In his soul he had gone through the trials of renunciation long ago. His passionate wishes of former times had gone through a process of weakening from loss of blood. He had learned to bow to the inevitable; he had made a special effort to acquire this bit of earthly wisdom. When he surveyed the life he had lived in the past five years, it resembled, despite its flux and the incessant change from city to city and country to country, a sojourn in a room with closed doors and drawn shades.
When he had returned to the city, which he loved simply because Eleanore lived in it, he had had no intention of reminding Eleanore of the expiration of the time mutually agreed upon. He felt that it would be a banal display of poor taste to appear before her once again as an awkward, jilted suitor, and try to reconnect the thread where it had been so ruthlessly broken five years ago. He had intended not to disturb her or worry her in any way. But to go to her and speak with her, that had been the one bright ray of hope in all these empty years.
After the scene with Herr Carovius he decided quite firmly to keep away from Eleanore.
His ready cash had shrunk to a few hundred marks. He discharged his servants, disposed of some of his jewelry, and rented one of those little houses that are stuck on the rocks up by the castle like so many wasp nests. The house he took had been occupied before him by the Pfragners, and with its three rooms was not much larger than a fair-sized cage in a menagerie. But he had taken it into his head to live there, and that was all there was to it. He bought some old furniture, and adorned the slanting walls of the dilapidated barracks with such pictures as he had.
One evening there was a knock at the green door of the cottage. Eberhard opened, and saw Herr Carovius standing before him.
Herr Carovius entered the Baron’s doll house, looked around in astonishment, and, pale as a sheet, said: “So help me God, it seems to me you are trying to play the rôle of a hermit. This won’t do; this is no place for a Baron; I will not stand for it.”
Eberhard reached for the book he had been reading, a volume of Carl du Prel, and read on without replying to Herr Carovius or even taking notice of the fact that he was present.
Herr Carovius tripped from one foot to the other. “Perhaps the Baron will be so good as to take a look at his account,” he said in a beseeching tone. “I am in a tight place. My capital is gone, and my debts in the shape of interest have been swelling like the Pegnitz in the spring of the year. Would you like to know what I have been living on for the last three months? I have been living on turnips, potato peelings, and brick cheese; that has been my daily diet; and I have submitted to it for the sake of my Baron.”
“I am not a bit interested in what you have been eating,” said the Baron arrogantly, and kept on reading.