Frau Nuessler took Frida back to Pumpelhagen, dropping many a comforting
word, which fell, like the dew upon a scorched field, on the young
Frau's heart, and if it were not yet quite ready to sprout with fresh
green, Frau Nuessler would have said, "Never fear! My brother Karl will
manage that."
So the young Frau entered her room, in the gray morning, in quite a
different mood from that of the evening before, when she had rushed put
into the storm; and, with hope, love and faith had returned to her
heart. She went up softly and kindly to Fika Degel, who sat in an
arm-chair, watching by her child, and had fallen asleep, and stroking
her hair gently said:
"Fika, I thank you very much; but you must be weary; go to bed."
"Gracious Frau," said Fika, starting up from a dream of her lover, "she
has slept very quietly; I had to give her drink only once."
"Good," said the young Frau, "go to bed." And when the maid was gone,
she stood before her child, and looked at her; no! no! the sad lot of a
poor noble Fraeulein was not suited to that lovely face, and the
thoughts of last evening were not suited to the thoughts of this
morning. Her soul had suffered torments, fearful torments, during the
night, but in the night, and through the torments, hope had been born
in her heart, and this child of anguish had fallen upon her neck, and
nestled closely to her, and kissed her, and stroked her face, and the
blue eyes were beaming heavenward, and in them shone confidence,--yes,
and victory.
The young Frau went to bed, and before her rose all the forms of the
night: Korlin Kegel and Frau Nuessler, the Frau Pastorin and Louise,
Habermann and Braesig, they all stood, clear and distinct, before her
eyes, she understood them all, in their true-hearted conduct and
character; but among these images was another, which she did not
understand; that was the old Jew. Such clear light fell upon him, and
such dark shadows lay in the folds of his dressing-gown, and the
wrinkles of his face,--she had never seen such an image,--that
all grew indistinct before her eyes, and when she thought of his
leave-taking, the image grew larger and larger, and even more
indistinct, and she folded her hands upon her breast, and slept.
She slept, and the old Jew was in her dreams, but they were happy
dreams; only once she started up, for it seemed to her that a carriage
drove into the yard. She listened; but body and soul longed for rest;
her head sank back on the pillow, and the friendly dream again hovered
over her fair head, and whispered wonderful things in her ears.
But she had not heard falsely; a carriage had really driven into the
yard, and in the carriage sat her husband. Axel had been driving about
the country, like a speculator buying up eggs and poultry; he had
halted before every door, and knocked, like a travelling beggar; he had
asked help from business acquaintances, he had complained of his
troubles to old friends, whom he had learned to know at the races, who
had often borrowed money from him; nobody was at home, and those whom
he met accidentally had left their purses at home. So long as we go
about in brand new breeches, we have many friends, but when they are
worn out, and our others have a patch on each knee, our friends feel
ashamed of us. This was Axel's bitter experience. Without his sisters'
knowledge, he had secretly been in Schwerin; he had gone to the Jew,
who had transacted the business so readily and quickly; but where were
his securities? From his hotel he had looked over towards the region
where Franz's estates lay; but where was Franz? He had done the last
thing possible, he had gone to his brother-in-law, Breitenburg, with
whom he had always been on bad terms; he had endured his cold
reception, had told him of his terrible situation, but had said nothing
about his sisters' money; Breitenburg had looked him sharply in the
eyes, and turned his back upon him:
"Tu l'as voulu, George Dandin! And do you think I will throw my
hard-earned savings into this pit, dug by your folly? It was not
brought me by your sister."
Axel was going to say something about the seven thousand thalers, which
his father had borrowed for him from Moses; then his brother-in-law
turned upon him, and asked him, right to his face, "Where are the
thirteen thousand thalers, out of which you have swindled your
sisters?"
That struck him dumb,--the brother-in-law knew it would,--he turned
pale, rushed out of the door, and got into his carriage.
"Where?" asked the coachman.
"Home."
"Where shall we stop to-night?"
"At home."
"Herr, the horses won't hold out."
"They must."
So they drove home, and when he got out Johann stood by the two good
browns: "So, the two wheel-horses were driven to death before, and now
the leaders are ruined; we have a span of cripples."
Axel went up to his room with heavy steps, it was broad daylight; in
his room everything was as usual, and usually he found himself very
comfortable there, and the old use and wont appealed softly to his
heart; but his heart was not the old heart, heart and mind were
changed, and use and wont no longer harmonized with them. He was
restless and troubled; he opened the window, that the fresh morning air
might cool his heated brow; he threw himself into the chair, that stood
before his writing table, and pressed his head in both hands, as if it
were held in a vice. Then his eyes fell upon a letter, the writing
seemed familiar, he must have seen it before; he opened it; yes, it was
from his sister. What had his brother-in-law, Breitenburg, called him?
