I ordered the carriage to come and take her home, fetched a bottle of Pütz's best Port, and seated myself opposite Lothar, who was sitting on the sofa, poking the sole of his shoe with the point of his sword.
As I said, he was a superb fellow, tall, stalwart, just what a dragoon should be—thick mustache, heavy eyebrows, and eyes like two wheels of fire. A fine head, but his forehead a bit wild and low, because his hair grew down on it. But a wild forehead suits young people. He had the dash characteristic of the Guards to which we all once so ardently aspired. Neither the Tilsit nor the Allenstein Dragoons could come up to it. The devil knows what the secret of it is.
We clinked glasses—to my old friend's memory, of course—and I asked him:
"Well, what next?"
"Do I know?" he muttered between his teeth, and glared at me desperately with his burning eyes.
So that was the state of affairs.
My old friend's circumstances had never been brilliant. Added to that his love for everything in the shape of drink. Well—and you know where there's a swamp the frogs will jump in—especially the boy, who had been going it for years, as if the stones at Döbeln were nuggets of gold.
"The debts are mounting?" I asked.
"Quite so, uncle," he said.
"Bad for you," I said. "Mortgages, first, second, third—way over the value of the property, and there's nothing to be earned from farming on the estate—the very chickens know that."
"Then good-bye to the army?" he asked, and looked me full in the face, as if he expected to hear sentence pronounced by the judge of a court martial.
"Unless you have a friend I don't know about to rescue you."
He shook his head in a rage.
"Then, of course."
"And suppose I should have Döbeln cut up into lots, what do you think I'd realize?"
"Shame on you, boy," I said. "What! Sell the shirt from your body, chop your bed into kindlings?"
"Uncle," he replied, "you are talking through your hat. I am dead broke."
"How much is it?" I asked.
He mentioned a sum. I'll not tell what it was, because I paid it.
I named my terms. Firstly, immediate withdrawal from the army. Secondly, his personal management of the estate. Thirdly, the settlement of the lawsuit.
The suit was against Krakow of Krakowitz, and had been going on for years. It had been my old friend's favorite sport. Like all those things, it turned, of course, upon a question of inheritance, and had swallowed up three times as much as the whole business was worth.
Krakow was a boor, so the dispute took on a personal color, and led to grinding hate, at least on Krakow's side, because Pütz was phlegmatic and always managed to see a bit of humor in the affair. But Krakow had openly declared and sworn he would have his dogs chase that Pütz and anybody connected with him from his place if they dared to come near it.
Well, those were my terms. And the boy agreed to them. Whether willingly or unwillingly, I did not inquire.
I made up my mind to take the first steps myself toward an understanding with Krakow, although I had every reason to believe his threat applied to me, too. I had had several tilts with him in the county council.
But I—look at me—I don't mean to boast—I can fell a bull to the ground with this fist of mine. Then why should I fight shy of a few curs?
So I let three days pass, gentlemen, to sleep on the matter—then my two coach-horses in harness—my yellow phaeton—and heigho for Krakowitz.
Beautiful bit of property, no denying that. Somewhat run down, but A-No. 1. Lots of black fallow. It might have been meant for winter kale or something of the sort. The wheat so-so. The cattle splendid.
The courtyard! You know, a courtyard is like the human heart. Once you have learned to see into it, you cannot be bamboozled so easily. There are neglected hearts, but you can see gold nuggets peeping out through the dirt covering them. Then there are hearts all done up and polished and smartened, hearts brought up, you might say, on arsenic. They glitter and glisten, and all you can say when you look at them is "By Jingo!" But for all that they are rotten and mouldy. There are hearts in the ascending and descending scale, hearts of which the better is more hopeless than the much, much worse, because the worse improves while the other gradually declines. And so on.
Well, the Krakowitz yard was a little of all this. Bright, clean barns, miserable wagons, fine drain from the stable, but poor stable arrangements. An air of whimsicality about the whole place, with a sprinkling of stinginess or scarcity. From appearances it is difficult to distinguish between the two. The manor-house—two stories, red bricks faced with yellow stones and overgrown with ivy. In a word, not bad, something like unconscious—well, you know what I mean.
"Is the Baron at home?"
"Yes. Whom shall I say?"
"Hanckel, Baron Hanckel-Ilgenstein."
"Step in, sir."
So I walked in—everything old—old furniture, old pictures—wormeaten, but cosy.
The next instant I heard someone cursing and swearing in the adjoining room.
"The dirty blackguard—the impudence of him—always was a friend of that Pütz, the cur!"
