Translation:The Mysterious Individual/XIII
It was decided to pay a visit to the neighbours one fine day. As all the foreigners had been invited along, and as other guests were staying in the house besides the officers, even the musician and the supposed Feldheim could not be left out: the several carriages that were needed were made ready, and the Countess, who usually undertook to look after everyone and take care of the seating arrangements, had much to reckon up and to consider on such a day. She was therefore not very amused when her ruminations were interrupted by the noisy conversation in the next room, in which the maids, some of whom were to accompany the travellers, were laughing and shouting, and only calmed down when old Baron Mannlich joined his sister in the room.
— Brother, dear, said the Countess, why do you repeatedly allow such behaviour in front of your guests? You are only giving them a reason to make fun of you.
— Be quiet, whispered the old man, it happened for your own good and for the good of everyone.
— For my own good?
— I have just undertaken an investigation that was of crucial importance. The washerwoman is in there, and when I wanted to take the only scarf and bring it to you, they grabbed it back from me, and that was what caused the uproar. But the thing itself is important. Just think, every piece of linen belonging to our cousin, young Feldheim, is marked with the letters v. K. How do you explain that?
— Brother, dearest, said the Countess, it is highly improper for you to be always meddling with such matters; perhaps you did not see correctly, perhaps — oh, who knows what the reason might be? I don't have time for your crucial reflections.
— In his room, the old man continued, I found this silver pen, also marked with the letters v. K. My eyes are still good; look here, you can see it for yourself. He does not carry a seal with him: no coat of arms! Is that not incredible?
— You have heard so many times, said the Countess, that his wallet was stolen, along with many other things.
— I shall not rest, cried the old man, until I know who he is. He hasn't received a single letter since arriving here — and he hasn't written to anyone either. Is that not unnatural?
— Unnatural? With the current uncertainty in the postal service? And who might he be, then, if he is not our cousin?
— Recently, the old man continued, I spun a long yarn for him about my aunt Kugelmann, whom he must have heard mentioned many times by the members of his family; she is celebrated, this lady, but an hour later he called her Baroness Kegelfrau. It was completely beyond my comprehension.
The Countess laughed.
— It was news to him that I had studied in Halle. Well, the whole world must know that, so surely my cousin would. It was also news to him that my brother is bandy-legged; and the day before yesterday he mistook the man on our coat of arms for an ape. My head is spinning so much with all this that I don't know what to think. Therefore I must seek some distraction.
— Just get ready, my dear friend, said the Countess, because we are leaving presently, and you always manage to delay us; you know how impatient my husband is.
— Soon, the old man cried, he is going to have to describe to me the Feldheim coat of arms, and if there's the slightest hitch—
— You well know, my dear, that the modern world cares little for such things.
— He had better not be a damned atheist! the old man cried in a towering rage and, stamping his feet, he left.
When they were about to set off on their journey, there was a lengthy to-do before it was finally decided where everyone was to sit, and which carriage should depart first and which should follow. Kronenberg rushed back into the drawing-room to replace a book he had borrowed. At almost the same instant Cecilia came in through the other door to fetch her hat, which she had forgotten. Kronenberg asked whether he might be permitted to place her in her carriage; she granted him permission, provided it did not upset her mother's arrangement. As they bandied words with each other, they were delayed, and they did not heed a slight movement, which they heard at the door. When eventually they decided to leave, the door was locked; and when they tried to open the second door, it too resisted them, and the third door was no different. Kronenberg looked at Cecilia, who was embarrassed and blushing.
— Alas! she cried, my wicked, old, absent-minded, whimsical uncle! He has locked us in with his master key, which he always carries on him so he can busy himself with all the locks. And look, all the carriages are already leaving at full speed.
Kronenberg was about to force open a window, but Cecilia restrained him, saying:
— Let's not be hasty! All the servants have gone with the others; the stewards and gardeners, the brewers and their families are so far away, perhaps even gone out, that they could not hear us if we shouted. Our only hope is to ask a chance passer-by to fetch the nearest locksmith; and what a sensation the event would make, something I would like to avoid at all costs! Because we cannot possibly overtake the travellers now.