Yes, that was it! He looked out of the window; behind the Rexow firs
the sun was rising.
He looked at the letter again; it contained friendly words, but what
did words avail, he had no money. He looked out of the window again,
before him lay a field of wheat; ah, if it were ripe and threshed out,
and had borne twenty-fold, then--no! no! even then it could not help
him. And again his eyes returned to the letter; friendly words! but
soon the words became more earnest, and looked at him sternly, he could
not turn his eyes away; he read them to the end, and there it stood:
"On this account, I have written to Frida also, for, dear, dear
brother, if you have not safely invested our capital, we poor girls are
utterly ruined!"
"Yes, ruined!" he cried, "ruined!" and sprang from the chair, and
strode about the room, He went to the window; before him lay nature in
her fullest splendor, and nature has power over every heart, but the
heart must harmonize with nature, it must open itself fully and freely
to the sunlight, and receive into itself the green earth and the blue
heavens and the golden beams. But his heart was not open to these
influences, his situation had overpowered him, and his thoughts turned
solely and miserably to the most pitiable human resources. Money,
money! He could coin no louis-d'ors from the sunbeams.
He threw himself into his chair again; so _she_ knew it, too. He had
told her many lies, which she could not prove false; there was no use
in lying now, she knew it. And she seemed to stand before him with her
child in her arms, and to look at him sternly, and her clear gray eyes
asked, "Have we deserved this at your hands?" and his three sisters
stood around him, with sunken cheeks and pale lips, saying, "Yes Axel,
dear Axel, utterly ruined!" And behind the old maids stood a darker
form, in guise that was not of this earth, and that was his father, who
called to him, "Thou shouldst have been a prop for my old house, but
thou hast taken away stone after stone, and my house is falling to the
ground." He could endure it no longer, he started up,--the ghosts
vanished,--he ran up and down, and when he recollected himself, he was
standing before a closet where he kept his fire-arms. Ah, he knew a
place, so lonely, so still, it was the Lauban pond in the Rexow firs;
he had often been there with the chase, when the brave old forester,
Slang, was hunting; he could do it there. He opened the closet, and
took out the revolver which Triddelsitz had procured for him, to shoot
at the day-laborers. He tried it; yes! it was loaded. He went out of
the door, but as he crossed the landing, he saw the door which led into
Frida's room, where his wife and his child lay sleeping; he was
startled, he tottered back; all the joy he had experienced in the
faithful affection of his wife, in the lovely awakening nature of his
child, came back to him; he fell upon the threshold before the door,
and burning tears started from his eyes, and these tears, this earnest
prayer to God, may have saved him,--we shall see how,--for the Lord
holds us by slender, invisible threads.
He rose up, the prayer had not been for his own soul, but for others;
he walked away, he went to the lonely Lauban pond. He threw himself
down under the firs, behind a bush, took the revolver from his pocket,
and laid it beside him; he looked once more, eagerly, mournfully, at
the world around him; he looked once more at the sun, God's beautiful
sun, for the last time; soon, night would fall upon him forever. The
sun blinded him, he took out his handkerchief, and covered his eyes,
and now the last, the most terrible thoughts overcame him. He sighed
deeply; "It must be!" he exclaimed.
"A fine morning, Herr von Rambow!" cried a friendly, human voice, close
by. Axel tore the cloth from his eyes, and threw it over the revolver.
"You are up early!" said Zachary Braesig, for it was he, and he threw
himself down by Axel, on the grass. "Have you come out fishing, too?"
With that, he laid his hand on the handkerchief and the revolver: "Ah,
so! You were going to practise pistol-shooting a little. I used to be a
very good shot, myself, could shoot out the ace of hearts and the ace
of clubs, without fail."
Then he stood up, with the revolver in his hand: "You see that mark on
the fir yonder,--they are getting ready to fell timber,--I will wager
four groschen, I never bet higher,"--bang! the shot went wide of the
mark,--bang I missed it again, and yet again, and so on with the six
shots.
"Who would have thought it? All missed! Who would have thought it?
Well, I have lost. Here are the four groschen. That is such an old fool
of a pistol!" he cried, and tossed the revolver far out into the pond,
"children and young people might hurt themselves with it."
