Soon she was taken by a sweet feeling of weariness, and she fell peacefully to sleep.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EDUARD is for his part in quite a different mood. He thinks so little of going to sleep it does not even occur to him to undress. He kisses the copy of the document a thousand times, he kisses the beginning of it in Ottilie’s coy childish hand, he hardly dares to kiss the ending because it seems to be in his own hand. ‘Oh if it were only another kind of document!’ he whispers to himself, and yet even as it is he considers it the loveliest assurance that his dearest desire has been fulfilled. He will keep it and keep it close to his heart always, even though it is to be disfigured with the signature of a third!

The waning moon rises over the trees. The warm night lures Eduard out. He roams about, the most restless and the most happy of mortal men. He wanders through the gardens, they are too confined; he hurries into the field, it is too broad and distant. He is drawn back to the mansion, he finds himself under Ottilie’s window. There he sits on one of the terrace steps. ‘Walls and bolts divide us,’ he says to himself, ‘but our hearts are not divided. If she stood before me now she would fall into my arms and I would fall into hers, and being certain of this what more do I need!’ All was silent around him, not a breath of air was stirring; it was so still he could hear the burrowing of the busy animals under the earth to whom day and night are one. He gave himself up wholly to happy dreaming, at length he fell asleep, and he did not awake until the sun rose in a splendour of light and dissolved the earliest morning mist.

He found he was the first to awake. The labourers seemed to be too long arriving. They came, and they seemed to be too few and the work proposed for the day too little. He asked for more labourers; he was promised them and they were provided in the course of the day. But even these are not enough to see his plans carried out quickly. He no longer derives any pleasure from the work: he wants everything finished now, at once. And for whom? The paths are to be levelled so that Ottilie can walk in comfort, the seats in place so that Ottilie can rest. On the new pavilion too he does what work he can: it is to be got ready for Ottilie’s birthday. Eduard’s intentions are, like his actions, no longer ruled by moderation. The consciousness of loving and of being loved drives him beyond all bounds. His rooms, his surroundings have all changed, they all look different. He no longer knows his own house. Ottilie’s presence consumes everything: he is utterly lost in her, he thinks of nothing else but only her, the voice of conscience no longer reaches him; everything in his nature that had been restrained, held back, now bursts forth, his whole being flows out towards Ottilie.

The Captain notices this passionate activity and wants to prevent the unhappy consequences that must follow from it. He had counted on all these new plans and arrangements going forward as part of their quiet amicable life together, now they are being pushed ahead in an unbalanced one-sided fashion. He had organized the sale of the farmstead, the first payment had been made, and in accordance with their agreement Charlotte had taken charge of it. But already in the first week she has need of all her patience and level-headedness: with the precipitate way things are going the amount set aside will not last very long.

Much had been started on and there was much to do. How can he leave Charlotte in this situation! They confer together and decide they would prefer to accelerate the work themselves. For this purpose they agree to take up additional money and to replace it with the money due from the instalments on the sale of the farmstead.