— A strange situation, said Kronenberg.
— As little of which as possible must find its way into the annals of the province, replied Cecilia; the place they are going to is two miles from here; they won't miss us before they get there; even if they send a carriage back for us post haste, it will still take another two hours to get here, so we will have to wait here quietly for four hours. The question is: is it still worth our trouble going? At least you can ride there by horse. So patience is what we have most need of; we must also fast. So sit down over there, dear cousin, and tell us some stories, or perhaps you could read something to us, or play something on the fortepiano there.
Kronenberg did as she asked. He was so astonished at this strange situation in which he had suddenly found himself that he did not know how he ought to behave. Could a lover wish for a more fortunate accident than this, which afforded him so many hours of undisturbed seclusion to pour out his feelings to the object of his passion, an opportunity which he had hitherto lacked in these troubled times?
— A fairy, he began, has imprisoned you here, dearest Cecilia, so that you might listen to me; so that you might learn what I think of you.
— You should also know what I think of you, she replied. Perhaps it is possible that we will come to understand each other. And yet—
— What? Can you doubt my feelings? Can you still doubt that whether I am happy or miserable depends on your every word?
Cecilia walked thoughtfully up and down the room; then she sat down beside Kronenberg and asked:
— Do these words mean something, then? Or are they merely the conventional figures of speech one hears?
— You wound me, dearest!
— Well, cousin, I want to believe that you love me, that you love me truly. Is that unusual? That is how I am to all men. Whatever stands higher than this friendship, this benevolence, can be heavenly, transcendental, but also possibly, I suspect, quite ominous; or even only appearance mixed with lies and deceit. Ah, poor mankind! Often we are not even aware of it when we are deceiving ourselves and others.
Kronenberg seized her hands; he got down on one knee; he kissed the proffered hand, and repeated his protestations. But he was shocked when she suddenly pushed him away and fled, aghast at him; crying and sobbing loudly, she sat down on the sofa and buried her face inconsolably in the cushions. For a long time she could not respond to his encouragement or his pleading; her voice failed her again and again, and when he too was reduced to tears, she finally raised herself, as though she were even more aghast, and cried:
— Feldheim! Cousin! You too are crying? But why?
— Because I must see the light of my life so inconsolable; because I am misunderstood.
— Ah! Beloved! she protested. No, I understand you; perhaps the rest of them might not understand you. Can one fail to understand the man one loves?
— You love me? O Cecilia, truly you are my goddess! cried Kronenberg, kneeling once again at her feet. Oh, then I am the happiest of men; and you shall be happy with me.
— Wretched, she said with a heavy tone, we shall both be wretched; perhaps the most wretched of all mankind. Is there a greater misery, a more pitiful affliction, than to love and not to respect? To have to choose a soul, to want to abandon oneself to it quite unconditionally, and yet not to be able to trust it? To doubt, when the truest faith would refresh and exhilarate us? To go into the temple to worship God when the first warmth of spring arrives and one is filled with that new sense of well-being after the long and dreary nights of winter, only to find that a deceitful and grotesque caricature has been set up on the altar?
