"To Prora, or back to Neuenfähr; I don't know yet."
"That isn't possible, sir!"
"Why not?"
"The horses cannot stand it."
"I know better what horses can stand; I shall tell you later."
The man from Neuenfähr was vexed at the domineering tone in which the gentleman spoke to him, but did not reply. The gentleman, who now had on a great-coat with white buttons—on the way he had worn an overcoat—rolled up his collar as he now went around the shed toward the street. The light from the bar-room shone brightly upon his figure.
"Aha!" cried the man from Neuenfähr; "I thought so! One gets to be a bully when he has been in the Reserves a while. Let the devil drive the Lieutenant's carriage."
Ottomar had obtained exact information from the innkeeper; the road which led directly through the village was not to be mistaken. He walked slowly and stopped repeatedly—a few times because the storm which was blowing directly in his face prevented him from proceeding, and again because he had to ask himself what business he had in the castle. His brain was so dazed by the long journey in the open carriage through the dreadful storm, and then his heart was so disturbed; it seemed to him as if he no longer had the strength to call him a rascal to his face. And then—it had to be, must be, in the presence of his aunt, if the wretched man was not afterward to deny everything and entangle his aunt further in his web of lies, as he had entangled them all. Or was this all a preconcerted game between him and his aunt? It was, indeed, very suspicious that she had left the castle this very day so early to call the rascal to account, when they were expecting him to come. With Else, to be sure. But could not the love which she seemed to cherish for Else secretly—as everything was done in secret—could it not also be love after Giraldi's prescription; the aunt had undertaken to entice and deceive Else, just as Giraldi had deceived him. And they had both gone into the net, and the sly bird-catchers were laughing at the stupids. Poor Else—who must certainly have depended upon the fair promises, and must now contrive how she could get along as the wife of a pilot commander with a few hundred thalers, over there somewhere in that wretched fishing hamlet! That was not the cradle-song to which she listened!—These—that was to be our inheritance—the castle by the sea, as we called it, when we described our future to each other. We would occupy it together—you one wing, I the other; and, when you married the prince and I the princess, we would draw lots to see who should have it all—we couldn't both occupy it longer, because of the great retinue. And now, dearest, best of maidens, you are so far from me, awaiting your lover, who, perchance, has gone out into the storm to rescue the precious lives of a few herring fishermen, and I——
He sat down upon a rock where the road, passing by the first houses of the village, descended into a narrow ravine, and then rose again through the depression to the castle. The rock on which he sat was on the extreme edge of the ravine, above the depression. It was held firm in its socket by the roots of a fine stately fir-tree, which must once have stood further back from the edge and now bent backward, groaning and creaking under the force of the storm, as if it would avoid falling into the abyss.
"There is no help for either of us," said Ottomar.—"It has gradually crumbled away, and we stand like trees with their roots in the air. The rock which would gladly have held us cannot do so. On the contrary—one more heavy storm like this, and we shall both be lying down below! I wish to Heaven we were lying there, and that you had broken my skull in falling, and that the flood had come and washed us out to sea, and no one knew what had become of us!"