Part 22 (1/2)

The man had realized the promise of the boy; intoxication had torn away the mask of hypocrisy, and there was the stupid, dissolute face of the Halle student, whom Gotthold so well remembered. It could not be otherwise. But that this pitiful creature should be his father's successor, this blinking owl sit in the eyrie of the eagle, whose fiery eyes had always sought the sun; this coa.r.s.e buffoon be permitted to tinkle his bells in the very place where the preacher, with glowing eloquence, had summoned his hearers to repentance and atonement, seemed to him a personal insult. And yet this man was in his proper place; the flock was worthy of the shepherd; everything here was of a piece--like a picture drawn by some master hand, in the boldest outlines and most glaring colors: the drunken Pastor nodding in the sofa corner, the excited, wine-flushed faces of the gamblers, the voluptuous figure of the maid-servant pa.s.sing to and fro and handing the fiery beverage to the revellers, exchanging a sly smile or hasty word with one, coquettishly pus.h.i.+ng away the hand of another, who tried to pa.s.s his arm around her waist--the true G.o.ddess of this temple of sin!--and the whole enveloped in the circling wreaths of gray smoke which ascended from the constantly burning pipes, and floated in dusky red rings around the dim wicks of the candles; only that it was no picture, but the coa.r.s.est, rudest, most commonplace reality. And alas, the outrage that she should be compelled to live under this roof, that the wild riot should re-echo even in her quiet room--not for the first or last time!-that these were the men who frequented the house--these empty-headed, silly young n.o.blemen, this rough upstart, with his coa.r.s.e hands and coa.r.s.er jests. And when this company of fauns and satyrs departed, to have for her only consoler solitude--solitude which stared at her with cold, hard, piercing serpent eyes. There they were, those very eyes; they had just glanced over the cards with a quick stealthy look! Those eyes, and hers--soft, gentle, tender!

Gotthold no longer saw the gamblers. He beheld her sitting in the lonely nursery beside her child's playthings; a touching figure, still so girlish in its soft, delicate outlines. He saw the sad face suffused with a roseate flush of joy, saw it disfigured with pain and terror-he lived over in imagination the whole scene, which already seemed like a dream; and dreamed on of a future which must surely come, a future full of sunlight, love, and poetry.

He could not have told how long he had been sitting absorbed in thought, when a loud noise at the gaming-table suddenly startled him.

Something unusual seemed to have happened; Hans Redebas and Brandow alone retained their seats, the others were bending over the table with eager faces; even Rieke was gazing so intently that she forgot to push away the a.s.sessor's arm, which had been thrown around her waist.

”Do you take it again?” cried Redebas.

”Yes.”

”Another thousand? That will make it five!”

”Devil take it, yes!”

A breathless silence followed, in which Gotthold heard nothing but the noise of the cards Redebas dealt, and then another outcry and tumult, such as had previously roused him from his revery, only this time it was so loud that even the drunken Pastor staggered out of his corner.

Gotthold approached the table. His first glance rested upon Brandow's face, which was deadly pale; but his thin lips were firmly compressed, and a disagreeable smile even sparkled in his stern, cold eyes, as he now cried, turning to the new-comer:

”They have plucked me finely, Gotthold; but night never lasts forever.”

”But this,” cried Redebas throwing the cards on the table, and making a memorandum in his pocket-book, ”I decline!”

”What does that mean?” asked Brandow.

”That I will play no more,” answered Redebas with a loud laugh, closing his pocket-book and rising heavily.

”I always thought the loser could break up the game, not the winner.”

”If the winner is not sure of his point--oh! yes.”

”I demand an explanation!” cried Brandow, pus.h.i.+ng the table aside.

”Why, Brandow, do be reasonable!” exclaimed Otto and Gustav von Pluggen, in the same breath.

”Are you in partners.h.i.+p again?” answered Brandow with a sneering laugh, and then stepped before Redebas: ”I demand an explanation at once!”

The giant had drawn back a step: ”Oho,” he cried; ”if that's what you want, come on!”

”My dear Brandow,” said the a.s.sessor soothingly, putting himself between them.

”I know what I am doing, Herr a.s.sessor,” answered Brandow, pus.h.i.+ng him aside.

”And I know too,” cried Redebas, throwing up the window, and shouting across the quiet court-yard in a voice like the roar of a lion.

”Harness the horses, August! harness the horses!”

A scene of wild confusion followed, in which all shouted together, so that Gotthold could only distinguish a word here and there. Hans Redebas raved loudest of all, but apparently quite as much from fear as anger, while Brandow remained comparatively calm, and was evidently intent upon separating the a.s.sessor, who was constantly intermeddling, from the three others whom the Pastor now joined, and by all possible signs announced his intention of making a speech, in which he actually several times got as far as the beginning: ”My beloved friends!”

The three carriages, to which the impatient coachmen had harnessed the horses long before, drove up. The quarrel had been continued from the room to the hall, from the hall to the door, and even to the carriage steps.

”We shall see, we shall see,” cried Hans Redebas; ”are you in, Pastor?