Elective Affinities Read Online Free PDF

gallop through the village up to the churchyard gate, where he drew rein and shouted out: ‘You’re not pulling my leg, eh? If you really do need me I’ll stay until lunchtime. But don’t detain me. I’ve a lot still to do today.’
    ‘Since you’ve taken the trouble to come so far,’ Eduard called up to him, ‘you might as well ride all the way in. We meet in a solemn place. See how Charlotte has beautified this funeral-ground.’
    ‘Into that place,’ replied the mounted man, ‘I enter neither on horse, nor by carriage, nor on foot. The people in there are at peace, with them I have no business. You’ll never find me joining them until they drag me in feet first. So you’re serious, then?’
    ‘Yes,’ Charlotte cried, ‘quite serious! It is the first time we newly-weds have found ourselves in a difficulty we don’t know how to get out of.’
    ‘You don’t look as if you are in any difficulty,’ he replied, ‘but I’ll believe you. If you’re leading me on I’ll leave you in the lurch another time. Follow me back. Make haste! My horse could do with a rest.’
    The three were soon back home and in the dining-room. They ate and Mittler said what he had done and what he was going to do that day. This singular gentleman was in earlier years a minister of religion. Unflagging in his office, he had distinguished himself by his capacity for settling and silencing all disputes, domestic and communal, first between individual people, then between landowners, and then between whole parishes. There were no divorces and the local judiciary was not pestered by a single suit or contention during the whole period of his incumbency. He recognized early on how essential a knowledge of law was to him, he threw himself into a study of this science, and he soon felt a match for the best lawyers. The sphere of his activities expanded wondrously and he was on the point of being called to the Residenz so that he might complete from on high what he had begun among the lowly when he won a big prize in a lottery. He bought a modest estate, farmed it out and made it into the central point of his life, with the firm intention, or rather according to his fixed habit and inclination, never to enterany house where there was not a dispute to settle or difficulties to put right. People superstitious about the significance of names say it was the name Mittler, which means mediator, which compelled him to adopt this oddest of vocations.
    As a sweet was being served the guest earnestly admonished his hosts to hold back their disclosures no longer, as he would have to leave as soon as he had had coffee. The couple made their confessions in some detail, but no sooner had he grasped the point of it all than he leapt up from the table in vexation, sprang to the window and commanded his horse be saddled.
    ‘Either you don’t know me,’ he cried, ‘or don’t understand me, or this is some malicious joke. Is there any contention here? Is assistance needed here? Do you think I exist to hand out advice? That’s the most preposterous trade a man can ply. Let each advise himself and do what he can’t help doing. If it turns out well, let him congratulate himself on his wisdom and good fortune; if it goes ill, he can always turn to me. He who wants to rid himself of an evil always knows what he wants, but he who wants something better than he already has is night-blind – yes, you can laugh! – he’s playing blindman’s buff. He will catch something, perhaps – but what? Do what you wish: it’s all one! Invite your friends, don’t invite them: it’s all one! I’ve seen the most judicious plans miscarry, the absurdest succeed. Don’t go racking your brains over it, and if it goes ill, in one way or the other, still don’t go racking ’em. Just send for me and I’ll come to your assistance. Till then, your servant!’
    And with that he swung himself onto his horse without waiting for the coffee.
    ‘Here you see.’ said