These repeated insults were not to be endured by an imperious
nobility. Such invitations became less cordial- less frequent- in
time they ceased altogether. The widow of the unfortunate Count
Berlifitzing was even heard to express a hope "that the Baron might be
at home when he did not wish to be at home, since he disdained the
company of his equals; and ride when he did not wish to ride, since he
preferred the society of a horse." This to be sure was a very silly
explosion of hereditary pique; and merely proved how singularly
unmeaning our sayings are apt to become, when we desire to be
unusually energetic.
The charitable, nevertheless, attributed the alteration in the
conduct of the young nobleman to the natural sorrow of a son for the
untimely loss of his parents- forgetting, however, his atrocious and
reckless behavior during the short period immediately succeeding
that bereavement. Some there were, indeed, who suggested a too haughty
idea of self-consequence and dignity. Others again (among them may be
mentioned the family physician) did not hesitate in speaking of morbid
melancholy, and hereditary ill-health; while dark hints, of a more
equivocal nature, were current among the multitude.
Indeed, the Baron's perverse attachment to his lately-acquired
charger- an attachment which seemed to attain new strength from every
fresh example of the animal's ferocious and demon-like propensities-
at length became, in the eyes of all reasonable men, a hideous and
unnatural fervor.
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