His heart felt a pang of shame and wrath as now, like one soliciting a favor, he entered the estate of those who had already injured him so much through his life. Little was wanting to make him turn round again at the gate, but his hands clasped the reins more firmly, and his lips murmured, “It is no question of what you feel.”
He drove across the grass-grown yard, on which high thorn-bushes were blooming, and which was flanked by big, though much-neglected, farm-buildings, and stopped before the house, the shutters of which were painted in black and white circles, probably because they were sometimes used for targets.
“It is no honor to marry one’s sisters here; but they can no longer lay claim to much honor,” he thought, tying his horse to the entrance rail, for no human soul was to be seen who could have taken the reins; only from a distant shed came the measured sound of the flails.
At the moment that he entered the hall he fancied he heard a confusion of voices and then the opening and shutting of the back doors. Then, suddenly, all was still.
He entered the parlor, in which the remains of their breakfast was standing, and which was still filled with cigar smoke. For some time he stood there waiting. Then a scraggy woman slipped through the door of the next room with an embarrassed grin.
“My masters are not at home,” she said, without waiting for his question; “they drove away early this morning and will not be back for some time.”
“It does not matter; I will wait.”
The old woman began to chatter and explain that it would be quite useless to wait; she never knew beforehand when they would come back; often they stayed away all night, and so on. Meanwhile he fancied he heard a dog-cart rattling out of the yard in the greatest haste. He jumped up, alarmed, for he thought that his horse had broken loose, but he saw it quietly standing in its place; then a suspicion arose within him—a suspicion which a minute before he would have thrust back indignantly.
The old house-keeper did not dare to turn him out; and, unmolested, but also without food or drink, he sat there waiting till the evening. When it was dark he set out on his way home, discouraged and humiliated.
Next morning he returned, this time also in vain. The third day he found the gate firmly bolted. A brand-new padlock was hanging on the hasp. It seemed to have been purchased especially for him.