His cares as a landlord multiplied. It was true there was a prospect of
the harvest being carried in good time, and the grain, which could be
quickest turned into money, had succeeded splendidly, but after all,
what were the few groschens that would come into the exchequer by this
means? The work of undoing root and branch the mischief of previous
mismanagement needed several thousands in hand.
Leo worked with all his might. From the first sound of the call-bell in
the morning to the extinguishing of the last stable lantern at night,
he was on his legs, and when all the windows of the house showed a dark
front, he sat bowed over the old writing-table, where he calculated and
reckoned till the papers became dim and the figures swam before his
eyes.
But what good did it all do? Capital was lacking, and capital could not
be manufactured. To begin with, Ulrich's gifts of love must be yielded
as mortgages; as a man of honour, he owed this step to himself and his
friend. And after that, any one who would make further loans would
deserve to be incarcerated in an asylum. So, for weal or woe, things
must jog along in the old way, till the first economies allowed of
starting improvements or galvanizing dead investments into life. And at
this time, when he went to bed and closed his eyes in sleep, he did not
dream, as once he was wont to do, of the fine figure of a girl, a
thoroughbred, or some bold escapade. Instead, there would hover before
his eyes, as the goal of his yearning desires, a massive vaulted roof
for the piggery, six new covered carts, a threshing-machine after the
latest Zimmermann pattern, and an unending procession of similar
objects which stretched their distorted shadows over the borders of
dreamland. The pungent humour which it was a peculiarity in his
temperament to exercise at his own expense never deserted him, and made
it easy to put away from him the memory of even recent occurrences of
an unpleasant description.
"Where should I be now without work?" he said, thinking of the
interview with his sister. Ulrich's fate loomed largely in his soul,
and he could not silence the impulse to help and save him. He surprised
himself sometimes, as he rode over the fields, with his pipe gone out
in his mouth and his hand slackening on the reins, deaf and blind to
all around, while his imagination painted the hour which would give him
back again the companion of his youth in new and unalterably happy
circumstances.
Oh, how he hated the woman and hated himself, when he was riding thus
on his grey mare over fields of yellow stubble--in the blue distance
the shining reed-fringed stream which in a few minutes might be
crossed, but which, nevertheless, lay wider than the ocean between him
and his friend!
Although he had vowed to himself that a future meeting was not to be
thought of, he now and then hit on a pretext for ferrying across the
river at Wengern, and by riding up the high-road to Muensterberg,
clutched at the mere chance of it. Twice he had caught sight of him in
the distance on horseback in his meadows. He still rode the roan which
Leo had broken in for him six years ago; which, when the rider on its
back swayed to one side, stood firm as a rock.
He drew up under one of the trees by the roadside, and watched him as
he ambled away in the direction of Uhlenfelde. Once, too, he thought he
had seen her. A lightly clad figure in an open landau had driven along
the road. The servants wore the Uhlenfelde livery. Who else could it be
but she?
This time he did not draw rein. He dug his spurs into his mare and
galloped off at headlong speed. He thought with a shudder of the
moment, which must inevitably come, when they could not avoid meeting.
Should he greet her silently, or would he pass her with averted eyes?
He did not know. That they would one day come face to face was certain,
but he prayed that the day might be far off. The most likely place to
meet in would have been Muensterberg, where he hardly ever went. He
avoided the town, because he had made no formal calls on the neighbours
since his return, and he was afraid of their cold looks.
Yet it was imperative that, with the harvest progressing, the right
opportunity for selling should not be missed. So in the middle of
August he paid the "Jew" a visit. "The Jew"--as the landowners called
him for short--was an influential merchant, Jacobi by name, who was the
medium by which the produce of the estates round Muensterberg was
brought into the markets of the world. He gave and lent wherever credit
was possible, and many a proud knight's inheritance belonged by rights
to his pocket.
He never misused his power, and a single case in which he had played
the shark was unknown. "To give is the best policy," he used to say,
and, acting on this precept, he enjoyed unbounded confidence, and
became richer year by year.