Axel was in a strange humor; all at once, between his firm, deliberate
resolve, to which he had been driven through fierce struggle and
conflict, and the dark portal he was about to enter, stood this
familiar, yes, in his eyes even vulgar life, as audacious and
impertinent as a peasant at a fair, which could be shoved aside,
neither to the right hand nor the left. He started up:
"Herr!"
"Herr-rr!" cried Braesig in return.
"What do you want here?"
"And what do _you_ want here?" asked Braesig back again.
"You are an impertinent fool!" cried Axel.
"You are the greatest fool!" cried Uncle Braesig, "you were about to
commit the most fearful crime, from a reckless impulse, and you had
forgotten everything,--your wife, your child. Hm! just touch a little
spring, then we are out of it all! Wasn't it so? Who is the fool now?"
Axel leaned against a tree, with one hand pressed to his heart, and the
other shading his eyes from the sun, and before him stood this vulgar
man, with a fishing-rod in his hand, and had interposed between him and
the dark portal,--it was life, however!
"Do you see!" continued Uncle Braesig, "if you had come three minutes
earlier than I,"--those were the three minutes when he lay praying, on
the threshold, for his wife and child,--"then you would be lying here,
with a hole in your head, a frightful object; and when you had gone up
to the throne of God, our Lord would have said to you: 'Thou fool! Thou
didst not know, what, this very night, thy dear gracious Frau was doing
for thee, and the Herr Inspector Habermann, and Frau Nuessler, and the
Frau Pastorin and Moses, and--and the others,'--and when the Lord had
told you, do you know what you would have suffered? Hell torments!"
Axel removed his hand from his eyes, and stared at Braesig:
"What? what did you say?"
"That thirty-one thousand thalers have been advanced for you, this
night, and Moses advances it, and your cousin Franz has arrived, who
may possibly do something more. But you are an ignorant creature, who
lets that greyhound of a Triddelsitz get revolvers, to shoot the
day-laborers with, and then goes to shooting himself."
"Franz is here? Franz, did you say?"
"Yes, he is here; but he did not come on your account, he is here
because he is determined to make Louise Habermann Frau von Rambow; but
if you want to thank anybody,--Franz will do something, will perhaps do
something more,--then go to your dear gracious Frau, and to Karl
Habermann; you can go to Moses also, if you like, and you must not
forget Frau Nuessler, and the Frau Pastorin, they have all been good to
you this night."
I never attempted to shoot myself, and cannot tell exactly how a poor
man would feel, when, between himself and his resolution, ordinary life
presses in so forcibly. I should think it might be a little vexatious,
as when a weary, weary traveller is offered a glass of flat, sour
beer,--and Uncle Braesig looked a little sour, this morning,--which he
may not refuse; but then comes the love of life, dear, human life, and
a wife, with a child on her arm, pours him a glass of cool, fresh wine,
and he drains the glass: "So! now tell me what has happened."
Uncle Braesig related the good news, and Axel tottered from the tree,
and fell upon the old man's neck.
"Herr Braesig! Dear Herr Braesig! Is it all true?"
"What do you mean? Do you think I would deceive you, at such a moment
as this?"
Axel turned dizzy before the black abyss, into which, just now, he had
looked so boldly; he staggered back, and there was a singing and a
ringing in his ears, and a glowing and shining before his eyes and
everything to which he was usually indifferent pressed overpoweringly
upon him,--he pressed his hands over his eyes and began to weep
bitterly. Uncle Braesig stood and looked at him compassionately, and
going up to him with the most tender pity took him by the shoulder, and
shook him gently, saying:
"We all wander, here, in confusion, and you are greatly to blame for
your misfortunes; but the fault is not wholly yours: what possessed
your blessed Frau Mother to make a lieutenant of you? How could a
farmer be made out of a lieutenant? It is just as if the musician,
David Berger, who has blown half his breath out of his body with his
trumpet, should set up to be pastor, and preach preach with his
half-breath; he couldn't hold out. But"--and he took the young man by
the arm,--"come away from this place, and then you will feel better."
"Yes, yes!" cried Axel, "you are right! All my misfortunes arose from
this unblessed soldier career. I got in debt there, and these first
debts brought others in their train. But," he added, standing still,
"what shall I say to my wife?"
"Nothing at all," said Braesig.
"No," said Axel, "I have solemnly resolved to tell her the whole truth,
henceforth."
