"Then at least bear me company." Taking his arm, she went with him to the arbor covered with a wild grape-vine where the table was spread. She sat down to the simple meal, while her companion served her with so much tact and grace that she could not help thinking involuntarily; "And these are peasants? What ought we aristocrats to be?" Then, as if in mockery of this reflection, a man in his shirt-sleeves with his jacket flung over his arm and a scythe in his hand passed down the street by the fence. "Freyer!" exclaimed the countess, her face aflame: "The Messiah with a scythe?"
Freyer stopped. "You called me, Countess?"
"Where are you going with that implement, Herr Freyer?" she asked, coldly, in evident embarrassment.
"To mow my field!" he answered quietly. "I have just time, and I want to try to harvest a little hay. Almost everything goes to ruin during the Passion!"
"But why do you cut it yourself?"
"Because I have no servant, Countess!" said Freyer, smiling, raised his hat with the dignified gesture characteristic of him, and moved on as firmly and proudly as though the business he was pursuing was worthy of a king. And so it was, when he pursued it. A second blush crimsoned Madeleine von Wildenau's fair forehead. But this time it was because she had been ashamed of him for a moment. "Poor Freyer! His little patrimony was a patch of ground, and should it be accounted a degradation that he must receive the scanty gift of nature directly from her hand, or rather win it blade by blade in the sweat of his brow?" So she reasoned.
Then he glanced back at her and she felt that the look, outshining the sun, had illuminated her whole nature. The fiery greeting of a radiant soul! She waved her white hand to him, and he again raised his hat.
"Where is Freyer's field?"
"Not far from us, just outside the village. Would you like to go there?"
"No, it would trouble me. I should not like to see him toiling for his daily bread. Men such as he ought not to find it necessary, and it must end in some way. God sent me here to equalize the injustice of fate."