"I couldn't do it, Frau Pastorin," said he; "that is to say, I could, to be sure, but I oughtn't, for I must go to Rexow. Frau Nüssler has written me orders to report myself at Rexow."
The same spirit and leaven which worked in Fritz sending off froth and scum not of the purest, fermented slowly but strongly in old Bräsig, although the old cask had stood long in the cellar, and had become seasoned; and when he at last, out of respect for the Frau Pastorin and the Frau Podagra, suffered himself to be persuaded into bed, his thoughts turned the same corner which those of Fritz were turning, as going through the pease-field, back of the Pastor's garden, he stamped for the second time his heroic resolutions into the earth: "He would renounce her! Renounce her! But the devil take the confounded Junker!"
CHAPTER XIII.
The next morning--it was Sunday morning--Bräsig awoke, and lay stretching himself in the soft bed--"A pleasure," he said to himself, which I have never allowed myself before, but which is very agreeable. However, it is mainly from the novelty of the thing; one would soon get tired of it; "and he was on the point of getting up, when Frau Pastorin's maid-servant whisked in at the door, seized his clothes with one grasp, and ran off with them, leaving in their place a black coat and black trousers, and a black vest, lying on the chair.
"Ho, ho!" laughed he, looking at the black suit. "It is Sunday, and this is the parsonage; can it be possible they think I am going to preach to-day?" He lifted one garment after another, and said, at last, "Now I understand! It is only because of the ditch yesterday; because my own clothes are so wet and dirty, I must make myself comfortable in the Herr Pastor's. Well, here goes!"
But it didn't go quite so easily, and as for being comfortable that was out of the question. The clothes were long enough, to be sure, but as for breadth, he found close quarters in the Herr Pastor's trousers, it was utterly impossible to button the lower buttons of the vest, and when he put on the coat, it cramped him dreadfully between the shoulder-blades, and his arms stood out from his body, as if he were ready on this Sunday morning, to press the whole world to his honest heart.
So he went down stairs to the Frau Pastor in, his legs turned outward, as was his usual manner of walking since he had been pensioned; but his arms also were turned outward now, and the Frau Pastorin had to laugh heartily; but retreated behind the breakfast table, as Bräsig came towards her, with open arms, as if she were to be the first subject of the world-embrace.
"Don't come near me, Bräsig!" cried she '"If I had dreamed that you would cut such a ridiculous figure in my good, old Pastor's clothes, you should have stayed in bed till noon, for it will be as late as that before yours are washed and dried."
"Ho, ho!" laughed Bräsig, "was that the reason? And I was flattering myself that you sent me the Pastor's clothes that I might be more pleasing in your eyes at our rendezvous this morning."
"Just listen to me, Bräsig!" said the Frau Pastorin, with a face red as fire. "I will have no such joking as that! And if you go round in the neighborhood--you have nothing else to do now, but carry stories from one to another--and tell about last evening, and that confounded rendezvous, I'll have nothing more to say to you."