up—for according to the servants’ stories it sometimes happens that candidates for posts become unconscious or deranged during the protracted waiting and then they’re lost if some friend doesn’t look after them—when things like that and a great many more were told to me, they were probably justified as warnings, but the promises that accompanied them were quite baseless. But not to Barnabas; it’s true I warned him not to believe them, but my mere telling of them was enough to enlist him for my plan. The reasons I advanced for it myself impressed him less, the thing that chiefly influenced him was the servants’ stories. And so in reality I was completely thrown back upon myself, Amalia was the only one who could make herself understood to my parents, and the more I followed, in my own way, the original plans of father, the more Amalia shut herself off from me, before you or anybody else she talks to me, but not when we’re alone; to the servants in the Herrenhof I was a plaything which in their fury they did their best to wreck, not one intimate word have I spoke with any of them during those two years, I’ve had only cunning or lying or silly words from them, so only Barnabas remained for me, and Barnabas was still very young. When I saw the light in his eyes as I told him those things, a light which has remained in them ever since, I felt terrified and yet I didn’t stop, the things at stake seemed too great. I admit I hadn’t my father’s great though empty plans, I hadn’t the resolution that men have, I confined myself to making good the insult to the messenger, and only asked that the actual modesty of my attempt should be put to my credit. But what I had failed to do by myself I wanted now to achieve in a different way and with certainty through Barnabas. We had insulted a messenger and driven him into a more remote bureau; and what was more natural than for us to offer a new messenger in the person of Barnabas, so that the other messenger’s work might be carried on by him, and the other messenger might remain quietly in retirement as long as he liked, for as long a time as he needed to forget the insult? I was quite aware, of course, that in spite of all its modesty there was a hint of presumption in my plan, that it might give rise to the impression that we wanted to dictate to the authorities how they should decide a personal question, or that we doubted their ability to make the best arrangements, which they might have made long before we had struck upon the idea that something could be done. But then I thought again that it was impossible that the authorities should misunderstand me so grossly, or if they should, that they should do so intentionally, that in other words all that I did should be turned down in advance without further examination. So I did not give in and Barnabas’s ambition kept him from giving in. In this term of preparation Barnabas became so uppish that he found that cobbling was far too menial work for him, a future bureau employee, yes, he even dared to contradict Amalia, and flatly, on the few occasions that she spoke to him about it. I didn’t grudge him this brief happiness, for with the first day that he went to the Castle his happiness and his arrogance would be gone, a thing easy enough to foresee. And now began that parody of service of which I’ve told you already. It was amazing with what little difficulty Barnabas got into the Castle that first time, or more correctly into the bureau which in a manner of speaking has become his workroom. This success drove me almost frantic at the time, when Barnabas whispered the news to me in the evening after he came home. I ran to Amalia, seized her, drew her into a corner, and kissed her so wildly that she cried with pain and terror. I could explain nothing for excitement, and then it had been so long since we had spoken to each other, so I put off telling her until next day or the day after. For the next few days, however, there was really nothing more to tell. After the first quick success nothing more happened. For two long years Barnabas led this heartbreaking life. The servants failed us completely, I gave Barnabas a short note to take with him recommending him to their consideration, reminding them at the same time of their promises, and Barnabas, as often as he saw a servant, drew out the note and held it up, and even if he sometimes may have presented it to someone who didn’t know me, and even if those who did know me were irritated by his way of holding out the note in silence—for he didn’t dare to speak up there—yet all the same it was a shame that nobody helped him, and it was a relief—which we could have secured, I must admit, by our own action and much earlier—when a servant who had probably been pestered several times already by the note, crushed it up and flung it into the wastepaper basket. Almost as if he had said: ‘That’s just what you yourselves do with letters,’ it occurred to me. But barren of results as all this time was in other ways, it had a good effect on Barnabas, if one can call it a good thing that he grew prematurely old, became a man before his time, yes, even in some ways more grave and sensible than most men. Often it makes me sad to look at him and compare him with the boy that he was only two years ago. And with it all I’m quite without the comfort
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