Problematic Characters: A Novel

"Walk in here," said Mother Claus, seizing Oswald by the hand and drawing him from the dark passage into a little room with one window, opposite to the larger room on the other...

The invitation was immediately accepted by a young man of perhaps twenty-five, although the fresh complexion of a perfectly beardless face made him at first sight appear several...

Sauntering up and down in the walks between the flower-beds, they only recalled their first intention to go into the house when they came near it a second time. They entered thr...

"DEAR SIR! To succeed in all undertakings equally well is not given to any one, not even to the most favored knight. You will therefore, it is hoped, understand why a person, wh...

Baron Felix had arrived--in the middle of the night. He had left the ferry early in his own carriage, when his valet suddenly remembered that his master's dressing-case might no...

When the carriage stopped on the open space before the door, surrounded by trees, and covered with dry brown leaves as with a carpet, Oldenburg appeared up stairs on a gallery,...

Bemperlein and Julius had gone to Grunwald, and the former had already written letters to Melitta and to Oswald. His pupil had found a home in the family of a government officer...

The baroness had found herself inclined to follow Felix's advice, to take a more active part in the social intercourse of the surrounding nobility. She had reflected on it for s...

When Oswald came to his room, after the painful scene with Emily von Breesen,--for he found it impossible to return to the company,--he found on his table a parcel, which must h...

"I have a great mind to turn back again," said Oldenburg, after a rather formal greeting, "I did not expect to find so large a party, and came on horseback, so that I am not exa...

On such days Castle Grenwitz looked more grim and lonely even than ordinarily. On other days, if no one else came there, the light of the sun at least entered in at the windows,...

The boy went more slowly, but always kept at a distance from the stranger. Oswald tried in vain to engage him in a conversation, whilst he was busy pushing the branches aside, t...

The summer sun had set for some time behind the tall trees of the park; dark shadows were falling upon the thick bosquets; here and there a bird was still chirping, before he pu...

As Oswald was looking for something among the papers on his writing-table, on the following morning, he came upon a note, which he had overlooked the night before. He recognized...

"Who on earth was that?" said one voice,--it was Baron Oldenburg,--"was not that the pretty Emily? What has the little angler been fishing for here in these troubled waters?--Bu...

The village of Fashwitz is an experiment made at the expense of the government. Originally the estate had been, like the whole larger part of the island, the property of a noble...

If anyone should have taken a special interest in Mr. Timm, he would have noticed that something extraordinary must have happened to him lately. The black dress coat which he no...

The horses started; the light wagon rattled over the rough road across the court-yard. In an instant the chateau, with its still brilliantly lighted windows, the dark barns and...

"I thank you, dear Anna Maria, very much!" replied the old baron. It was the afternoon after the eventful ball at Barnewitz; the speakers were in the same room, looking out upon...

The company had all assembled, and were gradually finding their way from the close rooms into the garden, where the superb afternoon attracted them all. The elderly ladies and g...

We all know that it is the fate of good advice invariably to come too late, or only at the moment when it ought to be followed at once, but for one or the other reason cannot we...

In the mean time Oswald had spent some sad, anxious hours at Bruno's bedside. He had noticed of late Bruno's excited state of mind, and felt deeply concerned about it. Explosion...

It began to darken in the low room; the needles of the old woman were still clicking busily; the cuckoo clock in the corner was ticking louder and louder in the deep silence, an...

What a strange feeling it is when we enter, in travelling, at early morn the streets of a town! The sun is gilding the steeple, the air is fresh and cool, the birds are singing...

The conversation between the baroness and her husband lasted for some time, but Anna Maria was unlucky today in her diplomatic negotiations. She had not been able to bend her da...

Oswald had been a week at Castle Grenwitz, and the week had seemed to him but a day. It was his nature to take up every new thing with a passion, even though the new thing was o...

On the following day the weather had cleared up. The morning sun had been hid behind thick mists, but a few hours later it had rent the gray veil, and was now pouring its golden...

The baroness had missed Helen's letter the same evening. This discovery caused her no small dismay. The letter might so easily fall into wrong hands--hands that might return it...

It was in the afternoon. The old baron was napping in the sitting-room. He sat in his large rocking-chair; the newspaper he had been reading had fallen from his feeble, withered...

At this moment a horseman passed them at full gallop, who had turned a few moments before from a byway into the high-road. A large Newfoundland dog, whom Oswald at first took fo...