"Pleasant reception," I thought.
Women's voices joined in.
"Papa, papa!"
Dear me!
Then he came in. Gentlemen, if I hadn't just heard it with my own ears! He held out his hands, the old sinner's face beamed, his Dachs eyes blinked slyly, but with a merry light in them.
"My dear sir, delighted."
"See here, Krakow," I said, "look out. I heard everything just now."
"What did you hear, what did you hear?"
"The epithets you bestowed upon me—dirty blackguard and heaven knows what else."
"Oh, that," he said, without a twitch of his lids. "I tell my wife every day the doors are no good. But, my dear sir, you musn't mind what I said. I always have been angry that you stuck up for Pütz. And I tell you, sir, my womenfolk mix just as good bowls as he. If you had come to us Iolanthe!—Iolanthe's my daughter. Iolanthe!! The comfort of my soul! Doesn't hear, doesn't hear. Didn't I just say the doors are no good? But both those women are at the keyhole now! Will you get away from there, you hussies? Do you hear their skirts rustling? They're running away. Ha-ha! Those women!"
Gentlemen, who could take offence? I couldn't. Perhaps I'm too thick-skinned. But I couldn't.
You want to know like what he looked?
The creature didn't reach much above my waist line. Round, fat, bow-legged. And on such a trunk sat a regular Apostle's head, either St. Peter's or perhaps St. Andrew's or somebody of the sort. A fine broad, round beard, with a band of white running down from each corner of his mouth—yellow, parchment skin, thick crows' feet at the corners of his eyes, the top of his head bald, but two huge grey bushes over his ears.
The fellow danced about me like wild.
Don't for a moment suppose, gentleman, that I was taken in by his fuss and to-do. I had known him long enough. I saw through and through him—but say what you will, I liked him.
And I liked everything about him.
There was a little corner at the window with carved oak cabinets all around—the window overgrown with ivy—very cosy. The sun shone through as in an arbor, and on a table in an ivory bowl was a ball of worsted. And a copy of "Daheim" lay on the table, and a piece of nibbled cake.
As I said, altogether comfortable and cosy.
We sat down in the corner, and a maid brought cigars.
The cigars were no good, but the smoke curled so merrily in the sunshine that I did not pay much attention to the fact that they burned like a match.
I wanted to begin to talk about my business, but Krakow laid his hand on my shoulders and said:
"After the coffee!"
"If you please, Krakow," I said.
"After the coffee!"
I courteously inquired about his farming and pretended great interest in his innovations, about which he boasted extravagantly, though they were as old as the hills to me.
Then the Baroness came in.
"A fine old piece. A slender dame. Long, narrow blue eyes, silver hair under a black lace cap, a melancholy smile, fine yellow hands. A bit too tender for a country gentlewoman and especially for such a boor of a husband.
She welcomed me very properly, while the old man kept screaming as if possessed.
"Iolanthe—girl—where are you hiding? A bachelor's here—a suitor—a"
"Krakow!" I said, completely taken aback. Don't joke that way with an old weed like me."
And the Baroness saved me by saying very neatly:
"Don't worry, Baron. We mothers gave you up for hopeless years ago."
"But the girl can come in at any rate," screamed the old fellow.
And finally she came.
Gentlemen, take off your hats! I stood there as if somebody had knocked me on the head. Race, gentlemen, race! A figure like a young queen's—her hair loose in a thousand wavelets and ringlets, golden brown like the mane of a Barbary steed. Her throat white and voluptuous. Her bosom not too high, and broad and curving at the sides. In a horse, we call a chest like that a lion's chest. And when she breathed her whole body seemed to breathe along with her lungs, so strongly did the air pulsate through that young thoroughbred organism.
Gentlemen, you don't have to go in for breeding animals as a passionate pursuit to know how much toil and effort it costs to produce a perfect specimen, no matter of what species. And I'm not a woman connoisseur, and one doesn't have to be, to fold one's hands at the sight of so perfect a creature and pray:
"O Lord, I thank Thee for allowing such a thing to walk this earth. For as long as such bodies are created we need have no fear for our souls."
The one thing I did not like at first were her eyes. Too pale a blue, too languishing for such an abundance of life. They seemed to be soaring toward heaven, and yet when they narrowed, a searching, lowering look came into them, such a look as surly dogs have that get beaten too often.
Old Krakow caught her by both shoulders and began to brag outrageously.
"This is my work—this is what I brought into being—I'm the father of this," and so on.
