The following day was unusually hot and close for the time of year. At
sunrise gray storm-clouds had appeared in the east, and hung
threatening in the horizon, while the sun in all his splendor was
ascending the bright sky. I, who from childhood had always been
peculiarly sensitive to atmospheric changes, felt uneasily the electric
tension of the air. On my brow I had a sense of constant pressure, a
singular disquiet agitated my nerves, and my blood seemed to course
laboriously through my veins. To be sure these feelings of mine were
not due to the weather alone.
Something else was in the air; something that gave me more uneasiness
than the threatened storm, something that I could not define; the
obscure feeling of the intolerable position in which I found myself
here, and that in some way it must be brought to an end--if it had not
come to an end already.
However that might be, I had time enough to-day to think it all over.
No one was here to disturb my reflections: Zehrendorf seemed
uninhabited. The excursion to the Schlachtensee which had been arranged
the day before, had been carried out at about ten o'clock, not without
some trifling variations of the original programme. Whether it was
because the last attempt to make a horsewoman of Fräulein Duff had
failed so lamentably, or from some other reason, Hermine had given up
her intention of going on horseback with her governess and Arthur, and
the whole company had gone in three carriages. The steuerrath and the
Born had also joined the party; which was another variation from the
programme, introduced on account of the two Eleonoras, who had
unanimously protested--they were always unanimous that they could not
possibly share in an excursion to last the whole day, that was composed
of young people only. The two dignitaries had vehemently resisted the
honor proposed to them, but yielded at last, of course. How could they
do otherwise? Not easily again would they find such another opportunity
to forward their favorite scheme.
A third variation had also taken place, which, if I could credit
Fräulein Duff, I had brought about. True, appearances seemed to confirm
her statement, but only appearances.
When I returned to Zehrendorf from my visit to Rossow, as I went to my
own room I had to pass through the parlor where the whole company were
assembled. Hermine was sitting at the piano playing a noisy piece,
which she suddenly stopped as, after silently bowing to the company, I
had my hand on the knob of the door to pass out. Involuntarily I turned
at the sound of the discord with which she closed, and in the next
moment I saw her standing before me, with pale features and a strange
light in her large blue eyes, and with quivering lips saying something
which she had to repeat before I could understand it. They hoped I had
taken the jest of to-day as it was meant, and not deprive their little
party to-morrow of the pleasure of my company, on which they had
certainly counted.
The company who had been hitherto conversing with especial animation,
and had scarcely appeared to notice my presence, were suddenly silent,
and this was probably the reason that I heard my own answer with
startling distinctness, almost as if it was not I but another who had
spoken with an altogether strange voice:
"I thank you, Fräulein: but you were perfectly right; I cannot be
counted upon on these occasions."
Next I found myself outside in the hall, trembling in every limb of my
strong body, with sharp pain in my heart and a burning desire to cry
out aloud, and then I pressed both hands upon my breast, and said to
myself, with deeply-drawn breath and trembling lips, "Thank heaven, it
is all over."
To this thought I held fast all the long night while I paced sleepless
up and down my carpeted room, or stood at the open window cooling my
burning brow in the night air, or throwing myself upon the divan to
sink into painful thought.
All over; all over! despite the note that Fräulein Duff sent about
midnight to my room by the hands of my now devoted William, and in
which in her queer fantastic way she assured me that Hermine had been
looking forward for two weeks to this excursion only because she was to
make it with me, and indeed had planned it with no other view; and she
asked whether the good should give place to the evil, and whether love
did not believe all things and endure all things, especially when it
might be convinced that what occasioned its severest sufferings were
themselves but love-torments?
Love? Was this, could this be love? Love, she said, endured all things
and believed all things. True: but it also is not puffed up, does not
behave unseemly, and thinks no evil. Is this love? Is it not rather
selfishness, vanity, caprice, the caprice of a spoiled child which now
kisses its doll and the next moment flings it on the ground, for which
the whole world is only a bright soap-bubble that for its especial
pleasure glitters in the sunshine of its fortune? Well, this may be
love--one kind of love; but I do not fancy this kind and will not have
it, and it is all over.