Kronenberg was devastated and could give her no answer, for every thought failed him. She was able to continue uninterrupted:
— Whenever I used to hear people talking about you, how my curious imagination would paint your portrait. Then you were coming. The hour struck, and the most terrible thing happened; a fate worse than death unfolded before my eyes. I did not recognize you, I only recognized the anguish you caused me. How like a saint you had become to me. O Heavens! How little humans understand what benevolence is! They often sneer at my dear mother. But has she not also become a mother to you, almost more than a mother? Through her you have been born again to enjoy the light and yourself. Your illness was an object of joyful emotion, of sorrowful delight, to me. Your awakening, your first glance into my eyes, was like a ray of light from Heaven, like a glance from all the love that shines through the whole world and holds sway over everything. I saw you more often, and it was as though no day was clear and bright until I had bathed in your eyes. But my eyes still slept, and were overclouded, until your brown eyes awakened them. I had only just discovered the significance of the eyes. Ah, I'm just a poor child! What am I prattling about, what nonsense am I babbling? With increasing health and diminishing danger, you became closer and closer to me: I became more intimately familiar with you. I felt that I could hear your very thoughts, and you too often expressed things, literally word-for-word, that I had just been thinking, but you bathed everything in a sweet voice, in fire and sincere affection. I was acquainted only with you; I was scarcely aware anymore that I was alive except when I was with you. — — And now—!
— Now? Oh, stop, my beloved! Don't go on. If you tell me everything, you will crush me entirely.
— Now fit and healthy again, speaking and joking like one of the crowd, loved by us all, flattered by everyone; and when I approached you, it was as if I was looking into a deep abyss, into a heart of immeasurable emptiness, a cold and barren wasteland. Every strange sound, the least familiar being, was closer to you, meant more to you, than I and my misery. I tumbled in horror into this deep. That same cold shudder came over me now that used to come over me in my early childhood whenever I looked directly into the glass eyes of my beloved wax dolls and caught a glimpse of self-awareness. In the being who should be mine, to whom I already wholly belonged, were dread and darkness, death; from him issued an empty phantom, winking and laughing, — and I turned my gaze from there to the rest of the world, which until then had been so dear to me: the cold desolation of the grave. No man can appreciate or understand this dreadful condition. I felt utterly abandoned, and without any prospect of ever recovering or achieving anything. No words can express the horror of this state of mind. Everything else was clearer to me than this one thing; how dear, how sweet were Emmerich's eyes! How much I trusted his heart! How noble gloomy Liancourt appeared to me! Why, even Duplessis was closer to me, but only you were completely captivated by me; and yet my heart was bound as though by a hideous spell, and as often as I strove to release it, I could also feel as though the threads of my life — I might almost say the very joints of my mind — were stretched to breaking point.
Kronenberg was so shocked that his whole body trembled. His face became deathly pale, and no tears fell from his frozen, almost shattered eyes.
— Oh, misery! continued Cecilia plaintively. Am I to understand that this is the happiness of love? So this is how people dissemble and play-act, and cloak the folly of life in pathetic vanity, in pitiable infatuation, and the despair of existence in grimaces and figures of speech, in absurd self-delusion, just so they don't have to look upon the divine countenance of truth? And I, poor creature! Alone of all these millions, I am expected to take it seriously, this feeling that I should play parts of my body, my hand, my arm, my broken heart, like cards in order to move the other players to laughter or horror. Why do I torment myself just to make my feelings clear to a dead man like you, a walking corpse, in whose darkened mind not even the tiniest spark of feeling will ever twinkle? If there was still such a thing as a nunnery, I would get myself to one. Only by devoting oneself entirely to God in quiet solitude might one perhaps find solace from this suffering.
Kronenberg got up, and it seemed to her as though a completely transformed individual was approaching her.
— You have triumphed, he said in a faint voice, and — I can feel it with a sense of tranquillity, I must say it — for eternity. Yes, my dear, your soul has recognized me, but it has also worked its magic, as it were, upon my soul, which had fallen asleep. I feel it, a man can and must be born twice, and this was the greatest, the most important moment of my life, when the Lord himself spoke to me through these lips. A tremendous burden has been lifted from my soul; but now I feel well and cheerful, light-hearted and clear-headed; a sweet death has now buried all that did not belong to me or to my being.
Consoled, Cecilia looked at him.
— My dear, she cried, a child's spirit now looks out of these eyes, yea, innocence itself, truth. Can it, will it remain so? Shall not illusion once again beguile and transform these honest eyes?