"Do you think the young gracious Frau will be likely to ask you--right
to your face--why you didn't shoot yourself this morning? If you should
get into any difficulty about it, I will tell fibs for you, I should
not mind doing it; for it would be too horrible that such a dear young
Frau should carry the thought with her, through her whole life, that
the husband who should have cared for her was ready to leave her and
her child, like a coward. No!" he added firmly, "she must not know it;
no one need know it, but you and I. And make yourself easy, she is
still asleep, for she could not have gone to bed before morning, and
she must have been dreadfully tired."
They came back to Pumpelhagen, and met Daniel Sadenwater in the hall.
"Daniel," said Braesig, "let us have a little breakfast, as soon as
possible. For," he added, when Daniel was gone, "you must eat a little
something, so as to have a different feeling in your stomach, for such
things take away a man's strength." Did he speak entirely from
benevolence, or a little from self-love? For when the breakfast came,
Axel ate nothing, but he ate like a thresher.
About ten o'clock, Frida came into the room, and exclaimed:
"Herr Inspector! and you, Axel?"
"Yes, dear Frida: I got home this morning," said the young man in a low
voice.
"And now you will not go away again, now you will stay here," said
Frida, decidedly. "Ah, Axel, I have much to tell you,--good news. But
how do you and the Herr Inspector happen to be together?"
Now, thought Uncle Braesig, it is time to keep my promise about fibbing.
"I went out for a little fishing, this morning,--you will not take it
ill, gracious Frau, that I have left my fishing-rod in your hall,--and
I met the Herr von Rambow, who was out walking, and we looked at his
wheat together, and he invited me here to breakfast. But, gracious
Frau, what fine sausage! you must surely have got the recipe from Frau
Nuessler."
"No," said Frida, absently, looking at Braesig and at Axel, as if it
seemed very strange to her that Axel should have invited the old
inspector. "How did it happen, Herr Inspector," she began. Hold!
thought Braesig, you will fib yourself into a trap, you must give
another turn to the conversation, so he interrupted:
"With your leave, gracious Frau, you always call me 'inspector,' and so
I have been; but I have been promoted, I am, now assessor at the court.
Apohpoh!" turning to Axel, "why don't you take your money, that lies
ready for you at the court, in Rahnstadt?"
"What money?" inquired Axel.
"Why, the fifteen hundred thalers, that the baggage hadn't spent. You
must have had a letter about it, several weeks ago, from the court."
"I have had so many letters from the court, of late, that I no longer
open them."
"I know about the business," cried Frida. "Frau Nuessler told me, on the
way. I will get the letter," and she ran out of the door.
"Young Herr von Rambow," said Braesig, drawing himself up, "there you
have done wrong again, for we judges are not only the punishers of
mankind, we are also the benefactors of mankind."
"But do tell me what money it is!"
"Here is the letter," said Frida, giving it to her husband.
Axel opened it, and with what feelings! "Money, money!" had so long
been the cry of his soul, always "Money!" Now this sum of money fell
unexpectedly into his lap, but what money! "Oh, my God!" he cried,
staggering blindly about the room, like a sleep-walker, "then that was
not true either! All of it false! In whose hands have I been? Deceived
in everything,--self-deceived! Bitterly self-deceived!"
He rushed out of the door, Frida would have followed him, but Braesig
held her back. "Let me go, gracious Frau! I know a way to quiet him."
He followed him to the garden, where he was raging up and down; the old
man placed himself in the way:
"Herr, what sort of performances are these?"
"Get out of my way!" cried Axel.
"No," said Braesig, "there is no necessity for it. Aren't you ashamed,
to frighten your wife to death with your wild behavior?"
"Why did you not let me destroy myself?" cried Axel; "this is a
thousand times worse than death! To receive benefits, and such
benefits, from people, whom in better times I have despised and
slandered, yes, even ruined! Not merely to receive,--no!--if one will
live,--to be _obliged_ to receive it! Oh, oh!" he cried, striking his
forehead, "why should I live? How can I live, with this sting in my
heart?"
So he raged against himself and the world, and Uncle Braesig stood by
quietly and looked at him. At last he said, "Go on like that a little
longer; that pleases me uncommonly; the old nobleman's humor must work
itself out. What? You will have no friendship with honest, burgher
people? Isn't it so? If the Herr Vons should come, or even the
Pomuchelskopps and Slusuhrs and Davids, so that nobody need know, of
it, that would be more agreeable to you; but they won't come any more.
But that is only a secondary matter; you ought to be ashamed that,
under the eye of God, who delivered you this morning, you have again
expressed the wish that you had shot yourself. Why, you are a double
suicide!"
