Excerpt
Chapter I.
It was seven o'clock in the morning when Herr von Niebeldingk opened the iron gate and stepped into the front garden whose wall of blossoming bushes separated the house from the street.
The sun of a May morning tinted the greyish walls with gold, and caused the open window-panes to flash with flame.
The master directed a brief glance at the second story whence floated the dull sound of the carpet-beater. He thrust the key rapidly into the keyhole for a desire stirred in him to slip past the porter's lodge unobserved.
"I seem almost to be—ashamed!" he murmured with a smile of self-derision as a similar impulse overcame him in front of the house door.
But John, his man—a dignified person of fifty—had observed his approach and stood in the opening door. The servant's mutton-chop whiskers and admirably silvered front-lock contrasted with a repressed reproach that hovered between his brows. He bowed deeply.
"I was delayed," said Herr von Niebeldingk, in order to say something and was vexed because this sentence sounded almost like an excuse.
"Do you desire to go to bed, captain, or would you prefer a bath?"
"A bath," the master responded. "I have slept elsewhere."
That sounded almost like another excuse.
"I'm obviously out of practice," he reflected as he entered the breakfast-room where the silver samovar steamed among the dishes of old Sèvres.
He stepped in front of the mirror and regarded himself—not with the forbearance of a friend but the keen scrutiny of a critic.
"Yellow, yellow…." He shook his head. "I must apply a curb to my feelings."
Upon the whole, however, he had reason to be fairly satisfied with himself. His figure, despite the approach of his fortieth year, had remained slender and elastic. The sternly chiselled face, surrounded by a short, half-pointed beard, showed neither flabbiness nor bloat. It was only around the dark, weary eyes that the experiences of the past night had laid a net-work of wrinkles and shadows. Ten years ago pleasure had driven the hair from his temples, but it grew energetically upon his crown and rose, above his forehead, in a Mephistophelian curve.
The civilian's costume which often lends retired officers a guise of excessive spick-and-spanness had gradually combined with an easier bearing to give his figure a natural elegance. To be sure, six years had passed since, displeased by a nagging major, he had definitely hung up the dragoon's coat of blue.
He was wealthy enough to have been able to indulge in the luxury of that displeasure. In addition his estates demanded more rigorous management…. From Christmas to late spring he lived in Berlin, where his older brother occupied one of those positions at court that mean little enough either to superior or inferior ranks, but which, in a certain social set dependent upon the court, have an influence of inestimable value. Without assuming the part of either a social lion or a patron, he used this influence with sufficient thoroughness to be popular, even, in certain cases, to be feared, and belonged to that class of men to whom one always confides one's difficulties, never one's wife....