Problematic Characters Author:Friedrich Spielhagen Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Problematic Characters. Part First. CHAPTER I. IT was a warm evening in July, in the year 184-, when an ordinary wagon, drawn by two heavily-built bay h... more »orses, made its way slowly though the heavy roads of a pine forest. " Is this forest never to have an end ? " exclaimed the young man who was sitting alone on the back seat of the carriage, and raised himself impatiently. The taciturn driver answered only by cracking his whip. The slow bays made a desperate effort to trot, but soon abandoned the purpose, which was as little suitable to their tempers as to the deep sand. The young man leaned back again with a sigh, and commenced once more to listen to the monotonous music of the vehicle, as it tried to keep in the deep ruts, and let the dark trunks of the pine-trees glide by, one by one, noticing how here and there a ray of moonlight fell upon them ; for the moon was just rising above the wood. He began again to fancy what would be his reception at the chateau, and his new situation, upon which he was about to enter; but these dim visions of an unknown future became vaguer and vaguer, his weary eyes closed, and the first sound of which he was again conscious was the dull tramp of the horses on a wooden bridge which led to a lofty stone portal. " At last!" exclaimed the young man, rising and looking around him full of curiosity, as the wagon drove rapidly through a dark avenue of gigantic trees, followed a rounded-off drive on a large open courtyard covered with gravel, and then stopped before the doors of the chateau, on whose windows the rays of the moon glittered brightly. The silent driver cracked his whip to make his arrival known. The only answer was the loud sound of a clock, quite near by, which slowly struck eleven o'clock. When the last stroke had i bee...« less