Had I not known another kind of love? A firm, deeply-rooted, beneficent
love that brought blessings wherever it was given. If this love had
never been bestowed on me, did I any the less know that it existed? And
if she had never loved me as she was capable of loving, and would some
day love another, had I not tasted a drop at least of this pure
fountain of living water, and drunk from this single drop courage and
refreshment, far more than from all this torrent which rushes so
exuberantly to-day, and to-morrow will have vanished without a trace
into the sand--the sand of her selfishness and caprice? No! it must all
be over, and it was all over.
Thus all night long thoughts whirled and burned in my head and heart,
until day broke--a bright day, but heavy with brooding storm--and found
me feverish and exhausted; but I aroused myself with a strong
resolution and said to myself:
"So be it! Let all be over and past! Perhaps it is well that all has
happened thus, and that I am given back to myself and to my duties."
And I remained in my room until it was time to go to the chalk-quarry,
where the machine was to be operated to-day for the first time. At
about ten o'clock I returned to report to the commerzienrath, as he had
requested, that all had succeeded beyond our expectations, and that our
prospect of mastering the water had now become a certainty.
In the meantime the excursionists had started, as William, who remained
behind to wait upon me, informed me, together with a multitude of
details, which the rascal's hawk-eyes were quick to catch, and his
indiscreet mouth eager to blab. The young lady had seemed in the very
gayest humor, until Leo, her mastiff, could not be induced, either by
caresses or threats, to go along with them. "He has been treated too
badly of late," said William, "and we notice--I mean an animal notices
anything like that." And at the last moment Herr and Frau von Granow
drove up, though they had not been invited, and they could not avoid
asking them to go along.
"I tell you, Herr Engineer, the whole thing looked more like a funeral
than a pic-nic party. But the two young ladies--" here William
Kluckhuhn grinned--"you ought to have seen them, Herr Engineer! All in
white with green ribbons--real snow-drops, I tell you!"
I was little in the mood to hear William's report to the end, and
interrupted it by asking for the commerzienrath.
"Gone to Uselin with the old justizrath to keep some appointment, and
will hardly be back before evening."
This news somewhat surprised me. The commerzienrath had known nothing
the previous evening of this appointment which would keep him all day,
for he had appointed this very morning for an interview with me in
which very important business was to be discussed. For the report which
I had brought him of the precarious condition of the old prince had
thrown our prospects of selling Zehrendorf into the dim distance, and
indeed rendered them very improbable. What would the young prince, if
he succeeded his father and came into full possession of all the
property, care for one estate more or less?
"In reality, the old man cares very little about it," the
commerzienrath always said; "but the young one is to win his spurs by
the purchase, and show that he can manage business of the sort. The
young man knows this very well, and for that reason he will take down
the hook, however uninviting the bait may be; you may rely upon that."
Thus the commerzienrath had reckoned: very falsely as affairs now
stood. My yesterday's intelligence had visibly caused him great alarm.
It was extremely odd that he had to go to the city just to-day.
Or did he merely wish to get out of my way, now that he had so
perfectly gained his point of bringing me into disfavor with Hermine?
Did he need me no more, now that the machine was set up and the
negotiation with the prince virtually fallen through?
Very possible; very possible; but perhaps I needed him still less;
perhaps I was in a position to bid him farewell before he gave me a
dismissal. This absence of the man, which seemed like a flight from me,
came at this moment as a warning to accept the tempting offer of the
young prince. What had I thus far attained from the commerzienrath in
furtherance of my own aims? Abundance of promises, a flood of
compliments--and that was all, and so it would evidently remain,
especially if he did not sell Zehrendorf, and was thus released from
his promise to me about the factory: yes, and very probably even though
the sale were still effected.
