So I carried on through the hall piled with furniture into a smaller room, where a thin, white-haired gentleman sat in a tall armchair, but I couldn’t make out the lines on his face clearly, because the blinds on the window cast a dim light and his back was to the window. As I stepped in he continued to sit calmly, but stretched his bony hand out to me kindly, almost joyfully, and that hand seemed to glow in the gloom, like his hair. He said, “A choy to see you, for my dear Erika has tolt me all about this business. Be so goot and take a seat in front of me there, so I can well look at you.” And when I, stupid as I was, sat down in the chair he’d indicated, without remembering to introduce myself politely, the old gentleman continued: “I am so glat that I can, after a lonk time, again speak this Estonian lankuach, for I luff this lankuach, but I no lonker haff anyone to speak it with. Now again sits before me one echt Estonian man, so that I can speak this dear Estonian country’s lankuach, as when was in the old days.”
“Herr Baron,” I tried to interject, but he cut me off by crying, “Why shoult I be Herr Baron, if Estonian lankuach? Estonian man, if he is real man, says always Sir Baron, not Herr Baron! That way speak one town man and he is not the real Estonian man. And why you say me Herr Baron, if Estonian state and government strictly forbit it? Do you call my dear Erika also Baroness?”
“No, I don’t, Herr Baron, but…“ I tried to explain.
“Why shoult I be Herr Baron, if my granddaughter not be Baroness and if state and government strictly forbit it? We shoult be oll now that citizen, Estonian Republic citizen, so goes the right name.”
“Herr Baron,” I said now decisively, “I grew up in the country and in my eyes you will remain Herr Baron until you die.”
“Then you is rebel against own Estonian state,” he replied, and so my intended flattery fell like a sling on my own neck, which this white-haired old gentleman battered into a coma with his next words, uttered now in German, the more freely and precisely to express himself: “If you still want to regard me as Herr Baron, then naturally you should honour my grandchild with the same rank. Or don’t you think so?”
“Yes it is, Herr Baron,” I replied trying to continue, “my honour and respect for your grandchild…“ but he couldn’t wait for the end of my sentence, interjecting, “I don’t understand you properly. You said you grew up in the country and you regard me, as your father does too, as a baron until I die, but why are you honouring me with a visit today, if you regard my grandchild as being of baronial rank?”
“Herr Baron,” I tried to say, but he wouldn’t give me a chance to continue, and went on, “Allow me, young man, I know what you want to say, because my grandchild has explained it all to me. I’m not accusing you of anything, not making any reproaches. I am old, I am already approaching the smell of the soil, the grave awaits me and I have seen much more of the world than you have, young man. And I tell you: I have seen more of the Estonian people than you have, and God grant that you love it as much as I have. Of course you won’t remember the year 1905, but I do, and I was one of those who wouldn’t let Russians armed with knouts into the grounds of our estates. What that meant at the time is something for you to ask your older brothers, if you have any. Ask your father, your mother, if they are alive. But the Estonians even burned and plundered my home, though not in the way they did other places, because I, and my father before me, had a different attitude to the people than many others, and so the people on my estate were different to those on others. I’m telling you all this only so that you won’t misunderstand or decide wrongly. Times and circumstances have changed in the meantime, yes – what can you do, they’ve completely changed – but the fact that I’m a baron and will remain one until I die in your and your father’s eyes, as you put it, can’t be altered by times and circumstances. The same applies to my grandchild, who is in my direct bloodline. Or do you disagree?”
“No, Sir Baron, times and circumstances can’t change blood, let alone so quickly,” I agreed.
“Quite right!” he cried, “at least not so quickly. Breeding is more permanent than times and circumstances. And I tell you, young man: my pedigree is old and exceptionally pure, if that interests you. The government of the Republic of Estonia is interested in that anyway, because it has learnt to respect the breeding purity of animals, which pleases me very much. Maybe one day they will go so far as to respect human strains too, as I do. And therefore I ask you, young man, what do you have to offer if you marry my grandchild, whose dowry is at least an ancient pedigree, if nothing else under present circumstances?”
“I love her more than anything in the world,” I cried, rising from my chair and almost wanting to fall at the feet of this white-haired old man, as if he were venerated by me. But he remained quite calm, asked me to sit down again and said, “Young man, don’t be so sure that your love for my grandchild is greater than her love for you. At your age we men don’t yet know anything about the greatness of a woman’s love; we only get to know and appreciate that much later. At your age we’re more interested in our own passions and desires than a woman’s love. At least I have reason enough to think that if your love is great, which I’m happy to believe, for otherwise I wouldn’t be talking to you like this, then my grandchild’s love is at least as great, if not greater. So one love confronts another, but you have still not earned my grandchild’s pedigree by any means. What do you have to offer her in return, so that your marriage would be at least a little between equals, so to speak, not a misalliance in every sense?”
“Herr Baron, I really don’t know what I can offer,” I said in awkward embarrassment.
“Haven’t you graduated from university?” he asked.
“Unfortunately not.”
“You’re a member of a corporation?”
“I am, Herr Baron.”
“Then of course you will have debts, as I too incurred debts in my time in a corporation, although my pocket money must have been much greater than yours could have been.”
“I haven’t ever had pocket money,” I said.
“All the worse,” he replied, “your debts must be all the greater for that. You’re a professional, it’s been explained to me; can’t you tell me how long you have to work to pay off your debts, if you spend all your money on paying off the debts? An honest and frank answer, please.”
“At least a couple of years,” I said.
“Well, in that case, things can’t be too bad,” he said, as if considering, and added, “but how big is your current salary?”
When I had given him an exact answer about that, he said, as if hopelessly, “But how are you proposing to start living when you get married? You won’t even get a one-room apartment if you want to liquidate your debts in even ten years?”