"When you have seen the horses you will not think the price too high," Lato said, controlling himself with difficulty.
"Oh, the price may be all right," she rejoined, sharply, "but the extravagance seems great to me. Of course, if you have it----"
Everything swam before his eyes. He turned and left the room. That very day he sold the horses, fortunately without loss. He brought the bank-notes to his wife, who was seated at her writing-table, and put them down before her. She was startled, and tried to compromise matters. He was inflexible. For half a day the apple of discord in the shape of a bundle of bank-notes lay on the writing-table, a bait for dishonest servants; then it vanished within Selina's desk.
From that moment Lato was not to be induced to use a single penny of his wife's money. He retrenched in all directions, living as well as he could upon his own small income, derived from his maternal inheritance, and paid him punctually by his father.
He was not in the least annoyed by the shabby part he was consequently obliged to play among his wealthy associates, but when he recalled how he had previously appropriated his wife's money his cheeks and ears burned furiously.
There was no longer any talk of buying an estate. Instead, Selina's mother bought one. The Treurenbergs could pass their summers there. Why squander money on an estate? One magnificent castle in the family was enough.
Shortly after Lato's estrangement from his wife his little son died of the croup. This was the annihilation of his existence; the last sunbeam upon his path faded; all around and within him was dark and cold.
He ponders all this as he rides from Komaritz to Dobrotschau. His horse's pace grows slower and slower, his bridle hangs loose. Evening has set in. Suddenly a sharp whirr rouses the lonely man. He looks up, to see a belated bird hurrying home to its nest. His dreamy gaze follows the black fluttering thing, and he wonders vaguely whether the little wanderer will find his home and be received with affection by his feathered family. The idle fancy makes him smile; but, "What is there to laugh at?" he suddenly reflects. "Good heavens! a life that warms itself beside another life, in which it finds peace and comfort,--is not this the central idea of all existence, great or small? Everything else in the world is but of secondary interest."
For him there is no human being in whom he can confide, to whom he can turn for sympathy; for him there is only cheerless solitude.
The moon is setting; above the low mountain-spur its silver crescent hovers in the liquid light green of the summer evening sky. The castle of Dobrotschau looms up in the twilight.