For there were but few things that the commerzienrath held sacred, and
I had good reason to believe that his word was not one of them. Thus he
had promised me not to dismiss the foreman of the saw-mill, to whom he
had already given notice; and as I passed the mill this morning it was
not running, and a workman told me that the master had been there the
previous evening while I was at Rossow, and after a short conversation
dismissed the foreman on the spot.
There was an instance; but it was merely the most recent; I had caught
him more than once in these breaches of his word. No, indeed, the man
did not seem a likely proselyte to my religion of humanity!
And the prince? The more distinctly I recalled to memory the
particulars of our yesterday's conversation, the more vividly his face
arose before me, so much the more did I believe that I discovered the
stamp of an honorable and kindly nature in his features, and felt
confident that it would well repay me to attach myself to him. It is a
hard matter to remain entirely unmoved when any one approaches us with
marked good will, especially when our well-wisher is a person of high
rank and great influence. Now I cannot say that either then or at any
time I should have considered a prince's favor the height of earthly
felicity; but neither can I deny that, at that time at least, the
reverence for dignities in which I had been brought up, helped to place
this behavior of the young prince in its most favorable light. I
thought that I had now found the key to the conduct which yesterday had
seemed so enigmatical; and I highly prized the delicacy with which he
had cleared out of the way what he knew lay as a stumbling-block
between us, before he disclosed his real object. He had made no
allusion to the scene in Zehrendorf forest nine years before; but he
had never forgotten that I had then spared him, and why I had done so,
and had attempted in this way to cancel the obligation.
I had to admit to myself that, all things considered, the procedure was
noble and chivalrous on his part. So he had explained to me the reason
of his visit to Paula's studio, and to a certain extent apologized for
his conduct there; and if his attempt on the same day to clear scores
with me was premature and unbecoming, he had more than compensated for
it in my eyes by his present magnanimous and important proposal.
For it was both. Magnanimous, when I considered the open loyal way in
which he made it, with no man[oe]uvrings, no bargaining nor chaffering;
important, when I admitted to myself, as I had to do, that if it was
really his wish to provide me with a wider field of operations, he was
fully in a position to realize his promises. Granting that the
commerzienrath was what he pretended to be--though on this point my
doubts had rather increased than diminished--but granting that he was
the wealthy and influential man he was generally thought, what was his
wealth and influence compared with those of a Prince of Prora-Wiek? As
a schoolboy I had known, like every one else in the town, and I believe
every inhabitant of our province, that upon the island alone the prince
owned a hundred and twenty estates; then the small town of Prora, the
residence--in which there was now probably agitation enough in
consequence of its lord's sudden illness--which stood entirely upon the
prince's land; then the hunting-castle Wiek with its leagues of forest;
the _Grafschaft_ of Ralow on the mainland near Uselin, where the
townsfolk used to make excursions to the park in the summer; the
magnificent palace at the residence, which I had often passed
with strange emotions; the domains in Silesia with the celebrated
iron-works, the value of which alone was estimated at several
millions--what was the Cr[oe]sus of Uselin in comparison with this real
Cr[oe]sus, whose revenues for two years probably amounted to as much as
the commerzienrath's whole capital?
True, I had looked forward to a far different career. My passion for
mathematical science, my advances in the machine-builder's art, my hope
some day to be actively helpful in promoting the development of
railroad industry, the plans I had so often devised with worthy Doctor
Snellius for the good of the working classes--it was no pleasant
thought to have to give up all this. But had I then to give it up? Was
it not in reality the same thing whether I worked here or there, in
this manner or in that, so that I only worked and strove in the noble
spirit of my unforgotten teacher and of my truehearted friend?
