nt him. When, after a silent
evening, he returned to his own room, he often regretted that they took
no part in much that interested him; that their culture, in short, was
of a perfectly different order; and, before long, he took the liberty of
doubting whether their culture was the better of the two. Almost all his
reading was new to them, and when they discussed the newspapers, he
marveled at their ignorance of foreign politics. History was by no means
a favorite study with the baron, and if, for example, he condemned the
English Constitution, he showed himself, at the same time, very little
acquainted with it. On another evening, it came out, to Anton's
distress, that the family's views of the position of the island of
Ceylon widely differed from those established by geographers. The
baroness, who was fond of reading aloud, revered Chateaubriand, and read
fashionable novels by lady writers. Anton found Atala unnatural, and the
novels insipid. In short, he soon discovered that those with whom he
lived contemplated the universe from a very different point of view to
his own. Unconsciously they measured all things by the scale of their
own class-interests. Whatever ministered to these found favor, however
unbearable to mankind at large; whatever militated against them was
rejected, or at least pushed out of sight. Their opinions were often
mild, sometimes even liberal, but they always seemed to wear an
invisible helmet, visor up, and to look through the narrow space on the
doings of common mortals; and whenever they saw any thing in these that
was displeasing, but unalterable, they silently shut down the visor,
and isolated themselves. The baron sometimes did this awkwardly, but his
wife understood to perfection how, by a bewitching turn of the hand, to
shut out whatever was unwelcome.

The family belonged to the German church in Neudorf; but there was no
choir there, and no pew near the altar. They would have had to sit in
the body of the church among the rustics: that was out of the question.
So the baron set up a chapel in the castle, and sent every now and then
for a minister. Anton seldom made his appearance at this domestic
worship, preferring to ride to Neudorf, where he sat by the side of the
bailiff among the country people.

He had other vexations too. A wine-merchant's traveler forced his way on
one occasion through sand and forest into the very study of the baron.
He was an audacious fellow, with a great gi