He sprang up. “You are right; enough of these lamentations. Yes; if I were alone now—a bachelor, as in former days—I should go to America, or the Russian Steppes—there one can get rich; or I should speculate on the Exchange—to-day up, to-morrow down. Oh, there one could earn money; but so tied as one is!” He threw a lamentable glance at his wife and child; then he pointed with his hand towards the yard, from whence resounded the laughing voices of the two elder children.
“Yes; I know we must be a burden to you now,” said the woman, meekly.
“Don’t talk to me of burdens,” he answered, gruffly; “what I said was not meant angrily. I love you, and that’s enough. Now the question only is, Where to go? If at least this baby had not come, the chance of an uncertain existence might be borne for some time. But now, you ill, the child requiring careful nursing, the end of it is there is nothing for it but to buy a farm, and to give the two thousand thalers for a premium. Hurrah! that will be a nice sort of life: I with the beggar’s wallet, you with the knapsack; I with the spade, you with the milk-pail.”
“That would not be the worst, after all,” said the woman, softly.
“No?” he laughed, bitterly. “Well, that I can get for you. There is Mussainen, for instance, which is to be sold—the wretched moorland on the heath yonder.”
“Oh, why that of all places?” she asked, shuddering.
He immediately fell in love with the idea.
“Yes; that would be emptying the cup to the dregs. The lost magnificence always in view—for, you must know, the manor-house of Helenenthal exactly overlooks it. It is surrounded by moor and fen—wellnigh two hundred acres. Perhaps one could cultivate some of it—one might be the pioneer of progress. What could people say?
“‘Meyerhofer is a brave fellow,’ they would say; ‘he is not ashamed of his misfortune; he looks at it with a certain irony.’ Pah, really one should look at it with irony; that is the only sublime view of the world—one should whistle at it!” and he uttered a shrill whistle, so that the sick woman started up in her bed.
“Forgive me, my darling,” he pleaded, caressing her hand suddenly in the rosiest of humors; “but am I not right? One should whistle at it. As long as one has the consciousness of being an honest man, one can bear all adversity with a certain relish. Relish is the right word. The ground is to be sold any day, for the owner has lately gained a rich estate by marriage, and leaves this rubbish entirely uncultivated.”