Assuredly I might in that spirit accept the prince's offer, and Paula
would not be dissatisfied with me, for her thoughts and wishes, like
those of her noble-hearted father, were only bent upon goodness in
every form. I felt that it would not be difficult for me to show her
how in this sphere I would have full opportunity to become more worthy
of her than I had ever been. And then--I had always endeavored to hide
it from myself, because it too rudely touched a painful spot in my
heart; but now in this sleepless night it and many another thing stood
in sharp conviction before my mind--she had not only let me go because
a wider field of usefulness opened before me; she had even sent me
away, because she had compassion with me, because she knew that my
deep, devoted, reverential love found no echo in her heart; and as a
kindly nature never takes away anything without offering, if possible,
some indemnity, she had offered my loving heart, that yearned for a
return of affection, the fulfilment of all my wishes in a lovely
fascinating form, in the form of the beautiful wayward Bacchante who
had played with me as she had played with tigers, leopards, and other
forest-creatures which she was accustomed to yoke to her chariot. What
did Paula's innocent heart know of this dangerous sport? What did she
know of the arts of caressing with one hand while the other plies the
lash?--of delighting at one moment in the free gambols of the favorite,
and the next moment barring it into a narrow cage? What did Paula know
of all this?
Had she known it, would she not be the first to called me back and say:
"You may and must sacrifice yourself, if nothing less will avail; but
you may not throw yourself away; and as for my wishes and yours, they
are all past and gone."
Thus it fermented and worked in my heated brain and my swelling heart
all day long, while the sun rolled on his glowing path through the sky,
and behind him clomb the gray vaporous clouds which had lowered on the
horizon at his rise. I had looked up instinctively at the sky from time
to time, as I wandered restlessly through the fields and the heath,
tormented by my thoughts, and oppressed by the threatening storm, and
so possessed by the emotions within me and the ominous preparations
without, that I had lost my consciousness of place and time, found
myself now in the evening twilight on the road to Trantowitz, the same
road along which I had driven to Rossow, and which was also the road by
which the excursionists would return, without knowing how I had got
there or why I had come. Certainly not to visit Hans, who was with the
party. Still I pushed on, until I reached the ill-kept broken hedge
which divided Hans's famous garden, with its stunted fruit-trees, its
neglected grass, and its waste potato and cabbage patches, from the
road. Looking over the hedge, I thought that at the further end of this
melancholy croft I saw a tall figure which could be no other than the
good Hans himself. I pushed through the hedge--an operation attended
with no difficulty--and went towards the figure. It was Hans, as I
thought.
"I thought you were with them," I said.
"Not I," he answered, returning my grasp.
"But you were invited?"
"Oh, yes!"
"And how then are you here?"
"Well, when I saw them coming this morning, I got out of that
window"--he pointed to the window of his bed-room--"and stayed in the
woods until the coast was clear. And you?"
"I did not care to go, either."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Hans.
We strolled for a long time silently, side by side, up and down the
grass-grown paths. The twilight had now grown so dim that color could
no longer be distinguished. The air was inexpressibly sultry and
oppressive, heat-lightnings flickered every now and then in the east,
and from the Trantowitz woods, an angle of which reached down near us,
came the song of the nightingale in long-drawn wailing tones.
"It is suffocating!" I said, turning into a sort of ruinous arbor that
we had reached in our walk, and throwing myself upon one of the
mouldering benches in it, I pulled off my coat and waistcoat.
Hans made no reply, but silently proceeded to his bedroom window,
through which I saw his gigantic figure disappear, and re-appear after
the lapse of a few minutes. He rejoined me with a couple of glasses in
his hand and two bottles of wine under his arm, which he set down on
the old table, drew two more bottles out of his coat pockets and laid
them on the sand, pulled out his hunting-knife and uncorked the first
pair, and then pushing one over to me, remarked:
"Drink off the half or the whole of that and you will feel better."
That was just the old Hans exactly, with his universal specific against
all slings and arrows of outrageous fortune! Alas, it had proved but a
poor panacea to the good fellow, and would probably be of little
service to me, but I could not help feeling how kindly he meant it, and
my hand trembled as I poured the wine for both, and my voice was
unsteady as I clinked glasses with him, saying:
"To your health, dear Hans, and a better future to both of us."
