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Old Meyerhofer revelled in happiness. The promise of the rich Douglas to participate in his undertakings had raised his chances suddenly to a giddy height. The ears which for him heretofore had been closed began to listen to his explanations with eagerness, and in the public houses, where until now he had been received with a half ironical, half pitying smile, he was now considered a great man.
"He will join me with half his fortune," he related, "we are already in communication with Borsig, in Berlin, who is going to furnish us with the necessary machines, we have written to Oldenburg for a technical director, and every day we have inquiries at what price we are able to sell the peat blocks per million."
The consequence was that they pressed him to begin issuing his shares and when they gathered round him and asked him to reserve so and so many shares for each, he drew himself up proudly and said they would probably remain in private hands.
At home he was busy designing the new headings for the note paper of the future firm, and the borrowed money jingled in all his pockets.
Four weeks had passed since that midsummer night, when there came from Helenenthal two cards of invitation one for Meyerhofer junior and the other for the young ladies.
"For a garden party," they said.
"Aha! they court our favor already," the old man cried, "the rats smell the bacon."
Paul went with his card—which bore Elsbeth's hand-writing—behind a haystack, and there studied each letter of it in solitude for wellnigh an hour.
Then he went up to his garret and stood before the looking glass.
He found that his whiskers had grown in fulness and only at the cheeks still showed thin places.
"It will do very well," he said, in an attack of vanity, but when he saw himself smile he wondered at the deep sad lines which ran from his eyes, past his nose, down to the corners of his mouth.
"Wrinkles make one interesting," he consoled himself by thinking.
From this hour he exclusively thought about what role he was to play at the party.
He practised before the looking glass making stylish bows, and every morning looked at his Sunday suit, and tried to hide the shabbiness of his coat by brushing some black color over it.
The invitation had caused a great revolution in his mind It was for him a greeting from the promised land of joy, which he, like Moses, had never seen but from afar. It was not for nothing that he was twenty years old.
The day of the party arrived. His sisters had put on their white muslin dresses and fastened dark roses in their hair. They skipped up and down before the looking glass and asked each other, "Am I beautiful?' And though each willingly replied" Yes,' to this question, they hardly knew how beautiful they were.
His mother sat in a corner, looked at them and smiled.
Paul ran hither and thither in confusion. He inwardly wondered how such a joyful event could cause one such great anxiety. He had prepared all sorts of beautiful speeches which he intended to hold at the party about the welfare of humanity, about peat-culture, and Heine's "Buch der Lieder". They should see that he was able to converse amiably with ladies.
The open carriage, a remainder of past splendor, took the brother and sisters to the party. They were to return on foot.
As they approached, Paul saw behind the fence bright colored dresses flitting through the shrubs and heard the giggling of merry girls' voices. His uncomfortable feeling was considerably augmented by this.
In the veranda Mr Douglas received them with a merry laugh. He pinched the sisters' cheeks, slapped him on the shoulder, and said,
"Well, young knight, to day we are going to win our spurs."
Paul turned his cap in his hand and broke into a silly laugh, at which he felt angry with himself.
"Now allons to the ladies!" cried Mr Douglas, taking the sisters one on each arm, while he himself had to trot behind them.
The giggling came nearer and nearer. Gay men's voices were intermingled with it—he felt as if he were going to be beheaded. And then a sort of veil came over his eyes, indistinctly he saw the crowd of strange faces, which seemed to stare at him from the clouds. His speeches about the turf- culture came to his mind, but there was nothing to be done with them at this moment.
Then he saw Elsbeth's face rise in the mist. She wore a brooch of blue stones and smiled at him kindly. In spite of this smile she never had appeared so strange to him as at that moment.
"Mr Paul Meyerhofer, the companion of my childhood,' she said, taking his hand, and leading him round. He bowed to all sides, and had a vague feeling that he was making himself ridiculous.
"Eh, there is my pattern boy," the cousin's merry voice called out, and all the ladies giggled.
Then he was asked to sit down and was offered a cup of coffee.
"Mamma has gone to lie down a little," Elsbeth whispered to him, "she is not quite well to day."
"Isn't she?" he said, and smiled in a silly manner Cousin Leo had gathered a circle of young ladies round himself, and told them a story about a young lawyer who had been so fond of sweets that, seeing a bag pralines which he was not allowed to have, he had been crystallized into a sugar loaf. They almost died with laughter over this.
