Chapter 12

Summary

Frau Schmädicke did, in fact, get the announcement, for all came about exactly as Thilde had predicted, and on St. John the Baptist day the wedding celebration was held in a very small reception room in the English House. Pastor Hartleben, who performed the ceremony, was persuaded to also attend the small celebratory meal afterward. He gave a sentimental, humorous speech that was better than the wedding homily in the church. He sat across from the bride, between Hugo's mother and sister who had come from Owinsk with two female cousins, each of whom had at one time held certain expectations regarding Hugo. But because both were half Polish and very beautiful, neither's hopes were particularly dashed. When the initial solemnity was past, the cousins toasted Hugo, and each gave him a cousinly kiss as loud as clapping a tree leaf down on a cupped hand. They declared, in a genial threat to Thilde, that “old love doesn't rust away.” Thilde tolerated all of this with great peace of mind. Hugo's past troubled her very little—there couldn't have been much—and the future troubled her even less. Besides, it was seventy miles from Owinsk to Woldenstein. When coffee was served, the cousins sat on either side of Pastor Hartleben and regaled him with tales of Catholic life in Owinsk. He smiled benevolently as first the Catholic and then the Protestant clergyman were run through the two pretty girls’ gossip gristmill. But when he left, he felt quite strengthened in his long-standing conviction about the superiority of those children of this world who embrace life so enthusiastically. There was no one there with whom he could share these views. But after he descended the stairs and warmly greeted the porter, whom he knew from many previous weddings, he recalled his favorite saying concerning the superiority of such worldlings: “There is an odd thing about piety: very few can stand it. But in its opposite, in this careless trust in the divine which doesn't claim to be anything or mean anything, there's something better than in the certainty and entitlement of those who are quite sure that they have done something for their God.