— No, said Kronenberg. I know now how this empty shadow of reality, like the vanity that is woven into the very fabric of our being, had cast a dark shadow over me. That is the poor weakness of our nature, the mortality, that we mistake this emptiness for truth, escape from ourselves, and again and again, whenever the inner voice calls to us, whenever the divine rises up, we build for ourselves a heaven and a reality out of this nothingness. This — I have long suspected it and in this hour I have finally beheld it — this is the evil spirit within us of whom foolishness has told so many fables; fables, which this spirit itself placed in folly's mouth; unless one recognizes this mischief, it is more hideous than the fiercest spectre, than all the satanic monsters that the fevered brain ever looked upon. This creature exists and yet it does not exist, it is nonsense, a nothing, powerlessness itself, and yet so terrible and immense, truly so horrible, because it can overcome truth, reason, reality, the divine within us and destroy them. So poor is our earthly existence; only love can loose us from our bands, and must do so over and over again.
— I understand you completely, said Cecilia, pleased. O heavenly truth and innocence! Everyone has tasted your sweetness at least once, and yet almost all of them return to the dark falsehood, which offers them only wormwood. Like a bird released from a cage, the soul flutters up into this clear blue sky to swim in the bright light, — and that which is immortal allows itself to be dragged down again into the dirt by a wretched net, or to become stuck fast by birdlime.
— Now you shall hear everything, exclaimed Kronenberg, everything, in this great and solemn hour. And I would die in an instant if I had to lose your love for good, and forevermore feel only your scorn and contempt: there is such a courage, such a serenity, in me that I could even endure this. There is so much I want to tell you, much more than you could suspect. The more you forgive me, the greater the love you bestow upon me.
He prostrated himself before her and rested his head in her lap.
— Not now, dear cousin, she said, rising. Not at this moment! I am too shaken. Grant me a little peace; we shall speak later.
She sat down at the piano and improvised mournful passages. The strange moment had passed in which the repentant Kronenberg had been willing to reveal his true nature. Now Cecilia was weeping, and as she became quieter and quieter, large tears rolled down through her beautiful eyelashes onto the keys; but she continued to play undisturbed, and finally concluded with quite cheerful harmonies.
— I'm feeling better now, she exclaimed, rising; between us things will always be as they should be. That is fortunate; is that not so, my dear?
Kronenberg, whose thoughts had been interrupted in midstream, could not find the right words with which to resume the discussion. On such humours of the mind depend, far more frequently than most people think or notice, one's happiness or unhappiness in life, the falling out of friends, the forging of new acquaintances, the harbouring of grudges, which grow stronger and stronger and embitter one's existence. So the young man could not now force himself to resume his heartfelt confession to his beloved of all the follies and untruths in which he had indulged, and it took all his strength to remove this final burden from his bosom. In the meantime, she fumbled with some journals and old newspapers in an attempt to compose her emotions.
— What rubbish! she exclaimed; and sheer mischief! Nothing but misery! Come, cousin, please read to me! My head is so weak. But none of the political articles! Look among the advertisements, the proclamations and suchlike, where one often finds strange and ridiculous stuff.
Kronenberg took up one of the older sheets and his head began to swim. He saw a notice from his creditors calling on him to hand himself in, and with full mention of his name. He quickly hid the sheet, and a mischievous spirit led him to open a second in which a certain Kronenberg was described who was being hunted as a suspicious individual. It had to be that unfortunate individual who had presumably stolen his writing table. But in his alarm, as he trembled and thought things over, he lost the courage and determination to reveal to his beloved his true name and relationship.
Kronenberg seized Cecilia's hand and said:
— Now, my dear, do not spoil the moment with these useless rags. I can see how affected, how weak you are. Time is passing, you have eaten nothing, it's getting late, and there is still no prospect of any rescue before evening. He walked up and down the room with her, then they leant hand in hand against the window, and, embarrassed, he looked out at the grounds, lost in his thoughts. Beyond the garden they could see the flash of approaching guns.
