A few weeks passed by, during which Alick, instead of going about the place and seeing how his estate was managed, shut himself up with Flegel, the carpenter, and busied himself in making a machine from the model he had formerly invented, that would act as harrow and clod-breaker at one and the same time. He wanted to complete it as soon as possible, for the benefit of himself, and the world at large. All the letters and accounts which ought to have been attended to regularly, and which form a portion of the necessary daily work of any one who has a large estate to manage, were pushed aside as matters of small moment. When Alick came home to dinner or supper he looked as grave and important as if he had been busy at the farm all day, and wished his wife to see how very necessary his presence was for the proper conduct of affairs. And who is so credulous as a young wife? Some one may say: a girl during her engagement. But that is a mistake, for her position is not so assured. She is always trying to know and understand her future husband better. But when once a woman thinks she knows a man's character, and has given him her hand, she follows him blindly until the bandage is torn rudely from her eyes. Then she strives against the truth, refuses to credit what she sees, and thinks it her duty to disbelieve the testimony of her own eyes. They were not wicked actions that he hid from her; they were only follies which he firmly believed would improve his affairs. But it was a pity that he did not know what he was doing, and that she did not see it. It never occurred to her that he could act differently with regard to his share of the duties of the estate, from what she did in her own domain of kitchen, larder and dairy, where she went about daily, looking carefully into everything, and learning all that she could, so as to be able to take the charge of everything into her own hands.
Nothing lasts more than a certain time, and as old Kopk, the shepherd, said: Puppies have their eyes opened on the ninth day.
Late one afternoon when Mrs. von Rambow was walking up and down the garden under the shade, of the high hedge which ran round the corner of the yard near the workshop, she heard an angry dialogue on the other side of it. "So--you don't like the looks of it! Do you think that I like it any better? Ugh! Get along with you! Get along with you, or ...."--Thud came something against the door. She wondered what was the matter and peeped through the hedge, but could only see the old carpenter Frederic Flegel. There was no one else there, and all the noise was made by the carpenter, who was quarrelling with his tools and his work. It is amusing to see a man in a rage with his own handiwork, and Mrs. von Rambow smilingly watched the old man: "Go to the devil! You're a deal more trouble than you're worth."--Thud! Thud! His foot-rule flew over the half-door, and when he had picked it up, he stood staring at the ground at his feet, muttering: "Confound the thing! It has nearly bothered me out of my life!"--"Good-evening, Flegel," said another voice, and Kegel, the labourer, coming up, leant upon his spade and asked: "What are you working at here? It's a holiday you know."--"Working at, did you say? There's enough to be done in all conscience! It'll be the death of me! Look. That's supposed to be a model! I can work from a model as well as any man, but devil a bit can I make head or tail of that thing."--"Is it the same machine that you were working at before?"--"Of course it is, and it won't be finished this summer either."--"He must be a clever fellow to be able to invent a thing like that."--"Do you think so? Then let me tell you that any fool can do that sort of inventing, but it takes a wise man to make a really useful machine. Look you, there are three kinds of people in the world. Those who understand how a thing ought to be, but can't make it themselves; those who can't understand, but can work under direction, and those who can neither understand how a thing should be made, nor are able to make it, and he belongs to the last class," so saying he flung his foot-rule at the door again, adding: "And what's to be done I don't know."--"Well, Flegel, I must say that I can't make out what he means. He said we were to go straight to him whenever we wanted anything, so I went and told him I required more potato-ground, and he said he didn't understand the rights of the case, and that he would ask Mr. Hawermann. And you see if it comes to that I've no chance, for he knows that the reason I ran short before was because I didn't hoe my potatoes properly."--"Mr. Hawermann's a great deal easier to work for though. He says to me: 'Flegel,' says he, 'make a handle for this hoe;' I do it, and then he says: 'Flegel, this wheel wants mending;' I mend it as he desires, and have no more trouble; but with him ..... Ah well, Kegel, mark my words, he'll come to grief, and so shall we before very long."--"You're right there," answered the labourer, "it's all of a piece with my potato-ground."--"Fair play's a jewel!" said Flegel as he locked the workshop-door and put on his blouse. "It's your own fault about the potatoes, remember. If you'd looked after them properly you'd have had enough."--"Yes," replied Kegel, shouldering his spade, and walking away with the carpenter, "but that doesn't help me to the garden, and it seems that I must just get on with what I have."