"Don't know where it is to come from for me," said Hans, draining his
glass at a draught, and filling both again.
"Hans, my dear good fellow," I said, "please don't speak in that dismal
tone: I cannot stand it this evening: I feel every moment as if my
heart was about to break."
Hans was about to push the bottle to me again, but remembered that
I had already declined his universal specific, so he handed his
cigar-case to me across the table.
In a minute two bright points were glowing in the dark arbor, throwing
a faint glimmer upon the rickety table with the bottles, and upon the
faces of two men that leaned over it in a long confidential
conversation.
"It is so," said one at last.
"You will find yourself mistaken, as I was," replied the other.
"I think not. How long ago was it--yesterday, I believe--or it might
have been the day before; I don't keep any reckoning of the days--I met
her on the road to Rossow, and we rode together two or three miles, and
the whole time she was talking of nothing but you."
"She must have been sadly in want of a topic of conversation."
"And she cried, too, poor thing! I was sorry for her, and have ever
since had it on my mind to tell you that you must really bring the
matter to a close."
A long silence followed. The third bottle was uncorked, the bright
points still glowed, while the darkness sank ever deeper, and the
noiseless sheet-lightning flickered from moment to moment.
"But you are not drinking," said Hans.
I did not answer: in fact I had scarcely heard him. I was hardly
conscious that he was there or where we were. In the darkness that
surrounded us I saw her eyes beaming; in the rustling of the wind in
the leaves I heard her voice. And the large blue eyes gazed
reproachfully upon me, and the voice seemed to tremble, and the sweet
lips quivered as they had done yesterday when she asked me to accompany
them.
"Where are you going?" asked Hans.
I had arisen and stood at the entrance of the arbor, gazing with
burning eyes into the darkness. On the western horizon there was still
a thin pale streak, but elsewhere the sky seemed to cover the earth
like a black opaque pall. There was a deep silence; only from time to
time strange moans and whispers seemed to pass through the air, and at
intervals the nightingales in the woods sent forth a plaintive sobbing
sound, as if bewailing the overthrow of a beautiful world full of light
and love. Now and then an electrical flame clove the darkness, and
flickered strangely along the edges of the low heavy clouds; but no
thunder followed to break the oppressive stillness, and no refreshing
rain came down to revive the exhausted earth.
"Where are you going?" asked Hans again.
"Where do you suppose they are now?"
"Who can tell? Certainly they have not got back, for they must pass
this way."
"On the heath, between your beechwoods and the Rossow pines, the way
must be hard to find in this darkness."
"It is indeed," said Hans. "I once rode around there for two hours
without getting out of one place, and the night was not as dark as
this. To be sure, we had been drinking pretty freely at Fritz
Zarrentin's. Hallo! what are you about?"
I was on the point of rushing out; and when Hans spoke I grasped at my
head, which felt as if it would burst.
"They may be at that very place now," I muttered.
"Don't go without me!" cried Hans, as I set off on a run.
I stopped: he came behind me and patted me two or three times gently on
the shoulder with his great broad hand, saying: "So then, so!" as if he
were quieting an excited horse. I caught his hand and said, "come
along, Hans."
"Of course," he said; "but we must have two or three fellows with
lanterns, or we can do nothing."
"That will keep us too long!"
"Not five minutes."
Hans strode by my side across the cabbage patch, and to avoid all
detours went directly to, and through, his bed-room window and through
his sitting-room, and I followed close at his heels, for I knew the way
of old. Once in the yard, Hans began to pull with all his might at the
cracked alarm-bell which hung there in a sort of ruinous belfry, and
whose unmelodious clank used to summon the men to or from work. They
came fast enough at the well-known signal from their quarters and from
the stables, and before five minutes were over we had left the yard and
taken the path to the Trantow beeches, followed by a squad of men with
stable-lanterns.
