Part 9 (1/2)

”But grandpapa was right!” exclaimed Johanna. ”Cousin Otto must have acknowledged that, for he speaks of him with the greatest reverence, and calls him a n.o.bleman in the fullest sense of the word.”

Magelone shrugged her shoulders. ”My dear child, that is the Donninghausen craze. They all imagine that because they bear this name they are superior to all other human beings; and since they are not so,--I mean the younger generation,--they fall down and wors.h.i.+p the old gentleman, in whom the family craze has become flesh and blood. But what have we to do with that?” she went on, jumping up and throwing her arms around Johanna. ”You are not weighted with the sacred name. I have, for a while at least, thrown it aside, and I only wish we could really and truly enjoy life. There it goes again!” she added, with an expression of comic despair,--”that dreadful bell, for the second breakfast, and then four vacant hours before it rings again to call us to dinner. Poor Johanna! Day after day pa.s.ses here, each the exact counterpart of these last twenty-four hours, year out, year in, and there is nothing for it but to lament with Heine's Proserpine,--

''Mid corpses pale, While Lemurs wail, To grieve away my youthful days.'”

Whilst Magelone was revealing this melancholy prospect to the new inmate of the castle, the Freiherr had gone to his sister in the morning-room, where, as he paced to and fro after his wonted fas.h.i.+on, with his hands clasped behind him, he said, ”I am surprised and delighted to find how well Johanna suits us. Although she has been here so short a time, I seem nearer to her than to Magelone.”

”Yes, because she has more soul,” said the old lady.

The Freiherr shrugged his shoulders. ”My dear Thekla, what is her soul to me? She is clever and--strange as it sounds, and much as the word irritated me, coming from Magelone--she has race. More than any other of my grandchildren is she flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.”

Aunt Thekla nodded a.s.sent, and the Freiherr went on:

”It makes me anxious, too. What is to become of the child? She does not belong in our circle. She is too good to be married to one of these new-fangled n.o.blemen, who, in spite of their descent, are quite ready to throw themselves away upon any peasant's or tradesman's daughter provided she has money; and to allow her to fall back into a rank which would separate her from us entirely,--a great pity, a great pity!”

”But must she of necessity be married?” asked Aunt Thekla.

”Of course!” said the Freiherr.

”I have not been----” the old lady began.

Her brother interrupted her. ”But you were betrothed to one your equal in rank. Since you vowed fidelity to your lover before his death, I respected your vow, much as it went against the grain with me.”

”Dear Johann, will you not likewise respect the desire of Johann Leopold's heart?” asked Aunt Thekla.

The Freiherr turned short and stood before her. ”Has the lad complained,--taken refuge behind a petticoat----?”

”Not at all,” his sister interposed. ”He has not said a word; I heard it from Magelone. And I know Johann Leopold's heart; I know that he has not yet recovered Albertine's loss.”

”Nonsense!” cried the Freiherr. ”It is his duty, as the heir, to marry.

He knows it perfectly, and when a suitable _partie_ is offered him without his looking for her or courting her, I promise you he'll say yes and amen without a word.”

Aunt Thekla shook her head dubiously.

”Do you call it a suitable _partie_?” she said. ”I fear that Magelone, with her love of amus.e.m.e.nt and her superficiality, will make Johann Leopold unhappy, or that he will make her so.”

”I do not think so,” said the Freiherr. ”On the contrary, she will spirit him up, and he will tone her down; a very good thing for both.

The stronger will get the upper hand, I don't care which it is. My duty is to look out for the continuance of the family intrusted to my care.”

”Dear Johann, do not take it amiss, but it strikes me that you look out for it rather too much,” the old lady said, timidly.

”Too much!” the Freiherr repeated, pausing again before his sister, and his eyes flashed. ”Do you really think that too much can be done in this age of indifference and degeneracy? I can understand such a thought in the younger generation, which is for the most part senseless and objectless, and finds it easiest to swim with the current. But I--I hoped you knew this without needing my a.s.sertion--I have sworn to stand fast as long as I can, and to hold fast as much as I may. We have been taught, and we have believed, that, like everything else on earth, the differences of rank are inst.i.tuted and decreed by the Almighty. Since when has this not been so?”

He paused, and seemed to expect a reply, but the increasing violence of his tone and manner had intimidated his sister. She sat mute, with downcast eyes; and after a pause he went on:

”I do not wish to find fault with those who think otherwise. 1848 thinned our ranks. But for those who believe as I do it is all the more an imperative duty to a.s.sert themselves. I have done so. I have made great sacrifices to my convictions, and I feel that I have thereby purchased the right, so long as my eyes are open to the light, to provide for Donninghausen according to the dictates of my reason and my conscience. If you think I do too much--well, I must endure that reproach.”