Debit and Credit. Gustav Freytag

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СКАЧАТЬ and a half. So you would only have a half per cent. to pay, and by so doing you would liquidate the capital."

      "That is to say, I am to run into debt in order to get rich," said the baron, shrugging his shoulders.

      "Excuse me, baron; if a nobleman like you has fifty thousand dollars lying by him, for which he only pays a half per cent., he may buy up half the world. There are always opportunities of getting estates for a mere nothing, or shares in mines, or something or other, if you only have the money ready. Or you might establish some kind of works on your property; as, for instance, for making beet-root sugar, like Herr von Bergue; or a brewery, like your neighbor, Count Horn. There is no possible risk to be feared. Why, you would receive ten, twenty, ay, fifty per cent. for the capital borrowed at four per cent."

      The baron looked down thoughtfully. Ideas of the sort had often flitted across his mind. It was just the time when numerous industrial speculations had started up, and landed proprietors looked upon them as the best way to increase their means. Mr. Ehrenthal perceived the effect his words had taken, and concluded in the obsequious tone most natural to him: "But what right have I to give any advice to a nobleman like you? Only, every capitalist will tell you that in our days this is the surest method by which a man of rank can provide for his family; and, when the grass is growing over old Ehrenthal's grave, you will think of me and say, 'Ehrenthal was but a plain man, but he gave me advice which has proved advantageous to my family.'"

      The baron still looked thoughtfully down. His mind was made up, but he merely replied, with affected indifference, "I will think the matter over." Ehrenthal asked no more.

      It was a pity that the baron did not see the expression of the tradesman's face as he got into his conveyance and drove away. He told the coachman to go slowly through the grounds, and looked with delight at the flourishing crops on either side. "A fine property," he went on muttering to himself; "truly a fine property."

      Meanwhile the baroness sat in the shrubbery, and turned over the leaves of a new magazine, every now and then casting a look at her daughter, who was occupied in framing, with old newspapers and flowers, a grotesque decoration for the pony's head and neck, while he kept tearing away all of it that he could reach. As soon as she caught her mother's glance, she flew to her, and began to talk nonsense to the smart ladies and gentlemen who displayed the fashions in the pages of the magazine. At first her mother laughed, but by-and-by she said, "Lenore, you are now a great girl, and yet a mere child. We have been too careless about your education; it is high time that you should begin and learn more systematically, my poor darling."

      "I thought I was to have done with learning," said Lenore, pouting.

      "Your French is still very imperfect, and your father wishes you to practice drawing, for which you have a talent."

      "I only care for drawing caricatures," cried Lenore; "they are so easy."

      "You must leave off drawing these; they spoil your taste, and make you satirical." Lenore hung her head. "And who was the young man with whom I saw you a short time ago?" continued the baroness, reprovingly.

      "Do not scold me, dear mother," cried Lenore; "he was a stranger—a handsome, modest youth, on his way to the capital. He has neither father nor mother, and that made me so sorry for him."

      Her mother kissed her, and said, "You are my own dear, wild girl. Go and call your father; his coffee will get cold."

      As soon as the baron appeared, his head still full of his conversation with Ehrenthal, his wife laid her hand in his, and said, "Oscar, I am uneasy about Lenore!"

      "Is she ill?" inquired her father, in alarm.

      "No, she is well and good-hearted, but she is more free and unconventional than she should be at her age."

      "She has been brought up in the country, and a fine, clever girl she is," replied the baron, soothingly.

      "Yes, but she is too frank in her manner toward strangers," continued his wife; "I fear that she is in danger of becoming an original."

      "Well, and is that a very great misfortune?" asked the baron, laughing.

      "There can be no greater to a girl in our circle. Whatever is unusual in society is ridiculous, and the merest shade of eccentricity might ruin her prospects. I am afraid she will never improve in the country."

      "What would the child do away from us, and growing up with strangers?"

      "And yet," said the baroness, earnestly, "it must come to this, though I grieve to tell you so. She is rude to girls of her own age, disrespectful to ladies, and, on the other hand, much too forward to gentlemen."

      "She will change," suggested the baron, after a pause.

      "She will not change," returned the baroness, gently, "so long as she leaps over hedge and ditch with her father, and even accompanies him out hunting."

      "I can not make up my mind to part with both children," said the kind-hearted father; "it would be hard upon us, indeed, and hardest upon you, you rigid matron!"

      "Perhaps so," said the baroness, in a low voice, and her eyelids moistened; "but we must not think of ourselves, only of their future good."

      The baron drew her closer to him, and said in a firm voice, "Listen, Elizabeth; when in earlier days we looked forward to these, we had other plans for Lenore's education. We resolved to spend the winter in town, to give the child some finishing lessons, and then to introduce her into the world. We will go this very winter to the capital."

      The baroness looked up in amazement. "Dear, kind Oscar," cried she; "but—forgive the question—will not this be a great sacrifice to you in other respects?"

      "No," was the cheerful reply; "I have plans which make it desirable for me to spend the winter in town."

      He told them, and the move was decided upon.

      CHAPTER IV.

      The sun was already low when the travelers reached the suburbs of the capital. First came cottages, then villas, then the houses crowded closer, and the dust and noise made our hero's heart sink within him. He would soon have lost his way but for Veitel Itzig, who seemed to have a preference for by-streets and narrow flag-stones. At length they reached one of the main streets, where large houses, with pillared porticoes, gay shops, and a well-dressed crowd, proclaimed the triumph of wealth over poverty. Here they stopped before a lofty house. Itzig pointed out the door with a certain degree of deference, and said, "Here you are, and here you will soon get as proud as any of them; but, if you ever wish to know where I am to be found, you can inquire at Ehrenthal's, in Dyer Street. Good-night."

      Anton entered with a beating heart, and felt for his father's letter. He had become so diffident, and his head felt so confused, that he would gladly have sat down for a moment to rest and compose himself. But there was no rest here. A great wagon stood at the door, and within, colossal bales and barrels; while broad-shouldered giants, with leathern aprons and short hooks in their belts, were carrying ladders, rattling chains, rolling casks, and tying thick ropes into artistic knots; while clerks, with pens behind their ears and papers in their hands, moved to and fro, and carriers in blue blouses received the different goods committed to their care. Clearly there was no rest to be had here. Anton ran up against a bale, nearly fell over a ladder, and was with difficulty saved by the loud "Take care!" of two leathern-aproned sons of Anak from being crushed flat under an immense tun of oil.

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