It was a superb sight which the courtyard of Castle Grenwitz presented when Oswald entered through the dark portal,--a sight well calculated to lull a careworn heart to slumber....

It was in the evening hours of one of the next following days when two ladies were seated in the garden saloon of the chateau; one was the Baroness Grenwitz, and the other a you...

The forest path, on which Oswald was walking merrily, seemed to be little frequented by foot-passengers, and still less by vehicles. It must have been nearly impassable in winte...

"I told you, I think, my dear sir, that my father was a minister; nay more, my grandfathers on both sides were ministers, for my mother was a minister's daughter; my great-grand...

Oswald had spent the week which had elapsed since the departure of the family in the solitude of a fisherman's village, not far from Berkow, where he had been entirely cut off f...

Dinner was served in a cool, shady room which looked out upon a somewhat bald and very sunny garden, and the conversation soon became quite animated. Oswald's residence at Grunw...

Next morning before breakfast Mr. Timm was gone. He had asked the baron to send him to the nearest town from which he could take post-horses. The baron asked him hospitably why...

"Glad to see you, esteemed colleague! Kindest regards from Frau von Berkow, and here she sends you Bemperlein and Julius to look at; cut copies are not taken back by the publish...

For when he returned on the next following day, towards evening, from a long absence to the village, he found a carriage and two horses standing before the door of Mother Carste...

Oswald had in vain waited for Helen long after the hour at which she usually came down into the garden. To-day she came not. He went repeatedly past her window, but without seei...

Carriage after carriage came thundering through the great portal, drove round the courtyard, and stopped before the door. Ladies and gentlemen in full dress got out and followed...

The postman who carried Helen's letter in the evening to town, had been there once before in the morning of the same day. He had brought Oswald a letter from one of his friends...

The farm-buildings and tenant-houses which belonged to the estate lay beyond the wall, and in order to make the communication between the castle and the farm-yard easier, a door...

It was a warm evening in July in the year 184-, when an ordinary wagon, drawn by two heavily-built bay horses, made its way slowly through the heavy roads of a pine forest.

Oswald and Bruno had stepped forth from the trees which surrounded the lawn, just opposite to the chateau. His right arm was resting on the boy's shoulder, who again had put his...

There are in the life of every family, as in that of nations, moments when all the members feel more or less distinctly that something great and extraordinary is going to happen...

It was the evening of the same day on which Helen was watching Oswald near the fountain of the Naiad, from her window, that in a room of the Hotel Bellevue, at N., a place celeb...

Oswald had spent nearly the whole day by Bruno's bedside after he had returned from his memorable interview with Helen. He had tried to forget himself while nursing his dear pat...

"Well! That embarrassment is luckily over!" said Albert, pushing a parcel of bank-notes into a bulky, worn-out pocket-book, which contained among other things a number of mercan...

When the ex-lieutenant's cunning valet had spoken of the irresistible power of his master in all love affairs, the fair sex of the kitchen had cried out against him as uttering...

The baron had offered Oswald a carriage to drive to church, but the young man declined, remembering still the evil thoughts to which he had been tempted by the slowness of the b...

For that very morning, as he returned from his meeting with Baumann, who had been waiting for him in the forest at the appointed place to take his letter, he could not deny hims...

It was a few hours later. The baroness was sitting in her room, in her accustomed place near the open glass door. She had an embroidery in her lap; but her hands were idle, and...

Oswald had always lived in the city. His manners, his views, his attachments were all those of a city man. Thus it happened that when he saw himself suddenly, and as if by magic...

Early in the morning it had been raining. Now in the later forenoon the sun was peeping at times through the heavy clouds, which rolled slowly toward the east, driven by a damp...

A quiet, convent-like life it was which they led at Castle Grenwitz. The region enclosed by the old wall lay virtually behind an ivy-covered churchyard wall, and no noise, no di...

The Baroness Grenwitz had more than one good reason for not taking Oswald with them on their projected trip to Heligoland, and during the three days' visiting at all the neighbo...

The steward and Oswald had in the mean time succeeded, though not without difficulty, in putting the patient on the wagon, after having made him a kind of couch with the aid of...

The boy and he walked for a time in silence through the wood. Bruno was too proud to begin a conversation with one who seemed to have forgotten him entirely, and Oswald was too...

With Melitta the good genius seemed to have left the company, and given it up to the agency of demons. The violins sounded louder and louder, the glances of the men became bolde...