The Princess demurred, but finally accepted the compromise; reflecting that if this stranger were to dine alone with her, she would be able to ascertain much more about him than if Wanda, who had been created void of all natural curiosity, and who would have been capable of living with people twelve months without asking them a single question, would render it possible to do were she present.
Meanwhile, the physician hurried back to his new friend, who had a great and peculiar interest for him as the editor of the "Mexico", and offered him, with the permission of the Countess von Szalras, to wile away the chill and gloomy day by an inspection of the Schloss.
Joachim Greswold was a very learned and shrewd man, whom poverty and love of tranquil opportunities of study had induced to bury himself in the heart of the Glöckner mountains. He had already led a long, severe, and blameless life of deep devotion and hard privation, when the post of private physician at Hohenszalras in general, and to the Princess Ottilie in especial, had been procured for him by the interest of Prince Lilienhöhe. He had had many sorrows, trials, and disappointments, which made the simple routine and the entire solitude of his existence here welcome to him. But he was none the less delighted to meet any companion of culture and intelligence to converse with, and in his monotonous and lonely life it was a rare treat to be able to exchange ideas with one fresh from the intellectual movements of the outer world.
The Professor found, not to his surprise since he had read the "Mexico", that his elegant grand seigneur knew very nearly as much as he did of botany and of comparative anatomy; that he had travelled nearly all over the world, and travelled to much purpose, and knew many curious things of the flora of the Rio Grande, whilst it appeared that he possessed in his cabinets in Paris a certain variety of orchid that the doctor had always longed to obtain. He was entirely won over when Sabran, to whom the dried flower was very indifferent, promised to send it to him. The French Marquis had not Greswold's absolute love of science; he had studied every thing that had come to his hand, because he had a high intelligence, and an insatiable appetite for knowledge; and he had no other kind of devotion to it; when he had penetrated its mysteries, it lost all interest for him.
At any rate he knew enough to make him an enchanting companion to a learned man who was all alone in his learning, and received little sympathy in it from anyone near him.
'What a grand house to be shut up in the heart of the mountains!' said Sabran, with a sigh. 'I do believe what romance there still is in the world does lie in these forests of Austria, which have all the twilight and the solitude that would suit Merlin or the Sleeping Beauty better than anything we have in France, except, indeed, here and there an old château like Chenonceaux, or Maintenon.'
'The world has not spoilt us as yet,' said the doctor. 'We see few strangers. Our people are full of old faiths, old loyalties, old traditions. They are a sturdy and yet tender people. They are as fearless as their own steinbock, and they are as reverent as saints were in monastic days. Our mountains are as grand as the Swiss ones, but, thank Heaven, they are unspoilt and little known. I tremble when I think they have begun to climb the Gross Glöckner; all the mystery and glory of our glaciers will vanish when they become mere points of ascension. The alpenstock of the tourist is to the everlasting hills what railway metals are to the plains. Thank God! the few railroads we have are hundreds of miles asunder.'
'You are a reactionist, Doctor?'
'I am an old man, and I have learned the value of repose,' said Greswold. 'You know we are called a slow race. It is only the unwise amongst us who have quicksilver in their brains and toes.'
'You have gold in the former, at least,' said Sabran, kindly, 'and I dare say quicksilver is in your feet, too, when there is a charity to be done?'