— Cursed billeting again! he exclaimed. Is there no end to it! I admire the patience of your parents, who can show the same kindness to all strangers, no matter how crude and uneducated.
— What else can they do? replied Cecilia. That is surely the better course than to make matters worse by holding a grudge or becoming testy. And in the end this kindness is rewarded; because nothing has happened to our possessions, whereas so many others have suffered deplorable outrages.
The detachment of troops approached and now entered the garden; Kronenberg was surprised to see that when they had passed through the gate, they peremptorily surrounded the gardener. They strode through the garden, past the windows of the drawing-room. The leader asked the gardener:
— Is there a Baron Feldheim living here, then?
— Yes, the latter replied; but today he no more at home than the rest of the household; they have all gone away on an trip.
— We're aware of that, the former replied; — Men, seize all the approaches and all the gates of the manor; let anyone in but do not let anyone out until further orders! — You, friend, turning to the gardener, you must remain with us, and you may not talk with anyone.
— Why not?
— Until we have captured this bird, he replied in a rough voice, you could very easily warn him and he might turn back and make his way across country. Afterwards you can go wherever you want to.
— What was all that about? Cecilia said, trembling, when they had passed.
— I myself, replied Kronenberg, have been the cause of my own undoing through childish bravado, through a vanity which was in very bad taste. I am lost if I cannot escape.
— But how?
— The garden has not been occupied; I can get out through this window; I'll just have to make the best of it — the deep grooves in the stones of the rustic work will provide footholds and handholds — then I can reach the peach-tree espalier. I have surely undertaken even more dangerous things before, and needlessly at that. The house and the garden are still clear, I can still make it, as this is a Sunday and there is no-one about.
He carefully opened the window.
— Cousin! said Cecilia, and looked at him with a penetrating gaze; so, is this what you've come to now? So our new covenant is broken in the cruellest fashion? And I am not even permitted to inquire what it is that drives you from me. Must you flee?
— Now I have to, he exclaimed. In a short time we will meet again; I myself will dispel the storm clouds that threaten me. Farewell.
He spread out his arms, she ran towards him and, pressing her trembling lips to his mouth, kissed him for the first time. The window was already open, he climbed out cautiously. From the sill he felt for the grooves with his toes — he was successful; he made his way down very warily — he was already close to the espalier — he supported himself on this — but the rod broke and he fell down. Cecilia closed the window with a deep sigh; she did not dare ask anyone to attend to him so as not to give him away.
When Kronenberg had recovered, he discovered that one of his legs could no longer support his weight. He did not know whether the leg was broken or merely dislocated. Although the pain was excruciating, he stifled his groans; he had to crawl across the flowerbeds and through the hedges to reach the gate. He had no idea how he was going to escape into the countryside, but it seemed necessary to him to risk all, for he now saw clearly that Duplessis had betrayed him. He was now making his way towards the gateway that opened onto the countryside through a bush which was growing on one side of the gate; he peered around the corner, but to his horror he saw that a soldier was keeping watch here too. The latter had spotted the creeping figure, approached it and apprehended it, since it was obviously acting suspiciously. He called his comrades, and as they also brought the gardener with them, the fugitive was quickly identified as the Feldheim who was to be arrested. They carried him, as he could not walk, to the conservatory. Just then the various carriages of the rest of the household could be heard returning. The parents, worried about their missing daughter, whose strange absence they could not understand, had returned quickly after briefly greeting their friends. Even before they discovered the strange reason, which was soon no longer of any importance to them, they had heard the unhappy fate of their relative. The bewilderment was universal. Servants, master and mistress alike rushed about in confusion. A surgeon was fetched. He soon reset the injured man's foot, which was not broken; but the pain and swelling remained. But it all seemed insignificant compared to the dreadful fate that threatened their beloved relative. The latter was seated once again in the large drawing-room in a state of insensibility, just as he had been at the beginning of his convalescence. The Count took the sullen Liancourt aside and asked him for the particulars; Duplessis had not returned with them, having betaken himself instead to his general.