It is a true saying that even great and learned people are pleased when they hear the praises of those they love from the mouths of children or inferiors, and it is equally true that a harsh judgment coming from the same source hurts and saddens those who hear it. It was not much that she had heard. It was only village-gossip such as foolish men continually utter, but the smile had died out of the young wife's eyes, and a look of displeasure had taken its place. Circumstances had prevented her husband fulfilling the promises he had made in ignorance of all they implied; his kindness of heart had carried him further than he had intended.
Mrs. von Rambow was very silent when Alick came in to supper, and he on the contrary was more talkative than usual. "Now then, Frida dear," he began, "we are pretty well settled, and I think it's high time for us to make some calls on our neighbours."--"Very well Alick, but who do you mean?"--"I think," he said, "that we ought to begin with those who live within walking-distance of us."--"Then we should go to see our clergyman first."--"We'll go there of course--but not quite yet."--"Who else is there?" asked Frida thoughtfully. "Oh, Mr. Pomuchelskopp and Mr. Nüssler."--"Dear Frida," said Alick, looking a little grave, "surely you're joking when you speak of the Nüsslers. We can't admit tenant-farmers to our acquaintance."--"I don't quite agree with you there," answered his wife quietly. "I think more of what people are, than of their position. Your customs here may be different from ours in Prussia, but when I lived in my father's house we knew a great many families intimately, who only rented the land on which they lived. Mrs. Nüssler is said to be very nice."--"She is the sister of my bailiff. I can't call at her house; it wouldn't do."--"But Mr. Pomuchelskopp?"--"That's quite different. He is a land-owner, is rich, and is a justice of peace as well as myself ...."--"And has a bad name in the parish, and his wife still worse. No, Alick, I won't go there."--"My dear child ...."--"No, Alick; I don't think that you quite see all the bearings of the case. Supposing Mr. Nüssler had bought Gürlitz, would you have called on him?"--"That's supposing an impossibility. I will not call on the Nüsslers," he said angrily.--"Nor I on the Pomuchelskopps, I dislike them so much," said Mrs. von Rambow decidedly.--"Frida," began her husband.--"No, Alick," she said firmly, "I'll drive to Gürlitz with you to-morrow, but will get out at the parsonage."
That was the end of it. There was no quarrel, but both held to their own determination. Frida would gladly have given way to her husband, if it had not been for the disagreeable feeling left on her mind by what she had heard, which made her feel that Alick said and did things rashly without considering the consequences, and wanted firmness to carry out his intentions. Alick would gladly have given way to his wife had he not felt that Pomuchelskopp was a rich man, and that he might find it useful to be on friendly terms with him; and he would have liked to have gone to Rexow, had it not been that the foolish notions he had picked up in his regiment stuck in his throat.
It was all over now, and could not be altered. The beginning of strife had made its way into the house, and the door had remained ajar so that it might enter in and take up its abode there. Domestic strife may be likened to the tail of a kite, such as children play with, the string forming it is very long, and there are small bundles attached to it at regular intervals. Now though these bundles are only scraps of paper, still when once they get entangled it is long and weary work trying to straighten out the tail again, for there is neither beginning nor end to be found.
The next afternoon they started on foot for Gürlitz, as Alick had agreed to Frida's request to walk instead of driving. After taking her to the door of the parsonage Alick left her, and promising to call for her on his way home, set off for the manor-house.
