er a live man nor a dead one. But just
see the moon over yonder. Isn't it beautiful?"

[Illustration: _Permission F Bruckmann A -G, Munich_
DIVINE SERVICE IN THE WOODS AT KOSEN ADOLPH VON MENZEL]

Effi, who had been leaning back quietly absorbed, drinking in every
word, half timorously, half eagerly, now sat erect and looked out to
the right, where the moon had just risen behind a white mass of
clouds, which quickly floated by. Copper-colored hung the great disk
behind a clump of alders and shed its light upon the expanse of water
into which the Kessine here widens out. Or perhaps it might be looked
upon as one of the fresh-water lakes connected with the Baltic Sea.

Effi was stupefied. "Yes, you are right, Geert, how beautiful! But at
the same time there is something uncanny about it. In Italy I never
had such a sensation, not even when we were going over from Mestre to
Venice. There, too, we had water and swamps and moonlight, and I
thought the bridge would break. But it was not so spooky. What is the
cause of it, I wonder? Can it be the northern latitude?"

Innstetten laughed. "We are here seventy-five miles further north than
in Hohen-Cremmen, and you have still a while to wait before we come to
the first polar bear. I think you are nervous from the long journey
and the Panorama, not to speak of the story of the Chinaman."

"Why, you didn't tell me any story."

"No, I only mentioned him. But a Chinaman is in himself a story."

"Yes," she laughed.

"In any case you will soon recover. Do you see the little house yonder
with the light? It is a blacksmith's shop. There the road bends. And
when we have passed the bend you will be able to see the tower of
Kessin, or to be more exact, the two."

"Has it two?"

"Yes, Kessin is picking up. It now has a Catholic church also."

A half hour later the carriage stopped at the district councillor's
residence, which stood clear at the opposite end of the city. It was a
simple, rather old-fashioned, frame-house with plaster between the
timbers, and stood facing the main street, which led to the sea-baths,
while its gable looked down upon a grove, between the city limits and
the dunes, which was called the "Plantation." Furthermore this
old-fashioned frame-house was only Innstetten's private residence,
not the real district councillor's office. The latter stood diagonally
across the street.

It was not necessary for Kruse to announce their arrival with three
cracks