Meanwhile the Haidehof was thriving more splendidly from year to year; the debt to Douglas was paid off, the crops flourished, and in the meadows thorough-bred cattle were feeding. The whole place was to be rebuilt. The house, stables, and barn all were to be thoroughly renewed. And one spring there came a crowd of workmen of all kinds into the yard. The house was pulled down, and while Paul chose a wooden barrack for his dwelling, his father was easily induced to go over to stay with one of his sons-in-law. “I shall never come back,” he said, taking leave; “I cannot stand the sight of your mad proceedings any longer.” But the first to come back in the autumn was the old man. He seated himself comfortably in his own arm-chair, and henceforth added his son-in-law to the list of those he abused. It was very possible they might not have treated him with too much consideration. “Now I have no longer a place on earth where I can rest my gray hairs,” he grumbled, stretching himself lazily on his cushions. Next spring it was the turn of the farm buildings; the barn, especially, was to be made an example of rural magnificence, as a monument of that terrible night which had given the death-blow to his mother. The farmers who now drove across the heath often halted to look admiringly at the smart buildings which, with their red-tiled roofs, impressed them already in the distance, and many a one shook his head thoughtfully and murmured the old proverb: “To build and to lend Bring cares without end.” “Black Susy” on the moor was sending forth her black clouds of smoke, the knives of the cutting-machine bored themselves deep into the clammy ground, and the press worked slowly and silently like a good-natured domestic animal. A newly-built shed with its white walls looked dazzling in the sunshine, and all round about the long black rows of compressed peat were to be seen. The blocks were hard and heavy, with little fibre and much coal. They easily beat all competition and had a good reputation as far as Koenigsberg. Paul, who on his business journeys mixed much with strange people, now also enjoyed the happiness of being greeted as a man of consequence, and of being treated by the worthy land-owners as their equal. But he had no longer any pleasure in it. When they shook hands with him in a friendly manner, congratulated him upon his success, or requested a visit from him, he asked himself in silence, “Are they mocking me?” And though he saw well that the gentlemen were quite in earnest about it, he always felt as if freed from a nightmare when they let him go. “Why did not these kind people come here before,” he said to himself, “at that time when I needed them--when each kind word would have been of great advantage to me? Now I am as insensible as a stone--now it is too late.”