He was sitting at the oak desk in his counting-house in the same
corner, and looking the same, with his grey mutton-chop whiskers, and
glasses on the flattened tip of his nose, as he had done five years ago
when Leo had said good-bye to him.
"Ah, so it is you, Herr Baron," he said, getting up, and he took off
his pince-nez. He addressed all nobly born landed proprietors with whom
he did business as "Herr Baron," and all the bourgeoise as "Herr
Lieutenant." An almost paternal smile flitted over his yellow, haggard,
Hebrew countenance as he looked up at Leo with his red-rimmed eyes,
which had a clever and penetrating twinkle in them.
"Have you had an enjoyable tour, Herr Baron?" he continued, and opened
the little door in the partition, which was an invitation to Leo to
enter his inner sanctum. "Now, please be seated, Herr Baron. I was half
afraid that the Herr Baron was never to sit on this chair again. But
the crops are good, Herr Baron. Good crops, and one could see certain
signs of smartening up, which told of the Herr Baron being at home once
more. Not sold the grain yet? Next week prices will rise, and the Herr
Baron should let it wait till prices rise. For this year, I will make
nothing out of the Herr Baron."
"You are a good fellow, Jacobi," said Leo, shaking the old Jew's hand.
He was conscious that here was a person that knew better than himself
how things stood with him. And then, taking heart, he asked--
"What do you think, Jacobi? Shall I be able to hold on?"
"If you don't mind my saying it, Herr Baron," replied the old man,
"when a man is what the Herr Baron is, such a question is ridiculous. A
man like the Herr Baron has only to say, 'I'll do this or that,' and he
can compass what he likes. And in addition, when he has a friend like
the Herr Baron of Uhlenfelde, who is the wealthiest man in the
district, well, then, he can hold on to the day of judgment."
Leo felt the blood mount to his temples. It was taken for granted,
then, by those who knew the circumstances, that he had been living on
his friend. And the old Jew went on--
"Only five minutes ago, as the Herr Baron von Kletzingk drove by, I
said to myself----"
Leo started up, and asked hastily in which direction he had driven.
"Towards the station," was the answer.
"Was he alone?"
The old man tried to look politely blank, as if he had not understood
the real drift of the question, and replied that, so far as he could
see, the Herr Baron had been alone.
Leo seized his cap, promised to come back, and rushed out. The desire
to overtake Ulrich, to hold his hand for a second in his, gained such
sudden ascendency over him, that everything else receded into the
background. The station was ten minutes' walk from the market-place.
Already he could see Ulrich's yellow basket-carriage waiting at the
foot of the stone steps. He could not evade him.
The Herr Baron had gone to the waiting-room, he was informed by
Wilhelm, who reigned on the box, as worthy and dignified a coachman as
thirty years ago. He found the waiting-room empty, except for the
presence of a boy in the window-seat. Leo scarcely noticed him, for he
recognised amongst the packages thrown on the table, Ulrich's old
travelling gear, his plaid rug, tan hand-bag and hat-box. Beside them
were articles strange to him. So he was going away? for a long time
perhaps. He was all the more glad to think that he had caught him.
Should he go out and find him? No, it would be better to await him
here, where there was no one to look on curiously at their meeting. No
one but that small boy, who gazed up at him with the great brown eyes
set in a pale, delicate little face.
The eyes struck him as familiar, and the gaunt thin cheeks, too, seemed
to remind him of a face belonging to his past. There was some
unpleasant memory associated with it, but what it was he was unable to
guess for the moment.
He would have liked to ask the little fellow his name, then he
recollected what had brought him there and how little the outer world
concerned him. He flung himself in a sofa-corner and meditated, his eye
fixed absently on the yellow bag which bore Ulrich's initials.
Then he heard a voice, a low, hesitating childish voice, say, "Uncle
Leo."
He started. The voice sounded like one he knew. But already it had all
dawned on him. A stream of ice seemed to flow from his heart and
paralyse his limbs. He could not move.