How thoroughly Truyn knew the road! The inmates of Schneeburg and Rautschin had formerly been good neighbours.
A throng of laughing, beckoning phantoms glided through his mind. Out of the blue mist of the morning of his life, now so far behind him, there emerged a slender, girlish figure with long, black braids, and a downy, peach-like face--dark-eyed Pipsi, for whom Erich, then an enthusiast of sixteen, copied poems--and a second phantom came with her, merry-hearted Tilda, who with the pert insolence of her thirteen years used to laugh so mercilessly at the sentimental pair of lovers; and Hugo, a rather awkward boy, always at odds with his tutor and his Greek grammar.
Where were they all? Hugo went into the army, and was killed in a duel; dark-eyed Pepsi married in Hungary, and died at the birth of her first child; Tilda married a Spanish diplomatist--Truyn had heard nothing of her for years;--not one of the Malzins was left in their native land, save Fritz, who at the time of Truyn's lyric enthusiasm was a curly-headed, babbling baby, before whose dimples the entire family were on their knees, and who of his bounty dispensed kisses among them.
Truyn's thoughts wandered on--he recalled Fritz as an dashing officer of Hussars. He was one of the handsomest men in the army, fair, with a sunny smile and the proverbial Malzin conscientiousness in his earnest eyes, very fastidious in his pleasures, almost dandified in his dress; spoiled by women of fashion.
"Who would have thought it!" Truyn repeated to himself, as he gazed reflectively between his horse's ears. Suddenly he became aware of a cloud of dust,--and of a delightful sensation warming his heart. He perceived Zinka and Gabrielle sitting in a low pony-wagon, and behind them in the footman's seat was Oswald. Zinka was driving, being the butt of much laughing criticism from the other two. How pleased Truyn was with the picture, and how often was he destined to recall it, the fair, lovely heads of the two women, the dark, handsome young fellow, who understood so well how to combine a merry familiarity with the most delicate courtesy! How happy they all looked!
"You are late, papa!" Gabrielle called out.
"Have I offended you again, comrade?"
"But papa--!"
"I was beginning to be a little anxious," said Zinka, "Ossi laughed at me, and said I was like his mother, who if he is half an hour late in returning home from a ride always imagines that he has been thrown and killed on the road, and that the only reason the groom does not make his appearance, is because he has not the courage to tell the sad tidings."
Oswald laughed. "Yes, my mother's fancy runs riot in such images, sometimes," he admitted, stretching out his hand for the reins, that he might help Zinka to turn round. "And how is poor Fritz?"