which, of
course, not being initiated into the more circumstantial details of the
disagreement, he could only appeal to broad and somewhat superficial
moral principles, he yet could not boast of the smallest success. The
Freiherr commissioned him to treat with his hostile and avaricious
brother Hubert. V---- proceeded to do so with all the circumspection he
was master of, and was not a little gratified when Hubert at length
declared, "Be it so then; I will accept my brother's proposals, but
upon condition that he will now, since I am on the point of losing both
my honour and my good name for ever through the severity of my
creditors, make me an advance of a thousand _Fredericks d'or_ in hard
cash, and further grant that in time to come I may take up my
residence, at least for a short time occasionally, in our beautiful
R--sitten, along with my good brother." "Never, never!" exclaimed
the Freiherr violently, when V---- laid his brother's amended
counter-proposals before him. "I will never consent that Hubert stay
in my house even a single minute after I have brought home my wife. Go,
my good friend, tell this mar-peace that he shall have two thousand
_Fredericks d'or_, not as an advance, but as a gift--only, bid him go,
bid him go." V---- now learned at one and the same time that the ground
of the quarrel between the two brothers must be sought for in this
marriage. Hubert listened to the Justitiarius proudly and calmly, and
when he finished speaking replied in a hoarse and hollow tone, "I will
think it over; but for the present I shall stay a few days in the
castle." V---- exerted himself to prove to the discontented Hubert that
the Freiherr, by making over his share of their unentailed property,
was really doing all he possibly could do to indemnify him, and that on
the whole he had no cause for complaint against his brother, although
at the same time he admitted that all institutions of the nature
of primogeniture, which vested such preponderant advantages in the
eldest-born to the prejudice of the remaining children, were in many
respects hateful. Hubert tore his waistcoat open from top to bottom
like a man whose breast was cramped and he wanted to relieve it by
fresh air. Thrusting one hand into his open shirt-frill and planting
the other in his side, he spun round on one foot in a quick pirouette
and cried in a sharp voice, "Pshaw! What is hateful is born of hatred."
Then bursting out into a shrill fit of laughter,