Part 44 (2/2)
”Oh, ho, is that meant for us?” cried the Forester angrily. ”We did not force you--both of you could have said no if you had wished.”
”Well, we do that now as a supplement,” returned Willibald, so quickly that Schonan looked at him amazed. ”Toni came to the same conclusion that custom alone is not sufficient for marriage, and if one has learned to know happiness, one wants to possess it also.”
Fran von Eschenhagen, who had not yet quite regained her breath, started at these words as if bitten by a snake. It had never entered her mind that a second engagement would follow the first, now broken.
She had never contemplated this most awful of possibilities.
”Possess it,” she repeated. ”What do you wish to possess? Does that mean perhaps that you want to marry this Marietta--this creature----”
”Mamma, I beg you to speak in a different tone of my future wife,” her son interrupted her, so gravely and decidedly that the angry mother stopped indeed. ”Toni has given me freedom; therefore there is no wrong in my love for Marietta, and Marietta's reputation is blameless--I am convinced of that. Whoever hurts or offends her has to answer to me, even if it should be my own mother.”
”Hear, hear! the boy is coming out,” murmured the Chief Forester, with whom the sense of justice overpowered his vexation, but Frau von Eschenhagen was far from listening to justice.
She had thought to crush her son with her appearance, and now he offered her resistance in this never before heard of manner.
His manly behavior tried her most, as she recognized by it how deep and powerful was the feeling which could change him so completely.
”I will spare you the enforcement of it toward your mother,” she said with boundless bitterness. ”You are of age, and master of Burgsdorf. I cannot prevent you, but if you really bring this Marietta Volkmar there as your wife--then I leave.”
This threat did not miss its aim. Willibald started and drew back.
”Mamma, you speak in anger.”
”I speak in deepest earnestness. As soon as an actress enters the house where I have lived and worked for thirty years--where I had hoped to lay my head down for its final rest--I shall leave the house forever.
She may reign there then. You have the choice between her and your mother.”
”But, Regine, do not force it to such a conclusion,” Schonan tried to pacify her. ”You torture the poor boy with this cruel 'either--or.'”
Regine did not listen to the exhortation. She stood there white to the lips, her eyes immovably fixed upon her son, and she repeated unyieldingly:
”Decide for yourself--this girl or me.”
Willibald had also turned pale, and his lips quivered painfully and bitterly as he said in a low tone:
”That's hard, mamma; you know how I love you, and how you hurt me with your going away; but if you really are so cruel as to force me to choose, well then”--he straightened himself with decision--”then I choose my betrothed.”
”Bravo!” cried the Chief Forester, forgetting entirely that he was one of the offended ones. ”w.i.l.l.y, I feel like Toni. I begin only now to really like you. I am positively sorry now that you will not be my son-in-law.”
Frau von Eschenhagen had not expected such a turn of affairs. She had trusted in her old power, which she now saw fall into fragments, but she was not the woman to give in. She would not have bent her obstinate will even if her life had depended upon it.
”Good! then we have finished with each other,” she said curtly, and turned to go without heeding her brother-in-law, who followed her, trying to pacify her; but before they reached the door it was opened and a servant entered with a hasty announcement:
”The steward of Rodeck is outside and begs----”
”I have no time now,” stormed the impulsive Schonan. ”Tell Stadinger I cannot speak with him at present. I have important family affairs----”
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