"Very considerate," interposed the Staatsrathin ironically; "but let us proceed."
"My request to you is, my dear sir, that you will arrange matters so that the reply of the faculty to my application shall reach me without my uncle"s knowledge, and, indeed, that you will convey it to me yourself. I also need your medical advice, for I am far from well, and my uncle has never permitted me to see a physician. I obeyed his wishes until I learnt that you reside in my neighbourhood. Now I turn to you with all my old confidence. If any one can help me, you can. I must entreat you, if you would spare me a painful scene, to come to me on a day when Doctor Gleissert is not at home. He goes to town on business every Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day. I pray you to come to me on one of these days.
"With great respect,
"Ernestine Hartwich."
"Well, that is certainly more brief and to the point than might be expected from a blue-stocking," said Moritz.
The Staatsrathin looked troubled. "It is dry and cold,--scarcely courteous,--certainly not cordial, as she might have been to her former benefactor."
"Remember, my dear friend, that nearly ten years have pa.s.sed since that time,--a very long period for so young a girl," said Heim.
"Ah, Uncle Heim," cried Angelika, "you dandle my boy on your knee now, just as you did my doll then. These years have pa.s.sed like a dream for me."
"Your nature is very different from Ernestine"s, my child," replied Heim.
"Yes, thank G.o.d!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Moritz.
The Staatsrathin folded up the letter. "I cannot help p.r.o.nouncing this letter heartless,--there is no other word for it. And mingled cowardice and defiance in regard to her uncle breathe from every line of it."
"Proving how her strong nature has been cowed by that scoundrel," cried Johannes with warmth.
His mother looked at him anxiously. "How could she, if she is such a strong, n.o.ble woman, submit to be cowed by such a man?"
"Why not, dearest mother?" replied Johannes. "However n.o.ble and strong she may be, she is only a woman, after all."
At this moment a carriage thundered past the house. They all looked out of the windows.
"The Worronska!"
"The fast countess!" cried Moritz. "What a model of an Amazon! How beautiful she is, managing those four horses and looking up here! That look is for you, Johannes. See! she is smiling at you."
"I shall not interfere with Herbert," laughed Johannes. "I hear he is devoted to her."
"What! Herbert!--to the Worronska?" cried Moritz. "How did that happen?"
"Why, he was tutor for some years to a friend of the count"s in St.
Petersburg. He knew her there," replied Johannes.
"Now, that would be a charming daughter-in-law for you, my dear Staatsrathin," said Helm. "Why, she would be even worse than the Hartwich."
"Bah!" said Johannes. "She too is only a woman. If she fell, she owed her ruin to a man,--and a man might have been her saviour."
CHAPTER II.
THE SWAN.
A dark, gloomy pile overlooked the village of Hochstetten, that lay about two miles from the city, in the midst of a charming country. It had once been called Hochstetten Castle; but since the direct line of the n.o.ble family in which it had pa.s.sed for a century from father to son had died out, and only a castellan had dwelt there, to hold it in possession for a distant branch of its ancient house, it had gone by the name of the "Haunted Castle" among the people; for of course in such an old house, where so many men had died, there must be ghosts, and popular superst.i.tion declared that the spirits of the departed still hovered about the spot where their earthly forms had been wont to wander.
But in this last year it happened that the castle was really inhabited by a spirit whose appearance inspired the vulgar, who suspect the devil"s agency in whatever they do not comprehend, with quite as much horror as they had felt at the ghosts of their former lords,--although this latter spirit still inhabited a young and very beautiful body.
Ernestine Hartwich had rented the castle, and, with her uncle, was living her strange life there. Since her arrival the house and the overgrown grounds within the high walls were certainly under a spell, and were avoided by all who were not obliged to go that way. There lay the old castle, in the midst of lovely hills and mountain-chains, embosomed in green trees, bathed in the sunlight of a dewy summer morning, and yet its gray, ancient walls looked abroad over the fresh life of wood and plain as gloomily as if they hid within them only death and decay.
Two strangers, driving past in a light vehicle, gazed gravely and silently at the place. The road grew somewhat steep, and they descended and walked beside the horse. A young peasant pa.s.sed by, with scythe and reaping-hook, and, seeing the pleasant faces of the strangers; nodded kindly to them. The elder of the two stopped, as if prompted by a sudden impulse, and asked, "What castle is that?"
"That?" was the reply. "That is the Haunted Castle."
"Who lives there?"
"The Hartwich lives there."
"Who is the Hartwich?"
"Why, the witch who has rented it."
"Why do you call her a witch?"
"Because there"s something wrong about her."
"Walk on with us a little way, if you have time, and tell us something of the lady," said the stranger.
"Oh, yes, I have time enough," replied the peasant, flattered by the interest that his remarks had excited. "But, good gracious! I do not know where to begin to tell about her. There is no beginning and no end to it."
"How does she look?" asked the younger gentleman. "Is she pretty?"
"No, indeed! She is pale and thin, and has big, coal-black eyes. And she looks so gloomy that you can tell as soon as you see her that she has an evil conscience."
"It is characteristic of the degree of culture to which the common people have attained," said the elder in an undertone to his companion, "that they have no admiration for beautiful outlines, but only for flesh and colour. They think a cla.s.sic profile ugly if there is not a plump cheek on either side of it. This rude taste for the raw material is natural and excusable in peasants and common labourers, whose work is princ.i.p.ally with raw material. Where should they learn anything better? But it is sad to think how many of the educated cla.s.ses there are whose taste is just as uncultivated, and who admire only the beautiful embodiment, not the embodied beauty."
"Yes," added the other, "it is just so in spiritual matters. An expression of thoughtfulness is always strange and gloomy in the eyes of the common people; they are attracted only by thoughtless gaiety.
The stamp of mind upon a serious brow is in their eyes the sign-manual of the evil one. But how many among ourselves are scarcely better than the people in this respect! We do not share their prejudices,--eh, Johannes?"
"No, Hilsborn, G.o.d knows we do not. This superficial idea of beauty explains the fact that Fraulein Hartwich was called ugly as a child, although she had a beautiful brow, a fine profile, and such eyes as I never saw before or since in my life,--eyes, Hilsborn,"--and he laid his hand upon his friend"s arm,--"in which lay a world of slumbering feeling, and the promise of bliss unspeakable for him who should awaken it to life. I had forgotten the little girl whom I saw only once, but when lately I encountered a glance from the eyes of that strange, lovely woman, I recognized the child again,--the poor, forsaken child.
There was the old shy melancholy in those eyes, and they pierced my heart with a foreboding pain. I could have taken her in my arms and borne her away from the hill where she stood, as formerly from the breaking bough to which she had fled from me!"
"G.o.d grant she be worthy of such a man as you!" said Hilsborn.
"Do not speak so, Hilsborn; you know I will not listen to such words.
Let us ask this fellow more about her."
He turned to the young peasant, who was walking whistling on the other side of the road.
"Is she not at least kind to the poor?" he asked.