Wegen having expected this intimation, it had lost its crushing weight for him, but what he had not expected was such a kindly bearer of the fatal decision.
In his blind passion for Cäcilie, he had never troubled himself about Olga; she was cast too far into the shade by the radiance that proceeded from her sister. He had often hardly remarked her presence, and yet her appearance was grand and imposing enough.
In fact, he had been very blind; to-day he must confess it to himself, when he, like Scipio upon the ruins of Carthage, sat upon those of his first love. From want of an appropriate reply, which it is not so easy to find to such disclosures, he contemplated Olga at first with a mournful glance and rather absently, then with increasing interest, for she spoke in such a cordial tone to console him, and the more he looked at her, the more did he discover that she was a handsome girl, not so intellectual as Cäcilie, but certainly more calculated to make an impression upon peoples' minds in Masuren than her sister. These were vague ideas, which were reflected in the most shadowy outlines upon the remotest background of his mind; he would have repelled them energetically had they ventured farther into the light, as unseemly and impious.
Nevertheless he had already sinned against well-founded custom of immediately taking up his hat, after such an intimation, and retiring from the scene. Olga chatted so innocently, she led the conversation with such tact to indifferent matters, but these indifferent matters were full of a special interest for Wegen. Olga's heart was not with George Sand and the père Enfantin, even although she must talk about them with Dr. Kuhl, and was fairly at home in the great questions upon which the welfare of mankind depended, had even made a note of several stock-phrases; but when dress, family events, engagements, or the affairs of relations were under discussion, then her whole nature warmed, and she quite forgot that all these subjects were most heterodox, and in part were even opposed to the social programme of the future, by which she had been obliged to swear in Dr. Kuhl's chemical laboratory. She gave Baron von Wegen great pleasure by her unexpected knowledge of all his extensive family; she knew the Wegens of Labiau and the Wegens at Insterburg. She had even once spoken to the old uncle, whose heir he was, and who lived close to the Memel in the Lithuanian woods; she was able to distinguish between first cousins and those who were more distantly connected. She planted the family tree of the Wegens before him with as steady a hand as did Joan of Arc the standard with the lilies of the Valois; and he must indeed be a degenerate nobleman who would not thus be flattered and reminded of home.
And as a good genius watched over this conversation, seeking with a soothing salve to heal a wounded heart, the discussion, by means of a sudden turn, was led to the East Prussian cookery. That was a subject of conversation to which Wegen brought a cultivated mind, and Olga, too, was quite at home in it, although she did prefer to contribute her share more to the enjoyment than to the creation of great performances in the kitchen; but she was able to give accurate information about every fish in the sea, every beast in the forest, yes, even the dwellers in carp-ponds and pheasantrys, and to determine all the sauces which, as it were, are ordained for each. This conversation was so interesting to Wegen, that when he took up his hat he had quite forgotten the cause which brought him, the terrible defeat he had sustained. As the friendship which Cäcilie had promised to him was however not possible without continuing some intercourse, Wegen easily obtained permission to repeat his visits, and, in Cäcilie's name, Olga believed herself justified in granting it.
When he left the house, Wegen was not at all in the mental condition of a rejected candidate for matrimony, which is indeed one of the most crushing which paralyses and benumbs mortal nerves. He was astonished at himself when he hummed a Lithuanian popular air, which did not breathe the elegiac spirit of the prose of an expiring race of people, but which sounded quite lively and full of enterprise. He immediately called himself to order, but he could not quite suppress a disagreeable sensation; upon close self examination he discovered in himself, although in faint outlines, a dawning resemblance to Dr. Kuhl, whom he abhorred with all due sense of propriety. Cäcilie meanwhile had come out from behind the portière, and imparted a warm eulogium to her sister for the delicacy and adroitness with which she had acquitted herself of the disagreeable task.
When Cäcilie seated herself at the worktable, a slight smile of contentment hovered round her lips. Everything was going as she wished and had planned, and she flattered herself that she had attained the desired object.
CHAPTER XI.
[IN THE CHURCHYARD.]
Blanden devoted himself most zealously to looking after the people who had suffered from the fire on his farm, and to the necessary new buildings; he seemed to be inspired with a renewed breath of life; the impetus to labour and work, which had lain perfectly dormant within him since those occurrences at the sea-side roused him afresh. Winter meanwhile had set in, and made the solitude at Kulmitten still more dreary. Blanden's resolution to form a settled home became more and more fixed, and the picture of the beautiful singer as the future goddess of the house pervaded his waking dreams with daily increasing persistency.