"If you want to wait till you have nothing more to learn, before you begin to teach, you can write only posthumous books. I must preach very nearly the same sermon with which I yesterday converted a much more eccentric Christian; your head has reached its full growth, I think. It may be refurnished in one way or another; have a window cut here or there, but the foundations will not enlarge. And as it is tolerably spacious and not ill planned, it will be useful for the world to know how it (the world, I mean,) is reflected in this head. For my part, I have a special interest in wishing the book to be written soon; in the first place, because it must be dedicated to me and our ex-tribune of the people; and secondly, because in my own unfruitfulness, it is a satisfaction to have friends who can make themselves talked about and accomplish something entire."
When, toward evening, they parted, and Mohr went to the station, to return to his wife and child, both, though without showing it except by a somewhat over-strained gayety, were very much agitated. They had again shared what binds human beings most closely to each other, pure, unselfish hours of grave meditation and quiet sympathy, in the contemplation of the eternal verities. And moreover they felt themselves bound more strongly to each other by a renewal of the old friendship which may, even when the thoughts are unlike, and the topmost branches as it were divide, forever entwine the roots of two lives.
It was already dark, when Edwin also set out by rail to return to the little city which he had left in the morning. The unconquerable longing for home had increased to an actual fever, during the hour he was obliged to wait at the station. When the train at last stopped in the town, which now contained his world, he sprang hastily out, looking neither to the right nor left, lest he should see some acquaintance who might detain him. He did not notice the two men who had been waiting for the arrival of the same train, Reinhold and Herr Feyertag, the latter, being as we know, about to return to Berlin. They, also, were too much engrossed in conversation, to heed the traveler in a suit of grey, who rushed blindly past them and instantly turned toward the city.
When at last, panting for breath and wiping the perspiration from his brow, he reached his house, he was surprised to find the windows dark, but instantly said to himself: "She's with Reginchen." The delay annoyed him, it had never entered his mind that he should not find her at home. He hastily entered resolved to send the maid-servant for her, for he felt unable to see others to-day, even though they might be his dearest friends. But when he opened the door of his room, the girl came toward him with a light.
"Herr Doctor!" she exclaimed, almost dropping the lamp in her surprise. "Good gracious, to-day! And my mistress--"
"Where's my wife? At the next house, I suppose?"
"Preserve us! Gone away entirely, an hour ago--you must have met her at the railway station."
"At the station? What are you talking about, Kathrin? Where should she go--alone--without me--"
"She's gone to Berlin with Herr Feyertag, and she said she didn't know when she'd come back, but she'd write, and as the Herr Doctor wouldn't return for a week--"
"Gone? To Berlin?"