His trembling lips barely touched her forehead.
Now came a hard, hard time for Felix, made hardest of all by the touching kindness of his father, who overwhelmed him with tender attentions, had forgotten none of Felix's former fancies--surprised him now with a splendid horse, now with a gun of a new, improved kind, or a pointer dog with fabulous traits--in short, anticipated every wish which Felix had formerly expressed. But Felix no longer wished for anything but to hide himself, and this his father would not hear of.
He everywhere pushed his son forward; with the servants and overseer it was always, "I am growing old, go to the young master."
And poor Felix, humiliated by the striking submission of the people, confused and without an idea or opinion of his own, gave orders in a shy, weak voice as modestly and reservedly as he could.
However urgently he begged his father to leave him in the protecting shade of the background, the old man could not be induced to consent. He pressed the keys of his safe upon Felix, gave him free disposal of the largest sums of money. Painfully distrustful of all the rest of humanity, especially of his servants, since his misfortune, the Baron almost crushed his son by this ostentatious, conspicuous confidence.
One day he desired Felix to pay a visit with him in the neighborhood. But this Felix opposed. Elsa supported his opposition. The old Baron took that amiss in her. At that time Elsa was scarcely sixteen years old. She suffered with the Lanzberg arrogance, as Felix had suffered from it; she was hurt to the heart by Felix's deed. And yet she loved her brother, and did not wish to let him feel how heavily his disgrace weighed upon her. But she could find no natural tone in intercourse with him.
He had been a kind of idol for her, who good-naturedly descended from his pedestal to tease and caress his little sister. He had called her Liesel and Mietzel, pulled her ear or kissed her hand, mystified her with the strangest tales, gave her costly presents; then again, when his friends or important pleasures came between them, for days wholly ignored her insignificant existence.
But this time the idol had not descended from his pedestal; he had fallen down, and had become a broken man. His former teasing courtesy had changed into the shyest politeness. He never pulled her ears, and never kissed her hand, never called her Liesel or Mietzel--his manners had wholly lost their playful aplomb. He was now helpless and awkward, sat at table like a poor sinner, ate little, never spoke a word, and, rendered clumsy by embarrassment, soiled the table-cloth. He was so boundlessly obliging and considerate that it made Elsa embarrassed. He broke a refractory horse for her with the greatest patience, took care of all her favorite flowers, accompanied her on her visits to the poor, and never forgot to take with him a warm wrap for her.
He had really become a much better and lovable man than before, but the world had no use for this goodness and lovability. Even Elsa did not know how to value it. She was always constrained in intercourse with him, because she was always thinking of being kind to him. The old Baron gave her endless lectures concerning her behavior. Unweariedly attentive and tender to Felix, toward his other fellow men he was almost unbearably capricious, irritable and unjust, especially to Elsa.
Once he overwhelmed her for so long with imprudent reproaches for her heartlessness and lack of tact, that at last she cried out defiantly and refractorily, "Why was Felix so?"