"Oh, if only I could tell such stories," thought Paul to himself and, as nothing better occurred to him, he ate one piece of cake after the other.
Ihe sisters had immediately been laid hold of by several strange gentlemen, they laughed boldly in their faces while the quickest repartees flowed from their mouths.
The sisters suddenly appeared to him like beings from a higher world.
"Now we are going to play a nice game, ladies," said Cousin Leo putting one knee across the other, and leaning back negligently in his arm chair. "The game is called 'Proposing.' The ladies walk about singly and the gentlemen, too. The gentleman asks the lady he meets, ' Est ce que vous m'armez? ' and the lady either answers ' Je vous adore '—then she is his wife—or she silently refuses him. He who receives the most refusals receives a nightcap, which he has to wear during the rest of the whole evening."
The ladies thought this game very amusing, and all rose to set to work directly Paul rose, too, though he would have liked best to remain in his dark corner.
"What can those foreign words be?" he asked himself, he would have liked to inquire of one of the gentlemen, but he was ashamed to betray his ignorance and so to disgrace his sisters. Elsbeth had gone away with the other girls, he would have liked best to confide in her.
He went after the others, quite depressed, but when he saw the first lady coming towards him his anxiety was so great that he quickly left the path and hid in the thickest shrubs.
There was a little wilderness there, as if it might have been in the deepest part of the wood Nettles and ferns raised their slender stalks, and the uncanny wolf's milk was competing for supremacy with the burdock. In the midst of this tangled undergrowth he crouched down, put his elbows on his knees, and meditated.
"So that was what people called amusing themselves? It was a good thing that he should learn it for once, but like it he could not. Anyhow, it was nicer at home, and, besides, who could know whether the servants had finished weeding in time—whether the peat had not been piled up too damp? There was much to do at home, while he was lingering about here, entering into silly games like a fool. If it had not been for Elsbeth—but, indeed, what good was she to him? As she smiled at him so she smiled at them all, and if Cousin Leo began with his jokes how bold he was, how he flattered them all. Oh the world is bad, and they are all false—all, all!"
He heard his name being called from the path, but he pressed himself the closer into his hiding place. Here at least he was sheltered from mockery. An oppressive sultriness was in the air, sleepy buzzing drones were creeping about on the ground. A thunder storm seemed at hand.
"It's all the same to me," thought Paul, "I have nothing to lose and—the winter rye is in"
It had grown quiet outside—from the distance the clatter of glasses, glass plates, and teaspoons could be heard, and from time to time it was intermingled with a suppressed laugh.
Paul drew in his breath. The longer he remained in his hiding place the more dejected he felt, at last he appeared to himself like a school boy who hides to escape his master's punishment. The smell of the weeds became more intense and more unbearable, an unpleasant moisture came up from the damp ground, like a pale fog it rose before his eyes Steel blue clouds rolled up in the sky, the thunder began to resound afar.
"That's what they call pleasure," thought Paul.
There was a rustling in the branches. Heavy drops came splashing down on the leaves, then Paul crept out of his hiding place like a criminal.
Shouts of laughter—welcomed him from the veranda.
"There comes August" one of the gentlemen called out, softly. He had been in Berlin and had seen the circus there, and the others joined him.
"My honored guests,' cried Leo, climbing on a chair," this pattern boy, called Paul Meyerhofer, has in the most inconsiderate manner withdrawn from the verdict of the assembly. As he foresaw, in his feeling of unworthiness, that most of the refusals would be gathered upon his undignified head, he has in most reprehensible cowardice—"
"I don't know why you speak so badly of me," said Paul, hurt, for he took everything seriously.
A fresh peal of laughter answered him
"I make the proposition to confer the nightcap on him as a punishment for his crime, and to form a jury for this purpose."
"If you please, I'll take the cap without that," Paul answered, irritated.
By this time he had only to open his mouth to call forth fresh mirth.
Solemnly he was crowned with the nightcap.
"I must look very funny, after all,' he thought, for they were all dying with laughter. Only his sisters did not laugh, blushing deeply, they looked down in their laps, and Elsbeth looked it him with embarrassment, as if she wanted to ask his pardon.
"August," was again softly whispered from the circle of gentlemen.