— The unfortunate young man, said the officer, has been known to my comrades as the author of that infamous book — what's more, he has boasted of directing secret societies which threaten our army and the Emperor. We have been searching for the author of that book for a long time — Duplessis has testified against him — he cannot take back his own words. I have just been ordered to take him to the city; he must face a court-martial there; he is to be shot in a few days.
Old Baron Mannlich, who had pushed his grey hairs tight between the speakers, now burst out into a loud clamour, whereby he loudly made known to all the others what should have remained a secret.
— Shot? he cried fiercely, embracing the injured man: What? Our own cousin german to be torn from our midst? Such a thing has never before befallen us. Our relationship is very slight as it is, and it is now to be reduced even further in such a barbarous manner? Yes, my dear sweet cousin, you are indeed my cousin, even if you mistook my coat-of-arms for a monkey. Oh! We are all human, and to err is human. Each day is different from the next. You would certainly have come to realize that. You see, my friend, that's what happens when noblemen take it into their heads to write books — they know to keep well away from that sort of thing; no, I have never been the least bit attracted to it. And secret societies! For shame! Now, that is entirely quite shocking. Oh, Major, spare us our dear and excellent cousin.
He threw himself on the unfortunate man and covered him with his tears. It was difficult to tear him away from Kronenberg, for he considered it his duty to display his anguish quite unmistakeably.
Cecilia had gone up to her room and had no desire to be comforted by either her mother or her sisters. Emmerich pressed forward, said a few words to her, then spoke with her father, before hurrying to the stables to have a horse saddled. That very night he rode off post-haste. The Count spoke with Kronenberg; but the latter said little in reply, only declaring that he deserved his fate, precisely because he had played fast and loose with the truth in such a criminal manner, and not because those things he was accused of, which he had only asserted out of vanity, had actually happened.
The commotion in the house was to become even greater. For when they were about to sit down to their sad supper, a captain was announced with two prisoners. He appeared and declared that he and his troop of soldiers in the village had to be seated, for he had already covered five miles. The previous day, he had had to fight a battle near a small town against a superior force of peasants and German soldiers with one of those small corps of which there had been much talk recently; finally he had managed to overcome them; after incurring some losses, the troops had fled, and their two leaders had been taken prisoner. He deplored these young people. They had been set free on parole, and had fixed their quarters in a small town on the other side of the river. Pressed by the plight of the Fatherland, the elder had, as if in desperation, gathered together a number of young fellows and soldiers, won round the second officer, and so, impelled by an unholy spirit, they had voluntarily precipitated their own misfortune.
— This unfortunately magnifies your self-accusation, said Liancourt, turning sympathetically to Kronenberg.
The doors opened again and the two prisoners were led in. The elder, brown-haired and wild, had the expression of resigned despair; the younger one was blond and his countenance was merely a silent lament for his misfortune and early death in the freshness and inexperience of his youth. The girls knew the younger man, and so loud and general were their lamentations for him that Kronenberg seemed forgotten for some time. In previous years this young individual had occasionally been a playmate in the house whenever he came over to visit with his elderly mother. It was touching to hear him speak of his misfortune.
— After that unfortunate battle,[1] he said, I was captured, like so many others; I was released on parole and ordered to remain in that little town not far from here. But the meagre pay which we had been promised never materialized; however, the enemy breaks so many more important promises, so there was no point in complaining about it, and the citizens of the town and the wealthy residents supported us. But my friend was not as calm as I was. He called me cowardly and mean-spirited. With every new dispatch he became furious. He has always been a capable officer and I had had the greatest respect for him for many years. In the end he brought me too around to his conviction that it was dishonourable to sit idly by, living on charity while the Fatherland was being devastated. So I took the field with him. It was as though the two of us, and also the others, were intoxicated; for we were convinced that we could save our beloved king with our puny forces. We were defeated, my friend was captured. I managed to get away: my former host in the town hid me in his attic under sacks and lumber. The French advanced, suspecting that I was there; they threatened to shoot anyone who was caught hiding me and to raze their house to the ground. Then the white-haired old baker came running crying to me. He had lost all courage. What was to be done? So I went down to the parlour, where I found my friend, and gave myself up voluntarily. I don't know what is going to happen. They say that they're going to shoot us.