Axel was silent, and turned pale; he trembled, as he thought of the
abyss into which he had looked that morning; Braesig took his arm and
seated him on the bench, where his old father and his young wife had
sat, in their anguish and distress. Gradually he recovered himself, and
Zachary Braesig took him again by the arm: "Come! come to your gracious
Frau! That is the best place for you now," and Axel followed like a
lamb, and when his dear young wife took him in her arms, and drew him
down by her on the sofa, and comforted him, then the hot tears
started from his eyes, the last ice was broken up, and under the warmth
of her lovely, spring sunshine his whole soul flowed out, open and
free,--still in swelling waves, but free. And Zachary Braesig stood at
the window, and drummed the old Dessauer, so that Fritz Triddelsitz,
who was passing by, came up and asked, "Herr Inspector, do you want
me?"
"No!" growled Braesig, "go about your business, and attend to your
farming."
A carriage drove up, and Habermann and Franz got out of it. Franz had
gone with Habermann, about nine o'clock, to see Moses, and had told him
that, instead of the other good people, he would pay the thirty-one
thousand for his cousin, and Moses kept nodding his head, and said,
"You are good; the others are good, too; but you are rich; better is
better."
When the business was settled, and Franz had gone a little way along
the street with Habermann, he said, "Dear father, sit down here a
moment, on this bench, I will come back directly, I have forgotten
something I wanted to speak to Moses about." And when he went back to
Moses he said, "My father-in-law, Habermann, told me, this morning,
that Pomuchelskopp wants to sell Gurlitz."
"Wonder of wonders!" cried Moses, "Habermann, father-in-law! What does
it mean?"
"I am going to marry his daughter."
The old Jew rose painfully from his chair, and laid his withered hand
on the young head of the Christian nobleman:
"The God of Abraham bless you! You marry into a good family."
And after a little, Franz said, "Buy it for me, transact the business
for me, but my name must not be mentioned, and no one--especially
Habermann--is to know anything about it. At St. John's, I can raise a
hundred thousand thalers."
"But how high shall I go?"
"I Leave that to you; but inquire about it to-day. I will come again
to-morrow, and we can talk it over."
"Well," said Moses, "this is business, this is honest business. Why
shouldn't I do a little business?"
Franz left him.
When Axel saw the two getting out of the carriage, he tried to control
himself, and to conceal his agitation, but in vain. Too wild a flood
was rushing through his soul, the green leaves were torn and scattered,
and branches and limbs of trees floated down the current; Frida and
Braesig interposed; and when he was rushing towards Habermann
impulsively, Frida held him back, saying, "Axel, dear Axel, not now!
To-morrow, the day after, any time! You can always find him."
And Habermann took his hat, and said he had a message from Fritz
Triddelsitz's father, and went out. Franz went up to Axel, and embraced
him, and said, "Come into the other room, Axel, I have much to say to
you."
And when they had been there awhile, Franz looked in at the door, and
called Frida. And, a while after, Daniel Sadenwater ran out into the
yard, to look for the Herr Inspector Habermann, and as he passed in,
before Braesig's eyes, Braesig began to find it lonely in the room, and
he went out into the garden, and placed himself on a little elevation,
and looked over to the Rexow firs, and the Lauban pond, thinking his
own thoughts, and they began in this wise: "Remarkable! What is life,
what is human life?" and when his thoughts had lasted about an hour and
a halt, and he had snapped at innumerable flies, they at last broke out
into words: "I wish one could get something to eat, by and by, and then
a quiet place, to recreate one's self a little!"
And his wish was granted, for Daniel came and called him, and when he
entered the room Habermann stood by Axel, holding his hand, and Franz
was rubbing his hands, and looking at the dinner-table, and he came up
to Braesig, saying, "Herr Inspector, we have good appetites to-day!" And
Frida stood there, with the sweetest smile, and the most blessed
content in her face, and said:
"Herr Inspector,--Herr Assessor, I would say,--when we first came to
Pumpelhagen, you were my neighbor at table, now that we are going away,
you must be so once more."
"Going away?"
"Yes, old friend," said Habermann, "you are a Jack of all trades, and
know all that is going on; but you never thought of this: the Herr von
Rambow has exchanged with Franz, he takes Hogen Selchow, and Franz,
Pumpelhagen."
"That is a good arrangement, Karl, and if you crack your jokes on me,
because I knew nothing about it, I knew, at least, several years ago,
that the Herr von Rambow, who was your pupil, would come to something."
