At dinner Wilhelm found himself beside Frau Brohl. The old lady was still fond of him, and never forgot how well he had behaved at a critical moment, and with what modest self-perception he had acknowledged that he was not the husband for her granddaughter.
Searching about for something agreeable to say to him, or for a subject that would be sure to interest him, she suddenly remembered one, and said, between the fish and the roast, "Have you heard the story about your old flame, Frau Von Pechlar?"
Wilhelm started and changed color.
Frau Brohl never noticed, and continued in her soft complaining voice: "Your guardian angel saved you there, Herr Doctor. You would have come off nicely if you had married Fraulein Ellrich. There have been all sorts of rumors for years, but now it has come to an open scandal. She has left Herr von Pechlar and gone off with a count, who has been hanging about her for some time. They say she has gone to Italy with him."
Wilhelm made no reply, but he was surprised himself to feel how deeply the information affected him, so that he could not breathe freely all the evening, and although it was late before he got to bed, he could not sleep for hours, thinking of the girl he had once loved, who was now rushing blindly down the path of dishonor. Why should the thought pain him so much? Do heart wounds heal so slowly and imperfectly that a rough touch can make the scar burn and throb after long years? Or was it regret at the besmirching of a picture which till now had shone so purely and been so sweetly framed in his memory? He did not know, but for days it depressed him to the verge of melancholy.
In return for the hospitality he had received New Year's Eve was spent at Herr von Swerte's. The whole Haber family, with Frau Brohl and Frau Marker—the white grandmamma and the brown grandmamma, as Willy called them, to distinguish them from one another—drove over in the afternoon to Ronneburg by way of Harburg, but Wilhelm could not be prevailed upon to accompany them. Paul took him severely to task; Malvine represented to him, with an eloquence unusual to her, the horrors of a lonely New-Year's Eve; Frau Brohl pointed out the advantages of celebrating the festive occasion in a company composed entirely of rich people; and even Willy entreated, "Do come, Onkelchen, you can take care of me on the road." All their persuasion proving fruitless, they finally left him to his fate, and he remained behind alone.
Night found him at the writing-table in Paul's study, his head in his hand, lost in thought. At last he shook himself out of his deep brooding and wrote the following letter to Schrotter:
"My Revered Friend, I will not now break the habit of eight years, but will spend my New Years' Eve with you, the person who stands nearest to me in all the world. I am alone in this grand villa, the servants seem to be enjoying themselves downstairs over their roast goose and punch, Paul has taken his family and gone into the country to the castle of a neighboring estate owner by whom he is evidently very much impressed, and I can chat with you undisturbed.
"I wish you could live for a time in close contact with Paul, as I am doing, you would be surprised and pleased. His development has been wonderfully logical, and he now affords the spectacle, so intensely interesting to the observant eye, of a person whose every capacity, under the influence of the most favorable combination of circumstances imaginable, has attained to the utmost limit of growth which is possible to it. Paul has become the ideal type of our North German landed proprietor. He is ultra conservative, and considers the Socialist Act too mild. He loathes parliamentarianism, but would wish that the Landrath had not the power to appoint even a police constable without the consent of the estate owners of the district, and raves about local police prerogative. His only newspaper, beside the little local one, is the Kreuzzentung, he is learned in the Army List, and the writing-table at which I am sitting is strewed with volumes of the Almanac de Gotha. He looks after his subjects—for I think he calls his workmen his subjects—in a truly fatherly or feudal manner, but I do not doubt that he would drive the best of them off the estate with dogs, if, even in the depth of winter, they did not stand hat in hand the whole time they were talking to him. The sole problem of the universe which has any sort of interest for him is the outlook of the weather for the harvest. The course of human or superhuman events arouses his wonder, his doubts, or his anxiety only in proportion as it affects the price of corn. He cannot grasp that one should have any other aim in life than to become a successful agriculturist. He finds full satisfaction in his work, and what between a charming wife and an adored child he would afford an example of what the fables and proverbs tell us does not exist—a perfectly happy man, if one thing were not lacking, the little word 'von' in front of his name. I trust he may not die without obtaining it, and then the world will have contained one mortal who has known absolutely boundless happiness.
"But in writing to you in this strain my conscience pricks me. Is it not unkind toward Paul, whose attachment to me is positively touching? Is it not churlish to exercise such cold crticism upon a friend whose faithful affection has never for one moment wavered? He surrounds me with endless proofs of his affection, and is always on the lookout for something which may give me pleasure. He is a passionate sportsman—his only passion as far as I can see—and worries me twice a week to join him on his shooting expeditions. He is a masterly 'skat player, and is most anxious to enrich my existence by the joys which, according to him, this intellectual game affords to its adepts. When I venture timidly to propose that I should leave him and live by myself, he looks so honestly hurt and grieved that I have not the courage to insist further. And Frau Haber, kind soul, who is so set upon getting me married and thereby insuring my happiness! I and marrying! What have I to offer a woman? Love? I am too poor in illusions. Amusements—society—the theater? All that is a horror to me. And moreover, I question if I have a right to bring a being into the world, over whose destiny I have no control, and whose existence would most certainly be richer in pain, and misery than in happiness; and I know unquestionably that I have no right to teach a light-hearted girl to think, and force her to exchange the artless gayety of a playful little animal for my own fruitless speculations and never-to-be-satisfied yearnings.