Immediately after, the thunder storm broke forth
In troops they all took refuge in the house. The young ladies turned pale, most of them were afraid of the thunder, one even fainted.
Leo proposed they should form a circle, and that each of them should tell a story, he who did not know any had to give a forfeit.
They agreed to this. The order of precedence was appointed by lot, and one of the gentlemen made the beginning with a merry student's anecdote, which he declared he had experienced himself. Then it was the turn of some young girls, who preferred to pay forfeits, and then he himself was called out.
The gentlemen cleared their throats mockingly, and the girls nudged each other and giggled. Then anger overpowered him, and, knitting his brow, he began at random,
"Once upon a time there was some one who was so ridiculous that people had only to look at him when they wanted to laugh to their hearts content. He himself did not know how this was, for he had never laughed in his life."
There was a deep silence all round. The smiles froze on their faces, first one and then the other looked down upon the ground.
"Go on," cried Elsbeth, nodding to him gently. But a feeling of shame came over him that he thus dared to show his innermost self to these strange people.
"I can't go on," he said, and rose.
This time no one laughed, and for a while there was only a deep, oppressive silence, and then the girl who had been chosen to collect the forfeits came up to him and said, with a polite courtesy,
"Then you must pay a forfeit."
"Willingly," he answered, and detached his watch from the chain.
"An uncomfortable fellow," he heard one of the young gentlemen say low to his neighbor. It was he who had first called up that nickname.
Then it was Leo's turn, who treated them to one of his most racy anecdotes, but the gayety would not come back again.
The rain splashed against the window panes with a hollow sound, the shadow of black clouds filled the room. It was as if the gray Dame was gliding through the air and touching the laughing young faces with her wings, so that they looked serious and old.
Only when Elsbeth opened the piano and began a merry dance the frozen gayety recommenced.
Paul stood in a corner and gazed at the merrymaking. They left him quite to himself, only now and then a shy glance met him.
The twins were flying round the room, their curls were loose, and a wild light sparkled in their eyes.
"Let them romp about," thought Paul, "they must return to misery soon enough." But that there was no misery for them never occurred to him.
When Elsbeth was replaced at the piano by somebody else, she came towards him and said, "You are very much bored, are you not?"
"Oh no," he said. "Everything is still so new to me."
"Be merry," she pleaded; "we only live once."
And at that moment Leo came rushing up to her, seized her round the waist, and danced away with her.
"Nevertheless, she is still a stranger to you," thought Paul.
As she passed him again she whispered to him, "Go into the next room; I have something to tell you."
"What can she mean to tell me?" he thought; but he did as he was told.
Half hidden by the curtain, he waited, but as she did not come, every minute the bitterness of his soul increased. He remembered his beautiful speeches about the peat-culture and Heine's "Buch der Lieder," and shrugged his shoulders contemptuously over his own stupidity. He felt as if he had grown years older and maturer in the course of this one afternoon.
And then the questions suddenly arose within him, "What business have you here? What are all those merry people, who laugh and want to please each other, and live thoughtlessly from one day to another—what are all those to you? You were a fool, a miserable fool, when you thought that you had a right to be merry; that you, too, could be what they are."
The ground burned under his feet. He felt as if he were committing a sin by remaining a minute longer in this place.
He slipped out into the hall, where his cap hung.
"Tell my sisters," he said to the servant who was waiting there, "that I am going home to order a carriage for them."
And he breathed as if relieved when the door closed behind him.
The storm had abated: a soft rain came drizzling from the sky, the wind blew refreshingly over the heath, and at the verge of the horizon, where the evening glow paled away, the sheet-lightning of the far-distant thunder-storm shot from fiery, glowing clouds.
As if the wild hunters were behind him, he ran across the rain-soaked road to the wood, whose branches closed above his head with a peaceful murmur. The damp moss sent out its perfume, and sparkling drops fell from the needles of the fir-trees.
When he stepped out onto the heath, and saw the dark outline of his home before his eyes, he stretched out his arms, and cried out into the storm:
"Here is my place—here I belong, and I shall be a rogue if ever again I try to find my happiness among strangers. I swear here that I will reject all vanities and foolish hankerings. I know now what I am, and what is unfit for me shall be lost to me. Amen."
So he took leave of his youth and of his youthful dreams.