He had felt when he received the news as if a golden shower had fallen into his lap; it is difficult living in a city of millionaires on the salary of an assessor. And then--he had received a wound there in that brilliant bewildering life, and the scar still made itself felt at times--for instance when an elegant equipage dashed by him--black horses with liveries of black and silver and on the light-gray cushions a woman's figure, dark ostrich feathers waving above a face of marble whiteness, the luxuriant gold brown hair fastened in a knot on the neck and ah! looking so coldly at him out of her great blue eyes. After such a meeting he felt depressed for days. "A milliner's doll, a heartless woman," he called her bitterly, but he had once believed quite the reverse a whole year long till one morning he saw her betrothal in the paper. She married a banker who had often served as the butt of her ridicule. But--he had a million!
Ah, how gladly had he gone out of her neighborhood, how rejoiced he had been to turn his back on the great world, with what happiness he had written to his mother and what had he found!
But no matter! The steward whom he had for the present seemed a capable fellow; he would not spare himself in any respect and then--Wolff. He could not understand what had set Weishaupt so against the man.
He had now been wandering for some time through the busiest streets of the town. He asked for the hotel where his coachman was to wait for him. He now entered the marketplace in the midst of which the statue of Roland stands. A stately Rathhaus in the style of the Renaissance stood on the western side of the square, and lofty elegant patrician houses with pointed gables surrounded it; some adorned with bow-windows, some with the upper stories overhanging till it seemed as if they must lose their balance. Only two or three buildings were of later date, and even in these care had been taken to preserve the mediaeval character.
Agreeably surprised, Linden stopped and his glance passed critically over the front of the lofty building before which he had chanced to pause. Three tall stories towered one above another; over the great arched doorway rose a dainty bow-window which extended through all the stories and stretched up into the blue October sky as a stately tower, finished at the top with a weather-vane. The window in the bel-etage was divided into small diamond panes--that was an "æsthetic" dwelling, no doubt. In the second story rich lace curtains shimmered behind large clear panes, and a very garden of fuchsias and pinks waved and nodded from the plants outside. If a lovely girl's face would only appear above them now, the picture would be complete.
But nothing of the kind was to be seen, and casting one more glance at the artistic ironwork of the staircase, the attentive spectator turned and crossed the market-place to the hotel in order to dine. As it was already late he was the only guest in the spacious dining-room. He ate his dinner with all speed, and began his wanderings through the streets again.
Behind the Rathhaus he plunged into a labyrinth of narrow streets and alleys, then passing through an archway he entered unexpectedly a square surrounded by tall linden trees half stripped of their leaves, which, grave and solemn, seemed to be watching over a large church. It seemed as though everybody was dead in this place; only a few children were playing among the dry leaves, and an old woman limped into a sunny corner, otherwise the deepest silence reigned.
A side door of the church stood open; he crossed over and entered into the silent twilight of the sacred place; he took off his hat, and, surprised by the noble simplicity of the building, he gazed at the slender but lofty columns and the rich vaulting of the choir. Then he walked down the middle aisle between the artistically carved stalls, brown with age. He delighted in them, for he had the greatest admiration for the beautiful forms of the Renaissance, and he was doubly pleased, for he had not expected to find anything of the kind here.
Here he suddenly stopped; there at the font, above which the white dove soared with outspread wings, he saw three women. Two of them seemed to be of the lower class; the elder, probably the midwife, held the child, tossing it continually; the other, in a plain black woollen dress and shawl, a young matron, looked at the child with eyes red with weeping; a third had bent down towards her; the sexton, who was pouring the water into the basin, concealed her completely for the moment and Linden saw only the train of a dark silk dress on the stone floor.
And now a soft flexible woman's voice sounded in his ear: "Don't cry so, my good Johanna, you will have a great deal of comfort yet with the little thing--don't cry!