Volume I Part 13 (1/2)
”It is not that alone; but a secret dread possesses me whenever the creeper comes near me. I always feel as if my evil angel stood at my side, ready to plunge me into destruction.”
”Psha! Superst.i.tious fancies, which do not become so sensible a woman.
Your intended shall decide.”
”Well,” cried Althea; ”decide, dear Tausdorf. You know that a year ago Christopher Friend solicited my hand and was rejected. Now I may add, what I before concealed; in the vexation of his disappointment, he spoke of you most unbecomingly. But he now perceives his injustice, and seeks for a reconciliation.”
”Forgive, and you shall be forgiven,” said Tausdorf good-naturedly.
”My own words!” cried Schindel.
”Oh, for that,” said Althea impatiently, ”I am as prompt as willing; but he requires a formal reconciliation, and as the seal of it would have our presence at his banquet to-morrow; this I deem as superfluous as it would be disagreeable to me.”
”Who says A must say B too,” retorted Schindel. ”Christopher will not believe in the sincerity of your forgiveness, and thinks that you scorn him if you refuse to appear at his banquet. You owe some compliance, besides, to his rich and powerful family, to which in addition you are allied.”
”Still the untiring peacemaker and mediator! and inexhaustible in arguments, where the point is to reconcile the n.o.bility and citizens!”
”I can't help it, niece, since, as a n.o.bleman and a proprietor at Schweidnitz, I have become a sort of doubtful thing, and don't well know whether I am a bird or a mouse. I am compelled, therefore, to speak in the way of reconciliation on both sides, lest a feud should break out, and it should eventually fare with me as with the flittermouse in the fable. May I call up the pet.i.tioner?”
”Call him in G.o.d's name, uncle,” said Tausdorf: ”I read my Althea's _yes_ in her lovely and peaceful countenance.”
”Excellently spoken!” cried the uncle, and hurried out.
”Heaven grant that we may never repent this _yes_,” said Althea with heavy heart. ”I only wish the wild Francis were not of the party!”
”Why is he so terrible to you?” asked Tausdorf, smiling.
”Because he is so rough, so fond of frays and drinking, and because he detests the n.o.bles so irreconcilably. Since too he has been forced to submit to the long imprisonment, on account of the late unlucky affair, there is no managing with him.”
”I have never seen him; but I should not like to subscribe to the d.a.m.natory sentence p.r.o.nounced against him by the n.o.bles of our acquaintance. Hot-headed men are frequently the best. As I have heard from good authority, this Francis fought bravely against the Turks, and I find it natural and pardonable that a soldier should not willingly suffer himself to be played upon. His late misfortune grieved me much.
As he was absolved after all, he certainly did not belong to Bieler's murderers; and to suffer a year's undeserved imprisonment must embitter even the heart of a lamb.”
”Heaven grant that you may never come in contact with this lamb; you would find in him a furious wolf. I tremble at the thoughts of it, for I think fire and water could not meet more hostilely than your dispositions. Your person would show him a true mirror of what he ought to be and is not; that would shame him, and shame exasperates vulgar minds. His roughness and your cultivation, his furious violence and your n.o.ble calmness, his inclination to every excess and your purity----”
”Still! still!” interrupted Tausdorf, ashamed, and gently pressing his hand upon the lips of the animated eulogist. ”Do not forget that I also am no more than a frail man, and that exaggerated praise from an estimable mouth can corrupt even better than I am.”
”Come along,” cried Schindel, dragging in the sky-blue Christopher.
With a pitiful sinner-face he approached Tausdorf, and timidly stretched out his hand to him.
”All is forgotten and forgiven,” cried the knight, shaking him by the hand; ”only as a first proof of friends.h.i.+p, do me the favour not to speak a single syllable of the past.”
”You are too good, sir,” replied Christopher, smiling; ”but I will not fail to requite so great a favour to the best of my power.”
He then went to Althea, and, kissing her hand, said--”You owe me some reparation, n.o.ble lady, for the banquet which was put off four years ago on account of that murderous history. I may, therefore, the more boldly presume that you will this time favour me with your invaluable company at a feast, which, please G.o.d, I intend giving to-morrow, at Barthel Wallach's, for my own house is just undergoing a thorough repair.”
”Will your brother, Francis, be there?” asked Althea hastily.
”Heaven forbid!” rejoined Christopher; ”We do not want this quarreller and roarer. I have taken good care not to invite him. At first I feared that he might intrude himself, unasked; but to my great delight I have learnt that he goes on this day to a drinking-party at Freiburg, so that we are quite safe from him. I have asked but a small party, a few quiet n.o.bles, and two or three honest citizens of the first cla.s.s.