He finished his account, though not without tears, especially when he saw the young girls weeping so profusely. The musician, tiptoeing across the drawing-room, now said to Liancourt, loudly enough:
— So much for the soldierly honour of these Germans! To break their sacred word and turn traitor.
— Silence, sir! Liancourt said fiercely, lest I should forget what I owe this house. Have some respect for the misfortunes of these poor people, even if you feel no sympathy for them. They have infringed the letter of the law and have committed a serious offence against us; but, by God, if the majority of the army and its leaders shared their sentiments, things would probably be very different between Germany and France.
They finally sat down to supper. The officer, who had joined them, wishing to encourage his prisoners, said:
— Be of good cheer, gentlemen; things will turn out well in the end.
— The worst outcome, cried the elder of the prisoners, could not surprise me, and if I am acquitted, I shall tell my judges that I would do the very same thing again for which I am now being led in front of them.
At this point the officer related more about the previous day's battle.
— Curiously, he added, a foreign man and a woman were also involved in it. They were on the highway, and when we suddenly burst out from our hiding place and those troops rushed upon us, they were cut off and surrounded on both sides, and they could do nothing but listen to the bullets whistling past them. The young man was wounded in the arm. He was taken here in a wretched carriage, and hopes to find better facilities here in this place. He has been put up at the tavern with his beautiful wife.
When the Count heard this, he immediately sent his gamekeeper to extend him an invitation; a man of education, with his wife, and wounded to boot, obliged him to accept him as his guest as a matter of urgency, despite the fact that his house was already overcrowded at the time. Not long afterwards, a young well-educated man appeared with a beautiful woman on his arm and apologized for been such a nuisance to his host. Kronenberg, who was sitting sideways in an armchair, wished that the ground could have swallowed him up, for the lady was none other than the abandoned Cecilia, on whose behalf he had himself to blame for so much, and in her companion he recognized the young man who had driven him out of her family home so suddenly and banished him to Neuhaus. The two of them did not notice him at once.
— Because you did not answer my long letter, the young man continued, which I posted six weeks ago, I concluded from it that you were angry and I did not want to be a burden to you anymore; but now that you are so kind as to extend us an invitation, I must assume that you are reconciled.
— What? said the Count. Reconciled? A letter? Are we acquainted, then?
— Good Heavens! exclaimed the other man. You probably never even received my apologies, or should I say explanation, owing to the recent unrest? I meant to pay you a visit in the summer, dear Uncle; I am Feldheim, and this is my wife, Countess Burchheim. It was all explained in my letter.
— I must be dreaming, cried the old Count: my cousin Feldheim? You? And that young man over there? He is my nephew!
Kronenberg got up.
— It seems the time has come, he said, when everything comes crashing down; very well, then! I no longer deserve the slightest respect. I look forward to the bullet that will rupture my wretched heart.
Everyone was astonished. Cecilia told them with some difficulty who the stranger was, and the real Feldheim also recognized him now.
— So scoundrels and impostors, exclaimed the old Baron, want to slink into my family now? So that's why this gentleman knew nothing about my eldest brother's bandy legs? That's why his linen was stamped with that monogram? Oh, that settles it, I am the only clever person in this house, and my sister with her superior wisdom would do well to pay more attention to what I have to say in the future.
Without saying another word, Kronenberg left the drawing-room. The Count followed him to his chamber, and spoke at length with him. Then he went to his daughter, who was still awake. Everyone passed an anxious and troubled night.
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Notes edit
- ↑ The Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, 14 October 1806, in which Napoleon decisively defeated the Prussians.