They had just finished coffee at the Pomuchelskopps, and Phil, Tony and the other little ones were still hanging about the table like foals before the hayrack. They dipped bits of bread into the sugar at the bottom of the coffee-cups, and smeared their faces therewith. Then they mashed up the softened bread with tea-spoons and their fingers, and wrote their own beautiful name "Pomuchelskopp" on the table with spilt coffee and milk, glancing at their mother every now and then innocently, as much as to say, it wasn't me. Mrs. Pomuchelskopp was seated at the table, dressed in her old black gown, and watching the children to see that they were behaving themselves. Pomuchelskopp himself was lying on the sofa smoking, and looking at the picture of domestic happiness, sloppy bread and melted sugar before him. He had finished his coffee, for he always had a cup made particularly for himself, though he never got it, for Mally and Sally whose duty it was to make the coffee in turns used to drink half of the cup prepared for him, and then fill it up from the family coffee-pot. He lay back in the sofa-corner, his left leg crossed over his right according to the ordinance of Duke Adolphus of Cleves: "When a judge is sitting in the judgment-hall, let him always cross his left leg over his right," &c, and if he was not a judge, he was in point of fact more than that; he was a law-giver, and was busy thinking how absolutely necessary it was for him to attend the Mecklenburg parliament when it next met.
"Henny," he said, "I intend to go to the next parliament."--"Oh!" said his wife, "hav'n't you any other opportunity of spending money?"--"Why, chick, my position demands that I should show myself there, and it won't cost me much. The next parliament is to meet at Malchin, which isn't far from here, and if I take a basket ....."--"Then I suppose you expect me to put on your boots, and wade through the mud to see that the men are doing their work?"--"You needn't trouble to do that, my chick. Gus will look after everything of that sort, and if I'm wanted I can be home at an hour's notice."--"But father," said Mally, who was considered a great politician because she was the only one of the family who ever read the Rostock newspaper to such purpose as to know where their Serene Highnesses the Grand-Duke and Grand-Duchess were staying, for Pomuchelskopp looked at nothing but the state of the corn and money markets. "But father," she said, "you ought not to go unless you are prepared to try and bring about some reforms of great importance, such as allowing middle-class landowners to wear red coats, and then the convent question." She spoke as if she thought the convent question had reference to herself.--"What!" cried Pomuchelskopp, rising and pacing the room with long strides, "you surely don't think so meanly of your father as to imagine that he would go and give his votes and influence to the middle-class landowners and neglect the interests of his own family? No, if anything goes wrong here, write for me to come home. And as for the red coat, if I'm to have it I know the best way--Let everyone look out for himself--It'll redound more to my honour if I win it for myself alone, and not merely as one of a lot of poor wretches who have only a few hundred pounds to bless themselves with. When I come home and say: Mally, I alone have got it; you may be proud of your father." While saying this he crossed the room, and blew a cloud of tobacco smoke right in the face of his innocent child, making her look like one of the angels with a trumpet sitting in the clouds, and as if she had only to put the mouth piece of the trumpet to her lips to blow a blast in her father's honour.--"Are you crazy, Kopp?" asked his wife.--"Let me alone, Henny. We must keep up our dignity. Show me your friends and I'll tell you who you are. If I vote with the nobles and ....."--"I should have thought that you'd have had enough snubbing from the nobles already."--"Henny," remonstrated Pomuchelskopp, but was stopped by Sally who was seated at the window, exclaiming: "Law! Here's Mr. von Rambow coming across the court."--"Henny," said Pomuchelskopp again, turning his expressive eyes reproachfully on his wife, "you see that a nobleman is coming to my house! But now, clear out of this, will you," he went on, driving his younger olive branches out at the door. "Mally take away the coffee things. Sally bring a duster and be quick about it. And Henny go and put on another gown."--"What!" said his wife. "Is the young man coming to my house, or am I going to his? As he thinks fit to come here, he may just take me as he finds me."--"Henny," entreated Pomuchelskopp, "let me implore you to do as I ask, you'll spoil the whole visit if you appear in that old black dress."--"Are you a fool, Muchel?" she asked without moving. "Do you think that he is coming here for the sake of either of us? He's only coming because he needs our help, and so my dress is quite good enough."--Muchel begged her once more to do as he wanted, but in vain.--Mally and Sally hastened from the room to make themselves tidy, but their mother remained sitting on her chair as stiff and upright as a poker.