An Old Story of My Farming Days Vol. 3 (of 3).: (Ut Mine Stromtid)Reuter, Fritz
General
An Old Story of My Farming Days Vol. 3 (of 3).: (Ut Mine Stromtid)
Reuter, Fritz
Farm life -- Fiction
'Hurrah for the lawsuit!'" If Bräsig had had any idea that Louisa had
to suffer more than anyone else from "the Jesuits," he would have
insisted on engaging a barrister to plead her cause also, but he had
not the remotest notion of her misery.--Mrs. Behrens tried to calm him
down, but she found it a very difficult task, for the misfortunes of
his old friend had caused him much mingled anger and sorrow, and all
the small rages proper for a farmer, and the irritability brought on by
gout and losing at cards combined to augment his rage.--"I came here,"
he said, "to amuse myself because it was club-day, and because I wanted
to win back the nine shillings from that old sharper Kurz, that he
fleeced me of with his confounded trickery, and now the devil is
holding his d--d telespope before my eyes that I may the better see
some utterly vile human actions! And that's to be my amusement! Now,
Mrs. Behrens, if you don't mind I'd like to spend the night here, for I
shouldn't make much of that stupid game, Boston, this evening, and it
might be as well for me to sleep in Charles' room so as to be able to
cheer him up whenever he gets low."--Mrs. Behrens replied that she
would be much obliged to him if he would do so, and she spent the rest
of the evening trying to calm down the irrascible old man. Neither
Hawermann nor Louisa came back to the parlour, and when Bräsig went
upstairs he found that Louisa had gone to her own room.
When Bräsig took leave of his old friend on the next morning, he said:
"You may leave it all in my hands, Charles, I'll drive over to
Pümpelhagen, and get your things. You shall have all your belongings
though it makes me ill to cross the threshold of the house where you
were so badly treated."
On the same morning Hawermann sat down to write to Frank; he told him
honestly and clearly what had happened at Pümpelhagen, even to the
terrible ending of his stay there, and the accusation which had been
made against him, and said that he and his daughter were of one mind in
declining the offer Frank had made. He wanted to tell the young man of
his warm friendship for him, but somehow the words would not come as
easily as usual, and when written seemed rather forced. He ended by
entreating Frank to leave him and his daughter to go their way alone,
to forget them, and allow them to live out the rest of their lives by
themselves.
Louisa also wrote, and when she had sent Mrs. Behrens' maid out in the
evening to post her letter, she went to the window, and watched the
servant as if she were taking a last long leave of what was very dear
to her, and then looking at the setting sun, she murmured:
"E'en dying, I should long to go
Where all my hope doth rest!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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