The last bright streak had faded from the western horizon, and the
darkness was so intense that in the woods it seemed no darker than it
had been in the open field. The oppressive sultriness of the atmosphere
had increased, if possible, and now the thunder began to mutter, and
the tops of the trees to toss about in the rising wind. The
nightingales had hushed in expectation of the impending storm. Leaving
the men with the lanterns far behind, I hurried through the wood,
followed closely at first by Hans, who presently stopped, however,
calling to me that there was no use for such frantic haste, as we could
do nothing without the lanterns. I knew that very well, but I was urged
on by an impulse that I could not withstand. What I meant to do, I
could not precisely have told, nor did I pause to consider; I only
hurried forward wildly as if life and death were at stake. How I got
through the woods, by a wretched path, in the pitchy darkness, without
breaking arm or leg, or dashing my skull against a tree, is more than I
can explain at this hour.
Whether it was the blue gleam of the lightnings which flashed at
intervals through the clear spaces in the wood, or the peculiarity of
my eyes which could always distinguish objects a little, even in the
deepest darkness, or the excitement, which in certain moments seems to
awaken dormant faculties within us, I cannot say; I only know that in
an incredibly short time I had traversed the woods, and by the
cessation of the rustling, by the stronger blast of the wind in my
face, by the altered sound of the thunder, and by the brighter glare of
the lightning, I perceived that I was on the heath. This heath was
about a mile wide, bounded on three sides by the Rossow pine woods and
the Trantowitz beeches, and on the fourth side, to my left, joining the
great moors on the coast, which ran up into it in various places in
narrower or wider strips. No tree grew over this whole broad expanse;
the single mark which arrested the eye was a hillock, overgrown
with bushes and surrounded by large stones--doubtless an ancient
barrow--which stood about midway of the distance, and served as a
boundary to mark the commencement of the moor. One could hardly speak
of a road here, for the way changed with every season of the year, even
with every change of the weather; travellers rode, drove, or walked,
wherever they found it most practicable. More than one accident had
happened here; and even in my time a man who tried to cross the heath
by night with an empty wagon had driven into one of the broad deep
turf-pits and been drowned with his team.
While I ran rather than walked across the heath, the details of this
accident, which I had long forgotten, came all back to my recollection.
I remembered the man's name, and that he was betrothed to a young woman
in Trantowitz, a pretty fair-haired creature, who could not be
comforted for the loss of her lover, and had been seen weeks afterwards
sitting on the mound with eyes fixed on the spot where he had perished.
It struck me that the poor pretty creature had had a slight likeness to
Hermine.
A wild terror seized me, and I suddenly stood still, listening into the
night with a wildly-beating heart. I thought I had heard a faint cry at
no great distance. But from what direction? Before me? to the right? or
to the left? Or was I mistaken altogether, and had my excitement
deceived me and changed the wailing sounds of the wind to human calls
for help? There it was again! This time I was not mistaken, and I
caught the direction from which the cry came. It was exactly before
me--no, it was on my right--no, on my left. Certainly now it was to the
right. Then I heard it again nearer, and again from another direction,
as if the ghosts of those who had perished all over the desolate heath
had all arisen from their marshy graves and were calling to each other.
Nor could I see a single step before me: even the lightning had ceased
for some minutes: it seemed as if I could touch the darkness with my
hand. I cast a desperate glance around, and saw to my unspeakable joy
the lights of the lanterns approaching, though still at some distance.
I called with all the power of my lungs for them to make haste; then
hurried blindly forward, and started terrified back, as suddenly, in
the glare of a vivid flash of lightning, I saw just before me the
gigantic spectrally white figure of a rearing horse. I had come upon
one of the carriages, which had been abandoned by its occupants,
leaving the coachman who had bravely stood to his post, and strove in
vain to unharness the horses.
"Where are the others?" I cried, hastening to help the man without
rightly knowing what I was doing.
"God knows," he answered. "I have had my hands full here."
"Here come men with lanterns."
