Full of patience and sympathy he saw her to a cab. Look ing back on it, however, the affair seemed to him half playacting, and one of the tricks which would catch him in the end. He could not get rid of the feeling that plans were being laid against his freedom and his future. He defended himself with rude behaviour, insistence upon his manly independence, and by his coldness whenever her mood was sentimental. On Sundays at Göppel's he was on his guard as if in an enemy's country; he was correct and unapproachable. When would his research work be finished, they would ask. He might find a solution the next day or in two years, he himself didn't know. He stressed the fact that in the future he would be financially dependent upon his mother. For a long time yet he would have no time for anything but business. When Herr Göppel reminded him of the ideal values in life, Diederich repelled him sharply. "Only yesterday I sold my Schiller. My head is screwed on the right way and I can't be fooled." Whenever, after such speeches, he felt the silent reproach of Agnes's glance upon him, he would feel for a moment as if some one else had spoken and he was living in a fog, speaking falsely and acting against his own will. But that feeling passed off.
Whenever he ordered her, Agnes came, and she left whenever it was time for him to go off to work or to drink. She no longer enticed him to day-dreams in front of pictures after he had once stopped in front of a sausage shop, and had declared that this spectacle was for him the highest form of artistic enjoyment. At last it occurred even to him that they saw one another very seldom. He reproached her because she no longer insisted on coming more often. "You used to be quite different." "I must wait," said she. "Wait for what?" "Until you are again like you used to be. Oh, I am quite certain that you will be."
He remained silent for fear of having explanations. Nevertheless, things came about as she had predicted. His work was finally finished and accepted. He had still to pass only an unimportant oral examination, and he was in the exalted frame of mind of one who has passed a turning point. When Agnes came with her congratulations and some roses he burst into tears and vowed that he would love her always and for ever. She announced that Herr Göppel was just starting on a business trip for several days. "And the weather is so perfectly lovely just now. …" Diederich at once accepted the hint. "We have never had such an opportunity. We must make use of it." They decided to go out into the country. Agnes knew of a place called Mittenwalde; it must be lonely there and as romantic as the name. "We shall be together all day long!"—"And the whole night, too," added Diederich.
Even the station from which they started was out of the way and the train was small and old-fashioned. They had the carriage to themselves. The day slowly darkened, the guard lit a dim lamp for them, and held close in one another's arms they gazed silently with wide-open eyes at the flat, monotonous fields. Oh, to go out there on foot, far away, and lose oneself in the kindly darkness! They almost got out at a little village with a handful of houses. The jovial guard held them back, asking if they wanted to sleep under a hayrick all night. Then they reached their destination. The inn had a great yard, a spacious dining-room lit with oil lamps hanging from the rafters, and a genial innkeeper, who called Agnes "gnädige Frau," with a sly, Slavic smile, full of secret sympathy and understanding. After eating they would have liked to go upstairs at once, but they did not dare to do so and obediently turned the pages of the magazines which their host laid before them. As soon as he had turned his back, they exchanged a glance and in the twinkling of an eye they were on the stairs. The lamp had not yet been lit in the room and the door was still open, but they already lay in one another's arms.
Very early in the morning the sun streamed into the room. Down in the yard the fowl were pecking and fluttering on the table in front of the summer house. "Let us have breakfast there!" They went downstairs. How delightfully warm it was. A delicious smell of hay came from the barn. Coffee and bread tasted fresher to them than usual. Their hearts were so free and life stood open before them. They wanted to walk for hours and the innkeeper had to tell them the names of the streets and villages. They joyfully praised his house and his beds. He assumed they were on their honeymoon. "Quite right," they said, laughing heartily.
The cobblestones of the main street stretched themselves upwards and were gaily coloured by the summer sun. The houses were uneven, crooked, and so small that the roads between them gave the impression of a field dotted with stones. The bell in the general dealer's shop tinkled for a long time after the strangers had left. A few people, dressed in semifashionable style, glided amongst the shadows and turned to look after Agnes and Diederich, who felt proud, for they were the most elegantly dressed in the place. Agnes discovered the milliner's shop with the hats of the fine ladies. "It is incredible! Those were the fashion in Berlin three years ago!" Then they went through a shaky looking gateway out into the country. The mowers were at work in the fields. The sky was blue and oppressive, and the swallows swam in the heavens as if in stagnant water. The peasants' cottages in the distance were bathed in a warm haze, and a wood stood out darkly with blue pathways. Agnes and Diederich took one another's hands and without premeditation they began to sing a song for wandering children, which they remembered from their school-days. Diederich assumed a deep voice to excite Agnes's admiration. When they could not remember any more their faces met and they kissed as they walked.
"Now I can see properly how pretty you are," said Diederich, looking tenderly into her rosy face, her bright eyes glittering like stars beneath their fair lashes. "Summer weather always agrees with me," replied Agnes with a deep breath which filled out her lungs. She looked slim as she walked along, with slender hips, her blue scarf floating behind her. It was too warm for Diederich, who first took off his coat, then his waistcoat, and finally admitted that he would have to walk in the shade. They found shelter along the edge of a field in which the corn was still standing, and under an acacia which was in bloom, Agnes sat down and laid Diederich's head in her lap. They played for a while with each other and joked: suddenly she noticed that he had fallen asleep.
He woke up, looked about him, and when he saw Agnes's face he beamed with delight. "Dearest," said she, "what a good-natured, silly old face you have."—"Come now, I can't have slept more than five minutes. What, really, have I been asleep for an hour? Were you bored?" But she was more astonished than he that the time had passed so quickly. He withdrew his head from beneath the hand which she had laid upon his hair when he fell asleep.
They went back amongst the fields. In one place a dark mass was lying. When they peered through the stalks, they saw it was an old man in a fur cap, rusty coat and corduroy trousers also of reddish hue. He was crouching on his haunches and had twisted his beard round his knees. They bent down lower to get a better look at him. Then they noticed that he had been gazing at them for some time with dark, glowing eyes like live coals. In spite of themselves they hastened on, and in the glances which they exchanged they read the fear of frightened children. They looked about them: they were in a vast strange land, away in the distance behind them the little town looked unfamiliar as it slept in the sun, and by the sky it seemed as if they had been travelling day and night.
What an adventure! Lunch was in the summer house of the inn, with the sun, the fowl, and the open kitchen window through which the plates were passed out to Agnes! Where was the bourgeois orderliness of Bliicherstrasse, where Diederich's hereditary Kneiptisch? "I will never leave here," declared Diederich, "and I won't let you leave." "Why should we?" she answered. "I will write to father and have the letter sent to him by my married friend in Kustrin. Then he will think I am there."
Later they went out for a walk again in the other direction, where the water ran and the sails of three windmills stood out on the horizon. A boat lay on the canal, and they hired it and drifted along. A swan came towards them, and their boat and the swan glided past one another noiselessly, coming to a stop of its own accord beneath the overhanging bushes. Suddenly Agnes asked about Diederich's mother and sisters. He said that they had always been good to him and that he loved them. He was going to have his sisters' photographs sent. They had grown up into pretty girls, or perhaps not pretty, but so nice and gentle. One of them, Emma, read poetry like Agnes. Diederich was going to look after them both and get them married. But he would keep his mother with him, for he owed to her all that was best in his life until Agnes came. He told her about the