"Much and often," answered Erich; "but, my dear visionary friend, though there may be happy marriages without passion, there must at least be a sort of inclination; now that I do not find, and I cannot be angry with your daughter for it,--we are too unlike each other. And it were pity the dear creature, with her lively feelings, should not be happy."
"Who is to make her so?" cried the father; "there is nobody to be found whom she likes, and who is fit for her; you withdraw altogether; my unknown high-minded guest offered me to-day a most mortifying affront with his consequential manners; young Dietrich would never make a sensible husband, for I see he cannot adapt himself to the way of the world, and of young Eisenschlicht I do not even venture to speak. Besides, the loss of those glorious pictures sunk with a new weight upon my heart. Into what hiding-place has the foul fiend carried them? I would not grudge them, look you, to my worst enemy, so long as they were but visible. And then--am I not in Edward's debt too? You know at what low prices I bought of him from time to time all that he found in his paternal inheritance. He had no knowledge of the articles, set no value on them; I never pressed him, never tempted him,--but still--if the young fellow would turn an orderly man, if he would strike into the better road, if I were only sure it would not spoil him again, that he would not squander it away, I would willingly pay him a considerable arrear."
"Bravo!" cried Erich, and gave him his hand. "I have never lost sight of the young man; he is not quite so bad as the town-talk makes him out; he may still become a respectable man. If we see an improvement in him, and you feel yourself inclined in his favour, perhaps your daughter may sooner or later think well of him too, possibly she may please him. What would there be then to prevent you from bestowing your property to make them a happy pair, from dandling your grandchildren on your knees, instilling into them the rudiments of the arts, and hearing them lisp in this saloon the illustrious names of your favourite masters?"
"Never!" cried the old man, and stamped the ground. "How! my only child to such a worthless profligate? To him this collection here, to let him waste it in riot, and sell it for an old song? No friend can give me such advice."
"Be calm only," said Erich; "deliberate on the proposal dispassionately, and endeavour to sound your daughter."
"No, no!" repeated Walther aloud; "it cannot, may not be! If indeed he could produce but one of those precious incomparable pictures, which are now lost for ever, there might be some better occasion for talking on this subject. But as it is, spare me in future all proposals of this sort.--And that infernal Breughel here! I will hang him aloft there, out of my sight, with the gallows physiognomy of the old reprobate, and all his devils."
He looked up, and again Sophia was peeping down from the little window, observing their conversation. She blushed, and ran away without shutting the window, and the old gentleman cried, "That was still wanting! Now has the self-willed baggage overheard all, and very likely fills her little stubborn head with these notions."
The old friends parted, Walther dissatisfied with himself and all the world.
At a late hour in the night, Edward was sitting in his lonely chamber, occupied with a multiplicity of thoughts. Around him lay unpaid bills; and he was heaping by their side the sums which were to discharge them the next morning. He had succeeded in borrowing a fund upon fair terms, on the security of his house; and, poor as he seemed to himself, he was still satisfied in the feeling imparted to him by his firm resolution of adopting a different course of life for the future. He saw himself, in imagination, already active; he formed plans, how he would rise from a small post to a more important one, and in this prepare himself for one still more considerable. "Habit," said he, "becomes a second nature, in good as in evil; and as indolence has hitherto been necessary to my enjoyment, occupation will in future be no less so. But when, when will this golden age of my nobler consciousness really and truly arrive, when I shall be able to view the objects before me and myself with complacency and satisfaction? At present it is only resolutions and sweet hopes that bloom and beckon me on; and, alas! shall I not flag at half way, perhaps even at the outset of my career?"