"It is high time. Stand still, you devil's imp!"
Now Hans came up with several of the lantern-bearers. The horses stood
still, shivering with terror, and snorting from their distended
nostrils great clouds of steam in the lantern-light.
On the back seat of the carriage lay a figure stretched at full length.
The light of the lantern fell on a pale haggard face--it was Arthur.
"What has happened to him?" I asked.
Hans asked no question: he knew what had happened when a young man, who
has never learned to control himself; lies stretched upon the back seat
of a carriage in his return from a picnic, and not all the turmoil of
the unchained elements can awaken him from his stupid sleep.
"Never mind about him," said the driver; "he is safe enough."
"One of you must stay here," I said to the men with lanterns. "Forward,
the rest!"
We went on, the men, of whom there were five or six, holding up their
lanterns, and shouting all together at intervals, calling all who might
hear to try to get to us.
We were answered from different points; it was now plain that the whole
company was widely scattered. The carriages alone had kept somewhat
together; and a minute later I came upon another which had been
overturned and dashed to pieces by the maddened horses, so that we had
no difficulty in getting them clear of what remained of the harness.
Then we found the third, which had turned a little to one side and
stalled, sunk up to the axle in a marshy place, and the driver had
released the horses by cutting the traces.
It was a strange and weird-looking scene. The lightning flashed so
incessantly that we seemed enveloped in its awful glare. Then the
shouts and cries of the frightened excursionists who came hurrying up
from all sides, the swearing of the coachmen and grooms, the snorting
and struggling of the scared horses, and amid all, the mutterings and
long roll of thunder, the whistling and shrieking of the gusts of wind
that every now and then swept with frightful fury over the heath, and
seemed to hold up the rain, of which only occasional heavy drops smote
me in the face; the whole company, so far as they were now collected,
resembling a party about to be led to execution, the men with agitated
features, and the women pale as death, and all bearing abundant traces
of their wanderings about the heath and the miry ground.
But if it had been difficult to get them together, I now found that it
was impossible to keep them so. All were for pushing on at once, Why
waste a moment here? All were together. In an instant the rain would
pour down in torrents, the lanterns be put out, and what would become
of them then?
"Forward, my friends, forward!" screamed the steuerrath, and Herr von
Granow also shouted "Forward! forward!" and in the next moment all had
started.
Amid the indescribable confusion, the calling, shouting, hurrying up
and down of so many persons, I had found it impossible to make sure
whether really all, as they said, were together; but I knew that I had
not seen her whom alone I was looking for, nor had I seen Fräulein
Duff. I had imagined for some reason--perhaps I had heard some one say
it--that both ladies were in the fourth carriage, which was behind the
others, and reported to be safe; but as the company set out, with the
lanterns in front, this fourth carriage came up.
It was the commerzienrath's great family carriage. I sprang to it and
looked in. There was a pile of cloaks and shawls which had been left
behind in the hurry, and Fräulein Duff, leaning back in the corner, and
looking at me, who was half wild with anxiety, with eyes from which
extreme terror had banished all expression. In vain did I try to get
from her where she had left Hermine. She only muttered, as if
delirious, "Seek faithfully and thou shalt find," and then broke into
hysterical weeping.
Now Anthony, who had in the meantime been adjusting the traces, told me
that the young lady had sprung from the carriage not ten minutes
before, just as the lanterns came near. He did not know why, for the
young lady had not been nearly so much frightened as the rest, and had
a little before said to Fräulein Duff that she might be sure she would
not forsake her. He thought she went over towards the left, but he was
not sure, for he had had hard work to manage the horses, that had been
quiet enough all along, but now could not be kept still.
With this he mounted his seat and started to follow the others. I
called to him and ordered him to stop; but either he did not or would
not hear me, or else he could not hold the horses any longer--be that
as it might, the next minute I was alone, while the company with the
lanterns, under Hans's guidance, kept their way across the heath
towards the woods.