But, crushed and downcast as the Von Rothsattels now were, he could not expect the same light-hearted grace that had captivated him at Frau von Baldereck's parties. They had been torn away from their accustomed circle; all the external influences, and the excitement which keep the spirits elastic, and help us to vanquish sorrow, were wanting now, and he modestly confessed that he could afford no substitute for them. But there was more than this to disenchant him. When, after a silent evening, he returned to his own room, he often regretted that they took no part in much that interested him; that their culture, in short, was of a perfectly different order; and, before long, he took the liberty of doubting whether their culture was the better of the two. Almost all his reading was new to them, and when they discussed the newspapers, he marveled at their ignorance of foreign politics. History was by no means a favorite study with the baron, and if, for example, he condemned the English Constitution, he showed himself, at the same time, very little acquainted with it. On another evening, it came out, to Anton's distress, that the family's views of the position of the island of Ceylon widely differed from those established by geographers. The baroness, who was fond of reading aloud, revered Chateaubriand, and read fashionable novels by lady writers. Anton found Atala unnatural, and the novels insipid. In short, he soon discovered that those with whom he lived contemplated the universe from a very different point of view to his own. Unconsciously they measured all things by the scale of their own class-interests. Whatever ministered to these found favor, however unbearable to mankind at large; whatever militated against them was rejected, or at least pushed out of sight. Their opinions were often mild, sometimes even liberal, but they always seemed to wear an invisible helmet, visor up, and to look through the narrow space on the doings of common mortals; and whenever they saw any thing in these that was displeasing, but unalterable, they silently shut down the visor, and isolated themselves. The baron sometimes did this awkwardly, but his wife understood to perfection how, by a bewitching turn of the hand, to shut out whatever was unwelcome.
The family belonged to the German church in Neudorf; but there was no choir there, and no pew near the altar. They would have had to sit in the body of the church among the rustics: that was out of the question. So the baron set up a chapel in the castle, and sent every now and then for a minister. Anton seldom made his appearance at this domestic worship, preferring to ride to Neudorf, where he sat by the side of the bailiff among the country people.
He had other vexations too. A wine-merchant's traveler forced his way on one occasion through sand and forest into the very study of the baron. He was an audacious fellow, with a great gift of the gab, and a devoted lover of races and steeple-chases. He brought with him a whole budget of the latest sporting intelligence, and bamboozled the baron into ordering a pipe of port wine. Anton looked at the empty purse, cursed the pipe, and hurried into the audience-chamber of the baroness. It required a long feminine intrigue to effect the retraction of the order given.
The baron was displeased with his carriage-horses, which were no longer young, and, besides, of a chestnut color. This last peculiarity might, indeed, have been supposed immaterial to him now, but it had been an annoyance for years, his family having always had a preference for roans; nay, was there not an old distich to the following effect:
"Who rides thus through the fray alone?
I ween a noble knight,
The red drops fall from his gallant roan,
With red is the saddle dight."
This was supposed to allude to some remote ancestor, and on this account the Rothsattels (red-saddles) prized roans above all other horseflesh; but, as the color is rare in handsome horses, the baron had never had the good luck to meet with them. Now, however, Fate willed that a horse-dealer in the district should just bring round a pair. The blind man evinced a delight which much affected the ladies. He had them ridden, and driven backward and forward, carefully felt them all over, took Karl's opinion as to their merits, and revolved a plan of pleasantly surprising the baroness by their purchase. Karl ran to advertise Anton of the impending danger, and he again entered the audience-chamber, but on this occasion he met with no favorable hearing. The baroness, indeed, allowed that he was not wrong in theory, but still she implored him to let the baron have his own way. At length the new horses were in all secrecy led to their stalls, and the purchaser gave, besides the chestnuts and all the money he had in his private purse, a promise of letting the horse-dealer have, after the next harvest, two hundred bushels of oats at an unreasonably low price. Anton and Karl, in their zeal for the estate, were highly indignant at this when it first came to their knowledge months later.
The forester had the misfortune not to be an especial favorite. The baroness disliked the abrupt manner of the old man, who, in his solitude, had entirely lost the obsequiousness to which she was accustomed. One evening a plan was disclosed of giving him notice, and replacing him by a younger man, who might be dressed in livery, and serve as a representative huntsman, the family having been used to a functionary of this kind on their late estate. Anton had some difficulty in concealing his annoyance while stating that, in the disturbed state of the district, the experienced man, who was feared by every scapegrace around, was of more use than a stranger. Lenore was on his side, and the plan was given up, with a look of resignation on the part of the baroness, and an icy silence on that of her husband. Both henceforth endured the uncouth old man with outward composure, but with visors down.
These were slight discords, indeed, such as must necessarily occur when we live with people whose habits of thought and action differ from our own; but it was no sign of contentment that Anton kept constantly repeating this to himself. Not only did Karl suit him in many ways better than the family, but so did the forester, and the shepherd too; and he sometimes felt with pride that he was other than they were—that he was one of the people. Lenore, too, was not what he had imagined her. He had always honored in her the lady of rank, and felt her cordial friendship a favor; but now she ceased to impress him as a distinguished person. He intimately knew the pattern of all her cuffs and collars, and very plainly saw a small rent in her dress which the careless girl herself was long in observing. He had read through the few books that she had brought with her, and had often, in conversation, overstepped the limits of her information. Her way of expressing herself no longer excited his admiration, and he would have been less indignant than of yore if his friend Fink had made inquiry as to her sense. She had less information than another girl of his acquaintance, and her tastes were not half so cultivated; but hers was a healthy, upright nature; she had quick feelings and noble instincts, and oh! she was beautiful. That he had always thought her, but his tender reverence long wrapped her image round with a sacred halo. It was now, however, when he saw her daily in her simple morning dress, in the every-day moods of this working world, that he first felt the full spell of her blooming youth. Yet he was often dissatisfied with her too. One of the first days after her arrival she had anxiously inquired how she could make herself useful in the house, and he told her that her superintendence in the kitchen, and exact keeping of accounts, might be of very great use indeed. He had ruled an account-book for her, and had had the pleasure of teaching her how to make entries in it. She threw herself warmly into the new pursuit, and ran into the kitchen ten times a day to see how Balbette was getting on; but her calculations were not much to be depended upon, and after having for a week conscientiously labored at the task, some days of sunshine came, and then she could not resist accompanying the forester on his rounds after game, or riding far beyond the boundary of the estate on her little pony, forgetting alike the cook and her book-keeping.
Again she purposed studying history and learning a little English under Anton's superintendence. Anton was delighted. But she could not recollect dates, found the pronunciation of English impossible, and sauntered off into the stable, or went into the room of the bailiff, whose mechanical achievements she could watch with the utmost interest for hours at a time. One day, when Anton came to call her to her English lesson, he found her in Karl's room, a plane in her hand, working hard at the seat of a new sledge, and good-naturedly saying, "Don't take so much trouble with me, Wohlfart; I can learn nothing: I have always been a dunce."
The snow again lay thick on the ground, and millions of ice-crystals glittered in the sunshine on bush and tree. Karl had two sledges in order, one a double-seated one, the other a running sledge for the young lady, which, with her assistance, he had painted beautifully.