teaching I derive from them."--Here he looked round upon them all as if to challenge anyone to dispute his assertion.--"No, you are ignorant of that, so I must make it known to you and explain it to you. Look, before long the careful mistress of this house will come, and taking these things which in appearance have no connection with each other, and will lay them side by side in the same tea-caddy; in thousands of households they are to be found in the same tea-caddy, and for thousands of years this has been the case. It is a custom sanctified by its antiquity, and what is joined together ought not to be put asunder. Adam"--holding up the sugar-tongs--"and Eve"--holding up the tea-ladle--"were joined together, for they were created for one another"--he held up both the tongs and the ladle--"and God Himself put them in the tea-caddy of paradise. And what did Noah do? He built an ark--or a tea-caddy, if you like to give it that name, dear friends--and called male and female, and they came at once in obedience to his call." He now made the sugar-tongs walk across the table, pressing the ends together and letting them out again as he did so, and then he made the tea-ladle follow close behind the tongs. "And went ....."--"Come in!" shouted Bräsig who heard a knock at the door, and in came Fred Triddelfitz. Hawermann had sent him to ask Mrs. Nüssler to lend him some rape-cloths, for the rape harvest was about to begin. This interruption obliged the rector to stop short in his harangue.--Joseph promised to give Hawermann what he required. Fred could not help wondering what had happened when he smelt the punch, and saw the rector standing up in the position he had been wont to assume in former times when Fred was a schoolboy, and the rector was about to cane him for some juvenile offence, so he crossed the room softly on tip-toe, and seated himself quietly. Then Joseph said; "Give Triddelfitz some punch, Mina."--Fred drank his glass of punch, and the rector continued to stand, ready to go on with his speech as soon as order was restored.--"Let us begin at the beginning," said Bräsig, "for Triddelfitz knows nothing of what has happened."--"We were talking ...." began the rector, but Kurz broke in impatiently: "About the sugar-tongs and the tea-ladle, and you told us that they both belonged to the tea-caddy," then taking the things out of his brother-in-law's hand and tossing them into their places in the tea-box, he went on: "There they are, male and female in Noah's ark, and now I think we may talk about our own affairs. You must know, Triddelfitz, that we are rejoicing over a double engagement, and that's the reason that the rector here wanted to preach us a sermon as a sort of ornament to the plain matter of our discourse. How is Hawermann?"--"Quite well, thank you," said Fred rising, then turning to the lovers he congratulated them, at first ceremoniously, but ended in an off-hand sort of way as if it were only a birthday, and the twins were betrothed every year.--The rector still remained standing, the better to seize his opportunity.
"Give your uncle Baldrian some punch, Lina," said Joseph, She did so, and the rector drank it. Instead of changing the current of his thoughts, it only made him more obstinately determined to finish his speech, but whenever he attempted to begin he was always interrupted by Joseph, Kurz, Bräsig or Fred, and when at last he brought up his heavy artillery in the shape of "thoughts upon the estate of matrimony," Bräsig said to him with the most innocent air in the world: "Yours has been a particularly happy marriage, hasn't it rector?" Upon which Baldrian subsided into his chair with a deep sigh, caused either by the thought of his own marriage, or by his inability to finish his speech. I think that the latter was the true reason of his sigh, for in my opinion it is much easier to meet with an example of a happy marriage, than with a good speech.
As it was now growing late, the rector, Kurz, and Triddelfitz said "good-bye," and Rudolph went with them, for Mrs. Nüssler and Bräsig were agreed that he must set to work at his new employment as soon as possible, as he had led an idle life long enough already. Joseph and Bräsig accompanied their friends a little way.
"How's your new squire getting on, Triddelfitz?" asked Bräsig.--"He's getting on uncommonly well, thank you, Mr. Bräsig. He made a speech to the labourers this morning which was really very good!"--"What!" cried Kurz. "Does he make speeches too?"--"What on earth had he to talk about?" asked, Bräsig.--"What did you say he had done?" asked Joseph.--"Made a speech," said Triddelfitz.--"I thought he was going to be a farmer," said Joseph.--"Of course," answered Triddelfitz. "But what's to prevent a farmer making a speech?"--Joseph could not get over it; a farmer make a speech! He had never heard of such a thing before, and pondered over it for the rest of the evening in silence, only saying the last thing before going to sleep: "He must be a very clever fellow!"--Bräsig's admiration was not so easily won, and he asked again: "What did he say? If he had any arrangements to make with the labourers, wasn't Hawermann there to receive his orders?"--"Mr. Bräsig," said the rector, "a good speech is never out of place. Cicero ...."--"Who was Cicero?"--"The most eloquent speaker of antiquity."--"I don't mean that. I want to know what his occupation was. Was he a farmer or a merchant; was he in a government-office, or was he a doctor? Or what?"--"He was, as I tell you, the most eloquent speaker of antiquity."--"Antiquity here, antiquity there! If he was nothing more than that, I don't think much of the word-monger. Every man ought to have some useful employment. And now, Rudolph, let me advise you never to be a speechifier. You may fish if you like, perch or trout, which ever you can get, but if once you get into the habit of making long speeches you'll never be good for much as a fisherman. Now good-night all of you. Come Joseph."--They then went back to Rexow. Fred also took leave of the others, and striking through the fields to the right took a short cut to Pümpelhagen.
He thought deeply as he went along the quiet field-path. He was not jealous, but still he had an uncomfortable feeling that his old school-fellows at Rahnstädt grammar-school had passed him in the race of life, for they were both engaged to be married while he was still free. However he soon comforted himself by the thought that he could never have engaged himself to a girl like either of the twins; that if Lina or Mina had been offered to him he would not have accepted the gift, and Louisa Hawermann was not good enough for him either. He would have been a fool if he had been contented with the first best plum he could reach, for such plums are always sour, no, he would wait till they were all ripe, and then he would take his choice. Till his choice was made, he had the pleasant feeling that, he could have any one he liked to honour with his regard, in the same way as before he bought his horse, he might have his choice of all horses. However he had made up his mind to buy Augustus Prebberow's mare Whalebone the very next day.