And he went up to Franz, and shook his hand heartily.
After dinner, many things were talked over, and every one could
perceive, by Axel's demeanor, how much lighter his heart was, now that
he was no longer indebted to these people, but only to his cousin; and
in this better mood, he agreed to everything, promised to let the
inspector manage the estate, and to give Franz proper security.
Our story rapidly approaches its conclusion. After a week or so, Moses
came to terms with Pomuchelskopp, for Gurlitz. It was sold for a
hundred and ninety-two thousand thalers. From Moses Franz went straight
to Schultz, the carpenter:
"Herr Schultz, can you hold your tongue?"
"Trust me for that."
"Well,--I am now owner of Pumpelhagen; send some of your people out
there, and let them tear down the paddocks you built yonder."
"I have thought, all along, that the beasts would have a short life."
"Well; I am also, after St. John's, the owner of Gurlitz."
"See, see! So with Herr Pomuchelskopp too, it is at last: 'Out! out!'"
"Yes; but now listen to me. I want to have a pastor's-widow-house
built there, and it must be planned exactly like the parsonage, and
stand just opposite, close by the church-yard. You can take the measure
to-morrow."
"No need of that, I have two measures already, one of my own, and one
that Mamselle Habermann took, with her apron-strings and cap-ribbons."
"Good," said Franz, and a merry smile overspread his face, "use that
one."
"But it wasn't right."
"No matter! You must build after that measure. Buy your needful timber
to-morrow, engage carriers here in Rahnstadt, and a good master mason;
but before all things, don't breathe a word of it to anybody! If you
want money, apply to Moses."
He went off, and old carpenter Schultz stood in the door, looking after
him.
"Noblemen, noblemen! Crazy performances! Cap-ribbons! Apron-strings!
But Pomuchelskopp out! out! Isn't that good news?"
Franz went to Hogen Selchow; Habermann and Inspector Bremer, who had
been engaged for Axel, went with him. Axel departed, with bag and
baggage, and the burgomeister from Rahnstadt came in, to superintend
the transfer of the property, and with him Braesig, as assessor. Three
weeks were taken up in this business, and in the repairs and
refurnishing of Pumpelhagen; then all was arranged to satisfaction. The
Frau Pastorin, also, had completed the preparations for the wedding. I
shall write about this wedding, exactly as it was; it passed over very
quietly, and I shall quietly pass it over.
The day after the wedding, Louise and Franz, and the Frau Pastorin and
Habermann, sat in a great coach, and Braesig was on the box, and they
drove to Pumpelhagen. As they passed through Gurlitz, there was a great
display of fir boards and beams, and oaken sills, and a notched beam
lay all ready, on one side, and the carpenter, Schultz, stood there, in
his shirt sleeves, superintending his workmen. Franz stopped the
carriage, and called out to the energetic old man, "Is everything
ready, Herr Schultz?"
"Everything is ready."
"Then you may speak, Herr Schultz."
"All right!" said Schultz. "But, Mamselle Hab---- I should say,
gracious Frau, what trouble you have cost me! When I thought I had it,
I hadn't it by a long way. I shall have to put in another notched
beam."
"What?" asked Louise, and looked at Franz.
"Only this, dear child," said Franz, putting his arm around her, "that
I have bought Gurlitz, and am going to build a pastor's-widow-house
here, just like the parsonage."
"For me?" cried the little Frau Pastorin, and the tears which had risen
to her eyes, when she looked at the church-yard where her Pastor slept,
flowed freely, and she grasped his hand, and bathed it with tears of
joy, for the tears which start in sadness often change to tears of joy.
"And I thought," continued Franz, "that my father-in-law and Braesig
might live with you, as they have done. And I thought, father, you
could undertake the management of Gurlitz, and you and Braesig could
also have an eye to Pumpelhagen, and see if it is managed properly."
"Just the thing!" cried Braesig, from the box, who had heard everything
because the front was down, "Karl, what did I say to you? He'll do!"
Habermann's eyes glistened with joy. To have occupation and
responsibility again! to be active and useful! Louise threw herself
upon her husband's breast: "Franz, what a dear, dear fellow you are!"
And the carriage drove on, and arrived at Pumpelhagen. No triumphal
arches this time,--but in every heart was erected a triumphal arch, to
the glory of the Heavenly Father!
I have now finished my story, and might as well make an end of it; but
I know how it is: many people would like to be informed of what has
happened to our friends during the eighteen years since 1848, and so I
will write one more chapter.