to his room, he came to the
conclusion, as he stood by the snow-white bed, that he had not fallen
badly. The big farm, the roomy house, the pretty girl whom he had found
surrounded by her suitors and her friends--and her love-sickness, that
she concealed so amusingly ... She had struck him as uncommonly
beautiful at the first glance, and he had thought, "There she sits, and
will no doubt choose of all these polite gentlemen the politest and the
richest and the stupidest!" That her choice might fall on him never
entered into his dreams; and so he had not considered her worthy of any
special notice. He had so far emancipated himself from the tyranny of
small circumstances that he was able to lead a life according to his
own sweet will. He had learned to restrict himself to the most modest
manner of existence, and knew no luxuries except the freedom to think
and act as he chose, and from time to time to drink a glass of good
wine--he liked that, and thought it beseemed a German. His whole
temperament made such a supply of strength from without almost
necessary from time to time. His passion to worm himself into the
things of this world was so violent that it was naturally followed by
spells of exhaustion which had to be relieved. Women played a small,
almost comic, and not very exalted part in his life. He looked upon
them compassionately as very imperfect, morbid creatures. In his
love-affairs he had not been specially fastidious. His mother had been
a downtrodden little woman, who had never understood him; his sister
full of provincial pettiness. So he had no very high opinion of the
sex. Incidentally he considered horses also as particularly stupid
animals, and was capable of flying into a temper when a horse-lover
tried to prove the contrary. All his views were very deeply rooted in
him, and he could be very irritable when any one questioned them.

"Well, it would be an odd chance if, in this out-of-the-way place that
I could hardly see for rain and fog, I should have tumbled into a
love-affair!" he said to himself; and with that he laid his head on the
pillow. "Too bad that such a pretty creature should have a bee in her
bonnet! I wonder how it comes about ... She looks healthy enough
otherwise."

The next thing he knew was a smiling spring morning; the storm had at
last spent its rage. The Kirsten girls had gone down very early to the
town with their comrades, promising to come up again as soon as
possible. Beate