what he has been saying, I
find I haven't understood a single word. And then when he now and again
jests in the way we do, and I think now he's just like us, then all at
once he looks so distinguished that I get really afraid of him. And yet
I can't say that he puffs himself up in the way that many of our
Junkers or patricians do; no, it's something else altogether different.
In a word, it strikes me, by my troth, as if he held intercourse with
higher spirits, as if he belonged, in fact, to another world. Conrad is
a wild overbearing fellow, and yet there is something confoundedly
distinguished about him as well; it doesn't agree with the cooper's
apron somehow. And he always acts as if nobody but he had to give
orders, and as if the others must obey him. In the short time that he
has been here he has got so far that when he bellows at Master Martin
in his loud ringing voice, his master generally does what he wishes.
But at the same time he is so good-natured and so thoroughly honest
that you can't bear ill-will against him; rather, I must say, that in
spite of his wildness, I almost like him better than I do Reinhold, for
even if he does speak fearfully grand, you can yet understand him very
well. I wager he has once been a campaigner, he may say what he likes.
That's why he knows so much about arms, and has even got something of
knights' ways about him, which doesn't suit him at all badly. Now do
tell me, Rose dear, without any ifs and ands, which of the three
journeymen you like best?" "Don't ask me such searching questions, dear
Dame Martha," answered Rose. "But of this I am quite sure, that
Reinhold does not stir up in me the same feelings that he does in you.
It's perfectly true, too, that he is altogether different from his
equals; and when he talks I could fancy I enter into a beautiful garden
full of bright and magnificent flowers and blossoms and fruits, such as
are not to be found on earth, and I like to be amongst them. Since
Reinhold has been here I see many things in a different light, and lots
of things that were once dim and formless in my mind are now so bright
and clear that I can easily distinguish them." Dame Martha rose to her
feet, and shaking her finger at Rose as she went out of the room, said,
"Ah! ah! Rose, so Reinhold is the favourite then? I didn't think it, I
didn't even dream it." Rose made answer as she accompanied her as far
as the door, "Pray, dear Dame Martha, think nothing, dream nothing