he only consideration that
restrained him was a conviction of her ignorance of the English tongue.

"Would you like to see the doctor?" inquired Frau Manske, startled by
his looks and words; perhaps he had caught something infectious; an
infectious vicar in the house would be horrible.

"The doctor!" cried Klutz; and forthwith quoted the German rendering of
the six lines beginning, Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased.

Frau Manske was seriously alarmed. Not aware that he was quoting, she
was horrified to hear him calling her _Du_, a privilege confined to
lovers, husbands, and near relations, and asking her questions that she
was sure no decent vicar would ever ask the respectable mother of a
family. "I am sure you ought to see the doctor," she said nervously,
getting up hastily and going to the door.

"No, no," said Klutz; "the doctor does not exist who can help me."

His hand went to the breast-pocket containing the poem, and he fingered
it feverishly. He longed to show it to Frau Manske, to translate it for
her, to let her see what the young Kleinwalde lady, joint patron with
Herr von Lohm of her husband's living, thought of him.

"I will ask my husband about the doctor," persisted Frau Manske,
disappearing with unusual haste. If she had stayed one minute longer he
would have shown her the poem.

Klutz did not wait to hear what the pastor said, but crushed his felt
hat on to his head and started for a violent walk. He would go through
Kleinwalde, past the house; he would haunt the woods; he would wait
about. It was a hot, gusty May afternoon, and the wind that had been
quiet so long was blowing up the dust in clouds; but he hurried along
regardless of heat and wind and dust, with an energy surprising in one
who had eaten nothing all day. Love had come to him very turbulently. He
had been looking for it ever since he left school; but his watchful
parents had kept him in solitary places, empty, uninhabited places like
Lohm, places where the parson's daughters were either married or were
still tied on the cushions of infancy. Sometimes he had been invited, as
a great condescension, to the Dellwigs' Sunday parties; and there too he
had looked around for Love. But the company consisted solely of stout
farmers' wives, ladies of thirty, forty, fifty--of a dizzy antiquity,
that is, and their talk was of butter-making and sausages, and they
cared not at all for Love. "Oh, Love, Love, Love, where shall I find
thee