Пользователь - WORLD'S END

As for the soul of Frдulein Grobich, what filled it was a sound and proper German respect for rank and position, the phenomenon which was most to impress Lanny during his visit. What you heard about in Silesia was Ordnung. Everyone had his place, and knew what it was; each looked up to those above him with a correctly proportioned amount of reverence, unmingled with any trace of envy. As the guest of an important official, Lanny would share the dignity of his host. The shy little maid and her vigilant governess gave him the first taste of this agreeable treatment, and he was sorry when he had to say his Lebewohls.

IV

There was a local train waiting on a siding. It had only two cars, and Lanny had to crowd himself into a seat with a farmer who had been to town to sell some of his cattle. He had a large red face and much beer on his breath, and was extremely sociable, telling the little foreign boy about the crops of the district and its important landmarks. When he learned that the boy had come all the way from France to visit the son of Herr Comptroller-General Meissner, he was even more impressed than the governess, and tried to crowd himself up and leave more room for "die Herrschaft" as he began to call the young stranger. From then on he waited for die Herr schaft to ask questions, so as to be sure he was not presuming.

The little train was winding up a valley; it had turned dark, and presently the farmer pointed out the lights of the castle on a distant height. There was a whole town built around it, said the farmer, and everything belonged to the Graf, who was referred to as Seine Hochgeboren. There were vast forests filled with stags and buffalo and wild boar which Seine Hochgeboren and his guests hunted. Six weeks ago Seine Majestдt der Kaiser himself had visited the place, and there had been the greatest hunt that anyone in the district could remember. Now everything was covered with heavy snow and no more hunting was done; the creatures came to the feed racks, ·where hay "was put out for them so that they would not starve.

Ja, gewiss, said the farmer, he knew the Herr Comptroller-General; he was the business manager of all these properties, and had several assistants, or heads of departments. He had four sons, of whom three were in the army. The farmer knew the jungen Herrn Kurt Meissner, a fine lad, he studied music, and would probably play at some of the festivals. Then Lanny was told about the noble family, the wife and the sons and daughters and brothers and sisters of Seine Hochgeboren. The farmer was a tenant of the estate, but it was so big that he did not get off until the second station beyond that of the castle. When they came to the latter, he insisted upon taking Lanny's bags and carrying them out to the platform for him; he bowed and touched his hat, and was still doing it when Kurt came running up and grabbed Lanny.

My, how happy those two lads were to see each other again; and how many handshakes and pats on the back they exchanged! Snow was falling, making a blur of the station lights. Kurt had a sleigh with a fine team of horses; he tucked Lanny in under a big fur robe and gave him a pair of mitts to put on, and away they went. They couldn't see much, but the horses knew the way, winding, to the height on which the castle stood. Lanny talked about his trip,

and Kurt about the festivities which were coming; so much news they had to pour out, and so many plans for their ten days together! Friendship and youth make a delightful combination.

Lanny saw dark masses of buildings with many lights; he got out and was taken indoors and presented to a large family of large people: the father stout, but erect and military, with close-cut gray hair and mustaches trimmed in imitation of his Kaiser's; the kind and comfortable mother, having a great bosom ornamented with a rope of pearls; two sons, tall blond fellows straight as ramrods, with hair cut close like Kurt's, clicking their heels and bowing formally; a sister a year older than Kurt, slender, fair-haired, still in the pigtail stage, but ready to become a temporary mother to a visiting stranger. There were other relatives, a large company, all full of the sentimentality of Christmas and eager to share it with their guest.

Kurt had grown an inch or two since Lanny saw him. He was going to be a fine, tall fellow like his brothers; would he wear a monocle and turn himself into a walking ramrod? Probably so, because he admired them, and would serve his term in the army. His rather severe face was pale, because he had been working hard. But his love of Ordnung would always be tempered with the sweetness of music, and he would be Lanny's friend and appreciate the gay, easygoing disposition which Lanny had got from both mother and father. So, at any rate, Kurt assured him when they were up in Kurt's den which they were to share. He was kind and affectionate, but very serious, and talked grandly about his work and purposes, his devotion to art, and to friendship, something which one did not undertake lightly, but with deliberation and moral purpose.

V

Next morning Lanny looked out of the window and saw the great Schloss, five or six stories high, its roofs and turrets covered with fresh snow, gleaming like a Christmas card in the light of the newly risen sun. The picture made him think of all the fairy tales and romances of knights and princesses that he had ever read. To a boy who had spent most of his life on the Riviera, the mere presence of snow was an adventure; to put on his big overcoat and the mitts that Kurt lent him and go out and run, and see his breath in the air, and throw snowballs and get tumbled in a snowbank - that was fairyland. To go back into the house and be served Pfannkuchen and broiled venison for breakfast, and be told that it had been shot by Seine Majestдt himself - could you beat that for thrills?

The Graf Stubendorf and family were expected on the morning train from Berlin, and it would be better for the guest to see the castle before they arrived. So after breakfast the boys ran up the long drive through the park, and climbed the score of steps to the gray stone building; they "were admitted by bowing servants in blue uniforms, white gaiters, and white gloves. There was an entrance hall three stories high, and a reception room as big as a theater. All the front of the castle had been built in the last century, but there was an old part in the rear which was six hundred years old and had been captured and recaptured in some of those cruel wars which Lanny had been reading about on the train.

The modern part was splendid with white and gold woodwork, and walls upholstered in hand-embroidered silk, and furniture with scarlet brocade. There was a great deal of heavy carved furniture, and the general atmosphere of a museum. The old part was the most interesting to Lanny, because there were a tower and a donjon keep, an armor room, and a refectory having a huge fireplace with a black pot hanging on a hook. Lanny wondered if Pan Zagloba had ever drunk wassail in that hall. He hefted huge halberds and battle-axes, and tried to imagine what the world must have been like when men went about armored like crabs and lobsters.

They walked about the environs of the castle. It was as the farmer had said, a town, the old part medieval and crowded, the new parts well laid out. Stubendorf was a Gutsbezirk, and the Graf was a state functionary, which meant, in effect, that he had his own court of justice, police force, and jail; the feudal system combined with modern plumbing and street paving. But this didn't occur to Lanny, who was living in a lovely fairy tale.

They came back in time to witness the arrival of Seine Hochge- boren and family. The great ones drove from the station in limousines; all the servants of the castle, a hundred or two, were lined up on the steps in costumes of long ago, the men on one side, the women on the other. The uniforms of the men bore indications of their rank, while the women had white aprons and lace fichus and white cotton stockings, and wore their hair in plaits down their backs. All were drilled once a week in a system of etiquette complete to the opening of doors.