Page:German Stories (Volumes 2–3).djvu/363

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Chapter I.
173

there was also a noble range of portraits in the picture gallery.

“One evening, after the Count had for a long time spoken with me confidentially of his plans for the future, among other things, of his wish to see Libussa fortunately married, as, although only in her sixteenth year, she had already attracted many suitors, and rejected every one, the gardener rushed breathless into our room, with the intelligence, that a ghost had been seen below, which must certainly be that of the old castle chaplain, who, according to tradition, had appeared, for the first time, as a revenant, about an hundred years ago. Several other servants followed this man, and, with pale ghastly visages, all confirmed what he had said. ‘You will be terrified, ere long, at your own shadows,’ said the Count, and sent them away with the order, that, whatever they might choose to say to each other, they would at least spare him the trouble of listening to such absurdity for the future. ‘It is awful,’ said he, turning to me, ‘to reflect, what absurd lengths the superstition of these poor people carries them; and how impossible it proves for any one to eradicate this folly. For about a